The Necromancer wins!

Now that I've been playing for a little while again, let's just say that my little debate on whether to play a necromancer or a shadowknight in Everquest II has been settled.

It took a little while to figure out all the spell changes they had made since I've been gone. It also took some time to adjust my hunting tactics. Once I did though, I went out into the world... and continued to get my ass kicked for a while.

Fortunately for me, I ran into a helpful individual in Riverdale that asked me to help him with some heroic mobs. After the first two wipes, a couple pet changes, and we were off and running. Being forced to step up to the top of your game in a hurry is a great way to get back into a game. I went from getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis to simply destroying the mobs I had been previously hunting.

So what would any necromancer worth their powdered blood do with their new found skills? Why go on and try to take on a named wasp that had troubled you in the past!

In the Enchanted Lands, there is an overgrown wasp named Burnspear. That little bastard had killed me repeatedly in the past, so it was time to get a little revenge. I went wandering up to his general hunting grounds and started scouting around. Sure enough, there he was on the top of the hill. Targetting the bugger (no pun intended), I send in my zombie pet, then follow him up with 3 rats, and a poisonous zombie and snake combination. Toss on my biggest DoTs (damage over time spells), and get ready to watch him croak.

That was the plan at least... it worked right up until you get to the "watch him croak" part. That freaking bastard apparently has a huge AoE (Area of Effect) spell that I hadn't known about at that point. So there I am, casting away, my pets are wailing away on him, and "Wham!", just like the ring of fire/energy Diablo uses in Diablo II, I see this ring go out. No more zombie tank pet, no more rats, no more zombie/snake poison combo.

Even though I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm the ruler of life and death in the EQII world, there is a downside to having all that magical might. The same thing that has haunted spell-slingers from the ages... I may as well be wearing toilet paper when my target decides to take a personal interest in me and proceed to carve me up faster than an Alabama pig roast.

One of these days, even if I don't get a damn thing from him, I'm going back to kill that bastard.

Chalk another up on the Revenge List, hehe.

I'll still go ahead and horse around with the shadowknight, but at least for now, I am SO sticking with my necro!

General Ramblings

Yep - no particular topic tonight, just some rambling because I'm irritated, stressed, and generally just fed up with almost everything around me at the moment.

As for a tiny tech support note - quit being fucking morons!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you are incapable of being walked through a simple password reset in under 20 fucking minutes, I have some instructions for you:
1) Pack up your office and quit your job
2) Find the nearest street with heavy traffic
3) Lay in the road and count mufflers

The fact that there are even humans walking around like this terrifies me. Quit being so fucking stupid people. Shut the fuck up, clean the shit out of your ears, and LISTEN to what you're told. FUCK!

Next, I want to go see the new Underworld. So far, general life issues and cash have combined at different times to keep me from it so far. I'm hoping I'll be able to catch it sometime next week. I've heard it was pretty awesome, except for a couple parts that were a bit odd. I'll have to wait and see for myself. One thing is for sure though - Kate Beckinsale as Selena is seriously freaking hot!!! Love the outfit :P

Here's a good topic - the evilness of younger sisters, haha. My little ray of sweet sunshine, aka my little hooligan (haha), pointed me towards a site called illwillpress.com which features the adventures of Germaine and Foamy, a crazy squirrel bent on bringing the will of the Lord and Master (him) to the rest of the world in the form of... "The Church of Foamy"! Now just by this little description, I would think that the whole thing sounds pretty stupid. The exact opposite is true though - the short cartoons on the site are absolutely fucking hilarious. You know you're in trouble when you tell your wife she has to behave because otherwise you'll unleash your "Squirrely Wrath" on her. Yes, I did say that. Let me just say she didn't believe me. He also has some songs, one of which is so perfect for me, it's just scary. Let me give you the first line, which says it all - "I am your Lord and Master. You are all bastards." Don't blame me - it's all her fault :)

Ok - I'm done for now. I think I'll go watch the "Tech Support" cartoon on there. It always makes me laugh.

I need a vacation

Just like everyone else, I'm in serious need for a vacation. Perhaps a more accurate comment would be that I'm in need for a lottery win, haha.

Seriously, I'm sick of working. Period. As insane as it may sound, I want a life of relaxation and luxury. I want to be able to see more of Australia. I want killer computer rigs and the time to work on them as much as I want.

I don't necessarily think this makes me lazy, just in need of a different focus. I'd keep myself busy, but it would be with the things that I want to do. The headaches that come with any job do not factor into my list of things I want to do.

Perhaps by the standards of some people, I've already done a lot. I've been to Japan, Bali, Korea, and Australia. I've worked with military aircraft and their weapon systems. I've worked in classified computer systems. I've got pieces of my artwork on display throughout the country in the form of tattoos.

All of this though is simply not enough. At different points in time, I've been asked why men in particular tend to talk about the past, or their "glory days". The real answer to this is simple. In the past, we had no one depending on us. We could do whatever we chose and live with the consequences (or rewards) of those actions because they did not affect anyone else. As we go further in life though, we discover that others depend on us. It is at this point in a man's life that it becomes more difficult to take chances in life, whether it be with money or career, because others depend on us. How can we risk everything knowing that if we happen to lose our loved ones will be forced to share the price of that failure.

To me, this is why men talk about their glory days. It reminds us of a time when we were free to take all the risks we wished.

