Patch thoughts

Yesterday my Snow Leopard CD finally came and after a 3 hour install of the CD, 10.6 updates off the web, WoW optimization, and then the patch install, I was ready to log in. 10 minutes past our scheduled raid time.

I had an idea of how I was going to spec, but hadn't looked at glyphs. So I frantically ask Beru which glyphs I should use, while the rest of the guild is waiting for me. I didn't have enough time to reforge or gem into spirit, but I run pretty spirit heavy anyways, so I thought I might be ok. I figured someone could switch my weapon enchant into Heartsong during the night if things were bad.

Joking around with others pre-patch I was honestly worried about my mana. When I am oom, I am very very unhappy. And how does that saying go? 'When momma aint happy, nobody is happy'? While I was getting my shit together of course Lorosia has to chime in that in preparation of the changes, he had to bring a certain Archaeology trinket just in case. F'in Tyrande's Doll...

By the time we got our shit together we only had time to do 4 bosses in DS. It's a good thing the bosses were also nerfed, because there were comments like:

* What, hit went back down to 15%?
* Hmmm I haven't reforged to expertise, mastery, (insert other stat here) yet.
* What the fuck, Grid isn't tracking my hots! (Big guess who made this comment).


However despite our fumbling, the bosses seemed easier than a week ago, though I didn't notice any huge increase in our dps. The dps can correct me if there was. Oh and can I just say, I knew we were losing the guild summon thing. But to lose the double duration on our flasks? Bullshit! Lorosia mentioned that we could console ourselves instead with its replacement, The Doctor is In. As Kal would say, what a complete screwjob.

After the raid when I had some time to really look at some things, I realized that these new talent trees essentially remove the need for me to have a pve and pvp spec. For a long time I've been saying I wish we could triple spec, so that I could have a resto pve, resto pvp, then feral tanking spec. And in a sense, these talent trees are kind of three specs for me because I've been given what I think of as pvp abilities in my "pve" spec.

This does give me some concern around how bad the bgs are right now. Has anyone done a significant amount of pvp? I didn't have time last night, but I'm curious. With nearly every class and spec getting this melded pve/pvp spec and all sorts of new abilities from the talents and the new glyphs, is pvp just insane? Bubble mentioned that he was in a bg the other day where no one died since we are taking less dmg but they haven't incorporated the offensive pvp stat into the gear yet.

Finally this whole account wide achievements, mounts, and pets thing. There is a part of me that thinks that the account wide stuff is cool, but there is another part of me that is partly irritated by it.

I really kind of wanted my main, K, to earn the 100,000 honor kills on her own. I wanted it to be an achievement recognizing her insanity in going through all those bgs. So when I logged into my alts and for all my toons to have the achieve now, it somehow meant less to me.

True, this means that I can go for 250,000 honor kills easier, not having to worry about which toon I'm on. And I can see this being easier for guild and raid leaders, in that we can ask folks to switch different toons in and out depending on what we may need. Sure, not having to do all the holiday achieves on all your toons is nice.

But ultimately while I play all my toons, in a way I think of them as separate individuals. I think in a way I've given them a personality and story in my head for each of them. So now for my alts to have all of K's pvp achievements, in my mind, these toons didn't "earn" them. It somehow takes away from certain goals I might have had for them at one time.

Keredria was the very first toon I created over five years ago. Despite highs and lows with buffs and nerfs, she had always been my main. In a way, this almost feels like we are losing some of that "main" vs "alt" designation.

I don't know, its a bit hard to explain. I'm not 100% against this account wide stuff, but I'm far from 100% for it.

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Apparently you shouldn't ignore...

... emails from Apple with feline subject lines. So as of today, WoW will no longer support, heck no longer even run if you are running Mac OS 10.5. Now Mac OS 10.6, or Snow Leopard, came out in August 2009. So who in their right mind would still be running 10.5?

/raises hand sheepishly?

I do recall getting emails from Apple with cat like subject lines... Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, blah blah blah. All ignored. And now it bites me in the ass! /sigh. This is why technology and I do not get along.

Anyways, I ordered the CD from Apple over the phone yesterday (it's so old this is now the only way you can get 10.6) but it won't get here until Thursday. I don't think I even really thought about how old my operating system was... and now I'm hopeful that perhaps upgrading will solve some of my performance issues while running WoW.

In other news... on Sunday night I pulled my poor raid into Eye of the Storm with me to try for Perfection. We ran 3 matches and didn't get it but I do think it was kind of fun. And while I won't punish them to do this every week, I am hoping they can try to help me again sometime in the future.

