Holy Hiatus...

Wow, I haven't updated in an entire week! What's wrong with me? I've been on vacation.

Though, not totally from WoW.

I did spend a lot of time trying out The Sims 3. Which, I will say, is pretty dang awesome. I was a long time Sims player, well before I found WoW. Played the original Sims and then The Sims 2 but waited a long time before trying the third one. To say the least, I am very impressed and LOVE the game.

Though my week long vacation did entail it's fair share of WoW time. Especially over the weekends while Eto was home with me.

Where to start....

Bountiful Harvest Festival -
I got my DK from 1 - 350 cooking doing nothing but cooking the silly Thanksgiving food! Wow, Blizzard must really want to give people and easy way to up the skill. Not that I'm ungrateful, just seriously in shock. I leveled my lock's cooking the old fashion way and was a little annoyed that pretty much anyone can get max cooking skill with little to no work.

Yeah, you have to kill level 1 critters to get the turkey but that's it. Then Bam! level 350 cooking and you're on your way to the Northrend stuff. Enough said.

Kalyara also got her dumb title and the crazy turkey pet. **Let me just say, standing around watching a DK kill 3 guards, in a no stat dress and hat, waiting for her health to get down to 15,000 before flagging yourself and commencing to pull out your wolves, fire elemental and your JC boar in order to prove how awesome of a Shaman you are...is so totally cool!**

Yeah I may be a little bitter about that. I had done nothing to all the Alliance toons running into our cities to sit at our tables. But then it was my own fault, as I had gone to the wrong place thinking it was the IF table causing myself to aggro three guards that I had to kill in order to sit at the table. But waiting for my health to drop, pulling out all your cooldowns and then only managing to kill me because you got the heal off before I could silence you...nice. Though I will give her credit for being smart enough to run into IF for safety before I could recover my body.

Ulduar Updates:
We actually got another fight down during last weeks Ulduar raid. We managed to get Razorscale down as well as our normal FL and XT. I'm pretty sure we could have gotten further but had a healer that had to bail on us. We had no wipes up to that point. I was very impressed and curious to see how far we get this week.

We did what?!?:
So, Eto and I had this crazy idea to attempt Kara, just for fun, with only the two of us. Well..I was very surprised that we not only managed to clear it, we managed to clear it with only 2 wipes. Neither of which, were on Price. We had a little trouble with Curator, before finally getting Eto to switch to his healy spec and then we had a little trouble figuring out how to manage Morose.

But otherwise, it was a blast!!! Thankfully, Morose was nice enough to give me Mongoose on my first attempt! =)

Next adventure....Zul'Aman. /nod

We're now adding Kara to our weekly duo raid/rep grind. Still trying for the mounts in ZG.

Well I'm sure there is stuff I am forgetting but I'll think of it later.

Ohh...3 days away from getting my Tier 9 shoulders!

and the beat goes on...

Looks like it's been a few day since my last post.

Interestingly enough, I haven't played much over the past 4 days but what little I have played has been productive.

First on the Warrior-Wonderboy front:
It's a little odd who you end up making friends with. Eto and I have spent a lot of time with our new warrior tank and his boyfriend the awesome "Party Healy Druid" from the Ulduar raid.

Seems that we actually kinda like these guys. Once I spent some time talking to Raggy (the druid) I found out they were fun and interesting people. So when I said we somehow managed to lock ourselves to helping Kiwi (that's not his toons name, it's something like Kiwlaski or something but Kiwi is what I call him) get his tanking gear, I mean we locked ourselves to helping them.

Which I won't complain out. It's actually been kind of fun and I'm very proud of his progression. It's taken a little bit of education and some coaching from Eto but he's getting some really decent gear.

So far we've been using the shopping list located over on the Tank Like a Girl blog. Since I'm not a warrior and have never played one, I wasn't sure exactly how much like DK tanking warriors were. Thanks to Kadomi's shopping list we knew exactly what to start looking for.

He's gotten the helm for H-ToC, I've made him the Titanium Earthguard Ring and he's gotten enough emblems for his T8 chest. We've enchanted (properly this time) and put nice epic gems in the gear as well. I'll be excited to see what kind of gear score he has now...as soon as he logs off in his Prot gear and not in his Fury gear. =P He may just be Ulduar ready by this weeks raid after all!

So, as for myself? I got my T8 head last night. I'm pleasantly surprised at my own stats lately. My avoidance, stamina, hit, defense..they are all pretty good. I'm a little below my hit cap. Still need to work on that. But my total avoidance is over 40% now and Eto is complaining that I'm getting boring to heal.

We took the weekend off from raiding. Since we did end up raiding 4 nights last week. Naxx on our lower 80s on Monday, Ulduar on Tues and Weds and then Ulduar on Thursday with out Alliance toons.

Ulduar on Thursday went pretty well. Our Alliance side guild has most of Ulduar on far. We downed 7 of the bosses this past Thursday. The only thing they have issues with...Yogg, of course. But still it's fun to go in with them and just have some fun. Definitely, less stressful then Ulduar Horde side.

Our break from raiding, wasn't a true "break" really. We spent Sunday night 2 manning ZG. So still a raid but without the stress. And I did solo Hakar, well after I killed Eto anyway.

He has decided that getting out toons to exalted with the Zandalar tribe is a good goal to hit before Cataclysm. With the idea that we get the nifty shoulder enchant and put it on the heirloom shoulders we plan to give to our Goblins. Even though this enchant won't activate till they hit 55, but oh well. Still something to do.

Happy Thanksgiving! And have an awesome week!

The Continuing Saga...Oh, the drama!

Ulduar - Part 2

The night fell, clear and cold in Northrend. Kalyara was feeling a little weary from her previous failures the night before. She couldn't let this hold her down. She had done her best, she had held her head high and done her part. She couldn't, no wouldn't, keep beating herself up. No Sir! She was going to go back in there and show them!

Maybe, just maybe tonight she would have stronger allies, surely it would go better tonight...surely...

We'll skip past the painful group formation of this raid. Since previous history proves that our raid leader, from here out known as Dr. Don't-Know, is seriously unable to form a decent group because he's trying to play the "nice" raid leader and take anyone and everyone, regardless of gear or skill.

