Mortigan The Warlock

Machine-guns and Sausage - OOC

2011-11-14T10:14:00.001-08:00

Another true tale from the life of Mortigan can be read on my other page... Check it out:

http://mortiganthewarlock.blogspot.com/

OOC Blog

2011-10-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

it may not be World of Warcraft, but you can check out my OOC blog here. I've got a brand new post - 100% epic truth - all ready and waiting for you. Check it out:

http://mortiganthewarlock.blogspot.com/

A Shallow Grave

2011-09-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

So as to not simply delete this blog and vanish without comment as I had done a few years ago (the burn-out exit), I've decided that my current absence will more than likely end up to be temporary, and so I'll stay away from the delete button and leave things intact (the slow fade exit).

But truth be told, I am not currently playing ANY games at all, and have canceled my Battle.net Warcraft subscription because I'm simply not using it, and not rich enough to not care about the $15 per month being sucked quietly out of my wallet.

I don't have any grievances with Warcraft. I haven't taken my ball and run home crying. My life simply doesn't support the time required for heavy raiding - or even the long instances currently necessary for better gear - and I have little interest in grinding Alts (I deleted the one hunter I started). As far as Warcraft is concerned, I have always been only Mortigan the Warlock, and in the future will only be Mortigan the Warlock.

Somewhere on an Everquest Server is Grimmick Davengeful, my level 30 Shadowknight Troll. I have very fond memories of him, and occasionally miss him. But not enough to ever go back to Everquest. On America's Army somewhere is Davengeful, my Honor Level 40-something soldier who always had a penchant for Rocket Launchers. Mmmmm... good times! Maybe Davengeful will someday return to the battlefield (if AA ever re-releases a Mac version), but his chances aren't much better than Grimmick's.

And now - perhaps more temporarily than those others - Mortigan returns to the grave. When he arises again, he'll probably be Forsaken - he never could get over his distaste for gnomes. But Morty's grave is a shallow one. Easy to get out of if needed. Maybe he'll be back on Azeroth very soon. Or maybe a year or two. Time only knows.

As for me, it's so difficult to keep my mouth shut that I just can't stop myself from blabbing on and on, so I've created a new OT blog (thereby keeping this one as perfectly pristine as a newly-rolled Level 1 twink). My OTHER BLOG (which currently has absolutely nothing on it) can be found here: http://mortiganthewarlock.blogspot.com/

Yes, it's almost the same URL. But WARlock and not just LOCK. Bookmark it if you want to hear me talk about things like Helloween's music, my daughter, my promotionless job, and who knows what else. Otherwise, I'll see you back here when Mortigan finally claws his way out of the grave.

Thanks for reading - it's been fun!
Mortigan, Dead Again

Where Have All The War Bears Gone?

2011-06-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a LONG time since I've seen any Black War Bears. Especially any young ones. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw one.

Maybe it's because land mounts seems to have little place in a world where flying is faster, easier, and available everywhere. There certainly seems to be a complete absence of ANY kind of land mounts in use these days. Sometimes I miss it. I remember riding across Kalimdor - a ride that seemed to take FOREVER - but at the same time gave me a good impression of how large the world really was (even if much of it was empty, low-level acreage that had to be endured more than explored). It's easy to argue against traversing large expanses by land. After all, there is a REASON that ships, blimps, flight-paths, and portals were created. And one could say, "If you're traveling by land, why not go all the way and do it ON FOOT, Morty?!" Yes, I remember traveling from Undercity to the Crossroads on Kalimdor on foot for some low-level quest, and no, it was NOT fun, and something I would not want to repeat. I'm not necessarily stating that we SHOULD be riding around on land mounts, as much as bemoaning the fact that we aren't interacting as much with the world as we used to.

And speaking of not interacting - I hardly EVER see the Horde these days. Which brings me back to the Black War Bears. I don't think I've seen a single "For The Horde" raid at all since starting back up with Cataclysm. I would've thought that the ease of flying directly down onto the front doorstep of the soon-to-be-dead king would start an endless wave of weekend assaults on major cities. But no, it's been dead quiet. Once or twice a smattering of Horde have shown up at the front gates of Stormwind just to poke the hornet's nest a bit, but not ONE SINGLE RAID have I witnessed. Maybe everyone already has a Black War Bear, and no longer cares about "For The Alliance/Horde". I remember the good ol' days of Wrath, where as a Forsaken Warlock of the Horde, I'd head down to Stranglethorn Vale with two other Taurens who took great delight in ticking off as many Allies as humanly possible. We'd make our way quietly up the coastline, and finally swim the last stretch toward Stormwind underwater before quietly surfacing down by the ships. When no one was watching, we'd mount and ride hard and fast with pounding hearts and shaking hands into the labyrinth of streets that led to a then-deserted Dwarven District. We'd enter a long-unused shop, kill the shopkeeper behind the counter where no one would see the body, then head upstairs to the little balcony. Once there, I'd open a lock gate, and we'd start spamming trade chat: "We are INSIDE IRONFORGE already - Have a Lock ready to summon - get your Black War Bear FOR THE HORDE!!!" and the raid would fill up in seconds. As soon as they'd join, I'd be summoning them. And when they arrived, they'd get my whisper: "You keep your mouth SHUT about where we are!" And that's when they'd notice that we're not in Ironforge at all... we're in Stormwind. And all the Allies with Horde Alts who saw the trade chat and ran home to tattle on us would be sounding the alarm in Ironforge, far, far away. In less than 5 minutes, there would be 40 of us Horde rolling out of that little shop in the Dwarven District, snickering to ourselves and chatting it up: "We's in your base, killing your King." It was brilliant. And beautiful. It still warms my heart and sets a smile on my face. And even now that I'm Worgen, I still chuckle about it every time I go near that shop.

But that kind of fun seems to be missing these days. I haven't seen a single invite to join a "For The Alliance" raid, which I'd be ECSTATIC to join, even though it would mean going up against my beloved Lady Sylvanas. (Maybe I could just sit that fight out... there would be plenty of other DPS.) And there have been no swarms of Horde Drakes dropping down onto us in Stormwind. Our king is getting fat and lazy. He never fights these days.

Maybe it's another side effect of the Dungeon Finder. After all, I rarely see Horde at all any more... because I never really go anywhere. I log on, queue up, check my mail, run auctions, troll trade chat, etc., until I get my summons. Then I'm inside an instance, do my thing, go back to Stormwind, and log out. Rinse and repeat. I have a growing suspicion that many other people are doing the same. We just aren't coming across the Horde very much any more.

My only Horde interaction at all lately was a single Forsaken Death Knight I came across in the Hellfire Peninsula. After zoning in, I saw "Hellfire Peninsula is under attack!" I immediately flew toward my old stomping ground, Thrallmar, worried that some Allied scum would be tearing up such a lovely place. But as I was swooping down toward the front gate, the Horde banners caught my eye. They looked kinda funny to me as they started to loom large on screen. Oh, right. I'm NOT Horde any more! I put my heels into my Blue Proto Drake that Skadi so kindly gave me long ago, and turned her toward Honor Hold - a place I'd never been. Sure enough, there he was. An 85 DK in the stable, trying to kill I-don't-know-what. I switched to my PVP gear set on the fly. (You ARE using gear sets, right?) I dropped down right in front of him and hit him with a Soulburned ball of fire. Now, most of you know that I HATE PVP, that I SUCK at PVP, and that I generally RUN from PVP. But not this time. It was high time to test the 3 pieces of PVP gear I've gotten so far. The DK started some sort of attack, and summoned his army of orangutan zombies. My health was dropping. But nothing he did stunned me, moved me, or did ANYTHING to prevent me from proceeding through my rotation at full speed. And I learned something very valuable in that moment: If you can't hit me for 30K, and you can't stop ME from hitting you, you're in a hell of a lot of trouble. BECAUSE I CAN HIT YOU FOR 30K. And I cooked that Death Knight into oblivion in short order. My hands were shaking as I watched him release. Dang, I forgot to hug him. I quickly refilled health, mana, soulstoned myself, switched my Imp for my Succubus, and got ready for him to return. He did not disappoint. Within a few minutes he was back. With my Succubus out, he died even more quickly. Afterward, he wouldn't face me again. He ran away and did NOT come back. I savored the taste of sweet success. Uh oh. I feel a growing fondness for PVP. But outside of battlegrounds, these encounters are happening less and less. This was a rare moment.

Whatever Blizz does next, I hope they work in new opportunities for a Horde/Alliance war. This whole "let's team up and fight a common enemy" is starting to get boring. Let's kill each other instead. And give me a Cataclysm equivalent of a Black War Bear when I do. Maybe a FLYING Black War Bear. Something. I miss the war.

Mortigan the Death Knight Slaying, Butt-kicking, Flame-Pot-Shoulder-Wearing Warlock.

Odds and Ends

2011-06-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

A number of short topics in this one. First, I just spared you a lot of torture. I was writing a LONG illustration of how closely life in Azeroth mirrors my own real life, but it ended up sounding like me just going on and on and on about regular life. So I deleted it. (Yes, sending me a thank-you card would be appropriate.) It did have one amusing-to-me rant about American football, and how the winners of the NFL Superbowl have the gall to call themselves "World Champions" despite no one else in the world actually playing - or even giving a crap - about American football. "World Champions? Really? So you guys played the Germans? No? Ummm... surely you played England then, right? No? Who exactly then did you play? Oh, you played San Fransisco, eh? Hang on while I check my globe - but while I'm away, why not go ahead and call yourselves Champions of the UNIVERSE? I have a feeling that all the other planets are going to forfeit their games..."

How does that have anything to do with Warcraft? Well, it was part of me telling about how my own failure in High School football runs parallel to my failure in PVP... right down to eating a lot of grass and dirt and getting my face stepped on. Some people (like me) should stick to band - and the hell away from PVP.

I pretty much PUG everything in my real life, too. I don't have a clue who these co-workers are, and I'm certainly NOT going to Happy Hour with them to find out. I'm just not into Trade chat, sorry. I never hang out with friends - because I don't have any. Not the real kind, anyway. Not the ones who will show up on moving day to help you load your furniture in the van. Or hold your hair back while you vomit last night's tequila into the toilet. Or help you get rid of a body. If you've got friends like that, AWESOME. Me? I gotta PUG it.

And I never have any friggin gold in real life, either. Gotta pay for the damn Porsche Mrs. Mortigan made me buy. At least in Azeroth there is no financing. We DON'T need that nightmare.

There. Done with my illustration of life in Azeroth mirroring my own. Saved you a lot of painfully boring text, but keeping all the major points. If my stuff ever even has points, which leads me to the following...

I made a BIG LONG POST about Chinese Gold last Thursday, which I think was missed by a lot of people - either that or a huge pile of people have abandoned this sinking ship I call a blog. But even if you don't read MY post, check out Minstrel's comment which very nicely summed up all the points I wanted to make, but never actually got around to stating:

Minstrel said...
...The problems here are not "gold farming"...it's governmental abuse, perhaps prisoner abuse, debateably exploitative economic conditions (if people are essentially "forced" into high work/low pay jobs due to no other options, akin to sweatshops, if those bother you).

Gold farming simply happens to be profitable, it has no intrinsic evil to it (just the unethical aspect of being against the rules of the game). If hold farming weren't profitable, it wouldn't mean the Chinese would abandon authoritarianism, prisoner abuse or exploitative economic conditions. They'd just move on to the next most profitable venture.

Thank you. Exactly what I wanted to say, but didn't. Ultimately, I believe that if you somehow could eliminate Chinese Gold Farming altogether, you wouldn't be helping the poor Chinese laborers (or prisoners) - you'd just be sticking them with some other job... one that's probably a lot crappier than farming WoW gold.

I also made my first Alt. A Space Goat Hunter named Mortigal. But rather than actually reading up about Hunters or LEARNING anything about hunters, my goal is simply to BLATANTLY COPY a uber-ass-kicking Hunter I grouped with in ZG, who was rocking 29K DPS! I looked him up on wow-heroes, copied down all of his gear, his spec, his pets, etc. I figure if I follow in his footsteps, I CAN'T POSSIBLY GO WRONG. Except I lost my first duel already. I should take my own advice, and stay the HELL AWAY FROM PVP. But somehow, I just can't resist a beat-down every now and then. Keeps my self-esteem in check, I guess.

And one last thing. Elkagorasa, a long-time reader and commenter here, has some extremely important news about Valor and Justice Points related to Patch 4.2. Unfortunately, I can't read his blog here at work, but maybe you can. Check him out at http://www.elkagorasa.info

There. I think that's everything. For now. Oh wait. One reader wanted a refund of his $19.99 for the PDF version of my Sleazy Guide to Free Justice Points. I am of course more than happy to issue refunds for a low processing fee of $39.98. So if you'd like a refund of $19.99 (even if you didn't make a purchase here), just send me $39.98 to ensure speedy processing, and you'll have your $19.99 refund paypaled back to you in no time! Customer service is SO important - and I strive to be the best!

Mortigan of the Random Stuff

Made In China

2011-06-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

This post should probably be written by The Grumpy Elf. Or by Dwarven Battle Medic. They could write an insightful, thought-provoking, carefully-written post that gives this subject the sensitivity and humanity it needs. But no, Morty's going to write it instead. And like a skydiver who realizes the moment he jumps that he forgot his parachute, even though I haven't yet said a word, the course of things is already set, and the outcome is unavoidable. Squeamish readers may want to look away.

There was an article posted in May on Chinese Prisoners being forced to farm Warcraft Gold. It was syndicated on a number of sites, but as far as I can tell, THIS post from The Guardian is the original. The purpose seems to be to expose the evil of Chinese Gold Farming, and discourage gamers from trafficking with such individuals. It's taken me a while to build up my reply, and to do so, I'm pasting in the original post so that I can interject comments.

