A Second Account

Friday Dec 24, 2021

Too much of a good thing? Never!

I’ve always wanted a second account, but the idea of doubling my monthly fees always held me back. Well, with a ton of money saved during these times of Covid, I said what the hell and made one. More opportunities to level? Oh, darn.

I made some characters, a Warlock (favourite class) and a Priest, with idea of putting a healer/soloist together once they catch up to my other account’s characters. After creation I used my mage to port them to Shattrath. I chose Shat for a couple of reasons. One was that they could start earning rested xp – even though at level 1-3 it’s quick anyway, but hey, it’s fun to turn in a couple quests and ding. Another reason was to act as trader conduits for mage food. Zavee the Mage is at 70 and has all the spells to create the highest end food and drink, as well as lay down a table. I can hop on him, make some food for questing and pass it through the 2nd account to another toon on the 1st account. Quick and easy.

A Time To Dot

After about a month of just sitting and trading I decided to start working on Nmbnutz the Human Warlock while waiting for my remaining 60’s to gain some rested xp. After the obligatory starter zone quests, I headed into Elwynn Forest and was having fun until I came up to Hogger, the Elite first ‘test’ of anyone playing WoW. I logged into my first account, grabbed my mage, and grouped him up with Nmbnutz. Hogger went down in a heartbeat, quest completed. Then it struck me. I’m losing out XP by having the two characters grouped up. So, I dropped the mage out of the group, set him to follow and started pulling with the Warlock, and alt-tabbing to finish off any problematic mobs. The pulls started getting bigger and bigger, loving the instant cast dotting of the Warlock, then quickly switching over to the mage to finish the group with an Arcane Explosion.

That went sort of ok, but the timing was a bit off one time, too late, and Nmbnutz died. Zavee the Mage didn’t have a resurrection and the ghost run was the only option. I thought why not bring someone who can heal and rez? I looked at the options, and figured my druid would be the best choice, with the abundance of hots and also some offensive if so required. That worked out much better, and with the help of a few easy macros to follow and cast a heal, the progress was quick. Soon after I was into a very easy routine of dotting up groups of mobs with my imp helping, and quickly alt-tabbing over to the druid for a couple of heal over time spells (hots), then back to finish off the mobs on the Warlock.

Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, Darkshire and The Wetlands soon succumbed to the awesome Warlock-Druid combination. The action is non-stop, as the Life Tap aided by hots enabled the combo to never once drink for mana.

Instances? You Bet!

There have been some good runs through Deadmines and The Stockades, banging out both quests and getting some nice gear along the way. After mailing low level greens back and forth a few times, I decided to hell with it and started levelling Enchanting on Nmbnutz. The rough parts where mats are fairly intensive will be greatly smoothed out by farming them on the level 70 characters with Nmbnutz along to soak up the xp.

At first, I thought it would be a pain in the rump, switching back and forth. Quickly though, I’ve gotten into the routine of alt-tabbing quickly back and forth, applying the hots and snapping back to the Warlock to finish off mobs and loot. Nmbnutz just hit 30 and got his mount, and even mounting/following is macro’d so that it’s a quick click and both are ready to go. I’m paying attention to my levelling time, and it’s shortened it by at least 25%. Fun stuff.

Scarlet Monastery is up next and looking forward to blasting through those and enjoying the drops and enchanting mats from there. It just re-affirms each and every time how enjoyable this game is, even without Raiding and PvP’ing at all.

Wylset

Old Friends, New Friends

Saturday Dec 18, 2021

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old, One Is Silver And The Other Gold.

A follow up to a post I made The Only Person You Can Control Is Yourself, I was having a late night session this weekend on Nailer. I got into a Setthek Halls run quite late in the evening, in it were a 68 Hunter and a 70 Resto Shaman, both from the same guild. Nailer’s been running smoothly for me, and I’ve been getting better and better at avoiding damage as well as interrupts. Setthek is filled with opportunities for both, with multiple casters and those pesky Prophets who leave a deadly ghost behind. One thing that is just ever so wonderful about melee is that when stuff is dangerous to you, there’s not a lot of time to get out of dodge before you take the damage. Wearing plate helps but being caught flat-footed usually allows you the fantastic opportunity to watch the fight face down on the floor instead of participating in it.

