Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

MAKE: Blog: DIY - GPS Camera attachment gives a how-to on building a GPS system for your DSLR camera. This might be of interest at work.

Andromache’s current talent build is broken. My goal was to be a prot AOE grinder and to get Avenger’s shield. Once those two goals were met, I more or less slapped points in here and there without a goal in mind. Given that I’m doing more tanking than grinding on her, I want drop reckoning - from what I hear it can give you some nasty surprises when fighting bosses. I still want to hang onto my avenger’s shield as it’s one of the funnest abilities. It’s useful too, but mostly it’s just plain fun. (That’s also the reason I kept Holy Nova on my priest - Holy Nova is useless but it’s a lot of fun.)

Given that I mostly want to tank on her, with the option of AOE grinding when I need mats or just feel like doing so, here is the build I’m leaning toward: Paladin (0/44/17). I keep most of the key protection talents - the one I’ll miss most is the full 10% stamina boost from Combat Expertise. I could swap points out from Weapon Specialization, but I think that would be a poor tradeoff. On the ret side I get a significant boost to parry, 3% miss chance for those stinking caster mobs, and a big boost to my ret aura. If I’m willing to give up the better ret aura, I’d have 4 more points to play with.

Another option would be Paladin (20/41/0). This would allow me to tank with the option of off-healing. I haven’t taken enough crit boost talents to be a full healer, but I think this would make a solid off-healer. If I wanted to be a pure healer, I’d be playing my priest.

I haven’t made mention of it before for some reason, but Petopia is THE guide to hunter pets in the World of Warcraft. What I like about it is the ability to find pets by type - for example I would never have known that the highest tameable bear is level 60 without it.

Speaking of which, I got my bear up to level 61 the other day. A great place for leveling pets at 70 is the warlocks in Firewing Point in Terokkar Forest. They are caster mobs, which means that they have low hit points and they like to stay at a distance so it’s easy to keep shooting them. Now I need to nuke 166 of them for my bear’s next level…

I thought this article was interesting, though I wish he had developed it a bit more.
In Defense Of Complaining — Cory Doctorow — InformationWeek

Even weirder is the idea that companies shouldn’t be criticized because in a market, you should just take your business elsewhere. Free markets thrive on good information. For a market to function, customers need to have good information about which goods are worth buying and which ones should be avoided — that’s why we complain in public, to help companies make better decisions.

All the QQing that Blizzard gets may not be justified, but there is a definitely a core of truth there. There are definitely a lot of places where Blizzard can improve. As far as I can tell, World of Warcraft is currently the best MMO out there. However, that doesn’t mean that it cannot be improved and there are definitely places where it is just plain bad (e.g. customer service). By all means complain, but don’t expect your specific complaint to be specifically addressed. Hopefully someone at Blizzard is aggregating complaints and fixing at least some of the areas where things are broken.

BigRedKitty: Patch 2.4 AddOns - WOW Insider lists some key addons for 2.4. Now if only these were real…

Bremm’s Musings: /readycheck gives a nice description of what’s needed to get into Kara. I’m really hoping that my guild runs a lot of heroics before really getting into Kara. I wouldn’t mind going up to the first boss or two for fun and experience, but I’d like us all to be at least this geared up before really going in there.

I just finished reading Mistborn - The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. I received a free copy of this via Tor’s Watch The Skies. I was very pleased with this book and I’m looking forward to reading the next two books.

A group of magically talented characters gather together to pull off a slave rebellion in a world that’s been controlled by the Lord Ruler for a thousand years. “There’s always another secret.”

The main characters are Vin and Kelsier. Vin starts off the book as a street urchin and grows throughout the book. Kelsier is the leader of the group and serves as Vin’s guide to the world. Both are very likable characters and act consistently with their characters. There are several twists in the book, but they are the kinds of twists that further develop characters, not the kinds that destroy them.

The world it describes is different from the usual fantasy fare - there is only one definitely non-human race shown and it’s on the periphery. The magic described is also different - it revolves around using the powers of various metals and seems to be logically developed. This book reminded me a lot of Dave Duncan’s A Man of His Word. Both worlds have a unique magic system and a very rich world.

htaccess Editor: create .htaccess files with ease - Download Squad looks like a useful tool, especially as I do some website tweaking.

One of the reasons that I love reading is because I run across people who say what I’m thinking so much more eloquently than I can do so myself. Ryk E. Spoor writes of a discussion he had with a poster on USENET in seawasp: Musings on worldviews, worldbuilding, and writing…

He truly believes that people are inherently nasty, evil creatures who are only kept in line by threat of force, by fear and intimidation.

I come from the opposite camp; I believe most people are basically decent, nice people. I think the very EXISTENCE of a high technology society is a complete and irrefutable PROOF of this, because the amount of voluntary cooperation — any of which could be destroyed by “defectors”, in the Prisoner’s Dilemma sense — necessary for the development of such a civilization is immense. I don’t think you could get much above the tribal level in a species that had a basically sociopathic outlook. You have to have some capability, intellectual or emotional or both, for empathy and interest in the well-being of others beyond yourself.

I was discussing this worldview with Jaimie last night as we were cleaning the house. For me, this is the refutation of Ayn Rand’s recommended lifestyle (as I understand her position). It is not just or even primarily ubermenschen that change and improve the world, it is the actions and choices of many, many people from across all categories. To paraphrase James Burke in his interview with Dan Carlin, history is becoming less about the actions of the few and more about the interactions of the many.