FUCK the electric company

For the love of anything holy, can someone possibly explain how this is legal?

I wasn't exactly the shiniest apple in the barrel, but I do seem to remember a big section in Civics talking about monopolies. Isn't that what Microsoft just got nailed with last year?

So how in the ever-living FUCK can the electric company continually hike up our rates? Where the fuck is my voice in any of this? Last year, they put up a vote to increase rates. Do you have any idea who the voters for that particular action were, while being perfectly legal? THE GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING ELECTRIC COMPANY BOARD MEMBERS!!!!! Of COURSE they're going to approve a rate increase!

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I am so fucking pissed off right now I want to scream. I just had to pay a $400 electric bill. That's right - $400 fucking dollars!!! For one motherfucking month!

Even better news - next month, the price per thermal (heat) goes up another 30 cents each. I know that doesn't initially sound like a lot, but in a winter month, do you know how many thermals an average house uses? Over 120. Using that math, that's another $36. How long before our bill hits $500?

Let me tell you another little secret to add to all this - we're already living penny by motherfucking penny!!! FUCK!

Yet what are you going to do? I've turned down our thermostat to 62, so it's gonna be nice and fucking cold in here now. Fucking yay!

Do you not pay the bill? Great - now you have no electricity and no motherfucking heat.

"So go and use some other company then," you say? We can't. Know why? BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER MOTHERFUCKING ELECTRIC COMPANY THAT SUPPORTS THIS AREA.

Yeah - that's right. The electric comany (Xcel you fucking cum guzzling gutter sluts!!!!!) is the only fucking company here. They can keep hiking their rates up every fucking month and there's not a god damn fucking thing we can do about it!

Where the fuck is the justince in all of this? Where? I sacrificed years of my life serving this country besides thousands of others, and what did it get us? An equal chance to be bent over and fucked like everyone else.

So enjoy it while you can Xcel. My only wish at this point is that I manage to eventually get off the grid using solar panels and wind. If that happens, I hope it becomes a movement across the entire country. I hope at that point, that you fucking keel over and die a slow horrible death, drowning in the bile of your own fruits!

FUCK YOU!!!!! Fuck every last one of you money sucking fucking crack whores. I hope you all fucking rot in whatever semblance of hell your particular gods have in store for you. You spent your life raping the poor so you could live a life of extravagance.

GO FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Necromancer vs Shadowknight

First off, let me state that I'm talking about Everquest 2, rather than anything in real life. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to have their head examined long before I do. :P

For years, I've played a necromancer. First in EQ1, now in EQ2. The combination of having a tanking pet and DoTs (Damage over time spells) were the perfect combination for me. When I went to World of Warcraft for awhile, I played a hunter simply for the fact that the play-style was that of an EQ necro.

Having come back to EQ2 again with a temporary free "Come back to us" trial, I've noticed that they have completely revamped the combat abilities and spells of all classes. So far, this is proving to be a good thing.

The classes now begin to feel like themselves much sooner than before. For example, my old 38th level necro in EQ2 didn't begin to feel like a necromancer (as I had played one in EQ1 for years), until I hit level 35. At that point, I finally had a couple of DoTs and undead spells. That's 35 levels to go through before you can even begin to judge whether you like any particular class. Far too excessive in my opinion.

They have done a much better job this time around. As soon as you hit level 10 (not hard), you begin to branch from the archetype of your choice (fighter, mage, priest, scout) and get closer to your chosen class. My level 10 mage chose to go the Summoner route (which leads to necro at 20) and actually gets some summoning based spells early on. Same thing with my fighter that chose Crusader on the path to Shadowknight.

You can't imagine how happy this makes me. Well... maybe you can if you're as big a geek as my wife tells me I am all the time, haha. :)

Anyway...

This now brings me to a bit of a conundrum. The Shadowknight now gets disease, hate, and despair based spells much earlier than they did before. They also make good fighters as well, so now I'm having a bit of a complex.

I've played necromancers for years because of their roleplaying capabilties and diversity of spells/roles within the game they can fill. They are very self sufficient, but fit well within groups as well. We can be emergency mezzer, DPS, minor healing, etc. And of course, we have the power of Death itself... pretty impressive :)

The Shadowknight also has some good things going for it as well. To those of us that are old-school DnD'ers, it's essentially the anti-paladin. A very fun class to play. I get to be holy knight that rules with an iron glove. Holy? Did I say holy? Yes. Unholy, if you want to pick at it, but you are a warrior for your chosen deity, sent to uphold the word of your god. The roleplaying possiblities for this character also abound. Plus you get the abiltity of Harm Touch - essentially the reverse of the Paladin's "Lay On Hands". Rather than healing a player for a large amount of health once every day (in game time - believe the timer is 45 minutes in RL), you get to have an instant attack that causes mass amounts of damage. Gives new meaning to the old telephone ads, "Reach out and touch someone", haha.

In EQ1, I tried playing an SK a few times, but they were too boring back then. They weren't good fighters, and their spell casting ability sucked. In EQ2, they still aren't the best at either one, but they are much more effective than they were. Now with the combination of each set of abilities, the shadowknight is a power unto himself.

For now, I'm still playing around with both. My 38th level necromancer is still there, but I'm not bringing her out until I learn how to play the class with these new abilities. It's lot easier to learn with a low level character than trying with her - the mobs don't hit anywhere near as hard. :)