Fast forward to the first mob encounter. Again, we're in the same position as last night, posed to try to get to Ignis because Dr.Don'tKnow read on line that we need to pull one of the Molten Colossus all the way back to XT-002's door to prevent the healers being silenced by them both back to back. Yay! No big deal right?

*face palm* The OT, our beloved, well skilled though under geared, warrior from the previous night isn't paying attention and I end up dragging both the monsters towards XT's door. Now I realize I have them, I avoid all multi-target damage so that I don't build too much aggro on the second one and stop moving. Finally, our warrior-wonder-boy, finally realizes and taunts off me but only to die an almost instant, painless death because his health is still way too low.

Now, insert the Full-of-himself-retardin, and I use this term lightly. Normally, I avoid using acronyms for any class, I don't believe in retardins, huntards or dumbknights. But this guy's attitude, if nothing else, earned him this beloved title.

Mr. Retardin, looses his patience, after one pull..which I can't blame because I was begging Dr.Don'tKnow to try to find us another OT and let Warrior-Wonder-Boy dps instead. I just did it somewhat tactfully in whispers and not openly in raid chat. And I didn't blast his gear and tanking abilities to the rest of the raid either.

So, Mr. Retardin, has a tanking set. Wow! Nice to know now, could have told us last night before the wipefest! And...it's not a bad tanking set. His stats are pretty good for a tank. Maybe..maybe...dare I say...will we make it after all?

We successfully pull the Molten Colossus and manage to kill them both with no problems! Mr. Retardin goes back to his ret set and leaves the off-tanking to our warrior-wonder-boy. The rest of the trash is no problem and we are ready to pull Ignis.

Dr.Don'tKnow, goes through is explanation, we remind him of a few things he didn't know about and I pull the boss. I'm not having any problem with Ignis himself but I'm also getting and holding the aggro on the Iron Constructs. Not surprisingly, we wipe.

No big deal, that's alright. Now the group has seen the fight. We know where to move, when to move and we got him down to 78%. My hopes are up.

*Release and run back into the instance*
Raid Warning: Let's move on to the Antechamber, we can just skip these harder bosses

What?! We are going to give the boss one attempt and pass him up for more trash and an attempt at another boss that people have never seen? Ugh! I'm all for progression but sheesh, give it at least one more go before giving up.

On to the Antechamber, trash clears go fine. We make it to the Assembly of Iron. Again, Dr.Don'tKnow explains the fight. I'm going to take on Steelbreaker while our warrior-wonder-boy takes on Stormcaller Brundir because "he'll do the least amount of damage in the first phase". I have my instructions...pull the boss to the right of the door keep him out of the blue circles, avoid getting close to the other guys, etc. Once Steelbreaker goes down I need to pick up Runemaster Molgeim. Got it.

Goes something like this -
Kalyara runs in, grabs Steelbreaker and kites him to the right of the door.
Warrior-Wonder-Boy runs in....dies...two shots.
Healers die.
Kaly dies.
Raid Wipes.
Release and run back in.
"So I guess I'm going to have to tank this too, huh?" - Mr. Retardin
"OMG, I'm sorry but there are two people in this group that I never care to play with again"
Druid Party Healer leaves the group.
Warrior-Wonder-Boy leaves the group.

Thus the drama begins to unfold...
Now to this point, Mr. Retardin had been tanking the trash, which I was unaware of. But did explain why the trash pulls leading up to the Iron Council were going so well.

As for the Druid Party Healer apparently she is the real life girlfriend of Warrior-Wonder-Boy and didn't like the fact that Mr. Retardin and the other druid had commented on him not being geared well enough to be tanking this far into Ulduar.

If that's not enough, now we have Dr.Don'tKnow pulling the drama queen (king)/oh poor me routine. "I can't handle this right now", "sigh, sorry that I took up everyone's time", "I don't pick people based on their purples, they have skills" and my favorite "if you want to be an elitist jerk then feel free to leave".

I attempt to make the point to Dr.Don'tKnow that we're not being elitist jerks but that he has thrown warrior-wonder-boy to the wolves. He knew his gear was bad. But still he brought him into something well above his gear ability and expected him to OT.

His gear was barely good enough to do heroics with. He was defense capped but that is about all he had going for him. His health pool was extremely low, 23,000 buffed, his gear score was only 355 and he was not enchanted or gemmed.

Now I'm not saying anything was wrong with the warrior. Honestly, I like him as a player. He has the potential to be an awesome tank. I commend Dr.Don'tKnow for wanting to help him gear. That's awesome but that's also what heroics, emblems and crafted gear are for. You can't bring a seriously under geared tank into something above his level.

It's easier to carry dps and even one healer, if the tanks and main healers are well geared. But you can't do that when you're the tank. Not when you are that far below.

So, thus ends our Ulduar group for the night. A few angry people because they are now locked to Ulduar and didn't down a single boss. A couple more angry people because they feel like they have been shunned. Then a few that just think the entire group is full of dumb asses.

I get a whisper from the Druid Party Heals shortly after getting back to Dalaran. Wanting to know my opinion on her boyfriend's tanking. I kindly tell her what I honestly believe. He has skill, he has potential, that's not easy to find. Now he needs the gear to back it up. That's the easy part.

And somehow...I've committed myself to helping him learn and get that gear. *sigh*

Happy Thursday!

Ulduar - Annoyance and Excitement

Eto and I got hit up, by the same weekly PUG group last night, to come tank and heal for their Ulduar run.

Don't get me wrong I was very leery of going along with this guy for various reasons.
1. He doesn't really understand balanced group make up.
2. This is the group that I had the problems with Oingaboinga the previous week.
3. They did Ulduar 2 nights last week and only downed FL o.O

Now granted they had bad tanks the week previous and on the second night ended up running with 4 warriors but still. Oingaboinga was not on the line up for the night so I agreed to main tank it as long as Eto was my healer.

*sigh*

We ended up with a brand new level 80 Disc Priest. When I say brand new, I mean he hit 80 a few minutes before joining the group. The Armory still showed him as 79.

