Age of Conan: Day 1

Ok, so I saw this Age of Conan game, and thought it looked cool.  Then I heard that a couple guys in my guild started playing it.  Then I read more about it.  I read that guilds can build their own cities with buildings, and can attack other guilds buildings. 

That was the clincher.

I picked it up Saturday.  After a TWO DVD install that took 45 minutes, then a 45 minute patch I was into character creation. 

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!  I have never seen a character creation like this.  You start out with a base model.  There is a triangle with a dot in the center.  The top of the triangle is skinny, the bottom right corner is strong, the bottom left corner is fat.  You move the dot around the triangle to create the general body shape.  Then there are about 10 “starter” faces to get the general face of your character.  You choose your hairstyle and color.  Then you get to the advanced body screen.  There are sliders for your body shape.  About 10 sliders can change the bulk in your arms, chest, thighs, legs, waist, butt, etc.  Then the face.  There are about 20 sliders that control the shape of the face.  There are like 5 sliders just for the nose. 

I have never seen that level of control of character creation before.  It is INSANE. 

You get into the game.  The movement is similar to WOW.  The targeting is different.  With melee classes you don’t really target like normal, you just kind of swing.  If you are close enough you hit, if not you don’t.  Unlike WOW you control your dodging.  If you see them winding up a big shot, a quick double tap and you move to the side and avoid the blow.  Doing that means if you are good at dancing you can dodge a lot if incoming attacks, so you can attack a lot of higher level mobs. 

The other thing I really like is that it is a MMO, but there is a single player side to it.  Once you get into town you can go to “night mode” and do a bunch of single player quests that are all doable at your current level.  You can switch back to “Day mode” and play in the general world. 

Because I am a hunter in WOW, and formerly an Amazon in Diablo 2, and a Marksman in Hellgate London, of course I started a Ranger. 

The ranger is what would happen if a WOW hunter and Rouge fooled around in the back seat.  The rouge is a rouge.  They stealth, they dual wield, the have no ranged.  All of their abilities are melee, and they do a ton of damage.  The Ranger is also a rouge.  They have some ranged talents, and some melee talents.  They do good damage in both forms. 

The thing that made me absolutely INSANE for this game.  RANGERS GET STEALTH!  I can stealth around, I can backstab from stealth for a huge damage bonus, or I can de-stealth and unleash some ranged pain.  Right now I am getting to where I can handle a three pack of even level mobs.  That took some practice, but I’m getting it. 

The graphics in AOC alone make it worth the $50.  The world is very realistic looking, it kind of reminds me of a Tolken inspired Call of Duty 4 graphics. 

Oh, yeah, and there are finishing moves.  Watching your rouge with two daggers jump up in the air and bring both daggers inward in a crushing stabbing blow to both of your opponents ears at the same time….I have never thought of a game as porn before, but that was close. 

Off the Air

Sorry for the dead time.  Stress at work has kept me from thinking, and the house buying has kept me busy at home.

I hope this will be over soon.

Karma, for the first time, is not a bitch.

Well, a long time ago I posted about my adopt-a-noob program.  I dedicated that once a week I would help someone out for some period of time as I saw fit.  It started as a weekly Gnomer run.  This is because I am the only person in my guild that will run Gnomer without a gun to their head.

 

So, for a couple weeks it was Gnomer.  Then it was Stockaides.  Usually 2-3 runs of that place, or Deadmines.  Then we did a couple weeks of BRD / UBERS to get people their Onyxia Attunement.  All was well and good.  I would run these people thru.  As a result whenever I was on my lowbies I could always get a group to go somewhere. 

 

Saturday I decided that it was adopt-a-noob day.  I logged in and only found 3 people online.  2 were PVPing together, and 1 was in Kara on his alt.  Well, no one to help.

 

I was working on cleaning out my bank of the junk that seems to accumulate when you are not paying attention when a new person logged in.  This is a very special person.  One of our Off tanks has two accounts.  One for his main, and one for his mage alt.  He does this so he can dual box.  One day his mom was watching him play and started asking questions.  She got interested.  He got her on the mage and he played the Warrior and they farmed together.  The mage is 100% ice, so it is basically spam Frostbolt.  They farmed together a lot.  She started her own toon, but never made it all the way to Goldshire before getting bored and quitting.

