Redwolf's Journal (continued)

... the tank probably did something wrong. So I'm back to take a stab at the druid class in their Restoration build as healers. And trees. I really have to wonder about that. Who was it that thought "well, we need an alternate form for druids when they do healing - I know, we'll make them walking trees?" Still, a majority of my tanking experience in Wrath has been with a druid at my back, mostly Ailara, then Ajeya. It's been fairly recent that we've had a priest, Velnor, on the roster regularly. P.S. Feel free to correct/elaborate as needed, Ajeya. Research is good. Experience is usually better. ;) Build The big distinction I see in builds is whether a druid is designing for tank healing or raid healing. A couple popular builds are this and this . There's some flexibility, though, depending on purpose. - Tree of Life: Sort of a no-brainer talent for Restoration druids, it's the one that defines them. It limits what can be cast, but gives bon

I've caught a few movies on TV recently that make me ponder things about then I don't usually - or haven't in the past, at least. Highlander How can such horrible elements combine into something so great? The special effects are cheesy (that's supposed to be blood?), the flow is disjointed, the acting is... well, I can't say that I think the acting is good and yet I'm fond of the performances. You even get a survivalist gun nut with an uzi thrown in for no apparent reason. And the swordplay. Oh my god that's terrible, and I've cringed ever since when I see someone block a straight-on swing with a katana. And yet, it's great. The idea was so out there and didn't require an explanation (no one knows why there are immortals or why the game has "rules," it just is). The scene transitions are artistically done. The music is cohesive. Overall, the movie is inspiring and "cool." It may well be responsible for biasing an entir

Hmmm... less than four hours 'til I start tonight's Star Wars session. Maybe. o.o; Four players, one of which found out last night he's working late enough show about halfway through our playtime window. E-mailed everyone for opinions. I've heard back from all of one of the others, who seems to be saying "let's just play as normal anyway." I dunno, I expected a little more response and a little more sympathy, I guess. I suppose I'm just strange that way. I've been holding off comments on the ongoing Shadowrun game because... well, I didn't want to be negative. I don't want to slam the game or hurt anyone's feelings. My initial problems with the game were very me -oriented, and I certainly didn't want to come down on things due to my own inability to get into my character. But... even with all that, I think we've still got a problem. It isn't my character anymore - though I might still like to "find" more to h

Finishing a book/series always leaves me feeling... empty somehow. I may be left thoughtful of the tale related, but there's always a sense of loss at the cessation of of ideas. This last six months or so, I really have come to appreciate just how much reading fantasy novels makes me feel more inspired. I just finished Warbreaker . I put it off initially because it's in hardcover. As I thought about it, though, Brandon Sanderson is one of perhaps two authors I'd splurge for the expense on rather than waiting for a paperback version. That, coupled with the fact that he's now finishing out the Wheel of Time series for the late Robert Jordan - which I probably won't read as I gave up on that series years ago, convinced me to go ahead and buy it. I'm not sorry I did. While it's not quite as fleshed out or, perhaps, "grand" as the Mistborn trilogy, it stands alone well. Sanderson has another unique (to my knowledge) sort of magic in this world and

WoW I've been taking a break of sorts, spending less time on due to 1) some daily quest burnout and 2) enough activity on the MUCK to warrant attention. My death knight has gained a few levels in the last week or two, but I'm not trying real hard there either. Saturday rocked, though. Relatively early for us, we got a group together and went to hit the daily dungeons, both on heroic. Utgarde Pinnacle went pretty well, with one little wipe at Palehoof when he feared us and immediately killed the healer. Before getting to the first boss in Utgarde Keep, we had our hunter lose connection. After some discussion, we pressed on... and 4-manned the instance with no wipes. While a Protection warrior with some dps gear doesn't do a lot of dps, this confirmed heroic UK is cake. The back-to-back dungeons went quick, clean, and fun - that's exactly what I'd like to see when the new emblem rewards are in place. This morning I heard about a guildmember who apparently got thei

Wishy-washy whiners! And I'm kinda sick of it. Ongoing with two characters, and I've seen it from a third repeatedly. It's not really that many, but I feel so smothered by it - they keep seeming to come to me for advice in some form. Pick a bloody direction and follow it. You can't be a (good) daimyo if you're constantly worried about a far off land. You can't serve as instrument of a god's will if you act contrary to their orders. You're not showing a new god your devotion by clinging to trappings of the old clergy you served. That's just the way it is, deal with it. And quit asking me "what should I do?" I don't know. It's your (character's) life! Make a decision you (they) can live with and go with it. Quit dragging on in this neither-here-nor-there limbo day after day, week after week. Pick something ! Refusing to commit just makes things worse for everyone involved (and frustrating for those of us who, in some cases,

