The Return

So the time off and fun of the Christmas break is over. Back to work and all the fun that that brings for the entire family. Also that means no more tomfooliry with offspecs and not as much time for alts as I had over the break.

Its the return to raiding. We really did have a good week of raiding on our return. 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC without much difficulty. Vash still slaps us around so no change there. We also went into ZA for a bit for a bit of fun and 1 shot the first four bosses. Hex got a few heals off and we wiped at 4%. Oh well was just for fun anyway. Friday we will return after a reset and attempt to clear the place entirely.

Here is a screen of our domination of the first boss.



I would really like to start doing some videos but until I get a better computer I dont think its going to happen.

The Grass is always greener

So as many things in life WoW suffers from massive TGAG syndrom (The grass is always greener). In any game or really anything in life in which you are attempting to keep things fair and balanced it gets more complicated the a) more people are involved b)more items to be balanced c)having different characters/classes/kits to be balanced around.

WoW has a huge playerbase. Has a healthy number of classes and a massive number of spells and items to be taken into consideration. I have a lvl 70 of about 5 classes but a druid is not one of those. Lately all I have been hearing from friends and even myself is how rediculous the druid class is in pvp. What I really think it comes down to is cyclone. It is by far the best CC in pvp it can't be broken by dmg - has a short cast time - and doesn't grant any benfit to the person being CC (no health back like sheep). The damn thing can't even be devine shielded out of. Really it should break upon dmg taken or it should grant health/mana back in pvp (you can keep it not doing so in pve). Anyone have any thoughts on this. Really I feel the druid is a solid class just cyclone is a rather silly ability.

Anyway after the long break we went back into SSC last night and did 3/6 of the bosses we couldn't kill fathomlord because lack of healing power. We had some of our normal healers out of town still so was bad times. I did tank lurker for the first time which was massively easy.

I've been prot since before the expansion so its been awhile now. I've spent a lot of time farming SM for shards before the expansion and even recently to power lvl a friend. We have another couple of characters set up to start the power lvling grind. 15-28 Stockades 28-42 SM 42-45 ZF and 45-58 you do Strat. This time around i'm thinking of doing some video of some of the runs. I've seen other people have some on there sights or on youtube but honestly I think I have it down better and faster.

I've started a Disc/Holy priest for pvp and am lvl 62 with it. If anyone has any advice for a disc priest in pvp that would be great.

Books:

I'm reading the Icewing Dale trilogy again because my wife got the set for christmas and is still on the excile book from the first three. I just finished reading a book called Starstrikers by Ken Mcconnell it was a scifi work and was pretty decent. I plan to write a full review and have it posted up by next week. If you want to check it out and read it for free you can at lulu.com and do a search for the author or the book and you can get a pdf for free.

Next Blog:

I'd like to cover a bit of basic prot tanking and list some good resources. I'd also like to talk about gaming in general.

First Blog Post

Over the course of the last two weeks I've had a decent amount of free time on my hands since my work closes down for the holidays. It was fortunate because it allowed me to get back into gaming a bit more and have some fun.

There were three main games that I was able to enjoy over the break.

Assassins Creed (xbox 360)
Bioshock (xbox 360)
World of Warcraft (PC)

At the start of the break I was able to complete Assassins Creed which was an early christmas present from my wife. The story was interesting enough and I enjoyed the roof top tomfooliry enough to warrant a quick playthrough of the game. The ending is a sort of cliff hanger and its more than obvious that they have another game or more in store for the future. The combat was fun but did get old toward the end of the game but overall I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a bit of sword swinging with a bad ass attitude. I would provide the disclaimer that the game does get a bit repetative toward the end and that replayability is probably not going to be something most people do.

As always I've spent an almost unhealthy amount of time playing Blizzards overly addictive World of Warcraft. My main is currently a level 70 Human Paladin of the Protection variety. I also have illusions of grandeur and pvp as ret with my stormherald and welfare epics. My guild is currently stuck on Vash in SSC maybe we'll get past that this week if we can get 25 people to actually pay attention for 12 mins.

My wife's second gift was Bioshock for the Xbox 360. I played through on normal and was floored by how immersed into the game i became. This game was excellent - was a little creepy at first but as you become more powerful you become more bold and the creepiness starts to , well , creep away. I loved this game and its one of the few console games in recent memory that might actually get a second playthrough to see one of the other various endings. That also has to be one of my only complaints. The game spent so much time setting up a world and drawing you into it and the ending was so short and abrupt.

Anyway good times. Next time I'd like to talk a bit more about WoW and specifically protection paladins.