 

One day we were in Kara and lost a person.  We scrounged around and could not find anyone.   Finally this guy had a brilliant idea, I’ll get my mom to play my mage.  We were doing Attuman, Morose, and Maiden, none of which required her to do anything but spam frostbolt.  She sat down and he ran thru details like how to watch the threat meter, and what it meant when we said “STOP DPS”. 

 

She ran Kara with us that night and had a blast.  Over the next few weeks she ran Kara with us a couple more times.  She got excited and decided to start playing for real.  She has come with us a few times since then. 

 

So, back to the present.  She logged in.  She has 2-3 toons in the high teens, but has started to settle into her pally as her favorite.  I asked her if she wanted a run thru something, and offered Stockaides as she was level 22ish.  She was already in Stormwind, so I grabbed my mage and teleported there.  We hit stockaides.

 

First off, this was a LOT of fun, because I had not done it on my mage in a really long time.  The last time I was mid 50’s.  I struglled and we almost wiped a couple times.  I was fire spec, and hitting a group is difficult.  One fireball is instant death, but getting it off when 3 guys are hitting you is difficult.  Now I’m level 66, covered in +DMG gear, and frost spec. 

 

This was an AOE run. 

 

The room I ran into and started Blizzarding, then Cone of cold, and one Arcane Blast finished the stragglers off.  The second room was the same.  The third room I ran into and arcane blasted, then ran into the fourth room and blasted, gathered them up, frost nova, then Blizzard.  This is REALLY fun.

 

By the end I would run into three rooms, and as I ran into the third she would run into the fourth and meet me back in the hallway, mobs in tow.  A string of Arcane Blasts would decimate the group.  It would take her longer to loot than it took me to drink. 

 

This was the most fun I have had in a long time.

 

We finished clearing.  I said “That was fun, empty bags and do it again?”  She was all for it.  We headed back in and did it again.  Clearing 4 rooms at a time with Arcane Blast left the place empty in record time.  We cleared the place a total of 4 times, getting her a level and a half of EXP. 

 

In the end she replaced 4 pieces of gear with good green upgrades, and two blues.  I had about 3 trips to dump my bags of grey / white items, and two full mail messages of greens, and 1 blue. 

 

That was Saturday afternoon.  Sunday night I got online to do Kara.  When I did I got a tell from our Off Tank (her son).  He said thanks.  She was so excited that she called him at work to brag about her new gear. 

 

That made me smile. 

WOW Widow

I heard this term a while ago and never put much thought into it.  I play a lot of WOW, but is my wife a WOW Widow? 

So, I started thinking of things that a normal gamer would do, and things that a gamer gone overboard would do.  For each of the following pairs, assign yourself the points listed and see if you have left a WOW widow behind.

-1) I have never spent more than 2 hours gaming in a row.
1) I have spent 4 hours straight playing a few times.
3) I spend more than 4 hours a day playing.

1) I like to keep a snack for extended play times.
2) I have brought 3 cans of pop to my desk to save me trips back and forth to the fridge.

-1) My computer came free with a 10 gallon fill up.
1) I have a pretty good computer.
3) My computer costs more than my car.

1) I play world of Warcraft
2) I have more than 2 level 70 toons.
4) I have more hours played in the last year than hours at work.

-1) I like FPS games like Counterstrike.  I play defense.
1) I average a 1:1 Kill to death ratio.
3) I have complex codes written that buy all the guns and gear I want, I have 11 different setups based on circumstances.

-1) I have never read the WOW website.
1) I used the WOW website to find out what a Shaman was.
2) I have read some WOW stat sites, and have a few different talent point makeups I want to try.
4) My WOW blog has been referenced in a book, or on the WOW website.  Every WOW player knows my site.

-5) Wait, there are boats in this game?
1) I can name the opposing faction major cities, but can’t spell out Shat.
2) I have a WOW t-shirt / sticker / hat / patch.
5) I have a WOW related tattoo.

1) I use TS / Vent.
3) I have my own TS / Vent hosted server.

-1) I have a pet that I care for that is not neglected.
0 ) I don’t have a pet. 
1) My pet could used walked more.
5) I had a dog die and didn’t notice until it smelled.

1) I can identify IF, SW, and BRD.  Beyond that is a little hazy.
2) I can understand it when someone spew out a sentence with 45 letters and no actual words.
3) I write those sentences, and they are not only understandable, but the right thing to do.

1) I like dailies.
2) I’m sick of dailies.
4) I have done all 25 dailies 5 days a week for a month.

1) I’m in a guild.
2) My guild has activities I go on 1-3 nights a week.
4) My guild has my home phone, cell, IM, work phone, and mom’s phone number. 

