Gold! Yeah right!

Evening,

I realized I ended my last post very abruptly and I will be coming back to it to fill in the parts I quite obviously left hanging. I need to get my thoughts on it more straightened out so that it doesn't get so out of control again.

As for today I wanted to give a bit of a gold update. Its going well but not so well. My epic gems are selling very well but I don't have the supply to keep this going and actually make gold. I am making around 10% gain per sale which is about 13 gold per gem but by time I use that to keep up my supply I am just spinning my wheels. I know I am missing something here and I am closer than I was a month ago to figuring out but I still don't have it and I infuriates me. On the other front of glyphs, this market had me excited at first and now I am down in the dumps about it. It was awesome to see sales but I have noticed that I am only profiting about 100 gold a day on these. I have made a few of every glyph to make sure I am not missing any that sell well at this point. I post twice a day now to but I am not see these thousands of gold people talk about. Only thing I can figure is that being on a high population server I am not able to deal with the sellers already built into the market. Either way this is depressing but I will defiantly stick with epic gems as they are selling well I just don't think I'm doing as well in them as I should be.

/exhales loudly

My Feelings on Someone Else's Idea

Evening,

I started reading the blog The Greedy Goblin around the time Gelvon announced he and a group had downed Ulduar in blue gear. I read many of the back post and got to know what kind of blog Gelvon wrote. I unfortunately missed most of the real gold making post he was famous for but I was introduced to a very strong philosophy he has of society and its workings.

Gelvon believes that most people in WoW and even life are M&S or morons and slackers. These people do nothing but bring down the rest of society to level that is not sustainable as a conscience thinking being. This is something I found to very thought provoking. I have spent the last several months keeping up on his thoughts and evidence of this.

Now why would this be worth a post from me who is not nearly as infamous as Gelvon, well, because its my blog and I can if I want. OK, joking aside, his ideas and philosophies have bothered me since I first read them. I have been unable to place the exact reason as to why this is until today. Now I am going to do my best to make my thoughts actually make sense on this so please bare with me.

My problem starts with me trying to fit myself into Gelvon's point of view. Am I a M&S? I don't really do much. I don't strive for the best gear available. I am not progressing very quickly on the gold front. I mostly just play how and when I want whether that is with others or not. So for the most part being a thinking individual who tries to better himself I shouldn't fit into the M&S category. Yet I have doubts there for it is possible still. So I have constantly been trying to fit myself within his definitions.

Then I realized that why am I doing that. It is partly because I don't want to be or believe I really am an M&S. So what is it that is making me feel I need to fit in? Society, it has taught us all are lives to fit into a mold. Now we are lucky in that we can choose what the mold looks like but it is still a mold. It is a way for others to make a snap judgement of us in order to decide if they would ever be interested in socializing with us regularly. Most people can deal with anyone for short periods of time in order to preform the necessities of life, like work for instance. So I have concluded that I don't fit into the mold of the M&S but maybe I could fit into the mold Gelvon says is better than the M&S.

Why is thought that I must fit into a mold where as Gelvon seems to be the one creating the mold? This is where I think the answers all lie, in this question. I have concluded that almost everyone fits into one of two simple categories, leaders or followers. Gelvon is what I would define as a leader. He does not need the approval of others, therefore, he is able to create his own opinions and thoughts. He also is able to articulate these opinions and thoughts in a way that captures the minds of others. I don't believe it would matter much what his opinions or thoughts were because of his hold he is able to create on the minds of others. Where as I would consider a follower. The difference between me and the M&S I believe is I have leader tendencies without the ability to hold others minds. So instead of following the first conscience being I come in contact with I choose who I will follow. I am also able to decide if my current leader is not a good leader for me. After all just because some one is a leader does not mean they are actually good at it or looking after the good of their followers.

The difficult part of this I figuring out where Gelvon's M&S fit into the leader/follower roles. I think it has to do with a follower who has leader tendencies but is unable to realize they are actually a follower. This comes from the delusion that the leader is the one with actual power because of the feeling they get from the leaders words on their mind. While the leader may have the power to hold ones mind they can not control who's mind they will create power over. This is entire up to the follower. The M&S only see that others follow the leader and want that and will do what they feel is need to get that power that they can not actually achieve. This is where all the talk about 'noobs' comes from. People are only noobs if they have not had a good leader to show them how to become better. This comes from M&S thinking they have to put others down and make them feel like less then the M&S to fool themselves into thinking they have power over the other.

So this has gotten a little out of control. I am basically saying that while I am a follower I choose to follow those that can make me ponder something this long and hard. I love being mentally challenged.

/most likely more to come on this

Felling Better about Gold

Evening,

I have not given up on the gold making front even though I felt like I was going backwards the entire time. That is until about 3 or 4 days ago, I have started feeling like maybe I am doing something right finally. It pretty much started with inscription. Seeing all those pretty numbers coming in is nice and after reviewing how I price them they are all profit. I also did the same with jewelcrafting and that is starting to make me happy as well.

I plan to go over how I reviewed my prices and so you can see how I did it and criticize as fits. The basics are that I decided what I was willing to pay for the raw materials and then figured a 10% profit in order to set my minimum sale price. So with glyphs I went and figured that the market price for Ink of the Sea is about 2g 85s. I only want to pay 70% of that so that means I will only pay 2g for IotS. Now one milling of Northerd herbs will give a minimum of 0ne IotS, so I only pay 2g for 5 herbs of any kind. This means I have see my price at 40s per herb and I buy what I can under that price. I have set my minimum to 2g75s to post glyphs and not all of them post but I just don't make more of those until they do but of the ones that do post I am selling most at over 3g actually. A few have sold for way more than that which to me is crazy but I guess people feel they need it now so they pay for it which I love. I have done this same thing with epic gems as well. I need to start looking at minimum prices for titanium as well because I can use the titanium dust still for more cuts which will make epic gems easier to work with.

So I feel after that wall of text I have come a little ways but I know I still have a long ways to go. I need to work on getting tailoring and enchanting up and running with enchanting being much scarier to tackle. I have also spent a lot of gold recently on raw mats for inscription and jewelcrafting but I am sure not that I can make that back over time. It will also allow me to do all the glyphs because up til now I have only been doing ones that are cookie cutter for most classes. I only have 5 cuts for epic gems that I have been using but they are I feel the key ones for most specs. The big key to moving forward will be to get comfortable with the market and start actually watching it instead of just posting at my price and hoping for sales. With a steady income that should get easier though.

/over and out geeves

Some Ramblings

Evening,

Just a quick post of some things going through my head currently.

• gold making sucks for me, I am not a goblin and am not getting it, its very frustrating
• guild I am thinking will try to happen, but work may be putting it off for a bit
• time, there isn't enough for what I want to do, EVER!
• mage to 80 in the near future because I am so darn close
• start to think about class guides
• work sucks, why cant I play a game for a living, oh yeah I cant hack and am to honest
• I can not get the markets figured out, I know I am putting things up for to cheap on the AH and yet if I don't I cant get any post up
• yes some of this is kinda the same stuff but really they all take me in different directions

/argh! work, ARGH!

My idea for a Guild

Evening,

So over the weekend my wife started her own guild. Things were not working out for her in her old one and along with some like minded friends she is going her own route. With this and all the things going on in the recent past with guilds I have been thinking about what a guild means to me. And also what I would do if I was to make a guild and how I would run it. So today I am gonna go over what I would do if I was to create my own guild.

