My Fiction Philosophy

First off Cocles over at Loregy has posted a short Fan-Fic, it's a great read and everyone should check it out. Now on to the post.

Fan Fiction is fun to do, though I don't always write I spend a lot of thinking up characters that would be cool in a certain setting. In fact a lot of my character concepts start out that way, but there are a few rules I hold myself to. For this I'll use WoW as my example setting but these apply to most fan-fic I think up.

1. "Exceptional, sort of" First and foremost your character should be exceptional. That's what makes a story enjoyable, but there is a limit. However you must place your thoughts in the setting. If your character single handedly defeated Illidan, that's a little hard to believe even if you actually did it in game. However if you were a member of a team that helped defeat Illindan that's much more believable. The first one is an example of being Exceptional to our world. It is based off of the view we have as players of the game. The second is and example of being exceptional within the setting. In the case of WoW it is a game with limited ability, thus we can't see the hundreds or thousands of normal people that live in Darlaran or Orgrimmar, we only see the hundreds of players in the city at anyone time. Within the world of Azeroth every player character is exceptional and capable of things the normal people only dream of. You can think of them like this. For the millions of player who play WoW there are millions more, they are equivalent to the normal people within Azeroth. They will never be able to kill dragons single handedly or fly on the back of Gryphons, though they may dream of it. So yes your character is exceptional but not anymore so than that of any other player, barring the differences in player skill.
2. "If someone else has it there can't be only one" This is particularly true for fiction set in game worlds like WoW. You writing a story about you and your buddy, both of you are hunters and you both have Loque. According to the lore that can't be possible there's only one Loque'nahak wondering around sholazar, and he's the mate of the Loa goddess Har'koa. But he's often killed yet some how appears again. OK he wasn't really dead (See Operation: Echo Isles/Gnomeregon) but what about taming how can he suddenly reappear after joining some hunter, and more importantly how can there be more than one of him in any given place. Easy answer there isn't. If you tame some rare creature don't assume you have that one (renaming it would be kinda weird seeing as they have names already) but that one could be part of a rare community of it's kind located in that area. King Krush can't be the only devilsaur in sholazar, but he is the most prominent one. In the case of Squalstri'dah and Stry'kar I used the spawn of Har'Koa all over Zul'Drak. Rather than being caught and corrupted he traveled to sholazar along with his father and later joined Stri'dah to help his mother. Sure they use a normal cat model but used to say they won't grow up to be more like their father and mother with time. This is not always necessary but in a persistent game world like WoW, Lore doesn't have to conflict game mechanics, sometimes you can work around them.
3. "Not everybody and everything is important to your story" so you took down Illidan, gratz so did that guy, you killed the Lich King, so did Bob in Tallahassee, you killed Onyxia, sorry Varian Wrynn actually did that, she just faked it to make you feel better. When your character battles some huge evil as part of a persist ant story in most cased you're not the only one. There's npc's both seen and unseen and of course your teammates that help you. You and your raid team represent an elite strike force that is part of a larger army, this is especially true in ICC. But you aren't the only one who did it, so unless your writing the story about your raid team, be vague. You don't have to name that shaman you tossed a chain heal on you at the last minute, or that hunter whose pet dived on a Val'kyr that was about the grab you. Mention, sure, it's awesome, but that guy doesn't need a name, he could be any hunter from any guild that took down the Lich King. The stories about your character it doesn't particularly partain to him/her don't worry about it. In the heat of battle your character wont be able to keep track everything that happens,(try following a combat log during a raid that list the entire raid and pets, or you could actually fight the boss). Leaving things blank lets readers fill in the blanks however they want. Maybe it was them that threw that chain heal, or maybe it reminds them of their own raids.
4. "Use your character, just make sense" Your character's achievements make great stories just let them make sense. The story of how you killed Thrall in BC might be cool but it kinda throws off the rest of the world, and complicates stories about Wrath. But don't let it stop you from making yourself awesome when you are. Squalstri'dah awes the young rangers in silvermoon with his skill with weapon because in game I began questing in Eversong Woods after I had reached level 80 and maxed out all of my weapon skills. He trained under various great lore hunters because while leveling I did quests and trained up in various places. (Even tamed a chimera outside of Thunderlord Stronghold, perfect place if i learned from Rexxar right?) Stri'dah and his brothers were raised by an orc, because my father's main is an orc warlock. Let your game build your character just don't go too far.

