Friday, February 29, 2008

A Chip In Our Bark



That's right. For those who read... well. Any other druid blog, they should know the dramatic change that Blizzard is making to Lifebloom. ~%8 nerf to Lifebloom (according to Phaelia
). The change is exemplified by Brelaine:
Right now with 2058 healing on the PTR, my Lifebloom is ticking for for 231. With Maxed out Empowered Rejuvenation, Gift of Nature and Idol of the Emerald Queen Equipped On Live my Lifebloom ticks for 252.


Those who aren't familiar with druids might not think that this is a drastic change. But for us, and especially our tree cousins, this is devastating. The average tree's Lifebloom makes up at -least- 75% of their healing, if not as much as 95%.

The nerf was announced in an attempt to balance resto druids out in the Arena (specifically, 2v2s), and, as far as the lot of us are concerned, will affect PvE more than PvP and Arena, and is not taken fondly at all due to the great lack of many of our kind not PvPers, but yet, we all get "Beat With The Nerf Bat" (Sioban).

Say "no" to Blizzard by adding the above image to your blog!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Real Girls Don't Play WoW

Or so the saying goes. After all, MMORPG is known to stand for 'many men online roleplaying girls" right? Generally. However, there are, actually, a good many of us females that do play WoW...

And, if we weren't brave enough to do so in the first place, some of the conversations make me wish I really didn't play it...

Tuesday night, for example, in guild chat. A couple of hours before Josh left. Legion went from having one main druid (me) to having two other seventy druids (Nar-Nar and Kim, both feral)... bringing the total up to three feral druids at seventy, and one sixty-seven(ish. She keeps leveling) feral. No boomkins, no trees.

So in guild chat (I was bored and running around Burning Steppes praying to the herb gods for me to find Mountain Silversage), I made a mention about how we have lots of feral druids and need more trees, for, who else would get all of the yummy leathery goods for healers? The responses I got, and the conversation after... wow...

[Both Nar-Nar and Kim both noted that they both have healing gear, and Kim goes and says that he has the vest off of Nightbane. I mention that I have the staff... and Nar says that she is still wearing her Moonglade Robe. To which I said that I was wearing the Masquerade Gown...]
"Besides, us girls look better in dresses."
Someone else in the guild chimed up: "Real girls don't play WoW."
(Nar had logged off right before he said this, and logged back on after he did. She, also being a girl in real life, had to know what he said. So...)
"Nar-Nar! --- said that real girls don't play WoW. So if we aren't real girls, what are we?"
Nar: "Manly men."
Kim: "No, you could be a girl... just with a little extra something in your pants."
"o.o Ewww."
Nar: "kekekek"
-silence- Then...
"Does that mean that we have man-boobs too?"
Nar: "A man with DD cups is HAWT."
Kim: "Ewwwwwwww."
Nar: "I'd like to date a man with the same bra size as me."
Kim: "O.O"
"He'd have to get his own bras though..."
Josh inserts his two cents, which followed the line of him being a manly man with boobs, which elicted more "ewwwws" from the lot of us, and him going "loljk".
And Nar said that she was kidding too.

The conversations... -shakes her head- Love Legion. How can I not?

And last night. One of our newest guildies whispered me... (Conversation ran the line of this, and him not being literate either):
"Hi, I'm new to the guild. My name's Aaron."
"Welcome!"
"I know you're in ZG [yes, I went to ZG last night and FINALLY hit revered with the two bosses we downed] but I just wanted to introduce myself."
"Oh, don't worry about it. We were just in a rough spot."
"Okay. What's your name?"
"Lynn." (The name my guild know me as).
"You're a girl playing WoW?"
"Yup."
"How old are you and where do you live? 35/houston here."
[I start showing this to my fellow officers... added with twitches and ewwww. He's almost twice my age...]
"Come now, dear. Legion isn't running a dating service for me."
"Sorry. Was curious... could we get to know each other better sometime?"

I didn't answer, and he logged soon after.

Three years or so of playing WoW, and this is the first time the first time that I can honestly say that I've been hit on like that. And I understand why some girls just don't let anyone know they're girls...

C'mon, guys... Other than the obvious reason that many girls aren't inclined to playing WoW, there are other reasons too...

A Loss to Legion

Tuesday night... a rather ridiculous thing occurred, and for the lot of us, we hope that it won't tear the guild apart. Vese (Josh), our warrior, co-leader (who has been on the brink of overthrowing Sol for all the work he has been doing in the guild), and raid leader, left. Just /gquit.

Why? Well. From Justin, I heard that it was over someone who wanted to join the guild. By the mass recruitment spree that Josh has been on, it wouldn't have been a problem. Shouldn't. But it was. You see, this person had left the guild before (for no good reason, apparently), and Josh held a grudge toward him and didn't want him back in, said that it was a guild decision to make... and Sol invited him anyway. Because of this, he left. And, as of last night, five people have also followed him. Mainly, I hear, because he had recruited them for a Gruul's raid that he was going to start up, and... well. With Josh gone, it was going to get put on hold. Still. It makes us fear.

Last time main people left from Legion, it was us lot to overthrow the old leaders due to the fact that their ways were not liked and they did nothing to change it despite the approaches by us.

But last night, Josh whispers me, telling me that he had too much stuff going on in real life and really should quit WoW. Because of this, he is going to give me his account (with his two seventies) and I could do whatever I wanted with it. Gee. As if I know how to play a warrior (arms) and a priest (holy)... (although, I hear, if I roll my face around the keyboard, I should be able to tank as a warrior just fine. -grins-)

I don't know what Legion will do without our raid leader, but I suppose we'll manage. Sol will have to step up and take his spot, I suppose, although, for him, it will be a bit harder due to his family and child obligations. Here's to hoping that we, as a... well, Legion, will survive.

Reminds me. I guess I get to be the one to give that second part of the news to the rest of the guild... Lucky me.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Huntards and Not-So-Talented Warriors

The other day, a guildie wanted to a heroic -- any heroic. Me, being me and really wanting my belt from Herioc Ramparts, suggested that. Fine with him; he only wanted badges (him being a rogue [Kuri]). He found us a healer (Mac -- holy paladin), and a hunter. I was on my druid, and, recently, just haven't been in a tanking mood, and wanted to look for a tank. A while passed, and no tanks... then, Mac made a mention about an old friend of mine (and, apparently, a mutual friend of Mac's too), that I, in jest, always called Nar-Nar... a feral druid that was better geared than I. Nar switched over, got ninja invited, and was willing to go... as long as she didn't have to tank.

