SPAM MOONFARE!

3.1 news

2009-02-28T00:15:00.001-05:00

Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.

Say WHAT?

What about those of us who keep it running on a target without letting it bloom? That's an awful lot of mana being lost!

Well that explains it

2009-02-02T13:03:00.003-05:00

So on Friday my raid group and I were hoping to finish up Naxx. Our goal was to do the Death Knight, Plague, and Frostwyrm quarters in 3 hours so we could dedicate Monday to the three smaller raids (OS, VoA and EoE). So we get a late start because the OT is running late. Everyone finally gets into Naxx and gets buffed up and there's a ready check. Everyone but a rogue is ready so we decide to start clearing trash in the DK wing.

And we wipe.

We laughed it up, claiming the importance of that last rogue, and saying we'd gotten our only wipe out of the way for the evening. Then we start doing trash again, and it's INTENSE. I'm talking two-tranquilities-a-pull, tank-is-swearing-at-me intense. Everyone starts getting frustrated when we wipe again. Sloppy pulling? People not paying attention? We're not sure what it is, but we've now wasted an hour (tank was half an hour late, and we've been struggling with the trash for almost half an hour).

So we finally make it through the first few pulls of the DK wing and we make it to the room with the little skeletons who attack you. Skeletons our tank usually one-shots. Skeletons that are now taking several hits to bring down.

A thought occurs to me, and I check the dungeon difficulty.

Sure enough, it's set on Heroic.

I announce this to the Vent channel to much laughter, and we all run out (laughing again at the giant skull on the Naxx portal). Everyone starts mentioning that they were suspicious- that there were respawns in quarters we had already finished, that the groups for pulling seemed bigger, etc etc. All signs pointed to it being on heroic, but it took forever for any of us to notice.

So it turns out you can 10 man some of the trash in 25-man Naxx if you don't mind the frustration of it all.

Even though we ended up running about an hour later than we usually do, we ended up clearing the place for a second time! Go team! I made out rather well from it, picking up my T7 shoulders off of Loatheb and got enough badges in the run to afford my T7 gloves (I already had my chest, so now I'm up to 3 pieces).

I also got the Charmed Cierge from the Four Horsemen, a new staff. The other resto druid already had it so I got it de facto, though I'm still not sure it's better than my previous combo, the war mace from heroic Nexus with an offhand. The mace/offhand combo has maybe 50 more SP, while the staff has about 30 more Mp5.

I'll have to fiddle around a little bit to see which ends up being the most effective. As for now, I just think it's funny that I'm carrying a candelabra around with me.

Photographic Evidence

2009-01-29T20:45:00.005-05:00

Got a screenshot of the final Naxx clear, woot!

That's me on the throne shooting my fireworks at the rest of the group. :)

The other tree is not in tree form, he's the druid you can see front and center. If you look realllly closely you can see the bushiness of my paladin's beard next to the hunter's pet!

Yeah, okay, it's really zoomed out but the other one I had you can clearly read people's names, and I don't have my graphics software on this comp to blur them out, lol. So enjoy the fireworks!

Naxx Cleared! (now with less loot drama)

2009-01-26T23:53:00.007-05:00

Yup, the raid group and I brought Kel'Thuzad down tonight. It only took two tries (first time was a bit sloppy; dps let some banshees toss us about a bit and it was not good). Go team! (I had lots of fireworks to spare when we did, it was awesome.)

An otherwise good experience was somewhat tainted by the loot distribution. The tier 7 helm piece for Pallies and Priests (and, warriors I think?) dropped. Now, we have 3 paladins: two tanks and a ret. They are all core members of the raid team, and have been raiding with us three days a week every week since we started.

Then, we have a mage DPS sub who comes with us sometimes, when she feels like it. She has been very vocal about being a sub and not wanting to commit full time to the team. Which is fine, whatever. Well, her priest alt dinged 80 a day or two ago so she decided she should get to bring the priest to kill Kel'Thuzad, even though she was undergeared and hadn't been running the instance with us all along.

And then she rolls on the helm token.

And then she wins it, after having to do a tie breaker with our main tank. :o

Edit:

Okay, having slept on it and thought about it for a while, I've decided that I was more frustrated in an "AW DANG" way for the pallies than I was in a "this sucks" way. We are a casual raiding guild, and while the loot rules for the guild state that subs and alts should get to roll only after mains, we certainly don't follow DKP or anything like that. There's always next week! I think I got a little caught up in all the effort that had gone into getting to Kethzy in the last month.

Maybe she will gear up her priest and I will be able to go back to pew-pewing as a moonkin. :D

Anyway, the good thing about being on a Monday/Tuesday raid schedule is that maybe we will give Malygos a try tonight, which should be super fun but I have a feeling it will take us a few tries to get the hang of it. :)

3.0.8

2009-01-20T13:43:00.004-05:00

So I've downloaded and installed the patch, just waiting for the servers to come back online...

Is it just me or was the whole "you can turn in Relics of Ulduar for rep" thing not mentioned in the update?

Le sigh.

EDIT: Looks like you can turn them in, to the Hodir Quartermaster, as promised. 10 relics = 250 rep.

EDIT II: Not to sound bitter or anything, but does anyone else's game look like UTTER CRAP now that the patch has gone live? Everything is swathed in heavy, heavy fog on my computer, greyed and washed out. Icky.

An interlude: Heroic Old Kingdom

2009-01-15T23:12:00.003-05:00

So today's daily was Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. Now, I've done this one on heroic before, but it was a while ago, and with a pug. This time it was with my guild, and let's just say two hours after starting we decided to give up.

Here's why.

Our party was myself, my pally tank (that's "my" in the metaphorical possessive way, not the literal posessive way: I wasn't hotboxing), a mage, a hunter, and an elemental shammy.

Now, this is half of my raid team. We are pretty well geared.

And it was a wipe fest. Wipe after wipe after wipe. I don't know if it was an off night for us all or what, but we struggled. Took a break part way through to repair. Then fought our way to the last boss. Now, I love Herald Volazj's gimmick. He phases everyone in the party and makes everyone fight a clone of the whole party, by themselves. I had a BLAST doing this on normal when I was balance. I didn't have too much trouble the first time I did it on heroic as a tree. But tonight? Tonight we failed.

I never died in the insanity. It's hard to kill a tree. My party members soon discovered this as well: they could not kill my clone.

Now, I'm not that awesome. The trouble was that the game was turning our elemental shaman into a healer as well. So everyone had to deal with two healers, one of whom was wearing plate.

I consider this cheating.

I also consider the fact that apparently our evil clones can use any ability they want without the proper cool down cheating as well. Well sure, it's supposed to be a delusion, but c'mon now!

We wiped.

The tank suggested everyone take their weapon off right before then insantity then put it back on again.

This didn't prevent the shaman and tree from healing.

We wiped.

Then I thought I would be clever and go into cat form right before the insanity so I couldn't heal.

We wiped.

I asked if the cat form had worked: they replied yes, I was indeed a kitty in their insanity, but no, it didn't work. I could cast heals just fine as a cat. OMG HAX!11! Thank GOD I hadn't turned into a bear instead!

My argument here is that if I can't change away from resto for the fight then the shaman shouldn't be forced to change into resto for the fight.

So at this point we were thinking of giving up. It was getting late and people had work in the morning. My only last suggestion was to have the shammy tank and let him die, then do the insanity, and battle res him after, but people were too frustrated to give it another go when we discovered respawns at the beginning of the instance.

Plus, the clone of the dead shammy would probably just self-res anyway.

Sigh.

Beginner's Guide to Wrath raiding part III: Obsidian Sanctum

2009-01-14T16:25:00.003-05:00

Aaaaand moving onwards.

Next I shall talk about Obsidian Sanctum, the dragon-tastic raid that makes you wonder why the other multi-coloured dragonflights haven't gotten their act together and actually DONE something about the ebil dragons.

Sersiouly, there's a ton of them, and Sartharion is essentially chilling in their basement.

Moving on.

The Obsidian Sanctum

Location: Wyrmrest Temple
In central southern Dragonblight, in the bottom floor of Wyrmrest Temple. There is a summoning stone to get here, and also a flight path that leads right to the temple. There are several portals down there, go through the one WITHOUT the big forboding zappy X and angry guards.

General Info:
There's only one boss here too, but unlike VoA, mingled amongst the trash there are some mini-bosses as well, that you can kill if you like, or leave living for an achievement and more loot (I have not tried this yet, but I have a feeling its a bit more for those who are reading my "Advanced Guide to Wrath raiding," which is a pretty neat accomplishment considering they'd have to go into the future to read that).

You may want to use some CC on the trash pulls here, as they do hit pretty hard. Also, some of them spawn this red globes that shoots lightning. You do not want to be near the lightning. Unless you enjoy the pain. You can move away from it to break the contact, but be wary of moving too far from the group.

The room is set up with a large area in the middle where Sartharion is, and an outer ring that you can go around in either direction.

Required tanks: 2
Required classes: none
Helpful resistences: fire (duh, he's a dragon), shadow (the dot inside the twilight portals is shadow)
Total Badges: 4-9 (depending on if you get the bag of spoils)

The Twilight Drakes
In clearing the area around Sartharion's platform, you will encounter three mini-bosses, the twilight drakes. Two of them are identical: Vesperon and Shadron, each of whom will be either the first or the last of the three you fight, depending on if you go clockwise or counterclockwise. These guys are pretty easy: they start out as a tank and spank, but will periodically spawn a portal. On the other side of the portal is a mini-mini boss. Usually what we do is when the portal spawns everyone but the main tank and one healer goes through the portal and takes down the new add. You can't ignore these adds because while the portal is open the Twilight Drake is almost invincible. The reason you need to take a healer into the portal is while you're in the twilight realm everyone takes damage over time which will need to be healed.

But it's really not that bad. A word of advice: make sure your off-tank goes into the portal first. One suggestion is to have the OT call out over vent when he is through. If you don't use vent, put a mark on the OT so you can see when he is through. Other than that, just bring everything down quick. You will get a badge, but no gear.

The other Twilight Drake is Tenebron, who is a little different than his brotha's. He is also a tank and spank and also summons a portal, but on the other side of his portal there are eggs. You can go into the portal and kill the eggs if you want. If you don't, the eggs will hatch and little dragon adds will come through the portal and attack you. If you have a lot of AoE, you might want to skip going into the portal for this one. Even with 8 people (so only 4 dps) we managed these hatchlings: we just had three consecrate auras hold and damage them while the frost mage rained frost. It works.

If you don't have enough AoE (and you will find out if you get overwhlemed by adds) then by all means go through the portal and kill the eggs. Otherwise Tenebron is just the same as the other drakes and will drop a badge when he dies.

Sartharion
2.5 million HP on normal

So once you get all the trash and the mini-bosses down, you will be back where you started at the front door and all you will have left is Sartharion, the big dragon daddy.

To me, this is a fight about dps skill and also good strategy. Although I've never read this online, he DOES have somewhat of an enrage. He summons fire elementals throughout the fight, which the offtank will have to pick up. However, when he is around 10%, he summons a LOT of elementals all at once, so you will have to hurry and burn down his HP because there are probably too many elementals at this point to be handled well.

