It’s another pre-expansion slowdown. Interest in Northrend is waning. Personally, I find it quite difficult to blog when there isn’t much happening in-game, since that is where I draw my inspiration from. For the time being, there’s not much to write about in terms of news, changes, or advice – since we’re approaching the end of another expansion. It’s also hard to write guides and explanations when you know that in a short time, things will change. So I find myself grasping for blog posts that aren’t purely “here’s what I’m doing right now.”

But I’m really looking forward to Cataclysm. Possibly more than expansions past. I think this one has a lot of potential because of the shift in my play style recently – while I’m still serious about raiding and want to progress, I’m no longer “hardcore” and I don’t want it to be my life’s goal to “win”. I’m content these days playing with good friends. And, more and more, I’m enjoying alts and offspecs, levelling and exploring.




I think that Cataclysm will be the expansion that sees me levelling and playing a range of different classes.

Anyway, here are my pre-Cataclysm plans, if anyone is interested – in no particular order.


Take pictures

I intend to hoof it around all of my favourite places in Azeroth and make sure I get some nice snaps. I want to be able to look back and compare. I’ve already done Orgrimmar – and the alpha leaks showed massive changes there. It made me glad that I’d taken the time to remember Orgrimmar myself. Of course, I could just look up other people’s shots, but it wouldn’t feel the same.


Stockpile for my alts

I thought about stockpiling to sell for $$$, but meh. I’ve always made plenty of cash and I’ve never had to scrape. I don’t really feel the need to have 100k+ gold sitting about. However – I do intend to put away the materials necessary for first aid and any professions that my newbies might need, such as alchemy etc. I don’t want to have to mess around waiting for someone to put 5 Mageroyal up on the AH.

Oh, and of course, grab them plenty of bags, and get some appropriate BOA gear organised.


Do MC and AQ20

I still don’t have these finished on Keeva.


Finish as many other achievements as I can

This is pretty low priority. I can never “win” on achievement points since I don’t ever PvP/arena. I do enjoy doing achievements.. but it’s not something I care very much about these days. I’d like to get some of the old raiding ones finished, but I doubt it will happen – so I’m content to do what I can, but let the rest go for now. I did get my Ironbound Drake yesterday, though!


Level my three high level alts

There was a time that I said I would never play anything but resto druid in a group or a raid. But since I’ve stepped in as guild boomkin, I’ve loved it. Not enough to do it full-time, but I do really enjoy it. And that opened up my mind to playing other DPS characters too. I guess I was scared – I’ve been a healer so long that I was worried I would be terrible. Truth is I do pretty good – so I bet I could play another DPS character without too much trouble.

With Cataclysm raids being one raid per lockout, I suspect many people will be alting it up on weekends, with alt runs, pugs, and GKP. I never really had the chance, since my 80 alts are druids, and after a week of raiding on on resto druid, I’m not particularly keen to do it on the weekend. But I could totally see myself being a mage or priest (or whatever) in some weekend GKP runs. I enjoyed the couple of GKP runs I went on, so I’m definitely looking forward to this.

My three high (60+) alts are hunter, mage, priest.

The priest was going to be Disc, but healing on her just didn’t feel right. I like shadow a lot, though – so maybe that’s the way to go.

Thawm, my mage, is basically a JC/enchanter mule. But y’know, I miss playing mage. The only problem is that he’s a male BE, and he just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I’ve decided that when we’re able to race change to goblin, he will become a female goblin mage. I suspect he/she will be my main alt in Cataclysm – I’m really having a blast.

Earka is my hunter, and I love her too, although I’m not particularly confident with her yet. I love orcs – I desperately wish there were orc druids, I would be there like a shot.

Earka’s pet is Trotters, a black pig from Durotar. I don’t like fancy pets; it’s the RP in me. Earka is salt of the earth, and her pets are plain but loyal. And whatnot. Of course, I’ll grab a wolf (a prairie wolf from around Thunderbluff – nothing fancy) for raiding. But Trotters is her loyal pet.

Trotters has been UPGRADED! He is now EPIC TROTTERS. It makes me giggle. But I really love it – it’s the same model pig, but the pigs in Razorfen have an armored look. So as Earka has progressed through the world, so has Trotters become bigger and better.




Yay trotters!

Kiiva will remain, but I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with her. Another druid is fairly redundant, particularly with the raid lockout changes. I can’t bear to delete, though!

Drucie WILL be deleted. But not in vain. When my troll druid reaches 85 and has full herb/mining skills, Drucie will be deleted and reborn as a Tauren paladin! I love her name and look, but don’t need four high level druids on the same faction/server. Think of it as a career change.

Keeva, of course, will always be resto – but this time around I will absolutely be building her a boomkin off-set!


Resto guide v2.0

I’ve already started work on version 2 of my guide! I’m VERY excited. I had a brainwave about a better way to set it all out, plus more information to include, more diagrams and images, etc. Basically, an even more user-friendly layout. Did I mention very excited? I can’t wait to get more information in beta/Cataclysm so that I can update it and release it again. *bounces*

I’ll be levelling two new druids in Cataclysm; a troll to be my new feral fun character, and a Worgen – I adore their animations so far. The troll will be levelled through questing exclusively (or almost exclusively), but the Worgen will be levelled partly through dungeons. This way I can update and flesh out my “levelling as resto in dungeons” part of the guide – in case much has changed.

I think this will be a bit of an ongoing thing – it’s hard to go back and look through the eyes of a fresh druid. But I really enjoy doing it. My guide is my new love, and I intend to make it the most comprehensive out there.


Spring cleaning

- guild bank
- personal bank (it’s so hard )
- personal guild bank
- unused alts – delete and make space
- blog: clean up, update sidebar a bit, review blogroll. Update the “about me” page


And of course

Enjoy the wait with my friends!