Reading through some patch notes for 3.2 - none of that stuff is really final yet, they're not even testing on the PTR this early. - Lower-level mounts and faster base flying speed. Nift. I feel a little cheated, for having done this "the hard way," but it makes it faster and easier to level. - Block value is getting boosted (doubled from items, except base value on shields). - Lots of paladin stuff that I'm not sure how to feel about yet. Positive change to Ardent Defender. Exorcism is getting a casting time (though an Art of War proc will let it be instant-cast). Seal of the Martyr is being taken out. And a slew of other stuff. - Target casting bars will indicate if a spell can be interrupted. That's neat. - Drakes in Oculus will scale with worn item level. - New 5-man dungeon. Yay! - New 10-man and 25-man raid... that also has a heroic verion of each. That's a change from Wrath's approach where there's a 10-man raid and the heroic version is

So, I'll switch gears here ("sharing the love," as it were) and take a look at something completely different - hunters. In specific, the Beast Mastery path. This is another class that I simply don't play, which may be a little odd considering it was the first class I ever played in the game Build Right off, I'm seeing comments about Beast Mastery simply not being top-notch DPS. Reasonable damage, but not optimal. Apparently both Survival and Marksmanship builds do better, but we'll check it out anyway here. Raiding builds appear to be along the lines of this or this , with some flexibility in the low-end tree talents. - Endurance Training and Thick Hide: Much better for solo play than groups. The stamina/armor benefit isn't terribly, it just doesn't help you do your job (DPS) inherently, and a tank should be taking the hits, not you or your pet. It's taken only as something of "filler" for higher tier access, really. - Focused A

I have a fondness for feral bear tanks. Elyssa was probably our main tank through most of Burning Crusade. I always marvelled at that big ol' health pool and wished I could do that with Sashayla. As I don't play a druid, I never really learned all the details involved, but I knew they were different . After all, they run into the fray shapeshifted, but wearing leather. Shields? Pfft. Not for them. Bear tanking has changed a fair bit since then, but they're still meant to be able to stand up in front of the massive bosses and suck up all that wonderful damage that would squish the rest of the party in an instant. Build Gah! Hitting something of a roadblock right off. Most of the concise discussion on bear builds I can find are pre-3.1, and they changed some things with that patch. Druid web presences still seem a bit undecided on what's best. But I'll scrape together what I can here... It appears a decent base talent build might appear thusly with a flesh-out m

So there's a few points I should probably go over before I get into anything else. First off, these (and most gear/build guides) shall be oriented toward level 80 characters trying to get to and improve in raids. So far, we're only in heroic dungeons with anything approaching regularity, so the "requirements" for us at the moment are a little lower, but this is about seeking improvement from where we stand. Build : We get enough talent points in general to take most of one tree from our class while dabbling in little in another (or both the others). For most functions of most classes, there is an "optimal" build. In a lot of cases, there's some leeway - talents that are questionable or situational, but usually you need certain talents to fill a certain role as designed. A paladin tank will be heavy in Protection. A paladin dpser will beheavy in Retribution. These are what define our characters within a class. Gear : Better items are the most obvious

If I can remember, I need to post this on the guild forum, too (when I'm home and have my login info)... I would like to extend an offer to my guildmates in Warcraft. My work schedule may be a difficulty in my life, but my actual job leaves me with a fair bit of downtime (crises notwithstanding). Among other things, I've used this time to research gear, rotations, and builds for my characters. There's information scattered all over. I recognize not everyone in the guild has this time to spare. So, my friends, I am offering you some of that time. If any guildmates wish to know more about what items, rotations, talents, stats, etc. are best for their chosen class/build - let me know what you want to learn about and I'll try to compile something approaching a guide. I don't come up with these numbers, but there's a lot of sources out there with people who do, and it's usually possible to pull together a cohesive picture from them. In addition to, hopefull

Somehow idle chat with a friend on Furryfaire turned to crossbreeds of "furry" species, and my opinion of opposition to them in general. He seemed surprised. Of course, you throw supernatural powers into the mix and anything's possible. But naturally-occurring? I'm against that. First off, that sorta defies the definition of species as taught to me in high school biology. Part of the definition is "Two organisms that are able to reproduce naturally to produce fertile offspring." Now, there are things like mules - generally infertile crossbreeds - but if you can interbreed two species and get fertile offspring, it might be time to consider the possibility they were misclassified to begin with. "Well, okay, disregard that - consider that definition wrong, or consider furry races to be sub-species." Gosh, okay, no more science arguments there. I can only say that it gets a bit silly pretty fast. At the first level, hey it's kinda cool. Wol