-3) My wife / girlfriend knows that I like to “Play on the computer sometimes” but can’t name any games I play.
1) My wife / girlfriend knows that I play Warcraft and can name my character’s name. 
2) She can name the class I play, and what they do.
4) She can also name their spec, and why that is good, and a little about the guild drama involving loot drops.

1) I have talked to my wife about her playing Warcraft.
3) I bought her a computer and started an account and twinked it for her, but she never made it past level 6.  Now I’m out a white sword with Fiery on it. 
-5) My wife started playing a little every now and then.
-20) My wife has a 70.
-50) My wife raids.
-100) My wife is the MT / MH / #1-2 on DPS.
-1,000) My wife has trash talked an NPC / Raid boss over TS / Vent.

-5) Wait, what is this TS / Vent you keep talking about.
1) I read and answered every question here.  They were funny.
3) I posted this in my guilds forum.
-100,000,000) My wife got a score higher than mine.

So.  There are 15 questions.

If you are less than 20 I would say you are not in risk of having a WOW Widow. 

20-25: a bit above average, but savable.

25-30: perhaps it is time to slow down.  You look like a Vampire.

35+: Your tower is a headstone she can mourn at.  She may as well have a wake every time you log in. 

I just squeaked in with a 19, only because I got my wife to play Warcraft a little.  I got her

Good Laugh

I had a good laugh last night.  We were 2 short on the first night (Wednesday) so we PUG’ed 2 people from the SGA (Small Guild Alliance, I talked about earlier). 

The first night we got a Rouge and a Elemental Shaman.  We are all pretty well geared from Kara, the Shaman ended up getting something like 5 new pieces, and the rouge 2.

We ran the second night of Kara last night.  The Rouge did not show up.  The Elemental Shaman had a guildie that could go.  He was a hunter.  The guile got into TS, then got an invite followed instantly by a summons.  I knew that the night was going to be interesting when as soon as he took the summons and appeared at the meeting stone he said into TS “Holy Crap, there is some Huntard out here with a bear for a pet.  Is he an idiot or what?  Bears do CRAP for DPS.”

I just sat there…waiting for the light bulb to go on.  He was in my group.  10-15 seconds go by and NO ONE is TS is saying a word.  There is an eerie silence in TS (which NEVER happens).  Finally our MT says “hey, did you get that hunters name, Maybe we can have Lump here talk some sense into him.”  I busted up laughing, and everyone else followed with a good laugh. 

Then the light bulb went on.  Ever hear someone realize that they were talking with their foot in their mouth?  It sounds like this “Huh, he just did an emote saying that he was glaring at me.  Wait…his name is Lumpey…Hey Lump, that sounds like your….oh….crap….sorry about that…my bad.”

Then I got a tell from the Shaman who had been with us on the first night saying “[hunter] just sent me a tell saying they your DPS is gimped.  Should I tell him about the first night?”

No.  No you should not.  Actions speak louder than words. 

The other hunters gear was very comparable to mine, so I knew that I was in for a good run. 

When we downed prince the MT posted the Damage chart, which he never does.  I was in first place at just over 22%.  Second place was our rouge at 17%.  The hunter and shaman were tied for third in the low teens.  In his defense (kind of) he died a LOT from pulling aggro.  So, he is not bad at doing DPS, he is bad at living, which makes him bad at doing DPS. 

The MT said “Man, you should have a talk to that guy about his bear.  It needs Nerfed.”

So, that was the long drawn out story that led me to this point.  Here are some of the things that I saw this guy and other hunters doing that are bad.

1) Your pet standing by your side does no damage.  There are VERY few places where a pet should not go in.  As a hunter if your pet is by your side it is not hurting anything but your rank in the damage meter, as a BM hunter that is 10X true.  In a multi mob fight if your pet returns to you after a mob dies, then send it back in.

And don’t give me any of that “I’m Mark / Survival spec, so my pet does not do much damage.” Crap.  CRAP CRAP CRAP.  That is my response to that comment.  Your pet does more damage than all of your enchants added together give you, but you sure as hell got those didn’t ya?  If you saw a hunter with no enchants but using his pet, he IS out damaging a hunter with good enchants and his pet at his side.

