Saturday, October 31, 2009

We now interrupt our semi-regularly scheduled blog for the following announcement...

Lyllea's jewelcrafting and mining are now both in the lower 300s. Much ore was sacrificed per point.

She still doesn't have the stupid helm.

That is all...

Friday, October 30, 2009

Well, after over a week of no WoW, it's been good to be able to play again. Sadly, I may not end up getting Hallowed on Lyllea, due to lack of trick or treating, but I still have two days to get that stupid helm. All my hunter needs is GNERD rage, and I've just been procrastinating on that. Ick pvp.

I'm currently tinkering with a disc damage spec. Yes, I know, disc is for damage mitigation, but she does do decent damage. Really. Especially with the Glyph of Smite. Granted, shadow might do much more, and eventually I will try it, but for the moment, I love disc.

Other than that, I've mostly been working on my list of stuff to do before Cat and leveling professions. Loremaster's on hold till after the next patch, since I will be able to get an addon that tells me what I've done in old world. Yays.

And just a brief reminder, some pets may become unavailable with Cat. The Azure Whelpling, the Mechanical Chicken, the Ancoma Chicken, and the engineering pets from Gnomer are top of my list to get if you haven't already.
Azure Whelpling drops from elites in Azshara, and that zone's getting a complete revamp.
The Mechanical Chicken takes three quests (Feralis, Hinterlands, and Tanaris) and so if any of those zones is altered, it may go away.
The Ancoma chicken (and I may have that name wrong) is purchased at the racetrack in Thousand Needles, and with the flooding of that zone, the NPC may drown.
And with hints of Gnomer getting a revamp, the schematics for the two engineering pets may no longer be available.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Well, while I know Hallow's Eve has started, I haven't been able to log in to do any of it yet.

Mr Chilly is ridiculously cute, and I am proud to have him as my 77th pet. Yes, the fawn is mine. Now to get all the baby dragons and hatchlings.... because I can and I wanna.

I tried Aion this weekend (because the person I'm visiting has an account) and well, it wasn't bad. Very pretty and I liked being able to level by gathering (it's so nice to put my "ooh, an herb" skills to good use), but I'm not forsaking WoW for it any time soon. PVP focus at high levels = no.

Next post: actual semi-useful content once I get home to my own machine. Which will only be after the 7 hour drive tomorrow. Ick.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Links for Vudho, and a better screenie

I should not post that late at night. I just shouldn't. I forget things like, say, links.
Vuhdo is on curse here
The 80+ thread on Vuhdo on the Plus heal forums is there
and last, but not least, the VuhDo wiki is there.

I will be going out of town this week, so the blog may be a bit light on content. But did you know that there's a new achievement for collecting all the rare pets (the crocs, raptors, and whelplings at least) that's been datamined? Guess I should bite the bullet and get farming. Cause once that's introduced, the prices will go up, and they're already high.

Raiding frustrations were discussed with guild leadership (aka my friend Fi, the awesome-sauce healer) and we'll be doing hit head against wall for bit (with the wall being either Ony or TOC), then hit Ulduar.

And last, but not least, the priest's current raid setup. Or rather, BG setup, since she hasn't raided yet and is unlikely to till 80. 5 mans, yeah, raids no. She has been doing a lot of pvp, since I've discovered the fun of it. Granted, the only BGs I actually really understand are Eye and WSG, but run behind and heal seems to work in all of them. The druids do keep beating me on the meters, but a) I'm mitigation far more than healing (since I can PW:S while moving), and b) if I have a spell I can move and heal with, I don't know what it is. My damage is laughable, but my healing's what counts. I did switch out shadowed unit frames for pitbull, but we'll see if I keep it. I love the look of the portraits like that, but the options confuse me, and I ended up adding vuhdo to my hunter's ui just so I had some sort of raid frames I knew how to fiddle with.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Actual useful stuff (I know, you've all just died of shock)

Part of leveling Lyllea is figuring out the whole healing thing. And after doing some research (and asking in wow_ladies), I found the shiny, decently-easy to set up healing addon of my dreams.

