Druids Invade WSG

Ok, I'm sure many of you have seen this before, but it's too funny not to post!

Essy Goes to Kara

Did I say Essy?! Why yes, I did! Despite all doubts to the contrary, Essy finally stepped foot into Kara. Was she planning to do so last night? Heck no! Her bags were full, her poisons weren't stocked up, she had a few healing pots but no other potions... Deressy, on the other hand, was completely prepared. Why the sudden change? Well, again, we had to PUG a couple of people and one of the ones that came happened to be a resto druid. A fully-geared, heal-til-you-are-exploding-with-health resto druid (yes, I was, in fact, drooling over his gear the entire run).

We picked up where we left off on Friday night - with Shade of Aran. We had to clear a bit of trash on the way. Now, I think I really like trash - not only do you get rep from killing trash but you occasionally get purple trash. Deressy has purple trash. Now Essy does too! She grabbed the Grips of Deftness to replace her green Caustic Feelers.

Now, I'd heard before that the Shade of Aran fight is rather awful and that folks hate it. I had no such view of the fight, as my one time running it (with Deressy), we one-shotted it. However, this time, well...

Let's just share a quote with you from my friend Gadoraa (who went with us again)..."I'm beginning to not like this room." My response was "Beginning?!" I actually lost count of the number of attempts on this guy. I was lagging a bit and kept missing the kick on his firebolt. Then we he did the flame wreath, someone would inevitably move and we'd all be toast. A few folks died on the arcane blast. Over and Over. Rinse and Repeat. And yet, all it did was serve to make us annoyed enough to try again. Again. Again.

And finally, on the attempt when he shackled me right as he started his arcane blast (duh, cloak of shadows would have probably gotten me out and I forgot), I died. And we killed him! Yay! But ugh, a 7g repair bill on almost all blues. However, I did get a shiny new purple to make up for it! He dropped Rapscallion Boots just for me!

On to Prince. Prince did you say? Argh! Last time we attempted him (I was Deressy) we had the most infernally worst luck (pun intended) and after several attempts, never did get him down. Tonight however, we were golden. Well, almost. On the first attempt, an infernal dropped right on Prince and the group meleeing him. Wipe. On the second attempt he went DOWN! And I was soo.....ARGH! NOT HAPPY! Every single drop, I kid you not - every one - was a healing item. And both our healers were already geared! So here is a list of gear that Deressy DIDN'T get: Lights Justice, Helm of the Fallen Defender, and Jade Ring of the Everliving.

At that point, there was a little discussion about where to go next. Our mage got confused, ported to Shatt and logged off. We were off to attempt Nethersprite and realized he was gone. Oh well, we'll 9-man it. Many of us had never been there before at all, and so the blue/red/green beam thing was a bit confusing. Plus at least one player wasn't on vent. After our first wipe, Gad had to go - he was falling asleep on his keyboard. One more 8-man attempt and we called it a night.

Oh, and AFTER we killed Prince, Essy went and turned in some quests and picked up the quest to...

Kill Prince.

Bah!

Couples Night in Kara

Well, two couples anyway!

Tonight was our first time that *zul and I got to run Kara together. There was another couple running it with us - the other healer (a priest) and his wife, a boomkin. It was a fun run, although we had to PUG a couple of people. Actually, though, we grabbed a buddy of mine that hangs out on the essy channel (long story, and we'll have to leave that to another post), Gadoraa - a feral druid. He'd never been to Kara before, but was keyed.

So we headed in - our goal was to clear as much as we could in 4 hours. One had never been in before, and two had never been past opera. We had a really odd make-up: one resto druid, one feral druid, one boomkin druid, one marksman hunter, two beastmaster hunters (one was Hunzul), one warrior tank, one pally tank and one mage. Yes, I know that's only 9 people. We were waiting and hoping a 10th would show up. By the time we got to Moroes, we had another mage to fill the roster.

Attumen - one shotted
Moroes - two-shotted (not sure what happened, but oh well)
Maiden - one-shotted
Opera - ewwww, we got Oz, but we two-shotted it
Curator - two-shotted (the first time, the healers weren't well-positioned - it worked much better the second time around)

Then one of our hunters' internet dropped out, it was late and so we decided to skip the Shade of Aran for now, and go to Chess and call it a night.

I got some new shiny bracers, to replace my old-still-rather-shiny ones.

Spec-tacular!

