Character Progression in Cata

I really miss wrath style heroics. No, not because they were easier. Because when I ran them on my main, I'd occasionally get to run them with other mains in guild. What happened to mains running heroics? There has been quite a bit that has changed since wrath, and I don't think any one reason is the cause behind this. But lets go through how any char seems to progress in my guild.

Week 1, your a new 85 with bought/crafted boe epics and blues. So you jump strait into heroics running them for a few days (since it's a weekly cap now). Now you are full heroic or above ilevel. Time to do troll heroics, so you pug some and burnout on doing those before 5pm. Maybe 4-7 more days of trolls, maybe you get a guild group randomly because we never plan any, eww they all wanted achievements, that took 2 hours longer than needed. Oh wait, you wanted achievements too, but still burned out before 5pm. Now you are mostly epics ready to go into raids by week 2, just in time for the alt run!

Lets insert me into that. I sign on at or after 5pm. Well that was easy, I'm pugging everything I might want to do. On the off chance I do get into one of these alt guild groups. Oh fun: " eww they all wanted achievements, that took 2 hours longer than needed." Time for bed! Oh well, pugging is okay I can still talk to my friends... "work" ... "I'm burned out, time for Rift" ... "I'm doing PVP" ... "I'm doing a serious raid, no talking, too serious" ... "..." (guess they were afk) ... "Lets play SC! Oh sorry, gotta use scissors to cut lawn, brb in 16 hours" ... or they aren't even online.

In wrath I could be online before 5pm, but still people tended to do things... after 5pm. Their mains would even run things! What happened to that... Raids are easier than heroics maybe? Do you want to spend 1-2 hours doing a heroic (1 boss) or 1-2 hours raiding (2-4 bosses and loot). Also what is the reward for extra points? If you are an enchanter crystals, that is it. Firelands will be adding primordial saronite equivalents, maybe that will help. There will still be the whole "hurry and burnout before Sakaki signs on," but maybe I could convince someone to actually take part in a planned time for heroics? Maybe it'll work for the first time, unlike the last 6 attempts by other people.

Maybe...

Cenarion Hatchling Pet

Though no one reads this blog :x Keredria over at Tree of Life is offering up some Cenarion Hatchlings in a giveaway. I gave her an extra one since I've already bought 5 of them, and may well buy some more later. They are so cute and 100% of the money I'm wasting on pixels actually goes to American Red Cross's Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami.

I've been a fan of Japan since probably when I bought a cute dinosaur while on a field trip and it had made in Taiwan on it. Of course Taiwan is not Japan, but my 7 year old self didn't know that. I've since become part of the anime culture and read the Japan history sections in my world history books that were skipped over in favor of more US history in every world history class growing up. I was quite a rebel.

Anyways, this is a great cause and I'm glad to see Blizzard throw something together like this. Also, while half joking with the friend who is supposed to buy me one (hurry up already I'm linking you this later) we thought maybe this will be the most sold pet from their store. We both know lots of people who like the pets available, but wouldn't waste $10 more on Blizzard considering the monthly fee, but who might buy more than one of these since it goes to charity.

Altena: Somewhere New

Upon returning to Professor Jones I asked him about the Kracken fossils and what he thought it might mean. He hastily replied it was of little importance and probably was from times before the Sundering. Then he went on to describe some great dwarf finds or something and people exploring outland, Orcs, and how I should be intersted. I stared past him ignoring whatever he went on about. He finally noticed me staring after a while and just taught me the next set of skills, showed me a new map, of outland no less, and made some half mumble of an excuse to be off. I departed through the window and was off to Kalimdor once more.

There was nothing much at all to say about this stretch of fossils and night elf artifacts. I found some glass animals. Some lovers notes and words to each other centuries old. Do they still exist Night Elves were immortal until not too long ago. Perhaps she died in some ancient battle though. How old are these anyways? Through all the purpose put on finding these artifacts there is nothing to date them. Such a use would be ideal in finding out if the Tentacles are indeed from before the sundering. Or did they come to rest here by some other means.

Another trip was called for to Jones. He seemed to remember me this time, gave me my map and sent me away. Back to Kalimdor back to fossils and Night Eleves. Back to Jones. For the same areas needing to train this often has become tedious. There was nothing new of interest. I found some bone fossil pet to follow me around. Some bones to turn me into a Naga illusion. Junk not worth interest for my true goal. I mentioned the items to Jones as he went through his spiel about Outlands again just to make him stop. Then he went on about how amazing these items were.

I'm quite sick of the man. Almost done though.

He insisted I go to outland, great wonders, artifacts, excitement, junk. Junk I'll never survey for. There is no point. Back to Kalimdor I went. More of the same. Though I heard that there was another place that had night elf artifacts in similar quantity. The northern lands I was so accustomed to and hadn't seen in ages. It would be nice to return there once again, perhaps discover new things and items long forgotten. Kalimdor though profitable in my ultimate goal has become very boring.

