tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54284715039508953812024-03-13T02:49:06.299-06:00Rae's GroveThoughts on Life, WoW, Writing, and TranquilityRaehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-51729069771740946372011-02-17T22:16:00.000-06:002011-02-17T22:16:42.379-06:00Trinkets, regen, specs, oh my!Lots of things have changed in the last week and a half since my last big post. I've acquired the Darkmoon Card: Tsunami, subsequently stopped using it (I feel like it'll be more useful in heroic fights), changed spec and healing style three and two times, respectively, gone from feeling like I have no mana to feeling like I have almost too much (hence the trinket switch), and heard that druids and shaman are likely to get their very own healing cooldown! It's been a busy, busy time.<br />
<br />
I almost wish I'd sold the Darkmoon Card. Almost. When I did my mana experiment last Tuesday after the new mechanic and spec changes, I ran with <a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=gjfGnP3Kx.aei.druid.">this spec</a>. It was pretty painful, to say the least. Keeping up at least three Rejuvs in order to supplement my faster Nourishes drained my mana faaaaast. So after the raid I took a trip to Shattrath, watched a quick Tauren Chieftans concert (I'm a complete fangirl :P) and came back with a shiny new card to show for it. But really, it didn't help all that much.<br />
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Wednesday I changed <a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=gj-_A3jC.aei.druid.">my spec</a>, opting out of Efflorescence entirely. The mana situation didn't feel any better. If anything, it felt worse because I wasn't contributing as much AoE healing to the raid. But I've been in bad mana situations before. Gear fixes many things and I figured I would get used to it in time.<br />
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Then I went on vacation and wasn't in the raid Friday. The guild downed Cho'gall, woot! Disc was broken (and has since been fixed), but the fight came together well enough. We downed him again this week, a one-shot. I'm proud of us :). But while I was on vacation, I read a lot of blog posts. When you don't have WoW to crowd the downtime, it's amazing how much you can read! Anyway, I found <a href="http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/monday-musings-is-natures-bounty-worth-it-edition/">Beru's post</a> over at Falling Leaves and Wings about her experiences removing Efflorescence from her spec and why she's opting out of Nature's Bounty instead. She has a lot of numbers to back up her findings (I really should use World of Logs, just for my own knowledge, put that on the to-do list :P), but the gist of it was this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Ok, I hear what you are thinking now “but all of those encounters have SO much raid damage that efflorescence really shines”. I agree! So I thought “ok, let me find an encounter without a lot of raid damage”. And you know what? <b>THEY DON’T EXIST!</b></blockquote><br />
And thinking back on the fights, I tend to agree. So I removed Nature's Bounty, took back Efflorescence, and added Furor to my build (I'd been pretty much ignoring it before). And now my mana problems are non-existent. My second spirit trinket is now benched in favor of my <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=68777">Vibrant Alchemist Stone</a>, which provides throughput AND a bit of a mana buff for when I use my potions. With the <a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=gsuame075.aei.druid.">new spec</a>, I'm having no more mana problems. Yay :).<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Healing Cooldown!</b></span><br />
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Let's get ready to cooldown! Hmmm, sounded more epic in my head.<br />
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Anyway, a delicious post from blue <a href="http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2089271114?page=1#1">Nethaera</a> gives druids and shaman hope that we'll get a healing cooldown similar to Guardian Spirit or Hand of Sacrifice in the near future. Or at least it shows that the devs are thinking about it.<br />
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There's been a lot of <a href="http://r4healingtouch.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/brainstorming-how-to-improve-natures-swiftness/">cool ideas</a> thrown around about what that cooldown might be. One of them I see a lot is Barkskin castable on others. I was thinking that was a cool idea, too, then something I read on <a href="http://www.restokin.com/2011/02/healing-cooldown-discussion/">Restokin</a> got me thinking: Barkskin cast on others is just asking of a PvP-based nerf. The cooldown on your personal Barkskin would definitely be tied to the healing cooldown, which sucks on fights where big damage comes down on everyone (hello Nefarian!) and fights where the tank isn't the only one being beaten on (Maloriak comes to mind).<br />
<br />
Jar's ideas over at Rank 4 Healing Touch got me thinking, though, that Nature's Swiftness isn't really a great talent anymore. It doesn't give tanks much health back with our huge health pools and even DPS aren't healed to full health with it (13% for DPS and 20% for tanks, he writes), so really it's a nice way to play catch-up when tank healing, but that's about it. And when we only get 41 talent points, having one point that does so little to actively affect your healing isn't that great. Augmenting Nature's Swiftness to make it more fun and interesting would certainly be cool. But what if we dropped the talent all together?<br />
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If there was a hole in the talent tree where NS used to be, that would make room for the healing cooldown talent we'd all like. A targeted version of Barkskin or an augment to Thorns (wouldn't that be interesting!)<br />
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Actually, if you can hang with me while I go stream-of-consciousness, a talent that made Thorns into a healing cooldown would be really cool. It would likely need to increase the cooldown on Thorns itself to 3 minutes or so, perhaps decreasing the damage dealt by Thorns by 25% and the duration by 10 seconds, but decreasing damage taken by the target by 30%. Admittedly, it's not an advanced idea, mostly modeled after the current healing cooldowns of other classes, but the added threat the tank is generating is a cool bonus. Maybe don't even nerf the damage dealt by Thorns. I'd sort of like that. It would get me to use Thorns more often!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Birthday inc!</b></span><br />
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I'm all full of exclamation points today :). So my birthday is coming up later this month and one of the things I'm getting is the ubercool Razer Naga mouse. I plan to map a TON of abilities to my shiny new 17 buttons and hopefully get used to them. Once I'm relatively comfortable with it, I'll post a bit about it and how things are going with the transition. I'm not kidding myself that it'll be easy or instant. It took me a while to adjust to mouseover macro healing, it'll take me a while to adjust to click-to-cast healing :P. But I can make it work!Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-30435704972357477722011-02-13T22:02:00.002-06:002011-02-13T22:16:20.260-06:00[Local Time] AFK!I'd forgotten that I would be out of town this week! My Daddy turned 73 Friday, so Vivi and I went to visit him and Mom. So not much happened, but I still have stuff to talk about!<br />
<br />
First off, traveling with a baby is MUCH easier when we can stop at McDonalds and let her play for a little while in between naps. Yay for growth :).<br />
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Second, my guild downed Cho'gall! Yay! Without me. Not so yay, but I'm happy for them. I'm glad we're still making progress, though :). Now we just need to hit up Al'Akir and Nefarion. I'm excited about our accomplishment as a guild and I'm really looking forward to killing him next week :).<br />
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My little lock didn't make 85 as I'd hoped /sadface. She did make it to 83, though, so I'm happy enough with that. Next week! Also, she looks like a Roman legionnaire now instead of a holy priest now that she's left Hyjal and entered Deepholm :P.<br />
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I talked a lot about healing and regen last week and my plans to change my trinkets and spec. Long story short: I picked up the second regen trinket, I'm still unsure as to whether I want to keep Efflorescence in my spec. Once I'm back home (yep, still out of town :P), I'll write up my feelings overall about both those things :).<br />
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And now, the new idle treeform animation that may convince me to take out my Treant glyph:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://2.gvt0.com/vi/hVBl_OSKvr4/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hVBl_OSKvr4&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hVBl_OSKvr4&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object></div>Skip to :52 for the treeform goodness :).Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-58626588212398292142011-02-07T16:07:00.001-06:002011-02-08T10:41:25.483-06:00[Local Time] 2-7-11Woohoo! It's been an amazing two weeks for my raiding guild! Last week we downed both Maloriak and the Twilight Ascendant Council for the first time, then this week we took both out on the first try! In addition, we also killed Atramedes and Chimaeron with relative ease, go us! Chimaeron went down on the second attempt, even! Then we got a full night of attempts on Cho'gall and got him to 8%. <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i53.tinypic.com/mra0qc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="http://i53.tinypic.com/mra0qc.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my guild and <strike>Loot Pinata</strike> Chimaeron! </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
It seems like things have just clicked on the raid front. We aren't struggling with low DPS on encounters anymore and the mechanics don't seem to be tripping people up the way they were just a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if it's just getting back into the raiding groove or if the little gear upgrades just make a huge combined difference. Either way, it's a great feeling!<br />
