Screenshot Saturday

The One Where I’m The King

Last week I made a quick post saying I had finally ordered new internet. The update on that is … it’s a bust. No new internet for me. They contacted me later to say they don’t actually service my address. So I’m back to square one. But I have been spending some time at my friend Kimber’s house soaking up her internets and nomming all her foodz. And while I was over there the other day she told me about the King of Spider Hill achievement. Now I hate spiders but I love achievements. I had to think it over for a while, but since my achievements are few and far between these days I finally decided to face my fears and kick some spider ass.

Kim had coached me on the correct path to take up the mountain and how the mechanics of the whole thing would work. What I didn’t realize is that my fat moonkin ass was going to be a problem. When the spiders pulled me up to their platform I fell off most of them. And sure, the spiders immediately grabbed me and pulled me back up again, but then I fell off again. I was trying to move forward onto the ledge but my big furry/feathery ass just wasn’t hanging on. After 3 quick falls one after another, my health was too low and I quickly died on the next fall. Would you believe I repeated this process and died like 4 times before I finally realized maybe I should just fight these bastards in my skinny night elf form? And yes, that strategy totally worked. I never fell off another ledge. I had been in moonkin form because i could burn em down faster but the spiders were kicking my bumbling butt. So if any of you laser chickens out there have not yet completed this achievement, I recommend you do it without shape-shifting.

The One With The Redneck Problem-solving

Friday morning, as I pulled into my parking spot by the dumpster after a long night of work, I did something I’d never done before. I spotted something interesting in the trash and I went in and dug it out. Technically I did not go dumpster-diving because the item that caught my eye was sitting beside the dumpster. In fact, I was almost paranoid that it wasn’t actually trash and I probably shouldn’t touch it.

But after careful examination, it was a broken item and it had been abandoned… so of course I drug it into my apartment. And then I busied myself with figuring out how to adapt it so I could use it while logged into the game. I am happy to report I was successful. I can now get in a bit of exercise while gaming. You guys, I found a Gold’s Gym Power Spin 230 recumbent bike in the trash. Whatever type of digital display it once had is gone and I don’t see any way of adjusting the pedal tension, but it pedals perfectly so who cares?

Of course in finding a way to use my laptop while pedaling I gave my bedroom the appearance of a redneck spa. But sometimes you just gotta be a redneck.

Screenshot Saturday

Here’s An Exciting Update

*** UPDATE – this did not happen. After my order was confirmed and I happily went to bed, I woke up to an email from the ISP stating they discovered they do not actually service my address.

I just ordered some shiny new DSL internet for myself. I do not have an activation date yet, but it will be soon. I am so freaking excited you guys! Now I’ll be able to login whenever I want and start running randoms again, etc. Which means I will have more silly, insignificant crap to talk about here very soon. Yay!

The One With The Circle Of Healing Meme

Let me start by apologizing to Zelmaru for my delay in posting this after she tagged me last week. Zel, your email actually went into my Spam folder. Oops. And then this morning Zinn tagged me too. So of course I’m going to oblige.

Now let me say that I appreciate being tagged, but I must admit I never expected to be filling one of these questionnaires out. I certainly don’t consider myself an expert. I’m not someone who has years of raiding experience. I have never been a permanent member of a raiding team. I’m more of the “once you guys have that on farm, take me through there so I can get achievements” kind of player. And that’s not because I’m lazy or believe I deserve to be carried. It’s because my schedule didn’t comply with the raiding schedule my guild was on and because I tend to doubt myself and my abilities so I didn’t want to go in and mess things up on a progression run. So keep these things in mind as you read the answers below.

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Elfindale, Druid, Resto

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

5 mans – though I must be honest and admit I seem to run most of them as a dps laser chicken these days. Partly because of lag and partly because pugging as a healer is brutal.

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

It used to be wild growth, but since Cata I’ve gotta say it’s swiftmend. And the reason is simply because with swiftmend I can proc efflorescence. I know most aren’t of this opinion, but I love efflorescence. I’ll tell you why… it’s the easiest way for me to watch my own ass. I am one of those healers that never remembers to look at my own health so when I finally notice I’m getting low I just setup swiftmend to proc efflorescence on the tank and then I run up and bear hug him so I can soak up all the healing.

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

For me it’s healing touch. The high mana cost and the slightly long cast time just make it unappealing to me. I know a lot of people still like to use it because it’s a big heal in a desperate situation, but it’s just never on my radar.

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Mobility. Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wildgrowth are all instant cast spells and with 2 of those being AOE spells, I can HoT up everyone while running blindly in hectic, confused circles … like I do.

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

This may just be something I’m doing wrong, but I’m gonna have to say it seems like we draw a huge amount of healing aggro and we don’t have any way of reducing it other than shadowmeld. And if any poison or fire or whatever hits you, it breaks shadowmeld and you have a 2 minute cooldown. I actually used to have a macro I could key that would yell something along the lines of “the tree is being attacked – help!” because it seems like no one really ever notices when the healer’s getting beat on. But I had to do away with that macro because I seemed to accidentally hit it a lot (me smash buttons to heal all the things) and not only was it distracting the dps, it was causing everyone to think of me as the druid who cried wolf.

7. In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

I’ve only done one or two 25’s and they’ve been fun runs where we weren’t in too much danger. Each time I was assigned to raid heals but I actually prefer tank healing. And that’s mainly because I get so tunnel-visioned while healing that if I’m assigned to watching 5 or 6 of the general masses, I can’t keep up with where they’ve moved to. I can easily track their health by watching Vuh Do where I’ve grouped them all together. But that doesn’t help me know where they are on screen. Following the tank and only watching him is much easier.

