25-Man Naxx Pug

I decided to do a Pug 25-man Naxx because I was going to miss my guild run this past weekend and I wanted to stay on the same fight 'learning curve'. I was feeling pretty good with my healing prowess lately and I wanted to go and get 'mad loots'! This group knew what they were doing. My roll dice still weren't working. I watched a head piece, a cloak, a ring, a wand - the loot march was going to the same two other clothies in the raid. This run had loot rules of if you need/want/gotta have it then roll. My roll dice weren't working again and I went down to a miserable 0 for 6 on the run. Aggravation started setting quickly. I wasn't winning anything. We went a little further and I was still losing rolls. I mentioned to one of the guys that I knew in the raid that if I lost one more roll I was ditching this raid. It was beyond crazy. We got to a point where the raid leader said 'the next thing is for Mad'. They even felt sorry for me and I was a pug on their guild raid. LOL! We got to a part where a boss dropped 4 items that I could use. I won 2 in a row - finally- and barely lost on the third. I ended up upgrading 6 items before the raid ended at 2 am on a work night. It was a brutal work day the next day but well worth the lack of sleep for upgrading so many items. I upgraded my shoulders, hands, off hand item, chest, cloak and feet. Amazing how it works out sometimes!!

My Roll Cheat Doesn't Work

My roll cheat program doesn't work. What I mean is in the last week I'm 1 for 5 in loot rolls. The only one that I did win was in my 25-man naxx run a few nights ago that nobody else rolled on. That doesn't even really count. I wanted to start improving my gear since I have now become a naxx raid healer (still pinching myself). I started asking around and managed to finagle a 25-man OS run. We did well with very little deaths except myself on the final dragon boss. I popped the soulstone that I had to get into the fight only to be run over by a fire wall that was coming from behind me (that I never saw, /sigh) and died for the 2nd time in 5 seconds. I did get the achievement Heroic: Besting The Black Dragonflight for the effort and had my sights on some Tier 7.5 gloves but lost the roll. 1 for 6 now. We then decided to forge on and try a 25-man VOH run. We went right to the Emalon and failed miserably 3 times before the dropping started. All in all a good night of playing and my heals are coming along. I'm still trying to figure out a healing 'rotation' but I'm really starting to keep tanks and groups standing!

First Naxx 25-Man Run

Yes I did hear correctly. This was going to be my first 25-man Naxx run as a healer! Unbelievable. We absloutely wrecked the spider wing. It helped that we had a 10 man run the night earlier. We knew what to do and what to expect - it was just a little harder. I was healing main tank and some raid during the run. It was a ton of fun. We managed to knock out the spider wing and the plague quarter and I did end up getting a nice glove upgrade. I had rolled on 5 different items in there and only one the item that nobody else rolled on. I kept rolling numbers like 1 and 4 and 15. I think that I went 1 for 5 on the rolls. I also received the Heroic: The Plague Quarter achievement for my first time through. We ended up getting hung up on Patchwerk and stopped by we had a blast with the first two wings. I'm feeling VERY good as a healer and my role in the raid community.

First Naxx 10-Man Run

After getting the Explore Icecrown achievement I got a whisper from my guild leader. I couldn't believe what he was telling me. We were going to be going into a 10-man Naxx run. Yes, it happened. My first Naxx run as a healer. My guild hooked up with another guild who has been raiding Naxx for some time and knew the fights very well. It didn't matter how bad the run went, how many deaths and raid wipes there were; they were in for the long haul to teach us the fights and help get us geared! Finally it was happening; I was making my way into Naxx. This would be the first step into a brand new healing world. I pulled main tank heal duty and backup group heals when I could do them. I didn't do to bad at all. It was brutal and ugly for the most part and we managed to just get the arachnid wing done but it was a learning experience. That was the most fun in WOW in some time. I got a cool ring upgrade and the 25 Emblems of Heroism achievement. As we were calling it a night I thought that I heard someone mention a 25-man Naxx run for tomorrow? Is it possible?

Back In The Saddle

I got bored with WOW. I know that's a blasphemy but it's true. I've been grinding dailies and failing (in my mind) as a healer. I finally got back on after about a week off and I got into some groups today and actually healed well. I think I just need a few runs that don't melt to feel like I know what I'm doing. As you know, this whole healing gig is a new thing for me. I completed a heroic Violet Hold and a heroic Nexxus. There were very few deaths and the group worked well together. I earned my Wyrmrest Exalted status (and achievement) and went and got the epic boots upgrade along with the 'Reins of the Red Drake'! Now I just have to finish getting the gold for the epic flying. I'm almost there. I can't wait to take to the skies on my very hard earned drake!

I'm Not Sure That I Should Be Healing Afterall.

This was an epic fail night. The guild whispered me when I logged in last night and wanted to go do an older instance, Sunwell. I was just getting back into playing after all of my internet issues and the internet technician literally just left the house. We went in there after taking awhile to form a group. I was tasked with keeping the Tank alive. After multiple tries and multiple wipes we called it. We had not done very well and not even really gotten out of the first room. My healing confidence is not at an all time high. I know that groups can make the raid/instance good or bad but when people are dying I take it personally. Maybe I'm not cut out to heal after all. I've tried different styles of healing, different spells, insant heals, group heals, different UI's, I've combed the internet looking for tips and tricks and I'm not sure that it's doing any good. Maybe I'll just go back to 'face-melter' and just live with the expectation that I may never see Nax. Shadow priests aren't really in high demand, at least not on my Kul Tiras server. :(

Naxx Run? Sort Of.....

