Crusade is Calling

"The Call of the Crusade" is not a part of bloody Christian history but merely the new Patch that has hit World of Warcraft players everywhere.

"Has hit" is a good term, because there was a brief window that let me log into the game and have a look at my Druid and her new Cat/Bear form. (awwwwww!)
But now the Login server seems to be down, it tries to load my characters but than it disconnects me again.

Well, gnaaa.

I have been catching up on all the changes and it is a lot. Deathknights had their talent points refunded... again. They are doing so much to the class, that you can barely keep up.

You can barely keep up with anything that is in this. It is frustrating to update almost every addon again, I just got it as I wanted it to be. It's as if they won't let you catch your breath, and it seems with the ability for more people to raid more people get bored with content really fast.

I do love the idea of the tournament, it's just that I hate hate hate jousting. And I don't really like the dailies there at all. So sorry that I'm not thrilled to have a patch mainly for giving us more... jousting.

Well, gnaaa.

I'll go and shut off the computer now and get some fresh air. :)

Cascade Swans? WTF?

Yesterday was our bi-weekly Magic: The Gathering night and I have played with my very first deck again, well the first deck I made for playing with Michael.

It is a white deck that relies heavily on flying creatures and absorbing damage dealt to creatures and the player. The strategy was really simple: survive until you have a flying armada, and then hit very hard.

It wouldn't be tournament worthy and we always agreed in our round that we wouldn't simply make decks to win fast and furious - but to have fun trying new twists and turns with decks all the time.

Yesterday we played 2vs2 and the guys broke out their Slivers and tried to kill us hard and furious. They did. We were too mana-screwed and had no aggro at all. I was beginning to get pissed. Slivers in 2vs2? *sigh* too much too fast. No fun. Then I broke out my red elemental deck that has killed most of the decks it was up against (say hallo to my War Elemental!). So I was really confident. Bettina got out a big Angel deck, I think it was the wrong choice, we should have played with at least one deck where no mana problem would get the better of us.

And it happened again, I was short on mana - could not get my War Elemental out and in no time they had 2x Might Slivers out and about and it was way too late. They killed the Angels and when Dirk brought out the 3rd Might Sliver I folded. I couldn't kill them fast enough. Not with only 3 mana.

So I was thinking: 'Time for revenge.' and had a look at some tournament decks and what the hip kids play these days and found out I had almost missed a whole cycle... excuse me? Did I fall in a pit or something? Apparently.

Oh and there are some nice turns now, with Cascade the new mechanic and there are a lot of nice cards in the game at the moment. And so I will try and play around with some of those decks and thoughts. I'll postpone my Wizard deck for a while and go for Red/Black aggro again, which I wanted to do after the Elemental Deck anyway. And of course I'll throw Cascade Swans at Michael the next time around. Talk about fast and furious.

Har har!

Ding! Nysir!

Last night Nysir, my noble deathknight and loveable frostitroll finally dinged 80!
/cheer



Sorry to the person I leveled with - it was late, I was cranky and just too tired. Will make it up to you, promise!

I have been looking at where I need to go and what factions I need reputation with... there is a really short answer to this: all of them.

So if you need a tank (fresh 80) on Die Todeskrallen (EU) - let me know.

:)

The Ultimate List

... part 2.

I already made a list of my (then) characters I play in WoW over on LJ: "Checklist: WoW chars". This was back in August 2008. A lot has changed - a whole lot and I'm thinking about an own website for the list, with screenshots of the characters.

In other news: my DK has hit 79 yesterday. Just about 60% left to 80. Yay!
Which means I need to pick the next alt to level, hehe!

So I'll update this with the link to the page as soon as it is finished.

Old content

Many moons ago when I had not a single character that was of the highest level (at the time that was 60) and I made my rounds through Badlands and killed Elementals to farm my first mount (60% mount, I didn't even dream of an Epic landmount then) I promised myself to never do this again - to level like that by grinding.

Well, I did it once more for another char, just because for certain levels it was hard to find quests. It was really early vanilla WoW and well, we didn't know any better. Of course there were quests. But nearly all of them were leading into instances. And of course I hated grouping back then.

I have no clue how I got to 60 (my Tauren hunter) - I do know that I dinged in Silithus, before there was Ahn'Qirai or Cenarion Hold, there were only some NPCs with one lousy questline (who are still standing at the entrance to the zone). There wasn't much to do at 60. You weren't getting extra gold for quests, so why bother? I only grinded reputation after AQ opened in Silithus for some new designs for leatherworking or running Scholomance for people who wanted their epic cloak crafted. I know I bought the design for a lot of gold from the auction house and it got me into a lot of groups for Scholo. :)

And then I leveled my Priest and got into the whole healing thing. I abandoned my hunter and really got into a different kind of game. Molten Core was the thing. I spent months in there. Zul'Gurub was next, and even a short but painful visit to Blackwing Lair. I learned a lot about aggro in there and about getting the last bit out of the gear. Then did my priest epic quest, Benediction/Anathema were nice companions deep into the Burning Crusade.

