Swiftmend

One thousand wins in Hearthstone

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sun, 25 May 2014 20:56:00 +0000

While not having posted here in a long while, I managed to rack up one thousand wins in Hearthstone!

Poor priest

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 21:11:00 +0000

Hey there!

Long time no see.

I'm currently not playing WoW but I've really been enjoying the Hearthstone Beta for quite a while. I just wanted to share something funny that just happened while playing against a priest.

I'm playing a druid control deck and I'm doing well, I have health advantage, card advantage and the only minion on the board is my Ogre magi.

Here's the priest play with stats attack/health on the minion:

1. Sen'jin Shieldmasta (3/5)
2. Power Word: Shield (3/7)
3. Divine Spirit (3/14)
4. Divine Spirit (3/28)
5. Inner Fire (28/28)
6. Silence (3/5)
7. Concede

He/she was meaning to silence my ogre but misclicked and debuffed the Shieldmasta and then rage quit instead! ^^

I did have a Keeper of the Grove to silence anyway but I still had a laugh when I won like that.

Lucky with Beta invites

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Somehow I managed to get both a Diablo 3 and a Mists of Pandaria Beta invite! :D

Diablo 3

I've had a brief go at all the classes so far in Diablo 3 and I like the Wizard the most. I completed the Beta with that one and I really like what I've seen so far.

MoP

I've tried a female panda monk so far, only played for the first five levels yet but this part of the game feels really great.

The starting zone looks amazing!

That's all for now! :)

Guild going inactive until MoP

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:28:00 +0000

At the end of January this year I decided to stop raiding for this expansion at least. I've possibly logged in two or three times since then and maybe done a cooking or fishing daily. Instead I've tried some casual SWTOR, playing some alts there instead of pursuing a main character so I've been spread a bit thin and maybe that's why the game hasn't really got a strong grip on me.

I'd say being on a break has been good to me so far, health and work is great though the same was true while raiding seriously. It's just sort of nice to discover the amount of time that you suddenly have available once you stop with something you've been doing a lot for so long that you've almost forgotten what it was like without it. I did commit to the deal about free Diablo 3, MoP beta access for WoW subscription so I haven't really made good use of that if I look at hours spent logged in but it doesn't bother me. I'm fairly confident that I will return for MoP to check things out, even if I strongly suspect that the immersion and comradery I felt in Vanilla and TBC will never return in the game. The people that made the world come alive have moved on and the mindset is lost. It was a shared experience in a perfect environment that is hard to explain if you weren't there.

Anyway, my guild had struggled with raiding numbers for a while and it had to turn into a 10 man guild. Having been an epic full scale raiding guild since 2006, this was a sad turn of events of course. It just wasn't the same in a 10 man raid and looking back I haven't really enjoyed any raiding this expansion. I think the last fight I enjoyed was heroic Halion back in Wrath when it was topical.

I browsed the guild forum today as I do from time to time as I like to stay updated with what's happening and found the post below. As it has been posted on the public part of our forum I think it should be fine if I post it here as well:

Hello guys,

It saddens me to have to write this, but unfortunately this time there is no way to avoid it :(
Never in my 5 years since I have started calling Anarchy a home did I think this time will come or that I would be the one having to do this.

Anarchy has reached a point of no return for this expansion. Due to our slow progress and 10 man raiding not providing the same enjoyment as 25man raiding we have lost a lot of key players in the past months which at this stage prevent us from being able to do any kind of progress raiding.
Taking this decision was the hardest thing we've had to do in what WoW is concerned: as of today Anarchy will stop progress raiding and step down to a casual raiding style until MoP.

The current plan is the following
- We will be only raiding once per week, and then depending on raid setups see what bosses we can try to do on heroic and which on normal, but without banging our heads against a wall if a boss just won't die (see Hagara the past two weeks). The day for this raid will be set according to the day most of you remaining in here with either the mains or just with alts will vote as the best to try to make the raid.
- We will not be kicking any of the alts of the people who wish to leave the guild with their mains. We appreciate you guys sticking with us until the very end and really hope to be able to raid again together (see the next point).
- Two months before the release of MoP we will try to restart the guild and do mass recruiting in order to try to have a 25 man squad ready for MoP raids, even if at the start it won't have the same level of raiding quality as most of us have grown accustomed to.

