Healing Again

So the time has come when I get to jump back into WoW. Not only did we fix our internet so that it works in the basement, but my lag is almost non existent! We had to buy new wi-fi cards for the computers, but I can tell you it was completely worth it. I am still only really playing while the baby sleeps, but since she is getting old, it is easier to just play at night when she goes to bed. My real goal is to raid again, which I was worried would take years to achieve again (well maybe not years but at least a few months) but when I read the recent patch 4.2 notes, I feel more confident that I will be healing raids again real soon. Now I am excited with the gear changes with the patch. Since you can buy tier 11 items with this patch, I think I will be able to gear up quickly and with that gear I will be able to run heroics for other gear more effectively.

So since I have been not playing much, I was very worried to partake in heroics. I thought that since I heard everything was insanely hard that I would not be able to do it until I had amazing gear. But practice makes perfect I guess because I got talked into a heroic and did just fine. Yes it was stressful and I was nervous, but it was fun plus I got gear!

Once, we are ready to raid, we are going to need to find or start a group in the guild that will be able to raid later in the evening, but since we live on the east coast and the server is a west coast server, it should be pretty easy to find others who want to raid as well. I hope it will be easier since we already have me as a healer and my husband as a tank. Only one more of each to find! Plus, I know there are plenty of other in the guild who want to raid but cannot yet, so I am hoping that putting a group together will be easy.

To change the topic a bit, I find it funny how my opinion of WoW has changed since I have become a more casual player. I used to think that changes with gear like this patch is implementing was horrible and made people lazy gamers. Yes, I know that is rude, but I really just thought that if you wanted the gear you needed to earn it the hard way by raiding. But my perception has completely changed now that it is difficult to play constantly and I am happy that Blizzard makes these changes in order to draw in the new players and the returning ones. Once I heard that it would be easier for me to get to a higher level of gear in a short time frame I know I jumped completely on board. And who wouldn’t? I know that some of you will still have a problem with easy gear, but now I am thankful that I will be able to participate in one of my favorite activities again.

Feels good to be back!

Oi the LAG!

It seems like lag is following me around like a bad egg. I have tried everything I could to stop the lag from plaguing me, but nothing is really helping. I have disabled add-ons, deleted my cashe folder, even just tried logging on just by myself so to see if it was because my husband was on the same network as I. Nothing works. I am so afraid to run a dungeon with Sarindre because what if she lags and everyone dies! So I just played my Mage for a dungeon run, since DPS does not really matter too much at level 25.

I am just at a loss of what I can do. I need to play so that I  can gear myself for raids, but can I even run a raid with lag this bad. The killer is that my husband has no lag! It is just crazy. He is running at green all the time and I run at yellow or red. Such a huge difference. It does not even matter if he or I log on first. This just adds to the frustration I have been having. Trying to gear and perfect a character cannot happen when you have so much lag it is sad.

So what should I do? I posted about this a few weeks ago and got a great response, which I tried, but it did not work. Any other tips I could try?

Blog Azeroth: My Weird Gaming Habits

This week over at Blog Azeroth, the Shared Topic by Red Cow Rise focuses on everyone’s weird gaming habits both in and out of game. What a cool topic because as gamers we all know we have some weird habits!

Ingame

So I figured that I would start with my ingame habits first, especially since most of my out of game ones are just odd. My first weird ingame habit is that I always must have 100 waters. Of course I cannot fill up when I am in a dungeon, but anytime I am in town I have to make sure I have 100 in my bags. I just have this weird fear that I will run out of waters and not be able to get mana and no one will be healed! When I used to have to care reagents, I had to carry 100 of them at all times too. My bags were mostly filled with water, seeds, and vines!

Another weird game habit is that I must always be 100% repaired. After every wipe I will try to repair, as long as there is a repair guy around. Sometimes I will even open and repair many times just to make sure I did repair the first time. Strange!

The final weird thing I do in game is making sure my bags are grouped correctly, and let me tell you, before I found Ark Inventory, this was a very daunting task! All the waters and food need to be near one another, all the gear in another bag, gray sell-able items in another bag, potions in another and so on. Usually I will run out of space pretty quickly. I would even arrange things in order of value or amount I had. But like I said Ark Inventory is a total time saver with this!

