Sideshow & Syrana

Davlin has tagged us again to answer some questions in character. The rules are pretty simple: answer the questions, add one, and tag others!

Sideshow in character, huh? Interesting..

1. What is your name, and where did it come from?

Back when I was human, I traveled with the Darkmoon Faire. I was orphaned at a young age and grew up with the freaks and weirdos. They nicknamed me Sideshow. I have since forgotten my birth name.

2. How old are you, and what is your birthday?

As far as I can remember from before the plague, I should be somewhere in my late 30s or early 40s by now. By the looks of me, you’d think I was 100.

3. Are you in love, and with whom?

I’ve had my eye (sockets) on that Syrana, but alas, nobody loves a rotting, old pile of bones like me. I do well enough on my own..me and my pet skull, Skippy McSkullface.

4. What is your favorite mount, and why?

I love rollin’ up on my Purple Skeletal Warhorse (and no, that’s not a euphemism.)

5. Do you prefer a certian type of Azerothonian meal, and where do you get it from? Take out, or dine in?

Fresh, dead gnomes are pretty tasty if I can find (or kill) one. I do enjoy Ogre sometimes, but I usually need to pack some to take home. For a cooked meal, I do enjoy a good helping of Last Week’s Mammoth.

6. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be, and why they are so huge?

There’s something in the water, I tell ya. I don’t feel so alone with all those freaks out there.

7. If you saw the Lich King walking towards you, what would you do?

Truthfully, I respect the guy, hell, I used to work for him. I did find a better job with a much cuter boss, though. But, as much as I respect him, I wouldn’t want to meet him face to face alone. I’d probably vanish and quietly step away. Maybe give him a quick tap on the shoulder for good measure.

8. (Dav added this one) Be honest, how many times have you used the Grizzly Hills outhouse without any real reason?

Never been. But, I can’t even crap, so what’s the big deal? One good thing about not having internal organs.

9. (Sideshow and Syrana’s) Would you steal ice cream from a Human child?

Ice cream? Possibly. Depends on how ugly the child is. Frozen custard? The little guy wouldn’t know what hit him.

Syrana tagged enough people for both of us.

I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know that there is still a Rogue here. Syrana and her Warlocks get all the fun (and probably rightfully so.) I am, obviously, no expert on the Rogue class and I definitely don’t claim to be. I play it the way that I have the most fun, though I try to read up on spec and theory here and there.

I started the Rogue class because I always enjoyed the stealthy, ninja-style of play in other games. Though, the Rogue isn’t exactly like that, but it has some similarities. Maybe it’s my pacifist nature. I’d rather sneak around the big guy rather than fight him. It also helps when needing to kill a named guy at the end of a cave. I can just pick him out and then leave without them knowing. Hehe..

I leveled Sideshow up as mainly Combat Daggers on my way to 60 and probably on through to 70 for most of the time. Towards 70 I did pick up an off-hand sword to see how that played out. After I was 70 for awhile, I spent some time grinding honor for some PvP items and I went Assassination/Mutilate for that period. With some of the new changes to the Assassination tree, I’m still playing that build now. I’ve always liked the daggers and I use Backstab and Ambush a lot, so I try to keep with those builds. I did play with Sublety on another Rogue that I leveled on Syrana’s old server, but he’s frozen in time at Level 53. It was definitely a lot of fun and killed a lot faster than I expected it to.

Well, all that PvP grinding helped me out in WotLK since I finally (at Level 78.5) replaced my Merciless Gladiator’s Leather Helm when I picked up the Helm of the Avenging Protector from the Reclmation quest line in Shalozar Basin. But, I’m sad to say that I now look like (more of) a freak. I was rockin’ the Skeletor look before, but now I look like some sort of mutated ram. Though, I still have my Guardian’s Leather Belt, which is the last pre-WotLK item I have on now.

I do have to say that grouping with an Affliction Warlock while questing is a very nice tag team. I start the pull with an Ambush or Cheap Shot and then she DoTs up and Shadow Bolts the crap out of it while I (usually) keep it stunned. We have it down to a science now.

Alright, now that I’m all rested up from Monday night’s concert, I can get back to bloggin’.  Of course, this particular post may seem a bit out of sequence as it is often that type of topic one uses in their first blog post.  I, however, like to march to a different beat sometimes.  So, I’m doing it now and I hope it, well, tells you something.

Why blog?

Heh, why not?  I touched on this a bit in my very first post on this here blog.   (Cleverly titled, “First!” I might add…)  Sideshow and I used to blog years ago about random daily college life type stuff.  I’ve always enjoyed writing and it is a great outlet for me.  So, here I am!  Even if there was no one here to read what I have to say, I’d still do it.  Thankfully, we have started to get some readers, which gives me positive reinforcement.   And with said reinforcement, will force me to post with some regularity so that no one gets (too) bored.

