quick thought #2

glyph of light of dawn

i don't generally like trade-off glyphs. at first i was not impressed, but it's situationally useful. as in, when the boss as a raid-wide damage ability on a 20 second cooldown, it's pretty freakin' useful. Like, Infest on this LK kill. I have to say, I'll celebrate this victory: Protector of the Innocent is less than 10% of my healing!

brez is back!

MMO-Champion has the 4.0.1 beta

Ok. So... druids got the battle rez back down to 10 minutes, give me divine intervention back!!

Also, shamans didn't get any love.

Buffs for paladins. Still doesn't change the fact that I'm a Holy Shock slave. Also, with the change to LoH and Beacon we're left with no choices for major glyphs. Hopefully something good will happen with Glyph of Divinity.

one of the games i play

Muradin's Musings has a great post today about being an adult trying to survive the real world with the WoW gaming stigma. I got several paragraphs into my response before I realized it was probably a bit much enthusiasm for a comment. So how do you deal with nerd stigma?

If I am going to talk about my hobbies or how I spend my free time, I make sure the less-nerdy ones get first treatment. I read. I bake. I write. I love fantasy. (Oh, and I play some video games.)

I hide my shame by lumping WoW in as "one of the games I play." People make assumptions, thinking I'm talking about the Wii or the Playstation, and I let them. And if they press me to talk about games, I talk about doing Yoga on the Wii Fit, or playing Mario Kart, or... you know. Anything but World of Warcraft.

And why should I be so ashamed? The average American household has a television on for 6 hours and 47 minutes every day. HowstuffWorks suggests that MMORPG players spend a lot less time watching television and about 20 hours a week logged in. Why is vegging out on the couch for hours on end better than raiding?

I have a coworker who spends about as much time playing facebook games as I do playing WoW. For some bizarre reason, it's acceptable for her to talk about needing to check to see how her pumpkins in Farmville are doing, but I can't wonder aloud if my gems sold yet. (Don't get me started on how much time people spend on facebook and twitter!)

Janyaa questions if hiding our passion for MMORPGs is reinforcing the negative stigma. I personally don't see any good coming from telling my boss or my dad I play WoW. Blizzard tried to get me to connect Enlynn to facebook, but I still think it's way too soon.

Check out this post by MMO Fallout on game stigma.

There is hope, though. A writer I follow, Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story, did a guest post for Grinding to Valhalla where she talks (with no shame!) about being a gamer and relating it to her career. I was delighted to read her article and find out that a successful professional I respect plays the same games I do! I think the gamers in creative industries will, slowly, open the doors for the rest of the world. Yes, writers are expected to be quirky, but I'll take all the positive MMO press I can get!

I think there will be a day, someday, where MMORPGs get the same treatment as television, Mafia Wars, and even the time-sink we call social media. I would love to come out of the (gaming) closet, but I'm not ready to yet, nor do I think the world is ready to embrace us.

Oh yeah, and cheers to women gamers over 30! I never want to lose my sense of play!

So, how do you handle you handle the nerd stigma?

in before its too late

So I totally should have mentioned WEEKS AGO that I got my rusted protodrake! My new guild had a group going every week to Ulduar 10 that actually had room for us so we helped them get a few of the bosses that Mayhem and I already had (considering it was our first week in the guild, I was SOOO glad we already knew firefighter), and then spent a few weeks on Yogg.

I'm not usually the super-lucky type, but we got our 310 mounts three hours before the server went down for patch 4.0.1.

We of course, went on to do Algalon. Screens below. I was blown away by how pretty that fight was, since I'd never seen it. I'm enjoying the Starcaller title, it's still (kinda) rare on our server.

I am so frickin' fast now!

how to make friends on the internet

1. create blog account. copy paste EVERYTHING from real tree druids like Keeva and just about every other resto blogger you've ever read. Including their guides, their diagrams, their art, and their BIOS. That's right, their bios.

2. when you're asked to take it down (a hint, in the real world the cease-and-desist e-mails will not be near as nice because, get this, what you just did in #1 is illegal, and they will be from lawyers), post snippets of private e-mails and bash the writer for (gasp!) wanting their stuff to be credited to them.

3. claim it doesn't matter because it's all just words that have been said already. funny, because that goes 'round in the publishing industry, too, but that wouldn't stop them from suing you if you took credit for Stephanie Meyer's or J.K.Rowling's work. Wait, you mean young boy must be a hero and vampire falls in love have been done before but they get copyright of their work? Holy crap, this must be new.

