We're winding down on raiding a little for the holidays, but I just want it to be known that we finally downed The Lurker Below. Screenshots to follow.
Also, more phat lootz have been acquired, including the Wildfury Greatstaff from SSC. It is so much love. :D
Expect more after the holidays have passed. Merry Christmas!
10/28/2007.
I scored Living Root of the Wildheart from him. Also, last week we one-shotted Void Reaver and I got Fel Reaver's Piston. I'm the only character from our guild to get something from both TK: The Eye and SSC right now. I am excited. :)
Something really neat I found out for Fel Reaver's Piston--the HoT effect that occurs from a direct heal can occur from a heal via Improved Leader of the Pack. I've found it's really useful for soloing and for raiding (depending on the situation) to top off my health.
As far as healing goes, however, it's not so great for resto--direct heals do not include HoTs (though the initial cast of Regrowth *does* count). But the 16 mana per 5 seconds is pretty nice.
Wow, it's been a while since I posted. Many things have happened in the past month in the world of WoW. I am eagerly anticipating patch 2.3.
In the world of Duskflower, things have changed a little bit. Our guilds started running Gruul's on Tuesdays before Karazhan. We can get a full clear in about 45 minutes. Then we split off to do our Kara runs. Last Tuesday, Dusk *finally* got her Tier 4 shoulders, so that makes three pieces of the T4 set. Also, on Saturday, Dusk got Terestian's Stranglestaff, which was another "it's about time" drop.
On Sundays, in place of Gruul's, we have been experimenting in Tempest Keep: The Eye and in Serpentshrine Cavern. Yesterday was our third go (I think) in TK and we actually managed to bring down Void Reaver. It was pretty amazing. 
There's more to talk about, but I don't have the time at the moment. Class calls.
Saturday, I have to say, was fucking amazing. And, skeptical though I was about that certain Paladin, he/she really came through for us. So I'm glad he/she is learning to play. I am probably a lot harder on him/her here than I should be, but I guess I just have high expectations about people who sign up to go with us in raids. Blarg.
Anyway, Saturday. We whipped through Maiden, the chess event, and Prince like it was nothing. Dusk finally got the Tier 4 helm from Prince (she looks very sexy in it XD). After realizing we had near an hour left of our set time, we decided to say fuck it and go wail on Nightbane.
And what do you know? We managed to take him out! On try number two; though, try number one really shouldn't count as Nightbane aggroed weirdly and we wiped in ten seconds. Our group has really made a lot of progress. I'm very proud of us.
Dusk managed to score some sweet loots other than the Tier 4 helm: Garona's Signet Ring and Chestguard of the Conniver. Her DPS gear is getting a lot better now, especially with the addition of the Midnight Legguards that dropped from Quagmirrian in Heroic Slave Pens.
Dusk also hit exalted with the Violet Eye and was finally able to switch over to the tanking ring, bumping her armor in Dire Bear form up to about 27k. Happyness abounds.
Sunday was pretty awesome as well. We somehow one-shotted High King Maulgar (my pauldrons did not drop, again), though it was a bit touch-and-go the last 50% of his life. Because we were able to get through it so quickly, we had about two hours to hammer away at Gruul, even dealing with the respawns again to give it a few more goes. And finally, we succeeded in taking him down! It was pretty amazing--I think the key was that Chutz (warrior, MT) and Sounder (druid [my personal idol, lol], OT/hurtful strike tank) were able to stay alive the entire time. Broog (warrior) and I were to be backup tanks in case one of them went down, but it never worked as good as it should have. Once, it worked out, but the problem is for this fight, Dusk have to do it in her DPS gear. Dusk cannot tank in DPS gear. She goes splat. Gruul's hurtful strikes did somewhere around 10k each time he hit, and she only had 14k health with the DPS gear in bear form. So she'd get knocked down to practically nothing and then get hit again too quickly to get healed up. I think the healers would have been able to heal through it fine if there was no one else but Dusk and the other tank, haha.
Anyway, it was an amazing fight. We had five hunters in the group, which was awesome. We also had five healers, which is super awesome. I think we also got really lucky on the shatters and very few people had died by the end of the fight.
