Blog Posts from "A Rogue's Tale" - Gameriot.com

Diablo 3 Release Date

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:35:58 -0400

I was browsing the web when I ran across an interesting theory on the Diablo 3 release date. I'm 100% sure it's not true, but the fact that someone went through all the trouble to come up with something so intricate is quite impressive. I had to post it here for everyone to see. If you're the kind of person that loves conspiracy theories or dectective story, then you'll like this.

--START--

Please, don't judge this before you read it through and think about it! I finally, after several months of extensive research have found the true secret that Diablo carries. Please bare with me.

Believe it or not but the secret of diablo 3 is within the Dol rune. By now, you are all probably thinking wtf this guy is trolling. But before you discredit me let me show to you this jaw-dropping truth. The stats of a Dol rune:

Weapons: Hit causes monster to flee 25%
Armor: Replenish Life +7
Helms: Replenish Life +7
Shield: Replenish Life +7

Some simple mathematics:
25x7x7x7 = 8575

Why Is this important you ask?

Well. In diablo 1, the lord of terror had PRECISLY 8,575 hit points. Are you getting scared? There's more

Note the stat on the dol rune that stands out the most, "Hit causes monster to flee 25%" Now, naturally this ONLY works on regular monsters but not bosses ... right?

That's were you are wrong. In diablo II "normal" difficulty has PRECISLY 34300 Hit points ( 8575 being exactly 25% of his health!)

What does this mean to us? Well, because of some glitch in the hardcoding of d2:lod this fact somehow allows you to surpasse the boundary of "hit causes monster to flee" not affecting bosses. In otherwords, because of this fault on behalf of the blizzard programmers aslong as you have a dol socketed into a weapon you can make diablo run away from you with each successfull hit. Ironic isn't it? The lord of terror, in TERROR. ( Some argue this was initially an intentional "easter-egg" the programmers added for a twist)

Okay... okay. After making you read all of this I won't disappoint you. There is indeed an even greater scandal revolving around the dol rune. One that will literally make you $!@% bricks after reading this. Let's move on!

Anagrams. Guess what? An anagram of "Dol" is Lod. Coincidence? Lod stands for Lord Of Destruction which is an expansion for diablo. An anagram of Lord Of Destruction is: consider fold trout.

Consider fold trout ...

For months these words echoed in my head and it wasn't untill tonight I realised what impact these words bare and I felt compelled to type out this thread and share it with you all.

I quote Merriam websters: Quote TROUT Middle English, from Old English trÅ«ht, from Late Latin trocta, tructa, a fish with sharp teeth, from Greek trÅktÄ“s, literally, gnawer, from trÅgein to gnaw Please notice the word gnaw.

I knew I had seen this very word somewhere in the game before, but where? Gnaw Fold. It was a rare ring I had left in my stash since 1.07. According to recent databases, the prefix Gnaw and the suffix Fold no longer exist, however they did in 1.07. I was one of the lucky few to recieve this ring randomly from as far as my memory serves me, from the gidbin quest. Enough about the ring, let me explain to you all how this fits together... PERFECTLY.

Gnaw Fold - Unique ring stats:
Attack rating +25
Vitality +7
Life +7
Energy +7
Mana +7

Do you see the similarities yet? Well, if you don't than look back at are old friend the dol rune.

Quote The stats of a Dol rune:
Weapons: Hit causes monster to flee 25%
Armor: Replenish Life +7
Helms: Replenish Life +7
Shield: Replenish Life +7

Admit it, you are scared? This is where this little discovery takes a VERY, VERY awkward and interesting turn.

They're three difficulties on d2 'Normal', 'Nightmare' and 'Hell' In the "Hell" mode of diablo lod, diablo has a 0.05575% chance of dropping a Dol rune. Why Is this important? Apart from the scary number-patterns this tells us that JUST as with the dol rune glitch that allowed you to make diablo flee from you, here a very simliar glitch occurs. Once again, because of the "Sloppy Hardcoding" of D2 LOD (Mind, it was a rush job after the sky-rocketing sales of classic) whenever you kill diablo in hell with this ring in your ring slot the game crashes. I bet you all are thinking now, WOW what a waste of time! He made us read ALL of this to tell us that because of the incompetence of blizzard employee's the game crashes if you wear some really rare ring and just HAPPEN to get a dol rune drop for you. This is wrong. As you will find out in just a sec there is something special about this error message. It returns the following value to your screen: 64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39.

At first glace 64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39 seems completly random, just some error code right? This is where you are wrong, deeply wrong.

64 69 61 62 6c 6f 20 33 20 20 30 39 2f 30 39 2f 30 39 is hex for : Diablo 3 09/09/09. Don't believe me? Google ANY Hex translator and try it yourself.

From this ASTONISHING information I would like to conclude that based on my findings I believe (and believe all you others should acknowledge aswell) that diablo 3's official release date is 09/09/09.

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE, BEFORE FLAMING / DISAGREEING READ THROUGH THE WHOLE THREAD! YOU WILL SEE MY FINDINGS ARE FLAWLESS. [ post edited by

--END--

Source: http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=363656&p=1&;

This theory has been plastered on every Diablo 3 fan related forum.Â I am just reposting it here for anyone who haven't seen it and I thought it was an interesting read.

Starcraft, The Memories

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:56:01 -0400

I have to say that Blizzard has always gone above and beyond when it comes to cranking out ridiculously fun and addicting games. Iâ€™m not basing that on the tens of millions of games they sold or the numerous game of the year award they receive, I am basing that on my personal experience and endless hours spent in front of a computer monitor clicking happily away.

Like many other, my first blizzard game was Starcraft. I was initially drawn in by its Sci-Fi elements and lets face it, freaking big ass space battles that made even grown men weep tears of joy. I played SC very casually at first. It was mostly with a couple of friends on money maps such as Big Game Hunter and other 8-player type maps. I started during my high school years, and played SC on a 32k modem connection. Our 3v3 and 2v2 games were epic, and the backstabbing was rampant. I even met one of my many good friends, Huy, through SC. We have been friends now for 10 years, and from SC until The Burning Crusade, he has been the torch that lit the way to owning success. Huy is by far the most hard core gamer I know, and for a while, he was also a pro gamer in Warcraft 3, The Frozen Throne. Him and one of his clan mates sat at the top of the 2v2 and 3v3 ladder on the East Coast region.

We would play until the sun rose with its blinding light and emerged again when the night sky settled in. We lived the lifestyle of vampires, only our thirst was not for blood, but for something much more addicting, and much more deadly. We craved the high of winning, of knowing we outplayed another being, both in skill and in the mind game. It was then that we started getting serious about SC, and joined the ladder league. Thatâ€™s where we really learned what it was like to be amazing at SC, and unfortunately, we were anything but amazing. Being as how we were all accustomed to money maps, the ladder maps crippled us and open our eyes to not only micro-management, but also the importance of micro-management in the grand scheme of your macro game. Some ladder games would only last 5 minutes due to the harassment rush, and this is where we first learned our build orders and rush strategy. My world was completely engulfed by SC, and we still retell some of our most epic games to this day.

