Zombie Pirate Ninja Monkey

Warcraft - Azeroth Priests Are Easy

Another World of Warcraft-only post.

Received opinion is that priests are rare in WoW because they are hard to solo, challenging to play and that about half of the ones that exist are actually being played for the sake of guilds.  Having recently joined a guild that is, indeed light on the priestly fellows, I decided to try quickly levelling a priestly type.  Thus Etruscan was born.  Or reborn, or something.  He's undead.

Man, I must be missing something.  I'm good with druids, myself, but I've never managed to take one to level 14 without a single death.  I only realised last night that I don't know where the graveyard is for Tirisfal Glades (though I suspect it's going to involve Deathknell and Brill).

Yes, it helps to be able to heal myself.  But I've probably only done that mid-combat half a dozen times or so, when I've had to pull two or three linked mobs of my level, such as the Scarlet Bodyguards and Captain Verrache(sp.?).  He handles adds with absolute disdain.  He finishes fights against solo mobs of up to a level or two above on almost-full hitpoints with almost-full mana.  He almost never has to delay between fights.  His damage output is almost rogue-ish at this level, and massively higher than a druid before level 20.  And on more than 25% armour from Inner Fire, I'm better armoured than anyone at that level except feral druids, pallys and warriors.

You see what I mean?  Are people not using a good wand?  That would make fights extremely slow and much harder.  I'm attacking for 13.5 damage per second, which is better than my druid did with anything before the blue Wailing Caverns' reward Crescent Staff, and the auto-attack is every 1.5 seconds, which hammers enemy spellcasters as it disrupts their casting.  Plenty of my spells are instant, so I can kite with them.  While the wand is only for when not moving, it doesn't use any mana.

As it is, my full, huge (thanks to the auction house and intellect equipment) mana pool is available for Smite, shadow dot attack, Power Word: Shield, armour buff, then another PW:S as required.  I had a look at him last night after the patch, and the cooldown on PW:S seems to have been halved (unless I just learned a new rank and didn't spot a cooldown change), so I can pretty much always be 100% invulnerable to damage.

This is by far the easiest character I have yet played, druid included.

My other impression is that the Glades are even more atmospheric and well-designed than Mulgore and Ashenvale.  It has a gorgeous and consistent aesthetic that is implemented across everything from graphics and mission design to character dialogue.  That said, the trash mobs (dogs, spiders and bats) get very tedious.

Music Reviews - Secret Machines, Trivium, Be Your Own Pet

Oh, much as loathe Apple and wish them ill, the convenience of the purchasing system is as tempting as a cheerleader with a big bag of sweeties and beers...

I went onto the iTunes Music Store last night with the intention of buying The Secret Machines' 10 Silver Drops, and came away laden down by five albums, most of which I am pretty pleased with.  Here are a few notes on the first three I've listened to (I'm saving Takk by Sigur Ros as a treat for myself til later).

Be Your Own Pet's eponymous album was released in the last week, and is a fun, frenetic and fresh record that owes huge debts to Blondie, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Kills.  They do indie punk pop as well as the Jesus and Mary Chain did rock and roll, which is very well indeed.  Some of the riffs wouldn't be a million miles out of place on a Dead Kennedys album, although if you want to know what they sound like, you can't really find a better example than Daisy Chainsaw's Love Your Money, complete with bouncy, half-spoken-half-squealed female singer.  The sparse guitar-bass-drums-vocalist sound is pretty homogenous throughout, but you don't have time to get bored when most tracks don't even reach three minutes.  Won't work if you don't like female singers who are a bit, erm, wilfully kooky.

The Secret Machines' 10 Silver Drops was released here last week as well, but in everything else but a shared membership of MTV2's playlist, it is a world away from Nashville retro-punk.  The sparse, edgy production of Be Your Own Pet is a world away from the gentle, rich, deep sound of the opening track, Alone, Jealous and Stoned.  By track two we have cellos and backing vocals and the prog influences really become apparent.  Track three is the clincher: Lightning Blue Eyes.  It bears resemblances (in tempo and use of a semi-quaver-paced, repeated figure in the bass) to their excellent track Nowhere Again from Now Here is Nowhere, but in true prog style it moves on towards glorious excess, with occasional suspended fourths, and a chord sequence in the chorus that will yank at your heart if you have one.  By track four we have songs breaking the eight minute mark  Keith Emerson would applaud such behaviour.  The producer really had a field day here: gating, sustain, delay and chorus effects everywhere.  Obviously, hugely varied throughout in the progressive tradition, which demands displays of musical virtuosity through a mastery of all forms*.  This is a real cracker of an album and should get the band some decent mainstream exposure this year, if they are not smothered by a hundred, horrendous Coldplay clones.  My absolute favourite of the three.

Finally (from this bunch) is Trivum's Ascendancy.  Easy to nail this one down: it's Metallica from just over a decade ago, with vocals straight from Pantera: the ones that sound like they must be incredibly painful to perform, requiring a healthy growth of vocal polyps, and much beloved of Norwegian death-metal and grindcore.  I actually rather like this album, but I liked Pantera and early-90's Metallica so it's nice to have another album along those lines to see what they'd have been like together.  They even start off with the traditional piece of vaguely classical intro.  I can see Trivium making it quite big with time - Metallica did, after all - and they do have one of the more wonderfully pompous names in metal at the moment, making reference as it does (intentionally, I gather) to matters medieval and curricular.  Basically Metallica to Avenged Sevenfold's Iron Maiden.

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* The current masters of such wilful eclecticism are System Of A Down, who will gaily chuck a gypsy folk song or a large choral section into a song for 30 seconds, completely out of any context at all.  I foresee the possibility that one of their future albums will display a mastery of the polka form, alongside a piece of minimalist techno inspired by Aphex Twin and guest-produced by Autechre.  It should be remembered that two members of System Of A Down are utterly and completely mad.