So, good stuff this weekend! Can't wait to put some screenshots up.
In other news, I've taken to hitting Heroic Slave Pens with a few people from Syk. We blow through it pretty easily. It's really nice. And great for rep. Dusk is about 5,000 rep from exalted with Cenarion Expedition (need... Earthwarden...). And also, due to Nightbane and Gruul's deaths, she is now "attuned" for Serpentshrine Cavern. That is to say, of course, that it was unnecessary, but hey, I am amused by it.
I went on vacation, forgot to update this. Goooo meeee.
Since the 17th, our group managed to take out Aran (!) *and* Prince Malchezaar (!!!) on the 18th. It was, simply put, amazing. We had a really good party that day, I think. Prince dropped the Tier 4 head piece token, but our holy priest beat me on the roll (and I was glad for that--she's got to be my favorite healer of the group). We've downed Prince again since then, and he dropped a different head piece token. Here's hoping that he drops mine this week!
Starting last week, I've been raiding on all three nights (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) with our group. I'm really glad to not be missing anything anymore. I like the group of people I raid with (for the most part) as well. There is a paladin that has been trying to do Kara with us that really needs to learn what the hell he/she is doing, but other than that... yeah.
Due to the disaster that was our group this past Tuesday, we only downed Attumen and Moroes. So we still have to kill Maiden and then catch up on everything else. I would really like if Shard of the Virtuous drops from Maiden tonight. That'd be very cool. And would make up for the shit that happened Tuesday.
Updated List of Phat Lootz from Karazhan:
- Violet Badge (It's a quest reward, but I love it so very, very much)
- Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless
- Headdress of the High Potentate
- Handguards of Malorne (Restoration Tier 4 gloves XD)
I recently started raiding Gruul's Lair with everyone on Sunday evenings. It's been fun trying to learn the fights. XD Gruul's Lair works thusly: there are about three trash mobs, either brutes or priests. As soon as you kill the first mob, you start the one hour timer to kill High King Maulgar (once Maulgar is dead, the respawns won't happen, of course). So, you get through the mobs. High King Maulgar is flanked by four other ogres: Krosh Firehand, mage; Olm the Summoner, warlock; Kiggler the Crazed, shaman; and Blindeye the Seer, priest. The kill order, as it were, is the priest and the warlock first (in that order). From there, melee proceeds to attacking Gruul (and the shaman, too), while ranged DPS concentrates on downing the shaman and the mage. Once those four are down, everyone pretty much focuses on Maulgar.
When Maulgar's at half life, he starts doing this weird berserk whirlwind thing. We have everyone but the main tank group up near the entrance to the big cave Maulgar resides in, and then we have all the other tanks stand in front of the group. Maulgar, when doing said weird thing, starts spinning back and forth between the MT and the group, so it's the other tank's job to pull aggro (taunts work, yay) and bring Maulgar back to the MT. It's tricky, but it works.
Maulgar drops the Tier 4 shoulder token. Which is great, but we use Suicide Kings for that fight, so I have yet to get it. XD The next time we fight Maulgar, however, I will be pretty much at the top of the list for the token, and will totally suicide for that. XD
There are five or six mobs between us and Gruul by that point, and they also have the same one hour timer. We have yet to kill Gruul--I think the closest we've come is 21%. A lot of that fight is luck. Gruul does a kind of knockback which literally sends everyone flying through the air. When you land, you have about five to ten seconds to get away from as many people as possible. Gruul then "shatters" everyone, and the amount of damage is based on how many people you are near (if none, no damage, if three, maybe 9,000, etc.). There are also points in the battle where he causes a cave-in of the ceiling and you need to get all the melee out of there so they don't have a stupid death (I know from personal experience on that one, sadly).
It's tough, but we're getting really close, I feel. I bet we can do it soon!
Wishlist for Gruul's Lair:
Maulgar:
- Malefic Mask of Shadows
- Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi
- Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Mantle of Malorne)
Gruul:
- Cowl of Nature's Breath
- Teeth of Gruul
- Eye of Gruul
- Gronn-stitched Girdle
- Leggings of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Greeves of Malorne)
Gruul drops a lot of healing stuff, good grief. Also: Shuriken of Negation? Totally awesome.
