Why a Ranger?

The Heritage Armor Medium Set 

Back in the day, in the far far away time, rangers were cool. They were the sleek, pet taming, arrow flinging, trap disarming masters of the wild wood. Think Robin Hood cool.

So why the lack of love for the GW2 ranger? If you can't tell I am kind of biased towards the class. It takes the ranger from one and turns it from a stand still dps into a fluid, shoot from the hip, bad ass with a buff slinging pet. What is not to love peoples?

There are wikis and sites and blogs that can explain the gaming mechanics way better than I could ever do. But I can give you my top five for being a ranger in GW2!

#1     Pets- Here the aww and the collector in me go bonkers. Imagine your walking along a wooded path and see a cute little baby bear. Who in their right mind would just go past and not cuddle it? Not us rangers! We have *last beta count* 45 pets to collect and raise. Whooohoo!

#2     Bows- I can make my own bow. Sure I can just go out and buy one..*sucky* but to have one carved from a piece of wood hunted and shaped by me for me? I am going to carve images of dragons on each of them.

#3     Movement- I like to move and shoot it, I like to move and shoot it, I love to move while shoot it. I love to.... MOVE IT!

#4     Traps- Traps were a huge thing for me in Prophecies, and I rocked them hard until Factions came out. Then they just kinda fizzled. I do not see this happening with my new ranger. With the ability to have up to three traps active at a time, added with that the dodge function, I foresee no loss of function. Not to mention of whole lot of mobs going "It's a trap!"

#5     Cool- Just the below. That is all.

This coming BWE, why not try the ranger. Hang out in the deep end of the classic class pool. Relax under the Tyrian sun with your trusty companion to pillow your head. Ply thine arrows to thine string and reap the knees of thy foes!

Yes, My BWE has returned!

This! Ohh yes this! http://www.arena.net/blog/announcing-the-next-guild-wars-2-beta-weekend#more-8146 

At last our wait for the next BWE is over. June 8th -10th we will be able to log in and have some more great fun. My ranger is perishing for my gentle guidance. 

Our toons are not wiped so maybe we will be able to get into the new Ascalon Catacombs and throw our might around in there. Ohhh Adleburn, We shall meet again!

I just can't blog, Captain! I don't have the Grama

Well hello south Georgia written English education...It is nice to see you out and about. You are looking a bit worse for wear since I last paid attention to you. Do you remember that one time prepping for the SAT's?*giggle* Or that first resume that was a total train wreck? Good times, good times!

I wonder, now that I am older, whether or not we were ever meant to be. I mean, you with all of your rules for this and that, and me? Well now I was never one for rules was I? Cross the tee's and dot the iee's. I before e except after c, but only if the stars cross Uranus and the constellation Leo is in retrograde. You can't hobble a free spirit such as I with your silly grammatical equations.

I digress...I just wanted to tell you that as bad as I was, I did try my best! There are some lessons that have stuck to me despite a hard scrubbing from life and a dose of the good old Internet. What's that? Why yes! I am now a blogger. That is why I am so glad I ran into you today. You see, I miss a few things. I miss that critical eye hovering over my every paper to gleefully slash all of my errors in red. I am wistful of those quizzes that somehow I managed to pass by a split hair. Above all, I miss the almost auto magic recall of the rules of the written English language.

Since I am no time lord, I will just have to muddle through with the spell checker and what little knowledge remains from my time with you. Say again? You want me back? I am so sorry, walking back down memory lane with you must have affected my hearing. Your serious? Well, not to hock a big loogey on your freshly dug up dreams, but you've got to be out of your index!

School is over... I am a grown woman and if I want to butcher and splatter dangling participles, missing prepositions, or fused sentences I will. And gods pity the fool that suggests that I should have stayed with you. You are too restrictive, pushy, and totally old fashioned. Get with the times!

B/C HOW CAN MILIONZ OF INT3RN3T U3SRS B WRONG?!?!????? WTH LOL I M3AN COM3 ON!11!!! WTH U WUD HAEV 2 B A COMPL3TE FOL NOT 2 FOLOW DA TR3NDS RIGHT??!?! LOL

P3AEC OUT GRMMAR!11111111 WTH LOL

A Quickie

Would I be a horrible Aunt if I taught my nephews the Dancing Moa Trainer dance?

Video courtesy of Dontain. http://www.youtube.com/user/Dontain Click subscribe while your at it, this guy is a hoot!

