The Whitehawk

There’s no point in beating around the bush. Divine Shield is getting nerfed.

With Wotlk most of our DPS stopped depending on our melee combat swings and seal damage, and more on skill damage. With that said, and given that roughly 70% of our damage comes from our spells and special strikes, it just didn’t make sense to give us full invulnerability and full damage during it’s duration.

Although I’ve used Divine Shield in the past as an offensive spell, it’s very clear that Blizzard doesn’t want it to be an offensive spell anymore. So what can my fellow Retri palas do about it? And I’m talking about the ones that cast the bubble instantly and faceroll on the keyboard after.

1. Don’t let your enemy gain too much distance - Switch to Seal Of Justice, continue running after your enemy and judging Light or Wisdom, depending on what stat you need at the time. If you let your enemy recover too much when you used the Divine Shield you might as well have let him kill you to start with
2. Depending on what type of enemy you’re fighting, it is usually after the DS that you should blow your cooldowns, but not your trinket. Your bubble should be your first or second trinket, depending on what spell landed on you (remember to keep your Hand of Freedom hotkey very handy)
3. Save your trinket and stuns for when you find an opportunity to burst the enemy down. Don’t waste it out of desperation. If you don’t find a proper opportunity to use it, don’t. What’s the use of trinketing out of something to survive some spell or skill if you have no stun to immobilize your target

Rule of thumb is, if there’s a way for you to avoid taking damage do it. And in most cases, if you’re blowing your cooldowns before your target is, you are on your way to a defeat, even if you take him down.

Retribution paladins really shine in burst damage and short combats, but if your fight starts lasting more than a couple of minutes and you blew all your cooldowns before your adversary did you’re already in a bad situation. Exceptions to this rule are, of course, when you have more than one opponent and have to try to quickly burn one down.

And don’t get two upset if you’re taken down in less than 10 seconds. RNG is a big part of this game, and some fights are simply not meant to be won. Then again, the same goes both ways. What distinguishes a good player from a mediocre is what you can do to counter the odds when the RNG is against you.

If you lost a combat by a small margin and your enemy chose to run away than to reduel you then I wouldn’t consider it a complete loss. Just make sure you take note of his nickname and let him have second chance at proving what he’s worth when the odds are equal to both.

Griffith World of Warcraft

As some of you may know, the thing that keeps me the most occupied after work is the popular roleplaying game World of Warcraft. Given that my Ragnarok Online posts always proved to be a little popular, I’ve decided to start talking more about the game I play, and namely giving suggestions and a personal opinion about what is going on in the game and in my guild.

I am not a theorycrafter, nor do I understand the full mechanics of the gameplay. All that I understand is what specs affect me for the best, and which affect me the least. When I see players with my class, choosing the silliest gear combinations they can, just because it’s accessible to them, I feel really sad.

So all my posts go out to those out there that chose to play my class, and every now and then I’ll even give some insight about other classes, from what I learn from my guildies or friends.

First of all, to all Retris out there, even the newcomer Holy Paladins who got tired of spamming two buttons and re-specced. This is (more or less) the proper order that you should choose when picking Retribution gear:

STR/AP > HIT (only until you’re capped at 9%) > CRIT/AGI > ARMOR PENETRATION >  HASTE

Yes, Haste is one of the stats that scales our DPS the least. Most of our DPS depends on our Physical Weapon Swings and our Judgements, and everything else is below that. The best thing to boost our DPS is to have a very slow weapon, and gear that stacks on STR, HIT and CRIT. Those are the ideal stats for us.

If you happen to get the Sword of Justice from heroic Halls of Stone, whatever you do, do *NOT* trade it for the Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver from Halls of Lightning. Yes it’s epic, but you’ll see much better DPS and results with that ugly green fork I have than with these three glued-together axes. Get it only if you don’t have the Sword.

Not all epic rewards are necessarily better than their Blue counterparts. A good example of that is the Wyrmrest Accord exalted plate pants reward which lack hit and crit. They are probably awesome for a DK that relies on diseases or so, but for Retribution paladins, it’s once again a case of “take them if you don’t have better”, even my crappy Legplates of the Oculus Guardian, and I’m in a dire need of geting rid of them for something like Staggering Legplates or a random  DPS plate pants from Naxx…

But that’s enough gear comparison for now. On the next chapter I’ll give my opinion about the Divine Shield nerf which a lot of people (who aren’t paladins) are happy about.

Griffith World of Warcraft paladin, retribution paladin, World of Warcraft

Even though I’m not a current 9rules member, I still consider myself one at heart. It’s not because of quality content, it’s not because of the feeling of being part of an “elite” blogging group. It’s because of the spirit of coming together, and helping each other out. Listen to each other’s projects, give and take free advice.

