Postcards From Neverwinter

It's my birthday today! Sharing some of my favorite things from Neverwinter, sparkle unicorns, paladins and gorgeous places to adventure! I've brought Dire along with me this time around, sadly none of my screenshots saved with us both, more to come though!

A Realm Reborn!

Today I'd like to introduce you to a good friend of mine who is also an avid gamer, one I actually met, years and years ago  in an MMO! He is going to do some writing here on the blog, please take a moment to welcome him! I am very excited to have another viewpoint here, since lately all I do is rant, heh. I'll stop yammering on and let him get on with it!

Hi! I have known Kaozz and Dire going on 9 years now! I actually met Kaozz and her son in a random group playing the original Guild Wars. We went on a long winning streak and got to chatting- turns out we lived about 10 miles from one another! Fast forward almost a decade and we are still friends through multiple moves, multiple games, and multiple characters!

I don't want to bore you with all the details of all my gaming experiences from BF1942, to CS, to Medal of Honor AA, to WoW, to EQ2, etc etc etc. That is the past- what matters is the present! 

Kaozz has given me the opportunity to guest write from time to time. Now that I have a new gaming laptop (Asus G750JX for those interested. The only modification I did was swap the HDD out for an SSD) I am ready to play the latest games!

The game that has recently captured my attention on the MMO scene is Square Enix's relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV. This iteration, FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, has captured my heart so far!

Meet Arcturus Prime, Zaleras' newest Gladiator!

In my previous MMO history, I have traditionally played the tank class. I enjoy the challenge and the responsibility that comes with having to understand the fight mechanics. In reality I would probably enjoy more of a support class however, it seems most games stick to the Holy Trinity- Tank, Healer, DPS. So here I am.

In FFXIV:ARR, you have two tanking classes- the Warrior and the Paladin. The Warrior is a higher health and higher DPS tank. As of 2.1, they have become a much more viable option for tanking. The Paladin on the other hand is much more of a mitigation and utility tank. Veteran players seem to harp the same sentiment... that the Paladin is a bit more forgiving. 

That is where I will start then! For those that aren't familiar with FFXIV:ARR's class system- a brief rundown is that you have multiple classes that leads to jobs. Once you reach certain level requirements on classes you can begin training on an advanced job! In the case of the Paladin- you need to reach level 30 Gladiator and level 15 Conjurer. So that is the path I am currently working on! 

The great thing about FFXIV is that you can train all classes/jobs on one character! So if I wish to play a White Mage down the road- I would already have the first 15 levels of Conjurer and be on the way! This kind of flexibility is attractive. 

Beautiful models and environment! The night/day cycle and weather are great!

I am blown away with how this game looks. The models are fantastic. The environment is gorgeous. This may have more to do that I can run the game on the highest settings at roughly 60FPS @ 1080p resolution- which is a huge leap from my aged economy class laptop I was on. 

I would say my only concern right now is how well I will fare in dungeons as a tank for the first time. I will do my due diligence before entering a dungeon and be open as possible and ask for help in the dungeon. I suppose this will be a little litmus test of the community. This is the first time I am jumping into an MMO without any contacts. I am a little excited to see who I may meet! 

Did I mention how awesome the combat animations are? Very pleasing to the eye!

Thanks for welcoming me to this site and I look forward to sharing my adventures through Eorzea with the world!

A Tank Is Born

No more long queues for this Pally!

My paladin hit level 30 last night and I'm pretty happy about the progress. The levels just zoom past in a whirl and by the time I notice I am already needing to move to another zone. I am sort of skipping content but only because I have been doing a lot of dungeon runs.

I initially went into my first group as Ret, annoying wait times but I wanted to try things out as dps. Upon joining the group I noticed we had a poor  little arms warrior trying to tank while the healer poked fun of his aggro. Mr.Healer ended up dropping the group after he pulled a ton of adds and one member died... So I started healing and pulled us through. We got another healer and moved on. Then at some point the tank drops the groups. I throw up Righteous Fury and tank the rest of the instance with the four of us (tank never joined... long queues!) with ease. Thus my Paladin has become a tank in instances since then. I had thought a lot about it I just wasn't sure if I wanted to or not. I guess maybe I was just nervous at trying something new.

I read a post about Rets tanking (others poopooing the idea) in lower lvl instances but it is so easy and if you have someone competent enough to do it, there is no problem with it. You can actually tank or heal as ret (given you switch out gear) up to lvl 30 at least. The class is extremely.... 'godly' at the lower levels.

I really love the lower level instances and while I am not sure if I will tank allll the way to 85 I am enjoying it now. It is nice not having people complain about my spec or my dps, instead they follow me and hope I don't leave the group...  Mwahaha. Instant groups at any time of the day or night truly rock. Sometimes they don't follow me... I had a group go the other way and I had to tank and heal myself for several minutes. I almost left the group but I don't like to be a jerk to people so I gave them a chance to catch up to me. They were sort of frantic so I just let it go.

That is something else I don't do. I don't care what your dps is as long as we're clearing out these instances and nobody is dying over and over. What bothers me is when someone else pulls. I let them tank the mob while I move on. Yeah a bit of an ass in that aspect but they have to learn sometime, right? This is when it happens multiple times and they have pulled while I already have a pack of mobs on me and I've just about had enough. It drives me nuts when dps get trigger happy, sure I can snag the mobs easily but it's just rude. In this case you're not going to rush me with that gogogo crap, we'll do it my way as long as I tank. I let people drink and stop to wait for group members to catch up. I want my runs to be enjoyable.

I can see why there is a tank shortage, especially at the higher levels. I can also see why some tanks have a short fuse but I still don't agree with people picking on others and I try to be as civil as always, even if I can get another group lightning fast.

So, I am enjoying being a tank inside the dungeons, I still like to go as Ret outside them. It is a new experience because I've not ever leveled as a tank in dungeons and I am enjoying it a lot. Something new to look forward to progressing with.

So, now I that I hit 30 I have a true tank spec, yay! What do you use your second spec for? Mostly with paladins I use one for holy so this is a big change for me.

Leave My Queue!

Sometimes when I join the LFD system in WoW I get a group and here we all go,ready check time! Oops.. did someone afk? Oh noes, get back in line! Very annoying when I am playing as DPS. It happens when I am healing, though I get another group just as quickly. As DPS it can be another bit of a wait.

Why bother joining if you're not up for the wait. People who queue and go afk, or whatever it is they do, should get a debuff- just the same as deserter. Not the biggest deal in the world but it's quite aggravating some days.Tonight it happened six times in a row. Come on people, stop wasting my time!

I've been playing the Paladin some lately, it's a nice change from healing in heroics. Holy was my main spec but having geared Resto Druid makes it a bit pointless to have another healer. So I am slowly working on more gear for the Paladin. My Ret set is pretty far behind, though I did manage to get the T9 shoulders last night.

It has been fun not worrying about healing the group. I try to push my dps as well as I can, stay out of the bad stuff on the ground and all that jazz. The wait times are a good deal longer now playing on this one but it was to be expected.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and may your queues be short!
-kaozz