Back to Jones, to get the latest skill and finally go to a new location. He, of course, asked how Outland was, and I could have lied. I probably should have. He told me I must first use my skills for something more difficult until he would show me what I needed in order to venture to Northrend. I needed the maps, I couldn't even go back to Kalimdor now unless I did what he asked. I left, went outside, and had an idea. I just needed the maps.

I jumped on my Blue Drake and dropped onto the roof outside the library. I waited. I saw her run in from the throne room. She had maps. She had some ugly artifact I did not recognize. An expression of pride. I'd follow her. I used mind vision. She didn't even notice. Now I could find out what was on his precious maps and he would never know.

Luck would have it that she had come back from outland. The artifact was some ancient Orc item. They chatted about it, he mentioned dwarves, earthen, Brann, discoveries in the desert, and a new race. Some new project he was working on, an expedition he was joining. None of it mattered to me. Then they shifted to what she should expect next. Trolls, some Night Elf, and he went on about Vykrul for some time.

Then he cautioned her about Nerubians. Their artifacts were not for everyone. Hints of the gods they worshiped were in many of their works. Many did not enjoy the nature of their artifacts. Some studied them and were not heard of again. Mysteriously setting out on some solo expedition. I was interested in something he seemed to dislike and almost fear, as well as a race which was now nearly extinct.

Finally, he showed her the maps. Gave her a copy. I made my own rough copy making special note of the Night Elf and Nerubian locations.

Off to Northrend I flew.

Healing with others

This past week I got into some sort of alt raid. As I haven't been raiding they asked me to come. It went really well technically by bosses down. But by enviroment of vent it was pretty bad. Having main raiders paired up with alts and realtively new players was interesting. Healing at least was good.

I was healing with two other healers as usual. Although one was the alt of that guy who was basically leading the raid. I was rather low on the healing meter coming in third place and apparently he was a bit riled by that. (and the constant messed up kick didn't help) I had my excuse of having other things on my mind that night, but really why was I so low?

Our healing situation was him a pally, a shaman, and me the druid. He was good with his pally, I think he's leveled 8 or something. The shaman is normally the healer in my run, and she's pretty good except for her lack of gear due to luck. So of course going back to the meter I was low, I had high overheal a prime example of a bad healer.

With Druids we are all about HOTs, not as much as we used to be, but they are still our core mechanic. Hots of course have that nasty little over time part. I love the over time part, and if someone is not going to take more damage while the hot is sitting there there shouldn't be a reason to cast another spell until it is needed. In a perfect world HOTs would heal people the exact amount they needed before the next burst of damage came in.

However, in a world with a great pally and shaman healer I doubt those HOts are going to do much of anything. I have two options then: continue and appear to be horrible, or start trying to do direct heals. Switching to direct heals is just a horrible idea. You'd have to compete with two good healers who have better and faster direct heals. You would also be giving up your mastery in order to beat them to the heal.

Even if your hots were all going to overheal just having them up alows your speedy Nourish, mastery benifit, swiftmend, etc. This allows you to jump in when the other healers can't keep up and they need you. You should also have your innervate available for them. You will also continue using direct heals when they are needed, and keeping up one tank easily will benifit everyone.

This case was not as extreeme as I make it sound. It just brought up the thoughts. All healers should understand that there are more than one of you. Casting a spell that won't heal someone to full, but will combine with the 1-2 other healers to heal them to full will save everyone mana. The smaller the heal the more mana you save (except Regrowth!).

When healing with others you should try and understand how they are going to heal. They also need to understand how you are going to heal. We are all very different healers, but we come together to keep the raid alive. Add your mana to the other healers, use it as one unit to keep people up so they can kill the boss.

Stuff

I want to write about how I'm not raiding. And about how this new patch is like the beginning of cataclysm for me all over again. And about things completely unrelated to this blog and I would probably need to set the content warning flag for. And about my old website that has sat untouched for years now and ideas about reviving it into a blog where I can write all that. And I want to do that all at once.

I suppose I should condense down those ideas and probably skip over the content warning one as it's completely unrelated to the content of this blog.

So what's this about not raiding? Well past two three weeks our tank has mysteriously disappeared, however, I'm sure someone knows where he is and hasn't told me. Also, one of our main melee DPS has gotten into a rough patch and can't attend. This is great news for our warlock however. He's joined the main raid and has gotten 3 heroic tier along with other things since one of their DPS has mysteriously disappeared, same as our tank.

How's this patch similar to Cataclysm? Well the bug I mentioned of my respec cost suddenly dropping permanently only after I respeced I mentioned is similar to the bugs only I experienced post Cataclysm. I really miss that 33g. Also as I work, and log on after 5pm. I've yet to do any new instance, not that I need to I guess, but would be nice to do with friends. But everyone's done it all when I log on and is sick of it.

Content warning? Well, getting into blogging has kinda discovered a way to check all the blogs I used to look at infrequently and add many more. So now I'm reading about half wow blogs and half content warning blogs. You can fill in what content they might be warning me about on your own. And I'd love to make my own, or just talk about similar things maybe get into it in a way I haven't seen on a blog. Which relates to.

