Damn it, DeathwBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

(Inspired by Frost is the NBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, where you can learn how to turn your Horn of Winter into a vuvuzela.)

BZZZZZZZ well, my friends.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZ

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?

Rajaat, Human Death Knight, with a spec that changes from week to week. Seriously. It settled down a bit in 3.2.2 as I spent a long period of time as frost dual-wield, then one of many cookie-cutter unholy dual-wield specs, then (since I got the Enormous Obsidian-Edged Blade of Sexiness) I’m actually pre-emptively in the 3.3 PTR cookie-cutter unholy build. I’ve found the DPS to be comparable, if not higher, than my dual-wield builds or any current two-hand builds.

What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Pretty much heroics and 10-mans, when they’re scheduled for a time that I’m actually available (rarely, unfortunately: our ‘gearing up’ raids fall on my D&D night, and our ‘new content’ raids fall on the weekends, which I spend outside of WoW. I also do regular Wintergrasps and AVs, mostly because I find accumulating 10k honor to be the quickest way to buy epic gems. Yes, even at 80, I’m still PvPing to boost my PvE.

What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?

Army of the Dead. I don’t get to bust it out much, but it’s just a super-fun ability to use. Corpse Explosion is a close second, even though I’ve only specced into it once.

What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?

Army of the Dead. In 5-mans it’s basically a ticket to utter chaos as they all take turns taunting the boss and running him around the room. I do get at least one use a day out of it: I use it when soloing Chillmaw.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?

Versatility. Death knights are very versatile, for a melee class. Two-handed, dual wield, haste buff, strength buff, unparalleled magic debuff, interrupts galore, taunts, grabs, on-demand targetable AOE, even a couple ranged spells. It’s like being a warlock in plate armor, only better.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?

Anything that requires us to move in and out of range frequently. The price for having Death Grip is that we don’t have a charge or a sprint or a ghost wolf or anything of the like. I’m virtually useless on Freya phase 2, for instance (a very extreme example). I end up slinging Icy Touches and Death Coils just to contribute something.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?

Generally my assignments were “sit on the boss and punch it till it stops moving,” and that’s what I do best. I don’t like chasing adds down, as while I can wear them down (with diseases, Death and Decay, and other AOEs), bursting adds down – which is generally what’s called for – works best one at a time. Take Ony, for instance: I’m best if assigned to Onyxia or the single big add, as opposed to the whelps. (On the other hand, the first whelp pack? The one that’s all gathered together? Fantastic opportunity to spread diseases, drop a Death and Decay, and forget.)

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?

I won’t lie – my DK is getting a little dull sometimes. This is why I change specs so often – as I’m not expected to provide a given buff, I don’t have the pressure to stay in a certain spec all the time, and if I could get away with having two DPS specs, don’t think I wouldn’t do it. I think part of this is due to being one of the few remaining WoW players with a single level 80, and that’s my death knight. While I still enjoy DPSing with him, and there’s no arguing that I’m good at it, I really enjoy my shaman that I’m still leveling. The problem there is: do I want to go elemental or enhancement? Elemental’s proven to be hella fun for leveling, but enhancement is fun on its own merits.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?

Paladins and priests. I’ve never managed to get a ret paladin higher than the 30s because they bore me to tears. Seriously. Retadins, I salute you, because I have no idea how the hell you do it. (Maybe I should try leveling prot.) And as for priests, it’s mostly because I have no idea what I’m doing – everything has such different durations and cooldowns that I feel like I’m largely punching whatever shows up as available.

What is your worst habit as a dps?

Forgetting to bring consumables with me. Ask me how many times I’ve had to bum a flask. The introduction of fish feasts was the greatest thing ever. Outside of that? Hehe, it’s a good one: accidentally death gripping bosses. When I’m in a raid, and I know I won’t be expected to off-tank anything, I physically remove Death Grip from my bars. (I replace it with my Iron Boot Flask.) I accidentally death gripped Thaddius one too many times and wiped our Naxx raid.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?

People who aren’t bringing 100% of their A-game to the team. If you’re sick or tired or too impaired on various substances to do your job, please, let us know. And if you’re not at your best but you don’t know why, ask. Some of the best players I know have finally just had to say to other people, “look, I’m not sure I’m doing this right. Can you help me?”