First and what I believe to be most important is to have a clearly stated focus and goal for the guild. It needs to be something that as the GM you believe strongly in and are willing to defend. It needs to also be something that others can buy into in order to help you both build and run the guild. So for me this would be a guild based around helping others to learn their class. This would mostly be called a leveling guild but the real goal is that everyone at max level would know how to play their class to there best ability. Making the focus of my guild to help others level while teaching them the in and outs of the class they are leveling.

Next a guild need clearly stated rules to run by and to handle issues that may arise during its lifespan. So my list of rules for my guild would be as follows:

• each account in the guild is only allowed one 80 but as many leveling characters as desired
• no one is required to drop anything to help others but we are a leveling a guild so helping others is encouraged
• higher level characters are encouraged to help others powerlevel
• the class officers will be extremely knowledgeable in their main class
• any officers will know basic game mechanics and etique

Power leveling will have rules of its own to govern it by. This is not a charity guild, I don't want to just hand things out to others for nothing basically.

• looting while powerleveling will be set to group loot
• everyone will pass on all green or greater loot except powerleveler who will select either greed or DE
• can need on anything that is an upgrade
• all cloth will be traded to powerleveler of which 2 stack per run will be put in guild bank for leveling of First Aid
• all greys and whites belong to looter
• come with empty bags-others will not be responsible for helping you to carry anything

Raiding will not be scheduled unless someone with in the guild wishes to take that responsibility on. Everyone will be free to pug raids if they so feel.

This is a basis of how I would run and start a guild of my own. Would you have any suggestions to smooth out the start up process? Or any other rules that would help to keep from being taken advantage of?

/feed back is more than welcome

So Far of the Mark

Evening,

So I got on this morning and did my AH stuff and got everything posted. Then got on and did some of the rep grinding for Insane and then decided to finish leveling inscription. Logging on my mage I figure I will continue to level to 80 in BGs and so I queued up. 20 minutes later and having a hit a wall to stop me leveling inscription any more I decided to try to get a random run. Waiting the typical 15 minutes for a dps queue I zoned into Utgarde Keep and find my group. Paladin tank, druid healer, rogue and DK for dps plus me. Not a bad group, buff up and off get go. The tank is doing well holding aggro though I did pull a couple times due to starting to early or some lucky crits. The run went great until the final boss.

Now I have yet to figure out why this is so hard because it really doesn't seem that complicated to me. So of course we wipe and the DK drops and we run back getting another DK to fill the spot as we run. Attempt 2 wasn't much better then the first. So far the tank has shown just how unaware they are after all. She would not move out of the spinning axe until at least one dps died. With this wipe the druid healer drops and on the way back we picked up a paladin healer. I also zoned back in at the same time as the tank so I decided to look at their build and what a surprise.

She must have missed the actual point of a tank. Yes you want to be the one getting smashed in the face but you want to reduce the amount that smashing hurts as much as possible. Looking at her spec I realized she only had one point in each of the damage reducing or stamina buff talents in the lower tiers. She didn't even have Hammer of the Righteous which actually impressed me a little due to the lack of threat issues she had during AOE pulls.

I have seen some wonky leveling specs from people that didn't really know what they needed or didn't. But she seems to totally miss the mark on what it takes to be a tank. She didn't spec in a way to max threat or to max survivability. I am not sure what direction she was trying to go or if she just thought put most of them in prot and I can tank. I didn't really look much farther than this because I was so amazed. I also didn't have time to try to give her advice because after wiping a third time she dropped group.

So is this really something that happens often? Do people miss the basic point of roles by this much often? I realize there are a lot of talents and not all make total sense but for the most part a normal person could figure out the things that are worthless for your role, right?

/baffled

An update about me

Evening,

First I realize I need to get something up more often and I am gonna work on that. Just been trying to keep my head down at work and have some play time at home when I get there. If I work on what to post and just have to type it out I should be able to more things up with my limited time.

So I finally got my Traveler's Tundra Mammoth that I had been constantly working toward for the entire expansion. It took me this long because of a few times of taking time way from the game and always finding something I felt I needed every time I was getting close. The only thing that kinda sucks about it is that I was only able to get it because of a lucky role in a random on a Battered Hilt. I was able to sell it for just over 20k and I used that to get my mount. So I unfortunately have not been anymore successful at making gold. Still working at it and I haven't given up but I have decided to spend more time on something even I feel to be crazy and cool at the same time.

I have started working on the Insane in the Membrane feat of strength. I have the Buccaneer rep and have gotten half way through friendly with Ravenhold. Now yest I am a long way off yet but I believe that the Darkmoon Fair rep is going to be the most difficult do to my lack of gold making ability. This will not stop me from trying as it will only make it take longer to get there, not prevent me from getting there. One thing I have done to work on this is level my mage in Inscription to be able to work on making decks for myself over time as well. All of the other reps are basically just a lot of grinding which I really don't mind. I also have a plan to deal with the librams being unique so as I don't have to run back and forth when I get them. I am going to stock up on the supplies I need to turn them in and turn them as I am running instead of doing them after I have all the ones I will need to get to exalted.

So everything is going good for me with a lot going and having a goal for a change. Not sure where I will head once this is done but I shouldn't have to worry about it for about a month.

/yes I am insane

I just can't figure it out, grr!

Evening,

So I have been trying to get a gold making business going. Its not going so well for me. I have max enchanting, jewelcrafting and tailoring at the moment. I just got jewelcrafting up there so I don't really have any cuts yet. I am missing a few of the dropped enchants but that's due to my lack of raiding. But for the most part I have what should be a good foundation. But the gems are irritating me and enchanting is expensive to get working. I find selling the crap I pick up to work better for me so far.

Now every goblin I have read says the same thing. Farming is a waste of time and less profitable. Now in a sense this is entirely true but it is based off what you feel time is worth. For me some days I really enjoy just flying around looking for ore nodes. Other days I want to do other things and I cant even find the time for all the crafting process to make the things to sell. Maybe just having enough gold is where I will have to settle but it would be nice to have a surplus of it to do as I like. I just have not been able to find the niche that works for me.

So now I am trying to decide which direction to go with all of this. I suppose I could just level most of the useful professions on my toons and keep my cost down that way so that if need be I would only be paying for material cost. It would also help if I could refuse to loan money to my wife. Loan is a very lose word also as I am not getting back as much as I gave which is my fault for being to nice. All I really want is the tundra mount and when I get close I let someone borrow gold and am back to starting almost over again. I don't think I will ever get that darn mount.

/oh well, could be worse right

Mage Update

Evening,

So I was able to hit level 62 yesterday. This has given me a chance to play a little with each spec in both questing and dungeons. My thoughts,

Fire-

• Actually is able to AOE but not as much at a time or as safely as frost can. It basically comes down to Living bomb on everything and then use all of your abilities to keep them as far away as possible for as long enough for them to all die. Its not easy, very mana intense and uses almost everything every pull to keep from dieing.
• In dungeons the cast times are still very slow. You can spec to get instant Flame Strikes when using Dragon Breathe but this puts you fairly close and aggro is a real problem. Other than that one ability everything cost a lot and Evocation is never off cooldown soon enough. This may be a lack of crit since that's where fires mana regen comes from but at this point I wouldn't suggest fire.