The OT that we had was "a great warrior" the RL found. Who sadly had a gear score of 355. He was pretty squishy and ultimately, ended our progression for the night when he had to start actually tanking things.

So this is how the night went:

Take 30 minutes after the group fills to finally get everyone inside the instance. Had one person afk and never come back. Wait another 15 minutes to get a replacement and get them summoned. The RL begins explaining the the FL fight and instructs people to just pick a vehicle it doesn't really matter. Who cares that gear score of the driver plays a part in the amount of health of the vehicle? "That only matters in hardmodes" so says the RL. After 3/4 of the group wipes on the trash while trying to take out the towers, we finally get to FL. Now I realize that the newbie priest and warrior are teaming up for a demolisher. The Priest informs the group that her gear may be playing a part in the health of the machine. But again the RL insists it doesn't matter. We shoot down the pyrite. Not nearly enough if you ask me but he instructs us to pull.

We pull the boss, the first two pursuits go pretty well then he goes after the priest/warrior vehicle, they die after one hit from him. *sigh* We're down a demolisher and the pyrite is gone. Insert wipe number 1.

Rinse and repeat...6 times! We wipe 6 times on FL before some how Finally we convince the RL that we MUST HAVE MORE PYRITE! Eto and I some how manage to keep FL pissed off enough that he pursues us 3 out of the 4 times, allowing everyone to finally down the damn thing.

Sheesh, Flame Leviathan really should not be this difficult.

Moving on to XT-002. I love this fight. I'm not sure if it's her silly animations and voice overs or the mechanics of it. But I love the XT fight.

The RL does his run down of the boss fight and we get started. Things go pretty smooth, loose our RL/Mage pretty early on but manage a battle rez and he's back up. The OT is keeping the bomb bots occupied, heart takes considerable damage and then boom, we loose the OT and a couple DPS.

Now we have her down to about 16% when the RL automatically starts talking about what we need to do differently next time. He wants to wipe it and start again, but did he forget we have an all powerful, all amazing feral druid among us. Now this is why I love druids! He quickly switches from kitty to bear and rounds the bomb bots back up.

XT has eaten a couple by this point and gained some of her health back but we're not giving up. I refused to give up as long as Eto was alive and keeping me up, we had a few good dps and a 3 minutes left on the enrage timer.

It's slow going, gain a little, loose a little. The druid is putting forth an amazing effort to jump between bear and kitty. Tanking the bots when he has too and still trying to dps as much as he can. We're down to about 10% and a minute or so left before she goes ape shit on me.

At this point I don't see any reason not to burn everything we have. Pop the ghoul, pop the army, burn your cooldowns, if we don't beat the enrage timer I'm toast and it will be a wipe. We have two healers up, Eto and a Resto Druid. 3 of our dps are still going at it. We can do this..we can do this....


WE DID IT!! And the awesome thing? We did it on our first attempt. This is what you call people being on the ball. The few people that knew the fight and knew their class...they were the ones that made this one possible!







Now I wish I could say we had as much luck with the rest of the attempts we made in Ulduar last night but sadly we didn't. The lack of AoE dps made Rasorscale pretty much impossible. We didn't have the DPS to down the Dark Rune Sentinels, plus the other adds, quick enough so the dragon wasn't taking enough damage while on the ground. We wiped this one 3 or 4 times, never getting him below 72%, before the RL decided to move on.

Ignis. What can I say about this one? Sadly, we couldn't make it to him. The OT didn't last more then 2 hits from the guardians before he was down.

With all that being said, I wouldn't call it a waste. People got to see a couple bosses fall and I did get the tank bracers off of FL! =)

So, we'll try again tonight and see what happens. Though I'm pretty sure I'm in for another couple hundred gold in repair bills! Fun time with Ulduar, oh my!

Weekend Revolutions

So it seems I didn't spend much time in the game this weekend. Think I'm starting to hit the burnout wall again. Actually, I'm pretty sure of this since this is not the first time I've mentioned it here.

Honestly, I don't think I played more then an hour or three over the entire course of my 3 day weekend.

Most of my time was spent playing my baby Hunter. She's been my "project" since I started the game, nearly 3 years ago. She was my first toon and is now proudly sitting at level 56. It's not that I don't like her, just that I changed servers, changed toons and jumped around so many times that I completely forgot about her for awhile. Since moving her to Shadow Council, I've found a new interest in her.

I think part of my problem is she is in the dreaded "between zone" levels. I hate the 55+ zones in the old world but she's too low to go to Outlands yet. *sigh*

Anyway...I've learned this weekend that don't enjoy playing the game nearly as much as I use to when I play alone. I've gotten so use to playing with Eto that solo play is just not as interesting.

I've realized, Elemental Shaman are unGodly awesome. The one in my H-CoS pug last night was pulling 3500+ DPS!

I've realized that tanking gets really boring when you're doing the same things over and over and over again.

I've realized, I'M READY FOR SOMETHING NEW! Give me new content already. How many times can I possibly run the same instances over and over? How many Alts can I level before I want to scratch my eyes out?

So tell me...what is everyone doing lately to help them through the rut between content patches? Help me find something new and exciting to work on before I loose interest in my beloved game!

Gnome Therapy

I have met a lot of really good players throughout my time in Azeroth. People that know how to play their class, know the ins and outs of the perfect rotation, the perfect gear stats and can talk to you for hours about how to tweak your character to gain that added half a percent to your damage output.

Of those people very few have the personality it takes to leave a lasting impression on me and even more so, very few become what I would consider to be a "friend".

There is, however, a few exceptions to that statement. Eto for one. Who everyone knows I love and adore. He didn't hit me with the "in my face" lasting impression when I first came into contact with him. It was more of a gradual, though quickly progressing, relationship.

The second exception to that rule is a past guildie. He's a tiny pink haired, big ego, low temper, highly comical, demon wielding warlock that I've known for practically my entire gaming life in Azeroth.

This guy not only knows his class, how to play it and play it well, but also has been known to keep all of our guild chat and/or raid chats in stitches. It's not often that I would be involved in a group with him that I didn't find myself laughing until my face was hurting. He had a way of calming people down in the worst of wipe situations, kept them motivated and did it all while keeping us entertained.