After Broodwar game out, we sort of stopped playing SC because of the way people would turtle and tech. The game evolved, and we were too slow to evolve with it. That was around the same time that WC3 came out, and we all shifted our attention to that instead. From there we moved on to WoW, but all of that is another story, for another time.

The BNET community and the ability to talk to your enemies after a game was what made things so personal. It gave you the drive to become better, so that you would always be the one on the other end of the â€œgg.â€ I donâ€™t think there has ever been another game that gave me the same feeling as SC did back in the day. It was my first, and by far, the most unforgettable experience of my gaming career.

Selling Full S3 UD Rogue: Cac

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:52:43 -0400

GameRiot Map: A Geographical Representation of Popular Blogs

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:28:50 -0400

I read a couple of posts/comments recently pointing out how most of game riot’s blogs are crappy, most likely comparable to a drunken college student wallowing in his own puke. Very flattering image, I know. However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that Game Riot is a user driven community with staff content injected in for more serious gaming news and antidotes. Much like Digg and Reddit, most of the content is produced/submitted by users and other users dictates the popularity or success of the blog via comments. If you enjoy something, you either let the author know it was a good read or you flame them enough to let them know that deep down, you really want to have hot man sex with them. The really really gay kind that you can only find on the Internet, like the one between Ming and Serennia.

Man on man loving aside, I think that GameRiot isn’t all that bad. Just like any other community driven site, it is the users that determines the success of the site. This is why I want to urge people to state their opinions and make a conscientious effort at making their own browsing experience be a good one. If you really do enjoy a blog, then bookmark it or make a mental note of the author’s name so that the next time he writes something, you will recognize it and come back to it. Just think of it as if you met a smoking hot girl and somehow manage to get her name and number. She has the kind of body that would make you things considered illegal in at least 49 states that you would be locked up for life. Of course you would muster up every red blood cell that’s not currently rushing to your penis to try and remember her contact information, while desperately trying to hold yourself back from burying your face into her boobs. Just think of it like that, but with *****, because unfortunately, most people who blog on this site are male. The two or three bloggers who actually have to sit to pee however, are pretty much met with tits or GTFO by the vast majority of trolls residing on GameRiot (I’m personally routing for the tits BTW, just in case you female bloggers were on the fence on that one).

I know that there are a substantial number of blogs that is posted each day, and it can be quite confusing or intimating to browse through all of it. This is why I have made a map of GameRiot for everyone to use as a general guide to GameRiot. Each user is presented as their own nation and the size of the land is determined by a combination of quantity of blog entries, number of comments, and overall popularity. Of course all this is based off of my own interpretation, and not by statistics or any other means back by science. I mean after all, fact checking is for sissies. Real men like Inactive state their opinions as if they are self-evident truths, i.e. everyone who name is not Inactive suck at WoW. You can find the map here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/starfeeder/2385347359/sizes/o/

I made the map in Mircosoft paint (awesome program, I know), and did the best I could to make everything readable. Some people don’t even have a blog, but their popularity or number of comments they post was enough to earn them a place on the map. Of course the map is not all-inclusive, but I tried my best to include all the major names.
Some of the highlights include the United Island of Pedophiles surrounding the nation of Hafu, and the Sea of Counter-Comped. I hope you enjoy it, and the compass in the middle is a general guide to why some things are placed where they are. A couple of things to note from the map that isn’t quite clear:

1) The staff at GameRiot do have some really interesting articles, but for the most part, I feel that it’s just gaming news. That isn’t to say that its a bad thing, it does allow me to visit one site to get the majority of my gaming news.
2) The straight of gayness was originally supposed to be named “The not so straight straight,” but the name was too long. If you somehow cross this body of water, you instantly become a homo. You most likely enjoy taking it up the pooper or watching gay porn. It doesn’t really matter, either way, you’re a ******.
3) The Game II might be part of the staff of GameRiot, I’m not too sure. I put him to the side because I was unsure. He does push out a ton of entries.
4) Hafu only has one blog entry so far, but due to her having boobs and not weighing 300 lbs, her blog exploded with comments. This is why she gets her own nation.
5) Some of the nations in Troll Country are bigger simply because their name is 20 million character long. This is why Vir has such a small nation, because his name is only 3 character.

The map was made with good intentions, but I injected my own humor into it. Don’t take it too seriously. In other words, I did it for the lulz.

Edit: If you like this entry, please let me know If you don't, flame away.
Edit2: Thank you Lipton for providing me a more reliable image host. I hope you enjoy your own little SC 2 Island ^_^

Why Do You Play, Hafu Sponsorship, and The Trolls of Gameriot

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:07:03 -0400

I haven’t blogged in a very long time. I think my last blog was at the start of Season 3. I got a lot of flames for “bragging” about real life events and decided that no matter how genuine or interesting your blog may or may not, people will flame and troll you. It’s not that the trolls are bad people, well they might be, but it’s just that the Internet allows for people to act the way they do. Most of the time, it’s to people you don’t know or really care about, and there are no consequences on the Internet. If you really screw up, you can always just start over with a new alias. Raddy has a rather amusing article on the whole thing over at his blog, rakicalnoise.com.

So why am I bloggin again? First off, it’s a really slow day at work, and I'm bored out of my mind. Secondly, recent events in real life as well as the e-drama of WoW/Gameriot have left me a little dumbfounded to say the least.

Lets start off with the real life events. My girlfriend that was living with me moved out a couple of months back because she landed a job down in GA. This left me with a lot of free time that I didn’t have before. We are doing the whole long distance relationship thing, and so far it's working out. I dumped most of my newly found free time into WoW because I found arena to be so much fun (back then at least). At the end of season 2, I barely missed Gladiator but was really happy that I was able to find success at all. Since I have a lot more free time now, I thought I would put a little bit more effort into arena and I am fairly confident that I will be getting gladiator this season. My 2v2 team is currently sitting at rank 12 in the battle group, and by the end of season 2, roughly 97 teams received a gladiator title. Assuming that I can keep my team in the top 50 at least, I am positive that I will get gladiator and the 310% flying mount. I want the mount and title so that when I sell my character at the end of season 3, it’ll be worth a little bit more (I hope >_<.

