Friday, October 31, 2008

Tips for leveling in Outland as a resto shaman

I'm about halfway to level 66 and can proudly say that, were I not so stubborn, I could have been at 70 weeks ago — but I have leveled Ahami to 65 and will level her to 80 as a resto shaman. From the moment she hit level 10, she has never been another spec.

And every time I go into AV and hit first or second on the healing charts with 200K+ healing at level 64 and now 65, or keep guildmates alive through a bad pull in a lowbie dungeon run, I don't really care. It's a good feeling. (Actually, it's a freaking great feeling when someone says, "Well, we're gonna wipe" on Vent and then we get through the pull without a single death. Mostly it's due to good tanks and CC, but I help!)

That said, leveling as a resto shaman gets extremely painful once you hit Outland. The mobs are tougher and hit harder, which slows you down like crazy, and with the patch changes, it's a bit easier to go out of mana, at least at this level. So here are a few tips I've been using for myself:

- Use Flametongue Weapon. Yes, we have our new, fancy weapon buff just for resto, and when you're healing instances or PVP, yes, use it. But when you're soloing, that extra damage from the flametongue buff helps a lot — more than Windfury, which does not proc regularly enough to be useful for us.

- Shields. You can really go three ways with this — lightning shield does extra damage, water shield gives you more mana, and earth shield keeps your health topped off. I personally was using earth shield until the patch; now I am using water shield and hitting riptide on myself when I start getting low, but I don't think this actually helps me save mana. No theorycrafting to back that up, just a gut feeling.

- Be careful when using magma totem. In many areas of Outland (and even in Felwood and Winterspring) mobs are pretty thick but a good number of them are not aggressive. If you use magma totem and a sporebat or talbuk wanders in range, then you've just added another mob to deal with.

- For mana conservation, tag the mob with a flame shock, drop a totem, and keep that up, and then just melee them down. Going this route, you can take on several mobs at a time (I can manage 5 or 6 level 64-66 mobs at a time), but it will go fairly slowly.

- If you are more into speed, bring along 3-4 stacks of water and a bunch of mana pots because you will need them. You will go much faster if you are working like a caster and spamming lightning bolts (especially now that interrupts seem much less devastating than pre-patch) than trying to be an enhancement shaman, unless you have an enh/resto hybrid build. Your best bet with this is to take on no more than two or three mobs at a time and then sit and drink — or, and this seems quicker to me, just nab one at a time several in a row. Drink whenever your mana pool is about 5-10 percent. (This is my preferred method; it seems to go more quickly than the multi-mob M.O.)

Basically, leveling from 60-70 seems pretty much the same as leveling from 20-60, just slower and with more need to be aware of your environment.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

You know what's fun?

Killing a level 70 marks hunter via melee in Eye of the Storm as a level 65 resto shaman because he doesn't get back in range. By myself. Twice. Both times, he sent his pet off to someone else and tried to melee me down. YOU ARE A MARKS HUNTER, YOU CANNOT DO THAT.

Underestimating healers? You lose.

(Seriously, though, I suck hardcore at melee and I am a healer, HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? My head hurts.)

Saving more bank space

I kind of adore the currency tab. It's so nice to be able to purchase items or even just glance at it to see where I stand as far as battleground tokens and honor goes.

But I think the developers half-assed it a little. There are plenty of other bank-space eating tokens that are equally annoying to have to go pick up and cart around to spend. I'd really like to see these moved to the currency tab, too:

- Arcane Runes/Holy Dust
- Thrallmar marks (and presumably Honor Hold ones, too)
- Halaa research and battle tokens

And I'm sure there are other things I haven't gotten in game that would do better on the currency tab than cluttering my bags.

It would also be nice to see a tab similar to the pet and mount tabs for tabards. With achievements based around collecting tabards and with the expansion promising a new reputation system based around wearing tabards to gain rep for that faction, people are going to have a crapton of tabards in their bank and their bags. It'd be really nice to be able to simply have them all on a tab, so you can switch at will without having to carry them all around.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Back to your regularly schedule whatever

My framerate in Shatt is 32 fps, with the video settings all on High. 32! With the video settings on low on my old comp, 11 fps was the absolute best I ever got.

Holy crap, people.

Also, no more lag issues. Hooray! I think the patch just pretty much killed my video card entirely.

But yeah, I'm back in game, and will be spending the next few days leveling a wasp, trying to get these necrotic rune things, and leveling Ahami as much as I can. And I want to throw up something here soon (before the expansion, perhaps) about post-patch Outland for the resto shaman, and a PVP review of the 40/21/0 spec I never got to truly test out on Ideale.

EDIT: Did you know that there are scrubby little bushes all over Durotar? And that the snow in Winterspring sparkles? 'Cause I totally didn't.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Argent Dawn tabard

Ideale needs one for many reasons, most of them RP. NEEDS. I honestly don't care about the achievement, but the tabard is necessary.

Apple Store tonight. Hopefully will get everything installed and get these rune things I need before the event is over. Otherwise I'm really going to be bummed out.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

I'm both annoyed and excited

So, given that my computer has been having battery problems for a while (first gen MacBook — I should have waited for second gen, but I really, really wanted one), already blew one hard drive, and neither Blizz nor Apple can fix my current problem ... I think I'm probably going to go buy a MacBook Pro on Monday. *facepalm*

Should I? No. Aside from game play issues and the fact that reinstalling my OS destroyed the usability of Pages and my photo editing program somehow (they both hop around like they're opening and then freeze — ironically, these are the two programs I use the most other than WoW), it's still working pretty well. Unless I unplug it. Then it dies.

But I can afford one right now, which might not be the case by this time next year, and dammit, I am missing Hallow's End AND the zombies. And I could really use the new toys that come with it, since I want to start doing some freelance web design and writing again. And, well, I kinda need Pages working for that, and to be able to import and edit photos.

Plus I really want one. And my mom has been the only person to try and talk me out of it so far, and she cracked as soon as I argued my case. *shifty eyes*

So ... hopefully I'll be able to catch the end of the events. And actually try out my new specs and stuff. And maybe even get Ahami closer to 70 — though I don't think she'll make it before the expansion, I can at least still haul ass for 68 so she can head right into healing in Northrend.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Seriously, Blizz, Winterspring is COLD

What Kinnavieve said.

I was so excited to find armor for Ahami that had sleeves and legs — poor Ideale was wearing chainmail bikini bottoms and a crop top through the whole zone. I finally got her a tabard just because she looked so darned cold.

I realize that Blizzard believes its core demographic is horny teenage boys, but seriously, even Lara Croft got a furry jacket to wear over her Daisy Dukes when she went to the arctic.

What really gets me is when the same armor on male toons is full sleeved and sports legs, though, I have to say. Guys get to have their female toons two strips of cloth/chainmail away from nekkid, but we don't get guys in Speedos? Not fair.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

More on the lag

Is anyone else having this problem with lag/latency spikes? And more importantly, did you manage to fix it?

I'm wondering if removing WoW completely and reinstalling it would help. But given all of the patches I would need to download, I'm a bit hesitant to do that.

I submitted a petition, but it's been an hour and a half with no answer.

EDIT: Dammit, I'm finally looking at the Mac support forum (just occurred to me that none of the PC users I know seem to be having this issue, or not even close to the same extent). Apparently the one thing that has been working for people is a complete reinstall. *sigh* Well, guess I won't be playing for a couple of days — it took me nine hours to install in the first place, so I highly doubt, with the new content patches since I started playing, that it will be any quicker this time.

EDIT II: Spoke too soon. This has only worked for a couple of users; others report doing it and still having problems. One person said they partitioned their iMac and installed Windows XP, and are having no trouble on that version of WoW but still having framerate/lag issues on their Mac version.

So, back to the drawing board. If it comes down to it and I have to, I'll do the partition thing, but I'd really prefer not to.

EDIT III: AND this is a known issue with my crap video card; apparently for Macs using the GMA 950 video card, there is a known bug with Leopard 10.5.5 that causes problems with WoW's graphics, which is why I can hop on, play for about 15 minutes, then have to reboot my computer.

So, if you are having this problem and have a GMA 950 card (older MacBooks and Mac Minis usually have this), I spoke with a tech at Apple. What you need to do is get your Leopard install disc and once it's in, shut down your computer. Restart it while holding down the "C" key. Choose your language, choose "Archive and Install" and make sure to preserve user and network settings, and this will revert you back to the original version of Leopard that you had on your computer.