Possibly Related Posts:

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• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

A snippet from Flash of Moonfire (read the full story here) –

I queued for normal ToC on my feral because I wanted the Black Heart, and being that I wanted in faster, I queued for both tank and dps. When I first did that I expected to go as tank to be honest, but it ended up being that about half the time I ran normal ToC I went as dps. Tanks love this place, and only one tank can go at a time.

The Black Heart dropped. I immediately rolled Need for it.

Then the party immediately said that what I’d done was not cool, that I shouldn’t have queued as dps to roll on a tanking trinket. I explained that I do both and queued as both. In retrospect I could have said something at the start of the instance like “I’m here for the Black Heart. If you don’t like it, leave and I’ll switch over to my tank spec and we’ll requeue for another dps,” but I hadn’t thought it would be a big deal.


I feel for you Hana! Something similar happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

I don’t like playing feral in instances, so I queue Drucie as a healer; both because that’s what I love doing, and because I get fast queues. I roll on both types of gear – healing mostly, so I can heal the heroics more effectively, but I’m also on the lookout for nice feral pieces for Drucie’s main set. She is a feral druid – don’t be fooled – I just don’t want to play feral in 5 mans. Call it a quirk. Besides, healing is what I’m good at, so it’s better for the group all-round.


If you heal the group, you can only roll on healing gear. Ever.

Apparently, and nobody informed me of this earlier, but APPARENTLY you’re only “allowed” to roll on gear that fits the job you are doing *right now*. That’s the rule. I don’t remember seeing this rule anywhere, but I’ve since been told that’s how it works. If you are a healer and you roll on DPS or tank gear, you’re a ninja. Likewise if you tank or DPS a run and you roll on healing gear – ninja.

Oddly, though, if you’re a tank and roll on DPS gear, or a DPS with a tank spec and you roll on tanking gear – nobody bats an eyelid. To demonstrate – here’s an example:



• I ran a normal TOC5. I queued as healer.

• The tank was a pally, and we had a rogue, mage, and DK as DPS.
• Tanking plate dropped. The pally and DK needed. The DK won. Nothing was said.
• DPS leather dropped. I rolled need. The rogue rolled need. I won. Something was said:
  

  
  Figure 1: Tell me how you really feel.


Like Hana, in retrospect, maybe I should have had a macro that blurts out “Hi, I’m here for XYZ, if that’s a problem, speak up now”. But hey, I see tanks rolling on DPS gear, DPS DKs and pallies rolling on tank gear – clearly for their dual spec – and I don’t think to say anything. Evidently, though, if you cross the line and roll on healing gear as DPS, or DPS/tank gear as healer, that’s ninja behaviour.

I’m a fair person. Oftentimes, once I have won something, I will pass on subsequent greens and shard rolls to be nice to the others in the group and give them more winnings. If two items drop from one boss and I would like both, I will take one and pass another. I don’t take +hit gear over casters, and in runs where I’m able to roll on cloth, I don’t do it if clothies need. I’m not a jerk, I’m not greedy, and I’m not a ninja.

I mean, geez, yesterday I felt bad rolling Need on an “of the Eagle” green on my lowbie priest because it was level 23 and I still had half a level before I could wear it.

But “You can only roll on gear that matches your role in the group” is the most stupid idea ever, and I won’t be sticking to it just because DPSers are greedy and don’t want to compete on rolls. Sorry, but I don’t enjoy being feral in 5 mans, so I heal groups to get feral gear. It’s my subscription, and I won’t be forced into a role that I dislike just because you feel morally outraged that I came in wearing a dress but want to roll on your “rogue loot”.

(PS – if he hadn’t been such a jerk, I would have just traded it to him if he really wanted it.)


OHAI, JUST FYI, I’M GONNA TAKE ALL UR LOOTS

I now have a macro. The macro’s icon is a giant blue sad face, to represent QQ over a dual-specced feral/resto druid rolling on DPS leather, waaah.

It says,

“Hi – I queued to heal but my main spec is Feral. I intend to roll Need on both healing and feral loot if the item is an upgrade for me. If this is a problem, please speak up now.”

Perhaps I might change it to include something like, “If there’s something specific you want though.. let me know, I won’t roll against you.”


Personally, from what I have seen, Need rolls are often made by people on behalf of their dual specs, and I don’t think I should have to have a macro to explain my intentions, purely because I am crossing that healing vs dps/tank line. But I refuse to be branded a ninja – so from now on, all groups will get a nice little canned warning note before we start, to avoid any confusion.

It’s unfortunate for some people that they only have one set of gear for both specs and so feel slighted because everyone else wants to collect twice as many items – and I’m also sorry that you have a longer wait time than I do- but the fact is, I put in equal effort, and I have equal right to roll on drops – whether it’s healing or DPS leather. If you have a problem with that, you can wait for a new group, or for a new healer.

At any rate, I’ll be “warning” groups in the future, so nobody can finger-point.

Possibly Related Posts:

• A 10man raider in a 25man guild
• Cataclysm: Tree of Life hobble fail
• My plans until Cataclysm

This is my baby priest, Mephitik.




I love her name; I chose it carefully. I think it’s fitting, for her race. I made her a while ago, because we didn’t have any priests, and because I wanted to try another healer.

I was bored and felt like picking her back up again, and thought maybe I could try some instances using the LFD tool. I LOVE healing instances. I dont mind levelling, but I’d rather be doing groups. I’ve wanted to try another healing class for a while, but worried that levelling up and then having to “learn to heal” all of a sudden at 80 would be hard, because generally it’s difficult to get groups for low level dungeons (so my group experience would be very limited).

