Right, I survived Christmas and got introduced to another weird family tradition: Meet at Claire's aunt's place and watch movies with the sound turned off whilst people engage in smalltalk or stare at biscuits longingly. Whilst being too polite to be the one to crack them open, so they just stay in the box all night.
Seriously, people on this island are so extremely polite, I must come across like a complete and utter barbarian. "Oh no, I don't want the last slice of pizza/can of coke/cookie, you go ahead and have it." "Nonono, it's fine, I'm full and I really don't want it." Goes back and forth for an hour while the yummy treat, which both parties crave, just sits and collects dust.
It's an adorable, yet utterly exploitable quirk. "Wolf, you want any more beef, gammon or turkey?" Been asked about 500 times and my answer was yes. Always. To all three of them. Quite possibly the happiest moment in all my life.
Well, it was definitely the Christmas with the coolest present of all times. Gentle reminder:
I haven't been this thrilled since I got my C64 for Xmas 21 years ago.
On a completely unrelated note, here's a picture of steak. Because I love steak.
Don't miss next week's pictures of bacon!
I'd love to tell you some cool stuff about our new lizard that you don't already know, anyway. He's not gonna fly around killing people, he looks nothing like Benedict Cumberbatch and he doesn't have a cool accent like Sean Connery. But he's the coolest fucking pet I ever had. Sorry cats!
In other news, Claire is getting good at Black Ops 2. No, I actually mean good! Most of the night we've been in first and second place, respectively. She still has the awareness of a dead Russian dog, the aiming ability of Stevie Wonder and doesn't even try to score a longshot using her sights, but her scores are consistently getting better, she's quicker to react and her overall K/D is slowly but surely creeping out of the dreaded 0. zone.
She's getting her scorestreaks, she had a few ruthless kills now and while there are some moments of facepalm, where she blatantly ignores enemies in plain sight or misses them by about a half mile, a result of 18/10 is nothing to complain about. Bear (haha!) in mind this is her first ever online multiplayer FPS on the PC. Thinking back to when I got started on one of the early CS betas, I probably did a lot worse. Oh yeah, you can also see my 29/3 on the scoreboard at the end of the video. Not as good as my highest K/D (27!) yet, but still nice. But enough bragging...
While I usually enjoy the game a lot, there are certain inconsistencies, which make me want to uninstall the whole damn thing for good. Frankly, I probably would have done if it wasn't for Claire'n'friends playing it. During an ideal match, it will take a maximum of 2-3 hits to down an enemy. Pretty much all the time. Except for longshots, obviously, but they're not a big deal. And the next round, I may run into a guy, get the hit notification noise and the little marker four or five times and the fucker won't die, yet he seemingly takes me down with just one hit. And on the killcam it looks like I'm not attacking at all, blindly rushing towards him, hitting thin air or doing all kinds of shit that I don't remember doing.
Right. I know I'm 31 now and it's time to worry about things like dementia. Maybe I'm getting senile. I forget things. But when I shoot a guy several times, the game tells me I hit, then the killcam tells me I was just standing there scratching my balls while some prick one-shots me with his pistol, I can't help but feel that something might be a tad off. I don't know if I've been taking the wrong pills lately or maybe it's that dreaded lag compensation everyone is talking about or god knows what, but it's starting to piss me off.
I don't usually get these problems during the day. But come midnight, enemy players are a lot harder to kill, I seem to die a lot faster and my killcam shows me doing dumb shit I don't remember doing. Maybe that's when the Americans come out, the Europeans go to bed and I'm starting to lag a bit. Or I'm so convinced that stuff goes weird around midnight, I just start playing like crap. I dunno. Weird shit.
To be fair, I'm spoiled by my own stupid scores. When a score of 15/10 used to be great a week or two after release, those ten deaths now make me rage and freak out like I was getting no kills at all. And you know you're getting old when you cannot even please yourself anymore. Hm... I might wanna get some sleep and rephrase that last bit.
No, of course I'm not naming him Dino! But, aside from their less than majestic posture and waddling around, there is something undeniably dinosaur-like about monitors. I find that deeply fascinating. And judging by the way he's staring right back at me at the moment, I'd say he's rather inquisitive, himself. Though he's probably just hoping for more food.
As always, the main reason I haven't come up with a name for our new pet is that I'm still trying to convince myself that there's an actual point to it. Our cats know their names and when you call them, they might actually come running. Or at least look up at you in that typical "fuck off" kind of feline fashion and go right back to sleep. Reptiles, on the other hand...
The family suggested Adolf for a name, though I might have provoked that by saying I could really kill some juice when offered something to drink.
Since I consider our reptiles to be more than just fancy display furniture, which occasionally eats and poops, the long-term goal with our new friend is a successful taming process - the achievement of which is currently presenting me with two options. On the one hand, there's the 'all or nothing' method. Just corner that fucker and grab him, whether he likes it or not. Repeat every day until he no longer shits himself. Literally. A rather unpleasant experience for both pet and owner. Arguably the most rapid method to get him used to being picked up. Or to eternally loathing you - whichever happens first.
The alternative method is simple hanging around. I just parked my ass right in front of the tank, read a book, put my hand inside, right next to the lizard. He stared at me the whole time, stared at the hand, licked it, didn't freak out. Which is all pretty nice, but he'll run, hide, tail-whip and lose his shit the second I touch him. Looking is okay, him licking it is okay, but no touchie. The basic idea is that by repeating this for several hours each day, he'll get so used to the hand that he stops fearing it entirely, even if it touches him. No shitting, less struggling, less stress for everyone. But also waaaay more time-consuming. Lots of patience required. And very tempting to slow down progress more than necessary. "Okay, had the hand right next to him, he didn't freak out, that's good enough for today." Nope, gotta keep at it. Physical contact.
When he doesn't have to put up with me pestering him, he's a perfectly normal, healthy monitor. He hunts down bugs like a pro, digs around, climbs, bathes and basks just the way he should. Which is great and much preferrable to hiding, refusing to eat and being a pussy.
Oh, speaking of pussies - Jiji has taken an interest in our new reptile, as well. She spends most of her time in front or on top of the new tank. The two of them stare at each other a lot, but he usually gets bored after a while and resumes his daily routine. The cat is batting at the glass and freaking out a little, but he doesn't seem to care. At all. No defensive posture, no hissing, no hiding. Which is great, since they all have to get used to each other.
In fact, the cat might be helpful to the overall taming process. If the lizard can get used to her, he can get used to me. If nothing else, she'll provide a bit of entertainment. Monitors are known to get bored from lack of action and she's gonna serve as a bit of a stimulus. The real fun begins once he's ready to be picked up and held outside of the tank, allowing the cat to have a better look at what's still a relatively puny lizard. She'd better behave, because he's eventually gonna outgrow her. A lot. Heh!
I'm excited. This is a fun new experience for me. First times are always a bit scary. Picking up a beardie for the first time. Picking up our garter snake. Picking up the python. Touching my first bug for feeding. Putting yucky, wiggly maggots in a little food bowl. All these things have been a little creepy before they became perfectly normal. There will be a whole lot of new 'firsts' with this monitor, even scarier ones, some potentially painful ones. If all goes well, we're gonna end up with a giant, friendly reptile, who will become a scaly version of what's the family dog to other people. Sweet!
One faithful afternoon at McDonald's, roughly two and a half years ago, we made a spontaneous decision: Let's get a bearded dragon! I liked them a lot whenever I came to the shop, they're relatively idiot-friendly and eventually, our new pet more or less chose me by climbing out of its tank and straight onto me. And it has been staying there ever since. Our beardie came with me, no matter where I went. Supermarket, family visits, on the bus, my lizard would join me.
