Interesting Facts...

1 - We 2 shot Magmaw last night (our second time into BWD)
2 - We 6 (or 7 or 8ish) shot Omitron Council
3 - We were not prepared for anything past that - planning wise
4 - Throne of Four Winds is CRAZY!
5 - Raid bosses are rigged to not drop cloth healer lootz!

Raid night number two was a big success. Though a little shocking since we didn't know there would be a raid #2 until Tuesday night. Our all powerful, all knowing raid leaders came up with this wonderful plan to alternate Monday and Wednesday raid nights between Twilight Baston and Deathwing Decent. This was designed to allow for more people to be able to raid each week.

Both Monday and Wednesday night's raid queue had at least 15 people in it. Not to mention both filled up unbelievably fast. The idea was for those people that had not been able to attend on Monday to take preference over those that had.

Because of this, completely reasonable logic, I was pretty sure Kyn and I would not be needed last night. However, I assume they still wanted to fill the raid at least half way with people that already knew that fight and would be able to help those that hadn't.

If that was the purpose, it worked! As I said, we were able to 2 shot the boss with no problems at all. Honestly, it would probably have been a one shot except we had a ranged dps accidentally step too far away from the boss. Doing so caused the lava pillar to spawn in the middle of the ranged and melee, which as everyone knows also spawns the parasites, which caused way too many people to get infected thus caused a wipe.

It also seemed that no one expected us to down the Omnitron Council as quickly as we did since research hadn't really been done on the bosses after them. It was funny to see people standing around wondering what to do next. The suggestion was offered to end the raid early but being the adventurous people that we are, we decided to give the first boss in Throne of Four Winds a go.

Now this is normally when I would tell you how the fight mechanics work and what I learned from it. Sadly, the only thing I can tell you is there is a lot of jumping and switching and switching back and full on cray stuff going on. Basically there is 3 platforms and each holds a "boss". You divide your group up between them and when certain things happen, part of those groups have to jump from on platform to another, wait for some big event, then rush back and hope the people they left behind didn't die.

So yeah, totally CRAZY stuff. I'm sure we'll get it, and it was very fun and educational, to at least see the fight. But we'll venture in next time, a little more prepared!

Have a wonderful weekend and happy hunting everyone.

BWD In Review

Well, they say pictures are worth a thousand words. So there is mine! I'm very proud of what the guild was able to do in our first Cata progression run.

I guess you're wanting details, or maybe not, but I'll give them to you anyway.

Our raid composition went something like this:
Tank 1: Druid
Tank 2: Warrior
Healer 1 and 2: Druid
Healer 3: Priest
Melee DPS: Warrior, Death Knight, Druid
Ranged DPS: Mage, Druid

Yes, you are reading correctly. There were 4 (count them again 4) druids in our raid.

We did things a little differently than what I discussed in my post yesterday. But all in all the fight went pretty much the same as everything I had been reading. Instead of having the ranged DPS and healers form a group in the back, we all stacked up with the melee.

Because we were under the understanding that Magmaw would only shoot the flame pillars under the people that were out of his melee range, it made sense to have the casters and healer to group up on the melee. We had our frost DK staying towards the back of the group so the pillars would pop under him and he was then responsible for kiting the adds around until they died.

This strategy worked very well, once we had the kiting under control. When done correctly the kiter did not take much damage at all and allowed the healers to focus on the massive damage going towards the tank.

Don't get me wrong, this was a very healer intensive fight and I was battling with my mana pool the entire time. The saving grace for me was phase 2. Phase 2 did allow me to channel my mana regen abilities. Sadly I did learn that this was just one of those bosses that my shadow fend would NOT attack so he did me no good at all. Thankfully, I found the glory of a little thing called Potion of Concentration. This was a life saver....literally! (Thanks Cart!)

Honestly, now that we've completed the fight, this guy isn't nearly as scary as I had originally expected. Yes, he's hard and it's taxing on everyone in your raid. It requires you to be able to work together and communicate. Thankfully, our guild is good at mechanical fights. We know when to move and don't take it personally if someone yells for us to GTFO of the bad stuff on the ground!

