Posted by Spooner | 5 Comments

Bushido: The Vengeance Mastery Bonus

One of the issues that has been plaguing me as a tank (and many other tanks) since the dawn of time has been scaling. When I get a new piece of gear my health goes up, my evasion and avoidance go up, and my ability to mitigate incoming damage goes up. Essentially I become harder to kill.

When a DPS player gets a new piece of gear he is going to hit harder, hit faster, and hit with more accuracy. His damage will astronomically surpass my own, and therein lies the problem with good tanks slowly being unable to hold threat on a boss when the rest of his raid upgrades.

There’s also the other issue of rage starvation but that seems to be dropping off the list entirely of problems with my Warrior. Blizzard’s decision to add the Vengeance mechanic as a reward for being a deep Protection specialized Warrior is a dream come true for me. But at the same time I know well enough that it’s not going to make threat a non-issue, it’s just going to take the edge off the problem and otherwise shorten the gap between how much a DPS player scales versus myself with the same quality of upgrades.

The numbers are tweaked behind the scene to make sure that tanks using this mechanic aren’t turning into Godzilla in a PvP environment, and if the balancing works out well – then this is going to be as close to a perfect system as we’re going to get. Read after the break to see a little about how it works and Ghostcrawler’s explanation on the system as a whole.

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Posted by Spooner | 9 Comments

What Cataclysm’s stat changes mean to me…

There are plenty of posts out there that sum it all up for classes but I could give a rat’s ass about the lesser classes.

Let’s talk about Warrior and Rogue.

I officially hate my Paladin and he’s pretty much been shelved until further notice. Which means I’m not logging on him for shit until well after Cataclysm.

So these stat changes I wrote about earlier are bringing a whole new dynamic to the game as we know it, so WTF now?

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Posted by Spooner | 6 Comments

So I got Bioshock 2…

Not just Bioshock 2, but the Bioshock 2 Collector’s Edition! I’m framing the lithographs and putting them up on the wall next to my massive Blizzcon 09′ print and the record I am actually gifting to a very good friend of mine who happens to collect vinyl records and is a fanatic in his own right.

The art book and soundtracks alone are reason enough for me to spend the extra cash on this little splurge (seeing as how I’m not spending a selfish dime again until October for Blizzcon) and overall it’s a cool addition to my growing collection of unique and limited gaming “things” around the office.

As for the game, fucking awesome. The only complaint I have even if you can call it such is that you don’t get to play through the story of Subject Delta (the original Big Daddy you play as throughout the entire game) that leads up to Bioshock 2’s beginning. I would love to walk through as a normal citizen in Rapture during its golden age where everything is gilded metal and crimson carpets with silver filigree and people living in excess.

Then going through the transformation into Subject Delta, and finally through the events that lead to Bioshock 2 from his perspective. Personally I find the character of Delta much more engaging than that of Jack from Bioshock 1 but I find it really cool that people make reference to him (well, your character  in the past if you played Bioshock 1) as a sort of messiah that brought down Fontain and Ryan. That can all be possible DLC (hint hint) however.

The game could be a little deeper but otherwise it’s a 9.9 out of 10. And those critics and other big shot folks giving it any less credit are simply too jaded and cynical to ever really be happy with anything given to them. That’s why I hate cynics, they can complain about a blowjob from Angelina Jolie and a lifetime supply of chocolate and their credibility remains unscathed.

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Posted by Spooner | 5 Comments

Happy 5th Birthday WoW…

5 years. Shit let’s recap for the lulz.

November 2004: I’m still playing FFXI: Online because I’m a masochist and I’m living with this Russian chick who is quite possibly the biggest cuntbag to have ever been shat out of a womb. My buddy Sanchez brings over WoW to install on my machine because his is broken. I start a Dwarf Hunter and get him to level 10, then he takes the game away.

December 2004: I buy WoW, dump the Bolshevik, get a good job, and start playing a Human Paladin which I eventually drop for a Warrior because I’m tired of being everybody’s heal bitch.

SOMEWHERE IN NORTH DAKOTA!

Summer 2005: Still playing WoW like a fiend and I meet my soon to be wife. Move from Miami, FL to Minot, ND. I proceed to start makin’ babies between trash pulls in Molten Core on Sunday mornings.

All 2006: Move back down to Miami, working a solid job – playing WoW – life’s good.

All 2007: Same shit. Also, my daughter is born – she is awesome. OH! And I start Spooncraft that February.

All 2008: Get into hardcore progression guild, fuck up my back, realize that I’m spending too much time on the game and that hardcore raiding has pretty much made the game fucking boring and negative.

Summer 2009: I quit WoW for a few months and pickup Aion only to then realize that Aion is like FFXI and I actually have a working cock so I shouldn’t be playing a grinder that will eventually destroy my penis.

November 2009: I start playing WoW again (playing a Rogue because I never have and it’s pretty solid – like the challenge of being a good warrior without all the bullshit loot drama), feeling great, using extreme moderation. Wife picks up her original character as well. Nostalgia and good times are all around. Life is once again pretty awesome.

Thank you Blizzard. I can honestly say that if not for this game I wouldn’t have met such incredible people that I consider close friends. I wouldn’t have made this site that apparently a few people find interesting and entertaining. I wouldn’t have met my wife whom is hands down the most amazing woman ever to walk the Earth. And my daughter simple wouldn’t be.

How have the past 5 years been for you my kind readers? You got anything you’d like to share with the rest of the class?

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Posted by Spooner | 4 Comments

Left 4 Dead 2 Review

I reviewed Left 4 Dead 2 and put the video up on the internet, by all means give it a watch and leave some feedback.

I’d rate the game as a definite buy if you like FPS games and happen to enjoy zombies in any capacity. There are other shooters out there now that are competitive online but honestly – they’re full of 12 year old prepubescents crying over xbox Live.

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