Tanking Like A Boss

Anyone who knows me knows I've bounced back and forth between two "mains": A Demonology Warlock for DPS, and a Blood Death Knight for tanking.  Which I play more has largely been dependent on what my guild has needed; I've almost never main-tanked on the DK, but there's been several instances where an off-tank was needed, and that's where she would shine.

Enter MoP, and the release of the infamous "lock-tank" glyph, Glyph of Demon Hunting.  Great rejoicing could be heard throughout the lock player base, though many were skeptical.  Could a single glyph really provide us with what we've all wanted for so long, namely a way to be able to fill both roles, and still get all the lovely lock loving we've become accustomed to?

In a word, no.  As the link shows, Glyph of Demon Hunting does a few things: Provides a new stance that gives you several damage mitigation buffs; changes your Soulshatter into a taunt; and changes your Shadow Bolt into an instant-cast Demonic Slash.  My experimenting with it during the new Theramore scenario showed that, while I certainly held threat over my fellow DPS, I was next to useless without a healer backing me up.  I suppose I just hadn't discovered the proper rotation for "lock-tanking", as I know there's a couple of spells to leech HP off a target, but I just don't see myself holding my own in a 5-man or raid like my DK does.  I'd say the other downside to this glyph is that it only works for Demonology specs, but since I play that almost exclusively anyway, it doesn't really affect me.

All that aside, I'm definitely going to play the crap out of this.  My favorite thing to do on my DK is fill in as "emergency tank".  Since I absolutely hate tanking PUGs, I usually queue as DPS when I'm running randoms on her, ready to swap over to Blood spec if I see the tank go down, in order to attempt to avoid a wipe; a good 95% of the near-wipe scenarios I've been part of were saved by this, with the other 5% being saved by Raise Ally instead.  Now that I've got a similar ability on my lock, I see the save-style being used a lot as well, especially since I'm already a master at the Soulstone Save.

And The Countdown Begins...

Seven days from now, if all goes as planned, I should have a brand-spankin' new level 90 and a few max-leveled professions under my belt; of course, there's been some rumors that leveling will take a full day of game-play, so this might not be the case.  Chances are good that I might not even be awake at this point, having leveled through the day and night, then promptly passed out.  Only time will tell.

Each day now I'll update you on whatever progress I made the evening before.  Alas, today there's not much to tell.  I finally picked up the protein bars I've been planning on getting for the last couple of weeks, and added a box of breakfast drinks and a bottle of whey protein for good measure.  Don't worry, I fully expect my gopher to bring me real food on occasion, but I want to make sure I have everything I could need, without a lot of excess fat and sugar.

I actually didn't play much last night, as I chose to start catching up on some sleep instead.  The rogue Leatherworker is level 83, nearly 84, and is still sitting at 10-15 skill points for Leatherworking and Skinning before they're maxed.  Knand's bags have been mostly cleared, save all the quest turn-in items, and a few odd gems.  I'll have to remember to add a stack of raid food and flasks, as any edge he can get while leveling will be needed.  I've also gone ahead and done the JC daily, so that brings his quest count up to 24/25.  This morning saw me spending a bit of time to clear out mailboxes of almost-expired mail, as well as throwing a couple of items up on the AH.

The huge to-do item that I still have pending is repairing the PC; I've been procrastinating on this like crazy, due to the fact that it's such a PITA to get it out of its cubby and onto a clear work surface.  Add in the fact that the old power supply is a spaghetti-monster of mammoth proportions, and I'm already gritting my teeth at the idea of extracting it for replacement, even if the replacement is much easier to use.  This is something I have to get done, as the laptop can't handle running WoW, FRAPs, and a livestreaming program at the same time, at least not with decent graphics, acceptable ping, and zero overheating issues.  I'm going to do everything I can to have it done tonight, or at the latest, tomorrow afternoon, so that I can test it out during the final guild raid.  I can't risk waiting until the last minute (Monday) and discovering there's something else wrong when it's too late to do anything about it.