But first, I wanted to do the kind of exhaustive and meticulous research that I am so famous for. It happens that just across the cubicle wall from me, there is a co-worker who is FROM CHINA. I trapped her in the break-room. Here is the conversation (she doesn't really know me):

"Hi. Ummm... Can I talk to you for a second?"
She eyes me warily. "Uh, yeah. Sure."
"Do you play video games?"
"No."
"Oh. Well, see. I play a game called World of Warcraft. Basically a virtual world. And in it, if you want to buy the REALLY COOL items, you need gold. LOTS of gold. And since it takes a lot of time to EARN that gold, an entire industry of Gold Farming has started up in China. Companies there sell the gold to gamers for real money."
She looks at me like I'm explaining that we need oxygen to breathe. "Oh, yeah, I know all about that." she says.
"You know about Gold Farming but you don't play?" I ask.
"Oh yes. My friends back in China have a Gold Farming company. They own one of those websites."
"REALLY?" I ask enthusiastically. "COULD YOU GET ME A DISCOUNT?! Wait... no, I mean, I've heard a lot of bad things about the industry, and am trying to learn more." I sound very earnest.
"Like what kind of bad things?" she asks.
"Oh, like they force kids to play."
"Nobody is forced. Kids like to play games. And they're not kids. They're College Students."
"But I read they play for like 14 hours straight."
"They'd do that anyway. They always play that long. Even when they're not getting paid to do it."
"I heard the working conditions are horrible. Poor lighting. Cigarette smoke so thick you can't breathe."
"Do you play with the lights on?" She asks, already knowing my answer. "And everybody smokes. They smoke the whole time they play. They ALL do. But nobody is making them. They'd smoke if they weren't playing, too."
"So you think it's fine?"
"Yeah. I mean, if they're going to play for 14 hours, it's better if they can make a little money doing it. They can at least have some money that way. Otherwise, they'd just play all day for nothing."
"Thanks!" I say, and let her escape back to her cubicle. Obviously, her friend's company isn't one of the prison companies in the article, but her take on things is much different from other "Don't Buy Chinese Gold" posts I'd read. And dang it, I forgot to get the name of that website!

And with my thorough research concluded, I'll tackle the controversial Prisoner article, line for line.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

The URL alone should clue you in that this isn't fair and unbiased journalism. There's a POINT being made, and everything written will be supporting that point. But let's be clear and honest. Buying Chinese Gold is not a SCAM. If you paid for gold but never got it, now THAT would be a scam. Buying Chinese Gold and GETTING Chinese Gold is a business transaction. Maybe unethical. Definitely violating a rule somewhere in that Blizzard Terms of Service contract that you never bothered to read. But a SCAM? No.

As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells.

Regarding the rocks:
I've always wondered - what do they do with all those broken rocks? And is there a size requirement? Do prison guards pass around a perfect example of a broken rock and say, "THIS is how we want it." Or perhaps they have a little frame in which the busted rocks must fit - kinda like the thing at the airport where if you bag doesn't fit in the space, you have to check it. And is there a penalty if the rocks are TOO small? "Dammit, prisoner! These rocks are TINY and useless! Must I show you the example rock again?!"

Regarding the demons and goblins:
What demons is he slaying? Is he farming in Felwood? I can't imagine much lucrative gold coming from there. The burning steppes? No. And I can't really think of any high-yield demons in instances or raids. A couple here and there. But I can't imagine demon-slaying taking up much of his time. And if he's killing goblins, I guess he's an Ally doing some PVP quest-giver ganking. I can't imaging that being very lucrative. No wonder he gets beaten. Oops, I'm jumping ahead.

Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.

They chose this 54-year-old as one of the people to play? If I was a guard, I'd grab the 20-somethings first. Especially the ones that look like hard-core gamers. Not saying old guys (like me) can't play, but come on - business is business. And throwing in the fact that he was imprisoned for something that is considered a God-given right in the West is supposed to make you feel extra-sympathetic (or extra-outraged) about his plight. But let me set you straight. Things work differently in different countries. And you're expected to know how things work in your country. Mrs. Mortigan is from Russia. I've been there a number of times. And despite them not being a communist country any more, you still don't want to go around running your mouth in public about local corruption, your general dislike of the government, or any other negative crap that might get you in trouble. No, you keep your mouth SHUT. Or you only say nice things. I was on a train to Moscow the year we were bombing Yugoslavia for something or another. A crowd was protesting and throwing rocks at our Embassy. And some guy sitting across from me on the train noticed my poor Russian and worse accent, and upon discovering that I was from the US, asked me very seriously: "What do you think about your country dropping bombs on Yugoslavia?" And considering my predicament, I replied, "I think the US should mind it's own business, and leave Yugoslavia to the Russians to handle however it sees fit." He stared at me for a second, then smiled broadly and tossed me a warm Baltika beer from his backpack. I was instantly his friend. He then opened his backpack all the way to show me the $40,000 or so (retail) worth of pirated software he was carrying. He had... EVERYTHING. "Can I get copies of this?!" I asked jokingly but no so jokingly. But I digress. Bottom line - people know the risks they face in their country. While Americans wish every country had all the same "rights" and find it horribly wrong when people are imprisoned, hurt, or killed for expressing their views, this guy ultimately knew what he was potentially getting into when he petitioned about corruption.

Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian.

Then why not drop the rock-breaking business and go full-time gold farming? That's what I'd do. Screw the rocks - except of Tuesdays, of course, when the servers are down. They can bust rocks on Tuesdays.

There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp.

For any prisoners NOT forced to play games, were they given 12 hours of leisure time? Were they just hanging out, napping, reading books, watching re-runs on TV? I doubt it. I'm no Chinese Labor Camp expert, mind you, but I doubt the forced gamers were saying, "Dammit, I was going to watch Gilligan's Island! What if they're finally rescued and I miss it?!" I'm sure the guards found something really crappy for the non-gamers to do, too.

I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money...

As a prisoner, how much exactly did you expect your cut to be? My guess is that you're getting the EXACT SAME amount of money that they're paying you for the REALLY CRAPPY WORK - busting rocks. I.e. Zero. Zilch. No money for you!

The computers were never turned off.

Of course they're not turned off. Who turns off a computer these days?! Really, they don't use much electricity. Know what does? My SWIMMING POOL. OMG. My realtor mentioned that the chemicals to keep the water nice could get expensive, but NO ONE said that running the pool pumps to keep the water circulated would cost me an extra $150 a month. Friggin expensive. Know what else is expensive? My yard guy. He charges extra to skim the grass clippings out of the pool after he mows. Wish I could hire one of those rock-breaking prisoners to do it. It would sure save me some money.

Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society.

Yeah, that part would totally suck. Much worse than forced gaming. But the wording here makes it sound like it was the gaming that haunts him, and there rest is just thrown in "as well". I wonder, was he on a PVP server? Since he was a caster as mentioned earlier in the article, maybe he was getting ganked a lot. Yeah, that would haunt me, too. That's why I got the HELL OFF DAGGERSPINE-US. I still have emotional scars from being laughed at by one particular Rogue. Damn him!!!

But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real.

The writer uses the word "surreal" but it kinda gets lost amid the rest of the sentence (purposefully, in my opinion) to make it sound like this guy would rather be busting rocks or whittling chopsticks than farming gold. Yeah, right. And playing was a "hard slog". Sure. That's exactly how I'd describe it, too. That's why I play. I like a good hard slog. The sloggier the better. - Would anyone else like a slice of Slanted Journalism?

If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.

And if you didn't bust enough rocks to meet quota, or carve enough chopsticks, what happened then? Did the guards hand you a tasty cool beverage and tell you go cool off in the shade? Did they give you a foot massage? Heck no. Not enough rocks = plastic pipe encouragement. But the writer doesn't say that. He only mentions the punishment for not earning enough gold. And really, if a prisoner is off who-knows-where killing demons and ganking goblin quest-givers, then the plastic pipe treatment sounds about adequate. Get yourself some good add-ons, and concentrate on farming, fool. And stay the hell out of Felwood. Those demons don't carry squat.

And to save both you and I some time, the next few paragraphs simply bring everyone up to speed on the scope of the Chinese Gold industry, and I was starting to doze off during that part, so I'll skip it. Read the link above for the full text. Let's get back to the real complaints about Chinese Gold.

"China is the factory of virtual goods," said Jin Ge, a researcher from the University of California San Diego who has been documenting the gold farming phenomenon in China. "You would see some exploitation where employers would make workers play 12 hours a day. They would have no rest through the year. These are not just problems for this industry but they are general social problems. The pay is better than what they would get for working in a factory. It's very different," said Jin.

At this point, we're no longer talking about prisons... just Gold Farming companies. My Chinese co-worker thought nothing of her friends playing for 14 hours a day. And even here at MY work, there are a lot of 12-hour workdays. Am I being exploited? Given a choice between doing what I do for 12 hours, or playing WoW for 12 hours, I'll take Warcraft FTW!

The buyers of virtual goods have mixed feelings … it saves them time buying online credits from China," said Jin.

Ultimately, EVERYTHING in World of Warcraft boils down to time or money. You want a Time-Lost Proto Drake? No problem. All you need is time. Want to hit the gold cap? Put in the time. Want a full set of the latest Tier set? You just need to be playing more, that's all. Quit your job. Live in your mom's basement. Never go outside. EVERYTHING in WoW can be yours.

Don't have time to earn the money to get what you want? The Chinese can help you with that problem. "But that's cheating!" you say. "It's not fair to just BUY what you want with real money!" Really? What about that new Guardian mount? Is that fair? It's yours for the taking, if you're willing to pay Blizz outright for it. Don't have the money? Well, YOU CAN'T HAVE ONE.

Personally, I think Blizz should just offer to sell Gold themselves in 10K increments, just like they sell mounts and vanity pets. They could price it high enough to not ruin a server's economy, but low enough to discourage buying elsewhere. Personally, I think 10K gold should cost $20. For those players out there who simply can't dedicate hours to the game, it would be a huge windfall. And judging from the still few Guardians I see flying around, I don't think it would hurt things too much - other than the Chinese Gold Buying business. Which of course would mean that with no customers buying Chinese Gold, the prisoners would no longer be playing WoW. They'd just get an EXTRA shift of rock-busting. And we gamers could all sleep better knowing that Chinese prisoners were no longer being forced to play WoW. The world would be a better place.

Mortigan the Shopper

A Sleazy Guide to Free Justice Points in 5 minutes - Guaranteed!!!

2011-06-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

I earned free justice points in just 5 minutes, and now you can too, with this super easy, handy-dandy guide! Heck no, this isn't one of those mile-long posts about making piles of gold, where you finally get to the long-winded bottom only to discover they want to sell you a stupid PDF for $19.99. (If you REALLY want to make 10K gold in five minutes, you can BUY IT for fraction of the cost of those stupid PDFs and never have to farm ANYTHING - but we'll save the controversial Chinese Gold-buying post for another time.) THIS post is all about free justice points. Let's back-track to how I discovered this wonderful (and admittedly sleazy) method for earning free Justice Points in 5 minutes.

With my level 1 human female warrior safely tucked into bed and sound asleep, I logged into WoW and trolled the Trade chat for any potential action. Almost immediately I found my chance:

"LFM BH25 - Need 2 more DPS. PST to join!"

I quickly banged out a terse whisper. "Destro Lock."
(Speed is CRUCIAL when you're DPS and slots are limited - so no need to bother with pleasantries - or full sentences.)

And I was rewarded for fast typing with an invite to BH25. The other DPS slot filled up immediately and the summons were already starting. Less than a minute after logging in, I was zoning into BH. Rock on!

The group wasted no time. We were buffed and attacking trash in seconds. And for the record, I REALLY enjoy the BH trash. It is the perfect opportunity to really set something on fire with absolutely NO CHANCE of getting aggro, and thereby see what your gear and spell rotation can really do for you when buffed. I was spiking up toward 17K and was 4th or 5th on DPS. Life really doesn't get much better for a Warlock.

Within a couple minutes, we were standing before Allanon... no wait, Alanon is that Druid from Shannara. Aragorn? No, that's Tolkien. The BIG FAT PIT BOSS. How about that? See why I don't use boss names? I can't even spell it close enough for Google to find it. Anyway, we were there in no time, and divided up into the customary 2 groups. (I like the left side, for the record.)

Just then, as we were all telling the raid leader we were ready, I heard the most horrible sound imaginable: My level 1 warrior was AWAKE. Any CRYING. "Honey?!?" I yelled toward the living room, and the reply from Mrs. Mortigan made it immediately clear that I was still on duty for putting the little one to bed, and the tone indicated that if I ever wanted to see Azeroth again, I'd better get my butt in the bedroom and get the little one back to sleep. Pronto. I tried to quickly type "WAIT!!! NOT READY!!!" but it was too late. The tank was already making the pull. I did the only thing I could do. I dropped my Infernal on top of the Pit Boss, said goodbye to Karuri my imp, and ran for the bedroom.

Usually it's only a matter of a few minutes before the little one is asleep and I can return to the computer. Not this time. No. It was nearly 2 hours before the little warrior was resting peacefully again. I went back to the computer, horrified at what I might find. Would there be hate-mail in my inbox? Would I be booted from the raid after causing a wipe? Wow had completely logged me out. I nervously typed my password, and re-entered the realm. The login screen showed me in Baradin Hold still. That was good news, I thought. It meant I hadn't been booted for AFK. Once zoned in, I found my corpse on the floor where I last remember standing. There were no other bones, and the Pit Boss was gone. It had been a successful 1-shot run. I'd caused no wipe. I scanned Recount to see how things went, and to my surprise, I was NOT the lowest DPS on the list. I had beat out two other DPS who had less than 6K apiece. Hooray for Karuri and my Infernal! I released, and once back in the graveyard, I checked my Currency. Yep, I had earned my Justice Points!

Therefore, here is my sleazy guide to free Justice Points in 5 minutes or less, guaranteed!

1. Join a BH25 raid.
2. Kill trash for a few minutes.
3. When facing Allanon... er, Aragorn... ummm... THE PIT BOSS, dance around in a very eager manner.
4. Right when the tank is starting the pull, type "OMG! MY DOG IS VOMITING TAPE-WORMS!!!"
5. Get up and go fix a sandwich or watch Jeffersons re-runs.
6. Come back anytime later and verify that you've obtained your free Justice Points. Sleazy? Yes. Free Justice Points? Definitely.

And one last important note... this post is available in PDF format for the low, low price of $19.99! PST if interested!

Mortigan the Unethical

Back from Holiday!

2011-06-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my week-long holiday in Booty Bay, and apparently, some big stuff happened while I was off tanning my fur! A terribly irresponsible writer at WoW Insider posted a link to me on their Daily Quest, here: http://i.wow.joystiq.com/2011/06/01/the-daily-quest-revolving-randoms/ which earned me 15 minutes of fame and a momentary spike of 1900 or so unsuspecting readers, who likely had just finished reading something very insightful before coming here. (A big THANK YOU to the horribly reckless writer!)

I don't like to blog about blogging, but if you've followed me on Twitter even a little bit, you'll know that I obsessively check my stats, and pay very close attention to each of my readers. (Even though I don't reply in Comments much, I'm reading them, dang it, and I CARE.) I worry about the 3 Japanese readers that have disappeared from my stats. I wonder if my growing German readership means that I should occasionally post in German, and if doing so would help secure my position as the David Hasselhoff of Azerothian Warlocks. I wonder whether streaming Jumper and Kent (two Swedish bands I really like) would earn me any points with the Swedes who stop by. And I wonder if any of my New Zealand readers could help me score an approval to immigrate there (I don't have enough points - yes, I seriously checked.) These are the things I consider when looking at my stats, largely because my readership is small enough (normally) that I can pay close attention to EACH ONE OF YOU who visit. So hopefully the WoW Insider spike earned a few new readers, and yes, I will be watching and trying to cook up crazy schemes to keep them.