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My little lock made it to 82 fairly easily, yay! She replaced her winged helm with something more drab: a whitish hood that, when combined with her new white robe, makes her look a bit like a priest. A convenient lure for the wary souls, perhaps? Mwahahahahaha!<br />
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I've been leveling her destruction because affliction has changed so much since I played her last in BC. Now I'm starting to look at it again. I don't yet know if I want to try to make her a PvP toon (or even engage in PvP on any toon), but if I do I'm sure it'll be afflic. I used to love the affliction playstyle, but it seems like the dot-and-forget thing is pretty well dead. I might run with it in a few dungeons (with dual spec costing only 10g, there was no reason not to buy it) and see how I like it. In the meantime, I'm happy playing with fire.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheKXv9LIHV9EeU5GTxnNSBonpacsiDHhNUIU0ugk2wCfolxl_0r6TZ-tUY3b1Stgk0nRUF0aq-Js5bf9UUB_XjlvyojKHqxiVRtwWrsw453xhr7QNzKpAgQv-GP_VtHudmKoLB1u4quOUY/s1600/inv_inscription_tarot_tsunamicard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheKXv9LIHV9EeU5GTxnNSBonpacsiDHhNUIU0ugk2wCfolxl_0r6TZ-tUY3b1Stgk0nRUF0aq-Js5bf9UUB_XjlvyojKHqxiVRtwWrsw453xhr7QNzKpAgQv-GP_VtHudmKoLB1u4quOUY/s1600/inv_inscription_tarot_tsunamicard.jpg" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwjaNef-w0ACqBNpkADjFDzAR7eKS185zeec1tzrY-HwCJRtF6u7XwUHvvoQ-Jn0tEMKYpOdHYL0yus8n6l-G7qn8NcJwm0A4aRUcC2MupeDMbc1NJhRjqCWZlXy38zwouIrzQGYhNoZQ5/s1600/inv_misc_cat_trinket06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwjaNef-w0ACqBNpkADjFDzAR7eKS185zeec1tzrY-HwCJRtF6u7XwUHvvoQ-Jn0tEMKYpOdHYL0yus8n6l-G7qn8NcJwm0A4aRUcC2MupeDMbc1NJhRjqCWZlXy38zwouIrzQGYhNoZQ5/s1600/inv_misc_cat_trinket06.jpg" /></a>My tsunami deck is complete and the Darkmoon Faire is this week! Only I don't know if I want it anymore :P. With the patch coming out tomorrow that includes an alchemist stone for healers, I'm not sure if I'm better off selling the deck I made and just sticking with the cheap-to-make stone that's a throughput buff. I was lucky and picked up the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=59354/jar-of-ancient-remedies">Jar of Ancient Remedies</a> off Maloriak the other day, so it's not like I don't already have a nice regen trinket. Most likely I'll heal Tuesday with the alchemist stone and see if my mana regen is a problem. If it is, I'll pick up the Darkmoon card. If it's not, then I'll sell it. Or maybe I'll keep the card anyway so I can have a regen set and a throughput set. I'm still undecided!<br />
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I'm wondering if I should drop Efflorescence. A lot of druid blogs are advocating it, and have some very convincing math to back it up, but I'm just not sure it's the best course of action for my 10man. We run druid, holy priest, shaman, so we do have lots of AoE healing. I'm usually a tank healer, so my AoE heals are sort of afterthoughts, but it's nice to have two of them. After the Tuesday throughput vs. regen experiment I may change my spec Wednesday and take out Efflorescence, see how that goes. Ah, the wonders of new mechanics!Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-1666148572792705292011-02-03T10:37:00.000-06:002011-02-03T10:37:41.379-06:00Diapers & Dragons: Being a parent and a raiderI think I've mentioned a <a href="http://raevynsgrove.blogspot.com/search/label/parenting">couple of times now</a> that I have a baby girl. She's a little over 10 months old. And I raid regularly and if it doesn't count as hardcore, it's enough to satisfy me. My guild is 9/12 in 10man raiding now, with a small, close-knit group who's been doing 10s together since the beginning of Wrath, when we were the first ten people to make it to 80. I'm proud of them as a guild and I need no qualifiers about including raiders with children. Anyone can raid, it's all about priorities and setting boundaries and goals. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The nay sayers are wrong</b></span> <br />
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When I got pregnant, I had a lot of people both in and out of WoW tell me to put my raiding life behind me. "You won't have time to play games," they said. My husband works while I stay home. I was told how he wouldn't be able to take care of the baby so I could play occasionally. And just give up the whole concept of us both raiding together.<br />
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I was heartbroken by this. These weren't just people who saw WoW as a silly, pointless game, but people who actually have kids and play the game. Surely they knew what they were talking about.<br />
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Except they didn't. I talked to my mom, worried and scared that I wouldn't have any free time for games or my own activities. I was looking forward to being a mother, but I didn't want that to be my only definition. She was understanding and patient and, like always, supportive.<br />
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"You can make the time," she told me. And I knew it was true because that's what she did. Her situation was different; both my parents worked, but they always spent lots of time with me in addition to doing their own things. Mom played volleyball in a work league for years (until her knees gave out!). She worked in the yard and did crafty things and went shopping (this is a hobby for her, you must understand). Being a mother was probably her most defining characteristic, but it wasn't her only one.<br />
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Armed with that confidence, I set out to have my own life in WoW, to keep being a raider. And it's worked out better than I hoped.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Communication & Compromise</span></b><br />
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My husband and I both play WoW. He's our awesome pally tank, while I'm the trusty tree healer saving his ass from the fire. We've enjoyed this hobby together ever since WoW was released and we played EverQuest together before that. Our WoW characters predate our marriage and playing games together is one of the cornerstones of our relationship. We love it.<br />
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He wanted to raid. I wanted to raid. So we sat down and talked about how it would work out. With the 25man guild we were in before Cata came out, it wasn't so hard to swap nights when the baby was young. But we still wanted to raid together and when we split into a 10man guild, losing one of us every other night didn't make for a great raiding environment. We talked about it and decided we wanted to make that happen and we would both do what we could to further that goal.<br />
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So he helps out when he's not at work, watches the baby for me sometimes when I need a nap or am making dinner. I try to let him have some time to destress before raids and on our days off from raiding. Neither of us is wholly responsible for our daughter, and that has worked out for the best.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Scheduling my time -- and baby's</span></b><br />
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The baby books tell you to get the baby on a schedule and keep it up. I second this, wholeheartedly. The first three months there wasn't much scheduling to be done. Vivi ate every two hours for 45 minutes or an hour, then slept until she was hungry again. My time was split between feeding her and sleeping myself. It got better, but during that time I didn't play WoW. I knew it was coming and I let my guild know that I wouldn't be around a couple of months.<br />
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Gradually Vivi began to have more of a schedule. The real turning point was the introduction of solid foods, so she would take a nap right after a big meal. Those touchstones throughout the day gave stability to her life, and mine, and a much-needed framework for my day and meeting my goals.<br />
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At around five months, Vivi slipped into a relatively regular schedule as far as when she went to sleep at night. Almost every evening she's asleep by 9pm. Now I take her at 8:30 for a bath, a book, and bed. That one thing is the backbone of my ability to raid. I would love for her to go to sleep earlier, but I have deferred to her body's clock. She can't get to sleep (without long bouts of crying) before then, so I don't push it. The baby will always come first, we just plan our lives around her :).<br />
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During the day I get about an hour for housework, blogging, and WoW during her naptimes. I try to keep it to things I can get out of easily if she wakes up early (dailies, gathering, leveling alts, research for raids or gear), but the extra time I get before she goes to bed means I don't have to stress about which boss a BiS piece will drop off. I've already looked at the loot tables and made my list. These are things I would have done on Tuesdays or when I was bored of playing (when you have all day to play, it's amazing how often you decide you don't want to :P). Now I do them in smaller pieces.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Honesty with the guild</span></b><br />
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I knew going in that having a baby would change things as far as raiding. I let my guildies know that, too. I told them when I could raid and let them decide how to work me into that schedule. It turns out that they are truly gracious, amazing people and scheduled raids so that I can make the whole thing. I cannot say enough how thankful I am that I'm friends with these guys.<br />
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If I hadn't been as clear or as up front about my limitations, I think there would have been more resentment. Communication is important in all relationships, not just the spousal ones. I was a recruitment officer for a long time and it caused fewer headaches for me if I knew that a recruit had family issues that might come up. I keep the guild up to date and they keep me raiding. It's a good balance :). <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Setting reasonable goals </span></b><br />
