4 Haelz

Using Full Recount Potential, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Recount. That lovely little addon, the bane and delight of number jockeys everywhere. It provides so much information, yet is often ignored for the majority of its knowledge and simply reduced to a DPS or HPS race. There is a lot of value for healers in what Recount has to offer, especially if utilized while in the process of raid progression (during pauses, loot, wipe recovery, etc). Please note, this guide is for those who already know how to set up recount (it takes very little effort and comes mostly set up for you), and is instead designed to give more insight into reading the meters. Utilizing all of Recount's meters can make you a better healer, if you adhere to certain rules:

1. In no way is any fight ever a "healing race." Trying to push your heals to the top of the meters often resorts in heal sniping and possible assignment negligence. The top of the charts almost invariably belongs to raid healers. Perform for your assignment, not for the charts.

2. Understand that the healing meters themselves are the least influential and telling of all meters. They are limited and deceiving.

3. Trash. Doesn't. Matter. Only use meters for boss fights. Boss fights have assignments, jobs and strategies. Trash is more often a heal fest and the quickest healer with the twitchiest finger and the best ability to raid heal wins.

4. The Ret Paladin is only outhealing one of your healers because it's a straight-forward tank-and-spank and his Judgement of Light is healing all your DPS smacking away at the boss. Don't take it personally.

5. If you ever say "the boss died, that's all that matters" you've never carried a raid, and you may even be being carried. Anyone who says this while being dead for any portion of the fight due to their own negligence should be railed at.

Do you have those down pat, engraved upon your mind and heart? All right then, let's go over types of meters and how to use them.

Recount Meter #1: Straight Healing Meters
Wait a minute, Bell, you said-

I know what I said. The straight healing meter's use is limited. But it is by no means useless. And, once they are expanded, they become far more influential.

To start with, you have the face-value ranking of who has done more healing. Ta da! What does this mean? More often than not, it shows who is raid healing. Raid healers hit more targets more often, and if you're assigning someone to raid it means more often than not, that healer's hands will be full. Whether they're compensating for a damaging aura, someone being dumped in a crotch pot or an immense hand swiping itself through the raid, someone always needs topping off. And in their downtime, it's not uncommon to have them tossing heals to your tanks, either (hey, they're in the raid, too)! This means less downtime, more effective healing, and less lost ticks or overheal to pre-casting and tank mitigation. When your raid healers do not come out on top, that's when you worry.

What a healing meter can tell you, as well, is who is just downright terrible, or if you have too many healers. Paladins often bear the brunt of this; if you have too many healers (especially if those healers are heal snipers), they can suddenly be left with nothing to heal and thus have little effective healing done. Their overheal skyrockets and they're left with nothing but a large overheal. However, if things are going awry and you notice someone with a low HPS and low overall healing, you may be dealing with a slacker who cannot prioritize for his assignment. Like all things, however, this may take a little exploring into meter synchronization (which will be covered in a later post).

Expanding Recount Meter #1: Effective Healing Skills
If you drag your cursor over the bars on your healing meter and click a name, a whole new wealth of information opens to you. By clicking the arrows in the top right, you can run through a range of information for the selected name that greatly improves the quality of the information to be gleaned. One of those details the effective healing spells for your character.

Why is this important? For many reasons, especially if you're trying to judge your own performance or, in the case of a heal lead (or someone itching for the position), the performance of another. Taking into account their assignment and seeing what healing abilities they prioritize over others can bring great insight into possible problems or areas for improvement. When thinking back over a fight, how often did you use Regrowth? How often does it show up on the chart as effective? Does it match up relatively well or are you wasting a ton of time and mana on ineffective healing? Helpfully, if you hover over or click on a spell, the bottom half of the window will detail hits, crits and ticks in percentage of healing done for that single skill, giving you a decent idea of the necessity of certain things, such as if the tank is really getting the benefit from applying Regrowth because, even if it's direct portion is wasted, you can see the ticks of the HoT portion having a good deal of uptime.

Expanding Recount Meter #1: Who Healed Who
Arrowing over once to the right from the first expanded window of the straight healing meters will lead you to the "healed who" meters. This will give an outline of who the healer was healing and how much of their healing percentage was used upon them. With a main tank assignment, it should show that the majority of their healing and time, proportionally, is on the tank. If they are on raid, there should be a more equalized pie chart with a little more emphasis on tanks or people who consistently are taking more damage, perhaps more than they should be.

This chart is especially helpful to see who is sticking to their assignment, who is straying from it, and who is just not doing it. If your healer has not spent the majority of their time on their tank assignment, it will show up here. Maybe that is why they went down? If the healer has overall high healing but their assignment keeps dying, the problem is revealed here. For even more detail, you can click a person's name and see what they were healed with. If your healer has an even pie chart but the raid keeps dying, you can see that those who were healed were being hit with Regrowth. Regrowth is slow and not at all suited for raid healing, but when it did hit it was helpful, hiding the problem. Thus, expanding the expanded window even further is much more enlightening.

Recount has a lot of meters, and I want to go over a large portion of them. I'm splitting this up to make it a bit easier to digest, and so people who wish to point out mistakes or what have you don't have to go through an intense wall of text to point out a minor thing. So, when we come back with part II, we'll look at Who-Was-Healed-By-Who meters, Overheal and Dispelling.

Emblems, Time and Frustration

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I rarely feel the inclination to talk about patches anymore. So many people cover them that I feel I have no need to add my voice to the crowd. Yet, sometimes, things pop up that I just feel I need to talk about, for no other reason than that typing it out and submitting it to the populace for scrutiny is a way to sort out my feelings. And so, I now present to you my personal feelings on the new Emblem system as it is proposed now for 3.2.

For some background, I'm a casualcore raider of Ulduar 25 and ten. I spend four or five nights a week in raids, though only three of those nights are progression raids and the others are simply alt-gearing raids I run in to give over geared heals or Ulduar 10 because for some reason I find Flame Leviathan to be fun as all get out (especially in a motorcycle OMG). I log in other times to lead no-drake OS since I still need Valorous gloves, sometimes do WG and otherwise level alts or do a couple dailies. Three nights a week for three hours I spend healing Ulduar 25 on normal modes with only relatively competitive progression without strict attendance requirements (thus casualcore).

When the Emblem change was announced as in the works for 3.2, I was honestly stunned. I found it to be...rather disheartening. The idea of banging my head against progression content and scraping together enough conquest badges for one piece of T8.5 after a month of wiping, grinding and pushing and then finding out that I could spend those three hours a night train-killing heroics for more benefit is disheartening, to say the least. Why should I push and frustrate myself with Ulduar and compete against other people and RNG for gear, when I could get competition-free heroics gear? Especially with the new content coming out, as Ulduar 25 gear will prepare you for normal 25 T9 level (it would have to).

