Life in Pandaland

This post has been brought to you by Navimie…who has shamed me into posting this. 🙂

It’s been a full week now since Mists of Pandaria came out and many folks are already sitting pretty at 90. My GM hit 90 within a day (I’m pretty sure) and I’m fairly certain all of the main raid team is 90 as of last night. Except for this paladin. Not for lack of trying, though! I’m at around 88 and a half and hope by the weekend I’ll be well into 89. My problem is I’m not the fastest leveler on the planet. Plus, I have that blasted work that interferes with things 8 hours every day. Add to that I have a fierce hatred of pugging instances in the beginning days of xpacs, when strats haven’t been nailed down and learned via osmosis by the entire WoW playing community and everyone’s gear is in a state of flux.

I LOVE my guild, but for all the things they do right, they do have occasional faults (and what guild doesn’t?). My guild is not a super social one…in that we don’t have fun activities just to hang and be BFF’s. It’s mostly been an every man/woman for themselves kinda leveling process. I expected this going into MoP. It would be nice to have more help, but what I like about the guild is the raiding. I can get my social fix from other sources. Now, once I hit 90, I’m sure I’ll have no problems getting heroic runs because as we’re a guild that focuses on raiding, gear upgrades for one = better times for the group.

However, while I slog my way through the leveling process, I am rather happy with what I’m seeing and how the quests are situated. Every bit of Pandaria I’ve seen so far is pretty darn gorgeous!! Rolling hills, lush jungles, buildings that just blow your mind….it’s phenomenal and I tip my hat to the folks at Blizzard responsible for the landscapes. *tips hat* I mean, in contrast, remember TBC and how desolate and quite frankly UGLY the land was at times? Hellfire Peninsula certainly lived up to its name. Certain zones were hell to slog through solely because of how horrible they looked. Quests are seemingly well organized and lead you from zone to zone rather well, except in the case of the uh, Valley of the Four Blossoms I think it’s called…at one point, you’re sent after about 5 different characters who all went in completely opposite directions across the landscape and I wasn’t sure where to go (each character was a mini-quest hub unto themselves). Now I’m in Kun-Lai and just getting situated at some Alliance camp I can’t recall the name of because by the time I got there last night, I was nearly falling asleep at my keyboard.

Endy finally got an actual upgrade (vs a “Well, it’s better here and here, but then I lose TONS of spirit and I’d have to re-enchant it and I lose mastery and…”) last night from one of the first quests I did in Kun-Lai. Her gear was basically all but BiS at the end of Cata, so it’s taken awhile to come across gear that rocks my socks. What I need to do is more instances, but again, I’m faced with the loathing of PuGs and have to hope friends or guildies need a healer for non-heroic action. I don’t to ask too often, lest I come across sounding like a whiny, broken record. I’ll keep chugging along and get to 90 eventually, one way or another. I might need to clarify that I’m questing as Holy. I tried Retting it up for a bit, and while her DPS definitely went up (it darn near doubled, or more), I was flailing about, felt like I had less options to keep me alive and basically didn’t care for it all too much. I know Holy; it’s familiar. So until I reach a brick wall, I plan to stay Holy for the duration of my climb to 90.

I have had little to no time for any other toon since MoP dropped. I’ve been on my SC priest once to get her through a quest or two in Pandaria and I’ve been on my space goat monk enough to get her to level 3. Had to put her in Endy’s guild straight away, which is unusual for me. I like to see if a toon is going to stick before putting them in guild, but I had gotten 2 whispers trying to recruit me to their guild before I’d even dinged level 2, so….yeah.

To end this post on a happy note, my old buddy Arcand is back in the game (thanks to a Scroll of Resurrection sent from yours truly) after a LONG absence and it makes me happy! I just hate that I’m so focused on leveling I can’t be by his side 24/7. But if he whispered me to do instances or quests, as I have told him to, I will drop whatever I’m doing in a heartbeat. He’s one of my oldest friends in WoW and when he stopped playing, it made me a sad…wait for it….panda. I hope he sticks around for awhile.

Onward, to 90!!!!

Pandas are almost upon us!

When Blizzard announced they’d be releasing an expansion called The Burning Crusade way back in…whenever it was, that there would be new content, a new level cap (70, omg!) and all that jazz, my initial thought was, “Oh, I probably won’t be getting that…I mean, I’ve had my fun.” It was a new concept for me, who was a gaming and MMO noob before playing WoW. I liked my game how it was, gosh darn, why are they changing things? At some point before it got released, I came to change my tune. I didn’t want to get left behind by my guildies and if I wanted to raid, I’d have to get TBC.

Rinse and repeat for Lich King. I wasn’t gonna get it, wasn’t gonna….oh FINE!

