Frozen Shadoweave vs. Tier 4 or 5

So, in my journey of discovery that I've undertaken this week (what, didn't you know?) I've come across a few references where people compare FSW with Tier 4/5 gear, favorably.

So. Let's compare.

a. Shadow's Embrace / Spellstrike Infusion vs. b. Voidheart Rainment vs. c. Corruptor Rainment
(I can't get wowhead to pop up the cool little things, so you'll have to click!)

Now, the nifty thing about those links is they sum them up for you! Most of my work is already done. Woot woot.

The reason I list Shadow's Embrace with Spellstrike Infusion is that likely if you're sticking with those, you'll have both. Versus if you go full T4 or T5.

Now, I can't make nifty tables because I'm an idiot, so I'm going to go stat by stat comparison. Roughly.

Example: Longer Name: a. FSW/SI (35 letters) > b. VR (17 letters) = c. CR (17 letters)

Armor: c 907 > b 821 > a 734
-- armor is useful, but not essential for a warlock that isn't tanking.

Stamina: c 240 > b 183 > a 94
-- it's to be expected that the higher tier armor has more stamina, but of note is that the difference between stamina between B and A is almost double. In some instances, well, a lot of instances, you need a MINIMUM amount of stamina to survive. Most warlocks don't have an issue with that, but it's still something to keep an eye on.

Intellect: b 157 > c 146 > a 64
-- in this instance, B has more intellect than C, but only barely. But C has more than double A. Intellect increases your spell crit chance, not merely your mana pool. And while life-tap and dark-pact mean mana-pool-schmana-pool, they do nothing for your spell crit chance.

Healing: c 248 > b 203 > a 64
-- EDIT: Thanks to /emofire, I look like a moron! No, honestly thank you, Emo. :) So, according to WoWWiki, drain life, etc, does not benefit from +healing. So, does this only apply then to health funnel? What does it apply to? Do our bandages get a buff? Why the heck does our Tier armor have +healing? ... is it for those of us who want to secretly be shadow priests? Give it up, you can't heal anyone!... ahem.. So overall importance, depending on just which of our abilities it applies to (health funnel and bandaging??)... who the heck knows. I don't. Anyone?

Damage: Shadow: a 271 > c 248 > b 203; Fire: c 248 > b 203 > a 92; AVERAGE: c 248 > b 203 > a 181
-- This is the one place where, IMNSHO, A has a clear advantage over the others. You're a warlock. Unless you're destro-specced, (even if you are!) you do a lot of shadow damage. It's what we are. We're shadow-mages (only much cooler). However, it's boost to FIRE damage is pitiful and unless you're completely removing Immolate from your DoT rotation (some afflocks do), you're gimping yourself. I suppose destro-locks and firelocks possibly go Spellfire tailoring.

Spell Crit: c 88 > b 66 > a 50
-- If you're truly an afflock and you believe SB is for weenies, then this stat means nothing for you. However, even an afflock does a vast majority of their damage from SB. SB can crit. So, not so stupid a stat to look at, is it? The FSW set has ZERO spell crit. All the spell crit in this information comes from the SI set.

Spell Hit: c 65 > b 44 > a 38
-- Everyone needs spell hit. We all know the magic numbers. FSW set has ZERO spell hit.

Sockets: a 12 (2R, 5Y, 5B) > c 8 (6Y, 1B, 1Meta) > b 7 (3Y, 2R, 1B, 1Meta)
-- Though it lacks a meta socket, the sheer amount of gems you can put into set A makes it very customizable. A Great Dawnstone supplies +8 spell hit. If you ignore socket bonuses, you could get 96 spell hit in A, 65 in C and 56 in B. A Runed Living Ruby supplies +9 damage. Do the math, I'm lazy. Obviously, the more sockets you have, the more you can boost your gear. It's a nice versatility that so far, IMNSHO, is a saving grace of the mixed A set.

