Wednesday raiding - the nail in the coffin

I think after last night, heroic raiding is officially over.

It started out ok.  We were dragging people into raid, as we have been in the past month or two now, and we managed to have a full group after 20 minutes of scrounging.  People were in reasonably good spirits - Hwired was teasing me because I tried to cover up the fact that I didn't know what frangers were in my last post (when we were having our tampon talk) by thinking it was something else. Fue was dragged out of D3 and he was saying how the boat is his favourite fight and I expressed my surprise, to which he replied "That was sarcasm, Navi."  Hey, sometimes with Fue you can't tell!  And Sev was there... surprisingly... and even Shab said he would come to help out.  But we didn't need Shab in the end so he was happy to stay in D3, but he came later.  Falln got a bleeding nose mid raid.  Roshii told him to put a tampon in it.  Falln says he gets bleeding noses every day but only during raid time.  He thought maybe the stress of that stupid fight was making his nose bleed.  That made me giggle.  That and the thought of  a tampon string hanging out of his nose ><

The one awesome attempt we had we hit enrage and Bish was doing amazing healing but we had 2 dps dead and we couldn't do it.  But that was pretty cool, and I was proud of Bish and he was feeling pretty proud of himself too :)

But then it was just awful after that and the fire everywhere, people dying before phase 2.... by the end of the night, Hwired had enough.  He said he didn't want to do this fight ever again, he'll do alt runs but he will not do boat.  Ever.  Period.

Was he venting?  Maybe.  Was he serious?  Probably.  I would have liked to get heroic spine down, but it obviously just wasn't meant to be.  Besides, this is the only expansion we are actually DOING that sort of stuff.

It was looking at Shoryl's blogroll (where I found myself on it the other day, much to my excitement) and she said this about my blog:

...is a blog about being in a casual raiding guild (for values of casual that involve raiding 4 days a week and doing heroics!)...

Are we casual?  What casual guild does heroics?  We do like raiding, but we aren't just a raiding guild, we have a large social component to it as well.  Anyway, for me, I'm disappointed, and wondering what to do in the meantime about raiding, but I do have other diversions.  And what happens to those people who are only in the guild to raid?  Do you think they have the patience to wait it out till Mists?  In truth, I think yes, because I know we'll just start up raiding again when we all hit 90 and it will be 25s for a while before we drop back into 10s again.

Anyway, speaking of other diversions, after a lousy raid, a good round of arena always helps.  Sev and Shab are always eager for it.  Shab and I were still really excited about our last lot of games and I think us talking got Sev half enthusiastic too.  Hard to tell with Sev sometimes.  Sev was still moping about his cut finger, and he has a cold.  Shab said he was walking to work and was still thinking about our wins from the other day.  At least we are like minded in that way.  We logged in to find a whole heap of dead bodies in Gurubashi arena.  It was like a slaughterhouse.  But there was nobody left alive around there... interesting.

There were only 3 teams battling last night on Tournament (including us), and we did hit our 50 games.  There was one team that caned us - rogue, warlock and shaman - but to be fair, they were very good, their cc's were excellent on me and it meant that they hardly went down in health at all.  There was one hunter shaman and warlock that we came up against, and we changed our strat a little and killed the hunter first.  Shaman CC was a bit hard, because I was getting hit by pets and had to run around healing myself a lot, but I managed to get a few off, and tree form helped.  The shaman left after the hunter died.  There was one team with a DK and that was the first DK I can remember seeing on Tournament that whole time we were there.  Interesting that it's not so popular.  Usually that kind of team canes us.

I finally managed to check our stats on the realm and saw we finally got a ranking!  Woot 714!  I looked at our team composition and there are only 4 teams with our composition.  3 of them have a resto druid, the other one has a feral druid.  I've listed the resto druid ones here.

Well, that at least sets a goal for us.  There is no way we could get into the top 20!  But if we were the topped ranked team of our composition that would be a great feeling for us!  Oh, if you're in the top 1000 teams and play 100 games then you can get the Vanquisher title!  However, I don't think we will be able to do that because Shab has to go away from 4-6 so we won't be able to get our games.  And he has a talk to do.  Damn!  That would have been really exciting, since we are ranked now in the top 1000.

So tonight... I'm not sure what we're doing.  But it sure as hell isn't heroic Dragon Soul.

WoW Newbie blogger link love - My last #MMONBI post

There is so much to read this month with the Newbie Blogger Initiative that I don't think I've had any time to read A Dance With Dragons.  Tyrion, Daenarys and Samwise will just have to wait while I read all these fascinating things these new bloggers have to say.

I find myself reliving Cataclsym as I read through why Justright of Not Too Heavy thought T11 was the best.  The tier was over 3 instances and he said funny things (like calling Argaloth a loot pinata, and saying "Chimmy" was his favourite boss in terms of mechanics).  Interesting a ret pally would say that.  As a healer that fight gave me the $%#@s and I never felt like my heals were fast enough to top everyone up.  That was my least favourite fight in T11.  My favourite fight in T11 was Nefarian - well, I have great memories of our first kill.  I remember Roshii was there, Hwired too.  I remember jumping platforms and the feeling of pride when I finally figured out how to get on the stupid pillar things!!!

Kalc of Unliving a Death Knight talked about what a DK tastes like... dirty thoughts come to mind, when you read that, and considering the only DK I know well is Hwired... well, it's just getting worse, so I'd better stop before both feet are stuck in my mouth.  Reading the beta, it's too hard for me to understand a DK, so no wonder Hwired wants to go priest for a bit.  I started thinking about the FLAVOURS of each class and thought it's too embarrassingly dirty to talk about taste, so I think I'll talk about what each class SMELLS like:

• Warrior - Sweat and blood
• Paladin - Roses and shoe polish
• Mages - Freshly baked cookies and lemonade
• Warlocks- Sulfur and smoke
• Druids - Freshly mown grass on a fur coat
• Death Knight - Mildew and dirt
• Shaman - Sparkling mineral water
• Rogue - Cold steel and leather
• Hunter - Gunpowder in a stable
• Priest - Beeswax candles

Death Stomp writes about his small guild, and people coming and going without saying a word.  His guild, like his blog, is young, and he shows his frustration with people not trying to make the World (of Warcraft) a better place, by letting people know how the guild can improve or why they leave a guild.

... many people don’t care about being courteous or their reputation in the game... attitude in the game these days of unhelpfulness and what can you do for me instead of let me be helpful and help out the community as a whole... we are seeing these attitudes because of how easy it is to change realms and your toon name and just start over...  once, guild hopping was generally frowned upon... these days it seems no one really cares and it’s all a numbers game...

This is interesting as this does reflect the me me me attitude - you see it in LFR, guild hopping, battlegrounds, dungeons.  But I don't know if this is a problem in GAME per se, I think that society as a whole, outside of World of warcraft is heading this way as well.

Those Goblins at That was an Accident, wrote a hilarious post about something I desperately need for Heroic: Warmaster Blackhorn - Dammitol, the pill for people who fail.  You have to read it and laugh.  It was sheer genius :)

World's End Tavern wrote a post about Towel Day, which was part of Geek Pride Day, and he goes on to explain all about it.  It's pretty cool, if you didn't know it was related to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  But I knew that :P but didn't elaborate as I was not a big fan of that book.  OK, so shoot me.

Altaclysmic writes a lot about music, but he did have one cool post titled Resistance is Futile.  How can a trekkie like me ignore that post?  Though this is no trek post, it talks about something I was thinking about, which is skilling up using Darkmoon Faire - especially for those elusive last 5 points.  Which reminds me, I should be collecting things to level my professions... but I'm too lazy.  Godmother and JD also said we should be doing this, and I still haven't gotten my ass into gear.