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This is something I've had a hard time with. My expectations of myself were far higher than my ability to reach them and I've had to tamp down the frustration with a heady dose of reality. I can run a daily heroic three or four times a week. I can raid three times a week. I will not have the gear I could get if I could run more of these things. I am not a failure for not managing to be the best.<br />
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This is the important thing and probably the biggest lesson I've learned. It's early in the expansion. I have time to catch up and my guild is making progress. I am okay.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Parent AND Gamer</span></b><br />
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I didn't want to be one or the other. I want to be both and show my daughter that I can take care of her needs and my own as well. I want her to see the confidence that I have and make that a part of her. I don't think parents who have no life outside their children are making the best choices for the child or themselves.<br />
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That doesn't mean it doesn't take work. The evening of every raid day is a little rushed, with making dinner and getting Vivi fed and in bed by 9. The schedule is just a bit tighter. And the morning after a raid, which ends at 11:30 (but I never get to bed before midnight), always comes just a little sooner than I'd like. But it's worth it. I have an adorable, curious, giggling little girl who is the center of my universe. And orbiting her I have a great network of friends and games that my husband and I rely on to keep us sane. Our full, rich life is totally worth it :).Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-71933294434246547962011-01-30T20:52:00.000-06:002011-01-30T20:52:49.674-06:00[Local Time]When I started out as a newspaper reporter, fresh out of college, my editor told me I'd need to write 8-10 stories a week. That was a daunting task; researching, interviewing, taking photos (it was a small paper :P), and editing 10 pieces a week was more work than I'd ever done. But really, it wasn't so bad. The paper ran five days a week (one of those rare small dailies), and each day my section had a different theme. Big feature Monday, economy Tuesday, Schools Wednesday, etc. So I'd write the story for my section. Then I'd write a column that gathered up all the small-town bits that weren't really big enough for their own story. Then I'd write a feature for the front page. And maybe I'd cover an event. My point is, by breaking down the overall task into smaller bits and focusing on those, the deadlines themselves weren't so daunting.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Enter [Local Time]</span></b><br />
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I'm trying to keep this blog active and this is one way I can do it. Each week (or so) I'll post a sort of roundup of the things I'm working on and that my guild is working on. I keep writing and I keep an idea of what kind of goals I was working toward and how close I am to finishing them.<br />
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This week I've pulled my trusty lock out of BC storage. She was my PvP character in the closing months before Wrath came out and so she sports a full set of epic PvP gear (this is back when the term "welfare epics" was coined). Now she worked her butt off to get these epics, don't get me wrong, but it's not nearly the work load we see in Arenas today. Mostly she was a battleground toon and I liked it that way.<br />
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Anyway, she was level 73 on Monday and she's level 77 today. Big jump! A full rested exp bar and all the heirloom items I can get my hands on sure does help :). Unfortunately, I dropped Affliction and picked up Destruction. I say unfortunately because I have a great love for Affliction. Or at least I used to. I leveled Affliction all the way to 70 and then kept it up through the months of battlegrounds PvP. But I didn't play her much at all during Wrath (about two levels over the course of the xpac, total), so I know this is news to no one but me, but I miss all the instant dots that differentiated that spec. It's become less about the instant casts and more about lining up Drain Soul and Drain Life. And that's not really the spec I want to play. Destruction feels much more like what I'm used to, where I cast one or two spells with a cast time and finish off the rest with instants that really do damage. I suppose dots don't tick as hard as they used to. Ah well.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGm7e1X8KF26GQfvG_J7Qk9Mlnpf-WXNCoahZWiaH06ZuumaJCge3h_n-p0OW3WoRXr3FIU0HL7yJgiA8Ikpon96CcflYTpAgLdEXJqUe-_Gcjd1jM7oldlEinZ_NB6HOL6oz6Xh1kcKa3/s1600/Syrce+wings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGm7e1X8KF26GQfvG_J7Qk9Mlnpf-WXNCoahZWiaH06ZuumaJCge3h_n-p0OW3WoRXr3FIU0HL7yJgiA8Ikpon96CcflYTpAgLdEXJqUe-_Gcjd1jM7oldlEinZ_NB6HOL6oz6Xh1kcKa3/s320/Syrce+wings.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who would get rid of these if they had the choice?!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>She's still wearing her <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=33683">Vengeful Gladiator's Felweave Cowl</a>, though. For those of you who either didn't play during BC or have forgotten the awesome, that's the purple demon wings. Every so often they flare out, flap, and then disappear. It's a really random but exceptionally cool animation that I am reluctant to give up. I've seen upgrades, but right now it's still not worth it to give up the cool factor. Probably once I hit 80 I'll let it go.<br />
<br />
On the guild front, we're making serious progress! 7/12 is, I think, our official progression. This week we downed Maloriak and the Twilight Ascendant Council and I'm really proud. We came into both fights knowing the encounters (we spent last week beating our heads against both), but without a whole lot of upgraded gear throughout the raid. Either we were totally on our A game or the stars aligned (or both :P), but we were able to make the interrupts stick on the potion guy and we got all four Twilight Ascendants to right around 25% before the third phase.<br />
<br />
We took a look at Cho'gall and tried to figure him out a bit, but we didn't really get that far with only 30 minutes left in the raid. Hopefully we'll get him down next week.<br />
<br />
We've been plagued by DCs and bad lag on Tuesdays the last two weeks. I wonder if that's a sign from Blizz?<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goals</span></b><br />
<br />
This coming week I want to get my lock to 82. I figure it's doable and probably easier solo than duoing (and I think I want to blog about making quests harder to do in a group :\). Hopefully I won't run out of rested and I'll still have time left over for flask farming.<br />
<br />
Sell those Darkmoon cards! I have a stash of several leftovers from making the pieces of my Tsunami deck. The Darkmoon Faire is coming in a week, which means prices will only go up. I'd like to make some cash on these while I have the chance since the prices on them will continue to go down each month as more and more people get their decks.<br />
<br />
Kill Atramedes and Cho'gall! That may be a little far-fetched, but right now I'm still riding high on getting two new kills this week. At least one of them should be doable, I'm just not sure which :P. I suppose it'll depend on which bosses we kill first and what our raid leader decides to do on our progression night.<br />
<br />
Until next week, good luck!Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-42431086476954416392011-01-29T15:58:00.000-06:002011-01-29T15:58:47.010-06:00My dirty little secretHi everyone. My name's Raevyn and I'm an addon addict.<br />
<br />
This is the exact opposite of my husband, who has Omen, DBM, and not much else. I laugh about my penchant for latching onto new addons along with everyone else, but it's not something I'm looking to fix. Around once every month a new addon will catch my eye or an old one will show me something new, and I'll frantically go about changing my UI to make it better. Unlike other addictions, my addon addiction is keyed toward making my life (in this case my gaming experience) better. For the most part, my addons reflect that.<br />
<br />
Back in the early days of EverQuest, I tried to work with addons. They were cumbersome, gangly things that didn't really do much besides alter the appearance of your UI. I tried with four of five different styles but I could never get them to function well in the game. I think part of it is that Sony made modifying your UI a herculean effort, so few people used mods and fewer still made them. Blizzard has done just the opposite, making UI modification a cottage industry that's open to anyone with a little time and a clear idea of what they want to do.<br />
<br />
Players can change the look of their bars, their maps, their buttons, their raid frames, their chat, their buffs, add timers, overlays, extra buttons, frames that indicate distances, aggro, healing done, damage done, and more! At the end of the day, with some time spent searching sites like <a href="http://wow.curse.com/">Curse</a> or <a href="http://www.wowinterface.com/">WoW Interface</a> your UI can look however you want it to. The problem, of course, is where do you stop?<br />
<br />
My answer: I don't.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtHsYkT3t2COFcM0hU0UPVdEECoXk4UqNW5gCyhSuDv6Vl1qsYccZ2wAy9CaGNmMJblY6sC3AZ8yRkSOp_Q1UBAEKGod8GtAoytS_1fJdr0kF6Spma8HYriM9su6S46PrAsVazo1YmwQu6/s1600/Addonscluttered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtHsYkT3t2COFcM0hU0UPVdEECoXk4UqNW5gCyhSuDv6Vl1qsYccZ2wAy9CaGNmMJblY6sC3AZ8yRkSOp_Q1UBAEKGod8GtAoytS_1fJdr0kF6Spma8HYriM9su6S46PrAsVazo1YmwQu6/s640/Addonscluttered.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The shot above is pretty crowded. My Vuhdo bars are in the middle and my buffs take up a hefty chunk of space along the side while my bars crowd the bottom. I have countdown bars seemingly all over the place and healing done and received scrolls over the other spots. This is actually better than it used to be. I searched for a screenshot of an early UI compilation. I remember it well. My Grid bars were nearly an inch wide per raider and extended over half my screen. With everything else bumping up against that, I had a very small box in the middle that was my view of my character. I could see the fire so I could get out of it, but very little else.<br />
