An Update for the Concerned

I do not have a new computer, and will not be getting one in the forseeable future.

I do not have Wrath, and will probably not for a while longer (week or two). Wrath was released about the same time I was given, not lying, about eleven papers to write for my classes. If I downloaded Wrath, I would fail my classes.

I have not quit WoW. I am not planning on quitting anytime soon.

That being said, the times I have logged on have been depressing. Every one of my friends is over 70 and in Northrend, and all I read and hear about is the content I'm missing. The most interaction I've had with people is to run their Death Knights through Mana Tombs.

But, well, at least my Netherwing rep is climbing steadily, right? Eggs everywhere.

...

*sigh*

Indecision, Patch 3.0.2

So, I have a lot to talk about and little time. The patch came during Midterms week, and I'm still recovering. Honestly, I am a very, very tired druid that could use some time in the Emerald Dream. Perhaps a week, at the least. Unfortunately, that's not an option and I shall continue to run around like a chicken with her head cut off until Thanksgiving break.

Now, 3.0 hit and I became lost, confused and overwhelmed rather quickly. I was never in beta and my PTR kept erroring upon download, so I couldn't even muck around there. When the patch hit, I had to hit the ground running.

Pre-patch, I had used WoWHead's druid calculator to create ten or more different Resto specs. I had Dreamstate specs, levelling specs, raid healing, crit healing, mana conservation, five-man, ten-man, and all sorts of specs, both ingenious and ridiculous. And the night before the patch I sat there, going through the links, looking them over, picking through them and pretending there wasn't an exam I needed to study for (I think I aced it, though).

Then the patch came and I specced Moonkin.

The original idea was to spec Doomkin and test it out in arena with a warlock partner. However, midterms and my partner's work schedule (as well as my work schedule) cut our available time down. Then Hallow's End hit, and I'm much more concerned with getting a Squashling and Hallowed Helm than I am with playing in Arena (I lost the pet and broom twice in one run! and the helm in another! injustice!).

Spell power is just as confusing as it I thought it would be. I am in possession of over fifty different pieces of spell power gear, and no Outfitter to organize them for me. I haven't had time to download and fiddle with Closet Gnome, and I find myself hunting through my bags and manually clicking on various different pieces of gear depending on what I'm doing and what I hope to accomplish. That and the introduction of spell power has completely nerfed off-spec healing, but I suppose that's just a minor quibble.

At the moment, levelling a ret paladin (Divine Storm is gorgeous), a warlock, and a priest, combined with trying to sort Bellwether out, is just completely overwhelming. Besides that...I really miss being a healer. I imagine I'll be trading in my antlers for branches quite soon.

Though, Typhoon + Tree Mafia? Hella good times.

Recruit-A-Friend Revisited

Once upon a time I posted a short rant about Recruit-A-Friend. I was mostly in a bad mood that day, and it showed. However, now that I've actually participated in the Recruit-A-Friend program, I'm a bit more qualified to report upon the pros and cons of the program.

Shall we get started?

Pros
Ding! Ding! Dingdingdingding...
You gain triple experience from both mobs and quests. This causes levels to speed by, and you can have a level 60 in a couple days with little effort (level 60 is when triple experience ends). A red quest for SM can give around 17550 experience, catapulting a level 31 to level 32. Stocks runs can give two or three levels, both from mob experience and quest turn-ins, even when the run is lead by a level 70.

LFM...NOT!
The great advantage of the triple experience requires that you be grouped with the linked account and be within a certain level range. This encourages group play. Besides enabling the buddy system on a PvP server (where you're less likely to be ganked unless they're ridiculously higher level than you), it also means less downtime in the form of looking for members for a group quest or dangers of high-level mobs catching you unawares. If you pick classes that compliment each other, you gain a lot of experience and can adapt to many different situations. Also, you can get higher level quests done at a lower level, increasing the xp gain you receive from turning them in.

New Class, No Hassle
If you've always wanted to play X class but never had time to seriously level an alt, the triple experience smooths the way for you. Even if you simply need an alt at high level so you can get them max rank of a beneficial profession, such as alchemy or inscription, that you just don't have room for on your main, this is an effective means of gaining it. As well, you can try out a role you've never filled before, such as tanking instead of healing or DPS.