I was minding my own business running my dailies when Pottymouth asked if I wanted to get into a Naxx group he had just gotten into. It was going to be a 25-man run. I was just about to start helping my brother with one of his alts when the whisper came through. I thought, 'I'm ready! Let's do this!'. This would be the cloth wearing freak's first foray into Naxx. They wanted me to go in as shadow and do some dps. I've been wanting to get Mad out of the healing box so I joined up. I started thinking of the epic loot that I now had a chance to get. I asked my brother if he wanted to go which he did so he went and dusted off his hunter, Zumbo. It took awhile to get everyone in there but we eventually got started. I started to notice some pretty heavy lag when hitting my spell buttons. Pottymouth started to mention something about having lag issues too. Since we were playing off the same network I figured there might be a network issue. We got to the first boss and I got a new epic wand! This is going to be an awesome night! First boss, already epic loot! Zumbo got two epic pieces!
Then I got disconnected, then I logged in, then I disconnected, then I logged in.......this went on for the better part of 30 minutes. My only thought was 'why now?'. This was the group that I had been waiting to get into for a very long time and network lag was going to take it away. Take it away it did. Potty whispered to the raid leader that we were going to restart our router/hub/computers and be right back. That solved the problem for about 10 minutes before the connection went down again and the ISP was down for about 20 minutes. It wasn't our network at all; it was the connection. It never goes down; it always works - until you want to get into a rare Naxx run. I was so mad and disappointed that I couldn't see straight. When we finally got logged back in we had been kicked from the group but managed to get reinvited. We got to the instructor boss fight and wiped twice so people started to leave the raid; it fell apart quickly. That was it. My Naxx run was over. I wanted to punch the wall or tear something in half I was so mad. I spent most of my night dinking around with an internet connection. I finished up my Wyrmrest dailies and called it a night. 6K until 'exalted' with Wyrmrest..... /sigh

Can You Heal TOO Much?

I got a call from Pottymouth (warlock) asking to come and run a guild heroic. Apparently two groups were heading out to take on Heroic Nexxus and I was needed to heal. I love being in a guild that actually NEEDS me. That is a post for another day. We went in with me, potty, pagan (druid dps), frosta (hunter) and branard tanking. We did pretty well. Branard is flat out getting scary as a tank. I know that I've mentioned it before but the guy is good. We wiped 4 times before we were done mostly getting hung up on this one boss that is a big elemental. He sent these rifts out that we weren't dealing with right away and I was getting pounded on and of couse died. We put him on hold and moved along to the last boss who is a female blue dragon. Apparently Malygos has a thing for female blue dragons. Anyway, we handled her without much of a fuss losing Potty and Frosta in the fight. We went back to the elemental boss and it took just under 5 minutes to take him out but take him out we did. I received the Heroic: Nexxus achievement as well as a pants upgrade and a 'frozen orb' and a nice JC recipe. All of the dps players wanted to know what recount said there dps was. I was kind of curious on what it said the healing was. Come to find out I'm guilty of 'overhealing'. I've always had this opinion that if the mob dies and we don't then we're good to go. As I started thinking back to some of the longer fights my mana was getting a little low where I either had to throw out my shadowfiend or drink a quick mana potion to get my mana pool up.
Part of it I believe is still my healing learning curve and part of it can be that the gear is still in need of improveing. One wipe I think was caused because I was actually trying not to overheal instead of focusing on keeping Branard standing. I found myself doing some research on the 'overhealing' topic in other priest blogs. I need to become more efficient with the mana that I have and more selective with my heals. At this point I put a 'prayer of mending' on the tank and when he first hits the mob I put a 'renew' on him. It doesn't take very long before the POM is bouncing around and the renew is keeping him topped off. With mobs that hit hard for more damage I'm usually throwing a 'flash heal' and throwing another POM and trying to anticipate the size of the next damage hit. Will it be a flash heal or a greater heal? I usually hit the tank with a renew and a pom when the cooldowns fade. When the group is taking damage I usually hit the 'circle of healing' button along with a renew here and there. In desperate situations I have my own direct heal and a 'praying of healing' for the group and 'spirit' for the tank but I've learned that POH is a mana hog. It's expensive mana-wise. There do seem to be quite a few fights were there is a lot of aoe damage so other than COH and POH I'm not sure what to do with the group. I know the heals, timing and mana regen will come with experience and experimentation but I do seem to be allowing to many deaths.

How Many Times Can A Mage Die?

This was one of those playing nights when things started off well but finished brutally. I decided that it was time to start focusing on more heroic runs as well as my daily batch of daily quests. According to an amazing website, Be Imba it said that I should be able to handle instances beyond heroic Naxxramas. Me, my other priest and fellow follower of light Bloodyhealin going as shadow, Paganstix our dps druid going in to tank, Pottymouth our undead warlock and an old friend of mine Deb running her mage Cyrenitee. We got to the instance and went to work. We quickly found out that Pottymouth was a dps machine and kept ripping aggro away from our druid Pagan. Potty wasn't running a threat meter so he had no idea what the threat level he was causing. Pagan couldn't hold the aggro and potty couldn't help but rip it away from him and we wiped once or twice. Potty and I had to go do something in real life so we called it, said our good byes and hoped to get back to the run.

An hour later we were back trying to put the group back together. We brought in an outside player to be the tank and let Pagan run as his natural dps'ing self. Our tank was an undead death knight. My old friend Deb came back with her warlock Wiccad. Our group was me, our dps druid Pagan, our pug tank, and Potty and Wiccad as warlocks. This will be great I thought. It was. We blew through the instance with a death here and there but for the most part it went well. I received the '50 Stone Keeper Shards' achievement. I also got a nice epic bracer for my face melty spec. We decided to keep the party going and do the heroic daily: Halls of Lightning. Pagan bowed out of this run and we brought in another old friend of mine Frank running his mage, Fact.

