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, 

Des's Tech Support: Session 1 - Lockups, Freezes, and Crashes

Last night, my guild took on RAGNAROS!!!

I say my guild took them on because for the life of me I could NOT engage that fight without WoW freezing up and having to be force closed.  I think out of all of the attempts we made at him last night I was unfrozen for...3 of them?  Nothing will drive a raider closer to the brink of absolute insanity like not being able to stay connected and help their team try to kill stuff.

I'm not 100% sure what the issue was, but I have a few ideas...and because I know I'm not the only player that experiences this type of nonsense I figured I'd use this as an opportunity to try and write a helpful post on how to fix this problem.  Well, I mean...HOPEFULLY fix this problem.

The first potential cause of game lockups and freezing could be a corrupted game or mod file.  It's actually pretty easy to see if this is the cause.  Here's what you do...


Right click on your launcher icon and select "Open File Location" in the drop down menu.  This should open the folder where WoW is installed on your machine.  Blizzard's advice is to DELETE your Cache, WTF, and Interface folders...


My advice would be to rename them and possibly move them to a new location temporarily, instead of deleting them.  A lot of your in-game preferences are saved in these folders along with your addon settings.  If you delete the folders completely, you'll lose all of that information. 


Another reason you might want to rename and move them is that I've heard that occasionally the game will refuse to function completely without the files present.  This shouldn't happen, but apparently it does.  If you've totally deleted the files, it could make recovering your game that much more difficult.

You can also manually locate your WoW folder through your start menu, but the exact location will depend on if you've taken Blizz's advice and installed in your Public>Games folder or if you've put it elsewhere.   I usually go the Start Menu-My Computer-Public-Games-WoW route, but that might not necessarily work for everyone.  Oh, and if you have a MAC I can't help you.  No one can.  XD  Just kidding.  Blizz has MAC-specific instructions on their technical support site as well.

If you run into problems doing it that way, which can sometimes happen, Blizzard has additional instructions on their website that can help you locate the folders.  You can email me at mydruidrocks@aol.com and I can send along instructions on how to do this as well. 


Now, Blizzard tech support would tell you to run the Repair Tool at this point.  I wouldn't do it just yet because it resets EVERYTHING and usually removing the Cache, WTF, and Interface folders will do the trick.


But...you can run the repair tool at this point if you want.  It probably won't hurt anything.  You'll just have to reset your visual preferences once you're logged back in.  Not a big deal really. 


The next thing you want to do is launch WoW without any addons installed to see if the crash-happiness continues.  If not, I'd recommend re-installing your addons one by one.  I know it sounds really tedious, but it's better to do it that way.  

Let's say you use 10 addons and you have no problems running the game with none of them installed.  If you just plop all 10 of them back into the game and fire it up and the issue returns, you'll have no idea which addon is causing the problem.  If you install them one at a time, you'll have a better idea which addon might be causing it and you can start to troubleshoot from there. 

 If those steps fixed your crashing or freezing up problem, then congratulations!  If not...you might need to try a few other things.  Here are the next steps as recommended by Blizzard:

• Update your sound and video drivers.  You should be able to do this for free and fairly easily.

• Close all of your background applications.  Running iTunes so you can crank phat tunes while you're raiding?  Yeah, that could be causing you some issues.  You can use "selective startup" to decide which programs will be launched when you start up your computer (which can actually make the thing boot a lot quicker), but this requires a restart.  If you're crashing during a raid...like some druid we all know...you can CTRL+ALT+DEL and hit your task manager to shut some background programs.

• A complete reinstall might be required!!! OH NOES!  This is about the last thing any of us want to deal with, seriously, but sometimes a fresh install will fix a crash/freeze issue.  Once you've completely uninstalled the game and all folders associated with it (you may need to delete some of the folders manually), then you should probably run a ScanDisk and Disk Defrag.  Ugh, I know...they take forever and a day, but hey...if it fixes the issue...it's worth it.  Once you've run the ScanDisk and Defrag you can go ahead and reinstall the WoW client and see if things are working better.

• There are other things you might have to do like updating MB chipset drivers, killing power management, run a system file checker, update your OS if there are updates available for it...or your computer may be over heating or having other issues.  

• If you've updated everything you possibly can and are still having problems, you should consider taking your computer to be serviced and checked by a pro....or even consider splurging on a new machine if yours is a little older.

 Hopefully that helps any of you that are currently going through the same freezing up, game crashing hell that I'm going through.  If you need additional information, feel free to email me and I'll try not to tell you to GDIAF.  Kidding...kidding...


I'm just hoping that the "easy fixes" work so that I can actually enjoy raiding without wanting to put my computer through a wall.  I'll write about how horribly frustrating it was in a later post if I get a chance.  For now, I am off to enjoy the RL thing for awhile! 

