Why do you play your class - Paladin

Paladin! Hortis was my accidental 80. I never really sat down and said I was going to push and level her to 80 it just happened. I had done some leveling with my pally and enjoyed tanking but the original dungeon finder took a long time to help you build groups and than you still had to travel to your location, summon people, watch as the healer went afk, dps bailed, and so you had to build the group up again. Questing was the way to level by I didn't feel inclined to questing on Hortis.

Than Blizzard introduced the dungeon finder. Instead of spending the day trying to track down enough people to get a daily group done on the druid and maybe another toon before calling it quits for the night I was able to blast though my daily dungeon and than try to find something else to do. I don't farm herbs, mobs, do dailies, or really any of those things people do to make gold. Instead I would hop on Hortis and run dungeons with her. And other than a few quests in Hellfire and Borean Tundra, Hortis leveled entirely though the dungeon finder. It was a shock to realize that she was level 80. So I worked to get her geared up and she even tanked in ICC. 

While I bought Hortis duel-spec I never used it during Wrath. I loved pally tanking at that time. There was something about watching all those lights and hearing all those sounds that kept me enthralled. I also liked that she had a rotation. It was a contrast from druid tanking which would eventually dissolve into maul and swipe as fast as you can. A pally was about using all their abilities as soon as they were off cooldown and something was always off cooldown. It was predictable but still fun. I also really enjoyed the prepull checklist. Sacred shield, holy shield, divine plea and pull. And than there was the fun of running with a disc priest. I wanted to take damage so that I would be healed and so gain more mana so I could cast more stuff, make sure stuff was beating on me so I'd take more damage. 

Than Cata happened. I really wanted to like the changes to pallys. Unfortuantely Hortis just felt weak and I never got over it. I managed to level her to 85 and really gave tanking a good shot but it just didn't feel right anymore. So I gave ret a try. And promptly went back to prot. My last spec to try was holy. I loved it. I had heard that healing was more difficult in Cata I felt like my pally could heal anything. I think part of why I love being a pally healer is how easy the spells are for me to understand and when I heal something I see the difference that it makes. For a time I thought Hortis would be my main but I knew the lack of the versatility that having two specs I really enjoyed would annoy me. I like to be able to switch my role to fill a need and I couldn't do that with Hortis. But I could still enjoy her as an alt.

Raid finder is a blast as a pally. I know healing meters are not a good indicator of how well your healing. But you can't argue that it's not fun when you sit through Ultraxion as a healer and watch those who got the red and green crystals destroy the meters and than you get your paws on the blue crystal and giggle in glee when you smash the meters to smithereens in just a few casts of holy radiance. And than you keep casting. Don't judge. I have to find enjoyment from running RF somewhere because otherwise I fall asleep. 

Not much has changed about holy paladins for Mists. New talents and some different spells but the heals are the same. I really look forward to giving prot and ret another try since I've heard there's been some good changes there but I'm really happy with how Holy is right now. 

At the half-way point of my long litany of alts and their tales. I'm not sure this is quite what I had originally intended with this idea but I'm almost done as well. Not much more to do but to keep chugging away.

Why you play your class? Priest

My priest Lillium was the third toon I managed to get to max level. I had started her and was leveling her as a holy priest but I left her abandoned in Tanaris.

Eventually Wrath was released and I enjoyed playing my druid. Arita started off as a healer but I eventually switched her to tank/heals and than to tank/dps. But I found that there where some pugs I couldn't get into because I wasn't ranged or heals. So I decided to try leveling my priest again.

I logged onto Lillium and realized that she didn't have any talents yet. I remember how painful it was to level Artia as a healer so I made Lillium a shadow priest and fell in love with her. I love shadow form. Being a purple writing mass of shadowy magic appealed to me. I also discovered that she didn't have any problems getting groups and was still able to heal fairly well as a shadow priest.

I had put the glyph that makes the bubble heal and bubbled the tank at the start of each fight. That along with renew usually took care of any healing I needed to do. I could also still cast the spells I needed to activate replenishment. And when she reached Outlands she was able to replenish mana even easier by using dispersion.

I didn't feel brave enough to try to heal any of the Northrend dungeons as shadow but I was able to manage to scrape together enough gold to get Lillium Duel-spec. I choose holy because it made more sense to me than disc. While I could heal with Lillium I didn't enjoy it. I eventually changed her to a holy/disc priest so I could attempt to try playing both heal specs and try to find which one I enjoyed more. I still hadn't picked a favorite when the talents where reset for Cata.

