All Under One Roof

I finally pulled Yokanolu from Dalvengyr to Alterac Mountains.  I've been debating it for a month now.   Nobody I really wanted to talk to was online the few times I logged in to Dalv, and by the time I prepped my final transfer I had been demoted.  I don't blame them, having inactive characters is a real bank risk.  I'm curious who actually pushed the button, but it doesn't really matter now does it?   I went in and sold off the junk in my bank for around 800g and  remembered to grab my heirloom stuff this time.  I really didn't have much stuff left, most of it went over with Zully.  When I was in the character transfer area the history reminded me that Yoka, then Morningrain, moved from Bloodscalp to Dalvengyr in 2006.  She was only level 46 at the time, and my highest level character.  Boy, things were really different back then.

Things have been rolling along in ICC, though we've been stuck on Putricide / Princes for about three weeks now.  I'm at the "good enough" gearing phase right now.  There aren't any drops left from the farm bosses, so I've been saving my badges for a new robe.  I can't decide whether to get the tier piece or not.  Either way I'll be breaking my second set bonus, but it's going to be about three weeks before I can get the four set after I buy the robe.  Really, the issue in ICC is the dance, not the gear.

The Eye Facebook group has been pretty active.  It's fun to see other people's screen shots and chat back and forth when I'm not in game.  Especially since I'm really not in-game all that much anymore.  I'm down to one raid a week and my early morning frost heroic.  Ten hours a week really isn't much.  I may even have to take a raid break for a few weeks.  I don't really want to, but it's just temporary.  RL > WoW as it were.

Anyway, that's that.  I'll try to post more, but there really hasn't been much to say.  Have fun out there!

The Only Thing Constant is Change

So I went and got myself promoted to officer.  It's been 6 months plus since I was an active officer.  Apparently I didn't learn my lesson the first time.

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Keeping Up to Snuff

I was talking to the Twins yesterday and they were asking me why I like my priest so much.  Holy has always offered variety and challenge as a class.  There's so many different ways to approach it.  healing in general is more about planning and prediction, as opposed to twitch reflexes.  You kids and your FPS make me look like a slug when I'm trying to DPS.  When I told them I was a healer at heart and had been playing holy since level 1 pre-BC they were surprised at how long I've been playing, especially the leveling as a healer part.  Mechanics wise, holy is a lot more difficult and annoying single player, but back then you could do at-level dungeons all the way up.  Not having to depend solely on solo questing made it a lot easier.  And L2Heal in the process.

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The Time Has Come... For Awesome

This was a bit of a down weekend for me, but I did get to raid (sorta) and I'm optimistic about getting my tier pieces a LOT faster than last time.

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One shot, one kill

Things have been stirring in the guild the last week or so.  I can't really talk about it because it hasn't come completely out in the open but as they say, the winds of change are blowing.  Personally, I think in a good way.

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REPOST plusheal.com: Raid PUGs

I was out in the Badlands working on Loremaster, and I got a whisper out of the blue asking if I wanted to heal Ulduar. I figured what the heck, might as well. I haven't really done much in Ulduar anyway, and it's Sunday so I doubt the guild is going to do it.

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Bug Juice

Yep, that's Anub'Arak there, along with my achievement (thanks to AchievementScreenshotter) I was able to get home early on Tue and Wed so I could do a little raiding. And what do you know, we were able to do all of 10 man ToC in two days!

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Twins, Dragons, and Elementals

I did a bunch of raiding this weekend. I didn't really log in till Saturday evening. Did my daily Triumph dungeons, then Eye wanted to continue their ToC from earlier in the week. It seems some of the people who are there during the week are not there on the weekend, because I got an invite despite not being saved to it. They were on encounter #4, the twin Valkyries.

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Lazycrafting

I got to do ToC with Eye last week. It was fun, but incredibly chaotic and demanding. Chaotic takes practice, demanding takes gear. I do the best I can without raiding, but I get lazy when I'm not challenged. I'm close to finishing up my Conquest badge gear, and I'm on my way to a nice Triumph piece. If I don't raid, I don't really need the Triumph gear, and if I do raid, I'll get it. Thus, I'm not worried.