We did get a couple of good attempts in on the second fight but that will be another post for a later time.

Have a wonderful week and happy hunting!

Black Wing Decent - Enter into Hell!

As it stands, today is the first venture into BWD for Whispers of the Fallen. As a guild we are schedule to make our first attempts tonight at 8:00 PM EST.

Every Monday and Wednesday for last 4 weeks or so, we've been running scheduled heroic nights as a guild. We've put together as many groups as we've had people signed up and ran for gear upgrades to prepare us for this fight.

Personally, there are a couple of items I would have liked to have had before going in but otherwise I think I'm as ready as I can be. With buff food, potions, flasks and lots of studying I'll head into the raid tonight as long as they don't choose to sit me.

As I had imaged, the first raid queue filled up with 10 people in less than 60 seconds. Last check, we actually have 15 guild members signed up.

Well, none of that is the point of today's post. Mainly, I'm going to run a break down of the first boss encounter so that I can review the differences between the strategy and the actual event tomorrow.

Based on my research I know the following;
1 - Magmaw is going to nomnom on the tanks faces
2 - Magmaw does not move for the entire fight.
3 - Magmaw is going to shoot pillars of lava from the floor
4 - All ranged need to group up and move according to the lava pillars
5 - Aggro resets after phase 2 ends and before going back to phase 1
6 - Many adds! Deal with them!

Ok, so I know more than that.

During phase 1, the raid will break into 3 groups and resemble something like this:

-------------------------------------BOSS!--------------------------------------
................Melee DPS........................... TANK!............................


.................Ranged Spot 1.................................Ranged Spot 2.....

As the fight progresses, Magmaw will use an ability that shoots lava pillars out of the ground under the ranged group. When this happens the ranged and all healers need to quickly move to their second designated area. Once the pillar spawns, a wave of Lava Parasites will spawn in the previous spot. The ranged dps has to dps them down before any of them can reach the caster group. This means using push backs, slow abilities or anything that can prevent them from reaching the dps and healers.

The second thing that needs to be handled is Lava Spew. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be avoidable and the healers will have to heal through it. Because it comes shortly after the lava parasites, it's important to kill the adds as quickly as possible.

Lastly, there is Ignition. This will fill half the room with fire that looks like it's coming out of steam vents. Obviously, we move out of this because we're all experienced and responsible raid members that will not stand in bad stuff.

The first phase of this fight seems to be a test of healer mana. There is no enrage timer, as long as there is always someone in the melee range of Magmaw, he will not enrage. So keeping everyone topped off as much as possible is key.

During phase 2, Magmaw is going to cast mangle on the current tank and do massive amounts of damage. In addition he has second ability called Massive Crash. This does exactly what it says, it will do massive damage to the already hurting tank. Again, this has to be healed through. Tanks should have mitigation techniques ready and use them during this part of the fight.

Secondly, during phase two, two of the melee dps will need to use the spikes to jump onto Magmaws head. This will allow Magmaw to remain down for 30 seconds and increase the amount of damage done to him.

During phase two, the only damage being delt should be to the target tank. This is a good time to have your healers pop their regen abilities because it may be the only change they get during this fight.

Last thing to remember is that at the end of phase 2 before the restart of phase 1, Magmaw drops aggro. This will be where the tank switch happens and dps need to allow time for the new tank to gain aggro.

Though this fight seems complex, it appears to be more about endurance and less about complexity. If the healers can make their mana last and the group is aware of what's going on, it should be easily managed.

Well that's about it for me today. We'll see how close, or far off, I was based on my actual experiences tonight!

Good luck and happy hunting everyone!

Pre-Raid Gearing for a Holy Priest

Kalyanna dinged 85 last night after a couple of enjoyable instance runs with my guildies. Yay! Have I mentioned that I love my guild? I've been having a blast with them since the expansion released. Running instances, hanging out on vent...it's all been great! But that's not the point of this post.