Cataclysm was the first expansion I intended to get from the beginning. I had a great guild and an awesome raid group (HFC, may you rest in peace) and by gosh, those fun times would continue in new content! I was wrong on that count. Cataclysm very nearly resulted in me walking away from the game. Within a month or so of release, my raid group had been scavenged for parts and the few of us not in a new group hung on for dear life, trying in vain to fill in the holes and ultimately failing. I was bitter about it all for quite some time. I felt my options were either to leave the guild I was in (and probably the server, since there weren’t many desirable options for me where I was) or leave the game entirely. I hung on longer than I ought to have, even while keeping my eyes out for other guilds I could join.

In the end, Endy 2.0 (who was made in the immediate aftermath of Original Endy’s transfer) was the solution to my woes. I made the decision in January to dedicate myself to one server again, simplifying things for me raiding wise and freeing up a lot of RL time. I was already raiding on Scarlet Crusade with her anyway. Best of all, no characters had to move servers. I already had Endy 2.0, a copy of my priest who was being leveled up on SC, my first DK was there and already 85. It was a good move for me to make and would make me a better raider, since I could focus solely on bettering Endy 2.0 and getting her VP and whatnot.

It was when I got my PC and thusly could play SWTOR and LOTRO that things changed again. My WoW time was drastically cut down, I really only logged on to raid and little else. I wondered if now was the time for me to stop playing. I had, after all, been playing since months after the game came out. They announced the new xpac at some point and like some, I went “WTF, pandas?” I know, I know..there’s already a lot of bizarre things out there. Moo cows, worgen, space goats, etc. I was dubious, given the state of things, that I would continue once MoP hit. And then things started to change around June. I went on vacation, came back, and was playing WoW again more and LOTRO less (I had given up SWTOR after about a month of play). Actually, not at all. I haven’t logged into the land of elves and hobbits since my vacation.

I began to reconsider my stance on buying the expansion. At some point, the GM of my guild sent out a letter asking us what our intentions were when MoP hit and I replied that I wasn’t sure I’d still be playing (but if I was, Endy 2.0 would be my immediate focus). I had to tell him I was seriously leaning towards getting it after my mind started to change and last week, after much procrastination, I ordered my digital copy of MoP. This marks a first for me. Usually, I would pre-order a copy from a local GameStop and get out at midnight with the other geeks to obtain my copy. I liked getting to hang out with other locals who played WoW, and talk about what we played, what servers we were on…it really added to the excitement of the new expansion. But this time, eh…I may still be playing and really got back my WoW mojo, but I think I’d rather not wait in line and all that.

Overall, I enjoyed Cataclysm as an expansion. Lich King is still my favorite, I think. The raids in Cata were pretty nifty (DS still felt rather easy overall – least in normal mode) and the way the world got changed around was interesting.  I *didn’t* enjoy the changes it brought me as far as guild/raid group, though, and it’s left me a bit wary at how things will go in MoP. There’s a raid on the schedule for next week (Moshu-something or other) and I feel it’s a bit too soon to worry about raids. I will try my best to be 90 and ready-ish, but I’m not killing myself to get there. At the same time, I don’t want to be left behind or take too long, because that’s what got me last time. I wasn’t ready when others in my raid group were, so they got antsy and sought out other groups that were. Fortunately, my current guild isn’t large enough to have more than one raid group, so…we’ll see.

I’ve tried to get Endy prepared for MoP. I’ve done some bank/bag cleaning (still need to do more) and I’m trying to have 25 quests quests ready to turn in right away for at least a bit of XP. I probably need to have some potions ready to chug as I quest along, too. I’m gonna level her Holy, unless it becomes utterly impossible. I always have her Ret spec, but I don’t have a clue how2Ret. My plan is to focus solely on Endy until she’s 90, and after that I can think about other toons. Probably my priest on Azuremyst, then maybe my DK on Scarlet Crusade just to have a DPS to offer up (a lame DPS, probably…) and then whatever toons strike my fancy. My toons on ThoBro will probably stay as they are for a long while. I have little desire to go back at present.

I’m quite curious about Monks and will probably make one to noodle on at some point after the initial made leveling rush. Guess I need to see if I have leather heirloom items (I’m guessing no). I’m less curious about pandas, to be honest. I’m still a little bit “WTF, Pandas?!” but nobody’s making me play one, so it’s all good. I will likely make a panda, just to see what they’re like, but it might turn out like my Worgen…stuck at the level where the Worgen only content was finished and they were sent out to join the rest of the WoW playing populace.

Here’s hoping things go super well for everyone in MoP!!!

Hello WoW, my old friend!

Upon getting my new PC laptop (some stripe of Asus my smart tech friends helped me pick out) in February, I went a bit crazy. I dove into SW:TOR, and unexpectedly got really into LOTRO, which I’d previously been unable to play much on my Mac. Suddenly, WoW was out of favor with me and the new shiny was SO in. Eventually, I settled into a routine where I logged in to WoW only to raid with my SC guild, and even that felt like a chore I forced myself to do at times. SW:TOR fell out of favor after a few weeks when I couldn’t find a regular group to play with, and LOTRO became my MMO of choice. Best of all, it was FREE. I like free.

