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Dory: I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come on, Squishy Come on, little Squishy.
[baby talk, the jellyfish stings her]
Dory: Ow. Bad Squishy, bad Squishy.
When you’re a new and under geared clothy in BGs, when you’ve just hit 85 and your stat weightings have been nerfed out of sight by the helpful gaming company to whom you pay your monthly tithe, when your lack of spell pen means your super crits are now super cute, when you have just become a little fish in a big pond…
What do you do?
Get smarter people, get smarter!
Travel in a pack (school ; )
You’re weak and squishy so get some big friends – pallys and warriors and DKs (oh my!) are your best mates. Why? Cause they won’t stand around throwing a few spells at that damn warlock or mage, they’ll get right up in their grill and bust em up good. (Okay, maybe not our mage overlords they won’t bust up but you get the picture).
Find heals and stick to them like glue
You know what’s good when you don’t have many hits? Hanging with someone who can give you some more! Priests, shammies, pallys and druids, anyone who looks all helpful and healy (a mouseover in the Blizz BG screen will tell you the dedicated healers). Follow those guys and you know what? Help em out when the horde try to off em – that’s kind of your role anyway.
Bring something to the party
Aint got umph? Aint got D? What about a voice – you’ve got one of those right? No one talks (types) in BGs – well, not Alli ones anyway. BUT… once you get a group chatting and then they have a success it’s amazing how everything transforms. Suddenly people are offering suggestions, calling out incomings, deciding on a plan and acting upon it for the win. I personally have changed the course of BGs just by what I suggested and followed through on. You think people should be going after the flag rather than fighting mid? Then say so – but be constructive, suggest a meeting point and get them all together so that you can go in and roll the FC and his cronies. Be smart, hatch a plan with your group members and follow through on it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many people are like you and given the chance will fall on a good idea like hungry jellyfish upon their prey (okay – that analogy could have been better but I was “not” going to say wolves!)
Squishies can sting
Yes you can, yes you can little squishy. You’re a cloth-clad squishy with low firepower and low survivability but you can still sting. But don’t sting the full hits warrior (shhh don’t even look at him, he might come over here), focus on that low-hits hunter over yonder, the one that your pally mate is beating on, finish him off quick and work out who you’ll assist next.
If you’re gonna die (and you are) then make it count
Damn if that hunter didn’t have a couple of friends and damn if the shield you just dropped on your pally mate is gone and he’s blowing his cooldowns as his hits plummet. What are you going to do now? RUN LITTLE SQUISHY, RUN! But run in the right direction, which is to say the wrong direction. ; ) You want to run in the direction that will be of most tactical use to your team as you drag your opponents with you. So bubble up, slap on your HoT, get ready to pop your trink, your fade, your dispersion, etc and run. See how far out of the action you can take those suckers before they off you – it’s amazing how long you can last when you’re just trying to survive.
Have fun
Not being able to pwn annoying horde (or alli – hi there hordy bros and sis’) into the ground with great gobbets of AWESOME can really get a clothy down. But know this: Blizzard made it that way on purpose! They ‘want’ you to grind through your BGs, to claw and scrabble your way to the top (top if you’re a mage that is – near-top for the rest of you). You’re not sucking by accident, Blizzard wants you to strive, to spend time, to pay dollars. So realise you’ve just committed to another WoW grind and have fun with it. If the frustration is getting you down then perhaps BGs at cap and the necessary gearing process are not for you – it’s a game after all you know, you can turn it off. ; )
Stay liquid folks,
M.
Hi folks! A belated HNY to you all.
Now what have I been doing since my last post last year?
Levelling a priest is what!
Here’s my priesty Werewithall. I’ve been having an absolute ball with her. Levelling has been mostly via instances smite healing as Disc with a fair amount of shadow PVP in battlegrounds once I got closer to the top of each respective band.
Were is my first ever heal-specced toon and there’ll be more posts to come relating to great sites I found as I levelled, smite healing and how cool it is and some of the fun transmogging I did along the way.
But today I’m posing a question: Now what?
I’m at end game and in general it’s not a part of the WoW game process I have enjoyed recently. There are two things that might change this experience for me though on this toon:
After dinging 85, crafting a full resilience set and converting the honour I’d capped (and been storing in Justice points) to some nice gear I hit a couple of BGs and found my damage to be competitive and my survivability to be fine – I’m not even chanted yet! It helps of course that these were BGs where Alli communicated well and won. ; ) So continuing as Shadow heals (post on this later) in BGs beyond 85 may be a prospect and;
Most importantly for future play at cap Were has always primarily been a healer, a fightin smitin healer but a healer nonetheless. As such there is still a progression pathway there for me on this toon: 85 normals, then 85 heroics – further instances opening up as gearing level improves. Without the capacity to hit the instances and alternate my experience I don’t think end game BGs would cut it. With it though (yes, I know DPS can instance but only every 10-15 minutes) I find myself interested to see the new content, read up on the boss fights and potentially someday hit a LFR group.
