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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Leveling Guide: The Early Warlock 1-20

Hey lookie there! A leveling guide.

Now, when you choose to level a Warlock, your first choice is faction. It is generally personal preference. Then you pick your class. Alliance side you can choose Human or Gnome. Horde side you can pick between Orcs and Forsaken. And technically Blood Elves. But who would do that?

Originally, you had to do a little quest to get your imp. However, it is now available at level one from your local Warlock Trainer. He does cost a couple copper to buy, but now you can get him easily by level two, rather than waiting until at least level four, or possibly five or six.

At this point, you have a couple options with regards to your spell rotation.

You can either go with the affliction style of killing, or the destro/demo.

With either method, start by commanding your pet to attack your target. This will generally give him threat, and while you will be able to easily pass him, it will keep them off you for a blow or two, saving you a little bit of down time.

The simpler style is to just shoot the mob with Shadow Bolt until it falls over. The other method is to use your DOTs (Damage Over Time). Hit it with Immolation, Corruption and (once you get it) Curse of Agony.

At low levels, it is not actually efficient to cast CoA, because the mob will die before it gets in more than a tick or two.

Continue nuking your way through to level ten. At this point you get to make a few important decisions. Your first choice is your spec. Destruction is big on the big crits and is very mana intensive and not very good for leveling. When I was leveling as destro, I was able to one or two shot one level mobs, but after two fights, I would have to stop and drink for half a minute. If you do want the big crits, try this spec.

Demonology is not very strong in the early levels when you have weaker pets and have little in the way of resource control. If you want to go Demo, begin with this spec. It increases the capability of your voidwalker (we'll get to that in a minute) to keep threat off you and increases the survivability of you and your minion.

Affliction is one of the most popular leveling specs. It is both mana efficient and fast and you get to play with DOTs. Start off by taking this spec. After you put up your DOTs, use Drain Soul to get back 15% of your mana. However, I would strongly suggest either getting an addon to manage your Soulshards or put a large number of them in your bank. You cannot have more than 32 of them and they do not stack, but at low levels they can really cramp your bags.

Also at level ten, you gain your next pet, affectionately called by many as the Blueberry. You will have to do a quest for your voidwalker, but it is not difficult and is within your starting zone- unlike some other Warlock quests. Once you have this pet, you must choose between it and your imp. The imp does better damage, but cannot survive as much and does not have as much utility as the voidwalker.

As you level to twenty, remember to attack with your pet first, use Life Tap only if you really need it, Drain Soul on a regular basis so you have soulshards when you need them- to summon demons or to create a healthstone.

You want some Ju-Ju

I've got Ju-Ju beans and Hu-Mun beans. Take your pick mon.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Wow in Real Life: Mages

Mages are a wonderful class to apply this to. In fact, they are probably the best class to pick. I say that because they are a self-reactive, spell-casting class. Most of what they do is a standard ability, but they have many cooldowns and procs that they need to react to and take into account.

The mage ability I would want most would be Presence of Mind. It just lets you do something instantly. Boom done. Now, with the 10-second restriction in place it limits alot, but you can just get something done. This is a modified version of the DK's Unholy Presence. Instead of everything being slightly faster. One thing is completely faster.

Second, I would take Mirror Image. You need another set of hands? Well, take four. And the bodies that go with them. Now, your copies are not bright, and they don't copy you- they just spam one spell over and over again.

Thirdly I would choose Invisibilty. Invisibility is very useful- but it is very situational as it only lasts for 20 seconds. You could dash from one hiding spot to another and then wait while the CD wore off, but it would be very time consuming.

Next on the list is Blink. Its not nearly as good as true teleportation, but it would come in handy. You wouldn't have to worry about crossing streets and if you were playing football, you'd get disqualified immediately.

Finally, I chose Slow Fall. I chose slow fall, because it would allow you to do many gimmicky things- such as jump off the Empire State Building and cast it at the last second. The reagent is a light feather, and since those aren't hard to find- just grab one off a pigeon- you should never have a problem. Also you don't need to hold the feather, just have it in your pocket or bags.

I'm not quite sure about the order because all of these are fantastic for use- let me know what you think.

Oh snap!

...said the rudder control wire. Beyond that, I have to say that I really like the unaccessible areas that Blizzard shows off while we're on flight paths. I hope they unveil new cool things with Cataclysm.

Torchlight


A few days ago, upon closing my game of Mass Effect 2, steam alerted me to the fact that there was this wonderful game on sale- 75% off. It had won many awards and was only $5.

So, I said to myself, lets check some reviews about this game. I did so, and the reviews said that it was a solid buy at $20. Since $5 is less than $20, and a lot more affordable to a college student's budget, I bought it.

Since then I've played it a ridiculous amount.
The above is a mid-combat screenshot. Since the time of that screenshot, I have become significantly more powerful in parallel with my enemies and therefore there are significantly more explosions.
This image here is a static UI shot. The game is a standard point and click RPG. You can bind an ability to your left and right clicks- one is a standard attack and the other can be bound to any of your spells. You only have one action bar, but since you don't have many cooldowns (if any) and no more than a half-dozen primary spells, you should be fine.

You do have talent trees, but the open up based on your level, not based on points previously spent in that tree.

As to the gameplay itself is a top-down game, very similar to Diablo. Several of the game design team who made Diablo were also present for Torchlight, making it very similar.

So far, the story is not very compelling and while the graphics aren't top of the line, they fit with the overall feel of the game.

I would definitely recommend buying this if you can get it for $5-10, and would strongly suggest it, if the cost were $20.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Thats no Island!

Thats a tree stump. Welcome to Teldrassil, the World Tree Stump.

Green Gick

Apparently, the Forsaken love green gick. Not only do they have rivers of it in their capital city, but they seem to just make pots of it for their entertainment. That and for killing all the Scourge and all living beings.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

WoW in Real Life: Hunters

Welcome to part three of my answer to the question: What WoW spells/abilities would you want in real life, if you could only have one?

As always, feel free to leave a comment with your own idea.

One of the problems with hunters (and rogues and warriors) is that their abilities are primarily physcial, and therefore things you already CAN do in real life (theoretically). You can grab a gun and shoot it, or a bow, or crossbow. And you can shoot faster, or add poison or explosives. This means that this piece is not as strong as some of the others.

