Stories of WoW

The patch dropped and the world didn’t end, despite what trade chat is saying. Personally, I find most of the changes good and the bugs not particularly annoying (I’m a night elf, so I don’t get the super slow ghost gryphons :P) They will probably be fixed soon, so I’m not panicking or raging.

I did a bit of ICC on two chars and these are the preliminary impressions.

Resto druid (mostly ilvl 264)
* Nourish is SLOW. I should probably move Regrowth to my Nourish keybind.

* The ToL cooldown is cool. It did help on BQL when everyone was dying, those insta-Regrowths were great. I don’t really get how I’m supposed to Wrath though… if ToL is a healing cooldown, it means I have to, well, heal, not DPS while people are dying.

* Mana isn’t a big problem, but I still managed to run OOM on BQL.

* I reforged all the crit I could to haste and I’m at ~950. Don’t think I’ll reach the new “cap” of 1000 something.

* Short Rejuv is sad :( Short Regrowth is not sad since it’s a “flash heal”. It would be a waste if it kept ticking when people were at max.

* Fury warrior DPS was depressing. Prot paladin was 3-4 on the DPS meters. DK dps and boomkin kept stealing aggro. 3-healing ICC normal meant I didn’t have anything to do.

Disc priest (mix of blues and ilvl 200-219 items)
* OMG everyone was buffed so much! They were hardly taking damage.

* My crappy geared priest, who I wouldn’t even take to ToC10, did fine in ICC. I was 2-healing it with a holy paladin for the first 4 bosses, then a resto druid joined in. (A resto/balance druid wearing half cloth and still rolling on it, using pure haste gems since before the patch, /cry.)

* I picked a non-smite spec for PvE since I was afraid of mana problems if I tried to DPS, and it felt exactly like pre-patch. Bubble, Flash Heal, Penance, rinse and repeat.

* I didn’t run OOM. I spent most of the fights above 70%. For my gear, this is extremely unexpected.

* The casual guild I joined on Defias is really nice, even though they have people like cloth-druid. They let me have all the drops I needed despite the fact that I have been there for less than 2 weeks and they were carrying me :D I have big plans for my gear so maybe I’ll actually be able to raid with them while Soulbound is on break \o/
[Er, is 2xT10 good for disc?]

I might be going back to ICC on Khrista tonight, I’m buying a dress before that, so with all these new upgrades I hope we can clear a fair bit. Discipline feel pretty similar to resto druiding at the moment, so I’m enjoying it a lot.

I was not prepared.

I know I said it’s not a big deal (and I still disagree with many of the arguments), but last night was sad.

I debated arranging a tree memorial myself, but by the time I decided, someone had already posted on the realm forums. When I logged in, there were a dozen trees dancing with Applebough. The number grew fast (as did the number of lumberjack and lighter jokes) and by the end I think we had a hundred, if not more, trees and supporters. We had a dance party, a parade, a group picture session on the Violet Citadel stairs and an awesome amount of Tranquility.

You can click on all the pictures to get bigger versions

Continue reading RIP Tree of Life

I won’t get into the expansion blues conversation. We’ve pretty much stopped raiding after getting our drakes. It’s good and it’s bad. I like my free evenings; I like being able to go to bed at 11 if I feel like it; I like being able to mess around on a level 15 hunter. I feel bad that we haven’t got a drake for a guildie who joined halfway through ICC, but who hasn’t bailed on us. Maybe it’s still possible, but I have a feeling the patch will break the specs so bad that ICC heroic will become impossible.

So, since half the guild is on holiday and the other half is moping around because we can’t raid with 5 people… I’ve eloped to Defias Brotherhood and finally got my priest to 80.

On every alt I try to find a new way of leveling. Some were strictly LFG, level 15 on. Some went through a furious questing process to speed up 70-80. Some went through a mix of questing, dungeoning and PvP. My previous 80, Aushra, quested. A lot. I had a self-imposed deadline to get to 80 and I quested my ass off. I I missed the deadline, but only by a day or so. So, when Khrista was up, I felt like poking my leg with a pointy fork was more fun than questing to 80 again. I had enjoyed BGing as disc while leveling, so around level 70 I decided Khrista will be my PvP alt, a little project to keep me interested until Cataclysm. I did quest from 78 to 80, but all the rest of my time was spent happily bubbling everyone in sight.

PvP noob
Do I have a clue? Barely. I don’t know strategy, I only have a vague idea about what’s needed to win the BG, but my PvE mindset works in PvP too: heal shit. (Around 78 I discovered I make a good flag carrier; at 80 I discovered that my amazing 178 resilience makes me a very dead flag carrier and I stopped trying.)

