Shaking her Fist in Challenge

Shaking her Fist in Challenge

It's a sad thing to admit - I never got much pleasure out of playing a Monk. That's no slight to Fist. She took the challenge to level from 1-90 and performed that grueling task admirably. And then marched on to level 100. She works hard, but she knows that she's the last to get picked for a job, and without much interest in her she continues to languish despite her best efforts to participate. For me personally, the one element that really bugs me about monks are the bubbles. Being forced to hunt and wade through healing bubbles during and after battles is pure idiocy, it creates distraction, and it's even worse with a very large follower hogging up viewing space. I know, its a personal grudge, but I hate those bubbles.

This is quite a shame because Fist has some really fun tasks in front of her - She has her version of Tormmok, but he's a young level 93 and needs to be leveled. Fist has been hoping to get a Tormmok of her own and has collected a veritable armory of gear for him - once he's level 100. If Fist and Tormmok, who Fist named Thor, ever get that chance.

Then an idea came to me. Actually, it's an old idea that harkens back to Jocy's struggles as a retribution paladin. Switching from Retribution to Protection made all the difference. Tiphaine,  on her return to action, noted Jocy's success with a tank spec and chose to become a Blood death knight.

Now Fist wants a chance, turning in her Windwalker for Brewmaster with the same mindset and motto as Jocy and Tiphaine: "We don't care how long it takes to kill something, as long as it dies before we do."

This is a special challenge for Fist. Both Jocy and Tiphaine wear plate armor. Fist has only leather between her and the points of her twin blades against the weapons of men and beasts.

Each of them handle damage in different ways. Jocy simply absorbs it because she can handle huge damage, and has several save me spells at her disposal. Tiphaine turns damage into self-healing, using her own attacks to build up health. As for Fist, Icy Veins says that Brewmasters survive by avoiding damage through dodging and parrying attacks, plus an ability called Stagger which spreads incoming damage over ten seconds instead of all at once. That sounds good, but the healing aspect worries Fist. Brewmasters are supposedly very steady tanks which is easy on raid healers. Fist won't have healers looking after her. She doesn't have a big save me spell, either, only a number of little ones.

Against the 85 target dummy, she did 15k. On the Raiding dummy she did 7500. I clearly have no idea what I'm doing. Fist may die a lot. Or not. In a very unscientific test, Fist and Thor attacked several groups of boars which are the favored targets when doing the 100 beasts quest. They did 16-18k DPS against the beasts. Fist took more damage than I am used to seeing, but her stupid little bubbles were there to fill her health bar after each kill.

They then tried their hand at the level 100 enemy close by Vol'mar, but they died too quickly to get a full measure, though still reaching over 20k DPS (note that these were scouts, not the more heavily armed soldiers). I have to question the validity of this test, but if anywhere close Fist is putting out DPS above the level of either Jocy or Tiphaine. I just wish I knew what I was doing. It'll take time to get used to all these new spells and the way in which they are used. Consider it a mad experiment.

Fist is going to the Iron Harbor soon, and that is where the dying is likely to happen.