Big Things are Coming and Woot…Post 100!

Baby Pally has Grown

I have finally made level 100 on my Pally and I am super exited to try her out heals. I am only sitting at a 609 gear score, but I am working on getting more gear and getting silver proving grounds so that I can get my ring. Though I was at about 15 seconds before I could win silver and of COURSE the tank died. It is good practice for me healing though since I leveled as Ret. I went to ICY VEINS and found out some of the best talents and the stat priorities but I really need to sit down and find some resources to read about Holy Pally’s in general. I am looking for great information on rotation especially to ensure that I am being efficient. So, if you have any great references, please post them into the comments below or tweet me @sarindre .

Saturday Night Raid

We had a great raid on Saturday night getting down Hans and Franz for the first time and having a few tries on Flamebender Ka’graz (dang wolves!) and we should get her down soon. After we tried there we went back to Gruul and let’s take note that he did NOT drop the staff (Inferno-Flame Staff) nor did my bonus roll yield me the staff. Frankly, I sit around with 10 seals and use them every chance I get, but I rarely get anything from those rolls. Stupid staff…

New Stuff!

Now it is time for some new stuff! My husband, a friend of ours, and I have decided to start a podcast/website! It is called Geeks and Geeklets: An Adventure Guide to Gaming Parents (www.geeksandgeeklets.com) and is a site devoted to gaming, parenting, and all around geekery. Come join us as we balance our lives as gamers with parenting and as we watch our littles grow up surrounded by geek culture. The website will contain articles, tips & tricks, and eventually a podcast (in the works!). We are up and coming but would love for you to stop by and check things out!

Also, some of you might know that I run another general gaming blog over at thegeekymommy.wordpress.com. Here I talk about other games I am playing and the joys/struggles of being a gamer mom. Well I will no longer be posting there and will be focusing those posts to the Geeks and Geeklets site. So if you have read and enjoyed The Geeky Mommy, hop on over to Geeks and Geeklets for similar content.

Finally, I will be guest writing over at Gaming Mommies!  I will mostly be focusing on WoW related content but the site is full of great groups and great people! Check them out!

Geeks and Geeklets Contact Info:

Email – geeksandgeeklets@gmail.com

Site – www.geeksandgeeklets.com

Twitter – @ggeeklets

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/geeksandgeeklets

Tumblr – Geeks and Geeklets

Google+ –  Geeks and Geeklets

If you are interested in guest writing, please feel free to email us your post to geeksandgeeklets@gmail.com with the subject “Guest Post.”

Happy Healing!

I Guess I Need to Finish Levelling my Holy Paladin…

/start rant

Last Thursday I finally listened to Final Boss podcast on Resto Druids and it was kind of a bummer. I cannot lie, I still live in the moment when I was in the guild Fallen Heroes and Resto Druids were king. We were running all the Wraith content then and we always were running a Resto Druid, a Pally, and a Priest for sure.  But Resto Druids were always needed and wanted. In my current guild, we do not have many options and are running with three Resto Druids like I mentioned in my last post and a Holy and Disc Priest, so it not like we are going to be subbed as healers, but should we be? We are healing well and maybe we are not at the point that this matters but is our core healing team the problem? Are we the reason we have only downed 2 bosses in BRF and 4 in Highmaul? There is always the excuse that “oh the tanks are taking too much damage” or “we do not have enough DPS” but what if the real reason is “we do not have the right kind of healers.”   I think that it would be best to see if the raid leaders/guild leaders can take a look at the logs all together and see what we are lacking. It could be all three of the major issues or a combination of them.

The hindrance of having three Resto Druids was a bit noticeable when we ran BRF on Saturday. We ended up getting Gruul and Beastlord Darmac down on the first try which is really great. Then we moved onto Operator Thogar. We are doing pretty well on the fight but seem to lose it on the raid splits. I am the one chosen to follow the tank over to the one side and heal them. Normally I believe this roll of single tank healing would fall to a Pally, someone with great burst healing that will not let the tank die while he is being smashed in the face by a boss and tons of mobs. I am able to do it, basically I HoT the tank up and Regrowth/Heart of the Wild spam, but as I think about it, it would be way more effective for a non-HoT healer with great single heals to do this role.