Set Bonus: There is no real rating for this, as the bonus of the set bonus varies from spec to spec and situation to situation.
A offers the chance for 92 spell damage for 10 seconds (SI) and 2% of shadow damage returned in the form of health (FSW). The FSW set bonus was rather nice to have when I was hateful bolt soaker in Kara and when I was farming, but personally, I'd rather have higher overall health and just siphon life.
B 2 pieces give you 135 fire or shadow damage chance, 4 gives your corruption and immolate abilities a 3 second boost in duration.
C 2 pieces gives your pet 15% of your damage in the form of life (hello demonology!) and 4 pieces cause your SB to increase the damage of your corruption by 10% and your incinerate to increase the damage of your immolate by 10%. (affliction or destruction)
IMNSHO, 2 pieces of B is better than 2 pieces of SI. What's really nifty if you could combine the two! Legs and Head of SI, two other pieces of B... then you could get a boost of 217 spell damage (fire or shadow) at any given time. Wouldn't that be nice?
I wish I had four pieces of C, since I'm a big fan of corruption. :)

Anyway... I guess this post could have come across better, maybe I can learn to put in a table and clean it up.

I suppose if you're looking in terms of just overall shadow damage and versatility, FSW/SI is the way to go. However, you take a hit in stamina, intellect, spell hit and spell crit and fire damage.

The nice thing is... my gear is mixed and matched! I'm wearing the FSW boots, T4 head, gloves, chest and legs and T5 shoulders. Though I've lost the FSW set bonus and obviously am no longer wearing the spell strike set, I evaluate gear on a gear by gear basis and upgrade to whatever is better, taking into consideration things like set bonuses and the like. It's a very individualized situation, where HOW you play and WHAT spec you play changes what gear works best for you. You don't HAVE to stick to only T4 or T5 or FSW/SI. You can do what I do, some T4, a T5, some FSW...

Maybe I'll make my first visit to Dr. Doom or Boom or whatever his name is with a few changes of gear and see what works best for me.

Maintenance Day

It just so happens that my day off from work is usually Tuesday. Which is maintenance day. Which sucks. I have the ENTIRE DAY to play and I can't until the afternoon usually. How sucktacular is that?

It's a good thing, really, as much as I hate it, because I do try to get some chores done around the house. You know how it is -- two WoW addicts (or one WoW addict who is me and one 'any game addict' who is my husband) -- mean that the house is always just this side of messy. (I won't say which side of messy it is.)

To give him credit, when Boon has a day off, he'll usually do quite a bit of cleaning and tidying up. He's such a good hubby. I wuv him.

Today though, I win! I get to WORK today, which means I don't get to sit at home waiting for the game to come up. How lucky am I?

Do you remember one point in time Blizzard was going to do mini-updates/maintenance throughout the week so that they didn't have one big maintenance day? I remember that one week fondly. It was beautiful.

Anyway... the point of this post is ... what do you do with your maintenance day morning? I'm talking to those people who are usually connected during those hours on any other day? Or would be connected if the game was up (like me).

Do you use your time productively and do house chores? Do you use your time unproductively and browse blogs, forums, web-comics, dust off your Game Cube or some other fun but otherwise useless activity? Do you sit in front of the computer, constantly refreshing until the server select screen comes up and I you can monitor what realms are offline and which ones are starting to come online?

I do a little of everything (except the dusting of the Game Cube. 1: I don't dust and 2: Game Cube? I don't like Zelda and I have the DS version of Animal Crossing.) that I listed above.

(Let me clarify. I don't like the new Zelda's. The old Nintendo 64 Zelda was fun. Most of the old Nintendo games were fun and I quite enjoyed them.)

5-Man Triangle

I have discovered the secret to running a good 5-man, be it PuG, guild, whatever! Have me in it.

Sorry, I couldn't resist myself. :)

Seriously though, it's what I call the key players. If you have good key players, no matter what else you fill in the middle with, as long as they aren't complete dummies, you'll have a good run.

The good key players ... you can probably guess what ones they are.
Tank.
Healer.
Main DPS/CC.

Now, this idea is probably formulated because that's the group that Boon, Owaru and I typically run in. One a tank. One a healer. One a DPS/CC. Is some of it playability? Sure, we kickass, take names and look pretty. But part of it is very simply that with a decent tank, a decent healer and a decent DPS/CC in the group, it's hard to screw up enough that you can't succeed (unless you're in way over your head).

