Women Play MMOs Too!

May 19, 2010

2010-05-19T18:03:00.002-04:00

Yikes! Over a month with no post. Lots of Real Life stuff keeping me busy, as well as lots of stuff going on at work (which is when I usually post). Vacation out west for a week, etc. Blah blah blah. End result...no blogging.

And very little today.

Brief synopsis:

Still doing Hard Modes in ICC 25. The AVR (or is it AVE?) addon has helped a lot for avoiding bad stuff. I've gotten some nice pieces of gear -- still the best geared priest on the server.

My priest's 10 man group has been falling apart slowly. Spotty attendance has made it a revolving door. And some of the new more consistent players are egomaniacs who rub me the wrong way. So, I'm considering dropping from the group all together. It has lost its fun factor.

My mage's 10 man group is progressing at a slow pace. But it's a much more relaxed and fun group.

I've played my hunter a bit lately. She was my Kara main. I'm finding it hard to replace her Kara gear with quest blues. I'll probably never discard the Kara stuff. It has too many memories attached to it.

That's about it for now....

April 14, 2010

2010-04-14T17:32:00.002-04:00

You Can Call Me "Kingslayer"!!!!!

I've been meaning to post this -- the most exciting news in ages. This past Sunday night we finally beat the Lich King on 25-man. I am now a Kingslayer! Woo hoo! It was only luck that got me into the group that night. A couple of our regular healers who would have been invited over me were unable to make it. So, I got a spot...and a few hours later the king was slain! Woot!

We're starting Heroic modes now and last night got down Marrowgar, Gunship Battle and Rotface. (Deathwhisper and Saurfang were done on normal mode.) I'm not too concerned about getting invites to the heroic modes. I'm perfectly content with my title and achievement. Of course, I'd like to do heroic modes, but I'm not driven to do so. So, if those other healers get in before me, I won't be upset.

Profession Change
I dropped Mining and have taken up Enchanting on my priest. Even though my mage is already an Enchanter, I've realized that the ring enchants that come with enchanting are much more useful to me than the stamina I got from mining. I've only spent a few hours leveling it and am already at 335. I had lots of mats in my guild bank, which has been very helpful. I did get stuck at one point when I couldn't find the mats on the AH for the one enchant that would earn me points. But, the next day I checked the AH again and found them. So far I think I've only spent about 300 gold on mats. Though I suspect I'm going to spend more once I reach Northrend recipes. But, heck, what else am I going to do with all my gold? :)

Ding dong, the King is dead!!!!!

Level and Goal Check

2010-04-05T13:45:00.005-04:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance/Feral	80
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	73 (+13)
Priest	Holy/Disc	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Enhance / Resto	80 (+8)
Warlock	Affliction PvP	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

I got my Shammy to 80 this month and have geared her pretty well in a short period of time, thanks to guildies and friends. I changed her to Enhancement to level faster and I've stayed with it now that I'm 80. I'm enjoying melee more than I expected. Though I still find myself occasionally not really attacking because I'm either faced the wrong way or just slightly too far from the mob. Oh well, it's all good and fun.

My Pally gained 13 levels this past month, though I pretty much stopped leveling her once she learned how to make Belt Buckles and my Shammy reached 80 and I started focusing on gearing her. Not sure how long it will take to get the Pally to 80, but I'm not in a hurry.

Oh...and on my priest I dropped Shadow and replaced it with Disc as off-spec.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 628.45.

Shaman
XXGo full resto at 80. -- Decided to stick to Enahancement.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

March 29, 2010

2010-03-29T10:03:00.002-04:00

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
We put in several more attempts on the Lich King last night. I think we were encouraged by the fact that our officers' 10-man team got the Kingslayer title during the week. Our first attempt last night was the best of any so far. We got through 3 or 4 defiles before we started losing people.

It was down hill from there. Roughly three hours of banging our heads against the wall due to one mistake after another. I think I was the cause of our final wipe of the evening. I got the defile, ran left, like our plan, then defile got too big and wipe. I did notice a boomkin move with me, instead of to the right like he was supposed to, so I'm sure he contributed to the problem. But, I suspect I shouldn't have stopped after moving left. In fact, I'm positive. Ah well. This week we'll get more attempts in.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Nothing.

Gems/Shards/Honor
Who knew you could use Stone Keeper's Shards to buy uncut gems? I sure didn't! This is another example of me not paying attention to things. You can't but the gems directly. You first have to go to Wintergrasp and exchange 30 shards for a Wintergrasp Commendation, which gives you 2000 honor. Then, you go to Stormwind and use 10,000 honor to buy a gem. So each gem is worth 150 shards. I have a couple thousand shards! This is a great find, since I'm using so many gems in my Shammy's equipment lately.

New Perspective on Things
Over the weekend I bought a new graphics card and a new monitor. Woo hoo! No lag at all last night. My FPS stayed high the entire time. Yippee! And, with the extra monitor width, I was able to see more and even rearrange my bars to free up more space. I love both of them.

March 25, 2010

2010-03-25T11:24:00.003-04:00

Not a lot of major stuff has happened in the past week. Though there were a few notable things.

Shaman
My Shaman has been 80 for only 10 days and yet she already has several 232 to 245 ilvl items. Thanks to friends who have crafted things for me, patient PuGs who have helped me get triumph emblems, and patient guildies who have held alt runs through ToC.

Despite the gear, my DPS in raids is still quite low, compared to that of others. It's lower on raid bosses than it is on Heroic bosses. I think much of the problem is my unfamiliarity with how to melee properly. I know the DPS rotation/priority for enhancement shamans, it's just a matter of getting myself into the right position -- and most importantly, noticing when I'm not actually hitting anything. Honestly, that's one of my biggest problems. With all the flashes of spells going on around me, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that my UI is telling me that I'm too far away or that I'm faced the wrong way. I checked Skada (the replacement to Recount) and my miss rate on attacks is very low. So, it's definitely not that my hit rating is not high enough. It really is that I'm just not attacking because of positioning.

Oh and...sheesh! I never realized how many mobs do a push back effect. Jeezo! I think it's an overused mechanic. It's definitely worth having in the game. But, I can't tell you how much time I wasted running back to bosses after being knocked back. Now I understand why ranged DPS always rock the damage charts. On my mage and my priest, I just have to stand at max range and cast. Melee are constantly having to move.

Anyway...I'm having a blast, despite being disappointed with my DPS.

Paladin Leveling
My pally is lvl 72 now. But, more importantly, she's at 442 Blacksmithing. I've been gathering ore for her while sitting out on raids on my priest lately. This past Tuesday I sat out nearly the entire raid, so that was almost 3 hours of circling Icecrown, mining ore. Anyway...back to the pally. So, I'm pretty much going to stop there with Blacksmithing. My goal had been to get her to be the Eternal Belt Buckle producer of my toons. Maybe if I get to 80 on her and become motivated to equip her with epics, I'll look into maxing Blacksmithing and getting epic patterns.

Miscellaneous
On a personal note. Yesterday Ronnie tried to patch things up with Matt. Matt responded to her this morning, saying thanks, but no thanks. I can't blame Matt. Ronnie needs to just let it go.

March 17, 2010

2010-03-17T16:37:00.003-04:00

Shaman Leveling
She's 80!!! And she already has an epic! :) I dinged 80 a couple nights ago on her. I even got past my fears and joined a few groups as DPS. My numbers were painfully low for heroics, but at this point, it's safer to DPS with my gear than it is to try to heal with it.

What will I do long term? I'm not sure. For now, I'm enjoying her and that's what matters. I guess the bigger question is which spec will I buy gear for with my emblems? I already bought the first piece, which was for Enhancement. But, now I'm thinking I might want to ultimately switch her to Resto.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
I had a frustrating moment the other night. I offered to sit for a few fights to allow other healers to get a chance at gear that I already have. I assumed that when they reached the Lich King, I would be swapped in. To my surprise, and my disappointment, no swaps were made. I sat there on an alt, listening to my guildies experience the Lich King encounter for the first time.

After listening in to two wipes, my disappointment had grown into anger. I had dedicated lots of my time over the past weeks, working hard to get past the difficult encounters. Never complaining about wipes or repair bills -- unlike many of my fellow guildies. I had been in the group that finally brought down Sindragosa. Didn't I deserve a spot against the Lich King?

I spoke up. I sent a polite message to an officer asking why I had not been swapped in. After a brief apology, my invite came about 10 minutes later. I feel slightly bad for the person who left group so I could get in. But, only slightly.

We got Arthas down to 42% before wiping. Several attempts but no success. But still very very exciting to finally be there, tackling the big guy!

Last night we did a full clear, minus Professor, in the 4 hours of our raid time. The next two raid nights will be focused solely on the Lich King. Woo hoo!

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Not sure if I have the time, the energy or the will to continue staying up into the wee hours of the morning with the 10-man team. I so desperately want to finish ICC with them, but the late nights are playing havoc on my health, my job and my marriage. We'll see if there's any possibility of changing the schedule.

October 12, 2010

2010-03-12T14:36:00.008-05:00

Woot woot woot! We finally got down Sindragosa on 25-man last night. Yippeee!!!!! Woo hoo!!! Yowza! Yay!

Ahem...

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
So, as I was saying, we killed Sindragosa last night for the first time. That was an exciting bit of progress. I know that I personally improved my performance. From the perspective of a healer, it's all about managing the stacking buffs while keeping the raid alive. On previous nights, I had been making two clear strategy mistakes during phase 3:

Trying to clear my Mystic Buffet stacks at every opportunity. Every time a new raid member got ice-blocked, I tried to get behind the block long enough to remove my stacks, regardless of how many I had. Bad result = Not enough healing on the tanks. Resolution = Waiting longer to remove stacks.
Not noticing that I had Unchained Magic and that my Instability stacks were getting dangerously high. I had been focusing so much on Mystic Buffet that I forgot about Unchained Magic. Bad result = casting constantly, which lead to my death. Resolution = Pay attention to both debuffs and accept that fact that I must stop casting at some points to let the Instability stacks wear off. A dead healer can't heal.

Last night I focused on both of these and voila! Success! Of course, I recognize that 24 other people played part in the overall success. But at least I can be proud of this progress in my personal performance.

Gear vs. Skill vs. PC Performance
So there's this other holy priest in my guild that outheals me on all fights except Professor Putricide. (And the only reason I outheal him on that fight is that I keep Renew up on the Abomination the entire time.) Up until recently I had attributed the difference in output to the fact that he had better gear than I. However, I recently passed him up gearwise and he continues to have HPS anywhere from 600-1000 higher than mine.

Before I go on, I will point out that I recognize that healing meters are not the same as DPS meters. DPS and damage done are direct measurements of the amount of damage you're putting out. HPS and total healing are reliant upon damage taken that you can heal. In other words, a mob has a set amount of hit points, which means there's a certain amount of damage that needs to be done to kill it. You (the raid) must do that damage to succeed.

Healing is different. If none of my allies takes any damage throughout a fight, there is no damage to heal. In such a fight, my HPS would be 0. Of course, that never happens, but it does show the difference between DPS and HPS meters. Damage is necessary...you can't kill the boss without it. Healing is only necessary if damage is taken.

A more realistic example is one where people actually take damage. Healers step in and heal that damage. If Raider A takes damage and Healer A heals it, that healing is added to the HPS of Helear A. If Healer B heals the same person, he only gets credit for the amount he actually healed. If Raider A takes 5000 damage then Healer A throws a heal on him that heals for 3000, then Healer B throws a heal that heals for 3000, Healer A's gets credit for 3000 and Healer B gets credit for 2000 (1000 is overhealing, and doesn't count).

(Much of this is painfully obvious, but I'm working through it in my head to get to my point).

If Healer A heals Raider A for 5000 (which brings Raider A up to full health) then Healer B's heal hits for 3000, only Healer A gets credit for the healing done. Healer B's heal is considered overheal and pointless for healing done. (Similarly, if a mob dies, any spell or attack against it after death is not counted as damage done.)

Why am I saying all of this? Because I'm trying to explain why my stats might be higher due to gear, but my healing output can be so much lower. We're casting the same spells, and mine are a little more potent, so something else must be going on.

Reaction time / Skill: It's very possible that the other priest is much quicker to respond and better able to predict incoming damage. This is probably defined as skilled. I think my reaction time might be slower because I'm about 20 years older than he. I might understand how to play my class as well as he, which would make me skilled in that sense. But, I sadly admit that reaction speed is also part of skill. A professional athlete in her 40s can rarely beat one of the same skill of a younger age. So, I define skill as being a combination of knowledge/experience and reaction time. I have the knowledge and experience but not the best reaction time.
PC Performance: When you're casting spells (at least as a priest), you get into a rhythm. I know I can cast a Circle of Healing, then Prayer of Mending followed by two renews before I can cast CoH again. When in the midst of a battle, I sense the rhythm and can usually cast a spell a split second before Power Auras tells me the spell if off cooldown. Best case scenario, it works like clockwork. No cooldowns missed, constant casting. Who could ask for better healing output? With perfect rhythm set up, what can stop me from reaching my potential? PC lag. Yep, in the midst of most battles my PC gets taxed and my FPS goes way down. Even though I know a spell is off cooldown, I try to cast it and nothing happens....until a second or two later. Under those circumstances I am unable to heal as quickly as I should, and I don't see all the damage as it's coming in. Over time this plays havoc on my healing output and on the survivability of the raid.

I'm not using PC performance as an excuse, I'm just pointing out that it does play a role in my overall healing output.

So...why talk about this? I want to improve. One thing I have control over is my PC performance. I can look into buying more memory and upgrading my graphics card. Perhaps when I do that, I can then see what a difference it makes. Then, when I've eliminated my PC as a factor, I can see my actual "skill" level. I don't think I'll ever catch up to the other healer; my reaction time is not something I can improve much. But, ate least I can get closer.

March 10, 2010

2010-03-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

OK I'm a dolt. Yesterday I said I hoped we wouldn't do a fresh clear of ICC on either 10-man or 25-man so we could continue trying to get Sindragosa down. Well, I completely forgot that the wings of ICC are not linear. The first four encounters have to be done on a new raid id, but once you get past those, you can choose the wing you want to go to.

Last night we went right to Sindragosa. We got very very close to beating her. Hopefully Thursday will be our day!

Now...there is one part of my wish that did make sense. Even if we get down Sindragosa, we can't move on to the Lich King without clearing the other wings. Kinda like Sapphiron and KT can't be done until you do the wings of Naxx. So, to see the Lich King we will still have to kill Queen again. Ugh!

That's all for today. Busy at work.

March 9, 2010

2010-03-09T13:53:00.005-05:00

I took a few days off work this past week, which meant I spent time playing and not blogging. :-)

Shaman Leveling
In a recent post I mentioned my frustration with my damage and survivability while questing. Well, I spoke with a shammie in my guild and she convinced me to try out Enhancement instead of Elemental. My biggest concern was equipment. Being Ele/Resto was easy because I didn't have to worry about changing equipment. But I realized a few things:

With my abundance of Conquest and Triumph Emblems, I could easily afford to by the heirloom items -- two maces, chest piece, and shoulders.
All those non-spellpower enhancing quest rewards that were ending up being vendor trash? Why not choose the Agility/Melee ones to build an Enhancement set? Honestly, this was a big realization for me. So many times I've gone for quest rewards and felt dismay over having no viable options for my current spec. Countless items have become vendor trash seconds after being rewarded. Now, with a melee and a caster spec, I can actually use more of the items!
At this point in the expansion (almost the end!), people are less likely to complain when you roll on off-spec stuff in instances. I'm still healing dungeons, but I'm rolling need on Enhancement gear when it drops. Of course, I'm first waiting to see if others roll need first (like hunters or actual enhancement shamans). If they do, I pass. I figure they deserve it more since it's their main spec. But, if they roll greed or disenchant, I figure it's mine!

So how do I like Enhancement so far? I love it! I still have my general neutral feeling about melee. But, compared to Elemental, it's so much easier to solo. I don't even have to put down totems if I don't want to. And there are only a couple buttons to mash. Questing is now going to be a breeze again.

As mentioned above, in instances I've continued to heal. Mostly because it's easier to get into groups that way. But also because much of my gear is still spell power focused. I'm a bit self conscious about going into a dungeon and meleeing with caster gear on. Maybe if/when I get a full set of melee gear I'll be more comfortable doing so.

Which leads me to my question, what will I do when I hit 80? Will I bench her? Will I raid with her? If I raid, will I focus on Enhancement? Or will I give in and be resto? When I was leveling my druid I really thought I'd do more raiding with her than I've done. But, she has pretty much become my flask creator and gem transmuter. I'm willing to accept that I might bench her at 80. Honestly, the fun of leveling up a different class is satisfying enough. Once you hit 80 the game play doesn't really change; it's just your dps or hps that you focus on increasing.

We'll see...she's 75 now, so only 5 levels to go.

Paladin Leveling
My Pally is now 71. When I finally got her to Northrend and bought her cold weather flying, my focus became what I suspected it would...gathering ore to level blacksmithing. Yep, the fun with her is the profession leveling, more than the game play. What can I say, she's melee. ;-)

I've got her to 401 Blacksmithing. It's that phase where many of the recipes require a mix of cobalt and saronite. Of course, I can't wear any of the stuff I'm making at this point. But, who cares? I'm having fun making it. I'm putting some of the items in my bank for possible future use and sending the rest to my mage for disenchanting. I remember while leveling alchemy that I reached a point in the process when I had to gain a certain character level before being able to continue further. I'm not sure if that will be the case with blacksmithing. But, no worries, I'll get her to 80 eventually, though not as quickly as I will get my shammie. Unless...I get in the mood to hide. Then the pally will be my only play option.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Last week's Icecrown Citadel runs were interesting. We finally got down Blood-Queen Lana'thel. Though it was by the skin of our teeth (pun intended). I think only 2 or 3 people were alive at the end. She enraged, killed almost everyone, but those who remained were able to get in the final bits of damage to bring her down.

A kill is a kill! :)

Our new challenge was Sindragosa. Having practiced it on 10-man (more below), I was able to execute the strategy fairly well. In fact, as a whole, we did great. We got her down to 12%, I believe. Not bad for the first night of attempts. But, that's pretty much where we made it in 10-man. I'm going to have to read the posts again on healing that fight. Something about that final phase is killing us and I can't seem to figure out how to heal through it.

Despite not getting her down, we were still very happy with the progress we made. The question of the day is, will we reset the instance tonight? Or will we go in with our raid id from last week and continue to attempt to get Sindragosa down? I hope it's the latter. We're so close to the Lich King, we can taste it. And, considering how our defeat of Blood-Queen Lana'thel was pure luck, I don't want to risk getting stuck on her again this week. We should count our blessings and push through this week. Hopefully the officers agree.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
My ten man team is doing really well. We now have two Blood-Queen Lana'thel kills behind us, so she's "on farm" for all intents and purposes. We're now on Sindragosa too. Like I mentioned above, we've gotten her down to about 12%, just like in 25-man. So, the key really is figuring out how to heal that last phase.

We've had some tension recently in our 10 mans. Perhaps we're spending too much time together? Perhaps we're all not getting enough sleep because we're so focused on progression in both 10 and 25 mans? Whatever it is, it's causing a lot of bickering and arguments. I hate to suggest we take some time off, because that would delay our progress, and we're soo close to the Lich King. But, I'd hate to see our group dissolve because of resentments. Hmmmm....

Well, tonight we have the same question as with our 25-man: Do we save the raid ID and keep pushing until we get down Sindragosa? Or do we start from the beginning to get folks badges and possible drops?

I vote for the former, but I'm also one of the lucky ones who needs nothing from 10-man. So, my opinion might be a bit biased. I want the "Kingslayer" title now! Before the raid-buff goes up so much that anybody can get it! :-(

March 2, 2010

2010-03-02T09:42:00.003-05:00

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green
Last night I played my pally until pretty late. She reached lvl 62, at which point I remembered I had already created a set of Fel Iron Plate items. I went to my bank and put them on. Golly green, Batman! I had never checked out their appearance before. What a glowing glob of green ick I look like! I haven't made the chest piece since I'm already wearing the heirloom breastplate. But now I'm tempted to do so just to take a screenshot of my big green dwarf pally.

March 1, 2010

2010-03-01T15:40:00.005-05:00

Once again, a long time between posts. I really need to get out of the computer lab during the day. Although I'm doing good stuff in there, I'm neglecting my diary duties. :-)

Pally Leveling
So...my pally has been the object of my attention this past week. The 50s were tough, as I didn't like heading to BRD for the random dungeon, so most of my xp came through quests. It would have been simple, but I was picky about the zones I wanted to spend time in...and I didn't want to do any green quests. But, yesterday afternoon I finally dinged 58 and headed to Outland! Then, after a dozen or so quests and a couple runs through Ramparts, I dinged 60 and got my flying mount!

Now that there are more abilities to use, I'm enjoying playing her much more than I did when she was much lower level. I still don't prefer melee, so I won't be surprised if I bench her after I reach 80 and get a few pieces of heroic gear. But, at least I will have enjoyed the different play style and will have a toon that can make Eternal Belt Buckles. Hehe...I know the belt buckles aren't really a good reason to put time into getting a toon to 80. But, like I said, I am enjoying the change in play style, even if it is not ultimately my "thing".

Shaman Leveling
Before raids started, I hopped on my shammy. She was so close to 72 that I could taste it! A couple quick quest turn ins and ding! I was excited to train some new skills, only to realize there were only restoration spell upgrades. Upgrades are nice, but it was a little underwhelming.

I'm having a little hard time with her. While soloing I'm not doing as much damage as I would want to do...and I'm dying quite a bit. I suppose the deaths are partly due to the fact that I'm using the heirloom staff and not a shield and one-handed weapon. A shield would probably increase my survivability, but the extra xp per kill makes me stick with the staff. This is only an issue when I'm soloing, obviously. When I'm in groups, I rock the DPS meters, so I know I'm playing her right in that situation.

They do say that Enhancement is the soloing spec. But, I like the ability to switch between Elemental and Resto since it doesn't require me having two sets of gear. So, I suppose I can just suffer through my low survivability. Though I can't help but wonder if I'm playing her wrong. For example, I go back and forth in my mind regarding which Water totem to put down. Do I use Healing Stream Totem to keep myself alive a little longer? Or do I use Mana Spring Totem to extend my time betwen breaks? Or does it balance out because I use that extra mana to cast healing spells on myself anyway?

I queued last night and got Azjol-Nerub twice. I hated healing that instance on my priest and I hate doing so on my shaman. That first encounter is just insane. The first time I got the instance I was DPS. The poor healer couldn't keep us alive -- or was it that the tank couldn't keep the mobs under control? The second time I got the instance I was Heals. I couldn't keep us alive -- and the tank couldn't keep the mobs under control. In both instances the tank was a DK. It does remind me of how much I hate healing DK "tanks". I am still not convinced that they are really a good tanking class.

But anyway...why did I get put into AN at lvl 72? Even with my Cleansing Totem up, the party took too much damage. I always thought that a shaman would do much better healing that first encounter than I was ever able to do on my priest. I'm not sure why I couldn't heal it. Was I too low at 72? Was the tank not up to par? Was it just bad RNG?

I turned around and healed Nexus right afterward and didn't have a single death. So, even though I find the healing style of Shamans more difficult than that of Priests, I clearly can do it.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Last night we went back to ICC and continued attempts against Queen. Still no success. I do enjoy seeing my healing numbers soar into the 8k-10k range. That's fun. :-) But it wasn't enough.

After a couple hours there, we gave up and headed to Valithria Dreamwalker. It took us only a couple attempts to get her down. Easy encounter, once you get the rhythm of it. There was a little tension at the end when our egotistical pally took credit for the success (I'd say "kill", but that's not appropriate for this encounter). He's so full of himself. But our Raid Leader called him on it and made him take back his words and acknowledge that it was a team effort. Yes, he healed the most, but that wouldn't have mattered if the rest of us hadn't healed the raid, while popping heals on the dragon as often as we could.

I have to say I like the Valithria encounter. It's a refreshing change from the norm.

Oh and last time I posted I expressed doubts that we really have Professor on farm. Well, we wiped a couple times this week, but we got him down. I'm not sure if "farm" implies no wiping. But, I'll say it does not. We have him on farm, even though we might wipe a couple times while getting him down.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Nothing new. Still getting down bosses we have on "farm" (including professor putricide). We didn't raid a couple of our normal nights this week, which put us behind schedule.

I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow night. Will we extend our raid id and try to reach the Lich King? We only have Queen and Sindragosa in our way. Queen is pretty easy with our group. Sindgragosa will be a new encounter for us. We'll probably start from scratch -- if anyone gets a piece of new gear as we work our way to Sindragosa, we'll be better able to defeat her. But, with our limited time to raid 10 man each week, we might never have enough time to clear the whole place.

I want the Kingslayer title and I want it now, daddy!

Level and Goal Check

2010-03-01T15:25:00.002-05:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance/Feral	80
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	60 (+19)
Priest	Holy/Shadow	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Ele / Resto	72 (+5)
Warlock	Affliction PvP	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

I gained only 5 levels this past month on my Shaman, but 19 on my Pally. This is a sign of a couple things. (1) I've been distracted by out-of-game things, such as family stuff and re-reading one of my favorite book series, (2) When playing alts, I've been choosing to play my Pally so I can hide. I pretty much have all of the gear I can buy with Emblems of Frost, so I'm not motivated to log in on my priest on non-raid days to do random heroics. If I log in as my shammy, I'll be talked into healing randoms for folks on my priest. My mage and druid are recognizable also. So, that leaves the warlock, which is my bank toon again and my pally.

More about my experiences in the next post.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 604.87 -- no difference from last month.

Shaman
Go full resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

February 22, 2010

2010-02-22T14:12:00.005-05:00

Been a while since I posted. I've been busy spending hours in our PC lab at work lately. I've been testing for trago, tucky, marco, etc.

Let's see if I can recap what has happened in game. Luckily for me, the Armory now lists your boss kills and achievements chronologically. So, I can pretty much rely on it for the details. :)

ICC 25 (Priest)
We now have Professor officially on farm. I'm still a little dubious -- not sure we're going to actually be able to get him down each week. But, we have done so for the past two weeks, which makes it officially farm content.

Blood Prince Council is also on farm.

Blood Queen Lana'thel is causing us problems. We spent nearly two full raid nights (8 hours total) trying this encounter. We've gotten her close -- I think 9% was the best we got it to. Perhaps tomorrow night we'll get some more gear on folks on the first several bosses, which will then help with that encounter.

The lack of quick progression is disappointing the officers and frustrating the raiders. No one likes trying the same encounter for 4 hours straight. Unfortunately, this is resulting in tension, arguments and raised tempers. One of our top ranged DPS rage quit the raid last week. I'm not exactly sure why, since I wasn't privy to the ranged chat channel conversation.

I have to say that the officers are disappointing me. I realize it's just a game and that people aren't necessarily trained managers just because they're guild leaders. But, I am really surprised by how unprofessional they are sometimes. They seem to think that ridicule is the way to motivate people to succeed. Instead of easing the tensions in the raid, they're making them worse by yelling at people and threatening to recruit better raiders. It's all very ugly.

ICC 10 (Priest)
Our 10 man team is a much more positive group, though it's not without its issues.

We have Professor on farm in 10 man too, though I still hold doubts about it truly being farm content only after 2 successful kills. We'll see.

Blood Prince Council = farm.

Blood Queen Lana'thel -- We got her down for the first time last night. Woot!

Valithria Dreamwalker -- We got her down in two tries last night. Woot!

Now that's some nice progression. :)

Shaman Leveling
I haven't leveled my shaman much in the past few weeks. Instead I've been focusing on...

Paladin Leveling
Yep, I'm focused on her again. Not so much because I find her fun to play. But because I'm obsessed with leveling her Blacksmithing. Hey...whatever works. :) I'm at a tough spot in the leveling process -- making Arcanite Rods. I've got Thorium up the wazoo, but Arcane Crystals are tough to find and they're way expensive on the AH. Thank goodness my boomkin is able to transmute them, otherwise I'd have to buy the actual Arcanite Bars, which are even more expensive.

So, I'm at a decision point. Do I pay for the crystals and move on? Or do I continue to mine Thorium until enough drop? I'll probably choose the latter. I'm not taking her into instances all that often since I really don't enjoy doing so on her. For some reason, I'm enjoying leveling slowly and mining on her. So, for now, I'll take it easy and level blacksmithing the old fashion way.

New Title
Oh...and I am now an Elder!

February 12, 2010

2010-02-12T12:13:00.003-05:00

Good News, Everyone!
Professor went down last night on both 25-man and 10-man. What an exciting night!!!! After weeks of trying to beat him in both groups, we finally did it. I got both achievements: The Plagueworks (10 player) and The Plagueworks (25 player)

Not much else to say about last night, as our focus was on Professor. Great, fun, exciting, ego-boosting night!

February 10, 2010

2010-02-10T10:02:00.005-05:00

What do Snow, Love, PVP, Fools, Blacksmiths, Calendars and Subways have in common? Not much, unless you're in my world. Let me see if I can explain the connection they all have:

This morning I woke up with only one Achievement left for the the Love Fool title -- I Pitied the Fool. I still had the Battle Ring of Gurubashi Arena and the Arathi Basin Blacksmith parts to do. (PVP).

Last night there was a huge snow storm, which is still going as I type this. So, everyone and their mother is either taking a day off or encountering major delays on their commute in. So, even though I could theoretically walk to work, I decided to join the masses and use the snow as an excuse to be late to work. (Snow)

Because we anticipated the snow storm, my morning meetings were cancelled. So, being late would not be that much of a problem anyway because my calendar was free. (Calendar)

I went to Exodar and Darnassus to do the daily quests and purchased a Love Fool. I already had one in my inventory. So that gave me the two I needed. Woot! (Fools)

I hopped in the portal to Blasted Lands and joined the queue for Arathi Basin while making my way to Stranglethorn Vale. It only took a few seconds to queue. I popped into AB, ran around the horde, dismounted as soon as I saw the word "Blacksmith" on my screen and pitied a fool. (Blacksmith).