I have a website? Yes, I bought the domain when some creepy poet stopped using it years ago. It's got Wordpress on it and last post I made was way to long ago. I think I'll make a new theme and ideas and get it up and running and switch making all these post ideas completely unrelated to wow over there. And probably copy the wow posts here and there maybe integrate them somehow. The idea is still just starting and will take some time to finish.

Patch 4.0.6!

Or at least that's what my blizzard patch notes said as it installed. Has anyone else had that same problem? I love reading patch notes. I've even gone back and reread patch 1.14 patch notes and such for various reasons. But nearly every patch since the new launcher/patcher I keep getting the previous patch's patch notes. I could go browse around the forums, but I always have problems with that. I can't find it cause it's been so long, or I get distracted with the new layout, or the bug forum and think about posting my bugs again.

I expected to find them on the main page, which turns out they are there, but not in the highlighted news section at the top. I should stop looking at the top of the site and just scroll down it seems, but it's so big and demands attention. So now I guess I'll read the changes and post at the same time.

• Prowl has a new icon

That was probably the largest change I noticed right away, besides addon errors and respecing for 66g which dropped to 33g permanently after I switched specs for the first time since the patch.

• Feral Swiftness now also causes Dash and Stampeding Roar to have a 50/100% chance to instantly remove all movement impairing effects from the affected targets when used.

Well that goes and explains why I've not been hearing any "complaining" about how much ferals suck in pvp lately from the guild.

• The troll druid models for Flight Form and Swift Flight Form have been slimmed down to be more in scale with other druid flight forms, and have had their animations improved.

Aww, I just saw that last weekend or something. It was so neat looking.

Wow what a huge patch, did anyone else notice the massive changes to old dungeons? They removed chunks of wailing caverns! Also wtf they added the leatrix latenancy fix into the game options O.O which would remove the affects of the global registry settings from other programs. And to think my guild master just posted that to our main page.

Where's the 4.1 resto druid analysis and changes you may be wondering. Well almost every druid blog I read has a 4.1 post I agree with and I'm certainly not going to add anything new to their well thought posts. Especially since I'm not even raiding until our tank mysteriously reappears.

Making 'I' a link just felt wrong

Am I Trying?

Last night I was told that while people used to be impressed by my healing numbers they thought I wasn't trying anymore. I took some offence to this since when I needed to I definitely do try. It just feels so limiting with the spells we are given. On trash I've definitely given up though. If we are CCing the pull there's nearly no damage anyways. If I feel up to it I put Lifebloom on the tank. Raid damage tends to be single target and other people have much more efficient and faster heals so I let them do their thing. If I did try to heal them all I can cast fast enough is regrowth which generally wouldn't top them off, so they'd need another heal anyways.

If the trash isn't CCd then there might be some AOE. AOE: Cast Wild Growth followed by Rejuvenations and recently Nourish as needed since it's fast now. That's what I do, there's nothing else to be added to that except Swiftmend. There's no variation. And that's AOE. Seems like I'm missing something.

And bosses are just a combination of the two, Lifebloom and AOE. Sure there's cases where I cast Healing Touch, even rare cases I might cast a Regrowth or an Insect Swarm. So am I not trying? I don't know, but to me it doesn't feel like there's anything I can do except cast the spells that need to be cast when they need casting. If I'm doing near equal healing as our priest I think that might be good.

Also this brings up the old topic of BIG numbers equate to good. Healing is not similar to DPS in the numbers it puts out. This is more true than ever now. From people who have said this to me repeatedly and then told me I must not be trying because my numbers are low, it's rather shocking. They should know I try to be efficient not just cast Wild Growth when it's off cooldown and hot the raid constantly. That Guy boasted about beating me on his shaman the one night he was with us. Congrats to him, but he sure didn't cleanse me as I was feared across the room and we wiped.

All this leads to something I've said to myself often. Healing has become boring. Not to say I don't like it. I still like healing in a raid. If I didn't I would have quit ages ago and bought some toys with the $15 I'd save every month. It's just so much of the same. Partly the reason behind this is we've been stuck doing the same bosses for about a month due to third healer issues. If we had a good healer we would prolly clear everything except Nef in the first two nights. We nearly did that once a while ago. Then we could start heroics and such

I somewhat wonder if I could try more. I have gotten to being able to use my innervate on others nearly all the time. So I could then use more of my mana. If the goal was to end the fight with zero mana I could cast regrowth more often. As I currently consider the amount healed for the mana the worst of any spell in game. Therefore, I tend to try and cast it never. That would definitely burn my mana, but as we are doing the fights without this, would it really be worth it at all...

In other news. I finally finished buying justice point things, yay a relic.

To the Left; To the Left

There's a trend I noticed in our guild runs. I've noticed this for a while, but with the 3+ new healers we've had recently I find it more interesting. Generally raids are very linear, but occasionally there are paths that split and arrive at the same location. Currently the two locations we mainly come across them is the portals in Bastion of Twilight and the platforms in Throne of the Four Winds (we meet on Nezir). So when the choice comes up everyone takes the left path except me. I generally take a right path, and even though everyone else is going left I don't see a reason to as well.

This raises the question, what direction does your raid go?

