Whimsical.nu

Welcome to a Whimsical Blog~

Hi, I'm Angela, a girl with a blog on five different psyches:
girl, geek, reader, writer, gamer
Choose your poison ♥

Sea Monsters and Austen

While at the bookstore over the weekend (a day at Orchard Road cannot be complete without going to Kinokuniya!), look at what I found!

Sense and Sensibility and Sea MonstersSense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

Of course I couldn’t resist picking it up. I also found the deluxe edition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which boasts of 30% more zombie mayhem, so I certainly couldn’t pass that one up. I pre-ordered the first edition of the latter off of Amazon and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever ordered from Amazon, no doubts about it. I don’t think I’ve talked about P&P&Z here before (possibly only in my journal), but any Austen lover must have it. It’s so irreverent it’s hilarious! If this one is 50% as fun as P&P&Z, it’s bound to be a good read.

S&S isn’t my second-favorite Austen novel (that goes to Persuasion) but it’s also pretty close; and the Colonel as a sea monster? Oh too much to resist! I’m still debating whether I’m going to bring both or just S&S&SM (that’s a whole lotta Ss!) back to the Philippines while on holiday. Holidaying with sea monsters and zombies sounds quite fun. ;)

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On the new LFG and Icecrown Citadel raid

I’m possibly one of a minority of players who has finished the new World of Warcraft raid but hasn’t stepped foot inside any of the new 5-man dungeons. /facepalm As my guild raids on Wednesday and maintenance is usually done Tuesday night, the only time I’d have to do non-progression stuff is right after maintenance (Wednesday dawn) onwards, up to before scheduled runs. Looks like I really can’t be arsed to wake up at 5am after maintenance even when a new patch is out. ;)

(All my recent posts are WoW-related -_- I do have other things ongoing but none I can talk about yet!)

On the new Looking For Group mechanism

But before the scheduled progression run I did get to try out the new LFG and random dungeon option (not gonna pass up my emblem of frost, y0). After the raid, I also went a second time. Both times were… quite different. It feels like I went the full pickup group experience spectrum, actually; which is to be expected, I suppose.

For the first group, we got Nexus and it was quite a fast run; one pull after another, finished flawlessly plus some chatting about the new LFG. It was a nice, friendly bunch of people, with some jokes and laughter all in. If I could add them to friends list, I would have. (Much love to the new disenchant option. I’ve grown to hate doing it, it’s such a chore to look through rolls manually and whatnot.)

For the second group, it couldn’t be any more different; once I got zoned into Drak’Tharon Keep, the tank already had aggroed the first few trash mobs. And he kept going through the whole hallway. Straight to business, eh? By the time the last trash pack in that hallway was down, I was almost out of mana, and wasn’t able to pick up any of the loot from the earlier mobs. Without waiting for the healer or myself to regen, he pulled two of the abominations and goodness knows what else in the room before Trollgore. No communication whatsoever, mind. Naturally, we wiped. On DTK trash.

We went in again, got Trollgore down. Pulled all the spiders. Started Novos right when running in (no regen), didn’t finish off adds coming down. No regen, went directly to the room with the bats. Straight on to the dinosaurs and riders. (Still no talking at this point.) Once we got to Dred, tank said, don’t heal, I’m pulling all. He went directly to the end of Dred’s area, and didn’t come back. We wiped. He asked why he didn’t get any heals, and the healer said LOS (line of sight [issues]). Why where you LOS? he asked.

Healer quit.

I don’t blame the healer in the least, man. Tank has the gall to say, why did he quit? What the hell. The kitty with us commented that he shouldn’t have pulled all; I asked, are we in a hurry? Kitty said no, tank remained silent. Seriously, if you’re going for a quick run, make sure the rest of the party is in the same boat as you. It’s not like old LFG where you can whisper prospective party members and say “fast run only” or whatever. You should have woken up and smelled the coffee when we wiped on trash mobs, slow down a bit, y0.

We did finally get to have a healer stay for a half-finished dungeon, and finished the rest of the dungeon without much more fanfare (and no more stupid too-fast chain pulling). And I’m ashamed to say that the tank apparently is a Filipino player (based on his name anyway). I was going to get chatty and say I was too, but given that kind of player? Hell no.

I forgot to put that tank on my ignore list. I’ll have to check out how later.

