Create and Destro

No that is not a typo. I know you're looking at it, visually adding the Y. But trust me, it's not. It'll make sense in a moment.

Those of you who know me, know that I tend to get heavily involved with whatever I'm passionate about for a couple weeks and then I move on to something else. This isn't new. I've been doing this all my life. For a period of time I will read and learn everything I can about Japanese Fish Printing. Then a month later I'm obsessed with Kayaking. A month after that and all I can talk about is Botany. You get the idea.

But there are a couple things that seem to defy this trend. The first is writing and storytelling. I've been writing or storytelling (different things for me) since I was a small child and that's not about to stop now. The second is animation which I am a HUGE fan of. Anything animated interests me. I'm fascinated by all types. The third is reading which is a bit like breathing to me. I'm not going to stop until they nail my coffin shut.

But I've picked up two new passions in the last year that seem to be defying the "month or two" trend. And these hobbies are different as night and day. The first is knitting, which my little sister taught me about two years ago. And I'm incredibly grateful. Thanks sis. On Wednesday I finished my first mitten. I used the wrong needles and it's way too small for me, but it's a mitten. And the moment I finished it, I picked up my new correctly sized needles and started the ones for me. I love that I'm taking one long piece of yarn and creating something I can wear from it. I have a group of women who I meet with every Wednesday and we sit, and knit, and drink coffee, and talk. And I've just recently hit my stride when it comes to knitting. I'll probably never be as good as two of my groupmates who just submitted sweaters to the state fair, but I love the chance to create. I've never been particularly crafty, so this is a chance to experiment and try and still create something that I'll wear with pride in the winter months.

The second "newish" passion is for WoW. Although the hobby waxes and wanes in the amount of time I'm playing, it hasn't gone away. I'm not doing a lot of soloing recently, focusing instead on raiding with the guild, but I'm shockingly still playing. What started out as an agreement between Jeff and I (I would try WoW, he would try knitting) has stuck into a regular hobby. I play at least 12 hours a week, which may seem like a lot, but is down considerably from where I was. Last night I raided with the guild in Naxx and we managed to bring down three quarters and part of a fourth in three hours. That's huge. It is scary to think that we might be reaching a point where we could complete Naxx in one night. WoW for me is just an extension of all the role playing games I enjoyed when I was younger. For a couple hours I get to play a totally different person. A character that destroys. A character that shoots fire from their hands. They don't call them Destro warlocks for nothing. :-)

So I think about my new hobbies. One based on creating and one based on destroying. And it seems a good balance to me. Ying and yang. And for the moment, they're sticking around.

Noobish-ness

For my non-gamer friends a "noob" is an unseasoned gamer. Someone who makes rookie mistakes and often seems unaware of the basic mechanics of the game. In a raid, a noob will often manage to wipe the party with some easily avoided mistake. A noob will ask questions about seemingly obvious parts of game play. We all start out as noobs. Last night, as a guild we played that way.

The core group of raiders for the guild tends to be pretty seasoned. We've seen all of Naxx and are now comfortable farming it (with a couple exceptions). As a group we've been to over half of Ulduar and brought down bosses using achievement strategies. Many of them have PUG'd all of the raids in the game. We've had a lot of shining moments. Last night was not one of them.

We started our raid on time and figured we would start with an easy victory. On Thursday we had downed Flame Leviatian, XT, Kologarde, and Auriaya with only one or two wipes. We were feeling good. Last night we started with Razorscale and managed to bring the big dragon down with only one death. We're still feeling cocky and decide we'll quickly handle Ignis and then move on to Freya, who we haven't really fought much yet. Ignis had other plans for us. We wiped on the trash getting to him, twice. Our first attempt on Ignis did not last long. We were killed quickly. The adds took too long and he kept killing people in his flaming pot. The second attempt was even worse with at least three adds running rampant through the party. After four or five attempts (they all blur together) we decided to bypass Ignis and head down to Freya. At least that way we could see the fight and learn.

To get to Freya, you need to kill a ton of trash. We had done this once on Thursday but the trash respawns. So we started with the first pull. And wiped. We managed to bring that down only to wipe again two trash pulls later. Wiping on a boss seems acceptable, wiping on a trash pull is just noobishness. We wiped four more times on the trash, including one terribly hurried pull where we grabbed a patrol as well. By the time we cleared the last trash and faced Freya most of us had repair bills of 30 gold or higher. Not good.

Freya has to be one of the most confusing fights in Ulduar. She has four different types of adds that spawn and each has to be treated differently. The detonating lashers need to be AOE'd down until about ten percent and then killed individually. Otherwise they all detonate together and wipe the raid. The three storm adds need to be killed within a minute of each other or they will respawn over and over until they wipe the raid. The ancient protector needs to be killed while standing under the growing and shrinking mushrooms. And the healing tree needs to be dpsed down quickly so it doesn't heal Freya. Oh and did I mentioned that new adds spawn every minute. Once you get through the add spawns, Freya herself is a piece of cake. I don't even remember how many attempts we had on her. Death after death, until shortly before midnight when we figured out the patterns and got lucky with the spawns and managed to bring her down.

We then decided to try the Assembly of Iron. It was 10 minutes to midnight (the designated end of the run) and we figured it wouldn't hurt to see a new fight. I would like to say that we lasted 30 seconds but I think that might be stretching it a bit. We were dead in seconds. It was just another death in a night of wipes. We died on bosses, we died on trash. Our shaman (my cute and wonderful husband) decided to play with the flowers instead of just dying and brought them down on us just as we resurrected. We died a lot. But we learned. The guild has never had a great raid make-up but we make due with what we have. We learned, we brought down Freya, and we saw more of Ulduar. Next trip will hopefully be better but I'd rather be Noobish with the guild, then masterful with a PUG. Expensive night but a good one.

Four Bosses, Four New Items, 8 Deaths

Not sure if I should call it a win or a lose evening.

Ulduar is not my friend! In fact I'm pretty sure it hates me and means to do me harm. Okay has done me harm. We made our second attempt on the raid last night and I found about a million ways to die. Okay 8 ways to die but that was more than almost anyone else. (One of our pallys led the charge in total number) Four of those were wipes. The rest, all me.

