Pugging Priest

with apologies to Vidyala for the title

I said earlier on twitter that I’d be bloggering about my experiences levelling a priest mostly via the dungeon finder. Here is the first post in what might become a series if I remember to keep writing them.

Yaera is the priest, blood elf on silvermoon-eu server. She is level 28, so you won’t see any tales of deadmines, stockades and whatnot. The dungeon finder says I’m eligible for two dungeons: gnomeregan and scarlet monastery graveyard. I have heirloom cloak but that’s not enough really to make much of a difference, so I’ll be doing those two dungeons for a while. Perhaps three runs so actually not that long really.

Not a lot to say about experience thus far. It’s been mostly good groups which is not what I was expecting. Maybe I’ve purged the bad memories. Had one gnomeregan where we wiped several times at the same place on the first boss (the slime thing) but everyone was cool with it and laughed it off, no swearing.

I’ve transmogged my heirloom staff so it looks like a plain wooden stick. I don’t like to advertise my heirlooms because it just encourages tanks to take too many risks and my mana can’t hold up to that yet. Also the loom staff looks kinda silly and everyone has one and I guess I’m a hipster

So here I go I’m going to click the Find Group button and see what comes.

Spoilt for choice

This is a long post, with lots of ‘back story’.

Instance

I like photography. I have a flickr account, with over five thousand photos on it but to which I haven’t uploaded anything in nearly a month. On the other hand, I’m finding myself using Instagram almost every day lately, and really enjoying its simplicity: shoot, caption, upload. Done.

I have an iPhone 4S, and the image quality from its tiny camera is surprisingly good; certainly, for Instagram’s small square photos, displayed on the phone’s screen, the camera is plenty good enough.

And yet… and yet it’s not enough. The pictures are nice, yes, but the process of taking them is not. The iPhone is horrible as a picture-taking machine: the shutter button is in an awkward place, the lens is right in the corner where you want to put your fingers, there’s very limited control over exposure and white balance, and it’s just awkward to hold when you’re taking a picture. I always feel like I’m about to drop it.

So the pictures are nice, but I don’t enjoy actually taking them.

Gear

I also have two ‘real’ cameras: a Pentax K10D, and a Ricoh GR-D III. The Pentax is capable of recording some nice images, the controls are great, and I have some nice lenses to put on it; it can handle a wide variety of photographic tasks. But, it’s basically broken, because it can no longer focus properly; somewhere in its five-and-a-half year lifespan, something’s gone out of alignment, and the cost of fixing it is more than the worth of the camera.

The Ricoh, like the Pentax, has nice controls, and is very good at the thing I bought it for: street photography. It’s small and lightweight, and with the screen off (using an external optical viewfinder) and the focus set to 2m, it’s really fast. Having the screen off also means I can leave it switched on and not worry about draining the battery in an hour. For all its strengths, though, the kind of image quality the Ricoh records is just not ideal for much beyond street photography – it’s too rough, and the colour is weak out in a way that’s hard to fix in Aperture. It’s not very versatile.

Thus to the point: I wish to buy a new camera, and I’ve narrowed my choices down to two: the Pentax K-5, and the Fuji X100. On the face of it, this would seem to be a non-issue: the K-5 is clearly better at more things, and I already have lenses to go on it, so what’s the issue? Here’s where I run into difficulty explaining myself. Bear with me.

Vanilla

My first camera was a Fuji 4800z, a funky little two megapixel thing with an unusual upright design. It’s what ignited my love for photography, and I took it everywhere, and shot everything with it. At the same time, I read and read and read all about the technical side of photography, learning about apertures and shutters and focal lengths and so on. I came to feel limited by the amount of control the 4800z allowed, despite coming up with ways to trick it into doing what I wanted. When it got stolen from under my nose by a thief in London, I resolved to replace it with a more advanced camera, one that would let me control aperture and shutter speed and so forth. That camera ended up being a Canon S50, which… well, I didn’t like it, because it was really annoying to use.

Eventually, I got my first SLR: a Nikon D70. Now this was more like it! Fast, comfortable to hold, good controls, and a really sharp sensor. The D70 was a classic, I think: the first really good enthusiast-level digital SLR, and I did some of my favourite work with it.

The D70 is pretty big. Not big like a D4, and certainly not as heavy, but it eventually the novelty of owning an SLR wore off and carrying it around became rather burdensome. I wanted something smaller, and my attention was drawn to a little Pentax SLR, the *ist DS, further prompted by Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer. The DS isn’t particularly fast, but it has a nice viewfinder, it’s comfortable to hold, and above all it’s small. With the 21mm pancake lens, it can fit in a coat pocket.