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The difference between then and now is pretty big.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaj-tGpCYXcPdS0tYnAlu7eZHGyaMBJJotDHi1HgfCjd1x6ggZVvnc9KEdGyv_x45xVEjJ1JywA6AoxTMvJqzpqWjwlvXVDYwXwXVO3QWU108l3kLQsKGB5JgrnhwpDi_1zkLkZK4Qjtj9/s1600/Addons4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaj-tGpCYXcPdS0tYnAlu7eZHGyaMBJJotDHi1HgfCjd1x6ggZVvnc9KEdGyv_x45xVEjJ1JywA6AoxTMvJqzpqWjwlvXVDYwXwXVO3QWU108l3kLQsKGB5JgrnhwpDi_1zkLkZK4Qjtj9/s640/Addons4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>Recently I went through and updated my UI to make it less cluttered and easier to see everything. I moved my player and target frames to the center of the screen under my character and took a lot of my superfluous buttons (the two blocks of bars on the left) and made them show up only when I moused over them, and not in combat at all. Then the bits that I need in combat, like healthstones and potions, I put on the other side of the screen. They only show up while I'm in combat. Overall, it's a lot easier to play with.<br />
<br />
I use a lot of addons. I enjoy using them because each of them serves a purpose for me.<br />
<br />
<u><i><b>Vuhdo</b></i></u> The big debate between Vuhdo and Healbot and Grid will rage indefinitely. I just don't really tend to get into it. I like what Vuhdo can do with hot placement. It's easy to configure and customize. Although I don't use it, I could easily configure it to use click healing. It's got a lot of features I don't use, but I'm ok with that. <b></b>I'm comfortable with it. I used Grid for a long time, but eventually having to update two or three addons to get what I had in one, along with the easier to maneuver interface, led me away from Grid. My only real experience with Healbot was in BC and I didn't use it for long. I hear it's a very good addon. When people ask what they should use, I recommend Vuhdo, but I amend it with a caveat to use what they like. Every healer is different.<br />
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<i><u><b>Shadowed UF</b></u></i> I use this addon on every one of my characters. The amount of information you can display (or not display) on player, target, target of target, target of target of target, and boss frames is amazing. All I need is bars with numbers. This addon gives me bars with numbers, and I can say which bars have which numbers. For example, the percentage on the mana/energy/rage bar on my target is actually their percentage of health, rather than their percentage of power. I find that easier to look at than having another number up with the boss health numbers.<br />
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<u><i><b>Prat</b></i></u> A basic chat frame addon. I like class names in chat. I like to know the level of the person I'm talking to. I like having time stamps on whispers. Prat does all these things simply and effectively.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Bartender4</b></u></i> Gotta mod the buttons up! I use this to help unclutter my macros and to make the cool clusters of buttons that only show up in combat or on mouseover. Great for getting things out of the way and easy to configure my preferences for keybinds.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Quartz</b></u></i> Everyone's go-to cast bar. I use it to show my own and my target's cast bars and the spells they're casting. Useful, functional, unintrusive. I love it.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Tidy Plates/Threat Plates</b></u></i> I totally grabbed this from <a href="http://thebigbearbutt.com/">Big Bear Butt</a>'s tanking guide when I was learning how to tank and now I totally love it for healing and my DPS characters as well. If you're a tank, the nameplates are green when mobs are aggroed on you. If you're not, the nameplates are green when mobs <i>aren't</i> aggroed on you. Perfect for fights like Omnitron Defense System where it's kind of important to know if an ooze is attached to me and if so, which one. I thought having nameplates in my face would be annoying, but I've embraced them. I can see mob health, aggro, and a cast bar for things I don't have targeted at a glance. <br />
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<i><u><b>Satrina Buff Frames</b></u></i> I've heard this is going the way of the dodo and I'm extremely sad. SBF is a huge asset, letting me move my buff frames from up top to a smaller list along the left side. Recently I've configured it to paste a big column showing the buffs (hostile) or debuffs (friendly) of my target. This makes it easier to figure out when it's more effective to use our now-expensive dispels and when the boss is about to start hitting extra hard.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>ForteXorcist</b></u></i> I used to use SO many of this addons cool features, but nowadays I really only use the cooldown bar. I've since moved the bar back down to the right hand side under my Skada frame, so the screenshot above isn't entirely accurate. It lets me watch how close my cooldowns are to being ready again. I suppose I could add a set of Power Auras to do the same thing, but I still like my bar. It stays for now.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Chinchilla Map</b></u></i> This makes my map square on two sides and round on two sides. It also tells me who is pinging the map and what my map coordinates are. It can do other things that I'm not interested in. But that may change. I have been known to go back and make use of old features when I get a wild hair to do so :P.<br />
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<i><u><b>Mik Scrolling Battle Text</b></u></i> This is the addon I'd most like to either replace or get rid of. I like seeing my healing numbers, knowing what's coming in, but I'm not entirely sure it's not just background noise getting lost in the ocean of the raid environment. I haven't seen anything better yet, though, so right now it teeters on the edge of oblivion.<br />
<br />
<i><u><b>Power Auras Classic</b></u></i> This is my current favorite addon. It does a little bit of everything if you take the time to configure it. It can also make your screen look like a complete mess.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQjgMjDqtTkNTdD3PJoT-rdnYWnZTQsHgX2S-9cqfmBxTILo7I71D_Y5r35K_j_4OQ7c2McGGYuEP1L41koR2wrGz54WpWXNyiDZml_nr98KrKFn-adp_NfjnlAhmBtFH1WW_Hl7QlRqe4/s1600/Addons3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQjgMjDqtTkNTdD3PJoT-rdnYWnZTQsHgX2S-9cqfmBxTILo7I71D_Y5r35K_j_4OQ7c2McGGYuEP1L41koR2wrGz54WpWXNyiDZml_nr98KrKFn-adp_NfjnlAhmBtFH1WW_Hl7QlRqe4/s640/Addons3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
Don't try this at home! Actually, do, it's funny to see all your various timers and auras up all at once and try to pick them apart. I have auras that tell me when my Wildgrowth and Swiftmend are off cooldown, when the haste buff from Nature's Grace is active and for how long, how long my Omen of Clarity has to run (thanks to Keeva at <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/">TBJ</a>), how long my tree form has left, and then that cluster in the middle are mostly get-out-of-crap warnings for the Twilight Ascendant Council fight (thanks to Beru at <a href="http://fallingleavesandwings.wordpress.com/">Falling Leaves and Wings</a>). There's also a couple that show me the number of Lacerate stacks I have up as a bear. Power Auras is imminently versatile and definitely a mod I use for many, many things.<br />
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<br />
<i><u><b>Skada</b></u></i> Probably my newest addon, Skada replaces the functionality of both Omen and Recount, acting as an aggro table during combat and a damage/healing done table out of it. I can track individual fights and Skada comes with absorbs built into the healing numbers, which gives me a better picture of disc priest output.<br />
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<i><u><b>DBM/Spell Timers</b></u></i> Duh, who doesn't use this (or its cousin BigWigs) for raiding? Get out of the bad, here comes the big boss strike, everybody turn away from the boss RIGHT NOW -- it tells you all that and more. I also download DBM Spell Timers (from the <a href="http://www.deadlybossmods.com/">DBM</a> site) so that I can see when druid innervates and brezes are up along with the cooldown on heroism. More useful to have in a 25-man raid, but still nifty. If something HAD to go and I'd already ditched MSBT, I'd probably get rid of the spell timers next.<br />
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I guess my point in listing all these addons is that they have a purpose (mostly). I'm fully addicted to making modifications to my UI in order to improve my game. I try new things, put them into practice, and if they work, I keep them. If they fall flat (as so many have), then I ditch them. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.<br />
<br />
Hi, my name is Raevyn and I'm an addon addict. And I feel fine :).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-8716414473734298452011-01-25T11:07:00.001-06:002011-01-25T11:44:54.841-06:00A little help from my friendsI mentioned last time about raiding and the niggly part of me that feels like I'm not doing enough to be prepared because of my responsibilities as a parent that come first. But I neglected to mention something very important: I'm getting to raid. And this is entirely because of the kindness of the eight or so other people I raid with.<br />
<br />
See, at the tender age of 6 months Vivi finally decided she could go to sleep at a regular time, right about 9pm, each night. That's great, except before she was born, our raids started at 8pm. I was prepared to alternate raid nights with my husband, Grundle, to put the baby to sleep at the right time, respec as a bear as necessary (hence my numerous posts about tanking :P), and pretty much abase myself before these people to keep my raid spot as much as I could. But I didn't have to because they are awesome.<br />
<br />
Instead, my raid completely changed the raid schedule to fit mine. We now raid three nights a week from 9:30 to 11:30, sometimes pushing midnight on Fridays. And all of us are pretty happy with it.<br />
