25/12/2009 / 1:42AM / No Song Playing
The tale of the Pummel - World of Warcraft
Fresh from WoW today:

So I was in a group for a random dungeon, and we got Gun'drak. There's this achievement to prevent a boss from transforming into a mammoth at any point during the fight, which my group decided (well, some people) to do.

We've got 2 Warriors and myself so it seems do-able.

Our DPS warrior is Arms, and fights in Battle Stance. While Pummel can only be cast in Berserker Stance. Don't ask me why he couldn't just equip a shield and Shield Bash without changing stances. Some questions I don't even ask anymore.

Background info: Warriors can perform different moves in different stances, Pummel is an interrupt ability (to interrupt the mammoth transformation), and so is Shield Bash, although Shield Bash requires a shield to be equipped, and DPS warriors usually don't hold shields.

So there's a bunch of blah blah blah as they go about deciding who's going to interrupt first etc. etc. etc.

It's decided that the Arms warrior will Pummel first so he can go back to DPSing in Battle Stance.

The first Transformation cast is 3.8 seconds long, according to WoWWiki.

I watch as he starts casting it. I contemplating silencing it about halfway through, but my silence cooldown is 24 seconds and I wouldn't be able to make an attempt for the 3rd (very fast and rather random) one later on.

A full 3.8 seconds later, an elephant pops out in the middle of my screen.

Sigh.

3.8 seconds. I could have fallen off my chair, gotten back up, danced a little and still interrupted it.

- J, My Way 

 
24/12/2009 / 5:32PM / Corrinne May - Everything In Its Time
Week in review (an attempt, anyway)
Okay so I have just woken up from the whirlwind that swept through my house last night. My god, such a night of debauchery. Unfortunately for me it just about ended there, after supper.

I can't even remember what I do week by week so I actually gotta look at my calendar to recall.

Let's see.

17/12:
Went to the hospital for my appointment. This time I actually went on the correct date. My psychologist said that I seemed to be doing much better. I assured her that it was because I didn't have to deal with the crap that was hell. Not for awhile more anyway. We hang around and talked for an hour or so, it was actually pleasant speaking to her about such things. It probably also helped that she was a fairly attractive young lady. Heh heh heh.

Yeah, I must be the only person who can use "hang around and talked" when referencing his psychologist.

I wish I could say something out of the movies happened and we just shagged like rabbits in the room, but alas, things in the movies remain where they are - in the movies.

Later on had dinner with Pam and Shihao, both of whom I hadn't seen in ages. From the days of playing Bridge in school to the days of now, talking about big plans, people getting married and raising our future generations...my goodness. Still, it was good to see them.

Besides, the economist in me tells me that they are very likely future bigwigs so it's in my best interest to keep contact with them.

Of course, there's a reason I'm not an economist, because if I were to break everything down in this world into economics I would be a very sad person indeed.

18/12:
Played L4D2 with Chi, Alec and Mike. Chi and I insisted on playing Advanced, and we couldn't get past the grand finale because the zombies spawned too often and hit too hard. I still put it down to our poor shooting. If u can't 1v1 a special zombie head-on then we're not going to be able to even out the odds.

Had dinner with Deb and Yirong. From the days of hanging out and skipping classes to the days of now, talking about big plans, people getting married and raising our future generations...my goodness. Hey...I vaguely recall myself saying that just a few paragraphs ago.

Still, it was also good to see them. Meeting up with good friends constantly reminds me of who I was and who I am, despite who I seem to be becoming.

19/12:
I don't actually have notes for today, so other than dance lessons I don't think anything spectacular happened.

20/12:
Played VS in school. New School is no longer undefeated. U know u're getting somewhere when the metagame becomes what u play. Still, poor play and poor knowledge of the cards did me in. I should have won...I think.

21/12:
Played L4D with Xue Yin, Tommy and Philip. Hilarity ensues, and I demonstrated what superman with his superman sword can do to a Tank. Extra note about this day: I don't really understand how someone can be conscious and still at home at 2.15pm when our stipulated meeting time was 2pm.

It seems like a nation-wide ill - complete lack of punctuality. It's actually gotten to me now, but only because I've become used to the fact that if I get there on time I'd be the only idiot there anyway. It still pisses me off no end though. Although I have to say I'm not blameless because my sleep cycle still continues to baffle me.

22/12:
Had breakfast with Eugene, Ben, Ryan, Benzie and Kiat. Hadn't seen Benzie in ages prior to this. Went to hang out at Ben's place afterwards, mauled Ryan 3-0 in Big Box Winston Draft. Hanging out is always good. I tried to pull off an amazing Fastbond + Sunder + X Spell one turn kill against Benzie, but I didn't have enough lands and life, so I settled for casting 10 mana worth of creatures and leaving him with 0 lands in play.

23/12:
Had lunch, then had...possibly the only party (as far as I can recall) I've ever had at my house. Put a picture up on facebook about the damage done to my fridge. I should have taken a photo of the total wreckage in my living room, or my dustbin, but unfortunately I wasn't in the best state of mind to remember to do that.

Somewhere around 22-23/12 my sleep cycle righted itself and I kept sleeping before midnight and waking up really early, like 6-8am. Which made me rather sleepy sometime into my party.

I persevered and I righted my sleep cycle back to the 3am-3pm cycle that I'm more accustomed to. Somehow, the 9am-9pm vampirism curse has left me. 

 
17/12/2009 / 3:52AM / Martin Sexton - Animal Song
Addendum - Ethics
In case anyone's interested, or even if no one's interested, this was the best semester for me in school, grades-wise. My GPA actually IMPROVED, hahahaha! Also the only semester where I didn't get a single C, oh my god.

I have Kiat, Chi, Dexter and Joel to thank for Ethics, if not for them I don't think I would get anything near my B- grade. Being the amazing people that they were, we got an A for our group project.

I actually got an A+ for class participation though, such a slap in the face of the whole system. Or rather, the retards who couldn't even construct a proper opinion. See, my weekly session of Heroes 5 pays off with an A+. Good work, Jik.

But I got an F for response papers. Yeah, an F.

I am creating new milestones every semester. This is the first F I've EVER seen in my WHOLE life, hahahaha!

Although to be fair I only handed in one out of two, and I guess that one didn't get full marks, so F it was.

