Week's update and how to haze a new healer

This past week’s Kara run was interesting. We still had two wipes on Shade before we got him down (one was an accidental face pull and the second an accidental move during flame wreath... both culprits shall remain anonymous). I have sort of come to enjoy that fight a bit with all that it involves, but others say that they get a bit emotionally caught up in the fight. They seriously have some personal issues with him. So there we were, a little annoyed at our Shade wipes and off we go to Prince. And what happened? Well we one-shot Prince. Heh. We wipe on Shade but one-shot Prince? lol

We then had a couple looks at Nightbane one night, which could have gone better. The next night we had our first look at Netherspite. What an interesting fight he is. I think our best shot got him down to 45% or so. I think with some more practice, we’ll get both Netherspite and Nightbane. At first, I wasn’t sure where to stand for Netherspite. But then starting with the second try, I decided to pretty much stand right in the middle under him. This way I was guaranteed that the entire raid would be within healing distance. It was definitely a new and different perspective from which to see a boss fight in Kara. I got to see what it looks like from Atania's point of view.

Now for Netherspite we only had two healers, which seemed a bit difficult. The second healer was Jess’ alt Muriel, pretty much a new 70 holy priest. As we’re going to Netherspite, Jess apologizes in advance for people’s deaths… which made the weight on my shoulders seem awfully heavy. The group was joking around and giving Jess a hard time… calling her a noob healer and all. After our first couple of wipes on Netherspite, Jess lets me know that she respected me before, but respects me 1000% more now that she sees what’s its like to be one of two healers in Kara.

We were actually talking last week about the fact that Muriel is a brand new healer and how we should put her through some hazing process. I mean come on, being a level 70 raid healer brings you into a very special brotherhood/sisterhood. Entry into this group shouldn’t be easy! Luckily for me, I never had to go through any sort of hazing in real life as I wasn’t in a sorority or part of a sports team in college. However, I had several good friends who were in fraternities, sororities, and sports teams. So I have some ideas.

Muriel would chug 25 mana potions in a row and down 20 raw golden darter and sporefish. And then she’d be stripped down to her skivvies so that a hundred bandages could be applied and superior mana oil poured all over her. Then we’d take her down to some scary basement and as she is sick to her stomach from all the potions and raw fish, kneeling in her underwear, a group of healers would yell at her continuously, “You are a noob healer! You suck! You don’t even deserve the title of a healer! You’re not woman enough for this job!”

Aw… I sorta feel bad for Muriel now… I don’t know if I could do this. Maybe her hazing will just include taking her to the local pub and getting her totally wasted and making her carry some of my crap around for a while. Us healers, maybe we’re too soft. Something tells me though that rogues and warriors haze their newbies! :)

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A closer look at Fel Lotus

Ah, the ever so beautiful Fel Lotus... let's take a closer look at this queen of all herbs, shall we? In exactly the past two weeks, I have picked 20 Fel Lotuses. I decided to track the zone and herb from which they were picked, to see if there was any method to this madness. Here's the last 20 I've picked (in the exact order).

* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Netherstorm: Felweed
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Mana Thistle
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Hellfire Peninsula: Felweed
* Netherstorm: Dreaming Glory
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Netherstorm: Netherbloom
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Nagrand: Felweed
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Mana Thistle
* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Nagrand: Felweed
* Netherstorm: Netherbloom
* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Netherstorm: Dreaming Glory

So what does this tell us? Well I know that this is a small sample size and probably not statistically significant. However, it seems that for me my Fel Lotuses like to hide in the Barrier Hills, within Ragveil in Zangarmarsh, and within Dreaming Glory.

Disclaimer: I do little herbing in Hellfire Peninsula and Blade's Edge, and none in Shadowmoon Valley.

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My secret trinket

This is a very very secret trinket that is not very well known, but I thought it was time I shared it with you.

