Token Friday Post

You know it's been a rough week of work when you're only now thinking about squeezing in a post on Friday afternoon, while everyone else is winding down. I didn't get much gaming in, either. I've been a bit sick, so instead of playing late, I did the mature thing and went to bed early.

Maturity is overrated sometimes.

What little gaming time I have had has been spent on League of Legends. (Have had has... ugh. My sentence structure is even lazy today.) I'm still avoiding WoW, anxiously awaiting 5.2. The major thing LoL has going for it right now is that I can get on and take part in a forcefully finite task in just about an hour. There is an expected (and, thus, plan-able) timeframe. I logon to WoW right now and it's ZOMG CAN DO ALL THE THINGS still.

The new patch will ultimately allow a casual like me to make fewer choices. Logon. Run a heroic. Work on dat rep. Heroics generally time in at about an hour as well, so it adheres to the plan-able idea. I could also likely do LFR, though it generally takes longer. I'm mostly tired of dailies. They're okay, but just not engaging enough for one of my precious gaming hours. Dailies are more like something I don't mind doing when I have a movie on at the same time. Or a sporting event.

Also, there's the fact that I can't really buy much to help me until I top off some reps. So running more active stuff just brings me closer to capping points that I can't even spend. I just hope I can gear myself adequately enough to experience all of the content. That's really my goal at this point in time. I'm not raiding regularly, and I don't think I'd be able to put in the time to be a good raider. Checking things out via LFR is just fine by me.

It also means that my only encouragement to grind for gear dies as soon as I've cleared the available LFR content. Why farm when your only aspirations are to unlock the next queue tier? I'm not topping any meters anytime soon (though I hold my own, I'm proud to say).

Anyway, I threw a little ACIII in for good measure, but mostly slept a lot this week. I guess you'll have that. Hopefully I'll have more to say about 5.2...

Not Gaming: AMOL

During the last few days, the entirety of my gaming time has been devoted to finishing a book. I finally finished late last night, having burned my candle at both ends quite a bit. Even though I don't have much to say about gaming (just waiting on 5.2 for WoW), I figured A Memory of Light was worth mentioning. Several of you are probably Wheel of Time fans as well.

I won't say too much. I know I'm probably the last one finished, but I still don't want to spoil anything for anyone. No alerts here. Just wanted to do a bit of cheering.

What an awesome series! I was introduced to the Wheel of Time series by a good friend only about 4 or so years ago. Many of you have probably been living with these stories for much, much longer. 14 books (15 if you count the Prequel), over 4 million words, almost 12,000 pages. Wikipedia tells me that the audio would run 419 hours and 30 minutes. That's a lot of story.

For folks that do not know, here's a quick intro to the series. The Wheel of Time is epic, epic fantasy. Yes, that's two epics. Long, involved, with loads of plot threads and characters, it is not for the faint of heart. Due to scope alone, it may not be for everyone, but what it does, it does well. It's not pretending to be a thriller, it is epic fantasy. There is magic. And battles. And different races. And very, very human emotions.

The first dozen books were written by Robert Jordan. Then, unfortunately (but with a slight bit of warning), he died. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. Obviously, Mr. Jordan wasn't able to finish the series, and fans anguished that they would never find resolution for the characters that they'd grown to love. Fortunately, the man had prepared notes. Lots and lots of notes. And Brandon Sanderson was approached (as both a fan and burgeoning fantasy author) to finish the series.

It proved a prophetic choice. I can't imagine another author doing a better job of both treasuring the story and honoring the legacy of the late Robert Jordan. These books will remain a treasured series of mine for many years, and it is not without quite a bit of sadness that I finished last night. It was not the ending, but it was an ending. And endings can be both sad and fulfilling. AMOL was both. To borrow the word of Thom Merrilin: exquisite.

To all the other WoT fans out there, /cheer. I made it. We made it. What a ride.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.

Welcome to the Fourth Age.

Aff'lock Leveling Guide and a Musing

I've never done a leveling guide, but stumbled across a good one here several moons ago. Just wanted to give a quick shout out to it. Great work Psynister. Hopefully my generic title will net some Google searches and send them your way. You know, if they don't get there without my shoddy help.

In other news, I've been busy being social. Read: not gaming. Sadly. Being social is hard work.

I have been playing some League of Legends. I'll say this for LoL vs WoW. It is far, far easier to casually play a game like LoL. I can pick up, play a game in about an hour, and feel like I've accomplished something. Even when we get rolled.

In WoW, I can't play for just an hour. Oh, sure, I could force myself with a timer or something (and I usually do that), but you log in, start doing dailies, queue up... and all of a sudden it's 1AM. This isn't always a bad thing, but it is when I'm already feeling a bit sleep deprived. LoL has a built in cut-off time.