I created a Tauren shaman a while back, and am now really getting into playing her. I decided to go the route of Enhancement, as it is a) awesome, b) really awesome, and c) a good solo spec (though I did not know that at the time). Ishunda is level 19 (+1/2) at the moment, dicking off in the Ghostlands. I will have her go to the Barrens after the Ghostlands stuff is done, as I hate the Barrens and will only mildly enjoy blowing through all the quests at eight or so levels higher than I should be. I'm mainly doing that for the rep. :B Might even bounce back and forth between Barrens and Silverpine (which I do not hate). Who knows.
The highest level shaman I've ever played was Softshoe at level 24, so I hope I can keep up with Ishunda and play her at least through 30. Shamans really get some fun abilities as they get "older."
Also: FROST SHOCK!!!!!
Well, the Thursday group stalled on the Opera--the Paladin tank had to be subbed out because the Big Bad Wolf was kicking his butt. They wiped on Curator a few times and called it, so... that means, not only do I not miss the Chess event (FREE EPICS YAY), I get to kick the ass of the Curator again. XD I kind of hope that the Tier 4 token drops for Druid, etc. again because if I happen to win it (assuming it's not needed by anyone else), I would love to get the Tier 4 Resto gloves. That would rock.
/excited
Last Saturday's run was rough. The entire evening was spent trying to down Shade of Aran. I think the lowest in health we got him to was 25% (on our first go). After that he got no lower than about 30%. He's a tough bastard!
Here's a general outline of the way the fight goes: Aran casts Fireballs, Frostbolts, and Arcane Missles one right after another. You want to have the Fireballs and Frostbolts interrupted (Arcane Missles get called out so healers can focus on who's getting hit, but we don't interrupt them because we don't want Aran to use his mana *too* fast)--Rogues and Warriors are really good for the interrupts, and it's best to have about three people interrupting due to the cooldowns of the abilities.
Aran also casts three special versions of these spells: Blizzard, Firestorm, and Arcane Explosion. Blizzard's somewhat self-explainatory: a huge wedge-shaped fall of ice starts rotating around the room (clockwise, I believe), and if you get near it, there's a chance for you to be ice chained to the ground and get pelted by ice (plus you're slowed). Arcane Explosion is kind of scary: Aran sucks everyone into the middle, casts a mass slow effect, and after about ten seconds does an Arcane Explosion for something like 7k. You have to get the hell out of that as soon as he draws everyone in. And finally, the worst one, Firestorm: a storm of fire errupts in the room and *no one* can move. You can still attack in place and do abilities and all that, but you cannot move your character from that spot, not even to turn. You have to stay like that for fifteen-ish seconds, which is probably why there's a bit of a warning before he casts it (so you can get into position to kick his butt!).
At about 30% health, Aran summons a bunch of water elementals to help him fight. These guys suck, because they're casting Frostbolts all over the damn place. They kind of randomly choose their targets, so the healers have a tough time keeping up when they appear. There are two saving graces about these: they have lowish health, and they are only there for thirty seconds to one minute (can't remember).
When Aran has low mana (hopefully this happens *after* the elementals have disappeared, but it's not reliant on that event), he polymorphs everyone, sits down, and drinks to restore his mana. After getting back up, he casts a mass Fireball. This is usually the time when we all eat shit, assuming we've made it that far.
After all of that, I guess he's a walk in the park to kill, but we haven't been able to do it yet. One of the issues we had last week was we only had two Rogues for the interrupt cycle (no Warriors--Paladin main tank), so we had a lot of healing going toward the spells they missed. Another issue was that Dusk's cat form DPS is nowhere near scale with a Rogue, so as the only other melee DPSer, she was not contributing a lot to the fight (other than causing Aran to bleed *a lot*).
Here's hoping this Saturday goes a little better than last week.
We've started a rotation of three nights a week for Karazhan now. Tuesday nights, we down the first couple bosses (up to Maiden of Virtue, usually). Thursday nights have been the Opera event and Curator (I don't get to go to Thursday night raids until after this quarter of school is done). And Saturday nights have been for taking runs at Shade of Aran and doing the Chess Event. Here's hoping we can take out Aran this weekend!