At this point, I do Naxx 25 once a week. I cannot stand Naxx anymore, but it is something that is important for a lot of people who need to gear alts, new mains or even their current raiding mains with that last piece off of KT, so I go to be helpful. At times I am gearing up Bellbell just for something else to do, but a lot of the time I have to switch to Bellwether because her geared heals are needed to offset the difficulties that come with people playing Alts. I do this to help the guild, but with the hope that eventually we won't do Naxx anymore, that it won't be a raid night that rewards DKP and people will just pick it up on their own. I don't want another reason to go into Naxx. I don't want it to be a required night again just so people can attain a ton of Conquest badges quickly to get two piece T8.5. I don't want another reason to visit old, tired content. It invalidates Ulduar 25 as a farming instance once a new raid comes out, since Naxx is faster, easier, and has more badges attached. And, once again, no RNG or competition for emblem loot.

I understand the pull and attraction for people gearing up alts. And, from a progression stand point, I understand this is extremely helpful for people who are switching progression mains. Other people have pointed out that it's only two piece T8.5 and a few other epics. But the thought that a fresh 80 could rival my Druid in gear by running heroics while I'm smacking my head against a progression wall seems out of whack to me. You would almost get more benefit (time versus reward) from running 25 Naxx than fighting to Yogg. For an experienced raider in a progression guild or even a casual guild, this is actually helpful as it means more badges, KT loot, and less time spent with less difficulty and less repair bills. Helpful, but mind-bogglingly boring.

I also feel that this more encourages people to skip content, rather than play it. If you can gear up past Ulduar level through Emblems (Be Imba has placed my gear level, wearing a mash-up of H Naxx and Uld 10 loot at past H Uld), why visit it when you could skip right to the higher, newer tier of progression? There's no step ladder, so you're actually missing content. Isn't this counter-productive? Why would I bother running the coordination-reliant Malygos 25 when I could hop right into Uld 10 with my non-RNG-based-heroic-farmed-non-competitive T8.5 helm and chest, and T8 equivalent neck, pants and gloves? Or why even do Naxx 25 at all if you don't have the people or feel like joining/making a PUG, when Naxx 10 epics and heroic badge loot will let you waltz into Ulduar 10 or 25, perhaps even T9 introductory level?

I admit, as well, that the thought of someone in quest greens and two-piece T8.5 is...unsettling. I understand with Vault there's a lot of discrepancy, but this will just blow it out of the water, especially as Vault gearing relies completely on dumb luck. I would certainly take advantage of it on any alts I level if it is, indeed, implemented, and people don't seem to realize that this change would be extremely beneficial to raiding guilds. Suddenly have no mages, but too many Druids? Pull the one with the mage alt through Naxx 25 and 10 a few weeks and they've got enough badges and decent gear to be competitive. It's crazily better for casualcore to hardcore raiders than it is for strictly casual people, and yet I still don't want the change.

I guess I just don't like handouts. I raid for the sense of accomplishment, which I suppose is why I don't like Naxx anymore. I don't find any feeling of accomplishment or sense of earning my gear when I go into content I farmed as a fresh 80 and get T8.5 for it. I suppose, at the root of the problem, is that it feels condescending, and I do not like being condescended to. I do not like to just show up and Blizzard to go "Aw, how cute, you killed King Ymiron. Here you go, sweetie, some T8.5 and a popsicle. You run along now, go get 'em, Tiger." I don't want things easier, I don't want to be forced into continuous Naxx farming to remain competitive (like Kara farming of BC, it gets old really, really fast).

Some have mentioned that this is how the PvP system works, so it's how PvE should work, too. However, this is completely off-base. The raids don't scale with each patch. While each season your same opponents get tougher with better gear, Naxx does not get an upgrade each patch. In fact, more and more content is nerfed so it is easier and requires less gear, less coordination. You're doing less for more, whereas in PvP it's the complete opposite. You need better gear to do the same thing each season in PvP; in PvE you do not, and in fact can get by with less. To do the new thing you need more gear, but there were already steps put into place before that new thing that provide the gear. I could understand giving better gear rewards if they buffed heroics and Naxx, but when they're leaving it the same? It actually makes less sense than the PvP system.

So there's my two pennies chucked into the pile. I recommend also reading Tree Bark Jacket's opinion on the state of the game and how hardcore raiders are perceived because of it; she's done a fine job and I agree with her wholeheartedly. I'm honestly rather sick of people devaluing others' opinions because they disagree or dislike the changes. You're entitled to your opinion and so is everyone else. Agree to disagree, but telling people flat out to shut up and belittling them by calling them elitist or wanting to be a special snowflake or all the other sorts of demeaning language because they do not like the changes (or calling them "casual in an insulting tone on the flipside) is simply rude and hypocritical.

If _, You Would _

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I want to try something with this post to spur people into writing about something I've been thinking about lately. Basically, I am going to give you situational questions. Exercises, problem solving, etc. Your job is to either in the comments or on your blog (linking in the comments to the post would be wonderful) answer the questions to the best of your ability. Since they're "what would you do" questions, there's no right or wrong answer. I am simply curious.

Ready? Here we go!

1. You've just started a guild. You're guild leader, and you have a decent sized pool of regular players. It's time to create officer positions. You can have six officers. What jobs would you give them, and what character traits would you find most desirable for those officers? Keep in mind, you can have less than six officers, that is just the problem's max range.

2. You're in a raiding guild. You're not a "new" member (you've been around a few months) but you're definitely not one of the senior ranking members. However, you notice that there is a job that could be filled. None of the officers are taking it on, but the GM has stated that he does not want to promote any more. Would you offer to do the job without the officer title? If yes, how would you discuss it with your GM? Would you be hoping for eventual promotion or would you be fine without the title and promotion? If the GM decided to simply pass off the job to an officer and not you, would you be okay with this?

3. You are the GM of a relatively successful progression raiding guild. Within your guild, you have a large amount of couples. One of your tanks and one of your dps are a couple. They will not raid without each other; however one of them is exceptional at their job, and the other learns slowly and does poorly. This situation is slowing your guild down and a lot of adjustment needs to be made for the one who does not do as well. Though you have other people who can fill the job of the person falling behind and their partner, they are inconsistent in showing and for the moment, you need them. What do you do?

It's only three questions, but as you can see they're rather long, and could be complicated. If you feel like only answering one, that's quite fine and I understand. I'll be working on my own answers for these questions and will post them up during the week!

Good luck, have fun.

