Why is it, when I get what I think is a good idea, a dozen people start doing it before my plans come to fruition? I was thinking to myself how I could collect little unbloggable snippets and recommendations together for a weekend post, and suddenly I see it everywhere before my first one goes up.

Oh, well, I’m going to file it under “Great minds think alike” and move along.  Here are, in no particular order (even chronologically is pushing it), a number of things that I liked this week.

• Amber gets philosophical on Cliques at I Like Bubbles.  I’ve been through a situation where cliques – MY clique -  was instrumental in Great Drama. I hate drama. It interrupts my favorite things.

• I discovered Pike late in the game, so I have less attachment than others. That being said, it’s sad to see a fellow traveler go away / go on hiatus. The final pic is perfect¹. Hurry back, Pike, if you can. And if you just can’t get enough, say hello to her at her new linux/geeky blog, Clockwork Hare.

• Second only to BRK’s tales of kiting the Fel Reaver into Shatt², Spicytuna blogged a new kind of dirty trick.  Yes, it’s griefing of a sort, I admit it. But it’s griefing with style.  Next day, Frost Mage PVP: 101 picks up a subject that I have peripheral interest in from time to time.
• Aw, say it ain’t so!  Jong, leaving us, again? What of Megs? Quick, somebody set her up a guest post traveling gig or something. Or better yet, maybe Jong will change his mind!  I have learned so much from them both.
• And Rhii, too?  What is going on? Well, not quitting, but when my GF started talking like that, I started making sure I had all my stuff where I could find it.  At the same time, Aurdon’s giving his guild a well-deserved mid digit. You had me at “racist /g chat”.
• Leafshine links to some incredible WoW numbers. 20,000 servers? That’s some serious heat!
• WoW.com’s Addon Spotlight uncovers something I might be interested in: Automaton.

• Flora has been pointing excitedly at this article at WoW.com since it popped up in her reader. Finally, a kindred soul that believes that achiements should be hard. Werd.

• Look, he’s crawling up my wall / Black and hairy, very small / Now he’s up above my head / Hanging by a little thread / Boris the spider – I’m perversely cheered that somebody else remembers that obscure little ditty.
• Amber strikes again with the most awesome Friday Flowchart evar! ³
• Hatch and Larisa⁴ make cromulent observations about the matter of a group photo, a forum post, and the doin’s thereof. See Also: Gabriel’s Greater  Internet Dickwad Theory.  But, truly? The most shocking aspect is that somebody expected better of forum posters. A hive of scum and villainy, mark my words.
• Ghostcrawler Promised me a Moose! – WoW.com spreads the word.
• WHU shows that the BM changes in 3.3.3 aren’t really all that. On the other hand, if I can get 8.7K dps, I won’t care.

• Apparently there was a Blizzard dev chat on Twitter, but I was feeling poorly and missed it.  Fortunately, it’s up on the forums. I may, at some point, go have a read, though the last time I did that sort of analysis, “I” was Flora.

1. Look at the header. [↩]
2. Well, not exactly. [↩]
3. Illume denies this is at all how it plays ou — FLOWER! [↩]
4. Sorry, Larisa, those special un-dots confuse me, so you get moar dots instead. I fail. [↩]

Picked up over at Warcraft Hunter’s Union, here’s an awesome video done as a response to the Discovery Channel’s “Boom de yada” video, starring Azeroth and a cast of dozens.  The production is topnotch, the acting clever, and the visuals are just stunning – would that the real WoW looked like that.

Keep your eyes peeled for some familiar faces, if you’re a fan of WoW Machinama.

Embedded here for your convenience, but please do click through for the high-res version, you’ll be glad you did.

Been very quiet around here, lately, and for that I apologize. It all started with that bad ToC10 and got worse with the semi-fail Ulduar that followed. There is a certain bit of healer burnout in the air, and until I face that down here, I don’t think I can write about anything else.

So, burnout.

Actually, it’s escalated from healer burnout to raiding burnout. I’m of a mind not to raid.

There. I said it.

