25 man TOC

Over the last two raid weeks I've participated in a bit of 25 man TOC with two sister guilds we know well, Emerald and Mimik plus a random friend or pug or two. Last week I was lucky enough to pick up Solace of the Defeated which is just an awesome awesome trinket. I <3 it. Now last night we completed the Faction Champion pvp encounter for the first time. Incredibly, not a single one of the 25 folks, nor a single one of the 4 pets died. Everyone was alive at the end! I kinda thought that there should have been an achievement for this.

Anyways, I think I'm getting a bit more used to running 25 mans. I'm not as much "OMG TOO MANY GRID BOXES!!!" as I was before. Though since I'm not running regularly with these folks, its still a bit hard for me to find a non-tank's specific grid box... for example when someone needs heals for incinerate flesh on Jaraxxus. Also on Northrend Beasts encounter, for a second I found myself actually fully hotting up a fellow resto druid, Fiona. Why? Well her little orange grid box was right next to Fonzy, the druid tank's little orange grid box. Two orange grid boxes side by side that started with F! Oopsies.

Some other differences? Well yeah, of course there was a bit of "OMG TOO MANY PEEPS STANDING TOO CLOSE TO ME!!!" in the Jaraxxus encounter. Here's something interesting, we never once discussed healing assignments even the first week we were there. It just kinda worked out. And Jess would be shocked to see how I am in a 25 man, because I keep my mouth shut and don't say a word in vent. Even though a good number of the folks in the raid are folks I know, I don't know, I just keep my mic muted. Maybe its just to keep the illusion up with them that I am actually a sweet, innocent, nice healer! :)

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Too many raids? Good or bad?

Ok, ok so I'll talk about something other than arenas today (though I'm sure I will talk about it again soon). Let's take a quick look at what the Left Claw did last week in terms of raiding.

1. VOA. I don't really remember when we did this, but we did. Doing the three bosses in there is a pretty quick clear.

2. TOC. Another full clear in one night. Now I heard that they nerfed the third pvp style encounter with the patch last Tuesday, but did they also nerf the other encounters? It just seemed so much easier this week! I kept mentioning this in raid chat, and some folks asked, "Maybe it wasn't all nerfed K, maybe we are just super leet?" I don't know, I'm sure that could be the case, but I'm convinced the first two encounters were nerfed as well.

Anyways, here's a funny picture of us levitating down for the final encounter. Trees look very funny levitated.

3. Ulduar. We had been saved up to Yogg so we went to take a look at him again. Once again we got into phase 2 but lost it there. The problem is that we aren't working on Yogg every week. Heck, since we started TOC, its been more like every couple of weeks. So it takes a bit each time to get used to the fight again. I think we're tired of Yoggy yogg yogg though so we'll let Ulduar reset and start working on hard modes.

4. Onyxia. We also did Onyxia last week, which we ran with 8 dps and 2 healers. As we were approaching Onyxia though, I mentioned in raid chat whether it was a little weird for me to feel bad about killing her because I thought she was so pretty. Look! Purty dragon!

Its definitely a pretty simple encounter once everyone figures out what to do. The only issues we had were that Nico and I were dying to either flame breath or the whelps. On one of my deaths to flame breath, I have no idea how it happened because two folks survived when they were literally right next to me. Grrrr. Onyxia definitely drops some nice weapons. Anyways:

So yeah, in the course of one raid week, our guild stepped into 4 raids, though Ulduar was just for one boss. Ok so having all these raids does provide a lot of guilds with content to clear so they don't get bored. As for our guild, I'm not sure what we'll do next raid week given that we will let Ulduar reset and do hard modes. Will we able to do all the other raids? Will we just have to pass on VOA for the week?

While its nice to have the variety options, is it bad to have too many options? Especially for guilds with limited raiding schedules? Does having the other options result in folks not slogging away at stuff like before? Would our guild be forced to keep trying Yogg (and hopefully getting better at it) if we didn't have so many other options?