Withdraws

If any of you are like me, withdraws from GW2 are sucky. Trying to go back an play GW is ok but I keep wanting to jump and have my awesome barrage...and jump and not have to spam WTS CRAP FOR COIN....and to jump and swim in my favorite waterfall....and jump... well, you get the picture.

Times are rough for those of us who got to play the BWE. To be able at last to get into the game and have it be a mostly great time (I had some serious FPS issues that I hope were not rig related. Sia is rich on love but broke in the pockets) and then have it snatched away after only three days of play is both genius and sadistic. I see what you did there Arenanet.

We also got a very nice notice from the GW2 Facebook page yesterday.

Can we please get some FB love for our game? 500k likes is soo not cutting it!

http://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2?ref=ts

In it is simply says that - Yes we know we said once a month maybe, so it is not this weekend, so go chill, grab a beer, eat some grilled meats, and enjoy your non-playable national holiday. (embellishes are all mine)

This is My Story! (Aww heck naw!)

During the beta weekend of GW2, I rolled a noble human. Below is my experience in character.

I reached my home in Divinity's Reach full of pie and a sac full of loot. I carried my heavy packs through the main gate and gawked. The sun was setting over the city walls, draping the streets with a hazy golden light. ~What did Edna put in that pie?~ I took a minuets just to stroll around the promenade and take a few seconds to enjoy the city. 

My good friend Faren meet me at the entrance to my home block, surrounded with friends and neighbors. Still feeling mellow from the pie, I did neither noogie nor scream at him, but gently teased him about taking my key and raiding my home for snacks. ~whoohoo party~ We had musicians and a magician that was really a hoot. ~If you get a chance to see any follow up acts from Warmack the Magician make sure you stand aways back...his last trick is messy~

The Black Citadel brandy was flowing non-stop and I finally had to put a stop to it when Baroness Jasmina and Yolanda started to twitter at my male servants. ~Gag! Some nobles can't hang with the big dogs~ A quick word or two with Faren and my staff started to wrap ~tuck the drunker nobles into vacant sofas~ the party up when I hear a bunch of yelling and screaming!

Bandits! Bandits in my neighborhood, crashing my party? ~By some miracle of happenstance I just happened to have a long bow I had picked up from a dead drake on the way home~ Well I pulled that bad boy out and started aiming arrows to knees, By the Six! One two three four, holy cow there is a commander in here too? Aim, fire, watch for drunken party-goers, aim, fire, sic em Mr. Fluffy But! 

This is my Fluffy But ~Rosie!~ She got out the fence this week but we found her after she had her own  adventure for two days!

I was out of breath and sweating like mad when the last of the sleazy interlopers went down. A servant came up to me and told me that the bandits had kept a group in reserve, and they had kidnapped Faren! My buddy? Gone? And on my watch...~Well half watch there is only so much attentive I can do with a half gallon on brandy down the hatch~ The servant, seeing how very pissed I was gave a general direction and skittered away from me.

I whistled up Fluffy and ran in their direction. It wasn't a hard track to read. ~I mean come on! You don't just stroll into a rangers territory and expect to get away~ They had done a stupid ~stupider~ thing by stashing him three blocks down. Really? I didn't know whether to laugh or laugh harder at their naivety. The three downstairs had no chance. Arrows, knee, hound, loot. The one hiding at the top of the stairs tried to corner me. Bad idea. One more corpse to loot and I had found my friend. Thankfully not hurt!

There was a golden gem hidden in the ~ooh laughable~ attempted kidnapping. Faren heard one of his gaolers say that they were headed to an abandoned farmhouse in Shaemoor with the rest of the hostages. Hostages? Not on my watch buddy! With Faren to meet me, I set out to confront the ~snicker~ mastermind ~guffhaha~ of the whole operation and teach ~pound into~ them the basics of noble courtesy. Don't mess with a Lady's Home!

A Limerick

There once was a Gem store in game,

Whose products were really quite tame.

The Trolls flamed and they swore,

And cried, "It's not like SWTOR!"

Just to flap their mouths and complain.

I wish that whom ever did this had been my economics teacher. So much win on this flowchart 

My limerick may seem a bit tongue in cheek, but it is very valid. A lot of the people who strongly believe that the gem store is just wrong might benefit from taking a gander at the Tales of Tyria page. http://talesof.squarespace.com/ 

And also this page for the lolz! Quote~ Economists assume that people work toward maximizing their utility, or happiness, and firms act to maximize profits~

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/economics-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html

Color Like a Boss!