So that's one bit of the strategy: adds. Have an offtank, then have him take the adds.

The second bit of strategy is the flame walls. If you have never done this fight before, I tell you this: no amount of reading strategy online, no amount of diagrams or pictures can adaquately prepare you for this fight. It's okay if you get hit by the walls the first few times. Expect to. Expect your group, if the whole group has not done this before, to maybe wipe once or twice. It's okay.

Once you get the hang of the walls, it's a piece of cake.

Essentially, every 30 seconds Sartharion makes a wall of flame come across the area you fight him on. Some times it comes from the left, some times it comes from the right. Depending on which side it comes from, there are holes in different areas. Stand in the holes and you won't take damage.

If you are doing this for the first time, when the emote pops up that the fire is churning, start looking around WITH YOUR MOUSE. Simply using keys to turn your character around is not fast enough. Look around with your mouse until you see the wall. You will see a gap, go run to the gap! There, you did it! Super!

Once you get the hang of it, you will realize that there are pretty much two places where there could be gaps, one if the wall is coming from the left, one if it is coming to the right. If you are ranged or heals, I recommend standing with your back to one of these gaps. Then, if the wall is coming from behind you (aka the emote happens and you don't see a wall) then you are safe. If it is coming from in front of you, you will have to move, but you will easily be able to see the gap.

So mind the gap, as the British say, and you should be in good shape.

Also, don't be too worried if you lose a couple of dps. We've done this with a 9-man group, and also done it with a full group with a couple of dead dps, and were fine both times. If you lose one of your top dps and have a battle res, use your discretion. Maybe you want to res that person. (All I know is that my ghetto battle rez* has been hotfixed and I am sad. :( ).

Conclusion:

So it takes a little practice, but it's not that bad. Once you get the hang of it and can do it without any wipes, it's a pretty quick fight. Including all the trash and mini-bosses and whatnot, it currently takes my group around 40 minutes to do this (but we've never done the trash with a full 10 man group, so YMMV).

I highly recommend this raid because of the AWESOME LOOT he drops. Sartharion drops five things: a badge, a tier 7 GLOVE token, another piece of epic gear from his loot table, a bag containing 5 more badges and some gold, and a 22 slot bag all to be rolled on. So far in 2 kills I've only gotten the 22 slot bag from him, but I love it. I can't wait for the patch to come out so I can have some Frostweave bags (the mats to make imbued frostweave are going down in the next patch).

So yeah, I'm a big fan of this raid. If only Sartharion would drop some druid tier gear, then I'd really be happy!

*Ghetto Battle Res: I like to think I invented this. It's the practice of a Night Elf druid using Shadowmeld to get out of combat and then using her regular res to revive a fallen comrade even during a battle. I could do this for a good long time after Wrath came out, but it has recently been fixed, I think, because now as soon as I gain combat status again the res cancels. :(

Beginner's Guide to Wrath raiding part II: Vault of Archavon

2009-01-14T12:12:00.008-05:00

Okay, so here we go! I'll talk about the Vault of Archavon first, because it is short and easy. :)

Vault of Archavon

Location: Wintergrasp Fortress
You must have control of Wintergrasp to do this raid. To get in, run into the fortress and take the portal to the waiting room. There is no summoning stone. There's also no flight path into Wintergrasp (only out), but you can fly in over the mountains with a mount, or take the portal in from the Silver Enclave in Dalaran.

If you want to pug this instance, a great time to do it is right after a Wintergrasp victory. There will be plenty of groups doing both the 10-man version and the 25-man version.

General Info:
This raid has only one boss. There's a little bit of trash leading up to him, but nothing spectacular. You can do the trash with one tank and less than a full group of DPS.

Tanks required: 2
Specific classes required: none
Helpful resistences: Nature (the boss's AoE cloud does nature damage)
Total badges: 1

Archavon the Stone Watcher
2.3 million HP on normal

I'd say there are two components to Archavon: two well-coordinated tanks and some decent dps.

The reason that you will need 2 tanks is that Archavon will occasionally lunge for one of the tanks (that's the emote he uses), pick the tank up, and use him as a weapon. When this happens the other tank will need to quickly gain threat and pick him up. It's not too bad if you watch out for the emote and grab him quick.

The reason you need decent DPS is that Archavon has a FIVE MINUTE enrage timer. After five minutes has passed, he will enrage and start doing massive damage. You can surive for a little while, but the group will wipe. So get him down before then.

Other than this, there are really only two things for DPS or healers to watch out for: he will throw spikes at a random player. That player should hold still, because if he runs, the spikes will follow him and do damage to more people. They don't do terrible damage; it's easy to heal through. The other thing he does is lunge at a random player and put an AoE cloud down. Stay out of the cloud (good advice for almost any raid).

Conclusion: If you have the DPS, this is a pretty easy fight. From the time everyone gets in 'til the loot is handed out, the whole thing takes anywhere from 10-15 minutes without a wipe. It's an easy badge, plus he drops two random epics: any random T7 piece or random season 5 PvP.

The only downside to his loot is that he drops the T7 item, not the token, so it will be class and spec specific, so it is possible that he will drop an item no one in your group can use. These items cannot be disenchanted or sold to a vendor, so if no one needs it, it is a waste (I have a T7 warlock glove in my bank right now, lol). Also, there's a chance that he will drop PvP gear, so if no one in your group does PvP, that would be a loss too. But the whole thing is so quick that even if you don't get any gear out of it, it's still a 10-minute badge and a good time.

Weekly Raid Roundup (aka a beginner's guide to entry-level Wrath raiding, part I)

2009-01-14T11:47:00.004-05:00

Hello hello!

Monday marked the end of the first week of raiding for my new team. All in all, it was a good week- we killed some bosses, got some gear, and really learned a lot. Here's what went down.

Our group, in case you are curious, consists of two Paladin tanks (both of which are crit capped, and around 25k health and maybe 26k defense), six DPS: two rogues (one rather well-geared and one slightly less so), my Ret Pally sister, a frost mage, an unholy death knight, and an elemental shaman. We also have two druid healers! Go team tree! When we started I was a bit more geared than my counterpart, but we've both gotten some fabulous upgrades since then and are about on par with each other.

On our first Monday (we are a monday/tuesday raid schedule) we decided to to Vault of Archavon (VoA) and Obsidian Sanctum (OS) because we didn't want to start Naxx and have it reset the next morning. We got VoA after one wipe, and tried a few times on OS without luck and eventually gave up. On Tuesday we did OS successfully, as well as the first two bosses in the Arachnid quarter of Naxx. We got together on Friday for another stab at OS (got it on the first try, it's really just a matter of learning how to manage the flame waves) and brought Patchwerk and Noth down, and gave Heigan a try. After some struggle this past Monday we finally finished the Arachnid and Plague quarters.

So everything reset Tuesday morning and on Tuesday night we did OS again (eight-manning the drakes and nine-manning the boss) and completed the Plague quarter in Naxx again.

I've learned a lot about these raids in giving them a try (or in some cases, try after try after try) this past week. I'd seen a lot of videos on Tankspot, but there's a huge difference between seeing the video and actually doing it. So I thought I'd do a little roundup of some observations I've made, maybe it will be useful!

I think I'll break it down into a few posts so it will be manageable. Next I'll put together my thoughts on the two smaller raids, OS and VoA.

In which the author has been a bad blogger (now with more guild drama!)

2009-01-09T14:25:00.005-05:00

Ahoy hoy radio silence!

I am not dead, just a bad blogger. I've been busy with life and finals and holidays and whatnot, and too busy having fun with Wrath to sit down and think about it too much!

Plus, I've officially respecced resto now (perhaps I should rename the blog SPAM LAFFBL00M?), so now I'm too busy being stressed (don'tletthetankdiedon'tletthetankdiedon'tletthetankdiedon'tletthetankdiedon'tletthetankdie) to have fun and exciting things to post about.

How am I doing? Pretty good. How are you? I'm 80 now, and raiding. The raiding team I'm on has done VoA and is working on Naxx and OS (we only officially started January 5th). We used to be the second raiding team in my guild but there has been an infection of TEH DRAMAZ in my guild! It used to be run by two co-leaders. We had one core raiding team and were just about to start running our second when one of the leaders decided to bail and take his raiding team (and all of their alts, which is around 50 characters, probably 4/5ths of those at 80) with him. Of course this led to some more people following that leader, others leaving out of fear of the guild falling apart (which is a counterproductive way to deal with that fear), and still others just leaving for the heck of it. So now we're down to one 10-man raiding team (on the plus side now I am on TEAM 1 instead of team 2, lol), which sets us back a bit. We'd already started doing some 25-man content, which we're pretty much only going to be able to do if we pug now, because we don't really have enough geared members any more- le sigh.

All in all we lost 100 characters (probably around 25 actual players plus their alts) so we're down to a little over 200 members. There are a couple of guilds we'd been in talks with to merge, so maybe that will happen.

Until then I'll be happy raiding 3 or 4 nights a week, and having fun with 10-man content. Hopefully we'll have Kel'Thuzad down by this or next monday. We'll see!

And expect some more posts soon, I have a few things I want to talk about and stories I want to share.

Until then, ta!

The haelz, they becon me

2008-12-20T13:23:00.002-05:00

So I finally dinged 80 (go me!) and have found myself once again specced resto.

Why you ask?

Well, DPSing is super fun. I am also super good at it. So are lots of other people. Instances have felt a little too easy as of late, so I wanted to give myself a challenge.

So I'm a tree again, whee!

And now I see what people were complaining about with the Nourish nerf.

So I'm working on putting together a healing set and a dps set for raiding, and hopefully will start raiding soon (my guild team is scheduled to start on January 5th). So far I've got the Titansteel Guardian, which isn't the best healing weapon in the world (it lacks spirit, intellect, or any mp5), but it had almost twice as much bonus spell power as my previous staff. I'm keeping my healing staff (can't recall the name, but it was a blue with +60 haste and around 70 spirit) just in case.

Of course, it was just announced that the spell power on the Guardian will be nerfed in 3.0.8 down to 457 instead of 490. Not too bad, I hope.

Well, I have more baking to do (IRL baking, not upping my cooking skill ;p). Then maybe I will take a stab at getting the Merrymaker achievement! (that purple proto-drake will be mine!)

Glyph of Focus (aka the Starfall Glyph)

2008-12-12T16:24:00.002-05:00

May I just say.... YES! OMG YES!

PTR patched this morning and there is a new glyph: the Glyph of Focus.
Glyph of Focus - Increases the damage done by Starfall by 20%, but decreases its radius by 50%.

Thank GOD. The radius was faaaarrrr to big for me. I always ended up pulling half a zone or instance! (Admittedly, I shouldn't have been using it in instances or places where I could pull half a zone, but I did anyway because it was funny).

No word to whether it's going to be a major or minor glyph. My guess would be major (which is good because I'll have an empty major slot when I ding 80).

Yay. :)

Moonkin on a robochicken

2008-12-11T21:20:00.002-05:00

So the test realm patch notes are up, and while I haven't really had time to look them through (it's finals and I'm really only supposed to be taking a 2 minute break), the one thing I saw that totally excited me is Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted.