I typed "afk" and immediately returned to my flight to STV. I took a shower while my toon flew. When I was finished I made my way to the Battle Ring. I pitied my final fool. And bang! Fool for Love! (Love)

So you might still be wondering what the Subway has to do with all of this? Well, as soon as I got the title, I exited the game and got dressed really quickly. By the time I walked out the door, it was already 9:15 a.m. I was convinced that I would not make it to work by 9:30. As I walked down the stairs in the subway station, my train was just pulling in. Because of the snow, there was practically nobody on the train so I got a seat, which is unusual at that time of morning. Then, the commute to to my office was the fastest ever because of the lack of crowds. I got to my desk at 9:27. After all that, I wasn't late!!!! (Subway)

I've got a brand new title and I owe it all to the snow and all the direct or indirect effects it had on my world today! Hurray!! :-)

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Regular raiding night last night. It started off very badly. something happened during the weekly maintenance that made it (1) take 20 minutes to get past the loading screen and (2) impossible to cast or do pretty much anything else. We postponed our start time an hour, which really helped.

So, we quickly and easily cleared the first section. I sat out the first couple fights but joined for the Air Ship and the weekly ICC raid boss. No drops for this gal, but my emblems are really stacking up. We got to professor, on whom there is no longer a limited number of attempts. We got him down to 1% (50k health). It was so utterly exciting. But then we healers dropped like flies and then a tank died and it was all over. GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the closest we had ever come to beating him. Our 2 attempts afterward were not as successful. We'll get him Thursday...we have the DPS and the mastery of the fight. We can do it!!!

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
Right afterward my 10-man team went in and we cleared up to Professor, which is pretty much the usual progress we make on Tuesday nights. Tonight we'll start with him. I really really hope we get him down. But, a couple of our regulars are not going to be there tonight, so it might be tough.

Social Networking
OK...now a rare non-WoW related topic. My boss just told me yesterday that she wants me to attend a big conference in Nashville this summer. I hate those types of events. I feel overwhelmed by the crowds -- not claustrophobic, just out of place. I don't like networking, and that's what this event is all about. Meeting and talking with my peers. Ugh! Nashville will be a nice city to visit. But networking while I'm there -- not so much. :-(

Progress
And one more personal note. Michael, of Michael and Shannon, sat near me on the subway today and actually said "thank you" when I allowed him to pass me in the hallway. Some day we might all be on speaking terms again.

February 9, 2010

2010-02-09T11:38:00.002-05:00

I had to cut short yesterday's post because too much was going on at work. Things are a little less crazy today (or is it that I'm just blowing off the tasks on my to-do list?)

Love is in the Air
So, I was saying that I'm working on the Love is in the Air meta achievement. As of last night, I only have one achievement left: I Pitied the Fool. It's going to take a couple days, since the Love Fools cost 10 Love Tokens each. But, I should be done before the end of the week, if not sooner.

I was going to say that I found the perfect spot to grind out the Lovely Charms. But yesterday I found an even better one. There's a quest I have not completed that requires me to go to a specific location and destroy some portals or something. At that spot mobs are on a constant respawn cycle. I sat there for only about 30-45 minutes and walked away with over 100 lovely charms. That's 10 bracelets.

But then...I went to Culling of Stratholme as a random heroic late last night and found another way to quickly grind charms - kill all the zombies. I got kind of annoyed because this system definitely favors the non-healers in the group. I had to use Holy Nova in order to get my fair share of charms. :\ So, I supposed DPS will be the ones who have the most goodies from the event, since they have the most opportunities to get charms. When in a group, the charms should be distributed equally, not just to the person who made the kill. But, Blizzard didn't ask for my opinion.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Another 20 attempts on Professor wasted. Though we came very very close to killing him a few times. I think part of the problem is me. I excel at healing during phases 1 and 2. But phase 3 is a different matter. I suck at tank healing while moving.

Heroic modes unlock this week for several guilds, so the limited number of attempts goes away for normal mode. I don't know how our officers will approach this. Will we do Professor until we finally get him? Or will we limit ourselves to a number of attempts?

Shaman Leveling
My Shaman is now level 70. The xp gain since hitting 70 has seemed very slow compared to pre-70. I'm not complaining, as I remember it took even longer back in the Burning Crusade days. It's just that it was a noticeable slowing down of progress.

I've been finding healing to be rather difficult on some occasions. I'm spoiled on my priest by having lots of instants. The shaman only has one instant (Riptide) and it has 6 second cooldown, which is an eternity compared to Renew, whose cooldown is simply the global cooldown. Also the multi-target heal Chain Heal has a long casting time compared to the instant Circle of Healing.

Lack of instants is not the only problem. I think everyone is also spoiled by how easy heroics are with high level gear. So, when they're running alts through lvl 70 dungeons they forget that we're not really overpowered for them. They try running through them, AoEing everything, as if we're in a heroic. Tanks aren't getting time to gain aggro, DPS is getting focused and one-shotted. It's a mess.

I do remember finding it challenging to heal these instances when I was leveling my priest. But back then people were a little more cautious.

To avoid the stress of healing, I've been DPSing as much as possible. I've reached over 1k DPS on occasion. That's fun! :-)

Boomkin Fun
My boomkin finally gained enough Emblems of Frost to buy the Belt of Petrified Ivy. It was a huge upgrade over the item I had previously, so I'm excited. I hope this excitement lasts because it's going to be a long time before I can afford another frost item on her.

February 8, 2010

2010-02-08T13:04:00.003-05:00

Love is in the Air

Another World Event is upon us -- Warcraft's version of Valentine's Day. If I remember correctly, this marks my second year playing WoW. I remember being really new to the game and being totally confused by all the people with hearts over their heads in Stormwind. I figured out through trial and error that my female toon should not proposition a female NPC. Everything back then seemed so expensive though, since I was so new to the game. And, since I was just a starter level, I didn't have the opportunity to do most of the activities.

Now two years later I'm hot to get my "the Love Fool" title! As soon as I logged in yesterday, I started doing the daily quests and getting some achievements. The only achievements I had from last year were, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose and Lonely?. Yesterday I was able to get (I won't link them all) Shafted, Nation of Adoration, Charming, Dangerous Love, Tough Love and Be Mine. I still have 5 to go. As long as I can do the dailies each day, I should be able to do it no problem.

Last night I went with guildies to take down the holiday bosses in Shadowfang Keep. Then later I went with friends from another guild. Night and day. Night and day.

Tonight's a raid night, since yesterday was the Super Bowl. Professor going down? I really hope so!

More Thoughts on Elitism in WoW

2010-02-04T11:27:00.004-05:00

A few days ago I spoke about elitism in WoW. The topic is still on my mind, so I'm going to continue putting my thoughts down about it.

Today a top raiding guild got banned for exploiting a bug to defeat the Lich King encounter and gain the world first killing. (I'm not putting the name of the guild because I don't want it to show up on searches. Stupid as it may sound, I don't want to feed their elitist egos by adding to posts in the blogosphere about them. This post isn't about their ban anyway. It's about the elitism that went along with it.) One of the guild's main members put up a blog post in which he highly criticized Blizzard, including accusing them of making content too easy. (OK...end of reference to that incident.)

"Content is too easy." Who are the people that say this? Some (many? most?) members of top raiding guilds do (mine included). But other people do too. Who are they? What do these people have in common? Saying "elitism" is the common quality is a bit too easy. I want to understand it on a deeper level. What makes someone become an elitist?

I wish it were possible to do a survey of elitists to get statistics. I'd suspect that a large number of them are one or more of the following: (1) young -- teens to early 20s, (2) male, (3) able to spend lots of time in game, (4) insecure, (5) unable to discuss ideas rationally and with an open mind.

Why do I say each of these?

(1) Young -- Immaturity is definitely a factor. In general, the experienced, developed, educated mind is one that is less selfish and more aware and tolerant of others. I know that's a big generalization and there are millions of cases where that's not true (look at the Ku Klux Klan as an example), but I think it's safe to say that it's generally true. Most young people are not fully matured intellectually and emotionally. They often lack the ability to be tolerant of others. And, as we all know, young people can be cruel to one another. If you are different, don't fit in, aren't able to keep up with the cool kids, you are ostracized and ridiculed. Of course, this type of behavior isn't limited to young people. Even middle aged and elderly people can exhibit this behavior. But, I'd say that despite their age, they're still intellectually and/or emotionally immature.

(2) Male -- Testosterone is evil. :-) Really, though, men seem to always need to compete for top dog. They need to be the best, strongest, fastest, most skilled, most whatever. Of course, that doesn't mean that females can't be elitists. Surely I've run across many elitist women. But, in the world of video games I think it's safe to say that most of the elitists are male.

(3) Able to spend lots of time in the game -- I don't believe I've run across many elitist players in WoW that are only able to play 3-4 hours a week. In order to be an elitist, you need the gear to back it up. Gear is only obtainable by spending time in the game. Even with heroics being easier to run these days (because of the current LFG system AND the average gear level players), a person with limited time to play will still find it hard to keep up with the Joneses gear-wise. My priest has close to a 5700 gear score at this point because I raid about 18 hours a week with her (25-man and 10-man combined). My druid, on the other hand, still has a gear score in the mid-high 3000s since my time on her is limited to a daily random heroic and the occasional additional heroic if time permits.

But, I've gotten off track. My point with this is that people who say the content is too easy are, more often than not, the people that have enough time to obtain the gear to make it easy. I think the first encounters of ICC are easy -- on my priest. But, when I'm in ICC on my mage and her guild mates, I find it challenging. Why? Mostly because of gear. My priest's guildmates are all highly geared. My mage's guildmates are average to well geared.

I'm not trying to get into a discussion about whether or not the end-game raiding content should be doable by the masses. I can see both sides of the argument on that. Making raid content difficult for top raiding guilds gives them incentive to stay in the game. If the content were too easy for them, they'd get bored and move on to another game. I get that. But, I also remember wanting to see raids such as Black Temple and Sunwell before I was in a raiding guild. I knew I never could because I wasn't geared enough. It made me a sad that there were parts of the game I'd never see because of this, despite paying the same amount of money per month to play the game as the top-end raiders. So...I understand both sides of the argument regarding that.

But that's not my point.

My point is that many elitists are only able to be elitists because of their gear. The only way to get exceptional gear is by spending lots of time in the game. But...does the ability to spend a lot of time in the game and get better gear entitle anyone to feel superior to those who don't have the time?

(4) Insecure -- This one could be hotly debated (and denied, of course), but behind most elitists there is an insecure person. Anyone that has to base their worth and self esteem on their status in a video game is making up for something in their real life. I'm not saying in-game elitists are no-life losers in real life. Nope. Not all. Some might be. Others might be very successful people with wonderful family lives who contribute to society in very positive ways. But, even the most successful person can have insecurities. And when I say "successful", I'm not limiting it to having a good career. I mean anything that would make a person feel successful, including, but not limited to, being a low income single parent raising a healthy well adjusted child. In my book, that person is just as successful as the most infuential lawyer or doctor. (And sometimes even more successful, but that's another discussion.)

Anyway...I think elitism is often a manifestation of insecurity. The need to make yourself feel superior to others by putting them down. That's so often a blatant sign of insecurity.

(5) unable to discuss ideas rationally and with an open mind -- This is the typical internet era jerk. There's John Gabriel's Greater Internet F!kwad Theory that basically says, given total anonymity and an audience, even the most normal person can become a jerk. My own take on that is something you find everywhere on the internet, including in WoW.

For example, just today I read a post on the WoW forums in which someone was saying "stay away from such and such players because they do low dps in heroics". They actually said the names of the players and revealed their dps numbers in a recent heroic run. They claim they were doing a public service. This, of course, led to a debate regarding the notion of the acceptable amount of dps for heroics. Those who felt the original poster was wrong stated reasonable arguments: Heroics were originally desgined for fresh 80s. When Wrath first came out and we all started running heroics we had ilvl 200 gear or less. We made it through heroics just fine, though maybe with some difficulty at times. Now that many people have ilvl 245-264 gear, heroics are much easier to run. In some cases, the heroic dungeons themselves have been made easier by nerfing certain mechanics. Many people are leveling alts who are fresh 80s. They haven't been able to get to the point of gaining the 245-264 gear. They're as geared as we were when we started heroics and, in many cases, the dungeons are easier.

With all these reasonable arguments, the original poster and those that supported him continued to hold their ground. According to them, anything under 5k dps is just unacceptable in heroics at this point. End of story. Anyone with less than 5k dps is fail and needs to learn to play or just quit WoW altogether.

I'm sorry, but any reasonable rational person can see the lack of logic in that position. But most elitists fail to debate reasonably. They can't admit the true sub-par DPS for heroics is DPS that is lower than expected for ilvl 175-200 geared people. That's the ilvl that heroics were designed around. Instead they insist that everyone should be at 245-264 at this point. They won't even respond to posts about fresh lvl 80 alts.

What they really should say, and a reasonable/rational person would, is that they recognize that ilvl 175-200 is fine for heroics, but they prefer to run heroics with people with higher gear levels. That is perfectly acceptable. It's a preference for them...they want to get through heroics quickly. And, saying it that way does not put any judgment on the people who have not achieved that level of gear yet. But, instead, they call anyone without their expected level of DPS "fail".

Another example of an irrational or unreasonable stance is the discussion about the ease of current raids. Uber-geared highly-sklled end-game-focused raiders will definitely find encounters in ICC easier to beat than others who don't match that description. In fact, I'll even stipulate that it's not necessary to have uber-gear to feel that way. As long as you're highly skilled and focused on end-game content, you'll probably find many ICC encounters to be easy.

But...does that mean that anyone who doesn't have the same perspective as you is "fail"? Take my mage's guild for example. They are a group of good, and in many cases well geared, players. They still struggle on 10-man Saurfang and, the last time I checked, they are still trying to kill Rotface. If anyone asked them if they thought the content was easy, they'd say "no". Are they as geared as the top raiders? No. Are they as experienced with end-game raiding as the top raiders? No. Do some of them lack the quick response time as top raiders? Yes. But...are they "fail" because of these differences? No.

Any reasonable/rational person would agree that the top raiding guilds have an edge (gearwise and skillwise) over other guilds. They would admit that their perspective of the game is only shared by a small percentage of the WoW community. They would say that, although they find the content easy, they can understand why it's more difficult for those with less advantages than they. (And they'd say so without condescension, of course.)

Does better gear make you more valuable of a human being? Does more skill, experience, reaction time, etc. make you a more valuable human being? No, but elitists make it seem that way.

OK...I've gone on and on. But this topic fascinates me. There are so many facets to it; surely not every elitist is an elitist for the same combination of reasons. And, I'm sure there are more personality traits behind elitism that I haven't thought of.

It's such a negative force...and yet there doesn't seem to be any way to rid the world of it.

Level and Goal Check

2010-02-03T15:22:00.003-05:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance/Feral	80
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	41 (+3)
Priest	Holy/Shadow	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Ele / Resto	67 (+23)
Warlock	Affliction PvP	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

I gained 23 levels on my Shaman in the last month. The majority of the xp was gained through random dungeons. There's almost no point anymore to questing in Outland. And, with flying available at lvl 60, there's no longer a need to kill random mobs on the way to your quest location. Just fly in, drop down, kill any mob that might be in the immediate vicinity, get quest credit, fly out. The "kill 10 mobs" or "collect 30 naga claws" type of quests are no longer worth the effort. You level in dungeons long before you have time to finish killing the mobs.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 604.87 (up almost 40 points from last month).

Shaman
Go full resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

Elitists - Reason With Them or Ignore Them?

2010-01-25T17:25:00.001-05:00

You find elitism everywhere in WoW and its related communities. You see it in everything from using GearScore as a determination of skill, to posting damage meters as a way of stroking one's ego. It seems to be a phenomenon that won't go away.

The arguing in Trade chat never ends. One person posts a question or a comment. Another responds with an elitist (unhelpful, by the way) response. Followed by several supporters from both sides of the coin.

The same happens on forums or blog sites, such as WoW.com. Someone posts a reasonable article. Then at least one elitist person responds with an attack against all noobs. That's followed by several people supporting or attacking the elitist.

Why do people even try to reason with elitists? I admit, I often get suckered into reading the debates. There's something enjoyably masochistic about putting myself through it. I suppose it's like watching reality TV -- the shock value when you think, "I can't believe he just said that!" Yet afterward you ask yourself why you even watched.

But honestly, why do people even bother trying to reason with them? Has an elitist ever been convinced to recant their statements?

On WoW.com today there was an Arcane Brilliance article about DPS meters and how people misuse them. One reader wrote a typical elitist response -- anyone who complains about DPS meters is the person with low DPS who is being carried by the others. This elicited pages and pages of responses, attacking his point of view. The elitist never posted again, indicating that he had read all the responses and had recognized the err of his ways. He either probably never looked back at the post, or maybe he read all the responses, enjoying how much he had riled things up.

Why do we do it? We know we're not going to get anywhere with them, so why try? Why not just ignore their statements?

When someone accuses another of being "fail" because his gear score is in the 3000s, why does that person feel the need to defend himself by explaining that the toon is not his main, or that he has taken 3 months off from the game, or that he only has 2 hours of play time per week, etc?

I experience this first hand from both sides. My Priest is one of the best geared on the server. Currently, her gear score is 5600 or so. I don't brag about it. It's just a sign that I have a lot of time to play and that I'm lucky enough to be in a 25-man raiding guild and I've won some very good drops. I've received high praise for my "leet-ness" while on my Priest.

Meanwhile, my Moonkin's gear score is still in the 3000s. I've been criticised and ridiculed for having such a low gear score and "low" dps. The level of her gear is much lower than that of my priest because (a) she is not my main and so I spend very little time on her, (b) she has no raiding opportunities in the guild she's in (and even if she had, I wouldn't have the time).

But, I'm the same player behind both toons. I am not a fail player. And, even if I didn't have the highly geared priest, and only had time to play the Moonkin, I'd still be the same player. High gear scores are mostly just a sign of time spent playing the game. They're not necessarily indicative of a person's skill, and definitely they're not indicative of a person's worth!

In the end, the elitists are people who judge others' worth on their gear and their knowledge of the game. Reasonable people recognize this as the crap that it is. So, why do they (we?) let them get to them, making them defend the not-so-elite?

Is it important to argue with someone who makes outlandish remarks so that either (a) they will change their opinions, or (b) others will not be fooled into agreeing with them?

Or do we just like to argue?

If we just ignored elitist comments, would the elitists stop talking?

January 22, 2010

2010-01-22T10:18:00.003-05:00

Am I a Good Progression Raider?
I mentioned in my last post that our 10-man raid leader raged in vent recently. Well, at the same time, our guild officers have been expressing concern over our progression. We're still the #3 alliance guild on our server, based on 25-man progression, so I'm not sure concern is warranted, but...the fact that they're concerned has made me think. Am I a good progression raider?

Here's what I mean by that: As I said, we're #3 for alliance 25-man progression on our server. However, the other two guilds are much quicker to get down new content. The gap between us is noticeable, especially as each week goes by. I spoke to this in a previous post where I pondered why that was the case. Gear definitely helps, but I'm leaning toward believing it's skill that makes the difference in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wallowing in self criticism and pity. I know I am a good healer. But, I'm noticing that I'm not as quick to pick up strategies as my fellow raiders. I watch the videos, I read the strategy guides. But when I get to the encounter, I have a hard time executing the strategies -- at first.

Some of my fellow raiders are able to pick up immediately on everything that's going on around them. They see things flying in the air (e.g., light and dark orbs in the Twin Val'Kyr encounter, Malleable Goo in the Professor Putricide encounter, etc.). I am able to see and avoid these things eventually. But it takes me many times going through the encounter before I get to the point that I'm able to understand and react to it all. Reading and watching videos doesn't help. It's actual practice that works for me. Yes, I realize that that's pretty much true for everyone (except those incredible gifted players who get everything on the first try). But, my point is that I notice I need more practice than most of my fellow raiders.

They also seem to recognize each other in the midst of all the chaos. I honestly can't tell the difference between any toons except for shape-shifted druids. For example, I can distinguish Trees from the other toons around me. Paladins, not so much. And yet, various people say, "stand on me", "come to me", "move away from me". I recognize the voice, but unless you're a Tree or you have a distinguishing mark on your head, I honestly don't know where the frick you are. And yet others seem to see this quite easily.

I'll stop to remind myself that I have no doubt that once I have had a chance to experience an encounter enough times, I am excellent at executing strategy. I know I'm a good healer and I know I'm a good raider. I recognize that there are many people that, no matter how much they experience an encounter, they're just not good at it. I don't fall into that category.

With that in mind, I get back to my original question. Am I a good progression raider? When a progression guild, focused on keeping a top spot, goes into new content, they want to master it quickly and be the first to kill a new boss. In order to do this they need a team of quick learners. This is especially important with the current system of limiting the number of attempts you have each week. The #1 guild on our server killed Professor Putricide the first week, despite the 10 attempts limit. It's now the third week and we still haven't gotten him down. I'm confident we'll get him soon, which speaks to the overall skill of the members of my guild.

I know that my mistakes contribute to our lack of quick progress. Note, I said "contribute"; I do not take full blame. I recognize that I'm not the only one in the guild that is still having problems with strategy execution. Clearly, if I were the only person not mastering the strategy, we'd be fine.

I'm not sure what the outcome of all of this analysis is. I do recognize and accept I'm not as quick as many of my guild mates. For heaven's sake, I'm old enough to be the mother of most of them! I might not naturally have the quick reflexes they do, and it might also be due to the age difference. I do eventually pick up strategies and become excellent at them. But, would my guild progress faster if someone else had my spot (and the spot of the other raiders in my same situation) while going through progression content?

ICC 25 (Priest)
With all that said, last night was fun. We one-shotted both Festergut and Rotface and skipped Professor in favor of seeing new content. After 5 or 6 wipes we got the Princes down. That was a fun encounter. I definitely could improve my performance on it, but by the time we did our final attempt, I felt that I was getting good at it.

January 21, 2010

2010-01-21T12:21:00.003-05:00

Another busy week at work, along with a few sick days, so I haven't had much time to write.

Shaman Leveling
I've leveled my shaman quite a bit -- she's now 63. Almost all of the XP has come from healing instances. Pretty much the only time I've actually quested on her has been while sitting out on raids. I can't get committed to an instance, since I can be called to join the raid at any moment. I'm not complaining, though. I'm sure when I raise another toon that is pure DPS, I'll do more quests than instances. So, I'm enjoying this opportunity to sail through the leveling process.

One observation about DK tanks in the early 60s: Some are good, but most are very very bad. At least most of the ones I've experienced. No situational awareness, no line of sight pulling, no understanding of mana=heals. I'll break each one of these down a little:

No situational awareness: Many of the DK tanks I've encountered stand in fire, don't pay attention to pats, and generally don't pay attention to their surroundings. Anyone with a DK has to have a lvl 80 somewhere. So, it's not that they're completely new to the game. Perhaps they're new to tanking? Maybe they're used to barging on in and surviving pretty much any group of mobs they encounter while questing? Or maybe heroic farming has made people think that all content can just be steam-rolled. If we are in heirloom gear, yes we have an advantage in the leveling instances. But, no matter how geared you are, you can't live through a 12 mob pile up. I'm a good healer, but I can't heal that.
No line of sight pulling: This really seems to be limited to DKs. All other tanks I've encountered know the concept and use it when needed. Perhaps it's because they have spent so many more levels in instances, since DKs skip all the pre-55 instances. Or maybe it's just that they lack basic tanking skills, or even worse, don't care. Steam rolling again...easy to do in heroics with epic gear on. Not so easy to do in lower level instances, even in heirloom gear.
No understanding of mana=healing: A particularly bad DK tank said one of the most surprising things to me. After three large unwieldy pulls, I had to stop for mana. I said this in party chat. As I sat down to drink, I watched as the tank and the rogue sauntered off to the next mobs. Every healer has gone through this decision making process before -- do I run up and do my best with the very little mana I have? Or do I just let them die? I chose the former...it was a mistake. We all died. While running back, I reminded the DK that I had said I needed mana. He didn't respond. Then...next couple encounters were equally mana intensive as the previous ones. I indicated in party chat that I needed to get mana back. Once again, he and the rogue went bravely forward to engage the next mobs. This time I let them die. The tank started calling me obscenities for not healing him. I reminded him that I had said I needed mana. His response was shocking. He said, "So what? There's nothing I can do to help you get mana. How the *%*& am I responsible for that?" How the heck did this guy get to level 80 on another toon without understanding that when the healer says she needs mana, that means everyone needs to sit tight while she drinks up?

Honestly, I can't wait to hit max level so I won't have to deal with so many idiotic death knights!

ICC 25 (Priest)
On Tuesday night we went right into Icecrown to get to the new content. Unfortunately, it seemed that everyone in the WoW universe had the same idea -- the lag was horrific. We could barely cast spells or move. After we killed Saurfang, we decided to call it a night. There was no way we could do the harder encounters with so much lag.

ICC 10 (Priest)
We made it to Professor Putricide last week, but we used up all 10 attempts without getting him down. We went back again on Tuesday night. We one shotted everything up to and including Festergut. We called it a night at that point then returned last night. For the life of us, we couldn't get Rotface down. It was very frustrating. After a few hours of attempts, we finally decided to get a peek at the new content. That's some hard stuff! We died within seconds of starting the Princes encounter. After three wipes, we decided to leave Icecrown.

OS 10 (Priest and Mage)
In the past week I've gotten the "...of the Nightfall" title on both my mage and my priest. My mage even won the roll on the drake. Pretty cool stuff.

Raid Leader Craziness
So, our 10-man raid leader has been close to intolerable lately. He does two things that really annoy the crap out of me.

Whenever he's out of mana or dead, he'll declare a wipe. If it's early on in the encounter, I can see how his death might mean a wipe. But, if it's close to over, I might be able to handle the healing to the end. He seems to dismiss my healing skills. He gives the impression that without him healing, we're doomed to failure. That's annoying, but it's even more offensive.
He has been going into rages over mistakes we make. It's one thing to be disappointed when we wipe. A good leader brushes it off and provides contstructive criticism and advice on how to do better the next time. He tries to do this, but he fails. Instead, he screams into the microphone at us. Then, when he regains his composure, he won't analyze what has gone wrong. If we step in to do so, he shushes us. I don't know what his deal is, but it's getting very annoying. I'm playing to have fun. Not to be screamed at by someone.

He's a great guy normally. I really like him a lot. He's very knowledgable and is able to orchestrate strategies very well. But, he seriously needs to work on the two points I made above. I mean, last night people were laughing at him, comparing him to the "More dots!!!" and "Minus 50 dkp!!!!!" guy.

That's all for now...

January 13, 2010

2010-01-13T12:26:00.003-05:00

Since I last wrote I've been either on vacation or extremely busy at work. But, I've had a lot of fun both in and out of WoW, so I'm happy. As for the WoW stuff...

ICC 25 (Priest)
The second wing of Icecrown, the Plagueworks, has opened. Last week we got down Rotface with no problem, but were having trouble with Festergut. We finally killed him on Sunday by the skin of our teeth. It was a very very close kill.

We moved on to Professor Putricide and did a few of our 10 attempts then called it a night. Hopefully we'll get a few more attempts in this week.

ICC 10 (Priest)
The progress of the 10-man group was the opposite of our 25-man one. We had no troubles getting Festergut down, but Rotface was a big problem. We finally got him down last night, so we were able to get our first attempts in on Professor last night.

Healing Meters
In the last week I've been noticing a something very disconcerting. My numbers on the healing meters have dropped tremendously, compared to my fellow healers. I don't put too much stock in the meters, as the true gauge of effectiveness is whether or not we succeeded in the encounter with minimal deaths. But, the significant drop in my numbers has concerned me.

What's going on? Am I being slower to react? Are the other healers beating me to targets, leaving me with less to heal? Am I not healing efficiently lately?

I'm running out of mana occasionally, so it's not for a lack of casting.

One change I made recently could be contributing to the problem. I put in a Power Aura setting to indicate to me when Prayer of Mending is off cooldown. I added it because I often try to cast PoM and realize too late that it's still on cooldown. So, I wanted to stop myself from wasting the click. I had hoped it would make me more efficient. It has helped -- I no longer waste the click. But, it's had an unexpected side effect. I end up casting it more often -- every time the cooldown is up. The problem? Sometimes I'm doing so before the previous one has had a time to jump to all of its targets. So, I'm effectively clipping the spell. I'm not a math whiz, so I'm not going to try to put it down with numbers and calculate it all out. I'm just going to try to be more thoughtful about when I actually cast PoM. The signal from Power Aura should only be telling me I can cast it again, not that I should cast it.

I'm also wondering if I overdid the haste on my gear. The other holy priests in my guild who are out-healing me have far less haste than I do and higher spellpower and/or crit. So far in Icecrown I find myself casting instant spells more than anything. I'm not sure how much benefit high haste has when using all instant spells. I focused on haste because I wanted to make Flash Heal / Greater Heal / Prayer of Healing faster. Back in the Ulduar and ToC days I was using Flash Heal a lot to proc Serendipity for GH or PoH. I'm finding I'm using it less and less now since there is so much movement and so much raid damage in ICC. I have very little time or need to build up Serendipity procs. When I'm consciously doing so, it almost seems forced. Like I'm casting Flash Heal on just anybody in order to get Serendipity up. Definitely a waste of mana.

I'll see if I can play around with gems to change things up a bit.

Miscellaneous
Not much more to say than that. As usual, there's a lot to say if I post every day. But, when several days go by, the mundane things seem less interesting.

January 5, 2010

2010-01-05T13:37:00.010-05:00

This past weekend was New Years, so I had time to play in between friends and family time. (ment).

Shaman Leveling
As I posted yesterday, I leveled my Shaman quite a bit lately. This weekend I did a lot of instances with her, both as Elemental and as Resto. Although I mentioned last week that the addition of an extra totem bar is helpful, I'm still finding I have some issues with totem management.

One thing that would make it easier would be to organize totems by the element, not by the spell category. I mean, really, who cares if Stoneclaw is under the Elemental tab? It's more useful for me to know that it is an Earth totem. Organizing them by element would make it much easier to see which choices I have for each category. Hmmm...I wonder if there's an addon for that.