EDIT: Just a heads up, these aren't problems I'm actually tackling within my guild, they're just scenarios playing out in my head that I've been thinking about. I appreciate the encouragement, however!

The Five Amber Oculus Run

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:40:00 +0000

A lot of people don't want to be in Oculus more than they have to, yet they dearly want that Red Proto-Drake Mount from the Glory of the Hero achievement. And a good way to knock out two void achievements at once (Emerald and Ruby) is to do Oculus with all five people riding an Amber Drake.

This strategy, though not overly difficult by any means, does require communication, so you might wish to be on a voice chat program with your group. Also realize it can take a few wipes to get the hang of it. Since these are not Ulduar vehicles and they do not gain any benefit from your gear, there's nothing stopping you from stripping to your skivvies and enjoying repair-free deaths. It's best, as well, if you've done Oculus on normal, first, so you have an idea of what to expect.

The first thing to do is make sure you understand what your Amber Drake can do. They have three moves: Shock Lance, Stop Time, and Temporal Rift. Temporal Rift is not available to you until the third boss dies and you are on to Eregos. Shock Lance is your basic damaging spell. When combined with Shock Charges generated by Temporal Rift, it detonates them, causing extra damage to Eregos. Time Stop freezes all enemies in place with a diminishing return. And Temporal Rift builds up your shock charges so long as while you are channeling it, other drakes (in this case, other Ambers) are doing damage.

Setting up Jobs and Rotations

Alright, so you're ready to go, have all mounted up on your Amber Drakes and are waiting to pull. It's time to assign jobs. You should split the group into two groups. The first group is composed of three Ambers. Their initial job is to channel Temporal Rift at the start of the fight. Channeling Temporal Rift does not pull the boss, so it's definitely doable to have all three channeling before the fight. The second group is composed of two Ambers who will be firing Shock Lance in the beginning. This builds up the other Ambers' Shock Charges. As soon as the other groups' Shock Charges are up to a stack of ten, groups switch jobs, so the ones who were channeling to begin are now firing Shock Lances (thus detonating their charges) and the ones who were firing Lances are now channeling, creating more Charges. As long as this rotation is kept up properly, no one drake should have to fire more than two Lances before switching to channeling.

Now it's time for Stop Time assignments. You will have two drakes assigned to the first active fight phase, and two more for the next active fight phase when he comes out of banish after kiting. The first Stop Time caster should always be one of the drakes in group two, who start with the Shock Lance. This enables the channelers to be channeling before the pull without interruption, and an Amber can pull with a Lance, then use Time Stop, and then resume Lancing. The second Time Stop should be used when he comes out of the first. Be careful not to clip the first Time Stop, as two Time Stops cast on top of each other makes it run short (weird but true).

If this sounds rather complicated, it's all right. I have created a simple time-line that shows Time Stop order. Here are the assignments:

D1 = First Time Stop (Lancer)
D2 = Second Time Stop (Channeler)
D3 = Third Time Stop (Lancer)
D4 = Fourth Time Stop (Channeler)
D5 = Back-up Time Stop (Channeler)

Eregos is Pulled
D1 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
D2 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
Eregos Banishes
Kite Phase
Eregos returns from Banish
D3 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
D4 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
Eregos Banishes
Kite Phase
D1 dies
Eregos returns from Banish
D5 casts Time Stop
(and so on)

If Eregos seems to be coming out of the second Time Stop too early and your Ambers are taking massive damage from his enrage, wait a few moments before casting Time Stop until he actually is announced as becoming enraged.

Setting up the Pull and How to Kite

It's best to start the pull from in front of Eregos's path. He flys counter-clockwise, so when he is directly opposite you on the map is the best time to move into position. The Channelers should begin channeling before the pull, and they have good enough range that all three should be able to do so before the first Shock Lance to aggro the boss. This ensures immediately high DPS.

When Eregos banishes, he summons orbs that chase the Drakes and must be kited. They can be outflown so long as you immediately fly away when he banishes. Sticking together also means that there is less of a chance of one drake dragging an orb into others. If you set up the pull as shown in the first diagram (and explained to the side) then the first kiting direction will be counter-clockwise.

The next time, when you engage the boss again, you will be on the opposite side. This is exactly like pulling the boss in terms of starting jobs, though there will be different drakes on Time Stops due to cooldowns. This also means if he banishes himself again, you will need to kite clockwise away from him to get away from the orbs.

It sounds more complicated than it really is. It may take some trial and error, and requires some communication. You will lose drakes during even a successful fight, but it is very doable so long as people focus and understand how to use their mounts and their abilities, and keep to the rotation. And, well, if you took off all your armor, there's no reason to get stressed over repair bills. Just do your best, see what works, and soon you'll be two steps closer to a menacing red mount.

Loot Conscious or Loot Whoring

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:47:00 +0000

“Loot Whore” is a pretty derogatory term in the World of Warcraft. You don’t want them in your guild, you don’t want them in your PUG, and you don’t want to see them whining in trade chat that someone gave such and such an item to a different class who did 200 or so less DPS than them. However, this generalization of the slanderous title can be dangerous and be rather far from the truth. Its stigma can be such as to keep many quiet as they’re out-rolled and out-bid time and time again, as they watch items go to people who are generally more geared, get less benefit or are simply gearing wrong.

Knowing when to speak up is entirely based upon your environment. In many cases, simply asking the other person if they will pass to you is acceptable. Adding an explanation, i.e. it’s a larger upgrade for you, it’s BiS for you, they just picked up some legs and you could really use the four piece bonus, can be helpful. In this case, it’s up to the other person. Will they be gracious? They may decide they need it more. They may have run the instance every week since they were 80 waiting for it to drop and being out-rolled every time. In this case, you’re SOL, but you don’t look like a Loot Whore unless you pitch a fit over them not passing. In fact, if the other person has already won a ton of items, it’s possible that they could be the ones to come out looking like a Loot Whore if they say no, so be careful of putting people into such a position.

Be aware of loot rules before going into an instance. Can you live with them? One piece of loot per boss sounds nice, but that still leaves room for someone to continually win a piece of loot off of every boss. One piece of main spec loot per instance (unless everyone is out of main spec rolls) sounds nice, but can become convoluted quickly, especially in longer instances where you lose track of who has won what. Free roll on everything means you go with the dice and the dice don’t lie. If you get out-rolled on three pieces in a row, you get out-rolled on three pieces in a row.

What about DKP or other point-based systems? Well, in those instances, the more you lose, the more you gain. Meaning, maybe you keep losing bids on items, but so long as you continually show up for raids, you will keep gaining DKP while others lose it, and items that were hotly contested prior may drop in price. Eventually, you will be top dog and can pick your items with impunity. Please note, bidding other people up just to make them spend their points is really just another form of Loot Whoring, and is in very bad taste.

