K's Blog

Ten Years

2011-09-11T18:41:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe that it's been ten years since so much about America has changed. There are things today that we never thought would exist, never thought that they would be so much a part of our lives that we just... let them go.

Increased security at airports. Terror alerts. Patriot Act.

I realize last year I didn't blog about the day. But the two years before that I did. And the year before that as well.

I'm not going to repost it. It's searchable on my blog if people are interested, under 'September 11'.

Ungh, leveling blues...

2011-03-28T21:26:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd say this. Never ever. But I'm... burnt out on leveling right now.

There. I said it. I SAID IT!

Make fun of me if you wish, but I've hit outlands with my enhancement shaman... and I just can't do it again! I think the problem is that I keep having to stop there. I have my new DK that I pushed through outlands and is now in Northrend. I have my new druid that I pushed through outlands with D's new toon and is now in Northrend. I have a hunter that I pushed through outlands and is now in Northrend.

I really really want to play my enhancement shaman... I just don't want to do the quest/instance grind to get through outlands. My other option is to try to realm-transfer Karika and respec her enhancement for a while. Maybe also Kathe and respec her healing. I don't want to do that, because I think one of the things that helps me learn a spec is to level AS the spec. And ... well, I won't be doing that. But just don't think I can do it.

Karika is a level 80 resto shaman right now. Kathe is a level 80 bear right now. It would be a big change on both of them to abruptly change. But I could do it, I guess. *sigh*

Otherwise, things are going great. The game is still going good. The Nook is still delicious.

We're fostering a puppy. She's abso-friggen-lutely adorable! Even Chewie plays with her! Yoda is a grump. So he doesn't.

Work is going great. D is working with me at my second job, as a vet-tech! So that's good. :)

Scans on him went well recently. No masses, no regrowth, no recurrence.

Aaaand... that's that. For now.

Oh wow, the obligatory 'been a while' post.

2011-03-01T03:44:00.000-06:00

So... it's been a while!

I no longer admin at Unsung Heroes. Instead, D and I have our own place up at agrajag.rpg-works.net 1138 -- it's a split themed game, Old Republic and Rebellion Era.

It's doing swimmingly! 20-25 people on per evening, sometimes more. Most are individuals, we don't have as many alts on our game (most people just have two). We usually get over 150-200 noms a week. Which is pretty good, I think.

Some of the things we had tried to implement on UH but couldn't are now implemented, and working well, I think!

We filed for bankruptcy. Our house was foreclosed. D's brother is getting out from the hospital after having been split open with a MRSA infection.

Hypocrisy still irritates the heck out of me. I do one thing, one singular thing, and it's OMG WTF BBQ. Someone else does something, lots of somethings, continuously, and it's meh, no big.

I'm coming up on a year at my current duo of employment places. So far so good.

And that's really life in a nutshell. I'm back to playing some WoW, when I'm not RPing or running plots on Generations (our game). D is playing Rift. Big surprise there - the next MMO! He can't wait for Skyrim or whatever the next Elder Scrolls game is called.

Bunnies are still fighting, but we're working on it. Silly bunnies. You should be friends!

And... hrm. I can't think of anything else. Isn't that sad?

A real post... Unsung Heroes

2010-07-23T00:28:00.000-05:00

A game. Of course it's about a game! Silly.

My computer crashed and burned, so I'm on the old laptop. Work is going splendidly.

And life continues on.

We have a 8x7 corral in the living room for the bunnies, since we couldn't figure out how to cordon off the entertainment center and all the wires. Or the baseboards. :P

Fiver and Hazel are still fighting, though Fiver is indeed neutered now. Maybe slowly they'll stop... or rather, Hazel will stop. The little turd won't leave Fiver alone!

And the game... goes well. Boon is a wizard there too now. The game is flourishing. When I started, there were maybe 10 people on the game. Now we average probably 25+ individual players. We have maybe 35-40 PCs logged in (some are alts) every day.

It's ... fun. Work at times, since with a big playerbase now, everyone needs something. But fun. :)

It serves as a nice creative outlet for me. And a social game.

I have two great old (three if you count an NPC) favorite characters of mine there. Keisha Vorr, Kithan the Squib, and Yamuzi the Laboi.

*sigh happily*

Anyhoo... more to come, maybe. Not that anyone cares. :)

What... the... hey?

2010-07-22T23:53:00.000-05:00

So, I check my blog and I find out my last post had 18 new comments, all with strange characters, with one comment reading: 'if the quantity is not a lot, I will hand carry it', or something to that effect.

So... I'm sorry, but I have to switch over to moderated comments only. Because I have no idea what people were using the comments section of my blog for, but I don't like it.

Sorry!

Fox News

2010-04-23T14:05:00.000-05:00

Save me. We now have TV. And Fox News.

I've seen more of Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck than I ever wanted to, and it's only been three days!

Stories and Writers Block

2010-04-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

I have several stories. And lots of writer's block to go with them!
I've read where people say that you just need to sit down and get the words out, no matter how bad they sound. I can't quite wrap my brain around that concept. If it doesn't read right the first time, I assume it's trash and just junk the whole thing.

My bad, I suppose. Ah well, we'll see where this new set of stories winds up.

As for other things... new job interview completed. Let's see where it goes. Whee!

Cold Turkeys and Sunny Days

2010-03-05T22:49:00.000-06:00

Just the facts, ma'am!

Surgery a success. Tumor removed. Bit of bone removed. Original ligaments kept. Knee stable. Medial gastrocnemius muscle transposed to cover resection site. Half the staples already out. Weight bearing again. Pain levels decreased overall. Annoying pins and needle feeling in entire foot that doc says is nerves responding to the inflammation. No chemotherapy on the table. Stopping all narcotics to try to get off of them completely.

Now the rest of it.

Life has been ... wow. Just a big bundle of wow. Good. Bad. In between.

Finished all the paperwork to try to get a Missouri License. Lots of red tape, and over 500 dollars! 300 for the Missouri State test, 80 for NAVLE score transfer, 10 for Wisconsin license 'good standing' letter, 10 for transcript from school, and then 160 to renew my Wisconsin license to make sure that I am in good standing.

Now, we just need to figure out where we're going, where I'm working, what I'm doing, and ... everything.

We have a lot of pets (5 'traditional pets', 2 'cage pets'), so finding a place to rent may be tough. Two small dogs, three cats. Two rabbits. One of whom I was planning on neutering the week after I got fired. Then I got fired. So he's not neutered. Which I don't like. But right now, really can't afford to pay for him to get neutered and I somehow can't see my former employer being the type to let me bring him in and neuter him myself. So it's going to have to wait. Until I have a job, or we can afford it.

In the last three weeks, we've been to 6 doctor's appointments. We're very good at getting D into and out of the car, knowing where to park and how to drive a wheelchair. Of significant disappointment is that the wheelchairs at the mall 1: don't have leg lifting apparatuses, 2: are only obtainable down a set of stairs (hello, I need a wheelchair. Just go down those stairs. What?) and 3: have a long red pole attached to them so you can't actually sit in them in the theater.

It has been very warm here. In fact, almost as warm here as it was in Florida when we were there! Which either means it's very very warm here, or Florida was unseasonably cold. Given that it was snowing in northern Florida at the time, I'd opt for the latter. Still, it means it's warm enough that the snow is starting to melt, and hopefully, we'll be crutch-free soon and can start taking walks with the dogs again.

I know this is a bland and boring update. Not at all fun or exciting to read. But I don't know anymore that I have things to say that are fun and exciting. Least of all for others to read! :)

On another random note: We got three helium balloons while D was in the hospital. On day 2 of having the balloons, one of them was already dying. Now, we're here, three weeks out. And the other two are still going strong. Explain that?

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T18:37:00.000-06:00

Valentine's Day ... I'm too lazy to look up what Valentine's Day used to mean. I only know what it means now.

Some people will say it's a day devoted to consumerism. I disagree. Sweetest Day on the other hand... ungh, don't get me started!

We should do this every day for our spouse, our partner, our significant other... for our friends, parents, siblings. Tell them you love them.

Enjoy the day with them.

Sit down and have a quiet chat.

Make the day special without having to do anything special. Love isn't candy. It isn't cards. It isn't flowers. It's in a gentle touch. It's in a friendly voice.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Last Two Weeks: A Timeline

2010-02-13T23:11:00.001-06:00

1/27/10: Dustin goes in for his bi-yearly scans for his synovial sarcoma. The last four years, they've found nothing. This time, they find something.

1/28/10: I get fired. (sorry, the correct term is 'let go')

1/28/10: I get a reply from an email about a job I sent out an inquiry about in November.

1/29/10: I discover that my books don't sell for very much. But sell them I am.

2/1/10: I get a job interview in three days for the job I sent out an inquiry about in November. The biopsy reports of the 'something' comes back: synovial sarcoma.

2/3/10: Two doctor appointments: the plastic surgeon who will be in charge of putting Dustin's leg back together after the orthopedic surgeon is done removing everything that the cancer is touching. And then we drive to Missouri.

2/4/10: An evening interview with the doc at the clinic. It lasts three hours!

2/5/10: A morning spent at the clinic with the doc. I leave after lunch because the temperature is rapidly dropping and it was slushing all morning. He asks if I'm interested, but he needs to know about Missouri licensing before he can offer anything.

2/6/10: We have farm-fresh eggs for breakfast. Dustin gets sick as a dog.

2/7/10: We're now both sick as dogs from the farm fresh eggs. But we have to drive back home.

2/8/10: We recover from the farm fresh eggs.

2/9/10: We fly out to Florida for vacation! We jump into the heated outdoor pool! It's in the 50's outside, but the pool is 75 degrees.

2/10/10: Busch Gardens!

2/12/10: The heated outdoor pool... wasn't heated. It was 65 degrees. We discovered this after we jumped in.

2/13/10: We fly home.

Next up:

2/16/10: Surgery. They're removing part of the bone, hopefully retaining his medial collateral ligament. They're going to try to do a muscle flap with his medial gastrocnemius muscle and a skin graft from his thigh. He'll be in the hospital for hopefully no more than 5 days, during which time, we will hopefully be meeting with an oncologist, a physical therapist and a psychologist/counselor.

I have yet to hear back from the guy I interviewed with, after I gave him the info on a Missouri license. By now, however, he's at a conference and won't be back for a week. Additionally, he was very much the type of guy who would say 'We aren't interested anymore', if he wasn't, without any delays. So I'm not that worried about it.

I have other things to worry about.

Bloggage

2010-02-13T21:21:00.002-06:00

As some may have noticed, not only did my blogging about WoW drop off rapidly, but eventually I stopped blogging altogether!

Egads.

But I'm going to try to be back and I'm going to be working on revamping this blog. I'm contemplating making a NEW blog, but I already have TWO that I ignore. Having THREE that I neglect would just get me in deeper with the ASPCB. American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Blogs. Or something.

Yeah. Lame. Sorry.

So, here's my official notice... this blog is going to be reworked. Somehow. Somewhere. Someway.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-04T15:11:00.001-06:00

I'm going to be doing it again this year, but not entering it on NaNoWriMo...

For starters, last year I only got 25k words done in the book I was writing for the event, mainly because I stopped about halfway through the month for some reason. But I want to finish it, so I'm starting it up again... and I think that's against the rules. :)

For seconds... in July, for no reason what so ever, I started to write a new story and in a month I got it up to over 50k words. It isn't finished, by a long shot, but there it is.

I know I can do it. I just haven't been.

Well, even though I'm not in on the contest, it's a good imperative to push me into writing again. It also helps that because we're down to one car, and Boon and I have to share it, I'm at work two and a half hours before work actually starts... so I have nothing to do BUT write. So I will.

I brushed off the old manuscript and I'm going to reread it for a day or so - mainly to get back into the personalities of the various characters that I have written for the story. Should be fun. :)

Been a while...

2009-10-28T09:55:00.003-05:00

Wow. It's been a while!

My main has pretty much switched to my restoration shaman. We're clearing TotC, Ony, etc, etc. Fun fun.

What have I been doing, I hear you ask, that would have taken me away from your eager reading of my delectable blog?

Or something.

Aion is one of those things. Borderlands is another. Star Wars text-based RPG's the third.

I have finally tried clique with grid. And it's nice when I don't forget that I have it. And it isn't nice when I have to open up clique to take off right and left click, so I can do group things like changing leader or even leaving the group! I still haven't found a way to quickly enable and disable clique so I can do things like that. Not to mention clicking on someone to open trade if they aren't in my immediate party, (/tar , /trade is what I have to do right now), etc, etc.

Aion is a pretty game. There are a few things about it that I'm not liking, but as well, in reverse, I go back to WoW and I go 'grr, so irritating. *X* is so much better in Aion!'. I seem to be liking the DPS classes there, and my cleric is not so much. Granted, when I was the cleric in a GROUP, it was much more fun. But when it's the two of us, not so much fun.

However, my Asmodian Sorceress and my Elyos Assassin are scads of fun.

Borderlands is a very fun RPS... RPS you say? Role-Play Shooter... RPFPS? Something like that. It's pretty fun, has quests, objectives, loot, all sorts of fun things. I play the Siren - because she's the only girl! But she's fun... with her phasewalk explosion. *giggle*

And then there's the Star Wars RPG. Some of it is nostalgia, I will admit that, but it's still scads of fun for me. I'm a GameMaster on the game that I'm on, so I get to make plots for other people (read: I get to do evil things to them, consequence free for me! ;) and .. *giggle* In the last week, I've been called 'scary evil'. *cackle* The sign of a good admin, people see you post something or @mail them something and they get nervous what you're going to do next! :)

Happy Birthday Boon!

2009-09-19T09:16:00.003-05:00

Today is several things...

Talk like a Pirate Day.

Boon's Birthday.

Saturday.

But equally as important... it's 4 years. People who know what I mean by 4 years understand the importance of that. People who don't... it's a long story.

But Boon... HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And maaaany more!

How do YOU heal?

2009-09-11T22:20:00.002-05:00

So, tonight in guild chat there was a debate about how people heal.

There's mouse-over, there's clique, there's grid, there's healbot, there's keybindings, there's a combination of any of the above!

The conversation delved into that a healer with grid/clique will out-heal a healer that uses the regular UI.

And I (and Boon who uses no healing addons) who use ONLY Grid more as an organizational tool than anything else, had to disagree.

Yes. I'm a "bad" healer. I click on my button on my standard UI bar, and then bring the mouse over to the grid box and click the box.

But I will maintain that I will heal just as fast as someone who is using grid/clique.

Because honestly - you can only heal as fast as your heals are off cooldown, and GCD is cooled down.

Can I see how a DRUID healer would be slowed down without using something to help, considering the nature of instant-cast hots? Yes. But when you play a class that doesn't have a lot of instant cast spells... by the time I CAN cast another spell, I have it ready to be cast.

So sure - you may use less motion than I do - but I'm still healing just as fast. ABC baby.

Does it honestly matter HOW I heal, provided I do the job, and do it well?

When people start to randomly die because I fail as a healer, I'll go ahead and change.

I use grid because it lets me see if people are in or out of range, who has aggro for pre-emptive healing and what class they are and how hurt they are at a glance.

So... how do you heal, and what pros and cons do you feel it offers you?

September 11th - 8 years later

2009-09-11T09:26:00.003-05:00

Last year I blogged on my memories of the day.

I was talking to Boon this morning and I remarked how for us, Pearl Harbor is something that we don't actively think about, or remember the date of, at least not as anything but 'When did it happen again?' - and this morning I even got it wrong. I thought it was December 14th. It's December 7th.

It made me wonder ... when will that time come for us? Will it ever come for those of us who were old enough to be affected by it? Will this always be a day that makes us tear up, even in some small way?

Those who were alive during the days of Pearl Harbor, those who were affected by it... they'll never forget that date. To them, every December 7th is a day to remember. A day to wear a flag pin or a red-white-blue shirt, or if they're blogging, to blog about it.

Is September 11th that day for us? The first few years, in preparation for the day, I'd get together with some of my classmates and we'd make a basket full of red-white-blue ribbon pins and leave the baskets around campus.

Then when that stopped, I would wear a red-white-blue shirt - a white shirt with a red-white-blue heart in sequins on it. Or one of my 9-11 T-shirts.

Now, I'm not. I could technically say I'm wearing red-white-blue because my pants are cream colored, my work top is red, and my shirt is blue. But I feel very unpatriotic. Some of this is due to the fact that I'm bad at planning. So even though I knew this day was coming, I didn't think to plan on what I'd wear, or try to find or make a pin, or anything.

So I'm a very bad 9-11 remembrance person. :(

Where is the cutoff on who the generations that lived through it are and the generations after it?

Do students who were in high school, or middle school... consider the day the way those of us who were adults do? Or to them, is it just another day where something bad happened to some old folks?

How many years must go by before the headline of today isn't something about 9-11?

Will it ever do that?

With the advent of the internet, videos, audiolinks, images - can be found everywhere. It's kept alive - and perhaps it should always be kept alive - because today I can click on a link that will show me exactly what was on TV at the time of the attacks. Because I can click on a link and listen to President Bush talk about the attacks the evening OF the attacks.

It doesn't die down. Perhaps it's good... it isn't something we should forget. But perhaps it's also bad. If we don't let it finally rest, can we ever heal?

Where HAVE you been?!

2009-09-10T15:37:00.002-05:00

I can hear you all clamoring for the answer to that question.

The answer is quite simple. I got burned out. Still am burned out. We were pushing Ulduar hard. It seemed like all there was before me was endless grinding and grinding and grinding to try to get badges so I can upgrade to the gear we'd need in Ulduar.

And then the patch hit that took away my pretty pretty Martyr. *mewl* I miss my Martyr. So suddenly I had to deal with DPS that was so much lower than it was - where before I was competing with the top DPS in my guild, suddenly I was struggling to stay ahead of the tank.

Ok ok ok. SLIGHT exaggeration there. Very slight. Like... this >< much exaggeration.

So I took a break and dove headfirst back into the thing that got me started down the road to meeting Boon, and some of the best and worst friends of my life. Text Based RPG. Yes. It's still out there.

The 'Golden Days' may be over... but the games are still out there. Some of them better than others. Some with people who are better RPers than others.

And with this odd little habit of people doing the internal monologue thing in their poses.

See, I 'grew up' in the field of - you pose what you are doing, what your facial expression is, your stance, your everything. You don't TELL someone what you're doing.

For (brief) example:

Kikidas looks over at Boon, her lips turned down at the corners. The skin between her eyes draws in and her fingers slowly clench into fists.

Now.. you read that and you see EXACTLY what I am doing. It is up to you to draw conclusions as to what I am thinking - the way you would if you were seeing that in real life.

Kikidas could be pissed at Boon for what he said. Or what he's going to do. Or upset for some other reason that Boon is bringing up, but not at Boon himself.

But you can only guess based on what you can see of the interaction between the two.

The bad example:

Kikidas looks over at Boon, frowning as he talks about her sordid love affair with Bargrave oh so many years ago. Her fingers curl into fists as she contemplates the horrible ending where Bargrave spurned her for Disrida, that succubus tramp. Her heart is still broken.

There is just way too much information in that pose that, if we were being true to the soul of text-based gaming, you just shouldn't know. Unless Kikidas or Boon say: "Hey, do you remember when Bargrave spurned you for Disrida and broke your heart? Isn't Disrida such a tramp?" how could you possibly infer that information from Kikidas frowning and clenching her fists?

Granted... there is a time and place for internal monologuing in poses. I use it RARELY myself for comedic relief.

For instance:

As Bodaz speaks of using mice to experiment synthesizing a new hormone that would allow Dekir's people to live offworld, Kvasira looks down at her fingers, flexing them against her clothing as she listens. Where's PETA when you need them?

There's no such thing as PETA in the Star Wars universe, so it isn't IC information being given. But it makes people laugh in out of character chat. :)

So that's where I've been -- that and on Champions. Erm, I don't know the full name. It's the new incarnation of City of Heroes.

I have, thus far, gotten a ton of compliments about the way my characters look. Granted, some from Boon, so that doesn't count, but some from other people, too.

And of course, my account is being shared by Vialora, who has a thing for vivid purple and green -- which kind of hurts the eyes. I think his power is to be so blindingly clashing that people can't see him out of self-preservation.

So, because I think my characters look cool...

Gaia, Sibuna, Nightdream and Blue Lace -- okay, that last one isn't cool as much as just... what can I say, I was having fun. :)

You may need to refresh the page if it shows N/A for character picture.

So... that's where I've been. I'm back on WoW part time, leveling my disc priest, and probably going to be playing more of my resto shaman than my retardadin. And maybe my warlock.

A Keiji in Naxxramas

2009-08-02T22:33:00.002-05:00

I know that previously I had taken Keiji into Naxx with a PuG. But this time it was different... this time, it was a guild run.

Two days. All bosses. Only trouble was KT (and Heigan, but then again, when isn't there trouble with Heigan? We still one shot the Dance Master.), where we had some issues with positioning and tank death. But we persevered and down he went.

I finally got a shoulder upgrade (woot for tier!) and some nifty boots.

Unholy tanking... still a problem with the Bone Shield, the cooldown being a smidge too long for comfort. Perhaps they should offer a glyph that reduces the cooldown on it?

But otherwise, I believe I did well. It helps that we had some awesome healers and awesome DPS. But I am happy. I finally got Keiji through Naxxramas (10).

Next step... ULDUAR! (I jest, I jest!)

Mimiron is a PITA

2009-08-01T08:32:00.002-05:00

I was on vacation to New York for a little while there, which doesn't completely explain the lack of blogging, but it does explain some of the lack of blogging! It's hard to blog about a game you can't actually play, especially given that much of my blog inspiration comes from in-game issues.

Our 10-man Ulduar progression team is stuck on Mimiron. We finally made it past phase 3, which has been the sticking point for us for a while now, and then had half the raid wipe in phase 4 because they didn't see the red runes of death beneath them. After that, we couldn't get past phase 3 again.

I don't get the whole clumping up thing, to me that seems like you're just asking to have your entire raid wiped out in one second. I get the whole 'need to be together to prevent the boss from bugging out during laser barrage', but can't we clump up when that starts?

The 'nice' thing is that our allied guild that we do 25 man runs with is also stuck on Mimiron.

Is it wrong to be glad that our allies are also stumbling? Or just normal? :) I'm not CHEERING that they're not progressing, but at the same time, I'm also glad that they aren't beating us out!

And in other news, MRSA is in da house! Albeit, this is not a cheer thing, as much as a 'you've got to be kidding me' thing. Black clouds, people, black clouds!

PvP: Failures in Teamwork

2009-07-24T18:38:00.002-05:00

There are lots of different strategies for the various battlegrounds that we have in World of Warcraft, from the old favorites of Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley, to the newer ones of Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients and Wintergrasp, to the new one on the horizon.

One of the common factors in whether or not your side wins, besides when one runs afoul of a premade, is when a team works together as a cohesive unit, even if you don't win, you do far far better than when everyone is soloing.

This is something that the Horde in the Rampage Battlegroup seem to be able to do, regardless of it is a PuG or not.

Be it because they actually DISCUSS things before hand (blasphemy, I know), or be it that they realize that four rogues working together will own just about anything that comes their way (oh God, that WSG game SUCKED.), or that a disc priest, paladin combination is nearly impossible to beat and therefor they can do whatever the hell they want... be it what it may, the Horde have mad leet communication skills and the Alliance do not. Which always seems backwards to me, given the names involved.

Those few times when you do have a leader attempting to actually lead, it's like trying to herd kittens through a field of butterflies. They either ignore you, or ignore you, or bat at your heels while purring. Or viciously attack in badly written English.

Or if/when the attack plan doesn't go as intended, they start to bitch and moan and complain, rather than help modify the plan to fix what was wrong, or deal with the unexpected. Because this helps everything.

Simple things... "Need healers on FC", "FC coming up West", "EFC going down East", "Don't go Tunnel", "Go Ramp", "Inc. BS", "Inc. TP", "I'm tank, going in on Drek"... can be the difference between success and failure... and often are. Yet people do not do this. They rush in, or solo defend, or solo run the flag, or solo try to get the flag back, and then whey they die, or fail, they blame everyone else for sucking.

PvP: The Beginning

2009-07-06T09:08:00.003-05:00

Back in the old days of yore and bygones and in a galaxy far, far away... I swore I'd never PvP.

However, I am a) a woman and 2) a warlock. I can do whatever the hell I want.

So I've started to PvP. As you may (or may not) have read, I started with Kvasira (technically my current "main") the RetLoL way back at level 70.