Fine. It was Nar-Nar. We'd probably be slightly better off with her DPSing as well, so... off we went. First few pulls I noticed something: the hunter trapped... and then started to take damage for a few moments, then Mac was taking damage. I kept pulling it off of both of them, and, on the pull after that, watched the hunter. He didn't retrap. Not well. He'd go shooting away, and then the trap broke, ran after him, and had an "oh crap" moment of running backwards, wing clipping, running around... and tried to kill him on his own without retrapping. (Happened for many pulls, and I know that his traps couldn't be on cooldown all that time.) It ended up that Nar went bear form to go save our healer half of the time as well, simply because I had my face tangled up with a caster and couldn't get back to our healer in time... And this was a heroic. But we finished the instance more or less intact, for which I was thankful for. (And, once again, the belt didn't drop. The plate one did.)

Later that day, my guild wanted to do the daily: Heroic Botanica. We had four: Ash (holy priest), Ramby (mage who was originally going to go on his warlock, but as I wanted to DPS, he was fine with going on his mage), and Sol (the guild leader on his rogue)... and me, the wanna-be cat. And spent a while looking for a tank while all of us continued to do dailies and the like... well. except for me.

I met Dara (a feral from one of the Kara runs I visit at times, and a member of GuildWatch) and had a blast chasing a mage around (who kept running towards the guards and trying to get us killed that way), and... well. A shaman who tried to heal him. Nothing is better than watching the shaman try to kill Dara, who was flying close-by, pouncing, shredding, mangling, ferocious-biting his face and killing him. And then going into stealth and waiting right behind his body... and he ankh'd, spinning around while casting a heal... and ravaging his face back into death. -grins- No one attacks my friends... acquaintances... on my watch. At least, not if I can help it.

By that time, we had got a full prot warrior, and headed off. It... wasn't pretty. Everyone had died a couple of times and we wiped twice more before we got to the first boss. At the first boss, Ash had to blow all of his cooldowns to keep him up... the second time. The first, he tried to tank the boss on the bridge, which none of us were used to, and was out of range... and the rate by which he dropped... well. He was dead, and so were we all. Ash was starting to doubt his healing skills (as the warrior is full prot after all), which was ridiculous as he is fully epic'd out and the only one of us Legion members that has really seen the inside of SSC. And, by this time, both Sol and I were thinking that we could tank far better than he. I was so tired of dying that I was willing to go bear, and Sol was almost ready to give up his chance for a nether, and for making a leatherworking chestpiece, in order for our group to be successful. I had to speak up.
"How much defense do you have?"
"480"
[in Guild Officer chat, for the rest of us were Officers] What does that mean, Sol? I don't know anything about warriors.
[Sol] It means that he doesn't have enough. Warriors need 490.

Ah-ha. Maybe that was the reason why the warrior was going down so fast... next pull, we wiped again, and were discussing kicking him in Officer chat... when he said that he had to go. Well, that made life easier. He left, I asked in LAF (Lost and Found, a channel for a group of us friends/roleplaying nuts) if anyone cared to come DPS. Got a good hunter, Sil, and we were off again, me tanking in half bear gear and Ash not having a problem at all (I did put on full for harder pulls/bosses), and we did the rest of the instances fairly easily (minus the part where Ramby kept dying on the AoE pulls...), and the wipe where Ramby accidentally got too close (silly easily excited gnomes).

I think, because of this, I have been rather reluctant to level both my shaman and my hunter -- I dislike questing, and prefer to instance my way up, but as I keep finding idiots in heroic instances... what's to say that the nightmare won't change for a normal instance? Sure, there's plenty of apt players, but it is the ones who screw up that makes us doubt...

Monday, February 25, 2008

Chaos in the Workplace

Where has my weekend gone? I meant to post about my experiences, but yet... well. Clearly I haven't. I do have an excuse though: major work issues.

Lets backtrack for a few moments here.

About two months back, a deposit went missing at work (I work at Einsteins Bagels). A thousand dollars went poof. Naturally, the company was quite unhappy, and a huge investigation was started. They came over, interviewed everyone, made us uncomfortable. While the little lot of us had grown close in the months of working together, the investigation helped us grow even closer together under the threat of losing members of our little "family". Now, let it be known that I only work weekends and holidays; school makes it superfluous to actually go into work for two hours on the weekday. But I've been known to pop into work during the week to grab a bite on my way up to the library, or to Starbucks (as it is next door).

Last Tuesday, I popped in, and there were completely new people behind the counter.

I was confused and cautious, and asked where the normal crew was... And then they told me.

Our manager and assistant manager had both been fired as a result of the investigation. The investigators had no real proof, but needed someone's head to roll... and who better than the managers? -sighs- Oh, and our rather creepy (in my opinion) cashier as well, for something he said during the investigation.

Crap. They've what? Took away the leaders of our family. Especially the assistant manager, who, while joined us rather late, made himself such an important member whom we all felt comfortable with. I was in shock, but decided that I liked the temporary GM that they gave us (who would be with us for a few months) and the assistant manager that was there for only a couple of days. So, with that in mind, lets forward to Saturday.

There was a new assistant manager that day who was completely unpleasant. Completely. Didn't introduce herself, wasn't friendly at all, snappy, and just... overall a type of person that was the exact opposite from the old assistant manager. Now, me, I'm used to work being an escape from home, and, to go into work and find it as unpleasant as home... well. It wasn't good. And the impact of the complete change hit me, and I spent the better part of four hours in tears or close to tears.

And, Michael, once more, became my knight in shining armor and popped in (unknowingly, actually) and saved me from work. Made him late for a big work meeting, even, but he didn't mind too much, and it did help.

[-cuts out an exert on Heroic Botanica-]

Sunday. Well, lets just say that it went well enough except for my little splat with one of my co-workers... which involved her telling me that I should go home if I wasn't going to do anything (while I was eating and multitasking), and me telling her that I would stay overtime to help them clean, and her telling me that I could go home anyway if I wanted to choose what I wanted to clean. Silly, really, but still rather irritating, as I was willing to give up part of my afternoon so she could clean less, but she wouldn't have me cleaning what I wanted to in order to help them. -shrugs-

So that's what's been going on... and now, for that cutout of Heroic Botanica with the... dun dun dun... warrior... Oh. And a note on huntards too.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Cat Query :: Rotations

Q u o t e [ From the WoW Druid Forums ]:
sorry I just had a quest about feral druid attacks I was curious about too.

I am only level 34, but at 36 I believe I get a new move called 'Pounce'. There are a lot of moves feral druids get and I'm not sure what I am supposed to be using in PvE or PvP. I think pounce has to be used in stealth, but I'm not totally sure.

I have a move called 'Ravage' which has proven to be really good. I have pulled off a few 300-500 crits off with it. When I get this pounce move, do I stop using ravage? There are also other moves like claw and rake. I only use these to acquire combo points. I also just got ferocious bite a while ago... Should I be using this over Rip?