Everyone's played with a bad tank. The healer pulls aggro by simple healing on a single target pull. They take forever to pull. They take forever to mark. They take forever and a day to build threat. They lose threat to a sneeze. They have craptacular armor/health and/or don't know how to hold aggro for their class.

Bad healers are also really tough to succeed with. They don't heal. They don't heal on time or with a heal that does any good. They run out of mana 2 seconds into a fight. People dying left and right! They wait too long between heal casts. They wait too long to START a heal on someone. You know how it is.

If you don't have a good DPS/CC class, at least one good one, then nothing gets accomplished. The tank has to hold aggro too long and non-repeatable CC wakes up (sap) or the healer runs out of mana because things aren't dying, or the CC keep running amok instead of being put back to sleep/sheep/etc causing the healer to 1: take hits and 2: keep himself and the dps and the tank all alive, which makes them run out of mana faster. Or almost worse, the DPS is the 'MUST BE T3H AW3S0M3!' and feels if they aren't top of the DPS chart, regardless of aggro, then they are the suxxors. (My elite speech isn't up to date, sorry if I'm using the wrong terminology!)

If any one of these three things are missing, it makes it really tough to succeed. The more key of the key players are the tank and healer. If one of those is missing, it's going to be tough to succeed. The DPS is a nice tie in, lending a strong support system to the tank and healer, but it is possible to succeed with only a good tank and a good healer.

HOWEVER... if you have all these three things with decent people in those places... all of a sudden, you have a recipe for success.

The tank, being a good tank, pulls appropriately, marks timely, keeps things moving and well paced. Keeps mobs off of the DPS and the healer. Keeps everything and it's brother hitting just him (or her!)

The healer, being a good healer, gives timely heals, is ready with a shield or a HoT or a something else if the mob turns its attention off of the tank. Has sufficient mana for a given 'regular' pull in said instance.

The DPS, being a good DPSer, does as much damage as they can without pulling off of the tank. They CC correctly and on time and continuously. Good consistent DPS and CC.

The other positions in the party are important, but not as important as the three key players. You can survive just about any five man with one really good tank, a really good healer and a really good DPS.

But without those three key spots filled with good people, you can't carry poor DPS/CC. With them in place, any DPS/CC, good or not so good, can be helped along to success.

In relation to this, people accuse Boon, Owaru and myself of having a clique. This is not true. We run with one another more frequently and preferentially because we know one another. We've been partying together for a really long time. We know what each other is likely to do in a given situation. Owaru can trust me to re-CC and pull aggro. Boon can trust me to DeathCoil him. We trust one another. So we play together more frequently and preferentially because we're good together. And together we typically have success. Why should I look for another tank when I have Owaru? Why should I look for another healer when I have Boon? In any incarnation of roles, Owaru and Boon are two sides of my party-triangle.

<3 you guys! (Boon slightly more than Owaru.) On a downnote... helping those two poor struggling DPS/CC to success without them having to do much of anything just perpetuates poor DPS/CC in the higher levels, dungeons, heroics and raids. How many times does someone get carried along in Kara or a heroic because 'we need the spot filled'?

Addendum: Curses and Improved Corruption

A well timed curse is a warlocks best friend. It's instant. It's usually low mana and it can serve lots of different functions.

Curse of Agony/Improved Curse of Agony: Damage DoT. Not so useful for things that die quickly, since it ramps up damage towards the end of the curse. Amazingly useful for long lived mobs. If you have three warlocks in the group, the lock that has Improved Curse of Agony but not Malediction should be doing this one, leaving CoE and CoS to the Malediction or non-Improved CoA warlocks.

Curse of Weakness: Useful for those mobs that hit like Optimus Prime. Heroic bog lords in Underbog come to mind. It does not stack with other CoW's from other warlocks, so pick one warlock to do this and stick to him (best if it's improved curse of weakness). In general, not often used on bosses when CoS, CoA or CoE is far more useful in raids, unless you have an unheard of four warlocks in one raid group.