I have two Holy Pally’s, one for the Horde side and one for the Alliance side that are almost level 100 and I am now seriously considering finishing leveling them and then trying one out in raid. I am for sure going to play the Pally on the Horde side; I am just not sure about what to do on the Alliance side. I love my Druid, I really do, but there comes a point in when progression is important and I want to do the best I can for the guild.  I have never been one to change a class. I have been playing a Resto Druid almost since the beginning and it is the only character I have seriously raided with. It would feel weird not to have her around. I do not like being at the crossroads like this and as I said before, maybe in Normal things like this are not important and you really only need to get up to Heroic and Mythic for it to matter, but I really am not sure.

In the end, I think I get jealous that I am not at the higher content yet. I know jealously is ugly but I really miss not being able to take a few nights a week and raid with a consistent group. I love the feeling of downing bosses and hitting the achievement of being in a high-end raiding guild. But that is not the situation we are in right now, and that is OK. I would just like to progress a little more. So for now, I will continue to raid with my Druid changing up my talents a bit with the advice from Jarre and Affinity and I will level my Pally and see what happens.

What do you think of Druids currently? Are we viable?

/end rant!

Happy Healing!

Raid Analysis: Part 1

On Monday I said I wanted to talk a bit about gear and rotation and since I have not done much in WoW this week (ie – this post here) I figured it was a good place to start. Over the weekend I worked out some gear and rotation issues I have been having and I felt like I was in a good place. Though, I am not perfect and would like to look at my logs as one big happy family and see where I am having issues. I am mostly going to look at The Butcher for this information and I am using AskMrRobot as my combat log analyser. They have great graphics, and show the information in a nice concise way.  ***I would like to also note that I am only discussing my own healing and no one else’s in this post.***

The first image below is the overall healing for The Butcher. Like I said in the first post, I am very ecstatic about that 33K HPS, even though at my current gear score I think I can be pulling more. I have noticed my numbers are on a general uptrend (ie: Brackenspore was also at 33K). The next number that I am not too proud of is the overhealing number. As a healer from BC, overhealing has always been a big issue. You want to heal and make sure no one is dying but if you heal too much then it is a waste. There is such a fine line for me when it comes to healing and making sure the group is surviving. We will get more into this number a bit later. The last number of note here is my active time. Why is it not 100% you ask? Well because I use the Draenic Channeled Mana potion in fights and this gives me a 10 second downtime for every fight. (I love this potion in fights and find that if used correctly I can get a ton more mana especially when using the Stone of the Waters. I almost can make the Stone of Fire!). Then there is moving and the general “well no one is taking damage so I am not wasting mana,” standing around.

The next image is one that is more descriptive per spell. As you can see most of my overhealing comes from Rejuvenation, though I am not too shocked by this number. In many instances, especially in this fight, i try to roll HoTs (Rejuv and Germin) on a lot of the raid. With The Butcher, the melee DPS (or the DPS in melee position) take a lot of continuous damage.  The same can be said for the overhealing with Germination. Wild Mushroom, Wild Growth and Tranq are bound to have some overhealing, though Wild Growth might be a bit high and in this fight it seems that I did Tranquility at the wrong moment. 73% overheal….oi! I am happy to see some ok percentages for Multistrike since I do not focus on that stats.

One major issue I have is my Lifebloom. 22.3% uptime is not very good. I do not expect 100% since i like the bloom going off, but at least 75% . I need to make sure that I am rolling this on the tank that has main aggro on the boss.

I also need to make sure that I am using Nature’s Swiftness! I am using it more than i ever had before but I would like a higher uptime with it. It is such a useful spell but I hate to waste it at the very beginning of the fight where there might not be that much damage occurring.

Below is the graphic that shows the total healing done and lets me see how my mana is during the fight. I made it a little over halfway through before I used a Draenic Channeled Mana potion which let me finish the fight off until the end with pretty good mana. The big spike in healing is when I casted Tranquility. I know that casting Wild Growth is very mana heavy so I need to make sure that I am only using it where there is a group of players that are taking/will be taking a lot of damage. That will help me use less mana. Right now, I am enchanting my weapon with the mana enchant. I think I would like to take that off and try the haste enchant in order to see how it will affect my healing.

As I said before, I know I am not perfect and need some work. I need to focus on fixing my overhealing a bit, keeping Lifebloom up, and ensuring that I keep high raid awareness. I want to look more into what I am doing in order to hit the higher numbers and be a more effective healer for my team.

