It Really Is An Easy Fight

I love loath this line. It comes up often when a guild head butts a boss only to be sent home with broken armor and a severe headache.  Take Heigan the Unclean.  Think about the mechanics.  Step 1: stand on platform and heal or pew pew while the melee moves around the room beating him like a birthday piñata.  Step 2:  Get off the platform and run back and forth while avoiding the annoying green shit.  Rinse and repeat.  “It really is an easy fight”.  Please raise your hand if you have The Safety Dance achievement.  Or maybe I’m the only one in Azeroth who has a hard time with that one.  Now take the Gunship encounter.  I really wonder why you even get loot for this one.  Out of the dozens of times we’ve done it I think there has been 3 wipes and that was because we used to do it without killing the axe throwers.  “It really is an easy fight”.  Now how many people out there disagree with me? 

Last night we went after Festergut in 25 man.  We made 4 attempts and then the raid leaders called it because ‘people don’t know how to fucking move’.  Actually, upon retrospect, I believe I was the last one not fucking moving.  I can not be sure and I will never know.  I was grouped in between the legs of this hideous…thing…with 17 other toons blowing off every spell/cooldown/prayer to god known while I healed/chainhealed/healing waved/lesser healing waved/riptided/dropped dps totems/etc and 3 people in melee get a spore and the raid leader says ‘blue square move!’  (sorry for the run-on but its metaphorical /sagenod) Apparently he had marked one of us spore carriers with a blue square so we could take it to the ranged.  I’m curious how he managed to mark someone none-the-less expect said person to realize they had that blue square on their head and then move.  He couldn’t call out someone’s name? Just sayin. I blame the raid leader.  Isn’t that what raid leader’s are for? 

Anyway we come back to Dal with our head’s hung low and begin talking about it in guild.  Suddenly someone who was not there says “that’s too bad because ‘it really is an easy fight’”.  Really?  Prove it.   

Random get to know Raven 

I work in an office as an accountant.  It’s boring.  I work with women whom, on average, are older than I am.  The only women that are younger than me are basically glorified receptionists and their mentality still has not left the high school level.  Sadly some of the older women are the same way.  They have face book.  I’ve never seen that website.  They play Farmville.  Again, never even seen the website.  It’s funny listening to their conversations.  So here’s me attempting to have a conversation with pretty much any woman here. 

Me: So what did you do this weekend?

Co-worker:  [Something about Farmville, Facebook, maybe softball, or someone’s sister’s cousin’s aunt, I don’t know I kind of stop listening when they mention most of this stuff]  What about you?

Me: Let’s see, I’m sore as hell because I picked up sword fighting again after ten years.

Co-worker:  Oh you fence?

Me:  No actually I am a florentiner.  It’s a pretty good combo but I always have trouble with sword-n-boarders.

Co-worker: O.o

(Some people might recognize the terminology.  I used to play in Amtgard and I recently started again and now everything that could conceivably hurt does hurt.)

Me:  Oh and I’m pissed because we didn’t kill Festergut in 25man ICC and the raid leader was treating us like children.  I think he’s on some sort of power trip.  I mean… 

At which point I realize I’m talking to myself.  At least I’m sure that’s pretty much how the conversation would go if I attempt to interact.  I feel like Dame Valerie Jane Morris Goodall living with the chimpanzee’s or something. (who knew she had so many names?)  Yes I’m crazy.  

But yeah, I’ve decided to pick up Amtgard again.  Once a nerd always a nerd I guess.  I’ve pretty much given up on ever going back to pencil and paper rpg’s so I sort of grew up.  Of course I told my husband last night that doing anything Monday thru Thursday is pretty much out because we will miss raid.  Hmm.  It’s fun getting back into the game.  I’m the only girl that actually picks up a sword (ok pvc stick wrapped in packing foam or something like that) and plays with the big boys (mostly underweight 17 year olds).  I’m either a goddess or a freak in their eyes.  Meh, either one suits me.  I fall a lot too.  I’m not nearly as graceful as I used to be.  Scary considering I was never graceful.  

Anyway, the paperwork is piling up.

Healing Spacegoat Coast to well…(and the Canadian gnome)

Greetings from the lonely south coast.  While the east coast and west coast are BFF, us poor southies have….Canada.  Hmmm…DtS has a Canadian gnome.  He dies a lot. 