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More arena talk

I know, I know... more arena talk you ask? I'm telling ya, once you get into it, its addicting. Wut and I did a number of 2v2 matches last night and we did ok again, doubling our team rating. I still don't like rogues, but they weren't our biggest problem last night. My new favorite classes to bitch about? Locks and priests. We went up against several lock and priest duos and while we beat some of them, they were f'in annoying. Seriously.

One final thing I wanted to mention in my post yesterday is what I am currently using as my pvp weapon. So we all know that you can't get any pvp weapons until you build up arena points and ratings. But here's an excellent option for any caster types in the meantime: Pillar of Fortitude.

I got it a while back as a drop off trash in Ulduar. Even if I do build up the arena rating and points, I am questioning whether I would trade this in for a pvp weapon. I can build up resilience on my other gear... perhaps I'll keep the +159 stamina!

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K in arenas!

A while back I had listed a couple of things in game that I still wanted to do. One thing on this list was trying the whole tanking business, which I started a couple weeks ago. Another item on the list that I can now cross off was arena-ing. Hmmm is that the proper verb? Or is it just referred to as "doing arenas"? Anyways, I digress.

Last week was the first full week where I did a bunch of 2v2 and 3v3 arena matches. I did 2v2 with two set ups. I did a couple of matches with Terrondris a rogue, then a bunch of matches with Wutan, a ret pally. Now I didn't end up doing that many 2v2 matches with T, but we went 3-3 which I thought was decent for the first week. With Wut, we ended up going 9-7 and won a bunch of matches that we should have lost (as surmised by the match rating and the other team losing points). I think Wut and I definitely had the advantage that a resto druid-ret pally is a very strong 2v2 team.

In Wut and I's 2v2 teams, there seemed to be a recurring theme in the matches that we did lose. I don't recall us ever beating a team that had a rogue on their side. F'in rogues! They'd search me out as I was prowled and just mow me down. Another interesting point of the 2v2 matches was that some of them were long. I mean damn long. I remember one 2v2 that T and I did against a priest and a lock. They just kept fearing us. We finally got one of them down, but the other one kept fearing us as well. I was like "Damn it! Accept defeat already!"

We also did a number of 3v3 matches with different team setups: 2 different combos of druid, pally, rogue (2 different rogues, same druid and pally - me and Wut) and druid, pally, shammy. I think the #1 rule we learned in the 3v3 teams was the whole focus issue. You have to make sure you're going for the same target.

So I am still pretty new to this whole arena business, but two quick tips:

1. You have to be prepared. And by this I mean resilience gear. Yes, definitely the entire team needs to have resilience, but as the healer for your team, I would say it may be even more critical for you because the other team often comes for you first. I am currently at 818 resilience, which is pretty good and gives me a bit of a cushion. Now you can grind the honor to buy the gear, but don't forget that the wintergrasp vendor has a good deal of stuff you can buy with WG marks.

2. Get one of those trinkets that removes movement impairing effects from the wintergrasp vendor. Its critical. You're going to be using it every single match.

Here's what I did in my 2v2 matches (remember, I'm still a scrub at this). I started out prowled with T or used Wut as my meatshield. With Wut, I'd wait until one of them made a move on Wut first. If I couldn't see their second member, I'd try to wait for them to become visible before I would unprowl and turn into tree. I would then look at my team mate's health and/or whether they had some CC on them and decide whether I would throw a hot on them before or after CCing whichever opposing team member my team mate was not going after.

Now in 3v3 matches, I found that I did not have enough time to put out my CC as a first move. As soon as I made the decision to pop out of prowl, I had to heal Wut and or T. Then I would gauge what was going on before CCing someone. Cyclone is my CC of choice, but I definitely used entangling roots a bit more in the 3v3 matches to avoid the whole diminishing returns thing.

We're still pretty new to this whole arena thing, but I am looking forward to the future weeks and getting better at this!