Now it's time to start thinking about her gear and stats and gems and enchants, oh my! Everyone that knows me, knows that I'm not really the kind of person that goes into a panic over my gear. But since she is going to be healing raids for our guild, and we don't have a lot of healers to rely on, I think it's time I at least get an idea of what gear and stuff she needs from where.

First off, let's talk about my personal stat priority. Keep in mind this is my preference based on what I know so far. For me, the stats go something like this: Int -> Spirit -> Haste -> Mastery

I need Int for spell power and a larger mana pool. I need spirit to regen that mana and Haste in order to decrease my cast time. So all that makes sense to me. Then there is the gear to get those stats.

Everyone already knows you need to be at 329 to get into the heroics. And that it's pretty much just some lucky drops from instances and some rep items. I won't spend time going into that. Kaly's already at 326, so it's just a matter of getting those last 3 points.

Instead, let's take a look at what gear she can get and where it comes from. This is a list based on the stats that I prefer. Some of this gear has Crit on it and for those items I'd reforge for either Haste or Mastery.

HEROIC Instances:
Neck: Amulet of Tender Breath - Vortex Pinnacle
Shoulder: Mantle of Loss - SFK
Back: Solar Wind Cloak - Halls of Origination
Robe: Anraphet's Regalia - Halls of Origination
Wrist: Baron Ashbury's Cuffs - SFK
Hands: Dolomite Adorned Gloves - Stonecore
Boots: Hekatic Slippers - Halls of Origination
Ring: Veneficial Band - Lost City of the Tol'vir
Ring: Kibble - Blackrock Caverns
Trinket: Tear of Blood - Stonecore
Trinket: Witching Hourglass - Blackrock Caverns
Weapon: Scepter of Power - Halls of Origination
Off-Hand: Prophet's Scepter - Stonecore
Wand: Wand of Untainted Power - Grim Batol

If you prefer a staff or can't get the weapon and off hand to drop:
Staff: Soul Releaser - Halls of Origination

JUSTICE POINTS:
Head: Mask of New Snow - 2200
Waist: Belt of the Falling Rain - 1650
Legs: Leggings of Charity - 2200

REPUTATION:
Cord of Raven Queen - Hyjal Exalted
Shimmering Morningstar - Tol Barad Revered
Mandala of Stirring Patterns - Tol Barad Exalted

The last thing I'll talk about is the enchants and the gems. Most of this is common knowledge and everyone will enchant and gem differently based on their preference. I also have the advantage of being a scribe but for this purpose I'll leave those benefits out.

ENCHANTS
Head: Arcanum of Hyjal - Guardians of Hyjal Revered
Shoulder: Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone - Therazane Exalted
Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent
Boots: Enchant Boots - Haste
Legs: Powerful Ghostly Spellthread
Bracer: Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Spirit
Chest: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Haste
Off hand: Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect

GEMS
META: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond
RED: Brilliant Inferno Ruby
BLUE: Sparkling Ocean Sapphire
YELLOW: Quick Amberjewel
PURPLE: Purified Demonseye
ORANGE: Reckless Ember Topaz
GREEN: Zen Dream Emerald

So, that's it! Looks like I've got my work cut out for me. Hope you find a little bit of useful information somewhere in here as well.

Until next time!

Could it really be?

I know, I know...I've been gone for AGES!

Well not really gone. As it turned out I have been playing wow. I've been dabbling around in various things here and there and ultimately I've ended up back on the Alliance side of the fence (more or less) for the last few months.

Turns out, I just wasn't happy Horde side and that was probably a huge reason I lost interest in the game. So you may (or may not) be wondering, where I am at now.

My time lately has been divided between my beloved lock, priest and my now RESTO! shammy. Yes, you heard me right that shammy that I so hated, is now resto and I love, love, love her.

The break down:
Kalyina - She's still demo. I can't bring myself to change this. And believe it or not, with our Alliance side guild, she's only 3 bosses away from her King Slayer title.

The entire guild took a raid break for about 6 weeks and we made our first run since then, last week. We decided to extend our raid lock out and tonight we have Dreamwalker, Sendragosa and the Lich King to pick up on. It's one of the only things I wanted before the release of Cata. I wanted my little gnome to have the King Slayer title. So we'll see how that goes.