And since we already had a lizard, I could hardly say no when my significant other decided to bring home a snake. There. Bearded dragon. Garter snake. Tiny, noobish reptiles. Let's just stick with these for now.
As if! It didn't take long until one of the shop's customers had to get rid of another dragon. You see, with every sold reptile there's always a certain chance that the pet's proud new owner suddenly "doesn't have the time anymore" or [insert stupid ass excuse here]. You know, when the initial two weeks of excitement go by, when they wanna "upgrade" to something cooler, you get the idea. And to be fair, sometimes people are just fucking broke. I can relate. And it isn't always bad. It is kinda nice when you can sell the same animal twice, I guess. But you gotta feel sorry for these unwanted critters.
And that's what we did. Feel sorry. For an unwanted beardie. Fat, lazy, a bit ugly and incredibly stupid, even for a bearded dragon. They barely qualify to work at Wal-Mart and this particular one was just about good enough to greet people by the door. But even a dumb lizard deserves a nice, warm home and we went with the biggest beardie tank we could get, so fitting in a cagemate with our original beardie seemed reasonable.
Three reptiles now. Didn't last long, though, because our elderly garter snake had reached the end of her modest lifespan. Very sad. Even sadder when I decided to bury her under our living room window to keep her close to us and a few days later, the fat chick from upstairs decided to plant flowers in the exact same spot. Flowers, which kept her busy for exactly two weeks, until she decided she could no longer be arsed to tend to them. So yeah, now we have some posh flowers and a whole lot of random weeds growing out there, where the snake was buried. I didn't dare look, but our poor old snake probably had her final resting place in our wheelie bin. I told the neighbour to try and avoid digging up our dead pet, but it was probably a bit late by then. I don't wanna think about it.
It's strange. I honestly don't give a fuck about what happens to my body when I'm dead, since... you know. I'll be too dead to care. Have me stuffed in a cool pose and put me on the fireplace. Sell my organs on ebay. I seriously don't care. But the idea that the fat cow upstairs has probably thrown our dead snake in the trash is rather depressing. I feel tempted to do the same thing with the neighbours' annoying dog. I might have to help the mutt a bit with the whole reaching its 'deceased' state and all, but... hey, always happy to help!
I'll miss you.
So, down to two reptiles again. For a while, anyway. But there was that empty snake tank now and... you know. The most expensive thing when you get a new reptile is rarely ever the reptile, itself. It's the setup. And we had one of those now, just sitting there, not housing anything. But it didn't seem right to get another garter snake and just 'replace' the old one. So we got this one, instead:
A Royal Python. She's one huuuuuge fucker by now, not the tiny baby snake you see on that video.
Yeah. Back to three reptiles. Totally enough, what with the two cats and all. Fingers crossed the landlord won't mind when he finds out.
Well, fuck.
Came to the shop one day and there was that teeny, tiny bosc monitor. There was also a guy with a mature monitor, dog-tame and everything. Biggest fucking lizard I had ever seen outside a zoo. I held him for a while. Heavy! Massive! Totally chilled out! The kinda pet you'd expect to see when visiting the Flintstones. His owner spent countless hours with his reptile each day, picked him up, stroked him, tamed him to a point where he could actually put his finger in the lizard's mouth and touch his teeth. I wouldn't even do that with most cats. Bastard made my beardies look completely shit in comparison!
Now now. I like our pets a lot and nothing will ever change that. But look at it this way. I go out shopping with a beardie, sit on the bus with a beardie, people get curious, ask questions, pet it, then some guy walks by with a fucking dinosaur.
And it had been a good year thus far, we had our finances under control and starting a payment plan towards a brand new monitor seemed like a cool idea. Which, of course, didn't work out. It never does. My life's alright until I decide I want something. And within just a few weeks we went from financially independence to, "Sorry, no meat this week" to, "Fuck, I don't think we can afford the rent!"
Awful. I didn't even wanna come to the shop anymore. I'd hafta give up on the payment plan, some random prick would buy my lizard, and the whole transformation from, "Good sir, please accept this humble payment, for I choose to purchase this herptile" to, "lolimahobo" was nothing short of embarassing.
Since I'm expecting my average follower to sport at least moderate intelligence, I'll fast-forward to Christmas from here. I'll assume you've all seen this coming, anyway. So yeah, the craziest thing happened. The whole family chipped in this year. I got the whole thing. Tank, heat, light, the works. And the very same lizard I had hoped to buy. Not a replacement one, not some random stranger, but the exact one I had started handling at the shop, hoping I'd be taking it home, someday. He'll ultimately outgrow his vivarium and I'm gonna have to find a kickass new, BIG one ASAP, but in the meanwhile, the second hand one will do nicely.
Also got a book about monitors as a manual of sorts. It's amusing to read "probably" and "seems to" in every paragraph, which just shows how little is known about pet reptiles so far.
Four reptiles. And I really need to stop here. I have no fucking clue how to explain this to the landlord during the next routine checkup. Frankly, I don't believe I should have to, since they're not dangerous or venomous or aggressive, they don't make any noises, the tanks are always nice and clean and these pets don't cause any smell, damage or whatever, but you can't blame a guy for thinking you're a little weird when you live with a snake, two bearded dragons, a bosc monitor and two cats. Then again, I've seen the neighbours. And the people who live around here. We're probably the most pleasant folks in the whole damn street.
On a slightly related note, let me sum up how this year's Xmas episode of this nation's most popular soap opera ruined the lives of almost every single character:
- Guy attempts to talk his ex out of marrying her new lover, so she'll come back to him instead
- Same guy gets surprise visit from his replacement girlfriend, who spontaneously moves back in with him
- Potential bride decides to cancel wedding to get back with ex, who now refuses her because his new GF showed up
- Potential bride decides to marry new lover, who cancels the wedding, because he finds out he's still only 2nd choice
- Potential groom fucks his younger brother's wife in frustration
- Whiny guy arranges wedding with his violent, abusive girlfriend, so he can get custody for their kid and abandon the slap-happy wife to-be. Fucks neighbour. A lot.
There's also some scary side-plots about gay dude, who breaks the hearts of two other gay dudes, when he realizes his sudden appreciation of the pussy. Owner of said pussy breaks the heart of her current lover to be with gay (?) dude. Rejected former lover then fucks 60 year old in frustration.
Not gonna comment on any of that. Just enjoying the fun of sharing what great quality Xmas tv people are enjoying over here.
A friend sent me a rather handsome amount of money via paypal today. People do that every now and then, asking me to buy them stuff on Steam, which is not available in Germany. So I asked him what he wanted me to buy and he said pizza. With double cheese.
Certainly one of the cooler Xmas presents I have received so far. Wanna know why he did it? He told me he had a great job, a roof over his head, a great life and nothing to wish for and he wants his friends to be happy for Xmas, as well. How cool is that?
When I was a kid, my parents used to be rather rich. At some point we had four (!) cars, one of which was for the cleaning ladies. Yes, plural. And my family was never satisfied. With anything. My stepmother is the kind of person who used to drive around in a golden (!) Mercedes with fake labels on them, suggesting the engine was even bigger than the one her car actually sported. Make-believe. Show off, impress the neighbours, that kinda thing. Look at how rich we are!