Now I’m learning. I added Cynwise’s blog to my RSS reader and I’m going back through the posts. I do WG every time it’s available and gather marks one at a time (while my home realm is very imbalanced towards the Alliance, Khrista’s realm is more Horde-heavy, so I’m told Alliance only wins WG on Wednesdays). I try to plan my honor upgrades and hope not to fuck up more than necessary (Who knew disc and holy have different sets? Not me!). I keep hoping to find some players who will notice the healer helping them and will defend me; it hasn’t happened since level 77.

I’m even genuinely enjoying the BG ragers. I think I shocked a polite fellow who was calling me “gay noob”… I told him that “lesbian” might be a better term and got the priceless reaction “OMG FREEK!”. Have I scarred his little mind?

…and yet, here comes PvE.
There’s always a but.

After almost 50 levels spent in a bank guild, I wanted company. One of my RL friends was in a casual raiding guild, so I applied and got in.

They are working on LK and my fingers are itching.

I think they already have the healing spots filled. I think one of them is actually discipline. I still can’t help wanting a spot in the team. Maybe it’s my savior complex – after all, I killed him in May, I could single-handedly down him for these people! Ok, I can barely heal PoS heroic, I have an amazing 4k GS (bow before my blues!), I ran oom all the time and I can barely find my spells, but I R PRO RIADERZ!

Going to the LK in T9 would be a stretch, anyway. But… then I saw a post by someone with a brain: when the patch drops, Triumphs and Frosts will convert to the same amount of Justice Points… so I can farm Triumphs now and use them to buy T10 in a week or less!

Easier said than done. It’s either the battlegroup, the LFG matching system, or the fact that all the geared players are on time-out now, but in one day of pugging heroics I experienced the following:
* A vote-kick out of PoS heroic. The tank had run into Garfrost while I was drinking and half an undergeared mana bar didn’t last until the end of the fight. I died, the boss died, Mr. Pro Tank lived, then kicked me.

* A 507 defense tank in another PoS hc, who kept swearing he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I managed to acquire a 50g repair bill by the time we got to the gauntlet and he decided to drop group. It was only then when I thought of checking his armory and the reason for his sudden drops in health became apparent… I was only sad he left before I could rage at him for making me think I was a bad healer.

* Impressive 3k DPS. Seriously, 3k was so rare it was amazing.

* A large collection of people without gems, enchants, proper stats or any clue about their classes or fights. I have no problem with beginners (hell, I haven’t bothered enchanting my gear because I plan on ditching it soon), but if you don’t know anything, ask! I had a FoS where only me and the tank knew the strategies. I have never seen Brohnjan get to 100% health after 4 minutes of fighting… between yelling from me and the tank to KILL THE FRAGMENTS! (For Devourer of Souls he made STOP DPS and GO DPS macros. We only wiped once… ironically, because he stood in the laser.) I won’t even mention the Oculus run where we wiped repeatedly on the way to Eregos, and then couldn’t kill him at all in the end.

Conclusion
Before yesterday, I dreaded the patch. It’s going to break my tree. My ex-tree, actually. I don’t like change and the idea of re-learning how to heal is not making me a happy Jen.

But now I can’t wait for it: my tree is going to get broken in the end anyway, but my priest could really, really use some T10 so she can heal through stupid. Two months until Cataclysm should be enough time to get a proper PvE set and a proper PvP one…

Binky says hi!

On April 26th, the last person signed the charter and <Soulbound> was officially born. We had two goals: kill the Lich King and get frost wyrms.

The Lich King died on May 19th. On September 2nd we got the wyrms.

I knew that we could do it, but it seemed hopeless at times. Small roster and people going on holiday, starting school, finishing school. Really bad nights when staying out of the fire seemed impossible. Wiping for hours on “easy” bosses. Saurfang heroic had our ranged for dinner repeatedly and P3 healing was a special kind of hell (not helped by the general lack of ranged in the guild). We went from constant 10% Putricide heroic attempts and a kill on the first night to wiping for 3 hours to killing him in 5 tries, from one week to another. Valithria heroic had everyone raging, and it felt like she’d never dielive. The next reset we were wondering why the hell we ever had a problem. Sindragosa heroic seemed to be the end of it; I’m still surprised we managed to kill her.

