The Mocking Smirk of the Loot Gods

"What's your luckydo?" - Every Grummle ever

There are some days when I just have to shake my head and smile at the weird way that things work out.

The thing about random loot drops is, obviously, that they are random and impossible to predict. You might go for weeks without getting drop, or get three great pieces in a row. Call it RNG Hell, the Loot Gods, Bad Luck or whatever, but blame random chance for that one item of gear that you've been unable to upgrade.

That's where I was last night. My gear was looking pretty good; 522 or better on every single item except for Boots (502 Raid Finder, so at least current tier) and my Shoulders.

The shoulders were embarrassing: [White Tiger Mantle], my LFR shoulders from last Tier that stubbornly refused to upgrade themselves. Weekly LFR runs of Iron Qon and Primordius and almost daily Heroic Scenario runs in the hopes that I would beat the miniscule odds and get a 516 drop with stats that weren't entirely useless.

Nothing. The Loot Gods were displeased, apparently.

I had given up hope completely of ever getting a drop. I was convinced that the drops didn't exist (much like the Shield from Tortos and the Twins, but that's another ranty, Gear QQ post). So I resigned myself to grinding towards Exalted with the Shado-Pan Assault and just buying a set.

And last night, right after Ji-Kun fell over dead into her own green slime, this popped up:

Finally! I was so excited. I wanted to teleport out immediately and buy them, but my raid leader told me to have some damned patience and wait until the end of the raid.

The Loot Gods are bastards, though. After more than two months of waiting and hoping and begging, once I was Exalted and could just buy the damned things and get the suffering over with, what did Primordius drop? Yup: [Spaulders of Primordial Growth].

My raid team all laughed and told me that at least I hadn't spent the money on the reputation gear and would I please finally shut the hell up about shoulders, already?

Now, you're probably saying, "So what?" This sort of thing happens to us all at one point or another. Random is random, after all.

But the Loot Gods have a real flair for the ironic. Guess what Iron Qon dropped? Yup! [Shoulders of the Crackling Conquerer].

I didn't even bother to roll on them. Yes, they're my best in slot and I would absolutely love to have them...

But three sets of shoulders in one night is just too much for any Paladin.

A Good Day

Over the past month or more I admit that I have been neglecting poor, ol' Battle Medic, and not without more than a little guilt. I have not, however, been neglecting the game entirely. I have been sneaking and conspiring, negotiating and stealing rare moments to indulge in Azeroth playtime whenever there was an opportunity.

And the majority of that time has been spent blowing stuff up. Mage-style. Warlocks beware.

My little gnomish pyromaniac has slowly and painstakingly progressed into the mid-60s and is slogging through the mire that is the Outlands.

Anyway, today was a good day. I have been intermittently fishing the high, lonely lakes of Terrokar Forest for the Mysterious Mr. Pinchy for a long time now. Every single skill point in Fishing that my Shaman has achieved has come in the futile hunt for this nearly-mythological crustacean. But no luck. Never even a sniff.

Until today.

Today was a good day.

Scribblings of the Clueless Noob

"There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life." - Henry David Thoreau

Earlier this month I wrote a rather long essay on the feelings of burn-out that I've been dealing with lately in which I offered ten different things to do to combat them. For those of you with the fortitude to actually read through all 3300 words, I congratulate you; that post was a monster.

Like many people, I don't always follow my own advice. As I was writing that post and thinking about the different things I could do to clear my head and find a happy place with WoW again, I realized that at the time I wasn't really doing any of them. Oh sure, I was playing a different game and taking a bit of a break—which was what the post was all about, after all—but the other things I talked about were merely theoretical. So I figured that I should put a few of those ideas into practice and see what happened.


SCRIBBLING ON THE CAVE WALL

I'm not sure anyone has noticed but I have been on a bit of a posting renaissance lately. This post marks the fourth post in January, two more than I managed in the whole of October, and I still have two more posts that I would like to get done this month. It seems as if my brain has a WoW infection and has been using my fingers to vomit all over my blog. Gross.