Well, you know how it goes. Big crisis, recession, everyone buying stuff they couldn't afford and not paying their monthly rates and all that - my parents lost most of their stuff and now they have to live like common riffraff. One car instead of four, a nice, big flat instead of a massive house, the steak comes from Aldi, that kinda stuff. Middle class. Yes, German Aldi sells steak. Not just beef. Ostrich, too! And they're oh so fucking miserable! Because it isn't horse meat. You'd think they live in cardboard boxes and eat out of garbage cans when they have absolutely nothing to worry about. The last Christmas I actually got to celebrate with my German family consisted of twenty minutes of eating, a massive argument about Wham's 'Last Christmas' (my stepmother plays it every year, everybody fucking hates it, but god forbid if anyone dares say something), my old man disappearing to get back to World of Warcraft and everyone trying to get home rather quickly. I got a pair of underpants and a bottle of Tabasco.
This is the third year I get to celebrate with the Bear's family since moving to the UK. We'll get there in a second hand Volvo. Which replaced a second hand Kia. Which replaced no car whatsoever. We'll be celebrating in a living room, which is smaller than my parents' old garage. We might end up playing some old video games or watching dvds. No BR. No HD, not even HDReady and certainly no 3D. And nobody is bitching. Nobody is whining about how the car is too cheap and too slow, about the telly being too small and too old, about how there's no room for everybody or some shit, nobody runs off to play MMORPGs in the middle of a fucking family gathering. There might be alcohol and jokes about German sausage and I'll do whatever I can to get out of any card and/or board games they might decide to play. And I'm gonna have a fucking good time.
I'm also gonna be fucking tired. It's 4am. I gotta get up in 5 hours. I only got up at 4pm today. I'm self-employed, I like to work nights and sleep in during the day. Now I'm supposed to be awake and reasonably presentable by 9am. The horror!
And I fucked up the one thing I'm supposed to be good at: Cooking. Even though we're invited to Xmas dinner and everything, I like to cook up some sauce for all the meat and stuff. So I went and got a whole lot of nice ingredients. Wine, tomatoes, basil, peas, carrots, onions, chicken stock... I don't know what the hell I was thinking. It seemed awesome in my imagination, but the final result started off being terribly bland and boring, then went to tasting weird and finally tasted and even smelled awful.
Great. The one thing the family around here talks about. My cooking. I cook stuff, people eat up. Heck, I can cook weird local stuff like cottage pie, which I'll admit isn't the most complicated thing on the planet, but there's never anything left when we have guests over. A few hours from now, I'll show up with absolutely nothing and tell people I fucked it up. Critical failure. I rolled a one. Twice in a row. A ninth circle pastamancer fucking up. Man I can't wait for 2012 to be over!
Well, I guess we all have our awful moments. Except when it comes to stuff we were born to do. Wrapping presents, for instance. I can wrap any kind of shit and it instantly looks good. It's a German racial ability. We get born with the ability to wrap gifts. Don't get me wrong - they look shit by German standards, but they're cooler than most English presents you'll ever see under a tree. I don't know how or why. I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing, but they always end up looking all neat and tidy. Or like giant pieces of wrapped candy or some shit. Thanks, genes! I mean, hey, I could be the lead singer in a world famous band or be a successful race driver, but having the ability to wrap fucking Xmas presents is really handy, as well. Sigh...
We'll probably get a ton of chocolate tomorrow. Or money. Or maybe that thing I hope for. I'm pretty sure there won't be any fucking underpants. I don't really know what the message was, there. I mean... why would you.... how... I don't get it. "You look like your balls are cold. Try some of these!" Well, that's not so bad, I suppose. Unless... "I want you to touch my present with your penis." If you don't dare say it, then a pair of boxers would be a reasonably safe bet. I'd much prefer to rub my cock against a brand new Playstation 3, but gift horse and all that.
Bleh. Writing down random thoughts. So girly. Should rename this blog to 'Dear diary'. Or maybe 'Kitten's log'. Damn, I wish STO really gave you an impression of what it's like to captain your own starship. They're showing endless re-runs of TNG these days and I'm pretty sure the basic idea behind many episodes is to make people think, "What would I do in this situation?". For me it's more of a, "I'm so fucking glad I don't have to do any of this shit at my job" kinda thing. How random.
What a dumb year this has been! The fucking expensive Electrolux vacuum cleaner broke for the 3rd time. Groceries became more expensive than ever. Lost more than a night's worth of sleep due to unpaid bills and an uncertain future. Funcom laid off their awesome community manager. My favourite lector is no longer proof-reading my shit. My column about how much the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 suck had caused a medium shitstorm. Our snake died of old age, and one of the beardies lost a foot and most of her eyesight, probably due to the same weird problems, that killed off every last one of her siblings at the shop. We never had the money to have our cats fixed and their horny yowling drove us insane every other week. We haven't been to McDonald's, Burger King or the cinema this year. At all. Oh and some dipshit killed 27 people in an elementary school, because his brother liked Mass Effect on Facebook. The first Skyrim expansion was about fucking vampires, the second one about building a home and settling down with a spouse and kids. The Bioware founders are now brewing beer or some shit. The pandas were real. SWToR is getting more stupid flash points nobody gives a fuck about, got the most retarded "F2P"-overhaul of the century and there isn't a word about any more story-related stuff, even though they had supposedly created enough content in that regard to keep us covered till what, 2015? Lies!
Dexter, Sherlock, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones - tons of fucking great shows, every single one of which aren't running at the moment, forcing us to wait for the new season. ARGH! And the average moron on Black Ops 2 has a YOLO or SWAG clan-tag and a penis, a pony or a pony sporting a huge penis on their player card. This is the new generation of gamers! This is the kind of people the industry is creating their shit for! My PC broke down, I lost a lot of data, then Claire's PC died right after I fixed mine, even more bills to pay, yay!
2013 is just around the corner and it's already looking very promising: I'm looking at the biggest work order of all times, all due in January. To make things even weirder, the deadline is very humane and the whole thing will be paid rather handsomely. None of the usual, "Okay, I'm reserving all this work to you, so we're gonna have to dump the price a bit" or "Can you send me all 30 pages next week?" stuff. You might think I'm joking, but I'm talking about a line of work, where people genuinely ask you to write a 4 page preview about a game, based only on a 5000 characters press release pdf file and two concept drawings.
'Dragonborn', the new Skyrim expansion, is on the horizon (or already there if you play it on the Xbox), so I had a fiddle with the old mods and settings and shit, finally figuring out a way to record some full hd gameplay that doesn't run in mega slow motion. My only problem right now is the horrible Youtube compression. Stuff still looks okay, but it doesn't do the source material any justice. I mean, just fucking LOOK AT EET!
I'm seriously hating this right now. I have a whole lot of work to do, Xmas time is family time, there are four more prestige-ranks I have to gain on Black Ops 2 and then this stupid game looks better and runs faster than ever and is so fucking immersive and breath-taking and more awesome than anything I've ever seen on my PC and it looks so good on the huge-ass LED screen andand... shit!
Speaking of Black Ops - I have found my "mojo". Turns out said mojo is really just the fine art of exploiting shotguns and SMGs. I tried convincing myself that they aren't ridiculously overpowered, that you can master any weapon by just adjusting your play style, blah blah blah. Thing is, if I can shoot an SMG from the hip, at some guy who happens to be half a mile away, kill him and still have 30 bullets left in my magazine, switching to an assault rifle, which requires me to hit the same guy at the same distance about 8 times and seriously sprays all over the place even with a scope, well...