We went into the instance and it was disastrous from the beginning. This DK tank thought apparently thought that he could aggro the entire instance and just keep on going. He never waited for the casters (which all of us were other than him) to mana up or to be 'ready'. Fights would start and I would be at 1/4 mana. We died a lot. My new found healing confidence was now lost as I kept thinking it was me. It may have been a little bit but it was brutal. We got passed the first boss okay but we must have wiped 4 times before the 2nd boss. When we got to the 2nd boss we wiped once but got him on the 2nd try and received a 'Shatter Resistant' achievement. We continued to die and wipe at least 3 more times on the way to the 3rd boss which went down without much trouble. Going on to the last boss we must have died and wiped another 3 times at least on our way there. As soon as I would get the group standing back up it seemed like the mage Fact would die over and over and over. At one point I was putting 'renews' on him to try and keep him up before the fights started. It didn't work. I even apologized at one point for him dieing so often. The mobs kept throwing these spears at us and taking Fact and I out causing the wipes. I was a part of the worst run of my wow playing career. It was that bad. This was the worst tank that I have ever been associated with. Fact died so many times that I actually lost count.

We finally got to the last boss and took him down within 2 minutes so I received the 'Timely Death' achievement along with the 'Heroic: Halls of Lightning' achievement. I was so physically and mentally exhausted when I turned in the quest that there was no chance of continuing to play. Fact and Wiccad logged out as soon as we came through the other side of the Dalaran portal that Fact left for us. I was never so happy to log out of the game. I went to sleep that night thinking that I had a lot of learning to do.

It's Just A Flesh Wound

Yes, this is an actual achievement.

This is an Argent tournament quest for becoming a 'champion' and fighting the Black Knight. After you kill him in the ring of champions you receive the 'It's Just A Flesh Wound' achievement. This is in reference to the scene in the Monty Python movie 'The quest for the Holy Grail' when king arthur fights the black knight. As Arthur proceeds to cut off both arms and legs of the black knight and walk by him to cross the bridge the black knight still wants to fight. King arthur tells the black knight that he has been defeated and the knight says 'it's just a flesh wound'. Classic quest, classic movie! Click here for battle scene!!

Champion of Sen'Jin

I've been casually banging out Argent tournament quests for the past week and I received the 'Champion of Sen'Jin' achievement. I was having trouble getting the whole jousting thing down but at least I'm feeling competant at it now. This is a pretty fun quest line. When I gain badges now from the argent quests they will eventually net me gear just like the other badges from raids/instances.
I've been slowly picking at Mad's stats and gear and feel like he's coming along nicely. This character is fun. The game has opened up for me again. My hunter was getting a little stale but I have found the cure.

Random Thoughts

I've had some recent thoughts on becoming a healer and I thought that I would share them. In my previous experience I've been a DPS'er - burning things down with extreme vengeance. I loved it. I love the thrill of the kill. My other toon is a hunter and he can flat out bring the heat. I love my priest for other reasons; he brings the heat but in different ways. He is a caster. He doesn't rely on weapons so much. With him I feel like I'm using much more skill then hiding behind a blazing cannon that wears mail.
I've just embraced the healer role. I've been level 80 for about a week and already have 6-7 epics. Mostly from items I can make through tailoring and AH purshases. I find myself with a new challenge. I'm challenged by the environment constantly with quests and rep grind and now raids. This is different. When I go into a raid or instance I'm trying to keep the group going. It's a different mindset. Instead of just worrying about me and my damage I now need to be concerned with the entire group. The healer and the tank are the lynch pins to the whole group. If the healer goes down the group dies. If the tank goes down the group dies. There is a much more stress but I love it - I feel alive! When you are taking on a boss it's like they look at me and say 'You're goin' down'; I look right back at them and say 'bring it'! I've added Healbot to my UI and I must say that it helps as far as keeping track of multiple targets and healing them quickly but I've yet to run an instance/raid with it just helping guildies with quests.

Northrend Dungeonmaster

My guild put a group together of me, Branard (tank), Paganstix (dps druid), Frosta (hunter) and bloodyhealin' (priest going as shadow) to take on Halls of Stone. I've been in there once regular and once heroic before on my hunter. Frosta had been in there before but didn't really remember it and noone else had been in there. This will be fun. We got in there and Branard absolutely wrecked the place. Pagan's dps has been going up considerably and Frosta was 4 bars away from 79 and Bloody was nuking away. This was a motivated group and looked like one that was ready to run heroics on a regular basis based on the carnage we created. The most challenging fight in there was a fight were a dwarf tries to shut down this security system. Wave after wave of mobs comes out to get you along with lightning from the ceiling. The group was never in any danger as they all remained standing. Not one death. I got a nice pants upgrade which I quickly embroidered with spell power and spirit along with the Halls of Stone achievement. I was one instance away from Northrend Dungeonmaster needing only Occulus. We had gone through H.O.S. so quickly that everyone wanted to do another run.
With a little discussion we decided to go into Occulus. Branard had to leave for a bit and Bloody was suffering from the remnants of a sunburn so we had to start pugging for group slots. The three of us that were left flew over to Nexxus from Ulduar which was a 10 minute flight! Blizzard needs to work on that. There is no reason why I need to watch my priest on a flying mount for that long. When we got out there I knocked out one of my Wyrmrest dailies. Branard ended up coming back and we got one of our guildies with his geared rogue to come in and do some dps. We entered Occulus with only the rogue having been there before. The wreckage that I have come to expect from Branard continued until we reached this mage that gave us this dragon token. You used it to summon a dragon mount. The rest of the instance would require us to fly around these dragons to different platforms to take out the bosses. On one hand this was a pain in the butt but on the other it was certainly different from anything else I had done before. We were doing fine until the boss before the final dragon. There were 3 specific fights and on the last one we wiped. This mage had a nasty frost aura and every now and then would have this explosion go off and if you weren't standing behind a pillar you took on a ton of damage. I had gotten to far away from the group trying to stay out of the frost to heal effectively. We all got back up on that platform and decided to let Branard tank him while walking backwards with me standing behind him as he backed up. Frosta and the rogue died but I kept Pagan and Branard up while walking backwards. I'm truly seeing the value of group heals as opposed to clicking on individual targets and trying to keep everyone up at the same time. After the mage went down we quickly rezed Frosta and the rogue and continued on. Sometime within this fighting Frosta hit 79. We then flew on our dragons to the last boss fight - one gigantic blue dragon. We absoultely owned him! I got the Occulus achievement along with the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement. I flew back to Dalaran and was able to train for the Wispcloak! It looks really great on!!