<br />
I know that everyone would probably like to push the raid schedule back toward 8, but right now Vivi is still stuck firmly at a 9pm bedtime (and since she wakes up at 5:30 to 6am each morning, I'd rather not push that wake up time any earlier if I can help it). We get our farm content down, though, and have at least a full raid day, if not more, for working on new stuff. It's a really nice balance and I am completely content with it.<br />
<br />
I am also continually amazed that my guild is willing to do this for Grundle and I, to keep us raiding with them. It's really sweet and shows me just how much we mean to the rest of the raid.<br />
<br />
Since we joined the guild at the end of BC our friendships and attachments have continually grown and that is awesome. I love being a part of this guild and when the guild we'd all joined decided to stop raiding and we put together our own raid team for Cata, it felt like a very natural progression. Of course we'd all stay together. Just like we had throughout Wrath. <br />
<br />
So despite my complaints, which are entirely about my own failings and mental blocks, I'm having a really great time raiding in <i>Cataclysm</i> because of my friends. Thanks. I owe you big time :).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2QbGXsFuUJQwjqBWbuSMMME9q-vVqSP7ELsEW2GPpVFdbSw2XMupPn2M-1RdFAUCsbU4l-zn5E3ODZtLD4iXwYdjFJJP7uK8sUMXUf9tnVw-wobaz1btj3J6i4AE4paHzjiZj2yaV3Yn/s1600/rustbound+drakes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT2QbGXsFuUJQwjqBWbuSMMME9q-vVqSP7ELsEW2GPpVFdbSw2XMupPn2M-1RdFAUCsbU4l-zn5E3ODZtLD4iXwYdjFJJP7uK8sUMXUf9tnVw-wobaz1btj3J6i4AE4paHzjiZj2yaV3Yn/s640/rustbound+drakes.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and my raiding buddies with our rustbound drakes, back when getting rustbound drakes was cool!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-81251550813924422582011-01-19T18:24:00.001-06:002011-01-19T18:25:52.120-06:00Back in action!A funny thing happened on the way to the blog post... Life, mostly. I got bogged down with baby stuff and then <i>Cataclysm</i> dropped and then the holidays hit me and now we're focused on raiding and, well, I kept putting things off. I'm good at that.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm back now :).<br />
<br />
Mostly I'm back because I find myself having things to say again. I'm getting to actually play with the new mechanics and talents and that feels a lot better (and more useful) than just speculating about them. And we've got a new patch coming up that's going to change things yet again! Whee.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mana</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I'm not as bad off as I thought I'd be. Or rather I'm not as bad off as I was when we started raiding.</span> It took the hubby (pally tank) and I about three days to hit 85. My mother (saint that she is) came up the week the xpac hit and babysat for us so we could pretty much play non-stop. Unfortunately, the baby still requires a lot of attention from me, so it wasn't as constant as it could have been. In the meantime, we sort of fell behind the gear curve. By the time the guild started raiding that next Monday (about a month ahead of what I thought we would be!), I still hadn't even gotten into my first heroic dungeon.<br />
<br />
It felt horrible. Just absolutely horrible. I was OOM after Innervate, Mana Tide, and a pot and there was literally nothing else I could do to gain mana besides sit there. I felt crushed and useless. But gear fixes many things.<br />
<br />
Since then I've enchanted, gemmed, and reforged for a lot of spirit, run a number of heroic dungeons, and picked up a lot of epic gear from raids. And I feel pretty good about it, overall. Last night we downed Halfus Wyrmbreaker and I ended the fight at almost full mana (in large part because of ToL). I'm getting out of my mana dry spell and I'll probably ease up on the spirit scale. Throughput will start being more important now that I've got the hang of how the fights work and I think on the later bosses in the zones it won't be as big a deal to be nearly OOM at the end of a fight.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tree of Life</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">I miss it.</span></span> Mostly it's the aesthetics of it (I have the glyph for the old form), but I really identified with being a "tree" and having to spend most of my time as a boring old nelf is a little depressing. I realize that Blizz had sort of designed themselves into a corner. Tree form didn't do anything but make us on-par healers with the other three healing classes and a lot of those bonuses could just as easily be rolled into our Restoration talents, and most of them have been. I just wish the form itself could have been repurposed in a better way than as a cooldown. I want to be a tree again. It's hard to find myself in raids now :P.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun learning how to use the ToL cooldown. I can juggle two lifebloom stacks fairly well most of the time and it really does save a LOT of mana. On our first Halfus Wyrmbreaker kill (back before Christmas when our gear was just so-so) I managed it for the first time for most of the duration of the fight. It saved so much mana through Omen of Clarity procs that I had more than half mana by the end of the fight, which was a real feat at the time. Now I just have to figure out how to work it into various fights rather than just popping it randomly.<br />
<br />
Overall I miss the old form. I would give anything (including the new cooldown) to get it back. Not that I don't like the new cooldown mechanic, but I feel like the essence of my healer identity has sort of fallen away.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Patch 4.0.6</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b></span>So lots of changes are coming to trees in this next patch, a lot of them nerfs. The nerf to Mana Tide will hit us (but since I didn't have any on-use spirit trinkets, it won't be so bad) and the change to Omen of Clarity will, too. The change where multiple stacks of Lifebloom can no longer be maintained sorta sucks. I enjoyed the challenge of that mechanic, because it's not one you can just step into. We're getting a mana cost reduction to Rejuv and some changes to make Regrowth more attractive, so that's a nice step in the direction of making us HoT-centric healers again. I don't think I've cast Healing Touch so much since vanilla :P.<br />
<br />
I have to admit that I haven't been taking advantage of Nature's Grace. The increased cast speed is awesome, but I just haven't been casting Regrowth that much. Making it so that the spell also refreshes Lifebloom stacks means I'll have more of a reason to use it on Omen of Clarity procs. Speaking of Omen of Clarity, I've seen the numbers and while I agree that we will be getting fewer procs (and thusly less theoretical mana regen), I also have a lot of procs go unused. And since my most constant HoT has been Lifebloom anyway, I think I'll still be getting my fair share of OOC hits. Reducing the mana cost of Rejuv and giving us a cast speed buff on Nourish when there's three of them up, making Regrowth also refresh Lifebloom, and the change to Omen will, I think, give trees a lot more casting options. I like having somewhat complex mechanics. I think Swiftmend is an amazingly fun spell, and coupling that with our only instant-cast that takes advantage of Omen of Clarity means that I really think about it before I cast it. Now I'll also be weaving Rejuvs in to get faster casts of Nourish and throwing Regrowths out for very fast tank heals that will also take advantage of my mastery (which is also getting a buff).<br />
<br />
I think the biggest disappointment for me is the loss of the multi-stack maintenance mechanic on Lifebloom. It's a complicated (again, a plus for me) thing to keep track of and do right. I feel like I've really accomplished something when I do so. But not everybody does like and not everybody can or wants to do that, which is why Blizz is not making it an option anymore. Otherwise they'd have to design encounters and mana regen around tree druids being able to do so, and that's sorta unfair. Still, I like the concept and I wish they could implement it in some other way.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Not your mama's expansion</b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I have been feeling really down in the dumps this whole xpac so far. And I can totally see why but there's also very little I can do. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I have a baby. I love her dearly. She's walking and starting to babble a lot. She can pick things up and hand them to me and she smiles almost constantly and she's a tremendous torment to our dog, which is hilarious. But she also requires my constant attention. I knew this was coming and I accept it as part of parenting. When she goes to school, I'll have a little more time to myself. But right now it's all her, all the time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> So when I do finally get to sit down and play WoW in the evenings, I'm behind. Most days I don't get a chance to do a daily heroic. She naps two to three times a day for an hour or so each, but I can't reliably finish a heroic in that time frame, so I refrain. I farm herbs or archeology or quest. I'm not where I was, gear-wise, at this point in Wrath. I'm desperately trying to get either Darkmoon Card: Tsunami or Tyrande's Favorite Doll. One requires lots of archeology, one requires lots of herbing. Both require a lot of luck. But for the card, I can influence luck with cash.</span><br />
<br />
I think my point is that I want to play more and I can't. I want to farm for the things I want and need, but I can't. I want to improve my gear outside of raids, but I can't to the extent that I want to. I am frustrated by this both because I'm being denied something that I want and because I'm wanting something that, if I were to indulge, would potentially harm my child. Leaving a 10-month-old relatively unsupervised in the house is going to cause damage to the things in it and maybe to the little girl, depending on what she gets into. And I don't want that.<br />
<br />
My best coping mechanism so far is to back off. I don't play WoW every time she takes a nap because it just reinforces my unhappiness. I go to raids and I don't compare gear with other healers (fortunately I'm the only tree or this would be much worse :P). I do my best and we're succeeding. Or at least not failing because of a lack of gear on my part.<br />