Burning Crusade changed a lot of the game for me. It was simply painful for a Priest to heal heroics. Being one-hitted by trash mobs was not fun. Being always the one to run back all the way through an instance for the x-th time - no fun at all. So I leveled my druid who was stuck in her 50ties forever. Got her up and into Karazhan before I broke away from my guild and was looking for something really different.

The server I played on was (and is) a nightmare for Horde. It is very much an Alliance server and grouping is hell. So I went to look for a different server. And started from scratch. Repeated everything again, including the breaking away from a guild that had occupied my gaming time for most of the time on that server.
The game changed again, it's now capped at 80 levels. It's not hard to level from 1 to 60 anymore. It has become pretty much a joke compared to vanilla WoW. But isn't that something to be glad about?

The old content is still there, you can still roam around Eastern Plaguelands if that is your thing. You can still get frustrated by grinding Argent Dawn reputation - but you can do it in so much less time. Just the focus has shifted. Nowadays you will grind Argent Dawn rep for a title, not for a being able to enchant manareg on bracers or get cheap entry to Naxxramas (40).

Old content is not dead only because people are more interested in raiding Ulduar. Old content is still there and people still play it. I will go back to old content on my Deathknight, he has a lot of things to do. I really want to do that for him. And WoW Wiki is a great source for people who don't know what the Timbermaw are... or do you know who the Shen'dralar were and what you could get there? Yes, enchants for your legs... before leatherworking fixed that.

Ziral is back! (kind of)

I got some new impressions of Priest healing yesterday when I took my Priest to heal Azjol. She is 72 at the moment and the last thing I remember healing was our last visit to the Shrine and attempting Vashj.

So this was a long time ago. I think I have not healed with her in almost 10 months. So it was kind of a first for me, again. I think the tank thought I was a total noob, one time I had to cast the Spirit on him, or he would have been dead. But I think that was just because I was like "oh what does this button do again?" - no seriously, I had almost no clue what I was doing. I skilled her weeks ago, and have been in Shadow most of the time I level her. So I really have no clue what kind of procs I'll get and what they do. I just thought that Surge of Light was up a lot. :)

And of course being a cloth-wearer I'm totally squishy again, which reminded me why I had switched to Paladin and then Shaman in the first place.
Well, I enjoyed it immensely and at the end of the short instance I think I know how to play her again as a healer.

For now she is questing in Borean Tundra, having finished Fjord yesterday and I do have a lot of fun with her at the moment. No one being able to gank me is a plus as well. Playing on a PvE server feels like vacation sometimes...

Like a Ghost

Well, Duh means ghost doesn't it? And over the last weeks and months he really acts like one. He is someone I played a lot with on my old server and which I said my farewell to in November or December, I can't really remember, but it was last year.

I have been absent from my old server for about 4 months but now that my mom has bought Lich King and is still playing on my old server - well, let's just say I have a reason to dust off the old chars again. Which of course brings up older memories, good and bad.

So a while ago I see Duh pop up on his hunter once in a while on my new server. He leveled some toons there as well when I was still playing much more on my old server. As a kind of retreat when things got too boring.

Of course I've been curious as to why he is popping up on "my" server. Of course he can play where he wants to but I had forgotten that he is still on my friends list on some chars, so I was surprised to see him log on with his little hunter. And of course said "hi". And not only that. But you really cannot call it a conversation, not really. It was more me chatting at him not with him.

Yesterday it was really late and I wanted to have the bunny you get through the eggs and Noblegarden at the moment - for my priest on my old server. It was kind of an odd feeling, but since I gave her dual spec already and through that somehow opened up the chance to enjoy leveling her a bit as a Shadow - I could as well go for it.

So I make my rounds in Brill, get transformed into a bunny and hop here and there opening about 100 eggs - and yes the bunny was in it - and I cross to the forge and suddenly I see a Shadow priest stand there - I mouse over him and it is Duh's alt priest-

Well, after the really great conversations we had lately (yes, sarcasm incoming) I don't have him on my friendslist anymore so I didn't even know he was online at all. So I hop on over to him and well, play around him a bit, like sniffing his robe and hiding under his robe and laying an egg under his robe - just silly stuff like that. And suddenly I wish that it could be like really old times, like before Burning Crusade when we still had fun and I could make him laugh.

But he just ran past me and to the mailbox and waved hi. I said nothing, I just emoted that I pat him gently and then he waved good bye and went into the Inn, and I guess offline. I just went on hopping around and collecting more eggs until I had them all to eat 100 of them.

