Hai Guys!

Well,  With Riv on vacaciones I volunteered to pick up the pen keyboard once again and fire out some blog posts.  I’ll be tending to the Tuesday and Thursday duties this week. 

Yes, I’m still alive.  And I’m still playing WoW. 

want. pretty. mount. nowwww.

Lately I’ve just been working on rated BG’s, ZA/ZG runs, Firelands trash rep runs, and I’ve taken a glimpse at Beth’alickty-lack and  SHANNOX.  I’ve mostly looked at SHANNOX face down after rageface humps me to death.  (Seriously, no one can put out a 30,000 crit for me?)  One of my first attempts at him I was with a pug group.  After dying to Rageface for like the 6th time in 6 attempts one of the tanks says over vent, “that Rageface just loves eating you out.”  He said it innocently enough, but i’ve never heard such a in-unison nerd giggle as connections began clicking.  Ah, the fun of being the lone girl voice in vent.  Of course, I couldn’t help but laugh along. 

I went to a birthday party for a friend of mine from college a couple weekends ago.  This is a guy (we’ll call him “Julius”) who I went on a few dates with in college, but nothing really stuck.  As we’ve gotten older, facebook, in its infinite wisdom, has kept us in touch.  I tend to hear from him after a break-up or when he’s lonely.  The facebook internal messaging has recently changed, where now you can view the complete history of messages that you have sent and received from one person.  I can look back and see him asking me out (and my following rejections of his offers) in Feb 2007, April 2009 and now in June 2011.  His last attempt, and I quote,

“Hey Stranger.  Hungry for Sushi sometime?  I need to get out and stretch my legs in the single world again.”

I chose just to not answer this time.  Mainly because, OH GEE WOW, thanks for asking me to be your rebound.  Also, “stretch my legs in the single world” sounds a lot like “stretch my dick in you so I can feel better about my girlfriend dumping me.” 

A few weeks after this message was sent I recieve an invitation to his birthday party.  It’s being held at a downtown hotel at it’s rooftop bar. I see that a lot of my old friends from college will be there and in an excuse to hang out with them, I agree to go.  $760.00 worth of champagne later and “Julius” is drunk and horny.  He has gotten a suite at the hotel and a group of us decide to go check it out.  After he drunkingly tries to pull me into the bedroom area with him, promising to “rageface me,”  it was officially time to go. On my way home I begin receiving a series of text messages urging me to return.   Please take special note of the extreme overuse of the winky-face.

After attempting some pleasant rejections, I arrive home and log-in to play some WoW.  I still needed to get my dailies done, and let’s all admit it, drunken vent chats with guildies are always fun.  After forming a group for a Battleground, I start telling them about Julius’ attempts at banging me.  “He just won’t stop texting.”  One of my guild members makes a rejection suggestion I just can’t resist. 

Fabulous idea.

Video games are art…. no, for real they are.

Just a little tidbit post today.

The Smithsonian is conducting a survey of video games spanning 20 gaming systems, five eras and four genres. 

Get over there and perform your civic duty.  Possibly by voting for Call of Duty? 

I would give you some more information, but the work internet filter tends to block out anything with games in the title.  I’ll just have to take the survey and not get paid for it.  *sigh*

http://www.artofvideogames.org/

The actual exhibit will run from March 16th – September 30th, 2011 and you have until April 7, 2011 to cast your votes.

Why do we play the characters that we play?

I had this discussion over vent with a guild friend of mine a few days ago.  He was in the process of leveling a Worgen Warrior just to see what it looked like.  He wanted to try out the new leveling zone, and finally get the chance to turn from Human to Werewolf Worgen. 

I asked what he named this character, “I just chose the suggested name.” 

“Well, what do you think of the starting zone quests?” I asked. 

“They are pretty good, but honestly, I just wanna get to the part where I turn into the Worgen already,” he replied.

This motivated me to start my own Wee-Worgen.  I even had a name picked out — Worgestershire. She was going to be a mighty Worgen Druid, if only til level 10.  As I began creating her, I couldn’t help but notice that as I chose her furry features, I was also developing a human a few steps behind her.  After all the tweaks to her coloring and her fur and her markings I stepped back to look at how well I had done, and what did I see?

*guh*

How in the hell can the Worgen look so awesome, and the human female have the old dried-up hideous face.  I did not proceed with my Wee-Worgen after this point.  I really don’t think I could look at that ugly human face – or even more so, have that ugly human face representing me – if even for 10 levels. 

So, this got me thinking… Why do we play the characters that we play?  Are we naturally drawn to a particular class, and because of that our choices are sort of made for us?  If I want a druid on the horde side I can only choose between a hideous troll and a cow.  The majority of the face/hair/coloring choices are not appealing to me.  To be fair, within these limited choices we are provided 1-2 female face choices with softer features.  Well, for Tauren there are, if you go troll, I recommend being in cat form as much as possible. 

