tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16844792937813296192024-03-05T06:07:31.346-05:00Opportunity'Ware. Here there be rambling.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-23984327502986513412011-05-31T23:31:00.000-04:002011-05-31T23:59:21.697-04:00Testing the RobotOr <i>The post in which I do not make dirty jokes about robots</i>...<br /><br />A couple weeks ago raiders at Eff were asked to submit their upgrade list to assist with raid scheduling. This was an interesting exercise for me... Of course, I have gear lists. But the lists I usually make are lists of all possible upgrades. So for glove upgrades I had Grips of the Failed Immortals, Hands of the Twilight Council, Flamebloom Gloves, and Shadowflame Handwraps.<br /><br />I needed a way to narrow down the list of not just gloves, but all of my pieces to just one upgrade for each. Well, the message included this:<br /><br />"Use Ask Mr Robot if you want to figure it out fast and loose."<br /><br />Huh. I've heard of Mr. Robot before, but I've never used it. What's this Robot all about anyway?<br /><br />Turns out, he's about OPTIMIZATION. One of my favorite topics as a computer scientist. My favorite feature, let me show it to you:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIIDAn0To-L_YzuA4oE6vd8b8BvS82IbUHoHvdyjd4ZWl3Qsgor5zGpBAoj5VkhX5g8iih8viAEN1M1TYi-XLg6J5RpTDFuEyEWjn8CXwQAaxjo-eKurC6CmtdneQSNZ6NJ5zw_8ij2RTy/s1600/robot-options.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIIDAn0To-L_YzuA4oE6vd8b8BvS82IbUHoHvdyjd4ZWl3Qsgor5zGpBAoj5VkhX5g8iih8viAEN1M1TYi-XLg6J5RpTDFuEyEWjn8CXwQAaxjo-eKurC6CmtdneQSNZ6NJ5zw_8ij2RTy/s200/robot-options.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5611203819302936322" /></a><br /><br />It will generate a Best-In-Slot list for any level of gear (level 85 and up) that you're looking at. Until just two weeks ago, that would have been Pre-Raid for me. I ran the crap out of the trolls dungeons until they gave up significant 353 caster cloth. Except for the very first night, these went smoothly enough. It helps to have people along who have done them as raids. <br /><br />...<br /><br />Plz can haz Karazhan 5-man? <br /><br />...<br /><br />Anyway.<br /><br />The other options are pretty neat too. I usually tell it to ignore expensive enchants, because... y'know, I'm not rolling in Maelstrom Crystals.<br /><br />Actually, I tell it to ignore most other things except the Darkmoon Cards. I might see if I can put a Volcano Deck together. Not that I'm in need of gold sinks or anything. I am in need of better trinkets.<br /><br />According to Mr. Robot, I am in need of a lot of things. My optimize screen is a study in failed (according to Mr. Robot) reforging and enchanting. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowy3rNZtSM_VkoBXy_h9SWktidvCzfKiSSSVeYyw4PLn6ag9UvW-tZKNAnAPQTPZi-q4MZvRSxU-_U2jbcp0UIsQkNNj1jIj07ERDe9fn-mw52_qUkVXdjjsA26cbT3P1j7PDEHyLwxhJ/s1600/reforge.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 178px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowy3rNZtSM_VkoBXy_h9SWktidvCzfKiSSSVeYyw4PLn6ag9UvW-tZKNAnAPQTPZi-q4MZvRSxU-_U2jbcp0UIsQkNNj1jIj07ERDe9fn-mw52_qUkVXdjjsA26cbT3P1j7PDEHyLwxhJ/s200/reforge.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613057867581735090" /></a><br /><br />I was rather put out by this. Suboptimal? Le angst! I mean, I followed all the appropriate rules of reforging for warlocks. Maybe not the enchanting so much... I generally just use what's available at the time. Still! I'm totally awesome! ...right?<br /><br />Well... no.<br /><br />My dps is not what it could be. So let's see if this Mr. Robot guy can help me out.<br /><br /><i>The Setup</i><br /><br />The only buffs that I tested with are the ones that I can provide myself. Also left out: Flask of the Draconic Mind and Severed Sagefish Head.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3IyDKa0TTD-EnLCCT_SFXNWfivNLb8oUTCi6jQmPHJMu1mrTUQM07ILinYtbOG2_XDjak2Ftr-ix-MUTHbsKlqVL_UbY5AMjpOlwpGaiOBMZyy6u3UVc-IS3Zm6J9x4SyhJW_-CLCu2z/s1600/buffs.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 162px; height: 85px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3IyDKa0TTD-EnLCCT_SFXNWfivNLb8oUTCi6jQmPHJMu1mrTUQM07ILinYtbOG2_XDjak2Ftr-ix-MUTHbsKlqVL_UbY5AMjpOlwpGaiOBMZyy6u3UVc-IS3Zm6J9x4SyhJW_-CLCu2z/s200/buffs.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613074026584592450" /></a><br /><br /><i>The Control</i><br /><br />See below, to the best of my ability, my standing dps at its maximum. Just me and my imp against the world.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCRBEW-NSBao90atxB3reP6SOaEJpeTsbj0leZi7kCkmG85v_BVDrlPvnz9NJIuojwUvvDe5nkz7CHrXo8UV8whtF-Qc_f2l_GxXFqxyHtlCEzPplszcNoTFkmhLTkDkwV6ZJpyz9dhZq1/s1600/dpsbeforerobot.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 66px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCRBEW-NSBao90atxB3reP6SOaEJpeTsbj0leZi7kCkmG85v_BVDrlPvnz9NJIuojwUvvDe5nkz7CHrXo8UV8whtF-Qc_f2l_GxXFqxyHtlCEzPplszcNoTFkmhLTkDkwV6ZJpyz9dhZq1/s200/dpsbeforerobot.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613075840544643186" /></a><br /><br />My dps epeen, is it big enough? I'm afraid its not big enough. <br /><br /><i>The Test</i><br /><br />This section is not worthy of a screenshot. You don't need to see me hanging out with the Reforging guy or mindlessly rearranging the enchanting mats I've been hoarding since before the server transfer. Promise.<br /><br /><i>The Results</i><br /><br />After blindly following the mandates of Mr. Robot:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmiIQfsZT_koBSGin1HXsIf_7bca4Rq23RkcDnnWycH2hEnRGSXRhxwCJddneyhAyzsQnGNOwW737cL_WRnII32_PvJ2RyNlwxLL5_aY8Z0h63LHHMjOvpi1fQi8Kw_AtXqRlJIx4-Smw/s1600/dpsafterrobot.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 33px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmiIQfsZT_koBSGin1HXsIf_7bca4Rq23RkcDnnWycH2hEnRGSXRhxwCJddneyhAyzsQnGNOwW737cL_WRnII32_PvJ2RyNlwxLL5_aY8Z0h63LHHMjOvpi1fQi8Kw_AtXqRlJIx4-Smw/s200/dpsafterrobot.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613083879879592530" /></a><br /><br /><i>Some Conclusions</i><br /><br />Ok, so 700 points of dps increase is not the epic conclusion I had hoped for. Regardless, it is an improvement. For a few seconds, I was definitely afraid I wouldn't see any improvement at all - or worse, a decrease in dps.<br /><br />It also wasn't the easy fix I could have hoped for. I'll need to research other avenues to determine why my dps isn't meeting my own, possibly delusional standards.<br /><br />One thing I totally loved though? Thanks to Mr. Robot I'm no longer <i>over</i> the hit cap. I'm a smidgen under it, actually. So close to the hit-cap I can not only taste it - I could have it for breakfast if I wanted to. All with the advantage of no wasted stat points.<br /><br /><i>Further Research?</i><br /><br />The only point of contention I might have is the call for a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=44592">wrath enchant</a>. I can't wrap my brain around 28 spellpower trumping 50 haste. I mean, I love haste. <br /><br />Despite the fact that I know haste balancing is kind of delicate with plateaus that must be observed, its difficult for me to accept that sometimes less haste is the way to go. When the numbers back it up, though, I have to concede.<br /><br /><i>Verdict</i><br /><br />The final step, of course, is seeing if I can bring this improvement to life in a raid situation. Until I can do that, there's no saying for sure whether this wasn't just a (highly entertaining) waste of time.<br /><br />I think Mr. Robot has done all right by my warlock. I look forward to further testing.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-35888721249801979372011-05-12T13:09:00.000-04:002011-05-13T13:09:53.573-04:00Raiding BicyclesOr <i>The post in which I search for normalcy</i>.<br /><br />So, since the last set of posts clearly did not do its job of restarting a normal blogging schedule, here is my next attempt. Some background information will be necessary as a lot has changed since <a href="http://mararielop.blogspot.com/2011/03/elephant.html">The Elephant</a>.<br /><br />In the real life arena, Sen and I succeeded at house buying. Last weekend we moved most of our large furniture. And got the internet set up. That was super important. The cats love being in the new house where they can run around and look out a bunch of windows and just generally aren't cooped up in one room. Troy has taken a liking to sitting on my desk - usually in front of my computer screen. And as he's the fluffier of the two, he takes up the entire screen and I can't see anything.<br /><br />I see this causing problems in future raids.<br /><br />Speaking of raids, I was actually able to get my warlock "raid-ready". With the end of the spring semester came two weeks of not having to go to campus in order to get my work done - in turn leading to excessive hours spent in Azeroth.<br /><br />The summer semester starts on Monday, so my time will start being limited again. <br /><br />So, it's a good thing I joined a guild that has a relatively relaxed attendance policy.<br /><br />That's right. I joined a new guild.<br /><br />No, it's not Soulfire like I thought it might be. Which is a good thing, but that's a whole other story.<br /><br />I not only left Memento, I left Hydraxis altogether. <br /><br />It was, to me, kind of a big freaking deal. I've server-changed only one other time - and that was to leave a PVP server that I hated with a fiery passion. As fail as Hydraxis tended to be in the raiding department, I would never have left if it wasn't for a simple event hosted by <a href="http://kissmyalas.com/">Alas</a> at <a href="http://kissmyalas.com/?page_id=1647">Eff the Ineffable</a>.<br /><br />The <a href="http://kissmyalas.com/?p=1806">Fishoree</a> - as it went on my calendar - was a blast. I checked with Alas for what kind of classes the Eff team might need for raiding. I transferred my warlock a week later after making sure Takk, Mord, and Ann were all well aware of my intentions.<br /><br />You see, Eff is an officer-less guild. You may remember from The Elephant what we were trying to make Memento before it fell apart. No officers - no Council - decisions made by the guild as a whole. Of course I was drawn to Eff like a moth to flame. It's everything I wanted Memento to become.<br /><br />I've been trying to get back to a regular raid schedule with Eff. Takk made the transfer as well, so I have the best of both worlds - familiar faces and new friends. <br /><br />So... the point of this post: raiding is not like riding a bicycle.<br /><br />Once you've mastered the bicycle it essentially never changes. It's always two wheels connected in-line with a seat and some handlebars. Sometimes the front wheel is bigger, sometimes the back wheel is bigger, sometimes the tires are thicker, or the seat is different - whatever, you can still ride it. Because its a bicycle and your body remembers what to do with it.<br /><br />Such is not the case with raiding. At least not for me.<br /><br />Its true that the overall mechanics haven't changed - stand in good, stay out of bad, dps the bad guy at appropriate times - my body just does not remember what to do with them.<br /><br />Without constant practice, you start to lose both the reaction time and the muscle memory associated with a raid situation. You know that when an angry yellow circle appears under your group it's time to gtfo - but it takes an extra second to reach for your movement controls and actually start to gtfo. <br /><br />Furthermore, a warlock has several methods for moving and continuing to do damage. From the perspective of a Destruction Warlock, I have <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=17962">Conflagrate</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77799">Fel Flame</a>, <A href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=172">Corruption</a>, and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=603">Bane of Doom</a>. It doesn't make for the best dps, but it's better than nothing. But it only works if your brain processes fast enough to use these spells OR if your muscle memory is so good (or has had enough practice - repetition is the key to all things memory related) that you reach automatically for the movement spells while moving.<br /><br />At the moment neither of these applies to me.<br /><br />To an extent, the repetition necessary to achieve an appropriate level of muscle memory and reaction time can be fabricated. That's why they added training dummies, after all. They're good for more than just mastering your standing rotation - though they are excellent for that. You can also use them to judge your burst moments - if you unload everything at one time how much damage can you actually do? You can use them to judge your white damage, your dot damage, your moving damage. I'm sure other classes have discovered other uses for them as well.<br /><br />Of course, to judge your moving damage on a training dummy YOU have to be the one doing all the moving. To face off against a moving target, I recommend <A href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=28390">Glop, Son of Glop</a>. You have chase after Glop in order to be in range to do moving damage and you need to move continually while Glop is standing still in order to avoid mushroom damage. The only thing its lacking is puddles of good to stand in.<br /><br />Still, nothing quite compares to a true raid environment. Eff farms on Tuesday nights and Progresses on Friday and Saturday. While it's been a great deal of fun, I don't think I've been able to show my best stuff. Frankly, I'm out of shape. So here's to hoping it won't be too long before I feel comfortable again in the raiding environment. <br /><br />Raiding is not like riding a bicycle. But it's worth the effort.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-24670093542186016512011-03-31T13:21:00.001-04:002011-04-01T13:37:26.109-04:00A Shaman, adriftHello. My name is Mara, and I'm an altoholic.<br /><br />With the advent of Cataclysm and the departure of almost everyone from Memento Mori, I have been spending more time with my alts. The new expansion introduced a multitude of new quests and revamped areas to explore. Therefore, in my limited free time, I have been off... y'know... exploring them.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYkpiUIoZgF7fe3m1UmxVYIsJI4Z-eseB_PkjOviLhTbBMn8o88NdNEGtCnvj4rWSNxtcLykux4qgEkOVIZQh-GFtQ3pv0QGouZhAHSDWcWc74v8dRjzvz8-NzC700Pqh5EGKV4wSPxYP/s1600/WoWScrnShot_082910_133801.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 105px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzYkpiUIoZgF7fe3m1UmxVYIsJI4Z-eseB_PkjOviLhTbBMn8o88NdNEGtCnvj4rWSNxtcLykux4qgEkOVIZQh-GFtQ3pv0QGouZhAHSDWcWc74v8dRjzvz8-NzC700Pqh5EGKV4wSPxYP/s200/WoWScrnShot_082910_133801.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585456923257065826" /></a><br />Meet Ellannii, an eager young shaman of the Alliance. Her early levels were spent among the other fortunate survivors on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles. She enjoys studying the floral life of Azeroth and the various ways in which they can be combined to strengthen herself and her allies.<br /><br />Deathwing's resurgence into the world coincided with Ellannii's departure from her people's new homeland. She journeyed to Stormwind to assist with the Elemental Invasion and made her oath to Alliance.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJopgiL_21NLgHMEKvrl0MM3gaWRFa30HbytDTvpVCkNOkqztRIX4vQcE8_CUuJMw8okuXMSgPDY1-PFvOVa2btmaoCIXjNze8BepYa-7HW7Fd_k3XXOFBS2GK0UP08RDtEXkh2olK2VZ/s1600/alliance.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJopgiL_21NLgHMEKvrl0MM3gaWRFa30HbytDTvpVCkNOkqztRIX4vQcE8_CUuJMw8okuXMSgPDY1-PFvOVa2btmaoCIXjNze8BepYa-7HW7Fd_k3XXOFBS2GK0UP08RDtEXkh2olK2VZ/s200/alliance.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585457212706378818" /></a><br />Since then, she has earnestly served the Alliance in the Western and Eastern Plaguelands, the Badlands, and the Blasted Lands. <br /><br />Now, however, her faith in the Alliance is fading.<br /><br />King Varian Wrynn has called for all able bodied adventures to travel through the Dark Portal and assist those remaining in their never ending fight against the Outlands' demonic denizens.<br /><br />As in all her previous missions, Ellannii responded instantly. On recommendation, she purchased a gryphon and learned how to ride it. She was told the Outlands are a dangerous place to be without an agile and airborne method of transportation. Despite preferring to keep her hooves firmly on the ground, Ellanni bought Kirna.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-LPbxbEWqtupO3d2Pre3obfRk3WC49FOpNQdrV2PXqMTg4YrxbeN1OYRwYM_6ku4VtPYEn3W6T0xny33T3yAbwGae-crgmshyphenhyphenhmzhWb7rZFNZmR1-6L6VCg_f5wiZBHNWjh78jsQFgzD/s1600/kirna.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ-LPbxbEWqtupO3d2Pre3obfRk3WC49FOpNQdrV2PXqMTg4YrxbeN1OYRwYM_6ku4VtPYEn3W6T0xny33T3yAbwGae-crgmshyphenhyphenhmzhWb7rZFNZmR1-6L6VCg_f5wiZBHNWjh78jsQFgzD/s200/kirna.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5590642426966770098" /></a><br />Proud and ambitious, Ellannii stepped through the Dark Portal with Kirna at her side... and into hell.<br /><br />Over and over again Ellannii shook her head, trying to relieve herself of the sound of tortured screaming. Long minutes passed with Kirna standing placidly at her side, before Ellannii realized the screaming was in her head.<br /><br />In her head and in the earth surrounding her.<br /><br />Ellannii had been told that her people's home world was broken. But the knowledge that Dreanor was a tortured and devastated world could not compare with the screaming, agonizing reality.<br /><br />As the screaming continued, Ellannii shook her head a final time and retreated back through the Dark Portal. The relative silence of the earth in the Blasted Lands was a blessed relief. Shaken and weary, Ellannii and Kirna set off for Stormwind to tender their regretful resignation to the King. As far as the little shaman was concerned, the Legion could have the remnants of Dreanor. She was never going back there.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-46138982869661294652011-03-10T11:12:00.009-05:002011-03-11T11:47:50.350-05:00A.D. Temple's Azeroth: Dustwallow MarshMy journey, dear friends, begins in the noble city of Theramore. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080913184416/wowwiki/images/thumb/7/7f/Theramorecomic.JPG/300px-Theramorecomic.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 130px;" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080913184416/wowwiki/images/thumb/7/7f/Theramorecomic.JPG/300px-Theramorecomic.JPG" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Theramore is often thought of as a military outpost and is sometime referred to as Theramore Keep. It is true that Theramore is a well fortified island, strategically placed to monitor the desserts and marshes that the Horde sometimes call home.<br /><br />The militaristic nature of Theramore extends back to its creation. Lady Jaina Proudmoore established the Keep with several military companies prior to the invasion of the Burning Legion. To this day, it remains the Alliance's strongest outpost in Southern Kalimdor.<br /><br />The recent unpleasantness in Northrend led to the absence of the city's leader for an extended period of time. However, the people of Theramore are both loyal and industrious and, rather than the city falling into disarray without it's Lady, it has seen great growth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8UfCnUehWJaVQ3AmnwFKvowoUurSmO1zOM-loVyqzhadvpfihz3vjFQswoGiNRIvAFODH9hp9QEYulqUy_wsKM8Qbw6P31J-eeOJUIUlc1cMV81en5x3wQP3_av5MfeOyS5ZTmM3mAar/s1600/WoWScrnShot_031011_160813.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 105px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU8UfCnUehWJaVQ3AmnwFKvowoUurSmO1zOM-loVyqzhadvpfihz3vjFQswoGiNRIvAFODH9hp9QEYulqUy_wsKM8Qbw6P31J-eeOJUIUlc1cMV81en5x3wQP3_av5MfeOyS5ZTmM3mAar/s200/WoWScrnShot_031011_160813.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582563530233902706" /></a><br /><br />The people of Theramore have been extending their Highway through the marsh, allowing people safe travel through this otherwise dangerous location. The marsh's stinking bogs and unfriendly denizens have claimed many an unwary traveler. Those that stick to the provided highway, now can be reasonably assured of safe passage.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0-yOPJ51Bkai_mNTpURdcVdM3ovnHoDUDAMLZQsAfroN0ZFiIACHvWEsdaPaMDi3ZBkMa362jfS3d94Tn_Yi-hJdPN4-6gMRfPy8ZHk4eqzod4damJmUFImDQJ5szTjeJh8ni1KvmQxlS/s1600/dustwallowprotections.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 59px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0-yOPJ51Bkai_mNTpURdcVdM3ovnHoDUDAMLZQsAfroN0ZFiIACHvWEsdaPaMDi3ZBkMa362jfS3d94Tn_Yi-hJdPN4-6gMRfPy8ZHk4eqzod4damJmUFImDQJ5szTjeJh8ni1KvmQxlS/s200/dustwallowprotections.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582564777141619602" /></a><br /><br />The arrival of the Aspect of Death has done little to daunt the spirit of Theramore. Dustwallow Marsh was largely - but not completed - unaffected by the Aspect's re-entrance into Azeroth. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjHKiyXLyWNKkShZTua1_9y0NRJPKZTApM0K8ZemYwImY8eHDlVihMXRdQrApsil-aBzasRl7fIA-TKnn1d_ipjwX2ZMc9w6BxPUdNuzW4xBsI0uHnCLWzp18hhTZqvVa0uqOM-OBbrtj/s1600/dustwallow.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjHKiyXLyWNKkShZTua1_9y0NRJPKZTApM0K8ZemYwImY8eHDlVihMXRdQrApsil-aBzasRl7fIA-TKnn1d_ipjwX2ZMc9w6BxPUdNuzW4xBsI0uHnCLWzp18hhTZqvVa0uqOM-OBbrtj/s320/dustwallow.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582496010208744594" /></a><br /><br />The changes in Theramore and Dustwallow Marsh are political in nature. With Thrall's departure from his position as Warchief - indeed his departure from Azeroth for awhile - has led to a resurgence anti-Horde feeling in Dustwallow Marsh. The uneasy alliance maintained by Lady Proudmoore and Thrall has been dissolved. Furthermore, the Grimtotems - a clan of of the tauren - have recently been exiled from their traditional home. Distinguished by their black and white markings, they have begun to settle - and cause problems - in Dustwallow Marsh.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizA1iZKGlcYDNsUhnVnKZLgJILFkNB4ZOedjBlycpy_u33OPz_2KJHcTC1oD4JMgjCdjOWf-BHt8D-qYDGH9aW299bcaN6TqVV9xiz3_7HJF6NbFzpEusl7_wzRldir17BtfYs61K9_tHf/s1600/grimtotem.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 190px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizA1iZKGlcYDNsUhnVnKZLgJILFkNB4ZOedjBlycpy_u33OPz_2KJHcTC1oD4JMgjCdjOWf-BHt8D-qYDGH9aW299bcaN6TqVV9xiz3_7HJF6NbFzpEusl7_wzRldir17BtfYs61K9_tHf/s200/grimtotem.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582564928339926786" /></a><br /><br />Visitors of Dustwallow Marsh may begin, as I did, in Theramore on the island off the eastern coast. Alternatively, Mudsprocket still welcomes visitors from both the Horde and the Alliance in the southern region of the marsh. The Horde outpost in the area remains - visitors may find Brackenwall Village in the Northwest region of Dustwallow Marsh.<br /><br />Brave Adventurers may be interested in visiting the Wyrmbog - the former home of Onyxia, the black broodmother. The Stonemaul ruins may provide visitors with some insight into the violent culture of the Ogre's. Or, history buffs may find Alcaz Island - the former prison of King Varian Wrynn - to be most interesting<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061115162716/wowwiki/images/thumb/d/d9/Alcaz_Island.jpg/180px-Alcaz_Island.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 180px; height: 135px;" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20061115162716/wowwiki/images/thumb/d/d9/Alcaz_Island.jpg/180px-Alcaz_Island.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><hr><br /><br />Sources:<br />The comic image at the beginning, the maps, and the image of Alcaz Island are from WoW Wiki and may be found in the following articles:<br /><a href="http://www.wowwiki.com/Theramore">http://www.wowwiki.com/Theramore</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowwiki.com/Dustwallow_Marsh">http://www.wowwiki.com/Dustwallow_Marsh</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowwiki.com/Alcaz_Island">http://www.wowwiki.com/Alcaz_Island</a><br /><br />Information for this post was found in the above articles, the novel <u>The Shattering</u>, and BradyGames' <u>World of Warcraft: Cataclysm</u> game guide.<br /><br />The remaining images come to you from my screenshot gallery.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-19490286135627447922011-03-03T15:00:00.000-05:002011-03-03T16:57:29.524-05:00The ElephantOr <i>The Post that Hopefully Allows me to Revive From my Two-Month Funk</i><br /><br />First, a quote from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_in_the_room">Wikipedia</a>: "<i>Elephant in the room</i> is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.[1]<br /><br />It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to concern themselves with tangential or small and irrelevant issues rather than deal with the looming big one."<br /><br />When I last posted, Memento was looking forward to a guild-wide meeting to determine our path for Cataclysm.<br /><br />My Elephant - the topic I have, thus far, been unable to discuss is the fact that Memento is no more.<br /><br />There's more to it than that, of course. <br /><br />We discussed a lot of things during our meeting. Everyone was there, which impressed me. Takk, Mord, Hippy, Ann, Militia, Batra, Sen, and myself. We talked about what we had and what we wanted.<br /><br />At the time we all wanted the same thing. Sitting on the bleeding edge of a new expansion gave every one the bug for progression raiding. So we compared schedules and made decisions. Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons were to be for progression raiding. For three weeks, those time slots would be used for running heroics and gearing up. For learning how to work as a team in the big new world that is Cataclysm heroics.<br /><br />Sen, being a full time engineer, decided to step down from his position as GM. The group chose a replacement... me. <br /><br />I didn't mind the responsibility. Memento being a small guild, we made a few more changes. We ditched the officers idea and moved forward with our "open-forum" idea. Mord agreed to continue his role as Raid Leader and Militia volunteered to be the Recruitment Guy. I made us a new website and we were all ready to move forward.<br /><br />Or so I thought.<br /><br />We floundered through those first three weeks. Most nights we were forced to split up into who was eligible for heroics and who was not. I healed some normal dungeons those week - Disc felt pretty weak at the time.<br /><br />Then a new, insidious idea began to spread through our happy-meal-sized guild. It would be so much easier to join the progession party if we were not actually a happy-meal-sized guild. But! Instead of recruiting... let's just join a different, bigger guild.<br /><br />The idea did - and does - cut me like a knife.<br /><br />But these were <i>my</i> guildies now and I had a responsibility to them. If, in the three week span since our last meeting, they had changed their minds about recruiting for Memento and preferred to raid in a larger, more established environment then that was what we would do.<br /><br />We had a second guild meeting and decided to look for a new home.<br /><br />There were some possibilities right off the bat. Militia has always raided on the side with Kaizen and we thought, for awhile, that they might be interested in "absorbing" our little guild.<br /><br />But... I guess... people weren't willing to wait.<br /><br />Hippy and Batra, whose attendance was always a little iffy, disappeared entirely.<br /><br />Militia transferred his characters out of the guild and over to Kaizen without telling anyone.<br /><br />Mord announced to me - over realID, one day - how totally relieved he was to not be the raid leader anymore. That being free of the responsibility had lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. He, too, had left the guild without telling anyone.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Let me go on record for saying it's not okay to leave a guild without notice. You may not want to give them your reason - and most of the time, you don't have to. You <i>do</i> have to say <i>something</i>.<br /><br />It's not okay to ninja-quit.<br /><br /><i>It's not okay. It fucking hurts.</i><br /><br />...<br /><br />Time and a shift in priorities has done much to restore my equilibrium on the matter.<br /><br />Mord went on to join Soulfire Tribe - a guild that successfully runs 25 man raids, 4 nights a week.<br /><br />Ann joined him soon after - something I expected. As an engaged couple who has been raiding together for awhile, little else would make sense.<br /><br />Soulfire has extended the invitation to the rest of us still dithering about in Memento. All three of us: Takk, Sen and myself. <br /><br />I encouraged Takk to take the offer, even as I knew that Sen and I probably wouldn't. Memento has been our home a lot longer than its been a raiding guild, so we're comfortable in the small environment. Even if it's now a home for lost alts - its still <i>ours</i>.<br /><br />...<br /><br />I got a new job. The local university lost a visiting professor three weeks into the semester and needed a replacement in a hurry. I met all the necessary requirements. I jumped on it. I now attempt to teach 130 students the ins and outs of Object Oriented Software Development.<br /><br />Sen and I are attempting to buy a house. I know that no one has ever said that buying a house is an easy thing to accomplish, but they certainly don't tell you that it's rather like playing dodgeball with screwdrivers.<br /><br />Getting approved for our loan has added a whole new level of stress to our lives. Sen has since turned off his wow account. He has a major engineering exam in April, but he does plan on returning to the game "when things settle down again".<br /><br />...<br /><br />I've encouraged Takk to join Soulfire again, since spending time in our dieing guild doesn't get him any closer to his goal of raiding. He's loyal and stubborn and has stuck it out with us thus far. I suspect I will be moving my warlock to Soulfire with Takk soon.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-69177292203721059762011-01-04T08:27:00.006-05:002011-01-04T13:40:23.304-05:00'Ware. Here there be rambling.I could have gone with <b>The post wherein I muse about the cyclical nature of life, the universe, and everything</b> but I thought it might be too long.<br /><br />Today is, in fact, my blogoversary. Its hard to believe that its been a full year since I first starting posting in my tiny corner of the blogosphere. OP was a little different then. A bit more... orange. I went purple in October. At that time I was raiding mostly on my priest and orange is just not a priestly color. I think purple suits both priests and warlocks, which is why I kept it for my links when I went black in December.<br /><br />A year ago, OP stood as much for "over powered" (which warlocks always are, of course) as it did for opportunity. I like to play up to the stereotypical things said about warlocks. Most importantly, we hate rogues. I learned that ages ago on Arthas, a PVP server. Secondly, we do not get along with mages. We view them as weaklings - glass canons who have no way to escape a beating if something gets close enough to them. They view us as power-hungry and sloppy - snatching at any glimmer of power and prestige. We fight over gear - especially now that mages and warlocks are the only classes that need +hit cloth armor.<br /><br />Finally, we are the unquestioned gods of caster dps. Even when we're not.<br /><br />More recently, I have tried to lessen the focus on warlocks. I plan to raid on my priest and, while my warlock will still have plenty to do, OP is about all of my experiences and opportunities in WoW. See wat i did ther?<br /><br />Even though Cataclysm has been out for nearly a month now, I think everyone is still adapting to the changes. The dungeons are harder. Crowd Control is a requirement, rather than a nice bonus or a neat trick. AOE has all but disappeared in the standard dungeon environment. <br /><br />This being the New Year, we are surrounded on all sides by change. Perversely, I am flummoxed by the things that haven't changed.<br /><br />A full year has passed since I was celebrating reaching level 80 on my warlock. Now level 80 is only a milestone in the sense that, after you reach it, you only have 5 more levels to go. I didn't have a lot of spare gold floating around, so I was carefully searching out each drop from the dungeons and trying to get enough emblems of triumph together for any new pieces. I was trying to make sure I leveled my Enchanting high enough to be useful for a raider and I had some help getting enough Dream Shards to collect the high-level patterns.<br /><br />We took an extremely ragtag pug into Naxxramas and, while it wasn't a complete fiasco, it certainly had its moments of terrible noobness. <br /><br />Now, I do have some spare gold floating around but it usually gets spent on leveling my Jewelcrafting. I am still carefully searching out each drop I can get from the normal dungeons. I am herding together all the justice points I can for other items. I am rep-grinding with Therazane and Hyjal. I am doing everything I was a year ago. <br /><br />Our bouts of noobness currently occur in dungeons, but we may get up to some raids in the near future. One can only hope.<br /><br />A year ago I was getting started on a new project. The "Mara will has a Healer" project. I leveled a dwarf priest, spending most of my time after level 40 in a Random Dungeon learning the fine art of Disco.<br /><br />Now I'm considering a new project... perhaps several new projects. I haven't ruled out a "Mara will has a Tank" project, though I'm not sure its in the best interest of my blood pressure. I'm still warming up <i>A. D. Temple's Azeroth</i>. Its a struggle to determine where to start, but I think I've got a handle on that now. It will be... an interesting trip to say the least.<br /><br />A year ago we were fumbling with the idea of a raiding guild. That hasn't changed at all. We gained and lost members. We made great progress at the end. Our triumphs as a guild are a great treasure. Memento is due for that guild-wide meeting to discuss our future plans tomorrow. There's plenty to improve upon, I think. I believe (hope?) we will continue to fight the good fight.<br /><br />Here's to another year! May all your mobs be weak and all your drops be epic.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-20529453990427657322010-12-16T10:29:00.013-05:002010-12-16T19:52:01.883-05:00Things are ShinyI had to wait a couple of days to start Cataclysm, so this marks MY FIRST WEEK in the new expansion. Of course, I'm having an absolute blast. With this also being the end of the semester - also the end of school, period, for awhile - I can drag the fiance back into Azeroth with me. He's not quite as excited as I am, but that doesn't mean we haven't had tons of fun.<br /><br />This post is broken up into sections, mostly for my own wandering train of thought.<br /><br /><b>-Mara and Sen are Coming Down the Mountain<br />-Aioka is Sinking into Vashj'ir<br />-Under Construction<br />-Blog Woes<br />-A. D. Temple's Azeroth<br /><br />-Mara and Sen are <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4870">Coming Down the Mountain</a></b><br /><br />My fiance plays an Arcane Mage, Senach. I like to say its proof that Mages and Warlocks can get along... sometimes. Leveling as two casters might sound like a goofy, inefficient idea but we've had 80 (now 82) levels of practice.<br /><br />I level almost exclusively as Demonology. So we have Flaag, my mighty felguard, to do some tanking if we run into trouble. Sen cranks out the big numbers so things die quickly. I supply the slow damage for adds or extra mobs and the healing for the tank.<br /><br />Occasionally, if we come up against a "Kill X number of mobs", we'll split up and each tackle half the group separately. Usually, though, we prefer to kill things and experience the quests together.<br /><br />However, that didn't stop Sen from continuing on while Mara played with some new friends:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVW4s1aWg5zLVRd1zAMRLHvmHo5eNznjXNQgVVIQ9TXw_DVbycLGpuPIMlLrDBNmXT1ObM7MorrKGj0jZd5muxuWJwDNSd56RfBArn5DlIaSrtg8PLieZqJGKwfY-pLTQ7EPoHvM5DJRMg/s1600/turtle.PNG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 192px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVW4s1aWg5zLVRd1zAMRLHvmHo5eNznjXNQgVVIQ9TXw_DVbycLGpuPIMlLrDBNmXT1ObM7MorrKGj0jZd5muxuWJwDNSd56RfBArn5DlIaSrtg8PLieZqJGKwfY-pLTQ7EPoHvM5DJRMg/s200/turtle.PNG" border="0"/></a><center><i>Sooooo Cute!