Is Friday again and I've talked my way into two weeks of vacation starting in an hour (huzzah).

I hope everything is going swimmingly for you as well.

And then I was a bear
I was hoping that, since we have several people who've declared themselves tanks, that the guild would be more active in terms of heroics at the moment. There's a few problems with the plan, though. Only 2-3 level 85 healers. And only 2-3 of the people identifying as tanks are running heroics as tanks. The others seem more like dps who want a short queue (which isn't bad, only it means they will opt to run with you as a dps rather than start their own groups).

I was really worried about heroics. What it came down to was changing my mindset into something closer to progression raiding. Wipes happen while you learn. There was a lot of concern about tank threat coming into heroics, but I find that it feels comfortably between BC and LK in terms of execution - Bear tanking takes a lot of effort, but it will reward you if you do it right. I think that's good.

So far I've only done 4 heroics as a tank, being stonecore, dm, sfk, and throne of tides. My favorite of the bunch of stonecore, my least sfk. Most of the boss fights in all these places were interesting and in a few cases, made me feel like my skill made a huge difference in success (3rd boss in stonecore, in particular, is nearly 100% tank positioning and made me feel pro once I figured it out). SFK earned 'least liked' because the interior design is 5 years old, and made before I think Blizz really understood what a player needs to perform well - The ceilings are too low and the spaces too cramped. It's very difficult to see what you're doing and how to move. I don't know if they could have changed that without a lot more work, but I really wish they could have.

It is worth doing, I think, under the condition that you go strictly for the game play. If you go for rewards, you might be a little underwhelmed that you spent 45 minutes for a blue something. It's a very good blue something, but it feels out of proportion.

You're encouraged to be good to your healer. Healing is rough. I have the benefit of my pocket healer being my boyfriend, but it still took us some adjusting. There is trial and error while strategies and specs were worked out. I was very pleased with our second night of heroics, as it was so much smoother than the first. Be nice!

GOGOOGOOGOGOOGOGOOGOGOOOMG
So we're a little over a week into this expansion and suddenly my guild had decided it wants to start raiding.

I'm not sure what I think about it. Whether or not I want to go I'm excluded because I didn't see the post fast enough. Really, the whole thing is supposed to be a new experience but it really feels like more of the same. We don't have enough healers to support one group, let alone two, at the moment. This has been the case for a loooong time and lead to a lot of begging and pleading on my part in ICC. Here there's a huge bottleneck from several sources.

-Currently, only two of our previous healers is 85 are still a healer, though only one may be raid ready, and only one of our previous dps went healybeams
-Healing in general is a huge huge burden at the moment. I haven't tried it myself, but I recognize just from watching heroics that the game has changed, and many people may not find it fun anymore
-We don't seem to be actively recruiting. This is sort of a catch-22. We're not recruiting because we don't have enough to do raids, but we don't do raids because we can't recruit.
-We only seem to have two tanks in guild, myself and the organizer of the group trying blackwing decent this weekend, who are currently doing heroics. We have other people with tank specs but they all have either opted to stay in normals or tag along as dps in my groups. What this means is that we're gearing up slower. I can't force anyone to tank any more than I can force them to heal.

What will be interesting is to see how fast the ball gets rolling. It's possible that next week there will be a bigger pool of 85s available, and with word that we're starting raids, more healers could appear. Possibly. I don't know.

I was considering starting my own ten man, and then the realization came that 10 and 25 share a lockout. Anything that I build now will have to be rebuilt as an alt and 'absent for 25s' group - which isn't bad, and that's what my ICC group originally started as, but there it is just the same.

(can you tell I really dislike the idea of handing decision making over to someone else, despite all the bitching I did about how much it sucks?)

Really I should just not worry about it. The expansion, she is young. I have the next two years to be angry.

Weekly Screenshots

Catakizzums!

Oh boy it's Friday and the Cataclysm has come.

Isn't it great?

So, I haven't gotten to play crazy amount this week - December is just a really busy time for me (the 8th was my birfday :3). Right now I'm sitting very close to dinging 83, hopefully will be somewhere in 84 by the end of the weekend, we'll see. No huge rush and probably doing it all ass-backwards anyway!

My boyfriend and I finished Hyjal last night and moved into Vasj'ir, which means we're bigger than everyone else there and can shove them around. Hyjal was a very nice zone with a cool story, I'm not sure how I feel about Vasj'ir. It's neat, but there's so much color and clutter everywhere that I have a hard time concentrating :P

My long lost love

This post is so late in the day because I spent my free time making a loot list! OMG. I haven't had one of those since.... well T9's been wiped from my memory so maybe that's why I haven't had one in a while.