Whenever I get that done, I'll spend a good deal of time on my old realm, cleaning out character bags and loading them into the guild banks, that way I can get everything transferred.  Everything meaning the tailor and the dual-gatherer, plus all the mats I've gathered in the past for leveling Inscription.  Since I'm done with everything here at work, I'm going to go ahead and compile the list of things I'll need for those two professions, since I plan on training them as soon as the transfers go through; I'd have done it earlier, but I'm paranoid about dropping Mining & Herbalism before I actually have the dual gatherer on the server, and being stuck without a way to gather things once MoP hits.

At the time I'm hitting "Publish" on this, there are officially 5 days, 16 hours, 30+ minutes until launch.  Are you ready?

Only A Week??

I'm excited, you guys.  Are you excited?  I've got less than a week of prep-time ahead of me, since I want to make sure I can spend Monday relaxing and making minor last-minute checks rather than rushing around.  Time for an update on where I stand with my goals!

• Specific Goal - Still hitting 90.  Knand's got his 23/25 quests still, and while I've been running him around doing random things, after Thursday's raid, I'll take him to his bank and mailbox to empty his bags and pick up the JC daily, and I managed to pick up a second JC quest-starting item during the Theramore scenario.  I've also got to pass my guild leader enough gold to cover another bank tab, so that I'll have access to it through Mobile Banking in order to dump excess goodies, should Knand's bags get overfull before I can get him to a mailbox whilst leveling.  I'll disable all of his addons at this time.
• Get Rest - One of the few things I'm slacking on, mostly because I've been so wrapped up in prepping in WoW.  Bad She!  Saturday & Sunday should see me getting a bit more rest, or at least slowing down the prep.
• Responsibilities Handled - Taking my car in for an oil change on Tuesday, and then I should be good to go.
• Friends & Family Aware - Pretty sure everyone's been informed at this point.
• Equipment Ready - Still slack.  I've made a promise to myself that I can't transfer my guild banks from my old server until I've put the new power supply in Big Green, so that should be done  after I get done with the car.
• Food & Water - I remembered I have a stash of water already, so I'll just bring those up when I bring in the Code Read & NoS.  Still need to pick up some protein bars; I'll do that while I'm out of the house Monday or Tuesday.
• Gaming Area - Getting somewhere with this, though it's looking like I probably won't have the microwave & fridge moved.
• Gopher - Haven't found one to fill in for my sister before she gets home from school, though I'm sure my niece would be happy to.  Unfortunately, she's under 3 and would probably spend most of her time trying to get me to let her play WoW, just like I used to.

Game-wise, I've got both bank guilds up to 2, the rogue above 80 with almost maxed Skinning and Leatherworking, and am gathering the mats to train Inscription and a second Alchemy for when I get my guilds transferred.  Plans for the Realm 1st group fell through when I found out my mage-buddy was going to be going overseas for a few weeks, and her Internet access would be wonky; probably for the best, because I can be really bad about getting ticky if people aren't moving chop-chop-toot-sweet.  I'd rather just scratch the idea than spend time coordinating a new group, especially since I never got a definitive answer from the third member.

On a side note, to add to the insanity, I've decided I'm still going to attempt to get out to the convention that was the original reason I took the week off, so once I've gotten Knand to 90 and spent some time recovering, I'll be driving out to Atlanta in order to attend Anime Weekend Atlanta.  My laptop will be with me, so I may or may not be able to either update you guys on the going-ons there, post some video to SheWhoGamesTV about the con, or just poke my head in to say "Hey, I live!"

Pinging The Radar

It was bound to happen, I suppose.  I've registered with several gold-making sites and blogs in the last few weeks, and have even started to post a few things here and there.  I shouldn't have been surprised when I actually received a message from one of the bigger AH players on my PvE server, saying they'll be rooting me on come Sept. 25th, and that they'll see me in the AH.

How does one respond to something like that?  It's high school all over again, when the star quarterback and his head cheerleader girlfriend compliment you, the quiet bookish one in the corner, on your presentation in class.  Do they mean it?  Did they really like what you did, or are they secretly mocking you and laughing about you when you're not looking?  What do you say?

After the initial shock had passed, I did a little investigating, checking the other member's profile and seeing that they did, in fact, claim my PvE server as their home.  On top of this, they had recently posted that they'd reached the 1 million mark in January.  1 million!  Definitely not a dabbler, unlike myself and the couple of others in my guild that I trade AH conversations with.  If I were a nail-biter, this would probably be the moment I'd start nibbling.  A brief search for their name on The Undermine Journal shows that they have over 3000 auctions listed, all glyphs; my nervousness abates a bit, because while this may just be the end-of-expansion listings for this particular seller, or even just the ones on this toon, it still makes me feel better, as I really hadn't planned on playing that heavily in the glyph market.