2) Hunters Mark should ALWAYS be on.  ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS.  If it takes more than 3 hits to kill something, then it MUST get a mark.  The ONLY buff you have that gives you more damage than Hunters Mark is Savagery, and that is only if you have a 2 hand weapon, AND that does not count the extra damage that other people can do because you have a mark up.  If there are two hunters then be sure that you both mark different targets.  Odds are at some point someone will hit that second target (i.e. the tank) and having that debuff up increases their damage, so it increases their threat.  One mark per hunter should be up at all times.  No questions asked.

3) Serpent Sting.  This one is debated.  Some people argue that it takes up a debuff slot that something else could be taking.  That is true if you are in a 40 man raid with 5 locks.  In a 10 man there are almost no group configurations that would have that many debuffs up.  The second point people make is that it is Mana inefficient.  Well, unless you are having to autoshot because you are OOM then this is not a valid argument.  IF you are not running out of mana, or if other things (potions, aspect of the viper, judgment of Wisdom, shadow priest, etc) are keeping you from going completely empty, then Serpent Sting is good, because it allows you to do more damage in the same amount of time.  It also helps by dealing damage while you are not capable of dealing damage, i.e. when stunned my Morose, or Maiden, or running from Aran’s explodey. 

4) Scorpid Sting.  This adds the 5% miss debuff to the target.  If you have a good tank and healer, and are not taking a ton of damage, then it is not necessary.  If you have a tank that is taking a lot of damage then it can make a HUGE difference.  If you have more than one hunter, and both of you have been using Serpent sting, then look at who has the lowest RAP.  The damage of Serpent sting is added to by RAP, so the low guy on the RAP list should be doing Scorpid Sting.

5) Misdirect EVERY time it is up. Misdrecting allows all the DPS players to do a little more damage without getting aggro. 

6) Drop a Damage Trap (I’m partial to snake traps).  There are a LOT of situations where a trap is useful that is NOT CC.  Remember that there are some other traps out there.  I say that I am partial to Snake traps because the snakes take up their own slot on the aggro tables, so you don’t get more aggro from them.

7) On longer pulls with more than one mob, drop a frost (not freezing) trap 10 yards before the tank.  That will gather up  making it easier for the tank to stomp / consecrate to get some initial aggro before the heals start.

Intimidation has uses other than Aggro generation.  The two things I can think of are the guys in Botanica that do that cyclone attack.  The stun portion of Intimidation breaks that, saving the healers a TON of work. The second thing I can think of is the arcane (white voidwalker looking) guys just past the Library in Kara, before you get to the Etherials, in that large round room.  The little guys do an arcane explosion as they die, unless they are stunned.  A well timed Intimidation can stop them from exploding.  You want to pop it when the mob is around 20%.  If you have HIGH DPS, then you should do it more like 30%.  There are many other cases where intimidation is a good thing.  If your tank uses taunt as soon as the mob gets to him, pop an intimidation.  The threat your pet gets will be given to your tank as soon as they taunt.  This is a touchy subject with tanks, so discuss this with them.  If they are good (and don’t mind risking your pets life if the taunt is resisted) then they will probably be for it, as the more threat they have, the less other DPS classes have to hold back.

horse = Dead

Well, we got final news that the loan is not going to happen.  Despite the fact that the loan officer said that he rarely gets to work with people in as good of a position as us to buy a house, and that his boss agrees that we should get financed without anything more than a glance at the paperwork, the underwriter disagrees, and refuses to take our circumstances into account when evaluating certain aspects of our loan.

(just as a reminder, my wife applied without me because my credit is horrible)

For example, one of the major points for rejecting us was that my wife has no savings.  That is because the savings is in MY account, because both our paychecks come into my account and I pay the bills.  Her account is only her gas money and spending money. 

The underwriter refused to take that into account, nor the fact that we have not missed a payment on anything, nor so much as bounced a check in 4 years. 

To put in into terms we can all understand, Our financial situation was like a full 40 man raid of Black Temple geared raiders running to UBRS.  When they get to Drakk, Drakk turns to them and says “HA I see that 9 of you failed to bring Flasks” and then proceeded to Evade Bug. 

Oh well.  I give up.

So, we are moving next weekend to a smaller / cheaper apartment.  I HATE to move, even more so because I know that the next move will in 1-2 years.  I’m not excited.  Although, I told my wife that we are not doing the next move until we have enough money to do the following:

1) Hire someone to do the move for us.
2) Sell our furniture, and have new furniture delivered to the new house. 
3) Get a Hotel room to stay in the week of the move, one with a hot tub, and a masseuse. 
4) A 10% down payment so I can flip the bird to the finance people.  Preferably in cash.  Un-bundled and un-stacked 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s.  In a paper bag.  So I can dump it on their desk.  So I can scream “THERE IS YOUR BLOOD MONEY YOU SELFISH BASTARDS!”

