Wednesday, March 31

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

Tuesday, March 30

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

Monday, March 22

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

Friday, March 19

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

Thursday, March 18

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

Tuesday, March 16

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

Monday, March 15

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

Friday, March 12

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

Thursday, March 11

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!

Wednesday, March 10

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

Monday, March 8

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

Thursday, March 4

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?

Wednesday, March 3

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

Tuesday, March 2

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.

Monday, March 1

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.