Kalyanna and Kalyista - Both of them have transferred back to the Alliance side and have been happily gathering emblems here and there for their gear. I have yet to raid past ToC with either of them since I'm mainly focused on ICC with my lock. I would love to get some ICC love for my priest but with the pending release of Cata I doubt that will happen.

Now for the big topic of discussion. I'm assuming everyone has read the MMO-Champs prediction for the release of Cataclysm. For those of you that have not..they are guessing the first week of November!!

Now I'm not one to spread rumors and Blizzard hasn't announced this themselves but if anyone has been following them for long, you'd know they were spot on with the BC release. Not only BC but they have also been right about the patch release dates as well.

What does all this mean? Well, we could all be playing Cataclysm in a little less then 2 months! Even if they are off a little, well that's still pretty damn close!

So it's got me thinking about all the changes. I find these exciting and actually, a little bit sad.

Exciting for the new content and renewed excitement in the game. Excited to see all the new stuff that will come along with the changes they are making.

Sad, well for many reasons really. For the obvious, because of the things that will be going away. ZG for one. I have always loved that raid. As a matter of fact, my DK got exalted with the Zandlar Tribe last night. We've been running ZG on every reset and will continue to, in order to get our fill of a place that will soon be long gone and a chance at giving my tiny gnome a giant raptor mount as well.

Other reasons I'm sad? Well, for out of game reasons. Since my break from WoW I have been doing more of the crafty type things I love to do. I know this will decline for awhile. And then there is all the other things I want to do. Mainly, the Sims 3. I've had the game for awhile and it's sitting on my shelf calling my name.

The world doesn't give me enough to time to do all the things I want/love to do. I know I need to learn to balance it all. I also know that as the excitement of the expansion wears off that will become easier to do. However, it still makes me a little sad.

That bucket list I created awhile back...well we'll talk about that in my next post. I have lots of thought I need to put into that one. Lots of consideration for what's important in the next 6 weeks and what's just not.

Hope everyone is as excited as I am for the upcoming expansion and I hope you all have a wonderful Hump Day!

The State of Things

It's really been over a week since my last post?

Guess that's a reflection on my current gaming situation...at least as far as WoW is concerned.

So, I'm starting to experience the oh, so familiar pains of "burn out" that seems so common these days in the blogging community. Finding myself logging in less and less. Honestly, there has been more days that I don't log in at all. The days that I do log in, it's to check on the guild or transmute or mill or disenchant things for someone.

What's causing this burn out? That's totally opinionated I'm sure. It's different for everyone but for me I believe it's the lull before the storm. It's a combination of things. It's the anticipated down time between now and the release of Cataclysm. It's the guild, it's the grind, it's the boredom...

I had such a wonderful "Bucket List" of things that I thought would help tide me over or at least help me get prepared for Cataclysm. hmmmm

So what's going on?!?!

I know how the Lich King dies, I know how the story ends...what's left to do? Push to see him die myself? Why? I've already seen it on Youtube. I've successfully tanked all of ToC over this past weekend. Found it more stressful then fun, that was another warning sign for me that I'm getting close to "burn out".

I've got a well geared tank and a well geared healer. I've got a shaman that I can't make myself gear because..well, apparently shaman just aren't my thing. Can't find any fun in her. Couldn't find it in BC, can't find it now.

I've got a lovely little gnome warlock that is slowly, ever so slowly, working on her gear and maybe a Loremaster title. If she gets it, that's great, if not I don't think I'll be too disappointed.

The guild...well this all comes down to a question asked by a reader.

"Do you think the LFG tool is killing guilds, or do your think the lack of useful guilds created the LFG tool?"

Morph posted this in the comment section of my last post a couple weeks ago and got me thinking. The result? Well, the more I think about it the more if I wonder if this isn't part of the reason for my potential "burn out"?

So which one is it, you may ask. The new LFG system or the guild?

