Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year from Blizz



So all that rep grind with The Oralces was so worth it. My first egg gave me a beautiful mount and you actually can't get luckier than that! Sem got his three days ago (ofc...) on his 3rd egg (I think) and I was incredibly jealous. But not anymore. So whatever your class, race, spec and server - have an excellent New Year and a happy 2009 /hug.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

In Which Pilf Goes OOC (and remains there)

Being a rounded person (draenei?) is a good thing, they tell me. Therefore re-speccing to give Nip a taste for healing is also A Good Thing too, right? Of course it is - we want to raid and therefore we need another competent healer and the easiest way for Nip to get practice and confidence is if he heals for the usual suspects. Fine. Oh, except that will leave us a DPS slot unfilled because there's no point in having 2 healers, ok no-one should die but the fights might be a bit long... So the answer to the conundrum is whilst Nip respecs to resto I take Pilf off for a quick shadow respec. Simple as that.

You'd think wouldn't you? Except for the fact that Pilf has never, ever, ever been anything other than pure holy (except for about 20 minutes when I wanted to make levelling faster and she went shadow, then went eek, then went back to holy). So respeccing to shadow was A Big Thing for me but with my altruistic (carebear?) hat on off I went to Stormwind to do so. First problem: I know nothing, nothing about shadow specs. Ok not a problem as there is a HotGL dude who's got a shit hot spec so Nao wanders off to the The Armoury to look it up. Right respec done - now to sort out toolbars /sigh. And spells /sigh. And wait... now I have two castbars... ok... sort them out as well. And we're done. Nip meanwhile has respecced to resto and away we go. Something easy like UK would be a start so off we toodle. And aside with being unlucky with the frost tombs on the first boss it's fine. Nexus? Sure. Away we go. Again no problems at all - in fact, hang on, he makes this look easy... wtf???

The we went off to CoT -heh heh we haven't done this ever on HC this'll be harder (/smirk - see I'm not a nice person at all). But again - ez-mode. Nip is now well into the healing thing. Very happy. And me? Well herein lies a problem. I don't have DPS gear. My gear is 'chanted, gemmed and chosen for heals. Spirit, mp5, etc. DPS gear needs hit, crit, int... Oh fudge. But okay, it's good that Nip is liking the whole healing thang and I'm exalted with a few factions so I can buy more appropriate gear...and gem it with + hit, and enchant it with + hit and I can get some trinkets ... and hang on a minute... where did my gold go??? /big sigh. Oh and I forgot to mention glyphs. Yeah I needed to change them as well.

So now it's done. My gear, whilst not epic, has put my hit up to 251 (a long way off cap but still). Recount tells me that I'm hitting about 1.6k damage a second (admittedly from my uber AoE) on mobs. And yeah its ok. But I miss healing. I keep looking for buttons that just aren't there. When things get sticky I can remove shadowform and heal (using the word very loosely) with Flash Heal but it doesn't really work and my mana regen - now geared to Spirit Tap sucks. And, oh god, how precious does this sound... as DPS you're one of the crew, you don't have that special little niche that you have as a healer. And yes, I know... I did warn you - precious...

So I was feeling really, really crap and down and generally bleugh, then, and this will prove how shallow I am, Cat whispered me. She said that she'd gotten reports about my DPS from her mates (Noir and Mis) that I'd been partied with - I can't remember the exact phrasing, I now wish I'd screenshotted it, but it was along the lines of "if she pumps out that level of DPS when she's doing something she doesn't like, is new to and goes against her nature I don't want to be around when she really pulls out the stops" and I cried. See, shallow as a puddle! But you know how something can make you feel so much better - like 'ok, I'm not a complete fucktard, I could actually do this...' So I went off to teh interwebz and had a read... apparently as DPS I should have a rotation - oh ok, what's one of dem den? Hmmm... But I found one and I got better (pretty much level with Sem on DPS in the right circs) and I got better at looking around and learning fights and understanding that breaking CC is a bad thing (apparently...) and that ummm whilst this would be a good time to learn to Mind Control, staggeringly, it doesn't work when the target is freeze trapped /giggle.

And then last night Nip was feeling under the weather and there wasn't another healer around. And everyone wanted badges and shards. So I respecced back. And realised that I now defaulted to DPS and healing required thought. And respeccing costs gold. And I needed to find my healing gear... And what do I spend badges on: healing shinies or DPS shinies... And to be honest I want the dual spec thing to be here NOW. Because then, at least, the glyphs and the speccing won't be a drain on the bank. And who knows, maybe some day, switching between DPS and healing won't be something I pay much mind to - because, you know, I'll be pro at both...

Friday, December 19, 2008

Naofa at 80



Right been 80 for a bit now, thought I'd give a quick update of how I'm doing. As Pilf has said we are doing some heroics as such yes that is the emblem shield in the picture there. Yes I know there is a comparable shield from heroic CoT, but as we haven't tried it on heroic I wasn't sure if I'd get it. Plus at the pace we are going through heroics, I reckon it won't be long before I get all the emblem gear I need or want, including the tier gear.