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

How to beat a hunter.

Since I wrote about dueling, I thought I would share some of my tips for how to beat a hunter.

There are two types of hunter, BM spec and everyone else.  This is from the perspective of a beast spec hunter. 

BM hunters have the same weakness that other hunters have, plus one.  Our pet.  I know that our pets are one of our strongest weapons, but they can also be a liability as they are subject to being destroyed or CC’d. 

One thing that most people don’t realize is that if you CC the hunter while they are not big and red they can not pop Beastial Wrath and get out of it.  If you CC the pet, the hunter can pop BW to get them out.  Always CC the hunter FIRST.

The first tip I’m going to give sounds counter intuitive.  Let the hunter sick his pet on you then run away.  A lot of a Hunters damage depends on staying still.  While fleeing you take away their ability to stand still and shoot.  This separates the hunter from its pet.  Do whatever you can to damage the pet.  You should be able to kill the pet while they are separated from the hunter.  If you have anything that can purge the Mend Pet you have an even easier time.

One tick of AOE kills all the snakes from a snake trap.  If you have a low rank AOE to pop it makes like easier.  Set up a macro so using a modifier casts a low rank.  For example, hit the button and it casts Arcane Explosion, hit ALT and press the button and it casts Arcane Explosion rank 1.

There are dozens of ways out of Ice Trap.  Duel a friendly hunter and have him trap you to play with what you can do to get out.  Ice Trap is broken by any damage.  DOT’s take it off with the first tic that happens.  Because Ice Trap is broken by damage a hunter only traps for a few reasons. 

1) They want to get range.  Break the trap and pursue.
2)  They want to bandage or run away.  Break the trap and pursue.
3) They want to take you out of combat and target someone else.  In that case, watch your target of target and wait for them to switch.  Once they switch break the trap and pursue.  Waiting a moment to let them think you can’t get out of the trap will give you an advantage. 

Serpent Sting is our DOT.  It does crap for damage, and it can help you if you get frozen.  Ignore it.

Viper sting is a mana drain.  It costs us a lot of mana to cast.  If you are a high damage class and have a decent mana pool ignore it.  You will spend more mana purging it than you would have lost by keeping it.  It also breaks traps.  If you are not a high damage class (or spec) then be more concerned about it, and remove it.

When you see the hunter and pet turn big and red that means Beastial Wrath is on.  RUN.  Do not fight us in this mode, simply run.  It has a decent duration so you may be running for a while.  In this mode we and our pets do more damage AND we can nor be CC’d or even slowed.  Don’t waste mana on trying, just run.  As I mentioned before, if the hunter is CC’d then they can not cast BW. If the pet is CC’s then the hunter can free them by casing BW.

Ranged: If a hunter is standing still they will use mostly Steady shot, which is Physical damage.  If you have high armor then try to keep us from moving.  If we are moving our only two damaging shots are Arcane Shot and Serpent Sting.  Arcane shot is Arcane damage, and Serpent sting is Nature.  If you have High resistances and low armor, then keep us moving.  We have a large range, so retreating is the best way to keep us moving at all times.
Melee: get on us and keep us spinning.  I have seen too many hunters that are button turners.  Button turners do not stand a chance against a dancing melee.  Keep running circles around the hunter.  They will have a hard time getting much damage at all.  

Mages: If a hunter is standing still shooting at you blink TOWARD them.  If you blink thru us and past us then we will get the “must be facing” error and the shot will not land.  My best advice: sheep us, Kill the Pet, Kill us.  With the pet on you your casting is slowed to the point you die.  Separated we don’t stand a chance. 

Warlocks:  I hate you.  Fear me, DOT and kill the pet.  DOT me. I die.  If I am lucky enough to get a BW off and actually get some damage going it is usually not enough to eat thru your HUGE health pool.  If you are chain fearing me do NOT let it lapse, otherwise I can pop BW.  If you know you are facing a hunter, and have the right talent points, sac your voidwalker to soak up the damage I try to deal while I have BW.  If you sac your void while I BW, that is a guaranteed you win button. 

Pally:  Most of you I have an easy time with because you have no ranged abilities, you just take a year to kill.  I’m going to Viper sting you.  Remove it.  I’m going to drop Snake traps, consecrate them.  If you have the ability that gives you mana / health when something attacks / misses you…then I lose.  My pet has a nub par hit rating, so they miss against someone with a lot of agility / dodge quite a bit. 