Lillium is now a disc/shadow priest. I love shadow and still really enjoy it. While I can heal with her it's still not a spec I really enjoy playing. I've picked disc mostly because atonement appealed to me along with using bubbles. I haven't tried it since the Mist's talent changes but I have tried her as shadow and I'm still really like the spec. But I don't think Lillium is going to be more than a glorified auction toon. I use her to try and sort all the stuff that I find on my toons and to DE and post auctions. She does an occasional run through some dungeons but uselly spends all her time in a city running errands.

Why do you play your spec? Rogue

Changing realms is no fun when your name is already taken
So what to do? Add a different character

My last post went over the tale of how Arita became a feral druid and I think my rogue Ursa would be the logical next choice since her tale is very connected to Arita's.

Arita was my first toon and I had made a lot of mistakes with her. Eventually I came to realize just how much I'd messed up. I was really reluctant to delete Arita but I didn't know if I could push her forward either. So I spent my time creating new alts, playing them for a day or two, and than deleting them. Ursa was different. 

When I created my rogue I was determined to name my characters after stars, constellations, and other space stuff since I was attempting an astronomy course. The naming never went much beyond Ursa and I have since realized my dislike of online classes. But part of what my Ursa different from some of the other alts was that I put as much time and thought into her appearance as I did Arita's. I love the night elves and when clicking through the different hair and skin colors I hit upon the idea of a red skinned elf with green hair. I loved the idea that they were bright flashy colors for a class that's all about blending into the shadows.

Leveling Ursa was a blast too. I enjoyed stealthing though areas and I was able to kill things so quickly, at least compared to what my druid was doing. I was in love with Ursa and I was determined that she would be leveled properly. I picked a spec and made sure I put all my talents into it. I chose combat since it made the most sense to me. The idea that the off-hand weapon would hit harder and a few other talents seemed really straightforward compared to the other two trees. I managed to get into dungeons with her and I watched to make sure any gear she replaced had more agility on it. I also had a very strict plan of earning a set amount of gold per level. I wanted to make sure that my rogue would be able to buy a mount and the riding when she hit level forty.

I don't think I was the best or most efficient leveler. I spent a lot of time wandering around picking pockets and I made sure to keep my poisonmaking and lockpicking skills maxed out along with leatherworking and skinning. Making sure I had all these abilities leveled took time since I wasn't spending any gold on anything. 

About level 50ish I took turns leveling both Ursa and the druid until they were both level 62 and I learned about the next expansion. I really wanted to have a max level character by the time Wrath was released. So I decided to stop leveling Arita and focus on the rogue. I choose to level Ursa because she had the two different riding skills and was putting in a good effort to save up for flying. I felt confident that when she hit level 70 I would be able to get a flying mount for her but Arita still didn't have any riding skills. And Ursa was easier to level because she could kill things faster. With that choice made I settled down and leveled Ursa. Things went well and the week before Wrath was released I had reached level 70 and realized there was nothing for my rogue to do. She couldn't get into any dungeons because she lacked the rep, key, and gear. And no one would even think about taking her for a raid. So I went back to leveling my druid.

When Wrath was released the talents where wiped and I had to pick a spec. I leveled though Northrend as a Sub rogue. I didn't enjoy it. I stuck with it in the hope it'd get better but I was miserable. I wasn't killing anything quickly and I felt that I was not contributing anything to any of the dungeons I ran. I had a friend in my guild who told me it'd get better and raids would love me for the ability to crowd control. Go ahead, laugh, Crowd Control during Wrath? 

Anyway, I did attempt to take Ursa to Naxx but I really felt like I wasn't doing much. I also felt confused trying to figure out what was wrong with my rogue. I had trouble getting into heroics because I couldn't pull off any decent amount of dps and so I couldn't get gear. It was frustrating. I felt like the time when I almost deleted Arita. But my guild was looking for healers and I jumped at the chance of being able to contribute something. So I got to leveling her and left my rogue sitting and collecting dust.