Hahahahahaha I am feeling so deliriously happy. Perhaps the myth that SMU doesn't give anything less than B- for Ethics really isn't a myth. I dare say that I was really pushing the boundary though. The total un-studied crap I wrote for the exam...boy I don't even know how I could pass with that. I vaguely recall him saying something about ISCT model, or was it some other...ah heck I have no idea.

- J, My Way 

 
17/12/2009 / 3:38AM / 周杰伦 - 我不配
Fuck my life
So I went all the way to Changi Hospital today for an appointment...

...which was scheduled for tomorrow. Well, it's scheduled for today now, and I went yesterday, but I've completely lost all notion of date and time, what with my sleeping at 9am and waking at 9pm antics.

Yeah, FML.

After coming home I was in a hurry to shower and sleep since I hadn't slept, I stormed up the stairs and promptly shoulder charged the hand supports, right at the corner where it's a sharp edge too.

FML.

And then I went for dance class, there were about 2 reasonably hot chicks, we were split into 3 groups...

...and of course I have to be in the group with NEITHER of them.

FML 3 BlackJik 0.

In other news, I've been running red lights, reversing at road junctions, driving on the wrong side of the road, nearly killing motorcyclists...the list goes on.

Okay I'm kidding.

I only did the first two.

HAHAHAHAHA!

On the bright side I got some phat loots on WoW today. It doesn't take much to make me happy apparently.

- J, My Way 

 
15/12/2009 / 12:44AM / 陳淑樺 - 夢醒時分
"Intellectual" discourses are over-rated.
I read someone's note on Facebook regarding voting HERE, and I felt that it was actually very wel-written.

But then again I am no academic, so many things to me are considered well-written.

If not knowing and not caring is labelled "apathetic", like so much of our citizenry, then what do we call knowing yet not caring?

Callous?

Can I even be callous towards my own country?

I realized that discourses, discussions or debates nowadays don't really function like they used to.

It used to be that we construct arguments, prepositions, blah blah blah, and then after considering different viewpoints we reach a conclusion.

Yet nowadays we decide on our conclusion first, and then we construct arguments, attack our opposition's points wherever it suits our need, and avoid mentioning those that we cannot topple.

People who have chosen a side do not need any persuasion. They will find reasons to stay on that side.

It's like studying Ethics making u become less unethical. If I decide to take a course action that benefits myself and I stand within the majority who benefit, I choose to be utilitarian. If I decide to take an action that benefits myself and I stand within the minority, I choose to be deontological.

Besides, no matter how ethical or unethical I truly am, no system wants to admit that they produced a product that is unethical, so I am always labelled at least "generally ethical". And so that all future unethical decisions I may make can be attributed to my future environments or my change in character.

I don't choose a side. I merely take the one that benefits me the most, just like all other self-serving members of this species.

Self-serving, on the other hand, is highly open to an individual's personal interpretation.

- J, My Way 

 
15/12/2009 / 10:48PM / 張信哲 & 劉嘉玲 - 有一點動心
Weekly blog, a little bit of WoW
Obviously, because WoW is down, otherwise I would be hardcore-farming stuff that I need, especially Triumph emblems.

Actually many times in the week I thought of making an entry, but things always got in the way, and it wasn't just WoW. In fact I hadn't actually played much WoW this week. There were periods where I didn't play for a few days in a row.

So I just woke up about an hour ago and had my...dinner breakfast. Let's see...so what did I do this past week.

Oh yeah, my dance classes have started again, I'm taking Quickstep, Foxtrot and Rumba now, which all the more serves to confuse me because having 3 different dances per week is just totally messing with my brain.

Not that anyone really cares about my dancing, so I'll just gloss over that.

Ah yes, exciting event number 1, going to the TURF CLUB. First time in my life too!

Hohoho.

As per request, I'm not supposed to divulge anything related to the other person, so it'll sort of be like I went there by myself.

Thankfully I managed to get the car to drive there, because the Turf Club is as out of the way as something out of the way could get. I considered bringing my passport along because I wasn't sure if I had to cross any international borders to get there, but I was reassured that it was in Singapore.

So we bought the $7 air-conditioned grandstand seats, and I was pondering the wisdom in that move because the $3 non-aircon seats were $4 cheaper, and since each minimum bet was $2 that was 2 whole bets, or even if I didn't plan to bet at all it would be a saving of $4.

The wisdom would only be revealed later.

It was a pretty surreal experience going in. So here we were, 2 23-year-old guys, going to the place where the average age of the population was probably double or more of our age. If there was a graph of age, we'd be an extreme outlier.

So there were 9 races going on that night, and I hadn't actually planned on betting anything, unlike the other. However, being Chinese and all, I can't resist gambling. Besides, it's more exciting to watch if u have some form of stakes on it, no matter how small.

So I used some of the homework that the other person did, and then I figured that I would just buy a little bit here and there, using my amazing strategic skills and business skills of hedging I picked up from school.

Yeah right, who am I kidding, I just bought a bit for fun. Like 2 bets worth $2 each, it was probably a strange sight for the person at the counter since just about everyone else was dishing out fifty dollar bills like they were doggy biscuits.

So what are the odds of a person, completely foreign to the industry of horse-racing and horse-betting, making money at the Turf Club?

I mean, I *think* I actually know a bit about football, and I'm actually in the red for football (hence why I've stopped).

Yeah, so I actually won something with that $4 bet. How lucky.

I'd like to think it was because of my amazing strategic mind and ... blah blah blah, but I can tell u it was pure dumb luck. Why? Because I heard over the commentary that this particular veteran jockey had won 5 of his races the last week, so I figured that he would be a good buy.

It was in Chinese, no less, and the jockey's name was foreign so thank goodness I actually UNDERSTAND CHINESE, UNLIKE HALF OUR "BILINGUAL" POPULATION. Hahaha!

I use the term "making money" rather loosely, because I had to pay $5 for parking, $7 entry, $3.50 for food (barely edible food), and some amount for petrol and car depreciation.

All in all I estimate that my initial damage comes up to about $20, because I don't factor in car depreciation, seeing as how it would depreciate just sitting in my house anyway.

I kinda treated it something like watching a movie. Pay a little money for a few hours' of entertainment.