I can't say I got BORED with PvPing with Kvasira, but I'm a goal-oriented person for the most part. It can be something as simple as: 'beating X boss' for the umpteenth time, but I need an end-goal.

For Kvasira, it was hitting 10k HK's. I did that. And then I said, 'Next one is 25k? Screw that.'. I worked my tush off, got her outfitted with over 800 resilience, she's a walking juggernaut of death! (Okay, not quite, but I do well considering I still don't use keybindings.) But I do NOT have the patience to grind away to 25k HK's.

I realized that my place as a retribution paladin is assist. I run with the fc, I get back the flag from the efc. Sometimes I run the flag. I guard bases or help assault them. I burn towers and laugh. I serve as a bad backup healer but possibly the only thing standing between tank death on Galv and winning. I soak up damage by NPC's so someone else can cap the graveyard.

In short, I make myself as annoying to the Horde as Humanly (or Draenicly) possible.

But I digress! (As I'm allowed to do. My blog, remember?)

So I switched my focus to Karika the Resto Shaman. I sat there all the time with Kvasira and said to myself, 'OMFG, Trees, Resto Shaman, Disc Priest, Holy Paladin... I HATE YOU'. So I decided to go at it from the other side. I'd try to BE the person that those other people hated (even more than my 'screw up their plan' paladin self).

It stunk at first, no resil gear besides the crafted rings and necklace. I'd land in a battleground and announce to my raid: "I'm a resto shaman in PvE gear. Please don't leave me alone and I'll heal you."

It garnered a few laughs, but it worked. For the most part, I was able to live long enough to accomplish something. Heal the flag carrier, whatever.

Of course, once the Horde realized that they had 1) a resto shaman that had b) bad pvp gear, it was open season on Karika.

The Horde are VERY good at focus firing people. I hate it when it happens to me.

However, I'm now at somewhere around 400 resilience with Karika, I can live longer. I do live longer. I can sometimes hear them grinding their teeth as they work at killing me. I'm still working on ways to do stuff besides heal myself over and over again when someone is hitting me. It's still just a waiting game otherwise: I heal myself until help arrives, if help doesn't arrive, it may take three minutes or whatever, but eventually I'll die.

Now... what's the point of this? Just K babbling again, right?

WRONG.

I'm in these battlegrounds, battlegrounds that have been out for YEARS, and watching people do the silliest things.

It seems people have either 9) forgotten the basic strategies for the various BG's or z) are new to the game and thus do not KNOW the strategies that the rest of us take for granted.

There are MANY guides out there, (some of them good! Like The Art of War(craft)). (And if I had any ability with the internet at all, I'd link his articles. As it is, this is the best I can do. The Warlock's Den also has a nice page devoted to beginning PvP.)

And of course, my favorite place is WoWWiki for all my unofficial needs.

However, you guys all know me. I'm never content just linking and letting that be enough. I've got to rant, rave and give my take on the whole PvP/Battleground scenario.

Besides 'The Alliance has the coordination and tactics of a group of kittens in a field of butterflies' that is...

And isn't that a pretty visual. :)

Faction Change

2009-06-30T09:04:00.005-05:00

I'm sure by now everyone and their brother (or sister, let's not be sexist here) has seen this post, or some variation of it.

Now, the question becomes: how will they do it?

Options:
1. 'Makeover': Similar to how they currently let us redesign our race, new gender, new face, new etc... are we going to have transracial transformations?

Problems:
a: How does this happen on a RP server? Nibuca has already humerously outlined potential pitfalls with this.

b: What if I'm an Alliance paladin... do I HAVE to become a Blood Elf paladin? And what if I'm a Horde shaman, do I then have to become a Draenei?

c: If I'm not limited like that and I could become an Orc paladin, what does that mean for people who are just starting out their orcs? Will they start to bitch: But I want to be an orc paladin too, without having to level Alliance! Or will Blizzard make all classes available to all races?

2: 'Racial Turncoat': They are out there. I mean, we already have humans in the Scarlet Crusade that are against the Alliance, and the Scourge against the Forsaken, and etc. So... let's go one step further, shall we?

Problems:
a: Do we REALLY think that Thrall is going to let some whiny Human join his people? Or Varian Wrynn will let any despicable Orc join his?

b: It will make the appearance of battlegrounds a little more tough to navigate. You see a Tauren on the horizon... quick, check his name against the raid list, do you see his little dot on the minimap? He's too far away to see if his name is red, or green. Is he one of ours, or one of THIERS?

c: It will piss off the Horde in the Rampage battlegroup, that's for sure. Suddenly, all the little kids who don't want to play an ugly Horde, EW! (I'm with ya, little kids. And yes, BE's aren't ugly, but the girls cast/attack like sissies and the boys are prettier than the girls. That's just wrong. And besides, the bones in the Forsaken are put together all wrong. Inaccuracy FTL.), can now play their pretty/cool/awesome/whatever Alliance character, and go all emo and switch sides to the Horde. Suddenly, a Cho'gall Horde premade isn't as scary anymore.

d: The use of 'v' to bring up enemy nameplates will suddenly become MUCH more commonplace.

What do YOU guys think they'll do, and what problems do you think will arise from that method?

Boon personally thinks it'll be Option 1. I kind of hope for Option 2. If I wanted to play an Orc, I would have rolled an Orc.

Resto Shaman PvP... I suck.

2009-06-27T08:36:00.003-05:00

Kvasira hit 10,000 honor kills, has the full set of purchasable level 80 epic PvP gear, including trinket and cloak. The only thing I could work towards now is upgrading one of my rings and necklace to the epic form rather than the rare crafted ones. I'm also working towards getting one of the PvP mounts. 30 badges of each of the original three types. I'd have had it a long time ago, except I did a lot of concerted efforts instead to raise my honor faster to buy stuff.

So... I'm bored with that for the moment.

And I decide, given how much I bitch about resto/healers in PvP (opponents, love 'em when they're on our side), I'd take my shaman in and see how I can do with PvP there.

I have a LOT to learn. It doesn't help that I don't have ANY PvP gear with her (gonna craft myself the necklace/rings today). Once the Horde figure out that 1: I'm a healer and 2: I die like a baby mouse against a lion, I'm their preferred target to kill.

Granted, there were a few times where I sat there and said, 'Yeah, just keep hitting on me. While you're trying to kill me, my companions are killing you/capping the flag/assaulting the base.' If I don't get stunned, stunlocked or silenced, I can keep myself alive pretty easily.

I also have new respect for the healers I used to work with. Never again while I am running the flag will I leave them behind unwittingly. There's nothing nothing more annoying than having the flag runner get away from you because you're trying to stay alive, and then watch them die just out of your healing range.

Yeah.

So, resto pvp for me. Any suggestions?

Totems: Tremor (where appropriate) or Earthbind, Wrath, Cleansing and Magma?
Earthshield on myself (or flag runner with Watershield on myself).
And then just heal my tush off.

I'm having issues where I'll try to hit Nature's Swiftness and then a Healing Wave or Chain Heal and I can't get it off in time.

Part of my PvP problems arise from the fact that I don't use keybindings. I've tried in the past, and I just get confused. Now, some of that will go away if I just practice/practice/practice. And I may need to switch to that, and using the mouse to move instead of the awsd keys.

Yeah, I can hear you... yes, I use the awsd keys. And the qe keys. I'm a terribad player, I know.

The Joys (Hahahaha!) of Pugging

2009-06-24T09:08:00.002-05:00

That was a sarcastic pathetic whimper of a laugh there, by the way.

Boon is out of town, so I decided that my Tuesday was best spent trying to get in some raids on those characters of mine that never get to see the nonlight of Naxxramas. As opposed to cleaning the house or something.

First up: Keiji needs badges. The likelihood of her getting into a VoA run without another DK that needs the chestpiece, IF it drops, is so miniscule that I'm just going to farm up the 80 badges to buy the chest token.

So I advertise myself for any heroic, and 10 man Naxxramas.

I get swooped up for a 10m Nax, almost full except for tanks. Okay, cool. It's a pug, I don't expect completely smooth sailing, but it sounds like they're all familiar enough with the fights and the like.

I'm a little nervous, since though I've been in Naxxramas enough times healing and DPSing to do it blindfolded (I can probably still tell you how many pulls it takes to get to Gargolmar in Hellfire Ramparts), I've never tanked in there before.

So I immediately hit up the other tank in tells, letting him know that while I know the fights in general, I've never TANKED them before and could he kindly let me know anything particular about the tanking aspects that I may not be aware of. He's cool with it. He only needs ONE trinket out of the whole instance, so anything tank-like that drops, it's mine, all mine!

We hit up military first. After one wipe on Raz because I was learning the whole 'charming the people thing, when do I use bone shield, when do I ask for a taunt, when, what, huh?', we down Raz. We down Gothik.

We have a few wipes on the four horsemen. Why, you ask? Because unknown to me, there's only 2 healers. And the unholy DK in full epic DPS gear is doing barely more damage than me, the unholy DK in mostly epic and some blues tanking gear (I knew this part). So the paladin MT goes holy, saying he can heal himself while tanking the guy, and I'd take the 'burn first' group with all the DPS. The RL says we're not going to switch up front, but just burn straight through. With most of the raid doing a little less than 2k damage (and one doing barely more than 1k, granted, he's off in the back tanking one of the mobs back there), I find this an unlikely win scenario.

Surprise! I'm right. We wind up with like, 7 marks before the Thane (and most of the DPS and the other tank) goes down.

Okay. Fine. The boomkin (who is top DPS) says he'll bring in his holy paladin just for the fight, doesn't mind saving the paladin to the raid, etc. A few more wipes, the back goes down, the RL wants to try one more 'no swap', and then finally I'm tanking by myself with the resto druid on me, the paladin MT is on Thane, and we do the swap method, and we win.

Yegads. Oh... guess how many tanking items dropped? Yeah. None. We swap out a few people, get in a nice warlock that pushes mid-2k dps, and we continue to go.

We go to Construct next. To my COMPLETE surprise, we down Patchwerk in one try. Yeah. Never pictured THAT happening.

We get to Globbulus, and one shot him too. The DK keeps dropping his poison cloud in the raid, but other than THAT, no problem.

Then we go towards Gluth. Now, let me say, when we started, we had two mages. By the time we got to Gluth, we had no mages. We had: roguex2, DK dps, warlockx2, boomkin, tree, holy pal, prot pal, DK tank.

We ask the DK if he can kite the adds. He says he can, sure, but doesn't like doing it.

Then when asked if he knows how to do it, he says no. The RL starts to ask if anyone else feels comfortable doing it... and a few of us point out that he's the ONLY class capable of doing it in the raid. Bonus that he has desecration.

Surprisingly, we get Gluth almost down when the DK dies and we lose it. Then the MT has to go. We swap a few more people. Then the holy paladin says he has to go. And it gets called.

No tank drops for Keiji.

I did get asked by the other DK: u unholy tank? can u do that? (I'm paraphrasing and making it more understandable.)

I exit Naxxramas, they're going to TRY again today. I, oh so unfortunately, have work. I spot Vialora outside of Nax. He says he's in a Nax25 pug. I ask if they have room for a warlock? They do!

I join. Through cajolery, we get a few more KoUers in the mix. The RL is armory'ing everyone. Everyone there is in almost full epics, tier 8, etc. This is going to be GREAT, right?

Spider goes down with only one hitch on the Grand Widow, but we two shot her. I'm on the low end of the Recount at about 2800 dps. The top end ranged in the high 3k, low 4k. This is going to go GREAT!

We go to Plague next. Noth no problem... and then we hit Heigan. O. M. G. I don't think I've ever seen so many wipes on Heigan since KoU first went in on 10man. The tanks kept pulling him too close to the stage, so the healers couldn't heal, so the tanks died. Or the tank would be too far away, so we'd move forward to heal/dps, and then the tank would suddenly be too close again. Like, is he backing up on an S curve through the room or something?

I think we wiped 4 times before we FINALLY got Heigan down. Loatheb was a clean kill (with an amusing 'pre-attempt half-wipe' that happened when someone ran in and aggro'd Loatheb when half the raid was still on the bridge outside of his room). (Granted, at the time, not so amusing considering how many times we all just died on Heigan.)

And then the end. We go to Military next. And we cannot get Raz down. Can. Not. Do. It. The 'lead' spriest wouldn't say when she was starting, she'd be told 'when you're ready', and instead of saying anything, would just slip down there and start casting. Then the other spriest would have to rush to pick up his target. And then the one would pull Raz too far to one side, so the other couldn't get him with their MC target. And people were hitting the MC'd targets with AoE damage? And the call-offs weren't good so the MC targets were taking tons of damage. And they weren't telling when one was being released, or weren't releasing on a regular schedule, because he'd be on one, and then suddenly both he and that target were running at the raid. And the healers weren't keeping the MC targets alive, and we'd run out of MC targets to tank him.

So we called it. Kikidas did get wrist and helm out of there, so not a complete loss on my part. Yet again, another one where they said to get in there again today. Alas, alas, unless I'm inconcievably not part of our Ulduar 25 run tonight, busy for that too.

For the final part of my evening, I went as Keiji to a SUCCESSFUL 10man OS guild-run. No drakes, but meh.

Unfortunately, didn't get the bag of spoils. Those badges would have gone a long way towards my chest piece.

So once again, the joys of pugging are rediscovered. To me, the BIGGEST mind-blow was the UBER Nax25 run that turned into a wipe fest. I think personally it was a bit of 'familiarity breeds contempt'. Everyone knows it well, but slightly different, and with us all KNOWING, no one was leading the attempts with 'tank him here' or whatever, or healing assignments, or anything. The most we got was 'you're MT' to one of the warriors.

So... top five signs that your PUG isn't all it's shaped up to be (and given the already low expectations of a PUG, these are pretty bad!). These aren't in any particular order. Because how do you order these beauties?

5. One of your six DPS is barely (or not at all) outdamaging one of your tanks.
4. The raid leader doesn't vet anyone, just invites people, and then later on asks: 'Does anyone...'
3. You're heading into Gluth and don't have any class capable of kiting the chow. And the RL doesn't notice.
2. The raid leader insists on doing something, when it's painfully obvious that it won't work.
1. The raid leader first says that there isn't going to be vent. And then after one of the DPS finally offers their vent channel, doesn't want to join it. (Or lead.)

As a top five list, it's pretty pathetic, I realize. And it's largely based on my experiences from yesterday, shockingly enough.

In other news... I got Ironman on Kvasira. *rawr*flex*

LFG Disc Priest. --> can u heal?

2009-06-22T16:59:00.005-05:00

Now granted, discipline priests can do some interesting damage, but I'd be hard pressed to say that they're a 'DPS' class. Please do correct me if someone out there thinks otherwise, but when someone says they're a disc priest, I naturally assume that they're a healer.

I've discovered the joy of priestly healing once again, and in addition to leveling my hunter with Boon's shadow priest, and playing hordies, I've been pestering Boon to do some instances with me and my priest, so that I can heal heal heal heal!

It's like a puzzle. Heal X, Shield Y, Renew A... some combination thereof will allow us to get to the end of the instance with everyone alive.

I'm interested, once I hit 80, in trying PvP. A few of the things I HATE HATE HATE when I'm PvPing with Kvasira is running across a discipline priest, a resto shaman or a tree. Holy paladins are also annoying, but not NEARLY as much.

Maybe it's just that paladins are somewhat limited in our interrupts. We have a whopping two. No kick. No silence. No silencing shot. No fear. No deathcoil. Nothing. So put one of us against another and it's really just hoping we can burn them down when our HoJ is off cooldown.

Anyway... Boon is going out of town for a week, so I am going to be unable to instance with Kiljara. I'm not allowed to do any leveling without him. So I guess it's PvP with Kvasira, working on reputations and badges with Keiji and writing.

Noooo! RetLoL is gone!

2009-06-18T10:27:00.000-05:00

I mean, the site is still there, but the person who updated it has stopped updating due to RL things!

Come back soon, RetLoL! (And come back safe.)

Rotational Queries...

2009-06-18T08:47:00.004-05:00

In our recent Ulduar 25 run, I had the pleasure of being one of three retribution paladins.

Of the three, I was second in terms of damage. Now, the paladin who topped me is normally a tank (how galling), and does a lot of pugging (how brave), and has really nice gear.

So I just assumed it was an issue more of gear than of rotation or ability or anything like that.

Then I looked at the WWS for the run. With the exception of Exorcism and Ret Aura, my abilities do more damage than his abilities (if you look at the white line. On the green line, his abilities do more than my abilities. I wish I knew how to read this stupid chart better. It seems that the white is damage, the green are how many? Or something... in which case, I'm just not doing ENOUGH). My Seal, Judgement, Swing, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm...

Yet he's out damaging me. (Shut up. I know on the charts it looks like only by 9 DPS. But that's apparently the difference between #1 and #2. So 9 DPS is GIGANTIC. And I have no idea why Micro, who is pulling over 4100 DPS is so low on the charts. Probably because Paladins are awesome and mages are just glorified water boys.)

So I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'm going to assume it has something to do with my rotation. Which admittedly is my hardest to watch/do thing, given that I'm also often using art of war, and moving, and decursing and all that fun stuff that makes being a paladin so awesome. Which means that my perfect rotation, where nothing is off CD at the same time so I don't 'waste' time waiting for GCD, never happens.

I tend to move in and judge light, to get Heart of the Crusader on the boss. Then I'll try to crusader strike, then divine storm, then judgement will be off cooldown (or close to). I use exorcism whenever I have all three of the others on cooldown (or the boss moves away and I'm not in melee range). I'm not sure if I should use exorcism whenever it's up? It does some nice damage.

I think the problem is that I have one 6s CD and two 10s CDs. And I get confused which one I should be hitting first to try to keep the CD's from overlapping.

I guess it's time with the training dummy for me. Or maybe RetLoL has new information.

I'm in the News! (in 1984...)

2009-06-15T11:32:00.001-05:00

OS+1

2009-06-13T09:48:00.003-05:00

Normally when I'm in Obsidium Sanctum, I'm the OT, the 'add picker upper' - given that I'm unholy and usually less well geared than the other tanks in the instance.

This time, I was given the daunting task of tanking Sartherion. Not sure if the RL did that because of my magic shield eating a few of his flame breaths, or because he wanted the better geared and more knowledgeable of the tanks on the drake and adds, or what, but there it was.

I wiped the first time on a flame tsunami. See, I didn't know that you had to dance between the two safe spots, and I thought there was just the one spot that was safe from all the flames. I am sometimes... not often, but sometimes... dumb.

So the first time, I went to what I was told was the 'safe spot', not realizing there was a second, and sure enough, the first flame tsunami was right on my back.

The next time, I went ahead and stood in the safe spot that doesn't require me to move from the flame tsunami that arrives from my back, so I just had to dance in and out of one tsunami.

I did die on our successful attempt, as neither I, nor my healer, were prepared for (or knew about!) the mini-enrage Sarth gets when you down one of the drakes. So BAM. Dead tank. Thankfully, the other tank was up to the task of picking up Sarth and the DPS were up to the task.

In the future, gonna try to save a bone shield cooldown for that time and be ready with trinket/other cooldowns. As it was, I went from reasonably alive, to dead, before I realized what happened.

So I can finally say that I've tanked Sarth. Go me!

After that, I went and pitifully DPS'd in Heroic OK. I need badges as Keiji for the Tier Chest. On the herald? Yeah. I slapped on my tank set and actually didn't do too badly in terms of killing my friends.

Ironsoul

2009-06-11T18:09:00.002-05:00

The other day I was looking at Kvasira's gear and wondering when I'd ever get out of the Spiked Titansteel Helm and the Titansteel Destroyer.

I don't need the hit rating, for heaven's sake!

And I was commenting to Vialora how I hope that Flame Levi, one of those times I'm in Ulduar-10, drops this neat two-handed weapon that he has.

And usually I'm the only plate DPS in Ulduar-10.

And the other night, Vialora is invited along.

And Flame Levi drops Ironsoul.

And Vialora has more DKP.

But Vialora lives in my house.

And I know how to castrate things.

And make brownies.

Together, those two arguments convinced him that passing so I can get the upgrade was a good idea.

I'm sure my guild thinks I beat him into submission.

But I think 'beat' is too strong a word. Strongly demonic glares and the promise of brownies isn't beating. It's negotiation. It's a compromise.

(In all honesty, Vialora passed out of the goodness of his heart, and the fact that I raid far more often than he does, and would use the weapon more. Also, his equipped weapon was better than my equipped weapon at the time (he is using The Jawbone). So I really do owe him brownies and my very sincere gratitude.)

For the Alliance

2009-06-08T12:11:00.003-05:00

Got my bear last night. Yup indeed.

Got into this raid around 4ish or so. Then left the raid because no one was in it and it was being run by what seemed to be a 12 year old with ADD.

Then got into another raid... with the same 12 year old, several HOURS later, during which time we had fun with things like PvPing and Arena'ing.

So we head out to Ratchet. Someone pulls the guards on the 'secret entrance', so we have to rush in before we're really ready. Nevertheless, Thrall dies. We go on our way to TB. We go in a poorly organized group of string cheese, and most of us die on our way to Bloodhoof. (I didn't. Rawr.) And then when we regroup, no one waits for buffs, and no one actually tanks the boss and he's going everywhere and we had tons of adds and it's just a MESS.

A bunch of people leave.

Boon steps up to the plate and says, "LISTEN UP PUKES, IF YOU WANT YOUR BEAR, YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME OR DIE."

And surprisingly, that works. We regroup. We buff. We kick Bloodhoofs (or would that be Bloodhooves?) posterior.

Then we head up to UC. We regroup. We buff. We go through the sewers. We get lost and amusingly dead as a bunch of us run off a cliff in the city and think we're going to land in a nice pool of sludge and instead hit the floor. Sneaky.

We get to Sylvanas. We kick her posterior. Little tip? The best way to figure out where she's going to be next is to watch the pets of the hunters. They'll go over to where she's about to spawn before she actually appears. They're smart little minions that way.

We then ride up to Silvermoon. We ride straight up to the group of three people who are in the big shiny area. (Can you tell I know little of Blood Elves?) I don't even know which one is the leader and which ones are just his underlings!

But we get to him. We kick his posterior.

I get my BEAR!

Of course, a few people didn't get the Org achievement, due to releasing or somesuch, so we head on back. Naturally, since most of the people just did all four and got their bear, why would they do it again? (If only for fun, right?) So we get a bunch of people deserting. Including our one tank. So I log in Keiji, we grab a few more puggers (making sure to let them know we're just doing Org) and we charge in for the second time in a night!

I tank the hexing dude. A druid we picked up tanked Thrall. I kept death gripping those few Horde that showed up to stop us into the mix. That was fun. :)

(We 25 Manned Thrall. Yes. We had only 4-5 groups of people, not all of whom were 80.)

And then we run back on out. I'm in combat so I'm running, not riding. Boon stays with me because he's the best. And all the guards are on me... and they don't stop (probably has something to do with unholy blight + DnD (they were hitting Boon! What else could I do but pull them off of him with a DnD... let him die? ... Well, okay, I could do that I suppose...), so we're running and running and this level 80 horde shaman keeps trying to stop us.

I mean, talk about PERSISTENT. He followed us all the way from Thrall's room out. I kept chains of ice on him (and hello, the only cooldown on that is global and frost runes? Seriously? No wonder it seems you can't cross the field in WSG without having to constantly cleanse chains of ice from the flag runner.) and then we were out, jumped into the river, and finally evaded most of the rest of the guards except for two persistent fellows... and that dang shaman!

So the unholy tank and the holy paladin (and how is that for a duo? Unholy and holy together? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!) went into this epic battle with an elemental shaman! But strangulate, mind freeze, death grip and Boon hammering him got him down. And then he came back up. So we killed him. Again.

I mean, really! Bravo on a good attempt! :)

The highlight was this level 1 orc had followed us out the whole way with the shaman, unflagged naturally, and watched the whole fight. When it was over, I bowed to the level 1...

And then the level 1 logged into their Alliance alt and told Boon that it was the most epic fight he'd ever seen! (I doubt that, but the sentiment is appreciated)

It was, I will admit, very fun.

They're gunning for me!

2009-06-05T11:26:00.005-05:00

With the PvP bug again in my ear, I've been running around with Kvasira in the various battlegrounds, rediscovering the joys and ... okay, rediscovering the headaches that being Alliance in the Rampage Battlegroup means.

However, I think I've noticed something! People don't LIKE me! ... well, the Hordies. The Alliance don't seem to mind me.

But dang, if it isn't every time I'm in a battleground, I seem to have one or two hordies that seem to have it out for me. They see me and veer off from what they're doing or where they're going to try (sometimes succeed!) to kill me.