Finally there is the move mangle, which I can get at level 50 or 51. Where do I use this in my attack rotation?

Okay. Lets break all of the spells that's been listed. Generally, of course. No numbers. Ever. (I hope.)

Pounce: A stun and a bleed. Opening move, must be in stealth.

Ravage: Lots of damage. Opening move, must be in stealth.

Rip: Finishing move with a bleed.

Ferocious Bite: Finshing move. Pure damage.

Mangle: Damage, and increases the damage from bleeds.

And the spells you didn't address:

Shred: First gained at level 22. Can only be used when behind a target. Does damage.

Claw: Gained at 20. Does damage.

Rake: Gained at 22. A bleed.

Maim: Gained at 62. A finishing move, incapacitates the target. Any direct damage done will revive the target.

Now, I'm not going to mash out numbers, just give you a general idea of cat spells.

As a seventy, the general rotation would go as follows (on solo mobs): Pounce > Shred > Shred (if you have the energy for it) > Faerie Fire Feral > Mangle (After 50)...

And this is where you have to make a decision. But we're supposing that you didn't get the shred off, nor the mangle Or Maim. (Which means the rotation has been decreased to Pounce > Shred.) I am personally a fan of Rake, while many of my fellow ferals don't. I, personally, would rake him at this point. And then, if he is at low health, white hit him while spamming my lovely Ferocious Bite button for when I have enough energy to bite his face off. If he is not, I use Rip, adding another DoT on him and then claw (and refresh Rake) him to four/five combo points and see where he is. If he's almost dead, Ferocious Bite. If not, rinse and repeat.

Pounce, Rake, and Rip are the three bleeds that druids have.

When not to use them is on things that don't bleed. That's when you bring out ravage. Ravage is more of a group attack than anything: when you know that your target won't turn around and you can shred him without any worries, and when bleed effects are useless.

[[ Will go into higher level rotations in a bit. ]]

Goals for Legion

[ Self Notes ]
As a council member of Legion, a growing guild on Feathermoon, I need to set some goals for myself to help the guild keep in check.
  1. Fix up the website (means I have to go bother Killacar to let me have full forum permissions).
  2. Make lists (as we seem to be good at that).
    1. Ranks of Legion and a description.
    2. Note on how to rise up in the guild. (Hm. Perhaps a run with their class leader, and one other? And then three out of five of us council members have to agree upon it?)
    3. Duties of the Council.
    4. Sign-ups for our raids.
    5. Standard advertisement?
Hm. I don't know what else. It's a start though...

Anyone else an organizational nut like me and feel compelled do do something like this?

Monday, February 18, 2008

I Wanna Go!



/drool

I'll go into detail after I finish salivating and cleaning the drool off of my laptop...

Edit: Sunwell Isle vendors. o.o For Heroic badges? Possibly. I'm still a bit too drooly and out of it to figure it out. I hope so though. Even if I will have to run a million heroics.

They're too pretty not to have.

A Huntard if I've Ever Saw One

And the promised post that I didn't get to last night...

Well, here it is.

I had logged on yesterday after work with the intention of doing heroics. However, there were certain things I had to do before I could do that: check mail, make potions... prep stuff, y'know. And possibly level my hunter while giving LFG a good eye-over. [ Yes, as my guild isn't as... groupy, I do quite a bit of LFG shopping. ]

I stick the hunter in the Crypts queue... and not too long later, I get a whisper from a sixty-six hunter: "crypts and mt?"
"Er... Okay."

So I get an invite. Fast forward to the part where we get a paladin tank, a resto druid, me, the hunter leader [beastmaster -- 53/0/3], and feral cat. Two pulls in, the healer has died twice. Whoops. Turns out that the tank was ret. And not very good at attacking the poorly marked targets. (I always trapped one, despite there not being a mark for one anyway.) The leader kicked him, and we got a warrior tank. We get up to the room before the first boss, me having trapped all of the way, and wiped twice there. While everyone was getting their bodies back (I had feigned death when three out of the five of us were dead), I note: "Lets put use to your traps, [Insert the Leader's Name Here]." And the replies from her were... shocking.
"im beast manestry not really trapping" [yes, manestry was what was put]
"... I am too and I have been trapping the whole instance"
"i don't trap that much"
"... Well. Could I get lead so I can mark?" [Previous to the first wipe of this pull, I had told her to mark the monk as the kill target, and the shadowpriests as OT and Trap. She didn't.]
"dont kick me" -hands over lead-
[whisper from the healer] "Tempting... very tempting."
[me] "-laughs- Yeah."
[aloud] "I don't kick."

The hunter adds, "i dont really see the action i just fire away i never know whos who"

Which brought the rest of the group to raise an eyebrow and frown. At the same time. How could someone get to sixty-six and not trap? I have no idea. I love my traps. More than I ought to, sometimes. But I love them.

Did the group again, this time we got two down and the last one killed us. (The healer didn't keep my pet up, and Mend Pet only does so much, so 'x' went on a rampage.) She broke my trap as well, that hunter. Better this time, at any rate. Lin does know something after all!

But... well. My auto-buttons had frozen at that point, and I couldn't auto-shoot. I toss the resto druid leader and restart the game, which, I had found out, fixes that problem. I come back to see a /say that mentioned something to the effect that everyone agreed it, and then the fact that the old leader had been booted. I shrug, and proceed to ask Justin to come DPS on his warrior (who is 65). He asks if he could bring his holy priest instead, for the enchant. The rest of the group didn't mind, so he did and we continued, a lot safer and... well. Didn't die. Except on the AoE skeleton groups, but we figured it out after the first one and didn't die after that.

All of the while, the hunter was whispering us. "fifth time being booted out of MY group" "sobbing eyesockets to tears" "im just a kid" "im only eleven" I didn't reply. Sure, I might have felt a little guilty, but... I didn't do the kicking. And she hadn't tried to improve when we brought it up. And our healer died five times or so by that time. And... well. "Pity me" is and will always bring displeasure from me. So. Almost. [By the way. Anyone else not know what "sobbing eyesockets to tears" means? xD]

Back to what was happening in Crypts though. The second to last AoE group before the boss was one with an elite caster. Justin wanted to MC it and keep it for the boss. "All right." And we did. Boss was easy. (And, as Justin notes, "It's rather sad that the groups leading up to the last boss is harder than the boss himself" (or something akin to that).) Rather entertaining, actually, watching the boss and one of his minions fight each other...

Good times, and will end up being another treasured memory of PuGs and being at the mercy of LFG...

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Five Lessons Learned

I have this post ready for my experiences in Crypts... but that's later.

For now, Phaelia over at Resto4Life posted this ages ago, but as I just come upon it...