Besides, I like watching horses run, and it was kinda exciting when they start sprinting near the finish line and everyone is roaring their bet's number.

So, being Mr Paralysis Analysis that I am, I like to look at all the numbers in the 12-by-12 payouts grid...and I realize some things don't kosher.

Here's an example. Generally in a 12 horse race, there are probably 3 favourite horses, 3 okay horses, and the rest are outsiders or failures. Let's say the favourites are number 1, 2, 3 and the okay guys are 4, 5, 6.

There are like a million different bets u can make, but I chose a rather...simple one. Basically u pick 2 horses, if they both finish within the top 3, doesn't matter which position, u win. Eg. if u pick 1 and 2, and the top 3 are horses 4, 2, 1, u win.

So u would then expect the odds for buying horses 1 and 4 to be lower than the odds for buying horses 4 and 5, since 1 is a favourite, and both 4 and 5 are tier 2 horses.

Right?

WRONG.

Like all other betting systems, the odds are "live", affected by the bets that other people place. So obviously enough people are fixated enough on the okay horses such that the odds 4-5 are lower than the odds of 1-4.

Market inefficiency at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

Of course, this is assuming that the "favourites" are indeed the favourites, which I would later discover is actually not always a good assumption.

But still, no prizes for guessing which bet I'm taking.

So here I am, armed with nothing but my meagre knowledge of market efficiency and inefficiency, making yet another round of bets.

I make 3 bets this time, all on market inefficient bets.

So what are the odds of a person, completely foreign to the industry of horse-racing and horse-betting, making money at the Turf Club?

Apparently, not as bad as u think they would be.

Race 2, and BlackJik is 2 for 2.

The trend continues until race 4, BlackJik being 4 for 4.

The other person, unfortunately, is not as fortunate. Hahaha, talk about poor sentence construction.

Race 5 rolls around and we learn a very important lesson.

The hot favourite, is almost guaranteed to not win, part 1. Everyone places his bet on the hot favourite, they drug the horse, kill the jockey, snipe the horseshoe, team attack the horse once the gates are open, etc. etc. etc.

Yeah so I structured my betting strategy that round around Mr Favourite, although I did make a hedge bet against him, but unfortunately even my hedge didn't work.

Booooooooom, and I halve my winnings.

I start grinding market inefficiencies again, recouping every single cent of the BOOM in the next 2 races. Somehow, I fail to take home any lesson from that, but I figured that it might have been an outlier so once again in race 7 I change my strategy to bet around the hot favourite. I nearly go bust, except this time my hedge bet comes to my rescue, covering all my cost.

So who makes the same mistake 3 times in a row?

That would be me.

I make the sheep-like play on race 8, once again going with the hot favourite, and no surprises there they drug the horse. Sigh. Bust again.

There is a hot favourite in race 9, but this time I've woken up from my sheepy (yes, sheepy, not sleepy) slumber, and I ignore the hot favourite, despite the fact that he's supposed to be a "specialist" at running this particular track.

I actually bet heavily against him. Well, heavy is relative, but heavy in the sense that it's like betting AGAINST Manchester United or Chelsea.

Guess what?

The "specialist" starts off the race in last position, takes a few long, powerful strides to catch up to last, ambles on for another portion of the race in last, is neck-to-neck with last for the last portion of the race, and finishes DEAD LAST.

How many instances of "last" did I use there?

Hooray.

So after 5 hours of entertainment, I have enough for my petrol, my entry fee, my parking, my food, and a bowl of bak chor mee on my way home.

And I got to watch horses run! How fun.

The ironic thing is, because I just went there and bet for fun, I made pittance. If I had been betting heavy like the other, I would actually have been almost half a grand richer for the night. But I don't think that's my style, especially if I don't have capital to start with.

It is, however, a possible avenue of revenue. Market inefficiencies.

Yeah.

So what else did I do.

Oh yeah, I played in the WoW Realm Championships, unofficially I was 6-0 and finished 1st in swiss, officially I traded 6-0 for 5-1 and a little bit of extra income, finishing 2nd in swiss. Heh heh heh.

On a not so happy note, I lost in the semi-finals again. Once again the grand prize, and the Spectral Tiger, eludes me.

Not winning aside, I was actually extremely happy with my performance. I played a deck that I had never played before (although it was more or less my style of deck), played like a beast, drafted like a beast, played like a beast again, and generally I was undefeatable in day 1.

Why?

Because the taxi I took to Settler's had a 天下第一王 sign in it. I was actually going to doze off the moment I hopped in because I was pretty tired, but the moment I saw it I morphed into indestructible mode. Quite inspiring.

And then I drove on day 2 and...sigh.

I actually won the first game, but as luck would have it NOTHING would go right in games 2 and 3. I even played the clock like a savage to put myself into a situation where I could win off the back of a Tranquility, but of course I couldn't even draw the cards to get anywhere close.

Yeah.

So anyway, patch 3.3 is out for WoW, and there's a new random dungeon finder that links u up with pugs from different servers, just not our own. Despite not actually playing that much this week, I still get in some happening times.

Of course, excitement happens all the time, it's like lottery. Sometimes u get pugs that are decked to the teeth, and sometimes u get guys who "just reached level 80 2 hours ago".

My personal favourite is this guy from my own server, Suramar, a Paladin by the name of Colcourt.

Background info: U have to pick a role when u queue for a dungeon, and since we have 4 people in our group, I'm the tank, Ben's the healer, and we have 2 dps. The pug probably picked DPS/Healer but he was assigned as DPS.

So at the start Ben makes his running joke about how he's not a healer since he keeps casting Smite and Holy Fire. It's actually true he does cast Smite and Holy Fire more than anything else because the heroics are retardedly easy at this point and having more DPS means that we can make things go faster.

The pug takes that for real and swops his spec into Holy and starts healing me.

6k, 6k, 6k, 6k...oh my god I'm gaining so much life...except that I don't need it because I'm losing an average of 2k life per trash pull. And he heals me for about 24k.

I didn't even realize it until the adds that the first boss spawned started attacking him instead of Ben.

So after the dust settles and the boss is dead...

[Me] Party Leader: Dude, he was kidding, switch back to Ret.

I stand around and wait. No reply.

[Seah]: Go DPS man.

Still no reply.

[Ben]: J/K man!