A DPS Talks About the Firelands Nerf

Hello, boys and girls. This is Arador, failmage extraordinaire, giving you a DPS-eye view of the Firelands nerf that hit yesterday. Truth be told, this makes it more of my level of raiding: Easy enough that I don’t fuck everything up. However, I’ll admit that it was too easy and even somewhat boring at times. Now remember, this is all from the standpoint of a DPS. With that said, let’s go through a quick re-cap of our guild’s FL run last night, shall we?

Trash 1: I’d love to say that the 25% nerf on almost everything made trash easy as hell… We wiped on the trash for Shannox because a certain warrior was being a tad impatient.

Shannox: I didn’t see much of a difference in this fight, to be honest. Rageface -> Riplimb -> Shannox, same as always.

Trash 2: Now, this bunch on the way to Beth’Tilac felt much easier and it went much faster than usual.

Beth’Tilac: This is when I really started to see the effects of the nerf. The adds were fuck-all easy. Spiderlings? Those went down quick as hell, same as the Spinners. We even had to halt DPS on the Drone to avoid killing it too fast. When Beth’Tilac came down, we obliterated her, though we had to kill some adds that had spawned while we were waiting for her.

Trash 3: …We wiped here, too. Twice, if I remember right.

Baleroc: This asshole was a joke, as always. We got him down long before his enrage timer was an issue. One of our tanks died, but that was the only exciting part about the fight.

Trash 4: Again, the nerf reared its head.

Rhyolith: This guy took a little longer than expected because a certain failgator needed to do something to progress in the quest chain for Dragonwrath. As always, easy.

Trash 5: Same as always, nothing big here.

Alysrazor: Holy shit. I’ve had to sit out on the last few Alys kills because I couldn’t get the tornadoes down. Now? I, much to my surprise, survived. The tornadoes have been nerfed big time, from their speed to their damage done. The babies were really easy to kill, too… Oh, hell, that sounded really bad, didn’t it? ANYWAYS. Because of the afore-mentioned failgator, we had to, I’m serious about this, completely halt all DPS on Alys for an entire phase. Once he got what he needed, we wiped out the ~5% of health Alys had left. I’m serious; the nerf turned a hard fight into a joke.

Trash 6: Holy fucking shit, we didn’t wipe on the guys before Staghelm. This is a milestone for us. I got stunned twice by the cats because I had forgotten how the pounces worked. See? I’ve earned my title of ‘failmage.’

Majordomo Staghelm: Damn. Just…. damn. We had beaten Staghelm for the first time just two nights before, so the difficulty was still fresh in our minds. After days of wipe after wipe, we got him down with… one wipe, and that was only because of a fluke. The Flame Scythes (the ’c’ is silent, dammit!) in his Scorpion form hit a lot less than they used to. Same goes for his Pounces in Cat from. People paid attention during seeds, too. All in all, Staghelm got a massive nerf and he’s practically a loot bucket now.

Trash 6.5: I say 6.5 because I had to leave after the first mob. And what a mob. In case you didn’t know, this asshole makes the lave raise on the walkway he’s on, leaving you safe patches. These huge streaks can even be a few yards apart, giving you only a couple of feet to stand on. I didn’t get to a safe patch.

Ragnaros: We're still learning this asshole.



All in all, this was a major nerf to Firelands and a huge help to many guilds. However, it also pissed off many hardcore raiders who liked the difficulty. Me? I welcome the nerf with hesitantly-open arms, hoping I’ll get that damn trinket from Ragnaros.

sNERF, sNERF!!!!

For any of you reading this who don't like when I rant...you probably ought to just go back to your Youtube pr0n right now because this...this is sort of a rant.  I am one disappointed druid right now...

Dear Blizzard...You suck.  You've dumbed down Firelands too much and basically ruined a good, challenging raiding experience.  You have failed...again.I

Here are the Hotfix Notes:

Dungeons & Raids

• Firelands
  • Hell Hound Rend Flesh damage has been reduced by 25%.
  • The damage multiplier granted by energy to Unstable Magma has been reduced by 50%.
  • Alysrazor
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Alysrazor now drops 1 additional feather in 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers in 25-player mode in all cycles.
    • The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
    • Alysrazor’s Fiery Tornados now move slower.
  • Baleroc
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Baleroc now swings 25% slower while Decimation Blade is active.
    • The duration of Tormented has been reduced on normal difficulty.
  • Beth'tilac
    • Beth'tilac's health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • Lord Rhyolith
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
    • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • Majordomo Fandral Staghelm
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Druid of the Flame have had their health reduced by 15%, and Sunfire damage reduced by 25% on both difficulties.
    • The health and melee damage of Spirit of the Flame have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty, and reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Ragnaros
    • Ragnaros' health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty.
    • Ragnaros' damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Magma Trap damage has been reduced on all difficulties.
    • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty and 15% on Heroic difficulty.
    • Wrath of Ragnaros now knocks targets up, but not back, on normal difficulty.
  • Shannox
    • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
    • Riplimb's health has been reduced by 15%.
    • Rageface's health has been reduced by 15%.
    • Magma Flare damage and Hurl Spear damage have been reduced by 15% on both difficulties.