I started out this year with the idea of getting Battle Medic back to where I'd like it to be by posting smaller posts more frequently. Ideally I'd like to get back to doing about ten to twelve posts per month, so the frequency is better but still not where I would like it. The length, on the other hand, I've failed utterly and completely. So far in 2012 (not including this post), I have written over 5700 words and seem completely incapable of keeping a post under 1000. I guess we'll see how this one turns out, although with the amount of things that seems to get added in as I go I'm not hopeful—I'm already at 400!

Either way, writing about WoW is a wonderfully self-sustaining process.  I've got more to write about WoW because I've been writing about WoW, which in turn makes me more interested in WoW and makes it easier to write about WoW. It's a positive feedback loop that has done wonders in making me feel better.


LOOK AT ME! I'M THE CLUELESS NOOB AT THE BOTTOM OF THE DPS CHART

Virtually every second of my WoW experience at maximum level has been spent healing. My first max-level character was a healing priest, the main that I ended Wrath with was my Holy Paladin and now, as Cataclysm draws to a close I've added a Resto Shaman to the mix as well. I love healing, and I have no plans to stop doing it any time soon, but in retrospect, my entire WoW career has been extraordinarily one-dimensional.

Oh sure, I've fooled around with other roles. I even managed to get my warrior tank into a couple of raids back in Wrath—an experiment that ended rather badly, I might add. Retribution, likewise, was used for levelling and then discarded upon reaching level 85. My Paladin has been unable to kill anything efficiently by himself ever since. I am the guy that always hears, "Oh, Fannon's on so we've got a healer" when he logs into Mumble. Simply put, healing has been the absolute focus of my attention for a long time now. And even as experienced as I am I still find it challenging and realized there is a lot for me to learn and improve upon.

However, doing the same thing for two years can get a bit monotonous. Imagine eating the same sandwich for lunch everyday for two years; I don't think you'd end up looking forward to the noon hour if that same damned ham on pumpernickel with yellow mustard was the only option. I think at least some of the reason that I was feeling burnt-out in the first place was because every time I was in a group setting I was doing the same thing that I always did.

And so I decided to do something completely different—for me, at least. I dusted off my badly geared, poorly understood Enhancement off-spec on my Shaman and took it for a spin in some dungeons and the raid finder.

Oh my, what a different world. As a healer, I have the luxury to say away from the boss where it's relatively quiet and I can play undisturbed. Not possible in melee range. It's wonderfully chaotic; at times the sheer amount of spell effects that are going off completely obscure both the mob I'm hitting and my character.  It feels odd trusting the health of the party to someone else, and I get damned nervous when my health dips. But then I realize that I'm only DPS, so I'm expendable, which makes me giggle to myself and want to hit the boss even harder.

I suck at it though. Yes, I am that noob at the bottom of the DPS meters in that heroic you're doing. Yes, I am in your dungeon group wearing that gear, horrible as it is. You'd better believe that I'm the one standing in fire or accidentally pulling mobs or doing any one of a hundred things that would make me pull my hair out if I were healing me. Yup, that's me.

And yes, I'm laughing the whole time I'm doing it. Sorry.

But I'm really enjoying whacking things with my giant beer steins. I'm enjoying the new challenge and the new responsibilities (or lack thereof) that come with dealing damage. It's given me something completely different to look forward to when I log into the game.

I'm still raiding as a healer, and it will always be my first, passionate love. But, if I can encourage infidelity to the game itself, why not cheat on my preferred role, too?

After all, unlike real life, in the gaming world, monogamy isn't good for the soul.

This post weighs in at 1029 words (not including the opening quote or this postscript). Close enough to call this one a win for brevity.

Inconvenience, Entitlement and The Abominable Greench

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch..."