It probably has something to do with the fact that I like to mess up plans wherever and whenever possible. :D

Oh, are you running the flag? HAMMER OF JUSTICE!

Okay, this seems to mostly be a Warsong Gulch thing. I haven't noticed it much in the other battlegrounds, except Strand of the Ancients... and I think that's because in Strand I like to do the bomb defusing thing, and bombing thing, and killing the tanks thing, and taking the graveyards thing.

Anyway, so in between running the flag (cleanse, cleanse, cleanse, cleanse, cleanse) and returning the flag (hammer of justice, hammer of wrath, take THAT!), I seem to, in every WSG, develop a following of two or three hordies that take time out of their busy day to see how I'm doing.

It makes me feel loved. In a very warm, bodily fluids gushing out, way.

Dual spec? No thanks.

2009-06-03T10:07:00.003-05:00

With the advent of dual speccing, a lot of people have accepted the task of getting multiple sets of gear together and paying the fee to be able to respec 'instantly' for the need of their guild, or their own personal desires.

While I think that dual-spec is a nice thing for people, it isn't something I have ever shown an interest in doing for myself. There's a good reason for this, for me.

If I wanted to be a holy paladin, guess what I would have played?

If I want to heal, then I'm not interested in being my paladin, but instead I'm going to be logging in my shaman or my priest, both of whom are my healers.

If I want to dps, then I'll be logging in one of the people that I have decided, in my mind, to call my damage classes.

I just think we're assuming that if someone shows up at 80, dual-specced holy and ret, or boomkin and tree, or tree and bear, or shadow and disc... that they can play both equally well. I don't think this is the case.

Now, I'm not saying that someone who is dual-specced can't play both their specs really well. I'm not saying this because I've encountered many people who do. And if I so chose to do dual-speccing, I don't doubt that I'd be good at both specs.

(Because I'm K, like you had to ask.)

However, as I mentioned above... if I want to heal, then I log in Karika. If I want to DPS, then I log in Kvasira or Kikidas. If I want to tank, I log in Keiji. If I want to level a healer, dpser or tank, then I log in one of my poor neglected characters.

For people who aren't as altalicious as I am, it makes sense for them to turn their hybrid 80 into two (or three!) roles. In terms of raid saves, it also makes sense to not have to save two characters to the same raid if they suddenly need you to switch from your dps to your healer.

But it isn't for me. For me, the reason I have so many alts is that it isn't JUST the game or the quest or the fight... for me, it's the CLASS. For me... my paladin is not a healer. Sure, I can toss flash of light here or holy light there, but I am not a healer, unless you count Judgement of Light, then I'm HoT-Queen, druids look out! But my paladin is retribution.

If you want me to be my healer, then you had best know that from the start and ask me to bring Karika along from the getgo.

If you want ranged DPS of awesome proportions, then ask me from the getgo to bring Kikidas.

Someone who used to be a holy paladin but decided to shelve them to be a DPS-only class (which is entirely AOK by me. It's their 15 bucks a month.) told Boon that every ret paladin should be dual-specced holy.

Excuse me?

I don't think I heard you correctly. You're telling me that you don't want to be a holy paladin but instead want to be a DPS-only class, but that I have to take my ret pally and dual-spec holy? Because the option is there? Because why? Please tell me what compelling reason there is that I have to take my kickass plate wearing big hammer swinging retribution paladin and turn her into a plate wearing shield bearing holy paladin just because the raid leader may want another holy paladin?

I don't even take offset GEAR for anyone, because I KNOW that I am not going to be using it.

Now, I wasn't privy to the entire conversation and I'm sure they have their reasons for thinking the way they do. But I'm sorry, I don't have to dual-spec holy. I don't have to dual-spec anything, for anyone.

If you feel that strongly that DPS-hybrid classes need to be able to heal in their spare time, then log in your paladin and dual-spec ret and holy, but don't try to tell me that I have to.

For those out there that dual-spec, because they like to heal and dps on the same character, more power to you! Be it because you like healing and dpsing and tanking on that class, or because it's your favorite toon, or because it's your only 80, or whatever, go you! Have fun.

But don't tell me that I need to dual-spec.

When I log into my paladin, I log into her with a certain set of expectations. Big two-hander. Divine Storm. Crusader Strike. Paladin. Muscle memory guides my clicks and my movements.

I don't log into her and have to decide what spec I want to be with her. I am retribution paladin. I am Kvasira.

Ditto with Karika, or Keiji, or Kikidas. (Yes, I know, warlocks are dps/dps/dps classes, but I'm an affliction warlock, and that isn't likely to change for a while, even though destrolocks are currently higher in the raid damage meters.)

While it would take but a change of mental preparation for me to say, 'Okay, I am holy paladin now, gotta get on my holy paladin hat', I don't want to. At the risk of being obnoxiously repetative... if I want to heal, I want to be my shaman. If I want to hit things with a big weapon, I want to be Kvaisra. If I want to tank, I want to be Keiji. If I want to hit things from a distance with shadowy bolts of darkness and massive amounts of damage over time abilities, I want to be Kikidas.

Sorry, this turned into more of a rant than I was intending it to be, but I find it kind of offensive for someone who chooses a primary DPS class, to turn around and tell any hybrid that 1: they need to dual-spec and 2: that they need to dual-spec into a healing spot.

It ranks right up there with people (I'm looking at you, mages. It always seemed to be mages who bitched.) who used to tell ret pallies in PvP that we should respec holy and be useful. (Of course, my answer was: then you roll a paladin and play holy, otherwise, shut up.)

Guess who isn't getting a bubble. Yeah. That's right. You aren't.

Ulduar Downings for KoU's Progression Team

2009-05-31T21:23:00.002-05:00

Flame Levi
Razorscale
XT-002
Kologarn
Iron Assembly
Auriaya
Hodir
Thorim

This is just a list for us. We've attempted Ignis and Freya, a few shots on each before we ran out of time for the evening.

Fun in Regular Halls of Lightning

2009-05-29T13:05:00.002-05:00

One of my friends has leveled a DK tank and he wanted to take it on a test drive. So we rousted together some people and hit the heroic daily, which was Utgarde Keep. I took Kikidas, because Ingvar drops a ring. It's better than the rings I have. So I went.

When I joined the group, I got a swell of heart-ache and longing remembrance, as Agurtzane said, "Nooo! I wanted JUST ONE CHANCE to hold aggro!"

Of course, it would have helped if he had been in frost presence instead of unholy! (Remind me to tell you guys about the hunter in our Ulduar-10 that had on Pack during the Deconstructor.)

So after a few wipes (well, I kept dying, so as far as I'm concerned... wipe) where I kept going, "I don't know WHY I'm pulling aggro! I'm waiting!" I finally notice that the tank is not in frost. I gleefully point it out, gloating that it wasn't my warlocky badness that was causing me to pull aggro. I, dare I say, was innocent.

We go on through the instance, la-de-da, kill the boss, la-de-da, no ring, poop, and we try to get him the tanking trinket out of regular HoL. Kikidas doesn't need anything out of regular HoL (not that any of my 80's do), so I decide to take Kvasira just to make it a nice quick run.

Heehee. I need to run regular instances more often! I was almost hitting 4k DPS on everything. *glee* I know it means nothing... but it still made me squeal in delight and fuzzy warmth.

So fuzzy. So warm. Like curling up with a kitten of epic DPS proportions.

And once Frost presence was on, Agurtzane kept threat really well... except for when I opened with Divine Storm...

C'mon people, I need the BIG NUMBERS! Aggro be damned. (It isn't like every tank doesn't have to get massive amounts of AoE threat right away with ANY ret paladin that they run with. I was just training the new tank appropriately.)

On a side note... I'm still having issues figuring out a good single or duo-target trash rotation. For quick deaths, rain of fire seems to do better than SoC? But other than that, is it SB, SB, DL?

PvP Martyr vs. Command?

2009-05-27T09:02:00.003-05:00

Yes, my paladin is PvPing again. Namely because Boon wishes to arena. And what the Boon wishes, the K provides. So I need PvP gear.... so it was off to the battlegrounds for me!

It's a new game out there. There are times when, yes... it's an 'even match' and we win. By even match I mean not a horde premade and equal amounts of people on both sides. Of course, we still lose a fair number of those even matches.

And then there are those matches where we go into EotS (I see this most often there) and it's 15 to 7, Alliance to Horde.

Those are so sweet and clean. Feel a little bad for the poor Hordlings.... until the next match where I sit there and curse them all back to the bowels of Hell.

Anyway... I had been noticing that some paladins in PvP are still using the damage to self Martyr. Presumably because of the higher overall damage, despite the 'always crit on stunned targets' of Command.

I slapped it on to try it... and surprisingly, I didn't do as poorly with it as I expected -- didn't die from it, at any rate.

So for PvP, I've rediscovered the rawr. Yes. The rawr. The feel of running the flag and nyah'ing at the Horde's attempt to stop me. The feel of rushing FRR and whomping people. The feel of running up and planting a seaforium charge at a gate and defending it and seeing the gate blow open with no tanks nearby. The serene joy I get sitting at the top of IBT and watching it burn. And of course... Arathi Basin and the... yeah, still hate the terrain advantage in AB.

Back to Martyr and Command in PvP. From what I had read, people still preferred Command over Martyr in PvP. But it isn't matching up with what I'm seeing in actual battlegrounds. I'll have to evaluate if I notice it on arena opponents, as well.

You'd think that without the constant whackitywhack on something with judgement of light inflicted upon it, that the damage you take from Martyr would swiftly outstrip your Divine Storm/Art of War healing, and if you didn't have a healer nearby, it would be a big negative. But again, it isn't something I noticed as a big downside. I think because most fights are over before the health loss becomes an issue. You're either going to die or not.

Granted, there are a few times where it comes down to the ittybitty little last bit of life for you and the other dude, where Martyr could seriously make you have a baaad day, but that doesn't happen too often.

If any other paladins read this blog, chime in with your impressions of Command vs. Martyr in PvP and Arena.

Martyr vs. Command

2009-05-21T08:33:00.004-05:00

With the advent of Retribution Paladins actually being USEFUL in raids, a big debate has popped up over Seal of the Martyr versus Seal of Command. (where Alliance Martyr = Horde Blood)

Seal of the Martyr: All melee attacks deal [0.22 * mw] to [0.22 * MW] additional Holy damage, but the Paladin loses health equal to 10% of the total damage inflicted. Lasts 30 min.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [.36* MW + .25* SP + .16* AP] Holy damage at the cost of health equal to 33% of the damage caused.

Seal of Command: Gives the Paladin a chance to deal [0.45 * mw] to [0.45 * MW] additional Holy damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time. Lasts 30 min.

Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [0.24 * mw + 0.16 * AP + 0.25 * SPH] to [0.24 * MW + 0.16 * AP + 0.25 * SPH] Holy damage. This attack will always be a critical strike if the target is stunned or incapacitated.

Now, a lot of people will argue that Command is better, because of the Glyph of Seal of Command, which increases your chance of dealing Command damage by 20%.

The big difference between Command and Martyr, in my mind, is that Command is a proc ability, meaning it does not hit on every attack, and Martyr is an 'on melee hit' ability.

The numbers (crunched by people smarter than I am) say that Command unglyphed will proc 7 times per minute, glyphed it will proc a little over 8 times per minute.

Martyr will deal damage with every Crusader Strike, every melee swing, every Divine Storm (and have the potential to crit with every strike).

When I was first playing around with switching from Command to Martyr, having grown up in the era of pre-Martyr Alliance Paladin, where Command was IT... I had the Command Glyph and I was rockin' the Command bandwagon.

Then I noticed in a raid that I was in that another ret paladin was using Seal of the Martyr. They were doing more DPS than I was (unpossible, but it happened). And so ... I started to take a look.

On Recount, using Seal of Command, my #1 ability was Melee, followed by Judgement, followed by something else, often CS or Seal damage. (It's been a while since I've used SoC, so forgive me that I can't remember.)

On Recount, using Seal of the Martyr, my #1 ability was Seal Damage, followed by Melee, followed by Judgement.

So, a lightbulb flicked on in my head... if my melee damage is constant (and there's no reason it shouldn't be, since Seal damage counts as it's own section in recount), the only thing changing is my seal damage and judgement damage... and OMG, my Seal damage is blowing past my overall melee damage.

My DPS jumped up by a bunch, I don't know exact numbers, but all of a sudden, Martyr was lookin' pretty hot, even unglyphed compared to Command as it is.

Actually, let me bring pretty pretty pictures!

Or numbers... here is a comparison of my WWS on a recent Nax25 run compared to Vialora, who used mainly SoC (he switched to Martyr briefly at one point, then habitually went back to SoC)... if I could figure out how to list us both side by side, I'd do that. But I'm dumb.

We both did about 4 million damage overall with just Swing damage.

His Seal of Command did 2 million damage.

My Seal of the Martyr did 5.5 million (of which, 10% of that was done to myself, but 10% of 5 million still means somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.9 million damage done to the mobs, unless I'm doing numbers TOTALLY wrong).

His Judgement of Command did about 2 million.

My Judgement of the Martyr did a little higher than that. Again, 33% of that damage was done to myself, but that still leaves my judgement damage to other mobs comfortably over the two million mark.

And he is using the Glyph of the Seal of Command.

The argument 'It puts a strain on the healers', is largely negated by Judging Light, Art of War and Divine Storm.

Now, there are stories untold of people killing themselves with Seal of the Martyr/Blood on Prince in Karazhan, and even some talking about Thaddius in Naxx. Are there going to be situations where if you're expecting to take a ton of splash damage that MAY drop your health low enough where you can kill yourself, you need to WATCH yourself (or use a different seal)? Yes.

However, I haven't had a problem yet. I use it on Gluth and his decimates. I use it on Thaddius with his polarities. I use it on Malygos with his vortex and falling damage. I use it on Loatheb with his unable to heal yourself debuff.

I have yet to kill myself.

And I kick ass.

One-Shot Nax25 and Post-Raid Thoughts

2009-05-18T14:22:00.004-05:00

It ran from 6-11pm... well, really more like 6:15ish to 10:30ish. And some of that ish is because of afks, disconnects, and us calling it then uncalling it to finish off KT.

The run went ... bumpy. We had a new tank, so had to spend some time going over fights here and there. And we had a few 'oops' wipes, once on TRASH (so humiliating).

We one shot Spider, one shot Plague (getting Heroic: Safety Dance for those of us who were new), two shot Gothik and the 4 Horsies.

On Gothik, we had some weird thing happen where the mobs didn't respawn on dead side after being killed on live. So we had Gothik come down and over to dead side, along with about 20 elites.

The Four Horsemen we had the back crew go down after the first boss went down. Which then caused everyone to get AOEd to death.

We 2-shot Patchwerk, then finished Abom cleanly.

We 2-shot Sapph because for some odd reason, our MT got two-shot at the beginning and we lost too many DPS before one of the secondary tanks could pick it up.

We had the SLOPPIEST KT wipe ever... the MT got his position wrong, and the melee groups that were supposed to be aligned according to him decided to align themselves according to the room instead... so while I was in the right spot to the left of the tank, I was standing on the group that was supposed to be opposite the tank. And people were standing on the tank. And then the tanks that picked up the Guardians didn't pick all of them up, and they were running around whacking on the healers. It was... not... pretty.

Our second KT attempt went better, of a sorts. We lost all the tanks at the very end, and I wound up tanking KT for the last 300k health. By that I mean he was chasing me and I was backing up and whacking him with everything including the kitchen sink, while the healers kept me alive and the remaining DPS went midieval on his ass.

At the end, I had enough for my 75 badge tier 7.5 pants. Yay me. 10% more damage to divine storm, woot woot!

So... a few thoughts...

I brought in my paladin as she is my 'main' character, my progression raider. Yet with the exception of one or possibly two pieces, there isn't anything she could use out of there, everything that dropped for plate DPS that night was a sidegrade at best. I did pick up a new libram, but that was it.

Yet a few other people who were progression raiders brought in their alts. Well geared, yes, but alts nontheless. Which makes me wonder why I can't bring in one of MY DPS alts? Karika is geared to the gills, but Kikidas can use some upgrades. And while she doesn't do the DPS that Kvasira can do, she still puts up decent numbers.

And don't get me started on Keiji.

Given that I don't log onto WoW anymore, except to arena and raid... my alts are unlikely to get into any runs that give them gear upgrades. And it means that between runs, my progression raider will definately not be getting any upgrades.

I'm okay with this.

I'm still writing, both fanfiction (I snicker at myself) as well as sitting down to write one of the stories that I've hashed around for a while now in my head. Maybe I'll actually finish it, this time.

I found myself slightly frustrated with the raiding. We spent a lot of time doing what I felt was ... sitting around with our thumbs up our ass. The tanks not pulling as loot was being handed out. I don't think there was a single time I didn't have to prompt: "Can we continue clearing?" and have one of the RL's confirm: "Yeah, tanks go fight something.".

We had to wait for Patchwerk to pat away and back again (long wait) because we had to wait for someone who decided to go AFK, one person who disconnected and for healing assignments to be handed out.

I find my tolerance for such disturbances to have dwindled to nothing... not that my patience was ever super high to begin with. But now I don't just have the vague feeling of 'I could be doing something productive' or 'this is inefficient'. Now I KNOW I could be doing something more productive or efficient.

I don't mind raiding. It's fun to get together with my friends and bullshit and have Neshura give me a tell of 'You and your damn DPS!' as I beat her out (it only happened once) on Razvious. But at the same time, I wish I had a hookup to a computer so I can write ideas down as I'm waiting, rather than resisting the urge to alt-tab out.

Overall, I was consistently in the top 10 DPS, depending on fight, usually in the top 5-7. To my own surprise, I broke 3k most often.

I have finally convinced Vialora (maybe) to use Seal of the Martyr instead of Seal of Command. Go me and my awesome powers of persuasion (and recount).

Unfortunately, the tier 7.5 shoulders and leg pieces are bright yellow and blue. My chest piece, gloves and boots are dark red. My cloak is this hideous gray-green and purple.

We need the ability to dye our armor, if only so I don't look so much like a color-blind ginsu knife.

Poe Shots

2009-05-18T08:50:00.004-05:00

Finally, as promised... I present... POE!

We've contemplated keeping her in the dog kennel to prevent her from trying to escape, but she just meows piteously.

... the blurring is from my hand, not the cat.

The gray cat is Cloud. You should see them groom each other. So cute.

Funny vs. Not Funny

2009-05-12T09:48:00.002-05:00

Funny: Someone in your raid is well known for practical jokes (that often involve death). (He pays repair bills)

Someone else who typically falls prey to those jokes (and deaths) encourages someone who does not know said joker to get on joker's chopper.

In the beginning of OS.

With all the trash mobs around.

... said joker goes riding off and dies, along with his companion. And about three or four other people who didn't notice the joker riding off, laughing gleefully. Everyone else is safely zoned out already.

This is before the raid is started, before food, etc. Some people still aren't there.

Amusing.

Not Funny: Someone in your raid is well known for being a chode. Always complains. Tends to die because he does stupid shit and then blames everyone else for his death.

You're in Ulduar25. He was given command of driving one of the Siege Engines.

Raid Co-Leader says: Don't use the ram command on the siege engines when you're on a ramp. You'll fall through the world. Okay everyone, let's roll out and kill Flame Levi.

Driver: *RAM* *FALLS* *DIES and kills Co-Leader*

Co-Leader says: WTF.

Driver: I was at the bottom of the ramp. I should have been fine.

Now we have to wait for his vehicle to respawn. Which it never does. Finally we have to go escort his sorry ass down to Flame Levi.

Not Amusing.

New Hard Drive = No Pictures :(

2009-05-08T06:47:00.003-05:00

I discovered that when we built myself a new computer and discovered that it still ran s.a.s. (slow as sh!t) without a new hard drive, we went and got a new hard drive.

And my old hard drive is the one with all my pictures of my babies! (including some who are no longer with me, so it's pretty important that I get that hard drive hooked back up!)

So, until I can discover where my camera went to and how to upload photos from it without the camera manager software that came with the camera ten years ago (okay, it wasn't really ten years ago, it was more like 6...), or get my old hard drive hooked back up (whimper), no pictures. :( I shall endeavor to get some.

And I need my old hard drive back, or I'll have forever lost the only pictures of Mike (friend), Phil (cat), Anubis (cat) and Kira (cat) that I have. And that is unacceptable.

(So, still working on the Poe picture... sorry!)

I am an idjit

2009-05-06T06:54:00.001-05:00

I had fully intended on uploading a picture of Poe, since I just posted about her. And I forgot.

Now ya'll have to wait until I get home this afternoon. Because I KNOW you're just dying to see fluffy-lazy kitties.

I know how KT feels...

2009-05-04T06:47:00.002-05:00

Mr. Bigglesworth dies.

KT: No!!! A curse upon you, interlopers! The armies of the Lich King will hunt you down. You will not escape your fate...

********

Kel’Thuz4d]: ok and now my cat is 8fwhwe8ufhffweeexvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

[Kel’Thuz4d]: walking on my keyboard

[Kel’Thuz4d]: hold on afk

********

Yesterday morning, my cat Poe was safely in my house. I know this because I caught her begging at the front door to go outside when I took the dogs out in the morning.

Yesterday afternoon, I idly asked my husband, "Have you seen Poe lately?"

Now, to explain Poe... she's a fluffy, lazy, brown/black tiger kitty, who is very responsive to her name. You call her name from anywhere in the house, and she'll meow back at you and slowly make her way to you to see if you have food.

She's so lazy, she won't even bat at a feather-teaser that's wriggling two inches too far from the minimum distance of mild effort of stretching her foot forward. However, she does like to go outside and eat the grass until she vomits. This makes having a rabbit on a diet of hay in the house very interesting.

The only exception to the lazy-factor is when you call "HUNGRY KITTIES". Then she's like dynamite, racing with loud yowls to the food bowl.

So we look around and do not see a fluffy lazy cat. We see our other two cats. But no Poebaby.

So I pull out the ULTIMATE WEAPON(tm). I call for hungry kitties! I'm nearly run over by Cloud and Ripley as they make it to the basement where their food is stored.

(Yes, Cloud after FFVII and Ripley after Ellen of Aliens fame. Poe herself is named after Po, a Hawaiian earth aspect of night and women. Boon added the E, so people wouldn't call her Pooh.)

Okay. I step outside and check the front and back yards. Have I mentioned this cat is lazy? The other two times she's managed to slip (and how does a big fluffy plump cat slip past people? I have no idea. She's like Houdini) past us outside, she's been right in the front or back yard, pretending to be a cow.

No kitty. I call for her, and listen, hoping to hear her meow. Nope. Nothing. The sound of kids playing two houses over. No cat.

I go back inside and Boon and I start checking under blankets in the bedroom, in closets, under the couch. He worries that she's died in the house. Considering that she has the best vet ever and has no health problems, I don't think that's likely.

So we go out and walk the block, calling out for our cat. Have you ever walked around the block and did nothing but call for your CAT? Yeah. Try explaining that one.

"POE! POE BABY! POEPOEKITTY!" (Boon told me after a minute that I really shouldn't be shouting Poepoe)

One of our neighbors from the corner said that they had been out for an hour and haven't seen her. An elderly neighbor from across the street came out and when he heard we had lost our cat, he said "I have two cats myself. I'll walk the block." and he proceeded to amble around his block.

Boon and I got into the car and started to troll the neighborhood. We stopped to ask people on various blocks in a two block radius if they've seen a fluffy brown tiger kitty. No one.

Boon starts to curse her and swear that someone had to have stolen her. A pretty, friendly cat? Who wouldn't want one? Neither of us could fathom our lazy cat hauling her ass off of our front or back yard of her own free will.

Thankfully, she has a collar on, and it reads:
I AM LOST.
XXX-XXX-XXXX.
POE

(where the X's are the digits to our phone number, pervs.)

However, less than 30% of cats (even with collars) ever make it home once they're lost (the knowledge of statistics has never been so depressing, well, except when we looked up the statistics for Boon's particular flavor of cancer.).

So we're driving around, becoming more and more depressed. We finally pull back into our driveway, and our elderly neighbor greets us with a smile, "Someone returned your cat!"

I nearly flew out of the moving car, let me tell you.

The story was as follows... remember I said there were neighbors with their kids playing? They live two houses down from us. They have two YOUNG girls, who SHRIEK very loudly as they play. They're kids. It's expected.