These ideas are not mandatory for every story. Some characters may have actually tamed the famed Aotona some may not have, it all depends on the story. A story about the assassination of Garrosh Hellscream would be adored by all the Horde in Azeroth. The key about these rules is that they place your story inside the game world without stomping on the stories of others. A story with these rules can exist next to any other story and not conflict. You get saved by some hunter's pet. My story mention how stry'kar tackled a Val'kyr off of a mage, and battled beside his father who was aided a wizened Troll Hunter in the battle. Your stories just like the setting should be filled with heroes, you should be one among many, but that doesn't mean you can't be the greatest of them, your just the greatest of the great.

My Current Quest: Frostbitten can SUCK MAH BAWLS!!!

So after a long hard road I've completed my t9 set, and gained my Loremaster and Seeker titles. Now what pray-tell is left for me, well I've decided on a change of pets. I've come to the realization that I never, PVP which was my primary reason for my Silithid (that and the awesome animations), of course i also decided this when i need 100 stonekeeper shards for the heirloom gun for my baby belf hunter. Anyway I decided to get rid of Fi'el, and move on to bigger and better things and by bigger i mean a devilsaur, but I'm picky, so no ordinary devilsaur will do. I have to have the green one, I.E. King Krush. Now for the past month and a half or so I've been flying about sholazar searching for this guy, with no sign of him or any other rare spawn for that matter. Comically while I was hunting Loque, and had no interest in Krush, I saw him on 4 different occasions and even kill him once. Now when I want him he MIA. Yet finally after weeks and weeks of futile searches. To the point where WoW actually began to bore me he spawned, just north east of nesingwary camp.

King Krush is the HARDEST tame in WoW right now.

So yeah after all that I didn't get him. I took five separate attempts and failed each time. I managed to get enough haste to bring Tame beast to about 12 seconds and twice i got down to 1.5 seconds before he feared me. the Problem was my first tame which was my best chance was a total bonk. I popped BW while out of range of tame beast and i had a trinket proc. This meant my berserking was on cooldown for my next few attempts. In between a human warlock tried to kill him and met with a swift end. Of course i was rooting for the King all the way. If it had been a PVP server i'd have helped him kill her. After two more attempts i run out of potions of speed, which meant my last attempt had berserking but no potions, this one actually was as close to perfect as a failure can be, save for the fact that i died costing me valuable time, since i had to reach my body, rebuff, and tame a pet. By the time i caught up with my quarry the warlock had come back for vengeance. Never had i wished i was on aPVP server more than at that moment, as I watch Krush's help drop to zero. Sadly i sulked to orgrimmar and snagged some cloth shoulders for some extra haste and slapped a Quick Kings Amber in there. restocked for 5 more attempts and made my way back to sholarzar hoping for another chance, which is where I am as i write this. I now firmly believe that Frostbitten is the worst achievement in the game as far as hunter's are concerned. Three of the mobs are three completely unique skinned pets who all share a respawn timer, Loque the original spirit beast, King Krush the only green devilsaur and the MOST INSANELY DIFFICULT tame in the game, and Aotona arguably the rarest of the three who is a Bird of Prey that uses the same model as the epic Hyacinth Macaw. This means that these mobs will be sought after because of their uniquness and rarity, however the achieve means that players other than hunters will be hunting them as well making taming all the more difficult since other players, particularly when of the opposing faction, are assholes. I myself regret having kill Krush in the past. In my ignorance I believed every one was looking for Loque and ended up taking the tame from another hunter. This means that for a hunters who are looking for rare pets and achievements they have to track each mob twice. Personally I thinking Taming should count as a kill for the purposes of the achievement it would make the acheivement much more hunter friendly, and, in the case of Krush, harder to do (about the same for the others), but the problem of other players is still there, but that comes with the territory. I like a challenge, but after months of search I don't like human warlocks killing it in front of me, especially since i cant ask them to stop.

Shaman Tanks

So after reading this awesome post over at Healer Envy, i got to thinking about shaman tanks myself. After commenting I realized I a crap load of ideas for it myself, way to many for a comment so I decided to write my own post. In this I'll reference some of the ideas from Healer Envy but mostly throw in some of my own.