Any advice for me?

Check out Part 2 on Friday or Saturday to see some more analysis using some of AskMrRobots infographics!

Happy Healing!

Weekend in Raiding

This weekend in WoW went from looking very eventful (first normal BRF guild run) to not so eventful (returning to normal Highmaul) and finally to very successful (beating Brackenspore as a guild for the first time!). Thought I was very excited to run BRF for the first time, we had a tank that was a bit under the weather and were going to have to use some alts. My husband was recruited to switch from his Warlock to his (undergeared) DK tank and we had some other alts join as well.

It went pretty well. I will admit that it is much harder to heal the alt tanks than it was to heal our normal tanks. However, we did end up getting Kargath and The Butcher easily. I got an off-hand from Kargath too (Bileslinger’s Censer, something I had no idea dropped, not sure how I missed it in the loot table before…).  Plus I was able to hit 33k HPS on The Butcher. I am not sure how it happened since I usually am stuck between 27k and 30k on a boss, but it did. I did make some gear changes and tweeked my rotation a bit and I could notice that I had much better performance than I have had thus far. That four piece bonus on the tier gear is really nice too! On average I found that the Mushroom ability (which is what recount is calling it) is doing about 200k per boss. And it proc’s on Ysera’s Gift which in my book is equally amazing. I did not have time this weekend but I would like to analyse my logs and see how things looked.

After The Butcher, we went over to the twins since that has been an easy win for us most of the time. Not this time however, but after a couple wipes with alts, many people switched back to their mains (tanks included) and we were able to get them down fairly quickly. We then decided to do something that we have been skipping for the past few weeks, and that was Brackenspore. For some reason, Brackenspore was just not clicking for us. But we had some time and we thought we would give it a go. We kept it to mains since this is a gear check fight and lo and behold we got him down on the first try. And that Hunter bow dropped that a hunter in the group wanted/needed! All in all, it was a good night of raiding.

Once I can pull together my logs and also get my screen shot uploaded of the wondrous 33K HPS (because screen shot or it didn’t happen right?)  I wanted to talk a bit about rotation and the gear (ilvl 661) I am currently running.

What is your rotation when healing and current ilvl?

Happy Healing!

RaF Dungeon Adventures!

Last night the hubby and I did some dungeons on our Horde Pally and Druid combo. As some of you know we are doing recruit-a-friend and have the heirloom gear on so it is going ridiculously fast. This is mostly due to the fact that we are just running dungeons and instant pops since we are a healer and a tank. We made it to 70 last night (so close yet so far) and we might have them ready to raid with the horde guide next Friday! However, as we are dinging away, I noticed something. There are three kinds of people in dungeons.

1. The Normals – The people who are just there to level and will mostly stay quiet except for an occasional “Hi,” “Grats,” or “thanks”
2. The Impatients – The people who PULL ALL THE THINGS. This category goes to the DPS who just run ahead and pull without a tank being ready and it also includes the tanks that pull the entire dungeons and expect miracles
3. The AFKers/Jerks/BOTS – People who will AFK without word and might be gone for 13 minutes in that time you have already killed two bosses and have not been able to kick for a replacement since you cannot kick until 15 minutes into the dungeon OR Jerks OR BOTS (which to be honest I didn’t know it was possible to bot in a dungeon) which I will talk about below!

Normals, I love you. Thank you for coming to dungeons and making leveling easy and even enjoyable. Impatients, I tolerate you. As a healer, you make my job harder but it is nothing that I cannot handle. The biggest issue that I have had with you was when you were mixed with a jerk in a dungeon I was in a while back and you created a player that hated me as a healer because of the server I am on. Let me repeat that so that it takes FULL effect. Someone became an impatient jerk when they noticed I was on the server Misha and stated in chat “I do not like players from Misha, you all suck, deal with this” as he ran and pulled EVERYONE in the beginning of the dungeon and we all died. Yep, that is what you get when you are a so-so tank and you pull about 15 mobs and dash away from me on purpose.

