Blog Archives
Giving Thanks
Sleeping is like a meditation. I’m not doing either.
Would you look at that. Another week, another 60 hours of night shifts. Working through the night and sleeping during the day really messes with things like my mood, level of alertness, and knowing what day of the week it is. More importantly, I’m also out of the loop as far as holidays. I had no idea it was already Thanksgiving!
Since my brain is still a special layer of mush, I’ll take the easy content grab on this one. I’ll try to sum up some of the things I’m thankful for in my World of Warcraft adventures in the past, well, since my last post I guess.
Dear Blizzard. Thank you for the bounty you have placed within my computer, and within my heart. This week, I have managed to squeeze in some World of Warcraft and I am thankful for…
- The Gold: I made a good stack of chips on both Alliance and Horde side. So good that I managed to buy a WoW token on each. One went to pay for my sub, and one went into the bank. With the Black Friday sale coming up, I could use that cash to buy a Level 100 boost for a new character. Or, I could spend less that the sale price on the boost and just transfer an already 100 toon to a new server.
- The Grind: My enthusiasm to level another character to 110 is sitting at a solid 30%. I just feel like have no real reason to do it. I could add another body to the Order Hall Gold Factory, but I could also spend an hour or two and put more characters through Argus to unlock the first batch of upgraded Order Hall missions.
- The Motivation: As things stand currently for me, World of Warcraft is mainly about running gold missions. I’ve picked up the epic fishing rod, I’ve snagged Legendaries on a few characters. I’m not raiding, and I’m not doing guild stuff. Truth be told, outside of gold stuff, the thing that motivates me to take characters out into the world is a personal rivalry between my Alliance DK Croman, and my Horde DK Scaredevil. Each of them has a Legendary that’s pretty great (Chest Legendary for Scaredevil, Nuke Trinket for Croman). Getting both of those on one character would be chart-topping. I bounce between the two, trying to get that Legendary that the other DK has. Alliance vs Horde once again!
- The Ironman: As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve decided to give the Ironman Challenge a try. Since then, I’ve had to start over due to accidentally equipping a pair of Green boots on my Ironman toon, which disqualified me. I deleted that character (no great loss since he was only level 12), and started again on a brand new server. I tagged him with the title “the Patient” as a reminder to slow down and be mindful of the gear he uses. Also, not dying would be a big plus. Once he gets some serious level under his (grey) belt, I wouldn’t mind experimenting to see just how much gold an Ironman could make. It would probably be limited to farming, since he can’t have any professions other than First Aid. And no dungeons either, since I believe that disqualifies him as well.
So there’s my list of things that I’m thankful for. I’m also thankful that I’m Canadian and that I missed my Thanksgiving, like, a month ago. So now I get another shot at it via America’s holiday. USA! USA!
Rokk Talk – Iron and Gold
I don’t know when this is going up, but as I write this I’m about fifteen minutes away from finishing my night shift. That seems like an excellent time to put a blog post together, because it’s like I’m getting paid to blog. Living that dream!
The downside, of course, is actually having something to blog about. Since BlizzCon I haven’t really done anything new. The lazy gold keeps pouring in, so that’s something I guess. I just build up my order hall resources and run gold missions on my phone through the Legion app. This past week was rather profitable, making just over 90 grand Horde-side and 30k gold for the Alliance. I could bring those numbers up by getting more characters onto Argus and unlocking a few of those phat gold missions.
#LifeGoals
Speaking of BlizzCon, people have been excited about the news that Blizzard will be releasing Warcraft Classic, or whatever they’re calling their vanilla server. There’s even a movement in game called Project 60, where players try to capture that Vanilla experience. I’ll let that big ol’ slab of swole gamer, Bajheera, explain via Youtube.
I’m not big on nostalgia, so this really doesn’t float my boat. But far be it from me to poop on people who enjoy swimming upstream with rocks in their pockets. Uphill. Both ways. I’m not opposed to leveling challenges. Play the game how you will. That’s why I’ve decided to attempt, once again, the WoW Iron Man Challenge on my new warrior Freakenstein.