Each person joins the network with different goals, and mine was surpassed not by traffic, nor the people I had the opportunity to talk with, but the way we all talked and helped each other direct or indirectly.

Read more…

Griffith Blogging

Living in a thriving and rapidly growing city in a small tourism-based island has taught me a few things about the way employers think when they are hiring new personnel. Having a few friends that worked, or still work, in some of the big name companies of the island, and having a father who used to manage the sales department personnel in his firm, I’ve seen both sides of the picture, so I can firmly talk about it.

A lot of teenagers, including myself, usually take the first job they come across, when they’re starting off. As soon as they do, it doesn’t take long for them to realize that they’re getting the short end of the stick, while their boss is taking in all the green bills.

This explains why service quality is so poor in most low-paying establishments, like in fast food restaurants.

A rule of thumb that a lot of people take is:

If I’m not going to get payed any extra money, why should I put in any extra effort?

It’s easy for any unmotivated person to follow that rule, and stick to what they have to do, instead of what they could. It makes sense for them to act in that manner, it’s the employee’s way of expressing his dissatisfaction with his position, it’s his way of thinking that he is getting back to his employer for paying him such a low amount of money.

Your employer couldn’t care less if your doing job properly or not

And this is something that everyone looking for a first, or a low paying job, should consider. Just like you showed up for the first interview, others will. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of people, ready to fill your shoes, and feel the same way you do now.

So now you’re probably thinking “Does this mean that I’m on a lose-lose situation?”

No, you’re not.

Your employer made a large investment, he put in an amount of money to start, or run the business that you will never be able to match with your earnings. He needs to make more money than you to keep the business running, he took the chance, risked his money, and created a job for you. He’s not a saint, he’s just someone trying to get by, as you are. The only difference is that he has more money to risk and invest, and you don’t.

If your working place is doing great, and making good revenues, your boss will most likely consider expanding. But he will need to gather trustworthy people in order to do that. That is where you might come in.

He’s not a saint, but he has everything on the line, while you have nothing. If your shop has to close down, you move to another job and start over. It’s not as easy for your boss as it is for you.

Not all contributions you can give to your job are money-related, but at the end of the day, it is money that keeps your job going or not. Unless your boss is cruel, and greedy, he will appreciate any extra effort you put in. Because all that effort does measure up at some point, and your company will feel that. You have to understand that it’s something that is not easily measurable.

If you work in a diner, and you take the extra time to help close down the shop, or clean the logo outside, your boss will appreciate it. But there’s no way he can account for it. He can’t witness your work and say “he cleaned the balcony when he didn’t have to, I’ll give him $5 extra in his pay check”.

Don’t look at your position as the one of a slave.

YOU are the customer.

You are the one looking for the right job, the right employee, the right colleagues. You can move on effortlessly, and leave your job behind, but your employer can’t do the same.

If you do happen to find a bad job, and you probably will, just make sure that when you leave it things are better than they were when you got in. That way they’ll feel the difference, and who knows, maybe your former boss will come to his senses and figure out how, or that he should have, accounted for void you left behind.

Take your time finding the proper job, don’t settle too soon if you don’t have to, and specially if you’re not satisfied with the job you got.

Griffith General

Whenever the company you work for takes on a new project for a random customer there will always be some minor or major conflicts or missinterpretations from both sides. This is normal, for it is part of human nature for each person to interpretate things in their own way.

Some company bosses/managers might agree that the most important thing about a project that was agreed upon by both ends is the contract. This idea couldn’t possibly be any further away from the truth even if it tried.

In the same way that you might missinterpretate the ideas of a customer, he will also make his own presumptions about how the project should or will be carried out. Whether you are a manager, a programmer or a designer, you have to realize that your customer usually is not.

The Manager

If your customer conducts his business in a different way from yours that is normal, you don’t have to agree with it, you just have to follow the legal terms that were defined in the contract and define the borderline in the gray areas. Your sole job is not to only make the biggest profit possible, you have to listen to your customer’s demands and meet him halfway.

Public Relations / Designer

If your customer has a different taste from yours and finds your masterpiece design inadequate that is also normal, as the designer you are the person who has to “connect” to your customer the most, and understand his feelings and intentions.

Some customers already have a fixed idea of what their website should look like, if you present them with something that looks incredibly good, but is completely different from what he had in mind, he will be disapointed, even if your design was worthy of praise. Communication is the key here, and the designer, more than anyone else, should be the master of it.