Then, go to the 10.5.4 Combo Downloader on Apple's website and download that. Do not download and install through your Software Update menu — this will just give you 10.5.5 again.

Unfortunately, I cannot find my stupid disc — but you know what? I don't really care all that much about Leopard, and WoW ran quite a bit better for me in Tiger anyway due to Leopard's higher memory demands. I don't really use my computer for much beyond archiving photos of my cats and surfing the web anymore anyway. Since I know where my Tiger disc is, I might just hop back to that until I can get a new computer.

UPDATE: This did not actually help much. My screen stopped freezing and I don't think I'm having any more latency problems, but my framerate is still 6-11 fps.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

This is getting old

I would very much like to knock out the last few levels to get Ahami to 70. She's got quite a bit of rested XP saved up that I could blow through pretty quickly.

But last time I tried, I ran v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y. out into Terokkar, looked around for a couple of minutes for mobs, decided the lag was too bad to find any, ran back into the town, flew to Shattrath to pick up more parchment for glyph research, researched a glyph and then, and only then, keeled over dead from whatever mob offed me in Terokkar.

The time I tried before that, I fell off of Aldor Rise, brushed myself off, flew out to Zangarmarsh, and died right before landing.

This lag thing is getting a bit ridiculous. I know that some servers aren't having the problems — I'm not sure which ones, because every time I log in to one of mine, I get stuck. I know it's not my internet provider, because my neighbor has another provider and an unsecured wireless network, and I still have problems. I know it's not my computer, because my roommate also has problems. I know it's not a regional thing, because BFF and her guild were having problems Monday, and they are on the East Coast.

The note claimed that the devs knew what the problem was and would fix it during rolling restarts last night, but no. Still having problems. Still a log-on note from Blizz that they're working to correct the problem. *sigh*

So I am getting the exploration achievements, Diplomat title, and candy quests done on Ideale, and then will work on the exploration and Diplomat achievements for Ahami (she finished the candy). At least then I can get a teeny bit of XP while waiting for this latency crap to be solved.

P.S. I'd say Blizz owes me about 15 ankhs, but since I got the G.N.E.R.D. Rage achievement on Ahami in one AV match at over 4000 latency, guess my pride is a fair trade.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Some tips on leveling really fast

With M sitting a couple hundred points from 24, here are some things I learned in the past two sessions:

1. Mages can clear lowbie instances a hell of a lot faster than hunters. Just stand back, call out pats, and loot like a maniac.

2. Looting is your friend. You will not have time to do professions (well, I will, but that's because of schedule differences — if you are doing this as a race to 60 thing, it's not gonna happen). Looting and selling what you loot will help you to buy gear at 60.

3. Your gear sucks. It will suck until you stop leveling fast. Breathe and save money to buy AH greens later. (Apparently, BFF's guildmates did this right after they switched servers last week, to start filling in needed roles — and they said that they hit 60 with their character creation pants still on. They didn't loot though — at least BFF and I have a few pieces of gear, though my boots are grey.)

4. Don't forget to train. That way, you can actually survive a roaming mob when your mage is busy taking out 29836872 of them in the next room.

5. The Stockades is the best instance in the game for this. Takes about 10 minutes for a 70 mage to clear (and, as I pranced into Stormwind on Ide yesterday and gave it a shot, about 45 minutes for a hunter, not counting the corpse hopping into the city; of course, I was wearing nothing but a Spider Web Robe). Compared to the similarly-leveled instances available to Horde (namely, BFD) ... ouch. Definitely roll Alliance with this.

6. Go with a high-DPS spec instead of your eventual spec, so that when you hit the 50s and will have to actually help, you can kill things supafast anyway. (This was advice to me — as I'm not in the 50s yet.)

7. Do not do this with a class you are unfamiliar with. Even if you're filling a necessary role, go make a spare toon of the same class and level it to 30 or so to get the basics down, or play this toon alone in your spare time to figure out abilities. If I hadn't gotten Ahami to the 60s already, I would definitely not be doing this — as it stands, elemental shamans play enough differently than resto that leveling from 60-70 (and maybe past that, depending on how far everyone is into Northrend when the BFF and I hit 68 — I'll be respeccing resto when we catch up) is going to be a long "WTF DO I DOOOO" experience for me, I'm sure.

Ideale and Ahami are, of course, my priorities, so once we hit 60, leveling might slow down a bit. But still, this is fun and pretty easy with RAF. M's /played is under 6 hours.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

And so it begins ...

So BFF and her crew moved over to Blackhand, she told me yesterday. "You can transfer over," she said.

"Well, what do you need more? DPS or heals?" Heals was the diagnosis, and the prescription (yes, I did just get that corny) was Recruit-a-Second-Account. If I had stuck with the pally, we could have just power-leveled her, but I explained my extreme dislike and boredom with single-target healing (and borderline boredom with five-target healing), and they decided a reroll was acceptable.

BFF rolled her own magey to chill with me (and she recruited me, so she can powerlevel said mage at the same time). We figure that, when we hit 60, I will transfer my shaman back over to my main account and cancel (or after 2 months, so she can get the mount). The original plan was that I would keep it and transfer my twinks over there, so I could keep them on a classic account and not have to worry about leveling myself out of AV, but I had to upgrade to Burning Crusade to make a shaman Alliance-side. Stupid Alliance with their fancy draenei. (Kidding, mostly.)

And oh, the powerleveling there was. We sat down with drinks and snacks, her in New York and me in California (and man, is it fun to actually have something to DO instead of just talk on the phone while we watch TV) and bumrushed level 10, and then BFF's fiance brought his mage out and ran us through Deadmines. Three hours, 16 levels, and plans for another 2-3 hour session on Monday. EDIT: Oh, and that s.o.b. Hogger went DOWN, by the way. And it totally still counts if a 70 kills him for you. Totally. /EDIT The goal is (I think) to have me to or past 60 by the time the expansion hits. Something about healing for them in the expansion.

And since I have two accounts for now, I might — might! — do the crazy thing and reroll my priest or a mage (or both!) on account two, then multibox while Ideale and Ahami solo-run classic instances for the achievements. But probably not, because I don't want to have to pay to transfer toons back and forth between accounts, and three 70s 80s will be more than enough to manage at first.

I will also be transferring Tshaya over to Blackhand when I get a little spare cash, but account numero dos was a little unplanned, so it'll wait until next month or so. I plan to level her up, too, so that I can earn some golds and maybe see what the Alliance-side quests are like (powerleveling apparently means getting run through instances 8 jillion times, so I won't actually see new quests until the 70-80 marathon). I'm leaving my magey on Feathermoon for now. I really like the server, and don't really want to move her. I might make a Horde alt over there, too. I like having a server I can escape to when I'm feeling antisocial, with no end-game aspirations.

In other news, Ahami is getting back to her roots. She hit 14 right as the Midsummer Festival arrived, and made it all the way to 19 honoring and extinguishing fires. Well, she dinged 64 this morning after trick-or-treating all around old Azeroth, and she's close to done with Outland — just Netherstorm and Shattrath to go.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

The r-word

The Game Dame is sort of my hero right now. She's a hell of a lot braver than I am, I can tell you that.

I've been wanting to write something about how people use the word "rape" in game, but have hesitated to bring it up. I'm not unlucky enough to be in a guild that tolerates it (or at least, no one's ever used it when I'm on), but I definitely sympathize with her position — casual use of the word would be something I'd leave over, too. It is something I have left battlegrounds over.

So let me make my position clear: nothing that happens in WoW can be called "rape." The feelings you get after a nasty wipe or getting completely destroyed in a PVP matchup are not even close to the trauma that comes from being sexually assaulted. They simply do not compare.

You can make the argument that words can be used in different ways, and you can make the argument that not using the word gives it power. (This is, in fact, the arguments people have gotten into with me.) But you know what? For people who have been through actual rape, the word already has power. It doesn't matter how you use it, it is going to bring up nasty feelings and nasty memories, and frankly, that takes the fun out of the game. To continue to use it when someone has asked you not to, particularly when they have the guts to explain why, is SO incredibly disrespectful.

Too many people think that because they are playing a video game, they have license to be disrespectful. It's apparently entirely appropriate, in some people's minds, to make incredibly disrespectful comments (Game Dame mentions the n-word — racial slurs and homophobic names are actually used quite a lot on some servers as well, and that is also not okay) because it's not real life. But the people on the other side of the chat box are still people. If it's not something you would say to someone in real life, DON'T FUCKING SAY IT IN GAME.

