So I Used To Be A…

I was not always the Druid you all know and love today. In fact, I was very intimidated by the description of the Druid in the little game booklet that came with WoW. Now, I had always enjoyed healing in other games that I played and was consistently the healer when I would play games like World of Darkness and D&D. But just looking at the healing classes, I did not think I wanted that kind of responsibility on my shoulders, especially being new to the game.

So I poured over the class descriptions, taking my time to understand what I wanted to play. Then I reached the “W’s” and saw a name that caught my attention: Warlock. A pure damage class that was tied to demons and could have pets! I was blown away and instantly knew what I wanted to play. I loaded the game and Calencil was born. I really loved playing her. I destroyed unsuspecting mobs, they never even knew what hit them. And those bores! Ha! I laughed at the little things. Oh and when I got my pets! What a wonderful feeling I would get, even though they were a PAIN in the butt to get.

I was a complete WoW noob and had pretty much no idea what I was doing, since this was only the second MMO I played and the first was Star Wars. However, I did research and learned what it meant to be a DPS class in raids and in dungeons. I was blowing things away, well at least in my mind I was.

On the side I started a little Druid. I thought the shapeshifting aspect of the game seemed neat, and I really wanted a Night Elf. I played her little by little, not really focusing on her as my main, I was all consumed by the Lock of Doom!

Everything changed the day I was told about add ons. Again, I was a WoW noob. To explain my noobness I was not even in a guild and was just running around like a chicken with my head cut off! So I got the all important add on Damage Meter (I really cannot remember if this was what it was called, but this is what I refered to it as). And so begins the downfall of Calencil…

I became….obsessed, as it were, with being the best (cue the Pokemon theme song). I worked hard as DPS, I was number one on the meter a lot, but there were times when I fell behind and I was just so frustrated. I found the best spec, grabbed the best gear and pulled off the perfect rotation, cheering at myself for doing great and wanting the quit the game every time I was challenged. Little did I know that Damage Meter was the bane of existence for anyone with a competitive bone in their body and all 206 bones in my body were itching to be better than anyone else.  I started to hate looking at her especially when I was grouped with people who raided (which again as a complete noob, I had no idea where to even begin that). I was hating WoW and how it made me feel.

Now, I know that to most people this is all pretty lame to get this angry about a game situation and add on, but it really bothered me at the time (I will admit now that when I DPS, if I ever DPS that is, I still try my hardest to be high on the charts, but it really does not drive or consume me anymore). Calencil was getting played less and less and my druid was getting played more and more. After my debacle with DPS, I decided to go Restoration with the Druid. I fell in love with her more and more everyday.

Eventually, I did not even log on Calencil anymore. My Druid was great. I loved healing and I was actually good at it! I did not care if I was “number one in heals” because if everyone is alive we all win right? I liked the mentality of being the healer and it is who I really am. 

Sarindre was born and she has been my main ever since! I will be a healer in WoW no matter what and will be sticking with my Druid for as long as WoW is around.

So I am interested: What was your first character and why? Did you stick to it? If not what made you switch and why? What do you play now?

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!

Calling All Bloggers!

So a silly blogging question here…How do you get your RSS feed link to allow you to read through other forms like Google Reader and the like? Right now, if I click on my feeds link it just allows me to add it to (what I think is) the Windows version of Feeds. I know if I click on other blogs I get the option to add to my Google Reader, which I love and would love for others to be able to do to my blog. So how is it done? 🙂

Thanks all!

Lots-O-Changes!