Anyway, on to the conquering heroes.  We took on 25ICC as a guild for the second time last night.  Our first onslaught was stuttered but it went well enough.  Because we tore through the first the first three bosses (with some wipes) but then slammed into the brick wall that was Saurfang, no one bothered to take a look at any further strats for last night’s run.  This time we facerolled the first 3 encounters and when we looked up it was all of 10:00pm server.  We did have a wipe on Deathwhisper so why would I still call it a faceroll?  Because that run included two epic pulls which we did not wipe on.  The first being one of the entire rooms before Marrowgar including tripping a trap and taking out 2 of those colossal bone things and the second being all but the giant spiders before Deathwhisper.  Now that’s how you clear trash (and cause the healers to have a heart attack).  

It was suggested that gnome punting may be a more efficient way of finding traps on our next visit.  The Candian gnome was, of course, volunteered for said position. 

So it was 10:00pm server.  Oh goody!  An hour to chip away at Saurfang.  Fifteen minutes later we step out of the way so Saufang Sr. can come get Jr.’s body.  Woohoo!  Let’s go massacre Festergut…and the entire raid went afk.  It was eerie in an irritating sort of way.  

Apparently the sacrifice of a Canadian gnome can be helpful. 

Now 30 minutes later we come back to the issue of not having looked at the strat’s for any of the bosses beyond Saurfang.  We shall never underestimate ourselves again.  Ranged stood to close to eachother and died from puking.  In my list of ways to go that’s got be one of least acceptable.  Upon some research after said fight I found that the minimum is 8 which seems a bit high.  We had no clue going in so we went with Melee and one healer under Fester and ranged and remaining healers around the circle.  I’d say not a good strat.  If anyone wants to speak up on the min number at range for 25man Festergut, please do.  

The Canadian gnome’s natural habitat is…I don’t know.  He’s French Canadian and I can’t understand him half the time. 

Family vs. WoW Update 

My plate is rather full now.  I am 3 away from getting my first T10 piece because there are no more straight badge pieces that I want.  Unfortunately after raiding for 3 hours on top of everything else I was just pooped to run my daily random.  I still need to get Nyteraven to 80 and continue gathering so I can start transmuting epic gems for gold.  I need to continue running my daily Jewel Crafting quest so I always have enough tokens on hand to buy patterns for those that need cuts I don’t have and dragon’s eyes for new gear.  I run the fishing daily every day just because.  I want to get my Argent Gryphon or Hippogryph or whatever it is but I have all of 15 Champion’s seals at the moment and those dailies take at least 30 minutes to run.  My next title run starts next week and these are the irritating ones.  Like camping the stupid eggs for hours at a time so I can pull some nonsense out of it for the achievement when I could just buy the damn thing but noooo.  And then, of course, I still have my other duties, mom, wife, housekeeper, taxi service, alarm clock, etc.  How do people do this?  But that is what this blog is about. 

No guild is complete without their very own Canadian gnome. 

So raid nights are from 8:30 to 11:00 server (that’s 7:30 to 10:00 for me which is pretty good).  I get off work at 5:00, get home by 6: 30 which gives me an hour to do some light cleaning and get dinner done.  Thankfully the hubby is there to help…or was.  Still don’t know about the surgery.  /sigh  We use bio breaks to tend to the animals and get the kid ready for bed.  So her bedtime is 10:00 just like us which usually ends up being 10:30.  Of course that will have to change when she starts school but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.  As it is I don’t always get to do everything I want to do so gathering and stuff ends up getting done on the weekends or nights when I feel I can make it without sleep.  In other words when I get bitten by the stupid bug.  But it’s fun and we are  cruising right along.  Now I’m going to go plan how to spend/save (yeah right) my income tax refund.  /moneydance

Breakfast burritos are mana from heaven…and you thought I was going to talk more about Canadian gnomes.

Festergut Falls

So it’s still a long way from the Lich King, but I’m pleased.  Given my time constraints and the fact that I usually have a bitchy bird  screaming and/or biting my ear, a 4 year old pulling on my leg, a 100lbs dog attempting to end my life by tripping me every chance he gets, and a ferret stealing anything she can get her little paws on, I think I deserve some sort of freaking title.  But so does any mom/animal lover (no comments please) that plays WoW and still manages to make time for everyone else. 

