Where Have You Been?!

I'm back.  My last post was before Halloween...so another long silence...hey, some things never change.  Truth be told, Halloween is sort of the end of sanity for most of us because it marks the beginning of the Holiday Season.  I've been busy with real life stuff and I haven't had the time or focus to write up decent posts.  Like most people, I'm not a fan of filler posts.  I try to avoid them here.

So, what's new?  Well, the long-awaited patch 4.3 is live now...There are some things I really love about it and some things I really don't care for.

The 3 new dungeons?  I LOVE THEM!  Obviously, they're going to get stale once everyone has the gear they need from them and we're only running them for Valor points - but for right now, I'm in love.  I'm enchanted by the "fresh" feel of them.  

Let's face it, "troll" heroics were stale to begin with.  They just altered a raid we already had in game and turned it into a 5 man dungeon.  Yes, they were challenging but they started off as just recycled...blech....Quite a few people had raided them "back in the day" and some of us that joined later farmed the mounts in them.  So it wasn't anything new...it was just...recycled sameness.  I'm not a fan of recycled sameness.  (With the exception of Onyxia.  For some reason, I can't get enough of that raid and I'd love to see Blizz dust that off with a new twist!)

The new heroics, however, are different from anything I've experienced as far as 5 man dungeons go.  They are similar to the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection in that they are related and there's an initial questline you have to complete by doing the dungeons in order - but beyond that, the fight mechanics are fresh and they don't look like so much like past dungeons that you'd feel stale there.

I will say though, that Well of Eternity is by far my favorite of the three.  End Time is fun because the first two bosses you meet are random.  I think there are four possible bosses to start, of which, you face two.  The last fight has a cool new mechanic:


I've never encountered a battle in my few years of WoW Nerdery that let you "rewind".  If someone dies in the fight, you get to rewind and they come back to life with full health!  The only real way to lose the fight is if EVERYBODY dies - which - let's face it - is pretty damn impossible to do.  I'm really digging these new instances.  This is definitely a "YAY" part of patch 4.3 for me.  I don't have to grind the same 2 troll instances over....and over....and over...and over...and over again in order to cap valor points on non-raiding toons if I don't want to.  It's awesome.  PLUS - the gear dropping in these dungeons is all ilvl 378, making you able to gear yourself up for the new raid:  Dragon Soul.

Now, one thing I DO have to complain about...The instances (including the raid) seem...too easy.  When my guild first started Firelands, it took us at least the first night to learn the Shannox fight, which was our first encounter in the raid.  From there, it took us a few nights each to learn and master the rest of the fights.  Ragnaros still has the potential to give us issues.  I'm a little disappointed at how easy the new dungeons and raid are.  I was able to go in with a PuG group - 3 of which had not run any of the dungeons yet, including me - and plow through them all fairly easily with only one wipe total out of the three full dungeons.  That, to me...is sad.

And Dragon Soul?  It's a joke...with no one having watched the video for the first boss in the raid, and us taking a "let's try it and see what happens - here are the basic mechanics" approach...we one-shotted the first boss.  It only took a few tries to get the second boss down.  I think we all feel a little disappointed that there's no major challenge involved.  Our 25man raid team is plowing through the content really quickly.  Hell, our 10 man alt group was 3/8 the very first night we went into the raid...ALTS...yeah...I think Blizz could have added a little more challenge to this soup of awesomeness. 


The raid appearance, however, I am in love with.  I couldn't stomach the thought of spending hours and hours in a dungeon that was literally red and orange and black.  The monsters were "fiery", the bosses were "fiery", the environment was "fiery"...EVERYTHING...looked like fire, lava and dirt...So the fact that this raid takes place around Wyrmrest Temple is pretty awesome.  Snow is much easier to look at than fire and lava.  


One other thing I am sort of annoyed with:  Blizzard decided to make tier armor ONLY available through raiding.  Yes, you can still grind valor points for gear, but unless you win the much coveted tier tokens...you're not getting your tier gear.  In a 25man raid with a metric fudge-ton of death knights, a rogue or two and a mage...plus whatever druids tag along...my shot at getting my tier set completed is slim.  I'm not really a fan of that.  Plus, it essentially means that you'll be using your valor points to purchase gear with an equivalent item level to the tier pieces and probably similar stats, only to potentially replace them with the tier you happen to win in a raid.  I...eh...not really a fan.  Having the helm and shoulders be difficult to get was bad enough.  Making all five pieces drop from raid bosses feels like overkill to me.  But we'll see how it goes.  My shaman has two pieces of tier gear already, my main (the darling druid) has none...I don't like how that math works out...


I suppose I could run the raid finder to try to get tier tokens that way, but they're a lower item level...I'm not sure how I want to handle that yet.  


Speaking of the raid finder - I haven't tried that out yet.  I'm not sure if I will or not.  Maybe if I get my mage geared enough to go along I will...otherwise...probably not.  I'm just not that interested.  


I guess that's all I have for today.  I haven't really done too much with 4.3 yet but run the heroics.  There's a new Darkmoon Faire I haven't bothered with...you know...lots of stuff I haven't checked into.  Generally speaking, I'm almost always in some sort of raid...I'm finding that I have little time to do much else in game...it's...you know...I think it's wearing me out.  That's why I haven't been posting here at all for the past month or so.  The nights I would spend writing up posts for LBT are now spent running with alt raids.  I don't know about you, but seeing the same fights over and over and over again...multiple times in one week...kinda wears on a bear, you know?  Anyway, I should get back to RL now.


May Elune's light guide you safely until next time!

Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 6

Another Monday is here...Hope it's a happy one for all of you.  I'm feeling sort of under the weather, so I'm going to keep this rather brief I guess.

This weekend, I decided I wanted to start working on the "killing rare mobs" achievements in Northrend.  I had already killed the Crazed Indu'le Survivor and Tukemuth on my druid.  Over the weekend I ended up killing Hildana Deathstealer, Vyragosa, High Thane Jorfus, Vigdis the War Maiden and Scarlet Highlord Daion.  


Yes, I'm using addons to track them down and get the kills, but only because I find where they patrol and usually just camp at a spawn spot, going afk to do other things.  I'm hoping to eventually get a Time-Lost Proto Drake kill, but if I don't get him before I get my Dirkee kill, I'm probably just going to skip it anyway.  TLPD is a cool looking mount...just not sure it's worth investing endless hours of camping and misery for these days.


Once I'm done with the Northrend kills, I'll probably go back to Outlands.  After having leveled so many 85 alts through Cataclysm areas...I don't even want to have to look at them for awhile.  I'm not sure yet though.  I hear the Cataclysm rares can drop epic level gear...in which case I might want to try to tag one or two to see.  So far, I've seen none of the Cata rares.  Lucky, lucky me, right?