Raiding and Diminishing returns was the clever title of this post by Dreadblade.  It is SO true.  I really like how he used the term "reset the fun" to make him enjoy raiding again - such as switching games, PVP, soloing old content or writing a blog post.  There seem to be a lot of DK blogs coming out this month.

Asherrylie of Priest All the Things is writing/starting a blog for the 3rd or 4th time.  I wonder why?  Maybe I'll ask her what happened all those other times.  It looks like she was encouraged by the NBI to start writing again.

Elunamakata of Healing Mains is one busy bee.  I see her comments on a lot of these blogs I've visited.  I really like her post Real life, who has one? as she said this:

...why the stigma for having a hobby that isn’t necessarily the same as someone else?

It always bugs me when people say I am wasting my time, but I'm happy, and I'm not addicted, exactly.  Watching TV and knitting is ok as a hobby but game playing is not?  Football and drinking and partying every night of the weekend is having a life but raiding with your mates in WoW is not?  Big thumbs up to Elunamakata!

Neri Approves wrote about the items that change your appearance - if my long time readers remember, I did a whole series on that.  I like how she made 2 posts - things which are easy to get, and things which are hard to get.

Ninevi of Flask Half Empty has something freaky - her Ironman toon looks like Navimie!  But the best thing about Ninevi is that she has a druid main.  I like people with druid mains :)  OMG her name even has a similar sound to mine!  I like her already :)

Damn, it's midnight! And now it is no longer May, so I will have to post now and finish the rest tomorrow. I can always say it is still May in the US :)

Air'ka's turn to play - Deelablow

Daddy thinks it's funny when I say to him "Mummy plays too much World of Warcraft."  He told me to say that to Mummy.  She didn't look very happy.  She asked me "Do you want Mummy to stop playing World of Warcraft?"  I said "No."  Then she was happy.

Uncle (Lushnek) came over and he was playing a different game, and he let me watch.  He was using Mummy's computer and so she couldn't play World of Warcraft, and he said I could play.  So he made me a new character to play and said I could play it while Mummy and Daddy and Uncle (Lushnek) had dinner.  They told me that this new game was called Deelablow.  He let me name my new person.  I called her Nbjjj.  She's a witch doctor.

Oh I said it wrong.  It was Diablo.  And do you know what is the really good thing about this new game?  I can kill things.  I use the mouse to move and it's really easy, and then there's money to pick up on the ground, and we can kill zombies!  Zombies eat your brains.  Just like Plants versus Zombies.  I just have to press the mouse and I shoot things and they die.

I was playing for a while and then Mummy and Uncle (Lushnek) said that I can wear some clothes.  I had some clothes in my bag.  There was a something that looked like a circle and Mummy said that was called a shield, and I wore a top and some pants.  And I had a knife.  Mummy told me to pick the one with the biggest numbers.  There was lots of writing, and I asked Mummy "What does that say?"  she said all I had to do was look at the big number.  One of the big numbers was 9.  I like 9.  9 is before 10.

Then something happened and Mummy had to come help me because I didn't know what it was.  She fixed it and said now I can press the other button on the mouse, the right one, and I can do more magic too!  I can kill things very fast now.

I like running around.  I can talk to people and they talk back.  I can even hear them talking.  I'm not sure what they said, but the pictures are nice.  I went into rooms and I picked up books and into dark places too.  I got a bit lost and I needed Uncle (Lushnek) to help me get out because Mummy gets lost all the time and she doesn't know where she's going either.

Mummy doesn't play this game that much.  I asked her why.  She said she played it once but she gets confused because of how you have to use the mouse to walk around.  And she says she keeps getting lost, and if she doesn't play with Uncle (Lushnek) she doesn't know where she's supposed to be going.  And she said zombies are scary.  Mummy gets scared easily.  She screams all the time when Zombies walk in front of her when she doesn't expect it.  She says she still likes World of Warcraft better.

But you know what?  I like this game better.  Diablo is better than World of Warcraft.  But my person doesn't fly like mummy's one.  I wish she could do that.  Then she could go places faster.

------------------------------

Air'ka is my 4 year old daughter (that's how she pronounces her own name), who loves to play whatever I'm playing.  These are her adventures playing Mummy's computer games, taken from her real life adventures.

For the love of Warlock

Despite how the title of this post sounds, I am not saying Warlocks are God.  Nor am I saying that I am somehow in love with some warlock out there because that would probably cause all sorts of marital distress.  What this post IS about is that I can't sleep because I am thinking about Warlocks.  It's 3am and I have to get up to write about Warlocks.

Dave Rapoza's warlock

I blame Amijade.  I have been reading her blog and she is really funny.  Her learn something new post was about learning to play a mage to see how they can stand it.  I laughed all the way through it because she wrote things like this:

...I decided to roll a mage.  When your done laughing, here is my personal goal: roll a mage and try get it to level 20 just to see how the other side can stand it lives. Yes, I chide and kid on our dopey mage friends, but it’s all in good fun. Besides, if it wasn’t for mages who would buy up all those bright, ugly and flowery pastel green level items I sell on the AH...

Kerembeyit's Warlock art for the TCG

It made me think about my own dear warlock friends.  And as I mentioned in an earlier post about the apparent shortage of warlocks (which I don't seem to see), the three warlocks who play very regularly in my guild are not only each a different spec (by choice, not because we made them), but they also have very different personalities.  And those different personalities are now how I see each warlock spec and I can't seem to change my opinion on it, and it has reflected my own future choices of spec for my warlock.

Firstly, the Affliction Warlock personality is personified by Sev.  I'm just going to call him Sev because he has been Sevrus, Sevril, Sevros (though the original is Sevrus, but because of unavailability of name he is stuck with Sevros).  The Affliction Warlock never sits still.  They are always jumping around, fidgeting constantly, looking around.  And they are slow to anger, but can be explosive when angry - much like their damage.  Slow to ramp up but by the end it's a big bang and it hurts.  Of all the warlocks, I can understand this one the best.

Then there is the Destruction Warlock, whose is personified by Aza.  Aza is like an emotional rollercoaster.  He flies from sheer glee and excitement to scary angry frustration, and he never does things by halves, he's passionate and throws himself into everything.  And I mean... everything.  He will throw himself into the path of a boss and pull it because... well because he's a destro lock, he's just Az!  The destro lock smashes things because they are so passionate.  And that's like their damage.  It just is a big smash bang OMG what did they just do I have no idea because they're a warlock.  Sev says Destro warlocks are wannabe fire mages.  See, another one of these warlock/mage jokes.  You always know what a Destro lock is thinking, they don't hide their feelings.  Look at Az now.  He had a wisdom tooth pulled out a few days ago and he has been moaning and groaning about pain and he's hungry.  It's kind of cute actually.  Though when I tried to give some educated medical advice, I don't think anyone was taking me seriously, and it sparked this amusing conversation in raid on Monday:

Aza: My mouth is still bleeding :( There was blood in my soup.

Me: Go and get a tampon and bite on it.

Aza: I don't have any tampons.  Where am I going to get that?

Me: Go and buy some from the chemist. Or Woolworths.

Sev: Nav, you can't ask a guy to buy tampons.  That's just wrong.

Me:  Why not?  Guys can buy tampons.

Sev: You have no idea.  Really.

Me: Hey Falln, if your Mrs asked you to go buy tampons would you go get them?

Falln: OK that's a weird question that came out of nowhere.  Um, I guess so.  If I was doing the groceries I would.

Me (to Sev): See

Falln: Actually I probably would find it easier to by those than frangers or porno magazines, I'd be embarrassed buying those.

Sev (to me): You can't ask him, he's married.