When leveling I go Elemental spec and put down Magma (fire), Stoneskin (earth), Grounding (air) and Healing Stream (water). I've been wondering lately if the Grounding one is a waste of mana though. It's only useful when encountering spellcasters. When I'm fighting melee, it's just a waste of mana. But, Windfury totem is useless to me, since I don't melee. Since they're currently my only air totem options, other than Sentry and Nature Resist, which also have narrow uses, I'm wondering if I should just leave the air totem slot blank while leveling and cast Grounding totem as needed?

Then when I'm in instances (as DPS) I don't put my totems down right next to the battle location. (Should I be placing them closer?) So, Magma totem is a waste, unless the melee comes closer to me. Searing totem is unpredicatble, so it's too risky to put it out (isn't it?) So, should I put down Flametongue to help out with Spell damage? For earth I've been placing Strength of Earth, but it only benefits melee party members. For air I've been placing Windfury, which I think is a no-brainer. Then for water I've been placing Mana Spring.

So...it seems like I pretty much have my sets arranged. But then we hit mobs that inflict diseases or poisons. I'm concerned that I'm wasting mana putting out my regular totems then quickly casting Cleansing Totem. It seems to me that mana regeneration is less important than the quick removal of disease/poison effects. So, what do shamans normally do about this? Do they leave the water spot free then cast the totem that works best for the situation? Or do they cast their standard set then use additional mana to replace the water totem when necessary?

Yeah I know, not big problems in the scheme of things. But, I like efficiency, and I feel I'm not being efficient.

Also, I read on some blog somewhere that while soloing it's a waste of time and mana to put totems down most of the time. I'm not sure if that was written before it was possible to cast all 4 at once or if that's just a general rule that still applies today. Are the totems really helping me out that much against single mobs? I can see that against multiple mobs every little bit helps. But against single mobs are the totems a waste of mana?

On another note, I splurged and bought the mail heirloom chest piece for her. She had been wearing the leather one that was a hand-me-down from my druid. But, since there's nothing else to do with my emblems of triumph, I decided to spend them frivolously. The only real change, other than additional armor, is replacement of spirit with mp5. Mp5 is better for Shamans, so I expect to see improved mana regen. Next up, I might splurge again and get her the mail shoulders for the same benefit, replacing the leather ones her druid sister gave her.

Paladin Leveling
I've also been leveling my Paladin lately. There are a few interesting things to note about experiences with her.

Retribution Tanking -- I had been queueing in LFG as DPS, noticing that it's a lack of tanks that causes the long wait. Then in one group I noticed that the tank was an arms or fury warrior, can't remember which, but definitely not prot. He performed fine. Then, when I was in another group the tank (bear) asked if I would tank in his place. He had been tanking all day and wanted a break. I pointed out that I was Ret, but he said I'd do fine and the healer said the same. I've been queueing as Tank or DPS since. And, although I've lost aggro on a few occasions, I'd say I've been tanking succesfully. I'm not sure at what level that will change.
Heirloom Items Snob -- In another group in Scarlet Monastery I ran across a jerk. He was a druid healer and felt it necessary to comment on the cloth heirloom shoulders I was wearing. I explained that I only had one pair of shoulders that I was sharing with all my leveling alts. But he pressed on, stating in a nutshell that I was fail for wearing cloth and not spending the emblems on mail/plate shoulders. At first I tried to make him understand why I made the decision -- I only had enough emblems to buy one item and it made since to choose the lowest common denominator, e.g., the one that any toon could use: cloth. But, he didn't seem to care. He was just a jerk getting his rocks off criticising me for my gear choices. I gave up and put him on ignore. The very first cross-server ignore. The nice thing about the new LFG system is that I'll never have to be in a group with him again!
I pulled her out of her guild. It was one of those guilds that recruit in trade. I joined it several months back just for the heck of it since she is one of my unknown toons. But, on New Year's eve I couldn't take the atmosphere anymore. It was a positive one, don't get me wrong. But so friggin sappy and juvenile that it was hard for me to enjoy it. I don't like being in guilds where everything said in guild chat is a sexual inuendo. But, this was the opposite extreme. Some of the members talked about God and Jesus quite often (I have nothing against Christianity) and most of the members were in junior high and high school. I could be their mother! It just wasn't the right fit for me. So, now I'm guildless. I'm considering putting her into my Priest's guild. But, that would leave only one toon (my warlock) that is completely unknown. I do like to hide every now and then....

Oh...and I've since purchased the mail/plate heirloom chest and shoulders for her. Splurge? Yes, but, at the rate that the emblems of triumph are coming in, what else will I use them for? But please don't tell the jerk druid healer I encountered. I don't want him to get all smug about it. :-)

Old Guild Leader Strangeness
So, my old guild leader is acting strange again. The other day he sent me an in-game mail wishing me a happy Christmas. How nice. Considering we rarely talk any more, I thought it was a nice gesture.

Then out of the blue this weekend he sent me a Whisper saying, "LOL As much as things change, they stay the same." Having no idea what he was referring to, I asked him what he meant. He responded saying that I (me) had once again left a decent guild of fun people to join a raiding one. He, of course, is referring to my recent movement of my mage from one guild to another. Despite knowing I didn't have to explain my actions to him, I responded, saying I only moved guilds to follow two in-game friends. His response was, "If you say so."

Where does this animosity come from? He is so bitter about people having different ideas of what makes the game fun. He continues to like leveling alts and helping people level theirs. He enjoys questing and profession leveling. That's great. I'm happy for him that he continues to find those aspects fun and rewarding. I do too, on a certain level. I'm still leveling toons and I like to help people out when I can. But...and this is a big but...I do love raiding. So, why does he act like it's a negative thing??? He seems to forget the reason I left his guild in the first place was because he raged one night in guild chat after having /gquit a week or so before. I didn't leave to raid. I left to get away from the atmosphere he had created. But, regardless, I enjoy raiding. That's how I want to spend my time in game. I have every right to focus on those areas of the game I find most enjoyable. Ugh! He can be so difficult.

ICC 10 (Priest)
Since my regular 10-man team did ToC 10 without me this week (I was too tired to join them), I found another group to go with this past weekend. It was mostly alts from the guild with a couple non-guildies. It was tough, but I can happily say that we cleared it. Woot! I got the Soulcleave Pendant off the last boss. I have to admit I felt a little guilty taking it. The other toons were alts that will most likely never have access to 25-man gear. Whereas, I will be raiding in 25-man so I will have access to better gear. But, on the flipside, I might be asked to sit in future raids, so I never know from week to week if I'll be in or out. Also, there's an argument to be made that it's better that a main gets it because it will help with progression. Anyway...I got it. And I like it. :)

ToGC 25 (Priest)
On Sunday we had a big moment in our guild. We one-shotted Heroic 25 Faction Champs!!! We went from constant wipes to one-shotting it. Woo hoo!!!!! How exciting!!!! Twins was another story, but who cares. We got past a big stumbling block.

Success of Other Guilds
So, our success on faction champs made me curious how we stood on wowprogress.com. Our standing has gone up one slot, since we're only the 4th alliance guild on our server that has beat them. That's fun to know. Then, I looked on pugchecker.com to get an idea how many times the top guild on our server has cleared the place. I was surprised to find out they have full cleared 25 ToGC 11 times as of last week. 11 times. I'm not going to do the math, but my guess is that means they've pretty much done it since the beginning.

It made me wonder, how do they do that? We only just got past faction champs and we have gear from 10 and 25-man ICC. We're one of the top guilds with very skilled players.

So what do they have that we don't? Did they go into it with better gear? Possibly, because they cleared 25-man Ulduar several times, including killing Algalon. My guild only did a full clear on 10-man. So perhaps their gear going into ToGC was already better than ours. Well, no perhaps about it, they definitely had better gear. And I'm assuming they had better gear going into Ulduar and even going into Naxx.

But gear can't be the only thing.

Persistence is another factor. Perhaps to maintain their #1 ranking they try for hours and hours on end. There's no telling how many hours they spent going at it. Though, the limit to number of attempts each week does come into play. So, clearly they didn't spend too many hours, though maybe more than we did. We keep our raiding schedule very tight. We only raid 4 hours three times a week.

Skill must be the other factor. But honestly, is the skill difference between us and them so big? Having run with this guild for over a month now, I'm very impressed with the level of skill. But, maybe there are levels of skill within the guild and I'm just not noticing which members are not as skilled as the others. And perhaps the core members of the #1 guild are all on the same skill level?

For those people who read this blog and find it fun to criticize me, please refrain from doing so this time. I'm not obsessed with being the best of the best. I'm very very happy with the guild I'm in and our successes. I don't have any desire to be in the top guild because I know the pressure they're under to maintain that spot. All I'm pointing out is that they have cleared ToGC 25 11 times and we have not even cleared it once. I'm trying to understand what the difference is between us and them. Considering we're the fourth most progressed alliance guild on the server, we clearly know how to get things done.

OK that's it for now. Tonight a new wing of ICC is supposed to be opening. I really hope it's true and that I get a spot in the raid! If not, I'll level my shaman while wishing everyone luck with the new content.

Level and Goal Check

2010-01-04T10:16:00.004-05:00

I forgot to do a gear/goal check in December. So, here's two months' worth:

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance/Feral	80
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	38 (+14)
Priest	Holy/Shadow	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Ele / Resto	44 (+13)
Warlock	Affliction PvP	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

Although I gained several levels on my Pally and Shaman, I did so only in the last couple weeks. Thanks to the new LFG system, 99% of their xp has come from instances lately. More on that in my next regular post.

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 568.62.

Shaman
If I level her at all, go resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

December 31, 2009

2009-12-31T13:49:00.002-05:00

I've been really tired the last few days so, although I've played, I have logged off earlier than normal.

ToC 25 Regular (Priest)
On Tuesday we started in ToC 25 regular. We had an applicant again, so it was a trial run for him. Solace of the Defeated dropped. Of course, all healers wanted it, so it ended up going to someone else with higher loot priority. But still it was exciting to see the thing.

Nothing else to note about the run except I got a Trophy of the Crusade and finally upgraded my tier gloves. Since ICC is opening up slowly, I figured I might as well get these gloves now since it could take a long time for me to get the new ones. I thought the upgrade was minor but it ended up improving things quite a bit. I'm now at 716 haste!

ICC 25 (Priest)
Next stop...Icecrown Citadel. Full clear, as expected. Nothing special to report about it.

During the run, however, I had a strange conversation with our guild leader. I won't write it all out here (I'm too tired to do so). But just so I will remember it I'll say it had to do with promotion/demotion and attendance.

Ulduar 25 (Priest)
We ended the night by killing Ignis for the weekly quest.

After the official raids ended I would normally have gone with my 10-man group to ICC. But, I was just too exhausted to do so.

Ulduar 10 (Priest)
Last night my 10-man group headed into Ulduar. We've decided to focus on getting to Algalon and also on getting a Rusted Proto-Drake by doing all the achievements in Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10 player). It will be nice to fly around on a faster drake. It will also be nice to have that cool Starcaller title.

I got several achievements last night. So many that I don't have the energy to write them all out and make them clickable links like I normally would (I did mention how tired I am, right?). Suffice to say that I'm very close to getting to getting the proto-drake -- only five achievements left. Of course, the final one is going to be a doozy for sure. But glory is not easy. :-)

Miscellaneous
Tonight is New Year's Eve so I'll probably not play. My husband and I will bring in the new year in style.

December 29, 2009

2009-12-29T17:32:00.003-05:00

Miscellaneous
Last night was a non-raiding night and I didn't spend too much time online.

I finally got the Looking for Multitudes achievement on my priest and the Perky Pug that goes along with it. Woo hoo! I'm unsure how I'm going to do the random daily going forward. I think I'll just do it with guildies from now on, as much as possible. I'm getting my fill of pugs while leveling my shaman. I can't take much more.

I only ran one instance on my Shaman. She's now 42. Shaman items are hard to come by at that level so when a hunter took the mail bracers with intellect and stam on them, I must admit I was annoyed. Yeah it was only a green, but they were the first drop in days of pugging that actually made sense for a shammy.

I'll take this moment to apologize to all the shammies whose loot I took back when I was new to the game and leveling my hunter. Although Intellect was useful, I now understand it was much more useful to you. I sincerely apologize.

I ran random heroics on both my mage and druid, then called it a night.

Raid night tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

December 28, 2009

2009-12-28T10:20:00.005-05:00

It was Christmas weekend, so most of my time was spent with family and friends. (ment) But, I did get some opportunities to play.

Shammie Girl on the Rise
I decided to burn through the rest XP I had on alts. Once I got the paladin's out of the way, I switched to my shaman. I put myself into LFG and a few minutes later I was in a group. What fun!

She was enhancement when I started off and I had been using the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper. It's not actually optimized for shamans, but I already had the weapon and it worked fine for her. Anyway...I noticed quickly a few things:

I don't like melee. Really, I don't. Positioning myself behind mobs is a pain in the butt. I much prefer ranged.
My gear was a mix of spellcasting and melee items -- meaning I wasn't great at either.
Getting into groups as DPS took forever.

So, I made plans to switch her to dual spec Resto/Elemental. Despite my low damage as enhancement, I made it through enough instances to gain 10 levels over the weekend. As soon as I hit 40 I paid for dual spec, sent the axe to my pally and got the Dignified Headmaster's Charge (once again, not the optimal weapon -- a mace and a shield might be better -- but I already had the staff...). I healed or dpsed my way through more instances and quit only 200 xp shy of lvl 42 when I had to switch for raiding last night.

Instances I saw were: Scarlet Monastery (all 4 wings), Razorfen Downs, Uldaman and Maraudon. I got very tired of Scarlet Monastery by the end of the weekend, but there's really no complaining about the amount of XP I got from each run. This new LFG system is great. I remember only a few months ago commenting on how hard it was to find a group while leveling my warlock. That problem is solved with this new system. Though, there is a shortage of tanks, that's for sure.

Speaking of tanks, I ran across several bad ones.

In a few groups the designated tank was actually a dps in disguise. Most times this lead to disaster, though on one occasion, the skill of the group as a whole made up for it.
There were a few tanks that were impatient. They'd run into a new area while the healer was still drinking. Then, the usual complaint about lack of heals when he died.
There was one who couldn't hold aggro at all, even though he was Prot spec. He admitted being new to the game and having no idea how to play. (I had a hard time believing that, considering some things he new really well, but whatever.)
There was the one that went into a room of mobs, aggroed them all, caused a wipe, then laughed and said obscenities to all of us before leaving the party.

I read an article the other day in which someone posited that the negative effect of the new LFG system is the prima-donna attitudes of tanks. I saw that first hand this weekend. Although being a jerk is never excusable, I do appreciate their plight. Until they can get dual spec at lvl 40, being a tank is tough because it's not easy to quest. Killing mobs alone as a tank is a slow process. No wonder so many could-be tanks choose to be dps. And then, when dual specs are available at lvl 40, it's still difficult to choose tanking over dps. At least as a healer/dps I can pretty much share my equipment across specs. Hit rating isn't really required until much higher level, so switching between resto and elemental for me is a simple change of specs. Tank/dps folks must keep two sets of gear. That must be tough.

Anyway, enough about the LFG system. What do I think of playing a Shaman? I love it! The last time I played her I had gotten to the point that I was frustrated. There were too many totems to think about and I was having a hard time killing mobs quickly enough for my tastes. But this time around, I was in the right mindset to figure out how to play her.

First thing was to recognize that my equipment choices (as explained earlier) were the cause of my slow mob killing. Once I switched to Elemental and put on spellcaster items, kill speed went up quite a bit.

Although this didn't come until I hit lvl 40, Call of the Ancestors really helped. Now I have two totem bars. One is for my standard set, the second has some choices switched out. Then, in my regular bars I only have those totems that don't appear in either of my totem bars.

I also removed several of the buttons that I would never use, like Rockbiter Weapon. Previously, I had put every option on my bars so I wouldn't forget they existed. But, I will never use spells such as that, so who cares if I forget about them? My interface is much cleaner now. I feel I have a better grasp of what tools I have at my disposal.

Both healing and DPSing on this toon are a blast (no pun intended). I'll probably never raid with her, but I will enjoy getting her to 80.

ToGC 25 (Priest)
Last night was a raid night and we went to ToGC 25, since it was the only thing we hadn't completed earlier in the week. It went poorly...very poorly. Even though we had a full raid, our top players were not there due to the holidays. It was evident. It took us forever to get through the first two encounters and we stopped after a few attempts on Faction Champs. All was not lost though; I got a Trophy of the Crusade, with which I purchased my final tier item -- Velen's Gloves of Triumph. I had been putting it off, thinking it was only a minor upgrade to Velen's Gloves of Conquest. But, the net effect was higher than I expected when all was said and done. So, it was a good call.

After all the drops I got this week, my loot priority has dropped substantially. That's as it should be. I really made out like a bandit this week. :-) Unless strange luck smiles upon me, I'll need to sit back and accept that no drops will be coming my way for a few weeks. Just in time for the new bosses to be released.

I also purchased the Circle of Ossus with my frost emblems. Another good upgrade for me. I had been indecisive about saving them for tier items or purchasing regular frost items with them. In the end, it seemed like the best choice.

Miscellaneous
I'm considering switching my mage into my priest's guild. I had avoided doing so because I didn't want to lose the connection with the friends from the other guild. But, I've spent little to no time with them the last few weeks. And, when I do switch to my mage, it's to do an "alt" run with my priest's guild. We'll see...

December 24, 2009

2009-12-24T10:43:00.002-05:00

Kiting? Why?
Yesterday I had a very strange experience. I was going to blame it on the new looking for group system (or "dungeon finder" might be its new name). But, in retrospect, I realize this could have happened in any group, no matter how it was formed.

Heroic Violet Hold was the random dungeon and I was in there on my druid. The tank was a bear with some very good equipment. Clearly he was an experienced player, no question about that. First portal opens, out pops a mob. The tank gets its attention and we start dealing damage. Then, the tank proceeds to kite it around the room. I thought it was odd, as I've never seen a tank do that before. But, I shrugged and adjusted.

The next portal had multiple mobs. Time for AoE spells. Nope, no good. The tank pulled them away from the portal and kited them all around the floor. No chance to focus AoEs.

He repeated this on every pull. Finally, the mage in our group spoke up and pointed out that kiting didn't seem necessary and it was making it difficult for the dps to do their job. The tank's response was...well...something I wouldn't write in my blog. Let's just say the tank didn't like his methods being questioned.

As (horrible) luck would have it, our first boss was Xevozz. This boss requires effective kiting to beat. Can you guess what the tank did? He stood perfectly still, which eventually caused a wipe. He then said, "What? I thought you didn't want me to kite."

/sigh

The group disbanded. Thank goodness you don't get the dungeon debuff if you leave a group while you're dead!

So...his asshattery aside, I'm curious why he was kiting the mobs. If any tank happens to catch this post, please let me know if you can give me insight into why he was doing that. On EVERY other time I've done Violet Hold -- I've done it 51 times on all my lvl 80s combined (13 on normal, 38 on heroic) -- no tank has ever kited regular mobs. Kiting Xevozz, sure. That make sense. But kiting the regular mobs that spawn through the portals. NEVER. Why did the tank do this? He was adamant about knowing what he was doing. But I'm hard pressed to understand his reasoning.

Miscellaneous
Nothing much else to note from last night. I did random daily heroic on each toon then spent the evening snuggling with my husband. :)

December 23, 2009

2009-12-23T11:49:00.004-05:00

What A Difference A Day Makes!
I have to say, yesterday will go down as one of the most memorable days/nights I've ever had in WoW. So much has changed in less than 24 hours.

Promotion Time
Before we started raiding, our guild leader announced three promotions. I was grats-ing the people whose names were called. Then suddenly I realized the last one was mine. What??? I was promoted so soon??? Yowzah! Just yesterday I was talking myself into being patient while I waited for the possibility of being promoted in a month or so. I was shocked and excited. Woo hoo!!!!

ToC 25 (Priest)
We started in regular ToC 25. Quick and easy run. We had an applicant along with us who was amazed at our speed and efficiency. It really is true...the guild is great. We got to Anub'arak and I held my breath. Would he drop my coveted Misery's End? No! :( But he did drop Armbands of the Ashen Saint and I got them!

ICC 25 (Priest)
Next stop, ICC 25. I half expected to sit out, but luck was on my side and I got in. While clearing trash, I got the Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads. Item #2 for the night.

Then Lord Marrowgar dropped the Frozen Bonspike. I stopped breathing as I waited to hear the outcome of the rolls. I won it!!!! Item #3. No more waiting for Misery's End! I won an even better weapon. Yay!

As icing on the cake, I reached Honored with the Ashen Verdict and got the upgrade of my ring: Ashen Band of Greater Wisdom. Item #4.

Ulduar 25 (Priest)
We ended the official raids by going to Ulduar to kill Igniss for the weekly raid quest. I had forgotten that he was the only boss in the starter area that I had never killed. I got 4 achievements upon his death: Shattered (25 player), The Siege of Ulduar (25 player), Stokin' the Furnace (25 player) and Hot Pocket (25 player). I got a lot of friendly ridicule for spamming the guild chat with all those achievements. :)

Next up...10 man team.

ICC 10 (Priest)
With all my new healing gear, ICC 10 went even more smoothly than the week before. I noticed an immediate improvement in my healing throughput. Also, my haste jumped almost 200 points and I could feel the difference in my "rotation". Previously I could count on casting PoM, followed by 3 Flash Heals to proc Serendipity. At that point my PoM would be off cooldown. Last night I did the same rotation and when I clicked PoM the second time, it wasn't yet off cooldown. Woo hoo! Haste has changed things for me. Gotta figure out a new rhythm to get into.

We easily got the achievement Boned (10 player). Not really a hard one to get, if your dps are quick to react.

The final boss, Deathbringer Saurfang, dropped Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl. Item #5 for me that night.

I can't remember any night when I've gotten so many items. My gearscore went from around 5110 to 5344. A jump of over 200 points. Woo hoo! But, more importantly, my SP went up by around 300 and my Int and Spirit increased too. I can't wait to see how well I do in Heroic ToC 25!

Ulduar 10 (Mage)
The final activity of the night was an alt run to Ulduar 10 to defeat Ignis. I hopped on my mage and we downed him so quickly that we got Stokin' the Furnace (10 player).

Phew! What a night!!!! A promotion, lots of loot and lots of achievements. Fun fun fun!!!

Thoughts on Loot Distribution

2009-12-22T16:42:00.005-05:00

I've been mentioning my frustrations lately with loot distribution and I thought I'd put some more positive thoughts down. I spoke with a guildie the other day about my being so far behind everyone else and how upsetting it was to see two weapons I need be rewarded to another priest. (I mentioned that in a previous post...I felt I should have gotten one of the weapons, since the priest who got them was just going to trash the first one after he got the second one.) My guildmate encouraged me to take a deep breath and wait. My time for loot will come when I get a promotion.

Here's how loot works in my guild:

Rank: First, your rank matters. So, let's say there are ranks 1-4. 1 is for officers and 4 is for newbies to the guild. I'm currently rank 3. The priest who "got my loot" :) is rank 2. When the two of us are rolling on the same item, he gets it, regardless of the roll.

EPGP Loot Priority: Second, your EPGP loot Priority matters. So, let's say two people of the same rank roll on an item. The one with the higher loot priority is the one who wins it, regardless of the roll. This supports the effort/loot balance.

Roll: Third, if two people with the same rank who have the same loot priorty roll on an item, the one who wins the roll gets the item.

It actually seems fair to me. But it's very very frustrating for those of us in the lower ranks. I still have more than a month to go before I will be considered for a promotion to the next rank. So, as we go into ICC 25, I'm almost guaranteed to get nothing for a while. I will only be eligible for an item if no one of a higher rank wants it. That's not likely to happen, since all the people in the higher ranks are still getting gear there. But, the stars might align...

But, the beauty of the EPGP system is that my loot priority will continue to rise. Even with the weekly decay, as long as I'm getting EP and spending no GP, when I reach the next rank, my loot priority will be higher than everyone else's and I'll get loot right and left. I just noticed this phenomenon when the guild leader posted the latest EPGP numbers. Last week I was near the bottom of the priorty list. This week I'm in the top 5. That's because the higher rank players are getting loot in ICC, thus lowering their priority. It has no effect on me now, since rank is still considered first in loot distribution. But, over the next few weeks as they get more and more loot, their loot priority will continue to lower and mine will continue to rise. When I'm promoted, I'll be near the top on the priority list. Then, I'll get first pick of loot among people of my rank. Woo hoo!

So, does this system work? Let's compare it to how my mage's guild does things:

Whenever we go into a raid, the reward system is a clean slate. How much loot you got last raid does not matter. When an item drops, you roll for main spec and show the item you will be replacing. If there's one person for whom it is a bigger upgrade (based on iLevel), it is given to that person. So, let's say a level 232 item drops. Four people roll on it, three of which have ilvl 226 items and one has an ilvl 219 item. Automatically, the person with 219 wins it. If everyone has the same ilvl, then the highest roller wins.

A friend in my mage's guild pointed out that the likelihood of him getting loot any time soon is pretty low. His gear, although below the level that drops in the raid we were in, is higher than that of our other guildies. So, even though drops are all upgrades for him, they are bigger upgrades for everyone else. He can't win. He won't be able to get items until they pass him up. For example, his gear is all 226. The raid drops 232. Our guildes are mostly in 219 gear. When items drop, they will go to the 219 folks, not the 226 ones. So, those with 219 will jump to 232. Those with 226 will have to wait until the others are at 232 before they can start getting gear. It's demotivating for him. Even though he and I are both waiting for loot, he has to wait for a very different reason. For me, there's a definite date on which it will change. For him, there's no end in sight. He has to wait for others to gear up, which could take forever in a casual guild with semi-regular turnover. As long as there are people with worse gear than his, he can't win loot.

Is this method better, worse or as good as the one used by my priest's guild? A plus side (from a player's perspective) is that it means you always have a chance to get loot -- no waiting until you get to the right rank. A plus side is that it's possible for loot to be more evenly distributed across the raid group. (Though one person in Friday's raid got three items because all of his gear was ilvl 200.) A negative is that good loot can go to a fly-by-night guildie, whereas the method used by my priest's guild pretty much ensures that most loot goes to those members who have proven their intent to stay for the long haul. This helps the guild gear up more evenly, whereas my priest's guild's method favors gearing up the top ranked players.

Is it better to have some ultra-geared members and many not so geared? Or to have no one ultra-geared but everyone around the same level? For example, I'm the lowest geared healer in my guild. My healing output makes that very evident. Is the guild's progression hurting because of this? Is it good to have such a big difference between my output and theirs? I think the answer might be "yes". And, as mentioned above, as soon as my rank changes I will be able to get lots of loot to bridge the gap (assuming it actually drops!). So, in the scheme of things, it's a risk the guild takes. While I'm proving I'm here to stay, they'll continue to gear up their loyal players. Once I've proven myself, I will be brought up (closer) to their level.

Oops, I got distracted. So, I was comparing the two systems and trying to determine if either was better than the other? I think the answer is "no", neither is better than the other. The reason: the goals of the guilds are different. My mage's guild is not focused on progression. They're very casual and focused on having fun and doing what they can. There's no overarching need to be the most progressed guild on the server. So, spreading loot evenly (or as evenly as possible, considering the randomness) is not going to hurt their goals. My priest's guild, on the other hand, is a progression guild with the overarching goal to be better than the others on the server. Loot allocation is very important. We don't want to risk giving a good item to someone who will turn right around and leave the guild (though we recognize anyone, even the most loyal, can do so). Giving loot to the loyal players helps ensure that the guild will continue to progress. And, while loot is going to higher ranks, the lower ranking people are gaining loot priority that will kick in when they get promoted. It works.

Phew! I got that all out. I feel much better about the loot system. I just have to stick with it and look forward to my impending promotion!

December 22, 2009

2009-12-22T09:26:00.003-05:00

I Hate Spell Reflection
Yeah, yeah, QQ more. I know. But, nothing sucks more for a mage than spell reflection. Not even silence or disrupt effects. At least with those, you know you can't cast, so you can do something else. But with spell reflection, you often don't realize it until it's too late....when you've taken damage. Then, you don't have a clear idea when it is gone and you can start casting again.

Yeah, I know. There are usually visual signs...and often if you look at your target's buffs, you can see the effect and at what rate it is expiring. But still...I hate it. It hurts! :-)

I'm just QQing. I think it's a useful mechanic for the devs of the game, so my complaint is really just whining, nothing else. It keeps me on my toes and breaks the monotony of AB-AB-AB-AB-ABARR/AM.

But it still hurts!

Forge of Souls (Heoric) (Mage)
First thing I did last night was log on my druid. I'm determined to get a random heroic in on each of my toons each day. But, before I could get into a group, a friend of mine asked me to help run some of his friends through the new instances. Before we got inside, one of them suggested we try non-heroic first. In retrospect, we should have. It was a disaster. Complete disaster.

The only other time I had been there as DPS I was on my priest. It seemed easy. But, most likely because everyone was geared enough for it. This run was anything but easy. Partially because of not enough DPS, but mostly because of lack of attention to the details of the fights. The worst example was the Bronjahm fight. On the first two attempts, I was the only person dpsing the souls. The first time is excusable -- they didn't know the fight mechanics. But, the second time? It seemed like two of the dps thought it would be alright if they stayed on the boss while the other two of us took the souls. Well, that meant I was the only one dpsing them AGAIN. Third try was better...everyone did their job, but we still failed due to lack of DPS.

We exited, switched it to normal and completed it.

Halls of Reflection (Heroic) (Priest)
The first random heroic I did on my priest was heroic Halls of Reflection. I joined a group that was in progress. I couldn't help wondering why the previous healer left. I found out quickly. We barely survived the first encounter. Then, when we got to the "escape the Lich King" encounter, we wiped...twice! I know I haven't done that instance many times yet, but I've never failed at it. /sigh

This LFG system is good and bad. It's definitely easier to find spots in PUGs more quickly than before. However, the quality of the PUGs has begun to decline for me. I really like the new system. So, I think it's just a matter of accepting the bad side of it.

Tonight
Raid night tonight. I hope we do ToC 25 first so I get a chance at an upgrade. You never know what the officers will decide though.

