Friday, February 13, 2009 A Boy Named Nancy

My daddy left home when I was three
And he didn't leave much to ma and me
Just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.
Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid
But the meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me "Nancy."

Well, he must o' thought that is quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk,
It seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named "Nancy."

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean,
My fist got hard and my wits got keen,
I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame.
But I made a vow to the moon and stars
That I'd search the honky-tonks and bars
And kill that man who gave me that awful name.

Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July
And I just hit town and my throat was dry,
I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon on a street of mud,
There at a table, dealing stud,
Sat the dirty, mangy dog that named me "Nancy."

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
From a worn-out picture that my mother'd had,
And I knew that scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old,
And I looked at him and my blood ran cold
And I said: "My name is 'Nancy!' How do you do!
Now your gonna die!!"

Well, I hit him hard right between the eyes
And he went down, but to my surprise,
He come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear.
But I busted a chair right across his teeth
And we crashed through the wall and into the street
Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell ya, I've fought tougher men
But I really can't remember when,
He kicked like a mule and he bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laugh and then I heard him cuss,
He went for his gun and I pulled mine first,
He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.

And he said: "Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
And I knew I wouldn't be there to help ya along.
So I give ya that name and I said goodbye
I knew you'd have to get tough or die
And it's the name that helped to make you strong."

He said: "Now you just fought one hell of a fight
And I know you hate me, and you got the right
To kill me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me, before I die,
For the gravel in ya guts and the spit in ya eye
Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that named you "Nancy.'"

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun
And I called him my pa, and he called me his son,
And I came away with a different point of view.
And I think about him, now and then,
Every time I try and every time I win,
And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him
Bill or George! Anything but Nancy! I still hate that name!

Yes - Again I'm unsure of my DPS spec, and like before, I'm confused as ever as I like certain things from each tree but dislike other things from each tree as well.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Diseaseless Blood & Armor Penetration

The DPS spec that I have decided upon is the 51/0/20 2H build that focuses on a diseaseless rotation. The reasoning? - I like that it scales with gear as my guild is clearing all content and because I didn't pick up Annihilation + Epidemic so reapplying diseases became a tedious chore. Don't get me wrong, I believe that Deathknights should use their diseases to do their damage and when/if that gets changed in 3.1 I will change my rotation/spec to reflect that.

A few things about my spec choices:
I. I picked up Improved Rune Tap and Glyphed for it. Reasoning - I'm finding that healing DPS is a last priority even for the healers who's duty it is to heal the raid. And that they don't start healing DPS until they drop below 50% and as a spec that does an additional damage based on health I then need to make sure I stay above 75%. Also, after going through wws reports the mage that raids 98% of the time doesn't use Frostfire Bolt so glyphing for Blood Strike would be a waste of a major.
II. I don't have Death Rune Mastery as my rotation is the standard OBx2, HSx2
III. I picked up Vampiric Blood for the reasons stated in I.
IV. I do like the concept of Blood Worms - The passive heal that does damage (abit they do minimal damage it's still damage) and they don't waste a Blood Rune that I could have used on a HS nor do they consume a GCD. The problem I have with them is that they can soak up AoE Heals (when they are finally cast) and I've heard reports on Thaddius that they can consume a charge and wipe a raid.

So, where does Armor Penetration come in?

There was a glimpse of 3.1 changes posted in the general section of the WoW live forums. Blood Gorged is getting its expertise changed with ArP (Note ArP = Armor Penetration and AP = Attack Power). There were no details on if it was going to be a base number with each rank or a percentage gained that would scale with gear. I would hope for the latter as Blood itself seems like the build that scales the best with higher end gear.

At the moment there are no solid numbers for soft or hard caps for ArP, however there is a lot of interest in finding it. My concern is that there is a limited amount of gear in the current raid content that has ArP on it, this of course can change with 3.1. On a non-raid night I really want to test out gemming and gearing for straight ArP and spending a few hours in front of the raid dummy in Ironforge.

Some early thoughts on ArP on WoW gaming forums is that it doubles in value as you gain it. So with 1% ArP it is on the same value table with haste for 2H builds. But unlike haste once you're at 2% it will be of a larger DPS increase, and the value keeps doubling until it reaches the point of DR. Now - at what is the target percentage that is the "sweet spot" to reach is unknown - what the point of DR on ArP is unknown. Basically, a lot of unknowns but it's exciting to have a once thought useless stat become rather attractive with a Blood build.

On another note, I got Khaeli and I the Belkin N52TE Gaming Keypad. We're both keyboard turning clickers and have been for years. We're looking for something that can really help maximize our game play and simplify things and once we get use to this thing, it looks like the way to go...we'll see though.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009 Just /sigh

So tonight we stepped foot into a fresh Naxx 25. We were low on tanks so I was asked to grab my tanking gear for encounters that required more then two tanks. Not a problem, I really don't care what role I play as long as we clear through a zone. We're doing really well, one shotting every boss and getting some good loot. My class lead is on his Paladin alt for the night and is getting some nice gear, was up to 2-3 pieces before reaching the final boss. And finally! The axe drops! I'm sitting over here jumping for joy cause we've never had it drop! I'm nearly doing back flips in my chair until I hear that the Paladin alt has more DKP and gets the axe.

Whaa???

Normally I could care less about loot, but this pisses me off on several fronts.

1. Khaeli and I joined the guild over a month ago, in that time we have never missed a raid and within that time my Class lead has only raided once - once.
2. My class lead has old DKP from BC, since he hasn't raided WOTLK at all.
3. I had not bid on several items to build up DKP and had the most DKP of any MAIN that could have used the axe.
4. His alt had already gotten several drops that night.
5. IT'S AN ALT!

I know I know, I have to suck it up and just carry on...but damn it...what the hell is that BS? I don't think of myself as a loot whore, I've passed on upgrades for myself to others which it was a larger upgrade for. I do like to have nice gear - I mean I spend the time to get it, and I'm not the type who will stir any guild drama crap over this, it just pisses me off and I need to vent. But the thing is, if I would have lost this to one of the Warriors who go Fury/Prot depending on what is needed, or hell even one of the Holy Paladins who's going to go Ret now, it wouldn't really bother me. I mean they put in the time like I do week after week and they can decide how to spend their DKP, that wouldn't have bothered me.

/rant off

Our first clear of Naxx 25 in a single night, and I got to tank some - woohoo!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Guild: How to level Jewelcrafting from 1-390 in 1 Day

So because I am a non-elitist elitist, I had to change my professions to match my new DPS role. So I dropped Mining and took up Jewelcrafting because of the many perks of it over a flat 50 Stamina boost. I managed to level from 1 to 390 in one day so I have decided to share my secret because it was really easy. First, find a chick with a lot of money and a mining alt who thinks that you look pretty hot in the Kirin Tor tabard (Cause sporting "Prince" colors is hot, amirite?) and let her feed you gold and ore until you physically dry up the Auction House and are 390 - BAM! It's THAT easy!

So Ding - 390 JC and yay me for having to run every last heroic again for patterns (I'm so going to get plastered running Occulus, just sayin!).

As for other stuff, I feel like a sexually confused 15 year old boy named Nancy when it comes to what DPS spec I want to stick with...what else is new. And last night I laughed so hard I nearly choked at how many times some people could die in one encounter (trash encounter).