So I’m loving this new tool. I can quest for a few minutes, then get a group. Sometimes the queue is instant. Port straight there, get almost a full level in the dungeon, and go straight back to what I was doing. I went from 14 to 22 after doing a handful of dungeons and a smattering of quests (and I get to skip all of the quests that I particularly hate – because I’m levelling so quickly that I don’t have to do them – yay!)

I’m having fun, healing groups, and I’m learning about another healing class, which can only be a good thing.


Waltzing into Stormwind

One of my first memories of the game was being run through Deadmines and the Stockade when I was a brand new Night Elf druid. My friends, being veterans of the game, took for granted that everyone knows their way around Stormwind and EVERYONE knows where the Stockade is. They zoned in while I trailed quite far behind, trying to negotiate my way around Stormwind. They disappeared off my map, and then impatiently asked why I was taking so long to get there. Indignantly (defensively), I told them I had no idea where they were. They had to zone out to show me where to go.

I think, perhaps, Blizzard has overlooked this kind of problem when implementing the new LFD (Looking for Dungeon) system for low level instances. Some people simply have no idea how to get to these dungeons – or it’s been so long, they might as well have never been there. Some dungeons are easy enough to find, but the entrance portals are hidden inside a maze of winding tunnels and passageways.

Obviously this isn’t a problem when you first join the group, you get ported right there. Hordies can do Deadmines and The Stockade without ever having to set foot in Westfall or Stormwind. We can do Gnomeregan without having to do the (still bugged) teleporter quest. Alliance players can do Ragefire Chasm, and those on PvP realms don’t have to run the Scarlet Monastery gauntlet anymore. How hot is that? I thought it was absolutely fantastic – I get to do all these old school instances, without the hassle of travelling all the way there.

But what happens when the group wipes, and we have to run back?

Big problems.


“I don’t know how to get back to the instance.”

Yesterday I joined a Wailing Caverns group. I immediately realised they were part way through the instance; their character arrows were off somewhere to the south east. Low level dungeons don’t have maps; so I had no way of working out exactly where they were. I started running to where I thought they were, and immediately encountered a patrolling mob that hadn’t been killed earlier, plus a bunch of mobs. How did they go that way if they didn’t clear any of this?

The pally was dead (somewhere) and asking if I could rez. The mage had to come and collect me, to show me where they were. Turns out they had only partly cleared some trash up the top, then dropped down into the trench. Ok, no problem.

We ran to meet up with the rest of the group, and were met with a huge stream of mobs pouring out into the open. Somehow we managed to survive, although the mage died. I was completely OOM (go go lowbie priest mana), so I sat to drink. “Rez” came the whisper from the mage. Grr.

The pally too kept asking for a rez. Problem: he had released, so we had to search for a body on the ground. I guess WC all looks the same, because nobody could remember where he died (it was before I arrived). He could have been anywhere, lying under some nondescript fern.

Pally: Rez me?
Me: Where did you die?
Pally: (shaman) should know.
Shaman: I can’t find your body.
Pally: It’s where you were arguing earlier.

(alarm bells are sounnnndiinnnng)

Pally: How do I get back to the instance?

After 10 minutes of running in circles, and the pally constantly asking how to get back in, I left. I hated doing it.. but I couldn’t afford to spend half an hour searching for one person OR trying to give directions to the portal through party chat. They hadn’t even killed a single boss yet. It didn’t bode well for the rest of the run.


Pats, corpse runs, hidden portals

Patrolling mobs, stupidly long corpse runs, portals that are difficult to find.. they are all a massive stumbling block for low level groups.

I don’t want to make the game super simple – corpse runs are a small and necessary time-sink, I understand that. But when people are brand new to a lot of these places, they will often simply drop group rather than try to find their way back to the instance portal.

My first three instances yesterday all fell short of the final boss because it was too hard to recover from a wipe or someone having to run back. In Deadmines, people running back have to find their way from Sentinel Hill, into the building in Moonbrook, then through the maze of tunnels before the instance portal. Once you’re back in, if you take a wrong turn, you’ll likely get killed by uncleared miners; but even if you go the right way, patrols spawn behind the group, so you’ll be the one to stumble on them. Plus, the instance is very, very long – some people just don’t have the patience.

In one group, we wiped literally on the pack before the final boss, and everyone dropped group because it was too hard to run all the way back. In another group, we had to boot someone for being a ninja/facepuller/bad, but then realised it was best not to invite a replacement because it would take them 10 minutes to get to us, and they would likely die to pats anyway. In a few groups, it has been easier to 4man the instance rather than bring in a replacement 5th.

Wailing Caverns probably speaks for itself – it’s hard to find your way back, and I had two groups fail and break up because it was too hard to go back and try again. The portal is pretty hard to find if you don’t know the place. Once, I ran WC, we wiped, and the group told me to run back and rez them, because they didn’t know the way!

Now, the Stockade is great – a very short instance, nice and linear, portal is easy to find – but (as a Horde character) if you die, you spawn at the Eastvale Logging Camp, on the opposite side of Elwynn. FAIL.




Consider these dungeons, and either how much of a trek it is from a graveyard, how difficult it is to find the portal if you’re not familiar with the area, or how painful it is to run back through the dungeon to where you were fighting:



• Deadmines

• Wailing Caverns
• Maraudon
• BRD
• Blackfathom Deeps
• Sunken Temple
• Gnomeregan
• Uldaman


Imagine having to run back through BRD to the group, if nobody can rez you. All you have is a vague directional marker telling you where your group is. Goodie! As much as I love that instance (I really do), it’s massive. Nobody likes running back through that.

I’m a seasoned player, I’ve been to these places many, many times – but even I cringe at the thought of having to find that stupid Maraudon portal. As for Gnomeregan – well, even I’d be tempted to drop group if we wiped on that. Trying to find my own way in would be hard enough; trying to give directions to others through party chat.. uugghhhh.