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,

Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,

Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

As in the real world, Azeroth is crazy busy with holidays this time of year. The Feast of Winter Veil is upon us and brings with it many new and interesting things to do. New dailies, lore and as with most of the holidays we have a big bad boss to fight for a chance at some holiday themed loot.

This Winter Veil is threatened by The Abominable Greench, who has stolen presents and other holiday goodies, hoarding them in his cave in the Alterac Mountains. There, adventurers must gather to defeat this implacable monster with a taste for Grandma's fruitcake. At stake, the very fate of Winter Veil itself.

Okay, that might be exaggerating things somewhat. The world will likely not end if Little Johnny doesn't get his toy train. But still, ooooo, The Big Bad Greench. Scary.


INCONVENIENCE AND ENTITLEMENT

"Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV

That ain't workin' that's the way you do it

Money for nothin' and your chicks for free" - Money for Nothing, Dire Straits


What is different with this years holiday boss is that the Greench is not available through the Dungeon Finder as the other holidays bosses have been. During Brewfest all you needed to do in order to defeat the wicked Coren Direbrew is to press the I button and you would be instantly transported to his location with a party of fellows to help you dispatch the fiend and collect your goodies. With The Greench, however, a long flight (for Alliance folk, anyway) to the Alterac Mountains is in order, and then the long wait in hopes you can find other people there to help you kill him.

Compared to past holiday events, this is inconvenient. Blizzard obviously has the technology to automate the Greench destruction process, but chose not to. Probably due to the fact that the Greench does not or could not be made to exist in an existing dungeon and the developers likely didn't want to spend the manpower and resources to create an instanced version of Alterac specifically for the Greench. There are more important things for the developers to work on after all, like fixing the silly Mature Language Filter bug that doesn't allow me to express myself with my accustomed colour and wit in Guild Chat.

These thoughts occurred to me as I was hovering over the Greench's cave, admiring his 3.4 Million health and the beautifully wrapped presents dangling from his horns. I was annoyed. Annoyed that I had to spend ten or fifteen minutes just getting there, and then finding no one to group with to get the boss kill and save Winter Veil. I was annoyed at the simple inconvenience of not having this boss kill handed to me as previous holiday bosses had been.

Needless to say, that is a terrible attitude to have. It's a sense of entitlement; that everything should be easy and convenient and require virtually no real effort. Money for nothing indeed - Mark Knopfler, you are truly the great prophet of our time.

As I was sitting and waiting for enough people to show up so that a group could be formed I started thinking about how easy everything has been made in WoW. The Dungeon Finder, the Raid Finder, the ease of levelling and so on. I don't want to complain about these things, because honestly I think they are very important changes and overall very beneficial to the game. The Dungeon Finder revolutionized the accessibility of dungeons and heroics, and the new Raid Finder is doing the same thing with Raiding. These are all great things. Easy is not necessarily bad.

However, what all these systems have done is create an expectation that things will always be that simple. And in those few moments as I was waiting, I started thinking about what my expectations were and frankly, just how spoiled I have become because of all of the great, time-saving convenience gifts that Blizzard has given us over the past couple of years. And the fact that this time I had to do things the old fashioned way suddenly didn't seem like such a big deal.

Still, it bothered me. Am I, and by extension the WoW playerbase as a whole, so spoiled that we can't handle a little inconvenience? Are we so used to getting everything we want, right when we want it that we can't deal with even the littlest setback? Are we forever in the days when a single wipe in LFD or LFR means that the group breaks up and everyone goes back to their little personal corner of Stormwind or Orgrimmar complaining at just how bad and impatient everyone else is. Is that really where we are?


THE UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

All your presents are belong to us. Rawr.
Note the self-satisfied smirk.

So there I am: Up in the air on my flying mount thinking all these profound thoughts on the nature of entitlement and humanity, all the while the Greench is still down there needing to be killed. That's when something magical happened that would never have been possible if the encounter was set up through the Dungeon Finder.