This brings me to the sponsorship Hafu recently receive, and the many trolls and flamers of Gameriot. Hafu’s first blog pretty much outlined how she got her sponsorship, and to much disappointment by most of the teenage gaming community, it wasn’t because she was on her knees. Everyone and their dead grandma wants to point out that it’s because she female, and female players are much more marketable. Although most of them didn’t say it in such polite terminology (I think ****** and e-***** were the most common), that was the general point. I really can’t tell how a 16 year old girl is handling all the hate, but so far she seem to be ignoring most of the more offensive comments. It really makes me wonder though, why some people troll or flame to the extent that they do. I’ll try my best and analyze some of the more prominent and outspoken ones.

Faction – Faction is probably my favorite. I really think he just does it because he likes to piss people off, but there is really no mask to his words. He doesn’t tip toe around words, he’ll just come out and tell you you’re a dumb ass, you’re bad, and generally make you look like you should be at a hospital for retards. His words are harsh, but he does inject a bit of humor into his trolling from time to time. However Faction is unfailing with his assault, he will and does, troll everyone.

Inactive – Inactive is probably the biggest trash talker that Gameriot has. I believe he talks down to people to really achieve two things; the first is to make it painfully clear that no matter what you do, you will never be “good” at WoW. He holds himself and his 5v5 team as the pinnacle of “WoW Skill”, and talks down to any and everyone that he feels doesn’t deserve the attention and/or praise of others. His constant need for recognition and confirmation of his superior skill drives him to belittle other people’s accomplishments. However, he is still a damn good warrior, and I don’t think anyone can deny him that. He denies his oversized ego and mostly attributes his trolling to be boredom.

Slappywag – He’s like the annoying fat kid that bullies people in elementary school. He’s cruel with his words, but sometimes you can’t help but laugh at his jokes. We all have a little retard within each of us that finds him funny occasionally. He shares the same mentality as Inactive, in that he feels the need to prove that he is a good player and will trash talk other teams or players for their playstyle.

Ming – Well everyone knows Ming, but Ming is really just a persona invented by a twisted Asian mind. It’s like when you were just a little kid and you always dream you had super powers. You would then proceed to jump off the roof and end up using your toes to play super Mario for the next two months because you broke both arms on the landing. This of course, brings you to your senses and reconnects you with reality. Well Ming is pretty much that kid, but he blames not being able to fly off the roof on not channeling enough charka and continues to this day. However, that all it really is, and that’s a persona. He created it in his mind, and this is the Ming you all know on the Internet. I really have no idea how Ming is in real life, but I’m sure there a little bit of the real him in his persona. I’m pretty sure he would cheat in the real world if he had to, such as for financial gains. However it wouldn’t be anything like robbing a bank, more like stealing another person’s idea or something like that.

That’s really all I can think of for now, I will add more if I feel the need to, or if I forgot someone.

This really brings me back to why do we play WoW. Dahis started out playing WoW with the intent of selling his characters for money/profit, but ended up being addicted. I’m sure when Happyminty found success with his videos, he played for the e-fame and to make more video. We all do it because it’s fun for us at some level, but where do we derive that fun from? For Inactive, I think success in 5v5 on bloodlust and the dominance of his team brought him great joy.

As for me, I believe reaching the front page of a ladder was the last thing I wanted to do. That is why I will be leaving this game after season 3, and moving on to something else that will provide me with enjoyment. Whatever it is you play a game for, whether it be for recognition, arena, or tournament play, only do it if it’s fun to you. At least, that’s my personal philosophy.

I realize I will be receiving a lot of flames for this blog, but I think you can't put anything out now without being flame and trolled. I'll just won't take it too personally, because really, it isn't. We're all just strangers on the internet after all.

Server Transfer, Where to? Please Help/Suggest a good one.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:44:33 -0500

EDIT: Does anyone know where I can find a list of East Coast Servers?

My armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Scilla&n=Cac

I mentioned before that I might transfer server. Well I think that time has come. Just within the last two weeks, my friend's list has been reduced to almost nothingness. The top players have all transfered, and my teammates will soon be leaving as well. Some left for PvE, others left for more talent and more populated servers (This is pretty much why I am leaving as well. The talent pool isn't all that great here). This leaves Scilla with only a few good PvP-ers left, and that's not a lot to go around. I think my time to leave this desolate piece of **** has come as well.

However, where to? I really don't want to go to BG9, and staying on Stromstrike battle group would probably be ideal. BG9 is so bloated and I don't want to wait 15 minutes just to play a freaking 2v2 game. Or I could transfer to some smaller battle group and be the some what medium size fish in a small pond, instead of the plankton in the Atlantic Ocean that is BG9. It would also have to be an East Coast Server, since I want the best ping and teammates that match my playtime. If I stay on Stromstrike battle group, I'm thinking Mal'Ganis. Although I have to make an alt and see how my ping is there. However, going to a server without any team mates, or even knowing anyone is extremely risky.

I have some friends on Mannoroth, the Ruin battle group, but still not enough to form a good 3v3 team around. I also have to see how my pings are there.

The last server, is Kil'jaeden, where my 2v2 partner went. However, that's on BG9, and I really don't want to get trampled on. I'm really just a 2200 player, and I guess on BG9, I would be 1400 according to everyone from BG9. I should probably steer clear, but if anyone has some information/recommendation they would like to share, please let me know.

Also, if anyone has a place for an UD Rogue on their teams, please let me know. Either PM or leave a comment. I'm not amazing, but am more then willing to learn and improve. I am currently a duelist and finished with 2236 in season 2 with my 3v3 of mage/rogue/druid.

Summary: Transfering servers, where to? (I'm horde) Mal'Ganis, Kil'jaeden, or Mannoroth. Duelist rogue looking for 2v2 and 3v3 team with some decent players, please leave comment or PM. Thanks.

Christmas Shopping and Why Victoria Secret Needs to be Nerfed, Arena Team Drama, and Maybe a server Transfer

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:07:50 -0500

WARNING: My entries are always WALLS OF TEXT, however, people who have read it said they throughly enjoyed it. It reminds them of their first time with their cellmate bubba. In ebay terms, it would be A++++, would buy from again, and in myspace terms, it's A/S/L question answered by a picture of a fat hairy man bented over naked. Give it a quick read through, you might enjoy it, and realize that you are gay.

It’s been a while since I last posted, and for good reason. The first reason being that my playtime has been significantly reduced. I log on very late each night and only play about 2-3 hours, roughly 4 days a week. Needless to say, this has left my arena partners about as happy as a girlfriend realizing that the surprise you promised her for Christmas was “SUPPRISE! BUTTSECKS!11!1!!oneevlen”, instead of that emerald necklace she was looking at that would of cost you your left testicle, and if you’re Asian like me, probably your right one as well.