I'm still trying to get the Headless Horseman's Reins on my druid, but it's looking like another year that it's not going to happen.  I've gotten the Horrific Helmet on every toon BUT Desarra about 3 times now.  It would be so awesome to be able to upgrade her helm to something other than whatever garbage she's wearing now, but I digress.  Going to keep trying for the next week and see what happens.


Oh...and yes, I've heard all about the new expansion, 1 year signup bonuses and all the changes they're talking about...I'm going to try to read more about it before I say how I really feel about it.  At first glance, though...the Pandaren seem way too "Kung Fu Panda" for me...I keep waiting to hear Jack Black spouting off some almost funny one-liner when I look at them.  


At any rate, the real world calls again.  See you all soon!

Hallows End 2011 Guide - Alliance Only, Sorry Hordies

Happy Hallow's End Everybody!

This event started Tuesday (10/18) and will continue through Monday (10/31) and I'm sure you don't want to miss a thing, so I decided I'd create a quick guide here listing the quests, pets, loot, achievements and anything else you might want to know about the event here.  

Let's start with the achievements.  The Hallow's End Meta Achievement is part of "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been..." which ultimately rewards you with a Violet Proto-Drake.  Quite a few people have the VPD already, but for those that don't, I've decided to start talking about the holiday achievements.

Hallowed Be Thy Name 

Criteria: 

• Trick or Treat!
• Bring Me The Head Of...Oh Wait 
• That Sparkling Smile 
• G.N.E.R.D. Rage 
• The Masquerade 
• Tricks and Treats of Azeroth 
• Out With It 
• The Savior of Hallow's End 
• Rotten Hallow 
• Check Your Head 
• Sinister Calling

Now, in the past...some of these achievements were totally RNG based and there are quite a few people that only needed to loot and use a Toothpick to complete the entire meta...Blizz fixed that.  The drop rates for achievement related items is far higher for Trick or Treating and many of the items you need to complete this can be purchased from a vendor now.  The masks, Hallowed Helm, Sinister Squashling and I think the toothpicks can be purchased now with Tricky Treats which are rewards from both trick-or-treating and doing the daily quests.

To save space, each of the above achievements link to their respective WoWhead page.  All of these are pretty easy, except for maybe GNERD Rage and Rotten Hallow.  If you're doing the quest "A Time To Lose" for Rotten Hallow - expect to be killed by horde players.  Be prepared for corpse runs.  You can try to take your rez in a place where you can hopefully cast your hearthstone without getting attacked again, but it's better to just prepare for corpse runs.  You won't suffer durability damage from player induced deaths anyway.  Just be aware that for that one...you're probably going to die a couple times.  

GNERD Rage is another one that's apt to get you killed...and if I remember correctly from when I did it a few years ago...it's likely to drive you into a complete nerd rage - so it's appropriately named for sure.

The meta achievement earns you the title of...The Hallowed.  So...my druid, for example, is called Destinae The Hallowed.  This is probably one of my favorite titles.  

There aren't a ton of quests for this holiday, which I really like.  It makes earning your title and getting everything completed so much easier.  Although, if you look at WoWhead you'll want to cry when you see the number of quests they have listed...but they list each individual Candy Bucket as a quest...and there are a ton of them.  Once you ignore those, there's really only a few quests to deal with.

Let's start with the quest chain to get your Creepy Crate companion pet.  It begins with a quest given by Gretchen Fellow called "A Friend In Need" which requires you to find Anson Hastings and talk with him.  He's located inside of The Gilded Rose Inn in Stormwind's Trade District.  He will follow up with a quest called "Missing Heirlooms" which requires you to head off to Stormwind Harbor and search the cabin of the Courier's ship.  From there, a quest called "Fencing The Goods" will lead you through Stormwind to your next quest:  "Shopping Around".  You just have to walk around a little bit inside the building and maybe talk to a few NPCs inside to complete the quest.  If you want to save yourself some trouble, go purchase 5 arcane powder and 5 crystal vials before you even go to The Shady Lady.  Once you've investigated the building, you'll be given a quest called "Taking Precautions" which will require you to turn in 5 arcane dusts, 5 crystal vials, and 5 Blood Nettle - which you can pick up around the lake in Northern Stormwind.  (Something to note:  The Blood Nettle can't be picked up around the lake with all of the Cataclysm portals...the lake you're looking for is to the West...the "lower level" lake by the farm.)  

Once you've got your 15 quest items, turn in your quest and pick up "The Collector's Agent".  I had trouble finding this guy...so, when you first walk down into the Catacombs under the Cathedral...you'll come to a T intersection where you can go left or right.  Go LEFT there and then Left again down a little stairway and you should see the Blood Elfy guy doing his thing.  Another special note about this quest:  The mob spawn will scale to your character level, meaning, if you're a level 15...a level 14-15 mob will spawn for you to kill.  Likewise, if you're level 85...the mob spawn will be level 85.  From here, you'll pick up "What Now?" which will have you return the quest to Anson or Hudson.  It doesn't matter who you give it to really...both will reward you with the Creepy Crate vanity pet.  Good luck!

As for other quests...I would start with "A Season For Celebration" which you can pick up from any Human Commoner in Stormwind.  (Human Commoners also give a quest called: "Costumed Orphan Matron", which will direct you to Goldshire to pick up even more holiday quests!)  From there, you head just outside the gates and you can pick up "A Time To Gain" from Celestine when you turn in "A Season For Celebration (daily)".  Most of the other quest givers for Hallow's End along with the Hallow's End vendor are located right near her, so grabbing the rest of the quests will be easy.

You should be able to pick up:

1.  A Time To Gain (daily)

2.  A Time To Lose (daily)

3.  Clean Up In Stormwind (daily)

4.  Stink Bombs Away (daily)

5.  Hallow's End Treats for Jesper (not a daily quest)

"Hallow's End Treats for Jesper" will require you to visit the innkeepers in Darnassus, Ironforge and Stormwind, along with the Gnomeregan guy right outside of the Forlorn Cavern in the Mystic Ward and complete quick quests in order to get the candy you need.  The Gnomeregan Gumdrop giver was the hardest to find.  Head to the Mystic Ward and face yourself toward the Forlorn Cavern.  To the left of the Forlorn Cavern entrance, there's a little building.  Talvash del Kissel will be standing in the building's "porch" with a questclamation point above his head.