Right, Festergut.  I was right it was our average dps that kept us from beating him the first time.  The first attempt was a little rough but we had a few people who didn’t know how to do the spore thing just yet but we still made it to the enrage timer.  The second attempt saw him fall with 30 seconds to spare on the enrage timer.  Arioch’s tip about only leaving 3 ranged outside the circle did indeed make things go more smoothly.  Then we trotted over to Rotface just to see what we were up against.  The engagement ended 3 minutes in and he’s even uglier than Festergut.  I think I had a nightmare about him last night.

The fun thing about our run was the quest.  Anyone see this yet?  Apparently Blizz instituted some random quest giver in ICC that gives you gold, goodies, and 5 nummy Frost Emblems.  We had to keep some mob alive while downing Deathwhisper.  We did it!  First try and no plans.  We are a fly by the seat our pants kind of guild.  It was AWESOME!  The other group got a quest having to do with Professor Putricide.  Poor poor guildies.  Anyway a couple of the bags included a Gem and some 264 tanking ring…Harbinger of something or other or was that the Metallica song I was listening to on the way in…

Oh yes, and hubby calls from Doc’s office to tell me he’s on the way to the hospital.  Apparently he may be in surgery this weekend.  I’d like to institute a ban on any further catastrophic calls from him.  So far in the last 9 months he’s been lost at sea, involved in a shooting, and now may have to have major surgery.  I think thats a little more than a girl should have put up with in such a time period.  Could be just me though.

I’m off…to play solitaire…or work -_-  I should probably work. 

Until next time.

The Gearscore Bill of Rights

By the power of Gearscore I now have the right to

-Be a complete asshole whenever I choose

-Say I’m better than you because my number is higher

-Vote to kick perfectly good players because of my superior assholeness

-Trust completely that the only thing larger than my GS# is my head

I officially hate gearscore.  I think the app should be banned.  Today I stepped into my random and there happened to be two  undergeared dps.  I actually don’t care as long as they try and the tank is strong.  The healer is always strong in my groups /flex.  The other dps apparently had gearscore however and the very first thing said in party chat was

Asshole DPS:  Lets vote to kick the fail hunter and dk.

Me:  How about we vote to kick you

Which I did but apparently it won’t let you do that before you start fighting.  Instead I spent the next two minutes antagonizing him.  I told him that he should base his opinion on performance and not a number.  I guess I sort of started out nice.   Then he pulled threat and I informed him that if he couldn’t manage his threat I’d let him die.  The tank thought I was talking about him so I through a sarcastic comment about our illustrious leader (he was party lead) being more interested in his dps numbers than actually playing and then I started getting mean.

Asshole DPS:  I just know how to push the right buttons.

Me:  Your life is complete.  You can die now.

Then he starts linking the gear of the DK which his level 60 can out dps apparently.

Me:  I’d rather have a good attitude over good gear.  Gear can improve.  You can’t!

Asshole DPS:  Go fuck yourself.

And he was gone.  It only took me to the Valkyrie fight in UP to get him to ditch.   HahahHahahaAAhaha.  Not only did he go, he left with his deserter debuff.  My day is complete.

As far as the pug, the DK barely broke 1K but the hunter was breaking 2K.  We did fine.  We didn’t wipe until the tank (who had only been tanking 5 days) pulled the whole room in front of the prince.  UP is hard and we did fine.  Gearscore doesn’t mean shit.  Nor does the at least 2Kdps rule if you have a good healer and tank and at least one of your dps is doing decent.   Yeah it’s carrying but why get bent out of shape about it?  They are working on getting gear so they won’t be carried anymore.  In a raid it would be a completely different story but a heroic is maybe 15mins of my time.  Being an elitist in heroics is like winning the dumbass Olympics (if there was one).  You might have won but you are still a dumbass.  In conclusion:  Turn Gearscore off unless you are a raid leader heading into a difficult raid.  It causes lag and terrible attitudes.

Raven out

Getting Schooled

I made the mistake of thinking these things were never going to happen again.  I suppose this is a testament to just how easy Bliz has been making content up until now. 

