Ranged State of Mind

Schedule Conflicts

The strangest thing about being on a lengthy break is just how contorted your schedule ends up getting.  In part I guess I need the normal weekly rhythm to make me feel like the world is right.  Last night for example we had a raid in Final Fantasy XIV, but since I did not go to work that day I almost completely forgot that it was a thing.  Similarly I am going to struggle to remember that I have a raid tonight in World of Warcraft because of the same exact problem.  There is a primus song that gives us the wisdom “Weekends don’t mean quite so much when you’re unemployed, cept for the fact you get to hang out with your workin friends”.  The same can essentially be said for week days too when you are on vacation, as everything feels like some extremely extended weekend.

This morning for example we almost completely forgot about setting the trash out to the curb.  In fact were it not for my wife reminding me we probably would have been screwed.  For some reason I ended up sleeping in until almost 9:30 this morning, which is why this post is getting out the door so late.  I feel there needs to be a term for this, since we have “Jet Lag” for when you cross multiple time zones…  we need “Holiday Lag” or something similar for when your days no longer have the same meaning that they used to.  I am not really complaining mind you, since I am not at work and getting to lounge comfortably in my fuzzy pants at 11 am.  Things could be considerably worse, but man it is strange to get used to.

One More Bard

I had to share this photo today.  Once again it is me and the amazing Ayla and Joren Noye, dancing around in our holiday best.  I have actually glamoured my bard gear to look like last years holiday set since it kinda reminds me of Link from the original Legend of Zelda when you have the red armor right before you take on death mountain.  I cannot tell you how happy it makes me feel that goofy things like this happen in our housing neighborhood.  What is even more awesome is that Ayla and Joren are going to go through the new Eternal Bonding ceremony on New Years day, and I was invited…  as well as anyone from the free company.  It should be awesome to see and I think we get a pet for participating.  At some point I need to make my way into game and work out what I am going to wear for an outfit.  I do have the tuxedo somewhere, but I kinda want to create my own custom spin on it.  Wondering what the Tuxedo jacket looks like with the Soldiery Kilt.

We lacked the numbers last night to do anything of major significance… so instead we decided to run a Syrcus Tower as a FC.  I wanted to run as my bard since that is the character that needs gear… and since there are always more bards in a full party I wanted to be able to roll need.  This however gave us the three bards in our party once we randomed in a couple of players.  We kinda wrecked the damage on everything, and our group was always the first to finish whatever adds we had spawned on us.  This was true even on Zande when the non-FC bard managed to get locked out of the final fight.  Our comets were still the first to go down in every round, and we ended up helping the others dps theirs down as well.  Sadly no bard gear dropped, but it was a fun and fast run without any of the normal bullshit that happens in Syrcus.

Ranged State of Mind

In truth I have been playing my Bard quite a bit, and the nostalgia of Warlords of Draenor has even lead me to break back out Lodin my Hunter in World of Warcraft.  There is a strange sense of nostalgia playing him, because in truth I have not taken playing him seriously since vanilla.  I’ve talked about it before but Lodin was the raid main I never intended to play, and as such as soon as I got to Burning Crusade he was quickly abandoned.  Since I have brought back Belghast my Warrior out of retirement… it feels like it is also fitting to dust off Lodin.  Right now he is 89 and sitting in Townlong Steppes, so my hope is to finish leveling him to 90… equip the set of Timeless Isle gear I have waiting on him to make the first little bit of Draenor easier… and then work on leveling him to 100 next.  My enjoyment of him as a whole improved exponentially when I got Arcturis the spirit beast bear my last time playing him.  I’ve always liked running around with a dwarf and a bear… and Arcturis is really an amazing creature.

I think part of what excites me about playing a Hunter again is the introduction of the Lone Wolf talent.  I have always hated having a pet while dungeoning or raiding.  They always seem to do exactly the thing I don’t want them to do at the moment.  As such I’ve always personally found that raiding with something that you don’t have direct control over a liability.  That said I love having a tanky pet while leveling and farming, because at that point it is like having a two player party…  just one that you are controlling both halves of.  The Lone Wolf talent seems to be the best of both worlds… it lets me dungeon and raid as a pure marksman without the need to fiddle with pet mechanics, but also wander around the world as an amazingly efficient team.  Much the same was as Gladiator made me way more interested in Warriors…  Lone Wolf does the same for me and hunters.  Now I just want to get leveled up so I can see if it is as enjoyable as I think it will be.