Here's a list of the epic loots I have received from Kara as of today:
- Spectral Band of Innervation
- Forestlord Striders
- Gauntlets of Malorne
- Ring of Unrelenting Storms
- Bracers of the White Stag
- Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch
- Forest Wind Shoulderpads
- Barbed Choker of Discipline
- Nethershard Girdle
- And of course, the Revered version of this Violet Eye signet ring (would like a different ring though, blarg).
I've done pretty well for myself, honestly. Too bad very little of it (two items) has been for my main role as Off-Tank. Oh well. I don't mind getting the other gear, especially since it'll help if I respec again!
She's getting there!
Dusk is now at the tail end of the Swift Flight Form questline. She needs a run through Shadow Labyrinth to hit Revered with Lower City, but after that, she'll be able to taken on Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls. Watch out, raven god!
I keep forgetting to update about Karazhan. So, in lieu of a real update, here is a list of the Ten Commandments of Being in a Group, courtesy of the Laughing Vengeance guild forums. All n00bs, please read and follow accordingly. Srsly.
I. "This is thy group, which brought thee out of the land of PUG'ing, out of the house of boredom; thou shalt have no other groups before thy current group."
What this means really is if you're in a group to do a run, don't be a bastard and ditch the group to go do another run with a different group. Commit to the run you're with and see it through. Decide BEFORE the run if you have better things to do or not enough time to finish the run. If you're going to be short on time, let the rest of your group know before you start and let them decide whether you should come along.
II. "Thou shalt not wear thy gear in vain."
Gear with sockets should have gems in them (even if it's just a 2 gold green gem). Gear that can be enchanted should be enchanted. Yes, it may be crap gear you intend to replace soon but you can still put a cheaper enchant on it to help you get by in the meantime. These little things help you to pull your weight in the run and whatever your class or spec, that's your job.
III. "Remember the mana bars and keep them full."
This one is mainly for the tanks... it's easy to look up, see you've got a full health bar and decide you're ready for the next pull. STOP. Look down. There are a bunch of other bars there. These days most of them are likely to be a health bar with a mana bar right under it. If those mana bars aren't full, stop and wait for folks to get mana before you start the pull.
But as I said, it's only mainly for the tanks and some of you mana users are just as guilty. Not because you ignore the needs of your other group members before starting the pull, but because you're not drinking to get mana yourself! If the pull goes badly for whatever reason, you're going to want that mana pretty soon.
IV. "Honor thy tank and thy healer."
This one's easy... if you're dps and you see the tank has started the pull, what should you do? The right answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Don't do a thing until you've seen the tank not only close with the mob(s), but has had a chance to land at least two blows. This doesn't mean time your spell so it will land after the 2nd blow, it means don't even start casting until the 2nd blow. The only exception is if you specifically have a job in the pull doing crowd control. And yes, this applies even if it's "only trash mobs". If the target the tank is pulling is a boss, you shouldn't do anything until the tank has had a good 10 seconds to get a hold on the aggro. Yes, there are specific bosses that are an exception to this rule but I'm sure your tank/instance leader will point them out to you.
What does this have to do with "thy healer"? Very simple... if the tank gets the aggro and is able to hold it, 90% of the healer's effort is going toward keeping the tank alive and well. And trust me, the tank is going to take a lot less damage when he's getting hit than a rogue or a mage will. That means the healer doesn't have to throw around his heaviest, mana-hungry, threat-magnet heals. He'll be able to keep healing longer and keep lower threat the whole fight.
V. "Thou shalt not break CC."
The only person that should ever break crowd control is the tank, and that is when they are about to begin focusing threat on that target. If you break CC because you want to speed things up, you're just going to make the tank's job harder because now he has to chase the mob down, taunt it, and hope he can build his threat fast enough. That's no way to treat the person who's playing that tank.