Clearly out of frustration. :)

Well, what it was I cannot say. Maybe it was purely coincidence. Maybe not, either way - I know that he'll always be a ghost for me. I can remember things that meant a lot to me, but now I'm not sure they ever exsisted. Maybe it was all in my head and I'm slowly going crazy.

Nysir, the Noble

Yesterday Nysir, my Frost DK ate too much chocolate eggs, being a purple bunny for most of the day was fun, though and now he has got his first ever titel "the Noble". :)

Finding all the females for Shake Your Bunny-Maker was a bit trying, took a long time to find a Gnome and a Dwarf.
But others in the guild were doing the achievement as well, and so Mílena and I went to Un'Goro together to lay eggs. (*hehe*) And later posed in Dalaran with pink dresses, bunny ears and just very gay - going "omg omg" in g-chat.

If I remember when I get home I'lll post some screenshots. :)

Where do I go?

So, now that the whole guild-leaving has happened and things have settled down a bit there is again of course the question: what's next?

Where do I go, what do I do and most important of all: what do I want to do? *sigh*
I have two level 80 characters on Die Todeskrallen and one lonely level 80 char on Dun Morogh. You know, that old server I originally came from? Yeah.

I know I know, no use beating on a dead horse - or somethin'. Wouldn't think that I'll ever go back to that place, but - yeah well.
Ziral, one of my original characters there, she got Dual Spec now. All set for her to level as a Shadow and still be able to heal with her Holy spec.
But I'm not going to take a complete step back but it was just nice when the thing with my guild went so bad - to log on and have nice whispers for a change.

I knew, too, that if I would leave Todeshauch behind it would have to be forever. I'm not going back. Even if everyone else that has left goes back or originally said would leave and still stays - and that is exactly what will happen - I won't go back. And I won't try to set anything right or even talk to them. This is a game and I'd rather spare me and them the humiliation. And I just don't care enough. They all just are afraid that once the guild is dead they'll have to find new people to raid with.

And it's so comfy now, you can raid, you can have fun, what's not to love? But to really make a cut and say, new start. That is not easy,
To wait and see if it might get better - that is more convenient. But if you want to build something new, you can't be emersed in the old.
You cannot expect a new guild to move somewhere if you are staying in the old.

The guild I am in now, does not really exsist. There's no real point in it. I could as well get my chars all into my twink guild - would be the same. And I start to give shit about the things people say, because it's the other way around the next day. It's okay, it is a game after all and you are not obliged to really do the things you say you do, like in the real world. But it would be nice to know if I can start looking for a real guild and new people if the people I want to play with stay in a guild I don't want to be in anyway.

Or go back to my old server or go and play something else entirely.

World of Bugcraft

I love patch 3.1 - not because of Ulduar or not even Dual Spec, but because of the daily puzzles Blizzard has in store for us.

There is a new game in the game - it is called "what bugs can I figure out today?". Mostly people might think it is addon related in some way. So when you encounter something that is not working for you, you blame it on an addon. And since I have nothing installed that automatically updates my addons, because Curse and WowInterface killed WoWMatrix just in time for the patch, it's always an old addon that is causing it.

But with all the stuff I have seen up to now - this just wasn't the case. I could not click on a posted profession in Trade chat, so I went to Curse to see if my version of Prat was bugged. There was a new version, installed it, went online and see, could klick on the profession! Bad addon, at least so I thought.

Yesterday again I couldn't click on a profession in chat, I got pretty annoyed. A random bug? Just as with the daily quests in Dalaran? You see, my lvl 80 Shaman could always do the daily Cooking quest, no problem. But my lvl 73 Warrior could only do it every other day, there seems to be no pattern yet. Same with the juwelcrafting daily. I can only do it every other day and it gets on my nerves.

Yesterday evening one of the riddles was solved, the riddle of the un-clickable profession: I was sitting in Dalaran and had nothing much to do. There in trade chat someone asked for a Tauren to post their Inscription. I asked why he wanted a Tauren to post it, and along posted my Inscription (being a Tauren I felt loved and cherished). he told me that there's a bug and that you can at the moment only click professions posted by your own race. Being a Tauren druid himself, I finally understood. Blizz is playing the race card here, omg!

So we got into talking about the different bugs Blizz has put in the game while I made him some glyphs. There is also one that seems silly but he said it had become a problem, there are some things going on with talent trees and missing points and he told me if I got any points missing I should open a ticket and that a GM had to fix his talent tree because he was at a point where he could not set any points.
So my DK should get his problem sorted out...

*sigh* I just don't know if I should be afraid to login now, there's been talk about hotfixes which did fix nothing but made things disappear. I hope my characters are still there when I log on...

