The 10 best posts of Righteous Defense in 2009

Hell, if I wanted to be smarmy I could say “the best posts of the decade,” but that kind of smarm is below me. Making up words like smarm, however, is not.

Um, but I digress. 2009 was the first real year of this blog, which was initially created on December 19th of last year, and sporadically updated, then abandoned for a month, and then kick started for good at the very end of January. Every since then I’ve been churning out posts, 266 in total this year. Some were bad, some were good, some were awesome. A lot were raid stories, or musings on the state of our class, or news about buffs and nerfs, or just silly divergences from the normal stuff.

Below I’ve listed what I personally feel are the 10 best posts of this blog in 2009. Some of them I wrote before I started getting a real audience here so they may be new to you. It’s interesting to see how my writing style and focus of topics changed over the course of the year. I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane as much as I did.

10. “The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance”

This post was a bit–er, pardon the pun–random. It sprung from back when my guild would use a roll system for loot back in Naxx and we had folks griping that they were cursed with “bad luck” when it came to rolling on things, or when they rolled high early in the evening they would gripe that they “wasted” their one “good roll” of the night. As the arch-skeptic of the guild, I felt it was my duty to correct such Cargo Cult-level nonsense. Hence, this diversion from tankadinery.

9. Achieving great things in the kingdom of the spiderfolk

This post was from back in the early life of the blog and when every post I did was burdened by some huge word vomit of a title. That was probably one of the longer titles I’ve ever given a post, to accompany one of the wall-of-textiest posts ever.

8. Four characteristics of a great tank, part 1: A sense of ownership

Ah, broken promises. Parts 2 through 4 still do not exist, despite my many fervent attempts to sit down and commit the little bastids to computer screen. I’m a huge fan of the way the series started though, and one day when I finally finish the other parts they will make a magnificent treatise on what it means to be a great tank.

7. Thought of the day: Situational Awareness

This was a fun post to write, and stemmed from reading about the study that I mention wherein. I don’t want to ruin the premise of the post for those of you who haven’t seen it and watched the video, but suffice it to say, it’s a pretty cool exercise on what I would consider a linchpin characteristic of tanking.

6. Why I love Rogues, a raid recap

Not just a run of the mill raid recap! I included in the post, for lulz, a haiku devoted to Falowin (a rogue guildmate who has the unlucky habit of dying on trash). Epically, he responded in the comments with a Shakespearean sonnet, in iambic pentameter no less. Comment of the year for sure.

5. How to gem, via a flowchart

This was the redo of an earlier chart from the days before we had epic gems. I’m a huge fan of how the chart turned out, both in terms of reception and how classy it looks.

4. 5 ways to boost your threat

One of my best “how to” posts, I feel. I also decided to test the blogging cliche of making a numbered list. In terms of visitors brought to the blog, this post has brought the most, bar none. Clearly all my posts should be numbered lists.

3. How to defeat heroic 10man Trial of the Crusader

I loved writing this article, crafting it the morning after a thrilling Tribute to Mad Skill run. I lovingly included as much detail as I could and from what I could tell the guide was an immense help to some people. A few folks emailed me or commented in the original guide saying that it helped them complete ToGC-10, which was an awesome thing to be told. I’m glad it was helpful.

2. Call me Ishmael

Oh Thorim. The bane of ES’s existence in 3.1. The gatekeeper between us and victory in that awful place. And, the impetus for the guild restructuring that followed. Nevertheless, we did eventually kill him, but only right before 3.2 came out. To celebrate the victory I cribbed a bunch of quotes from Moby Dick and retooled them to fit the narrative of Thorim being the Great White Whale to Demo’s Ahab. Hilarity followed.

1. I could say this joke was running

This was a very funny post when I wrote it, giving me the chance to draw on all the nonsense my guild commits during raids. Probably took me longer than it should have because I kept collapsing into fits of laughter. I love my guild, everyone in it rocks. We’re crazy, crazy people.

And I hope ES has as much success in 2010 as it did in 2009, and enjoys even more glory when Cataclysm raiding begins.

A very heartfelt thank you to all my readers. You guys and gals are why I write this blog, not for my own self-aggrandizement (an added bonus!), but to share some laughs, impart some advice, and provoke some discussion. Thank you so much for reading me in 2009 and I hope I live up to my first year of blogging by being a better blogger in 2010.

Have a great New Years everyone, stay safe and have fun!