Just a note before bed

As luck would have it, today I ended up with a horrible headache and my office computer died.  So not a lot of anything was done today in preparation for raid tonight.  But, we did get into the new Dragon Soul raid and managed to get a couple bosses down, all while battling the Vent server boss.

We managed to one shot Morchok and felt very proud of ourselves!  And then we headed off to Yor'sahj the Unsleeping.  Which could be what I do now I suppose.  I'm Karegina the Unsleeping.  (Except I'm totally going to bed soon because I'm not feeling well.)

This was when we started to have problems with our Vent server.  And an hour and a half later ....

Stupid Vent server.  We now have a new one though.  This one was a pain in the ass too often!!  This picture is without our death knight.  He ran off and couldn't make it back in time for a picture.  Silly guy.

We go back in tomorrow night.  So yeah.  We won't be one of those guilds who gets 7/8 their first night in.  Nor will we probably be 7/8 our first week.  But damnit, we're going to do this and we'll be successful!

Except maybe on this trash.  Because I really hate this trash.

And bonus screenshot!!

This is my priest and my best friend's shaman after their transmog adventures.  My shaman buddy is sporting a pretty pink shield (from Mags) and my priest is sporting a couple tiers worth of gear (ICC offhand and weapon, Ulduar shoulders and robe).  I think we're very dashing together!!

4.3! YAY! or not?

So, yesterday 4.3 hit the live realms and everyone was excited and happy and joyous.  My little guild started running the new heroics so they could unlock them all and do the quests.  Every 10-15 minutes SOMEONE was getting an achievement for one of the 3 heroics.

When I logged on, I got my addons fixed almost right away.  The ones I didn't get updated all loaded nicely so I had no problems at all there.  The second thing I did was drop my Glyph of Wild Growth.  Since I only run dungeons and 10 man raids, what's the point?  Over half the time, my 6th person is usually an imp or a hunter pet.  I don't love them that much.  (Sorry hunters and warlocks!)

So, I start to put together a group.  I get my husband to tank, my favorite mage to dps and then my best friend logs in.  I ask her if she wants to come with us and she said yes and that her husband would want to come too!  That was 5 people so after sorting out addons and role checks, we started.  We had the follow classes: Prot Pally, Fury Warrior, Fire Mage, Kitty Druid and Resto Shaman.  (FIRE KITTEH!)

I died to the first Echo in our End of Time run which was Sylvanas.  So I watched the group down her from the safety of my corpse.  I also died to the trash leading up to the second Echo, which was Bayne.  And apparently my husband didn't hear me when I said "Those fire things that move HURT" because he was almost killed by one a little later.  *facepalm*  Over all though, that was a lot of fun.  I love seeing new stuff with my friends :)

I also discovered that I'm a really piss poor melee.  I just smash my buttons and try to follow the boss around.  My husband drags those suckers around like they're dancing with him.  He and I are going to have a 'talk' about this I think.  Especially if I keep dpsing as kitty.

The 2nd run, Well of the Ancients, was a bit more frustrating for me.  First of all, when Illidan would put us into 'stealth' mode, it would change my bar to my 'stealth' bar for kitty, which apparently I haven't set up yet.  (It was all healing spells.)  And then, every. single. time. I would leave combat, I would pop OUT of kitty form into night elf form.  And UGH!  I'm a moocow, why would I want to be an elf?

So, that was sucky.  And sometimes it would pop me out of form between me killing mobs.  I told my group that this must be Blizzard's new way to get us Druids to shift more, simply kick us out of form at the end of combat.

The end fight was another one that I died on, so I watched it from the safety of the ground with my fury warrior buddy.  I had to chase down Illidan to turn in my quest, punk.  But it was still an epic fight.  A++++ would dungeon again!

Then we headed to hang out with Thrall.  I'd already see this from tenmanbear's view a while ago, so I was ready and knew what would happen.  I managed to live through the whole thing as well did semi okay dps.  I managed to pick up a 378 staff and got a 378 ring plus some 378 boots.  So, I have all 378's equipped now AND I'm slightly over the 2005 haste break point now.  I tried to go reforge but the reforger dude was bugged.

I then logged on my priest alt and transmogged her shoulders to Ulduar shoulders, her offhand to Sindragosa's offhand, her weapon to the mace that dropped off 25 man Lich King, and her robe to Ulduar robes!  She looks adorable.  I'll actually post pictures later tonight, I just didn't have time to get them uploaded before work.

And tonight we head into the Dragon Soul raid!  Woot!  So excited!

Ulduar

So, my usual morning routine is as follows: 1. Get woken up by the husband at 6am, 2. Ride my exercise bike for 20 minutes, 3. Get some breakfast, 4. Play WoW until 7:35, and finally, 5. Get ready for work.  However, there is maintenance this morning in WoW, so you all get a post.