I only finished one boss fight last night from a vertical position. Most of the rest of the time I was "decorating the floor" as we like to say. I went from full armor at the beginning of the night to mostly red. It was not a good night for warlock survival. And what hurts the most is that most of them were my fault.

We started with Flame Leviathan and I got to drive a siege engine (tanking vehicle). My very patient gunner was our druid healer. Being new to seige engines I moved in too close to mobs and managed to get myself (and the druid) killed quickly on the trash from the towers. Not my finest moment. We both released and grabbed a new machine. It took us two tries to get the Leviathan down although in our defense we were doing the achievement method. The second time went much better for us but my vehicles health was very low by the end. Right before he died, our vehicle went and both the druid and I died...again.

Then it was on to Razorscale, the giant dragon that I get to harpoon to the ground. I love this fight because I get to play a huge role (mostly because I can teleport back to the harpoons quickly). The group starts by killing the adds which pop up from three towers. That is done until the harpoons are ready to fire. Then I teleport back and fire the harpoons to bring Razorscale to the ground and we all DPS him. He rises back up and it's rinse and repeat until he is at 50%. Then he is permanently grounded and we start the full on fight. It took us three tries to bring him down. The last try everything was going well until he was finally grounded, when he resisted the tank's taunts and came straight for me. I lasted one swipe of his paw and was down for the rest of the fight. He managed to bring down two others before the tanks finally got him under control and the guild brought him down while I anxiously watched health bars and bit my fingernails.

Then on to XT. I hate this fight. I'm not kidding. This is my toughest fight and so far I have not been standing at the end of any of our attempts. When we went two weeks ago it was the only one I died on. This time I died quickly on each of our attempts. Embarrassingly quickly. One of my issues I've figured out is that I have not downloaded the new Deadly Boss Mods. So right before XT pounds the ground (causing all sorts of aoe damage) I get a DBM warning that I have to click on. I'll update that tonight and hopefully it will help a little. The problem with this fight isn't XT himself. It's the adds. The first attempt last night I was helping out with adds and actually surviving a bit. Until one of the bomb guys aggroed me and I died in a small explosion. The second death on this was my own stupidity. I was working XT only, when I saw a robot break past our hunters and head straight for him. If he reaches the boss, it will eat him and recover health. So I aggroed the robot. And couldn't get my soulshatter off in time. He came for me and killed me in two blows. Again decorating the floor while the rest of the group brought him down.

And we finished the night with the two handed giant of doom. (not his actual name. :) ) This big boy (Kologran) is a much more difficult fight than he looks. There is so much that needs to be healed. Jeff kept switching between his hunter and his shaman when we needed extra heals, which was helpful for us. In this fight, you need to kill the giants left hand, and then dps down the body. Kologran brings up adds from his shattered hand, shoots laser beams from his eyes, and grabs people and shakes them when his hand is alive. He's not the toughest fight there but he seems to give us fits. It took us at least three tries to get this one, but minutes before midnight success was finally ours. So far this fight is the only one I can can consistanly stay alive on.

So elaborate fights and many deaths would seem to make for a bad night. And it could have been. But the loot gods smiled upon the only dps cloth-wearing caster in the group. And I walked away with four new items. I've somehow become the group's master looter which is a fun and slightly nerve wracking role for me. I'm not the quickest player in the group and am pretty slow at distributing raid mats. I'm also still learning what potions and injectors go to which player. I hope to have it down by next week but I had to do a lot of asking last night. But apparently being master looter is good luck for me. I picked up a new belt (Conductive Cord), a new set of bracers (Combustion Bracers), a new ring (Emerald Signet Ring), and a new trinket (Eye of the Broodmother). Four new items, four bosses down (okay that was more the guild than me), and 8 deaths. My armor bill was awful. Not sure if I should call this is a win or loss night. But I had a great time with the guild, so I'm calling it a win.

Wonderful Weekend and Ulduar

Okay so it's been a couple of days since I wrote anything. I had no internet access again this weekend so no posting. And this will be short. I've been not feeling well since last night. I was out of town helping a friend move. I know what you're thinking, how exciting, but we actually had a really good weekend. The move itself only took a couple of hours and the hanging out lasted all weekend. It was great to see everyone. We spent a lot of time talking, playing games, and eating. It was really a wonderful weekend. And the last of my traveling weekends for a while. I love to get away but I'm looking forward to being home this coming weekend. 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that our guild made their first attempt on Ulduar on Thursday before I left. Several of the regular members had done section of the raid but we hadn't tried it yet as a guild. It went surprisingly well. We started late but managed to bring down four bosses in the span of a couple hours. The first boss we worked on was the Flame Leviathan, who is a machine fight. I don't normally do well with machine fights since my minion often interferes with the controls. But I dismissed my pet beforehand and had no issues. I got to be a gunner, shooting rockets and bombs and enjoyed the fight immensely. 

We then took down Razorscale and I got to play a major role in the battle, shooting the guns that brought the dragon to the floor. We had no real problems with him. XT-002 the girl robot who thinks we are toys, was much more a challenge. We managed to bring her down but I died twice during the fight and we wiped at least once. We bypassed the Furnace Master and brought down Kologran, the giant with the active right hand after several wipes. It was an interesting set of bosses but we had a good time. I look forward to going back. 

A Love/Hate Relationship

Any of my WoW readers have wondered where my stories have gone. I haven't talked WoW in a while. I continue to play, working to level a paladin and raiding with the guild with my warlock. I spent a good chunk of time over the weekend playing. I leveled my paladin three levels this weekend. It was easy and fun and I looked forward to logging on. Today not so much. 

I have an odd love/hate relationship with WoW recently. I love the time I get to spend raiding and instancing. I enjoy the times where the quests are going quickly. I love that it is active but at the same time doesn't require the same consciousness that writing does. I hate how much time it takes. I hate the repetitive kills and exploring the same places I've gone before. I hate that it takes so much of my productivity away. I love the guild, and love hanging out with them. They are all wonderful people. But I hate the fact that I have spent so much time indoors this summer. 