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Call me the Zullypedia

I was mostly AFK this weekend, but I have quite a bit of WoW to talk about as well.

I've polished off all of my "easy achievements" list, you know annoying ones like explorer, squirrels, and northrend gourmet. I dropped some gold on the Gigantique Sack to get that out of the way too. Now it's back to grinding rep. I don't have Krom to back me up on the heroic Outland instances anymore :-( so I think I'll work on the old world ones. Zully is currently parked in winterspring with no staff equipped. Yes, I've been punching teddy bears in the face. It's quite theraputic actually. Got that unarmed skill up to 391 :-) I need to buy/find a grey dagger and grey mace to get those skills maxed out too. I'm pretty close to having all weapons usable by priests at max. I broke down and started making frostweave bandaids as well.

On Saturday I went and visited a friend. She and her other half had to go fairly early but let me stay the night since I was headed off to the mountains. I set myself up at the dining room table w/ my laptop. I was intending to just level my drood but I decided to poke my nose in on SDS first and they invited me to bring Yoka to Naxx. My dps went up from around 1k to about 1.3k with the spec change. I scored a new ring. I felt a little bad rolling on loot seeing as I'm not exactly a regular raider, but the other dps warrior that rolled wasn't exactly a regular either.

I ended up hanging with the Goblin clan on their boat Sunday. His kids are super cute and well behaved, which is very unusual for me to say. I'm generally not into kids. It was really funny when Goblin introduced me by my drood's name. LOL. I'm thinking I need to go visit them down at their house some weekend and have a little dungeon LAN party. If they could just get themselves a tank it would be great. Fortunately for the one non-WoW player on the boat the "Zullypedia" talk was only intermittent. I was having a blast getting to swim in the lake and hang out with some real people for the day.

Future... Future.... Future....

I have a vision. A vision of the future.

I see EnM starting 10 man raids in a few weeks, maybe a month. I'm really excited about being able to raid again. Anyone who knows me knows I'm about the content, not the gear. We'll probably have to PuG a few, but at this point that may be a good thing. The five of us rip through instances like nothing, so I think anyone who PuGs with us will consider joining us. The loot rules might be a little tricky for a while though. I don't know if PuGs will be willing to go for a "guild first" raiding policy. Maybe if we specify certain items as straight up rolls, like weapons and tier gear, like the Steaks used to do. I'll have to think about that.

As for our current roster, I'm really hoping Dep will quit his whining and maybe feral tank for us. I'm pretty sure at least one of our DKs is a tank as well, so we should be set with that. I'm not sure if there are any other healers besides me. That could be a challenge. That may need to work itself out through recruiting. PuGging healers is always scary. We've got lots of melee DPS, but not a lot of ranged. I guess it depends on who wants to bring what character. Generally, it looks like we have as regulars 2 tanks, 1 healer, and 3 dps. There's 2 or 3 more DPS out there as well, they're just not 80 yet. I could probably bring at least one of the Wolves, maybe two if I can coach them a little. That's a pretty good start for a raid. If Coffee and Dkow come back we'll be in much better shape (though they're not approaching 80 yet). I'm hoping they're just on vacation. I miss Krom. I wonder if he'd switch servers if my guild starts raiding.

Goblin set up a Vent server for us (though it looks like we'll still need to pay for the server license. 8 slots isn't going to be enough once we start raiding). That should help even in heroics. We're going to be running a lot of heroics over the next few weeks. Then again, I like to talk. Other people, not so much.

We need a raid leader. Someone less anal than me. I don't want to end up like Px giving everyone orders all the time, it makes me feel like the succubus looks. Which I suppose isn't all bad, depending on who you ask. I'll probably end up doing it for the earlier instances (Naxx/OS/Maly), but whoever wants it is starting with just as much knowledge as me once we get to the "new" ones (Ulduar/ToC). Mainly though I am good at administrative BS and event planning, but I'm not very comfortable leading a group. That's been covered before, of course.

Overall, I'm feeling optimistic. Once I'm back into an early evening schedule it should make raiding easier. I think the 6p-10p Fri-Sun schedule works pretty well. We'll see which of those days I end up cutting short.