<br />
I don't think I was ever <i><b>HARD CORE</b></i>, but I was certainly a lot less casual than I am now. And I definitely feel that. I have to learn to deal with that and it's a struggle. I have more boundaries than I did before. But it's my hope that I'm still as good a player as I used to be. Because I really believe skill can make up for a lack of gear and I intend to prove it.Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-8159162976084444252010-08-19T12:37:00.000-05:002010-08-19T12:37:24.481-05:00Back off, DPS! A tank rant<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghce4NlhfFa8MdF05dPay4xGFBeUQXJq_oDLMh695sLvb9mRctpVzsoVB3hgHEoR8hi4yTr0hQVyXwKespH5zhOEYreKZxyvImZ2hiDCIfWxhyphenhyphentmes3a4GnnFk4Rdv-AR2DFA9v7o3tz2w/s1600/Tanking+in+action.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghce4NlhfFa8MdF05dPay4xGFBeUQXJq_oDLMh695sLvb9mRctpVzsoVB3hgHEoR8hi4yTr0hQVyXwKespH5zhOEYreKZxyvImZ2hiDCIfWxhyphenhyphentmes3a4GnnFk4Rdv-AR2DFA9v7o3tz2w/s400/Tanking+in+action.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>I've seen a theme developing lately in blog posts and rants on the WoW_ladies livejournal community about tanks getting the short end of the PUG atmosphere stick and it hits me close to home. I've paid more attention to these kind of posts because I've started a lowbie tank recently myself and I find the complaints I'm reading about most often are ones I have myself.<br />
<br />
Whether it's the anti-CC atmosphere of all of Wrath (I swear, you never see a sheep anymore unless you're PvPing) or simply the result of everyone overgearing every instance imaginable through badge and BoA gear, DPS have lost their restraint. Every fight is an AoE fight and if you aren't pulling as fast as the healer can keep up (if not faster), you are labeled a "fail tank" or told (usually by a ret pally) that someone else in the group can tank instead if you can't do it faster. It's enough to bring newer tanks (including me) <a href="http://www.wow.com/2010/08/03/breakfast-topic-tank-anxiety/">to tears</a>.<br />
<br />
Now I could talk about DPS taking a lesson in patience, that everyone has to learn to tank somewhere. However, I've seen a lot of <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/13721262.html">those kind of posts</a> around, so I thought I would tackle it a different way.<br />
<br />
Tanks need to learn to deal with these impatient, rude DPS.<br />
<br />
First, take a deep breath. When they start in with "pull faster" or "I could do this job for you," as a tank you actually do have a few options. If you're interested in a conversation or think this person would actually listen to reason, you can explain to them that you're pulling at the pace you (or your healer's mana) are comfortable with. Or that you've found if you pull large groups, the DPS AoEing makes you lose aggro on too much of the pack and everyone dies because the healer has to heal, literally, the whole group at once. However, I've found more often than not that if a DPS player is going to start berating you for not turning each instance into a five-minute run (so they can sit around for their next 15-minute queue, heheh), they're not usually interested in listening to what you have to say.<br />
<br />
An option that many young tanks (myself included) take is to just drop out of the instance. If the entire group seems set on negativity or you are completely outleveled by the mobs in the instance (it's amazing how little threat you can hold on mobs just two or three levels above you) or by the other DPS (this is especially bad with mages and ret pallies), it's sometimes better to take the debuff and not get caught up in the hate mongering. You'll have to wait a bit for the debuff to wear off, but I strongly urge you to wait it out <i>and then get right back into the dungeon queue</i>. In all likelihood, you aren't a bad tank. In all likelihood, you've been given a handful of bad DPS or been put in a situation that is beyond your control (mobs three levels above you only receive a third of the aggro you put out). Take a breather, quest some, talk to a friend who plays a tank and get some tips, and then get back on the horse. After that next dungeon, you'll feel a whole lot better.<br />
<br />
If you think you can handle the instance or just want to be stubborn (we've all been there :P), there's always the ignore option. Not only does it completely negate what they're saying to you, it prevents you from queuing with them ever again. Both can be positive things. Check healer mana and move on. Most likely, the healer will follow your lead. And really, the DPS in any dungeon run are just there to make it faster. If pressed, a tank and a healer can handle a dungeon (especially a lowbie one) with just the two of them. I don't recommend telling the DPS that, but it certainly can help your own sense of self-confidence.<br />
<br />
You notice that I refer to the healer and their mana situation a lot. In a dungeon, the healer and the tank have to stick together, and the healer is the person I always give the most respect to. They're the ones keeping my big bear butt standing and if they're not happy, then nobody's happy. Since I play a healer as my main spec, I know how tough it can be and I afford them whatever chances to drink that I can. <br />
<br />
The last option is one that I seldom use intentionally, but for the most rowdy DPS it's necessary. Let them pull aggro and die. Well, it's really the healer's choice whether or not they die, but you can certainly let the pulls go to them. If the mage won't stop ice storming? Hold down the mobs that you can, use your taunts on a reasonable cycle, and if something is eating the mage's face then it's not your fault.<br />
<br />
A huge part of tank burnout (and probably a contributing factor to why there are so few around) is that you feel very responsible for what happens in the run. And probably more than any other role, you are responsible. But that doesn't mean that heals and DPS are blameless. DPS players have skills to drop threat or can watch Omen and learn to stop DPS when they get too high. Or they can die and whine about it. Neither of those things are the responsibility of the tank. Take the blame for things that are your fault, but don't let others foist the blame for their own faults onto you.<br />
<br />
We've all been in situations that make us feel really awful, especially as tanks. The important thing is to figure out what you can do to help move things along, both for yourself and for the group. Because tanks who can exude confidence in the face of negativity end up being more successful in the long run. Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-51856119640338388882010-08-15T00:27:00.000-05:002010-08-15T00:27:13.639-05:00Resto's getting better!So in the most recent beta build some (not all) of my issues with the resto tree have been resolved, or at least <a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/26435494961/druid-restoration-beta-pve-update/">mentioned in passing by Ghostcrawler</a>. I'm very pleased to hear that Rejuv will get a GCD-reducing talent, that Furor actually has something to offer the resto druid, and that the second tier of the resto tree is getting something that actually benefits the resto druid. I am intrigued by the extreme mana cost that hots are apparently getting and how they will play against the direct heals (and the carpet of Efflorescence). So color me pleased (though as GC says, they've still got a lot of work ahead of them).Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-32565290071680581852010-08-11T18:07:00.001-05:002010-08-11T18:07:26.966-05:00Oh, and I want a moose...So last week I ranted about what I don't like about the new talent tree builds for the beta in Cata. And after I posted it, I thought about how useful that post is to the devs, to any audience I might accrue, and to myself. And I decided that there is some relevance, but it's also missing something. After all, if you're going to point out problems, you need to point out solutions to those problems, too.<br />
<br />
I'm looking forward to Cataclysm. Don't think I'm not. But I have specific things I want to see, both for my class and for the game itself. Some of them I have no doubt Blizzard will achieve. Others are a little more sketchy.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I want healing to stop having a rotation</b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW1SbwomUlZUbdvmMXIixuw9EDC_Hddf5m4t2P4qTfM-FIh5z6pNhLErRce-b9D8d-YavUPhyztKIWbyjNqDCALU59DyGvavtVyph6fZ1L1Qn0c9Q1La7UfHEqrhppKG_KGhIT2FI8qeBs/s1600/Healing+Touch.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW1SbwomUlZUbdvmMXIixuw9EDC_Hddf5m4t2P4qTfM-FIh5z6pNhLErRce-b9D8d-YavUPhyztKIWbyjNqDCALU59DyGvavtVyph6fZ1L1Qn0c9Q1La7UfHEqrhppKG_KGhIT2FI8qeBs/s320/Healing+Touch.png" /></a></div>On most fights nowadays I hit Wild Growth, then five to six Rejuvs, then Wild Growth. Occasionally I mix it up by keeping Regrowth on one or both tanks instead of one of my WG button pushes, but that's about it. If I'm not sticking to this rotation, I feel like I'm underperforming, not living up to my potential as a healer and potentially letting people in the raid die. I'd like to see raid healing as being more about choice and less about spam. And from what I've read about in Cata, that is entirely the case. So that's definitely heartening.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I want my tree form back</b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFN2ROLpzfP73s5UOwD2HGHHUIqjgLWhd-PVAQjXj1_lb_8-Xhul4vykx78ITy7k58VzjgMAgswV4T5p0afnWSdy_8Fj8F69PfUlUxgIQ3RvcAarQwEp_cm0_uYmldBoX62bW2-vtdw0Nq/s1600/Imp+ToL.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFN2ROLpzfP73s5UOwD2HGHHUIqjgLWhd-PVAQjXj1_lb_8-Xhul4vykx78ITy7k58VzjgMAgswV4T5p0afnWSdy_8Fj8F69PfUlUxgIQ3RvcAarQwEp_cm0_uYmldBoX62bW2-vtdw0Nq/s320/Imp+ToL.png" /></a></div>I know I'm not going to get it (unless it comes in the form of one of the medium glyphs that Blizz is implementing), but I'm still going to miss it. The tree form dance has always been my favorite and the distinct silhouette of it has always made picking myself out of the crowd easy (I've never raiding with more than two other trees in any raid, so generally it's not hard to find me on screen). Plus I just like the idea of a druid turning into a tree. It feels right that resto druids get a distinctive shape, the same as the rest of the druid pantheon.