When season 3 kicked off, I had to take care of multiple RL issues and didn’t log on for 4 days. When I did log on after 4 days of hustle and bustle through out the server, filled with welfare epics shopping spree and enchanters/jewel-crafters making a killing, I find that I am team-less. Apparently if you go missing from WoW for a period of more then 1 day, it’s assumed that you have been horribly mangled by a bear, ran over by a truck, and then buried under 9 million ton of molten lava, never to be seen again. How the hell you even GET under 9 million ton of molten lava is beyond me. For each additional day that incurs after that one-day period, another horrifying event will be bestowed upon you, and by bestow I mean a big ******* bolder landing on you, NO better yet, on your ******* nuts, and only your nuts.

My sole comfort was the Duelist title hanging over my head, constantly taunting and reminding me that, “Yes you suck too much to get gladiator, L2WinTrade you scrub.” So with my proud new scrub title, I embark on my journey to pick up my welfare epics, some arena gear, and to the dueling grounds of Durotar! After much dueling and making excuses for my apparent lack of skill to scrubs in full season 1 who made my skull their new acoustic instrument, I formed two new arena team. A Shadow-Priest/Rogue 2v2, and a Shadow-priest/Frost Mage/Rogue 3 DPS 3v3 (The shadow priest on 2v2 is different then the one on 3v3).

The 3v3 team isn’t really that hard to play, it just requires communication and some form of button mashing. Getting up to 1700 was pretty much cake, and I’m convince that two monkeys rolling their ***** back and forth on the keyboard with me doing the same, then followed by my face for the sweet aroma, would have been able to achieve that. However, when you reach the 1700’s, that’s where the real teams are sitting taking points from one another. We met tons of RMP, which is pretty much the counter comp to 3DPS, and lost a bunch of games. Then we would meet 2 healer + warrior teams, and would take all our points back. We ended at 1789 and stopped.

My 2v2 with the shadow-priest didn’t go quite as well. Again getting to 1700 was easy, but then you run into the numerous druid/warrior teams that actually know to run the **** away like a black man being chased by the police because, well, he’s ******* black. The minute the druid sees my priest turn his way; he would sprint away like there was a special at KFC, all the while screaming “RODDY KING SAVE ME!!!” He knows damn well that if he gets caught with a fear to a blind, that his warrior would drop faster then Paris Hilton’s pants. Which would most likely result in nerd raging in vent for the next 10 minutes by his warrior, and every 5 minutes to the hour for the rest of his miserable life. Fearing this unbearable screaming in a very homoerotic lisp by his warrior, the druid was able to play keep away from my priest. Eventually we lose, and much QQ would ensue.

After QQ-ing until vent decided it couldn’t take my high pitch imitation of a 6-year-old girl throwing a temper tantrum anymore and crashed on me (the sad part was I wasn’t trying to imitate anything >_<, I again venture to Durotar, because dueling is serious business. I mean if Ming says so, it has to be true. Just like when my brother told me Santa didn’t bring me my Power Ranger XL Megazoid Extreme when I was 8 because I like to look at his dirty magazines. While dueling, I was able to impress Images, one of the best mages on my server. He offers me a spot on his 2v2, and I accept a few days’ later and left my current 2v2. My shadow priest was rather unhappy, and unable to find another rogue with an equal amount of suck as me, as well as being abandoned by his frost mage in the 3v3 team, transferred to a different server. I kind of wanted to go with him, but with my limited playtime and my PvP skill equating to facepalm by most of my arena partners, I decided not to. Perhaps when I can find more time for WoW, I will most likely transfer to Mannoroth with him. That pretty much covers WoW, the next part is for your entertainment only. You might laugh, you might enjoy it, but most likely you will feel you wasted 5 minutes of your life.

As Christmas draws near, everyone who is in a relationship is quietly thinking in the back of their head, what should I get my gf/bf, so that I don’t get a ***** smack across the face Christmas morning. Well, apparently that was what my girlfriend was thinking because she wouldn’t stop nagging me about what I wanted for Christmas. Until I couldn’t take it anymore one night while I doing my dailies and blurted out “FOR YOU TO SHUT THE **** UP ABOUT CHRISTMAS!” Well not really :- ( If I had some ******* balls, I might have. Instead, I said something totally ridiculous just to let her know that she really doesn’t have to get me anything, because she is a recent college graduate with loans and no job yet. Well at least that was my intention, but what came out was, and I quote, “You on your knees with something hot on.” Apparently, I did have some ******* balls, and they act as my brain too. Fully expecting a slap to the back of the head at this point, I was perplexed, but overjoyed by her response of “What do you mean by hot? You mean like sexy lingerie? Well you’ll have to pick it out for me since I don’t know what you like” I then dropped to my knees, thank Jesus, the Pope, Budda and the Dali Llama for letting me have a hot and understanding girlfriend (I’m still working on the three-some angle with her hot friend, no progress on that though /wrist).

Early the next afternoon, we race to the mall, and by we, I mean me pulling her by the arm running full speed to my car. We arrive at Victoria Secret and make our way to the lingerie section. She points a couple out, and in the end, I chose a red two-piece with flowly frills or whatever. I wasn’t too interested in the design; I was really just thinking how hot it would look on her. Feeling like the luckiest guy alive, I accompany my girlfriend to the cash register with a smile the size of Texas on my face.

As I stand there pondering what the cashier will think when she sees the article of clothing and me smiling like an idiot, I let out a soft sigh as I stare off into the distance. That’s when it hit like George Forman’s uppercut, into your ass, with spikes gloves. The cashier cheerfully says, 50.92 please. I looked at her with my WTF?!?! look, but apparently she doesn’t understand it because she obviously doesn’t play video games, so I tried to spell it out for her in words, and I muster out “Dollars?” Clearly my balls cannot form coherent sentences, but it was enough for the cashier and she smiles at my “joke”. I mean there could really be no other explanation that a hot girl such as my gf would be dating a Software Engineer, the definition of a geek, other then the fact that I have a great sense of humor. Not wanting to cause unnecessary stress on her brain that has been washed clean of any form of logic, I hand over my credit card and leave. Seriously, 51 dollars for two pieces of fabric that is no bigger then the palm of my hand? Someone seriously needs to nerf the living **** out of Victoria Secret. Either that, or get me on their payroll, because I am clearly in the wrong profession.

It looks something similar to this, but not exactly. Does this look like it takes 51 dollars to make to you?

This better be worth it, and judging from past experience, even my neighbors are going to wish they were doing what I was doing. I’m locking my doors and not leaving the house. Mother nature can snow all she wants. In the famous words of my first year college roommate when his girlfriend visited him after a 4 months of being away from each other, "We're going to hump like rabbits, on steriods."

