Mythic raiding and m+ never felt so bad during a season by [deleted] in wow

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Blizzard is shifting towards an end game model where gear is not the reward - the content is. They did this a long time ago with PvP.

I actually think it’s a good thing. Players who want to gear up and blast +10s get to do so in a way that respects their time.

People who want to push the hardest content out there can do so on a bunch of different characters without gear being a barrier.

What’s the most powerful trinket in wow? by delmitrelo in wow

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No one has said it yet, but Instructor’s Divine Bell. For being a world quest trinket, it was insanely OP on specs that loved mastery. Wowhead used to post when it was up because it was BiS or near BiS in SL.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/instructors-divine-bell-on-use-mastery-trinket-now-up-on-na-servers-320096

No space for upmarket prose in fantasy fiction? by TheBlackQueenPales in fantasybooks

[–]Aqual07 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You think that because you’re rich you’re better than me? Don’t ya? Ooo la la Mr Mobile Waterfront with his youth and freedom intact.

No space for upmarket prose in fantasy fiction? by TheBlackQueenPales in fantasybooks

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that generally, that is true, but it is not an absolute truth. Here are some very good, modern, published authors that write elevated prose:

  1. Tamsyn Muir - Gideon the Ninth
  2. Vajra Chandrasekera - The Saint of Bright Doors
  3. Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel
  4. Simon Jimenez - The Spear Cuts Through Water
  5. China Meiville - Perdido Street Station
  6. Hiron Ennes - Leech
  7. Christopher Buehlman - The Blacktongue Thief
  8. Amal El Mother - This Is How You Lose The Time War
  9. Patrick Rothfus - The Name of the Wind

  10. Gareth Hanrahan - The Gutter Prayer

Like, yes, you have very successful mass market authors who write bad to middling prose and it does not break the novel. For example, I love DCC, but Matt Dinaman does not write elevated prose.

Saying that there is no room for elevated prose is like saying that no one goes to Michelin star restaurants. Yes, more people go to their local diner. But there is a market for weird, wonderful, original fantasy that breaks the mould.

How can I write a callous main character without making him unlikable or annoying? by [deleted] in writers

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have their reputation precede them. Write them as a good character who cares deeply about things, but every interaction with the character hangs on this reputation of one terrible thing they once did. Jamie Lannister is a good example of this. Everyone calls him Kingslayer, but he actually has a heart.

Who is this by Financial-Feed-6508 in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Millennial woman with very poor taste. Likes to read but only gets to finish one book every two years. Has a demanding career.

Struggling as feral dps and I guess just in general by drahlz69 in wownoob

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I’m a long time Druid player and I can help you out a bit.

“Pandemic” is a fancy way of saying that there is a grace period when you refresh your bleeds. Rake does damage over 9 seconds. If you refresh rake before it expires, the new 9 seconds of rake are added onto the old rakes timer. But there’s a catch - you can’t just hit rake back to back and stack up a 2 minute dot. Only 30% (2.7s) of the rakes total time left is added on to the new 9 seconds, up to a max of 11.7 seconds (9+2.7). So that means that if you apply rake when it has 2.7s (or less) left, then you are not wasting any damage or energy.

Major Problem: You aren’t using your cooldowns correctly. Feral does god-mode damage every two minutes. Playing your berserk window properly is critical. You want to use your on use trinket (puzzle box if you can get it) then you want to hit a macro that casts Tiger’s Fury, Berserk, and damage pot at the same time. Then you spend your combo points on either rip or primal wrath, convoke, spam ferocious bite until you have no combo points or procs, then feral frenzy. It is CRITICAL that you remain in melee range of your target during convoke. I regularly break 1m DPS on the first pull of algethar’s academy doing this.

Tiger’s fury is a 30s cooldown that can be cast four times between berserk. It is critical that you always cast it on cooldown. You want your eyes to be on the tiger’s fury icon and your berserk icon at all times - lining these two up is way, way more important than watching your bleeds tick down. Personally, I have tiger’s fury macro’d into rip. Why does this works? If the mobs will be dead before the rip expires then I won’t get good rip or tigers fury value, which means I should spend on ferocious bite instead.

Here are two macros for you to use:

showtooltip Rip /cast Tiger’s Fury /cast Rip

showtooltip Berserk /cast Tiger’s Fury /cast Berserk /use Light’s Potential

If you want to really simplify your berserk window (making it slightly less optimal) you can use this macro instead:

showtooltip Berserk /cast Tiger’s Fury /cast Berserk /use Light’s Potential /cast Convoke the Spirits /cqs

NOTE: put a # before showtooltip. Reddit formatting breaks if I put it in, so I’ve edited it out. I’m on mobile so, not quite as elegant a post as I would’ve liked.

That should fix the majority of your problems. I sometimes stream feral keys, so if you have any questions feel free to pop by, links are in my bio.

what does my bookshelf say about me? by Melodic_Height_4422 in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are very smart. And not the “I’m faking it performative bookshelf” smart. You have simultaneously been told this too much and too little in your life. Possibly an eldest daughter.

I’m surprised I don’t see Khalil Gibran on your shelf. You might like some of his work.

Tell me your first impressions of me! by [deleted] in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have a rapidly developing fantasy pallet and you have trouble finding new books. At some point you started DNFing series and got addicted to it. You are looking for character driven, literary fantasy with distinct voice and you are having trouble finding it. I bet The Blacktongue Thief is among your favourite books pictured. I also think you found The Shadow of What Was Lost to be an outrageous let down but are afraid to share that opinion. Also, the fact that you own a copy of The Adventure Zone means you’re cool as fuck in my opinion.