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Well I’m obviously going to say resto druid here since I haven’t really experienced any others. But I honestly feel like my answer will never change. I just love the versatility and the shape shift of the druid. And not too long ago I would have said one of the main reasons is that I love being a tree while healing. I’m sad that I can no longer spend the entire time in tree form, but such is life.

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

I’ve never healed with any other class (other than healing myself while questing on a low level Paladin I created this year). Elfi is my one and only high level character.

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?

Overhealing. I just roll lifebloom and wildgrowth and rejuv constantly. I can’t stop myself from clicking.

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Keep in mind I mostly do 5 mans so I am the only one doing the tank healing and the group healing, which is totally doable… unless the tank charges a pack of mobs and runs full speed to the other side of the area while the ranged dps never move from their original pre-attack spot. In other words, I hate it when I have people out of range of my heals. Obviously the tank is the priority; but that ranged dps is gonna yell at me if he dies even though he could have saved himself by moving towards me a bit.

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

I think so, but as I admitted earlier I’m not a huge expert on this … or anything really. 🙂 But yes, I feel like resto druids are well balanced with other healers I’ve watched. The positives make up for the negatives. In my opinion the mobility increases the value of the spells we have.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I don’t actually use any tools for evaluation. I keep track of how many deaths there may have been, how many mana potions I may have sipped on and how many times I had to use innervate and those things give me a general feel for how I’m doing compared to the last time I did the same instance. I know I should crunch numbers and use some colored pencils to make designs across some graph paper… but I just don’t like math. Never have, never will.

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

I honestly don’t know. I guess I would say that people tend to believe because druids are a hybrid class they aren’t really great at any one thing and that is just not true.

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

I’m gonna say it would be how to tweak your talent tree to make it work for you. I think our spells are fairly basic and there aren’t a huge number of them. But knowing how to work the talent tree is extremely important. Are you going to be raid healing and need maximum mana regen? Or are you going to be tank healing and need huge heals? Or are you doing mostly 5 mans and need to balance both of those things?

16. If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Definitely overhealing. On both the tank and the rest of the group. I am pretty good at staying caught up on removing poisons, so you’ll see that also.
Now I don’t use recount (yep, numbers are gross) so I don’t really know what type of stats can be seen there but I will say if someone was evaluating my healing they would notice there are 3 things I do not use often enough – barkskin, innervate and tree form. And fyi, although it has nothing to do with stats, I completely suck at using a soulstone also.

17. Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. Having a couple of instant cast spells that can tick away for several seconds each, I don’t need something with a big crit in order to save someone. I just need to toss a regrowth or nourish as quickly as possible just to get someone out of the red and then I can start spamming the instant casts.

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Priest. Obviously since I’ve never healed with another class I don’t understand much about any of them, but I’d definitely say Priest is the one that’s the most vague for me.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

I use Vuh Do for most of my spells. I also have a 5 button mouse to give me some additional flexibility. But I am one of those idiots who moves with my mouse and not the keyboard, so I actually have my left hand on the keyboard in a specific pattern and in between clicking and running with my mouse, I use the keyboard to cast also.

20. Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I would say my stats are basically balanced. What I would not say is that I strive for balance. It’s more like I just don’t really spend enough time crunching numbers and studying stats to change it up. Remember – math is the suck. Instead I use Google Reader to follow some of the major Resto Druid bloggers out there and when 2 or 3 of them agree on a talent tree or specific gear or reforging, etc., I just copy them.

And in closing, I will not be tagging anyone else to complete this mainly because I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t already been tagged. True story.

Welcome To The Firelands (Guns-N-Roses Style)

This is meant to be read (or screamed) to the tune of Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n Roses.

Welcome to the Firelands –

Welcome to the Firelands,
They got ash and flames.
They got all the gear you want
You should go check out their raids
They are the people that supply
All the dailies you may need
They will help you earn some money, honey
And some Marks of the World Tree

In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Watch it bring you to your sha na na na na na knees, knees
It has what you need

Welcome to the Firelands
You’ll be stuck here every day
If you wanna pwn the noobs you meet
That’s the price you gotta pay
You may be a very special toon
You may think you’re pretty leet
You may think you’re going to steal phat loot
But you won’t get that shit for free

In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Feel my, my, my hunter’s serpent sting
I, I wanna hear you scream

Welcome to the Firelands
There are quests here every day
You learn to kill certain animals
In the Firelands where we play
If you get enough Marks of the Tree
You’ll be geared up eventually
You can buy anything you want
Could you please buy some for me?

In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
The lag will bring you to your shun n,n,n,n,,n,n,,n,n,n,,n,n,,n knees, knees
But they have what you need

And when you’re done you’ll never
Want to come back around, around, around, around, YEAH!

You know where you are?
You’re in the Firelands baby
Somebody’s gonna die
In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Watch it bring you to your sha na na na na na knees, knees
In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Feel my, my, my hunter’s serpent sting
In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Watch it bring you to your sha na na na na na knees, knees
In the Firelands
Welcome to the Firelands
Watch it bring you to your
It’s gonna bring you down
HUAH!

Screenshot Saturday

Finally exalted with my own guild. I’m proud and excited and yet, I’m embarrassed that it took this long. But I’m still proud and excited.