I always wanted a mechanostrider.

Now I can have one.

Huzzah!

Make love, not war(craft)

2008-12-04T11:40:00.002-05:00

So the trifecta of awesome (myself, my boyfriend and my sister) had two tasks to accomplish: to run Drak'Tharon and complete the Amphitheather of Anguish for the achievement and for the sweet loot that comes as a reward (I wanted the Chilly Slobberknocker for the name alone).

So we did the instance first with little trouble (had a mage who liked to pull before the tank, but that's okay) and then we went to do the Amphitheather.

Sadly we could only get a group of 4 together, so we were down one dps. We figured we'd give it a try anyway.

First boss went down no trouble, but when we went to start the next one we saw a Horde group was doing it too, so we took turns. We'd do a boss then they would. I realized that I could stand up by the quest giver and that my spells would still reach the bosses the Horde were fighting, so I pew-pewed for them a little.

Eventually they noticed, and when we were having our turn, they jumped down to help. Both groups got the quest done, and there was a flurry of positive emotes as we tried to thank each other for the help.

(As an aside, when we did Circle of Blood this Blood Elf kept summoning the big bosses and then trying to run away so we'd end up getting aggro and having to fight the bosses for him. Jerk.)

Fighting with the Horde is fun, but we have a bigger enemy now! It always warms my little Moonkin heart to see another group of players helping us have fun instead of finding the need to be at war.

Best blue post ever

2008-12-02T12:29:00.002-05:00

I can't actually find it at the moment, which makes me sad, but I remember it anyway.

So there was a forum post where someone was complaining that DKs start with leveled up first aid but not professions, and how annoying it was to level those up from 1.

The blue post response was:

The Lich King trained his soldiers for war, not for crafts and hobbies.

I imagined the phrase spoken in Arthas' scary voice, and it was awesome.

In which your author is not a mage (and also refuses to dress like one)

2008-11-26T17:18:00.003-05:00

Has anyone else noticed a stark lack of casting leather gear in Northrend? I've so far run through Howling Fjord, Bornean Tundra, and Dragonblight (just got to Grizzly Hills last night), and so far, in all the gear I've replaced, only one piece is leather (it's Wrynn's Legguards of Heroism from the Battle for the Undercity quest, which is a chain I HIGHLY recommend everyone do. Lore + fighting with epic NPCs + being able to hear trade chat during battle = win), and the rest is cloth.

Admittedly, I can see why there isn't a plethora of leather casting gear. A my level, a resto or balance druid is the only class who would want it (at least at earlier levels shammies could use it too), so it's very specific. But at the same time, I feel I shouldn't be forced to wear cloth! There's a reason that druids are given the leather armor class, give us some good quest rewards!

And yes, I know there's a crafted set. The lower level leatherworking casting set is nowhere near as good the cloth I've been picking up (okay, it has more armor, but the stats just don't compare). Maybe the upper level set (can't recall the name offhand) will be a bit better.

Also, for lulz, I couldn't sleep last night so I logged my level 60 Death Knight. Tried to find a group for BF, couldn't find a healer. So we went with a group of 5 DKs and murdered the place. It was too funny to see all the pulling battles. ;p

Happy Birthday WoW!

2008-11-23T15:24:00.006-05:00

Make sure you log in some time today to get your WoWday presents (has it really been four years since WoW first came out? I haven't been playing since the start, but it seems like it was a lot longer ago than that!)! An achievement and a likkle adorable bebbeh bear. Who could say "no" to that face?

Plus the object itself is account-bound and doesn't go away once you learn the summon spell, so as long as one of your characters logs in today to get the item, you can have the bear on all your accounts!

Adorable.

And yes, I'm having a fantastic time in Northrend, though I can't really think of anything to say that you guys probably aren't experiencing for yourselves. I'll try to come up with something for a post at some point in the near future.

First Thoughts on Wrath

2008-11-16T10:00:00.003-05:00

So as I mentioned in my last post, I'm still level 70 (got maybe 100k xp left to go before the ding) and questing the the Howling Fjord. I've also leveled a Death Knight up through all of the Ebon Hold content. I've had some time to think about it and here are a few of my first impressions.

1. Graphics: The game is really pretty. There's a lot of attention to detail, the landscapes are really quite beautiful.

2. Death Knights: While I'm not 100% sold on Death Knights as a class (not exactly my cup of tea), I LOVED the DK starting area and quests. Way to turn the evil up to 11! Gotta love quests to kill hundreds of people, and have your victims scream as they try and run away. Also, I'm a big fan of phasing. It seems like Ebon Hold is the main place that this will happen, hopefully we'll run into more!

3. Questing: I was definitely expecting a lot of "Go kill X number of Y's," "Go get X number of Y item that drops from Z mob," or "Go pick X flowers" type quests. I was very wrong! There are certainly a few of these (it can't be avoided in an MMO, in my opinion), but most of the quests were quite fresh and kept things entertaining!

Instead of picking up x items, we had to train a bird, then use the bird to get the items for us. We had to kill a bunch of pirates, but got to do it by dropping bombs off a zepplin. Shooting dragons with harpoons was fun, eclipsed only by shooting a giant, flaming harpoon and riding it back to town. Being turned into a robot (okay, a mechanical construct, whatever) was neat, despite one of the quests being a bit annoying. I hope this style of questing is the norm for the rest of the game!

4. Transportation: When people found out that we'd lose our flying mounts until 77, there was a lot of complaining. We've gotten used to zipping around to places quickly, without having to fight random mobs if we didn't want to. Well, it seems like Blizzard took that into consideration, as many of the quests I've done so far have built in transportation. If you have to go somewhere far away for a quest, there'll be a boat, a flying maching, or (in some cases) a giant flaming harpoon to get you there. These aren't flight paths, just short little scripted jaunts that get you places quick. It's nice!

5. Gear: In my party of Super Awesome Druid and Also Awesome Paladin, we had two gear sets going into Wrath. I was in high-content raiding gear, and he was pretty much in all Outlands quest gear (he stopped leveling at 68 so he could bring his character over at that level). So we have two examples of gear replacement.

He's replacing gear left and right. He did lose some blues for Northrend greens, but that's to be expected. He's also a BS and found lots of cobalt to make himself new gear, all of which is great for him.

I, on the other hand, have only replaced one item. My only blue item going into this was a blue spellcasting trinket that I traded for a quest reward blue spellcasting trinket with the same types of stats, only slightly better.

So yeah, don't worry, you won't be losing all your lovely purples first thing. I bet in a level or two I'll be replacing some more. On the one hand, I really like getting new gear and building new gear sets (which is why I am also excited to bring my 68 lock to the Bornean Tundra some time soon), but on the other hand I also like the gear I spent lots of effort to get, so I think this is a good balance in between.

I think I had something else to say but I got distracted. So that is all for now!

Also, I have a feeling at some point I can stop tagging articles as "WotLK," as they will all be about WotLK. Hrm.

Naxx Cleared

2008-11-16T09:53:00.003-05:00

So all of the current PvE content has been cleared already: yesterday a guild finished heroic (that's the 25 man raid) Naxxramas. Three days to a full clear, no wai!

At first I was incredulous, assumed the screenshots of the achiement had been faked. Then I went to the website of the guild that did it (the guild's called TwentyFifthNovember), and realized that it was true.

How, you ask?

The guild is a combination of SK Gaming and Nihilim, the top two guilds in the game. So yeah, you get the top 25 players in the game together, I bet they beat Naxx in three days.

There are also level 80's popping up all over the place. As I played yesterday I saw the achievements rolling in: Realm first level 80 Shaman, realm first level 80 gnome, etc etc. As for yours truly? Still level 70, but almost 71. I only started playing yesterday, and have been working my way through quests in the Howling Fjord with the rogue in my life, though he's switched to have his Pally as his main. We're taking our time. I definitely want to clear heroic Naxx some day, but I sure as hell don't want to do it tomrrow.

Radio Silence

2008-11-11T10:37:00.005-05:00

So you may have noticed I've not said much of anything lately, sorry for that. I've been busy with classes, with life, and with NaNoWriMo, so less time for blogging. I like to think of this as the calm before the storm that is Wrath of the Lich King.

What has your humble author been up to? A few things.

1. Running through old content: done a bunch of old instances/raids with the guild for kicks and achievements, including Onyxia's Lair, AQ40, Molten Core, LBRS, UBRS, BWL... sheesh, probably more, but I can't remember.

2. Helping my sister get her first character to 70 (she did, grats to her!). It was a pretty funny reminder of how silly I was when I first hit 70, from being totally stoked about flying that I flew everywhere even though non-epic flight is slower than epic ground mounts, to thinking dailies were the greatest things ever, to running every instance I could get my hands on.

3. Leveling my Lock alt to 68 to get her ready for WoTLK (it's kinda sad, she's got as much bonus spell power NOW at 68 as my main druid did when she started Kara, and this is with quest gear only. ;p) and get her enchanging up to prepare as well.

4. Helping the boyfriend level up Blacksmithing on his alt, which involved farming a WHOLE BUNCH (and by a whole bunch I mean hundreds and hundreds, literally) of primal waters and fires. Myself personally, I don't really farm for stuff. I'll buy it if I have to; farming to me is a bit on the boring side and it makes the game seem like work. But my boyfriend refuses to spend money if he doesn't have to (lol he made my sister run through a whole long Skettis chain to talk to a bird to buy Scrolls of Strength instead of coughing up the 50s each for them), and he stopped running instances with my sis and I as our tank, so I traded him tanking time for farming time. E gads, I hope I never see a fire elemental again.

So now I'm pretty much WoWed out (*gasp!* who thought this was possible!) and I'm just waiting for Wrath on Thursday. I don't think I'll be one of those people waiting at midnight for my copy; in fact, my plan is to probably wait a little while for the servers to calm down a little before I trek into Northrend (of course, this brings out the fear that I will FOREVER be a couple of days behind in the game and Arthas will be so emo about being killed so many times that he will leave).

So look for some new and exciting posts from me come the weekend, and to all of you (over 1,000 of you now! Well, over 1,000 page visits, which is pretty exciting considering I only made this blog as a class project for a writing class), I wish you the best of luck for your own early Wrath experiences! See you in Northrend!

Priorities

2008-10-31T16:19:00.002-04:00

Oh, I almost forgot! I just had to share this story.

The other night my guild ran Kara. I did not go (had some homework to finish up), but my boyfriend did, and had this story to tell.

So they had just finished the Opera and were on their way to the Curator when the OT said he'd have to leave after Curator. Not a big deal, 'cause you really only need an OT for some stuff in the beginning (mainly the Moroes fight and the Opera, depending on what event you get). So the group's like, "Um, okay, should be fine."

To which the OT replied something to the effect: "Yeah, I'm gonna be a dad." Apparently his pregnant wife's water had broken some time before.

But he stayed to finish up the run to Curator and the fight.

Admittedly, she was having a home delivery (ie, he was not failing to take her to the hospital because he was playing WoW), but still. Interesting situation, I can just picture it in my mind:

"Honey, it's time!"