We’ve been blowing through the first four bosses in 10ICC for a while now, but due to time constraints we haven’t been getting further. (At least my team hasn’t.)  Finally we were able to meet for a second night in a row and … (20^th Century Fox’s intro music and wait for them to come file suit for copyright infringement) I got to tackle the puppies.  Precious is a bad, bad dog.  I’m taking up a collection to send her to obedience school.  So after 2 wipes we went after Stinky and didn’t even need the rolled up newspaper.  Oh how I missed decimate. (not really)  Wow…I finally had to heal something.  Then it was off to Festergut.  Here is where I get schooled.  I’ve been in more than one raid where the wipe was just because A) we didn’t have our shit together or B) it was actually a challenge.  Case in point: Tournament of the Grand Crusader (yes I took the time to spell it just to prove I could) 10 man.  This is actually a challenge.  We are currently 2/5.  Back to Festergut. 

I was the healer with the melee/tanks.  Whoopee no vomiting!!  My one and only job was to keep the active tank from dying.  First 2 wipes:  spore issues but we gots it.  Third and fourth wipe:  tank dies right before he releases the gas.  FUCK!  My peoples don’t die unless I have the uncanny luck to get silenced/stunned/etc right as the tank takes a cleave or some other such nonsense.  Yup, can’t help that.  That’s not why she was dying though.  I can’t stand failing so I tell them to put another healer in my place and let me go raid, but there is an utter refusal.  So my strat of CH/HW has got to change.  Talk about fucked up timing. 

My thinking on this is that even though my HW takes 1.4 secs, vs. 1.1 for LHW, I average about 18K per heal.  LHW is only 10K and I can’t get 2 off in the same time that I can get one HW off. (Tidal Waves does more than I thought it did).  Unfortunately my mana does not support using HW 100% of the time which is what I needed to do to keep the heals up on the tank.  I actually had to use LHW.  It took another wipe for me to get the timing down because a 1.1 second cast time has an ungodly latency.  You can’t start casting until you have about .1 seconds left. (Fucking GCD  /scream)  Those moments when you go crazy clicking cause your cast won’t start and the tank’s life bar is red are enough to make me want to not heal anymore and they absolutely don’t help.  With me keeping RT up and the druid and priest throwing on their HoT’s all at the right time everything went flawlessly after that.  

Actually I think the tank just didn’t have the damage mitigation to be standing there because I wasn’t having trouble with the other tank but come to think of it I don’t think he was ever standing there in the few seconds before Fester farted.  BTW…Fester hits A LOT harder right before he farts.  Gas retention frustration??  

I wish I could now tell you about the mad lootz that dropped but, alas, Fester is an angry ugly abomination and we felt his rage every time after that.  An hour into it we decided to call it.  Tip:  Your dps must (in my personal observation) average 5K dps on single point targeting.  Our top three dps were doing well to pick up the slack but we were missing the enrage by only a few seconds.  While they were doing 6/6/5 or bottom two were doing 3 and 4Kdps.  That is an average of 4.8K.  That last 200dps would without a doubt explain why were just barely missing his enrage.  I’m happy I tried however.  LHW has no become a regular part of my rotation.

Leveling Vs. Boosting

Inspired by this post…

I actually wrote an entire post, posted it, thought about how it made sense to me but may not to the rest of the world (happens) and scrapped it.  Let me try again… 

I wanted to talk about boosting vs. leveling as a healer but actually this is about boosting vs. leveling as any class.  Is boosting fine?  Yeah, if you’ve already got a full grown raider (meaning a character you leveled to 80, geared, spec’d, and is now beating on ICC bosses).  Or if you don’t ever intend to raid (I’ll explain in a minute).  I don’t think leveling helps you learn to raid.  I don’t think running five mans helps you learn to raid.  I think the only way to learn to raid is the raid.  Case in point: 

Healing when you are questing:  Oops, life is low.  Healing wave.  Keep fighting.  Shit this is taking forever. (go dps) DIE DIE DIE!!! Cackle maniacally as you wade through the bodies.  (you can do this in greens with crap skill distribution…I am on my DK). 