Cons
Penniless and Friendless
If your friend is using an account, likely they have no money. Triple experience gains speed you through questing areas and levels like no other, but what comes with levels? Skills and spells that need to be trained. Training costs progressively more and more money, but you're not doing enough quests to make that money. Therefore, it's an intense monetary burden upon the person who recruited the friend to supply money for both rapidly-levelling characters so that they can train and improve. In addition, since less quests are needed for levelling, reputation gains falter behind. If you want a certain class and race but want another race's mount, this is a detriment.

That Look is SO Last Month
You're doing less quests, making less money, and blowing through zones. At some point, you're going to notice your greens from VC and WC just aren't cutting it, and you haven't been picking much up along the way. You're stuck; do you keep going as you have, do you rope a 70 into some instance runs, do you grab a group and hope what you want drops and no one else needs it, or do you buy yourself some equivalent level greens which you also may/may not outstrip in just a few hours? It's a difficult question.

What Does This Button Do?
When in a group, mobs often die fairly quickly, before you're even through a full rotation. Group settings against squishy mobs often favor burst damage moves rather than a damage-over-time or a debuff setup. You can settle into a pattern of what works and works quickly, especially if you notice your partner is killing the mob before your DoT gets two ticks. You're training skills, but you're never using them. Some don't get bound or even read. I cannot speak personally for everyone who uses this levelling system, but my lock is at level 32/33 at the moment, and I only have a basic grasp of how to play her. I do not know what all my buttons are for or how to use them in a real rotation. I barely even know how to spec, because if I take too long to make a decision, the points pile up. Though my partner does not have the same difficulty (he's played a paladin before), I'm looking at all the different curses and have only the barest grasp of what works in what situations.

*~*~*

There are pros and cons to every system, as is evident. Of course, there are the bonuses of the free month and the Zhevra Mount, and it's all going to amount to personal choice. I'm going to feel incredibly noob on my lock and every other character levelled this way for a while, but hopefully I can figure it out.

All comments and additions to the list welcome.

Also, opinions: are there any races that actually look good on the Zhevra?

/tar 4 Haelz /cast Cyclone

It seems like only a little while ago that I needed guest bloggers because I was going on vacation. And, indeed, it was only a little while ago. However, I’m about to likely disappear for a week or so. I’m not asking for guest bloggers, as in truth I wouldn’t have time to upload their submissions, nor do I have time to give them warning to work on them.

You see, my housing for this semester of university is in utter turmoil. I don’t know where I’m going to live or how soon I’m going to have internet. I seem to keep getting some sort of amazing find that will get me set and ready to go, only to have it fall apart at the last minute. The yo-yoing is frustrating and emotionally draining; I’m stressed and depressed. For the past few days I’ve been babysitting from about 6 AM to 5 PM every day, calling apartment buildings, my university, and trying to pack without knowing just how much room for things I’ll need (or what, in truth, I will need to bring). I have been on Bellwether a total of fifteen minutes and only to apologize to people I had made plans with. I have no internet at my father’s and few chances to use it while at my mother’s.

There are comments I want to respond to, e-mails I need to get to, and all manner of things that just can’t be done right now due to the clusterfuck that is my living situation.

Therefore, all I’m asking is your patience while I get my stuff sorted out, and I apologize for leaving you in the middle of that five-part series.

Thanks everyone for your understanding, and I’m sure I’ll be back again in no time at all.

To Flame or Not to Flame...

Image from the Lackadaisy webcomic.

This is not the third part of the installment involving raiding guilds pre-expansion. I apologize! This is just a question I would like to explore and hope my readers will as well. It would be sad if no one cared enough about me to answer my question, no? /guilt trip

Once upon a forum trolling, I came across a thread on my home server about a mage looking for a T5/T6 guild. The mage was one I had met before, on a Heroic Magister's run. Due to a bad pull, this mage died to too much AoE threat on the pulls before Vexallus. Nothing I could do to heal through so much damage at once. Since everyone else survived, he wanted a rez. There were two druids in the group (me and the tank) and no out of combat rezzers. So, we declined. It was right before Vexallus; the run couldn't take more than a minute.