Doesn't it seem like we just got started in Firelands?  I mean, seriously...

Last night, our 25 man team went into this "fixed" Firelands raid and basically steamrolled everything....including Majordomo Staghelm.  That...sucks.

Normally, I'm not the type to cry about stuff like this but as a healer last night, I can honestly say it was sort of...well...boring.  The first 6 fights in this raid are pathetically easy for our guild.  I'm not saying that we're super elitists or anything, but we've spent the last few weeks learning each encounter and learning how to do it well.  We were already one-shotting bosses a few weeks before this "nerfing" took place, but there were still a few encounters that we had a bit of trouble with and were still trying to learn.  It took us a few nights of consistent trying and failing on Staghelm before we got him down.  Wiping isn't fun, but the feeling you get when you've spent a few nights wiping and trying to learn a fight and then finally, at long last, you down the boss...is just awesome.

I'm going to keep using Staghelm as an example.  My guild struggled with figuring out how many flame scythes we could take at first.  When we figured that out, it was learning how to position ourselves so we didn't screw ourselves over with a poorly placed "leaping flame" circle of death when we got Searing Seeds.  Then it was everyone learning to obey their Searing Seeds timer and not blow us up...and then it was trying to make sure we got healing cooldown rotations set up correctly so that the combination of searing seeds and flame scythe didn't wipe us all out...

I think you get the point.  We learned the fight a step at a time.  Monday night was our first Staghelm kill together.  The fact that we went in the following night, God-Moded our entire way through to Staghelm and then took him down after one....ONE...wipe...means that the nerf was maybe a little too much.  

We definitely should have had a bit more trouble on Staghelm, considering this was only our second kill on him.  I don't even think we got close to our 3rd scorpion phase on him...hell...I think we had him down around 60% health or so before the end of the FIRST scorpion phase.  That means that the raid is now broken.  It's no longer a challenge for raiders that have invested any amount of energy into really raiding and knowing how to play their class optimally. 

I can't help but feel a little robbed of a challenging raiding experience right now.  Sure, it's fun to GOD-MODE an entire raid...but I'm going to miss the actual challenge in each of the fights.  Another really bad thing that can potentially come out of this is:  Bored raiders don't show up for scheduled raid nights.  Once everyone realizes what a joke Firelands has become and they get bored with facerolling it...they'll stop showing up.  That makes things much harder on guild and raid leaders. 

I guess that's all I really have to say about it.  Part of me is glad it'll be easier because that means easier access to epics, but part of me is really going to miss the challenge.

Jormuttar is Soo Fat...

I know it's been awhile since my last post...life got in the way again.  No surprises there, right?

So quick updates:

1.  After a few nights of working on Majordomo Staghelm - He was killed last night.  We were pretty excited to have downed him before all of the nerfs they're making to Firelands.  That makes our guild 6/7 Firelands right now, which really isn't that bad considering the level of difficulty of the content.  

2.  They're nerfing Firelands.  Seriously, Blizz?  I mean, I totally understand that casual guilds should be able to get in and see the content and down the bosses, but I didn't feel like Firelands was that hard.  It takes more focus than the facerolls they called raids in Wrath, but it was far from impossible.  I'm glad we got as far as we did with before the nerf because I think that I, like the rest of my guild, like a challenge and feel as if we've accomplished something more.

3.  I've been leveling my hunter and, to a far lesser extent, my paladin.  I think my hunter is level 73 right now, but I'm not sure and I'm not really in the mood to deal with the Blizz sites and how slowly they're loading right now.

4.  We're getting ready for a new patch in the next few months that will include 3 new Five-Man dungeons as well as a new raid.  The boss to beat?  Deathwing...Don't worry, kids.  I'm sure Blizz will nerf the hell out of that raid, too...as well as the five mans.  

That's about all I've got for today.  I have some other things that might be happening aside from LBT.  I'll post on that if/when things get rolling.  

Happy Brewfest, Everyone! 

Winsauce!

Heroic:  Halfus Wyrmbreaker (25 man)

Yep.  We did.  We totally whooped his ass.  It's pretty chaotic for tanks, and yes, I tanked the fight.