Healing in a 5 man. Keep the tank up. Know which ones your clothies are because half their life is a little more drastic then melee. That’s not hard, there’s only 4 to choose from. Know you primary skills. Know the fight.  Know that strength does you no good.  Mana conservation? Meh. Especially since they’ve nerfed everything.  You might want to watch your mana bar though.

Healing in a raid? Now there could be 3 tanks. None of them can die. You have primary, secondary, and tertiary skills.  Wait there are 5 other healers? Ok who am I healing? OMG! Who of these 22 people is a clothy? *decimate* holy shit who do I heal first? *not enough mana* Dammit how does a fight last 10 fucking minutes? The guy I was healing just hit full health half a second before I got my cast off so I could have been healing the guy that just died. Fuck!  Know the trash AND the boss.  Know just how much intelligence, haste, and spellpower you need.  Know that hit does you no good. Know the difference between mp5 in and out.  (yeah the number you see next to mp5 has a lot more to it).  Know this, and this, and this…and don’t forget about that.  This paragraph could get A LOT longer.

Leveling really doesn’t prepare you for raiding in my opinion.  Heroics help, but –guess what?!- you gotta be level capped to get into them.  See, leveling still didn’t help.  Not in the actual situation.  What leveling does do is give you the time to research your character.  If you plan on raiding you gotta research and you need to learn what research is good and what is not.  Once you have done all this once it’s easy to apply to a new class.  You can boost, get the gear, research your rotation, get into heroics get the gist of it down, and then you ready to start learning to raid in your brand new class.

So, if you just got on the monthly draft plan cause your 10 day free trial was So. Much. Fun. and you actually plan to raid, do yourself, and everyone who will be depending on you,  a favor and actually level. Level several characters until you find one that you just can’t get away from. Then, don’t bug trade chat preying on level 80’s in the hopes of getting run after run through Gnomeragon. Don’t run aimlessly around in BG’s. Look up blogs on your character and class. Study the skill tree. Get in the dungeon finder and use the spec you intend to stick with. Learn what a spec is. While I think boosting is completely fine for someone who’s already got a full grown raider; those of you who don’t are just asking for trouble if you don’t stop and learn along the way. You won’t learn to raid as your class until you actually raid as your class, but learning to build a character is a general skill that is applicable to everyone. Leveling is the best time to learn it. Wiping a raid is not.

One more thing, I’d never level as a healer questing wise.  That’s just insane.  But if I decided to employ the dungeon finder in my leveling endeavors, then I’d definitely go healer.  It’s experience you can use (both in game and knowing how to do shit) and the wait time sucks as a dps.  Besides, I may not think leveling is vital to raiding (in the know how to do shit category), but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Rainy Days

Guild decided to move raiding times back 15minutes.  Yes this was posted on the calendar but when raiding times have always been 8:30 since the beginning it doesn’t occur to you to look at the time when you hit ‘signup’ on the calendar.  I signed in at 8:29.  Hope they had fun in ICC.  -_- 

So I did some dailies and hopped on my DK.  I found that transmute quest…then I had to find the stuff to make primal mights.  That was just tons of fun.  Next it’s off to find the recipe to transmute primal mights because it would have been 696g to buy the mights verses the 300g it cost me to buy the missing pieces to make them. 

And then something dawned on me…. 

I wonder if people really buy those primal mights at 174g a piece.  Hmm… 

Apparently there is a second ICC group running tonight and I won’t be working late (but I might have to find a boat to get home) soooo…   If I don’t make it I’m planning on working on that guide I spoke of…maybe.  Or I might investigate this primal might thing a bit more. 

And… 

I’ve fallen very far off the wagon on the fitness front.  I really wanted this blog to be about how I managed to play WoW progressively while still maintaining my family and my health (just physical, there really is no hope for my mental health).  I’ve been good with the family.  My husband has an atrocious schedule so there is little help there but my daughter and I make sure to make a day of it at least once a weekend.  The ferret keeps her busy the rest of the time.  Poor poor Snickers (the ferret).  I even keep the fridge stocked with chicken and some other stuff so we generally get a decent meal that isn’t hamburger helper most of the time.  But, if not for the stairs between me and the time clock, I would have a perfectly sedentary lifestyle.  I have decided to change this. 