There was a time when I seriously doubted I’d carry on playing WoW once MoP came out. Not because I have a seething hatred for pandas (yeah, I’m a bit…bwuh? about it, but it’s far from the only time WoW has done something that made me boggle), but because after 7+ years, I wondered if it wasn’t time I ended my time in the World….of Warcraft. Was I finally completely burnt out? Was it time to move on to greener pastures? Point in fact, I’ve actually questioned if I’d get each and every expansion, save Cataclysm. I’d think “Ugh, moar leveling? Totally screwing up/changing beyond recognition my class/spec? My raid gear becoming irrelevant? Why do I want to do this?”

The change came in June, when I went on a cruise to Alaska. Fun times, that. After not playing LOTRO for a week, I didn’t feel strongly compelled to go back. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed LOTRO tons (and can go back whenever cause, hey…free). I was in a good kin (aka guild), but it was rather huge. I never really interacted with them to the point where they’d greet me upon logging in or anything. I mostly quested alone and occasionally went to the concerts they put on (playing music is a common thing in that game) or do instances a time or two….but omg, they have these things called Fellowship Maneuvers that were hella confusing. Plus, I couldn’t settle on a healing class I wanted to level, the most pure healer class was typically the minstrel…they played music to heal people. Which was just weird. I found myself leveling a hunter and it was fun enough.

And then suddenly, I was playing WoW more. When I logged on NOT on a raid day for the first few times, I called it a Christmas miracle. I still don’t log on every single day, but after only logging on for raids pretty much for 3-ish months, I’m taking it as a sign I’m not quite ready to hang up my WoW hat just yet. I still enjoy aspects of the game. I enjoy the raiding tons and the people I have gotten to know. I don’t always enjoy questing so much, or doing dailies…or professions. And leveling a toon just seems sooooo, unappealing at times. SO MANY LEVELS.

But I can’t leave for good. Not yet. I’m more progressed than I’ve ever been coming up to an expansion. Not only have I cleared the current raid content on normal, but I’ve got all but one boss down in HEROIC as well. That’s unprecedented for me. I’m dabbling in the polyserverous thing again, as I’ve got a few toons I’m actively logging into on Askevar’s server. I even transferred Lirwyn from ThoBro to her server because I felt like she was gathering dust where she was. I haven’t logged in serious time on ThoBro since I decided to focus on SC back in December. There’s just no reason for me. I certainly won’t be raiding with the guild there, it would be…fustrating. I think changing a few things up have piqued my interest in WoW again. We’ll see what September brings.

Cheating on WoW (sorta)

Fannon wrote a post awhile ago (I’d link it, but the last time I tried that my work computer had a conniption fit….it’s one titled “Encouraging Infidelity: On Burn Out & Blood Bowl”) that resonated with me. In fact, it was similar to steps I’d taken myself to stave off or recover from burn out in the past. But until recently, playing other games wasn’t an option for me. You see *looks around warily* I play on a Mac. I’m a graphic designer by day, so it’s easier to stay with Mac when I get home. It’s not that I have a gripe with PC’s, but I’ve got design programs on my Mac I know how to use well if I ever need to whip something up for someone. Thus far, this hasn’t been an issue since WoW works on Macs and no other MMO has seriously tempted me (LOTRO did slightly). Until now.

SW:TOR was what got me thinking about my situation. I had the brilliant realization one day that my previous computer (a 12″ MacBook I got as a gift before I started playing WoW) was getting long in the tooth for a computer. It’s a 2004! And though I don’t use it now for much more than surfing the internets in the comfort of my own bed, I could totally justify replacing it….WITH A PC! Tooootally! I waited a few months on the advice of a PC-savvy friend, who thought prices might drop at the beginning of the year (they did, but only slightly). Just over a month ago, I purchased my beautiful Asus and it arrived before I could recover from the sticker shock.

All of the sudden, I went from having 1 game I could play to 3. I could hardly decide on any given day which game to play! I’d log on and play LOTRO in the mornings before work, I’d compulsively make tons of characters in SWTOR, I was like a kid in a candy store! LOTRO has gotten most of my focus lately due to a more active kin (aka guild) that always has people on. My Star Wars guild was all but deserted by the time I showed up, so that was mildly discouraging. Any night that isn’t a raid night in WoW has me on one of those two games if I’m in a game at all.

It’s not that I’m burned out of WoW per se, though it has lost some of the luster over time. It’s just that I have no interest at the moment in leveling yet another alt in WoW, I don’t care about achievements or retro raiding (I’ll do it to be social sometimes) and there’s nothing my main can do to even get upgrades outside of raiding. Plus, NEW SHINEY! So keeping Fannon’s post and my own similar thoughts in mind, I’m letting myself enjoy this time of new shiney games, with new people, new quests, new cosmetics, etc. It’s hard at times, though, when I try to do /g to talk in guild and realize that no, I’m in LOTRO, and it’s /k for kinship chat. All my instincts, honed over 7 years of playing WoW, say to do one thing when it’s usually another elsewhere….ARG. But either I’ll cut one of the games and have a new found appreciation for my first MMO, or maybe it’ll be time to finally ease on out of the World….of Warcraft. I still enjoy raiding, but at times it does feel like a chore, like work. Some days, I come home from an 8 hour work day and eventually find myself sitting down for another 5 hour ‘work session’.

