Second night in Kara... Moroes down

Last night was our second night in Kara. Due to people's schedules, it was the first night we could get our core group to go after our first night last Tuesday. I think because we are so small and somewhat casual, we aren't going to be able to go to Kara 4 nights a week. For now, I think we're shooting for 2 definite scheduled runs, with a possible third.

We had an interesting raid makeup for Moroes. We had three tanks, Jess as our main tanky tank, Wut as our pally off tank, and Adamas as our beary druid off off tank. Again, only two healers, myself and our holy priest Suzzy. Suzzy is definitely not a new healer anymore. She is a veteran healer, which is a damn good thing since its just the two of us. For dps, we had Veloreynn who is quite a scary fire mage now (I would not want to meet her in a dark alley), our hunter Nio (I still call his traps the freezy thing), and get this... three freakin rogues, Atania, Daihiro, and Suzzy's friend Fadeshadow. We were giving the rogues a bit of a hard time. When Atania died during trash, I said "Oh crap, sorry Atania" to which Jess replied, "No worries, its just a rogue... we got 2 more". Heh heh.

So... somewhat of an interesting group makeup, wouldn't you say? But K's lesson for today is that you don't have to follow those tips that say you have to have class X for fight Y. You make do with what you have. I know that at some point later in Kara we may really really need a certain class. We'll cross that bridge when we get there or figure out a way to get across with the group we have.

Now the four adds we had were the holy priest, arms warrior, ret paladin, and the prot warrior. Here's why it was good we had Adamas in a tank/dps gear combo. Jess pulled Moroes and tanked him along with Wut to the right of the long table. I stood on the table (my mother would be horrified!) and healed them. Whenever Jess got gouged, she'd yell out, then I'd immediately put up a dispel poison on Wut so that he wouldn't get blinded. Adamas I believe tanked the holy priest and arms warrior, with all dps on the priest first. During this time Nio had frozen the ret pally and Suzzy (when she wasn't busy healing because yeah, she had nothing else to do) shackled the prot warrior. (Disclaimer... I may have gotten some of this wrong... I was so focused on green bars, I'm not 100% sure this is what was going on behind me. I'm sure Jess will correct me if this is wrong). *edited after Jess' comment.

So there was our game plan. Now we wiped 5 times before finally taking him down on the 6th. It was funny (or not so funny) because we got Moroes down to 1% on the fifth try. Now remember my post on Attumen about how I should be quieter during wipes and not swear? Well... let's just say there was plenty of yelling, groaning, and swearing and it wasn't from me! Good thing because now I know I can let the salty words fly. :)

Our five wipes I think were due to a variety of reasons... I think once Wut somehow got stunned once when Jess was gouged and then Moroes came for me. I think another time someone came after Suzzy and we were down to one healer (yikes!). We lost Atania a number of times. With just two healers, one paying attention to a shackle, it was a bit difficult to heal. I tried to keep up a lifebloom stack on Jess as well as some on Wut, dispel poison before Wut would be blinded, put up lifeblooms on whoever was garroted (the 6th time when we took him down I had a garrote on me... it was hard for me to remember to heal myself), and heal whoever else needed it in my spare time (mainly Adamas, Fadeshadow, and Atania). So yeah, it was a bit stressful for Suzzy and myself, but we got it done.

In terms of drops we got [Nethershard Girdle] for our mage Vel (though she doesn't really need a girdle... she is quite slim) and [Signet of Unshakable Faith] for Suzzy. The off hand would have been an upgrade for me as well and Suzzy wanted to roll on it, but I insisted she take it. Here's my theory on loot. Yes, I would like to upgrade my pieces. But I'm not doing Kara by myself. Because the off hand was a greater upgrade for Suzzy, I thought it was more important she get it. A big upgrade for her means the group as a whole is better.

We are going to try to go again tonight for Maiden but not sure if we have a full group. We'll see. However in preparation for Maiden, I spent some time yesterday morning grinding the Abyssal Flamebringers in Blade's Edge. Why? So I could get [Recipe: Major Holy Protection Potion]. Now while I was grinding, wouldn't you know a damn purple dropped! [Depleted Cloth Bracers] which after 50 apexis shards turned into [Crystalweave Bracers]. Vel already had these bracers, so Jess' mage alt Aksana got a nice little gift in the mail from K. I did get the recipe to drop. So it was a nice little farming expedition for me up there since I got a good number of motes of fire as well. I was sort of sad to leave those Abyssal Flamebringers (they look mean and scary but they're really just big teddy bears in disguise) because grinding them was so successful for me!