Patch 3.1 tomorrow

Secrets of Ulduar will hit the servers tomorrow. So may the whining for new content finally be over, for now...

I'm really excited about some of the changes, most of all of course dual spec. So I can go quest on my druid, yay.

Official patchnotes are out: here. The European website has not been updated yet.

Ah, and check the trailer out! Jaina/Thrall love, yay! :)

"Whom will be our hope?"
"Who will stand and face Yogg-Sa(u)ron?"

Sorry, Jaina, not me. I just left my guild. So I won't see Ulduar for a long long time. But Ensidia will have him down in a week, I guess.

The nomad thing

I wrote about these things turning me into a nomad, going from server to server making the same mistakes over and over again.

So, new server. New druid. See a pattern there?
Maybe I should start out with a DK to make money, because I really don't know anyone there and never will.

Bad timing.

So, I had a very mean argument going on the guild forums and then -- two of who are always the loudest pests there were kicked out of the guild -- apparently this happened during the night and of course they are furious.

They started bashing on me (in a thread that I wrote about two weeks ago) yesterday afternoon. And they of course went on to bash on me the whole day today. As if I were the reason they were kicked. Yeah, yay me. I cannot go online without hateful whispers and I should start putting people on ignore. But somehow I understand the hate, and I do understand the bashing.

But with every whisper I really hate the officers and the guild leader, it should go to them but they are not online, they are offline celebrating Easter away from their computers. I was looking forward to farm a bit on my Shaman and doing some heroics on my druid. But I cannot stay online for long without being ridiculed or hated at. It really pisses me off.
Last thing I read on the forums was that they want me out, almost all of them. And no response from anyone.
The guildleader came by and posted something but they dismissed it as worthless and he told me in chat "yeah, you'll probably get all the hate now :) ." that smiley at the end just so killed me, I felt tears start to fall. And went offline. That's all he said. Yeah, thanks a lot.

Probably everyone in officer chat on the forums is laughing their ass off, yeah she didn't saw that one coming.

So I'll probably leave the guild this night and will put everyone in the guild on ignore. A long list.

I thought about deleting my Shaman and my druid and to start from scratch. Without nobody knowing my new chars. But I think when I do that I won't come back. Ever.

Gotta see this

There have been some great vids out since I last posted something like this.

Ulduar - lyrics are top, great song. about: "the video is about a pair of genre-crossed lovers crossing playstyle boundaries in WoW. Summergale sings the part of a PvE raider who is well-geared, and highly skilled in her arena. Cranius sings as a PvP fighter, who not only enjoys the dark avenues of player combat, but is a little bit of a punk and rebel. They're each trying to draw one another across the fence to try "the other side."" [watch] (with subs) Update, mp3 is here: [mp3]

Front Line - Preview, if the preview looks that neat, oh gimme the rest! It's Orcs and the style... getting goosebumps [watch]

Lament of Captain Placeholder - this one is just great. when I started out with WoW it was as a Nightelf Druid (but went Horde weeks later) - there he stood in Menethil replacing the boat to Darkshore which was bugging (left players stranded). So you simply clicked him and were in Darkshore. :) [watch] [lyrics]

Moms and gaming

For her birthday I got my mom a really cool thing: Belkin n52te - she wanted something to keybind things to and have easy access to a lot of buttons, so there you go.

She was a bit surprised I didn't get her Wrath of the Lich King for her birthday but I had totally forgotten about it. She has been mostly catching up with factions lately and has been grinding lowlevel quests for Ambassador and the Loremaster title. And she was really busy doing non-WoW related things that she always said I have a million other things to do, better not get Lich King yet.

And so it didn't make it on any of my birthday present lists...
I guess she will soon get the addon and go quest in Northrend.

Haven't been keeping up a lot with her character lately, I moved servers and haven't really taken care of her rogue (well, I never really did) - except give her my last Thorium bars for the Scholomance key quest.

She has a totally different playstyle and in the beginning I tried to get her to do what I thought this game was about (mostly playing in groups) - but she doesn't want to really play with other people - it just puts too much pressure on her. It took a long time for me to accept that this was just not for her. Still she is enjoying World of Warcraft immensely. She is a rogue for a reason. So she can stealth into places people normally only get to with raids - like she told me once that she had been to Stormwind and Ironforge and stuff like that.
And because she doesn't quest in groups and doesn't do instances, her means in this game are quite limited. She has no way of obtaining instance or raidloot, but at least in Northrend she will have access to nice Reputation rewards (with her love for quests she may be exalted with them all in no time) - I think that from her point of view things have really improved a lot.

If she buys Lich King, I might have to level my Paladin as well there (for Jewelcrafting) - and maybe my mage there as well (for Enchanting) - in that respect it is a real pain for her that I have changed servers. But I won't let her follow me, she would not be happy on a PvP server.