Heroic Healz? It Happened.

This was truly a tremendous night of playing. I wanted to knock out the other three instances that I hadn't completed, Halls of Stone, Utgarde Pinnacle and Occulus but couldn't find any interested players. This truly was a strange night of playing. Nobody that I knew was logged on and nobody it seemed was wanting to do an instance. My tank Branard and druid Paganstix and I were all on twiddling our little toon thumbs when we managed to put a group together for Utgarde Pinnacle. Domination doesn't cover what we did to the instance and I received my Utgarde Pinnacle achievement. Cool beans I thought. Then our tank got antsy. He's been wanting to really start doing heroics as a guild ever since he joined up a week or so ago. I wasn't sure that I was ready for a heroic but sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone. He talked me into it; I was about to enter my first heroic as a healer. We pug'ed another Tauren warrior and an Undead shadow priest. The instance of choice was Violet Hold in Dalaran. A good a place as any to start my heroic pursuits. This definitely kept me on my toes as a healer since the mobs hit harder and had more health. We got down to the last boss, the dragon. It went okay but I couldn't keep them all up. Paganstix and the other warrior went down but Branard our main tank kept going. The shadow priest managed to hang in there as I went down. I healed as fast and often as possible in 'spirit' form and we came within a fingernail of taking the boss down but we wiped. I was in such good spirits because as a first heroic that went very well. With any wipe in Violet Hold you get the extreme pleasure of doing it over again. This time we got down to the that silly dragon and I was ready to go. During the fight I was pulled under the dragon's belly but instead of just running away I would throw a quick renew on Branard and hit a circle of healing and then run! That dragon hit the ground as my Heroic Violet Hold achievement flashed on the screen. I got a nice ring in for my nightly effort but more importantly I held my own in a heroic instance. I'm two instances away from my dungeonmaster achievement. I hit revered rep with Wyrmrest so I get a nice head enchant, new bracers, a 32-slot enchant bag recipe for tailoring and a mace which I think will work for my dps gear. Naxxramus here I come!

Achievement Crackdown

I want to be able to make the Wispcloak so very badly. I still need Halls of Lightning, Halls of Stone Utgarde Pinnacle and Occulus to get the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement and train with the tailor trainer for the wispcloak. My druid Paganstix (going as the tank), hunter Frosta and priest Bloodyhealin' (going as shadow) were into helping so we decided on Halls of Lightning. We had to pug another dps paladin. I'd been through there on my hunter and it would prove to be challenging on the healing side of the coin. This same group (minus the pally) had tried a few nights earlier but the hunter and priest had to shut there systems down due to a lightning storm. Kind of ironic. Halls of Lightning, lightning strike - ya. Anyway, we got to the first boss and forgot the fight and we got dropped quick. Okay, I thought; don't panic. Every healer starts out this way. The pally dropped immediately and we managed to pick up a mage. I'd prefer the mage in here anyway. It took us quite a while to battle our way through to the very last boss. We wiped once more and one fight came down to me and just the mage. We got to last boss, Loken who throws a really nasty lightning a.o.e. and I was throwing heals like a mad man. Madagan, mad man. Interesting. Moving along. When he threw out the lightning 'spiders' you had to run away and then come back once the threat passed. It was a lot to do with running around and trying to stay within healing range. We wiped on the fight and only managed to get him down to half health. This was a leaning opportunity. The other priest (Bloodyhealin') came up with the idea of healing through the damage. On the next try I kept prayer and renew on the druid while we alternated circle of healing and prayer of mending. Nobody fell below 75% health with that strategy and we dropped the boss. I got the Halls of Lightning achievement and was once step closer to that cloak. I got a nice wand upgrade in there. That was the 2nd boss fight where I needed a little help but the healing skills are coming along nicely. Not bad for a priest who is used to melting faces.

The Deal Is Closed

Ding! The deal is done. I now have a level 80 priest!! I had done the daily recommended allowance of dailies when my guild wanted to run something. They were all antsy and they wanted me to be 80. There was an outside warrior that wanted to run with us so after a little discussion we selected COS. (Culling of Stratholme) I had never done this instance in any fashion before so I thought that this would be fun. I wasn't wrong. I'm getting a little more proactive with the heals. About 20 minutes into the run I hit 80 and received the 80 achievement! I got a nice trinket upgrade and a new staff by the time the run was over. As a special present for hitting 80 I bought myself a new epic dagger, the Titansteel Spellblade with a big spirit enchant. Now the real game has begun. I'm trying to now figure out the gear and stats that I will need to make Madagan a truly great healer/melter.