Or how about the infamous loot council? If run correctly and impartially (it is possible!), the loot council system can insure that upgrades are given to the proper class, to those who perform the best for their gear level, or who need the upgrade the most. Stating your case in a clear, polite, non-aggressive or threatening or whining manner can help the loot council decide in your favor. However, pitching fits when they don’t, imagining favorites, or forgetting that all people, including yourself, are fallible and mistakes happen can put you low on the loot council’s priority.

Raiding and playing should not be all about the loot. But, face it, without the prospect of upgrading gear, what’s the point in seeing the raid content more than a few times. While you may relish the fights, everyone wants to see their character improve and look more badass each day. As well, losing out on an item again and again or seeing it drop but once and losing it to the tank who cannot even use half the stats on it can be a bitter pill to swallow. It’s always up to you on how you act when this happens, and how close you can stand to gaining the Loot Whore brand. An unfortunate part of the game’s culture, to be sure.

Ding!

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:20:00 +0000

Some real life news /gasp

I just turned 21!

Your 4 Haelz will return after the weekend!

Mad as Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:42:00 +0000

I'm sorry for the radio silence as of late, but there's been a lot going on in my life that I've needed to take care of. Just to let you know, I'm still here, I'm still playing, and I will be writing again soon.

However, nothing is more discouraging than getting scraped. And not only getting scraped, but finding out about it four months after the fact.

What does it mean to be scraped? It means someone lifted an entire article of mine, reposted it on their site without linking back to me and, in this case, they added in a sentence in the middle linking to all their services.

These services include selling WoW gold.

I am, excuse my French, fucking pissed, and will be working on fixing this. I want their site shut down. Not only is what they're doing illegal, but they're making a profit by stealing my work.

Not. Happening.

I refuse to link to them so they gain traffic. I will be doing something about this.

If you want more information on scraping, I suggest reading this.

Worrying About Nourish

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:18:00 +0000

It happened over and over. Regrowth Glyph was too powerful, Wild Growth was too spammable, Lifebloom too strong for too little. And so we were changed, restricted, modified and retooled. We haven't turned out badly, but it does bring forth a concern about the next spell I feel is in line for reduction. Nourish.

Why Nourish? It seems like a pretty well thought out spell. It has a decent cast time, heals a mild amount of damage, and the healing power of it is increased by having your HoTs on the target (and more still with glyphs and armor bonuses). Why is it so concerning?

Well, if you look at the WWS reports of my guild's last raid (which are indicative of a trend; every raid's WWS reports have looked similar), you might notice the problem. Names blacked out for privacy's sake, first letters left because I need something to reference them by.

These are the boss healing numbers for successful boss kills of Flame Leviathan (which doesn't factor into the WWS), Razorscale, Ignis, Deconstructor, and Iron Council, with the inclusion of one wipe on Iron Council and two wipes on Kologarn. There was also a Paladin healer, but I didn't include him as it was unnecessary information.

You can see on the chart that myself and Druid T are rather close in numbers. However, there is a huge gap between myself and Druid S, a gap of roughly 1.5 million effective healing and 2% overheal (or 10% in the case of Druid T).

These are my healing spells (same fights, ignoring Potions):

Druid T's:

Druid S's:

Druid S used Nourish 59% of the time, had more effective healing, less overheal, and almost the same focus as Druid T. This focus was large, indicating a great amount of raid healing. With the majority of raid healing being Wild Growth, and Wild Growth being used only for 24% of the other healing, over half the time Nourish was not being used in conjunction with other HoTs. With Druid S's gear and raid buffs, there were no mana issues and no mana potions taken.

This is not an isolated incident. I have spoken with others in different raiding guilds, and their Druid healers who top the charts use Nourish just as much. This seems to be along the same lines as when Wild Growth was in its heyday. It's not mana troubling, it heals a decent amount without needing the modifiers, is quick to cast (especially with enough haste), and it makes a pretty FWOOSH sound. All indicators that Blizz devs are soon going to be looking at it and seriously considering changes, if they aren't already.

This may be paranoia on my part, but no tree who has watched the trends of change to our class and spec of late can say it doesn't bear the signs.

EDIT: Just to clarify, since one of my friends already asked me, no, I am not losing sleep over this or freaking out or anything. I'm not really worried; it's just a title.

Why the Wipe?

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:00:00 +0000

All comics are linked back to their sources. Click the pictures to visit their sites!

As soon as that call goes out over Vent, it's over. You stand in the fire and die, or run into the eye beams, or make everyone annoyed because you do your best to survive when it would just be faster for you to take the death and run back in. And so you begin that trek back to try again, and the other familiar query is voiced:

"So, what happened?"

General replies fly back. The tank died. Too many DPS were down. No heals. Split DPS. Not taunted in time. DPS in the front. Standing in the fire/voids/ooze/blizzard/runes/poop.

Understanding what causes a wipe is paramount to raiding success. Learning from your failures is a cliche for a reason; it works. If you don't understand how or why you failed, you're doomed to a vicious cycle of repetition and repair bills, with little to show for it but what comes to you from sheer luck or stressed-out raid-mules (i.e. those who carry the rest of the raid).

Sometimes a wipe can be generalized. If too many DPS are dying because too many are standing in the eye beams, it may be as simple as saying "Yo. Stop standing in the dumb." If DPS is fighting in the front and your tank goes down because the boss has just ripped five new pretty bleeding holes from his skin in one second flat, it's obvious your DPS needs to take a cue from the hunter pets and grow a fondness for boss-monster haunch. And if you're pulling whelps, 50 DKP minus and stay away from the tail.

However, it's not always something you can simply generalize. For example, what does the phrase "the tank died" tell you? Absolutely nothing that the raid didn't already know. Of course the tank died, otherwise the boss wouldn't have pranced his happy self through the raid, smashing your healers as he pleased. Why did the tank die?

The first idea may be to blame the healers. After all, if a tank is dead, it must be because he didn't get enough heals. And, truly, this could be the problem. Your healers were possibly not ready for a huge influx of damage, there could have been confusion on healing assignments, they could have just not been ready, or they could have been dead. This is a little more complicated and requires a bit of a finer comb. Are the healing assignments inappropriate? Is someone trying to do more than they should and are stretching themselves thin? Have misunderstandings been cleared up about strategy? Are the healers in the correct position? Are the healers actually using their class and spec properly?