Also this shows some sort of larger symbolism on the connection between myself and the rest of my raid. I go right, everyone else goes left. I've been less and less in vent during the raids the past week. We did only two bosses yesterday and I wasn't in vent at all. I wasn't even summoned to the OS run they did after, not that I really wanted to go. Things have been trending this way for a while. I still raid great and I love doing it. I just feel ignored, which I hate.

Another interesting thing I thought up while wiping to Elemental Monstrosity due to tank lagging. The idea is to bet on death locations. Place your shrooms where you think you'll die, take bets. I don't have anyone to bet with, but I probably would if I did. You don't die on one, they win. You do, you win. Pretty simple, of course you ultimately stand where you want, so if you really want to win the bet this is probably a really bad idea. Ultimately actually killing the boss is the goal, so I don't know who wins then. Maybe voting which one you are closest to would be better.

That Guy Conclusion

So like two days ago I changed his vent password cause he started retaliating against me by changing my rank. Well I told him to tell me off via rank descriptions. Which he did indirectly via rank descriptions. /facepalm

Soo this morning he texted me like swearing at me and asking for his password, and I totally forgot I changed his password at first. But I was happy he finally directly said something to me, it's been months. So I thanked him and as I hadn't heard back from him I must have guessed what I changed the password to since I did forget. But it's finally over. What a day to end this though. April Fools!

I really don't like this internet day much. I'd post some joke, but there is quite enough of that going around. Is it bad I only liked the furry critters to follow around and give buffs covered by other classes? The rest all seemed overdone, and would regrowth even be worth casting then?

In other news. On our 7th healer to fill our third healer slot we got someone new. Who might not be around I don't really know. But it's nice to have a new healer who is somewhat good and doesn't seem to hate me. If she sticks around it'll be great. If that guy comes back to heal with us I don't even know.

That Guy!

Tags! New tag: that guy! So that guy was a rather main part of last post I did, though he wasn't very main. That guy is the guy who I hate and he hates me and he deleted my vent channel. My stated goal is to get him to talk to me about something bad I did. So I screwed with his vent channel last week, and he came into the channel me and 2 other officers were in and said something like "STOP @#$%ing with my vent channel." So close! But he didn't single me out. So this week I changed his [Officer] rank to [IDDYC] with the description "I Didn't Delete Your Channel." Well he hasn't said anything yet or prolly logged on.

On a related note the Guild Master and mutual friend apparently talked to that guy about me last week. Basically saying he should talk to me about stopping all this nonsense. He even tried to give that guy a link to this blog. So he may have read the last post, idk. As the response was told to me he said both "I hate him I don't need to talk to him" and "I've talked to him before." I certainly don't remember the latter one, but could be wrong.

I specifically love the story of this one icc raid where I had a headache at the start so was in my own vent channel. I took some yummy pills and it went away pretty quick. But then no one told me to get in vent, or dragged me, or asked me to move. So I was perfectly happy sitting around listening to music. So then we get to Suarfang, and normally I switch to dps, but I'm also not normally with the other two healers that night. So I stand there a waiting to heal or someone to tell me to switch. So the pull starts and I'm watching people look at me feeling all nervous. Target me, Target boss, repeat. And then like 3 sec before the boss pulls one of the other healers whispers me "go dps." So that was a wipe.

Apparently during all that I was being yelled at in vent by everyone. I just sat in my channel below them confused ~.~ So then I went dps. And was kinda laughing cause still no one except the one healer had whispered me or entered text into the chat window about me switching or anything. I believe they were yelling at me in vent still though. And then I think I raided mostly in my channel cause still no one told me to switch vent channels. I think someone dragged me eventually.

[makes me smile] :)

Oh and as for my hate for him. It's not really hate. Here's a fact about me that could make no sense. I hate guys. He's a guy. That's about it. I find it awkward, funny, and confusing that he seems to avoid talking to me. I know when we first met he'd go flirting with all the girls and I'd go trying to counter him. Partly cause I found that annoying, partly cause it was fun, and partly cause he's quite the trade troll. Prolly other reasons too. And I think that might be why he hates me so much or avoids me? But really I have no problem with him. Well, Cho'gall fears staying on me full duration is a lil problem. (1 raid with his healer last week) Also I'm rather incredibly mischievous if you try to talk to me which MUST be annoying. So that doesn't help.

poor blog has become hateful, this is all in good fun I assure you

Pokemon!

So I've like not played wow in 2-8 weeks except raiding. Oh, and I logged on to check if I had a battered hilt still for someone, but I don't know who it was so I never told them I have one. And! I logged on to make pants for someone cause I halfway made them weeks ago, and by god that didn't take long cause have you seen the cast bar on tailoring epics? No, of course not it's that fast. And a few minutes of fishing for Vortex. Otherwise I've been busy driving, shopping, driving, visiting friends, or playing Pokemon. Not that I've been playing Pokemon non-stop.

