So for any item links PRIOR to this post, mousing over them will result in 2 tooltips. Item links after this post will only show one tooltip. Doing it any other way breaks the links. QQ!

Has there ever been an item that you REALLY REALLY wanted? Then when it finally dropped you were so excited to see it? Then you waited anxiously to see if you had won it or not? And when you DID win it you were sooooo excited? Here are the 5 items like that for me from least to greatest.

5. [Deathbringer]
Why: Its a fork. No really, its a fork. Thats my reason and I used it for aaaaaaaaages. Well ok the really high DPS and slow slowwwww speed probably had something to do with it too.

4. [Swift Zulian Tiger]
Why: I was excited when I won it, but it wasn't something I was actively seeking. Most people assume this was probably the most exciting item I've gotten considering the rarity of it. I was fairly excited when it dropped, and really excited when I won it, but its really not the most exciting item.

3. [Pauldrons of Might]
Why: For the longest time I thought these were the best looking shoulders in the game and I thought that if I had won them I would NEVER take them off. Of course it didn't really work out that way. >.>

2. [Ironfoe]
Why: Its an Ironfoe! Another one I wasn't actively trying to get. I was farming BRD for the Hand of Justice...this just happened to drop first. I've seen someone else with one in a battleground, but I've never seen anyone else on my server with one. Kind of like the Zulian tiger, I've never seen any alliance people with one of those on my server...but there is a tauren with one. I was even more excited when I learned that when it proc'd I could speak Dwarf! <3 Dwarves.

1. [Flameguard Gauntlets]
Why: Well, if you want to know the truth of it...I think that was my first molten core epic. This was also the item that I wanted the most. I always wanted to go to molten core to get them, and when I actually got to do molten core - They dropped. And I won them. I couldn't believe it. I was so excited! Shiny purple pixels! Woo!

Noticing a lack of BC items in there? I wonder why that is. I'd like to hear from other people about what items they've gotten the most excited about. I know they're unimportant pixels and nothing else but lets face it, they excite us.

I'm aware that this is mostly obsolete in a couple weeks...maybe even this week or next week! The entire tanking game is changing, I think there are pretty amazing changes for all the tanking classes, but warrior tanking is completely different. Its going to be weird, but I think its going to be extremely fun as well. I just want to document my current methods and maybe someday look back, read about them, and think about how much things have changed.

I should have done it pre-BC as well, but didn't. I sort of regret that. Pre-BC I used NR as more of a loot tracker than a blog.

I got some questions about my use of [Force Reactive Disk] at level 70. Yes, I do use it. Not all the time, just for certain things. I used it in 5 mans, and once I got geared enough that using it in heroics wouldn't mean certain death I started using it there as well. Its not a REQUIRED thing by any means, but it means I get to be a little bit lazy sometimes.

Things I use it for:
1) The wyrms in Magister's Terrace. I round them all up at once with it. It takes a pretty big durability hit during this, but its relatively cheap to repair, so its worth it.
2) Brewfest Boss Adds
3) Just about all normal instances now.
4) Shattered Halls - Heroic and Normal. Its great for this.
5) Pretty much anything where there are lots of adds that don't do magic damage.

Why not on magic damage adds?

Couple of reasons.
1) They're usually not close enough
2) They can't proc it themselves, it requires something blockable to proc it.
3) Spell Reflect does a fine job of this.

I've mentioned before I'm a biiiiig fan of Spell Reflect. Spell reflect comes in handy for tanking heroics. Its something that makes me job a lot easier.

Things spell reflect is good for:

1) Heroic Slave Pens - You know those two pulls near the start where you get a Naga and then his three Broken adds that run away when he dies? On the one side, theres usually two casters. If you spell reflect on the pull, you'll reflect both frostbolts from them and that will keep them on you the entire fight. This means you just have to devastate the melee add once, and then tank the Naga.

2) Heroic Slave Pens - Some of the Broken mobs in here have a Cripple Debuff. These mobs come in pairs, so you can silence the first cripple and reflect the second.

3) Imps in Shadow Labyrinth - At the start of Shadow Labyrinth there is a pull with an orc warlock and several imps that do a Fire Bolt spell. If you run out of line of sight, once they bunch up they'll all start casting at once. Spell Reflecting here keeps them on you and you don't have to bother with them while you tank the warlock. Easy? Yup!

4) Imps in Blood Furnace - Near the end of blood furnace, right before you go down the "Hallway of Death" with the giant Fel Guard mobs that can completely destroy a geared tank if they get a little bit lucky there is a pull with several elite imp mobs. Bloodrage, charge into the room, and spell reflect immediatly. With any lucky at all, you'll reflect all their firebolts, except the mob you charged who was stunned for a second. After this I just go around devastating and thunderclapping them as needed, but the spell reflect gives me a decent head start.