Let's just say my recent super high scores and epic K/D ratios have very little to do with personal skill and are mostly related to the game's weapon balancing. Or lack thereof. I refused to walk the path of the SMG laster sight noob for a long time, but if you can't beat them... well, you get the idea. I'm not really proud of myself here, I like to stand out, be different, do my own thing, but I can only take so many crushing defeats until it gets boring, now I'm topping the scoreboards again. Oh well!
Also, The Hobbit. I'm still worried. They're turning a pocket-book into three super large movies? Yes, they're adding a bit of Silmaril here and there, but... well, all my friends say the first film was fanfuckingtastic, so I can't wait to see it myself. Hopefully sometime at the weekend. It's weird - given our dire situation, we can't really afford going to the movies right now, so I had several people jumping me, trying to force free movie tickets down my throat. I managed to fend most of them off until somebody did a little research, figured out which theatre is the one located near us and just bought a coupon.
I'm grateful for friends like that and getting so much support really makes me happy, but it also confuses me. Let's not sugar-coat this - I'm an asshole. I enjoy being an asshole, I revel in it, I even get paid to be, well, me. Ya know, write about how shit everything is and people give me money.
The last time a friend asked me if I could help him with a problem, I said there's nothing I can do about his fat face and retarded accent. People laugh about this kind of stuff and think I'm joking. Maybe I'm just misunderstood. Maybe they're trying to make me a nicer person by being nice and generous to me or they're afraid to be the next ones to get on my bad side or... eh, fuck it. I'm already overthinking it. I suppose people just get weird around Xmas. So yeah, thanks for the ticket. Should I ever amount to anything in my life, I'll be sure to return the favour someday. But don't hold your breath. Somehow I doubt that browser-based F2P games are gonna make me rich in the near future.
Oh and - to all you fuckers, who are going crazy about this new trilogy, yet never bothered to read the fucking source material: KILI, FILI AND THORIN FUCKING DIEEEE! Eat that! :P
Ahh yes, games. Did you know I used to create a few of those? Nothing spectacular or anything, but... well, take a look:
This stuff is over a decade old and the basic game engines weren't mine, of course. The first bunch of pix are rather obvious RPG-Maker stuff, the rest was made with some fun little tool, which was a complete Zelda rip. But all the levels and landscapes, stories, characters, speech (!), flags, events and shit were made by me. Ya know, if the player triggers this'n'that event, monsters will overrun and destroy the starting village, game moves on, that kinda stuff. Moving, transparent, parallax-scrolling fog. Stuff nobody gives a shit about nowadays, but pretty awesome to me when I pulled it off. In fact, that stuff got me a job offer to be the map designer for America. I refused, because I wasn't done with school back then. Looking back, it was a rather stupid decision, since I never graduated, anyway. Sure, America was crap, but it could have been my first step into "the industry". Oh well.
I dunno. Maybe one day, when I'm really, seriously bored, I'll look into a current version of RPG Maker and create Berserkerkitten - The Game or something. The stuff you can create with these tools may look a bit dull and generic, but a good story, witty writing and fun characters can help a lot. And people are crazy about their retro shit anyway.
Six more days till Xmas. Or seven in the UK. I'm not sure. They have weird shit like boxing day and what not, everyone is sending cards and best wishes, it's all very confusing, even though it's the 3rd time I get to celebrate it all over here. In Germany, it all happens on the night of the 24th, then there's 2 Xmas holidays after and that's that. Around here it's a bit different, kinda, but... I dunno, I'm still getting the hang of it. There's gonna be weird paper crowns and disgusting vegetables that look like potato chips.
The Bear says I should hope and wish for something I really, really want, because the whole family must have chipped in and they have a biiig surprise for me and they wanna give me something cool. I'm pretty sure I know what it is, but then I might be getting my hopes up and it's gonna be something else. And I can't just go ahead and say, "Well, you do kinda suck at keeping secrets and by the way you react whenever I bring it up..." I dunno, wouldn't be fair. But I hate letting things go, I like confrontation, bringing shit up. Gotta shut up and wait another week. ARGH!
"Winter" is a total joke this year. It's seven degrees out while I'm writing this, yet everybody complains about how cold it is. Even British cats are total wussies in that regard. They both sleep on the kitchen heater and flat-out refuse to hang out in the living room. On the plus side, it's also too warm for snow. Don't get me wrong - I love snow. That fun, crunchy sensation when you walk around on it. The way it seems to muffle all the noise, how it sugar-coats everything. And let's not deny the fact that it's incredibly fun to piss on. :P
But I'm waiting for the grocery fucker right now. Nothing fancy, just the usual tomato stuff, which is all we can afford, but it's still food. I like food. I like it even more when it arrives in a timely fashion. And it never does when there's snow outside. In England, snow means instant stone age. The shelves at the supermarket won't get restocked, the mail man doesn't deliver anything, shit just stands still. Because of two inches of snow. In Germany, that stuff can be knee-high, but it won't stop anyone. You can see legions of little Germans with mighty shovels and salt instantly clearing the streets. Monster plows keeping the roads in shape and all that. No such thing in the UK. People see three snowflakes and panic. Rightfully. No salt, no shovels, the shit just freezes over and becomes a death trap.
They're fixing a hole in the roof on the house that's right opposite to ours. It's so annoying and stupid to masturbate when people keep staring through the fucking window all the time. Not annoying and stupid enough to stop me, but still pissing me off. Don't they have a fucking roof to fix? Maybe I should just go have a shower...
Ahh yes. Black Ops 2. Still. Or CoDBlops. Sounds like fish-based cereal. Apparently, they're going to nerf this:
Yes I know, I get killed by the last guy, but come on. Still pretty neat, no?
And since doing this kinda stuff doesn't really require any effort, they're nerfing it now. Patch 1.4 has hit on PS3 and it adds more spread and recoil to SMGs. I haven't noticed anything on the PC version so far, so maybe the nerf was very subtle or it hasn't gone live on there, yet.
Oh well. Big nerf, small nerf, yes nerf, no nerf - I'm not a fan of doing what everybody else does, so I switched from SMGs to LMGs and I'm paying the price right now. My scores are absolutely abysmal half of the time. It's gonna take some adjusting and I might not stick with it in the long run, but I do love that whole Rambo look and feel. The sound. Shooting a guy through a solid brick wall from a mile away. Downing an enemy chopper without reloading. We'll see.
At least the Bear is improving. Scores are getting better and better, we're seeing the occasional multikills and scorestreaks and watching somebody grow from a total noob to a talented gamer always warms my heart. Reminds me of myself when the whole Counter-Strike hype first came up. Or Action Quake, a bit before that. To think that most people turned around using their keyboards back then... shit! Heh!
Now I get to watch the same process, the growth, the learning curve, all over again. Strafe when you shoot, don't stand still when you reload, stop sprinting when you approach a corner, keep an eye out for red dots, yada, yada, yada. It's a small handful of basic tricks, the rest is about awareness, good aim and quick reflexes. Shoot first. Han Solo vs Greedo all over again. I like watching the Blocky Cow's more successful matches in theatre mode, have a look at the play style and what have you. Sometimes I wanna yell at the screen, "He's right there, for fuck's sake!" when CowBearBlock seems completely oblivious to their presence. When shots constantly go straight for the legs, not the head. When the magazine is down to 10 bullets and there's no reload. Or when I see a reload after literally two shots, right in plain sight. We've all been through this at some point. I remember going through the same stages with my brother when he was new to CS and online gaming. Little did I know he'd become a professional gamer and compete for massive amounts of prize money. I've watched him play live on tv. Crazy shit.