Next stop – level cap!
.
Warriors are beast, so I know that the issue won’t be the content that kills me. It’ll be my lack of patience. So good luck Freakenstein, and my condolences.
There we go. Guess I’m getting things done after all. Next stop, sleep.
Rokk out.
Rokk Talk – Casual Heroes
My Demon Hunter has been getting a lot of airtime lately.
I’ve been playing (and loving) Death Knights since Wrath of the Lich King. In fact, of the nineteen characters I had at level cap in WoD, eight of them were DK’s. When I switched my focus from a Horde guild to an Alliance guild, my main switched from Orc DK to Human DK. I dig the class, is what I’m saying.
So why am I playing my Demon Hunters all the time now?
That’s right. Demon Hunters. As in plural. I’ve got my Horde DH gearing up at 110, and I’m leveling my Alliance DH. My DK main, Rokkthor, still gets some attention now and then. I’ve run a couple of Mythic + dungeons with him, and he put up respectable DPS numbers despite only having an 850’ish iLevel.
But lately, when I log into WoW, I’m looking at my DH at the Character Select screen. When I research Transmog gear, I’m looking at Leather armor. It’s not even a balancing act between characters, or factions. I’ve forsaken one Hero Class for another. What I’m trying to figure out is why?
- They move to thrill. They dash. Double jump. Oh and don’t get me started on the joy of gliding. I glide so damn much now that I’ve killed my DK by jumping off a cliff out of habit and spamming my space bar to pop my non-existent wings. If he could shit in my RL shoes, I’m sure he would by now. Demon Hunters are dynamic, which is a nice change of pace from the usual style of melee DPS I’m used to – stare at the ass of the dungeon/raid boss and try to stab it to death.
- I’m finished with the DK. When I say finished, I don’t mean that I’m done with playing the class. Not at all. But at this stage of the expansion, I just don’t feel motivated to play my DK. At least, not in a meaningful way. He’s pretty much as geared as he can get without running Mythic dungeons, or getting into a serious (or at least non-LFR) raid team. Now that I’ve done a couple of Mythics, I’m confident I could run them successfully if my goal was to fatten up my iLevel. I’ve gotten the sweet class title, so the Order Hall questline is done as far as I’m concerned. World Quests don’t offer much except gold and AP. I’ve maxed out the Artifact Research I can do, but other than capping all the artifact talents I’d just be playing for the sake of playing. I’ve even completed all the prerequisites for unlocking flight that I can do. There’s no reason to better Rokkthor any more than he is currently. If I was raiding or pushing cutting edge content, then maybe. I’m just not there. There are other characters who need gear and artifact power. Characters who can benefit from my attention.
- Class motivation. I think most people who play World of Warcraft are familiar with Twitch streamer, Youtube creator, and PVPer / Bodybuilder / eSports Announcer, Bajheera. Watch his Twitch stream and feel the enthusiasm he has for his Warrior. It’s infectious. He got me interested in PVP back in the day and has more than once motivated me to blow the dust off my Warrior and wreck faces. Death Knights don’t really have that name associated with the class like Baj is with Warriors. Hazzed is a Frost DK that I follow and he has a fairly strong presence on Youtube (32,000 subs and counting). But as far as a breakout Twitch personality that brings eyes to the class, there really doesn’t seem to be one. Demon Hunters, however, have Fragnance. He’s the Twitch streamer from the EU who actually blazed to 110 in just over five hours with a Havoc DH when Legion launched. He mains a DH in Serenity, a group of raiders who felt that the raiding powerhouse Method was just too warm and fuzzy for their liking and split off to do their own thing. That probably isn’t entirely accurate, because I don’t follow the bleeding edge raiding scene and can’t be bothered to research it more thoroughly, but the point is that Fragnance has an entertaining stream, is a damn fine player who plays the snot out of his DH. His 64000 followers on Twitch is a testament to his success, and I have yet to find a DK with numbers like that
Will my Death Knight regain my love and attention? Yeah, probably. But for now, I’m looking to tear things up with my flapping bat-elf thing of death. From one Hero Class to another, and back again.