AFKers why do you even join dungeons and interact with people if you really do not want to be there? Now I am not talking about legitimately having to take the dog out or deal with the children, we have all been there! But be polite, let the group know. Most of the time these leveling dungeons are so fast, 20 minutes on average to complete, don’t be gone for over half of it and sit there soaking up XP and quest completions while we do all the work.  In the newer WoD dungeons, there are many times when you actually need all the players to be present and playing…Grimrail Depot…I hate you…

Jerks we all have seen them, and sometimes we are one when you are frustrated to the point of no return. But there are some people that you will run into that are just plain rude and make the game unenjoyable for those minutes you have to spend with them. There is no point to troll or mock or be mean to people in a game that is meant for collaboration. We all have the same goal. Let’s just get together and play nice.

Hello mister tank bot? How did you get into my dungeon? Why are you wearing weird DPS gear? Where are your shoulders! Why are you taking so much damage!!! Hello? Tank? Are you there? Hmmm you are not answering anyone. Great you are now only taunting once and pretty much everyone has aggro. And now you are dead and you won’t accept a rez.  AND we cannot kick you for another 5 minutes. But we can report you as a bot…which we did. Then we kicked you and a new, non-bot, tank came in and rocked it! PS – thank you new tank for 1. Not being a bot and 2. Confirming that you were in fact not a bot when we asked.

Overall, the dungeon experience we have been having with the RaF fun has been good. Most people just want to get in, kill bosses, and get experience points. Though there are times when I am so nervous since I am healing as a Paladin for the first time and I expect to be called a “noob” even though there have been no deaths (yet), it has been close at times.

How about you? What sort of players do you run into in dungeons?

Happy Healing!

Rebirth…or Not?

This is something I forgot to mention a couple of days ago, and is something I am really on the fence about. Rebirth has changed dramatically.

Now, I am not talking about the cooldown change from 10 to 30 minutes. This is something I completely understand. Yes, we were spoiled and could rez pretty much every boss fight, but it was really not needed, well not necessary I should say because I think we can all name a few fights where Rebirth is loved and desired.

What I am disappointed with is that only one Rebirth can be used per fight. I do not think there were guilds stacking Druids just to receive 6-8 Rebirths per fight. Most we even ran with in our 25 mans was 4, which I would think is about an average number in many guilds. I do not believe it is something that is truly abused by the masses.

But Blizzard thinks so and with the one Rebirth per fight rule, this will make many Druids rethink who they are going to rez. Will you rez the 10k DPS who died because he stood in fire, the healer who makes mistakes, or the tank that is taking way too much damage for the fight? Or will you wait to see if someone who is a better choice dies before you BR? These are many questions that I do not want to ask myself during combat. Our Raid Leaders are good about letting Druids use the BR according to their best judgment, however it seems now, they will need to call the shots so that the wrong person is not rezzed by accident.

This is another change that will take time and practice to get used to.  Here is a fun little flow chart to help you get in the Rebirthing mind set! 🙂

***Added some arrows for ease!***(Angry Tree Image from Murloc Parliament)

What do you think about the new Rebirth rule?

The Blame Game

Maybe it is the burn out. Maybe it’s the boredom. Maybe Blizzard has finally found a way to hypnotize us through our computer screen. I cannot be sure. But what I can be sure of is whatever is in the air is causing people to play….dun dun duhhhhhhh….The Blame Game.

How does one play The Blame Game you ask? Well first you take a boss. Any boss will do really, but try to get a boss that you have beaten a million times over and over. What boss did you pick? Oh Hard Mode Saurfang? Perfect! Next, grab your friends. You can bring 10 or 25! How many did you bring? Oh you have only a few friends? Well that is ok, 10 works!  Then get to Saurfang and buff up! Don’t forget to change to Hard Mode in the process. Everyone buffed and ready to go? Alright lets pull! Hmm, everything seems to be going according to plan. The boss is at 60% already? Good good. Wait, Blood Beasts are not dying? Yuck a Mark on a person! Eww now lots of people are getting hit by Blood Beasts. What’s this? Even more people are getting hit by Blood Beasts. Everyone is dying you say? Saurfang is healing too much? Well…you know what to do, blame the tanks!! Rinse and repeat until the tanks are so mad and are done raiding for the evening. Blame Game completed! Congratulations! You win the prize of making the raid uncomfortable and upset.

This is what happened to us on our Saturday raid. We brought in someone who only ran with us off and on, and The Blame Game was activated. Normally, this would never happen because everyone is very close with this person. But it seemed like a dark cloud hung over our raid. Again, I do not know if it was the weather, boredom, or just having a bad day in general, but there was sighing, blaming, and even yelling over vent.