4. be obnoxiously snide in your own blog about how big bad Keeva is trying to ruin your blog. be even more obnoxiously snide to your posters and argue with them. yes, here's what i've been missing, folks! the key to an AWESOME POPULAR blog is to BE CONDESCENDING AND RUDE TO MY READERS!

I'm creating a new category for this bitch, called ARE YOU SO BAD YOU HAVE TO CHEAT AT WORLD OF WARCRAFT?. Yes. I love this idea already.

TreebarkJacket - the story

I am not linking the bitch because it doesn't need any more publicity. If you're google-savvy, I'm sure you can find it, but I encourage you instead to ignore the new internet troll and visit the links that Keeva posts to the original content that was stolen. I have a feeling the new blogger is going to disappear into obscurity soon enough. Our little internet blogosphere is small. I might be a little fish, but you don't mess with one of the big players without backlash. What a horrid, pathetic way to introduce yourself to our world, by making enemies with one of the sweetest trees you'd ever meet.

quick thoughts on holy pallies

just a couple of observations i made in raid tonight...

1. they are changing Speed of Light, but until they do, if you proc Infusion of Light:
cast Divine Light and use the Speed of Light proc
THEN cast Holy Light and use the Infusion of Light proc

2. don't heal your holy paladin friends.
seriously. we don't need it. we're our own frickin' lightwell.

3. Eternal Glory is ridiculous.
three times on heroic princes tonight, i got 3 Word of Glory's from the same holy power.
ridiculous!

4. Holy Shock must absitively, posolutely be used on cooldown.
i made a training wheel icon - gigantic so i can't miss it.
moar holy power. /yes

(we're still not rockin' those meters, but i feel like i actually sorta earned my spot tonight.)

week 2 of 4.0

Well, we survived the first week of patch 4.0.1, congratulations!

Last week I didn't get much raiding done because Tuesday was canceled, Wednesday we called early (too many people DCing every time they zoned), so we maybe got 3 good hours of raiding. Holy Paladin is... interesting. I jumped into it knowing I had a lot to learn, trying my darnedest to ramp up holy power and get as many Word of Glorys as humanly (spacegoatly?) possible.

It's hard, though, because even busting my ass I feel like I'm just not as useful as those priests and druids. Granted, druids didn't get drastic changes, but I giggle every time I proc replenishment. Hots are neat! Yesterday, I went into a 25 man run with my priest and I HAD SUCH A BLAST WITH CHAKRA. You mean they have a spell that changes depending on what chakra state you go into?! HOLY WORD CHASTISE IS AMAZING OMFG.

Muradin muses about holy paladins in 4.0 in her post "4.0 Healing is a Joke and Paladins are the Punchline." She pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about paladins right now.

Ghostcrawler talks about the present and future of holy paladins here. The long and short of it is, paladins are balanced at 85, not 80, and the spell we get in a couple of levels will make it all better (oh and the MS on Divine Plea is staying. Dfrnt classes r dfrnt!). I don't agree. I have a hard time swallowing that one spell will make the difference. Not when priests and druids have an entire arsenal of cool things. I'm not wishing for nerfs on either of them (I still play them after all), but you could take away one single spell from either of them and it wouldn't change the playstyle too much. Sure, it would suck to not have Prayer of Mending, but I don't think it would "break" priests. Right now, I feel like pallies are broken. The addition of one spell can not--and should not--fix that.

I don't mean for this to be QQ. I can envision the future, where mana is constrained. My paladin does have a lot more mana efficiency than my priest- I ran dangerously close to OOM yesterday on my priest several times, but on my pally I was able to heal heroic Saurfang using all Flash of Light and still couldn't put a dent on my mana pool. I'm not saying mana won't be a consideration for holy paladins, but having two cheap heals and a second resource could end up being more powerful than it is now. Currently, WoG is nice but not necessary. If it becomes necessary (and I think it will), that does change things.

But I just can't compare the fun I had playing my priest to the awkwardness I felt on my paladin. AND SERIOUSLY WHY IN THE HELL DOES DIVINE PLEA STILL HALVE MY HEALING?!?!?!?!

Sorry, I'm done now.

