Barky Bits

Blog Revamp + Ideas

2009-09-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

So I've been thinking about possibly doing a Video Blog once or twice a month, but I'm not sure. I would probably just talk about Druid stuff and maybe real life stuff just to make the blog a little more interesting.

Afterall, if you ONLY wanted druid information you could just go to MMO-Champion... but you wouldn't get my random quirkiness there, now WOULD YOU?

In any case, if anyone has some good ideas for Vlog content, let me know!

Aside from that idea, I'm looking to revamp the blog; it's been while and I've picked up some new Photoshop tips that I want to use! So in the next few days look for a new layout for Barky Bits, as well as a little video tutorial on setting up Power Auras (a great mod for buff/debuff/proc tracking)!

Update: The blog has been essentially redone (obviously). I like to keep things simple... for now this is all I really need to do. I may redo the banner, but for now it'll do. It's 5:30am and I have class at 10:30am

... why do I do this to myself D:

Finally Complete!

2009-09-15T22:48:00.001-07:00

Coming Soon

2009-09-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Guides on Healing 10/25 man Trial of the Crusader (regular and heroic)!

9/11 - Where Was I?

2009-09-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

9/11/2001

I live in Northern Virginia, about 20 minutes from D.C. At the time I was a 7th grader and I was sitting in a science class. My teacher left the room for a minute and walked back in, saying something about a plane hitting a building. I was a little scared; it sounded like planes were just dropping from the sky and hitting buildings. It wasn't until I got to my next class (Orchestra) that I saw what had happened.

My teacher, a New Yorker, had the T.V on and was running back and forth from the classroom to the phone. On the T.V I saw the image of the first tower covered by a cloud of smoke. I wasn't sure what to think. I was scared, but still calm.

... until they mentioned that the Pentagon had been hit. My father, a retired Army man, worked with defense contracting with (I believe) Ratheon at the time. I knew that he worked in D.C., but I had no idea if he actually worked in the Pentagon or not. I was still young, so I didn't have a cell phone or a way to call my house without asking a teacher. I worried the entire day until my sister picked me up after school.

"Dad was in the Pentagon."

When she said that my heart stopped.

Luckily, she quickly added: "He's ok."

When my dad got home that night I hugged him harder than I've ever hugged anyone in my entire life. He told me that he had two offices to visit in the Pentagon that day and had chosen one over the other. Had he chosen the other room he probably would have died. He told me how him and other coworkers were standing around the T.V, watching the towers burn.

Then, someone said: "Wouldn't it be something if a plane hit the Pentagon?"

Sure enough, seconds later the plane hit. My dad said that it felt like all the air was sucked out of the building and then launched back at them. Everyone darted out of the building and down the halls as quickly as they could. I was so relieved he made it out safely.

I hope everyone takes a moment of silence today for the innocent lives lost in this terrible attack.

Faction Swap Now Live

2009-09-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

Long time no see, readers (I still have some, right?) !

With the onset of the Fall semester I haven't had much time or energy to post much of anything here. However I didn't really have anything of interest to post, either... I'm in that stage where I'm trying to find a way to make my blog more interesting and useful for you all to read, via guides, theory crafting, etc. I'm also hoping to revamp the page's layout now that I've dabbled a bit more in Photoshop and got some new skills!

So hopefully I'll have some more useful content in the coming weeks once I've settled down with school. Video game design and art classes are stressful!

Blood Elf LF Hooves and Tail

For those of you who haven't seen the news, the faction transfers from Horde to Alliance (and visa versa) are now available for a mere $30; quite a bit earlier than I had anticipated.

When this service was announced a few months ago, I was rather excited. I have a few high level alts that I don't play simply because I don't like the race I picked. Stupid, yes, but if I'm going to spend hours on a character I want it to be pleasing to look at. My Blood Elf Paladin is cute, but I've always disliked the casting animations. When I used to play Alliance years ago I had a level 25 Draenei Paladin that I loved, and now I have the chance to quickly swap over to that race without spending hours of time leveling a new one. Aesthetics aside, I actually have quite a few friends I made in Dalaran via emoting on Alliance side as well as friends from my own faction who made new characters on Alliance that I'd like to play with.

I'm eager to try out the Alliance side of Northrend after being on Horde for all these years. With recent issues it'll be a nice little escape to get away from drama and irritation that comes with logging onto my main.

Some people think this entire service was a bad idea. They think it'll cause server imbalance, bring 'bads' over to their side be it Horde or Alliance, ruin PvP from people swapping races to get the best racials. It's my personal opinion that this was a great idea. There's a lot of people who have been playing since Vanilla WoW and, due to various reasons, had to abandon their older characters that they had put a great deal of time and effort into. Thanks to this service, people can possibly bring those characters back from the grave and play them once again.

What do you think about the service? Great? Stupid? Do you think you might use it?

BRB

2009-08-21T12:57:00.000-07:00

Rolling Worgen.

Of HoT Idols and Mauling Face

2009-08-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Patch 3.2 brought about all kinds of change! While at first I was extremely hesitant about Emblem of Conquest changes, it wasn't until I decided to build up a feral DPS set that I realized how awesome this change was. Doing heroics is a great chance to spend some time with guildies while stocking up on extra badges for those off specs that you've been neglecting. Picking up a DPS set has been great, as it makes doing dailies easier, finding a spot in heroic groups easier, and also makes me a more flexible and valuable raider. Need a healer? No problem. Need a mangle bot? No problem! It's also been great for a change of pace; even I get tired of healing (gasp!).