The Programmer/Mechanic/”Labor force”

You are the “monkey”, the hamster running inside the wheel. You’re the last person to know anything about the customer. You hold the most unappreciated job because most of what you do isn’t palpable, visible or understandable by people who don’t realize what you do, yet, you are the one who makes it all happen.

If it weren’t for you the project wouldn’t be anything other than a nice idea, a great deal or a pretty picture.

You need to understand all of the work that was done before the project arrived. You need to know what the project is about, what it consists of, what was the budget, what leanway does the project have, what is the deadline, what are the customers tastes, what kind of person he is, what  kind of sites/products does he like.

If the Designer or the PR person is meant to be the master of communication, the programmer has to be the master of understanding.

You need to explain clearly to your manager what the work involves, how long you think it will take and share your opinion on how viable you think the project, or the tasks at hand, are.

You need to talk to the PR, who had to understand what kind of product the customer wants, how things should work. You also have to make the PR understand that some of their “brilliant ideas” might not always be the most viable in the project’s scope.

The Team

Needs to be coese, understanding, and aware of the weight of their words and actions. The more your team members try to understand each other’s tasks, the better it is for them to realize how each of their tasks work.

Every member should always take a minute out of every conversation with their colleague to explain what the task at hand consists of. Doing so will not only improve the overall quality of the projects, but it will also make the next projects easier, and most mistakes, or ill-given tasks will not reoccur.

With all these things said, you’d think that the most important aspect is a gathering of the points made above…

It isn’t.

The most important aspect of any project is “listening”.

You can have the best manager who understands the scope of the project, knows fundaments of design and how the project development process works, and manages to squeeze the biggest amount of profit from the project…

You can have the best PR person in the world, one who can dive into the minds of the customer and find out everything that the customer wants from the project and more…

You can have the best programmer/mechanic/engineer that ever walked this planet, who can turn dust into gold, and achieves goal in lightning-fast times…

… and it won’t matter a thing, if the customer doesn’t follow the project, or listens to what your team has to say to him.

When customers are participative, and understanding, all phases of any project run smoother. The team members will work harder, they will be more motivated and feel more relevant in their tasks. And the only reason they will be is because they were listened by him.

When your team members have a hard time acknowledging the value of each other, and what each of their tasks involve, a lot of discrepancies start to occur in the project’s requirements, and tasks will start falling behind schedule.

If you’re dealing with a particularly “hard” customer, or a team that has a hard time communicating, this is where your manager or team leader has to step in, take the reins, and be the voice of that “perfect customer” or “perfect colleague”, and explain to the team members each of their tasks, without neglecting any of their words or the importance of their tasks.

Having a customer that listens, and a team that listens to itself, can make all the difference between a bad to a mediocre or a mediocre to a great project.

Griffith General customer, project management, public relations

Comedy, echii’ness (perverted’ness), romance, comedy, exaggerated action sequences and mechas: if this had been the way someone described any anime to me, I would say that that misture is certainly a recipe for failure. A lot of the current, or recently past, Animes all used a few of those ingredients, and the results were mildly amusing poor Anime shows.

Zero no Tsukaima, To Love Ru, Rosario Vampire are all good examples of what I meant by my previous statement. They all took a few of those ingredients, and they all made me lose the interest in them after a few episodes. Had it not been how tired I was at the time from watching good Animes with “complicated” storylines I probably wouldn’t have watched more than their first episode.

In the midst of those mediocre Animes, and in the middle of my boredom from watching some high-quality but slow-paced Animes, like Bouken no Xamdou (which I definitely recommend) a friend of mine lent me Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which I’ll call Gurren Lagann from here on. His description of the anime was more or less the recipe I gave in the first paragraph. I thought to myself “well, as long as it’s very lively it will probably be more entertaining than the other Animes I tried”.

With these low expectations in mind, Gurren Lagann came out to be surprisingly good. Despite having a very straightforward storyline, it showed excelent character development, a surprisingly “mature” story which was anything but funny many times, and never showed me a dull moment thanks to it’s clever funny scenes or the well animated fighting sequences.

The following paragraph will have a few spoilers, so jump to the end of the article if you do not want to see them.

I have to admit that it was when one of the main characters died that the anime grabbed my utmost attention. Until then it only seemed to be like any other “cliché” anime that came before it. From that point onwards, the story spiralled into a much darker, mature setting, without losing any of the things that kept me entertained before that.

Gurren Lagann borrows heavilly from many Animes that came before it and failed miserably, and it had more than enough oportunities to become one of them, and it never did.