A loot list is a wunnerful thing. It's like having Christmas everyday - you know exactly what you want and you wrote it out and the heroics are never going to give it to you. Constant anticipation and constant disappointment.

All kidding aside, I like the loot list because it allows me to determine beforehand, using stat weights found on the appropriate blogs or elitist jerks and plugged into wowhead, whether or not something is an upgrade. It's time consuming but it keeps you from holding up the group or taking something you don't need later on.

It doesn't have to be a pretty list, just something you understand, I put mine in a notepad file. I also keep little files of my achievements, as well as one that tracked raid attendance for my 10 man while we were working on 'Glory of Whatever'. I love my little notepad files.

I went through and ranked all the pieces for each of my specs (being an OT is fun like that - TWICE the disappointment for the price of one!!!!), and have a section that separates everything by zone so I know exactly what I'm looking for in each one. I have no idea why I'm so excited about it, but I am.

(Picture Unrelated)

I wasn't expecting to be able to play my main this week, so I had started a worgen druid, who's only level 11 at the moment. She isn't hideous but she is hillarious. I'm torn between being disappointed with the poor level of work that went into her (one face type with the constant snarling that bear druids have hated forever, one hair color...), but I find the whole thing so goddamned funny that it's hard to be angry.

The best problem with her so far has been /lol has produced a sound I suspect is supposed to be /chicken.

Overall the quest design has been nice, and the zones have been put together well - though Gilneas does have you do a lot of running. Eep.

As an aside, I'm undecided how I feel about starting the comic thing again. What I did for this one took a lot less time than the old version, but it's still more intense than just the weekly doodle. Also it's hard to be funny enough to want to draw it.

We'll see I suppose.


Screenshots of the weeeeek

Still going doublebubble on these. I actually took close to 100 this week, had a rough time narrowing it down to just 14 :O

Hmm... #321 seems to be missing. I guess I'll find it later tonight :D

Amigad it's Friday and these Poptarts are awful

So I've been thinking of making this post for several weeks now but haven't been quite sure how to compose it. When it comes down to it, I think it's going to be quite long.

On top of that, I haven't posted screenshots in two weeks and I discovered that I was exactly 65 screenshots behind, so there are some extras this week to catch up (and will be double the usual for the rest of the month). So, yeah, monster post today.

Partners in Crime
Seeing as Cataclysm hits next Tuesday, this is a pretty relevant topic, but really applies to 'all the time'. WoW is a social game, by simple fact of being an MMO. Even when playing exclusively solo, you will find yourself interacting with other players. They may be brief interactions, yet there they are.

Sometimes it's a matter of mutual benefit (two people killing the same spawn take less time than each person individually), but others it's just fun to play with a friend.

Which is somewhat like saying water is wet, but I'd like take this to the next step for the more hardcore: Having a grinding buddy.



That Sounds Dirty
wink

But no seriously.

While a grinding buddy isn't a definite necessity, and of course everyone values time alone from time to time, a good partner in crime makes a looooong slog (like, oh, the Insane, perhaps?) that much more bearable.

Good qualities for your grinding buddy include:

- A shared goal - Even if it's a really heinous one, like all your reps ever to 999 exalted. Having someone to share the pain with is quite nice. Now, your goal can be 'shared' but doesn't have to be 'identical' to what your buddy wants.

- Shared gain - 'Shared gain' is actually more vague than it sounds. What I'm pointing at is that both parties should log off feeling like they've done something worthwhile. It doesn't have to be a tangible item. If you're helping a friend farm something without any interest in material gain, then you should end the night satisfied that your effort is appreciated. This is a responsibility for both (or 'everyone' if there's more than two of you) involved. If someone is resentful, you have done it wrong.

- An understanding of effort given - While ideally, your buddy and you are able to give in equal time, this isn't always the case. This doesn't mean that you've found the wrong friend, rather that you need to come up with a plan that works for both parties. There may be unequal amounts of effort put in, and that's fine, so long as everyone involved understands as much.

- Have some goddamned fun - I'm not even sure why this needs to be said but it's something that people need to be constantly told. Quite similar to the old joke of 'Doctor it hurts when I do this' 'So stop doing it', if you aren't having fun playing your goddamned game, stop. If you're angry and sick and tired of what you're doing, step back and do something else.

Why the Above is Important
What the entire list boils down to is a mutual respect for each other's time. You want to enjoy your game, and make sure your friend does too. It's such a simple, easy concept, yet finding people that grasp it can be quite difficult.