Warrior: Hamstring spam FTW.  You have enough armor and health to be a pain in the ass for quite some time.  I have to kite you.  Use intervene / charge and you should be able to stay close. 

Priest: bubble early and often.  Clean off the Viper sting. 

Rouge: Good luck.  We have quite a few anti-rouge abilities.  Serpent sting removes vanish.  Snake traps DOT’s do the same.  The do not lose their target if you vanish.  If my pet is heading toward you and you vanish he will still find you.  It is a glitch.  If the pet is almost to you let it get a hit on you THEN vanish and he will lose you.  From then on it is stun lock FTW.

Non-Enhancement Shammy: there is a popular macro out there that targets all the totems for pets to attack.  If you have 4 totems down and when we attack you suddenly have none, run away.  We have the macro and you stand no chance.  I have not ever lost against a totemless shamen.   

Enhancement Shammy: For some reason I am your bitch.  Here is my lunch money.  The few Enhancement shammy’s that I have beaten are probably attributed to them being bought on e-bay. 

When fighting us as a team, one person occupy the hunter, the other kill the pet.  If you both try and focus on the hunter they may be able to slow you enough to get one of you down (or both if the hunter is skilled and geared).  By separating and attacking us separately we stand no chance. 

If anyone has any tips on what the hell I am doing wrong against Enhancement shammy’s please let me know. 

Just as a reference here is how it goes:
1) I see the shammy and they see me.
2) I sick my pet and try to kite them.
3) 2 seconds later they are on me.
4) My health bad goes down faster than a milkshake being split by Rosanne Barr and Opra.
5) I die.

Good luck killing hunters.  If you ever are in BG and see a dwarf hunter named Lumpey with a black bear for a pet, please forget everything you read here.  There is an entirely different tactic.  The best way to beat THAT hunter is to strip all your armor and stand perfectly still.  He can’t see things that don’t move.  If he attacks you that is purely luck and he will SURELY never kill a naked non-moving target. : )

Confused

Well, after my last post on dueling I decided to see what I could teach.  Our druid healer has been a druid since release.  She has a mage and a rouge, but her love is druid healing, and she is damn good at it.  She is a PVE whiz.  I can’t tell you how many times we have almost wiped a 5 man and it was me and her left standing, with her healing the bejeazsus out of my bear.

She does not PVP.  She does not PVP so much that when I asked her what her lifetime kills were, it was less that 100.  So, after our little duel session a couple weeks ago I sat her down for some training.  Most times in PVP I have experienced are one of two things, Mass group battles or one on one.  Mass group battles are fun (as a hunter), but very chaotic.  AOE and DOT are the kings in most of those.  A good chunk of the time you are fighting one on one.  There may be others around, but there is a dance to the death between the two of you that square off. 

PVP in WOW is based on the Rock Paper Scissors style of balance.  That means that one class can beat another class, that class can beat a third class, and the third class can beat the first class.  If you know all the elements available to your class and can freely use all of your spells / talents, and know what the weaknesses of the class you are against is, you are likely to win.  Many people face PVP like they do PVP.  They target and attack with the same attacks every time.  There are subtle nuances of each class that can play a HUGE difference in a battle.  Having those in your favor gives you an edge.  Sometimes that edge is enough to let paper beat scissors, and scissors beat rock. 

So, I’m not a huge PVP player, but I could point out the weaknesses of hunters.  I have a mage, so I could point out those a little.  We spent some time discussing those.  Then we talked about every skill in her arsenal.  She read off the ones that she never used, or rarely used.  I helped give her pointers as to when those could be used.  There was a rouge on he chimed in with what she could do against rouges.  There was a shammy on so he chimed in with how to beat the two kinds of shammy that she is likely to face. 

So, after nearly an hour of coming up with different ideas for how to win we dueled. 

The first time she completely ignored all the things I taught her.  She died in about 10 seconds.

The second duel she remembered what I taught her and did good.  She sleeped my pet and rooted me and ran away to heal.  I won by not my much. 

The third duel she used some trinkets she forgot to use the last time, and knew to shapeshift out of traps.  She killed me!  A RESTO DRUID KILLED ME SOLO.

I don’t know if I should hang my head in shame or be proud that I could teach her my every weakness so much so that she could kill me. 