Here's the link to Phae's post: 5 Things Learned... Sorta

And for my own...

Dear Lin,
There's a couple of things I know you wished to know before you started the game...

The first being that becoming attached to someone online is a really, really bad idea (but, even now, two and a half years or so in, you still have yet to really understand this concept fully and are in yet another rut). They could just be playing you along, weirdos, or really like you. And be weirdos. There's a couple of good ones out there, Lin, but geeze. You seem to get attract some of the... less savory characters.

The second? Don't lend people 1K of gold and expect to see it ever again. Yup. Said person quit WoW for a while, finally returned, and, although you haven't contacted each other since, you know he doesn't remember you. Go figure.

Third: Whatever you happen to be spec'ced on your druid... LFG will always be looking for the other spec. Always. (Meaning, if you're feral, they'll want a healer. And visa versa. Stupid LFG.) Oh, and your raid as well.

Four: Family or friends will almost always want you most the moment you have committed yourself to an instance or a raid. Especially the raid. Heroic groups fall under the category as well. Any other time, they wouldn't think about bothering you.

And, lastly, Lin... Well. Never follow anyone who is half naked, or even fully dressed, anywhere alone. It never turns out well. -smirk- (Think of a certain kaboomkin, rogue, feral druid... probably some others, and of a priest... You never learn, do you? -sigh-)

See? Stuff you would have been far better off with knowing. Don't forget to thank me.

-- Youself. Or, if you prefer, Estë and El.

P.S. You need to pay more attention to us. And your muse.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

"Heal Me!"

AV weekend. My insanity for healing from last night carried on. Today, again I pulled on my healing clothes and went PvPing...

I love to heal. Battlegrounds are quite a bit more interesting as a healer. (My friend found out that I was... bonkers vocally while healing as well. "I'm going to die! Don't let me die, don't let me die, don't let me die.... UGH. He died on me! He fails at life! Don't die, don't die, don't die!") Did five winning games of AV and two losing ones. Good streak, surprisingly. I suppose we really were quite determined to get our extra honor.

Between game three and four, however, a friend whispers me: "Would you like to heal Steamvaults for us?"
"Er. Okay."

So off we went. The tank wasn't the smartest, and by the time we were four pulls away from the first boss (for those who don't know, that is... -counts- eight pulls in), I had died three times. Not a good start. With my healing gear, it's an average of two gold per death. Not exactly cheap (but... thank Elune for mostly cloth healing gear, even if all but two repairable pieces are epics, and those two being blues), mind you. Random adds hitting you because the tank didn't pick them up (even though you waited until he was at half health to start healing him to give him time to gain aggro so I wouldn't get terrible healing aggro). Wiped twice on the first boss, but, after that, surprisingly, we did well and didn't die anymore.

Steamvaults is easy to heal. It really is.

But the fact that I went through the whole instance (minus the first boss) without ever going below... oh, say, 70% mana... as a feral druid healing... is rather sad. (I have about 300 mana per second regen out of combat. That might be part of the reason). Walked out of that with a ten gold repair. (Yeeey...)

More AV after that as a healer. Always made second or third on the healing charts... until our last AV. The Horde had formed a solid defense in the Iceblood area -- specifically, the graveyard, and we couldn't get through... so we kept dying... and dying... and dying... as we tried. (Their graveyard, obviously, was much closer, so they had constant reinforcements.) BUT. I did manage to reach my goal for the night: be number one on the healing list as a feral druid.

Here's proof!



Now, who says feral druids can't heal? -grin- The druid right below me is spec'ced 8/11/42 -- restoration. And below that, 8/0/53 restoration... with a lot better gear than I have.

And the feral druid beat them.

-amused-

Warriors, WSG, and Healz

So yesterday afternoon, as I was getting ready for going to see "Fiddler On The Roof" (which was amazing, by the way. Went away humming "Tradition"), I hopped into WoW... and realized that I -really- wanted to heal.

I am a feral druid at heart.

But I wanted to heal. Odd.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I love healing. I respec pure restoration every so often for my raids. But never, or, at least, never in my memory had I logged on and just wanted to pull out my pretty healing gear, stand around, and heal.

As my respec was still 50g from the respec'cing twice a week I did all during January, I did the next best thing: stick on healing gear and went to PvP.

Something, again, I never do on my druid, as I hate doing melee damage to things that liked to run away (which is why my mage spent three playing days just PvPing when she was forty-nine). It was an odd WSG, to be sure. Me, the feral druid, had on healing gear and healed the whole time. The resto druid ran the flag and healed some. Topsy-turvy the world had become, but it worked, apparently.

Alliance won, 3/3.

Yes.

Alliance won.

My first WSG in a while, and Alliance actually wins the first game. Scary. Normally, I watch as the Horde massacres us, get the flag, massacres us again, cap the flag, rinse and repeat. This time, we had some killing going on, but we won.

Now, for me, playing the healer the whole time... well. Lets just say that I found that I really, really don't like warriors.

Try having three warriors intercept-stun you in a row and kill you before the effects wore off.

Despite having two out of your three HoTs up.

One warrior is all right though. I had the satisfaction of outrunning one of them; he kept intercept-stunning me, I kept my hots up, travel form, was intercept-stunned again, more hots, travel form... led him on a huge circle from the bottom of the Alliance ramp, up through the side, to our graveyard and off the side where I lost him. He almost got me, too, which was probably the most annoying part for him. (Secret! Barkskin + Regrowth + Rejuvenation + travel form + run like hell = win)

Maybe I will respec restoration for a while... Forgot how much fun PvP was as a resto druid...

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Single's Awareness Day!

Ah. My yearly gripe. (My day does change later on, but that's for later). Single's Awareness Day. What isn't there to hate about it? The flowers, the gifts, the pink and white, the red, the... sudden abundance of mushy couples. Everywhere. Take your pick.

The suddenly abundance of mushy couples always hits me the hardest.

Oh, nothing against those who do have a sweetie. In fact, all the more kudos to you.

Just let us, who don't, sulk.

In the school community, mushy couples are... not uncommon, but not too overly bearing. But... on SAD (-smirk- Even the abbreviation fits), they are even more populous, it would seem. For me, being the girl whose love languages fall under the categories of "quality time" and "physical touch", it's utterly depressing.

'ze Love Languages for those who don't know theirs, by the way.

BUT.

I guess I just lost my right to complain. (And those who know me -know- how much I like to whine. Apparently it's in my horoscope... except. I don't believe in that stuff...)

Why? Well. I gots a flower!

Photobucket

FLOWER! -nods- From a guy I fancy. And is my friend. -squee-

So, if Lin could stop blushing, she might actually address something important.