5) Pulls in Magisters' Terrace. If warriors are good at anything, its soaking up large amounts of damage. Just not spell damage, which is what Magisters' is all about. Some of the pulls in there consist of several mobs that do lots of spell damage. I try to keep enough rage at the end of a fight so that I'll be able to spell reflect at the start of the next. Mostly I'll Mark the mobs, Shoot them, and then run around a corner so that they all come to me in a neat little line. Sometimes though the distance between the mobs and the corner is far enough that they'll get a spell off and if its a frost spell, you might get slowed and take 2-3 more spells before getting around the corner to your group. Sometimes its just a lifesaver because something goes wrong with the CC and you get hit with 3-4 spells at one and your health rapidly drops.

Times to NOT use Spell Reflect:
1) In a crowded area filled with hostile mobs when something is casting fear at you. Reflecting a fear in an instance can often result in death. Unless the mob thats fearing you happens to be immune to fear. Then you can safely reflect the fear and get an "Immune!" message.

2) When you're fighting mobs that cast Damage Over Time Spells, or things like Fireball that have a DoT attached to them and one of those mobs is set to be crowd controlled. I've accidently done this in magister's terrace. I marked a mob that does Fireball for sheep, and I spell reflected on the pull and so the mob couldn't be sheeped. Oops!

In the upcoming patch with all the awesome changes of awesomeness...Two things happen that I'm quite excited about, if the beta is any indication at least.

1) Raging Berserker Tanking! What do I mean by that? On the beta realm I'm doing crazy damage while tanking. Thats a lot nicer than being "RWAR GIANT MEAT SHIELD...that hits you for 120 damage woo!"

2) SuperClap - The thunderclap changes make it even more awesome, so multimob tanking becomes slightly less frantic! Yay!

OPINION INCOMING.
I read a thread on the forum earlier from someone who was having trouble tanking more than 2 mobs at once and half the people were telling them "It takes lots of practice, keep working at it!" and the other half was saying "Don't bother trying, the new changes make it not required." - I'm in agreement with the first half. I talk to quite a few warrior tanks that I've met in my time playing WoW and the general belief is that the longer you've been tanking the better you're going to be with it, even if it changes completely and everything you knew becomes obsolete.

Tanking was very different pre-BC, and we didn't have all the multimob tools we have today, but we learned how to do it and we did it. BC came out, changed lots of things, new things to learn, and we learned it and did it. Most people that are new to the warrior class have serious problems with multimob tanking and lots of them just can't do it. Its not something that gets explained to you in game very well. Its something you have to do a combination of reading about and figuring out yourself. I could write out in great detail everything that I know about tanking lots of mobs at once, but it wouldn't really tell someone exactly how to do it. You just have to get a feel for it. Reading about it tells you what to aim for and the basics of it, but there are a billion different situations where you make slight variations to your strategy.

Now Warrior tanking is getting a complete overhaul, its going to be a totally different game for us. Its a very exciting time to be a Protection Warrior. Things are getting "easier" for us, but I'm of the opinion that learning how to do things the "hard way" will benefit you more in the long run.

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming patch and I expect to be posting several updates when it hits about all the differences and how tanking for me has changed. If I have the time... >.> My schedule is pretty blah right now.

Playing WoW again recently. For the record I think that WAR is a better game in almost every aspect but unfortunately I haven't really found anybody to play with, which takes most of the fun out of it. Which in turn leads to me playing more WoW than WAR. I have fun with WAR, but its not the same without anybody you know...You know?

I was reading this thread on the general forums today and it made me feel somewhat old. I "get it" and I remember enjoying that game. (Read the replies, if you've been playing video games for a long time, you should get it. :P)

Also called Naissa's Guide to Not being a Ginourmous Fuckhead.

From time to time on the internet you'll make friends. Sometimes these friends will have other friends, or family, or significant others. This can be tricky! It seems to me that most people aren't really sure how this works!

Friends/Family/Significant others of your friends are people, not lepers. Now granted, you don't HAVE TO Play with Bob's mentally deficient cousin that thinks its a good idea to be a protection paladin wearing cloth, but you SHOULD include friends of friends in things from time to time and engage in conversation with them so that they don't feel like they've got the plague or something.

Let me give you an example. My bestest friend in the entire universe and me had two friends that are no longer friends because they're asshats. They would always say "Hey Naissa do you want to run X instance?" Always. They would never ask her! Ever! This lead to hurt feelings and me being cranky. It wasn't that they just needed X class and that was me, because at the time I was a DPS warrior 100% of the time, and you don't NEED one of those for a 5 man!

So I've made a handy chart type thing. We'll get to that later.