Me: Ok, fine.  Roshii, would you buy tampons for Baha(Souglyy)?

Roshii: Navi...

Me: See, I bet he would

Sev: He's not single Nav.

Me: I bet HK (Lushnek) would.

Lushnek: Uhhh, don't get me involved in this.

Hwired: I can't believe you're embarrassed to buy condoms, and not tampons.

Me: Ohhhhh.  He said FRANGERS.  I thought he said SANGERS, I was wondering why he was embarrassed buying sausages...

(laughter from the boys)

Gutsy: Well you put a franger on sausages Navi.

Me: Who says Frangers anyway?

Hwired: It's a bogan word for condoms Nav.

Falln: Hey, I'm not a bogan.

Anyway, you get the idea, and the conversation was funny at the time!  Ok that diverted me from what I was talking about.  Onto the third warlock.

Ayelena is the quiet, polite gentleman.  Older, more mature, he's level headed.  The opposite of brash.  The opposite of rude.  Where the Affliction warlock is slow to anger, and the Destro warlock is quick to anger, the Demonology warlock is never angry.  He's calm, thick skinned, he just takes it like a man.  Which is what a demonology warlock does perhaps, when I think about it.  They turn into those big demon things with wings and then run around taking it like a... well not a man, like a demon.  And aren't they harder to kill then?  I'm sure they have 600% increase to armour or something, which essentially makes them thick skinned.

Back to the mage/warlock thing.  What is it with the mage and warlock rivalry?  I find it odd because I arena with a mage and a warlock and they are so different.  Maybe because they are both pure caster DPS with 3 talents of different spell types.  I don't know.  Maybe one of them will get on and explain it to me.  Or maybe I can listen to Amijade do a podcast on it.

So, I have been thinking about where I should make my new Warlock.  My character slots are full on my realm.  So I thought I'd pick it on another oceanic server.  So watch this space for when I start levelling my warlock because at least I have one of each class to ask advice from.

Oh, and the best part of the warlocks in my guild?  No, it's not that I am one of the best targets for Dark Intent.  

All 3 of them are regular readers of my blog.  No wonder I love warlocks :D

Ok.  Now I can sleep.

Minipost: Look at my new shiny banner!

It seems a bit silly to write about it when you will clearly see it when you first come to my blog, but I got a new banner!  It was made for me by my dear friend Tome of the Ancient, who somehow managed to find time in her busy weekend to make this for me.  I just hope her daughter doesn't find out her mother was sneaking around emailing her friends and photoshopping rats because I might be in her daughter's bad books!

Isn't it great!  And she's got the rat on my arm!  All these people who are clever with photoshop are just amazing in my opinion - it's something I have no idea how to do and I can't seem to get my head around no matter how much I try.

So thank you so much Ancient, I love it!!!

Monday raiding - OMG we raided!

Not that we got very far.  That boat is a willbreaker.  The fire everywhere, the whole damn boat is covered in fire, where the hell can you stand with Warmaster??  I took a pic of it, but I'll add it later when I'm at home.  But we still didn't get it down.  It's really depressing.

(pic goes here)

Even Mab commented on his blog that raiding has died.  Falln was saying to me he didn't feel like raiding but if we were all there, he'd go.  Roshii and Souglyy were bummed because they would love to raid sitting side by side but it's not happening.  Sev and Shab are tired of raiding.  I have to beg Hwired to get online sometimes.  Gutsy is an old man and wants to sleep - Bish too.  Augment has on and off days.  So we got sick of it and ended the raid early.

Which meant, I had some time for Tournament.  Yay!  So Sev and I gathered Shab from D3 and off we went to Tournament, ready for more games.  But... when we queued, we noticed that the wait time for arenas was unavailable.  Aww shucks, that meant no arena matches.  So I decided to be nasty and gank some people in Gurubashi Arena and then we switched back to live side to do Arenas there.

And we had a really good run yesterday.  This targetting the healer is working very well for us.

• We won our first game, against a shaman healer, and the I can't recall what the DPS were.  
• The next game against a priest, shaman and rogue who were quite high geared I think because of their health, I thought was going to be crap, but they managed to burn the priest down, between the two of them.  I was busy trying to stay alive whilst the other 2 dps hacked away at me, and when Shab cheered when the priest died, I said "Yay, can you help me now, coz I'm going to die."  And then we finished them off.  Sev kept deathcoiling the priest so their spells didn't get off, and Shab silenced and I could hear lots of ice lances and freezing sounds, so that was good.  I had them focussed as well because I didn't want to be mana burned, but the poor priest had other things to worry about instead of wasting time mana burning me.  
• The last game, against a warrior, rogue and paladin, a combination which usually makes us moan and groan, but it was one of those games where we were coordinating our cc's perfectly.  It was a long game too.  We decided to do Shab's nova trick, and then I was supposed to cc the warrior, but he did the spinning around thing to get out of it, so he was immune.  Sev was getting focussed by the melee a lot so he couldn't do much cc'ing.  At least the other team knew what they were doing - an Affliction lock can't do much when he's kicked and pummelled and slowed.  Warriors are Sev's pet hate.  The paladin's mana was going down a LOT, I assumed because Sev and Shab were tearing into him and wuth me and Shab calling out cc's, it felt like we were so pro.  Poor Sev, he didn't do much talking, and I can imagine that if I say that he was quiet, he would reply "Um, Nav, it's really hard to talk when I'm trying to STAY ALIVE!"  Shab would call out "polying the warrior" and I would immediately say "rooting the rogue" and then when the poly ran out I would cyclone the warrior.  We did a lot of that for a few minutes while I was trying to save Sev with tons of heals (and he had quite a few close calls), and if I was about to CC Shab's target, I would switch to the other one which is the good thing about melee, at least roots is a viable cc.  When we won, I was so pleased, because it was such a satisfying game.  We were all very pleased!

My arena winning streak was ruined by babies crying so I had to go and then I was gone so long I AFK logged out, so my apologies to my arena team buddies Sev and Shab about that!

We did try to do a Wintersgrasp before arenas but we couldn't get our siege engines quick enough and the alliance were good at killing our machines so that didn't work so well.

So I'm not sure if Shab can do any games from Wednesday.  Really need to get those last few games for the Tournament before he's away.  He's going away soon.  Fingers crossed we can get those last ones in!

Moggers on the streets of Dath - Zen's alts

I was standing around in Orgrimmar today waiting for Amateur Azerothian's low level alliance run (which they kindly put at a time I could attend!), browsing the auction house.  Yes, I know I was on my horde toon and I was supposed to be on Alliance but I'm trying to put together a set for me and someone else which is time consuming because I am not a very avid farmer.

Anyway.

Someone whispered me saying "You look positively evil in that set, it's cool" or something along those lines.  As I scanned around to see who had said that, they flew away.
"Thanks!" I said, "But I didn't get to see your mog, can you come back?"
So this mage flew back.  His name was Zenvatic.  And he was using a pink red version of Apostle of Argus.  But the rest of his set looked quite good.  I asked him about his staff.  And he told me you can get it in Area 52 and you don't need special titles.  I did know there was a vendor there - I had gotten my PVP helm from there for my feral transmog.  But I hadn't seen that staff before so I was admiring it.  I asked him if I could take his picture and he said sure, so I put him in my photo spot for a shot.

Flarecore mantle, Robe and Imperial Red gloves and Vengeful Gladiator's Battle Staff

So while I was there, I changed to my raid healing mog (the 100k set) and Zenvatic said "It's YOU!"  And my first thought was OMG, he recognises me... I hope he doesn't say something awful after I was making nice compliments about his set!  But after I got over that half second of initial fear, I figured, nah he's talking to me, assholes who would do that don't talk and chit chat.

