Rift: Cabalist

This is built for optimum duoing.  It heals you and one other party member.  It can be used for grouping or soloing, but I built it for 2-person Chronicles.  I’ve hit 40k dps in Intrepid Hammerknell with it, and enough healing to keep a reasonable tank alive healthy.

• Cabalist
• 61 points, whole tree
• Justicar
• 6 points
• Armor of Virtue: 5
• Reparation: 1
• You can add more to this to make it fit a larger group size, you just have to take some off of Purifier to make room for it
• Purifier
• 9 points
• Spirit Guidance: 5
• Caregiver’s Blessing: 1
• Intensity: 3
• If you want more Reparation (above), this is the easiest place to steal points from

Macros:

• Cabalist
• any equipment for this build (synergy crystal, etc.)
• Spam

#show Bound Fate
suppressmacrofailures
cast Break Free
cast Mass Reversal
cast Reversal of Fortune
cast Howling Death
cast Symbol of the Torch
cast Ravaging Darkness
cast Unleash Oblivion
cast Disintegration
cast Bound Fate

• Heal

#show Healing Flare
suppressmacrofailures
cast Bolt of Radiance
cast Hammer of Duty
cast Strike of Judgment
cast Healing Flare

• Sigils

#show Sigil of Catastrophe
suppressmacrofailures
cast Maelstrom
cast Sigil of Catastrophe
cast Sigil of Spirits
cast Sigil of Secrecy
cast Sigil of Ruin
cast Sigil of Binding
cast Sigil of Woe

 

First make sure you’re in the right “mode” with Focused, Condensed, or Unbounded Obliteration, for the number of mobs you’re currently fighting.

For groups of mobs, I open with the Sigils macro.  Maelstrom gets stuff nicely group together.  Cast it on a mob that’s standing next to your tank.

I follow that with Well of Souls, followed by Tyranny of Death, then Curse of Solitude and Curse of Anarchy.  Then it’s just beat on the Spam macro till everything is dead.

As mobs die, you can swap down from Unbounded to Condensed, and then finally to Focused, if you need to.

For single mobs, make sure you’re in Focused Obliteration, then start with Well of Souls, Tyranny of Death, Curse of Discord, 3 stacks of Dark Water, and then the Spam macro till it’s dead.  You can refresh Curse of Discord and Dark Water periodically.  That really helps keep single-target DPS in acceptable ranges.

Keep in mind, with the same gear, a good Shaman build will do about 50% more single-target DPS, and a good Inquisitor build will do about 10% more.  Cabalist is okay for single-target, but really designed for 3-10 targets.  Boss fights against a single boss, you’re probably better off in Shaman or Inquisitor.

But don’t let that discourage you from Cabalist.  It can really rock against lots of mobs.  In Intrepid Hammerknell, my tank runs around the room and gets a whole collection of mobs, and then we burn them down FAST!

Rift: New Pyrochloro Setup

New patch today modified pyromancer in Rift.

This is a solo build that relies on self-healing for survivability.  It can group well, but you may want to swap 1 Circle of Life for Synthesis if you will spend more time grouping than soloing.

Untested as a PvP build, but I doubt it’s very good at that.

Build:

• 61 Pyromancer (whole tree)
• 0 Arbiter (for Aqueous Blessing, 3% less incoming damage)
• 15 Chloromancer
• 5 Accelerated Growth
• 1 Bloom
• 2 Healing Slipstream
• 2 Empowered Veil
• 3 Phytogenesis
• 2 Circle of Life

Macros:

• Prep (use to open)

#show Burning Bonds
suppressmacrofailures
cast Burning Bonds
cast Radiant Spores
cast Withering Vine

• Fireball

#show Heat Wave
suppressmacrofailures
cast Break Free
cast Fulminate
cast Internalize Charge
cast Heat Wave
cast Fireball

• Spam

#show Flame Bolt
suppressmacrofailures
cast Break Free
cast Burning Shield
cast Radiant Spores
cast Fulminate
cast Internalize Charge
cast Countdown
cast Searing Bolt
cast Inferno
cast Flame Bolt
cast Burn
cast Scorch
cast Natural Conversion
cast Fireball

• Channel

#show Fusillade
suppressmacrofailures
cast Break Free
cast Radiant Spores
cast Internalize Charge
cast Countdown
cast Flame Volley
cast Fusillade
cast Fireball

• AoE

#show Fire Storm
suppressmacrofailures
cast Countdown
cast @gtae Fire Storm

• Heal

#show Bloom
suppressmacrofailures
cast @mouseoverui Bloom
cast Bloom

• Pyromancer
• equip Gilded Pyromancer Crystal
• Break Free

#show Bloom
suppressmacrofailures
cast @mouseoverui Bloom
cast Bloom

Use Channel for bigger mobs.  It does a lot of damage (I’ve run 15k+ dps on elites in Steppes of Infinity with it).

