Friday, June 15, 2007

We were all Noobs

I was talking to Adventar yesterday about his first experience in an instance, the Dead Mines. He had been looking for a level appropriate group, and finally ended up rolling with a lvl 52 hunter running him through with a couple other lowbies in tow. I guess the hunter told him to sit back while he did everything. (Kinda sounded like the guy was on a power trip, but whatever.) So, Adventar did that. Apparently something went awry at one point and the hunters friend died. Well, Adventar, having been told to essentially do nothing, kinda forgot to rez the guy that died. I can't blame him. He had been told to do nothing... he was probably zoning out and not even really paying attention. Then all of a sudden he's asked to do something. Personally, I would have been watching a movie and probably completely missed the in-game chat. heh.

But it started me thinking about some of the stuff that I learned along the way. As a beginner's tip, I'd say read the new skills you get, and remember them. They may not seem useful now, but I'm sure there will be some use at some point in time. I remember as I was lvling my mage. I first got this new spell called "polymorgh". I was fighting mostly single targets, so it seemed kinda stupid to sheep one if I was just gonna break it by casting a spell at it anyway. "There's no real need for that spell," I thought. I think through most of my first trip through Dead Mines, I didn't use the spell at all. Finally, one of my buddies (thank goodness I didn't PUG that first one) asked if I had a spell to turn things into a sheep or something like that. (We were all kinda new.) It was amazing how much easier multi-mob encounters became.

Other skills that were situational didn't get much attention either. Fire Ward (like there's enough mobs in the game that do fire damage to even put that on my toolbar), Frost Ward, Dampen Magic (...but...but, I won't be able to get healed as much, even when I'm soloing and no chance of a heal... oh...), and Amplify Magic (Can you say non-magic bosses?) were all skills that while somewhat situational, can make an encounter sooo much easier.

What were some of the spells or lessons you learned while you were a noob? (Or if you still are a noob, have you caught anything stupid that you've done?)

4 comments:

Sushiboy said...

I ended up being run through deadmines the first time. It sucked. I missed all of the story line and didn't get to practice anything but looting. I did BFD shortly after, with a group of appropriate lvl toons, and it was a much better experience.

DadGuy said...

I'll always be a n00b. I think every time I run something reasonably challenging I am learning. There's something to be said for "experience".

Anonymous said...

I think my most noobish moment, was when I found out about "autorun" almost a year into playing the game. Although I sure got good at typing while holding down the 'w' key. Of course my sentences were missing all the 'w's lol.

Anonymous said...

My worst noob moment happened in Gnomeregan. First of all, this was my very first MMORPG. I played the game like a tourist, knowing nothing of the importance of instances, gear, etc. So when I wondered into a group looking for a paladin, I went.

We were all told that loot will be left on round robin, and if it's your turn to loot, you can take it if it is an upgrade. Armed with that information, it was my turn to loot when the Acidic Walkers dropped. For those of you who don't know, they are blue cloth boots. Probably the best in the game for the next 10 levels. Well, even though I was wearing mail armor, the boots were slightly better then my green, 8 levels too low, mail boots...I picked them up...