All teams over 2k

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:05:02 -0500

Think of it like this. When you were a tiny a little kid, you would idolize your big brother. He was so cool right; he hung out with all the hot girls, and went to all the cool places. He had a car, money, and tons of friends who played all different type of sports with. You always wanted to be like him, you know, the high school jock that has all the girls giggling when he walks by kind of cool. That’s like your entire goal in life, is to get to that level. Then you finally get to high school, join the school basketball team, sleep with some cheerleaders and realize, holy ****, so this is what it feels like.

Then one day, you’re lying there exhausted on your bunk bed from having marathon sex with your high school sweet heart because your ******* hormones make you want to bend it like Beckham every 5 minutes, and you look out the window and realize your car is a piece of ****. It’s a ******* Honda civic with 120-horse power, and when you stomp on the gas, instead of burning rubber, you’re only burning gasoline that your 6 dollars an hour job as a bag boy can’t afford. That’s when it hits you, **** this **** sucks balls, and it’s not like the good kind your girlfriend gives you either. It’s the gay kind you see on the Internet with two fat jolly men dressed up as a French maid and a police officer (yeah, go ahead and picture that in your head, I dare you). That’s when you realize that your brother’s car was a piece of **** too, and all those girls that giggled and smiled at him as he walked by were about as pretty as your hairy nuts and dog **** mashed together. That cool place he always went to was the ice skating rink because his coach made him take ice skating to improve his balance due to the fact that he has two left feet and can’t run a proper crossing pattern. The only reason you know that, is because that same coach is now making you take dance lessons to improve your god-awful footwork and now everyone on the team calls you Nancy. Your girlfriend thinks it’s the cutest thing ever, but you know deep down, you’re slowly turning more and more gay with each new step you learn.

That’s how it feels, right now, sitting over 2k for every bracket. I lusted for this; I would of slaughtered kittens and raped virgins for this ****, not that I don’t already do that anyways as a hobby. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m very happy, very content. Being one of the worst rogue to ever have hit the install button for WoW, hitting 2k was pure orgasmic bliss for me. My first team to hit 2k was my 3v3, then 5v5 soon followed and then 2v2 put the nail in the coffin. I felt that I had proven myself, and might have even earned some respect on the **** hole that is my server.

You know what though, the lust didn’t end there. The word gladiator popped into my head, and I became greedy. Ohhhh shiny mount, I want it, I… really wanted it (I don’t have an epic flying mount >_<. That’s when the push came; we have to hit 2300 in 3v3. It was no longer OMG WE’RE OVER 2K GAIS, LET’S GET NAKED AND HUG EACH OTHER, now it’s stop jerking off and push so we can get gladiator. It’s good to have a competitive spirit and all, but when you suck like me, you need to know your limit. No matter how much pushing my team did, we couldn’t hit 2300. Warlock, warrior + healer teams kept farming us back down every time we got close. We would try everything, and when we found out we had to kill the druid/healer, it was incredibility hard to do it.

As the night dragged on, I became more and more tired. I made more mistakes, and my teammates were doing the same. It was frustration at first, but then fatigue slowly sets in. I look at the clock, 4:15AM. I pop open my honor tab again, 2110 and over 100 games played for the week. “Guys, lets call it. I’m too tired.” Everyone is a little pissed off at my decision to stop the push, but as I look at my honor tab, I realize one very import thing. I’m over 2k, for every single bracket. Me, an average rogue, on a ****ty server, over 2k. I think back to when I couldn’t even break out of the 1900’s, and now sitting at 2110. Yeah, that is way more then good enough. That's like getting to go first in a 10 guy one girl gang bang, because you really don't want to be last.

With that said though, I think there is nothing left for me to achieve in WoW. Being a top rogue/team is out of the question, because the time commitment required for me to make up for the lack of skill is too much. I much rather spend that time and energy convincing my girlfriend and her scandalously seductive friend Ashley to have a threesome with me, because it’s “good for our relationship,” or at least it’s good for me. Mostly likely I will fail though, because my real life pimping skill is about as good as my WoW pvp skills, meaning I might muster enough courage to start the first sentence, get smacked in the face and then left with a hard on because all I can think of is two girls on their knees.

All in all though, it was a very good season for me. However, with no real goal to work towards now, and even the last goal of being on a top 10 or top 20 team doesn’t seem all that appealing to me. I mean, I end up with the same gear, but I get a bigger e-peen? It’s really not worth it, unless higher ratings means a bigger penis IRL, then yeah, I would be grinding arena all day and then proceed to do some show and tell to my girlfriend all night. However, that is not the case, and I am seriously contemplating quitting WoW and selling my rogue. I mean a full S2 rogue, with 70k honor, 4.2k arena points and all gems/ enchanting material in the bank ready for Season 3, yet I no longer have a drive to play. Everyone and their mom wants my rogue now that he’s all geared up, just like I wanted to be like my brother when I was little, but now that I’m here, the magic and awe is gone. Maybe I’ll just limp though season 3, and get 2k again on one of my teams to keep up with the new gear, bleh who knows. For now at least, girlfriend, sex, working out and actually doing work at work will probably take precedence over WoW.

Good luck to everyone else in season 3, may all your hits be crits and your *** shots be messy.

Edit: Fixed couch to coach. Thanks for pointing that out Virtua.

Me, Gladiator? Wow...No Really, WOW!!!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:16:50 -0500

When I first started playing my rogue (who was level 65 when my friend quit the game and gave him to me), I had no freaking idea what I was doing. I was combat swords for leveling, and really had no idea how to PvP as a rogue. I was still trying to perfect a stun lock, practicing on mobs as I level. When I hit 70, I respecced to mutilate with Ced’s Carver as my main hand and the Retainer's Blade from being exalted with Scyer. I remember BGs very clearly; because each time I lost a 1v1 I would sit and think about it for a couple of minutes. I remember it so clearly because I freaking lost a lot. I sucked harder then that prostitute in “Full Metal Jacket” when she said “Me so horny, me love you long time." I didn’t even know how to use deadly throw, or when to use it. I barely even used it at all. I had no idea what to do against warriors, except die >_< and frost mages were just impossible.

Looking back now as I sit on the verge of gaining the gladiator title, it just feels like I’m dreaming. How is it that a rogue who didn’t even know what to do when a mage blinks away from him at the start of season 1 can now be potentially called a gladiator at the end of season 2? I am going to be completely honest here; I am not a good rogue. I am an average rogue at best that might have an occasional moment here and there where he does something amazing. However, they are far and few between. I would say I have a better chance at convincing my girlfriend and her rod hardening, smoking hot friend Ashley to have a threesome with me then to do something amazing in WoW. In other words, the chances of me pulling off a sap->blind->vanish sap on a opponent while fully DPS-ing something else Happyminti style sits somewhere between –1,000,000 and 0, with most of it leaning towards –1,000,000. Which means that if I ever attempted something like that, I would most likely sap a dotted target, blind the target we are DPS-ing, and vanish with a deep wounds on me. In other words, it would be made full of fail, the kind of fail your 3rd grade math teacher gives you in red ink while shaking her head at the crudely drawn boobies where your name was suppose to be.

