Good morning! It’s the sweet taste of school freedom for me (and the beginning of Winter’s Veil for all of us). Stealing a page from Anna and Wynthea’s deep thoughts (who has also been far too busy for deep thoughts).
* I finished out Sunday’s weekly Spiritual Guidance post. This week I wrote about the Circle of Healing nerf, some initial thoughts on it and how to counteract or compensate for it when the changes were live. Woke up to almost 60 comments and some of them are depressing. I’ve come far too close to calling it a career on WoW Insider too many times. But then I realize that the number of times the post is viewed versus the actual number of comments is like 0.5% (literally). There another Priest out there that wants to try their luck at it?
* On another note, to the guys that are speccing out of Wild Growth and Circle of Healing, are you sure about that? Like, there’s still going to be AoE raid encounters. If anything, they become even more important now than they were before. Every AoE healing spell from Chain Heal to the Holy Light Glyph to Holy Nova and such will have to be used. I can understand not using it if you’re not in a raid situation. But like, seriously? Everyone needs to pitch in now more than ever and if you’re going to drop them out of your healing lineup, I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* Stick to your guns. If there’s anything school’s taught me is to always stand firm in what you believe in and take a stance. I’m inclined to respect someone more if they take one stance and stay with it. I wrote about it briefly on my Twitter this morning. It started off with a tweet from @ryannaka (WoW Twitterati, there’s another one for you to add):
@mattycus It seems you hit a nerve with that post [The Spiritual Guidance one]. The complaints in the comments section always make me lol.
And he’s got a point. I did hit a nerve. But I’m not going to argue one side and then double back and argue for the other. I’d rather pick a stance and stick with it and let someone else come up with the counterarguments. Fellow WoW Twitterati @roflwolf said it best:
@mattycus it’s the whole "non-biased opinion" thing. no one wants to pick a side because it’ll push away an audience.
So to all the aspiring bloggers out there, you have an opinion to write and a brain to help you critically think. Don’t be all wishy-washy and try to cater to everyone. Sure you might lose guys that don’t agree with you because they might unsubscribe and stop reading. But the ones that do are your real fans and they’re the ones that care about you the most.
Notable heated exchanges include the following topics:
“Greedo shot first!”
“No Han did!
“Dude, Picard saw FIVE lights!”
“Did not! He saw FOUR!”
“Vader would totally kick Arthas’ ass”
“Hello? Army of Stormtroopers versus Army of Undead? I think not!”
(I might’ve made up the last one but the others are true)
* I don’t care what anyone else says. 33/40 on a final exam worth 45% is NOT good enough for me. SIGH!
* I stopped putting up a Christmas tree when I was 12. I still have a pang of enviousness whenever I go to a friend’s house. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. That friend. You know, that friend who’s decorated his entire house and has candy canes on the front lawn with enough lights to drain the power grid of Los Angeles? And they have a Christmas tree inside with loads of gifts and stockings over the fireplace.
But nah. I’m not bitter. Not at all.
* Speaking of Christmas, wow what is up with the mega commercialization of Winter’s Veil this year? Small Eggs are used in the creation of Gingerbread Cookies. And they’re on the Auction House for 15g this morning. FIFTEEN GOLD FOR AN EGG! What is up with that? Why are you sucking away the spirit of Winter’s Veil by marking up the prices of all this stuff? You’ve got players that just want to make some simple gingerbread cookies for Father Winter. And that can’t afford things like simple eggs! They just want to give it to him as a gift, that’s all!
Interesting how the virtual world can sometimes reflect the real, eh?
* Lots of emails for more Naxx guides. Seriously? WoWWiki and Boss killers have them way more detailed. I’m just giving you what I think is really relevant for healer material. Need some for Malygos or OS as well?
* Speaking of Christmas, some of you might be scrambling last minute to get gifts for that favourite geek in your life. If you need some help, feel free to take a look at my personal Amazon.com wish list. Some of it is Matt specific, but the rest should work for anyone else. There are some things not on the list that I forgot to add. It’s not all non-fiction books. Apparently there’s this series called A Game of Thrones
On the other hand, if you’d like to donate to your favourite WoW blog:
By the way, scratch Dark Knight off the list (Thanks Joyce!)