Perhaps it's not a healer problem. Maybe the offtank did not taunt in time, and your main tank's debuff became too high. He goes down in one hit and you're scrambling to catch up. Perhaps they missed something vital in their rotation, and they're suddenly taking more damage than they're supposed to be, at a time when healers are trying to boost up the raid in general. Does the offtank need to taunt pre-emptively? Does the tank need to go back to class and learn how to do a proper rotation? Does the boss need to be pulled out of, or into, some sort of glowwy fire contraption? Did no one warn the warrior not to charge Kologarn or he'll drop off the edge? Are they just not geared enough for the fight?

What about the DPS? Were they dragging eye beams through the raid? Did they not watch their threat? Was there someone with a gravity bomb who just decided it would be a good idea to stay in the raid? Did no one shatter the brittle golem? Were they all dead? Were they not grouped up tight enough so the meteor damage wasn't spread evenly? Did they not move when their charge changed? Was there no interrupt? Were they standing too close, and chained damage onto the tank?

Knowing why a wipe happens when it's something controllable is extremely important. It's the first step in fixing the problem. And there could be a myriad of little issues working together to create one big pile of corpses. Being able to identify the reasons past the generalizations is paramount. And, sometimes, pointing fingers is necessary, so long as it doesn't go overboard. If you don't point out that Rogueymcstabstab shouldn't be DPSing from the front in the fire with the candlestick, he's going to keep doing it. But calling him a weasel-faced toad-licker won't make him fix it, it'll just make him angry and more likely to pull threat and vanish.

Wiping, however, isn't always the fault of the raid. The boss could bug (a serious possibility in this brave new raiding world) and suddenly half the raid's eating dirt. You could get an unlucky chain of gravity bombs on your healers, and suddenly half of them are running out, unable to catch up for sudden damage spikes. A second too slow dodging an eye beam coupled with a sudden swipe of the hand through the raid and you have a dead player. Grobbulus could turn to infect someone in the DPS at the same time he summons slimes from the people in front of him and you have a legion of green snot balls AOEing their way through the raid, and the add tank is the one who's been infected. Or maybe your tank's just diconnected, along with a couple of your DPS and a healer. And perhaps Wintergrasp is going on during prime time and the server lag is so bad that your instant casts are taking two entire seconds.

Though those unlucky instances are not necessarily raid wipers, it is possible that, in combination with some other unfortunate deaths and circumstances (silences, mis-communications, unexpected damage, and so on) can greatly contribute. Most battles are no longer luck-based (like Prince in Karazhan used to be) but still can have "unlucky" elements. Controlling what you can will, however, help you recover from or prevent the bad luck, and hopefully down the boss.

Of course, if you don't, there's always the next time, right? And the next time, and the next time, and the next time...

New Innervate: Change Isn't Always Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Change to innervate? ZOMG OH NO!

That was my first reaction. I, apparantly, fear change. However, after that brief moment of panic, I sat down to figure out just how much mana we're getting from this skill.

Since it was changed to grant 450% base mana, and a level 80 Druid has 3496 base mana, Innervate should always return 15732 mana by itself. My unbuffed mana pool is about 16551. This would seem an improvement over the other innervate just upon personal return, not to mention it no longer relying upon your target having a large amount of Spirit to function if you're going to hand it out to that silly oom Paladin.

Glyph of Innervate changed a bit, as well. Now it returns 90% of your base mana to yourself if you cast it upon someone else, or combines the 90% with the 450% when cast upon yourself. This means a return of 3146.4 mana to yourself (at 80) when you cast it on someone else, or a total return of 18878.4 mana if cast upon yourself.

I'm definitely liking this.

A New Republic

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:43:00 +0000

What a weird title.

As it is, however, I have finally joined a guild, and as they've discovered my blog, I should probably introduce them! I've made my first forays into Ulduar, and it's nice to be able to work with a solid group again. Many I've played with before from my time in Sunder, and two are the leaders of this new guild, Republic. The familiar faces, good attitude and laid-back-but-still-going-somewhere progression just fits well. Helps a lot, too, that my boyfriend joined the guild as well as their new Main Tank (generally), and I find raiding much more enjoyable with him.

In my first week of raiding with Republic, I was able to step into Heroic Ulduar and down Flame Leviathan as a siege gunner. As well, I was in for the guild first downings of Razorscale and Deconstructor. It was thrilling to see fights like Ignis and Kologarn that, though we did not down them, were new and interesting and definitely possible. No Ulduar loot yet for me, but that's to be expected when you're the newbie.

As a treat, here are the pictures of the guild firsts!

Problem With Fish Feasts and Flasks

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:00:00 +0000

The arrival of the Great Feast and Fish Feast in Wrath of the Lich King freed up much of the burden upon guild chefs and eased many a headache of raid leaders attempting to ensure every person is food-buffed. Flasks have been around for a long time, providing a monetarily advantageous way to buff yourself for a raid without needing too many elixirs or having to renew them each time you died. However, these methods are not always the best choice, and actively work against min-maxing characters.

Fish Feasts are an easy catch-all. With attack power, stamina and spellpower, everyone in the raid has something to gain from eating Fish Feast. But that does not mean it's what they should be eating. Food that increases hit, crit or haste may be more appropriate, or strength food may give an edge over straight attack power. Expertise food, or perhaps mp5, could also be utilized. But this becomes largely up to the individual, and if they do not have (or do not wish to spare) the funds, or do not want to min-max, it's possible to lose that boost.

There was once a great multitude of Flask choices, but with the introduction of Spellpower and no base stat booster flask, the choices have dwindled down to four: attack power, health, spell power, and mp5. Much like the Feast, they're convenient and homogenized so every class and spec has a generic flask they can choke down and pewpew with.

But with two elixirs giving more of a varied boost, they allow for greater min-maxing of your character. If you need hit, or crit, or perhaps a little bit of a larger mana pool, or some health and expertise, nothing works quite as well as dual elixirs. But it is expensive, needing refreshers after each death as opposed to after a certain time limit. As well, doubling up elixirs may provide with a more even benefit, but they do not provide as much in a single category as a flask, with less spellpower or attack power.

Overall, it is a little up in the air. This is not to devalue the Flask or the Feast. They are intensely helpful, and should always be utilized. But knowing what other choices you have, and that the flask or feast could possibly not be the best (or a good) choice, is valuable information. When your raid wipes at 2% on Deconstructor because he hit enrage, that little bit extra could have made the difference.

Bon Voyage, Button

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:56:00 +0000

For those of you who were not aware, Button/Sannhet, my co-author, is in the Navy. Very recently, he had to ship out. Due to him wishing to spend all his last moments with his lovely fiancee, he had no time to post here about his departure.

I wish him the best of luck, and hope for a safe, boring, uneventful trip that brings him quickly back home, and back to writing the occasional post for this blog.