Crickets chirp.

[Colcourt] Party: Things might get moving faster if the tank started pulling.

Oh yeah? U think so?

[Me] Party Leader: Things might get moving faster if we weren't running with 2 healers because he was kidding, and if u changed back to Ret like we asked u almost half a minute ago, multiple times.

Besides, he obviously didn't seem to realize that I wasn't dying despite him being DPS all the way up to the boss.

Fucking doggy cone.

My initial thought was that this cross-server parties brings out the worst in people because hey, what are the odds that u'll meet the other people ever again? And then I realized...he was from SURAMAR.

HAHAHA, talk about poetic justice.

And he wasn't even the most geared guy in the group by a long shot. I considered experimenting with the vote-kick function but he changed his spec back to Ret and just shut up for the rest of the run.

Of course, I couldn't resist, seeing as how we look less than 15 minutes and we were actually bringing some alts of friends' who weren't as well geared.

[Me] Party Leader: So, that fast enough for u?

He still doesn't make any semblance of apology or anything, and promptly leaves the group.

I reorganize my ignore list. Too bad for him, because the random dungeon finder doesn't let u group with people on your ignore list. So he's off the possible list of charities that I contribute to in WoW.

I considered expletiving him, but I had better things to do.

The new Greed-Disenchant function is amazing.

Background info: It used to be Need/Greed/Pass, but now u can select Greed-Disenchant if there is an Enchanter in your group, so if u win u get the Enchanting materials instead, which is always worth more than what the junk is vendored for.

And every run there are *always* people who pick Greed consistently instead of Greed-Disenchant. I mean, I do it once or twice because I misclick, but every single time? Well, maybe they're richer than me so they can't be arsed to just auctionhouse the materials, instead they prefer vendoring.

Or maybe they're just stupid, I don't know. I mean, u could make up to like, 500% the amount if u just AHed the materials, and even if u listed it at an idiot price, u'd still make double the amount.

The new dungeons are pretty interesting.

My favourite boss is Ick, some plague-construct thingy with a Gnome controlling him.

In the middle of the fight the Gnome will yell...

"Hurry! Poison them all while they're still close!"

And Ick will start casting Poison NOVA.

[Muppet] has died.

Or...

"What are you doing? The dangerous one is over there!"

Ick starts to pursue [Muppet2].

[Muppet2] has died.

Hahahahahaha!

I love this game as much as I hate it, it's amazing.

- J, My Way 

 
8/12/2009 / 8:41PM / 高明駿 & 王馨平 - 今生註定
A day in the life of a WoW Pug Raid Leader
Good morning, Singapore. It's 8.41pm and I've woken up just about an hour ago. Hurrah. So my sleeping habits have morphed from "Vampiric" to "Absolutely Random". I go to sleep anywhere from 10pm to 10am, and I wake up anywhere from noon to 7pm.

I figure that the only thing I can blog about consistently now with some decent content would be the only current constant in my life, which is World of Warcraft. Yeah, maybe I'm addicted. Whatever. Actually, at the moment of writing I hadn't played much WoW since I finished all my mega-raiding, once on Tuesday and once on...Wed or Thurs, I forget. And then I played some Arena games sometime yesterday, and that was it. A far cry from what I used to do.

Of course, it's maintainence now, so I'm here.

Played L4D2 the last week with Chi, Alec and Mike, although it wasn't really that much a challenge anymore since I've beaten the game into the ground already. Next up, time to up the difficulty level or even...gasp...REALISM mode?

On a good note, Manchester City beat Chelsea 2-1. I think it's the only time where I can say that I've been rather pleased with Manchester City.

On another good note, I escaped hell, albeit temporarily. Small victory, but I'll take it. For the first time in my life the MO actually seemed rather sympathetic towards my plight. I didn't stick around long enough to find out why though, I just got the fuck out of there as soon as I could.

By "as soon as I could", I meant 5 whopping hours after I arrived, out of which only 5 minutes was spent in actual conference with those whom I was supposed to confer with. The rest of the time was spent alternatately reading Tucker Max, eating breakfast or chilling around.

It seems quite a misnomer to use "chilling around" to describe an activity in hell, but that's kinda what I did.

I also did drive about 150km yesterday. It's amazing that on an island so small that only spans about 25km from North to South, I did 150km. So I went from Woodlands to Sentosa 6 times. Or something.

Hm. What else did I do.

Oh right, went for Weena's birthday, had supper multiple times, sometimes on the same day. That contributed largely to the 150km.

So anyway. WoW.

With the recent demise of my guild following the huge exodus to Dragon Age, among other reasons...

Okay I'm kidding my guild isn't dead, but it might as well be. Until the next patch rolls around, anyway.

So, long story short, I've been leading pug raids. I used to do in-guild Vault of Archavons 10-mans, and then expanded with pugs to do 25-man, but now they've become a largely pug affair, and I also run just about every relevant raid other than ToC25.

Background info for the WoW-uninitiated: PUG = Pick Up Group, otherwise known as people u randomly recruit on the street. To be fair, I resort to these street pickings last, but I'll still call them pug raids because I don't actually know everyone.

Additional background info: "Us" refers to people I know, "them" refers to people I don't.

It usually starts with a couple of us because as mighty as I am I don't have the patience or optimism to run a completely pug raid. At the very least I try to have some people I know in the key appointments, which are the tanks and the healers. However we don't usually have 2 tanks and 3 healers. While it's perfectly possible to run with 1 tank and 2 healers, it's always better to err on the side of caution when running with muppets.

I usually start with Trial of the Crusader, 10man, and after gathering my forces I usually end up posting something like this.

[Me] Trade: "LFM ToC10, 1 tank 2 healers bunch of DPS. PST with achievement or gear score >2500."

[Me] LookingForGroup: "LFM ToC10, 1 tank 2 healers bunch of DPS. PST with achievement or gear score >2500."

For the WoW-uninitiated that translated into:

"Looking for members for Trial of Crusader 10man. 1 tank, 2 healers and some DPS required. Please send tell with completed ToC 10man achievement or gear score greater than 2500."

"Trade:" means I post it in Trade channel, and "LookingForGroup:" means the LFG channel. Trade links all the major cities where everyone hangs out in, since not everyone is in the LFG channel all the time.