"You were there?" I asked.

"Yes, on my priest," he said.

Hmm.  There were only 3 priests and I knew it wasn't Silenrea or Pufflle because I see them around in Org and chat to them.  That meant he was the other one... oh what was his name... the one who didn't keybind the Z key... so I snuck to my blog to look it up.

"Not the Tauren priest?"  I was buying time.  I knew he wasn't Silenrea.

"No, the twin of that one," he said.

I found the post on my blog. "Are you Zenhira?"  And he said he was.  I told him his mog was really good, and he said the same in return to me, and that I shouldn't worry about the haters, they're all kids.  It was nice what he said, and then he said something that almost made me do a Mataoka and spit my water all over the keyboard.

"It's great to have someone as renowned as you making such great comments on my gear."

Renowned?  LOL I wish!  I can just see half my readers laughing and the other half rolling up their sleeves ready to type some cheeky remark! :P

So I asked if I could see some of his other toon's mogs.  And his paladin has a really nice mog, though I think the shield is not that great a match.  That sword is fantastic though.

Talon of Azshara, Breastplate of Tarnished Bronze, Jade Warrior Pauldrons, Fel Iron Plate Gloves and Boots, Judgement Belt, Bloodhoof Legguards and Wrathful Gladiator's Redoubt

So, just to check, I asked him to hit z so I could look at him holding his shield.  There was a long pause.  "Not keybound?" I asked, smiling to myself.  "I'm blushing," he replied, sheepishly. "Gimme a sec to keybind it."  LOL.

It was nice to see some nice mog on the streets again.  It's been a while.  I should make this a more regular segment :)

Arena tournament - We are Borg. We will adapt.

I forgot to mention that on the Tournament Realm you can actually talk to the opposing faction!  Well, not whisper them exactly but if you /say you can talk and they can talk back.  It's actually rather cool.  I wish that you could do that more in Sanctuary places, like Dalaran and Shattrath.  I think that it's really neat.

And, you wouldn't believe this, but we are actually learning something here.  One of the things about games here is that you get the same team over and over, because other people must be playing at different times because it must be people from all over the world or something.  And, because we get to do the same team over and over, it's almost like we're Borg... we learn, and adapt.

Worf: "Sir, they've adapted."

Like that poor shaman/warlock/priest team from yesterday, Sunday's team we adapted to was a shaman/rogue/warrior.  The first time we met them, we charged in and I was stunned, silenced and stunlocked to death.  Ugh.  Once those 2 melee lock you down it's pretty crap.  The second time, Sev didn't put Demon Armo(u)r on because people had been ignoring him and going for me and Shab and they went to him and flattened him.  By the time I got into the smokescreen thing it was too late.  So then we started talking about how we should do this.  We decided that we HAD to kill that shaman - with tremor totem, purges and stuff on, we were never going to be able to cc the others.  The warrior was a pain though too - when he starts spinning around he can't be cc'd and so it's going to be tough.  So Shab said he would run in, nova and then when the Warrior gets out of it, I need to cyclone him.  So we tried that, and this time, we lived longer, but I died this time, but so did the shaman.  Shab and Sev managed to finish the other two off.  The next time we came upon them, we did the same thing, and this time I didn't die and we finished them all off.

There seem to be a lot of shaman teams.  There was a group with an elemental shaman and a resto druid and a  rogue, but they killed us once, and then the poor team got in with only 2 members and we killed them back.  However, there was one brilliant moment because Sev disconnected in that arena (it was Undercity arena) and me and Shab were like Oh NO!!  They were attacking Sev, and he wasn't going down - was that because he d/c'd or was that because of my heals?  I doubt it was my heals.  But I have no idea what Shab did but he killed the druid by himself.  He yelled on Vent "The druid's dead!" and I said "OMG Sev you have to come back OMG quick!!!" and thank god he was able to come back in and we could polish off the other two.  Shab was so proud of himself, he was feeling really good I think!  I thought he did really well too, I was so happy we pulled that off.

But the team we could NOT adapt to, was the shaman, hunter and rogue.  Hunters are so hard to deal with if left unkilled, but if we didn't kill the shaman first, we weren't going to get anywhere.  And we still haven't figured out how to kill that team.  The constant silences and cc's from that hunter drove me to foul language.  However, surprisingly we have managed to play 45 games or so on the Tournament realm, and we only need 50 for the pet, but if we're having a good time learning strats, we'll probably stay there longer.  It's fun to see other teams adapting to our strats and then we have to think up a counter strat for them.

Our group composition will not guarantee us a good spot, but at least we're picking up some tips for or live arena games.

#MMONBI post 3 - Supporting other bloggers - is there a blogroll etiquette?

Showing support for other bloggers is something that any blogger who wants to be read should do - after all, no blogger is an island!  Hmm, perhaps not a good analogy... No blogger is an island with no airport!  You need flight paths between you and the other islands so that you will get the visitors that you want - can't just rely on tourist brochures (google) after all!

LOL, OK, maybe I do bad analogies!

Showing support for other bloggers can come in a number of forms:

1. Retweeting their posts on Twitter.  Spread the reading love around!
2. Linking them in your posts.  So your traffic will become their traffic.
3. Adding them to your blogroll so your readers can become familiar with them.

Blogrolls can be a source of angst as well!  And is there an etiquette to follow?  Do you have to ask someone before you add them?  Or do you have to add someone who's added you?

Firstly, remember, it's your blog, and a blogroll merely lets your readers know what you read, and is also a good way to keep track of what people are writing about.  What you decide to do with your blogroll beyond that is entirely personal.  I can't speak for every blogger, but I will tell you how I decide who is on my blogroll.

I am a big fan of organised blogrolls.  You have 30 blogs on your blogroll?  How is your reader going to know which ones they want to read?  So maybe you can help them out by sorting them out somehow.

Maybe you can sort them by class.  Or maybe you can sort them by subject.  Whatever you decide to do, it will help your reader and the people on your blogroll connect to what they want to read.

For small time bloggers like myself, if I see myself on someone's blogroll, I get really excited.  I find it such an honour that someone reads me, and even puts me on their page that I can't help but add them to my own page. But imagine those big time bloggers who must be on 100s of people's blogrolls.  It's crazy to think they can add  you if their blogrolls are already chockablock!  So don't be offended if they don't add you, or don't even know you exist.  Remember, if they think you're good, they will add you.  If they don't... well don't be disheartened.  One day you might be famous like that, and can't add people to your blogroll because it's already full.  But this is a reminder to big famous bloggers, that small time bloggers do feel left out if not linked or blogrolled, so imagine how you would feel if that was you, with no link love from your own blogroll.

But what if you don't want to add someone to your blogroll because... well, you don't like them?  You don't like their blog?  Just don't add them, easy!  Do you worry about offending them?  Like, is it your best friend from high school or something?  That's the funny thing isn't it - sometimes a blogroll can be like Facebook, and people get upset when you get that friend request and you don't add them to your friends.  How do you deal with that?  In those situations, handle your blogroll like you handle your Facebook friends :)  If you don't want to offend anyone, add everyone!  Or add no-one, so nobody can get offended.  If you don't care about those sorts of things and only want to add what you want to, then do that!  Just make sure you have a thick skin if you have to deal with people who get offended.

Somebody actually coined something called Blogroll Amnesty Day.  What is that, I hear you wonder? Well, Atrios at Eschaton blog said:

...one of the big complaints by new bloggers is that it's impossible to get onto blogrolls because established bloggers tend not to add them. They're right. A big reason for that is that everyone feels a wee bit guilty about removing blogs from their blogroll, so they're hesitant to add new ones to an ever-expanding list...