December 21, 2009

2009-12-21T10:03:00.011-05:00

What a Fun Weekend!
I had a really good time in game this weekend. Such a good time that I didn't even realize how much snow had fallen outside. Seriously. I saw the snow on the windowsill. My husband commented on the amount of snow. But, I was so focused on the game that I didn't know the true amount of snow until this morning.

That's the sign of a good weekend in WoW! :-)

ToC 25 (Mage)
Friday night I logged in with my Druid to transmute a gem when one of my friends in my mage's guild asked if I wanted to go to ToC 25. I switched to my mage and went to a raid for the first time with this new guild.

It was a fun and interesting time. Fun because I was with my friends whom I haven't partied with in weeks. Also fun because it was the first time being in there with my mage. We got through Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus fine. The funny thing was that both encounters were completely chaotic. No positioning determined ahead of time. No strategy involved. Just chaos. They were successful, which is what matters in the end. We stopped after a few tries at Faction Champs.

After the raid, I spoke with the guild leader and offered to give him strategy tips if he ever decided to try hard modes. His response was that this guild isn't the type that will attempt hard modes. Fair enough, I offered to help out whenever I can. He seemed very appreciative.

Ulduar 25 (Mage)
After ToC, we went to Ulduar to do the weekly raid quest. We earned the achievement Shutout (25 player). Then we headed straight for XT for the quest.

I had a good time with them. Though there are a couple things they did that made me really glad my priest is in the guild she's in.

They called others out when they made mistakes -- by name. Not the guild leader, actually, but the guild members. So, that's a good indication. But, they were relentless. So much time was spent after each attempt ridiculing the people who had made the mistakes. It got very annoying. In my priest's guild they are much more professional (if you can use that word in this context) about it. We wipe, we run back. The raid leader explains what went wrong, without naming names, and we move on.
They use no strategies, as mentioned above. They just go brute force. It works for them because it's normal mode and some of them are very geared. So, I can't say they're doing it wrong. But, it's not an environment that makes me comfortable. I'm a Virgo. I like order. In my priest's guild, it's all about organization and strategy. Or course, we do hard modes, so it's absolutely necessary to be organized.

After Ulduar I did a random heroic on my mage then switched to my priest.

Hyjal Summit, Black Temple, Tempest Keep.
Within minutes of me logging on as my priest someone announced in guild chat that they were doing Hyjal, BT and a TK mount run. I jumped at the chance. It was a very fun night. As with my Sunwell experience a few weeks back, I couldn't help wondering what it must have been like to do them at the appropriate level. Not only did I see exciting content and get achievements for it, but I also got to spend time with guildies in a relaxed situation. They really are a fun group. We stayed up until almost 4am doing that. No mount drop, though. :\

Winter Veil (Priest)
Saturday morning I got up and was simply going to kiss one of the Winter Revelers. But, my plans changed quickly when I got Mistletoe from them. Finally! So, I couldn't resist the opportunity to go use it on the Brothers for the achievement. Meanwhile, I queued for a random heroic.

Cutting out the boring details, two hours later I had finished Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's. Then I headed over to Ogri'la to finish the requisite quests leading up to the bombing one. Luckily for me, I found the achievements website on Friday. In it they list the specific quests you need to do this.

Meanwhile, my druid and hunter buddies from my mage guild came on and they invited me to do a run of the three new instances. So, I did that then went back to Ogri'la and finished Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la

And got my Merrymaker title!

Break Time
Snide comments from my husband made me realize it was time for a break, so I logged and spent time with him, ate and took a nap. A few hours later I was refreshed and ready to play again.

Ulduar 10 (Mage)
I logged into my mage and immediately got a tell from a mage in my priest's guild. They were doing an Ulduar alt run for the weekly raid quest. She invited me to go on my mage. I got three achievements on the run: Shutout (10 player), Must Deconstruct Faster (10 player) and A Quick Shave (10 player).

It was an interesting experience to be with my priest guild but on my mage. I wasn't incognito; they knew who I was. At one point, one of the officers made comments about me not having my alts in the guild. It was said in jest, but I could tell there was a little truth to the statements. I suspect it will eventually become an issue -- at the very least I won't get invites since alt runs are technically supposed to be for guild alts. With the changes to the guild ranking system, I can understand why a guild would not want to help non-guild toons get achievements and such.

Anyway, I got a drop off of Razorscale -- a nice trinket. It made me realize how far behind, gear-wise, my mage is from my priest. I was excited to get it!

...the Patient
On Sunday I go the title "the Patient" that comes along with the achievement Looking for Many. Although I like having yet another title, I have to admit I was disappointed. I thought the Perky Pug came with it. Now I realize I'm only half way there. /sigh More random pugs! The good thing is I've only run across a handful of bad pugs with this new system. So, it's not going to be an onerous task.

And More Random Dungeons
Pretty much the rest of Sunday I spent doing random dungeons on my druid and my mage. After posting during the week that I had been neglecting the two of them, I decided to make a concerted effort to play them -- even if it's just to do the first random heroic each day one each for the Emblems of Frost.

It feels like ToC and Emblems of Triumph all over again. I remember getting two a day and wondering how long it would take me to get enough to buy anything. Now I'm going through the same thing on my druid and mage. With no real chance of going into ICC on them, the frost emblems will be slow in coming.

Except...

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Mage)
Yep...I actually got my mage into ICC 10! This is going out of order, but it follows the previous paragraph perfectly. After our Sunday raid (more below), we went on an alt run to ICC. Once again, I was the only non-guildy in the run. This time, however, there were no comments about my toon not being in the guild. We got down the first two bosses and I even got a the Scourgelord's Baton off the second boss. It was a very nice off-hand upgrade. Woo hoo!

Interesting note about the loot distribution. On the first boss, a very nice dagger (Frost Needle) dropped. The only two people rolling for it were me and the raid leader. He won the roll so he won it. He apologized to me in a whisper and promised the next mage-ish drop would be for me. Well, when we killed Lady Deathwhisper and saw the off-hand item drop there was a long pause. The raid leader finally said, that, even though he was interested in it, he was a man of his word. He gave it to me. Woo hoo! Props to him!

Oh and, I can't forget mentioning that we got a totally awesome achievement: Boned (10 player). Considering I didn't miss a single bone spike, I'm proud about having contributed greatly to that one. :)

ToC 25 (Priest)
OK...back to earlier in the night and our regular raids. We started in ToC 25. I was the third healer to get an invite. Woot! We cleared the place, which is expected since we technically have it on farm. I got a new belt, Cord of the Tenebrous Mist. With a belt buckle I got two sockets in it! A big upgrade for me. Woot!

After that, the officers announced we were finished for the night. The anxiety around Faction Champs was something they wanted to avoid as we went into the Christmas holiday week. So, they opted to split up and do other things. (Personally I think they cancelled it because many of the top players weren't on.)

So...this lead to the most exciting news of my entire post:

ToGC 10 (Priest)
My 10-man team went back to ToGC 10 to try to finish Anub'Arak. We had 24 attempts left when we started. And we finally killed him with 22 attempts left! Woo hoo!!! Yippee!!!! Hoooray!!!!!! I didn't get any drops, but that didn't matter. I was just so excited that we did it! Call of the Grand Crusade (10 player) baby. Yeah!!!!

Afterward it was pointed out to me how amazing it was that we did that with only two healers. Another reason to be proud. :-)

Summary
A very good weekend. Lots of fun. A couple drops. Lots of achievements (I didn't even mention some of the minor achievements that I got -- like # of raid emblems and stuff). Lots of accomplishments. Woo hoo!!!!

December 18, 2009

2009-12-18T12:03:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I sat out for most of the raid. The raid leader made a point of apologizing to those of us who didn't get a spot, explaining that they're doing their best to mix people in so that it's not always the same people all the time. Although I believe that they are doing that. I also noted that the person who was chosen over me was that new healer that I feel so threatened by. (I'm being little dramatic, though there's a level of truth in it.)

It's all good. It was a progression run, so the best of the best need to be there. When it's on farm, I'll get in. It does make me sad, as it's a catch 22 situation. I can't rise to the level of the other healers without better gear (yes...it is really a question of gear. Specs, gems, enchants, build and "rotation" are all the same). I can't get better gear if I'm not there to get drops. (Side note: last night during their progression run a belt dropped that is on the list of things I need. It went to a DPS. Although it was an appropriate item for her (and I'm glad she got an upgrade, even though it was minor), it would have been a substantial upgrade for me. /sigh)

I'm not the first to deal with this situation and I'm definitely not giing to be the last. There's nothing really to say about it other than it's frustrating. I'll be patient, though. In time it will come. Though I fear that I will always be behind the other healers because I'll never get the opportunities for gear that they get.

OK...enough self pity...on to more positive things:

Winter Veil
While the others raided, I took opportunity to get some Winter Vail stuff done. As I mentioned in a previous post, I only have three achievements to get.

Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's -- I started off by /kiss-ing Winter Revelers for the first time this year. I was reminded quickly that Mistletoe is really hard to come by...it's all a matter of luck. Throughout the night I got in three kisses. None of which resulted in mistletoe. It's going to make this achievement difficult to get. I'll just have to make sure to take every possible opportunity to /kiss revelers. Sitting out for raids has a silver lining -- I'm free to kiss the revelers when I can.

Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la -- I'm not 100% sure yet what to do to get this one. I never opened up the rep quests in Ogri'la, though on Wow.com there was a post saying it wasn't necessary. I looked in Ogri'la for the quest giver, but couldn't find it. I'll spend some time today on Wowhead.com checking to see if there is a quest line I must follow first. While I was in Ogri'la I got invited to the raid. (more below about that).

With a Little Helper from my Friends -- I finished this one this morning. I went into a couple BGs last night and got up to 24 HKs. Each time I died and lost the gnome form, I /afk-ed to exit the BG. Yeah, I know it's rude. But, I wasn't in there to farm honor. Like so many other people, I was just there for the achievement. Anyway...I'll be rude no longer because I finished it this morning.

ToGC 25 (Priest)
As mentioned above, I was called in to the raid eventually. Faction Champs. They're our brick wall. Not much to say. We didn't get it down. It's very frustrating.

ToGC 10 (Priest)
Several more attempts on Anub'arak, and still no success. Our team makeup was slightly different than the night before and we didn't seem to be doing as well. We still have 24 attempts left. Hopefully we'll get it on Sunday.

December 17, 2009

2009-12-17T16:25:00.003-05:00

Oh What a Night!
Last night was a fun fun fun night! First, the finale of So You Think You Can Dance was on. I love that show. This was the best season so far. And I'm not just saying that to follow the hype. The talent was top notch!

Also...my time in WoW was exhilarating. I stayed up much later than I should have, but it was well worth it.

ToC 10 (Priest)
The night started with my 10-man going to ToC 10 regular. I DPSed my way through while one of our warriors healed on her priest alt. It was pretty much a cake walk. It's amazing how much easier it is now than it was when ToC came out. I can remember going in there on the first day and being overwhelmed by Gormok the Impaler and his pesky snobolds! Experience + gear + skill = success!

Ulduar 10 (Priest)
We then headed over to Ulduar 10 to do the Deconstructor fight for those who still needed the weekly raid quest. We killed FL, Razorscale and Deconstructor. We were a bit cocky and actually wiped once. But it was all good. We focused later when it was necessary.

ToGC 10 (Priest)
Alts were switched out for mains and we went into ToGC 10. Beasts? Pfft! Lord Jaraxxus...um...bad RNG? Or cockiness carried over from Ulduar? A few wipes later... Faction Champs...one shot! Twins...two shots! Woo hoo!!!!

It was really late. I mean, really late. I shouldn't have stayed. But, I did. I couldn't abandon the group right before our first attempt at Heroic Anub'arak. So, hoping my husband wouldn't file for divorce, I continued on. We made several very commendable attempts. On a few of them we had him to about 300k hp. Soooo close! We finally had to call it when others had to go. We have 30+ attempts left, so I think we might get him down this week.

So friggin exciting! Yeah, I know, it's old content at this point. But, we're a 25-man guild, not a 10-man one. So, this is personal progress.

10 Man Core Group?
Last night I had one of my lack-of-confidence moments during our raid. When it was close to the time that I had originally intended on quitting, I told the raid leader I had about an hour left. About 15 minutes later another healer logged in (one that I mentioned in an previous post who is newer to the guild than I but much much better geared). The raid leader said, "Oh, so and so is online. She can replace the healing spot when the time comes."

My first reaction to that? I was convinced there was relief in his voice. Her healing output is much higher than mine. Of course, she provides more assurance that a raid will be successful. (I'm also basing this on the fact that when she's in 10-mans with us, I'm assigned to DPS.) I couldn't keep myself from thinking that he must wish he had her instead of me as a regular member.

Then today I got a delightful surprise. I saw that on our guild forums my raid leader listed me on his list of core members. Not only am I on the list, but I'm #3, right after him and the top dps of the group. He mentioned the other healer, but only indicating that she fills in when needed. Woo hoo! I really wish I didn't have these moments of self doubt. They're so unattractive. :\

Miscellaneous
Tonight is raid night again. ToC25 and ToGC25. I'm praying that I get a good drop...hopefully Misery's End. I won't hold my breath...my weapon drop luck has never been good!

I hope to play my Mage and Druid this weekend. It feels like it has been forever since I've played them. But...I have to do holiday stuff on my priest.

So much to do...so little time!

December 16th, 2009

2009-12-16T09:59:00.004-05:00

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
Last night I was delighted to get an invite to ICC25. I really expected not to get a spot but somehow I lucked out. Woo hoo! It was a ton of fun. We only wiped a few times -- one was intentional since someone activated the ship event while some of our raid members were not yet on it. I got the Storming the Citadel (25-Player) achievement.

I had terrible disconnection issues last night. I disconnected several times throughout the Lady Deathwhisper fight. I was sure they were going to replace me because of it. But, during a 10 minute break I rebooted my computer router and modem. No more disconnects the rest of the night! Woo hoo!

I didn't get any drops (more on that below). But, I got to see the content, which is awesome. :-)

Ulduar 25 (Priest)
After ICC we went to Ulduar 25 to do the weekly raid quest (or whatever it's called). Deconstructor was the goal. I got two achievements from the run: Must Deconstruct Faster (25-player) and Three Car Garage (25-player). Others got Unbroken (25-player), but I already had it.

Onyxia 25 (Priest)
We then knocked out Onyxia really quickly before calling it a night.

Icecrown Citadel 10 (Priest)
After the 25-man raid was over, my 10-man team gathered. We sailed through Icecrown Citadel in an hour and a half. Pretty good, considering it was my first time in there as DPS. It's a heck of a lot easier than ToC. Of course, I am playing with some top notch players...and it's only the first quarter of the instance.

I didn't get any drops. /sigh

Also, as I mentioned above, I was DPS for the run. That's a mixed blessing. On one hand, it makes me self conscious that I'm relegated to DPS for these 10-man runs lately. Though, I can't deny the fact that the other two healers are much better geared than I, so it's best for the raid.

On the other hand, it's a great way to see the DPS side of things. In the past, I've only understood the DPS role in raids based on listening to raid leaders describe things to the DPS team. Since I'm doing both healing (25-man) and dps (10-man), I'm getting both perspectives. It was really helpful last night. When we did the gunship encounter on 25-man I had no clue what was going on. I just healed. But after doing it as dps on 10-man I figured it out. That fight, by the way, is very fun. :-)

So...if I'm going to be mostly DPS in our 10-mans, I better get some dps gear. Triumph Badges are easier to come by now, so I think it will be easy for me to get the non-trophy tier gear from ToC. DPSing with my healing tier gear is definitely hurting my effectiveness.

Mage Guild
So, last night before I logged in with my priest I logged on my mage. I said goodbye to the guild members that were on. I /gquit then joined the guild my fellow officers had joined. It felt weird...but I'm glad I finally did it. Of course, I couldn't stay on because I had to switch to my priest.

Winter Veil
Winter Veil started last night. In order to get the Merrymaker title, I only have three achievements to get: With a Little Helper From my Friends, Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la and Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's. Doesn't seem too hard. I hope I get can do it!

What's Good for the Guild...
I need to vent. I have no right to be bothered by this. Before joining the guild I read the loot distribution rules. I signed the application form stating that I understood the rules and agreed with them.

That doesn't mean I won't sulk about them sometimes.

Last night there was only one priestly drop -- the Frozen Bonespike. I rolled for it -- it would have been a great upgrade over my Plasma Foil. Yeah...after all these months, I'm still walking around with an Ulduar 10 weapon. My luck with getting weapon drops is abysmal. Remember almost a year ago when I tried day in and day out to get the mace in Nexus? /sigh

I rolled on it, not really expecting to get it, knowing the rules of loot distribution. As expected, it went to a higher ranking priest. It's all good...that's how it works in this guild.

So what irks me about this? The guild leader recently gave a speech about loot distribution...stating that "for the good of the guild", in addition to the normal loot rules (rank first, EPGP 2nd, etc.), the relative upgrade of an item will be considered when deciding who gets an item. In other words, if two people are rolling on the same item, for the good of the guild, the loot council might decide to give it to the person who would be getting the biggest upgrade from it, regardless of rank or EPGP.

So, what happened last night? The priest who just two weeks ago won Misery's End, and then last week won a dagger (I don't remember which), is the person who was awarded this dagger. Was that decision in line with the loot rules? Absolutely. He is a higher rank than I and has more Priority in EPGP.

But what about all that stuff about "what's best for the guild"? The upgrade he got last night was relatively minor. It would have been a MAJOR upgrade for me. My healing power already fell far short of his. Now the gap is going to be even wider.

So what's better for the guild? To further increase the effectiveness of one of the top geared healers? Or to increase the effectiveness of one of the lesser geared healers? Is it more beneficial for his healing power to go higher? Or for mine to be brought up closer to his?

Since we're exploring new content, it's going to be like this for a while. Like I said, I understand the loot distribution rules. When I joined the guild I confirmed that I understood them.

That doesn't mean I have to like them.

December 15, 2009

2009-12-15T11:00:00.003-05:00

Phases

(another disjointed stream of consciousness-type post)

Yesterday I mentioned being in an odd place regarding my Mage and Druid. I've been thinking a little more about that post and am now thinking it's just another phase. Obviously it's partially fueled by my reluctance to /gquit on the mage when someone else in the guild is on. But, that's really just an excuse. I'm reluctant to play the other toons because I feel like I should be on my priest.

I didn't want this to happen when I joined the big guild. But, it has. Take last night, for example. Mondays are not raiding nights, so theoretically I should have had the night off. I logged in with my priest to do dailies and to do the new 5-man dungeon quests. I had every intention of switching to my mage when I was finished.

But then a guildie called out to form a group to do rep farming in ICC 10. Rep farming? Oops! I hadn't been keeping up with the changes in 3.3. Suddenly there's a new faction to gain rep with.

As a member of a top raiding guild, I am expected to maximize everything. That includes rep farming when doing so means top end gear. Sure enough, this new faction gives rings (like Kara) as you gain rep levels.

So much for switching to my mage. I spent the rest of the night with guildies killing the trash mobs in ICC. I achieved friendly status and got the Ashen Band of Wisdom. It increased my haste, which makes me happy. But it lowered my Spell Power and Spirit slightly. I'll take it, though, as it is an upgrade in other respects.

Anyway...my point being that I ended up only playing my priest last night. Tonight I'll most likely only play her since it's raiding night. Wednesday night I'll probably do 10-mans with my priest -- or take the night off to spend with my husband.

What happened to the days when I had enough time to play all three of my main toons? Or at least the days when I could choose between my priest and my mage? Will they come back? Or are they gone now that I'm in this top raiding guild?

Is this just a phase?

Being honest with myself, I know I'd be playing my mage more often if she were in the raiding guild. Recognizing that, I do have to point out another thing that's going on. I currently feel like I'm not well connected in the big guild. There's a core group of people who interact a lot and I am just someone who fills one of the 25-man slots. Reasons for this are:

I am still fairly new to the guild -- one month tomorrow.
I spend time on toons that aren't in the guild (mage, druid, warlock).
I am not on the "A" team.

Those are just some possible explanations. For the purposes of this post, I'm focusing on the second point. Any time I spend on my toons in other guilds is time not spent connecting with the members of this guild. Last night's rep run, for example, was a casual impromptu run. For about 2-3 hours I interacted with those guys. It was a 10-player raid, so it was much more intimate than 25-mans. I'm not going to overstate it and say that it was major relationship building. But, people do know me a bit more than they did before we went. Had I not been on my priest, I would have missed the opportunity.

I went through something similar when my priest was in her previous guild. I was an officer to make it worse. But, in that case, I freely spent time on my other toons. I did so partly because I didn't need to do anything to establish my identity in that guild. I was an officer. I was on the "A" team. I didn't need to do relationship building. (In retrospect, I should have -- but that's not relevant to the point of this post.) I had all the gear I could get, save that which could only be gotten in our weekly raid runs. So, there was no need to play my priest on off nights.

But now it's different. I have to establish myself, unless I'll be content being just a slot-filler.

Is this a phase? Will my daily activities be different a month from now?

December 14, 2009

2009-12-14T15:06:00.003-05:00

Boy did I miss an exciting week! I was out of town when patch 3.3 hit. I'm glad that I missed the patch day rigmarole, but I do feel like I'm behind everyone. With that said...

Patch 3.3 Stuff
Not wanting to log in with any of my known toons, I chose to go on my warlock. I did a /who to see where my friends were and I saw them in places I didn't recognize. Hmmm...new instances!

I got the quest right outside the Dalaran bank and tried to find the Icecrown Citadel. On a slow flyer, it proved to be too annoying. So, I went to WoWhead and got the answer quickly. After much circling up and down the structure, I finally found the entrance...to the raid area! D'oh!

I went straight up and found the 5-man area. Then...I tried out the new LFG system. I'm not 100% sure if I like it or not -- I'll give it a chance. But, in the case of my warlock, it was a god send. I only had to wait 10 minutes for the first group invite. We went through the Forge of Souls in about 20 minutes. I could tell immediately that the people in my group had already been there (and it was later confirmed when I was the only one who got the achievement). I died a few times due to me having no clue about the fight mechanics. But, I made it through.

Next up was the Pit of Saron. This time around, I made a really stupid mistake, which I think is partly due to the fact that they put the quest giver inside the instance. :( While waiting for the group to form, I entered the Forge of Souls, thinking it was the Pit of Saron. Then I exited and tried to get into the right one. Well, the game didn't like my instance-hopping, so I got a big fat message saying I had entered too many instances. The problem was that I ended up stuck on the wrong side of the portal. So, I couldn't do anything but wait. Luckily, when my group formed, I was able to enter the instance without a problem. Phew!

I got the quests inside Pit of Saron but didn't have time to read through them before the group ran away to clear it. Stupid me...I missed the fact that I was supposed to free captives. We cleared the place before I realized this so, I went back afterward to free them. Unfortunately, the NPC was no longer there for me to turn in the quest, so I have to go back and turn it in another time.

I got a new pair of boots, though. So, it wasn't a total loss. Of course, it's on a toon that I don't play often, but that's OK.

Because of the problem with turning in the quest, I couldn't go to the third instance. So, I decided to take a break and prepare myself for raiding.

ToC 25 (Priest)
We started our raid night in ToC 25. I got an invite right away. It didn't surprise me. I assumed I wouldn't be invited to go to Icecrown Citadel since the higher ranked raiders would get those spots before me.

Nothing really to report, other than we cleared it easily. I didn't get any drops.

Icecrown Citadel 25 (Priest)
After the ToC raid, I wasn't immediately booted from the raid, so I headed over to ICC. I was glad I had found the place on my warlock earlier, so I didn't look completely stupid. I stood outside for a while, fully expecting to be booted. But, then I thought I should be more assertive. And...I was curious to see the inside of the place. So, I zoned in.

They had already cleared the first three bosses of the Lower Spire during the week. So, I was able to take the portal to the different areas. Not much to see, really, since all the trash and bosses (except the last) were cleared. But, I at least got to see what the place looked like.

I stood with everyone else in the Deathbringer Saurfang area (I can't remember what the zone was actually called, but that's the boss). Then, to my surprise and utter delight, the final raid switches were made and the EP/GP counter started. I was in!!!! Woo hoo!

We wiped once, which was fine, considering there were a couple of us who hadn't been there for the previous attempts during the week. And considering they made many attempts that first night... But, we happily defeated him on the second attempt. Woo hooo! I didn't get the achievement that most of the others got, but at least I got to see a new boss down. Yay!

The tier token for priests, paladins, etc. dropped. I didn't have a chance, but I needed it anyway. Our main tank won it. Woot! I'll get mine some day. :-)

I was really really happy that I got in. I'm very conscious of my healing numbers being so much lower than the other healers. Until I can get close to their numbers, I know I'll expect to be left out. I won't blame them. It's better for the guild to bring our best healers, dps, etc. when doing new content. So, I will enjoy my invites when I get them. Yay!

ToCG 25 (Priest)
Since the rest of ICC isn't open yet, we moved on to ToGC 25. I maintained my healing spot (yay!). We cleared Beasts and Jaraxxus. Then we gave a shot (or two?) at Faction Champs before calling it a night.

No drops for me. :\

ToGC 10 (Priest)
My regular 10-man group had done ToGC 10 during the week. They were at the Twins. We tried several attempts. I was DPSing for the first few, then I switched to heals. We didn't get them down. :\

Miscellaneous
I know I just got back from vacation yesterday, and Mondays are usually my "blues" days. So, I shouldn't take any negative thoughts too seriously. But...I am curious about my decisions lately with respect to the toons I'm playing. I've basically been avoiding my Mage and Druid. For some reason I'm very uncomfortable about changing guild with the mage, despite the fact that all my fellow officers moved to the raiding guild. Why don't I just get past this?

December 2, 2009

2009-12-02T13:18:00.004-05:00

Last night I logged in and had a brief chat with my previous guild leader. I assured her that I would be moving my mage to the new guild soon. But I had to raid last night on my priest.

Onyxia 25 (Priest)
Our Onyxia 25 run wasn't as smooth as it could have been, but we one-shotted it, as usual. No drops for me.

ToC 25 (Priest)
I healed all boss encounters in ToC 25. I got a Trophy of the Crusade, which I used to buy Velen's Cowl of Triumph. I socked it with a +34 Spirit gem. But, I might change that to a Spellpower or Intellect one, giving up the socket bonus. We'll see.

My darned mace didn't drop -- hmmm...always seems to be my luck when I'm hoping for a certain mace. Ah well, maybe in two weeks (next week I'll be on vacation).

I can't decide if going for the 4th piece of the Tier set is worth it. It only improves the first tick of Renew by 10%. Not really that much of a benefit in the scheme of things.

ToGC 25 (Priest)
After easily clearing ToC 25, we moved onto Heroic. /sigh We couldn't get past the beasts. Definitely an off night for us. I found something interesting -- the incredible healer I mentioned in yesterday's post was not invited to the progression portion of the raid, though I was. I really truly expected them to favor her over me because her numbers are much more impressive. But they didn't. I'm impressed. Perhaps they truly do go by fairness. The Raid Leader did ask me before every encounter if I needed something from the upcoming boss. Whether it was items or emblems, I needed to be there. She agreed and included me. yay!

Onyxia 10 (Priest)
Although it was late, I once again joined my 10-man team right after the guild raids. It's a bad habit I'm getting into, but I don't want to turn down the opportunities.

First stop was Onyxia. There were a few amazing things about the fight. First, we got through Phase 2 without any Breaths. This means that our dps was so high up there that we burned her more quickly than expected through that phase. Then, after coming down for Phase 3, we killed her lickity split and earned More Dots! (10 player). That was without a shaman to give us Heroism. Woo hoo! No drops for me.

VoA 10 (Priest)
We quickly killed the first boss in VoA 10. Nothing to note.

ToC 10 (Priest)
We finished the night by running through ToC 10 real quickly. I won an off-set boot item. It was so late that I can't even remember what boss it was from, so I can't tell you which boot item it was.

I went to bed at 3:16. Ugh...another day of sitting her at work, fighting to keep my eyes open.

December 1, 2009

2009-12-01T11:23:00.005-05:00

Mage Guild
Uh oh. I'm in one of those hiding phases again. Last night I didn't log into any of my known toons. Why? Because I'm avoiding the guild situation on my mage. I've said I'll switch guilds with her so I can be with the players I enjoy. But, for some reason I'm reluctant to /gquit on her with others on. They all know what is going on -- raiding toons are switching to the sister guild, while alts are staying in the main one. But, still, I don't want to have to interact with those people still in the main guild. I don't know how how they feel about the who switching guilds thing. I want to /gquit when no one is around so I don't have to discuss it.

Tonight I'll have an excuse not to deal with it -- raid night on my priest.

I'm such a wimp sometimes.

Alt Leveling
So...last night I hid on my Pally. OMG shoot me now! I know I've said this before, but this time it's really getting to me -- leveling is so mind numbingly maddening. Again with the same quests? Again with the long distances between quest giver and quest objective?

The only change of pace would be to switch to a Horde alt and level on that side. But, when I switch to my Horde server, I stare at my toons and can't decide which to play. They have no money and they have no heirloom items. Leveling over again is frustrating enough...to do so by starting from scratch? Get the f*(k outta here!

I'm considering paying for a faction transfer for my pally. If I go through with it, I'll give her all the heirloom items she needs and a wad of cash. That way she'll be pretty set. I'll be able to experience Horde side leveling without starting from scratch. But...I'll permanently cut her off from my other alts. Do I really want that? Or will she end up becoming one of those toons I never play?

Anyway... I got her to 30 last night. I can't remember if I can get fast mount speed on her at this point. I can barely remember what it was back in BC. Was it mount at 40, fast mount at 60? Then flying at 70? Sheesh! I can't believe I've forgotten. I remember it was such a big broo ha ha when they lowered the requirements. But, for the life of me I can't remember what they used to be and what they are now.

Getting old is a pain.

Note: Right after publishing this I checked out Wowhead. I swear, it's the best WoW db site out there. They have a full explanation of the riding skill levels. I don't get epic mount riding until 40. Ah well, so much for speeding up travel time now that I'm 30.

100th Post!

2009-12-01T11:07:00.003-05:00

As I pressed the New Post button I noticed that I was at 99 posts. This is my 100th! (Well, one post isn't actually published -- it's a "draft" that I use for notes. But, that's just a technicality.)

