We Did It!

Three real nights of Sarth3D practice, two weeks off for breaks -- we [Kaizen's raid] did achievements in the meantime. Ten hours of pain and suffering, probably around two hundred gold repair each of the three nights... [two-thirds or so of it was paid by the guild bank, so I'm not sobbing too much].

But it was all worth it.


Sartharion with all three drakes up on twenty-five man. It was messy, it took a lot of practice, but, in the end, we persevered.

So now, I have a shiny new title to show off for all of our hard work:


Twilight Vanquisher Nirkanta.

Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

[[ I lost the roll to the drake by ONE. Now that's something to cry over. That's okay. I saw it was very blue. It's the magey that really wants it... But now I'm off to bed. Seven in the morning and I've been having stomach pains all night. Had to share the good news though! ]]

Messy Organization

It's what I would call my UI. Messy organization. It works for me, but some people might find it difficult to understand.


I've labeled most of the items on there, but will break it down, from the left hand side of the screen to the right.

My unit frames, I left alone. The text on the unit frames -- percentages and numbers, are from CTUnit_Frames.

My chat, too has been left alone.

Over a bit is Decursive; my raid frames fill up to the edge of DoTimer and then group five below, and next to group five is the pet bar. Next to the pet status bars is Decursive. DoTimer are my cooldown timers of choice, although I tend to look more at my action bars than it.

My action bars are formatted with Dominos; I took a few bars and put them on top of each other for more convenience and more room for my chat window. I both click and use my number keys -- the important stuff I'll hit a lot are 1-5. Everything else not as important but I should have on my bars anyway are spread around. My vertical sidebars are for mounts, toys, Kitty, Bear, and Healy are for weapon and idol change-outs, and the two idol pictures near those are cat idols for the different occasions -- trash, boss. Macro for Vent, my professions, and the buttons I don't need very often but still need -- hearth, portal to Moonglade, Gift of the Wild.

My tell window is supported by Windows IM -- yes, that's my Aussie in the party, and you can see some of our chat history -- not intentional, mind you, but hey. Individual tells put off to the side so even if my screen is scrolling really fast because there is raid chatter and loot windows and people hopping in and out of channels, I won't lose my tells.

My Mini-Map is an utter mess, but I've tried to label it to the best of my ability -- Altholic [favorite add-on ever -- it tracks everything about your characters. From professions and being link to them from any character to what's in a character's bags and back to their achievements to /played on every character [and it combined too] to all the money you have on your characters. It's also got a search feature, so if someone asks you if you have [insert item here], you can look it up and tell them without alting loads. It's a must have for any altholic, which I can say I am...

Atlasloot -- a list of most of the loot in the game.

ItemRack -- I prefer this over Outfitter. An outfit changing addon, for quick set swaps. Another must have for any character with more than one set of gear, especially hybrids!

WIM.

CTMod -- for my buffs and my unit frame text. Manages my mail a bit as well, but main purpose for me is the buffs and text. Built in is a expense history, which is kind of nifty to see how one's expenses break down.

SRaidFrames -- I like the look of CTRA, a mod I had since my days of subbing in Molten Core. It was in BC that I finally replaced it with an addon that will tell me if someone's within range or out of range by fading it out, so I wouldn't be forever trying to heal someone too far away. That's when SRaidFrames came in. I still had the look of CTRA, but it had the functionality I needed.

My Omen window itself is normally placed right next to my CTBuff_Mods. My threat meter of choice.

Not showing:
DBM -- Deadly Boss Mods. For timers and everything useful for raids.
Cartographer: Map manipulation, so it's smaller, has an opacity, and I can navigate even while having it up, as well as notes and fog light for those unexplored areas but you still want to see where they are.

Those are the main important ones, I think.

Hopefully, it gave you a sense of the view port out which I look every time I log in!

[ RPJournal: Mel & Losse ] :: A Respite

Together again, they were, the druid and the mage.