Sometimes it is better for me to remind myself that this game is not about loot, it can be about other things, too. And why would that be worth less than a Druid in t7.5 gear?

All about your UI

I think I just found a really cool webpage. Kind of a magazine for UIs:
nostockui.com.
Very cool idea.

:)

Thoughts of leaving

I wonder what I will do if certain people might quit the guild... yesterday night I kept thinking of "time for a new guild" - maybe it is time for our own guild?
Todeshauch is so far away from where it was when I first joined, so much is different.

*sigh*

I even started thinking about names... but I doubt it would be something that we really could pull off. Although I like the concept of a really small guild with skilled players, could be fun - as long as we wouldn't argue about loot or other stuff, like who is getting that raid spot and so on.

I really think Todeshauch has become unmanageable. So where do I go from here?
(and yes, I just thought about "Buffy") But it is a good question.

The Guild - full of win

Streamy Awards - A Night Full of Winners

The Guild totally rocked the Streamy Awards, if you don't know what "The Guild" is, go watch it here:
watchtheguild.com

But I think all of the nominated projects are worth having a look, and I just love Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog" which they did during the writer's strike.

I love my druid but...

... I so need dual spec. There is not much I can do at the moment but wait for Heroic Instance groups or raids... well, it's kind of a dead end.

So I'll be going online only for raiding night. I'll do something else for the other time. I'm simply bored again and exhausted because of other stuff, not the game. But it does not distract me like it used to.

*sigh*
I'll have a look at the other servers I have chars on, maybe it's time to clean up a bit. Going to delete chars - no not the ones on Dun Morogh, not yet.

Raid buffs and utility

For every class there is a cookie-cutter spec. If you like that you can use it and most of the time you will be okay with it.
Everyone can spec how they want to, they only need to spec for the role they desire in a group/raid. If, however you want to raid and have a static raidgroup, for progression, for instance, there are different specs for each role and you can free up points if the buff or utility is already filled out by a different class in your raid.

But now we aren't a progression guild, groups are mostly flung together from people "who are online at the time" - so you cannot leave out buffs/utility because you do not know what your group will have access to via other specs/classes.

And what's the point of all this: we had two Paladins in the raid last night and not one of them had Blessing of Kings. With chars in the raid who had bad blue gear and were more alts then mains, this is bad. There was no priest as well. So even worse.

This argument of "pala tanks don't need to skill BoK" is getting on my nerves. It's in the fucking Protection tree for a reason. Normally it goes like Holy Pala = skilled Blessing of Wisdom, Retribution Pala = skilled Blessing of Might and yes, Prot-Pala = BoK.

It has been a while since I played a protection Paladin, and they have changed a lot about the way Palas tank, but not taking BoK when I used to try to squeeze every bit of Stamina out of everything, these two Prot-Palas were making me angry. Not only that but they said that they had spent points in more important talents which would benefit the raid. So I had a look at their specs.

I LOL'ed.

And I LOL'ed some more about where they saw their raid utility:
Stoicism and Reckoning - good joke. I didn't know about Reckoning (because of the changes to white damage) but in my time Reckoning was something for soloplay, not for raids. More attacks against the boss --> more chance of the boss to parry (not such a good idea). And it isn't a better talent these days - as I found out by reading a very long discussion in the tankadin forum. Well, no cookie for our Pala-Tank.

And no points in Heart of the Crusader either, so much for doing something for the raid... okay, these points can be debated on. If you have an Elemental Shaman in the raid or a Retribution Pala or a Mutulate Rogue, you'll get the same buff.

It's as if there is no Mage or Druid in the raid and I wouldn't have skilled the talent for dispelling curses. Hello, Saphiron...
But as with everything, they think they know it all but really need to start thinking... and reading.

What's next?

So I'm on my way to 80 with my druid. And with the ongoing none-helpfullness in the guild I won't be getting any gear for her soonish, so what do I do next? My disdain (I really find no other word) for raiding is growing each day and with each post I read at the guild forum, so what's a girl to do when she has maxed the next char?

Yes, get on the next char to level - I don't know. Maybe my warrior. Or my Death Knight (one of the four). I really tend to either level my priest or my undead death knight (the one nobody knows).

Or go back to Dun Morogh and level another char there?
I admit, that is the least possible option.

In the Shadow of Ulduar

PTR is running for a while, guilds get out first reports of trying new bosses - and promptly my guild feels the need to panic.

And I don't know what goes wrong this time. We could go to Naxx 10/25 each day. We have enough players who have recently got to 80 and would need the upgrades and to dust off the old raiding spirit.

But nothing happens, as long as the hardcore freaks wanted to equip their own alts, there were Naxx raids each week. They stumbled on Kel because they were arrogant and did not realise their alts weren't THAT imba. They pissed of the healers and didn't try again.

