Tale Seventy Nine: Littlebark's Corner - Relocation

PART II

Cryssam stared at the druid with cold eyes. She had seen this coming, of course. Everyone had. But hearing the words come out of her mouth made all final.

Momentarily, she wondered how the team would go on. Littlebark had been the one everyone talked to, someone you could find refuge under and led the team when morale sunk. We will go on, she thought with resolve, Others will pop up to fill her spot.

They had suffered bitterly when Littlebark told them that the Cenarion Expedition had asked her to join her Night Elf brothers and sisters, fighting a more intel team at the Citadel. For months, they faced the same enemy but on different sides.

Months passed before ‘Bark made her way back, trying to fit in but feeling lost. When they weren’t pressing their forces on the Citadel, she was out by herself farming herbs for her potions or fishing or helping the tribes in Scholar Basin. She kept to herself, Cryssam noted, and in doing so lost touch with everyone she loved.

“You want me to re-assign you… to where?”

She shrugged, the fur on her body rippling slightly, “I don’t know, Cryss. All I know is that I haven’t been around.”

“And when you do go to the front lines, your feral sides shines when all we need are healers.”

Littlebark felt the jab but merely sighed, “Which is why I’m asking you- if you have any work for me elsewhere, please assign me to it.”

“We’re at war, ‘Bark. I don’t go around picking up fluff work when I have a damn Lich King looming over us,” Cryssam rubbed her temples, not really feeling pain but merely doing it unintentionally. Old habits die hard, she thought morbidly.

“How about work in Azeroth? Training young recruits or tending to the injured?”

“The injured here need you.”

Stubbornly, her nose went up, “I won’t stay in Northrend, Cryss. Not after everything that’s happened. If you don’t have anything, I’ll put in my request to be removed from my post and find something on my own terms.”

A threat veiled in sincerity and determination. Cryssam’s eyes narrowed, making the slits glow an eerie, cold blue. “I picked this up a couple weeks ago. They might still need help.”

Littlebark grabbed the paper from her hand, eyes flying over the paper, “Draenor?”

“The Sporeggar need help,” said the Death Knight simply, “and like you said, there’s no use in you being dead weight here.”

A growl escaped Littlebark. “I’ll head down there as soon as I say my goodbyes.”

“Littlebark.”

The Tauren stopped in her tracks, obviously resisting the urge to continue walking.

“You may have been dead weight… but you are one hell of a soldier.”

Littlebark’s eyebrows rose, surprise in her eyes. “You are a good leader, Cryss.”

“Just not the right one for you.”

“I’m not right to follow command right now,” she admitted, “and you’re doing a good job despite his absence.”

“I’m… trying my best,” Cryssam whispered hoarsely but Littlebark had already left. Suddenly overwhelmed, she shivered and grasped her head in her hands. One of the few veterans left had walked out of her camp.

It was happening too often for her liking.

Tale Seventy Eight: Introduction...

To a corner on this blog that I'm naming "Littlebark's Corner". Creative, yes?

I server transferred Littlebark over to Moonguard, which was my original server on my hunter before I made the switch to Cenarius. I'm quite excited about the RP aspect of this adventure, about the fact that I've left all my alts and now have to start from stratch so that LB has everything she needs -on her own.

So, to explain what has been bottled up inside me and in a way inside Littlebark as well, here is the first part of a series that I hope will continue on. It's nice therapy now that I'm on my own.

*** **** ***** ******** ******

“Maybe you should take a break.”

The words stung. The druid lifted her nose stubbornly, her eyes narrowing. The Blood Elf sensed the tension that suddenly filled the air and quickly cast her eyes down to the table, absent mindedly petting the giant wolf next to her.

“I don’t need a break, Thienna.”

The elf named Thienna shrugged her petite shoulders, choosing her words carefully, “You’ve… become hard, Littlebark. A loner –and that’s quite an achievement, seeing as that role is usually played by me. You’ve lost so many-“

“Loss is part of war, Waverunner. I don’t expect you to understand that since you don’t get to be up at the Front.”

The insult hit it’s mark, leaving Thienna red in the face, “You know that if they’d let me-“

“Excuses.”

“Bark, I’m just trying to help.”

The druid’s shoulders sunk slightly. “I haven’t been around as much. Not since…”

Since his departure, Thienna registered. They had all noticed it, of course. So many of the veterans had left the North –either wounded or dead. Littlebark was one of the veterans standing when they brought the wounded troll and she lost all hope in winning the war. “We all understand –“

Littlebark’s eyes caught hers, “what, have you all been talking about me behind my back?”

“No!-“

She stood, defeated and angry, “Tell Cryssam that I’ll be by to see her later today. To start thinking of a place to reassign me.”