Gear Score: There's a website that assigns points to your gear, so u can check what it is from there. U don't actually need greater than 2500 to finish the raid, but I put it there as an alternative in case some people do 25mans and don't do 10mans and hence don't have the achievement for completing it. Besides, my own gear score is 2750 and I am the raid leader so I can do anything I want.

So for all u guys that have run with me before, here's a little insight into the nonsense I have to put up with so I can get runs going for everyone. Don't u just love me already?

Anyway, after I post that up, the fun starts.

[RandomMoron] whispers: inv
[RandomMoron2] whispers: inv, DK dps
[RandomMoron3] whispers: need a hunter?
[RandomMoron4] whispers: i've never tanked it before, but i can tank
[RandomMoron5] whispers: gs 2300 rogue here
[RandomMoron6] whispers: how do i find out my gearscore?

Clearly, they can't read or understand what I posted. Still, the amount of stupidity I put up with is amazing, because I usually do a /who, and I have my laptop on with WoW-Heroes so I can actually search for their gear score manually if someone's actually a class that I want to have in my raid.

I'm actually also rather pleasant at times, because I usually reply with

"Gear score/achievement?" or "wow-heroes.com" depending on what they ask.

To the idiot who whispered me "gs 2300 rogue here", I have a special kind of reply for him.

[Me] whispers: U're going to either a) grow a brain and somehow complete ToC10, b) get better gear or c) learn to read better. Regardless of which endeavour u choose, I wish u luck because u're not getting a spot in here.

Depending on what kind of moron he is he either goes away or attempts to fill my screen with profanities. The former is my favourite, the latter is just met with derisive laughter and /ignore.

Of course, then I get the next class of random moron...which is those who have ASCII characters for a cool ü or ê in their name and doesn't let me /who them, or type their names into WoW-heroes. These, I almost always ignore.

[RandomASCIIMoron] whispers: inv pls

/ignore

Your ignore list is full.

Sigh.

So next up, the trolls will start gathering, like seagulls to a trailer.

[Troll] Trade: lolol u dun nid 2500 gs to do toc10 ihaf dunit with 2300.
[Troll2] whispers: u don't need 2500 gs to finish toc10
[Troll3] whispers: i've killed anub with 2200 gs
[Troll4] whispers: do u no alot of ppl r laughing at u including me cos ... blah blah.

Wow, congrats so u people got 9 other guys to carry u through, or perhaps u actually had the brains to do the fights the way they were supposed to be done. I highly doubt it's the latter, from the crap u're whispering me with.

I actually bother to reply when I'm not engulfed by admin.

[Me] Trade: If u don't like my requirements, just don't whisper me.

[Me] (to Troll4) whispers: Do u know that I have a Duelist rated main and I don't really care what u, or those other clowns, think?

[Me] whispers: Here, try getting this and then talking to me. [Relentless Gladiator's Spellblade Link].

I actually told someone the exact paragraph above, and he logged out halfway between my first and second whipser. A quick armory check later revealed his arena rating of 1100, despite him being a mage decked out in 245 gear.

HAHAHA, 1100. I'm not even nearly the best guy on the server, I play with 500-600 ping, and I can hit 1900-2000.

Somewhere in the middle of all this mindless dribble I actually get a couple of gems.

[PaladinHealer] whispers: [Trial of the Cruader Achievement]
[HunterDPS] whispers: gs 2729, u can wow-heroes it

I almost always just invite them, since if they can't fake an achievement, and if they were stupid enough to tell me a fake gear score I'd find out the moment I invite them and I'll just have to re-sort my ignore list a little.

So anyway, after about 10-30mins (depending on how lucky I am, and the time of the day), we usually get a run started.

Despite everyone having claiming they know the fight, we almost always encounter the customary wipe-on-first-boss, because the tank will get poisoned and the people with the fires won't be smart enough to run to him.

Or someone will get trampled by Icehowl and the Hunter won't have Tranquilizing Shot in his rotation and hence doesn't know how to press it.

Life isn't always smooth sailing u know, because there are ways to pass my entrance test without actually having much of a brain. It usually involves them getting lucky in other pugs, or having a guild carry them through stuff.

[PaladinHealer] Raid: Can we mark the tanks please.

At this point I'd like to point out that the moment I get tanks in the raid, I always promote them to "Main Tank" in the raid panel, but I suppose not everyone uses the raid panel so I've actually bound some of my keys to mark the tanks with various icons. In any case, it's fair request and it makes the tanks more visible, so nowadays I usually mark them with icons.

However...sometimes things have a strange way of happening.

After marking:

[RogueDPS] Raid: Can we mark the tanks please.
[DeathKnightDPS]: ...
[PriestHealer]: Muppets. (The people who play WoW with me should know who this is, hahaha! Personally, I love the term "Muppets".)
[Me]: ...they are marked.

[MageDPS] Raid: Who are the healers?

I'd like to point out that it isn't rocket science to click on the classes who can heal and inspect their gear or talents.

But more importantly, IF U WERE ARSED ENOUGH TO GIVE A DAMN, WHY WOULDN'T U BE ARSED ENOUGH TO FIND OUT YOURSELF?

Grudgingly, I usually give them the info anyway, because we don't expect muppets to know better.

[Me] Raid Leader: Tanks are [PaladinTank], [DruidTank]. Healers are [PaladinHealer], [PriestHealer] [ShamanHealer].

The first fight is usually rather unexciting. Of course, when the 2nd fight (Jormungars) comes around all hell breaks loose.

[Me] Raid Leader: [PaladinTank] needs bile.
[Me] Raid Leader: SOMEONE RUN TO HIM.
[Me] (after scanning the debuff list): [RogueDPS] RUN TO [PaladinTank]. NOW.

Of course, he then proceeds to take a merry marathon though 5 other people, killing 2 of them, and finally ends up next to...[DruidTank], who then dies.

[HunterDPS] Raid: wtf
[ShamanHealer]: wtf
[Me] Raid Leader: WHAT THE FUCK ARE U DOING?

At this point just about everyone has something to say, except the offender himself.

Of course also at this point it starts getting irreversible and this is how we die.

So after another round we kill the boss because everyone needs some warming up for their brains to get out of first gear.