And more than anything I'm frustrated by the fact that when I am playing WoW regularly, I pretty much stop writing. For some reason these things are mutually exclusive for me. When I am writing regularly I don't log on and then I find myself missing the game a bit, and the guild a lot. When I'm playing regularly, I miss writing and creating. Like an recovering alcoholic, I can't seem to just have one. I can't make that choice. I feel guilty for not writing and I feel guilty for not playing. I probably shouldn't be writing this tonight. I try to keep this place a more positive place and don't normally air my neurotic thoughts. But I just had to sit down and talk about this struggle. I'm not sure why I can't do both. 

All I know is that writing is hard. I am constantly worried about offering my words to the world. I know I shouldn't worry about what others think, but for anyone who knows me, well...no surprise there. And since writing is hard, I find myself playing to avoid having to deal with the writing. And the moment I log on I regret it. And the moment I log off, I look at my writing and regret logging off. Again sorry. Kind of a downer post. I just had to get everything out. Weird night. 

Naxx

Okay I've been officially chastised. And when it comes down from the guild leader, well...you know you have to say at least something. For those of you World of Warcraft players keeping track at home, our guild officially finished Naxxramas on Monday. It took us from April to the end of May to finish with a mostly two night a week schedule. The Plague Quarter and the Arachnid Quarter is almost at farming level for us by now. And we were having good success with Military. Other than Gluth we could handle Construct Quarter. And that just left the big boys.


We finished with Thaddius late Sunday night. Midnight server time, 11 my time. We clicked on the portal to head back to the start only to come face to face with a huge bone dragon. This is Sapphiron, the second to last boss. Image pulled from WOW Insider.




Although it was bedtime for nearly half the group we decided to give him one shot. What could it hurt? We spread out all on the left side and started hitting him hard. He's a toughish fight with two phases. The first is a ground phase where he hits us with a blizzard and hit the tank with some serious frost breath. Then he heads up into the air for the second phase and turns two people into blocks of ice. Everyone then rushes to get behind the blocks before he blasts us with a frost wave. We got him to about 50% I think, before he demolished us. Time for bed but with a promise to head back on a rare Monday night.


The next night we figured we had all night to try him. So we started slow, and wiped. And wiped again. On the third attempt it was suggested that we spread out on both sides to move the blizzard around a bit more. And with only a death or two, we managed to bring him down. Yay! And the night was still young. So we headed on to the final boss, Kel'Thuzad.


I figured the final boss of a huge ten man raid would be tough...and boy I was right. KT has two (maybe three) phases. The first one is interesting. The group stands in the middle of the floor, back to back in a big green circle as he sends mob after mob after you. My job was banshees, the casters who moved slow but were deadly if they reached the circle. This phase wasn't much of a stress for us. Then KT joins the fight. And he is tough. He turns people into iceblocks as well but these blocks are deadly if they aren't healed through. We lost a ton of people to these until we noticed the warnings and could keep an eye out. But we had to spread out because if you are standing too close to anyone else, you both get blocked.


He also mana bombs someone during the fight. That will explode and hurt others if you are again standing too close. Oh yes and he likes to randomly drain health. This is a healers nightmare. We wiped a couple of times but again the night was young so spirits were high. On the last attempt we got him down to over halfway and he called on two scarabs (3rd phase?) to join the fight. That was the moment when our main-tank paladin went down. It was also the same moment that our off-tank (feral druid) stepped up and took on both KT and two scarabs. It was amazing. I died shortly after the scarabs joined and watching and waiting was excruciating. It was literally edge of your seat, crossed fingers, praying moment. And the guild was able to pull it off. One tank on a two tank fight, four dead group mates, and one dead Kel'thuzad. And we were done. It was a huge moment. And yes I have been a bit remiss for not posting anything yet. So Nez, are you happy now?

Pally Fun

If it seems like I never talk WoW anymore that is because I've hardly been playing at all. I've been trying so hard to concentrate on my writing and drawing that I've hardly allowed myself any play time. I think of the fact that I've wanted to be a published writer since I was 14. And I will be. I know that for a fact. Being the best Warlock in the WoW universe has never been a goal for me although I have a great time playing. So I keep thinking about where my priorities should lie. Mostly nowadays I play for the social aspect. My guild is a ton of fun and when we raid it's just great. My sister laughs at me for saying that I'm "hanging out" with the guild, since we're spread out throughout the country. But for me it does feel like hanging out with friends.

But to be completely honest, I'm bored of my warlock. I have no more quests to do, almost no more profession levels to get, and hardly any instances that I haven't explored. I'm not big into achievements so I have little to do with the character. And grinding money and rep is starting to feel more like a job than play time. So I haven't touched Myraina in weeks, except to instance and raid with the guild. Instead I've focused my little play time on my new Paladin. And I just love her. It's so much fun to be leveling again. And with a tank like character. My 42 paladin doesn't break a sweat unless I'm either killing 46 level mobs or 4 level 40 mobs at a time. She can heal herself and still take damage. It's just too much fun.

The only problem I've found with being a paladin is that everytime I log on, I am invited to instance within a matter of minutes. I am whispered constantly by complete strangers with an invitation to one dungeon or the other. I was retribution specced but that didn't seem to stop the invites. Most of the time I've begged off saying that I'm just interested in leveling. But last night I got a request to help with Scarlet Monastery. I figured why not. It is well below my level and would be good practice. I ended up tanking since I was surrounded by much lower level characters. And I loved tanking. It was frantic, engaging, and tough. I really enjoyed the challenge of it, particularly since I'm not tank specced. After the instance (we only completed two quarters before everyone had to go) I ran to Ironforge and duel-specced. I'm going to be a tank. And I'm so incredibly excited. Instances here I come.

Raiding Woes

I woke up on Sunday at 8 with a desire to write. Not blog writing but the kind of writing I did through most of my high school and college days. Novel writing, poetry writing, story writing. I had breakfast plans with a friend at 10:30 so I figured I had plenty of time to get some good writing in and then have breakfast. But again the best laid plans...

My friend called early and we went out earlier for breakfast. And then we went shopping. Now I'm not a huge shopping fan. Particularly not for clothes. But we ended up out for about 5 and a half hours. I was dead tired. My feet hurt and I just wanted to lie on the couch and pretend that the world didn't exist. Again I had a great time out but by the time I got home I was exhausted. And here's the weird part. I didn't want to raid. Thursdays, Sundays, and sometimes Mondays are regular raid nights for my guild. I normally look forward to these chances to hang out with the guild. Last night, I just wanted to sleep.