Well, their parents had heard us calling for our cat, but it took them a minute to remember that earlier that day, they had seen a cat under THEIR neighbor's fence. They had figured that it was their neighbor's cat (Right idea, wrong neighbor!). One of them then got up and checked. Yup. Cat was still crouched under the neighbor's fence. She called and Poe, bless her friendly heart, came right on over and undoubtedly was quite happy to be picked up.

I think she had gotten startled somehow, or just ambled away from the house. We have no idea how long she was out. Then when the girls started to play, probably got freaked and either didn't hear us calling for her, or was too scared to go past the playing children.

The neighbor started towards our house, Poe undoubtedly clinging to her shoulder (she loves shoulders). Poe heard the dogs barking and according to the person carrying her, nearly had an aneurysm trying to get to our house.

When we got in, I scooped Poe up, who had the gall to look as though I should simply feed her and not fuss that much. Boon held Poe up, called her an idiot, and then hugged her.

Now, why is this on a WoW Blog? Other than the fact that it's MY BLOG AND I CAN POST IF I WANT TO... we missed our Nax25 raid to go find our cat. (Our guildies didn't mind and were glad we found our cat, but this is the tie-in for it to count as a WoW related post.)

I think if Mr. Bigglesworth was missing from Naxxramas, Kel'Thuzad would be a no-show too.

Flame Leviathon & Thoughts on Ulduar

2009-04-28T19:51:00.004-05:00

Ah, the Flame Leviathon. He is becoming known as much a 'come and get your free loot' boss as VR had been (he was sometimes affectionately called 'Loot Reaver').

Why? Ulduar is supposed to be tough, right? Why did my guild go and jump to 'on farm' status for Levi so fast?

It's elementary, my dear Watson. It doesn't matter what you gear is, or what class you are, or what spec you are.

You can go in there with a group of 10 shadow priests and still down Levi.

The hardest part of the whole endeavor is making sure that everyone understands their roles, jobs and the importance of interrupting Flame Vents, staying at Max Range unless you're a Siege Engine, and that if you can get everyone kiting him in the same direction every time, you can lay down this lovely line of tar-fires that he has to drive through.

Our guild leader has said, and to an extent I agree with him, that there isn't much reason why everyone shouldn't be getting together and getting saved weekly in Ulduar if ONLY for Flame Levi. Now, granted, ideally you should be looking for a run that plans on doing everything, because who wants to get saved for a week for a single badge and the possibility of a single piece of loot?

The other interesting thing is the difficulty of Ulduar. Now, I know, people said they wanted more difficult. I am NOT complaining.

But the question my guild is currently facing is 'What do we make our minimums?'. Do we have to complete Maly10/25? What does our DPS need to do consistently? What hit points and armor value do our tanks need? What about those ever hard to quantify healers?

Is it a question of relearning that we have to be on our A-Game at all times? A philosophy that has been largely ignored with Naxx, especially of late.

What if the A game of our guild's top raiders is not good enough? Do we stop trying and run more Nax25/Maly25, etc? Or do we keep trying, striving and seeing if it's a matter of skill, or a matter of gear?

Granted, to a certain extent, you can be the most skilled player in the world and have such poor gear that the worst player in the world decked out in full Tier8 will out DPS you. So gear does make a difference... but not as much as skill, something we all know.

So do we start paring down our raiders and saying, "Not skilled enough, skilled enough, not skilled enough, skilled enough."? And then if we do that, who makes that call? And if we do that, is it worth raiding anymore?

Now, I don't think our guild will ever get to that point. But it's an interesting thought to share anyway.

NonWoW Update

2009-04-26T21:44:00.002-05:00

I am still happily on hiatus. I log in to raid, to play with my husband, but otherwise I have found that I don't really miss WoW that much.

Blasphemy, I know.

On the other hand, I have rediscovered the joy that is Brooklyn. (And unfortunately, have switched some of my addictive tendencies from the crack that was WoW to the heroin that is Brooklyn.)

(That's a scene from the season 1 episode 'Temptation'.)

Gargoyles was a Disney cartoon that ran in the mid-1990's. It had two 'canon' seasons, and a third season considered mostly non-canon by the original writer (and many fans).

There was a planned spin off starring Brooklyn (who is the most awesome of awesome characters. He tops Drizzt Do'Urden as my favorite fictional character of all time). I didn't know about the spin off, until in a fit of going, "I can't believe they canceled this wonderful amazing cartoon when I'm still needing a Brooklyn fix!" I stumbled upon a series of stories about Brooklyn... called Timedancer.

(In VERY brief summary: Brooklyn finds a damaged magical artifact that basically teleports him through time. It turns out he's been chosen by Fate (or just the whim of the ever erratic Fae) to be the 'Timedancer', the creature who has the most influential effect on the history of the world. Unfortunately, Brooklyn can't CONTROL where he goes, and is at the whim of the erratic Phoenix Gate... which causes all sorts of problems, as one can imagine.)

*sappy sigh*

I loved it. (There are some differences between the posted Timedancer stories and the 'intended' (as per the creator) story, such as the difference in Brooklyn's wife. In the posted stories, a green gargoyle named Sata, and they have twin children named Ariana and Graeme. In the intended version (and in the proposed comic book version), she is a white gargoyle named Katana and he has a son named Nashville and a younger child named Tachi... among other slight differences. But I digress...)

And that led me into the realm of fan fiction. Some of it that I found is exactly what you'd expect. NSFW, bad plots, bad stories, etc, etc... Others are good.

I had to try my hand in it. A lot of people have told me that I write fiction well (albeit my grammar is NOT the best...). I have countless original stories that are in the making, but I just never actually keep going with them. I run out of steam, or come to a wall in the plot that I can't think my way around. Or the plot line just peters out.

But fan fiction... that's another challenge entirely. It isn't just me writing whatever I want... if I'm using Disney characters, the challenge is writing them as they should be written.

It's the difference between writing Darth Vader as saying, "Your lack of faith disturbs me." and, "I think you want to rephrase that statement."

He could be doing the same action, but one sentence brings immediately to mind the voice of the character, the tone, the very essence that makes people SEE Darth Vader in their head as they read the story. The other one ... doesn't sound like Vader, does it?

The challenge in writing Brooklyn, or any of the other Gargoyles, is just that. Bringing the character to the story and not recreating the character to something that someone ELSE reading it can't envision them doing or saying.

Now, some of it I'm sure... I don't do right. I see it in my head as 'This is SO Brooklyn', because I can picture it in my head. But I may not get it down on 'paper' the right way.

And to those who are unfamiliar with the Gargoyles universe, stories, or the Timedancer chronicles in and of themselves will be unlikely to recognize a good portion of what is going on.

But I find myself intrigued. And I find myself wanting to write more. Because though Gargoyles has been canceled since 1996... I want more. (Disney, pretty please? With sugar on top? And cherries? Lots of cherries? *sob*)

It's the same urge that drove people to play Star Wars RPG and tabletop. The desire to live in the world that George Lucas created, and play a role, see the characters, the situations. Be involved in something that stirs your heart and your imagination...

So I've been posting to two fan fiction sites, Gargoyles Fan Fiction and Stone by Day under the writer name 'kiatrix'. I have three stories posted, but I've actually written about seven so far. I'm TRYING to not jump the gun and post stories that I haven't actually sat down and reread several times, especially as I'm starting to develop an original character that I want to keep writing about. I need to make sure she's 'real'. I need to make sure I'm not making her into a super-heroine, or a Mary Sue, as I've discovered they're called.

I'm also going to start a blog... for brainstorming, idea and plot fleshing as well as just a place for me to also store my little tales of fiction, just another place for someone who also loves Brooklyn (or Gargoyles in general) to possibly stumble upon and also become inspired to delve creatively into this wonderful story concept.

The blog is 'A Brooklyn Blog' -- real imaginative, I know, I know... but I've never been really good at 'titles'.

Coffee with Sargeras

2009-04-20T20:45:00.002-05:00

Coffee with Sargeras is a relatively new blog... written by Sargeras.

No really, I've seen the chat logs. It is Sargeras.

However, it is rather amusing to read. The warlock side of me greatly appreciates the dark megalomaniacal humor. Of course, the part where he keeps repeating that I'm going to eventually be destroyed... not so much fun to read.

However, it is VERY amusing. Go read. Especially about what he thinks about Voldemort. I wonder what he thinks about Sauron?

Now quit reading my increasingly boring and uninteresting blog and go read his. But don't buy anything. I think the funding goes towards Starbucks. I mean, how much more evil can something be than Starbucks? And hello... Coffee with Sargeras? He should just place a giant Starbucks logo on his blog.

(Kidding... sort of.)

Unholy Tank Changes

2009-04-17T10:09:00.004-05:00

There have been some changes made to two of the key components of Unholy Tank mechanics.

Namely they increased the cooldown on Bone Shield to 2 minutes, up from 1 minute and they changed Blade Barrier from a 10% increased parry chance to 5% reduced damage.

(They also did schtuff to Anti-Magic Shell, but considering that is a very situational issue and not a 'can you tank, at all' change, I haven't looked too deeply at it.)

Unholy Tanks relied on keeping Blade Barrier up to prolong the use of their Bone Shield. Bone Shield reduces damage taken by 20% (consuming one 'charge' per damaging attack, 4 unglyphed, 6 with glyph). We don't have access to a few of the seemingly 'tank specific' abilities that Frost DK's (probably the most common 'Tank' spec for DK's) have access too, Unbreakable Armor and Frigid Dreadplate. In order to get to Frigid Dreadplate (possible to do), we'd have to give up quite a bit of points in Unholy. And frankly, while 3% miss rate is nice to have, is it worth giving up some of the things that we take as Unholy because we want to be Unholy? I don't think so, personally.

In the past, we'd be popping Bone Shield like candy. In the past, keeping Blade Barrier up to increase our parry chance by 10% meant that Bone Shield stayed active until the cooldown was available.

Now, some DK's have the gear where they didn't need Blade Barrier active and could theoretically keep Bone Shield active and going without that additional 10% parry. For those of us Unholy tanks that don't have access to that gear... making sure Blade Barrier stayed active was an important element of our rotation.

Yesterday I took Keiji to Heroic UP. I was expecting it to be a bit tougher than it actually was. The damage reduction of the new Blade Barrier is a nice thing, (still miss the parry though!), that's 5% all the time, subject only to the cooldown of your blood runes. Bone Shield was being hit everytime it came up, as one would expect, but all in all... it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting.

So though people out there (I'm looking at YOU, Pos) keep saying that Unholy DK's are DPS, I'm thinking that I am going to keep Keiji Unholy, and Tanky.

BTW: The Red Sword of Courage dropped. If I can find another nice one-hander that will keep me uncrittable, I may switch around a few points and take the dual-wield talent in Frost (Nerves of Cold Steel) and play with that a little bit.

Normally, all these abilities would have links to WoW Head on them, but alas, a while back I was playing with my template and managed to delete the thing that let me put in WoW Head links. And I had to get that information from Pos, so I don't know how to do it myself. I shall have to pester him tonight.

So many alts, so little time...

2009-04-13T09:09:00.002-05:00

Yes, I am still on 'hiatus'. But I do still play here and there with my husband and our friends.

Last night, at the urging of one of our friends coworker, we went to a PvP server where we rolled Horde.

So now I have a level 9 Belf Priest. Named Kaelthia. She has red hair. And big gold hoop earrings.

As I was setting up my bars, I discovered that I have a set way of doing my action bars that tends to hold true for all of my characters.

From the center buttons (-098) to the left are my offensive abilities. Any defensive or healing abilities go from the center buttons away to the right. Buffs for some reason are on the far left, as are racial abilities. Who can figure out why I did it that way? I just do. There must be some wonderful rationale, as I've done it and been doing it for the last ... how many levels collectively have I leveled? Anyway, for at least that long.

Up the right side are where my non-combat abilities go, tailoring, first aid, fishing, food, potions and usually in the bottom ride side are where my mount buttons go.

Yesterday I was on Kiljara for a little bit and I kept being ... very confused.

Her offensive abilities were where they should be... but her mount buttons and self buff buttons (not fort, spirit or inner fire, those are in their proper place!) were on the wrong side. I kept clicking Power Infusion while trying to get on my mount. Likewise, her healing buttons are up on the right action bar. And I have no idea where her psychic scream or fade buttons are. Which can be problematic.

I think I'm going to have to figure out a better way to organize my bars. Hard to imagine that there may be a better way than I already have, but ... For someone with as many alts as I have, the fact that I haven't gone insane trying to remember everything for everyone is miraculous (but no more than the norm for me.). I need to make it a bit easier on myself. Because trying to figure out where my healing buttons walked off to when I'm being eaten by a monster isn't fun.

On a side note, according to Boon, my guild misses me. Apparently, without me around, they have to get their answers to various questions from General Chat or alt-tabbing to the internet.

*shudder*

In terms of the new Hordling... I don't think it's going to level very fast or well, considering that we probably won't be playing them very frequently or long. Just another fad.

(Belf's still are pretty as long as they aren't moving. As soon as they walk, jump, cast or try to hit stuff with a weapon, they look like complete dorks. So pretty, yet so useless.)

So today's mental exercise is going to be figuring out a way to organize my bars across the various characters and classes that I play so I have something that gels smoothly from one to the next. (As opposed to previous mental exercises which usually involved trying to remember how many pulls it takes to get to the end boss in Ramparts. Egads. I can't remember his name! I feel ashamed. I must go beat myself in the head with a lamp now.)

(Vazruden?)

(*scurries off to the internet*)

The Nerfing of Mor'Ladim

2009-04-11T15:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Boon and I were running around Raven Hill. In time honored fashion, we got surprised by Mor'Ladim. In time honored fashion, we squealed like little girls and ran away. (Eeeeeeeee!)

A little later, we got the quest to kill him. We looked at each other and said, "Why not, we can try."

And then we proceeded to wallop the level 30 elite that he now is. I seem to remember him being a higher level elite, and being much harder to kill.

It took some of our pleasure of defeating him away, when we realized that Mor'Ladim got whacked with the nerf bat.

New generations of WoW gamers will never know the fear and the triumph of the old Mor'Ladim.

Or many of the other classic things that we old gamers once knew, feared and loved.

It's sad.

Keiji goes to Wintergrasp

2009-04-08T06:54:00.003-05:00

I have been doing well in my hiatus.

The first week, I logged in only to do Wintergrasp with Kikidas, angling for the Titan-Forged Hood of Dominance.

Finally, I did get it. One of my companions in game, an individual known as Brem, would give me tells teasing me about my online appearance. It was like clockwork, said he! Naturally I blamed Boon entirely.

I have rediscovered walking my dogs and what idiots they are. (Ooh Squirrel! ... Ooh Leaf! ... Ooh Car! ... Ooh Poop!)

I have taken naps with my kitties and discovered that the bunny gets jealous when I have naps with the kitties. (He then proceeds to jump up on me, and then jump on them growling until they leave. I had to protect my 10 pound cats from the 2.5 pound minibunny. Pathetic.)

I have started to watch Buffy again and marvel all over again at how silly the vampires look. (Really, I get all bloodlusty so my face does this wierd evil-Klingon impression? Riiight.)

I have done load of laundry after laundry, and actually put them away instead of just stacking it downstairs in a messy pile that winds up needing to be washed again because 1: wrinkles and 2: cat hair (apparently laundry piles make wonderful cat beds).

I have cleaned my kitchen and my living room. (Fantastik > Cinch imnsho. Fantastik has OXYPOWER)

I organized the office (specifically the pet storage area that was looking like a miniature supernova went off, who knew hay could be so messy?).

I took down the bird feeder, cleaned it out and put fresh bird seed inside of it, then hung it back up. (Apparently, leaving seed in a bird feeder over the winter makes it go moldy. Who knew?)

Boon, concerned that I was going tooooooooooooooooo much into 'Not playing WoW!', was worried I'd have a psychotic break and has been urging me to play 'just a little bit'. I've limited that to playing just with him for the most part. We've done our lowbies a little bit. He wanted to do some quests in Icecrown, so I did that with him. I stay on for about an hour and then I log out to do something else. I did get roped into bringing Kikidas to 25-KT the other night. Rawr. With my new epic hat, I was stylin'.

And yesterday I sat down, looked over at Boon who was giving Age of Conan another try with his new computer that won't blow up trying to play a game, looked at the clock which told me I had three hours before we were leaving for TableTop, looked at the room I had cleaned and said, "I'm taking a break."

So I logged in Keiji, got a group for 10-OS. Then got a group for 25-OS. Then helped take Wintergrasp (for once, the Horde had control). Then got a group for 25-VoA. Then got a group for 10-VoA. All one after another. And it still ate up a ton of time. It was almost time to leave for TableTop. Oy.

So I played PuzzleQuest Galatrix, which is odd, but interesting, even if I don't like the fact that there isn't as much 'choice' so far in it as Puzzle Quest, Challenge of the Warlords. Where you had a choice if you'd give the goblet back to the man who had you go look for it, or if you'd keep it, etc.

On a side note, I realize this differs undoubtedly between servers, but I feel really sad for the Horde on Alleria in regards to Wintergrasp. They always have about 10 stacks of Tenacity on, but we simply maul them with numbers. It's like a level-1 raid on Hogger. The individual dies, but that's okay, because while he was killing me, fourteen other people killed him. I'll take the corpse run.

So I feel bad. Because they can never get Stonekeeper Shards unless they're doing the WG dailies. I always see the same few people (Horde... and Alliance, come to think about it) doing WG. Hordies can't get shards by doing instances, so if they want a piece of shard-gear for their alts, or even themselves, they have to do WG dailies over and over again. (Wowolf, if you're out there. Hi! And sorry. Really, I like you Blood Elves, but you just can't take my Fortress.)

It makes me wonder if when the Horde DO have Wintergrasp, if suddenly the entire Horde population goes into instances? ZOMG! We have WG! QUICK QUICK, GET THEE TO AN INSTANCE!

People stay home from work, call in and explain, "Sorry Boss, but I play Horde on Alleria... and we have Wintergrasp. I just can't make it in today, at least not for another 2 hours and 30 minutes."

Their boss, understandingly, "Oh I know how THAT goes. I'll see you online then!" as he runs to his work laptop and logs in, while yelling at his Alliance minions to work, giving his Horde allies two and a half hours off.

Maybe Alleria can host a 'Be Kind to Horde' day, and we start a petition to LET them win Wintergrasp for a whole day? From midnight to midnight.... let it be Tuesday. Tuesday 12am until Wednesday 12am.

(What? Maintenance? And your point is? Hello. I'm not completely altruistic. I am, part time, a warlock.)

(Hrm. Blog name? Part Time Warlock? ... Nah, too much like Part Time Druid.)

Taking a Leaf From BRK

2009-04-02T06:57:00.003-05:00

So, I've been thinking about BRK's post and a lot of what he says makes a lot of sense.

WoW eats up so much of my life that things in my life are spiraling out of control.

So I'm going to take a small hiatus to organize my life a little better, get my house cleaned up and organized, spend more time with the pets and the hubby and other real life things.

I'll be back, soon no doubt. :) Take care and see you around. :)

Malygos fall down go Boom

2009-04-01T08:05:00.002-05:00

On Monday night we finally got Malygos down.

We had a few wipes, though with only one (two) exceptions made it to phase 3.

Exception One: It's 10-man Malygos. Our rogue has the 25 man key. Our paladin suggests that he try it and see if it starts 10-man Maly. The rogue (for some reason), decides to listen to the paladin. Lo and behold... it does. We die.

Exception Two: We had one of his scatter-AoE attacks immediately before he did a Vortex. With a discipline priest, a holy paladin and a resto shaman, we were a little shy on the instant-cast heals, so we lost four people when we landed.

At the very end of the instance, our holy paladin turns to me and says sheepishly, "Uh K... you don't want to know what I was wearing."

I turn to give him the look and ask, "What?"

"My ret pants and trinkets."

*headdesk*

So, as of Monday night, Knights of Utopia on Alleria has completed all current 10-man content. And got no few of our raiders the Champion of the Frozen Waste title.

I was in there as Karika, so I have a lot of work yet to do in terms of instances to run. Surprisingly, she hasn't done as many as I had thought she did. Who knew?

Northrend Dungeon Master

2009-03-28T09:07:00.002-05:00

Last night, to get Boon the Northrend Heroic Dungeonmaster Achievement, we went into Heroic Halls of Lightning and Heroic Oculus.

I came as Keiji, The Awesome.

Sitting at a little over 27k health and 27.5k armor unbuffed, with 35% dodge/parry and now with Lichborne, I felt supremely confident that we would pwn Loken and Eregos.

We started with Loken and he did go down like a pansy. That's right. Pansy.

Oh, Lightning Nova? HAVE SOME ANTI-MAGIC SHIELD, bish. Ditto with Ionar, oh, gonna do some static charge thing to me? Uhnuh, I don't think so. BAM.

We got the three achievements for heroic Halls of Lightning: Lightning Struck, Shatter Resistant and Timely Death. Boon died to the slag because he somehow misplaced his bubble. That's right. A paladin. Misplacing his bubble. So sad, so sad.

Then we moved onto Oculus. We didn't do any of the achievements.

We had some... issues. People hopping on their drakes, not waiting for those of us who haven't been there as frequently, and riding off into the wild blue yonder... and getting lots of aggro from the pesky elites flying around. We wound up dying more to trash flappy elites than we did to Eregos. And we did die. A lot.

And on the Mage, when the tank has to kite him out of his frost bombs? Yeah, ranged DPS opening up and grabbing aggro meant that he was constantly frost bombing the healer instead of the tank.

I can see why a lot of people do not like Oculus (and Malygos), because it has nothing to do with your skill as your chosen class, or your gear on your chosen class. To some extent, this is a GOOD thing, you don't have to be uber-elite to down Eregos or Malygos necessarily, just have experience in how to handle your drake and you can have as many DPS or healers or tanks that you want, regardless of what classes you really took in there.

We did finally get Eregos down. I was tanking on a Ruby Drake. Some of it was me learning the best way to use Evasive Maneuvers and Martyr and ... so frustrating. Boon was healing on an Emerald Drake and our three DPS were DPSing on Amber Drakes.

Getting the DPS to realize that doing whatever damage they did with the stacking whatever on the boss was better if more of them were doing it, where it could stack to 10 times? We had one DPS doing 15k damage for the fight, and the other two doing 6k. I kept going, "Whatever DPS 1 is doing, can DPS 2 and 3 do it also?"

I have no idea what it was, other than going in there as Keiji last night, I've been in the Oculus a grand total of ONCE.

But we succeeded and to my surprise, I also earned Northrend Dungeonmaster. Regular, not Heroic. I still need to whomp three heroics, of which I can't remember which ones they are, other than H.AN. *whimper*

Now I'm working on getting badges, badges and more badges to try to work towards getting the chest upgrade for Keiji. And I'll keep trying to run VoA 10/25 to maybe see if the Watcher will treat me as kindly as he treated Kikidas the other day.

Scourge Chat Log

2009-03-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

Thank you to Nibuca for posting this link!

Apparently, the person who wrote this does not play the game. Used WoWWiki for all his information. And doesn't know KT has a cat.

It's a little long to read, but I literally laughed out loud. Read it. Read it now.

Ridiculously Lucky

2009-03-23T10:07:00.006-05:00

I (as Kikidas) had been in an OS25, which was an odd run in and of itself because the DK leader tried to not invite other DK's (or melee... curious that, dontchathink?) because of the DK tier token shares it with rogues, druids and mages.

Yet he had like, 5 mages. Go fig.

Anyway, so I finish the OS25 (getting nothing, lesigh), and I'm in Dalaran when the shout comes out that they need reinforcements!

I sigh to myself and note that I need an upgraded headpiece and appppparently, the Titan-forged Hood of Dominance is the one to get if you can get it. And to get it, you need 40 marks of Wintergrasp.

So I go do my duty and "help" take Wintergrasp.

And I see someone call out in LFG that they're forming a VoA25.

And I ask if I can join. And I'm in. And somehow, I'm given assistant. And we fill the raid up. I try for balance, so I didn't invite more than 3 DK's (despite the zillion and ten who wanted in the raid), tried to keep it at 3 mages and hunters, but we wound up with 4 and 4. A few rogues, a few druids, a few warriors, some priests, one pally, a few shaman... but no other warlocks even asked to come in (seriously, no one asked!). So I'm the only warlock.

And the Watcher goes down. And Seraphelia looks at the loot and says, "Damn it, three warlock pieces."

I laugh, certain he's jesting. But he says he isn't. And I nearly kill myself in the Watchers cloud o' gas trying to see... oh frabjabulous day... he isn't kidding.