Total Embarrassment

I logged on to my shammy to do my minor glyph for the day and I got a whisper from Aeth asking if I wanted to do an 8 man Naxx with him. It sounded like fun, since I haven't raided in FOREVER, so I went with it. They needed DPS so I grabbed Trig. Psycho, one of the guys I used to group with occasionally was raid leading.

Everything was rolling along great, I was having some "raid juice" and having a blast. I got the giggles as I usually do. I had a little fit of laughing and Psych goes "whoa zully, breathe"... Uh what? He can hear me?

Crap.

When I switched computers and set up my Vent, apparently it is set to voice activate by default. They could hear me the WHOLE TIME. I'm pretty vocal when I heal too. Nobody said anything! Assholes!

Trig must think I'm insane.

U L O S E

I popped in on Zully last night just to see what was going on. The second I logged in I got a whisper from Px asking if I wanted to come to H Naxx. They were on Saph, so I figured I would join them. I got beamed in, everyone was ready to go, and off we went. There was just one small problem:

I was still in Disc/Shadow PvP spec when the fight started. Oops.

Fortunately, I was "sixth healer" because they had a spare empty spot, so I wasn't exactly necessary. It was really interesting being on raid heals and not being able to cast circle of healing. Once I realized what had happened I just dug in my little troll toes and started shielding like crazy. I really wish I had a wws of that fight, heh. I'm sure I was doin it rong, but we only had one casualty so it was all good. I was shocked at how few mana issues I had.

I got myself into the correct spec for Kel and was put on 6'oclock raid heals. Everything was sailing along just peachy until after the adds had been out for a while. I'm not super familiar with the fight, and I wasn't even entirely clear on who was doing what since I had just joined the raid 10 minutes prior, so I can't tell you what happened, but a few of our dps died. Then another one. Then a DK and two warriors went critical. Next thing I know it's chaos. People are dying, adds are running everywhere, I'm an angel, and Kel is evilly chasing down our ranged dps. Everyone's yelling because Kel has 35k health and dropping. He finishes off all but one Shaman. He's at 10k and dropping fast. For two eternal seconds it's just him and the Shaman. The Shaman wins.

Epic.

Spring Fever I Guess...

Wow, has it really been almost a month since I posted? I was on vacation and didn't really have anything profound happen WoW-wise so I didn't bother posting. I did reach lvl 76 on Yoka. I did another Ulduar raid with Meat, finally picked up a purple helm to replace the blue one I've been wearing FOREVER. Flame leviathon is confusing. I hope I never have to drive, I make a much better gunner.

I've been hitting the BGs pretty hard now that there's some new gear to get with honor points. I've found a couple rogues willing to do Arenas with me, but we need to get them geared up first. I guess I just have an advantage because I went from Brutal to a full crafted set of Frostsavage to Hateful. I'm in full purple Glad gear now. Discipline is so OP in battlegrounds it's laughable. Krom, Crav and I are just tearing it up.

The Evil is in the Goatee

I had another old world weekend. There wasn't a whole lot going being a holiday weekend. Krom and I ran five BC dungeons over the two days. The only one that gave us some trouble was the mind control boss in Shadow Lab. Essentially, having a green plate wearing ball of fury coming after me does not end well. I also knocked out 50 or so quests in Netherstorm, giving me yet another batch of dungeons to do.

Yesterday, just as we were starting the Botanica I got a tell from the Meat asking if I wanted to heal Malygos. I'm pretty sure Krom only saw a cloud of mana dust as I took off. He's pretty high on my list, but just below new raid content. To be fair he declined coming along. His loss.

We took Maly down in five attempts. I was really proud of myself. I basically went in cold only having watched the Tankspot video. Holy crap the tank takes a lot of damage. I was caught off guard the first time. The next time I was a little slow on the bubble. Well, actially the problem was I was waiting to hear the move command. I gotta be confident of my troll toes, they work real good. I made it through phase 3 twice, one of which was the kill. I'm glad I did Aces High enough to know the buttons. No loot for me, but I don't care.