</i></center><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOCWw10rQh5D8lwCwzDI00yYfgi6C370KG1-T83_bdDEFOoiTic7AvBqT1Kv8x3so-Cda846pyTCadu96SoIgP5dsR_cLYxBKWmj308loMWXm_8QR9QLi8e9cXqTbQDMp8Vp3eF3UsxLF3/s1600/corehound.PNG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOCWw10rQh5D8lwCwzDI00yYfgi6C370KG1-T83_bdDEFOoiTic7AvBqT1Kv8x3so-Cda846pyTCadu96SoIgP5dsR_cLYxBKWmj308loMWXm_8QR9QLi8e9cXqTbQDMp8Vp3eF3UsxLF3/s200/corehound.PNG" border="0" /></a><center><i>What have they been feeding you?</i></center><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1vm6bxi4GmAsu1nInEwGIE50cPuPsgthYJP3fY-ZZYT166n6Yo0f-vnO4FykiiMgv37Pn27aw2Ad7FClTfFr1WlyiiJQt-P9k6jRXSjX1zfLTk_v-X0nk2funo-sHn1t6jIzjssVhtt3E/s1600/corehoundtrick1.PNG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1vm6bxi4GmAsu1nInEwGIE50cPuPsgthYJP3fY-ZZYT166n6Yo0f-vnO4FykiiMgv37Pn27aw2Ad7FClTfFr1WlyiiJQt-P9k6jRXSjX1zfLTk_v-X0nk2funo-sHn1t6jIzjssVhtt3E/s200/corehoundtrick1.PNG" border="0"/></a><center><i>He does tricks!</i></center><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jIQhayAxNhFKk7HDjUHxnLA2cMPtq31J9jNjIsemkR_UPXZlp6Sp7CZb8tXu9iYwOHcFmoZa9PWWp5B2EZfb_XnlO4iNBsk7EUqJKc37RsqjgHcFU5ezQyeXwpW8ZgmTXAglukKMM3an/s1600/corehoundtrick2.PNG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jIQhayAxNhFKk7HDjUHxnLA2cMPtq31J9jNjIsemkR_UPXZlp6Sp7CZb8tXu9iYwOHcFmoZa9PWWp5B2EZfb_XnlO4iNBsk7EUqJKc37RsqjgHcFU5ezQyeXwpW8ZgmTXAglukKMM3an/s200/corehoundtrick2.PNG" border="0"/></a><center><i>I am NOT rubbing that belly!</i></center><br /><br />We did catch up shortly after that to check this place out:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69O9IEntCAUk-_2BhIyCmTOIrsE9wHl9aBXkAi8PwKVX3BdSjRiO_1hTekuanTP1kVA7drXu0QxCyWMSwueIDQNebG8kz2Jg111O1vMOcC2r74960cRCN0VLSD1L7X_WKTjHf76Ro709E/s1600/firelands.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 105px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69O9IEntCAUk-_2BhIyCmTOIrsE9wHl9aBXkAi8PwKVX3BdSjRiO_1hTekuanTP1kVA7drXu0QxCyWMSwueIDQNebG8kz2Jg111O1vMOcC2r74960cRCN0VLSD1L7X_WKTjHf76Ro709E/s200/firelands.jpg" border="0"/></a><br /><br /><b>-Aioka is <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=4869">Sinking into Vashj'ir</a></b><br /><br />Meanwhile, Aioka was leveling through the <s>aquarium</s> underwater world of Vashj'ir. In some ways, its a complete nightmare. Full 3D environments and I don't always mix well. Occasionally, when something is attacking me from afar I just have to sit and eat the first bolts of damage just to see where they are coming from.<br /><br />On the other hand, I think the storyline in Vashj'ir is better than Mount Hyjal. It has great continuity through each of the three sections of Vashj'ir, its deeply engaging, and it actually creates a world where you care about the NPCs around you.<br /><br />The most common complaint about Vashj'ir that I've heard is that there are too many gathering quests. I can understand the frustration. Having Aioka out on her own means I don't have to share gathering quests with anyone else. And the only one that I found was truly terrible was <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=26088">Fish Lure</a>.<br /><br />My biggest complaint about Vashj'ir is that, if you're strictly following the storyline, you won't hit the Throne of Tides until the very end. It's extremely impactful that way, but a little less on exposure to the new dungeons.<br /><br />My first group in the Throne of Tides was worth the wait. Our tank was level 80 and extremely squishy, but the druid healer was on the ball. Most of the time. I went in as a DPS and I am actually more scared now to try healing that I was before. I ran out of mana faster than the healer did. Very frightening. But my Hymn of Hope saw some use. I used my bubble when I thought it might be useful. And I used bandages and health potions on myself to ease the healer's mind.<br /><br />Didn't stop the squishy tank from dying a lot. But between me, a hunter, and a shaman we were able to bounce aggro around enough to keep all of from eating big damage and the healer kept us alive long enough to kill things.<br /><br />On trash, its kind of insignificant.<br /><br />On a boss, its a trip and a half. On one boss, the tank went down at 70%. We dps bounced it around until 4%. Our totally awesome druid healer took it down the rest of the way. It was amazing. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.<br /><br /><b>-Under Construction</b><br /><br />Some of you might have noticed that this is OP's second major make-over this year. Memento's guild site is under similar construction. We've been trying to get things shaped up for the new expansion. Not that we're anywhere near raiding, yet, but I've think we've got several things to decide on and hammer out before we're ready to tackle anything.<br /><br />Memento essentially floundered its way through Wrath. Never having a complete 10-man group it was difficult (at best) to accomplish things. For some reason or another, none of our recruits really hung around very long and I think this is something the guild needs to discuss. Being as small as we are, I think we can arrange an all-guild meeting to discuss where we want to go and what we want to be doing. <br /><br />Additionally, with most of our members in college, it's difficult to determine a night and time where everyone is available. I'm trying to find out at the moment how many nights a week everyone is interested in raiding. It seems obvious to be that our once-a-week attempts at ICC were fairly ineffective. Now, however, several of members have graduated and have their evenings free. Hopefully, we can find more than one night that fits into everyone's schedule. <br /><br />Memento's distribution of responsibilities is almost nonexistent. Our GM is mostly hands off and everything goes through the Council. As a single body, the Council is expected to accomplish or delegate anything that needs to be done. However, Council members are pretty lax in both identifying things that need to be accomplished and... accomplishing them.<br /><br />I took it upon myself (maybe rightly, maybe wrongly) to make changes to the Guild Website. Frankly, I think it looked terrible and the forum system is a bit unwieldy (my fault, since I designed it the first time) and Ann and I were just generally dissatisfied with it.<br /><br />As far as that goes, Ann and I weren't totally sure we'd be sticking with wowstead. If you have a suggestion for a new/different/better guild website provider I would be delighted to hear it.<br /><br /><b>-Blog Woes</b><br /><br />Closer to home, we have the updates here. I think that my dissatisfaction with how my blog looks has a lot to do with my... not knowing what I want to do with it. OP started with a specific purpose - to talk about how I, being level capped for the first time, was handling the multi-faceted beast that is raiding. That was almost a year ago.<br /><br />Now, I can talk about being level capped for the second time. I could talk about my happy-meal-sized guild and how it handles the transition from Wrath raiding to Cataclysm raiding. I can talk about having a priest as my primary raider. I can talk about Marariel and her adventures in solo'ing/duo'ing content. <br /><br />I could branch out some with some projects. I could level some tanks and/or some more healers and see where that takes me. I could include some story/fanfiction elements.<br /><br />My demonology guide was well received. I could scour the internet resources and put together a few more.<br /><br />What would you like to see?<br /><br /><b>-A. D. Temple's Azeroth</b><br /><br />My first project that I would like to introduce is called <i>A. D. Temple's Azeroth</i>. A. D. Temple is a renown historian from the story I occasionally get to work on. He travels the world investigating historical sites, writes books about the ancient gods and goddesses, and provides assistance to a particular team of cartographers, mostly just for fun. <br /><br />What I'd like to do is a profile of each zone in Azeroth. I plan to talk about its history, its recent changes (omg, cataclysm), its settlements and people. I have no idea if other people will find this interesting or not. At the least it will be interesting for me and I hope to learn a lot about the world we all (virtually) live in.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-36278837300884385312010-12-02T10:15:00.004-05:002010-12-02T11:35:21.058-05:00At the End of an Era<i>If I were starting a wow account for the first time, with all the information I know now, I wonder if I would have picked the same class/race combination to start with.</i><br /><br />This thought strikes me from time to time. On the whole, I think the answer is no. As much as I enjoy playing my warlock, it's not what I would now recommend for my younger self if I could step back in time and advise myself on what my first character should be. I would have told my younger self, "Listen. You're going to have a lot of alts. A lot, a lot of alts. And what you will learn to call altoholism, is really just another way for you to say 'sometimes I get bored'. Save yourself some grief and start with a hybrid class." Regardless of the fact that my younger self would not have understood much of that.<br /><br />This is not to say that there is no value in altoholism. My discovery of hybrid classes has not made me any less likely to create new characters (of both the hybrid and the pure variety). I would like to acknowledge that my use of the word 'altoholism' - sometimes I get bored - may not be the same as another usage or even the generally accepted use of the term. Perhaps it is simply that my use of the term 'altoholism' is lacking in definition. <br /><br />It would also have been nice for someone to discuss with younger-me the Tank-Healer-DPS triangle. I doubt very much that I would have found the idea of a tank very appealing. But I might have thought that picking a class that could dps and heal would be beneficial. Having the option to switch later if I didn't enjoy my current role should have been a powerful motivator in picking a class.<br /><br />Why wasn't it?<br /><br />As much as these thoughts occasionally plague me, I would not actually trade my warlock or my first leveling experience for anything else. If I were given the option to do it all over again (three years ago, of course) I wouldn't take it. I learned and leveled at the pace that I learned and leveled at and that's all it is. <br /><br />It does, however, generate some other interesting questions.<br /><br />Does caster dps feel natural to me because my first character was a caster? Or was my first character a caster because caster dps feels natural to me?<br /><br />I've always favored the mage stereotype in video games. Disciples, Lords of Magic, Final Fantasy... whatever it was, if I played it I played a caster. It wasn't uncommon for me to dabble in the dark side even then. My first character that I ever played in a tabletop RPG was a "Dark Cleric". I'm not sure such a thing even existed at the time, but my DM assisted me in putting a "dark" twist on each of my spells. Grant Life became Steal Life, Cure Poison became Poison, you get the idea.<br /><br />So, perhaps a warlock was not such an impetuous choice for a first character after all.<br /><br />Which makes my decisions for Cataclysm that much more difficult.<br /><br />I'm extremely proud of what I've accomplished with my warlock this expansion. Marariel killed the Lich King. The dungeons I wasn't able to see while leveling - namely everything but Scholomance, Hellfire Ramparts, and the Northrend Dungeons - Marariel solo'ed. It may have been out of order timewise, but after hitting 80 Marariel visisted Karazhan, the Black Temple, and Magtheridon's Lair. Marariel befriended the Netherwing dragonflight. Marariel became an Ambassador of the Alliance. <br /><br />In many ways, Marariel will always be my main.<br /><br />But in a week's time, it won't be Marariel powering through the levels to 85. It won't be Marariel racing through the dungeons and quests to start the next gearing race. It won't be Marariel farming loot, experience, and reputation to get ready for raiding all over again.<br /><br />Marariel will be taking it slow. Exploring a shattered world takes time. The fact that Marariel leveled and learned slowly in the beginning is not something to look back on with regret, but rather a learning experience for the future. Everything I learned about warlocks in that way I learned by doing. Not by reading the forums, Elitist Jerks, or any other guide. I'm looking forward to getting that experience back.<br /><br />As for rushing towards the level cap, the heroic dungeons, and the shiny new raids - there's an alt for that. Aioka will be running the race - questing as shadow and queueing as discipline - to, hopefully, be in place as a healer whenever Memento is ready to start raiding again.<br /><br />I know a lot of people are switching their mains for Cataclysm. I am... reluctant to call it that. Warlockery is near and dear to my heart and being a Shadow Priest is not always comparable. However, as I evaluate my experiences I am starting to recognize that flexibility in raiding is important to me. I want that. <br /><br />Cataclysm is here. Whatever it is that you want, pursue it with everything you have.<br /><br />Good luck.<br /><br />I'll see you on the other side.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-80068351725662303722010-11-24T11:30:00.000-05:002010-11-24T11:49:25.873-05:00Azeroth, Burning<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAn8ZvE56rw8qTjr1NK4EZwwSe36KgfeZJL38rU1Z_rQtxfdebdSjfZ2d9Zzv57zGb2PHD0uUzWJAvCsSjDb39Px76gm7Y7i3abO6REx-n91dzJAikvHr2cKMRvk1HS2mvFQMtTpxmR1d/s1600/burning.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 201px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEAn8ZvE56rw8qTjr1NK4EZwwSe36KgfeZJL38rU1Z_rQtxfdebdSjfZ2d9Zzv57zGb2PHD0uUzWJAvCsSjDb39Px76gm7Y7i3abO6REx-n91dzJAikvHr2cKMRvk1HS2mvFQMtTpxmR1d/s320/burning.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543144660472548898" /></a><br /><br />The cinematic for Cataclysm is really very good. It leaves no doubt in your mind that the Earthwarder is extremely angry and that all of Azeroth will feel his wrath. It's also easy to tell that he's probably insane. He not only allows, but requires that goblins force huge plates of Adamantite deep into his skin - they are practically molten when the anchoring spikes are driven in. <br /><br />Deathwing screams his agony and all of the earth screams with him.<br /><br />It shudders and quakes - sinking here and rising there - throwing waves as high as mountains about like toys. The great constructs of the mortal races - dams, docks, statues, cities are casually tossed aside.<br /><br />It made for another day when I wasn't quite sure I wanted to log in. The story, of course, is as deep and intriguing as ever. And of course I want to be a part of it. But I wasn't quite done with the last part of it. I didn't get a chance to finish the quests in the elemental invasion. Frankly, I don't have time to play wow at the moment (expect sporadic updates between here and the new year). So, of course, it is this moment that carries all the change and transition, fascination and wonder, of the new world.<br /><br />I hate feeling like I am <i>missing</i> something.<br /><br />I am probably more connected to Azeroth than my characters are.<br /><br />Azeroth has been my home for several years now. And while I would have cringed at the thought of questing through Darkshore for a third time, I'm not sure I wanted it to <i>change</i>. Azeroth is <i>my</i> escape. If reading is your escape, I would liken it to arriving home one evening to find a new book of your favourite series sitting next to your armchair, but the one you were currently in the middle of is nowhere to be found. You're quite sure that the new will be just as good as - if not better - than the last, but it doesn't change the fact that you weren't <i>done</i> with the last one.<br /><br />Of course, if I apply that analogy to Icecrown Citadel then I cheerfully skipped ahead and read chapter 12 - the last chapter - while neglecting chapters 9, 10, and 11 simply because I didn't have time.<br /><br />The epilogue was worth it.<br /><br />The cinematic that plays after you defeat Arthas is everything I dreamed it could be and more. You see, I had never watched it before. I didn't seek it out online and I avoided that fountain in the center of Dalaran like the plague. It was the center of all evil and my life would surely be shattered if I accidentally clicked on it.<br /><br />But I <i>wanted</i> to see it.<br /><br />So, two weeks ago there were a whopping four raiders online for our regularly slotted raid night. Raider attendance has been slipping for awhile now. With the imminent approach of Deathwing (now arrived) people are... less interested in ICC than ever.<br /><br />When Mord pointed out that there was group in Dalaran pugging for LK only raid, I told him hop on that. Of the four of us: Takk, Mord, Ann, and myself none of us were Kingslayers. Only one of us had experienced the fight before. My sum experience with the Lich King fight was Kae's Strategy comic: <a href="http://dreambound-druid.blogspot.com/2010/05/comic-icc10-lich-king-full.html">here</a>.<br /><br />The organizing guild, Crucible, had no problems with that. They have three dedicated raiders in their guild and they'd been pugging the LK fight for weeks. I am in awe of their tenacity. Pugging is frequently an agonizing, soul-sucking adventure. I can't imagine doing it against the LK with any group other than the one we put together.<br /><br />I don't know how they did it, but Crucible found other dedicated non-kingslayers who were patient enough to wipe to the Lich King for hours and intelligent enough to regroup and improve over almost every attempt.<br /><br />I was explicit in telling the Raid Leader that I had never <i>experienced</i> this fight before and he <i>didn't care</i>. I tell you, my awe knows no bounds. He explained it patiently before we got started. I took <i>notes</i>, dammit. (I might even still have them, though they pretty much amount to: 'Stack for Val'kyrs, spread for defiles' and 'Val'kyrs > Raging Spirits > Vile Spirits > LK'.)