Waiting with me were two other Alliance players and on the other side of the snow covered mountain plateau were hovering two Hordies. On a PVP server such as mine, situations like this can get messy, and involve a lot of running back from the graveyard as the factions fight amongst themselves and no one manages to get anything done. It was a standoff, with no one daring to pull the boss in fear that the other faction would attack from behind.

Suddenly, someone unexpectedly pulled the Greench and without a single word or indication, everyone there attacked the boss and left each other alone. We fought the Greench together; Horde and Alliance, fighting alongside one another getting something done in the spirit of the season.

Soon the Greench died to our collective, cross-faction efforts, and there was a great deal of /bowing, /waving and an overall general feeling of seasonal cheer and camaraderie, not unlike the temporary seasonal armistices between Allied and German soldiers during the bitter trench warfare of World War I. And like those weary soldiers in the battered fields of France a century ago, no one wanted a war - the Alliance and the Horde players that were there just simply wanted to be able to celebrate the season (in this case the seasonal achievement) in peace. Which is what this season is all about, isn't it?


THE ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE OF INCONVENIENCE

Well, not always, of course. Stories like that are the exception. More likely, if a soldier was to stroll out into No Man's Land - Christmas or no - he'd be shot before the second verse of Silent Night. But no one remembers the second verse anyway, so it's probably for the best.

When I went to kill the Greench on my Shaman, Thallie, it was a bit of a different story. As I got there, I noticed that there were a large number of skeletons in front of him, and I swear that the bugger had a self-satisfied smirk on his face. I figured that perhaps some unwise souls had tried to solo him, with fairly predictable results.

Go Go Mountain Top Vengeance Squad!

Well, not quite.

As it turns out, a Horde hunter was hiding in the cave, sniping people as they attempted to fight the boss. He managed to kill me a few times as before I got fed up and had enough. Obviously, the spirit of the season did something nasty to this guy's eggnog and he wasn't exactly in a giving or charitable mood.

So I did what any self-respecting, non-PVPing healer would do: I called in the reinforcements.

Within three minutes, I had 3 hardcore PVP specced guildies zoned in and hunting for this guy. If there is one thing my guild is extraordinarily good at, it's raining fiery vengeance on any player foolish enough to ambush one of our guild in the world. Within a few moments we had showed him the other, much more violent side of seasonal cheer.

It just goes to show that magical season of fellowship or no, some people are just inherently douchebags.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Winter's Veil from Dwarven Battle Medic! And honour any unofficial armistices lest we not forget the guild banner that gets planted in your buttocks. Happy Holidays!

Now Appearing on The Double O Podcast...

Last Sunday afternoon I had the pleasure to appear on The Double O Podcast. The lovely and talented hosts, Ophelie and Oestrus interviewed me, along with Ceraphus, Hydrawr and StineErino on the subject of balancing the two highly incompatible roles of being a Parent and a Gamer.

I gotta admit, I was really nervous before we started recording. Having never done a Podcast, or been interviewed for anything other than a job before, I wasn't sure how I was going to respond. I was really worried that I would stammer and ramble and not make a whole lot of sense. But the two gorgeous Ladies of the Spherical Letter made me feel right at home as soon as we started and the recording went very smoothly. I had a lot of fun doing it.

Oestrus asked me a very interesting and thought provoking question during our chat, and even though I was expecting the question I don't think the answer that I gave was as deep or as thorough as I would have liked. She asked me how my identity as a blogger changed as I became known as the Dwarfling's father rather than as a player. Listen to the podcast for the answer I gave, but I think that is a topic that I want to explore in a little more depth with a proper Battle Medic post at some point.

As well, in the Podcast I mention a post that I wrote just before the Dwarfling was born, Coping with Limited Play Time and Lofty Goals that you can read here.

Check out the latest episode at The Double O Podcast website, or download it on iTunes like I did. I'll be listening to it on my drive home tonight. I've got my fingers crossed that I don't sound like a dork.