You might remember that a while back WOW Insider had a story up about a relationship between a tank and healer, and Jess and I were mentioned in that article. Well, here's another aspect of that tank - healer relationship. The story behind this? Well a couple of weeks ago I was trying to convince Jess to do something and in trying to do so, I tried to use some of our past history to make my case. I joked that I had a new trinket equipped that would make my tank feel guilty, and Jess joked that the trinket would have extra power if equipped by a woman.

A warning to all you healers out there though, while the use of this trinket has no cooldown, I would recommend using it sparingly, as using it too much makes its power diminish.

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Its about the journey, not the destination... Prince down

Our Kara run this past week was pretty successful. I think we really feel that we have Shade down now, and it was the first time we got Shade without any outside help from friends geared above us. So it was satisfying to feel like we really did it on our own. Shade, you are on farm now, k?

We then had to overcome our obstacle that is Prince. This was our third real week at him. Here we are all ready to go before our first attempt.

I learned from our friend Lonebear that that pillar is a good place for a tree to stand. Now there we are all ready to go and Jess asks Nio to misdirect Prince onto her. Two seconds later, I hear a cry and see Nio collapse in a dramatic death! For a second I wondered how Nio had died. Then I realized he had feigned death. Apparently his misdirect and feign death buttons are right next to each other and in trying to misdirect onto Jess, he had accidently feigned death. It was really really funny and we are all hysterically laughing when Nio actually misdirected. So there was our first attempt, which started quite comically, but ended quite sadly, a wipe.

Try two was a wipe as well, but then for try three we decided to try something a little different. Instead of having the healers and casters stand in the doorway, we had Jess tank Prince much further out along the wall and the ranged group stood in the location where an infernal can drop between the tank and the ranged group. This way we felt that if an infernal were to drop right there, we wouldn't be cut off from Jess and that we'd have more options as a group to try to move ahead, back, or to the left. And in fact we did have to move a bit as a group, and we successfully got Prince down on this third try!

I have to admit that it was strange when we finally got him down. Some of the group were very happy and excited and I think thought it odd that not all of us were hooting and hollering. But for me, it was almost anti-climatic. As a small casual guild, Kara was our dangling carrot for so long. And Prince was the Kara goal we were shooting for. Of course, we still have to do Nightbane (we had a few looks at him as well) and Netherspite, but it is strange to realize we are almost done with Kara. Jess may do a post about this soon, but where I was sort of feeling weird, Jess I think was feeling sad.

I do think this game is set up so that you have to enjoy the journey, not just the destination because the destination always changes. But I think Jess and I enjoyed the challenge of gearing up and getting a small casual guild into and through Kara. That was our journey and our goal. And in a way, I think the two of us relished the challenge of this journey just as much as the accomplishment of reaching the destination. As our journey into Kara nears an end, I do realize that there are plenty of other journeys to be had... as I am especially looking forward to ZA. Anyways, here's Jess and I after we got Prince down, thinking and discussing such deep thoughts.

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Fashion time... lets talk bags

In real life, I have to admit that I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with bags and shoes. I have more handbags than I should, but when you come across a beautiful white leather Marc Jacobs bag for over 50% off at an outlet store, you just don't say no. Well, maybe you do... but I don't. In WOW related news, the new patch notes that came out brought some new bag news.

There is a new 28 slot herb bag coming out, Mycah's Botanical Bag. I am currently running around with Satchel of Cenarius. with an Cenarion Herb Bag in my bank. so this will be nice.

It looks like Haris Pilton will also be offering a new bag, Gigantique Bag. So this Gigantique bag is a 22 slot bag that she sells for 1200g. I might have considered buying this bag, however here is what annoys me about the WOW bag system. Why do I have to continue carrying around the stupid ugly 16 slot backpack? If I have the money to be able to upgrade my bags, I should be able to get rid of the 16 slotter. I am much too fashionable for the ugly bag, plus I don't do backpacks... it wrinkles my cloak. Sigh.