Our MT logged in.  I had him switch to his Horde hunter.  They flagged in the middle of Nagrand and went at it.  She killed him 5 times in a row.  She giggled, he had more of a WTF response. 

This was done partly to see how much I could teach, and partly because I think she would like AV, and mostly because AV could ALWAYS use another healer that…you know…HEALS.

Non-happy dance

Well, last we left off our house story the offer on our house was accepted.

We had been Pre-Approved for 10K More than we needed to finance, AND the house appraised for 30K MORE than we were asking to finance.

We were glowing.  The finance guy and the realtor said that this was a slam dunk, it was just a matter of doing the paperwork.  We were picking paints and carpets.

Thursday we got a call from the finance guy.  We were denied. 

Just so this makes sense, after writing this I realized that I never mentioned that my wife was filling out the loan alone as I have HORRIBLE credit due to college debt and graduating in the Wonderful job market in 2002.

Here are the elements of this I do not understand:

1) We were PRE-approved.  The approved part means they said yes, and the PRE part means we are approved before we actually fill out the loan paperwork.  How do we go from PRE-approved for a larger amount to denied for a smaller amount?  It was proven that the house was worth more than what we are asking to finance so there is next to no risk for them.

2) One of the reasons for denial was my wife “has an unstable work history”.  With the application we sent a letter explaining some of the things they were sure to question, and they called to discuss those explanations so we know they read them.  She was working an office job, and got offered a job at the hospital which was a huge upgrade.  She met me a month later and a year later we married and she moved to be with me, so she got a new job.  So, three jobs in two years.  Apparently, getting married and attempting to buy your first house makes you “unstable”.

3) The other reason they listed for denial was “She has proven to be unable to save money”.  This one set me off.  3 years ago she realized that she was getting over her head with credit card debt, so she got the help of one of those counseling services.  She has paid off 14K of debt in three years.  They did not pay any attention to that.  The thing that they were talking about was that her checking account only maintains a balance of about $50.  This is because all the money comes to my account and I pay the bills.  Her checking account is only for her spending money.  They did not care.

4) What is the MOST frustrating is the amount of money we are asking for.  The house was only $36K.  We are currently paying $755 in rent, and has never been late in 4 years.  Her debt consolidation payment is $380 a month, and has never been late in 3 years, and the last payment on that is due in July.  The house payments would not have started until August, so we would have $1135 a month free from just those two things alone.  The house payment (with taxes and insurance) came to $375.  $5 LESS than her consolidation loan, less than 50% of what we are currently paying in rent, and only 1/3 of our disposable income from those two sources alone. 
So, our loan guy was going to go back to the underwriters and find out what could have possibly happened to change us from Pre-Approved to Denied, but since there is another offer on the house we want we are pretty sure we are going to lose it. 

If we do what we talked about was moving into an apartment that is cheaper than what we have now for 2 years.  With that savings, and the rest of our disposable income we can pay off my new car in under a year, then spend a year dumping into her savings.  We are also going to shift and start putting the rent and savings into her account so it maintains a higher balance.  By our math we can pay off my car and have about $9K available for a down payment.  Considering the cost of the houses we are looking at that is Very large.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR

/rant off

18 minutes.

I realized that I have not played WOW a lot in the last month due to this whole house thing.  So, last night I jumped on.  I realized that my only play the last month has basically been Kara…so my overflowing moneypile was starting to shrink.  Time for some dailies. 

I saw a slew of guildies on so I jumped in TS and told them that it was time for some Daily PWNage.  Two decided to join me.  One was done on his main, so he brought his alt.  It ended up being THREE Beast Spec hunters in a group doing the daily.  We hit the sunwell isle.  Myself and one other are already exalted, and the other is revered so we have all the quests possible.

We loaded up on quests and took off doing them basically in the order they were unlocked, first up getting the mana dust stuff and activating the centuries.  The other hunter main has a cool set of macros where he can press a button and assign a raid icon to a mob. We assigned the third hunter to be the puller.  He would pull to us, the other hunter would mark my targets or his targets so we don’t overlap fire too much, and we would decimate. We tore those quests up then hung a left into the city area and got the sunfury guys and the first lay line, then over to the portal for the demons and the second lay line, back to the quest givers and turned in the few we had done then did the two flying ones…

We finished all the quests completed on the aisle in 18 minutes.  That was INSANE.  We all ported back to shat.  Right then we were trying to decide what to do next when someone mentioned in guild chat that the towers in Hellfire were under Horde control and there were two 70’s guarding them. 