I’m not talking about healing. I’m talking about raids, in general.

I’ve asked the GM to find a replacement. We have several DPS peeps dual specced to heal, and we can fill in DPS more easily than healz, any day. Do the math.

This is not an effort to get Grimm or Flora into raids. Quite the contrary. I desire to be done with the entire framework of raiding. More precisely, being an officer in the guild during raids … taxes me. It taxes the GM, too, but she made her own life choices. This is mine.

We might even PvP to prove the point.

Note: I will not abandon my friends. Until a recplacement is available, for now, I will fulfill my implicit obligations. For now.

OK, that’s it for that. As big an element it is, I still don’t want to dwell on it.

Moving on.

-=-=-=-=-

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what’s happening in-game. For, beyond my traitorous desires to just play the game and have fun, I do have loyalty to what we do as a guild.

1. Ulduar progression is coming along. We were dead-ended for a while because we couldn’t go more than a certain amount of time, and that got us as far as Auri. This week we got that far on the first night, and the second night we got a substitute tank to come in (our Warr tank had GF aggro) and she walked us not only through Hodir but Thorim as well. More on these in a moment.
2. The ICC five-mans have been thoroughly roflstomped by our core raiders in standard mode, and we got the first instance done in Heroic by accident with no sweat.
3. Ony can still stomp us hard if we don’t do it right. For whatever reason, the last attempt failed in Phase 2 every time. Part of it appears to be that some people were not following instructions and focus firing on the same target as everyone else. There were points where I just said “fine, you’re going down, I’ll heal the ones that are where they are supposed to be.” And naturally, I ran into deep breaths myself, too. Overall, bad deal.
4. ICC 10 was attempted on the 2nd night – with Marrowgar at 25-man strength. As you can guess, we wiped as many people did. If I must raid, I’m interested in seeing how we fare now that they’ve adjusted him.

-=-=-=-=-

Back to Hodir / Thorim. Both of these fights require a ferocious amount of group healing. The MT is hardly taking any damage, usually, so the hardest part is keeping everyone else up and alive, and our Shammi is hard pressed to do so. We actually had our boomkin druid swap to tree as well.

I finally found a good use for my talents though. I focused on two tanks and two healers as my priorities, and they focused on everyone else. Seemed to work. Maybe in the future I’ll just swap to shadow for those fights, and let the tree and shammi keep us alive.

-=-=-=-=-

Two new members of the clan on other servers.

First, Grimmtooth the Third – who was rolled on Kael’Thas for the Raid for the Cure charity drive – has renamed to Dvorkin¹. If you are on K’T and care for such things, there ya go. Also, LFG. My sweetie is there as well so I am looking for a very casual guild here.  In the time since RftC I have advanced to level 33 without trying too hard, and given sufficient impetus, could be 80 in a very short time. I’ve done it before.

Second, Yardiff Bey – or more properly, Yardifbey – on Bronzebeard is my Belf flower-picking Warlock toon, recently hitting level 11. I rolled him to hang with my sweetie who is in DotH on that server. Also LFG as my sweetie’s guild will not admit non-female members. So I’m on mah own.

-=-=-=-=-

Okie. For good or for ill, silence is broken. We all apologize for this, regardless of who “we” is at the time.

Ooooooh. And it’s published. I’m committed.

1. ”Dworkin” was taken, but if you follow my pet naming convention, this makes perfect sense. If not, I recommend to you the collected works of Roger Zelazny as an example of some of the finest fantasy and SF you are likely to encounter for quite some time. [↩]

Elune preserve us, sometimes I wonder how we survive as a guild.

Yesterday evening started innocently enough – our GM and 3 other guildies got invited by a larger guild to 25-man Naxx. Our main palli tank was invited as well. I was, but declined as I had food to attend to.

About an hour in, our Palli tank starts dropping alts out of the guild. It isn’t until the next day that we found out that the inviting guild membership was harrasing him in /tells about how he sucked as a tank.  By the way, he doesn’t. The fight that was the problem was Gothik, who is plainly speaking a DPS race. If DPS sucks – not the tanks – you fail.