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Is this worth it?

[Battlemaster's Perseverance] would cost me 30,000 honor and 40 AV marks, which I have. Is it worth it? It'd increase my +healing by 18. But the use of it... I could heal myself without using mana or generating aggro. But really if I'm needing to heal myself, aren't we pretty much done anyways?

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WOW karma, prayers, and superstitions

There is a good amount of luck involved in WOW... whether that is picking those elusive Fel Lotuses. I'm not quite as angry as I was yesterday about this, but still somewhat semi-annoyed. I will have you know that the two Fel Lotuses I got since the patch were still off of Felweed. But believe me, you don't even want to know how much picking I had to do to get those two.

Luck also factors in getting certain loot to drop or discovering recipes. Couple of funny stories. I have been waiting quite a while to learn the recipe for [Flask of Mighty Restoration]. So Tuesday afternoon as I'm getting ready for our first Kara run, I bite the bullet and buy the flask off the AH, even though I had more than enough mats to make it myself... if only I knew the recipe. So literally right after I buy it, I decide to make a couple of other potions and the FIRST potion I make, voila, 'Keredria discovers the Recipe for Flask of Mighty Restoration'! It's almost as if the WOW gods waited for me to buy the flask before granting me the recipe. Its funny because its as if you only get the lucky Fel Lotus or discovery when you are not expecting, looking, or hoping for it. It happens when you least expect it.

An older story... our guild The Left Claw has forever been granted favorable mail karma. It's nice now when our hunter Nio can actually use it, but before he joined us, it sucked. Literally we'd run instances and have mail drop off of each boss. It got to the point where I felt I had to send up a prayer to change our karma. It went something like:

"O great merciful and ever loving God of WOW drops, we recognize your wisdom, greatness, and power and thank thee for all you do for us. We would however like to humbly point out that we do not have a group member who can wear mail. So if you would be so kind to consider that and drop plate or leather gear, we would be so eternally grateful. With great praise and thanks, K".

Now if I remember correctly, after I literally typed out the prayer, I believe our next drop was not mail but something a group member could use! So if you're having problems getting loot to drop, I suggest sending up a prayer to change your karma. Acknowledge the infinite power of the God of WOW drops and ask nicely. You may have to make a sacrificial offering as well.

Now whenever luck factors into anything, I think it's human nature to believe in karma or superstitions around it. What do you do when you want loot to drop? Do you mention it before you start or just secretly wish for it? I think I've done both with favorable results. I've clearly called out to the group what drop I was wishing for before starting a run as well as kept it a secret until after it dropped and then saying, 'Yay that is so what I was wishing for'! But I think overall I tend to think that the God of WOW drops (and yes people, he is real... if you don't believe, how can you expect him to be good to you?) can hear you and seems to have a funny sense of humor. If you too clearly call out the drop that you are going for, it won't drop. It's like you almost have to trick him into dropping it, making him believe you don't want it.

So tell me, what do you think about WOW karma or superstitions?

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Comment on herbalism

Patch 2.4 brought us "Increased chance that Felweed, Dreaming Glory, Ragveil, and Flame Caps will contain a Fel Lotus". After two days of serious herbage, this is what I have to say about this: "Increased chance of Fel Lotus my ass!!!"

Ok, that is all.

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The Left Claw's first Kara entry

Last night was our first entry into Kara. It was a little nerve wracking for me before we even started because we had planned on going with 3 healers, but ended up only having 2, one of whom is Suzzy... a prior shadow priest who has recently respecced holy. Our group included 3 people who have been to Kara before, with one on a character who was also new to Kara. Of the final group of 10, I would say that 4 of us were geared really well, 3 were geared pretty darn close, with the last 3 geared probably less than needed.

Our first passes up to Attumen and Midnight, I think we were trying to just get used to running in a group of ten and there were probably some nerves as well. But we spent way too long clearing the trash and ended up in a painful cycle of respawn. It then took us a couple of tries at the boss. Try one, I was healing Jess too much when Midnight went to 95% and Attumen spawned and I got aggro and died. Try two, I tried to be more aware of that, but then healed Jess too little right when Attumen spawned, and Jess died. /cry.