Well, I think the answer to this question on my part is simple. I think the LFG system is the start of the end of the smaller guilds. I don't think it will totally kills guilds in general but I do strongly believe we will start to see and have already, the smaller guilds disappear.

Why? Well because you don't need a guild anymore. Think about it. It use to be that you "needed" a good guild, or any guild really, to be able to easily run instances and heroics. You needed that guild if you wanted to see the end game content.

The guild that played together stayed together. It was that simple. You kept your members by making sure they got to see what they signed up for. They were more willing to work with the guilds raiding schedule because that's the only way they could see the content. If they couldn't work with your schedule they found a guild who's schedule worked with theirs.

Back in BC and the early days of Wrath, hell even in vanilla wow, guilds used their calendars, scheduled events, talked in guild chat, made plans with members when they wanted to raid or grind out some emblems. Guild chat, at least for Last Call, was always full of chitter chatter from the members looking to put together heroic groups or world events or unscheduled raids. It was never a silent game for sure.

This "chitter chatter" that started as looking for people to form the group led to other interesting conversations. It led to people getting to know each other. People forming more then just a group...they formed friendships.

That group might have to pug a spot or two, yes. But if they needed to pug that spot, it was often the opportunity to recruit someone. That person they pugged often wasn't in a guild..thus looking for a home and on more then one occasion, we ended up gaining a member.

Yes, you had those rare people that joined for the community or for the guild chat or other benifits but mainly, guilds were needed for raiding and end game content.

Fast forward to the current day. Getting into a heroic is as easy as clicking a button and waiting a few minutes. It's even easier then that if you're a tank or a healer. Just click the button and your in. Deal with a little bit of stupidity, walk away with your loot and call it a day.

There is no reason to "chat" unless you're the social type of person that wants people to talk to while you quest or instance. Even if you are that person, you have general chat or your pug group to chitter chatter with if you like.

What about the end game content? Well, obviously you don't need a guild for that anymore either thanks to Blizzards super simple gear up policy. Push the random LFG button a few times and *poof* you're fully geared to get into Toc and ICC.

"Oh, but I need a guild for that, right?"

Nope...not anymore. Tune into the "LookingForGroup" channel on any well established server and what do you see ever 30 - 45 seconds?

"LFM, ICC 10, pst your role and gear score"

Thus the cycle is never ending. Push the button, get the loot, pick up the pug and see the end...

So tell me again, why do we need the guild when I can grind it all out in PUGs????

Exactly...and now I know why I'm looking forward to the release of Cataclysm. Give me something to do beside push the button, damn it, this isn't LOST!

How can this be?

Ok, I have officially come to the realization that I am epic fail when it comes to any DPS class. I know, I know, how can anyone not be good at DPS? Well, maybe it's because I refuse to conform? I want to play the specs that aren't "popular" or aren't really high dps specs? Who knows, but check these examples...

Subject One: Kalyina - Demonology Warlock
Now I know her biggest problem is that I refuse to go affliction or destro. Why? I like demonology. I know it doesn't push the big dps numbers but even duel speccing her for destro I wasn't able to push the numbers. And it's my Zili...it's my awesome felguard bodyguard! Who doesn't love him?

I can't really blame her problem on gear either. At the time she was geared pretty well actually. At least for her content level. At the time, in the appropriate tier gear, she was doing good to push 3K dps as Demo in a 10 man raid. Blah...

Demonology locks rely heavily on the raid make up to boost their DPS. I learned this early on. Paladin buffs are a must. Especially when you rely so heavily on your Felguard for his cleave damage. Getting Might on him is very important. Sadly, most paladin's don't understand this which means you have to ask for them to buff the felguard differently. Regardless, I've always believed if you can't pull the dps on your own, you shouldn't be relying on group make up to boost it.

Subject Two: Kalyista - Elemental Shaman
This one, maybe I can blame it on gear. She is able to get into heroics now, thanks to 2 pieces of LW gear that Eto made for her. I also threw on some leather BoE blue gloves and bracers I had on my bank toon and purchased the blue BoE cloth shoulders. She's now hit capped at least for heroics. I don't intend to raid with her so heroic hit cap is all I'm really worried about.