When Last Call started falling apart, we lost our beloved Warlock to bigger and better things. Eto and I left the server to try to rebuild ourselves and loose the stress that being Guild Leaders had left on us. After a month or so on another server, I logged back onto my toons on Shadow Council. The first "zomg, where have you been whisper" came from this guy. I'm not sure if it was his overwhelming persistent personality or the "there are no Sedges on no Oceanic servers, get your ass back over here where you belong" speech I got that ultimately brought me back home again. But in the end Shadow Council proved to be the place I belonged.

He's been known to keep me "grounded" on more then one occasion. When raids and guild drama would drag me down he was there to pull me back up again. Recently, this therapy has carried itself over into the real world.

Through email and chat, I now have "Gnome Therapy" on a pretty regular basis. Not only does he have a way of making people around him laugh but he does it in an amazing artistic manor. His gift with words and writing styles is enough to keep even the most professional of English majors interested.

So, my thanks goes out to him. There had been many times that I am sure I would have quit playing if it weren't for the comedy support I get from him. But also there are many days I just feel like screaming and end up laughing at some off the wall, crazy email I get from him.

To say the topic of my blog today is a little obscure would be an understatement. But for anyone that knows Sedge, they would simply laugh and agree.

And for those of you needing a laugh today, this was a conversation we had about the process of my horrible day at work:

Sedge: Hell of an attitude to do interviews with, miss.
Me: o.O I just complain to you cause you are here, I have to be sweet perky and authorative
in the interviews.
Sedge: Psh, I should move there. You could hire me, then I could do cubicle stuff.
Me: Cubicle stuff? I'm not sure what cubicle stuff is...
Sedge: Me neither. But you do cubicle stuff for a living.
Me: I do? That's interesting I need to put that on my list of qualifications on my resume.
Sedge: And apparently you're also a cubicle supervisor who does interviews. Impressive stuff.
Me: I'm proficient in cubical stuff. Ohh, my new title...."cubicle Supervisor". I sound
important
Sedge: Everyone knows that's not how you put it on the resume.
Resume's are fancy. You call it....
"Quadratic Operations Specialist. "

Now, if everyone had the joy of reading his adventures with the copy machine and the post-it notes, you'd spend the rest of your afternoon smiling!

Have an awesome day!

The Perfect Pug?! *sigh*

Ulduar last night didn't go so well.

This was the weekly raid group, Horde side, that Eto and I were approached to join. A little background information on this group may be helpful. It's a new guild leader, never before raid leader, trying to build a raiding guild. As we all know, if you read my blog, recruitment on Horde side is a pain in the ass since there are so many new guilds.

Anyway, we pick up group and the RL starts inviting the 6 people that signed up to attend. The OT was suppose to be another Dk that we had ran Ony with the week prior. Well he informs the DK that she could DPS tonight since Oingaboinga was going to come along to tank. Oingaboinga was the warrior tank the RL had told us about before. He joined his guild, yada, yada, yada Well a couple days after joining the RL's guild, Oingaboinga did a ninja quit to join another entry level raiding guild.

So I said whatever and went about my business fishing stuff for Eto to make Fish Feasts for the raid. A couple minutes later Oinga joins the group and automatically starts instructing the RL on what classes we "must" have and advises that getting a Bear or Paladin MT needs to happen and no more DK dps.

Well, I politely advise that I am not DPS and if he is a tank then we don't need anymore tanks. This turns into a huge one way debate on his part about how we must have a druid, a paladin and a priest in the party cause we can't do Ulduar without their buffs. I switch from my fishing pole to my tank weapon to bring my health back to it's normal unbuffed state and kindly advise we are geared well enough for entry level Ulduar and that this is a pug and we can't be super picky on what classes we accept.

In the mean time the RL invites another Shaman to join the party. Oinga asks if he's DPS and is informed no he's a healer. The "I'm too awesome for you" warrior attitude continues to get worse and he insists having two of the same class healer is a waste of space so the RL boots the shaman from group...YES HE BOOTED HIM!

I was shocked. I don't even think shocked is the right word for it. Seriously, we just turned away a well geared healer because Mr. I'mtooGood thinks having two shaman healers is stupid?

Next strike against the warrior, he begins debating that the two healers we have, a priest and a shaman, need to be party heals and that we have to bring in a Paladin for MT healing. *sigh* This is what really gets me started.

I can't stand a know-it-all in the group that thinks he know exactly how every single class plays and stereotypes them based on their class. "A shaman is not MT heals, cause they can chain heal..he's on party". "A holy priest is not built for MT healing, he's on party".

Again, I advise that my holy priest does awesome at MT healing and if you don't' play the class don't assume you know what the person is good at. When it comes down to it, the class build plays a minor part in the performance of the player, yes. But in the end, it's really what the player is use to doing.

I have always healed MT as holy. Yes, my mana conservation is not as great as a Disc priest. My damage mitigation to the tank is not as awesome but I know how to conserve my mana and when to start healing the tank. Priests drop huge heals all at one time. If we know how to time those heals with our HoTs, they are better spent on a tank then tossing around in party.

This debate continues on and on, while the warrior continues to insist we get a Druid (boomkin, he doesn't want a druid healer) and a Paladin (for healing not for DPS). Now it doesn't' matter what position in the group those two classes play if you're wanting them simply for their buffs.

My entire point in this whole argument was that the group is a 100% pug. We don't have the room to ensure that we have only one of every class in the group. If we have two shaman, two druids or two DKs, so be it. As long as we have the numbers to down the bosses and keep moving, it really doesn't matter. If your gear is so dependant on the buffs of other players that you can't preform with out them...YOU DON'T NEED TO BE IN A ULDUAR PUG!

If the truth be known, which I never brought up, Oninga's gear score was only 480. He was the lowest scored member in the raid. Yes he had stamina. He had 1000 more health unbuffed then I did. But if you're valuing health over other stats, you have a more serious problem then getting paladin auras and druid buffs in the raid.

Needless to say, I politely excused myself from the raid group, wished them all luck and went back to playing my lowbie Alliance hunter.