They had agreed to meet in an inn, instead of their normal home in Stormwind, which was being kept by a family that Mel had taken in during the long months that Losse had been away. Before she had felt the calling in her own veins, a calling to proceed to Northrend after her sister, to follow the bidding of the King.

She was lounging on rich carpet that lined the floor, her eyes closed. Mel stared down at the curled up cat, smiling. It had been many seasons since she had last seen Losse embrace her feral side and slide so easily out of what the druidess had always considered her "natural" form.

She, on the other hand, was sitting on the bed, her legs hanging off the side, her ankles crossed. A half finished robe laid in her lap, along with the different sorts of cloth she had so carefully imbued with magic over the last few weeks, and had finally made enough for what the pattern called for. On her right side, still on the bed, was an open book. The rough, well worn leather bound book had seen better times, she knew, and she would ask Losse to make her a new binding soon, but it still did its job, and Mel couldn't complain.

The large cat stood up and stretched, rolling onto her back, her legs outstretched. "Nearly done with the robe, Mel?" Losse queried, her voice a quiet purr. Her sister had been working on the dress for ages, it seemed. Even with her untrained eyes, she knew it would be a fine piece of work. Her own talent laid with working with leathers, making the most out of an animal. The balance of nature, never to let anything go to waste. Something she had been taught ever since she had taken up the druidic arts.

"I'm working on the top right now," her sister answered, glancing at the book beside her. "It's the most difficult part, getting that stitching right and the coloring -- after this, though, the rest is fairly simple."

The cat nodded. There had been a few patterns her leatherworking trainer had taught her that required the same patience, a patience she had won through years of close work with nature. "I have wondered, though..."

"Yes?"

"What made you finally decide, after all these months, to come to Northrend?" She knew of her sister's initial reluctance to take the long journey over the sea. Losse actually found it rather amusing, that a mage of frost, with such command and ability to manipulate the elements, didn't care for water in its natural, liquid form. "Had you finally conquered your dislike of the sea enough?"

It was the lie she had told her family. It was not quite the truth, for, in truth, Mel had not ventured forward earlier due to her fear of the Arcane and its possible powers over her. It had taken months of special training from Jeannea Cannon, one of her former tutors, to regain that careful control mages wielded, to regain her confidence in her path and powers. The powers had always been innate within her, and had always been her calling; the time had not been easy, but easy had never been for adventurers. "I like the sea well enough, Losse." She said slowly, looking up from the dress. "It tends not to agree with me. 'Tis why I normally prefer to travel through the aid of magic." It was rare that one would ever find her on a boat by her own will; she disliked the lack of control she had while on a boat, as well as the fact that the swish and sway of the water tended to make her ill. The potions Cirwen made helped alleviate the symptoms, but still, it was hardly her favorite form of travel. "Curiosity got the better of me," she smiled, "besides, who would cook for you?"

"I'm learning how to slowly." She blinked glowing gold eyes at Mel. "And you know my forms hardly care whether the food is raw or cooked."

Mel rolled her eyes. It was true, but, at the same time, she didn't approve of her sister eating raw meat when she could make perfectly good meals for them both, and anyone who cared to drop in. "I am here, none the less, and have made quite a fair bit of progress, although nowhere near what you have achieved. I have heard of your achievements from afar, my sister. They seem like quite the feat..."

"Hardly. Just another obstacle to overcome, another foe to defeat, and all on the never ending quest to bring balance to the world."

"You are far too modest." Of course, it must be the elven way, Mel thought, shaking her head. Humans had a tendency of boasting of their feats, and as long as she had known Losse, the elf had never made a boast about her accomplishments, but, rather, spoke of the good in the general achievement. "Northrend agrees with me, though, I will admit. It's far colder here than it is in the Outlands, and even more so than the coldest places of Azeroth. I find my magic, and my control of the elements, easier. It's far more peaceful here for me than elsewhere."