If you would not tell a rape survivor in real life about how you "totally got raped" by murlocs or whatever, then WHY would you shrug that off in game? Why does anonymity give you the right to just sit by and let people say horrible shit? (Not that this doesn't happen in real life, too, sadly.)

In conclusion, don't be an asshole. And go read Game Dame's entry on the subject, please.

More pet blabbing

Pretty sure Ideale's fourth slot will go to either a windserpent, a wasp or a dragonhawk (the fifth will go to the spirit kitty). I've looked through Petopia at all of the exotic and Northrend pets, and none of them seem all that exciting. And once dual-speccing comes, I think my PVP spec will be some kind of BM/MM hybrid (will save full BM for farming/having the spirit cat out), so I want to make sure I have a good selection of non-exotic pets. But actually, I think until 80, I will be going with a 40/21/0 spec because it just offers more attack power — although I do want to try out survival, though, just to see how it plays at 70. I'm hearing some awesome things about PVP as survival right now. (Gonna do the same for Daj — have a full BM spec for the rhino for instance runs, and a survival-based spec for PVPing.)

Anyway.

Now the question is, which windserpent, wasp or dragonhawk to tame? Arikara has the cool animation, but I think I want to get him on Tshaya just for kicks. I like the blue and green Outland models. If I go with the dragonhawk, it'll definitely be this one. I like all the lightning bugs, though Blacksting is kinda nifty.

The wasp is probably the smartest choice, being PVP oriented. And I really, really want one.

I am so indecisive.

Friday, October 17, 2008

A tragic end

The troops were already gathering in Splintertree Post — and rumors said there was a small crew at Zoram'gar Outpost as well — when Cinnamon and I arrived late that night. I had spent some time training with the hunters of Thunder Bluff and the Farstriders of Eversong Woods, and wanted to put my new skills to the test, so when one of the band's leaders offered me a place in the raid, I agreed without hesitation.

Like a flock of birds gathering for the migration, more fighters came, leaving on false starts and returning with more as the force gathered to a mighty group of 40, and finally, a false start turned true and we thundered toward Auberdine, determined to pirate a ship and bring vengeance upon the night elf city of Darnassus. The night elves and the Alliance as a whole had been staging small attacks on Horde settlements for two days, and it was time we responded emphatically.

The boat was taken with ease, and we stormed through the portal at Rut'theran Village, entering the city uncontested. The lack of a response was troubling, but we had attacked under the cover of darkness, so we put it out of our minds. We pushed on to the temple where the night elf priestess Tyrande Whisperwind spends her time, determined to lay a blow far more terrible than any Alliance attack on Tarren Mill or Freewind Post could be.

As we entered the temple gardens, though, we knew something was wrong. The guards were far stronger than they had any right to be. That should have been our first clue, but since we managed them with few casualties and nothing our healers could not care for, we still pushed on. We had a duty to do, and we were determined to carry it out, before the overly gentle Warchief had a chance to put a stop to our actions.

And then we entered the temple itself, and found that our plans had been made in too much haste. We'd heard rumors, of course, that the priestess had recently found new power, but we didn't realize how great it had become until we faced her.

The destruction was terrible and one-sided, and it was a wonder any of us escaped with our lives. We returned to Splintertree Post to regroup. It seems that none of us, for all of our training and battle experience, was ready yet to face the new power of the Alliance.

But along with the rumors of the Alliance's new power, we had heard rumors of a new battle with the Scourge in the frozen north — and after the first set proved to be true, we chose not to disregard this new information. Surely this new war would give us all a chance to hone new skills and gain new power of our own. We failed in revenge that night, but we'd have another chance, and this time, we would be prepared ...


So yeah, we got a full PUG raid together at about 2 a.m. Thursday to try and down Tyrande. Nearly everyone was 70 and a good number were in S4 and T6 gear. And we found out, the hard way, that the city guards and leaders have all been buffed for 80 already. We essentially got one-shotted. Twice. The whole raid.

One of the guild officers from a T6 guild said that Tyrande was hitting harder than pre-patch Brutallus.

Not a good night for the Horde. But damn, was it fun!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The worst thing ever

Exploration.

There is so much I need to do before Nov. 13, including level Ahami to at least the late 60s and run most of these Outland dungeons to learn what the hell I'm doing, earning gold, trying out new specs in PVP, picking Outland herbs to get the last 45 points in inscription, getting Ahami some semi-decent gear so I don't get ROFLstomped when the expansion hits, planning a Halloween party, planning this Saturday's Rumble in the Jungle, and planning a certain sneaky thing. And that's just in game. I have a life, too, that I want to work around.

And what am I doing? Running around Stranglethorn Vale making discoveries. That don't even grant XP because I am on Ideale, of course, and she's at the level cap. *facepalm*

... And when I get home from work tonight (and after I spend some much-needed time with my kittycats, who have been a bit neglected for the past few days), I have already mapped out the quickest routes through Duskwood, Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge and Deadwind Pass. *more facepalm* And I threw out Cartographer so I could see where I hadn't visited yet on the map. *repeat*

And thoughts on new specs

I am trying out a 53/0/8 spec on Ideale and I'm really not sure I like it. I'm pretty sure I will be switching back to BM/MM (probably 55/6/0), but I want to test it out in PVP first, and I'm too busy playing with the barbershop for that right now. *facepalm* I'm noticing, though, that while Cinnamon's DPS went up, mine went down a bit more with the loss of the MM talents I had, so my DPS is actually a little lower. (Yay target dummies in Silvermoon City, though!) So I'll play around for a couple of days and then switch back if I don't find a groove or it's not significantly better in PVP.

My pet specs will definitely need tweaking — since they only cost 10s to respec, I just went with experimental (i.e., whatever sounded good) builds and figure I will mess around on my own until Wrath comes out, then go find a nice theorycrafted spec for each of my pets to level with.

I miss the autoshot clipping (honestly, it never bothered me, but this shooting while I'm shooting thing kinda does).

Haven't logged onto Ahami yet, but her spec will be full resto, and doesn't matter much yet because she's only 62.93ish. I will be going to level inscription when I finish Ide's hair, though. And Ahami's hair. And playing with stuff like achievements.

I am so not sleeping tonight.

EDIT: It amuses me that my unbuffed health on Ide is 9999. Though Gutripper's is no longer 6666.

EDIT II: These Exploration achievements are addictive. And since I have Cartographer off, I can finally see the unexplored parts of my map.

EDIT III: I am at about 130 inscription (and discovered a druid glyph!), have new haircuts on half my peeps, explored for over an hour on Ide to fill in my maps (have half the Eastern Kingdoms done!) and did specs for all of her pets and all of the folks I currently play. I think it's bedtime.

Inscription is FUN. But not as fun as achievements.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

/jealous

So judging from the sudden dearth of forum posts and one message about griefers hogging the Kurken, I'm guessing that VeCo's back up. Now I seethe with jealousy!

I had hoped to at least respec and do Ahami's hair before work. Now I can do it all in one fell swoop! Including leveling inscription to about 300 (And will suddenly have bank space again, as 500-ish+ herbs I've had stored in anticipation get used up superquick ... and as no one in the guild claimed them, I will sell the excess for flyer money on the auction house — along with all of the primals and other random crap that was clogging Ide's bank. I wasn't using it anyway, might as well sell it now while it's still useful and there's no glut on the market.) I'm in no hurry to get to 375 — my herbalism is high enough (maxed out while scouring the Plaguelands for plaguebloom and Arthas' tears) that I can just pick and mill everything I see as I work from one-bubble-to-63 all the way to 70.

But I still have three hours of work to go.

Patch 3.0.2 is downloaded

I'm not sure how I feel about it, though. I started playing so recently, and there are a ton of things I didn't get to do yet. I'm kind of sad about that.

The new loading screen is pretty, although I really think I need to look into getting a computer with a better processor/video card. I already have issues in Outland (I think I've mentioned that I average 4-9 fps in Zangarmarsh). I'm not sure how well my little MacBook will be able to handle Northrend.

Sadly, none of my realms are even on the list, let alone online, so I can't even pretend I'll be able to log in soon. I might have to wait until after work (sadly, my flu seems to be passing) to actually play.

What are you doing during the patch? I've been getting a lot done, actually.