"Hang on a bit, I've just gotta finish this next boss."

o_O

Someone was really, really dedicated to that Kara run. I was joking that if the child was a boy they should name it Malchezaar. ;p

And that's my story.

Temp weapon enchants, AQ40, moonkin again, and Hallow's End

2008-10-31T16:06:00.005-04:00

I have four things to say. Prepare yourself mentally before continuing.

ONE:

They be getting rid of wizard oil! And mana oil! And sharpening stones!

Sharpening Stones and also Wizard Oils have been discontinued. While they were something nice to use once in a while for most people for many raid guilds they were simply another burden to the cost of raiding. They also caused some issues in that they only helped certain classes and took away some of the uniqueness of other classes who were able to imbue their weapons with temporary enchants such as rogues and warlocks.

- Sauce

I kinda see why they're doing it. But I loved me my wizard oil. Le sigh.

TWO:

Ran AQ40 last night. It was intense, even with a group of almost all 70's (we had anywhere between 33 and 40 people at any given time). I can't imagine how hard that must have been before TBC. Mad props to anyone who did it back then!

It was a bit harrowing. At first most people (this was mostly a pug group with my rogue as the raid leader and myself as assistant) were a bit cocky, running ahead, not taking direction. Then we wiped on the Emperors. Then we wiped again, and again. Finally people calmed down and realized they couldn't run through this like it was a Stockades run. People actually listened to the raid leader's strategy and we nailed it like the piece of cake it was on the fourth run (lulz).

C'thun took two tries. First time the tank ran in without being bubbled first and was lazered in the face. The lazers do upwards of 2.5 million (yes, that's right, MILLION) damage, so there's not much you can do when one of those hits you in the face, even when you're a 70.

Second time we nailed it. Sadly, some people died in C'thun's stomach and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get them out. How sad, but hilarious at the same time.

THREE:

Right after the raid I specced back Boomkin. It's good to be back. (pew pew)

FOUR:

Had no class today (ha ha, I mean no college classes. I have no class, as in the attribute, every day. ;p) so I decided to have a HALLOW'S END EXTRAVAGANZA. Went around and got all the candy. Went on a G.N.E.R.D rage. Gave some candy to an orphan. Ended up with all the Hallow's End achievements under my belt.

Also I ate too much candy (not Tricky Treats, which I also ate a lot of, but real life candy), which is NOT the way to try and get 50 honorable kills in a battleground.

AND THAT IS ALL. For now anyway.

Have a happy halloween!

Once you go bark you never go back

2008-10-28T11:33:00.002-04:00

So a while back I was scheduled to run Zul'Aman and the raid leader whispered me saying we were missing a healer, and could I please respec for the night. The guild will pay. Pretty please?

So I said sure, I don't mind healing. I much prefer dps, of course, but some tree action on the side is fine by me. So I respecced, healed, and finished the instance.

Since then, I've been trapped as a tree! Requests come left and right, "Oh, please come heal for us, oh mighty druid! We are in desperate need of your HoTs!" Of course I oblige, because I can't say no (case in point, I ran ZA again last night even though I had midterms this morning, lol). Suddenly my category in Guild Calendar is changed from ranged to healing, without being asked.

I should be getting another free respec today (if the patch comes out, which I think it is), and I really want to use it to go back to Boomkin, but I can't, because now I'm needed as a healer for an AQ40 run on Thursday! Alas!

I really, really don't mind healing. It's a little stressful for me (because I hate being responsible for other people. I mean, I'm good at it, but it still stresses me out), but I can do it. It's fun. I just prefer dps. I'm MUCH better at that. But it looks like I'll never get the chance!

Well, maybe not until WotLK when we get dual-specs.

I had a ret pally whisper me last night during the ZA run (we got 3 timers, not bad) and mention that he respecced "just for one Kara run" over a year ago. We laughed, but c'mon. I need a little pew pew!

Braaaaiiiinssss.....

2008-10-24T07:50:00.003-04:00

So apparently everyone knew about turing into a zombie except for me. When was this announced? Where did the memo come from?

I was wandering around, totally confused by the sudden appearance of Argent Healers everywhere. It was unnerving. Why were they there? What terrible evil was present in the world?

Then I saw some conspicuous crates. Now, I have fallen off the Outlands many a time, just looking to see how far down I can get. I've aggroed Doom Lord Kazzak more times than I can count, trying to pick that damned Nightmare Vine in front of his throne ("This time I'll get it, I just know it!"). You could say I have a curiousty complex.

So I investigated the crate. Suddenly I felt ill, I was all green and gross and... infected! Gasp! Run run run to an Argent Healer, and he fixed me up. A sigh of relief.

Then I got a message from the rogue in my life, though he was playing as his Paladin. Come to Booty Bay, he said. I want to show you something. I told him to come to me, I was busy in Sithilus, doing quests for the Cenarions. He told me the flight master was dead. That should have clued me in. So I flew over.

When I got there, I looked around for a dwarf Paladin. None were to be found. Then CHOMP! A zombie bit me! I tried to run but he chomped away until I died.

But I didn't die. No, I suddenly found myself as the living dead, with nothing but a hunger for HUMAN BRAINS!

We planned to head to Darnassus, figuring an enclosed area would be just right for a Zombicalypse. But when we got to Auberdine there were just too many delicious people to eat. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM. We tried to get the flight master but she started summoning Hippogryphs, so in a moment of desperation I exploded, infecting her. She turned zombie ten minutes later.

Soon we had eaten all the guards and NPCs. People were getting messages that Auberdine was under attack in World Defense, and came running. We ate them too. The place was crawling with zombies. With an army of maybe two dozen players and nonplayers, we started a shambling walk to the Rutheran Village boat, a conquest of Darnassus soon to be at hand.

Then a bunch of level 70's appeared and ~~took away all our fun~~ put us out of our misery, and we were once again part of the living.

I feel much better now. Although, sometimes Naaru rations just don't cut it and I find myself hungering for MOAR BRAAAAINNNNNNNSSSSSSS.......

Sadly this is the best screenshot I got. There were many, many more zombies at other points, but I just didn't think to take a picture. Also, I like the poor Night Elf trying to inconspicuously back away. I ate her. *Nods.*

Woah noes! Mah mount! (3.0.3 speculation)

2008-10-22T08:32:00.003-04:00

So I was having a look through the Test Realm Patch Notes, which are usually a good sign of what we could expect in the next update.

The first thing I noticed was that Druids get another free respec; none of the other classes do.

The SECOND thing I noticed is that all class-specific mounts that require quests are now trainable. Pallys and Warlocks can train their epic ground mount (after buying the riding skill) at 61 and Druids can train epic flight at 71 (after buying the riding skill).

Now, of course, the assumption is that those who already have their mounts/flight form get to keep them.

The question is: have the quests been removed entirely, or can you do the quest at 60 or 70 if you wish, or wait the extra level and buy? Hopefully the latter, otherwise Druids who choose not to buy the expansion are losing epic flight form.

How do I feel about this? Well, having (somewhat) recently done the epic flight form quest and having helped my sister and also my boyfriend with their paladin epic ground mount quests, I have a feeling people who have gone through all the effort of doing these rather tricky quests might feel a little cheated.

On the other hand, I can see why Blizzard would do it. The Pally and Lock quests involved pre-BC instances that no one ever runs any more. It is difficult to get a group together, and most people just end up having a 70 run them through, so the effect of these parts of the quest might be lost.

Also, after WotLK, the odds that people will be doing heroic Sethekk Halls on a regular basis might be slim too.

So I guess it makes sense. I'm glad I got to go through the whole song and dance, though, it was fun and held a definite sense of accomplishment for me. As for my Lock, who is currently 63 and does NOT have her epic ground mount, bring on 3.0.3 and hook me up with my Dreadsteed!

And now something for the Alchemists

2008-10-21T22:30:00.003-04:00

I figured I'd post this because some people in my guild were totally shocked to hear about it, so it's time to spread the word.

What is it? The passive ability for alchemists: Mixology.

How do you get it? It's trained from your local Alchemy trainer. (Some of the other passive traits were automatically learned, this one must be purchased, hense the shock and awe).

What does it do? What it says on the box: "You receive an increased effect and duration when you drink any elixir or flask you are able to make."

Is this awesome? Yes.

For one, flasks last FOUR hours instead of 2. Save a lot of mats in raids. Regular elixirs last for 2 hours instead of 1.

For two, the effects of your flasks and elixirs are increased. How much? It differs from flask to flask, but this is what I've noticed from things I've tried:
Flask of Supreme Power: increases SP by 93 instead of 70
Flask of Blinding Light: increases SP by 103 instead of 80
Adept's Elixir: Increases SP and spell crit by 33 instead of 24

Some notes: this only works on flasks and elixirs you are capable of making yourself. So if you haven't discovered a certain flask and you buy it on the auction house, you will not get the bonus (if, on the other hand, you buy a flask you ARE capable of making but you don't feel like it for some reason, you WILL get the bonus).

This does NOT work on special flasks such as the Shattrath flasks (even if you know how to make the regular flask equivalent) or the Gruul's Lair flasks, for the same reason as above.

So if you're an alchemist, get thee to your trainer and grab this if you haven't already.

Healing after the patch

2008-10-21T08:47:00.002-04:00

So last night I was supposed to go to Zul'Aman with my guild as a dps. At the last second they needed another healer, so I offered to go. A quick respec and some mana oil later, and there I was, healing after the patch for the first time in a raid.

Admittedly, they were in a rush when I respecced so I forgot to get some new glyphs (the rejuvination one in particular would have been helpful), but all in all it was a very educational experience.

Some things:

I really like Wild growth, especially because it's an instant cast. I cast it on the tank as part of my rotation and it keeps the HoTs on the raid members most likely to end up hurt.

I really *don't* like the changes they've made to mana regen. I used to have upwards of 250 mp5 in combat, which was really nice, so mana was never really an issue with me. With the changes I have hardly any at all (I can only assume Blizzard wants people to rely on gear for mp5; I'll have to fiddle with mine a little more, as there wasn't time). Couple this with the fact that we get potion sickness now and can only down one mana pot per fight, and the results are dire. Even with innervate I ended up really low on mana a few times, and ran out of mana once (though it happened right as the fight ended, so I suppose I can't complain).

Also, the three healers we had in this group were myself, a pally, and a priest. Normally I can keep up with heal % as compared to other healers in a group, but last night I found myself at a 28% heal compared to each of them having around 32%. Not a huge difference, but I feel like I'm not healing for as much (I know this to be true; my Lifebloom, for example, only ticks 452 now, where it used to tick 505).

Long story short, we didn't finish ZA last night (a hunter had wife aggro and a tank had to leave) so we'll be finishing the last two bosses tonight. I'll have a change to really tweak a few things with my gear and glyphs, and hopefully I'll see an improvement tonight!

In other news, Wub's Cursed Hexblade dropped last night much to the joy of all the casters in the group. We all rolled for it, with yours truly rolling an EPIC 2 out of 100 compared to three other rolls in the 70+ range. Sigh. Maybe next time!