"I am happy to hear that. It's harder for me, here, for while I see nature everywhere, there are lands that seem to always be in a state of eternal frost, where there is no rebirth. While there is still tranquility in those glades, it's lacking a certain aspect without any regrowth." Losse's voice was soft, still that purr her voice took on while in cat form.

"So you stay in the lush lands and I will take the cold, and together we can save Northrend?" The mage teased, picking up her tailoring again.

"Perhaps. We do what we're told, Mel, remember that. We're adventurers, soldiers, representatives of the lands we hail from."

"And, on occasion, mercenaries?"

The cat rolled back to its stomach, resting her head in her paws and staring up at Mel. "Sometimes, unless you bare the name of Cirwen, in which, for you, is all the time and then some more."

Mel smiled as they changed the topic to their other sister and what the hunter and her ever devoted Void was up to these days.

Tasty Maintenance?

Just a quick update:

EG is going through maintenance so I can get blog links updated, tags updated, and if I feel really productive, old posts too [don't count on the last bit]. I'm also hoping to run out and get my car back today, among other things -- one thing at a time!

I will promise a "here's-what-I've-been-up-to" post though, later on.


Think Sarth will decide the feasts are more tasty than us?

This was taken after four hours of Sarth3D learning -- twenty-five version -- and we had finally decided that raid time was nearly over and we'll do 2D, which we do easily.

Conversation went along the lines of us not needing a fish feast since we won't be doing any progression attempts, so a pig was laid out.

Then another.

Someone laid out a fish feast anyway.

Then a small feast.

And a large feast.

And a few more.

It was rather amusing, especially after four hours of learning.

Beside that one incident of our drake tank getting hit by the fire wall while tanking Tenebron, was knocked into a fire tornado, and chucked across the room, that had to be the highlight of the night. His healers were quite baffled as to where he went, and he was cracking up on vent.

It was a wipe, obviously, but it completely hilarious.

Oh, and that's the guild raid that Kanta's been running with for a few weeks, and finally joined.

We're so close to Sarth3D it's not even funny. Just got to get past the third drake. Can get up to him, and a bit more, but then something happens -- either the whelps eat healers, main tank dies, something -- I don't know, I just heal.

More practice. Almost got it!

[Names blocked for privacy.]

SOS: Rogue Help an' I Give Up

I've got a rogue friend -- okay, I've got many friends, but this particular one is the one with a problem. He came to me about it... which is unfortunate because he's a rogue. And rogues are completely foreign to me: closest I get to a rogue is my druid, who is more bear than anything. Say something in rogue-speak, and I'll stare at you baffled unless you can give me a druid equivalent. Then I'll stare at you and say, "I don't know, I'm a big stupid bear or a tree".

Anyway, his problem.

It's his DPS.

He reads Elitist Jerks, is combat, and is in a mix of heroic and normal instance gear, with a few crafted here and there.

Recount says his abilities used are [this is through all of... Old Kingdom, heroic]:

And this is what Armory says about his stats.

His DPS is at 1.3K, and he's completely baffled as to why his DPS isn't higher / as to what to do to increase it.

As I know nothing about rogues, I'm turning to you guys for help. It is a gear issue, or is there something that he's doing wrong? If it's the latter, pray tell, what and how to remedy it.

Oh, and as a side note, being very last on activity meters in a twenty-four man raid [being 532 to the top activity meter of 1131], but being eleventh on overall damage done and second on DPS [2,669DPS vs. my 2,629DPS -- only five of us are about 2.1K -- everyone else is below 2K] makes me very very sad. Five or so attempts on Noth this data was collected. I know Mel loves her aggro, but when the tank uses Shield Slam six times from engaging Noth to him being at 48%, through two teleports, it's hard NOT to pull aggro. Activity was so low because I'm either standing around managing cooldowns [popping Mirror Images, Water Elemental, Icy Veins], Invisibility-ing and letting it go all the way, standing in Ice Block for the full duration, or decursing. Or twiddling my fingers because if I hit Noth again, I'll be tanking him for a few seconds. If I'm not that, I'm dead.