There are more quests just down the road from the Stormwind quest givers.  Head down to Goldshire to pick up:

1.  Fire Brigade Practice - Non-Daily- You can do this quest in Dun Morogh, Goldshire, and Azuremyst Isle.

2.  Let The Fires Come - Daily -You can do this quest in Dun Morogh, Goldshire, and Azuremyst Isle.

3.  Stop the Fires - Daily -You can do this quest in Dun Morogh, Goldshire, and Azuremyst Isle.

4.  Smash the Pumpkin -  Daily -You can do this quest in Dun Morogh, Goldshire, and Azuremyst Isle.

There are two additional things I want to mention regarding quests..."Costumed Orphan Matron" is a one time only quest.  If you did it last year or a previous year, then you won't be able to pick up this quest.  The same goes for "Free At Last" - A quest given by Sir Thomas's Son in Scarlet Monastery after you defeat the Headless Horseman.  If you've already done it, you won't be able to do it again...so if you're having trouble finding it, you've probably already done it.

And last, but not least...HOLIDAY LOOT!!!!!!

You can kill the Headless Horseman for a chance at one of four rings:
Band of Ghoulish Glee: +201 Agility, +301 Stamina, +118 Hit Rating, +144 Crit Rating
Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin:  +201 Strength, +301 Stamina, +142 Crit Rating, +121 Haste
The Horseman's Signet:  +201 Intellect, +301 Stamina, +118 Hit Rating, +144 Haste Rating
The Wicked Witch's Ring:  +301 Stamina, +201 Intellect, +134 Spirit, +134 Critical Strike

For those items, you can kill him as many times a day as you want...which is cool...I suppose.

But you can only receive the Loot-Filled Pumpkin ONCE a day.  It can contain a number of "common items" like Tricky Treats or masks.  The LFP can also contain the Hallowed Helm, Sinister Squashling, Flying Broom...or even more awesome...

The Horseman's Horrific Helmet:  +371 Strength, +411 Stamina, +171 Hit, +218 Haste, Use:  You can laugh like the horseman.  I know this is something a LOT of plate wearing dps people are after right now.  

The Horseman's Sinister Saber:  Main Hand (1h) Sword...+103 Agility, +290 Stamina, +103 Hit, +103 Expertise, Use:  Summon Pumpkin Soldiers to burn your foes!  I guess this is good for rogues only.  Hunters would be the only one interested in straight agility that I know of...and hunters don't need expertise at all.  I wish this was a dagger though.  It would be cool to be able to equip it and summon little pumpkin armies with my druid!

And last...but not least...and by far one of the most sought after items of this particular holiday...

The Horseman's Reins:  The horseman's mount...it scales to match your level of riding, so it can fly.  It's spooky and amazing looking...and I wish my druid could have this...alas...she doesn't and probably never will. 

I tried to keep this post as brief as possible, considering everything's basically available on WoWhead.  I just know a few people requested a "list" of what to do for the holiday.  If you want tips or advice on any of the quests or achievements, feel free to comment below or throw an email to me at: mydruidrocks@aol.com!

Happy Haunting, Everyone!!!

Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 5

Monday Morning Mumblings is a little late this week.  Apparently I saved it as a draft but never actually published it.

How's THAT for brilliance?

I really don't have too much to talk about.  Some old, familiar faces have returned to the guild recently which I'm really happy about.  It's been kind of like a family reunion.  I think, in a way, it's reviving guild morale too.  :D

Hallow's end starts this week, which is pretty exciting.  I'm hoping I can get the helm for Desarra, but that's probably not going to happen.  I'm pretty excited about the two new pets:  The Creepy Crate and The Feline Familiar.  I'm going to be working on getting both of those this week.  The only other pet available to players during the Hallows End event is the Sinister Squashling, which I ended up getting last year or the year before on most of my high level alts and my druid.  The other, much more coveted item that will potentially drop during this event from your Loot-Filled Pumpkin is The Headless Horseman's Mount.

I've been trying to get this on my druid for 4 years.

I've sort of just accepted that I'm not going to get it...ever...on my druid.

My warlock has it...which...yay?  /seethe

Anyway, sorry for the horribly awful update.  I don't have time right now for a full post.  I will be back later this week to update on the Hallows End stuff if I can.

Until next time...Happy Hallows End!

Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 4

Happy Monday...right?  I don't really have anything planned to talk about.  It's Columbus Day and despite the fact that I'm working today, I feel like my mind is on vacation right now.

Let's see...

Over the weekend, my guild hosted two alt Firelands runs.  I was able to participate in both.  The Friday night run is our "Main" alt run and the Sunday night run is our "Alt" alt run.  

Friday night I took my shaman in and we rolled through and got a few solid attempts in on Ragnaros.  I believe our problem is a less than ideal group makeup for dealing with the adds during the transition phases.  Sunday night, I took my priest.  Since most of us want to gear our "Main" alts, some of us switched to our main alt when we got to Ragnaros, just in case we got the kill.

But we didn't.  Same reason.  We didn't have the right group makeup and there were a few glitchy things that kept happening, so we just called it a night.

But the fact that we're able to steamroll through that instance with a group makeup that is less than ideal, on a 3rd alt that we play far less often than our mains or main alts...and still get to Ragnaros within just a few hours is proof that, perhaps Blizz took the nerf too far.  That was also one of the longest run on sentences I've ever written.  Holy cow...

Absolutely nothing dropped for my priest during the Sunday run.  The same is true of my shaman on our Friday run.  Am I surprised?  No.  It makes raiding more exciting when cool new gear drops, but really...I'm not that worried about it.  Saves me from having to spend more gold on gems and enchants.  Cool, right?  Right.  

I was a little saddened to find out that the only shaman caster helm that drops in Firelands drops from Ragnaros though.  I mean, even druids have a shot at a really nice helm from Beth'tilac.  On the other side of that though, a really gorgeous ele/resto/holy paladin shield drops from Beth'tilac.  I keep praying I'll see that or the caster axe drop for Amaari, but so far, no go.

I also realized that getting the stats correct on my priest is more confusing than any of the other toons I have.  Mastery is good for holy.  Haste is good for holy.  I was trying to do some research to find out how to get past the haste breakpoint for Renew on my priest, but I'm not finding the exact haste rating that I need.  I keep getting a percentage in my research...

12.5%

Okay...well...if I look at my character screen she might be at 13.49%...if I hover over that though it shows her haste percentage at 11%...so I'm not sure which percentage I have to get over 12.5%.  Maybe I'll keep stacking haste until I get them BOTH over that point, but then I'd likely be wasting haste where I could have mastery for the stronger "bonus" HoT ticks...

Grrr...I'm going to keep researching that and my shaman's resto stats and I'll get back to you with actual figures once I figure it out.  

With my druid it was easy.  You need 2005 haste rating to get to the breakpoint for Wild Growth and Tranquility to have an extra tick.  I'm there.  I've got that.  It was easy.  These other two classes though...bleh.

I also found that the "advice" they give for Holy priests is to "stack haste until you feel comfortable enough with it".  Well...if that were the case, I'd stack it until all my heals were practically instant cast.  But that would gimp my other stats.  Come on, Elitist Jerks...let's get real here...

