Gankswarms!

The inspiration for this post came from a comment made in an Alterac Valley BG. It's something that has been bothering me for the last few days but I haven't been able to verbalise it as well as this guy could. The comment was:

"ffs...I hate coming in here late and getting griefed to f**k by a gankswarm!"

My thoughts exactly. Not just about AV but  virtually every single BG I've played this week. Battle for Gilneas. Horde took Lighthouse and stood at the graveyard smashing our faces in. Arathi Basin, took the Stables and pounded my gnome into dust. Warsong Gulch, attempted but not this time, pedro. What the hell is going off with Horde lately? Is this the only way they play now? I mean, usually they travel in packs much better than Alliance (which for me is often the reason for their success) but not to this extent. Though this may look like a massive QQ, it's really not. I appreciate a horde who plays well and takes me to pieces but to have rogues, fire mages, huntards and priests gank the graveyard? This has happened sometimes but these last few days it's been the main play style. And it's dull. Still, always the chance to mega penguin and pat prior to my death. Which never stops being fun!

I did have one major win this week with a new talent though. Lets call it a 'Disney talent'. Illusion provided me with the biggest giggle I've had in a while. I was in Twin Peaks and we were trying to get the flag. I was defending but was seeing my team mates frustration at the fact that 2 rogues were guarding the horde flag so I thought I'd take a chance at grabbing it. I popped into invisible mode and made my way to the flag, grabbed it and unfortunately got kicked to death by the rogues. Ok, try again. This time I swam in blinked to the flag, managed to get out of the room but again succumbed to the rogues. Last try. Previously I had tried Illusion and turned into trolls, so I wondered if they might not notice me sneak in. By this time there was a lot of horde stood outside their flagroom. Clicked Illusion and turned into a goblin...of all horde races! So I started running towards them... and they ignored me. I had a wtf moment but carried on regardless. Ice Barrier up, I grabbed the flag. This set the rabbid rogues after me plus a bonus loladin. Counter Spelled the loladin, plus a quick spell steal and Frost Nova'd the rogues. Blinked out and started running. Had a DK put me in Shackles of Ice but the Escape Artist gnome racial sorted that. I got half way down the field before I had a gathering of horde running towards me. Waited until they got close, the BAM, Frost Nova and blink again. I had 1 (yes, just 1) ally run at the side of me from here when I saw a shadow of a little b*****d rogue sap him. He shouted sap and I got a lovely pet freeze ready for him. Popped it on plus Deep Freeze and carried on. Dropped the flag to win the game! During this run, I cursed more than ever I had done. But it was FUN!

Though my mage has lost a lot of her damage until I figure my stuff out, she has not lost the awesome CC abilities and most importantly the fun factor. Though I may not have the DPS of a fire mage or even an Arcane mage, I do have the ability to get either myself or another player carrying the flag up the field. I like nothing better than to help a fellow Ally through a big group of horde with my Frost Nova's and Pet Freezes, while they run on to victory. Or even myself. Seeing multiple horde stuck to the floor while I cycle through my freeze rotation is a joy to behold. Until, of course, I run out and they pummel me into the floor. By that time though, out FC is usually clear. I'm not nicknamed the suicide gnome, by my favourite Lock, for nothing...

PvP Battle Royale: I Got the Pan Lid

I've tried my new talents. My choices are:

• Ice Floes
• Ice Barrier
• Frostjaw
• Cold Snap
• Frost Bomb

All frost. At first they weren't. I initially went for:

• Ice Floes
• Temporal Shield

The rest the same as above. This did not work for me. I missed my Mana Shield, which I was casting constantly. I was not amused!Ice Barrier works better for me now it has a 25 sec CD. I can work with that. But I've found myself back to being the horde punchbag. I'm tiny, yes. Annoying, yes. But I got nuked down by a Shadow Priest in seconds. Also, as if Warlocks needed MOAR fear. I spent my first BG surrounded by locks spamming teh fear. But as always, it's a work in progress. And I have faith in the WoW gods. Do you hear me, faith!

Things I dislike:

• Having cast time on my Frost Armor. Slows me down when I res and want to go pewpew fast!
• Cast times in general
• No Mana Shield
• Priests breaking my Ice Block (though I hear this was there before the patch. I just never saw it)
• Fear, fear, fear

Things I do like:

• Frozen Orb is just so pretty!
• Nuking rogues (3 in 1 BG. Though they may have just been terrible)
• Tiny familiars in Arcane. Tiny Water Elemental is, well, tiny
• Frost Bomb 

Yes, all the things I like are cute. I know, but I'm a GIRL. I like cute, as long as it's coupled with frosty death. Which has yet to happen in abundance but it will. Trust me, it will. Also, mad at DK's Horn of Winter snowstorm. It's so awesomely awesome that I'm jealous. WANT! 

Any comments welcome. I'd like to see how other Frost Mages are managing. Also, happy to hear what other classes are happy/unhappy with. My other half is not happy with his destro lock. Share your thoughts!