Anyways, my personal first pick is: Tame Beast. As long as you can survive twenty seconds of holding your hands out at an animal within 30 yards of you, it will be your best friend forever. Sure, it might be a tiny bit difficult to tame a bear or lion, but you can get something smaller, like a chipmunk or your neighbor's cat to like you more.

Number two is: Track Humanoids. This is admittedly a stalkerish ability, but it could be very helpful. The military would love this because they wouldn't have to do sweeps of rooms. Just fly someone down a street and they can read all the buildings AND determine whether or not the people inside are friendly, neuterual or hostile.

Finally, Track Beasts. It doesn't have quite the same utility as the previous, but it could be helpful for exterminators or RL hunters.

Friday, March 26, 2010

The Future of Guilds

So, I have a surprise for all y'all. Today's title actually works for today's piece.

Beyond that, I have my ideas, and what has been 'confirmed'.

At BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard announced that in Cataclysm there would be a guild leveling system.

Guilds would be able to gain talent points from their levels and use those talents to improve their raiding and PvP. Things mentioned included raid-wide rezs, damage buffs and others.

Guilds were also told that they would likely get guild items- so that they couldn't be ninja'd. They would be heirlooms that would stay with the guild.

That is what Blizzard has said is likely to be in Cata. But there is more that could be done- and more that I want.
  1. Official Guild Alliances: This would allow several smaller guilds to Ally themselves and get guild levels. There would be restrictions, so that five guilds that each can run two simultaneous 25-mans cannot join into one huge group that runs 250 people through say ToC in one night and gets the ridiculous amount of guild-exp that killing five bosses 250 times entails.
  2. Guild-First Achievements: These would be achievements for the first people in a guild to complete certain objectives. They would be similar to the World-First achievements, but if you switched out of the guild you earned it in, you would have to have gotten that achievement before the people in your new guild to keep the achievement.
  3. Guild AHs: I know in my guild, we do work for free for guildies, and often supply the mats if we have them on hand. I know that in many progressive raiding guilds, that is in short supply. However, if there was a guild AH, you could post your spare enchants, or enchanting mats, at a 'guild price' so guildies could get what they needed, at a lower price, and you would still make gold.
  4. Guild Halls: This would be similar to the concept of player housing, but the guild halls available would only be the rooms of Raid Bosses they have defeated at least 10 times. There would be some customization possible, mostly guild achievement related however. You would be able to show off your kills and any legendaries the guild might have gotten. Guilds would also be able to purchase a mailbox, a guild bank vault and a guild AH to place in their Guild Hall, similar to the way that they purchase bank tabs.

Peace and serenity

This is one of my favorite screenshots. I took one like it long before I knew how to remove the UI but I've finally got it. The waterfall, the greenery, the majestic griffin. Cataclysm may ruin it all. All of it. But then again, I'll be able to switch out that griffin to a proto-drake.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

I got a Red-Proto Drake





And then I took screenshots. Cuz it happened.

Woot-Wewt!

Normally I have to think about my posts for each day. Today I don't have to.

This because a special thing happened to me today.

See, I logged on and found a pair of these in my mailbox.

This makes me happy.

But the important lesson that you can get out of this is: If at first you don't manage to interrupt Moorabi- Kill him again and again and again. Until he is dead. Dead. Dead.

Which means, if you want something, persevere. If you want Loremaster- go out and get it. If you want Insane in the Membrane- go ahead, keep grinding away at the grindstone of grinding.

But more importantly, get four people who can each pull 5k dps unbuffed, tell them to blow all their cooldowns and point them at a boss.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

WoW in Real Life: Druids

So a couple days back I went ahead and posted what DK abilities I would want in real life.

Since we are being formal and alphabetical Druids are next on the list, as you may have guessed from your knowledge of the alphabet and the title of the post.

As a disclaimer. I have nothing against healers of any type. However, I am not likely to ever list any healing spells in this series, because frankly, I find them ho hum. They don't do amazingly cool things, they just heal. They're magic band-aids.

While magic in and of itself is cool, if I could only have one ability, I would want it to be something outrageous. For a similar reason, I will not be listing spells like fireball.

Right, so without further ado (I use that term too often):

First: Swift Flight Form. You can't argue with that too much. You turn into a bird, instantly. AND you can fly really fast. If you can IRL runa 6 minute mile at 100% run speed, with epic flying you're a almost four times faster. This means that you can have a 1.57 minute mile 1:34:02 minutes per mile which turns out to be 38 miles per hour. If you get a better mount and have a paladin friend who gives you crusader Aura, you can bump that to 43 MPH.

Second: The rest of the forms. I did leave out travel form because that is much the same as cat form, except without the claws. Now, under the rules of the game you could only have one of them, but any one of them would be a lot of fun.

Finally: Hurricane. It is a fun spell. It causes a hurricane on target. Now, I would modify the spell slightly to make it more practical. First off, it would cover a larger area and secondly it wouldn't hit whoever you didn't specifically want it to hit. Having a drought? Call up a hurricane. Having relatives over? Delay them with a hurricane.

Again, if you have ideas for druid spells or abilities, post below.

If you have ideas for other classes, email me.

Whirlwind!

Evocation. This is the mark of a real mage. Yes. This. Not fireball, or blizzard, or polymorph. The perpetual oomoscity of a mage is clearly evidenced when you cast Evocation.

Also oomoscity is totally a word. Because it sounds better than oomness.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Patch is Upon Us!

Patch 3.3.3 is finally here! Woohoo for BGs!

The patch doesn't contain too much that excites me a whole lot, but I do enjoy the BG changes.

As soon as I got on, I queued for a random BG and got Strand of the Ancients.

I got 100 HKs, we won, and I got a resulting 7k Honor.

I followed that up with two Arathi Basin Losses, which each netted me about 5 HKs and a net of 800 Honor.

I turned in my old Marks of Honor and finished up my Lv 60 PvP set, now all I need is another 15k Honor for my Lv-60 2H sword, and then 250k Honor for all five honor mounts. Then I'll try and get the Alterac Valley mount, which will require more honor.

With my little experience, I plan on doing my daily BG and then farming WSG, AV or Isle of Conquest, depending where I get the most kills.