Vuhdo.

It tells me buffs and debuffs, and I was able to add Weakened Soul and Power Word: Shield to it. It also allows me to just mouse over someone's square and hit the left mouse button to PW:S, the right to Flash heal, and wow, is that useful both in soloing and running stuff. And it allows me to have a funny resurrection saying without building a macro, and there's nifty buffing things (which I have not played with since a 5 man is pretty easy to keep buffed and I don't even try in pvp).

Anyway, here's it is while questing...



And here's a screenshot from Alterac Valley (and I've neated things up a bit since but I haven't been in a raid since, so no new screencap. I'll post an updated one as soon as I have one). Basically, now all the raid frames fit into the gap between my bars so they're front and center, but I can still see where I am and that I'm not standing in fire.


Nifty things to point out...
people greyed out are out of range for casting.
you can see my custom PW:S and Weakened Soul debuff on someone in group 6.
it's clear and easy for me to read (and tells me how much my heals will hit for on the bars).

Plus, there's an 86 page thread on it, the developer responds quickly and does his.her best to fix bugs as they are reported, and it's fairly useable just out of the box, but has a ton of customizable options.

And here's a slightly better picture. Because I was busy healing in the BG rather than screencaping, it isn't that good, but you can at least see the bars and more or less how I've arranged them.

Don't mind me, I just need to rant

*cough*
Raid was frustrating for the second week in a row. I JUST WANT TO GO TO ULDUAR. Not TOC, not Onyxia, Ulduar. I still have a ton of upgrades I could get there, and I'd like to see all of it, and you know, we might not spend the entire evening wiping. I don't mind wiping, but after the 6th or 7th try, I'd kinda like to go hit something we can take down. Yes, we've taken down Ony, once, and the beasts once, but we've also wiped a lot on both of them, and I feel like I spend 3 hours of my life, and at least a hundred gold, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Why we can't wipe on one for a bit, then hit Ulduar and take down Flame Leviathan and XT and Razorscale, maybe make it all the way to Freya if we feel ambitious, and then hit TOC the next night is beyond me. (I do know why we went to TOC, but I don't agree with it, and I think we would have done far better to hit Ulduar and try TOC when we're fresh)

Plus, Freya's room makes me happy with the ridiculous amount of herbs. TOC, well, that is not a happy. That is a "frack, this again. I hate this," thing. It's a gear check/skill check and you know, I'd be much more successful if I got some gear from Ulduar first. (I have no idea where the rest of the raiders are gear-wise, so I can't speak for them. They may have geared completely past Ulduar by running heroics, but given the faceplanting, I'm not so sure) Now, Ony, Ony I don't mind. It's a short fight, and wiping isn't too painful. But the beasts, well, you wipe to the third one, you have to start all over again with the snobolds.

So what do I do while I'm frustrated and bored and waiting for everyone to come back from afks?

If you said redesign my ui, you'd be right. And I would have a screenshot, but for some reason WoW stopped registering me hitting print screen right after Lyllea helped win Eye of the Storm. No clue why, really, and I am far too tired and migrainy to figure it out.

And to any guildies reading this, please do not take it personally. I just need to rant, okay, and since it's my blog, I figure I can rant here. And while I'm ranting... Raids go on calendar at least 36 hours before raid, please? Generally I assume raids on Thursday, but the other one/two raiding days (if they happen at all) are always up in the air, and if you schedule something for Monday after Sat, I probably won't see it. Now I know, I'm just a dps and not essential, but I do show up every week (unless I say I won't be there ahead of time) and I'm flasked and I generally manage to not die in the fire and do what I'm told. Am I the best raider ever? Heck, no. And am I a good raid leader? No, cause I loathe telling people what to do. Seriously, seriously loathe it.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Things to do:

In an effort to keep myself semi-organized, I figured I should make out a to-do list of stuff I want to get done before Oct ends. Or just get done, period. Getting it all done before Oct ends would be nice. This includes stuff I want to get done before Cat hits, which might give you guys some ideas on stuff you want to do before Cat as well. Yes, that is my justification for posting this here.

