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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