Day 17: My Favorite Spots

In game I have plenty of favorite spots. When Wraith was still around, I was always hanging out by the statue in Dalaran and with the Dungeon Finder, I really did not need to go very far. The reason I like hanging around here is because it was so close to the bank and not far from trainers, or anything you cold really need. Another spot I love is the secret one my husband took me too in game. It is in the mountains and we went there one night. The graphics were really pretty and I will remember how to get there forever! Another favorite spot of mine is Nagrand. Man is that place beautiful! I think they did such a good job designing it. Oh and of course Zul’Aman! What a cool instance.

Out of game, my favorite spot is at my old home on the farm. We had these amazing fields and I would walk them all the time. There was a path and when you got to the top of the hill you could see everything and it was beautiful! I wish we still lived there. I also liked sitting on the porch of our old house during summer nights. Since we were so far from the city, you could just hear crickets, birds, basically nature breathing. I loved watching the fireflies and getting on the room during July 4th so I could watch the fireworks. My favorite spot of all time was that farm. I miss it greatly. We had a chance to get it back, but at a million dollars, I do not think that will ever happen…

Since we just moved, I will need to find a new favorite spot here at our new place. There is a lot of land and woods so I will need to explore and see if there are any other spots that speak to me.

 

Where are your favorite places?

Day 16: Things I Miss.

Since Cataclysm has been revealed there are many changes that we have all faced. With all change, there are good things and there are bad things and this will depend on the person. To me, there are plenty of things to miss about the new WoW.

One of the main things I miss, and I know I have beat this dead horse, but Tree Form. I loved it so much! Heck, I do not think I even saw my character as her elf graphic, unless I was mounted! I only walked around in that form to so my tree love. But now it is gone and I see my elfy self at all times. I did buy the glyph so that when I go into Tree Form I can see my old one again.

The next thing I miss, and this goes back to BC is the dungeons. I loved the BC dungeons and raids so much and I will often run them with friends (even with just my husband since they are super easy now) because I miss them. I was not in love with the instances and raids in Wraith and so far with what I have played in Cata they are an improvement but still are not my favorite of all time. One thing I am happy to hear is that Zul’Aman will be making its return. I love this place so much and I am happy to see it back!

I also miss 25 mans. Yes, I know we can still do them, and I love 10 mans, but I really am not sure I like having to pick which one I would like to complete. I understand why this decision was made and for me I would only be able to do one because of the baby, but I feel there are many raiders out there that miss the chance on doing both.

Many of the changed that were made with Cataclysm were very good though! I enjoy leveling more now and some class changes are good as well.

 

What do you miss the most from old WoW?

Calling All Add-On Experts!

As most of you know, we do not have the best internet (Verizon MiFi), but it is the best we have available to us. I know that add-ons can sometimes cause lag, but for some reason I am getting a whole crap load of lag where I cannot even play with them on at all. Would that be an add-on problem?

Currently I like to run with Pitbull, Bartender, Grid, Ark Inventory, Smartbuff and Smart Debuff. Is anyone having problems running any of those? Could it just be that my internet is not able to run with add-ons on? I am all sorts of confused!

Thanks for any help.

Day 15: My Computer Background

For both my laptop and my desktop I have the rotating background that was featured with Windows 7. Both of the background feature WoW, movies, tv shows, video games, and pictures I have taken (mostly of my dogs since I have not updated it with the baby yet). I think to have the rotating background because I usually get bored with just one and will usually change it daily. Now I do not have to!

What is the background on your computer?

Day 14: This Upsets Me

As I have talked about a bit before, there are some things in WoW that can get me riled up.  I know that many of these pains are felt by all of you as well. So let’s make a little list of the things that will get me mad!