Besides all that, from what I've seen in my research, most sellers (or goblins, as we're commonly referred to) are good-natured, and even enjoy the occasional bit of "AH PvP", duking it out for control of a market with other up-and-coming goblins.  With that in mind, I responded pleasantly, congratulating them on 1 million and metioning that I'd keep my eyes peeled.  I fully intend on adding them to my Friend's List, if only so I can wave to them on occassion as we pass in the night.

Random Late Night Adventures

Thanks to my work schedule, I play at some odd hours, sometimes never seeing a single person in my otherwise active guild for days on end.  This week I had a couple of extra night shifts, which threw things off even more, including making me unable to join in my weekly raid.  As a result, I've spent a lot of time this week leveling my alts and bank guilds; all my Horde-side Hyjal-destined characters are now above 80, and the guilds are ready to be transferred.

Last night our resident Aussie logged in when I was into my third hour of attempting to level Leatherworking; have to hate it when not only are the mats you need on the AH obnoxiously priced, but even if you bought them all, it still wouldn't be enough, which results in the need to farm.  We chatted a bit in Vent about various patch changes and potential AH opportunities coming up, as he's also a AH dabbler, then took turns logging into and out of alts in order to pass LW materials back and forth.  I was about to pull my hair out farming yetis in Feralas (Note to self: Go finish that Mechanical Chicken quest!) when the conversation turned to mount drops and better locations to farm Heavy Leather.  Somehow I wound up in Dustwallow Marsh, taking out dragonkin and enjoying his story about the time he'd tried to solo Onyxia on his mage, with disastrous results.

I'm sure I don't have to spell out where it went from here.  Though I was farming on my rogue, it was a simple enough matter to jump onto my Death Knight, Queen of the Overpowered Solo-Farming, and head inside Onyxia's Lair.  We were both bored, so we made a pact to take her out as a team, and if the mount actually dropped, we'd do it again next week in order to get it for the other person.  I had completely forgotten that the Lair had been upgraded from 60 to 80, so I ran inside first and pulled all the trash, before seeing those happy little green-leveled nasties grouping up on me.  I hadn't really had a chance to work with my DK since 5.0.4 hit, so my taskbar was in complete disarray, and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I wound up floor-tanking that pack.

Take two, and I'm joined by my mage buddy; between the two of us we knock out the trash with ease, then move on to Ony herself.  Phase 1 was cake, with me tanking and the mage burning her quickly.  Phase 2 went on for too long, as we did our best to remember what it was, exactly, we were supposed to be doing; by the time we'd figured it out, far too many whelps had spawned for me to be able to control them properly.  Another round of floor-tanking for me, after they'd eaten the face of my poor mage.

Third time's the charm, I'm telling myself after my second corpse-run back.  I've picked up a rhythm now, and have mostly remembered what I'm doing; while we wait for our respective cool-downs to clear (Time Warp for him, Raise Ally for me), I search for every single damage-mitigation spell I have in my spellbook.  Everything, and I do mean everything, is added to my toolbar, and as soon as the CD's are clear, I run in and start the fight.

Almost immediately it seemed like it was going to be another fail, with the mage getting tail-whipped into the hatchery while I'm turning Ony, sending a wave of whelps out before we'd even gotten her off the ground.  I'm popping everything I've got, good-naturedly cursing him as I do so, trying to run around and keep the whelps from melting him.  She gets down to Phase 2, heads into the air, and now I'm trying to pick up all the fresh adds, re-popping and prepared to Raise him again if needed.  Somehow, miraculously, we make it through Phase 2, and Phase 3 passes quickly.  My only regret is that I didn't have my little skinner there, in order to take advantage of the mountain of dragonflesh left behind.

Unfortunately, the mount didn't drop, but now that we've gotten a feel for what we're doing, we've decided to knock her down on a weekly basis until we both get the mount.  I can add this to my weekly multiple Karazhan runs, and should probably start up with the Stratholme runs again after my big push when MoP hits.