So there's been like nothing to post about wow. We killed Cho'gall at some point and haven't done much more than that. OH! I finally got power torrent after like 2 months of everyone else getting it cause everyone forgot about me and kept asking me to enchant their stupid chest or boots and what not. Though I got it by not turning in 9 shards to the gbank so no one knew they existed so I could buy the pattern and enchant my weapon myself. And omg our guild's other raid has like 3 heroic modes down or something but no one tells me the number or when we kill something so our website says zero not that I'm the, whatsit, webmaster or anything.

Oh and some guy thought I deleted his vent channel which was remade near instantly and the first time in 2 months I stayed overnight in vent he deleted mine so I come back the next day sitting in the lobby. I may have taken away his broadcast away for a few minutes and will probably do more to him tonight since I'm feeling pissed again. Oh! I'll make his channel a weird broadcast mode *evil laugh* (my hatred stems from the fact that he refuses to confront me about anything I do, maybe this time!)

There sure are lots of reasons to not log onto wow for me. No one to play with sucks too. I've got one main friend left who always does their heroic for the day and never wants to do another. Anyone else in guild I go with seem to always want to do achievements which I always tend to die during. ("but it's the way you are supposed to do the boss" 'or we could skip the boss' ... *dies*) and that's assuming they haven't already finished their one daily before 5:30pm or later! I could go do archaeology and go insane, or do dailies and hate myself as I'm camped at a graveyard that resses me every 30 seconds.

So I could do all of that or I could text my friends who can't play and play Pokemon and watch Adventure Time!

I'm good at depressing randomness

Internal Blizzard Policies

Most of this is not based on facts, just ideas.

Blizzard is a company and as such has policies and management dictating decisions. One policy I firmly believe in currently is that each expansion class spells are strictly limited in order to make classes feel equal. I've heard my guildies talk of BC spells being unequal, according to WoWWiki classes got 5-6 new spells. Some felt they deserved 6 when they only got 6 or some were completely useless; arguments ensued. Now in cataclysm every class got three spells.

Perfectly equal with every class getting exactly three new things. Which is why, although I think it would work amazingly, we won't be seeing a new druid healing spell, although making shrooms have a heal might work. Then again I could be completely wrong, Spirit Link Totem, grats shamans! Really, we both need fixing. I guess your new spell made it through the management levels faster ;) I'm hoping we get something similar since there are still issues.

I have also noticed a change in the way the game has been handled recently. I have an idea that this translates back to something within Blizzard that has changed. The change I've noticed relates to the distribution of patches. It's true I've never been through a previous expansion, so perhaps I am wrong. However, I have been through a lot of patches.

Previously patches were something I dreaded, and still do, full of bugs, addon updates, hours of unexpected downtime, and just eww. But since the release of 4.0 the patches have seemed smoother. This may just be coincidence and Blizzard might not be doing anything different. I at least think they are though. It seems patches on the PTR stay there longer. The bugs get worked out, and the patch goes live with a lot fewer issues overall. There are lots of hotfixes I attribute to it being an expansion, but there aren't many major bugs.

I've also been rather bad at predicting when patches will come out lately. I'm normally on target or off one week rarely, and I've been consistently off by two weeks. In fact I've given up predicting when they come out. The patches seem to be lacking in extended downtime or server crashes. There's been fewer server crashes and lag outs since 4.0 than the few patches before in wrath. Also, I believe, the expansion was playable. I've heard that didn't happen when wrath came out. I wasn't there though, so I can't say anything for sure.

What does this all add up to? I can't say for sure, but being in the software field, especially a tester, I think they could be focusing on quality. Before I'd say they were focusing on keeping people interested with new sh-ahem, stuff. I've felt that they didn't need to do that at all through all of wrath and maybe they caught on. Maybe they are focusing on quality now. Or maybe there's a new boss. Whatever the case, I'm glad that when a patch comes out I'm not hating the fact that I have to raid cause that's where peoples schedules line up.

incoming extended downtime to prove me wrong

BA Shared topic: When Good Guildies Go Bad

I've been looking at the shared topics over at Blog Azeroth for a while, and after my vacation I had an idea for a topic, but no title and wasn't sure if I wanted to write it anyways. Then I wrestled with myself for a while about posting this, but finally decided to even though it's late. Jack at The Casual Raider came up with the topic this week that relates and gives this a title, even if this might not be quite related.

I'm going to try from the other perspective. What I mean is that I've been doing some pretty bad raiding lately. So lets look at what happens when you are the good guildie gone bad. Lets start a few weeks ago where I changed up my entire UI and started healing in a new way. I was able to adapt pretty well, but the addons I'm using have some odd "features." It also condensed some of my addons, one in particular is decursive. The new raid frames I'm using shows debuffs I can dispell and is amazing.

What went wrong, however, is the nice Blackout debuff on Valiona and Theralion. The first week no one dared cleanse it so I took up the slack there. Then the second week rolled around and I kept cleansing it early. I had reasons each time, though none made any sense to me. I came to the conclusion that I was just too tired to be trying to cleanse that correctly. So the raid leader told me to stop doing it, so I did. Then people cleansed really slow and I felt horrible. I had wiped us 3 times by this point, and wiped us again when I missed where a flame breath was coming from.