I play this game to have fun, not to listen to a big headed, bossy ass, want-to-be raid leader turn my fun game into a job.

Wanna know what really gets me pissed off...assumptions. If you don't know the class, don't play the class and don't know the player...don't assume cause you're making and ass out of yourself!

Memories from so long ago....

Well, I took Kalyanna (priest) into Naxx10 last night. It brought back a lot of memories I wasn't expecting to face again.

The raid went well. After I finally figure out my buttons, healbot and how to conserve mana. That took only about the first half of the first wing.

We started with Plague Quarter. It was suppose to be a "fun run" with the guild. It started about 30 minutes late and consisted of a few normal raiders and ton of alts. So no one was taking anything too seriously.

The first pull resulted in two deaths and a Gargoyle that wouldn't die. Lots of laughs were had by all.

We got to Heigan, as everyone knows, my favorite Naxx boss. But there was a catch to this fight. The raid leader had brought a ton of "drinks" for everyone and the point of the fight was to try to finish it completely smashed (in game of course). So we all drink the stuff, attempting to do the fight through blurry screens and messed up directional movements.

It doesn't go so well. All the melee dps (which we were very heavy in) died before the first teleport. The healers and one dps quickly follow suit and find themselves face first kissing the floor before we finish the first round of dancing. Release and run back to your body, buff up and drink again. We manage to down him the second time. Still loosing a few people along the way but Heigan goes down to a drunk raid none the less.

I managed to pick up a couple upgrades along the way. Due to the late start and the "fun" everyone was having we only cleared Plague, Spider and Military before it got too late and people had to call it a night.

Good time and good company. It got the guild back together as a group which is an improvement over the raiding they have attempted to do through September and October. They have 2 more raid night scheduled this week and hopefully the turn out for those work out as well.

I had forgotten how much I loved my priest. Healing is much more stressful then tanking or DPS but still, it's something I did for so long and quickly fell back into the routine I was so familiar with. Sometimes, dusting off and old toon is like finding an old friend.

I won't be making either of the other two Fallen raids this week but I am scheduled to tank Ulduar tonight for the Pug raid group Horde side. I'm pretty excited about this one. I've done Flame Leviathan before. That's how I ended up tanking with Ironsoul. But that's as far into Ulduar as I've taken my DK. We'll see how it goes tonight but I have high hopes of at least seeing a couple bosses down.

Now if I can just get use to the late nights and early mornings, we'll be doing good!

Weekend Adventures

I tanked Ony Friday night!!!

Actually successfully Off-Tanked Ony. The pug weekly raid group I have mentioned before started Friday night with "Dragon Slayer Friday". Meaning every Friday they will do one of the short Dragon raids. This week it was Ony and we got her down on the 3rd try.

Not too bad for a pug group. I feel the need to mention though, that I HATE the whelps. But once we got people running back to the middle when they spawned, so I could pick them up easily instead of running all over the room trying to catch them, it was much easier.

Seriously, if you are DPS and doing Ony, please remember your tank is only one person and if you are spread out all over the room with the whelps spawn, you are going to get beat on.

I won the gem bag from her and Eto got a nice...something...I can't remember. The fight is a lot of fun. I'm very glad I got a chance to see it from the level 80 view since she's been my favorite dragon since I started playing.

Got pulled into a ToC10 man run Sunday morning. That was interesting. To say the least the person putting it together had no clue what was going on. He had me as MT and another DK, who's gear score was 350, as OT. Sadly, I had to bring this to his attention and give instructions on the fights since most people had never been to the raid. We replaced the 350 tank with a paladin with slight better gear. I say slight, her gear score was still only 468. We got through phase one on two attempts and would have gotten through the second phase except said "raid leader" got angry at 3 wipes and dropped group. *sigh* If you can't handle pug raids...DON'T PUT THEM TOGETHER! Seriously guys, pugs have a huge learning curve. You can't get angry at your pug if you have never done the raid either. Sheesh, patience people!

On other news. Eto's account finally got restored Saturday night. All his toons, both of my Guild Master toons and the GM from Whispers of the Fallen, received mailboxes full of stuff to replace. Sadly, he didn't get everything back. Mainly we noticed he's missing all his ruined orbs and his arctic fur. The Alliance side guild bank from our bank toons didn't get the 1200ish gold that was taken and the 500ish from the Horde side bank. But all in all I was impressed that he got back as much as he did.

He did, which I was surprised, also end up getting 32 Abyss crystals, 13 Dragons Eyes and got to keep all the PvP gems that his Paladin had in the bank when he gained control of him back. I assume, since he didn't have this before the hack, that it was the mats they got from DEing his epic gear and from trading in all his JC tokens. Blizzard also refunded back all JC tokens, emblems and his champion marks.

Started playing my holy priest some more this weekend as well. Looks like I'm taking her on Fallen's Naxx run tonight. Normally, I would be terrified to try to heal a raid with her but seeing as it's a "fun run" for the guild, everyone is already Ulduar or beyond geared, she should be fine. I might even get a few drops for her.

I've missed playing my priest. Being a healer was something I was incredibly good at in BC. Hitting the burn out stage put a quick end to that about the time Wrath came out. I haven't played her much since then. Enough to get her to 80 and level her professions. Otherwise she's sat in Dalaran, nearly forgotten. I'm looking forward to dusting her off some and seeing if I still have it in me to be an awesome healer.

Last bit of news. The Horde side weekly raid group is set to do Ulduar on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. "Dragon Slayer Friday" for a short weekly raid and then Naxx for people that need it on Sundays. Eto and I aren't interested in doing Naxx but are signed up for Ulduar. The Fallen's Ulduar night is Thursday so if we stay committed to what we have, we could be raiding 3 - 4 nights a week between our Horde and Alliance toons.

With all that being said, I doubt we will stick with that schedule. We've both agreed that we need to focus more on things outside the game. I see us possibly doing both Ulduar raids every other week and then one or the other on the opposite weeks. Conflicting real life schedules and needing time for things other than WoW would burn us out quickly if we stuck to doing 4 - 5 raid nights a week.

Happy Hunting!

Pets for real money?