On the new Icecrown Citadel raid

We went for 10-man last night, we had three groups running concurrently. I finished the whole raid, but on different toons. :D For the first group we ran into a problem when our warlock disconnected on the gunship battle and didn’t come back online, and we couldn’t get a replacement; after a couple more tries 9-manning it, another guildie needed to go, so we called it and continuing later tonight.

After going back to Dalaran, my guild master (who was raid leading the second group) asked if my priest was 80, etc. So I came in a subbed on the gunship battle as well. We got both the gunship and Deathbringer Saurfang down! So essentially I did get to complete the whole raid within a night, just on different toons. Heheh.

The fights were prety interesting; I should think gear is important but they felt more like mechanic-driven fights than anything else. There are plenty more qualified sites that talk about strategy, so I’ll just add a couple of my own notes on the fights:

Lord Marrowgar

Interesting movement fight, can be rather challenging to find a place to run to when he whirlwinds and there’s cold fire all around. A target Bone Spike macro should come in handy here for casters–I couldn’t tab to it half the time and had difficulties clicking on it to target and dps down.

Lady Deathwhisper

Add fight, basically. It looks like getting most DPS on the adds and getting them down quickly and then switching to the boss’ mana shield is the way to go. It was a little messy and crazy, and should probably bear with some reading up on the fight to smooth out the fight next time. Good thing 10-man didn’t have the crowd controlling part–really need to work that in somehow (buff and debuff notifications are a little off when using Pitbull for raid frames and nothing else).

And, elevator! Do you get squished if you stand underneath?

Gunship Battle

Absolutely fun fight! You equip a rocket pack on your shirt slot and using the rocket pack allows you to target somewhere and, well, fly to that area. Some fall damage is imminent if you fly too high/far. What I did was, I bound it to my fourth mouse button for easy usage/targeting. Win!

Very simple fight over all, just rinse and repeat (and don’t 9-man while doing progression).

Deathbringer Saurfang

After wiping a couple times, what we ended up doing was running with two heals for higher DPS. The damage is manageable (considering that we had a geared resto shammy and my, er, not-so-geared disc priest) as long as you know who to focus on and keep alive (tanks, and whoever has the Mark of the Fallen Champion). I’ll be trying this as DPS later tonight, so should be an interesting fight as DPS as well.

The take so far

All in all, rather pleased with the patch so far, if a bit pressed for time–too many errands and things I need to do as Christmas vacation is looming closer and closer. Looking forward to finish off the available raid wing tonight, and actually get to see the 5-man dungeons. XD

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WoW UI Screenshot

I’ve been meaning to do a post on my World of Warcraft UI for a while now, mostly because I love tweaking my UI and seeing other people’s game UI as well. Unfortunately it’s always been delayed because I keep discovering addons, better ways of using addons, and not being satisfied with screenshots I take.

So I’ve decided I’ll just post two screenshots — one which is fairly recent but in solo dummy combat, and another slightly dated screenshot in a ten-man raid. Both shots are of my mage UI, although my priest UI is very similar (only a couple settings like aura changes are different).

WoW UI screenshot in solo mode
WOW UI Screenshot (click to enlarge)

WOW UI Screenshot (click to enlarge)

The addon differences are minimal; the only change visible is the switch from using FuBar to LibDataBroker/DockingStation (as well as general cleanup of some actions on the action bar). I’ll list all the endgame addons I use later, but wanted to point out a few notable addons, most of them visible in the screenshot:

Pitbull 4
Used to customize unit frames (target, raid, etc). On a 25-man raid, there are 5 columns down the lower portion, extending to the left of the currently-shown raid members.
Satrina Buff Frames
A really great buff organizer, I use this to show only buffs in the top right corner, my debuffs below my unit frame, target buffs and debuffs I care about below the target frame, debuffs I need to track/refresh on my target (not shown in screenshot), and short-term buffs I get (upper left of my toon).
Power Auras Classic
Power Auras combat procs on mage

I use it for immediate, visual representations of stuff I need to react to. Now it’s just mostly buffs, procs and cooldown availabilities, but earlier I’ve also used POWA to show important debuffs like a Grobbulus injection and Thaddius charges. The screenshot shows my combat auras when I’m at, er, full power: Missing Barrage, Arcane Blast stacked to 4, Arcane Power, Icy Veins, a shield is on me and Incanter’s Absorption has procced, plus another random spellpower proc (like Lightweave for example).