“Littlebark, we need you.”

The words froze her, and she sighed, “I was a healer. But I can’t even begin to heal the pain from here.”

Momentarily stunned, Thienna stared at the spot where Littlebark was pointing –her heart. Sighing Thienna stood, “I’ll tell her.”

Littlebark nodded her thanks, starting to feel right for the first time in a long time.

Tale Seventy Seven: WoWBook

"Blizzard's partnership with Facebook, announced today, means that players of StarCraft II and World of Warcraft can create a social network with their friends who also play those games on Battle.net and frequent Facebook.

"Step one in our relationship is to have this Friends Importation," says Battle.net project director Greg Canessa. "Really what you are going to do once you buy StarCraft II and you take it home and install it and log onto Battle.net for the first time, you'll be able to essentially hit a button and bring all your Facebook friends that are also on Battle.net into Battle.net and create (Real ID) relationships."

For the full article, read here.

I only have four friends of my 192 friends on Facebook who play WoW. A good 90% of them don't even know what WoW is. And when they hear what it is? They look at me like I have a third head or something.

I don't care about what people think: in fact, I'm quite a proud nerd who loves arguing about superheroes, have most of the game consoles in my living room and play quite a bit. I've shamelessly written Dragon Age fanfiction.

But a game, which could potentially put my family and career in danger?

The risk is too much.

Blizzard goes on to say: "Culturally, I think we have become more and more accepting of social networking in the context of your real identity and Facebook, of course as the leader in the space, has led this charge. We're now at something five years ago I don't think any of us would maybe necessarily be comfortable with. We all now have our own Facebook pages and we have got a lot of our information on there. We've got our real names and pictures of ourselves on there and so forth."

And while I agree that we are moving to a more social society, I do not agree with mixing in Facebook and WoW. I have a Facebook page to stay in touch with my friends. I have a WoW to get away from them and stress.

The part of the article that made me laugh bitterly?

Do you expect any push back from diehard Blizzard fans from the Facebook features?

And their answer?

We don't anticipate any.

......... How very wrong you were, Blizzard. How very very wrong.

*However*, I heard from a friend that he read on EJ (as soon as I can find the thread, I'll link this here) that this change comes not from Blizzard but from Activision, who owns Blizzard.

Who interestingly enough? Just signed a biiiig fat deal with.... Facebook.

*punts the "geniuses" behind all this*

Photo Courtesy of: www.penny-arcade.com

Tale Seventy Six: Why Blizzard is being put DOWN.

So…. Wow.

Blogsphere has exploded with the RealID on the forums.

I’m getting more and more pissed off at the game, at Blizzard, at some stupid choices they’re making and as a result, they’re going to lose customers. Not smart, especially in the middle of a lull before of an expansion.

Like I said on Twitter, the whole RealID showing the friends of my friends my real name isn’t too big of a deal. All my friends are taking breaks or quit the game, my guild is no more to me and Littlebark is homeless. So that change hasn’t impacted me that much.

But this? I do post on the forums from time to time and it really pisses me off that my name will be popping up. Online, I am Littlebark. In fact, the few people I’ve met in game –via guild- have my number and they call me LB when they text me. It’s who I am when I switch on WoW. I’m under no illusion that it’s my alter ego and that it’s going to help me un-blur the lines. No. I know Littlebark is my online persona and the real me is different than when I go to work or school or whatever.

I find it funny that even Littlebark has a “real name” (for RP purposes) but most people don’t know it because her persona is LB or Cuddlebug or Lovebug or Bark. If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know my first name. It’s literally a unique name in North America, and combined with my last name? I’m the only one of me in my city with that combination. Only one person in game knows my full name, and that is Grimmstone, whom I trust completely with it.

Blizzard, I am not comfortable with sharing my private and confidential details in-game, where literally every peeper and weirdo can see me.

I am tired of changes. Catalysm and druid changes aside, this is one too far. My family emigrated from my home country when I was a youngster for political reasons. When I started WoW, I was weary of it but Mr. Littlebark assured me that my name would not ever show up online. And I felt safe because of it. With this, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to post on the forums for fear of not only myself but my family.

Another thing that pops to mind is famous people that play WoW. I bet they play under an alias, happily hiding behind a character and not having to worry about the “OHMYGOD ITS THAT

FAMOUS PERSON! AHHHHH” kind of fans.

Not too long ago, after I left Lords, I joined an Alliance progression guild on a different server with my priest. And one of the first things they told me is that they used their first names instead of avatar names. *blink* Ooookaaaay, I guess that’s fine. But after a few days of seeing my first name in my guild note, I /gquit. I didn’t like blurring my RL with my toons. I feel that it’s okay to use RL names in a guild where it’s a family or close friends. But strangers like this…. It felt strange.