I'm Getting So Close

I knocked out the daily quests and then ended up questing in and around the shadow vault in icecrown. I will at some point need to at least get revered with Ebon Blade but I'm so focused on that drake that I can see nothing else. I was pretty tired so I came within 3 1/2 bars before I hit the elite level of 80. I could have hit it within an hour of play but decided to hold off because I was so tired last night. I also came to realization that to be an effective dps'er and healer that I'm going to need to carry two sets of gear. Maybe I knew this all along but this is the first time that it actually clicked in my head. The gear will come it's just going to be a two-front war.

That's A PUG For You

I've added the argent tournament dailies to my wyrmrest dailies rotation. It takes about an hour or so to knock out the 8 or so quests. I have to admit that I'm really digging the shadow priest riding an ostrich with a lance!! I got into a group with my guild and we decided to take on Halls of Lightning. This isn't one of the hardest instances but the last boss is a challenge; this would certainly challenge the noobie healer (me). We went in and tore it apart up to the 2nd boss. We were pulling some mobs when our main healer (now blasting away in shadow) and hunter (they are a couple) yelled out that they were going to be shutting their computers down due to an electrical storm in their area. They weren't going to take a chance frying their systems due to a lightning strike. Bummer but understandeable. My stepson who was going as tank, me (now switching to shadow; gotta LOVE duel-spec) and our druid as dps decided to run Gun'Drak. We added a druid healer and another warrior and entered the fray. It was total domination. We got to the 2nd boss when somebody mentioned something about a temple that wasn't activated. The tank went back to activate it since he was a higher level and wouldn't aggro the mobs we had left behind. He ended up getting surprised by a mob so I ran to his position and dropped shadowform to hit him with a few quick heals. He was doing just fine on his own. The other warrior and low level druid ended up running over to where we were and dragged an aggro train to us. We warned them to stay put but we now had quite a situation. The tank ended up jumping into the water below and I did to because I wasn't going to last long with that punishment. When I hit the water 3 fish hit me and stunned me and just about killed me. When we got on dry land again, the train had managed to track us down and ended up killing me. The tank reeled in the mess but I was dead. The dps druid battle rezzed me and I came out swinging, um, well, healing! Once everything was stablized I switched back into shadow and melted the landscape! Noone else died, we survived quite a situation and were left better players for it. We were talking over our vent chat now about our new disdain for the other druid and warrior. We continued on blazing a path to glory. After the last boss was down the other warrior started giving our tank grief about how he needed to get better. Our tank is 12 years old and was tanking with the best of them. They might as well been attacking me when they went after him. Those two were quickly booted and it was a shame that we were already done with the instance. There are 'jerky' players out there but you have to shrug them off and keep going. I also gained the achievements 'Argent Valor' and '50 Daily Quests Completed'. Halfway to 80.

Gear Check

Is it me or does the new gear look like crap in wotlk??? I'm almost level 80, have all blue (superior) items and I look like I'm wearing a bedsheet with dixie cups tied on my shoulders. I have to get 3 months into Nax raiding just to start looking half way decent. Sigh.

Would You Put A 12 Year Old Behind The Wheel Of A Car?

Does anyone else thing that leveling your professions to maximum level is super-expensive? I might just think this because I picked Tailoring and Jewelcrafting as my professions. I'm sitting at 441 with Tailoring and 150 with Jewelcrafting. I'm amazed at what you need to create items. Things that I used to toss to the side like 'Large Fangs' are now required elements for my professions. Talk about a gold drain. I have to train them all the way to the 410 level just to start getting to things that I can use and things that I can actually sell to help my other causes like epic flying. I've heard a lot of ranting over the upcoming patch changes. Things like epic flying are supposed to be 'less' expensive. So maybe I can expect 4K instead of 5K?? That will make a HUGE difference. (Madagan looks down so noone can see the eye roll) I've also heard of crazy things like giving mounts to a level 20 character. This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of. Would you put a 12 year old behind the wheel of a car? You might as well since they would get it it at age 15 anyway right? What's the big deal? (another eye roll) There used to be a sense of accomplishment when bringing a toon from level 1 to 70. There was a ton of content and things to get done. It seems that Blizzard is trying to zip new people as fast as they can to the wotlk content. There is a lot to see pre-tbc and enjoy. Fights like Onyxia, Zul'Gurub, Molten Core, An'Qiraj and others challenged you to the very core of you character. Those seperated players and raiders. It seems that Blizzard has watered down the game in an effort to include your more 'casual' player in better gear and end-game content. There used to be a time when you got epic loot it meant something. I remember raiding molten core for a month before my first purple. It meant a LOT when I got it. They mean a lot now it's just different.

Inching Ever Closer

I hit 79 today! I just kept a laser-like focus and before I knew it I saw the swirl of 79! I also got two achievements, 'Hemet Nesingwary: The collected quests' and 'The snows of Northrend'. I started the argent tournament dailies as well as my wyrmrest dailies. On to 80!

Hakkar down!

I logged in last night only to be invited immediately back to Zul'Gurub. I went as shadow again! Okay, go ahead, twist my arm. I SW:Pained, Mind Flayed and Mind Blasted my way to Hakkar. Hello me dear friend; it's been awhile. The last time we met I came as Grymly, the mighty hunter. Now I come as Madagan, shadow priest, and you will die. Hakkar put up a bit of a fight but he went down! I got the achievement as well. I have a bunch of coins to turn in for rep with the Zandalar tribe and apparently my 'neutral' status is not high enough to turn them in. Imagine, not having enough rep to turn in rep coins. LOL! It's time to get back to leveling the freak after a few days of helping guildies level their toons.

The only thing left in Zul'Gurub was melted trolls!

