Yeah, I kinda forgot to mention about hitting 90

You know, I normally reread my last post before making a new one. Shouldn't have skipped that step with the last one. I thought I had made a "yay 90, here's what's I'm doing" post, but I hadn't. So here you go!

Lyl's 90. And I would like to thank the anon comments on the leveling post, they were completely right about my screwing up the priority system. My damage has gone up by about 4k since I took their advice. I still feel low in heroics, but I suspect that's more because I'm in groups with people who out-gear me. I don't really like the "dot all the mobs" flavor of trash damage, but I can live with it. Or at least I can live with SW:P all the things.

Gearing-wise, I hit the AH, picked up pvp blues, and was ready to hit heroics. I've done pretty well gear-wise, and it looks like my sticking point's trinkets. I miss the JCing trinkets from Cat.  I am gearing through heroics, not dailies, for the most part, and taking my time. I even *gasp* managed to get Archaeology to Mists levels.

I'm dealing with quite a bit in RL right now (another health problem has decided to show up), so I'm working on this "no pressure in wow" idea. I miss raiding, I would like to get back to it, but I'm not going to stress out about getting there. It will happen eventually, and in the meantime I can enjoy the scenery.

And here's some for you to enjoy too!

The Dailies Problem

As soon as Lyl hit 90, it felt like a quest explosion. Suddenly there were all these exclamation points  for all these factions and it was overwhelming and confusing (even though I was expecting it). I have managed to figure some things out, like I'm going to be gearing mostly through heroics and I must get exalted with the cloud serpents so I can have baby serpent pets, but it got me thinking on how I might do things slightly differently....

I'd make some factions available earlier. I loved running the walrus dailies while leveling, they're a good chunk of XP plus a nice rep bonus. Having run some of the Tillers dailies, I can see why they're not available till 90, but the Anglers ones could be. Heck, you could make the Tillers "grow this thing" and "go kill weeds" ones available at 86 without causing much in the way of problems.

Since I haven't done much in the way of faction dailies yet (Loremasters, Tillers, Cloud Serpents, Anglers, and um, the central ones (shado-pan?)), I don't have a great sense of them other than "wow, way overwhelming". Lyl got to 90 having done all of Jade Forest and Krasarang Forest, a good chunk of Valley and Kun-Lai Summit, and bits of Dread Wastes, and barely touching Townlong. So I still have a ton of content to go through before touching dailies, scenarios, dungeon-running, pet battling, and alt-leveling and at first blush it feels like too much.

Of course, 6 months down the line Blizz doesn't want us complaining about lack of content. I get that, really, I do. But a ton of dailies, well, that feels like a job or chore. It may not be a REQUIRED thing, but it does feel to me like something I should be doing. Not something I want to do (except for the baby serpent quests and the Anglers), not something I think is fun or enjoyable, but like a chore. I don't play games to do chores, and while it is certainly one way to extend content, it ranks among my most disliked. I never did most of the Argent Tournament or the Firelands stuff because I don't want to do chores in game. I'll occasionally do them, maybe while I'm waiting for a queue or just in the mood, but I hate the expectation of them and the feeling of requirement.

Yeah, not a dailies fan. At all. I'm having more fun running heroics (even though I have no idea WTF most of the time) while wearing a Dragonmaw tabard. Yup, the Cat tabards still work in Mists dungeons, so if you're not exalted with all of them and are running dungeons anyway, might as well take advantage, right?

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures of happier things, since this game does have great bits, right?

Adorable. I want all of them! Yup, my motivation for getting to exalted with the Cloud Serpents is not the mounts, but the pets.

And while Lyl's gotten a bunch of achieves of late, this is one of the ones I'm proudest of. Leveling fishing is still time-consuming (and annoying if I'm not in the right mood), but I really like how it feels much more useful this expansion. Now if I just got XP for it so I could level toons that way....