Pink and Grape By Minami Kaori http://www.guildwars2guru.com/user/1991-minami-kaori/

Whilst I prepare the next post in My Story, I was pursuing the GuildWars2Guru and came upon a fantastic thread! Color! Ohhh lord all the wonderful colors!!!

One of my favorite pastimes in GW was to mix and match and dye my armor pieces. A bit of this and a dash of that and hopefully I would end up with an outfit that didn't look like the Sweedish Chef puked on me. *grin* Examples!!

 While I loved the dye then, I am over the top freaking out about the new dye system in GW2!! Why they even have a shade called HUMILIATION!! Below is the linkys to the thread and more linkys to some great image collections. Please go enjoy the valiant efforts of these great peeps who want to share the greatness of  Pink. Enjoy!

To GW2Guru thread of color awesome!
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/34310-dye-colours-preview-image-heavy/

To XyzzySqrl Imgur Page!
 http://xyzzysqrl.imgur.com/

And to Sazsmash Imgur page! This one is Boss!! Over 50 dyes with two armor types that I can see, Cloth and Leather.

http://imgur.com/a/UZZMV#56

Hours of Bliss

Via the GW2 Facebook and Twitter http://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10150848164094209 We are going to be able to have a few hours in-game for a server stress test. *grin* Gluttons for punishment! 

Of course expect disconnects and other funky shenanigans. But this gives us a few hours to go check out the cool stuff we missed during the last weekend. Two words - Flying Cows!! 

This is My Story! (with Pie!)

A Nobles Life for Me!

During the beta weekend of GW2, I rolled a noble human. Below is my experience in character.

Well it had been a long ass day. I go to pick up some new fashions in Shaemoor, and low and behold there are a bunch of centaurs ~I could have outran the incoming hoard easily~ trying to eat my seamstress! Well that would not do so I hastily equipped my ax ~seeing as I was a ranger of such poor foresight as to leave my bow at home~ and started to chunk them and rez the villagers. 

At the local Inn, I get the feeling that I am needed at the garrison to plug the centaur leek. Umm ok! So off I go. A few rounds of centurion ass kicking later, we all get sucked into the vicinity of this huge ~I would hate to see its armor repair cost~ Earth Elemental. 

Well lucky for me it exploded and left me waking in the local infirmary. Got to say the food was great! ~Poultry Piccata with a side of Garlic Spinach and a batch of fresh still warm Strawberry Cookies~ My dear friend Lord Faren had come by to ~steal my house key~ check up on me. Of course the very thing to do was go find my friend and have a long ~noogie session~ reasonable ~extra yelling~ conversation ~ass whalloping~ with him. 

Trying to get back to the home stead was fun, evidently just dropping me back into town was not a viable option, so here I am freshly healed with a mile or two hike in front of me. Ohh yeah and this jack ass of a watchman says that I have to help a resident of Shaemoor fields just to get back home. ~Note that if I hadn't smelled the most delectable waft of apple pie this kind sir would have been picking my ax bits out of his teeth for weeks~

Well of course I followed my nose to a fantastic open air bistro, run by Farmer Edna. I will say the service sucked! Why, I was asked to go pick the apples for my own pie! Really? ~did these people not notice that I was now the renowned HERO OF SHAEMOOR and was to be pampered in my recovery stage??~ 

So, fed up with the wait and lack of any seating I took my trusty ax and whacked the nearest tree. ~Note to self- Leave the damn trees alone!~ Well the level seven spider sleeping up there really didn't like being woken from a nap, and proceeded to show me how much with several love bites. With poison. 

Fighting in the downed state is a fun experience. ~not~ Even with Mr. Fluffy But helping out it was a total hassle. ~not to mention that my armor had taken enough abuse and decided to go all emo on me and hide~ At last I got a bit of help from a swanky looking guy with a eye patch, and we got all the apples up for Lazy Edna. 

Let me tell you now...the pie? The one I was picking apples for and almost perishing over? Evidently they have an asuran food nuker back there somewhere, because we turned in the apples and viola! Pie in .23 seconds. Not to say that it wasn't good pie, because it was freaking awesome! But there be something a bit shady with Ole Edna.....

To Be Continued!! ~dun dun duuuuunnnn~