Important? Lin? Psh. She gave a few posts of decent worth the night before, and will give more later. Just... not now.

Edit: Oh, and two boxes of chocolate. Geeze. How can a guy expect us to actually look good for them when they're giving us chocolates? But it's adorable! <3

/end gush

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Shared Topic: To Name or Not To Name...?

How did you come up with you character names? This can include alts. Like do you have a theme?


A shared topic from BlogAzeroth (hm, I should probably link it this time, shouldn't I? -link-). I figured that this was short enough that I could do before I succumb to sleep. Right? My characters in general started as a character for my roleplaying before WoW, and then I just kind of... took the names from there to make it a lot easier on me.

Lossemenel -- the druid. As a Lord of the Rings nerd, I couldn't resist. I don't remember exactly how it figured out bit by bit, but it came to "snow-white heaven". She has silver hair, and pale skin with no markings, so it was quite fitting.

Meliensa -- the mage. Roots in LotR, but I couldn't tell you exactly what roots. I'll dig up my LotR notes sometime and see if I simply forgot why I had that name, or if I didn't have any information on it at all.

Cirwen -- Hunter. Cir had a meaning. Really. Goodness knows exactly what it was. 'Wen' is maiden, however. She's not a foul, moody character in my books, but ended up being one for the game. I'm not quite sure when that transformation came about, but it did, and it stuck, the times when I do feel mean enough to roleplay an unpleasant hunter who finds everyone else inferior...

Nirkanta -- the shaman. Originally the name for a half-wraith. (Don't ask. Really.) "Many shape" is the meaning. Would have been better suited to my druid, but the character was evil in my books, and I really didn't want to use it. I changed my mind for Kanta here out of lack of names that I wanted to use. xD It's not that bad, though, since shamans can change into a wolf... and it can be interpreted as many faces as well, I suppose, meaning that she could be any spec. (Although I plan on leveling her as restoration and keeping her such, so I won't have to keep respec'cing Losse every couple of days depending on the raid).

Edit: Checked. My memory served me well. I can't find my references for Losse, but I do think that is right. :)

My Job. Not Yours.

Hm. Ever come across someone who questions your way of tanking, although, nobody is dying (unless they do something stupid, like pull massive aggro before the tank even gets to hit the mob)? Well.

It's not appreciated. Really.

I tank fine. My guild considers my tanking as "well". Yet, today, in Heroic Ramparts, I had a ret pally ask me why I wasn't swiping to multi-target tank. He said that he had a feral druid himself. That was all good and well. I'm open to suggestions.

Just not people questioning how I tank, insinuating that I don't do it well enough.

For me, multi-mob tanking involves a focus target, a main target, and, if I really must have a third target, a target that one must NEVER hit until we kill the others. Hit it, and it's not my problem anymore, it's yours. I'm not going to watch my bear bum run after something that should be on me to start with, and is on you instead because you wanted to break the damage meters. Sorry.

Pulling. Starfire pull the third mob, moonfire (if I have time) the focus mob, drop to bear before they come and eat my face, mange and lacerate the main target (skull, always), then lacerate twice the focus target (without shifting my target from the main target -- my macro for that is rather complicated, but works perfectly fine for me. I'll share it the next time I'm in game, or if I recall where I actually found it). Swipe once for just in case, and settle down with mangling when it's up, lacerating the focus target every few seconds, and mauling/lacerating the main target to death. Main target down, the third mob gets focused, and rinse and repeat. Maybe a few extra swipes if I have a lot of rage, but not normally.

Might be bulky for some, but it works well enough for me, and as long as the group is doing what it should be and only killing the target marked, I have aggro and no one else. I don't exactly know why I don't swipe a lot -- it just never fitted into my rotation, and if I did employ it, it is for groups bigger than three, where I play the "love me" game, sending attacks everywhere, and, somehow, all of the mobs do love me

My response? "As long as the rest of you aren't dying every pull because I am a crappy tank, I think I tank well enough, thank you. Unless you would like to bring your druid to tank? I'd be more than happy to DPS in your spot." (Okay, perhaps not quite as eloquently, but the essence said just that. "You guys aren't dying unless you do something stupid, so unless you want to tank...".)

He didn't say anything after that, and we got through the instance pretty much without too much incident. Except for that one pull of the pat where I got no heals (still not quite sure how that happened -- our healer and everyone else had at least 90% mana, if not full, and I died faster than a mage blinks).

No belt. Again. But I did manage to upgrade my ring to [Averinn's Ring of Slaying], so I guess I can't really whine (from what, I shan't say. The embarrassment would kill me. I will note that it was a green... that I had for a really... really... long time). But I really am beginning to wonder whether [Tree-Mender's Belt] actually exists. Ah, well. Maybe next time. We can keep hoping!

The same healer and I went to Heroic Slave Pens afterwards as well, as he needed two more badges, and I wanted the trinket ([Quagmirran's Eye]) for my mage. Didn't drop. Predictably, but still. (Makes one wonder -- what on earth does he still need his eye for anyway? And... I want an eye that is that special! o.o).

The loot gods are quite unkind...

So, what else is new?

Add-Ons I'd Die Without

Okay. Perhaps not die. But it'd certainly be a lot more irritating.

(Kudos to Blog Azeroth for this idea... and Resto4Life... And others. xD)

  • How many addons do you have?
  • Fourteen. (Auctioneer (which I never actually use...), AtlasLoot (keeps me occupied when waiting on people to get back from their most untimely AFKs), Cartographer (self explanatory, non? Maps!), NECB (NaturEnemyCastBar -- Well. Cast/DoT timers), CT (both RA and the regular -- It's an addon I've had forever, and am far too used to it to switch), Recount (fancy damage meters. I like the pie chart that breaks down what percentage of one's damage is made out of what spell), DBM (DeadlyBossMods -- at one time LaVendetta, it keeps timers for bosses in raids and PvP. Helps keep my raid alive. :)), ElementalFlux (a mod I've had for a while, which keeps track of how long until my elemental disappears, and also shows his spell cast), ItemRack (self explanatory again. I'm a druid), LightHeaded (my newest add-on, actually, that tells me where to find the quests -- with help from WoWHead), Omen (two words: threat meters), OmniCC (shows cooldowns for all of... well. Anything that has one. (most notably, trinkets, ice block, ice barrier, and cold snap)), RatingBuster (gear comparison), RecipeRadar (notes what recipes are available in the area, if my toons have them, and if they don't, what requirements am I missing and the like).
  • What addons can you not live without?
  • Itemrack. I'd never find anything without it. Cartographer -- helps with my nodes... even if many of the time, the nodes aren't up when I'm in the area -_-'. RatingBuster -- simple enough. And CT for easier interface.
  • If you met someone new to the game using the default UI, what addons would you recommend they start with?
  • If they rolled a druid, paladin, shaman, or a warrior (and any other class that might switch gear a lot), Itemrack for sure. Cartographer. LightHeaded instead of always pulling up Thottbot or the like...
  • What are important qualities you look for when you look for new addons?
  • What qualities they bring to enhance my gaming experience, and do I -really- need it.
  • How do you usually find new addons? Are they recommended to you? Do you search for them? Are they required by your guild?
  • Normally I see other people's add-on list, am intrigued, and look it up. My guild doesn't require anything.
  • What sort of layout does your UI have?
  • Clean? -shrug- I'll take a picture the next time I get a chance to be in both a raid and a group situation...
Where I normally find these add-ons is on CurseGaming. Just google it. ^^

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

How To Become A Good Writer

As I haven't been on WoW recently, but have managed to write a rather terrible satire, I figured I might as well give you guys this...