1. Get Lyllea the Hallowed title. This means she needs to get to Northrend, and needs to be moved to the main account (for the Tome of Cold Weather Flying and heirloom gear). Since she's hit 64, I don't think getting her to 75ish should be too much of a problem. Yes, still having a blast leveling disc, and have even dipped my toe into pvp on her. Much more fun than it is on the hunter. Just need to stick with a fairly large group and heal and shield everyone I can. Plus, people actually try to defend me. Granted, I have very little idea what I'm doing in any battlefield, but I'll learn.

2. Roll a DK on the second account (before I transfer Lyllea) and start leveling alts via dungeon runs. I have 3 alts at Deadmines levels, and well, the the rogue and the fighter are probably not going to get leveled any other way. (I'm hoping that, like Lyllea, they will be much more fun at higher levels) And that allows me to do the same on other servers to level Horde side. I would like to get Loremaster on one Horde and one Alliance before Cat, but I really doubt that's going to happen.

3. Get Garetia the Hallowed title. Also, finish at least 2 more zones in Northrend, one in Outlands, and two in Eastern Kingdoms for Loremaster. (I have/really want to get Loremaster done before Cat hits, so I figure if I break it up, it won't be so painful).

4. Get Lyllea's mining and jewelcrafting to a point where I can level them while I level her. So far she's hit Mithril in mining, and is lagging on jcing. This is actually tomorrow's job. I've already leveled her past Hellfire, so I need to get this done.

5. Get exalted with the Skyguard and unlock the Netherwing on Garetia. Possibly on Lyllea as well. (or at least unlock the factions on her)

6. Figure out what to do with the pally. And level her professions. GAH, leveling mining AGAIN! Shoot me now. Dual spec ret and holy maybe?

7. Get the DK's enchanting up to Northrend levels. Or at least to Outlands levels, and then level her. I have a ton of greens I'd like to be able to de. And she can funnel ore to Lyllea for prospecting.

8. Get those last 3/4 pets. I want the fawn, gorram it. This may involve a ton of farming for whelplings and hatchlings, since the fishing dailies hate me (grumble, give me my crab and the other two crocolisks already!)

9. Get Garetia Classic Dungeonmaster (or whatever that achievement is) and Classic raider if I can get groups together for it (again, more of a before Cat thing)

10. Get exalted with the Timbermaw on Garetia. Then all I'd have left for Diplomat is the broken people, and they have mounts! (Cat again)

11. Get Lyllea exalted with the two driud factions, cause I want the title on her.

12. Explore Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor on every toon I can.

13. Level Lyllea's fishing and cooking and possibly first aid. Cry when she gets the Sewer Rat that has so far eluded Garetia. (Lyllea has much better luck than Garetia on drops. No clue why.)

14. Dual-spec Lyllea and learn how to play the dark side.

15. Continue to level by doing every quest I can find in a zone before moving on. Lyllea's 66/70 or 76/80 for the Hellfire Loremaster achievement, which a) brings in the gold like no one's business, and b) makes it easier to go back later on if I want Loremaster on her. (There appear to be some quests in HF you can't get till 70 and I think those and the pvp one are the only ones she's missing).

Okay, that should keep me busy. Oh, and I should probably add get exalted with Sons of Hodir and Ebon Blade to the list, but um, heroics not fun anymore. I have an entire rant on the running heroics for nothing but badges thing. Takes all the fun out of it (for me). So I just don't. I understand why Blizz did it, and I know it'll make gearing up Lyllea much easier, but part of the fun of heroics/raiding is seeing what we get and getting new shinies. Otherwise I run it once to see it, and maybe again if a guildie needs me.