Tuesday 24 August 2010

Post Is Late

Good day! Well it is for me, as good as work days can be, which on balance is actually around average. 50% good. So, WoW then, eh? I've not stopped playing in the long time since my last post, but I've also not really had a lot I've felt like writing about. Drama happened with the guild (again), resulting in me pretty much losing interest in raiding altogether. I think I've been on one raid in the past 2 months, and that only because Zoe begged me to come and tank Patchwerk for the weekly. Tanking Patchwerk in a mostly 251-geared Blood-spec DK tank is kinda dull. Zoe did did 360 DPS on her Disc priest. I think she was the only healer, too.

And speaking of tanking! I might have mentioned in these hallow'd posts my orc warrior. He's called Sibher and he's a tank. He's also now level 77, and has been Prot spec from day one. Well, from level 10 at least, as much as a level 10 character can be said to have any spec at all with just one talent point. So warrior tanking. There's a lot more to it than DK tanking, that's for sure. Many more buttons to press, or at least that's how it feels. Definitely more dynamic, and zooming about like a bit spiky pinball of doom is great fun. I just seriously with you got Heroic Throw sooner, and not damn level 80.

I actually levelled all the way to 75 as Prot spec, and to be honest I think this is the best way to do it - you are really really hard to kill, and with DPS gear on you still do a pretty high amount of damage. Soloing elites of your own level or maybe 1 higher is often possible. Rounding up a bunch of 9 mobs and killing them all at once is routine stuff - they don't hit very hard individually, so while Shield Block is up you're more or less invincible. Unless there's more than one spellcaster in the mix, then you're stuffed. Hate spellcasters.

At level 75 I got him a Fury spec, then bought him another Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, and... well, did crap DPS to be honest. I don't really know what I'm doing wrong but other classes (hunters, warlocks and boomkins in particular) seem to do vastly more damage than me in dungeons. At 77 with full heirloom gear I can manage about 1300 DPS on a training dummy, but in instances it barely gets above 1000. I discovered that having enough Hit rating is essential, as not only do missed melee swings lower your DPS, they also generate no rage, with has an even bigger impact on your damage output.

And maybe I'm doing it wrong or something but Fury DPS is kinda... simplistic. All I seem to do is hit Whirlwind and Bloodthirst on cooldown, and Slam when it procs. Maybe Execute on a boss but they're usually dead by the time I notice their health is below 20%. Four buttons, then, none of which are spammable. I dunno, it just seems weird not to be constantly using GCDs for something. Maybe I should put Sunder Armor on my bars.

And Another Thing

I didn't play WoW at all last night. Instead, I worked on my new Project: learning how to program for the web. Specifically, Python. I didn't actually get much done, having managed to install Apache and Python, then Pylons, and I still need to get some kind of SQL going (Bob recommends PostgreSQL instead of MySQL so I'll give that a pop).

The purpose for all this is two-fold. Firstly, I need to wean myself off WoW. I am too easily tempted by distraction for it to be good for me, and I would be better off spending my time doing something with real-world benefits. Which leads into the second point: I want eventually to make this a career. I enjoy programming, having done a lot of Delphi, HTML, CSS, and lately at work some VBA (yuck), and I've dabbled a bit in Javascript. I believe web programming is going to be very important in the coming decades, so I want to make sure I'm prepared. Programming jobs are usually well-paid, so hopefully with Zoe becoming a teacher we'll have a comfortable life together :-)

12 comments:

  1. I wish you the best of luck with your new programming! Personally I'm horrible with stuff like that (I'm glad when I get my CSS to do what I want it to), so I admire people who can figure that stuff out.

    For warriors, I tried Fury once while leveling and hated it - but I tried it again later on at 80 when I had some gear, and the difference is amazing. I feel that Fury is a spec that is a lot more gear dependent than Arms.

    The rotation is rather simple, but so is Arms really. You didn't mention, do you spam heroic strike (or cleave on multiple mobs) while everything else is on cd? If not, that should increase your dps a bit :) Other than that, just keeping shout up and using the cooldowns wisely (can't remember at which levels you get the damage boost cds). Have fun with your warrior! :)

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  2. Yeh I've heard about Fury's gear dependence, and figgered heirlooms would make everything ok (once I managed to get some stuff with +Hit on it). Apparently no match for Seed of Corruption at level 77 though.

    As for HS, yeh, I have it bound to mousewheel-up (and Cleave to MWD), same as for my Prot spec, so spamming it is really easy and second nature. I'm still trying to find a reliable swing timer for dual-wielding, though - Quartz's one works fine for tanking or a single 2H weapon, but doesn't do anything when I have two 2H weapons, which makes timing Heroic Strikes/Cleaves a bit annoying. At least when I'm tanking a boss I pretty much always have rage so I can just keep the wheel going. The bosses see me rollin', they hatin'.

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  3. Good luck with your web programming stuff :D

    I used to do a fair bit of PHP/MySQL and since stopping WoW have been trying to get the motivation to get back into dabbling with it, need a project to throw myself into.

    Never even looked at Python :S

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  4. Python is named after Monty Python, so clearly it's the best thing ever.

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  5. Also, I do with Blogspot wouldn't e-mail me to let me know I've commented on my own blog.

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  6. And I do wish I could edit my comments -.-

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  7. I thought you'd just developed a lisp :p

    I didn't know that about Python - so, yes, obviously it must be the best thing ever.

    Also wanted to let you know that because of you I found Happy Chair is Happy and now can't stop seeing faces in EVERYTHING. My ipod shuffle gives me quite odd looks...

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  8. Ahahaha, HCiH is awesome :D Some of the Fujitsu tower PCs here at work have great "faces" on them formed by the headphone, mic and USB sockets. I wish I could take a picture :D

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  9. I may well just start taking photos on my Blackberry when I see them, it's amazing how many things I see faces in now... in fact as I'm typing this I just looked at my cup at an angle and it's got an awesome crazy face (I may well just take a photo and post it :D ).

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  10. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4074/4929312729_71881c98da.jpg

    Coffee buzz?

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  11. Caffeinated mug is caffeinated!

    (incidentally, Chrome's spell-checker doesn't believe "caffeinated" is a word, yet is quite happy to suggest "decaffeinated" as an alternative)

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  12. Confused browser is confused.

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