VI. "Thou shalt not pull the mob."
90% of the time the only people that should pull the mob(s) are the tank or a hunter using misdirection. 9% of the time it will be a sheep pull because the mobs present make that a more reasonable pull (ask the tank first before you just do this). The last 1% is for bizarre scripted scenarios where someone else needs to pull because of the way the fight works. That's it. Pulling mob(s) because you're bored and the run isn't going fast enough for your taste means you need to be patient and respect the other people you're running with rather than deliberately threatening the run. If you're in a hurry due to time constraints, explain that to the others in the run so that they can take all reasonable steps to speed things up without causing wipes.
VII. "Thou shalt not steal aggro."
Get KLH Threat Meter (KTM), better yet get Omen. These days there's no good reason not to have a threat meter. And then pay attention to it! Omen will give you warnings when you're about to steal aggro from the person currently holding the mob (which we hope is the tank). This also gets back to the fourth commandment and honoring your tanks and healers. If you do steal aggro, DON'T RUN AWAY FROM THE TANK. You're just making it harder for the tank to get the aggro back and thus the mob is going to hit you even longer.
VIII. "Thou shalt bear buffs upon thy neighbors."
If you can buff the party, you should buff the party. If you're a paladin, that means use your blessings and auras. If you're a priest, get out those prayers. Just about every class can buff their fellow party members in some way and if you can, you should do it every time the buffs go down. Yes, some classes like paladins and shamans have some damn short durations on their buffs (blessings and totems respectively) but you chose the class, that means you get to keep up the buffs despite their short durations. If you're a paladin, consider getting the Cirk's Blessings addon as it will make blessing management a lot easier.
IX. "Thou shalt not be a loot whore."
That's a pretty easy and straight-forward statement. If you can use the loot drop, then by all means, roll need or pass and roll after or spend DKP, whichever is the method your group is using. But when you've won two items and you're looking at a third and someone else in the group can use it, it's time to pass. Similarly, rolling need on a BoE item just because an alt of yours can use it isn't cool. Ask the group first and only if they say it's ok should you do so.
X. "Thou shalt not come unprepared, desiring not thy neighbor's potions, nor food, nor bread and water, nor reagents, nor scrolls, nor ammo, nor anything that belongs to thy neighbor."
Yeah, I threw in the bread and water because it fit well and yeah, mages should provide bread and water to their group but the point remains, bring your own buff food, reagents, ammo, and potions. At the very least you should have ammo, reagents, and a stack of health/mana potions appropriate to your level. For more serious runs like heroics or raids, you should also have elixirs or flasks to buff yourself as far as you can go. And being prepared means having your armor repaired fully for a run.
Short version: We downed the Curator on Monday. One try, no deaths. Smooth as silk. The tier 4 glove token dropped for Warriors, Priests, and Druids. Three of us rolled on it, and I won! 
Fuck yeah. So exciting. :3
Here's a few things I'm excited about for the upcoming patch:
General:
- Resilience Rating: The reduction to the percent chance to get a critical strike now also reduces the damage dealt by damage over time effects by the same percentage.
- Mac Movie Capture: the Mac client can now capture in-game video to QuickTime movie files using a configurable choice of codec (H.264, Motion JPEG, or Pixlet), resolution, and frame rate. Two new entries have been added to the Key Bindings dialog for start/stop recording and for cancellation of a recording. For more detailed configuration options please see the Mac Options panel in game. Mac OS X 10.4.9 and QuickTime 7.1.6 or better are required. Not all machines have enough performance to smoothly capture video at high frame rates; end user experimentation will be required to find appropriate settings for each system.
Druids:
- Enrage: If this buff is clicked off early, the armor penalty it causes will now be removed as well.
- Enrage and Furor should no longer initiate combat, though it will prevent rage decay for the duration.
Paladins:
- Blessing of Kings, Light, Might, Salvation, Sanctuary and Wisdom increased to 10 minutes. (Fucking YES)
- Hammer of Wrath cast time reduced to .5 seconds, global cooldown reduced to .5 seconds.
World Environment:
- The following old-world factions have had their acquisition rate significantly increased: Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn, Timbermaw Hold. (About goddamn time)
- Monstrous Kaliri: This creature now has loot. (Also about goddamn time)
Also, I found out that the final part of the Yenniku quest chain (Stranglethorn Vale) is working again after 2.0. I'm so very glad to see that. Means I can actually complete it, which I have never been able to do. Fun!