Much drama followed, then a group quit, nasty whispers followed by /ignore. We got a lock, went through the rest of the instance without a hitch (best Demonology lock I've had the pleasure of playing with, and a polite, helpful attitude to boot), and that was that.

Well, now they want to be in a T5/T6 guild, putting themselves out on the forums. Those are guilds that, if the time comes I have the ability to raid again, I want to be in, and I do not want to be in a raid with this person. Especially since I will not take them off ignore (though that seems almost redundant, to ignore someone ignoring me).

So, the question is: do I say something in the thread to try and warn people of his bad attitude? In the end, I really owe nothing to the guilds in question. They're not my guilds, and may never be my guilds. I could just let it slide. Perhaps the player was just having a bad day, or perhaps he's had an attitude change since then. I don't do level 1 troll alts, either, so anything I would say would be on my druid. I know I don't want to raid with someone who throws a hissy fit about a minute walk back to his corpse and threatens to leave the group if he doesn't get a rez "next time."

All in all, he wasn't a horrible mage. He was decent at his class, but he had a terribly entitled attitude and expected catering to his whims, despite any impracticalities. Is it really my business to say anything? It's on the WoW forums, not some private app on a guild website, so they've basically opened themselves up to public criticism. However, so does anyone who posts, and it's difficult to phrase a warning about someone's bad attitude without sounding like a "butt hurt QQing nub." Which could actually devolve into me having to defend my ability to heal and childish confrontations like that. Though there are plenty of people who will defend me (scrubby as I am), I don't like when things spiral out of control.

Then, of course, there's the likely possibility I would not include my signature, simply to keep the flow of people into my blog reading that thread to a minimum. It's not something I would relish, any confrontation being dragged over here.

In the end it may be best simply to hold my tongue and go on about my business. But, my faithful audience, I must ask: how would you handle it? Would you post? If you did, would it be on an alt or a main? Would you ignore it on the forums, speak to the guilds that seem interested online, or would you just ignore it all together?

Druids Are Complicated

I often forget how far I’ve come in understanding the druid class (and how far I still have to go). I almost assume that almost everyone else knows the basics of gearing and talenting their druid, despite writing a blog designed specifically to help people with their gameplay. But druids really are multi-faceted and much more complicated for first-time players than many other straight-forward classes (like the rogue, mage, hunter or warlock).

I was reminded of this on Saturday when I went to my aunt’s house to celebrate my father and uncle’s 50th birthdays. My father’s cousin, a woman 35 years older than I, also plays WoW with a 50-something druid as her current main. An enjoyer of the infamous disease known as “altitis,” she has no 70’s and only plays the game about a half hour to an hour each night due to taking more college courses for a degree.

Talking to her, she admitted she was having problems with her druid. Due to my interest in the druid class, we got in a discussion about how she was playing and why things were going so slow for her. In the end, it turned out she was restoration spec, equipping any leather (and maybe cloth) that was an upgrade for her, and trying to kill things in kitty form. She didn’t know how respeccing worked, or what stats to look for.

I did my best to give a quick rundown, but I think I confused her more than helped her. I tried to tell her which stats were important for which spec, and how the druid class, like any hybrid, is a little complicated and requires different gear and talents for different roles. I think I may have accidentally overloaded her with information. I didn’t mention my blog; I’m not sure it would have helped her as much as I would like it to, just confuse and overload her more.

That night, after I arrived home, I offered to heal a heroic Steam Vaults. It was me, two feral druids, a mage and a rogue. After we arrived and people had grabbed the keys, we set off, one of the feral druids tanking. It was a near wipe, with me running out at the end. The tank had pulled with Faerie Fire, and there was no initial aggro to stop my heals from pulling threat. No one could stay under the tank and do their jobs. Another bad pull and we switched tanks.

Again, the same problem. Pull with Faerie Fire, an odd threat rotation, few swipes, and I ate dirt. Everyone else survived, so we tried again after I was rezzed (I was running back, but one of the other druids gave me one). This time, full wipe. We broke up; it obviously wasn’t happening.

I had suggested to the tanks to pull with a tick of hurricane for initial aggro or to use a starfire-moonfire-bear form pull for threat, but it was shaky, uncoordinated, and it seemed the two bears, both in the same guild, were quite used to Faerie Fire pulling. I had even put on some T4 to make my Lifeblooms less intense, and they still couldn’t hold aggro.