Still leveling and discouraged about it

Whelp, Lyl hit 89 tonight. I keep hearing how painful 89-90 is, and I just hope it isn't as bad as 88-89.  I seem to have run into a "WOW, it takes FOREVER to kill things" problem. I'm not sure if it's a) because I still have some DS gear (mostly heroic), b) Shadow's dots are a bit underpowered, c) I'm shadowing wrong (my spell priorities are at the end), or d) all the mobs I've been trying to kill are tuned for level 90 damage. Probably some combo thereof.

I have decided I loathe Townlong, mostly because of the Shado-Pan go kill bugs quests. Those screamers are incredibly annoying as shadow, and if I get more than one mob, well, let's just say that I died at least 10 times getting those two quests done. I know I probably will have to go back at some point for a rep grind, but that entire zone's being ignored till 90, for sanity's sake.

I did get to help kill the Sha of Anger. I mostly smited, wondered where the heck my mana went, and avoided bad ground things. It did make me happy to get through the entire fight without dying once, especially since I had no idea what was going on. Good to know my healing skills haven't atrophied, and it's also good to know that I'm probably going to have to have a lot of spirit for healing.

In other stuff, I've gotten both Eiunn and Kesala their farms....

(back view of Eiunn because I love her hair!)

and some of you are wondering who the heck Kesala is. Well, remember this DK? My slightly brain-damaged toon, Llonya?

I wanted to play a melee toon, realized my only horde option was either Eiunn's enhancement spec (fun but I have no earthly idea what I'm doing) or my level 5 monk, and shelled out for a faction change (plus I needed an enchanter and really didn't want to level one). Now my blue space goat with the unpronounceable name is now a blue tauren (she looks really awesome, I just don't have a screencap) and I had a ton of fun doing the unlocking quests in Jade Forest.

The problem I'm having right now isn't the slow XP from 89-90, it's the slow killing. It just feels painful on Lyl. I'm having to recast shadow word: pain and vampiric embrace two to three times a fight (on one regular mob), so my combats are lasting 40-60 secs. That just feels awful, especially since I can switch over to Eiunn or Kesala and stuff dies so much quicker. If any more experienced priests want to offer suggestions, please, feel free.

Atm I'm casting both dots, shielding myself, then Mind Flaying like it's going out of style till a dot falls off or something procs. I throw devouring plague when I have 3 orbs, mind blasting with procs, and using Mindbender whenever possible. Mindbender's really helping with damage, btw, if you haven't tried him yet.

So, that's where I am. The goal is to get Lyl raid-ready by the end of the month (though I may or may not have a raid spot at that time, nor am I expecting my guild to drop someone to hand one to me), and then probably level whoever and play more with pet battles. I may try Kesala as a blood tank for a bit, since I've been having a blast running around as frost. I do need to sit down (probably Thurs) and figure out factions/dailies and where to unlock them. I think I've started Shado-Pan and the bug people in Dread Wastes, plus the Tillers. I know there's one faction that you have to get to revered to unlock a bunch of others, but if that one's in Townlong it'll just wait a while. I'd much rather wrap up the Loremaster achieve in the Wilds (because I'm two quest hubs away and one's already partly done), have fun randomly discovering and killing (or dying to) rares, and leveling fishing.

Oh, and can you see what's wrong in this screencap? Cracks me up every time I see it.

Now this, this is awesome!

As a long-time gamer, I'm used to the default male protagonist. I really don't like it, but I've learned to cope, just like I've learned to cope with over-sexualization of females and sexism in general.  In fact, the default male protagonist is one of the reasons I love games like Baldur's Gate (and can't wait for the new version) because I can be female or male. I love RPGs that don't make me explore a male character. I may choose to explore one (I've played male in tabletop before and had fun, and also have one planned out for the next campaign I'm in), but I LOVE the choice. In my book, feminism is about the freedom to choose, for both men and women.  Gender stereotyping hurts everyone.