Speaking of being HoT...

Idol of Flaring Growth

If you hadn't seen this Restoration Druid idol yet, you'd best put a bib of some sort on or at least put a bucket beneath your mouth because this idol will make you drool. It's essentially a constant free 234 spell power. According to players on Wowhead.com, the idol has no internal cooldown and even procs several times in a row. With Rejuvenation now our main spell for raid healing (especially with the Tier 8.5 4-piece set bonus), more and more set bonuses/idols are giving it even more benefits!

I only have about 15 Badges of Triumph at the moment (I keep forgetting to turn my daily in, 'doh!), but once I get it I'm going to be even more Rejuvenation happy than I am now. Healing has never been so HoT!

Onyxia to Return and Deep Breath Your Face Off in 3.2.2!?

2009-08-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

She has lurked in her lair and done battle with the many brave adventurers who travelled to that familiar location over the years. Now, in honor of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary, the dreaded brood mother Onyxia is being revamped to make a return to the forefront of Azeroth, as part of our big plans for the upcoming 3.2.2 content patch.

This permanent update to Onyxia will convert the dungeon into 10- and 25-player modes. We will be adding new items to Onyxia’s loot table that have the same model as some of the classic loot from this dungeon, like Tier 2 helms, with stats updated to match the current level of content. There will be a special new item too: a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself called an Onyxia Broodling. We will also be updating the encounter mechanics to be more fitting for modern raiding, but we can guarantee players will get to experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.

Then for a limited time, after the 5-year anniversary event officially begins in November, anybody who logs in will receive an Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet.

We’re very excited to bring this classic encounter back to provide a fun new experience for both new and veteran players. Further details will be available in the near future, and we will be setting up the Public Test Realms soon to help test out this fight along with all the new content we have planned for the patch. Keep an eye on the forums for updates!

Source

Yes, the big bitch is coming back to take away 50 DKP from all of us! Get ready to get your cute little Onyxia baby pet (similar to the Baby Blizzard bear during last year's anniversary) and get ready to run the instance every week for that sexy, SEXY mount!

It's probably a good idea to get any old school loot that you want off of her now before they possibly remove it from the game!

Still sick, but still kickin' butt

2009-08-11T08:48:00.001-07:00

My cold decided to stick around, but that isn't keeping me from getting some sweet achievements and gear!

Last night we got "I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning (25 player)" now that he doesn't projectile vomit Shadow Crashes rapid fire at the raid. Despite the Omen of Clarity nerf (Blizzard hates melee trees!), this fight was still rather easy to heal. While standing in the Shadow Crash pools reduces your healing done, it makes it easier to spam Lifebloom and Wild Growth on members of your group who take a bit of damage from Mark of the Faceless.

I was excited to maul face on Iron Council Hardmode "I Choose You, Steelbreaker (25 player)". The guild has been wiping on this fight for a little while, but we finally got him last night! It seems that we ALWAYS wiped with just a few hit points left (> 3-5%). It was aggrivating, and I wasn't there for all the weeks of wipes prior to this down, but he's finally down! Time to head over to Freya...

Active again.. but sick ~

2009-08-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Sick druid is sick :(

I've finally gotten back into WoW 100%, and I've actually been mainly running around as a fluffy kitty! My feral set is actually rather nice; I have almost full BiS as far as Naxx25/Conquest Emblem Gear is concerned, and I tend to top the DPS charts most of the time (that means I'm good, RITE?!). I'm really enjoying doing some damage for once. After almost 4 years as a healer in WoW, it was really nice to change things up a little and maul some faces =)

Much like Keeva, I've been running around doing the daily quests associated with the adorable little Venomhide Hatchling. I can't wait to get my mount in 18 more days!

Aside from farming to get the mount, I also sat in Dustwallow marsh for ~5 hours to get this little guy:

Click for a larger image

He has an *adorable* animation where he dashes away, leaving a cloud of dust behind him (very similar to Egbert). I had to work today, but hopefully during my off-days this week I can snag a few more of these adorable little guys!

I need to go get in bed for now and rest up ~ I've had a lot of stomach problems lately so I got on a healthy eating kick. Eating plenty of fruits and veggies, fiber, etc... I quit soda! (GASP) But the thing is that just a few days after I started this routine... I got a cold! I woke up this morning with a snore throat and the sniffles! It's horrible =( It actually happens every time I get into a healthy routine. I think I'm so used to eating junk food and drinking can after can of soda that my body is going crazy!

Hopefully this all passes soon! I hate being sick >_<

But I'll leave you all with a silly picture:

GHOST CAT!
Levitate + Stealth = Lulz

Wat?!1

2009-08-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Image by Sihu @ deviantArt.com

I'm back :3

Real post later lolz ~

It's That Time

2009-07-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. After four years I've gotten burned out.

My subscription ended while I was on vacation, and I don't plan on renewing it.

I'm saying this is just a break from the game. I can spend some quality time with my sister before she moves to the other side of the country, take some 'me time', play some XBox 360, and hang out with my new friends and get out in the sun a bit more.

To those in my guild I've let down, I'm sorry. To those who found this blog helpful (somehow), sorry.

But it's time for this tree to think of herself and her sanity!

Long Time, No Post

2009-06-30T13:44:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone ~ I feel rather bad for not posting anything worthwhile as of late, but I've been pretty busy with work, mini-vacations, and suddenly acquiring a bit of a social life.