* Need to comb my hair before I take these shots especially on the sides. It’s all leaning towards my right.
* Shopping for women is hard no matter who they are.
* Need a suggestion for a good electric powered razor with a cradle and recharageability. I’m seriously getting one this year. excellen
* What the heck is this craze about this whole Twilight business?
New blog post: Matt’s Monday Morning Muses: What a Blogger Wants for Christmas and More http://tinyurl.com/6zzq6l
I specc’d out of wild growth….right into boomkin =P
Although the other day I spent 150g going from resto, to feral dps, to feral tank, back to resto for a Naxx run. I’ve never really spammed wild growth since I knew the CD was coming. I personally never really spammed WG, it’s not like we don’t have another awesome AoE heal in tranquility, in case of emergency.
Priests will probably be hit a little bit harder by the CD, but nothing a good priest can’t overcome.
We are not hard to shop for! =P
Caits last blog post..The day they all stood still…
Han shot first!
http://www.hellblazer.net/2007/07/23/recursion-shot-first/
Honorshammers last blog post..Defense Versus Dodge: The Diminishing Returns Battle Royale
I have no clue why Twilight is so big either Matticus, my girlfriend is in that craze too, it is quite annoying I must say. But stick to your opinion Matticus, that is why I come here so frequently is to see YOUR opinion on these topics not the viewers opinions lol. Stand strong!
Visins last blog post..Top World of Warcraft Christmas Presents
Fair warning on the Song of Ice and Fire books (A Game of Thrones): the series isn’t done, and at the rate George Martin is going, it may never get done. If that’s something that will bug you, you might want to hold off. Personally, I got tired of reading about all the horrible things that happen to the main characters and just quit on it after the third book, but I’ll admit it’s a mostly solid series.
Interesting how the virtual world can sometimes reflect the real, eh? – Yup, only I’d say it’s more a reflection of how lazy we are as consumers than anything else. 15g? It’s only that much because they’ll sell at that price. We pay ridiculous prices for junk we don’t need in real life, why not in WoW?
If people really thought it was too expensive they’d go outside their capital city for 5 minutes and farm their own. (Dragon hawks anyone?) Anyone that’s really worried should have bought them at 1g a stack last week.
If you want another example try buying Infinite dust or gems next week, Arena season starts and prices double. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
AJs last blog post..Leveling tradeskills, an update to the disenchanting tool
Seriously, what IS with Twilight? When I heard it was the best thing evar from the tweenagers I decided to go read a ‘real’ book review and I heard that it was very poorly written and followed the plotline of every other vampire novel out there except the characters were extremely boring. Then I remember reading a New york times piece where they said that it was well written.
Oh, and as far as the movie goes, every one of my friends who I trust to rate movies for me has said don’t waste my time. Seems like everyone else has bought into the hype though.
About speccing out of WG/CoH, to me the min/max solution to this nerf for hardcore guilds seems obvious, drop a priest or paladin for an extra shaman, then have your remaining healers specialize in single target healing. I know that for me dreamstate means over 150 extra hps on a single target, not to mention the extra mana regen, and if I stack enough haste to seriously reduce my global cooldown just casting hots on people one by one is more effective than trying to work around a cooldown. So yes, don’t try to work with it, just specialize.
A Game of Thrones is fantastic and I highly reccomend it, just be sure you have the stomach for characters suffering through uite a lot of Bad Things. 😀
on Twilight:
I love vampire novels, and I’ve read a lot of them. Just like with any popular fiction, there are things to like and dislike about Twilight. To argue for it a bit, it’s a vampire novel that’s clean enough for teenagers to read–there’s an accomplishment right there. And as far as following the plotlines of other vampire novels? That’s a plus. It enhances literary quality when a writer refers to another writer’s work. I thought that the references to Romeo and Juliet did a great job of fusing the tragic teen love genre to the vampire genre–it was nicely done.