Once again - thank you all who stuck around until this point, and many apologies for not being able to any longer provide that which we all want from a guild - nice steady progress and a friendly environment.
We are totally aware that even more people will leave now, but while you do so please keep in mind that the friendly environment isn't gone and you will always have a home to return to back in Anarchy should you decide to try with us to restart Anarchy before MoP.

Just so there is no misreading - all current members will get into the guild instantly without an application, should you decide to re-unite with us for MoP. We rely on you for this to happen.

Signing:
A sad Evil, a sad Pharaoh, a sad Dast and a sad Karja

Anarchy, I thank you for the moments we had and hope that you will manage to be reborn for MoP!

[SWTOR] Characters and initial impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

How could I not try this game? :)

I bought it during the holidays and I really love it so far. I've already decided that I will keep subscribing. I'm not sure I'll raid or become serious about flashpoints but I very much appreciate the story and the starting areas. I'll probably at least level one of each class up to level 10 and then press on with a main and maybe 1-2 serious alts.

I've chosen the Jedi Sage as my main, a fairly obvious choice for a resto druid perhaps? Wanting to see the other side of the story I also created a Sith Sorcerer. I can't help but notice that lightning feels better than throwing a rock at someone but I'm sticking to the Republic side as my main side. I got goosebumps when my consular got her green lightsaber crafted and I cheered when I could choose Force persuade in a dialogue, I'm such a nerd :)

I must say that I care more about my characters and their story already after one week of SWTOR compared to 5,5 years of story in WoW. I've assigned them some basic personality traits to go with their light/dark side choices.

Jedi Consular - Light side. My main, über-good, wise and rational.

Trooper - Light side. Tough veteran, a bit grizzled perhaps. Can make dark side choices for the greater good.

Jedi Knight - Light side. Very zen.

Smuggler - Light side. Adventurous and humoristic. She just wants her ship back dammit.

Sith Inquisitor - Light side. A tough, sarcastic survivor. Kind towards those who deserve it. Cold towards the arrogant Sith.

Bounty Hunter - Light side. A nice guy, will defend the weak but doesn't mind if he earns a few credits while doing it.

I might create a Sith Warrior to explore the Dark side of the force, I can't help it though, you might be able to tell from my characters inclinations that Dark side feels weird to play.

Because of the initial queues I spread out a bit on the realms. I'm playing republic on Peragus Mining Facility and Goluud Corridor and Imperial on Sith'ari and Ludo Kressh.

So, good points and bad points then?
+ Story
+ Voice acting
+ Immersion
+ Sound effects
+ Graphics

- UI (the auction house is so poorly done that I want to cry)
- No addons (I really want to move things around better)
- Did I mention the useless Auction House?
- I miss Right click to move
- No macros

I would really like if it was possible to zoom in a bit more before the first person perspective takes over. It would be nice to get close the facial expressions of your characters, now it's a bit impersonal when you're so zoomed out that you can't really make out the details.

Another thing that annoys me is that there's an option to disable action bars, I think it should be show/hide, not enable/disable. I want to put abilities on keybinds and not have them shown in the UI. Is that not possible? I added an ability, got it keybound, removed the action bar and hell no the keybind didn't work any longer. Why would it be a good thing to disable something like that, can't it just be hidden please? I also miss macros and modifiers on the same button. It would add so much to the gameplay to be able to use Alt, Shift etc to alternate one buttons ability.

Transmogrification addon

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:17:00 +0000

I need to confess that I haven't paid that much attention to transmogrification. I just discovered the addon Mogit so I felt that I wanted to share it with you in case that you have missed it.

There's a an article in the Addon Spotlight that describes it more in detail.

I think it's a great addon!

Destroyer's End

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:51:00 +0000

Second night trying and down he went! :)

I can't say I'm very pleased with my healing on this fight. It's quite a lot like Chimaeron all over again. Big damage spike on part of the raid, heal them quickly or they might die from the next spike. Rejuvenation mostly end up as overhealing and Nourish always feels too weak and slow. I prefer staying on tank healing and using Wild Growth together with Swiftmend for Effloresence when bunching up. Timing Innervate together with Power Torrent procs and mana wasn't really an issue in this fight (until the very end that is). Large parts of the fight are pretty slow as well so there's room to let mana build up, even time to chat with friends while waiting for something to heal.