Who knows what will happen in the long run, but I am much happier since I made the decision to return to Scarlet Crusade. I feel that it was the right decision, that continuing on as I was would have been no good for me. I might have gotten myself to the point I was at when I transferred those 3-ish  years ago….I almost decided to walk away from the game entirely and I wouldn’t have regretted it. I don’t know much of the goings on of ThoBro these days, I haven’t been able to bring myself to log on much since I had the talk with my GM/raid leader in December. I’m gathering raiding has all but stopped, except for LFR stuff. Yeah, I know. It’s partly cowardice that hold me back. But it’s also the thought of “What would I do? I’m not raiding, therefore I’m not gearing to raid better…”

Focusing on one server again has greatly simplified things for me, I will say. At the height of my raiding schedule, I was raiding 4-5 days a week on 3 different characters, and on Tuesdays it was on both servers, back to back. Yeah, it was bad. It was hurting all of my toons, because I couldn’t work on improving one and give all my time and attention to just one. Now, I can max out VP (well, not NOW now, since Endy needs nothing at all from VP), I can do LFR (again, not really any more), I can gather mats to get something crafted….whatever. And I have more free time. I can not log in every day but Tuesday and Thursday if I so desired.  Right now, it is what I desire.

Back to the beginning…and stuff

I spend so long working on this the other week only to have my computer crash and I thought I’d lost this post. I was quite the sad panda. But lo, it was backed up! Huzzah! Rejoice! *does the happy happy joy joy dance*

I’ve been struggling with a heart/head dilemma for awhile regarding my ThoBro guild; my heart was telling me to stick it out, and try and fix what’s broke/changed, be loyal; my head was telling me to GTFO before I stress myself out and/or rage quit because I’ve severely burned myself out. I knew things were bad when a bit of drama popped up and I was secretly hoping that things would end up such that I had a reason to go “Guys, that was the last straw, such and such was rediculous/I don’t deserve being called a (whatever)/some other reason”. Then I thought, if I’m looking for an excuse to leave, mayhap I’d best just do that. I caught my GM one evening when he had some time and laid things out…the good, the bad, everything. He understood and supported my decision. I decided that I would dedicate myself to one server, especially with regards to raiding. ThoBro would switch places with my original server, Scarlet Crusade as my ‘secondary server’ meaning it was second on my list, no longer getting priority over the other server.  I’ll log on there when I feel like it as opposed to being obliged to for some reason.

I’m not looking to name and shame here, in some cases I just don’t see the point or it would hurt feelings/stir up more crap. But I’ll see if I can elaborate on my issues, at least a bit. As I told a guildie who found out about my decision after I talked to GM, there is honestly not ONE person or ONE incident that pushed me to make my decision. This has more or less been brewing since last January, when Cata had some out and my raid group was all but DOA. Guildie X was at the center of some drama that put the final nail in the coffin of my raid group (but it’s her I have to thank, ironically, for where I am now…I wouldn’t have gone back to Endy 2.0 at that point without the drama she ended up causing). This was the first time I thought about leaving the guild, but I held on for dear life in attempt to stay there and stay raiding with them. After the GM and her husband decided to transfer off the server, the guild took some hits during the confusion following their announcement and promotion of an unpopular choice to GM. I was unsure what, if anything, I would be doing in the time that followed.

I stuck around to help out but in the end, it just wasn’t feeling like home any more. Many of the folks I’d felt close to in guild had left or stopped playing. I felt that at any time, my raid was a hairs breath from imploding spectacularly around itself because I suspect not everyone likes their fellow group mates. The healer channel was, at times, a place to gripe about or insult others. Full disclosure: I myself was guilty at times and eventually resolved to speak as little as possible, and only about healing matters. This caused me much stress until a meeting before raid one night, but even afterwards, I still waited to see if we’d have a shoe drop.  I wanted to try and make things work, but I couldn’t work up much energy to actually….try very much. Our struggles in Firelands only made me more anxious, as well as frustrated, honestly. Not because we weren’t progressing so much as I feared that morale would tank and lead to sniping and bad feelings. I wasn’t having fun anymore. Raids used to be fun, and even anticipated. There was cameraderie and a sense of determination to get that boss down, even if it took us for freaking ever (Sindy, I’m looking at you!). Was it perfection every night? No. Did I want to strangle some fellow raiders sometimes? Sure. But I enjoyed it.

