Monday, January 23, 2012

...and he shall be my Squishy

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.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

now what?

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.