They’re all awesome dungeons and I love doing them – but recovering from a death, or bringing in a new player – it can be too much hassle for a lot of groups, and they collapse rather than pushing on. Seems it’s easier to just drop and requeue than to run back and press on.


Make it (dare I say it..) easier

Ok, so it’s already pretty darn easy on groups. You get ported right to the instance, no travelling, no PvP, no time wasted. Fantastic.

But seriously, doing all of these instances, getting almost all the way through and then having your group dissolve because people don’t know how to run back, or the instance is incredibly long, or there’s a pat that keeps killing your replacement 5th, forcing the group to run back to escort them through.. it’s so frustrating.

I don’t want Blizzard to hold our hands and lead us through instances. But I do wish it was slightly easier to get back to the instance after a death. And, if you are replacing someone who left the group, I wish there was a way for you to perhaps port to the group to join them, rather than having to negotiate pats, or have someone come back to collect you because you have no idea how to find the group.

Yesterday I started doing specific dungeons instead of randoms, because it would constantly serve me up with Wailing Caverns, and most of those runs ended in frustration.

I really want to run all of the instances – I miss them. Some of them are pretty epic places, and I think it’s great that the LFD tool gives them a new lease on life – but I’m dreading wipe recovery in places like BRD, Gnomer, and Mara, among others. Blizzard – please consider closer graveyards, or something to make it slightly easier to at least find the instance portal again.


Oh well – onward and upward, little priest!

Possibly Related Posts:

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I thought I’d share with you my “shopping list” for Emblems of Frost. It’s not a BiS list, and I’m not telling you this is what you should do with your badges; I just think it’s valuable to see how other people are prioritising their spending. It helps when you’re weighing up your options. I always like reading what other people intend to do with theirs.


Purified Lunar Dust (60)

My trinkets were quite poor – I was still using Je’tze’s Bell and Sif’s Remembrance. Sadly, not everyone got their hands on Solace/s. So before diving into other gear choices, I wanted to improve my trinkets for a quick spellpower boost. I was lucky enough to snag Sliver of Pure Ice in 10 man (which is almost as coveted, in my guild, as Althor’s Abacus), so those two will serve me very well until I can get an abacus of my own.


Circle of Ossus (60)

This is a 15 int, 21 haste, 13 spellpower and 1 socket upgrade (at the loss of armor and 3 spirit) over my current belt, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. This belt is my BiS – and in my mind, the faster I can obtain my BiS items, the better. This is the next item I’ll grab.


Vestments of Spruce and Fir (95)

This is another BiS item, heavy on haste (unlike the Tier 10 chest), and all-round delicious. 30 haste and 11 spellpower (at the cost of 18 spirit). Again – if I can cement BiS items early, they are my priority. Expensive, but badges will start to flow a little faster now that the second gate is opening.


T10 shoulders (60) + T10 gloves (60)

The cheapest/fastest route to 2pc T10, which isn’t amazing, but a boost to WG is definitely welcome. I won’t look that gift horse in the mouth. I could go gloves/pants, for two haste items, but my haste is OK at the moment, so I’m not concerned about taking the crit shoulders.

In terms of stats, on the gloves I gain 4int, 4 sta, 12spi, and 7 spellpower. I lose 4 haste (I am currently using T9.5 balance gloves). On the shoulders I gain 13int, 13sta, 19spi, 63crit and 20 spellpower (and a red socket instead of blue), at the cost of 60 haste. That’s a big haste loss, but I’ve picked up 51 haste from the belt and chest, so I’m only down a small amount so far. If I upgrade to the sanctified gloves, I’d gain 9 haste over the original gloves.


T10 legs (95)

The “base” T10 item in this case gives me 6 extra haste and 9 spellpower, but I lose a socket (so it is basically a small downgrade). For this reason, I’d prefer to wait for a token before I get the T10 legs, which would be a 14int, 14sta, 12spi, 18haste and 31 spellpower upgrade (still at the cost of 1 socket). This picks up a bit of the haste I have lost on the other pieces.


T10 head (95)

The helm is a big haste hit – I lose 74 haste and gain 6stats, 80 crit, and 9 spellpower, plus swap from yellow to red socket. Because of the haste hit, this will probably be quite low priority for me (but ultimately, the upgraded version is what I want to be wearing – down the track). I don’t really care for the 4pc bonus, so I will probably wear my current helm quite happily until then.



What’s the damage?

Stats and spellpower are going to go up, that’s pretty much a given – but the question is, what will the changes be to my haste?

All up, by hypothetically equipping these badge items, my haste would change by:

+20 belt
+30 chest
-4 gloves (+5 if sanctified)
-60 shoulders
+18 legs (sanctified)
- 74 head

Total: -69 haste.

My current haste is 780, so that would bring me down to 711. Overall not as bad as I thought it would be. Once we can access heroic modes, my haste will get a little more padding; but for now, while it fluctuates (as I swap new gear in and lose/gain chunks of haste all over the place), I’ll stick with Celestial Focus.

Remember, with full 25man buffs, at 735 haste you need 3/3CF, 775 haste is 2/3, 815 is 1/3, and 856 is required to drop CF altogether.

What does this mean? Basically, it just means that I can’t ditch CF as early as I had hoped. If my haste drops to 711, I’ll need 3/3 CF and 3 more Reckless Ametrines to reach the soft cap of 735. Alternatively, I could go with a Reckless Ametrine and put a Quick King’s Amber in somewhere – probably in my exalted ring – which has a yellow socket. It depends on what my sockets and socket bonuses look like – it may just be easier to go with a King’s Amber, if I don’t have “room” for two Ametrines). I could also opt to put a Quick King’s Amber in my belt buckle, since that has no bearing on socket bonuses.