So after a couple of years it broke (possibly because I dropped it onto concrete after tripping over a flash cable), and to replace it I got the aforementioned K10D. Yes, I bought a big camera to replace the little camera I got to replace a camera I felt was too big. Hence my dilemma.

Aspects

The K-5 is smaller than the K10D, but it’s still quite big and heavy. This is where the X100 comes in. It’s small, smaller than the DS, and lighter. It has a great sensor, good viewfinder(s), and a very good lens. That lens, though, is fixed focal length, a 23mm f/2. Fortunately, that’s a focal length I find most natural and versatile: not too wide that you have to get right up close to everything, and not too narrow that you can’t get any context in. Just so.

A fixed focal length lens, even a usefully-specced one like on the X100, is of couse not as versatile as several interchangeable lenses, and therein lies the heart of the issue: will the X100 be sufficiently versatile?

When I come up with reasons to justify buying the K-5, the list effectively boils down to having the capability to do photoshoots, and to not let my existing lenses go to waste. The latter point is tied into the former, in that my two best lenses are ones I only really used for photoshoots anyway (and sometimes gigs). Given that the last time I did a photoshoot was February 2009, over three years ago, it seems weak justification.

Variables: that’s what an SLR introduces. When I think about my favourite photographs, almost all of them were taken at short-to-medium focal lengths. They’re also usually ‘documentary’ or ‘life’ pictures, far from the artifice of the studio. This is the appeal of the X100: it’s a simpler camera, with fewer choices to make. It’s also much, much nicer to take pictures with than an iPhone.

Training Dummy

One thing my Instagramming has made clear is the value of simplicity. When I’m using my phone I don’t have to worry about choosing a lens or focal length (or even white balance or ISO). It’s about as close to literal ‘point and shoot’ as you can get, and I rather like it. I feel like I’m past the point of wanting to fiddle with camera settings just because I can. They’re mere technical details, that in my ten years of photography I feel I’ve internalised completely. Moreover, a lot of the time they’re not even that important compared to the admittedly nebulous concept of ‘artistic vision’, something that can’t really be taught or memorised, since it’s a fundamental part of who someone is.

With a small, fixed-lens camera, I feel somewhat paradoxically liberated, free to focus on what’s important, which I guess means I ought to buy the X100, and not worry about my inability to do things I’m probably not going to do anyway.

Rear view: two tips for tanks

My main character is a tank. He’s pretty well-geared, can handle the Hour of Twilight instances without much bother, and shrugs off most of the damage from the regular heroics without breaking a sweat.

I also like to think I’m a good tank player – I keep aggro, I get mobs facing away from the group, and I use my defensive abilities sensibly to make the healer’s life as easy as possible. I even pull fast enough that most DPS don’t get impatient!

Recently though I’ve been playing much more on my rogue, and have noticed a few things I also do on my tank that I didn’t realise were so important:

Keep still

This one is simple: if you have aggro, and all the mobs are in front if you, stop moving. You don’t need to, and when you do, the mobs will try to follow you. When lag is involved, they will often move very erratically, making life much more difficult for melee DPS players.

Playing on my rogue, I’ve been grouped with numerous tanks who just seem unable to keep still for more than two seconds, even when they have aggro on a pack and there really is no need to move around. They bounce around the place, dragging the mobs in various directions for no apparent reason.

I know sometimes you do have to move, perhaps because a mob is behind you, or new ones have turned up and are eating the healer. That’s fine, but try to keep your movements to a minimum, and if possible, move in a straight line. One larger movement is preferable to several small adjustments, too.

Move the boss away from the bad

This one comes up a lot on Peroth’arn in Well of Eternity: the boss puts a circle of fire under a player, and they need to move out of it. Simple, right? Not so much when that player is a melee and the tank doesn’t move the boss away from the fire – as a rogue, I need to stand behind my target to do my job properly, but so many tanks just think that because they’re not standing in fire, everything is fine. Never mind that the boss itself is standing in a large circle of green flames, so the melee can’t attack it without getting burned.

Sure, I could stand in front of the boss, next to the tank, but that’s generally a bad idea for two reasons: one, bosses (especially dragons) often have a cleave-like ability which hits anything in front of them, and two, by standing in front of the boss my damage output is reduced because I keep getting parried. Just as a DPS player pulling or getting aggro makes the tank’s job harder, having to stand in front of a boss (or being unable to attack at all) makes the DPS player’s life harder.

There’s other types of Bad, too, like little circles of light that heal the mobs, or smoke bombs, and so on. The tank needs to move the mob/boss well away from these things so the DPS can do what they’re there to do.

Or in other words

Think about the needs of the whole party, not just your own survival. Look at where the players in your group are standing, and think about what you can do to make their life easier.