How To Become A Good Writer
In order to become a good writer
One must write very rarely
And when one does decide to pick
Up his writing utensils
Never write in good English
Or whatever language one writes in.
But rather, spell everything incorrectly
Switch letters here and there as well
Forget about grammar, it is useless
You’ll never get far at all.
Proof-reading is a thing you should never do
Unless you wish to be mocked
It is both time consuming and ineffective
The best writers, one must know,
Never write.
It is impractical.
No story, no tale, no nothing.
But doodles upon a page.
That is what will bring success
For those who wish
To Become A Good Writer.

For class. Clearly I tried quite a bit, non?

Monday, February 11, 2008

EG Takes Blogging Into Her Own Hands

That's right. Forget about Lin, who normally writes this. She's neglected me for a few days. Again. Even though she said that she wouldn't. So I decided to write something up for myself, by myself. I do realize, though, that Lin has a good...ish excuse. But we'll get to that later. For those who doesn't really care what Lin does in game, or out... here's this.

A list of some of the resources Lin uses, excluding blogs.
[Emmerald's Feral Gear]
[Thottbot]
[Elitist Jerks]
[Feral Druid Megathread]
[Petopia]
[WoWGemFinder]
[The Druids Grove]
[BBB's Hit Rating, Expertise, and Defense]
And, of course, the regular ol' Bliz hot-spots...
[WoW Armory]
[WoW Forums]
Apparently she visits less places than I thought...
Oh. And a list of shadow priest "casual" gear, apparently... (No 25-mans allowed!)
[Lookin' Good in Casual]

Back to Lin and her life. Lets go backwards some.

After Thursday's post, she's been relatively busy. What stood out most in her Friday school day was that she failed terribly at film-making. Eighty minutes wasted running around like a headless chicken with a camera. No tape, no sound equipment. Just a 5K camera and the $300 tripod. Everything went wrong for her, and she was highly frustrated. However. She had Kara that night with Justin's group as an OT on her druid. On Thursday, she had called in to work to tell them that she would be filming (and raiding, though she hadn't mentioned that part), and would not be able to work.

Kara! It was a good group for the most part. One half wipe because someone pulled the group of elites in the room right outside of Opera and Maiden. Oops. The people weren't bad, except for the fact that they tended to swear every other word, which was highly unpleasant, but she dealt with it, shredding faces when she wasn't OT'ing (which the group took full advantage of having an OT, instead of just letting them DPS and OT when it was necessary, something new for Lin). She got three items though, for which she was happy. (It was a full clear of Kara -- took a bit shorter than four hours). For one, she got her staff from Illhoof. [Terestian's Stranglestaff]. And the healing staff from Nightbane ([Nightstaff of the Everliving]). And the healing necklace from Netherspite ([Shining Chain of the Afterworld]). (The healing stuff because no one else needed it, and the squid staff because she was feral, and the other druid wasn't.) She found out within two days that, apparently, the +35 agility enchant is decently rare enough that in two hours of spamming the fact that she had the materials and is only looking for an enchanter who can do it for her. (She started to value the fact that her mage had it. Lin did get it eventually, after asking an acquaintance, who knew someone who could).

Saturday. She worked until five-thirty (starting eight), and got home. The family went out for a bit, so she had two hours to do something. While she originally planned on it being an instance, a call from GuildWatch came out about an attack on Sentinel Hill, and she went to the rescue (on her mage). World PvP is still a bit alive, and she spent the full two hours watching and chasing Horde (with some killing in between). She found it so entertaining, the chase, that, afterwards, she created a Horde character to chat with the one she chased around for the better part of half an hour, and watched for an hour or so, and fought a bit as well. It turned out that the Horde had been just as afraid of her beating him as she has been of him. While she had better gear, he had PvP experience. Not that either of them knew the other's fears... but she logged off soon afterward with a sense of satisfaction.

Sunday. Work for half of the day, and for three hours she played taxi to her father, and the rest of the afternoon/evening she spent watching The Legend of Zorro (Antonio Bandaras, Catherine Zeta-Jones) which she ended up squee-ing over. Like the girl she is. (She now has a new favorite movie... that one). Then bed.

Busy, see?

[And some personal real life stuff as well... go ahead and skip this if you want.]
Not to mention that she's having relationship problems. She can't get a guy. Oh, sure, a girl at her work openly likes her (calling her "gorgeous" and such), but... well. She's straight, so it's rather awkward for her. She did get a "date" to a musical that premieres on Valentine's Day, though,with one of her guy friend, so she is rather excited about that -- said guy friend and her go to plays/musicals together, but do little together outside of that, including talking. That, and the musical is Fiddler on the Roof, and it looks to be highly promising, starring some of the people she knows, and some of her friends are on the backstage crew. One of her guy friends from WoW she has been talking quite a bit to, and she -really- likes him. Except. Long distance relationships work terribly, and she fears that her ways might scare him off. She can get a bit overbearing... and a bit more than that... and is consumed by her fear from past experiences, none of which have ever really turned out well. Oh, and another one, from her "past" is still trying. He's disappointed her so often, though, that she doesn't know what to think concerning him anymore.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Apologies, Instances, and Deaths

So much for my insistence that I would actually keep up with this blog.

But I have an excuse. Really. It's been busy for me, both in game and out.

Monday. Tanked Heroic Ramparts for Justin, the mage from the previous post. He was on his shadow priest, I was (clearly), on my druid. I was quite rusty on the tanking aspect of my spec -- having oscillated between not playing as a druid, not playing period, and playing as a DPS class for my raid. This, I blame, as the cause of a few of our wipes. That, and Justin was unaccustomed to not having salvation, pulled aggro on the stuff I was focus tanking, and died a bit. Oops.