To add to that stress, the people ramaining (who had no idea our MT was being  trash talked) started getting hell about rolling on loot with the rest of the host guild. Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but if I attend your raid and contribute to downing bosses, I expect to get paid, and that means I roll on loot, including Tier drops.

Coming off of that day, we were looking at our boss #5 – Gothik. Now, TankSpot’s tutorial has Gothik as the #10 in raid progression for Naxx/10. We got Pwned by this guy a couple of times this past week, so I was expecting a wipefest and more /gquits to ensue.

Imagine my surprise when we two-shot him.

Our GM calmly moved one DPs from live to dead side, moved me from dead to live, and all was well.

So now we’re working 4 Horsies, our MT hasn’t left us, is possibly feeling mollified and vindicated, and we made some new friends from another (not the same as above) guild. Whether 4 horsies go down or not, I call it a win for the week.

Back before I was taking my first tottering steps into BC instances, I cast about looking for useful information about how to play my class more effectively, and WoW Insider featured this guy who posted as “Big Red Kitty.”  It was his articles, more than anyone else’s there, that inspired me to learn more about how my class worked and make improvements along the way.  I quit being a tourist and started to be more of a player.  And then, alas, I began writing about it.

Today’s announcement is quite the bombshell. He leaves us¹ for the best of reasons, and I commend him for that.

He’s been a pillar of the WoW blogging community since, well, forever it seems. The void will be profound. He’s one in a million, he is.

So long, Daniel! The best to you and your family.  We will miss you!

1. In the signature melodramatic way, of course. [↩]

Various things, mostly housekeeping.

• Gun Loving Dwarf Chick is retiring her blog. Blogroll updated. She’s spending more time on her Priest these days. Odd, already comes up as a 404. OK, link removed completely.
• While updating the blogroll, I realized I didn’t have Leafshine: Lust for Flower in there. Oops. It’s a fun blog to read, highly recommended for social and casual players alike. Not knowing Druids that well, I don’t know if hardcore players would enjoy or not.
• And another oopsie – failed to realize that I didn’t have Chain Trap in there, now that she’s retiring.
• Yet another old timer leaving us: Resto 4 Life is shutting down. Don’t know why, but I never realized I didn’t have this one on my blogroll or in my reader¹.
• Why he slipups on my blogroll? I do it manually. I have yet to find a blogroll plugin that does the job I want for categories and ties in to my Google Reader subscription list and lets me selectively exclude those that are inappropriate or I’m just not interested in giving links to².
• Saiph, my Gorilladin, dinged 80 last night.  I’m not sure if I’ll keep him after 3.1 or not, for the simple reason that all Tenacity pets will have the Big Boom, and a Bear is somehow more appropriate for a Dwarf, I keep thinking.
• I am 0 for 24 on the undead charger. I am also not giving up. Rivendare will drop that bad boy some day! I will not permit myself to search for the Spirit Beast until I achieve this.
• I have no intention of changing out of BM spec at this time.

Um, OK, enough chatter. Gotta date with Rivendare.

1. There are those that are excluded from both for actual reasons but this is not one of those cases. [↩]
2. Yes, rather petty of me, but if someone fails to meet my poorly-defined standards, that’s my business. [↩]

I committed to getting to 80 as fast as possible so that our guild would be able to field a viable force for 10-man raids.

For several weeks, the team has all pitched in. Grimm hunted down items to DE. Amus organized and sorted various elemental bits. Illume actually retrained to learn how to inscribe. Flora contributed all her tailoring and enchanting items. And they all gave up cycles so that I could have as much time per day as possible, to achieve that level 80 achievement and be ready to heal the guild.

I consider my commitment fulfilled. Now it is the guild’s turn. It is the guild’s turn to produce a group to be healed. To produce leadership that is ready to go in and start a months-long slog like we’ve seen in Kara. To be there.

I – and the rest of Team Grimmtooth – did what was necessary to bring a healer to the playing field.Now, the team takes its rightful place until the rest of the contract is fulfilled. From now on, we return to our normal rotation. Everybody now gets a chance to be more than a support system for a priest. Everybody gets a chance to live instead of serve some obscure goal.