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?

In my opinion, yeah. There are plenty of other classes that out-do us. Boomkins, for instance… I feel it makes me work a lot harder to stay at or near the top of the charts. A few of the DPS classes could definitely use a boost, though.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a dps?

Pretty much just recount. I used to also use WMO, but as I stopped being a progression raider, that kind of in-depth analysis isn’t as useful to me as it used to be. I also run a lot of simulations – Kahorie’s DK Simulator is in my Dropbox so that I can get it from any computer I use.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

That we can faceroll our way to infinite DPS and chart-topping victory. The problem is that a lot of people rolling a death knight have this problem too, which leads to the huge quantities of mediocre DKs, which leads to the other misconception, which is that we’re all terrible idiots.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?

Balancing a standard rotation with keeping diseases up and using cooldowns at the right time. I think my background as a warlock (the only class I played to 70 in TBC – seeing a trend?) helped enormously here, as after playing an aff or demo/aff lock for so long, managing cooldowns and diseases and procs felt like second nature.

What dps class do you feel you understand least?

Druids, both kitty druids or boomkeks. I’m hoping to remedy that when Cataclysm drops and I roll my druid at long last.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?

Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text, SimpleRune, and above all else – Power Auras. A lot of the things addons like Bleeding Hearts do, I already have set up in Power Auras. There’s others, of course – I also use MetaHud, as I like it better than the standard frames, and Grid for raid frames. Omen is a must, of course. Recount I mentioned earlier. DeadlyBossMods is my raid boss mod of choice.

Strength over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?

Hit to 8%, then Strength > everything else. That’s an extreme oversimplification, of course, and right now you’ll notice I’m actually pretty far below hit cap, but the issue is that getting myself up to hit cap with the content available to me would be an overall DPS loss. I already have plans, though, so it’s no big deal. In the end, though, Strength is my guiding light, and Strength is what I stack.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

It’s not a meme, it’s a survey

bibliogrrl

and this is what you do: From bibliogrrl, it’s the WORDS meme. Reply to this entry with “WORDS” if you’d like me to choose some words for you to talk about.

Robots!

About two weeks ago, I voluntarily did a homework assignment for my AI class two weeks ahead of time. Why? Because I got to write a short paper about, and therefore got to research, a robot. I want a robot, friends. The first one of you to become independently wealthy is responsible for purchasing, or at least maintaining the $166,000-a-year lease on, my ASIMO. I need a child-sized robot that can recognize faces so that in 5 or 10 years, if my mom turns into one of those TV moms bugging me to produce grandchildren, I can point to the robot and say “but little ASIMO is my child! OF THE FUTURE!”

Breakfast meats

For my money, bacon is the king of breakfast meats. I know, I know, me and everyone else on the internets, but I’m serious. There’s almost nothing you can do to bacon (outside of burning it until it is a charred black mess) that would make me not want to eat bacon. I’m even okay with turkey bacon, even though I feel it’s kind of cheating yourself out of real bacony goodness. I’m also a fan of Bacon Salt, because sometimes you’re out of bacon, and your roommate’s cooked an extremely filling but bland baked macaroni and cheese dish, and someone forgot to come get their Christmas joke gift three-pack of Bacon Salt.

Purely hypothetical.

Roadkill

Kentucky has way too many deer. Ordinarily I never see them, but this week driving to and from my grandfather’s visitation, I was reminded that Route 8 is basically untamed country with a road in it, and holy crap, so many deer. At least they decided to stick to the side of the road instead of dropping by to say hello to my hood.

Naysayers

Do you know, I actually had to look up the definition of naysayer? I think I’d been using it wrong. Turns out, not only am I related to several of them, I’m friends with at least one – and hey, guess which people I tend to regularly avoid like the plague? I like to think I have a few important differences from a naysayer. Sure, I’m a blunt, sarcastic jerk, but I still tend to see the good in most situations. (Keyword: most.) I still don’t believe in ghosts, though.

Elegance

It’s difficult to define, but I know it when I see it – and it physically pains me when I cannot recreate it. Well, maybe pains isn’t the correct word. When I am writing, say, code that I know is elegant (my given medium), I am calm, confident, in control. When I am outside of elegant codework, everything seems jarring and difficult, and I myself tend to get jittery and lose focus if not actually forced to keep focus on the task at hand by some means. This is why I have so many half-finished, barely-started projects on my hands that I may never get back to.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Words!