That was probably one of my worst nights of raiding I've ever done. I think the cause of my failures was being tired after staying up late for whatever reasons with the raid leader and friends. This being the cause I've since taken measure to try and get more sleep. However, the situation during raid could have been handled a bit better to let me take a short break I think. The making me stop cleansing it may have been the fastest solution though.

I wish this was my last problem, but they continue. Our guild started 25s with a partnership a few weeks ago. It abruptly ended last Thursday with the last raid day being Tuesday. Tuesday I had planned not to raid. I had just got back from a 5 hours plane flight and hour drive home, but I was expected to come along for whatever reasons. The entire night I felt pretty useless with constantly low healing done. I don't know if anyone else noticed because I made the entire raid stop early in order to get some much needed sleep on my part. I missed any review of logs that was done.

If anyone did notice I'm sure they wouldn't tell me about it later. A huge problem in the guild in my opinion. I'm not sure if it happens to others, I try and let people know if there is a problem pointed out about them. However, if there is a problem with me, I rarely recieve any feedback about it. I've attempted to mention this to some people before, I figure I'll point them here when this gets posted to start addressing this.

As for my thoughts on what was wrong that night. The fact that I was up since 3:30am with little sleep in a raid I wasn't expecting to be in and still learning the class changes from the patch. Everything combined and made me appear to be a horrible healer. I know I was able to keep the tank I choose alive for fights where that mattered, which allowed us to progress. Me leaving early might have cut the raid short for everyone else as well, making me look like quite a b-word.

I haven't been very fun to be around lately as a whole. Due to these issues as well as others that have been irking me. I think I'll seek out bugging people about them. Communication on both sides is key to addressing raid problems. My guild could use some work in that area which hopefully I can start changing. I hope I can get some other problems addressed, and back on a schedule to help improve my playstyle. Raiding back in 10s will help me as well, since I've liked them better since I was introduced to 25s.

In Alabama...

There are Hardee's! Though I didn't get to eat breakfast at one :(

The speed limit goes to 70! Vroom vroom :D

The chai tea at Serda's Coffee Company is amazing! /swoon

The roads are huge! But traffic is worse =/

The toasted breads are soft and delicious! I hate the hard toasts up here, how do people eat it :(

There's seafood dishes for everything! Yummy omelets :)

The gas is cheaper! But no auto stop when filling (at the one place I went) O.o

There's the one girl I'll really miss. I hope I'll see her again in a few months! >.<

Vacation was fun, and slow. I was able to install wow on my laptop and help get us the fishing achievement when waiting for a certain someone to get off work. Hope everyone had good raids while I was gone. I'll post some more about more interesting stuff soon, and continue my rp thingy.

Altena: The Begining

A few weeks ago I heard of a very interesting item. I was hiding in my normal little dark corner of the new Dwarven District bar using mind vision to observe those outside as they went about their business. Just in case any of them were acting suspicious today. I was behind some plate wearer’s mind on one of the new drakes when I overheard one of the current guild members talking about a new rare item healers were after. They said it once belonged to Tyrande, the Night Elf priestess I had visited on a few occasions. A simple doll that was lost ages ago that holds unique properties. I caught the word archaeology before the man decided to fly away on his new dragon, perhaps to escape the strange sensation my spell was giving him. I normally wouldn’t have canceled my spell just to make him wonder what was happening, but I was intrigued.

I had heard of the new trainer who could teach you skills in Archaeology, but I had not had a reason to visit him or even suspect him of anything suspicious yet. I figured he had been in this city too long to go without me observing him for a little bit, and I knew he couldn’t hide from me for long. After a quick check in trade district for him, I went to the keep to check the library. I found him right away, teaching some new archaeology students about “digging” or something. It looked like a small class and it was about to be over. I approached him as his students wandered away and requested the skills to start “digging” or whatever it was you had to do. He taught me the basics quickly and I left not wanting to stay too long and I’m sure he was relieved.

With a map of dig sites in hand and a new Archaeology “digging tool” I set off on my Blue Drake to find some Night Elf ruins. However, it was not that easy. The first few places I came to were fossil and dwarf. Then a troll and I began to wonder if I’d ever see a Night Elf fragment. Then I came to that little grove in Duskwood that contained one of the entrances to the Emerald Dream I’ve heard about. I got my first few fragments and was content to continue searching.

I soon moved over to Kalimdor, the current home of the Night Elves, and was able to find many more dig sites on my map that contained Night Elf fragments. I obtained many pieces and soon it was time to return to the Harrison Jones fellow and get a new map and techniques. He seemed just as busy as before, but seeing my interest he stopped and taught me a few new tricks so I could get back out and keep practicing my new skill.

I returned to Kalimdor and soon decided to try sorting through some of fragments of the Dwarves and fossils I had found. I discovered a few artifacts in the pieces I had gathered. A Bodacious Door Knocker made me smile, and the Imprint of a Kracken Tentacle found far inland suggested many things. None of which I’m sure of, but do these creatures even still exist? It seemed rather frightening to think about what could be lurking below the waters when traveling over the ocean. I’m not sure about taking the boats anymore, I’m glad The portal to Mt. Hyjal exists for an alternate route to Kalimdor now.