Which is an interesting statement.  What Atrios did was delete his entire blogroll and repopulate it, but there was criticism that he repopulated it with what was already there instead of putting new people on there, small blogs.  A lot of bloggers followed suit and so the end result of Atrios' Amnesty Day was to make some blogrolls smaller and even more exclusive than they already were.  So it wasn't really originally a good exercise, but since then, a lot of people have taken up the movement to make it easier for the small person to be heard.  The offical Blogroll Amnesty Day (B.A.D.) is February 4.

So as part of my final post in the #MMONBI series, this is what I would like people to do. Look in your blogroll for 2 people, who have less traffic than you (Ok, this can be hard to gauge, because I don't REALLY know how much traffic someone gets), and give them some link love in your next post.  Yes, I know it is not B.A.D. but I missed it so I'm making  up for it and it IS NBI after all!

So here are my two bloggers:

• BikesBabesBytes - Sounds kinda sexy but it's actually got a lot of WoW in it, but this is the only guildie of mine who has a blog!  Mabaho is a RL mate as well as a guildie, and like me, has 2 young kids, works, and somehow fits WoW in.  His blog has a lot about solo playing and playing WoW with limited time.
• Pint-Sized Paladin - I first noticed Cate because she was visiting my blog.  Cate really loves all those other things in WoW, much like me!  She loves transmog, pets, mounts and achievements.  I love reading about people who love those little things in WoW, just like me!

Arena tournament - farming and being farmed

We are still ironing out our strategies, and the games last night were a good example.  We were still going for the charge and run in thing, and the team we came up against, a shaman/priest/warlock combo is usually difficult for us.  We decided to try to cc the healer and kill the shadow priest, but that went abysmally because shamans are really hard to cc in the presence of a priest.  Fear them? Tremor totem gets rid of that.  Sheep them?  Dispelled by the priest.  Sev doesn't like shamans because he doesn't feel like he can do anything to them.  So they killed us the first time, and we felt a bit bleh.  We discussed it and decided the best course of action is to kill the shaman.

We then got some other high rated teams who just wiped our faces on the floor.  We put up a good battle with one of them the second time we got them, but still the warrior was just too much for me.  

So then we got the shaman/priest/warlock combo again (whose team by the way was called Farming HKs with Kony) and this time we went for the shaman.  All I did was smash totems.  That got them confused that time.  And the DPS were a bit more confused I think because their healer was getting killed so they were trying to cc and control Sev and Shab so I just threw a few whirlwinds on them.  So we were happy, we gouged some points out of them for our earlier loss.  But then, those poor suckers, we got them again... and again... and again.  I think we must have played them about 5 or 6 times and killed them each time.  They did well though, trying to modify their strategy, which was to mana drain me which I hadn't noticed the first time but once I did notice it, it was easy to shift away from it.  Then they tried the mind control but that didn't help either.  After the 3rd time we killed them we thought we'd give them a break and let them play against someone else for a while, but they must have thought the same because we got them again.  I whispered them to apologise and ask them to queue now as we were taking a queue break to let them play someone else and they didn't want to, they were happy with playing against us.  "It's good practice for us lol" said the Shaman, and the priest said "Nah, it's all good, there's nobody else in the queue."  So they nearly got me the last time but at least we beat them in Blades Edge Arena so we could get our World Wide Winner.

People can still be nasty, and there were some demonstrations of nasty out at Gurubashi arena.  There seemed to be a lot of activity there, so we went down to look at what was going on.

Look at all those bodies and skeletons!  Now it turned out there were 3 flagged people who were just ganking people.  So someone would stand in the arena asking for a challenge and then the others would come and gank them while they were in mid battle.  Or, a poor flagged person who was standing outside the  arena would get deathgripped into the arena thing by the DK and then the rogue and the other person would finish them off.  One poor mage, clearly not someone who played on a PvP server, was getting killed a lot and getting quite grouchy.

So back to games.  We went on to another group who were just farming us, so after 3 losses to them we decided to call it quits and went to live to arena and PvP.  I'd had an awful battleground earlier, where I was the person with the highest health so I had to flag carry which was crappy because I would much rather be healing the FC, and of course I died, and I afk'd out of that game.  So our first game, Isle of Conquest was crappy (remind me when Shab says let's go kill glaives... that it's a bad idea!) and then our AB after that was  another loss but not bad, and then after that we had a nice Battle for Gilneas with a 3 cap win.  So that was good finisher for the night.

Highlights from my Blogroll March 27,2012

NBI is drawing to a close, and there have been some great reads from these newbie bloggers!

Jaded Alt made a list of all the new World of Warcraft bloggers, and I've been cruising through the list seeing what juicy reads they can offer!

Of course, I have a soft spot for Warlocks so I went straight to Amijade of Warlockery. She wrote about 10 things my Warlock Has Taught Me, number 10 is my favourite!

When does Tzufit NOT do an awesome post?  One of the best druid bloggers (if not THE best) I know, she has written a really insightful post titled Intentionally Undergeared: The Role of Instinct in Skill.  She was thinking about whether healing is a skill that can be taught, and she writes from her own experience to say how for her, healing is an instinct rather than a skill.  That it's not about gear, it comes from knowing what to do, or rather knowing the extent of what you CAN do.  I could relate to what she was saying, because when I try to teach people to play a druid, you can tell them your rotations and what to do, but it is very difficult to tell them how to cope in an emergency situation where all hell is about to break loose.  There is no formula for that, and knowing instinctively what to do is the difference between winning and wiping.  I'm not saying that if you don't have the instinct you will fail, and I don't think Tzu is saying that either, but I think that if you know your class really well, you really know what you can and can't do.

Oh and a lot of us did the Nerd test that Tome of the Ancient put in her blog.  If you haven't done it yet, then go do it!  It's a great little test and worth a good laugh.

Minipost: Malware and virus warnings on my site

Everyone using Google Chrome has been telling me this week they are getting lots of Malware alerts when trying to load my site... and it's all coming from Jaded Alt :(

I am not sure why, because it doesn't do that in Firefox or IE for me, and so with great reluctance I had to remove Windsoar from my blogroll so the warnings would stop :(

However, she is still in my feed so that's ok.  I'm sorry Windsoar!

I am wondering what on her site is causing all these alerts, but I had Fue and Nabe telling me, Sev telling me, and now an ingame mail from Euphy telling me :(

It's fixed now I hope!  So everyone can come back, and if the warnings still come, let me know!

Mog busting Chatmay

Now Chatmay did not choose me to mog her, but nobody seems to be making her mog for her, so I didn't want her to feel like nobody cares about her.  So, just so she knows we love her and think about her I thought I'd make her a mog.

Shoryl was the original perpetrator of this Meme.  It's gone to a few well known mog artists since then, you can see the list when you go to Shoryl's original post.  This is what Chatmay wanted:

Chatmay is a longtime resident of Stormwind City and war veteran.  She is known most of all for being a social butterfly and party hostess extraordinaire.  Rebel and wild-child in her younger days, she has mellowed out a bit in her middle-aged years, but she still knows how to have fun.  And even though she is known as friendly and outgoing in public, she occasionally makes a statement that it is not to be forgotten that she is a warlock.

Chatmay usually wears robes and loves ones that expose midriff or back.  Pants/tops are ok as long as they are stylish.  She rarely wears helms that show the neck but hide all of her hair (ew), but she does like hoods and masks.

Chatmay has recently acquired a dagger called Runesong Dagger, and is looking for something to wear with it.  She won the dagger when greatly outnumbered, so she wants the outfit to be a reminder to everyone – don’t mess with me.