Anyway, I'm going to start that research and I'll stop back and let you know what I find when I find what I'm looking for...

Whatever that is...

Attumen the Huntard

I haven't really talked about mount farming in awhile.  Maybe it's time to dust off this topic a little bit.

I have a mount farming tracker at the bottom of the page someplace, and I've been extremely fortunate.  The raptor mount and Zulian Tiger mount are no longer available in the game as far as I know.  I have them both.  That makes me a pretty happy camper.

But there's two mounts that I've been wanting since I found out they were in the game.  I've been in love with the Fiery Warhorse and the Headless Horseman's mount since I first saw them.  I don't really know why...I just love them.

I've been denied the Headless Horseman's mount because it is only available during the Hallow's End event in October (which is coming up soon) and it is a rare "drop".  I've run the Headless Horseman's fight every day that it's been available since I started playing back in BC...and I've yet to get it on my druid.  You know which of my toons got it?  My warlock.  Yay..../seethe

The Fiery Warhorse, however, drops in Karazhan from Attumen the Huntsman.  I've been in this raid instance...probably well over 100 times now.  I've yet to see this mount drop.  I'm starting to wonder if it's just a myth...

Anyway, I'm still trying to farm the mount when I can.  I have an extremely busy raid schedule these days with our 25 man raid nights and the alt raids going on now...but I try to sneak in some farming time when I can.

I'm hoping I can get one or the other at least.  They both have practically the same model...

Take a look:

The Headless Horseman's Mount

The Fiery Warhorse

 So, they're essentially the same mount except that the warhorse's feet are more of a white color than green and it doesn't fly.  Oh, and the warhorse is a Vampiric horse - it has fangs...look closely.  The Headless Horseman's mount can FLY, has no fangs and his feet are more of a green fiery effect.  Either way, if I ever managed to get both of these, I would be the happiest druid ever!

There are a bunch of other new mounts that have been added in Cataclysm, but I'll have to save that for another post.  I just don't have the patience today to try and fight with this blog about posting pictures of them.  I'm already annoyed at how bloody the battle was to get it to just let me post these two pictures here...

At any rate, I'll keep you updated on the Fiery Warhorse farming, since I can't do anything to try and get the Headless Horseman's mount until October 18th.  (Hallow's End 2011 runs from 10/18-10/31/11 - in case you were wondering).

So, to all my fellow mount collectors out there:  Happy farming!  Be sure to send pictures and updates when you make a new addition to your collection and I'll post it here!  Take care!

Ragnar-O's

Truth be told, I couldn't think of a title for this post so I just picked a random achievement we got recently and went with it.  I'm having sort of a writer's block or something this morning.  I'll remedy that with another cup of coffee.

Quick Updates:

• My shaman has her 4pc tier 12.  Still waiting on other drops though.
  My druid has her 4pc tier 12 and heroic shoulders from Shannox (H).  
  We've killed heroic Shannox...twice now I think.
• We made a few attempts at Heroic Staghelm.  
• We're going to keep working on our heroic progression list.

I am finding that I should really research a few classes so that I stop being horrible at them.  I'm "good" with my shaman, but on the report card it says, "Room for improvement."  I'd like to learn more about my mage, death knight and warlock too...I just lack motivation to do so.

I also found that trying to balance out my gear once I got the helm token and the new shoulders made me miserable.  I hate math.  I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.  Between the helm and the shoulders, I ended up with a ton of extra haste but I wanted to try out some mastery on my gear so I didn't want to press past the next haste breakpoint.  So I reforged this, then re-gemmed that, then reforged this and restored the first thing, then changed another gem, then changed this enchant, then changed it back and reforged something else...When I logged out, I was at 2013 haste rating, 8 points above the 2005 required.  That's not too shabby.

But I guarantee you that next week, Beth'tilac (aka: Spiderbitch) will drop the helm I had been waiting to see for the past...well since the first two druids got theirs.  I kept passing on it figuring it would drop again fairly soon.  Four weeks passed and it never dropped.  I guarantee that next week it will drop.  Why?  Because I've already upgraded my helm.  Hopefully somebody in the group will be able to use it.

Speaking of the raid, we normally have 4-ish hours of raiding.  The only boss we had to kill last night was Ragnaros though, so we were done with loot and random raid shenanigans within 2 hours.  It was sort of eerie.  We still have raid night on Monday, but with all of the Firelands bosses down...I'm not sure what we'll be doing.  Maybe we'll go back and try heroic Blackwing Descent or something.  Heroic Conclave?  Who knows?

I'm really wanting to try out the new gear with the 4 piece bonus though.  Swiftmend will now heal a nearby raid member for the same amount it heals the primary target.  I have a feeling that's going to come in really handy.  I just want to see it though.  Maybe I'll play in some five mans tonight to test it out.  

For now, I'm going to bounce though.  The coffee just finished brewing and I'm going to go get a cup before it's gone! 


Until next time:  Be Happy, Heroes!

Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 3

Monday is here again which means we can mumble about stuff.  Know what I want to mumble about?


Druid Tier 13.  


Wanna see it?

K!

The only thing that makes me sad:  We're getting transmogrification in the same patch as tier 13.  Why is that sad?  I really think I like the appearance of the tier 13 gear.  I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the helm, which is fine because I never show it anyway, but the rest of it is gorgeous.  

Let's see the set bonuses!

Druid

•  Balance 2pc -- Insect Swarm increases all damage done by your Starfire, Starsurge, and Wrath spells against that target by 3%.
• Balance 4pc -- Reduces the cooldown of Starsurge by 5 sec.
• Feral 2pc -- Pulverize now also grants your Mangle (Bear) critical strikes a 100% chance to trigger Savage Defense, and your Blood in the Water talent now causes Ferocious Bite to refresh the duration of your Rip on targets with 60% or less health.Feral.
• Feral 4pc -- Frenzied Regeneration also affects all raid and party members. This effect cannot be triggered if you have been in Bear Form for less than 15 sec. In addition, your Stampede talent now grants two charges after using Feral Charge (Cat).
• Restoration 2pc -- After using Innervate, the mana cost of your healing spells is reduced by 25% for 15 sec.Restoration.
• Restoration 4pc Your Rejuvenation and Regrowth spells have a 10% chance to Timeslip and have double the normal duration.

Hmmmmm....

I don't play a  Balance druid, but those bonuses sound "alright".  

The Restoration bonuses sound okay...it seems like they could be better.  The 2 piece bonus makes it seem like Blizzard decided we weren't using innervate enough so they're giving us a reason to use it.  Doesn't it? The four piece seems to make a little more sense.  It could be nice, I suppose.


