Relearning my class for the hundredth time.

Like every patch in WoW history, this week brought what else but warlock changes, and once again, the forum locks have to sift through the wreckage of our cluster bombed specs and figure out how to deal respectable damage without hating our play styles and our lives. During heroic farm on Tuesday, my fellow guildie lock and I compared our damage with each other's using a veritable flowchart of different specialization and talent combinations in an attempt to find the ideal choices for each encounter. Feel free to pick any of the following easy to understand spec guidelines, and enjoy leading the middle of the pack.

Affliction:

SB:H and pray for shards if no 4pc.





Cata padding douchenozzle

Demonology:

Doomguard talent with extra doomguard.





2-target Cata turning into 1-target because a mob moved






DS glyph 2DB + CW + SF
DS glyph 4DB
attempt 4DB but have to move for a mechanic, miss the end of DS glyph, and then flip a table
SSAA 2x + CMAA = 2FPS
OMGWTFBBQNSFW

Destruction:







CB all day erry day


Good luck, friends!

-Avia.

I got no love rocket this year, in game or out.

Look who's blogging!

So it was Valentine's Day today as I'm sure anyone that dared to venture out onto the streets had noticed when every restaurant was full and there was an unusually large amount of men carrying someone else's purse. Since I'm currently in a long-distance relationship, I got to celebrate the holiday with my best friend celibacy. For some reason, OG Priest went to spend the evening as the third wheel at his married brother's house, so with the apartment to myself, I decided what better way to devote my solo night than with a take-out container of Thai curry and a two-day free trial of the Sims 4.

Though I had claimed my 48-hours of free Sims 4 access a few weeks ago, with all the raiding and garrison dailies, I hadn't gotten around to playing it until today. I'm only a couple hours of playtime in so far, and despite all of the flaws that players have bitched about and that I also took into consideration when I decided not to buy the game at release, I'm still having a pretty fun time while its free. Just look at how beautiful my Simself turned out; she's an adequately-endowed and clearer-skinned version of me who can walk in heels and wouldn't stop working on her novel unless her house was on fire. The game even had my exact clothes and rather realistic Asian eyes as opposed to what they would look like if I were an anime character.

She even has the smirk I do in pictures because I think my smile looks weird.

This is literally my Mon-Wedn-Fri look.

What I'm really enjoying is the new emotions system, which affects the Sim's behavior and wants and also changes the Sim's character portrait into a caricatural display of how s/he's feeling. Check out my Simself in various emotional states below. "Energized" Avia looks like she's ready to grab a wrench and build a bridge just because she has the impetus, and believe it or not, "Flirty" Avia acquired that emotion by taking a steamy shower... She must have a really nice showerhead in that cheap starter-house. The third image is apparently what "Inspired" Sim Avia looks like though it's pretty much the face I have IRL when I'm trying to figure out what I'm ordering at a coffee shop. "Fine" is what the game calls a neutral emotion state, and I'd say it's pretty accurate since Sim Avia rolled out of bed looking rather attractive and non-murderous in the morning. Yet, I have never felt more connected to my Simself than when she woke up "Sad" on another morning and proceeded to "Cry It Out" under the covers. Seriously uncanny.

Well, now that I have my character set up and working an impossibly high-paying job to afford my laughably small bills and spend the balance on things like cupcake machines, I might as well try to make sure at least Sim Avia gets some Valentine's Day action.

Swiggity swooty!

Don't look so eager, bitch! /facepalm

-Avia.

The thrill of a new relationship... I mean raid.

It took three weeks of attempts and raiding until past our usual time the night before the release of Blackrock Foundry, but we finally got M Imperator. Check out our kill video below.


Now that Highmaul is finished, everyone is excited to be learning and executing new fights in BRF. However, now that we're 9/10H and have completed almost all of the encounters in the new dungeon, comparing the two raids objectively and without either the negative memories of wiping or the sheen of brand new content makes it apparent how monotonous BRF mechanics can be. The defining characteristic of many of these encounters seems to be the "rinse and repeat" mantra of identical cycles whether it's the completely predictable sequence of events in Flamebender Ka'graz or the long, drawn-out tasks of Blast Furnace, a.k.a. Spine of Deathwing 2.0. Even the Iron Maidens, with their choice of strategy depending on which targets we whittle down first, have the least threatening and most easily managed pattern I have ever seen in the history of bomb mechanics.

It's just a jump to the left... then right... then left then right.

While I can't say I miss an end-boss that takes fifteen minutes, the un-fondness with which many in my guild look back upon Highmaul and the sense of relief associated with this week's content release are bound to be short-lived. As OG Priest referred to it, BRF is like rebound sex after breaking up with Highmaul. Our relationship with the old raid was full of struggle, and now that it's over, we're super thrilled to get any action that's different. Then after a couple of weeks, the excitement wears off, we look at the new raid and how boring and demanding it is, and we wonder, "What the hell did we just commit ourselves to?"

Bitches, right?

-Avia.