Spooktacular

2008-10-20T08:17:00.006-04:00

This has been my first holiday season as a 70. Sure, I was a 70 during the Fire Festival over the summer, but I never had fun with seasonal bosses or anything like that (though I did do enough quests to get some of the flaming gear, and also put out all the flames in the major Horde cities and got the crown: that was super fun!).

But Brewfest and Hallow's End have been my first real seasonal experiences, and I'm having a blast. Trick-or-Treating is a joy, nothing like giant bowls of candy to make kids of us all. Throwing pumpkins on people's heads is also fun: it can make an otherwise serious experience rather silly. :D I can't wait 'til ZA tonight so I can pumpkin everyone right before we fight Zul'Jin. :D

And I love seasonal bosses. Coren Direbrew hooked me up with a great trinket and let me relive the painful days of BRD. The Headless Horseman is more of the same: I'd never actually been to SM (Not sure why, probably because I was from Kalimdor and Tirifal Glade was so far away) but had always wanted to check it out. In fact, my boyfriend and I cleared the instance while we were waiting for our group to get there, it would have been really cool to go when I was leveled for it!

As for the Horseman's drops, there's no gear for me (the rings, though they drop EVERY TIME and are pretty much a gaurentee for anyone running it more than once, aren't as good as what I've got). I really wanted the pet, and nabbed him as well as the seasonal helm for an achievement.

The mount is really quite cool. It acts as whatever mount you are able to use at the time, so if you only have level 75 riding and you're in Azeroth, it's a regular ground mount. If you have all the training and are in the Outlands, it's an epic flyer. So far in two nights of epic runs we've seen it drop twice: the first one went to my tank friend in the guild and the second one was won by my boyfriend, and he gets a kick out of flying around upside-down in Shatt and answering all the awed whispers about where he got it.

Though there's nothing left for me, I'll keep running it (he's actually a really easy boss, I've gone with underleveled groups with no problem, and can heal for him with no trouble, even with my Balance spec and no healing gear). The rogue in my life really wants the sword (we've only seen this drop twice as well) so I'll keep using my summon in the hopes of him getting it, and eating ALL THE TRICKY TREATS that drop.

I gotta go run to the store and buy some candy corn at some point, I've got such a jones for it now!

Achievements

2008-10-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

When I first heard about the achievements system, my initial thought was, "Oh great, X-Box live, here we come." I was wary about the attitude it might create in some players, and also felt that it was a change that would never really affect me.

I was wrong! Achievements are fun! Some of them, like completing dungeons and doing quests, are a great way to keep track of what you've accomplished so far (I've always kept a list of instances so I could cross 'em off as I did them). The ones with titles are especially appealing, because, y'know, we all want titles. On the one hand, it was nice to have titles be a mark of a HUGE accomplishment (Hand of A'dal and Champion of the Naaru are quite daunting!) but having some lesser ones be more accessible is great too. While I don't think I'll go for some of the more obscure achievements (like the full exploration ones, which seem to be on the to-do list of many of my guild members), having some other ones as my goals is just another fun thing to do when you're 70 and don't have the time or motivation to put together a raid.

Some of them are serious and some of there are silly (Leeeeeeeroy Jenkins!), but all in all I am now a full supporter of the system.

I am also in love with the statistics tab. Everyone point and laugh at the number of times I've fallen to my death! Look on in awe at my highest damage done in a single hit! (16k, if y'all are interested. :D) Throwing number of Hogger deaths in there is pretty funny too.

The more I play the more I'm falling in love with all the changes Blizzard has made for us!

In the words of a guildmate: "Oh snap!"

2008-10-15T16:14:00.002-04:00

Gasp! I noticed this morning that my Charm of Swift Flight has been changed! Gone is the 10% speed increase, replaced by a reduced mana cost. Oh no!

Apparently there will be some sort of enchant/inscription that will increase mount speed instead; I can only hope that this will also effect mounted form.

Some other patch 3.0.2 things:

Ret pallies have apparently gotten one heck of a boost. Had my butt kicked at damage by a ret pally today in heroic Steamvaults. He was pretty happy about it. He also had a pretty cool ability that I hadn't heard of: Judgements of the Wise, which regens party memeber's mana by 0.25% of your total mana a second. That was neat.

Ran that same instance with another Boomkin, which really enforced my need to respec again. Despite some evidence and mathematical analysis I've heard to the contrary, Eclipse is looking more tempting. I'll give it a try during Kara tonight and see how it goes.

All in all people seem to be taking names and kicking ass. I ran heroic Steamvaults twice today (it was the daily; I did it once before the reset and once after) and both times it took less than an hour: about 35 minutes each time. There are claims on my server that guilds have run kara in under an hour.

Finally, Guardian Spirit looks really neat when you cast it, it gives the target glowing wings.

What I'm most pleased to see, however, is the way the patch has revitalized the WoW community. Playing is fun again!

3.0.2: First Impressions

2008-10-14T21:20:00.003-04:00

Well, the servers seem to all be down now. Surprise surprise... I was shocked to see they lasted this long in the first place!

Some random thoughts about what I've seen so far:

1. Stormwind Harbor is HUGE. I was excpecting a couple of boats and whatnot, not an area as massive as it is.

2. Stormwind has a new king? When did that happen?

3. Metamorphosis looks SO COOL. I'm not sure it has too much raid potential, mostly a soloing ability as far as I can tell (but then again I'm not super well-versed in being a Lock), but dang, giant purple demon = awesome.

4. In addition to cutting hair at the barber you can change hair color and whatever your other racial personalization was (ie, as a night elf I can change my markings)

5. Having achievements announced in guild chat is pretty cool. I don't think they'll be happening often enough that it would get annoying.

6. Being able to compare your statistics to another player is also pretty cool. If you're running a given raid you can see how many times another player has done that raid, for example. Or you can see how often that player needs versus greeds on rolls. Lots of little things to give you hints on who you're dealing with.

7. Zombie with a monacle = win. I'll leave it at that.

All in all, I got both my characters respecced (though I'll have to do my druid again, I was so excited about the prospect of Owlkin Frenzy, because I joke about having Moonkin Rage all the time so I threw some points in there without realizing that it's pretty useless in a raid situation) and looked around SW for a little bit before everything came crashing down. I'd love to give new abilities a tryout, given the chance.

Dunno if the servers will be back up tonight or not, though.

Update Anticipation

2008-10-14T14:14:00.003-04:00

So I've got my 1.3GB patch downloaded (got it before the rush), and now it's just the long wait for the patch to go live at 5pm tonight (that's my time, 2pm PST).

Though I'm really looking forward to some of the new Resto stuff that'll go live, I think I'll use my free respec to go full Balance, to see how much boom I can get for my buck. 'twill be exciting!

Here's a quick reminder of what's going live today:

* All new Talents and Abilities. (And a free respec, too!)
* The new Inscription profession.
* The new Achievements system. (See Blizzard's Achievement FAQ.)
* Barbershops.
* All new User Interface elements, such as the new Pet/Mount UI..
* Spellpower conversion.
* The end of the Arena Season 4 ladder.
* New Racials.
* 30% less XP from 60 to 70.
* 30% less health on mobs in raids.
* A reworked Buff/Debuff system.
* Graphics Engine upgrades.

Also, a complete aside, but it was announced at Blizzcon that after WotLK goes live (that is to say, the actual update, not the patch), you won't get dismounted in water. Mounts can swim. This is just a little thing, but SO lovely! (I must say, it's the little things that I'm really looking forward to) Getting dismounted because you accidentally step in swamp water that's too deep is annoying! Huzzahs!

Expect MOAR UPDATES tonight or tomorrow. Weee!

WotLK System Requirements... and also Tabards!

2008-10-09T20:20:00.003-04:00

So they've updated the system requirements for WotLK. I'm not sure how long ago this happened, but I've been sick to death the last few days, so it's news to me.

Here they are, from the mouth of Blizzard itself:

PC System Requirements

OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 3), Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)

Processor:

Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2

Memory:

Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)

Video:

Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability

Mac System Requirements

OS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer

Processor:

Minimum: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor
Recommended: Intel 1.8GHz processor or better

Memory:

Minimum: 1 GB RAM
Recommended: 2 GB RAM

Video:

Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better

All Platforms

Controls: A keyboard and mouse are required. Input devices other than a mouse and keyboard are not supported.

Connectivity: You must have an active broadband Internet connection to play.

Mouse: Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended.

Hard Drive Space: 15 GB free hard drive space

I have two major concerns. The first is the hard drive space (I do hope that means total, not extra), for I will have to backup all my episodes of Doctor Who to make room when the time comes.

The other issue is that apparently they're not supporting the G4 mac anymore. Yes, yes, laugh all you want, I use a mac. I love my mac. If you don't like macs, oh well. Don't use them. In any case, I've got a PowerBook G4 and have had it for a while. It runs TBC pretty well (not spectacularily, I have to turn my graphics settings way down and Shatt looks like a slide show when it's busy), but I've gotten used to it. I just try not watch when my boyfriend plays on his super gaming rig. It makes me cry a little on the inside to see what the game looks like with full graphics enabled... it's such a pretty game! (And OMG, did you know that Hellfire Ramps is outside? I didn't. That's how bad my graphics are). In any case, I've read on several websites and blogs that there are plenty of G4 users in the beta and they're not having any trouble. Apparently the "minimum" requirements are actually recommendations as well, and one should be able to squeak by with less-than-optimal hardware in Wrath.

Hooray for me. I really hope this turns out to be the case, because I certainly am not going to buy a new computer just to play WotLK.

In other, more exciting news: apparently, in WotLK equipping a faction tabard will give you rep with that faction for killing ANYTHING in ANY level 80 dungeon. Furthermore you will be able to get the tabards at Friendly instead of Exalted.

This is both exciting and disappointing to me.

It is exciting because, YAY, rep grinding has become so much easier! Huzzahs!

It is dissapointing because I liked the fact that tabards were a status symbol: you could only get them once you had gone through the effort of getting exalted. I sort of liked that, it made me feel like I had accomplished something. Sure, I would usually get a piece of gear or an alchemy recipe for achieving the rep status, but I liked the tabard, because everyone knew how cool you were.

But then again, I hate grinding, so anything that decreases my need to grind is okay by me.

In which the author's guild may be suffering from expansionitis

2008-10-06T10:20:00.003-04:00

So recently (two or three weeks ago or so) the raiding schedule of my guild was completely revamped. A lot of people on our three Kara teams were realizing that they had all the gear they needed, and a lot of other people were getting frustrated that they couldn't run Kara with the guild because preference was occasionally given to undergeared alts of core members instead of new, geared players looking to give it a try.

So after what I can only assume was a lot fo work and tweaking by the guild leaders and advisers, new teams were put together. Many people were bumped out of Kara rotation into ZA rotation, Gruul's and Mag's lairs were given extra nights, etc etc.

So all this started a couple of weeks ago. My new Kara team (though there's really not much left from Kara for me at this point, but it's still fun and they need the dps) went on its first scheduled date without much trouble. The second Kara team didn't make it, they were missing too many key players. The next week, we were down a healer and an OT, so we rescheduled for last night (Sunday) at 7, and Team 2 was down 5 players so they rescheduled for last night at 6. Well, last night BOTH teams were canceled due to lack of appropriate players, so we mashed together some from Team 1 and some from Team 2 (and some random guildies) and made a good effort of it- up 'til Chess, and the hope is we'll finish tonight after ZA runs (IF ZA runs, I don't think they made it last week).