[Me] Raid Leader: [Loot1] [Loot2]
[Me]: [Loot1], roll.
[PaladinHealer] rolls 13
[PaladinHealer] Raid: I never roll well.
[ShamanHealer] rolls 89
[MageDPS] rolls 97

[ShamanHealer] Raid: wtf
[ShamanHealer]: That's a healing piece.
[PaladinHealer]: U're not a healer.
[Me] Raid Leader: That's a healing piece, , and u're not a healer.

Whether or not he protests is irrelevant, because I assign it to the healer anyway. I'm a dictator that way.

Although loot drama doesn't happen that often, that's a good example of what happens when it does. There are, of course, much more serious incidents.

Anyway, fast forward to the last boss, and the killing of Anub'arak.

[Me] Raid Leader: Thanks for coming everyone, this raid will now be for VoA10, do stay on if u want to do VoA10.
[DeathKnightDPS]: Ony10?
[HunterDPS]: VoA25?

Sigh.

After random miscellanous banter it usually settles down and I just randomly pick up a few people off the street and we get to the next raid.

Thing usually pass by without event, except for this memorable case.

[Me]: Ready Check

At this point one of our tanks runs off to pull the boss.

Raid: [PaladinTank] is not ready.
[PaladinTank] Raid: Guys my connection is screwing up, I'll brb.

[Me] Raid Leader: WTF.

The fight needs 2 tanks to be done. And one of our tanks just disconnected.

So what do I gotta do?

Jump in front of the boss and "tank" in my dps spec, of course. And thankfully for us the healers are good enough to heal me through it. Yeah. Titan's Grip tank, 2-Hander + Shield is the new "in" thing.

[Me] Raid Leader: If u pull again before I say so, I will kick u.

So we trot on to the next boss.

[Me]: Ready Check.

I see, in the corner of my eye, the boss run towards us, having destroyed a ghoul, and now in the process of destroying the rest of us.

[Me] Raid Leader: WTF.

Raid: The following players: [Dumbass], [Idiot] are not ready.
Raid: The following players: [ClownShoe], [Moron], [Retard] are Away From Keyboard.

No prizes for guessing what happens.

[WarriorDPS] has left the raid.
[ShamanDPS] has left the raid.
[DruidHealer] has left the raid.

Yup. Kill the most important boss and not want to see the rest of it through. If my ignore list wasn't full I would add them immediately.

[RetardDeathKnight]: i din tink i wuz that close

[Me] Raid Leader: Could we NOT use Army of the Dead in a fucking raid unless u're miles away from a boss?

[RetardDeathKnight] has left the raid.

[Me] Raid Leader: In case anyone was wondering, I didn't kick him.

So not only was he retarded enough to wipe the raid, he didn't have the guts to apologize, nor the character to stay on and finish it.

At this point I whisper him a couple of expletives and then reorganize my ignore list.

After clearing the last boss, I usually go on to Onyxia10, which thankfully usually passes without incident, and then after that...

[Me] Raid Leader: Thanks for coming everyone, this raid is now for Onyxia25, stay on if u want to do Ony25.

Insert more miscellanous banter here, one or two people leaving, blah blah blah.

Since we've only got 7-8 guys left and I'm going to need a lot more, I usually hearth to Dalaran to advertise.

At this point, scroll back all the way up to the top where I first started recruiting people, and imagine me enduring all that shit all over again, except on a larger scale because I'm not filling up a 10-man raid, I'm filling up a 25-man raid. Almost twice the amount of retardacy I have to put up with.

***Start of retarded whispers***

Fast forward about 15 minutes.

***End of retarded whispers***

So we all get to Onyxia's Lair, but the story doesn't really end here...because.

[RetardedIdiot] Raid: Why isn't anyone in here?
[RetardedIdiot2]: Oh fuck guys, I'm saved.
[RetardedIdiot3]: Oh damn I've done it on this toon, need a Warrior?

Sigh.

How hard is to fucking click on your Raid IDs button BEFORE replying to any raid invitations?

The good thing is, I usually have people lining up who want to join my raids so filling it up with 3 clowns isn't that much of a problem, especially when I lax my standards just to get things going.

The bad thing is, sometimes in the haste to get things going, the random retards I fill up with inevitably die, but at least in Onyxia they don't usually get anyone else killed.

Notice how I say usually.

So we kill some stuff, resurrect the idiots who die on trash, blah blah blah, and up comes the next exciting chapter in WoW pug raiding...buffs.

[RogueDPS] Raid: can i hav might plz
[HunterDPS]: i nid wis
[WarriorTank]: kings pls

Getting the Paladin buffs sorted out is almost an exercise in management in itself, because there are 4 relevant Paladin buffs (Sanctuary, Might, Wisdom and Kings), each Paladin can only do one buff on any player, and u can't have multiple of the same buffs on the same guy.

Sanctuary can only be done by tanks, and generally only the healers have improved Wisdom, while the DPS guys have improved Might. Or something like that.

There's even an addon called PallyPower to help them to this. Yeah, apparently it's rocket science to muppets they need external aid.

I prefer it do it this way:

[Me] Raid Leader: [PaladinTank] does Sanct, [PaladinDPS] does Might, [PaladinDPS2] does Kings, [PaladinHealer] does Wisdom.

Not very hard to understand, is it?

[WarriorTank] Raid: sanc pls, i lost it when i got kings
[RogueDPS]: wtf do i nid wis for, i need might
[HunterDPS]: stil nid wis

Sigh.

Somewhere around this point someone will lay a Fish Feast, which is well and good, and then someone inevitably lays out a 2nd Fish Feast. I mean, yeah that's nice and all, but u just wasted about 5gold there, Mr 2nd Fish Feast.

Well, that's Paladin Buffs episode 1. Paladin Buffs episode 2 comes when we don't have enough Paladins to do all the relevant buffs. In which case something like this might, and usually does, happen:

[RogueDPS]: nid might pls
[WarriorDPS]: we have battle shout
[HunterDPS]: might plz
[RogueDPS]: nid might pls
[HunterDPS]: might plz

[Me] Raid Leader: We have Battle Shout, it is the same as Might.

[RogueDPS]: i stil dun have might
[HunterDPS]: ill go out of range

Sigh.