Secondly, I think leatherworkers should be able to make more bags beyond leatherworking bags. I mean, think about it... the nicest bags in RL are leather! I would love to be able to ask my skinning/leatherworking friends Atania or Nio to go skin some crocs and make me a bag like above. /drool

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The WOW Economy... I don't get it

Does anyone else get seriously confused as to what kind of economic principle the WOW economy follows? It boggles my mind sometimes. I've mentioned before some of my reactions to it, including how it went crazy after patch 2.4 (my guess was that with all the new dailies, people had more money, so prices went up). What's odd is that I thought things would eventually stabilize, but it hasn't. I also found it odd that prices for green gems that I use to make my daily earthstorm diamond (shadow draenite, golden draenite, and deep peridot) skyrocketed even more than other items after patch 2.4. These gems used to sell for 50s each and were suddenly listed for 2-3g each! What in the world? Did all the miners die off or something? Or did they all go to some miners conference?

Prices for herbs also went up after 2.4, but they seem to have gone up even higher in the last couple of days. Just last night I am perusing the AH and I see a stack of terocone up for 73g (yes, seriously... 73g), a stack of felweed for 30g (a week ago you'd sell a stack for 12g or so), and not a single primal life up. I decided that the universe was telling me to go pick some purty flowers and I spent some time herbing.

I couldn't wait for my herbalist/alchemy sister Vel to log on so I could share the crazy news. The two of us get all excited and make sure to tell each other when the price for herbs or super mana or super healing potions are high or have no other sellers. She thinks that there may be some herbalism syndicate setting these crazy herb prices. A while later the two of us were in Hellfire and I cautioned Vel that she better not try to steal my felweed or that we would have to tustle. But hmmm a fire mage vs a pile a kindling. Not liking my odds too much there...

Vel also mentioned that she's had a lot more competition for herbs lately than before. And when she mentioned that, I realized that yes, I too have had to deal with a-holes who try to swoop down and steal the herb I'm already herbing. But wait... having more herbalists and more supply on the market should mean prices come down. So has demand for herbs gone up even more than supply? Did a bunch of previous herbalists/alchemists drop herbalism for tailoring or something?

So what's going on? Why have prices for primal life gone up (from what used to be 6g or so before the patch, to nearly 16-20g now) while the prices for primal earth and primal water don't seem to have changed that much? Are that many people switching professions to make that much of an impact on the economy? I don't get it.

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Three bloggers in Kara

As Ratshag mentioned, he came to Kara with Jess and I and the crew this past weekend. With summer around now, I think we are going to have a lot more weeks where people are vacationing and unavailable (as if!). In addition to Ratshag, we had Rapunzel (a great healer who has run with us before) and two of Rapunzel's guildies run with us as well.

All in all, it was a good run. We decided to just start at Attumen and do as many bosses as we could do, as there were still some people who could use upgrades. As Ratshag mentioned, he did die immediately during Big Bad Wolf. Jess and I did feel sorta bad about that... like we weren't very good hosts. But then we remembered how Ratshag ran straight in to aggro Maiden on our first shot at her, and we felt a little less bad. Funny how a dwarf priest tank doesn't work out so well. Heh heh.

Everyone else was super easy... even Illhoof. We did get Shade down, but it is still annoying that it took two wipes before we got him. The last shot was a little chaotic though... we were down to only 5 members for the last couple of minutes and I was the only healer left. My tree limb arms were definitely tired from throwing them up for all the heals. I do like to think that we wipe purposefully from time to time on Shade so as to make him feel better about himself. He's a sad lonely man stuck in a library. I mean, that's the charitable thing to do, ain't it?

Well here's the three bloggers getting ready for Opera in our Sunday best. We must be swapping blog post ideas or something.