I Found A New Home

I logged in last night to do my dailies and to work on my tailoring a little bit. About two weeks ago I left the guild that I was co-gm of because I was the only one in the guild playing for three weeks. Thinking back on the original drama and eventual implosion of the guild before my promotion, I decided to /gquit (which wasn't easy for me) and go solo. I've been paying attention to the recruit tells in Dalaran when I've passed through and the players that I've grouped with asking me to join up with them. Up to this point I've remained my own priest. I saw someone recruiting in Dalaran basically saying that they didn't need anyone and not to bother whispering them for an invite. What honesty. 'Too bad' I thought because based on the attitude alone I would have joined that guild. I gave him a quick whisper letting him know that. He gave me a name to contact if I was looking to join a guild so I sent the whisper. After some intial conversation I joined the guild and got their information into my vent, plugged in the headset and entered the guild chat. It was a great time talking with them and we all seemed to be about the same age. Imagine, playing wow with adults and without the drama of the past few months. After talking a little while I learned that a few of my new 'guildies' lived fairly close by. I felt a sense of connection that I hadn't felt in awhile (I know, everyone say awwwwwww). I had to relunctantly leave my new friends to take care of some 'real world matters' and I hoped to make it back to the game. I did. The second that I logged back on the group invite came through. I joined up and when my vent kicked in I 'walked in' on a conversation on how to take out a boss. I asked where we were going; Zul' Garub they said. I hadn't been in there in years. The last time I ventured into that troll infested garden it was with my hunter in 25-man raid groups after we downed molten core. 'This should be fun' I thought and it delivered as promised. I got to go in as shadow. Fun stuff!! I ended up getting an epic cloth piece. That instance was made for level 60 raiders back in the day but it was still sweet to get it. A drakari bow also dropped. I can't tell you how many runs my hunter made in there to get that bow and never even saw it much less lost a loot roll. Oh well. After a few bosses we decided to continue on another night. 4 of us from that group decided to keep going. We picked up an additional priest and eventually decided to go into Violet Hold. So a drood, a pally, a hunter and two priests ventured forth. We wiped on one of the first bosses who was a big elemental because of an overload of shadow damage. We got back into the instance, rebuffed and came to play! The other priest dropped out of shadow for a bit to help heal. We lost a little dps for the rest of the instance but nobody died either. I got a nice upgrade and gained a little more awareness with the new guild and being a main healer in general. Overall it was an awesome night of wow. One that I will remember for awhile.

I Got Healz

I got on last night with the full intention of running an instance. I went into the LFG channel and signed up for 'dps' and 'heals' for Old Kingdom and Gun' Drak. I got my 2 Wyrmrest dailies knocked out and was questing in Zul Drak when the word came through; invite to Gun' Drak. There was a DK, Hunter, Rogue (that's a rare sighting these days) and a Pally. The DK dropped from the group and an 80 warrior stepped in his place. I was the first one to the summoning stone followed closely by the warrior and we started the summons. I'm tasked with keeping everyone standing and I'm up for the challenge. I have a good feeling about this group so we enter the portal. At the onset I can tell the rogue is going to be my healing 'special project'. He fights out front with the warrior when he should be stabbing away from behind. No problem, I'll just have to hit him with a renew at the beginning of the fight and just be ready. I'm trying to develop those 'proactive' judgements so I can get heals off right as they are needed not 'oh crap, go-go-go-go' heals. We ended up doing very well and noone died until the very last boss fight where my little friend the rogue barely dropped as the boss went down. I got a cloak upgrade, a robe upgrade and knocked out 2 quests. Oh ya and I also hit 78!

Holy? I Must Be Insane.

My brain must have been affected by running shadow all this time. I actually bought my dual-spec and came up with a holy spec to be a healer. What am I thinking? I think that I had my spec selected for about 5 seconds when the whisper came through, 'are you healz'? No time like the present I thought and joined the group. I did let the group know that I have majored in dps but was now trying to learn how to be a 'full-time' healer. I'm just trying to be more well rounded as a priest. Better to be honest with them. We headed to Old Kingdom where I did have some lingering quests to get done. Me, two death knights (still tripping over dk's) a hunter and a lock ventured into the instance. I must admit, I find old kingdom very challenging. I'm not quite sure why but I have found it to be one of the harder ones to do. We got around the first corner and almost on que the MT aggroed everything in sight and expected healing to keep up; it didn't. Our first wipe. I swear I need to make a macro that I can hit that says 'slow and steady'. What every happened to instance strategy? These days its' aggro everything and pray dps and heals can keep up. Aggravating but that's the wow world we live in. It didn't help that I had a new spec, had my spells in different spots on my bars and that this was my first real 'holy' effort. We got to the first boss and I was throwing heals like crazy. I put a prayer and renew on the MT and almost instantly he was at half damage. I started thinking that his guys spec was a little off. Dps spec is not a tank spec. I'm going to have to get a bit more knowledgeable on tank builds. If I'm going to be walking into a bloodbath I'd rather not get involved. The worst part of it was that I seemed to be running out of mana pretty quickly. I threw out the shadowfiend which gives me mana by the damage it does but it was too little too late. 2nd wipe. I couldn't believe the damage the MT was taking and how quickly he was taking it. I barely had time to get heals off to keep him standing. I even had this 'spirit' on him that is supposed to die in his place. I still haven't figured out that thing. The hunter ended up bailing and I did to. I felt bad but the group was not working out. This was my 2nd bad effort out of 3 in the last week so my healing confidence isn't sky high but I'm going to chalk it up as a 'learning opportunity' and keep rolling with it. I've been in bad groups as my hunter too but I've kept on shooting. I'm now halfway to 78 and I created my 'epic' flying carpet but I can't ride it yet; I only have to come up with the 5k to pay for the epic flying. Only 5k.

