30 December 2009

Merlot's new year resolutions

I thought it would be fun to make some new year resolutions, but the fun evaporated when I saw the list. Honestly, this game is a full-time job.

  1. Find a new guild. With my shitty gear, it'll have to be one that's either still farming ToC or willing to give me time to catch up. I only want to raid two or three times a week, I want to know in advance when those raids happen, and I don't want to be guilt-tripped into raiding every time I log in. I'll bring my healer with me (same gear conditions apply) but if I end up healing more than dps I'll throw a tantrum and start hiding on non-guild alts. If you're in a horde-side darkspear guild with an opening for a mediocre shadow priest and his shammy alt, drop me a whisper in game.
  2. Sort shitty gear out. I've been out of raiding for too long. I have triumph badges coming out of my ears but nothing to spend them on. This is a complete tangent, but I didn't look properly at tier 9 when it came out and now I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. All that hit and all those blue sockets make me sick. Those triumph badges are not helping at all. Blizzard seems under the impression that hit is an "interesting" stat. It's not. Gonna have to pug those Icecrown heroics till I get some decent non-hit gear. Carrying 1k dps death knights is not my idea of fun.
  3. Get loremaster. Only 800 or so quests to go. Easy, right? But it's so monotonous. So much time spent running or flying from one point to another. Those old world quest hubs do not compare well to their Northrend counterparts. That's time I could be farming badges or gearing alts instead. This one may have to wait till the expansion, when we will be able to fly across the new zones. I just hope Blizzard doesn't raise the target at the same time.
  4. Blog more. And get better at it. And make it look better. I'm not like all those 1k death knights out there — I at least understand my predicament and know how to tackle it. But it's not quite as simple as using the right spells in the right order for a change (note to death knights: you aren't supposed to use all your attacks). Improving my blog will take time and effort, and it will always sadly take third priority behind earning a living and playing the actual game I write about. But I spend an awful lot of my life doing pretty much nothing at all (commuting three hours a day for example) so there's plenty of room for improvement.
  5. Clean up my UI. This is one of those jobs, like spring cleaning or the annual report, that squats in my mind like Philip Larkin's work toad, soiling any feelings of contentedness and satisfaction that might arise in me. My UI is a complete mess and needs an overhaul. Fortexorcist was a great start and has vastly improved my dot and cooldown tracking, but it's just the beginning. I desperately need to reorganise my action bars, finish customising my grid and clique settings, and find a new frames addon (and set it up to my liking). And I need to find a way to easily manage addon profiles across alts and duel specs.
  6. Find obscenely rich, daft philanthropist with blind passion for slightly paunchy blonde brits to fund full-time massively multiplayer online roleplaying antics. About 30k should do it for starters. Investment returns negotiable.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently switched to Spartan UI for my UI. It's not as customizable as I'd like, but it's surprisingly low maintenance and easy to set up. A few notes, however:

1. Turn off the damn party frames UI that comes with it. It's huge and it's in the way. Thankfully, it's set up as a separate addon, so all you need to do is bring up the addon screen and uncheck it.

2. If you don't like Spartan UI, then you can always achieve something similar and more custom with btex + viewport + sexy map + xperl.

3. I have pretty much kept party frames turned off and stuck with using heal bot instead. Keeping them in spite of these just seems redundant and a useless waste of space.

4. Keep Forte. Keep Quartz. They are mana from heaven.

Kantor said...

You could also check out Shadowed Unit Frames, which is basically Pitbull Lite.

As for dot-timers, you can setup Quartz to show your debuffs on your target as a series of shrinking bars, which I find useful for timing dot refreshes etc.

Spleen said...

Regarding #2...

I recently came back to the game after a 3 month break. I was half way Ulduar geared when I left. In just 3 short weeks, other than my neck, I have managed to get all 232 ilvl items and I am DPSing well in ICC 25.

Regarding #3...

I am worried that the Loremaster achievement will either change or become a Feat of Strength. So, I am going to try and get it done before Cataclysm. I think the new Completion Tracker on wowhead can help get this done. I haven't looked at it just yet.

Anonymous said...

bet u dont think ur old gear was that shitty now,. compared to what u got now.
im sure theres a lesson to learn here

Jo x