Of course, it’s a troll… it’s not supposed to be a beauty queen.

I started to think, if I didn’t like the way my priest looked would she be my main?  Could I have gone 85 levels with old hideous shriveled face?

I think not. 

The name I place to a character is also quite important to me.  I’ve mentioned before, but I like to name all of my characters with old-lady names.  (The irony is palpable).  I’ve been really enjoying a new warlock that I made to roll with some guildies.  We all decided to roll Goblins, I had cloth BOAs, I’ve never made  a Warlock before, so …. guess what character I made.  🙂

I really love everything about this character.  I love the goblin animations, I love the facial features and hair on my goblin.  She is named Luretta which may be the single most perfect matchup of character and name I have done to date.  She sounds like a Luretta.  She looks like a Luretta.

She is a Luretta. 

Now she is just sitting there, gaining rested xp, but some day soon… I know I would not have a problem growing attached to her as I level. 

—————

On a side note… My personal life has gotten to be extremely busy as of late.  My WoW playing time as well as the amount of time I have to contribute to the blog has decreased.  I still plan to write posts, but they may not be every week and they may not always be on Thursdays.  I really enjoy jotting my thoughts down and forcing others to read them, so do not fret, this is not a goodbye.  Just for the next few months, I may not be around as much.

Try not to miss me too hard. 🙂

World of Warcraft and the Single Girl

I’m gonna make this post a little personal today.  I have several inspirations. One,  I am currently one month shy of my 30th birthday — single and never married with no kids.  Valentine’s day is right around the corner – it always manages to make you feel relationship-retarded in one way or another (whether attached or single).  And Beru had a wonderful and heartfelt post that she made last week.

My last boyfriend (the controlling, self-absorbed prick) and I were together for 4 years.  After I left him, I moved in with my old roommate from college.  She introduced me to WoW and the rest, they say, is history. 

When I think back, most of the boyfriends/relationships that I’ve had in my life I’ve met while participating in hobbies that I was into at the time.  My highschool boyfriend and I met during a retreat for the church youth group I was involved in at the time.  As most highschool romances go, things fizzled as we went off to college to start new lives/identities. 

In college I was highly involved in my sorority.  At one point I was living “the dream.”  I was president of my house, dating the tall and handsome president of one of the best fraternities on campus.  I was the envy of other girls.  We went to date functions together, I was there to root him on during his intramural games, he took me on vacations during spring break/winter break.  Really, it’s was how I always dreamed it was going to be.  Then, in the summer before my senior year, he dumped me.  I’ve never been more devastated.  I think it was mainly because it was the first time I had really felt love/been in love with someone.  It’s hard to ever see yourself happy with anyone else when you truly believed you had already found that one person that was right for you.  But sometimes, things just don’t work out as you have them planned to. 

Fast forward a year or so, and my next boyfriend I met out at a karaoke bar that I frequented.  (I got really into karaoke for a while there, and seriously, it draws quite a unique group of “regulars”).  As my love for karaoke fizzled, so did my relationship.  Shortly there after, I started playing poker very regularly, where I met the controlling, self-absorbed prick, we know how that goes… and here I am today.  Single, and with a new hobby. 

I have a point here with all this background, I promise.  So I got to thinking the other day about why it is that in the last two years I haven’t met somebody.  I have had dates, even sexual relations (gasp!) but no real long-lasting connections. 

For the last two years my hobby has been World of Warcraft.  I enjoy the play style, the challenge, the atmosphere and the people I have met because of it.  It takes up a lot of my free time, which in the past has been any of a number of things.  Yes, at times it was TV, at times it was sorority life, at times it was karaoke and at times it was poker. 

Is my interest in playing World of Warcraft restricting my romantic possibilities?

I sorta think it is.

Yes, ok, I know where you are at now… “How about you just meet someone in WoW?”  So let’s talk about meeting someone in World of Warcraft. 

I would not shy away from this possibility.  I feel like, look… I’m normal, well-socialized own my own house/car/have a good career, I’m disease free and mentally stable AND I play World of Warcraft.  I’m sure there are plenty of guys I interact with online that are in the same boat as I. 

And interact I do. Being a single girl, in a guild filled with mostly single men does have its perks.  There is always flirtation going on.  All people love to flirt.  When someone shows interest in you it’s flattering.  I have always been a big flirt, and as we all know that flirting can be quite the ego boost, it makes you feel wanted, it just feels good, period. 

So here I am, getting these good feelings by interactions I’m having with guild members. Some of my romantic/relationship needs are being met. Is this causing me to not go else where to seek out flirtation and in turn the reason I’m not meeting someone?  