Currently sitting at 2216 with my 3v3, and trying to push for 2300, I would say I am filled with bliss. The reason is everything pass this point is just bonus material for me. It’s the kind of bliss you get when you open up an illegally downloaded action movie call triple X (the one with Vin Diesel) intending to watch it with your girlfriend only to find out it’s a Japanese porno, and we all know Japan makes some damn good porn. Either way, I still benefited from the whole experience. When I broke 2k, I honestly reached my goal in WoW. I had absolutely no PvP gear when I started season 2, sitting on a 1580 arena team, and to be where I am now is just an astounding journey for me.

Whether or not I get gladiator, it really doesn’t matter. However, I would like to get it for my resto druid, who has stuck with me through all of season 2 when it seemed like we had no hope of ever breaking 2k. So here’s to hoping we reach 2300, well at least 2300, because that is where the cut off for gladiator is on my battle group (I think, I’m really not sure). Games seem so easy now, maybe it’s because of AR/Prep, maybe it’s because my mage is carrying me, or maybe it’s just that most of the good teams are sitting on their rating and don’t queue anymore. It doesn’t matter really, because for a scrubby ass rogue like me, going 10-1 at the 2100’s and advancing your team another 100 points makes me feel like I am running with the big boys.

I remember one time I was fighting a mage/rogue/priest setup when I realized it was happyminti who was pounding a big orange mace into my skull, I was so star struck that I took a screen shot of our lost. I can still remember the thuds each time his mace made contact with my face; they were so bright, and so ummm orange (I was using HWL maces at the time). They were like little love taps, only these love taps left big dents and gave me headaches for days afterward. I still have the screen shot somewhere, let see if I can dig it up and post it here later.

Edit: I corrected my Good Morning Vietnam movie reference to change it to Full Metal Jacket. Thank you Ikilu for pointing that out. I also found the screenshot and here it is. HappyMinti

3v3 Finally 2k! Part 2

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:08:40 -0500

Well I was able to find some time in-between surfing the web and pretending to work to actually write this second part. This is part 2 of my two-part entry about my 3v3 team reaching 2123. It was quite a long road filled with potholes the size of Texas and ugly drunken girls, but I finally broke 2k. You can read all about it, in part 1.

At the end of the last entry, my team was sitting at 2044. Oh beautiful 2044. However, at that point I haven’t played a single game yet with our new frost mage, EPC. It was pretty late, around 11:30PM-ish Eastern Time, and I had just finished doing the 7 games of 2v2 with my resto druid. We sell our 2v2 rating for pretty cheap, because it’s only in the lower 1900’s. Either way, multiple warrior/healer teams anally raped us, and it wasn’t the good kind of rape you role-play with your girlfriend either. It was the non-lubricated; I’m going to stick this giant mace with spikes up your ass kind. Needless to say, both my druid and I walk a little awkwardly these days.

Infuriated and unable to sit correctly due to the multiple mace stun warrior teams, I asked EPC if he wanted to run some 3’s. He agrees to tap that ugly ass one more time, because we all know girls with low self esteem are usually the ones who are willing to please. I was very nervous that I would mess up the rating, because I have never played with EPC before, and he didn’t even have a mic. He could only listen on vent, but unable to relay any crucial information in a timely manner. We were going into this one blind.

The first match we get, it’s the 3 DPS team from part 1 that messed EPC and my resto druid up pretty bad. It was a lock, frost mage and mutilate rogue, talk about hurt! I call it out when I realized whom we were facing. I told EPC, his only job was to sheep/frost nova the rogue so that our druid would not insta-gib. Damage isn’t the main concern here, surviving was. I will be on the warlock the whole time preventing fears, and the druid has to pillar kite the other frost mage to live. Being AR/Prep with MoD and heighten sense, I was able to see the opposing rogue, sap him and still get the opener on the warlock. I open on the warlock full DPS mode, burning AR and blade flurry. EPC was able to control the rogue in-between CoS/Vanish so that my druid could live long enough for me to kill the warlock. It didn’t take long either; I dropped the warlock in less then 30 seconds and then proceeded to clean up the rest.

Second match we faced them again, but this time it was much closer. I drop warlock, my druid drops shortly afterwards, and now it’s a mirror match of rogue/mage. However, I was very low on health, and the rogue caught me in a kidney shot CB mutilate combo. I **** you not when I say I vanished with 250 hp left, got away and bandage/ate to full. Being AR/Prep, I had a full set of cooldowns left and completely dominated the mutilate rogue once I was back in the battle. My mage was able to kite and LoS very well to buy me enough time to recover.

We met them one more time, but this time my druid out played them, and never got into the danger zone. They were force to turn on me, but outside of a sheep, there is nothing you can do to control an UD rogue with full cooldowns and a resto druid throwing him HoTs. We won again, and they stopped queuing.

We went up against a couple of double healer warrior teams. I would usually focus the shaman/druid/priest while my druid and mage handled CC-ing the warrior and pally. Once a target drops to 50%, a cyclone/sheep to blind on the pally would usually end it. It’s really impressive to see a druid and mage CC a warrior. When blessing of freedom is up, it’s usually a sheep on the warrior, which the pally tries to dispel right away. This means he’s not healing, and the sheep allows a druid enough time to get away and cyclone. It wasn’t easy by any means, we won but it was a long fought battle. We won 6 points from it though, so go figure. A 20+ point lost at that point would have sent the team into a deep depression, causing me to go into my THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA speech, consisting mostly of me yelling words that don’t exist in the English language and ripping my shirt off to reveal my perfectly sculpted abs, one layer of fat on top of another. Unfortunately, the gods had denied EPC of such decedent pleasures, and granted us a win.

There was one team that was in the 2200’s we kept running into, and that was a mage warrior and resto shaman team. The warrior however, was buying points because he had crap gear, and the mage was arcane fire to catch people by surprise and blow them up. It didn’t work on us, and we got 40 points from them for 2 games.

We lost one game, against druid warrior warlock. I was on the warlock to prevent fears, but the opposing druid was able to keep the warlock up because we played kind of sloppy. That was our only lost though, and we stopped with a 7-1 record. I had ran out of blinding powder because fade leaf costs 5g for 2 on my sever. I am so glad 2.3 is here, and I don’t have to bend over anymore when I run out of blinding powder during an arena session. Besides, my ass is still sore from the ungodly amounts of warrior/healer teams found on Stromstrike.