<br /><br />I started this adventure in my destruction spec and kept it the entire time. I picked up <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=18120">Aftermath</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45782">Glyph of Demonic Circle</a>, and three stacks of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=41509">Frostweave Nets</a> for the Val'kyrs. I was going to do the best damn job my little warlock could do. <br /><br />On many of the attempts I was top damage. *squee*<br /><br />It's no secret that raid awareness is key for this fight. Awareness and a healthy dollop of luck. We picked up phase one fairly easily. The tanks didn't seem to have any trouble and we moved Necrotic Plague like <i>pros</i>. The raid leader was a priest who also took over plague duty and called out names every time someone needed to move to the adds. It was... new, different, and singularly awesome. I'm accustomed, as I think most are now, to the raid leader also being the tank. I think it's a good thing when that doesn't always have to be the case.<br /><br />It's not the phases that are the interesting parts of this fight, in my opinion. It's the transitions. I learned so much about my class and my spec during the transitions that I don't think I can even put into words. Certainly, you can go and read about warlock abilities, tricks, and tips. That doesn't - <i>can't</i> - give you the intuition for: <i>Well, we're running into the center now and there is one Raging Spirit still alive. I got all the orbs down, so we're clear on that front. I should <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47960">Shadowflame</a> this Raging Spirit while we're moving. Definitely some <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=74434">Soulburn</a>+<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6353">Soulfire</a> if it's still alive. If we're still moving, I can <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6789">Death Coil</a>, refresh DoTs(<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=172">Corruption</a> first, then <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=603">Bane of Doom</a>), or <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=1454">Life Tap</a>. Cool, it's dead, lets play with the Lich King now. Alright stay together for the Val'kyr. Defile is coming; spread, spread, spread! Silly paladin, stop running the same direction as me! We're supposed to be spreading!</i><br /><br />And this is intuition that I was certainly not in possession of the first few hours of wiping to the Lich King. It was painstakingly developed over a sum of ten hours of straight wiping to the Lich King. According to Ann's Fish Feast supply, we made a total of 40 attempts.<br /><br />I'm a little flummoxed here. Having lived through it, I can tell you that 40 attempts in ten hours is a long, miserable adventure and its easy to get discouraged. On the other hand, Crucible had been trying for weeks with upwards of 200 attempts for this seemingly impossible kill. Guilds who downed the Lich King while the content was fresh made more attempts than we did as well.<br /><br />We did it over three nights in one week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. We changed out some tanks and dps along the way. Militia joined us. Mord skipped a night. Takk tanked the Lick King. I tanked the Lick King - accidentally. Crucible was simply awesome and I think those of us at Memento are practically salivating at the chance to build a cooperative raid team out of our two guilds. <br /><br />I would like to say that I remember each attempt with perfect clarity, but it would be a lie. I remember that in the first few attempts I was petrified of being the One Who Screwed Up and wiped the attempt for everyone else. I eventually took over Orbs duty during transitions 1.5 and 2.5. In the midst of all the chaos and adds and nonsense I found it... soothing.<br /><br />Of course, the attempts in which Orbs blew half the raid off the side of the platform it really was my fault and I was the One Who Screwed Up and wiped the attempt for everyone else. But no one seemed to mind too much. I made my (very embarrassed) apologies and we went on with the next attempt.<br /><br />I do remember the last attempt with perfect clarity. Or rather, as much clarity as a confusing mess of not being able to tell who is still alive and how much health does the LK have left and OMG SOOOOOOO CLOSE affords. I remember everything seemed to flow perfectly. DPS was blistering high. We didn't carry any Raging Spirits through the transitions. Cooldowns were blown at appropriate times. Val'kyrs went down like nobody's business. Defiles were well placed. Vile Spirits - the hardest part of the fight for us to learn, as we spent the least amount of time with them - were not permitted to explode on anyone. And no healers were summoned into Frostmourne.<br /><br />HOWEVER, a tank bit the dust at about 13%. I know that Ann and I had the same reaction: SPAM EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter what spell it is as long as it does damage and lots of it. As if we could single-handedly push the Lich King through his last 3%.<br /><br />And I remember thinking, when I finally died, 'Damn that was a close attempt! We were ALMOST there.' And then the cheers started up on vent. We weren't <i>almost</i> there, we <i>were</i> there. <br /><br /><b>Terenas Menethil would like to Resurrect you.</b><br /><br />Hell yeah, Terenas can resurrect me. <br /><br />The last fight with the Lich King was <i>leisurely</i> after that. I took my time casting my spells. I think I might have been in shock. And I waited for the King to fall.<br /><br />As I said, the final cinematic is beautiful... I knew who the Burning Man was. That much had been leaked to me, despite my desire to not know. I knew of the Immolated Champion. I knew his sacrifices. <br /><br />I didn't know his sacrifices weren't quite over.<br /><br />And so, it seems, all new eras are begun in fire and flame.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-78259314903934572392010-11-17T09:58:00.002-05:002010-11-17T10:01:01.533-05:00KingslayerThe Lich King wouldn't show me how to summon Val'kyrs. So I killed him.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-67356040443215142352010-11-11T13:13:00.011-05:002010-11-11T13:51:36.485-05:00The Frozen Throne<i>Dear Mr. Lich King,<br /><br />Let me start by saying what an honor it was to dirt nap in your presence last night. I have been studying the arts of DoTs and Minion Management for some time now, but phase one truly showed me that I have much to learn. The way you summoned those ghouls to beat on our offtank was an inspiration! And that Necrotic Plague was beautiful to behold. I hope that one day my DoTs will jump to other targets rather than merely being dispelled. Dispellable DoTs are clearly for the weak!<br /><br />Of course, your diseases and defiles aren't the only things to admire about you, Kingsley. You have a way with dark minions that I would desperately like to imitate. Sure, yours are undead and mine are demons, but I think we can work something out. I did hear you were looking for a second in command. You don't have to bother torturing those silly paladins. I'm right here.<br /><br />If you could just show me how to summon the Valkyrs to cart away my enemies I would be forever in your debt.<br /><br />Yours sincerely,<br />Marariel</i><br /><br /><hr><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; width: 166px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihc1Ncx-QLUy7JpXVs5ts4RwNj4kuqMBL3hY7L-Trx7u7JiHIU-afE3049LFYS5QXcKYN3BSfBMijMuTor2RKzt2CD5FCVcoQ0Yk9xrAAxWHk_YsEXyMAbo7OMAdJIenA5OajkQhS2gFXN/s200/kneel.png" border="0"/><br /><center>I pledge allegiance... to the scourge. </center><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; width: 200px; height: 177px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC23LvXfGeadzcGiiX40WDAAa9bFo3YrqrCs3Uxf_dR_NBcaKl2nv4hWNp6diCI74TJfj_zY_MMUKGQQTmZbto6cBejtXQiyNXl7Y1DfvBXRT0tbVPjP1LIrzmqvHnLFX9ch8LgrtO_GMZ/s200/point.png" border="0"/><br /><center>This guy has got it going on!</center><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; width: 200px; height: 64px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacTUf2GIWZDDQ5STwwFJcFgWM1CIelS7qxrneABSb1LxlfUT5yD-Pk9erHpoBUSMu1t574Micvl1JFYEQwzUJwxICDg7m0pVVonBxKUMhoPZ9c4W_ny7mKea_G5y9pKStmZmXhTxGMNIA/s200/crying.png" border="0" /><br /><center>I'm just... so proud of my king.</center>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-44833207321105804022010-10-28T09:45:00.007-04:002010-10-28T15:51:39.354-04:00Throwing Hard TricksLast night's raid was an interesting experiment in testing our own limitations. Once again I got to take Mara to kill stuff in the face. Sometimes... when <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47221">Empowered Imp</a> procs and I get a free, instant-cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6353">Soul Fire</a> all I can think to myself is <i>TROGDOR! Burninating all the peoples! And the Trogdor comes in the night!</i><br /><br />We steamrolled through the Lower Spire, which has become fairly commonplace for most raids, I think. I spent some time as Destro and some time as Demo and I haven't really been able to determine a difference in dps yet. Destro is predicted to do about 2k more dps (though, presumably, at the highest gear levels), but both specs seem to be about equal to me.<br /><br />We were able to visit Heroic Lootship. I didn't notice much a difference between it and regular Lootship, except that it lasted longer. And gave better loot. Not being on the healing team, I don't know if either of our Holy Priests played chicken, but I assume they did not.<br /><br />I guess this isn't being totally fair to the heroic lootship - we did wipe horribly the first time. Mord was trying to glitch Saurfang and ... missed, I guess.<br /><br />But the second time the glitch was successful. I got to go over to the other ship and BURNINATE things. Totally fun. Those guys at the back of the ships are called Kor'kron Rocketeers and there's two of them. So I burninated one and Takk was all like 'rawr-ninja-rogue-attack' on the other. Stuff died quickly. But, I did notice (unless its a sad RNG thing) that you can't get <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47221">Empowered Imp</a> procs on the other ship. While, there's nothing in the tooltips or on wowhead that suggests a limited range, I would still assume its a distance thing.<br /><br />We had with us a baby Boomkin that hit 80 a couple days ago. Andu has been leveling with us for awhile now and I think its particularly interesting to revisit the boss strategies before each fight from the perspective of having <i>never done it before</i>. Really, it wasn't that long ago for most of us and its just interesting to think about your own growth as a raider and a member of a team.<br /><br />We were kinda mean to Andu. After the Lower Spire we went to visit the Crimson Halls. I really (really really really) wanted us to be successful here. My priest has seen the Crimson Halls twice, but this was my warlock's first visit. <br /><br />And we wiped. Hard. Several times against the Blood Prince Council. I did get to try to tank Keleseth. Once. Apparently I sucked too hard to try again. And its killing me because I keep thinking about things I could have done better/differently. <br /><br />The basic idea is: get threat on Keleseth, stay out of melee range, get dark nuclei, keep threat on Keleseth, win.<br /><br />Helpful spells: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=687">Demon Armor</a>, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6229">Shadow Ward</a><br /><br />Get threat: Empowered <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6353">Soul Fire</a> (Instant cast), Empowered <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5676">Searing Pain</a>. (Guaranteed to crit, with +50% crit on Searing Pain for 6 seconds)<br />There are some suggestions that a warlock's usual rotation generates quite enough threat to keep Keleseth entertained. But otherwise, Searing Pain should do the trick.<br /><br />Stay out of melee range: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48020">Demonic Circle</a><br />In general, Keleseth will not move into melee range to attack. He stays at range. However, if you approach him whether purposefully or accidentally, he will probably one-shot you.<br /><br />Get dark nuclei: Target nuclei, cast <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=172">Corruption</a>. Using a dot has the advantage of: if someone else accidentally does damage to it, the next tick of the dot will reset its aggro to you. The disadvantage is, of course, the nuclei may die. The part where this starts to break down is now I'm targeted on a dark nuclei and NOW I CAN'T FIND KELESETH.<br /><br /><i>Lesson 1: Create a Focus for Keleseth.</i><br /><br />Keep threat on Keleseth: <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=5676">Searing Pain</a>. Empowered Searing Pain when possible. The problem with this is that, even if you're not retarded like me and can switch targets efficiently, switching between dark nuclei and running around to get in range of dark nuclei and Keleseth affects the amount of time you can spam Searing Pain.<br /><br /><i>Lesson 2: Get help.</i> When a dark nuclei spawns in nowhereville, have them call it out so you can find it. Even better, have them bring it into range of you, so you can grab it off them. Obviously, this may not be feasible if its on another tank or a healer.<br /><br />We were eventually successful. At the end, Mord tanked Keleseth and the other paladin tank who was running with us took Taldaram and Valanar. It would have been nice to see the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=51326">Wand of Ruby Claret</a>, but I'm not devastated that it didn't show up.<br /><br />But then... we... stopped. To be fair it was getting late and people needed to leave and stuff. But... but... I need to see the Blood Queen on my warlock. <br /><br />I was a little sad, but we're going to try and pick it up again next week. Our visiting pally tank and holy priest are from Militia's other guild, so it seems they're free on Wednesday nights. Maybe we can make some good progression again and start maybe, hopefully taking a peek at the Lich King.<br /><br />In case the announcement got skipped at some point: this is <i>Beating your head against a Brick Wall: Hard Mode</i>.Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-87190367506834056622010-10-21T08:37:00.017-04:002010-10-22T08:28:02.338-04:00You Can Has DemonsAt raid last night I (finally!) got to bring my warlock back to ICC to burn stuff in the face. It was seriously fun, totally awesome, and I loved it. It's no secret that I enjoy being dps, sitting in the back, nailing that rotation (excuse me, <i>priority list</i>), and watching the big numbers fly. In celebration, today's post is a guide to Demonology Warlocking in the 4.0. <br /><br />Because this turned out way longer than I expected, here are some breakers:<br /><A HREF="#guides">Other Guides</a><br /><a href="#spec">The Spec</a><br /><a href="#glyphs">The Glyphs</a><br /><a href="#priority">The Priority</a><br /><a href="#stats">The Stats, Reforing, and Gems</a><br /><br /><b>Don't Panic</b><br />You'll have to imagine these letters are large and friendly.<br /><br />I know rolling a warlock can be a daunting idea. We're powerful casters with intimidating minions and a snappy fashion sense. Don't Panic. There are number of warlocks who are more than willing to help out fledgling power-seekers. (You should stay away from the one's who aren't willing, though, they can be mean.) Here we're going to talk Demonology - the unquestioned master of minions. <br /><br />As a demonologist you will get an exclusive minion - the fearsome felguard. At lower levels he's a fairly capable tank (though in some situations you will still want your <s>blueberry</s> Voidwalker) and at higher levels he provides some serious melee damage (feel free to take him to dungeons instead of rogues). You will also get an increased chance to create mini-minions from your Bane of Doom spell and a longer duration on your demon guardians. YOU are the pimp of the demon world - rolling with an entire possy of minions. You can even BE a demon, that's how cool you are.<br /><br /><A NAME="guides"></a><b>These Aren't the Information You're Looking For</b><br />As stated, this all about Demonology. You may want to visit some other guides to get quality information about Destruction or Afflication warlocking. Don't worry. I'll still be here when you decide Demonology is right for you.<br /><br /><i>Affliction</i><br />Poneria over at Fel Concentration and Fulguralis at Killing 'em Slowly had a great discussion about Affliction PvE in the 4.0. Read Ful's post <a href="http://killingemslowly.blogspot.com/2010/10/preliminary-look-at-401-affliction.html">here</a> and Pone's response <a href="http://felconcentration.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/itlfac-4-0-1-affliction-by-fulguralis/">here</a>.<br /><br /><i>Destruction</i><br />Cynwise at Cynwise's Battlefiend Manual has a fantastic post about Destruction PvE. Find it <a href="http://cynwise.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/destruction-warlock-raiding-in-4-0-1/">here</a>.<br /><br /><i>Growing Up Demo</i><br />This guide is aimed at a level 80 warlock in the pre-Cataclysm 4.0. If you're just getting started in the wide world of warlockery, Abi over at Kungaloosh is starting a series of posts about leveling Demo.<br /><a href="http://kungaloosh.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/4-0-1-demonology-the-early-levels-1-10/">Levels 1-10</a><br /><a href="http://kungaloosh.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/4-0-1-demonology-the-kindasorta-early-levels-10-20/">Levels 10-20</a><br /><br /><i>Cata; lol wut?</i><br />Abi also has a post about what we can expect the Demonology spec to look like at 85. Find that post <a href="http://kungaloosh.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/4-0-1-demonology-pve-build/">here</a>.<br /><br /><a name="spec"></a><b>Give it all to me in a picture</b><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IZsrrf0uRRdoG:Va0bozcoz">Here.