This type of activity is pretty par for my course.  In every hobby I’ve had, there’s been flirtation, romance, fun, etc.  What makes my WoW hobby different is that these flirtations have very little chance to develop into something more.  Although we are close by one another in Azeroth, in real life the distance is far.

Ok, so I don’t have a good way of ending this.  Maybe I just haven’t met someone, maybe it’s just not my time yet.  WoW may have nothing at all to do with it.  I may be scapegoating here. 

Chin up.

What I Love About Catacylsm – Patch 4.0.6

So saying that I love Cataclysm’s first set of major changes may be a bit counterintuitive. But fuck it, it’s Thursday and I do what I want.

Here are my list of highlights from the new patch notes. 

Guild Rep/Rewards:

The guild reward Armadillo Pup now requires revered faction instead of exalted. After taking some advice from Psynister–and forcing 4 guildmembers to come afk hover above me in Zul’Gurub, we are 35,000 of 50,000 on this achievement.  Can’t wait to reap the reward sooner.

All guild banners now reward bonus reputation in addition to honor and experience. Now, if only wearing the guild tabard could award extra guild xp…. but I won’t get too greedy.  

Redefinition of Guild Group:

If 3 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 50% of the normal rate.
If 4 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 100% of the normal rate.
If 5 out of 5 players in a group are members of the same guild, they will now be able to complete guild achievements and earn guild experience at 125% of the normal rate.
Also note that Heroic dungeons offer a 1.5x multiplier on all guild experience earned. Great news for those in smaller guilds.  My RL friends that play on my server have a 5 man guild.  Now they don’t have to feel like it’s a waste when only 3 of them are available to run a heroic.

Dungeon Changes:

Beauty now spawns with only two pups in Heroic difficulty. Not to worry though, the missing pup has been adopted by a wonderful, if not insane family. I sure hope it’s Buster that was adopted.  That is my dog’s name and I have some big problems slaying him.

 

Buster, less lava-y.

 

The final rope swing while fighting Vanessa VanCleef has been removed. Players no longer need to swing off of the boat at the end of phase 3. Yep, I died in that fire.  Thought the encounter was over and was busy breathing sighs of relief ova hea.

The duration of the Flame Wardens’ Raging Inferno has been reduced by 80%. UM YES PLEASE.

The visual effects in [the Altairus] encounter have been adjusted to make the wind direction easier to read.
Cyclones now knock players straight up, and players hit by a cyclone cannot be hit again for a few seconds. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.  Nothing is worse than getting hit with one to be dropped right into another one.

PVP Changes:

Bloodlust, Heroism, Time Warp and Ancient Hysteria can no longer be cast while in Arenas. Harsh but fair.

The time it takes to capture a flag [in the Battle of Gilnaes] has been reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8. What a game changer.  Basically makes you have to rethink the whole strategy.  I predict much more moving around from base to base for recaptures and less “Get two at the beginning and hold ’em for dear life.”  In a perfect Rated BG guild group world, that might work… but in Pugville, USA?  Not so much.

The following are all from Strand of the Ancients (can you say broken?):

The damage done by Antipersonnel Cannons has been doubled.
The missile speed of Rocket Blast (Antipersonnel Cannons) has been increased by roughly 50%.
Some Antipersonnel Cannons could shoot the platform they were spawned on. These spawn locations have been fixed.
The Battleground Demolisher no longer has two additional seats and now only has room for the driver.
A PvP duration flag has been added to Battleground Demolishers. This should make it so crowd control effects cast on unmanned demolishers does not last an extended amount of time.
There should no longer be a discrepancy in time when the Battleground Demolishers spawn at the start of each round.
The Battleground Demolishers spawned on the docks no longer despawn when the north graveyard is taken by the offense.
Massive Seaforium Charges should now be useable in rated Battleground matches.
The duration of the Teleport debuff has been lowered to 10 seconds, down from 20.
The radius of the Seaforium Blast has been lowered to 10 yards, down from 20.
The Teleporters on defense will now teleport players based on which line of gates have been destroyed, rather than directly behind that gate. For example, if a player clicks the Teleporter at the Blue gate when one of the beach gates has been destroyed, it will put the player behind the Red gate. With these changes I will no longer want to smash my head into my monitor when I see the loading screen for Strand of the Ancients after a 20 min queue.  It’s only fair with the demolishers being more agile that dispellers and rooters should not be allowed to go undamaged in the passenger seats.  It’ll take some getting used to, but even as a dispelling machine I agree this is fair.

*drum roll please* DISCIPLINE PRIEST CHANGES! aka Disc Priests, the new Feral Druid.

“You down with being OP, yeah you know me!”…. Ok, ok, took it a bit far there….