I kid, of course: I write for me, but I also write for you. And apparently that earned me some recognition in the form of the above award, disguised as a meme, and handed out by Lady Jess herself. Thank you, thank you. I couldn’t do it without you, the little people (and I don’t mean the gnomes)!

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

I can only assume it’s the content, because the design’s stock-standard. I should work on that. Anyway, like many awards, which come with rules like “don’t pose for Penthouse after being crowned” and “don’t use performance-enhancing drugs,” this one comes with rules too. Here we go.

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Honesty is the best policy, I suppose. Here’s ten things about yours truly.

1. I have an addiction to shiny pretty brand-new gadgets, limited only by my budget and common sense, and moreso the former than the latter.
2. Matt says I’M THE BEST! AROUND! NOTHING’S EVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN~!
3. I have alt-itis, but at the same time I have alt-paralysis. I have a bunch of alts, ranging in level from 35 to 70, most of whom I only log on in fits and spurts. My druid has been getting a lot of love, though. To be honest, my first character was an undead rogue, but my first character after I learned how to play was a tauren druid, and I think it’s some of that nostalgia coming back to me. (That and the fact that blowing stuff up is fun.)
4. I’m on an RP server, but I really don’t RP. Funny thing, eh? I do write little RP journals on Path of a Hero for Whitebough when inspiration strikes, but I’m horribly out of practice.
5. My Halloween costumes have gotten progressively nerdier over the past four years, and I largely blame my roommate(s). In ‘05, the four of us went as the Fantastic Four (I was Reed Richards). In ‘06, the three of us went as Mario, Luigi, and Link (I was Mario, and I talked my girlfriend into going as Princess Peach). I can’t remember what was in ‘07. In ‘08, my roommate and I went as Mega Man and Dr. Wily (I was Dr. Wily). This year? Who’s to say? If he played WoW, we’d probably go as Varian and Thrall or something, and maybe I could talk my girlfriend into a Jaina costume.
6. I am really, really bad at PvP. I can’t believe I managed to rope Llanion and Siha into an arena team with me. THE FOOLS, MUAHAHAHAHA*cough*.
7. I have a lot of trouble coming up with things about myself. You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been sitting here thinking about this (hint: most of the day).
8. I once managed to break both of my big toes at once by falling over onto them on a concrete floor because I was inside a sleeping bag and hopping from one spot to the other instead of getting out because it was cold, damn it.
9. I used to play FFXI, and I still have an account, but recently my linkshell (WoW players: read that as “guild”) broke up and everyone scattered to parts unknown and so now I really don’t have a reason to go back there. A hello to Wendell and Skaphia from Midgardsormr, if they happen to run across this; Socrates misses you guys
10. I used to be a complete Mac addict; now it’s toned down to more of a strong like. I actually have articles published in O’Reilly Media’s Mac OS X Hacks, which is now out-of-print (and the tips I wrote therein are obsolete). Still, it’s nice to know I’m in print somewhere.

Okay, there we go. Now let’s see what we can do about tagging some other folks. 7 bloggers, eh?

• Bellbell at 4haelz, my current druid mentor!
• Everyone at World of Matticus. Yes, all of you. Individually. Is that cheating? Screw you, it’s my blog and my award!
• Trustyn at Zap!
• The recently relocated Llanion, at Mad Cow Chronicles, without whom Banana Force M would be less Banana Force M-pressive. (Grooooan.)
• On that note, also Siha!
• Ms. Nibuca, over at Mystic Chicanery!
• And, a guy more of you should be reading, Linedan at Achtung Panzercow!

You all rock! Now get to writin’.