Thirdly I'll begin to spend Triumph Emblems on PvP gear so I can kill stuff betterer.

Yeah, I'll be so much betterer you will all die! DIE!

Books

This is the interior of The Scribe's Sacellum. It is two stories tall externally. It is quite some more when you get inside.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Dancin' Bears

Not only can I dance, but I can hover as well. Yeah. Dancing in mid air. As a bear. Beat that.

Tool Tips!

As you may notice in the post titled: WoW in Real Life: Death Knights, I now have WoWhead tooltip implemented.

This makes me happy and a lot more likely to stick up links to WoWhead items, abilties etc....

WoW in Real Life: Death Knights

A few days ago on wowinsider, I read an article referencing some other blogger's blog.

In that blog, they asked the question:

"If you could have any ability in WoW, what would it be?"

I find that the question is a bit rough in wording. I have reworded it to say (as it was originally meant) "If you could have any WoW spell/ability/talent in real life, what would it be?"

I have considered each of the classes and will present them in order, one every few days/weeks.

Since I couldn't come up with much for Warriors, I'll be going alphabetically, therefore starting with Death Knights.

My first pick would be Unholy Presence. Being able to do everything 15% faster would be a huge boon, and the GCD would be the ability to switch from one focus to another.

Next I would pick Army of the Dead. Yeah, if someone is bothering you, just stand there for a few seconds and you have an army at your beck and call.

Third is Master of Ghouls. Rather than having an army of several ghouls for a minute every ten minutes you get a ghoul to follow you. Forever. The downside is that he is a ghoul and therefore has the rotting flesh component to it.

Finally Dancing Rune Weapon. This just gives you an extra pair of hands. If you're a politician and need to shake hands and hold babies, you can now do both at the same time. As a side note I originally, accidentally wrote "hold hands and shake babies". You can write twice as fast or keep a hand on WASD, a hand on your mouse, and a hand on each of 1-5 and 6-0 while playing WoW.

If you have any ideas for Death Knight abilities you would want IRL, please post below. If you have ideas for other classes, email me at eldritchreign@gmail.com.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Compilation Guide!

So I'm pretty much done with Greedy Gronko for now. In the future, expect to see my economy posts under this header.

Anyways, without further ado, the list of Greedy Gronko posts for your perusal:


And there you have all of my GGGGGs.

Jump

Do you see that? I'm jumping OVER this guy's head. OVER it. And he's a good six feet. Jumping six feet from a standing position? Thats Olympic skills right there!

Also, woot ICC!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Tailoring

If I remember correctly this is the last of the non-gathering, non-secondary professions.

So- as a Tailor, you, again, have few options as most of what you can make is BoP, one time purchase.

However, you do have an advantage of BS and LW in that anyone can wear what you sell so the RPers will be more likely to buy from you. Tailors by far make the best RP wear. Especially their capes and shirts.

Then there is the 'Craft to DE method". WoW.com recently posted this article, covering the subject matter- look there if you're interested in that.

Finally, tailors can make bags. Bags, bags, bags.

Everyone loves bags. Most people who have a toon above 60 can afford to outfit their alts with four netherweave bags, made from twenty netherweave and sell for about 10g.

You can make frostweave bags, 60 frostweave plus 12 infinite dust and sell those for 40-60g.

Finally there are the glacial bags which are monstrously difficult to find the mats and can sell for 400-600g.

The Patron Matron

Well, not in this case, but if you have a male character your title will change from Patron to Matron when you become a Brunhilder. If you drink from the iron dwarf flask, a Matron becomes a Patron.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Next...

This guy was my first DK. I don't even remember his name. I've had four DKs on the server he was on. And yeah, he's recruiting for auditions. And he's bored.

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Leatherworking

Yet another profession of which I have not maxed. I promise you, after the tailoring guide, I'll go back to writing random stuff that none of you will ever read. But sometimes random stuff is good.

Right- so today we are gonna cover leatherworking.

Leatherworking is fairly limited, like blacksmithing and tailoring because it creates wearable items- and once you get one of an item, you don't need another.

So, of course, you can create entry level epics and twink items and sell them for a profit.

Also, for twinks, the lower level armor kits can be slid onto their armor making them even more annoying.

At 80, you have a few routes- of course you can create leg patches, which I thank you for as I don't have any LW to make some for me.

The other primary option- released in 3.3.2 is drums. The drums you can make at 450 are wonderful profit makers. Even buying mats off the AH you can spend 50g (approx) to make 100g per drum. Since drums are used very often, you should generate some decent cash.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Thats no Cow!

Thats a sheep! Oh, polymorph, how you amuse me.

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Jewelcrafting

Today is a happy day. Jewelcrafting is actually one of two professions that I have at max skill, so I would like to consider that I know something about it.

However, there isn't much that I can say about the profession. Similar to inscription, jewelcrafting has one purpose. Crafting jewels. If you're not doing that, you're doing it wrong- or you are below skill 300.

At lower levels JC's can make some fairly nice items for twinks and pseudo-twinks. Once you finally get past 300, the real money starts pouring in.

For a while you can make a load of green gems fairly cheaply and sell them- but not for much profit. You begin to profit when you hit the current tier of gems- so (as of this writing) the Northrend gems.

As a note- for the rest of this piece, unless otherwise noted, the gem color denotes the rarity, not the color.

You can easily but a stack of green gems for abou 15-20g, cut all of them and sell them for about 1-3g each, depending on the cut. Stamina gems are more likely to sell, and for higher prices, as are spell power and hit gems.

Blue gems follow the same pattern, but cost 10-30g each but can be sold for 20-70g depending on the cut and the color of the gem. Red gems usually are the most expensive because of their apparent rarity.

When you get to epic gems, you can make a lot more money for each cut, but it is riskier as the initial investment is several times greater. Uncut epics cost at least 100g and sometime go as far up as 200g.

Your first goal should be to learn the best epic and rare cuts for yourself. For PvE those would be the Stamina, Spell Power, Int, Haste, Strength and ArP. Other stats, such as Hit and Defense are very important, but most people in full t9 don't need any additional Hit or Def, as their gear already gives it to them.

For PvP look for Stamina, Resilience and perhaps Spell Pen.