And it seemed like everyone else was feeling the same way. Our MT had bronchitus and could barely talk. Most everyone was pretty quiet. There was only minimal chatter. We really weren't feeling it. And it showed. Normally we can sweep through two quarters easily in a night. Last night we struggled through one. We died a couple times on Maexxnia, a boss fight that we hadn't had an issue with in a while. We forgot to explain the Grand Widow fight to one of our newcomers and came close to wiping. By the time we finished Arachnid, at 10, everyone was done. We opted not to go on. I logged off immediately and was in bed and fast asleep by 11.

We had included a number of alts in the run last night and that may have contributed but it seemed like more. Everyone seemed tired and not really into it. By this time of night I had lost my desire to write and was only thinking about sleep. If I could have gone to bed at 8 last night I would have. And today my feet are still feeling bad from the walking. We have dinner plans this evening so no chance to relax tonight. I hope by Thursday I'm ready to raid. Until then I'll try to get some writing done.

Naxx update

Two weeks ago we decided to try Naxxramas again. The plan was to start the first quarter on April 2 and see how far we could go. We cleared the first (arachnid quarter) that night. Four trips in the last two weeks and we have only three boss fights left. For a "casual" guild, this is incredible! I had mentioned how we had plowed through arachnid, then plague, then half of construct. Last night we headed back in before the reset today.

We managed to bring down Thaddius (last boss of construct) in one shot. This is by far my favorite fight. So much fun. You start up high on these platforms killing two mini-bosses. Like Romeo and Juliet, these also need to be brought down within seconds of each other. They gave us no real difficulty. Then you need to make this huge jump to get to the boss platform. From there it is all quick dps and movement. Thaddius hits all the participants with a polarity (either positive or negative). All the people of the same polarity need to be on the same side of the platform. If you stand together the buff you get is amazing (huge dps). If you stand on the wrong side, the debuff will wipe the raid. We moved when we needed to and with only five members still living we managed to bring him down. Huge!!!

Then we moved on to military. We had tried the Razuvious fight on Thursday with very limited success (read: four very frustrating wipes). This time everything clicked. The two who were mind controlling the understudies talked, switched, and managed to control him the entire fight. We one-shotted him without even a single death. Go guild. Then we moved on quickly to Gothik. I had watched the video of this beforehand and the fight seemed frantic. The group is split up. Half stands on the living side and half on the dead side. I was on the living side so have no idea how the dead side goes. Adds are spawned on the living side, in increasing numbers. Once we killed the adds they went to the dead side. Finally, after a period of time, Gothik himself comes down to fight. He switches sides (living and dead) until the last 10% where the gate opens and everyone comes in to burn him down. This has to be the easiest fight we've seen in Naxx so far. I thought Noth was quick but this was just not a challenge for us.

And finally around midnight server time (11pm for me) we moved on to The Four Horsemen. I'd been excited about and dreading this fight at the same time. The Horsemen are fought in four corners. The front two is handled by the tanks, healers, and dps. The back two are handled by one person each. Most of them recommend having a warlock do it. Luckily we had two warlocks (me and an affliction warlock). Or perhaps I should say unluckily. I was given my charge and sent to the back corner. My only job was to stay alive. Sadly I failed. Twice. Causing the entire raid to wipe. I think I was putting too much pressure on myself and simply wasn't thinking. I would try to do damage (I am destro to the core now) or try to drain life exclusively or forget to sacrifice my minion fast enough. After two attempts we called it a night and I went to bed pretty dejected. But this morning things look different. I talked with Jeff last night on strategy and think I have a good one. All I need to do is continue to raise and sacrifice my minion over and over. The moment my protective sacrifice bubble bursts I need to sacrifice again. I'll go through a ton of soul shards but those aren't a problem. I can stay alive for quite possibly hours that way. Of course we'll have to try it. But at least this way I can buy some time for the guild.

Other than that I have to say how impressed I am with the guild. In two weeks we have downed over 70% of Naxx. We've learned to use Vent to our advantage and we've learned some really tough fights. It's been a ton of fun and other than the occasional warlock slip :-(, we've all settled happily into our roles. Great tanking, great healing, and great dps. But more than anything, great fun!

Raiding and Pillaging

{Warning: this is an incredibly long post that may not make sense if you don't know at least something about WoW}

My guild for WoW is a mostly casual guild. There are those who go out and pug every instance and every raid. There are others who will never instance at all. I fall somewhere in the middle. I have done the occasional pug (Pick Up Group, for my non-playing friends) but they are not my favorite. Group dynamics tend to be a bit off when it comes to pugs. So I instance regularly with the guild and occasionally pug something.

But the last two days have been all about raiding. On Wednesday the plan was to hit Vault of Archavon (VoA) or Obsidium Sanctum. It just depended on whether Alliance or Horde controlled Wintergrasp. Well, when raid time came Wintergrasp was Horde controlled so we headed over to OS. Now this is a 10 man raid (which I have pugged before) but we as a guild were well overpowered. It took us 35 minutes to get through with only an occasional death and no wipes. Sartharian (the last dragon) is an interesting fight but once you know to look for the flaming wall of death you pretty much avoid it. So there was 10 man OS done. In a shorter time than it takes to do a Violet Hold 5 man instance. So we all headed back to Dalaran. I was about to set out to do my dailies when Alliance took Wintergrasp. We jumped at the chance to do VoA. Now I've never done this raid. But considering it took us 15 minutes I can safely say that we were not in any real trouble. Four trash pulls and then the boss. We should start farming that one. And we had a good time. I enjoy instancing but I really love 10 man raids. It's just so much fun to work together and hang out.

