Geeky Mom

A friend wanted me to title this “Still Not Def Capped.” For you non-WoW’ers, let me explain. Each type of player needs a certain level of stats to do well in higher level dungeons and raids. Stats include things like defense, spell power, attack power, hit rating, etc. Players who mostly deal damage strive for a hit rating cap. Tanks strive for def (defense) cap. The way to achieve these stats is through a) leveling/talents and b) gear. I’m going to ignore a) for now, but suffice it to say that as you level, you can select talents that increase certain stats. Once you reach 80 (currently the highest level), gear becomes more important. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was slightly undergeared for tanking. Where I’m undergeared is in my defense stats. I’m not def capped. And here I am, two weeks later, sitting in the exact same spot. As my guildies told me last night, I have no excuse. All I need to do is slap the right trinket on, put a couple of jewels on it and I’d be golden. Which is true, really.

I have a strange relationship to gear in the game. I’m probably not alone in this. A lot of people research what gear they need, find out where to get it and then set out to acquire it. Gear can be obtained in two main ways: dropping from a boss in a dungeon and purchasing with currency that drops from bosses in dungeons.* So, getting good gear requires going through dungeons. So a lot of people figure out what they want, which boss drops it, and then start running that dungeon until they get what they want. All good. I like going through dungeons, but I don’t like being that prescriptive about my adventures. I’ve been in dungeons with people where they say at the very beginning, “I want the boots that drop in here.” And I’ll be like, boots? what boots? Which I don’t say out loud because then I’d be declaring myself a noob. Basically, I like to be surprised. Whatever drops after we kill a boss I consider a gift. And I don’t like to open my gifts before it’s time. I get a little thrill from the unexpected. If I knew what I was likely to get ahead of time, I’d lose that thrill. My kids laugh at me all the time because I get giddy over getting new stuff. But usually only when it’s a surprise (or, in some cases, I’ve worked hard for it). “Look at this cool new sword I got!” Not too many moms who say that I’m guessing.

All that said, I do take advice. So, if someone says to me, you should get those boots that are in such and such dungeon, I am willing to go get the boots, especially if my adviser is going to go with me. Gearing up is more than just slapping on whatever falls on the ground after a kill. Once I figured that out, I think I became a better player. But I still can’t bring myself to obsess over it, running dungeons over and over just to get one pair of pants (well, okay, I have done that once or twice, but it’s not my usual mode). I also don’t do this in real life. Shopping for clothes wears me out. But I promise to be def capped by next week. Really.

*I should note that gear can also be made by blacksmiths and some relatively good gear can be purchased with gold from special vendors.

Image by lorda via Flickr

I’m on vacation this week, without my computer and without much access to any kind of network, so I’m away from WoW. Which is a good thing. WoW can get pretty intense at times. A few weeks ago, they released a new patch which added some new features to the game. Many people jumped in and played pretty intensely, collecting the new stuff and trying out the new areas. I was among them and thanks to some rainy days, I spent a few hours in a row doing everything from collecting ore to running heroic dungeons. While that’s paid off in new gear, it’s also made me feel like I’m spending way too much time at this thing. So the vacation timing was good.

My guild in theory treats WoW playing like bowling. We have regularly scheduled times twice a week to play together and there are people who do simply pop in to play during those times. I’m still trying to find my equilibrium. I mostly play at night and weekend mornings. I probably play up to 20 hours/week (average 3 hours/day, 7 days/week). That’s a lot and just typing that number out is a bit depressing. What am I not doing during that time? I’m nto watching tv, which isn’t such a bad thing, but I’m also not reading, not hanging with the family, not doing housework (which, eh, who cares). I do tend to play in waves. One week, I’m playing 20 hours, the next, I’m playing only 5.

I think ideally, I’d figure out a way to get that number down, either by playing only 2 or 3 days/week. Or playing less in any given day. Once the school year begins, I have a feeling this will happen naturally. The dog days of summer have made us all a little lazy and we’ve gravitated toward the computer for solace (when we’re not at the pool). In other words, we’ve had time to fill and I’ve filled it with WoW. In the fall, I’m going to work on filling it with other stuff, relegating WoW to the recreation it should be.

Image by antifuse via Flickr

So, many of you know I’m a gamer, my most-often played game being WoW. I don’t write about it much, but I’ve decided if it’s a regular part of my life, it needs to be a regular part of my blog. Although I will write about the game as it’s played, what I find most interesting about playing are the personal lessons I learn and the social dynamics of the game. So, even if you’re not a gamer, you’ll get something out of these posts.

I’m currently playing a level 80 Death Knight. I’ve been playing her as a damage-oriented player, but she has the capability of playing what’s called a tank. A tank is a player that puts herself between the bad things trying to kill the players and the rest of the group. They generally have heavy-duty armor and the ability to keep the mobs focused on them rather than the rest of the group. Tanks also tend to set the pace of the dungeon and often set the strategy if they know a dungeon well. It took me a while to get decent enough gear (and I still need better gear), but recently I announced to the guild that I was ready to try tanking and would love some lessons and/or the opportunity to try it out on willing groups of people.

It wasn’t until our regular tanks were all gone that I finally got the opportunity to tank, and let me just say, it’s harder than it looks. Although I’d read up on strategies for tanking and what moves to use, theory is often far away from practice. First, because I’m slightly undergeared, I take more damage than I should, meaning I need someone to be able to heal the crap out of me. Second, we have a lot of really good players in the guild who have good attacks that anger mobs and then they get attacked and so I have to scramble a bit to recapture the errant mob. And third, let’s face facts, I’m not a 15 year old boy. I’ve had a few good runs that went smoothly and successfully, but I’ve had just as many where the entire group has died over and over again. This is a frustrating situation to be in as a tank since it’s often a tank’s weaknesses that can cause this to happen. While this hasn’t always been the case in my situations, as a new tank, I’m guessing it is the problem 95% of the time.

I find being a tank rather nerve-wracking as I’m learning. It’s a lot of responsibility. And the learning curve seems to be fairly large. My guild is patient with me, however, so there is that. I’ve learned that support goes a long way in making me feel comfortable trying this new thing out and trying it out under not so ideal conditions. I decided to try it, in fact, because I wanted to help out the guild since we seem to be short on tanks. Hopefully, I’ll get better at it so that I’m a bit more reliable and don’t get everyone killed so often.

Bonus: Read Sins of a Gaming Father.