Looks like I'm going to hold off a little longer on making my beloved warlock into the cute adorable little gnome I've always wanted her to be. I had the intentions of race changing her this weekend. My visions of a teeny tiny little gnome followed by her massively huge Felguard as they journey around Azeroth. Him protecting her when the Cataclysm hits, yada, yada, yada.

I'll still get around to it I'm sure but instead of the race change I purchased the Mini K.T. and the Pandaren Monk. I wanted to do something special for Eto. After all he has had a pretty rough week, getting your toons stolen and all. Not to mention a (potential) new job. I wasn't sure which one he would want so I purchased them both and let him pick. Of course he picked the Mini K.T. (which was secretly the one I wanted) and I now have a cute little Kung Fu Panda that loving follows me around and randomly decides to karate chop invisible foes.

With that being said, it seems the topic of buying these pets has been pretty popular around the forums, in trade chat and such. So here is my thoughts on the subject.

Blizzard has already stated they will not be selling, for real world currency, any item that has a substantial impact on game performance. You're not likely to be able to buy yourself into the highest end game gear and weapons. That would be an unfair advantage that most players would gawk at.

Yes, you're paying money for these cute little pets. But they aren't effecting game play any. You don't have to do it to enjoy the game.

Why did I do it? Well, unlike the author of Greedy Goblin, who seems to think, I'm buying them to keep up with the masses. I don't feel that my financial status is being evaluated if I don't have them. I don't think people are going to look down on me. I just like the pets.

Seriously, I found for awhile that was the main focus of my game. To collect any and all of the pets I could find. I even, for awhile, spent time collecting the playing cards in hopes that I would find one of them there. But to no avail. So I'd much rather pay $10.00 (US Dollars) to get the pet I want then to randomly buy playing cards that may not contain what I am looking for.

Then the question becomes...How is buying these pets any different then the other "options" Blizzard offers to it's players? They allow me to pay to change my name and my server. Is that different? Maybe. I can pay to change my Draenei into a human and gain the beneficial racial bonus allowing me to increase reputation with my factions faster. Then if I choose, when it's done, I can pay to change her back. Sheesh, I can even level my toon on a PvE server get them maxed level and then transfer to a PvP server and go about my ganking business without having to worry about being ganked myself while leveling. Not to mention I can decide at any minute I want to play Horde instead of Alliance and pay Blizzard to change the factions of any toon I want. So you tell me. How is this any different then allowing us to purchase special pets or mounts? None of the things listed are required...who does it hurt?

With that being said, I do think Blizzard is again exploiting a market in their game to generate more money for their huge empire. But do I blame them? No, not really. They have found a niche into a massive community and now most other gaming companies can't even touch it.

So, if you are buying the pets to "keep up with the Joneses" then you may have problems. If you're buying them, and can afford them, because you love the little guys then I say go for it! Whatever (legally) makes your game fun.

Play your way!

UPDATE: Hacked!

Well, Eto now has access to his account. As of last night, he had gotten his password changed and could log in.

The state of affairs is rather sad:
Etolani - Toon has his full healing set (which he was wearing last time he was played) All bank contents and bags were emptied and the toon was used for something, and left logged out in he middle of a random zone. We think, since he is a maxed level miner, that they were using him to do the underground mining. Why they didn't strip him of his healing set, I'm not sure, but we were thankful since it did allow him to at least be able to do dailies for some gold.

Ythane - Hacker was attempting to transfer the toon to another server, Blizzard was able to reverse it before it completed. His bags and bank were full of a few missing items from the guild and a TON of PvP gems and other PvP items. Sadly, he was not holding any of the gold that I assumed he would be. My thoughts were they were using him as the pack mule to get the gold
to another server. Since the transfer didn't make it through I was hopeful that he'd still have some of the stuff on him. But my curiosity is peaked as to why he was carrying so much PvP stuff since we checked the AH and most of it didn't appear to sell too well. Interesting indeed. Wonder what his final destination was suppose to be.

Rhatid, Deadkyn, Kynthia, Vessanna - All toons were stripped, left wearing any gear that couldn't be sold, mainly their PvP gear and tabards. Their bank and personal bags were stripped and sold as well. Kynthia attended the mandatory guild meeting last night in her PvP robes and no shoes, it was very sad.

Papagnome (banktoon) - Currently MIA. We assume this toon, as well as another level 1
name holder toon, had been deleted. Eto made a plea to Blizzard last night to get his bank toon back, since he was pretty fond of the name Papagnome.

Other Toons - None of his other toons, on any other server, had been touched. He had a couple of toons left on Bronzebeard. Mainly his level 71 Druid and a bank toon. These two were not touched. As I'm sure they weren't worth the hackers time since they didn't have anything worth much in their possession.

He did spend some time last night speaking with an in-game GM and was assured it had been escalated to a specialist for restoration. Normally, they advised, it takes between 3 - 5 days for a complete restore and all items, including guild bank items taken, can be restored. They will also investigate any missing characters so there is a chance he can have Papagnome back. Hearing this seemed to put him in a slightly better mood. I think with the addition of the authenticators we purchased yesterday, he may continue to play afterall.

Thanks for all the advice and support from here and the WoW_Ladies forum on livejournal. I do appreciate you all!

Oh - And welcome aboard Askver. We were so glad to meet you in game last night. Hope your raid went well and that we'll see you around occasionally!

Circle of Tanks

So I was tagged for this one....(thanks Askevar!) This should be fun.



Circle of Tanks?
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
Kalyara, Frost DK, 15/51/05

What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
10 man raids, heroics

What is your favorite tanking spell for your class and why?
Wow, this is a hard question. Honestly, I love all my DK tanking abilities. My all time favorites would have to be Unbreakable Armor, Death and Decay, Obliterate and Bloodboil. Why? Well obviously Death and Decay allows me to get aggro on multiple mobs at one time and in an AoE friendly game, that's important. Unbreakable Armor because with my already high Dodge/Parry percent and that added armor I feel the ultimate power when I watch my health meter NOT move. Obliterate because even as a tank...I can generate some decent damage every now and then. Bloodboil..because it's fun! =)

What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
Tanking spell...hmmm. Not sure I have a specific tanking spell that I use the least. I love my Army of the Dead but sadly only get to use it and my ghoul (glyphed for of course) in last ditch efforts.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
We do not need rage or mana!! Enough said. No down time for a DK tank!