Frost-

• By far the best for AOE bar-none for both grinding, questing and dungeons
• Single target dps is very low even when popping Icy Veins and Elemental and then using Cold Snap to keep both up through entire fight.
• I will still be using this as my main leveling spec because of the AOE control and survivability

Arcane-

• Even without having Arcane Blast yet has by far the best single target dps so far!
• Can be mana intense or no thought of mana depending on Clearcasting procs, just be sure to be at full before a boss fight and you will be able to go the whole fight.
• AOE I personally have found to be very hard on mana if you try to go all out as well as the tanks tend to have aggro problems in that case. I have been dropping Flame Strike then just single targeting. It keeps up the dps and is sustainable.
• Rotating Arcane Barrage between Arcane Missiles for Missile Barrage procs is ok but using straight Arcane Missiles is likely better dps at this point. But the first time you get a Barrage proc you will love is so much you will find yourself weaving Arcane Barrage also.
• I will be using this as my dungeon spec for awhile.

So for now I against fire though if you prefer it that awesome. Its just not my style at the moment. I will likely try it again at some point but I will be sticking to Frost for AOE grinding and questing and Arcane for my dungeon runs.

Mage Leveling - So Far

Evening,

So last night my mage finally got to level 58. I had to get off after that so I have yet to take her into outlands to start the massive xp whore that Hellfire will be. I wanted to get my thoughts on the leveling process for me up to this point. I didn't get duel spec until around level 50 and then only to try out other specs to see how they played at this point. My primary leveling spec has been frost and will continue to be so. Now on to my thoughts of each spec up to this point.

Frost-

• Awesome mob control
• Best survivability of all the specs
• Best AOE damage and grinding capability
• Average DPS when Icy Veins is up/when it becomes available the elemental helps this a lot, though I didn't glyph it for the frost nova when AOE grinding
• There is a lot of drinking until you get the replenishment effect

Arcane-

• Capable Dps
• Very mana efficient due to Clearcasting and mage armor/shortened Evocate cooldown makes any bad points very easy to deal with
• Almost no AOE grind availability
• Using Flamestrike and Blizzard together AOE DPS is just as capable as Frost but more mana intense if Clearcasting procs are not very friendly
• Mana shield can be talented cheaper but I didn't use it, with proper use of Frost Nova there was no need for it

Fire-

• Very long cast times make it feel very slow
• can kill almost any mob before they reach you
• very mana intense, will be drinking even more than Frost due to most mana return coming from the crit DOT ticking which it rarely gets to
• In instances things tend to die so fast you don't have time to really get the DPS rolling even though I would say it has the highest DPS potential at this stage

So as you can tell I prefer frost for just about everything. Even though I have really been enjoying Arcane Missiles in instances. AOE grinding quest is defiantly the most time effective way to go with frost. Arcane doesn't really kill single target any faster than frost at this point. I really didn't care for fire at all. I just felt so so slow with the very long cast times it has.

I will continue to update this list and my feels as I continue to level. I am very excited about getting Living Bomb and Arcane Blast. I want to try AOE grinding with Living Bomb and see if I can make something work. Arcane Blast is what makes arcane viable so I will defiantly be using that for some good massive damage fun.

/breaths a sigh relief

Raid Leader?

Evening,

So after last weekend I had been doing some thinking. Would I make a good raid leader and would I even be capable of it? This came about from how our Rotface kill went. Also the help I gave the raid even though I wasn't in with everyone on Saurfang.

I have a decent enough knowledge of all classes and their specs to know what someone could be capable of. This helps in that I can make plans around that knowledge. For intense on Saurfang I knew that shaman and mage combo on one side would work because the mage could burn hard core and the shaman had very good slows and roots to give the mage time to burn. Same with the hunter and moonkin on the other side. I was also able to explain how they each needed to do their burning.

I am able to keep track of most of the room and still do my job. I almost always heal in raids. On Rotface that was no different. I was tank heals and the cleanser. So I took control and called who had the disease so they knew to run and they were also aware of how much time I was giving them.

I know boss fights by watching and understanding videos. This weekend what the first time I had seen either of the Festergut or Rotface encounters. But after the first pull I knew what was going on and who needed help. I learn very quickly and am able to adapt or at least I believe I am.

Now all the previous points would point to me being a great raid leader and possible your wondering why I don't do it. I'm am very impatient. I could not tolerate raiders showing up for raid when they can. I could not handle spending 30 to 40 minutes making sure everyone has flask and food and water. Come prepared and on time or we don't raid is how I feel about it. On top of that I believe you should do at the minimum 2 pulls before a break. I would prefer more but I can see how people need to breath to improve their game play. But breaks wouldn't be as long as you feel like. If any of these were not meet then I would cancel the raid then and there until people understood and started acting what I consider apporiately.

Now I do feel all of those points make for a decent leader. The problem is that the group of people I have been running with do not run like this at all. So I try to just ignore what is going on and maybe alt+tab during the bad parts. I understand that because of that I may not be helping the problem but it seems better than being the backseat driver that annoys everyone because they cant stop complaining all the time.

On top of it all I don't really want to be raid leader. I feel healing is stress enough without the headache of being in charge on top of it. I feel like more of a follower than a leader for the most part. I just get frustrated with the way our raids flow. With the raid leader usually being my wife it would seem simple to just say, hey honey can we do this better? But she seems to like the way her raids go. She prides herself on not being elitist and have a laid back fun raid. I'm just not sure that it is actually fun this way for everyone except a few. Most of us I don't feel really enjoy raiding for multiple hours on end with little progress in one night.

Maybe as she gets a more fixed group of raiders that aren't half pugs every week it will work its self out. But I am not entirely sure it will unless the leaders change the way they treat the raid. Only time will tell for sure.

/hoping everything works out in the wash

An Update

Evening,

Its been a bit since my last post. I just haven't had many ideas to work with but I'm getting a few finally and will start getting back to it. I am gonna work on updating my progresses and I have a mage leveling guide coming up. I'm really excited about the mage guide. I need to get my mage up a few more levels before I can complete it but I shouldn't take to long.

Over this last weekend I got some ICC raiding in on my paladin. It was fun and yet very frustrating. I'm sure many have felt what we were all feeling over the weekend. We spent on night working on Festergut to finally down him the next night. Then Rotface followed a night later after lots of work. Both were great achievements for my wife's guild. I'm not thinking I am the best raider out there but both kills were painful. The thrill and adrenaline of the kill get you through a few pulls on the next until you realize you may be lucky if you get it down.

It is raids like the this though that remind me why it is I don't care much for raiding. I don't enjoy beating my face against a wall that is only there because of small mistakes. Now I don't believe none of those mistakes are mine but when you see the same problems repeatedly by the same people its frustrating. I also think I could handle that better if we could recover faster. But when there is a five to ten minute break between each pull that has nothing to do with the game I really start to lose it. I don't enjoy spending 6 hours in a raid when we were only actually playing for 3 of it. I am including spirit runs and buffing the the play time. Now some of these delays are me and my wife's own fault for trying to raid with 2 babies in the house. But it still felt excessive to me.

/RAWR!

Yeah, So, Um, Yeah

Evening,

Yeah so its been awhile since I posted. No really good excuse just been busy with work and playing WoW with my extra time. That and I got caught spending to much time on the Internet at work so I have had to cut way back. And being that is where I do most of my posting it means I haven't been able to much.

In game I have been pretty busy though. Got my mage to level 27 as of last night and did my first ToC and ICC runs over the weekend. Got a shield upgrade off Lord Marrowgar. Which I was very happy about and got to friend with Ashen Verdict so that was a ring upgrade. With the Frost Emblems for ICC I am only 4 away from being able to get my T10 chest piece. So my holy set is coming along very nicely.