Eventually Blizzard released some buffs to rogues and I decided to give Ursa another try. I wasn't liking sub so I switched her spec to Assassination. Than I realized I need 2 daggers to be able to play it. I changed her to combat and tried playing her again. I wasn't liking combat too much but it was better than sub but eventually I managed to get Ursa 2 daggers and I decided to give Assassination a real try this time. I loved it. Mutilate! Mutilate! Mutilate! I love watching Ursa lunge into the boss with that attack. It's one of my favorite animations. It's also has a rotation to maintain that I enjoy. I like that idea of envenom also refreshing slice and dice. It's nice to just set the buff and than go about the task of killing stuff. 

Cata has changed the rotation a bit but since it still used Mutilate so much I still really enjoy it. I've been very lucky with Ursa so far because the best weapons she's gotten have always been daggers. I've bought her duel-spec when the cost of it decreased but I've never used it except to set it up. I did try Ursa out on one run and I still like her as assassination. I really enjoy my rogue but I don't think I play her as often as I might like. She's done raid-finder once or twice but mostly my rogue spends her days in quite retirement opening up lockboxes. 

I suppose if I were to rate my toons from my favorite to least favorite Arita would be number two and Ursa would be number five. 

Why do you play your spec? Druid

Aritâ - Korgath
Although her name has a funny a, I tend not to type it that way

I love alts. I make them all the time. I level them. I run dungeons. I pvp. And then eventually I leave them behind when I discover that another class is holding my interest better. Some make it though the leveling and reach 85. The ones that do are the ones I've found something that I absolutely love about them. Which makes me wonder, why do I play the specs that I do? And why do people play the ones that they do?

Ahh. Time for a trip down memory lane. As I mentioned in my first post, I started playing at some point during BC. That time when Greeks ruled the Westren world and where building temples and sculptures.

Well... ok. Maybe not. But sometimes it feels like it's been that long. When I started playing I had to use dial-up and was limited to an hour of internet time a day. Needless to say, I wasn't leveling very fast. But the leveling is really another story. I had been leveling a druid because I love cats and the idea of being a cat appealed to me. I didn't get to be a cat until almost a year later.

I was a happy little newblet, wandering around, turning in quests until I reached level 40. This was when I realized that getting the long awaited mount was not going to happen. Brewfest was introduced and I thought I'd be able to at least cut the cost of buying a mount from my tab. So after spending a few days getting tickets I bought a stamp and went to the mount guy only to learn... What? I would have to buy my mount! And at the same price as my faction mount! I figured after all the work put into getting the stamp I was going to buy the mount. Somehow, by the end of the week I had managed to scrape together enough gold to buy a ram. But I still wasn't able to use it. I was really feeling unhappy with being a druid at this point but the nail was driving into the coffin when I learned about dungeons.

I was leveling in Tanaris when I got a whisper asking if I wanted to do ZF. I asked what ZF was and was told about dungeons and groups. From what I remember, a higher level pally was looking to run some friends though ZF and was looking for someone to throw out some heals. After looking in the zone they had found my name and asked if I could heal. I said I had no idea how to heal but if they would teach I'd give it a try. So I had my first ever dungeon group. I don't remember if we finished or not. I like to think that we did. What I do remember was how awesome that pally was and how patient since he was teaching me a bit about what spells to use and when.

My next dungeon did not go so well. It was ZF again but this was almost an all druid group. 3 Balance druid, a warrior, and me. I had a very mismatched spec and apparently my gear was terrible. The three druids got together and had already planned which of them was going to get what loot while ripping into me about what a terrible idiot I was. I was really glad when the tank left after the first pull and the group fell apart. But it was a turning point of sorts. I didn't want to ever feel like that again. I spent the rest of the night trying to look up and learn anything I could about being a druid. I got an understanding of what the talents where about and what the stats did. I went to Darnassus and decided to pick a spec to put all my points in. I knew I didn't want to be a Boomkin. I wanted nothing more to do with them. But I remembered how awesome the first group was and picked resto. Than I looked at my gear and realized I'd have to replace almost all of my pieces. There went my meager mount gold fund.

I quickly realized one thing when I went back to leveling. If I was terrible at killing stuff before I was even worse now. It was frustrating. I was almost level 50, still didn't have a mount, couldn't kill anything very fast, and my gear still wasn't quite where I thought it was supposed to be. So I made a new toon. And than another one. I keep making toons until I came to my rogue. I fell in love with her. I was happy playing Warcraft again. But I'm not ready to tell Ursa's story yet. I'm still telling Arita's.