Now here's the problem for me. Four weeks ago or so we had THREE core Kara teams running every week, with two guild pugs (that were made entirely of guild members but still weren't "official" teams). Some teams were split up into two or three nights, so we had Kara running every night. The standby list to get into Gruul's and Mag's was long enough that no matter who couldn't make it, the team could still run. We were doing half a dozen heroics a day, easily.

Now? It's like pulling teeth to get a group together for the daily heroic, and we can barely get ONE Kara team going. Mag's this week was missing only a healer and a tank, but no one felt like switching to an alt for a couple hours and giving us a hand.

So what gives?

I'm sure it's a couple of things. One is that summer is over. While there aren't a lot of college-aged or younger players in my guild, there are some. So some people have less time on their hands, so that's part of it.

Another is that there seem to be a lot of 70s in the guild who are geared for the higher level raids, a lot of 70s geared for regular dungeons, and not much in between, so it's hard to get the mid-level stuff going.

Finally, and what I think the crux of the matter is, is WotLK. We've got a couple of weeks until patch 3.0 comes out, then a month until the update is released. A terrible plague of Expansionitis has taken hold of my realm. There is definitely a sentiment of "why bother with all the effort to get the most epic gear, it'll just get replaced with greens when we get to Northrend:" I've heard it from guildies and potential puggers alike. People seem to have given up griding raids and instances and PvP (although there has been a new surge in PvP now that Blizzard has announced that honor points roll over) in favour of leveling up an alt they want to bring to Northrend, leveling up old professions or new ones, making money, and things of that nature. Apathy is eating away at players left and right.

On the one hand, I guess it is nice for some people to take a break from certain aspects of the game just relax in anticipation of new content. But it's a terrible inconvenience for me, damnit! I wanna kill Kil'Jaeden before WotLK comes out! (Or at least Illidan ;p) I wanna punch Prince Malchezaar in the face with BOLTS OF PURE MOONKIN RAGE on a regular basis! I want my alt to run some more of the BC instances as she levels before no one runs them again!

C'mon people, don't you remember how fun this game is? You used to do this stuff all the time. I mean, I can't wait for WotLK to come out either, but that doesn't make me apathetic: it makes me want to suck every last bit of fun out of the Burning Crusade before it's ancient history! COME PLAY WITH ME!

I guess what it comes down to is I wish that people would get over their curse of Expansionitis, or that I would catch it too and wouldn't have to suffer constant disappointment when group stuff doesn't work out.

Weekly Kara Update

2008-10-02T08:31:00.008-04:00

This week in Kara: nada.

We didn't go. We were missing our offtank and couldn't find a replacement, boo-urns. I even tried starting the rumor that Prince Malchezaar was hogging cake up on the roof and would only share it if we defeated him, but to no avail.

Had the run rescheduled for Sunday. My only concern for this is that we're starting later on Sunday, and I know that a lot of people have work in the morning, so hopefully we can get it done.

A bunch of us decided to do the daily heroic (Botanica) instead for seven badges, so at least that was good.

Also, I had people in guild chat and trade chat gabbing that Blizzard announced that they're not going to be wiping honor and marks in WotLK.

I can definitely see why Blizzard would want to wipe honor and arena points, so you couldn't save them all up while you were a kick-ass level 70 so that it would be much easier to be a kick-ass level 80. People were saying that it would just be like being a level 70 twink (which seems a bit of an ironic phrase) and that they should be allowed to take advantage of that.

I don't know where I stand; first of all, I don't PvP, but to me the only PvE equivalent would be that Badges of Justice could be used to buy level 80 epic gear, and that people would start saving now so that they could get WotLK conent with all their effort in TBC, which seems slightly unfair. On the other hand, if you'd happened to be saving up honor and points anyway, it would probably suck to have all that work taken away from you. Plus the statement that points won't roll over could probably kill PvP on some servers, if people think it's not worth it to work for stuff they can't use anyway (assuming they've got a LONG way to go 'til their next item).

Plus, a lot of people were really upset when the announcement was first made that points wouldn't roll over, and EVEN MORE people spent all their points as a result. Now those people are upset that they don't have the points, and rightfully so. Make a decision and stick with it Blizzard!

Edit:
Thanks to Neil, I've now got confirmation that this is the fact:

"We had hoped that the introduction of some new Honor rewards in the upcoming patch would give players a great opportunity to spend any of their remaining Honor. However, many players would still be surprised by an Honor and token reset as it isn’t something we’ve done in the past. As such, we've decided to not reset Honor or tokens upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Players who save their Honor will be able to spend it on level 80 rewards, although those rewards will be significantly more expensive than their level 70 counterparts."

- source

MOONKIN IS 4 ARMAGEDDON

2008-09-29T18:18:00.003-04:00

Oh, and really quick: I love every article I have read about the level 80 typhoon bug in the beta (which has, sadly, been corrected), wherein the spell was lacking a both a cooldown and a mana cost.

People were binding the spell to their mousewheel and having at it: to the tune of over 100,000 dps.

There's a great video embedded in this Resto4Life post, which I have included because it has my favourite title for an article on the bug ever.

Watch the video, you'll get a kick out of it.

A good way to spend a rainy day

2008-09-29T17:54:00.003-04:00

So not all pick up groups are disasters. Case in point: how I spent my Saturday afternoon.

So it was very dreary and rainy where I am on Saturday. Couple this with the fact that I have a headcold and you end up with the perfect excuse to spend the day in pyjamas, curled up with the laptop.

Admittedly I only signed on to see if I could run the daily heroic. I found a group that was looking for a mage, but I offered my services anyway, and they seemed keen to have me along.

So we ran the daily, and when I say "ran," what I really mean is "murdered the crap" out of the daily. Admittedly it was Slave Pens, not the trickiest of the heroics, but we were done so quickly that when we finished we all stood around until someone asked, almost kiddingly, "Which heroic should we do next?"

Well, the answer was "ALL OF THEM."

Okay, not all of them. But we did Slave Pens then Unberbog, Ramparts, Steamvaults, Durnholde, and then finished with 2/3 of the Black Morass bosses before people had to leave. We only wiped twice: once because the tank disconnected and once because the healer was lagging. All in all we did almost 6 full heroics in a little over 5 hours, which boggled my mind.

I think a lot of the sucess was based on the makeup of the group. We had a druid tank (Gotta love the bears) who had around 24k armor and 20k hp: a sturdy leader! The rest of us were casters: a pally healer, a lock, an elemental shaman, and myself the moonkin. Now, when you're in a group with 4 casters, there's nothing more awesome than a shaman throwing down totems. Between the totem of wrath and my moonkin aura, we were all at +8% crit; throw in some wrath of air totem for the +101 spell damage, and you're rocking.

Of course, we had to limit ourselves to the instances with pulls of less than 4 mobs, at the request of the tank.

But all in all it was a fantastic experience, it really renewed my faith in pugs in general. All four members were polite and intelligent, conversation was cheerful and, when critism came up, it was constructive.

Plus it got me a HECK of a lot closer to my new chestpiece, which I should be able to afford after this week's Kara run! While I am trying to shy away from crit rate in exchange for haste rate (I am a bit of a threat hog, especially when I crit almost 30% of the time), I just can't say no to 60 bonus damage. Delicious!

This Week's Kara Roundup

2008-09-25T11:02:00.000-04:00

So last night was the first Kara run with one of our new Kara teams. It went pretty well! It look a little longer than it should (probably a combination of a new team with unfamiliar dynamics, the fact that there are some people new to Kara, and some team members with real life distractions), but we nailed everyone but Aran and Netherspite. We'll probably go back sometime and grab them.

So what did yours truly get out of it (lulz, wut wut, you may be thinking, she's still getting Kara gear? 'tis true. I still have some not-so-spectacular items). I got Mitts of the Treemender off of the Maiden, even though I technically DPS for this team. Off-set loot for the win!

One of the really nice things about being a druid is that you practically have dibs on all the leather casting gear. Sure, shammies and paladins can use it, but more often than not they're holding out for mail or plate. This team has one healadin and no shamen, so if it's leather and it's got +spell or +heal, it's practically mine. Yay!

My Tier 4 helm token dropped off the Prince, but I lost the roll, which is fine by me because the tank won it, and anything that makes our tank a better tank (he admits that he's a bit undergeared with this alt) will also make our runs go more smoothly, so that's fine by me.

So hopefully it will continue to go well. I still have hopes of killing Kil'Jaeden before WotLK comes out (har har, this is a bit of a pipe dream; if you look Draka up on WowJutsu you may notice that NO ONE in our ENTIRE REALM has killed him yet), but as for now I'll raid wherever I can. With any luck, next Wednesday's run will be faster and with even MORE loot for teh druid.

The Malorne headpieces are really neat looking. Looking cool is an important factor for me.

BARE IS 4 TANK

2008-09-25T10:12:00.010-04:00

There are oh-so-many changes taking place when Wrath of the Lich King is released, and many of them interest me directly (I'm loving the idea of a non-combat res for druid healers, for example, and multi-person mounts and aerial combat make me giddy), but for today I'd like to talk about the changes being made to the druid tank.

"But oh, wait!" you may be thinking, "our glorious author is resto and balance, why would she care about feral abilities?" Well, the reason is simple: I was initially drawn to the druid class because of its versatilty. I therefore love it when my druid brothers and sisters are able to take advantage of this portion of our class.

As it stands now, pre-WotLK, it's very clear that each of the tanking classes has strengths and weaknesses. Paladins have AoE which makes them good at tanking large groups, and have buffs, auras, and a res. Warriors have threat abilities that allow them to hold aggro on single targets even when CERTAIN TEAM MEMBERS are being threat mongers. *cough cough*

As for druids? Well, there are some disadvantages. Druids can't use sheilds, they don't have a block rating. They also can't be uncrushable like a pally or a warrior, and they have to shift out of bear form (which nukes their armor and hp) if they have to use a potion (though in a perfect world the healer will be taking care of the tank and this won't be necessary). But there are plenty of advantages to being a druid tank. Due to talents in the feral tree and the gear that is available, bears can have a lot more HP than your average tank, and a really good armor rating as well. Plus they can't be sheeped. I hate it when the tank is polymorphed (~~mostly because I'm usually pretty far up the threat list~~ because it can be tricky), so it's nice when he or she can't be! Also, because much of a druid tank's threat generation is based on dps, you'll have a tank who is also contributing to the total damage output of the team.

But what of WotLK? There is talk that a lot of the classes are being homogenized, so that all tanks are more like all tanks, all healers are more like all healers (in fact, Blizzard originally stated that they would prefer *not* to give Druids a regular ressurection for fear that it would turn druids into "Big Greeb Blobs" that too closely mirrored other healing classes, as the folks at Resto4Life kindly blogged about some time ago and then discussed again once the non-combat res was announced). I will definitely talk about some of the chages to healing (both for druids and other classes) that I like and don't like at some point in the future. But as for now, are we under the threat of a Bear form equivalent of Avenger's Sheild? Will they be throwing honey bees at the enemies?