But all of this was just whetting my appetite for last nights event. The guild was going back to Naxxramas! I mentioned in January that we had made an attempt on Naxx but had been stopped by low DPS. At that time we only were able to get through the first two bosses in the arachnid quarter before Maexxnia put an end to our fun. This time was a little different. We were all geared in blues and purples. We were all doing over 1500 dps. And for the first time we were trying Ventrilo. (more on that later) Anub'Rekhan, who had killed us a couple of times previously, went down without too much of a fight. Clearly our new strategy worked. The Grand Widow was just as simple since we managed to wait for the enrage to bring down her minions. I had won my sword from her in January. Maexxnia brought us down once because we forgot about her enrage but the very next time we brought our revenge. She finally went down. And that cleared the Arachnid Quarter. Yay!

On to the Plague Quarter. We had tried in January but the trash mobs killed us. You know it's bad when you die repeatedly on trash mobs. Last night that was not the issue. We rolled through the trash mobs without problem. I got to spend most of my time AOEing. And after only a couple of pulls we were face to face with Noth the Plaguebringer. Now I was originally going to say that the Grand Widow is the easiest fight we've seen in Naxx but Noth comes close. He is pretty much a tank and spank except that he summons skeletons. Then mid-fight he disappears and we have to fight a larger number of skeletons. Then he returns. He went down without any deaths. Easy fight. Heigen the Unclean was not the same way.

I don't think I have ever seen a fight with so much need for movement. Our Main Tank, my friend Lon, described it as two dances. First there is the slow dance, where the ranged stands on the stage while the melee and tanks hurt Heigen on the floor. Every couple of seconds the floor erupts with acid. You need to make sure you're not standing on that section when it does. You move left to right across the floor avoiding the acid areas. And then back. When Heigen returns to his original spot the ranged must come off the stage and the fast dance begins. You just have to move. No casting, no healing, nothing. Just move. Then when you are again in the middle, the slow dance portion starts again. Until you bring him down. The first attempt was a wipe. We just couldn't stay ahead of the acid. Our long suffering rogue started the deaths but I quickly followed. The second attempt worked but only after we had lost all of our main dps. In the end, two healers, two tanks, and a dps/tank brought him down. It was the longest fight I've ever seen. 12 full minutes of fighting. Of course it was particularly long since I spent most of it "decorating the floor" as our hunter said.

The last boss in the Plague Quarter is Loetheb. Loetheb is a strategic fight but not an impossible one. He casts debuffs on you. The first one drains your health, the second one reduces healing by 100%. So basically you are watching your health drop rapidly and can't do anything about it. You have a three second window to heal. The healers did an amazing job keeping the tanks up even with such a short window. I concentrated on healing myself when those three seconds were available. I didn't want the healers to have to worry about me. I ran through my healthstone, two potions (with the cooldown I could only use two), and more bandages than I care to count. I died but the rest of the guild brought him down. Plague Quarter cleared. Yay! We cleared two quarters in a little more than 3 and a half hours. It was amazing. We go back on Sunday and I'm incredibly excited.

As I mentioned earlier we were also using Ventrilo. Vent is a voice over internet program that allowed us to talk to each other in game. I have to say that having played with my guildmates for over a year now, it was really cool to get a chance to hear their voices. My guildmates have definately become friends but friends that I only could type to. Last night I got to talk with them. I hadn't originally planned to hop online until right before the run but when I heard one of our guildies talking through Vent I had to jump on early. I skipped dinner (a huge thing for me) to be able to hang out and talk. Although raiding and instancing with the guild is always fun, being able to talk just made it that much better. I never really thought I would enjoy raiding. I worried that there would be too much pressure. But I'm having nothing but fun. I'm so excited for Sunday. Yay!!

I Found My Rhythm

Apparently whining and complaining does actually get me somewhere. A couple days ago I wrote a terrible blog post whining about my miserable DPS. I spouted terrible things about how awful a player I was and generally was annoying. And it apparently worked.

I had just logged on and started Sons of Hodir dailies when Jeff asked if I wanted to do a heroic. I've been wanting to get some instances in before the big patch, when warlocks will change beyond recognition and I will have to relearn to play. He mentioned Utgarde Pinnacle which has been my old nemesis. I just haven't been able to get through the gauntlet. He threw the offer out and we had a group in seconds. The plan was to do UP and UK. The first two bosses in UP went quick. None of us had ever had either with either Svala or Gortak. Then we got to the gauntlet. First attempt was too quick and we were smothered by the constant mobs. The second one was slow but the last ones did us in. The third attempt proved just as frustrating. Then one of our shamans offered to bring in his feral druid. The current tank, a warrior, took the boss after we knocked him off his high horse (ummm dragon) and the druid took the last couple adds. Down without trouble and we even got the achievement.

The last boss went down quick and easy but it was already 11. We decided to just to a quick Violet Hold run. And it proved to be quick. No deaths, no wipes, just constant activity. All the drops were plate but we had a good time and our warrior cleaned up. After the run I did some enchanting for our warrior and Jeff took the time to pull up the WoW Web Stats reports. This is traditionally my least favorite thing. I always come up at 800 or so. He asked me to guess what I thought I had gotten and I said 920. When he said over 1200 I thought he was lying. But no. I did over 1200 for the whole fight and over 1400 for the bosses. Woohoo!!! I had a couple bosses where I was over 1700 and two where I topped 2000. It was amazing.

Here's what I learned. I had been watching my casting bar. It seemed to take forever to get through a spell and I was waiting on that to hit the next one. Jeff got me started looking at my cooldown bars. I had tried it outside of instances and had been happy with how fast I could cast my next spell. So last night I focused on the cooldowns and that worked. I was able to go from 75% dps time to 98-100%. I topped the damage meters on most of the fights. I was tired but happy. But this morning I'm just so excited. I finally found my rhythm. It just took my focusing on the right thing...and possibly a little whining.

Disconnected

I find it interesting that I'm constantly disconnected from someone. This past week I have been incredibly social. I'm sure Jeff is getting frustrated that I'm gone every evening. I've gotten to see a ton of people and have had a very nice week...except for one thing. I've been completely disconnected from my WoW friends. It has been almost a week since I last played which is the longest stretch I have had. Part of that was my lack of sleep. I've been heading to bed by 10 at the latest with the hope of sneaking in an extra hour. And then there is the fact that I just haven't been home to play. I went out last night with my older sister. On Tuesday it was knitting and then talking to a friend long distance. Monday was shopping for my little sister's birthday and then another long phone conversation with a friend.