So, this, this is all sorts of awesome in my book. A dad figured out how to gender-change Link so that "as you might imagine I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero and rescue their little brothers." That's something I wish I'd had growing up, and I think it's a wonderful thing to do. Here's his blog post on how to do it, and please, pass it on. Flip All the Pronouns.

I know this isn't a WoW thing, but it is a gaming thing, and it's something I hope to see more of in the future. But, since this is a wow blog, here, have a screenshot featuring my newest favorite Wow character, Ken-Ken. Anyone who's for butt-punching sadness is pretty damn cool. I wish I'd been able to screenshot his entire dialogue. If anyone has a transcript, let me know, and if not, when Eiunn gets there I'll damn well make one.

Aura Addon Ideas

This is another in my very occasional series of posts of semi-useful things. Today, I thought discussing ideas for using such addons as Power Auras Classic or Weak Auras might be useful. If you're curious about what I've been up to in WoW (and in general), that'll be after the useful bit.

So, aura addons. They can do so many things that it can be very overwhelming. Here's a few ideas...

1) Resource alerts. One of my most used auras was Lyl's "hey, half mana!" one. It gave me a heads up and let me start thinking about cooldowns without being obtrusive. You could easily do this for health, mana, energy, or whatever.

2) Cooldowns. Especially good for short cooldowns in combat (and yes, you can make auras that are only active in combat, or raid, or when flagged for pvp...)

3) Debuffs/Buffs. Trinkets, time warp, diseases, other power increases/decreases. I had one for when my wolf howled (and gave my hunter an attack power boost)

4) Combos. How about having a "ACK!" alert when your health drops below a certain point and your self-healing button is available to hit? Your healers will appreciate it.

5) HOT/DOT timing.

6) Proc alerts. Combustion, shadow word: death, devouring plague, all that sort of thing.

And if that's not enough, many excellent aura packages can be found on the web. Even if you don't use all of them, they can give you some ideas. I generally start out with a premade package, then tinker with it and make it my own.

Anyway, this is what I've been up to...

1) Race-changed my shaman from goblin to panda. I never liked her as a goblin, and look, her hair streaks match her eyes! I'm hoping she'll be more appealing to me to play now, since I like shaman, I just don't like being short.

2) Rolled a belf monk and a panda mage, and tried some pet battles. I love the monk, but low-level mage is PAINFUL. Frostfire bolt has an almost 3 sec casting time, it's really slow and boring. Needless to say, the mage will be going away. 

3) Leveled Lyl. She's almost done with Jade Forest (a couple of orchard quests and the drag food monastery quest to go for the loremaster achieve in the zone). I did get bored with the zone after a while, but I do have to admit that some of the story lines were great. After one, I wanted to renounce both Horde and Alliance and go be an honorary panda instead.

 4) Got a ridiculously stupid hat. Good stats though.

 5) Took a huge amount of screencaps. Gotta hand it to Blizz, the Jade Forest is gorgeous. I'll be uploading my screencaps (unfiltered) via picasa, and I'll post a link (bear in mind that unfiltered means every screencap including the automated ones)

 6) Killed an elite with guildie help (and that's where the stupid hat came from)

7) Started working on both the Tillers and getting cooking maxed.

8) Ran brewery. Had no idea what was going on.

9) Maxed mining. JCing is pretty close, but leveling only via research is rather slow.

 And generally ran around, fished a lot, and had relaxed fun. I've gotten bitten by the bug again, so I'm hoping to get Lyl max level and ready to raid by the end of the month.

Um, still here (just dealing with stuffs)

Sorry guys. I know I haven't written in a while. What can I say, severe clinical depression is a bitch. Combine depression with hypothyroidism and anemia and you kinda have the perfect storm of can't cope.

I haven't been really playing either, mostly just knitting and watching hulu and netflix. The problem with a MMO is that (while I love my guildies and friends) I need to be social to play, and when I don't even have the energy to shower, socialization is kinda right out.