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You down with PVP? Yeah you know me

I mentioned earlier this week that I would do a post on my experience in battlegrounds. I've certainly done my share, as I am in nearly full pvp gear and have over 10,000 kills. But I still consider myself a noob in many ways. Yes, I know the BG strategies, but I feel my reaction time one on one is still slow. It is sorta fun to see if someone can out-damage your heals. Its also fun to have a couple of horde on you, who they thought was an easy kill as a healer. With my resilience at over 300 now, it ain't so easy. Even if I die, I enjoy trying to making it as difficult as possible. :) But here are some of my thoughts and tips as a novice resto druid BGer. Those who really know what they are doing probably have some more ideas.

Quick note: make a second action bar. For a long time I just used my main action bar, then would have to go up above the action bar and click on certain pvp spells that I never use soloing or raiding. For example, hibernate and cyclone. Also barkskin for me regularly isn't on my first action bar, its on that bar above. But its definitely on my pvp action bar.

So here are my preferences in BGs and what I do in them:
1. Alterac Valley: AV is my favorite. In a group of 40, I feel the healers can hide a bit more in the crowd. Half the time I like to go with offense, sometimes going to get Iceblood GY and Drek, sometimes rushing to get Relief Hut. The other half of the time I like to be on defense, and many times there aren't enough on defense. One little habit I've picked up lately is if Alliance is behind on getting the towers and we have absolutely no defense, I use my little AV trinket (Stormpike Insignia Rank 6) to port back to Dun Baldar. I port back in kitty form and as soon as Im in Dun Baldar, hit prowl. Then I stealth around to our bunkers and try to get them back. Half the time, the Horde assume no one is there and sit just waiting to go in to Vann. Its sorta fun spoiling their fun, even if we lose. Hey, that's what they get for leaving the bunkers unguarded.

2. WSG: As a druid, you will be a good option for the flag carrier. So I am often on offense in WSG. I run over to their side, go up the ramp and while I am above their flag, I cast a couple of HOTs on myself. Then I jump down in kitty form and snatch their flag. Hopefully run out ok, then switch into travel cheetah form. Your advantage as a druid here is your many forms. If you get stuck, switch forms to try to undo whatever was done. I've also been really close to capping the flag, but with a couple of hordies on me. Then I try to cast some heals on myself, switch into bear form and try to last to the cap.

3. Arathi Basin: I haven't done any AB in a while, but I just usually see what the team needs, whether its defense somewhere or pushing offense somewhere else.

4. Eye of the Storm: I think my least favorite BG has to be EOTS. I don't know if its because most of my EOTS end up as losses. As a druid, you could be a good option to run the flag, but my peeve with EOTS is that a lot of the Alliance teams I've been on lately don't seem to understand the basic strategy of EOTS. Please stop fighting in the middle and trying to get the flag when we are down 3-1 in posts. Ok? Thanks.

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More black lotus info

I think I just may have this black lotus thing down! In case anyone else is in the search, wanted to share these locations with you:

Winterspring: 58.50 (yes I got a second one here) and 31.35
Eastern Plaguelands: 86.47
Burning Steppes: 57.61

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Damn you Black Lotus, damn you!

I spent some time yesterday looking for the elusive Black Lotus because I wanted to make some Flask of Supreme Power. Unfortunately I don't know the recipe for Flask of Pure Death yet.

Black lotus is an old world Azeroth herb, which can be found in Winterspring, Eastern Plaguelands, Silithus, or Burning Steppes. Reportedly only one can be found at a time in a zone, and the respawn time is like 45-90 minutes. Its not like the Fel Lotus that is picked when you pick something else, the yellow dot for a black lotus node will show up on its own on your minimap. Also I believe I read somewhere that when you are running around these zones searching for them, you should pick every herb you see, otherwise you won't be able to "see" any other nodes. Its almost like the game has a limited memory for how many nodes you can see (its the same for fishing pure water in Nagrand)... though maybe its so people don't go around cherry picking the shiny goods? Black lotus can be herbed off creatures in Outlands such as the mobs in the Dead Mire and the Talonsworn trees in Skettis. But its rare.