It's very disheartening, and I think, for my own sanity, I'm going to not attend that raid anymore. I want to help, but at this point I'm in Naxx on both normal and heroic on all three of my characters, and if I'm going to be going in there so much [yes, I'm crazy and have no life, I know, it's a transitory stage of my life], I really don't want to spend even one raid wiping excessively -- if I'm in there a lot and it's vaguely successful [such as we can down at least three wings in three to four hours], that's fine. We're in, we kill stuff, we die a bit, we're out.

But to go in and die over and over again to a boss... I don't think I have that much patience. Especially if I only have an hour's break between that raid and my Naxx10 run on the same character.

I hate to leave a group, but... somehow, I get the feeling that my reasoning is justifiable. Now if I can keep my newly built bond with that raid leader...

Mind you, I like the people in the raid. And I will understand if they forever will call me bad names for leaving after wiping and getting nowhere, but I just can't do it. Not when I have so many other raids I attend.

Not when I feel like I need heavy therapy afterwords in the form of a few hours of blog reading or reading in general.

... Yet, why do I feel so bad?

You are the Dancing Bear, Youn--Wait. Bear?

Lin, Lin, you've got the lyrics wrong! Isn't it supposed to be "you are the dancing queen, young and sweet?" Well, here I tell you: no.

We'll be dancing bears soon, if what's in the PTR goes through.

Er, Lin. Do we *want* to know?

Maybe. Well, either way, you'll hear it from one person or another, and probably get to play it too.

And no, I'm not talking about the Gloves of the Dancing Bear [which, by the way, if you can explain to me why the Dancing Bear gloves are caster gloves... well. I'll give you more strudels than you can ever eat].

What I'm trying to get at is Swipe. We'll be dancing bears soon!

A few days ago, GC said,

We are going to take another look at Swipe. Since we are trying to fix some problems where druids are too good at tanking it seems reasonable to also look at cases where they struggle.... [in] this case we are trying to realize our goal of having 4 viable MT classes and druid AE threat generation is cumbersome.

As a response to the health and armor nerfs [yes, again. I dislike you, Blizzard, I hope you know] that is in effect on the PTR.

The new version of Swipe? A friend classified it as "bear-swipe-clap" -- a bear Thunderclap.

Swipe: The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability no longer has a targeting requirement and hits targets behind the druid and to the sides.

What I want to know is how our paws will reach behind us to Swipe. One friend suggested we used our back legs to do it. Another... well, he imagined us doing pirouettes. A big lumbering bear dancing to get all of the painful stuff to hit us instead... because we dance so awfully.

Yeah. That's it.

Either way, it seems to be an acceptable solution for Swipe [for, as a tank, I've often charged in and be spun around, and have to readjust to hit everything, and, by then, the overzealous DPS have started in and things are just everywhere]. 

Acceptable, yes, but how do they justify it on a bear? What will the animation look like? Will we spin? Will we stand still? Are we doing pirouettes?

This may be very, very interesting...

[Caption: "Owww. Dancing hurts. And I'm really dizzy..."]

Patches, Nerfs, and Buffs - Druid Version

Well. The new patch notes are out, as is the PTR. As a druid, I felt compelled to look at the two trees that matter to me: Resto and Feral.

Feral druids get a buff... and resto druids get nerfed. Well, there's buffs and nerfs all around, but that's how I see it as. More buffs than nerfs for bears, more nerfs than buffs for trees.

Sure, ferals could have used a buff, but not in mitigation, but, rather, in AoE threat [-recalls the many times her DPS has pulled off of her due to little rage-]... but we got a buff anyway:

Savage Defense, 1 rank, level 40 - Each time you deal a melee critical strike, you gain Savage Defense, reducing the damage taken from the next physical attack that strikes you by 25% of your attack power.