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
This one is a hard question for me. I haven't played any other tanking class personally. I have very little to compare it to. In my opinion, from what I do know of other tank classes, DKs are pretty well balanced in the AoE and single target fields. We do decent damage and generate decent threat from it. We also have respectable Dodge/Perry numbers even if we can't get the Block value. I'd say we have few weaknesses that I have come across.

In a raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
I think this depends on the other tanks in the group. Sadly, DKs make decent OTs because we can AoE tank. I hate this. I hate people assuming we have to be OT because we can AoE tank when the warrior/druid can't. But we do also make great one target tanks. I have ran VoA and other raids with a warrior/druid who held the adds easily while I MT the one target boss. So, we can go either way...as long as people don't "assume" we have to be the OT because we can AoE tank.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?

I am going to pick a DK of course. Since playing my boyfriends Paladin once or twice in a heroic doesn't really count as tanking experience, DK tanking is all I know.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?

If I had to "guess"...I don't like the idea of having to play a warrior or a druid tank. Mainly because the idea of having to get rage before I pull sounds like a pain to me.

What is your worst habit as a tank?
Forgetting my cooldowns. Yeah I'm really bad at that. I rely on Eto (my personal pocket healer) alot when it comes to saving my ass. My second worse habit...the yank ability. It drives people crazy. I'm pretty yank happy.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
Face pulling...dps pulling..."oh I can tank it". I get very angry if we have dps in the group that decide to pull for me. I also get aggravated when other DKs decide to yank something. You know what. I'm tanking, loose your yank button unless you're pulling off the healers/casters. I might also get aggravated with trigger happy DPS. *sigh* I have a lot of tanking pet peeves.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
Yes. We're not as simple as Paladins but I think we're all pretty equal in the end. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. That's what makes each of us an asset.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
Omen. I leave and breath Omen and grid. I want to know if I'm loosing threat before it happens. I also rely on Eto a lot to let me know if someone has aggro since he stares at grid most of the fight, he knows as soon as some else gets the aggro indicator on their name.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
Death Knights are a "give me" class. They assume all DKs are worthless noobs. That makes me sad. I agree to some degree that getting a freebie level 55 toon gave us a lot of level 80s that have no idea how to raid/instance etc. But some of us really spent the time to learn the class and how to play it well. I hate when people assume everyone in a certain class is the same. Kind of like the "Huntards"...you can't group everyone together...we're not all the same.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
I think DKs have a disadvantage on this front. You start at level 55 and do not have as much time to get use to your spec as other classes. For this reason I think it's very important for a tank DK to start and level with the spec they intent to use at 80. Learn it and live it. It's the only way you can really understand it in 25 short levels.

Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
I like to balance between the two. But in the end I love health!

What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
Druids. I have played DKs, have a boyfriend that played a Paladin through BC and was guild leader for a warrior tank that needed a lot of help. So I've read a lot on warrior tanking. Druids...they just confuse me.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Defense, defense, defense. After that I try to balance them out. I love Dodge more then parry, not sure why. In the end I tend to lean towards stamina a lot for gems. I figure if I am defensed capped and I have a decent avoidance rate then leave the rest up to my stamina. Give the healers a little extra room when I do get hit to heal me back up.

Hacked!

Looks like Eto's account got hacked last night.

He got the notification this morning that his password has been changed while he was asleep. Attempted to log onto WoW and it gave him the invalid password message. After some checking on the Armory and from my toons. All of his toons are naked, with the exception of Etolani, on the Armory and both the Last Call guild bank and the Faded Delusions guild bank have been wiped clean.

We pay Blizzard some ungodly amount of money and they can't have 24 hour support? Seriously! He has to wait until 8AM PST to get phone support. With all the money they make you'd think there would be emergency support for stuff like this!!

Grrrrr!

So question becomes, does anyone know if he will get his personal bank contents back when Blizzard fixes it? Or does he only get his toons restored?

RAID For The Cure - Cross Post

This is a post from The Big Bear Butt's blog http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/11/02/announcement-world-of-warcraft-raid-for-the-cure/ and I hope it is appropriate here. A very worthy cause and I hope many of the Ladies of WoW will participate and donate. I didn't know how to imbed links here so the web address above has all the active links to the address mentioned in this post.

On October 28th of 2009, Julie, a member of the World of Warcraft guild Sidhe Devils on Kael’thas (US), revealed to us that she had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Her first treatment is scheduled to begin on November 9th.

To show our support and love for Julie while she takes on this new challenge, her friends in Sidhe Devils are organizing an event within the game of World of Warcraft that we’re calling the Raid for the Cure.

What it is

On Kael’thas (US), a united cross-faction walk across Azeroth will be held on Saturday, November 14th, starting at 2:00 PM Central Time (Kael’thas-US server time).

Members of both Alliance and Horde factions are invited to attend. Pink Mageweave Shirts will be handed out for all walkers, and all levels of characters will be welcome. If you’d like, bring your own shirt, or even make it a formal affair with your Festive Pink Dress!

The walk across Azeroth will not be a race of individuals, it will be a group march to show Julie our love and support.

We do want to help spread the word, and encourage donations in a cheerful way to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity, an organization that promotes information and awareness on early detection and treatment of breast cancer, and that supports funding for treatment and research towards a cure.

The Raffle

To that end, we will be holding a raffle. There will be various prizes sponsored by myself and others within the WoW blog community.

The grand prize (if prize it is) will be a guest appearance on the podcast Sidhe Devils Gone Wild, and influence on our talking points for that show.

Entry to the raffle is quite simple. Go to the World of Warcraft Raid for the Cure donation website, a website created by us but administered and maintained by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and make an online donation, using a valid email address. Once you have received your emailed receipt of donation, just email us a copy of your receipt to tigerlordgm AT yahoo DOT com with the words Raid for the Cure Raffle Entry in the title. That’s it. One entry per person, no minimum donation necessary.