So it’s not all that bad, really. I’d like to get Revitalize back, soon, but it’s not so bad to have to wait a little while. I have the option of ditching my tailoring cloak enchant and going with 23 haste (I’d prefer not to, though), and tossing in some haste or haste/spellpower gems to top up to the soft cap, if I desperately wanted to recover a point or two from the balance tree. We’ll see.

For now, I’m happy to stick with CF and some gems, until we start getting those heroic items. I’m not feeling the loss of those points too badly.

Possibly Related Posts:

• My plans until Cataclysm
• Dual specs + LFD + Need = drama?
• “How do I get back to the instance?”

This is for my sister, who desperately wants a pug puppy.


<3

Possibly Related Posts:

• My plans until Cataclysm
• Dual specs + LFD + Need = drama?
• “How do I get back to the instance?”

I try to be a fairly patient person. Not much gets me going, really.. it takes a lot to make me mad. But the one thing that absolutely makes my blood BOIL is when stupid/bad people genuinely think that I am stupid/bad, when it’s actually them being stupid/bad.

Up until 10 minutes ago, I haven’t had any particularly negative LFG tool-generated PUG experiences. I’ve had the odd person who was a bit snooty, some hiccups in Oculus (who hasn’t), but overall, PUGs have been great. I enjoy doing them.

Until today.

Drucie is now 80 (more on that another time, though). I’m running her through groups to gear up. I got into Forge of Souls – I was a bit surprised, but the two pieces of Tier 9 that I bought probably bumped her up a bit and let her in. I was confident – I’ve done plenty of groups in her gear and had a lot of compliments on my healing, despite the scrubbiness.




FOS was a bit tough on my terrible regen, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

The problem was that on every trash pull, each of the DPS would attack a different mob. It’s a huge free-for-all. On packs of 4-5 mobs, you could guarantee that every person in the group had aggro – the tank from trying to tank, the DPS from each picking their own target, and poor me from healing those impromptu tanks.

So I speak up. I try to be nice, because you can never tell if people are just really new – and I’m not a mean or rude person, and I try not to judge people harshly. So I just said, “Can you guys stick to one target please, I can’t heal everyone at the same time.” Which is the truth – they were making it so I had to heal every person at once, which was just making it harder than it had to be.

We keep going. It happens again, and again. I see lightning bolts fly towards one mob, bullets heading for another, and the warrior off in a corner bashing on some other mob. I ask them again to stop splitting DPS; they all claim to be hitting the same target. Now, I know I’ve said lately that I may need a new glasses prescription, but I’m pretty sure I can see clearly when lightning bolts (not chain lightning, lightning bolts) are hitting one mob, and bullets are hitting another.

I’ve had enough. I tell them flat out – “If you guys don’t stop splitting DPS I’m just going to go. You’re making it hard on the tank and healer, harder than it has to be.”

In hindsight, I should have just left. Good old hindsight.


lol, take ur blues and leave, scrub

“Take your blues and leave if you want, stop bitching.” says the (unguilded) warrior – who, not five minutes ago, had fallen spectacularly and stupidly to his death by walking off a platform.



Figure 1: The Gravity Boss claims another hapless victim.


For the record, Mr Warrior, my blue gear may mean that I look terrible and that I have to drink quite frequently, but evidently your epic gear doesn’t stop you doing stupid things like wombling off great heights like an epic plate-wearing lemming.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (…splotch.)

Protip: blues don’t make baddies, and epics don’t erase stupidity. Perhaps you might like to invest in a Skyguard’s Drape for your next trip to Forge of Souls? Best to play it safe.


On the next pull, predictably, every person has aggro, and I die to healing aggro. The tank questions me.

“How did you die? Too busy typing? :P”
“I was healing people who shouldn’t have been tanking :)”
“I had all the mobs.”
“No, I had aggro, that’s how I died.”
“No, I had aggro on everything.”


Preeettty sure I can tell when something is bashing my face in.

That’s “aggro”, right?

So I had a tank who didn’t know who in the group has aggro (and thinks he is doing a great job), and three DPSers who keep choosing different targets but swear til they’re blue in the face that they’re assisting the tank every time. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh.

But worse – when you trying to turn things around, when you ask them to single target, they laugh at you, and you’re the bad one. That’s what drives me absolutely up the wall, I can’t stand it. Like the time I was driving, came to an intersection, and waited (correctly) for another car to turn in front of me, as she had right of way on the continuing road. She waited for me to keep going, but she was meant to, so I stayed there. Finally she threw her hands in the air and turned, and as she passed me, gave me a disgusted look (which, in WoW, would have been the equivalent of saying “l2drive noob!!1111″). She was the stupid one who didn’t know the road rules, yet she drove away thinking *I* was the baddie. I hate that – when someone else is an idiot, but they walk away thinking you’re the dumb one (and they likely didn’t learn anything from it, either). GRRR!!

So the moral of the story, kids – is that if you’re in with a group of baddies, and you ask them nicely to stop doing something that is making things painful, you will probably be dubbed a blues-wearing, bitchy noob. Honestly, 99% of my PUGs so far have been great.. but next time I get one like that, I think I’ll just leave and save myself the frustration.

Which is sad really, because I like helping new people. If nobody wants to endure the frustration of trying to teach people the fundamentals of group play (like please single target mobs down, kthx), then the truly bad players are just going to keep being bad, and they’ll just keep driving other people nuts.

I don’t leave groups on a whim because I don’t like the instance, or because I think someone in the group is a “noob”, etc. But – if I get another awful group like that – where everyone is doing the wrong thing but A) think they’re awesome and B) refuse to do things properly.. I think I’ll just save myself the headache, and drop.

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Psynister tagged me to do a “Warcraft – year in review” post a couple of weeks ago, but being in Christmas whirlwind mode, I decided to save it for an almost new year post (I figured it was apt anyway).