Odd mindset. Difficult to focus. I didn't sleep well last night and I've a distractingly twitchy muscle in my shoulder this morning, but what can ya do? I've been reading a lot the last month or more, and I perceive a difference that is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I tend to feel more inspired and creative, being subjected to ideas from other sources, and it's a great way to fill downtime on quiet work nights. On the other hand, I frequently feel compelled to finish books which keeps me up late and draws my attention away from other things. Aieee. When we finished the Star Wars session last week, I thought "gee, two weeks is a long time to leave this." Now, I'm wondering if I was hasty in saying I'd try to run this week if schedule permits. Of course, I don't know if my schedule permits me to be free Thursday night yet, but my ideas for the next session remain in flux. I'd really rather be fleshing out some detail. We'll see. I

In the last day, I've dreamed... 1) That I somehow created a powerful AI that was able to traverse and understand the internet as well as "download" into people. She, for this entity ended up "possessing" a young girl and coming to talk with me, was a being of childlike curosity and deadly potential who didn't even have much of a memory until being in a person. The bulk of what I recall was trying to give a crash course on ethics, morality, and laws - specifically why it's a bad thing to kill or "take over" people - while being very gentle and understanding. 2) That I was at some large SCA event. A lot of stuff was going on, and I was more involved than I have been in years, though I can't remember most of it now. Friends suiting up in armor, someone I didn't know running around with a stuffed/plush dragon tail, a new principality being formed, and no extreme weather are some little details that I actually recall. O.o

So I picked back up the mantle of GM for the Star Wars game I started last year. One new player and one player switching to a new character. The switch gave me an 'expendable no-longer-PC' in the active scene. What GM isn't going to make use of that? };) With two new characters, I started with split scenes, running one after the other and working them to synch up at the same point. Tricky, but it seemed to go well. No one out-of-scene complained of boredom, though I suspect they all had a little something else to focus on too, which is fine. The first 'real' threat of the game was an old rakatan war droid that shook off its reprogramming and used lethal force. Due mostly to the layout of the KoTOR campaign guide, I missed the stats for the rakatan droids and used a 'juggernaut war droid.' At 26 hit points, I knew it was a bit fragile - probably only able to stand up to two or three attacks at most - but decided that was okay as it had decent offense. I c

... I didn't expect to finish Santa Olivia in one night, but I was up kind of late anyway. >.> Nice book. I want to call it "cute" though it's not all roses by any means. It reminds me of the TV series Dark Angel. It definitely feels a lighter/shorter tale than the Kushiel books, and it works just fine as-is. And with that, I think it's bedtime.

And likely to be long enough to warrant a cut. I finished Hade's Daughter this morning, and I'm still only "meh" about it. I understand that it's the first in a series that deals with multiple reincarnations of characters and I find myself more interested in the meta-story than this introductory novel itself. I think the biggest problem I have is that I really don't feel much attachment to any of the characters. The only character I feel the desire to see again is Brutus - and even then only because of the self-awareness his future self displays in brief snippits that amount to a few pages at most. That trait, however, is probably the result of living multiple lives, so I'm not likely to see that version of him (or any of the others) until the last book. So maybe the epic payoff is worth it, but for now I think I'll just de-prioritize those books and borrow Santa Olivia with cautious optimism as Jacqueline Carey's work has been either awe

In the real world... Hmm. Rough way to start a post. Let me just say that I've not seen evidence of Poseidon or Loki or Amaterasu. Until I do, I tend to consider religious pantheons to be constructs of people, the deities therein mostly anthropomorphic representations of natural "events," be they sea or trickery or sun. I allow that I may be wrong, but I tend toward skepticism in the absence of proof. So accept for a moment that such can be the case, at least. A religion and deity can simply be a construct of a society trying to explain something in a way they understand. Then give the society a new understanding, supported by repeatable evidence and in absence of any manifestation of divinity to show otherwise. Is the religion still necessary? Many fantasy worlds have a pantheon (or more) of gods hanging out. Sometimes they're active, sometimes they're removed. But what purpose do they really serve? They give a rallying point for mortal characters and offer

I'm not fond of the Oculus. The dungeon ramps you up into more and more dragonback combat until you fight the end boss on drakes. In heroic today, we bit it on the last boss. Repeatedly. Mind you, we have very little experience with the dungeon, ranging from 0 to... a handful of runs before depending on which group member you look at. I'd done it once, I think. On normal. The problem with drake/vehicle combat is that after 80-ish levels of learning how to play your class and becoming intimately in tune with your abilities, you don't get to use any of them. Instead, you have whatever the vehicle/mount offers. And you get to learn how/when to best use them the hard way. On the up side, you can take off all your degradable gear and it makes no difference to the vehicle stats for the battle (though in Ulduar, there are/will be vehicles that modify their stats based on the item level of your equipped gear). Ley-Guardian Eregos soundly kicked our asses five or six times (or