</a><br /><br />If all you want is basic, distilled information above is the link to my own Demonology build and glyph set. It serves me well.<br /><br /><b>Lets Break it Down</b><br />The link above is not the only way to build a demonologist, so let's start with a break down of the talent tree.<br /><br /><i>Tier 1</i><br /><u>Demonic Embrace: Increases Stamina by 4%/7%/10%.</u> Not a necessary talent for PvE builds, but you may want to spend some of your floater points here.<br /><u>Dark Arts: Increases damage done by your minion.</u> Necessary. Actually, every warlock spec should put some amount of talent points in this talent. As a demonologist, you will want all of them.<br /><u>Fel Synergy: A 50%/100% chance to heal your pet each time you do damage.</u> Arguably necessary. Most healers will not be paying attention to your minion and in most boss fights some mechanic or another will lead to your minion taking damage. With 2 points here, you won't have to pay attention to it either.<br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 3 points in Dark Arts and 2 points in Fel Synergy. Revisit Demonic Embrace if you have floater points later.<br /><br /><i>Tier 2</i><br /><u>Demonic Rebirth: If your minion dies, you can resummon at 50%/100% reduced cast time.</u> Arguably necessary. The only other way to get an instant-cast demon is to spend a Soul Shard. During a boss fight, you should have more interesting things to spend shards on.<br /><u>Mana Feed: You get mana when your minion crits.</u> Necessary. Since they've changed Glyph of Life Tap (it no longer grants a spell power bonus), it's nice to have ways other than Life Tap to regain mana. <br /><u>Demonic Aegis: Increases the effects of Demon Armor and Fel Armor.</u> Necessary. You should always be using an Armor, so this talent will always be doing something for you.<br /><u>Master Summoner: Reduces the mana cost of summoning a minion by 50%/100%.</u> Not necessary.<br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Mana Feed, 2 points in Demonic Aegis, and 2 points in Demonic Rebirth. Revisit Master Summoner if you have floater points later and want to. Personally, I like the Demonic Rebirth/Master Summoner combination. Then, if your demon dies, recasting is not only instant its also mana-free. <br /><br /><i>Tier 3</i><br /><u>Impending Doom: Increases the chance Bane of Doom will summon an Ebon Imp by 10%/20%/30%. Also gives Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Hand of Gul'dan a 5%/10%/15% chance to reduce the cooldown on Metamorphosis.</u> Necessary. More Ebon Imps = More Damage. Reducing the cooldown on demon form is nice too, especially when the three spells listed are Demonology's primary fillers.<br /><u>Demonic Empowerment: Does something PvP related to your minion.</u> Not necessary - skip this point.<br /><u>Improved Health Funnel: Increases health granted to your minion via Health Funnel and decreases the amount of health donated by you.</u> Not necessary - skip this point. <br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 3 points in Impending Doom. Put 1 point in Demonic Embrace or Master Summoner.<br /><br /><i>Tier 4</i><br /><u>Molten Core: Gives you a 2%/4%/6% chance to gain the Molten Core effect when Immolate deals damage which will empower 3 Incinerates or Soul Fires.</u> Necessary. This used to be when Corruption dealt damage, but has been changed to Immolate.<br /><u>Hand of Gul'dan: New damage dealing spell. Increases chance targets within 4 yards will be critically hit.</u> Necessary. <br /><u>Aura of Foreboding: Roots enemies in 4 yard radius around Hand of Gul'dan.</u> Not necessary.<br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 3 Points in Molten Core and 1 Point in Hand of Gul'dan. I would recommend putting 1 point in Aura of Foreboding. The root could be useful, but I wouldn't spend the extra point in increasing the effect by 1 second. Alternatively, put 1 point in Demonic Embrace or Master Summoner. <br /><br /><i>Tier 5</i><br /><u>Ancient Grimoire: Increases the duration of your guardians.</u> Necessary.<br /><u>Inferno: Increases the radius of Hellfire and allows channeling while moving.</u> Lolworthy, but necessary for moving down the path.<br /><u>Decimation: Reduces cast time of Soul Fire by 20%/40% when target is below 25% health.</u> Necessary. <br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Ancient Grimoire, 1 point in Inferno, and 2 points in Decimation.<br /><br /><i>Tier 6</i><br /><u>Cremation: Gives Hand of Gul'dan a 50%/100% chance to refresh Immolate.</u> Necessary. If you can time it right, you only need to cast Immolate once per fight. Then, you can refresh with a spell that also does damage. <br /><u>Demonic Pact: Increases your spell damage by 2% and the raid's spell power by 10%.</u> Necessary. Additional spell damage and spell power is win.<br /><br />In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Cremation and 1 point in Demonic Pact. Put the 2 floater points in whatever talents make you smile. <br /><br /><i>Tier 7</i><br /><u>Metamorphosis: Transforms you into a demon.</u> Necessary. This is what we came here for, after all.<br /><br /><i>The extras</i><br />At level 80 you have 5 additional talent points to spend. The Tier 1 talents of the other two trees both have extremely useful talents and you could arguably take any combination of those talents that you want. I personally like the ones from the Destruction tree. <br /><br /><u>Bane: Reduces the cast time of Shadowbolt and Immolate by .1/.3/.5 seconds.</u> I like this one because I like to cast faster. With Shadowbolt being our filler spell, casting it quicker is always a good plan.<br /><u>Shadow and Flame: Increases the damage of Shadowbolt and Incinerate and has a 33%/66%/100% chance to cause Improved Shadowbolt debuff.</u> The most popular demonology builds put only 2 points in this talent. However, by doing that, we are relying on a Fire Mage to ensure the 5% crit debuff is on the target OR putting our faith in RNG that 66% is enough of a chance. If you never run with a Fire Mage, you may want to put all 3 points in here.<br /><u>Doom and Gloom: Increases the crit chance of Bane of Doom by 4%/8%.</u> <br /><u>Improved Corruption: Increases the damage dealt by Corruption by 4%/8%/12%.</u> All specs are also using corruption at the moment for a net DPS increase. Spending points here will make that dps increase even higher.<br /><br /><a name="glyphs"></a><i>Prime Glyphs</i><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45780">Glyph of Metamorphosis</a>: Increases the amount of time you spend as a demon.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=42464">Glyph of Immolate</a>: Increases the damage of your primary dot.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=42453">Glyph of Incinerate</a>: Increases the damage done by incinerate.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=42459">Glyph of Felguard</a>: Increases the damage done by your Felguard's Legion Strike.<br /><br />The first two are necessary. Of the last two, the Elistist Jerks suggest using the Incinerate glyph for higher dps. I would argue that this dps increase is dependent on your Molten Core procs, so your mileage may vary.<br /><br /><i>Major Glyphs</i><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=42467">Glyph of Shadow Bolt</a>: Decreases the mana cost of Shadowbolt.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45785">Glyph of Life Tap</a>: Decreases the global cooldown on Life Tap.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=42458">Glyph of Fear</a>: Causes the target of your fear to tremble in place.<br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=45782">Glyph of Demonic Circle</a>: Decreases the cooldown on Demonic Circle.<br /><br />The first one is necessary. Again, Shadowbolt is the filler spell for Demonologists, so requiring less mana to cast it is extremely helpful. Glyph of Life Tap is another recommendation from the Elitist Jerks - it would allow you to cast it multiple times in a row which may not endear you to your healer(s). Poneria made a great argument for Glyph of Fear. It causes your target to stay in one place instead of running around and aggroing the entire instance. In a PvE situation, this gives warlocks a more reliable CC. Personally, I like Glyph of Demonic Circle. It lets you teleport to your circle more often, which is useful when Valkyrs are trying to drop you off the side of ICC or when Sindragosa is pulling you to her. <br /><br /><i>Minor Glyphs</i><br />None of these are necessary. Amuse yourself with whatever strikes your fancy. I personally like <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=43394">Glyph of Souls</a> for reducing the mana cost of Ritual of Souls, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=43389">Glyph of Unending Breath</a> for increased swim speed, and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=43391">Glyph of Kilrogg</a> for maximum kicks and giggles with the Eye of Kilrogg.<br /><br /><a name="priority"></a><i>The Priority</i><br />Now that I've tossed around terms like 'filler spell' and 'primary dot', lets talk about what that means. WoW has moved away from things that resemble hard rotations and into a world of 'priority casting'. This means, you should case whatever spell or ability is the MOST IMPORTANT and move down the line to the next most important spell until you get to some thing that isn't so important but since you should be casting something you cast it (that's your filler).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=59672">Metamorphosis</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=348">Immolate</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=71521">Hand of Gul'dan</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=603">Bane of Doom</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=172">Corruption</a><br />*<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50589">Immolation Aura</a><br />*<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47897">Shadowflame</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=63158">Decimation</a> + <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6353">Soul Fire</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47247">Molten Core</a> + <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=29722">Incinerate</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=74434">Soulburn</a> + <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6353">Soul Fire</a><br /><a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=41069">Shadow Bolt</a><br /><br />*These spells require you to be in melee range. I don't like to be there, so I usually leave them out of my priority. They will increase your dps, but please look out for cleave and other melee nasties.<br /><br />What does this all mean? Well, you should start by using Metamorphosis whenever it is off cooldown. It increases your damage by 20% for 36 seconds(glyphed). Then, you should ensure that Immolate is always on your target. Then, you should use Hand of Gul'dan if its off cooldown. Then, Bane of Doom and then Corruption. You don't have to worry about clipping your dots anymore, so you can recast your dots before they fall off. However, casting them too often will lead to a net dps loss. I would recommend recasting them about 1-2 seconds before they fall off for Bane of Doom and Corruption. Immolate should be refreshed through the use of Hand of Gul'dan.<br /><br />Decimation appears when you hit a target with less than 25% health. At this point, Soul Fire becomes a much quicker cast and that should be the only direct damage spell you cast (continue to cast Bane of Doom, Corruption, Hand, and Metamorphosis as necessary). If Molten Core appears on top of Decimation, continue to cast Soul Fire.<br /><br />Molten Core appears whenever it feels like it. At this point you should cast three Incinerates.<br /><br />If all your dots are up and neither Decimation nor Molten Core are up, burn a Soul Shard for Soulburn. This will allow you to cast one instant Soul Fire. (I have Soulburn and Soul Fire macro'd together for this purpose.) Soulburn has a cooldown of 45 seconds, so when its on cooldown cast Shadowbolt.<br /><br />Clear as mud, right? I recommend practicing on a target dummy to really get a feel for how this all fits together. It can take some work to learn the priority and figure out when its best to cast or recast your dots. I mentioned that its possible to cast Immolate only once per fight and keep it up with Hand of Gul'dan. It is possible. However, it involves casting Hand of Gul'dan almost as soon as it goes off cooldown every time. And, unfortunately, a certain amount of Haste rating is necessary.<br /><br /><a name="stats"></a><b>The Stats</b><br />Prior to the patch a demonology warlock wanted all the spell power they could get their hands on. Essentially, this hasn't changed. What has changed is that spell power will no longer be available on armor and that intellect will directly affect spell power. <br /><br />So let's just stack intellect! Not so fast, there. Demonology warlocks now heavily rely on the "right" amount of haste. <br /><br />From the <a href="http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t106168-4_0_pre_cataclysm_raiding/p8/">Elitist Jerks</a>:<br /><i>"There is not an optimal amount of haste so much as particular thresholds for Demo locks to avoid. The first, as Warlocomotif mentioned, is at 10% haste. If you have 9.99% haste, your Immolate will last 13.64 sec, which can make it difficult or impossible to refresh with HoG. ... Here is a list of the thresholds to avoid as Demo locks. Note that you are safe if your haste is equal to or greater than one of these thresholds, but you should try to gain (or possibly lose) haste if your haste is slightly lower than any of these numbers:" </i> 10%, 30% 50%.<br /><br />Also, don't forget that all casters now have to reach the 17% hit cap on their own (unless they're a Draenei). <br /><br />So your stat priority looks like this:<br />Hit (17%) > Haste (10%, 30%, 50%) > Intellect > Spell Power = Mastery<br /><br />Whats this mastery business? Mastery is a passive bonus you can learn at level 80. For demonologists, this gives us a straight 12% bonus to damage done by our minions and by us in demon form. Then, each point of mastery increases this bonus by 1.5% However, <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77219">mastery</a> isn't going to start showing up on gear until Cataclysm. The only way to get it now is to reforge your gear.<br /><br /><b>Reforging</b><br />Reforging lets you take 40% of a secondary stat and turn it into a different secondary stat. To get some practice, find your nearest reforger and reforge all of your gear with spirit on it. You don't need spirit at all anymore, so anything you reforge it into will be better than spirit. <br /><br />The Elitist Jerks recommend starting with Hit and I agree for the most part. You may want to first check that your meta gem is activated (remember that the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=34220">Chaotic Skyflare Diamond</a> - which you should be using - requires 2 blue gems to activate). The only useful blue gems are now <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40125">Rigid Majestic Zircon</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40153">Veiled Dreadstone</a>. I would recommend grabbing two <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40153">Veiled Dreadstones</a> and try to match +9 or +7 Spell Power socket bonuses. Then, take your spirit and reforge it into hit until you get 17%. After that, turn it into haste wherever possible and mastery otherwise. You may also consider reforging crit into haste or mastery.<br /><br />Since I touched on the subject of gems, I want to finish that thought. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40113">Brilliant Cardinal Rubies</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40155">Reckless Ametrines</a> are your best friends. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=40153">Veiled Dreadstones</a> are generally only useful for activating your meta, getting to the hit cap, or matching socket bonuses for obsessive/compulsive people. (I'm not taking a dig at people with OCD - I cringe every time I put a gem in the wrong color socket.)Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-63494404842813761142010-10-18T09:26:00.000-04:002010-10-18T13:26:05.004-04:00The Squishy Deathknight<b>Alternative Title: Outdated post is outdated.</b><br /><br />I want to try tanking. I've mentioned this before, but it's been a couple weeks now so I thought it might warrant repeating. I have a damage dealer and a healer and now I would like to have a tank.<br /><br />So I dusted off my Death Knight. And I know - I know - that DK tanks can be a total nightmare for a healer. I remember that from leveling Aioka; I had some truly terrible pug DK tanks.<br /><br />Regardless, my DK is a level 63 and my next highest crunchy character is a level 36 and I'm lazy. More than that, I've been reserving the level 36 (my paladin) to level with my friend's rogue.<br /><br />When I started with Feight (oh way back when) I started spec'ing her as blood. I remember doing some of the quests in Silithus and having a blast with the Dancing Rune Weapon. And the creepy little blood worms were actually a plus too. I was always amused when they popped up.<br /><br />But, I decided that if Feight was going to be a tank prior to the next big patch she needed to be Frost. And I know each DK tree can "technically" be a tank - Takk, especially, is a really good Blood tank - but Frost is recommended for a leveling tank.<br /><br />So I went out and I did it. I found a nice leveling build and guide and spent the money to respec and to get the glyphs that were deemed <i>necessary</i>. <br /><br />And then... rather than jump into the random dungeon finder, I went back out to solo quest. Damn, I'm a wuss.<br /><br />Let me just tell you, solo questing as a Frost tank sucks. I died all the time. And, while it was probably a good opportunity to learn how to manage my tanking cooldowns, I got tired of it very quickly.<br /><br />I complained a little about it in guild. I mean, really now, I'm a <i>Death Knight</i>. I was one of the Lich King's <i>chosen</i>. I'm <i>invincible</i>. ... Right?<br /><br />Takk did have some sage advice: "Well, at some point you have to stop expecting to solo group quests."