Stay liquid folks,
Mogul.
Hi folks,
Well that's done! Nice to be back over the million again. : )
This is where I started seven weeks ago: 5 toons came across, each with portable holes to all slots. I'd spent months laboriously converting my gold to product, creating choppers, shuffling for chant mats, proccing out flasks and making BSing buckles and weapon chains (I also took all glyphs to 15 stacks - and then forgot to bring the pally glyphs).
TCG mounts were a definite help, I snagged two raptors (one of which I still have) and a big battle bear. Here's what I bought em for.
And here's what I sold them for.
On my old small server I watched them drop by 10000g before I bought them. On the new populous server I set my sell prices and waited. Combined purchase price was 135554g, sell price was 230850 - so far that's 95k profit on the two. I still have a raptor listed for 142k gold - it'll sell eventually.
And that's what came home to me... on this new server if an item is saleable then it "will" sell and likely at the price you set. I've gone from a server with less than 1000 active toons to one with over 20000. I sold all 10 choppers within a few weeks, they flew off the shelves and for reasonable prices. I'd thought 10 was an optimistic number as on the old server they'd languish for months on end - not so on Frostmourne. My original store of 14 stacks of buckles have gone and I'm now crafting afresh. Gems went like wildfire and mogging flipping has been fun and profitable.
Some interesting things about making it to the mill again on Frostmourne:
- I'm selling gems where the competition is posting at less then 10g for buyout (around 195g). I can only surmise that I have Blizz's dodgy basic interface to thank. It happens regularily.
- I've bought some herbs to transmute green gems to blues but apart from that everything I've sold is what I brought with me which was prospected from 6 bank tabs of pyrite ore.
- I've not entered the epic gem market at all.
- Mogging flipping is great fun. I buy blue and epic weapons only for less than 200g and post for 1500g. They move along nicely. I make sure only to buy weapons that are rare and "look" interesting. Remember, people are mogging to make their toons unique - trying to sell a look that is prevalent on the AH is not going to get you far.
- Glyph competition is fierce - I only really glyphed when I wanted to get the last few thou towards cap - getting about 3k a day from this when actively glyphing (ie, 2 posts a day).
Stay liquid guys,
Mogul.
Olla – how 4.3 working out for you guys. I’ve not had a lot of time over the last few days to jump in but when I was on totally loved transmogging my astonishingly ugly DK epic two hander look to a very simple 5g green from the AH – take that crazy WoW art!
Now for the third instalment of this series.
30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 3
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| WWCND? |
Do ‘some’ hard things
The best games, the ones you remember are the ones that excited and challenged you. Find something that is going to be difficult to accomplish and take a run at it. It could be anything? One of my toons is in a great gulid that primarily PVEs. I’m considering trying to mobilise at least a number of guildies to get some premades going to capitalise on the new conquest point changes. There’s some interest but it’ll be hard work to get it going and make it self-sustaining. That’s why if I manage it, it’ll be fun.
Don’t chase achievements
When achievements first came out everyone in my guild started chasing them. We were a hardmode 10-man guild and the general thought was that the points you got for achievements would (to be announced at a future date) provide some form of benefit in game, something the raid group could leverage off. We weren’t alone in this, everyone thought that would be the case. In actual fact achievement points provide no benefit other than distinguishing you from your fellow players. They are purely for ePeen and seem more self-flagellating than any other element of the game.
Summing up
Relax! Take a step back. So much of the angst I read about when people quit the game seems to be related to both a level of frustration with the xpac roundabout (now the patch roundabout) and an incapacity to monitor and restrict their own time spent playing the game. Fair enough, the first is just plain annoying and the second for most people is a learned skill (it certain was/still is for me). Remember that this is a game and while most games have an ending WoW, by design, doesn’t. You need to provide your own endpoint.
Stay liquid folks,
Mogul.
Hi folks – below is part 2 of this series but a little something about patch 4.3, which dropped this morning, before I get going. Chaos orbs are currently tumbling onto the server like so many over-ripe plums, sugary sweet from been kept in storage for so long and needing to be eaten soon. But hold off a little. Currently on Frostmourne there are 600 auctions up with the buy price dropping already from 325g each to just under 200g each. I’ve heard reports from other servers that orbs are as low as 100g. The stockpile of these items could be huge indeed – personally I’ll be waiting until the orbs on server hit 100g or less before buying up a few stacks. A reasonable loss could still be made buying at these prices but not a total bath.
Now onto the post.
how to enjoy playing WoW - part 2
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| Keep it simple |
Log on – log off
Try this: log in to WoW with something you want to do, something discrete with a fixed end point. If you’re levelling it could be gaining a level, if you’re PVPing it could be doing one BG (okay, maybe two), if you’re PVEing it could be doing an instance. Once you’ve completed this task hearth back to the inn and log out from WoW. Now, go do something else. You’ve had a nice time playing the game and stopped playing before you get frustrated and begin trolling /2. Playing this game in short bursts keeps it, and you, fresh.