The Dilbert Blog: Ultimate House Design actually has some interesting ideas in the comments. We’ll see if we actually end up building a house, but this would at least be a post to look at for interesting ideas.

Lienna’s log has a very informative post Misdirection and you. I never even thought of using misdirect for corner pulls on caster mobs! My tanking life just got so much easier!

Basic strategy - tank stands around the corner, hunter misdirects onto tank, hunter shoots caster, caster runs up to corner to beat on that mean old tank. This brings the caster into easy tanking range and can separate the caster from CCed mobs or other mobs that might aggro. Alternately, hunter drops trap at the corner, caster runs up to corner to beat on tank, caster gets frozen, snaked, or burned. Either of these would work great for runners too.

Blessing of Kings tosses out the idea of just using Blizzard’s built-ins for a Fast Loot System. Need for your main spec set, greed for your off-spec set, pass otherwise, disenchant if everyone passes.

This would work in our guild as it stands for the following reasons. First we’re a small guild. With less than 10 players, it’s easy to take the attitude that what goes around comes around. About half of our guild knows each other in real life. Second we have a variety of classes - the current/up and coming overlaps are multiple hunters. One player has his hunter as his main and the other two hunters are the tank and healer’s alts, so they probably wouldn’t be there anyway. Mostly we simply don’t need one another’s gear. The DPS casters have some overlap but they’re husband and wife so they can fight it out amongst themselves *grin*. Third, about two-thirds of our guild has former or current raiding toons. If we were all about the shiny loots, we’d be playing on those toons and not working our way up to the bottom run of the raiding ladder again. We’ve been through loot drama and really don’t care enough about “+1 to total leetness” drops to cause drama about it.

That being said, I wonder if there could be a way of rewarding guildies for attendance other than drops? This is where I wish the guild system in WoW was a little more robust. What if there were items that could only be crafted by guilds that had cleared a given instance? Pre-BC the Onyxia Scale Cloak was an example of this kind of thing. Do something along the lines of Suicide Kings for only these guild-craftable items based on factors such as punctuality, preparedness, and presence. Maybe give the guildie at the top of the list a free craftable item of their choice at the end of every run? Alternately, do this for every guildie who has done X runs while prepared, punctual, and present? This will be easier when primal nethers are no longer BOP in 2.4.

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4 Haelz: Happy Valentine’s Day! (Some NSFW Content)

(via The Light and The Dark)

I’ve recently had someone ask me for warrior leveling advice. Sadly, I didn’t have much to offer. I leveled my warrior as almost straight protection up to 70, but I was in a 5-man group almost all the time. When I wasn’t in a group, it’s because I’d fallen behind the others and my dear wife dragged me around behind one of her DPS toons.

I mostly spent the time I was following her around whining. “I want to go play my paladin instead. I’ve leveled, can I go now? Are we done yet?” My wife is a very patient (and somewhat stubborn) woman.

Anyhow, for those who want numbers, here’s a very detailed breakdown of Warrior Leveling Demystified

Summary:

Dual Wield Fury is the best sustained dps leveling spec for new warriors looking to speed level.
Do NOT wait for hit gear; switch to DW at level 20 and don’t look back !

I’ve been thinking of doing some book reviews. I read a lot of books, but I’m terrible at keeping track of the books I’ve read. Some books will leave a lasting impression, but I only have a a vague recollection of most books. I’m hoping that reviewing the books I read will sharpen my recollections and possibly point the way towards more books.

What should be in a book review?
Raven’s Reviews: How to Review
How to Review
How to Write a Book Review
Prewriting Questions for Book, Movie, or Play Reviews

» Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment

Since I spent pretty much all of last week in Shadow Labs getting one person after another attuned, I finally found a nice strategy for Blackheart the Inciter yesterday. Warrior I hate Blackheart the Inciter!!! - TheorySpot

Basics; We all know who you are Killing……… - So put a big freaking ORANGE Circle on Your* Head……
making it easier for your party to find you after MC to come
cluster up for 2seconds, so no matter who gets 1st Aggro,
you can Pop a Taunt Off within simple range, instead of the
Casters madly popping off shots and backing up.
- Now have the party use the next 3-5 Seconds doing NO DPS
Even a Healer should chill for a second, until you have that
Taunt & Bash & Devastate back-up kiting at least* 5 feet towards…
the ‘return-to-spot’….
- Their job for 3 to 5 seconds is to apply 1st Aid to themselves.
5 seconds of 1st Aid = 3,000 HP and Less Aggro and ensures a Buffer
for the start of the Next MC.
*That’s why Rogues remove posions, during the MC, the Poison DOTs
inflicted on other party members willl later interupt the bandaging.
- Now you have 20 to 25 Seconds of DPS Time.
Your ass is kinda towards the wall, you didn’t have to fight for aggro
while they bandaged, they have 3k HP more, and are back in their spots.
You should be able to bandage again on Alternating MC’s depending on
how many phases you need to go through.

Sins of a Solar Empire looks like my kind of game. Mind you I’d have to stop playing World of Warcraft long enough to actually play it. I bet my father-in-law would like it too.

DKPSystem.com looks like it might work for hosting our guild site. We’ll see if I decide to do something with it.