So off I went to Azeroth to try my luck. I tried Silithus, Burning Steppes, and Winterspring. I got one the entire time, in Winterspring. To anyone looking for black lotus, I'd suggest Winterspring. That's because while you are looking for the black lotus or waiting for another to respawn, you can make some decent money. There is Icecap and Mountain Silversage all over the zone, which sell for about 25g per stack on my server. If you get tired of doing that, you can go grind on all the owlbeasts (it is a little sad grinding on mobs that look like our moonkin cousins) in the zone. At level 70, the grind is very fast. What you're grinding for is the giant eggs they drop. These sell for 2-2.5g each on Drenden, partly because 12 of them are required for the cooking quest to learn artisan cooking.

K ran around Winterspring for a while yesterday in her search (I got one at 58.50). I had forgotten how pretty and peaceful Winterspring is. Another reason why you should go to Winterspring? Well if you get too tired from all the running around, you can relax and soak yourself in one of the many hotsprings!

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New screenshots

Well this weekend had quite a few things happen and I have a couple of new screenshots to share. First, our Kara runs this weekend had us going up to and downing Shade. This was our second time getting him, but strangely it wasn't all that satisfying. I was just kinda meh about it. Oh, but Maiden did finally drop one of the drops I've been waiting on her for: Mitts of the Treemender. And that night we had Romulo and Julianne for Opera and Romulo's Poison Vial finally dropped for Atania as well! Wow two long awaited drops in one night!

We also made three good attempts at Prince. I would say this was our first real night at him. We tried once before, but it was really really late. Anyways, we wiped each time in phase 2. It was myself and Lonebear, another resto druid healing and it was very very tough to keep our tank up during phase 2. I think we are trying again tonight and bring a third healer, a priest. The run did give me enough badges to get Gown of Spiritual Wonder. See new pic of K to the right. Ooh so pretty! I am also wondering if for the second half of Kara I need to focus less on spirit and MP5 stats and more on +healing. I did a little bit of regemming this weekend for that.

Oh and when we did chess, King's Defender dropped yet again, which no one needed or could use. We didn't have a disenchanter with us, so guess what we did? Our mage friend Alorya asked for it for fun, so if you see a mage running around with the King's Defender... its probably her. Oh and she's probably going to enchant it with +intellect or +fishing or something crazy like that. LOL!

Now I continue to do the fishing dailies because, well... duh, its me. A week or so after they started these dailies, I was awarded my croc friend Muckbreath. I love clicking on him to hear his little groaning sound he makes. Here's the two of us in Nagrand. Oh and what's that hat I'm wearing? Well that was another award I got a while back from a fishing daily, Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat. I think it matches my new dress quite nicely. I love it, because I never need to carry around lures anymore.

So I already have one croc pet, but low and behold, this weekend, I got a friend for Muckbreath, Toothy! Here's the two of us in Zanga. Now I just need their siblings, Chuck and Snarly.

Finally, this weekend I got enough WSG marks to get Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards. Now I know I said that was development need #4, but doing battlegrounds is the one thing on that list I can do by myself. So I went a bit crazy and ran WSG and AV (it was AV weekend) until I felt I could do them in my sleep. I now have the full Kodohide set! Just call me Ms. Spidey. I also slapped on Glyph of the Gladiator on my pvp helm, available at revered rep with SSO. Next I will probably go for Gladiator's Salvation as suggested by Mosshoof. After such a heavy bg weekend, I have a couple thoughts on running bgs as a resto druid. I am by no means really good at pvp... my reaction time is still way too slow, but I'm getting better. I'll probably post a separate post about this later this week.

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My WOW development plan

I am currently in the process of doing my development plan for work. I have always hated doing them. In many ways, I think its just total BS. But I must... so I will. But then I thought maybe I could have some fun with it and apply it to WOW?