Don’t be leet
You want a miserable time? Then focus totally on one element of the game for an entire xPac (ie, raid progression or dare I say it… gold making. No wait, I don’t dare ; ) The cutting edge in this game is where the hardcore meme says you need to be. Leet also comes with a social obligation – if your leet mates are doing something you will have to as well. Before you know it your time is not your own and the time you spend is based upon someone else’s “WoW view”, not yours. I’m not saying don’t do hard things (see post tomorrow) but whilst hard can be fun don’t burn your precious time for leetness unless you’re really enjoying yourself.
Keep it simple
Do one thing at a time. I’m levelling my priest at the moment and it’s a bunch of fun. I love learning the new skill, both the getting of it and the exercising of it. Doing one thing and focussing on it provides a beginning, middle and end to a process. Flipping from toon to toon is not restful and will likely decrease your enjoyment.
Last part of this post incoming tomorrow folks.
Stay liquid,
Mogul.
As time has gone by I’ve become increasingly phlegmatic about this game called WoW. Below are a bunch of ideas as to how to enjoy WoW. The intention is not that you do them all at the same time; many are contradictory if taken together. They’re simply a bunch of things that I’ve thought about as I tailor the way I play this game to counteract the built-in methodologies that Blizzard employs to keep you burning your RL time on their game and correspondingly keep your wallet open and your sub active.
In order not to crit you for 9000 with a wall-o-text this post is in three parts.
Stop it before you go blind
Counterintuitively, one of the best things you can do to enjoy WoW is to stop playing it! WoW is designed to get you to sub each month and keep you playing repetitively, reinforcing the habit. As such like many MMOs it employs various techniques to keep you in; large MMOs are not always working in your interests. Take a month off and see what else is happening in your life. At the very least you should be able to monitor and control the amount of time you spend and keep it to a level that’s fun. Grinding anything for 10 hours at a time is ‘not’ fun.
Don’t grind (and the exception: grind when the grinding’s good)
WoW is a grinding game. Everything is set up to entice you to carry out actions on a daily basis. But doing the same things on a daily basis, especially when you may not enjoy them is not called a game, it’s called work. Grind if you think the reward is good and worth it but don’t simply move from one mindless grind to another.
Try new stuff
Try different specs, modes of play (pve/pvp) – work to the strengths of the game. Try not to get hung up on ‘perfecting’ your art. Blizzard deliberately ‘unperfects’ your art at each xPac (and recently at each patch) so perfectionism in WoW is a losing game. Wow is large, complex and pretty interesting, built to try to meet the needs of as many players as possible so launch into it and try something new!
More tomorrow folks.
: )
Mogul.
Olla folks!
Here we go:
Gold
I’ve sold one of my Raptor mounts I bought for 80K… for 142K, giving me a 55K gold profit.
I’m buying all the reasonably priced mats I can for the crafting pvp armor with the upcoming patch.
I’ve stopped selling glyphs on the new server – I’ll tell you why later, but basically it’s a lifestyle choice.
My store of pets, bought for a max price of around 2K each, continue to sell on this large server for around the 4K mark.
All ten of my choppers I brought to the new server have sold putting about 165K back into my pockets – should have made more but I had thought I’d be struggling to move ten.
The gem market is dead on server with blues going for less than 5g in some instances – I’m posting but not competitively, holding back to see what joy the patch brings.
I’ve become a flipper in the pet market, best flip so far was for 6K on a Disgusting Oozling – I’m also flipping regular vanity pets; big server numbers mean that competition occasionally drops blue pets down to around the 1500-1800g level. I pick up two or three at a time when this happens.
I’ve been playing around in the transmog market, buying up anything interesting in the less than 300g market (unless it’s a really good deal). We have a single poster who is capping and regulating this market so I’m focusing on the rarer items to ensure exclusivity. I’m thinking of posting these in two bands, 750-1200g and 1000-1500g.
Toons
I levelled my hunter to 85, set up macros and keybinds and got him into resilience gear ready for 4.3.
I’ve topped out my lock for justice points and honour points ready for the new PVP season. It’s going to be a close match between him and my hunter as to who I preference; hunters are ‘fun’ in PVP with a lot of utility in the class.
I’m levelling my priest. It is a bunch of fun. I’ve got my priesty up to level 44 as I write this having levelled through instances as smite spec since level 36. This is the first time I’ve ever played heals and I’m finding it very rewarding. I’ve had only one wipe so far and liken this style of heals to kitty dps in terms of timing and managing cooldowns. Who’d have though I’d get into healing in such a big way. It’s fun to see all the old instances and one of the joys of levelling this way is you have great gear through drops whilst healing pugs which is unpredictable and fun.
Stay liquid folks,
M.