Valorous Plagueheart Robe, Valorous Plagueheart Leggings and Deadly Gladiator's Felweave Trousers all dropped. And they start the rolls and someone politely points out (it wasn't me, either!) that there's only one warlock. And he asks if I want all of it...

I say, "Oh that would be kind of you, thank you."... okay, what I really said was "YES! :D :D :D"

I am ridiculously, undeservedly lucky.

I laugh at thee!

2009-03-21T08:02:00.006-05:00

To my illustrious guild leader, who died in Grobb's cloud 'o poison after the boss was down, I salute you!

(Muahahahahahahahahahaha!)

Minor Updates

2009-03-20T11:03:00.002-05:00

Respecced Keiji slightly to play around with Lichborne. It's on a 3 minute cooldown, so probably one of those 'ut oh' buttons for boss fights or large pulls.
Kikomi has tired feet and can't wait for level 30. I forgot how frustrating it is to run around without a mount.
Kieya is a sad neglected panda-hunter. Hopefully this weekend when we aren't raiding, she'll actually get the attention she was promised.
None of the bosses in the Nexus are exactly affliction warlock friendly, with the exception of the whirly commander. Let's see... mage boss... splits into three and twirls you around in the air, letting all your dots drop off. Energy boss... becomes immune and spawns little portals you need to switch to and destroy, letting all your dots drop off. Rock boss... puts up a spell shield (how unfair is that?), letting all your dots drop off. Keristraza... requires you to be jumping up and down, which makes casting anything with a cast time longer than 1 second so much fun.
Blue-swirly-zones-of-death on OS+1/2 is actually harder to see than one would think, especially when you're either the healer and thus not looking at anything but who needs the next heal, or an offtank surrounded by tons of mobs, or a pack of DPS who are all gamboling about atop one another.
Still no excuse for dying on the individual drake pulls to the blue-swirly-zones-of-death.
I will always laugh at people who die after the Watcher dies in VoA because they go to loot and stand in his little cloud 'o doom.
Likewise, I think I'll always laugh at people who die after Grobbulus dies in Naxx because they go to loot and stand in his little cloud 'o poison.
I will not laugh at people who kill other people after Thaddius in Naxx because that's just really obnoxious.
I forgot how tedious leveling a healing priest really is. Shield, SWP, wand, wand, wand, Shield, SWP, wand, wand, wand... ad nauseum!
People who sell green quality gems on the AH for less than 80 silver drive me nuts. They vendor for 50s. Your AH deposit, time spent, and AH cut would probably mean that everytime one doesn't sell, you're losing money, and even when one does, you're not really making much profit.
People who sell green quality perfect cut gems for as much as, if not more than, the blue quality cut of the same type. Seriously people.
People who undercut the price of a gem by more than 1-2 silver... need to be shot. People who do this by several GOLD need to be drawn and quartered. Whomever dropped the price of Runed Scarlet Rubies on Alleria to 80g, when they were selling at 125g... we're coming after you.
Okay, so some of that wasn't really an update, so sue me. :)

Off Topic: Goodbye Tom, I never really knew you...

2009-03-17T20:54:00.000-05:00

My grandfather, Thomas Milny, died today.

When my father was a little boy, Tom left, for a variety of reasons. None of which mattered to a little boy without a father and subjected to a series of abusive step-fathers.

When my brother was born, 20-someodd years later, my grandfather tentatively tried to get in touch with his son. My father, having just had his first child, looked down at his little baby and said to himself... I would never have left.

Tom went off the radar again.

A few years ago, he came back by sending a letter to my father. He tried very hard to become a part of our lives. My father visited him. He sent me lots of books and movies. I've never been one to talk on the phone much, and he would call and talk for ... h.o.u.r.s.

I would say, "Tom, I have to go to work/school/dinner..." and still be on the phone 20 minutes later trying to get off the phone.

It also was a rather one-sided conversation. Maybe all those years of not having us built up inside and he had to say everything, anything, that came to his head. So I stopped picking up the phone. I'll call him once in a blue moon, or answer the phone occasionally. But I ... don't even call my parents or the grandparents that I grew up with and loving often. Talking on the phone to a man I had never met, and who had a claim on my love and my life because he fathered my father, was low on my list, especially when that conversation could very well go into the 3 hour range.

I feel guilty about that.

I got a letter from him the other month, telling me that there is no excuse for not talking or writing. That he understands that he's coming into our life late but that he wants to be there, now.

I wrote him a letter after I got that, and included in it pictures of myself and my husband. I sent it a month ago.

Tom was having a series of small heart attacks that he experienced as a series of intermittent arm pain. He went into the hospital for a quad-bypass. Surgery went well. He was supposed to go home tomorrow.

Something happened, I don't know what because my parents aren't sure what.

He'll be cremated and my dad thinks his half-brother (whom we only just discovered existed) may send him some of the ashes.

I find myself oddly numb. I think there's no real grief because to me, he wasn't ... real. I never met him. Never hugged him or kissed him on the cheek. He was never more to me than a voice on the phone.

Instead, I feel regret for the things that could have been, should have been. He could have been so much more. Like potential joy suddenly gone, with only the faintest of whispers that it could have been there.

I could have done more to get to know him. But I didn't. I feel guilt for that, though everyone I know says that I really shouldn't. He wasn't apart of our lives, by his own choice. And then when he suddenly decides to become part of our lives, we're supposed to open up our hearts and just accept him?

Granted, we do that with our family. No one told me I have to love my grandparents, those I grew up with. I just do. Despite their idiosyncracies and problems, I love them.

The potential to really love Tom was there.

It never truly blossomed.

I feel sad that he is gone. That the potential for me to know my grandfather is gone. That the man, who undoubtedly did have a lot of things to say, stories to tell, wisdom to pass on, now won't have a chance to.

I may yet cry over his death, when it truly hits. But it's like being told a stranger you knew only in passing died. I feel guilty for not feeling more grief, yet... he was only blood, not really family.

So...

Goodbye Tom. It was nice to have known you.

I have a problem...

2009-03-14T08:35:00.004-05:00

I have a new alt. Yes. It's true.

My leveling addiction has branched to new heights.

I have a level 15 shadow priest in another server. (Sorry Alleria, your character list isn't big enough for me... I need more. But you're still my main squeeze baby. I'll be home for dinner.)

I was leveling Kiljara and I thought to myself... I've just leveled 4 characters through this content. And I'm enjoying the HELL out of leveling my reset hunter. I can't level my mage because she's linked to some characters. I can't level my hunter because she's also linked to some characters. I need another lowbie to break the Northrend Leveling Routine. And I just can't do another reset, I don't think my heart could take the strain.

I had a level 6 draenei shaman on Malygos, a character I made with the intention of writing a leveling guide. Hahahahaha. Oh, how silly I was. A large undertaking like that, for a person who procrastinates as much as I do? HAHAHAHAHA. *wipes away tears of mirth*

Anyway, I logged her in and ran around as her and was fulfilled. And then when I got my first talent point, I said to myself... I've never been shadow.

I play her at work, when I know I'm going to be interrupted periodically with various things to do, because playing one of my higher alts in Northrend with periodic unavoidable interruptions leads to high repair bills.

I play her when I log into Alleria and there's no one on in my guild or I have no desire to spend an hour trying to find a group for Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep or Heroic Gundrak with Keiji.

The other nice thing is that since she's on a server with no high level alts to help her out, I'm starting over. I have to skrimp and save my coppers to buy skills. I have to debate whether I can afford to upgrade to the 8 slot bag. (That's 2 more slots than the 6 slot bag, would that be worth it?... Yes.)

I have to get the mats to level my alchemy and cooking and first aid myself. I can't run to the AH and buy the best cheap greens that gold can buy for my level. I can't have an alt make me gear.

And it is REFRESHING.

I do have a problem. But it's a problem I can live with.

So, anyone out there with tips for a nub shadowpriest? :)

Twiddle-de-dee

2009-03-11T07:03:00.003-05:00

As many of you know, I have an unholy tank. I've been fiddling with rotations and methods to try to get blade barrier to stay up, my bone shield to stay intact and be the best tank I can be.

One of the problems I'd encounter is that by the time my initial posted rotation went through, it would be several seconds into the fight with the boss whacking on me before I could get blade barrier going. So I've twiddled a little bit and managed to get blade barrier activated a little earlier than I had before.

New rotation...

Bone Shield (I try to activate this well before the pull, so the cooldown is hopefully close to being done by the time I'm pulling. So if it does fall off mid-fight, I can reapply instantly.)
Death and Decay(1B1F1U) where I plan on standing.
Icy Touch(1F) as the boss is incoming.
Blood Strike(1B) (Blade Barrier, yay!) when the boss (or main elite mob) arrives.
Plague Strike(1U).
Pestilence(1B).
Blood Tap.
Blood Boil(1B).
Somewhere in there, if I have enough runic power (and I will usually), Unholy Blight.
Then Scourge Strike/Blood Strike, etc.

If just a single mob...
Bone Shield.
Death and Decay where I plan on standing.
Icy Touch. Blood Strike. Plague Strike. Then Scourge Strike whenever I can, Blood Strike to keep Blade Barrier up (and keep them Death Runes coming). Reapply Icy Touch and Plague Strike if they fall off the boss. Somewhere in there, Unholy Blight.

Anyone else have a different rotation?

The New K

2009-03-07T21:38:00.003-06:00

The results of the poll said that 3 people wanted me to reset Kava the rogue, 2 people wanted me to reset Keyami the warrior and only 1 person wanted me to reset Kiya the hunter.

Since the one person voting for Kiya the hunter was me, I declare Kiya the winner... or in this case, the loser.

There are a few reasons I picked Kiya.
One, I don't want to compete for plate drops with the new Boon for DPS.
Two, I already have two tanks that are leveling, I don't want to relevel a third, at least not right now.
Three, I can't be a draenei rogue, and I wanted to be a draenei.
Four, with all the changes that have gone into hunter that I haven't really looked into much since I hit 70 so very long ago, I feel that restarting her from the beginning will give me a much better understanding of the new changes.
Five, no one else in our 'group' will be wearing mail, it's all MINE!

I guess that's more than a few.

So I logged in Kiya. Sold all her stuff that was sellable. Mailed all her stuff that was mailable. Logged out of the game and typed that one fatal, final word.

DELETE

Say hello to Kieya the Draenei Hunter.

(And I figure, even if Boon STOPS leveling, the way he is wont to do... I can still solo her.)

I however, STILL consider myself as having 10 characters over level 60 and 9 over level 70. Resetting her does not take away my achievement, damnit! :)

Minigames? In WoW? I MUST TRY THESE!

2009-03-05T17:58:00.003-06:00

The concept of playing a game within a game is causing me to go crosseyed! (Oh no, I've gone crosseyed!)

Yet, I have found two! Bejeweled and Chess.

I... must... play... more games!

In other news, Boon posted a wonderful post about the hazards of losing yourself in the game to the point where you lose sight of what (may or may not have) brought you to the game in the first place. And he posted a link to a pretty amazing YouTube video.

Personally, I think his post was designed to try to make me reset one of my characters before he hits the requisite level 30. His tricks will not work on me.

However, I did manage to trick his level 1 paladin alt into going to Theramore. *giggle*

Unholy DK Tweaks

2009-03-05T11:48:00.003-06:00

I was having real issues sticking to my own posted rotation!

If I cast DnD, I'd wind up short a rune to do Pestilence & Blood Boil. And with ret pallies and mages and whirlwinding warriors, sinking aggro on all them mobs early is crucial to avoid mass hysteria (on my part, I hate having to try to figure out which mob is not attacking me so I can taunt it back to myself, and on the healer's part as they try to keep me and some squishy person alive). Unholy Blight does help a bit with that, but not enough.

Then I realized... duh. I have Blood Tap (and a new minor glyph to consider). Since that epiphany, I've been able to DnD, Icy Touch, Plague Touch, Pestilence, Blood Tap, Blood Boil, Unholy Blight and go! (And need to consider Empower Rune Weapon and see where I can/may need to fit that in.)

Keeping Bone Shield up is harder than it seems. I need moar parry and dodge. Some fights it seems to stay up forever, and other fights within two seconds it's done for.

Keeping mobs in front of me is sometimes an issue, especially if I have to maneuver around to grab something else. Can't parry attacks coming from behind, so that just mows through Bone Shield.

And sometimes you just laugh and laugh when some boss does a magic attack that your Anti-Magic Shell noshes upon.

Thus far my tanking experiences have included: UP (getting away from Skadi is a p.i.t.a.), Heroic CoS, Heroic UK, GD, VoA-10, OS-10, HoL and Heroic VH.

Only once did I have someone say, "Unholy tank? Does that actually work?" To which I said, "Yes."

Proof that DK takes skill!

2009-03-04T07:56:00.002-06:00

The debate on the merits of DK floods the internet at the moment! Are they overpowered? A monkey can play one and still push 2k DPS! They take no skill! They're the new 'flavor of the week'! On and on and on.

Now, I will be the first one to say that with a DK, it is possible to put out really nice numbers with little effort. Really, you just have to not be a total screw-up on your rotation and you'll do just fine, right? Right! Which is not to say there are some REALLY talented DK's out there. Those people are scary. You do not want to meet them in a dark alley.

Tanking is a little different, since tanking doesn't just require 'push x, then y'.

But DPS, DPS of all colors and flavors have long been held to be the 'easiest' of the three roles available.

Now, for story-time!

I was on Keiji, looking over her gear, figuring out what I wanted to aim for next. I had just gotten the Seal of the Pantheon out of HoL, so I was finally done with that place on regular runs.

Someone in Dalaran asked: 'Need tank, PST'. (Grammar and spelling have been edited for clarity. Go ahead and take the worst stereotype imaginable, and you'll be close.)

I ask, "For what?"

I then get an invite. Curious, I accept. And I ask again, "For what?"

I'm told, 'regular Violet Hold! We have 2 80's and it should go fast!'

I look and we have an 80 resto druid, an 80 mage, a 77 boomie and a 76 DK.

I still have to do VH on Keiji for the achievement, so I figure, why not. I go wandering on in. As I'm standing there, curious, I look over at the other DK and inspect him.

He was wearing mixed gear, some defense, some dps, some unsocketed, some socketed. He was mostly Blood with a few points in Frost. Okay, I can see it, if a defense piece drops that is better in all ways (except the defense...) to what you're wearing... you'll take it. And maybe he just hasn't had time to buy the cheap 2g gems to socket his gear.

And then he whispers me, "Can I have gold? I have 19g and I can't afford to repair."

K: "No, you can't have gold. I just spent lots of gold on my gear."

DK: "Ok."

DK to Group: Is it okay that I take all the loot drops? I need gold.

K to Group: No, you can't. We all get a share at loot.

Resto Druid to K: I already gave him 10g because he asked!

K to Resto Druid: He hit me up for gold too.

DK to Group: Can I have all the frostweave?

K to Group: No. If people want to give you theirs, they can. But I need money too.

DK: But you can do 80 dailies! I can't!

K: So? You can do lots of quests.

The group gets started. I'm barreling along, practicing my rotation, keeping blade barrier up and seeing how much uptime I could get on my bone shield. And the DK asks if anyone has a damage meter.

Curious, I look at my recount. The numbers?
#1 Mage: 2-3k
#2 Boomie: 1-2k
#3 Keiji: 9-1.5k
#4 DK: 500

Yes. 500.

The DK goes on about how great this group is! Woo yeah! And I notice that he keeps switching from Blood, to Frost, to Unholy auras. Annoying when he leaves it on Frost and I have to blow a taunt getting initial mob aggro because he runs up with his improved distance Icy Touch and whacks the mob first. Whatever.

The resto druid gives me a whisper, "I'm bored. Can I DPS?"

I say, "Sure.".

After the second boss down, the Boomie laughingly says that he just respecced to Boomie and didn't have the best gear and was hoping that his DPS was doing okay!

The DK says, "Yeah, you're doing alright."

The Boomie had also had never been in VH before and wondered what the little red crystal things were for.

DK: Don't touch those! They're for the last boss.

K: Uh. Actually they're usually for those bosses like the water dude with all the little adds. The last boss, you're better off just DPSing on her.

DK: Ok.

Last boss pops.
DK: HIT THE CRYSTALS! *runs around like a spaz and activates all the crystals*

K: Just DPS the boss.

Overall recount... the DK was #5 (#4 was the resto druid). On Cyanigosa, he was also #5, behind the Resto Druid.

The saddest part of all of this? His name started with a K. :(

The moral of the story? Even facerolling monkeys do better DPS as a DK, proof positive that being a DK does in fact take SOME skill!

Unholy Tanking: The Basics according to K

2009-03-02T15:33:00.005-06:00

Naturally, there are guides out there all over the place about how to tank with a DK, even with an Unholy DK.

Lots of guides on what particular aspect of the unholy tree you should or should not keep. Do you keep your ghoul? Do you get morbidity? What about AMZ? Or do you just stick with Magic Suppression?

You could do a search on the internet and find a zillion and ten different specs and people clamoring as to why their spec works the best.

Let's go over the basics though, shall we?

One of the key components of an unholy tank is Bone Shield. This ability is on a 1 minute cooldown and comes with a base of 4 bones. Glyphed and you have 6 bones.

While this shield is active, we take 20% less damage and do 2% more damage. The more damage stuff is why Unholy DPS keep it up, even though they hopefully aren't taking damage, but the 20% reduction is what we're after.

Frost is considered "the" tank spec for Death Knights because it contains a lot of really nice damage mitigation abilities. Of which I care nothing for, since I'm not Frost. Go somewhere else to read about why a lot of DK tanks are Frost.

We unholy DK's however, we love our Bone Shield. The more we parry, the longer Bone Shield sticks around. The ideal is you want to pop your shield so it's cooled down before you even go in to touch a boss.

With the idea that Bone Shield is our baby and we want to preserve as much of it as we can until the next cooldown, a high dodge and parry becomes not just 'well, duh' abilities for us, it becomes essential for us to try to keep our dodge and parry as high as possible so when we do get hit, we take 20% less damage.

Because of that, one of the 'basic' abilities is Blade Barrier. The hard part for us is keeping those runes on cooldown. The DPS version of our rotation is heavy on Scourge Strikes. The tank version of our rotation is initially heavy on Blood Strike. We want to have Blade Barrier go off as soon as possible, and we want to KEEP those runes on cooldown as best we can to keep the barrier up, especially if our shield goes bye bye.

One of the things that will swiftly make your shield go away is if a mob gets behind you. You can't parry attacks coming at your ass, if you recall.

With our lack of physical shields, it's also imperative to take Toughness in the first tier of Frost.

And then it seems a no-brainer to also take Anticipation in the first tier of Unholy.

Now, these three are the 'basic' abilities that most DK tanks are recommended to start with. Given that our only way of avoiding incoming damage is armor, dodge and parry... it seems sensible (thank you Blizzard) that all three talents are in the first tier of the trees.

Each particular brand of tank, Frost, Blood and Unholy, have their own particular ideas about how to mitigate damage and what they should spec in. I'm only talking about Unholy here. I have not played a Frost or Blood DeathKnight and I won't entertain the idea that I can tell one how to play anymore than I'd feel comfortable trying to tell a Destruction or Demonology warlock how to play.

In my opinion... whatever spec you pick, whatever talents you take, if you can live through most things with your average healer, then you're doing something right. Some things may just make that easier than others. As Unholy, you've already decided to not go the 'usual' tanking route of Frost, Blood, or Frost/Blood hybrid.

My current rotation is opening up with Death and Decay (1B1F1U), Icy Touch (1F), Plague Strike (1U) and then Pestilence (1B)... and then Blood Boil (1B) / Blood Strike (1B) as soon as a rune goes off cooldown. The nice thing about Pestilence + Blood Boil is that it helps sink the aggro of all the things you may be tanking onto you.

As soon as you have the runic power for it, hit Unholy Blight, the other keystone ability that Unholy Tanks chortle over. It costs 40 Runic Power, so it isn't something that we can often hit right away. However, just like the Pestilence/BloodBoil combo, this is another handy trick that we can use to AoE tank (and do lots of damage, nummy nummy damage).

Some arguable no-no's:

Corpse Explosion: While it sounds really nice as another way of sinking aggro on multiple mobs, you'll probably not have the runic power to spare, keeping up Unholy Blight as you will be.
Desecration: This one is very arguable, often DPS will open up before you've had a chance to really sink your initial AoE aggro in, and if you put points into Desecration, the mobs may not run off so quickly before you can get it back. DPS usually only put about 3 points into this ability, but if you take it for tanking, you may consider 5/5 to guarantee your first Plague Strike will kick this puppy into gear.
Blood-Caked Blade: Reports of this is that it has a separate miss/hit/parry attack than your actual melee attack, so each swing has two chances for you to get parried. We've discussed the parry issue before.
Outbreak: Another argued ability. Plague Strike still does a good deal of damage, especially if you have the Glyph for it, and we've already discussed Blood Boil. But is it really needed for tanking? (I have it, personally.)
Master of Ghouls: A lot of Unholy Tanks will give up their pet. I'm of two minds on it just yet. Right now, he's gone. That may change if I feel that having my pet out for extra damage will be more beneficial than having to worry about keeping my pet alive. Having one available for Death Pact is a BIIIIG bonus in my head.

Some arguable yes please!

Virulence: Surprisingly, Unholy DK's have a higher hit cap than you'd imagine. You say to yourself, well, unless you're dual wielding, it's 9%, right? ... sort of. We actually do quite a bit of magic damage and so our magic hit cap is actually 17%, right up there with the casters.
Magic Supression: A shield that will eat a bunch of magic damage? Yes plz.
Ebon Plaguebringer: Makes them suseptible to magic and does more damage for diseases, basically a party debuff. It makes your casters give you kisses.
Improved Icy Touch: This is a Frost ability, but some Unholy tanks will take the option for it.
Bladed Armor: Yum, attack power! Some people pass this over in favor of the following.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization: More dmg! More dmg! Some people pass this over in favor of the previous.
Ravenous Dead: Anything that increases our strength can't be bad, even if we don't have a pet all the time!
Shadow of Death: While we may or may not have a pet out, again increasing strength and stamina is good!
I'll toss Master of Ghouls down here too, because I'm honestly not sure if it's a 'not worth it', or a 'worth it'. I'm leaning towards worth it and thinking I can drop a point in Outbreak to get it again.

Other basics: 540 is the defense you're looking for to be uncrittable to mobs three levels higher than you. 535 is the recommended 'minimum' for tanking heroics, though a lot of tanks go in there with less as they work on their gear.

Where to find defense gear is another problem! We don't have shields, which usually stack some defense and health onto them. Instead, we have to deal with drops or crafted gear. You can easily hit uncrittable (or very very close to it) and close to 19k health with the crafted Tempered Saronite gear plus crafted Daunting gear, the Stoneguard Band (crafted JC) and of course, Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. A good easy cloak to get is the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions from Honored-Wyrmrest. Toss on some enchants onto those pieces, practice your rotations and keeping blade barrier active and voila, insta-tank!

In terms of what stats to stack, obviously stamina is an important one, but please do NOT overlook Strength. 25% of our strength is added to our parry rating. Naturally, hit and expertise are important too, but becoming uncrittable and maintaining a high parry and dodge rating should be what you focus on first.

And Keiji makes 4...

2009-03-01T11:07:00.004-06:00

With a valiant push, Keiji has hit level 80. With regret, I respecced to say bye bye to Hammermouth, Limbbreaker, Gutchewer, Eyedirt and all the ghouls who have come before.

And then I stepped into regular Halls of Lightning with my crafted defense gear and four companions, Vaalena the priest, Sorakos the unholy deathknight, Seraphelia the blood deathknight and Vialora the retribution paladin...

And I held aggro. And I did well. Yay for Unholy Tank! It's fun. :) I just need to time my rune cooldowns better, a few times I pulled and couldn't do plaguestrike because I didn't have any runes available. That's the one downside I see to being a DK tank... our pulling timetable has to be more measured than another's because of our reliance on runes for some of our abilities.

In other news, I was having a discussion about parry before and what it means.
I have always maintained that DPS stays behind the boss so the boss can't parry. If the boss parries, his swing timer is reset/shortened, causing increased damage to the tank.

The same holds true for us tanks. If we parry, our swing timer gets reset, resulting in increased output from us.

The debate was... if I parry, does the boss' swing-timer reset. I maintain that it does not, because that is not how parry works. The opposite (my) side of the argument is that when I parry, MY swing timer resets. Likewise, when the boss parries me, HIS swing timer resets.

'A successful parry nullifies the attack (for the attacker it is like a miss) and reduces the swing timer of the defender.'