After you have gemmed yourself you can begin to look into buying large numbers of lower quality gems, cutting them and selling them.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Aggro Radius?

I think I'm supposed to pull the boss when I get in the room. Not a hundred feet closer when I can punch him in the nose.

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Inscription

Again, like most professions, I don't have a high level inscriptionist, so I don't know all of the possible options.

You do however, have a few ways of making the Gs come pouring in.

The most obvious is making Glyphs. I don't even know why I said that. If you're not making glyphs, you're doing something wrong. Look up the most profitable mats::sell value glyph. Make a half dozen. Then pick a new glyph.

Another method is milling. Many inscriptionists are too lazy to get the rare pigments they need and would often rather buy them.

The last option (that I know of) is cards. People still need/want Darkmoon Faire cards of Greatness because it is still an amazing and 'easy to get' trinket. Also, if you know someone stupid enough to be trying to get "Insane in the Membrane" (like me) they are going to need somewhere on the order of a few thousand rogue's decks. Yeah- that is a lot. And if they don't have an inscriptionist, they will need to buy them. All of them.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Cat!

A cat. I like cats. CAT CAT CAT.

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Engineering

Engineering is by far one of the most fun professions to have. They can create all sorts of fun little tools that can be useful, but more commonly, are just fun.

But this article isn't focused on how much cooler engineering is than the other professions. I feel that I have to have a max level engineer before I can rant on that.

Engineering is limited on the production front. While many of what it can make is BoE or unbinding, most of it requires engineering skill, so you can only sell it to people who can make it.

Engineers can make a few pets, and those can sell for anywhere between 10g and 100g.

The other profitable thing engineers can manage is ammo crafting. Ammo is cheap to make and can often be sold for significant prices on the AH.

Greedy Gronko says that if you want gold- don't take engineering. If you want explosives and toys and explosive toys- take engineering.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Enchanting

More recently, enchanting has become less lucrative. Pre 3.3 and the LFD system, enchanters were able to control whether or not greens that dropped in instances were DE'd. Generally, most non-enchanters Greeded and vendored the items. Now, many pick the DE option on the need/greed scale and sell the mats to the poor enchanters.

Of course, it is still possible to get large amounts of mats by running older instances and the like and DEing the items found there.

With inscriptions Vellum's enchanters can now lay their enchants on paper and vendor them for often significant amounts of gold.

Other than the new AH option and DEing for mats, enchanters can hawk their business in an attempt to find twinks or other people who are interested in lower level enchants.

Ghost-Crawler!

So maybe it isn't a crab. But it IS a ghost and it IS crawling. I say it is legit.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing is one of my favorite professions to request.

But, putting that BS behind us, lets get to the real meat of this profession.

The one problem with being a BS is that most of what you can do is a one time deal, per customer. Even if every player on the server wanted a specific item, you would create it once for each of them. An alchemist will be in constant demand because everyone will continually want more flasks. The only item people go back to a BS for is the belt buckle.

The belt buckle is one of BS's most prominent money-makers. Other options include cheap greens that can be DE'd for the mats.

But don't discount BSers. They are very valuable in creating gear for new max-level alts (or mains) and they can continue to create gear upgrades, albeit learning at a slower rate. In fact, my tanking bracers are off a max skill BS who had a very specific pattern.

As a BS, make sets of about a dozen belt buckles or create greens to AH or DE. The final option, which can generate large amounts of gold if successful is to create BoE epics and AH them.

King?

So maybe Varian Wrynn died. So maybe I sat in his throne. Shouldn't I be in charge now?

Saturday, March 13, 2010

To Do List

I have some things I need to get done. These are important things and this is part of today's post. This is just to let you know that I didn't forget all y'all and all my projects that you were interested in. If there is something that I forget or something that I haven't started but you would like to see, comment below using the handy dandy comment system.
  1. Get a Title page/ table of contents, so people can get themselves oriented upon arrival.
  2. Finish the Greedy Gronko series- I know its been a while, but Blacksmithing is coming up sometime in the future when I don't know what to write.
  3. Heroics Guide- I still need to cover the four Icecrown Instances
  4. Raid Guides? Perhaps start by covering the classic and TBC raids and then move onto Wrath Guides
  5. Leveling Guides- I should be able to do a general 1-10 guide for everything, a general intro guide and then more detailed guides for Druids, DKs, Locks and Paladins.
  6. Level my other toons- so I can create guides for Shamans, Warriors, Mages, Rogues, Priests and Hunters.
With that out of the way, you know what to expect from me in the coming time period of longness.

But I would like to get my voice heard on what I believe should be integrated into the game by Blizzard.
  1. Casino's: Everyone loves gamblin and some players have set up simple systems in game (which are against the game rules). I would definitely go gamble, even though it should be designed as a gold sink. It could also be designed such that players could gamble on in game events: next seasons #1 gladiator, realm firsts etc...
  2. Arena watching: You should be able to spectate on current arena matches. You would be an invisible avatar, or you would be given the perspective of a live character of your choice (hotkeyed to numbers 1-4 for 2v2, 1-6 for 3v3, 1-0 for 5v5).
  3. Bounties: If you want a certain player killed you can place a bounty and an amount of gold to be awarded for whoever manages the first kill. You would be able to go to a bounty board- available in any major city, pick a bounty you want and carry it out. When you pick up a bounty you will receive a scroll with the targets name and it being unique. This way, multiple people can pick up the same bounty, but not the same person more than once. The first person to kill said target outside of a Arena match or BG will be sent the award. This could be used to grief, so their would be a cost put on placing a bounty and you will not receive the bounty if you did not receive honor from the kill.
These ideas still have to be worked on, but I think I might hammer them out and repost the ideas more coherently.

I can fly like the FBI

Because the FBI totally has Slow Fall glyphed and hot-keyed.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Halloween

ToC- 2008. One of my early screenshots. I'm on the middle level. Dancing. Yeah. Thats me.

Cake!

I'm eating cake right now. Isn't that spectacular? It is.

But cake is not the only thing I'm going to talk about today. I'm going to talk about food, fishing and cooking too.

Food:

Food is a very important part of any leveling toon's inventory. Without food, they sit around waiting for their mp5 and natural health regen to bring them back up to full. Now a big question in WoW is whether or not it is worth it to level your cooking while leveling to be able to get all the food you need.