1. Trade chat – I am not really sure what the point of acting like a rude jerk is in trade chat. There is so much bigotry and hate it is pointless to even be in the channel. To me it is sad that people will use a public forum to treat others in a horrible way.
2. Superiority – Yes, there are players that are better than others. Yes, everyone needs to learn a thing about their class or the game. No one is perfect. But the people that believe they are perfect really irk me. They are especially bad when they think they can tell others they are doing things wrong in a rude way. I cannot tell you how many instances I have been in where one person will tell another they suck or are horrible or should quit the game. I have even been in Stormwind and saw a person point to a player and /yell that they are horrible and have the wrong spec and laugh at them. I cannot imagine how that person felt.
3. Tanks that do not wait for healer mana – They make me even more mad when they yell at the healer when there is a wipe because of this. Why not just wait the 10 seconds for mana? Heck even 20 seconds. Impatience is horrible!
4. DPS that do not stay on the tanks target – Then they pull aggro! Then yell at the tank! Really? Whose fault is it really?
5. Lag – This is so upsetting. With our internet it is unavoidable. I hate being in an instance and lagging so bad that people almost die. I will just spam all my heals as fast as possible to try and keep everyone alive.

What makes you upset in WoW?

Day 13: Bloggers/People I Admire

As you saw from the other day, there are many blogs that I read. Out of all of those I admire everyone of the writers.  In fact, I admire everyone that can keep a blog and writes one. It is not easiest thing to keep a blog going and to attract a reader base. But not just bloggers need admired, but all of the people who write the guides need some love too. And so do theory crafters! They take time out of their lives and figure out how we can all play our characters better. Sometimes they even get crap for what they say! Or other people steal their ideas and write them as their own. Yet, they keep on making the guides and figuring out the classes so that we can all play our characters to our maximum potential. Finally, I admire guild leaders of successful raiding guilds. Running a guild is not easy and running a progressive raiding guild is even harder. These people will take time out of their lives, set up raids, learn fights, and wipe for hours letting us complete a raid! If the guild leader does not do it a raid leader does. These people need to keep 9-24 people working together at all times. This is never easy. But they do it!

So to all the bloggers, guide writters, theory crafters, guild leaders, and raid leaders I say a collective THANK YOU!

Have you thanked your bloggers, guide writters, theory crafters, guild leaders, and raid leaders today?

Day 12 – A Day in Sarindre’s Life

I get up each day around 6am with the baby. I change and feed her, and then put her back for a short nap. While she is napping, I get on the laptop and write on my blogs. Once that is done, I read other blogs and chat with friends online. I will also read a magazine or a book.  During this time I also get some breakfast and tea. About 2-3 hours later, the baby wakes up and I feed, change, and play with her for a while. This continues for about two hours until she is ready for another nap! At this time, it is about noon so I have some lunch and get chores done while she is taking her afternoon nap. This usually only lasts a little while and I frequently get interrupted! But I will try to get what I can done before my husband gets home at four. Once he gets home and the baby is sleeping, it is finally play time. We will usually log onto WoW for the rest of the evening and just go AFK when the baby is awake and when dinner is ready. Then I will go to be around 11-12 so that I can get up with the baby in the middle of the night.

So what does Sarindre do when she is logged online? Well this will usually depend on my mood…

Well usually we will run an instance or two, whether it be normal or heroic it really does not matter. Depending on how long that took, we will run a few more instances. Once that is done, if my husband wants to mine, I will do some dailies (cooking, fishing, and other rep ones) and then I will do some archeology. I love archeology. I will also level my professions and transmute my alchemy cool down. If he does not want to mine, we have been leveling a hunter and warlock pair to resurrect the characters we were playing when we met (me a warlock and him a hunter). Yes they are already level 70+ but we did not have the money to transfer them from where they were and decided it would be fun to just level them again.

Currently, we are not raiding so I cannot add that into Sarindre’s life, but we are keeping  up on instances so that we can get the gear to raid!

Day 11: Bad Habits and Flaws

No one is ever perfect, though we all may think we are. But the truth is, each of us has some bad habits that we must overcome, whether that be biting your nails or smoking. For me I am a nail biter and a former Diet Coke pounder! I really could never get enough of the stuff. Luckily, when I was pregnant I had to kick the habit. But what about in WoW? Can there be bad habits in a video game? Well I am here to say there can be, and obviously the person who designed this list agreed.