My only real disagreement with the post was the use of ice for the primary elemental theme for tanking. In my opinion, WoW rolls ice and water into one, though less in the case of shamans. Instead Earth would be my element of choice. But there's a problem there, there's already and earth shield, and Resto has it. First off I'm kinda annoyed by resto getting two shields, water and earth, and elemental having none really. It is my opinion that elemental abilities should come in sets of 4, one for each element, earth, air, fire, and water. Shocks, Shields, Elemental Weapons, and Totems (which should be evened out a bit). Secondly I see two possible fixes for this, one you ignore earth shield and make another shield, which is possible there are two earth weapon enchants (Stonebiter and Earthliving), or rename Earth Shield. In Christie Golden's Lord of the Clans Thrall has to commune with not 4 but 5 spirits. Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and the Wilds. The Wilds consisted of a hogpog of spirits that represent life on azeroth. For example Thrall call on the spirit of Horses from the wild to cause the Warhorses of Durnholde's knights to throw their riders. This fits perfectly with Resto, rename Earth Shield to Spirit Shield (Earthliving doesn't have to be renamed) and create a New Earth Shield that does something like Increase chance to block or parry attacks. It could also restore mana on parries or blocks.

The same way a warrior uses defensive stance, and druids use bear form, shamans will use an ability they already have, Stoneskin Totem. Talented it could give the shaman he uncritability and additional armor they need while still giving the same benefit to the rest of the party. To prevent the placement of the totem it would also do something like, "Your Stoneskin totem becomes immune to damage and lasts as long as you are alive only or until a different Earth Totem is summoned. As long as the totem exist the you receive its benefit regardless of range." It essentially makes Stoneskin sort of a stance, and sacrifices the bonuses of Strength of Earth. A damage decrease could be added as well if needed.

Shaman could get a Health version of Mana Tide Totem that gives a quick burst of Health for emergencies as an additional cooldown, or have an ability like, Chill Totem - "Freezes your water totem, temporarily negating its normal effect, but Healing you for X over 5 secs" this could give flexibilty to the totem used and avoided adding another earth or water totem.

With Cataclysm's removal of spell ranks Stonebiter could become the tanking weapon enchant. A To avoid conflicts with it uses when leveling, it can be talented to increase parry and threat. And it can be added to elemental weapons for that purpose. In that same talent Earth Shock could become the Tanking shock increasing threat. This brings me back to my rule of 4, we need a new shock. Wind Shock became Wind Shear, we need a (sorry about the name) Thunder Shock (Maybe Sonic Shock? Echoed Shock? Going with a Thunder theme for this one), It would be the new Enh DPS shock replacing Earth Shock, doing straight damage, it could also absorb stormstrike charges and do more damage. back to tanking. Like Death Knights you could pair DPS abilities with a Tank ability. Where DPS would take Dual Wield, Tank would take Storm Shield which would increase block. Static Shock could have Crystal Vein which would buff New Earth Shield. Stormstrike, Feral Spirits, and Lava Lash could be used by both. Lava Lash could receive a shield component that when used with a shield increase threat generated when enchanted with flametongue. there could also be a talent like Elemental Avatar- transfers 50% threat from your fire totems and 100% from your feral spirits to you, increases the threat generated by your chain lightning. Maelstrom Weapon procs could be used for chain lightning cleaves or emergency heals, it could also proc off blocks with a shield to compensate for using only one weapon.

The last thing is something i've been asking for forever a non-talented main hand weapon strike, like the one I outlined here which could benefit all spec's as it's effect would vary based on the enchant. But there's one ability that should have always been in the shaman's tool kit. Like feral spirits Thrall used it in WCIII, more importantly he used it in the awesome cinematic against Mannorth, the one where he hurls the lightning charged Doomhammer at him, Thunderstrike. A ranged attack based on Weapon Damage, sort of like shattering throw, but it would be talented for enhance as either a DPS or Both, if only dps there'd be a different talent for Tanks, maybe a spirit themed cooldown? ("the spirit of an ancestral warrior aids you in battle, standing in front of you and reducing your damage taken by x)

The key thing here is a lot of it is simply using abilities shamans already have, but taking focused talent shift them towards that roll, untalented Earth Shock is still a solid DPS shock (though inferior to Thunder Shock) it also takes some under used shaman abilities, Stonebiter and Stoneskin and brings them to prominence as tanking skills. Many of the talents could remain with additional survivability talents added in (toughness alone probably won't cut it). Guardian Totems would go opposite Improved Windfury, (both two points, one's survivability the other's dps). There's also a lot of threat generation in this, since that seems to be the issue with most tanks these days. Since many tanking weapons have strength on them maybe a talent that would either make it useful or remove the need for it by giving as a bonus to dodge and parry from agility, not as big as the dodge bonus for Druids since we can block. Mixing the ideas presented in this and the Healer Envy article could create a solid tank out of the shaman class and bring back that possibility that faded with Vanilla WoW along with Two-Hander DPS