Here are the questions/topics:

My Warcraft Year in Review
1. What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?
2. What was your favorite new place that you visited?
3. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
4. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
5. What was your biggest failure?
6. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
7. What do you wish you’d done less of?
8. What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?
9. Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.


1. What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Levelled a druid for something different (hahaha – just kidding!)

I embraced 10 man raiding. Back when I was raiding 25s “hardcore”, I had no time for 10s. They were not progression for me, so I had no interest in them. I got angry when people tried to make me do them; why would I want to do the same fights AGAIN but in a smaller raid – for lesser loot, and no progression recognition? I didn’t care about 10 man ladders, or even 10 man achievements, so why would I bother?

But then my guild fell apart, and reformed later as a close group of friends, to do 10 mans – and I discovered how much fun that size raid can be. Now I enjoy doing both size raids.

2. What was your favorite new place that you visited?

Hmm. I love “green” zones – like Howling Fjord, the basin, etc. I adore the music in Storm Peaks, I can’t even tell you how much. The phasing in Icecrown is exciting to progress through. I was impatient for the Culling of Stratholme instance because I love Caverns of Time instances where you can see how the landscape once looked (I was just disappointed that it doesn’t allow you to wander, as you can in Old Hillsbrad). It’s tough to pick a favourite.. but I think I’ll go with Storm Peaks. The music, the quest lines.. and even the Hodir quests – I love it all.

3. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Guild stability.

4. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Bringing Inexorable back.

5. What was your biggest failure?

Not blogging consistently. Two jobs and reforming a guild makes it difficult. In 2010 I’d like to be more consistent with the timing of my posts, even if I can only post once a week.

6. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I absolutely love the new dungeon finder system, I think Blizzard have done an amazing job with it. I love doing random groups with people, but I always hated that I would get an invite, then start heading to the instance, only to find that the others haven’t left Dalaran yet, so after they finally get a wriggle on and get out there, it’s 10-15 minutes later before we can start. This way, I can hit a button, find a group, and zip straight there (and straight out). No more waiting for stragglers – which was what I hated most.

I NEVER used the old LFG tool, ever. I was unsure about using the new one – but as soon as I tried it, I fell in love. Good job, Blizz!

I also got very excited for Ulduar’s release, because I’m in love with titan architecture, and couldn’t wait to see if the inside lived up to the outside.

7. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Stressing over guild dramas, and being the guild mother. I want to be a guildmaster, not a guildmother.

8. What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

There are a few that I really enjoy, I like Restokin for all things druid (leaning more to the theorycrafting side), Matticus for general healing and guild relations.. but there are a whole bunch on my blogroll that are a great mix of beefy content, random musings, gorgeous site design, wit and humour, etc. It’s hard to pick a favourite because I like them all for different reasons

9. Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.

1. Never let your raid team fall into the habit of relying on a single person to push them through content, to the point where if that person is absent, the group falls to the floor and people claim that they can’t go on (and that the officers are failing because they’re not stepping in to start pushing people again). I’m talking about seasoned raiders who could do Naxx25 in their sleep, but whining that the raids are horrible/bad/messy when one person isn’t there to lead. I’m not buying that anymore. You can’t do Naxx25 without someone telling you what to do? I want raiders who don’t need to have someone holding their hand to know the trash pulls, or get through frogger, or run back and buff up.

2. Bite the bullet and get rid of the bad eggs before things get worse. Basically, I’m not going to tolerate people acting like jerks this round, no matter how good they are at raiding. I don’t often put my GM hat on, I like to think that the guild can mostly run itself, but if I see you treating people badly, acting like a jerk, or giving us a bad name, expect to cop an earful, a benching, maybe even a boot. The health and atmosphere of my guild is more important to me than having a “top DPSer” on the roster.

I don’t expect people to hold hands and sing songs, but I won’t put up with people stirring trouble, talking others down, or generally acting like idiots. No more Mr Nice Keeva!


Farewell 2009, onto 2010!

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For those not in the know, Gift of the Earth Mother has been redesigned, and the upshot is that we need a whole lot more haste to get to the haste soft cap – which is very important if you spend your time tossing out HoTs on as many people as possible.

It means that you now need more than double the haste that we used to aim for (in order to get our GCD down to 1.0s). Because we now need so much more haste, some players are opting for 18 points in the Balance tree to be able to pick up Celestial Focus, which awards you 3% haste.

It’s a temporary shortcut to the soft cap, basically.



How do I know how much haste I need?

The basics:

25man raiders will often/usually have Boomkins/Ret pallies and Shamans to provide their respective buffs (Imp Moonkin, Swift Ret Aura, and Wrath of Air – remember though, boomkins and pallies don’t stack). If this is true, you will need 735 haste if you have 3/3 CF, or 856 haste if you don’t have points in CF.

10 man raiders may find themselves without one or both buffs, so you may need to have higher haste to compensate for these times.

Everyone’s situation and gear varies – so to see how much haste you’ll need for various combinations of talents and buffs, here’s the full breakdown.



Do I really need that much haste?


To put it very simply – being at the soft cap will allow you to HoT more people. HoTting more people = more healing = a pretty big deal.

We’re not talking about trying to top meters or snipe heals here – it’s about being able to cover as much of the raid as you are used to covering. If you’re used to being able to cover a dozen people with Rejuvs, plus toss the occasional WG and maybe a heal to the tanks, if your haste is low (post 3.3), you’re not going to be able to heal that many people anymore, because you have to wait longer for the GCD to finish before you can HoT the next person.

What effect will this have on your healing and the raid’s success?



Figure 1: Sometimes I exaggerate a bit


If you’re chasing some anecdotal evidence that you need to bump up your haste value – I took Kiiva (my other healy druid) into heroics last night to get her started on some new gear. Problem: I totally forgot to respec her for 3.3 with CF. Trying to get through the whole group with HoTs on Loken felt SO SLOW. I could still do it, definitely, but even on a 5 man group it felt slow and as though it was really hindering me. I definitely wouldn’t want to heal a 10 or 25man raid without more haste!