As to my tabard, I'm still using this one, cos I'm almost to exalted and I'm a vain git, plus how much does the title suit a paladin?

I'd forgotten...

... that when you get to 80 all there is to do is grind, whether it's for gold, mats, rep, badges or gear.

/sigh

I was bitching about levelling wasn't I? I guess the grass is always greener... No seriously, it's actually ok. We've been doing heroics, um lemme see, Utgarde Keep, Nexus (really, how often can you make that the daily?), Drak'tharon Keep last night. We did Utgarde Pinnacle. The gauntlet was bad enough but after about 4 wipes ('keep out of the fucking whirlwind!') we did manage it - the only good thing was the last boss was cake in comparison! We also tried, mmm, Halls of either Lightening or Stone. Yeah that's how traumatic it was! Right after a quick flip to Wowhead it was Halls of Lightening. It was ok up until Loken then it got very not ok. All the comments seem to be along the lines of 'just run away from the AoE lightening', well, either it's not quite that simple or we were doing something very wrong. Either way we were taking such huge crits that we decided we'd come back some other time (with better gear and a fuck ton of nature resistance).

All in all it's been ok. I was having some *issues* the other night and deleted my DK in a moment of toys-outta-the-pram-ness but after grief from Sem (the plan being his drood, Nao's drood and I were gonna level together) I gave in and sent the GMs a begging mail so they re-instated her (with obligatory lecture about 'deletion is supposed to be permanent...') Moral of the story? If you're pissed off stop playing, turn comp off and walk away. The only saving grace was at least it wasn't Pilf that bought it! Second moral? Hormones, winter and feeling generally got at is probably another reason to go away and read a book. Sometimes, I think, things in this game are a lot bigger than they should be /sad face.

And they are nerfing my CoH. Bout I've spouted about that already so I won't again. I s'pect I'll get used to it (You see that??? That right there? That was me being positive, that was !)

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

This will *never* get old...



And I don't care. I don't care that the world will assume that we're 13. I don't care that when other people do it, it's *really* annoying. I don't care that I'm only in the sidecar (well maybe that's not completely true). And I don't care that I had to lend Sem the last 1k to make it. My new happy place is now officially zooming round Dalaran jumping off steps...

Friday, December 12, 2008

Bring on the Heroics... Oh Wait... Wha?

Cause for big bangs and munchies as both Nao and I hit 80. I'd forgotten (hitting 70 seems like along time ago now) how the actual *ding* moment is similar to the Estate Agent telling you that your sale/purchase is finally complete - you expect utter joy and instead get a 'thank goodness that's over' feeling. or maybe it's just me, I dunno. Anyways yes so we have finally levelled and I, at least have some epix that are useful, and some that only have value for their additional sockets so the meta gem in my hat will work. But enough with the powered by Wowhead linkiness - what happened next I hear you ask?

Well, we were overconfident/foolish/arrogant enough to assume that we could blitz through a heroic now - I mean, how hard can they be? Not very if the content up until now was anything to go by. Um yeah. That was a bit of an assumption though, wasn't it? We went to Old Kingdom, the usual suspects group and oh my goodness did it suck hard. It took us 2 hours to do 2 bosses... At the optional boss, the one we hadn't seen before, we gave up as it was late. I'm trying to remember if the Outland heroics were this big of a step up - opinion seems to be divided between Yes, of course they were, it was just so long ago we don't remember and Zomg are you kidding me? They were never this hard!

Maybe it is just that up until now we've swanned through all the content - Crowd control? Nah let's just pew-pew style thing. Maybe it's that we're way undergeared, though how we can be when we're all decked out in top level regular instance gear and crafted epics? I don't know. Maybe it's that we did get a bit full of ourselves and Blizz decided a smackdown was necessary. Whatever the reason I know that it left everyone feeling a bit shaky and with a list of things to fix. For me, it's the (lack of) mana regen thing. For Nao it's the need-to-stack-stam-now-I'm-defence-capped thing. Sem's about to get his DPS horribly nerfed (and see the ever wonderful BRK for a hysterical response), Blake, I dunno - same for Nip who's just respecced into elemental. So, yes, a learning curve, one might say. Progression others might say. What we say is screw it, we're gonna do these (but we might go somewhere else tonight...)

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Speccing (again)

/ sigh. I never manage to seem to get my specs right the first (or second... or third) go. Nao on the other hand is a different story. He spends ages on the Wowhead calculator thingy and as a result doesn't bodge it up. It seems that patience is on the list of qualities that I need to learn...


However I'm having a specific spec issue at the moment. I currently have a hybrid disc/holy 23/46 build which give me my CoH and improved DS. Which is nice. But I don't have (and with my current build, can't get) my oh shit button. And I've read and read and read about the pros and cons of it and now my head hurts. I *think* I'm a pretty capable healer but I do hate having the tank's health dropping like a stone (especially when the melee dps is also dropping...) so the help button would be good. But that means, I think, there's no way I can keep my improved DS. Or possibly even my normal DS. Humph. And I guess with the way RotS is currently going I'm going to be the main priest. Possibly the only one who's really going to actively want to raid. I'm hoping that 10-mans are going to be forgiving enough to have a priest/resto drood combo - which I guess is even more reason to have Guardian Spirit. It *should* be a wipe stopper - shouldn't it?