But the Feral Bonuses?  I don't know anything about kitty, and I'm not going to pretend I do...but the bear bonuses sound pretty delicious.  Frenzied Regeneration is going to be raid wide?  YUM!  Maybe it will make bear tanks more sought after, finally!  The 2 piece bonus isn't too shabby either.  Savage defense absorbs damage.  That...is pretty cool.  Tier 13 is making me want to beg my guild leader to let me tank again!


Sigh...


Anyway, I apologize for such a brief, non-informational post today, but there's not a whole lot of information out on tier 13 just yet so there's not a whole lot to talk about.  I'm excited about the next tier because, in my opinion, it's gorgeous.  Tier 12 was just...well it's ugly.  It'll be nice to slip into a "dress" again.  I know I'm not the only druid excited about it!  

That's all I've got for today, so take care everyone.  See you soon!

The Geek Life

Hey gang!  This isn't really a game related post, but I really wanted to share a new opportunity I've been granted by a friend.  About a month ago, a friend of mine began talking to me about working at g33kl1f3.com and ultimately asked me to become a member of the Geek Life staff.  

No, it doesn't pay cash money.  What it does do, however, is give me another avenue to combine two things I love: gaming and writing.

It's been cool so far.  I've met some new friends there already and I'm learning a lot from skimming around other articles on the site.  They do it all: movie reviews, book reviews, gamer nerd stuff, and even gamer power snack reviews!

I hope you guys stop in at www.g33kl1f3.com sometime and check it out.  My most recent article there talks about 3 new features that will be added in patch 4.3.  Here's a link to the article, but please check out the rest of the site too!  Lots of cool stuff there, I promise.  (You can also click on the logo at the top of this post to visit the site).

And if you have questions or there are topics you'd like to see us cover, shoot me an email at mydruidrocks@aol.com or throw a comment in the box below!  I'd love to read your thoughts, questions, suggestions and feedback!

Thanks guys!

Feeling Heroic

Tuesday night, we decided we'd try Heroic Mode: Shannox with our 25man raid team.  It was an interesting night, to say the least.  We were short on healers (main spec, raid rank healers), which made learning the fight in heroic mode that much harder.  We tried a few times, then went on to cheese mode a few bosses.

Cheese Mode - Refers to just walking up and owning a boss because we either out-gear the encounter or we're just so used to the fight that it's not even really a challenge by now.  We cheesed Beth'tilac, Rhyolith, and Alysrazor on Tuesday, if I remember correctly.  

At any rate, last night we went in to try our luck again versus Heroic: Shannox. Our raid leader concocted a new strategy which we definitely saw progress with.  It only took a few unlucky wipes but we made a little more progress each time.


And then...our last attempt...We had Shannox down to only about 12 million health (out of 97 Million) and our main tank went down.  We battle rezzed him, but one of the key components of that fight is that Shannox and his two dogs are taunt-immune, meaning if you are a tank and you need to regain threat on the boss...you need to do so with actual attacks.  You can't just taunt him and get back to #1 on his threat table.


Things got seriously messy after the Shannox tank died.  Shannox was running around obliterating raid members, the dogs were still both active...It seems like our dps just went full throttle on Shannox though because he died pretty quickly after our Main Tank went down.  It...was...AWESOME!


He dropped the heroic tier 12 pants, but considering I got the healing mace from Ragnaros just the other night, I'm content passing on upgrades for other raid members.  Hopefully we'll be taking down even more raid bosses on heroic, so I'm sure something will drop eventually that no one will need and I can roll at that point.  One thing that you should really understand about me, as a player, is that one thing I rarely ever worry about is winning new gear.  Yes, I know that I need to continue upgrading my gear in order to keep up with raid progression, but I am generally content just being able to be a part of the fun.


I was pretty excited to see us win that fight.  I guess it's just really cool to know that we're still making progress...although...Monday night, it's back to Ragnaros......grumble.


Last night was also a "test run" for some gear changes and spec changes for me, and I think it went well.  My overall healing output seemed to be better than the previous night and I wasn't wasting points in haste that weren't doing anything for me really.


I didn't really upgrade any gear, but I swapped out these two pieces of gear for the t12 chest and gloves:  

The t12 gear seems to be working out fine, and now I'm at 3 pieces of t12.  I still have an ilvl 359 helm, which I'm hoping to replace soon.  The 4 set bonus for Resto druids seems decent enough to try for.  We shall see.


So, the gear changes I made were pretty boring, right?  Nothing major.  The spec changes I made last night were actually pretty minor too, but I definitely saw a noticeable jump in my rank on the healing meter.


My original resto spec was this:

Part of the reason I used this spec was because I needed all the spell cost reduction help I could get as a newly reborn resto druid in Cataclysm.  I say "newly reborn" because, as I'm sure so many of you know - all classes had a major overhaul just prior to Cata's release that changed how we functioned and how much our spells cost us.  I found, as I ventured out into my first few heroics...that I was really having some serious mana issues.  I figured Living Seed was basically a free heal, as it's not something I'd have to cast and the cost reduction I got from Moonglow (3/3) definitely helped.


Here is a look at the new spec I tried out last night:

Sorry if the images came out a little fuzzy.  This website and I seem to be having some trouble getting on the same page as of late.  Basically, I dropped living seed completely, put a point in Nature's Bounty (because I had to), then instead of 3/3 Moonglow, I only put two points there for spell cost redux and picked up 3/3 Genesis for more healing power.


I should have changed this a long time ago, but I never really thought much about how much of an increase in healing it could potentially give me. I think I'm going to check over some of my alts' specs now too, just to see if improvements can be made.  My shaman's resto spec should be fine now, as I just changed it to pick up Spirit Link Totem, which is incredibly helpful for Majordomo Staghelm's Scorpion Phase Flamescythes.  


I guess that's all I really have.  I reforged, gemmed and enchanted my new gear better so I'm at 2014 haste (only 9 points too high) instead of 2101 (96 points too high).  That seems to help too.  I'm trying to decide if I want to reforge some crit into mastery or just leave it alone.  I might switch it for Monday night's Ragnaros fight to see how it works out, but I'm not sure yet.


As always, if you have any questions - game related or totally off topic - feel free to send me an email at mydruidrocks@aol.com or post them in the comment section below.


Take care all!

Updates and Stuff

I probably should have updated you yesterday on recent happenings in my little druid world, but I wasn't home hardly at all and then I logged in earlier than normal and got to running instances and the raid and...well I basically got sidetracked.

Let's start with the latest raid progress report and then we'll get on to the other things.

Monday night's raid started off sort of rough, unfortunately.  We zoned into the instance 3 raiders short.  Luckily, two of our regulars logged in shortly after raid start time and we got rolling only 1 man short on Ragnaros.