We decided to put an end to that nonsense.  We got there and grabbed the daily.  We hit the stadium first as that is my favorite.  Two of us hid in the tunnel and the third stood out in the middle.  Just after we capped, sure enough, here come the two hordies.  A warrior and a Shammy healer. 

All three of us opened with Aimed shot.  One on the warrior, two on the shammy.  Focused fire on the shammy brought it down in about 4 seconds.  I know 2 of us out geared them, and the 3 on 2 is not fair, but that was just fun. 

They respawned.  We sat there waiting for them.  I wanted to fight them, but they took flight.  I taunted.  They said no.  I pointed at the alt team mate and said no.  They landed and we fought.  We put both pets on the healer and focus fired the Warrior.  He could only chase one of us, and aimed shot made sure he got little healing…well the little that could get thru the double pet interrupts. 

They went down.  We mounted and took off to do dailys.  When we got up there we were still flagged.  We got into a fight with one of the fire elementals and 7 horde jumped us.  We got killed so fast I didn’t even get to trinket or pop BW to maybe get some range.  The part that added insult to injury, the mob that I aggroed while trying to kite was the one that got the killing blow so I got a repair bill.

On a lark we flew to Halaa for some more PVP action.  We were doing good at defending, killing the guys as they landed so they only got one bombing run then died.  I’m guessing that one of the Horde guys we ganked was a guildie of one of the 7 that ganked us in Hellfire because about 5 minutes after we got there all 7 rode in like a flying armada of death.  I got enough kills to get my daily done there and called it a day.

It was a fun day.   
I realized that I have not played WOW a lot in the last month due to this whole house thing.  So, last night I jumped on.  I realized that my only play the last month has basically been Kara…so my overflowing moneypile was starting to shrink.  Time for some dailies. 

I saw a slew of guildies on so I jumped in TS and told them that it was time for some Daily PWNage.  Two decided to join me.  One was done on his main, so he brought his alt.  It ended up being THREE Beast Spec hunters in a group doing the daily.  We hit the sunwell isle.  Myself and one other are already exalted, and the other is revered so we have all the quests possible.

We loaded up on quests and took off doing them basically in the order they were unlocked, first up getting the mana dust stuff and activating the centuries.  The other hunter main has a cool set of macros where he can press a button and assign a raid icon to a mob. We assigned the third hunter to be the puller.  He would pull to us, the other hunter would mark my targets or his targets so we don’t overlap fire too much, and we would decimate. We tore those quests up then hung a left into the city area and got the sunfury guys and the first lay line, then over to the portal for the demons and the second lay line, back to the quest givers and turned in the few we had done then did the two flying ones…

We finished all the quests completed on the aisle in 18 minutes.  That was INSANE.  We all ported back to shat.  Right then we were trying to decide what to do next when someone mentioned in guild chat that the towers in Hellfire were under Horde control and there were two 70’s guarding them. 

We decided to put an end to that nonsense.  We got there and grabbed the daily.  We hit the stadium first as that is my favorite.  Two of us hid in the tunnel and the third stood out in the middle.  Just after we capped, sure enough, here come the two hordies.  A warrior and a Shammy healer. 

All three of us opened with Aimed shot.  One on the warrior, two on the shammy.  Focused fire on the shammy brought it down in about 4 seconds.  I know 2 of us out geared them, and the 3 on 2 is not fair, but that was just fun. 

They respawned.  We sat there waiting for them.  I wanted to fight them, but they took flight.  I taunted.  They said no.  I pointed at the alt team mate and said no.  They landed and we fought.  We put both pets on the healer and focus fired the Warrior.  He could only chase one of us, and aimed shot made sure he got little healing…well the little that could get thru the double pet interrupts. 

They went down.  We mounted and took off to do dailys.  When we got up there we were still flagged.  We got into a fight with one of the fire elementals and 7 horde jumped us.  We got killed so fast I didn’t even get to trinket or pop BW to maybe get some range.  The part that added insult to injury, the mob that I aggroed while trying to kite was the one that got the killing blow so I got a repair bill.

On a lark we flew to Halaa for some more PVP action.  We were doing good at defending, killing the guys as they landed so they only got one bombing run then died.  I’m guessing that one of the Horde guys we ganked was a guildie of one of the 7 that ganked us in Hellfire because about 5 minutes after we got there all 7 rode in like a flying armada of death.  I got enough kills to get my daily done there and called it a day.

It was a fun day.   I like playing with other hunters.