So last night I finally decided (well it finally decided to finish the download after 6 failed attempts ) to get on the PTR and check out what was happening to Resto Druids with my own eyes. Now I just copied over my main since I wanted to know what would happen with her when the patch hit. Here are pretty little charts that compare current wow to the ptr patch for my current gear level with no buffs: (Also note that I was not specc’d into mana reduction talents)

Stats:	Current WoW	PTR Patch
Health	21097	32387
Mana	24951	39336
Intellect	1449	2408
Spirit	1157	1149
Stamina	1386	2515
Spellpower	3782	3709
Haste	738 / 22.51%	738 / 22.51%
Crit	16.71%	15.54%
Mana Regen	800 / 432 Casting	1117 / 646 Casting

Healing Spells:	Current WoW Mana Cost	Current WoW Healing Done	PTR Patch Mana Cost	PTR Patch Healing Done
Healing Touch	1049	12500 – 19000	1328	14000 – 20000
Nourish	572	5500 – 8500	349	4500 – 7800
Lifebloom HoT	782	1824	244	1252
Lifebloom Bloom	–	11000	–	9000 – 14000
Rejuvenation Initial	–	0	874	1406
Rejuvenation HoT	446	3066	–	2498
Regrowth Initial Heal	719	6000-13000	1223	6000 – 9500
Regrowth HoT	–	1493	–	846
Wild Growth	643	870-1000	943	400 – 900
Effloresence	–	0	–	349

So I forgot to test tranquility, but I will do that tonight. As I look at the numbers I can obviously see some big changes but I do not think it is nothing that we cannot handle when the patch hits. Yes, we will run into the increase cost of our HoTs but at 80 and the content we are currently on, there should not be a big issue. Tank healing with these talents and heals will be a breeze. Yes there will be a big change in the way we are healing from now, but I feel Blizzard is giving us the tools to learn how to do it.

I know there will be a different story at 85 and in the new dungeons and raids, but right now I am content that I will be able to heal until the next xpac without much trouble.

For some great information and numbers about what you will be dealing with when you reach 85, check out Restokin’s Blog where Lissanna has a special page all about Beta healing numbers.

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?

Feeling Bad.

Sorry for the slow bit of posts the past two weeks. You know, people tell you that you will be tired when you get pregnant, but you really cannot grasp just how tired you are until you experience it!

This leads me to why I have been feeling bad. I love my guild. I love raiding. I do not love my raid times since we moved. My body HATES my raid times. When I was in CA, there was no real issues with raiding. Being only at 9 at night, it was not really that bad. However, since we moved to Texas and raid times now are at 11 at night for me, this has become a problem. So currently this is my raid schedule:

Monday 10 man –  9:15pm-11:30pm

Wednesday 25 man – 11pm-2am

Thursday 10 man – 9:15pm-11:30pm 

Friday 25 man – 11pm-2am

Saturday 10 man – 9:30pm-11:30pm.

This used to be no problem for me, even when I was working and going to school. Now, I can make it to the 10 mans (though I am visibly sluggish) and last the entire raid. As for 25’s, well those are a bigger problem. Last Wednesday I wrote my raid leader to say that my husband and I will not be able to make those ones anymore, but we would make Fridays. I know he does not care, and completely understands, but I felt BAD. There are many reasons as to why I do. For one, we are short on healers and my husband and I are both healers. Much of this is due to burn out and some of it is due to healer inexperience. I know this is not MY fault, but I feel like I am leaving the raid and my raid leader high and dry. However, after talking to a few of the other raiders, other ladies in the guild, and my husband, we all felt it was best that I take Wednesdays off (this is another good thing, because with my job I am required to work the first Thursday of the month at 6am and going to bed at 2 and getting up at 5….well that is just no good for anybody)

So now we are off on Wednesdays we are off! Great, one extra day of sleep for me. Now, flash to last Friday. I was sick in the stomach throughout the day and was trying to take it easy. After dinner, my husband and I were hanging on the couch and I remember watching some TV. I woke up a bit later to him covering me in a blanket and turning off all the lights. We were going to play Starcraft a bit before raid, but I guess I passed out on him. No biggie! I thought a nap would be nice before raid anyway. However, this nap turned into sleep. My husband never woke me up because he felt I needed the rest and because I was sick that day. So add another absence from me!

