Ended up in the emergency room on friday. Was having issues breathing
and pain in my chest. Normally I'd just chalk it up to something weird
and just give it a day to go away before seriously considering getting
medical attention. But with what happened to the fiance a year or two
ago, I decided it might be good to go to the hospital.
We arrived at 3pm or so, and were seen right away ( in triage trouble
breathing, chest pains trumps almost everything else ). They rule out
me not getting enough oxygen and start doing some testing. Long story
short, it wasn't a heart attack, stroke, PE or clot.
Eventually they sent me home, convinced it was a simple gastric
imbalance of some sort. I guess it ended as well as it could have. Now
to wait for the medical bills.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tanking Burnout
I've recently stopped tanking on Hotplate. My recent lack of
time/inclination has drawn me more towards healing/DPS. Tanking has
just proven too stressful.
When you're the tank, responsibility for the group falls squarely on
your shoulders. If you slip up, tis almost a guranteed wipe. An
amazing healer can't do too much if the baddie runs over and wants to
say Hi.
Tanking honestly just took more effort, responsibility, and brainpower
than I was willing to put in for a 15-20 minute run for emblems. If
the environment were different ( say a guild raid, or even a run with
multiple guildies) I would be more than willing to tank. Even now I
will still occationally tank, but I prefer to DPS.
The wait times for DPS, while much longer than Tanks, isn't that
bad. I queue up for the dungeon finder as soon as I log on, then I'll
go to the Auction house, browse a bit and send things I find to my
other alts. If I have time, and the am on the correct alt, I'll start
to do a daily or two. By then the dungeon finder will pop and I'll be
good to go.
While trying to DPS on my DK, I came to the sad realization that my T9
tanking gear was still better for DPS, than my dedicated DPS set. This
creates a weird situation where I DPS in tanking gear ( looking like a
complete scrub), and get matched to higher-level heroics based on my
Tanking gear. I've been thoroughly stomped on the meters, with my
paltry 1.5-2k DPS vs some 4k-5k DPS, DPS.
time/inclination has drawn me more towards healing/DPS. Tanking has
just proven too stressful.
When you're the tank, responsibility for the group falls squarely on
your shoulders. If you slip up, tis almost a guranteed wipe. An
amazing healer can't do too much if the baddie runs over and wants to
say Hi.
Tanking honestly just took more effort, responsibility, and brainpower
than I was willing to put in for a 15-20 minute run for emblems. If
the environment were different ( say a guild raid, or even a run with
multiple guildies) I would be more than willing to tank. Even now I
will still occationally tank, but I prefer to DPS.
The wait times for DPS, while much longer than Tanks, isn't that
bad. I queue up for the dungeon finder as soon as I log on, then I'll
go to the Auction house, browse a bit and send things I find to my
other alts. If I have time, and the am on the correct alt, I'll start
to do a daily or two. By then the dungeon finder will pop and I'll be
good to go.
While trying to DPS on my DK, I came to the sad realization that my T9
tanking gear was still better for DPS, than my dedicated DPS set. This
creates a weird situation where I DPS in tanking gear ( looking like a
complete scrub), and get matched to higher-level heroics based on my
Tanking gear. I've been thoroughly stomped on the meters, with my
paltry 1.5-2k DPS vs some 4k-5k DPS, DPS.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
State of the WoW
Its time once again to catch everyone ( by everyone I mean me, and my one follower, thanks sweetheart =)), on what I've been doing in the World of Warcraft.
Hotplate, DK Blood Tank/Blood DPS:
Hotplate has 2 pieces of her Tier9 tanking gear. She really only has 2-3 pieces of blue quality gear left. She remains the quickest way into a heroic. Rarely do I have to wait longer than 10-15 seconds before dungeon finder grabs me a group.
With the higher iLevel gear, the DPS have also started to get much higher. Usually this isn't a problem but I've noticed an increase in frequency of dicks. Seems like the better geared the DPS, the more they expect to not have to worry about fundamental ideas like, letting the tank grab some aggro before nuking. Its gotten so bad that I've taken a break from seriously running Heroics with this toon. I'll usually still do the first heroic random for the Frost and Triumph badges, but after that I'll log into another, less stressful toon.
Hooff, Paladin Holy/Ret:
With the burn out associated with tanking, Hooff has got quite a bit of play recently. He also has 2 pieces of Tier9, Holy gear. The wait for healing is quite a bit longer than Tanks, usually in the order of 5-6 minutes. Thats not bad at all considering DPS have to wait around 15 minutes to get into a group.
I've found healing quite a bit less stressful than tanking. There's quite a bit more room for error. As long as I keep the tank up, if a DPS drops cause I missed a heal then its not a huge problem. Plus in general, people seem to be quite a bit nicer to healers. Maybe its a throwback to when healers were much more in demand than tanks or DPS. Or it could be that everyone is just used to having a girl as a healer, and used to being nice to them. Either way, I'm not complaining.
Hooff was also able to get a new weapon, http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50210 which is admittedly a caster DPS sword. It was better than Firesoul, his previous weapon, which also was a caster DPS weapon.