I feel that you needn't level it until endgame- if at all. While you are leveling you will be able to gather food from killing mobs and it should be enough to cover you. Paladins, Shamans, Druids, Priests, Warlocks, Mages and Death Knights don't need to worry about those extra's while leveling. The first four have heals, Warlocks have life draining, as do DKs. Mages can summon their own food. This leaves rogues, warriors and hunters. Hunters can have their pet tank and warriors are not supposed to take damage. Rogues can afford to buy merchant food because of their double looting pickpocket/kill method.

Fishing:

Should never be leveled. The only reason you should ever go fishing is for achievements. And if you have a really laggy day and can't do anything else. Then don't fish in Dalaran. Fish in Redridge, or Westfall. Maybe ghostlands.

Cooking:

You don't need to have more than 1 max level cooking toon. They can pass off the rest of the food to your other toons and for feasts they can join the raid, drop it and log out before being saved.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

POWER OVERWHELMING

Besides being a cheat in the original Star Craft granting invincibility to your units, it is a line that is spoken by Scourgelord Tyrannus during the fight. I feel that it is appropriate for the Vexallus fight because you gain a DOT that also increases your damage done (and your physical size).

Off Topic

So this post will be a little off topic, but I think it is an important one to all of us.

This is rather unrelated to anything, but the Oscars brought it to my attention.

This past year has seen several wonderful films for people like me.

  1. Star Trek
  2. Inglourious Basterds
  3. Sherlock Holmes
  4. Avatar
  5. District 9
  6. The Hurt Locker
Four of those six films were nominated for best picture. This is an amazing crop of action films. Now, many people have strong feelings about Star Trek and Avatar- either you love em or you hate them, but in any case they're both wonderful movies.

I know that when I went to a screening of Star Trek, there were about 40-50 geeks in the room and we all cheered when there was no sound in space. Although you may not like what it did with the timeline, or what it did with the characters, independent of that, it was really good.

Avatar, while the story and acting may have been slightly subpar the visuals and action sequences were some of the best in ever.

Anyways, just wanted to throw out a cheer for the awesomeness of action films, and I can't wait for the WoW movie- be it bad, terrible or awful.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Dragon Slaying

This image comes from one of my first nights retro-raiding. We took down Molten Core, UBRS, BWL, and Onyxia. Taking out Nefarian we got his head and of course Ony dropped hers. This would have been the rare image classic WoW.

I'm so sad

And I have a good reason to be sad. I'm on spring break and the computer I have here (didn't bother to lug my beast back for just a few days) doesn't really have a fully functional internet. Additionally I didn't bother to throw all of my screenshots from my new computer onto my external HD, so you'll be getting smaller, lower quality screenshots, most of which still have the UI attached.

Since I am so sad, this counts as both a General Management post and as a real post.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

So I've been thinking...

...what do they think?

And by they I mean my characters. I mean, what do they do after I log out? I know that technically they disappear from the world, but I feel that they can do more than that.

Alenena for example, I feel would go around window shopping. If she saw something she liked she'd call her investment manager (Dugerlok) and have him send over some funds. If there weren't any funds available she'd beat the crap out of mobs until she got some. She might also play with her numerous pets and exercise her dozens of mounts.

Vitos would probably just go out and nuke a target. He is the kinda of a sequestered geek, focused on just getting more power.

Malkhelm would hunt for ore and blacksmithing abilities and wail at his low skill.

Erthu would just run around, like a hyperactive bunny, looking for little things to pounce on. Although he spends most of his time as a bear or boomkin, he is a kitty at heart.


What do your toons do?

It just keeps on going and going...

I like the way that Blizz did the textures for WoW. The repeating expanses, most notable found in the desert and the ocean seem very nice, if not very realistic.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Beauty of the Sea

I'd like to think that this is one of my better FP screenshots. In my early days of WoW when I didn't have Peggle, Bejeweld, AtlasLoot, Altoholic or Talented, I spent my flights taking pictures. This was a wonderful return to those idyllic, addon-free days.

A bedtime story! (part IV of probably IV)

I really had no idea what I was going to do with this. I decided to steal an idea from my deathfest character and have a sentient bunsen burner who fails the SATs, but decided to go with something else, still following the spontaneous sentience idea.


Richie Hirundo Rustica was an average unladen European swallow, flying over the country side at his average airspeed velocity of approximately twenty-four miles per hour. Now, it is important to note that Richie, was in fact not in Europe, but rather on vacation in northern New York state. Strangely enough, when he was turning towards the city to catch a boat back, he was hit by a coconut on the head. The collision of the coconut and Richie's cranium was enough to bring him to the realm considered by humans as 'unconsciousness'. As an average swallow, Richie had yet to achieve an awareness of awareness, also known as consciousness.

During his brief stint of unconsciousness, two things happened. The first was that he stopped flapping his wings and consequently plummeted. The second was that he had achieved true sentience as well as all the knowledge of an thirty-three year old white American male of a upper-middle class background and a job as a technical service provider. Steven Baker, a man matching that description was in a car accident a few hundred feet below where Richie was flying and appeared to lose his memory as well as his mind. What really happened was that he had gained the knowledge of Richie Hirundo Rustica and could only speak Aeran, language of the skies. However, the effects of this coconut crash on Steven Baker were of no consequence to Richie who, by this point, had realized that the ground wanted to be his friend.

While no physicist, Steven had known a lot about gravity and kinetic impacts. Richie, therefore, also knew about this. Richie did some quick math in his now extremely overworked swallow mind and determined that he had a few seconds to live unless he somehow grew larger wings.

He concentrated on extending what little wingspan he had a praying to whatever gods Steven had known about.

“Oh my dear God, Jesus my savior I need wings. Wings like a falcon or an eagle. Thor and Zeus! You guys might be able to help me- wings! Oh, what was the name of the Greek god Odysseus pissed off... I know this... Aeolus, God of the Wind grant me flight!”

Abruptly Richie's decent stopped. However, he had not impacted the ground. That was still below him, he craned his short neck and looked to either side and saw that his wings had grown to a six foot wingspan.