I'm looking forward to patch 5.2, when we'll be able to earn rep through dungeon runs. I think part of my difficult with the current incarnation of WoW is that I feel that I must both grind rep and run dungeons/LFR. I really enjoyed the old tabard system, because you could just make a point of getting on for the sole purpose of running one dungeon. It becomes more like LoL. My personal problem is that I really need to cap some reps before I can actually spend my accumulated points on anything. The patch change helps me in so many ways.

So I'm sandbagging a bit in WoW, waiting for the patch to drop. Until then, LoL is great filler. Also, I should probably progress some more in ACIII. That's another one I can't just sit and play for only an hour though...

Random Asides

Yahtzee! I left notes for this post from last week. I'd forgotten about that. It's always nice to log in and have prompts for a post. This is going to adopt the format of Random Asides

One.

I learned how to discern which bosses I'd downed in the LFR. This was a source of consternation for me, as I could never remember what I'd actually accomplished. In the LFR screen, there's a little icon that appears next to the name of the wing. Hovering over it will list the bosses you've looted.

I know for many of you this is not a new trick. For derps like me, I'd been trying to find the old raid lock screen (despite knowing we don't have locks anymore). I figured there had to be someone that would indicate what you've done during the current reset period.

The only downside to the mouseover? It doesn't tell you how many total bosses there are. It just lists the names. I had to look up things to make sure I knew what each wing contained (3 in each of the first two). Perhaps it seems silly to you, but in LFR I generally don't know the name of what I'm fighting. It's more like, "this is that one fight where the floor randomly disappears." Such is how my brain works when I'm not "really" raiding.

Two.

Apart from that, I actually didn't get much done. I had been doing a good job of running dailies from two zones. The problem is that the Golden Lotus dailies keep expanding. So where before I'd be done in 10-15 minutes, now it pushes a half hour. Tricksy Hobbitses.

I should be taking a well-reasoned approach, like prioritizing one faction and making sure I at least finish that each day. Instead, it generally depends on where I logged off and what is on TV in the background. A poor plan, indeed.
  
Three.

I've been playing around with the Ask Mr. Robot premium edition. Of particular note for me is the upgrade-question-asker-thingy. (I'm being profoundly specific, I know.) It's the big spy glass that lets you ask a question such as "How best should I spend my valor points?" Then, it generates a list of items that would benefit you most. Totally worth it's weight in shards. I've been gleefully abusing this feature to tell me what to buy and where to shop. It would also help immensely with my problem in section two, but only if I can force myself into focus.

I think it was another blogger that mentioned to me the find-stuff-in-your-bags-feature had discovered an overlooked item. I've not installed the required addon to use this, but I can see where it would be helpful. When you're running LFR with the TV in the background, items have the tendency to sneak into the inner folds of your backpack. Or maybe you also left your fishing outfit enabled. Oops.

Four.

Because my brain isn't focusing in WoW, I played a decent amount of League of Legends over the weekend. Also, I downloaded some new songs for Rock Band. Yep, I still play that occasionally. Having not explored the DLC in many years (handle it!), I was pleasantly surprised by the offerings. I need to upgrade my drum set.

I'm ashamed to admit I have not gotten very far in ACIII yet. I love the game, it just requires a high level of focus. It's a hard game to pick up and not play for 27 hours straight. I find if I don't have sufficient time allotted for it, then I end up just running around climbing things and picking fights with guards. Totally worth it and fun, mind you, but not all that conducive to progressing.

Ah well, such is a gamer's life. Better too many games than too few, amirite?

From Zero to Gear-o

Terrible pun. I know. Deal with it. It reflects how I feel I've geared... very much in giant, terribly pun-y, leaps. Or something.

This past weekend, I finally got over the LFR hump. Immediately, I won a belt (and then nothing else for several runs). I also hit honored with Golden Lotus. As a tailor, that meant two more purples. I purchased a trinket and OH on the AH. I sold a purple robe to make the money back. I think I went from about 30k DPS to 60K DPS in a matter of hours. Pretty crazy.

I spoke a little about a rep path for Warlocks in my last post. If you're a tailor, getting honored with GL is huge. I also snagged a ring from the Operation: Shieldwall quartermaster for VP. I was nearing the cap after the last few weeks of dailies/heroics/LFR. I figured a ring was a good choice, since there's a second slot, so if I immediately get a drop, my purchase was not wasted.