Now back to business, er.... Azeroth. My plan for last week's holiday was to spend a good deal of time in Battlegrounds - something I've NEVER done, and thus should provide many amusing stories of how I repeatedly died. I've been collecting PVP gear for about a month, and currently have 3 pieces, which I had hoped would be enough to keep me alive fairly well. But alas, I did not enter any BGs. In fact, Mortigan was online only a couple times the entire week.

I did, however, manage to snap a few Polaroids of my holiday at down at Booty Bay. I spent some time fishing, and then just hanging out on the beach with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. The Buccaneers had a nice little campsite with a toasty fire. And they were so nice to invite me to their party. They weren't very tolerant of Karuri, my imp, and so I had to send him away once he was done playing with them. Take a look:

Well, now that I'm back from holiday, you should expect the usual fare. Thanks again to everyone who puts up with me!

Thanks, mates!
Tack så mycket!
Mange tak!
Terima kasih!
Dank u wel!
Danke schön!
Merci beaucoup!
Obrigado!
Mulţumesc!
Domo arigato!
谢谢。

Mortigan the Well-Rested

Zul's Revolving Door

2011-05-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

If you don't already have the title of "The Patient", and suddenly find yourself very impatient to get it, all you need these days is to queue into a random ZG/ZA, and stick through all the personnel changes. Before you're done with the instance, you'll have your shiny new title - because you're going to group with 50 or so cowardly toons who will join and leave so quickly that you'll be unsure if they ever actually set foot inside the instance. It's a mystery that I have yet to unravel.

Last night looked very promising. I logged on, and IMMEDIATELY queue for my random ZG/ZA, since the DPS average wait time is back to 30 minutes or so again. But a more immediate offer came through Guild Chat.

"I'm a tank. Anyone for a random ZG/ZA?"

Three DPS (myself included) immediately accepted the offer, giving us a 4-man group only lacking a healer. With no healers immediately available in the guild, we went ahead and queued, and quickly picked up a PUG healer who had never run the ZG dungeon selected for us.

"I've never been in here, just so you know." He admitted.
"All you need is a high tolerance for wipes." I responded.
"No problem there."

We made our way past the poison clouds and bees to the first big stupid wooden mask, who killed one of my DPS Guildies with his laser vision. Guildie immediately quit/logged/dc'ed/died or something. He was GONE. At least he was smart enough not to stay online where we could have berated him in guild chat for being spineless.

After killing the big stupid mask and moving right along to the snake brothers and their green cauldron, more trouble lie in store for our group. Despite me specifically stating not to let the green debuff run out (important info our virgin healer needed to know), our other DPS Guildie did not heed my warning, let it run out, and got himself dead.

"That's all I can take." he said, and left the group. Really? That's all? One death? How did you EVER manage to level to 85?

"What is UP with our Guild leaving the group?!" I asked the tank, now the only other member of our Guild still with me.

"I don't know. I only joined the guild 15 minutes ago." He said.
"Oh. Welcome! And, uh... we aren't ALL spineless quitters and cry-babies."

While waiting for a fresh set of DPS, we moved on into the next room where the High Priest with his green poison maze awaited. Things got weird at that point.

A good set of people joined. Lots of shiny gear, with smoke and glowing bits sticking out here and there. They looked pretty dangerous. I was feeling positive about it. Then our virgin healer DC'ed. Could've been an internet problem, because nothing was really happening and he'd been doing fine up to that point.

The new healer arrived, and I quickly Soul Stoned him and buffed with Dark Intent. But before the tank could pull, the healer was gone - he'd zoned back to SW and was in the Trade District - and would not respond to our messages of "Are you coming?!?" Finally he quit the group. I was gape-mouthed. Friggin healer ran off with my Soul Stone! (In a previous post, I wrote that I hoped that they were building an extra-deep pit in hell for Soul Stone Quitters. - If they've completed it yet, they can test the depth of it by tossing in THIS GUY first.)

While the tank was trying to ask why the healer left, the rest of the new shiny gear crew did the same. They all took off. I don't get it, and neither did he. Why spend 30 minutes in queue, just to enter a zone, stare at a boss for less than a minute, then quit without even making an attempt?

"Is there a revolving door in here?" I asked.

The tank requeued us again, and we picked up two very unassuming DPS and new healer. The two DPS had none of the prior quitters shiny smoking flashy fancy gear. They looked fresh out of a regular instance. Per my usual policy, I didn't bother to review their gear though, or even look at what type of DPS they were. I just made another check of my buffs to be sure everything I needed was up, gave the new healer Dark Intent (no Soul Stone of course - still on CD), and then the Tank pulled Mr. Poison Maze before anyone else had a chance to quit.

I went from being #1 DPS with my 11.5K to just about dead last. Because our two new unassuming DPS toons were rocking 29K each. It was CRAZY! Mr. Poison Maze only got to go through one cycle. When he came back down from the top of his stairs, he died while he was still in that stunned crouch.

Suddenly, things were looking a LOT sunnier. ZG became a faceroll. These guys were killing trash before I could get my first spell off. I knew at that point that I was just along for the ride. We killed the boss that rides the dino-bone mount without ever bothering to kill the mount (thereby picking up the achievement). We rolled over cat-woman and everyone else in our way. And we were done in a very short amount of time.

Ultimately, I guess it worked out that a pile of people dropped in and out until we had a super-winning combination. Given a choice, I group with the guys putting out crazy DPS every time. But I still can't figure out what's going on with all the quitting. Are these 1-shot quitters like that Chess Champion who could foresee a distant unfavorable outcome - and therefore just quit immediately rather than continue? Or did their modem suddenly explode? Why join a random heroic and then immediately leave before even one fight? It makes no sense to me.

If you're guilty doing of this, I'd be VERY interested in hearing from you in the comments. What is going on - why join and then quit? Why quit after one wipe? I promise not to be judgmental (see the halo I'm wearing?) - you know from reading my posts just how ABSOLUTELY FAIR AND UNBIASED all of my posts are. So go ahead a write to me all about it!

Mortigan the EXTREMELY Patient

Disappointing Tankie

2011-05-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

I completed Zul'Aman last night for the first time, and did NOT have much fun - not because of game content, but because of the tank. He seemed deeply interested in commenting on my performance throughout. The group was well-geared overall, which means that trash dies quickly - before I can complete a rotation. I don't know about you and your setup, but for me, an incomplete rotation results in DPS of about 9K. Our illustrious tank did not waste any time in speaking up:

"That's some very unsexy DPS Morg."

Didn't even get my name right. It's Mort. Or Morty. Mortigan. Or unfortunately now Mortigann (as spelled on Medivh-US due to my name already being taken there.)

My response was passive. "The Trash is dying too fast. But I can leave if you'd like." I figured it would be best to leave if tankie planned to do any more typing. I just no longer have the tolerance to put up with crap from players. If he wants to complain about me, he should start a blog.

And for the record, if you don't believe that the speed of something dying affects DPS, go back to a starter zone and start killing mobs in one shot. Have a look at your DPS. If you're still doing the same DPS as you are on a Heroic Boss, I'll eat my Cowl of Pleasant Gloom. My very educated guess is that your DPS will drop to a few thousand. (Mine is generally 2K to 4K depending on how low level the mobs are.)

But I digress. As soon as we found something that could live long enough for me to set on fire, my DPS was up to a comfortable 11.5K.

"That's more like it."

Unbeknownst to him, I was doing absolutely NOTHING different. We'd just found something that could live through an entire rotation. And I neither asked for his approval, nor felt better for having it.

We made our way through Zul'Aman quickly, with very few glitches. Most wipes were on trash rather than bosses. During one boss fight, tankie died, and I tried to battle rez him with my Soul Stone. But I died too soon to accomplish the task, and we wiped. Once again, tankie had words for me.

"No SS on Healer?"

Sorry, that's so 4.0. This is 4.1, and we battle rez now. Yeah, sometimes it backfires. Like this time. I explained that my attempt to rez him failed.

"We have 2 DKs that can brez. Put SS on Healer."

Well, smarty, then why weren't they (or the healer) brezzing you? But I didn't say that. Because I'm married an no longer have any balls.

"k"

So I went back to the old school of SSing the healer. And it paid off for the rest of the run in that we could always get a rez. So maybe I'll stop battle rezzing and go back to the old way. Honestly I don't give a crap either way, so long as people don't complain. Complaining KILLS MY BUZZ.

Thoughout Zul'Aman, my DPS yo-yo'ed from 11K to 13K. Numbers I am happy with. But apparently tankie wasn't. After downing the last boss, and coming in 2nd on DPS with 14K, his final comment to me was this:

"Thanks, guys. Mort - check out Affliction."

I just did 14K, you jerk-off. But I didn't say that. He had already left the group.

And my REAL response to tankie's final comment will be rather unconventional. And it won't even be written by me. I'll simply copy paste from A Short English Essay written by Michael Kiske (former front-man of Helloween), in which he talks at length about his religious beliefs, but I'll apply a few very profound comments here:

...everything we do in our lives without freedom is not done by us, it's done with or through us by other people or forces. Freedom is the fundament* of everything that is morally true in our lives. Without freedom it's not our morals, it's the "morality" of others making us puppets of those others.
*I believe he means "foundation" - Michael is German, and so this word may have been mangled in translation.

So, Mr. Tankie, if I go affliction simply because YOU think my DPS would be better, it just makes me a puppet of what YOU want, and I'm not going to do that. I was affliction up to level 80, and had fun playing it, but at this point, I enjoy Destruction more, even if the DPS might be slightly lower (which I question anyway. I'm NOT uber-geared. My item level is only 352 at this point.)

I'm going to play the game the way I want to play it. They way I like. A way that is fun for me. If it's not fun, I'm not doing it. I'd rather go read. Or sequence music that no one but me wants to listen to. Or take pictures of my daughter. I'm simply NOT changing my ways for someone else. Period.

Goodbye, Tankie, thank you for a successful, joyless run.

Mortigan of the Disappointing DPS

How Mortigan Got His Groove Back

2011-05-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

"Someone said he who knows he knows, knows nothing yeah
He who knows he knows nothing really knows
But I have searched and I never could find
A way to make my true self unwind
And while I sit here waiting to die
I can see what I am, can tell you why..."
- Spooky Tooth, Hangman Hang My Shell On A Tree

I thought I knew about all about stat priority. And gems and enchants. And Reforging. Seemed pretty simple... especially since I never bothered to do any real digging into the subject. In case I haven't left enough clues already, I'll just come out and say it: I don't pay much attention to the details. And the Devil, unfortunately for me, is in the details.

I've been monkeying around with things too much lately. I've collected several shoulders, robes, rings, and whatnot, and I've been swapping them in and out in an attempt to create separate gear sets for Heroics and Raiding. I had assumed (without doing any proper research, or course) that I wouldn't need much Hit in Heroics. I planned to use gear that was heavy on Haste and Crit, but light on Hit. I figured doing so would give me faster, bigger hits, and overall increase my DPS on Heroic trash. It seemed like a really good plan, but in execution, performed terribly. The more I monkeyed around, the worse my DPS got. I watched my Heroic Trash DPS drop from 10K to 8K. Might as well wear my Wrath Purples at that point. I hit the training dummies last night (without using elixirs) and confirmed 8K DPS. ABSOLUTELY WRETCHED. I had been previously been doing better with worse gear.

I needed help. Someone to look over my gear, tell me what I screwed up, and what I needed to do to fix it. So I climbed the mountain to speak to the all-knowing Oracle (Google), and discovered www.askmrrobot.com. Mr. Robot said he could help. I decided to trust him. After all, it was easier to trust him than do real research on Elitist Jerks or Warlock's Den - both of which I can only tolerate after a long comforting visit with every Warlock's best friend, Mr. Chivas Regal. Anyway, Mr. Robot decided that I should enchant and reforge for Hit and Haste, in that order. Throw out some purple and yellow gems for more red Brilliant Infernos. I followed Mr. Robot's advice like a... ummm... robot. Did everything he said, just like he said to do it. My mind kept saying, "This is really dumb," but also "it's not expensive to put it back," and "your DPS was going down the toilet anyway." So I just went for it. When I was done, I was very near the Hit Cap. Haste was nearly 2% down from where it was, and Crit 3% down. "Boy, the giant sucking sound from THIS set-up is going to be heard all the way to Nagrand," I thought as I headed over to the Training Dummies.

And then I proceeded to set the Dummy on fire, and something magical happened. The DPS gods smiled upon Morty, and I found myself immediately edging up to 12K DPS without elixirs. Downing a few elixirs or Flask of the Draconic Mind would have easily pushed me beyond the 12K mark, and in a decent group with some buffs thrown in, I could SET THE WORLD ON FIRE! And these numbers are without all the best enchants that Mr. Robot recommended (it will cost me another 10K to upgrade all gear - donations welcome!).

So Cowls off to you, Mr. Robot. You ROCK! My next step is to swap out some of my other gear that is already hit-heavy (the stuff I was saving for raids), optimize it on Mr. Robot again, and test against my current set-up. A good project for tonight.

I also finally became a Transmutation Master last night. I had periodically seen guys in Stormwind yelling about how they're Transmutation Masters, but I never got around to looking into the matter. But last night I was recruited by a guildie hungry for some Elementium Deathplate, and he needed PILES of Truegold to get it done. Discovering my Truegold was off Cooldown, he was willing to invest in me becoming a Transmutation Master in exchange for the Truegold. Sounded like a plan to me. He helped figure out what I needed to do, and within a few minutes, the deal was done. I was able to generate Truegold x2 for him. A couple other Alchemists later, and he was forging his Deathplate.

So regemmed, reenchanted, and reforged with much better DPS and Transmutation Master to top it off, Mortigan is back on top! If you need to get YOUR groove back, you just might want to ASK MR. ROBOT.

EDIT: Read TheGrumpyElf's reply to this post. His additional info friggin better than my original content.

Mortigan the Grooved Again

How to PUG Heroically

2011-05-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

Man, I love a good PUG. The bad ones are OK, too. And these days, Blizzard will even reward you for loving PUGs. First you get the title "the Patient" - which is easy enough to get for all you impatient people, then you get the Perky Pug companion (you only need to group with 100 people to get him). I didn't like my Perky Pug very much at first. He was a typical yappy little dog. But when he started scooting around in circles, wiping his butt on the ground, it was instant love. COOLEST PET EVER!