That was followed with Heroic Arcatraz (for the daily) with the same group (which consisted of me, a mage, the shadow priest, a priest, and another feral druid). The other druid and I had decided to switch off tanking -- with me tanking Ramparts, she tanking Arcatraz. We died... three times up to the first boss (yeeey. And she was whining about her repair bill after the first instance). Three failed tries on the boss, the other druid leaves.

Gee, awesome. LFG gave us a druid that was "SSC geared". Not really. Two pieces. Didn't actually count. But whatever. She was feral and could tank. Yeeeey for me not doing anymore tanking that day! Few more deaths, otherwise it went well. First time going and completing Herioc Arcatraz, and I'm not scarred for life. Go me.

Tuesday: Heroic Mana-Tombs. Pain in the rear instance. Hate it with a passion. I was on my mage for it. The group comprised of a feral druid (tank), a tree, a warlock, me (mage), and a hunter. The first tank -- a bear, that... well, you'll see -- only lasted the hallway and one pull in. The healer is finding that she is eating through through her mana to keep him up on trash pulls.

Uh-oh. Not good.

So, me, having a feral druid and being worried about the group, I stood up and questioned him. "How much armor do you have?"
"14K"
[in whispers with the tree, with whom she had been conversing with before] "We're screwed."
[aloud] "Please tell me you have 415 defense (or at least a mixture of defense and resilience)..."
"407"
"..."
[whispers] "He's not even uncrittable!"
[him] "wut?'
"Er. Our healer is blowing through all of her mana to keep you healed on trash. This isn't going to work."
"ive tanked this before without any problems but if you think i cant, ill leave" [leaves]

Fine. My guild leader, Sol, a warrior, had signed on a few minutes ago. I whisper him and ask him if he wanted to come. "Not really but sure" was the answer, and off we went. The healer mentions to me that he is a lot easier to heal (he MT's our Karas, or, at least, used to before he promoted his second banana to MT so he could bring his mage, so I knew he could do the job).

First boss. Three wipes. After the first one, the tree mentions that she's going to go grab the priest, who is in full arena healy gear. She does, two more shots. Nope.

"Okay! So I'm going to go grab Losse to help heal!" I do that. We get him down. (He didn't drop anything useful -sigh-). We both switch back to our respective characters. Every few pulls, there's a wipe.

Hm. We stop and look at this. Oh, lookie! The hunter isn't retrapping all too well and the one he trapped went to smush the tree, which, in turn, made the tank die, then usually me. Well, golly. We give it a light mention and move on. On the second boss, the hunter pulls aggro from our warrior (I have no idea how... except that he doesn't have a threat meter, but neither the affliction warlock nor myself ever pull aggro, and I was kicking his arse on the DPS meters as well.) Instead of feign deathing, he allows the boss to go to him and kill him.

Wonderful.

Other than that, we got him down smoothly.

By that time, there was a lot of restlessness by the three of us (Sol, the tree, and myself) that are on Vent (the other two bothered, then hopped off of it) about the hunter. Sol mentioned that the hunter KEPT PULLING AGGRO. The tree mentioned that the hunter DIDN'T RETRAP. And I, being myself, mentioned that he really needed to find his feign death button.

Few more pulls on. He pulls a blueberry when the warlock and I were getting mana, the healer was AFK for a moment, and Sol wasn't ready. We made an valiant effort, but died... all except the hunter.

Who had magically found his feign death button.

The healer makes a comment to Sol in the party chat, and Sol tells her that it was the hunter that pulled (mind, without a misdirect either). Was the last straw. Justin had logged on and we were talking, and I was moaning about this idiot hunter, and he volunteers to bring his shadow priest. Lovely! Told the hunter that he wasn't doing his job (retrapping, not pulling aggro, letting his healer die) and told him that we had a replacement.

"i cant retrap"
[on Vent] "He can't retrap? He's spec'ced traps, so he says and so says the talent tree!"
"can we kill one more ----" [---- is the type of mob that I don't recall]
"No. We have a replacement."
He leaves.

We bring in Justin. We had a few rough spots on learning how do deal with group pulls of four mobs with only one CC -- MC doesn't work on these guys, as we found out with another repair bill -- but made it to the last boss.

Try one. Fail. Sol died.
Try two. Tree became the priest again. I went to get Losse. Fail. Sol died again.
At that point, Sol needed to go make dinner. So he left.
We got a really good mage from our guild (he has fantastic gear and kicks everyone in the DPS meters) and I was to tank.
Try three. Fail. Adds still didn't go down fast enough, and I died.
Try four. Justin went to get his holy priest (yes. He has both a shadow and a holy priest). He was to heal everyone else and the what-once-was-a-tree was to heal just me. Fail. I still died.
Try five. Cross healing all around. Success! Finally. Stupid boss. Hate him.

Oh. And we got absolutely nothing useful as a reward. A shield dropped. Shield. None of us could use it. Joy.

And thus ends that tale. I made a friend (the tree) on the way, who happens to live up in Colorado Springs, not too far away at all, and acquired a massive repair bill. Yeeeey!

That night, I had Kara with my guild, with whom I haven't gone to Kara with in a few weeks. I brought my mage, as I've been on the druid all day. One-shot everything up to Aran (including Attumen). Nothing useful dropped, but we made good time. (It felt so nice not to be 10% behind on DPS as a number two, which is what occurs in my usual raid. I oscillated between one and two the whole raid this time, with the other only a few fractions of a percentage behind).

It was then that I had to go, much to my raid's disappointment. (I did tell them beforehand that it might happen, so Vese was prepared for my announcement).

Apparently they got a "mage that was crappy and had horrible gear" to replace me, and had a few wipes on the remaining bosses, but got them down anyway. OH. And. They failed Chess. I don't know how they did it, but they did. First time I had ever heard of anyone failing at the Chess event. They're special... But they did get it the second time, so congratulations.

Wednesday. Got on, did dailies, tried the quest in Blade's Edge with the Crystalforge Darkrune, failed as is my wont (I still don't have the hang of it), and hopped on the hunter to try to level her a bit more. Saw an advertisement to Underbog.

I could use that! And it would give me xp. I'll come! Pick me!

The group comprised of two seventies (a ret paladin that was our tank and a hunter), a holy paladin, myself, and a warlock. Piece of cake. Got through just fine... except for one part, where, for some reason, auto-shot stopped working. (Which, for Cir (and any other hunter) is an absolute catastrophe.) I reloaded my UI. Nothing. Restarted. Fixed. Gave me such a fright though...

Afterwards, I had to go. Chinese New Year party to attend and all. (Lots of food... and I ate too much. Ah well. Real Chinese is amazing.)

That reminds me. Anyone have any suggestions on how to work "Kill Command" into one's bars? I don't like to click that much, and it just seems to not fit anywhere else...