Finally we got the balance just right on try three and once we figured that out, it was super easy. We took them down with everyone at full health (full green bars makes for a happy healer). Jess got [Vambraces of Courage] and Nio picked up [Worgen Claw Necklace]. I also think we got them down at try three because I brought out Sebastian, my magical crawdad pet. Behold the power of the crustacean!

Two of the members who'd been to Kara before said we did pretty well considering it was our first time... though we weren't able to take down Moroes, which I really wanted to do. We went at Moroes with 9 (we lost one to sleep... it was late) and would have completely had him if one of the shackles hadn't broken. Because then Jess got blinded or whatever, and while Wut our off tank then should have gotten aggro, he got MCed or something by the unshackled mean girl. This meant I went from a happy tree to a pile of kindling. I think one more try we would have totally had it, but it was really really late and everyone was tired.

I think as a group we worked pretty well, part of it I'm sure has to do with the fact that 7 of us who went last night know each other pretty darn well. We'd been running numerous 5 mans lately so we really understand each other's playing styles and what each other can/may/will/like to do. Jess did really well as the nervous but capable raid leader. I had joked that I fully expected a full clear up to Prince on our first try, or else I would blame our raid leader. That didn't happen last night... but I'll try not to be too mad as Jess. ;)

On a personal note, I think I did ok. OMG I was so psyched to see my MP5 while casting at one point at 243 and +healing at near 1600 with buffs. Yeah, mana and healing was never ever a problem for me last night. So while its good to be at well over the healing and MP5 requirements for what we're doing, it does cause the problem that I can grab aggro because of my uber powerful heals (heh heh).

It was also different for me to work with another healer. Suzzy did really well as a new holy priest. But I definitely have more healing power and mp5 right now and there were times when she was on others and I wasn't sure if I should heal them as well. I didn't want to step on her toes. But then a couple of people died once or twice. So next try when I had my tank Jess up at full health and had spare lifeblooms, I just decided to send them to whoever else needed it. It's hard for me to ignore declining health bars... I want to heal everyone! It was funny at one point because we arranged the groups so that Jess, the shadow priest, mage, and us two healers were in group 2. I joked to group 1, "Sorry group 1, you getz no healz".

It's interesting because some people take deaths and wipes better than others. I would part of the others. I don't take it so well. And while voice is critical to us communicating during encounters, I do think there's a drawback to it. When I die or if we wipe, the others last night probably heard me sigh or groan, which isn't very good for team morale. I need to be a little quieter I thinks.

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The bestest fisherwoman ever?

Holy batman... three posts in one day! So yesterday Phaelia at Resto4Life (aka the Queen bee of all us tree druids) posted about her experience at the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza with some links to me. Then wowinsider picked up on that and posted a recap of Phaelia's article this afternoon with links to my blog again.

This means traffic has picked up on my blog a ton. It really cracks me up that I have become somewhat known in the wow blogosphere as the fisherwoman. When I said this to Atania, she was like, "Uh K, you do fish a lot..." Yes it's true. My fishing has not only made K a very rich night elf, but my fishing also equips the guild with yummy food buffs and scrolls for our runs.

I'm not in a large serious raiding guild and I know I'm behind on progression. Probably because our tiny guild of friends hasn't really been serious about progression until a couple months ago. But here's where I can make my mark in the wow world... I will become the bestest fisherwoman! Or at least the fisherwoman with the dorkiest sense of humor.

On a related fishing front, I wonder if we could catch things other than fish. The wow waters must include other goodies. How about octapus or squid? Mussels? Scallops? Maybe we don't even need a fishing pole to catch these? Well something like a big octapus or squid might require some serious combat... perhaps require a group? But then when you cook it up, it should be a serious buff. Mussels and scallops maybe could also be caught by just picking them off the ocean floor or throwing over a box.

Final fishing thoughts... as an avid real life sushi and cerviche lover, fish don't have to be cooked. We should be able to get food buffs from some uncooked fish. I know that for me, white tuna nigiri gives K major +happiness.

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We iz finally goingz...

... to Kara. It's not that easy trying to organize a group of people and find the right time, but we will be taking our first venture into Kara tomorrow night. Jess has definitely become our raid leader in coordinating everything. If tomorrow is 2.4 patch day, I hope latency isn't too bad.