New Class, Same Job

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I wrote only a little while ago about how different I found healing on my Paladin to be as compared to my Druid. I've done a lot more healing since then, and I've found it to slowly start losing its stress as I became more competent. I'm still shaky and not completely confident about my skill as a Paladin healer, and Retribution is still my first love on Bellbell, but I've figured out some tips for those who have new alts who do the same job as their main.

It's important to remember, first of all, that even if the goal of your job hasn't changed, a lot about how you go about achieving the goal has. You are not playing your main, so using the same style will not work. The sooner you can break out of the mindset of your main, the sooner you can begin shaping a new one for your alt. For example, when playing my Restoration Druid, I know that when I have HoTs on a character, they will continue to heal, whether I take some time to focus on another character or if I use more healing moves on them. However, with a Holy Paladin, what I heal is what they get. When a Flash of Light lands, the amount that is healed is the amount that is healed, and there is no continuation of healing, no ticks. When the group/raid is taking damage, I cannot just hit Wild Growth and spot some here and there. I have to immediately begin throwing out concentrated, focused heals.

It's also good to remember that you are not going to be the best immediately (barring some exceptions). You've spent years perfecting your Rogue's rotation, adapting to subtle changes, optimizing main hand and off hand, tweaking your talent tree and switching poisons. Moving over to a Fury Warrior, you may not have the rotation down. Your gear will probably be weaker. Be prepared to be slower at adapting to changes, of learning new ways to use moves or different ways to spec talents. Take it slow, take it easy, and let yourself make mistakes.

Don't jump right into the harder instances. You'll be kicking yourself and hating the alt if you go right to heroics when you should be doing 80 normal instances. Your main may have been able to do those instances in worse gear, but, remember, you've known that character for a long time. You've possibly been through several expansions with it. This alt has either been a long time in levelling, or is brand new. Or, perhaps, it's a dual spec you've never given a shot. Don't jump in head-first; use some water wings first.

And, goodness, if it's stressing you out, take a break. Have fun with it.

Summer Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:29:00 +0000

I'm out of school, my finals are done, I'm home and resting, applying for jobs and getting ready for an internship. It's shaping up to be a busy summer, and I can't help but wonder:

Will this be as difficult as the last summer?

Last summer, the "attendance boss" brought down many guilds. During summer, many more people are able to go outside, and do things other than play on the computer, as opposed to being snowed into their houses. This was compounded by the rapidly approaching expansion, rendering the current content nearly obsolete. Though there is arguably more play time for those of school age, at the same time, those with full-time jobs will be more inclined to spend the hours outside of their jobs enjoying the nice weather. As well, vacations are generally WoW-free times.

This summer, however, has a lot going for it. With the expansion less than six months old, and Ulduar recently released, the temptation to play and conquer the hard modes may be able to counteract some of the sunshine's allure. It's also only a matter of time before even more new content is released, and the urge to stay in the know and on top could pull more people inside.

I personally am going to have a little less time this summer for WoW. With an internship, possible multiple part-time jobs and preparations for applying to grad school, I have a lot on my plate. I'm interested to know what is going to keep people playing during the summer months, and what's going to pull them away.

Maybe It Doesn't Need Saving

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:02:00 +0000

I just recently read the article entitled Ulduar can't save World of Warcraft's end-game at Examiner.com. Continuously, these types of articles irk me. Not out-right irritate, for honestly it's not worth the energy when I have so little to spare at the moment, but rather for the complete devotion to the writer's own opinion as signifying a trend.

"You’ve already done this hundreds of times before." The author seems to be complaining that WoW is still the same game. Literally, he says in the post that it doesn't matter what content was in the patch, because in the end, "it’s still the same game." I can't say for sure, but I'm certain if it added in a pinball machine and a guitar controller, the author would gripe it was trying to be something it's not.

A big point seems to be that end-game is flawed. Yet the only depth he goes into about these flaws is that it is a grind. Oh, and despite the four different ways to play Ulduar, mixing ten-man, 25-man, normal mode and hard mode, Ulduar is only for the HARDCORE. Funny, 'cause my Paladin in blues and a few purples managed to make a nice showing in a ten-man normal Ulduar last night.

My real problem with this post is that, besides taking his own opinion (one he says, however, that only three people hold while the rest of us are rabid wow fanboiz and gurlz ready to sacrifice our first born to the gods of Blizzard) as superior, he uses it to create "news," i.e. that Ulduar has somehow caused WoW to fail, and then doesn't talk about it. Eventually, the post seems to boil down to "this is so boring, why haven't you quit yet? Oh wait, you're addicted. Losers."

Still, he goes on to saying things like dual spec and no longer being dismounted in water are obvious leads into an eventual auto-pilot mode, where we won't have to play our characters anymore. This is the same guy who wrote briefly about the plight of healers and tanks being forced into positions they don't wish to be in in an earlier article.

I have no problem with his opinion, except that he waves it around like a club and talks about whatever it happens to smash into with some relevance. Posts like this are about on equivalent ground with those that highlight isolated cases of shut-ins who kill themselves power-levelling and use them to make broad generalizations about the WoW population in general. As well, the author's hostile approach to talking to his audience is just ridiculous.

I suppose the point of my own post is that I am really tired of seeing people write openly hostile posts about WoW and then invalidate rebuttal by saying those who disagree are of the "zombified population" a.k.a. "sheeple," making those who agree with him the privileged few. I can't disagree without being in a position that has already been compromised. It's actually almost sad that this sort of thing is put out by an author who is paid to write about video games. I suppose, though, "sensational" headlines (ZOMG ULDUAR KILLIN MAH WOW WUT) get more page views. I sent you there, didn't I?

Obligatory Noblegarden Post Here

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:18:00 +0000

The holiday is here, there's no denying it. And, well, since I completed it on Bellwether the first day, and have almost completed it on two other characters, I believe I know a little about it. If you haven't started or are just getting started, here are some tips for you.

First off, understand that no egg belongs to you. Whether you're spawn camping or circuit running, nothing has your name on it. Coming to terms with this will make the holiday less stressful overall. You still have a week, so there's no point in becoming completely freaked out the first few days.

A handy tip for people missing their female orc: If you know a female human with the Orb of Deception, putting bunny ears on them while they're in disguise counts. Seriously.

If you're going to Un'Goro and you're on a PvP server, take friends. I'm not telling you whether to gank or not, that's your personal preference, but having the muscle to take out any would-be gankers is always preferred.

When you're not being smiled upon by the RNG gods and are having a low drop of special items, collect enough chocolates to buy everything you need before you go purchase. This will help keep your blood pressure down, so there are less chances of buying something, then having it drop.