If someone is a friend of a friend, you don't HAVE TO like them, theres no rule or law that says you do but you should probably NOT pretend they don't exist, or only talk to them to ask them where your friend is. Thats rude, and you want to avoid doing that. If you go 3 months without saying a word to someone and then you say "Hi - Where is Bob?" The first thought going through their mind is how they can kill you without geting caught.

Its not nice, it leads to hurt feelings, don't do it!

Lets talk about SOs - If someone's husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/mail order bride plays the same game, its probably a good idea to talk to them and invite them to things from time to time, even if they usually say no, because 10 times out of 10 someone is going to choose their SO over you. "Sorry Tom, like you, but I love Susan and Susan says you're an asshat, don't talk to me anymore!" - You probably want to avoid that, or you're a shitty friend to start with.

Also if you're a hooker you probably want to avoid acting like such to someone's SO unless you're looking for trouble. For example:

Hi Janet/Tom do you want to go to heroic underbog? - GOOD
Janet, I was wondering do you have any pictures? PREFERABLY TOPLESS EH EH EH? - BAD
Tom, Did you know that Janet is a horrible person and she's not right at all for you? - BAD! BAD! BAD! Stay out of people's personal business! >< ;;

Why am I posting this? Because I've seen this happen entirely too often. Enjoy!

Hi! My WoW Account may be cancelled, but it hasn't expired yet! So I might as well go ahead and do the Brewfest thing.

If you're not aware, there is a level 73 Dark Iron Dwarf in the pub in Blackrock Depths. His name is Coren Direbrew. Theres a daily quest to kill him right outside of the room where he is, and theres a "teleport" inside the entrance of the instance to go directly to him.

So how do you, as a protection warrior, lay the smack down on him? First lets look at what he does!

1) He has a disarm with a fairly long casting time. Your melee people will want to move away from him, because this hits fairly hard and results in being disarmed. As a tank, with decent gear, you don't really HAVE TO move if you don't want to. If you can take the couple thousand damage, you can be lazy. >.>
2) He summons HAWT Dwarf Women that throw beer at you. Be careful though, if they throw beer at you. If you don't drink the beer you get disoriented for 6 seconds and get a keg stuck on your head. This results in a loss of aggro and someone could maybe sort of possibly almost die!
3) Lots of adds spawn during this fight. You can either kill them or ignore them.

So WHY are we killing this guy? EPICS! You know those nifty 41 badge trinkets? Yeah, he drops trinkets with the same stats as those. He also drops a Kodo, a Ram, some stam trinkets with a neat effect, a dagger, and some other toys. Full loot table can be found here.

So HOW do we kill him? I've done this two ways.

The first time I did this someone suggested that I just tank all the adds. Someone else, who obviously doesn't know that Naissa is a tankadin in disguise, said that warriors can't do that. Pffffft. You CAN tank all the adds. Easily. Here is a step by step.

First of all, if you're oldschool and retarded you might have a [Force Reactive Disk]. If you do, he hits soft enough that you can go ahead and use it! Its not even close to required, but 1) It looks cool and 2) It helps a bit.

Start the fight standing right on top of him and the 3 adds that he starts with. He will attack you instead of the 5,000 health mage that just insulted him and sent him into a drunken rampage. Thunderclap is the key to doing this successfully. (And shield block if you do in fact have the [Force Reactive Disk]) Drill things will come through the floor and its a good idea to run up to them and devastate the 1-2 adds that come out. That should be good enough to keep them on you until he dies. The adds despawn when he dies.

And thats pretty much all you do. Sounds too easy? It is!

The other way:

Maybe easier, but not nearly as fun. Start the same way, but have the DPS kill the adds as they spawn. See? Doesn't sound nearly as fun!

Then enjoy your free epic loots!

Back to WAR!

Edit: Forgot to mention, our healadin of awesomeness tanked him one fight and I went on my paladin and did the healing. Now, does that mean the healadin is awesome? Or that he's easier than Telaen's mom? (Guildy Joke, Don't ask!) Probably a combination of both!

Greetins Landlubber - Today be National Talk Like a Pirate Day jest so ya know, matey! And I be the fearsome Capn Crun-errr Captain Naissa, Savvy? ARRRRR!

Now normally us buccaneers don't be observing holidays or followin' landlubber's rules but seein' as this un's about us - I think we'll make an exception YAR!

If yer a filthy landlubber but ye want in on the piratey action t'day - Ye can find ye some scurvy bilge-rat pretend pirates in all the major city that'll give ye proper piratin' attire. (60 minute buff - When you die, it dies, matey.)

See ye on the seas!

(Fun as this is, I hope I can stop talkin' like this soon. YARRRR!)