Last night we were 2 achievements away: All You Can Eat and Been Waiting a Long Time for This. We had been trying Sindragosa for a couple of nights. The normal strategy had failed in a bad way, we hadn’t even managed to get past the ice block. The zerg strategy kept getting us the 6th stack at 4-5%, even with my boyfriend brought in to help with his ICC25 heroic gear. Then tonight something clicked. After a couple of failed zerg attempts we gave the normal strategy a shot. And we got to 10% before people started fucking up the ice blocks. I was expecting a new horrible wipefest and… it wasn’t. Everyone was resetting their stacks in time. We fucked up the blocks (well, mostly I did) and people still killed the right one. I healed on auto-pilot and didn’t even see the health bars, only the stack counter. Then, 15 minutes before the raid end, achievement spam and yelling on Vent.

Only the Lich King stood between us and the wyrms. It was late, but it was also our last 10-man day for the reset, so we voted to give Mr Lich a try. Unfortunately we still had the Plague Wing up… but that was the fastest clear we’d ever done, they were all dead in 20 minutes. I was convinced we had no chance of getting the achievement: we’d wait for the 30 stacks, waste time and then wipe. One of the healers hadn’t even tried LK before so I kept imagining huge Defiles killing us.

First attempt, 30 stacks, dead people on phase 2. Release, run, rinse and repeat. I kept whispering strats to the new priest and watching the stacks of plague (tip: MyGhoul is a nice little addon that counts them for you). We got 30, we went to transition, the plague was still going strong at almost 40 stacks, we ran, we spread, we collapsed, I ran out of mana, I healed my roots out on Vile Spirits, I died, I was ressed, I went into Shadowmourne and I was so stressed I couldn’t find the guy at first, I couldn’t see the HP percentage… and then it was 10% and we died (yelling to the new guy to DO NOT RELEASE!!!). It was the longest RP we’d had. My hands were shaking and I kept thinking we fucked something up and we won’t get the achievement.

And then…

If you squint you can see our new priest getting Kingslayer

Vent was LOUD. My boyfriend got to show off his Jaina’s Locket and teleported us to Dalaran, where we, of course, promptly went to Krasus Landing for pictures, then we hovered above the “fly” spots for the next two hours. (One thing I discovered last night is that wyrms are an awesome means of recruitment. Spamming trade got us 2 or 3 unimpressive apps. Within 10 minutes of getting wyrms, we were getting whispers from 3-4 different people asking about recruitment. We’re not about to recruit and boost some random guys, but it’s nice to know.)

My new drake is called Binky – like the horse. Death’s Binky was specifically non-skeletal, and the wyrm is a girl, but I think the name fits her perfectly.

Getting the wyrms is a huge achievement for us. From three friends unhappy with their guild situation we became one of the best 10-man guilds on the realm, we raid with a great group of people and we have a blast. Glory of the Icecrown Raider is the end of the expansion for me. We’ll probably try heroic LK and heroic Halion, but I won’t be sad if we don’t get them. If Cataclysm dropped tomorrow, I’d be fully satisfied.

…and it’s getting worse.

Our raids start off as usual. Hi, how was your day, ok guys let’s buff up and go. Usually, 10 minutes in the raid, things start going downhill. Sometimes I swear half my guildies have a degree in “That’s what she said” and a detector for innuendos (inyourendos, ha ha ha). Sometimes they swear I should stop complaining because I’m worse. Somewhere along the way, we acquired a new raiding rule from our exasperated RL: everyone has to get laid before the raid. No one’s following it or it’s not working as intended, because Vent keeps getting filthier.

Then again, Blizzard aren’t helping things. As pointed out by Tam, some encounters make it impossible to keep a straight face. My personal one is Putricide (especially on heroic). “Two oozes, one room, so many delightful possibilities!” (Uh, you might not want to look for the source of that if you don’t know it already.) And don’t get me started on the plague. Our Vent usually sounds like some sort of deranged brothel where people are passing STDs left and right. “I’ve got it, who can take it next?” “Pass it to me!” “Ok, Jen got it!” I think I’ve snickered myself to death one time.

But, of course, we, the players behind the microphones, are the worst. I blame (British) English.
The priest is going down tomorrow. Going down to Cornwall to see her parents, but it was too late to take it back.
The tank wants to see how high he can get it. The debuff count for the Lich King achievement, of course, but that part was drowned out by the laughter.
Remarks about bosses being or getting big have been mostly phased out of our vocabulary, since they tend to result in at least three voices on Vent snickering in a meaningful way.

While the smut does get distracting at times, I love it. We’ve managed to kill 11/12 in 10 man heroic, we’re 2 achievements away from our frost wyrms, and I haven’t had this much fun raiding in… forever. Many people wouldn’t see it like this, but for me one of the best things about being in a small guild is the uncensored Vent, because we all know each other and we don’t have to hold back because of some new recruit or sensitive person.

(We might have scarred a few PuGs for life, though. But one of them came back for more!)

[Yeah, I'm not dead. I might post something more game-related at some point. Sometime.]