And everyone at LPSG, our little "clan" of sorts, is making progress, as well. While I was having the worst night I ever had on BO2, Syrius, our usual bottom feeder, ended up scoring some impressive kill streaks and got "knighted". Basically, that's what happens when people accuse you of cheating. So yeah, the guy ended with well over 20 kills, had about five deaths and the first idiot shouted "OMG HAX!1". You know what it's like. Which is funny, because that kinda shit usually requires at least 30 kills, but there ya have it.
Watching killcams and replays, I have seen very few suspicious players, one, maybe two of which convinced me they were using an aimbot. You know, crosshairs instantly jumping from one target to another after each kill, zero "sway", crosshairs following people through walls and solid objects, the kinda painfully obvious crap that made Modern Warfare 3 so much fun.
Strangely enough, I don't even see any of the more subtle crap on BO2. Endless sprint, endless ammo, infinite killstreak rewards and the like. It's just not there. There are some people, who always magically seem to be able to sense my presence even without the legit little tools and helpers that let you detect enemy players. Might be luck, lots of great guesswork or simple wallhacking. That's terribly annoying. But that's about as bad as it gets. I had nights on MW3 where a guy would appear on a rooftop, one-shot everbody on the map, right in the head, through walls and everything, and spam a message with every kill. I have yet to see that kinda shit on BO2.
I'm not sure why that is. The new report button to rat out cheaters? Damn thing makes me paranoid. I get accused of "hacking" a dozen times each day, so what's gonna happen when enough morons report me? Is it because the crazy Russians, who invent all this shit, suddenly charge people a massive amount of money PER MONTH to use those bots and hacks? I'm not sure what's going on here, but I like it.
The one thing that does bother me, of course, is the constant whining about cheaters. People with 3 kills and 20 deaths accusing everything and everyone around them of cheating. I stand at the top of a stairway, guy throws flashbang up the stairs, I blindly shoot down the stairs and kill flashbang guy. "Fucking aimbot!"
You stupid shitdick. We're on a set of fucking stairs. I was looking at you when you blinded me. There is no way in hell I could possibly assume you're behind me or next to me or god knows where. You're right the fuck in front of me, on some stairs, so I shoot and - holy fuck - I end up killing you. Logical conclusion: I'm cheating.
Moron is camping in the corner of a house. Just sits in that one corner and waits. A whole five minutes. I enter the building, camper sees me, camper shoots me. Stays in his corner. I respawn. I walk back to the house. I move to the moron's corner from OUTSIDE the house, shoot him through the wall. "Wallhack! Reported!" Yes. You spend the duration of the entire match in the same fucking spot, the kill cam shows your victim your exact location, so there is absolutely no way in hell I could have known where you were hiding. Unless I was cheating.
People are predictable, stupid and highly resistant to learning. I place a mine in a corridor, guy walks into it, dies. I place another mine in the same corridor, same guy walks into it again and dies some more. I place yet another mine, guy watches the corridor, sees no mine, starts running through and gets blown up by the mine I placed around the corner, at the end of the corridor. And he calls me a noob. An intelligent player would: a) Switch classes and use Flak Jacket to survive the explosions
b) Switch to Engineer and see all my mines from miles way. Through walls.
c) Switch to Black Hat, hack my mines and kill me with them
d) JUST AVOID THE FUCKING CORRIDOR FOR FUCK'S SAKE!
But I'm the noob. When I kill people with pistols, I'm a pistol noob. "OMFG l2use a real gun!11". I kill people with an SMG. "Noob sprayer!" So I kill them with an LMG, from a distance, using my scope. "Noob camper!" Conclusion: When you kill somebody on Call of Duty, your instrument of choice automatically makes you a noob. If you kill people a LOT, it makes you a hacker. If you stop killing them, it makes you an even bigger noob. My absolute favourite insult is so incredibly stupid and hysterically funny, I couldn't possibly make it up: "OMG get skill!" I've seen that one at the end of matches since Modern Warfare and it's still around today. Priceless!
People have a very distorted image of themselves and their abilities. It cannot possibly be that the other guy just beat you because he was better, he reacted faster, he outsmarted you. If the other guy wins, something must be wrong. The game generated over a billion (!) bucks 15 days after release, there are more active players around than I dare count, so why the FUCK is it so hard for people to believe there's a pretty decent chance they might run into somebody who is actually a little better at this game than they are, if only for one match?
Oh well. Still a good day. Female monster belching and ISS DEIN SCHNITZEL!! on Teamspeak. We had fun.
The other day, I sat around wondering about the effects of age on reflexes and general gaming ability. Then a friend of mine, who happens to be nearly a decade older than I am, joined up for some after-midnight fun on Black Ops 2 and... well, let's just say that I had no reason to worry about anything. We're constantly competing for first place, people accuse us of cheating and wallhacking left, right and center and at some point, he ended up winning a match with 23 kills and zero (zilch, none, nada) deaths.
I like explosives a wee little too much to be successful in the 0 deaths department, but I'm doing okay here, as well:
It's the kind of brainless, pointless fun I'm looking for in a shooter. My friends in the "pro" department would strongly disagree with me here. You see, I don't think when I play, I'm just dicking around, doing my thing, having fun... we're usually making up weird songs on voice chat, we're talking about the weather in England, and I'm pretty sure an outsider would have a hard time figuring out whether or not we're actually ingame, judging by what's being discussed at the time.
Then I have friends, who have played every single CoD religiously. Those guys have formed their own clan, they're playing pretty much all night and day and, while I generally enjoy playing alongside them, they always become a little unbearable when a new CoD comes out. Every new game of the series is the "worst game ever" and "they're never gonna buy another one again" and what have you. I've already mentioned the drama regarding lag compensation, now they're raging about submachine guns and the laser sight attachment thingie.
Because everyone is using SMGs and shooting from the hip now. Right. Because that totally didn't happen on the first Black Ops, with the 'Steady Aim' perk and the AK74u.
It's amazing what a bit of nostalgia and selective memory can do to a person's perception. People used to complain about lag compensation on Modern Warfare 3, saying it's ruining the game. Now they say the exact same thing about Black Ops 2, BUT: "...I'm gonna go back to MW3 until this is fixed." Mkay. Right. Because for some reason, lag compensation is okay on there now, but it ruins BO2.
Meanwhile, the first Black Ops is now turning into some kind of holy grail. The untouchable game, the flawless one, the one last enjoyable CoD thou shall not flame. How about a quick reality check: The spawns on that game have been broken since release and some shitdick spawn-camps the enemy team *in every single match*. If the weapons are oh so fucking balanced, why is everyone using the AK47/74 and why are people using dual G18s getting kicked for using an OP noob weapon? Oh and since when is it so fucking great to be forced to score countless 'first blood' kills, capture flags and do all kinds of other shit nobody gives a fuck about in order to unlock all the fucking pro perks every single time you prestige?
I'm not even missing dedicated servers anymore. Don't get me wrong: I love them for their relative stability, the presence of admins who ban people for cheating and general dipshittery, but at the end of the day, I could divide the list of available, lag-free dedicated servers in two categories:
1. Full
2. Retarded rules: We will ban you if you camp for more than 2 minutes, use rocket launchers on people, use the grenade launcher attachment, dual wield, show suspicious behaviour on the killcam etc.
Regarding the second kind of server, there are clan forums, where members are actually required to video themselves whilst playing the game (as in, camera pointing at the actual person and the screen) to prove they're not cheating. Registration for a VAC anti cheat profile is recommended, as well. Do you think this is a motherfucking game? Call of Duty is serious business! I so wanna post a pic of grump cat right now...
