User:Queen of Spades

I discovered this game in July 2005 because I needed something to do when the other remaining Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RtCW) player quit.... By that time, I had come a long way from a timid FPS single-player. When my teenage sons saw me play the multiplayer online version of RtCW, they said, "Dad! Get a grip! Stick to the single player. You suck!" At one point, I was rated #1 player of the Banimod version of RtCW. I was a First Person Shooter player all the way, and only one game would do me. (Talk to me on my user talk page about RtCW, Banimod and especially Bani's Instagib Goldrush version, which my clan and I rocked at!)

Now Guild Wars is my first RPG of any kind, whether online, computer-, video-, or board-based. And it seems to be taking that one-game-will-do-me role!

I LOVE the teamplay aspect to Guild Wars. The fact that, like in RtCW, you need players to fill different roles in order to accomplish your mission. I love playing the roles that many people either don't understand (Mesmer), or underappreciate (Monk) because they don't kill people and break things.

I LOVE the intellectual pursuit of learning to play my role better with better skills and combinations. I love learning to play roles I didn't even know existed. And I especially love that "Eureka!" moment when I learn that someone has put to awesome use that certain skill I had discarded as judged to be complete crap. The flexibility and tradeoffs that the designers of GW have allowed/forced are truly wonderful.

Bor Dammerung /
Bor D was my first character. My kids said, "Dad, you won't understand how to play complicated RPG characters like casters. Be a Warrior, all you have to do is just run up and whack dudes with a sword." That made sense to an FPSer like me.

The name sounds exotic, but I couldn't think of a good name when I decided to to try this game for the first time. I was just bored, Damn Bor-D.

I picked War/Nec because my oldest son said, "If you are going to be a warrior, you are supposed to be a monk secondary, cause that's what everyone else does." ---> Yeah, right! We'll see about that. >:(

I found my best damage combo with Mark of Pain and Flurry. I use Insidious Parasite for healing, Bonetti's Defense for...well, defense and energy regen, and Plague Touch to pass the blindness off to the baddies. I always load either Watch Yourself or Shields Up for team defense, because Bor Dammerung is always looking out for his soft target teammates, not being that Leeerrooooy warrior/monk that we have all learned to hate. And I always throw in Rez Sig for good measure. "Plays well with others." And with this build, I rarely even have a sword skill, so all my attrib points are in Tactics and Curses, so I do some pretty heavy damage in the right situations, while having decent defense and heal.

industry leader
As far as I know, I started an industry from scratch--well, a niche industry. Specifically, leading PUGs through ascension missions for pay. From first hand experience, I knew how many times I had failed the same mission. Even when I learned how I was SUPPOSED to do it, I still couldn't seem to pull it off. Once my guild leader and I passed those missions with our first characters, we were called on to help other guild members and friends thru the same missions, meanwhile getting pretty decent at the missions.

Eventually I noticed how many people stand around in, say, the Thirsty River mission outpost saying, "LFG that doesn't suck like my last 10 groups." (I figured there was a good chance that they were the pot calling the kettle black.) Or, "Please, somebody help me, I have failed this mission 15 times in a row, I am about to delete this crappy game!"

I had previously noticed that certain players would hawk their services "running" people through certain missions for pay. I figured there would be people willing to pay me to (a) LEAD, not run, them through the mission, and (b) TEACH them a strategy to beat the mission to help them play it better in the future. And I have made some pretty decent plats doing just that, and more often than not, get some great compliments after leading a PUG to victory that they had nearly given up hope of achieving. And many will say afterward, "Well, I would not pay to be run through a mission, but the way you do it, you taught me a lot, and it was worth it!"

and finally /
There is a great guy in our guild that was the first runner I knew, Tau Deathbringer. He started spending money like crazy, and I wondered how he got it. I went "farming" with my guild leader in the desert, and on my best day, I got like 3K in 2 hours, because of having a partner and at least a hench healer, if not another hench. This runner says, I don't farm anymore, I just run. I asked if he could teach me. Yeah sure. So we spent about 1/2 a Saturday, and he taught me everything he knew: it didn't take. I guess it was the War/Nec business. Or just that I was a newb. So I switched 2ry prof to monk, and got the skills he used. Still an utter failure. So I just resigned myself to scrounging for the odd mission-leading score, and developed other characters (see below).

Then a few months later my guild leader, now named Marie Amaranthine, said I needed to learn to run. I said, "You too? Get off my case, I can't run and I can't farm! But I can fight and lead and teach. Leave me alone." But I guess that by that time the experience on this character and my three other characters all came together to gel into a great learning experience. Marie spent about 2-3 hours with me at most, and I was a running fool!