I shall need to visit Harrison Jones again soon as I continue my search. I find myself spending very little time in Stormwind now, which I guess it is a good thing to get out more often.

PS. Going on vacation, be back in a week or if I feel like posting from my phone O.O ~Sakaki
pps. good luck with your raids <3

Three 10s make 25

Since the expansion came out my guild has been focusing on 10 man raiding. I've always enjoyed this more. 25 just seemed an odd number to me. I was used to the 40 or 15s of vanilla even though those make even less sense looking back at them. I'd still like there to be a 40 man raid come around again, just something for fun and not 3 days long. The guild has been running two 10 mans for a while now, with some minor attendance issues, including the blizzard knocking out my 10's tank last week and us barely raiding.

But tonight, we are joining up with another guild on our server to combine our two guilds three 10 man raids into one 25. I can't say I'm thrilled, but all the reasons make sense. Also, I'll always like helping people and will pretty much always come along. With the new patch coming out today, along with the new dual guild 25 being attempted I can hardly imagine it will go smoothly. My last dual guild raid was in vanilla, and there was a little issue involving a belt, an enchanting pattern, and me. While it is the only claim to fame I have, I hate telling it, and for some reason continue to do so.

Luckily the only loots I'm obsessed over drop outside of raids and I think I've matured a bit since then, and well defined loot rules should hopefully make tension from drops not as much of an issue as they used to be. So I'm hopeful the raid goes well and the only issues we have stem from addons and instance servers. Not the players or guilds.

My Priest

Before I go posting a bunch of random things that are unrelated to druids entirely I'd like to introduce my priest. I made a priest towards the end of Trial of the Crusader in order to experience another healing class' play style. I choose discipline due to our raids needs if I ever brought her, and just how neat bubbles are. She leveled fast as a healer, and I had fun. She gained a few RP elements when she was doing the beginning Wrath quests. I found the lovely buff from whisper gulch ore fragments and kept it with me. Then I got the nice haunted buff from the Wrath launch events from a friend. Suddenly I know what kind of RP I wanted to do with her!

I've always loved the Old Gods, they were part of the story I keep coming back for. I even went looking for them back in vanilla, similar when I ran around looking for Ashbringer, but those are another story. The priest then should be like me and be fascinated with them, but even go further! So I figure she's going insane, so what better character to have level only doing archaeology looking for yummy items for me ^.~

With Kae's posts where her characters interact with each other I really like that dynamic. However, how would my druid react to my priest? I can't tell yet, it's been driving me insane trying to figure it out. Inc H.P. Lovecraft inspired posts about doing Archaeology.

PS. Thanks Keredria and DBM :D

Druid Blogs

I've become absolutely addicted to reading druid blogs. It all started 2-3 weeks ago when I started looking up more information about my class/spec. I came across healing blogs and forums and posts about certain bosses. It reminded me of Keredria's blog Tree of Life I had found ages ago and stopped reading due to work, and moving. I thought about how I hadn't read that blog in ages, but then I just took out my Teldrassil Sproutling and moved on. The following week I was back looking up stuff about healing Chimaeron as a resto Druid. Which lead me to googling "Healing Chimaeron" and getting Kae's blog Dreambound.

Reading her blog is quite amazing because we seem to agree on lots of druidy things. She seems pretty cool too. :) It also made me realize why I was feeling a bit down lately. Other people I've been talking to really haven't been giving me any feedback about my class. I had though if rolling three stacks of lifebloom would be useful for anything, but had no one to even mention that to. I also had the idea that introducing the wild mushroom as a healing spell as well would probably making healing a lot more interesting and even sure up our weak AOE healing. Which I just found out is on Lissanna's blog Restokin.

I think I'll be checking out blogs until I run out of links to new ones. There seems to be a lot more information in these blogs than anywhere else I've seen as of yet. I might even make a few friends along the way :) Also, reading all of there blogs really makes me want to keep up on my own, especially seeing I had ideas around the same time some of them did. Maybe I'll discover something awesome!

Cata Healing

The new healing style. I normally never have to think too hard about how I heal. Back in wrath occasionally druids would ask me how I heal, or how to heal a specific boss fight. My response would normally be "uhhhh.... put hots on things..." or something to that effect. Sure, certain boss fights I had little ideas that came in handy, like the timing for lifebloom to heal infest on LK, or other things I've forgotten. Generally I just found healing natural and didn't need to think about what I cast because things just fell into place.

Now cataclysm has changed up this whole process. This has made me think, and since spells are so strict it makes how I heal quite obvious imo. I think the best place to start is what heals do we have?

Spells

Our Main healing spells

Lifebloom

7% - This is the cheapest thing we can do, but we can only cast it on one person. So we should keep it on that one person as often as possible. The spell also can heal for a lot if we let it fall off, but this should only be done if the burst is needed for a specific boss mechanic and you have time to put it up again.