My transmogrification look

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:11:00 +0000

This is the initial look that I'm going for when it comes to transmogrification:

It involves these basic items:

I'll have to think about what other pieces might look good when it comes to belt, gloves etc.

Have you seen these pants?

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:01:00 +0000

I feel a bit like putting up Missing pants posters. For transmogrification purposes, can anyone please help me and tell me what pants I'm wearing on this picture? It ought to be some leather healing pants somewhere between T5/t6 content but I can't remember what the name was and I haven't found them on wowhead either ^^

They are my favorite pants ever, I know that there are feral pants called Clefthoof Hide Legging that look the same if I'm not mistaken. It would be nice to find out if they are still available in the game somehow or if it's a lost case looking like that again.

Beirut - Vagabond

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:46:00 +0000

Beirut has released a new wonderful album called The Rip Tide that I suggest you buy.

My favourite track so far is Vagabond, I found this video that went well with it. Blatantly stolen from The Cat Piano so I'll link the original work below it.

Now
as the air grows cold
the trees unfold
And I am lost and not found

The Cat Piano

Rhyolith 25H down

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:37:00 +0000

We got heroic Rhyolith down at the start of this raid reset. Not the cleanest kill you could have but it got the job done :)

I've made the decision to post less on my blog which I'm sure you can tell from the lack of updates lately. Just thought I'd let you know that I'm still here but I haven't got that many interesting things to say right now.

Ragnaros 25N and Shannox 25H down!

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:31:00 +0000

This Tuesday we managed to get Ragnaros down on normal 25 man mode. I have to say I like this fight.

I'm healing the tanks, dodging waves, doing some general raid healing and just keep my distance from others. Stay out of the middle in phase 3 and run in on seeds, avoid the 1/3 of the room flame attack and in the end dodge the rolling balls and victory is achieved!

Now for tonight we got Shannox down on heroic 25. Alliance #1 I believe, awesome feeling! I didn't really expect a kill on my first night trying him. My guild wiped all night on him last night when I wasn't there. They got some vital practice though so I think that made it seem a lot easier than it actually was.

Majordomo Staghelm down

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 11:07:00 +0000

How would I summarize this fight? Good coordination of healer cooldowns, moving at the right time, crucial debuff management in the form of running away when you're about to detonate and sharing stacks of damage in the end. Get those things right and he's down!

5/7 25m and Shadow Wardens unlocked

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:29:00 +0000

I wanted to show our first kill shot of Alysrazor, this is by far my favourite fight in Firelands so far! I've always had a soft spot for fights with mobility, multiple tanks and phases and stuff to dodge.

Currently we're 5/7 on 25 man normal mode with Fandral and Ragnaros left naturally.

Today I also unlocked the Shadow Wardens daily quests, it was fun to get some momentum in the dailies again. I think it was a mistake to stop the progress for 150 marks. A whole new zone and then being forced to just doing the same thing over and over in the first area? When I first got there I could feel that I was fighting on the frontier, Malfurion saying that the war starts now, it was pretty nice! It would have been better I think to just let us unlock all content in a linear quest chain without gating it for several days. Slowing it down in this unnatural way mostly ruined the immersion.

Action bar safety - a PvP requirement?

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 11:13:00 +0000

I can't say that I appreciate getting flagged to PvP by mistake.

This is very unlikely to ever happen but I really wish that it was possible to flag oneself as /NoPvP. What I mean by that is that from my perspective it would improve the game to introduce a state where PvP-flagged targets behave like Friendly targets, I can target them but not cast any hostile spells on them. If I wanted to I could go back to /PvE and still not be flagged until any hostile action was taken. If a mode like that doesn't work then give me a safety mechanic for my action bar to actively click before I can attack any horde player :)

There were a lot of horde players flagged during the Thrall quest chain which was pretty annoying and distracting. Same deal with the new dailies, when an area is so active with targets everywhere it's not impossible to get flagged to PvP by mistake. When that happens I just /sigh, die and log to an alt or endure a 5 minute punishment as a ghost. That's not a huge problem but it is a pretty terrible game design which ruins how I want to play the game.