By the time Ursa reached level 50 I had realized a few things about looking for dungeons. One of these is that heals where hard to find. Eventually I just took to leveling Ursa, finding a group, and than trying to fill spots before switching to my druid for heals. This worked well and the two reached 58 about the same time. I also started leveling them in Outlands in the same manner. Eventually I realized I would level faster if I'd just pick one toon. I picked Ursa and leveled her. She reached 70 the week before Wrath came out. Not having much else to do I returned to leveling Arita who reached 68 when LK was realized.

I was set to play my rogue for wrath but after reaching level 80 on Ursa I wasn't happy with her and my guild was looking for heals so I decided to start leveling Arita again. It was not easy leveling as a resto druid. I managed but it was mostly though running a lot of dungeons and carrying agility gear so I could run around as a bear. I did some raiding with a group of my friends as we went though a few guilds trying to find a home. And when duel-spec came out I knew I wanted to be a feral druid. I had made a druid so I could be a cat but I wasn't running around in cat form much as a resto. Cat is a very difficult spec to master. I eventually gave up and thought I might have to try balance when one of my friends, who was leveling a healer, asked me to come tank regular nexus for her. The fact that I was 80 meant I could tank it easily enough and the group was happy I came along. So I left feral as my spec and my friend kept inviting me to tank all the rest of her normal dungeons. I was feeling pretty good about tanking so I decided to make my spec a bear one. Eventually we reached a point where we could try doing heroics. I still get a laugh when I remember all the groups that would kick me when I said I had no defense rating since bears didn't need any.

Eventually my formal guild leader learned I was tanking so he came with me. That night he had me tanking beside him in Ulduar. I was nervous, scared, and twitching. But it was a blast! I still had a lot of learning left to do but I knew I was a tank. She eventually picked up cat as her other spec and actually learned to play it rather well and was dps when she killed the Lich King. I still think of playing resto and sometimes inflict my healing on random dungeons but she's been a bear/cat for some time since even if she's no longer my main.

It's been a long journey for my druid and I think she'll always be special because of all we've been though together but I'm more excited about being a death knight.

I had hoped I might get into why I play what I do with the others but this post started getting really long. So I'm going to leave it for another post soon.

August Transmog - Faction Pride

One of the things I'd wanted to do was post my entry from Neriapproves August Transmog Tournament. We're now partway though September and the next Tournament has been announced but I really wanted to get this post up. So I present to you my mage - Azilem!

When I submitted this I was thinking about showing off Alliance Pride but now realize that the pose hides my mage's shoulders. She also doesn't have a very interesting weapon.

I had seen the tournament at Neriapproves previously and had wanted to get into it. But than the Transmogolympics came around and I was busy with that. But when the time came to submit my outfits I remembered about Neri's Tournament and decided to check and see what it was. I checked and saw the deadline was coming up quickly and the theme was Faction Pride. I knew whatever I was going to come up with was going to have to be with stuff I already had. That made me think of my mage. She's my last 85 and started leveling after transmogging had been added in. So any armor she found that I thought was neat she kept. Which meant a lot of the stuff from Azuremyst, Bloodmyst, and Outlands is in her bank. When she reached 85 I knew I wanted to justify keeping all that stuff and built her an outfit from stuff she had. And what she had was an awesome chestpiece and the legs from Hellfire. I than chased down all the pieces to make her shoulders and found a belt that worked with the blues and golds. For the tournament I tossed on a tabard and tried some poses for the king.

She's wearing:

Shoulders - Primal Mooncloth Shoulders

Chest - Jessera's Fungus Lined Tunic

Tabard - Stormwind Tabard

Hands - Tempest's Touch

Waist - Serenity Belt

Legs - Wanderer's Stitched Trousers

Feet - Darrowmere Sandals (Because they didn't show)

I think now that this was the better shot because you can see what she's wearing better. But I'm pretty happy with this look. I'm much happier with my entry for September. But I won't be posting that until it appears over at Neriapproves.

Adjusting to Change

With the start of school I've been pretty busy with work and homework to spend much time in WoW. Which was a little frustrating because I wanted to get into the game and see all the neat changes that have taken place. But than came the three-day weekend. Horray for Labor Day! And I finally got a chance to take my toons for a spin.