I don't give a shit about any of that stuff. I lack the patience to camp and I suck with launchers, but if somebody sits in the same spot all the fucking time, so be it. That's what the killcam is for. I'll know where he's camping and I'll kick his ass. And I tend not to cry about people blowing me up with an RPG. Damn thing is in the game, let people use it. What's with the constant urge to rule, regulate and overthink everything?
On a happier note, the Bear has now joined me on Black Ops 2, as well. We're on there now as Kitten and BlockyCow. Look at the cool player emblems I have created for us:
If you're not familiar with CoD emblems, they're basically created by combining and colouring little shapes. You know, circles, squares and the like. So you can't just hand-draw stuff or download an image off the 'net as you would with a Counter-Strike spraytag, but you have to get creative, yourself. People have already begun ripping off and (badly) copying my emblem, but they do say that plagiarism is the highest form of praise. Besides, it's not like I came up with that thing from scratch - it's clearly inspired by a certain webcomic about gaming cats. *coughs*
This is how the editor works:
Random youtube video, not very good, not made by me, but it gives you a basic idea of how it all works. Oh and something happened last night. Something I said was impossible, stuff that never happens IRL, but it actually did: I kicked a guy's ass, ended up in first place and the guy actually said I'm a great player. No flames, no insults, no accusation, just telling me I'm good. Made my day! Might the internet start to mature after all? Now I'm probably expecting a little too much, eh? :P
Well, looks like we might not be as active on Guild Wars 2 as we used to be, now that Black Ops 2 requires most of our attention. I'm still up for fractals and dungeons and stuff, but it's good to have a bit of variety. ♥
Did you know that on top of this blog, there's also a Berserkerkitten Youtube channel, Berserkerkitten podcasts, gameplay videos and articles spread over what must be half a dozen websites and magazines now? It's funny when you think about it. That name was a joke about my cat and the idea for a webcomic, which, unfortunately, never happened. Now it's a trademark of sorts, it's our "business", a huge collection of articles, posts and videos about games, reptiles and random crap. It's nothing massive or groundbreaking, nothing like the Yogscast or Totalbiscuit, but... who knows what the future might bring? One fun new side project is our contribution to Letsplaysomegames.de and I'm also a ghostwriter of sorts at demonews.de
None of that stuff is making us rich, but ya gotta start somewhere. WE ARE BERSERKERKITTEN! RAWR! :P
We also dare to be ugly and stupid.
Playing Metroid Prime Trilogy on the PC with rodent+keyboard works surprisingly well. It doesn't handle like a proper PC shooter, the controls are a bit awkward, but it beats wiggling that gay little stick at the screen all the time. Most of all, it looks pretty damn awesome, what with the improved visuals and all. I really gotta share some video footage ASAP.
Still enjoying Black Ops 2, too. Starting to get the hang of it. Which, unfortunately, comes with the added bonus of being accused of "hacking". I hate how cheaters on CoD are generally referred to as hackers. What a load of shit! People using wallhacks and aimbots are cheating scumbags, who depend on 3rd party tools to score their kills, but the only hackers are the Russian guys who create and sell (!) these tools in the first place.
I had much better matches than this one.
The one thing that ruins the fun right now is everyone's paranoia about the so-called "lag compensation", which is supposed to even out the ping ratios between players with varying connection quality. People describe a weird phenomenon where they run around a corner, spot an enemy, shoot and die the same second. And on the kill cam it supposedly looks like they ran straight towards the enemy player for at least a whole second and the other guy shoots first. I have seen youtube videos of people trying to prove the whole thing, but the difference between live action and killcam is minute to non-existent.
But many players insist that this is not just a techno-placebo and actively ruins their fun. I don't know about this, I think it's being massively overblown and I could only care less, if people would stop whining about it. That's the problem with competitive games and the people who play it. If you beat them, it's because you cheat, because you're a [insert weapon here] noob, because they were typing or some other shit, but it's never because you're the better player. Right now it's because of lag compensation. The game is a lot more fun when you ignore the chat. Well... which game isn't?
Oh yeah, I also turned 31. My significant other cooked me some dinner, which - to my great surprise - was fantastic. There was also a case, which contained 8 cans of Guinness and... well, I'm not feeling so good right now. Hehe!
The guild has sent me a whole ton of Cake on GW2, along with a Skritt pet, who is supposed to help me acquire more loot. He had already found a copper coin by the time he got stuffed in my mailbox. His name is Fernando, apparently. I bet he sports a fake French accent and dreams about his own hair salon.
There's also the "family" back in Germany. My old man contacting me for the first time since August. By email. "Sorry, I was really busy and stuff kept coming up." Yeah, I hate when so much stuff comes up, I just can't take five minutes to write a fucking email for the quarter of a fucking year! And my brother sent a little bday greeting on Facebook. "By the way, your grandmother has been in hospital for two weeks now." Oh really? Why? What's going on? If it wasn't for my birthday, you wouldn't have told me at all and now I know two weeks after? Gee, thanks! People always tell me they couldn't leave their country, their friends and families, move to a foreign place and all that. Trust me, if you had a family like mine, you'd die to be as far away as somehow possible!
Still no midlife crisis, I think. No grey hair so far, either. Still got all my teeth. The fact that I'm doing something I love for money and doing someone I love for the fun of it, as well as being able to spend 20something hours a day playing online games and kicking the ass of the younger generation, it's all stuff I always wanted to do. No time to sit back and wonder, "What have I done with my life? Where am I going?"
I'm still worried about every single bill, of course. Rent is due again in another month and right now I don't know when I'll get my next paid work order. The downside to self-employment. But everybody struggles these days.
I'll admit I'm spending more time accepting the less pleasant facts of life. Ageing. There's probably gonna be a point in life, where my reaction time will be slower than that of many younger gamers, where I'll end up losing a shootout I would have won when I was younger. Then again, I'll be more experienced, more patient, won't make as many mistakes. What a stupid thing to think about at my age! We should all be lucky like Patrick Stewart. He was born a disturbingly charismatic 50 year old. Really, he came out just like that and told bedtime stories to all the other babies in his soothing voice. And he just says like that. Forever. Amazing shit!
Hey, when I die, can we please put "I'll be back!" on the headstone? Yeah... that'd be great, thanks!
In other news, I may have ruined a friend's life. By accident. I mentioned Second Life and somehow I must have made it sound cool. It really isn't. Quick reminder:
It's the one game in this universe, which lets you spend real money to equip your avatar with a dragon vagina. With 38 states and functions. Or a canine dick. So Mr. Wolf here can follow his feral instincts when he comes across a hydrant. Because everybody loves peeing on things! And thanks to Second Life, we no longer need to leave the house to do so! Yaaaay! :P
Oh, speaking of stupid shit on the internet: You're probably familiar with stupid websites, which require you to post a birth date to "prove" you're 18. My fellow Germans have pushed this nonsense to a whole new level: If you want to watch videos rated 16+, such as gameplay footage, movie trailers and the like, most German websites now tell you to wait until 11pm. The video refuses to play any earlier than that.
But the Oscar of internet security definitely goes to Dell! If you order a PC on their official website, you have to tick a checkbox, which makes you promise that you are not going to use your new computer to plan a terrorist attack! Genius! I bet that's how they caught Bin Laden.