We ran 3 heroics last night, H-OK, H-VH and H-UK. Of those three the first was H-OK and my dps was pretty bad, I wasn't hit capped and was trying to figure out what I was doing. The last was H-VH and we had a Paladin and a lock pushing 5K - 7K dps. So over the course of the night my dps started at 1.5K and ended at about 2.2K - 2.3K.

Now that does give me a little hope that with decent gear, she has the potential to push some decent dps numbers. I've researched her, thanks to you guys who recommended sites. I've learned the rotation, glyphs, changed her build around some and hope that maybe I can figure out how to enjoy playing her.

Subject Three: Kalyanna - Shadow Spec
If I want to pass this toon up on the DPS break down I'm sure I could simply because I rarely have to go shadow and when I do, it's still her off spec. But this is probably the worst. I refuse to look at her DPS number. I don't run recount on her since 99% of the time she's healing. But I know there has to be more to shadow priests then just SW: Pain and spamming the purple beam of death thingy. *sigh*

I've also tried kitty dps, hunters, unholy DKs, just to name a few. Granted the hunter and kitty were not 80 toons and the unholy was in my tank gear. So I won't comment on those.

This isn't leaving me very optimistic about my up coming mage. Can I somehow manage to actually be good at DPS?

Seriously, I am a good tank and a good healer. Probably a better healer then a tank actually. DPS is suppose to be the "easier" role to play.

I have a couple other ideas on why I can't find a good dps class.
1. I jump around on my toons too much. Making myself ok at a lot of things and really good at nothing.
2. DPS requires consistency. Spell rotations, gear, stats, moving, adjusting, etc. I'm not so good at consistency.
3. I'm not willing to conform. I choose to play them differently so I pay the price with lower dps.

Who knows? But regardless, it's given me a new respec for the dps classes. I'm in the shoes of that person in the pug who's total damage falls below the tank. I'm that person in the pug who get lectured by everyone else about how I'm doing this and that incorrectly. I'm that person who often forgets to change to tremor totem or to put the soulstone on the healer.

I have a new respect. Learning to DPS is just as stressful as learning to tank or learning to heal...

Happy Tuesday!

Embarrassments and raids and such

So, I officially have been shunned...how embarrassing. Seriously, you can get a toon to 80 and not have the gear to get into Heroics? *sigh* Apparently, it IS in fact possible because I did it on my Shaman!

WHAT?

Yep, Eto and another, newly dinged 80, wanted to run a couple heroics after the weekly raid tonight and since he was a druid (healer) asked if I would dps. Since I royally suck at DPS on my priest, figured why not get a little gear for the shaman, since I never play her. Log on, join group and..."umm, it says I can't queue for heroics cause Kaly's gear is suckzo."

Nice....

*sigh* Never had that happen before.

On a brighter note. We did 2 shot Maly...
After a slightly frustrating start to the night. Planned to take our 8 into Naxx to get the key for someone and normal raid time is at 6PM server. Well, this dummy put 5PM for tonight's raid so Eto and I were 30 minutes late to our own raid. At this point 1 of our DPS was already in doing Maly and come to find out the hunter was locked from earlier in the week and had "forgot".

How do you forget you did a raid you had already accepted on the calendar on Tuesday? Grrrr.

Anyway, a few pugs and some great leading from 2 of our guildies and we have Maly under out belt. Pretty fun fight actually.

And did I mention, I healed this fight? Yeah, no tanking for me, Prayer of Healing, ftw! Apparently it's a one tank fight and we needed a healer so guess who got suckered into taking their Alt instead of their main? Yep, so Kalyanna go the achievement for killing Maly. All for the good of the guild!

Oh, and I almost forgot..the exciting news of my weekend?

Tada...

Yep, she's now a gnome and I love her!! Think it will be a long, long, LONG time before I ever consider making her a Horde!

Anyway, hope everyone had a great weekend and see you soon!

Go, Atl Team, Go

So, I've been spending a lot of time working on my alts recently.

