The Queue: The big thaw

Last week was so cold for me — now it’s actually staying above freezing! My body doesn’t know what to do with temperatures like this. I am pretty happy that all of the ice is melting though, I already fell down pretty bad once this year, I don’t need to do it again.

While I search my drawers for more seasonally appropriate clothes, it’s time for — The Queue.

Careful, it starts with a little light arson — just to send a message. The next thing you know your cat is the leader of an international ring of jewel thieves. The kind of thieves who don’t leave any witnesses…

I’m not speaking from experience here at all.

There’s that hybrid tax at work. Sometimes I feel like Retribution Paladin can be so strong, then I realize that ours has been running Retribution Aura during progression and they’re catching buffs as raiders die — sneaky but effective!

You do hit the nail on the head with the extra utility though. Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection, and Hand of Freedom are all extremely powerful spells that can help mitigate something huge at the right time. Or even just having your own Divine Shield to take the hit by yourself. I can’t count how many times we’ve sent Mages, Hunters, or Paladins off to the side with meteor mechanics to save a hit of damage on the group.

Don’t tell — but I’d much rather have another Retribution Paladin or two instead of a Fury Warrior.

That makes sense, I’m much the same way. I loved the TellTale games like Tales from the Borderlands or The Wolf Among Us, but I wouldn’t want to delve too much further into visual novel territory. There’s just enough gameplay left in the TellTale games for me. It’s like a very long trip back to base/town in a Mass Effect or Dragon Age where everyone has a side quest to do and there are just so many interesting conversations to be had!

My quirk or bad habit is trying to get 100% completion in open-world games. I’ll almost never go back to them, but boy did I run all over Greece and England checking off every bandit camp and ruin in Assassins Creed. Ditto for New York in countless Spider-Man games too. I just like seeing activities complete! It’s almost a compulsion — “just one more thing than I can call it for the day.” Quickly leads into “oops, I stayed up until dawn again.”

My least favorite raid mechanic? Whatever just killed me.

I don’t like the one-shot tank swap mechanics, I like when there’s a tank swap thing that stacks gradually over time and if you’re a geared badass you can take those extra hits, holding it longer, and then eventually you can solo tank the fight. That always feels great. I was able to solo tank Soulrender Dormazain on Heroic the last time we tried. No way that’s possible with Kel’Thuzad or Painsmith.

There have been times that overreliance on a type of mechanic has also led me to dislike that for the next tier as well. Like after Tomb of Soakgaras I was so glad that Antorus didn’t have nearly as many send your whole raid to stand together to soak the meteor mechanics.

I love all sorts of puns and bad jokes. I got that from my dad, who also loved telling those jokes. That’s a pretty good theory you have, I certainly can’t think of anything that would explain it better. Other than just loving cleverness and taking one word and squishing it to mostly fit another situation.

As for your other question about if there are still as many jokes, I’d say that there are fewer young people telling straight setup/punchline jokes than before from my experience. I only know a couple of people in my class who could reliably tell a joke if you gave them some notice. I’m not going to be all “Old man yells at cloud” about it though. Since I have a phone full of memes and jokes that I’ve gotten from friends and send to other friends.

In the meantime:

• Did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory in France? De brie was everywhere!
• A Priest, a Minister, and a Rabbit walk into a blood bank. The Rabbit says “I think I’m a type-O”
• How do you stop Canadian bacon from curling in the pan? Take away its tiny brooms!
• Did you know that sitting in a room watching an aquarium full of fish can markedly increase general happiness and life satisfaction? It’s true! It’s all because of the indoor fins.
• Tom and Steve went out for a nice nighttime boat. Only it was a little cold out in the middle of the lake, so Tom lit a fire in the boat. As can be expected, the ship sank — thus proving that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.
• I could go on, but I’ve written out ten jokes in a row before hoping to make someone laugh, and sadly — no pun in ten did.

I play whack-a-mole like the best of them. Usually, if I’m healing a raid in LFR though I’m paying very little attention to anything beyond health bars, and I’ll be watching something on a second screen. Sometimes I’ll even press a cooldown!

Today’s Anna Earworm™: I love myself today

I hope that the rest of you start warming up out there. A lot of groundhogs apparently saw their shadows so it could be six more weeks of winter, but our local one saw it too and this is a very nice week weather-wise — so what does it know?

Good luck to everyone starting their hunt today for the X-45 Heartbreaker!