Pace

Now, what do I mean by regularity? I’m not quite certain of this just yet.  I will try not to overload you with multiple posts a day (or night).  I know that it’s easier for me to keep up with my subscribed blogs when there’s only one new one a day or every couple days.  But then again, I’m reading and subscribing to quite a few (but don’t we all?!).

My initial goal will be to post at least 3 times a week.  I certainly hope to maintain daily fun and goodness, but I don’t want to give out any false promises.  Plus, Sideshow has to have a chance to say something too.  (Even if I’m the more chatty one most of the time!)

Plans

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I love my Warlock and Sideshow loves his Rogue.  We hope to provide some fun and entertaining class related goodies, although we are by NO MEANS experts of our classes.  There are plenty of other class bloggers that know more than I and I will probably refer to them for your sake as needed.  But, aside from the class angles of WoW, I can also bring to you prespectives of an officer in a casual guild.  And not just any ol’ officer (I like to stay busy in my virtual world)!  I’m also an Ambassador (recruitment), the Banker, and Social Event Planner Extraordinaire.   (Hence the importance I placed upon obtaining the Merrymaker title!)

I also hope to provide some helpful information, but mostly entertainment.  I seem to be relatively good at that.  Sideshow will certainly help in this area with fun RockBand videos, concert reviews and whatever else may suit our fancy.

I’d Like to Thank the Academy…

*clears throat* Ok, so no awards.  But I would like to put out a few thank yous.  As mentioned above, we’ve started to gain a little readership (yay!).  One of the first was my mother (love you, Mom!) and then, of course, my lovely guildies.  I must also thank Deekow for helping to inspire me to blog all things WoW (and some non, too).  I also want to thank Saresa and Fulguralis for giving us a shout out to their readers.  And thank you, fellow bloggers, for the blogroll adds! /warmfuzzy

Fan Feedback

Now that I’ve laid a few more things out there for you, I’d certainly love to hear from you.  (Yes, you.  Don’t look away.  I know you were just reading.. I saw you!)  What do you like most so far? What would you like to see?  Any requests? (Free Bird! /ahem)

Since Wrath came out, there seems to be a lot of speculation of some classes becoming endangered species, such as warlocks and rogues.  I’ve heard this pondering question of “where have all the warlocks gone?” a few times over the last month, and it’s starting to be a more frequent question and topic of discussion.

Warlocks are not the only class that seems to have diminished during the quest for 80.  Today over at WoWInsider, there was a post and a poll about the least played classes.  To be honest, I wasn’t surprised that Death Knights are topping the popularity charts at the moment, but I was a bit surprised to see how low rogues and warlocks have fallen on the WoW player totem pole.

Is it really an epidemic?

Do we need to raise awareness to save ourselves? Nah.  I doubt it.  Interestingly enough, when I rolled Syrana, there was a shortage of warlocks on my old server.  Well, not just any ol’ shortage, but a shortage of raiding warlocks.  This helped push Syrana’s leveling speed and allowed her a brief stint as a raiding warlock in that guild.

How are we fairing on Eitrigg?

Well, in our guild, I’m the highest level warlock (at least for the time being, it could change!) and she’s still my main.  There are a couple others that have warlock mains, but they haven’t gotten quite as high yet and have been working on alts.  There are also several guildies with warlock alts.  Hmm, there are also only a couple high level rogues as well (Sideshow being one of them) and a few rogue alts.

According to Warcraft Realms, Eitrigg server class population (including Horde and Alliance) is represented by 6% shamans, 7% priests, and warlocks and rogues are tied at 8%.  Death Knights and hunters are shown as the most popular classes with 17% and 15% representation, respectively.  This seems to be following the trend shown for many servers and as reported amongst the comments on the WoWInsider post.

We ain’t dead yet!

The picture looks a bit different when you examine by faction.  On the Alliance side of Eitrigg, the lowest 3 represented classes are shamans at 5%, priests at 7% and warlocks at 7%.  On the Horde side, warlocks are considered to be tied for 3rd of the most represented classes.  Huh.  Death Knights still top the charts at a whopping 19%.  Hunters are second with 15%, but warlocks are tied with paladins at 10%.

Finally, to the summary…

Of course the talk and speculation are just that: talk and speculation.  I’m certainly not going to say the above figures are set in stone, as they are dependent upon the WoW community to help collect the data.  But, for all you high levels out there…. take a look around Dalaran, for example.  You really don’t see warlocks and rogues as much as you used to.  (Well, you aren’t really supposed to “see” rogues, I guess…)

The Winter Veil achievement, “Let It Snow” was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be.  (Ok, not saying it was a real challenge, but wasn’t as easy breezey as it initially sounded.)  I know I was constantly getting hit with snowflakes followed by announcements of my attackers *smirk* earning the achievement.

Anyhow, it’s food for thought, at any rate.  Why the decline?  Why do some continue to be “the” main? One thing is for sure: The people that are leveling these “so-called” unpopular classes to 80, really love their class.  And I do.  I love my warlock.  /hug Syrana