Curse of Recklessness: The best use I've seen for this is when you're fearing something but don't want it to go too far. Swap between CoR and CoW. CoR will bring it running back to you. CoW sends it running away again. (or any other curse, really.) I've also heard in PvP if you use it on a warrior who throws up spell reflect, you've suddenly become immune to fear.

Curse of Exhaustion: I don't have this one myself. It's a talent, not a purchased skill. Makes them run away slower.. or chase you slower. Whichever is more applicable to your situation at the time. Need to kite something? This is your baby.

Curse of Shadows: If you're in a raid group with multiple warlocks OR shadow priests, this is the curse of choice. A warlock with malediction should cast this over a warlock without malediction. Get together with your raid warlocks and figure out who has what curses improved.

Curse of Elements: If you have a mage in your group, this is your curse of choice. Again, Malediction Lock> Non Malediction Lock.

Curse of Doom: Useful for various bosses, the Curator being one that comes to mind instantly. Another one where it's useful is the end boss in ZA. He eventually becomes a form that, whenever magic is cast AT ALL, it damages the caster. If you slap a CoD on him about a minute before he transforms into the hawk form, and then try to keep that up whilst wanding, it works nicely.

Curse of Tongues: Used on various casting mobs. Increases casting time. It's used on a few boss fights and trash pulls in 25 man raids. Again, only one of these can be on a mob at the same time. So assign it to a particular warlock.

Amplify Curse is a affliction lock talent. I'm not 100% sure if it works with the CoS or CoE or any of those, but I KNOW it works like a lovely lovely charm with CoD on the Curator and also improves the damage output of CoA.

In general, CoE and CoS should be put up for anything -- trash mobs, etc, if there is a mage or shadow priest in the group. If you have 1 lock, 1 mage and 1 spriest, CoS is the way to go. If it's just a lock and a mage, pick whichever of them will boost the better DPSer.

5 points in the affliction tree will make your Corruption spell instant cast.
Did you hear me?
INSTANT CAST
Why wouldn't you get it?

You know you're cool when your clothes match...

From the beginning of the game, we get various 'sets' of clothing - some that don't have similar names, but were designed in such a way that they match. Undoubtedly this was done on purpose because no one likes looking like a hobo.

Except hobos.

However, at various times, in our quest to get better gear and upgrade ourselves, we wind up looking like we're either 1: seriously fashion deficient, 2: color blind or 3: both.

When Blizzard introduced the dressing room, we suddenly had a takeoff of a small subset of people who wouldn't wear things if they didn't make them look cool, despite any upgrades to stats they may get, unless they were actively in a dungeon or some other 'need the stats' activity.

People had always carried around (or had available) a 'town' outfit, probably a practice far more prevalent in RP servers than in nonRP servers. I myself did this, and fostered this for my guild, as a tailor who could make the Black Mageweave set (hello, sexy/slut!) for guild members, I was in high demand! I personally usually had my characters dressed in a robe of some sort, since to my eyes, they look better than slutwear! Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy slutwear myself, but at the same time... I'm trying to look respectable here! Or there. I was the co-guild leader and it was beneath me to look anything less than respectable!

Boon, the paladin, had a full set of something that made him look like a knight in shining armor. Everyone in the guild had a 'guild meeting' outfit that they wore specifically for any guild meeting, no matter what for. If you recall, I mentioned that my guild had its guild meetings RP style, in the world, at a set location, and with everything typed out.

It was a load of fun. People would farm for hours (or days!) for the mats to make their 'formal' gear. They had to look GOOD.

There were some outfits that weren't BoP that I would loan out to people who didn't have time to farm their own outfit, like the wedding dresses that are sold in Moonglade, I don't recall the actual name, hanbok? something like that. And of course, now there are the specific holiday related outfits and there's just so much fun clothing!

In my mind though, nothing looks so good as when you have REAL clothes that match. A full set of Hallowed Gear, or Voidheart, or whatever. 1: you match! Yay! 2: you kick ass! 3: c'mon, you get a thrill out of seeing yourself on your character select screen all matchy and kickassy. Admit it. You can't hide it from yourself!