'When you parry an attack, the remaining time on your current swing is reduced by 40% of your weapon speed, unless this would result in a reduction to less than 20% of your swing time remaining.'

This is why expertise is important not just for DPS to avoid those pesky dodges, but also for tanks.

'While tanks like to profit from this effect, melee damage dealers should attack from behind whenever possible, both to increase their own damage and to avoid causing unneeded damage to the tank through the enemy's parries.'

Tanks need 9%-12% expertise to reduce/not get parried by a raid boss. (I can't seem to find any hard source that gives one particular number, but most seem to agree that it's somewhere between 11-12%) Any of you DPS up there in front of the boss, getting parried and resetting his swing timer so that he hits me faster... not gonna be happy with you!

So, parry is a very nice push for us tanks who hold aggro in part through damage, as it resets my swing timer. And with a big slow two-hander, this is awesome. Yes please, make my swing timer faster on my big ass weapon! Thanks!

So... now Boon asked if I wanted to level my mage a little bit. YES PLEASE! :D

Time vs. Skill: The Gear Facade

2009-02-28T10:41:00.003-06:00

I was reading the last GoW post again, one I had read but didn't have time, at the time, to comment on. After leaving my own congratulatory comment, I noticed someone else's congratulatory comment had a link to a post after it.

Part Time Druid posted about Time Versus Skill.

I can't recall if I've ever posted about this issue before, but PTD hit my nail on the head with his post.

Er, minus the factor of children, that is.

It's something that bothered me a whole bunch and still does, not because I necessarily begrudge the people with more time the gear that I only wish I could get, but because I sit there and stew with the fact that if I had more time and if I had gotten into that raid, that I'd be the one with the phat lewtz. And if I'm already a good player, how MUCH better could I be if I had the gear? If I'm already competing with DPS that outgear me in amount of damage I can put out, how much better would I be if I had their gear?

People assume that I have skads of time to play because of my alts, but honestly, leveling is cake compared to end-game stuff. I can log in for no more than 10 minutes and complete a quest and continue to level. But grinding for gear, instancing, raiding, etc... that takes time.

And then what really upsets me is that people who see me standing side by side with another (insert class here) will inspect the two of us, and think that the other person is a better player because they have better gear.

Gear is a trap. It fools you into thinking that someone is a skilled player if they have really good gear.

How often do you pull in a PuG member to a raid or a heroic and you armory them and say, "Oh, wow... look at his gear! Grab HIM!" and he turns out to be a total dippitydoo? Can't tank, can't heal, can't DPS... and you realize that he only got that gear because his sorry ass got supported all the way through raids X, Y and Z.

That isn't the case with everyone. Some people with lots of time on their hands ARE very skilled, be it that they're a "natural", or all that time they have they actually spent not just on getting gear but also on learning how to play their class.

Gearists annoy me. You can have someone with a zillion and ten mana and spell power healing you and run out of mana before the fight is over with because they don't know how to play their class. You can have someone else with limited mana and spell power do just fine because they do know how to play their class.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather take option #2 and have a sense of satisfaction over the accomplishment, rather than option #1 and be frustrated that zomgepic boy (or girl) can be outplayed by my Guild Leader's 1 year old daughter.

Anyway, thank you PTD for causing my rant! We all appreciate it. :)

"Reset Button"

2009-02-28T08:16:00.002-06:00

My husband was pondering the other day that he wished that Blizz would instigate a reset button, that allowed you to drop your character's level to 1 but keep all the hard earned gear and rep that you gained throughout your trek to level 80 and beyond.

This way, you could get the joy of leveling your character all over again, yet not have to lose all the purplez. And Blizz would get to keep people in the leveling game! For people like me, who LIKE leveling, this would be ideal, right?

I suggested that he simply roll another paladin on Alleria. He has enough open character slots.

He admitted that is likely what he would do, and then Vialora chimed in and suggested that we all get a second account, so we'd have the refer a friend bonus and mounts, and make Horde DK's on Alleria! ... to which I said we'd have to roll something else, level it to 55, then make DK's because as far as I know, DK's are still account bound to 55+ players.

He sputtered and grumbled and then admitted that damn it, that's no fun.

They then suggested that we just start leveling together again, they'd each roll something and I could delete something and play with them.

To which I nearly had a heart attack!

DELETE one of my characters? Are they INSANE?

Not the least because I KNOW my husband... my Mage is still level 62 sir!

So we made a compromise. If he could prove to me that he would really honestly level this character and not just make it and let it stall out at level 12 or 14... if he could get this character to level 30 in a timely (timely for average players, not timely for me) manner... I would delete one of my currently lesser played characters to level with them. I'd catch up to them at level 30 and away we'd go.

At first he said that I'd never be able to catch up to them at level 30 if I was just starting out.. then he paused, laughed at himself and said, "Yeah, nevermind. Level 30 it is."

Honestly, it's the idea of NOT having my high level character hanging around just waiting for me to hop on and play that's the problem. I probably wouldn't mind leveling over again. I'll probably tear my hair out because Boon and Vialora won't be leveling as efficiently as I would want to! but meh, the sacrifices one makes for friends and husbands.

So the question is... who should I reroll?

Kava the rogue?
Kiya the hunter?
Keyami the warrior?

The likely classes of Boon and Vialora are going to be a retribution paladin and restoration druid.

Riding the Pony Express...

2009-02-26T18:07:00.003-06:00

The title made more sense in my head...

While I'm at work, I spend a portion of my time (or a good portion of my time, depending on the way they schedule appointments. Stupid work.) on the game.

I can't instance (having to go randomly AFK immediately tends to make groups go WTF?), so that leaves doing dailies, farming or leveling.

I've dailied myself out. Farming has never been my favorite chore (though the other day I did spend 2 hours farming! I wanted to tear my head off by the end of the last stack of Saronite..).

Now leveling on the other hand. I like the leveling game. I bet you couldn't tell that.

I've a few characters I can't level without Boon because I made a solemn promise I wouldn't (and that explains why my poor little mage is still sitting in Zangarmarsh!) but there are a few that aren't linked to any of his. And those... well, I TRY to pace myself because they have to last until the next expansion... I try, really I do!

Keiji, my death knight, has hit level 77. She is currently unholy and I have intentions on seeing if I can be an unholy tank.

Until the point in time when I decide to go instancing though, I've been leveling relatively slowly. I think she was 70? last week sometime. The way I've been doing this is I'm making sure to finish all the quests in the zone before I leave it. It's not optimal for leveling efficiency, but this way I'm forced to spend a little more time running around in a zone. So far, I've finished Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight and the Grizzly Hills. My next step is into Zul'Drak. I'd like to get some instancing done, but I think I'll go in as DPS, considering it was just this last week I decided to be a tank with Keiji, thus I have limited tanking gear (and am not specced quite appropriately just yet).

I have a lot of work to do on her (yay!) in terms of figuring out gear, rotation, and all that fun fun stuff. :)

The bear dinged 72 whilst tanking Utgarde Keep today. I wasn't intending on leveling her, as she's paired with Isabeaux the Mage, but hey, the guild needed a tank for a run. What is a bear to do? Besides that thing we do in the woods.

Reworked Post

2009-02-23T17:51:00.003-06:00

Much happier with my RetLoL Glyphs Post.

"Warlocks etc."

2009-02-22T17:53:00.002-06:00

Today I was pleasantly surprised, superbly pleased and understandably nervous to find out that my blog was linked by BRK in his "big list o' blogs" list.

However, his title for me made me giggle and when I said to my guildies who pointed out my brief moment of fame that my BRK given title was funny... they did say, "Well, you do have a lot of characters... so, etc."

It makes me reconsider, yet again, to rename my blog since my focus shifted from only warlocks to ... everything else.

I do wonder how, where and who BRK got my blog from. I think I've posted a comment in his blog maybe once or twice since I've started reading it.

Anyway, to anyone who wanders here from there.. hello!

In other news on the warlock front, my switch to Haunt has paid off. Pitifully enough, my DPS has soared, when I can keep my rotation straight and when I don't have to stop casting on the boss to kill something else.

Even sadder, my trash DPS has plummeted. I find myself wanting to cry... and nothing is more pitiful than a warlock sobbing. Unless it's a gnome warlock sobbing...

I find myself, on trash, slapping a corruption on everything then using Rain of Fire instead of Seed of Corruption, as the situation requires obviously.

I also find myself unaccountably yanking aggro from the various tanks I've run with lately and I'm not quite sure why. Sometimes, I literally am doing nothing more than standing there, waiting. Boon has the theory that it's my Fel Armor healing that's yanking initial aggro from some things off of the tank.

I think the game just really likes me. I have red hair and a nose ring, what's not to like? (Er, "I" as in Kikidas, not "I" as in the blogger.)

And I need to re-work on my Retribution Paladin Glyphs post, as I've just listed what each glyph does and that's about it, and I really want it to look more like the post I did on Restoration Shaman Glyphs.

And I need to re-glyph Kvasira and Kikidas, because right now Kvasira is incorrectly glyphed with Command and Kikidas hasn't had her glyphs looked at since she hit 78 or something insane like that.

And now, off to play Kathe, the poor neglected bearcat.

Group Etiquette and etc.

2009-02-20T16:51:00.005-06:00

Something that has always fascinated me is the various bits of group etiquette that seem universal and others that I would think should be universal, but which are not.

Apparently, each realm has it's own standard of group etiquette and loot rules and the like... which is amazing.. and makes you wonder how your own realm developed its own etiquette rules. Did one person just randomly say it, and then it spread like wildfire?

The most common series of rules is the idea of 'Need before Greed'.

However, the definition of need and greed can vary greatly depending on who is doing the looting and what their definition of something they NEED may be.

So, let me clarify.

Need Before Greed
An item drops. It's an upgrade for you, for your main spec. Not an alt. Not your offspec. The spec you are currently playing when it dropped. You say, "That's an upgrade, may I need on it?" and nine times out of ten, the group says, "Sure!"

Caveats to that rule seem to crop up only when high-value items drop and people then wince and say, "But but but... that sells on the AH for $$$!"

In MY opinion, that doesn't matter. It's an upgrade for said person. They get it. End of story.

If it's an upgrade for two people, then they should both roll for it. If Person A had already gotten a piece of loot over Person B, then they should be fair that Person A passes so that Person B gets a piece of gear, too. Once both have gotten one piece each, it goes back to whomever rolls highest next.

What does not count as Need rolls?

Enchanters needing on greens/blues/epics and keeping all the shards because they NEED enchanting supplies.
Frost Orbs are greed items. EVERYONE can use them. EVERYONE gets a chance to roll on it. It's always best to ask ahead of time what is the rule on Frost Orbs. Is it a greed roll or a need roll? Even if it's the last one you need to make your zomgepic!, it is not a need roll.
Sidegrades are not need rolls. If it isn't a clear upgrade, and someone else can use it, please be nice and pass on it. If it isn't a clear upgrade and there is a disenchanter on the group, maybe consider passing on it so someone gets a chance at a shard.

Resources
Just because you can see it, skin it, pick it, doesn't automatically make it yours.

Always ASK at the start of a group if there are any other miners, skinners, pickers. If there are, set up a fair way of distributing any potential resource.

Let's not forget kindergarden rules... Share, because you'd hate it if some other person kept running ahead of you to steal your resource, over and over again and you get nothing.

Likewise, be nice to your skinners. Loot all bodies, even if the thing that drops is vendor trash and you don't really want to pick it up. At least open the body so someone else can take the gray gold and so the skinner can skin the body.

The Big No-No's

Needing on a BoE (or BoP) item that is not an upgrade after everyone else has Greeded on it. (This is known as Ninja'ing) You get one free "Oops!" before you get labeled (and probably kicked). There is a confirmation window that pops up when you hit NEED on an item. One time is pushing it into the realm of "You're saying you can't read? Okay. Don't do it again.".
Greeding on a BoP item that you don't intend on using if there is a DE'er in the group. Saying 'I need gold!' is not acceptable. Everyone needs gold. And you get more gold from the DE'd shard than you would from the item itself. Taking an item from the DE'er to vendor is basically stealing shards from the group.
"Stealing" resources after you've set up a fair-use system.
"I need that.", "I need that too.", "I need that also, I'm going to roll on it against you!" Be nice. Play fair. Share with others.
If there is no DE'er and everyone is greeding on things to vendor, once you get your greed item, pass so others can get something as well. Once everyone has gotten something, it's okay to go back to greeding. But no one likes to see, "Kikidas has won...", "Kikidas has won...", "Kikidas has won..."... well, I like to see it, but it undoubtedly makes everyone else feel a little cheated.

Raid Marks/Kill Order and Other Party Irritations

DPS: This doesn't have as much to do with etiquette as it does just standard good sense and tactics. Divide and conquer is supposed to be OUR motto. But it works in reverse. Don't try to be a hero (unless you know you can do it and not cause your healer to have to stop healing the tank to heal you) and tackle that one mob over there. Protect your healer, but let the tank get first dibs at it.

A kill order is a very simple thing to follow. Skull. X. Next. There's a reason the tank or whomever is marking picks one to kill first. Often, it's because that mob does some nasty AoE or ability or heal, or some other thing that otherwise makes it a pain in the ass that needs to die as soon as possible! If you're off spending your abilities and damage on a different target, the skull isn't dying as fast as it should be, which means it's having more time to do that annoying thing we all don't want it to do.

Likewise, the tank is expecting the DPS to unload into skull, so they aren't trying to stack threat as quickly on the other mobs. Which means you're more likely to pull the aggro from the tank and either die because the healer has a 'kill order', and you're low man on the list, or because the healer isn't expecting you to be tanking and is healing other people instead.

Something I am guilty of, and often, is opening up with my abilities before the tank has solid aggro. Granted, the time they need for solid aggro has decreased significantly, but it is still not at time-zero. Nothing pisses off a tank more than when the DPS opens up with both barrels the very instant that the tank hits the first mob, especially if the tank is pulling with a weapon rather than charging in.

(In my own defense, sometimes I really AM doing nothing but standing there and the mobs want to come say hello.)

Many DPS classes have extra abilities, such as removing curses, diseases, healing, bubbling. Do not get so focused on GOTTA PEW PEW that you forget that you can have a very important role in keeping people alive, well and very importantly, keep your healers bubbled when they're about to get walloped.

Nothing, NOTHING, is more irritating when you have someone getting eaten alive with diseases or poisons or magic or curses, seeing someone who can REMOVE said things... and noticing that they aren't.

Help your healers out. They have enough on their plate with healing.

Tank: Most often, you tanky types get marking abilities. This is because we're expecting you to lead the show. What this means is we want you to know what mobs need to die first and fast, and if you don't know, please be nice enough to let someone else mark, or ask what needs to die first. Nothing frustrates people more than when the healer that isn't marked to die first keeps healing everyone we're trying to kill.

The other thing is that you set the pace. In this era of endless mana, there is rarely a time when we need to stop between trash pulls. The only time to stop is if you need to explain something. If the last mob is dead and your group is alive and standing around and no one has said 'afk', 'brb', 'bio', 'wait'... you should be marking the next group and getting to it.

Be aware. Situational awareness is something we all need to have, but you tanks need to have it especially more than the rest of us. You're the one dictating where the fight is going to take place and what position you're going to hold the boss in. If it's a place where the DPS can't get to the boss, or if you're trading off taunts with another tank and the boss keeps hopping about... you're going to irritate the DPS and likely decrease the amount of DPS being done overall.

If you're staying where a pat happens upon, be ready to pick up that pat. Nothing irritates the healers and DPS more than when a mob starts in on the raid and starts one-shotting people here and there. Your DPS and other classes that CAN, will try to help you out with a taunt or a stun or some other thing to get the mobs off of the squishies... but it's your job to be aware of these things.

Healer: The biggest job of the healer is to keep the tank alive. In these days of increased tank aggro, we usually only have to heal splash damage from something's AoE on people who aren't the tank. However, there are the "Heroes" out there that love to pull aggro. (K, I'm looking at you.. er, me. Damnit.)

Don't let the tank die to save the people who aren't doing their job. If they feel they can tank it, then let them tank it or die trying. If a ret paladin consistently doesn't bubble when they're about to die, or any class with healing abilites refuses to cast any healing spell on themselves... let them die. Or they never learn.

However, when the tank isn't hurt, please don't let the DPS sit around half-dead from splash damage. We hate dying due to splash damage.

The one thing that really irritates me about healers is in raid situations. You're given an assigned person to heal. You're either on main tank, off tank, or raid healing. Do NOT stop healing the main tank or off tank because the raid is taking some damage. Let the raid healer do that. That's their job. Not yours. No one will be happy if the main tank dies because you were busy healing the rogue of some splash damage.

If you're assigned to healing the Main Tank, do not stop to heal the Off Tank. Let the OT healers do that. I don't care if you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs. There's a reason we have someone assigned to doing one job. So that as soon as the MT starts to take damage, you are ready to go, no spells on cool down, no need to retarget or whatever... you just heal.

In this age of endless mana, there is almost no reason that on fights where the tank takes spikey damage, that you can't ABC, just learn to Esc or move if the heal isn't needed. But nothing irritates the tank more than when they get hit every 2 seconds for 10k damage, and they go 4 seconds before they get their first heal. (0-2 seconds for damage to be taken, ~2 seconds more for a heal to be cast and lo, the tank has taken yet more damage!)

...

And I'm spent! Comments welcome. :)

Retribution Paladin Glyphs

2009-02-20T09:48:00.005-06:00

This post is going to focus mainly on the glyphs (mainly major) that are beneficial for retribution paladins, and you will see why Blizzard really doesn't love us. :(

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Avenging Wrath

This glyph has the potential to really boost your DPS, if used at the right time and in the right cirumcstances.
It reduces the cooldown of your Hammer of Wrath by 50% when Avenging Wrath is active. What this means it that if you save your Avenging Wrath to when a boss has 20% or less health, then pop it, you can cast Hammer of Wrath every 3 seconds.
The thing to consider is the fact that this is a glyph that only applies at a very specific set of circumstances. You need your avenging wrath to be on cooldown and the boss has to be at 20% or less health, and for the best use of this, once the boss hits 20% or less health, and you pop your avenging wrath and start hammering away, it needs to live for 20 seconds to get the MOST use and DPS out of this combination of things.
That set of circumstances often applies to most raid bosses. Go go HoW!

Glyph of Consecration

Now, back in the OLD days, a lot of people I spoke to said that they never used Consecration, simply because of cooldowns and the lack of damage/mana spent. But these are the new days. We young whippersnappers are slapping down consecration on a regular basis, and what's more... we're dancing in it.
The glyph itself is pretty simple and straightforward, this increases the duration and cooldown of your consecration by 2 seconds.
What this means is that there will hopefully be one less time when your consecration goes off at the same time you need to hit another ability or spell. It puts it on the same timer as your divine storm, judgement* and 4 seconds longer than your crusader strike.
*If you have four pieces of your T7 set, judgement cooldown is 9 seconds, not 10.
Paladins don't think of ourselves as having a casting rotation as strict as say, a mage or warlock, but in actuality, we do. It is possible to screw things up so that instead of being able to use crusader strike every 6 seconds, we're actually using it every 8-10 because we hit a cooldown right before crusader strike is up. If we start our rotation wrong, and we say to ourselves 'zomg, need to keep judgement of wisdom up!' and we hit judgement before we hit crusader strike EVERY TIME... it eats into your DPS. But that's a whole other story in and of itself.

Glyph of Crusader Strike

Crusader Strike is the bread and butter for single target DPS for us RetLoL's. We loves our Crusader Strike, yes we do!
Now, if this glyph increased DAMAGE, I would be in hog heaven. However, a decrease in mana is still not a bad price to day, considering our ever shrinking mana pools. Having to replace your Seal of Command or Martyr with Seal of Wisdom because you're running out of mana, even chain-casting Divine Plea... makes us sad pandapaladins.

Glyph of Exorcism

One word. Nifty.
If this glyph doesn't change when Exorcism affects all creatures, not just undead, it will be a handy ability to have. Finally, we can pull a caster without having to find a hill to hind behind or a corner to duck around! However, it's PROBABLY more for solo-play than group-play.

Glyph of Hammer of Justice

HoJ has its uses in PvE, but I don't know if an extra 5 yards is worth it. I can EASILY see this being useful in PvP.

Glyph of Hammer of Wrath

Free HoW? Pair that up with Glyph of Avenging Wrath and you're one hammer swinging bad-ass.
However, again I find this glyph very situational. Yes, you do cast your hammer of wrath frequently, but usually just once on your average fight... boss fights is a different story. And again, if you're pairing it up with Glyph of Avenging Wrath, this is definately a nice one to take. Lets you whackitywhack for free!

Glyph of Judgement

This is a must have for us, imnsho. Not only do our judgements cause Heart of the Crusader, but also have the potential to put up Righteous Vengeance, two very important things.
We should be judging whenever the cooldown is up, not just when our judgement is going to fall off the boss. The duration of Heart of the Crusader is shorter than the duration of our judgement, so please, pretty please, especially if you are the only ret paladin in your group, JUDGE. Cast your righteous vengeance on them! Be the Judge, Jury and Executioner!
In short... increasing the damage of our judgements? Gravy.

Glyph of Seal of Command

I currently HAVE this, but that will change since I've started to use Seal of the Martyr and I no longer really use Seal of Command. But it's very useful for times when you aren't using seal of the martyr (pvp?).
No seriously, if you're thinking that Seal of Command, thus buffed with this glyph is better than Seal of the Martyr, I'm proof that it isn't. I switched mid-raid from Command to Martyr and saw my average DPS jump up from low 2k to high 2k-low3k.
In more concrete terms, Command is a flat boost to damage, whereas Martyr seems multiplicative. What it multiplies with, dunno!
Here's some info on Seal of the Martyr from WoWWiki. Martyr can crit (and be missed, dodged and parried) and scales on a 27% of weapon damage (or so I gather).
Don't let the healers gainsay you from using this. (where "this" is seal of the Martyr) Yes, you do have to be careful. Yes, you need to use it responsibly. Yes, we will laugh and point if you kill yourself. But Judgement of Light will help heal a portion of your damage and that's also why we have Art of War. (Well, that and Loatheb. Be kind to your healers on Loatheb. Heal thyself.)

Minor Glyphs
We're a little screwed on the minor glyph side, with the only direct benefit coming from one glyph, all the others being pluses for pre-raid buffing or self-buffing the regular blessings as opposed to greater blessings. Boo.

Glyph of Sense Undead

This is the only directly beneficial one to us pallies. 1% increased damage to undead when we're sensing them? Okay. I'll take that. I just need to remember to switch to Sense Undead when I walk into Naxx.

Glyph of Blessing of Kings

Typically a pre-raid issue, it's useful to keep us from burning out on mana when we're buffing a full raid with Kings, or if we have to buff on the fly in a fight or some such. Why don't see get glyphs that make our spells reagentless? *pout*

Glyph of Lay on Hands

Again, not a direct boost to us, but useful if we're having to save someone with a mana bar... or, in worst case scenarios, use it on yourself if you're almost out of mana, to give yourself a mana injection... though, I still prefer to save it to, I dunno, save someone?

Glyph of the Wise

Useful if you're low on mana in combat and have to wait for yourself to passively generate enough mana to slap on Seal of Wisdom. Hopefully you've enough awareness of the fight you're in, your own mana bar, and you're using Divine Plea on a regular basis, you should have plenty of time to either eat/drink, Divine Plea, or slap on your seal of wisdom.

Glyph of Blessing of Might/Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom

These are both glyphs that make your regular blessing of might or wisdom last as long as a greater, without using a reagent. Personally, I prefer kings on myself anyway.
This does not apply to anyone else you cast said blessings on, they get the ghetto-10 minute.
Did I already say I prefer Kings on myself?

So, pick your glyphs with care and thought. We don't have a huge selection with our minors, but then again, who does? However, our major glyphs can really boost our DPS! And that's what we're all about, the deeps.

Go out there and represent!

Giving up the Ghost

2009-02-19T17:15:00.003-06:00

... I tried, really I did. And in a perfect world, I did well.

But as soon as I started missing Shadowbolts, my DPS tanked.

And I hit a plateau with my DPS that I felt I should have been above.

So...

I went and got Haunt. Stinky yucky Haunt. And I immediately went to the Heroic Dummy and shot at it a few times and sighed sadly as my DPS effortlessly jumped up higher than I've ever gotten it with intense concentration.

Damn you. Damn you to Hell!

...

Where YOU is Absitively the Warlock, as well as Blizzard in general.

(S)paceman (S)pif!

2009-02-18T10:24:00.004-06:00

The other day, I checked my email and lo and behold, I had email!