If you're hated by the goblins, but are going Desolace - Silithus - Tanaris - Thousand Needles - Badlands, remember that the flight path outside of Gadgetzan is controlled by a non-goblin, so as long as you kill the few guards around it, you are still able to fly out of there and up to Theramore to take the boat.

Remember to relax and have some fun with it. It lasts a week, there are no pure RNG achievements, and all it will take is a little time.

A Second-Chance Evaluation

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:07:00 +0000

On Tuesday, our talent points were refunded again. This meant I had two characters with dual specs to point up. Bellbell was easy; I'm still trying out healing on her, so she went Retribution and Holy. Bellwether, I talented her first spec PvE resto and then...

Left the second slot blank.

When 3.1 came out, I was all excited to try out feral tanking on Bellwether. I had a full, though somewhat shoddy, feral tanking set. However, having not played feral but three short times in two years, I wasn't feeling keen on pugging a group as a tank. I didn't feel confident, and, as odds would have it, the majority of my friends are tanks and dps. They never need me to be anything but a healer. And everyone else is always in Ulduar.

As well, I am now focusing a lot on Bellbell and trying to get her decent gear so she can pump out some decent DPS. She's hit capped, a somewhat easy feat for Draenei with a hit racial, but her crit, ap and expertise leave something to be desired. Getting groups as a DPS is very painful, and often times the experience is so awful I'm beginning to suspect that my successes pugging on Bellwether were largely due to my own knowledge of my class.

So now I have an empty talent slot and few ideas what to do with it. A possibility is Boomkin, as it is always fun to typhoon people off of things and have a tree mafia. However...I am always irked by weak heals when I am on my Druid. Completely bothered by it. So, if I do dual-spec Resto, there are a few options...

Use my second spec as a different healing spec. One will be a raid focus, one will be a tank focus. Odds are there will be only variable output, but have slightly different styles and focuses. However, as I am not in a serious raiding guild, the likelihood that I need something so micro-managing is minimum to none.
Dreamstate! Decent damage dealing, decent healing, impressive mana regeneration, and I'm still a healer! It would be nice to finally try out the (in)famous Dreamstate spec and see what it has to offer.
Spec for PvP Restoration. Though I don't have an active arena team and PvP is a rather scary place of burst damage right now, I've been wanting to get back in. I've been considering an experimental double healer team ("considering" meaning it was proposed to me last night and sounds hilarious) and so PvP may be the way to go.

Now, I'm not giving up on the other aspects of Druiding. I still have the oft-neglected Feralicious who will continue being Feral forever. I have spec'd Moonkin for an achievement (Less-Rabi) and I do enjoy other aspects of being a Druid. But Resto is definitely my choice, always.

My Brute

odinsdelusion@gmail.com (Button) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Well, I'm on leave back in the states, having all sorts of fun with the fiance, but I thought I'd share what I do in my spare time at work (seeing as most sites are blocked from the Navys browsable internet content anyway):

My Brute

It's fun! And you clicking that link and making a brute serves a dual purpose by making my brute stronger....STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! BWAHAHA!

....ahem.

-Sannhet

P.S. You should go to mine instead (Bellwether and Bellbellz). Sann only put this out because Bellwether's pupils kicked his brute's ass (but Sann still roflstomped Bells brute when she tried to stab him in the back).

P.P.S. Bell went so far as to REMOVE me from the blog for this transgression. FIGHT THE POWA!

Is Swiftmend Still Number One?

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:25:00 +0000

Today as I was finally finishing updating my Major Glyphs for Restoration Druids guide to include all the new glyphs from 3.1, I reread a few of their descriptions (checking for errors). I came finally to Glyph of Swiftmend, and this is what I had to say:

If you have Swiftmend, you should have this glyph. No arguments; it’s just that good. I’m not kidding. It gives you a heal that works just like Swiftmend, without the need to reapply a HoT. It saves you mana and increases your healing done. There is no reason not to get this glyph.

However...is that still the case?

With 3.1 we saw the mana regen nerf to innervate that almost necessitates it being glyphed to squeeze just a little more effectiveness out of it. Two new glyphs entered the scene: Nourish and Wild Growth. Though one is more a tank healer glyph and the other a raid healer glyph, both are extremely valuable. As well, Swiftmend has more and more become a situational spell, especially with its cooldown and the high amounts of haste in the game making Nourish an extremely quick cast. However, not having to refresh a HoT on the target you cast Swiftmend on may also be extremely valuable in this brave, new, less-mana-rific world.

I have not yet changed the glyphs on Bellwether, largely due to not needing to (as I do not have a guild, I have not entered Ulduar and have not needed to max out my efficiency), and also largely due to this debate over what glyphs are appropriate anymore. While Swiftmend used to be king, I think it's actually been rendered level by the many other options available to us. Rather than being "number one," it's simply "another good choice."

Which, to me, is not a bad thing. Variety keeps things from being dull, and allows for a greater range of playstyle. Hopefully it will not paralyze people with choices, and simply allow for more exploration of their own playstyle (i.e. how often do I need/use Swiftmend).

Though I haven't set up my glyphs yet, I am curious - what is your set up? Why did you choose those glyphs?

Druid vs. Paladin Healing, A Noob's View

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:58:00 +0000

This post will include talk about Bellbell, but will not be in her voice. Sorry, fans!

So, this weekend, I tried healing on my Paladin for the first time. Her gear, though not the best, has been sufficient for normal 80 instances (all that she has been healing since she dinged; did I mention she's 80 now?). Obviously, I have two more years of experience on healing with a Druid than I do with a Paladin, as before this level, Bellbell only threw out emergency heals until her tiny mana pool ran out. So needless to say, this has been an entirely new experience.

The first thing I noticed was that I could no longer jump around while healing. I was intensely stationary. Any loss of mobility has never been a problem for a druid (barring Judgement of Justice), and to suddenly be glued to the ground caused me some irritation. Yet, it was not an overwhelming problem; I still had Holy Shock should I need a quick, small heal while I was in transit, or Lay on Hands in an emergency. Sacred Shield, though not really a heal, is also instant cast and can ease the burden of mobility issues.

The next difference was the cast timer. Rather than the bulk of my heals being instant, I had to deal with cast times. This, I will not lie, stressed me out. It didn't matter how short the cast was, I was completely tense while I waited for the cast to come off. Why? Well, with a Druid, while your cast-time spells are going off, generally there are HoTs ticking on your target. You're still healing while you're casting. On a Paladin, no such luck. And though I am attempting to pre-cast my heals, the lack of practice makes me only correct about a fourth of the time.