Savage Roar has had a change too:

Savage Roar changed to increase physical damage done by 30%.

The topper for feral changes [this made me salivate]:

Primal Gore, Tier 10, 1 point talent - Grants the periodic damage from your Rake, Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit.

DoTs critting? Now that's just as exciting as allowing Blizzard and Hurricane to crit! ... Well, almost.

Oh. Ferals get a nerf as well, but it's not grossly awful:

Survival of the Fittest (Tier 6) now increases your armor contribution from cloth and leather items in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 11/22/33%. (Previously 22/44/66%)

Someone obviously decided that we had too much armor. Again. Big surprise...

On the other hand, Maim will stun instead of incapacitate now... So it won't be useless outside of soloing.

Now for the Resto nerf...

Improved Regrowth (Tier 6) renamed Nature's Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%. (Previously increased just Regrowth crit by 10/20/30/40/50%)

Yay, Nourish won't be as useless [unless you've had the T7/7.5 four piece]... but they're nerfing the in-built crit on Regrowth by half. Half!

It will force druids to start looking for a bit more crit on their gear, rather than mostly haste, for we will still want the benefits from Living Seed and Nature's Grace.

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise, but, for the larger population that doesn't have the four piece, it seems like a nerf...

Well... we are getting more passive mana regen to go with the Spirit Nerf...

Intensity (Tier 3) now allows 17/33/50% of mana regeneration to continue while casting. (Previously 10/20/30%)

And Replenish will work with Wild Growth... But with our point allocation as it is, I can't see myself putting more than the usual one point I have in there.

They are, however, giving us another small buff built into a core talent: Improved Mark of the Wild: Now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.

PvP trees, rejoice! A buff for you:

New Talent: Improved Barkskin: Increases the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell by 5/10%, and increases your resistance to Dispel mechanics by an additional 30/60% while under the effect of Barkskin.

And for the trees that get stuck with casting Thorns on people... You can do it without having to become an elf or a cow. Nature's Grasp works in tree too now.

In sum, to me, it looks like trees are getting a buff for PvP, a nerf for PvE. Feral DPS and mitigation is getting buffed, but, in exchange for the mitigation buff, we get yet another armor nerf.

Quitting While You're Ahead

So the Jewelcrafting daily today was the Bright Armor Relic, collected from Northern Revenants. As per my habit, I take the portal to Wintersgrasp -- a chance to find Titanium along with other ore on my way to killing revenants, oh yeah, I'll risk seeing Horde.

On the way down to the Cauldron of Flames, I see a Death Knight -- trouble, to be sure, I knew.

And, sure enough, he was. A Death Grip and the game had started.

Now, mind you, I'm awful at PvP. I know how to spam heals on myself while whimpering "don't die" at my computer screen. Apparently, I'm better at it than I thought, for I lasted about four or five minutes against the Death Knight -- I was, by the way, on Kanta, the resto shaman -- before he got me.

I like tempting fate... so I run back.

He got me again, quicker this time.

I was on Skype with The Aussie, and he volunteered to bring his shaman [elemental] out to play as well...

So I lingered by the graveyard a little bit, and, when he was close enough, headed back down there again.

Guess who was waiting?

He engages, I do the whole spam-heals-on-myself-ohheylookflameshock! game on him... and, out of nowhere, his health drops and he's dead.

DING! Achievement: 100 Honorable Kills.

The Aussie had come in to save the day.

I'm sure he had a huge "WTF just hit me" moment as he stood in the graveyard, waiting to ressurect. And probably scrolled through his combat log to find out what happened. I just laughed about how fast his health went down and how he was my hundreth honorable kill.

But, he, apparently, is just as stubborn [or idiotic, I'm not sure which] as I am, and decided to return and have another go at it, only, this time, stopping to check behind the rocks that surrounded our combat area before Death Gripping me again.