Why were the tanks getting blamed you might ask? The claim was that the tanks were not taunting fast enough when the Rune of Blood was placed on them and Saurfang was healing too much because of that. Odd I thought, especially since I can see the average time it took for a taunt was 1.5 seconds and the max was about 3-4 (taunt missed). Plus, the last time we fought Saurfang we had a fail tank who would never taunt for almost full Rune of Blood rotations, so we knew this was not the problem. After we stated this over vent the person did not let up, linking recount and showing how much healing Saurfang was receiving from Rune of Blood. Now, it is a lot, but from what I remembered it is always a lot (This was confirmed by looking at another guild 10 man’s numbers. Both groups were the same, but we had lower DPS). Plus with the healing done by the Marks, it was just too much for us to handle. There was a huge funk in the air.

The final straw for the tanks was when there was a missed taunt and one tank said over vent “Taunt Missed.” Once it was said a loud “SIGH” rang out over vent (do you really have to guess who did that?). Both tanks responded with anger. One said “Keep your comments to yourself. I am done after this attempt.” After that failed attempt, the tank logged off and went to talk to the raid leader in a different vent channel. Many of us did research on what happened by looking at other logs and recount. We figured out it was a DPS problem which could be fixed (One DPS had horrible lag and could not attack the Blood Beasts correctly). Another member of the group whispered me saying how the raid was ruined because of The Blame Game. I happened to agree.

So what happened? Why are we getting so heated over bosses we have beaten many times over? Or maybe that is the reason we are heated. We know we can do that bosses but we are failing on some key level. Most of the raid did not care, it was just one person. Wipes happen, even on the simplest of things. But I have noticed lately that many people cannot take the failing. I believe it has to do with the pre-expansion burn out. We know it is coming, we know that we will never need to run ICC again (Yay!) and we are just trying to grind through each raid. Does this give us the right to be rude and play The Blame Game on other members in the raid who probably feel the same way you do? No. If you have an opinion that could potentially be volatile to the raid, tell the raid leader or keep it to yourself. There is really no reason to ruin an already strung-out groups mood.

But what go you all think? Have you noticed others struggling to put on a happy face during raid? Have you been the cause of some raid tension? Are the pre-Cata blues affecting your mood?

Just remember, in a raid we are all a group. We need to work together as a group. Causing tension and drama only hurts further progression in the expansion when groups are going to be together again for 10 or 25 man raids. If you are mad enough to be rude, just don’t hit that pesky push-to-talk key, take a deep breath, and relax!

Blog Azeroth: Retatreeshadow! New Class of the Future.

Over at Blog Azeroth Primetime Casual suggested a great Shared Topic for the week! They ask:

It’s quite simple. We’ll do it LEGO style. Take each available talent tree (either WotLK or Cata, if you’re in the Beta). Shake. Pick three.

To elaborate: Out of all the talent trees available, if you could freely choose three to create your own, ‘custom’ class, which ones would you choose? This is something that a few small budget roguelikes or diablo clones do, and it’s fun to ponder if this would work in WoW as well.
Your starting class gives you the skills to work with. You may take for granted that all talents that enhance a class skill also automatically give you that skill. You must have at least one talent tree of your chosen starting class.

Awesome right? Well I sure thought so. I know I spend most, well all, of my time talking about druids, but I do have some other classes and specs that I love, but do not play very often. So if I had to pick three trees and make my own class I would take the Druid Resto tree (obviously), the Pally Ret tree, and the Priest Shadow tree. Basically amazing right? Think about it. The ability to heal like an awesome Druid, to melee dps like a kick ass Ret Pally, and to have crazy DPS like a Shadow Priest. Here is why I picked the three trees:

Resto Druid Tree: Really, this is kinda obvious. I love being a Resto Druid. Always have. HoT healing has been my favorite type of healing, and rocking Tree Form?! Who doesn’t love that?! (Ok ok I know plenty of people hate it but I will always love it!) To me, Resto Druids are versatile and will always have a place in raids.

Ret Pally Tree: I have leveled about 6 different pallys, all of which I went Ret with. Melee DPS is my secret pleasure. I love taking a HUGE weapon and just smashing mobs in the face with it and seeing the numbers fly across my screen. I find it super fun and a great break from healing. In other MMOs that I have played (Starwars, Warhammer, Conan, and more) I always pick a melee dps class to run into battle with. I know Pally melee dps better than I know the other melee classes that WoW offers. I find their rotation exciting!