It didn’t have the “happy” colorful storyline I thought it would, it didn’t have a happy ending like one would expect, and it provided all of the characters with excellent character development (except, of course, for the comedy relief ones) and it taught a very valuable lesson that many shonen (action) Animes fail to give: strong will and power isn’t enough to achieve anything.

I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys Anime. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is, to me, a modern classic.

Griffith Anime

As I dust off the old Wordpress and replace it with it’s younger, more mature, brother, I can’t help but think about all the things I’ve been missing out by shutting myself away from a community I used to love.

Sometimes the amount of tasks we take during our days make some hobbies seem less worthwhile. But what is the point on living in a globally connected network if I am not to share my words and thoughts.

Not blogging has made me lazy.

Some people have or lack the motivation to find and discuss their topics of interest without anyone calling out  to them. I had the privilege of belonging to one of the very best networks in the web, had great friends who’d read and discuss my articles.

Since I quit writing on ForeverGeek and this blog I’ve been less keen on keeping up to date with the latest news, and instead of feeling like someone else would fill that void for me, I found out that no one does. None of my friends would bring up the subject of a brand new product or platform they found, unless our conversation happened to lead to it.

Perhaps that makes life more interesting, more random, but it also kept me and my friends from finding out about great things sooner, rather than later. Now that I think about it, with the exception of the posts I wrote for ForeverGeek, I didn’t use to share many news on this site unless it was a subject I was very excited about.

With that “restriction” torn away, I’m now free to write about whatever I want, technology included. Don’t call this a comeback, it’s simply a return to my roots, and the continuation of something I enjoy doing.

Griffith General

To fill in one of the remaining blanks in Apple’s very popular laptop lineup, Steve Jobs introduced today a laptop that would have brought tears to Sony’s deceased X505 laptop. An incredibly thin, and light, laptop with full-fledged specifications.Although rumors about the arrival of this device had emerged time and time again, through the last quarters of 2007, I think that it’s safe to say that everyone was excited to see it in the “flesh”, or in this case aluminum. So what should and shouldn’t keep you from considering this laptop as a future purchase?First of all, I’ll say what I found negative about the device.

1. One USB port - I didn’t buy the “Macbook Air is your entry to the wireless world”. I find the wireless features included very nice and thoughtful. But one USB is just too little by today’s standards. If you want to make use of the port for anything other than a computer mouse, you’ll be “forced” to purchase the wireless Mighty Mouse, which is a fine mouse really… but I’d rather have choice.
2. External Adapter for Ethernet - In Apple’s attempt to thread the line between being very light and convenient, and cute but useless, they decided to not include an ethernet port, but created instead a USB ethernet port. Despite having the option for an Ethernet cable, the one USB port once again diminishes your options.
3. The Price - I have to be honest. Considering that this is an incredibly thin and light laptop, I find the price acceptable. But considering the device’s specifications, I don’t see that many reasons to pick one of these up, rather than a “normal” Macbook, which will leave you with a bigger harddrive, an Optical Drive, a faster processor, and so on. As small and light as it may be, you will get a much better bang for your buck with a Macbook. 
4. The Keyboard - although it’s boasted as one of the positive features, I find that the color picked for the keys feels wrong. Despite loving the layout and the touch-and-feel of Macbook keyboards, I think this color combination would have worked much better if they had made the aluminum black, or darker.

Not everything is bad though. What Apple managed to fit inside such a small device is amazing:

1. LED LCD, High Quality Webcam, Core 2 Duo processor and X3100 graphics card - You cannot find these specifications in such a small (or similarly small) laptop for less than $2000. They wanted to rival Sony’s incredibly sexy TZ series. They accomplished that, and then some.
2. The very first “Green” laptop. Although not many consumers have deep concerns for environmental issues, it’s nice to see Apple sticking by their words and maintaining their devices as eco-friendly as possible.
3. The laptop comes with Micro DVI to DVI/VGA adapters in the box. Not the most expensive components you’d need, but it’s still a nice touch.

Bottom line: For me the Macbook Air is a slightly smaller and slightly gimped Macbook. For the same price I’d rather purchase a Macbook with an upgrade or two or save a bit more and get it’s aluminum big brother.  

Griffith Technology

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, then one of the things you should have heard about was my decision to move to the United Kingdom, in order to pursue a career in web design. I thought that I would only have to move once, from home to the airport, but it appears that I’d have to move once more than expected.

Things aren’t going too well between me and my father, perhaps because we spend too much of our time together, perhaps because of the age gap between us. Regardless of the reasons, things between us were deteriorating quickly, so rather than let them get too far, I decided to move out, hoping that the change would do us both good.