So with up dates done on to something more interesting. Yes I know I didn't mention the project because its probably a very good idea for someone else. I just don't know that I have what it really takes to pull that off. Mostly I am now using the excuse of a lack of time. Anyway moving on, I got to the point over the weekend of refusing to do randoms with strangers. It was bad, I had two groups in Pit of Saron that I was put into to heal the last boss only. Neither one could get him down. After wiping enough times to go completely red I called it quites. I'm not one to usually whine and cry about crappy players but it was crazy. I had a perfectly good tank quite group because they thought they weren't geared enough when he was second on dps. I don't know how long it was but I could drain all my mana twice is how long the fight was taking before I would get gibbed by bad placement or luck and we would wipe. But it is what it is and I have moved on to greener pastures. Ok not really greener but I can get back into the fray and be ok.

And now I am at a loss. Need to find something cool to talk about for the future. Maybe I will work class write ups or something. Cause I am sure my constant blabbing about what I am doing isn't that fun.

/over and out

The Start

Evening,

So it has started! The Cataclysm news is starting to roll out and beta invites are being sent to press. I loved keeping up with the news of things to be as Wrath was developing. Its what got me into leveling my paladin. So far they have only released previews on Warlocks and Shamans but this is shaping up to be even more dramatic than Wrath was. Not only are the redoing Azeroth but they are making some pretty big mechanic changes. I'm so excited about all of it.

Now I feel there is enough info out there and I don't want to regurgitate all of it over and over so I will only be hitting on the major stuff that makes me jump up and down and scream like a little girl. Wait I just said I wasn't regurgitating everything I read. Regurgitate, that's something only birds so do and its just nasty even then. *shiver* Um yeah so I guess I will just keep it to a minimum then. The things I am really excited about are the new secondary profession and the Path of the Titans. Also am very interested in how the guild talent tree thing is going to work. So far though there is no new information on those just class changes.

Project Update: Um, yeah, haven't really thought about it a lot. I think I may spend the weekend collecting and filing bookmarks for the various information needed for each class and spec. That will likely take up my weekend all with my play needs. So I likely will not be helping anyone this weekend but maybe I will try out my macro a couple times. After all if I only use it a couple times and get even one hit then I may very well be headed in the right direction. I don't believe I will ever be able to devote hours to sitting in a city spamming a macro though.

/must think of something actually interesting

Family and Warcraft

Evening,

So I have noticed something over the last couple days and maybe even weeks. Warcraft is becoming a central part of my family. Not just the time spent playing every day but the people we have meet through the game. We talk to many of these people outside of the game. We also spend a lot of time on the game. The later is something that I am a little worried about. I don't want to have to give up WoW because I really do love this game. But I am starting to see negative effects of it on my family.

Me and my wife are not give all the appropriate attention to my son. My daughter isn't really old enough to be to effected at this point. But with my work schedule and gaming and weather I barely see my son. He is lashing out both physically and vocally. He has a bit of a hitting problem that I am not sure how to stop and hope he will grow out of. He has also started to growl when he doesn't approve of our reaction to him. Both of which don't seem proper for his age to me.

I need to find a way to interact with him while teaching him the things parents are to teach their children. Since most of our time is spent together at night or very early morning getting outside is very difficult. I believe we may need to work on getting him into computers with us so that he can play with us instead of being upset that we aren't giving him the attention he wants. Thing is he is only 2 and doesn't understand what we are doing yet. I need to find something much simpler that will also help him to develop but keep his interest for more than 5 min. I get that kids don't have really long attention spans but getting him to be more independent is really what I am after.

Am I admitting to being a bad parent? I don't believe so. One of the hardest jobs any person can ever undertake is raising another human being. No one does it perfectly or know the perfect way to do it. After all we are all different even at the moment of birth. So there is nothing perfect about being a parent. I believe that as long as I aim to do the right thing by my children and teach them what I know about life then they will grow up to be capable of living a well adjusted happy life. I am learning this job as I go and I will trip and fall flat on my face often but I will also pick my self up and keep on trucking.

So my solution to my current problems my not be the best possible but I feel they fit my situation the best. Allowing my son to do what mommy and daddy do will allow him the attention he craves and us to do what we want as well. Any know of a 2 year old version of WoW?

/*sighs*

I am a Chicken

Evening,

Hope everyone had a wonderful and eventful Easter weekend. I my self spent it mostly at home with my family. We were supposed to go out Sunday and do the family thing but I ended up in bed all day with a stomach bug. Did get caught up on some needed sleep though.

Spent a lot of time playing over my three day weekend as well. Got a couple more levels on my rogue but mostly focused on my paladin. Did lots of randoms and 5-man ICC runs looking for emblems and loot. Worked on the Noblegarden achievements and only have one left. Which by the way is the hardest because who really wants a female orc toon? I mean really this one shouldn't be part of the list. Its crazy. But really it was a good weekend over all. Also I got the weekly raid done on both my paladin and my priest. This seems to be the only reason I log on my priest now. Well other than making bags. The last two weeks I have DPS on her and I really enjoy it. I am considering working on a DPS set for her so that maybe I will play her more. Time will tell.

So for the report on my project. I didn't work on it at all. Um, I basically chickened out. I wasn't sure I was really ready to start. I mean the idea I believe is solid but the hard part is the knowledge. After all that is what I want to sell and on some classes I have it. If I don't know it right away I know right where to go to get it. But with others I am sketchy about the information needed. I just don't see how someone would want to pay for "Ok what is your class? Alright give me 30 min and I should be able to help you." I mean will someone really wait for me to do the research? Is it reasonable to tell some one meet me back here same time next week and I will be able to help you? So yes I still have a lot of work to do on this. Maybe I need to figure out what I need to do to prepare for it more so I feel I have the needed information at hand. I suppose that will be my weekly project.

/growing balls now

Plans Unfolding

Evening,



So I spent a night contemplating what all I need to do to get this idea off the ground and running. Had some great help with ideas and direction from some great people. And I believe I can work on getting some testing done this weekend.



One of the big hang ups I have had has been on the payment front. How much do you charge for this? And how do you go about getting that gold without constantly being ripped off and waisting time? And after some discussions I think I have to come to some conclusions that mostly make sense. In order to find an apporiate price I am going to offer my services for tips for a few weekends. See what others in the community feel this kind of service is worth to them. And after I have a price that would be fair for my server I could do something like half up front and the the rest after the session.



Another thing I was working out was how much time do you spend with someone that doesn't feel to long but is adequate to get the amount of information needed to the player. I had 20 minute intervals suggested and that feels like a really good number at the moment. Now of course time will tell as to weather that is enough or to much but I feel its a good place to start.



Lastly I wasn't sure how the player base would react to something like this. Would advertising in trade get me flamed to the point people would be afraid to contact me? The suggestion made to me on this was to start in Stormwind or Ironforge general chat. The idea behind this is that I'm not putting myself out to the majority of the asshats of the game. This is also a good place to get newer players just getting started and players that are not as comfortable. Now I am worried that going with a smaller area in this way will limit my reach to a point that I feel failure. I do believe that it may be the best place to start though. If there isn't enough reaction this way I can always expand outward which is easier then going smaller.



So in a nut shell I'm going to spend most of my weekend in Stormwind trying to sell my knowledge. I am going to be working for tips to try to determine if this is even a market and if it is how much this market is worth. Wish me luck and provide any advice you may have.