The joy was overwhelming!

One was Abigore, who still cannot post on my blog at work, and refuses to not game when he's home to catch up on his blog commentary (tsk tsk, shame upon you!).

One was a survey on WoW being conducted by a student over in some big prestigious university in France.

And the other was an enhancement shaman who says that he's new to the blogosphere and was wondering if I would go read his blog.

So, a few cool things!

1: He's close to perfection, P being only a few letters removed from K. (LMNO)

2: He begins all his alts (yes, another altaholic in the blogosphere! YES! WE WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD ONE DAY!) with Pif, named after his enhancement shaman, Pif. If he began them all with P and left out the 'if' and just kept it at P, it would be better, but still not as iconic as K.

3: He reads my blog AND has a link to my blog on his own blog!

4: He seems sincerely interested in promoting his chosen class (enhancement shaman) in a well informed, well written, witty and charming manner.

5: He seems to have a thing for Jackie Chan, this is never a bad thing.

So everyone who is interested in a new kid (get it? space goat, kid? Spaceman Spiff? pif? goat? kid... oh, I give up!) please go say hi to ShamWam and maybe leave a friendly comment or two.

Pushin' 1800

2009-02-13T16:22:00.002-06:00

I took Kikidas into a few heroics yesterday (Thank you, Boon!) and watched as her DPS on bosses climbed from approximately 1400 to about 1800 as I got an upgrade here or there.

Granted, as a mostly affliction warlock, my overall DPS still needs some help... but my DPS on bosses was actually pretty nice. I find myself all nostalgic about the good old days.

My rotation on trash is to slap Corr/CoA on them all and then SB spam until I need to reapply.

My rotation on bosses is currently UA, Corr, CoA, SL, SB until I need to reapply. I think this needs working on. I have improved SB, so I may try to hit SB first to apply the debuff before I apply the others. And with the loss of SL coming soon, I will soon be able to start SB spam far sooner. I think I need to go back to the training dummy and smack it around a bit until I'm sure I have the best rotation I can get out of my hybridized spec.

One of the things I took OUT of my talent build was Dark Pact. I love it and I miss it, but with a pet that sometimes winds up dying in boss AoE/Splash damage, I can't rely on it.

So I'm having to be more conscientious of my mana bar than I have been in the past, in terms of when it's safe to life tap and when I may need to drain life or if the healer has the time to spare to catch me up.

Either way, having fun! And.. given that my guild seems to have way too many melee DPS and no ranged DPS, hopefully in a bit I can be an alternative DPS for when we just can't swing another melee'er into the group.

Restoration Shaman: Talent Tree

2009-02-12T09:58:00.004-06:00

Here is my current build.

I'm going to explain the things that need explaining, rather than the 'No, really?' ones. Or the ones I'm thinking of changing, or some such.

Enhancement:
5/5 Ancestral Knowledge: Because 10% extra intellect is sexy.

3/3 Improved Shields: Because Mana Shield and Earth Shield boosted by 15% is also sexy.

3/5 Thundering Strikes: Actually, I only need 2/5 so I'm going to put this down to lag and me clicking one time too many. However, increased crit strike chance on spells by 3 (or 2)% is pretty nice.

And I need it for:

3/3 Elemental Weapons: Increasing the bonus healing on my Earthliving Weapon by 30%? Now, some may say... big deal, so what? And I've never been very good at figuring out numbers. But it would seem to me that 30% bonus healing ... is good?

Restoration:
3/3 Ancestral Healing: Increases armor by 25%... it's nifty, definately nifty. But I'm thinking of putting these points elsewhere. Especially as thus far, in raid situations, I tend to be on raid healing, and most of the time, those people don't need increased armor.

0 Healing Grace: In raids, you usually aren't worried about threat, not since they boosted the heck out of the threat generation of tanks. And... we really don't have many cases where we're worried about people dispelling our spells. I can see where in PvP that would be quite useful to not have your Earth Shield dispelled from you.

0 Healing Way: This would seem like a big one, and it IS a very nice boost!... if you're using Healing Wave very often. Maybe it's just me, maybe it isn't... but for the vast majority of my healing, I'm not using Healing Wave. I tend to use a lot of Lesser Healing Wave, Riptide, and Chain Heal. I use Healing Way on the tank and usually just need to hit him (or her!) with it just once before I go back to using something else.

0 Nature's Guardian: If I fix Thundering Strikes and possibly move points out of Ancestral Healing, this is where I'd put it. Sure, the 10% healing is nice (but only 10%), but it's the threat reduction that makes me go 'mmmm'. Now, in raiding situations, this is unlikely to either help (one shot = dead = 0 threat anyway!), but in 5-mans (I'm looking at you, Skadi's gauntlet!), losing threat by being hit may help keep you alive. Otherwise, you're having to try to juggle healing the tank, healing yourself, healing the DPS and using Windshock on multiple targets... usually ends in SQUITZH)

2/2 Blessing of the Eternals: Crit by 4%, and increases chance to apply Earthliving by 40% to targets under 35% health? Why would you not take this?

2/2 Improved Chain Heal: Maybe it's the fact that Shaman have an 'AoE' heal that we can spam pretty quickly, which is a smart heal... but I tend to get put on raid healing a lot. So... 20% increase to it. Yesplz.

3/3 Ancestral Awakening: When I crit, someone else pops in and heals the most hurt person by 30% of my crit amount? Small beans, but it's one less thing I have to do immediately.

2/2 Improved Earth Shield: Now, some restoration shamans don't have this, but I think it's pretty important. It goes along the line of 'healing I don't have to actively do', increases charges by 2 (so, instead of 6, they have 8) and increases the healing done by 10%. This gives the tank time to get aggro before I start healing threat, and gives me a chance to drop totems where I want them while the tank is being passively healed.

5/5 Tidal Waves: After Riptide or Chain Heal, my spell casting on my next two Lesser Healing and Healing Wave decreases by 30%. My roughly 2.5 second Healing Wave becomes a roughly 2 second Healing Wave. My Lesser Healing Wave takes a mere second to cast. It also boosts the effect of my Healing and Lesser Healing waves by 20/10%. I consider this such a big boost to how I actually heal that I try to use Riptide or Chain Heal even when I really don't NEED to, to clean up splash damage or some such.

One of the hardest parts of leveling up, for me, is putting in talent points. Because each individual point, by itself, really doesn't mean very much. And you have to plan out where you want things to go so you can get to what you're really after. So, looking at each individual talent and what it does in and of itself, while a nice exercise in 'Hey, that sounds nifty', what I'm really after is the overall effect of the talents put together into a solid whole healy shaman.

Each little part, especially with the addition of glyphs that suit your play style and heal style, make you into one heck of a healbot.

Now, every player will likely talent themselves slightly differently. So please, feel free to poke holes at what I have down here, give your insights to the benefits of ancestral healing, healing way, thundering strikes, elemental weapons... etc.

The Fall of Naxxramas (10), etc, etc

2009-02-10T10:06:00.003-06:00

Yes... Knights of Utopia has cleared Naxx-10.

(Woot woot!)

We tend to run a very melee-heavy raid, which just won't work with K'T... so we had our resto druid respec Boomkin and I took my restoration shaman instead of my retribution paladin.

We had 3 DK (1 tank, 2 dps), 1 rogue, 1 warrior (tank), 1 boomkin, 1 hunter, 1 paladin (healer), 1 priest (healer) and 1 shaman (healer). And of course, what would drop?

Yes, that's right. On K'T we had 2 ranged dps and 5 melee classes. We're insane, what can I tell you!

And yes, of course Death's Bite dropped! I sobbed brokenly as I congratulated the DK that won it. And drooled on it, so that it slipped out of his hand and broke his foot, but hey.. I can't help myself.

I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't seem to upload Kikidas into the system so that it actually takes a look at her freakin' stats/abilities. Because I don't HAVE Haunt, because I WANT to try a UA/Ruin build first. Because I want to actually have some utility on things that live less than 2 minutes. :P So sue me. And get off my back. My blog. My warlock.

STOP JUDGING ME!

Ahem.

So I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't figure out how to upload Kikidas. Anyone have any suggestions? They have a little 'input your realm and name here' (get) option, so if they don't really get the character, why do they offer that?

I played around with the dummies in Stormwind, swapping around gear and playing with rotation and abilities. I seem to push about mid 1500's. Now I need to get out of my crappy greens and find some dungeon drops.

In a sad sad side note, I was in regular Halls of Lightning yesterday with a somewhat underleveled group. A 78 DK tank, a 77 disc priest, a 78 mage, an 80 rogue and myself. Right? Okay... so will be a little tough, but should be doable, right?

The TANK... spent most of his time running away from fights and not tanking. No, that isn't me being sarcastic. He literally would turn and run away from a pull. Because he wanted to pull them to a very certain spot and if that didn't happen, he'd RUN AWAY. Because when an underleveled tank would face pull, that just didn't work for him, nosirree. *sigh*

He'd also let mobs get behind him and whack away at his back. So kept dying. When we accidentally pulled the boss the first time, he ran away, even though the group was at full health, full mana and was just waiting for him to pull the boss.

When he said he was doing that because he liked to pull the mobs further back rather than fight where they were, I very astutely pointed out that as the tank, he had these nifty abilities to hold aggro and move the mobs wherever he wanted them to be. Not only the ability to move mobs, but a neat benefit to that would be that his DPS would live and his healer wouldn't get one shot trying to keep the DPS alive!

We got through the fist boss (sob) after way too many wipes and time spent staring at the screen going, "Did the tank just run away, again?" ... with myself and the rogue tanking the lieutenants... thank god for fear. >< ...

... and then on our way to the second boss, even though he had asked for marking abilities to mark the mobs, he wasn't putting up away (I don't have the time! says he), so I go after what he seemed to be attacking first. And it said 'zomg, warlock! love warlock!' and came to try to hug me.

I did a death coil to make it go away from me and back up the stairs. The tank still was ignoring it. So it came back to me. So I did what any good warlock would do...

If I'm going to die, damnit, I'm taking the group with me!!! I feared it... and it went running to another group, naturally.

The priest said, "You gotta hold aggro." ... because the priest was getting whacked like every single time and almost dying ... a lot.

When the tank was like, 'wah, it wasn't my fault! someone pulled another group!'

I said, 'Nope, not your fault. But you still have to hold aggro. I accidentally grabbed another group because I was being attacked. Sorry guys.'

And the tank says, 'emo emo, QQ, I'm gone!' and leaves.

And we pull in a level 80 feral druid and the run goes super smooth after that. (one wipe on Ionus, but that was more bad luck than bad skill)

Amazingly, I think it had something to do with the fact that the tank didn't run away from pulls? Possibly? I can't tell for sure.

I mean, obviously the extra levels on the tank undoubtedly helped, but I really don't think that was the reason we had a problem in the beginning. Just really don't think that was the case at all.

And then back to raid stuff, we took a shot or three at Malygos. Gonna be interesting to see how next week goes.

And Kiki makes 3!

2009-02-07T23:23:00.002-06:00

I hit level 80 tonight with my warlock, by doing a bunch of low level quests just to finish them out and have quest-hubs to work out of.

Which means that I need to work now on getting her raid ready! Because multiple-raid-ready-alts is my middle name. :)

Well, it isn't actually, but it's a nice thought.

In other less exciting news than my third level 80, our guild downed Sapphiron and took a few shots at Kel'thuzad this last week. We're going back in for Kelly on Monday.

And we're regularly clearing OS and VoA.

And we're teaming up with another smallish guild to run 25 mans.

It's kind of sad really that Karika's gear is typically either from heroics, or 25-man Naxx. I have this odd feeling like I'm skipping a step somewhere...

My Life... courtesy of Two Lumps

2009-02-06T11:10:00.003-06:00

Exploration!

2009-02-02T14:32:00.002-06:00

One thing I've noticed about a few places in regards to exploration.

Some zones you can walk one step in any direction and discover 1/4 of the map.

Other zones, you have to find that one exact spot to stand in or you won't discover the last smudge on the map that you need to get the exploration achievement.

There's something else too... most of the time, even though it's part of an already filled in map, there are still places to discover on the map!

And if you're trying to ding 78 with 1/4 of a bubble (which is a huge ass chunk of xp still) left to go, you want to hunt out every one of those nooks and crannies.

I was half-way through Icecrown, with only three spots in Sholazar and Borean Tundra to explore, when I dinged 78.

And dear lord... level 78 was EXPENSIVE for a warlock. I think I easily spent 200 gold just getting new skills.

Maybe I hadn't leveled when I hit 76, who knows.

Regardless... ding!

Sapphiron, Elders and Warlocks

2009-02-02T09:34:00.002-06:00

The other day in our weekly Naxx-10, we not only downed Gluth for the second time as a guild, but then proceeded to one shot Thaddius, a boss we've never seen before but practiced for a LOT in Tempest Keep: Mechanar.

Of course, then we portaled out after Thaddius and got teleported immediately to Sapphiron's lair.

So, here's our newbie guild, no frost resist gear what-so-ever, and we're in Sapphiron's Lair.

We wipe a few times learning how to ice-block and dealing with his chill ability. The constant stream of damage from the AoE aura also didn't help any.

We're going back in to take another shot at him. Our OT is going to respec DPS for the evening and we're going to take 1 tank, 3 healers and 6 DPS.

In other news, the only thing Kvasira needs now to get the Elder title are the Elders in the Northrend Dungeons. While I was going around and getting Elders, I also earned the World Explorer title.

And then in my final bit of news, Kikidas is less than 1/4 bubble from 78. Exciting, I know. I have this plan to see if I can ding on exploration discovery XP.

Anub'arak, I hate you.

2009-01-29T10:57:00.002-06:00

Yesterday the heroic daily was Azjol-Nerub. An instance that isn't all that hard, one would presume. It's short. There aren't a lot of trash mobs. Three bosses. Should be quick and easy, right?

The line up was Seraphelia the DK tank, Karika the resto shaman, Neshura the hunter, Shortwinded the rogue and Lilravens the warlock.

We wiped a few times on the Watcher's until we got the hang of it down.

We one shotted Hadronox.

And then we kept failing with Anub'arak. I ran out of mana. The DPS ran out of health. Sometimes one before the other. The tank would get pounded and I couldn't get a heal out to him fast enough, or was lacking the mana to get a heal out to him fast enough. We couldn't seem to avoid the spikes, even if we hoofed it as soon as we saw rumbling. Even when on our screen, we were well away from the spikes, we still got clipped.

(Yes, I had poison cleansing totem out.)

We entered fully repaired. We left in the yellow/red.

We will be back. Oh yes. We will.

The most frustrating part? There was one attempt we were doing REALLY WELL on. I had mana. The DPS was doing a good job avoiding spikes. I was doing a good job avoiding spikes. We were on trash. The poison cleansing totem was doing it's job. The tank is getting low in health and I'm casting a big heal on him, and the heal goes off and he dies.

W. T. F.

The most frustrating feeling in the world for a healer is when you KNOW your heal went off, and the target STILL dies as if no heal hit him.

We will be back. Oh yes. We will.

Karika goes to Naxxramas-25

2009-01-28T12:09:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, Boon and Vialora celebrated Vialora's 21st birthday by getting drunk and shooting zombies. Owaru joined in.

So Neshura, Posolutely and myself were at loose ends. And lo and behold, an ex-guildie was trying to get together a 25-man Naxx.

So I ask what he needs. Healer, DPS.

I tell him I have a restoration shaman and Nesh was on and Pos was on in the form of Abs the warlock.

He wound up tanking, but ... I offered Abs! Don't look at me that way.

So, they somehow wound up with 6 healers... but I was the only shaman healer, and one of only two shaman at all. The other was elemental and geared very nicely.

So, we hit the spiders first. And what should drop but the Shield of Assimilation. A caster ring also dropped, but I figured I'd go for what I know I can get. :)

Then we hit up the Widow, and the Atonement Greaves dropped. I asked if, even though I already got a drop, if it was going to just get sharded, if anyone minded if I took them.

And lastly, Maexxna donated the Quivering Tunic to the righteous cause of gearing up Karika.

We didn't get any others down, but I figure.. that's good enough for one night, right?

Woot woot. Go shammy, go shammy, go!

VoA and OS-10 Man... and Gluth, you dog!

2009-01-26T09:36:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we went ahead and hit up VoA and OS-10 Man. And walloped everything. Where 8 of the 10 people present had never been there before.

On these guys, where they aren't undead (grumble), I was lowest on the DPS meter. LOWEST! I sob, I writhe in shame, and I wonder what I was doing wrong. I know I can hit higher than 1800, but in VoA and OS, I was somewhere in the 1800-2100 range.

Was it the Heath Bar that I was eating at the time? Who knows!

But I did notice that when I was Johnny on the Spot in terms of hitting my next spell as soon as it became available, my DPS jumped at least 100 points. :P I think in VoA it was low because of all the dodging about we melee'ers had to do. And in OS, again, lots of running around. And one of the tanks kept moving. *narrow eyed glare* No movey of the mobs. Moving mobs make melee DPS irritable.

Then since we waltzed through those two raids with nary a scratch (I think the only death we had was Boon, who DI'd Kyuushi (Sartherion has 5% health left, oh my god, we're going to fail, someone DI me!) after Sartherion was dead. Don't ask. It's a joke of some sort between the two of them.)), we decided to hit up the Abomination Quarter in Naxx-10.

So we went ahead and two-shotted Patchwerk -- when the MT dies because the OT didn't yet have secondary aggro to eat the hateful strikes, usually means a wipe. Because then the OT becomes the MT, and the new OT is the retribution paladin, who dies very quickly.

And then we cleaned up Globbulus. And then we went to Gluth. Gluth, the doggie that we've never managed to get down before. We had issues with the kiting of the Zombie Chow.

In the past, we'd have one kiter, who would try to do all three waves. This never worked well because the stacking debuff got too high.

Our next best attempt was we tried to have two kiters, swapping them out between waves so the debuff fell off. The problem with this was that the second kiter, a hunter, couldn't gain enough aggro on the chow to pull them off the healers.

Finally though, last night we had two retribution paladins in the raid.

I took the first wave. Hunter's laid their freezy trap in the middle grate, and I ran around in circles. With righteous fury and exorcism and judgements, not to mention the very very useful holy wrath, I kept aggro on all the chow, kept them from eating me, and was able to stop them in place when decimate triggered.

The second wave the other retribution paladin took. It was his first time kiting, as opposed to me who has tried about three other times to kite them, and he wound up dying towards the end of his 'wave'. Given that the mobs were way in the back anyway, and decimate was close, I stayed on the boss. When decimate hit, I ran back, holy wrath'd and then went back to kiting.

Third wave went much the same as the first. The hunter traps started to get misplaced to the side, but given the multi-tasking the hunters had to do, who am I to complain? (Silly hunters.) I had to blow my bubble towards the end, but then holy wrath'd them in place. Then decimate fell upon their heads and they died.

But without a second kiter, I had to take the beginning of the fourth wave while still under the effects of the earlier debuffing I took. I did my best, but when the stacks start to climb into the 40-50 range... anyway, I went ahead and died as far back in the chamber as I could, so they'd have the longest time to get to Gluth. And Gluth died before they could reach him (and before he could enrage).

All in all, a beautiful (or at least, not horribly decimated) one-shot of a previously unattainable boss. Two ret pallies and the boss dead? DEAL!

We then stopped Naxx and took a brief detour into Dustwallow Marsh to go ahead and down Onyxia for the achievement.

On a side note, Iceravens from our guild... solo'd her. It took him, he says, about 35-40 minutes. I don't know if he was prot or ret specced for the attempt. But I don't know whether to be proud (I am!) or sad (a 40 man classic raid boss is now soloable?).

Warlock: Potential Level 80 Build

2009-01-24T10:25:00.003-06:00

So, I obviously just blogged about what I may try to do later in the game. And I'm thinking this may be it.

Devastation vs. Haunt

I opted to go with Devastation versus Haunt. This means I don't get Everlasting Affliction to rebuff my Corruption, unless I decide to use Drain Life in the middle of a fight, but if I'm planning on keeping Shadow Bolt as a good portion of my spell rotation (and yes, I have to play with this, a LOT, because I have no idea what the spell rotation will be, or how applicable keeping SB in my rotation will be... Geeze people, I'm only level 73. I'm not clairvoyant.), I'd rather have 5% crit for said yummy-bolts-of-death and worry about the GCD instead. Besides which, what I said previously about the Haunt-Spell-Cycle precluding Shadowbolting still holds true....

I will miss the boost to DoT effects that Haunt gives. Damnit.

No More Shadowburn

While Shadowburn is going to figure highly in my leveling build, because damnit I LIKE it and it's so nice to have an instant cast spell to finish off that mob that's just so annoyingly clinging to life... let's face it, on boss fights, it usually isn't applicable unless you have a zillion and ten shards to spare. Granted, I loved using it on the Curator during Evocation, shard be damned, but overall, not as useful as something else would be. So sadly, in my proposed level 80 spec, it goes buhbye.

Unstable Affliction and Pandemic

I'm a leeeetle iffy on this right now, basically because currently my crit chance is 13%. Which means if I spend the points in UA and Pandemic right now, I have a 13% chance / tick of causing 100% more damage from that tick? That's how I'm reading it right now. Anyone see anything different? Currently, I plan on keeping it, because if I am going to go with a hybrid spec, I imagine that I'll be boosting my spell crit chance a bit more than I was.

Destruction!

Damnit, I'm looking deeper at the Destruction tree and I see some things that are making me twitch with desire. But I'll play with Affliction first before I see if the grass is indeed greener on the other side.

COMMENTS WELCOME

Please, unload your thoughts if you have a lock, especially a level 80 lock, about what I'm thinking. I won't be offended really. I've done hybrid before when everyone was telling me I was a dummy, so I'll really be okay with you guys saying I shouldn't be hybrid. But what I'm really looking for is commentary in the form of, "Have you considered this hybrid spec, because of X, Y and Z".

Kikidas @ 73 : 43/0/21

2009-01-24T08:10:00.002-06:00

That's right. I respecced.

And not surprisingly, I'm enjoying it more than I was. I do plan on going as deep into affliction as I can, while trying to retain my Devastation, Ruin and Shadowburn. Which won't work for anyone, but I'll play with it.

What do I mean by it won't work? We'll touch on that in a second.

Also not surprisingly... I'm not dying anymore.

I know it's just a matter of playstyle. Lots of warlocks dot up tons of mobs and kite them around in circles until they all die.

And yes, that is hilariously fun, but it doesn't suit my playstyle.

Now, why won't Devastation and Ruin work for deep affliction? First of all, to get Haunt, you can't get Devastation.

Secondly, everything I'm reading of a full deep affliction cycle has barely any time to cast even the occasional SB to get the debuff from ISB, or if you're going for Shadows Embrace before you hit the mob with Haunt... that why should I have Ruin (increases crit bonus of my destruction spells by 100% at max rank)? I won't ever be casting it. Arguably it would increase the crit bonus of my Immolate, but really?

So I have a lot of playing to do.

So saying, my hare-brained hybrid spec worked well for me in TBC, even though no one else I knew had something anything close to it.

Maybe a new hare-brained hybrid spec will work for me in WotLK too.

We'll have to see what I can come up with, shall we?

Who are you and what have you done to Kikidas?

2009-01-23T09:06:00.003-06:00

I hereby qualify the following with this disclaimer: I am on a laggy laptop. I don't have Necrosis on said laptop. I can't tab target on the laptop. And I've been spending a vast majority of my time lately running around in plate and 18k health.

So, yesterday I spend a little time on Kikidas. I log in, I briefly reaccustom myself to what spells I have in my hotbars and etc, etc. And I head on out to do quests.

I have Boon in my party, just to chat while he levels up his engineering.

And I'm out in the Dragonblight and I ride along the way I have habitually ridden along for ages upon ages. Meaning I ride straight to my goal, stop to see what I have chasing me and then get jusssst a little further to make them 'leave combat', or I stop and kill them if there's just one or two.

Of course, this plan backfires BADLY when you get knocked off your mount... when you're level 72. When you have 8k health. When you're on a laptop. When you're surrounded by mobs that are level 73.

So I died.

...

Then I resurrected and wound up dying again because the stupid mobs were still within range to aggro me.

...

I safely resurrect, get my quest done, head on my way.

...

And die in another group of mobs that knocked me off my mount.

...

And Boon is going, "Uh... K?"

...

And I grumble, "Shut up."

...