So we have a tank (K has missed sending green swirlies to Jess) and off tank (the beary awesome Adamas). Suzzy is our current holy priest with well over 1100 +healing, so she will do just fine. Atania is our kick ass rogue who not only stabs really really well, but really pays attention to how much aggro she generates. This means Jess and I likes her very very much. Then we have Wut who we may take tomorrow as a hybrid healer/dps. I'm thinking as our first time we may want to have 2.5 healers? And Veloreynn is our fire mage and Niobar is our hunter (we all love his pet Bar... especially Suzzy). Now we have one or two people outside the guild coming with us I believe, but we may end up being 1 dps short. I am hoping that it will not be that hard to pick up one dps compared to picking up a tank or healer.

If any of you guys are interested in checking out Kara with us and/or looking to join a casual but serious guild (I know that's a bit of an oxymoron... but its true) on Drenden of more mature players, please let me or Jess know.

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Healing update 3.24.08

Couple updates since I last posted healing gear and stats. Now I did switch back in the trinket [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] which was a drop a while back in Black Morass. I really need to read more carefully. Originally I thought that it said increased spell dmg... not spell haste. I guess I'd rather have the chance of increased spell haste (time it takes to cast spells) instead of carrying around two Lower City prayerbooks. I figure I can only take advantage of the use of one of the prayerbooks anyways. Plus I'm not that prayerful anyways. :)

All stats unbuffed, no potions, no food, no scrolls, no nothing!

Level: 70
Health: 7444
Mana: 8705
Intellect: 441
Spirit: 291
+Healing: 1487
+MP5: 282/143

Weapon: [The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min]

Off-hand: [Netherwing Spiritualist's Charm]

Idol: [Idol of the Emerald Queen]

Head: [Hood of Primal Life]

Neck: [Vindicator's Pendant of Salvation]

Shoulders: [Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders]

Back: [Lifegiving Cloak]

Chest: [Gladiator's Kodohide Tunic]

Wrists: [Vindicator's Kodohide Bracers]

Hands: [Gloves of the Living Touch]

Waist: [Vindicator's Kodohide Belt]

Legs: [Pants of Living Growth]

Feet: [Vindicator's Kodohide Boots]

Ring: [Witching Band]

Ring: [Keeper's Ring of Piety]

Trinket: [Lower City Prayerbook]

Trinket: [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle]

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-1000 Tree Rep

I have been really really behind on my fellow druids blog reading. Well that means that I did not find out until mid week last week that Blizzard was potentially going to nerf our Lifebloom! Rightfully so, this caused quite a ruckus, the charge being lead by Leafshine by asking fellow bloggers to put up a cute little image on their home page protesting the nerf.

If I had known this was going on, I certainly would have joined in. As my guildies have heard over voice when we wipe, I probably would have ranted with a couple of choice salty words thrown in as well. Fortunately it looks like they are only changing the bloom part of our lifebloom, not the tick part of the lifebloom. Plus we may be getting a regrowth buff! Woot. Anyways, definitely -1000 to K for community tree rep. :(

On another note, I am a little tired of looking so... autumnal. Why are us trees permanently stuck in the fall season? I think we should look the way we do from Sep-Nov, but there are 3 other seasons. I say from Dec-Feb we have no leaves with maybe some snowflakes or icicles hanging off the branches. From Mar-May, we have little buds, then Jun-Aug we are very green and leafy. Blizzard puts out a patch at least every quarter, I don't think it'd be that hard for them to update us depending on the season... I mean its the worst to be wearing last season's leaves!

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When WOW enters your brain

You end up having weird dreams that combine WOW with other aspects of your life!

The other night I dreamt that my three closest girlfriends and I were together at some spa place. I probably dreamt that because the four of us are planning a girls weekend reunion in San Diego in May (sucks when your closest friends live all across the country). But get this. So in my dream the four of us are going around to each station, manicures, pedicures, facials, massages, etc.

Sounds plausible, right? Sure. However, at each station, a leet purple epic WOW item dropped. What in the?!?! It was one of those dreams where I knew it was crazy in the dream, but was also kinda glad I had the opportunity to get some good drops. I tend to have these kind of crazy dreams when I don't give enough time between playing at the end of the night and going to bed. I need some time to bring my brain back down to normal maybe. Any crazy wow dreams you've had?

On another note, have they buffed the transmute alchemy mastery skill? Last night I'm making my daily Earthstorm diamond and with the mats for just one, I made freaking four!!! That has never happened before.