Use Fireball when Heat Wave is up (button will show it).  Lots of damage, fun to watch!

Heal for when you need it or someone in your group needs it (mouse-over their portrait in your group/raid list).  Can be modified to use @focus or @mark tank, or whatever other targeting you like.

Prep first followed by hitting Spam as frequently as possible is just “hit ‘em with everythin’ you gots!”  It takes a bit of button smashing before you start doing real damage (because it leads with self-buffs, etc.), but then it does very well.  I’m usually around 7k dps on elites in Steppes with this combo.  Not as good as the Channel and Fireball macros, but it’s great for when those aren’t recycled yet!  This one will always fire off something (unless you’re disabled, and even then it tries to break it for you).

Note: I’ll post the rest of my builds here later.  Posted this one by request.

Movie Review: Divergent

Divergent.  Saw it Friday night.  Short version, it’s not very good.
The main character is unbelievable (and not in a good way), and played poorly by Shailene Woodley.  The whole point of the character is that she has control over her fear, but she spends most of the movie acting like she’s terrified of her own shadow and pretty much everything else in her environment.  Except heights.  She’s apparently not afraid of heights.  She’s supposed to be bright, but she never shows this, and she’s supposed to be selfless and helpful and have empathy for others, but she also never shows this.  “Bright” seems to equate to “mildly curious when things are seriously weird” and “selfless” seems to boil down to “willing to not hurt someone in some circumstances”.
I haven’t read the books (I hear they’re good, which is why I even gave this a chance), but I sincerely hope they do a better job of describing the society this takes place in.  It doesn’t make sense on any level in the movie.  The people who designed it are supposedly geniuses, we’re told in the opening exposition, but they’ve gone and designed a social order that would actively cripple their own purposes.  And they’re willing to die to defend this idiotic order.  It’s not even a convincing dystopia.  It’s “they’re the bad guys because … well … we’re not sure, but they must be the bad guys because they’re nerds and the good guys are jocks!” I guess.
The male love-interest (Hollywood seems to think that “strong female lead” = “even stronger male object-of-lust for her”), played convincingly by Theo James, is seven years older than the female lead.  This is awkward because they have a (PG-13) semi-make-out, and it looks like it’s an adult man hitting on a 16-year-old girl.  The actress is older than that, but looks years younger than her age.  It’s a little creepy in the movie.
Theo’s role as Four (yes, that’s his name, and it’s not clear to me if this is some sort of tribute/parody/whatever of I am Number Four, or is oblivious to it) is well-played, as is Jai Courtney’s portrayal of “bad guy” Eric.  Both are poorly written, but well-played.  Or at least well-enough played to stand out as good in this movie.
Again, Eric’s the bad guy because, well, he must be because he’s a “meanie”.  Stupid and petty and profoundly ignorant of how to train soldiers (despite that being his job), and that makes him the villain, of course. 
I don’t know how much of the incoherence is from the conversion to a movie, and how much comes from the Veronica Roth books.  Either way, the style reminds me of the juvenile style that made Eragon such a miserable book and movie.
I’ve had very good experiences with “young adult fiction” movies recently.  More so than with a lot of more “adult” fare.  Hunger Games, the movie version of I Am Number Four (the books sucked, the movie rocked), and a few others, have been very, very good.  This one doesn’t live up to that at all.
3 on a 1-10 scale.

Technorati Tags: Movies

Movie Review: Ender’s Game

Ender's Game came out very, very well!

I was amazed by how close to the book they kept the movie.  Some definite editing and abbreviating (unavoidable in the change from book to other media), but nothing that detracted from the story or the characters.

I went into the movie expecting it would either be amazingly good, or absolutely horrible, depending on what they did to the book.  It’s one of my favorite books, and has been for almost 30 years.  Didn’t much like the sequels when I was a teen, but I may need to give them another shot one day.  But the first book has always been a favorite.  Book-to-movie adaptations of favorite books, especially ones with strong political messages, seem to go to extremes in either direction.  Dune (horrible to whole new levels), Starship Troopers (pretty horrible, though I am a Dina Meyer fan and liked most of her scenes), vs. the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Fellowship, Towers, King), or Blade Runner (which is infinitely better than the book).