Finally...no AoE. This has been a major adjustment. Though Beacon of Light takes some of the pressure off of tank healing during those times when everyone is taking damage, the lack of an instant (or even cast-time) AoE heal just plain hurts. Due to my current gear situation, it obviously hurts a little more than others with better stats, but, still. Ouch.

Paladin healing is by no means bad, nor do I dislike it. It has simply been a major adjustment, especially as I raised Bellbell since level 10 to be Retribution (I was Ret before Ret was cool). She is slowly gaining gear, and being able to try out a different perspective in healing has been very informative. It may just be the two years of experience talking, but, I still love Druid healing most of all.

3.1 Glitch Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:38:00 +0000

Some things funny, some things disturbing, and many frustrating, but they're there. And did we really expect anything different? With new content patches with so many tweaks, it's pretty much guaranteed our servers and characters will be in turmoil for quite some time. So what's happened for me in this brave, new world? Well, besides instance freezing and crashes, there have been...

Lifebloom fun! Though hotfixed now, if you clicked off Lifebloom, you were able to gain the heal and the mana bonus, without dispell or the timer ticking down. This is no longer the case, but it was certainly interesting while it lasted.
Bellwether, for a time, was able to spec 72 talent points. I am, obviously, the uber Resto at a hidden level 81.
My innervate glyph no longer seems to be functioning, though that may be an isolated problem with my character.
Two of Bellbell's quests refuse to give her credit for kills or drop their items. These are The Purging of Scourgeholme and The Scourgestone. Both were partially complete before the patch came out, and now I am not getting any credit. The GM's, swamped as they are, were so very (not) helpful by sending me an e-mail suggesting I could be in a raid group. Seeing as how Bellbell is not 80 and her last raid was Onyxia, pre-server reset, and after leaving those two quests I was able to complete others without trying to leave a non-existant group, I am a little irritated by this explanation.
Unable to see any standing Consecration animation.
Interesting visual glitches! Take a look at what is hanging over Moroes's head, and what color those prissy Blood Elves are trying to turn the lava on the way to Molten Core.

What have you noticed?

I Have to WHAT?!

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:36:00 +0000

I cannot believe this.

Hey guys, it's Bellbell again. And something absolutely terrible has happened.

I broke my arm. Do you know what that means?!

Well, before that, let me tell you how it happened. It's rather simple, really. I was in Zul'Drak, killing things, and there's these weird dogs. I've heard hunters like them, but really they're kind of ugly (though I think Sugarcake would disagree). Anyway, they apparently like the flesh of the living and so I was forced to do some things the D.E.H.T.A. would not condone. And in the process, this happened.

The bitch broke my arm!

To be fair, I did not actually check if the canine was male or female or had whelped, but still, it was a bitch. And now my arm's in a sling. How do you wield a two-handed axe with a broken arm? I'm not some Warrior hopped up on steroids. So I went to the Captain (that's Bellwether) and told her my problem.

She, in her misguided attempt to make me feel better, changed my wardrobe, taped a shield to my back and tied a glowing scepter to my belt. Which thoroughly confused me, as she also gave me 1,000 gold pieces and sent me to my class trainer. When he explained to me what the money was for, I was livid. Dual specs? Why would I need another specialization that Retribution? I specialize in smashing face with axes!

Still, I did what the Captain said and got the second spec. Now, with the shield attached to my back, I assumed...tank. We could just tie the shield to my broken arm, and block that way. Might hurt, but it would still be smashing face. That's what we're going to do, right? Right?

...

HOLY!?

Yeah, that's what happened. I managed to tinker myself together some healing goggles, too, muttering and grumbling the whole way. And Bellwether was trying to give me handy tips, but it all had something to do with HoTs and weird Druid things, and it was extremely annoying when I was trying to get her to hold onto the goggles so I could screw in a bolt.

Right now, the world seems to be in chaos as the Kirin Tor make parts of the map randomly disappear and all of us black out and wake up somewhere else (I'm sure it's all very funny for them), but after that...if I want to get at Arthas, I have to keep gaining experience.

If that means I have to spend a while as a frilly finger-wiggler, so be it.

I hate when I do this

noreply@blogger.com (Bell) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Wrong. Blog.

I hate when I post stuff here not for here.

Sorry.

DING! (Again...)

odinsdelusion@gmail.com (Button) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:07:00 +0000

Yes, I hit 80 some days ago, but I've been working on gearing up and such so that I can possibly see Ulduar before my potential deployment in May, so I haven't really had, or rather made, time to post here and share my accomplishment. But, with the server down and little interest in anything other than watching Firefly and taking a nap, I figured I'd come around and bore you yet again with more musings about myself.

Sometime around 73, I respecced prot (as you might have noticed by my cameo in Bell's new banner ^), and have never looked back. I haven't tanked since early BC, when I went prot from Holy paladin because our small-ish guild lacked a MT, and I've always been one to fill a need, but I have to admit, not only the being needed but the sheer awesomeness of being a prot War is something that I wish I had discovered months ago. I soloed every group elite I came across as I made my blood-and-entrail-strewn path across Northrend, and laughed as the Horde attempted to gank me as they had in the Outlands, even when they came in 2s or 3s.

After many instances, and many different quests and zones and gankages, I successfully dinged 80, and began my long (okay, not that long) quest towards becoming geared enough for Naxx and heroics. It took me, oh, about 4 hours. I was accepted into [Eternal Fate] at 78, and when I dinged 80....well, look at the screenshot:

Yes, that's right, my t7.5 helm within hours of dinging 80. Needless to say, I <3 my new guild. But, enough about me, I have thank you's to hand out.

1.) Derae - Though she's quit WoW, she didn't give me any crap for playing as a stress reliever from all the nonsense I've been dealing with in my shop at work.
2.) Bellwether - Running me through instances, stopping by to help me with quests, shes just as helpful in person as she is on her blog.
3.) Nosaaj - Letting me borrow his DK for random quests I couldn't find anyone else to help me with, running me through everything from VC to Nexus, can't thank him enough.
4.) Tekuo & Bidelia - For likewise helping me with quests, and eventually getting me into [Eternal Fate].
5.) [Eternal Fate] - For running me through 25man naxx as a 2nd OT they didn't need, looting me not one, but 2 tank helms because the first dropped from Saph and they said the t7.5 was better and I *needed* to roll, and consistently running heroics with me so that I can get geared as quickly as possible.
And last, but most certainly not least:
6.) You guys, for being awesome and making me feel like I was doing something worth writing about, heh.

One last screenshot, one that made me feel all fuzzy inside when a few idiots starting yelling in Dalaran about how I was a "ninja".

And yes, I have a bit of an ego. Not such a bad thing, I say....

Ciao,
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