Don't Punch the Wolf

This is the story of an achievement.

Recipe for maxing out your unarmed skill as a healer:

• Put on your mana regeneration gear
• Unequip your weapon
• Find mob that will hit you for less damage than you can heal indefinitely
• Wail on mob with fists

My chosen victim was a Tundra Wolf from Borean Tundra. He had over 6k health, and with the impressive DPS my gear was offering me (reduced further by the fact I was going to miss a lot to start with), I was sure that would be more than enough to get me from my meagre 70 unarmed skill all the way to 400.

My heal of choice was Power Word: Shield. The shield could absorb more damage in its 30 second duration than the wolf was capable of inflicting on me, my Glyph of Power Word: Shield would mop up anything I missed, and I'd have the mana back within a couple of seconds of casting.

By the time my skill was up to 385 (a gain of 315 points), I had the wolf down to 80% health. That's when things started slowing down and the skill points became fewer and farther between. It became a challenge to max my unarmed skill before this wolf died, man verses uncaring random number generator. However, the wolf had at least 20% of its health left when I hit 399. "Great!", I thought. "One point to go, should be done any second now!"

Yeah right.

Down went the wolf's health, slowly and steadily. I imagined the '6' key on my keyboard, bound to PW:S, wearing down to a nub from overuse. I started wondering if there was some dastardly if statement deep in the World of Warcraft codebase that refused to maximise your weapon skill on the same mob that granted you the penultimate point. Then, when all hope was lost...

Fuck yeah.

I feel sorry for the wolf, who with my impressive overall 3dps had to endure being punched non-stop for around 38 minutes before I finally put it out of its misery. In that time, 38 Power Word: Shields were cast, along with 7 Renews to mop up the damage I took while I was making breakfast or doing laundry.

And people say this game is just pointless grinding!