In the case of the tanks, they weren’t bad players. They knew how to itemize, what gear to get, and the basics of tanking. They just didn’t know the best way to gain aggro, to hold threat, or how to keep the mobs off a healer whose Lifeblooms gave her a steady stream of threat on all targets.

Every once in a while I see someone in trade chat looking for help on switching over to a Resto spec. I help if I’m not going to busy for a while, but there is so much involved in the druid class that it often does take a long while. Speaking with my cousin brought back memories of my own trip to 70, of the times I dps’d the wrong add, or melee’d from the front, equipped whatever I could get an used attacks after only glancing at the tooltip.

I’ve come a long way since then, but I have a long way to go still. I don’t know the raw healing conversion for any of my healing spells; that’s the next goal. I should get them down just in time for WotLK to come and give me more to learn.

Sometimes, though, it’s good to sit back and gain perspective on how much you’ve learned, how much you still have to learn, and empathize with the fresh-70 tank who doesn’t quite know how to use all his skills to max effect or the Boomkin who hasn’t learned the best spell rotation for mana conservation with high dps and no front-loaded threat or the Tree who spams Regrowth as their main heal.

It’s all too easy when you know what you’re doing to look down on someone who doesn’t. Not everyone can be naturally amazing at a class (though there are those out there), and not everyone knows there are web resources or has the time to root through them. So next time someone doesn’t know what they’re doing, bite your tongue on the word “noob” and help them learn.

Vacation Post: What is it About Hunters?

Despite anything Bellbell may have to say on the subject and the current (slightly confusing for others) legal battle between Druids and BRK, I do adore the hunter class.

I am now in the process of leveling Scary Murder Cow, a.k.a. Rums, who is my sixth hunter. I only play him with a friend (Friendly Helper Cow the druid, a.k.a. Lagers), and since I have little time lately to play him, he levels slowly and inefficiently, but it’s fun. He’s not level 10 yet, so no pet, but when he does reach that magic number I’ll be hunting down the Rake for my first pet.

However, I have a deep, sinking, I’ve-been-here-before feeling about this hunter.

You see, I have never been able to level a hunter past 17 before abandoning it. Not because I don’t love the hunter class; it’s fun to just do straightforward, send-the-pet-in-and-shoot-it DPS. It’s fun to play with traps and jump shots and concussive shots and all sorts of different tracking. No, my reason for having abandoned the hunter class a total of five times has been due to events besides enjoyment of a class.

Hunter One, a dwarf female named Katholen with a cute smile and red braided pigtails, was created on Cenarion Circle with a couple friends for the sole purpose of relaxing RP. However, a fallout occurred with one of the friends, and I ended up deleting Katholen and her bear, Brun, months after it was final that the fallout was not something the group could recover from.

My second hunter, a female Tauren, was made with other friends who wished to try out Horde side. We were all Tauren, and had planned on making a guild called , full of only Tauren. Unfortunately, no one ever seemed to want to play the cows at the same time (or didn’t have the same free time open), and so Dylana reached level 17, my highest level Horde character (and hunter) ever, got Echeyakee before I realized just how common the white lion was Horde-side, and then I played her perhaps once in four months if I wanted to try a little non-twinked Horde PvP.

My third hunter, Rums, was made because some friends were considering rerolling Horde. That fell through at around level 11.

Gesic was created for an RP server again; this time, Moonguard. However, my raiding career was shaky, the schedule kept being changed, and I never was able to make the events of the guild I had joined. I was removed, and Gesic was pushed aside. He did, however, run to Darnassus and get an owl, a feat I was incredibly proud of since it took forever. Later, I tried to play him with four other bloggers, but once again, clashing schedules caused his hiatus.

My fifth hunter, another Rums, was an attempt at reconnecting with my (now-ex)boyfriend. Obviously, it didn’t work, and I wasn’t going to keep that hunter around after the fact.

It seems I have bad luck when it comes to hunters, but perhaps someday I’ll be able to have a pet and kite and lay traps and do competent CC. My plan has always been to be a Survival hunter, but with WotLK I may have to go BM just so I can have a pair of pets. That sounds…intensely interesting, strategically (of course, it may all boil down to having two dps kitties…unfortunately uncomplicated)

Here’s to hoping!