Shadow Priest Tree:  Cool form? Check. Amazing spells? Check. High DPS? Check. The rotation is great, the spells are powerful, and they give back health and mana! Who could not want to play a Shadow Priest?

With these powers combined I would be called Retatreeshadow!!!…Ok ok so I am not good at coming up with cool class names. I just design them right? =P

What trees would you combine and why?

“It’s Just a Game!”

During a 10 man run last week, a very interesting topic came up. One of our tanks mentioned how they know a guy who has max gold on 5 characters and is working on a 6th (whether this is true or not, I really have no idea but that was his claim).  A member of the group, who I will call Joe, pipes up and says “That is just stupid. They do realize that someday all of WoW will be gone and they are just wasting time right? It’s just a game.” 

Now before I go into reactions I would like to tell you a little bit about Joe. Joe (claims to) know “everything” there is to know about WoW. Knows the history, the benefits/weaknesses of all the classes and has 9 alts. They spend a crazy amount of time on the game, putting it above their regular lives most of the time. Everyone knows this, and it is pretty common knowledge.

I have no problem with people devoting their time and effort into the game. I have played for 4 years so I know what that is like. The game is a hobby and people like to participate in hobbies. But I found what Joe said kinda odd. Why would you say that someone is wasting time in a game that you spend a great deal of time in. It seemed very contradicting to me. Most people feel that WoW is just a game. Most understand there are lives outside of the game, and that is all well and good. And we all know that WoW will not last till the end of time. But if Joe felt this way, why did he put so much time and effort into WoW in the first place? Why was he even still playing now?

Someone in the group was thinking the same thing and asked, “Then why are we even all here and still playing the game? Why are we wasting our time?” Joe never responded, and instead we went on to get some tries on Hard Mode Sindi.

But this left me pondering…if WoW is a “big waste of time” and will just be gone eventually, why do you play? I am sure we have all been asked this question before, and probably mostly by non gamers, but I think it is a good one to put out there.

I play for many reasons all of which I know are different from reasons others play. I play because I like the game, my first and most plain and simple answer. I have not always loved bosses and people and I really hate leveling, but in general I like playing the game.

I also love my main character. Ever since I first played a Resto Druid, I knew it was for me. Just the feel of the game, the excitement of healing, it was all right up my alley.

I play for friends. Some of the people in my guild or that I have met over time, I would call my best friends. We do not just talk on the game or about the game but they know me, even without meeting me. When we have taking breaks from WoW, we would still talk. I would miss my friends and know WoW is a great place to meet people. Heck I even met my husband in Shadow Labs! So WoW will always hold a special place in my heart.

I play because I love raiding. I may hate to level with a passion, but raiding is the most fun I ever have had in a game. The teamwork, the accomplishment, everything about a raid drags me in and I just want more!

So what about you? Why do you play? Has there ever been a point where you really questioned yourself in your WoW hobby?

S.O. vs WoW. Where do you draw the line?

This is a topic I never thought I would need to talk about, as me and my husband both play video games with each other, but with what I have been seeing around the web (many many times at the wow_ladies live journal, which is a wonderful place for males and females alike to chat about WoW ) and in the guild I am in, it is a topic that needs to be discussed.

Jealous of a Game?

A few weeks ago in our 10 man, our resident resto Shammy, I will call him ShammyA,  got online and sad he would need to be AFK for a bit that we should just pull trash and not wait for him. No biggie! We pull trash in the Blood Quarter and wait a bit for him to get back. About 20 minutes he emerges and apologizes to the group. Now, being the only female in the group I get treated like one of the guys, so this allows them not to watch their tongues and to be blunt around me. However tonight, my femaleness was put to use.

I get a tell from ShammyA saying he was having some “gf aggro” as we like to call it. I laugh because this is something that is said by random members of the group sometimes. He tells me it is bad that time and she went to bed telling him to stay on the couch. He let me know that she hates his gaming and cannot stand when he is on and not paying attention to her. ShammyA let me know it was getting so bad that she would flip out and they would fight every raid night. I told him that this was a common thing to have happen with couple with very different interests. But to give her time outside of the game and have a talk with her about why playing is important to you.