I keep forgetting to check if there's a stat available for how many people - or even how many PUGs - Mortigan has grouped. It's exponentially more than the 100 I've recently run to get the Perky Pug, that's for sure. Thinking about the total number has me thinking - I'd don't group very much with guildies. I don't raid much, either. But I PUG the heck out of Heroics. And so I thought I'd try to pass on a few gems of wisdom I've gleaned from my vast expertise in pugging heroics.

Let's get started.

1. Go pee. Don't need to? Do it anyway. Run the faucet a minute real slow. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

2. These days, the 5 minutes of buffing, drinking, eating, making potions, and knitting socks at the start of a dungeon is OVER. When the Dungeon Finder drops you face-first into whatever random gauntlet of torture it has selected for you, you'd better be ready to roll. You might get one or two buffs on the fly, but don't count on it. Be as absolutely self-reliant as possible. These days, I drink my potions about 5 minutes BEFORE my queue-time hits the average wait time (which with Patch 4.1 can mean drinking immediately after queueing - hooray!) By hitting the bottles early, I'm not going to be fishing around in Haris Pilton's Gigantique Bag (yes, OF COURSE I bought one!) looking for the right potions. I also make sure I got my Imp Karuri out and ready; Soulstone and Healthstone created, and all repairs done.

3. If you land in a Heroic you've never been in (which can easily happen due to limitations on which instances an 85 can enter in normal mode, coupled with the Dungeon Tool's extreme preference for making you run Halls of Origination over and over), announce your lack of experience to your party. Do it in a professional manner. Or at least with style. I prefer to say, "Please be gentle. It's my first time... in here." I've never been booted yet. Of course, I've also run out of opportunities to use that fantastic line. But I've never booted anyone else for not knowing the fights, either. For the most part, you don't really need to know the fights so long as you pay attention to the general rules. More about that in a bit.

4. Kiss up to the healer. Sure, my last blog post was a big rant about some healers I've run into lately... but I wasn't in a GROUP with one of them while typing that up, either! A healer is always your new best friend, even if you'll likely never see him/her again. So kiss up. I like to bestow a little Dark Intent on them, to periodically improve their speed. It's a nice gesture, and also eliminates me having to figure out who in the group could actually benefit MOST out of Dark Intent. They had it all worked out with flowcharts and diagrams on Elitist Jerks, but my mind went completely numb before I could absorb it. So the Healer gets it automatically, and I get good vibes in return. During the fights, throw in a compliment here and there. "Great Heals!" You can even throw a 'z' and a few extra exclamation points on it to forge an illusion of youth (if you're old like me): "Great Healz!!!"

5. Ask "Anything special to know about this boss?" if you don't know the fight, but overall, don't sweat it. Pay attention to WoW's general mechanics instead. Whether it's a big rock about to smash you, an underground spike about to impale you, or an explosion of fiery lava about to roast you, there is always a warning hint: The shadow of the rock, rumbling loose shaky ground where the spike is going to appear, or a glowing red spot of impending lava. FRIGGIN MOVE. Stay out of the fire. Keep away from black steaming pools of nastiness. Use your common sense. This will get you through 80% of all boss fights. For those 20% that have special mechanics, such as those requiring you to stand in a specific spot to avoid death, yes, you just have to learn it. If you asked but didn't get a reply, you can watch the fight as a corpse. You'll know what to do next time.

6. Say something. The new Dungeon Finder is perpetuating an aura of silence in the groups. Time to breathe some life into it again. Personally, I like to use my death emotes, including the ever-popular "Mortigan casts a final Incinerate and screams, "This one's for all the pretty Unicorns!" just before I am pounded into goo during a wipe. Be yourself, have fun, but stop the silence!

7. Never give up, never surrender. NEVER quit after 1 wipe, even if you're obviously in the WORST GROUP EVER. Grow a spine, suck it up, stick it out. At least for a little longer. You'll be surprised how much you can learn by not being a quitter at the first sign of trouble.

8. Stop arguing. Berating someone for not playing well doesn't make you a hero, it makes you a shmuck. After 10 or so wipes in Zul'Aman the other night, the healer (and party leader) refused to requeue us unless we forced the tank (who admittedly wasn't very good) to quit the group. Booting said healer for refusing to let us requeue was the highlight of the evening - a real feel-good moment for us and a guaranteed surprise to that healer's over-inflated ego. I'd MUCH rather group with a poor player than a poor sport. So if you feel like you need to tell someone how much they suck, find your spine and chew on it. Or start a blog.

Mortigan the Puglicious

Eating Crow, and a Message To Healers

2011-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

The new 4.1 changes to the looting system pretty much render my most recent rant "Mortigan Gets Needy" as completely worthless. Not that it wasn't a completely worthless rant to begin with. But I'm too proud and stubborn to take it down and pretend like I never wrote it. So it stays, even though it's meaningless now.

I've mentally collected a few other rants, directed at healers, which don't warrant their own blog post, but are just PERFECT to tack onto an almost-apology. (I'm a Warlock. We don't apologize for anything. The paragraph above is as close as it gets.)

MESSAGE #1 To Healers:
Lately, I've been grouping with some shady, let-me-die “healers” in Heroics, and I find that I have to heal MYSELF at the most critical moments. Whether it’s consuming a healthstone, drinking one of my super awesome healing potions, using Lifeblood, or just flat running through a mage to get the mobs off of me, it seems I’m saving my OWN butt. I'm OK with that. I can help out here and there.

HOWEVER: When the fight is over, after Lifetapping to refill mana, when I start Harvest Souls to refill my health, DO NOT – I REPEAT – DO NOT – friggin finally toss a little heal at me to “top me off”. If you weren’t healing me when I was getting my face chewed off, you’d better not be giving me the little green swirly heal afterward, when I can easily get back to full health on my own. It pisses me off. Don’t go there. I swear I will set you on fire myself. Thank you. This has been a public service message.

MESSAGE #2 To Healers:
If I, in my infinite generosity as a Warlock, bestow upon you the grand honor of receiving my only Soulstone, so that you can instantly rez when necessary, you'd better APPRECIATE the fact that I don't get to rez myself, because I'm giving YOU that wonderful opportunity. So when we wipe, if you're one of those spineless healers that is going to quit the party at the first sign of trouble, you'd better at least have the decency to rez me before you run crying like a freshly spanked brat from the dungeon. I've seen too many healers lately pop my soulstone, look around sheepishly, and leave. I hope they build a whole new extra-deep pit in Hell just for you Soulstone Quitters who leave my corpse on the floor.

If you're not a healer, please forward these important messages to EVERY healer you know. It will help us all tremendously. Or at least me.

Mortigan of the Warm Hearted Helpful Advice

Mortigan Gets Needy

2011-04-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's true. I'm becoming needy. I didn't use to be needy at all. Back in the golden years of Wrath Heroics, I'd almost never NEED anything. Even if it was an upgrade to what I already had, I was the proverbial good-guy:

"No, you take it. Really. I WANT you to have it. It would look better on you anyway. Really, go ahead. I'll get one next time. I picked up a gray rusted dagger worth 75 silver off of some trash, and it's all I really wanted in here - so enjoy!"

I would only NEED on an item when it was a seriously noticeable upgrade to a current item. And I'd only GREED in a group where everyone else was GREEDY. If someone wanted to Disenchant, I'd pass on everything.

Well, SCREW THAT. We're in Cataclysm now, baby!

The Dungeon Finder Tool is having a much larger impact on the game than most people realize. Let me run on this tangent for a minute, then I'll get back to being needy.

The Dungeon Finder Tool is changing the social dynamic radically. There is no longer a need to cultivate relationships, because grouping is no longer based on how well-connected you are. I used to be able to group instantly, because I had pugged so much that I had a long Friend list of potential Puggers, and I was on their list. I'd usually be in a group within SECONDS. These days, I log in, join a random heroic queue, and in about 20 minutes I'm thrown face first into a dungeon with complete strangers. (Last night's Halls of Origination was a FIASCO. The Huntard died on virtually EVERY major encounter. Don't get me started.)

It's also a major impact on guilds, as it becomes increasingly difficult to transition puggers into guildmates. I joined many of my previous guilds simply because I'd been getting picked up for Heroics and Raids so much that joining them permanently was a natural transition. These days, the people I pug with are not only outside of my guild, they're outside of my SERVER, so playing with them often enough to consider joining their guild is completely out.

And because of grouping with strangers who will never interact again, there is almost no chitty-chitty-chat-chat during the dungeon. Dead silence rules. Last night, my death-emotes about the frequently-dead Huntard were the only words in the chat window:
Mortigan says, 'Dibs on Huntard's Cloak! We'll roll for the rest of the gear!'
Mortigan starts to dig a grave for Huntard.
Mortigan says, 'Let's all bow our heads in a moment of silence for Huntard.'
Mortigan starts to rummage through Huntard's pockets. 'There's got to SOMETHING here worth selling!'

Lastly, it's even easier now to pug than put together a Guild group. I'd LOVE to group with the guild, but my online time is generally later than them, and everyone is generally busy doing different things. It's honestly easier to work on professions and gold-farming while in queue, than trying to manually get 4 other people to show up someplace. I think the ease of the Dungeon Finder is hurting guild grouping.

Now back to being needy. I'm pugging with people on other servers. People I will likely NEVER see again. So if people get pissy about me being needy, it really doesn't matter. Especially on the last boss. So these days, if something is even a little bit better than what I had, I'm going to NEED it. No, I don't NEED crap that I don't really need. But I'll have no more of that "Oh, you need it? Oh, OK, you can have it. I'm a nice guy." or "You plan to disenchant it? Sure, I needed the 20 gold I'd get for selling it, but hey, you plan to DISENCHANT it. Go for it!" Hell no. I need it, so I'm pressing NEED. Don't like it? Well, you can press NEED too, buddy. Best of luck to you.

One last thing. I don't disenchant, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't get an equal shot at items. You disenchant? That's great. But I shouldn't go home empty-handed so that you can scurry back to your server with piles of gear to disenchant. So if you're getting everything with your Disenchant option, I'm going to get EXTRA needy the further in we go. I know, I'm being crotchety. But these days, I really NEED stuff.

Mortigan of the Shiny New Gear

My Back Pages

2011-04-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Mortigan's fur is about to turn grey. From old age. Because later this month, I'm turning 40. I always try to keep my personal life OUT of this blog, but the big Four-Oh-No is coming for me like Deathwing across Azeroth, and I find it hard to keep it from affecting EVERYTHING I'm doing right now.

I've never thought of myself as "too old" for video games. I was a kid when the video game craze started (yes, I was around when the local mall got its first arcade and we all crowded in to play Space Invaders and Pac-Man). I've played games off and on ever since. And for the most part, I've been oblivious to my ever-increasing age.

I clearly remember the first time I felt like I was growing old. I had been playing America's Army, and had just joined Team -=CSF=-. It meant "Combat Strike Force" or something like that. It was a solid team with players on almost every continent, and we were working our way up the PVP rankings. Our star player was a guy called "Gumpkiller" who was an unrelenting killing machine. If you went up against him, you were guaranteed dead. He'd sink 3 bullets into your head while you were still trying to mouse him into view. He knew every hiding hole, every strategy. He knew what you planned to do before you did. He was my hero. I wanted to learn to play JUST LIKE HIM. And when I logged into Ventrilo for the first time, he greeted me in a sweet, enthusiastic, high-pitched voice. The voice of a 10 year-old boy. I never saw it coming - Gumpkiller was a little KID. And later, when I ended up owning the practice server we used, and people would chip in to cover the cost, he'd send me $5 Money Orders scrawled in the large shaky letters of a child's handwriting. It was weird getting money from a kid's allowance - but everyone on the team was expected to chip in, and "keep your money, kid" didn't fly with the team.

I learned my lesson, though, and ever since then I take no one's age for granted. So when a character is constantly jumping and running in circles during buff time or between trash fights, I do NOT try to judge whether they're a little kid or just drunk. Could be either, but hopefully not both. The drunks usually self-identify, anyway: "I'm SOOO drunk!" Which I often think is purely a lie to cover obvious idiocy.

But the question still looms: "Am I getting too old to be playing video games?" And part me wonders how to draw that line. Should I poll kids under 18 and ask, "Would it creep you out to know that I'm 40?" or perhaps, "Which is creepier, playing with a 40 year old dude, or playing with a 25 year old dude pretending to be female?" On the latter question, my suspicion is that I'll come out the winner.

Overall, I have a very hard time believing that I'm too old. Maybe I just don't want to believe it. Maybe I NEED Azeroth. It's the one last piece of childhood fun that I get to cling to. It's my escape from this cubicle that has me so buried in work that I haven't been able to post or even tweet for several weeks now. Maybe it's the one thing that is keeping me from getting old. After all, what old person is half-way to their second piece of Valor gear? What old person goes in Heroic Shadowfang Keep and leaves with the Mantle of the Eastern Lords? What old person is now rocking 10K DPS in Heroics? Only young, cool people are Warlocks, right? I mean, Charlie Sheen is a friggin Warlock - is he old? Hell no! I've got tiger blood, dammit, and I SET THINGS ON FIRE. To hell with my 40th birthday, I'll burn it to the ground! MOAR FIRE!!!

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.
- Bob Dylan

Mortigan the Ageless

Tooth and Nail, Blood and Bone

2011-03-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

"What are all these bones on the floor?" I asked, feigning innocence. I had just teleported into a Heroic Stonecore well underway, and found myself standing before Therazane's wayward son Ozruk - who was still very much alive - with the remains of countless failures littering the floor around him.

The tank's answer came slowly. "Wipes." He sounded tired - as tired as you can sound in a one-word answer. And he looked tired. He went on to explain, "Morty, you've arrived for a particularly difficult fight. Ever been here before?" Despite my "yes," he went on to explain the fight in detail. We would all use auto-attack melee to avoid Paralysis, then scurry away to safety before his next attack 1-shots us all. By his telling, it was all very complicated and deadly dangerous. I couldn't remember doing ANY of that in my previous jaunts into Stonecore. I just remember the tank facing Ozruk away from us, then I'd cook him in fire until well done. But I wanted to be a team player, and tried to follow along with the tank's detailed description. It wasn't sinking in, though.

So when the fight started, I ignored everything, stood far back at a safe distance, and proceeded to dispense the burning stuff. I'd periodically be Paralyzed, but it would wear off and I'd get back to tending the fire. The rest of the group was doing a complicated dance... all swinging never-used sticks and wands at Ozruk's feet, then scurrying away to escape the impending Attack of Guaranteed Death. Invariably, the dance was too difficult, and people wouldn't get out in time. One by one I watched them fall, and prepared for my own death soon to come. Ozruk did not fail to deliver.