Good:

The mana cost of Shadow Protection has been reduced by approximately 65%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

The mana cost of Power Word: Fortitude has been reduced by approximately 68%, making it roughly equal to the cost of Mark of the Wild.

Divine Aegis: Critical effects from Prayer of Healing now award a bonus amount in addition to the default, always-proc Divine Aegis effect.

Improved Power Word: Shield now also increases the amount absorbed by an additional 15/30% when cast on oneself.

The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.

Better:

Mind Control now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.  Better not be near me on the EOTS bridge or the Lumber Mill.

Focused Will now procs when the priest is critically hit, in addition to its current effect.

The mana cost of Renew has been reduced by 24%.

Pain Suppression is no longer dispellable.

Best:

Grace is no longer limited to one target at a time.

The mana cost of Power Word: Shield has been increased by approximately 31%, but its effect has been increased by 208%. 

Best Orgasm of your life, Best:

Penance mana cost has been increased by 7%, but healing has been increased by 20%. WOWZA.
Strength of Soul now also causes the priest to become immune to silence, interrupt, and dispel effects for 2/4 seconds after using Inner Focus. Um, fuck yes. I can’t believe how good this is, especially if the change is still occuring to Strength of Soul that it will proc from flash heal, penance, greater heal and heal.  Even if it just procs from 2 of those I’ll be a happy camper.

Desperate Prayer now heals the priest for 30% of their total health, up from a very subpar value. Welcome back, my long lost friend, I’ve missed you ever so desperately.

 

Full patch notes here.

What I Love About Cataclysm – Heroics

I feel it is an appropriate day for me to talk about the difficulty of the Cataclysm Dungeons.  Ghostcrawler has just done a blogpost entitled, “Wow, Dungeons are Hard!”. It’s a good read (especially if you are not liking the new content and wondering why Blizzard ruined everything).   You’ll find my comments on it below…

First, let’s review.  I am currently playing a Discipline Priest – arguably, the worst spec/class combination for healing Cataclysm content at the moment.  Gone are the days of my bubble spam, gone are the days of my unlimited mana.  Discipline is extremely gear dependant.  Without an appropriate amount of spirit we go OOM.  It’s just what is happening right now.  Not to say that our spell priority and triage healing is not important.  Even with an acceptable level of spirit, you will still go OOM if you aren’t prioritizing heals and anticipating damage.  The Discipline Priest’s spell arsenal is just not as strong/mana efficient as some the other healing classes.  I’ve also heard/seen that many other healer classes received new talents that allow for them to dispel magic.  Did Disc Priests get a talent to help with poisons or curses? Um, no.  We still have mass dispel, which helps us to stand out from the pack a bit, but really, without glyphing it appropriately you won’t be getting it off in enough time anyways to make a difference.  I could go on with things that piss me off about it, but Disc is broken right now.  That’s just the way things are.  I have confidence Blizzard will make changes in an attempt to fix it. 

MY POINT IS…. I have still been succesful in healing the new heroic dungeons.  I would say my strongest ability as a player and as a healer is my ability to predict incoming damage and player/mob activity.  This is something that Discipline Priests have always had to do.  We are damage mitigators.  Dispel quickly, bubble before a big damage spike, pop Pain Suppression, etc etc.  Discipline priests are the Prophetic Healers of WoW.  The new content is forcing all classes to be predictive.  We can’t just run in and FANOFKNIVESFANOFKNIVESFANOFKNIVESFANOFKNIVESFANOFKNIVES.  You have to CC.  At least when I am healing you do.  It’s of high possibility that I will not be able to heal the tank through the full force of 6 mobs.  I’ll have no choice but to let a DPS die if they are standing in stuff.  My mana just cannot support your stupidity.

“If you feel like you can’t cast anything but your efficient heal or you’ll run out of mana, then something is going wrong with the fight.  Likewise, if you feel like you must spam your inefficient heals to the exclusion of all else, then your group is ignoring key mechanics or is just undergeared. ” — Ghostcrawler 

Let’s review again.  I began my priest 4 months after the release of WOTLK.  I have never played BC or Vanilla content when it was new.  I don’t know how it used to be.  How am I able to heal current content when I’ve not experienced “tough” content before?  I would say it’s a mix a few things.  One, I’m willing to learn and change my behaviors.  Two, I PVP, and I PVP a whole hell of a lot.  PVP has made me be more mana efficient, made me better a predicting incoming damages and most importantly made me quick to react to new/changing situations.  Also having a support system of a strong guild filled with helpful people, who all try their best is a wonderful thing. 