What do I need to give up to be able to take Celestial Focus?

This is mostly personal choice. I chose to drop 3 points in Revitalize and 1 further point in Living Seed (now 1/3).


There’s not really a right or wrong way to choose the talents to pluck your points from. Most people will drop Living Seed, Revitalize, or Empowered Touch to be able to get CF. There’s not really a “cookie cutter” CF spec – it’s up to your personal choice and style to dictate where to borrow those points from.

• If you tank heal quite a lot, you’ll likely want to keep Living Seed and Emp Touch, but drop Revitalize.
• If you raid heal more, and particularly if you mostly do 10s and can’t always guarantee a Replenish in the raid, then you’ll probably prefer to prioritise Revitalize.
• Points in Empowered Touch is entirely personal choice; many people say that they “hardly ever use Nourish” and only ever use Healing Touch with Nature’s Swiftness, so losing Emp Touch is no big deal. You need to weigh it up against ther others and decide which is more valuable to you, your style, and your situation.


Personally – I love Revitalize, but I chose to give it up because it is less valuable in 25s than in 10s, and I value it less now. I still love it – but if it’s not going to get as much mileage, then I can consider dropping it (for now).


I originally decided to take 2 points out of Empowered Touch to give to Revitalize, but my basic (no-HoT) Nourishes were losing about 1000 healing, and I didn’t like the thought of 1000hp smaller Nourishes. I do use Nourish quite a bit, and in situations where you may need to “spam” to top people up in a hurry, I wouldn’t want to be losing 1000+ healing off each cast. So I weighed things up and decided that I could do without Revitalize for the time being, in favour of beefier Nourishes (should I need them). I love bringing interesting utility to the raid – boosting melee DPS with Revitalize – but for now, I’ll keep my slightly larger Nourishes.


I’ve also lost a point in Living Seed, but since I will likely be (mostly) raid healing, that’s also not the end of the world. If I pick up more haste gear, I’ll probably put points back into Living Seed first (but this will depend on how much direct healing I’m finding I need for IC).


All up, I don’t think I have sacrificed too much in order to temporarily squeeze Celestial Focus into my spec.


Need help choosing a CF spec? Try Lissanna’s 3.3 healing guide – here are her suggested specs.



When can I take points back out of CF and get my old talents back?

Taking points in CF can just be a temporary measure until you get more haste gear to reach the cap with haste alone. Then you will be able to remove points in CF and go back to your old spec, if you like.

Use this list to find out how much haste you will need in order to drop back to 2/3 CF, keeping in mind which raid buffs you are likely to have. Remember, for example, that if you don’t have any shamans dropping Wrath of Air, you’ll need higher haste than someone whose raid does have a shaman.

For raiders with both Moonkin/Ret and Shaman buffs, you’ll need the following haste to be able to drop points in CF:




Example: Keeva has picked up a couple of nice haste rings, plus upgraded her helm, and is now at 764 haste. That’s pretty darn close to 775, so if I wanted to, I could drop back to 2/3 CF to be able to put a point back into Living Seed.

I’m going to wait a little while though, just in case I take a big upgrade that has no haste on it, and my haste drops down. I like to have a little bit of wiggle room.


What about gemming for haste?

Some druids choose to gem for haste rather than taking points in Celestial Focus. You can either use Reckless Ametrine or Quick King’s Amber to boost up your haste a little.

If you’re gemming instead of taking CF, I believe you need about 100 haste to offset the 3% from CF (please someone correct me if this is wrong – you know how I am with numbers). If this is true, then you’d need to swap in 5 King’s Ambers into your gear. To me, this is a little much, but it will depend very much on how attached you are to those 4 or so extra points in the resto tree.

I’ve opted to use Reckless gems in some of my yellow slots, but I’m not aggressively gemming for haste at this point. My haste has already jumped from 617 to 764 in the last few days, and I’m sure it won’t take long for me to get enough to be able to drop CF and return to “normal” gemming.



Where can I get more haste gear?

Tree Haelz put together a list of the haste gear available in 3.3 – check it out if you’re not sure where to get your next piece of haste armor.



I hope this helps the trees out there who aren’t sure what to do with their haste and talents.

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I’m really looking forward to the random, cross-server PuG system.

I love to PuG. Call me crazy, but I really do love it. What I don’t enjoy, though, is having to find groups. Even as a healer, even though it’s easy to “get” groups, because healers are in demand – I still find it tedious to join a group, see that we only have 3 people.. start heading to the instance, realise that the rest of the group thought they’d stay in Dalaran until the group was full.. wait for another person to come to the stone – all while the rest of the group whines for summons. Blah. It’s really what discourages me from grouping with random people – I’m too impatient for everyone else to get their act together.

So I can’t wait for the random PuG system that fills the group for you, and teleports you right to the instance. Zap!


It’s either PuG, or take off my pants

I remember my very first heroic, back playing my NE druid. It was harsh. I remember having to spam heal the tank just on the trash pulls – and that was in one of the easiest heroics, Slave Pens. I thought it was crazy difficult.

Later playing Keeva, throughout TBC we jostled for the top guild on the server, and we were pretty much geared to the teeth. Heroics became so easy that I could tab out and talk to people on MSN during fights (bad druid!), or watch TV. Once you outgeared the content, Heroics became just as easy as doing a normal instance, really.

So I started to strip down for heroics.

That is, I would remove some gear to make it more interesting. More of a challenge. Less power, smaller mana pool, etc.