Daddy, you aren't seriously killing Internet Dragons instead of
playing with me, are you?

Did you at least get some loot that I can chew on?
 
  

Worlds Collide, Then Have Brunch

For the first time my WoW life has intersected with my real life.

The lovely Bossy Pally.
Not Shown: Her Giant Spoon

One of my favourite Paladin bloggers, Ophelie from Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon is moving to Alberta to start her new career after graduating University in Newfoundland. On her way to go apartment hunting in her new town, she was planning a quick stopover in Edmonton, and I managed to convince her to meet up with me and spend a couple of days hanging out together.

Bossy Pally has always been one of my absolute favourite Paladin blogs, and Ophelie's mix of sharp, intelligent class commentarty and intimate, personality-filled writing were very influential in defining the style and topic choices that I would adopt for Battle Medic. Of course, I didn't tell her that in person because I didn't want to come off as a drooling fanboy, but it's true nonetheless.

We had a great time while she was here. Ophelie is an remarkably engaging and vibrant person who is incredibly easy to talk to. Surprisingly so, considering she is constantly describing herself as "Super Shy" and an "Insecure Nervewreck" on her blog. We had no difficulty maintaining great, interesting conversations the whole time she was here. I don't think I have ever met a person who maintains better eye contact while talking than she does, and she gets this intense, measuring squint to her eyes when she's listening to what you have to say. Suffice it to say that I think we hit it off pretty well - my dogs and the Dwarfling were certainly taken with her.

She arrived in Edmonton on Thursday morning and I picked her up at the airport. I had seen the photos of her that she had posted on her blog, but had never seen her in person before, nor did she have any idea what I looked like. So to make sure that she would know who was there to pick her up I made a Giant Spoon Chauffeur Service sign, which actually proved to be an effective ice-breaker.

THE BOSSY PALLY AND THE SILVER CLOUDS

After a nice brunch with my wife, the Dwarfling and a some friends of mine visiting from Saskatoon for the U2 concert, Ophelie and I headed to the Alberta Art Gallery to check out an exhibition on Andy Warhol. It was the only Canadian stop of this particular exhibit, so I'm glad we managed to catch it as it was filled with some amazing work. In particular, there was an installation called Silver Clouds; neutrally bouyant balloons that floated around a room that was very cool.

Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds

A rather odd moment happened as we were touring the gallery. It struck me as quite trippy that I was standing there with someone who I knew, but didn't know; a surreal blend of new and familiar. It was a odd moment of realization that my online world and real world were colliding in a way that I had never really experienced before. The fact was brought home rather humourously when I sent out a quick Tweet from my iPhone about it, and less than a minute later her cell phone buzzes with the notification of the Twitter Mention. We had a good laugh, and it sparked a great, half-hour long conversation in front of a psychedelic-pink silkscreened version of The Last Supper.

After the art gallery, we wandered the downtown core for a few hours and then went to Da-De-O, a cajun-style hole-in-the-wall diner that is a local institution. Their sweet potato fries and Po'boys are legendary in Edmonton.

TWO PALADINS AND A DRUID WALK INTO A BAR

There is a punchline there, somewhere...

Friday night saw Ophelie and I meet up with another Edmonton blogger, Corath. Who, despite living in the same city, I had not met up with before. We arranged to meet at The Bothy, a ultra-cool, upscale wine and whisky bar that I go to frequently because my best friend is the bartender there and gets me cheap drinks.

I admit, the meetup started out a little awkward. Once we got the table snafu sorted out and sat down there were a few rather uncomfortable moments of silence; all three of us looking in different directions and not talking. It took a couple of "So, WoW!"-type proddings to get the conversation moving, but once we broke the ice we had a great time talking about WoW, blogging, wine, cheese as well as a whole bunch of other topics.