Oh, and if you're wondering why the name "Rums" appears so much, it's because I want to name all his pets "Cokes." Rums and Cokes. Ha ha...it's funny, laugh.


*~*~*
Bellwether is on vacation from the twenty-fourth to the fourth and appreciates your patience in answering all your comments and e-mails. Please enjoy these pre-scheduled posts and guest bloggers in the meantime!

Vanity Fair and You: The Untold Story.

Oh hi, fellas! I suppose it's time for a more formal introduction. I'm Surazal of Dark Iron, Bell's home realm! If you decided to click on my name, you probably noticed that I am not only geared up in disappointing blues, but that I have also haven't played since last year! With that being said, I'd like everyone to know that I am quite aware that things may have changed in that time, and that my lack of raiding experience makes me an unreliable source in the first place. That's all right, though. This rant really applies to the trip to level 70, not raids.

So... TheoryCrafting, amirite? I'm not very familiar with the subject, considering I never actually read one, but they still grind my gears. The people who follow them like some kind of holy scripture do, anyway. In my... travels, or as I like to call it, my sitting in my room playing this game for a year, I experienced many jerkfaces who decided that they are better than everyone else because they learned how to play from reading Vanity Fair, or whatever they read that tells them how to play.

Well I'm not so sure it's something to be proud of.

The most rewarding part of this game for me was being good at what I do and the learning process that led me there. To me, it seems like people who open up Seventeen Magazine and read the "HOW2WoW PLZ" guide are just cheating. The most upsetting part about this cheating is that it usually produces characters that really only care about their own damage. "Oh, I don't use Curse of Elements or Shadows because they're a waste." "Oh, I only spec Arcane/Fire because being useful doesn't exactly have the DPS output that I desire." "Oh, I like hitting things with maces because -insert good rogue skill here- is not a good skill." (actually i've never quite understood the mace rogue theory, since it seems like they don't do damage and they're not stealthy. but i felt i should mention them because... because they are lolz, i guess)

Don't do that :[!

Now I'm not saying that every Cosmopolitan entry on WoW is rife with misinformation, but in my experience, everyone who ever said, "Hey I read about this spec..." ended up being absolutely horrible at their job in every way. Therefore I made up these horrible stories in my head that all guides everywhere tell people to spam shadowbolts and arcane blast and completely ignore everything except the numbers on the damage meters. If I happen to ever start playing again, I can modify my opinion, but for now I'm sticking to it!

Anyways. It's just very frustrating to see people be completely selfish in a teamwork-based game after 30 days of playtime. Are teen girl magazines to blame? Possibly. It really depends on whether I want to think that the WoW population is easily brainwashed, or just stupid and selfish.

Circumstances have called for an edit:
I'd like to be quite clear that I am not being mean to all research everywhere, nor am I picking on everyone who has ever done research for their class. I am only criticizing those who like to take all of their knowledge of their class from the internet without putting any thought into it. And yes, I fully understand that mages who don't sheep and warlocks who... are idiots exist regardless of their reading habits.
You'd understand if you had met Rick. ;-;

Guest Post: Five Reasons I Play a Druid

Today's post is brought to you by Horns of Yet Another Warlock Nerf!

1. Easy leveling

Although many druids choose balance for leveling, smashing mobs as feral is much easier. Once you get your cat form at level 20, it becomes a breeze. Casting an occasional heal on yourself is enough to keep you going without any downtime. After level 42 (or 47, depends if you like Furor or not) with Improved Leader of the Pack you rarely need to rest, and you'll be killing elites and soloing group quests like no other class. But it gets better when you get Mangle - that is without doubt the best talent you will ever get for feral druids, so good you won't be using Claw ever again. With decent items from Outland, you'll be unstoppable.

2. Stealth

I tried leveling some other classes after my druid but could never stick to it, partially because of Prowl. Of course, I did manage to get my rogue to 67, and hopefully some day to 70. Those quests when you have to kill that Mr. Big Ogre at the back of that cave with 30 other ogres standing in your way become so much easier.