Deadly Boss Mods
The must-have of raiding. I also use it for timers like when I can click my pew pew button again, when I can use the last ticks of Icy Veins to Evocate if I needed to, or when to pop Invisibility when my Mirror Images are about to expire.
Bartender
I like having buttons in easy reach, and rearranging them around my screen.
LunarSphere
WoW LunarSphere addon extendedA relatively unknown addon, but really fabulous. It’s also an action bar replacement addon but I like using it and bartender together especially for my mage. It’s collapsed in my screenshots as I’m in combat (you can choose not to collapse them automatically, naturally) but in the smaller screenshot on the right you can see that buttons around the sphere can be expanded into submenus. I use it to house my portals, professions, food, buffs, and whatnot. There are a LOT more utility features in the addon, as well.
Sunn Viewport Art
I like the cinematic feel of the viewport set up the way it is. It also shows me a lot more than how it is normally.

Here’s an annotated screenshot of the raid screenshot above. I’ve since replaced FuBar as previously mentioned, as well as LiveStats with LDB plugins as well.

WOW UI Screenshot, annotated (click to enlarge)

WOW UI Screenshot, annotated (click to enlarge)

And my list of endgame addons (endgame addons mean stuff like QuestHelper, Auctioneer, etc aren’t included):

I’m always on the lookout for useful addons and ideas on UI improvement, so probably this time next month my UI will be slightly different again. XD Would love to hear about any addons others are using, so comment if you have a suggestion or question!

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Disc priest all grown up

Talá at 80

Talá at 80

I never got around to announcing it beforehand, but my priest dinged 80 around two or so weeks ago! /cheer

Hence I’ve been focusing on getting Talá geared over the last week. She can now heal Onyxia’s Lair (both 10- and 25-man versions) and Trial of the Crusader 10, possibly also the 25-man version (but have not tried yet). She’s discipline/shadow-specced at the moment. She’s a bit of a spoiled brat really, getting mats and stuff for crafted BOEs from her older sister Eilonwyn. :P

Healing is quite enjoyable, in a different way as opposed to being a damage dealer. I find that a lot of times, it hits extremes of pretty much any experience in a dungeon or raid; at easy heroics with a geared tank I get sleepy, but in raids where my gear is just right for it, it can be quite nerve-wracking. You also get to be really happy (“my heal target lived!”) or really sad (“omg I’m so sorry lag spike QQ”). I feel that DPS is a lot more linear in this regard; even if you’re overgeared for the dungeon, you’re still doing something pretty much all the time, as opposed to the healer throwing a bubble on everyone and then waiting.

I’m also finding that gearing up healing is slightly hit and miss. From the perspective of someone who’s been a damage dealer for the longest time, with tools like Rawr that tells you equipping this item or using the gem gives you +x amount of damage per second, it’s not as straightforward for healing.  There are stat weights, but even juggling between throughput and longevity depends on a lot of factors–factors which you’ll only really know through experience. For example, I thought my intellect was more than enough, until I ran dangerously OOM on Koralon.

Even healing styles are varied, and from the discussions I’ve seen there is no hands-down right way, unlike when you DPS it’s usually pretty linear when you have your rotations down pat. It’s possibly easier for other healing classes, like trees (uhm, bind everything to rejuv and roll face on keyboard) but I’m constantly feeling that I’m not using my priest abilities to its full potential. I don’t use a lot of them enough: binding heal and prayer of healing to name a few (but I love divine hymn; it’s like my lazy button).

Being disc, though, I’ve already come across people who complain about my performance on the “healing done” meters. I’m usually last; while gear probably plays a small part here, the biggest reason by far why disc priests would be lowest on the healing meters is that discipline’s strength is in damage mitigation, such as through Power Word: Shield and Renewed Hope. Sadly most people just love looking at nice big numbers. :( Yes, you’re a pally, you have heavy, huge-ass heals. I’m not, kthx.

Maybe once I’ve got disc down pat I’ll change over to disc/holy and see how raid healing goes. I like the focus-target style of disc, but can’t hurt to try other heal styles, too. Now, just need to find out how to change the clickbindings in Clique automatically based on what spec is active. Hmm. *goes to hunt*

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On the Nine Bright Shiners

I’ve been re-reading a lot of the Old Kingdom trilogy (by Garth Nix) recently, a chapter or two (or ten) before I sleep. I seem to always, always gravitate towards it when looking for a nice comfort read. None of it is a “comfort book” by any means, but it’s just really nice to get back to. To escape to.