I think this is the only diary I've ever consistently written to. I remember my first attempt at one back when I was living in Modesto (Central California) one year as a child. I created the diary by first writing the date on every page of a notebook....fully intending to make an entry each and every day that year. I learned quickly how naive that approach was. Two obvious problems with that system were:

Many pages were going to be wasted, as I obviously wasn't going to write in it every day.
It didn't allow for those days on which I had more to say than would fit on one page.

I abandoned that diary within a week or so of creating it.

I created subsequent diaries without pre-dating the pages. But, they still flopped.

What has made this one different? I think it's because it's a diary with a specific focus. It's not a diary about my life, though I do occasionally write personal things like I am today. It's specifically about my experiences in WoW. And, since I play it several times a week, on average, there's usually something to say.

I wonder if I'll have a 200th post?

Getting Myself Worked Up...

2009-11-30T15:08:00.003-05:00

So in my post from earlier this morning I mentioned being concerned about my healing compared to that of the other healers in my guild. I've been thinking a lot about it since then and I'm getting even more worried.

Last night there was a non-guildy there healing with us. I noticed immediately that she was at the top of the healing charts, even higher than our top healers.

Today, I was looking on wowprogress.com and noticed that the healer had joined the guild last night. Once again...another applicant that's invited to the guild after only one night.

The new healer was previously in the #2 guild on the server (we're currently #7). She's really well geared.

So what worries me about her being in the guild? She's one more person competing for a healing spot -- and with her performance, she's likely to win.

This guild has a very rigid structure based on time with the guild and raid attendance. Just this past week I was promoted to the next level based on raid attendance. At first, I thought this meant that I got priority when it came to raid slots over people of the level below me. But, I've just re-read the by-laws of the guild and realized there is no mention of raid spot priority -- only loot priority.

What good does it do me to have priority with respect to loot if she's likely to be chosen over me for raid spots? I'll never be there to get the loot I need. :-(

My only consolation is that the raid leader has a track record of asking people to sit out on runs if they don't need loot. This way people who do need loot can have their spot and hopefully get what they're looking for. If she continues this, there's a chance that I'll get a spot over the new healer because it looks like she has most of the loot she needs. Then, on ToCG 25 progression runs, she'll get the spot because her heals are more likely to help us succeed than mine would.

Another thing that has me worked up is something that was mentioned last night after the raid. The raid leader announced that the "first string" 10 man group would be raiding next. It made me painfully aware of not being a member of that elite group and the low likelihood of me ever being in it. I ended the night sad, wondering how much I'll progress in this guild. The "first string" group are those that have the fancy titles and raid achievements because they are the 10 best players in the guild. The rest of us are unlikely to get those achievements and titles. Now, if they'd leave a spot open each week for someone outside their clique to run with them, maybe we'd have a chance. I'm just sayin'....

I'm also worried that when Icecrown Citadel becomes available, which could be any week now, that I'll be relegated to "second string". Once again, in the interests of the guild, we should send in our best team to progress. I understand that. But, what does that mean for me? How long will it be before I can get in to see it?

Cold hard facts to face

I chose not to join a hard-core raiding guild until just recently. My choice. I had offers, but I rejected them. My choice. Consequences of that choice: I'm far behind on raid progression, experience and gear. I'm at the bottom of the totem pole in this raid guild.
This guild is big and I'm just one of the many members. I shouldn't expect to be treated special.
There are many members who have been with the guild longer than I have. They deserve priority over me.
New members that come from bigger guilds with better progression, experience and gear are more valuable to the guild from a progression standpoint. My heals are less effective than theirs. It is in the guild's best interest to put them first in the progression runs.
I am in the "second string" 10-man group. At least I have a regular 10-man group to run with. Many in the guild are not in the same boat.
I've only been with the guild for a few weeks. I have no idea what the future has in store for me.
Although they appear to play favorites, I know full well that they're favoring the better, more skilled players. And, they have every right to. They're not a casual social guild. They're a serious progression raid guild. Of course the most skilled should get priority over others. It's in the best interest of the guild. My personal satisfaction is of little interest to the guild.

So, I have my worries but I recognize I'm responsible for the situation I'm in now. I'll try to convince myself to make the most of what I have. Enjoy the opportunities to raid when I get invites to the 25 mans and make the most of my 10-man runs.

Heart, listen to the Mind. It's telling you some good stuff.

November 30, 2009

2009-11-30T10:57:00.003-05:00

Correction: In a previous post I stated that I had gotten a pair of boots and wondered why they didn't have a socket in them. I realized now it's because I was looking at the wrong boots. The boots I actually got were the Boots of the Grieving Soul.

Back from Thanksgiving
I don't often post non-WoW stuff, but I just want to remember this Thanksgiving. We went to the in-laws in Connecticut and spent the night there. Our nephews are so adorable and the 2 year old is talking (babbling?) incessantly. His brother just sits and stares. We had a great time with them.

Pilgrim Title!
Early Thanksgiving morning I earned the Pilgrim title. We weren't leaving to the in-laws until early afternoon, so I logged on early in the morning. I had three achievements left: Turkey Lurkey (only a troll rogue was left), The Turkinator and Terrokar Turkey Time.

Armed with Tracker Snacks, my first stop was Elywnn Forest. It's amazing how quickly you can get the achievement when you can see the Turkeys on your mini map and when no one is in the area competing with you.

Then I went to Ogrimmar and camped outside the main gate. I was determined to catch a troll rogue going to the feast tables or innocently stepping outside the city. It only took about 1/2 hour of patient waiting and boom! along came a troll rogue! I feathered him and got the achievement.

I then asked in guild chat if anyone was interested in running Setthek Halls. We two "manned" it and within a half hour or so I got the last achievement, the title and the adorable Plump Turkey pet. Woo hoo!

Miscellaneous Alt Leveling
The rest of the weekend we were either with family or at home relaxing. I played very little WoW. And, when I did, it was on alts. I gained a level or two on my dwarf pally. Nothing too exciting, mostly just killing time between naps.

ToGC 25 (Priest)
Last night was our regular raiding night and we returned to ToGC 25. We got Jaraxxus down after only one or two wipes. Then we spent the rest of the night on the Faction Champs. I think we're doing better than last week. Either we're getting more proficient at it, or the group makeup was easier this week. We got down two of the champs on a few of the tries. We'll get them all some day. :\

I hope I don't just have the Monday blues, but I'm feeling very self conscious about my healing skills compared to the others in the guild. I know most of them are better geared than I am, so their HPS is bound to be higher. But, sometimes the difference is too big to ignore. I don't know if the powers that be watch HPS or something else. But, if they are, I'm screwed.

I'm saying this because I remember several months back my mage friend stating that she hadn't gotten a promotion in this guild because the officers were disappointed in her lack of increase in DPS. I'm afraid the same might happen to me because my numbers aren't improving significantly. Of course, the Faction Champs is a real tough encounter to base performance on.

It's a catch 22 situation. I can't improve without getting gear. I can only get gear if we kill bosses. We can't kill bosses without having the right gear + skill.

Lord, I hope it's not skill that I lack. :\ (Yeah, Monday blues time...I'll get over this.)

Guild Stuff (Mage)
My mage's guild has gone through a slight transformation. After weeks (months?) of failed plans to raid, our guild leader and a few officers took their mains out of the guild and put them into one of our "sister" guilds. I found out about it when I returned to the game last night. I'll probably move my mage into the new guild. It's kind of sad, but I think it's a good move. If it works out as planned, we will all get more opportunities to raid with those toons.

November 25, 2009

2009-11-25T11:16:00.003-05:00

I Need Caffeine!
I'm running on about two hour's sleep this morning. All because of this stupid game called World of Warcraft! :-)

Because it's Thanksgiving week, our raiding opportunities are minimal until after the holiday. So, what do we decide to do? Run everything we can until we fall asleep at our keyboards! Well, since I'm probably the only East Coaster in the group, maybe I'm the only one who risked falling asleep. :)

Let's see, I finally lay down in bed at 3:16 a.m. Then, because of the adrenaline pumping and my mind racing with recap thoughts of the night, I tossed and turned for a long while. Against my better judgment, I took a Tylenol PM at 5:00 a.m.. It didn't kick in until about 6:00, right before my darned alarm went off. I went right back to sleep and woke up at 8:00. I'm still groggy from the pill and am exhausted from lack of sleep.

Was it worth it? It sure was...read on!

Onyxia 25
We started the night by gathering for Onyxia 25. There were lots of people on, so there was a good chance that I would be sitting out. But, to my surprise, I was the first healer invited to the raid. Woo hoo! I suppose that means the other healers don't need anything from her. We wiped on the first attempt. Someone hit a taunt button when they shouldn't have... Second try went smoothly. And I walked away with a fun off hand piece -- the Antediluvian Cornerstone Grimoire. I'm sure there are better items for that slot, but it was a nice upgrade for me. So, it was worth it. Though, after I won it I became painfully aware of the effects on my EP/GP PR. More on that below.

We had a couple applicants to the guild running with us. I was a little annoyed to see that they got an invite to the guild after only one run, as compared to me having to go on several trial runs before I got the invite. I won't fret, though. I'm in the guild and that's what matters. And I got my first promotion last night.

VoA 25
Next we went to VoA since we had Wintergrasp. Nothing to note, other than the fact that the Priest legs dropped -- the ones I used emblems to buy last week. :\ Oh well, I got them sooner than I would have and ended up benefitting from them sooner as a result. It's all good. (Plus, I didn't use GP!)

ToC 25
We followed VoA up with a quick and easy ToC 25 run. After each encounter, the guild leader asked if anyone didn't need anything from the upcoming boss. This was to allow people to swap out for those who actually needed loot. I felt bad that I still needed loot from very boss. I did offer to sit out anyway, but she kept me in. And I'm so glad she did!!! I got Boots of the Mourning Widow off of the Champions encounter. Woo hoo! I had desperately needed to upgrade from the lvl 213 boots I had been wearing. And that put me over the 5k gear score mark! Yay!

Note: I just realized I think something is wrong with the boots I got. They're supposed to have a Blue slot. But I didn't see it last night and the darned Armory is not updated so I can't verify what I'm wearing. Hmmmm....

The mace that makes me salivate dropped again. And suddenly I felt the effects of using GP. It was awarded to another healer in the raid. /cry I know I can't complain, since I did win two other items last night. But of all things, *that* was the item I wanted most. Ah well, next time! :-)

ToGC 25
Next we regrouped for ToGC. I watched some of the better healers get raid invites, so I knew I'd be asked to sit out. As I've said before, I don't mind that at all. I understand that on pure progression runs, we need our best geared/skilled players. And even with my gear upgrades this past week, I still am not reaching the healing power of the other healers. (Darned that elusive mace!)

Sure enough, about 5 minutes into the raid formation I was asked to sit out. I bowed out gracefully and stepped outside. I stayed in Vent so I could listen to how they were doing. Then something surprising happened. One of the main healers -- the one who got my mace last night! heheh -- was not ready at the start of the run. His wife explained that he was "down stairs and would be up in a minute". There was silence for a few moments then I was invited back to the raid. I don't know exactly why the officers decided to put me in his place. I strongly suspect it's their rigorous upholding of the rules. All raiders are expected to be on time and ready for each run. He was neither. So, I got his spot.

The other possibility is that his wife explained in a whisper that he wasn't going to be able to make it back.

I like my first explanation better, so I'm sticking with it. :)

Anyway, we were doing well on the first attempt at Northrend Beasts, until someone didn't move out of Icehowl's way. He enraged and we wiped. The second attempt was as close to perfect as you could ask for.

Lord Jaraxxus, however, was clearly angry at us for beating him so easily last week. He won each encounter against us.

We hit the end of the raiding time so we called it for the night.

ToC 10
I was contemplating going to bed, but invites went out for my 10-man group. How could I resist? Considering the rest of the week is going to be a tough one for getting groups together.

We started with ToC 10. For some reason my healing was erratic and I was running out of mana quickly. I'm not sure what was causing it. Did a recent item change have that effect? Was the raid taking more damage than normal? Or was I just tired and being stupid about mana management? I'll have to watch more closely.

One noteworthy situation was the Twins fight. Our pally healer died about 80% into the fight. Suddenly, I was solo healing. During this fight there is constant raid damage on everyone (yeah, I know that's implied by "raid damage", but I wanted to stress it). As I mentioned above, I was having mana management issues already. This fight was really taxing me. Then when I was the lone healer, my skills were put to a real test. I kept the raid alive until 98%, then I died. Luckily, they had enough health (and cooldowns) to stay alive for the final 2%. We beat the encounter with no heals in the end. Woo hoo! I got lots of praise for my healing skillz for that.

Adversity makes us stronger. (OK...no waxing philosophical.)

VoA 10
We did a quick clear of VoA 10. As wit VoA 25, nothing special to report.

Onyxia 10
And finally, we ended with Onyxia 10. One shot easiness. I got one half of the trinket set. Thank goodness we don't use EP/GP for the 10-man runs. It would have been a waste of GP. It's nice and all, and summons a fun but useless skeleton. I don't think it will be something I actually wear very often.

At that point it was already 3am, so it was time to call it a night.

EP/GP Love it and Hate It
OK...a few times in this post I have mentioned EP/GP and RP. Even though I've used the addon in raids for a while, I only found out how the system works a couple days ago. In a nutshell, you earn EP (effort points) in a variety of ways (determined by the decision makers in your guild). When you win items you gain GP (gear points). At any given time your PR (loot priority) is determined by dividing your EP by your GP. A more thorough explanation is here.

Yesterday I found on our guild website the page that lists everyone's EP, GP and PR. Before the raids last night I had 20 EP (from attending raids) and 2 GP (1 by default + 1 for the trophy I won last week). My PR was 10 (20/2). The list on the website is conveniently sorted by PR, so you can quickly see where you fall in loot priority. I was painfully low -- only 13 people had less than I. Some people have so much EP that I can't imagine ever catching up. (Though, as described in the more detailed explanation of the system, we do use decay -- which makes it impossible to hoard EP and PR indefinitely.)

After last night, I think my numbers are now: EP: 31, GP: 4 (2 from before +2 from last night's drops), PR: 7.75. So, I got two items and went down 2.25 PR. But, the PR for all those people who didn't get items went up. So my relative PR dropped even lower.

Yes, I see that it's very fair. I like the system. But, so many people had led me to believe that, since all of the senior members had pretty much all the loot they wanted, I would have my pick of items soon. But, that's not exactly the case, is it? I mean, it still boils down to PR...and mine has just gone lower relative to everyone else's. On the other hand, one's PR is only a priority. Meaning, if something drops and I'm the only one who wants it, I'll get it, regardless of my PR. PR only comes into play when competing for the same item. So, maybe it's not as bad as I was thinking last night in my sleep-deprived state.

Oh wait...now I remember why this has me so concerned. That darned incredible mace. When there's something you REALLY want, but you know others REALLY want it too, that's when your PR matters quite a bit. As long as my PR is lower than that of other healers who want the mace, I will never win it. So, I have to be careful not to gain GP unwisely. For example, if part of the 2-piece trinket set drops from Onyxia 25 next week. I really shouldn't roll for it. I should instead save my GP for items that I really want. I should allow my PR to get higher so that, by the time the mace actually drops again, I might stand a chance against the PR of those rolling against me.

Anybody reading this who already knows the EP/GP system might wonder why I'm making a big deal out of this. Please don't misunderstand my thoughts on it. I like the system. I'm just working through in my head (and in this blog) how it actually works and suddenly understanding the consequences of getting loot.

One thing is for sure, when Icecrown Citadel opens, it'll be a long time before I'm able to get loot in there. All the senior people's PR is so much higher than mine. But that's as it should be.

Bottom line: I like EP/GP. You know exactly where you stand at any moment. And you are in direct control of your RP. Want more EP? Attend raids. Want more RP? Make wise decisions when asking for loot.

OK...that's enough for this morning. Time to actually get some work done! :-)

November 24, 2009

2009-11-24T12:57:00.002-05:00

Last night was pretty low key. I only played for a few hours. During that time I:

Did the Heroic daily on my moonkin. Note: Gear scores in the high 3,000s are good enough for heroics. Of course skill does play a part in it, no doubt. But, I started the run last night concerned that there were no 4k+ gear scores. We sailed through with no problems. I learned something new. :)
Did the Heroic daily on my priest.
Did the Pilgrim dailies on my priest then widdled down the list of Turkey Lurkey targets to the Dwarf, Troll and Orc. I hope to finish those by the end of the week.
Practiced the Turkinator achievement and got to 26 of the 40 charges. Darnit. I'll try tonight with the tracking food to see if it helps...or tomorrow morning. I would have tried this morning but it's maintenance day.

That's it. I spent the rest of the night watching the end of Project Runway and falling asleep early.

Memories

2009-11-23T12:00:00.010-05:00

It was WoW's 5th Anniversary yesterday and people on Blogs everywhere are posting about the memories through the years. I figured I'd put up my own, foggy as they might be. I will try to remember the course of events, though I know going into it that I have forgotten a lot. We'll see how well I do.

I started playing WoW in February of '08. I had been playing Neverwinter Nights and Diablo (all versions) for years. Friends from NWN and coworkers had been telling me about WoW for a long time, but I was acting in my typical manner -- not allowing myself to get caught up in they hype of the day. (I mentioned this in a past post regarding my reluctance to enjoy World Events in WoW.)

So, how did it start? I was at home sick with bronchitis. I was well enough to sit up for a few hours at a time but not well enough to go back to work. I had a long week or two ahead of me of sitting home bored out of my mind. I looked at the WoW installation disks and shrugged.

A few hours later the installation was complete and all the updates were downloaded and installed. I logged in and created my first character (yes, I called them "characters" back then, not "toons"). If I remember correctly, my first toon was my druid. She's currently at the top of the character selection screen, which is a good indication, and I don't remember having a toon before her that I deleted. So, I feel confident saying she was my first.

I remember standing there looking around, wondering what in the world I should do. I hadn't read anything about how to play, so I was winging it. I had played enough games to have a general idea. I spoke with the guy with the ! over his head. And so it began.

I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the Night Elf starting area. I also remember distinctly being afraid of approaching Darnassus. I thought big cities were dangerous and that, if I got too close, I'd be murdered instantly. So, I didn't go to it until someone told me about the bag vendor just outside of it. Hoping for the best, I approached it and found out that Alliance cities, especially on PVE servers, are safe zones. :-)

Later, I was in Auberdine and I was running by a group of people. I can't remember what our interaction was, but the next thing I knew I was invited to join a guild. My very first guild. (The cool thing is that my druid, mage and hunter are in the off-shoot of that guild, almost two years later.)

I remember one rogue in the guild needed elixirs. Since I was an Alchemist, I created them for him. But, I remember thinking how difficult and expensive it was to level alchemy, especially since I couldn't find the herbs I needed anymore. (I didn't know about looking for nodes on WoWhead and I didn't know about selling stuff on the AH.) I was still very very poor.

I remember getting the Aquatic form quest and having no idea how to get to Wetlands. A much higher level player passed by me and I asked him about it. He actually escorted me all the way on foot. I even died a couple times to the Wetland alligators (or whatever they're called) along the way. I was blown away by how friendly that guy was. I meant to remember him, but I sadly didn't know about the Friends list so I didn't add him to it.

Another memory I have of that trip to Wetlands was stepping into Ironforge for the first time. I was blown away at the enormity. The guy lead me straight to the flight path and I remember asking, "How in the world do you remember how to get there?" Honestly...Ironforge was amazing. I remember turning to my husband and saying, "Honey, you HAVE to see this." He was equally impressed.

I remember finding a shadowgem and wondering if I had found one of the most valuable items in the game. It was a green item, not a white or gray one. I went to work the next day and asked a coworker if I should keep it. He, of course, had been playing WoW for years, so he was long past finding shadowgems. He gave me a strange look and asked, "Do you need it for anything?" That was the day I learned about WowHead.com.

I remember drowning in the canals of Stormwind on one of my toons because I didn't know how to swim and I couldn't figure out where the exit points were.

I remember running along the path in Ashenvale, heading to the Eastern end. I encountered my first horde character. We both stopped on the road and checked each other out. I, not fully understanding the difference between PvE and PvP servers, was convinced he would kill me any second. But, it didn't happen.

Then later I remember witnessing my first PvP raid in Goldshire. All of these high level hordies on mounts! stood at the edge, taunting all us alliance lowbies. Then a full-scale battle ensued.

At some point I created a human Paladin, because I wanted more survivability. That toon, however, is long gone.

I created a gnome warlock. I hated the gnome/dwarf starting area so much that I didn't get him past lvl 8. I parked him in Ironforge and he became my bank toon for a very long time.

I created a night elf rogue and leveled him to 29. But, I got terribly bored with him. It took forever to stealth in and position correctly before attacking a mob. And I never really could figure out which ability worked best under which circumstances.

I also created my hunter. She quickly replaced my druid as my main when I figured out how much easier it was to survive as a hunter. For months I played her almost exclusively, ignoring my druid and the other alts I had. (As is always the case with me, I created an alt of every class, just to experience the game play.) She was in the same guild as my druid until one fateful day. We had done a naked run from Auberdine to Astranaar. It was good clean fun -- one of the most enjoyable events I've experienced in the game. But then it degenerated into something ugly. The officers started putting dirty/suggestive comments in the Notes on people's toons. Many of them offended me. I kept removing mine, but someone would put something disgusting in it soon thereafter. I complained to the guild leader and he just called me an uptight prude. I /gquit soon thereafter on my hunter (though I left my druid alt in the guild).

I joined a different guild with my hunter and befriended an officer quite quickly. He was a lvl 70 mage with raid-level gear. He ran me through instances and helped me gear up. He was a very nice guy, but I never connected with anyone else in the guild.

Meanwhile, one person from my druid's guild became the closest friend I've had so far in the game. He taught me a lot about the game that I hadn't previously understood and helped me with countless quests, profession leveling, etc. I had some of my alts in his guild (not the same guild as my druid). For most of BC and into much of Wrath, his was my main guild. There was a core group of members that leveled together and did instances together. We had a blast.

Somewhere near the end of BC I finally got my first invite to a raid -- Kara. Before then, I had no interest in raiding. Or better said, I was intimidated by the idea of entering a raid, which was enough deterrent for me. I was content leveling my alts and having fun with my hunter.

Kara was an amazing experience. It seemed like the designers of 5-man instances were not the same people as those who designed raid instances. The details were stunning. And the encounters...holy moly! That first one when you step into Kara was deadly. By that time I had learned the importance of focusing on the assigned mobs. But, I still it felt like chaos to me. I was so worried about making huntard mistakes that I barely did anything at the beginning of each pull. At least that meant I made no mistakes. I remember how complicated the strategy was for Moroes and wondering how anyone could ever remember it. I remember loving the Opera event, thinking it was the epitome of creativity on the part of the designers. It was an eye opening experience for me. My hunter still dons some Kara gear -- she's still only lvl 71.

Oh and...to this day I still get lost in Kara. I never fully understood how to get around in there.

On that first trip into Kara I learned two life-changing things. (1) There is something important called Hit Rating. :-) And (2) I love raids! My hunter was still in the guild with whose members I had no connection. The people running this raid were incredibly nice, supportive and fun. During our second day in Kara they asked me to join their guild. Having no real ties to my guild, I /gquit and joined the Kara raiding guild. I had high hopes for weekly raids, but that didn't end up happening. The raid leaders were distracted with real life stuff. Within a couple weeks of inviting me to their guild, they announced their need to take a few months off from the game. So I sat there all alone in a guild.

With nothing else to do, I spent much of my time questing and farming on my Hunter. I became very good at using the Auction House and made quite a bit of money at the end of BC. Enough to be the first of my friends to have epic flying. They were constantly spending money on the AH buying gear for the alts. I learned quickly that alts can level in any gear. Why waste money buying new stuff for them when they'd outgrow it within a few days? So my alts leveled in quest gear and drops, and my main earned and horded money.

Side note: Meanwhile, I would occasionally get bored and would go to another server on which I created Horde toons. I have a few of them at this point. The highest level one is a level 26 BE Paladin on Proudmoore. (Once it's possible to pass BoA items to opposite factions, I think I'll delete one of my alliance toons and raise a hordie on my server.) But, I'm too lazy to spend much time on them. The money grind takes too long. I'd rather stick with my main toons and fund alts with them.

At some point during all of this my focus shifted to my priest alt. One of the problems with my main guild was lack of healers. Creating a priest was my solution to that. I leveled her to 58 as shadow, then switched to Holy. I've healed with her ever since. I can't remember when I hit lvl 70 on her, but I think it must have been right before Wrath was released. I remember being excited about the possibility of raiding with her when I hit 70. But, I quickly found out I was too far behind to ever have a chance. I was still in quest blues while everyone else was in purples from the high-end raids. There was no way they wanted a new lvl 70 priest in their raids. Kara runs were almost non-existent. And I couldn't get into the higher ones. I was so disappointed.

Then Wrath hit. I leveled my priest to 80...and that is around the time that I started writing this Blog, so the rest is already here.

It has been a fun year and 9 months. A roller coaster ride in some respects. But there's no denying it, I've had a lot of fun!

November 23, 2009

2009-11-23T09:50:00.003-05:00

Gobble Gobble!
Turkeys everywhere? It must be Pilgrim's Bounty!

So...after getting the Hallowed title, I've now got the achievement/title bug. I happily started doing the quests for Pilgrim's Bounty. After getting most of them done, I hit a wall on two of the achievements:

Turkey Lurkey -- I have a major bone to pick with Blizzard. The Turkey Shooter. Why do they not note in an item's description that it is "one time use only". On top of that, why does the item say it has a 1 second cooldown? If it's one time use only, what's the point of a cooldown? Yes, I understand that, if you have multiple turkey shooters, it's good to know that you must wait 1 second between using them. But, still, isn't that intentionally confusing? Also, why doesn't it say anything about not working on a rogue that has already been turned into a turkey?

Needless to say, I wasted my one shot on a rogue that was already a turkey. Now I have to wait until I can do the dailies again. What's the likelihood of me actually finding the rogues in time for the achievement?

The Turkinator -- This one's even worse. It took me forever to get even 8 charges up. I can't imagine being able to get 40! I'm sure there are some young folks who are really good at it. But, I am too slow. And there's so much competition around. Yes, doing it early in the morning is more advisable, but even then there's going to be competition. Especially since turkey meat is needed for the dailies. So, it's guaranteed that people will be shooting turkeys every day of this event.

Bitter much? Yes!

Trial of the Grand Crusader 25 (Priest)
More bad news. We used up all of our attempts in ToGC 25 last night. That darned Faction Champs encounter is just insane. I know that other guilds have gotten past them, so it's not impossible. But, seriously, they can kill us in two hits. But we have to dps them like mad to even make a dent in them? Something's wrong there.

Lots of practice did pay off, though. I have macros for targetting, dispelling, targeting the target of, etc. each of the champs. That helped a lot towards the end. I had a sense of pride and accomplishment when I heard the Raid Leader call out that the main target was finally going down and I knew that was because I dispelled him at the right time.

But, I was still amazed at how quickly people went down. I can't count how many times I went to heal someone and they were dead before my spell got off. Even instants!!

Are we still undergeared? Are my heals not up to par (though I know we were failing during the week when I wasn't in the group)? Did we just get a bad combo of champs?

We'll go back again this week, if enough people are online. Maybe the next set of champions will be more beatable.

Trial of the Crusader 10 (Priest)
After the official raid last night, my 10-man group reconvened to try to get the Faction Champs down in ToC 10. Aren't we gluttons for punishment? In my last post, I reported that we couldn't get them down during the week. Well, we one-shotted them this time. I think the party makeup was exactly the same. So, I think there were two factors that helped. (1) We had so much practice on the ToGC 25 Faction Champs, (2) I dispelled less. I learned while doing the ToGC 25 FCs that the person who dispels draws tons of aggro. This time around I never got silenced nor did the warlock pet attack me. I think it was directly related to the number of dispel I did not throw out compared to during the week.

We cleared the instance. No drops for me. :-(

Ulduar 25 (Mage)
So frustrating. So very frustrating. Time to go back to 10-mans.

ToC 5 (Heroic) (Druid)
I got an upgrade for my druid the other day: Boots of the Crackling Flame.

I think that's pretty much it for what happened this weekend. Although there was a large amount of frustration, I had lots of fun.

November 19, 2009

2009-11-19T17:48:00.002-05:00

Ulduar 10 (Priest)
Last night I went with my 10-man team to Ulduar. It was a saved instance, so we started at General. We got him down, though our execution wasn't good enough to try on hard mode yet.

We made a few attempts at Yogg. By the last one, we got the "avoid the clouds" thing down. But, we failed on the second phase. We'll try again another day this week.

ToC 10 Regular(Priest)
We ran through Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus with no problems at all. But Faction Champions? We just couldn't get it. I don't know what was up. I couldn't keep up with the dispels. It seemed like i was either dispelling off of allies or dispelling off of enemies. I rarely had time to throw out an actual heal. And to top it off, I was constantly being silenced, stunned, or attacked by the darned warlock pet.

The raid leader got very frustrated with the team and went on a rant, for which he later apologized. I don't know. I'm thinking I need to worry less about individual dispels and heal more.

Other than the heroic daily, that's all I did last night.

November 18, 2009

2009-11-18T13:09:00.004-05:00

ToC Burnout
No, I'm not going to say I'm getting ToC burnout, but I suspect the time will come. Currently there are 4 flavors of the same thing. ToC 10 Regular & Heroic, ToC 25 Regular & Heroic. I can't even keep track any more of which ones I have run in a given week. It's all a blur because they're all the same friggin thing!

And the gear? Talk about lazy. All the designers did was make the exact same gear -- name and design -- with slightly increased stats. Where's the creativity and variety in that? Hmmm...wait a second. Maybe I'm getting annoyed by something that isn't new. Come to think of it, when Naxx was the only raid, we had Heroic and Valorous equipment. Basically the same stuff with set bonues. So the only difference now is maybe that this time they didn't go through the trouble of naming the higher versions differently. So that just makes it more obvious...hmmm...

Anyway...onto what I've been doing lately:

ToC 10 Heroic (Priest)
Thank goodness for Achievement tracking, otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you what I ran on Monday night. As mentioned above, all the different ToCs are a blur to me.