P.S. For some reason, when I tried to log in, my game replayed the Burning Crusade cinematic. You know that skull that Illidan is holding? Homo habilis with fake jaw and teeth or prehistoric chimp skull? Definitely looks pre-homo erectus/ergaster if it is a human ancestor, but doesn't seem to match up with any of the photos I looked at, nor with modern chimp skulls. It could be some other sort of modern ape, I guess. The teeth are definitely more chimp/ape — even if the artists did use a human ancestor, they definitely got the jaw from elsewhere.

EDIT: It's supposed to be the skull of Gul'dan, right? I'm just trying to figure out where the artists got the inspiration for it from.

EDIT II: I can't wait for dual specs. Both my mains will stay BM and resto in both of their specs, respectively, but it will be neat to be able to switch between a PVE and PVP spec (and I want to play with a BM/SV spec rather than BM/MM for PVP for Ideale, mostly for improved Wingclip, and maybe a resto/elem hybrid build for Ahami). And when my druid gets high enough for it to matter, I'd love to make her a resto main spec and balance off-spec.

And have I mentioned how fun it is, when running my druid with my priesty friend, to root stuff down, co-DoT it, and then just spam wrath while E. burns it down with her Mind Blast/Mind Flay combo of doom? We're burning through skull-less Hillsbrad farmers like a hot knife through butter or a butter substitute of your choice.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Why I want to focus on healing in Wrath

I have to be brutally honest here. I'm not a very good hunter. It's something I was thinking about while running Ramps today on my shaman.

Oh, I'm not a bad hunter. I know the theory, I know the basics. I can chain trap. I turn growl off in instances and PVP. I love my pets and feel like a team with them. I know what a shot rotation is. And I love it, I really do.

But something about it doesn't quite click with me. In PVP, for example, I'm really bad about remembering to use Intimidation. My timing is bad with Bestial Wrath — I blow it too soon or too late. I am just now — after having it on my toolbar for the entire time I leveled — remembering to use Wingclip, and it took weeks of farming warbeads in Nagrand to do that. It took me forever to get the hang of kiting, and it's still hit or miss. I waste mana because I use the wrong stings and the wrong shots. I keep working on these things, and I definitely intend to — it's still my favorite class and definitely the most fun for me to solo with. But I just don't get that zen feeling Pike describes.

I think that's one of the reasons I do love the class so much — it's a huge challenge. But it's something that I really have to work at, and again, while it's definitely something I intend to do (hell, I wouldn't be leveling more hunters if I didn't), when I do instances and when, hopefully, I begin raiding, I want to bring my best to the table. I want to bring a class and a role where I don't have to think about what I am doing but where it's second nature to me. Unlike battleground PVP and soloing, people are setting aside part of their day and bringing their very best when they raid, and if I don't do that, I'm wasting their time.

I want to bring that zen.

When I first rolled Ahami, my entire goal was to try classes other than hunters. She survived because I had tried a shaman before and liked it fine. I decided to go resto primarily because everyone said not to, and I'm stubborn. And to be honest, healing really didn't interest me at first. Yeah, I liked it, it was new and different, but I was soloing so I didn't much care — I really only wanted to heal PVP because no one else seemed to and I thought it would be a nice change whenever I wasn't in the mood to bring the DPS.

And then I went into Scarlet Monastery with a guildmate and Arathi Basin on my own, and my God was it fun. I can't really explain how I know when to chain heal, when to use healing wave, when to drop totems (actually, I'm really lazy about dropping totems — but I've never had to think about which one to drop like I do hunter traps). It's just instinctual. The first time I went into Alterac Valley, I hit that zen state, where I was just sitting and healing, and healing, and healing. And it was so satisfying.

I'm better at it, too. My reaction time as a hunter kind of sucks. My reaction time as a shaman — shoot, half the time I've done what I needed to before I even thought about it.

Don't get me wrong — soloing as a healer spec SUCKS. A lot. And I really do have much more fun romping around Azeroth and Outland with Ideale and Cinnamon. I think I like both classes pretty equally for PVP. But for PVE, especially raiding, when you need the reaction time and instinctual ability to play your role ... I think I'm going to have to take my shaman into that, if I want to bring my best to the table. And if I'm going to bother with that PVE thing at all, I'm going to bring it.

I feel kind of disloyal to Ideale to say this at all — I've been fighting it for a while. But I think I have to admit that I'm just a better healer than a hunter, and why would I give my guild my second-best effort?

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Top five pets I want to tame but can't

5. Moongraze stag — or any stag, really. How cool would it be to have a stag at your side? They could have the special attack "Antler toss: The stag tosses your enemy X feet away, causing Y damage." As a bonus, it could be an interrupt.

4. Giant snail. I know there are no giant snails in WoW. You have no idea how sad this makes me.

3. Elekk. If it can be domesticated well enough to ride and if its cousin the rhino can be tamed, why not an elekk? Besides, night elves ride cats, orcs ride wolves, and trolls ride raptors, so it's not like mounts and pets are mutually exclusive. (Side note: Why do we never see hawkstriders in the wild?)

2. Kodo. See #3.

And last but not least,

1. Feral druid. I suppose, to be fair, it would have to be a temporary tame with the same limits as Mind Control, but it'd totally make up for our non-instant Scare Beast.

Pet planning

Plans for Ideale
Ideale already has:
1. Cinnamon. He's staying around. I don't care how much they nerf cats, they'll still have to pry him from Ide's cold, dead fingers.
2. Saffron. I am not as attached to her as I am to Cinn, but it'd still take a lot for me to release her.
3. Gutripper. After the trouble I went through to solo-tame her, I don't think so. I died, like, four times in the process and spent quite a bit of gold on scrolls, pots, and so on to up my health each time. Plus snatch is going to be an awesome ability.

I've been really thinking over which pets I want to tame. Obviously, the spirit cat (a.k.a. my excuse for having a third cat on one hunter) is going to be one, no bones about it. I was thinking about a rhino for the last slot, but that just doesn't fit Ide's personality. She's not a rhino kind of elf. So, choices:

a. Devilsaur. She has a bit of a connection to these anyway, since she spent a large amount of the 50s hunting them down just to prove she could (along with the other elite dinos in Un'Goro Crater). Pros: It's a ginormous dinosaur. Cons: Monstrous bite doesn't seem like the coolest ability ever, though it is decent. Also, I think devilsaurs, core hounds and rhinos will be the "It" pets for most people for at least a few months after the expansion hits.

b. Chimaera. Ide's second home is in Everlook, and she does spend a lot of time frolicking (she's an elf, elves frolic, trust me) among the chimaeras around there. She doesn't have the same connection to them, but they would still fit her quite well. Pros: Froststorm breath looks freaking awesome, and flying pets are fun for attacking gnomes with. Cons: I have this really odd aversion to pets with two heads and I don't think I could get past it.

c. Wasp. I LOOOOOVE them. I have always had a thing for lightning bugs — we don't get them out here in NorCal, so when I lived in New York, I used to go into squealing, girly fits over them. Zangarmarsh is my absolute favorite Outland zone, despite killing my framerate, precisely because of the lightning bugs. And they, also, very much fit Ideale's personality. Pros: Sting will be AWESOME for PVP. Plus they glow! Cons: Since Daj, my next hunter, is going to be survival specc'ed, I hate to blow an exotic slot on a non-exotic pet. And the pink bugs would match Daj's hair.

d. Windserpent. I like shooting lightning at things, for everyone who has not noticed this yet. In fact, this was first on the list when I found out they were adding stable slots, until I learned what the new pets were. Pros: Windserpents are awesome. Cons: See above, and I already plan to tame a windserpent on Daj and maybe on Tshaya anyway.

The cons to all of these choices are, of course, that none of my current pets and none of my planned pets are tenacity pets, which could really cut down on my ability to do solo stuff. But none of the tenacity pets other than the rhino really catch my interest. So do I ignore Ide's personality to grab a rhino, or pick one of the above? And if I pick one of the above, which one!?

Plans for Daj
Right now, she has a snow leopard. I would like to tame either Rak'Shiri or a white tiger and give her two cats as well — I know they're getting nerfed, but I really don't care too much for a lot of the pets, and I figure three useful pets is more than enough. I don't know if I will tame any other pets until she hits 80, though, unless a stabled level 42 becomes 75 when you pull them out.

So:

2. Rak'Shiri or a white tiger. Or maybe Echeyakee. I don't know! But definitely another kitty.
3. Wind Serpent, either Hayoc or Arash'ethis.
4. Wasp? If Ideale does not take one, Daj will get one of the pink ones. Or maybe a dire raven.
5. Open.