Okay, maybe not quite that bad. Got a professional opinion on it this morning. The good news is I seemed to do everything right. The bad news is... I seemed to do everything right. That means there's another problem with it. The verdict is a fault in the timer, causing the heating element to be on anytime the timer is set to a cycle (whether actually running or not). We were told we could use it, as long as we're very sure it's set to off when not in active use. A new timer is $90 and change. So... we'll get a new one ordered and have to be particularly careful in the meantime. But at least I can get some of this accumulating laundry done.

I'm not really prone to cursing. I'll make non-word sounds of frustration and annoyance, but I rarely reach for curse words in my vocabulary. Yesterday progressed... okay. There were little annoyances at work including, but not limited to, procrastination of a project on the part of someone other than myself. I peeked on the MUCK during the day to be annoyed at events not because of the events, but because people seemed to be all overwrought about them. Then I got word that the parts ordered for the dryer at home were in and could be picked up. This should have just been good news, but was frustrating due to not having the cash I wanted to use with me and being a game night at home. But still, I was able to get over there with enough time before going home and pay by credit, so it wasn't really that bad. I got home and took a crack at replacing the thermostat parts in the dryer while waiting for people to show up. One of the parts, however, was not the same as the o

While I've done little in the form of GMing organized and/or "open" TPs on Furryfaire over the years, I still have found myself accumulating "NPC" characters. They're mine to play, but they don't exist on-grid. For the most part, they don't have stories of their own and are associated specifically with someone else's character. Why am I bothering with this list? I don't know. Random whim, I guess. Tashiro - It's been a while, but I did a little solo adventure for Tashiro off in the North with a cast of characters. I don't recall names, but... there was the summoner who called him, an imp that was accidentally summoned, a huntress he traveled with on the quest and a dryad he encountered somewhere up there. I sort of introduced a lot of characters there for a one-on-one thing. Shiro - The daughters of the above-mentioned dryad have paid a visit a couple times. - There has been a courtier/masseuse, skunk if I recall, who was in a

We dipping into heroic Ahn'Kahet: the Old Kingdom last night after Shadowrun. We wiped on the first boss three or four times before giving up. But, we've done this before, right? And didn't have nearly this trouble. So what went wrong? As ever, my perspective is limited, but I suspect multiple factors: - Inexperience. I think the two of us with the most experience in that dungeon were Dem (who previously hasn't tanked it much if at all) and myself (who hasn't healed in that dungeon before). I don't think it was completely new to anyone, but someone commented only having done it a couple times before. - Use of alts. At least three of us were playing characters we usually don't in heroic runs. This ties into the above and... - Gear. Most of the group was decently gear for heroic dungeons, but there were some points that might be weak. What happened? Mostly, the the small adds (skirmishers, I think?) mauled me while the guardian add (who makes everyth

My views on roleplaying, not infrequently, conflict with tashiro 's. Conversation today brought back up our difference of opinion on capping character advancement. He holds fold memories of an extended D&D game that saw his character into divinity and beyond. I think that's great, and works in some cases, but I find myself favoring actual limits and caps in some cases - specifically, the persistant world that Furryfaire is. I've discussed some of these things before. I've voiced through about character advancement directly . I've talked about some systems handle power escalation and experience points . And I'm sure I've made other posts about elements as well. In most RPGs, there's a form of character advancement. Characters that have been played for a long time will have a notable edge over those that are new. The degree of difference depends on the game, and there are exceptions out there. I'm going to set those aside for the moment, thou

I know it's pre-rendered CG, a cut-scene at best, but dayumn.

I don't usually talk much about the "blogosphere" in regards to WoW. There are some sites I hit regularly, and a few blogs I glance at, sure. One of the more recent ones added to that list is a blog by "Ferarro" with a lot of paladin advice - mostly Retribution and Holy, but the information has all seemed useful. But... WTF? When I saw the blog get locked down to invite-only, I though it might have been due to mention in one post shortly before about having done some testing on a private server (which is probably against the WoW TOS). Instead, I find the author has been outed as having used someone else's photo. And now the blog is unlocked and they're claiming ownership/authorship of it has changed repeatedly over the last few years. And other people are saying that's unlikely/impossible due to IP numbers associated with the activities behind it over time. Holy bejeezes. I know things can explode into drama at almost any time on the internet, bu