Things To Do Whilst Downloading Patch 5.04

I've been downloading patch 5.04 for approximately 10 minutes and have got to 7%, which means I'm probably not going to get it in 15 minutes...more like 4 hours! So, I'm compiling a list of things I can or am doing while I wait:

• Eat my breakfast. Which consists of 1 Cadbury's Twirl and 1 can of Dr Pepper. Don't look at me like that. I waited all my childhood to eat junk for breakfast. Now I'm a growed up I can!
• Do my ironing... As if!
• Look over last night's server shutdown screenshots, edit them (you know what trade chat is like) and post on here.
• Clean. See Number 2

I'm at 10%

• Read some more guides about how Frost Mage's have been nerfed (why???), QQ a bit, then find that they're not actually that bad when I get in
• Get all shades of excited about new areas. From what little I've seen so far, they look amazing!
• Have a chuckle to myself about how much QQ'ing rogues will be doing!

13%

• Tell my daughter she no can haz morning pewpew session.
• Start shouting at my Antivirus to stop asking silly questions. Of course Blizzard can have access. It can hear me, right?
• Pay my bills and think about how I can farm more RL gold. I have 4 part time jobs that equate to 1 full time and I've been offered another.

25%

• *squeeeeee* a quarter of the way done!

Red Carpet Fashion: Cataclysm Edition

I'm getting a little excited about the new patch tomorrow. So in honour of Cataclysm almost being over, I've decided to do a little post showing my two transmog sets. Being a fashionable gal, Azerothian (is that the actual term?) clothes do not always suit those of us who are small in stature. I would post a screenshot of my gnome wearing the red dress someone gifted me but honestly, the therapy bills for you would be huge. I prefer my gnome not to rock a slutty look (her thighs and muffin top prevent it, or I'd have her in a bikini). Practical, yet garish is my chosen style. And yes, she is in pink...

First up: PvE kit in Arcane spec

And my PvP Frost Mage Kit:

While not being a complete transmog junkie, I am looking forward to seeing what MoP has to offer!

Kids in Azeroth

I know that the issue of children playing World of Warcraft has been discussed quite a lot in the past but I thought I'd weigh in with my own opinion on this. I can speak from experience, as our own daughter plays.

Initially she was bored with it but after seeing me play she decided that she would like to try it again. She plays a Night Elf Mage (the kid's got taste). Usually she plays PvP like myself but lately she has started to play dungeons. And here are where the problems have begun. Though she is technically not the best player in the world, she does learn very quickly. Only once has she been subject to abuse in a dungeon. As we monitor her play, we were quick to jump in on the situation. Where we were met with, "it's 12 and above for a reason!" 

That may be the case but with parental guidance, we don't believe that an 11 year old playing is a massive problem. What we do believe is a problem is the amount of adults willing to throw out abuse. Our own daughter is unmoved by it. We have had long discussions on the kind of things she may hear, trolls, role play,  internet safety and such. Luckily she is strong enough of character in RL that the things that go on in WoW don't affect her at all. And she is at that pre teen age where name calling bounces off her and that as of yet any abuse has been game related. One day this may change, hopefully it won't. But this is not always the case.

Our own guild has experienced problems with a player who decided to throw threats at a junior member. We only have 3 children in the guild. 2 of which are children of senior members and 1 who is not. My daughter is the youngest, the others are over 12. We are predominantly an adult guild, but we are very family orientated. We don't curse in guild chat and we treat the children as we would our own. We help and guide them through the game. Now a few months ago we got a new guild member who seemed a little obnoxious from the start. Within weeks he'd managed to insult just about every guild member and troll trade chat for arguments. Then he seemed to take a sinister turn. He started throwing out nasty and awful RL threats in whispers to one of our junior members. She was deeply affected by this and became quite frightened thinking this person would actually carry out these threats. Understandable, even for an adult to recieve threats like these. As her parent is a guild member, it was taken care of straight away. But our GM continued to receive threats until Blizzard actually banned the person. It was quite an episode but it highlights the problems that may occur. 

We now make the kids aware of who to come to if they have a problem. The 3rd kid that plays doesn't have a parent in game so he tends to message me if he has any problems with other players. Usually I will go to wherever he is and monitor the situation and provide support. It often ends the problem straight out.

I talk a lot about the negatives of the game but I do believe that WoW has a lot of positives for kids. Being part of a huge community of mostly great players is a good thing for any child. Some players have shown immense kindness to our daughter. Plus, the tactics behind the game keep her mind busy. Stat priorites, play style of different classes, boss mechanics... they are all part of the learning process. Also, group etiquette. The tank is the leader, follow his instructions. Don't pull, be aware of your role within the group, keep up, aggro management. Be a good team player. Many group skills translate to real life. Working within groups is an important skill for anyone to learn, whether it be in a game setting or real life. And I would rather her play WoW than a console game such as GTA.

Besides, there's no prouder moment for a WoW mum when her daughter comes top of the kill list in BG!

Gnome Masochist LFG

A lot has happened since my last post. I began to get quite bored with my Mage, plus I got a new post in my guild so I decided to get a new toon. Mainly to farm some new professions (mining/jewelcrafting), but also to try a new playstyle. I decided I wanted to go back to the good old days of being a tank. So, because I'm lazy, I went with a Death Knight. Gnome of course, just to keep that annoyance factor.