I'll talk more about the actual fight later on, but about 2 hours into the night...the score was Ragnaros 9, Raid Team 0.  Not a great Monday night, but in our defense, Ragnaros is a pretty new fight to us and we were making progress each time we engaged him.  Well, I mean we WERE making progress, but right around 10pm or so we ended up losing a few people and our raid leader called the raid.  The fight is hard enough to do with a full group.  Subtract a few people and it gets exponentially more difficult.  

I figured we were done for the night, so I zoned out, repaired and started to get ready to hearth and log.  In guild chat, our raid leader said he had an announcement to make that might piss people off "but whatever".  

They decided to take a 10 man team in to take down Ragnaros so that we could start working on heroic content beginning with the fresh Tuesday night run.  Just as I started to cast my hearthstone, the guild leader whispered me asking if I was up for a 10 man.

You think I'd pass up an opportunity to hang with the guildies?  Hell no!  So I joined the group.

We had a few unfortunate wipes, bringing the scorecard to: Ragnaros 12, Raid Team 0.

Of course, right before our final attempt, I disconnected and had to restart the entire computer.  They were going to replace me with one of our other resto shamans, but fortunately, I was able to get connected just in the nick of time.  That was our final attempt because we got our Ragnaros kill on that attempt.

As karma would have it, I was just about to die before my computer decided to start running a virus scan which froze up the game for about 30 seconds.  Inevitably, I did die.  The inability to move out of the fire because of a frozen game client has a tendency to do that...but WOOSH...the achievement flash for Firelands is what I "unfroze" to see!  How awesome!

Our main resto shaman got her tier helm.  One of our warrior dps got a beautiful trinket...and I ended up winning the healing mace from good ol' Rags.  The guild leader also rolled for it, and I felt terrible about winning it, so I offered to trade it to him after we all got settled back into Stormwind...but being that he plays a dwarf...he was stubborn and wouldn't take it.  I even explained that there's a staff that can potentially drop from any normal mode boss in the instance (except Ragnaros) that I could use...and since I had the ability to use the staff I felt wrong taking a mace that would be BiS for him.  He still refused.

For some reason, once I wrapped my mind around actually keeping it since he wouldn't take it...I started to feel like I should be top heals on every fight for the rest of time to warrant being worthy of keeping this thing.  I mean...it's so...moanworthy!

Check it out:

Because I was still rockin' a 359 ilvl offhand, the guild leader popped into our guild bank and gave me The Goblet of Anger, a BoE offhand that drops from Shannox.  (Note:  The goblet is BoE in regular mode, but BoP when it drops on heroic difficulty).

The mace and the offhand actually look like they go together, so I dig the appearance despite the mace being incredibly large, even against my night elf.  So, that definitely was like Christmas in September for me.  

The unfortunate thing about it is that I didn't pay attention to just how far it pushed my haste last night as we began heroic attempts at Shannox...Before I got the mace and the offhand, I was sitting at 2036 total haste rating.  That was as close as I could get to the 2005 raiding haste breakpoint without messing up gems and potentially losing slot bonuses.  Plus, after reforging this, then that, then reforging something else back to an original stat, then going back and switching it again and restoring something else...I was on mathematical overload so I decided I would just have to accept being 31 points over my haste breakpoint.

But now, I'm sitting at 2101 haste rating...putting me 96 points over the breakpoint and still too far away from the next breakpoint to warrant keeping it.  I need to reforge...AGAIN.  Which means...MORE MATH?!?!?!  

Don't sit there and try to pretend that reforging isn't like trying to balance some sort of impossible to balance equation.  That's exactly what it is!  You have to add more of this stat to get rid of some of that stat...BUT NOT TOO MUCH...or you have to switch stats on some other piece of gear.  Yeah, there are addons that make this a painless process...

BUT I LOVE THE PAIN!

Wait...what?  

Anyway, tonight I'm going to make a few adjustments to my gear and my spec to see if I can finally own the healing meter.  We shall see.  I did pretty well last night despite having 96 points "wasted" in haste.  Yeah, being able to cast healing touch at lightning speed is fun, but not practical for me.  

This post is turning into a TL:DR post, isn't it?  Sorry guys!  

I only have one additional thing to say:  

Dear Dorc,

     We beat you.  

Love ya,

D

Legends and Lore: Alamo

I know I already posted once today, but we were talking about being a Druid Guru and part of that is educating up and coming druids on the culture of being a druid.  One of the most famous and loved druids of all time was Alamo.  

He once posted a guide on the Forums that people have since posted and re-posted and stickied and probably have printed and put in picture frames to be preserved into the ever after.  

Alamo's original post is the stuff legends are made of.  This legendary guide has found a home on many, many different websites including wowwiki.com.  I feel that every druid, as keepers of the world, should ensure that this legend never dies. 

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UMM HAY LOL! WEN BLIZZ IS HAF SUM NEW BORDS, IS NEEDS SUM OLD POST! SO HEER IS OLD POST FRUM MAYBE LAST YEERS!

Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID! | 11/22/2005 12:09:09 PM PST

sumtimes peeps say 2 me HAY HOW 2 PLAY DURID IDK LOL! SO NOW, u CAN PLAY DURID by only rred this!

2) ITS EZ, u can only haf 2 reed teh

ALAMOES COMPLEET DURID INSTURCKSHUN
*************************************************
OK LISSEN Almo noes about sum durid things sinse the baginning. Maybe B4 durids was week & stuff but now Durids is very storng.

1) OK, Sum durids is bare



2) Tehm whos bare durids, can B 4 tank:



ONLY DURID DONT HAF SUM PEEPS IN THE HEAD AND A GUNZ LOL!

3) Man, sum bare druids can maek sum peeps poop in feer bc/ tehms so storng.



4) Bare druids is not so good at uh moonfare spam but its OK b/c a bare durid haf many armors &

when a thing hits durid, maybe thing gets borken hand LOL!

5) Bare durids is 4 funs when u can charje & stun & haf sum armors lol.
**************************************************
OK LISSEN Also durid haf uh seel form.

1) Seel is can fite, but is kind week.
2) Seel for swim, is fast & dont breeth
3) When seel is gone for fish, is nobody will catch.
4) Seel is can teech frends how is swim



ALSO I FORGETS

Durid has can run fast form is TRAVEL FORM

1) looks liek cheetuh
2) dont cheet or u get bann LOL! JK!!
3) Cheetuh can run fast and him is can run away frum trubul.

***********************************************
AND ASLO

SUM DURIDS IS MOON KIN

1) Them 1s is look all funny liek maybe form MOON! LOL!

2) mostly uh moonkin is 4 a spam moonfare
3) them haf sum good armors & fite storng.
********************************************

DURIDS IS VEERY FAST AND STORNG IN PVP CAN CAST ROOT 4 MAKE PEEPS STOP WHEN MOVE!!



bc Peeps can always ask if cat druid can B GOOD FOR FITE OR WHAT MAYBE?