Needless to say, I'm still playing WoW (though I've felt a bit burnt out on it as of late). In fact, I finally got my 4 piece Tier 8.5 set bonus the other day (rejoice). Other than that, though, nothing much is really going on. Everyone else seems to be covering the new PTR changes and such better than I can, so I've decided to be lazy and let them all cover it ;)

I just got home from a 3 hour drive (curse you traffic...) from visiting my boyfriend so, hopefully, I'll have something worthwhile to read sometime soon.

PTR

2009-06-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

PTRs are up and I just got home from work. After my raid tonight I'm going to get into the PTR and make a short video for you all on what the new forms look like in-game for both Horde and Alliance druids.

Lack of posts

2009-06-15T23:25:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, everyone. There's been guild issues, RL issues, and other things keeping me busy. But mostly, this is what's had my attention...:

Video Games - E3 2009 - PC Gaming

I heard about this game a while back, but it wasn't until my coworker who had tried the US preview event told me about it that I decided to really look into it. All I can say is "wow". This game looks amazing. Come Friday I'll disappear as I play the HELL out of this weekend's closed beta phase. I can't WAIT to try Cleric. This week is Asmodian testing, but I'm going to be rolling Elyos (most likely) for live.

It's times like these I'm glad I work at GameStop... I get beta keys first :3

Don't Buy From DFI

2009-06-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

ANGRY DRUID IS ANGRY.

About a month ago my DFI LanPartyDX x48 Series motherboard died. It had issues back in December when I received it and tried to put more RAM into it. Assuming the RAM was bad (because the website said the board could take 8 gigs of RAM), I got new RAM later and tried it again in May. The board continued to hang, refusing to boot even to the BIOS. Removing the CMOS battery for a bit fixed it, but now that doesn't even work.

3 e-mails, 3 phone calls, and 3 weeks later, it's still sitting in my custom-built rig. Dead. I'm going to advise all of my readers to avoid purchasing products from DFI. Even if their prodcuts are nice, their customer service is terrible. They tell me 'We didn't get your e-mail' or, 'Send it to this e-mail'... 'this e-mail' being DIFFERENT from the one they have listed on their website.

I'm getting very angry. I'm about to just say screw it and buy a new one and throw out my current moboard. I'm tired of waiting for these incompetent people to contact me.

If You Quit Your Druid Over The Art Changes...

2009-06-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

... you aren't really a Druid.

Had to get that out there and off my chest... tired of seeing things like this:

"I just didn't bother to switch my character cause my Druid is not my main. Here I['ll] post on my Druid. The character I might never play again if these changes goes live."

Honestly, to me, if you're going to quit because the art wasn't tailored to EXACTLY HOW YOU WANT IT, good riddance. We don't need more 'FotM' Druids running around ruining the code (IE: never ganking other Druids, especially not in Moonglade) that we used to have.

This isn't meant to target people upset about the way your forms are selected (see Keeva's post about this here). I definitely agree! While I actually ended up getting the colors I want (MUFASA INC), I know and definitely understand that people are attached to their character. I'm probably just as attached! I don't think I'd ever change Corgii from having her light brown, splotchy fur color, which I chose based off of the normal coloring of a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (my favorite dog).

No, I'm talking about the people who can't just be grateful that we've gotten these model changes. I understand. It's been four years. They have tons of money and people to do it. True. But think of how much time they put into other things, and even still they gave us the forms we wanted so badly!

Shut your face and enjoy it! You haven't even seen it in-game yet >:l

NIGHT ELF CATS ARE NOT EFFEMINATE ENOUGH

2009-06-04T22:44:00.001-07:00

Taken from here.

Ulduar 25 Guide - Razorscale

2009-06-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

Razorscale is a large, pretty drake that flies high above Ulduar and, contrary to what most of my guild members seem to think, Razorscale is a GIRL! Your encounter with Razorscale will consist of 2 phases: an aerial phase, and a phase in which she is permanently grounded. This guide focuses on a restoration druid's job during the encounter.

Phase 1
During phase one, your raid will spread out around the large circle on the ground, being sure to keep a safe distance between yourself and your raid members. Throughout this phase, adds will spawn from the mole machines that drill up from under ground. Three types of adds spawn, and this is the order in which they must be killed:

Sentinels
Sentinels are dangerous to melee, as they Whirlwind for around 9,000 damage on plate wearers. It's important that these mobs go down first.

Watchers
Watchers are very dangerous to your raid as they cast a Chain Lightning that does more damage with each person it jumps to (hence why it is very important to keep a good amount of distance between yourself and your raid members). These mobs can be CC'd using sheep, fear, stuns, etc.

Guardians
Guardians are the last on the kill priority list. They have a Stormstrike ability that increases Nature damage done to the target by 20% for 12 seconds. I'm pretty sure this is what they look like - I don't pay much attention to adds!

Throughout this phase (and phase 2) large Fire Balls will periodically fall down from the sky and hit a raid member, dealing about 14,000 damage. If you periodically use Rejuvenation on your raid members, a quick Swiftmend or Nourish will heal them back up to full. While you're busy killing adds and avoiding Razorscale's Devouring Flame (giant cloud of blue fire on the ground that inflicts 7,000 to 9,000 damage every second), your friendly dwarf allies will be busy putting those turrets back together, pictured below.

One of your raid members (probably a hunter or a mage) will activate the turrets as they are built and once the last one is activated Razorscale will be grounded for approximately 40 seconds.

