The Warrior, The Healer and The ... Squeal?

Levelling in company is always much easier for me. Not just because you can take on creatures and quests that would otherwise be impossible for you, but because having someone to chat to and to share the experience makes it much less likely for my brain to start dribbling out of my ears.

Today I was fortunate enough to have a levelling partner for the entire day (or at least the portion of it that I was online). This particular levelling partner even uses close to the same levelling system that I use (see my previous post for details). The only difference being that she has never levelled a warrior and almost every character she has levelled (a lot of them) is a healer. This lead to a confliction of instincts and reactions as to how we killed everything in sight.

How could this possibly cause a problem?

Well for a Warrior your basic approach is to kill one mob at a time moving fast from one to the next to make the greatest advantage of your rage and abilities, while minimising the impact on your heath bar since that little green bar is all you have. Where as to a class that can heal your health bar is just another resource that can easily be replenished.

This meant that while I was shooting off at random mobs with the intent of beating them into the ground as fast as possible and moving on tho the next one, my levelling partner was riding around gathering a bunch of mobs to beat up. It was in fact rather like playing with a hyperactive sheep dog watching the way she rounded them up before joyously jumping into the thick of them. Being a chivalrously sort of fellow (and never liking to be left out of a good scrap) I would charge or intercept my way over to help her out dragging whatever I was beating on along with me. Cue chaotic fight.

That's not so bad?

Truth be told that was rather fun and a nice change of pace to my normal style of killing spree. What did cause arguments however was the healing/cooldown issue. Never having levelled a warrior she could not get her head around why I would start, popping cooldowns/health potions/explosives/panicking whenever I got a low health warning. Her argument was that a heal was coming and there was no reason to panic.

What she had failed to realise is that ingrained into every Warrior's bone marrow is the knowledge that the low health warning is the knell of doom. This is something you only hear when nasty people are doing bad bad things to your person. At this point you know (from a wealth of experience of falling face down) that it's too late to start running away, just using your remaining health just wont carry you far enough to escape the nasty people.

The sound of the low health warning acts as a sort of a subconscious trigger flipping your warrior switch from "God of Destruction" to "Panic Survival Mode". Once Panic Survival Mode (tm) has been activated you go into a frenzy to achieve one of four things based on available cooldowns and health of your enemy.

Option one, Frenzy. This is a basic kill it before it kills you tactic usually invoked only when the foe is on reasonably low health (usually the preferred option). Anything you can do to do more damage is pulled out of your bag of tricks and its a race to the finish of the health bar.

Option two, Green Is Good. Health Potions, Health Stones, Enraged Regeneration, Last Stand, Trinkets, a randomly passing healer in shouting distance. Get more health and get it now.


Option three, Not The Face. The use of debuff's and/or defensive cooldowns to reduce the incoming damage to the point where you can finish off the opponent before he finishes you. This is basically the inverse of option one.

Option four, Mummy. Do something, anything at all to stop the bad bad men from touching you. Fear, Target Dummy, Stuns, Disarm, snare and run. Do whatever you can to stop them and run like all the demons of hell where after you. This is usually invoked only when all other options have been exhausted and your only recourse is to run like a little girl.

This isn't so bad right? So I get a low health warning and start spilling out some crazy ability animations, random weapons, potions, gadgets, bombs and the kitchen sink. Warriors do that all the time and it never causes arguments with their friends.

Well this would be ok except for one tiny little detail. Panic Survival Mode has the unfortunate side effect of making me scream like a little girl on vent. I can't help it. The process kinda goes like this.

[Low Health Warning]
[Panic Survival Mode activated]
[Push-to-Talk Button Pressed]
[Commence Effeminate Squeal]

It tends to make your companions feel very guilty that they managed to make a grown man emit that kind of noise. Although in my defence it's not always a girlish squeal it is on occasion replace with a strangled "Help", "Shit", "Whoops", "Fuck", or, in extreme cases "Mummy".

Thats about all from me for now, I've been sitting here typing and retyping this in the hope that it would come out in some sort of coherent fashion, when it occurred to me that this isn't anything like what I set out to write. I had intended to tell you amusing anecdotes of today's levelling experience with the lovely Bompi on her Paladin alt but as usual my mind got sidetracked and this completely random post was born. Well I hope it entertained you in some fashion cuz I'm damned well not rewriting it ... again.

Welcome to the return of The Incompetent Warrior.

Leveling and Me

Anyone who knows anything about warriors knows that the easiest way to level a warrior is as fury, followed closely by protection. Fury giving you plenty of self healing along with great damage and protection making you hard as nails able to take on the world and not give a damn. This, of course, meant that I simply had to level as arms.

Why you ask?

Cuz it's fricken cool, that's why. You get a great big two handed weapon and smash some skulls. Please tell me how it can possibly get any cooler than that? In addition at level 60 you get to have baldestorm, fricken Bladestorm, I mean it's BLADESTORM, how can you possibly have a fulfilling life without it? It's a Whirling Dwarven Gyroscope Of Doom baby! Whenever I use Bladestorm I have to make sure that I don't have my push-to-talk button pressed so that the people in vent don't hear me giggle like a little school girl.

Anyway the combination of being an arms warrior and my new characters name (Dorfageddon) has had a bit of an effect on me. To prevent my brain from melting down quite so fast while levelling I play music, and most of my music is a combination of Metal, Rock and Drum 'n' Base, things with a high BPM. Combine this with arms warrior skull smashing and I tend to get excited (yes I truly am a simple person, and happy being so). Being excited causes me to start screaming things at the pc monitor, things like;

"IT'S THE DORFAGEDDON BABY!!!"