I've made the choice to play on a PvE-server and I never have any intent on getting flagged for any reason so why must I risk this? Sure, you can argue that it's exciting with conflict and the tension between the two factions is relevant but the problem is that I don't want the game to interpret my mistaken actions as hostile.

Can I please be allowed a safety for my action bar?

Shannox and Beth'Tilac down

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:29:00 +0000

Just some brief updates from the Firelands here. We had some good tries and then Shannox went down tonight.

Last try of the evening and Beth'Tilac went down as well!

I'm not sure about my spec yet and I'm tweaking my UI for mastery tracking and other CD's. I'm using the big green circle to the top left of Grid with a red timer inside for Harmony (visible in the top picture).

Symbiosis vs Harmony?

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:30:00 +0000

Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

This is what Symbiosis currently looks like:

Symbiosis: Increases the potency of your healing spells by 11.6% on targets already affected by one of your heal over time spells. Each point of Mastery increases heal potency by an additional 1.45%.

So, this is just my interpretation, go to Elitist Jerks for solid math please. Instead of getting an 11.6% boost to healing spells on a target with a hot already on them we get a slightly less 10% boost for the direct healing spells regardless of target just for choosing the Resto tree and then 10% on our hots as long as we weave in direct healing spells every 10 seconds to keep 100% uptime on the buff. A bit of a limitation on mobility perhaps but if you use Swiftmend every other time since it's on a 15 sec CD you just need a direct spell every 20 seconds and that's not a problem.

That should mean a bit of a boost to Tranquility, no? You should always have used Wild Growth to get stronger ticks while channeling but now you're not dependent on having hots up on particular targets, I mean health pools change and people get out of range. You should use a direct heal within 2 seconds before starting to channel Tranquility though since it's 8 seconds long and you are guaranteed full mastery benefit on this one.

The mastery potency is nerfed from 1.45% to 1.25% but I guess it's still a buff since it will benefit more often than what it currently does since we do a fair bit of healing on targets with no hots anyway. I approve (I think). I'd rather weave in a direct healing spell now and then to keep a buff active than be limited to only benefit from healing those that I'm already healing.

The Head and the Heart - Down in the valley

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:37:00 +0000

Heya,

I can tell my interest in this game has been waning as it's been over a month since I last posted something. I haven't really been playing much and as such I haven't had much to say.

Beruthiel wrote an interesting post that I can relate to in many ways. I've felt relieved when raids have been cancelled lately and raiding has mostly felt like a chore for a couple of weeks. I've been choosing other activities over Azerothian ones in most scenarios. That's what non-stop raiding for 4 years will do I guess. I'm not giving up on the game though, I'm just fed up with this raid tier. Hard modes really need to be something you activate by engaging differently with the bosses rather than something you right click for a larger health pool and greater incoming damage...so uninspiring ^^ Firelands and patch 4.2 will get it right and be fun I hope.

This is why I've decided to take a break from raiding for a while. I might play a little WoW anyway but in that case it will probably be some 5 mans on alts and perhaps some archeology. I just don't have the energy to commit to being online at certain hours as things stand right now.

I'm not really expecting to write anything interesting here until I've got something to say about raiding in Firelands. It's been a while since I shared some great music so here's a treat from me.

My current favorite musicians: The Head and the Heart!

Heroic Valiona & Theralion down

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:17:00 +0000

Two Internet dragons fell tonight.

Here's also a shot of our heroic Magmaw kill on the 20th of March. I'll try and get a video up if I can scramble one from a guildie.

Here's a low quality video of our kill from Magmaw for now.

Heroic Conclave of Wind down!

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:17:00 +0000

Well, it took a couple of weeks of work but here we go!

Updated with video! I'm the druid healing the paladin at the start! :)

A surprisingly clean kill as well with no deaths. Click is the sound of an attempt suddently gone right.