<br /><br />Huh? But I'm a <i>Death Knight</i>.<br /><br />Regardless, a proper crunchy should have an offspec, right? I mailed Feight some gold for a dual spec, but rather than go back to my blood dps spec I picked up unholy. Unholy uses diseases (i.e. DoTs) and a pet (the permanent ghoul) to lay waste to enemies. Look! I'm a warlock in plate!<br /><br />So, I've done some more dungeons since then. As Unholy. (Still a wuss.) I've tried to get all the nooby DK things out of my system like using Death Grip on mobs. "I r not the tank. I do not get to grip things unless the tank asks me to." Repeat as necessary.<br /><br />Aaaaand.... entering a dungeon with my ghoul on aggressive. Or, using Death Coil on a completely untapped pack because I had the Runic Power and wasn't paying enough attention to which group we were attacking. Lord, I felt like a proper Deathtard. <br /><br />My biggest problem is probably that, because I'm crunchy I have an automatic "protect the squishies" complex. If something is attacking the healer, I MUST get its attention so that the healer will not take a dirt nap. To be fair, this is not completely unlike my reaction when on Mara. Better the warlock die than the healer. Except. Don't tell any other warlock I said that. Ever.<br /><br />But now, its even worse. When the tank takes a dirt nap, I start thinking: I wear plate! I can tank the rest of this group down! Which has yet to succeed. I did remember to switch on Frost Presence though. ... Or maybe that was the problem.<br /><br />Takk was super awesome in giving me advice about rotations and stuff. I was like "Halp, I have only two AoEs, my AoE dps will be teh SUCK." And Takk was all like "Lawl, my unholy AoE dps is the shiznit, here is how to do it gud." And I was all like "That sounds super complicated, how will I ever succeeeeeed?"<br /><br />Or... you know... something like that.<br /><br /><b>Of course, here we are one week later and patch 4.0.1 has dropped and this is all completely beside the point. But its about the <i>journey</i>, amirite?</b>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-4442234965606030532010-10-14T10:58:00.003-04:002010-10-14T11:49:08.596-04:00It was better not knowingAs I'm sure everyone is aware, the huge patch dropped on Tuesday. Last night's raid was a bit lolful as a result, but overall successful. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, because this week is incredibly hectic. And when it started to look like I might be able to make I planed to go on my priest. I knew precisely what I wanted out of my Discipline spec and the mechanics haven't changed overmuch - just my efficiency with them.<br /><br />Not that I don't know precisely what I want out of Mara's specs. I just want considerably more time to spend analyzing her gear and rotation before jumping into a raid. A weekend project, perhaps.<br /><br />However, in the realm of honesty, that's not the only reason I wasn't ready to log on to Mara. I got wind of a terrible tragedy earlier in the week. My demons have gone <i>missing</i>... to be replaced by <i>impostors</i>... and I didn't want to face that.<br /><br />I read an interesting short story last week about two people who get caught in a Time Loop. They are forced to repeat the same day over and over again. The physics of this (theoretical or invented, I'm not completely sure having not done any research) is quite intriguing. The Time Loop is centralized to their neighborhood. That is, the rest of the world is moving on quite normally but their neighborhood is isolated and forced into an infinitely repeating loop of one Thursday.<br /><br />This starts to cause a build up of entropy and heat and things start to break down. Things don't really fall apart... they just disappear. Small things first - like papers, pens, etc. Then books, chairs. Eventually walls. There are holes in things. But not like holes you can see through or put a finger through... holes in the reality.<br /><br />Then the same thing starts to happen to people. And the main character starts dreading waking up each Thursday morning. Because he doesn't know what will be different. What will be missing today? <i>Who</i> will be missing today?<br /><br />The reason this story is so compelling - quite apart from the interesting physics and the suspenseful and evoking storyline - is that is exactly how I felt when I found out the demon names had been reset.<br /><br />I didn't want to log in and discover my <i>companions</i> of several years were now <i>gone</i>. I didn't want to be another warlock posting in the <a href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27189091803&sid=1">lost and found</a>: <br /><br />"Have you seen my Flaag? He's a cantankerous dude with a huge axe, but he's been protecting me from Big and Scaries for 30 levels now."<br /><br />"Missing: one dutiful felhunter named Shaan. Tries to eat Ice Barriers off me when I poke Sindragosa with a stick. Cannot finish ICC without him."<br /><br />Its really very hard to explain, but this has <i>devastated</i> warlocks. The good news is the demon names will revert to what they were before the patch on the next maintenance day. The impostors are <i>temporary</i>. <br /><br />I still don't know which of my demons are currently taking a vacation, but its a huge relief to know they will be coming home on Tuesday. It was better not knowing who was missing. It will be easier to face the <i>impostors</i> knowing that <i>my</i> minions will be back soon.<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-5892207307006616772010-10-07T09:17:00.013-04:002010-10-07T13:02:35.420-04:00SidetripSorry, ICC is closed for renovations. No admittance.<br /><br />Or, it could be and I wouldn't know the difference. Raid last night started auspiciously with our raid leader informing us that he was sick and would not be able to play. Puts us down either a tank or a healer right off the bat and is particularly inconvenient seeing as we... you know... rely on his leadership, being a raid leader and all.<br /><br />I'm afraid you get a rather one-dimensional view of my fellow raiders when stories are told this way. Because Mord is also an incredibly sweet and supportive guy and signs off with things like "please don't hate me for not coming". So it sucks that he's ill on personal level; not a "dangit, now I can't raid" level.<br /><br />The sad truth is, however, that raid night tends to fall apart when he's not there. This is probably not a healthy place for our guild to be in.<br /><br />We thought we might tag along with Militia's other guild, because a couple of us had an ICC-lockout that had only Sindy and Arthas left to face. That had the potential to be awesome! Except that they weren't planning on sending invites until 10, whereas I usually pass out in front of my computer around 11/11:30. Sleep. It is important.<br /><br />It later turned out that they went off to do Ulduar Hard Modes instead, anyway. To be fair, this is also something I would like to do. Though it looks about as unlikely as fighting Arthas.<br /><br />Dru found out we weren't planning on tackling ICC right away and bailed to play on another character. This was rather disappointing to me on several levels. At the time we were still planning on getting a group together either to wipe against Sindragosa for a few hours or to start a fresh run. <br /><br />I think this took the last bit of wind out of our sails. I spent some time following a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=23348">stupid orc</a> around while he throws stuff at me. This doesn't go so well for me. I hate that stupid quest. <br /><br /><i>"Prepare a funereal pyre! Marariel has challenged Skyshatter!"</i><br /><br />I have nothing to say to you, Skyshatter. I hope you die.<br /><br />And it sucks because <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=11071">this quest</a> nets you a whopping 1000 reputation with the Netherwing. I need... less than that to hit exalted. I've done all my dailies for today and the only thing stopping me from getting my new shiny RIGHT NOW is a stupid orc with a totally unfair 310% flying speed. Haxx.<br /><br />It's obviously time to do something else in wow. So, at my <strike>insistence</strike> suggestion, we took everyone who was online to the Molten Core.<br /><br />That's right. Good old Molten Core. The instance that took 40 level 60 players days to down. It's good for 11 bosses of varying (though seemingly simple) mechanics. At level 80, four people can take a leisurely (though lengthy) tour through the underground lava pits that house one of the elemental planes most fearsome denizens. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/npc=11502">Ragnaros</a>. <br /><br />This is largely the reason I wanted to make sure that MC is something I got done before the expansion hits. I don't know if it has been confirmed or not, but there's good reason to believe that Ragnaros will be packing it up and heading back home. Where he will magically gain 25 levels, a crapton of health and probably new and unique abilities with which to smash raids in the face.<br /><br />The <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=18646">Eye of Divinity</a> dropped from the Majordomo. This is one of the key ingredients to the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=18608">Benediction</a> staff and starts the beginning of a beautiful and sad quest. If you have to opportunity, I highly recommend taking your priest to complete this <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=7622">quest</a>.<br /><br />Other residents of the Core were kind enough to drop pieces of the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/itemset=203">Felheart Raiment</a>. To be honest, I'm probably <i>unreasonably</i> excited about this. Especially since my bank is already cluttered with old quest items, cloth, enchanting mats, a set of Tier 9, and some handy off pieces (just in case). To add a set of Tier 1 (especially if I collected all 8 pieces) is a tad silly.<br /><br />But, you know what? I am a tad silly. And I wanted it. I look lovely, right? <br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 170px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie0RWI0Za7MYQqudVJrO79VVzA8A20IYEN78m3ufOQfQxZnpt3McqyTagH1wmzmAItI66yBQyX3Q6H2Ql9TpU3AJpYzkpuIUd6T-miv05mPNmxAqEfxLoEPigwYYALqMJHwfOmsYDjSEhp/s320/MaraT1-1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525349008408641570" /><br />I also picked up a matching sword.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 169px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfhr_vLbyjMKRSGA3BzYmTE1YqxWM1bERTPVzeOydpX3aexFk8LpyHUhMOn809YULmsA1PAPOM44AhwXsG-IN39w1yt0XsMprUbBYKevTkG_qSuldyK4CseVxCV1WhkcrndKcpGinXRqJa/s320/MaraT1-2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525349215247419218" /><br />And <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=22749">Enchant Weapon: Spellpower</a>. Actually useful for BoA items.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 273px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOHofEjfuD7KyLvr9fUWVkf2hbizJ-B7GDmyEPH1p5wI_PD9q8Kyli-KPaZMX6e2svbhpsmuPLxQgbnYnrxclHkYjuTStDHGSszNGaFCGqyddqS3kQMqMQPuw3sak35rTwRAh-uZkLIUGR/s320/MaraT1-3.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525349387021741874" /><br />I find it amusing that the human character models look so terribly benign even with giant horns coming out of their heads. "Would you mind awfully if I stacked a few DOTs on you before applying my Shadowbolt to your face?"<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-40345579433428048672010-09-30T11:43:00.007-04:002010-10-01T19:08:14.549-04:00Lootship is freaking BoringThe scene: Raid night. 8:00 pm. Raid is schedule to start in 30 minutes and I am getting everything ready to go on Marariel. (I will be PREPARED.) I buy myself some flasks, farm up some soul shards, and even fly out to ICC so I can be a proper lazy-raid-member-summoning warlock.<br /><br />Literally minutes before we get a full group, our gracious raid leader calls for a switch. I'm on healing duty.<br /><br />Clearly, I am failing at fulfilling my duties as an EVIL warlock (tm).<br /><br /><i>That said, it is your sworn duty as a member of the EVIL Warlock class to complete the Warlock class' one official obligation, which is to ensure that every single raid leader in the universe fervently believes that THE RAID WILL SUFFER A HORRIBLE FATE AND FAIL if there are not enough warlocks in the raid at all times.</i><br />-Excerpt from the Super Secret <a href="http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18358913722&sid=1">Evil Warlock's Guide</a>.<br /><br />Of course, I enjoy healing and gearing up my healer is very enjoyable. (Only 58 more emblems of frost until 4pt10! >.>) I mail myself the flasks - huzzah for both priests and warlocks nomming spell power like there's no tomorrow - and switch to Aioka.<br /><br />The other half of the healing team was Hippy - our druid who sometimes chooses to grace us with his heals. The first two bosses were fairly uneventful. We get to the Gunship Battle and Mord glitches Saurfang so that folks can wail on the Mages, Rocketeers, and Axe Throwers to their heart's content. I throw <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=17139">bubbles</a> at everyone I can reach and then... wait.<br /><br />And wait some more.<br /><br />And then Hippy starts to complain that there's nothing for him to do.<br /><br />So I start really focusing on the health bars. They're not going down.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong, this is good behavior for health bars. I like it. But we realized that there's not a lot of point to bringing two healers to normal Gunship anymore. (Why, oh why, can't we have heroic Gunship?) Like so many events in raiding, this is just another example of something that... shifts my perspective enough to give me a jolt. <br /><br />It's certainly not a "lawl, I could solo heal this". It's a "holy cow, I can solo heal this?".<br /><br />To make it up to Hippy, I let him solo heal Saurfang.<br /><br />What? That doesn't make it better? Well, I did it anyway. This fight always makes me want to go out and GET DPS GEAR RIGHT NOW. Because if I can go 5.7k in healing gear, who knows what kind of awesomeness I could manage in dps gear.<br /><br />This week Memento returned to the Crimson Halls (better known as the Blood Wing, I think). This is my favourite place ever. Sometimes I get to CC things! It's so exciting.<br /><br />The Blood Prince Council was a very lucky one shot. Mord and Militia were tanking again and I was spending most of my time on them. Because, you know, it would be silly for the druid to tank heal. But towards the end I get thrown against the wall by one of those stupid kinetic bombs and suddenly I can't reach EITHER TANK. <br /><br />I start running towards Militia's position because he needs more healing in the right now sort of way. I spam some <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48071">Flash Heal</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53007">Penance</a> and start to breath easier when Mord totally bites it across the room.<br /><br />Now I'm totally flipping out. I spam heals at Militia with everything I've got and WE ACTUALLY MAKE IT. I couldn't believe it.<br /><br />To fill out our group we pugged two hunters - neither of whom were particularly bright. This is important for the next part of the story.<br /><br />I am equipped with the Blood Queen Addon (as mentioned before) so I get it setup and ready to go as we prep for the fight. We start with a bite list based on dps, when I knew - I KNEW - from last time we did this we'd have better success with a bite list based on who knows wtf to do.<br /><br />We explain the fight. I explain the addon and how it will post raid warnings and instructions. We die. Repeatedly. People are being mind controlled left and right. This is extremely bizarre to me, because the first time we did this we just wiped. Now we're getting wiped by our own people. Eventually, we gave it up. <br /><br />Note that is a direct result of not having enough warlocks in the raid. Clearly this proves that any raid without enough warlocks WILL SUFFER A HORRIBLE FATE AND FAIL.<br /><br /><i>Prospective Raid Leaders should note that having Marariel in your raid is a sufficient number of warlocks. You should not add more unless the alternative is a non-Marariel-sanctioned-mage. Otherwise, you may need two or three.</i><br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-20537300102483906872010-09-23T08:58:00.002-04:002010-09-27T15:06:08.646-04:00Significant WinI read that <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=49890">Deathfrost Boots</a> are better than the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=49893">Sandals of Consecration</a> for a Discipline priest. Its the idea that the 16 extra crit on the dps boots is better than the 80 spirit on the healy boots. And this is true if one holds with the idea that both spirit and hit are wasted stats for Discipline. (True on hit, debateable on spirit depending on your mana and regen. Your mileage may vary). I realize Holy is a different ballgame.<br /><br />This is good news for me in my eventual attempts to get dps gear for my Shadow offspec. Although I realize that because its better than something else, that doesn't necessarily make it <i>good</i>. Wowhead commenters that are good at math go on to state that the Deathfrost Boots are actually 2nd <i>Best in Slot</i> for Discipline. Shut up. And I can make these on my tailor? Right now? Brb. (BiS honors given to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50062#comments">these</a> bad boys. A hotly contested item for casters and healers of all armor classes.)<br /><br />Anyway. The point I'm working up to is that my priest (despite actually healing a large amount of ICC by now) is now actually more than prepared for ICC. So I'm perfectly willing to bring either Aioka or Mara to our weekly run. But not both. Which I told Mord earlier in the week. I can heal or I can dps... Actually on Aioka I can reasonably do both. I'm sort of dreading the day when Aioka does better dps than Mara. <br /><br />So, Wednesday, I was expecting an evening full of warlocky goodness that ... never manifested. We've recognized that the three-healer combo is definitely a good plan for everywhere beyond the Lower Spite and the Plagueworks. Mord set up the raid with not only himself as healer, my bubble-flinging dorf, but also Ann's Holy priest Ash. Priestly Twin Powers Activate! <br /><br />The only really interesting consequence of this being that the lootmaster was a healer. <br /><br />Most of the Lower Spite is old hat by now. Militia came in as a tank again, but on his death knight this time. Things were so ridiculously smooth that both Ann and I went Shadow for the Saurfang fight. I don't have recount set up on Aioka, so I have no idea what her dps was. A respectable 5.5k according to Ann (who has her own blog-home now over at <a href="http://gettingsmashedintheface.blogspot.com/">Noob Raid</a> - getting saved to others' fail runs since 2010).