Let’s talk about a player I met in a recent Heroic Vortex Pinnacle run.  We’ll call him “Duster Shaman.”  DS had ok gear.  He wasn’t faking it with PVP stuff or wearing cloth when it should be mail.  DS was doing around 4800 DPS.  He was standing in the bad on nearly every fight.  He was rarely targeting skull.  He was standing in the wrong side of the wind on the Dragon fight.  Even after being politely coached by the tank, things did not change.  I was forced to do something I have never before had to do.  I 100% blocked out his health bar from my vision.  To me, he did not exist.  Yes, he still received the benefits of my AOE heals and random heals.  I cannot help that.  But seriously, I just stopped healing him all together.  I honestly, did not have a choice.  My priorities are keeping up the tank/myself and then those DPS that are putting out the most damage/cc/awareness of the fight.  I didn’t do it to be a bitch.   I seriously had no other choice.  Now, DS never got angry about dying the few times he did.  I always rezzed him and rebuffed him.  But I’m sorry.  Again, I can’t heal stupid.

–In Summary–

*Are you finding that healing the new content is not challenging your skills enough?  Roll a Discipline Priest.

*WOTLK babies are not all bad.  The player base that was gathered during that time had their expectations set for how to react to the content and how the loot system works. Now, all that has drastically changed.  Ghostcrawler does an excellent job of coaching/explaining why changes were made and why they were necessary.  Hopefully the babes will read it, but that may be expecting too much.

*Blizzard has given every class the ability to be succesful in Heroics.  Each DPS class has new CC, healers have new tools to use and tanks have new ways to manage aggro.  When you are failing at Heroics over and over it is due to someone not making use of what is at their disposal. 

*We have been given the opportunity to have FUN playing WoW again.  Let’s make a Vegas comparison.  WoW is no longer your chain-smoking Granny’s game. If you just want to press one or two buttons mindlessly and have the chance of a big reward go play the slots.  I have always preferred a game of No Limit Texas Hold’em, myself. 

I like to have control over what is happening to me, use my ability to read people and situations – be predictive and sometimes deceptive.  I like to earn my rewards.  It makes them that much more special.

So, C’mon WoW playerbase, time to put on your Pokerface.

Things I Love About Cataclysm – Part 4 – Xylem’s Apprentice Quest Chain

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Let’s start here first:

Guild Pride (x3, bedazzled up)

As a guild we completed our final Cataclysm heroic run, Grim Batol, earlier this week.  After downing the final boss we were awarded with the ability to purchase a Guild Battle Standard from Guild Cataclysm Dungeon Hero.  I do think its a bit strange that completing PVE content awards something for PVP, but, this is not the only Guild Battle Standard available, and not the only rank.  But shit, look at those things.  Pure eye candy – and with a 15 min cooldown you can pop it out a couple times per BG/TB. 

Ok, Ok…. so onto the Xylem’s Apprentice Quest Chain.  Anyone noticed that your guildmates/fellow servermates have the abililty to randomly turn into a goblin?  I had noticed this a couple times, scrolled over to find out what the tooltip said for the buff and google searched the ability “Identity Crisis.”

This buff comes from the item Faded Wizard’s Hat which is a quest reward recieved at the end of a chain of quests you will do for Archmage Xylem in Azshara.  The hat will turn you into a random Xylem’s apprentice for 30 min.  The buff persists thru combat, but not death.  It has a 30 min cooldown.  This is a Horde Only item. 

(Sorry Alliance brethern, no need to read any further – let me direct you here for an awesome “Bear Wall” of a story – that should give you something to do while us Hordies discuss.)

The quest chain begins in Bilgewater Harbor, Azshara.  Talk to Teemo who is located here:

You will complete the following quests: (stolen from another website, cause I can)

Start at Teemo in Bilgewater Harbor loc 59,4 : 50,7
1.)Azshara Blues
2.)Friends Come In All Colors

Helping out Ergll (the g is silent):
3.)A Little Pick-me-up
4.)Absorbent
5.)Full of Hot Water
6.)That’s Just Rude!

Finding Archmage Xylem:
7.)The Way to a Mage’s Heart
8.)Wash Out
9.)Dressed to Impress

Helping Xylem and his Apprentices:
10.)Shear Will
11.)Waste of Thyme
12.)Renewable Resource

13.)Manual Labor
14.)Trouble Under Foot

Getting to Xylem’s Trials:
15.)The Pinnacle of Learning
16.)Watch Your Step

Xylem’s Trials
17.)The Trial of Fire
18.)The Trial of Frost
19.)The Trial of Shadow

Finding Azuregos:
20.)Xylem’s Asylum
21.)Wasn’t It Obvious?
22.)Easy is Boring
23.)Turning the Tables

The Final Battle
24.)Fade to Black

Then do these two quests from two gobbos at North Station:

25.)Pro-liberation
26.)Ice Cold

Finally:

27.) Farewall.Minnow – get from Azuregos

This sends you back to Bilgewater Harbor where you can finally collect your Faded Wizard’s Hat

I also want to add that there are 4 achievements that can be obtained in this area, so for any achievement whores (like myself) read on.