Fortunately, my expectations were met, and the movie was very, very well done.

10 out of 10

DBA Article: Learning By Teaching

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” (Attributed to H.L. Mencken)

What this is meant to illustrate is that those who have top-notch skill in a field, make their money actually doing work in that field, while those without enough skill to actually do the thing, will end up teaching (at best). Of course, those who teach hate this quote.

But there’s a point in it that’s of interest beyond the immediate meaning. It’s that, if you can do the thing, you could teach it. It’s been said that anyone with a real understanding of a technical subject, can communicate it to others, clearly, even if the students don’t have the vocabulary of the subject.

For example, I’ve experienced two people with different levels of understanding, who were both trying to explain how air conditioners work. One, who knew how to install and repair air conditioners but didn’t know the theory behind them, confused the audience with detailed descriptions of “compressors” and “Freon pumps” and so on. The second, who actually understood the whole process, asked the audience, “Have you ever used one of those cans of compressed air to blow dust off of your keyboard?” Everyone said they had. “You know how the can gets really cold?” “Yeah. Yep. Experienced that.” “Air conditioning works like that. When gasses get compressed, and then expand suddenly, they cool down, just like that dusting can.” Everyone understood.

So, if you want to test your own understanding of a subject, explain it to someone who isn’t already an expert. Once you figure out how to do that, you’ll have proved how well you yourself understand it.

Years ago, I discovered online SQL forums. I found people asking questions. Some of those questions, but only a very small number, I could answer. So I did. Other questions, I could understand what was being asked, and could almost answer it. So I researched the subject till I could answer it, and then did.

Some of my answers were challenged by others. Those challenges forced me to either clarify or defend my answer, or to correct my answer when (more often than I like to admit) my original answer had been factually just plain wrong.

I learned to build tests and to try to break them, so when I gave an answer it was already tested and I knew it would work before I suggested it. This is the senior echelon, beyond teaching and into doing, and experience in it is critical to advancing any skill.

The more questions I tried to answer, the more I learned. I found answers to questions I would never have thought of asking. And, in many cases, those questions were ones I should have been asking, but didn’t realize it. So the answers helped me as much or more than the person with the original question.

And the challenges to my answers! Awesome! I had to eat some crow, and I had to unplug my ego from the discussions, but I made that easy on myself. In doing so, I unlearned a lot of things that were wrong, learned a lot of new things, and improved my own skill.

Even when my original answer had been correct, the challenges exposed weaknesses in the answer, and I learned how to communicate my answers in such a way that they prevented the challenges from having to be posted.

Most importantly, by this process, I found a number of my own blind spots. We can never see our own blind spots, unless someone else points out, directly or indirectly, what’s in them. (That’s what makes them blind spots, after all – we can’t see what’s in them.) By reading questions I never would have asked, or reading answers by others, or by being challenged on my own answers, my blind spots were exposed.

Later, I added presenting to a PASS group to my “learning by teaching” activities.

These days, I do a monthly lunch-and-learn for the software development department at my employer. Organizing the material so that I can communicate it clearly in that kind of time-limited format, really forces me to make sure it’ll be clear and will educate rapidly.

All of these ideas and anything similar, can really help you to advance your own skill. It’s also very, very enjoyable, all by itself. If you haven’t tried it, do.

Of all the lessons I’ve learned in my years as a DBA, all of the “I wish I’d known this when I started out”, I think this is the most important.

DBA Article: Documentation

A while back, I wrote a series of articles for beginning DBAs.  Not on the technical side of how to handle SQL Server, but on the subject of “things I wish I’d known when I was starting out”.

Here’s the first:

DBA Tips & Tricks: Document “Why” Not “What”

One thing I find in reviewing and refactoring older database code, that makes it much more difficult to figure out what to fix and how, is the documentation provided.

We’ve all run into situations where there simply isn’t any documentation, or it consists of “--TODO: Document this section” or something equally unhelpful.

Many DBAs and developers will even claim that “good code documents itself” as a justification for never getting around to documenting it. Sometimes this is seen as lazy, sometimes it’s seen as clever. What it really amounts to, in my opinion, is a complete misunderstanding of what documentation is about.