<br /><br />In the heady rush of facing new progression last week (Blood Queen who?) we decided that this week we would tackle the Lower Spire and the Frostwing Halls. Hellooooo Sindragosa. Therefore, we thumbed our noses at the Plagueworks and the Crimson Halls and went right over to the Frostwing Halls. Dreamwalker went surprisingly well. Last week Mord solo-healed the dragon, this week he solo-healed the raid. What a show-off. :p<br /><br />No, he was nice enough to let two priestlets who have never seen the inside of Nightmare Portal give upping Dreamwalker a shot. I'm happy to say that we did not let him or the rest of the raid down. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48120">Binding Heal</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48063">Greater Heal</a> got dusted off and put to good use. <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53007">Penance</a> was kept on cooldown. The only thing I think I particularly failed at was... picking up those stupid green balls in the Nightmare Portal. That's not terribly important, right? Ugh. I'm afraid I'm a bit retarded in full 3D environments. I tend to have trouble in the Occulus too.<br /><br />The trash runs between Dreamwalker and Sindragosa was totally thrilling in that 'I've never been here before and why are things climbing down the walls at us?' sort of way. The gauntlet was terribly messy for a group that's never been there. Even with Militia very carefully herding us along. It was somewhere in the middle of this that I finally realized I still had my dps trinkets equipped. (<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=37873">1</a> & <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50340">2</a>) Probably when I found out I couldn't tap my <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50339">Sliver</a> for mana. Oi.<br /><br />Walking out onto Sindragosa's platform was an awe-inspiring moment. The literal ton of frost whelps gave me the heebie-jeebies. And when you finish wiping them all out, Sindragosa flies in looking every part the avenging dragon who you should probably not poke in the eye or kill her babies. The entirety of vent was treated to a rather unflattering yelp on my part. But hell, that dragon startled me.<br /><br />But when we had rebuffed and finished laughing at the noob (i.e. me) and I put my proper <strike>big-girl</strike> healing trinkets back on we were ready to throw ourselves at MOAR NEW CONTENT.<br /><br />Not to put a damper on the excitement we felt, but it ended rather horribly. It <i>started</i> well enough. We learned to juggle air and ground phases easily enough. I managed my own Instability debuff decently well and if anyone else sucked at it I didn't notice. <br /><br />Final Phase, however. Oi.<br /><br />The first two attempts I was the first one to Ice-blocked. The first time I wasn't fast enough getting to the pre-determined 'Ice Block Area' and tombed a whole bunch of people. Whoops. Second time was much better. But then the second tomb is scheduled to come down and we haven't finished beating up the first one yet and the melee hasn't cleared their stacks of whatever and we die. And this goes on for 3 or 4 attempts before we call on account of sleeping.<br /><br />I think if we manage to get to a point of extending raid lockouts again, Sindragosa needs to be the first (and likely only) fight of the night. Then we might actually have a chance at throwing ourselves at her enough times to start improving. <br /><br />Militia, however, assures us that we're miles ahead of his other guild in terms of how far we made it in our first several attempts. Apparently getting to the final phase on Sindragosa is significant win.<br /><br />I don't doubt that we'll continue to get better, I'm just hoping that we have enough time before everyone is done with Wrath for awhile. I know Cata is looming on the horizon, but I'm spending my time with my fingers in my ears going "Can't hear you!".<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-26089684542034584262010-09-16T08:27:00.009-04:002010-09-16T12:02:25.379-04:00Progression!Alternative Title: 'AMG I SAW THE BLOOD QUEEN'. Because as excited as Tam was to <a href="http://www.righteousorbs.com/?p=2337">see the Lich King</a>, that's how excited we were to see new content. And it matters very little to us that other people think this stuff is easy and old news by now.<br /><br />As previously mentioned, Wednesday is our new progression night and last night was excellent. We were actually successful in finding people to extend the lockout, which was a very pleasant surprise. We had to rearrange our team a little bit and I think Ann and I both managed to save both our priests and our casters to this raid ID.<br /><br />I believe I also mentioned we have two new guildies. Colvar brings us a warrior, a warlock, and a rogue. He's... interesting. He actually seems... skittish. He reacts to our questions and clarifications as if, at any moment, we were going to boot him from the raid/guild/life. He's eager, though. Colvar started the run last week on his warlock, as did I. This week he brought his warrior and switched to his rogue midway through. I think he probably managed to save the most characters to one raid ID.<br /><br />Dru brings us a tanky-druid and a shaman. Tanks always seem to be in short supply at Memento, so this addition is particularly welcome. He's also eager. Dru organized a short weekly trip earlier in the week that went very smoothly. I think Dru started with his shaman last week and brought his druid this week.<br /><br />Mord actually came as a healer on his paladin, something that happens very rarely. Militia actually came as Militia; the first time he's been on his paladin in a long time. We ended up with a raid group that looked like this:<br />2 Tanks (Militia-paladin, Dru-druid)<br />2 Melee dps (Colvar-warrior/rogue, Batra-dk)<br />3 Range dps (Ann-mage, Barheim-mage, Goticus-warlock)<br />3 Healers (Myself-priest, Takk-shaman, Mord-paladin)<br /><br />Probably could have used a Spriest or a Boomkin, but for us that's a surprisingly well-mixed raid group.<br /><br />Last week was the second week we managed to go 7/12 in one night, so we started with Dreamwalker. Yeah, <i>started</i> with something that's been a complete failfest in the past.<br /><br />Takk and I focused on healing the raid while Mord healed the dragon. From the strategies I've read this is somewhat unusual. In general, one healer stays on the raid and two go to the dragon. The sad truth of it, though, is that my priest cannot really be relied on to heal the entire raid in an unfamiliar fight. Takk could have handled the raid with his shaman, but I'm not personally convinced I would have made a difference on the dragon. <br /><br />In the end it didn't matter too much. We wiped our first attempt at 92%. Our melee were spending too much time running around and one of our tanks died at an inopportune moment. We rallied for a second time and upped that dragon to full 100%. It was a matter of melee knowing where to be, and range calling out Blazing Skeletons, and me managing my mana as best as I know how.<br /><br />The Blood Prince Council is every bit a beautiful, unholy mess as I could have hoped for. We wiped here several times. For silly reasons. Because its one thing to listen to your raid leader or raid assist to explain the fight. And its one thing to read about empowered blah blah in the guides. And its one thing to watch videos of other people pulling it off. It's totally a different thing altogether to be THERE for the first time with your screen exploding in color and warnings and ALL THE HEALTHBARS ARE GOING DOWN. Which is not the direction they're supposed to go.<br /><br />And DBM has this handy range feature that tells you who is within X range of you - very nice for Empowered Vortex. But mine kept disappearing for no reason that I could fathom. <br /><br />As a raid, we had huge issues with getting blown around the room. Whether because of too many people standing too close to vortexes or those cursed Kinetic Bombs, I'm not sure. But it's very disconcerting to FINALLY find a good place to stand where you can reach almost everyone with your healing spells and then get thrown 30 yards across the room. It sucks.<br /><br />Sure, its a tricky thing. You find out a vortex is near/on you and you have to move 10 yards away from everyone without ranging all of your healers. And when your healers are more or less grouped around the center, this can be difficult.<br /><br />But it still sucks.<br /><br />In the end it was messy and unorganized, but we succeeded. Defeating them was an excellent thing, but I'm left wondering if it will take any fewer attempts the next time we try it.<br /><br />I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to be the ranged tank for Keleseth on my warlock. Not that Militia didn't do a great job, but that I would still really like to try it one day. Maybe after we get some more practice.<br /><br />So then we went upstairs. To the chamber of the Blood Queen.<br /><br />Trying to explain this fight to people who have never been there and never watched others do it is an interesting adventure. Especially when your own knowledge base is largely theoretical. We think Militia has been with his other guild, but for everyone else it was our first time.<br /><br />Several weeks ago, in preparation for this triumphant event I downloaded the Blood Queen addon. And I was the only one who had it. It posts to the raid who is supposed to be biting whom and when. I set it up to give an 8 second warning, since known of us had ever been there before. The first priority list it cranked out was kind of bizarre so I adjusted it. We set out to try it out.<br /><br />We died EPICLY (still a word in maraland). <br /><br />There was so much confusion with the red ribbon between people and no one could see what was going on and our pug-mage got bitten first and was like 'wut?'. He couldn't find his target so we told him to bite another dps rather than get mind controlled. Instead, he bit Mord. A healer.<br /><br />We died.<br /><br />We died several times, really. And everytime it was "Ok, everyone, chill out. I know this fight looks like a really quick mess, but take your time. There will be a raid warning for when it's time to bite targets and then you have 8 whole seconds to get there. Calm down. Don't worry."<br /><br />Finally, we got everything settled. Ann arranged to take the first bite, which seemed to help. I got better with my fear ward (not great, but better). It was another success that was messy and hectic but oh so full of excitement.<br /><br />Personally, I have love/hate relationship with coordination fights. When everything goes the way it's supposed to its a well choreographed dance. Everyone performs their role, there's good communication, genuine support, and the thrill of triumph at the end is truly sweet.<br /><br />When everything goes wrong, it's huge mess of color and sound and bewilderment. At the end of poorly executed coordination fight there's a tendency towards finger-pointing. It leads to arguments and general bad feeling.<br /><br />The Blood Queen was kind enough to drop her <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=51553">nail</a>, the much-sought-after wand upgrade (over this well-used <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=47658">piece</a>) for everyone who wears a sissy robe. I got lucky. Aioka's been lucky recently, winning the wand with something like a 48 and the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50769">T10 pants</a> from VoA with a roll of 5.<br /><br />And I realized, my nooblet priest is not so... nooby anymore. She has good gear. Not just 'decent' or 'ok' gear, but good. In some cases, great. I still have some pieces with hit on them and I'm still rocking my PvP bracers, but of the first 10 bosses in ICC I have healed 9 of them. It kind of blows my mind.<br /><br />Not that it has anything to do with myself. We have a good thing going right now and a great group of people to be going it with. Dru signed off last night with the following message:<br /><br />"Thanks for letting me be a part of your guild. I've been looking for a long time, and I'm glad I finally found a good one."<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-51288999734720137682010-09-08T13:25:00.003-04:002010-09-08T13:54:47.154-04:00Settlin'Memento has tentatively settled on a schedule for the semester. Our progression night will be Wednesdays 8-11. Trying to form up a 10-man group that can extend the lockouts from week to week and hopefully get further than our current 7/12.<br /><br />Tuesdays and Thursdays will be guild nights for alt runs and whatever nonsense we feel like getting into. Last night it was an "alt" run of ICC. A couple a new guild members and new noobraiders went with Ann, Mord(on his rogue), and myself (on Aioka) to do battle with the first 5 bosses in the Citadel.<br /><br />We wiped to Marrowgar, which sucked. Overall we had some noob-type issues with stacking and switching targets and general raid awareness. Deathwhisper, Lootship, and Saurfang went relatively painlessly. Our Saurfang fight was epically messy. We had only three ranged dps, 2 mages and a Boomkin, which made getting the bloodbeasts down difficult.<br /><br />We wiped to Festergut twice. People had difficulty understanding what a Collapse Point was (where the range is standing to get spores) and what we meant when we said "Move Out" (run to the collapse point). <br /><br />The other half of our healing team was a druid. I finally (after two hours or so) made myself relax and focus mostly on the tanks and left the rest of the raid in the very capable hands (limbs?) of said druid. Made my life better and we seemed to encounter less difficulty afterward. Seems like, regardless of whether Discipline is considered tank heals or raid heals, my personal style tends towards tank healing. This thought warrants more experimentation. <br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-30295641282603964082010-09-02T08:41:00.000-04:002010-09-02T21:35:00.061-04:00What Boredom Gets YouWhile its true that the semester is starting up and all too soon time will have to be devoted to studying and homework and research and stuff, I haven't been able to really get into yet. The advantage of this being that I still have time for WoW. The disadvantage being that if I'm not careful I could up rather behind without noticing.<br /><br />On my happily school-free weekend, Ann and I got a smidge bored. We've been missing out on our regular raid schedule recently and it was just time to show some internet enemies what-for.<br /><br />So we hopped a pug to Ulduar with Mord.<br /><br />A pug in which, it turned out, only Ann, Mord, and I had ever been to Ulduar. Everyone else was there because they'd never been and thought it would be fun. <br /><br />Fun. Right.<br /><br />I went on Aioka as a "tank healer". As a Discipline priest "tank healing" is a concept that boggles the brain a bit. Don't get me wrong, having only one target to <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=53007">Penance</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48071">Flash Heal</a> makes life much simpler. But <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48071">Flash Heal</a> goes faster in the 8-10 seconds after a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=11835">Bubble</a>. And if the tank can't have a bubble then someone else is getting it and by the end of the fight everyone in the raid has bubbles regardless of whether I'm technically healing the tank or technically healing the raid. I also <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48113">Frisbee</a> the tank but since it can go just about anywhere, I count is as a raid healing spell.<br /><br />Getting up to Flame Leviathan was fairly painless. I went as a gunner, which is what I'm used to doing on Mara. Our little raid went right up to Flame Leviathan and proceeded to pull everything despite frequent commands in the raid channel to definitely not pull. <br /><br />None of the towers had been taken out and no one really had any idea what was going on and in general it was just bad. <br /><br />After the wipe, Ann offered Memento's Vent for the raid's use. After some testy words on my part that if we weren't going to use Vent then people at least needed to pay attention to their raid chat. <br /><br />The raid organizer's (at this point Mord was leading, because this organizer was pretty fail) response to this was "I don't have vent, lol." <br /><br />We got everyone else into the proper vent channel and got a couple towers down. Went back to the Flame Leviathan and sucked much less. Mord gave very comprehensive instructions for fighting FL. On vent. Which meant our failadin (did I mention the raid's organizer was paladin with all 71 points in protection?) didn't hear any of it. <br /><br />But a decent number of people, Aioka included, got <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=2914">Orbital Devastation</a> for it.<br /><br />XT was pretty basic. The tanks took their assignments well. I kept them and the raid alive. I did more overall healing than my shaman healing partner; which was hard to understand. We absolutely did not attempt Razorscale or Ignis.<br /><br />Clearing the trash up to Kologarn was probably more complex than it needed to be, but we succeeded. Mord handed out assignments and instructions for the fight. We had a rather decent warrior tank who had recently dinged 80 and was very eager to show his stuff. <br /><br />So eager in fact that when the fight started, he ran right up to Kologarn and off the edge of the cliff into the abyss and died.