It doesn't seem to be the case.

Instead, it seems like the benefits that druid tanks will be getting will simply improve areas where druids are already strong, for example:

"A new Talent that shores up a weak area is very, very deep in the Feral Talent tree. Currently, Thick Hide comes very early in the tree, and increases armor contribution from items by 10% when fully specced 3/3. Well, the new Talent deep in the tree builds on this further by adding another +10% armor contribution from items, which is nice enough, but it also serves to reduce all spell damage by 10% as well." (source)

So bears already had the advantage of high armor rating, looks like they'll be getting an even higher bonus: but they'll probably need it! I remember Arthas from WCIII, he was a jerk. And also: spell damage reduction? I've heard more than a few druid tanks complaining about spell damage, so this is a nice touch as well.

There are also new abilities to increase DPS, such as Rend and Tear, which increases Maul and Shred damage, and improved Mangle which lowers the cooldown, allowing the ability to be used more often. While some people have complained that druids are simply getting more of the same, I personally like these changes: druid tanks gain threat through their DPS, so anything that increases DPS will make a more effective tank.

So will druid tanks ever be the favoured tanks? I think it will depend on the group.

But I'm glad to see that they're not being made into Big Sheilded Blobs in WotLK: keep our Bears unique!

Of Alts and Algebra

2008-09-24T09:32:00.006-04:00

First off, I would like to say that I don’t mean this as an insult to anyone who has multiple characters. I am merely very curious of- nay, fascinated by- people who are able to pull this off. So pardon my musings if you’ve just gotten your eleventh character up to 70.

Many of the people who play in my guild have a good number of alts. This is not an epidemic of altitis, the disease in which a person creates many characters but then never levels any of them up. No, we are talking about multiple level 70’s.

For example, my (wonderful) guild (no really, I really like my guild) has two leaders, and each leader’s wife also plays and also has a high rank in the guild. All four of them are somewhere in their late twenties to thirties (I think; I’m a terrible judge of age, especially considering I’ve only got a voice to go on. One day I’ll ask them, if it’s not terribly impolite. I’m interested about these sorts of things).

As for WoW, here’s where it gets a little crazy: one of our leaders has eight level 70’s and his wife has six, while the other has six 70’s and his wife has seven. On our server. I know that some have Horde toons as well, and at least one of them actively plays in the Beta.

This is a norm for the guild. Most of the core players have several to many maxed characters and are working on leveling more. I know that I have a main who is 70 and one alt who is almost 70, and I can’t imagine the amount of work it takes to have more than that.

Is it a norm for the player base as a whole to have so many alts? It could be a norm for everyone as far as I know. I’m not a WoW census taker. Try as I could, I couldn’t find any information about the average number of played characters per player. There seems to be a good number of people who only have one or two characters, but plenty that have more (for example, take a look at this post from WoW Insider: scroll down and read the comments. You’ll see what I mean).

There are a couple of questions I have about having SO many characters. The first is related to game mechanics: how do you keep them all geared and progressed? I have enough of a hard time juggling dailies, heroics, making money on the AH, grinding rep and raiding (Although now that I’ve got my epic mount I think I’ll finally be able to ease up on money-based tasks), and that’s with ONE character. How can you keep all that up with MULTIPLE characters? I’m surprised they can keep it all straight! Who has which professions, who has which gear, it goes on and on.

The second question is somewhat more related to a player’s real life. According to sites that sell power-leveling guides, if you power level you can get from 1 to 70 in six to eight days (that’s six to eight days of played time, so 144 to 192 hours total). But that doesn’t include things like doing PvP, or instances, or raids, or grinding rep or farming for materials to level up professions. That’s just to ding 70. Now, the characters I’m talking about are all well geared with maxed out professions, so we can’t talk minimums here. Personally it took me a little less than 20 days to get to 70, but I did a lot of putzing around, and I was learning the game as I went.

So if we took an average of, say, 15 days of play time to get to 70 (this will definitely get you to 70 if you know what you’re doing; it may be an underestimate to assume it will get you geared for raiding, but this is just a mental exercise. Go with it), let’s consider some things. 15 days of play time per character is a total of 360 hours. For eight characters, that ends up being 2,880 hours of play time to get to 70. World of Warcraft came out in November of 2004 (according to Wikipedia), so it’s been just about four years. 2,880 hours of play time divided evenly over four years leaves you with almost 14 hours a week to get eight characters up that high. 14 hours. That’s almost the equivalent of taking five three-credit classes at college! Not too bad, though, that’s two hours per day, every day.

Plus, I know for a fact that many people have NOT been playing since the game came out. For one thing, my realm wasn’t even created until November of 2005. Now we’re up to 18 hours a week to level up 8 characters. And if a player only started when The Burning Crusade came out (which was in January of 2007), then you’ve only been playing for 20 months and that 2,880 hours of total play time would have taken you an average of 36 hours a week to complete. That’s practically a full time job, an average of over five hours per day (including weekends, of course- it would be seven hours a day assuming you took two days off a week like you would at a job).

And this is with a timeframe of 15 days per character, which I have a feeling is extremely low.

What kind of impact does this have on your real life? My alt-tacular guild members seem pretty well-adjusted. They’re fun (and completely normal!) to talk to, they have family, friends, and interests outside of WoW.

But on the other hand.

I mean, me, I’m currently a student. I’m in my last year of college. I’m taking four classes (many of which are gen eds, my majors are finished except for one class next semester). I’ve got enough money saved up that I’m not working a full-time (or even 20-hour a week) job. I have LOTS OF TIME ON MY HANDS. Seriously. You should look at some of the knitting projects I’m working on right now. LOTS OF FREE TIME. So yeah, the average of 12 hours a week that I play (I just calculated it out now) is a bit, but I certainly don’t have to take time out of my week to make room for WoW. It’s certainly not the thing I spend most of time my time on.

But if you’ve got a full-time job and a family (lots of my guild members have children) and you have to deal with all the terrible real-world things (according to, once again, the Daedalus Project, the average age of a WoW player is 28.3) that us college kids get to avoid until we graduate (and then panic under our newfound necessitated nuisances), what is it like to be spending almost (or in some cases, well over) 40 hours a week at this game? I have no idea.

So yeah, I was thinking about that earlier. I’d like to put together a post about gaming addiction some time (I read a really good article about it, and by “good” I mean interesting, in the same way that shitake mushrooms are interesting, I’m not sure I buy what the author’s selling) with some actual facts and information and whatnot. But as for right now, these are just some thoughts.

Got some you’d like to share? Comment away.

Woot!

2008-09-23T23:45:00.001-04:00

Finally nabbed my Dire Brew Hops!

Now I can start saving up tokens for the Brew of the Month club.

Free beer + an achievement in WotLK = doing this for sure!

It's a good day for a drink.

2008-09-23T09:35:00.004-04:00

So did Blizzard get really drunk one day and decide that they were going to make it REALLY EASY for everyone to get the 41 badge of justice trinkets?

Because that's what the Brewfest is looking like to me. :D

Let's see... 4 full Kara runs for badges or a quick jaunt to BRD? Which one would YOU pick?

Anyway, all I want is that dang healing trinket but so far I've gotten just about everything BUT it.

I got me a mount, the dps spell casting trinket (which isn't as good as the ones I already have, and the AP trinket (lulz, I had to take it because all the other members already had one).

But I've still got some time before the 'Fest ends, so hopefully I'll nab it soon. Because I've been saving up for the Essence of the Martyr and it would be nice to use those badges for something else.

More flew flew and less pew pew

2008-09-10T11:55:00.010-04:00

So I finally got my epic flight form, after jumping through all the ridiculous hoops the game makes you jump through. Seriously, I had already paid for the training, and I almost just bought an epic rider. The only thing that kept me from doing that was the fact that flight form is an instant cast, and I’ve gotten used to being able to switch between forms in mid air.

So the quest itself was pretty ridiculous (as I’ve already mentioned, but STILL, it warrants mentioning again) and all I had left to do was run Heroic Sethekk Halls to kill Anzu.

My first mistake? Pugging it. Pugs are almost ALWAYS a bad idea. So here’s what went down.

It’s a fairly common situation. I’m in a pickup group and we’re part way though an instance when someone suggests that we all get on voice chat or vent. Everyone gets it set up and someone gives the ready call. People respond in turn, but when I say “ready,” there’s a short silence which is almost always filled by some iteration of the phrase, “Oh, dude! I didn’t realize you were a girl!”

Now, from this point, there are usually three ways the instance progresses. The first, and ALMOST most common is that no one cares and we just keep playing. My guild, for instance, knows I’m a girl. There’s plenty of female players in my guild. So that’s fine. And plenty of times, I’m with a mature bunch of people who actually enjoy playing this game and won’t let the lack of a Y chromosome on one of their current party members bother them.

The second outcome is that I get hit on. Not so bad, but believe me, having someone whisper you with the message “I’m sure you’ve been told this before but you have a BEAUTIFUL voice” while you’re trying to kill the Ghost of Aran halfway through Kara is a LEETLE bit distracting (true story, we actually wiped because the stupid priest was too busy sending me messages. While I’ll pug almost any instance, I will NEVER pug Kara again- that run was a complete disaster, creepy priests aside. Another story for another time). This doesn’t really bother me, because I just ignore it or play games with the person hitting on me (“Who me? Yeah, I’m 22 and from Rhode Island, and I just started hormones a few weeks ago! My sex change surgery is next week!” There's nothing like the threat of maybe being a man that will stop unwanted flirting). Sometimes it’s more subtle than being hit on directly- sometimes you just see that you’re getting preference on loot rolls. Or that the paladin resses you first after a soul-stoned wipe. Whatever. I don’t want preferential treatment ‘cause I’ve got boobs, but I can deal with a LITTLE chauvinism now and then. Real life has trained me to let this slide.

But no, this Sethekk Halls run was decidedly of outcome TYPE THREE, the most annoying and (in my opinion) ludicrous result of the realization that a party member is female. Suddenly there’s a not-so-subtle change in the comments directed at me. Compliments such as “nice save!” or “good timing on that heal” become tips: “Make sure you keep your buffs up!” “Max out your lifebloom on the tank before he pulls!” Suddenly I have to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Every boss fight is explained to me before we start. Whenever something goes wrong it magically becomes my fault. (Really? I pulled aggro? That’s strange, considering I don’t have any offensive spells loaded in my bar and I’m still waiting in the LAST room for my mana to regen because all of a sudden the rest of the group won’t wait for the healer before charging into the next fight).

REALLY? * gasp * Is that how I play my character? I had NO idea! I certainly haven’t been doing this for 70 levels. I CERTAINLY haven’t been doing it for the last half hour. You saw it. In real time! You were right here watching me be a perfectly competent member of the team. So what’s with the change of tone, dudes?

From what I can tell (and, in some cases, what I’ve been told outright), there is a general assumption that girls are not serious players, both in WoW and in the gaming community in general. We’re too emotional, we’re “not really into it,” we only play because our boyfriends or husbands make us. So on and so forth I’ve heard it all.