After my own bones had been added to the growing collection on the floor, we gave it another go, with identical results. And again. (For the full flavor of things, simply re-read the above paragraph over and over.)

I don't know how many times they'd wiped on Ozruk before I'd gotten there, but we'd wiped 3 times already with me in the group. But amazingly, people weren't abandoning the run. In fact, true to the new dungeon tool's unwritten rules, no one said anything at all. It was eerily quiet. While zoning back into Stonecore to pick up our corpses, the Tank would ask us, "Should we give up and re-queue for a different Heroic?" But there was never any answer. Not one word. The crew just kept zoning in, then running back to their place. There was a growing feeling of "we're going to keep doing this if it takes all night." But SOMETHING had to be done to stop the bleeding. I decided to speak up.

"Ummm... last time I was here, we didn't do any of that running back and forth. All ranged just stood back here the whole time. Not saying it's a better plan, but we lived through it." The tank wasn't sure about ignoring the mechanics of the fight, but after so many wipes, he was open to the idea. We launched into Ozruk one more time, and we'd get hit with the waves of Paralysis, but then all jump back into things after it wore off. The tank's health would dip unbelievably low while the Healer was Paralyzed, but each time he'd be healed just in time to keep going. We lost a DPS or two. It wasn't me, so I didn't sweat it. And after far too long of a fight, Ozruk finally fell. Tired, weak cheers went up from the group.

We made our way along to the final boss of Stonecore - a thankfully short trip. The army of trash at her feet burned to their deaths in a deeply satisfying Rain of Fire. (Blizzard - please add more opportunities for nuking large masses of creatures in a single Rain of Fire!) The tank once again explained the fight in great detail, which I simply wanted to summarize to the group as "Don't stand in bad." My experience so far is that this final boss (I never bothered to learn her name) is the easiest of all bosses in Stonecore. Simply ignore the adds, stay out of the purple circles and away from the rumbling ground, and the rest is a faceroll. But apparently I oversimplify - because midway through the fight, our tank died. And in a flash of pure madness, I concocted a wildly reckless plan. I Soulburned my last Soul Shard to instant-summon my Voidwalker to tank for us. "TANK, JUK'NAK, TANK!" I screamed as the words "ATTACKING YOU!!!" spread across the screen. And Juk'nak - reliable old Juk'nak - threw his blue arms up in the air as he drew on Suffering and Torment to pull a very angry Boss and an army of adds off of me. I desperately searched for my long-unused Health Funnel, so that I could channel my health into Juk'nak to keep him alive longer. And somewhere in the chaos, we lost our healer. One other DPS followed immediately. My own death seemed assured. There were only two us left, (another DPS and I - and Juk'nak) still alive. I burned everything possible. Healthstone. Healing Potion. Lifeblood. Infernal. Demon Soul. The whole world seemed to burn. And I knew Juk'nak would not last much longer, even with my Health Funnel on him. Then suddenly, the boss gave a final scream and the Completion banner popped front and center. We had DONE IT.

"I'M ALIVE!" I exclaimed. It seemed impossible. Juk'nak glided over to me. I was proud of him, and gave him a pat. It's not too often that a Voidwalker tanks in Heroic Stonecore.

Overall, it was (another) brutal run in Stonecore. I racked up 26 Gold in repairs from just doing Ozruk and the final boss. But this run had MEANT something. The group had stuck together through some serious failures, and only by fighting tooth and nail, blood and bone, did we make it through. There was no complaining. No whining. Just an unending will to fight against failure over and over. Looking at the recount meters, we shouldn't have been able to pull it off. I've been in better groups that folded and quit. This time, it was not about gear. It was not about DPS. It was not even about ability. It was about giving it all and not giving in. I'm proud of everyone in that crew that stuck it out. I'm still high-fiving us all this morning, as I sit in this cubicle, starting another ordinary week in an ordinary life.

More Useful Information

2011-03-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

I'm truly getting worried. Two posts in a row with real, usable information puts me in serious danger of wrecking what this blog is all about. But I just can't stop myself. Cataclysm demands that I get more organized - especially in terms of how my UI is laid out, and passing my ideas along seems like a very bloggish thing to do.

Last night I finished rearranging the buttons on my UI, which should make things MUCH more efficient. I just feel sorry for the randomly-selected people who will have to group with me for the next two or three heroics, as I will undoubtedly wipe us repeatedly and try to explain, "Sorry, my fault. I REORGANIZED everything to be much more logical and easy-to-find and now I can't find anything!"

Overall I think I've found a nice solution, and the concept should work no matter what class you play. Or I assume so, as I've never played anything but a Warlock, and know NOTHING about what all you other types do.

Anyway, here it is in a nutshell.

First, there's my CORE spell rotation, set up per normal procedure in order across the number keys. Specifically:

1. Macro: Soulburn Soul Fire
2. Immolate (always a party favorite)
3. Conflagrate (fun for the kids)
4. Chaos Bolt (because we all love green)
5. Incinerate (moar fire!)

The rest of my numbered keys are for spells I frequently need, but since they aren't rotation spells, we'll skip those for now.

And next is where the organization comes in. Not included in the above rotation are other important bits which I've split into two main groups:

1. Long-term DoTs and Curses (Banes, Curses, and Corruption)
2. Short-term Buffs, Shields, and Healing (Demon Soul, Lifeblood Herbalism buff, Infernal, Doomguard, Healing Potions, Healthstone aka Lock Cookie, etc.)

I created two separate bars to organize these spells/items on. (I use Bartender 4 because it ROCKS.) These two bars I positioned vertically (it helps distinguish them from the rest of the buttons on screen), and moved them down near the main cast bar where my main rotation is. Spells and items from these two bars can easily be cast by mouse-clicking. Here is a screenshot:

Basically, by organizing my DoTs and Curses on one bar, and my Buffs and such on the next, I can easily locate and cast them as needed. For boss fights that last a long time, it is very easy to cast all of the applicable DoTs, then launch into my rotation. As the fight wears on, I can start popping the buffs to get increased DPS, drop an Infernal or Doomguard into the fight, and if needed, consume my Healthstone and Healing Potion. When I had my buttons NOT grouped in this manner, I would often forget to use them - or at least forget SOME of them. I've often forgotten to use Lifeblood (the Herbalism ability) - but not anymore. I'm growing flowers on every boss fight these days!

A second added benfit to organizing this way, is that it gets this stuff out of my way and lets me focus on my spell rotation. I generally do not bother using long-term DoTs and Curses for trash fights. Probably someone over at Elitist Jerks could show why this is bad advice, but for a fight that is going to last only a matter of seconds, I don't see the point in wasting time applying DoTs that are never going to last their duration. I guess some arguement can be made for casting perhaps 1 of them - either Curse of Elements or Corruption perhaps. But on quick trash fights I usually launch right into my rotation of destruction, leading off with a very satisfying Soulburned Soul Fire.

And all of my buffs and healing are in one place together, making them easy to ensure they're getting used. If I end up with any trinkets with a USE option, I'll add them to the bar as well. So really it comes down to separating out the DoTs that get cast infrequently, and the buffs that get used infrequently, from the core spells that are always in use.

And to wrap things up, just as an FYI, here is the rest of my cast bar:

6. Fel Fire - this instant cast is useful when moving, or when the target's health is too low for anything else. And it's GREEN FIRE!
7. Shadowburn
8. Lifetap
9. Soul Harvest
0. Rain of Fire (A zero looks like an AoE circle - Boy, I'm smart!)
-. Soulshatter (the spell that kills mages - and the minus represents losing threat.)
=. Soul Fire (Empowered Imp procs this as an instant cast. Also needed for those occasions where something goes wrong with a Soulburn, and it's still active after casting - use this to keep from wasting it.)

I'll try to get a screenshot this weekend to show this UI layout, but most other people's screenshots look like Greek to me, so not sure how helpful it would be.

Bottom line - any class should be able to divide things up into their main rotation, items/spells to use early in a fight, and items/spells to use later in a fight. Works for me, anyway.

Mortigan of the Dewey Decimal

PS - Apropos of Dewey Decimal, wouldn't "Dewey Decimation System" be a rocking good guild name?!

Something Useful For A Change

2011-03-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

I make special effort to ensure that all advice I provide on this blog is as packed with misinformation, vagaries, and shoddy research as humanly (and worgenly) possible. And so it may come as a shocking surprise that I'm about to provide a few useful tidbits that other Warlocks might actually want to USE.

As I run Cata Heroics, I'm finding that Crowd Control spells (Fear and Banish specifically) are in actual frequent need. I don't think I EVER cast Fear or Banish in any Wrath Heroic - or even Wrath Raid, so I've had to knock the dust off these spells and figure out a better, easier way to cast them. They needed to be keymapped someplace very convenient. And let's face it - there are more necessary spells and actions than there are keyboard keys available (at least within a convenient, easy-to-reach location). For me, if I can't easily reach a key from my spell rotation position on the keyboard, it's not worth keymapping. So I've tried to be very creative (and selective) with those keys in easy reach.

I created 2 very basic CC macros that functioned very well for me over the weekend: one for Fear, the other for Banish.

Previously, I'd simply mouse-click a target that I wanted to Fear or Banish, cast my spell, then either mouse-click or Tab to the primary target (SKULL). The problem I had was that very often, Karuri my Imp would get himself all worked up and just keep blasting the original Feared or Banished target with fireballs. For Feared targets, it was bad news because his fireballs would break the Fear spell and I'd have to recast on the fly, only to have him wreck it for me again. With banished targets the effect wasn't so bad, but all of his fireballs would be wasted - basically cutting my DPS by 2000 or so. Either way, I had to get my Imp to switch to the main target - and quickly.

I'm not a Macro guy. I'm a Google-For-A-Macro guy. I'm a Steal-A-Macro guy. I've been caught copy/pasting from Cynwise's Battlefield Manual more than once. Somebody reading this is guaranteed to come up with a better way to do this - and if they post it in the comments here, I'll be sure to steal THAT, too. But for now, my 2 macros have worked well. Let's have a look.

The Fear Macro

/cast Fear
/target focus
/petattack

Simple. With no Focus target designated, it will cast Fear and do nothing else, basically. But when you've already established your Focus target, it does a couple really nice things:
1. It tells your pet to attack the Focus target (SKULL) instead of the target your're Fearing.
2. It switches you automatically to the Focus, eliminating the awkward mouse-clicking or tabbing to get to the main target (SKULL). Life gets a lot easier.

'F' Is For Fear
I keymapped the Fear Macro to the 'F' Key - because it's easy to reach, and 'F' is for Fear.

The Banish Macro

/cast Banish
/target focus
/petattack

See what I did there? Ooooh I changed the spell to Banish! The only difference with casting this spell, is if you try to cast it on a non-banishable target, you get a message telling you that it's invalid. Otherwise, just like the Fear macro, with no Focus target designated, it will cast Banish and do nothing else. When you've already established your Focus target, it performs just like the Fear - getting your Imp (and yourself) shifted over to the right target.

'R' Is For Banish
I keymapped the Banish Macro to the 'R' Key - because it's also easy to reach, and 'R' is for... ummm.... Banish.

Using the Macros
To use these well, you're going to have to establish an easy way to designate Focus targets. I forget how Focus was originally mapped, and I'm too horrified of what might happen if I ever Reset to Default to find out. But since I'm really only setting a Focus target before a fight - generally when the tank is marking one with SKULL, I figured it would be easy enough to just create a one-line macro so that I could button it on screen. So I made a macro called "Focus" with nothing but "/focus". I buttoned it on my UI in an easy-to-locate spot.

When it comes time to fight, I simply choose the main target (SKULL), click my Focus macro to set it, then switch to the target I'm going to Fear or Banish when the fight starts. Presto - I'm ready to go.

One More Thing
I think it's really important to have Death Macros. They're indispensable. I have 5 of them set up. Seriously. The first - and most important - is to be used during a wipe, at the moment you see "ATTACKING YOU!!!" in thousand point font. What this macro does, is it casts Incinerate, and then emotes your dying battle cry. Let me illustrate:

A Raid Boss so large that all I can see are his toes has just stomped the rest of my party into the great black and white, and now he's turning on me - and I treat all of my dead comrades to the following:

"Mortigan casts one last Incinerate and cries, 'This one's for all the pretty unicorns!'"

It's important to go out in style. If you too want to die with style, just set up a button macro on your UI with the following:

/cast Incinerate
/emote casts one last Incinerate and cries, 'This one's for all the pretty unicorns!'

My other Death Macros are reserved for non-wipes, and should be used frequently when another member dies, but you survive. They are also emotes, with wonderful, heart-warming messages like:

"Mortigan starts to dig a grave for <dead guy>."

"Mortigan rummages through <dead guy's> pockets. There MUST be something here worth selling!"

"Mortigan starts to take <dead guy>'s cloak. Oh wait, never mind, he's getting rezzed."

FYI - I use %t in place of <dead guy> so that it populates with the name of the target. <Dead guy> is just there for illustration purposes. I just be sure to click on the corpse before running the macro.

Enjoy!

Mortigan the Helpful

PS - If you're going to cast Fear, you'd better friggin set up the Fear Glyph, or you're going to have your target running all over the map, pulling who-knows-what. ONLY use Fear if you've got the Glyph to keep him standing dang still.

Mortigan Cashes In

2011-03-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

Teething has transformed my level 1 Female Warrior into the nastiest Raid Boss I've ever encountered. She constantly spams Tantrum and Fit, and if they are not interrupted, she will become Enraged in an amazingly short amount of time. Worse, if she remains Enraged long enough, her Broodmother will also become Enraged, ensuring not only a brutal wipe, but a crazy-expensive repair bill to boot.

And so it is under these treacherous conditions that Mortigan runs Heroics. But on some rare nights, luck smiles on Mortigan, the stars align, and all the right pieces fall into place. And Saturday night was the perfect scenario for a much-needed win:

Ingredients for Win Soup
1. Landed a DPS slot on a Halls of Origination Heroic group that had only 2 bosses left to clear.
2. Earthen Ring rep was finally only a few hundred points from Exalted.
3. Was only 50 points away from having 2200 Justice Points again - the needed amount for shopping the better JP gear.
4. The Cool Down on Transmit Truegold was up and ready.

The Level 1 Raid Boss was sleeping. Joining the Halls of Origination Heroic and finding we're almost done was an awesome surprise and the first inkling that things were going to go really well. Back when I first began grouping with the new-to-me Dungeon Tool, I really hated getting dropped into runs well under way. I felt that there should be an option on the tool to opt for full runs only (and I still think it's something they should add) - but that was when I wanted to learn the instance and check out the various drops and such. Now days, I just need the points - so jumping in right at the end of an instance is like skipping the first 24 miles of a marathon and just running the final .6 for the win. I get to strut across the finish line with all my fur still nicely combed.