Worldview: Searing Gorge

It’s not the first place one thinks of when talking photogenic locations on Azeroth, but then, neither was Feralas. There are plenty of interesting places in Searing Gorge, which has made for some nice screenshots.

The look of the zone lives up to its name – very hot and dry, with numerous smoking vents and lava pools. The searing was not natural, either: it was caused by the first summoning of Ragnaros to Molten Core. To the south, sitting astride the border with Burning Steppes, is Blackrock Mountain, a huge edifice that dominates the southern skyline.

The Dark Iron dwarves have a strong presence in Searing Gorge, with the mining complexes of the Cauldron and Slag Pit being their main operations

One of the land entrances to Searing Gorge is via the narrow pass cut by Horde forces from Kagarth in Badlands. This path leads to a camp run by the Thorium Brotherhood, called Thorium Advance.

As you approach the crest of the pass, you get a good view of the Cauldron, the large mining pit dug by the Dark Iron dwarves who are in control of the zone.

A little way west of the pass is a graveyard overlooking the Cauldron.

A mithril deposit on Firewatch Ridge, in the north-west. Blackrock Mountain is clearly visible on the far side of the zone.

One of the two main flight paths in the zone, Thorium Point is a neutral settlement run by the Thorium Brotherhood, located on a plateau above the Pyrox Flats.

Pyrox Flats is a large Dark Iron settlement housing numerous cranes and other machinery supporting the mining operations below. These war golems patrol the area.

Dark Iron dwarves operate large smelting machinery on Pyrox Flats.

A Dark Iron lookout tower located at the top of the ramp that leads down into the Cauldron.

A large steep ramp leads down into the Cauldron, overlooking a lava pit inhabited by fire elementals.

These walkways and lifts line the northern edge of the Cauldron, providing access to the Slag Pit quarry.

The underground Dark Iron quarry below Pyrox Flats, known as the Slag Pit. Most of the actual mining work is done by slaves – captured Horde and Alliance folk, generally.

The excavation in the Slag Pit is quite extensive. Dark Iron dwarves patrol, keeping the slaves in line.

Not all of the work is done by slaves – there are living quarters above the quarry for Dark Iron dwarves, overseen by [Chambermaid Pillaclencher].

The lower reaches of the Slag Pit contain large pools of lava, and are home to flame elementals, all of whom are minions of Archduke Calcinder.

The Iron Summit is a neutral settlement, established after the Shattering. It sits upon a large hill overlooking the western end of the Cauldron.

Located half way up the eastern edge of Blackrock Mountain is the entrance to the Blackwing Descent raid. This platform was also where the fight against Nefarian, the lord of Blackwing Lair, took place. In the distance are the mountains of Dun Morogh.

Stonewrought Pass is a long tunnel leading from the north-eastern corner of Searing Gorge up to the eastern edge of Dun Morogh. Prior to the Shattering it was kept locked, but is now open for anyone.

The northern edge of Searing Gorge borders the Alliance dwarf zone of Dun Morogh. The two are separated by a great chasm.

World Re-View

Quite some time ago I wrote a series of ‘screenshot’ posts, each a sort of visual guide to the best of a particular zone on Azeroth:

• Azuremyst & Bloodmyst Isles

• Azshara

• Feralas

• Felwood

Unfortunately after the first four it felt like I never had any spare time to make more (they take quite a while to make), and then I eventually stopped playing World of Warcraft entirely for a time, with World of Tanks and then Skyrim serving as distractions from too-much raiding and guild drama.

I am back, though, and with a fancy new computer that can take WoW with every graphics setting turned up to full without even trying. Moreover, I’m no longer in a guild that demands so much of my time, so I’m free to wander about Azeroth at my own pace, enjoying the sights and taking screenshots of them. This is somewhat easier now, with Cataclysm and the ability to fly everywhere, and it also allows for more variety of camera angles (I often wish I could fly in real life when taking photos!).

My original plan when starting the series was to document Azeroth as it was before the Shattering hit (so I started with… the Burning Crusade zones, which were unaffected. Good call), but clearly that was too ambitious a task for someone of my motivation level. So, the plan is now to show Azeroth as it currently is – something to look back on in years to come and remember fondly the time we spent there.

The only thing left to decide now is which zone to photograph next!

Suggestions?

They all fall down

I’ve been levelling a rogue lately, when I’m not being required to tank raids for my guild. Initially I figured I’d go with Subtlety spec since it seemed to be the most suited to levelling due to lots of up-front burst damage; indeed, it’s quite nice being able to just Ambush-Eviscerate and have most regular mobs die there and then.