I'm only short by H Oculus to get the Frozen Wastes title. Unfortunately they're taking the title out in the patch, and I'm not going to be on tonight. I was a little mad about it, but I'll deal. I should have done the Oculus a long time ago. A few months back when I was all QQ about not raiding I never dreamed I would actually finish the 10 man content. As much as I like doing 25s, I'm actually perfectly happy. As long as I get to see it. It's that moment of watching the floor shatter and fall out from under the raid that makes it worth it for me.

Shiny titles are nice though. Sigh.

No Skool like the Old Skool

We finished up the 10 man Naxx by 8p on Saturday, so I had some time to do some old world achievements this weekend. I got exalted with Argent Dawn and Sporregar, and I ran all the Heroics in Hellfire Citadel and Tempest Keep. I made a decent amount of money from disenchanting the green/blue drops, enough to toss Krom and Tran some gold for repairs this morning when I collected all the AH sales.

I did get a new purple ring from Naxx. I'm keeping the crit ring, but I was at like 20% crit raid buffed. That's just ridiculous. Swapping for a little haste was really necessary. I also got to try out my frost resist set for Sapph. It helps, but I think it would help more if everyone else was wearing it. It did make it so I could eat the blizzard if necessary. It was kinda funny, I was ignoring the blizzard and everyone was yelling at me.

We wiped on Kel about 8 times, but we did get him. Krom finally got his axe, and Swif got the healing mace this time. Still no headpiece for me. This blue one is really starting to get on my nerves.

I also got the EoE key. Wewt! I promised I would set up a run if they looted it to me, I'll jump on Wow Heroes later and get my list together. Now that I got two groups to pick from it ought to work just fine. Maybe try a Sarth +1 (or 2 if Meat's feeling up to it). I'm a little excited.

Uphill Both Ways in the Snow

The re-install seemed to do the trick, and most of my add-on settings carried over just fine. When I popped into TeamSpeak on Tuesday the guys were just moving over to the Meat's vent so I went over there. Turned out they were doing their first night of 25 man Naxx. So I let them know I was patching up and it finished up just in time.

There were 6 healers in the group, and I was healing around the middle of the pack. I was surprised that on the meters Zon was doing more heals than me. Then again, he's actually been a raid healer a lot longer than me, he just spun his tank up first this time. I kind of miss his tank, to be honest. He was really fun to heal.

It was my first time doing a serious run at a 25 man Naxx, and it was a little strange not having as much riding on my heals. I picked up a nice pair of boots, which is good since I have no idea when I'll get another chance to do a 25. Stupid mid-week raiders.

I guess they're going to finish up Thad, Saph, and Kel tonight. I hope Krom's axe drops. Then he'll have to find something else to complain about LOL.

I think there was a WoW April Fool's joke going on yesterday because I was getting some dial-up and Darth Vader noises yesterday. I wonder if the kids these days even know what modem dial-up sounds like. I can still tell the difference between different speeds. In my day...

Ice Blocks are Evil

We've been working up to this for a while and this weekend we finally took out Kel'Thuzad. We still wiped pretty hard on Grob, but Gluth and Thaddeus went pretty well. Saph was an interesting fight with no frost resist gear, but that only took 2 tries. Kel on the other hand wasn't that bad until phase two. Then it was OMG massive heals right NAO! But we got him, finally, after three days of work. Having help from our new guild alliance buddies helped a lot. I got my tier leggings and some hawt crit shoulders, leaving me with only a blue headpiece to replace. I need to find more haste again though. Maybe there's some badge bracers or a ring I could replace my Mage gear with.

Px got the EoE key. Hopefully we won't wait forever to start Malygos runs. It would be nice to have him at least partially learned before Ulduar hits so we can keep getting help from our buddies.

I also scored the Hateful Glad robe which has served my Wintergrasp and Warsong runs well. I actually did go through with re-speccing and re-gearing my warrior this weekend with Krom's leet blacksmithing skills, though I think I actually offended him a little by sending him mats. I guess I just like to pull my own weight. It didn't really occur to me he would have been happy to repay me for all those chants I've been throwing his way. Maybe I'll ask for a supply of potions or something.