I suppose that the intelligent thing to do really is to get going on the heroic 5-mans, I'm nearly at 79 as is Nao so a few more days should do it, then play around with my specs to get a feel for what works and what doesn't. But the dynamics of the 'usual suspects' 5-man vs. 10-mans is so different. Admittedly I'm used to healing Nao as a paladin not 'Bane as a warrior which always freaks me out a lot but even with that aside I'm not sure the *ideal* spec is the same. Bah I'm winding myself up badly now. Just I want to really make raiding work this time round. And I really don't want to be the weak link. That said Nao found me a post from the Blue Dudes dissing healing meters which I don't really know what to make of:

"Healing meters are a silly way of measuring healer performance. Often it's when and who you heal that is much more important than how much you heal. But measuring healing is very difficult, so players tend to go back to meters" /squee

See I do rely on my Recount (you may have noticed...) And it's not about comparison with other healers in my party it's about the fact that I like some way of monitoring how I do. And before you tell me that if everyone's alive, it was ok, I know. I really like to know if I'm winning my overheal battle (nope, it'll be an ongoing struggle) or at least if it's dropping a bit. Note to self: comparing overheal with drood HoTs is a fail. That's why I use it. It's not about competition, flexing my e-peen or anything. It's just a measure of self crisisism...

Saturday, December 6, 2008

In which Chromie bugs...

And she didn't land (not that Nao and I had the quest - I was about 4 bars from 78 and he was about 6 bars) but Sem and Eloria managed to hand in the quest regardless! Still would have been nice to see her land - we blame Sem for standing right under her as she flew in /sigh.

How much fun is The Culling of Stratholme on a scale of 1 - 1000? 1001 in my book. For the first time since WotLK healing made me think. Having been in Violet Hold and sundry other instances for the last few weeks whilst carrying on at least one conversation via /w I was getting boooooored: PoM on tank, flash heal tank occasional renew on melee dps, rinse and repeat. Not a recipe for extreme excitement. Not that I want to be wiping left right and centre, oh hell no, but middle ground was what I was despairing of. And found here. Plus *zomg* how gorgeous is Mal'Ganis - I had a tantrum at the point where it looked like we might have to kill him - then got bitch slapped for not knowing my lore - of course he doesn't die - he merely fucks off to Northrend like every other fecker on the planet /big cheer and stuff! And ok he didn't drop my lovely trinket but I forgive him anyway. Considering the level of the instance and that Nao and I had yet to reach 78 we did bloody well. No wipes, not even any near wipes and I only stopped breating on, um, two occasions. But that's good. That's what raiding feels like. The panic, the buzz, the big exhalation of breath when the fight is over, that feeling of 'sod the loot, everyone is standing' is what gets me off!

Ans as a quick PS I got my rug. My fast one. I r surfer priesty extraordinaire - huzzah!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

That's not a Tank-and-Spank...

Tis Wednesday. Wednesday means maintenance day. Realms down means time to blog /cheer...

Pilf has nearly reached the dizzy heights of 77, but more importantly, has made her Rug. Yes, it's slow, no I can't use it in Northrend as yet, yes when I take it to Shatt to fly around on it I get [insert peurile innuendo here] down vent. But it flies!!! And I stand up on it, in a slightly weird, surfer-esque kind of way... Levelling tailoring continues to be incredibly painful. I'm so lucky that despite frostweave cloth selling for about 35 gold a stack at the AH, Nao, Sem, Brain and Co have been sending me some of their cloth so I haven't been having to grind it all myself, but now I've gotten to 411 (whoot) each bloody item requires 10 bolts to get a skill up. Thats 50 bits of cloth. And the drop rate is a lot lower than netherweave was in Outland as well...

So what's been happening. Well I've stuck admirably to my plan of levelling via instances which means I've been healing through Drak'Tharon, Gundrak and even Halls of Lightning /eek. Not to blow my own trumpet too much *cough* but the only reason we wiped was during the creation-of-the-dwarves-explanation event thingy Blizz decided to kick Nao and I from the server. Right in the middle of the waves of mobs. Bleugh, not fair at all really! As we were on a roll (and had Sem and Eloria at level 80) was stuck our heads round Halls of Stone. Nao and I were 76, Stadi was 77. We kinda forgot about the whole crushing-blow-when-the-boss-is-4-levels-higher thing...

Current fav instance though, is Violet Halls. Think BM but no trash and no running round, i.e. think win. Its under 30 minutes too when you get it right which means you can do a quick check of the guild roster to see who's in Dalaran and just scoot through quickly.

Tonight, come hell or high water, I will hit 77. Then I can clear out my bank and fly (still cross that Cold Weather Flying is going to cost another 1k...) and probably not on my rug. And do I wish I'd enough money to buy the Snowy White War Griffon... oh yes...