With that said, I did ToC 10 heroic with another guild (current rank 21, not that that matters lol) on Monday night. I had been planning to make it an early night but I got tempted by emblems and loot. :-) We did fairly well and I picked up the Three Sixty Pain Spike (10 player) achievement. We got all the way to the twins then had to call it a night. I didn't get any loot :-( but I got more emblems, which I sorely need.

There was one annoying player in the group. He was probably in his teens and he played a warlock. Every single time Incinerate Flesh was on him, he cried out in panic. I got so tired of it and finally told him, "We healers see it, no need to yell it out." Then the raid leader said, "Yes, {warlock}, we don't bring blind healers to our raids." That made me chuckle.

Onyxia 25 (Priest)
Last night was the beginning of our raiding week. We started with a quick Onyxia run. I got the head, which I traded for the Polished Dragonslayer's Signet. It was only a marginal upgrade, but it's still cool to have it. I also got the More Dots! (25 player) achievement. Such a change from the Onyxia runs from the weekend.

ToC 25 Heroic (Priest)
Next, we went to ToC 25 Heroic and had a blast! Last week I only listened in on Vent while they were attempting it. They kept failing on Icehowl. This week I was right there with them, and I'm proud to say we got down the Northrend Beasts! Yay! I was there to experience the guild's progression!

Then, the icing on the cake was getting down Lord Jaraxxus after 8 attempts. Woo hoo! More progression! I tell ya, Incinerate Flesh is so much more deadly in heroic. Yikes! It was the cause of a few of the wipes, despite us healers going wild on the healing.

Motivation point: I need more haste!!! Had I been able to heal faster, I would have been able to heal more of the Incinerate Flesh and possibly avoid a wipe or two.

We gave a couple attempts on Faction Champions, but couldn't get them. We'll try again on Thursday night. I suspect it will take a while for us to get past them. Something encouraging to note: The raid leader from my old guild is constantly whispering me to brag about his new loot. We're now in a healthy competition to see whose guild can progress faster. It's encouraging to know that they're as far as we are in ToC 25 Heroic. They're stuck on Champions. I hope we get them down first!!!

Onyxia 10 (Priest)
After the raid, my 10-man group gathered to do a quick Onyxia run. No loot, but I did emblems, so it was well worth it!

Equipment
It seemed that my chances of getting a Trophy of the Crusade were pretty high, since none of the senior members of the guild need them anymore. So, I held off buying a tier item with my accumulated emblems in hopes of grabbing one last night. But, luck was not on my side. So, after the raid, I splurged and bought Velen's Gloves of Conquest. They raised my haste and my spellpower up, which is good. I took a slight hit to mana regen, but I think I can handle it.

Upcoming Stuff
Tonight my priest's 10-man team is doing our weekly stuff. Since we did Ony last night, we'll likely do VoA and ToC tonight. Maybe we'll even try ToC heroic? I want badges badges badges! :-)

November 16, 2009

2009-11-16T09:58:00.004-05:00

Playing with the Big Boys Now!
Let's see, since the last time I wrote, I wonder if anything big happened. Hmmm...well...maybe so. I got into one of the top guilds on my server! Woo hoo! Thanks to my lovely friend who was already in the guild, and to my incredible luck a month or so ago healing for a Heroic HoL pug (the guild leader's husband was the tank and was so impressed with my perfectly timed PoH on Loken that he asked me right there if I was interested in joining), I submitted my application and a week later I'm a member!

The process of joining them was interesting. First, it started the night before I actually submitted my app. They were running Naxx 25 with hopes of getting some achievements. My friend suggested I join them so they could see my mad skillz. :-) It was a lot of fun. It gave me an opportunity to get to know them a little while they watched my performance. I walked away with a couple new achievements: And They Would All Go Down Together and Subtraction. We stopped after the Horsemen because people had to go.

Late that night I submitted my app to the guild, which was going to be reviewed the following day at the officers' meeting.

On Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday I joined them on several runs. During Thursday's General Vezax hard mode attempt, I received an invite. I sadly said good bye to my old GM and happily switched to the new guild. (Note: That GM promptly left the server to join another on which friends of his have a good guild.) Woo hoo!

TOC 10 Regular (Priest)
Cleared

TOC 25 Regular (Priest)
Cleared

Onyxia 10 (Priest)
Cleared

TOC 25 Heroic (Priest)
Still having troubles with Northrend Beasts. We'll get it this week (or they will, if there's not a spot for me).

This weekend I spent a lot of time with them. We ran through Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep and Sunwell Plateau -- I'm glad I finally got to see the Kil'jaeden encounter. It wasn't too hard for us, but I remember reading about how it was the guild killer when it was first introduced.

They are a really fun guild. I'm so glad I joined them. They complained about low attendance this past week, so I'm a little fearful that they might be heading for trouble. But, I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best. They're good, friendly, efficient, skilled -- everything needed to get the job done.

Oh...and last night I got Call of the Crusade with them! Woo hoo!

Dora the Explorer
OK, so Dora is not my toon's name. But she's still an Explorer. Yep, I got the title on her yesterday afternoon. Yay! The final spot was The Bleeding Ziggurat in Ghostlands. Why the sudden interest in getting that title? The new guild. Since I'm still a low rank, I'm not guaranteed a spot in raids. I have to be online waiting for an invite. So, to pass the time, I started exploring. Then it became an obsession this weekend. It was really easy with Cartographer lighting up the areas I hadn't explored yet. Now I have two titles! LOL I shouldn't say that out loud to my new guildmates, who all have multiple raid-related titles.

Now onto my other toons:

Ulduar 25 (Mage's guild)
On Friday my mage's guild went to Ulduar 25 as a multi-guild event. Fail fail fail. We wiped a few times on Flame Leviathan before finally getting him down. We tried Deconstructor once or twice -- no dice. Then we wiped a few times on Razorscale. Ugh! Meanwhile, tensions were rising high. Multi guild events are so difficult because people don't know each other and are quick to accuse the other guilds of messing up. /sigh Well, at least my mage got the Leviathan Fueling Manual. So the trip wasn't a complete waste.

Ulduar 10 (Mage's guild)
On Saturday we decided to go to Ulduar 10 as a guild run. As expected, not enough guildies showed up to fill it out, so we got in 4 or 5 non-guildies in. One was from a guild we've run with several times. He ended up raid leading for us. It was a good, easy going, fun night. Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, Deconstructor and Kologarn are all dead because of us. We're seriously considering extending the raid lockout so we can just move on. We're tired of starting from the beginning each week.

Onyxia 25 (PUG)
Last night I tried to PUG Onyxia 25 on my priest. I joined a group that was being organized by members of a guild I know through my mage's guild. I had high hopes. But, I saw the writing on the wall when the raid leaders were insisting on high gear scores but they themselves were barely over 4k. Yes, I know that gear scores are not an indication of skill. However, they do give an idea of the potential of success. You get too many undergeared people and it's just going to fail, no matter how skilled they are. After four ugly wipes (on all of which I am glad to report that I didn't "fail" according to the fail-reporting addon someone was using), I dropped out. It was late for me anyway.

Onyxia 10 (w/guild #2)
Guild #2 (wow! It's been a long time since I've mentioned them) invited me to Onyxia 10 on my mage. (I had already done it on my priest with her new guild.) Another utter failure. The guild leader insisted on tanking with his DK, even though he's DPS specced. I didn't balk at the idea since my old guild's raid leader could handle the whelps by himself in his DK's DPS spec. But, then again, he's extremely geared and skilled. This DK? Not so much.

I really don't understand why people do that. I remember guild #1's guild leader would do that (and still does). He ignores the fact that the game is based on optimizing gear and specs. In other words, DPS specs cannot tank effectively, DPS specs cannot heal effectively, etc. Or someone in a tank spec but wearing DPS gear cannot tank effectively. You want to tank? Choose the right talents and wear the right gear. You want to heal? Choose the right talents and wear the right gear. Of course, as pointed out above, in some situations some very skilled players with the right spec and gear can cross roles. But, that's not common.

So...why try it? Why put a raid run at risk of failure by not being honest with yourself about what your current spec+gear means? It would be like me trying to tank or heal on druid, wearing all of her moonkin gear. Possible? Yes. Likelihood of failure? High.

Needless to say, that run failed.

Hit Rating Notes

2009-11-15T09:24:00.002-05:00

These are just notes for me regarding my target hit ratings.

Mage: 289
Druid: 263 (remember to cast improved faerie fire!)
Priest: 263

None of these takes into account bonuses from other toons in the raid (like Heroic Presence from Draenei), but that's OK. I'd rather first shoot for the safest number.

Note: All of them require zero (0) hit for heroics. They have enough with talents.

Level Check & Goal Check

2009-11-05T17:51:00.003-05:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance/Feral	80 (+7)
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	24
Priest	Holy/Shadow	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Enhancement	31
Warlock	Affliction PvP	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

Goals

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
✔ Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 544.85.

Shaman
If I level her at all, go resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

In October I focused mainly on my Druid. I got her to 80 then caught the PvP bug on my Warlock. So, when not raiding on my priest, I've been switching back and forth between the two of them.

In the coming month I hope to get my priest into a good raiding guild, continue to gear my druid, and continue to progress in pvp with my warlock. I'm not currently motivated to play the other toons.

November 5, 2009

2009-11-05T17:34:00.002-05:00

Another One Bites the Dust
/sigh
I logged in this morning to find a message from my priest's gm saying that the guild was no more. The events of the past week have built up to this, unfortunately. The most poignant are:

Friday night: Raid leader gets totally disgusted when we are short 5 people for our 25-man. (27 had signed up). He cancels the raid. This infuriates a number of people...they feel he's punishing the people who showed up, not those who neglected to show. Several people left the guild as a result.
Saturday night: The guild master lead a ToC 10-man. He was completely drunk out of his mind, barely able to speak coherently. The group couldn't get past the first set of encounters. Several more people left as a result.
Sunday night: The raid leader left the guild "to join one with a raiding schedule that worked better for him". Several more people left as a result.

I wasn't on for the early part of this week, so I have no idea if anything else significant happened Monday through Wednesday. But, when I logged in this morning I saw that only 20 members were left in what was previously a 120+ member guild.

It was fun while it lasted. The golden days for me were back in August when I first joined. The guild was active and the core team really clicked. We got all the way to the last boss in Ulduar. And then in September we got ToC 10 on farm. My honest assessment as to what happened: the raid leader ruined the guild. His caustic attitude turned off the original core members. He did attract many recruits but they didn't click with the core group. Most of the core group left because they couldn't tolerate the raid leader. Then we were left with a group that lacked cohesion.

Oh well. The game is fluid. On to the next chapter.

What to do? What to do?

I really do love the people in my mage guild. But, I don't want to put my priest into it. She's my main raiding toon. I want her to be in a bigger guild with the possibility of seeing content. My mage's guild is smaller and will progress in time. I'm glad to continue to run with them on her.

With that said, where do I go? What guild do I apply to? Decisions decisions.

October 30, 2009

2009-10-30T11:14:00.006-04:00

The last couple days I've played my PvE toons mostly, with a BG here and there on my warlock. Nothing earth shattering has happened, but I've still had some fun.

Moonkin Rep/Equipment Grind
It's funny how easily I can forget things. My priest was my first 80 ages ago. I vaguely remember doing the Hodir dailies religiously until I got the good shoulder enchant. I remember doing heroics upon heroics to get exalted with all the necessary factions. I remember running Naxx, OS and VoA over and over to get better gear. It was all so fresh, fun and exciting back then.

My second 80 was my mage. She's a scribe (inscription profession), so she can make her own shoulder enchants. Which means I've never done Hodir dailies on her. I think those giants still hate her. Other than Kirin Tor, I haven't focused on any faction's rep. Yeah, I've worn the tabards in heroics, but with no goal of getting their gear. I went right into Naxx with her and geared her up quickly. No need for that extra stuff.

My third 80 was my warlock. No focus at all on rep or gear. He has been and always will be my little work horse bank toon -- with some BG fun peppered in when I'm in the mood.

I'm now on my fourth 80 -- my Moonkin. I could have chosen to keep her as my flask making machine. But, some of my fellow guildmates just hit 80 on alts also. So, there's this renewed interest all around me in doing the whole rep/equipment grind on them. Being caught up in the wave of excitement, I opened the Hodir dailies last night. And so begins the grind. Ugh!

OK...so a few things have changed since I went through this on my priest.

ToC is now available for quick easy epics. Gone is the need to run Naxx and OS. It takes much of the pain out of the grind. But, it's kinda sad. I like Naxx and was looking forward to seeing how my moonkin did in there. PuGs will be hard to find. Perhaps we'll go in as a guild at some point, if we can get enough people interested. But, I'm skeptical about that.
Relics of Ulduar are no longer soulbound. So, my other toons can send them to my druid for easy Hodir rep turn ins.
The heroic daily now offers rep for Sons of Hodir as a reward.
People have incentive to run daily heroics because of the Emblems of Triumph.
People have little incentive to run non-daily heroics because of ToC. Yeah, I know this seems to contradict #4, but it actually makes sense. For most people on my server, the only heroic they run each day is the daily. That means it's very difficult to find people to run the other heroic dungeons.
Many people have maxed out professions, so it's easier and cheaper now to buy (the mats for) crafted epics.
It's difficult to find guides for pre-Naxx gear. (more about this below).

So, I guess I need to do this smartly. Instead of randomly wearing a tabard and grinding away, I should make some concrete goals. I did that with my priest. I had a list of all the Holy Priest pre-Naxx gear and where to get it. I methodically got most of it. I haven't done that since then with her. Since I only run Ulduar and ToC with her now, I just take what drops come. I honestly have no idea what drops are out there for me.

But on my druid, I don't have that luxury. I need to plan a little better. The problem is, I'm hard pressed to find a site that lists the pre-Naxx gear for moonkins. What I find now are all ToC 10 and Ulduar based lists. I'm sure if I look harder I'll find one. But, I do hate that what was once so easy is no a pain in the rear. Yeah, go ahead, say "cry me a river". I can take it. :-)

October 28, 2009

2009-10-28T10:12:00.003-04:00

Battlegrounds and My Warlock
Well...I found what I want to do with my warlock: Battlegrounds! In my last post I mentioned stepping into BGs to get the Hallowed title on my priest. Well, since then I've been spending most of my time in BGs on my warlock.

It all started when I had the hankering to do a BG, but I didn't want to log in with any of my known toons. So, I pulled out my poor neglected warlock and gave The Strand of Ancients a whirl. I've been having a great time in there ever since. I've tried every BG, but at this point SoA is my favorite.

I queued for the Wintergrasp battle for the first time last night. Woah! What a totally different experience! I hadn't read up on it, so I had no idea what I was doing. People started sharing quests (which later gave a ton of Honor Points!) and storming the keep. I just followed the biggest crowd...and boy am I glad I did. There is definitely safety in numbers.

I watched what others were doing and did the same thing. I attacked turrets and approaching enemy vehicles. Occasionally an enemy was near so I attacked them. I lasted several minutes into the fight without dying. So unlike Strand of Ancients. :)

Then, after the outer wall was breached, I just stood there and Tabbed and Dotted, Tabbed and Dotted. No one even paid attention to me. The HK rolled right on in and I just kept dotting everything in sight. I died once while standing there. I suppose I was the recipient of other peoples' tab/dot routine because there were no melee near me and I didn't see any spells, bullets or arrows come at me.

Then, the battle was over and we won. I turned in the quests, earning a lot more honor. I'm now at 29k. That was quite a jump after just one battle. Too bad it doesn't happen more often! :-)

Like my monthly Level Check, I thought I'd put some notes down about my initial thoughts about BGs and PvP. It'll be interesting to look back in a few months to see how much has changed.

I will never be good at pure PvP. I prefer predictability and order. Plus, I'll never have the gear or the experience that the other players have. Raiding is more my style.
I never expect to try out Arenas. That's pure PvP. I have no interest in putting myself through that stressful torture. :)
I like (some) BGs because you don't necessarily have to PvP in them.
Strand of Ancients, for example, is all about bashing down the gates and capturing the graveyards (or defending both) before the timer runs out. I've found myself drawn to that BG because, as an undergeared and inexperienced clothie, I can contribute quite a bit to the success of my team by getting in those tanks or in the cannons defending the gates.
I don't like rogues or death knights. :-( They murder me in two seconds flat.
I've learned to strategically place my Demonic Circle out of sight so I can pop to it if things get hairy. Like in Strand of Ancients, when defending the final gate, I can put it around the corner at the bottom of the steps. If I get swarmed, I click on the Teleport button repeatedly. If I'm lucky, it goes off before I'm dead and I am safe for a few moments.
I don't like rogues or death knights.
BGs are a perfect way of playing my warlock while staying anonymous. I stopped playing him regularly because my desire to stay anonymous on him makes it tough to find groups. I could sit for hours in LFG without getting a single invite. With BGs, I don't have to worry about that.

Below are some things I don't understand about PvP. If anyone reads this, please don't ridicule me for not knowing what are probably the most basic things about PvP. I realize all of these questions are probably answered on a gazillion sites on the Internet. Maybe next time I check in about my PvP/BG progress I will have found the answers to all of them.

How do you actually earn an HK? At first I thought you had to either damage an enemy that eventually dies or heal an ally that eventually kills an enemy. But, on my warlock I'm getting HK notices all the time, even when I am not damaging anyone. Maybe it's a proximity thing? Maybe if I'm close to the death of an enemy, I get HK for it? Or maybe it's a combination of the two. If I damage an enemy and then he eventually dies, I get HK for it, even if I'm no where near him when he dies.? And I get HK for the death of an enemy that I am near even if I haven't damaged him in any way? Could that be it?
What do the various HK notices mean? I see HK: Private, HK: Scout, HK Legoionnaire, etc. What does all that mean? My initial guess is that it relates to the pvp level of the enemy that has died. What I mean by that is that if someone is completely new to BGs and has no PvP gear at all (like me), when an enemy kills him he gets HK Scout (or something low-sounding). But if he kills someone who is fully decked out with PvP gear and has a ton of lifetime kills under his belts, he gest HK Legionnaire (or something high-sounding). (Already got my answer. These are carry overs from an old system of ranking. They used to mean something but they don't anymore. Blizzard has simply not removed the rank identification from the message.)
Are all enemies worth the same amoung of honor? This is sort of a follow up to question #2. If my guess about the different types of HK notices is correct, does that mean I earn more honor for HK Legionnaire than I do for HK Scout? (Already got my answer. All enemies are worth the same amount of honor.)
Are any BGs known for being better sources of Honor than others? I thought I was doing well having earned about 7k honor after a few hours of back to back BGs on Monday evening. Then I went to Stormwind to find out what I could buy, only to find out that I was less than 1/5th of the way to one item. Now, I'm not expecting to be fully PvP geared after only a few hours. So, don't misunderstand my concern. It's just that I'd like to maximize the limited amount of time I have. I played in SoA all weekend because it was its holiday. I assume that means you get more honor that way. (I better check that out.) But, in general, is there any BG that is best for honor grinding?
Is Stormwind really the only place to spend honor points? As far as I can tell, that's the only option. And, if that's the case, the pickings are pretty slim. With raiding, people don't all end up with the same gear, necessarily. Sure, there are the tier items, but most people end up with whatever they're lucky enough to win the roll for. The variety is fairly large. But, with PVP, if the only things you can buy with honor are the items at the vendors in Stormwind, everyone ends up with the same equipment on. Or am I missing something?
Are the marks from BGs like SoA good for anything? I can't find a vendor that takes them. And Wowhead doesn't list any. The Wintegrasp marks are currency for items at the WG vendor, along with Stone Keeper's Shards.
Is there any behavior in BGs that is unacceptable? I know that going AFK is a reportable offense. But, what about things like camping a graveyard and slaughtering people as they get resurrected? Is it basically "all's fair in war"? I nearly quit a BG the other day because I couldn't do anything or earn any HK because I kept getting killed as soon as I resurrected. Although it was incredibly annoying to me, I suspect it's acceptable behavior. It might be seen as a valid tactic.

I'm sure I have other questions, but those are the most pressing. I have no idea how long I'll enjoy BGs. But, for now I'm having a great time.

October 26, 2009

2009-10-26T10:53:00.009-04:00

After taking time away from the game the previous week, I returned with a vengeance at the end of this past one. I had Thursday and Friday off of work, and I spent much of the free time in WoW. Lots of stuff to report. The first of which is very exciting:

Hallowed Be Thy Name - Woo hoo! My first title! As I've expressed before, I usually don't get caught up in hype about anything. In fact, I actively avoid it. Seasonal events in WoW are no exception. My first reaction to them is annoyance -- they're an interruption to my normal routine. Plus, they're a time sink. Bah humbug!

Putting aside all thoughts of time sinks and annoyances, I told myself that I wouldn't have been doing anything else at that time anyway. So, early the first morning I ate my breakfast and had a cup of coffee and went out to get that Hallowed title. It took me nearly the entire day to do so. There were many many candy buckets to visit in the old world. Luckily, I had visited all of the necessary Outland buckets last year. I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken if I had to do those too.

I got many of the achievements last year. Those I had left to complete this year were:

G.N.E.R.D. Rage
The Masquerade - last year I did all but Leper Gnome, Skeleton and Pirate
Tricks and Treats of Azeroth - as mentioned above, I had the entire old world still to do
Rotten Hollow - This was the one on which I got the title!

I have to say, once I got into it, I had a lot of fun. There was an adrenaline rush as I got closer and closer to finishing each achievement. And the title was the best of all. At one point I thought I'd never get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage one, but my luck suddenly changed and bam! Another one down. (more about the PVP experience below)

I am very happy, excited and proud to have earned a title. Yeah, I know it's not as noteworthy as it would have been had I gotten it last year. But that doesn't matter to me. I don't care if it took me two Hallow's End seasons to get it. I got it! That's the important thing. :-)

PVP and Me
In order to get the Hallowed title, I had to venture into PVP. It was quite an interesting experience for me. The only other time I had gone into a battleground was right before the WotLK expansion. My mage was still frost and I was bored. I ran a couple Arathi Basins and walked away uninterested. I really don't like PVP. It's just not my thing. But, this time around it was interesting.

Priest -- The first time in I went on my priest as shadow, expecting to dot everyone in sight and get honor points as they died. I was murdered almost instantly every time the enemy got near. Even though I was hiding in crowds, my shadow form must have been why they picked me out of the crowd. That's why I began to panic, thinking I wasn't going to stay alive long enoug to get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement.

But then I changed tactics. I switched back to Holy and healed my way through. That changed the experience completely. The "HK" broadcast started appearing all over the place and I had that achievement in no time. Healing in BGs rocks! lol I also got a few more achievements: Damage Control, 100 Honorable Kills, That Takes Class, The Grim Reaper, Know Thy Enemy Alterac Valley Victory, Everything Counts, Take a Chill Pill, Isle of Conquest Victory and Dinner Impossible. Phew! That's a lot of achievements. And the only one I actually purposefully got was the Dinner Impossible one. I'm so glad I had those feasts sitting around in my inventory still. :)

Druid -- Realizing how easy it was to get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement, I went back to the BGs with my druid this time. I switched to Resto and was prepared to count the HKs. Lesson number 1: If you're a tree, you're a target. After a few deaths and wasted candies, I decided to heal without switching to tree form. That did the trick. I still got killed many times, but I earned a lot of Honor points and the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement. (Though I don't have the patience to do all of the Hallowed achievements.) Like my priest, she earned That Takes Class, Know Thy Enemy and 100 Honorable Kills. She also got a few others: Strand of the Ancients Victory, Ancient Protector and Drop it Now.

Shaman -- Just for the heck of it, I went to a BG with my shaman. That was a waste of time. :-\ She's 31, making her pretty much the bottom of her bracket. And, I really don't know how to play her well since I rarely do so. Needless to say, I didn't even get the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement.

So...all in all, my PVP experience was interesting. Healing is very easy to do, especially on my well geared priest. I probably won't go back in there with my priest though since there is no equipment that I am interested in working towards. But, I might go back on my Druid. It seems pretty easy to get gear with PVP, especially since I get honor easily as a healer.

I do have to say, I wonder if people have addons that allow them to see which enemies have the lowest PVP rating or gear because I was quickly targeted every time I got near enemies. Even when I was in a crowd. Hmm...PVP will probably never be my thing, but at least I'm not afraid of it any more.

ToC 25
We tried to do ToC 25 on Friday night. We couldn't get past the Northrend Beasts. Then, we went back on Saturday night -- one shotted the Northrend Beasts and made it all the way to Anub'arak. We got overwhelmed by adds each time we attempted it. We finally called it without bringing him down. Oh well...at least we got a lot further than the previous night. I also got a new robe in there: Flowing Vestments of Ascent. I realized my Spirit is way too high -- imagine that, a Priest complaining about too much Spirit. lol So, I re-enchanted and re-gemmed a few things.

ToC 10 Heroic (Trial of the Grand Crusader 10)
Last night we tried ToC 10 Heroic on 10-man progression run. Most of the guys in the run were not the normal progression team. I'm not sure if we're ever going to have that team again. (Things change so quickly in WoW.) The guys last night were new to the guild -- they had transferred from the Horde side. They had good gear and were very well versed in the fights. I am elated to say that we one shotted the Northrend Beasts! Woo hoo!!! We couldn't get past Jaraxxus though. Oh well, next time.

One odd thing to note. One of the new guys asked me if I used a voice changer. At first I didn't even understand the question. Then when I realized what he was implying, he said my voice sounded just like someone's they used to run with. Strange, eh? I'm not sure what to make of the whole thing.

Hallow's End Stuff
Let's see, in addition to getting the Hallowed title on my priest, I did several Headless Horseman runs with my mage guild. I got a couple of the rings for my druid: Wicked Witch's Band and The Horseman's Seal. Otherwise, the drops were too low quality for my mage and priest. They all got brooms, though. They're always fun to ride around on. :-)

That's about it, I suppose. A lot of fun in one week!

October 19, 2009

2009-10-19T15:49:00.004-04:00

I didn't play a whole heck of a lot this weekend. My husband worked both days at ComicCon, which you would think would make for the perfect opportunity for me to get lost in the game. But, instead, I spent the majority of the time doing other things. I'm in one of those down-swings, where I'm avoiding logging in because of pressure to do things.

I'm not feeling inspired to raid, so I don't log on with my priest. And since my priest's guild knows my mage alt, I can't log in with her either. And, if I log in with my druid, my guildies will ask me to log on with my mage so we can raid and/or do the Hallow's End stuff. Vicious cycle. I really don't feel like playing my other alts, so I end up not playing at all.

Time away from the game is good.

But, I didn't go completely without playing.

Trial of the Crusader (25-man)
On Friday I went to ToC 25 with my priest's guild. We only wiped a couple times on the first two encounters. I got a nice new cloak which apparently is a BiS item. Woo hoo!

As expected, though, we had a hard time with the Champions encounter. We wiped numerous times and several people left. We finally called it. The officers had a meeting right afterward. I suspect they're angry at the number of people who bailed after a couple wipes. They called a guild meeting for the following day, which I didn't attend. (Another thing I felt I was obligated to do, so I didn't.)

Druid Leveling
On Saturday the only thing I did was level my druid for an hour and a half late at night. I told my guildmates that I was hiding from my other guild. I got her to lvl 79. I really wanted to get her to 80 this weekend. But, since Sunday was the beginning of Hallow's End, I knew I couldn't play her that day without my guildies asking me to switch to my mage.

Trial of the Champion (Regular)
After spending all of Sunday avoiding the game, I finally logged in late with my Warlock to do some dailies. Since no one knows who I am on my warlock, it's safe. (I'm so glad I've avoided revealing my identity on him...I have been tempted a few times, but days like yesterday are good reminders of how valuable it is to be anonymous on him.)

I hadn't even finished my dailies when I was invited to join a ToC regular group. I ran it twice with a group for which I was the top DPS. Surprising since I stopped gearing that toon soon after hitting 80 -- his gear score is in the low 3000s. Then that group split up and I joined another one. The druid tank in the second group was from the top guild on our server and his gear score was 5200+. Drool! Needless to say, I was the lowest DPS in that group. On that run, when I contributed the least, I won a wrist item! I feel kinda guilty, because he's really just my bank alt -- I never intend on gearing him much. But, not too guilty, since I was the only clothie in the group.

Horde Alt
Out of boredom, I switched to my horde server and did a couple things.

First, since I hadn't been on that server in so long, my lvl 26 BE Pally was still mount-less. So, i logged in with him and purchased the mount spell. I ran around a little in Silvermoon City, enjoying the speed.

Then I switched to my lvl 9 Orc Hunter. I decided I'd finally get him to lvl 10 so he could tame an animal. Just as I was going to go out and get some XP, I got caught up in the "put out the fires" event. When that was over and I got an achievement under my belt, I ran off to finish some quests. About a half hour later I was lvl 10 and had a tamed pet. I logged after that.

Miscellaneous
So, that's it. To some it might sound like a lot. But, considering how much I usually play, that was very minimal. We'll see if I play during the week. On the one hand, the break might do me good. It will also make my story for my disappearance more believable (like when one calls in a couple sick days in a row so it's more believable). But, I do know I'll be disappointed if I skip playing through the entirety of Hallow's End.

The torture I put myself through sometimes when I'm avoiding just doing whatever I want to do instead of what people expect me to.

Questing after 80?

2009-10-12T17:33:00.003-04:00

Here's a random thought I had today. I wonder how many people continue to quest after hitting 80? I'll qualify the question by excluding quests that give rep for factions like Sons of Hodir.

(I apologize in advance to anyone reading this. This is going to be a stream of consciousness type of post. I'm not going to go back to organize it for clarity.)

This is coming up because, even though I haven't done a normal quest on them in months, my priest's and mage's bags still have many quest items in them. I got the necessary reputation a long time ago by doing dailies and running dungeons with a tabard on. Now all I do on them is dailies and raids.

Meanwhile, their quest logs are almost full, with only enough open spots for three dailies.

Will I ever go back and do those quests? When I consider doing so, I decide instead to switch to my druid. My thought is that, if I'm gonna do quests, I might as well get XP for doing them.