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner

1. What is your name and where did it come from?
• Zulfon’s name is fairly adequately explained in this earlier post.
• Queklain’s name… well, there you go.
• I’m feeling generous, so here’s some more alt names. Valmafra, my blood elf hunter, is from the same source material. She used to be called Eladhon, which was generated by the random name generator in WoW and had the unfortunate side effect of my guildmates referring to him as ‘Aladdin.’
• Xajek, my troll priest, is another random name. In this case the generator generated ‘Xaj’ and I added ‘ek’ pretty much by tapping a random vowel and a random consonant.
• Galehorn and Whitebough, tauren shaman and tauren druid respectively, got their names by being modeled vaguely after existing tauren names.
2. How old are you and what is your birthday?
• Queklain: “Time is meaningless to the dead. My birthday is every day, as far as I’m concerned, since I’m still alive. Undead. Whatever. Flee, mortal, you’re beginning to bother me…”
• Zulfon: “I was mebbe 20, 21 years old. Jus’ a few years as an adult. Now dat I’m like dis, though… I’m as ageless as he is.” She jerks a thumb to indicate Queklain, who is nodding off in a chair. “Birthday, though, is August sevent’. And don’ you forget!” She grins a little bit, exposing her small tusks.
3. Are you in love and with whom?
• Queklain and Zulfon (in unison): “Hah!”
4. What is your favorite mount and why?
• Queklain: “My Frostwolf Howler. It was truly an honor,” he says, his voice dry, “to help our Horde brethren in Alterac Valley, for which they bestowed upon me this wolf.” Under his breath, he mutters, “They sure as hell wouldn’t have made it on their own.”
• Zulfon: “Malfas, mah purple nethawing drake. ‘S a sign of my pact with de Nether Flight, and mah work underminin’ Illidan. And a far deal comfier than dem bony birds mah brethren ride.”
5. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?
• Queklain: “Gnome.”
• Zulfon: “Dat’s disgustin’.”
• Queklain: “Don’t knock it till you’ve feasted upon its freshly-slain corpse.”
• Zulfon gags a little. “Food don’ quite taste like it used ta, so I go for de more exotic flavahs. Spiced wyrm burgers, that kin’ of ting.”
• Queklain: “Gnome’s kind of exotic.”
6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?
• Queklain: “You know how mushrooms grow on dead things, right? Well, look at Draenor. I rest my case.”
• Zulfon: “Ain’t nothin’ right about Outland. I worry less ‘bout de giant mushrooms and more ‘bout de ones walkin’ about.”
7. If you saw the Lich King walking towards you, what would you do?
• Queklain: “Oh, doubtlessly flee in abject terror. I’m surely no match for a man who – oh, wait, who can be wounded by a single apothecary with a batch of blight. Bah.” Queklain waves his hand dismissively. “Lich King, Bitch King.”
• Zulfon: “Well, it’s not like it’d be de first time, now is it?” She grins again, this one a bit more predatory. “Dere’s always a price to pay for betrayal, and we bot’ done betrayed each otha, so dere’d be hell to pay all around.”

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Fine, fine, since you asked

Well, hmm, what a dilemma. Only when I got to ‘09 did I think, “I should probably make a subfolder to separate out my screenshots.” So I really only have one subfolder – 2008! So we’ll try this a few different ways and see what comes out of interest, shall we?

Let’s take it from the top – sixth screenshot in my main screenshot folder.

Oh well, hm, just exploring Burning Steppes, that’s not terribly interesting. Let’s try something else – sixth from the bottom, perhaps.

Well, alright, there’s a bit more going on here (and it’s a good look at the minor changes that’ve taken place in my DK’s UI since the beginning of the year), but at the end of the day, it’s just another achievement snapshot. I was relating this in the Blog Azeroth chatroom and Nibuca suggested I pick the sixth non-automatic screenshot. Fantastic! Let’s see what that yields.

Heaven only knows what I was trying to do, but that’s a screenshot of the back of my raid getting ready to go fight Loatheb – or else finishing off the maggots from the gauntlet before Loatheb, it’s hard to say. You can barely see my helmet peeking over the right shoulder of the orc warrior in the foreground of this shot.

Alright, well, that was okay, but let’s try one more. I’ll delve into my 2008 folder of screenshots and see what pops out. What’s the sixth one shown there, you might ask?

Apparently a shot of me flying through Nagrand on my warlock. It’s kind of a nice view! (I’ve always had a soft spot for Nagrand.)

Alright, I’ve done my part. Time for a few more people to pitch in. How about… mmm… the newly-relocated Maerdred, Nightravyn, BBB, Bre, Byaghro, and Eglador?

Thanks for reading this post from: The Stoppable Force.

Seventh son of a seve—err, sixth screenshot of a sixth subfolder