#1)  Joy Ride. 

#2,3,4) Are all related to the Trials that you do for Xylem (Fire, Ice, Shadow).  Please follow the links provided to get the info on how each of those are done.  It took me several tries on the Shadow and Ice to finally receive the achievement.  Ice was much easier once I realized you could get on your flying mount and drop down on the Ice bubbles to avoid the Ice smoke and build up your stacks.  With a 60 sec buff timer, you have lots of time to wait for respawns and not have to take chances with being hit with the smoke.

Happy Questing!!

::::EDIT::::

To add…. I’ve been getting a lot of shit lately for playing Disc still.  I even had  random mage in an AB last night tell me they were “proud of me” for sticking with it.  I was starting to feel like Disc was my boyfriend of a couple years, that isn’t treating me good anymore, but because I’m comfortable with him and know all his nuinances and fart smells that we have to stick together.  I was more than toying with the fact of breaking things off.  Then comes an MMO champion post about upcoming 4.0.6 changes:

• Levitate now lasts 10 min, up from 2 min.
• Power Word: Fortitude now costs 22% of base mana, down from 69%.
• Power Word: Shield now scales from 87% of spell power, up from 41.8%. Base absorb increased by 110%, from 3906 to 8136. Now costs 25% of base mana, up from 19% of base mana. (HOLY FUCKING HELL)
• Focused Will now reduces all damage taken by 5/10%, up from 4/6%.
• Grace can now be active on multiple targets at a time.
• Strength of Soul now also rpocs from Greater Heal and Flash Heal.
• Pain Suppression no longer increases resistance to Dispel mechanics.
• Rapture now energizes you with 2/4/6% of your total mana, up from 1.5/2/2.5%.
• Atonement now affects a friendly party or raid target within 15 yards, up from 8 yards.
• Improved Power Word: Shield now also increase the damage absorbed by an additional 15/30% when Power Word: Shield is cast on yourself.

Does this mean Disc is fixed?? No… it doesn’t.  I love the buffs to my bubbles, but they are so easy to dispel.  The Pain Suppression change is terrible for us.  But, I see improvements and lots of them.

It’s like my stale, stagnant boyfriend decided to buy me a whole new wardrobe.  On top of that, he’s keeping things interesting in the bedroom again. Yeah, I think i’ll keep him around.

What I Love About Cataclysm – Part 3 – POTPOURRI

This week my nightly fitness kickboxing class is on vacation for the holidays.  Instead of taking out my daily aggressions there, I have been pwnin’ some serious nubs in battlegrounds.  After some succesful 2v2 arenas last night with my guild rogue friend I was able to purchase the shiny new Vicious Gladiator’s Medallion of Tenacity.  The extra boost to my resilience is just what the doctor ordered.  I think I may finally feel ready to attempt some rated battlegrounds again.  (My first couple of attempts with 700 or so resilience were not very forgiving). 

So now that you are updated on my progress, let me move on to some things that I’m loving about Cataclysm. These are a few short and sweet items, non-deserving of their own separate posts, but together they make for a pretty satiating piece of blogwork.  “By your powers combined… I am CAPTAIN PLANE”…. er…

Battle Standards.

Edit: Thanks to Cynwise for pointing this out.  At this time, the 2 min cooldown is HORDE ONLY.  It’s not fair and I’m going to exploit it to my heart’s content – until it’s hotfixed of course. 🙂

The cooldown on these babies has been reduced from 10  minutes to 2 minutes.  The Standard itself lasts for 2 min.  This means: you should always have this up and always be refreshing it every 2 min.  A 15% health pool bonus is seriously insane.  It will make the difference between you keeping the flag at The Farm in AB, or keeping ownership of the Mage Tower in EOTS.  One additional piece of advice I’d like to offer is to make sure when you are throwing down these bad boys that you are hiding them.  Battlegrounds are riddled with cabins, pillars, trees, etc.  Por Exemplo:

In the Twin Peaks horde flag room.

Side Note: Twin Peaks is the name of a Hooters-style restaurant in the city I live.  I giggle everytime.

Be Fel without rolling a Warlock.

So I made the decision this week to drop my 2nd profession of Enchanting.  We had good run early in my Priest career, but since level 264 we haven’t been getting along.  I decided to cut the fat and picked up mining.  I am sick and tired of hearing about how much money miners are making – how hilariously fast the mine nodes are respawning – and the thousands of golds they are making per week.  I want my fruggin share.  With 310% (+10% Mount Up Guild Perk bonus) flying in Azeroth after 1 day I already have mining skill 121.  Ok, so on to the point… While farming copper nodes in Durator I discovered a cave that has around 4-5 node spawns. 