U NO CAT DURIDS IS VERY STORNG! SUM PEEPS DUNNO Y SO HEAR IS LIST

1) OK now sum durid is cat

2) Cat durid, tehm dosent heel.

3) Cat uis for fite

4) Cat durid dosent talk about fite

 

5) when cat durid is FITE do not ask for HEEL and NINIRVATE!



and CAT DURIDS is no spam moonfare! Sum cat durids dosent no wut is uh moonfare!


*****************************************
DURIDS IS MUST ALWAYZ HALP EECH OTHER:
sumtimes a new durid is need sum halp and advise frum a good durid so u shuld alway halp unother



Even I lernd all this form DURID SCKOLL who has wut uh famus teecher there who is knows all this:

DURIDS IS HARD, & BUT STRONG

SUM PEEPLE THINK DURIDS IS CANT BE BARE AND CAN ONLY HEEL AND THEM DOSENT

NO THEY IS ALWAYS CAN SAY:



BUT ONLY DONT LISSEN TO THEM.

Durids is storng for bare or cat or seel or whatver and u dosent haf 2 heel if u dont liek heel

*********DURIDS IS 4 haf FUN TIME WIT FRENS every1 is like a fun time durid!!

ALAMO LIVES AGAIN!

Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 2

Wouldn't it be cool if I actually had the focus to turn this into a weekly installment?  Well, I'm going to try.  Yes, I missed last week...and maybe a few other Mondays, but I'm trying now.

There are a few things I want to touch on:

• Being a guru
• Elitists, the good and the bad
• Another Firelands Nerf discussion
• Why can't I get the bullet points to stop???
• sigh...
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

 By the gods above, that was an ordeal....No idea why the bullets kept coming, but they've stopped so we can continue on with the post.  Yay, right?  Sheesh...

Firelands Nerf
Alright, since I started in reverse order, I'm going to keep the theme going.  I just wanted to say that maybe Blizz really did go a little too far with the Firelands nerfs.  Friday night, once we all got settled in for the night we took some of our alts into Firelands to see what we could do.  We didn't have an "ideal" group makeup and some of our alts are maybe not ideally geared...AND...they're alts.  These aren't our mains that we're probably intimately familiar with.  


That being said, our Friday night alt group plowed through all of Firelands before we ended up stopping after we roflpwnt Majordomo Staghelm.  Does no one else see a problem with that?  I mean, we wiped I think a few times on Baleroc and maybe a few other trash pulls or boss fights...but overall, the run went incredibly smooth.  It seems like the Firelands nerf might have been just a tad too big.  Free epics are always nice, but...I guess I still miss the challenge.  You know, where I might have to drop a Mana Tide totem halfway through a boss fight because ZOMG WE ARE OOM!!!  I don't remember dropping that more than 2 or 3 times the entire night.  It's kind of sad.

Elitists
You know, it is possible to be a good elitist.  Maybe you know everything there is to know about your class, all of the raid instances and 5 mans, and a bunch of stuff about every other class that exists.  Maybe you are some sort of genius in life.  That's fine.  A good elitist is someone that might know everything, that shares knowledge with other people in a non-jerk way to help another person become a better player.  My guild has a few of these and I love them for it.

But...it's easier to be a bad elitist.  Bad elitists are the ones we refuse to run with, the ones that get muted on vent, or the ones that, ultimately, end up on many, many ignore lists.  


I met a hilarious bad-elitist this weekend and I couldn't help but giggle at what a jerk he was being for no reason.  I'm sorry, but your ability to be top dps, as a tank, on Coren Direbrew does not make you amazing by any stretch of the imagination.  If you're a GOOD tank, you're beating on the little adds the entire time to keep them from annoying the healer.  If your dps is GOOD dps, they're mainly focusing on killing Coren and getting the fight over with since the adds disappear when he dies anyway.  


All tanks have some AoE ability/abilities they use to keep the adds focused on them.  Pallies have consecrate, Avenger's Shield and Hammer of the Righteous.  Warriors have Shockwave + Rend and cleaves.  Death Knights have Death and Decay, Blood Boil and can spread diseases to all targets.  Druids can thrash and swipe.  All of those abilities mean that our dps would be higher since we're damaging multiple targets, versus your dps who might just be targeting just the boss.  


So, my elitist warrior darling:  You're not really awesome.  You're just being a tank.  The group was just single targeting.  Had you been as amazing as you think you are, I wouldn't have had 3-4 adds beating on me for the duration of the fight.  I'm just saying...


Being a Guru
Recently, I've been getting asked a lot about how to become a better resto druid by friends.  It's flattering, but I don't feel like I'm Guru material.  I don't like math, I hate trying to gem, enchant and reforge my gear to get the perfect balance of the stats I need, and I don't know that my rotation is optimal.  I'm always willing to help out and answer questions, and if I don't have an answer I'll look it up.  That doesn't really make me a guru though.  It just makes me someone who's willing to share what I don't know and help point fellow druids in the right direction.


Last night while I was in BWD on my druid, someone I had never met before whispered me asking for advice on tanking and healing with a druid.  Apparently he'd been referred to me by an old friend of mine from a guild I've long since moved on from.  We talked a for a little while, but I can't help feeling like I totally confused the poor guy.  He thanked me and asked me if I would BE his druid guru.  Er...I uh...Should I hold Druid classes?  Like, Feral Tanking 101 with Professor Des?  Restoration Theory 101?  


If fellow druids are looking to me now for advice, I'll do some more research and create more informative posts.  But I can't help thinking:  "If they're looking to ME for advice....these poor souls must be pretty desperate..." 


lol...anyway...


I don't know who's spreading the rumor that I know stuff...but when I find out...DOOM!

Let's Get Real

Alright guys, we need to get real here and I mean really real.  The reason I'm writing this today is because of something that happened in my game life that is honestly really sad.  I'll try to be brief with the story behind why I'm posting this, but be prepared...this could be a long one.

Let's start off with a quick story time:

A few years ago, I met a guy in game that I ended up raiding with quite a bit on my druid.  For simplicity's sake, I'm going to call him Dorc.  We raided together whenever they needed a tank or a resto druid throughout wrath...up until the point I joined Circle (a former guild).  At that point, I was needed for guild raids and rarely ran with Dorc or his group of merry men.  He ultimately quit the game at some point during Wrath, before the Icecrown Citadel raid was released.

Game life continued along and we were friends outside of the game on Facebook or something so we were still in touch.  Shortly after Cataclysm was released, Dorc rejoined the game-addicted masses and joined the guild I am currently in.  We ran a few instances together and everything seemed to be going along just fine.  He recruited me to tank for his own 10 man raid team within CCT and I think we raided once with our 10 man team before we were told that we were no longer doing 10 man raids and would be switching back to 25 mans.  