I joined a gym.  Not one of the nifty ones with the 6000 different work out machines that belong in either a torture chamber or a porn, but a tiny one about 2 minutes from where I work.  I go there, do something for 30 minutes during my lunch break (instead of taking 30mins to decide what I’m going to do), and then it’s back to work.  It’s brilliant I say! 

Speaking of…

Back to work.

Tonight on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom…

We have plumbing /happydance…we also have ANOTHER animal.  /confused  Apparently people have found out that while I might lack some sympathy towards my fellow man I have difficulty turning away strays.  So I am decreeing that the next person that brings me a stray animal is going to die.  Yes I will take the animal in but the person is dying.  (not really…killing people for any reason really is to much trouble with to little pay out and I’m all about numbers here).  Anyway, we now have a ferret, a bird, 2 fish, 4 cats and a dog.  We are a landlord’s worst nightmare.  Well we would be if I didn’t also entertain people on a regular basis.  I spend a small fortune on steam-cleaners and upholstery deodorizers.  House needs to be hit with a professional company now.  /cringe 

Re:  Killing people to prevent further stray acquisitions. 

I’m sure there are some of you that would quickly present the idea that the easiest way to stop my ever growing collection of disavowed pets would be to simply say ‘no’.  True, but you know

            Be kind to your web footed friends for a duck maybe somebody’s mother …

Besides the ferret could be a relative.  I never know given my lineage.  :p 

On the WoW front?  Nyteraven made level 68 last night.  Well actually it was this morning.  I’m super excited!  Northrend and actual use of my Alchemy skill.  I need to work on cold weather flying.  Now where is that Transmute Mastery quest at?  Did I mention I did all of this this morning?  Before I went to bed?  And here I am at work.  Hellooooooo coffee!!! 

I have a feeling my healing capabilities may be sub par tonight followed by promptly passing out without the aid of alcohol.  

Oh, yesterday, while waiting for the plumber to come tell me that I could have called the city at any point in time the past 2 weeks and solved my problem, I ran random after random so I could get my perky pug.  Ah, how cute.  No clue why.  But it did get me enough of triumphs to buy 4 pieces of the dps tier 9 gear.  I also enchanted it.  And then I put cheap blue gems in it.  I still fail.  At least I was averaging 2600 where I could barely break 2300 before.  But I haven’t made my hit cap and my haste is atrocious for an ele.  I thought: why bother gemming for haste and hit when I only have 4 pieces to work with?  I also discovered that my tab targeting was unbound which may have contributed to my issues.  And I ran into HoS and aggro’d the first set of mobs for no particular reason.  Ah, the intricacies of the ferret mind.  You wouldn’t know that I can actually raid heal…well.  I like to catch people off guard. 

I’m off.  I have…something to do I’m sure.

Possible Guild App. Questions and Something About Resto Shamans

I’ve been thinking about this a while.  I, personally, will probably never attempt to lead another guild.  Actually, if things go well, I should be with my current guild for a long, long time.  I’ve read their app and it’s actually got some improvements over most apps.  For instance it asks for your current reputation with Son’s of Hodir.  This is awesome.  The best shoulder enchant comes from Son’s of Hodir.  If you have the potential to be a good raider then you should know that and have, or be close to, exalted status. 

It’s got the standard stuff on it like your armory link, why do you want to join, guilds you’ve been in before, blah blah blah.  These are all good questions but do they really tell you what kind of player you are getting?  Not having the gear may be a matter of timing.  If this is a fresh player and they’ve had a difficult time getting into a guild that CAN gear them up because no one wants a noob /eyeroll that doesn’t mean they are a sucky player.  Case in point, I ran with a DK in iLevel 200 and below pulling 2100 dps consistently.  His gear sucked but he apparently knew his class.  I would want this guy in my guild.  So I had an idea regarding a few questions that might help get to know the player over the numbers. 

Define the following: 

 LoS pull:

 Threat management (according to your class):

 Tank-n-spank:

 Rotation (please include your rotation or healing preference):

 HoT:

 DoT:

 AoE:

 Pat:

 These seem like standard things to know.  I see them tossed around without the slightest worry that anyone is going, ‘huh?’  There was a time, before I started raiding, that I barely knew any of these.  As I researched my class I also discovered the meaning of these terms.  While running UP once I noticed that one of the players did not understand the concept of a line of sight pull because he kept standing out in the open so the casters would not come out of the room where the pat walks.  The tank even had the courtesy to tell us that was the way he was pulling instead of letting us figure it out for ourselves as so often happens in heroics these days.  The player still didn’t get it.  I guess he wanted to run in and pull the whole room even though the dps were not geared to do that.  So they are not as standard as I would like to think. 