Corath is an interesting guy, as it turns out. If you have never read his blog - straightforwardly named Corath's Blog - I highly recommend it. He is a diverse writer and blogs about a lot of widely varying topics. It turns out we have a lot in common. His biggest flaw: Dirty Hordie DPSer.

SHOOTING THE BOSSY PALLY

During our walk through the art gallery I told her about my previous career as a portrait photographer and I asked her, somewhat timidly, if she would be interested in letting me photograph her. It's been a while since I have had an opportunity to do a portrait for anyone outside my immediate family, so I jumped at the chance when Ophelie agreed. It was a lot of fun; Ophelie is a natural in front of the camera and we got some great images.

My god, did it feel good to get behind the camera and do a portrait session! It's been far too long since I've had a subject in front of me that wasn't directly related to me. I don't think I ever feel more alive than when I have a camera in my hand, a person in front of me and the freedom to create whatever I feel like. Why don't I do this more, seriously?

It also helps when your subject is a looker.

WORLDS COLLIDED, THEN HAD BRUNCH

I had a great time getting to know Corath and Ophelie. This was the first time I have met any of the people that I have been getting to know through WoW, Battle Medic and Twitter, and it was nice to have someone to talk about the game and blogging with in person.

The idea of turning a casual, internet acquaintance into an actual, real-world friend is a very cool prospect. Up until now my online life and the life that is spent with my wife and child have been very separate because my wife has absolutely no interest in the game, and I don't know anybody who plays. This was my first opportunity to show my wife that there are real, interesting people that can be connected with through this game, and not just a bunch of Internet Dragons to slay.

Level One Conversations in the Blogosphere

I did a post a couple of weeks ago, An Intimate Conversation with My Level One Self, which turned out to be quite a hit.  It has become one of my most viewed posts and has inspired a few other bloggers to jump on the idea (which, again, was in itself inspired by WoW Insider's Breakfast Topic a long time ago), and there have been some really interesting posts as a result.

It's an incredibly gratifying feeling to have inspired someone else to write something (even if I, in turn, was inspired by someone else's writing), and it truly has been a thrill reading each one as I find them.

Here are links to the ones that I know about.  I will keep this updated as I find more of them.

• Janyaa at Muradin Musings was first with her post:  Conversation With My Level 1 Self.

• Mirandinn at Mirandinn.com posted Talkin' to Myself (My Level One Self).

• Morituri over at Rants of a Priest followed suit with Conversation with my Level 1 Self (well...Avatar).

• Gneisha at Unleashed Rage, a fellow Sargeras-er was a little late to the party but still very welcome: Dear Level 1 Gneisha.

If you have done a similar post or know of one that I haven't included, let me know in the comments and I'll add it here.

AddOn: GAKGrunt-B-Gone for Guardian of the Ancient Kings

A couple of weeks ago Cathedral of Tainted Souls posted an AddOn guide for Silencer, a mod to remove certain annoying sound effects from the game. Gun sounds, Worgen Sniffles and other things can be removed from the game so that they no longer irritate you.

I posted this comment regarding the Guardian of the Ancient Kings:

Is there a silencer mod to shut up the Guardian of the Ancient Kings? He makes a grunt noise every time that I cast a heal and it's driving me up the wall.

Truthfully, I expected a negative response and not much else. What I got, however, was this:

taintedsouls says:

January 7, 2011 at 10:59 am 

I asked the maker of Sniff-B-Gone if he could make one to handle this and he was kind enough to take the time to do so. 

I present to you GAKGrunt-B-Gone by JimboBillyJoe: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/GAKGrunt-b-gone.aspx

If you enjoy it, please leave him a thank you in the comments.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Taintedsoul for taking the time to help me on this, and really going above and beyond the call. It was very unexpected.

Of course, I would also like to thank the Author, JimboBillyJoe for taking the time to do this for all Paladins everywhere. My sanity shall return now that I don't have to hear Disco Stu grunt at me every time I use that cooldown.