The Raid for the Cure Event Details

The event itself will take place on Saturday, November 14th on the Kael’thas (US) server. The first start time will be at 2:00 PM Central time.

We intend to have two initial teams, one for the Alliance and one for the Horde.

We also intend to support different start times for players that would like to participate, but might not get online or prepared on time.

Julie has told us that her favorite starting zone in World of Warcraft is Darnassus.

To honor her fun in the game, the first Alliance team will form up near Conservator Ilthalaine in Shadowglen, the Night Elf starting area. There will be designated event coordinators there to hand out the Pink Mageweave Shirts.

This team will leave Shadowglen at approximately 2:00 PM Central Time (Kael’thas-US server time).

The Alliance team will travel as a group to Darnassus, and then down to the dock to take voyage upon a mighty ship to the port city of Auberdine in Darkshore. The team will arrive at Auberdine at approximately 2:15 PM. There will be a break to hand out more Pink Mageweave Shirts for those joining the run at this time, and then the team will head off to Astranaar in Ashenvale.

The Alliance team will arrive at Astranaar in Ashenvale near Dalyshia, the Flight Master of Astranaar at approximately 2:30 PM. There will be another short break to hand out Pink Mageweave Shirts if needed.

Meanwhile, the Horde team will have formed up next to Grull Hawkwind in Camp Narache, the Tauren starting area in Mulgore. There will be Horde side event coordinators prepared to hand out more of the inimitable Pink Mageweave Shirts.

At 2:30 PM, both Horde and Alliance teams will depart their respective locations, Astranaar and Camp Narache, and head on foot for the Crossroads in the Barrens.

Both teams should arrive at the Crossroads nearly simultaneously at 2:45 PM server time.

At this point, the last handing out of Pink Mageweave Shirts will be performed, everyone will gather together, hopefully as one great Raid representing both factions, and between 2:45 and 3:00 PM depart Crossroads, headed for the city of Ratchet, and her infamous dock.

The cross-faction group will take ship from Ratchet for Booty Bay, and there descend as one upon that pestilential city of pirates for the wrap up, followed by a wild dance party. Bring your Pink Elekks and pony kegs!

Immediately after the completion of the march, the raffle drawing will be performed offline, and results posted on the blog for all to see.

Thank you all very much for your time in reading this post. I sincerely hope I will see you there in two weeks!

Take care everyone, and please, please keep Julie in your thoughts and prayers.

And just one more thing. If you have not as of yet done so, I respectfully request that all of the wonderful ladies amongst my readership think about visiting a doctor as soon as you can to be tested for Breast Cancer. Never forget, the earlier Breast Cancer is detected, the better!

valynda_velen wrote in wow_ladies

Progerssion? and Alt News

Friday night proved to be pretty interesting and a very LATE night. I'm not sure if I would consider it progression or not but the night started off pretty well. Did the daily heroic, another (successful timed) run on CoS and picked up a baby lockling along the way.

He seems pretty new to the game but hit my heart when he proudly brought his Felguard into the instance. nother 80 Demonology lock. It's a rarity for sure. His gear wasn't too bad. Mostly PvP gear. Our daily heroic run was his first heroic since hitting 80. He needed a little guidance and help understanding hit cap for a caster but otherwise a pretty nice guy.

We ended up bringing him along for a pug Naxx run. I have a soft spot in my heart for any demonology locks. What can I say. We created a global chat channel to explain the fights to him, since he had never been in a raid before either. Sadly we only made it through 2 wings.

I was MT and there was a lowbie Paladin running as OT. Wiped on the first boss in the Spider wing when I died early on. I'm not sure the healer was paying much attention to me. The raid was taking a lot of damage from the crypt keepers before the Paladin would pick them up. So that had the healers pretty occupied. We didn't have as much trouble the second go around and the rest of the wing went pretty well.

Plague quarter on the other hand, cause us another wipe on the gargoyle. My mistake since I ran to the next group while I still had the debuff on me. Mental note, regardless of how fast the raid leader is pushing you....watch yourself for debuffs before pulling the next group.

There were several problems with the Plague quarter. First one came with the gargoyle. The second problem came with a 26 minute Heigan fight. Yes, TWENTY-SIX minutes. First round of dancing caused us to loose everyone in the raid, except for me, Eto and another healer. So needless to say, I was nodding off by the time he finally went down. Sheesh...what a long fight. I know dancing is hard but wow, I didn't think we'd loose the entire DPS line up.

Last issue, our OT went AFK during the 26 minute Heigan fight and didn't come back. So I tanked the last boss in the quarter with no OT. Normally, this isn't a fight that requires an OT. However, when no one is killing the spores before they get to me and they are getting caught in the AoE, it causes the Tank to drop down the aggro meter. Luckily, we survived this fight and called it a night.

Not sure any of that was progression, since I've done those two wings before, but it was some raid experience. The guy leading the raid was an ass, surprise, surprise. I was so tired of hearing "go, go", "lets move", "pull!" that I could have screamed! I know you want to get through as much as you can but give me a break, I need to wait for debuffs to drop and for the healers to get mana before I pull the next group!

My post to the Shadow Council forums did produce us one interested lead on forming a weekly raid group. We'll see Friday night at the "test" Ony run how that's going to work out. We've been looking for a weekly non-guilded raid group. I know Alliance side has a group called "Positive Push" that meets up on a weekly basis for progression raid runs. This group has members from various guilds and is dedicated to teaching new raiders and getting them ready for their guilds progression level. I haven't found anything Horde side that offers this type of environment. We'll see what we think on Friday.

On the Alt front....
I was out sick yesterday (some kind of nasty stomach bug) and since any excessive movement was made it worse and I couldn't really sleep any longer, it turned into a WoW day.

My, now level 72 Shaman, dropped her Jewelcrafting and power leveled Tailoring from 1 - 400 yesterday. I did most of the cloth farming on my DK. Eto had a crap-ton of rune cloth from his rep grinding in Sithilis and I bought a lot of mageweave from the AH. Sadly, her Jewelcrafting was at 435 when I dropped it but I couldn't find any reason to have 2 JC'ers of the same faction on the same server.