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo5yyB3CuRM5OcZtd5ukOpRndPw2UMNKJfbXlvMaCth2xaig9bBj2W1FQArRZqqMeR-XursFRYRLiIKhHLxXRtlBhkPQvRjYgbCZYw2sLygen0kgTD4ERZynmzItWK6DvrbFuS6ij3hHqB/s1600/Treeants.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo5yyB3CuRM5OcZtd5ukOpRndPw2UMNKJfbXlvMaCth2xaig9bBj2W1FQArRZqqMeR-XursFRYRLiIKhHLxXRtlBhkPQvRjYgbCZYw2sLygen0kgTD4ERZynmzItWK6DvrbFuS6ij3hHqB/s320/Treeants.png" /></a></div>And as for lore, one of the most holy and important sites for night elf druids is a tree, the proverbial tree of life. Its destruction signaled the end for immortality among the night elves. Trees and life are tied together in an extremely important way and I think representing the lifegiving form of druids with a tree is entirely accurate. I agree that tree form needed some overhaul and I think that the devs were right when they said tree form didn't feel much different from caster form, but I think removing the form entirely (or reducing it to a long cooldown with some pretty serious drawbacks) isn't really the way to go. Unfortunately, I wasn't asked and at this late date, I'm pretty sure there's nothing to be done about it anyway. Regardless, I want some form of a tree back in Cataclysm, even if it's only a shapeshift form that has no bearing on my playstyle.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I want interesting spell choices</b></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj22Uvhljl-l5QZPmn8UaWRYNdPUusJp0wMtG_LF_f7xdc3AgUsBWR67WJJ19ydGHwPNaNj38gRbskWiyt_PPhngldVMeqDD230NEnMuijMj63hNo3AjD40mco_j7KfrsGbetrT3dxrL-Q/s1600/Nourish.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj22Uvhljl-l5QZPmn8UaWRYNdPUusJp0wMtG_LF_f7xdc3AgUsBWR67WJJ19ydGHwPNaNj38gRbskWiyt_PPhngldVMeqDD230NEnMuijMj63hNo3AjD40mco_j7KfrsGbetrT3dxrL-Q/s320/Nourish.png" /></a></div>I love how Swiftmend works, that it's dependent upon another of our spells to work and that, through a glyph, we can make it work even better. Similarly, I love how Nourish works, increasing its throughput as I have more hots stacked on a target. Again, I need a glyph to get fully there, but it still works. I want spells to be interdependent. I want to have to think about how the spells I've applied will affect the spells I'm about to apply. And I think that the way the new Empowered Touch works (reapplying Lifebloom to a target when Nourish crits) is a great step in that direction. But I wish there was more. Maybe the whole resto druid heal game would become too convoluted with another step, but I like the complexity.<br />
<br />
When I played in vanilla, I was a one-button healer. So I am totally in love with all the shiny new buttons I've gotten since then. I want there to be a fine art to resto druid play, a game that takes time and willingness to fully master. That kind of challenge excites me and keeps me coming back to play every raid lockout.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I want talent choices out of the feral tree</b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlRrFNzRSehJ_R6FHHqckxEEkRqq8kP34oPlaYe_EpnKAKbkGOnVoaeNGK8xoJxT_Yl7UupWvpN3gfuq4iZoYu0UY5xsPj8cRxNPNsDZ6bc0owlnw9zh_GkG8t00-X0OQxsOS7kEaVSRG/s1600/Bear+form.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlRrFNzRSehJ_R6FHHqckxEEkRqq8kP34oPlaYe_EpnKAKbkGOnVoaeNGK8xoJxT_Yl7UupWvpN3gfuq4iZoYu0UY5xsPj8cRxNPNsDZ6bc0owlnw9zh_GkG8t00-X0OQxsOS7kEaVSRG/s320/Bear+form.png" /></a></div>Weird, huh? Balance seems to have all the great caster stuff, but I'm bucking for something out of the wrong tree. Maybe <a href="http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=17002">Feral Swiftness</a> is meant to be a talent enterprising druids of the resto or balance persuasion can take, but is it really leading anywhere? I know that feral is already difficult to balance because of its own dual nature, but something in there for the casters to go for would be extremely nice. It seems like the other classes all have options in both their other trees, but resto druids only have one other way to go. And our own tree is cluttered with things meant for balance and feral druids to take at the top, so I feel doubly screwed. Embrace our feral side, resto druids! We're kitties and bears, too!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>I want it to be epic</b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkPOxkdk2EuDj_QYgIfuIm_BNYuXRlbxjKq0NTfejPdCLS0XNxz-La7eONxA2IbCkl4gNbTxQ0YUBJo1MO0g7XzDx8JolLG_Ff_o7ktbSV0UgZZ9zF-Cd06iw_Czgfb1xi0jH5o2298wO/s1600/ICC.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkPOxkdk2EuDj_QYgIfuIm_BNYuXRlbxjKq0NTfejPdCLS0XNxz-La7eONxA2IbCkl4gNbTxQ0YUBJo1MO0g7XzDx8JolLG_Ff_o7ktbSV0UgZZ9zF-Cd06iw_Czgfb1xi0jH5o2298wO/s320/ICC.png" /></a></div>This is less about my class and more about the feel of the expansion in general. With the sad patch that was ToC, all of WotLK felt <i>large</i> and <i>intense</i>. We're rushing to deter the Lich King's minions, but we've been detained from that by the rising of one of the Old Gods, who we must kill to avoid global destruction, <span style="font-size: xx-small;">and now we're all going to learn to joust</span>, but we will defeat you, Arthas, and take back the Frozen Throne! /end scene<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZwKWa2NYF90_MSFL1GjoUHgGeKFczjcgAaO9P4k4KHcduN2yls-RuSJWghzToxFg0O9vWVCurG9pNUP2Jl5lI5_yEBj3y7ff0v5YPAnu8LIB0kj21hZRaSS9J3ZPkNEY5ygZCXdo6CJAO/s1600/Arthas.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZwKWa2NYF90_MSFL1GjoUHgGeKFczjcgAaO9P4k4KHcduN2yls-RuSJWghzToxFg0O9vWVCurG9pNUP2Jl5lI5_yEBj3y7ff0v5YPAnu8LIB0kj21hZRaSS9J3ZPkNEY5ygZCXdo6CJAO/s320/Arthas.png" /></a></div>My point is that WotLK was superb in the storytelling arena. And I hope they kept the same writers for Cata, because I look forward to seeing far-reaching storylines, great drama played out on the world stage with the players either in the front row or as part of the action. I haven't heard a single person deride the Wrathgate cinematic as a waste of time, so take that as an example of the heights we can reach with the technology we have. It's worth it for oh so many reasons!<br />
<br />
We have a really great game on our hands, no doubt about it here. But I want to see it move beyond even that in the Cataclysm era. I want to see healing become more dynamic and fresh, challenging and interesting. I want druid talent trees to be unique and fun, not locked into a static lump by role restrictions. I want to see the amazing stories I know that Blizzard has in store for us unfurl and take shape. This is not a list of demands, this is a list of wishes. So please, Blizz, grant my wishes!Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-73902011355419639692010-08-06T13:12:00.000-05:002010-08-06T13:12:57.898-05:00The Silent Tank<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>My husband is a tank. It's a role he enjoys greatly and like me and healing, he's been doing his job since day one. I've always been the more social of the two of us; it's the same dynamic as IRL and it works. So in instances and raids, I'm far more likely to interact with the other people (whether we know them or not) than he is.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeIRgZ40xBmprL306c94nExj7IELe63M0-6aw7Ifnym15wOkaPmZUzFBBT80OZH7nE6VA_doQARc7DZUfrbaePdm44MIeFjDxKCxCv1-TMQ1dc01u7Qp3hvid7yT2U7ABqKjPsarC5pvQ/s1600/Bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjeIRgZ40xBmprL306c94nExj7IELe63M0-6aw7Ifnym15wOkaPmZUzFBBT80OZH7nE6VA_doQARc7DZUfrbaePdm44MIeFjDxKCxCv1-TMQ1dc01u7Qp3hvid7yT2U7ABqKjPsarC5pvQ/s320/Bear.jpg" /></a></div>A month or so ago I rolled another druid (Horde side, so new all around :P) and decided to level her feral, since I've never done that before. And since the dungeon finder system is so easy to use when you have instant queues (as a tank), it's more convenient for me than questing in the small chunks of time I have when the baby is sleeping. In addition, it gives me great experience as a tank, so when Cata rolls around I actually have a clue what I'm doing when I switch my offspec from boomkin to bear. Good things all around.<br />
<br />
So despite running with strangers most of the time, I expected to continue to be able to chat when others are in a chatty mood or at least talk to guildies and friends on RealID.<br />
<br />
Boy, is that not the case.<br />
<br />
Part of it is certainly my inexperience with tanking, but it's also because I have to pay much closer attention to things: the mobs' health, aggro on all targets, my health, healer mana, defensive cooldowns, rage generation, and more. I can barely keep up when people say something in party chat. The multitasking involved with tanking is way beyond what I expected.<br />
<br />
Maybe my husband isn't avoiding socializing. Maybe he just doesn't have the mental GCDs. I know I sure don't :P.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, it's gotten better. I had a macro outlining my tanking philosophy (I tank as fast as healer mana will allow, you pull it you tank it, etc) that I spammed at the beginning of instances, but it seemed to cause more chatting than it dampened. So now I just watch party chat for the healer asking for a mana break and pretty much keep my mouth shut the rest of the time. I'm in my mid-30s now, so it's not like people are saying anything more than "Pull faster!" anyway. <br />
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I like tanking and I'm glad I'm going to be an offspec tank in the xpac. But I'm also really happy that I have vent for raids. Beats the heck out of reading one more thing on an already-crowded screen!Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-86683619082758593442010-08-05T12:43:00.001-05:002010-08-05T15:39:56.028-05:00Another beta build, another disappointment<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QKfNpQfpZic4GMf4O0ucJ0qR6Y4VDE_1w-8U0t1Ii0geWVXexJ-vDPqtsELy149he3VBw9oCT0rmG5FCpG2PVTiz-DIW5CM3tOTnEMVCMnSECClwa-zrNLI9XBTXEwzV-1ZsZQgzjGiI/s1600/Druid+talents+resto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QKfNpQfpZic4GMf4O0ucJ0qR6Y4VDE_1w-8U0t1Ii0geWVXexJ-vDPqtsELy149he3VBw9oCT0rmG5FCpG2PVTiz-DIW5CM3tOTnEMVCMnSECClwa-zrNLI9XBTXEwzV-1ZsZQgzjGiI/s320/Druid+talents+resto.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From MMO Champion</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: right;"></div>At the start of BC, I was super excited to play a tree. We got tree form! We had a brand new spell to play with! Our old spells were getting buffs and we wouldn't just spam Healing Touch anymore! At the start of Wrath, I was similarly excited. Lifebloom got a nerf (it needed one), but tree form was losing its root effect! We were getting a flash heal, one that interacted with our other heals. I love heal interactions! But Cata's announcements and subsequent beta talents just haven't lit my fire this time around. I know the talent trees are still in flux, but right now they are really, really underwhelming.<br />