Raid Dynamics and World PvP

My OS +1 raid didn't go on Saturday afternoon. Not even close. I wasn't really feelin it anyway, so I wasn't entirely sad about that. Actually, I didn't end up running OS at all this weekend. I probably should check the loot tables one more time to make sure I'm not missing anything. I did miss out on the tokens though. I think rather than do the 10 OS +1 maybe I'll start a 25 OS + guild pug on Saturday afternoons. I won't be interfering with Naxx and I'll still get some tokens. Who knows, we might even get some recruits that way.

We made some great progress on Naxx this weekend. As usual Arachnid and Plague Quarters were no problem. We also finished the Military quarter this time around. We spent a good 45 minutes on the Four Horsemen on Saturday, and got them on the first try with no deaths Sunday night. We still haven't quite finished up the Construct quarter. Patchwerk is easy, but we still got hung up on Grobbulus. We're definitely going to get him next time around though, our final attempt we had all the positioning of the clouds down, but we didn't DPS him fast enough and everything stacked up.

I also learned something about our guild raid dynamics this weekend. There were about 15 characters bound to this run. Tran, being awesome, used both his Lock and his Pally as needed, so we could run either 2 or 3 healers depending on the fight. I seem to be the preferred person to do invites and handle the loot, but the tanks have been doing most of the explaining and actual raid leading, which is fine with me. On my OS runs I like to lead, but I'm not too keen on doing it for Naxx too. Overall, we have a tendency to brainstorm on new bosses, and once we figure it out have one person leading it. It was annoying when we first started out, but now that we're not discussing every boss at length it's not so bad.

PX implied they were going to wait for me to be available to do new content. That's pretty cool. I know they could easily handle it with Zon and Tran. In a way I think they depend on me a little too much. It's nice personally, but I think healer dependency is holding us back. We had 4 healers in raid right before we started the horsemen, the offtank was resisting swapping for a warlock because he thought a healer in each corner would work great. Um, no. I've also been fighting him on the min/max negativity with having certain classes for certain fights. Other than having one poison cleanser and one disease cleanser, I believe we can do it with any mix. We have to work with what we have, not give up because "we need 2 hunters for this".

Outside of raiding I was a PvP monster this weekend. I upgraded to the new Medallion of the Horde and racked up almost enough honor to buy another upgrade (haven't decided whether to do the belt or the ring next). I finally have over 600 resilience so I'm able to survive the 'average' ganker long enough to make them think twice about camping me. And also long enough to call in the goon squad. Our guild in general has been seeing more world PvP action recently, so hopefully this means we've made some KoS lists again :-D. The old favorite allies to kill are gone, but a new batch has taken their place. And surprisingly, none of them are DKs. Mostly Dr00ds and Warriors.

Quest log updated

I ran 10 man Naxx with one of the alt groups of one of our server's big raiding guilds. Got to see two new bosses, I think I could explain them now, not too hard. One of their guild officers whispered me and asked if I wanted to join. Them being one of the highly progressed guilds on the server I was flattered, but I turned them down.

There's no reason to leave my guildies now after a year and a half. But it is nice to know if something blows up I shouldn't have a problem finding a new home like I did last time.

Our drake run was not successful, but I think we got the positioning down. Basically, we need a tank for the adds, and I need to find a better day to run. We were actually getting in position pretty well, but there was so much chaos people were getting smacked by the flame walls. I think I'll be wacky and try it at 2p server time on Saturday this week. I might be surprised who shows up, or I may have to PUG a few. And I'm ok with that.

I picked up the Staff of Restraint and the Majestic Dragon Figurine from OS this weekend. Zon scolded me for not using a main hand / offhand combo, and hes right, I need to find an upgrade and get the badge offhand for storage. I also need to regem my stuff, my crit is getting out of hand, I need more spirit again. My shammy has completed SM Cathedral and BFD thanks to Aeth. I'm really liking the shaman class. Cast cast shock heal cast... It's awesome. And a much easier transition from the DPS classes. I'm really excited to get onto the 50+ levels to see how things go with more other players in the mix.