In the next few weeks, I may not be posting very often. Every year I do an excessive amount of cookie baking, and there's about 8 weeks left until Christmas, which means I'm already behind compared to last year. Yeeps. With Cata coming out in about 6 weeks, I'll need to have most of my baking done to start leveling. So, I'll be playing less, and at this point in the expansion I can't think of too many (pressing) blog topics anyways. Things may be quiet around here, but I'll be back to talk about my experiences in Cataclysm. And of course, I'll be passing along links from my favorite paladin bloggers!

ratshag's got it right

Needs More Rage: 'Scuse Me While I Heal This Guy

patch day thought

First it was twelve, which I thought was a lofty goal. Now we're at 18...

Why didn't Blizzard just call it a 24 hour maintenance?

four point oh healer linkfest

Ready or not, we're getting an extended maintenance tomorrow, Tarinae has the links and some information about the background downloader.

Priest - Discipline
I just discovered Type H for Heals and oh it is amazing! Check out Malevica's Discipline 4.0.1 Guide here.
Bob Turkey discusses talents here.
Avalonna has a guide for 4.0 here, and today Derevka from Tales of a Priest posted a Survival Guide for both Specs here.

Priest - Holy
Jinxed Thoughts on the Holy tree
Derevka from Tales of a Priest

Druid
Restokin's Guide
Keeva's Quick and Dirty Guide to living in 4.0
Rank 4 Healing Touch - ICC25 HMs in 4.0.1


Shaman
Vixsin just posted her Resto Shaman Guide here!
Resto Shaman Flow speculates on 4.0

Paladin
Blessing of Kings - Holy Paladin Spec
Best In Slot's consideration of holy stats in 4.0
Kurn's What You Need to Know in 4.0.1
The Light and How to Swing it - Cataclysm Heroics in 4.0

Other Stuff (the sky is falling!)
New Blizzard Party Frames - Type H For Heals
Healing in Cataclysm Part 1 - Bandage Spec
Healing in Cataclysm Part 2 - Bandage Spec
Gem Conversion - Revive and Rejuvenate
Currency in 4.0 - WoW Blue Post
Clique for 4.0.1
Healbot for 4.0.1
'Twas the Night Before Glyph-Mas

It's possible that most of our addons will be broken, but it looks like most of our popular addons have beta versions in the works to be ready for 4.0.1. Those project authors have been hard at work before it goes live. Also, if there are great links I've missed, please let me know so I can add them.

I wasn't an avid blog reader when Wrath came out. I was still new, and my biggest source of information online was the official WoW forums (I know...). Anyways, it's been amazing to me that each PTR build has been dissected and posted. We've seen videos, guides, speculations, anything you can dream of for a game that isn't even released for another two months!

random mistakes and patchiness

Last week was a pretty bad week for raiding. Anything that could have gone wrong, did. DC's? Check. Computer problems? Awesome! Silly mistakes made by players who otherwise know whats up? Please, sir, can I have some more?

Yeah. We were struggling on Halion from silly things, we finally got him down to like 2% this was going to be it, we had this, and...

Divine Intervention.

On. The. Tank.

There are a ton of things I have done to wipe the raid in the past, and until last week, I could proudly say that DI was not one of them. Sure, I've had Beacon drop. I've cast FoL when I totally had the mana to HL. I've hit DP right at tank-takes-a-beating-phase. I've eaten goos, and I've even killed myself falling from the dream (or was it a nightmare?). But last week I DI'd the tank and wiped the raid. I guess there's a first time for everything.

(Ironic, too, that soon™ enough this won't even be a spell in my book. I almost made it!)

On a more positive note, we got Lady D on Heroic down yesterday, and I was able to complete Saurfang H too (the guild had it, I just hadn't gotten it with them). So we have three left! Although if 4.0 drops as soon as next week, that does throw a wrench into our progression plans. I'm trying not to be scared about the new paladin healing. I replaced my cloth chest with a plate one (my first piece of heroic gear on my main!), so I have two more pieces of mail then I'm wearing all plate.

Speaking of preparing for 4.0, Tarinae has some recommendations for in game currency if there's any BOA gear you've been thinking about picking up (do it soon!). Anything else you've been doing to prepare for the patch?

do your orcs fit in a rage?

Supernatural Collective Nouns

A caucas of shamans
A coventry of warlocks
A lawn of gnomes! Tee-hee!