We haven’t played a game since then because I have been very busy putting together a 1000 piece puzzle of Tigger with my girlfriend because she thinks it’s “cute”. The lengths we men go to for sex…. It’s not like I’m helping any, I’m just sitting there staring down her shirt when she leans over to look at the puzzle pieces anyway. When she asks me why I “suck balls” at putting puzzles together, I secretly answer in my head it’s because I’m imagining you and your hot friend Ashley doing some sucking of your own; Only to realized that I had actually I said it out loud… fcuk! So much for sex.

3v3 Finally 2k! Part 1

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:50:34 -0500

My past two-blogs post has been about me having trouble breaking the 2k mark with my 3v3. While 5v5 gives the most points, and that is where I get my points from, 3v3 is the most fun by far. Maybe it is because I play a rogue, but I find 3v3 to have some very clutch moments that just makes you say wow after the game is done. Things like a vanish to sap after a fear, sheep or blind can completely turn a game around. Not to mention the 1% vanish to get that desperate heal you need so badly after a healer comes out of a counter spell that I pulled off the other day. If you’re wondering why would I wait until I got that low, then it’s because I got blind-sided by a freaking AP arcane missile spamming mage with 1039 +dmg unbuffed from Forgotten Heroes while my CoS was down. I can still he his gnome face, smiling as he pops his trinket, AP and arcane blast to build up the damage, all the while watching his screen pop up big yellow numbers that would make a mutilate rogue hang his head in shame. I can’t do any of these things in 5v5, because there are just too many factors involved for me to understand when a clutch move is really a clutch move. A blind on the one free healer is about the only thing I can think of that a rogue can really do. Other factors like avoiding damage and locking down the main target is expected of all decent rogues in a 5v5 environment, so there is really nothing special you can really do outside of that.

Anyways, my 3v3 reached an all time high of 2123 last night. Sadly, it was not my shadow priest but a combination of a mage and warlock. I now run a combination of rogue/druid/mage and rogue/druid/warlock. By far I prefer playing with a mage more, because the burst DPS is really fun to pull off and allows for a much faster pace of play. However, SL/SL warlocks are incredibly difficult to bring down, allowing for our druid to cyclone and heal freely. I have found both combinations to have a great amount of success.

With players coming and leaving my 3v3 constantly, I never really was able to get a solid team of players together. For the longest time I thought my 3v3 team was the ugly drunken girl at the club that every one wants to sleep with after 10 beers or so, but once they sober up a little or hit it, they realized it was the beer all along. The only constants were my trusty druid and myself, who seem to be the only one serious about our arena games. Being on a **** hole of a server known as Scilla didn’t really help either. Every single decent player I knew transferred off the server because there just wasn’t a lot of talent to go around. I even had an arena match where the other team whispered me telling me they were from Scilla and they transfer, “do you remember ____? We dueled all the time in front of Org,” all the while curb stomping my face like it’s a damn mash potato. This caused me to beg and plead endlessly for good players to join my team. At first I was able to get Horrace, a skilled ice mage to join my 3v3 and pushed it from 1850 to 1970. However, he left about 2 days later, because he had other teams/friends he wanted to play with, or maybe he just didn’t see any potential in my teammates and me. So that’s cut number one on the wrist, and remember kids, always cut down, not across.

Unable to get another decent mage, I subbed in a felguard warlock thinking that rogue, warlock, druid would work great. However his skill level really show when we would lose games after game. CC’s were lacking and we would tank the rating back down to the 1800’s. It seemed like I was doomed to stay there for the rest of my mediocre wow career. That’s when I met thekai, 494 resil, 800+dmg, SL/SL warlock with amazing CC-ing abilities and the smarts to protect our druid long enough so that he doesn’t just die. We pushed it backed up to 1985, clearly heading straight for the 2k mark with a 10-4 record. However, thekai had to go for the night so we said we would push 2k the following week. When it came time to play again, thekai insisted we use a different druid because my druid wasn’t on. I had no problems with that, except this druid had a much different play style. He was amazing at keeping people alive, and games would drag on and on, but we would lose every time. Where as my druid, who is used to the shadow priest rogue burst DPS, would think CC first and heal second. This allowed us to put the other team on the defensive. Rogues are not meant to outlast, and eventually I will be kited or run out of cooldowns to live through the assist train. We lost a good 10 games IN A ******* ROW. I respecced AR/hemo/Prep to get a second set of cooldowns and was able to get our rating back to the 1900’s, but we ended up with a 10-15 record anyways. It’s amazing how much play styles can dictate how well you work as a team, if just one person on the team isn’t synced, you will lose. From that point on thekai pretty much ignore my whispers for 3v3’s >_<. That’s cut number two, and drunken ugly girl 0, horrace +1 and thekai +1.

At this point I had pretty much given up on my 3v3 team. I pretty much accepted my lack of skill, and thought that all those duels I won, all those 1v2’s and 1v3’s I pull off in BG’s/world PvP’s were flukes. I am not an average rogue after all (I think that an average rogue in decent gear should be able to break 2k); I am a scrub trying to break 2k with other scrubs. I stopped playing 3v3 for a long time (hence the long period between my last post and this one), and just farmed gold/gems/honor in preparation for season 3. Then one day I logged on to find 2 new team members on my team, a raiding rogue by the name of shardina, and a frost mage that I dueled countless times named Epc. They had pushed PASSED 2k, in fact, their rating was 2044!! Wow talk about feeling like ****. My druid replaced me with another rogue, got a mage, and blam! 2k rating. He actually found good people, and they didn’t just hit it and run, they actually called that ugly girl back and said, “Hey you up for a threesome?” The thing was, I wasn’t upset, I was ******* THRILLED. However, they kept hitting a 3 DPS team of warlock, rogue and frost mage that was farming them back down. When I received news of this via whispers from my druid, I gave him a new strat to try and they ended up winning the last match by the skin of their teeth. It as close as you can get, like when you barely hit the toilet and get a little on the rim, IT’S WAS THAT ******* CLOSE. Either way, I was happy they won and they stopped queuing afraid they would meet that team again. I marveled at my rating for a while, 2044, so pretty. The curvy little 2 like that smoking hot girl at the club you stare at all night, the round plump 0 that looks like her apple bottom ass, and the two sharp little 4’s at the end signifying her buff boyfriend and the over protective brother that would kick your ass if he knew what you were thinking about his little sister and some white creamy substance. I was happy, and there were no more cuts on my wrist ^_^

This post got a little too long, so I will continue the story in the next entry, where I actually played. And yes, I actually helped to get the rating up, instead of tanking it like the ******* titanic when Leo and Kate got hot and wild and Leo accidentally poked a hole in the ship. Don’t give me that iceberg bull****, we all know what happened.

3v3 Arena Update: 3DPS

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:08:22 -0400

This is an update from my last post about my 3v3 team. The full article can be found here http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/A-Rogues-Tale/3v3-Arena-Frustrations-and-Intro. ; Basically I was having trouble breaking the low 1900's with my shadow priest/druid/rogue team. I brought in some new players and was able to reach 1987.