If you want to share a goal with someone, be honest about it. Don't say 'Come reroll to raid with us' when you mean 'Come waste time in guild chat and never expect an invite'. I've had WoW-friendships destroyed over this. Unfortunately, these past occurrences made me decide I'm never moving off my server to 'play with friends' again, because without fail 'play with friends' has always meant 'oh but I didn't mean it' some time after the character is level 67 (and while I'm not laden with regret, I am constantly annoyed over the loss of time that I could have spent with people who do respect the effort I put in).

And so, but then
Beyond butthurt whining, how does this apply to me?

Well, my boyfriend was my grinding buddy long before he was my boyfriend. Take from that what you will. wink

We have our hands in many soups at the moment, so here's some basic application of the above.

- The Insane - Is a slow, slow thing. Even though 25% of it was removed in 4.0.3! He's also closing in on finals week, so hasn't been able to play that much.

I've completed grinding out all the lockboxes for Ravenholdt rep (my Real-ID status, in response to whispering to me about how ~*~awesome~*~ the world is post-shattering, has been 'Wow, LBRS looks exactly the same!). But I still make a short, daily trip back every day on my rogue so I can send him lockboxes. It's not a huge amount of time, and compared to what one needs it seems a rather pitiful amount, but it's progress, anyway.

I've had him sit stealthed and occasionally hit a space bar nearby while I grind out Steamwheedle rep for both of us. It's a little depressing on my own - when he's able to help it's about 4000 rep an hour for Booty Bay compared to my pitiful 1.5k alone, but it's still better to work on it slowly than not at all, and in a manner where he can study while I work is fine by me.

I'm slowly accumulating Darkmoon cards on the side. This is a bit tougher because the inscription vendor in Dalaran changed, so he doesn't accept Northrend ink for lower ones anymore. He only accepts Cata ink. Which doesn't exist yet. What this meant is farming herbs is currently not worth the amount of cards I get out. In Cata it will be, but not now. So I stalk the auction house constantly and pick up cards for the both of us, using the money the guild bank has accumulated from selling excess materials we've had all expansion.

- Thundarfurry - His rogue accidentally a binding. There was only one thing for it - put the damn sword together. He's able to farm for the second binding on his own. To keep me occupied in the time that he can't be on, I was sent on a quest to make 100 arcanite bars (in other news, transmute spec still hasn't procced enough to justify the 5 primal mights that went into it at the beginning of BC). The guild bank is now full of thorium that I haven't been able to sell (like, had to finally buy the last tab amounts of full).

We're also doing weekly BWL runs for ingots (4 so far zomg).

- For Cataclysm - I actually have to wait a week before I make my journey to 85, because he has to focus on finals, and I'd rather not dash off ahead. I'll still play, most likely try out a Worgen while I wait. And, of course, farm goblin rep (with my Real-ID message set to 'Wow, Grizzly Hills looks exactly the same, too!' the whole time). I don't mind waiting, as a week really doesn't matter that much (several guildies are also holding back for finals, so it's very likely I'll have a pool of people to drag around in instances and heroics anyway).

I also found out I still have two paid weeks of vacation left this year, so indeed, a lot of time to catch up :D

- RARF - Between the $20 deal for vanilla through lk and RAF, it seemed worthwhile to start a second account (my stupid character slots are full anyway! grr!). Right now it's a lot of sitting on one's hands until finals are over, but we were able to play a pair of night elf mages over Thanksgiving and discover that RAF combined with the new questing is pretty damned ridiculous. Like, 4 levels gained in Wailing Caverns ridiculous.

We hit 20 and set foot in Darkshore and I felt a bit guilty. It does feel a bit stupid to be 5+ levels over the quests, but you still want to do them because it's 'new'. We talked about it a bit and decided that at least some of our other characters would probably level together, but not in a party, to slow things down a bit.

I came to the conclusion that even through the bit of buyer's remorse with RAF, it's still not the end of the world. He gets a free month and a rocket, and I wanted the second account anyway. He also wants the night elf mage to level fast, to replace the draenai one he deleted to make room for it - and I generally can't stand leveling mages so having it go extremely fast is great.

The point was also made that, as soon as we hit 60 (which will be fast!), we can sit down and quest normally. All is well.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter that the quests are blowing by. The quests will always be there and they're not usually memorable. What is worth remembering is the fun we've had doing them - which we can do if they're 5 levels below or 5 levels above us. We'll remember that I died to standing in a green cloud of 'What is this' and then ran the opposite direction from my corpse because I followed the gold arrow pointing out a quest instead of the red on pointing at my corpse within viewing distance of the graveyard. Ah, and we'll cherish it.


Screenshots

Most of these were taken from a laptop on vacation which can't handle some of the new graphics.... but they're still pretty on the inside ;_;