After a few beats of his mighty wings he grew tired. The small frame of the average European swallow was not designed with an eagle's wings in mind and the musculature was not able to support them. Rather than wishing that his wings returned to their normal, standard size, he prayed to Aeolus that his frame grow in proportion to his wings. His prayer was almost immediately answered by the sound of popping joints.

Pushing the air below him out of the way he shot up into the sky.

“Hell yeah, Mr. Barneby's cat won't bother me anymore,” he thought, “Perhaps I should get a job. But I would need arms- and I should look more intimidating. No one will hire a swallow. But maybe if I was covered in scales and spikes people would listen to me.”

Nearly a mile below, Darren Sternburry, an amateur Ornithologist had been tracking the patterns of a barn swallow crossing his neighbor's farm. It had just been hit on the head with what looked like a coconut and then plummeted to the ground. He felt sorry for the poor thing- coconuts were usually polite enough to wait until there was nothing in the area to appear. This one had been rather vicious in its teleporting. Rather unexpectedly, a bird soon rose from behind the trees where the swallow had fallen. It had the swallows body and head, but its wing span had grown from under a foot to several feet. Darren turned on the digital video camera and tracked the flight of this strange creature.

Just after cresting the tree line, it's body had shifted and grown to scale. Over the next two or three minutes the brown and white feathers were replaced with dark red scales and spines running down its back. The tail feathers extended and became a wiry spiked tail. The head flattened and narrowed, looking more like a bird of prey, and then very similar to a crocodile's head. As Darren watched- what had been a swallow practice a few swoops, dives and rolls. Suddenly, the creature doubled in size, then tripled. More spikes and a pair of vestigial arms grew. If Darren had ever played Dungeons and Dragons he would have classified it immediately as a Juvenile Red Dragon (based on size and apparent flight speed- not age).

High in the clouds Richie felt better about his life. He may have just eaten a whole flock of distant relatives, but they weren't close and they were relatives. Besides that, he was a a dragon, he had to eat a lot to remain in the air. Richie, remembering why he had changed glided down towards the ground in search of a phone. He landed not to far from the Sternburry farm and casually sauntered over. In the backyard he met Darren and stuck out one of his hands.

“Hello, I'm Richie Hirundo Rustica. I've got the mind of Steven Baker, the skills of a professional technical service provider and the power of the god Aeolus. I need to borrow your phone. I'm looking for a job,” he said with what he thought was a charming smile.

Darren looked didn't hear what had been said. This, he was sure, was a bad thing. Darren turned around and raced inside.

Richie shrugged, extended an arm a ripped out the back wall of the house. Still not used to his bulk, he destroyed most of the building, including the phone and its connections. Darren, meanwhile had grabbed his car and drove off as quickly as his grandfather's used pick-up could go.

Sighing in despair, Richie threw himself off the ground and into the air. Richie, however, forgot about the local Air Force base. He felt a sharp buzzing in his head, as though someone was trying to communicate with him. A few minutes later he looked behind him and saw a pair of fighters. Recognizing them, he dove instantly, but the missiles that were launched tracked him as he fell. He resorted to prayer again, but Aeolus gave him nothing. Seconds later he felt a sharp pain in his stomach and then he was enveloped in an expanding ball of gas and fire.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Bunsen Burner Problem: Why Paladins are so good

At yesterday's deathfest my given character was a Bunsen Burner. He had the ability to cast flames. He could also hit 3 targets he had already hit with flames with more flames. Or he could make one target easier to hit and take more damage from flames. Or he could cause a gas leak and do more damage with his flames.

He had no other abilities. This would become a problem when he needed to distract an enemy or to heal himself. Because he couldn't. All he could do was blow everything up.

This actually does make sense in the context of the subtitle- trust me.

See, what makes paladins very powerful is their versatility. In a pinch, with all the other healers down and the boss at 1% a ret or prot paladin can just drop whatever they are doing and start throwing heals on those who need it.

They can also manage other players threat, damage intake, and diseases, magic and poisons through the use of their 'hand' spells and cleanse. Their various seals and judgements allow them even more versatility when raiding or PvPing. They can change their playstyle abruptly with a few quick changes in their choice of seals, aura and judgement.

Very few other classes have such diverse functionality. Druids can also jump into the healer's spot or in some cases the tanks and shamans can do healing as well.

However, the pure classes have a very difficult time when it comes to doing anything other than hitting the boss. Warlocks, for example can't really help the party at all except for using fear- which often doesn't work and often is not actually helpful.

Levitate

Levitate has got to be my favorite spell in the game (except for maybe DI or bubble). And bears look so awesome just floating in the air.

Matched set.

Me and Keyran (a guildie) were both on our way to Onyxia. We went this way, because the goblins hate us- guess why.

My excuse- in detail.

So yesterday I didn't get a post in as mentioned. So I must describe why I missed that post and you can judge whether or not it was worth it.

So I got up just before 1 and almost instantly went to Mythos.

Mythos is a pseudo-larp/boff. When the weather is good we hit each other with foam swords and on occasion cast spells at each other. I myself got into a couple shadow-boxing duels and rolled in the mud. After Mythos (which ends at 3) I took a shower, because, well I had been rolling in mud for two hours.

Following that I immediately started to watch the most recent Caprica episode.

Right at the end of that my friend called and said that he had arrived from a neighboring college. I couldn't exactly write then because he is not a WoW player, and it would have been quite rude.

We talked programming for a bit and then watched an episode of White Collar. This ended minutes before six when we went to Deathfest. That ended at 3. At that point I decided to sleep. Because it was three. In the morning. So I slept.

This counts as yesterday's post, because I am a cheater.

I'm calling a reprieve.

So I drastically missed yesterday's posts. I mean, I'm over three hours late. But I can excuse that because I have not had a free moment all day (100% true). Anyways, I'll do a double post, double image tomorrow. I'm sorry to all my fans out there who read this religiously and then never comment. This is for you guys.

Friday, March 5, 2010

I are tank.

My first toon ever was a tank. He was a feral druid and right now he's sitting in the Menethil Harbor Inn, as he has been for pretty much a year and a half now.

I remember running around as a bear shouting I'm a Tonka Tank!

It amused me so much.

Anyways, I'd like to note that my first 80 was a Paladin, who at the time was ret but has since gone to prot and fell in love with it.