In short, I’m giving you the big WTF STAMP, Blizzard. You’ve received a failing grade on this one.

/end tree rage.

Tale Seventy Five: A Fond Farewell

My best friend, the one who hooked me into WoW and druids is not renewing her game time when it runs out in July. Tonight, we went around collecting screenshots.

Goodbye, Rakota... I loved having you as a partner in crime.

PS: Has anyone noticed that more and more people are taking breaks or leaving the game? ):

Tale Seventy Four: One Year Old

Tomorrow is this blog's anniversary.

It hasn't felt like a year, and I've found that this blog has been a "WoW Therapy" of sorts for me. And while it started as a blog about me, I found it soon evolved into a WoW blog.

I haven't really "defined" what this blog is, I suppose. At times, it's felt like a me-me blog. Other days, it can actually be a helpful blog to other people. I also did a stint at doing ICC guides! That died down pretty quick since everyone else was doing it and I felt that I could focus on other things. At one point, I even did a bit of RP! Of course, there was the one where Petal took over. And when I ranted about the women issue that happens in WoW. And a fun blog post about the statistic tab. I also compared Northrend to my Canada. And most recently, we went through a blog makeover.

All in all, it's been a fun ride. And while I've been silent this last month, it's because I'm not raiding or playing much. With the summer here and my guild not being the same as before, Mr. Littlebark and I have been playing a druid/shaman alt (role reversal!). Here's to another great year!

Tale Seventy Three: Understanding the Feral Side

Specs:

There are two differents a feral cat can run with. This one focuses on single target DPS, leaving one point left over for you to decide where to put it in.

This spec is a AoE oriented spec, allowing you to pump out as much DPS while AoEing.

Personally, I run with the first spec. I need my maximum damage on bosses, where I NEED to output as much dps as possible.


Glyphs:

What I find to be the best glyphs for kitty DPS are: Glyph of Savage Roar, Glyph of Rip and Glyph of Shred. Coming in behind these glyphs are the Glyph of Mangle and Berserk.

For minor Glyphs I tend to stick to Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth, Glyph of Challenging Roar and Glyph of Dash.

Enchants:

For the head enchant, I would recommend Arcanum of Torment, which can be purchased off the Ebon Blade Quartermaster.

If you're an inscriptionist, you should be using the Master's Inscription of the Axe which is better than the Son of Hodir's Greater Inscription of the Axe.

For leg enchants, I find that the Icescale Leg Armor. If you're a Leatherworker, you can stick with the Nerubian Leg Reinforcements.

Unless you're an engineer or tailor, you'll be better off with the 22+ Agility for your back.
When looking for a chest enchant, +10 stats to the chest is the best.

And for your weapon? In my opinion, I'd say Berserking, then Mongoose, then Massacre then Executioner.


Gemming

Meta - when at all possible, stick with Relentless Earthsiege Diamond.

Red - Fractured Cardinal Ruby only AFTER You have reached 400~500 ArPen. Before that, agility is the way to go, so if you're not at that point, gem with Delicate Cardinal Ruby.

Blue - I find myself sticking Nightmare Tears in blue sockets. When I don't worry about socket bonuses, I socket with the two red gems mentioned above.

Yellow - Up to your discretion. If the socket bonus isn't worth it, I'd just stick one of the two red gems. If you think it's worth it, then go ahead and decide between an Accurate Ametrine, Glinting Ametrine or a Deft Ametrine.


Caps & Facts!

Hit cap when you're fighting a level 80 is 5% or 163.95 hit rating. If the target is level 83+, our hit cap is 8% or 262.32 hit rating.

Expertise rating is something that I found a lot of melee players overlooked in my old guild. It is quite an important stat, since it lessens the chance of getting parried or dodged. You should always be behind your target. You need 26 expertise rating (213.13) to be "capped". However, you SHOULD have taken Primal Precision in your talent build, which automatically gives you 10 expertise rating.


DPS Rotation, whaaaa!

To be truly honest, I find that kitty DPS does NOT have a set rotation. This makes the class more exciting and fun to play -for me, as I do not have to spam 1,1,1,3,1,1,2.

That being said, here are some pointers on what to do whilst DPSing.

*Always keep Savage Roar, Mangle and Rake up.
*When you have 5 combo points and you have Savage Roar up, proceed to slap Rip on your target.

Most importantly, try to have fun. I've met people who have walked away frustrated with the kitty's DPS and rotation and stats and stuff. But it is quite honestly my favorite DPS class. And if worst comes knocking on your door? At least keep an ear out for the awesome feline sound your druid makes when you fire up Savage Roar.

Happy Hunting!

~LB