Mostly Just Ramblings

So I bet some of you are wondering (HA! Like I have an audience. I find myself way too funny for my own good.) what I've been up to in the past week or so since my last post. Well, to tell you the truth, I really haven't been doing a whole lot with El Toxisimo/The Rogue-ing Wonder/Dub T (Vantox, Dramthar and Thamlack(the Toolock(hence the Dub T)) respectively). I've already been there and done that will all of them (aka: Dailys = pure loss), I've got incredibly poor timing to try and find a group to get anything done for Dram, and Thamlack is, once again, looking like a tool. If my toons don't look good it takes a lot of effort to convince myself to play on them.

I've done quite a bit of deleting then re-making alts so that they look good and can bring myself to play them more easily (I literally just change their appearance so that they don't look as stupid, I keep the class/race/gender all the same). Now, this will change with the revelation of WoTLK what with the changable hair styles, but for now the only solution is to delete/re-make them. Don't worry though, they're never higher than level 15 if I delete them. Anything over 20 has had too much invested into them for me to back down, so they'll all make it to WoTLK and get a makeover...except maybe my gnomegineer, who will more than likely be replaced with my death-gnome of terror and evil....who will undoubtedly be french....*shifty eyes* Little tiny death knight, terror of azeroth, incarnation of evil, and he's French? How in the world could that possibly be more hilarious? No, seriously, I want to make that guy as funny as humanly (or gnomishly) possible. Suggestions will all be taken into account and are already appreciated.

Now, as I've said, I pretty much hit a slump on my alliance toons, so in order to kick it, I've been working on my Belfadin. But there's a catch. If you've been kinda sorta-half paying attention to this blog, you'd probably have noticed that I have yet to play any classes that weren't pure DPS. Hunter/Rogue/Warlock? None can truly tank or heal, they are classes that can only be DPS and solo. Though I've been known to keep mobs off of the healers via evasion tanking, and at one point I tanked Netherspite with all the beams on him for a good 20 seconds after the tanks went down...naturally we still wiped, but hey, it was fun ;)

HOT DAMN MY SMOOTHIES ARE GOOD! Um....sorry about that, but I make REALLY good smoothies and I'm drinking one right now. Back on topic, sorry again about that...they're just so freaking good, you've really gotta try one to believe it, but I can't make recipies because I don't use them and have no exact amounts for anything.

Now REALLY back on topic. So as we've established, I'm mostly experienced with DPS classes. Now I'm playing with my eldest brother on my Belfadin a lot more frequently. I'll let you guess her spec (Yes, I did roll fem-fatal). But for now let's just say that I'm enjoying it rather thoroughly, a lot of which is just experiencing all the different quests that horde has that alliance doesn't and going and exploring new places that had always previously been hostile towards my alliance toons and now seeing them from the horde's perspective. That's one of my favorite things about this game, the exploration and discovery aspect. One of my fondest early moments in the game was coming into Loch Modan, heading east of Thelsamar and ending up at the top of a cliff overlooking the Loch, it was a sight to behold. I still remember it very clearly, standing there slack-jawed in awe with my long lost wolf pet....good times...*sigh*

On a different slightly half related topic, my top 3 toons all run with addons that are fairly universal to them and just highly useful, but I've got a selection of low level alts that I consider my "back to basics" toons. They have no addons enabled and everything is so much simpler and NOT busy. And I'm enjoying that too, I like the stylization of the standard Blizz UI and actually being able to see the dragons around the portraits that show elite and rare status instead of needing to look for a '+' or 'r' or '++' on the unit frames I use on the top 3. My belfadin is one of those back-to-basics toons, so it's like an entire new start aside from the fact that I know the majority of the terrain in Azeroth.

Well, that's all for now, I kinda lost my train of thought...as sparatic as it was, it's still a train. OOoh, that reminds me, I've gotta go learn some new skeelz on my belfadin, she recently dinged an even number. (I'll always be a hunter at heart, don't worry about that)

Good Hunting,
Tox

An Informative Attempt: The Fellowship of the DPS

People want an informative blog? FINE. I’ll make this blog more informative…with my own twist…and not really informative, because IT’S ALL BEEN SAID! Minus my unique perspective of only playing characters that can’t be tanks or healers…unless we’re 3 man-ing Crypts…with my hunter and 2 casters…*shifty eyes*…

Alright, let’s start this off strong. As you may or may not know, my three main characters are a Hunter, a Rogue, and a Warlock. Levels 70, 70, and 45 respectively. Their names are Vantox, Dramthar and Thamlack, all of which are fairly unique, I haven’t found anyone else in WoW with those names (aside from one shaman that’s apparently no longer being played) and I’ve been looking.

But this also means that I don’t truly know anything about healing or tanking. Sure I know tanks and healers and the like, but I’ve never tried my hand at it. So to put it simply, I’m purely DPS. And as such, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a pretty unique take on things compared to all those other people that have tanks and healers, or tank healers, or healing DPS or whatever.

People have recently been talking about the relationship between Tanks and Healers, or Tanks and DPS, or Healers and DPS, and I know about that stuff too. But I’m gonna talk about the DPS relationship. Sure there’s usually way more DPS than there are tanks and healers, but that doesn’t mean we don’t feed off each other and jack up the team’s overall damage output.

When playing on my hunter and I’m invited into a heroic takedown of some random place, I normally run with my mage friend Marcy (who will be an author on this blog soon), and another DPS, who lately has been a warlock. The tanks and healers have been there too, but that’s not what I’m talking about with this post. So the DPS has been BM hunter, Fire Mage, and probably an affliction warlock. Now, I didn’t really know the warlock, but he was doing rather grandly and not getting us all dead like, so I was all Zen with him.

The last heroic we did that I took part in was Ramparts, warrior tank, pally healer, and the 3 DPS mentioned above. Due to the nature of ramparts Marcy and I were the CC, on small pulls it was just sheepage, on anything larger I was chain trapping along with the sheepin’ action. This is one of our stronger co-op workings. She took care of the casters while I trapped the melee mobs; it was a beautiful thing…especially since the tank was very cooperative with the marking. Not to mention the fact that every time Vengeance crit, everyone’s damage got the Ferocious Inspiration buff of a 3% increase. All forms of DPS love it, tanks love it, healers couldn’t care less about it.

Now, CC is very touchy business, no AoE or multiple enemy strikes allowed, nothing explosive, and make sure to keep them well away from the focus. This also means that any other form of DPS has to know the kill order so as to not cause a wipe via CC breakage. This demands a trust and unspoken knowledge of who is doing what. That’s where the bond comes into play. If you know the other DPS well then you don’t have to say anything and you’ll know exactly what’s going to happen in every pull. This can go a LONG way to keep the group going strong and no one freaking out at any CC breaking and/or poor targeting by the DPS.

I don’t think the healers or tanks really get the DPS bond, and it’s not really easy to explain, but it’s there and it’s just as strong as any of the other ones…it’s just different. We don’t really rely on each other to keep ourselves healed or from stealing aggro off the tank, we’ve all got our own means of reducing aggro, but we do have the innate understanding to keep ourselves and the group from being killed through carefully timed and placed CC. Plus we all just thoroughly enjoy pumping out the damage, it’s something we all do and specialize in, so we’ve got that going for our unspoken understanding jazz.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for that topic currently, if you’ve got anything to add feel free to comment or whatever, you're call.

Belan shi karkun.

Good Hunting,

Tox