Now those of you who are arena veterans, I have some questions. Does your team attack or react? And by this I mean is it better to make the first move or wait until the other side makes their first move? Secondly, on 3v3 teams, do you always go for a dps or healer first on the opposing side? Sometimes we went for their healer first, sometimes we went for a dps first, both with different results. Does all of this just depend on the teams you face and your team makeup?

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"K of the D'oh"

I think a new title that they should have in game is "of the d'oh". Our hunter Chachi has been ceremoniously named "Chachi of the D'oh" by our oh so witty mage Veloreynn. Hmmm... now I'm sure we could all come up with a ton of options for what you'd need to do to be awarded the "of the d'oh" title. Some recent examples for me?

D'oh story #1: I was logging onto our guild vent one night and just connected without thinking or reading. Oops! I found myself logging into a friend guild of ours, right in the middle of their Ulduar raid because their vent was the last one I had logged in to. Two of their members were like "Hey K, what's up?" To which I responded, "Oops! Wrong vent! Sorry guys, good luck in Ulduar!" and promptly logged off. D'oh.

D'oh story #2: I was doing a guild heroic TOC 5 man and I was noticing how I was having to heal a bit more. I was wondering why the healing seemed a bit harder and why I was running out of mana. Fortunately there were no deaths except for a mage's death or two. Though come on now, let's just be serious here... it is standard practice, no? We say its not a real run until a mage's life is sacrificed and offered up to the gods. Anyways, it was not until we finished the entire place when I switched out of tree form. Jess let it be known that I had healed the entire heroic run with my lance on. D'oh.

Now on a totally un-d'oh story, we did a little alt run through Naxx again where I tanked with my good friend Indigogo who is usually a boomkin. The healers? Male players with tanking mains on their respective healing alts. I think the raid was looking forward to seeing two female players tanking on relatively new specs. I think they were expecting more slip ups or amusement than Indi and I actually provided. We totally rocked, including doing just fine on Razuvious and the Four Horsemen. You think girls can't tank? Well Indi and I have something to say about that: "Rawr!"

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TOC clear and my new caring meter macro

We finished clearing out TOC last night. It was our first time even seeing the Twins and the beetle guy. They both went down on the second attempt after taking the first attempt to actually see the fight. It was a bit ridiculous in fact. What now? Well we still have to go back and finish Yogg... then will we try hard modes? But I heard that hard modes are well, uh... hard (imagine that).

There must have been something in the water I was drinking, because as Wut observed, I was pretty feisty last night. I got around to macro-ing my new favorite macro that I adapted from what I've seen around online and on other blogs.

Hahaha... that macro amuses me so...

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Healing assignments in 10 mans?

I am curious as to whether other 10 man raiders make healing assignments in their runs. So when we have a new person healing with us, often they will ask me who they should be healing. My reaction typically starts with a pause, then an "uh", then depending on the healer I'll specify a tank or say the raid. Or more likely I'll say something like "uh, everyone" or "anyone who needs it?" in a half joking, half serious manner.

Now if things go wrong and we are wiping on something repeatedly or healers are running out of mana, yes I may take a second to consider whether we should be making assignments. And for certain fights like General Vezax for example, we do assignments as well. But the default for our raids, even when we are seeing new bosses, is to not have assignments.

Why? Well, perhaps when you're with other folks you've healed with before, you know who is going to do what in terms of healing, and that they are going to take into account the strengths of our respective healing classes. So maybe we already have silent unspoken assignments. Or perhaps I like the excitement of not being really prescribed to something and figuring out what works best, responding to the situation at hand.

Now yes, there could be drawbacks on not having assignments. Sure we could heal the same person and overheal. But if we don't run out of mana and folks are kept up, is that a problem? Or does giving healing assignments also help new healers learn? By not providing healing assignments, are you freaking out new healers?

I know assignments are much more important in 25 mans. So do you do healing assignments in your 10 man runs? And those of you who do, are you doing these 10 mans within a 25 man guild, as such being more used to healing assignments? Those of you who run in a strictly 10 man guild, do you do healing assignments? Are we just weird not to? (Don't answer that, that was a hypothetical).