Stephenie Meyer’s vampires aren’t perfect. They walk around in daylight, and they’re a bunch of royal prudes. The film also portrays them as something akin to fundamentalist Christians, which strikes a very odd note indeed.
I would say that Stephenie Meyer’s vampires aren’t as interesting as Anne Rice’s or Bram Stoker’s, but the novels are very readable and enjoyable, even for 30-year old literature scholars like me 🙂 I was discussing the other day–with another professor–that you could use them to teach students what free indirect discourse is. The narration is really quite masterfully done.
Oh, and on the Song of Ice and Fire series:
Great writer–George R.R. Martin is extremely readable (and has also written a vampire novel, Fevre Dream, that’s really good).
The first book, a Game of Thrones, is excellent. I loved the characters. However, the narration style doesn’t encourage readers to follow the series. You get a hundred-page chunk focalized on one of the players in the story–often a minor character. By the time you reach the last books, a whole volume may go by in which your favorites don’t appear. Martin also has a tendency to kill or forget about his best characters and let the uninteresting ones (like Draenerys the Dull) win the day. Still worth reading, but it’s not something that I buy in hardback.
@ Syd Fevre Dream is his best book. Game of Thrones is a dry romp. I’m a book lover and I come from a family of ’em. It is not uncommon for us to have 4 books running at one time. But his Game of Thrones, that first book…UGH. I do believe it is the style that he writes, too dry for my tastes.
I don’t need action but anytime a friend suggests a book to me and tells me to “just get past the first 150 pages and it gets better” there is a problem. Mind you my husband rants and raves about the series and is the reason I gave it a shot in the first place. Given how long it takes Martin to put out books I’m not giving it another go until its done. But if you want a great book by Martin Fevre Dream is it.
@ Matt
I think your posts on wowinsider are nice 🙂 They are the reason I’m actually reading this site atm. Thou I don’t always agree with your opinions I do respect them and consider them. I wouldn’t care about those comments at all 🙂 Imo you’re doing a great job!
@ Sydera I have to agree with your opinion on Twilight – shocking enough within itself because I very rarely find someone I agree with on the subject! I read the books very reluctantly myself, and more because I was intrigued by all the hype surrounding it than the actual books themselves. As a high school English teacher, anything which has the kids reading (quite often with a guilty look on their faces in class when they shouldn’t be) interests me.
As with the early Harry Potter’s, I think a major thing most people forget about the books is that they ARE written for a younger audience: language for 12-14 year olds contained in a book that, appearance wise, is aimed at 16-18 year olds. They aren’t terribly sophisticated, and they are flawed (haven’t met a book yet which isn’t), but they do tell a ripping love story that hooks those younger readers right in. I have had some great conversations with collegues about the possibility of teaching and analysing Twilight in class as a modern Christian text (so much room for discussion there), or through looking at it’s references to other texts and the way it builds on the genre.
Anyway, as this is a WoW blog (give me an inch to talk about books and I’ll take a mile!) back to WoW. Nerfs are hard to take. Even justified nerfs are hard to take, and while the CoH/WG may or may not be justified, at the end of the day you just roll with the punches and learn to work around it. I may not know healing, but I know nerfs – I’m a lock! 😉 At the moment I am viewing most any nerf as a way to make the game more challenging. So many people are complaining about things being too easy, you should be grateful!! hehe
Oh… and women are not hard to buy for!!!
Saresas last blog post..Casual Guilds are not Easy! Writing your Guild Charter
His collection of short stories called Dreamsongs is also great. 🙂 I’ll have to track down Fevre Dream sometime.
COH – I’ll most likely keep it.
I’ll most likely buy the new Game of thrones book, read it and then complain that I’ll die before the story is done. I seriously get bitter in Chapters when I see Mr. Martin has published something other than a new book in this series.
Twilight – tween/teenage vampire porn without the sex part. Really, just kiss and get it over with. But if It gets kids reading…..