<br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3ZwQbVaCnGFko7l_-CL51LE-s4ogU99sFuZ7BA5u5pgB8Gmn_XyVn1hJuFmhrOV2LKO-IVwFuo3-L7kVElwx30qzyIKcZhM1tyT4u8GSAh19ReeqiM1fXNqDOyJoW824Uza2s5rRIsW6/s320/kologarnfail.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512494400439825410" /><br /><br />The other tanks were not prepared to jump into his spot and, even if they were, I was way too busy laughing to heal them. And it was funny because it was just such a noob thing - on our poor warrior's part for not stopping before running off the edge of a cliff and on our part for not mentioning that there's a huge cliff there and Kologarn has a huge hitbox so don't get any more up close and personal with him than you have to.<br /><br />This is what we would like noobraid to be about: introducing new players to raiding (while hopefully not getting them killed in silly ways) and helping them to get experience they might not get elsewhere. Especially people like that warrior who are going to be totally awesome and all they need is experience and gear.<br /><br />I have a feeling we may be seeing more of these this semester since our raid schedule is going to be split. We haven't worked out all the particulars but we are currently planning on running raids 3-4 nights a week. Everyone is free on Wednesdays, so I suggested that for our progression night. Mord will probably run something or other on Monday or Tuesday evenings and I volunteered to lead Thursday evenings. Because I'm crazy like that.<br /><br />Last night we took our whole 4 guild members who were online into another guild's ICC-25. I'm not really a fan of healing 25-mans but they essentially told me they'd carry me through it and it really didn't matter if I healed or not. I got another "tank healing" spot with two other tank healers. And my overall healing was miserably sad for the whole night. I got a cloak upgrade out of it though.<br /><br />To be perfectly honest, it was kind of a miserable adventure. One of their members was on one of the <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/quest=24547">Shadowmourne quests</a>. When they died, they asked for a battle-res on a trash pull. I think it was a Culture Shock thing. If you're in one of our ICC runs and you die on trash in the lower spire, you will run back in. Because certainly none of our healers will resurrect you.<br /><br />The Upper Spire is a different story, sometimes.<br /><br />And this guild like to talk about random things instead of ... you know ... doing stuff. We were getting ready to face Saurfang and instead of starting the fight some of the people on vent starting debating the 'Agility is for Frost DKs' issue. Which has already been <a href="http://mararielop.blogspot.com/2010/07/serious-business.html">done to death in our own guild</a>, so I was really not interested. I thought about going and starting the fight myself. They could have had most of the conversation while waiting for Saurfang's attention.<br /><br />It was string of these minor irritations that made the run less than enjoyable overall. Some of the members were whiny and 3 or 4 people throughout the night dropped raid for reasons I just didn't understand.<br /><br />Here's to crossing my fingers and hoping that everything will settle down again soon. <br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-78564363042944784972010-08-26T09:17:00.004-04:002010-08-26T09:19:51.035-04:00The Line. I is Walking It.A decent amount of the blogosphere is experiencing renewed interest in gender commentary. Gender issues always seem to be kind of a touchy subject and people either want to drive right in and dissect behaviors and stereotypes or they want to dance around the issue.<br /><br />Forewarning: I'm one of those second types. I prefer to avoid stating strong opinions until I have enough to back myself up and if I think I'm likely to offend someone I prefer to say nothing at all. So if you want to really get into the issues with some people who seem to know what they're talking about and who are much more articulate than I, posts from <a href="http://www.righteousorbs.com/?p=2274">Righteous Orbs</a>, <a href="http://bossypally.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/refuting-accusations-made-towards-my-feminist-side/">Bossy Pally</a>, and <a href="http://mentalshaman.com/2010/08/25/games-demographics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mentalShaman+%28The+%27mental+Shaman%29">'Mental Shaman</a> will all see you in the right direction.<br /><br />I'm just going to talk about me. Because, you know, that's really what OP is here for. For me to talk about my experiences with that game we all love. WoW has it share of problems, like any other game/community/lifestyle (depending on which discussion you're currently involved in). But sometimes we let these problems distract us from our purpose in interacting with WoW; namely defeating fictional enemies through methods that provide us personal satisfaction. (Die <a href="http://greyshades.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/an-open-letter-to-blizzard/">INTERNET DRAGONS</a>!)<br /><br />I certainly don't say this to demean the gender discussions that others are currently having and that we may kinda-sorta touch on here. Maybe. I have always found gender discussions intriguing. Fascinating. It's something I like to read about or listen to but tend to feel vaguely distanced from.<br /><br />I followed the discussions on RealID being forced on the forums avidly. When I first read the blue post the idea made me fairly uncomfortable but I didn't let it bother me overmuch. Everything they said sounded reasonable and I am all for getting rid of trolls on the forums. Of course, I wouldn't want <i>my</i> RealID posted for just anyone to see. But, I can also tell you that I've posted on the WoW forums exactly twice.<br /><br />Then I started reading the replies to the Blue who so foolishly told everyone that publishing his real name was no big deal. Internet savvy posters had his home phone number, address, you name it in minutes. It was like a light clicking on, as I began to understand. I know there are people who can pull a picture your house with no more information than just your last name. I've watched them do it.<br /><br />I know RealID is a bit tangential to the current topic and that the kind of people who would be interested in doing this sort of thing (apart from proving a point) don't usually need a reason to seek you out. However, a great number of replies to this issue centered around not wanting to share a real name because it would identify them as a woman. To be fair, a number of people also do not want to share their names because it identifies them as belonging to a certain ethnicity, but those discussions seem to be strangely absent.<br /><br />I don't care if people know I'm a girl. I would care that they knew my real name. I would be perfectly happy to use a singular "alias" for posting on the forums and I don't doubt that the name I would pick would be noticeably feminine.<br /><br />When I first started playing wow, I didn't hesitate to pick a character that looked like me. Marariel was, and is, my avatar for the WoW universe. She's a human female with dark hair and no bangs because I need to SEE what I'm shadow bolting thank you very much.<br /><br />Since then I have added 8 other female characters on my home realm. One male character. Chas, over at Righteous Orbs, got into the interesting subject of how unrealistic the male character models tend to be. This is what started me to thinking about my lone male character on Hydraxis. Mathias is a Blood Elf Hunter. He is intended to be a combination of strong and graceful. Despite his tendency to stand away from things and shoot them full of arrows, I've always liked the fact that he <i>looked</i> strong. And I believe that's because I built him as an older brother and protector to Shinai.<br /><br /><p><br /><img style="float:left; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGpccuAYlYMCR1JwXP_1jYcWCcvUOHv_FOfbopiPYK7wUzaQxkyV5XyLXKXSkidyUeqO9sBKBPXOidGfiZuLW3WniMzbHl31pgX1O2peh8iY_UxgYximtoTCcciJILow8ZCGk9vLhT-YQl/s200/mathias.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509696615697078354" border="0" /> <img style="float:left; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitL3y3XJxsFHks4FOcg23yImcqxwQAcdzoWJlBA3KW0_KTTynXs0yswzI0c5UnHthZNvBmFFy6IVJeLGO_Xxsv5lcbMnlz63C7Ymhhon2irZ0APw-8fFt7AWj5AJo6142pTfpAB2NY-Fr8/s200/shinai.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509695948241488818" border="0" /><br /><br /><br />They look like siblings, right?</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I don't want to get into issues about why I might feel Shinai needs a protector and that sort of gender-based conundrum. I can tell you the answer is simple. I created and played Shinai first and she <i>felt</i> like she needed protection. A mage at low levels seems particularly squishy and I got tired of dying but I still wanted to do the then-new-to-me Blood Elf starting zones.<br /><br />Chas' discussion of character models led down an interesting path of guys playing girl characters and the guys who sometimes catch grief about it. Memento is not a very big guild and two of our main raiders are guys with at least one female raiding toon. And apart from a few minor inquiries ("Why are you playing a girl character?" "I dunno. I like it." "K. Cool.") most of us think nothing of it.<br /><br />In our happy-meal-sized guild there are also two females in the raider core. We usually run with a female friend from another guild. And we have strong rules against discrimination of any sort.<br /><br />I think the place that I'm trying to end up at is this: to an extent I think stereotypes affect you as much as you let them. That isn't to say there aren't sexist and racist people out there. There are. You take steps to protect yourself from them in game as you would outside of game by surrounding yourself with people you trust and not taking outlandish risks. At least, I hope you do.<br /><br /><hr><br /><br />The following, completely unrelated entertainment is for Ann. Sorry your day is long.<br /><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdW3QgWZ4RC4S8WBPFSOEhhR-XqEyzNJeMomvjfBbZQYri36wJcluRvlu4o6zRc7YNawG_uPGby4NwFSw6RKSxifCfPaeU9W23mTA285XNbyBBVmGfEW7xU0mAUKr9f9Q8BYxnSrMTePq/s200/mathiasfur.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509704905770373794" /> <i>Shawty had them Apple Bottom Jeans<br />Boots with the fur<br />The whole club was lookin at her</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-71688554962071266162010-08-18T08:10:00.004-04:002010-08-18T11:09:00.115-04:00New things are good, right?Summer is drawing slowly to a close. People are finishing up their vacations and settling in for the long haul again. Memento is starting to look ahead to the next semester and the raid time adjustments that need to be made.<br /><br />Our raid day and times seem to change so frequently, I guess it's sort of a good thing that the only people affected are people I can call up and discuss the problem with. When we recruited we found people for a particular day and time that no longer suits many of our members.<br /><br />Currently our best times appear to be Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8-11. Too many people managed to get themselves signed up for Tuesday night classes. Wednesday isn't particularly convenient for me, I'll have to rush home from school, but I don't foresee it being a major problem. The updates here at OP will probably also change days accordingly. I like to be able to talk about raid the day after it happens.<br /><br />Last night, of course, there was no raid. Hydraxis was on the 24-hour maintenance list. We're going to give our anticipated new schedule a trial run this week and see how it happens. I'm looking forward to jumping back into ICC tonight. Assuming our server-hamster is fully recovered, of course.<br /><br />Being cut off from my usual server-home didn't stop me from playing. Ann, a casual RL friend Vandrellee, and myself trouped over to Ravencrest where another RL friend has a character. We started some new alts in the hope that we can all find some time to play together in the coming semester. It was an interesting experiment... casual RL friend #2 only plays hoard. And all the alts I've ever put any amount of time into are all alliance. Or Blood Elves. Do they really count?<br /><br />Anyway, I have a new baby druid named Bersera. Thanks to the random name generator for that one. She's a very lovely cow.<br /><br />Now that I've done the dps thing and the healing thing, I've been practically itching to try the tanking thing. Well, it's bound to happen now. If we get into nonsense with our new hoards it will be as a bear. (Vandy picked a hunter and Ann has a new shaman.) If we stay on the home server for our lulz, I have a paladin at just the right level. (Vandy is a rogue and Ann has a hunter.) So, be sure to send some pity towards Ann and Vandy for being my test subjects as I l2tank.<br /><br />Better news? If we stick to the home server, we're staring Scarlet Monastery right in the face. I've certainly been there enough times, I think I could reasonably lead a group through there. It's going to be great.<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-62435306203618788662010-08-11T08:27:00.007-04:002010-08-12T07:57:44.696-04:00Who's Putricide?My return to WoW from vacation was rather lackluster, all things considered. There are real life considerations that come from returning from a long trip; missing deadlines for school being an unforeseen and unfortunate one. So rather than dive back into the pleasant world of Mara and Aioka, I have been spending my time with laundry baskets and portfolios.<br /><br />Bah.<br /><br />Anyway, nothing prevented me from last night's raid. I was online 15 minutes before we were due to start and had already completed my jewelcrafting daily. In complete silence, I might add. While it would have been nice to get "Hey Aioka, welcome back. Did you have a nice trip?" I wasn't excessively bummed when it was not forthcoming. But to not even receive a Hi/Hey/Yo/Sup/etc. was rather disappointing. <br /><br />At raid time, Mord announced he was going to run with his rogue because "we had two good tanks and his healers were already online". ... It's kind of like in school, when the teacher calls your name but you're not expecting it so you look around waiting for someone else to answer. Oh wait, you mean me? Lol. <br /><br />It was a nice thing. I enjoy healing my crew and we have fun. But if I'm being prefectly honest, I'm extremely nervous about ever having Aioka in a Rotface fight. I don't usually think before I dispel people. So much of my healing is completely reactionary, quick clicks and spams, that to stop and think about something before I do it is tantamount to letting someone die.<br /><br />While I was still hanging out in Dalaran another person asked if I was heals and if I was interested in their run. I told them I was otherwise engaged, but (re-emphasizing the point from earlier) its nice to be recognized as a healer.<br /><br />I was in some danger of getting a big head.<br /><br />Especially after I managed to keep a tank alive with a meager combination of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=48071">Flash Heal</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/spell=17139">Bubble</a>. The other healer was busy eating dirt after a surprise Bone Warden trap. I can't pretend is wasn't a near thing, because almost everyone else died. But it was not a wipe.<br /><br />But right before Marrowgar one of our tanks dropped, necessitating some rearrangement of roles and people. Mord pulled in a different healer, and I switched over to Mara. The result being that neither of my characters got to complete the weekly: being Marrowgar this week.<br /><br />I was disappointed at first (and even more when both <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50793">Midnight Sun</a> and <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50807">Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl</a> dropped) but I had an excellent time with Mara. I miss a lot of the action when I'm staring at a box of healthbars. I got to roll face without really worrying about if so-and-so was eating too much damage.<br /><br />And roll face we did. The run went very smoothly and very quickly. Militia's comment: "We should try to balance the raid every week." I was amused. And, in terms of quickly, I went looking down Mara's achievement list again and saw something I found interesting. Below is what time we killed stuff. <br /><br />Marrowgar - 8:55 (We took awhile to get started.)<br />Deathwhisper - 9:06<br />Gunship - 9:20<br />Saurfang - 9:27 (No time for marks!)<br />Festergut - 9:54<br />Rotface - 10:22<br />Putricide - 10:34<br /><br />One hour and forty minutes for 7 bosses. Totally awesome.<br /><br />Also, we downed Putricide. It was a good night.<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1684479293781329619.post-12635678171923412362010-08-04T11:54:00.004-04:002010-08-04T12:26:14.473-04:00Blog FailMara is on vacation. Weeee.<br /><br />And no, I didn't write any back-up posts to schedule for this week. I am a fail blogger.<br /><br />I hopped online during raid last night for awhile to scope out the latest drama. Of course there was some. I think I'd really rather just stay out of it. And I don't think OP will disintegrate if I leave out a little bit of Memento's Drama.<br /><br />I went over to the Exodar and shoved cloth at them until they exalted me. It's the only advantage of having tons and tons <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=14047">Runecloth</a> stocked up. Hail <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=948">Ambassador</a> Marariel. I guess if that's the only thing I accomplish while on vacation, it's still a worthy achievement.<br /><br />While I was in the area, I did all the Azuremyst quests I could find. And I'm considering going over to Bloodmyst to do the same thing. Despite having two little dreanei alts, I have never done all of the dreanei starting area. This is not a prelude to a <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=1681">Loremaster</a> attempt. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.<br /><br /><hr>Marahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03063853232505171768noreply@blogger.com0