Moments

I had a moment today playing wow. A good moment.

I've been playing Theera, my death knight. She only recently turned 80, and since that point getting her geared has been a serious headache. I spoiled myself with my resto druid, popping in to a new random after a three minute wait, piling up the emblems. She was getting good drops, too. Theera? Not so much. The dps queue is 15-25 min long, which makes every run that much more important. But I have been plagued with trolls, wipes, and players dropping, and she has literally gotten no epic drops*. Am I ranting? Maybe a little bit. But mostly just giving context.

I have run hot and cold with this character as it is. Levels 60 to about 73, she was just plain boring to play. The way the button mashing was metered through the rune cool-downs was mind numbingly monotonous, especially after the dynamics of playing a warrior. It was only about level 74 that she got diverse enough to really be enjoyable. But she has never been a character I've taken to seriously or felt I had any real commitment to.

That said, I could just be happy I got her to 80, woohoo-another-notch-in-my-belt, and just move on to something else. But I finally like playing her, and I am really seeing the potential in the unholy dps build. Even in her crappy gear, she is doing respectable dps in heroics—about 2k almost completely in blues. I can claim I got a DK to 80, sure, but I can't claim I really played the class until I play her.

But back to my moment. A glum moment. I had picked up the weekly quest which happened to be Noth. And as I shuttled back and forth doing Argent Tournament quests while waiting in the queue, I would pause in Dalaran and ask in trade if anyone was putting a weekly raid together. No answer. If I had been on Tam or Milo, I would have asked in guild chat. That is after all why they are in a large raiding guild. But Theera isn't in that guild, she's the leader of my little guild of friends and alts.

And so I was sitting glumly in Dalaran, advertising on and off, “mdps lfg [Noth the Plaguebringer Must Die!].” And then I get a tell from this guy saying “I'll join.” And I', like “But I'm not...”

And then I have a moment and think “Why not?” And I threw him an invite and started advertising a weekly raid that filled up in less than five minutes. We went and downed Noth with no issues and came back and turned the quest in.

I've had these moments in WoW before. Moments in which my perception of what I am capable of doing in WoW is suddenly altered. Moments where my assumption that “There are players who do this sort of thing, and I am not one of them.” falls away. Like my first time playing a healer, or tanking. This sudden realization of “Oh, I can do this!” When I first got Tamenie to level 80, that was a really big moment like that. I had been playing a long time, but it was the first time I had gotten a character to max level before. It seemed so intimidating, so remote. But then all of a sudden it wasn't.

I'm not claiming these as life-changing moments of personal growth. Maybe if Noth had dropped something besides caster gear, it would have been, but mostly it was just cool. Life isn't always chock full of win, but sometimes it's nice to just not fail. My DK's gear sucks, it's going to be ages before she completes her T9, but dammit, I put together a PUG raid and it didn't suck. Sometimes moments like these are why play, and sometimes they are why we keep playing. That, and the absolute conviction that this time that stupid sword is going to drop. I know it will...

*She did in fact get one epic drop. This happened to be the blue proto-drake from Utgarde Pinnacle. And while completely awesome, does not add a thing to her gearscore. She can't even ride it till I farm enough gold for epic flight. Yes, the glass is half empty, shut up.

The first (and last) post.

So this is the first post, because I just created the blog and this is the first time I am posting. But it's also the last post, since it will forever be the last one listed in the archive (being the first). Which would ordinarily mean that no one will read it, except that I intend to link to it in my welcome statement, so... Welcome!

I've been toying with idea of this blog for about a month or so, and since I keep mentally writing posts for it, I decided that I might as well actually write them instead of just occupying my brain while I'm doing dishes. So here it is.

The Name: The picture in the banner is Tamenie, my gnome fury warrior who has the honor of being called my main WoW character. In researching how to make her progessively more badass, I was reading into hit rating (how good you are at hitting your enemy) and the need to reach the hit cap, at which point your character simply doesn't miss, ie. becomes unavoidable. The term “unavoidable gnome” stuck in my head and became the title for my blog. Ironically, I haven't actually reached the hit cap with Tam yet, but dammit it's still a good blog name.

The Blog: First comes the disclaimer. I am not an elite player. At all. I do play an awful lot, if you check my characters in the armory, none of them have especially awesome gear. While I enjoy both raiding and PvP, I do neither often enough to really claim any awesomeness. But I do strive to be a competent player. When I play a class, I want to play it well. When I run in any sort of group, I want to be dependable and valuable in my role. I research talent builds, rotations, and recommended gear, enchants, etc. I may show up in T9, but it will be fully gemmed and enchanted.

I also love to roleplay in WoW. I have been in several heavy RP guilds, written fic and done a bunch of fanart. That said, I am not a huge lore geek. I do research off and on into lore elements that pique my interest, but I don't spend a ton of time immersed in it. I haven't read any of the WoW novels (I'd like to, but it's not super high on my priority list). I can appreciate, and am fascinated by the depth of history and lore which in forms the game world in which I spend my time. But I am even more impressed at the players' abilities to build on that and add to it in their own rp.

I started playing WoW right after release of the original game. Originally began on a PvP server, then switched to an RP server where Fatiimah (see sidebar) was my main (she has since moved to a PVE server). After taking a long break from WoW, I came back and played Alliance with Clearwater as my main. BC came out around that time. Then my computer died, life got hard, and I took another long break until after WotLK came out, at which time I started Tam and all the rest.

I would call myself a B+ WoW player. I have a lot of experience, I know what I am doing and take it seriously enough. But I will likely never be in the top tier. Most of the folks running around Dalaran have better gear than me. I play to have fun, and I do. And I continue to. I'm a gnome warrior, inherently gimped by my racials from ever being equal to the other warriors (you know how hard it is to tank when all you can see is the mobs' feet?), but I have fun.

So why the blog? You probably aren't going to see any advice on how to be a leet player here. But I do think my opinions matter in a different sense. My experiences in WoW apply to a broad swath of players, from the serious to the casual. It's my hope that I have interesting and entertaining things to say about this thing we all do together online, and that people will enjoy reading it. I'm also willing to say that there will be moments when I am wrong, so feel free to point them out. I also may not agree that I am wrong, and will feel free to point that out as well. :)

So welcome to my WoW blog. Feel free to comment, say hi, what have you.

~The Gnome