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I figure I'm probably jumping the gun in my negative reaction to the current <a href="http://www.wowtal.com/#k=.9sm.druid">resto druid</a> beta talent tree, but it seems like nothing is changing and there really, really needs to be some changes made. The resto tree is generally lackluster, with very little in the way of talent choices. In fact, there's a tier or two where you don't really have a choice at all (and I'm not just talking about <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/17056/">Furor</a>). There aren't enough actual talents to make the choices meaningful, which Blizz has stated is their goal. Yes, there will be talents that every tree will pick up, but there will also be a few talents to add flavor to your build. Right now there's not much flavor.<br />
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The first and second tiers are the biggest offenders as far as talents you have no choice about. I think it's been said many times, but making Furor a resto talent, when it provides no bonus to a rest druid, is sorta silly. I can see that it's there to provide a hook for ferals and boomkin to get deeper into the tree, but I feel like it needs to offer something more than feral and balance options in order for it to stay in our protracted talent trees. <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/16833/">Natural Shapeshifter</a> is similarly offering us very little of interest in a world where our shapeshifting ability has a three-minute cooldown. It seems to me that <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/78734/">Perseverence</a> is more of a tanking talent, unless Blizz is looking to make healers more resilient. Which may be the case, but it doesn't excite me as much as a tree as it does as a bear. I think adding more ranks to <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/48411/">Master Shapeshifter</a> wouldn't be a bad way to make that tier feel less full of useless but mandatory talents. Likewise, <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/33886/">Empowered Rejuv</a> doesn't feel all that different from <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/17111/">Improved Rejuv</a>. I like talents that do things, rather than talents that push me toward using one spell over another (not that I don't like Rejuv; I'd still use it without talents that augment it).<br />
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This is part of what I'm talking about that the talent choices aren't meaningful. Yes, these spells increase HoT ticks and Rejuv ticks, respectively, but what about making Rejuv act differently in different situations? A cooldown that spreads Rejuv to everyone in an <a href="http://db.mmo-champion.com/s/34151/">Efflorescence</a>, for example, would be interesting and add something to our healing toolbox that's not just more healing. I recall that one of Blizz's stated goals for the new talent trees is to remove or enhance the talents that were just +damage or +healing. There are a lot of talents still in the resto tree that are just +healing and that's not exciting. If I'm only getting a talent point every other level, it should mean something. I'm willing to get behind the concept if Blizz is willing to make talents more fun.<br />
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Even the balance talents we can reach aren't all that great. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=57865">Nature's Splendor</a> doesn't seem to exist at all anymore. I am dearly in love with this talent, giving us a <i>very</i> solid purpose behind taking balance talents while still providing moonkin with some utility. Now the only reason to get into the balance tree is because nothing in the feral tree is useful. In the second tier of balance, we have to choose between increased healing or reduced mana cost. We can't get both because they're both three-point talents. Or we can spec into hit. Personally, I'm not loving those choices, either.<br />
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Now, this rant <i>is</i> pretty ranty, especially since what I hear coming out of beta is a LOT of unfinished content and talents and broken quests. It doesn't sound like a complete, or even near-complete, product. But we've gone three or so rounds of new talent trees and I'm not seeing big changes happening to resto. And I think big changes are needed, or at least enough small changes to seem big. Playing a tree is awesome, and I'm willing to give Blizz a shot at this new lack-of-treeform thing so long as they're willing to give me stuff that makes me excited to play again, the same as I've felt at the beginning of each new expansion.Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5428471503950895381.post-34962943840790293812010-08-03T11:49:00.001-05:002010-08-06T12:03:06.377-05:00Not a morning person!And so my beginnings are usually pretty meh. I'll start with a manifesto of sorts, just so I, at least, can remember what I'm here for :).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuNB8zlSjjmpGw7JKHBfMaWsewWJVLJgvaEr5lnIm601D4ahkS0sB3M0zecaOycjqVJMaH15ouBbyOaWzwvwBKqJmY6zvOnMebSLrYxARMgolZOC_OsyN-oP_NGrxS598E-htnPQ6vv7j/s1600/web_development.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRuNB8zlSjjmpGw7JKHBfMaWsewWJVLJgvaEr5lnIm601D4ahkS0sB3M0zecaOycjqVJMaH15ouBbyOaWzwvwBKqJmY6zvOnMebSLrYxARMgolZOC_OsyN-oP_NGrxS598E-htnPQ6vv7j/s320/web_development.jpg" /></a></div> I want to go back to work eventually. That's a good number of years away but I still need to be working toward that goal. To that end, I'm adding skills to my old set, as the old set will probably be a little out of date. The skills I'm adding are all web-based, like web site design and maintenance. First off they're easy to jump into in this day and age, and second they're pauseable, so I can go chase after my daughter or feed her or whatever in the middle of something and not lose anything. This blog is my first step in that direction, to force myself to write and keep up with something online on a regular basis (shooting for three posts a week, minimum, to start). It's also going to be a place for me to try out my burgeoning skills, so there will probably be freaky changes after a while!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpJOy44RdrfEep0EdaowqL7mJIWIZcmingiXgQHxxn-XiheA8YJtHt5wCiUCdat56SkmZeFpxcF7g2hxDtEMK4hRHMfOxP7pphLodxHHiUK5XX4bJahez0YyIUtxayZCgLRpatUBhfGHY/s1600/tree+dance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpJOy44RdrfEep0EdaowqL7mJIWIZcmingiXgQHxxn-XiheA8YJtHt5wCiUCdat56SkmZeFpxcF7g2hxDtEMK4hRHMfOxP7pphLodxHHiUK5XX4bJahez0YyIUtxayZCgLRpatUBhfGHY/s320/tree+dance.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>As it says on the side there, I also identify as a tree, which if you play World of Warcraft you know it means I play a restoration druid. The next expansion, Cataclysm, is slated for release this year sometime, which I'm excited about. I've been a raider almost as long as I've been a player, and I've played since launch. Always as a resto druid. It's my niche :). So a lot of this will probably be talking about resto druid stuff, though I do love my death knight just as much, so she'll probably get some love :). I like to theorycraft as a hobby, which means I'm not big on math, but I like to speculate. Fortunately, the info coming out of the Cata beta leaves me with much to speculate upon :D. Like new tree form graphics! I'm not an autumn, Blizz, I'm so much more a spring :P.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIIZFkYCx7X3glL6FDMrzVUXQeiJhsYRpbwxRJsEFW_uD5ZZeocxG0_xQ6nzgeLSZRNFDC7bDwg3PzNQTXQUQHcAra0DtK3zpMwnCTZp0mm47BEbrCvs70FiwgKP3FmlGe0YcqmlUKhERT/s1600/Quill+12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIIZFkYCx7X3glL6FDMrzVUXQeiJhsYRpbwxRJsEFW_uD5ZZeocxG0_xQ6nzgeLSZRNFDC7bDwg3PzNQTXQUQHcAra0DtK3zpMwnCTZp0mm47BEbrCvs70FiwgKP3FmlGe0YcqmlUKhERT/s200/Quill+12.jpg" width="159" /></a></div>Covering all the bases here, I'm also a writer. I've participated in <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a> for three or so years (maybe four? I can't remember anymore :P) and I won twice. The second novel is actually something I'd like to publish. I think it has potential. Anyway, when I got pregnant, it was like my muse left town and she hasn't gotten the memo that she can come home yet. I've got a few ideas simmering that I will hopefully have time and inclination to write (practicing writing blog posts will maybe unstick the gears in my head?) and I may decide to post them or parts of them. Might be password protected if I want to reserve the right to publish them. We'll see! Writing is one of those old working skills that's gotten rusty. I need to move those muscles!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYuxAm_PRE28MMrrrZ-RDs3VlRCgKRXUmvAeO_reiGiIGGRff_lwNpY_eh7ojjpAB1PDJJCjnUBVHez37yq9-vQqbzXAM0fvE0QMfDMXpp4B94Qax8ajVBT82tZxoDppB5hbHp5NXsyZeG/s1600/vivi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYuxAm_PRE28MMrrrZ-RDs3VlRCgKRXUmvAeO_reiGiIGGRff_lwNpY_eh7ojjpAB1PDJJCjnUBVHez37yq9-vQqbzXAM0fvE0QMfDMXpp4B94Qax8ajVBT82tZxoDppB5hbHp5NXsyZeG/s320/vivi.jpg" /></a></div>I save the best for last. I'm a very proud mom of a four-month-old baby girl, Vivi. She's sweet, especially since she started sleeping through the night! I love that I get the opportunity to stay at home and take care of her, watch her learn and grow. I know I'm extremely lucky and I never forget that.<br />
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So that's it for the first post. Beginning, middle, end and some graphics in between. See, it's almost like I know what I'm doing :). With luck this will get easier as I learn to streamline the process. It's all about learning, really: web design, writing, WoW, babies. Each step improves on what I've done before :).Raehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14355153951254986220noreply@blogger.com0