I giggled at his check -- The Aussie was hidden behind rocks on the other side of the road.

He tries, again, and, when The Aussie came out to save the day, he went for The Aussie.

He dies; killing the DPS when you have a healer sitting right there is a really stupid idea.

We decide to have pity on him and continue to the Cauldron of Flames. On the way, we see an undead rogue. I made a comment about the rogue to The Aussie, who noted that he wasn't attacking, so we left him well enough alone.

A minute later found us at the Cauldron, cheerfully killing the Revenants for my quest item... As we fought one of the normal elementals, I notice that, off in the distance, there were a lot of red names. And they were coming at us.

The Death Knight had summoned his Army of the Dead and was coming for revenge. We engage, and find that the rogue had decided to play too; I was being kicked and had issues healing.

Nature's Swiftness saved the day, and The Aussie slaughtered them both.

Again, we move on, out of the Cauldron, and come across the Death Knight... who, apparently, still hadn't learned. The Aussie dug in, he died.

We move a bit farther, and decided that, while we're ahead, we should leave -- I had, after all, picked up my quest item. I hearth.

He, being a few seconds behind me... didn't make it.

"I'm being attacked."

Without a healer, The Aussie goes down. At the graveyard, he ressurects and hearths, leaving both of us rather amused and wondering what the Death Knight and his rogue friend thought of the whole incident.

Moral of the Story?

Resto shamans have powerful friends.

And griefing them is a bad idea.

A Little Guilty Secret

I've got something to admit.

I am addicted to Recount.

Not just the whole "how high can I be on there" addicted, but the whole "what are my best numbers" addicted. The "compare myself with everyone else" addicted.

Unfortunately, with this sort of addiction, I tend to find flaws in other people. By being addicted, I can see a general trend among tanks, healers, and DPS of all classes. Now, mind you, I tend to do it only toward classes I understand -- rogues are a mystery, know nothing of warlocks, and the only thing I know about paladins and warriors are the stuff my friends tell me when I tell them I see one of those in need.

[Although, a warrior friend says I know a lot about warriors! I keep him alive.]

But druids and shamans right now I tend to look at a lot, especially if their performance on the meters are low.

For those who don't know me, I am a PvE nut. I'll dabble in PvP to help out, but mostly it's the whole "oh, my, someone wants to kill me! Don't die, don't die, don't die! -spam heals on self-" sort of PvP. And I die anyway. So, basically, I'm useless in there.

I currently attend four Naxx raids -- two normals and two heroics for my two eighty characters. It's ridiculous, I know. They're all at different stages of progression: Losse's twenty-five clears all wings up to Thaddius, and we've just recently conquered him [thank heavens! He's really not as annoying as that raid makes him!], her tens full clears Naxx, does Vault10, does OS [we're aiming for a drake this week, maybe two -- week before we eight manned him], and killed Maly for the first time -- second week trying him, four weeks of being together. Kanta's twenty-five I just changed to a friend's raid, and may become healing leader for to help things along, and her tens... well. A good bunch of people they are, yes, but they are PvP focused roleplaying people that want to see raid content.

Some things just don't go over so well from the transition of PvP to PvE. One uses different abilities, has to keep different things in mind, and has to watch out for more than yourself and maybe a few friends/partners.

My warrior friend, for example, never stepped a foot in most of the BC instances until about two months before Lich King came out. [Which was really funny. Take him to heroics and we'd hear on vent -- "Oh, hey! I discovered The Slave Pens!"] All he did was PvP -- he had one character, and that was what he did. While now, in Lich King, he does many instances and heroics with us and has even expanded to raiding, he has 75K honorable kills. He entered Lich King with over 20K gold. He's mentioned in reference to dead bodies by other guilds, and Horde fear him because he can't resist a flagged target. It took him a while to get up to speed -- when teaching him normal instances, references to "okay, pretend you're guarding the farm. Mobs that run at you are Horde... kill them" were made. Still, not an easy transition.