In this portion of phase 1 there isn't a great deal of damage happening to the raid, so feel free to release your inner Critturkey, Lazer Chicken, Doomkin, Boomkin (etc.) and do some damage. After ~ 40 seconds Razorscale will get pissed off and do a Wing Buffet, which will knock back everyone in her range (so be sure to stay away from her to avoid getting out of range to heal your raid). Phase 1 will repeat again until you get her to 50%, at which point Phase 2 begins.

Phase 2
In phase 2 there will be two tanks, one taunting off the other when the current tank has around 3 stacks of Fuse Armor, a debuff that reduces armor, attack and movement speed by 20% for 20 seconds and stacks up to 5 times. Make sure to roll full HoTs on the current tank, and keep HoTs on them even after Razorscale has been taunted off.

Just like in phase 1, Razorscale continues to barf up big clouds of blue fire; AVOID IT! Periodically you'll get more applications of Flame Buffet, a debuff that increases fire damage taken by 1,000 (stacks up to 99 times). This isn't very dangerous unless you:

Decide to bathe in big, blue clouds of fire
Decide to walk in front of Razorscale

Razorscale's Flame Breath ability has a rather large cone of attack, so just avoid her front at all costs. Rinse and repeat until she's dead, and hopefully Bracers of the Broodmother drop!

TL;DR Version

Avoid Devouring Flame (large, blue clouds of fire on the ground)
Use Rejuvenation + Swiftmend/Nourish to quickly heal up raid members hit by Fire Ball
Keep a safe distance between yourself and your raid members to avoid getting hit by Chain Lightning
Don't stand too close to Razorscale when she's temporarily grounded or risk getting knocked out of healing range by her Wing Buffet
During phase 2, avoid Razorscale's front and continue to avoid Devouring Flame
Keep full HoTs on both the Main Tank and the Off Tank during phase 2

If you feel I left anything important out, feel free to leave a comment and I'll fix it! Happy raiding!

New Cat Forms for Horde and Alliance

2009-06-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, the new cat forms are out. In case you've been livin' under a rock, here's the pictures of the two:

Tauren

Night Elf

Am I the only one who thinks the Night Elf forms look like, well... bad? I personally was very fond of the original design, and the new design is rather... meh. I'm pretty amused by the pink kitty; I need to change my baby druid's hair color to get that! Speaking of hair color, a Blue announced that they plan to release a chart of sorts that will display which hair/fur colors lead to which cat/bear color. Once I see that put up I'll be sure to update it here.

I can't wait to go all The Lion King (tm) in Dalaran (it's my favorite movie!). Speaking of Dalaran, my two shirts came! Maybe I'll take some goofy pictures in them later... but maybe not. My face looks a little strange after my tan yesterday @_@ We'll see!

Before I forget! I got some shiney new gear yesterday! Take a look!

Despite thinking that I'd lose to a higher-ranked member (I'm still an initiate), only one other person needed one of the two Vanquisher tokens that dropped off of Hodir! I was so excited. I get my own pretty dress now! This puts me at 2 pieces (I have the Valorous Nightsong Leggings already) which increases the healing done by my Swiftmend by 10%, which is rather nice since I use it fairly liberally! I can't wait to get my helmet next week through Emblems of Conquest, and then after that it's just one more piece to get my 4-set bonus *drool*

Extended extended extended EXTENDED Maintenance

2009-06-02T18:02:00.001-07:00

I LOVE TICHONDRIUS.

Another Ferraro Post

2009-06-01T21:48:00.001-07:00

Yes yes, many people have already post angry/indifferent/supportive posts about the entire Ferraro web of lies, and I wasn't going to post a thing about it until I saw Techdarling's response, and a comment left on her post that read:

Freakin’ mmorpg’ers. They’ve been living a lie for so much of their lives. They don’t even realize that pretending to be someone else in the real world is not only wrong and illegal, but also disturbing. But we should feel bad. Ferraro must have very little self-esteem.

This absolutely infuriated me. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's ignorant people flaming a group (and in this case, a 13 million strong group) of people for something that ONE person in said group did. "Living a lie"?! So every single person who plays World of Warcraft is living a lie? Really? I'd like to see some facts to back up that claim. Do they really think that every single person is so absorbed in the game that they try to pretend the real world doesn't exist? Now, this isn't to say that there aren't people who are possibly a bit too absorbed into the game, but isn't that the case with anything? You're always going to get the fanatics, the die-hards, the obsessive ones... that happens with anything and everything! Movies, people, religions, etc.. It's always going to be like that.

... but to go and bash, sling mud, what have you, on an entire group of people?

It's just ignorant and wrong.

Angry druid is ANGRY.

I suppose I feel especially angry about this subject as I was mocked, ridiculed, insulted, etc. for playing WoW in High School. I've been an avid gamer since I first got the NES as a little kid. My ex-boyfriend insulted me for playing because it had a monthly fee. I suppose cable/sattelite T.V is completely free; no monthly fee. Cell phones, and various other online services... those are all just a waste too, right? To ANYONE who makes the arguement with me that WoW is a waste of money, I pose this counter point.

3 XBox360/PS3/Wii games: Approximately $180 (Wii games tend to be $50, but for the sake of this arguement I'll assume we're buying the $60 games)
1 Year of World of Warcraft: Approximately $179.88 (assuming you're buying a one month recurring subscription off of the main site)

It's easy to see that for the price of 3 games that I will probably beat within a month of purchase, I get an entire year of a game that I probably play for 40 hours+ a week (most likely more). Granted, some people don't necessarily play WoW as much as I do (some play MORE than I do), but the people who always have this argument with me are avid gamers, much like myself.