It was something different for 10 of us to be BGing together, so I hope folks had fun. I will say that in one of the matches we were very much outmatched in dps. A couple of folks were even in all PvE gear and were dying pretty easily. You looked at the meters and the top dmg dealers were all Horde... and we had more deaths. Yet we won the BG with 4 towers to none.

Lesson here? Of course gear helps. And I'm not going to turn down high dps or healing. But even more important is a group working together and bodies going where they need to go to turn towers.

Speaking of pvp I think some of the changes to glyphs are going to make pretty big impacts in pvp. What hunters have some exploding trap now that throw you off like shammys or boomkins can? Grrrr.

I have a feeling that there will be a lot of pvp action, particularly this upcoming three day weekend, as dps play around with all their new toys. And I'll be there healing!

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Before September 25

There are three things I need to do before September 25.

1. Get a new laptop

Ugh. I really don't want to have to blow money on a laptop just to play a game, but there is no way what I have now will be able to play the expansion. I think I'm sticking with Apple, most likely the 15 inch Macbook Pro.

Is 2.3 GHz enough or should I get 2.6? The 2.6 GHz comes with 750 GB (vs 500). If I don't need to shell out the extra dough, I'd rather not, so any advice would be appreciated. Remember, I have a habit of looking like a total noob in Apple stores.

2. Clean out guild bank

I've actually made pretty good progress to this end, getting rid of a ton of old stuff. I've also made a good dent into consolidating Cata stuff so that we'll have plenty of empty space for the expansion.

It's gotten to the point though that I am using the guild log to chastise people for adding stuff rather than removing stuff. Don't you dare add anything to the guild bank! Or no heals for you!

3. Finish Loremaster

I only have 5 more zones to finish in Kalimdor for Loremaster. Some of my favorite quests so far? The one in Felwood where you have to grow a tree and the one in Thousand Needles where you start the bar fight between the gnomes and the goblins. I may or may not have started the fight several times just for a giggle.

Anyways, as I was finishing up Thousand Needles, it became clear to me that whoever designed the quest rewards in this zone must have been betrayed in their marriage. Why? Well look at some of the quest rewards in this zone:

* Horn of the Traitor
* Alimony
* Discarded Wedding Band
* Belt of False Promises
* Breastplate of Contained Sorrow
* Belt of Feigned Joy
* Suspicious Slippers
* Dupe's Bracers
* Drinker's Bracers

Then I saw some quest rewards where it seemed the person was getting angry.

* Hood of Disgrace, which is part of Flirtation Regalia
* Swindler's Vest
* Really Cold Bracers
* Payback Band
* Shroud of Contempt
* Bracers of Reluctant Violence

Yikes! I hope this person found some Lasting Peace. (LOL at myself for creating an entire story and series of emotions around this quest reward designer's life at the time).

Anyways, I remarked to Jess how these quest rewards in Thousand Needles were kind of making me sad. His comment? "Mmm Thousand Needles... it's a good zone to throw yourself off a mesa".

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Damn those Lotuses

I'm not someone who tracks all the news around new patches and expansions that closely. Usually I find out about stuff when a guildie mentions it on vent. So last week a couple of guildies were talking about cooking in the expansion, which got me looking into it a little more.

I am quite irritated that they are bringing back the Wrath equivalent of Northern Spices with Rice Flour, Black Pepper and 100 Year Soy Sauce. Ugh, just ugh. Look, I totally understand requiring Ironpaw Tokens to learn recipes. But I really liked that in Cata once you learned the recipe, you could just cook things up without these extra reagents.

I'm especially annoyed we need them for the new feasts. Cooking with its six paths and farming for required vegetables seems a bit overwhelming. I don't know if as a guild we're going to have to coordinate and plan who is growing/providing what.

Speaking of cooking, look what I found on my grocery list after Clawcon:



Yes, that says "Tell Jess he's a good tank". Apparently Jess thinks I'm not supportive enough.

Anyways, so I'm irritated about needing those cooking reagents. But I am probably even more irritated that they're bringing back the notion of needing those damn Lotuses. Yes, the horror that was Frost and Fel Lotuses in Wrath and BC are back with a vengeance in the form of Golden Lotus.

Argh. Argh! Look, I realize that Cata flasks required more herbs and Volatile Life, but at least all of those mats were farmable. You knew you could gather up the mats to be able to make the flasks. Thus, I really hate going back to drop rate RNG in terms of being able to make flasks. And it looks like the data on making the MoP equivalent cauldrons isn't out yet, but I am scared to see what it is.

