Mr. O: pwning manatees since right now.

.



.

Tanking?!

.

So, like most pre-expansions, I'm finding myself spending far less time on Averna, and spending much more time leveling alts. Here's my spread:

Fiorea, 66 shaman. I've got her dual-specced for ele and heals. I've been focusing on her more than the other alts, just because I'm so close to getting her to Northrend.

Shimai, 40 disc priest. I'm really digging disc as heals. For all I know, low level healing is way easier as holy, but I don't care. I like to shield things.

Maitea, 35 tanky drood. Yup, that's right - I have two druids. And this one is a tank! =O

Leaps, 27 rogue. Leaps is a female gnome who levels with another female gnome rogue, Bounds (played by Pete). Yes: Leaps and Bounds. Also, they look *exactly* the same. It's terrifyingly awesome.

I've learned a lot by playing these different toons. Something that specifically comes to mind is the difference between healing and tanking, even in the same exact scenario.

Imagine this situation. You're in a random 5 man, leveling up on your alt. A pack is pulled in Scarlet Monastery. The mage next to you starts going wild with Blizzard, and the hunter unloads all of his specials on the one mob that the tank hasn't pulled aggro on yet. You look, and three out of five people have aggro. One of the Scarlet Protectors hits 20% health and runs away in fear, bringing back another pack. Pop quiz, hot shot! What do YOU DO!*

On Shimai (my priest): Yawn. Here, have a shield. Want a renew? Sure. *twiddle thumbs* Eh, I'ma curse some shit. Oh, now the warlock has aggro too? Teehee! Fun! Have another shield.

On Maitea (my tank): OHHH MYYYY GODDDD WHAT THE EFF ARE THEY DOING WHY ISNT MY TAUNT UP WHY IS ENRAGE ON CD WHY DID FAERIE FIRE MISS WHY DID THAT OTHER PACK PULL AHHHHH KHAAAAAAAN

On my healer, a dpser will pull aggro and it is no. big. deal. In fact, I expect it. I don't think the tank is a bad tank, or the dpser is a bad dpser (unless it is chronic throughout the run). As a healer, I'm ready for any type of pull - I have my oh-shit buttons ready, my mana at a reasonable level (usually), and a sharp eye on who has aggro when.

On my tank, if a dpser pulls aggro, it is a catastrophe. I am *certain* that the healer hates me, that the dps think I can't hold aggro worth shit, and that they think I am pulling either a) too fast, or b) too slowly. So I panic and click on the big red Threat Plates nameplate (the one that screams at you "I am big and red and you should taunt me because I'm wailing on someone else right now!") and mash taunt, or faerie fire, or panic because both are on CD, and inevitably accidently hit survival instincts which is the button right next to those two, which I am sure makes the other 4 people in my group snicker and think "noob, why's she popping that now?" and then frantically try to get enough rage to swipe my Scarlet Crusaders' guts out. Panic city. Whoever said tanking was a yawnfest is an ass. Luckily, I have posts by the Bear to guide me. =D

After all is said and done, however, I actually really enjoy tanking. I just need to put a lot more mental energy into it. I could do 10 instances in a row on any of my healers, and be watching TV at the same time, or eating dinner, or whatever. With my tank, I can really only do 2 or 3 before my brain starts to fry from the intensity of my concentration. Funny how that works.



So I've got my hands full with all this alt leveling. I considered saving one or two for Cataclysm, but honestly, I just know I'm going to want to level a Worgen. Yo dawg, I herd you liked aminals so I made you aminal toon that you can turn into an aminal so you can aminal while you aminal. BRILLIANT! Makes me want to roll a Worgen druid, but can I really have three?!

So the question is, what class should be Worgen be?

Druid: Ixnay. I already have two.
Hunter: Quite possible. I already have an 80 hunter, but I had a total blast leveling her.
Warlock: I've tried leveling a warlock twice and it always got deleted.
Mage: Maaaybe. I have a level 50 fire mage that I kind of stopped leveling. She was fun, though.
Priest: Nope.
Warrior: Ew, no. Most boring class I played to level 20. Sorry, warriors.
DK: Nope. I want to experience "old" (new?!) world content.
Rogue: I'm satisfied with Leaps at the moment.

After listing them out like that, I'm thinking mage. Really, my mage is the only "fun" class that I've abandoned (oh, poor Airalee. I got stuck/bored in the Searing Gorge, which is the worst place for a fire mage to play). Unless I give up on my priest or something, I'm thinking I'll go mage. Maybe frost this time. Airalee was totally a fire chick. She had red hair and looked bad ass. It was only fitting to have her throw fire balls.

Are any of you guys making a worgen? Do you healers get stressed out when you tank? Any pointers you want to give me? (I can use any and all!)

(*at John P: I had to, I just had to. :P)

.

Captain Octopus!

.

Captain Octopus: making sure octopi get the ice cream they deserve, all the time, every time.




I really should come up with a better layout than just post-it notes and tape. Hm.