/starts wheels turning

Going with the Flow

Evening,

So I haven't posted in quite some time because I haven't know what to post. I have been sort of treading water. Not real sure of what it is I want to do with my Warcraft characters or this blog. The little updates of what I am doing in game have felt empty so I have taken some time to kind see what it is I wanted to do. I have come up with part of an idea. It is not full realized yet but a work in progress and I want to share my journey with everyone. Now it may end up like a lot of things I do and shelved as a good idea for someone else. But if it gets to that I will share it.

So on to my idea. I have a love for researching information on the different classes in WoW and how to play them. I also have a desire to earn some gold so I can buy somethings I have wanted for a long time. The auction house thing just doesn't seem to fit me so I came up with a plan to do both at the same time. I am going to sell my knowledge and willingness to research for others for gold in game.

I haven't got all the kinks worked out yet. Need to figure out how much to charge and for how long to work with someone. Also have to decide how to handle the gold exchange so as not to get ripped off all the time. Trying to decide how much knowledge I want to sell. Do I want to sell information just to 80's looking for more DPS. Or do I want to cover leveling, healing, and tanking. I think I could and it would allow for more business but it may be better to start small and work into all that.

It should be a fun project as long as I can ignore all the haters who think they know it all and everyone else should already as well. As far as getting the word out there I think I will make a macro to put in trade. Right now it looks something like this

/2 Have low DPS? Can't keep those mobs off your healers? Can’t keep the tank alive? Getting made fun of in groups? Well your in luck! I can help with your woes! I can teach you what you need to know to shock others and top charts. PST for details.

Now it will need a little tweaking depending on what it is I really am looking to sell but that's the gist of it.

/relax brain it will all work out

My Main is Back!

Evening,

Over the weekend I broke down and transferred my 80 holy/whateveriffeellike paladin over. Its so nice to have my original back and playable. So now I am working on gearing her up with all the new instance stuff and Triumph Emblems. So instead of being focused on my alts for a bit I will likely be focusing on her. Now I'm honestly not sure if this part makes me happy but at least I can feel like I'm progressing for a little bit. After all who doesn't like to have a holy paladin in the group. The only thing that is hard is to decide what route I want to take. Should I work on my holy set until its done? Or should I work on my ret or prot set? Or should I try a new spec I found that looks like lots of fun?

The day before transferring her over I found some articles on healing as ret with sheath of light. This sounds very good to me. I think going in as a healer and keeping everyone up while holding 2k DPS on bosses would be a blast. Not sure how exactly to do it other than the gear. Or at least I think I know what gear I need to use. Its gonna kinda be a work in progress but I am gonna try it. I mean after all its only gold to respec and build multiple gear sets. So I will be trying this out and letting everyone know how it goes.

While being bored waiting on my wife I qued and did a battleground. She got back as I was finishing up and asked what it was. She hadn't done a battleground before so she signed us up and we went in as a group. She had a blast and we started working on pvp sets with the honor she had build up from some WinterGrasps. I think we are also gonna start an arena team and give that a whirl. Only thing is that this makes me need to possibly switch specs a lot which I'm not sure I am ready for. But if I go with the ret healing spec maybe I can make that work. Just not sure how just yet. Will have to work on it to see what works. It will hopefully be fun to try something new and work out kinks as we go since neither of us really knows pvp well.

/over and out

Sort of Wow

Evening,

Warcraft is a social game for the most part. Yes you can play by yourself but eventually you come to a point where you really do have to get into a group of other people and interact. Now this isn't a problem for me really but I wanted to share some personal thoughts on this. I have been playing at the level cap for about 3 years or so now. Yes I have usually had a guild to play with. But I have never felt a part of a guild or even most the time a part of the group.

Now I'm not crying about this because this is kinda how I am. I have done many social group things in my life but I have never felt like I was really on the in circle. I have always been that one person who everyone knows and is OK with but never been with the in crowd. When I think about it I see myself as the person just outside the circle of friends with their heads leaned together talk about something intensely. I am always moving around, and jumping up and down trying to catch as much information about what going on as to still consider myself part of the group. But never have I allowed to have my head in the circle talk with everyone. I always get my opinions in but always through one or more of the in people.

I read several of the Warcraft blogs and a lot the bloggers talk about how they are a part of the family they call a guild. As I read those I get a little jealous because I don't believe I will ever have that. Now this may be something I do to myself because I don't want or know how to be that close to people I don't really know. But everyone makes it sound so nice and I feel I do have a lot to offer others that I get a little down when I realize where I am again. That guy we bring with us cause hes not that annoying even though we don't really want to be bothered with him.

So enough with my depressing thoughts and back to alt news, played my warlock last night and got to level 19. Her DPS is climbing and now showing up as competitive which makes me feel gitty inside. I cant decide what I want to work on tonight though. Should I use up the rest on my hunter or my paladin. I still really wanna bring my 80 paladin over to my current realm so not sure the paladin leveling is smart. I could get my shaman up 2 levels to make questing with my wife easier. I do know I want to avoid my priest for a little bit. Just not feeling the love for her right now. Mostly just feeling like avoiding people though that is harder now with my wife playing.

/personal QQ off

Hooky

Evening,

So I didn't go into work last night and stayed home with the wife and kids. I got to play with my wife all night and give the kids baths. It was a good night overall. The guild was trying to put together a 25 man to see if they could pull it off. Problem is the raid leader forgot it was Saint Patties Day so not as many people were on or signed up. So we pugged in a few people and made something work, well kinda work. He choose to do 25 man ToC which I hadn't been in yet. I also have never actually done any raiding on my priest. So I'm not real confident on how to work her and then he was gonna have me on raid healing which I really have no idea how to do with the disc priest. So needless to say it didn't really go so well. Now I feel slightly at fault for not understand so much but I also know I'm putting to much pressure on myself. Didn't help I was the lowest geared person in there with half my gear still blues. So when they called it and decided to do the weekly raid that I had already done I went over to an alt.

Now it did suck having to listen to vent while my wife did the weekly with the guild but I was able to get my rogue to level 17 from 13. I don't like how it feels I don't have the time to get to where I need to be to raid. Or even worse, that if I was I still couldn't go because I have to make a living. Now I understand a game shouldn't come before providing for my family but I enjoy playing. And because of how much I enjoy it I'm not enjoying work at all. I suppose getting to hear the stories from my wife doesn't help me with this problem much. So I have been resorting to trying to help others in the game which in turn doesn't really help me feel better. I will get it all figured out but its not as easy as I would like.

So my plan is to get as many characters as I can as close as I can to the level cap. I want one of each class there. I don't believe I can get one of each class to 80 by the next expansion but they will be close enough to get to 85 not long after it hits.

/whining off

First Raid

Evening,

Was able to do I guess my second raid actually. But it felt more like the first to me. The weekly for me was Noth, the Plague Bringer. While running through Ironforge on my rogue alt I saw in trade that people were asking for groups. And after having some fun with someone asking for gearscore by trying to get my level 12 rogue in I decided to get it done for Emblems on my priest. So I jump over and low and behold no one is asking for people anymore. It's all just people looking for a group. After hanging out for a bit someone in trade decided to take everyone LFG and put a group together. Not even 10 min later I had 5 of each Emblem. The best part was that Noth wasn't able to break my bubbles on the tank. It was funny and I wanted to do it some more. But alas it was just a group to get that boss and go on about every ones business.