At the moment I'm in the process of leveling four more tanks.

Malkhelm[Ursin]: 74 Blood DK tank.
Nescio[Eredar]: 70 Frost DK tank.
Erthu[Ursin]: 45 Feral Druid tank.
Death*[Eredar]: 20 Feral Druid tank.

All of them have very good ability with AoE tanking. On the druid, I spam swipe. On the DK's I throw out a DnD, the diseases, pestilence and then either normal rotation for Malkhelm or Howling Blast + Blood Boil for Nescio.

It is a wonderful world to be a tank- you're nigh unkillable and you are the one who is in charge of the instance. The only thing that holds you back is the mana pool of your healer.

Tanks, good tanks especially, are a valuable commodity. It never takes me more than a couple of minutes to find a dungeon pug to run with as a tank. I'd like to think as well, that I am a good tank and I have been complimented on my ability a few times.

Anyways, I'd like to share a few important things from the tanks perspective.
  1. You yank it, you tank it. Don't pull stuff when the tank isn't ready.
  2. If the Healer dies, its the Tank's fault. If the Tank dies, its the Healer's fault. If the DPS dies, its their own damn fault.
  3. Only healers and paladin tanks can call a water break. Everyone should just sit down and and watch them go on.
  4. Don't AoE until the tank has done AoE. Because then you have threat.
  5. Don't use a 'tanking' form. For example, don't turn on Defensive Stance, Righteous Fury, Bear Form or Frost presence. This skyrockets your threat and doesn't do anything at all for your dps. So don't.


*His name is spelled with fancy characters.

Don't tank the Oozes.

Or so I was told after I tanked the oozes. Thanks for the tip!

A bedtime story! (Anotherother piece) (from yesterday- cuz this is yesterday)

I mean, I managed to open the tabs while it was still yesterday, which henceforth in this piece shall be referred to as 'today'.

So earlier today, TOC managed to down Ony, and carried on to roflstomp some ICC trash. This got me my 251 tanking ring, bringing me WAY over defcap.


Douglas Bower huddled in the corner of Donovan's Pub nursing his ale. Douglas, or Doug as his friends called him, was not the sort of man to be hiding in the darkest corner of a pub. He was a loud, cheerful man who everyone agreed had a great sense of humor. It was quite against his nature to be furtive in any way, yet he kept sipping at his drink and looking around the room suspiciously. Eventually, Dave Chorley, a good friend of his entered and came over to his booth. Taking sip he took one last glance at the other patrons and turned to face his friend.

“Evening Dave.”

“Evening. How's it going for you?”

“Well, the moons full and the skies are clear. A beautiful evening to stay out, I think.”

“Sorry I'm late, thanks for grabbing me an ale.”

“Dave, I've introduced you to Mr. Dupree right? He has a farm a little bit down the way from my place.”

“Robert, right? Yeah, I know the man. Have you got me out here to complain about him again?”

“Not exactly. Yesterday he came to me and told me that he had seen a flying saucer. He was concerned that it would steal his cows.”

“Right, his precious cows.”

“And then there was this article in the paper a while back a while back that got me thinking.” He dug out a scrap of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and read carefully, “'After seeing the Flying Saucer disappear I proceeded around the road to where it had come from. Upon rounding the corner, there was a perfect circle in the crops, just the size of the alien vessel that I saw.' That was Mr. Pedley of Australia talking about a sighting of his back in nineteen sixty-six.”

“What has this got to do with Mr. Dupree?”

“I think it would be a good laugh to go ahead and make one of these crop circles in his wheat field, really get him jumping at the shadows. Tonight is a great night for it. The moon is out, there aren't any clouds and Liz doesn't expect me home until late.”

“There isn't any way I can talk you out this is there? Doug, you're fifty-two and I'm almost forty-nine. We can't go out like we used to.”
“Sorry mate, you know that we're going to be doing this. I've got the stuff we need in the car.”


A half-hour later the two men were at the edges of Mr. Dupree's fields. Doug was carrying two thick, heavy metal bars and a couple pieces of rope. He waved Dave over to him and headed into the chest high rows of grain. After walking for a few minutes, Doug set down the two pieces of metal and began tying the rope onto the end of one of them.

“Dave, would you kindly see if you could ram that rod into the ground?” he asked, “Thanks mate. This is about where Robert said he saw it. He said it was about eight meters in diameter and this rod is only a meter- we'll have to do some work.”

With one rod in the ground he tied the loose end of the rope around it so that the two rods were nearly touching, the second one lying on the ground. He waved Dave over and the two of them pushed the bar around the central point. Most of the the grain popped back up so they went back around it several more times until all of the stalks were flat. Doug loosened the rope and retied it so that the horizontal bar was a meter. Again the two men dragged it around, enlarging the circle. In just under an hour they had extended the rope two more times, making a perfect circle, eight meters in diameter.

“There, that should give Robert fits in the morning,” he said, looking over to where Mr. Dupree's house loomed in the distance, “He'll probably come over first thing in the morning to rant at me. Come over earlier than usual for our golfing and see what he has to say.”


The next morning Doug took his time getting up and cleaning himself so that he was only just sitting down to breakfast when the someone knocked at the door.

“Liz, would you mind getting the door? It should be Dave, even if he is a bit early. Invite him in, I'll prepare a batch of eggs for him.”

“Would you listen to yourself. You act as though Mary doesn't ever feed him.”

“It is polite to offer food to one's guest if you yourself are eating.”

Liz had already left the dining room and gone to the door. “Hello Dave,” she called, “You're early and Doug had a late start this morning. He said he'd get you a plate of his eggs and I'll get you some tea if you'd like.”

“I'd love that. You do make quite excellent tea.”

Liz ushered Dave into the dining room just as Doug was coming back with a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Did you tell Liz?” asked Dave, “No, she'd think it was a folly, going out in the middle of the night. You tell Molly?”

“Of course not. She'd think the same thing and say a lot worse.”

The two men were in the kitchen cleaning their plates when another visitor knocked at the door.

“Doug, did you invite someone else for golf?”

“No. It is probably Robert, you know him.”

Doug quickly swiped a towel over his plate, put it down and headed to the door.