So here I go!  Finding a dress was easy, but shoulders was hard!  I didn't want to use a full tier/set piece look.  I am not a helm or cape fan, and the choices of helm I would like are not what Chatmay would like.  There seems to be a large amount of PVP gear in this mog though....

I really like the Cataclysmic Gladiator's Felweave Raiment and Amice.  That dress with the inbuilt necklace is very nice.  And it's damn sexy.

I chose Cataclysmic Gladiator's Cuffs of Accuracy with Vicious Gladiator's Felweave Handguards so you can see her hands - humans have nice hands I think!  However, the choice of belt is not a great one IMO (Belt of Arcane Storms) as the matching Cataclysmic Gladiator's Cord of Accuracy goes very nicely with this set.  Pale Corpse Boots (Heroic colour) was what I chose as the shoes, though any shoes would go well if they were dark I think.

I like Chatmay's original offhand in the picture she showed (Swampchill Fetish) so I kept that for the "don't mess with me I'm a warlock" look.  And the wand that I would put with this set is Wand of the Netherwing.

Wowhead is broken atm :( it's having maintenance!  I'll fix the links tomorrow when it's back up.

I hope she likes it.  All those spikes are kinda scary!

Edit: Ok, Shoryl says I need to continue the meme!  So I choose JD of Amateur Azerothian, and this is his challenge:

Navimie is thinking about being a bear tank next expansion, and wants to look big and tough like a warrior.  She would like a full faced helm like a warrior and look like a tank when she's not in bear form, and Mask of Lethal Intent looks like it fits the bill nicely.  Tanking weapons tend to be staves, so the mogged weapon has to be a staff.

I look forward to seeing what the Simon Cowell of Azeroth comes up with :)

Thursday raiding - not happening!

It's hard to get anyone on these days.  So raiding is pretty much coming to a standstill, not that I mind because I have a TOURNAMENT to play!

I didn't get to do much tournament :(  Shabadu, who was the one who was saying he wanted to do it for fun, had been watching videos of strategies (he was doing RESEARCH! That sounds like work, not fun!!!) and mentioned he saw a druid go to bear and charge someone - how come I don't do that?  I told him that the bear charge spec is a more aggressive spec, and I play a more defensive spec, which focuses more on higher healing output with some little bits of dot pressure to help Sev with his dots.  To get bear charge I would need 10 points in the feral tree, which I have put into Balance instead.  The other thing Shaba wanted to do was to CC the healer and burn down a DPS, and he wanted us to charge in, instead of hanging back like we normally do.  He felt that when we waited, we gave the other team time to regroup and plan, and if we rush in, especially for a mage and warlock, a nova with a fear bomb would be good to get the game started.

So we tried that.  I had a few seconds of panic because to do a rush, I would have to get on a mount.  I don't think I have ever gotten on a mount in arena.  Ever.  And I didn't know if I had any mounts!  Fortunately the Tournament realm gives you a PVP mount to start, so I had a wolf to ride, phew!  I should just go open my letterbox and learn some of the mounts in there.

So we won our first game, it was quite good.  2 paladins and a DK, I think it was.  The DK was the last one left and I was surprised he just quit - some of the DKs can go on FOREVER especially against casters with that crappy antimagic shield and deathstrike or whatever it is they do that gives them helfth back.

Then while we were waiting for another game, I felt something touch my foot.  I turned around and my 2 year old son was standing there rubbing his eyes sleepily, looking up at me and I had to go put him back into bed which became a bit of a chore, so I couldn't play anymore.  Awwww :( Sev says that June 6 is the end of the tournament so we have to get our 50 games in by then.  So we thought ok, we'll do that, shouldn't be too hard.  So maybe this weekend, I can squeeze a few more in.

25 May is Geek Pride Day!

How funny, that we all did that nerd test, and it turns out TODAY is Geek pride day!  So what is Geek Pride day?

Geek Pride Day is an initiative to promote geek culture, celebrated on 25 May. The date was chosen as to commemorate the release of the first Star Wars film, A New Hope on 25 May 1977 (see Star Wars Day), but shares the same date as two other similar fan "holidays": Towel Day, for fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams, and the Glorious 25 May for fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

- definition from Wikipedia

So for all my friends who did the nerd test, how fortuitous that it falls on Geek pride day?  Yes, I know that geek and nerd are not necessarily the same things, but in modern culture they are used interchangeably and I am proud to say that I am both. Squidoo had a nice definition in their post about Geek Pride Day which I am going to share:

I found out that it was Geek Pride Day because I was talking at work about my nerd test score, and everyone was hardly surprised at the result, and one of my minions said that he heard it on the radio as he was driving to work that it was Geek day today.  So I had to google it and wouldn't you know it, it WAS!

So all you geeks out there, celebrate your geekiness!  What did I do today to celebrate my geekiness?  I am wearing my Dalaran university T-shirt underneath my Superman hoodie.  And tonight I think that means I will be having a Marvel Movie Marathon of XMen, Thor, Captain America and Ironman!

Hug a Geek today!

Edit:  Cymre had a version 2 of the Nerd test so here is my results!

 

Supreme Nerd Navimie

OK, am I supposed to be proud of this or embarrassed?  Ancient was talking about it today and then Matty was doing it too, so I thought I'd check it out.  Oh look, I just noticed that Effy came back to her blog from D3 to do it as well (well, I did expect her to do it after all, she is nerdy!)

Now, is it fair that they ask science questions?  So I'm supreme nerd, OMG LMAO. I'm more nerdy than all of them, crap.  It's not fair that I was good at chemistry and physics!

Because of that I'll have to put my favourite nerdy quote here:

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Take the test today!  And let me know how nerdy you are :)  Make me feel a little better at least!

Edit:  Kamalia did it, and she got 88!  Now was she the chemistry whiz?  I forget!  That might have been Vidyala.

WoW Love in all its forms is no less intoxicating

Mataoka wrote a beautiful piece on Star-Crossed Lovers.  How it fired my imagination, and stirred the heart!  I know I'm a hopeless romantic and reading about the tragedy of unrequited and fateful love, I started thinking about what I REALLY thought about love in this game, and in particular, the love between characters in this game.

Take Illidan and Tyrande.  We all know he still loved her, after all he was carrying Memento of Tyrande on him when he died.  But it wasn't a jealous love - he wouldn't kill Malfurion for her love, which at least was a good thing.  It was a quiet, unrequited love, and perhaps this art best represents a dream of his, rather than Tyrande holding a torch for both brothers and having to choose one over the other.

However, the love between Tyrande and Malfurion is more a sweet eternal love.  Though Malfurion slept many years in the Emerald Dream, Tyrande was always true to him, held the torch for him.

"My heart sleeps in the Emerald Dream."

She would do anything to protect him.  Originally daunted by her task to protect the Kaldorei, with the support of Malfurion, she found the strength to uphold her task.  She even acknowledges that strength in a conversation with Illidan:

"Raw power is no substitute for true strength, Illidan.  That is why I chose your brother over you."

Image courtesy of Tzufit of Tree Heals go Whoosh

Thrall and Aggra, the typical conflict turned romantic love like a romance novel.  What started off as a bit of disappointment and disgust from Aggra towards Thrall in Throne of the Elements in Nagrand:

Aggra: I have heard you before. You are here to save your world; to learn from ours. Greatmother Geyah has charged me with instructing you, and as such, you will listen to me, Go'el.
Thrall: I have told you to call me Thrall.
Aggra: Yes I know, Go'el. Thrall is the leader of the Horde, but you are not here in that capacity. Look at you: At what you are wearing...  You say you have come to seek knowledge and understanding, but you are dressed for battle. That is why I question you and your willingness to do what must be done.
Thrall: My clothing?! Is that what this has come to now? We debate the merits of my clothing?