Even if the applicant does not know what they are when he or she sees them it shows that they have the ability to learn if they go look them up and answer them.  In the process of looking them up they should learn something.

 Will I suggest adding this to our app?  Probably not.  I do not fancy myself a leader in any way and, apparently, my guild does not either since I was turned down for the lead heal spot.  /cry  Probably best anyway since I’m not that well versed in other healing classes.  I do know things like: holy pallies make the best tank healers and druids are the best raid healers however.  They are talking about doing class leads eventually but since I’m the only shaman healer currently…well that doesn’t leave much for me. 

Actually I’m wondering why I am the only resto shaman.  We have a few druids, several priests and a couple of holy pallies but any new shamans are almost always ele.  They kick some ass too.  Are resto shamans not a class of choice or is my guild not trying to recruit any?  Truthfully I can see the fail in the resto shaman class.  We are slow.  Both of our major healing spells take 2 seconds to cast.  With 600 haste I’ve managed to drop that to 1.9 seconds which is actually noticeable but I feel like a big oaf if I’m standing close to a pally healer.  We only have 1 HoT compared to the rest of the healing classes.  The assets we bring with us can also be brought by an ele shaman which has even better assets (totem of wrath, root ability on earthbind totem, etc.)  Chain heal is awesome especially in close quarter combat.  On fights like Jaraxxus I feel really kind of useless however.  They stick me as a tank healer on those fights and I do well.  My tank doesn’t die unless he or she ends up being the only tank.  Even then I can usually keep it up for a while.

 I’m wondering if maybe there is a bone that blizz could throw us resto shammies?  It may just be that I need to get more haste, better gear, and understand my class just that much better, but I’m seeing a general lack of resto shamans and strats like zerging sarth generally state that resto shamans are not the best healing position.  This leads me to believe that maybe, just maybe, we may need a bit of revamping.  We need something like the totem of wrath to make us, specifically, useful in a raid.  Pallies have their shields and bubbles, druids have battle rezes, priests…something, what do resto shamans have beyond being able to rez ourselves…once?

Life’s Little Jokes

WoW is going.  Our little guild is steadily progressing.  We are now on full 25man runs every week.  We’ve cleared the first 6 bosses in ICC10 man.  We have a day set aside for fun runs like zerging Sarth with 3 drakes up. We have a day for gearing up newbies.  Guild is great.  They don’t produce much blogging material though.  We go in and kick its ass then wrap things up with a few gems and enchants for those that got gear.

I’m still steadily working on my little DK.  She’s almost 68.  YES!!!!!  Speaking of DK’s I ran a random last night with a DK in iLevel 200 and lower items.  He had a lot of blues on.  Why am I mentioning this?  He was putting out 2100+ dps.  I should have asked him how he was doing that but it was late and I needed to leave for bed. 

Anyway, today’s life joke.  We are currently at 3 weeks with no landlord.  Still having massive plumbing issues but we are currently rent free.  This might be why WoW is suddenly holding very little interest to me.  I mean how exactly does one’s landlord disappear?  We have several theories. 

-He was an alien and has now returned home.  (should have met the guy)

-He is what’s clogging up our drain.  (did I mention I was a bit morbid?)

-On the run from the IRS.

-Victim of the foreclosure crisis.

-Vacation (kind of jerky to leave for a couple of months when you have tenants though)

-Went insane

-I could keep going but I won’t 

That was it.  I have work to do as usual.  At least its Friday.  You know what sucks though?  My rent is not exactly small.  I live in a 3 bedroom house on an acre of land on the very edge of a city right behind a college. Normally by now my rent would be gone and I wouldn’t be thinking about it.  But it’s there…taunting me.  ‘Come on, lets go do something fun.’  Me being the paragon of self restraint that I am…and a weekend on the horizon…dear oh dear.  Until next time.