There is more WoW time behind me than ahead of me and I don’t want to spend the rest of my time unhappy, so I made this move to do what I want and have fun….advice I have given others before and am now taking again. So back to Scarlet Crusade, where I began my days in WoW. Making this change greatly simplifies things for me, as I no longer have to raid on 2 different servers, sometimes back to back. More free time was something else I wanted to get out of this. There was a time when I was in one raid or another 4-5 days out of the week. It got kinda out of hand. I decided against transferring my priest, which was an option I was considering, owing to the fact that I have an up and coming disc priest on SC I made awhile back (ironically, just for funsies earlier this year I think) who is closing in on level 82. I have a ‘copy’ of all my main toons on ThoBro over on SC, so I’m content to leave everyone where they are. I’ve largely stayed away from ThoBro since I made my decision, but that’s *mostly* because I went on vacation the next week, then it was the madness of Christmas, then…well, some cowardice on my part, I admit. But you know, as soon as I’d voiced my decision to the GM, I felt it was the right thing to do. A weight was lifted off me and I felt good.

Endy 2.0 has now killed Deathwing (in a regular 10 man raid, not just LFR…which I don’t really count), I’m pushing to get to 85 on my wee priest and generally having fun. And I’m doing new things that are relaxing and fun…I’m focusing on fishing and JC’ing dailies, Darkmoon Faire stuff, and working on my DK’s enchanting. I no longer worry about who might piss of whom or spend a whole night anxious and hoping for a boss kill so everyone can be happy. Am I expecting rainbows, puppies and green grass year round? No. I’m too cynical for that. You wait long enough, drama always comes around. But hopefully when it does, it will be dealt with smartly.

Random Randomness

• LFR. It’s something I haven’t delved into that much yet, but I have thoughts about it, just like everyone else. Vidyala over at Manalicious wrote a post called Looking For: Community (I’d link it, but my work computer has decided links are the devil) that I found myself nodding mostly in agreement with. For me, it’s for me a tool to get better gear until I am blessed with winning the regular version of the item, or a way to get my alts better gear since they’re not my main and therefore not raiding. I go in expecting VP and a shot at gear (haven’t one one daggum thing yet) and hope for the best. But I like that it gives people an *option* they might not have otherwise had. I no longer have the horrid work hours I used to, but when I would work until 11pm, or even 1am, finding a raid group was uh, impossible. There was a time when I would have LOVED that LFR is finally giving me the chance to see bosses I never would have. Is it an ideal raid situation? Heck no. 25 random strangers of differing experiences and skill level thrown together to kill simplified versions of raid bosses…..yeah. But it’s something, and for some, it’s more than they has before.
• I really, really want to play SW:TOR. I know quite a few folks that are playing it now and the only reason I haven’t joined them is I lack a PC to do it on. But in a lightbulb moment, I realized my current laptop is almost 9 years old and it could tooooootally die any time now. Yeeeah. That’s my reason and I’m sticking to it! So I aim to get a PC laptop when one of my tech-minded friends thinks the timing is right (we’re hoping prices drop on the laptops I’m looking at). THEN I can not only play SW:TOR, but LOTRO. I enjoyed playing it, but my Mac Mini didn’t like playing at being a PC and it was just too much trouble to work out the problems.
• It occurs to me, looking at my header, it’s woefully out of date. Endyme, the Original Flavor, has sadly been gathering dust since I took her out of her raid group. Lirwyn is no longer a main focus of mine, though I love her dearly. *puts a new header on her to do list*
• I look forward to blogging about well, stuff other than my head/heart issues and actually talking about healing, paladins, priests, whatever randomness that comes to mind. I’ve been VERY bad at keeping this blog up…I could probably count on a hand and half of another one how many posts I had last year. But there’s only so many times you can go “Bleeeh, drama…bleeeeh, not having fun..” before even I’d get tired of it, and I just wasn’t inspired to talk about much else.
• Bananas!

Feeling selfish and how I’m trying to fix it

Hello dear readers (all 7 of you left). I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog front because as I have said before, I lost alot of desire to do it when there was some drama earlier this year, the first big bout of it since transferring Endy to ThoBro. It was a snowball of one thing causing another, which, when combined with more recent goings on have hit me (as usual) hard. And my desire to not name and shame to cause further dramaz made it real hard to blog about what’s going on.

My RL friends, the ones I transferred to ThoBro to be guilded with, decided after long deliberation to transfer off to another server about 2 months ago (honestly can’t recall the exact dates). Their reasons are their own to explain (or not), but sufficed to say, I can’t blame them in the least, as I’ve been there myself. It gets to a point where you have to do what’s good for YOU, even though that will leave many people sad and possibly shake things up. And get shaken up they did. WaR took many hits in the days and weeks following, many folks were going on hiatuses from the game (not, I think, connected to the news of transferring), which broke up one of our raid groups overnight. Some decided to seek out raiding elsewhere (I kept wondering how many in the guild thought I was going to follow my friends to their new server, or if I was going to go back to my old one). The rest of us were left to scramble around and try to fix the officer core and crown a new GM (not me, not ever me, heck no), which was even more drama. As always, I don’t give up easily, and I felt the need to do what I could to help, somehow becoming a higher ranking officer than before.