Here’s an example of what some might call “well-documented code”:


--smalldatetime fix
ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fDateFix] (@dateval DATETIME)
RETURNS SMALLDATETIME
AS
    BEGIN
    -- Declare Variables 
        DECLARE @sdate SMALLDATETIME
        DECLARE @edate SMALLDATETIME
        DECLARE @newdate SMALLDATETIME
  
    -- Set values
        SET @sdate = CAST('1900-01-01' AS SMALLDATETIME);
        SET @edate = CAST('2079-06-06' AS SMALLDATETIME);
  
    -- Check value of input, correct if needed
        IF @dateval IS NOT NULL
            BEGIN
                IF @dateval < @sdate
                    BEGIN
                        SET @newdate = @sdate
                    END
                ELSE
                    IF @dateval > @edate
                        BEGIN
                            SET @newdate = @edate
                        END
                    ELSE
                        BEGIN
                            SET @newdate = @dateval
                        END
            END
        ELSE
            BEGIN
                SET @newdate = NULL
            END
 
    -- Return corrected date         
        RETURN @newdate
    END


Each section says what it does. It clearly states that the function has the purpose of “smalldatetime fix”. The first part declares the variables, the next part assigns values to some of them, and so on.

This is a clear example of where “the code documents itself” is both true, and completely and utterly useless!

Why is it necessary to “fix” a smalldatetime? What are those “magical number” type dates that those variables are assigned to? Why does this function exist?

How about this, instead:

/*
   Purpose:    This takes DateTime input, checks if it is out-of-range
               for datatype SmallDateTime, and sets to the closest
               allowed value for that datatype if so.

               Use when tables are designed with SmallDateTime and inputs
               are not policed (free-form) in applications.
*/
ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fDateFix] (@dateval DATETIME)
RETURNS SMALLDATETIME
AS
    BEGIN
        DECLARE @sdate SMALLDATETIME
        DECLARE @edate SMALLDATETIME
        DECLARE @newdate SMALLDATETIME
  
        SET @sdate = CAST('1900-01-01' AS SMALLDATETIME); -- Minimum allowed SmallDateTime value
        SET @edate = CAST('2079-06-06' AS SMALLDATETIME); -- Maximum allowed SmallDateTime value
  
       -- Check value of input, correct if needed
        IF @dateval IS NOT NULL
            BEGIN
                IF @dateval < @sdate
                    BEGIN
                        SET @newdate = @sdate
                    END
                ELSE
                    IF @dateval > @edate
                        BEGIN
                            SET @newdate = @edate
                        END
                    ELSE
                        BEGIN
                            SET @newdate = @dateval
                        END
            END
        ELSE
            BEGIN
                SET @newdate = NULL
            END
 
        RETURN @newdate
    END


(Note, this function is one I copied out of a third-party application and is not intended to be an example of good code. It could obviously be improved by a blind man with a sledgehammer. It is used here simply to show the difference in documentation styles.)

Note that anyone reviewing the “what it does” version gets no help at all from the “documentation”. “Oh really? So this part declares variables? I would never have guessed that!”, isn’t something that one says without sarcasm.

But the “why was this written” documentation says things the code itself can’t say, and is useful to someone reviewing the code at a later time. It raises questions like, “Is there a comparable function that corrects from DateTime2 to DateTime? If so, why isn’t it a single function with the output type determined via a parameter?” And, “Why don’t they just police this in the application? Shouldn’t this be handled closer to the user, so they know that we’re just going to arbitrarily change their input?” And so on. Very useful to someone doing a refactor.

Documenting why changes were made, in the DDL scripts that implement the changes, can allow for a chronological study of either source control or a DDL log. Imagine the different between logging “Updates the table” type comments, vs “Per meeting with John Doe and Sue Smith on 1 Jan 2013, changed business rules to use UpdateDate column for the record instead of AuthorizationDate”. Suddenly, code changes that might otherwise be mysterious a year from now, are quite clear.

Keep this in mind when writing and reviewing code. In later years, you’ll be glad if you implement it.

If you have a good project ticketing system, “why” documentation can be as simple as “Purpose: See ticket DB-1103, notes from 3 May 13”. It adds a level of work to reading the documentation, since it’s not contained in the code, but allows for much richer “why” where that’s needed.

Ultimate SEO Fail

Did a Bing search for “search” and, not only does Google come up first, but Bing wasn’t even in the first seven results.

That’s Ballmer’s legacy, just like that.