Heroic Chimaeron down

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Tonight was a successful raid! We got Heroic: Chimaeron! I was healing the MT and the double-strike tank. The MT just needs to be above the Low Health debuff while the double-strike tank needs to be topped off as quick as possible. We had a paladin Lay on hands rotation for quick tank switches and everyone just did a great job.

I've made the switch from haste to mastery and tried a spec without Furor where I went for Genesis instead. Might take a while to get accustomed to the new mana situation and it certainly is a big change when it comes to such a huge haste drop.

What I've been up to

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 11:50:00 +0000

I'd like to thank Blizzard for designing a great looking set again. I managed to get 5/5 in the resto suite recently and it looks fantastic. Just keep the T9 and T10 design person away from his keyboard.

We've been clearing all bosses on normal mode each week, getting Halfus down on heroic and trying for Conclave of wind on heroic. It's not that easy that one.

I haven't been playing anything at all outside of raids for the last couple of weeks. It's been a long time since I even did a single daily heroic. I wonder how connected that is to not being able to improve my character outside of raids and if that is what makes me lose interest. I still have a couple of achievements left for the heroic dungeon mount that I'd like to finish someday.

With Loremaster of Cataclysm done on my main I'm waiting for some extra energy to start leveling my mage and dk. Both are 81 for the moment, my dk from jewelcrafting dailies alone. I did start to quest some on my mage in Hyjal and it's really a lot quicker the second time around. The heirloom cloak, the guild perks, not having a gathering profession, not reading all the quest text the second time around, fire mage burst dps. The difference is striking.

That's all for now!

The Baboon Show - This is how your story ends

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:34:00 +0000

This rocks.

Defender of a Shattered World! Nefarian 25 down!

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:53:00 +0000

As Nefarian fell in 25 man mode tonight that gave us a shiny new title:
Defender of a Shattered World!

It's hard to describe what an adrenaline rush this fight was! We got him tonight on our third try having spent 1 previous night on 10 man with 21 wipes and 2 previous nights on 25 man with 27 wipes in total. Here's the WoL for our kill.

I'm not going to delve into abilities and detailed strategy for the fight, I really recommend the guide on Tankspot by Aliena for that. I'll just briefly describe my point of view.

Phase 1
Before the pull I set Nefarian as my focus target as that helps me to see the percentage of his health in Pitbull so that I can know in advance when high raid damage is incoming and everyone will need to be topped off. A small tip is to jump down in kitty form to save some health from the fall, it's not really needed but it saves some health and mana at the start.

I'm on the left side healing the Onyxia tank. This means annoying Tail swipes that you can't avoid and healing everyone a lot when Nefarian does the Electrocute (huge raid damage). I keep triple Lifeblooms on the tank with Nourish spam to refresh it, Omen of Clarity procs are most often used for Regrowth on the tank. A few Wild Growths to heal the Tail lash damage and on Electrocute I use Efflorescence and Wild Growth combined on the melee group. Mana Tide Totems helped a lot in this fight as we had a couple of shamans in our raid. You need as much mana as possible going into the next phase.

Phase 2
I spent phase 2 on the south east pillar, popping Tree of Life and rolling Lifeblooms with instant free Regrowths. Then I used Nourish and Wild Growth with a Lifebloom stack on someone. As the Electrocute is about to hit I use Barkskin and Tranquility to get everyone to max health. When the lava goes away I hop down and run off to the 2 add tanks.

Phase 3
In phase 3 we had our warrior tank that was on Nefarian in phase 1 tank him on the right side with the raid stacked up close. The paladin add tank from phase 1 kited the adds assisted by the warrior that tanked Onyxia to keep the adds in control while they both were being healed by a holy paladin and myself. The key here is to not let the adds touch any fire! It was pretty hectic healing them both on the move while dodging fire and adds because the incoming damage was so high and add to this the huge Electrocute bursts!

That felt great! :)

Creative herb locations

noreply@blogger.com (Niniel) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:23:00 +0000

These sort of nodes seem to crop up from time to time.

I can't say I'm too bothered as long as there's a tree to climb nearby.

The phased nodes really need to be fixed though. It's a pretty annoying mechanic, "Here's treasure...oh, no you can't have it".