It just seems like they are making professions more difficult. I understand they want to prolong the time between patches and keep us busier (i.e. grind) longer. But I'm a little concerned what the return of cooking reagents and the damn Golden Lotuses is going to mean for creating feasts and cauldrons for raids.

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A second Dragonwrath!

Last week we were able to craft a second legendary staff for our mage Darc. Even though we had long moved onto DS, I'm glad that folks were willing to still run Firelands week after week to finally get it crafted for him.





Darc mentioned that while having a legendary, and the staff itself is cool, what means more is the fact that a group of friends worked together to create something for him. That's what the staff represents, the commitment that our guild made to craft a second Dragonwrath for him.

With a month before the expansion and the OP summer raid boss upon us, I'm satisfied if this second Dragonwrath is the last significant thing we do before MoP. Now in MoP it sounds like the legendary is going to be something that every class can use.

What are folks thoughts on this? I do like the idea of considering merit instead of being bound to whatever class Blizz has decided gets the next legendary. We were talking about this on vent a bit ago and Chanti mentioned that the obvious choices for our guild are going to be Jess and myself. I think Nkm mentioned that we should put it to a guild vote and that his vote is bribe-able.

Yes, Jess and I will fight over this decision (because seriously when don't we?). But actually the fight will be for the other to take it... so I will be trying to convince him to take the first legendary while he will do the same with me. We'll see who wins...

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Achievements galore!

Lots of achiever-ing (what is the verb form of getting an achievement?) lately, including finally getting Master of Warsong Gulch due to Frenzied Defender. Many thanks to Jess and Nikolai who I dragged into several WSG with me to be able to get this.

So now I just have The Perfect Storm left for Battlemaster. I'm wondering if I should try OpenRaid for it. My other achievement goals before the expansion launches is finishing up Loremaster.

I also finished up Glory of the Cataclysm Hero, for which I ended up tanking a 5 man! So my first foray back into tanking in forever was heroic Stonecore, and yeah it was ugly. I couldn't get enough rage or keep all the mobs together very well. And in the trash right before Ozruk, I think my expansive bear ass ended up pulling half the room.

Anyways, I think I just need a bit more practice and perhaps readjust where abilities are located on my bar to make more sense with how I'd use them. I will say my tanking definitely keeps the healer busy. Poor Bruenok saw plenty of action!

Speaking of bear butts, I could watch this live stream video all day long.

I'm sorry, I couldn't get that work assignment finished because I was watching a live stream of brown bears catching salmon all day.

Reasonable excuse is reasonable?

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Clawcon debrief and loldot

A quick debrief on Clawcon. It was a bit more lowkey this year, and as such I didn't really end up taking that many pics. I don't know, given this was my fourth Clawcon it just become more old friends hanging out.

The boys arrived on Friday and I decided that we should try grilling pizzas up on my rooftop deck. I had Jess take grilling duty, but of course I was right there telling him he was doing it wrong. Actually they turned out pretty well!

Saturday we did a drive up to Bellingham to do some sightseeing and meet up with two other guildies. We tooled around a park there for a bit then spent the afternoon at a brewery.

It was amusing because we ran into a lot of hipsters all weekend (both in Bellingham and Seattle). Hipsters seem to invoke a visceral negative reaction from Nkm. Jess joked that he was going to start a toon named "Hipster" and try to find a fedora and skinny jeans within the game.

I remarked that Nkm would then probably create a toon named "Antihipster". They'd probably stand around dueling all day. I would put my money on Antihipster in such a duel. Skinny jeans really restrict your range of motion.

Sunday was a lazy day of me and Jess making breakfast and just lying around eating, drinking, and watching the Olympics.

We discussed that next year I will do some research so that our "nature-y" outdoor activity would be going out clamming or crabbing. I think it'd be fun and we would be catching our dinner!

It'd be the real life version of when I made the guild get together to fish so we could learn the Seafood Feast. (The guildies think I'm kidding... I'm not).

In our raid last night I actually took my lock into DS. She was in 378 gear and has yet to do Raid Finder (heck I have never done Raid Finder on any toon... crazy I know). Lorosia was also dpsing, during which we affectionately call him lolret. Though he actually does pretty good dps, so he is more ret than lol. We decided we would call Kimchee loldot. She is more lol than dot.

Hooray loldot!

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