falling behind

My blogging time (and my oh-so-precious wow time) have been impacted by happenings IRL this last week, so I'll try to catch up this weekend.

I picked a Titansteel Shield Wall off the auction house this week (which may not be a big deal to the more hardcore out there, but it's a big deal to your old pal Casual Paladin Guy) which in my mind pushed me to into viability for tanking heroics past Heroic Utgarde Keep.

Luckily I was able to run Heroic Violet Hold with some guildies this week and Bolstered Legplates dropped for me (w00t!) so I was able to upgrade from the Argent Crusade rep legs. A pretty sweet run overall.

I have to admit that while I have no problem pugging regular instances, I'm scared to death to tank any heroic pugs. It's partly not knowing which are the harder ones (there doesn't seem to be any consensus on the interweb) but I'm also afraid of being terrible! Then I read on the forums or comments on other blogs that some people hit 80 and stroll right into heroics... wtf? Am I being too cautious?

thoughts on questhelper

I've been using some flavour of of "making it faster and more efficient to complete quests" add-on since Wrath came out. I started with Lightheaded on the advice of WoWInsider, got tired of around the New Year and decided to try QuestHelper.

I know that there are many many people out there who rail endlessly against add-ons like this and I have to admit that I agree with them on some points. QH can definitely turn you into a bit of questing zombie.

I think, like so many things, it's all in how you use it. When I'm feeling adventurous, want to be immersed in the story, and don't mind wandering around looking for that one special kind of rhino that drops the special kind of eyes I turn QH off and have at it. When I'm more interested in some efficiency I enable it and plow through quests. Though, I always try to at least skim the quest text. :)

Folks often forget that World of Warcraft is a game and one of its main strengths is that it allows you to play how you like. And after all, isn't that the whole point?

Good hunting.

ulduar testing

Yesterday, WoWInsider posted an interesting article talking about how Ulduar, the next raid, will be released and tested on the PTR. The forum post they reference is here and I'll let you read it in detail, but it seems like testing will be closely monitored and controlled. Hopefully this will keep guides from popping up before the thing is even released.

I'm very excited about this because one of the things that ticked me off about all the "Wrath is too easy" QQ (while it may be somewhat warranted) is that of course it's easy to clear content when it's already been carefully and completely scouted (full disclosure: I'm a totally casual player, VERY limited experience in raids). I'm planning a bigger post on this, so I won't go into more detail, but I think if you're interested in learning really hard content then at least two things should happen:

1. Blizz should provide challenging content
2. Players who are interested in the hard stuff shouldn't read the strats, they should learn the encounters themselves!

Now, I don't know if that would've done anything to erase the "it's too easy" QQ, but the QQ would have at least been logical and a complaint that would be taken more seriously.

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag

I love World of Warcraft, but sometimes the laggy-ness makes me want to light my computer on fire, then drive over it, and throw the flaming computer off a cliff. Luckily I don't have any cliffs nearby so everything always works out well in the end... mostly.

my wow forum contributions

I doubt I'll ever ACTUALLY post anything to the official World of Warcraft forums. As everyone knows, it's pretty much a wretched hive of scum and villainy where you can go to have your hopes crushed and gear picked apart. That's why, since I have high hopes and terrible gear, I shy away from posting. I do, however, enjoy reading them and imagining what I would write in response.

So, I've decided to post that fictional reply here.

This is the original post, which I'll paraphrase as "Why is leveling so boring? What can I do to make it less boring?"

If you read the forums, as I do, you'll recognize that this kind of question appears 15x a day. My response would have been:

From my perspective, I've only leveled two chars to high levels (70 lock, 80 pally), I wouldn't call ALL leveling boring. Yes, I'll agree that it's lame to run through Westfall collecting boar meat and bird eyes or whatever for the 10t time, but I think that leveling in Wrath has been vastly improved and I had a great time (minus all the stupid poop quests) getting to 80. Cutscenes out of nowhere, interacting with major characters, questing that doesn't constantly send you all over the zone delivering mail (seriously, why are we constantly running BS errands like delivering letters... have they seen my freaking 8ft sword... I killed effing Kael'Thas and I'm delivering your message to Jim Nobody across the courtyard? WTF).

As for tips, I started using addons when I got bored with leveling. Started with Cartographer to display the whole map without having to explore (this makes the Explorer title harder though) and moved on to Lightheaded and Questhelper to get me through the rough patches.

It's also possible to avoid a big chunk of leveling by hitting instances hard. Most in BC & WotLK are short, interesting, relatively easy, have good drops, and give good XP as well.

Everyone should play in whatever style makes them happy, but I'm one of the folks that believes in stopping to enjoy some of the story... end game can be a real grind at times, so why rush to get there?

A bit long for the forums, but hey, this is MY blog after all.

Good hunting!

dual specs

I leveled my pally as ret (before 3.0) and decided to respec to prot once I hit 80 so that our guild would have another option at tank, plus my first time around at level cap (at 70) was with a lock and I found that I lost interest in DPS'ing really early on.

Though, now that I'm prot I'm finding that I miss the sweet sweet burst DPS as a ret pally. Don't get me wrong, prot AoE grinding is pretty awesome in its own right, but I have to admit... I like seeing the big numbers :)

Thus, Sweet Zombie Jesus I am loving the idea of dual specs and I'm excited that Blizz has finally released some detailed information in the form of a quasi-interview on their site. I'm doubly excited because it sounds like they're implementing it in a very player friendly manner.

Two of the bits that I think are the best:

1. Respecs are limited to major cities or a scribe-centric summoning ritual

I dig this because I'm a fan of limits that make sense and don't cause unnecessary hassle. It would be ridiculous to allow respecs out in the world while questing... it wouldn't make any sense and would cause certain classes (like paladins) to be completely OP. It's reasonable to expect players to think ahead when they want to respec.

2. Blizz is adding a "Gear Manager"

This is a real no brainer that I'm glad Blizz is addressing right off the top. It's these types of ideas that make me think that they've put some real thought into dual specs and are covering all their bases.

We'll have to wait until this is out on the PTR (and live for that matter) before declaring it a success, but I'm optimistic.

That's it for now. Good hunting!

everyone loves the coulton

I thought I'd kick the blog off with some light, easy, awesome WoW-related videos for Jonathan Coulton songs. These aren't new or anything, but they do rule... and things that rule should not be forgotten.





Like I said, awesome!

first post

Hello Internetz and welcome to Just Some Pally Guy. I love everything WoW related and I'll be talking about World of Warcraft from a casual pally tank's perspective. Check back for real posts soon!