When my husband work me up about midnight to move me to the bed, I realized what time it was and again felt horrible! I know I was sick and tired and I should not feel that way, But I guess that is how I am with my guild. I hate to disappoint. They never not run without us there, we just use some  secondary specs, but I cannot help but wonder if some people get mad when we do not show up.

But real life comes before WoW. Need I say it again? Real life comes before WoW. Therefore, my much needed sleep comes before raid. Sucks, but true!

Blog Azeroth: I’m a WoW Packrat!

Last week over at Blog Azeroth Feraltree asks us what mementos have we kept from our WoW careers and why. Great topic for me as I am a self-proclaimed WoW packrat. When I look in my bank I see a ton of “useless” items just sitting there. Quest items, class specific drops, herbs out the wazoo and um…*cough* ilvl 200 Boomkin gear…let’s just uhhh disenchant those right now…yeah. But there are a few things in my bank that I will never part with and hold sentimental value to me. And since I cannot link at work (dang blocks!), you will not be able to see the pretties.

Ring of the Heavens (ilvl 56 Green) – My husband (then boyfriend) gave this ring to me in our “secret spot” in Nagrand where we used to hang out. It was so cute and since we did not live in the same state yet ( I was stuck in PA and he in Cali) he would give me little presents to remind me he was thinking of me. One day a few months ago, we were looking in my bank for something and he saw a green ring. Not knowing what it was, he laughed at me and told me to disenchant it. He was shocked to find out that I kept that little green ring in my bank since he gave it to me in 2007, even though I have huge bank management issues and it is constantly packed!

Oathkeeper (ilvl 115 Blue two-handed mace) – Another gift from my husband back when we were dating. He gave this to me in the same spot and told me he loved me (mushy!). I have never gotten rid of it and do not plan too. Just like with the ring, when he saw the mace in my bank he told me to DE it to make some room. When he saw I kept it as well as the ring, he blushed a bit and smiled. I think it made him feel good that I had these keepsakes still and reminding him of those days hiding up in Nagrand.

 I think before the xpac, I will give my bank a HUGE overhaul so that I can actually fit some things in there. But I know I will not get rid of those 2 items and they will probably sit in my bag till the end of time, or end of WoW…whichever comes first!

What do you keep in your bank? =D

Blog Azeroth: What My UI Needs!

Elkagorasa asked over at Blog Azeroth what we would change with our Cataclysm UI. Like Elkagorasa, I too run a ton of add ons and have written about them here in the past. Looking at these add ons, I see a few that I wish we could have integrated into the default UI.

See I like to customize and the default Blizzard UI, though getting better over the years, cannot fulfill my customizing addiction. I love being able to move, rotate and resize everything, but with add ons this can mean having many different add ons and hours of work! Below are 3 of my favorite add ons I feel Blizzard should integrate into their generic UI.

Grid – I know, I know I really need to try Vuhdo out, and I will soon I think. But I have had a love affair with Grid for years now. I love the fact that I can see a full raid in a tiny, compact box. Plus the ability to control what you see (ie – HoT timers, debuffs, aggro, or whatever your heart desires) is really great. I think if the default UI added in the ability to customize the raid frames and make them specific so that every character would be able to use them effectively, then Grid would no longer be needed (sad but true).

Bartender – I thinking being able to move your bars and buttons around is great! You can hide unneeded icons, you can make buttons different shapes, and make them as small as you want. I like the ability to not have my entire screen taken up by buttons and bars and Bartender lets me do this. If the default UI let the bars be completely customizable then poor Bartender might be left in the dust.

Pitbull – Does anyone else hate that on the default UI your character portrait/health/mana bars and the party frames are the same no matter what? I found it boring and it took up way more room than it should have. Plus having target’s target of target got to be way too much that I shut it off completely!  With Pitbull, I have spent a ton of time getting my frames the exact way that I want them. I think this would be another great feature for our default UI !

I know these are tall orders and there are restrictions as to what they can and will do with their time, but I think to have a fulling customizable default UI, would take the game to a great new level!