So here I am, connecting with all sorts of friends and family members but losing track of guild mates. Then two weeks ago, when I was spending all my time playing, I was losing track of everyone else. For any non-WoW players you may not understand how guildmates can be like an extended family. We hang out together and talk. We laugh at silly jokes and tell stories. The same things that my face-to-face friends do. We just do it online. And I've missed them this week, the same way I missed my friends and family two weeks ago.

I'm sure Jeff would rather have me home and playing but I feel bad either way. So tonight my plan is to play for a little while. I have dailies that need to be done, and instances that need to be run. And I won't be able to play this weekend. Jeff and I will be up north, in the frozen tundra called Minneapolis for MONDO. Yay juggling and dropping and spending time with friends. It will be a good weekend. That will mean no posting for the next couple days. I'll try to write something tomorrow but I can't promise anything. And when I get back, I'll try to balance my time a little better.

A New Look at Karazhan

So this afternoon, the guild decided to do something fun. A group of us (mostly 80s and a few 70s) did Karazhan. We started at 2 o'clock this afternoon and went in with the idea that we would see how far we got. Our guild leader was time crunched and we only had three hours. A "finishing run" was scheduled for tomorrow. I'm happy to say we won't need it. 

The ten of us started downstairs in the stables and took Attumen down in seconds. We figured that was a rare victory. We might have a little more trouble with Moroes. It took us 33 seconds to bring him and his four companions down. And we fought all of them at the same time. Maiden actually gave us the most difficulty but we used it as a grudge match for our often killed Paladin. He has been killed multiple times on Maiden before. This time, he got to walk in like he owned the room and do some damage before we all joined in. 

Curator, Netherspite, and Nightbane offered no real challenge. Nightbane was probably the longest fight but we only went through three aerial phases. Chess gave us fits for some reason. Most of our figures died at least once. It was frustrating but we managed to bring the king down eventually. Illhoof was fun for me. I get to just spam Seed of Corruption on Illhoof and watch everything go boom. For Opera we again got Romeo and Juliet. This time there were no issues. We killed each in seconds and brought the pair down together. Aran died quickly although he did manage to flame wreath right as we brought him down. The flame wreath remained and our hunter moved...almost killing the 70s after the battle was won. 

Prince went down in less than 45 seconds. We actually spent four times more time discussing the fight with the new people. After bringing down Prince we headed to the basement to kill the rest of the trash. Our priest cast Levitate and we got to jump down most of the castle. That of course created our only two deaths. Two of our people didn't wait for the spell and had to be rezzed. We ended up finding a Rare down in the basement but it didn't take us long to clear. All in all, we finished Karazhan in 2 hours. It was so amazing to go through without having to worry about anything. We were so overpowered we would gather whole rooms of trash mobs and AOE them down. It was ego boosting...and just plain fun. A great afternoon. 

Difficulty Level Set to Heroic

Warning: This post is whiny and self-deprecating which is my least favorite type of post. I really shouldn't be writing this. Particularly not today. Just be warned.

There is a great line I heard once that once you're on your fifth divorce, you can no longer really blame the other people. The idea being that there is obviously something wrong with you. The first two I can see being not your fault, by five you have to start questioning your own abilities.

Such is the case for me with heroic runs in WoW. I have had five (count them five) unsuccessful heroic attempts in the last week. These are instances that we get into and die so many times that we just give up. This is not after the first or second death by the way. This is normally after ten or so deaths. Where we are all so tired of the same fight that we can just no longer think straight.

Despite Jeff's best assurances I have to wonder how much it is me. I'm on a mission to increase my dps. I was third on the charts last night but I should be higher. I respec'd Destruction this past week in an attempt to move up. In Naxx I moved from seventh to sixth. (and remember we have two healers). When I'm only barely above the healers, that's just not good enough. So today I'm reading, heavily. To see what I can do.

Last night we tried Naxx again before the reset. We were dying repeatedly on trash pulls in the Plague Quarter. We never even came close to the boss. Then we broke into groups and moved to Utgarde Pinnacle. Only one boss down there. Finally after dying too many times to count in the Trophy Room, we moved to Utgarde Keep. And couldn't get past the first boss. Now in all fairness we were going in with a new tank that was slightly undergeared.

But this is not the first time I've had problems in heroics this week. And after this many deaths in one week, I just have to wonder if it's me.

{As you can see, not my best mood. But I warned you.}

Lessons in Humility

For those of you keeping score at home, Naxx kicked our butts last night.

Maexxna 9

Guild 0

Apparently my talk on Wednesday about how well we had done in Naxx called down the evil forces of the place. This big spider kicked our butts over and over and over. We would get her down to 30% and then she would just destroy us. I had at least 20 gold in repairs last night and I wear cloth. Then we followed up our nine wipes with a couple unsuccessful attempts at heroic violet hold. Not a happy night for Cat. Grrr.

Naxx

Tuesday's have become my knitting night over the last year or so. They also happen to be guild run nights. So I never sign up for guild runs that night since I know I'll never make it. My boss stopped into my office yesterday afternoon to ask what I was doing at 4:30. Never a good question. I ended up attending an economic forecast presentation, which was interesting, but didn't allow me to go knitting.

And that worked out for the best. I got home about 7:30 and made some dinner. I was sitting on the couch finishing up my food when Jeff says that there is a spot open for our guild's first attempt at Naxxramas. If I sign up quick I might make it. We're short some dps. So I sign up on the forums and then try to log in. There is a queue of over 300. It takes me at least 25 minutes to log in. Grrr.



So when I finally get on, I'm shocked and excited to still get an invite. I figured I was probably too late. But I'm going to Naxx!!! We have two tanks, two healers, and 6 dps. Most of us have run together. You enter the instance through any of the four portals and then choose which wing you are going to work on. We chose the Arachnid Wing (our poor arachnophobic paladin) and started clearing trash mobs. I was surprised how easy the trash mobs were. We handled them without difficulty and were quickly at Anub'Rekhan.