Free Fridays - TriadCity

Free Fridays is a feature where She Who Games reviews an online game that happens to be free to play.  While some of these games may have pay-for features, all games reviewed will in no way be hampered by someone choosing to play without paying at any point.

While it may seem that I'm all about WoW, there have been and still are other games I play.  One that comes to mind is TriadCity, a very unique browser MUD that stretches the limits of one's imagination, and then some.  It may seem strange to those who know me that I'd play a game like this, since it's almost completely text-based, but I've long been fond of the literary arts.

Not every MUD out there revels in its text-based nature quite the way TriadCity does.  Its creators go out of their way to include many literary references, and anyone with a love for the classics will be able to spot their influence stamped on almost every nook and cranny encountered.  Even I find myself constantly running off to look up some obscure reference, and I like to think I'm rather well-versed.  You'll find that no genre is left untouched, as you can easily encounter robots, cowboys, and Greek heroes in the same session of play.

Another of the things that gives TriadCity its unique feel is the fact that violence, while not impossible to commit, isn't the only way to gain experience and levels in this game; in most cases, it's not even the best way to do so.  Half the fun is in exploring and examining everything you come across, and the game rewards you for this.  Though there are times that I suffer from a strong need to BCU (Blow Crap Up), my main reason for playing games is the intellectual stimulation they provide, and TriadCity has this by the score.

It's probably for the best that violence gets a lesser reward than safer past-times, as death is permanent in TriadCity.  That's right, once your character has died, that's the end for them, a fact that I've learned, much to my chagrin.  (Rumor has that there may be an afterlife experience in the works, so it's a good idea to hang onto said character, but you didn't hear that from me.)

TriadCity is also one of those few games out there that doesn't have a drastic gender bias towards males.  In actuality, females tend to outnumber the males.  And while it's not unheard of for younger people to join the game, for the most part it's mature adults that play, lending to the air of like-minded peers I get whenever I log in.  As in any text-based game, one's ability to express oneself in words is definitely a bonus, and those who aren't as adept at it as others are encouraged to learn and better themselves.

Probably one of the few downsides to TriadCity, provided you're not anti-reading, is the size of the project.  Where the world itself is huge, with many things to keep you occupied and constantly learning, the player-base is incredibly small, most likely due to the fact that most gamers are attracted to bright, shiny graphics and BCU-rewarding questlines.  While I've been a member of the community since 2005, I have to be fair and admit that it really hasn't grown much since then, relying on word-of-mouth to bring in fresh faces.  That it's survived this long is really a testament to its makers and their core of loyal players.

You could almost see this as a bonus, since you're almost assuredly going to be able to talk one-on-one with the people behind the scenes, and even be able to lend a hand to the addition of new and exciting branches to the game.  I'm known for my fly-by-night nature when it comes to games, playing one heavily and exclusively for months on end, before becoming distracted by a new one and moving on; it's been a while since I last logged into TriadCity.  When I did recently, I discovered that my concept of a vineyard had been expanded and brought to life, and that many of the faces I had grown to know and love in my time there remained, happy to welcome me back with open arms.

I heartily recommend TriadCity to anyone looking for a game unlike any other they've played before, where they'll become a valued member of a community built on the shoulders of other such members, continually challenged intellectually and rewarded for using their brain, and encouraged to help play a part in developing the game world as a whole.  And if you do decide to try it, be sure to tell them that Teralinth sent you.

MoP Giveaway!

So, this started out on my Facebook page, but since Timeline is wonky, and I'm not able to edit old posts, I'm going to move it to here, too.


Want a free copy of Mists of Pandaria, the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion? You do? Great! Here's what you do: "Like" this post for an entry, then "Share" it for another! On September 25th, I'll draw two names at random, one from all of the "Likes"/comments, and one from all of the "Shares"! Those names will then receive a license for a digital copy, once they become available for gifting.

Easy-peasy, right? Right! So get to it!  "Like" this post, share it on your own wall, and comment here!  Three ways to enter, two chances to win!

Edit: Now Blizzard's selling their Pandaren Monk at half price!  In honor of this, I'll give away a free Pandaren Monk to one of the fans of my page.  Simply "Like" my page between now and Sept. 17th, and you'll be entered into the drawing!