3. Versatility

Although druids in their forms are not supposed to be as strong as other classes, they're pretty darn close. With proper gear, you can be anything you want: a very strong meat shield with plenty of health, a furry kitten who can DPS almost as good as a rogue, a fat feathery bird with awesome nukes even mages frown upon, or a tree-like creature with the wackiest dance ever.
Looking for a tank for instances? No problem. Need a DPS? Invite! Whatever you choose to be when you grow up, you will always have a place in groups and raids. Ok maybe we can't be some fancy robots, but we're working on it.

4. Crowd Control

While we're not known to be the best class to crowd control, we still do have our moments. Hibernate is rarely used, but there's always a beast or two around which needs to take a nap - why fight two when you can fight one. Cyclone, the notorious spell which caused much uproar, is probably the second most annoying crowd control in game - Fear obviously being the first. We can even Charge our enemies to immobilize them and interrupt their spell casts, and if that fails we can Bash the living hell outta them. Kitty druids can Pounce and Maim to keep their targets from staining their fur. But that's not all: Entangling Roots and it's young sister Nature's Grasp will make sure our nemesis stay exactly where we want. In Wrath, we can even cast it indoors - who needs mages anyway.

5. Flight Form

The only instant cast mount will make sure you never die if you miss the elevator at Aldor Rise. We even get it 2 levels before anyone else, which makes roaming around Blade's Edge Mountains a whole lot easier. And the best part: if you picked up Herbalism like myself, you can gather herbs without the need to dismount. Now that's epic.




There you go, my top 5 reasons why I love and play a druid. I could probably write 50 reasons, but nobody would read that. You're most welcome to comment and tell the world what you like about druids.


*~*~*
Bellwether is on vacation from the twenty-fourth to the fourth, and appreciates your patience in answering all your comments and e-mails. Please enjoy these pre-scheduled posts and guest bloggers in the meantime!

Vacation Post: Collage Time Again!

I haven't done one of these in a while, and I thought it would be a fun little thing to leave for you while I'm packing and driving and picking people up from airports and more driving and finally vacation relaxing and lacking internet access. Enjoy! (Mouse-over the pictures for more information)







*~*~*
Bellwether is on vacation from the twenty-fourth to the fourth and appreciates your patience in answering all your comments and e-mails. Please enjoy these pre-scheduled posts and guest bloggers in the meantime!

Foshizzle My Druizzles! For Solidarity!

This is your standard news post from me, Bellwether. Yay!

First of all, I mentioned earlier that I'd be going away for a while at the end of July. Ten days or more, in fact, and the odds are I'll have little internet. I'm working on posts to go up in the meantime, but I'm wondering two things:

• Would anyone like to make guest posts on here at that time?
  
• Would anyone like to post articles I had written for me at that time?
  

Obviously, any who apply will need a blogger account so I can give them author access. If you'd like to help me out while I'm on vacation, send me an e-mail, grab me on Skype or AIM. The information is all on the right-hand-side underneath the tree in the pot. You can ask other people who've contacted me; I don't bite! (Insert "bark is worse than bite" pun here)

For those of you who want to understand the title, check Here, then Here and most importantly Here. We druids are well-known for presenting a united front.

In fact, I now encourage every druid blogger to make a post with "Foshizzle" either in the title or body of the text. We are many, we are powerful, let our voices be heard! And let them be heard to be saying "Foshizzle!"

Opting In

Well, there it is. I have officially opted in. Last time, I didn't know how, and I wasn't even 60, but perhaps I'll get in this beta!

Here's hoping!

Why so Silent, Bell?

When Summer comes along, so does the sunshine and the need to do things other than WoW. When I don't have homework to procrastinate on, playing on WoW holds a bit less appeal (if you know what I mean). However, I haven't stopped playing!

My mother's house, where I spend a lot of my weekdays, has no internet at the moment. Her current provider was giving her the run-around, so she cancelled service, and is working on getting the new service worked up. So, needless to say, weekdays if I'm on the 'net, I've just gotten home to quick jump on and prepare for a raid.

Our raids haven't gone through, much, either; Many people are finishing up college or have summer vacations and the like. I'm not disheartened or discouraged, and in fact it's giving me more time to work on my surprise and save up a little money...

...which I promptly spent on gemming my Moonkin set. With the creation of a second "ZA Bear Run" group, our first foray into Zul'Aman ended with us just short of attaining a Bear Mount, but yielded a staff and pants for my Moonkin set, as well as a tanking cloak for my Bear set, a dps chest for my Cat set, and a healing neck for my haste set. I cleaned house, I tell you. But, when no one else needs it...