Inside this cave you will find Burning Blade Cultists and Burning Blade Neophytes.  When they are killed at close range they give you a debuff, that, after stacking 5 times will “Fel-Infuse” you.

And this is what you turn into:

Bad-to-tha-motha-fuckin-Ass.

Inside the Cave

Deepstone Oil is a new alchemy mat (similar to pygmy oil).  When used it causes your character to turn a shade of yellow and be frozen in place. 

As soon as I saw people frozen in Orgrimmar I ran to the AH and dropped 8g on one bottle of this precious nectar.  After reading the tooltip, I couldn’t help but drop a bomb in guild chat:

It was worth the 8g to try it out. 

Lastly, I want to talk about a trick I was made aware of in The Vortex Pinnacle.  We all love our friendly Priest party members.  They give us pretty stamina buffs. Well, lookie here… here is something else we can do.

We can mind control the terrible healing forces that are the Temple Adepts.  A few pulls in Vortex Pinnacle have 2 of these nasty bitches in them. 

As the healer of the group, I was able to mind control one of these big brutes and was given the functionality of using their heals on my party members.  The heals were hitting for somewhere in the range of around 240K.  That’s one mana efficient heal.  Also, I quite fancied making them leap around.

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

Yeah, yeah yeah… I should be continuing my series on “What I Love About Cataclysm” and I will be, at the end… but first I must rant.

I had something happen to me in a pugged Grim Batol (regular) run the other day. Why was I running a pugged Grim Batol? Well, I had logged in right after a group of guildies had already formed for a random dungeon AND a random BG que.  I wanted to knock out my justice points for the day while they were in que and finishing up (a healer que is only like 1 1/2 min on my server).

Anywho… I ended up in a group with 4 guildies from another server.  I was happy to see this.  I figured they would be more organized with the pulls and I also could tell they were using vent.  More organization = less damage taken = more mana saved = I’m a happy Priesty.

For the most part the run went smoothly.  At one point a BOE cloth piece dropped, I had a better piece equipped so I rolled greed, (along with the rest of the group). I ended up winning the item.  I then got a PM from the rogue in the group asking if he could have the piece to raise his item level so that he could do heroics.  I could have probably made a cool 300-400g off of the item, but decided to be a non-greedy biatch, and traded him the item.  He did equip it, and said thank you.

Fast forward to the last boss – a trinket drops, specifically the Corrupted Egg Shell.

As a mana starved healer, who is used to shelling bubbling targets already, this trinket is not only quite interesting, but the gains back to mana give me a clit-boner.  After reading the stats and adjusting my panties I went to click need – which, much to my surprise, found to not be an available option.  I was only able to pass or click greed.  I said something in the party chat regarding how I found the item to be really nice and that for whatever reason I couldn’t roll need.  I clicked greed (crossed my fingers) and  rolled something like a 5 or so (FML).

Luckily, the rogue had won the item.  I thought, “Oh goody!! My rogue friend that I was so nice to give up a BOE item to has won the roll.  He’s sure to trade an OBVIOUS healer trinket to me!!”

I say in party chat, “Awesome, you mind trading that to me? Remember my kindness with the item earlier ;)”

He then leaves party.
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

I erupted… I let his final guild member, a warlock, have an earful.  They simply said, “yeah that wasn’t cool of him.”

That is the last time I’m nice to anyone, ever…. I swear….

I went on WowHead to further analyze the item and proceeded to read several comments pertaining to this bug:

“Could not roll Need on this as a healer in a dungeon finder group.  Must be a bug.”

“I couldn’t roll Need on it either. Holy Priest”

“As a resto shaman I was able to roll need.  The DK tank said he was also able to roll need.”

“I was able to roll need as a Holy Paladin.”

Ohhhh, so it’s a Priest thing now.  I’m not one to report things to a GM, but in this case I figured it was necessary.  If we don’t report this kind of thing, it will just keep screwing people over.  So I type up a short and sweet request to have this glitch looked at.  I say, “I would love to have the item, if that is at all possible, but understand if it’s not.”

Two days later I received a response via in-game mail.  It was an obviously template-organized email response saying that “they would be looking into it,” and “thanking me” for my concerns.  I figured I’d done what I could do and moved on.

The next day I was running a dungeon with a hunter friend of mine.  He started raving in vent about how awesome a GM was to him.  He was running a dungeon in which an awesome staff for him dropped.  He meant to click “need” but in error clicked “disenchant.”  He won the item, and much to his dismay it was instantly turned into enchanting mats.  He wrote a GM to see if anything could be done to help out.  One day later, he opens his in-game mail to find a personally written letter from a GM thanking him for his business, the Staff he so kindly asked for AND a christmas holiday hat (just as an extra bonus).