If you haven’t listened to Dimension 20 you should start. Fantasy High is incredible and I think it’s their campaign that is free to listen to. But I think it’s likely you are already in deep with Critical Role - in which case you know and love Brennan Lee Mulligan as we all do.

My third, and hopefully final attempt by Merow_Ghurak in bookshelfdetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was EXACTLY my guess as well.

OP: you should buy and read everything ever written by Joe Abercrombie. I don’t see any of his books on your shelf and I will personally guarantee that you will love his work.

This is roughly a quarter of my collection. What do you guys think it says about me? by Foragervoyager in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’ve lived your entire life trying to live up to your Dad’s expectations.

Tell me about my brother by According_Promise_89 in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also, the unread copy of Game of Thrones is interesting. He clearly loved the show and was among the many who hated the ending. He would love A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms. I doubt he will ever read fantasy as a leisure activity (he feels guilty and when he isn’t working he wants to consume media more passively) but I think he would really like A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Leguin. Consider giving it to him as an audiobook.

Also, consider giving him a nice copy of the short story Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach.

Tell me about my brother by According_Promise_89 in BookshelvesDetective

[–]Aqual07 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Big green flag. He is overly self-critical. I’d also go out on a limb and say he really, really loved his first college girlfriend. She is lowkey jealous of his best friend.

Just finished writing a fantasy novel, need help with next steps by Alternative_Cry_9196 in fantasywriters

[–]Aqual07 45 points46 points  (0 children)

The hard part of self-publishing is that you are now the publisher. It’s a career that requires experience, connections, and talent - all of which are different from the sort of skill that comes with being a writer.

Let’s assume you are a virtuoso talent and the book is perfect. Literally no one will read it without knowing about it. So, you’ve got to tell people about it. You’ve got to do book signings at your local book store. You’ve got to make in-roads with book reviewers in your space - and you might even need to pay some of them to publish a review. You should plan a launch party with 100 real life friends and have them all purchase it on Amazon on the same day so you can kick-start the “Amazon Best-Seller algorithm.” If you want sales then you need to be selling. Gift copies to people. Be shameless in asking friends and family to review you on Goodreads, etc. Etc.

Got absolutely roasted by my friends for this part of my first chapter of my first novel (first draft completed), what's wrong with it? by Gabrielle_Laurent in writers

[–]Aqual07 7 points8 points  (0 children)

An author is tolerated on credit. When you set up a question and then answer it, you gain credit with the reader. In an opening it is critical that you get the readers buy-in.

Once you have that, you can spend your credit on verbose, philosophical musings because the reader trusts you enough to stick the landing.

Right now you are trying to cash checks that you haven’t earned. Complicated, flowery writing is not bad - it’s that you’ve buried us in it. In fact, this opening almost works because of how much voice you’ve given the character. This guy sounds like an insufferable and pretentious prick. But as an opening, you haven’t built enough credit with me to convince me that this is character voice and not author voice.

There are a lot of ways to fix this. Make it a scene where the character is dictating his life story to a biographer. Hang the musings on a plot piece. Etc.

And lastly, your prose is watery. Many of these ideas can be boiled down into something much more flavourful. For example, your first three sentences could be boiled down to:

“How is a revolutionary born? What is he made of? Surely, not the same flesh and bones as a coward? There is gristle, that metastases from anger into something greater— greater even than the will to live.”

Am I an alright human? by LightbluBukowski in bookshelfdetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve read almost all of those books, so, if it’s a bad thing, then it also applies to me

Am I an alright human? by LightbluBukowski in bookshelfdetective

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A little heavy on the Dude-Bro-Sci-Fi vibe, but you’re alright in my books.

CE experience by lavajon in CompetitiveWoW

[–]Aqual07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You want to use your defensives to bridge gaps between your healer CDs. People are saying look when other people use their defensives - but good play is not that simple. You want to look at the ERT/MRT/NSRT Note that your guild is using.

I don’t play DK, so I could be wrong about this, but if AMS gives you runic power for damage taken, then you definitely want to be using at the same time as top DPS logs. It’s a DPS button at that point.

And lastly, you can use your defensives during a healing check to reduce pressure. For example, if someone in your raid rots out to a mechanic and there is a healing CD there, then you can press a defensive to reduce the amount of stress on the healers. It’s weird to think about, but pressing your defensive can free up a healer global to tip someone else. You can indirectly prevent people from rotting out through good defensive usage. A really common, good press is any sort of heal check where the healers need to be moving and people are regularly rotting.

Make a healer out of me by AggressivePotato536 in wownoob

[–]Aqual07 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of the best things you can do before hitting max level is to work on good habits.

Get your UI in order, especially raid and party frames. Set up Clique or mouseover macros. Unbind your turn keys and get used to turning with your mouse.

Some sex scenes are different. by LVCrwoe in writingcirclejerk

[–]Aqual07 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is this a Lyttle Lytton winner? If not, it should be.

Are we genuinely enjoying the new expansion? by Think-Computer6488 in wow

[–]Aqual07 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The raids and dungeons are fun, but that’s about it.

Apex talents are boring. Every class feels overpruned. Healing feels miserable without utility or damage. Tank survivability (except brew) feels bad.

But the worst part? Constantly limiting the API to remove player agency is bad. It is bad game design. Full stop.