First of all, I'm still alive. This blog has been inactive for much longer than usual, due to shitloads of work (yay!) and way too many great games and friends who want to play them (boo!... kinda). So yeah... check this out:
This might make me a bad person, but I grew up on Sega and never cared much for Nintendo. But then I noticed how well old Gamecube and even Wii games can be emulated today. The Youtube video doesn't really do this game any justice - I can run F Zero GX on 1080p with antialiasing, multisampling and all that fancy graphical shit, which makes jaggies disappear and textures a little less blurry. Not only does the whole thing look a LOT better than on the original hardware, but I have to actually limit the maximum FPS or the game ends up running at 200% its original speed. That's not how you want to play F Zero, trust me.
I'm not a huge fan of the Wii, let alone the retarded Wiimote controls, but since that emulator is able to mimic said awful control scheme with a mouse, I could play the Metroid Prime trilogy with mouse+keyboard, the way god intended FPS games to be played. In full HD, which the actual Wii cannot pull off. On the nice, big LED screen. Oooo the temptation!
But wait, there is more:
Black Ops 2. I wasn't going to buy it. Ever. And I didn't. But a friend gave it to me for free. The nice things people do for you when you're a witty writer. In fact, I've cranked out a nice review for him in return. I guess that makes me a ghost writer. I compared the AI baddies to Imperial stormtroopers and in a direct comparison to boobs, the stunning scripted events on Black Ops 2 fall short by quite a bit. It's a shame I'll never see my name and face under such a kickass article, but I love my free game and I'm having waaaay too much fun with it!
Most importantly, though, there's still Guild Wars 2. The game I thought I'd get bored of after 2-4 weeks tops. Holy fuck, the amounts of content and actual game play I keep getting on there for zero monthly fees!
The game looks *that* good!
A little while back, there was the kickass Halloween event, which included a scavenger hunt for a really cool item reward, a mini dungeon, an epic boss battle, costume brawls and some minigames and fun activities on top of all that. Compare that to hunting down a certain headless horseman and the world's most popular MMO falls rather short after all those years.
Oh and I got a nice new weapon for Halloween, as well. In fact, I'm using that one and ONLY that one now. For good. Me and my weapon. Happily ever after.
BWAHAHAHA! *foams*
There was also the incredibly laggy, frustrating, dull, not so cool event, which introduced a new area to the game. Which wasn't all that great in itself, sure, but it brought a whole new lot of fun little mini dungeons, the so-called 'fractals' with it. Rather than fighting a whole lot of ludicrously powerful enemies and respawn-zerging bosses like in the regular dungeons (which are being fixed right now), players have to beat clever dungeon mechanisms and puzzles for the win.
For instance, there is one fractal, where the group fights its way through a whole lot of ice and snow, taking more and more damage over time as they get colder and colder. Players need to light fires on the way and warm up to remove the debuff and avoid an icy death. Problem is, the fire also attracts all kinds of freezing baddies, so while a certain amount of warmth is necessary to survive, you'll inevitably get in a lot of trouble while hanging around for too long. Each fractal features gimmicks like that, which you have to figure out and defeat on the go. The more complicated ones involve stuff such as killing enemies with a massive hammer, which kills the wielder after a certain amount of time and deals rather lousy damage. Each kill charges up a special attack, which is required to break magical seals. You have to break all the seals in order to free a giant, who is being held by them. Players have to take turns using the hammer if they want to avoid getting killed by its debuff. It sounds atrocious, but our fun little guild group is doing a rather amazing job getting through all of that stuff.
As I mentioned earlier, the regular dungeons are also being rebalanced and re-tuned. I still don't like them a whole lot, but there are some truly great moments in some of them. The final boss in one dungeon crushes the party with flaming boulders. The group needs to seek shelter behind a magical barrier, then grab the boulders' searing chunks to throw them back at the boss, all whilst dodging more boulders and taking fire damage from the hot rocks. This is what it looks like:
So now I'm working on F Zero unlocks with Claire, prestige levels on Black Ops, fractal levels with the guild and as if that wasn't stressful enough, there's still Mass Effect 3. Claire is officially hooked on that game's online multiplayer and she's making some nice progress. She started off being rather slow and clueless, but now we're taking down wave after waver after wave of bad guys without much trouble. Problem is, she's getting waaaaay too addicted to the whole thing.
Duo with Claire on ME3
She has never played any shooters on a PC before, the whole thing feels new and exciting to her, but now that she's scoring all the super-fast kills and knows how to aim for the head and all that... well, I think we need to step it up a notch and get her on Black Ops 2. The game is hideously expensive and I don't think we can get her that game anytime soon, but it's definitely something to aim for. Because fighting large waves of AI-controlled aliens is nice and fun, but you haven't truly experienced multiplayer shooters until you've shot a real, whiny 12 year old, who questions your sexual orientation on voice chat.
Guardians are insanely versatile, even for a GW2 class. A staff-wielding guardian can support a group with some really nice healing magic. Add an alternate weapon set that utilizes shields and you get one hell of a support character for your dungeon group. Or spec into those fun, floaty, ethereal weapons! With the right traits they last twice as long, won't be destroyed upon firing off their special abilities and they cannot be harmed in wvw. And you don't know real fun until you get chased around the battlefield by a ghostly sword, hammer and shield, which cut you up, knock you down and inflict vulnerability on you, respectively. Because a guardian can summon three of those suckers all at the same time!
But I'm not gonna teach you how to protect a bunch of pussies or how to make invulnerable pets do all the dirty work for you. I'm gonna teach you how to fight like a man! Up close and personal.
You might remember my guide on manly rangers, so for the sake of continuity I'm gonna demonstrate a few minutes of quick Orr solo farming, Grenth area:
This is how my build works. If you disagree with the play style, the abilities or anything else on there, move along. If you like the general idea of this build, feel free to copy, customize and match your personal preference and style. All gear, runes, sigils etc. are visible at the beginning of the video, you might wanna pause in order to see each individual item if you care for that sort of thing. This guide will explain what I'm using and how and why I'm doing so.
Overview - The Manly Guardian
At level 80 and in full exotic berserker gear, this build has a pretty small ~11k health pool. That's all a good player needs, since you get an aegis, regeneration and a powerful self-heal to keep you alive. Contrary to what a bunch of self-proclaimed pros might say, this is also a viable build for dungeons. Check my youtube channel for zero death dungeon footage.
You will need to learn when to back the fuck off and switch to ranged combat, how to predict and evade the more powerful enemy attacks and to generally stay away from those red circles. Heck, you should know these things when playing any class, but screwing up with a small health pool is just that much more punishing. You've been warned.
This build utilizes greatswords, sceptres and shields.
Pros
+ High AoE damage
+ 1200 range on sceptre attacks (as opposed to 900 range axe attacks on rangers etc.)
+ Sceptre root attack and shield punt for crowd control
+ Rooting, punting and teleporting allows you to be a major dick in pvp
+ For some fucked up reason, every dungeon group wants guardians and warriors
+ Super easy melee mob-tagging
Cons
- Your health pool is shit
- Small, easy battles can all be won just by mashing '2'
- Groups expect you to call targets. Which isn't a big deal, but if you hate it... well, sucks to be you.
- Sceptres are gay. Like, really gay. Sir Elton John gay.
Dem Traits - This is how you spec
This is where your trait points go. Why? Read on!
Zeal gets maxed out all the way. This is the law! Not only are we going for maximum power, but there are three nice traits we want from this thing:
1. Fiery Wrath: Ideally, our enemies will be burning at all times, so 10% extra damage to burning baddies is a huge plus.
2. Greatsword Power: 5% more greatsword damage may not sound like much, but with fiery wrath that's already 15% extra against burning foes.
3. Zealous Blade: Our health pool is shit, zealous blade alleviates that to some extent by granting a healing effect to all our greatsword attacks. Must-have!