UMMM… What. the. fuck.  I am seriously considering writing to the GM again and asking for some kind of a resolution.  I will be ok with the fact that I can’t have the trinket.  I’m not sure if I would have ended up keeping it in use permanently or not…. but the fact that I was given some template-generated message really bothers me.  This is a problem – fucking fix it.  kthanksbye.

Ok, ok… something I love about Cataclysm….. let me dig into my Screen Shot file here….

Yeah, so ... I was running late to work this morning and didn't have time to find the screenshot and email it to myself for today's post. Here's your "in the mean time" picture to put you there. It will be updated later with something more accurate, but far less cool.

Edit: Here it be…

I really thought I had gotten a better shot but, you know... whatevs.

That is me hitching a ride upon the new Sand Drake, made available from the alchemist recipe Vial of the Sands.  This is an alchemist recipe that costs around 20k or so to craft – and requires an extremely rare and lucky archeology drop in Uldum.  I couldn’t resist asking for a ride when I saw this guy flying around Orgrimmar.

Me: “May I ride you?”

*party invitation received*

Pervacious Drake: “I’d love that.”

🙂

Things I Love About Cataclysm – Guild Perks System

Cataclysm is here, and I think I’m in love.  There are many, many things about it that make me happy.  Each week, for the next few weeks, I plan to highlight on a favorite changes/updates in Cataclysm.

PART ONE – GUILD PERKS SYSTEM

I really love the new Guild Perks System.  In the last 2 weeks my guild has doubled in size.  We absorbed another buddy guild that we raided with in WOTLK and (as legend has it) BC and Vanilla WoW.  As of yesterday the guild is on a steady path to Level 5 (Mr. Popularity).  I am currently friendly with my guild and doing my best to become honored so that I can take advantage of more perks.

For those not familiar with the new system, I’m gonna break it down with the information I have.  (e.g. this ain’t scripture):

You now have the ability to earn Guild Experience (a pooled amount among the entire guild – max 6246xp per day) and Guild Reputation (individually – 3500xp max per week). 

Guild (Pooled) Experience is earned in the following ways:

• Questing/Daily Quests
• Leveling Professions
• Participating in Guild Runs (Dungeons, Raids) – in order to qualify as a “Guild Run” you must have 80% of the group being from the Guild.  [that means 4 of 5, 8 of 10, 12 of 15, 20 of 25]
• Participating in Guild Rated BG’s – same 80% applies. My understanding is this is offered in raid groups of 10 and 15 – I would assume 40 mans would qualify as well?
• Achieving Achievements
• Obtaining Legendary Items

Obtaining Guild Reputation occurs similarly.  You will see your guild reputation gains in the standard amethyst-colored text, usually succeeding your faction reputation gains. 

As your guild gains new levels from experience – new perks become available to you.  (Please refer to the table provided by WowHead for a listing of all the cool stuff.)  You will have to have a sufficient level of Guild Reputation in order to purchase these items.  This way, people are detered from Guild hopping to gather all the different perks.  If you leave your guild, you will also leave behind the Reputation you have gained – and all the pooled Guild Experience you have helped to earn. 

I’ll end with some suggestions of how to change your daily WoW habits to help make gains within your Guild. 

#1 – Wear your Reputation Tabards. Put on your favorite new factions tabard and SAVE that bitch on your raiding gear set.  55 exalted reputations will earn your guild the Dark Phoenix mount.  It’s purple and sparkly and full of fucking badassness.  I’ll recommend the Ramkahen Tabard because there is nothing funnier than a bear on a camel. 

#2 – Go organic and cook your own food.  Beruthiel outlines this awesomely… so I’ll let her do it. Now, I’m not just needing to piss every five seconds when I’m healing a dungeon – I’m also all tweaked up on caffeine. 🙂

updated 12/20/10: I hear this may have been hotfixed.

#3 – Kill as many Critters as you can find.  Critter Kill Squad will open up a new non-combat pet to you when you reach 50,000 slewn.  I’ve gone from the character that will help out the poor dying mammoths to one that kills the furriest of bunny.  I have a real feeling of accomplishment when I can Holy Nova three at a time.  I’m an unstoppable killing machine now.

#4 – Queue up for stuff with your Guildmates, ffs. It is so nice to have people that you know are trying, listening and responsive.  It is also quite nice to not be kicked from your dungeon group right before engaging the last boss on the LONG ASS FUCKING dungeon that is the Lost City of the Tol’vir because you got disconnected. 

Yeah, I’m looking at you Windows Update.