Magic Flying Carpet

I got it! I hit 77 and am now sporting the magic flying carpet! It's not epic so it is slow as hell but the game changes once you are flying. With some quests you have to battle your way through a lot of mobs to get to the acutal 'objective'. Now I can land right on top of it and stop the mindless killing. I just want to get the quests knocked out and get to the big 'quest turn in' XP moments. The grind continues....

3 1/2 bars

3 1/2 bars and I'll be 77 flying around on my carpet. It's a riot because you actually look like your surfing. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted to last night. After my dailies I entered a new zone, Shalazar Basin. This place is an XP goldmine. Plus I got a chance to get reacqainted with my old pal Nesingwary. I think that I played for about an hour and a half and came within 3 1/2 bars of hitting this critical level. For some reason I'm having fun leveling this character. It felt very much like a chore with my hunter. Go Shadow.

Shadow Carpet, Here I Come...

After 2 days off I climbed back into the saddle and proceeded towards 77. After the 2 mandatory Wyrmrest dailies (gotta have that drake) I flew over to Zul' Drak to continue melting the landscape. I have been doing quests for a full 2 days that I never even touched with my hunter. Wow continues to amaze me with how much there is to do. I entered the 'looking for group' channel in hopes of finding some people to help me with my Gun' Drak and Old Kingdom quests. I continued on in the 'prophets' quest chain where I spoke with a big leapord and bear that had me all over the eastern part of Zul' Drak. A group whispered me about joining a group to go into the arena. It's a group of quests where you fight a few monsters (they get harder as you go deeper into the fight) and get a decent reward for your effort. We had 4 in the group when I joined and we could never find a fifth. It didn't take long for the group to fall apart and I never did get to into an instance to knock those quests out but I did get to the halfway point to 77. I need to start gathering the rest of the mats necessary to create my beautiful, lovely flying carpet. I'll be needing it soon.....

We Apologize For The Inconvenience And Thank You For Your Patience And Understanding

After a well deserved night off I logged onto Wow tonight to continue the blaze to 77 and finally flying in wotlk. After a usual tuesday patch download (looks like hunters got a little more attack power and DK's got nerfed a bit; as usual zero for priests) I gladly accept twice (never understood that, it's like, 'are you sure that you agree to the new patch?'. Duh.) the new patch confirmation and I log into the game. Then I see it. 'Breaking News' on the top left side of the screen. 'We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding'. Seriously?? You apologize? Some blizzard geek probably tripped over a network cable semi pulling it out of a router somewhere and now the only thing I've been thinking about doing all day now is not going to happen. I understand servers, systems and other equipment needing routine and scheduled maintenance (I used to work in the industry) but this is crazy. You are supposed to have back up systems so there isn't any downtime. If this was an actual corporation and not a gaming company jobs would be lost when there were outages (or at least a stern talking to). We pay a monthly fee to play this game and I really don't expect there to be any problems. I'm sure that my refund check is in the mail for the downtime and 'inconvenience'. If I wasn't a shadow priest you would see me turning purple holding my breath.

I Can Heal Afterall....Then Turned 76!

I knocked out my Wyrmrest dailies today and received 'honored' rep with Wyrmrest. I can just see me floating on my drake now.....ahhhh. Just as I was coming out of my drake daydream I got a whisper asking if I could heal a group. Coming off of my recent train wreck effort of healing I decided to get back in the saddle and give it another try. I let them know that I was normally dps but could still heal. I knew I could and I convinced them that I could. We went into Drak Tharon Keep. There was me and a troll mage and troll shaman and two undead DK's. I swear I trip over DK's no matter where I go. So 3 trolls and 2 undead decided to take on the depths of DTK. We blew through that place in about 20 minutes. It was unbelieveable - a delicate concert of renews and greater heals, a flash heal here and there, a few bubbles and prayer of mendings. It was beautiful and not one death occured. I did it! I kept the group up and didn't really stress about it. The tank was really good to. The exact quote was 'it's nice to not even notice the tank and healer'. That means we were doing our jobs and doing them well. I was thinking that being a full time healer wouldn't be such a bad thing. What a difference a group makes. 3 days ago I was hating the whole idea of healing and today I was feeling might fine about it. We did so well the group wanted to keep going so we went into Violet Hold and absolutely wrecked it! Again, zero deaths. I ended up getting a leg drop and got a decent reward from completeing a quest in there. High fives and well wishes were flying around. Next I went back to Zul' Drak and absolutely wore the landscape out grinding out the level. I ended up hitting 76! What a great day! After all was said and done, I healed two instances, got 3 gear upgrades and gained another level. I'm even 4 1/2 bars into the level. 77 here I come. I can hardly wait to see the shadow carpet!

The Birds Are Leaving The Nest

I was out riding the new bear mount around Zul' Drak grinding out (and quickly I might add) quests when I passed by a player who's name seemed very familiar to me but the guild tag over him did not. Then it hit me; yesterday he was in my guild. As co-gm I found myself mildly concerned so I throw a quick 'did you leave the guild?' whisper at him. We went back and forth a little bit and come to find out that he did leave because 'we weren't doing anything'. This is always the dilema as a guild leader balancing out your own personal interests with keeping the troops entertained. I was the only one around playing this entire weekend so it was hard to do anything 'guild related'. I can't blame him for leaving and quite frankly I'm thinking about it too. I'm the co-gm of a 6 member guild. The DK I managed to recruit also left because 'we never do anything'. These guys want to go into Naxx (just like I do) and camp out in there until they are dripping purple. My old guildie and I ended up grouping together and knocking out quests and he helped me out on a harder quest that bagged me a new blue foot item. The shadow freak is coming along nicely. I think I may be in need of a new guild.