My outfit of choice was usually my Blue Overalls, Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat, and Farmer’s Broom. I found that I could remove choice visible items from my set, but keep the items that didn’t show – so that it looked as though I was wearing just the RP set, but I still kept a decent amount of healing:

- Neck
- Cape (not shown)
- Belt (looked fine with the overalls)
- Boots (I’m Tauren – they don’t show anyway)
- Bracers (no gloves though, too bulky)
- Rings
- Trinkets
- Idol

I managed to keep around the 1400 healing mark, which was around about the amount of healing I started doing heroics with, which was perfect to provide a challenge.

Farmer Keeva will heal you!


Note: I don’t do this sort of thing if I think it would jeopardise the run or annoy people. Someone did blame me for a wipe once, but he pulled two groups of mobs when the group wasn’t ready, and everyone agreed it was his fault, not mine. It’s really not my style to do things “4 lolz” at the expense of the group – I just sometimes feel like stripping my character down will be more challenging and engaging than steamrolling it.



Me, Keeva, Kiiva, Christmas, and waiting for ICC


As you guys know, I mainly do 10 man raids on Keeva these days. With ICC looming, Christmas around the corner, and two jobs, I don’t have much time to play at the moment. But I find that when I am online, I don’t care for any of the stuff I used to like to do. Farming, grinding, collecting achievements, doing dailies. I used to really enjoy that. Now, it bores me. I try to fish for a while, but zzz. I haven’t done my Argent dailies for ages, despite wanting the mounts.


I just want to raaaaaaaaaid.


In the small amount of free time that I get to be online, I want to log on, do some raiding… and then I usually have to log off. I don’t really mind what I raid.. I just want to get in and heal people.


Obviously, Keeva gets locked into TOC10 and TOGC10, so I can’t go PuG that with her outside of normal raid times. We also PuG TOC25 and TOGC25 on weekends, so I can’t take any groups through the week.


That’s where Kiiva (or “scrubby Keeva” as I have affectionately nicknamed her) comes in. Kiiva has a couple of TOC10 items, but the rest of her gear is crafted, with a smattering of Naxx gear and some blues. I refer to her as “my baby druid”.

Kiiva


I answered a call in Trade the other day for a healer for TOC10. I linked my achievement, and told them that I had also done TOGC10, and TOC25 on my main, just to give them a little more confidence in my ability. I was invited, and headed to the instance.

When I got in there, the raid leader looked at my gear, and said,

“16k hp and mana??????”


I laughed, and told him I had done it before, and it would be fine.


One of the healers disconnected very early on the beasts encounter, and the other one died partway through Icehowl, meaning I had to solo heal it. And I did, just fine.


At the end, I got a bunch of surprised whispers about my healing. It felt really good. Obviously, I knew I could heal it; I had done it before; but it was really nice to go into a group where everyone doubted you could handle it, then to have the other healers die or disconnect, and still pull the group through it (especially if your gear is pretty bad). It was great. For the rest of the night I helped the priest learn the fights through whispers, and passed a healing neck to her (Kiiva is my alt, after all.. and I had already picked up some shoulders). Another 25man raiding druid jumped in after that, and it was a really smooth run.


I love doing raids on Kiiva because her gear gives a bit more of a challenge. People look at her Charmed Cierge and think “we’re doomed.” Then, miraculously, it’s a great run, and everyone learns not to judge a book by its scrubby, scrubby cover.


It just goes to show that if you know your class (having played 5 druids over 4 years helps), if you know how to manage your miserable 16k mana, if you know the fights already (I think I could do TOC with my eyes closed).. then you know the dance, you know when certain damage is going to come in, and what to cast to prepare for that… and you can do it with 16k mana and ~1800 spellpower. And boy is it fun!


So here’s to PuG raid leaders who take chances.



We pug TOGC25


On weekends, a priest in the guild runs his own TOC25 runs. There are a couple of GDKP runs on the weekend too, but our “thatpug” runs have cemented themselves as (I guess you could say) the premier PuG hordeside. We clear everything in about an hour, very smooth. The loot is done through a standard main spec /roll (the usual deal), which is less attractive than GDKP to many people, but our runs are so smooth and quick that we still have a huge demand for spots.


With the calibre of players turning up, the DPS output and how smooth the runs were, we decided to try TOGC. At first it was almost for laughs – to see if a PuG could clear hard mode Beasts (something than many guilds are still working on), but we really started to see that there were some high quality players showing up, and we realised it wasn’t such a silly idea after all.


We killed Beasts on our 5th try – first time we had been in there. 46 attempts remaining. We also killed Jaraxxus. He didn’t drop my trinket.


This weekend, our second week of tries, we got Beasts on the 4th try – 47 remaining. We one-shot Jaraxxus, and got Faction Champs in 3 attempts.


We’re coming 6th on server progression, although nobody can officially recognise us because we’re not a guild


Note: A few people have said, “It’s not a PuG if you have the same people going each week” (ie, “you’re cheating!!!!”) but in reality, there’s really only a small core of people who go each time. The priest hand-picks the best people available, and while it does include people he knows (because he knows their level of performance), it’s not always the same group.


Some have also said “why don’t you just join up as a guild” but the fact is, we all have guilds already – and a lot of the people that we bring in are skilled, geared alts, whose mains are already saved because they belong to progression guilds. We like coming together on weekends, but we have our own guilds that we want to stick with



My name is Keeva and I love to PuG!

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I really wanted them, but I’m trying very hard to pay off my car at the moment. I have $6000 to go, and I will have paid it off in 9 months instead of 5 years. I’m very proud of myself, but it does take a bit of commitment.

When a friend found out about them – he bought them for me as an early Christmas present! <3 Frosty!

(I'll lecture him later about HIS car payments..)


If you aren't already aware - Blizzard is selling these pets for $10 each. Until the end of December, $5 from each Monk sale goes to the Make a Wish Foundation.

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