I have played a bit, Lyl's now 86, I ran into processor overheating problems in Mists areas (luckily solved via a fan/cooling pad), and I have enjoyed what I've done thus far. My guildies are raiding, and I have been told the content is difficult/good rather than difficult/F YOU RAGNAROS. (yup, still holding a grudge about that fight).

So far, I've been spending way too much time taking screenshots and gathering every yellow dot. It's fun and low-stress and exactly what I need (when I can face the social). Hope you guys are having fun in Pandaria too, and I swear, I will post again when I actually have something to say.

the Second Part of the Cat Post-Mortem and post 325!

In preparing this post mortem, I did a lot of reading. I read through my entire archives, and wandered through others blogs as well, trying to remember exactly what I thought and felt going into Cat. Honestly, I think where I was coming into Cat and Wraith, and where I am now going into Mists has a great deal to do with how I felt about them. Also, since this is my 325th blog post (yay me!), I figured I could wander down memory lane for a bit. So, yeah, long post ahead.

I started playing late in BC (August/Sept '08? '08, seriously, I've been playing this game that long?!?). When Wraith hit my main (Garetia, my nelf hunter) was in her 50s. I had just started blogging in December. I remember the undead invasions in SW (my baby pally actually got to help kill undead which I greatly enjoyed) and I remember watching the harbor thing and thinking it was the coolest thing ever and I couldn't wait to get to actually participate in stuff like that. Everything was still very shiny and new. I was Alliance because that's where my friends were, and a hunter because she died less than the mage (once I got to level 10).  This is the first ever blog post.

I hit 80 on the hunter on April 17th of 2009, and promptly started running dungeons to gear up to raid Naxx. I continued attempting to level alts (and failing mostly), and wrote my first ever guide (MM without replenishment in raids). I raided Naxx and chunks of Ulduar as a MM hunter, and managed to get 3 alt toons to 60 via dual-boxing and RAF (and if you're interested, I think my dualboxing guide is still fairly accurate and that picture-in-picture thing rocks). Sometime that summer/fall, my guild's raiding fell apart and I started thinking about switching toons (and having greater flexibility). This is where Lyllea comes into the picture. She was originally the alt I chose to level because she was on the second account and I could use Garetia to drag her through stuff and also because I loved Tam from Righteous Orbs (sadly no longer around) and kinda wanted to be like him. I leveled as disc with the occasional foray into BGs, and smote all the things. I learned that shadow was WAY harder than marks, hit 80, ran a ton of dungeons, got geared, and then thrown into the deep end of raiding...
"Lyllea, with a gearscore of 1898 (which puts her in the healing Naxx 25 and Eye 10 category) healed Ulduar 25! Okay, so it was just XT, I basically shielded the crap out of everyone, and I ran out of mana 3/4 of the way through, but I RAID HEALED! And I topped the charts on absorbs. I was shaking the entire time, and getting thrown into the deep end is probably not the best way to start my healing career in raiding, but I DID IT!" This was a week after she hit 80.
I found a raiding alliance and started raiding with them near the beginning of ICC, and continued with them for a bit. But sadly their raid times were not really working for me and so I hit wowladies on LJ (my go-to for questions besides twitter). I app'd and was accepted to my first raiding guild and we were working on heroic Sindy 10 when Cat hit. I also had managed to get two more toons (druid and pally) to 80.

I remember vividly being so so excited for Cat. I started leveling a new toon (a rogue who's still leveling) to see the new questlines. I played in the beta, planned things out with my guild, and was just really happy that this time I got to be part of all the shiny new things! (Here's a link to the first few Cat posts if you're interested) Sadly, by the end of the month I was not in a happy place healing-wise, and I've still not completely shaken what the beginning of Cat did to my healing confidence (I still don't want to heal 5 mans unless they're full of guildies).

