Feed Reader Run Amok
When Aurdon asked me to write now and then for I Sheep Things, the very first thing I did was read all the blogs I could find. Now, my at-home time is dedicated to “more important things” things like being a good roommate, keeping my house from falling in, feeding my puppy, and (last but not least) actually playing WoW. So work became my “blogging time”. As I got more comfortable with the blog circles and started to expand my reading list I began to get the world’s most annoying error message more and more.
“The websense category: “Games” is filtered. Please use your browser’s back button to return to previous page.”
Ugh!
As time passed, and I spent time on WoW blogs, more and more of you fell on the websense chopping block. Starting with the fabled WoWInsider, right down to the small folks… that’s right… me. When the webfilter blocked www.isheepthings.com I nearly cried. I still do my blogging at work, but I type it up in Word and email it to myself to post when I get home.
So, with time, I discovered I could still read those blocked blogs through my Google Feed Reader. I have to do something while I’m answering people’s obvious questions about their health insurance. But even though I can read the posts, I can never actually comment on any of these great high quality blogs from behind my filter. I guess that’s a good thing, since I haven’t got time to read all the blogs on my list, let alone comment on them. But there are times that I’m just dying to add something to one of the discussions at World of Matticus or spicytunas or WTFSpaghetti and I just can’t do it.
Enough about my blog-reading woes.
Rhii’s making good progress. She’s at level 67 now, she’s consistently doing about 1k dps solo, although that’s much reduced in groups. I think because outside instances things die too fast, and inside instances I’m having big big problems hitting anything. Seriously, I can peg a sporebat at max range with no problem at all, but when I’m aiming at a dragon the size of a small castle all I see are a succession of little yellow “Miss”es? Get your eyes checked, Rhii! I think you may be developing presbyopia! What do I need to do to fix this? Is it a gear issue or is it that I’m underleveled for the instances I’m in? Is it a problem with the spells I’m using? I don’t know. Hopefully it fixes itself or I’m going to be the saddest DPSer on earth. We were in Caverns of Time last week and I was barely managing to scrape out 150 D’s per S.
Also, I bought a new mouse yesterday. It’s a Logitech M518 and it fits ALL my mouse requirements. It has 8 programmable buttons. It’s adjustably sensitive which is beautiful, since I like smooth movement, but I also like control… you can nudge it one direction or another on a whim, or you can just set it at the balance point of your choosing and leave it alone. It’s also corded. I despise cordless mice. They run out of batteries. They have receivery things that get bent in transit or when smacked by stray dachshunds. They lose connection with said receivery things and cause me to slam them around in frustration until I break them. I want a corded mouse now and forever. This one is just beautiful. I may have found the mouse that will cure me of keyboard turning forever.
All in all, I’m pretty satisfied.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Feedreaders = great.
It's a shame when people only post a partial feed.. they don't realise it is turning readers away rather than winning them. If you can't read at work… you just wont read.
Just be careful of your feedreading addiction… I never have less that 300 posts, often 1,000+ after a weekend… I never quite knock them over.
Hitting little dragons is much easier than big ones…
I am guessing, but it will come down to the level difference between you and the dragon.
Most likely you have wisely expended you energy getting +spell power gear… at 67, you now need to split your attention… start looking for +hit gear to augment your gear..
You only really need this for the big fellas… each level above yours is harder to hit (or easier to miss), thus you need +hit gear to level the playing field.
I don't have the numbers at my finger tips… I am sure Aurdon does.. otherwise try wowwiki.
I really struggled with keeping up on my feed reading but then I finally gave in and hit the terrible "mark all as read" button…after the second or third time of that I decided to reduce my feed count as there just isn't enough time to read everyone out there. I keep the "breaking wow news" type sites, specific RSS feeds (Mage blue trackers, etc), and of course my Mage buddies out there (Gnomeaggedon, Larisa, Spicytunas, Critical QQ….well basically my Magetastic Site blog roll (which needs updating btw). I agree with Gnomeaggedon on how the "read more" feeds can be a turn off. Thats why I decided to not do that to Isheepthings.com RSS fans. Also if you want to avoid emailing yourself a post you can try to work with a blog tool like <a href=”http://www.scribefire.com” target=”_blank”>http://www.scribefire.com plugin for firefox. Or you can use docs.google.com to move your posts from work to home without having to deal with messy email attachments.
Spell hit definitely comes into play when you are fighting mobs above your level or of the boss variety. It varies depending on the level gap but if you are say 65 and the mob is 68, there is a 17% chance your spell will miss. Spell hit reduces that 17%. You can also spec into talents like arcane flows and precision to increase your hit %. Its an important stat but I wouldn't say it is worth seeking out spell hit gear at levels lower then say 78. The natural process of leveling will over come your inability to hit that level 68 mob. You could also move over to a new zone that is closer to the 65 range if it is that much of a problem. I say search for it at 78 because by then you are getting close to 80 where you will need some amount of spell hit to do well in dungeons/raids. Check out krizzlybear's post on spell hit for naxx when you get close to level cap.
I've got the MX518 too…its a great mouse and I bought it for the same features you are enjoying…corded and has lots-o-buttons.
Heehee, my new trick for feed reading is every other day I start at the BOTTOM of the list. Otherwise I never get past the C's or D's… There's a lot of blogs at the beginning of the alphabet.