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Tanking part two

We were running a bunch of alts through Naxx the other day for the first time in a long long time. I figured hey, I will alt too, and this tree will go rawr! Yes, my friends, I tanked two wings of Naxx. I think I was most concerned about tanking Heigan, but I did it!

Here's a cute pic of two of the alts we were taking through Naxx, Beastling our new bebeh tree and Felishia our new Moonkin whose flabby ass I can't stop pinching. We were doing a quick druid pow-wow aka dancing. So cute, so cute.

So what have I learned so far? Well lets recall that when Jess is tanking and I am healing, and Jess dies, it is Jess' fault. However when I am tanking and Jess is healing me and I die, it is Jess' fault. Hahaha... sigh. But still sorta true.

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9 on 9/9/09

On this ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year into the second millenium, nine things I want to do moar.

1. Tank moar. It's not only fun to do something different, but I really think that understanding what it is to tank could make me a better healer.

2. Kill moar.I go through phases in my pvping. I did a ton of Isle of Conquest this past week. Anyways, I am at about 22,000 honor kills and want to get the 25,000 HK achievement soon.

3. Read moar. It's been a long time since I've run around Dal trying to read books to get this achievement and corresponding pet.

4. Cry moar. I need to continue running normal TOC to get Tears of the Vanquished.

5. Cook moar. I know 144 of 160 recipes for this cooking achievement. How in the world do you get 160?

6. Druid moar. We have two new level 80 alts in the guild, Felishia and Beastling, who both happen to be resto druids. I'm excited to run with them in some all druid runs!

7. Clean up moar. Now that I'm carrying around three sets of gear (resto, resto pvp, and tanking), I need to rethink what I carry around in my bags and clean up my bank a bit more.

8. Priotize moar. I wonder what I should get next with my Emblems of Triumph? I already got Idol of Flaring Growth... what should I get next?

9. Blog moar. Lately I've been thinking that perhaps I need to actually do some more helpful or relevant blog posts instead of just being silly or funny. Hmmm... we'll see.

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Tree goes rawr

I've toyed with the idea of tanking for a long long time. I think I might have mentioned it on the blog a while back. Why? Well, I'm intrigued by the fact that its not as common to see girls tanking. It ignites the part of me that went through a phase where I was smoking cigars and shooting pool with the boys all the time (Macanudos and Montecristos FTW). Anyways, I know girls tank, but I for one have personally never really run with a female tank. Also I figured that I should better understand tanking so that I can more knowledgeably give our tanks crap when I'm healing them. :p

So I wondered, could I do it? Could I tank? I've always been quite intimidated and scared about tanking and never been able to get myself to do it... until this weekend. Yes, my tree-y friends, this tree went rawr. Fortunately I had a pretty damn good tanking set collected from all the runs where something dropped that no one else could use or DE so I figured that could buffer me from my noobishness.

I should probably do a separate post sometime on the very very basics of druid bear tanking including stats, gems, enchants, and mechanics. I had to go to a number of sources to gather everything and I don't know if it may be helpful for someone else to have it all in one place. Now I'm talking very very basics here... starting as a noob druid tank, not any complicated stat/theory-crafting. I came across some great info from my fellow feral druid bloggers out there but there was a lot of stuff that I had no clue what in the world they were talking about.

So my very first tanking experience was heroic Utgarde Keep with some guildies who I think were prepared for an amusing run. I think they came with popcorn. It actually went just fine, except for one wipe where I rushed into some mobs and also pulled the boss as well. Oops. Since that went so well, I then tanked heroic TOC! ZOMG! Though in all honesty, I don't think that the success was as much me as it was the awesome healing by Nicolause. I also tanked a bunch of normal TOC runs with some brand new 80 alts in the guild and look I am a real tank now! I haz The Black Heart!

All in all, some thoughts about my tanking weekend. I love the fact that on my druid, who has always been my main and the first character I ever ever created, I can spec a different way and feel like I'm playing a completely new toon. Its like having another alt! It was fun playing a different way.