Now, I started this a few days ago and absolutely love playing it. Solo, that is...

I went Blood because for once I wanted to be a double hard b*****d, instead of the ranged clothie I've been for the last year. And because, secretly I must love abuse, I threw myself straight into a dungeon. Because dying is the best way to learn. At the start of the fight I politely told the group I was new, thinking that maybe they might be patient with me. The dungeon was Hellfire Ramparts, which I haven't done on my mage due to pvp'ing my way to level 70. So, I was a total newbie. In ran the loladin and pulled the first mob...ok, I got this. Then it just went crazy. The pally just pulled everything in sight. But clearly they could handle this, so my back up adviser told me to just go with it. Soon I was reduced to just shouting at the screen, "for God's sake, I can't see anything...what is happening!!"

Then we got to the boss and the healer asked if we need a tank. Then this happened, screen shotted after by scrolling up chat...

Now, as you can see, I told my guild I died on the first boss. Initially, I thought that it was just me playing poorly. Then the healer typed the comment about letting me die. Aside from the fact he/she obviously meant they didn't need me, he/she let me die on purpose. What a sh*thead. So I needed everything, then sat down while they killed stuff. Gained the exp from the run, had a rest from running round in heavy plate.

Now part of me thinks, hey, that was just a bad group. The rest of me disagrees. As I mentioned in my last post, some people seem to be massive d*cks on this game. Like little gods behind their keyboards, looking down at the noobs with scorn. Well, not today. This noob is going to stand and be counted. I shall play exactly as I want and take whatever abuse is sent my way. I shall continue to tank be it good or bad. To be honest, I'm that hardened now from the raggings, you could punch me in the face and I wouldn't feel it! 

And as for the people in this group, the best revenge is knowing that, unfortunately for them, they will always be douchebags, be it in game or real life. Now, I'm off to farm a ton of stuff ;)

Rage Shout!

I love my game currently but there are a few things that annoy me. And I have found company in my annoyance. A frustrating part of the game is the amount of rage shouting people do. Now for Battlegrounds it seems the norm and I accepted that, as most of the shouting is aimed at the faction generally. For example:

"Ally sux fuxin NOOBS"

Now aside from the terrible spelling and grammar in that sentence, there isn't much to be offended by. It's just someone QQing because they aren't winning. Or maybe they're like, 10. Very rarely is one player singled out for abuse.

Not so for dungeons. In my early days as a Frost Mage (which is by far the most fun mage to roll), I spent the majority of the time being raged at or kicked for low dps. This didn't really bother me until I actually wanted to gear up nad play seriously. I started to feel like no one would give me a chance. I asked for tactics for one Hour of Twilight Heroic, that I was doing for the first time, so I wouldn't do something totally stupid and get kicked for it and got this as a response:

"If you don't know the tactics, you shouldn't be here. LEAVE."

Not exactly encouraging. I didn't leave but spent the entire dungeon being ragged by this wonderful guy. After that I refused to dungeon for a while. I didn't want to be singled out whilst I was trying to learn. After a bit of a push from my partner I went back in and got my iLvl high enough for Raid Finder. He sat behind me and told me what to do. Whilst many might see doing Raid Finder a mistake if you don't like being singled out, it was actually a real turning point in my game. I very quickly learned how bad my dps was thanks to recount reports. I was singled out to be kicked for doing an underwhelming 6k dps. But then, a legend wrote this in chat:

"Haha 6k dps. Leave the mage. Ice lancing like a boss!"

This raised a few laughs in the group and I didn't get kicked. I think they thought of me as like a little gnome mascot, biting ankles on my way. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to see the fights and see what other mages were doing. After that I decided to change my spec to Arcane. Not as much fun but waaaaay better dps. After doing my weekly RF plus random HoTs for Valor Points, I have managed to get my kit and my play style ready to try Dragon Soul Normal Raid. I have tried the first part up to Hagara twice and held my own with dps and using correct tactics. And this is an awesome feeling. But still I won't join pugs for fear of the old way returning. And this is silly.

So to any people who think it is ok to rage at a fellow player who is trying to progress, you suck. You are the thing that holds this game back. If wipes happen, it's not the end of the world. Blizzard will not take your account from you. Your pixels will not be obliterated. Your PC will not explode. You will just ressurrect and try again. Or not, if you rage quit. Then you will spend forever on trade chat trying to pug another group where you will more than likely rage quit again. If you are one of these people, you were not born naturally talented at WoW. You had to learn. And while some people learn faster than others, they do not have the right to abuse anyone else. Give people a chance. It won't hurt you.

If I am in a group that is slower than usual, I do a quick inspect of gear. If the gear is low, I understand. We move on and I feel good that someone has had an opportunity to try. Unless someone is being abusive or afk I don't believe in kicking. If your healer says their gear sucks, don't stand in harm's way. Try to make their job easier.

So, for anyone who has had abuse in dungeons. Don't stop doing them. Keep at it. Because when you start climbing the dps list, it stops. Then they move on to the tank...