That said though, one of the things that continue to fascinate me even with multiple readings are how the Charters and Shiners and everything is woven together, and the stuff we don’t know. It’s quite provocative, keeps me thinking and trying to piece everything together, but I never seem to get everything down pat.

(Warning: quite spoilery!)

So we know that there are the Nine Bright Shiners, the first seven of which created the charter and whose power is also in the bells. Five of them gave themselves up to the charter, and two gave up most of their powers but kept their consciousness (more or less) intact. This coincides with the nursery rhyme first encountered in Sabriel:

“Five Great Charters knit the land,
Together linked, hand in hand.
One in the people who wear the crown,
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down,
Three and Five became stone and mortar,
Four sees all in frozen water.”

From what the Disreputable Dog says, as well as their journey down the well in Abhorsen’s House, we know that the two Shiners who still have some form of consciousness in the Old Kingdom are Kibeth (the Dog herself, the Walker) and Astarael (the being down the well, the Sorrowful). Which means that the five Shiners who gave themselves up would be Ranna the Sleeper, Mosrael the Waker, Dyrim the Speaker, Belgaer the Thinker, and Saraneth the Binder.

Now comes the confusing part. Did the five mix up their powers (like in a huge vat) and then partitioned it to five and infused their (collective) powers into the Great Charters? Or did they put their powers into a specific Great Charter, thus having that Charter take on a couple of their strengths? The latter seems likely, as from the book we see that when the Dog barks, the dead and Free Magic constructs walk, synonymous with her title, “the Walker” (she also likes walks, too). However, if this is the case, why did Hedge call the Abhorsen “Astarael’s Get”? If Astarael retained consciousness (which she did) then she can’t be one of the five Shiners who gave themselves up to the Charter.

Obviously the next step would be to look at the symbolism of the Bloodlines representing the Five during the second binding of Orannis in Abhorsen, but even this can be a little vague. During the second binding, we have:

  1. Ranna, represented by Touchstone (King)
  2. Mosrael, represented by Sanar and Ryelle (Clayr)
  3. Kibeth/Dog, who stood for herself
  4. Dyrim, represented by Ellimere (future Queen)
  5. Belgaer, represented by Sameth (Wallmaker)
  6. Saraneth, represented by Sabriel (Abhorsen)
  7. Astarael, represented by Lirael (Remembrancer, Abhorsen-in-Waiting)

Since Lirael says that there will be a bell which speaks to the person for the binding, we can assume that the bell speaks to the Charter in the wielder’s blood. This looks good especially for the Sabriel/Saraneth pairing; and to a lesser extent, Mosrael for the Clayr (waking dreams/prophecies) and Belgaer for Sam/the Wallmaker (the Thinker, creating things). It even makes a bit of sense that Lirael stands for Astarael. But Ranna/Dyrim is a puzzler. Touchstone says that Ranna speaks to him as it’s “appropriate” given that he’s slept for a long time; and, both Touchstone and Ellimere has the Blood of the Crown.

However, given that in the “supposed” timeline (before Kerrigor messed it up), Touchstone was not going to be the King, maybe we can safely say that Ellimere’s blood is stronger in terms of representing the Crown. Since Two of the Great Charters are the Wall the the Stones, which do Ranna and Belgaer stand for? I’ve read (not entirely sure of the origin) that the other Wallmakers became Charter Stones themselves. Does that mean Sameth/Wallmaker/Belgaer = Charter Stones?

Shiner Title Charter representation Second binding avatar
Ranna Sleeper Charter Stones? The Wall? Touchstone
Mosrael Waker Clayr Sanar/Ryelle
Kibeth Walker - -
Dyrim Speaker Crown Ellimere
Belgaer Thinker Charter Stones? The Wall? Sameth (Wallmaker)
Saraneth Binder Abhorsen Sabriel
Astarael Sorrowful - Lirael

But that still doesn’t explain why Abhorsens are called Astarael’s Get, and which of the Charter specifically received Ranna and Belgaer’s power. There must be something here I’m missing. Maybe the prequel/sequel to the current trilogy will shed some light into this?

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