On the first fight (not sure which boss it was - they all kinda look the same to me and I never bother to learn their names), something gloriously unexpected occurred. Instead of the useless-to-me Agility Gear that ALWAYS seems to drop in Halls of Origination, a smoking-cool ring drops, complete with all the stats that makes Morty feel warm and fuzzy. I politely asked if I could NEED it - but honestly, between you and me, I would've NEEDED even if they'd said no - because I rarely find anything usable in the Heroics I've run. But they were fine with me getting it, and so the Ring of Sweet Awesomeness was MINE - replacing a green Quest Ring that I just couldn't seem to get off my finger for the longest time.

The second fight went flawlessly (he was the final boss - once again not sure who he was - just follow my "Single Set of Rules on How to Raid ANYTHING" and you'll never need to know this stuff), and immediately upon his death I was rewarded with green flash of becoming Exalted with Earthen Ring, and well as a surprise Achievement banner for becoming Exalted with 10 Factions. Hooray for me!

With my new Exalted Earthen Ring status, a trip to the painfully-hard-to-reach Earthen Ring Quartermaster in Vashj'ir rewarded me with Flamebloom Gloves - which very nicely match my Dreamless Belt, I might add.

But I'd also crossed the 2200 mark for getting any JP gear I still needed/wanted, and so with my new Earthen Ring gloves in hand (pun intended), I hearthed back to Stormwind for more shopping. There isn't much left in the way of Justice Points gear that I still need, but was nicely surprised to see that the Pensive Legwraps were a smoking good upgrade. They made Morty's butt look nice, too. "I'll take 'em!"

And while in Stormwind, I remembered my Truegold Transmute, and dropped it into the Auction House for the low, low price of 690 Gold. It sold within seconds.

So in the span of 15 minutes, I'd picked up a new ring, gloves, pants, and 690 Gold plus whatever I received during and for the Heroic. Pretty dang sweet if I do say so myself. And my Level 1 Raid Boss slept happily all the while.

Mortigan the Quiet

Playing a Different Game

2011-03-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

There are no more Basilisks remaining on Azeroth. Sometime around 2:45 am late Saturday, Mrs. Mortigan hunted down the LAST SURVIVING BASILISK as it rested lazily near a small swampy pool, and Frostbolted it into extinction. Thus ended an entire species - and their bones will be dug up by apprentice archaeologists for generations. When studying them closely, they'll exclaim, "These bones have frost damage, too! I wonder what would've caused that? An Ice Age?" No. It was Mrs. Mortigan's Frostbolts.

Mrs. Mortigan has killed THOUSANDS of basilisks. One. At. A. Time. She doesn't group. She doesn't chat. She doesn't even use a proper spell rotation, and has only recently begun questing. For the most part, she has Basilisked her way to level 72. She plays a different game - one that's more relaxing, less stressful, and for her, FUN. Any attempts on Morty's part to "Up" her game are quickly shot down:

"Hey, let me show you a faster way to -"
"NO."
"If you cast -"
"I know what I'm doing."
"Your DPS would be better if you -"
"I don't care."

She's picked up a few things that she finds useful. She keeps her Water Elemental out. She casts Mirror Image a lot - so that multiple version of her can all be spamming Frostbolt simultaneously. She cast a shield that seems to work pretty well. And overall, Azeroth is her playground. She OWNS it - perhaps much more than I do, because I'm always scraping away to get that better piece of gear, that Exalted Rep, that potion recipe I really, really need. I chase after things, while for her, the world patiently waits to be Frostbolted into oblivion at her whim. If I was a Frenzyheart in the Sholazar Basin, I'd be getting really nervous about now - especially since Mrs. Mortigan has her eyes on a Green Proto Drake, and she's ready to kill a nation of Frenzyheart - One. At. A. Time. - to get one.

An interesting side phenomenon is that Mrs. Mortigan has admirers. Or fans. Or something. I don't know WHAT to call them. I'll come home from work to find her twinked out in the best gear available for her level. "Where'd you get that?!" I'll ask. "Somebody gave it to me." She responds. "I was killing Basilisks and some guy came along and just said, 'HERE.'" Then I check her character a bit more closely and find more surprises. "Where did you get another 500 gold so quickly?" And very casually she answers, "Oh, someone else came along after the other guy and let me have it." And she's not even surprised. As if all the time people give away 500 gold at random for absolutely no reason. For Mrs. Mortigan, it DOES happen all the time. My secret theory is that people somehow figure out that she really IS female, and see that she plays the game differently and more simply - and they somehow become overwhelmed with compassion and start handing over BOE gear and piles of gold. No one ever gives MORTY any gold (unless you count that Chinese Farmer, but uh, we won't go into that right now).

For the longest time, I always thought that only Mrs. Mortigan was playing a different game. The rest of us were all on the same page. We were all grouping and raiding and auctioning and harvesting and having the same experience overall. But lately, living on PVP Daggerspine-US, I've come to see my own reflection more clearly, and I've realized that I'm playing a different game as well. I shape the game just as Mrs. Mortigan does, to suit my own personal tastes. I live to group - especially Heroics - where I feel challenged while remaining confident of winning. I like 10-man raids for much the same reason. 10-mans are small enough that I still feel like my performance MATTERS. I'll join a 25-man raid, but don't care for them as much. In a 25-man raid, all I'm really doing is shortening the fight by adding a bit of damage on top of the pile. Ultimately, my grouping is really nothing more than my personal version of Basilisk-killing. I'm doing what I like, and NOT doing the rest. I DON'T do PVP - I HATE IT. I mean REALLY HATE IT. Maybe because I lose all the time. Maybe because those bastards that kill me laugh at me afterward. It's too much like high school, and reliving my high school days through the virtual eyes of Mortigan just isn't my cup of tea. Many people have told me I should do battlegrounds. I've never - NEVER - been on a battleground, and truthfully don't ever want to go. Even the lure of cool PVP gear is not enough to get me out of PVE mode.

And now my Guild (run by personal friends) has packed up and left Daggerspine-PVP for Korgath-PVP, and they've asked me to join them. I don't think I'm going. Oh, I'm packing up all right - to get the hell out of Daggerspine and away from the ganking bastards that frequently kill me there - but I won't be headed for Korgath, that's for dang sure. I'm headed back to a nice safe PVE server where I can raid, group, quest, and harvest in peace. Sorry, guild, I guess I'm playing a different game.

Mortigan the Immigrant

What Went Wrong With PVP

2011-03-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Guild Message of the Day: All Raiders must be ready to PVP Saturday!

Mortigan's Translation: Prepare to be raped, ye squishy cowardly PVE lock!

I haven't always hated PVP. Only since playing World of Warcraft really. So what went wrong? Mortigan digs up his previous selves to find the answer.

My first real taste of online PVP came from first-person shooters. Unreal, with its ground-breaking 3-D Accelerated images, was truly unreal to behold, and Mortigan was a trash-talking death-dealing bastard:

HEADSHOT!
"How do you like THEM apples?!"
HEADSHOT!
"OOOOOH that looked REAL painful!"
HEADSHOT!
"Sucks to be you!"
KILLING SPREE!
"You LIKE to die, don't you!"
"f**k you, Mortigan!"
"You're welcome! Uh Oh - look out!"
BLOODBATH!
"MUHAHAHA!"

Other PVP games came and went, like Tribes, Quake, etc. All of them had the same goals:

To crush your enemies
To see them driven before you
To hear the lamentation of their women
- Conan the Barbarian

During those times, much blood was spilled, and Mortigan was very happy. But there was generally no real fear of death. In many cases, death resulted in an immediate respawn, and the main thing that counted was to simply rack up more kills than anyone else. There was no real need to be cautious about one's own health.

Then came America's Army, and Mortigan (using his last name "Davengeful" as is appropriate in the Military), was recruited into the Special Forces. Many, many hours were spent in nerve-wrackingly intense combat situations. Life MEANT something. Staying alive was important. You didn't run all over the map like a fool - you CREPT through it cautiously. You listened for footsteps or the sound of a grenade pin being pulled. Knowing the map was crucial to survival: Know the hiding spots. Know the camp sites. And never, ever forget that your enemy only needed to hit you with one bullet to send you to the grave.

But as far as PVP goes, all those games - from Unreal to America's Army - are all the same, because there are no differences in the characters. Sure, different weapons are available, but you generally can choose the weapon of your choice. There are no other differences between being one character or another. What REALLY matters in those games is how well you - the gamer - can play. It's about reflexes, instinct, experience, and yes, in some cases latency. But one person really doesn't have any real advantage over another.

Then along comes World of Warcraft, where the difference in classes can be HUGE - despite any attempts by Blizzard to level the field. The wide variance in gear specs further expands the differences of one character over another. Some combinations are simply FAR more deadly than others. And those differences result in an environment far too reminiscent of high school, where the bigger more powerful ones crush the smaller weaker ones. And that imbalance requires the weaker ones to invest more time in gearing for PVP and learning PVP strategies, roll an Alt that is more PVP deadly, or disengage and focus on PVE. Mortigan chose the last.

And so when the guild message says "All Raiders must be ready to PVP Saturday!" Mortigan can't help but wonder, "What the hell am I doing on Daggerspine?!"

Mortigan the Introverted

Grimmtooth Takes Up The Banner

2011-02-24T05:47:00.000-08:00

OMG. Grimmtooth over at http://grimmtooth.blogspot.com has taken up the banner for Nutsack as Posterboy of the New Dungeon Finder Tool, and made actual posters!

Here are the fruits of Grimmtooth's labor... suitable for framing, digital wallpaper, or greeting cards to your beloved family.

Thanks to Grimmtooth, Nutsack will never be forgotten. Brings a tear to my eye - it really does.

Mortigan the Honored

For the Love of Grouping

2011-02-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

GROUP MEMBER INITIATES A VOTE TO KICK THE TANK. REASON:
nutsack
YES OR NO?

I can't really say if our tank was a nutsack. We had just wiped - quickly - on the first boss in Grim Batol, and I'd been so busy watching my auras, cooldowns, and cast bar that I didn't even notice the rest of my group was dead until Omen printed "ATTACKING YOU!!!" in thousand-point font across my screen. When that appeared, I cast one last Incinerate for all the pretty unicorns, said goodbye to Karuri my ever-faithful imp, then made my peace with the great black and white.

I was reluctant to vote on the nutsackiness of our tank. We'd only been grouping for 5 minutes or so, the trash so far gave no indication of trouble ahead, and I was clueless as to the cause of our wipe. So I just stared at the box on the screen, doing nothing. I hoped it would go away without me pressing anything. After a few seconds, it did. And so did the tank. He'd either been booted back to wherever he came from, or he saw what was coming and bailed.

In general, I'm against booting for poor performance, and back in my Wrath days, I grouped with some SERIOUSLY under-performing people. But I always kept my mouth shut, gritted my teeth, sucked it up, and stuck it out. One tank in particular, whose name has mercifully been erased from my mind, could easily be awarded the grand title WORST TANK EVER. But she liked grouping with me for some reason, and would frequently whisper "Hi Mort! Will you come DPS?" and often throw in little smiley faces to ensure I couldn't refuse. I'd check my gold to be sure I could afford the outrageous repair bill soon to come, then make my way toward the impending festival of failure. With her at the helm, we would wipe at least 7 or 8 times attempting to clear Utgarde Pinnacle - by far the easiest heroic in the game. It was brutal with her, but she was oblivious. "Thanks, Mort! See you tomorrow? =o)" And as much as I feared that possibility, I knew I would definitely group with her tomorrow if she asked. Why? Because behind all the digital armor, there was a real person. And she'd probably already heard plenty of unedited rants about her tanking - from people who either didn't care or consider that real feelings might get hurt. Throw into the mix that she might only be 8 years old, and the right to be verbally abusive gets very shaky indeed.

After the near-fatal Wrath Babies post, I resolved to stop comparing everything to Wrath, stop talking about the "good old days" and get on board the Cataclysm bandwagon. But with grouping there is definitely a huge difference between Wrath days and now, and I'm nominating Nutsack as the poster boy for that difference.

The new-to-me Dungeon Tool does its job very well. It assembles groups and drops them face-first into a dungeon, with no questions asked and no begging for tanks or healers. If someone gets disconnected, a replacement is automatically found in seconds. When you're in a hurry for points, the Dungeon Tool is your best friend. And I've got to admit, it's great being able to do whatever I want while waiting in queue. The ease of grouping has Mortigan at least standing NEAR the bandwagon, if not yet fully on it.

But then there's poor Nutsack. He wanted to group a regular instance. He was probably wearing greens. I never checked. When I landed on my face in Grim Batol, I was too busy trying to fire off my own few buffs while running toward the trash-fight already underway (since there is no longer a period of wait-while-we-all-buff-and-put-our-helmets-on-straight before picking a fight with the opening trash). If Nutsack had been on the old LFG tool, he would have been limited to people on his own server, and would have likely had to use a healer that he already knew. DPS would have been personally recruited for the job, and we all would have had PLENTY of time to figure out how well Nutsack was going to do before we ever even got anywhere NEAR the dungeon. After all, even once the group was full, it would still be another 10 to 20 minutes while people traveled. There would have been time for lots of talking:

Nutsack: "Hey guys, I finally got my green Tank gear! I'm ready to give it a try in Grim Batol!"
Us: "Have you tanked much?"
Nutsack: "No, but we should be good. I've got a GREAT healer."

Warnings would be going off in everyone's mind. The smell of fail would be thick in the air. Enter At Your Own Risk. If anyone went along, they'd know what kind of a ride they were in for. No surprises. And Nutsack would lead us through the brutal wipefest one trash pile at a time. But he wouldn't get kicked. And when we're done, there would be a BOND. We survived the Nutsack Run! And I'd be sure to add the healer to my Friends list, because good healers patient enough to stick out a run like that are worth their weight in gold.

And that's how real reputations would start to form. The old LFG Tool was personal. You could read the names of people already in the group. And if you'd been around, you'd quickly know whether you wanted to sign up or not: "Uh oh. Nutsack's tanking that one. Better wait for the next group!" Eventually, those of us who performed decently built up a loose set of friends that were always grouping together. Even in most random 25-man raids, I'd recognize almost all the names. I'd already run Heroics with pretty much every one of them. I might not remember much about them, but I'd know if they were nutsacks or not.