Things haven’t felt quite the same since, and I still have plans A, B, C and maybe even a D rattling around in my head, just in case. I spent more time on my old server because I didn’t feel quite so stressed when I logged in there. You know, the irony is that I transferred off of Scarlet Crusade because of drama and now it’s the server that I am turning to to escape it. Many of the guildies I felt closest too on ThoBro are now gone. I am trying SO HARD not to just give up, but at the same time, I’m…not. I could be doing more, but I am being selfish. Rather than spending more time on ThoBro to be a bigger presence, I just…couldn’t bring myself to face possible strife. Endy 2.0’s guild, while full of youngins that like to cuss and use phrases that make me /facepalm, doesn’t seem to have the antics I see on ThoBro. Maybe because it’s a slightly more hardcore raid environment, or something that just can’t be quantified, but it just…works. I think it also helps that the GM is a long time guildie who was scarred by out last guild break up and loathes drama as much as I.

Naturally, this lead me to question whether or not I should just acknowledge that I’m not giving my all to ThoBro (and I mean as a whole; I should note that when I come to a raid, I give 100%, I try my best and don’t just phone it in, or don’t show up because I just don’t feel like it) any more and remove myself from the guild or if folks are ok with what I AM giving. I’m afraid that at any moment, the rug will get swept from under me and I hate that feeling. But this is what drama does to me. I run from conflict, I hate it, it stresses me right the fuck out.

I recently had a chat with the GM of my ThoBro guild in an effort to get out all that was bothering me. People can’t fix problems, or even try to fix them, if they don’t know about them. I didn’t want to just go “X, Y and Z are bothering me, I’m out of here!” without doing everything I could to address that I had some issues and try to turn things around. Later that week, my raid group had a pre-raid meeting, wherein we talked a few things out. The GM acknowledged his poor attitude of late and why he’s been that way, I spoke up about a few issues (got completely misunderstood on one of my points…) and mentioned how I’d been stressed, folks talked and hopefully we’ll be a bit better for it. I can’t come clean about ALL the things that are irking me or stressing me, namely because it would just not help (or cause MORE problems) or are things that I don’t see changing, but at least for this week, for the first time in awhile, I really enjoyed raiding with the ThoBro’ers. I’m still fairly cautious though, I am not sure what the future holds. I can only try my best, and like I told the GM, give 100% to making things superawesome again by running more heroics for gear, being on more, etc.

I am trying to simplify my raiding life a bit, so I’m not scheduling so much of my game time for raids. Until very recently, I was raiding on 3 toons on 2 different servers, which was….challenging and time consuming. I finally pulled Endy out of her Monday raid. I’d been trying to get out of it for a few months with no luck (I was trying to hang around until another healer could be found, but it just wasn’t a pressing issue since I was always there) and I finally just said “No, no more, not coming” and pushed the issue. There’s more I could do, but for now, that’s at least a little more free time I have do say, go do something with a guy I may be dating (just as a toooooootally random example) or do whatever I please in game.

So there we are, my life of late. Still polyserverous and polyguilderous, still playing, still raiding…just trying to find the fun again. In a bit of topical news, I hear they’re introducing pandas in the next expansion (my thoughts: meh, but willing to wait til the expac actually comes out before I go bonkers about how stupid pandas are). Also, coming down on the side of “Not cool, Blizz” over the whole Blizzcon concert debacle. In my opinion, that deserves a real apology, not some “We’re really sorry if you were offended, it was a joke, you guyz!” excuse. The things that have been said under the “just a joke” excuse…some things just aren’t funny, ‘joke’ or not.

I’m a bad healer (but not really)

So I have a confession to make: I’m a bad healer.

There, I said it….whew, feels good to get out. Been holding that in for awhile.

I have a second confession: I am a darn good healer. Not perfect, mind you, but good.

Now to explain these conflicting statements. I read blogs, armory other healers of my same spec, occasionally peer at Elitest Jerks, talk to others about how they do things. I don’t go IN DEPTH and theorycraft in my spare time, but I try to educate myself on how things are done. But when the chips are down and I’m in an instance/raid, I heal oftentimes by instinct. I mash buttons in a panic when tons of damage is being taken, I choose the ‘wrong’ spells (I use Flash of Light regularly, which would probably alarm most holy pallies out there..it’s a mana hog, but it’s fast and I can’t stop using it), I don’t always wait til I have 3 stacks of Holy Power to use WoG or LoD (which I don’t really ever use cause it doesn’t seem to do anything useful)….in other words, I don’t ‘do it right.’