Secondly, healing for me is pretty precise. I choose to push certain buttons because I want to cast a specific spell for a specific purpose. Tanking for me was a bit more... uh, lets just say facerolling. OMG the first heroic UK keep was total facerolling! It got better as I got more practice and figured out what I was doing and where to best place my keybindings. But whoa, tanking is a whole lot of button mashing. I recalled when Jess would talk about getting sore fingers after a tough raiding night, which I now totally understand.

Now I am still a healer at heart and while I will probably tank more for fun, no this blog will not turn into a tanking blog. But let me just say this. Yes, good tanking requires skill, but great tanking requires an awesome healer behind you (heehee... see there's my healing core!). I don't think there is any way I could have tanked heroic TOC if Nico wasn't healing me. But I found it interesting that in our run folks mentioned how I did really well tanking (and I think they were quite surprised... heh), but never gave props to the healer. I'm sure it wasn't easy for Nico to heal me. Anyways, this is an entirely separate subject though that I will rant about in a post soon.

Finally, if you've ever thought of trying to tank, trust me if I can do it, you can do it.

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Tree of Life Turns Two!

Holy freakin' crap, can you believe it? Today is my second blogaversary. Two years and 334 posts later and I'm still around. Geez... what have I even written about over 334 posts? Now I've had highs and lows in terms of inspiration and posting frequency, but I'm surprised that I've posted at least once a week for two years.

Thinking back to how I started this blog, I don't think much has changed. This blog really is a personal diary of sorts to chronicle my ingame adventures. I think this blog is very much me or my voice, if that makes any sense at all. It's probably why I've kept up with it this long. It continues to amuses me and if it can amuse you, I'm glad... though I'd venture to say you have a very geeky and corny sense of humor, but still, I'm glad.

The relationship between playing WOW and blogging is an interesting one for me. At times I've not really wanted to blog, but did so because I was enjoying the game. Other times I've not really wanted to play the game, but did so because I was really enjoying blogging.

As for the future direction of this blog... Well I am two years old now, otherwise known as the terrible twos? Perhaps this next year of blogging will include a lot of screaming and crying and ranting and throwing tantrums. Oh the possibilities...

Anyways, to my guildies and friends ingame, thanks for all the good times, the inspiration for many posts, and letting me share stuff here on the interwebbies. To my readers, frequent commenters (you know who you are), and fellow blogging buddies, many many thanks!!

<3,
K

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WOW Holidays

So I was checking out the ingame calendar the other week and looking ahead a couple of months. First, I came across a holiday that I didn't realize existed!

1. Pirate's Day

Yes, you read that right. Pirate's Day, or a holiday that I will probably personally refer to as "Paradise's Day" (because our friend Paradise really really loves them pirates), falls on September 19 to coincide with International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Can you believe such a thing really exists?

Now I totally don't remember seeing this event last year, though it was available. Wowwiki has a whole writeup on Pirate's Day here. So it looks like you talk to a pirate commoner to receive a costume before heading down to Booty Bay. Now if you talk to Captain DeMeza in the roof of the Booty Bay bank/AH, you'll become an honorary crew member and transform into a pirate of their race and gender for 12 hours and get this achievement. Did anyone partake in Pirate's Day last year?

Now the new holidays:

2. Day of the Dead

This is a new event that will be held November 1-2. Now I have no clue what they will do in game around this event, but I imagine it will be somewhat similar to the intent of the real holiday, which is to gather with family and friends to remember those who have died by visiting graves. There are a ton of graveyards in the game... so I wonder if we'll have to go around and visit them?

3. Pilgrim's Bounty

Pilgrim's Bounty, held between November 8-14, is modeled after Thanksgiving and they're scheduling it between Canadian and US Thanksgiving. This holiday follows the typical achievement model for most other holidays. Now the reward for completing the achievement includes a Pilgrim title and a vanity pet, described as a "plump turkey pet".

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