I now had a source for some relatively quick and easy money, so I got excited about playing warrior again and trying new things. Next on my list is actually FIGHTING with Bor D as War/Mo and learning to solo farm with War/Mo. What is this world coming to? War/Mes, anyone?

Queen Of Speydz
Queen of Spades is the name. WTF with A-net and its bad word filter? I couldn't name my character "Queen of Spades", but in the game, I can call a spade a spade all day long! I just don't get it. What is wrong with "Spades"? Haven't they heard of Hearts, Clubs, and Diamonds? Sheesh.

The name in its proper spelling is the title of a great rocking Styx song from the Pieces of Eight album, circa 1978. "Beware of the Queen of Spades, Her black widow's curse might find you yet. Beware of a love that you will regret, Her love means only your death!"

My mesmer was my second character instead of a damage dealing caster, because, naturally my son said, I don't know why they made the Mesmer profession, they really screwed up. Mesmers suck, they are totally underpowered, they don't have any good skills, and you don't need them on any team. You only need Warriors and Nukers and Monks, oh my! (I added the "oh my!")

Being way different than a warrior, Queen of Spades was my favorite character to play. But eventually I got hit with the monk shortage and went in that direction for my third character (more about Mortal later). Frankly, I got away from playing mesmer because I am always needed as a monk, and I decided to develop a fourth caster, this time an elementalist, so there was not much spare time for Mezzing around....

Probably a lot of the fun of playing Queen of Speydz stems from getting to watch her shapely features while I play. So naturally once I had ascended, I bought Drok's Enchanters for the slinky hotness it imparts. I was ambivalent about dying it, though, and didn't want to waste money until I decided just the perfect color. So she sat with the default green for literally months. Until Bor got me pretty comfortable with running income and I decided, what are a few silvers and those puny other dye colors? Who knows how much I spent experimenting until I found this perfect shiny copper color, which goes just so well with my skin tones and hair color. (Someone post instructions on my user talk page on how I can post a screenshot.)

I have been reading forums, and playing around with Mesmer builds a lot lately. After I built a 55hp monk, I got to thinking, why couldn't there be a 55hp Mesmer? It could happen.... So I did a search on Google and sure enough I found where someone had built one based on Mes/War and Illusionary Weaponry. So lately I have been using Queen of Spades to do farming when I wasn't playing with her teamwork builds and helping guildies and friends. My 55hp Monk has about 90K invested, and I haven't even tried to duo the UW yet. But I decked out Queen of Speydz in complete 2nd set of Enchanters armor, dyed it, and bought superior runes, and weapons and offhand for less than 25K! Any SS/SV necros want a good looking partner for a UW smite run?

Momentarily Mortal
This name stems from A-net's 19-character name length restriction. I wanted to use the name Momentary Immortality, which is a phrase from the Styx song Superstars, from the album The Grand Illusion, circa 1977. Toward the end of the song, when Tommy Shaw finishes singing, Dennis De Young has a voiceover like a circus hawker, "Superstars, yes, yes, superstars! Step right this way--everyone's welcome. We want your dreams. The offer is simple: momentary immortality, my love!" Well that phrase is 21-characters long, so Momentarily Mortal was born. Which I think is fitting for a monk, anyway. With Momentarily Mortal on your team, you are only temporarily subject to death, and not at all if I can help it.

...more to come

She Makes You Burn /
Her name is a phrase from the title cut on the 1974 album Burn by Deep Purple:

(Blackmore/Coverdale/Lord/Paice)

The sky is red, I don't understand, Past midnight I still see the land. People are sayin' the woman is damned, She makes you burn with a wave of her hand. The city's ablaze, the town's on fire, The woman's flames are reaching higher. We were fools, we called her liar. All I hear is "Burn!"

I didn't believe she was devil's sperm. She said, "Curse you all, you'll never learn! When I leave there's no return." The people laughed till she said, "Burn!" Warning came, no one cared. Earth was shakin', we stood and stared. When it came no one was spared. Still I hear "Burn!"

You know we had no time, we could not even try. You know we had no time.

You know we had no time, we could not even try. You know we had no time.

The sky is red, I don't understand, Past midnight I still see the land. People are sayin' the woman is damned, She makes you burn with a wave of her hand. Warning came, no one cared. Earth was shakin, we stood and stared. When it came no one was spared. Still I hear "Burn!"

Sounds like the perfect Fire/Earth elementalist femme fatale, eh? BTW, in case you haven't gotten the hint yet, I am a '70s classic rock fan....

Other

 * User:xxxx/xxxx - My record of captured elite skills, hoping to get them all before Chapter Two :)
 * User:xxxx/yyyy - Likewise, trying to obtain all the green items at least once ^^