I’m sure much of it is muscle memory. After all, I’ve been playing a holy pally for 6 years now, but my priest for only err, maybe a year (as disc anywho). I’m sure I’ve absorbed alot of how things are done by osmosis, but I hear folks discus their class’s abilities by tossing out stats and facts and I’m like, ‘Ummm, I just heal people when their green bars get low.” I feel stupid sometimes, for not being able to bandy about these terms with ease and confidence, that I *should* know this stuff, since I’m a semi-serious raider and all. But somehow I make it work in the end, I (and say this with no ego intended or to make myself sound like I’m full of it) do a darn good job, generally, of keeping folks alive and get compliments for my heals.

Could I be a better healer? Always, always, always. Would some of the big name blogger types who’s blogs I read look at me in dispair if they saw how I healed? What mistakes I make? Oh, it’s quite possible. By some folks’ standards, I might be labeled a bad healer, but really, I don’t feel that I am. I just do it differently at times. By instinct. I might use FoL more than a proper holy pally aught to, but it’s a quick spell for when Holy Shock isn’t available and folks need a quick heal before I can spare a longer casting time heal like Holy Light or Divine Light. And a living target is better than the dead one I might have because I took 2.5 extra seconds to cast a big spell. Least that’s my thinking.

But what do I know, I’m a bad healer. 🙂

 

Oh huh, WordPress tells me this is my 100th post. Yay me!

I’ve been here and there and everywhere!

First off, to those who are still here…..hi!!! I’m NOT dead or not playing WoW or any such thing, I just lost my blogging mojo for awhile after a bunch of things that happened earlier this year. It’s all fine and dandy to blog about what’s on your mind, but when it can hurt feelings or cause more trouble or you’d be saying the same doomy gloomy thing over and over, it’s hard to keep up posting. I didn’t even keep up with other’s blogs or my twitter after awhile, I just kinda took a break.

Anywho, since my unplanned hiatus, things have stabilized. Lirwyn’s raiding group is chugging along, trying to work on Atramedes and/or Chimeron. Endyme is in the group Lirwyn was originally in and after a few weeks of going back to basics (heroics and troll heroics), we finally went back to BWD and just downed Magmaw for the first time. I had stopped going to the heroics because once we started to do ZA, it became a 2 hour wipe fest and that’s just not fun to me. Heroics should not (at this point) feel like raids and that’s what they were starting to feel like. I love my guildies, but…ouch. I’m still dubious about that group but I’ll try my best while I’m there, because to do otherwise is just not how I do things. Celrina just hit 85 recently and I’ve had great fun doing some regulars and Ahune on her. I love how much DPS I can do (real srs DPS’ers would probably point and lol at it, but to ME, it’s alot) in my frost spec. LOVE.

So somehow, I’ve found myself raiding on both my current server and my old Scarlet Crusade. How did this happen? Very slowly. You see, when I transferred Endyme to Thorium Brotherhood just about 2 years ago now, I quickly remade an Endy on SC (a goat pally!) with the vague intention of leveling her to help if needed but otherwise to keep in touch with old friends/guildies. Eventually, after a few stops and starts, she reached 85 in April and 2 days later found herself in BoT because they needed a 10th person and oh look, there I was, scrubby and new! When I was nearing 85, I thought, well..if they need a healer to sub in when folks don’t show up, I can probably be that. My SC crew raids much later than my ThoBro guild, so the times don’t overlap. Thanks to people not showing up and a few key folks seemingly taking breaks from the game, Endy 2.0 has found herself a fairly regular fixture on the SC raiding scene. We recently downed Nefarian and with that have killed all the bosses in BWD and BoT….and we’re working on heroics. Only Halfus has fallen to our efforts, but we’ve tried a few others and with the better gear 4.2 should get us, might see success on other  bosses. I still can’t believe how this all fell together.

There are a few things to keep in mind, I think, when raiding (or even playing) on 2 servers regularly. It’s important to know which server gets your vote in a conflict of scheduling, which one you will put above the other(s) if there is a need to. I try to keep in mind that Thorium Brotherhood is my main server, and should any raids on SC be scheduled at times that would conflict would get put on standby in favor of ThoBro. My primary concern is my priest and her raid team. I want to get the best for her and any thing I can do (like the new Hyjal quests that end in a really nice cloak) to better my toons will be done on her first. But as Endy 2.0 is raiding as well, I need to try and put aside some time when I can to run heroics or do quests on her that will get her in raiding shape. It’s nice because WaR is more active in the earlier part of the day/evening…we have alot of family types who tend to go to bed or do other things before it gets to late. Whereas on SC, my guild is full of youngin’s. It’s full of people in their late teens/20’s so they’re up (and raiding) til fairly late.

Most days it works out fine, with raiding on 2 servers, but Tuesdays can be a bitch. That’s when Lirwyn’s raid team raids until 9, and then my SC guild usually starts a raid about 9:15-9:30-ish. And they raid laaaate. Fortunately for me, I’m a night owl, so I’m up that late as a matter of course anywho, but oy. It’s incredibly fulfilling to get to see raid content much earlier than I’m typically used to, but at the same time, I love the feeling of community and fun I get raiding with my ThoBro peeps. WaR is a more casual environment, so we’ve never been at the forefront of progress, but we get there and that’s fine by me. I have no idea how long this raiding on 2 servers thing will last, I expect if my Scarlet Crusade guild gets in some new folks (there aren’t alot of raiding regulars at present), I could get bumped and that’s really fine with me. I never planned to raid regularly on Endy 2.0, though I’m having a fun while I am.