I was considering perhaps a warp stalker for the last slot. I don't care much for their appearance in general, but I don't absolutely hate it, and the ability could be really fun for PVP — and since I decided to level a survival hunter specifically to try out PVP (plus extra pets and professions), then I should really be grabbing pets with awesome PVP abilities. I don't want to hoard them all on Daj and screw Ideale, though, either — I want both to be fun to play. Also, Daj has a long way to go to 80.

Plans for Tshaya
It's very odd to be including her again. But if I do end up leveling a resto shaman and doing some raiding with my real life friends, it would be extremely useful to have another high-level Alliance toon both for versatility (in case we ever have too many healers and not enough DPS) and for farming mats.

My goals for Tshaya are long term ones, as my VeCo peeps will be coming first. They're also a bit more difficult, as I want to choose pets that will be more useful in solo and PVE situations. Fortunately, Tshaya is a beast master hunter as well.

She has:
1. Artemis, an owl.
2. Onryo, a ghost saber.

I liked the ghost saber thing, so I wanted to take some other "mysterious origin" pets for her. I definitely want to tame Arikara (extra bonus for doing it on Alliance, right?) and was tossing around the idea of one of the crystal spiders, but they don't seem as useful — a spider might be better for Kresha anyway. I'll probably grab a moth. I would kind of like another cat on her, but I don't know what — Loque'hanak would be the obvious choice, but I don't want to double up on pets. Hopefully, by the time she hits 80, there will be other spirit beasts.

I'm holding off on planning anything for Kresha until I see how certain pets perform in PVP. As a twink, having a nice variety of pets would be awesome, but I really want to make sure they are all useful in PVP because I won't be using them otherwise and I hate to let a pet rot in the stable.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Things that amuse me more than they should

Coming to play Alliance after playing Horde on a PVP server has its moments.

1. Blinking into the canal in Stormwind. I found out that blink works in water!

2. Running into Hammerfall to get the flight path. And the corpse hop back out. Oops.

3. Do you have any idea how many gnomes I've tried to Frost Nova? Oh, gnomes.

4. That chicken mini-pet quest. Seriously, I spent over half an hour clucking at a chicken last night.

So last time I rolled Alliance, I was totally focused on getting to end game. My friends were all at 70, and I wanted to play with them, so I wanted to get to 70 too, as fast as possible. It felt a lot like work.

This mage thing is a blast because it doesn't feel like work at all. I have no plans and no expectations, so I can either do quests, or just play around blinking all over the place. I don't obsess over my time played, I'm not sitting here going, "I should really be doing X."

I think I need to keep this in mind when I go back to VeCo on Tuesday. I've been so focused on getting Ahami to 70 that when it slowed down, I started getting really frustrated, when I should have just been like, "Meh, don't care. Whee, I can shoot lightning!"

Friday, October 10, 2008

The best part of having a toon on a PVE server

So I have gone and done countless quests and done solo runs of several instances to get some swank outfits for Ideale and Ahami (except, dammit, the Robes of Arugal, which ONLY drop if I'm running a clothie through).

And every time — EVERY TIME — I put one on for hanging out in a city, the damn World Defense channel lights up. And while I think there are acceptable reasons to ignore it, "because I'm playing dress-up" is not one of them. Especially because the world PVP is the best part of Venture Co. and it's way more fun to respond and hope there is a knock-down, drag-out brawl.

But I can't respond to World D if I'm not even on the server ... and I can't bring myself to PVP as Alliance anyway, so I can just turn off the channel and play around instead.

This might possibly be the absolute girliest thing I've ever written or even done. (I didn't even play with dolls as a kid. Well, I did, but I was already a total history geek, so it was always Donner Party Barbie or Salem Witch Trial Barbie, not the dress-up kind.)

Leveling changes

The leveling changes from 60-70 are allegedly hitting with the patch on Tuesday. Which means that I can play my mage sans guilt until then, and then level Ahami with the new, faster leveling from 62-70.

Only the amount of herbs required for inscription changed, too, so I am now spending my time gathering in zones I thought I was done with instead.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

About plans

One of my favorite things about plans is that they often change unexpectedly.

I had planned to level only Ideale to 80 at first, then look at what end-game was like before I decided to bring anyone else along. However, having seen the changes to the hunter class all laid out like that, I don't think I will be very useful in raids on my hunter, and PVP's gonna suck. So she will be my "Oh God I'm so lonely why is no one on at 3 a.m." soloing toon (like I'd ever abandon her!) and Ahami will be my main focus on getting to 80 (funny, since she's stalled out in Hellfire Peninsula right now — but I have a month, I can get her 8 levels by then).

Daj and Onashne, of course, will level with my friends as planned.

Another plan that changed? Well, I never planned to do more than "dabble" as Alliance, but my friends are moving off of Laughing Skull — I was talking to my BFF yesterday and told her how much I hated the server, and that's why I never played there, and mentioned my magey. And then she said, "Oh, you're playing around with Alliance again? We're transferring off, if you want to come." Turns out that the server community has changed greatly since they first rolled there and they hate it too, and most of their guild is transferring over to a yet-to-be-chosen PVE server. I pushed for RP. I have no say, really, but I pushed for RP anyway.

I told her I'd definitely be willing to move Mangaragan over (please don't armory her, I had no idea WTF I was doing and she has warrior gear and some ridiculous hybrid spec). And that I'd be happy to respec holy if I ever got her to 80, too. Or that I could roll another resto shaman, if that worked better for the group. And they promised powerleveling would be had. So I might be primarily healing for the expansion. However, I will need to move Tshaya over with M and level her as well, because I still love my hunters and I still hate respeccing, so I will need to be able to farm resources somehow. Plus I left M with 50 silver and will need Tshaya's moneys to respec and learn new professions.

This is a long-term goal, not a right away thing — I'm still Horde, and plan to focus my time accordingly. (And honestly, considering I get home at 1 a.m. and have nothing to do until I go to bed other than play with my cats, play WoW or watch TV, it's not like I don't have time to level a nice variety of toons to 80, especially if I'm getting powerleveled by my buds. One or two can be Alliance.) My goal is to have one raid-capable Alliance toon (probably M) by June.

Because when I move to New Mexico in June, I'll probably be able to swing a day job, meaning I will have nights free for actual group activities. I could totally be a sub healer with my real life friends once or twice a week, as long as it doesn't interfere with whatever I am doing with my wonderful guild on VeCo (because they're totally awesome and, like I said, Horde).

EDIT: Upon further thought, I think I will reroll M as a shaman. I know that learning to heal as another class would be valuable, but I love chain heal too much. Also I logged onto her and looked at the holy spec, and it looks too focused on single-target healing for my liking. After learning to heal in the battlegrounds (and specifically AV), I think single-target healing would drive me insane with boredom.

I've been avoiding WotLK news

And thus totally missed that hunters are getting royally screwed until a guildie made a list of all the ways. AND we're not getting Camouflage after all.

WTF BLIZZ. WTF. It's not like we needed the nerfs or anything, right? I mean, yeah, hunters are somewhat OP for PVE, but even some of the best PVPers, who did quite well in arenas and in PVP on their hunters (I'm mainly thinking of Megatf here) have said the class is broken. So breaking it more is gonna help?

Dammit, I want my Camouflage. That and the spirit beast were the biggest things I was looking forward to in the expansion.

The devs are a bunch of poofaces.

EDIT: Okay, so I did a bunch of research, and it seems that Camouflage will stay in live, but will be a Survival-only ability instead of for all hunters. Lame.

Well, good thing I am leveling a Survival hunter. Though she is, sadly, only level 25 right now.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

First impressions of Feathermoon

Holy crap, people are so freaking nice here. I'm back again today — I had so much fun yesterday and really wanted to try out Arcane Explosion.

I think I am on an official VeCo vacation. Every so often I will roll a toon (usually Horde, but sometimes Alliance) on another server and play around for several levels or so as a break from my main. That's how I got Tshaya in the first place, and, in fact, why I started playing Ideale again when she was just level 10 and Laughing Skull was my main server. Bad timing with Ahami 8 levels from 70 and the expansion about to hit, but whatever.

Usually, though, the server drives me away. I hate Laughing Skull (I think I mentioned this, right?) and Ravenholdt was okay but just not VeCo. People weren't as nice, jokes weren't as funny, ganking replaced actual world PVP. Ravenholdt is close but no cigar.