They are leveling the next alts, because they are bored. They want to test Ulduar but nobody joins them on the PTR. Simply because you cannot do this with a handful of players, you need 10 good players and the right specs.

We are not a raiding guild, but many had hoped this wasn't true. Soon the hardcore freaks will go again and join true raiding guilds. As they eventually did in BC, they all came back for what exactly? To do this just as they did in BC, when we couldn't get a decent raid together for Tempest Keep or Black Temple? This is a strong kind of dejavu.

As always it is the kind of thing that gets me wound up. You post something like "we don't have enough range of classes and specs and people to raid Ulduar" and you get back "we can compensate, as Blizzard said Bring the player not the class" - which rings in my ears as "we don't need more players, we can do just fine with the people who have gear now".
That gets me to a point where I just think, ah nevermind (would make this post M(ature) rated at least), I cannot be polite about this and it makes me create new chars on Servers like Malorne or something. It's like these people transform me into a nomad. New server, new guild? New faction?

I think I'll go play my Gnome DK on Malorne more. *sigh*

They will make us find random groups for Naxx. I'm in a guild for nothing... it's time to say goodbye again.

Boomkin 101s

Foofy is putting out some nice Basic "How to"s about the Moonkin. These are meant for raiding and PvE.
There are a number of things in there I didn't know. And keeping a link here for when Dual Spec comes out.

Moonkin Raiding Basics 101 (part1) [spec + stats]

Moonkin Raiding Basics 101 (part2) [gems + rotation]

Great guides.
:)

Prep Post for Moon

As with everything: Be prepared.

So here are links to articles I liked, just a quick linkage dump for later use.

Jiyambi's Guide to Tree Healing [has notes on spells and glyphs]

Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your Restoration Druid at 80

EJ: Druid Gem Compilation
EJ: Resto pre-raid gear
EJ: Restoration Itemization [best in slot, stat discussion and numbers]

TBC.

Too soon for Moon

The header line is lame, I know. My blog, pffff. ;)

So I learned a bit of a lesson yesterday when I talked to Xenixa on TS. He is one of the priests in my guild (and he is Austrian as well - just to note that not all of them are assholes.) and he constantly re-specs to whatever is needed. We talked a bit about dual spec and how much he has paid already for respecs. It was a four figure sum with a two up front - sheesh.

You see, I made a mistake. And I really feel bad about it. I respeced to Enhancer way too early. I should have stayed healer until Gorond (or Moonseed) are ready to fill that spot. Gorond did not have as much time to gather up all the stuff that is currently on Moonseed's bank waiting for her to hit 80 - and he is not as confident in healing than I am right now. I wasn't either when Poka was 80, I waited until I had 5 or 6 pieces that all screamed at me "go heal again".

He has not seen any of the other instances as well, and just saying that it will be easy doesn't make him trust it more. He'll have to see it first. He doesn't yet know that the worst heroic boss is Loken in Halls of Lightning, and that all others are a piece of cake, or a minor nuisance at best.

The only thing you need is a good tank and two damage dealers who can make at least 1500 DPS, and you are set. Of course you also need them to know the instance. But with decent gear they should have been there a lot.

I think the more easy instances are Violet Hold, Utgarde Keep, Utgarde Pinnacle (if they know what they are doing) and Nexus.
Violet Hold of course depends on which bosses you get, if the damn Voidwalker is showing up and the DPS doesn't kill the adds nobody can heal through that (okay, if all of them are in t7.5 then it is a piece of cake).

What is lacking right now is support from the guild (sounds familiar, yes?). Nobody needs heroics anymore at the moment, which is really bad for people who have just turned 80. Well, you can always go to Naxxramas, but if the well-equipped part of the guild is off playing alts or on the PTR servers - then as always it takes much much more time.

Need to have a bit more patience, but I do feel my blood-pressure rising again when anybody asks why we don't have decent healers in the guild. Or no Resto Shamans at all...

Farewell Carbonite

Carbonite was a great addon, it was really cool for tracking quests and where you needed to go for certain mobs/drops. The one thing that won me over when I first used it was that it didn't use many resources and that there was this little extra map.

Well, two days ago it would say that my version had expired. And that I should download the new version from carboniteaddon.com. Well, first I checked via WoWMatrix if there was a new version, normally they would have told me if this was the case. But it said that my Carbonite was the current version.

So I went to their site as told - as I looked for the download I saw that they wanted to charge money for the full version. It was a true "wtf"-moment and as I began researching this error message I came to a long thread over at the Curse webpage.

It seemed that Carbonite Quest is the free version of Carbonite and that now there's a "bug" that gives out this message and locks it. I was kind of furious. I don't believe that this was coincedence, I think they left the code in to get more people to subscribe (yes, not to donate or pay a single amount) to their full version.