Background info: Battle Shout is statistically equivalent to Blessing of Might, except that the duration is shorter. Fully talented and glyphed it lasts only 6 minutes, as compared to 30mins for Might, but it's enough to get the job done. I don't even know what the comment about range has to do with anything.

And then there are the kindergarten fights:

[DruidHealer] i stil need wisdom
[ShamanHealer] i nid wisdom
[PaladinHealer] i gave u wisdom
[ShamanHealer] still nid wisom
[DruidHealer] no i got wis
[ShamanHealer] wisdom pls

HOW HARD IS IT TO JUST BUFF EVERYONE WITH GREATER BLESSING OF WISDOM?!?!

The same happens when deciding which Paladin should use which Aura, since like Blessings, each Paladin can have one Aura up, but similar Auras don't stack, so u want as many different Auras as possible for maximum benefit.

Usually I raid with about 2 instances of Devotion Aura and 3 instances of Fire Resistance Aura, or something. There are 7 unique auras, of which at least 4 of them are useful in Onyxia25.

Some things I just can't be bothered with anymore.

Thankfully, the other classes' buffs are much easier to sort out, although I still often see this happening:

[PaladinHealer]: Intel please
[DruidHealer]: nid stam
[MageDPS]: I gave u all intel
[WarriorDPS]: died, need all rebuffs
[DeathKnightDPS]: paw pls for my ghoul

Once in a while I get the magical...

[DruidTank] Raid: sanc pls
[PaladinHealer]: we dont hav a prot din
[Me] Raid Leader: We don't have a Prot Din, only Prot Dins can cast Sanctuary.
[DruidTank]: can i get sanc

Fucking doggy cones.

[Me] Raid Leader: [WarriorTank] will tank Onyxia, I will tank the elite adds, everyone chips in for the whelps, although [PaladinTank] will be mainly in charge.

[ShamanHealer] Raid: whos MT?
[DruidHealer]: mark tanks pls
[MageDPS]: mark tks plz

...

So off we go, charging into Onyxia, the tank attempts to picks up aggro, I see a Mage light up with about 4 different colours, electricity crackles from his eyeballs, an Arcane Barrage flies out and...

[PaladinHealer] Raid: fuck
[ShamanDPS]: wtf
[HunterDPS]: let the tanks aggro
[WarlockDPS]: lololol cleave

At this point, despite Onyxia going on a rampage over all our asses, NONE OF THE DPS WILL STOP HITTING HER.

The Warlock who said "lololol cleave" is usually blasting away with Chaos Bolts and Conflagrates and is often the next to die.

This stops about somewhere when 3/4 of the raid is dead, and obviously 5 of us ain't gonna kill her.

[Me] Raid Leader: Can we let the tanks get aggro first?

Rewind the scene back to Paladin Buffs episode 1, sit through about 3 minutes of that, and then we're up for round 2 of the boss.

This time, nothing really happens at the beginning, maybe 1 or two guys get cleaved to death but it's nothing we can't handle.

Whelps start spawning, and immediately the AOE fun begins.

Of course, no one bothers to let the tanks get aggro first, so somewhere in all this usually a Mage or two dies. Despite them having Iceblock, Frost Nova AND Mirror Image.

Background info: Iceblock makes u invulnerable, Frost Nova roots all the whelps on the spot so they can't reach u, and Mirror Image reduces all your aggro to 0.

Somewhere in all this some people with poor connections usually disconnect, but once again it's nothing we can't handle.

The elite add spawns, I run off to pick it up...

[Me] Raid Leader: Melee on adds, ranged on Onyxia, call out at 10million HP so we can prepare for her landing.
[Me] Raid Leader: Run out of the fire nova.

[DeathKnightDPS] has died.

To the fire nova, obviously.

Onyxia takes a Deep Breath...

[Me] Raid Warning: DEEP BREATH

[PaladinHealer] has died.
[ShamanDPS] has died.
[DruidDPS] has died.

Sigh.

[Me] Raid Leader: Don't u have Divine Shield?
[PaladinHealer]: i wuz castin a heal then i died

Yeah, sure.

Background Info: Deep Breath is so painfully obvious that if u die to it, it's like u standing still when a truck is hurtling at u from 500 metres away. And the truck is about 2 metres wide.

1) Deep Breath takes about 4 hits to kill anyone, and I'm pretty sure your heal would have finished before it killed u. Which u could have then casted Divine Shield.
2) Why were u still casting a heal?
3) Which part of a big wall of flame looks like it's safe to u?
4) U're obviously retarded.

So of course a lot of mess continues to go on, whelps spawn, eat a few people alive, get under control, the big adds continue spawning...

...and Onyxia lands, with whelps and adds all alive. With no prior warning.

When Onyxia lands it's surreal. Imagine a dinosaur attacking a chicken farm, and all the chickens scattering like the wind. And dying in the dozens. Yeah, that's about right.

The most epic Onyxia fight I've done goes something like this:

...and Onyxia lands.

Onyxia casts Bellowing Roar.

[WarriorTank] has died.
[MageDPS] has died.
[DruidDPS] has died.
[RogueDPS] has died.
[HunterDPS] has died.
[WarriorDPS] has died.

All this while I'm tanking the elite add which is taking forever to die because our DPS is absolutely retarded, and I have no idea what the other tank is doing.

[Me] Raid Leader: [DeathKnightTank], TAUNT AND PICK ONY UP.

[DeathKnightTank] has died.

Oh what the fuck.

[WarlockDPS] has died.

At this point the elite add FINALLY dies, but Onyxia is on the far side of the room ass-raping people, so what's a man got to do?

[ShamanHealer] has died.

[Me] Casts Intervene on [DruidHealer].
[Me] Casts Charge on Onyxia.
[Me] Casts Taunt on Onyxia.
[Me] Casts Shield Wall.
[Me] Raid Warning: HEAL ME

The remainder of us, about 7 people in total, take about 4 minute to finish her off. I'd casted Shield Wall twice, Last Stand twice, Enraged Regeneration twice, drank a potion, ate a healthstone and I'd even used my fucking Gift of the Naaru, twice.

Yeah, no sweat. All in a day's work.

- J, My Way

 

 
1/12/2009 / 5:49AM / 王菲 - 執迷不悔
Evolution and...cones
Came back from supper with Ben and Seah today, and we had a strange conversation regarding the people on WoW, their average intellect (and lack thereof), and Ben had a rather interesting analogy.