So here in a nutshell is what it looks like. It starts by asking:
* What are your short term goals/plans?
* Your long term goals/plans?
* What are your 3-4 areas of skills/knowledge that are your strengths?

Then in the next part you have to come up with a couple of "development needs" (bleh... corporate mumbo jumbo). And for every need, you list out:
* Why is this a priority?
* What is your action plan to achieve this need?
* Do you need anything to achieve this need?
* What are possible obstacles and constraints?
* What are the projected results and how will you measure success?

So how would I answer this for my WOW development plan?

* What are your short term goals/plans?: For our guild to find a permanent second healer and to finish Kara soon (yes, I know the term soon is all relative…)
* Your long term goals/plans?:For our guild to finish Zul’Aman before the next expansion comes out. I think we'd also like to add a couple more regulars to the guild. Maybe my guildies have some other goals/plans they'd like to add.
* What are your 3-4 areas of skills/knowledge that are your strengths?: Um… well I can heal sorta good and I can fish real good to feed the guildies (they're always hungry) and I know how to make lotsa lotsa money.

K's development need #1: Run more daily heroics when we’re not running Kara
* Why is this a priority?: Because you get purty things when you turn in the badges then I can tell Maiden to screw off cuz I didn’t want her crap anyways.
* What is your action plan to achieve this need?: Run heroics… duh.
* Do you need anything to help you achieve this need?: Yes, I need a tanky person and 3 damagey peoples.
* What are possible obstacles and constraints? And what can you do to mitigate these?: The biggest constraint here is time, sleep, and latency. Given I’ve been on the road for a bit lately, its hard to find the time on the weekends when I’m busy catching back up on stuff at home or we’re running Kara. Then during the week I’m stuck with horrible latencies at the hotel I’m in. I guess I could mitigate this by quitting my job. Uh… then…how would I pay for my WOW then?
* What are the projected results and how will you measure success?: Well it looks like I am “working” (please form your fingers into air quotes as you read this) from home at least some of next week, so I hope to be able to work on this development need a bit more.

K's development need #2: Upgrade my weapon and offhand (could also be addressed with need #1)
* Why is this a priority?: Because I’ve had mine a long time and its time for an upgrade.
* What is your action plan to achieve this need?: Continue to kill Maiden and hope for weapon to drop or guild progresses to Prince soon and it drops off him. Secondly for offhand, continue to kill Moroes and hope for offhand to drop or guild finally downs Shade on a regular basis and it drops off him.
* Do you need anything to help you achieve this need?: I need the gods of WOW loot drop to be kind and merciful to me and finally have Maiden and Moroes drop these pieces.
* What are possible obstacles and constraints? And what can you do to mitigate these?: Um, it could continue to not drop. And there’s nothing I can do but continue to bitch and pout.
* What are the projected results and how will you measure success?: Um… I haz them = success. I don’t haz them = fail.

K's development need #3: Get my Honor Hold rep up to revered so I can finally get the Glyph of Renewal, the healing head enchant.
* Why is this a priority?: Because it’s the only healing enchant I don’t have.
* What is your action plan to achieve this need?: Do heroic Ramparts or BF or regular or heroic SH.
* Do you need anything to help you achieve this need?: I again need a tank and three dpsers… oh yeah and time.
* What are possible obstacles and constraints? And what can you do to mitigate these?: I may not be able to find anyone to go (which is highly unlikely)… more likely is the time limitation and fact that I may get tired of running these repeatedly. Though what I should do is combine this development need with #1. Do heroic Ramparts, BF, or SH when they are the daily.
* What are the projected results and how will you measure success?: I know I’ll get there, just not sure how soon. If I can get up to revered within the next couple of weeks, I’d say that’s a success.