With the new tool, all of that is gone. If poor little Nutsack really was a nutsack, I guess the new tool works in his favor. He'll be off leading some other group to their deaths within seconds. His name will be quickly forgotten, and he won't end up on anyone's bad list because he doesn't even exist on the same server. Anonymity is his shield and his cloak.

But on the flipside, there is no comraderie for those of us who strive to do our jobs well. The healers I run with now don't need to be on my Friends list. I'll likely never see them again. And I'll never be shouting for one in Stormwind. A healer will be automatically assigned to me. It's great and terrible all at the same time. I absolutely LOVE grouping. I like that the new tool gets me a group quickly, and gets the dungeon started immediately. But I miss the friendship building, and the willingness to stick it out when things get tough. After all, Nutsack will finally get his purples, and there may come a day when he leads us to victory.

Goodbye, Nutsack - whoever you were.

Mortigan of the Half Wagon

The Near Death of Mortigan, or How Grim Batol Saved Him

2011-02-17T10:26:00.000-08:00

If you've come here today with the hope of reading the latest tongue-in-cheek "how-to" guide stuffed with dangerously bad advice and ill-informed opinions, I'm giving you this chance up front to run like a fool from this post. My mood towards Warcraft has been worsening the last few days, and I've been on the brink of sending Morty back to the grave indefinitely. To talk about all this will take some back-tracking, some cobbling-together of different things, and certainly some rambling and unnecessary tangents, but if you hang through it with me, I promise some satisfaction in the end. I might not leave you with a sense of heroic triumph, but I'm not going to leave you saying, "Well, THAT wrecked my mood today." You've got Morty's promise on that.

Let's get to it. Roll back the clock to when Wrath of the Lich King was still fairly new - to when the Crusader's Coliseum had just been built and Faction Champions would make even the best-geared raid team cry like a one-year-old with a pamper full of poo. To a time when you weren't even allowed to try to kill Arthas. That was the world in which Mortigan was living and raiding. Early word of Cataclysm back then had everyone abuzz. And Cata was largely seen as a way to make the old zones fun and exciting again. It was going to bring a sense of newness to the game for Alts, and get players back into long-empty zones. There was some talk of high-end content for raiders, but the focus was always on those old zones and getting people interested in replaying lower-level content.

Move ahead a little to November 2009. Mortigan was raiding the Crusader's Coliseum and picked up a Trophy of the Crusade - crucial for getting into some SERIOUS raid gear. But before I could ever put that Trophy to use, I became a father, and decided very quickly to kill Mortigan, this blog, and my twitter account. Better to go out on top, I decided, than fill this blog with messages like, "Well, I don't really play any more, but wouldn't it be cool if when Cataclysm rolls out we could <insert your game fantasy that will never happen here>.?!" I just wasn't up for that kind of lameness.

So for over a year, I was gone from Azeroth, and did not keep tabs on the changes. Apparently, there were a lot more changes than just Cataclysm. I still don't really know everything that happened or why - but some serious retooling went on while I was away, such as the Dungeon tool change briefly discussed in my previous rant.

Jump forward now to the launch of Cataclysm. Word of a major event such as that will reach even those of us deeply stunned by baby-aggro. And now that I've maxed out my Babycare skill and earned the proper Achieve, there is more time to devote to gaming. So Mortigan's grave was dug up, and suddenly there he was, standing in an empty Dalaran, wondering why the portals to everywhere else were gone. Mort found himself quickly disoriented and desperately out of date.

The last few weeks up to now have been spent trying to fathom the following as Mortigan quested to 85:
1. What the heck happened to the Talent Specs?
2. Where are the portals now?
3. What the heck are Justice Points, how do I earn them, and where do I spend them?
4. What is this new LFG Tool and why can't I group whatever I want?
These mysteries are now solved to varying degrees of satisfaction, but the sense of disorientation and outdatedness persist.

It was twitter though that started the recent downward spiral that almost killed Morty for good. I was looking for new WoW Players to follow, and came across @druidmain who was quitting twitter and WoW. Reading her post Why I Dislike Wrath Babies in Heroics was a wooden stake through the heart of Mortigan, this blog, and a large percent of my more crotchety tweets. She basically exposed Mortigan as an outdated product of Wrath, who needed to get with the Cataclysm program or pack it in. And stop whining about why things aren't like they used to be. She had a very strong point, and the effects of that one post will likely reverberate through much of my future posts here. Hopefully I can still be funny, but the fun won't come from "Wish it was the Good old days" foolery.

That Wrath Baby post left me feeling much more out of date than ever. Coupled with the fact that I could not run Heroics with my new guild - and SHOULDN'T based on Druidmain's writing - there suddenly seemed little reason to keep Morty around. It just wasn't fun being out of date, out of place, and left behind. The killing stroke was the fact that I hadn't even SEEN any guildies in the weeks that I'd spent on their server. Morty was done and dead. On the drive home from work yesterday, I made up my mind to finish off Morty once and for all, bid a fond farewell on this blog, and sign out of twitter for the last time. I had other hobbies to consider - photography and music sequencing - which should be able to fill the Warcraft void.

But when I got home, I decided to give it one last shot. Immediately upon logging in, I opened the dreaded Dungeon Tool I so recently bashed on this blog, and set up Morty as DPS for any random dungeon. I decided to follow the sage advice of Reanimatrix and others who advised me to just fess up that I was new to Cata Dungeons before we got started. The worst that would happen is I get booted from the group. Within 10 minutes I received the queue notice, and was teleported to Grim Batol.

The group had already started clearing trash as I ran in. I was a bit nervous, but had my head on straight enough to replace the voidwalker with an instant-cast (soulburned) imp, and cast available buffs and whatnot while running toward the fight underway. I then set about the very familiar task of SETTING CREATURES ON FIRE. No AoE - I'd read enough vague warnings to avoid the Rain of Fire, and just got down to the business of my heavy destruction rotation. As soon as the trash was cleared, I fessed up that I'd never been in Grim Batol. No one cared. "It's pretty easy." was the only thing said. In fact, not much after that was said at all. I've read that the silence is a negative by-product of the new Dungeon tool. But in my nervousness caused by not knowing ANYTHING about the instance (I haven't researched the fights yet), I was happy in that silence. It helped me focus on the job of burning things.

The group was not that well organized. I could discern no method to the order that we killed the mobs. I'd try to wait a few seconds at the start of each fight to figure out who to target first (which helped the tank better establish aggro anyway), but the best I could do is pick the mob who seemed to be losing health the fastest, since it seemed our group was attacking multiple mobs simultaneously. This also prevented my Fear from being effective CC, as often my feared target would take damage and the spell would break. But since we seemed to be downing the mobs fairly well overall, I didn't want to inject rigidness where it wasn't necessary. And since I was the new guy anyway, I thought it best to keep my rant-maker SHUT. We wiped on the first boss, but that turned out to be our only wipe for the night. My green warlock cookies were still warmly accepted, and the Soul Stone on our healer saved the day more than once. I was feeling useful. And of course I kept a close eye on Recount. I had climbed my way into the #2 slot, and stayed there firmly throughout the dungeon. Considering the amount of time I spent in sheep form, stunned into unresponsiveness, or casting Fear on adds, I was very happy in that #2 slot. Grim Batol overall was a heck of a lot of fun. A great instance with no real mechanics needed other than your ability to play your class correctly. And Morty held up his end of the bargain. There was MUCH fire and flame dished out. Crits were taking visible chunks of health out of enemies. The Hurricane enchant I'd put on my Very Manly Staff was paying back in piles of Haste. And my little imp was charging me up with frequent instant-cast Soul Fires - a real treat that I don't see while questing with my Voidwalker. It was a flaming good time!

Sure it wasn't a Heroic. There were no guildies with me. I may never see those people I grouped with again. With the randomness feature, though, who knows. But overall I came to one real conclusion: Wrath baby or not, out of date or not, disoriented or confused, Mortigan nevertheless holds his own, and has a place on Azeroth. So I'll be sticking around, and playing what's available. The Guild, the Heroics, and the Raids can wait. For now, Morty will be running regular instances for justice points, gearing up, working his Alchemy for cash, and biding his time. And when Mortigan's time does finally come, there will be much fire and pain for those in the way.

Mortigan the Cata-Instance Deflowered

The Group Nazi: "NO QUEUE FOR YOU!!!"

2011-02-15T07:59:00.000-08:00

A little over a year ago, in Wrath, I LOVED grouping. I happily ran Heroics and Raids over and over, and kept running them even long after I'd obtained all possible drops useful to me. Those instances were just dang cool all around. And in running pugs over and over, Mortigan became part of a very loose crew of raiders who were always throwing in together for various encounters. I'd often get an invite, and with a quick scan of the roster, I could immediately say, "With this crew, we got this IN THE BAG." or "Oh crap, this will be a wipefest."

But those raid-with-who-you-know times are gone, or at least seem to be, as I try to understand this new-to-me incomprehensible grouping tool. I guess it is designed to eliminate piles of half-filled groups all hollering for a healer. With that potential benefit in mind, I thought I'd give the new tool a chance. After all, maybe I've just been reluctant to learn something new. So I put on a positive face and decided to try grouping.

Last night was my big moment. My time to shine. To finally join the ranks of my new guild in a Heroic and show them how well Morty sets things on fire even when dressed in blues and greens. I had just wrapped up the crazy-long quest chain for the Overly Intelligent Robes in Twilight Highlands, and was ready for some serious 5-man action. The guild needed me. I was ready. The green text beckoned:

"Mort, we need DPS. You up for it?"

"Sure!" I respond enthusiastically.

GUILDIE INVITES YOU TO JOIN A GROUP. ACCEPT?

I click 'Yes' without hesitation. The box disappears, but nothing happens.

"Sorry, Morty, you can't join the queue. Your gear is too low."

Apparently the new LFG Tool is the Group Nazi. "NO QUEUE FOR YOU!!!" I remember being under-geared in the old days - sometimes WAY under-geared - but the rest of the crew was solid enough to carry us through. And I usually got an item or two that helped me progress in a hurry. Not any more. "GREEN PANTS?! NO QUEUE FOR YOU!!!"

And so they replace me and take off without me. I'm left standing in the middle of the Twilight Highlands, looking at an Elk who warily wonders if I'm going to set him afire. Somehow, I'm not hungry for venison just now.

Mortigan the Denied

To Group Or Not To Group?

2011-02-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in the middle of the Twilight Highlands, Mortigan hit 85. Which leaves me wondering if I should keep working Twilight Highlands quests or focus on the Cataclysm 5-man dungeons - which I have not run AT ALL yet. So far, I'm still running the quests despite my lack of interest in helping Dwarves (a side-effect of having been Undead for a VERY long time).

I must admit though that the Dwarven wedding was worth the pile of gathering quests I had to run to get it. On one of those gathering quests, Mortigan was even killed - quickly - by a pack of Highland Worgs when far too many were pulled. (Apparently they're cannibals.) It was a unique experience far more amusing this morning than it was last night.

In some of the limited research I've done on what gear Mortigan needs, it comes as no surprise that he must be Exalted with pretty much everyone... and fortunately, the faction change allows quests to be run again in areas I've already destroyed (because now I'm running the Ally quests instead of the Horde quests). So hopefully I can reach Exalted without running TOO many dailies. My disposition doesn't sit well with dailies, as my previous employers - the lazy, good-for-nothing-but-shoulder-enchants Sons of Hodir will testify to. Hmmmm... now that I'm Ally, I wonder if I can go back and slaughter them all? Better check if I'm still going to need those shoulder enchants first. If not, this ex-employee will go POSTAL in Dun Niffelem! "Remember ME?! I'M BACK!"

Overall, the quests are interesting, and my unfamiliarity with the new LFG tool keeps me from branching out into the dungeons so far. It also means Mortigan will be better geared when he finally does start grouping, and he won't be quite so embarrassing when he finally starts showing up on Recount meters. Having some troll post only Morty's Recount stats as a sort of commentless comment saying "YOUR DPS SUCKS" is enough to send Morty back to the Horde just so that he can light Mr. Recount on fire. "How's the DPS NOW?!"

Mortigan the Ungrouped

How to Survive as a Coward on a PVP Server

2011-02-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

If you hate PVP as much as ol' Morty here, but nevertheless find yourself trying to eke out your existence on a PVP realm, you've come to the right place! Within just a few days on Daggerspine-US, I have MAXED OUT my Cowardly Survival skill, and have plenty of pointers to share on how you too can [usually] escape the long cold hand of death. Here are the nuggets of wisdom I've gleaned so far:

1. Some traffic-heavy points in a zone, such as the Throne Room of Phaoris in Uldum, are not marked as Sanctuary but nevertheless ARE. So when you swoop in at top speed from your ultra-cool (and now slightly retro) proto-drake, landing right in front of Phaoris himself, you can trust Morty that there is NOTHING to fear should you find yourself in a crowd of red-labeled overgeared 85s. Just ingore them and walk right up to Phaoris as if you BELONG there. You do! Although leaving may be another matter, right now you're as safe as Pinocchio in the belly of the whale! Carry on about your business as if no one else is there. And should one of those red-labeled Nasties get too itchy for a fight and attempt to impale you on the outrageously large sword they certainly don't deserve to own, it is very important that you follow these steps precisely:
- Target the person attempting to kill you.
- Click on the chat box. They're going to understand you this time, trust me.
- type the following: /laugh
- By the time you are done typing the above, Mr. Red-Label should be thoroughly dead at the hands of Phaoris' guards.
- Press Enter. Your would-be killer will now be feeling stupid and embarrassed - especially if his friends got to watch the entertainment.

2. Plan on spending a LOT of time mounted, hovering in the air, going nowhere, high enough up that no one can target you. This is what not only cowards like you and I do, this is what EVERYONE does. Have a look around. You'll see all sorts of winged creatures in the air doing absolutely nothing other than keeping their owners out of death's reach.

3. This could almost be part of #2 above - FLY EVERYWHERE. Killing 12 Rabid Chickens for a quest? Fly right down on top of Rabid Chicken #1, snap his neck off, get the Rabid Gizzard Quest Item (how else will you earn that 8 gold?), then IMMEDIATELY mount and fly straight up! Hurry, man - somebody might have seen your cowardly butt on the ground and come over to investigate what you're doing! Have a look around to be sure no one waiting for you to land again. If the coast is clear, swoop in on Rabid Chicken #2. Rinse and repeat.

4. Sometimes you just can't avoid coming within striking range of a red-labeled Nasty while on the ground. Your best hope is that he/she is a coward as well, and wants nothing more than to find their own Rabid Chickens to kill. Go ahead and wave at them. See if they wave back. No? Mount and hover, fool! If they wave or salute back, the chances that you will survive in their proximity have greatly increased. Pat yourself on the back! You may also find it helpful to use real-life school survival skills: wish yourself "invisible and unnoticeable" whenever in higher traffic areas, and get rid of any brightly colored clothing that might attract a bully's attention. Trust me, it works!