Quackingbob, Warlock Destruction:
I've just started trying to get into groups on Bob. With my other two toons, I would usually queue up and wait to get into a group. THe most I would do before getting the invite would be head to the AH and do a quick scan, or possibly straighten out my mail/bags/bank. With Bob, this isn't the case. Usually I will queue up, and then go about my business and let the dungeon finder interrupt what I was doing. Usually this business involves making cloth on my 3-day cooldowns, or scouring the AH for enchanting mats. Since I don't usually do dailies anymore ( the rep I can get with tabards, and the gold I can get from the AH), I don't have an easy filler-activity for bob to do.
Because of the long wait times, and lack of filler. I haven't run bob through heroics near as much as the other two characters. This is really a shame because theoretically Bob has the highest DPS potential of all my toons ( because the others are hybrids, while bob is pure dps).
Even with all this, Bob got his first piece of Tier9 last night. The tier 9 shoulders replaced the shoulders he got from Naxx a few months ago. Also a few days ago, Bob won a new weapon in Pit of Saron. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50227 Its a healing dagger, but it was better than the Spectral Kris that Bob had before. Yes, Bob got a healing weapon for DPS caster, while Hooff got a DPS caster weapon for healing. RNG can be a cruel mistress.
Future:
I would really like to get a new 2hander for Hotplate. She isn't having too much trouble keeping threat in 5-mans, mainly because of Rune Strike being macro'd to her Heart Strike and Death Strike abilities, but a higher DPS weapon would really help if I ever get into raids, or even in the harder heroics ( Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection). It I'm lucky enough, I might get her Quel'Delar, if I can find a Battered Hilt that isn't going for 15k+. Honestly I'd love to be able to get Quel'Delar for all 3 of my toons.
Hotplate, DK Blood Tank/Blood DPS:
Hotplate has 2 pieces of her Tier9 tanking gear. She really only has 2-3 pieces of blue quality gear left. She remains the quickest way into a heroic. Rarely do I have to wait longer than 10-15 seconds before dungeon finder grabs me a group.
With the higher iLevel gear, the DPS have also started to get much higher. Usually this isn't a problem but I've noticed an increase in frequency of dicks. Seems like the better geared the DPS, the more they expect to not have to worry about fundamental ideas like, letting the tank grab some aggro before nuking. Its gotten so bad that I've taken a break from seriously running Heroics with this toon. I'll usually still do the first heroic random for the Frost and Triumph badges, but after that I'll log into another, less stressful toon.
Hooff, Paladin Holy/Ret:
With the burn out associated with tanking, Hooff has got quite a bit of play recently. He also has 2 pieces of Tier9, Holy gear. The wait for healing is quite a bit longer than Tanks, usually in the order of 5-6 minutes. Thats not bad at all considering DPS have to wait around 15 minutes to get into a group.
I've found healing quite a bit less stressful than tanking. There's quite a bit more room for error. As long as I keep the tank up, if a DPS drops cause I missed a heal then its not a huge problem. Plus in general, people seem to be quite a bit nicer to healers. Maybe its a throwback to when healers were much more in demand than tanks or DPS. Or it could be that everyone is just used to having a girl as a healer, and used to being nice to them. Either way, I'm not complaining.
Hooff was also able to get a new weapon, http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50210 which is admittedly a caster DPS sword. It was better than Firesoul, his previous weapon, which also was a caster DPS weapon.
Quackingbob, Warlock Destruction:
I've just started trying to get into groups on Bob. With my other two toons, I would usually queue up and wait to get into a group. THe most I would do before getting the invite would be head to the AH and do a quick scan, or possibly straighten out my mail/bags/bank. With Bob, this isn't the case. Usually I will queue up, and then go about my business and let the dungeon finder interrupt what I was doing. Usually this business involves making cloth on my 3-day cooldowns, or scouring the AH for enchanting mats. Since I don't usually do dailies anymore ( the rep I can get with tabards, and the gold I can get from the AH), I don't have an easy filler-activity for bob to do.
Because of the long wait times, and lack of filler. I haven't run bob through heroics near as much as the other two characters. This is really a shame because theoretically Bob has the highest DPS potential of all my toons ( because the others are hybrids, while bob is pure dps).
Even with all this, Bob got his first piece of Tier9 last night. The tier 9 shoulders replaced the shoulders he got from Naxx a few months ago. Also a few days ago, Bob won a new weapon in Pit of Saron. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50227 Its a healing dagger, but it was better than the Spectral Kris that Bob had before. Yes, Bob got a healing weapon for DPS caster, while Hooff got a DPS caster weapon for healing. RNG can be a cruel mistress.
Future:
I would really like to get a new 2hander for Hotplate. She isn't having too much trouble keeping threat in 5-mans, mainly because of Rune Strike being macro'd to her Heart Strike and Death Strike abilities, but a higher DPS weapon would really help if I ever get into raids, or even in the harder heroics ( Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection). It I'm lucky enough, I might get her Quel'Delar, if I can find a Battered Hilt that isn't going for 15k+. Honestly I'd love to be able to get Quel'Delar for all 3 of my toons.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)