Last night, my guild took a few people (8 to be precise) and ventured into Ulduar.

We had good times!  My priest had never been and we ended up clearing the place and getting a lot of the achievements out of the way!

I didn't get a lot of pictures of us at all the bosses, but I did get pictures of my favorite things in Ulduar.

I love the stained glass.  I think it's beautiful.  Also, here's an action shot of my guildies!!

And here are more shots of the windows.

Also, don't you  hate it when you're lining up the perfect shot and some goddamn tourist walks into the frame.  

And finally, we reached Yogg.  

No cool shots of Yogg because I was healing my butt off and trying to not get driven insane.  (Too late Yoggy boy!!)

But then, we went and had fun with Algalon.  

I love Ulduar!!  It's a lot of fun to head there and kill stuff.  Plus, I'm now really close to my drake!!  Yay!  Anyway, I'd better wrap this up!  So, I just wanted to tell my guild I love them and it's awesome fun to go kill internet dragons with you!!

Symbiosis as envisioned by the Daily Blink

http://www.thedailyblink.com/2011/11/the-new-abilities-symbiosis/

I highly recommend a visit if you have a chance!!

Leveling

As I level another toon through Deepholm and Twilight Highlands, I find myself wishing that there were alternatives.  The first couple times through Deepholm, I was happy and excited because I loved the story line, it felt epic and that made me happy.

I also loved Twilight Highlands.  The quests were interesting, the battles exciting and the whole 'This is Dragonmaw' thing, AWESOME!

However, this weekend I finished up Deepholm for the 6th time.  And tonight I will be doing the intro quests for Twilight Highlands.  I swear, by the 6th time, I should be allowed to point to the bad guy and say "This is a bad guy" and slay him in front of Garrosh.  I shouldn't have to go 'investigate' anything.  I've done this before dude, I KNOW!

I felt this way about Storm Peaks back in Wrath.  Now, I won't go there at all.  You can't pay me to take my alts through that zone.  And I have a feeling that this is what it will be like in MoP.  I will avoid Hyjal and Deepholm because I am 'required' to go through those zones now.  I will admit that I only did Icecrown 2 or 3 times because I could level to 80 without them.  However, I took all my skinners, herbalists and miners through Sholazar Basin.  But that was fun because I would come out of there with a TON of materials!

Speaking of materials, one of my guildies was giving away their 6 tab guild bank.  I said I could use it and then forgot about it for a week or so.  Well, last night I finally installed Altoholic and this morning I got it all set up. Hot damn do I have a lot of mats.  1 guild bank tab full of old dust (plus extras), 1 guild bank tab full of old ore, 1 guild bank tab full of old gems, 2 guild bank tab full of old cloth, 1 guild bank tab full of old shards and essences.  Seriously, that's a lot of crap!  So, my goal for the next couple days is to get that straightened out!  Wish me luck!

Catch up!

My holiday weekend was relaxed, yet crazy.  Friends, family, etc.  I have been playing a bit of WoW, but almost all day Thursday was taken up by gatherings, and then Saturday was taken up with my usual Saturday 'stuff'.  But that's enough about that!  On to the screenshots!

Ah, Thrallmar.  I remember when BC came out and I was SO excited to go level IN SPACE!  And then I got to Thrallmar and Hellfire Pennisula and ended up sick because of the angles.  I got to the point where I would level to 60 and then move on to Zangermarsh!

However, before I would leave, I would usually have one or two run ins with my best friend, the Fel Reaver.

I have yet to figure out how something so big can sneak up on me!!  It even trumpets!!

Besides hiding from the fel reaver, I have spent my Thanksgiving holiday making rogue toons for anyone in my guild who needs them.  For my favorite shadow priest, I made a dwarf, and for my husband, I swear I made one of everything.  I would have him summon my Horde toons to Org so I could stand there and be a turkey.

I also ended up doing some farming for copper so my goblin warrior could switch professions from blacksmithing to engineering.  And while I was doing that, I can across these shots.

I also decided to do a little project.  And I'm going to put these pictures on my 10 to 85 project page.  But here are some of my toons.

This is Sinia, she's my 85 prot pally who dabbles in holy pvp even though she's never actually done a battleground.

This is Asmini, my 85 disc (now) priest, who enjoys melting faces as shadow in PVP.

This is Karegina.  My 85 resto druid, who will do anything she wants to.  Sometimes it's boomkin, currently it's feral because FIRE KITTEH!

Here is Annanda, my formerly undead, now 85 goblin mage.  I think she's fire right now but really, she's just transmute specced!!

And here is Duvessa, my 85 combat rogue.  I can't believe I got her up there.  She was just a side project I was working on.

Now, we get into my 'unfinished' alts.

This is Paraptraz.  She's level 76, a blood death knight.  I haven't played her since July.  But I'll get back to her!