It seems that my DK is at a stand still until we can rebuild enough to get us back into Ulduar and ToC10. She's got all of her emblem gear and there isn't much left to do with here since she isn't' the toon I choose to work on achievements with.

With that being said, I've found a long lost love in my little priest.

As most of you know, I switched Kalyanna from her pretty little Draenei with the pigtails to the somewhat cute tiny undead girl, still with the pigtails.

This was a tug at the heart strings to say the least. Mainly because she was my first serious toon, the first to see 70 and the focus of all of my attention in BC. She was the founder of my Alliance side guild and to me was everything that was Last Call.

Due to a huge phase of "Burnout" I had officially retired her when Wrath came out to focus on a DPS toon for a change. She slowly made her way to 80, simply to be able to max out her professions and spend her days in Dalaran. I rarely played her until recently.

When I transferred her she was in her Moonshroud gear, a couple of odd and end Shadow pieces she had gotten from Alt runs in Naxx and nothing more. I waited patiently, while Eto leveled his Druid with less the high hopes of actually being able to have fun with her again.

I was so certain that the trials and tribulations of BC raid healing had forever soured me to my priest. I just knew there was no way I was going to enjoy healing again. But I was willing to give it a try since it would greatly decrease our queue times if Loki was tanking and I was healing.

Low and behold, here we are 2 weeks after dinging the druid at 80 and I'm in LOVE with my priest again. She is 73/100 into getting her pug pet. She's in 4 piece T9 and the only heroic she hasn't been able to get through is HoR. She even healed Loki through VoA10.

Now, this is no major feat to most of you I'm sure. But for a little girl that I thought I'd never play again, this makes my heart sing. It's added new excitement to the game and I'm actually enjoying healing.

This isn't to say that if I made her my full time focus again, started raid healing exclusively, that I wouldn't hit that burnout stage again. But as an alt, running randoms, she's a lot of fun.

My original plan was to try out the Disc spec. However, I've remained Holy against the persuasion of every other priest out there. Why? Holy is what I know and it has changed very little since BC. I'm sure being Disc would have gotten me through HoR but I still enjoy Holy and that's what this toon is all about...just having fun!

Now curse Blizzard for throwing me head first into HoR on random! How dare they?!? :)

As for the lock that I dropped my priest for? She's still sitting around Dalaran in her T8 gear, Alliance side. I have pulled her out with the hopes of giving her Loremaster before the big change hits her as well.

I'm reluctant, more so with her, to transfer. She is my last high level Alliance toon. In my eyes making the switch to Horde with her is going to be forever saying good-bye to them. Forever letting go of the Alliance.

I've come to realize that I'm not doing myself any justice by abandoning her over there. I loved my lock just as much, if not more, then I loved my DK. Well, not exactly, I loved her minon. Her felguard to be exact. Zili is the whole of everything that is lock-dom to me. He's the reason I never made the switch, for high dps numbers, to destro like everyone suggested. There is just no way I can ever give up my Zili.

My dream for her was always to make her a gnome. As soon as Blizzard made the option available I was going to make her a gnome. Something about a cute tiny little warlock with her big massive Felguard guardian...that's just awesome. But I have since learned that my home is now Horde side and sadly, they do not accept gnomes. So instead, she'll turn herself into either a skinny, little, wispy blood elf or a cute undead. That is, unless Cataclysm hits before I finish Loremaster...then there is a possiblity she will wait to become a goblin!

But....only after I'm ready to say good-bye...

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!

Yes...proof I really am a girl

So, I'm going to get slapped for this one I bet and "zomg, girl!" I am.

Why are Horde toons so ugly? Seriously. I have been thinking about transfer (faction transfering) one of my Alliance toons Horde side so I have some variety but...yuck!


Make my cute Draenei Priest with her adorable pig tails a Horde? Ewwwww
Make my pretty Nightelf druid, with the awesome hair a cow? Ahhhhhh
Make my Draenei Shama a....cow?...troll?....orc? *hide*
My warlock...what? Another Bloodelf.

*sigh*