I realize some people might continue to quest after reaching all their rep goals because of the extra money in lieu of xp. But, money is really not an issue for me. Unless we wipe incessantly, when I raid I usually come out in the green for the day, not the red. Ah...I suppose plate wearers might have a different experience. I know they get hit with bigger repair bills than we clothies do. I can see how they might need to quest to offset the cost.

But...do they do dailies? Or do they continue to plod through all the undone non-daily quests?

Let's see, there are probably some pretty obvious reasons someone might continue to do quests.

Rep grind (finished on my toons)
Raise cash, beyond what can be raised by just doing dailies. (I make enough with dailies and raiding)
Follow the story lines (I care nothing about the story line -- quests are a means to an end for me, not a way to immerse myself in the story)
Achievements (if I ever get the Achievement bug, I might go back and do quests)
Get quest reward items (all my gear is better than what can be gotten through quests)
Experience fun/creative quests (I will admit that some of the quests are priceless. I might be missing out on entertainment by skipping some)

OK...so I can see why others might continue to quest after 80. But, I doubt I will do so any time soon.

So...should I just drop all those quests to get rid of the quest items and free up the bag space? As I gather more and more Soulbound items that I keep for either sentimental reasons or possible use in the future...or even carrying a bag full of items for my dual spec...I'm running out of space. Yes, I can use a bank alt, and I do. But, honestly, do I really need to carry around all these quest items for months on end with no real intention of ever finishing the quests?

Yeah I know...my life is so difficult. :-D

October 12, 2009

2009-10-12T10:15:00.005-04:00

Another fun weekend...spent almost entirely in WoW -- our apartment's state of cleanliness makes that apparent. :-)

Independent Woman!
I've been humming the Destiny's Child song Independent Woman the last few days. Why? No...I'm not getting a divorce. Sheesh! :-) It's because I'm finally able to rely solely on my toons for my enchants, gems, flasks etc. Let's review:

Druid gathers flowers (Herbalism) and makes flasks (Alchemy - Elixir Mastery). Distributes them to alts. She also transmutes stones into the new raw epic stones and sends them to the priest for gem cutting.
Mage DEs all items (Enchanting) and makes vellum (Inscription). Then makes scrolls for enchants for alts.
Priest cuts gems (Jewelcrafting) for her alt sisters. She also mines ore (Mining), prospects it and send it to her druid sister for transmuting.
Warlock made bags (Tailor) for all his sisters. He just flies around on his carpet waiting for more bag-making needs.

I think that covers the items I've routinely spent money on. No more purchasing flasks -- Moonkin girl can make them. No more purchasing raw epic gems -- Priest and Mage ladies can use their Conquest badges to purchase them or have Moonkin transmute them.

Thank goodness I don't like Plate wearing classes. I'd have to level Blacksmithing. (Though my Pally is a blacksmith, so I'll be ready to do so if I ever decide to play her.) My druid might like some of the crafted leather gear, but I might be able to rely soley on drops. I don't plan on fully maximizing her gear. I just intend to use her for alchemy.

I'm an independent woman! Now I can make money on the AH selling flasks, not spend it. Woo hoo!

Raiding
This past weekend had highs and lows when it came to raids. Let's start with the high:

On Friday night we went to Ulduar 25 and got some achievements: The Antechamber of Ulduar (25 player) and I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir (25 player). The most exciting part of it was getting down Iron Council. We had already done the other two Antechamber bosses on previous runs. This was definitely a milestone. We ended Friday night on a high...very happy with our progress and our performance as a group.

Saturday night was a different story completely. Several of the people from Friday night's run were not on. So, we filled in with some guildies with less experience and some PuGs. Also, our two regular raid leaders weren't on so another officer took over. She did her best, but she didn't know the fights as well as the actual raid leaders. So, it took longer than normal to explain and set up each fight.

Anyway, to say the night was a disaster is an understatement. Friday night we were already gimped because a few of the core players weren't on. But we still made progress. The extra gimpness (new word) on Saturday night was our undoing. We couldn't get Hodir down. We couldn't get Thorim down. Though to be perfectly fair, we only tried Thorim once. After that wipe, people started leaving. I'm sure some of them had to leave because it was very late. But others probably left out of discouragement. I'm annoyed by those in the latter group. We're a guild focusing on progression. That means we have to try and try again until we get it right. Some people are impatient though. They want instant success and give up if they don't achieve it. Oh well...in time we'll weed out those who are only with us for instant gratification.

Last night we went to Ulduar 10 for our core progression. Unfortunately, a few of the core team were still not on, so we had to fill spots with non-core guildies. We did well though. I got these achievements: Nerf Engineering (10 Player) and Nuked from Orbit (10 Player). I think others in the group got a few more that I already had. I've now completed 23 of the possible 63 achievements in 10-man Ulduar. Pretty fun!

Druid Leveling
My druid is now at lvl 76. I dropped the 5k to get her fast flying yesterday. Since she's going to be mostly dedicated to herb collecting and alchemy, it made sense. I'm hoping to earn that money back in short order either by selling flasks on the AH or at least by not buying any. Flasks were a huge weekly expense for me.

Nothing big to report about her. Did a couple instances, but still mostly herb collecting and doing quests.

Mage
I got new shoulders on my mage yesterday. I also got several gems for her using Conquest emblems to purchase Valor emblems to purchase Heroism emblems... So I should see a nice increase in her effectiveness. I didn't do anything exciting with her though, other than daily heroics.

I think that's it for what happened this weekend. Off to lunch!

Level Check

2009-10-09T11:31:00.004-04:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance	73 (+25)
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	24
Priest	Holy/Shadow	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Enhancement	31 (+2)
Warlock	Affliction	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

So this past month I clearly spent a lot of time on my Druid. The motivating factor was raising Alchemy to the point that I can (1) make Flasks of Frost Wyrm and (2) transmute the new epic gems. I've reached both goals. I'm sure I'll continue leveling her to 80, though, because I do want to get her into purples -- at lease ToC gear. Also, I'm seriously considering purchasing epic flying for her to make the gathering of herbs go more quickly. But we'll see.

I think the two levels on the Shaman were gained early in the month. I honestly can't remember the last time I played her, so it must have been the beginning of the month.

I thought I'd add in a goals section. I'm pasting in the goals I set for myself back in May of this year. Each time I do a Level Check I'll also track my progress with my goals:

Warlock
✔ Level him to 80.
✔ Get into at least one raid.
✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.
✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid
Level her to 80.
Get into at least one raid.
Dual spec her boomkin/resto.

Priest
✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)
Get turtle mount.
Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.

Hunter
Max out Engineering.

Paladin
Level her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

Warrior
I had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.

Mage
Hmmm...no goals, I suppose. Just continue getting better gear. Her current Imba score is: 393.41.

Shaman
If I level her at all, go resto at 80.

Death Knight
No real goal. Fun to play, but no real motivation to get to 80.

Rogue
No goals. I don't like playing him. I would say "get him to max leatherworking", but that would require me to level him.

October 9, 2009

2009-10-09T10:28:00.008-04:00

Last night I was all prepared to raid on my mage -- I was happily stocked up on all the Frost Wyrm flasks I had made on my druid. I had taken my Heroe's Frosftfire Shoulderpads out of the bank, since Rawr told me they would be better than the Mantle of Extensive Mind I was wearing. (More about Rawr below.) I was logged in a half hour early and sitting near the Ulduar summoning stone.

And nothing. The only other person ready to raid was my favorite Druid Healer/Tank. He and I stood next to the stone bemoaning the state of raiding affairs in our guild. We waited...waited...waited.

Then finally someone suggested we do the Heroic Daily...and off we went. Our eyes never looked toward Ulduar for the rest of the night.

Druid Leveling
After running the heroic on my mage, I switched to my druid to do some leveling and hunt down some herbs. I maxed out Alchemy! Woo hoo! Now I'm doing the Cardinal Ruby quest. Boy! These cooldowns on transmutes are annoying. I guess I understand that they're there to keep the economy from being flooded with transmuted items. But, to take 5 days to do this quest, ugh!

OK...I'll admit I think the transmute cooldown in general is a PITA. Screw the economy! I want to transmute my gems all at once! I have so many of them stocked up on my Priest. It's going to take forever to transmute them. Ah well...it's not like I'm going anywhere. :)

Some guildies ran me through DTK and VH last night. I was definitely too low for the instances -- even with +hit buff food I was missing a lot. But, I'm not complaining. I got some XP, a couple achievements, and a couple blue items to wear when I reach the right level.

Rawr - How Have I Lived So Long Without You?
So...I discovered Rawr last night. Actually, I had seen references to it on various sites for a while. But I assumed it was a spreadsheet or something -- honestly, I didn't think about it much at all. Then, WoWInsider mentioned it in a column yesterday so I clicked on the link.

It's this great application that downloads the information for you toon (spec, gear, etc.) and allows you to experiment with different equipment, gems, enchants, buffs, etc. to see how they affect your dps, hps, or whatever.

One of the coolest options is the ability to "Optimize" your toon based on the equipment, gems and enchants you actually have available to you. It starts off knowing exactly what you have on. You can add the stuff that's in your bank or bags. Then click on Optimize...and about 30 seconds later you are presented with suggested changes. You can add specific goals too (e.g., a certain amount of mana regen, hit rating, etc.).

Like I said above, Rawr suggested I swap out the shoulders I was wearing on my mage -- supposedly the switch will increase my dps by around 300. I had placed the shoulders in the bank when I had 3 tier pieces on. The shoulders that I replaced it with increased my dps slightly without affecting the set bonus of the tier items. But, at some point, I swapped out another of the tier items, accepting the loss of the set bonus. But, it never dawned on me to consider putting the tier shoulders back on to retain the set bonus.

That's where Rawr comes in very handy. It helps you make gear choices that you might not consider or even see.

In the example of my shoulders, a comparison on wowhead of the two items would make me think that the Mantle of the Extensive Mind is better. It increases Int (3), Sta (3), MP5 (23), Haste (14), SP (9). The Heroe's shoulders increase Crit (48) and has a Yellow socket. For my simple mind, the former seems a better deal all around. But, after playing around with Rawr a little bit, I think I've figured out why the tier shoulders are better.

They have a socket -- and the new epic gems are more powerful than the previous ones.
48 Crit is nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps it's worth more than 14 Haste?
The set bonus must add DPS. That is something I am unable (unwilling, actually) to figure out. (Though I think this is less of a factor than the others, since it still recommends these shoulders even when wearing them without a set bonus.)

Of course, I'm not taking Rawr's word for it. I'm going to see how I perform with this and other changes it has suggested. The people on Elitist Jerks support/encourage the use of Rawr, so if they trust in it, I should not dismiss it.

Oh my gosh! Another thing to fuel my WoW obsession! Now I'll spend precious work hours playing with Rawr. :-)

October 7, 2009

2009-10-07T16:25:00.006-04:00

Onyxia 10
Late (very late!) last night, after what was supposed to be the final run of the day -- the daily heroic -- my raid leader asked me to heal Ony 10. Since it was well past my bedtime, I seriously considered declining. But, something told me this might be a successful run. I was right! After 3 wipes, and a couple juggling around of tanks, we got the brood mother down! I got three things out of the experience:

Achievement: Onyxia's Lair
Achievement: She Deep Breaths More
Head Piece: Circlet of Transcendence

The achievements were cool, but the head piece was the best thing of the night. It looks so cool. It resides behind the head (an effect I've wanted for ages) and looks like two horns coming out. I love it! The jury's out on whether or not it's actually better for me than the Tier piece I was wearing. It definitely raises my gear score, but I suspect I might have lost the set bonus by putting it on. I'll have to check it out again tonight when I get on.

Ulduar 10
I just recently got the Tier 8 Raid Chest piece on my mage. Since it's a tunic, it allows my pants to be seen. I love the look...away with the stodgy robes...and let me see those tight leather pants! Ok...so the pants are not leather in the game mechanics, but they sure look like they are. They remind me of when I was a DM for Neverwinter Nights and I customized my DM toons' clothing. I almost always made skin tight black pants for them. But I digress...

When I logged into my mage last night I noticed I had enough emblems of conquest to get another item. So, I got the Sash of Potent Incantations. I got a belt buckle from a guildie and put a quick +16 Int gem into it (might change that later). Then off to Ulduar I went.

I was amazed at the increase in my dps! I was hitting 4.2k. I had been topping out before in the high 3ks, so passing 4k was exciting. Woo hoo! I was riding high all night. And, even though we quit at Kologarn, I wasn't upset. :)

Druid Leveling
I leveled alchemy on my druid last night, after passing some mats from my bank alt -- all those extra gems from prospecting on my priest are finally paying off. I am now at 446 Alchemy and I'm FINALLY creating Flasks of Frost Wyrms for myself. To hell with all you people who have profited from me buying them off the AH. No more! hehehe I'm also very glad I chose Elixir Mastery. I "created" 5 flasks, but the procs on my mastery netted me 10! In AH prices, I just saved roughly 320 gold. Yay!

October 5, 2009

2009-10-05T15:55:00.002-04:00

Hmmm...lately it's been a week between each blog post. I wonder why. I guess partly because of how busy work has been lately. That definitely keeps me from writing. Dare I admit I only blog while at the office? I have better things to do when at home. :-)

Another reason has been my lack of time spent playing. Well, if you were to ask my husband, he would say I've been spending my usual amount of time playing. But, he's wrong. I've been playing less, he has just been sleeping more. Anyway...since I'm in a play downswing, my motivation to post has decreased as well.

With that said...

Guild
In my last post I recounted the brother-ruins-guild situation. Luckily we've bounced back. We don't have the items in the GB we used to have, but we have nearly all the members back.

I'm not sure where the guild is headed. I'm sensing that the raid leader has different ideas about what the guild stands for. He's really hard core about raiding and his default behavior is to criticize and ridicule people -- even before we've stepped foot into the instance. Some people might see this as a motivation tactic. I just find it annoying. I'm there to have fun, not to have some 18 year old egotistical bastard ridicule me for not moving out of Hologarn's eye beam quickly enough. Actually, luckily for me, I seem to be immune to his ridicule because I'm female, but that further annoys me.

Well, apparently, I'm not alone in this feeling. After a failed Onyxia run the other night, several of us were sitting around chatting on Vent about how things went down. I gathered from that conversation that some of the officers aren't too happy with the raid leader either. His is the type of personality that they were trying to get away from when they created the guild. Although we're a progression guild, we don't claim to aspire to the greatness of [insert names of top 3-5 raiding guilds on any given server].

I like this guild a lot...especially the GM and the officers. And the raid leader -- he knows what he's talking about. I'm hoping that he tempers his caustic attitude. Otherwise, I might be looking for another guild.

Of course, it might not be possible to find a guild that doesn't have someone like him. We'll see...

Ulduar (25-man)
I don't know what was up. Last week we went to Ulduar and did quite well. This week we couldn't even get past Kologarn. Holy eye beam, Batman! Some of our core raiders weren't with us, which surely played a part. But, still...

That set the tone for the weekend.

Onyxia (25-man)
Fail. :-( Poor connections, poor coordination, unwillingness to keep going at it. All of these contributed to a bad run.

ToC (10-man)
Fail. I wasn't on when they attempted it. They got saved, so they must have at least gotten down the Northrend Beasts. All I know is that those who were in the group didn't want to talk about the experience.

Fail on ToC 10-man? But we have it on farm!!??

Ulduar (10-man) Progression
We failed on our first few (four?) attempts to down Flame Leviathan with 4 towers up. So we finally downed 2 towers and killed that darned machine. Then, of course, I've already said many times that I'm not a fan of fights where you have to get into vehicles and play a style that you didn't "sign up" to play. Give me my spells and abilities and i'm good to go. Make me sit on a dragon or in a vehicle and forget it.

We did KT Hard mode. That's easy compared to Flame Leviathan.

Kologarn went down in one shot.

We tried doing Iron Council on hard mode. I think we made three attempts. On each one we made a crucial mistake. It's encouraging though. We clearly can do it. It's just a matter of not making stupid mistakes. :-)

We ended the night after Hodir.

Druid Leveling
My druid is now lvl 72. I love being able to fly in Storm Peaks and gather herbs in flight form. I swear it feels like cheating!

September 29, 2009

2009-09-29T11:50:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was fun and drama filled. Drama first -- it's the most interesting.

Woah, Boy! Take a Chill Pill!
On Saturday night I went on a guild run to Ulduar. The raid leader's brother, who is in our guild, came on his hunter. Early in the run a trinket dropped and it was given to the brother. Later in the run a bow dropped, which apparently is 2nd best in slot. Well, the loot council decided to award it to another hunter in the group, who happened to be the wife of one of the officers.

I will point out here a few things of note, before going further.

I have faith that our loot council makes good decisions.
The husband of hunter #2 is an upstanding guy, so I have faith that he didn't push for the bow to be rewarded to his wife.
I suspect that the trinket was given to hunter #1, not because he wanted it, but because his brother just gave it to him.
I am not on the loot council so all of the previous points are based on observations, not hard cold facts.

As soon as hunter #2 got the bow, hunter #1 flipped a lid. He started screaming in Vent and also going off in Raid chat. He was furious, claiming that he was only there to get the bow and that he never wanted the trinket. The loot council folks explained to him that since he asked for the trinket and won it, he basically blew his chances for the bow. Had he truly only wanted the bow, he should have waited. He claimed over and over again that he never wanted the trinket. The raid leader insisted that he had whispered him indicating interest in the trinket.

The result of all of this was hunter #1 being kicked from the raid and the guild. Luckily, the raid went on further, so the outburst was not enough to derail it completely.

Then...later that night hunter #1 logged into his brother's (raid leader/loot master) account. He stole a bunch of stuff from the GB and kicked nearly every member of the guild out. Most of us members logged in on Sunday to find ourselves guildless. We got invited back in after whispering one of the officers.

Sheesh! All of that over a bow! Though I really think hunter #1 was right in complaining. I truly do suspect that the loot master gave him the trinket against his will since no one else wanted it and hunter #1 is his brother. Can you tell I don't fully trust the loot master? :-) I do trust the loot council as a whole. But when decisions are made by him alone, like this one where no one actually wanted the trinket, I wouldn't put it past him to favor his brother.

Druid Leveling
I got my druid to level 70. As I've indicated before, I'm really mostly interested in maxing Alchemy on her. Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I can't really advance much further without gaining a few more levels. I understand why Blizzard put level restrictions on professions...so a level 1 alt couldn't get max anything. But, it is frustrating nonetheless.

The cool thing is being able to fly in Northrend even at lvl 70. One of my 80 alts bought the book and mailed it to her. And voila! Cold weather flying at 68! Woo hoo! It's helping a lot with herb picking.

September 25, 2009

2009-09-25T12:10:00.002-04:00

Brewfest Spewfest

Exciting news! Brewfest is in town and I got not one, but TWO Great Brewfest Kodos. I got the first on my priest a few nights ago. Then I got one on my mage last night. I had seriously contemplated not rolling for it, since I already had one on my priest, but I decided what the heck? I was in the instance unwillingly -- I had been told we were doing the heroic daily and all I wanted was Triumph emblems -- but then I was suddenly summoned to BRD. So I figured I didn't have to be magnanimous when the mount dropped. And honestly, I didn't expect to win the darned thing.

Please, Universe, don't tell me by winning two Kodos in a row I've used up all my good luck for the near future. I beg of you!

Besides doing that daily, I haven't been doing much else related to Brewfest other than getting a Wolpertinger. When I've been in the Brewfest area the huge number of people there amazes me. I really don't understand why I don't get into these seasonal events like other people do. I look at them as annoying distractions from my overall goals. I recently posted about the frustration of having to choose only one toon at a time to play since I want to progress aspects of so many of them. Things like Brewfest make it even more difficult. Time spent doing Brewfest activities is time not spent furthering my goals. Ah well, that's the good thing about this game. There's so much to it that everyone can find the activities that appeal to them personally.

Oh and...I did get the Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart achievement when I got my Wolpertinger. So, at least that Brewfest activity gave me something I had been working towards.

I'm a Spoiled Brat Sometimes

An ugly side of me reared its head the other night. One that I'm not very proud of. Luckily, I kept myself in check and only had a momentary lapse of judgment. On Wednesday night I checked my calendar from work to see if any raids had been planned. Since the new Onyxia raid had been released as part of Tuesday's patch, I assumed my progression guild would try it out. But, nothing was on the calendar. So, I stayed later at work than usual, content in the knowledge that I wasn't missing anything exciting in WoW.

Well, when I finally did get home and logged in, the first thing I saw was that 8 of my guild members were in Onyxia's lair. It wasn't just a random 8. Most of them were from our core 10-man group. WTF??? I was so ticked off by that. Why were they doing a progression run without advanced planning? If they had been in there on alts, I wouldn't have been annoyed. But they weren't. They were on their progression mains. After a few minutes of total silence while I stared at the screen brooding, I saw the achievements start popping up. They downed the dragon. Grrrr...

I took a deep breath and congratulated them. Then, after giving ample time for them to distribute loot, I asked in Officer chat if that was a guild run or if there had been PuGs. The answer was that it was an ad-hoc run and, since there weren't enough guild members on at the time that they started the run, they pugged two spots. Of course I knew that there had been only 8 guildies in the run, but this confirmation pissed me off even more. Why had they gone at all?

I suddenly felt I understood my warlock friend's complaint about the guild before I joined it. He told me it was frustrating because they rarely invited him to runs and they seemed to do them all ad-hoc and within a small clique. My experience has been completely the opposite. Well, not completely. Almost immediately after joining the guild I was elevated to raider status and became a part of the core 10-man team. On a weekly basis I have received regular invites to our raids. My luck with getting in with the "in crowd" is surely because I'm a healer (and a darned good one at that!). My warlock friend was right and wrong. Right in that only a small group (core 10-man team, which he saw as a clique) was guaranteed raiding spots. Wrong because the raids were actually pre-scheduled, but he was not part of the core 10-man team, so he was just not getting invites.

The problem with all that was communication. The raid leader should have explained the raiding policies. Other guilds designate core teams and clearly explain what non-core members should expect. Unfortunately, our raid leader does not do that. So, for us core team members, it seems like an organized, well run raiding schedule. But for non-core members, they just don't understand what's going on. I've seen it on several occasions when we're in Ulduar or ToC10 and non-core members are lamenting in Guild Chat that they didn't know we were going. If the raid leader would only explain how we do things, these people would be less frustrated.

So...fast forward to Wednesday. I logged in and see that they're in Onyxia and there's no invite. Suddenly I felt like my Warlock friend. My first reaction was to get pissed and bitchy about it. I did that for a minute or so, prompting the raid leader to ask me to get into Vent so he could explain. His explanation made perfect sense...since we didn't know Onyxia was being released this week and the guild and raid leader would actually not be on for our regular raids this weekend, it seemed that, at least for this week, Onyxia was not going to be on our schedule. So everyone could do Onyxia with any group they wanted. And...that night's run was not organized by the raid leader. Instead, it was organized by another officer who does have the tendency to ignore the calendar and start arranging runs ad-hoc. Just this past week we were scheduled to go to Ulduar 25 and that officer was trying to convince people to do a Naxx Undying run at the same time.

So, the explanation made sense. And, when I calmed down I realized my true source of annoyance. It wasn't really that a run had been made ad-hoc. The honest truth is that I was upset because I felt like I was suddenly not part of the in-crowd. I like being special. In that guild I'm special. I'm part of the core raiding team. I'm the second best geared healer. I'm an officer. The guild master has said that I'm the only one he would trust assuming the GM role in his absence. I like all that attention. So, when I'm suddenly not so special, I get upset like a little child.

I hate when that happens.

Onyxia

So...onto lighter subjects. I went to Onyxia last night with my mage's guild. It was a fun, though unsuccessful, experience. I think we all knew going in that we weren't going to down her, so that made it not as stressful as it could have been. We got through the first phase easily. The second phase, though, was our doom each time. We did progressively better each attempt, which was encouraging. But, after 6 or 7 times, we called it. Not because we're not willing to keep trying, but because some people had to go. One thing is for sure, though, we didn't have much of a chance because of the gear level of several of the people who were there. One had just dinged 80 this week. Others were just not even Naxx geared yet. My mage isn't nearly as well geared as my priest, but I still topped the DPS chart with decent 4k+ and was one of the last to die on each attempt. So, I know I contributed respectably to the success of the raid.

Perhaps the geared team that goes for the "official" guild run this weekend will be more successful. I wish I could join them! But, I'll be raiding on my priest.

I think that's about it for now.

September 15, 2009

2009-09-15T12:31:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was a fun one. Memorable (to me) things I did were:

Paid for dual spec on my priest and started doing dailies in Shadow spec. Woah! The speed increase is amazing.
Helped my mage's guild finally bring down Hodir. Yipppeee!
Got my druid up to lvl 64 and raised her Alchemy up to the point of needing Northrend herbs.
Bought the leather heirloom chest piece for my druid, which has noticeably increased her xp rate. Can't believe I was too lazy to do so previously.
Cleared ToC 10 again.
Downed a few bosses in Ulduar 25.

All in all...very fun weekend.

So Many Options, So Little Time

2009-09-11T17:27:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking a lot recently about something that I experience all the time in the game -- the fact that you can only play one toon at a time. I know, it's nothing earth shattering. And, although it's possible to play more than one by dual boxing (or however it's called), you still can only focus on one thing at a time.

I'm an altoholic. Although I have two toons that are my "mains", I have several others that I like to play. This issue doesn't come up for me when I have things planned -- like raids, or emblem farm runs. But, when I have nothing planned, I often stare at the character selection screen and have a tough time deciding which to play.

Any time spent on any toon means no Emblem of Conquest / Triumph progress on any of the others. If I'm in an emblem farming mood, it's tough to decide which 80 will get my attention.

When I'm not in the mood to farm emblems, I consider playing alts. That brings its own set of options.

Do I gather herbs on my DK to raise my Druid's alchemy? Or do I just level my Druid so she can get her own herbs?

Do I gather ore on my Priest so my Pally can raise her Blacksmithing? Or do I just level my Pally and let her get her own ore?

Do I gather ore on my Priest in search of Titanium for prospecting? Or do I focus on leveling my druid's alchemy so she can just create the new gems through transmuting?

Do I fish on my Priest so I can have mats for Fish Feasts for this week's raiding?

Do I do dailies on my Priest or Warlock for cash and/or reputation grind?

Do I spend time on my bank alt, playing the AH for extra money?

The list goes on.

I know I'm stressing over what others might find inconsequential. But, for someone with altoholism, it's a big deal.

Since I have plans to do ToC10 tonight, I'm pretty safe. But, when I get home, I have to decide what to do before the raid. Emblem farm? Dailies for cash? Level an alt? Gather herbs for alchemy?

So many options...so little time!

September 11, 2009

2009-09-11T13:32:00.004-04:00

Last night I gained a level on my Druid -- 59 now. Flight form coming soon! I also did some research and found out that I was wrong in my thinking that I needed to choose a mastery in order to raise my alchemy further. I just need to make some more of the items that are yellow until I bump up to the next stage. It's unfortunate, though, that I'll probably get close to max level before reaching 68, when I'd get a mastery and start benefiting from the additional item procs. Oh well...I'll be making flasks for a while, so it won't be a total waste.

I also ran a couple heroics on my mage. Finally got enough emblems to buy the Legwraps of the Master Conjurer. I've gemmed them but have not had a chance to get some spellthread to enchant them.

Tonight I'll be going to ToC10 with my priest's guild. I haven't played her for much of the week -- hopefully the guys haven't forgotten about me. :-)

Oh...I can't remember if I mentioned this before. After last week's raids, one of the officers in my priest's guild asked me if I would be interested in becoming an officer. Uh oh! We know what that means. As soon as I get responsibility, I start to check out. Tread lightly, girl. You don't want to blow a good thing. He was just asking to see if I'd be interested...not offering it to me. So, I won't bring it up again.

I played my Pally yesterday for about 15 minutes. I wasn't too engaged in it...I really don't think melee is my cup o' tea. At least not at the moment.

Speaking of melee, I went on my DK to gather some herbs for my Druid. I had killed several mobs before realizing I had no talent points allocated. I can't remember when it was that talent points were reset. But I think it's hilarious that I could kill just fine without them. I only noticed I didn't have any talents when I couldn't find the spell to summon my pet ghoul. I left her in Netherstorm to collect Netherbloom. But, now I realize my druid doesn't need that herb anymore for her alchemy. I can move her back to Northrend to collect herbs there.

I finally reached out to my old guild leader friend to find out why he wasn't speaking with me. Turns out he's loquísimo. I think I'll keep things the way they are -- him not speaking with me. It's less drama that way.

September 9, 2009

2009-09-09T17:50:00.001-04:00

Last night I got home late form work and was stressed and exhausted. So, I only played my mage. I arrived in time for our scheduled 25-man OS run. Unfortunately, not enough people showed up so we changed it to a 10-man run with 1 drake up. We gave it 4 tries, but didn't even come close on any. So, we finally killed the drake and finished the instance. Oh well, it was fun trying.

Some of us ran a couple heroics afterward, then I logged.

Probably not going to play tonight because it's my anniversary -- 14 years! Woo hoo!

September 8, 2009

2009-09-08T16:08:00.004-04:00

I was on vacation part of last week and yesterday was Labor Day. So I had 6 days of potential play time. I would like to be able to say I played 6 days straight! But, the reality is that I would be in divorce court if that were the case. I did, however, play *as much as possible*.

So, what does one do when they have six days to play? Continue to gear up my main (priest), getting into 25-man groups? Focus on gearing up my mage, who is still in mostly ilvl 200 gear? Focus on leveling my alts?

How about a little bit of all of those?

Shaman Leveling
I played my Shaman a little bit my first day off. I had some errands to run and didn't want to get involved in a raid or heroic farming. So, I decided to "hide" on my Shaman and do some leveling. I only gained one level (30), followed up doing the Air totem quest.

Druid Leveling
This is where I, surprisingly, spent most of my time. It was the perfect mix of avoiding the monotony of running heroics and yet not being completely hidden from my friends. As noted in last week's level check, she was 48 when I started the weekend. I finished up some Tanaris quests, cleared all of Un'Goro Crater, swept through Felwood, dabbled in WinterSpring, did a Scholomance run with guildies and got my 58 level ding! in Silithus. As usual, I stayed up extra late last night to get the last few quests done to reach my goal. I then ported over to Blasted Lands (thank you, Blizzard, for putting in those new portals!) and stepped into Outland. I did the metal/wood quest and got a new helm. Then, I called it a night.

