BizzCon!

It's 9:30 am here in sunny California. Sometime in the next hour, we're headed over to the convention center with the goal of finding good seats for the BlizzCon opening ceremony! What wonders will be revealed to us? My guesses are the next WoW expansion (Cataclysm) and a new class for Diablo III. I don't think there will be any new news on StarCraft II, except for maybe when they expect the beta to get underway.

Registration for BlizzCon was very smooth. Only took 45 minutes for us to get through the line. I just registered my number from my loot card for Grunty and was pleasantly surprised to see that the pet will be applied to *both* my WoW accounts. Very cool.

Okay, time for breakfast, then BlizzCon! Woo!

Tidying up.

I've added the script from Wowhead to make all links to achievements, gear, etc. show their relative tooltips on my blog! Now you won't have to go off-site to view things. Laziness FTW!

A revamp of the blog is coming soon. I plan on changing my profile picture in September, when I complete What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been. I plan on changing the layout as well, but not until I've returned from my upcoming BlizzCon adventures. :)

Here's hoping I have a new expansion to talk about upon my return!

Lazy.

Haven't redone my avatar yet. I did actually redo it when I got my freaking Netherdrake FOR REALZ but, you know, Dusk was still level 70. Seeing that the cap is 80 now, what would be the point? :B

So. Ulduar: freaking awesome.

We the Darkguards have cleared through Auriaya so far. We've been working on trying to take Freya down, but she is a very tricky boss and we are having a hard time with the footwork (as well as when to dps what, etc). But, I am confident we'll get her down tonight. We are probably going to try the other keepers as well (Hodir and Thorim, probably not Mimiron though).

It's been *so nice* to have a dungeon be a significant challenge. I am having a blast seeing this gorgeous place. Also loving the in-game maps. It's a fantastic idea that should have been implemented years ago. XD

I raided as feral last night, and got to off-tank for the first time in forever. I happened to win a pair of gloves that are basically best-in-slot for feral. I felt a *little* bad for rolling against the rogues, but then again, I always have, even when feral was my primary. Oh well. I was proud of my dps on Auriaya--around 3k for the fight! I'm not even specced cat, I'm specced bear. So that was a nice surprise. I would say those new gloves helped that a lot.

Ulduar gear thus far:
- Unwavering Stare
- Belt of the Sleeper
- Boots of Hasty Revival
- Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed (used my first T8 level suicide for these!)
- Gloves of the Stonereaper

With Maldiriel in 10-man:
- Might of the Leviathan

I am tickled that the upgrades I have been getting to my resto set are all *actually* leather. It's nice that Blizzard is getting a little better about their itemization in that regard. I always feel terrible when I end up needing a cloth piece that some poor priest or mage or warlock also needs.

The last thing I want to share, because now my excitement about going to this year's BlizzCon knows no bounds...

SO. CUTE. AUGH. /death

Whoops.

Yeah... so. Hello! I kind of spaced I had a blog. Awesome.

The (on time) release of WotLK has come and gone. Dusk hit level 80 pretty quickly (I think I was the third in our guild). I had been leveling my hunter after her, but she stalled at 77. Quite to my surprise, I blasted my paladin to 80 and have been doing 10 mans with him. So. Much. Fun.

I found myself rather disenchanted with the changes being made to feral tanking (and with 25 mans we seem to have an abundance of tanks), so, with that in mind, I changed Dusk's primary spec to restoration.

Yeah, yeah, I know. She's dual spec-ed though, so her second spec is still tank when/if it's needed. Disenchanted, but not abandoned! It's great for soloing.

That being said, I am having a blast healing. I don't know how good I am at it--I have a hard time parsing my crap from WWS logs, since last time I checked it has problems properly attributing Lifebloom stacks/blooms to the right healer--but I guess I'm not horrible. I'm still re-learning the instincts for healing. Grid is freaking invaluable, as the way I have my raid bars set up is pretty terrible for healing (but great for everything else). I need to remember to use Swiftmend more, especially since I have the glyph for it. I also need to recreate my "oh shit" macro for Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch + Swiftmend.

I absolutely adore the changes to Tree for WotLK. I had been saying for a long time that they need to buff tree form, give it some kind of armor buff (because it is a FREAKING TREE) or something. Well, ask and ye shall recieve. I also love being able to cast Thorns in tree form, and Abolish Poison, and Remove Curse. And obviously, Healing Touch. Oh man. And Wild Growth is a pretty fun spell, even with the six second cooldown (which, honestly, is not a big deal). Those changes make healing fun for me, again. So, yes, having a jolly good time.

When 3.1 hit, I purchased dual spec for the paladin as well. I figured I could spec him for retribution as primary (because I am all about whacking the shit out of things with a giant weapon) and secondary, healing.

Oh, my god. I am terrible at paladin healing. It literally frightens me.

To be honest, I think part of my problem may have been some of the gear Mal has, but I believe the majority of my problem is that it's such a turn-around from druid healing. There is an incredible lack of mobility--I never really realized how difficult it is to try to move and heal until I tried it--and I have no HoTs to toss up while I'm running to change positions. I now have much greater respect for those paladins that choose to be holy.

Alright, I think that's enough ranty pants from me. More later, including an update of my avatar (I hope).