So here is a brief list of my bad WoW habits:

1. Hoarder. Yes, my banks are unmanageable with all of the old epics I hoard. I just cannot get rid/disenchant them!
2. Lack of gathering profession focus. I am the worst when it comes to gathering. I will get to like 63 or 153 and then just burn out.
3. Yelling about other healers. I do not yell at them, just about them at my computer screen and to my husband. This mostly occurs when I die and am mad I do not get heals at all.
4. In accordance with number three, I get very upset with horrible tanks and DPS that like to pull aggro for fun. My poor husband hates when I start yelling in the middle of an instance.
5. When I am mad about numbers 3 and 4, I will squeeze my mouse and smack it into the table. I have not broken one yet, but man it has been close!
6. Eating while raiding. When I was pregnant I was always asking the raid to wait five minutes while I cooked Ramon!
7. Snacking while questing. I love the smart popcorn (you know that yummy stuff in the black bag). It always falls into my keyboard!
8. Auto following my husband. He will get so mad when we are leveling and I am just on follow watching TV or a movie.
9. Staying healing spec while leveling. THINGS DIE SOOOOO SLOWLY. But dang I hate DPS on my druid!
10. Finally…I use the flight paths everywhere…Yes I know we can use our flying mounts everywhere now, but I will always taxi when I can!

So, what are your bad WoW habits?

Day 10: My Favorite Blogs and Websites

One can just look at my blog roll to see all of the blogs that I keep up with. But here are some of my favorites that have made me a better Resto Druid or have wonderful information for all WoW players.

Cannot Be Tamed – Great Druid blog with great guides and helpful information.

HoTs & DoTs – Discusses Resto Druids and Shadow Priests. Great info!!

Murloc Parliament -Great writing and information. Talks about everything from raiding to characters.

Rank 4 Healing Touch – Awesome healing guide!

Resto Druid.Info – Everything you need to know about being a resto druid can be found here in neat and organized information.

Restokin – Great druid info and wonderful writing. Very helpful guides.

Revive & Rejuvenate – Interesting stories and great topics.

The Pink Pigtail Inn – Great blog! Good stories and information.

Tree Bark Jacket -Helpful guides and amazing topics.

World of Matticus – Tons of info and great discussions.

WoW Insider – Everything you could ever want and know about WoW and what is coming up.

WoW Ladies – A Live Journal community. Great people, wonderful questions, and help when you need it!

Here are some other blog and websites that I enjoy that are not WoW related:

Bookgasm -Great book reviews.

Kelly Lynn Thomas -Written by a college friend, this blog is about writing, journalism, and everything in between!

The Narrative in the Blog – Written by the same friend above,

The Pregnant Community – This is a Live Journal Community that was very helpful throughout my entire pregnancy! I love Live Journal and all of the communities that I can find there.

Life as a Mom – Great tips and tricks for a Mom!

 

 

Day 9: My First Blog Post

Welcome from the Tree

Resto Druids are everywhere, well now-a-days they are, I mean today alone I have seen at least 7 in tree form running around Dala. This has not always been true. From the day I played a tree, I have over came the hard ships and the trials that being a tree has entailed. Now, most of you probably only know the overpowered trees that are topping the healing meters (and overhealing meters but that is a story for another time) but this was not always so.

I would like to say that I am one of the Tree survivors, one that could not get groups before BC came out because “Druids can’t heal Nub!” Though if the group stuck around, they were pleasantly surprised because this druid could heal. Even though this was a regular occurance, I still found myself struggling to get groups, let alone find a guild that wanted me to raid with them. But I stuck it out, and today I am glad that I did.

Since Kara, I have raided in every dungeon and killed all the bosses these raids have to offer. Currently, I am 6/12 in ICC and two months back to the game after a much needed 9 month break. After all this time, I still enjoy playing my tree and am hoping that with the new guild I am in we can get it together and take our 10 and 25 mans all the way to Arthas.

I am going to use this blog to post tips and tricks on Resto Druid healing in raids, 5 mans, and PvP. I would like to give advice on how anyone can just pick up a tree and heal! Plus I will be talking about what the Tree sees and should do while healing. Hope everyone enjoys!