"IT'S THE KNEEEEE HIIIIIGH APOCALYPSE!!"

"IIII'M A COMMIN FOR YAH!!!"

[Cue maniacal laughter]

.... Oi ... why are you giving me those funny looks? This kind of thing is normal ... isn't it?

Anywho time to tell you about my levelling "System". It hasn't changed a single bit from the first day I logged on all those years ago. First, you grab every quest you can lay your hands on, then you start killing things until one of the quest counters starts ticking. You continue this process until one of a few things happens.

1) You run out of quests to complete.

2) You run into mobs that are just too damn big and nasty for you to kill. This will often mean that you are now dead since checking whether a mob is an elite or 6 levels higher than you before you attack it is not part of my levelling process.

3) No matter how many things you kill none of the quests are getting done. Blizzard did design quests that involve other things than killing. Strange as that may seem.

4) You have been distracted by mines, herbs or skinable creatures for the last hour and have gotten yourself completely and utterly lost.

If number 1 has happened go hand in the quests, get some more and start the process over.

If number 2 or 3 has happened then it's time to corpse run back to your body and actually read the quests that aren't done. Yes, yes, I know, reading's for mages and those other silly mana users, but sometimes it's just plain necessary.

If number 4 has happened open your map and get yourself unlost pronto, or, in extreme cases of suddenly finding yourself surrounded on all sides by level ?? creatures (it happens more than I'd like to admit) hearthstone the hell out of there and start the process over. This time trying to (often unsuccessfully) pay less attention to whatever got you lost in the first place.

Believe it or not this process actually works. Quests get done and XP gets earned, often more than was intended since you've been randomly slaughtering your way across the zone. The only drawback to this style of levelling is the awful attrition it has on your health bar so always start out with a full stack of bandages and the highest level food you can lay your hands on. For obvious reasons it's guarenteed that out of all your professions your first aid will always be the highest.

Ok, now that you have a full grasp of my levelling strategy it's time to talk about my levelling professions.

If you have played this game for any length of time you'll have come to the realisation that in order to make your character fully self sufficient it's best to have two gathering professions then replace them with crafting professions at max level. Since this is the sensible thing to do I of course ignored it in favour of taking one of the greatest gold sinks ever invented. I am of course talking about engineering.

Why would I do such a thing?

I could tell you that it was for the nostalgia value since Stuntyone my original Dwarf Warrior levelled with that and kept it right up until I lost him. Or I could tell you that it was for the free guns and ammo or that it was for the funky trinkets or even the life saving ability to drop a Target Dummy and run when you've made a mistake about the number of mobs you just pulled. These would all be valid and proper reasons ... but they wouldn't be the real truth.

You want to know the real reason I took engineering?

The Bombs baby! Throwing bombs, firing rockets, setting loose Exploding Sheep, having the ability to blow things up and set fire to the things around you and often yourself in the process. Thats what I love about engineering. I even go so far as to take Goblin engineering when I get the option since it has the most explosive and (self)destructive items available to engineers. The suicidal Goblin Sapper Charge which blows everything up, the Goblin Dragon Gun which sets you on fire as often as it does your foes, the Goblin Rocket Boots which will often simply self destruct rather that speed you off into the distance. These to me are the essence of engineering, to put it simply I love things that go Boom.

To prove that I'm not completely insane I did take mining to go with engineering, since otherwise I would have spent all my time farming to buy the mats I needed to level it.

Well that's all for now, I'll be back later with whatever random ramblings manage to make their way from my mind to the keyboard.

Welcome to the return of The Incompetent Warrior.

Starting Over.

I've been playing World Of Warcraft since the start of The Burning Crusade, but recently I got my account hacked and the hacker put an authenticator on it. It became impossible for me to get it removed since I wasn't able to prove my identity.
Why?

This is because I had lost my original CD key and that when I created the account some 3 years ago I lied about my name so I couldn't use my ID to prove I was the one who created the account.

Why did I lie about my name you ask?

Call me paranoid if you will but I hate to give out personal information over the internet. Also when I created my account I didn't think my name would be that important for a game I thought I would be playing for a month or two at most.

So goodbye Stuntyone, my Dwarf warrior who was with me from the start and goodbye Yesnerfus, my holy light spamming Human Paladin. Oh, and goodbye my many mid level alts who were destined to never see the light of day as a level 80.

And hello Dorfageddon my new Dwarf Warrior Engineer. This guy is basically a carbon copy of Stuntyone as he was when he was leveling, the only difference being that his hair is black instead of red, oh, and that this time around I know what the hell I'm doing.

Why create another warrior?
The only reason I came back was because I missed my warrior so damned much, and I made him a Dwarf again because in my opinion there are two race/class/gender combinations that beat the hell out of all the rest form a coolness perspective. These are a Male Dwarf Warrior and a Female Orc Warrior. Yeah I know I like warriors a little too much, and don't ask me why these are cooler than the rest, they just are, end of story. Anywho since all my friends are alliance side this meant that I had to have a Male Dwarf Warrior ... it's fricken compulsory.
So from now on I shall regale you with story's of my adventures and my nonsensical opinions on the world of warcraft, life, the universe and everything. (+10 geek points if you can give me a certain number)

Welcome to the return of The Incompetent Warrior.