But Feathermoon, so far (and I've been playing here two days, so I could be totally off) is really different, but still super nice. I hung out in the Exodar last night for a bit after I hit 14, and people in Trade were civil and friendly. I've gotten a ton of help from people already, and I don't even know anyone here! While I miss the sense of danger (I'm standing on the road right now, not worried about someone ganking me at all), if this is what the server is like all the time, this might become my permanent vacation realm. Plus it's different enough from VeCo (and maging is different enough from my usual stuff) that it could be fun.

I do feel a bit guilty, though. Ideale still needs a lot of work, as does Ahami, and I really feel like I should be learning more about the ins and outs of my main two classes before I go moonlighting as something else. But ... well, 70 levels of hunter and 62 levels of shaman (plus leveling baby hunters and shamans on VeCo and Ravenholdt, and a baby to-be-resto shaman on Laughing Skull to play with my friends there — there were promises of instance runs and power leveling after they've established themselves at 80, those jerks) and I just need a break with something totally different for a little bit.

And this seems like a really nice place for that.

P.S. If Synthi the hunter reads this, thank you so much for the robes. And if I had remembered I could do it now, I'd have buffed you and given you some food and water. /shame

EDIT: Apparently VeCo has been down all morning. Whew, less guilt!

Second impression of Feathermoon: I'm a bit disturbed by some of the guilds I'm seeing. RP-PVP servers don't seem to have guilds named after Anne Rice's BDSM books, for example — I thought lesbian vampire RP was a Moon Guard problem specifically, but maybe it's tainted all of the RP-PVE servers? Like the Anal [Spell] thing in the Trade channel of every PVP server I've been on?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Darn you, Hellfire Peninsula!

So the guild was supposed to raid the Exodar today, but I am bad at planning and thus we ended up very short on manpower. I switched to Ahami to work on leveling her instead, but I'm barely into 62 and sick of Hellfire Peninsula and v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-k-i-l-l-i-n-g but too stubborn to respec elemental for a few levels. I am almost free — just have a handful of quests left before I can head to Zangarmarsh, and I figure I can run Ramps or Blood Furnace a couple more times before I go to hit 63.

But I really didn't feel like that tonight. Nor did I feel like running AB or grinding rep — I think I've hit a "What's the point? It's all gonna be worthless in a month anyway" slump.

So I am putting that off for today — back to the grind tomorrow, maybe — and instead I rolled a mage named Lalahon. On a PVE server (Feathermoon). Alliance-side. I give her to level 12 before I delete, but hey, you can't say I never try new things, right? (Actually, if I can hold out to Arcane Explosion, I think I might be able to stick with her at least to my usual Alliance quit-point of 30.)

It is kind of fun to be on a totally new server without higher level characters to send me money and gear and stuff, though, I have to say.

EDIT: So I went from 1-14 in one fell swoop, with the help of a nice level 30 warrior who let me tag stuff and then killed it dead for me for about two levels in the middle. I figured if I didn't, I would stall out at 10. I forgot how much I love the draenei questline, though — that'll help get me to at least the 20s, I bet.

I think it'll be kind of fun to play around with other classes and see the Alliance side of things — which is part of the reason I picked a PVE server this time around. Maybe if it's easier, I will be able to actually get past 30. (And honestly, PVPing as Alliance feels horribly wrong anyway.) It's not like I have any long-term goals, and if I ever do hit end-game and change my mind, I can always transfer to a PVP server.

Plus a lot of cool bloggers are on Feathermoon, so I figure that it must have something going for it. So far people seem nice.

I really feel like I'm cheating on VeCo, though. I even made a troll mage and gave up before I got out of the Valley of Trials because it just wasn't as fun, and then felt horribly guilty.

Why I'm not fond of WSG

Or Capture the Flag, 4-H camp style.

When I was a kid, I was in 4-H (obviously), and each year, all of us in the club sold horrible candy bars and awesome beef jerky so that we could afford to go to 4-H camp for a week.

4-H camp had little going for it. They ran out of all the cool arts and crafts supplies two days in, which meant that we spent half the camp making keychains or postcards. The horseback riding cost extra, so that was out. There was swimming, but the lake was filled with snow runoff, and usually there was still snow on the ground. Who wants to swim in 35 degree water when it's only 65 out? Underwear was stolen every year and run up on the flag pole. You had to do chores, including cleaning the latrines and washing the dishes, every single day. And we were not allowed back in our cabins (or tents, if we drew the short straw) between clean-up and bedtime/bear roaming.

Yes, there were bears.

By the last two days of camp, capture the flag became our main activity (except that one year where there was enough snow that we toboggined the whole time instead, leaving the precious woodburning and leatherworking supplies untouched).

Here's how we played:

1. Dress down. Your clothes were going to be ruined. If you were lucky, they'd just get dirty and not ripped.

2. Paint your face with the color of your team, pick the appropriate colored flags (remember flag football? we wore those belts) and tie a handkerchief of the appropriate color around your arm, head, or whatever — as long as it was easily visible from front and back. With 150 campers every year, teams were enormous. ENORMOUS.

3. The camp was about 15 acres or so of woodland, and for CTF purposes, it was divided down the middle (the middle being the possibly-still-underwear-bedecked flagpole). The cleared area around the flagpole was a sort of no man's land, where anything went. If you were stupid enough to walk through this area, whether you were playing or not, you deserved whatever you got.
3a. Your side chose a flag guard. More than one person could guard the flag, but only one could hide it or move it. The flag could be hidden ANYWHERE on your 7 acre side, as long as it was not inside any structure.
3b. Your side had to also create a jail. It was a 15-by-15-foot space that could not move. Anyone you caught from the other side had to stay in the jail until they were busted out.

4. Guerilla warfare was the rule, not the exception. Once we were let loose, all bets were off (I'm convinced that CTF and not the abysmal food was the true reason there were two nurses on staff). And people were vicious about catching you, too — if you got spotted, they'd chase you down like a dog and tackle if they had to. This was awesome because every member of a team could be captured but one, and all it took was that one sneaky bastard busting the jail and the game got a whole new start. (Jailers wore flags of a third color, and if you got one of the jailer's flags, everyone in the jail went free.) You could only be captured in enemy territory, though, so if you managed to lead your unwitting chaser into your side's camp, you could turn the tables.

5. There was none of this quick, pansy three captures b.s. You went until everyone was too tired to go on, and whichever side had the most flag captures won. Games often went on for 4-5 hours at a time, until the counselors forced us into the lodge for dinner. Some games had 10+ caps per side, and some finished without a single cap — it all depended on how sneaky your flag guard was.

6. Cheating was expected (much like in our nightly games of Bullshit, a card game where cheating and not getting caught was, in fact, the entire goal). No matter how well the counselors searched, kids managed to hide in cabins, sneak in flags/bandanas of many colors so they could swap out as needed, and bust themselves out of the jail. Occasionally, a point was forfeited at random, just because the counselors KNEW we were cheating but couldn't catch us at it.

7. Bruises and cuts were cared for with rubbing alcohol (and that shit hurts, by the way), and there was always at least one kid on crutches by the end of camp due to a bad tackle. Sometimes someone would trip or run into a tree while being chased, and end up looking like raw hamburger. We had no spirit healer who rezzed us at full health.

Despite all of that, every year we all looked forward to camp specifically for Capture the Flag. Oh, we'd pretend it sucked, and grumble about making lanyards or whatever as we signed up for it, but we also spent the weeks before camp gathering supplies, practicing, and wondering why, even when we played on one of the dairies or out in the fields (where there were lots of places to hide), we could never get a game going that was half as fun as it was at camp.

After that, Warsong Gulch? It's kinda dull.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Cowboy up

Finally got off my behind.





Two epic land mounts down, and three haulin' ass toward 30. (Not counting my non-VeCo toons, because I hardly ever even log in on them anymore, and haven't played a one since, like, May.)

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Battlegrounds: Warsong Gulch

Okay, so Warsong Gulch has long been my least favorite battleground, and not because of the fact that it is glorified Capture the Flag (and not even glorified enough — we played camp-wide CTF tournaments in 4-H camp, complete with face paint, camoflage, and prison breaks, and Warsong Gulch just doesn't compare). It's because of the people in it.

See, from what I can tell, there are really two ways to play Warsong Gulch successfully. You can split your team so that half are on defense and half on offense, and hope your defense can hold the flag long enough for your offense to capture it. Or you can zerg the enemy flag, then intercept their offense and return your flag on the way back to your flag room.