Now, it’s not so much about getting there, but about how to best tweak my spec to meet further requirements down the road.

But for now … I consider my commitment fulfilled. The next step is up to our guild. I’ll be there for them. If we never raid again, so be it. If we do, I have teh healz. We’re ready.

On a hunch last night, I went through all the arms and armor I had stocked up for the future (gifts Grimm, etc.). As I feared, what I found was that at least half my gear had lost its value due to stat creep.

Here’s what happened: at the 3.0 patch, a new stats system kicked in. +Heal became +Spell Power, +Spell Hit became +Hit, and so on. In the process, the equations all drifted a bit, and some gear that I had no longer had the stats I needed.

For example, a chest piece that was a complete upgrade for me turned into one that had no health boost, and was in fact a downgrade for me in that regard.

Yarley checked hers out too and found a few (but fortunately, not as many) items  as well.

So … check your bags and make sure all the stuff you were hanging on to is still worth hanging on to.

As much as I hate making obligatory “still alive” posts, I probably should since I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been jotting down random stuff but not posting it.

My main job has been to stock Jasra with enchantment materials. As of yesterday, she officially broke 350, so my services in this capacity are no longer required. I managed to even solo a few Outland instances with my trusty Gorilladin. Ramps and BF both fell before me. Underbog fell other than the final boss, and I probably just need to tweak my strategy for him. Slave Pens, no problem. Steam Vaults … maybe later.

Of all the Classic instances, Strat and Scholo seem to be the best sources of items that DE to Eternal Essences. I decided to camp out at Light’s Hope Chapel and do the Dead side of strat over and over again in the hopes of also getting Rivendare’s mount. Alas, it was not to be. After ten tries, it didn’t drop. I did get the Dwarven Hand Cannon, and passed it on to my sweetie.

One thing that is important to remember on Baroness Anastari is that she will Mind Control you and heal back up if you are in a group, but will not if you are solo. What this means to Huntards, Dork Kinnigets, and Locks is: put yer pet away and pew pew.

I also managed to pop Exalted with the Argent Dawn. Yay.

I would be more effective on these solo expeditions if Saiph, my Gorilladin, was higher level (currently 76, but was 75 for the bulk of this adventure).  At the same time, I need to gather Northsea Pearls for Jasra’s tailoring. Unfortunately, I only have two choices: go after the murlocs and gorlocs in The starter areas, which give Saiph no XP, or go after the gorlocs in Sholazar, which are, you know, Oracles. Unfortunately, since I am of Oracle faction, option #2 is out of the question. So I’ve been also going after Jormungar Tunnelers in Dragonblight, which is good for my leather skilling too.

In the process of getting Jas some more Arcane Dust, I managed to ding Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, and am now the proud owner of a Cenarion War Hippogryph. Jas is not amused since the 1600 gp required came out of her Epic Mount fund. Sorry, Jas. I’m pulling rank.

Aside from that, it’s been quiet. Jas has been hogging the limelight and may have big news soon. I’ll give you a hint: she’s 79 now.

Our guild has pretty much fallen apart. We had a couple of high-end defections, including one officer’s alt, to the usual suspect’s guild, and I think that broke the GM, or initiated events behind the scenes that accomplished that – though the ennui itself is cleverly disguised as “burnout”.  But one can draw lines between cause and effect pretty easily if one keeps one’s eyes open.

So – we are back to pure casual, not “casual raiding” as we were before. Things have panned out pretty much in a predictable fashion. We’re right back where we were when Grimmtooth Mk I quit the game in disgust. I think I might “heal through” the drama right now to see what is on the other side. I suspect, however, that there are at least five other people that will leave before it is all over.

Hat tip to Hydra, the cutest little lil nugget of slow death this side of whatever Stephen King is working on next.

Somewhere out there someone just asked the question “what toon should I play today?” and got the response “your priest.” Hope that person has one.