And exactly there I draw a line. I will never pay a SUBSCRIPTION for a mod. I can be swayed to donate an amount if the mod is good and I want to see it further developed- but a subscription?

It is interesting that with this "bug" they have successfully split the playerbase, and I think they are losing more users by the minute. I don't want to be nagged to pay for a mod every half an hour. I only need 2 minutes to de-install and get it over with. It's a thing I really miss when I'm questing but there are other mods out there and who knows? Maybe soon someone will rip off Carbonite.

But the thread on Curse is an interesting read. Good entertainment in the end. :)
Carbonite Quest @Curse Gaming

High time

I really have been enjoying healing with my Shaman so far. But with Gorond in the wings of being 80 I have really been thinking of switching back to Enhancer for good.

It's a pity that healing gear is so easy to obtain, it feels wrong to let it just rot on the bank. And I really cannot be a damage dealer forever. It is easier in a lot of aspects, but the competition is much harder. It's a game, this should be fun. And the next time, enhancer stops being fun, I'll simply leave her sitting in Dalaran than switching back.

I know, Enhance Shamans are the worst for DPS at the moment. But for heroics and farming I am good enough, and that's all I need for now.
So I will be researching a pre-raid gearing guide for Enhance Shamans soon, and I need to test quick weapon in off-hand and 2 quick weapons as well. So testing dummies in TB, beware - you'll get a workout soon.

For later: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bVcbbhxxMxsVZcxtodbVbZh - yes, there's a new priest on Todeskrallen. But, pssst. Got a few pointers from the hard-core-levelling-monster (also known as Hippo) and will test my hard-core-levelling skills. Even though I only have about a third of his time.
My approach might not be real hard-core, except on week-ends when there is time.

Now I'm off to get more coffee, and to actually get some work done.

So much for saving...

Last night first time Naxxramas Heroic raid. It was all guildies, except one mage - and we got 3 of 4 quarters done, now only Military quarter, Saph and Kel are still allive.
And of course instead of saving DKP, I spent most of it. :) But it was rather Caster Chainmail day. And even though I bid only the lowest DKP, I got 3 pieces in the end. New gloves, a new chest and shoulders for my Enhancer equip.

That's when you go to Naxx with all the people who already have all the things.
The only problem I had yesterday was that sometimes even though we had people in the raid who had not seen all the bosses didn't get an explanation what the difference was to normal Naxx, I had to ask each and everytime - and before Patchwerk there was no ready check, the tank pulled... and was dead. His two healers had been, well doing something else and not paid attention. Hmmm... and then it took some time because people had run into the instance again instead of waiting for the rezz. Then the warlock (who was still dead) could not be rezzed, because he was watching TV and afk'ing - he would have been the only one to be able to port those who could not go through the blobbs before Patchwerk, they tried but all the healers were somewhere else.

Yeah, well done. The best part was, spamming recount data into Raid chat when the loot was being handed out. Just great.
I think that it's just not very polite to go afk when it is not something really important. And if you do: PLEASE SET YOURSELF UP TO FOLLOW SOMEONE. We waited on one of the druids before fighting Noth and we simply started without him.
But these things bug me.

So I had to cheer myself up by simply bugging the hell out of Utanka. Everytime he had an instruction for me I wrote a simple "No" in raidchat. I think they hate me now, or after Zikaja won the role over a nice Enhancer ring (I didn't really want it) I kept asking to not be in his group and that I would not give him Earth shield (he was my assigned tank) - it got to the point where Koldjan tried to reason with me that "when I was assigned something I needed to do it, the other Shamans do this too" - and I guess my "oh the other Shamans, I don't care about them, they are so blah" - I don't think he really got it.
I was laughing my ass off anyway. (muted microphone, of course)

But they kept assigning Zikaja to me anyway, for Patchwerk, for instance and I chatted away with him about how I put him in focus to spam my /lol macro when he was dead. Interestingly enough he got the joke, while everyone else kept being so busy of taking themselves so seriously. I just wish they had taken the instance seriously, sigh. I think we had finished off the Military quarter if that had been the case.

Healer discussion

I've found a new resource of awesomeness for my healer needs. And judging by the introduction thread there are a few people who share total Healer-love. Reminds me of that time I had a Holy Paladin, A Resto Druid and a Holy priest, all 70 on one server.

He topped that by having a Shaman as well.
But nice people and I've found another day and night of reading --

PlusHeal.com

... on another note: I'm not transfering Moonseed to Todeskrallen. It's not fair on the Moonseed that is already on Todeskrallen but lacks 7 more levels.

- 2 levels per week - at the very least. Should be manageable. And I'm saving my DKPs for her as well.