Don't worry, I have a few articles in the works. I need a bit of raiding to get enthusiastic about some again, but never fear.

Bell is still here!

/partyhat

Sorry about the small bit of radio silence lately; this is always a busy weekend for me. I just turned twenty (ding!) and also Father's Day is tomorrow. But don't worry; I'll return with a brand new and shiny post on Monday, promise!

Have a great weekend, and a terrific Father's Day.

Incoherency and Updates

I'm featured on Twisted Nether, a great blogcast by two great bloggers, Fimlys from Asleep at the WoW and Bre from Gun Loving Dwarf Chick. They have a lot of great news and talk and it's not completely ruined by me babbling on in the middle. Which, in my book, is a win. I talk about Bellwether the character, how my blog got started, my inspirations for starting my blog (such as BRK, Bear and Phae), tree movement and why I am resto. If you're interested, check it out! Click on the little pic to go see.

Tonight, if we have the Hearts, Sunder will be attempting Mother Shahraz after RoS (who will hopefully go down quickly). I'm a little nervous; I'm lacking my SR neck. We don't run SSC but once in a blue moon anymore, and so I'm going to have to make up my resist in some other way.

I got exalted with SSO finally, so I'm also gathering mats to make my Redeemer's Alchemist Stone. I don't even have the original Alchemist's Stone made, so I still have that list from earlier to finish up. Aside from that, I have gloves to enchant. Everything these days takes Primal Lives. Thank goodness for being an Herbalist.

I've found that when I'm freezing, my computer feels just ducky, so I play in the basement whenever possible.

And, finally, I require an opinion of my readers. I recently acquired the Dead-Bird-On-Head Helm (and that is it's official name), and I'm having trouble deciding whether to show it or hide it. It looks quite nice from the side, but straight on my head looks enormous. So, I took some pictures for your viewing pleasure, and you can all tell me whether or not I should sport it or conceal it.

The Impossible is Possible! Random Updates

People are always very worried about Bear Form's constant mouth open problem. Well, worry no more, and rest assured in the fact that it is possible for it to be closed. No kidding. Seriously. See the above screenshot.

Unfortunately, this seems to be only true when you are swimming as a bear. Go figure, you don't want to swallow the entire ocean.

Also, my latency continues to be evil. No lie. Check it out!



But! I just downloaded PerformanceFu, so hopefully my issues will be alleviated a bit.

I have recently also got an influx of fun mail in my mailbox. I've received thank yous from people, interesting offers from Ratshag (he doesn't like begging, but apparantly his tentacle-faced self needs to be pimped), and also a gray pick-axe with a note saying "for my nose." My friends are weird.

I finally got to see Archimonde go down. So awesome, that last ten percent where you're immune to everything, and you can just dps the heck out of him. Also, jokes about Finger of Death, and "being Fingered for over 100k damage" will never, ever get old. Ever.

♥ to you all, I'll have something more substantial up for you a bit later!

Oh Goodness...

My shopping list:

1x earthstorm diamond
1x skyfire diamond
2x fel lotus
5x primal might
6x primal life
2x nether vortexes

Get Exalted with SSO

Also on the list:
Get Exalted with Aldor
Epic Flight Form

...

*cry*

Spoke Too Soon!

So, what I said in a previous post about not being able to break 1700 +healing?

Bwahaha. BWAHAHAHAHA.

+1701, baby, with the addition of the Vindicator's Pendant of Salvation neck and just getting up the nerve to dump 220g+ on gemming it plus regemming my greens until just. over. the. mark.

Mmmm...delicious, delicious 1701 +heals.

Excuse me, I'm now going to go collapse for a few hours. Apparantly zomgjustafewmorearenagames is not a substitution for a full night's rest. 40 arena games done so far, though, and more to go today.

/glee

Discovered!

I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised. I'd shared my blog tentatively with a few people from my old guild, and they liked it. I hadn't counted on them caring enough to share it with others!

It's not that I'm not proud of my blog. I've put time and effort into it to make it look nice and for it to be helpful. Or, at the very least, entertaining. It just doesn't come up in conversation much.