It's all apples and oranges here.

Why can't people accept that we all have different interests and hobbies?! Different strokes for different folks, people! This is exactly like people bashing someone else's taste in music! For me, music is very important. It inspires me to draw, motivates me; music moves me. I also understand that everyone has their own taste in music, and I understand that it's OK!

Alas... this isn't a perfect world. Not everyone is lucky enough to have common sense and avoid ignorance. It just makes me seethe with anger when I see comments like that, tossing an entire group of people into a stereotype (many of those people good friends), simply because one person did something crazy.

Well... I'm done with the angry rant and angry bear pictures. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back from my tanning session with a more positive blog idea... until then, hopefully you guys can share your opinions and make me feel like less of a nutjob for being so angry over this...

Useless Blog is Useless

2009-05-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm a little frustrated. After reading all the things about the Ferraro web of lies, I realized that I wanted to do my part to make my blog useful to the druid community. Sadly, I have no idea how to go about doing that... Averna already has a ton of great 'How to heal (insert Ulduar boss here)' guides, but there's not really any point in me making my own guides when hers are already so well thought-out and informative...

Any ideas?

Cats, blog changes, and clothes

2009-05-30T23:53:00.000-07:00

I got tired of trying to make the background of the blog look perfect, so hopefully you all like it the way it is...

Alt ADD Continues
I spent a TON of time leveling up my Draenei Priestess, Soniah, today! It was a lot of fun. It's almost like a new game now that I'm in Northrend. This time, however, I'm on the Alliance, so a lot of things are different!

There's one thing I'm doing now that I NEVER do..
.

Read quest text.

It's funny... I always thought that reading quest text would just make it take longer to get quests done, but not only is it a) interesting to read about what exactly is going on and WHY I'm doing the quest, but it is also b) almost faster than relying on QuestHelper or Carbonite. Ironic, I know. But I'm really having a lot of fun reading about the different things going on in Northrend, seeing the way I'm helping out the different characters... it almost makes it more... I know this sounds weird... personal? It's like you're really there helping out everyone.

*cricket chirps*

Anyway! Onto my next, short topic...

Blues on Cat Form Updates
I was browsing MMO-Champion during some downtime in my alt Naxx25 run and I saw this on the front page:

(click for a larger image)

*squeals* This makes me so excited! They seem rather confident that we'll (read: MOST druids) be happy about the new design, and I'm ecstatic. I'm so tired of the monkey-face-anorexic-wyvern that I've been forced to run around on while doing dailies. Needless to say, next week cannot come soon enough! Hopefully the Tauren cat form will be on par with the Night Elf form, as I always felt that the Night Elf cat form was much cooler!'

WoW Swag!

For those of you who have never heard of or visited Jinx, now would be a great time! They have a plethora of WoW T-shirts and other Warcraft-related things, such as vynil stickers of the Horde or Alliance logos (pictured below on my car!) They just released their Summer '09 line of shirts, and they look pretty sweet! I might invest in the Dalaran University and Thunder Bluff Warstompers T-shirts =) So far I've got quite a few shirts from them. I have the older version of their Alliance shirt, their Druid class shirt, the newer version of their Horde shirt, the 'Rogues, the Original Ganksta' shirt (from when I was a rogue long, LONG ago), and lastly their /dance T-shirt. If you haven't been to Jinx and have really wanted some neat WoW swag, check them out!

My car gained +100 to Awesome

Dilemma!

2009-05-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Another more personal blog post tonight!

As I stand here in front of the Coilfang Reservoir summoning stone, dancing with a male draenei whilst I wait for another party member to arrive to summon, my mind wanders off, remembering a certain tattoo design a kind artist sketched for me...

Personally, I *adore* it. I know some don't approve of tattoos, but this one is very special to me. Druidism, and just all things nature in general have been a passion of mine for a long time now; druids, specifically, a major part of my life for the past 3 years. My birthday is coming up in July, and my boyfriend has agreed to take me to get it and buy it for me as a gift. My only issue is I can't figure out where I want it =(

Ideas so far:

on my back, near my left hip
on my stomach, near my left hip

Other than those places, I can't think of a thing :( Shoulders are rather out of the question; I can't get it somewhere my parents could see if I was wearing a tank top or something like that. But I'd like to get everyone's opinion if they'd like to offer it ^^

Also... color suggestions would be nice! I think I want to get it all in one color, not black.

Yoggy Down!

2009-05-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

YOGGY DOWN!!! We beat my old guild (the one full of @$$holes), but only by 10 minutes or so :X

Boss Progression and Degrees

2009-05-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

*yawn* O hay there. I just woke up... it's about 1pm. I had a later-than-normal night last night due to raiding. Our raid last night was set to quickly take down General and then use the rest of the night to get Yoggy down, but sadly due to some interrupt fail and retarded RNG, we spent about an hour and a half wiping on him. We got to Yogg, though, and we did have two REALLY good attempts; I'm talking less than 13%. But phase 3 is insane. I was shaking the second we hit phase three, spamming hots on the tanks and keeping nourish up. Sadly, due to Cox Cable kicking myself, one of the main tanks, and my boyfriend off, ruined one of those perfect attempts. The rest of the night was plagued with random DCs, bad luck with mind controls, and all kinds of other things.

