25 and Bored

Last night, my Smuggler reached level 25.  And I reached a realization.

Playing my Smuggler is boring.

It could be because she was stuck on Nar Shaddaa, not one of my favorite locations.  I thought it might be because she was still running around everywhere on foot, so travel was taking forever.  It could be because I'm soloing her, instead of partnering with one of my husband's characters.

But even after I got her trained and was finally able to pull out a speeder, I realized it made no difference.  Contemplating taking a mechanized travel route in the general direction of my next quest caused a bad taste in my mouth, and I just couldn't bring myself to click the button.  My enthusiasm for playing her was utterly and completely gone.  And I think I know why . . .

She's dps.

Face it:  I'm a healer.  It's what I do best, and what I enjoy the most.

I don't mind if it takes me a little longer to kill something, as I juggle dps and healing abilities.  I vastly prefer warzones as a healer, where I feel more useful and, believe it or not, less helpless.  In either scenario, I just don't like the feeling that I'm desperately throwing things at mobs or players and hoping enough will stick to make the target fall over before I do.  I like the idea I can make my life bar go up instead of simply watching it go down.  I like being able to prop up a companion or a teammate in defiance of the enemy.

Long story short, the Gunslinger play style is just not giving me thrills and giggles anymore, so I think she'll be sitting on the sidelines.  For right now, I'll play my Sage in warzones when my husband can't come quest with me, I guess, or I might . . . might . . . check out Trooper healing, as I hear they do ranged dps.

The bed on the Defender must be more cushy than it looks.  Great place for a Focusing Ritual.

There is one more possibility:  I may just identify with my idealistic Consular so much, there isn't much room in my heart for a sassy mercenary . . . In which case, there may be no hope for me at all in the alt department.

Legacy Names

When I finished Chapter one as a Jedi Consular and had the Legacy name creation window popped up, I stared at it with a blank expression.  Unlike most people I knew, including my husband, I had no idea what to do for my Legacy name.

Feeling rather foolish, I somewhat timidly typed in guild chat, "If I do not pick a Legacy name now, can I come back and do it later?"

Nobody was really sure, but it made sense.  After a little research on-line, I discovered that, yes, I could come back and pick it later.  The Legacy name creation window would pop up again, awaiting my input, when I opened my Skills window.  I sighed in relief and closed the window.

You see, <looks furtively both ways>  I had not really been looking forward to having a Legacy name.  It wasn't a point of pride for me.  And, knowing how much I hated Legacy names while healing Huttball, I did not plan to display it as a surname, anyway.

Legacy names are a pain for a healer in warzones. Picture this . . . You're in Huttball, staring at a large cluster of players--some teammates, some opposing--and your team has the ball.  (You can tell by the pillar of yellow or purple light reaching above and below the players.)  "Aha!" you say, "With all those enemies around him, he certainly needs a quick heal!"

There is no way you can target the ball carrier by simply clicking in that mess, and you cannot tell who is carrying the ball by looking at your raid frames (If there is an icon in the raid frames indicating the ball carrier I haven't noticed yet, it is so small you would need a magnifying glass, anyway), so you frantically search for his name, only to be stymied by the plethera of information floating and being jumbled together over his head in a chaotic mess.

Above each character in that group floats a title, a name, and a surname.  The title may be at the beginning of the name or at the end and may be one word or many.  While you can easily distinguish friend from foe, thanks to the differing colors, there is no way to immediately be able to separate out the player name by simply finding a certain position on the green line above his head.

Finally seeing a name appear out of the jumble, you look down at your raid frames for quick targeting.  He's not there.  You look again, search one more time and exclaim in frustration, "There's nobody on my list by that name? What's going on?"  Then you realize you were reading the person's Legacy name . . . (By this time, said person with Legacy name and perhaps a three-word title to boot has died because you couldn't find him on your raid frames to toss him a bubble or heal.)

So, knowing how much these names frustrate me in warzones, and having resolved not to display a Legacy name as a surname, I had not given the matter much thought until I was faced with the choice.

"Even if I never display this," I thought, "a name is still a part of my identity, and it should mean something to me."

I thought about it all the rest of the evening and most of the next day at work, but my mind remained a complete blank on the subject.  My husband had offered a couple of suggestions:  "House of Five Princesses" (Huh? Can you use multiple words?  Too long, anyway.) and my maiden name.

Finally, I threw my hands in the air and took the latter suggestion, as it is a meaningful legacy I carry in real life.  (My ancestors were influential pioneers in their region in American history and passed down a proud heritage to their descendants.)  Besides, it's spelled oddly enough, it looks like it may have actually come from a fantasy world.

My Consular does display the Legacy, but as a title beneath her name, not as a surname.  This way, there will be less confusion for healers in warzones if they try to target me in a crowd.