Over the course of Cataclysm I've gotten 7 toons to 85, healed every boss in every raid (though I've yet to actually down Rag or most of tier 11 heroic), and well, the bloom's off the rose (so to speak). I've healed a raid on 3 different toons in 4 different specs (holy, disc, resto druid, and resto shaman), I've tried my hand at tanking (feral druid, blood DK, and low level warrior), gotten the loremaster achieve for all the new Cat zones (except possibly Uldum because I hated the Harrison Jones thing), and have dps'd as melee, ranged, caster, and heals (go go smite spec!).

Would I be as disenchanted with Wraith if I'd managed to get all that done during it? I don't know. I think the fact that I've leveled 7 toons through Wraith Alliance content (with an 8th slowly wandering up and a Horde lock only 8 levels from starting) and am still excited to do the Horde side says something. I have a toon who could be questing her heart out Horde-side in Cat content, and I have no desire whatsoever to do so (go go profession and dungeon leveling!).

I think the best way to explain what I feel the difference is between Wraith and Cat is by analogy. Cataclysm is like the Lord of the Rings movies. Epic, sweeping storylines, great set pieces, but gets old if you see it over and over and over and over again. Wraith, Wraith's a bit more like Baldur's Gate or Mass Effect. You have a basic plotline, but you can go wander over here or there for a bit, do things in different orders, and try new things. It's not quite as epic as LotR, but there's a lot more replay-ability there.

I also feel like Cataclysm was missing a cohesiveness that both Wraith and BC had. Sure, Arthas showed up a lot in Wraith, but it did certainly help emphasize the overarching plot of the expansion. BC and Wraith also had the distinct advantage of geographic cohesiveness. Cataclysm's zones were stunning, but also very scattered. Also, the lack of a new center didn't help. SW and Org have never really felt to me like Dalaran did, a home and center of the expansion. Heck, most of my toons still have their hearths in Dal, simply because it's more convenient. It's a pain in the neck to get to Northrend via boat or zeppelin compared to getting to Org or SW from Dal.

And then, we have the lack of end-game content compared to Wraith. 5 levels vs 10, 5 zones vs 8 (not counting WG or Crystalsong), 6 raids vs 10 raids, 27 raid bosses vs 51 (ignoring WG/TB raids).  Yes, WoW probably shouldn't be as top-heavy as it is, and yes, the vanilla world badly needed the revamp. But to a vocal (and dedicated) section of the playerbase, Cat was a bit over half the content of Wraith for the same price and close to the same timespan.

I don't think Cataclysm was a failure. I loved a lot of the new content (the first time). I enjoyed the raids (even if I still don't quite understand the overarching plot from questing to tier 11 to Firelands to Dragon Soul). The scenery of some of the new zones (Vash'jir anyone) is incredible. I think what happened is that we were all expecting the next Wraith and instead we got a new and improved vanilla WoW. That's not a bad thing (okay, you could argue that the forced linearity was and certainly the worgen questline not having a proper ending was), but it wasn't what I wanted, and I suspect it wasn't what most of the old-timers wanted or were planning for.

I do think there's hope. I have not played this beta, so I'm going in mostly blind, but from what I've read, Blizz has learned from Cataclysm, and is trying to do better in Mists.  I'm not expecting Mists to be as awesome as I thought Wraith was, because part of that was "New and shiny and I don't know everything so I can learn stuff". I'll be happy if I get to my 3rd or 4th alt and still feel like there's new stuff to see, that leveling isn't a chore to get to 90 so then the toon can sit there.  And even if I don't feel that "squee, I hit 68, I can go see all the new stuff now!" I did during Wraith, I'll be happy if I get that same sense of "Awesome!" that I did zoning into Vash or Deepholm for the first time.

But Blizz, if you pull that crap with relearning how to heal while making mana count again while being unable to heal through bad again with all wipes being the healer's fault, you and I are through.  Seriously. That was beyond stupid.