Achievements... on whom?

The advent of achievements has changed game play for many people. Gone are the humbug burnout issues. People are on and feverishly attempting to do as many achievements as they possibly can!

Don't get me wrong, this is good. Keeps you interested in the game until they can release the expansion. Makes you go see old content you may never have seen (like myself with the old world raids), makes you go do things you otherwise may have not done - like level secondary professions!

For people with one or maybe two main characters... this is heaven! For people with alts, especially if we honestly don't have a 'favorite' alt... this is a horrible pickle.

Who do we get the achievements on? Some of them, anyone can do. Some of them you get just by playing the game.

But who do you have go after the 50 mounts? The rare spawns? The 'can probably only complete this with one character... this year.'?

Do I take Kikidas, Kathe? What about Kiljara or Kvasira? Kava and Kiya? My two newbs, Karika and Karitei? WHO?! I like to play them all.

So I looked at who had what... Kathe has some achievements that I probably won't get anywhere else, like the Champion of the Naaru achievement. Spirit of Competition (a few others have that, as well). But Kava and Kiljara actually have more pets. Kiya is the only one who has fishing and cooking leveled. Kikidas went and got the Jenkins achievement the other night.

Do I really want to 'explore' every nook and cranny of the entire world on EVERYONE? Oy.

Do I really want to complete every old world dungeon on EVERYONE? Granted, shouldn't take long, but still.

So I have decided to split the tasks. Kvasira is my PvP/Hallowed achiever. Kathe and Kikidas will be my old world/new world dungeon/raid achiever. Kiljara and Kava will be my pet achievers and possibly mount with Kava since she has access to horses. Likewise, Kathe may also be a mount achiever, since she has access to the Talbuks. Kiya will be my cooking/fishing achiever.

The rest will come along, as the events happen or as the achievements come rolling across.

Boon has it easier. By far and away Boon has the most 'stuff', and he enjoys that character, by far and away, the most of them all. Which is not to say that he doesn't enjoy his other characters, but Boon is his go-to guy. So Boon will be achieving EVERYTHING.

This is fun.

Oh, there's a really nice spot for the 'Going Down?' achievement, though it requires either Scryer neutrality or a flying mount to get to. You jump from it, and voila! Achievement gained. And you're still alive. Bonus. It's hard to explain, but it's the ledge that's to the left from the Scryer elevator, if you're facing the elevator. Run and jump and success will be yours!

That or get a friendly paladin to help you out. No fair. Pally bubbles work, but Levitate and Slow Fall do not? I cry foul!

The one, the only... Kikidas!

If you do a search for Kikidas on the armory... you get just one. Me. I'm special. That and I will hunt you down and destroy you if you take my name.

It's mine. My own. My precious!

With the advent of the new and improved 51 point talents, my hybrid spec has gone the way of the dodo and $1.99 gas.

The question became, which spec do I pick? I've always been fond of affliction. I've only been demonology once, and that was way back in 'classic wow'. And even then, I was a hybrid with a lot of points in affliction.

Why do I like affliction so very much? People think of warlocks and they think fire and brimstone and demons! When I think of warlocks, I think of DoTs that just don't stop and life tap and drain life and siphon life. That aspect of play to me is so much more satisfying. Because otherwise I should just roll a mage! And I have one of those already, thanks though!

(I jest, there is more to a shadowmage or firelock than spamming ranged spells. I can't think of what they are, but I'm sure there's more to it.)

And for a while, it bothered me that the only love affliction locks got was as a 'raid buff' character. Oh? Are you affliction? Do you have malediction? No. You suck. Go away.

Now, while the role of the affliction lock has been locked in place as a raid buff character by raid wide Blood Pact, the love that affliction locks have recieved makes me giggle.. chortle.. gleefully contemplate killing stuff with Kikidas again.

I'm not one to just go off of what other people say that I should do with talent specs. Do I read? Yes. Do I think about what I read? Yes. But it's my choice .. which explains my hybrid spec that no one else seemed to have other than a footnote in WoWWiki.

My new spec is deep affliction... (and keep in mind, the talent tree that is currently used on the website is outdated) because who could pass up a 51 point talent like Haunt? Let me think... I can damage the target, increasing my DoT damage by 20%, and then I get healed for 100% of the damage that I just did?

Yes please!

And all the spell damage boosts and a few haste boosts and oh, it's just yummy. What I need is for recount to work again so I can judge how well I'm doing comparatively.

I do believe this patch got rid of a lot of hybrid specs that were floating around, because in order to get to the 'defining' spells or abilities, we have to sink more points into the tree. And then at that point, it's worth it to just keep going.

My only class that so far I have that did NOT take the 51 point talent is my priest. But I'll talk about that later.

New Goodies!