Figured after that very successful run to do my daily random as well. It went very smoothly and all was good. Then for reasons that must be crazy I decided to do another for Emblems so I can get some heirlooms for my army of alts. Zoned into Old Kingdom and this group was fail in the biggest way. Now we did not wipe but man we should have. Had a prot paladin tank that had 49k health. First seeing this I thought, well this should be simple enough. But after the first set of pulls I knew it was gonna be a white knuckle ride. I haven't even seen a DK's health yo-yo that bad since like level 70. And yes his gear was defense gear. So we pushed through to final boss with me saving no less than 4 wipes because of people standing in hellfires or whatever the bad crap on the ground is. And with the final boss I realize how very bad the group was. I will get the screen shot up later but I as the healer was second on DPS and first out of the Insanities. This is just so wrong, wrong, wrong. How do these groups come to be? I really cant figure it out. Its not that hard to DPS, just hit crap, push all the buttons you can, I promise you will do better than the healer. Anyway that's enough for my rant.

Was thinking on an off topic for no apparent reason about respeccing. And I had the idea that Blizzard should change the way it works. When you pay to respec it should only unlock your trees instead of clearing them completely. This could be turned on and off if one choose by enabling and disabling the talent point preview in the options tab. What would be even better is to base the cost on how many points are changed but I understand how that would be more difficult to implement. But allowing us to simply unlock the tree is already in the game. It happens every time you level, just wouldn't be any added point when respeccing. This could be very useful for people only moving a point or two around and not completely changing there talents to another tree. Only thing is I don't really know how to get this idea out there to even see if anyone else would like it. Or if I could help to get it into the game. So for now it will just sit here lurking in internetville.

/nothing left for today

Blah!

Evening,

Had a fun weekend with the wife and kids. Played a little on most of my characters. And generally just relaxed.

There was supposed to be a raid with the guild Saturday but the leaders were not on for unavoidable reasons. So my wife decided to take the 8 or so people on and put something together. Got everyone together and decided to go to Eye of Eternity. Why we decided on this I'm still not sure. I had only been there once and only 2 people had the key. I think only one maybe 2 people had actually even downed Malygos. I think things would have been smoother and even more enjoyable had we done something everyone was more familiar with but I guess that's for next time. So basically it was me who was probably close to appropriate gear level and a very well geared driud healing. Not knowing the raid we brought 2 tanks to find out we only needed one and not wanting to be mean and having plenty of DPS without them we just did 2 tanks. The first 2 attempts went really well until the drake phase. And basically no one knew what to do. Between both healers not sure how to use the drakes yet and not keeping good track of the sparks phase 3 didn't last long. After that the group started having problems getting it done. Think it was just one of those, we want something quick and fun, and it wasn't quick or fun so people lost the drive to do it.

An exciting thing did happen for me just before the raid while working on my rogue alt. I got asked to sign a guild charter for someone who wanted to start there own guild. And being a founding member I got made an officer. This to me is just the coolest thing ever. I have never been an officer before though I think I am capable of it. Just never got in with the right people before. So my new guild leader said that all 80 mains and such would be more than welcome to any raids and that he would help out whoever wanted it. And with my wife putting that raid together I decided to see who I was playing with and we brought him in as one of the tanks. This being why I didn't ask him to switch specs though I probably should have. He seems like a really cool helpful person. I'm excited to see where my rogues guild goes and my roll in it. Now I really have a even better reason to work on leveling her up to 80.

Also got tired of trying to get my wife to play on our alts together so I went by myself and put 4 levels on my warlock. I am loving running around on her. I did do a few randoms with her once I got to 15 and was a little under impressed. I have been doing affliction so far and love the drain life spell. Give me your health peon! But the DPS is kinda blah even with full heirloom. The equal leveled hunter was smashing me on the meter. But I am sure that will change with time, well at least I hope so. It may just be I am not good at DOT classes, but only time will tell.

/had more to say than he thought

Heroic Idea

Evening,

I know this is my second post in one night. While reading a post over at Killing'Em Slowly about making heroics more interesting, though, I had an old thought come to mind. And I need to get it down on Internet before I can concentrate again.

So in order to make heroics more interesting I want to make it a game. With placings and possibly prizes though I'm not sure I can afford that one. See our guild tank loves to laugh about how little damage he takes in heroics and with me being a disc priest I got to thinking. Lets play a game to see who can take the least amount of damage over an entire run. Now we cant just rate it by damage taken cause that's not really fair to the tank even with my bubbles. Cause after all he should be highest on the damage taken meter every time. So in order for everyone to have a chance I was thinking of using every ones preferred meters. Rank 1-5 on the damage taken, damage done, healing taken, and healing done meters. And on special fights friendly fire would be added in. Then you take every ones rankings and average them to come up with placings.

Some rules to it would be avoiding damage is your own responsibility except for the tank. Only the tank gets the bubbles. There will be one exception to this and that is on fights that has massive unavoidable damage where the shield will be completely used. Though I'm not sure that is fair yet. Will have to play with that. Not really sure if there is anything else that needs said because the meters kinda take care of the rest of it. You cant afk and DPS at the same time so if you avoid all damage you will be at the bottom of the DPS.

Now for the madness behind my method. My wife was able to see what I really wanted out of this as soon as I suggested it. If people are working to DPS their best while being aware of fires and not pulling aggro, what does that mean for raids? It should mean better situational awareness while being able to keep the DPS up. Which means people will get better at execution. Now are heroics the best place to teach this. Don't know yet to be honest but I feel it would make them more interesting anyway. Which is just as important for the many of us still needing Emblems for gear.

If anyone has suggestions on how to make this work better leave a comment. I could use all the extra ideas I can get.

/brain fried

Plans

Evening,

So the name of my blog here is Ramblings of an Altoholic, yet, I haven't really said much about alts. So I plan to get a list of all of my characters up on here. Now I have to do a couple things to make it work how I want. I first have to compile all off them which wouldn't seem hard but there are quite a few. Then I want the list to be on the side bar and I don't yet know how I am going to do that. But I will get it done in the next week.

I have been looking back over my post and noticed that my editorial skills are very lacking. I tend to type these up very quickly with the thoughts coming of the top of my head during my lunch break. So I get them posted up before I read back over them and that is making them difficult to read at times. Along with how scatter brained I can be. I am going to be working on my writing and editorial skills as well.

In game I don't really have any plans at the moment. Just want to enjoy my time I have for it. Though I did help my wife get started on the Netherwing rep today before work. She really wants one of the drakes. Problem is I had to get epic flying to be able to join her doing it. Ouch! Oh well I had it guess I should use it. I have also been working on a rogue who is now level 8. I want to try assassination out so bad. That and enhance shaman, so I think those will be my focus when I'm not work with my wife on her alt.

/puts plans in action

Helping is Rewarding

Evening,

Did a few randoms last night but that was not the highlight of my night. A couple good things happened. First the paladin I was having a hard time figuring out got to go to ICC last night. And I heard that he doubled his single target DPS over what he was doing before. Now I don't have hard numbers which would be nice so we could keep him improving but it looks like he has his raid spot back which is the best part. I'm very happy to have been able to help. And I will continue to help him to keep him in his spot. Also I got to do several parses on the dummy with my hunter friend. I'm so happy cause he has improved by about 1500 DPS since our last session. And I had been doing some reading on ArP and had him drop his Arcane shot and got him another 300 DPS last night on the dummy. This is what it is all about. This is why I play now.