Love The Ding

75!! That's right, I hit level 75! I've been camping out in Zul' Drak and finally hit 75. I got 2 achievements as well; one for completing the same daily quest 5 days in a row and another for buying the bear mount in Dalaran. Shadow bear! Is it me or do they give achievements for pretty much everything? I'm surprised I didn't get a 'Don't worry be happy' achievement for making my character laugh.

This One Is For The Healers Out There

Last night was one of those nights when I wanted to play but not grind. I completed my two Wyrmrest dailies and leveled my tailoring to 430 and picked up some epic tailoring patterns. I also decided to go with Jewelcrafting as a 2nd profession. I leveled that to about 25. One of my guildies wanted to go into Anul Nerub and asked if I could heal. I agreed. He is 72 and with me being 74 I figured that we would be okay. It took awhile to a group put together but we managed to do it while I was completing my dailies. The tank ended up being a lvl 70 and I was mildly concerned but we headed in for adventure. We went about 3 inches before the whole group was wiped. The tank said sorry for aggroing everything in sight and said he would do better. We entered the first chamber and before I knew it we had about 3,000 mobs on us. I kept getting webbed so I couldn't heal and the tank would not follow the unwritten rule of 'slow and steady', so a 2nd wipe. We went in a 3rd time and the tank that promise 'to go slow' didn't. I was webbed about 3 times and noone was watching out for me. I kept seeing tells 'lesser heal', 'heal me', 'what are you doing?'. After the 3rd wipe things were quiet and I could tell the group was grumpy. We hadn't gotten anywhere near the first boss and the group wiped 3 times. The tank started venting at me a bit when I finally had enough and piped up. I told him that he needed to go slow because in my opinion he was a little to low to be in there in the first place. I also told him that it was obvious that I was pulling the aggro with every 'greater heal' because I kept getting webbed which meant I couldn't heal. Now maybe I need to get a bit more knowledgeable on my healing since I don't do it full time but I'm not 3 wipes before the first boss bad. The group ended up falling apart and leaving me the feeling that maybe I'm not cut out to be a full time healer. I've healed parties before but maybe 10 times before total. I'm dps - not heals. I can off-heal but I don't want to full time heal. I just know me. That's not what I want to do. I want to melt, not restore. I'm realistic though in thinking that I'll need to heal from time to time to get in groups to finish quests and gear up. I've got a whole new respect for those of you out there that heal full time. It is such a thankless job and you get blammed quickly for any group issues or wipes. You have to dispell, heal, uncurse, cure disease etc. as well as look out for yourself so you don't die. Stressful. Any healers out there with suggestions on how to get a heal rotation down? Any suggestions would be very appreciated. What ever happened to crowd control? We used to use seduce, sheep, shackle undead, etc. to get through instances. Now it seems that tanks aggro everything in sight and expect the dps and healers to compensate and blow everthing down as fast as possible. It's not strategy, it's a dps race.

The Grind

Still grinding through the levels on the way to 75. About 60% of the way there. Last night I did a little recruiting and ran the Wyrmrest dailies. I want that drake so bad...mmmm....shadow drake! You only have to have exalted status with Wyrmrest. No big deal right? I was blasting through the quests last night in Venomspite and Zul'Farak. I'm so ready for a break from the quests and I'm all for running another instance. This is my 2nd go round through the wotlk quests so its easier to blow through quests and know exactly where to go but they do drive you insane from time to time. I'm at 426 tailoring and now I'm thinking about taking jewelcrafting. I think I'll ask the guild what we need and level the 2nd profession based on need. I've actually never had two maxed out professions before. The guild seems quiet. I think we have 6 active members in the 'new' guild now. As long as we are all logged in at once we can do 'guild runs'. My focus is getting to 80 as fast as possible. I'm wondering if I should actually try healing with my 'healer'.....hmmmm.....

Guild Drama

I joined a guild about 3 months ago and played a few days a week. There was definitely some hidden drama going on. About a two weeks ago we were finishing a drak run and suddenly one of the gm's alts was promoted to gm. My eyebrows went up and then I started seeing the /gquits start. We lost the mage (and main dps), the GM the Main Tank. The 'what the hell' whispers starting flying around. I kept hearing, 'it's not your fault, sorry you got caught up in the middle'. Really? We're they actually sorry or were they trying to justify their actions and feel better about ditching guildies??!!! I ended up leaving the shell of the former guild thinking that it was all over feeling very alone and betrayed. About a week later those of us that felt that betryal actually put the guild back together and I ended up being the co-gm. I got my guild back, I got promoted and now I feel like I'm home again. Not to shabby! I'm not a raid leader but I can keep personalities flowing together peacefully. Its smaller but I think in the long run we will be happier. All the 'what about me's' will be long gone getting done what they think they need to get done. The rest of us will plod right along just fine in our new home!

The Beginning...

Melt faces or heal? Melt faces or heal? Truly a nice problem to have. That's the beauty of the priest, you can do both and do it well. I have decided to embrace the shadow side of my priest and go dps. I just love the way he looks as a purple shadow. Whatever he touches turns shadowy purple as well - mounts, flying mounts; it's great. Currently my troll priest is level 74 en route to 80. I was playing my hunter for the longest time but after having a tough time getting into consistent Naxx runs, I have decided to go back to my other toon and level him to 80. Who doesn't want a high level raiding shadow priest?? This will be about the adventures, the highs and lows of a leveling shadow priest, guild issues, raiding, reputation gains - you name it - in the wonderful world of warcraft.