And then I'm doing the quest out at Ruby Dragonshrine, where you have to help the NPC's kill things. And I somehow manage to ride off my mount right into the middle of a huge gang of ghouls and geists. And I for some reason decide that opening up with several SoC is OBVIOUSLY the best way to get the quest done as quickly and efficiently as I can.

And the ghouls and geists decide I look extra tasty. And I stupidly parked myself very close to them.

And I die.

...

And Boon says, "Who are you and what have you done with Kikidas?"

...

On a side note, while I think deep affliction is going to be tasty tasty tasty, I think I'm going to, while leveling, respec to my old hybrid spec so I can get some bang along with my buck. And as I level up, I'll spend more points to get deeper into affliction. We shall see.

Damnit. I've been spoiled by the Light. This is unacceptable. :(

I need to go kick some puppies and read some LFG.

It isn't who you are, it's what you bring!

2009-01-21T10:01:00.002-06:00

We had a friend, back in vanilla WoW, who played a priest. A shadowpriest actually, but a priest.

Whenever the guild ran instances, they always said, "Where's DB, we need a healer!"

It got to the point that DB stopped logging in because he felt that they didn't want HIM, they just wanted a healer.

He knew better, at least in the case of Boon and myself... because I'd bring my priest if we wanted a healer. But he only had one character that was high level, which was his priest. So we'd always ask him to bring his priest... because that's all he had.

He burned out and left. It was a shame because he really enjoyed the game. But he felt that he never had time to play something else because he always had to be his priest, and he felt that we didn't want HIM, we just wanted a healer.

It's something I hit towards the end of TBC... it seemed I could never bring one of my DPS because I always had to be the tank, because really... do you REALLY want to PuG a tank fo a heroic or a raid? So much easier to PuG a DPS. A good tank and healer combo can make up for a whole host of DPS suckiness.

Sometimes, yeah, it isn't who you are, it's what you bring to the group. People put up with your irritations because they'd rather keep your tank around than have to find a new tank that knows how to actually tank.

Once you know it though, that all they want is your tank... not you... wow, such a blow.

I wish I could go back in time and tell DB some of this. It was him we enjoyed. It was his humor and his wit. He could have been playing a melee-warlock and we'd still want to hang with him.

Miss you, Dawnbreaker.

Anope!

2009-01-17T21:54:00.003-06:00

Apparently, it is not an upgrade! Despite what I just said, the strength on the Amulet is better, I gain more AP from it.

Why is that?

Because I have Divine Strength, which increases my strength by 15%. So the Amulet actually DOES give me more Attack Power.

The issue of the crit is still up for grabs however... but I didn't go for the Pendant after all.

Upgrade?

2009-01-17T08:36:00.002-06:00

So something I'm running into a lot with a few things... is the question, "I know it's purple. And it does have a somewhat higher crit rating than the item I have on. But other than that, I lose 45 Strength to gain 49 Agility. I'm not sure it's really an upgrade?"

What I'm talking about is that Kvasira is currently wearing the Gold Amulet of Kings out of Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.

The Collar of Dissolution dropped last night in Naxx-10. And the Pendant of the Outcast Hero which is a Dalaran Emblem of Heroism token reward.

But are they better? Their i-level is the same, 200. One is just colored purple, the other blue.

So, let's compare.

47 Strength gives me 94 Attack Power. (It takes 14 AP to increase DPS by 1, or so says WoWWiki.) So in terms of Attack Power, both pieces may actually be better than the Amulet. (pout, I hate it when my research proves what I was about to say wrong.)

It takes 45 crit rating to increase your crit by 1%. It takes (for a paladin), 52 agility to increase crit by 1%.

There's a conversion for when Agi becomes more important than Str.

For me, it seems that equilibrium point is when my 'DPS' is about 902.71.

Right now, it's at 434 something.

So according to this, I should still be focusing more on Str than Agi. This is subject to change with talents, and as I get more or less strength, more or less agility, more or less crit chance.

It's, to put it simply, confusing as hell.

It's [(0.1428-0)x(1+0.26)]/0.0002 for me.

This is [(DPSperStr-DPSperAgi)x(1+Crit)]/CritperAgi

For people who aren't hunters and rogues, it's always 0.1428 for DPSperStr and for anyone who isn't a rogue, hunter or cat druid, it's 0 for DPSperAgi.

So from what I see of this, when I mouse over my 'Damage' and it reads 902 DPS, that's when I say 1 point of Agility > 1 point of Strength. Until that point in time, Strength is still my baby.

For crit chance, I'm sitting at about 26% right now. The Pendant would give me an overall 1.7% crit. The Amulet gives about a 0.95%. The Collar gives about a 0.69%.

Once you get above 25% for a retribution paladin, give or take, Vengeance and Righteous Vengeance are always aglow and active.

So would the extra 0.75% crit chance matter? Crits are pretty. Crits make us laugh in glee. And at this level, it takes a walloping amount of crit rating or agility to make us sit up and go, "Really? Wooooow." So when you say it like, it's just an increase in 0.75% crit... makes it sound like less than it is. It's actually a good boost.

What the Collar has that the other two do NOT is Expertise. Now, if you have talents that are guaranteed to never be dodged or missed, then boogy for you. For us paladins, we need expertise to avoid that 5-6% dodging that bosses will do.

So that 38 Expertise Rating calculates out to being a little over 1% decrease in the boss' ability to dodge (or parry) my attacks.

Right now, raid buffed, using Elixir of Expertise and Rhinolicious Wormsteak, with my expertise gems, I'm at about 5% dodge free.

So... in my opinion, if you're hit capped and close to expertise capped, the Collar is not an upgrade.

In my opinion, the Pendant ekes out over the Amulet.

Which means I know what I'm buying when I get home tonight.

Sons of Hodir... get a TABARD!

2009-01-16T15:38:00.003-06:00

Even with 5 Daily quests for the Sons of Hodir, it takes forever to grind reputation with them. There is probably a reason for that, namely that the exalted reputation gains you the Greater Inscription of the Axe, Crag, Pinnacle and Storm. And if EVERYONE could get those, where would be the fun in that?

There are other places you can get shoulder inscriptions, such as with Stonekeeper Shards with the Inscription of Dominance and the Inscription of Triumph.

Armor Kits also add stamina to your shoulder pieces, if you so desire.

And of course, one cannot forget the Mammoths.

(Someone told me that inscriptionists can make a very nice shoulder enhancement item, that requires inscription to use. I cannot however, seem to find it. Anyone?)

So, I think the Sons of Hodir really need a tabard. Or more quests. I mean, I've only done ONE DAY of dailies for the Kalu'ak and I'm revered with them.

And the Kirin Tor need more quests. Seriously.

Google it, just a little bit!

2009-01-15T09:39:00.002-06:00

I was going through some old comments, being curious as I always am, and I stumbled upon a slew of comments (3) on my Paladin post about hit, crit, etc, etc.

One person thanked me for such a comprehensive guide!

Another said it wasn't so comprehensive, because they already saw some errors!

A third said that it was okay, but some things had changed since it was posted.

Which got me thinking... none of them were 'usual' readers of mine. Not that I mind this, but I was curious how they found me. I'm SURE I'm not listed as a 'go to' guide on any of the forums.

So I Googled it.

Google:
Kikidas - 4th hit.
Paladin Hit - 3rd hit.
Paladin Crit - 9th hit.
Paladin Expertise - 7th hit.
Retribution Paladin Hit - 10th page!
Retribution Paladin - I gave up at page 20.
Restoration Shaman - Page 4
Shaman Glyphs - top of page 2.
Affliction Warlock - Gave up at page 20!
Druid Tank - Gave up at page 5. (I started to get bored)

I know that I'm the only Kikidas listed on the armory. (I'm special.)
...
There are 2 Karitei (both me), 2 Kvasira and 2 Keyami.
There are 6 Kiljara, 34 Karika and 46 Kathe.
There are 81 Kava, 91 Keiji and 100 Kiya.

I'm a little surprised there are that many Keiji's. Did I stumble upon another 'made up' name that actually is a word? (I did that once, with the name Kiva)

...

And yes! Keiji is a Japanese musician!

Damn I'm good. Let's see who else I am. Kikidas is a golfer.

Kiljara is no one.

Kava is a herb. (I also "invented" this name before I knew it was a word.)

Keyami is nothing special, though Kayamy and Kayami are a Persion cat breeder and a clothing design.

Kvasira is deliberately based off the Norse god Kvasir.

Kathe ... apparently is a popular German name.

Karitei is another name I swiped from a religion.

Kiya is apparently an Egyptian queen, but I stole the name as a shortened version of Kiyamvir.

Karika appears to be my most famous name, given that it's a family name, a New Zealand historical figure, a songwriter/singer, a complicated philosophical idealogy from Buddhism? or a verse. I can't tell. And apparently just a common name. A man's name. But a name.

What is your Google?

Shaladruilock

2009-01-14T10:13:00.005-06:00

So, in the vein of K being oblivious about appropriate versus inappropriate commentary (This is no shock to anyone, I do it all the time! Open mouth, insert foot.), I hereby erase from your memories anything about my previous post! It did not exist. It was all a bad dream. *waggles fingers*

But I still ask... What do we classify as a main? It's a running joke with many people about altitis and altisms and altaholics. Some of them have a main, a very distinct person they prefer to run as.

Others (and I include myself in this), don't have a favorite character as much as a favorite TYPE of character.

I call it a shaladruilock!

No, seriously.

For healing, right now I prefer my shaman.

For melee DPS, I prefer my paladin.

For caster DPS, I'm still a warlock, though if my mage was high enough, that may change.

And for tanky stuff, I still like being a fuzzybutt bear.

So, honestly, I consider it that I have four mains. Granted, only two of them are 80 right now, but I can only do so much! I don't have unlimited time, y'know.

Who I bring to a given situation depends on the situation... not to mention right now level! But that will change. And soon ... yes soon... I shall have 10 level 80s.

Don't roll your eyes. It will happen.

The idea of being confined into one skin makes me twitch. There are people who do it, and are happy with it, and I applaud them for that! But I think I'd wind up leaving WoW if I had to just be one person, one thing, all the time.

One of the things that keeps me coming back to WoW, that we haven't left it for some other game... is just that. It's endless variety in what you can do, with what character you can do it with. The challenges of doing something to see if you can.

Such fun. :)

Someone wrote me a song!

2009-01-13T15:48:00.002-06:00

Someone wrote me a song!

(I imagine the little screamy faces as the souls of people Kikidas has drained.)

I shared it with my guildies. Or at least where to find it. Thank you, Dradis. :) I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Makes me want to go out and corrupt something.

The B!tch is Back

2009-01-12T09:06:00.003-06:00

Elton John put it best...

I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, oh the bitch is back, stone cold sober as a matter of fact, I can bitch, I can bitch, 'cause I'm better than you, it's the way that I move, the things that I do. Oh oh oh!

Kikidas has been dusted off as of yesterday and put back into the game! I spent most of yesterday afternoon running around and dotting up 5-7 mobs at once and then collecting loot off of their dessicated corpses.

It was delicious. My only problem is that they're dying too fast sometimes, I'm having a hard time timing Soul Drain appropriately. What's the use in them dying if I don't get a soul shard out of the deal?

She just finished up Howling Fjord (I was 10 quests away from the achievement, so I finished up a few) and one of the quests was The Cleansing. And I ask you, I honestly ask you... why did I have to kill my 'inner turmoil'. She was great! The things building within me all my life... oh, yes. Yes please! We can kill so many things together!

If only my inner turmoil wasn't such a megalomaniac, what wonderful things we could have accomplished together!

Oh well, more loot for me, I guess.

Now I'm finishing up the Wrathgate. So. Much. Fun.

Heroics and Altisms

2009-01-11T09:13:00.004-06:00

Of no surprise to anyone, I've rediscovered the joy of Heroics. Yesterday I ran three or four Heroics with a very nice trio of people, we kept switching out our last DPS with another of their guild members every run for some reason, from the Mighty Froggers on Alleria.

Their website by the way... it's in French. I'm linking it because it's also cool with the little buttons. (I'm easily amused)

I was worried when I first got in the group because they were speaking French, but they switched to English (at least in party chat) and invited me from one run to another.

So Zhiara the Bear, Frostdude the Mage and Gazou the Holy Pally -- Thanks guys!

And then of course, my 'usual group' formed and we waltzed through Utgard Pinnacle. We even got the My Girl Loves to Skadi All the Time achievement.

Then our TANK (Posolutely) decided he'd rather go OUT and stare at drunk girls for a while. Pfft. Where's his sense of loyalty?!

So we had to hunt for another tank and just by luck picked up a lovely prot pally named Gamling. And then we ran Utgard Keep and Nexus.

Of course the belt didn't drop for me.

On a side note, I only have 5 more world drop JC recipes to go for Northrend. One is in regular Oculus, one is a drop off of mammoths in Storm Peaks and three are in Heroic VH, Heroic OK and Heroic HoS. Fun fun!

On a side side note, having my altisms linked to my husband (I can only play something linked with one of his characters) is helping reduce the sheer amount of ... leveling I'd be doing otherwise. If not for him, I'd have 7 level 73 people, 1 level 76 and 2 level 80's.

DAMN YOU BOON, DAMN YOU!

Memorable PuG Moments

2009-01-09T10:40:00.002-06:00

We all have them, you join a PuG and something happens that sticks in your head, either to someone or something someone said... SOMETHING.

Last night I was looking for a heroic for Kvasira, ideally into one that drops one of those coveted expertise upgrades I spent so much time researching.

But I didn't get into one of those. I got into a pug for Heroic Azjol-Nerub.

It was me, a DK, a prot pally, a mage and I dragged Kyuushi from YouWakeIt in with me to heal it. Boon was busy with Vialora watching the Gator's game.

The first warning came when I was discussing with the tank what buffs to give. He asked if I had the one that reduces threat. Then if I had sanctuary.

Blessing of Salvation hasn't been around since before WotLK came out. Sanctuary, iirc, is a prot only buff.

We didn't get to the first boss. The 'chain pull' of three watchers was where we got stuck on. The tank was doing his best, unfortunately. He was new to either the tanking game or the prot pally game or to the heroics game or something, but he just did not do a good job. The mobs would splinter off and kill the healer or the mage. Or they'd turn and start hitting me. Or the DK.

It was sad. We died I don't know how many times before we said, 'Maybe we should try an easier heroic.'.

So we picked the Nexus. Pretty easy, right? The DK had to go, the mage also had to go (due to repair bill concerns). We picked up one of our guild rogues, Shortwinded, and the tank invited a priest he knew... who was holy, but could 'do good dps'. (Which was about 500DPS max)

We're in Nexus and get to the orc boss in ice. The priest eventually leaves because he isn't helping and wasn't aware that he was brought in to 'dps'. We get a mage.

We keep wiping. I eventually get so tired of wiping that I pop off a DI on the other paladin during one of our wipes. (Repair bill save FTW!)

This is where it gets fun.

He says, "I don't know what's wrong! I can't DO anything!"

We say, "You're DI'd."

He says, "But I didn't do it!"

We eventually politely disbanded, grabbed one of our guild tanks, Balendin, reformed with the PuG mage and had a wonderful quick run thereafter.

Of COURSE the Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle didn't drop for me. I just hope the Nexus isn't Kvasira's Heroic Hellfire Ramparts, Kathe's nemesis in the quest for the Tree-Mender's Belt.

I felt bad for the previous tank, because he was TRYING so very hard. I know nothing about prot pally tanking. Kyuushi was helping him as best he could and told him where he could go to read up on it, as well as suggestions to maybe not tank in heroics first.

One day, we will meet up again, little Prot Pally and we will share a chortle over the misadventures of our youth! I have had my share of 'Oh God, am I really that stupid/bad/horrible?'. I won't SHARE them, because yegads, that would be embarassing, but it's happened.

Expertise: Addendum

2009-01-09T10:04:00.002-06:00

Thank you to Dradis for pointing out that paladins can't use staves. (What am I, a walking WoW Guru?! Geez, you people expect way too much of me.)

I'd like to point out on my own that the Titansteel Bonecrusher, as lovely as it is with expertise, is a one-hander. A fact I somehow managed to overlook earlier.

Additionally, my wowhead searches left out a few pieces of gear! I'm ashamed of myself.

Battleplate of Unheard Ovation obtained through the Battle of Valhalas quest line in Icecrown is purdy. And appropriately leveled!

Two other pieces of gear that are level 74... but have expertise and are plate...
Eternal Observer's Legplates drops off the rare elite Zul'Drak Sentinel in... Zul'Drak.
Muradin's Lost Greaves is off a boss in Drak'Tharon Keep, Prophet Tharon'ja.

A trinket I found that's nifty is Crusader's Locket from the quest line Defending the Vanguard in Icecrown.

Granted, it's a trinket that's 'chance on melee', but when it procs, you are over your expertise cap if you're DPS. It's probably a trinket that works better on classes with a faster swing rate than most ret pallies. However, I'm using it over Chuchu's Tiny Box of Horrors just to see how often it seems to work and whether it's worth it for me.

Now, a question I fielded yesterday from a few friends was the benefit of expertise over attack power or critical strike rating or even hit rating.

The adage for hit vs. crit is... you can't crit if you can't hit.

The same rule applies, IMNSHO, to expertise (now that I know more about it) versus other stats. Granted, you don't want to seriously gimp your damage output by doing nothing BUT stacking expertise over strength, crit rating, attack power... but 6% of your attacks are being dodged.

What difference is there in saying 'I need hit rating because otherwise, 8-9% of my attacks are missing!' and in saying, 'I need expertise rating because otherwise, 6% of my attacks are being dodged!'.

Lost DPS is lost DPS. I can have one kazillion crit rating or attack power, and still do poor damage if my attacks aren't landing.

Some things we can't help - melee fighters are at a slight disadvantage in terms of 'time on mob' in moving fights, or positioning ourselves, or in having to run in and out of AoE, or running to free a teammate from some spell... why not help ourselves where we can? If we're not missing 8-9% of the time (there's some debate whether the hit cap is 8 or 9%. Something to play with.) and we're not being dodged 6% of the time... that's 14% more 'time hitting mob' that we can get in.

I'm bad at math, so though to me it sounds like I should be doing 14% more damage(!!!) I don't think that's how it works out. Would be nice though.

Either way, for us ret pallies swinging big ol' 3.3+ second two handers, if our attack is dodged, it's another 3.3+ seconds before we get another shot at hitting the boss and doing melee damage. Granted, we have OTHER attacks which do a great deal of damage in and of themselves... but Seal of Command (or whatever Seal you're using) can't proc if you aren't hitting. And that big ol' honkin' two hander makes a better weapon than a fan.

Expertise: The real 411

2009-01-08T10:00:00.008-06:00

In a recent excursion into Naxx-10, my under hit cap by 0.3% retribution paladin was 'missing' quite a lot! (according to WWS. According to recount, I wasn't missing, I was being dodged.)

My guild leader gave me a whisper and said, "I thought you said you were hit-capped?!"

And I said, "I'm at 8.72%. That's close enough to hit cap to say, 'I'm hit capped'."

Hilarity ensued, and the consensus was that my whopping 0 in expertise was to blame for the 'misses'.

Bleh. The yucky 'new kid' that I never paid attention to before suddenly becomes important.

So what do we need?

At level 80, against a level 83 mob, we need to beat a 6.5% dodge. After all the number crunching, with all the whositwhazat of expertise rating versus expertise... we need, two-handers, one-handers, dual-wielders, to hit an expertise of 214. It's about 32.8 expertise to get a 1% dodge beatdown.

Most of us normal people have to work with expertise rating (the expertise you get from items/enchants, etc.). A few lucky SOBs get expertise (talents in their respective trees).

(And some of the information listed in the expertise page on WoWWiki is out of date on which classes/specs get expertise versus those that don't. So do your research. To my knowledge, only prot pallies and combat rogues have talents that give expertise.)

Now, I need more expertise. Great! Where do I go to get that new yummy thing so I don't get dodged nearly so much! (Why don't I worry about being parried? ... Yes Timmy? ... Good answer! Because DPS stab people in the ass. And you can't parry something coming at your ass. All you tanks out there have to worry about it, up to 10%-12% (accounts vary). (Sorry Kathe... ))
(Leave my parenthesis'ing alone.)

I love wowhead.com for things like this. I say, 'okay dokay!', and I go ahead and put in filters for strength, critical strike rating and expertise, wanting it to find 'at least one', on plate pieces that are Rare and Epic.

And what do I find? ... yeah, +defense crap. Stupid tanks. And everything dropping out of things like Heroic Naxx and OS...

Which I have a snowballs chance in hell of ever getting into.

Okay.

So, where can someone who is just starting out, whom wants to be the best they can be... go to get expertise rating!

I'm glad you asked. (I'm focusing on plate here people. Wait until I get a different armor-type up to this level and I'll probably post on that type of armor. Until then, wait or play with wowhead yourself.)

Gear
There are a few pieces of gear that I found (please correct me if you know of others) for plate DPS expertise that are theorhetically obtainable by newbies. (excluding items that are tanking items with +defense)
(I include Naxx-10 and OS-10 in this list)
(I exclude anything lower than plate, even though I know a lot of plate DPS will wear lesser armor types if the stats are otherwise acceptable. Deal with it.)
(No items below level 78 were looked at, though I know they are out there.)

Obsidian Greathelm drops out of regular OS (Obsidian Sanctum).
Bracers of Lost Sentiments drops out of regular Naxx (Grand Widow Faerlina and Gluth)
Circle of Death out of regular Naxx (Sapphiron)
Collar of Dissolution out of regular Naxx (Anub'Rekhan and Gluth)
Hemorrhaging Circle out of heroic Gundrak (Gal'darah)
Ring of the Kirin Tor (not available yet)
Iceforged Battle Ring out of a quest line in Storm Peaks (The Brother's Bronzebeard)
Durable Nerubhide Cape is craftable by leatherworkers. 2 Arctic Hide, 40 Nerubian Chitin, Frozen Orb
Shroud of Reverberation out of heroic Halls of Lightning (Volkhan)

and finally...

Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress are an Emblem of Valor x 60 purchase in Dalaran.

The problem with that? I've never seen an Emblem of Valor. Emblem of Heroism, yes. Valor? No. Why is this? Because Emblems of Valor drop in heroic OS and heroic Naxx. See above reference about snowballs.

Okay, next!

Weapons
Technically 'gear', but meh, they're so special they deserve their own category.
Again, a lot of the weapons drop in 25-mans. So, what can we do?

Titansteel Bonecrusher is a craftable weapon. 6 Saronite Bars, 6 Titansteel Bars, 2 Frozen Orbs. Cha-ching.
Staff of the Plaguehound technically is within our 'reachable' areas, as it's in regular Naxx. Of course, it's in regular Naxx as a drop off of Kel'Thuzad and if you aren't a druid and roll against one for it, you may be dropkicked off the planet... but hey! Beggars can't be choosers, right?

These are one-handers. All craftable.
Corroded Saronite Edge (16 Saronite bars, 1 crystallized fire) and Corroded Saronite Woundbringer (14 Saronite bars, 1 crystallized fire)

Gems
We can do gems, right?! Yes! We can do gems!

If you're a jewelcrafter, you can make Precise Dragon's Eye.

Otherwise, your options are Orange, Purple and Red.
Accurate Monarch Topaz (BOP World Drop) and it's baby cousin Accurate Huge Citrine
Guardian's Twilight Opal (Argent Crusade Rep) and Guardian's Shadow Crystal
Precise Scarlet Ruby (BOP Herald Volazj in Old Kingdom) and Precise Bloodstone

Sometime soon (one hopes), they will be releasing the Accurate Flawless Ametrine, Guardian's Dreadstone and Precise Cardinal Ruby.

Enchants
What about enchants? Lucky for us, there are 2, count them TWO, enchants for expertise.

Enchant Bracers - Expertise
Enchant Gloves - Expertise.

Food
Rhinolicious Wormsteak provides 40 Expertise and 40 Stamina. It requires Worm Meat, Rhino Meat and Northern Spices. Not too shabby right? Keep in mind that 10 Northern Spices requires a cook to spend 1 Dalaran Cooking Award to get.

Last, but not least... Consumables
The only one I could find was a battle elixir called, accurately enough, Elixir of Expertise and it provides 45 Expertise. It requires gold clover, adder's tongue and an imbued vial to make.

Somehow, with all of this, we need to get to 214. Ignoring gems for now, because who knows how many sockets you'll have, with just enchants, food and elixir, you can get to 115. That's 3.5% decrease in a boss dodging your attack.

Good luck in your expertise hunt!

(Seriously though, don't roll against a feral druid for the Staff if it drops. That's very 'not cool'. Who wants a yucky staff anyway?)