Also I'm getting incoming request for help from more and more people. So I have set up a email for them to get hold of me with their info so that I can do my best to get the info I need to help them the best I can. I also think I'm getting into the theory crafting side of things as well. Which is an interesting thing cause the numbers get so confusing when your staring at them but I understand the point of them. Its just nice to be able to pass on all that hard work others do to people who have a need for it.

As for myself I took my disc gear I am working on and used my crummy shadow spec while doing the parses with my hunter friend. So I have like no hit and only 4 purples currently but I was able to start at 2200 DPS and over 3 runs improve it to 2700 DPS. I'm so happy with that cause I find shadow DPS very difficult. I don't like how long it takes to ramp it up at all so heroics make me look incompetent. But the possible output is there which makes me very happy.

And last for today, my wife is continuing to improve everyday. She is now pushing around 4800 DPS on the dummy. She is a little upset with her raid progress but she is taking the control and working on making her own raid team. Now I'm not sure she is aware of the work that can be but I am hoping for the best with it. She deserves to get in there and get the experience and loot.

/rambles out

Helping is Frustrating

Evening,

So I got to run several randoms on my priest last night and other than one idiot tank it was smooth and fun. Ran with the best and funniest hunter pretending to be a paladin. It is so much fun running and playing with other people you can talk to and laugh about things with. I have never really been apart of that side of the game. Yes a RL friend got me involved but our schedules never matched and he was always farther along doing things with the guild I wasn't ready for. I'm not the most social person but I still enjoy it. Especially when the other people are so easy to get along with. And I have been finding myself only really playing when I have someone to play with which is a change for me. Not thinking its a bad change, just different.

With this I have been helping others with there DPS. I currently have a ret paladin I am working with that I cant figure out. Got his spec straightened out and the proper glyphs. I have explained the proper rotation, and even have parses from the test dummy now. But some how I cant pin point where he is falling short. It has me very frustrated. I even went over to my other realm and respeced my forgotten paladin and put her ret gear back on. It sucks completely, blues and some tank gear still. Only has 2 pieces over 200 ilvl. Yet on the dummy I'm only about 700 DPS short of the paladin I'm working with. He is teir 9 and equivalent gear. I even took to explaining to my wife how easy it was, just put the buttons on the numbers in order of importance and roll your finger over them. I only lost 100 DPS doing this. Now 100 DPS is 100 DPS and at the level I am about 5 % of my DPS but still for just literal face roll that is to easy. How does this not work for my ret friend? Is there more I am missing? I have been trolling through the Elitist Jerks forum and have learned some nice things but nothing that would really change anything as drastically as he needs. I will get this figured out, but I don't yet know how or when. Hopefully soon since he is being sat out of raids til he gets his single target DPS up.

ARGHHHHH!

Randomness

Evening,

Only got on long enough to do one random with my priest for my frosties last night. Interesting run though I must say. It was Utgarde Pennicle, and I had one guildy with me. The tank waited just long enough for me to buff and was off with me at half mana. First thought is this will be fun, OK so it was more like I hope this is fun and not nearly as painful as I'm sure it will be. After the first pack at the stairs are down the tank runs off to the next room. As I turn to follow I see an ominous lightning bolt shot to the abomination left in the room. So I stop thinking the tank will realize the healer isn't there and come back to pick them up. Yeah, no such luck, he pulled the group in the next room while my ret paladin guildy proceeded to tank the abomination and his friend. And instead of realizing we were in the other room and coming in so we could get them all down and I could try to heal everyone, him and his DPS died while I saved the rest of us. He made some rude comment I didn't bother to remember and left group. So he took a 15 min debuff because he wasn't paying attention. Got a new tank and everything went great the rest of the way. It just amazes me, yes you may be able to get quick ques as a tank but not if you have debuffs up. Oh well got my frosties and didn't die once so really no complaints just kinda found it funny.

I also found out last night that I love replenishment. I currently have 22k mana and with it I don't even have to think about it. I love it so much. It allows me to bubble all I want and I love me some bubbles. Pretty bubbles everywhere makes me happy. Just ask my wife, when I'm running with my pocket pally I sit in front of my screen muttering, bubbles tehehe bubbles, over and over to myself.

Also decided to round out my last character on this realm as a shaman, so I started her last night. Now she is only level 3 but I now have one of every class on this realm. Yes I have to many characters. This makes my second full realm, but I really enjoy the first 20 levels. And with heirlooms it seems more like its the first 30 now. The levels just go by so fast. I do enjoy just getting on one of them and just making stuff dead, and leveling professions, and gathering, and just playing without the thought of I need to get to this or do this. Wow long sentence, anyway, there is something to be said for just playing. I have pretty much given up on the thought of progression raiding ever so this is what I'm left with.

/random off

Back!

Evening,

Had the weekend off from work for the first time in quite some time so I spent it with my family. Did get to play a little but was more worried about getting to spend time with my son. Little guy has learned to climb and get into everything in the kitchen. Feels like I'm missing so much because of my work schedule. But have to keep the bills paid so I will keep going.

On to WoW, was able to do a bunch of heroics on the priest thanks to some guildies. Our tank was having a blast watching his damage taken meter. I'm thinking of working on a train exercise for everyone that requires fighting for lowest spot on the damage taken meter. Teach people how to keep DPS up while staying out of the nasties. Of course the tank gets a bubble but everyone else would have to fend for themselves. Now I'm not sure it would work but it does sound like fun anyway. And trying to make heroics fun is always a challenge for everyone. Maybe even do an overall kinda thing, average place on DPS, damage taken, and healing received meters. How do you think it would work?

On the alt front, I have started a warlock with my wife. She is leveling a paladin. She has always liked the paladin class, and now that she is more into the game and has people to play with she wants to give leveling a chance. And I think its great cause I have yet to get a warlock over level 20. So we can both move into new territory together. I'm also gonna try something completely different with this character. Normally I would spend the next 2 or 3 days researching everything I could about the class. This time I'm gonna just try playing it and learning as I go. The only thing about it that compromises this plan a bit is I have worked on a warlock a little before but my memory on goes as far as Affliction being a good leveling spec. Which makes since with siphon life and the drain life boost. Though demonology might end up being better to buff my blueberry for tanking for our motley little group. Will have to try it all and let everyone know how it all works out.

/brain off

It's a Thrill

Evening,

When I got home from work I got on last night to find out our network was being a pain and couldn't get into a random. So I worked on my Lunar Festival some more, got Omen down thanks to 3 wonderful guildies. Yeah 4 manning a raid boss was funny.

So while running around hunting elders after that some one got on and asked my wife what her spec was. She was afk so I answered that she is moonkin for her. He was looking for info to get his DPS up. Wanted to know what his crit rating should be. So I told him about the stat priority he should be looking for. He was miss informed that crit was better than spell power and was going to gem straight crit. Once we got that all straightened out I told him to meet my wife who was back at the dummies and see what he was doing. While he was doing that I jumped over and looked at his gear and spec. Both were pretty good, maybe some small improvement here and there but nothing game breaking. With him beating on the dummy and telling me his rotation as he went I found his problem. He was miss interrupting the Eclipse tool tip. He was thinking that the benefits listed were to his crit to increase his chance to procs. He had been switching back to Wrath straight after a Lunar proc, meaning he was waiting 15 secs plus how long it took to proc Lunar again before another proc. So I explained the rotation I have been working on my wife with and low and behold a 600 DPS increase.