.

Lich King down!

.

Yup, that's right - our ten man achievement run finally did it! After weeks and weeks of figuring out how to coordinate the heals on infest, work out the timing on horrors, burn down raging spirits, move out of defile, heal through/mitigate Soul Reaper, snare Val'kyrs, avoid/take (depending) vile spirits, and rock out in the LK's Frostmourne, we FINALLY did it. 10 man, no buff, clean kill. Not only that, but it was the first attempt of the entire night. We totally rocked it. =)


Onto heroic mode!
.

Having some non-raiding guild fun

.

On our guild forum, we have a variety of different boards. Guild chatter for general posts, Class Discussions for all things class-related, New Member Applications for, well, new member applications. I'm sure your guild forum, if you have one, is similar.

We also have a board for Guild Events. We post raid rosters here, and any other events that are going on. For months, this is what this forum has looked like:

ICC25 [insert date here]

Over and over again. For months!

So I've been trying to come up with a fun guild event. Something that doesn't have to do with raiding. Raiding is great and all, but sometimes you just want to have something that is completely different, and that includes more members than just raiding mains.

Here are my ideas:

1. Guild PvP in Dire Maul or Gurubashi Arena. It's weird when you walk in there and everyone's nameplate turns red. Wtf, why is my raid leader mauling me in the face? GAAAH! ./tree cower

We've done this in two different ways, from what I remember. One way is to make a toon, level it to 10, and go at it. We've done 2v2 teams, and free-for-alls (hint: roll a druid and shadowmeld until everyone else is dead. Another hint: this usually doesn't work). The second way is to bring your level 80s and have it out that way.

Additional awesomeness: If the fight gets too long and the people on the sidelines get bored, everyone is entitled to help the match along by aoeing the area. This usually brings the fight to an quick and deadly end. ^^

2. A 25 man level one Hogger raid. My co-healer Pallymar brought this idea to the table, which I know is old, but it was the first time I had ever heard of it (!). I think this would be hiLARious. Between all classes we'd have about 10 spells/abilities total. I feel like he'd just one-shot everyone. The other problem is that level 1 characters can't form raids anymore (booooo). Which makes me wonder, could a level 80 form a raid and invite level 1s?

3. An obligatory naked gnome race. What is it usually, run from Ironforge to Stormwind, right? As naked and as fast as possible. Winner gets my undying respect.

Any other fun things you've done with your guild? I'm looking for ideas!

.

Random!

.

Because I'm at work and can't write an actual well thought out post, and because I still am itching to post *something,* I will leave you with a completely random comic I drew.



It has nothing to do with anything, and is made of taped together post-it notes.

Enjoy!

.

Cataclysm: Druid Preview

.

So Blizzard finally released the druid preview for Cataclysm. I'm pretty underwhelmed, to say the least. Here is the original post.
Some key points:

All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks.

I like this. This sounds like the glyph of rapid rejuv (which is great; I use it constantly in ICC), except unlike the RR glyph, our hots won't be shortened in duration. With the RR glyph, rejuv does the same exact amount of healing as rejuv withOUT the RR glyph. It'll be great to have hasted ticks that last a full 18 seconds. I wonder what the exact formula will be for haste affecting hots? Oh god, the mathy part of my brain just spasmed.

Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.

Sigh. To be honest, when I was thinking about what new spell they would give us at level 85, I couldn't really come up with anything awesome. We have direct heals, heals over time, an AoE heal - what's left? But then I figured that even though *I* wasn't able to come up with anything, certainly the mastermind that is Blizzard would come up with *something.* I had faith, Blizz! ./weep. While I agree that we have a ton of spells to work with (and I also agree that they shouldn't just throw us another spell just because), I was still hoping for something new and shiny.

I also thought that they might change up Lifebloom or Regrowth. I don't know why, but I had this feeling that they would overhaul one of those spells. Guess not. Ah, well. Do I really want lifebloom to be overhauled? I'm not sure. But I was expecting something to change. Instead, what they're saying is, "keep doing everything you've been doing at level 80." Meh. Not impressed.

Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

I'm with Keeva on this one - NOT A FAN! Are druids really pissed off at being in tree form all the time? Personally, I love it. It's who I am! Healing in caster form just isn't the same.

In fact, I'd say that one of huge reasons I'm a druid healer is because I get to shift into tree form! It's what really drew me to the class!


.....

We knew changing Tree of Life to a cooldown was going to be controversial. My apologies if being a tree was what really drew you to the class.

.....



Hmph. Moving on.

Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.

This may be interesting. Will this be a big enough deal to make crit more yummy in Cataclysm? I think that this, combined with critting hots, may put crit on par with haste. Depends on how good the Efflorescence thing is. From what I can deduce, it sounds like either an extra hot that will tick, or a living seed type mechanic that will bloom with damage. Has anyone heard more info about this talent?

So what do you guys think? Do you wish we had another spell to work with?

.