This is not Zul'Gurub. I unfortuantely don't have
pictures from there. Instead I present a lovely
one from inside Old Kingdom.

I started with Tyledres and I love that she can choose to either DW or use a 2-hander without changing her spec. I haven't tried frost in any pve though. I took Tyledres into the battlegrounds instead. Some of my guildmates warned me that I wasn't going to have much fun. I'm glad to say they were wrong. Sure I didn't win any of the games I played but I had a blast running around killing hordies. It was fascinating to realize that I could tell who had good pvp gear and who was running with pve gear since I could tell with one howling blast.

Having played two games I moved on to looking at my other toons and trying to pick talents for them but I felt a little lost so I decided to play my horde pally and run dungeons for awhile.

Monday I was going to try leveling my hunter with a friend's priest but he was having trouble logging on. I was in Stonetalon which left me confused because I have no idea why Sitroh would be there. Deciding to make the most of my time while my friend tried to sort out his problems with the game I decided to see if there was anything interesting to tame. I now have a beautiful, ghostly green bird. Finally my friend decided he was going to have to uninstall wow and than reinstall it. So I finally decided to finally go see what I could do with the druid.

Arita and I were at the Darkmoon Faire when I saw that Shoryl of Tiny WoW Guild was online. She had mentioned previously that if I wanted to run heroics with her to give her a tell. So I asked if she'd be interested in running something with me. She agreed but she mentioned that she hadn't run very many of them yet. So I decided to grab Hortis, my pally, so that I could heal while she tanked. And than we qued up.

We got Zul'Gurub. I think the troll dungeons are really hard to get though unless most of the group know what they're doing. Unfortunately, I haven't managed to get into groups where that's been the case lately. The first boss is one of the harder ones, I think, because you really have to make sure you don't stand in anything green. If you don't have the path of the green goo memorized you could find yourself stuck into a corner with no way out. Apparently you also have to tell new tanks not to tank the boss on the staircase up to his alter. While I tried to keep Shoryl and the death knight dps up, the green mists there managed to win. That left just me and a hunter who knew his stuff since our third dps was no where to be found. Amazingly enough the hunter and his pet where easy enough to heal and he managed to almost kill the boss before something happened and he died. But the boss was so close to dead that whatever dots the hunter put up along with the denouncement my pally cast that the boss died. I felt pretty elated by that win.

The rest of the bosses went pretty well with only the final boss giving up any real trouble. The first attempt was pretty close but the next few were flops. I think Shoryl and I where feeling some frustration since we where losing the fight because of dps not doing what they were supposed to, such as stand on the chains and not killing the bezerker. But we stuck it out and eventually we managed to get it. By that time Shoryl had to go and I was left to my own devises but I didn't really do much after that.

It's been pretty fun finally seeing everything that I've been working on and I've managed to snag some new achievements. Classic dungeonmaster being one of them, over 9000 being another. But I found myself still short 2 achievements for Glory of the Dungeon Hero. Tonight was one of Shoryl's LBD days but it's been pretty quite since it was just the two of us. But we started in Oculus and I ran on my priest since she just needed to ride the ruby drake to get the drake handler achievement. Shoryl was on the green one. After that I switched to my shaman and we went to VH where we got the Void Achievement and Shoryl managed to get all the VH bosses killed. Than we went to Halls of Lightening and managed to pick up all the achievements from there. Shoryl also managed to get the achievement for completing all the heroic LK dungeons. So it was a pretty fun night. I know Shoryl said she really wants to get the 5 people need so I can get my last achievement Share the Love from Gundrak for next week. I also think she wants to do Zombiefest.

Anyway, was looking at the mogolympics on Amateur Azerothian and JD has posted the closing ceremonies! It was really exciting and even more amazing was that he picked one of my outfits for a judge's choice award! My druid javelin look! I know that when I posted about it I've begun to really rethink my choices but now I think maybe I shouldn't be rethinking them. I'm proud of what I came up with and while I might rethinking my choices I also have a feeling I'd end up picking the same items again anyway since I did go though each entry many times to make sure everything was perfect.

Last of the Mogolympics

I had really hoped I'd be able to keep posting something everyday but Wednesday came around and I was too tired to come up with something for Thursday. Now it's Sunday and I'm berating myself for not starting back up sooner. I had two ideas for posts that I was thinking about doing but they can wait for next week since one is my first location and the other is the transmog I'd use for another contest.