We're a visual people. We like things that LOOK pretty to our eyes, be it a girl toon for a male player (the oft heard excuse: If I'm going to be staring at this thing for hours, it can at least look pretty!) or a matching set of gear, it says something immediately to us.

For those gear pieces that are obvious, where you can just look and not have to inspect to KNOW what they're wearing -- or at least (in the case of lookalike gear) the QUALITY of gear, everyone wearing the gear gets a big burst of pride. (C'mon, admit it. You take pride in being kickass and pretty.)

Anyway, last night I went and practically beggared myself by buying the primals to make 1: 4 bolts of primal mooncloth (2 tailors, 1 mooncloth tailor) and 2: 1 primal mooncloth belt.

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(Okay, I'm not really beggared. I'm just not as rich as I normally am. I have 6 level 70's that are constantly questing, instancing and doing stuff. While I don't have enough to just buy myself an epic flying mount, neither do I usually have problems buying the Earthwarden off the cuff or loaning a guildy enough gold to get their regular flying mount.)

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My priest, Kiljara, had a level 68 green healing belt on previously. So this is, obviously, a big upgrade for her. Yay for tailoring!

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Kathe finally went and did Arc. It was cake. I'm working slowly on those SMV quest lines -- namely because I am doing them with two slackers! -- to get some more tanky gear for her.

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Kikidas is still merely awesome. (I haven't talked about my 'main' for a while. So here I go.)

Now, everyone obviously picks their spec particulars because they think either 1: it's the best or 2: their guild says 'change or we kill you.'. However, IMNSHO, there are a few things that every warlock SHOULD have and SHOULD do if they raid.

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A warlock in a raid serves a few very particular purposes.

1: soulstone

2: healthstone

3: banish duty/charm duty

4: improved imp bloodpact

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1: A soulstone is for use at the discretion of either your raid leader or your class leader. Who it gets put on. The person who has it put on also isn't at their discretion to use USUALLY. It's always polite to ask 'Should I use it?' before you go and do that, with some few exceptions. When it isn't a wipe saver (ie: Maiden) or when something is almost dead and just a few more heals is the difference between living/downing the mob and everyone dying for no reason. Sometimes a SS is put not on a wipe-saver but with multiple warlocks, on the person most likely to die and by dying have a big negative impact on the group. (#1 DPSer, tank, healer)

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2: Healthstones are important. I don't think I need to say too much about this. Don't forget to prompt your raid members for more, because they'll forget to ask.

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3: If you don't have a focus macro for banish and/or charm, GET ONE. If you're a warlock in a raid, then your primary function is DPS WHILE CCing. Not CC then DPS. Not DPS then CC. Both. At the same time. You're a warlock. Multi-task. A focus macro allows you to not have to switch targets back and forth between your CC target and your DPS target. (This applies to mages and druids, too!)

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(On a side note, any repeat-CC class can do this (unsure about hunters, but I'm sure there's something.), sheep, shackle, charm, banish, cyclone, hibernate...)

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I don't know the numbers, but your DPS is going to drop like a rock if you have to anticipate your target breaking, turn to find it, click it, then recast (or wait for banish to cool down before you recast). Alternatively, your CC target will run amok if you try to eke out the last few DPS you can before you re-CC.

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With a focus macro and a timer, you keep DPSing on your main target, you notice to yourself 'Seduce is ending in 3 seconds.', you finish your shadowbolt cast, you click your seduce focus macro, and then you go back to DPSing. No fuss. No muss. No more than a millisecond of time spent CCing.

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With banish, you do lose a little bit of time, but that's unavoidable. To avoid any break in your banish, let your timer click to 2, THEN macro. Banish is a 1.5s cast. It SHOULD hit just as your previous banish wears off. But still no fuss, no muss. No target running over and one-shotting the healer while you try to re-target it. The banish focus macro that is on WoWWiki has a modifier that lets you switch between rank 1 and rank 2 banishes, which is useful so you don't waste time waiting for the rank 2 banish to wear off when you know they're getting ready to switch to your mob. Incidentally, you do have to try to switch between rank 1 and rank 2 banishes during a certain boss fight in ZA, so it's useful to get used to how to switch between the two.