Some of our key people won't be able to play again until later in the week, and it means that we could be passed by my older guild, which would make me pretty sad. I know that if/when they down him before us they'll rub it in our faces; they're all incredibly immature and rely on accomplishments in WoW to make themselves feel better...

But anyway! The second half of today's blog is more personal... it's about the degree I was hoping to see at my university finally going into action!

The degree is 'Computer Game Design' and a Bachelor in Fine Arts (B.F.A). The degree I was originally persuing (only because this art degree was not yet in place) was a Computer Science major with a focus in Video Game Design. Boy am I glad they put in the BFA degree... this degree has essentially NO math or science, which makes me a very, VERY happy tree. I'm terrible at all things math, it's laughable. There's so many cool classes on the program list, I can't wait. All kinds of art and digital design courses, along with musical classes!

Needless to say I'm one happy cow!

I think, for once, I'm ecstatic for school to start up in August. Now, if housing would just assign me a dorm...

New Druid Forms! Night Elf Edition

2009-05-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

I may not be a Night Elf, but I used to be! Every now and then I venture back to my elven roots, hence why I started a Night Elf druid on Bonchewer, Averna's server. That said, here's a link to the new Night Elf bear form models (YES, models. They aren't simply reskins as all the QQers seem to believe. It's clear certain aspects of the model have changed, including a higher polygon count, according to Blues).

(click for a larger image)

Personally, I think they look pretty cool! I'll be excited to get them whenever my Night Elf hits level 10 =)

New Druid Forms!

2009-05-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

After waking up around noon and doing a few things around the house, I went to the main page of the World of Warcraft website and was pleasantly surprised with this:

In our next major content patch, druids will find a host of new textures for two major forms, cat and bear. There will be five different designs for each of these forms for the Horde and Alliance. Night elves can choose to change their cat and bear look at any time by visiting the barber shop and changing their character's hair color, while tauren will be able to change which look they use by switching skin tones in the barber shop -- a new feature for tauren in the next major content patch. Given that there are more hair colors and skin tones than unique form looks, some colors and tones will overlap with these new textures. The hair and skin colors chosen will, in most cases, correspond with the color seen in the look of each form. Some similar colors that may share a particular cat texture will not necessarily share the same bear texture.

We'd like to share with you this new art for each form and faction in four installments. So without further ado, our first preview is for the five new textures of the tauren druid bear form. We'll also show the current form design so you can easily see the extra detail and textures of the new art. Work continues on new looks for the remaining druid forms and we hope to add them in future content patches.

(click for a larger image)

Huzzah! New forms! I'm rather pleased with them, but many druids are not. I'm excited to see cat form, personally (and hopefully a travel form update). I am, however, a bit miffed that the skin changes are directly connected to our fur (Tauren)/hair (Night Elf) color. Luckily for me I was hoping to use the brown bear (upper right), and I believe that will correlate to my splotchy light brown fur that I have on Corgii now.

Ideally they'll think of some way to change it, but until then I'll be satisfied with this polished up bear =D

Of Dead Motherboards and New Guilds

2009-05-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

R.I.P, my motherboard
After spending a lovely week down in Southern Virginia with my boyfriend, I came back home to put my old Dell XPS 410 back together. Sadly, my LANPARTY DK motherboard was pronounced dead last Sunday when I arrived at Sauder's house. When I got it back in December, it already appeared to have issues when I put more than 4GB of ram into it, and after we tried new ram just a week ago the motherboard said 'Hey, screw you', flipped me the bird, and refused to boot up my computer.

Luckily my older rig isn't so terrible. It still runs WoW at close-to-max settings and runs rather well. Ideally, DFI will get back to me soon and fix my motherboard in a timely manner so I can get back into the beautiful world that is max-graphics!

New Guild First Impressions
If you've been reading my blog at all, you'll see I've had guild issues in the past and I was very lucky to be accpted into Blur, one of the top Horde raiding guilds on Tichondrius. I'm always nervous when entering a new guild; I'm careful to make the best first impressions I can to prove that I'm dedicated and focused.

I've been in pretty much each of the top raiding guilds Horde side and ultimately left because of the guild dying, personal conflicts (school, work, etc.), or because of differences with the leadership, and I had essentially lost all hope in finding a guild that I really enjoyed. Luckily I was plesantly surprised at how much I loved the guild right after I joined. Everyone is very supportive; no one goes 'you suck l2p noob' or gives you harsh criticism with no help. Guildies/raid members point out possible weaknesses in a nice, helpful manner and give you possible tips for improving.

One specific instance is the guild's holy paladin, Eviver (whom I found out reads my blog >_<, but this isn't a suck up!). I had been reading extensively on druid gemming, enchanting, healing rotations, ANYTHING I could find to improve my performance. He was very helpful in suggesting a better way to gem, and also pointed out that I had the wrong enchant on my helmet (I had gone boomkin a while back and forgotten to re-enchant it)! Other members have been very helpful, offering me a spot in their Naxx25 run to help me get the last few upgrades I need (IE: off-hand and rings). Thanks to everyone's suggestions, I've seen a HUGE improvement in my performance, which I'm ecstatic about. A few of the higher-ranked members have told me I've been doing a good job, which just makes me feel great. I'm so happy to be an asset to the raid, rather than a detriment (which is how I'd been feeling for a while).