I Got You!

I mention this because during the middle of the instance, as I’m moving out of melee range to survive, the Shaman Healer sends me a whisper and tells me ‘Stay in there Nailer, I’ve got you man, you’re good!’. I thanked him and proceeded to soak up damage that I’d normally be avoiding. The healer was true to his word and kept me alive. At one point I noticed my health was at 308 hp, from a max of 9000. Just as I’m hitting my potion, my health spiked back up to full. We continued our messaging, and both of us laughed at how low I’d gotten yet he blew a cooldown and hit me with an instant cast healing wave which crit – WHAM, and I’m back in action.

After the run I stayed in group with the Hunter and Shaman, and we chatted about the run. Their guild name was one I’d seen before, but I’d tagged it as just another one of those bot-inviting groups that have tons of players and nobody knows each other at all. Turns out they were like that in Classic but had changed in The Burning Crusade. They now are a group who have known each other for years - much like my current guild, and once the old GM left they pared it down and were much more selective in their recruitment.

I said what the hell and asked for a ginvite on my warrior. Nobody was on in my old guild to say anything to, just a quick gquit and ginvite and there I was looking at a roster that, at late night, had about a dozen or so people logged in. Promising.

Change Is A Comin'

A week or so passed, with logging into my other toons still residing in the old guild. Rarely seeing more than myself on, I said to hell with it and pulled the trigger. Got in touch with the officer in the new guild and did a mass migration of all my toons. Left a ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’ post in the old guild’s discord and set my cap for new adventures. The replies to my post were all well intentioned, which was a good thing.

The change was what I was looking for. Several times since I joined there have been calls for people to join a 5-man, both normal and heroic. I’ve still got 2 more toons in the process of levelling. Slapnutz the protection Paladin is 66, and Quinnd my holy/disc is 62 and comfortably healing. I’ve had both of them into guild start-ups and doing what I do best and love the most. When the call comes, my favourite answer in World of Warcraft: “What do you need?”.

Wylset

Succeeding While Being Inept

Monday Dec 7, 2021

Sometimes it just works as intended, just don’t get in the way of it working as intended.

With my rogue Tief joining the ever-expanding ranks of my Level 70 stable of alts (6 and counting), I had a choice of 3 remaining characters in their 60s. Slapnutz, my 66 Protection Paladin, was ready for tanking duties. Quinnd, my 62 Holy/Disc priest, patiently waited in Honor Hold to heal groups in Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens or even Underbog.

The remaining toon is Nailer. He’d been sitting in Shattrath performing mailbox duties while waiting for me to pick up his struggle as a 62 Arms warrior. I’ve never been that proficient with warrior. Through the years I’ve learned how to Tank or DPS in both Arms and Fury spec, depending on the flavour of the day. I’d levelled him in Classic as Arms, after a couple very frustrating tries at Protection Tanking. I just can’t get the speed needed to keep a balance between available rage and beating dps to the punch. 3 mobs and I’m sunk. I can get aggro decently on the primary (skull) target, and something on the secondary (x) but the third one usually leaks away to the dps. So, I ended up questing my way through Classic as a DPS Arms spec and entered Hellfire at 60. The first couple levels went quickly with a fully rested xp bar, and once that was run out he headed to Shattrath.

Melee For Fun and Profit (XP)

I had a lot of fun on Tief the rogue, getting a good taste of melee DPS, and that made me want to continue. I logged in, checked his spec on both Wowhead and Icy Veins, and headed back to Hellfire Peninsula. Things went just fine, I had a ton of Runecloth bandages to keep me going, passed down from everyone else after they’d shifted to Netherweave. Plenty of potions as well, leftovers again from toons moving into Super Mana Potions. As usual, there was a lot of gear waiting in the mailbox, things found along the way of levelling every other toon.

