There Are Four Dots

Combat points, I see them. I see them everywhere. In my dreams, on my screen. My daughter stops counting at four. I’ve two kids, raised by two parents. Four again. The monitors are 4K. The game has four syllables. I’m accompanied by four adventurers in each dungeon run. What I am getting at is that I have been playing far too much Battle for Azeroth. How else can you explain seeing combat points, or the visual representation of them at every turn?

If you have played a rogue or know a bit about them you quickly recognized two things. First, I’m clearly maining my rogue in BfA. Frankly, my priest is incredibly boring. I only picked her up because of easy queues. Solidsamm’s heroic queue is about 10-15 minutes these days – thanks server clusters! – so what’s the point of playing a class that bores me? Second, four combat points isn’t actually the maximum amount. Five is.

Why does four stick in my head? It’s the number that annoys me most. It’s compulsive to want the maximum number for a sick Envenom and to click that 3 key as soon as the energy is available. But one can’t. You’ve gotta conserve that energy in case of a G’huun outbreak. And you can’t slap another Mutilate to fill out the bar. That wouldn’t be resource efficient. Thus, four becomes the sticking point. It haunts me. Waiting for a Garrote opportunity as the yellow fills to the right. The bar preparing to blink when precious energy is being wasted by overflow. My index finger dances over 3 as that precarious inflection point approaches. Do I inflict the energy-efficient amount of Envenom damage or say “F it” and double down for maximum pain?

There…are…four…dots. Hold off for the Garrote or the Federation is doomed.