Admittedly I wasn't completely perfect, but next time...I will be much better.

All in all it was an amazingly fun fight.  I forgot to grab screen shots though.  Bleh.  




hehe

Other than that, I don't really have much to talk about.

Just a quick update on my beloved druid.

I've decided that I wanted to work on leveling my Death Knight as a tank to potentially fill another role needed by my alts' guild.  Maybe I should invest the time in my paladin instead though.  Hmm....I don't know.  Guess I'll have to wait and see how I'm feelin'. 


RL calls...so until next time...happy pwning!

WTB Your Thoughts

Some of you already know that the idea of vlogging has crossed my mind...where maybe once a week I would post a video here instead of writing and boring you all to pieces.  I had let that idea die awhile back because I just didn't think I'd be able to find enough interesting stuff to say and my living situation is less than ideal for any sort of decent video production.  I mean, housemates are great and all but I wouldn't get any peace and quiet unless I locked myself in maybe closet...or my bathroom...

But a dear friend of mine has been working on a new website with a friend of his about bein' a geek.  I'll throw the link down at the bottom of the post for you guys.

I fail at intelligent transitions today...anyway...I jokingly complained that he didn't have any WoW geeks on his website.  I mean, really...how can you say this is the ultimate geek website if you haven't even got a WoW nerd on your panel of Ultra Geeks?  Just didn't seem right to me.

Don't you know...Mr. Geek Guy tells me I should be the WoW Geek for his panel.  Uh....and it doesn't stop there.  I wouldn't be writing like I do, quite comfortably, here.  He asked if I would do vlogs.  I instantly started trying to wriggle my way out of it.  


Some of you know me but for those that don't...I'm incredibly shy.  The thought of putting myself in front of a camera and producing a video that potentially...other people would see...kind of makes me want to hide in a well sealed box for the rest of the day.  It's terrifying really.


There would also be the issue of what to talk about.  90% of my posts here are just random jibber-jabber about something that happened in game recently...or maybe an alt reaching a new landmark (like my huntard breaking 70 recently).  None of it is terribly informative.  I've done a few dungeon guides on request, but the day I post them is usually when a fight gets nerfed to the ground and everything I said about it is obsolete.  So what is there to really talk about?

I mean...
 
....It's WoW...right?  

I mean there are patch notes I suppose that could be talked about...But we all know how well that works with me, don't we?  I don't even really read them.  I think it would be pretty hard to discuss, intelligently, things I haven't even read yet.  Hmmm...


I've asked a few friends for their thoughts on this.  Of course, my darling friends are in FULL AND TOTAL SUPPORT of me making a total and complete ass out of myself.  Not surprising really...I asked another friend to help write with me (read: write FOR me), should I decide to take this on.  He agreed, of course.  I wonder where these supportive friends are when I need a back rub or something...


Anyway, the point of this post is to see what you guys think.  Email or comment below. 


OH...and as promised...Here's the link to G33k Lif3

so...like...rawr...n stuff

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Geek-stah!

This won't necessarily be a long post because I haven't really been playing much again...Logged in, standing in SW talking to friends is about all I've been doing.  I've just been perfectly uninterested in much else this week because of a combination of stress and sleep deprivation.  Maybe "uninterested" is the wrong word to use.  I've just been to "out of it" to do much of anything.

Anyway, I'm not here to complain today.  Shocking, right?  I'm here to show you guys this CosPlay blog that we were talking about at work this morning.  Now, I can truthfully say I've never done any CosPlay and I'm not really sure that I would because I think LARPing is just outside of my comfort zone.  There's nothing wrong with it, and perhaps if I had friends that were down with it...maybe I'd give it a try.  I'd have to get good at making costumes though...

Here's a link to her blog!

Kinda liiiiiiiiiiiike....Kamui, actually.  Despite my reluctance to participate in LARPing (Live Action Role Playing - if you don't know what that is) and CosPlay (LARPing in costume)...I have to admit that this girl's work is PHENOMENAL!  All of her costumes and weapons are incredibly detailed and absolutely amazing!  It's brilliant...for realzies!

My inner geek wanted to run to her house and borrow her druid "glowy tier" costume and wear it around for the rest of the day with pride.  Actually, my inner geek was all kinds of giddytarded over some of her costumes.  It sort of makes me want to see what I could come up with for Halloween.  Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of time left and I'm not exactly rolling in cash right now...soooo...I'm just not sure.  If I do end up coming up with something pretty crazy awesome, I'll maybe share pics here for y'all to see.  (Probably not, but at least I SOUND like a nice druid, right?)

Anyway, that's really all I have for right now.  I just wanted to share with you my geektarded excitement over someone's crazy costume creating skills.

Take care and if I don't stop in this weekend - have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend, gang!