K's development need #4: Get the Gladiator’s Kodohide Legguards
* Why is this a priority?: Because I have the four other pieces in this set and I like being matchy matchy. I also like to switch in some pvp pieces for certain fights in Kara where I need the extra stam.
* What is your action plan to achieve this need?: Run WSG until I have the 30 marks required (I currently have 4).
* Do you need anything to help you achieve this need?: Yes, I need WSG teams that know what they are doing and don’t suck so much.
* What are possible obstacles and constraints? And what can you do to mitigate these?: I may get stuck in WSG teams that do suck… then I will have to resort to premades so I don’t want to gouge my eyes out.
* What are the projected results and how will you measure success?: I can probably do this pretty quickly if I put my mind to it. But I have other priorities. Maybe in the next month or so?

What are your goals and development needs?

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Don't mess with Seb

From icanhascheezeburger.com, this is what happens when my Magical Crawdad pet Sebastian gets mad:

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Expectations and Setbacks

I have quite a few blogs on my Google Reader, even beyond all the WOW blogs I read. One that I check out from time to time is Indexed by Jessica Hagy. The geekiness in me enjoys it because she graphs out real life situations or examples on little index cards. She's had them published into a book as well! Anyways, the other day she had an interesting one up on her site here.

There was some debate on her site whether she drew it right or wrong. I sorta think that the higher your expectations, the greater the setbacks, but I can understand the other side of the argument as well. It kind of got me thinking about expectations and their relationship to setbacks as it relates to raiding.

Jess and I haven't given much Kara raiding updates in a while. Well we sort of had a setback a while back when we lost our second healer, and we are still searching for a permanent replacement. We've run with a number of outside healers, but I know we'd love to find one who will join the guild. Then add to that we've taken some weeks off due to holidays and people being away. But last weekend we went back and we are still having trouble with Shade. Again its not the flame wreath or the blizzard or the arcane explosion... its the damn elementals that get the squishies. The only time we have taken Shade down was the one time we had a warlock with us. Oh and we had a tier 6 geared mage with us too. It really sucks that one class becomes so essential to a fight.

I wonder if our expectations became too high given that we blew through the first five bosses. So with higher expectations... the greater the setback? What do you guys think about this relationship? As a guild though, our current focus is on increasing our dps. Some of our folks are seriously deadly while others may need to make some small adjustments.

I guess we have this ongoing joke about our distate with Shade. In the spirit of another blog, Passive Aggressive Notes, here is the note I have left on Shade's door:

Dear Shade:
I know you think you are badass. But we all know that you are just a girly little lonely man stuck in a library. I am so sick of hearing you cry "Torment me no more!" or "I want this nightmare to be over!". Come on, help me help you. Please just go down already.

kthxbai,
K

p.s. Please stop summoning your water elements during flame wreath.

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Rent a mount?

When I'm traveling every week for work, one thing I always look forward to is seeing what kind of rental car I have for the week. A couple weeks ago I had this cutest little Carolina blue Hyundai. It reminded me of being an undergraduate college student again and I ate a lot of junk food that week and woke up later than I should have. Last week I had this huge Buick sedan, with leather seats and wood paneling on the inside. It made me feel quite a bit older. No, I did not search for a local bingo game to attend, but I did find myself eating dinner earlier. This week I have a Mitsubishi sports car. Its so low to the ground that getting in and out is amusing, plus it has this huge spoiler that annoyingly disturbs my rear view. I feel like I should add red streaks to my hair and go find some crazy loud club party in downtown Boston. Hopefully it won't make me want to drive too much over the speed limit, as I have never seen so many people pulled over for speeding as I have on the Mass pike.

Anyways, what does this have to do with WOW? Well I love my kitty mount, but it'd be fun once in a while to be able to "rent" another mount for the day, especially those that night elves can't ride. Would renting the gnome mechanic bird make me want to put my hair in pigtails and giggle my way through Kara? Or maybe if I were to rent the orc wolf mount for the day I would start to look like I was a little queasy and go around saying bugger this and bugger that a la Ratshag?

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