Anub is a giant beetle like creature that summons swarms of locusts, large adds, and a few (and that's putting it mildly) scarabs. We were all going into the encounter blind but we knew that we needed to avoid the locust swarm. Our first attempt ended quickly. Tanks went down and so did the rest of us. It was the combination of the locust swarms and the scarabs that killed us. Two more attempts and we finally figure out that the best way to go is to lead him around the circle to avoid most of the damage. But the tank still goes down and we still wipe. On our fifth attempt our main tank, who is a druid, decides to switch into cat form for the run around the circle. He avoids damage and we finally manage to bring him down. Woot!


I'm not sure if it was right then or after that our Death Knight got disconnected. Gone. Thank goodness none of the drops would be useful for her. We stand around and wait for her to return. And wait...and wait. After 10 minutes we decide to start clearing trash to the next boss. Even with only nine this goes quickly. We assume she must be trying to log on and has a queue. So we wait more. Right as we start thinking about finding a replacement she comes back on, grabs her Emblem of Heroism, and on we go.


Grand Widow Faerlina is the next boss and for those who've done Kara, think Romeo and Juliet. She is mostly a tank and spank but with some added features. She casts rain of fire doing tons of damage but we quickly learned to avoid those. It does look an awful lot like a Death Knights circle so at first many of us stayed put. But we quickly learned. The tough part about the Grand Widow is that she enrages, and does some serious damage when enraged. In order to stop this, you need to kill one of her alcolytes right as she starts. But you can't just kill them, you have to kill them within a certain distance of her. That dissapates the enraging. The first time we tried we didn't kill the alcolyte fast enough. The second and third time we killed them too quick. We didn't wait until the enrage started. By this time it's 11 pm and most of us are tired. But we figure one more try. We had been close. And this time it works. We had a paladin who brought the alcolyte down to 50% health and then the moment she enraged we would kill it. Perfect.


So our first attempt last night and we managed to bring down two bosses. The Arachnid Wing was cleared. I'm already signed up to go back on Thursday. Tonight I'm planning to respec Destro. We'll see how it goes. I want my name a little higher on the dps charts.

Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons...

for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

I learned that last night with my first heroic in WoW. For my non-WoW readers a heroic is an instance, either five or ten man, set on a much higher difficulty level then the regular instance. I'd never done a heroic in Burning Crusade, so I got my first taste last night with Oculus. Yeah Oculus. Not the easiest heroic to start with.

Now I've never been to Oculus on regular but I had heard plenty of stories. I knew that the last boss was done on dragonback and I was not terribly excited about that. I have problems with the quests where you have to control something else. But I was still excited to get a chance to go. Heroics are tougher, and I need the practice. They also drop much better gear.

My group had a hunter (Jeff of course), a druid, a paladin, a priest, and me. The other four are seasoned instancers. They have been through Kara more times than they can count and done most, if not all, of the instances in Northrend (Naxx excepted). So we had no difficulties with the trash up to the first boss. Drakos the Interrogator is really just a tank and spank, while avoiding the bright pink bombs he sends out. Nothing difficult. DOT and keep moving. We killed him quick and I got my first Emblem of Heroism. Yay!!

Then you get your dragon, do some simple aerial combat (actually very easy) and find the next boss area. We had some initial trouble getting to the next boss. A wipe or two where Jeff and I had forgotten to clear the snowflakes. Varos Cloudstrider is not an easy boss. Many groups simply can't get past him, particularly on heroic. He shoots out lightning doing large quantities of damage. You have to stay behind him the whole time. It was a lot of moving, not good for a caster, but with my dots I felt that I could contribute a little. He was tough intense fight. The tank died quickly in the fight but was battle rezzed to survive to the end.

Mage Lord Urom offered only a couple problems but we managed to bring him down with only a couple deaths (me included :-( ). The adds weren't the issue. We killed them quick. But on the fight with him alone we lost me, the hunter, and the paladin. Somehow the tank and the priest were able to finish him.

Then we mounted up on the dragons for Ley-Guardian Eregos. If I never hear that name again, it will be too soon. This fight took us well into when the second session was supposed to start. We tried several combinations of dragons (each does a different type of damage). We tried several different strategies. And we did way too many rezzes and corpse runs. We made nine or ten attempts on this guy until we finally had had enough. The best attempt I think we only managed to bring him down to 40%. It was discouraging.

We were all mentally exhausted. I had a terrible headache, left over from my illness, and was thinking of calling it a night. My repair bill was awful. Then one of the group suggested Violet Hold heroic. Okay so bed can wait. In twenty minutes we ran through heroic Violet Hold. There was not one death. My first successful heroic. It helped leave a better taste in my mouth. It was an incredibly frustrating night but well worth the effort. I'd do it again, but hopefully next time with some better plan of attack.

I Can Quit Anytime I Like

This phrase gets bandied around my house a lot lately, sometimes by Jeff and lately sometimes by me. And it seems so appropriate for this post. I've always been a moderation person so these past couple of weeks have been odd. Then again there are worse things to be addicted to.

First I have to say that I am humbled and awed by the fact that people read this thing. I do it mostly for fun, mostly for an excuse to write, and mostly because I'm forgetful. This is a great way to remember things. But it is a little off putting when you have just finished bringing down the second boss in Utgarde Pinnacle (Gortok Palehoof) and you are still dealing with some sort of curse. I was bright green and dropping health at an alarming rate. (squishies don't do well with curses) So I'm wondering where my heals are coming from when my guild leader, who happens to be the healer, mentions that sorry he was reading my blog and got distracted. My first thought is "Really!! Yay". The fact that my guild leader reads my blog is exciting. The second thought I had was "hello, still dying". So after I was decursed and healed I whispered him with a "thanks for reading". He said he enjoyed the blog but wanted more WoW stuff. So Nereeza, this is for you! :-)

I can quit anytime I like! Really I'm not addicted. I just don't want to. And no I haven't gone into withdrawl, or dreamt about WoW. No I have never told my husband to hurry his shopping up (at Target no less) so I can get home and play. No I haven't spent an entire weekend in front of the computer only leaving it for breakfast each morning. No I have never spent more time playing WoW in one day then I have working. No I've never eaten dinner in front of the computer. (And if you believe all this I have some very nice oceanfront property in New Mexico to sell you.)