No, I haven't had a chance to play with them yet. Alleria was down all day yesterday, and those brief periods it was up, there were no NPC's or in some cases, even no PCs!

I did, however, take a look at some of the talent trees that were on worldofwarcraft.com. Not sure if they're 100% accurate, but at least I have some idea of what I'm going to do with my characters when I do manage to get on. The laptop at work is still installing! If I had been smart, I'd have brought it home with me on my day off and downloaded/installed yesterday. But no one has ever accused me of being smart.

The one thing I hope is a quirk that will get fixed is that the first time I got Kathe on, I tried the mount/vanity pet thing. And I 'learned' my mounts - one striped frostsaber, one swift mist (iirc) frostsaber and a white riding talbuk, as well as my pets - one spirit of competition, one whiteone kitten and one green winged macaw.

Then I got booted. I got back on briefly before bed and managed to make it to IF (to go play at the barber shop), but 1: my mounts and pets had disappeared and 2: the barber shop doesn't have anything fun for NElf females. Not like the Fox Tail for human men! *pout*

Hopefully 1 will be resolved and in regards to 2... I get to keep my long flowing helmet hair.

PvP + Kikidas = Dead 'Lock

I was contemplating naming this blog 'PvP and Me and Why We Don't Agree', but I decided it was far too rhymy. (Yes, rhymy, if it wasn't a word before, is now. Deal with it. :)

The only time I have ever PvP'd was to get the war ram for my night elf warrior. Because I wanted a ram and I had just spent oodles of runecloth getting my night elf rogue her horse, I said to myself, "All I have to do is PvP a little bit, and I can get the ram. Free mount? I can handle that."

O. M. G. I about hated every PvP I did with the exception of Alterac Valley. Part of it is that the Horde PvPers seem to work together better than Alliance PvPers. Part of it was that I'd get into a Horde Song Gulch and look at the opposing team and they'd all be from the same server (which typically means the same guild!) and we'd die in two seconds flat and lose in five seconds flat. Part of it is that I'd get into a Arathi Basin and look at the opposing team and they'd all be from the same server (which again, same guild.) and before you knew it, they were camping us at the BG entry point graveyard, 5 capping us. The last part of it is that I seem to have the mental mindframe of PvE, and I cannot seem to make the mental twitch to get to PvP thinking.

It wasn't so bad in Alterac Valley, because I wouldn't PvP there, I'd do the PvE parts of it. I'd capture towers and help with graveyards, pretty much go offensive. That was kind of fun, unless a turtle was happening. :P

Well, yesterday a friend of mine asked Boon (holy pally) and myself (affliction/hybrid lock) to go PvPing with his ice specced mage. I went, because I was asked. I went, kicking and screaming and crying and weeping and generally being a pain in the ass (one of the many things that people love about me is my ability to complain about PvP, yet be resistant to the suggestion of 'if you don't like it, don't come!', to which I say 'Noooo, I'll goooo.' in a long suffering voice). One of the things about PvP that stuns me (and others!) is that it turns me into a potty mouth so quickly that people who normally group with me are left sitting, saying, "K? Did you just... curse? I don't believe it! Oh dear lord, my ears are bleeding!"

So, there I go, into Arathi Basin first! I can't tell you how many times a Horde 'lock would RUN and HOWL at the same time. Or a priest would run and scream. Or a warrior would run and intimidating shout. I don't have excellent stamina gear, I'm at just over 10k health with both fort and imp buffs, and my armor is laughable. So I go down like a wet tissue over sandpaper.

Aaaand we lost. Yay. :)

So, we try an Alterac Valley. That one was a bit more fun, because I did what I always do in AV, and ignored the enemy players and went after the NPC's. Dots, dots, dots, yay! I just had to live long enough since there aren't such things as tanks or healers wandering around healing me and keeping aggro off of me. But that wasn't so bad. There were usually enough other things hitting the mob that it was slow to reach me and quick enough to die.

I think a big problem is that I'm something of a competetive person. I don't like to LOSE. Losing/dieing in PvE is one thing. It's a matter of me doing my job better in some way. Still frustrating, but handleable. Losing in PvP isn't any fun at all! It isn't me doing my job WRONG, it's someone else doing their job BETTER than ME! (Hard to believe, yet, the evidence is overwhelming.) My job is to do dots. Dots dots dots!

So, I have reinforced my first impression of PvP as something I will avoid like the plague (which is still endemic in Colorodo. Just saying.) unless I make a hearty effort to switch my spec to something along the lines of demonology or destruction (or I suppose full affliction for unstable affliction, which has that nifty 'remove me and you'll take damage and silence yourself! Nyah!' aspect to it), make a heartier effort to get stamina and PvP gear, and somehow lose half of my brain.

On a side note... did you guys notice this little thing in the patch notes?

Primal Fury: This talent will now be learned correctly even if purchased while the Druid is dead.