Defection

Yesterday on Twitter, I asked the community if they had a gun to their head and had to change factions, what race on the other side would they pick.

Kudos to Outlandish Guild for having my favorite answer: Pull the trigger #forthehorde

I didn't answer my own question on Twitter, so I figured I'd answer it here. If Misneach had to shed his Human form and join the Horde, he'd be an Orc. I don't really know why, but I feel, after knowing him for 80 levels, the Orc race would fit him best Horde-side.

However, if I had to make a new Warrior from the ground up, I'd probably go Tauren. In fact, I have a Tauren Warrior (very, very low level) on Undermine named Mishnock (the phonetic spelling of Misneach). Again, I can't really tell you what the reasons are...just seems to fit.

So, for those of you who didn't answer on Twitter, gun to your head...what would you pick?

I Was Thinking Bigger

I mean, it's cool and all...can't exactly ride it, though...

Maintaining the Balance

Apparently my current pants are missing armor in a key area, because RL was successful in delivering several swift kicks to the junk over the past week. As a result, I haven't been online at all since last Tuesday.

The silver lining (not referring to the pants anymore) is that I got to focus on my family. I spent some much-needed time with Cheesi, hung out with the kids, played with the puppy, and got to be a part of a milestone in my niece's life: her first homecoming.

She's gone through a lot lately, but for one night she got the opportunity to let all the crap go and have some fun. She looked beautiful and felt great about herself. I was so proud of her and blessed to be a part of it.

RL > WoW...all the time. I'm gonna hop back online tonight or tomorrow and get back in the swing of things, but I really needed the time off, even though it was caused by some personal issues.

WoW's like any other hobby. Play it, enjoy it, blog/tweet about it, talk to your friends about it, etc. Just don't forget to stay connected to the things that really matter.

Ulduar or Bust

Tomorrow night we have an Ulduar raid scheduled. This will be our guild's first time in, and the first time for many of us as individuals.

In TBC, we as a guild never made it past the first tier of raiding. I never saw anything outside of Kara, Gruul, and a pull or two into SSC. I'm glad we're in a position to be moving forward progression-wise and taking our raiding to the next level here in WotLK.

Hopefully we can get the sign-ups and manage to make the run happen. Most of us are geared for it (in some cases overgeared for it) thanks to emblem purchases, so, once we get the hang of the fights, we should be in a position to really make some rapid progress.

My goal, lofty as it may be, is to be able to walk into Icecrown-10 very soon after it opens. Even if we're still mopping up the last few bosses of Ulduar and ToC, I'd like to be able to make some progress in the defining raid of WotLK while others are also progressing through it.

From a blogging standpoint, I'd love to be able to help the community. Right now, I'm relying on recommendations from the community when it comes to tanking fights. If I'm involved in progression as it comes, though, I can be one of the bloggers making the recommendations based on my experience tanking the "current" content.

As long as we can get the personnel to come along, I think that we, as a guild, are in a position to make some solid progress over the coming weeks.

It's exciting. I just hope it plays out.

Insert Filler Post

Haven't been online in a couple of days, so I have nothing to talk about.

In lieu of a WoW post, then, here's a picture of my 4 month-old American Bulldog, Delilah:

Right now she's a non-combat pet, but eventually, when she gets to over 100 lbs, she'll be fully capable of scaring off boyfriends and ex-husbands. I think due to the nature of the breed (ability to ignore pain and fear) she'd be classified as a Tenacity pet.

What? You want some WoW content, too?

Uhh...dodge is still better than parry.

There you go.

Meeting the Needs of Googlers II

Here I will continue my effort to assist those who are out searching the interwebz for information and, for better or worse, end up landing on my blog...which is admittedly very low on information.

I Am an Arms Dealer has taken the lead, but we have a new contender at number two:



[drumroll]



Am I Needy



If you're Googling it, the answer is yes.

The Stamfest Trinket

Thank you, Vene, for posting what I was thinking and proving to my brain that I wasn't wrong.

Here's my take:

When I logged on last night just about my whole guild was in BRD doing the Brewfest quest and picking up trinkets or, in some cases, mounts. I'm not a big holiday person, so I told them I'd just run some dailies while they were doing it. After a while (when I realized I wasn't going to get to do the daily heroic with guildies until they were done anyway), I conceded and went along.

We were able to fight the guy four times, and two stamina trinkets dropped. I grabbed one and our former RL roommate Tassh grabbed the other for his Warrior.

If you armory me right now you'll see that I'm currently wearing that stamina trinket. Will I continue to wear it as part of my "normal" tanking set? No. Will I keep it in my bags? Yes.

My other stamina trinket option is the Black Heart. I will lose 440 health if I run with the Black Heart rather than the Mug. However, the Aegis proc on the Black Heart is incredible...really incredible. It happens a lot and is a significant increase in armor during the duration. Plus, you get a cool little crown over your head (Warriors don't have a lot in the way of animations aside from Shockwave and Devastate, so crap like that makes me happy).

Most tanks who are ready to jump into heroics or raiding have at least 25K or so health (ballparking...willing to be wrong...don't flame me). If you've been heroicing or raiding for a while you're likely over 30K. What am I getting at? 400 health is, to borrow a term from my day job, immaterial. The armor proc from the BH, on the other hand, is material.

Should you ditch the Mug entirely? No. Should you be less stubborn than me and take advantage of the holiday to get what really is, all things considered, a pretty good trinket? Yes. Run it until you get it if you have the time because, if you're in a fight where having a dodge or other avoidance trinket isn't going to do you any good and you need raw effective health, stacking the Mug and the BH will, together, hand you almost 3K health and a nice, reliable armor proc.

Regardless of all of that, having a lot of trinkets to play with is always a good thing. I'm very hesitant to get rid of trinkets and I'll usually roll on them if I have the chance and nobody else needs them more (i.e. the Repelling Charge, which doesn't help me now but, if I need to build a resistance set, will come in handy). They're quick and easy ways to tweak your stats to prepare for a given boss fight.

I really need to stop being so hard on the holiday events. Live a little, Mis...live a little.

Happy Brewfest, boys and girls.