Casual Hard Core

"The Greedy Goblin" had an interesting article today. Normally, I glance over his stuff and pass it by since mostly is slamming this person or that, but today he actually wrote an article about raiding in his guild. Now if you follow Gevlon, you know he formed a guild a EU server where he is determined to test his theory on raiding only in blue gear.

He actually pays people 100g to join his guild then when they hit 80 they get boosted to a status of raider and given 1000g, if they pass some kind of class understanding test.

I think it's a very interesting concept but not enough that I'm willing to try it. I do however agree with today's post since it's on the concept of raiding.

"PS: many people claim that they are in a casual guild that is progressing. In these "casual" guilds the leadership and the tank/healer corps is HC. The same people tank, lead the raid or do main healing every raid. The DPS and the off-healers rotate casually. Without the HC core, the "casual" guild dies."

After thinking about this for a bit, I've realized this is so very true. Without those "core" members you just don't raid in a casual guild. There has to be dedication from somewhere that keeps you raiding when no one is required to attend.

From what I've learned from our "casual" guild...more often then not you don't have enough people to actually raid. The dedication just isn't there in a casual guild.

The way around this is seems is to over populate. Easy enough right? Well not in this day and time. Guilds are more and more becoming a thing of the past. The LFG system has seen to that.

*sigh*

Computer Envy

Ok, with all the lag I've been experiencing the last couple days on my server, I'm officially jealous of people who have "instant load".

Or, well, relatively instant load times. I sit and wait and wait and wait some more for my loading screen. I could literally walk away from my computer, go make a sandwich and switch out some laundry in the amount of time it takes for me to actually be able to move around after hitting the log in option.

So, maybe not that long but seriously. Eto's computer..jealous. I have an awesome video card..but my processor can't handle the potential my card has. We can hit log at the same time and he's in, moving around and on his way well before me.

He doesn't fight the disconnects and lock ups that I do either.

Graphically, his game doesn't look much different then mine. At least not yet, we'll see how much that changes with the new 24 inch monitor he just ordered. Our video cards are very similar.

But I'm also one of those people who rarely ever spends money on myself. The only thing I've bought for myself, at least for my computer, is my video card and hard drive but only when both went out and stopped working completely.

So, my question for my fellow gamers. What parts of your computers do you splurge on? What pieces do you find it more beneficial to spend a little more money on?

Improvements!

Thanks to the help of two lovely readers, I am seeing a slight improvement on the dps of my lock.

What did I do?

Nothing really major. They had mentioned that I should make sure my spec was PvE specific, research spell rotation, check my gear and practice on the dummies. So I did the research part and swapped a couple of pieces of gear for T9 since I earned some emblems.

I'm excited to say in H-VH, H-OK and H-HoS (maybe H-AN too can't remember) last night I saw my dps jump from it's normal 2800 - 3200, to 3800 - 4200. That's a 1000 dps jump.

I was top of the dps charts for 2 or the 3 or 4 runs. Not that it means a whole lot, I know. Could just mean the other dps were really low, etc. But I was excited none the less. I at least felt like I wasn't being carried any longer.

Now the Shaman, she's a different story, we'll see what happens with her this weekend. I haven't been on her to try the same with her.

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!

I can has Shaman halp?!?

Seriously, is there no good blogs, websites, etc that can help this horrid shaman?

I believe this is the same problem I ran into when I was "trying" to play my shaman as elemental in BC, there is no helpful websites out there.

I needs gear! Just basic crafted or bought or normal 80 instance gear that will at least get Blizzard to "allow" me into heroics. Grrrrr

But for a noob shaman player, that has no idea what stats you need cause I've never done anything besides farm on her..that's not easily found.

So, my wonderful web friends...any suggestions on good Shaman help websites?

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!

The Many Adventures of 3 Crazy Taurens

So, my kiddo is starting to dabble a bit in the complex world of WoW. I'm starting to learn just how complex that world is through the eyes of a 9 year old.

We ended up handing over Eto's RaF account so he could play around in the game. Now that seems simple enough but we're talking about a kid that has no gaming experience beyond Mario and Link.

So he dabbles around a bit, rolls a warlock which he has a very hard time keeping alive, let alone understanding. Then he decides he wants to play with Eto and I. So the adventure begins. I roll a Tauren Druid because he has picked a Tauren Druid after we explain to him that he can shape-shift into bears and cats and such.

No big deal, there isn't many classes I haven't played and the idea of a boom-chicken sounds like something I'd like to try.

Eto rolls a warrior. There is no class he hasn't played. And of those the warrior class is his least favorite to level. Why, you may ask, then is he rolling another warrior. Something about Prot PvP? Anyway, he begins grinding out his starting levels (he rolled an Orc but deleted him to reroll a Tauren becuase Orc's are too short?!?) and then runs to meet us in Mulgore.

Zack and I have flown through our starting levels because our accounts are linked via RaF. We soon come to realize this is going to be an issue because Eto, even with BoA gear, levels much slower then we do.

Anyway, we pick up the quests and head off to kill some cougars and plainstriders and other such nasties. Things go pretty well, as we attempt to keep Zack on track. Teaching him to use the map and understand the quest. He tends to get lost pretty easily. After we spend 10 minutes trying to explain to him how to equip a bag and sell his trash items we're moving on to the next quest. It's time to go kill some gnolls for a guy in Bloodhoof Village.