So, yes, the actual answer to the question of “what toons hould we raise next” is actually “your priest”, rather than “what you enjoy playing the most”, as it turns out, as our guild is short on healz above 70.  Grimm is still hogging time, but I’m in for follow-ups when he gets tired, or level 80¹, whichever comes first, rather than Flora.

But we’re not negotiating Grimm. It’s not that he’s favored over any others, but he’s our mascot, our avatar, our brand, and honor dictates that he be there first. Just the way it is, especially in light of no pressure to do otherwise.

In all honesty, this would not be happening if Meta didn’t enjoy the heck out of playing all the different toonsies. “Go with what you love” is a nice platitude that resonates with some, but Meta loves understanding things, and that often means getting hands dirty with all the different classes. A this point we collectively have endgame experience with 3 DPS and one healing class, and all are fun to play in different ways. And we have at least rudimentary understanding of all the different classes except DK, and we believe that this makes us all better players.

Blizz has designed every class to be fun.The game is full of things to do and enjoy. Limiting to one character is not the definition of “do what you love.” Sometimes, seeing all the angles is as much fun as anything else, because it helps us all be better at what we do, and we prefer to be on top of our games, yes, we do. Being on top of your game is not a matter of gear, sometimes. Sometimes, it is situational, and how you react to the circumstances.

Understanding that rogues can spike DPS unexpectedly, for example, prompts one to keep a HoT on him whe he starts edging to the top of the aggro meter. Understanding a mage’s or hunter’s coping mechanism for high aggro helps you focus on healing what you need to. Knowing the mechanics of Palli AoE aggro means you know when to start and stop DPS, and so on. You don’t just know these things, you understand them inherently.

And who doesn’t like looking thier best?

1. Incidentally, our guild’s first Level 80 happened two nights ago. [↩]

I’m sure I could come up with any number of excuses, but the fact is that I’ve been loathe to blog about what is going on in Azeroth with regards to myself and the troops. The upshot is that it has largely ceased to be fun. I log in to carry out maintenance, keep everyone fresh, but that’s all. There is no sense of anticipation of enjoyment associated with the game at this point in time.

I’ve basically given up on raiding at this point. For some people it’s all about the lewt, whether its theirs or somebody else’s, and if they don’t see things go thier way in that regard, everybody hears about it in tedious, neverending, whining, pedantic detail. They suck all the fun out of raiding, or instances in general. I can’t even enjoy the world events because of the very same people.

We’re also tending to log in and play less because of another faction of people that seem to enjoy whining and griping in obscenity-laced detail about every single terrible injustice that Blizz has done to their class(es). OK, guys, Blizz nerfed half the classes in the game¹ . You are not a special and unique snowflake. Get over yourselves and please allow the rest of us to have a little fun, OK?²

It’s so bad right now that I haven’t even gone out and ordered the expansion. Whether it would be used is seriously in question. I’ve got the Morrowind CD sitting on my desk right now, along with RRT3 and Civ4, and ever day I get closer to installing them. If that happens, this blog will go on hiatus.

So that’s what’s on my mind. Sorry for the lack of posting, but really – do you need an emo dwarf?

No. No, you don’t.

1. I do not lie. Palli, Frost Mage, Warlock, Druid. [↩]
2. Side note: why is it that people that know how to adapt and overcome obstacles aren’t crying? Maybe it’s becasuse they don’t follow cookie-cutter character templates and learn why things work instead of how to blindly follow instructions on the back of a cereal box. Food for thought. [↩]

Today was quite the day for me. Besides getting Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, I also got Exalted with the Scryers. I spent a good part of the day repairing my damaged bank account after Jas raided it for her mount, and then I gathered the last three Primal Waters I needed to create my Frozen Shadoweave Robe. After making my final bit of shadow cloth, I was ready to complete the task, at last.

The above picture commemorates this day.

I am a little disappointed that the embroidery is the same as my old robe.

While beating up Kael’s troops for secret plans, I came across this conversation between two NPCs. I have to give mad props to Blizz for this one.