The raid got called early due to people needing to leave. ShammyA then asks me what he should do now. I tell him to go and see if she is awake, if she is to just talk to her and calm her down. Let her know that he is there for her and understand she may not like the game, but still needs to respect that he does. The next day I found out that it worked! She was talking to him again and everything was peachy! Wonderful I thought, hoping this was not going to be a trend in his relationship.

 Strike 2!

Cut back to last night. We were working on getting some achievements down, when ShammyA logs on, joins the group, and then goes AFK again. I ask the raid leader if he is coming back, to which I get the response that he had “gf aggro” again. Oh boy, here we go again! After being AFK for around 30 minutes, ShammyA comes back and logs off. The raid leader then says over vent, “Well, he says if he wants to keep her, he needs to go.”

This hit me like a ton of bricks. He actually had to leave a game he does not even play very much of, except on raid nights, to appease her. We just were doing easy mode achievements, so it did not bother me that we 9 manned them. What did bother me is that someone was so upset over another enjoying their hobby.

This is where things get messy…

Maybe it’s because I am female AND a gamer that makes this entire situation seems so unreal to me. I understand wanting to spend time with your significant other, I really do. My husband and I have mandatory WoW break times that we follow and we never eat a meal while we play. This is just something we do to make sure we are not too addicted.  But to hate someones hobby so much that you force them to not participate in it. I feel this is absurd.

Now I do not know the full situation or even both sides of the story when it comes to ShammyA, however I know gaming can be a pretty serious topic when it comes to couples. There are some people who have been married for a while that like the gaming break from one another. Our GL and his wife worked it out so he could be on a 9 server every night and they still get “their” time in. One of my best girlfriends told me that when her husband plays games, it is her release and it gives her the freedom to read or watch a movie with interruption.

Maybe it gets easier once the couple gets married and they are needing to find their own space. For younger couples who are living together, this separation from the couple sphere might be more than some can handle. There are also stories about how people get divorced over WoW. I think that is a little extreme don’t you? (Again, not saying here this is a horrible thing to happen, sometimes it takes moments like this to bring out the worst in someone.)

Is there hope for a resolution?

There is always hope. As my mom always said what is meant to be will be. So what sort of ways can couples work out their issues? First and foremost, both parties need to sit down and calmly address the issues. Turn off the games, turn off the tv, and just let it be a partner moment. Talk about how each other feels and get it all off your chest. I know you guys out there do not usually like the mushy stuff, but if you want to play and keep your partner, this is one of the best first steps!

Talking could even be your last step. Once you both understand how each other feels, there is usually an easier time letting your partner participate in what they love. Maybe you will see that you are playing too much and cut down your WoW time on your own. Or your partner could really see that you are not playing some mindless video game and are actually interacting with close friends.

If you need a bit more help, work out an arrangement. Your partner only raids 3 nights a week from 9pm till 11:30 pm? Well that seems like a fair amount of time to play in the evening. What about weekends? Oh you see your family every weekend for 5 hours? Another great time for your partner to WoW it up. I know how most people feel about being on a schedule with a game. You feel like you are being controlled but even if your partner and you have a date night every Wednesday and you cannot play that night, that does not seem too bad does it? Some of the men in my guild will not even play until their wife and kids are in bed and since we are a later evening raiding guild, this works out.

Another option is seeing if your partner will try WoW with you. I know this happens less often, but it is always worth a shot. Who knows, they may get surprized and love the game. If your partner is willing to try out WoW, you should also try out a hobby that your partner loves. Finding common ground is always useful in a growing relationship.

There are many ways to find a happy balance for personal time and couple time in a relationship. But fighting and creating anger is never a good idea. So take a breath, realise they are probably just mad because they are feeling ignored to a video game (I know my mom feels that way when she calls and I am playing WoW), and talk.

Do’s and Don’ts of WoW love/hate.

• Don’t yell. This will only make things worse.
• Do talk. Be calm and productive.
• Don’t get violent. Punching walls is NOT the answer.
• Do breath. Deep breaths help calm the heart rate and the mind.
• Don’t threaten. When someone feels they are in corner, they can get defensive, making the situation much worse.
• Do come up with solutions.
• Don’t blame.
• Do remember why you fell in love in the first place. ❤