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4: This is an EXTRA 70 stamina your tanks can have. Not doing that is like a priest saying 'Sorry, I don't do fort buffs.'. Unless there are multiple warlocks in the group that can keep this buff on the tank group, you as the warlock don't get another option unless you need your succubus for CC or some other vitally important minion job. If you have another warlock keeping bloodpact on the tank, then go ahead and sacrifice if you're demon-spec, or DPS with it or whatever else you want to do with it. But if you're the one and only warlock in the raid group, then you keep that imp out. You keep him phased out, and if you're going to be positioned away from the main tank, you park him where the tanks will be standing.

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(In Gruul's lair, a warlock will be asked to park their minion by the mage-tank for the extra hit points.)

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The raid leader SHOULD say to any warlock that doesn't have their imp out 'Hey, will you get out your imp, please.', even if it doesn't have improved bloodpact, it's still more hit points for the tanks.

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IMNSHO.

Kiljara goes to Karazhan

Yesterday, my priest ventured into Karazhan after having not been played at all for ... oh gosh, a long long time.

She doesn't have any of her stuff enchanted, except for a glyph and runic spellthread on her kickass pants. I have all the Hallowed gear (except the pants, but that's okay.). But not my primal mooncloth set (working on it!)

Still, with a potion of healing power and golden fishsticks, she's at 1350 bonus healing, 400 something mp5 resting and something in the 100's while casting.

The only time I ran out of mana was during the Maiden fight, and that's because I died and soulstone doesn't restore a heck of a lot of mana.

I love my priest. :)

Anyway, the point of this post is that different healer types do different things well. You have your paladin healer, your priest healer, your druid healer and your shaman healer. Each of them play particular party roles.

The paladin is, from everything I've seen and read, King (or Queen) of single target healing. Low mana, high value heals. What they lack is any form of a HoT or any multiple-member-heals. But they are like the energizer bunny. They just keep going and going and going and going...

The priest is undoubtedly the Empress of healing. We have a HoT. We have low mana-moderate value heals, we have moderate mana-high value heals. We have party-heals. We have binding-heal. We have prayer of mending. Depending on particulars, we also have have circle of healing and lightwell. What we lack are FAST heals. Flash heal, IMHO, isn't as mana-efficient as me just anticipating and pre-casting a larger heal or greater heal. The only time I flash heal is when I NEED to give someone just that little bit of health ASAP. AOE'ers being hit whilst AOEing, for example. But I notice my mana drops a lot faster if I'm spamming flash heal than if I'm anticipating a greater heal or regular heal.

The druid is .. okay, I've run out of terms that are applicable. The druid is AWESOME at instant cast HoT's. They have the most HoT's, that they can turn into a big ass heal by using Swiftmend. And while they can main heal something like Karazhan on the main tank, I think utility wise, they make far better party-toppers than they do main-tank healers. Need a little rejuv here a little there, how about a lifebloom? Not that they can't do it, it just is a better utility of resources, IMNSHO*.

Shaman healers are good at .. not healing. Earth Shield, Health totems, chain healing, that silly little - spam little heals to get a big heal - whatever it is they do. Honestly, shaman healing is the one I'm most clueless about. They seem to fall in the middle of the road though. Big heals, little heals, fast heals. Owaru, I'm looking at you buddy. Fill me in.

Anyhow...

So, my priest is healing the offtank in Karazhan. This is fine. Except I didn't do much healing! Not merely because the tank had decent gear so wasn't taking much damage when he actually WAS tanking trash, but also because the same was true for the healer who was on the MT and the healer who was doing party heals. All of us were so READY TO HEAL!!!! that we were healing each others people. I know I saw a few HoT's that I didn't toss on my target on him. (I'm looking at you, druid! MY TARGET, MINE! HEALS OFF! ... (get it, hands off, heals off? Oh, nevermind!)).