Another (mostly amusing) issue I’ve come to deal with is the confusion factor. When one has 2 toons named Endyme that have the same spec, one can easily get the 2 confused. And one has. I’ve spent an annoying amount of thought over “Wait, did I get that trinket on Endy or Endy 2.0?” “Which Endy got her Therazane rep to Honored the other day? I was working on both!” Also, raiding with 2 different guilds can mess me up because each group works out their own way of killing the bosses with the group make up they have. Like Theralion and Valiona: one of my guilds has the melee group up and the ranged group up for the Meteor Crash/Smash/whatever it is and the other one has the person who is getting the Meteor thingie run to the melee and they soak the damage and then you run back out. And I am sure I’ve annoyed people coming off like a Little Miss Know-it-all about boss fights when I’m eager to share nuggets of wisdom I have gleaned with my ThoBro peeps…I honestly don’t want anything more than to help out and make the whole process easier on us but I can imagine folks not taking it that way. I just need to learn to talk less or something. Easier said than done.

Anywho, just wanted to post something before folks decided I’d given up on blogging entirely and let y’all know what I’ve been up to. I’ll try not to be a stranger! Now, to slog though the backlog of a few months worth of blog entries…Weeeee!

Dead bosses make me happy

Ignore the skeletons. They were here when we came in. Reeeeeally.

Endy 2.0, triumphant in front of the dead body of Chimaeron.

Character Roundup!!

• Lirwyn has shuffled around a bit to find a raid group she can call home. Though I enjoy the company of the folks I’ve been raiding with, I don’t much enjoy the results at the end of the night. So the guild has put together a raid team comprised of people from 2 of our raid groups with the idea in mind that we need to consolidate more of the mains in one group, as well as wanting some srs progression. Not that her previous raid group didn’t want to progress, but at the end of the night, I didn’t feel like any progress had been made, any lessons learned. And I myself have felt rather useless, trying to keep up with all the AoE damage Magmaw puts out – plus I’ve lost my long time healing partner-in-crime for the forseeable future, which sucks. So, she’s just this week started raiding with the new group. For our first night together, I’d say we did rather excellently! After trying various strats in various combos of toons/specs, we ended the night with Magmaw at 23%!! In the meantime, I’ve tried to gear up Endy…
• Endyme has had to try and gear up much faster than I’d thought. After hitting 85, I didn’t do very much with her. My focus is still on Lirwyn, so Endy got mostly ignored. But when I learned Lirwyn would most likely be going off to the other raid, I looked to Endy to plug in the hole being made by losing Lirwyn. Now, should a main healer wish to join that raid group, I will be MORE than happy to step aside (I always feel guilty for ‘double dipping’ raiding wise), but for now Endy is needed. I got the epic shield crafted, and am working on gathering mats for the epic chestpiece. The one or two heroics I’ve done on Endy since I deemed myself eligible (yeah, 329 ilevel is technically when I could have gone in, but…ouch) haven’t yielded much in the way of gear for me, but I’ll keep working on it, and farming mats for more truegold, and getting JP’s and VP’s to buy gear with, and Ramkahen rep for the belt, and and and!
• Endy 2.0.… Where to begin? I suppose I’ll start with the fact that not only has she killed the Ascendant Council a mere 2 days after hitting 85, but as of last night, has also killed Atramedes (the first time I tried him!) and Chimaeron (I do NOT like that fight, it goes against my instincts as a healer)! I’m just….what? The toon I least expected to get my first boss fights on in Cataclysm is the one that has 3 boss kills under her belt (which is now a crafted epic belt). But at least it’s fun, and a learning experience I can hopefully use in my other guild. The only bad thing about it is, my SC guild raids really late. Like, REALLY LATE. So I log in after a night of raiding or whatever on ThoBro and then at 11:30 or so, “Oh hey Endy, come help us kill Cho’gall!” I’m hard up for raiding experience, so I really want to do it. It’s not like I would be asleep if I weren’t raiding – I stay up rather late all the time – but still, it can be challenging.
• Celrina has started the leveling process, slowly but surely. The only reason she’s been stuck at 82 for a week or so is I just have too many toons I’m doing things on, so I can’t *focus* on her like I want to. But my gosh, I do love just killing things sometimes. It’s a nice stress reliever, to not be responsible for peoples lives all the time. Dual wield frost is still the bomb. Of all the DPS toons I’ve played, she’s the one I’ve connected with the most, I think. Well, DK’s in general. I liked my rogue back in the day, but I haven’t played her in sooooooo long.