Friday, February 1, 2008

Druids, Raids, and Spellblades

Raids. Ah, wonderful things. Really.

Lets backtrack a bit. A while back, I told my raid leader that I won't be able to make most of their raid times due to school and work. He accepted that, and replaced me with a darn good druid I've grouped with before. That part was all right. Skipping forward to Tuesday night...

"Hey, is Kara going on tonight?"
"Yes. Want to bring your mage?" [ It is my druid that goes with this raid. ]
"The mage goes with GWX-1."
"Right."
"But I could bring Losse."
"Your replacement is here this week, and we don't need any healers."
"Okay..."
[ The conversation continues as I log to my hunter, also in the guild. ]
"What kind of DPS do you need?"
"Not a hunter. Or a rogue."
"Losse isn't either, and she could backup heal."
">.< I'm a druid."
"I'm sorry."
I didn't respond.

Forwarding on. Wednesday night came rolling around. My mage's raid. Normally we're down to looking for one melee DPS, and the two weeks before that I had been able to supply one. This week, I came up with a mage friend of mine. I offered to bring Losse instead, so they would gain a mage and a melee DPS. (Yes, I suppose that not going with the guild paid off. That, and "karma" came and bit Vese, the co-guild leader, because something -- I don't recall what -- from the Prince dropped that Sol, our guild leader wanted and the shadow priest outrolled him for it). They took it, and we went. Things went fine, more or less. A few deaths here and there, but nothing noteworthy (nor stuff I recall a week and a half later, rewriting this part of the blog for the third time... I have yet to figure out Blogger all of the way, and this post seems to give it a lot of trouble).

So we get to right outside of the Opera Stage. The sets of guards out there were being tanked by our warrior MT, and OT'd by the raid's normal feral druid. The MT gets frozen, and, instead of the OT getting aggro, the rogue and I did. The rogue, being just that, did his fancy move that got rid of aggro, and it came to eat my face. I hopped into bear form to absorb the damage, and started to maul away with an occasional mangle to continue my damage while waiting for the OT to pull him off of me and making it easier for the healers to keep me up. I ended up tanking that one until it died.

After that pull, he mentions, "bear form and mangle creates aggro".
"As a druid, I know that. Bear form allowed it to die, instead of me dying. And it's easier on the healers."
The others chimed in with, "it's always the DPS's fault if they get aggro".
I had absolutely nothing to say to them either, except, "I wouldn't be able to pull aggro if he had Omen so I knew when I was close to passing him."

This was true. The OT didn't have a threat meter. Heck. The MT didn't either until we brought it up one day and convinced him to do it. Why the OT didn't is beyond me. Also, I waited four seconds for the tanks to get aggro before I started attacking, and that is normally ample time for them to get more hate than me shredding their back ever gains in that amount of time. Oh, sure, it is the DPS's job to watch their aggro, but I would also like to mention that it is the tank's fault if he doesn't generate enough aggro (how he doesn't is beyond me. I had a DPS reach seven hundred threat per second or so (far greater than what I was causing as a cat, I would guess) and he couldn't pull aggro off of me, and yet...)

The raid leader (also the MT) told us to stop, and we continued on getting Opera (yay. First time in at least a month that we -haven't- gotten Romulo and Julianne! (Wizard of Oz).) and slowly made our way up to Prince without too many more difficulties. (At least, none I care to recall). We got him down, and [Nathrezim Mindblade] dropped.

My mage friend is practically jumping around, excited. The other caster, a warlock, already had it, so it seemed like she would get it.

Our loot is what I call the "three tier system". Everyone gets lumped into a role -- DPS, tanking, caster, healing. The people in those roles get priority in rolling. That's tier one. Counts for your epic of the night.

Open roll -- anyone can roll of they can use it. Tier two. Counts as the epic of the night as well.

Trash roll -- last roll before shards. Doesn't count as an epic for the night. This is where you roll if you got something earlier as well. Anyone can roll for any reason -- roleplaying and the like (as Feathermoon is a roleplaying server).

So my friend already wasted his priority roll, so he had to wait for the trash roll. No one rolled under priority or open, so it was down to the trash roll. He rolled.

Then the feral druid off tank rolled.

And he beat him.

So. The feral druid that was a perm. off-tank got the blade.

Left me and my friend upset. Thankfully, that was the last kill of the night, and we both left. I mentioned to the raid leader (and our hunter, who was in the chat with us), that I found it ridiculous. He agreed, and the hunter did too. However, he also mentioned that he was irked that my friend wanted two epics from the raid.

...

-blink- He's a feral druid. He's a mage. Isn't it common sense that casters should have priority on caster gear no matter what? I guess not.

He has put the druid on ignore. I can't, as I raid with him, but I wish I could. It was quite a jerkish move.

Did I mention that I loved raiding?

Introduction

If there's one thing people should know before anything else, it is that I am addicted to blogs. I have this terrible habit of reading them as soon as my laptop powers up, to them being the last thing I check before I go to bed.

Which is what brought me to write my own.

Granted, I'm not going to overflow people with the mathematical numbers of what their flavor is should aim for (meaning druids and mages, in particular, and some hunter swirled in there),
but I will occasionally make links to my favorite bloggers who have already done the work. Math makes my head hurt, plain and simple.

A little bit about me:
I've been playing WoW since August of '06, I believe. I've seen many changes, and approve of many, whereas, others, I know that Blizzard could do better.I have two seventies that I am proud of: Lossemenel, a feral druid that goes restoration every so often depending on what the raid needs -- my personal preference leans toward biting and clawing people's faces off, but, as the good druid as I try to be, I don't mind healing when the occasion calls for it. The other is a frost/arcane mage, Meliensa. I couldn't tell you much about being a fire mage, having only played that for a short time, hating it, and going back to frost. Love the water elemental far too much. I also have a sixty-six beast master hunter, Cirwen, which I struggle to level, but know that, inherently, I ought to because I need potions, and she's my potion maker. And she's overpowered. The baby of this group, at twenty-two, is Nirkanta, my restoration shaman, so I may know the pains of leveling as pure restoration. And so I could try out something with a tail.

In real life, I am a girl that is in school. I spend most of my time doing something pertaining to film -- writing and editing and watching -- which is a lovely way to pass the school day. My passions, beside film, is history and creative writing. I am a roleplay nut, although, despite how long I've played WoW, I've rarely had chances to roleplay as one of those characters. However, my life is consumed -- when not at school, work, or WoW, with roleplaying on a forum, where I am kept plenty busy with twenty-threads and five characters. I love to read -- Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction are all a part of what interests me as far as books go (along with the occasional odd book here and there).

Expect notes on my play style, happenings in the WoW world on the Feathermoon server (where I make my home), and a log of note-worthy events in my life in and out of the game.