I spent a vast majority of my time on trash mobs ... DPSing. I felt kind of guilty. For a while, I was pacing the OT on my DPS meter. Then I decided I should get down and serious and only healed... except for the occasional smite, mind blast and shadow word.

I don't know how other healers do it, but I tend to toss a renew and PoM on my target at the start of the fight and keep one up. Then I usually cast Rank 3 or Rank 4 Heal. Not Greater Heal. Heal. If I'm falling behind (not usually, but depends on the tank), I switch to mid-level Greater Heals. If a DPS class is getting whacked occasionally, I toss a renew on them and if the tank is doing their job, that's all I usually need to do. This obviously doesn't hold true if it's an AoE pull or something similar.

Like I mentioned earlier, the lowest on mana I ever got was 6500 mana on any trash pull, with me healing AND DPSing. (I have only 9something total mana)

For my shadowfiend... him I toss out when I get about 1/4-1/3 down on mana. This way if it's a long fight, he MAY be ready by the time I need him again. (Tip for Curator fight for priests, wait for his second evocate, if you can, before you sic your fiend on him. Double-damage means your mana bar jumps up! and double-damage to him, as well.)

To the warlock, I apologize for your death in the Maiden fight. I was hitting the wrong button and going 'Why the hell is her Holy Fire not going away?!'. I was hitting the RIGHT button for the entire rest of the evening, but for some reason, I didn't do it that time. In my defense, the paladin healer also didn't cleanse you in time, so it isn't entirely my fault! Sowwy.

(* In My Not So Humble Opinion)

My other addiction...

Well, honestly... I have several. But this one is blogworthy. At least today.

My Little Pony's are every little girl's dream. They're cute, colorful ponies that you can own, brush their hair, play with accessories and have lots of. Who wouldn't want one?

Most little girls grow out of that phase. And I'll admit, for a while I did too. I stopped buying them (because they got really ugly, sorry Hasbro, but what the hell were you thinking with the last few years of G1 and the entire G2 series?) and I packed away my ponies in a box and that was it. They came everywhere I moved, but they stayed in a box.

And then... it happened. I discovered ponies on E-Bay.

My collection went from merely what I had owned as a child to the possibility of any pony I had ever wanted and could never find or buy!

So, I whipped out my box. I took out my ponies. I arranged them on a large shelf in the computer room (yes, everyone who comes into my home sees a large shelf above two computers that has one half covered with pastel My Little Ponies. The other half is covered with Final Fantasy figurines. I think the My Little Ponies make Sephiroth and Auron and Cloud look all that much masculine and dark and brooding, personally. For some reason, my husband thinks the ponies make them look gay*. I don't see it! If they can be put in Kingdom Hearts by Disney running around with Mickey Mouse, then they can handle being next to some My Little Ponies.)

For a very long time I resisted buying any of the G3 ponies, on the grounds that 'they aren't G1'. However, friends started to gift me with pony things, and because they aren't insane and aren't going to spend 20 bucks on a plastic pony, they buy me currently-in-store things that are a little less insanity-spawned. So I've slowly started to collect G3 ponies. Including chibi's. (officially called Ponyville ponies)

But now the chibi's are taking over. And I like it!

And before you guys go all, '20 bucks for a cheap 80's toy!?', there are some ponies that, OUT OF BOX and PLAYED WITH can sell for over 100 dollars. If you have one MINT IN BOX... well, add another 0, at least. (on Ebay RIGHT NOW there is currently an out of box Rapunzel pony that's selling for 350 dollars, a Mimic that's up for 200 and a hand-painted Mimic that's up for 85.)

I have one of them that's out of box and played with, that I could probably get for between 50-80 dollars if I sold her. But I'm not going to. And no, I will not point her out to any of you so you can come into my house and steal her! I can't even tell my husband which one she is.

And the kicker... my cell phone ringtone is the My Little Pony theme song.

(*I apologize for it but yes, I am using the 'stereotypical' gay here. Which, by the way, there ARE heterosexual men who DO collect My Little Ponies. I have evidence!)