Here you see Gazley, my arms warrior, as of 10:13am Pacific time on November 26th, is level 62.  She'll be fury when she can get Titansgrip!

This is Rokaria, my elemental shaman who likes to heal people in her off time.  She's level 83 at the moment!

This is Arcina, my level 76 beast mastery hunter.  And that's Sven with her.  I like hunters because pets are fluffy and cute! /wowcrendor

And this is my level 70 demonology warlock, Zillarinzul.  I have another warlock at level 75 or 76 but I'll probably not level her for a while.

So, yeah.  Screenshot dump there.  And in parting, I'll leave you with two screenies I took in Deepholm.

Thoughts on the new MoP Talent Calculator and Spells

In a break from my picture taking, I noticed that Blizzard released the new MoP Talent Calculator and Spell lists.

The first thing I noticed was Malfurion's Gift reduces the cooldown on Tranquility to 13 minutes.  Boy did that freak me out.  However, I noticed that baseline the cooldown in 8 minutes, so I sure it's just a typo.

However, I did a little more looking and I notice that the resto druids have 'Ironbark' which reduces the target's incoming damage by 20%.  But every other druid has 'Barkskin' in it's old incarnation.  So apparently they're giving us our mitigation cooldown, but removing Barkskin in exchange.

Also, the only druid spec that has an out of combat ress now is Resto.  Also, no one but Resto gets Nourish anymore, or Lifebloom.  Maybe this will make my husband stop whining about druids in PvP.  (Probably not!!)

I do see our version of Wild Mushrooms, but I can't think of a time in a 10 man raid when I'm going to have 4 globals to drop and detonate them.  I'm wondering if things are going to change that much that I'll have extra globals.  I should probably go read up on what Lissanna things about them.  I've been so wrapped up in my own world that I can't think!

However, on looking at the Talents as they are now, I can't imagine taking anything that's going to switch me into Cat or Bear form.  Of course, I can't imagine the upcoming expansion, so I can only think of what I know now.  I know now that shifting into cat or bear form gives me a new bar with cat or bear abilities on it, so when I want to get my healing bar back, I have to click the correct form to shift out.  Also, if I have to go bear or kitty to 'save the raid', the raid is doing it wrong.  (See Heart of the Wild).  

I don't know.  I know it says these things can change, but I'm really underwhelmed and kind of feeling like my chosen role as a Resto Druid is being told "Sorry, if you're a druid, you are a kitty or a bear.  Have a nice day!"

So, yeah.  Those are my thoughts.  Sure hope all the bear, kitty and moonkin druids are in a level 25 guild so they can use mass ress!! :)

From the days of gnomes and wine ....

So, as I mentioned before, I found where I hid some of my screenshots from before my husband started to play. I even gave them captions there so I would know what I was looking at.

Sinovia was the woman who gave me WoW for my birthday.  While my brother in law gave me a trial, Sin actually bought me the game and shipped it to me.  She took me under her wing and taught me a lot about the game.  Above is the guild we made to 'get away from the rigors of guild leadership'.  It was fun and awesome (even though I wasn't in guild leadership) and we were very silly together.

This is Annanda (who I believe has since been renamed in her travels around the WoW servers).  She's a druid, who I believe was in her 20's in this screenshot.  She's currently level 76 and sitting there.  I was so clueless that while I was feral (I think) I had spirit/int gear.  Heh.

Shortly after BC came out, I was often confronted with this.  I ended up playing my Horde toons a lot more, as I had my Alliance toons on AN.

Throughout my time as Alliance, I saw many funny things.  This was one of my favorites!  Dancing Night Elf men!

While you can't see the golden swoosh, this was a picture of my 2nd 60, my undead mage (who is now a goblin).  I loved mages so much, I made one Alliance side too.  (This was pre-BC.)

This is Laera, my human mage.  I was so so so proud that I was able to buy myself flying and all that.  Even flying around at 60% was better then having to RUN on the GROUND!

However, before there was Laera the mage, there was Laera the rogue.  Here you see her with her friend Kurai in Daughters of the Alliance.  I leveled to 60 in DotA and they were a second home to me.  However, I had to move on when a lot of my friends left the game or moved servers.  I went to play Horde and when I realized where one of my besties went, I went back to Alliance and made Laera the mage.

This is Laera the rogue the day she got her mount.  Back then you could give your gold to another player and have them buy the mount if they had a better discount then you did.  That was nice.  At this point, Laera was an engineer, but soon she'd switch to be a blacksmith.  (Biggest mistake I ever did.)

Gnomes take Uldaman!!  Fear us!!

Do you guys remember when you could take a raid group into Maraudon?  Hehe.

And then you have the holidays on the Alliance side.  I remember when the holidays were simply "It's that time of year! No extra work for you!!"

And I'll leave you with an old Worgen that wants to eat your face.  Be afraid.