I got my WAR discs Yesterday at around 3:30PM or so. (Its 1:40AM here atm)

I quickly went to install it and create an account but I couldn't create my account until midnight. Boo Hiss. So I went back to doing everything I had to do yesterday and at midnight I went through the account creation process.

After that I was able to log-in and start patching. The patch was a pretty decent size but patching was quick and there were no issues. I was a little bit unsure of what to expect and was a little worried that I might not like the game.

Ever heard the WoW thing "You had me at Zug-Zug.", I think maybe its a female orc /flirt. WAR had me at..Well...This:

So. Awesome. I always thought Blizzard had the best cinematics, but this is definitely up there in quality. I loved it, and I especially liked that what I would be playing (Race/Class (Whatever classes are called in this game. I should RTFM.)) was displayed in all its glory right there.

I've decided that I'm going to be a Chaos Chosen. Here is why:

Tzeentch expects his Champions to be both ferocious warriors and cunning tacticians. As a result, Chosen who excel in these areas are granted profane rewards. These Dark Gifts allow the Chosen to manipulate the ruinous power of Chaos itself. While this provides them with ever greater strength, it also continually strips away any remnants of humanity that may still reside in the dark recesses of their memories. These Dark Gifts supplement the warrior?s awesome martial skills, increasing their durability, strength and even allowing them to harness the Winds of Magic.

Above all else, as a Chosen Champion, you will seek the esteem of Tzeentch. Yours is an arduous path, forever seeking out greater glory in the eyes of the Raven God by playing a crucial role in his terrible schemes and cruel manipulations. Encased in a blasphemous panoply of heavy armor, you will endeavor to place yourself on the front line of every battle, where you will bring to bear the power of your Dark Gifts against your foes. You will also often be called upon to protect the insignificant or the weak, not as an act of compassion, but rather in service to the inscrutable machinations of your treacherous god.

Seriously, how awesome is that? Thats just awesome.

Pros:
Completely Awesome
Everything I ever wanted in a warrior type class
Have I mentioned they sound completely awesome?

Cons:
Have to be a male character. (Though the male "human" (They look human) models in WAR aren't as hideous as the ones in WoW..So its ok!)

I'm not entirely sure which server I'll be playing on yet (I hope to play on the same server as some friends of mine, and I don't know which server they're going to be on.) so I didn't make my Chosen yet. No point in leveling something up a couple levels just to start over as the same thing. So I made a caster type character and played around with that for a bit.

The graphics are nice, the interface is great, the camera and controls (Something I have HUGE issues with in RPGs) are good too. The combat system is a lot like WoW's...as are the controls and camera and...pretty much everything. The quest interface is better than WoW's by far, at least I think so. So far I'm loving it.

You'll know more when I know more!

In WAR!

Why in WAR and not WarCraft? Well...I cancelled.

Lets take some questions.

OMG What does this mean?
WoW bores me. The beta (I got 2 beta keys btw, looking for a home for one.) has been interesting but not interesting enough to make me keep playing. I'm not really liking the direction they're going with warriors. The class is entirely different and is something other than the class that I love playing. The DPS aspect of it is dead to me (I don't want to go around swinging 2 Two-Handed Weapons), PvP is bizarre now, and the tanking feels more like paladin tanking than warrior tanking and while a lot of warriors may think thats a good thing, I personally can't stand it.

Ok, but what does that mean for Naissa's RAGE?
Nothing really. As long as I'm playing something I'll have something to talk about and this domain will justify its cost and existance to me. I'm pretty sure I can RAGE in WAR. Plus I've still got around a month of WoW time!

So does this mean that if we find a Naissa in WAR, it could be you?
Nope. I'm going to pick new names, completely different from my WoW names. Naissa can stay in WoW, on Rexxar, dead by the darnassus bank (In true roleplayer fashion!) until I either decide I don't like WAR as much as I liked WoW (Which would be difficult considering I don't really care for WoW at all right now.) or Blizzard does something amazing that makes me renew my account. I still plan to renew for WotLK and play around there for a bit but I don't think I'll get much out of it.

Can I have your account/gold/gems and other shiny valuables from your bank alt?
This is mostly directed at people who know me in game. No. I'd much rather keep my account the way I left it. Last thing I need is to get the desire to play again only to come back to discover I'm banned because someone did something stupid with it. Or that all my gear/gems are wrong and not the way I like them/left them. Plus I'd have to mail you my authenticator, and if that got lost...Well. Yeah. Fucked.

I think that about covers it.

See you in WAR!

Since I've played WoW.

Supposedly my guild is splitting into 2 guilds. One hardcore raiding guild and one casual guild. Personally I'm just going to stay where I am because I've got no interest what-so-ever in raiding.