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Its the wipes you remember... not the full clears

Last night we took our guildie Niobar and his lovely pet Bar through Arcatraz to get his final frag for Kara. So the group was Nio, Wutan, Atania, Suzzy, and myself. I'd been to Arcatraz twice before, both times we went through it with no problems. What was different this time? No Jess/Aksana. What's the big deal there? Well let me explain.

Jess is sorta a walking encyclopedia of WOW fights. She remembers what each boss does, what we need to do, what we need to look for, etc. I think we've gotten sort of spoiled, expecting her to be there to remind us. Well, the five of us sans Jess go through just fine until we get to the second boss, that crazy dramatic Jerry Springer couple: Mean angry guy and Thong girl (aka Soccothrates and Dalliah).

So we remembered the whirly thing that Dalliah does and that she will heal herself afterwards and that her heal needs to be interrupted. Well we're just going through the fight and noticing she keeps getting healed a lot. I mean, A LOT. So this first time we stay with her for seriously at least 20 minutes, when I finally run out of mana. It was clear we weren't going to get her and needed to regroup. So we decide Nio will feign death, Wut will take the death for the team, and Suzzy, Atania, and I will run away and make her reset.

So Suzzy, Atania, and I start running. Now I wasn't sure how far she'd run because I'd never done this before. So we start running, and turn around to see if she's following. Hell yeah she is in all her 20 foot tall, 6 armed glory! Atania yells, "Yes she is, keep running"! The three of us turn and just keep running for the door, laughing hysterically. With her long ass legs, she runs pretty fast, but would stop to do her whirly thing so we were able to get out fine.

Try two... pretty much the same thing. We try again, after 20 minutes realize this isn't working again... and run for the door again, laughing even harder. Well, I don't think Atania was laughing too much, she was annoyed... but I was still laughing. However, I think it was at this second try that Suzzy realized what the little purple/pink square under Wut's picture really meant. We saw that little buff before, but actually reading it this time we learn that it means Wut can't be healed when he has that debuff. Because for every heal I give Wut, when Wut hits Dalliah, he will heal her as much as I am healing him. OMG! Last two fights I am just going along with a full triple stack of lifebloom on Wut, some rejuvs... and all of that pretty, yummy, healing goodness was also going to Dalliah! No wonder we couldn't get her down!

Well once we figured this out and Wut also found another way to do something to interrupt her healing, the third time was cake. Jess would have remembered that I can't heal Wut when he has the buff on at our first try at her. Well as Suzzy said, we will never forget this fight and the strategy now! I do think the running out as we're being chased by a 20 foot tall woman in a thong will be one of my funniest memories from this game. It's these sort of mistakes/wipes you remember, not the easy smeasy full clears. Do you have any similar funny stories you will never forget?

Well after we took down the couple, Nio had to go, then Jess/Aksana (it's weird, even when she's on Aksana, I still call her Jess) came to do the last boss with us. Here's a screenshot to end our funny night, though by the time I got everyone in position, the boss disappeared. Look at Wut there, the lone guy, but the shortest!

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More interesting search terms

Every once in a while I like to see the search terms that landed people on my blog. I think I've shared this with you before, but its always interesting to me. Here are some recent ones, and my comments.

"Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza" - This is a popular search term that lands people on my blog. What I am curious to know is if my tips helped anyone. If so, let me know! Or tell me that I don't know what the heck I'm talking about.

"how to resto druid pvp" and "tree of life pvp" - Well, I have seen some fellow resto druids run AV in tree form, but I never do. I think its a little too obvious what you are doing. Plus the Horde are super good are finding and taking down the healers anyways. I don't think I need to help them anymore. I know some healers like to stand to one side on a hill or something in AV to heal. But lately, I like to get right in the middle of the mayhem. Again, its to make it less obvious to the other side what I am there for. But otherwise, my healing strategy isn't any different... just lottsa lifeblooms and rejuvs!

"kill tree druid warcraft pvp" and "resto druids are dead" - Hmmm... I'm not sure what to say about this. I'm a little hurt by the violence!

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Could one idol make this much difference?

We took a couple guildies through Shadow Labs this weekend. Geez... that is one long instance. However, happy day for me, as finally [Idol of the Emerald Queen] dropped!

So the next day, I take myself with my new idol through an AV run. Holy crap, I did over 500,000 of healing! Could the switch in my idol make that much difference? Either way... I am one happy tree.

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