Off we go, three new adventurers prepared to take on the world one gnoll at a time...

We pull, we attack, there are a spells and sword flying! I notice the health of both Eto and Zack beginning to drop so being the wonderful little druid cow that I am, I begin tossing out some heals.

"Woah, Mom! why am I green and glowy!?!" I hear this cry from across the room and giggle to myself as I explain to Zack that we, as druids, have the ability to heal people with our magic.

We manage those pulls and I drink something to fill up my mana while Eto runs off and grabs another mob. Little did he know that by doing so he's pulled the heart of the camp, every gnoll previously gathered around the fire begins beating on him as I frantically start healing him.

"Oh crap. MOOOOM! Matt's gonna die, Matt's gonna die, throw the green stuff on him. Don't die Matt I'm gonna help you!!!!!" and off the little druid runs to "help" save the warrior while in the process aggroing more mobs along the way.

"See the skull Zack, kill the one with the skull" Eto has thrown a raid marker on his target and Zack fumbles to try to target it as I'm now having to cast heals on both him and Eto. I get heal aggro from the mobs previously beating on Zack and my little tiny mana pool is depleted.

*SPLAT* goes the first druid.

"Mom, more green stuff on Matt, hurry, hurry!*

*SPLAT* goes the little warrior.

"Ohh, I'm gonna kill you gnolls for that" Zack begins beating on the gnolls with his level 1 staff but somehow manages to figure out which one is the healing spell and cast it on himself.

"NOOOOOOO Zack! Don't beat on them RUNNN!" Eto and I are both calling to him in unison.

"OK, OK...ohhh, Mom there are wolves where do I go, where do I go?" Zack makes a run with a trail of gnolls in hot pursuit and soon a wolf or two as well.

Somehow Zack manages to get out of aggro range and to heal himself. So Eto and I release and run back to our bodies. We are in a safe place to rez, though there is a lot of gnolls just outside our aggro range. We rez and sit to eat and drink.

Before we manage to finish, in comes a charging cow..."shew, that was kinda scary, Matt don't do that again!" We both giggle a little. "NOW, I'm gonna kill that skull"

Off the little druid charges, as we run after him picking off the mobs he is aggroing along the way...giggling the entire time.... "Noooo! Zack, come back!"

Day one down...and I had to pull him away to get him off to bed...think we have a future wow player on our hands.

*Sigh* Lesson of the day? EXPLAIN AGGRO RADIUS!

Happy Friday everyone!!!!!!!! <3

Squee!

Had to share this one! Yay! Finally something exciting comes from that horrid heroic!

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...

GM Rant

How many hits can on poor little raid group take? Apparently, a lot.

As of this morning, it appears we are now down a tank and healer as well as the dps spot(s) we've been trying to fill. Our OT (warrior) and party healer (druid) have run up against obstacles, in real life, that have caused them to need to let their wow time elapse.

Our once full raid group, has taken a couple pretty big hits over the last 2 weeks. But the lose of a tank and a healer, is the biggest one yet. It's hard enough to find dps.

Our line up looks something like this now:
MT - DeathKnight
OT - EMPTY
Heals - Shaman
Heals - Priest
Heals - EMPTY
DPS - Warrior
DPS - Warlcok
DPS - Mage*
DPS - Paladin*
DPS - EMPTY

I have marked the mage because just recently joined our group to see how they like it and we haven't ran anything to give them a feel yet.

The Paladin is marked simply because they are not in the guild and have other obligations to their current guild that prevents them from being able to attend all our events.

Now we do have a couple back up OTs and healers in the guild. However, by utilizing them, we would be removing them from other positions in the raid since they are alts of our raiders.

Example:
DPS Warrior = OT Prot
MT Death Knight = Holy Priest Heals
Shaman Healer = OT Druid

Regardless of what we do it's going to require us to either recruit a tank and a healer or 2 healers or 1 healer and another dps. Our warrior tank is willing to fill in as OT until we find another but does not want this to become his main raid spec. I'm very reluctant to switch from DK tanking to healing, simply because finding a MT is even harder then finding an OT.

So what is a girl to do? It's my responsibility to keep the raids going, to keep the guild on track, to keep people from becoming stagnant and wanting to quit. We all want to keep raiding, or better yet, raid consistently. That's my job as Guild Master. A job I feel like I am currently failing at.

The only thing left for me to do, that I haven't don yet, is spam trade with guild recruitment messages. Which I totally despise doing. It normally brings us the crazies, children, beggars and players otherwise scorned from other guilds for their behavior.

I have listed a message on the Shadow Council forums, listed posts on the wow_ladies forum over on LiveJournal...we have a website, we talk to, or encourage our members, to talk to people in their pug groups that are unguilded. However, this strategy doesn't work so well now that you are VERY unlikely to be grouped with someone from your own server during a pug.

We have a clear, defined definition of what we are and what we are looking for. We're a group of casual, fun, relaxed players looking for people to join our 10 man raid group. We're not worried about gear scores or experience levels, we're willing to help with that. Our only requirement is that the person be fun, relaxed and looking to have a good time while keeping the drama out of. Is that so hard to find?

Sheesh, there has to be something I'm missing...