5. When they do attack, and there is no nearby assistance, there is NO DISHONOR in running like a fool for your very life. Use whatever speed increasing spells, abilities, or potions you may have. The object is to STAY ALIVE. Better to be a live coward than a brave corpse.

Ultimately, being on a PVP server is a lot like high school. Prepare to be humiliated by those bigger and stronger than you... especially if they enjoy hearing the muffled scream of your face in the toilet. In turn, you have the ability to carry on the chain of abuse to those of lower level and lesser geared than you. Personally, I only like to gank lowbies when the difference in level is EXCESSIVE. For one, it absolutely ensures survival of the encounter, and two, it's funny as heck to one-shot some poor level 10 into the great black and white. After all, it's the cowardly thing to do!

Mortigan the Tail-Tucked

Mortigan the Worgen

2011-01-31T07:55:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I did the unthinkable - I joined the Alliance. Until very recently, even the THOUGHT of going Ally was enough to send me back into my grave to roll over in it. I've been as Hordish as Horde gets - a bond that has only been superceded by being one of the Forsaken, which did mean that occasionally we would simply try to kill EVERYONE and not just Allies. (I have very fond memories of dumping enough toxic sludge in the Dragonblight to take out both the Ally and Horde armies, and almost drop Arthas in the process.)

It was not an easy decision to join the Alliance, but doing so would mean getting to play with old Guild Buddies who are honestly the closest thing to real life friends that ol' Morty has got. And at least the Alliance now have Worgen, which opens up the possibility of destroying whole villages with nothing but teeth and claws. Good times await!

"But how does an Undead creature like myself become a Worgen?" I asked. Turns out, the butcher-doctors down in Undercity's Apothecarium are up for the task! (They're always interested in experimenting on people.) So I headed back to my beloved hometown - the Undercity. If you haven't been there, it's very nice. You should visit in springtime - the smell from the sewers is absolutely exquisite!

My first and perhaps most important task was to gaze one last time upon the eternally-smoking hotness of Lady Sylvanas, my most beloved Banshee Queen. I have died many times in her service, and many more times attempting to protect she-of-the-lovely-red-eyes from Ally invasions. Here is a lovely picture of our last moments together. And no, I'm NOT short - I have a bad spine that keeps me hunched over all the time.

After a bittersweet goodbye, it was off to the Apothecarium to talk with Doctor Martin Felben about my surgery to become a Worgen:

I had several important questions:

1. Can he do it?
2. How much Gold would it cost?
3. Is he qualified to perform such a major operation?

The talk went VERY well. Doctor Martin Felben assured me that he could do it. He had everything he needed right there in his hands - a Vial of the toxic sludge from our beautiful river to knock me out, and a bloody meat cleaver which he would use to perform the operation. And he wouldn't even charge me any gold - something about finally getting some real experience or some such. It all sounded great so far!

As for his qualifications, the esteemed Doctor Martin Felben assured me that he had reached the rank of Apprentice, and was very confident that everything would go along smoothly.

So I laid down on Doctor Felben's top-quality operating table and let him get to work!

Sadly, there were complications during the surgery. The female Tauren shown above - an Unregistered Nurse assisting in the operation - had to be sacrificed to satisfy part of Doctor Felben's arcane ritual, and apparently I needed a new spleen. Two birds with one stone!

I woke up very groggy. A few punches to the face from some unwanted Orc Overseers helped bring me around. I was being drug out of Undercity. They threw me out out of the main gate and gave warning that if I ever returned, they'd kill me. Or try to, anyway. I looked at my hands, and where withered bones had once been, I saw the large claws of a Worgen. Everything I had once been was now gone. My moment of disgrace:

And now I'm starting to get used to my new body. The teeth. The claws. Even the Blue Tabard of Stormwind.

And the Horde is going to pay and pay and pay!

Mortigan the Flealess

A Letter of Resignation to the Sons of Hodir

2011-01-25T13:41:00.000-08:00

For anyone who spent a large chunk of their life running Sons of Hodir dailies for the shoulder enchants, this one is dedicated to you. I'm reposting it as I stare a large pile of Deepholm dailies square in the eye, and find myself wondering if I'll be handing the same sort of letter to the Stonemother, Queen Therazane, in the very near future.

Dear Sirs,

I am hereby writing to you to give you my formal resignation. Monday will be my last day serving as your horribly-underpaid employee. I have toiled every day for you for many weeks now, and it has NOT been fun.

I’m tired of feeding Arngrim. After Monday, he needs to find his own Jormungars. If he’s too feeble, he should find some softer food to chew, like Gnomes. I’ve seen quite a few buzzing around like flies right there in Dun Neffelem - let him eat those.

If you want Hodir’s helm oiled, well sirs, you’re going to have to go into that bear cave and get your own oil. I don’t care if you’re too big to fit. Go on a diet, or just let the stupid helm rust, I don’t care.

As for those invisible infiltrators, well, it doesn’t look to me like you guys have ANYTHING to protect or hide in that empty ice-hole you call home, so let them spy all they want - I’m not stepping in any more ghostly worg poop just to find some spies for you.

I’ve already brought you a mount of scrap iron, and killed enough Brittle Revenants that they must surely be close to extinction. I feel sorry for them - find some other way to cool off your scrap iron. And by the way, what exactly are you using all that metal for? It doesn’t seem to me that you’ve built ANYTHING with the hundreds of pieces I brought you. Time to put that anvil to use that I (yes, once again it was me) brought to you. Apparently all of you together couldn’t walk down the road and get it yourself. But now you have it, and you have the metal, so get to work.

And as for your forefathers, I’m not releasing them any more after Monday. They can walk around on that frozen battleground until the stars burn out for all I care.

And finally, I’m sure you’ve all had a good laugh at watching me fall to my death over and over as I attempt to kill a Wild Wyrm for you. I’m sure you get a big kick out of watching a cloth-covered Warlock try to survive without any useful spells, potions, or decent weapons. Well sirs, yuck it up all you want, because I’m NOT doing that stupid quest for you. Find some other shmuck to laugh at.

So come Monday, you’d better have my frigging Shoulder Enchants ready and waiting. Because I’m not standing around while you guys finally do some work yourselves. Have it ready when I get there. After I get my enchants, you will never, ever see me again.

Your soon-to-be-ex-employee,
Mortigan

PS - I hate you.

The Cheating Assist

2011-01-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

I don't read my quests very closely. I often completely overlook the main story to get to business portion of the contract: Who do I have to kill and how much gold and treasure do I get for doing so?

So I jump straight to the bottom: Kill 6 Uber-nasty Mutated Death Giants. Clicking the map shows these soon-to-be-incinerated giants (whose names are likely far overhyped) just a short distance away. I should have this quest done in 5 minutes or less, earn 8 gold and get some new blue bikini underwear (+50 to Spirit and Stamina! Mrs. Mortigan will be pleased!).

So after carefully choosing my mount for inducing maximum jealousy among others nearby that may be watching, I make a straight shot for the Uber-nasty Mutated Death Giants. There is already some other Warlock there - one of those super-lazy Demonology Locks who lets his Felguard do all the real work while he sits back and has a picnic - and his Felguard is killing said Uber-nasties quite easily.

I race past him to the next obvious Uber-nasty and quickly blast it with a Soulburned Soulfire to get his attention. "Good, he's noticed me." I say to myself. Mr. Uber-nasty comes over to talk about me setting him on fire. I'm already working on my next spell to immolate him as thoroughly as possible. I'll show that lazy Demonology Lock how we REAL WARLOCKS* do it.

Suddenly the world is in black and white, and I'm standing in a graveyard. Apparently, I've been pounded into goo. Perhaps I should review the particulars outlined in the quest:

Thank you, Mortigan! I knew we could count on you. Use this magic toenail clipper to create a hangnail on the big toe of 6 Uber-nasty Mutated Death Giants, and while they're distracted by the pain caused by the sharp, jagged edge of their nail poking into their tender toe-skin, kill them.

AHHH. I have to clip their toenails before I set them on fire. Got it!

So after recovering my corpse, I try out the magic toenail clipper. The Uber-nasty Mutant Death Giant howls in pain when I clip his toe, and then completely ignores the next two minutes of me cooking the flesh off of him with hellfire and brimstone. I drop him without a scratch on me. The next 5 die just as easily.

I should feel victorious, but somehow, the victory feels hollow and meaningless. The assistance I received from the toenail clipper comes too close to cheating. After all, I certainly couldn't kill Mr. Uber Nasty on my own, and he was far too easy with the clipper in play. But as I slip on my new blue bikini underwear and feel that firm support, I'll find some way to make myself feel better about things.

Mortigan of the Snug Fit.

*Real Warlocks are those who spec DESTRUCTION. Props go out to Affliction locks whose rotation is too complicated to comprehend, and who don't get to enjoy the satisfaction of their enemies burning to death in fire.

A Single Set Of Rules On How To Raid ANYTHING

2011-01-21T07:53:00.000-08:00

I find it terribly hard to remember all the nuances of each boss fight. Sorry, but I'm just not hard-core enough to memorize who casts what, and I really don't care if Pixie McNixie in the bottom of some hole is planning to fear me, sheep me, or chop me in half with a big heavy axe. Why? Because overall things are pretty much the same from one boss to the next, so I figured I could come up with a single set of rules on how to raid ANYTHING. I've appropriately named these rules "A Single Set Of Rules On How To Raid ANYTHING."

Getting Ready:
Many people go to YouTube and watch Tankspot videos to familiarize themselves with the fights. This is a waste of time, because all you really need are my simple rules. Not 100% sure? Here are some additional reasons for skipping the videos:

1. Those people in the videos are ELITE WIZARDS and your raid team is not going to do anywhere near as well as them. It's like watching an Olympic gold medalist do the ski jump and then trying it yourself. Forget about it.

2. There are less steps to preparing your taxes than there are to most boss fights. Watching Tankspot explain it on YouTube will only give you a headache. Your guild is going to wipe on it anyway, so no need to give yourself a migraine. Skip the video and use my rules below!

LET'S RAID!
Ok, so here is my Single Set Of Rules On How To Raid ANYTHING:

1. DO NOT stand in anything that wasn't there before the fight started, if it visually looks dangerous. This includes fire, black steaming circles of nastiness, green slimy stuff, purple ooze, etc. If you are not sure, stand in it for a second and see if your health goes down. If it does, MOVE.

2. DEFINITELY DO stand in anything that wasn't there before the fight started, if it visually looks beneficial. This includes pleasant rays of fairy moonlight, air with lightning bug / glittery things in it, shiny sparkly spots on the floor, or anything else that a 3 year old girl might want to color. If you are not sure, stand in it for a second. If nothing bad happens, definitely keep standing in it because it MUST be doing something good.

3. Do the following based on your function:

Tank: Attack the boss with everything you got. Keep doing this and don't stop until your healer drags you away screaming at you, "STOP! STOP! HE'S DEAD ALREADY!"

Heal: Keep healing until everyone is either dead and blaming you, or the boss is dead. In the latter case, it is your job to drag the tank away from the bloody corpse.

DPS: Do the same as the tank, but wait a fraction of a second before doing so. This way, if you get aggro, you can blame the Tank. Otherwise, he will blame you. That fraction of a second makes all the difference on who gets blamed for the wipe. Use it wisely. Now this next part is important: If adds arrive, you need to make a visual check of how dangerous they look. If they look like they can be ignored, stay on the boss. If they look really nasty, switch to the add. Simple! Or you can always fall back on the "watch what everyone else is doing and copy them" strategy, but I'm training you to be a trailblazer, so get in there and blaze that trail!

Off Tank: You're on the adds. Someday, if you ever become cool enough or geared enough, the guild might let you be a REAL tank. But probably not anytime soon. So stick to adds. And if you run like a madman all over the map with a trail of adds behind you, creating a hellish conga-line of death, all the DPSers are going to HATE YOU. So keep your butt in one spot, take your beating, and suck it up.

4. DO NOT stand in a Boss' AOE. The crap raining down on your head should be an obvious sign that it's time to pack up and move.

5. Should a boss fight require you to operate some sort of vehicle, land mount, or drake, randomly mash buttons as fast as the cool-downs allow. Generally, Button 1 is the biggie one to mash, so mash it more than the others. No one's really going to notice if you did well or not, so just mash, mash, mash! You're a pro!

6. If you get aggro, run TOWARD your teammates, not away from them. It's the surest way to get rid of that unwanted boss who's taken serious notice of you. Ideally, run toward (and right through) a mage. Mages are a big, big help with getting rid of aggro. If you're cool enough to be a warlock like me, you can even strategically position yourself right next to a mage throughout the fight, and Soulshatter as needed. Be sure to turn toward the mage when Soulshattering, so that you can watch the look on his face when the boss 1-shots him. If you're a mage, disregard everything I've just said, and take one for the team.

7. The laws of the universe that govern comic books, video games, and science fiction in general require that twins ALWAYS have some sort of symbiotic relationship, and a special power will CERTAINLY exist between them. Therefore, any time there are twin bosses (or even twin adds if they're extremely dangerous looking), they MUST be killed simultaneously. Very bad things happen when one twin witnesses the death of the other. Heed my warning, and kill any and all twins at the same time. Further, they cannot be allowed to touch each other or send each other any kind of glowing orb, ray beam, soothing rainbow, etc. You don't want the wonder-twins activating ANYTHING. So keep them apart, kill them apart, and do it at the same time.

If you follow these simple rules, you're sure to be a success at your next raid. I advise you to print this out and keep it handy. Review it during the boring buff periods before raiding, or when the tank is back in town begging for another healer. And be sure to stop back by and let me know how it went! Happy raiding!

Your buddy,
Mortigan the Lock.

Back From The Dead

2011-01-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

After a little more than a year in the cold, cold ground, I've returned from the dead. Cataclysm calls.

And I immediately find myself horribly out of date, wearing last year's fashion. But what I can't fathom at all, is how in the heck does a stupid level 80 mutant lobster that I charred into oblivion before even finishing my rotation drop a green item that is somehow far better than the super-rare purple item I won in a random roll after 20 of us spent a nail-biting hour killing a nasty, nasty raid boss in the bottom of some hole?!

Part of me says, "HOORAY! NEW GEAR FOR ME!" but the other part says, "YOU MEAN I DID ALL THAT WORK TO GEAR UP, AND ALL I NEEDED TO DO WAS WAIT, COME HERE, AND KILL LOBSTER-BOY?!"

I can tell I'm going to have a LOT to talk about.

Mortigan the Resurrected.