Out of Game

Now, I have to mention that I have slight OCD and have for as long as I can remember. This can make things difficult because I like to have things all put a certain way and when it is changed it makes me uneasy. For example, my computer desk has a certain set-up that I must follow or else it feels too cluttered and will throw me off. I will not even be able to play with it all messed up! I will sit there and stare at the problem until I fix it.

I cannot play unless I have a drink on my desk for me. For some reason why I play I am always thirsty. So I need to male sure I have a drink around so that I do not get too parched. A long time ago, I would play games with a two liter of pop beside me, now it is just a huge glass of water.

I also need to have the t.v on or a movie playing when I am gaming. For some reason, music doesn’t work. I like the background noise and it does not distract me. In fact, I feel like I play better. Raiding or questing, it does not matter, I am way happier with the t.v on.

Finally, I like to play with my dog on my lap. Yes he is bulky, but not too heavy at about 20 pounds. However, he can give me leg cramps. But he likes to lay on my lap when I play so I let him! Luckily, I do not need to look at my keys ever to know what I am hitting so when I cannot see my keyboard when playing it is ok!

What are your weird habits?

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Sarindre’s To-Do List

So I mentioned yesterday how I felt frustrated and lost with being a resto druid at this time and that since I do not have a lot of time to play I will need to narrow down my focus so that I can get the most out of my play time. I decided to create a to-do list for her so that i can better follow these steps and get to be a better resto druid again.

1. Look up and compare best specs. There are many sites that are saying which spec is the best, and currently I am running: 8/2/31 and I am really not sure if this is the best or most effective.
2. Research gear. I have a list of the best pre-raid gear, but I need to find it and print it out!
3. Figure out the best healing rotation.
4. Relearn mana costs and efficiency.
5. DO DUNGEONS. This is a must. I need better gear so I need to get on and play! Not play alts…
6. Try to get into guild raids for gear. They will help me get some gear so I can become better.
7. Play, play, and play some more. This is hard with the baby, but I can play during naps…I hope!

Looks like I need help kicking my butt into gear!

End of the Challenge

A few days ago, I finished the last post in the 20 day challenge. Now that was a fun challenge and I wrote everyday…except one! I think that is pretty good. I have enjoyed reading other peoples challenges as well. I am gonna try to keep writing everyday, but is gets tough when the little sapling will not sleep during the day. Yes she sleeps all night, and that is great. But I get nothing done during the day because it is really hard to entertain a 10 week old!

I have not had a lot of time to play Sarindre lately, some of it is because of the baby but the other parts of it is because I still feel a bit lost. I do not feel as powerful as a healer like I used to. I feel pretty lost. I know I have done a lot of research and had practice, but I still do not think I get the best hang of it yet. It is frustrating. And I know it is only going to take some time and more practice but it seems like it is taking a long time. Looks like I will just need to take some more time to read and practice and I should not get frustrated because everything is different now!

Day 20: If this was my last day playing WoW, what would I do??

I have gone through the “I am done with WoW and never playing it again” phases a few times in the past and I really had no last day hurrah. I always just quit and sunk into the background, fighting the need to play again. But if I truly knew there was going to be a last day of WoW forever for me there are a few things I would do.

First, I would get the email addresses, Facebooks, Twitters, anything I could to keep in touch with my friends on WoW. That is what I always miss the most and drags me back into the game, my friends. When you have been playing for as long as I have, you make a lot of friends and your common interests always are the same: gaming. With all the changes that happen with WoW and with gaming in general, there is always something to talk about with these friends. At first I was very anti-Real ID, but now I am glad I have it since I have been to many servers and have friends from all around that I am able to keep in contact with.

Secondly, I would sell everything. It would be like a discount blowout sale or I would just give away things to friends I knew they needed. I would hate to let things just sit on my character and rot. It seems like a waste to me.

Next, I would delete every character except Sarindre. Once all the stuff is gone, there would be no need for me to keep these alts just sitting there on servers. What is someone really wanted my name and I was just hoarding it for selfish reasons? I would keep Sarindre though, I know there is no way I could ever type “DELETE” into her prompt box.

Finally, I would say goodbye to everyone, log off, and uninstall. This would really reduce the pull the game would have on me because of all the hassle and patches they have with installing.

If it was my last day of WoW forever, I would miss many elements of the game, but mostly all of my friends. But I would have all of those good memories to look back on when I needed them most.

What would you do if it was your last day?