The environment has also been very friendly as well. Everyone was very warm and welcoming and I felt accepted instantly; different from that feeling of alienation that I felt in other guilds (read: Martyrdom). Needless to say I'm finally very happy in my guild and could certainly see myself staying here for the long haul (if I make it past my trial, that is!).

Well, I'm off to go laze about and do who knows what... until next time!

Healing Rotations

2009-05-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

As I apply to a new guild, I'm asked to provide WWS/World of Log records to show my performance on past fights. Pulling up this information and seeing how the other druid in my raid seemed to do laps around me in healing, I began to wonder if there was something off about the way I was healing.

Healing Rotations

While, when I normally think of 'rotations', DPS rotations for my paladin alt come to mind (CS>DS>Judge>Exo>etc.), but the more I think about it, the more healers can kind of have their own rotation, just like DPS.

Reviewing the healing meters from older Ulduar fights revealed that I'm most likely not healing to the best of my abilities.

Currently, I usually keep a full set of HoTs (LBx3, Rejuv, Regrowth) on the tank(s) and toss out LB/WG on the raid. In PuGs and the like, this was always more than enough and would usually keep me high up on the meters. However, in my actual guild runs, I would be third; second below the other resto druid (1st) and priest (2nd). After a bit of lurking around the EJ forums, I came across this post:

For heavy, consistent raid damage combined with huge spikes of tank damage, I keep a 3stack of LB's on the tank, 15ish people rejuv'd, and use the extra 2 GCD's on either WG or tank healing as needed. If tank healing isn't required, then the highest hps is a 5rejuv, 1WG rotation keeping 15 targets rejuv'd, and 6 targets WG'd constantly.

I began to think about this tactic and realize that it was probably rather effective. As it stands now, my Rejuv ticks for around 1.8-2.2k (depending upon my buffs/flasks), and since it doesn't overheal (?) it would help lower my amount of overheal. Not to mention, when coupled with the Glyph of Swiftmend, it's great for a quick insta-heal for the raid while still allowing that HoT to continue ticking.

I tried this rotation in a 10-man Malygos this evening, but I found myself going out of mana rather quickly. Part of this could be due to the lack of Replenishment buff, and until I get into a full 25-man raid I won't really be sure how well this works. Until then, I'll probably keep browsing the forums and looking at other possible rotations.

If you have a rotation that works for you, please feel free to drop a comment; I'd love to hear some input for other rotations!

/sigh

2009-05-14T11:42:00.001-07:00

Well... my 10 man guild fell apart. I applied to the last guild I have left on the server, and they already have 8+ druids so I'll most likely be a backup.

This sucks.

Arty Stuff

2009-05-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of creating a banner for my guild's website, and I'm putting it together character-by-character. So far I've got myself and one of our main tanks done :)

I'm most likely going to redo the bear; I don't think I want a profile view..

After three months of farming...

2009-05-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

OMGOMGOGMOGMGOGMOGMGMGOOGMG

Post-Sping Break Blues

2009-03-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's back to school again

/sigh

I had a pretty bad case of the Mondays this morning when I realized that my Computer Science midterm was today... and I had no clue! Luckily I knew most of what it covered, but I'll just say I'm very happy to be doing well in the lab portion of the class.

I haven't been doing much on my druid in WoW lately, aside from going feral/resto on a daily basis >_> I go feral in the mornings, kill the Raven Lord and pray his mount drops. And, when it inevitably doesn't, I go do some dailies and go back resto (sometimes). My guild is in a frenzy, trying to get everyone their 'Glory of the Raider: Heroic' drakes, so I've been kinda warming the bench most of the time. It's fine with me though, it gives me time to level my alts, which brings me to ANOTHER topic...

ALT A.D.D
Is it just me, or do other people have several alts nearing max level and they just kind of shuffle back and forth with no idea which one to level first? I have a troll priest at level 75 and a blood elf paladin sitting at level 71. I've also got a draenei priest on a different server around 62.5 that I would love to level (she's so cute!). Sadly, leveling my draenei is out of the question as I don't have any friends who play Alliance, and I hate playing alone!

My first thought is to level the priest first since she's closer to 80 than my paladin is. Not to mention she's almost halfway to 76 and I just started Dragonblight! I've still got all of that zone left to do, then Grizzly Hills, then Zul'Drak... It's rather crazy.

But then, on the other hand, I have my paladin. I'm big on leveling certain characters simply for how they look... hence why I ended up Recruit-A-Friending a blood elf priest to 58, despite already having a level 70-something troll priest. I ended up deleting the blood elf, but part of me still wants to restore her (or try to) and level her up.

So I'm sort of at a cross roads. I tend to log on one, play for a bit, then log off and get on another alt. It's very frustrating! For now, though, I guess I'll go get a snack and try to figure out what I want to do!

Of Add-ons and Achievements

2009-03-10T00:21:00.000-07:00

Now that spring break is here, I can spend even more time doing achievements! I, for one, am really glad they implemented the achievement system. While I do hate the "e-peen enhancing" aspect it came with, it actually gives me more reasons to spend time on my main character.

However, being somewhat of a completionist, it can be more of a detriment to my sanity than anything else. An example would be the 'Ambassador' achievement. I already had both Orgrimmar and Darkspear Trolls at exalted (I love the mounts), and my reputation for Thunderbluff was around 1-2k from exalted. Undercity and Silvermoon City were both sitting around 8/21k to exalted.

