20 Days of WoW blogging #11

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Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws

Jealousy in more than one way. I can be quite jealous of various things - mounts, achievements, loot, status - and it's something I can't seem to get rid of even with time. What I can, though, is try to hide it the best I can, and keep it out of the way. Of course there's also the classic jealousy of one's attention, particularly if it's that special person, or someone else that I unjustly claim as my own somehow.

Then there's competitiveness. I always used to say I wasn't competitive, but the truth is that I am not competitive for as long as I don't feel threatened. It only applies to things I care about, but it can get really annoying to people who are close to me, as they might feel like I am always racing them in something.I suppose behind this lies my need to be noted for things and fear of being left behind or considered incompetent.

My pride is both a good and a bad thing. It's become an inevitable part of what I consider myself to be like, but often prevents me from solving arguments involving myself. I find it difficult to apologise, and try to come up with reasons why there's no need for me to do so. Thinking about it, I'm surprisingly narcissistic for someone that's actually lived under the tyranny of one very much like that.

I don't want to mention this, but I must. I'm horribly lazy. Whether it's on WoW or in real life, I rarely come to complete unpleasant tasks. You know, those that I should do, but just can't be arsed. This is a prime example of how I don't learn from my mistakes. Those uncompleted dailies or messy tables always find a way to come back to haunt me in some form.

A whole new spark

Good evening! After a long while, I come bearing good news.

In the absense of things to do, I've found an entirely new spark for WoW. I never would have admitted this while it was the present feeling, but I almost got bored of the game during the spring. I didn't particularly feel like logging in and I only really did so for the purpose of raiding. I had no projects regarding leveling or gearing up. But now, as I am unable to raid with my guild, unable to run dungeons, unable to explore the new heroic scenarios, I've been doing LFR on most of my maximum level characters. Nicasia and Vladan are quite nicely geared and well able to do Throne of Thunder, but in addition I am working on Raleigh's (holy paladin) and Jester's (brewmaster/windwalker monk) gear to get them into ToT as well. Raleigh is currently lacking three points. Jester's situation still looks a bit grim with an item level of around 465. Oh, and by "doing LFR" I mean relying entirely on the performance of the 24 other people - but hey, three, two and even one FPS is better than no FPS at all. Positive thinking all the way!

I do miss raiding a lot and I hope to get my primary PC back soon. I have given full raid leadership to a very trusted officer with whom I've been raiding since early Firelands, so there should be no more raid burnouts for me. I'm actually really looking forward to being "just a raider" without so much responsibility. Of course I'll still be doing the usual yelling of things and whatnot, but I'll be doing it because I like to do it, not because I must do it. What I am most of all looking forward to is not having to look after others so much, and being able to look after myself more when it comes to raid performance.

Something interesting I've noticed for the first time in my WoW life is that I feel ever so slightly bored of elemental shaman - which I find completely normal, considering I've had an elemental shaman as my main since late Wrath of the Lich King. I sure have respect for our offtank, who has had the same character as his main since he started playing in vanilla. I still intend to raid with Nicasia as I am able to, but I may look into the possibility of raiding with Vlad, for example, when possible. I had a ton of fun tanking and DPSing Dragon Soul with him in late Cataclysm. My gear lacks behind severely compared to the rest of the raid group, anyway, so it won't make much difference which character I am on. Nicasia will continue to be my main character, regardless of who I end up raiding with, though. We've got such a long history.

I am absolutely loving the 5.3 fact that you can choose to get loot for a different specialization! It's enabled me to work on Raleigh's gear through LFR. I wouldn't dare attempt to heal with craptop. I also think it'll be a good help when getting Vlad some new tanking gear, as I don't enjoy tanking LFR. So, yay for 5.3, yay for gearing up, yay for WoW.

One year of Adventures special: Nica IRL

It's been exactly one year since the first post on Adventures of the Hex Machine saw daylight. Happy birthday, blog! In honor of my first year of WoW blogging, I decided to introduce the person behind Nicasia the Hex Machine, or should I say, her partner in crime.

Although on WoW, my primary game, I've been an elemental shaman since the summer of 2010, I am a rogue in real life. A human subtlety/assassination rogue named Olivia to be exact, or as the URL of my personal blog indicates, "that rogue Liv." I'm from southwestern Finland, which makes Finnish my mother tongue. I became a rogue at the age of 13, when I found that stealthing around was a great way to avoid unwanted attention and remain unseen. Yet there were moments I couldn't hide, perhaps the work of Nefarian (BWL), which resulted in me getting ganked a lot. So I've been a rogue for pretty much seven years now, as I will turn 20 next month. When did I get that old, seriously?

Which of my characters do I resemble the most? Elias Desrosiers is what I would be like if I were male. Nicasia carries my passion, Raleigh and I share a lot of personality traits, Vladan's burden is partially my own. Every character of mine represents something of me, which is why they sometimes feel like my virtual children, or creations the same way a child would.

Some of my favorite blog moments/posts from the past year include Ress please!, my MoP beta memories, the wedding of Sol & Lykke and the launch of Pandaria.

Although I've been quite an inactive blogger the past few months due to real life things and my primary PC letting me down, I'm very thankful for my first year of WoW blogging and I'm eager to see what the rest of those years are like. Thank you all for reading and visiting the Adventures, and stay tuned for my future shenanigans.