The Zeal traitline also buffs our symbol of wrath a bit (no. 4 on greatsword), which isn't too shabby, but nothing insanely great, either.
Next trait line to max out is Radiance. One weakness of our full berserker spec is the lower crit rate you get when compared to a rampager build. The 300 extra precision from Radiance boosts our crit chance to an acceptable 51% at level 80. Traits:
1. Searing Flames. Removing a boon whenever you inflict burning to an enemy is more useful in wvw, but all the alternatives are worse. Shimmering Defense is alright for pve.
2. Inscribed Removal: Poison and burning can be a real bitch on a low health pool. This build uses two signets, giving us two buttons to remove such nasty conditions. Take it!
3. Perfect Inscriptions: We wanna get as much power as possible out of our Bane Signet, so this is a must.
This trait line allows us to spam Virtue of Justice, as it automatically renews itself whenever we kill a baddie. It also blinds foes around us now and we'll deal extra damage to enemies suffering from conditions. SO much extra damage!
The final ten points go to Valor. Why? Extra crit damage. Meditation Mastery is an okay trait, which allows us to teleport towards foes a little faster. The aegies renewal on 50% health is a nice addition.
So, why don't we put 30 points into Valor for max crit damage? Mostly, because the rest of the trait line is shit. They all involve shields, maces, hammers and other stuff, which is completely irrelevant to our fighting style. Some extra crit damage alone won't do if we don't have the traits to support our fighting style. 30 points on Virtues is out of the question, as it centers around activating all your damn virtues over and over again, meaning you have to manage and monitor three more abilities. Bleh!
30 points on Honor is a valid possibility in order to raise our rather lousy health cap and get the 20% cooldown bonus for two-handed attacks. This trait line also allows us to increase the size and duration of Signet of Wrath.
That said, I never felt that I really *needed* a 20% cooldown reduction on my greatsword attacks, where the most powerful move can be used every ten seconds anyway. A 2 seconds speedup isn't a whole lot and freebies such as "heal allies at the end of a dodge roll" isn't all that great. And extra damage on low energy rather than extra damage vs enemies with conditions? WAY too complicated. If you spec into this, you'll either lose all your other greatsword buffs or you'll royally gimp your Virtue of Justice. And not being able to remove boons is a bad thing in dungeons.
Dem Skillz - Picking the right shit for epic hurtage - Healing: Signet of Resolve. Auto-curing conditions every ten seconds is insanely helpful, and so is healing over 8k out of 11k health. The 40s cooldown might sound harsh, but if your virtues and dodging abilities can't keep you alive for that long, then this build isn't for you, anyway.
- 1st utility: Judge's Intervention. AoE burning is good. Removes boons, allows us to deal 10% extra damage, allows us to teleport an insane distance right in front of an enemy. Try it against fleeing players in wvw, it's hilarious!
- 2nd utility: Bane Signet. We want maximum damage, therefore we want power, bane signet grants power and requires no management at all. Can be used for CC if necessary (knockdown). In this spec, triggering bane signet also removes nasty conditions like bleeding, poison, burning etc. - 3rd utility: "Save Yourselves!" An excellent oshi-button. Provides absolutely every boon there is, breaks stun, lets you run away, heals you a little bit... it's the one thing to keep you alive when shit goes sideways and your signet of resolve isn't ready. If you're feeling super badass and you don't believe in skills for additional survivability, replace with a signet of choice for more passive damage bonuses.
- Elite: Mistfire Wolf. I'm not even fucking kidding. Frankly, all guardian elite skills are shit from a DPS perspective. The special attacks on that tome leave much to be desired, you don't want supportive elite spells and temporary invulnerability may be nice, but it doesn't usually last long enough to do you any good. To me, the wolf is vastly underrated and provides for some nice extra damage. Alternatively, fill with a racial elite you like or pick one of the guardian class elites if you disagree with me.
Dat Gear - Wearing the right shtoof to bring the pain
We're going for maximum damage here, so berserker in absolutely every slot is the way to go. Maximum crit damage. If you're a cheap bastard, you can go for rampager stuff and boost your crit rate to something around the high sixties, but the added condition damage won't help you much. Burning is nice and all, but you're not stacking 20+ bleeds and poison, so this stat is mostly wasted on you.
If you desire greater survivability, you'll want Valkyrie gear, but that's not in the spirit of this build. If played right, full berserker can survive dungeons just fine.
For runes, you can go with just about anything that raises your power and crit damage. In the example video, I'm going with Baelfire stuff, because the flame nova and added burning duration go well with the guardian's abilities. If you can't be bothered to farm tokens, it's perfectly fine to get superior runes off the TP, which complement this build (burning, crit damage, power, you get the idea). Divinity Runes aren't worth it unless you're shitting gold. 12% extra crit damage as opposed to the 9% from other rune sets are barely noticeable and the +60 to all stats isn't really all that useful.
As for weapon sigils, you'll want a Superior Sigil of Strength on your greatsword. Your basic greatsword attack grants you might on every third strike, which stacks nicely with the Strength Rune procs and can quickly result in 10+ might stacks when fighting multiple enemies.
Your sceptre gets Superior Sigil of Flame. A 30% chance for an extra flame AoE attack on each crit is nice to have, looks cool and procs a whole lot.
The shield gets upgraded with a Superior Sigil of Bloodlust. Try and get the 25 ranged kills out of the way ASAP to benefit from 250 extra points of power. The power bonus persists even when you switch back to your sword, resulting in over 3850 attack power, not counting possible might stacks.
Play Style - PvE
For quick and easy tagging of large mob groups and hogging of foes, use your teleport ability (Judge's Intervention) to reach baddies halfway across the map within the blink of an eye. Be sure you can fucking handle them! Spam Virtue of Justice for greater flame damage and AoE blindness - killing an enemy instantly resets its CD, anyway! Your greatsword attacks are self-explanatory. If you need help on how to spam those, go back to Barbie Horse Adventures!
In case of trouble, try to get away using "Save Yourselves!". It'll provide a light HoT and get you out of most hairy situations. Judge's Intervention can also be used as an escape mechanism when used at a weaker, far away baddie. Save your healing signet until the last possible moment. Wasting at 60% health can mean a quick death, whilst waiting for the 40s cooldown to pass.
When melee doesn't seem safe, use your sceptre. You can cc enemies and bind them, followed directly by your ground-targeted ranged AoE for large amounts of damage. The AI is incredibly lousy at countering basic circle-strafing, so keep running circles around the masses, spam your special attacks and take them down one at a time. This also works well against veteran baddies and most bosses. Most weaker bosses can barely out-DPS your regeneration, so attacking them in melee is often the lazier, easier option. Just dodge those stomps, club attacks and other predictable, nasty shit! You can easily melee large bosses like Gronk if you time your dodge moves right.
Play Style - WvW
1200 range sceptre attacks and ranged AoEs for racking up lame, easy zerg kills, no surprises there. 1on1 melee situations are usually cake. Close in with your leap, start whirling around like the fucking morons most guardians are anyway, "Save Yourselves" to break CC, trigger Bane Signet to remove conditions and to CC your opponent some more, switch to your sceptre to root the fucker when he runs off and use Judge's Intervention to teleport after him if he gets away. An average player won't be able to handle you - including most other guardians, because they tend to suck.
You have enough CC, gap closers and condition-removing abilities to handle casters and rangers. Use your brain, maintain your cool, keep those fuckers burning and rooted and teleport after them if it needs be. If all else fails, a talented guardian's sceptre is deadlier than a crappy ranger player's bow.