Not in the mood

My druid on Todeskrallen is 73. And I just cannot bring myself to level her further. This is a bit of dejavu, the other druid (on Dun Morogh) had the same problem at the very same level.

Currently she is in Grizzly Hills, I didn't want to stay in Dragonblight. Still everything seems to be getting on my nerves. Motivation is low at the moment to level another char and I seem to only play my warrior or priest.

It just seems so pointless to level her at all, I could as well just transfer the lvl 80 druid over from Dun Morogh.
What the hell keeps me from doing that? I will certainly not log onto one of my older chars (may they rest in peace) but still I keep wondering if I won't ever need her again there. Even though I know I could never be happy on Dun Morogh again - why do I keep looking back there?

I do chat with someone there once in a while but that will end soon, I guess. We simply have nothing in common anymore. So as I fade away from my old Server - the game itself is getting boring again. A little bit anyway, I still have much to do. But for the fun stuff you'll again need raids and DKP. Healing has been frustrating again and even though dual spec is on the horizon, I doubt I will be getting it if you have to pay 1000 gold for it. I'd rather not heal at all and stay Enhancer. This way I won't need the dual spec in the first place. But on the other hand, there is the time I spent getting the healer items - would'nt it be a waste that way?

I dearly hope Blizz rethinks the price for Dual Spec. Shouldn't it be helping to get the gold-load off Healers/Tanks? Why make us pay another fine?

Grml.

Ramparts - Two Deathknights and a Priest

Last night we did something cool.
Our "group of awesome imbaness" - a 62 Disc Priest, a 61 Blood Deathknight and my 63 Frost Deathknight entered Ramparts and finished it in a moderate timeframe.

The only thing I had a problem with was the dragon mount of the one boss (Nazan) - he resisted almost all of my Frost attacks and kept going after the priest, and killed him when we had him at about half health. We finished him off, but still it bugged me. And as I've just read he has a very high amount of resistance to all magic... so tanking him as a Frost-DK is kind of hard.

But the other stuff was easy and no problem at all. I had not tanked anything in over a year, so this was kind of an experiment / exercise for me. I like my Frostitroll and I think he did pretty well so far. There is of course much room for a more refined approach. The only thing I don't have down is something really essential for a Deathknight: applying diseases.
I pull, I try to do this with Icy Touch so that Frost Fever is already on there, Howling Blast and then go from there. But I don't have the rotation down, because I always miss the point for re-applying diseases. Hmmm. Normally at the point when I get kicked away and panic that the healer gets aggro. And I guess this will be getting better when I just do not panic.

And that's the only reason I think I'll never be a good tank at all, the panic is always there, the insecurity of how the group needs to move through the instance and that I'm not used to calling the shots and making the choices.

We'll see how this will play out. And over a year is a lot time of "not tanking".

I read a lot on Deathknight.info about tanking and rotation, what you can do if you are in a tight spot and so on. But at level 63 I don't even have Dark Command, so I do not have all the tools to play with. I used a spec I found there but put all the points needed in Blood and Unholy first - so I have not all which I need from Frost. But I'm getting there.

Frost (10/54/7) - Tanking and my arsenal link for my current spec.

If you are looking for advise on different tanking specs, just go to Deathknight.info and have a look at this post: Common Tanking Specs.

Intervention!

WoW Intervention!

I just got this from a friend, so cool.
"What's her crit rating?"

Feed the addiction! Woo-hoo!

*grin*

Death Knight - my new fotm

fotm - Flavor Of The Month

I have now 4 (four!) Death Knights. A female undead, a male troll, a male human and a male undead. Of course spread over two accounts and three servers.

I am crazy, you know. But I wanted to try out different specs and now that you can have a Death Knight wherever you want (only limited to one DK per server per account) - and the starting zone is very cool - I now seem to be in DK heaven.

My male troll DK was to be Blood but the person I want to play him with (a priest) nagged me about my aggro reduce that I finally gave in and skilled completely Frost, which should hold aggro way better. :)

I wonder, though which one will make it to 80. Unholy, Frost or Blood? In the end, however, it will have nothing to do with the spec, rather which race I prefer the most - Undead, Troll or Human?
I think Troll. But we'll see. I do want to play the Troll together with the priest, so it depends on if he wants to level his priest rather than which DK I will continue playing.

The Unholy spec is great, and fun - but Blood has worms and much healing. I think I prefer Blood for leveling alone (which will be the Human), Frost for group-play and Unholy for when I want to do both. Unholy seems to be the one tree as of now which let's you have nice AoE and is not very gear-dependent.
The ghoul is fun, the gargoyle is great. So, my unholy undead girl will maybe be my main test object for the coming weeks. I wonder if I will ever be brave enough to actually tank with a DK.

So stay tuned for more Death Knight goodness, talent specs and all.