I'm seriously addicted. I figured I would slack off a little once I hit 80. The lure of leveling would be over. But that has simply not been the case. I'm almost ashamed to say that I spent well over 25 hours in front of the computer this weekend. (note the almost) I finished all my Ice Crown solo quests, pugged an Ahn'hahet-Old Kingdom run for a fellow guildy, ran The Culling of Stratholme (literally minutes after finishing Old Kingdom, and last night did Utgarde Pinnacle. I'm signing up for Naxxramas this week. I'm scheduling time to do instances. And I'm desperatly trying to get my tailoring up. I spent part of my day on Friday figuring out all the Knights of Ebon Hold quests so I can get my rep up. I actually played more than Jeff this weekend. (And that is saying a lot)

So this morning I had a touch of guilt that I was not more productive this weekend. I'm supposed to be working on a scarf to give to charity. That didn't even get touched. The poor cat is lonely and bored and only really sees me when she jumps up and plays behind the computer. I keep telling myself that I should be reading, or professional development, or writing books. But for the first time in a while I'm being selfish. I'm letting myself play as much as I want to. But I can quit anytime I like. (Really!!....Maybe....)

Holiday Parties Done Right

I've had a couple holiday parties this year. I had a work party which my boss provides for us. It was a lot of fun but my work group is not very close knit so I need a few drinks to get me through. I had a potluck party that I was hosting so that was a lot more stress and work than normal. We've had other parties that were mostly just sitting around talking. And those were fun. But my favorite party so far was the one last night. The one that took place entirely at my computer.

My guild for World of Warcraft has monthly meetings and they are always a lot of fun. But the holiday party was great. We got dressed up in our winter gear (for me just a hat so far) and played Hide and Seek. Jeff has always said that it is more fun to play games while talking. And this was definately the case. We started out in Shattrath gathered in a group. The officers of the guild were not there though. They were already hiding in each of the main cities. We had nine people stashed away in Ironforge, Stormwind, Darnassus, The Exodar, Dalaran, and Shattrath. They were all hidden by trees and they were all dancing. (that didn't always make them easier to find) The rule was we had to find all nine and open trade with them. Then they gave us a present. (and some nice gifts too. I got enough gems to socket my gear) The first three to complete the entire race got prizes. (Really nice prizes). Now I have to say that there are a lot of hiding places in those cities. I should know I scoured each of them last night. I even got to go to a city I'd never been to before (The Exodar).

I'll tell you that I didn't win. I didn't even come close but I had a ball. Guildies were running everywhere, chatting, and posting about our presents. The officers, if we ran past, would tease us until we found them. It was great. And easily the best holiday party I have had this year. I'm sure my sister who reads this will tease me (goodhumoredly) about how much of a geek I am but in a family that's motto is "embrace your nerdiness" it won't be too taken too seriously. And I still had a blast.

Karazhan!

{Warning: for my non WOW playing readers, this post will mean nothing}

For my Wow playing readers they may not be interested but at least they should understand what I'm talking about. I had dinner with a friend Wednesday night that ran almost two hours. I got home finally at 7:30 and the first words out of Jeff's mouth were "we have a spot for Kara, want to go?" Now I'm a brand-new 70, wearing mostly greens. Not your typical Kara player. Jeff informs me that it is incredibly nerfed so I say what the heck. I have to say that I love my guild for that. Not a lot of guilds would take a underpowered, underequipped player into Kara. Mine did.

We started with Attumen and had no real problems with him. I had a moment of stupidity, right after Attumen mounted Midnight, my hand slipped. I spun around, losing track of everyone. I knew I was supposed to be behind the horse right then. I just didn't know where the horse was. I happily didn't wipe the party, or even kill anyone. That was pretty much my whole goal for the night.

We did Murkblood who provided the most challenge for the evening for me. Just trying to stay in front of him was difficult. He moved way too quick for me. I just dotted him up (Affliction ftw) and kept running. It was pretty intense but we managed to down him on the first try, no deaths. Moroes was practically a trash pull for the group. They are mostly epiced out. Then Maiden. I had seen this fight before but I was surprised at how long she stood up. It took quite a while to kill her. I managed to do the entire fight without taking any damage.

My first shot at Opera and we got Romeo and Juliet. I was pretty happy with that. The Wizard of Oz would have probably been too distracting for me. I've never done a 10 man so it was a bit confusing at the start. We killed both and then started to work on the two of them together. Juliet went down, and Romeo still had way too much health. But we turned on the dps and brought him down. Then on to Nightbane. This was awesome. I knew what to expect going in (I've watched many a fight over Jeff's shoulder) but this was seriously wild. The imps were kicking my tail (I'm squishy) but luckily we had good heals. Down in one try. And the end of the night. It was past midnight EST.

I picked up some great gear including new gloves and a beautiful new staff. I thanked everyone and logged off. The next night was our rescheduling knitting night so I didn't think I would get a chance to finish the run. But my sister called at 4 and said she didn't really feel like it, and I wasn't overly excited so we called it off. I signed up for that night's run. And I'm glad I did.

It was an odd group. A warrior, four hunters, a shaman, a paladin, a priest, a rogue, and me. We started with Curator, who went down easy. Then we moved onto Aran. Jeff accidentally left his gorilla on aggressive. We walked into the room and he attacked. Aran threw down flame wreath immediately as we were moving in and we were toast. Only one member survived and that was surprising. Our second attempt proved much more successful. I even remembered to banish one of the elementals.

Chess was odd and not my favorite fight. I died once when my piece couldn't get out of the fires. We won without problem but I just didn't enjoy the experience. I hated the limited movement and the limited attacks. I managed to bring down one piece though. Illhoof was next. My moment to shine. As a warlock I got to focus all my attention on Illhoof. My guild leader had me simply seed of corruption the thing to death. Worked like a charm.

And lastly we took down Prince. That was the most intense fight of the night and one of the most fun. So much going on and at the end he was running towards us, I assume after dispatching our tank. He had almost reached me (standing next to the healer) when he fell right at our feet. Wild. He dropped the Helm of the Fallen Hero and Jeff finally made me roll for it, even though he wanted it badly. I figured I had already picked up a number of beautiful purples. I won it and picked out my first T4 piece. Yay!! It was an amazing night. In two days I helped complete Kara. We only have Netherspite left and he'll be Sunday. I hope I can go.