Yeah... I made the jump into the Feral tree about fifteen minutes after I made my last post.
Feral is a very interesting talent tree for the sole reason that you essentially gain two trees in one. You gain improvements in Bear/Dire Bear form as well as improvements in Cat form.
For the uninformed, Bear/Dire Bear form is essentially a tank form. Users gain enhanced armor and stamina, as well as added attack power. Cat form allows for Druids to basically become rogues--users gain additional attack power (based on your Agility) and the ability to stealth.
In my short time of playing Dusk as a Feral Druid, I have learned a great deal about tanking. I don't think I have learned enough, but I am getting to a point where I am understanding a lot about all the intracacies of the way aggro works and how to use it.
Dusk's armor, HP, and such at the moment are as follows (with Mark of the Wild at +340 armor, +14 to all stats, +25 to all resistances):
Duskflower (Dire Bear Form):
HP: 12069
Strength: 262 (+ to attack power @ 504)
Agility: 222 (+ to Crit @ 9.84%, + to armor @ 444)
Stamina: 806 (+ to HP @ 7880)
Damage: 365-423 (157.7 dps)
Attack Power: 1356 (+96.9 dps)
Hit Rating: 29
Critical Chance: 20.84%
Armor: 18714 (reduces damage taken by 63.93%)
Defense: 412 (+ to chance to dodge by 2.48%)
Dodge: 22.87%
Resillience: 38
Intellect and Spirit do fuck all for a Feral Druid, so they're not listed; the same goes for Parry and Block--can't do either one. This very reason is why I suspect Blizzard threw on so much resillience to armor from the Arena Vendor, for example, and why defense is not such a big emphasis. But I could also be talking out of my ass on this.
Dusk is very comperable to a warrior or paladin tank with her current gear. It can only go up from here.
For contrast, here are Dusk's kitty stats, again, with MotW on (note: I have very little gear for Cat form, so I usually just use my tanking gear... oddly enough, it works alright):
Duskflower (Cat Form):
HP: 8152
Strength: 266 (+ to attack power @ 512)
Agility: 303 (+ to attack power @ 303 [+140], + to Crit @ 13.08%, + to armor @ 606)
Stamina: 433 (+ to HP @ 4150)
Damage: 178-202 (189.9 dps)
Attack Power: 1789 (+127.8 dps)
Hit Rating: 55
Critical Chance: 24.08%
Armor: 3792 (reduces damage taken by 26.43%)
Defense: 376 (+ to chance to dodge by 2.48%)
Dodge: 28.11%
Resillience: 34
Considerably better roguish stats, but definitely lacking compared to a 70 rogue. I just don't have the gear for it right now, but I'm gathering it. For example, I just got the quest reward Stealther's Helm of Second Sight, which has three lovely sockets waiting to be filled.
Anyway, I have more adventures in Karazhan to post about, but I haven't the time right now. Suffice to say it involves a lot of pwning and we were on the receiving end last Saturday...
Okay, so now I'm considering a feral spec. Preferably this one. I think I'm going to do it because my armor for Dire Bear form is at 15,800 and I'm interested to see how much higher it can go! Also because it's hilarious to try and solo stuff like Stratholme with it.
I found the talent in the Balance tree that I lost when I respeced to Restoration--Lunar Guidance, which at 3/3 ranks increases spell damage and healing by 25% of your total intellect. If I ever go back to Boomkin-ing, I'm going to have to do some awesome 34/0/27 shit, so I can still heal ftw.
I think something I realized about the Restoration tree is that it's kind of counter-productive. There are a lot of talents that go toward making Healing Touch better (as well as Tranquility). But! In Tree of Life form, you can't use Healing Touch (or Tranquility).
So, let's say you decide to give up Tree of Life form--you can cheese it a little bit by going with the 23/0/38 spec and still get a shitload of healing done with HoTs. You still have the fun healing spells like Nature's Touch and Swiftmend (lovelovelove). Plus, at the very least, Healing Touch and Tranquility will be accessible anytime.