I don't think I'm able to reliably juggle more than two hubs at a time, so GL and O:S are where I'm starting and would suggest other 'locks start there as well. O:S has the best rewards if you consider the eventual ilevel. GL is pretty much required to get started, but the tailoring really sells it if you're a tailor. Klaxxi is another option, but that's sitting in the 3-hole for me.

When 5.2 drops, it will shake this list up. I'm sure the new rep they come up with will take precedence. I'm hoping to have capped one of my first few before it does, but that may not be in the cards. I'm slow.

If you're looking for solid items to purchase on the AH. There's an OH purple that I snagged for 4k. There's also a trinket (Dragonling something) that can be filled with cogs to be pretty solid. With cogs, I don't think it was a whole lot more than 3k. If you're curious, I'm the Fulguralis on Alexstrasza. Check me out on Mr. Robot. I've only started reforging/properly enchanting/gemming the purple items. Until very recently, I was replacing things too quickly to be mess with it.

On an unrelated side note: I actually really enjoy trash now. With SS+SB, I feel like I actually contribute. Especially when I can time my DS so I'm constantly full of shards, and spreading DoTs like a madman. When I got to a stand and sling boss, it was almost boring. At least until I realized I really need to manage my shards better. For long fights, it's hard to keep Haunt up, and I think I want to be sure not to clip it, so-as to maximize the use of each shard. Mana has not been a huge issue as long as I remember to tap once every minute or so. Sometimes I forget and end up low.

I need to throw stats and spec into the primer, but I've not had the chance to snag any screenies yet. Maybe this week. I'm sort of counting on a talent reset with 5.2, so I can take the pet sacrifice talent instead of the super-pet talent that I have now. Nibs tells us that sacrificing the pup is actually pretty warlockerly of us, plus there's a very low danger of g- gui- guilt? Is that how it's pronounced? I guess if you're specced Destro you should be more concerned.

Primer Updated and Rep Grinding Plan

Just a quick FYI post today, I slapped the glyph information into my primer, complete with links. Feel free to let me know if I booger-ed anything. I've got spec and stats left. Both should be relatively short, but I want some links/screenshots to better explain them. For stats, I'm just basically using Ask Mr. Robot anyway, and doing the "non hit cap" version. It's tough getting used to misses, but I figured I may as well start. It's not as bad as I thought. Speccing is pretty simple these days, as well.

I'm also going to ramble a bit about the dailies I've been doing. The short version from my quick and dirty holiday research is to start with Operation: Shieldwall (for Alliance). It's going to have the best gear upgrades. Also, I want to get some stuff from Shado-pan soon, and that requires completion of the Golden Lotus reputation. So I do the Shieldwall and Lotus dailies, basically. Throw in a scenario/heroic if I can. I'm one point away from LFR eligibility, so that's exciting.

I topped off Tillers pretty quick, just because it's simple to do. I like to log off there, as it's a quick flight down to Lion's Landing or up to the Golden Lotus hub. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I throw in the Klaxxi dailies. I was really close to capping my Valor last week. Go me.

Now that I've finally started Assassin's Creed III, though, I see a distinct lack of dailies in my future. I'll probably still try to knock out an hour's worth, but that probably won't get me capped. Oh well...

Happy 2013!

2013 marks the start of the 6th year for this blog. This is also post 884. That's not a special number or anything, but boy is it a lot. 2012 was a bit of a rough year for yours truly, and my writing definitely suffered as a result. Still, I'm incredibly glad I took the plunge and opened my doors 6 years ago. I may not be as useful these days, but I'm thankful for all of you readers that have stuck with me, commented, and otherwise shared this space. I can't begin to express how much it means, especially when you're having a crappy year. One of the greatest things about the Internet (and our gaming community in particular) is the assurance that even when you feel alone... you're not.

I've met a lot of amazing people on this journey and was just taking a moment for reflection this morning. I will be back in 2013, writing about random warlockery. Though I've been quiet over the holiday break, it is not for a lack of gaming. I'm one ilevel point away from being LFR geared and dipping my toes in a bit of raiding. It was somewhat of an accomplishment for me to get back on the horse, so to speak. I've been proud in the past to be the first in the guild to cap, to be the best geared, etc etc. This time I'm coming from a whole different angle, and in some ways its eye-opening. Can you still be proud when you're the absolute last person to the party? I suppose my pride surprises me.

If you're curious and looking for a warlockerly tidbit, I'm in the midst of the Golden Lotus daily throes. I'm also doing the Operation: Shieldwall stuff, as that seems to be the best way to get geared quickly. My first exalted rep in MoP was definitely the Tillers. Go figure. But more on that as things settle back into a somewhat normal schedule. Until then, happy holidays to you and yours, thanks for reading, and pleasant corrupting in 2013!

I shard all of you.