ToC 10
I returned to ToC 10 with my main guild this past weekend. After some mis-starts, we did well...even bringing down the extra boss, giving us the achivement.

I went with my mage's guild, but we still struggled on the 2nd encounter. I'm sure we'll get it down. Practice makes perfect.

Ulduar 10
My mage's guild asked me to jump into their Ulduar 10 run. They were on Hodir. We tried 3 or 4 times, but just couldn't do it. Then we had enough time to try Thorim once. For the first time, I ran the gauntlet. The arena folks died, unfortunately, so we wiped. The good thing is now they've seen it. And everyone has promised to watch videos and read guides.

Ulduar 25
My main's guild tried to run Ulduar 25 with another guild. Fail fail fail. We tried to get Flame Leviathan down 4 or 5 times with two towers up. Why anyone thought it was a good idea to try that the first time we worked together is beyond me. Finally, after 2.5 hours of attempts, we decided to take the two towers down and do it on regular difficulty. Piece o' cake.

We then wiped ingloriously on Razorscale. Night over!

General
I got a few pieces of equipment on both my mage and my priest. I can't remember what they are, but they are good. :-)

So...what do I do tonight? Raid? Run Heroics? Or level my druid? So much to do, so little time!

Level Check

2009-09-01T17:04:00.002-04:00

Death Knight	Unholy	72
Druid	Balance	48 (+1)
Hunter	BM	71
Mage	Arcane	80
Paladin	Ret	24 (+17)
Priest	Holy	80
Rogue	(no talents)	29
Shaman	Enhancement	29 (+11)
Warlock	Affliction	80
Warrior	(no talents)	34

So I've spent a fair amount of time leveling my Shaman and Paladin in the last month. Starting tomorrow I'll have a 5-day weekend. We'll see how much leveling I do on my days off.

Still can't drum up interest in leveling my rogue. He's currently my AH toon.

August 31, 2009

2009-08-31T10:16:00.004-04:00

Guild Stuff
This past weekend with my priest's guild was a little disappointing. Our Ulduar 10 plans for Saturday fell through due to low attendance. Then our Ulduar 25 plans for Sunday also fell through. Even though there were more people on than the day before, still not enough for 25. And our two main raid leaders were unable to play, which made it difficult to coordinate anything. In the end, we did ToC 10 yesterday evening -- more about that below.

It's an interesting study of human behavior. Our two raid leaders are aggressive, charismatic, motivated guys. They are able to get people talking and moving. When they're not around, very little gets done. My fear is that the main one is not going to be around much because of school. And the other one might end up leaving the guild because he's anxious to progress.

My mage's guild went to Ulduar on Friday. We got down four bosses -- Flame Leviathan, Decunstructor, Kologarn and Auriaya. We made a handful of attempts at Hodir and a couple at Ignis. But, we couldn't get either of them down. It was a fun run, though frustrating toward the end. I enjoy playing with those guys.

Trial of the Crusader (10)
As I mentioned above, we did ToC10 last night. The toughest encounter was the PvP style one. We died several times. On the final attempt, they switched the kill order (Priest first) and I kept further back, except when running in to cast Psychic Scream. Those changes in tactics worked and we sailed through it. I think I was part of the cause of the initial wipes. I had been standing too close to the action and was killed by the various AoE abilities the mobs were using.

I got the Binding Light trinket. Though I'm not convinced that it is better than the Majestic Dragon Figurine. I've been wearing the latter for months. I suppose the trinket will only be better if I use the on-use ability intelligently. The problem is, with my priest I don't even remember to use Inner Focus. I'll have to get more diligent about using cooldown abilities. Otherwise, they're a waste.

Naxx 10
Since my guild's plans to run Ulduar on Saturday night fell through, I healed the 2nd half of Naxx 10 for a friend's guild (the mother of one of our raid leaders). That was a fun easy run, and it was good to get familiar with a few members in her guild. They're #7 on our server, so it's good to rub elbows with them.

I made one huge mistake...I stood on the wrong side on Thaddius and wiped the raid. I felt HORRIBLE. The only consolation was that everyone admitted that this guild does it backward compared to all other guilds. But, honestly, it was my own fault. As soon as the polarity shifted, I blanked. I couldn't remember which side to go on. Oh well, the next attempt went without a hitch.

One good thing about going to Naxx -- I was able to test out the setting in Grid to give me a visual clue on the toon that has frost blast on them. A few days ago I mentioned that I had stupidly set it up as a Buff, so it didn't show up. Now that it was set up as a Debuff, it worked perfectly. Big red box on the name...easy to see who to throw the heal on. KT went smoothly.

Alt Leveling
I leveled my shaman a little more until I was called to heal Naxx.

Miscellaneous
I received an in-game mail message from my old guild leader this weekend. He and I have maintained a friendly relationship after the guild split up. So, this message took me by surprise. He asked me if I remembered a while ago having accepted an invite to do an instance but then later removing myself so I could go to a raid instead. I responded telling him I don't remember that exact instance, but I have done that on a few occasions when I know I'm not critical to the event. I think he expected an apology. He's not getting one. Whenever I have removed myself from invites, I have done so well ahead of time. It's my prerogative to change my plans if a more interesting invite comes along. It's better than not removing myself and just blowing off the invite.

He hasn't responded to my response. So, I suspect he's angry at me. I'm not going to play that game with him. He's a good guy, but he's got so many darned rules and expectations of people's behavior. He needs to lighten up.

August 27, 2009

2009-08-27T12:21:00.003-04:00

Miscellaneous
Yesterday was one of my most enjoyable days in WoW in a while. There were no raids scheduled, so no pressure. No drama in any of my guilds. I spent most of my time on my priest. I gathered a group of guildies together and we ran through three heroics. Nice, easy, fun.

I got enough emblems to buy a Sash of Potent Incantations. I had been reluctant to buy any of the emblem items because none seemed like a tremendous upgrade from my current equipment. But, the only other use for them would be for Runed Orbs. I'm not sure I'm on a mission yet to work toward those. So, I decided to take it one step at a time. Buy the emblem items...then start saving for Runed Orbs. Each item is an upgrade, even if only minor. If nothing else, my gear score will be higher.

We're scheduled to finish Ulduar 10 on Saturday (gotta love the new feature to extend raids) and Naxx 25 on Sunday.

August 26, 2009

2009-08-26T17:33:00.002-04:00

Guild Stuff
Just a quick post to note that yesterday my mage's guild divided due to disagreements within the officer ranks. I followed to the new guild, having no real ties to the people that remained behind. I'm not really touched emotionally by the change, since I really only know the dozen or so people that moved to the new guild. But, I know others are shaken up by the whole situation.

My priest's guild is kind of quiet so far this week. Some of the key players returned to school on Monday, so I knew there would be a lull. I hope it's temporary and that we get back into raiding. A few people joined the guild yesterday, so maybe we'll get to more 25-man content soon.

August 25, 2009

2009-08-25T17:02:00.003-04:00

Guild
Raiding guild
This past Sunday we did a full clear of 25-man Naxx. It went relatively smoothly. I topped the healing charts with the lowest amount of overhealing, so I felt good about that. I had added KT's "Frost Blast" debuff into Grid, so I had hoped to be able to react much more quickly when it came up. But, unfortunately, I realized midway into the fight that I had set it up as a buff, not a debuff. Oh well, next time. lol

I was on an alt yesterday and saw one of my guildies advertising in trade for our raiding guild. It felt really odd. Until now, I've been in completely casual guilds. Invites were given to people based on positive interaction out and about. This is the first time I've been in a guild that openly advertises for members. It made me feel strange. The good thing is that I know it's an awesome group of talented folks, so it's not a sign that we're losers. :)

Alt Leveling
When not in Naxx, I spent most of my time on my Shaman and my Pally. Plugging along.

Tonight I'll be on my main for an OS25 run. I might not stay on long after that though. Feeling kinda tired today. Busy busy busy at work.

August 21, 2009

2009-08-21T10:12:00.002-04:00

I now have enough of the Ulduar 10 tier pieces to benefit from the set bonus. Interestingly enough, it is an increase in the crit chance of Prayer of Healing. That's a spell I rarely use because it takes so long to cast. I use it as part of my healing strategy on Loatheb, but besides that, rarely.

Well...after reading around on various sites, I realized I was ignoring a talent that lowers the cast time on PoH -- Serendipity. I was feeling like an idiot for wasting this talent until I realized that it's because they changed it completely in some patch and I hadn't noticed. It used to be a mana regen talent.

Anyway...I made some changes to my spec to cut down on the cost of PoH and Prayer of Mending. I also added a setting in Power Auras to alert me when I had Serendipity charges built up. Then on Wednesday I tried out the new spec. I'm embarrassed to admit that I caused a wipe on the first boss in Heroic ToC because (a) I forgot to switch from the lance back to my equipment, and (b) I was focusing too much on Serendipity and not on actual healing.

But...once I settled into a routine I got the hang of using Serendipity charges. I think I've already seen an improvement in my effectiveness.

Ulduar
We went back to Ulduar on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fresh run. New bosses we got down were:

Freya -- One shot! It went much more smoothly than our other attempts.
Mimiron -- Also one shot! We changed our positioning and it made all the difference.
General Vezax -- We wiped a few times. But, once we realized our biggest enemy was being too close together when he does his life leeching ability, we changed our positioning and breezed through it. It was incredible how we finished the fight. I had only enough mana left to cast one more Renew. I cast that renew on the tank then started wanding the boss. Moments later, he fell. Had I not saved mana for that last renew, I think we would have lost. That was close...and FUN!

We stopped before attempting Yogg-Saron. It was really late and we East coasters had to go. We might try to get him down after our Naxx 25 run this weekend.

During the run I got a few drops: Waist: Binding of the Dragon Matriarch, Wand: Nurturing Touch (which has an awesome appearance), Dagger: Plasma Foil (I didn't win the roll for it, but the mage who did, gave it to me when he realized it wasn't better than his current weapon. Gotta love the ability to trade BoPs!).

I also earned enough emblems to get my tier chest: Conquerer's Robe of Sanctification. I'm not 100% sure it's an actual upgrade from the Embrace of Madness that I'm currently wearing. Once I gem and enchant it I'll see. The highest level gems available at this point are really expensive though, so it's painful to buy the gems without being 100% sure it's the direction I want to go. Currently I don't know of a site that allows equipment experimentation including the newest gems. Those I've used in the past still don't recognize the new gems. :(

More About Changes for My Priest
As I mentioned above, I changed my spec for my priest. She's still Holy, but I switched a few talents around to reflect how I actually play. For example, I had Test of Faith. It's a really good talent if you're dealing with people at below 50% often. It's good for tank healing and it shines when healing after Gluth uses his Decimate ability. But, I'm rarely the main tank healer and Gluth is only one out of dozens of encounters. So, it wasn't doing me much good.

My new build is this, with the glyphs: Flash Heal, Circle of Healing and Guardian Spirit. Each of the glyphs are extremely useful to me, especially the ability to cast Guardian Spirit more often.

I still might change my spec again in the future. Mental Agility is very attractive, considering how many of my spells are instant casts (PoM, Renew, CoH, PWS, Guardian Spirit). But, with the new focus on Flash Heal/Binding Heal and Prayer of Healing in order to use Serendipity, I might find I use the instant ones less and less. Time will tell.

One other aspect is gemming. I have been checking out the equipment and gem choices that another priest has made. He's the one who suggested I apply to his big raiding guild while with me in Naxx a few weeks ago. I noticed that he doesn't stack Spirit at all. His gems are all Spell Power and Intellect. He has Mental Agility to help lower the cost of instant spells. But, I wonder if there's something about Intellect I'm missing. Did its mechanic change with a recent patch? So hard to keep up! I do see how stacking Intellect could be really helpful for the General Vezax encounter. It's all about having more mana, not mana regen. But I can't imagine making gem choices based on one single encounter. Hmm...I'll have to find out more about that.

August 18, 2009

2009-08-18T11:07:00.009-04:00

Alt Fever, Baby!
Out of the blue I've gotten alt fever again. Just when I was thinking I couldn't live through the level grind one more time, I bought a couple more heirloom items and shipped them off to an alt. This mostly came about because I was trying to decide what to do with all my Emblems of Heroism. There are many things to buy, but in the end, I decided to use them on items that cannot be purchased any other way -- heirloom items.

So...suddenly my Pally and my Shaman have gained a few levels. They're both sharing the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, the Tattered Dreadmist Mantle and the Swift Hand of Justice. I also own the Discerning Eye of the Beast, but I'm too lazy to switch it back and forth with my druid.

Shaman -- Leveling the Shaman is fun. I'm not 100% sure if I'm playing her "right" or not, but I'm doing OK. I've only died a few times and only when I get unexpected adds. I've learned to use Stoneclaw Totem whenever I get overwhelmed. It works wells for distracting adds so I can focus on one at a time.

Pally -- The Pally is more mindless. I can pretty much hack and slash my way through most encounters. Makes it easy to watch TV while playing her. Just cast Judgement of Light then allow auto-attack to do its work. Refresh the judgment as needed. Rinse and repeat.

Druid -- I played my druid again last night. I really do want to get her to 80 and dual spec Resto / Balance. I found a ZF group and finished a bunch of quests in there. I was really happy with my DPS and survivability. Also, someone who was new to the game banged the gong before we had killed the adds around the pool of water. So, Gahz'Rilla was summoned sooner than expected. We survived due to luck and a little bit of skill. The Priest healer died so I dropped Moonkin form and switched to healing. That made the difference. The nice thing is that healing spells rely on most of the stats that my Moonkin relies on. So I'm a decent off-healer -- better than I would be if my main spec were Feral.

Warlock -- Poor guy. I've been ignoring him. But, as I said in a previous post, I pretty much met my goals with him. So, I'm OK with not focusing on him as much as the others at this point.

Guild
So my priest's guild went back to Ulduar on Sunday, hoping to get down Freya before the reset. Unfortunately, we couldn't assemble the entire group. One interesting thing to note: One of my old guild members who is in this guild with me was complaining that he never gets invites to Ulduar runs. He was complaining that they apparently do them ad-hoc instead of scheduling them. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the runs are actually planned, but he's not getting the invites. Then, on Sunday when we were sitting there waiting for the final two DPS to come on, someone suggested that we invite the complainer just to fill the spot. There were moans and reluctance to invite him. I waited quietly to see why they didn't want to, but they never came out and said it. Then, finally when they decided to give in and invite him, he declined saying that he was saved. Ugh.

We're going back to Ulduar tonight. I'm not sure if we'll start fresh or extend last week's raid. I kinda want to start fresh so I can get drops. But, it would be nice to progress.

August 14, 2009

2009-08-14T14:11:00.002-04:00

Ulduar
Let me start off by saying, I am so happy that I put my priest into this new guild. I've enjoyed raiding with them a lot so far.

Last night we returned to Ulduar. We got down

Flame Leviathan
Razorscale
Ignis the Furnace Master
XT-002 Deconstructor
The Assembly of Iron
Kologarn
Hodir
Thorim

We attempted Freya, but wiped the first time (as expected). After that wipe, we lost of one of our DPS so we decided to go back another time. I had tried Razorscale with other groups in the past, with no success. It was amazing how smooth and easy it was with this group. Either it's because they're better geared, or it's because they understand the exact strategy. In any event, it was fun to actually get that dragon down!

I got three drops too! Combustion Bracers -- although they have +hit on them, they were still an all around upgrade for me. Cloak of the Dormant Blaze and the tier legs. My stats in general have gone up, though my overall mana regen has lowered slightly.

A few weeks ago I was in a group with a priest from one of the top guilds on the server. He pointed out that my build, though good, was mana intensive. He suggested I check out his if I was having mana problems. I've done so and might change mine tonight to see if it makes a difference. His is here. I can see very quickly how it will improve things for me. I use instant spells quite a bit of the time (Renew, Prayer of Mending and Circle of Healing). Mental Agility should really help out. Also, a few of the talents in my build are not really doing me any good, considering how rarely I cast the spells they benefit. I'm excited about seeing how it goes.

Warlock
Not much to say about my warlock. I did dailies and a ToC with him.

Paladin
I was out ill yesterday so I spent some time during the day leveling my Paladin. I was initially only going to use up her rest XP then log out, but I got hooked. I ended up raising her 5 levels. It seems that as much as I think I'm not going to enjoy the leveling process, I end up getting sucked into it. :-) She's wearing the cloth heirloom shoulders. They're not really itemized to help her out, but at least they give her the 10% increase in XP.

She might be the next one I level to 80. But then again, my Shaman and my Druid are looking interesting to me too. :-)

August 11, 2009

2009-08-11T13:56:00.006-04:00

Ulduar
I went to 10-man Ulduar last night with my new guild. We two-person healed it, which was an interesting challenge, considering I don't have Ulduar gear yet. Having done Flame Leviathan several times, and hating gimmicky fights in which you drive vehicles or use special mounts, I was happy to see that they had already beaten a few bosses on a previous trip in. We started at the Shattered Walkway and did three encounters:

Iron Council
Thorim
Hodir

I had a ton of fun. Originally I had planned on only playing for a couple hours. I ended up playing for four hours, going to bed at 2:00 a.m. I have no complaints. It was the most fun I've had in a while. I love learning new fights. I didn't get any drops -- come to think of it, I've never gotten a drop in Ulduar -- but that's no problem. It was fun! And drops will come in time.

I especially enjoyed the Hodir fight. It was quite a challenge as a healer to watch the tank's health, to watch for runes for falling snow and to stand near a fire. Situational awareness at its finest.

This new raid lockout extension option that came with 3.2 is interesting. We didn't finish the whole instance, so tonight we can choose either to let the raid ID reset or to extend it and continue to work our way through. It's a nice option. Not sure which one they'll decide to do. But it will be fun, regardless.

August 10, 2009

2009-08-10T16:43:00.004-04:00

What's with the free epics?
I'm on the fence about this situation. The Trial of Champions on regular mode is incredibly easy. (Yes, since I last wrote, I've figured out the strategies so now the fights are easy.) Every boss drops epic items and you can repeat the instance countless times. So...what took weeks in heroic dungeons and Naxx is now possible in just a few days in ToC.

On the one hand, this is great. My warlock has already won three epics in ToC. I can potentially get him as well geared as my mage without ever stepping foot in Naxx. As a casual, non-guilded toon, this situation is perfect. I can run ToC multiple times and walk away with epics that would have otherwise taken me months to get. My little gnome with the mohawk isn't complaining.

On the other hand, my mage went from being well geared to mediocre geared over night. After months of running Naxx on her, I had been really happy with her gear progression. Now, after only a week or so with the new patch, people running ToC match her or have passed her.

I know I'm sounding like an elite player at this point. I hate players with the "You shouldn't get easily that which I worked hard to get" attitude. We all deserve to have fun and to experience the game -- casual or hard core. We should all have a chance at the fun stuff.

So...what's my issue with it? I think it's the number of purples that drop. In a regular lvl 80 instance, all the drops are blue until the final boss. And, as far as I remember, the final boss drops only one epic. So, why did they change that formula with ToC? By doing so, they're handing out epics right and left, cheapening their value.

Hmmm...still on the fence.

Guild
I joined a guild with my priest this past weekend. It's a guild in which there are a few members I know. Some from an old guild of mine. They're progression oriented yet casual. My first 25-man Naxx with them was on Saturday. I must admit, I was shocked by the amount of profanity they spewed. I'm not a prude...but this was excessive. I'll go on a few more runs with them to see if they're always like that. Then I'll decide whether or not to stay.

One real good thing was that I got my Valorous shoulders finally! I'm happy about getting them, despite the fact that they're no longer the best shoulders out there. They're pretty and I've looked forward to them for months. Woo hoo!

August 5, 2009

2009-08-05T09:59:00.002-04:00

Patch 3.2 Has Hit!

Patch 3.2 hit last night and the post-patch experience began. Lag, log in problems, etc. But I won't focus on that, like others do. It's expected and not noteworthy in the least.

What was noteworthy was the Argent Tournament. Yet another area on the map that I had never been to. Sheesh! Where have I been all these months? I was on my mage, content in my faster flight speed and looking forward to our Naxx run when someone in guild said, "who wants to check out the new instance?" Um...huh? OK, I'll admit I've been remiss in reading WoWInsider (or WoW.com, as it is now called). So I haven't been keeping up to date . But I'm really surprised I hadn't noticed that a new instance was coming!

We gathered 10 guildies and were off to the Tournie. The area is cool looking...reminds me of the fairgrounds near where I grew up. After discussing the new Dungeon and Raid settings options, we decided we should do the 10-man raid version, not Heroic. OK...so we wiped. Yeah, a few times. But we had fun doing so. I love the new gimic of the adds jumping on people's backs. That was cute.

After a few wipes, we decided to try the 5-man regular. I know elite players will turn their noses up at me for saying this, but it was hard! First, I'm just not good at encounters that require me to work with a pet. I'm just not. No two ways about it. No question. Nope, nuh uh. I suck at it. So the first part, where you have to joust the enemy, it felt like chaos to me. And, even though we all died, we actually got past that phase. (I'll have to read up on it to understand the logic of that.) But, moving on...the rest of the instance was pretty much standard stuff. Our druid healer was constantly running low on mana...and we were only on the 5-man regular! Holy mana, Batman! We finished it and were disappointed to see only ilvl 200 items. This was way harder than any of the regular 5-man dungeons. How could the purples be the same quality?

Despite finding the regular version challenging, we tried doing the heroic version. Ugh! Even worse, as one would expect. We wiped on the jousting, causing it to reset. Then we wiped again, but made it past the phase. WTF? I just don't understand that. Then the first encounter with the three representatives of the Horde cities? Wipe fest again. We called it a night after 3 wipes.

Oy vey! Either we were just not getting the stategies, or these dungeons are tuned much tougher than the other lvl 80 dungeons. I'll have to do some reading...

Other stuff?
I didn't spend any time on my other toons. Because of the patch problems, I got a late start. So the little time I had was spent on my mage with the new content.

Not sure if I'll play again tonight. The first part of the So You Think You Can Dance finale is tonight. I can't wait to see all the performances.

August 4, 2009

2009-08-04T16:16:00.002-04:00

Last night held a surprising turn for me. I logged into my mage to see if anything was going on in the guild. It was fairly quiet and there were no events on the calendar. I asked if anyone wanted to run a heroic, but no one was interested.

So, I switched to my priest to do her fishing and cooking dailies. I hadn't even finished the mushroom gathering in town before I received a random whisper asking if I wanted to heal 25-man Naxx. I hadn't intended to spend much time playing last night, but it was the first invite I had received in a while. So, I accepted.

Over an hour later (ugh!), they filled the raid and we were off! They had already cleared Arachnid and Construct up to Gluth. We ran through the pipe, dropped down and went after that big dog. Wipe#1 - No one had been assigned to take care of the zombies.

The rest of the run was like that. Wipe after wipe -- often on trash. The people in the guild were loud, obnoxius, silly and unfocused. It was enough to drive one crazy! But, the biggest surprise....we finished it. We wiped first on KT only because someone aggroed the entire room. On the second try we got him down, no sweat. Fun fun! So...I guess despite their lack of focus (some were clearly smoking pot and drinking), they knew their stuff. Of course, many were geared in Ulduar gear, so they out-geared the instance.

Which brings me to the point about this being an interesting turn. A few people noticed I was guildless last night. Two outright invited me to their guilds. The third suggested I apply to theirs because, "You're really good." Of course, the one I'm interested in the most is that last one. Human nature, I suppose. We don't want what's easy to get. We're intrigued by those things we have to work for. Go to a bar and get surrounded by men? Feh! Get away! See the man across the room that doesn't do more than glance at you? Dream about him for nights to come.

Decision making time. Do I accept a guild invite with people I know but might not be clearing content? Or do I apply to a more serious guild and play that whole game?

Stay tuned.

Oh...I got a few drops. One was an amulet, but it is not showing up on the armory. I think it was this.

The second was a staff called Damnation. According to WoWhead, it's the best staff for holy priests. It might be a good staff, but it lowers my SP and Spirit. Maybe after I enchant it, I'll like it better. I sure do like the way it looks. :) I wore it for a few fights last night just because of the way it looks, despite lowering my key stats a little.

The third piece was the Touch of Horror, a wand that was definitely an upgrade.

Good night, though it went very late. The people were annoying me so much that I was tempted a few times to call it quits. But, I'm glad I stuck it out.

August 3, 2009

2009-08-03T10:07:00.006-04:00

It has been a while since I made an entry here. I've been very busy at work and have not had a lot of motivation to play lately. And thus, no reason to write. But...let's see if I can summarize what has gone on in WoW since I last wrote.

Warlock Leveling

I reached lvl 80 on my warlock last week. The last few levels seemed to take forever, until I realized it was because I wasn't playing more than an hour or two at a time, 2-3 days a week. It also was fairly difficult to find groups to run dungeons with. So most of my gear and xp was coming from quests.

One memorable dungeon run was in Violet Hold. It was with a really bad Prot Pally who couldn't (1) keep aggro, (2) react quickly enough to the opening of portals, (3) use Consecrate. A shadow priest and I were having a real hard time, constantly drawing aggro. We would hold off dpsing for longer than normal, allowing the "tank" extra time to gain aggro. But it didn't work. Bad PuGs are a dime a dozen. But what made this one special was that at one point we were about to wipe and I was the last one standing. The mob was coming after me. I was an inch from death when Haunt flew back at me, healing me for just enough to stay alive. All my dots on the mobs hit and it fell. Power to the warlocks!!!!! I scratched my imp's neck while the other ran back into the instance. We ended up wiping again and losing the whole thing, but I still hold that memory fondly.

The good thing about the extra questing to 80 was that I went further into the Icecrown quests than I have on any other toon. On my mage and priest, I hit 80 in Storm Peaks and/or early Ice Crown then went right to heroics and raiding. Since my warlock is guildless (or, I should say, he's my bank alt and sole member of his own guild), finding groups to do instances with has been hard -- as I noted above. So, I continued questing in Icecrown and found out there actually were dailies there! =)

Now, I've flown around Icecrown a zillion times on my priest, looking for ore. But, in all that time, I never, ever, ever saw Onslaught Harbor. Imagine my surprise when I went to Death's Rise and picked up a quest that sent me to an area in the ocean. A whole new area!!! And the cloth drop rate there, astounding! So, I can say that everything happened for a reason. I needed a place to farm cloth and I needed to experience new content. I got both at the same time!

Speaking of farming cloth...I made a flying carpet! Tons o' fun! =) I remembered a friend of mine in my old guild showing me his when he first created it. I had wanted ever since to have my own. I was pleasantly surprise to see that my legs didn't dangle below it like my friend's legs did. I wonder if that's because I'm a gnome or if it's something they have changed at some point.

Oh...and that reminds me of a post I made in May about my goals. Here's the portion for my warlock:

Warlock
Level him to 80. - Done
Get into at least one raid. - Done but not done. (see below)
Get him to max Tailoring - Almost -- 431
Make a carpet mount. - Done

So, I'm doing pretty well. I think the reason I initially said "max tailoring" was because I thought I couldn't make a carpet until reaching 450. I was happy to see I could make it at 420 or somewhere around there. I'll have to look at the tailoring recipes to see if maxing it is even worth it.

As for the goal of getting into at least one raid...well, I did get into a Naxx run, but I don't consider that goal officially met. I was farming cloth in Onslaught Harbor when I saw a message in LFG for a DPS to join an in-progress Naxx run. "Must know all fights". Well, if nothing else, I know all the fights in Naxx backwards and forwards. So, I got an invite. They were on Thaddius. We went to take down the first two mobs and wiped immediately because the left side pulled the mob too far from the charge. Clearly they had tried it a few times before I joined because after only that one wipe, they decided to go to Military. At Instructor we wiped a first time due to mistakes on the tanks' part. We tried again but wiped...I'm not sure why on that try. Then they chose to call it quits. So...I got into a raid, which theoretically satisfies that goal. But, it really wasn't a good enough experience for me to mark it off my list just yet.

Two interesting things came out of that run.

I realized how spoiled I was on my priest and mage. My priest, just by virtue of being a healer, got into Naxx fairly easily and was able to perform well enough. When my mage hit 80 I made a point of getting +hit gear and was able to get into Naxx fairly quickly. Both had the benefit of being in a guild and having support from the members. My warlock, on the other hand, doesn't have enough hit yet to do raids. I barely did any damage while I was in Naxx. A completely different experience. I've been tempted to switch ownership of my bank guild to another toon so I can join a guild on my warlock. But, so far I've resisted that. I'm enjoying the challenge and perspective I'm getting from being guildless and friendless.
While on Instructor another warlock in the group yelled at me to stop using Drain Soul. I was surprised. Instructor was at 3%; all of my dots were up; Shadow Embrace had two...um...charges or whatever that word is. Why not use Drain Soul? I whispered the warlock asking that, stating that it was doing 4x damage at that point. But he never responded. And...the raid was abandoned a few minutes later. I'll have to look into that. Perhaps Drain Soul is just not used by raiding warlocks? Or maybe just on Instructor because he has so many hit points or something? I hate not knowing the whys and wherefores of things like that.

First Ninja Experience

One more experience on my warlock. I saw, for the first time that I can remember, an evil ninja last night. It was an Heroic Nexus run. The lead was a very good tank. We sailed through it easily. On each of the drops he kept reminding everyone that he could DE. But he didn't overdo it by needing on them or anything. Then, when we got to the final boss, after the fight started he switched to Master Loot. We all missed it, of course, because it was lost in the chat screen. After the kill, he took everything and said, "That's why I'm an excellent tank. I f*ing steal sh*t. He left...with all of us just standing there saying "wtf".

Something tells me this wasn't the first ninja I have experienced. But, this was definitely memorable because it was so blatant. I logged and couldn't play for the rest of the night because I was so bothered by that.

Other stuff

I have played my other toons only a handful of times in the last month. The one time I played my priest recently I got the mount from the CoS timed run. That was fun!