Hell, I might do *that*, actually.
I am so indecisive!
First: Duskflower's new spec is here.
So, resto. The strange thing (well, until I realized why) was that after the respec, Dusk's +healing actually went down. It took me a bit to realize that there are several talents in the balance tree that increase stuff like that (Edit: Lunar Guidance is the only one I could find, but it's top rank is +25% of your int to damage and healing, so there you go...). So... oh well. Her +healing is around +875 now. I've gotten a bit more *good* healing gear for her since the respec, like these shiny Boots of the Glade-Keeper.
Swiftmend has to be one of the coolest healing spells ever. For those not informed, Swiftmend consumes one Rejuvination or one Regrowth on the target to heal all the HoT at once. Example: if a target has Rejuv. cast on them, they get all 12 seconds of HoT all at once, there by consuming said Rejuv. It's really fucking cool.
Tree of Life form is kind of dorky, honestly (though it's kind of hilarious to see a tree running after a party). I love the bonus--healing for the party is increased by 25%--but it's somewhat of a pain to be walking at 80% speed. I can live with only being able to cast heal over time spells (HoTs), as I'm used to only being able to cast balance spells in Moonkin form. But, I think it would make sense if there was some sort of armor bonus (like there is with Moonkin form), seeing as you become a tree. You know, made of wood. Maybe drop your fire resistance down or something to compensate.
I have found that there's a really nice combination of spells using Nature's Swiftness (causes next Nature spell cast to be instant, three minute cool down) and Swiftmend that can emulate a nuke heal while in Tree of Life form. Nature's Swiftness --> Regrowth --> Swiftmend = big, quick heal.
All-in-all, I'm enjoying playing a dedicated healer now. I still have balance gear (which really needs some upgrading) in addition to feral gear (which isn't too bad--15k armor in Dire Bear form!), so I can play the other roles as needed. But it's nice to not have to worry too much about it.
So. Recent adventures with my guild have included a couple of noteable things, mainly heroic Mechanar. What a ball that was. Well, until the last boss, anyway. We kept dying because I literally could not heal fast enough. Even with the shadow priest that was with us dropping out of Shadowform and assisting. It was fucking insane. We had to switch members after a few tries--our MT dropped out and the OT took over for him. We gained a rogue as well. That was the tide-turner, I think. We just needed that extra bump up of DPS to finally take the asshole out. Also, I didn't have a problem healing then. I was also finally able to hit Tranquillity before I got taken out... actually, the whole instance, I kept dying first, even if our tank had all the goddamn aggro. Stupid *smart* AI. Augh. The motto became "if the druid dies, we beat the boss" (where it used to be the rogue).
I signed up for another Karazhan run on Saturday. I'm hoping my healing will be sufficient for the group, seeing as Dusk is full Restoration spec now. Cross your fingers for me.
I just respecced Maldiriel, my level 42 Blood Elf Paladin. No big changes--he started off protection, and is still protection, but the first time I specced prot, I did it messily. Now it's a tighter build. See it here.
After he finishes off the prot tree, I'll probably spec the remaining points in retribution. But maybe not. I don't know. It's not like he's leveling real fast anyway--the boyfriend and I only really play our palis together, so one will not get ahead (they're probably within a bubble or two of xp from each other). I've got a while to think about it.
Meanwhile, I've taken to playing a Draenei Warrior on a different server. My boyfriend also has an almost identical character and we're doing the level together thing with them. I do somewhat miss playing Alliance. Levels 10-30 are a piece of piss on that side. Not so much for Horde. Though if you make it through to 30 on Hordeside, you're pretty much golden for the rest of the grind to 70.
Let it just be said--warriors are hella fun for a while, but sometimes the button mashing gets to be annoying (says the person who loves playing rogues). I guess it's almost too repettive--charge, heroic strike, maybe a rend, heroic strike, rinse, repeat. And I know a lot of that is due to the low level of the character (12, I think). But I think that is the reason I end up never having a warrior higher than 19 or 20. I get bored. I am hoping that the Draenei keeps my interest though. Racial healing ability ftw.
I've tweaked the hell out of this blog over the past few hours. I hope it does not look like crap.