But today the last of the Mogolympics events was posted and I've really wanted to post my outfits. I didn't get a medal this time but I'm still really happy with how things went. I didn't win any golds but for my first time entering a competition like this I'm really happy. Two medals is nothing to sneeze at since I don't think there's anyone who managed to get more than two. Although from what I can figure I think the winner managed to get two golds. That puts me in the top ten. Which is pretty awesome. But to my outfits!

Fencing

One of the things I've noticed is that when I've put these outfits together I seemed to loose the theme. My wrestling mog is a good example of what I mean. I think about the requirement of wearing a big belt but than forget about the event which is wrestling. I build up a nice outfit but it doesn't say "Wrestling." I think my fencing outfit is another example where I let that happen. The requirement was to build an outfit around our favorite 1-hand sword. Mine is the Red Sword of Courage. I love that sword. But it was also very difficult for me to work with. I had certain ideas stuck in my mind that I wasn't able to get rid of. I'm happy with what I came up with, although I think I'd toss the helm and just go without one. But while it's a neat outfit it doesn't say fencing.

Helm: Onslaught Battle Helm

Shoulders: Pauldrons of Unnatural Death

Chest: Lost Reliquary Chestguard

Hands: Callous-Hearted Gauntlet

Waist: Veteran's Plate Belt

Legs: Frostplate Greaves

Feet: Greaves of Iron Intensity

Weapon: Red Sword of Courage

Freestyle

Freestyle seemed like a difficult idea since it was a mog that could be anything. I choose to try and create Snow White. I started with the skirt and after looking at what was available from the cloth, leather, mail, and plate that was both yellow and a skirt, I choose to make my snow white in leather. I choose these legs because even though they were mostly brown the yellow color still came out. I realized later that there's another version of this skirt in blue that I think would have worked even better since blue is a color in Snow White's actually outfit. Hindsight. Anyway, after some looking and thinking I choose the rest feeling they best represented what I felt Snow White would be. I used the red bandana in place of a hair bow. I wasn't able to replicate Snow White's ruff in leather so I skipped that but thought the shoulders made a great substitute for the puff of her sleeves. While Snow White doesn't wear gloves I choose to use the colors from her skirt for them.

Helm: Imposing Bandana

Shoulders: Spaulders of the Ring

Back: Renzithen's Dusty Cloak

Chest Lo'ap's Tunic of Muck Diving

Wrist: Ranger Armguards

Hands: Deviate Scale Gloves

Waist: Headhunter's Belt

Legs: Luminary Kilt

Feet: Wolf Rider's Boots

Weapon: Broad Bladed Knife

Equestrian

Choosing a horse was one of the hardest parts of this challenge. I choose the warlock Dreadstead but I don't really think that a demon horse is really the best choice if you want to build something that says Equestian while still saying demon horse. I love my set but right now I'm feeling very conflicted about my choices especially for this event. But I also think part of it comes from looking at the two gold medalists and seeing how very similar they are and how strong the theme of equestrian comes though for them. Mines is a warlock. I started with the robes for this entry. I was actually planning to find something dark to match the dark color of the dreadstead but the reds and pinks from the inside of the robe felt like a great match for the Dreadsteads saddle and the orange reminded me of the flames. The helm and shoulders matched the colors and added a flame effect that would match her steed. The gloves and bracers pick up more of the pink but also add some more of the orange.

Head: Crown of the Twilight Queen

Shoulder: Mantle of Roaring Flames

Chest: Vermillion Robes of the Dominant

Wrist: Emberflame Bracers

Hands: Widow's Cluthes

Waist: Sash of Serpentra

Feet: Necropile Boots

Weapon: Ti'tahk, the Steps of Time

Final Thoughts

It was pretty fun to attempt this challenge. I have things I'd do differently but overall I'm proud of my efforts. It had it's highs and it's lows. It's definitely fun to at last present some of the cool outfits I've created to other people and I really want to know what the judges thought of my outfits. But I also want to know what others think as well. One of the things I've noticed with this event is that it's very important to keep an eye on what I'm trying to achieve. It's one thing to look cool but it's also important that you get the effect that you want to achieve as well otherwise it's just a random mash-up of similar looking pieces.