I applaud them -- it's great that they're willing to step away from the defense of towns for a slaughter more brainless. However, there are a few things one must know before one leaves their PvP flags behind.

And this is where I come in. As someone who has always been quite involved on the PvE scene, as a tank, DPS, or a healer, I've learned a lot since I've started playing. As someone who is just a wee bit obsessed with looking at Recount, I tend to know when things are a bit out of place. I also have other situations to compare them to, for I attend three other raids that attack the same place: Naxxramas.

And tonight, after at least three deaths to Anub'Rekhan, I decided to put my PvE and obsession to use.

I started with the tank. Most issues with groups tended to stem from the tank and healer ends -- the lack of enough DPS ends can be seen easily enough. From Recount, I realized that in an eight minute boss fight, Shield Slam was used twice. For those who aren't warriors and aren't familiar with the spell [I just knew it was good in theory, not specifically what it does], basically it does lots of damage and has a high amount of threat.

A druid analogy would be mangling twice in a boss fight.

Not good.

Especially when it is buffed by Sword and Board -- a free Mangle? I'll take it!

And, looking over at the resto druid, I notice that she's not using Wild Growth. At all.

Trees are currently the strongest healers in game, so I've found. Two trees top Losse's Naxx25 over two shamans, a paladin, and two priests. Our resto shaman is bored in Losse's Naxx10 because the tree has HoTs everywhere and has pretty much nothing to do half the time. They're strong healers.

Which is why I thought I'd stop in and look at the druid that was doing significantly less healing than me.

Wild Growth is a very strong spell. To not use it is like not using Chain Heal or Circle of Healing. Really rather silly, if you ask me.

All three of the aforementioned trees, in raids, have Wild Growth as their top heal. I know I whined slightly about Chain Heal in one of my previous posts [at the very end], but I've come to the conclusion that Wild Growth really is much more amazing. [Please don't nerf it any more, Blizzard!]

With these in mind, I checked gear... and found it lacking.

After the raid, the raid leader and I had a long talk, and, in essence, we agreed upon a class workshop. To help those who aren't as familiar with what is needed in PvE, and to get them better acquainted with their abilities.

To make sure they get in the A-game.

To make sure we stop dying to silly things.

And, maybe the most important of all, make sure I don't go out of mana halfway through a boss fight despite using Mana Tide and Figurine - Sapphire Owl -- my two best friends on my shaman... nearly twice.

New Title? Raid Analyst.

Everything and Nothing

It happens to be the summary of my blog.

I started EG a year ago as of the first of February. It was then that I decided that EG would serve as a journal for me, an outlet, and perhaps a guideline or a source of... something for everyone else.

I've realized that, in the past year, despite my neglects to EG, I have made some "good" posts -- stuff that people supposedly care about. I've also made some "me" posts -- what I've been doing, how I feel, and just a log of my characters and their progression.

And I've made a whole crap ton of posts apologizing.

For what?

For not actually posting.

Seems silly, really, thinking upon it. It is EG, my pet baby, and I should coddle it when I wish, or put it aside when I just need do advance in the game.

But yet, I still do it.

Apologize, write a bit, and stop for a long while. Rinse and repeat.

I think, somewhere in the year, I realized that, yes, while I originally started EG as a "me" thing, it's become more than that -- or, at least, it would if I actually did something with EG. Other people read this, and, therefore, as a writer, I ought to cater to other people.

But I'm selfish. I'm at a point where there is still a lot for me to do in the game, and the blog has started to feel like a burden than a fun past-time. A negative thought, for sure, but that is where the end of the blogging year brings me.

EG will be my precious still, and I will still write in it, but I do need to recall that I made it for fun, not so it can be another task, another thing to put off for a while.

Happy Blogversary, EG!


... Now what shall I do...?

Find a muse again, somehow.

Here, muse-y muse-y!