Still. It caught me off guard last night when my friend Clabik told me jokingly over Vent that I should "blog about this." Now, we were just doing a little AB, and it was late for me, so there was not much to say past:

I TOTALLY CALLED IT.

We took back stables (you can see this ended well, if we have to take back stables), and I'm stealthed by the flag. A horde shows up by the stables graveyard, and my friends go "zomg hordes!" and take off running. I remind them, quite gently, that you fight on the flag, and if the horde do not have the courtesy to oblige, you ignore them. This apparantly did not register. I do not budge from the flag, and then I hear "oshi-" as soon as I see two red dots appear on my track humanoids coming around the back of the stables for the flag.

I CALLED IT.

And for Clabik: there. I blogged about it.

I'll see what I can do about Lare's request that the internet hears about his greatness at some point in which our schedules actually coincide, so that I'll have something to say other than "Lare is awesome. Let Lare tank for you. He needs the phat epix, for he was once an Arms Warrior, and a badass one at that. Lare is sexy."

There, Lare, I wrote about you, too.

And speaking of Arms warriors...

Any Arms warrior that can top the dps charts on Lurker against ranged dps that can go all out with no regards to threat is a god amongst players.

Nostalgia

I remember when I relied on little exclamation points in squares at the bottom of the screen to tell me how to play.
Now I surf the internet to read the latest theorycrafting news.

I remember when I was still getting used to the controls and fell off a tree and died because I had trouble turning.
Now I can kite rogues while taking jump-shots with moonfire.

I remember when I was never able to find the entrance to Stormwind no matter how many times I’d gone through it, so I would run up to the gryphon master, jump into the water, and swim to the ramp.
Now I only do that because it’s funny.

I remember when I waited until level 22 to get my aquatic form because I was afraid of the threshers and had trouble with the swimming controls.
Now I have actively hunted and killed all but two of the elite sharks in Azeroth. Still need to kill Maws.

I remember when I didn’t quite grasp the concept of how badly those spiders in that cave in Shadowglen wanted to kill me.
Now I can generally judge how close I can get to a mob of almost any level.

I remember when the Greenwarden in Wetlands looked HUGE.
Boglords have ruined him for me.

I remember when I did Maraudon for the first time. It took three nights before we figured it out. None of us knew about Rotgrip. He scared us to death because he was practically invisible in that funky water.
Now I check WoWwiki and WoWhead before I do instances to know what I’m up against.

I remember when the Den Mother was an exciting kill.
Now I’m rejoicing over a one-shot of Nightbane.

I remember having bad dreams involving red tags and contested zones.
Now I run my little alts through Horde territory with impunity, daring the enemy to start something.

I remember when I made 10 different kinds of potions and elixirs for each person in instance runs like SM and ST.
Now I only make a few, and they’re for raids or heroics only.

I remember my first step into a BG, how confusing and scary it was.
Now I’m working on completing a full PvP set. S3 pants next, hopefully.

I remember when grinding enough gold for a regular mount in three days was a feat of epic proportions.
Now I get that much gold from a few dailies.

I remember when I knew nothing about my character, when I made guesses and routinely screwed up and messed up.
Now I write a blog that offers advice to help others learn how to play the druid class.

I remember when I was completely fresh and new to the game.
Now, though I wouldn’t give up the experiences I’ve been through and the skill I have gained, sometimes I miss what I remember.

I remember my first VC run and how confused I was, and how epic Mr. Smite sounded.
I remember the first time I tried to get my bear form and how intimidating the bear spirit seemed.
I remember my vendetta against one certain level 13 moonkin in Darkshore which would not stop killing me.
I remember killing a warlock six or so levels higher than me after being ganked in STV.
I remember my first time in Gurubashi.
I remember my first trip through the Barrens to get to Thousand Needles and pick up ice cream.
I remember when a single gold coin was epic wealth.
I remember my first non-combat pet, a white kitten.
I remember buying all whites from a vendor because it was better armor.
I remember my first green came from VC.
I remember equipping anything leather and not caring about the stats, and then later hoarding anything with agility on it.
I remember not understanding why it was odd to the rest of WoW that my group had actually suggested for me to spec feral and dps as a cat during instances.

What do you remember?