Oh, there are other ways to do it — you could tie up their team in the middle while a strike force goes for their flag, or you could rush them, send them all to the graveyard, then camp them there the whole time while one or two run the flag. But really, in my experience, the first two methods are the most successful when you're PUGing the battleground.

Unfortunately, trying to get the rest of the PUG to see this is like herding cats. Most of them prefer to just fight in the middle while the other side caps the flags. Lame.

I often end up on defense, so I've kind of devised a strategy based on that. If you can get 1-2 other people playing defense, you can usually tie up enough of the opposing team for long enough to keep your flag safe, even if half of your team is fighting in the middle.

What you need: People who know how to play their class. They don't have to be awesome, but they do need to know the tricks. For example, you want a hunter who will drop frost traps, not exploding traps, and who knows the map well enough to call out if the enemy is coming via the roof or the tunnel. You want a rogue who knows to stunlock/blind to take one or two out of the equation, a mage who can CC effectively, a shaman who knows their totems, and so on.

As a hunter, I usually find myself dropping a frost trap periodically. If it gets set off and the carrier's not an AOE'r, I'll drop a snake trap at their feet and wing clip — if they are, it's another freezing trap, because AOE will take out your snakes pretty fast. Then back off and hit Concussive Shot every time it cools down, with the appropriate stings and Arcane Shot in between. The goal is to slow down the flag carrier enough that the rest of your team can whale on him. Keep an eye on any other offense, to see who is in line to pick up the flag next. (If you are a survival-specced hunter, I believe you can also pop Readiness and drop yet another trap, too.) And for the love of God, if it's a healing class (or a class capable of healing), drain their mana ASAP. I have capped on Ahami several times because I could sit and self-heal until backup came to take out my pursuers.

As a shaman, I do the same thing with earthbind totem and frost shock, but I also have to heal my team. If I keep them up longer, they can deal with the threat more effectively. I usually hit Shift + V when I'm in the battlegrounds so I can keep a closer eye on who needs heals. This puts health bars above everyone's heads (not just enemies). I also try to hit chain lightning whenever the CD is up, if my team doesn't need heals and I have the mana to spare. This does a lot of damage, not just to the carrier but to his backup.

I can't really speak for other classes, though I have been on a few good two-man defense teams — as long as your partner can CC, then you'll be fine.

When there is a healer backing up the flag carrier, I will slow the FC and switch focus to do as much damage to the healer as possible. If the healer is healing themselves or dead, there's a better chance of taking out their carrier. When I am acting as heals for our own carrier, I know that unless someone takes me out, I can get the carrier back to our base no problem — so take out the healer!

When playing defense against a vastly stronger team, the longer you can slow down their carrier, the more time you have to do damage and perhaps even convince your team to come in as backup instead of HK farming in the middle.

I do not play offense enough to really speak on how that works — I really do play defense pretty exclusively in every battleground but Alterac Valley.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Battleground totems: Stoneclaw Totem

A lot of shaman totems are super-useful in the battlegrounds. One of these is the Stoneclaw Totem.

One thing I have noticed in the battlegrounds is that, as a healer, a lot of times hunters and/or warlocks will send a pet after me, throw up a DoT or two, and then switch their own targeting to someone else.

DO NOT ATTACK.

Unless your earth totem is needed for something else, you can throw down a Stoneclaw Totem here. In most cases, the pet will switch focus to the totem and, because it has more health, you have time to run away. This is doubly handy if it happens to stun them. If you get far enough away and the hunter or 'lock doesn't retarget you, they're likely to get AOE'd or "distracted" by the nearest target once the totem wears off. That is, of course, if their master survives the encounter.

If they do retarget you, then just call it out and run by a melee class, and hopefully, if you've been healing, they will take care of it for you out of gratitude. When I had Ahami in the 59 bracket for two weeks, a lot of the regulars and twinks got to know me and vice versa — if you get a rep as a good healer and get recognized in the battlegrounds by the regulars for it, they will take care of anyone or anything that attacks you, no worries. I know that there are a couple of good healers in the 70s I recognize on Ideale, and I try to keep an eye on them and pull attackers off when I can.

An additional benefit of this totem is that it looks similar to the Earthbind totem for the uninitiated, which means many melee classes will attack it reflexively so as not to get slowed down — and even if they realize it's not, they might not know what it does. Shamans are the most underplayed class in WoW, so it's quite likely that most of your opponents will not realize what the totem does (considering how few know to attack the totem rather than the fire or earth elemental and so on). If you get a melee class taking down totems, there's a good chance they'll keep attacking the Stoneclaw totem, unsure why it's not dying immediately, while your side's DPS takes them down. Or that they will get stunned and maybe panic and blow their trinket.

Either way, it's good stuff.

Friday, October 3, 2008

OMG BATTLEGROUNDS YAY

A lot of Blizzard's recent announcements have led some of us BG'ers to believe that World of Warcraft was shifting away from battleground-style PVP and from the Horde-Alliance conflict in general. This was one of the things that came up in what some of the unimaginative folks are calling Arenagate, but which I like to call BGWTFery.

Anyway.

So while we have no blue answer on PVP gear requirements — there is still, as far as I have found, no plans to release any PVP gear that can be obtained solely through battleground participation — someone DID manage to get an answer, from Tigole no less, on where Blizzard might be going with the battleground system, and it's super-exciting.
Actually, we have been discussing new battlegrounds quite a bit lately. Wrath of the Lich King will feature Strand of the Ancients (attack/defend) as well as Wintergrasp (non-instanced, world PvP).

But past that, we are exploring ideas that would involve expanding our Battleground content in future patches and beyond. We believe we have some strong ideas for improving Battlegrounds and PvP as a whole in the game and we're definitely going to focus on improvements in the future. Now, it's very early to be talking about some of this stuff but I think it's important for the community to know that it's on our minds.

Our general thought is that we could provide more BG content over time. The BG content that we could provide could be of higher quality with a higher degree of accessibility. Overall, we'd like to have more content and variety. We also want the gameplay experience in the BGs to be better directed. We're also exploring the concept of a complimentary "competitive" bg system as well. Over time, we'd like the focus of PvP to shift back to being more BG-centric and more focused on Horde versus Alliance -- the core of our game.

We're also planning on improving some Battleground and PvP features in general. For example, we want to give you the ability to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world. We're also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that.

Please don't take this post as a promise. This won't be an overnight process. Not all of these things are set in stone and guaranteed to happen. It would take us a while to shift in this direction. But these are some of the current thoughts on the development team. I think it's important for you guys to know some of our thought process in regards to PvP.

I've highlighted two items.

1. I would LOVE a competitive battleground system. My problem with the arena requirement is not and has never been the competitiveness of arenas, but the fact that dueling is mad boring. In fact, I think a competitive system would actually make battlegrounds more fun for me — I'm super competitive, as evidenced by my folder full of screenshots where Ahami topped the healing charts. (Seriously — Ideale's main role in PVP is and has always been defense, which is much harder to screenshot, but with Ahami, I just focus on keeping people alive and outhealing that stupid tree druid two levels above me with better gear and snapping a shot every single time I win. YOU'RE GOING DOWN, TREE! ... Um, I mean. I like to heal things. Yes.)

2. Well, there go my twinking plans — but here come delicious plans to level a hunter and a shaman entirely through PVP from twink level to 80. Hopefully, this will take long enough to implement that I will get to have fun being a twink first. Or perhaps be an optional feature, where you can turn off battleground leveling entirely (including in AV!) or turn it on and level exclusively through the BGs.

I'm not foreseeing being able to stick to my "Well I just won't PVP at all then!" guns (really, now that I'm removed from the drama by a week, I can see how overreactive that was), although I still plan to focus on that PVE thing for at least the early months of the expansion's end-game. I'd like to give raiding a try once or twice, at least. Now that I am in a good guild with good people and know the server (and who to avoid) a lot better, I think that it might be a bit more fun than the incredibly painful PUG experiences I've had in the past. Maybe. But the world PVP alone would destroy my resolve — I respond to at least half the stuff on World Defense when I'm online, and I cannot see that changing.