“Was wondering who it would be. Come on in Robert. Me and Dave were about to head out.”

“Oh, sorry Douglas,” said a deep, gravely voice, “Its just that I've got proof!”

“Proof? For what Robert? What are you talking about?”

“Remember that flying saucer I told you about? Well, they landed in my barely last night. There is an impression in my fields where their flying saucer was.” Robert said the last few words with almost religious respect.

Doug struggled to keep from laughing, “That sounds very interesting, but Dave and I need to leave now or we'll miss our slot on the course. I'd like to come over later to look at it.”

“Do! Do! I plan on having a inspector out to confirm my beliefs. Well, off I go.” With that, Robert turned and left a Dave and Doug to finish cleaning and leave to their golf game.

“That went well, don't you think?” asked Doug.

“It was pretty good. He's quite taken by it all. But I have some things I'd like to try sometime.”

“Next week then? After pub night?”

“Sounds excellent.”



For the next two years, nearly every Friday night the two men went out to the Dupree farm to create the crop circles. The single ship became an entire fleet, and their ability to make the crop circles leaped ahead. By the end of the two years they were able to create a twelve meter circle in under fifteen minutes and on occasion made larger ones. Using a looped wire dangled from a cap they could focus more easily and create straight lines to create more complex formations. Each time Robert showed up the next morning to talk about the Aliens and how sure he was that they were planning an invasion. Every week they met in Donovan's Pub to plot their next landing before going out into the fields.

“Doug,” began Dave, “I think we could get our circles some real media attention if we put them somewhere where lots of drivers would see them.”

Doug grinned, “I remember you trying to dissuade me when I first suggested this venture. But I like this idea- where do you think we could put them?”

“There's a good field about a half-hour on the other side Winchester. There's a low, gentle hill that faces the bypass there. It would be rather easy to see it from the road, but no one takes it during the night.”

“It'll keep us out later than usual, Liz and Molly might get upset.”

“They won't notice. They didn't notice that we've been an hour or two later than usual these past two years. Another hour shouldn't make too much of a difference.”


The next day, on the evening news there was a special on the 'Aliens of Winchester'. A series of circles had appeared in the crops grown in on a hill along the bypass. Several experts declared that it was impossible that they were man-made. Over the course of the rest of the week, the crop circles became very popular with many people driving by just to see them. With all the focus on those hills, Doug and Dave chose some other visible locations and created crop circles for those fields as well. Eventually scientists announced that they were clearly not man-made but that they were also not created by aliens, as some experts had been claiming. Small whirlwinds were the cause of such developments. Pockets of turbulence would create miniature tornadoes that would create a circle and then vanish into the changing air currents.


No matter how much evidence scientists brought in to support their theories, the extremists who claimed that it was extraterrestrial life were more exuberant and consequently more popular. After another decade of making the crop circles, Doug and Dave had spent an impressive amount of time hoaxing all of England. Even the government was interested in the crop circles and where they came from.


On another Saturday morning, Liz and Doug were eating breakfast, when Liz interrupted Doug's reading of the newspaper, “You didn't go out last night did you?”

“No, I was feeling rather under the weather and Dave is sick as well. We decided it would be best to not go out drinking.”

“Oh, and did you not miss her?”

“Sorry, who are you talking about?”

“What, you didn't think I would notice? You're gone for a few hours more than you used to and you never say anything about your trips to the Pub. Besides, you've gathered a few thousand extra miles over the past few years.”

“Sorry, are you saying that I was cheating on you? Liz, I would never do that. It is just a misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding?” shrieked Liz, “explain everything to me. Now.”

Doug, faced with the wrath of his wife gave in and explained that for the past fifteen years he and Dave had been going out to make crop circles. It had at first started as a joke of Robert, but after a few years it evolved into something more. After seeing his the tools of the trade that he kept in his car, and seeing him make a quick crop circle in their backyard, Liz began to doubt him less. The next week she went with the two of them to help. Now that Liz and, by extension, Molly knew about their exploits the two men started going out on other nights, to make the events seem more random. After a couple months of working together, Liz and Molly convinced their husbands to let the press know. Doug and Dave gave an exclusive interview and showed the media how easy it was to actually create a crop circle.


The official government interest in the crop circles disappeared after the two men declared that they had been the cause of the hundreds of circles over the years, but the public masses remained interested. Some continued to believe that they were caused by natural wind patterns, some believed that they were caused by aliens and some went out to make their own crop circles.


Two weeks later, on a Friday night, Doug was in his backyard reading an article on the creation of crop circles., when a slight whirring sound distracted him. He put down the paper and looked up to see a silver disc slowly approaching his lawn. It matched Robert's description of the alien craft he had seen fifteen years ago exactly. Settling into the ground, a ramp protruded and a door slid open. Three short grey aliens, thin and gangly with bulbous heads exited. All of them looked very excited, as though they were about to talk to a celebrity, or the Queen.

“Douglas Bower?” the first one asked.

“Yeah, that would be me,” he replied, cowed by their presence, “what do you want?”

“We just wanted to know, we're very confused, but- what do these 'crop circles' mean?”



Apologies for the weird background. Go copy-pasting....
As an additional note, I can never remember how I posted it last time.

Void where prohibited

THE VOID IS HERE. THEREFORE IT IS VOID HERE.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Old-End-Game!

Occasionally I get to instance in an old-world raid. Those things really knew the meaning of epic. This is not a post ranting about the good ol' days. In fact, I was never part of the good ol' days. In fact, I wasn't even part of the semi-ol' days (TBC). I joined about four days before patch 2.4 and didn't hit seventy until a while after 3.0.2.
Nonetheless, Classic raids contained the essence of epic. I mean, you were slaying dragons and the Lord of Fire! You even got to kill an old god.
Of course, there are other parts of 'epic' to define.
  1. The epic struggle to find forty people.
  2. The epic lag ensuing from 30 peoples AoEs.
  3. The epic amount of disconnects.
  4. The epic number of deaths at the beginning of the twenty-minute battles.
  5. The epic amount of Loot Drama. Same number of pieces of gear, two to four times as many people.
  6. The epic feel of having the group fall apart right before the end boss after four hours of solid raiding.
Oh those epic days. They are a lot more fun now that you can faceroll them.