So hi, I'm Akiotena. I'm not exactly new to the world of blogging--I've had this account since 2001, but never really got into it as it was sadly lacking by way of ease of use. It has been quite a long time though, and it is much easier to navigate Blogger and its associated sites now, so... here I am.
This is probably going to be a bunch of me just rambling on about whatever comes to mind, mostly World of Warcraft, as that game absorbs a lot of my time). So! Here we go!
First, a brief introduction to my character, Duskflower:
Dusk is a level 70 druid, as you may be able to tell from the picture in my profile. She is a "Boomkin", a balance druid at 41/0/20 (I love me some Force of Nature). She often gets called on to heal and for that purpose she's got a ridiculous amount of healing gear. I would still like to play her more in doing DPS instead of heals, but I honestly don't mind healing. I find it rather fun.
My illustrious guild, Chaotic Onslaught, along with sister guild Syk, has begun to run Karazhan. It's been at least a month trying to get all the pertinent members keyed, but we finally did it. Tuesday was my first adventure and I managed to score an epic ring--the Spectral Band of Innervation. Which is hot. It's the first epic I've ever gotten. Hell, it's the first raid I've ever been in. I leveled Dusk to 60 about a week before the expansion came out. As such, I never got to really experience end game content before the expansion was released and blew all of that away.
On the subject of Karazhan, I've always adored the lore behind Warcraft. I've been playing the games since Warcraft II, and the storyline is wonderful. It feels extra special to finally be able to enter the mystical place that Medivh once lived in. Crazy ol' Medivh. I wonder if he'll show up again. I bet he does.
Anyway, the dungeon--we had four people that could heal (including myself), none actually specced for it. One of the paladins went and respecced to Holy right then and there and was more or less reliable, but it seemed like he was having a hard time with keeping up on heals. I backed him up, though I really had nothing to do until boss attempts, or if one of the two hunters had their traps resisted (it should be noted in this case that if they were hit more than once by the elite horses they *just died*, regardless of heals).
The first go through (and by this, I mean from the beginning to the first boss), I can't remember how many times we wiped or lost individual party members. There is a twenty-five minute timer essentially; that is, you have twenty-five minutes to kill all of the mobs and take down the first boss before you have mobs respawning. Why are the respawns important? Because if you initiate the fight with the first boss, all the mobs alive attack as well. Well, the first go, we did not make the timer, so when we attacked Midnight, we aggroed a bunch of other horses and ate shit.
The second go was better, however. We had kind of gotten used to the team dynamic at that point, and we cleared the mobs pretty easily (and well within the twenty-five minutes).
The actual fight with Midnight and Attumen the Huntsman was a tough heal. I was blown away by the amount of mana I went through in such a short time (I must have had about 9k). Of course, you know, HELLO RAIDING N00B, but still. Managed to keep the important party members up. I think. It was a turbulent time. Anyway, the ring I linked earlier and the Harbinger Bands dropped. The mage ended up taking the bands, and the shadow priest and I rolled for the ring. Needless to say, I was pretty jazzed when I won.
After the boss fight, the raid is saved to your character for the remainder of the week (until the reset!), so all those mobs were perma-dead. YAY.
We decided to head upstairs and attempt to take down Moroes and his cronies. At least, after everyone got portaled around and repaired (my gear had gone red by the time we *made it up* the stairs).
It was... well, quite unsuccessful. We found out that Moroes likes to kill healers first, and guess who was the top of the healing aggro list? Yeah. In both attempts, I died in less than a minute after the beginning of the fight. It was more or less an instant kill, too--somewhere around 7500 damage in one hit (2k armor and only about 7k HP does not a strong character make).
Needless to say, feeling pretty useless.
After that second attempt at Moroes, we called it quits, having at least had a small victory in killing one of his cronies. There is another planned attempt on Friday, and hopefully we will have a better mix of classes for it.
Personal Loot Round-up:
1x Spectral Band of Innervation
1x Design: Brilliant Dawnstone (sent to our resident Jewelcrafter)
Alright, I've spouted enough for now. It felt nice to get this all down though. I think I might just make this habittual. Or something.