I still don't plan to do the arenas, though, unless I eventually cave and nekkid dance through them with Ideale (she's probably less likely to get PVE action, and I'd like to be able to do something other than mine crap with her). What I was thinking about doing was running some five-mans on her and just gemming/enchanting those drops with lots of +stam and resil, and supplementing this with the off-set pieces that can be obtained just through Wintergrasp/the battlegrounds. Probably quite haphazardly. It could be fun to experiment with this, though. Sort of like "Alternative paths to PVP gear." EDIT: Actually, this seems like it would be a really fun blog project, too, now that I'm thinking about it. Sort of a PVE'rs guide to reconfiguring PVE/crafted gear for PVP. Hmm.

Either way, though, I am hoping that the gear issues get worked out by the time I run out of end-game stuff to do on my mains (because at 80, there'll still be professions, rep grinds, and so on to focus on for a while). Otherwise, I foresee having an army of level 59 & 69 twinks and a lot of complaints about how boring it is when I can only run instances/raid once a week.

Trying the RP Friday Five

I wanted to give Anna's Friday Five, RP Style a shot, for Ide and Ahami, anyway. Maybe I'll do it again later for the others.

Is your character tall/short/average? What kind of build?
Ideale is a tiny bit on the short side for a blood elf, but a little stockier than the average, since she actually eats.
Ahami is of average height for a troll, though she's a little gawky.

Name one thing about your character that is quirky, unusual, or unexpected.
Ideale loves fishing, mining and cooking, and spends most of her free time doing one of the three. The jewelcrafting was just an excuse to keep mining without being ridiculed by her fellow blood elves.
Ahami is a book-loving nerd.

Name one thing about your character that is stereotypical of his/her class, race, or origin.
Ideale is pretty much a total snob. And she loves pretty dresses.
Ahami does not get the whole cannibalism ban and only conforms when the other Horde races are watching.

What is his or her favorite (or least favorite) article of clothing?
Ideale hates mail armor and often wears leather instead.
Ahami only cares if her clothing is comfortable and practical. It doesn't even have to match.

What is your character’s favorite color?
Ideale favorite colors are teal, maroon and silver.
Ahami prefers dark yellows and greens

I am bad at writing concisely. I fail.

I do actually have several rogue pieces of armor for Ide because the gear she normally sports just looks so heavy. Especially the S2 shoulders — she usually has on Daggerfen Pauldrons of the Bandit, varied boots and Shattrath Leggings when she's just fishing in Revantusk or mining in the low-level zones. (The helm and chest are hidden and covered by her tabard, respectively, so they usually stay on.) I really like mail armor, but it just looks so heavy on her that I only have it on her in Outland (in case of gankage) or when PVPing. WTB sturdier-looking blood elves, pst.

Meanwhile, Ahami often looks like this and doesn't much care.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Blogspam

I think it's time I made a confession.

I don't think this is a hunter blog anymore.

I never expected to like another role/class as much. While I knew I really liked shamans, I didn't LOVE them like I did hunters, and I had very limited experience as a healer (I hated healing on both my pally and priest, and lost interest in them at 30 and 20 respectively). I figured I would be speccing elemental at end-game, and just leveled resto because I am stubborn — and had I leveled elemental and stayed with it, I think I would love huntering best, hands down, no holds barred.

But really, until I actually started playing Ideale, I'd never maintained interest in a class past level 25. Huntering dragged me into blogging, and honestly is what kept me interested in the game, period. Ideale was my first character to see the Plaguelands and Winterspring, the first to have a maxed-out profession, the first to see Outland, the first to fly, the first to do a daily and the first to 70, and she will be my first to Northrend and 80, too, no doubt about it.

Only the thing is, I have found I LOVE healing — on my shaman and increasingly on my druid, at least — just as much as huntering. Not more, but equally. (After all, I love solo play, and fun as it is, shooting helboars with lightning, dropping a magma totem, and then just healing myself until they die on their own takes FOREVER. I think hunters will still be my favorite class for sheer versatility, because playing a healer is not really much fun unless you're in a group.)

I can still safely say that I still dislike the other roles — okay, bear tanking can be fun, but I suck at it hardcore, and mages might be fun if I ever had the interest and patience to get one past 10, but other than that. And honestly, 90 percent of the appeal of bear form is jumping around my roommate's priesty while squealing, "I'm a bear! I'm a bear! Look at me! WHEE BEAR!" until she throws couch cushions at me. And again, I'd probably lose interest in my druid were I not playing with someone else, because not healing + not huntering = boring.

So I guess that this is a hunting and healing blog, then. Not like it hasn't been for ages. And hopefully, as the expansion wipes the slate clean and everyone else is back to learning along with me (we'll all be noobs! I won't be alone!), I'll actually be able to offer some original content for both roles.

And I do promise more cat-related content, including a list of all the cat mini-pets I collect, taming adventures, and stories about Cinnamon's odd emotes ("How about some crawling?" WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!?), as well as occasional forays out of WoW, such as Sparrow's Great Mail Adventure and Klio's Guide to Scaring the Crap Out of her Owner, so it still remains as cat-centric as advertised.

That PVE thing is changing?

This is why you should read the occasional info about upcoming expansion-related changes.

People in the VeCo forum were talking about bosses' health going down 30 percent, and I was like, "Huh? Really?" So I clicked on some links and went and read the thread and ... wow. I knew they were nixing downranking spells, which didn't bother me because I never bothered much with that until Ahami hit the 40s, so it was easy to break myself right back off it.

Things I didn't know: You will get one potion per fight. After that, you must leave combat before the cooldown timer starts. This is gonna suck, especially as a healer (or really, anything but a rogue or hunter, I think — though honestly, I haven't done any PVE that requires me to chug pots on my hunter, so maybe feign death doesn't break combat if your team's still fighting, I dunno).

Things I didn't know II: Lots of buffs aren't going to stack anymore. Ouch.

The point being, this means that PVE thing's going to totally change in the expansion, so I can probably get away with not doing any of it until then! YAY!

Only not really, because Ahami has decided that she needs a Cenarion War Hippogryph — although I've done nothing but plant part turn-ins so far, so I might only have to do a couple Steamvault runs for it after the quests are done. Plus I still should be working on stuff like aggro management and my basic group role and stuff anyway (I do have the spamming chain heals/steady shots and not standing in fire bits down, but there are other buttons I need to press, I imagine, and I still end up winning Omen at least once an instance).

Patch priorities

In reverse order, because I want to.

5. Organize pets and mounts.

4. Redo talent trees.

3. Pet talent trees!

2. Drop skinning and level inscription like what. I know I was going to wait for 80, but I have all these herbs stored now, and two up-and-coming skinners anyway.

1. New hairstyles.

... What?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Why I roll with the Horde

1. Because the Alliance are too stuck on their fancy buildings and rules. Night elves get all fussy when you spit on the floor.

2. Because trolls are the coolest, followed closely by taurens.
2b. Moo.

3. Because I <3 the Frostwolf tabard way more than the lame Stormpike one, and the other battleground tabards are cooler than yours, too.

4. Because of kodos.
4b. Moo. Again.

5. Because who wants a king when you can have a warchief!?

6. Because last time I logged onto my draenei hunter, I died after running to Hammerfall. I've never died entering an Alliance city, including the capitals (Darnassus is a pretty fishing spot, okay?), on any of my Horde folks. Except that one time when we fought in Ashenvale, but Horde only had, like, two and a half raids and Alliance brought at least four. And we still wiped out all the NPCs in Astranaar, including the flightmaster and her gryphons, before they downed us.
6b. Wyverns are so cooler than gryphons.

7. Because Jaina likes us better, too.

8. Because night elves ride cats. Like ponies. THAT IS SO WRONG. Poor kitties. :-(

9. Because the Horde doesn't need your stupid chairs.

Lessons learned from accidental asshattery

Herbstravaganza took me into Felwood today, where I ran across two Alliance, one from a rival guild. They were both a bit lower than Ahami, but still green, so I attacked.

And then realized they were in the middle of an escort quest and felt like a total ass.

So I stopped attacking, spun around in circles for a second, then ghost wolfed to run off, and the mage froze me down. And then I panicked and got to less than a quarter health before I healed myself quick, downed a mana pot, and killed everything in sight.

And then I felt like even more of an ass.

Lessons learned:

1. Don't panic. Panic will get your ass kicked or lead to overreaction.

2. Be aware of the situation and your surroundings before jumping in. Had I looked around first, I'd have seen them doing the escort quest and would not have attacked, because people who attack during escort quests are among the lowest life forms in WoW. Also, they totally could have had a pocket 70 somewhere, and I would never have known.