Forsaken World - Counterintuitive advice for DPS from a Divine priest

If you're not a Protector or a Warrior, and you see me, your friendly neighbourhood divine priest, being hit by a crapload of mobs - DO NOT AOE. (Unless, of course, you can kill all the mobs in that one AoE. Then go right ahead.)

And more importantly, DO NOT PULL THE MOBS OFF ME.

Seriously.

Because you'll die faster than I will if you do that.

See, PWE's game engines have retargetting lag on heals. After I target someone, I need to make sure I've selected them for at least 0.5s (or it could be 1s, I count by 3 spins of my mousewheel upon target change), or else the heal goes to ME. Not my target.

When a crapload of things are hitting on me, I'll be spamming heals on MYSELF, and probably the tank.

If a nice DPS (mages especially, you're so squishy), comes in and says I WILL SAVE J00 I WILL TAKE THEM!!!!!

That DPS will usually die. Not because I'm being mean but because I've been totally focused on, 'Oh oh oh oh stayin' aliiiiiiiiiiiiive!' that by the time I realise what you've done, and retargetted, and waited for the retarget to take... you'll probably be dead. This especially tends to happen in Arena of Souls.

Divine priests are very durable. Especially those with Iron Bone pets.

If you wanna tell the tank the healer's being eaten though, that's great - because I'm usually too busy BeeGeeing to be able to type that. And if you have a spare heal, no matter how puny, healing me with it is sweet. ;)

P.S.: This advice is good till level 49 - my priest isn't 50 yet. And so far trash in FW doesn't have the kind of disabling power that mobs in Guild Wars do, nor do they yet hit as hard as WoW heroics - where you really don't want them whaling on your healer.

Oddly familiar...

To find out what happens in a sleep-deprived brain, Vyazovskiy kept rats up past their bedtime and used small sensors to measure the activity of individual neurons. Many of us know that distracting toys can stop us from sleeping – so it is with rats. Vyazovskiy woke them up bright and early, when they would normally be asleep, and gave them new objects to play with for four hours. The rats stayed awake and the sensors recorded their brain activity as they muddled through.
via blogs.discovermagazine.com

SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE!

KoL: The best 'Come back and PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY' email I've ever read.

Dear splugget,

Okay, I'm not good at this kind of thing, but I feel like I have to give it a try. So, here goes:

I was hanging out the other night, listening to some old mp3s, and I was just overcome with memories of when we used to hang out all the time. Remember? You were an intrepid, fearless adventurer, and I was the free-to-play, fun-and-funny online role-playing game that won your heart. Do you still remember those good
times? I can't stop thinking about them.

I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I'm sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you're not the same person you were then, but hey -- I've changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I'd make you a mix CD, but I couldn't decide what "our song" was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here's what I came up with:

Remember how much fun you used to have with your clan? Alternately, remember how you never joined a clan because you didn't see the point? Either way, clans now have clan dungeons, group zones where your whole clan can work together. Crawl through sewers to Hobopolis, a vast underground vagrant vacation vista! Slide into the slime tube, and stir-fry sassy slimes!

I know I wasn't the prettiest game when we were together, so I had some work done. Almost every interface got an interface-lift. You can even manage most of your inventory via chat commands! I also came up with a way for you to automate some of the things you don't love about the game, so you can spend more time with the parts you do love.

Not only that, but there are way more animated .gifs than there were before. Don't worry; I haven't lost that low-fi edginess you love, but I'm a lot easier to play with now.

You can also have a custom title now, just in case you didn't feel like I appreciated what made you unique as an individual.

I should also say Haiku Dungeon's been revamped. See what I did there?

Maybe you quit because you got sick of always adventuring above the water. I admit that seems unlikely, but I fixed that, too -- there are a bunch of underwater zones with new food, equipment, mechanics, and challenges.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, trust me. I'm still the silly, clever, deceptively-complex game you fell in love with, only with about 95% more awesome.

So, I'm just sayin', if you can find it in your heart to give me another chance, I won't disappoint you.

If you don't drop by, I promise I won't bother you again. I just really felt like we deserved one more try.

Love,

The Kingdom of Loathing.
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com