But. There was talk in the guild of forming an arena team or a rated battleground group, and, based entirely on hearsay, I’m under the impression that when PvPering, one should spec one’s rogue Subtlety.

Thus, I bought a secondary spec, and made it Assassination, because, um, Combat sounds boring? I don’t really know. So what if only Combat gets to use weapons that aren’t daggers too? Daggers are where it’s at, man. Yes. So little Daera is Assassination, and it’s quite fun too, especially now that she has the talent that makes Slice and Dice auto-refresh.

Onward to The Point: as I write this, she’s level 75 (Tricks of the Trade, woo!), and last night I got Violet Hold as a random dungeon. Now, I only started playing World of Warcraft about a week before Wrath of the Lich King came out, so I’m hardly a grizzled veteran. I do, however, distinctly remember doing Naxxramas as a guild, and having to really push the damage on Patchwerk because we all needed to be at around 1,500 DPS lest he reach Enrage. Some people were struggling to do that, at level 80, and only some of them were rubbish players.

Last night, though! Did Blizzard really change the damage output so much when the Great Stats Overhaul of 4.0 arrived, or is it normal for a partially-heirloomed rogue to do 3,400 DPS at level 75? OK, sure, I used Vendetta and the fight was over before that even ran out, but still, really? We got the ethereal dude who does the balls of light thing, and he died before his first orb got anywhere near us. Must have been down in like 15 seconds.

This isn’t fun, especially not for classes that take a while to get going, like shadow priests. Having completely trivial boss fights means they might as well not even be there, and it means new players are not prepared for raids or Cataclysm dungeons.

It’s quite a long time since I levelled my death knight up through those dungeons, but I really hope the bosses there last longer than 30 seconds each. I have a strong suspicion they will, in part just because most heirloom gear doesn’t scale past 80, so there will be fewer vastly over-powered players running around. I want to use the dungeon bosses as practice for when I get to 85 and can start raiding with the rogue, meaning I want to practice on fights that last a good couple of minutes at least (there’s only so much you can do on a training dummy).

Status Report

Hello reader! Long time no see, eh? Blame work for that – software development is rather draining, and when the clock hits 6 I don’t generally feel like doing anything creative.

I have, however, felt like playing WoW some, although even then only a couple of times a week, and even then, only with my girlfriend. We decided a while back to try levelling a pair of characters up again – we’d attempted this a few times before but never really got beyond level 20 or so – and since she was wanting a break from Heroic raiding we went to a quiet little server and created two goblins, Festoon (my protection warrior) and Ozmund (her destruction warlock) and have been having a mostly super time, barring the occasional fail PuG.

I levelled a prot warrior before Cataclysm hit, up to 77, but it was long enough ago that the changes in talents, abilities etc. didn’t really affect me. They’re just minor technical details, though; the overall feel of tanking remains as I remember it: fun! I quite enjoy having so many abilities and having to know which ones to use in what situations, although it’s sometimes tricky to organise logical keybindings for everything.

It’s been really nice levelling with Zoe, especially since we tried to stay as close as possible in experience/level the whole time, always doing quests together and only rarely going our own ways, usually just to collect ore (me) or farm mobs for cloth (her).

Intermission

I normally write these blog posts using my Soda webapp. This post is no different, except that I finally had both the motivation and the free time to fix some of the most annoying issues I had with it. I also added a new preview mode for those poor folk stuck using IE8 – it scales the width of the preview page only, rather than the entire thing. Works quite well on narrower screens since you can shrink it down and still have it remain readable. I removed the ‘paragraph marks’ option too, because it was kinda pointless and just made the CSS more awkward.

Act II

Having reached 85 together and got a bit of non-crap gear, Zoe and I are now venturing forth into Heroic dungeons! Thankfully we’ve been relatively fortunate with our random groups (there aren’t enough members of our guild for guild-only (or even guild-mostly) runs) so it’s been rather pleasant. Even when we have had the occasional fool, it’s not stressed me out much, as I’m fairly confident in my tanking abilities by now. It’ll be even better when we get a guildie healer.

Change of scene

WoW isn’t the only game I’ve been playing lately. First up there’s Trackmania 2, which is super fun, and in whose track editor I have spent probably 90% of my time with the game. I’ve only made four tracks (and only three of those are on MX as of writing), since it takes a long time to really hone one to perfection, but it’s been great fun.

The other game I’ve been playing is this thing called Skyrim. You might have heard of it. It’s lush, and big, and fun and I’ve been known to stay up til nearly 4am playing it, which I don’t recommend. I don’t really have much else to say about it yet, as despite my marathon sessions I’ve still barely gone anywhere in the world. There’s just so much to see.