Now, it would be one thing if female players were statistically less competent than their male counterparts. But no, most of the time, us girls get along just fine and no one even notices until the situation actually comes up where our gender is revealed.

Nihilum, the second best guild in the game according to WoW Jutsu who were once famously rebuked for having a notice reading “girls need not apply” on their application to join a raid team, boasted in a recent interview that they have a diverse guild that includes- hold your breath now, this is amazing- ONE female player. (you can listen to the interview here ). So in a 25 or 40 man raid, the most you can hope for is one girl. Yup. And she might not even be in full rotation.

Sure, there might be more male players on WoW than females (according to the Daedalus Project, 84% of the players are male). More male players would mean, statistically, that more of the top players are male. But that DOES NOT mean that a female player is automatically NOT one of the top players. And it CERTAINLY does not mean that female players should be treated any differently than male players.

So that’s the dilemma, and quite a dilemma it is, because I can’t seem to come up with any way to fix the situation. I mean, the obvious answer would be for all us girls to go out there and kick ass, get good gear, join good guilds and prove that we can run with the boys. But we do that already, and most people see girl gamers like this as exceptions to the rule instead of the norm, no matter how hard we try. When it comes right down to it the sexism that exists within the gaming culture is just a result of the inherent sexism that exists in American culture as a whole. As long as the latter exists, the former will too.

The other choice, I guess, is that we could just go out there and get good gear and kick ass and not care that some people will not think we’re serious gamers. I mean, seriously. It’s a game. Who cares if some twenty-something dude living in his mother’s basement won’t take my awesome druid to Mag’s Lair because I’m a girl and he can’t handle that.

When it comes right down to it WoW is something I do for fun. I don’t play professionally, and while I’m JUST as good as the “hardcore” members of my raiding guild, I certainly don’t have a hardcore attitude about it. Because the minute this becomes a chore instead of something fun and entertaining to do on weekends, its no longer a game. So I let it slide. If you’re sexist I won’t group with you again. No problem there.

So yeah, I can get over it. And I can try to remind myself it’s not a big deal. And most of the time it’s not. But in that one moment where I hear the inevitable “Dude, wait, you’re a girl? No WAY!” I can’t help but cringe a little on behalf of the gaming base as a whole.

But hey, at least I’ve got my epic flight form now. BRID IS 4 SCOUT. And it’s all worth it for that sweet, sweet 280% speed increase. And the neat trinket.

Ta!

Playing Well with Others

2008-09-09T11:39:00.002-04:00

(aka in which our author has friends outside of Azeroth*)

So if we had to define what exactly WoW is, I’m pretty sure the “Massively Multiplayer” portion of Massively Multiplayer Online Game” is an important part of the whole experience. If you played this game and never interacted with anyone else, you might as well be playing Diablo II (And believe me, I’m not knocking Diabo II. Love the game, can’t wait for III to come out). Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, there are plenty of differences between the two games. What I mean to say is that interacting with other people is important: if you’re not running instances or raid, or doing PvP, or getting help with group quests, or simply sharing in the frustration of farming motes of fire when six other people are trying to do the same thing in the same place, then you’re definitely missing out on some of the game.

In any case, the way I see it, there are a few ways of being social in WoW. You can be social out of necessity: you need to kill Pandemonius and you can’t do it alone, or you want to run an instance so you put together a pickup group. How much you want to interact at this level is up to you. You can simply pretend that your teammates are NPCs and do what you have to do, or have a quick chat with them, or you can pour your heart out and try to connect with them on a spiritual level. Whatever, it’s up to you.

Secondly, you can be social by choice and for purposes beyond game mechanics. You join a guild. Sure, you might just do it to have good players to run high-level content with. That’s fine. But many people, myself included, find that the more you interact with the same group of people over and over again, the more you get to know them, and the more they seem like “real” people instead of pixels on a screen. I would certainly go so far as to refer to my guildmates as acquaintances, at least insofar as you can have acquaintances online. Would I call them friends? Maybe, with some more time: I’m fairly new to my current guild (a couple of months, I’d say). Who knows what the future holds. But again, they’d be friends only insofar as someone you’ve never actually met can be a friend (what this insinuates is another story for another time! Do I think you can have internet “friends?” I’m not entirely sure, but its an interesting topic)

But there’s a third type of social interaction that can be a part of this game, and its one that takes place in the real world.

There are a few people I know in the real world who play WoW. I mentioned in my first post that I was introduced to WoW through a friend: well, that friend was my boyfriend at the time (and still is!). When he first saw that I was interested in the game he made an alt to level with me (a gnome rogue; I must say, a rogue/druid combo is a pretty good way to level), and this alt eventually became his main character and the first (and only, so far) character he leveled to 70. Both of us have alts that we play separately, and both of us agree that playing separately is not nearly as fun as playing together: not just because it’s easier to level and quest in a group, but because when you play with someone else you have someone who’s sharing experiences (and I don’t mean experience points!) with you and can keep things entertaining. He also has the added bonus that his girlfriend can’t be mad at him for playing WoW (only for playing WoW without her and running instances in which her dungeon set 3 drops when she is not there).

Besides him, my sister also plays (a retribution paladin on my server who’s not quite 70 yet) and I have a couple of other friends who play as well, though not on my server. To me, this makes the game more enjoyable. Of course, when you have a hobby it’s always good to know other people who share that hobby. And while people in the game technically all share my love of WoW, it’s nice to have people that I have other things in common with also enjoy the game I play. It’s also fun to finish an instance with some of us in the same room and others that were picked up, then go out to have drinks and laugh about it, content in the knowledge that the conversation will eventually steer away from WoW and onto other things.

A lot of people knock playing MMORPGs with other people in real life, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

So yeah, some people would find it odd to see two people sitting on a couch playing a MMORPG together, (and accidentally talking to each other through vent when there’s a raid, for example), but the analogy I always try to use is this: would it be so weird to see two people sitting at a table playing a board game together? Okay, maybe, in today’s day and age. But what about two people playing Halo or any other multiplayer video game? Not so much. I see little difference between a regular multiplayer game and an MMORPG, except for the fact that in the latter there’s also 10 million other people playing at the same time.

But you can’t throw things at those other 10 million when they steal your quest item. It’s really much more fun when you can.

*And no, she doesn’t mean they’re in the Outlands, har har

The Whirldwind Azeroth to Outlands Tour

2008-09-08T02:08:00.005-04:00

So I'm running through the RIDICULOUSLY LONG QUEST to get my epic flight form. So far I have a couple complaints.

1. Throw a quest that you need to be a tank for? Come on. BARE IS 4 TANK. I am not a bear. I can pew pew with the rest of you casters, but I'm not respeccing just for one part of a 17 part chain, or buying 80g worth of gear.

How did I end up killing the eagle guy? Logged in after I'd been running Scholomance so I had two sets of pally buffs and the priest +stam. MOONKIN IS 4 SPAM MOONFARE. It worked out.

This is only after I'd wasted about 60g on repairs because of complaint number 2.

2. I understand that you want flying to be a requirement for killing the three bird guardians, Blizzard, but putting them somewhere you can't access on foot leads to trouble: if you die, your ghost can't get back to your corpse. So you have to res at the spirit healer, take the extra 10% item damage (which equals GOLD OUT THE WINDOW) and wait ten minutes worth of res sickness.

3. WARN ME THAT THE MOONSTONE GOES IN MY KEYCHAIN. Lulz. I searched my bag frantically for that damn thing, couldn't find it. Abandoned the quest. Took it back. Quest giver wouldn't give me another moonstone. OH NOES! Turns out it goes in your keychain. Crisis averted.

Other than that, the chain has just been long. Kinda neat, though... it makes you use ALL of your druid talents (cat form, bear form, spells, swim form, herb picking, etc etc). Other than the fights I thought I'd never win, it's been fun.

Now all I have left to do is run Heroic Sethekk Halls, which no one has been doing. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be the daily soon, so I can nab the Anzu fight then. Then victory shall be mine and I shall be an HERB PICKING MACHINE, flying around Zangarmarsh 300% faster than the rest of you poor level 63's on foot. ALL THE RAGVEIL IS MINE!

Muahaha!

Obligatory First Post Infos!

2008-09-04T09:19:00.012-04:00

Hello and welcome to my blog! It is the home of druids, friends of druids, and also awesome (okay, so I talk about things other than druids, but come on now. You show me something cooler than a Moonkin and I will show you that you are wrong).

So I figured I'd start by talking a little bit about who I am so you will know where I'm coming from and what I want to do here, and also because I (may) be doing this blog for a class assignment and we had to do an "about me" post. Is this true? Is it a lie? YOU WILL NEVER KNOW.

So here we go!

The author is a twenty-something college student from rural New England who has inevitably (and unfortunately, as some would say) grown up a gamer. Although she had been an avid Blizzard fan her whole life (and had NEVER zergling-rushed in a 2v2 rated game of Starcraft), she had once sworn to keep her distance from the potential soul-devouring genre of the MMORPG.

All of this changed one fateful and rainy evening, many moons ago, whilst her roommate was making dinner and had left his laptop open and logged in to his WoW account. She was bored, and decided to muck around with the character creator on his account. A character may or may not have been made. Two hours and ten levels later (dinner had gotten cold at this point), she was hooked.

And now here she is, reveling in the endgame content of The Burning Crusade and eagerly awaiting the now-immanent release of Wrath of the Lich King. She currently plays as a level 70 Night Elf Druid, switching specs between Boomkin (owl is 4 moonfare!) and Resto (tree is 4 haelz!) in a decently progressed raiding guild.

So now she’s experienced enough of the game to yammer on about it for a while, hopefully with some semblance of intelligence. This blog will focus on a few things: first, the woes and joys of endgame content in WoW as it exists now- from the now-fabled Draka Slabs run of Aught Eight run with four casters and an off-spec tank, to the wonderful skill it takes to be a level 70 druid with flight form who is still able to die running off of Teleredor, to dreams of actually seeing (though probably not killing) Kil’Jaeden before November 13th. Dungeons and raiding and questing- oh my! They say the game begins at 70, and, whoever “they” are, they’re not kidding.

Secondly, this will be a place of speculation (or, when the information allows, direct analysis) of the changes that will take place with the release of the new expansion pack. Whether you love what you’ve heard from Blizzard so far or love to hate the changes they’re making to your beloved game, all of the rumours slipping out of the Beta are fair game for blog fodder.

Finally, your author will use this blog as a place to discuss some of the issues she has with the game, from the utterly mundane (healers get no respect, yo) to more serious issues such as the difficulty one can face being female in a game predominated by males, or the psychological issues one should really consider that result from taking part in what is meant to be a fully-immersive fantasy world.

So browse on, noble reader. Hopefully you’ll be informed, or at least entertained, by what you find here, but if worse comes to worse and you find yourself thinking that this blog is more OOM than Boom, feel safe in the knowledge that you can always alt-tab out and grind some more honor for that next piece of PvP gear you’re looking for.

But hey, maybe not!

May your loot be epic and class-oriented, and may your grinding be quick. Happy reading!