Thursday, September 6, 2012

Shared Topic: What spell would you most want?

Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. This week’s topic was proposed by Arvash.
In the new Mist of Pandaria expansion, Druids will be getting a new spell called Symbiosis, which will allow them to “trade” a spell with another player, based on the player’s class and combat role and the Druid’s specialization.
So my question is, if you could have any spell you want from any other class, current spells or new ones in MoP, what would it be? How would you work it into your rotation, gameplay, etc.?
This one's easy.

 Bladestorm

 It doesn't bother me that my favorite Warrior blog recommends Dragon Roar for Arms Warriors in 5.0.4; I was most excited when the new talents dropped because I could choose to Bladestorm in any Warrior spec. Maybe,I thought, I'd enjoy playing my Prot off-spec more if I could Bladestorm as well (Warrior tanking lacks the visceral satisfaction for me that Paladin tanking has. I'm easily entertained by clangy shield noises).

I even feel sort of compelled to type Bladestorm in bold the same way I like to write silly macros to go along with it. I know that /say or /yelling kind of corny and potentially irritating, so I keep a seperate button for the macro'd ability to bring out only when it's going to be entertaining. My gnome warrior, Lexifrazz, has some things like

"Wheeee, I'm spinning!"
"Help, I think I'm going to be sick!"

And, with all apologies and royalties paid to this guy:


STICK AROUND

GNOOOMEEESTOOORM

 Yeah, I know. And I'm not sorry, either.

What if other classes could steal or borrow the magnificence that is Bladestorm? If my mage could whirl around in a fit of Arcane fury, I'd give her a MH weapon and offhand book, always. Just so she could /yell things like "I TOLD you to be quiet in the library!" If I could Warlockstorm, I'd be sad if I couldn't have Fel Reaver Approaching warning klaxons when I did.

(Warlocks are already pretty cool; I'm not sure they need to be cooler ;) )

Priest-storm? I think it'd be best in Holy, if the animations involved pitching Lightwells at people with pinball machine effects. Pingpingping.

Death Knight Runeblade-storm? Cool and appropriate. First person to macro /yell AAAAPOOCALYYPSE gets a noogie.

Oh heck, who am I kidding? That person would be me.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Alice's Adventures at Dracon*Con!

I opened up my old Twitter last week for two reasons: to see what the WoW Twitter/blog community had to say about Patch 5.0.4, as well as to see who else in the Twitter verse might be attending Dragon*Con in Atlanta. I'd blocked out a few MMO track activities on my schedule, and was curious to see who I might run into.

Then, I made the best mistake. I peeked at my old DMs. Inside, I found several of the nicest compliments about this old blog. To everyone who ever tookt he time to send me a note about it - thank you, you've inspired me again. I promise to try and not have to start every entry with an apology for being away for so long.

As I mentioned above, I was at Dragon*Con this weekend. Being an hour away from Atlanta means a pile of my good RL buddies go, and occasionally I run into them during the weekend. This year was special, however. After I learned one of my RealID pals, Saphina, has been doing the con for ten years, I was super excited. Super, duper excited. She wanted to go to some MMO events, including, Sunday's WoW Meet and Greet but didn't want to go alone. I had such a blast the previous year that I agreed to go with her.

(I may or may have not have gone to last year's meetup dressed as the World's Tallest Gnome. Pink hair and all. If there are pictures on the internet, I'm sure they're just hiding from me)

Our first stop was Friday evening's WoW costume contest. We decided that a 'WoW Costume Contest Drinking Game' was an excellent idea. The rules were simple - 1 drink for a Sylvanas, 1 drink for a Dragon Aspect (two if Kalec, because mmm, Kalec). Our friends warned us that we might die from playing this. Regretably, we found chairs behind a bulkhead, and my camera phone had no zoom, so the pictures I took didn't do anything justice. But there were amazing things - an orc shaman who built his own water totem, A kick-ass Troll Warrior, a pair of adorable Dwarf hunters. Before the end, we decided that the lady dressed as Katrana Prestor should count for one drink because we hadn't seen anything on our short list. Thankfully, at the end, we were shown a Sylvanas and an Alexstrasza who had missed the pre-qualifications, and didn't have to leave without anything on our checklist.

I'd really wanted to make the Lessons in Lore panel on Sunday morning, but it was a little difficult to get up that early after being up til stupid hours the previous evening (I wound up staying up until 4 AM chatting with my roommates). I was only a couple of minutes late, but there was a long line of people waiting to see Gillian Anderson in front of the door, and I was a little too tired to navigate through them.

Instead, I went to give blood! The convention sponsors a blood drive through LifeSouth every year, and they were very short on donations this year. The free t-shirt had the Avengers rendered as drops of blood on the front. Too adorable to pass up.

The WoW Meet-and-Greet/Trivia was Sunday night. The Lessons in Lore people were back to host it, and man, did my team get schooled.At the end,we bet all our points in a double-or-nothing question and wound up with zero. So we didn't get to have our picture taken with the humiliating trophy, or name potential new items for MoP, but it was a great time. I even connected with a couple of people at my table and swapped contact information. BattleTags make this so much more convienent.

I thought I knew a lot about WoW lore, but it turns out I can't keep all my orcs apart. Pro tip: just answer Grom Hellscream for everything. Especially when none of the answers involve Grom Hellscream.

If that doesn't work, say something funny.