Ironically, the blog that made me kick off my “career” as a blogger was recently sold for the second time to Splashpress Media and they decided that rather than keeping the editors, they’d use their own. So I’m out of a blogging job right now, but hopefully not for long.

David Peralty has been great with me, and instantly tried to hook me up with some of his contacts looking for quality editors for their websites. Whereas most would simply turn their back to me and wish me well, he went the extra mile. So when you read this David, I just want you to know that I really appreciate all of your help and care, and I’m sorry if I haven’t sound resoundingly happy these past few days.

In a way, I’ve been down for these last few days because I had to leave the house where I was brought up at, and the blog that nurtured me into a decent writer. On the other hand, I sort of feel relieved because perhaps this move will give me the strength I need for when I move to the UK.

Hopefully, from Tuesday onwards I’ll be able to resume work on the redesign when the cable company installs broadband at my mother’s apartment, and I’ll resume blogging here as usual. So I’ll see you next Tuesday readers, and thank you for your comprehension.

Griffith Journal

Although the title of this article will certainly spur some controversy, that’s alright. RahXephon is one of those series that friends would always tell me was “ok”, but imitated Evangelion too much, and if you’re not paying attention to the story, it’s easy to understand why:

• the story revolves around a mysterious religion
• the hero pilots a giant “God” and fights against other God-like creatures
• the plot revolves around a small city with a powerful defensive military structure

In fact, most die-hard Evangelion fans will probably feel somewhat “offended” by all the direct references to their lovable Anime that they’ll probably forsake this one, and miss out on a great story, and one that they would surely enjoy.

One of the things that made Evangelion so bad and great, at the same time, were it’s plot holes. There are so many unanswered questions that one can speculate on any of them and drive the story in an entirely different direction. And that explains why it has such a huge following of fans, who write their own versions of the story and keep it fresh, even after all these years.

In RahXephon, you won’t find many plot holes. Sure, one may speculate about the emergence of the Mulians, which are the “enemies” of this story, or about the possible relationships or love interests between the various characters in the story, but all in all, RahXephon has an ending. A complex one, similar to the one seen in “The End of Evangelion”, but a good ending nonetheless.

If you do not wish to be spoiled of any part of the story, please refrain from reading the following paragraphs and skip to the conclusion.

The story starts off with a young high school student, Ayato Kamina, who discovers that the world as he knows it might not be as he seems. While he lives under the illusion that he is on an island, secluded from the rest of the world, and it’s inhabitants are the only living people on earth, it appears that the truth is far from being so, and after a short while he discovers that he has a destiny to fulfill, although he doesn’t know it yet.

With the aid of a mysterious girl, and a special operative, Ayato discovers a giant egg in which a God-like creature called Rah slumbers, and awakens it. Confused and scared inside the Rah, Ayato escapes from his hometown, and then discovers that he had been living on an alternative dimension secluded from the rest of the world, though that dimension was limited to just his home town: Tokyo.

After returning to the special operative’s base, he is asked to pilot the Rah in order to protect humanity from the attacks of the Mulians, and Ayato goes into an inner struggle where he must fight against the people who raised him. To further increase his indecisive mind, he begins to grow attached to the special operative who had rescued him, and begins to appreciate some simple pleasures, like watching a cargo ship set sail, which is something he couldn’t see where he lived in.

A lot of episodes feel like a normal Shonen: a new enemy arrives, the pilot rushes out to fight him, defeats it and comes back. But like in Evangelion, the main character sometimes has inner struggles, and a lot of events around him make him battle with himself. As the plot thickens, we learn about the past of all relevant characters and all of the relationships between them, and at the end, Ayato is faced with his biggest challenge, and sacrifices his human form in order to protect those he loves.

Fortunately, at the end, rather than being, or feeling, unclear, like in the “End of Evangelion”, we see him living a normal life with his loved one, and then we see a flashback that answers that most revolving question throughout the show, that is: who is the yellow dress girl?

Conclusion: Although some might accuse it of stealing some elements from Evangelion, I don’t think that it’s that similar. The story is much more romantic than Evangelion, and explores human relationships much more, while Evangelion simply focuses on religion and the human psyche.

It succeeds as an action story, for all the battles, and the animation, are great. It succeeds as a love story, for there are a few love triangles, love interests, and special interests between most of the characters, even the secondary ones. It succeeds in it’s soundtrack, which is reminiscent of Evangelion’s excellent orchestrated pieces.

Last but not least, it succeeds as a great Anime in general. Surely you won’t need to watch the show two or three times to grasp most of the story, but if you disliked the way Evangelion left many of the story elements hanging, then you’ll love RahXephon.

Griffith Anime