U know animals, especially dogs, who have those cone like things around their neck that prevents them from really seeing anything except the front, and sort of just deteches them from the world?

Yeah, the average folk on WoW are like that. Everyone has their own little cone, they can't see anything and they just keep talking on and on about their own opinion.

It was amazing, because when I came home I played WoW, Seah and I got into a pug VoA10...and there was a tank who had absolutely no idea what was going on. In fact, we were just talking just now about writing a book about heroic protagonists who mindless bumble their way through WoW and obviously die a lot.

Well this guy is decked out in absolutely useless gear, pulls Koralon before anyone is ready and promptly dies. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to Soulstone him before hand, so he comes back up, the other (much better) tank picks him up, Koralon casts Meteor Fists, and our heroic protagonist goes down again.

(Background info for the uninitiated. Meteor Fists is a move that splits massive damage between up to 2 people in front of Koralon. The idea is for 2 guys to stand side by side. Most of the time, it will crush anyone who is standing alone)

One Battle-Rez from Seah later, he's back up.

Koralon casts Meteor Fists again.

This time, he TAUNTS Koralon, pulls him into a corner, and promptly dies. Again.

At this point I've kinda lost track of what's going on, so either our other druid battle-rezed him and he died again, or he just stayed dead.

Next up, Emalon.

The raid leader tells him...

"Xolhor, tank the boss to the left. Yatzi will tank the adds to the right."

All this while we are badmouthing him, making jokes at his expense, and he seems to have no fucking clue what's happening. Either he has ALL OF US on his ignore list, or...cones.

Of course, he comes up with the next amazing reply.

"Okay, I tank the adds on the right side?" - Xolhor

Somewhere in all this I point out that his title, "Xolhor Jenkins" is extremely appropriate for him.

Somehow, we kill Emalon.

It is also the only time where my threat on Emalon is constantly at 80-90%, when I turn to the add to kill it on the overcharge and turn back about 20 seconds later...my threat is STILL at 80-90%.

Up next, Archavon.

Somewhere in all this I pull aggro, and manage not to die via Soul Shatter. The main tank gets grabbed, Xolhor taunts, and somehow a Boomkin gets aggro and actually proceeds to tank Archavon. As a Boomkin.

End of story? Nope. We have ANOTHER heroic protagonist!

Somewhere at the start of the raid, the raid leader asks if anyone can disenchant. To which a paladin says he can.

Somewhere at the end of the raid the raid leader asks again if anyone can disenchant. The paladin, once again, says he can.

The raid leader starts running for the entrance when we're done.

I call out, "Yo wait up dude, the paladin can DE u need to assign the loot to him."

Some random mage (heroic protagonist #3) replies, "Who, me?" Yeah right, like u can assign any fucking loot, NOT being the master-looter.

"No, Lethalforce. The paladin can DE."

"Wtf I asked like 5 times." - Lethalforce

At this point I'm really out of things to say. But no, the story DOESN'T end here.

He proceeds to run to Emalon, who had previously dropped TWO pieces of PVP loot, which cannot be disenchanted. I tell him that they cannot be disenchanted. He assigns the loot to the paladin. The paladin tells him they cannot be disenchanted. He runs to Archavon and assigns ONE piece of loot, leaving the other on the body. In fact, the body is still glowing because there's loot left on it. He runs to Koralon and assigns the piece of loot from there.

"Anymore?"

"There's one more piece right here on Archavon." And I even link the loot in the chat.

He promptly exits the raid, and the paladin hearths.

What? The fuck? Cones, cones.

So that was my little adventure in Vault of Archavon, 10-man, and the day ISN'T over yet.

I go to Nexus with Seah for our daily heroic quest.

Somewhere in the middle there's a platform we have to jump off, but pets are stupid and can't jump so they will run the long way around and pull aggro from mobs. What u're supposed to do is to unsummon them and resummon them. Seeing as how we have THREE guys in the party with pets, I actually take care to say something.

"Watch out for your pets guys, they'll run the long way."

Guess what the next line in party chat is?

"Oh lol I forgot that my pet doesn't jump."

I'm standing there, watching the ramp, and I can just see it unravel in slow motion as a ghoul bundles its way down the ramp, runs into half a dozen monsters, and promptly dies, sending them all at us.

...

No, really?

Sometimes I wonder what the hell goes on in their heads. Cones, cones.

The next boss, who everyone except the healer should have targetted, also casts a spell called SPELL REFLECTION. Even if u weren't a WoW player, what do u think SPELL ***REFLECTION*** does?

Of course, the Warlock in our group proceeds to cast 3 spells consecutively and kills himself.

Cones. Mother fucking cones.

I guess I could also point out how Joe died to Onyxia's guard's Blast Nova even though I specifically said in our channel to RUN OUT of the Blast Nova. But he decided to go with the Cloak of Shadows, I suppose 90% magic immunity doesn't work all the time, and he dies.

And he tried to Evasion his way through the Warrior boss's Bladestorm in Heroic Trial of the Champion. I even asked him, "Is Evasion 100% dodge?", knowing full well that it adds 50% dodge. I just wanted him to say it himself. Or just in case they changed it and I was wrong.

Lo and behold, "No actually it isn't."

Well then, if all it takes is ONE hit from the boss to kill u, u'd think that u wouldn't play the damn odds, yeah? Especially if he's hitting so damn fast and so damn frequently.

Damn, I used the word "damn" way too many damn times there.

So yeah. That was the "Cones" part of the title.

Evolution.

I've come up with a strange theory, that perhaps human beings are evolving into a species that thinks less and less. Everything is becoming automated, so the average human is just becoming a drone, unaware of anything except how to push a few buttons in a simple order. Of course there is still a place for the thinking few, it's the higher rungs of society, like the puppet master controlling the puppets.

Yet for people like me, who always question and oppose, the death knell of Darwin is sounding. I'm an unnecessary species. In fact, while intelligence may, on the surface, be considered an advantage, it seems to be factually a disadvantage. Why else would I feel like I'm always getting the short end of the stick, having to carry more weight in any team setting, and always stressing my brains out?

I need to learn how to be a cunning and manipulative bastard. Yeah. That, or I'll just go extinct.

- J, My Way