It turned into love and the absolute belief that your love can do anything, and be the great saviour of the world.  When all would have abandoned hope when Thrall was struck down with dark magic, Agra held hope that he could be saved, his spirit repieced from the 4 domains of the Elemental Plane.  And she was there, the whole time, urging us adventurers to save Thrall, calling his spirit back to her.  In Elemental Bonds - Doubt:

Thrall：I know your face...Aggra! Oh, my heart - can't you see? I am...nothing. Selfish...
all I've done... accomplished...all for the sake of pride alone. I am... unworthy of you...
Aggra：You are Go'el, Son of Durotan and Draka! Rightful Warchief of the Horde!  You are the orc who won my heart. Remember WHO YOU ARE!

And then in Elemental Bonds - Desire:

(2nd vision) Aggra：Another vision! I see Go'el, but...it...it's me. Was I his deepest desire? A mate with which to share his life... his burdens and his joys? Hear me, Go'el! You ARE NOT alone! I'm here with you - I will NOT let you go!
(3rd vision) Aggra：A final vision! Ancestors...could those be... our children? This was his deepest desire...to be a father? ...to have a family of his own...with me? Go'el never knew his parents... It was only a few years ago that he even found his people...I should have known this was what he wanted most. Oh, Go'el, hold on! I WILL free you! And you'll HAVE this life, I swear it!

And then in Elemental Bonds - Patience:

Aggra：GO'EL! Pull it together or we're all going to DIE!
Thrall：We are patient.
 Aggra：He did NOT just say that! Damn you, Go'el - WAKE UP! Don't let it end like this! We've come too far to fail now!
Thrall：We are patient.
Aggra：Oh, don't you tell ME to be patient, you green-skinned...
Thrall：Aggra...I heard your voice...calling me back... Where are we?
Aggra：You're almost home, my love. Our time is so brief. You will change again, Go'el - but I will find you! I'll NEVER give up on you!

Ah, gotta love their conversation, it did make me giggle.  But her love, commitment, determination are all there, a beacon for him to latch onto.  Sigh, I LOVE love stories.  So now we head to Elemental Bonds - Fury:

Thrall： Aggra... Navimie... I am... alive...
Aggra： Go'el, I thought I'd lost you...
Thrall： Aggra, my heart... you never gave up on me. I owe you my life... everything that I am.
Aggra： Well, you're certainly more talkative... But we must hurry back to the World Tree! The Dragon Aspects are waiting... and you, my love, have a world to save.
Thrall： Thank you, my friend. I can never repay your service or your friendship. Meet us back at the World Tree. There's something... I want you to witness. 

So then we are onto the wedding... so romantic!  So in Elemental bonds - The Vow:

Thrall： In the face of this cataclysm, I've seen how truly fleeting our lives can be. And I, for one, will not waste another second of mine. 

Aggra： What are you saying, Go'el? What is in your heart? 

Thrall： Aggra... though I was not born on Draenor, I have always tried to honor the traditions of our ancestors... I stand before you - Go'el, Son of Durotan, Son of Garad... and if you would have me, I would be your life-mate. For so long as I live, I will stand at your side... as you stood at mine. 

Aggra： I stand before you - Aggralan, daughter of Ryal, daughter of Sarrak... and I will proudly be your mate, Go'el... in this world or any other.

Awww, so sweet!!  Romance of the soppy kind is the best kind :)

Jaina by Dan Scott

OK, now we come to Jaina Proudmoore.  Most people know about her relationship with Arthas.  She was engaged to him at one stage.  However, Arthas questioned whether they were ready to be together, and he ended their relationship so Jaina could focus on her magic studies and he on his Lordaeron duties.  Poor Jaina, she was hurt by this but accepted it and when they were going to get back together again... the Scourge invaded.

On her Gold Coin, it says "Arthas, my love, please come back to me." And when you kill the Lich King when you're doing the Shadowmourne legendary chain, one of the items, Jaina's Locket, has written on the tooltip "Once it held her image. He always wore it close to his heart."  And there's that little dialogue at the end of Warcraft III between Arthas and Kael'thalas:

Arthas: Are you still upset about me stealing Jaina from you that one time, Kael?
Kael'thas: You've taken everything I've ever cared for, Arthas. Vengeance is all I have left.

So there was something between her and Kael'thas?  Kael fell in love with her while she was studying with Antonidas but their age differences were a concern for him (she was a teenager and he was a century or two old).  On Kael'thas' Gold Coin it says "That young apprentice Jaina is quite attractive for a human. I hope she recognizes my elegance and power."  The feelings were not returned though.

People ask what was between her and Thrall?  I thought it was a mutual respect, a deep abiding friendship, not a lover's love, but a friendship love.  But I could be wrong, after all, if you read the White Punch Card, it has 

01010100 01101000 01110010 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01001010 01100001 01101001 01101110 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110100 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100101 01100101 00101100 00100000 01001011 00101101 01001001 00101101 01010011 00101101 01010011 00101101 01001001  00101101   01001110   00101101   01000111

written on it which translates to "Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G".  Cute :)

One thing that Matty was pondering was relationships that blossom within the world of Azeroth, and mentioned an article in The New York Times and transcribed by Matty - Love at first Kill.  These stories are not unique.  All around Azeroth there are great stories of people falling in love.  There's a blog dedicated to MMO Couples and their stories, written by Gabigirl.  Souglyy and Roshii are a recent example of friends/guildies who have known each other for a long time and suddenly being struck by Cupid's arrow - their story inspired poetry and movies from me!  Balinar and Pelemorra, another pair of guildies who met because they had World of Warcraft in common, inspired my How to Host a Wedding in WoW post.  Cymre and Coolidge also met online and are still going strong.  And featured in WowInsider's 15 minutes of Fame was another love story of a couple in their 40s who met in the game - their first meeting after months of talking to each other in game sounds typical of so many lovers in WoW:

Tell us what it was like to meet in person.
Ghrelsognn: ...We had been talking everyday for three to four months... exchanged pictures... talked about what we wanted out of life, short term and long term...We had total trust with each other. I wasn't scared – nervous, but I was anxious, excited and very happy that we finally were going to get to spend some time together.
Aleiriella: ...I could not wait to meet Ghrel in person... to hold him and tell him how much I loved him... I was not nervous at all... more anxious than anything... he was standing there waiting for me with flowers with a bit of a trembling smile..I ran into his arms and we kissed... and held each other for the longest time, not wanting to let go! It was a feeling that's hard to describe.

It sounds crazy to people who don't play a game, to understand how you can fall in love in a game.  But if you're both passionate about the same thing (the game) then it's easy to use that as your starting point.  You will always have that in common.  And the glitter and stars of online relationships mask the small imperfections (like the toilet seat, dirty dishes, and who left their coffee cup out here again!) that plague a more conventional, close proximity relationship.  And sometimes, I think that makes them better relationships.  Think about it, when you are in love in the game, you only have talking, behaviour within the game, and you can spend hours talking and getting to know the person.  When you meet in person, sometimes the looks can get in the way, you talk a little bit, then before long you're wondering when it's appropriate to kiss and then move onto those other... intimate things.  And the getting to know you can get swept under the carpet of hot passion at that point.  But the online way, the getting to know you slow way, gives you more time to build that anticipation, and human nature loves a thrill, the excitement, the longing and yearning.  Humans always yearn for something.  We always wish and dream.  Online relationships allow you to have those wishes, dreams and then every once in a while, they become reality.  Awwwwwww :)

But just as romantic attachments can be formed across cyberspace, so can deep friendships.  I count my friends that I've met in the game as good friends, close friends, and meeting them in person has always been exciting, and I am never disappointed.  Hell, meeting them in GAME is also highly exciting (or chatting online).  However, I find that friendships in WoW seem to end when the WoW relationship is gone (ie they stopped playing) so the friendship seemed to be all based around the fact that you had the game in common to hold your friendship together.  I suppose that's not always true, I do have friends who no longer play, but I admit, that the friendship is not the same as it was when we did have the game.  I still love them though, in that friendly way!  (Ewwww love, I hear all you friends cringing!!!)