So, I want to thank everyone who provided advice and input on my re-spec decision. It was a tough decision for me - especially after Phaelia from Resto4Life made such a good case for a hybrid spec. I have never been a fan of change (yes, I know....EVERYTHING changes)...but to make such massive changes while I am just getting used to raiding - I thought that might be a bit much for me.

So, I did a bit of a hybrid based on Phaelia’s advice. I added points to improve healing touch and reduce its mana cost. I added some points in balance and went deep enough to pick up insect swarm. I put my single extra point in Natural Perfection (which seems to trigger a *lot* - I’ve been farming primals a bit lately).

And so, while I’m not saying my *spec* is spectacular - it sure has made *me* feel pretty darned good. I can’t remember a time when I was so confident (and daring) in my ability to solo and do regular questing. I’ve yet to attempt a heroic, but am cautiously optimistic.

Thanks for all the comments and emails!

Ninja Moments?

Having never really been victim of a ninja (yes, I guess I've gotten really good PUGs), I was asked by a guildy (when I was still part of KotB) to come heal the final boss of Scholo. They'd lost their healer and were so close to being finished.

So off to Scholo I went. I was too high level for summon, so I made my way there the old-fashioned way. When I arrived, it turned out they were one short even after I filled in.

No worries though...one of them was a level 70 Peacekeeper - should be cake. And it was. The boss died and three purples and a blue dropped! One of the drops was one of the portals cards...I was nearing the completion of the deck and the card that dropped was one of two I didn't have.

I asked if I could need it and got a "go ahead" from my guildy, but big arguments from the other two. So rather than create trouble, I greeded it (note also, there were no enchanters in the group).

After I had greeded the various items, Alandrius of Runetotem-US needed (and hence ninja'ed) the entire take. The peacekeeper (Drukonus) laughed, told us Alandruis was his father, and proceeded to kick me and my guildy from the group. He was ported back to Shatt before he was able to complete his quest, looting the quest item from one of the kills.

I was, needless to say, furious. We announced in our guild channel to avoid these two guys, and at least two others said they had had similar experience with them in the past.

I added them both to my ignore list and decided to contact their guilds. Essy's guild had discussed previously a merger, or at least raiding agreement, with Peacekeepers. Though I don't know many of them, I figured they probably wouldn't want their names associated with such behavior. They listened, and although nothing happened immediately, I did notice he was no longer part of their guild when I saw him a few weeks later.

Alandruis was in a smaller guild. The GL told me he had gkicked him. He must have gotten back in, though, as I saw him a few weeks later and he had rejoined.

CC? We Don't Need No Stinkin' CC!

As *zul and I were driving to the airport today, we were trying to keep each other awake and discussing a recent post we saw about whether the class make up of group or the personalities was more important. I remembered a Shadow Labs run we did recently with not one, not two, but *three* warriors.

At least two (Mozul and Motoronin) of the three were prot spec (as I recall, Fishbane was sporting his favorite spec, dps). At any rate, most everything got tanked (but nothing died particularly fast).

*zul was suggesting we try Kara with all prot specs and a couple of healers...but I don't think I'd want to be in there all night for one boss fight. :p

By the way, we decided that in *most* cases, we'd take personality over specific classes (at least for 5-man instances).

Kara from the Backseat

While we are on vacation and I am computer-free, *zul still has his computer, as he was originally here for work. After we arrived at our little cottage-by-the-sea (on five-acres of fruit-growing trees and bushes), we discovered it had internet...and not even dial-up. Yay!....and darn!

Well, we noticed a kara run starting up on Tuesday and Hunzul had not yet gotten to set foot inside....so I encouraged him to sign up. He did, we planned our day around his run starting at 4pm our time and at 3:45, invites went out and he was ready.

This was his first run...and my first chance to see Kara without the pressure and distraction of healing it.

It was fun, despite having difficulty seeing the screen due to my angle. Admittedly, after Attunmen, I mainly only watched during the boss fights. It was admittedly kind of fun to see the fights from another perspective and without the pressure of trying to keep folks alive. Also, particularly as I was watching Hunzul's first run, it reminded me a bit of my first time in Kara.

Despite watching from the backseat, I tried *not* to be a backseat driver, distracting or harassing Hunzul while he tried to enjoy his first run. I thought he did quite well, despite a couple of mistakes (which he talks about in his post).

Late Night WoW

After reading both a WoW Insider article and Amanna's article on Adventures in Azeroth, I was reminded of a recent bit of late-night playing I did.