So I'm finding quickly that I'm loving this. I really like taking my knowledge and passing it on to others who either don't have the time or the direction to find the information. I chatted about what I had done with my wife for like 2 hours afterward I was so happy with myself. So now I'm looking up tweaks for 3 people to inch that DPS up bit by bit.

The only thing about it so far that is maybe a negative is that while telling our fellow guildy what he need to be doing I was saying it all with total confidence. Only thing is there are some things I am not totally positive of and after doing some quick research I have found that telling him crit is always better than haste after the soft cap is not true. They are actually about equal. I will fix this tonight when I see him by telling him what I found. And I suppose that will make it all OK. But is wrong to act that way? Should I have been up front with him about my feelings? Am I reacting correct in checking myself and informing him of my findings?

Just an update

Evening,

Ran my first heroic last night on my priest. Went in as DPS though so that I wouldn't have the stress of trying to keep someone alive. Not sure I'm ready for that yet. Not in the over geared world we live in today anyway. My DPS was pretty pitiful but no one said anything. I think I ended up around 1500 overall. A lot of that I know is because I am no where near the hit cap. And shadow DPS really isn't that great with low level gear as far as I can tell. Oh and I find shadow DPS to be very unfriendly. I think on boss fights I have a bit of a handle on it but I really think I could do as much DPS making Frostweave bolts on trash. And heroics being 95% trash makes me feel like I'm banging my head against the wall and throwing mana into the air for nothing. So over all it was a good experience with many more to come.

After that I tried to work on my Lunar Festival achievements. Need to do Kalimador Elders and the dungeon elders on the continent. Then the elders of Norhtrend after that. Thought I would see what the Omen guy was like since I was in Winterspring and I some how lost my invitation so I cant port there. Didn't realize he was a level 83 boss until after the second catastrophic death. Did figure out though that his health doesn't reset. So I gonna try to get a guild tank to come beat the snot out of him while I heal them. Don't feel it will be to difficult. So hopefully by Sunday I will have them all done.

The Lunar Festival is the start toward my proto drake cause even though I have been playing all through WotLK I have never stayed with one character for more than 6 months to be able to get the achievement. If I do nothing else with my priest she will have that drake. You heard it so you can hold me to it.

On another front my wife was finally able to get her druid to her own account now so we can play together. And the best part of all is that my UI settings wont be changed every night when I get on to play anymore. I know it's sad that I find that to be so exciting and almost worth dancing around the room for, but I do.

/ramble off

News and Questionable Healers

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to play last night on my priest so no new gear for her. But I did work on a lowly shaman I started. Got to level 8. So nothing real exciting to report at this point.

But I did find out last night that our guild is building a new web site and I am getting my on section on the forums. They are making the class guru. Basically I will get to look up and find out the answers for others that they can't figure out about their classes. I'm excited for this actually. I have already been able to help our hunter and ret paladin get their specs straightened out and gear better itemized. Was able to bump the hunters dps up about 1500. Haven't gotten a lot of feed back from the paladin yet to know for sure how much I helped.

Some awesome news from the PTR is that frozen orbs are tradable for useful things now. This will be great as long as your rolling need on them. And to think I had been selling all the ones I picked up cause I had no use for them, ugh! The thing that has got me though is that on the PTR they are tradable for Frost Badges but I haven't seen this anywhere else. No one has listed Frost Badges and its bothering me. Did everyone miss this? Is it not gonna go live even though everyone on the PTR seems to think so? Seems like to big a news to just skip over to me.

Guess we will just have to wait and see what actually happens with this. If it does go live I for see people not just running there one random a day for there Frost Badges. It might actually be a good thing other than all the tards in LFG.

One last thing on my mind for tonight is about the LFG system. Was listening to my wife run a couple randoms as dps on her druid. Now normally she heals but she is trying to get experience as moonkin so she can dps in raids. So she has a preconceived notion as to how someone should be healing and especially if they are druids as well. Which both of the ones I saw just happened to be. So I'm sitting across the room and I hear our guild over vent ask what happened, he is dead. He didn't get any heals, there was plenty of time to heal him, so he thought. Now granted I didn't get up and go watch at this point or any point during their run, I just listened. A few minutes later my wife starts yelling into vent about how the healer sucks, hes not healing how he should.

The interesting part to me was I looked at her screen as she was inspecting him. I caught a glimpse of I think pants that were likely ungemmed tier gear. What I found interesting was my reaction. I thought to myself, cause I wasn't going to start an argument over it, maybe he is gearing up and hasn't been able to buy or get his guild to gem his gear yet. And with that maybe they need to cut him some slack and watch their aggro and there own health. He might not be over geared like my wife and able to afk heal. At about this point our guildy says something to the effect of "I'm dps, I shouldn't have to watch my own health, he is so bad at healing, ugh!"

OK so my paraphrasing sucks but you get the idea.

And I think since when is it not the dps's job to watch their own health? I mean how are you supposed to know that your taking unnecessary damage if your not watching your health? I can I try to change this thought process within my own guild? I mean if I let them die they likely wont let me into raids cause I suck and they will be mad at me and who wants that friction. But will they really understand if you tell them they are wrong?

My random thoughts for today.

Ding!

So I had every intention of posting once every day and I fell short on my second day of the blog being up. But I believe I had a very good excuse. I was able to get my priest to level 80 yesterday. Yeah me!

Now for the fun of gearing her up. First goal is to get enough gear to start doing heriocs. Got 4 epics already thanks to the 2 daily Triumph badges and some wonderful guildies running me through normal ToC. Can't wait for the first time I get some who kicks me because my gear isn't up to thier overpowered expectations. And when I do I will be sure to share it with everyone.

On another front I was able to get some RAM for my wifes laptop so that we can play together. That and maybe I can get my computer back without fighting for it. Now we just have to get her account open and upgraded. Then we can move her druid over and do some randoms together.

Hello World!

Hello to all out there!
After spending the last month or so searching and reading all the blogs I could I have decided to make my own. My plan with is simply to put my thoughts out there for others to critic and get feed back on.

Now I am no writer so at times my stream of thoughts may only be readable by me but I will do my best to keep things as coherant as possible.

The focus for this blog is going to be anything and everything World of Warcraft related that I have the desire to talk about.

So with all that out of the way how about a little back ground on me. I have been playing WoW for 3 years now. My very first character was a Night Elf hunter. I didnt get here straight to the level cap which at the time was 70. Instead I got to around 40 and then tried several different classes to see if that was really the class I wanted to be playing. After I dont know how many different characters and even different realms I finally settled back to my hunter. Hit 70 and started to try to get into raiding. But by time I got there it was late into BC and my work schedule was all over the place. So I only did a little bit of Kara and a run or to of ZA.
Then they annouced the release of WotLK and I started reading all the cool stuff that was coming with it. The one that hooked me was the paladin changes. I fell in love with the thought and I had an alt that I had prevously worked on some. So I forgo the hunter when Warth came out and leveled my paladin to 80. A leveled up to Outlands as prot and then switched to ret until 80. Once there I went holy. Played her until ToC as my main while still leveling multiple alts ending up with a 80 Shaman. Then switch realms and leveled a Druid to play with some IRL friends that were playing my hours of the day. In order to get my wife into the game more I gave her my druid and yes babies cried for me. But I was able to scrap the money together to move a 65 priest over and she is about to 80.

Wow now that was mouth full. But now you know about me so why dont you leave me a comment about yourself.