There are times when I just want to climb up to the top of the tallest tree around and howl at the moon. Contemplating all the different things I need to master Engineering brings that feeling about. Several kinds of cloth, leather, and metal, with usually some sort of gem thrown in. My inventory is packed, and it’s not getting better.

Grimm’s got a new policy in place while Jas is on the fast track; we’re each getting a day in the rotation, after Jas finishes up her work for the day. It’s a pretty sweet deal, and I made as much of it as I could. I didn’t reach level 42, but I got in a good day’s work.

During my travels I happened upon a certain Marshal Windsor that was making his way to the Keep. I knew he was up to something when I heard Lady Katrana Prestor call out for his head. But the soldiers of Stormwind are not so easily swayed – they know Windsor, and no mere regent could change their feelings of loyalty towards this man.

When he arrived in the keep itself, he accused Prestor of being a dragon – Onyxia! – and he had proof! She shapeshifted right there and called for a diversion, then teleported out of the keep, leaving us to deal with her troops.

Well, “us” as in “Fordragon” Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, to be precise. If anyone tells you he doesn’t have it in him, explain to them that they can go out and kill 12 of Onyxia’s Black Dragonkin elite guardsmen at once themselves, if they think it’s so easy. For myself…

… I got his autograph.

What a guy.

Ahem.

Anyway, I have thoughts on what is going on here when I consider a mission I recently ran for lady Jaina. An island off of Theramore, with Defias, Naga, and black dragons? I can’t explain the Naga, but the other two make me think we might have a connection between the Defias and whatever it was that Lady Prestor – Onyxia – was trying to pull off. Perhaps King Wrynn is still alive. Maybe I’ve found a clue.

OoC¹ – we know that Wrynn returns in WotLK. We know that Prestor is gone and that Fordragon has moved on. So does this mean that the Onyxia quest line is coming to an end?

1. Out of Character [↩]

As you may have heard, the official release date for WotLK¹ has been announced, and it is November 13, 2008, just under 2 months from now. All the kewl kids will be crowing if they guessed even within the same millennium², or feigning indifference if they didn’t³ .

Unfortunately I was in my “can’t be bothered to care about WoW” stage at the time and can’t recall how the delay for BC went down, whether they announced a release date and then changed it up, but I’m guessing that they’re pretty committed at this point for LK⁴ .

One camp I will not be part of this time around is the “who cares it all changes in Wrath⁵ ” crowd. Tonight, Jasra logs in and maybe gets her BF run⁶ as planned, and so on.  We play because we enjoy it. The coming release of LK cannot deter me from getting my regular fix.

Some things are frightening, though.

First of all, I’ve been reading the open beta bloggers same as you probably have been, so I know what a frightening mess the game is. Some of the stuff we’re expecting hasn’t even been seen yet, much less declared stable⁷ . Some things are downright un stable⁸. And so much content yet to get up!⁹

Add to that stack of concerns the following: this thing’s going down in two stages.

Again, if you’ve been tracking this, you know that the Public Test Realm¹⁰  is going live with a version 3.0.2 test bed, that has a lot of the new stuff but none of the new content, and that the intent is for that to be rolled out prior to LK’s release.

Which means, simply put, that they have to have a huge chunk of work done before the release of LK, and it has to be stable. There has to be time to get settled, roll out an emergency patch if necessary, and so forth.

What this means to me: new stuff could be as close as 30 days from how.

Exciting!

1. Wrath of the Lich King [↩]
2. Jeanne Dixon is alive and well in the WoW Blogosphere [↩]
3. As is Mike Meyers’ faux emo artist impression. [↩]
4. Lich King, an even shorter acronym for those of us that can’t be arsed to type out five sequential letters [↩]
5. A non-acronym for those that can’t stand acronyms but can’t be arsed to type out Wrath of the Lich King over and over [↩]
6. More on that later [↩]
7. Hello, new dances? Where are you? [↩]
8. On which BRK has a hilarious take [↩]
9. Am I right in that Naxx is just now going live? [↩]
10. PTR, in a curious game of acronym reversal [↩]