Rogue/Druid/Frost Mage
The first sub was a frost mage for the spriest. This allowed for much more survivability but cost us an offensive and defensive dispel.It’s amazing how much damage a warlock can do while being focus fired.

3v3 Arena Frustrations and Intro

no.spam@gameriot.com (Malfore) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:07:20 -0400

Before I start up on my endless rant of how much I suck and spamming sinister strike is the most awesomest pwn sauce way to play a rogue evar, let me give everyone a little introduction and some back story.I am an average player at best and I play an UD female rogue named Cac. Like most people, I started out PvE and then slowly moved toward PvP.I raided back in the old days before TBC and was in one of the top-raiding guilds on my server.I played a mage back then, and just like now, I sucked at my class in PvP for the most part.I was decent enough to be one of the higher DPS-er in the guild, but due to time constraints and graduating college/getting a job, I had to quit raiding.I have always had an interest in PvP, and reached rank 11 or 12 on both my mage and enhancement shaman in the old honor system.When TBC game along, my frustration with enhancement shaman PvP and inability to keep from being kited lead me to re-roll a true melee class, so now I play an UD rogue.So now when I get kited, at least I look good getting hit.It’s so cool right?Well, I’m exaggerating, a rogue has it so much better then an enhancement shaman it’s not even funny.

Now that the introductory stuff is out of the way, let me get to point of my blog. I sit around the 1800-1900 ranges in all three brackets for arena. My gear consists of PvP honor items and S2 arena gear.I currently have 3 pieces of S2 and working on my 4th piece for the 10 energy set bonus that I should have by next week.My teammates are in comparable gear, except our druid who is only sitting around 260 resilience.For 2v2, I run spriest/rogue, and spriest/druid/rogue in 3v3.Like every other rogue out there, I run a 4DPS 5v5 team.The problem is that I have hit a brick wall at the low 1900’s in 3v3.I cannot break out of the 1900’s and end up bouncing back and forth between 1810-1940 through the week.Before when we were just starting up the team, I always thought it was the gear.We were very under geared since we started half way through season 2 (I mark the death of WSVG as the end of season 2).My team consisted of a totally PvE geared druid with 7k HP, a shadow priest in full HWL gear, and a full HWL combat mace rogue with a S2 mace.We manage to hit 1800 fairly easily, but hit the gear cap at around 1850.As we slowly geared up, we moved towards 1950 when we realized that there are some teams that just destroy us.We have absolutely no counter to some teams, and end up playing badly because we force bad strategies as a last ditch effort.We really just end up losing more points and being pissed off at each other.

Now that we’re all decently geared, I am starting to question my team’s make up, and individual player skill.I know I have god knows how much to improve on, but some fights just seem so futile.With a shadow priest and druid, my team has decent CC and burst, but all of that is negated if the spriest is focus fired.I am forced to protect my shadow priest or rely solely on my DPS to take down someone.Without the shadow priest’s fear/silence on a healer, it’s just not going to happen.The druid is too busy cycloning/rooting one of the DPS as well as healing the spriest to CC the healer long enough for me to drop someone.My blind is usually immediately trinketed and then I am forced to save my shadow priest’s life by shifting to CC mode instead of DPS mode.Then its just wait for the inevitable because the spriest will drop as my druid’s mana runs low due to mana burns and drains.Pretty much the spriest is rendered useless and it always feels like it’s a 2v3 every game.The worst is when we run into 3 DPS teams of rogue/mage/spriest or warlock.They focus shadow priest and forces druid to heal, switch to druid and if he runs drop the spriest immediately.I feel like a total scrub because trying to protect my shadow priest from 3 DPS is like trying to convince my girlfriend that a threesome with her hot girl fiends is beneficial to our relationship.In the end I just end up with a hard dick, a pissed off girlfriend and a playboy magazine.In this case, the pissed off girlfriend if my spriest, and the playboy magazine is me doing BG’s to blow off some steam.Here are the strategies that I am thinking of to try and counter some of these more troublesome teams.

3 DPS teams of Mage, Rogue, Spriest/Warlock

The one thing I realize is that I have to be better at not getting CC via sheeps and fears.When I open up on their DPS or am trying to stun lock someone to protect my own spriest, I have to time my trinkets/vanish/CloS so that I can avoid or negate the first 5-8 seconds of CC being thrown around at the beginning.I was thinking if we run into the 3 DPS team of mage/rogue/spriest, I would pressure the spriest hard while avoiding CC. Hoping that my druid can somehow keep my spriest up long enough for me to drop their spriest.However this means I have to play perfectly against the mage/spriest.I could open on the spriest, eat the first sheep and trinket out.I would then CloS the next incoming sheep (mage is my focus, so I have to pay attention to the focus casting bar), and then vanish the third incoming sheep.This will buy my shadow priest some time because it takes the mage DPS off of him for 5-8 seconds, and I will try my best to shut down their spriest’s DPS.It would still be extremely hard, and most likely I would not be able to pull it off.

Hunter, Warrior + Healer (Usually a Paladin)

Of course the warrior and hunter are on the spriest from the start, and I am trying to bring down the hunter.I can’t stay on the hunter too long because of BoF and frost trap slowing me down.Usually the hunter is able to get away for that couple of seconds to get heal and never drop below 60% HP.The viper sting on both the priest and druid makes it a timed fight, and we have to kill something before mana runs dry.I was thinking we switch to killing the warrior and focusing on CC-ing the healer.This leaves the hunter to run free DPS-ing, which will really hurt, but I can’t think of any other way to do this.

Mage, Rogue, Hpriest

What a nightmare this match up is.The rogue and mage are both on the spriest, and I am stuck in frost novas and sheeps.I can not protect my spriest, my druid is getting mana burned, and I feel completely useless whenever I get to the mage only to see him blink/walk away after all my CD’s are gone.Trying to control the rogue is impossible with sheeps, and the Spriest can’t dispel my sheeps fast enough because he’s trying to live through the shatter/kidney shot combo.We usually go after the mage, let the druid cyclone the rogue, and hopefully be able to drop the mage or put enough pressure to make him play defensively.Again, it’s a race of who will die first, my spriest or their mage.Being that the mage can ice block twice, it’s usually my priest.

Warrior, Warlock + Healer

We usually go after the warlock, but goddamn is it hard to bring a warlock down.Sometimes we actually go after the warrior and find it to be a lot easier.However, this team usually gives us a 50-50 spilt in terms of win lose ratio.US locks are focus first of course, but SL/drain locks force us to jump on the warrior.

Bleh I’m getting way too tired because this has turned into a freaking novel.Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.