OK, I've tortured you all enough with my love rantings!  Thanks for reading :)  And you can blame Matty for making me write this :)

Not smarter than your average bear - an #MMONBI post

Battlechicken's 4th challenge for those newbies (yes, yes I know, I am not a Newbie, but maybe if I write about it some Newbie might be inspired by my post - thought that would only work if Newbies actually read my blog, and I don't think I have attracted any with my crazy rants) is a difficult one!

Week 4 Challenge - LEARNING IS FUN

Find something you only know a little bit about, learn something new, and tell us what you learned.

So my challenge is - how to grin and BEAR it.

I haven't really bear tanked properly in a raid since Karazhan, way back when.  I even had to tank up for Zul'Gurub back in the day which was bloody scary.  People laugh when I say that I used to tank, because the idea of it is so foreign (almost as scary as when Fue tells me he was healing).  Tanking full time is challenging and most tanks are quite emotional and get cranky and burnt out, so we do go through a fair few.  I'm hoping Mists will produce a few monk healers and tanks for our raid teams and that people will start coming back to raiding.

So, should I learn about tanking in Cataclysm, or research what I should be doing in Mists?  I decided to just look at Mists, because I figured by the time I learnt all about bears in Cataclysm, it would all change come the expansion.

Sunnier's Art of War is where I would go if I wanted to read about Bear tanking.  Call me sexist, but a girl tank just seems rather cool to me - I'm a bit tired of hearing that girls only heal or play a ranged DPS.  So to be different maybe I'll try to learn bear tanking and I'd better learn it well because there will be a hell of a lot of criticism!  Besides, going tank for Mists is good for dungeoning, because I am sure I can find a healer (cough, Lushnek) to accompany me and get our "stuffs".  So I went to see what she had to offer me in terms of teaching a new bear.

So I started with reading Bears Still Need More Flavor. This post talks about the changes with Mists, what talents bears have lost and what could we do to improve the Guardian spec of Druid.  I realised that this post was a bit beyond me, because it assumed I had some knowledge of Bear, which I don't.  So it looks like I need to go even further back.  Maybe I should go back to Cataclysm bear tanking so I can get my head into the basics so I can understand what all these clever people are talking about.

Sunnier has a rotation to follow in her Bear Guide:

Single Target
Bears follow a priority system. This is the most basic rotation, though there are variations depending on whether you want to maximize threat, damage, or damage reduction (I’ll get into those later). Remember that you can pull with Faerie Fire (Feral) and don’t forget to apply Demoralizing Roar as soon as you have a decent threat lead.

1. Mangle, whenever it’s available.
2. Maul if you have 70 or more rage. It’s off the global cooldown, so you can hit it at the same time as other attacks.
3. Lacerate, get 3 stacks while still prioritizing Mangle when it’s available.
4. Pulverize, if you have 3 stacks Lacerate and the Pulverize buff not up or about to fall off.
5. Keep Lacerate on the target for Berserk procs.
6. Use Thrash and Lacerate as a filler, when you have nothing else to do. Thrash is our second best threat generating attack, behind Mangle. Even on single target.

Multi Target (more than 3)
Multi target is closer to an actual rotation. It should look something like this:
Thrash -> Swipe -> Mangle -> Swipe -> repeat.
Don’t forget to apply Demoralizing Roar as soon as you have a decent threat lead, and use Maul if you have extra rage.

OK, I have no idea what Pulverize is.  I don't think I have that ability.  Let me check my talents - oh there we go, I don't have Pulverize as a talent.  No wonder I don't know what it is (I am specced kitty after all!).  Well, ok, maybe this is one of those things that need I need to go practice.  But I have no gear - well I do, but it's all cat gear, and I'll be damned if I'm going to carry healing gear, PVP healing gear, kitty gear AND bear tank gear.  Though... if I do that, I may have a 4th set to transmog.  IDEA!!!

OMG I love this picture! It's by NightblueArt for the WoW TCG

Next stop, the Inconspicuous Bear.  This is one of those Team Wafflecast people I think!  Ooh look what a nice banner on their blog!  Whoops, I was supposed to be looking at Bear tanking - phew, there's even a whole forum on it!  Looking at it, it's great!   This is what I need to read.   I am trying to figure out what stats to stack and what are hit and expertise caps and things.  Ooh, here's a bit on stats and reforging.  This whole bit is interesting:

There is no “tanking leather” and getting dodge as secondary stat means suboptimal gearing, you should be filling your gear slots with x/Mastery gear. Beyond that, Expertise/Mastery and Crit/Mastery gear choices are the absolute best. However, because there are stats better than Mastery (Agility and Dodge), you should not be reforging or gemming towards it.


For reforging, the best course of action is reforging the least wanted stat into Dodge Rating. This is the best support for survivability, while simultaneously keeping our avoidance above the plate tanks. The Reforge priority is as follows, from least wanted to most wanted:


Haste to Dodge.
Hit / Expertise (if beyond soft cap), if no Haste, to Dodge.
Crit >= Expertise (if below soft cap), if no Hit or Haste to Dodge.
Mastery, if no Haste, Hit, Expertise or Crit, to Dodge.

So what's hit cap?  Oh I see, here it is. 8% (961 hit rating) is what I should be aiming for.  Expertise soft cap is 26.  Same as cat.  Is there a certain amount of Dodge I should have?  Surely Dodge is a good thing for a tank, but I can't figure out how much I should have, or what's a good number.

"Insignia Taken" - by Sleepingfox

OK, I think I have a bit of a rotation out, and I have a vague idea about stats.  Maybe now I can look at some of the Mists of Pandaria stats I'm supposed to be aiming for.  This is what I got from Inconspicuous Bear's Mop Guardian Bear spreadsheet:

• Dodge > Crit > Expertise = Hit > Mastery > Haste
• ~5 RPS leading to a ~50% Savage Defense uptime (in practice will be slightly less with RNG causing rage clipping and starvation)
• 10 RPS is the theoretical Soft Rage Cap, 20 RPS allows us to keep FR up fulltime too.
• Beyond Rage Cap, Hit Haste Crit and Expertise lose all of their value.
• Mastery is pretty crap at the moment (Dodge is ~2-3x better)

OK the first line I can understand.  The second line... what's RPS?  Rage per second?  I think that makes sense since it's rage that funds all our bear activities.  And what's FR?  Sigh, I really need to go do more reading.

I am almost ready to give up here.  I was reading Tzufit's post about Intentionally Undergeared: The Role of Instinct in Skill, and this bear thing doesn't come naturally to me.  When I read about druid healing I know exactly what's going on and I can understand when people are describing something, but this all sounds a bit like mumbo jumbo.  Lucky I'm only going to start learning it during the expansion so that I won't look like a total nooblet.  I hope.

This is me - Noob Tank

I think I've embarrassed myself long enough.  With this amount of homework I've done, I hope that I can do a little bit of bear tanking myself without being laughed at to much.  The thing that really petrifies me is being terrible at it, and all my friends and guildies laughing at me or talking about me behind my back about how crap I am.  I don't feel like that about my healing, even if I am the lowest on the meters these days, because I know that I am good at what I do.  Sounds conceited though, doesn't it?  But it's true, I know healing but I don't know this tanking business.  I guess talking about it isn't going to solve anything, I just need to get out there and do it.