I was fine while solo questing, a bit slower than other classes that either had range, or self-healing abilities or both. Those bandages were torn through, but I didn’t need to sit and eat very often, as the 1-minute debuff from first aid was usually cleared by the time I’d need to bandage again. Using my swing timer bar from Weak Auras, I tried timing my Mortal Strike and Slam so that I’d have enough rage to re-apply Mortal Strikes. I discovered that Execute was a complete waste of rage, especially before he was high enough to learn Victory rush.

While chatting with a guildmate about how I was playing Nailer, he pointed out that stance dancing after charging into battle just wasn’t worth it. Stay in Berserker Stance and use Intercept if you really need to. Otherwise, just run to the next mob, and keep using Bloodrage to keep the rage flowing to open up combat.

Relax Kid, You'll Break It

I started getting into the flow of it, but once I hit an Instance with a group, I found myself flailing at the keys, hoping to make this thing work outside of solo-play. Being rage starved, as I watched mob after mob fall before I could get in a second Mortal Strike, or even Slam once I had 2 points in Improved Slam to shorten the cast time. It just wasn’t working. Explaining this to my guildy, he suggested that instead of a huge, slow Two-Handed sword, maybe take two One-Handed weapons to increase the rage per second generation. This is absolutely NOT what they tell you to do on any How-To Warrior DPS guide, combining Arms spec with One-Handed weapons. It’s openly mocked, for the most part. Sometimes, though, it’s how you -feel- playing, the guides be damned.

That sort of worked, as I was able to build up rage faster, but the delivery came up short, as expected. Mortal strikes were hitting for about half or less with the One-Handed weapon. Sure, you’re hitting more buttons and feel just as engaged as a caster, but it feels like running in quicksand. All your flailing and button smashing doesn’t get you very far on the dps meters.

I’m not sure where it twigged, but I finally fell into a groove. I went back to the big, slow Two-Handed sword and took the perspective of being patient. I dropped recount off my screen to forget about it for a while and just see how it felt. Once the pull happened, I’d wait for the tank to establish aggro and then Victory Rush if it had procc’d or Bloodrage if I was at zero rage. After the first hit, there was enough for Sweeping Strikes then wait for Whirlwind to light up. Mortal Strike filling in the gaps between Whirlwind. It felt slow, almost glacial, waiting for the the rage buildup.

With A Little Patience...

However, when I finally looked at the damage meters, I was absolutely blown away that I was sitting on top by a wide margin (versus same level mage and rogue). Ok, it made sense when I thought about it, as my attacks were hitting for a large percentage of the time on multiple mobs. The white damage was piling up huge. The real proof would be in the pudding – boss fights. Same strategy but focusing on Mortal Strikes and Improved Slams. It was actually working! If I wasn’t on top of the meter, it was a very tight grouping. A huge improvement in metrics, with the added bonus of not feeling frantic or desperate for the next button to light up. Patience.

A quote from Top Gear popped into my head as I was examining the results. When they put a Star in a moderately priced car, Jeremy Clarkson will ask them how they did. Most are modest, almost embarrassed, at their performance. What occurs with surprising commonality is when a Star will say ‘that lap felt really slow” … and it turns out to be the fastest time. My dps with my warrior felt exactly that. Slow, but effective. Calm, but bigger hits. Patience pays off.

All of this is probably obvious to some, or most, people. Steady and sure wins the race. Frantic and spastic doesn’t. Yet here’s my argument, take it for what you will. When I’m on a ranged class, be it mage, elemental shaman, boomkin, warlock, shadow priest or hunter, I’m constantly clicking buttons until the mob dies. It’s that sense of not falling behind my casts and eagerly waiting for the last bit of a cast to begin the next one. Not a lot of sit back and wait. Even on my rogue, it’s a fairly manic approach in trying to build up combo points and deliver that finishing moves before the mob dies.

Nailer taught me something this weekend. Patience, young grasshopper, patience.

Wylset