Being somewhat OCD, I decided to spend the weekend completing all of the lowbie quests for Blood Elves and Undead:

For now my little green chicken will have to do. For the past seven days I've consistently been soloing Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls for the Reigns of the Raven Lord (thanks to Myze of 'Leader of the Pack' for the awesome guide on how to solo this boss!). No luck thus far, but a guildy of mine got TWO to drop within 49 consecutive runs, so I'm a bit hopeful. The worst that could happen is that it'll take me a full 100 runs to get it to drop...

Three months isn't SO bad... right?

Along with my Ambassador title, I've been working on the 'Loremaster' (or as I call it 'Lolmaster') title. I've finished 'Loremaster of Outland', and I've done every zone in Northrend except for Icecrown (currently 9/140 quests). As far as Azeroth goes:

Eastern Kingdoms: 310/550
Kalimdor: 430/685

I've still got a ways to go... but what's pretty nice is that I've also got my 'Seeker' achievement up to 2,332/3,000 quests completed! So I figure after I do the Loremaster achievement I'll be nearly done with 'The Seeker'. I know, I'm crazy. But I actually have a lot of fun just running around doing all these quests. It's also much easier when you have buddies in vent to chat with or some good music to listen to. I recommend listening to a radio station called 'After Hours'; for those of you who like techno/progressive trance and similar musical genres, it's awesome!

Aside from random achievement whoring, I've finally (I think...) added the finishing touches to my UI:

I keybind pretty heavily, but I do have bars that appear when moused over. I use a lot of mouseover macros as well to make healing with grid even easier. My grid is configured out the @$$ to track HoTs, debuffs, and other things. Overall I'm quite satisfied with how it looks. I particularly love the add-on that I just got the other day, Forte X...something. It's on WoWinterface if you want to look it up. It's technically a Warlock mod but it comes in a zip file with addons for every class.

I used to have HoT/Cooldown Timers that would track my cooldowns, but I would never really be able to easily see which cooldowns were ending when. But thanks to Forte, they're displayed clearly in a very nice, compact area. The skill icon makes its way down the bar and pulses into a large icon before fading out once it has become available for use once more.

If you're like me and keybind heavily this is really helpful. With no bars shown you can't exactly see all of your skill buttons and so having a sleek cooldown monitor is very, VERY helpful!

PTR Testing: Lifebloom Changes

2009-03-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

After reading Averna's number crunching on the 3.1 Lifebloom change (read: nerf), I thought I'd get on and try my own number crunching and see how much it would be affecting me.

Spec: 13/0/57

Stats: (Tree form, duh!)

*** Note: I have Glyph of Lifebloom and am self-buffed***

Number Crunching:

No HoT Rolling:

1 Stack (733 mana) - 397 tick, 3219 bloom, 489 mana returned
2 Stack (1466 mana) - 794 tick, 6436 bloom, 979 mana returned
3 Stack (2199 mana) - 1191 tick, 9653 bloom, 1469 mana returned

I'm still not quite sure how to feel about this... What I do know is that I (along with many other trees, I'm sure) am going to have to really figure out how I'm going to go about healing tanks. Are we just going to be raid heals now with the occasional HoT or two on the tank(s)? I played around for a bit keeping HoTs on Aimee, pretending she was a tank while I rolled HoTs on myself and pretended to heal the raid.

I went OOM in about 66 seconds.

Given that this was without any sort of replenishment buff, this is still very sad. One minute? How are druids going to survive on Patchwerk (yes, yes, we're moving on to Ulduar, but consider it for now)? On a very healing intensive fight that lasts around 3-4 minutes, going out of mana in approximately ONE minute is unacceptable. Even with Innervate, which now replenishes all of 50% of our mana pool (when NOT casting), we'll last through about two minutes of a fight and then be out of commission.

This is all rather disconcerting, and now I'm going to need to really consider how to go about healing. Once I hit spring break next week I'm definitely going to spend some more time on the PTR and do some more testing.

3.1 PTR Shenanigans

2009-03-02T12:07:00.001-08:00

So, thanks to 5 inches of snow over the Mid-Atlantic I got a snow day (woo!) and got a break from boring ol' CS classes today. After getting 4 extra hours of sleep, I decided to venture onto the PTR to see how things had changed for myself and my stickly brothers and sisters.

Mana Regen

I was pretty sad when I went onto the PTR and saw how my mana regeneration had changed. Though not drastic, it does make me want to rethink how I'll go about healing a bit.

I don't have the best gear by any means (I don't really stack for spirit anymore, but I may change that). While my mana regen while not casting has gone down rather drasticlly, my mana regen while casting went up 30 points, which isn't so bad.

Before I can really praise or cast stones on this change I'll need to try running some instances or do a raid or two to see how this really effects my healing.

** More to come **

Go go gadget blog!

2009-03-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

So, after finally getting around to really reading through some blogs I thought:

"Hey, why not try writing one of these yourself?"

And so I did. I'm not very knowledgeable, nor am I very good at 'theorycrafting' and the like, but I think this would be a fun place to discuss the various aspects of the coolest class in the World of Warcraft! I don't want to just discuss game mechanics, either. I want to rouse discussions about things like gear (T8 Sailor Moon helmet...), shapeshifting forms (and how ugly they are...), and other things that go beyond the generic spectrum of numbers and stats and all that mumbo jumbo (not to say that I won't do ANY of that).

That said, I hope that some of you may stop by here every now and then. As a college student I spend nearly all my time on the computer procrastinating any work I have until the VERY LAST SECOND. So if you have any ideas or comments on what to make my first topic about, let me know!