It was late Monday night/Tuesday morning and I was wasting time before having to run to the airport and catch my plane. I could have gone to sleep, I suppose, but I was afraid I'd oversleep, so I was puttering around on WoW instead. Essy had run Mech, Arc and a short piece of Bot. As she was stumbling out of Bot and thinking of a bit of grinding, a friend, Darcey, asked for a healer to fill in at Black Morass - apparently, their second healer was an abyssmal failure (not sure how their first had been).

So off went Essy; Deressy logged in and got an immediate invite and summon. A quick look at the clock and we realized we were going to be racing to finish before the server shutdown.

The tank was a druid I'd never met, Deidlet. I'd played with a couple of the others before (we had some epic HH runs together). And so, the race began. It's amazing how much easier BM is now that I've gotten my +healing up from +730 to around +1350 or so.

Sadly, although we did fairly well, we did *not* manage to beat the clock...the server shut down shortly after we finished wave 12 (2nd boss) of BM. Luckily, the goal was rep and drops rather than someone trying to get attuned.

On a side note, I was thrilled to see Deidlet had joined my guild a few days later.

More Spec Debate

I recently posted asking for some advice on my spec and referencing a post I'd read on Resto4Life's blog about specing into brambles and insect swarm. I recently read a couple of posts on Gray Matter's blog about how useless brambles and insect swarm are in a raid setting. I tend to lean more towards Resto4Life's opinion - particularly as she's given the math to back up her position. What do y'all think?

Primal Grinding Can Be Fun!

No, really! It can!

Last week, before I headed off on a WoW-free vacation, I headed up to the Elemental Plateau to help my friends, boss and kitty, do some primal grinding. She needed 37 primal airs for some new gear. That's a *lot* of primals.

The three of us sort of took over the entire zone...for about 5 to 6 hours! I think that in that entire time, there were maybe 10-12 wind thingies that we missed...and then generally only when one of us was AFK.

A couple of friends stopped by at different times to lend a hand - Dana, Kay and Ima. At one point, Dana managed to grab the attention of a flagged hordie, who waited until Dana's health was low while killing a fire elemental and then killed Dana. The horde didn't know what hit him after that. He got killed once or twice and then flew up on a hill overlooking us all. Kitty and I jumped into flight form and flew right up next to him...we scared him 1/2 to death, I think. We didn't see much of him after that.

So, you see? Primal grinding *can* be fun...just bring 2-3 of your friends and claim the territory as your own!

Evil Battlegrounds Tactics

I can't help myself.... playing a rogue in the battlegrounds is just plain fun!

Something that fills me with a particular amount of glee... stealthing to a base that the Alliance simply has no hope of taking (at least not anytime soon), and randomly sapping the horde sentry. I remain in stealth, but it causes them to over-guard that one base, rather than sending extras out to attack (or guard) another base.

/evillaugh

Spec advice?

I read recently on Resto4Life's blog some interesting information about a resto druid's ability to heal heroics. Essentially, especially for a druid who is still getting geared, healing a heroic can be quite difficult - much of the healing ends up being outside of tree form, as you cannot cast Healing Touch while a tree.

As a result of this post, along with others I've read on Phaelia's site and elsewhere, I am (again) considering a respec. I'm currently 0-20-41, and am contemplating moving 5 points back into resto to improve my healing touch. I'm also considering whether to move the remaining 15 points over to balance to pick up brambles & insect swarm. But I'm also tempted to put an extra point or three in Natural Perfection to pick up extra crit chance.

The quagmire of talent specs. :(

If any of you have some worthwhile advice, I'm all ears.

+Healing

Just prior to entering Kara, I had a +Healing of 730. I figured I was doing pretty good. Then I heard what the other healers had... +1780, +1650, etc. I was mortified! How could I hope to do *anything* with my sub-800 healing?! But less than a week later, I was up to +1230. Between some nice drops in Kara, a couple of helpful enchants, turning in some PVP points for a new mace (which I had to go train for) and a rather short Lower City rep grind to pick up the Lower City Prayer Book, I saw a nice jump in stats.

Now I'm starting to focus on some "must-replace" gear (like my chestpiece) and grinding a bit more rep for some lovely upgrades. I sometimes wonder how others seem to manage to balance raiding, rep grinding, dailies, grinding for upgrades and...oh yeah... real life.