Nourish

10% - The second cheapest heal, refreshes lifebloom, and longest cast time. If the lifebloom target isn't at full hp near the 3 second left mark, and they aren't nearer to half hp, cast this. Also can be used to top others off when a rejuv won't be quite enough and there is no other immediate threat to anyone.

Rejuvination

26% - a huge cost jump between this and our other heals, but worth it whenever someone isn't going to be healed by someone else to full, or you want to get your mastery bonus on another spell. Also combining this after wild growth for raid healing works well.

Healing Touch

30% - Our biggest heal, same cast time as nourish, so if you have an OOC proc, use this if at all possible ever! If anyone is dropping faster than your hots, or needs a big heal and you feel okay on mana, also use this.

Regrowth

35% - Some people love this spell, I can not understand that. As our most expensive heal, with almost no hot, hits for half a healing touch only when it crits, and doesn't refresh lifebloom I don't see any real use for this. Sure talents bump the crit up to 80%(counting my own gear), but if you rely on that it could just as easily fail. If a dps is dropping so fast that you need to cast this as a faster heal in order to save them, generally they've done something wrong and you shouldn't be needing this to save them. Yes, you should use it in that one circumstance, but if it keeps happening you might want to ask them why, after you go oom and wipe.

With the Natures Grace talent, this can help bump your haste for your heals temporarily. This can come in handy for certain areas of fights, and should be used for them. Just try to time it with an OOC proc. Personally if I know when I need the haste beforehand I'll save a GCD for insect swarm which has the same effect and does a bit of damage for a lot less mana. There can be a lot more discussion about this with Living Seeds and other things, but when I look at it I just see a huge mana dump.

Cooldowns

I list these seperately even though most have short cooldowns it affects their overall use

Swiftmend

10% - same price as nourish! instant cast, heals for more, pretty crits, and drops Efflorescense! Use it as often as you can to the best of it's awesomeness. Always benifits from mastery :D

Efflorescense

0% - This is our little group heal when people are stacked up. It comes from a swiftmend, so taking note of where people are before you go casting swiftmend on the lowest hp target can make this much more useful. Generally best used on fights where you are stacking up, but most fights have you spread such that 2-3 people might be able to stand in this depending on the abilities in that encounter.

Wild Growth

27% - Mildly costly for a rather small amount healed. Using this in conjunction with rejuv can give some nice healing, but it's rather slow healing. Use it when aoe healing is needed, at least it will stack up with other healer's similar aoe abilities to get the raid back up.

Tranquility

32% - Our class defining spell, reworked and better than ever. Wild growth before casting this makes it even better since it has a huge hot, and wild growth after for those heavy aoe situations. Only downside is that it's such a long cooldown.

Tree of Life

6% - healing buff, plus modifies a number of our spells. Lifebloom is allowed on multiple targets. Use the lifeblooms to get more OOC procs in order to cast the now instant cast Regrowth. And wild growth affect an additional target now. This is an amazing aoe healing cooldown. As well as single target if you keep up a few lifeblooms for extra OOC procs. Personally I avoid using this, unless there is a need to use it. The cooldown is rather short, so twice in a fight can be done. Lately I've been popping it with hero, or during a burn phase to throw some dps at the boss. 20-30k wrath from a healer O.o

Extras:

• Lifebloom from tree of life can continue to be refreshed after the form ends.
• Glyph of regrowth... is interesting. Perhaps on Chimaeron.

Patch

The upcoming patch. Makes some minor adjustments to healing. For whatever reason people tell me these few changes will fix aoe healing. I'm skeptical, as always, and am writing this mainly as a way to put my ideas together in preparation for this patch. The changes are few, and rather minor.

• Lifeblooms can no longer exist on more than one target when tree of life ends :( it was fun and difficult while it lasted
• Rejuv mana cost reduction
• Regrowth refreshes lifebloom
• Tree of life duration decreased
• When rejuv is on 3 or more targets, Nourish cast time reduced by 30%
• Wild growth healing increased by 30%
• Wild growth cooldown reduced
• Glyph of regrowth now refreshes while under 50% HP
• Omen of clarity no longer procs from spells unless talented for lifebloom only

The general sense of these changes show that tree of life was too powerful. Aoe healing has been improved, with wild growth buff, rejuv buff, and nourish buff. Regrowth has been made more useful, but I still don't see it as the go to for OOC especially since there is a reduced proc rate. However, glyph of regrowth seems really interesting for Chimaeron and I shall be trying that out.

One thing extra that I'll be testing is weather wacking the boss for 100 damage from my staff... will be procing OOC. I used to do this in molten core... oh memories. I also can't wait to hear the RL yell at me to get out of melee! But... but, omen procs ;_;

OMG I'm back

I got a job, and messed with my guild's website, and moved, and kinda forgot about this thing!

Cataclysm

Yeah, that happened. At first I thought I was a holy priest, but then not quite, but then they still have more spells and that annoys me. And changes again, so soon uggg. Hate change. I should post about healing someday, maybe after I figure it out again once we get more haste buffs so we don't need haste and stuff maybe mastery, idk XD I've not been thinking about it so far, I'll deal with it when it hits and master it then, no use now. Well, back to work, eep.