Dorc wasn't thrilled with this decision, but accepted it because at least we were still actively raiding and taking bosses down.  Things went well during the first tier of raiding content (Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds is considered the first tier of Cataclysm raids) for the most part.  Near the end of the first tier of raid content, however, Dorc started to change...and not for the better.  He had started complaining to me in private chat about how things were being done, loot, and a bunch of other stuff.  

At first, I kind of just let him vent at me, figuring it would help him out some.  By the time Firelands was released and we started raiding there...his ranting and raving and constant, incessant complaining was more than I could handle.  Tension built up really quickly in our friendship.  I try to be respectful of people, so when his ranting started to be nothing but him insulting our raid and guild leadership...it began to really wear on me and we started fighting.  The friendship was on a decline before we ever downed the second boss in Firelands.

I started off being able to listen, but after weeks and weeks of his constant complaining, I was like, "OMG!!!! STFU!!!!"

When we first started off in Firelands, we had MORE than enough healers so healers with solid dps specs/gear were frequently asked to dps.  Dorc and one of our other resto druids were about the only two healers that had decent dps gear, so Dorc was asked fairly often to dps.  This is what ultimately brought on the whole dramatic fiasco that would lead to the end of our 3 year in-game friendship.

Since Dorc claimed he hated DPSing on his shaman, he told guild leaders that he wanted to switch his main to his feral druid.  They had already worked on recruiting a really solid kitty, but talked it over and decided that they wanted him to keep his shaman as his main.  There was apparently a lot of conversation going on behind the scenes between him and guild and raid officers leading up to this that was already causing a storm to brew between him and our officers.

I know that a few other guildies and I, that considered ourselves to be friends with Dorc, tried to diffuse the situation...but failed.  Dorc decided one night to try to bully the raid leader into bringing his druid, rather than his shaman.  He logged in on his druid and refused to switch to his shaman DESPITE being told he would only be asked to heal on his shaman per his request.  Raid and guild officers decided they weren't going to bend to accommodate his tantrum and so they didn't invite him to the raid and we continued on with our night.  During one of the boss fights, Dorc decided to post his overly dramatic essay in guild chat about leaving the guild, then proceeded to gquit.

This was about TWO MONTHS ago.

Since he left the guild, it seems like every time we talk - both in and outside of the game - he feels the need to bitch about how much he hates my guild leader.

TWO MONTHS of this obsessive ranting is enough to drive a druid completely out of her mind.

TWO MONTHS of him being absolutely consumed by his hatred of our guild leader also drives a druid to wonder if her friend should seek help from a mental health professional...And no, I'm not being mean.  I'm actually really worried about this guy.  He has let something that happened in a game take over.  His main reason for wanting to down Ragnaros ASAP is to make sure he does it before my guild leader...

Srsly...wtf bro?

And when he said this to me...I guess I kind of just snapped at him.  The fact that he is trying to turn this boss kill into a competition against my guild leader makes him a douche, at least in my opinion.   The fact that I've asked so many times for him to please, PLEASE just let the game drama go or at least just not talk to me about it anymore...and he won't...makes him a douchebag in my world.  I don't care what happened with him and my guild leader.  I hate listening to people be ego-maniacal lunatics and be disrespectful of people - especially people I consider friends.

So, two nights ago I went bat-shit insane on Dorc.  I told him I thought it was tragic how he's let the 2 month old guild drama eat away at him and become such an obsession.  I also told him a few other things that, well I'm really mad at myself for saying.  I'm not normally that ruthless or mean...but my gods...I just couldn't take 3 more seconds of his incessant bitching and immaturity.  Sorry guys.

And as a testament to his overwhelming maturity:  After I removed him from real ID and put him on ignore...hey, I don't handle being told I'm too fucking stupid to discern the truth in the situation from TWO MONTHS AGO very well.....I found out from a friend that he changed his real ID status to something like, "The bitch unfriended me! WINNING!!!"  

Seriously?  Losing friends because you're obsessing over some situation that happened IN A GAME OVER TWO MONTHS AGO does not mean you are "WINNING".  It means that you are losing.  It means that you probably have some serious psychological issues that you need to consider looking into.  I'm not joking.  I seriously think that Dorc has a personality disorder...or some sort of psychological disorder...and he really probably needs help.

Guys, listen...WoW isn't life.  It's a game.  Some people are awesome, some people are total assholes, and some people are in between.  Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't.  But you need to remember that it's just a game.  How many times have I said that throughout this blog when drama has reared it's fugly head?  I've probably said it hundreds of times by now.

I know sometimes things happen in the game that really just make you want to explode in a fiery ball of rage driven doom.  That's not a problem.  The problem is when you let something petty consume you like Dorc has, to the point where it's affecting friendships and people start to question whether or not you're a psychopath...or maybe some sort of sociopath...That's when it's gone too far.

If the game becomes a source of stress for you then URDOINITWRONG and you need to log out and take a breather.  I mean, yeah...sometimes the game gets a little stressful.  There's nothing wrong with just taking a quick break and maybe going for a walk or calling an actual RL friend (you know, the ones that think you're dead because you never leave the house on raid nights?  Yeah, those guys.)

And honestly, if something happened in the game that really fired you up or hurt you - and you're still thinking about it even a few days later, then you're taking a game too seriously and you need to get your head out of your ass.  Okay?  I'm not trying to be mean.  In fact, I'm actually a little broken hearted at how this situation between Dorc and my guild leader has been a toxin in our friendship that has slowly killed it over 2 months' time.  It makes me really sad.

But again...WoW is a game.  Dorc is someone I met in the game.  Since he's obviously a little mentally unwell and has made it perfectly clear that he's not going to let anything go and will continue to be a toxic person both in and out of game because of this one stupid situation...I decided it was better for my OWN sanity to just walk away and let him do his thing.

Is this post a little passive aggressive?  Probably.  I don't really like being called a bitch or being forced to endure such petty drama for extended periods of time.  

Is this post a plea to my fellow gamers to understand that it's just a game and it's not actual LIFE?  You bet your ass.  

And I sincerely apologize for yet another rant, but sometimes even us druids need to vent a little bit.  I also apologize if it's a little incoherent and doesn't flow well or make a whole lot of sense.  I haven't had any coffee and I wrote this in pieces starting  yesterday and continuing through to this morning.  It's easy to lose track of what it was you were trying to say...lol.

Anyway, just remember it's a game and if things get hot - log out and breathe.  Things will be infinitely better the next time you log on.  I promise.  Don't let things fester and learn to let petty issues fade quickly - both in game and in the real world.

Thanks for reading.  Take care all and for all you Kodo or Brewfest Ram hopefuls:  Good luck!  Send screen shots if you want and I'll post them here!

Much love! 

PS:  Hey Dorc,