Soon… ™…
Bloodsport Boost Betting
This has been quite a busy week for the UFC. Three days of fight cards, back to back. Thursday night was UFC Fight Night 80. Friday was the finale of The Ultimate Fighter 22. Saturday, one of the most anticipated PPV events of the year, UFC 194. This pay per view has not one, but two title fights – Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman facing Luke Rockhold, and Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo meeting Interim Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor!
Many of you have glazed over at this point. One paragraph in and I’ve already lost you.
Sure, there may be a few people who know what I’m talking about. However, I suspect that the most real-life combat exposure a majority of readers have is wrestling open a bag of Cheetos. This is fine, acceptable, and not something to be judged over.
I, however, have a few passions and violence is one of them. Fasten your seatbelts because there’s about to be an ugly collision of worlds.
A short time ago I posted a poll on Twitter regarding my upcoming Level 100 Legion Boost. I wanted to know what class I should be using my boost for. I proposed four classes – Rogue, Mage, Monk, and Death Knight. The result of the polls came up with a tie between Monk and Death Knight.
My first thought on the results was that I should let the winners fight it out but that wasn’t about to happen. Because how, obviously. That’s when the UFC’s three days of blood gave me quite the idea.
I was going to let others fight my battles for me.
Fight Night 80 had two profile fights that I would use as my decision makers. I was leaning toward boosting an Alliance character, since the majority of my fourteen characters were Horde. So I bet the faction on the fight between odds-on favorite Sage Northcutt and glorified punching bag Cody Pfister. If Sage won, I’d go Alliance. If Cody got the nod, I’d use my boost for a Horde character. Sage was the majority favorite, and besides, the kid looks as Alliance as they get.
The result? Alliance roar!
Second fight was going to be for the sex of the character. I was actually indifferent to this so I put it to the main event – Rose Namajunas vs. Paige VanZant. Paige, the pretty girl, would be the avatar of my female avatar while Rose was for the male.
Paige is too pretty to stand in the front.
Much like the narrator in the movie Fight Club, Rose wanted to destroy something beautiful. She wrecked poor Paige, and by the end of Day One of Blood I knew that I was boosting an Alliance Male.
Day Two was going to start deciding classes. I was going to stick with the profile fight, which was the main event – Frankie Edgar vs Chad Mendes. Oddsmakers and fight fans had this as a coin flip favorite, so that’s what I did. I flipped a coin to see who would rep the Mage class, and Frankie boy won. So if Edgar won the fight, my Mage would advance into the Bloodsport Boost finals. If Mendes won, then the Rogue would go on.
The result of the fight? Frankie the Mage Arcane Blasted the holy Hell out of “Roguish” Chad Mendes.
Edgar also made Chad’s nose disappear.
Tonight’s Day Three will tell the final tale. There are two fights I’m focusing on, and both are title bouts. My two preferred classes in the initial poll, the Monk and the Death Knight, will be decided at the same time the UFC Middleweight Champion is. My preferred class is the Death Knight, and oddsmakers give champion Chris Weidman a slight advantage over Luke Rockhold. So Weidman will be my Death Knight representative, and Rockhold will be my Monk.
The winner will take that class into the UFC 194 Main Event – Conor McGregor vs Jose Aldo for the UFC Featherweight Championship.
Oddsmakers have Conor with the slightest of advantages. Unlike the other fights, I’m bucking the odds. I do not see Conor beating a guy with the talent and skillset that Aldo has. Could he win? Yes. Will he? Not unless he pulls off some magic. And that’s why Conor McGregor will rep the Mage class, while Jose Aldo will represent the winner of the Middleweight class battle.
World of Warcraft. Mixed Martial Arts. Two very separate worlds, brought together by a single Nerdlord. Boggles the mind, the shit I come up with sometimes. Coincidentally that’s also one of the fun things about being me. I have no idea what I’ll come up with next.
Rokk Talk 