102 Post!

It appears in the delight of talking about Fallen Earth, I failed to notice that I hit the 100 post milestone! While doubtful, we'll see if I can hit 200 posts by the end of the year. In order to get that, I need some fodder suggestions to talk about. What would you like me to focus on?

Board Games?
Fallen Earth?
World of Warcraft?
Dungeons & Dragons Online?
LARPing?
Nerdraging?


Milestones are overrated anyways.

Suck One, Marrowgar!

Just a quick hit here. Last night we did a partially impromptu ICC-10, and did some very messy 1-shots until the abom twins. I blame myself for two of the wipes on Festergut (poorly timed Hymn of Hope on killed the tank and I got overwhelmed healing and let a ranged die, boo me).

I was impressed, because one of our good friends who hadn't stepped foot into ICC was tanking. He's great and all, just didn't know the fights.

I figured it would be a long night when he dropped on Marrowgar from fire...

But somehow the other tank solo'd Marrowgar - with only two healers! I kind of want to try disc, but I blew my Guardian Spirit every transition back to tanking. I don't know if Pain suppression would have been enough to get through it, but I might be wrong.

Anyways, grats Omnyknight, for solo tanking Marrowgar!

A New Frontier - Fallen Earth

The website I've been writing for was looking for someone to do a review of Fallen Earth. One of the editors met with the creators of FE, and they are excited about a number of new features on the game. I signed up, and with my history in MMORPGs (and my promptness in replying), I received a 30 day trial of the game to review.

Fallen Earth has been in production since 2003, and finally was released in the fall of 2009. They stepped on the third rail of MMORPGs - futuristic simulation with guns. Tabula Rasa crashed and burned, despite (or perhaps because of) the big name behind the game.

I've played the game for about 15-20 hours so far, and I must say, I am impressed. The game is vast with essentially no fast travel. Combat is interesting and guns are well scaled with melee (in PvE). The crafting system is very deep and fairly complex, without limiting what the players can do. A few novel developments (crafting while off line, care and feeding of mounts) separate the game from other MMOs, but they keep all the concrete elements of MMOs.

Icarus Studios did a few things that other game studios should look to follow in the future.

First, they took a long time. It took six years to release this game - more than Mythic took to release WAR, more than Cryptic took to release Champions Online and Star Trek Online combined. They put in the hours to actually complete a finished game, without pressuring themselves to release early in order to get some income from the game.

Second, they didn't come into the game with a chip on their shoulder. They didn't flash any big names or special IP. They simply wanted to work hard to do something that hasn't been done before (or at least, done well before).

I expect a lot from this game. There's a number of free trials out there for the game, so if you're a fan of post-apocalyptic games, I suggest trying this one out. The learning curve is a little slow, and picking the wrong starting town can really put a damper on the game, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Freeing Feeling of Playing One Toon

For those unaware, I have made my priest my one and only raiding character. I had been spending too much time gearing up multiple toons, so I focused on my priest. The only time I log on the other toons is for professions, usually for my priest. I spent the mage and warriors badges to get some saronite for crafted pants and boots.

I feel free.

I'm actually doing some PvP now. I forced myself to go Holy for raiding, but I sucked it up and did a Disc Smite build for PvP. It works pretty well, I tend to get a fair share of KBs, and I can burst heal like no body's business. This is great for BGs, where I can heal if there are only a couple of healers, but if we have too many healers, I can start throwing 4k smites.

There's a whiner in our guild about people using PvP gear in raids. He seems to forget the fact that a 31 ilvl difference is significant, even if you waste itemization on resilience. I was padding my GS to get in the raid with 4 PvP items (Relentless cloak, Wrathful bracers, Relentless belt, SP Battlemasters Trinket), and according to the Recount Effective Heals/GS, I was still performing extremely well.

I also tend to think that PuGs with PvP gear usually have better spacial awareness. But, since everyone can get PvP gear with Wintersgrasp, I guess at the very least it gives them more stamina, which gives them more time to get out of the fire.

Also, as a distraction, I downloaded DDO and plan on giving it a shot. And if I think the game is good enough, maybe I'll throw some money at Turbine.

One Profession to Rule Them All: Tailoring

Ok, so 3.3.3 hit, and I'm excited. I recently made my priest my main, and this gave me a chance to spam make all the moonshroud I needed for crafted items, so my guild will let me raid (more on that later).

As I was standing in Shattrath making my moonshroud, I noticed something amazing. For those of you who weren't tailors, there was a seemingly pointless buff you used to get when you crafted specialty cloth. Here are the links.

Spellweave - Nexus Residue (20 Haste)
Ebonweave - Residue of Darkness (20 Crit)
Moonshroud - Moonshroud Residue (20 hp5/mp5)

Well, as I was making it in Shattrath, I noticed that I was still getting the buff, over and over again. It used to be a buff you got once every 4 days, in the middle of dragonblight. While it's not a huge buff, you can now do it anytime, anywhere, without a cooldown.

For example, you can do it when you're staring down the Lich King on heroic mode.

Tailoring used to be a competitive profession for casters, but now that you can stack all three of these residues for attempts on hardmode bosses it is a clear winner. And when you're done, you can just sell the cloth for the price of the mats and do it again.

So, if you're a caster class going for hardmodes, I suggest power-leveling tailoring to get the most out of your class. At least until Blizzard knocks it back in line with the other professions.