Camielle

Poke me here!

2008-11-03T23:22:59Z

For all of the members of the wow_ladies community database, this is created for you to have a dedicated thread by which to contact me. If you forgot your password, need a server added, or have some other request, please tell me here. I will get to it as soon as I am able, which can range from immediately, to a few days.

BLOCKED!!

2007-07-24T16:32:48Z

My workplace has once again blocked access to LiveJournal. Although I haven't bee posting to my personal journal much lately, my attention to LJ overall will be diminished until the ban is removed, if ever. If you need to get in contact with me, you can post here to get my attention. Hopefully they aren't blocking the emails that will come.

New Character Icons!!

2007-07-13T20:45:59Z

As most of my character icons are severely out of date, I felt it was time to revisit them. This time around I actually used more sophisticated software than MS Paint .. combining the powers of WoW Model Viewer, Paint Shop Pro, ImageReady, and Animation Studio to achieve these results.

With this new setup I should be able to update these a lot more easily. It also helps that I don't level nearly as much as I used to since all of my characters are too high to get several levels per day.

I have also created a new "alt-itis" image which I have used on this post. I had to squish it down a little to fit inside the image size restrictions for LJ, but it came out alright.

What does it take to be a crusader?

2007-07-11T15:44:31Z

I have 4 70s. Their classes are druid, warrior, paladin, and priest. Of my non-70s I am most interested in my shaman. Can you see the pattern in this? Each of them is capable of tanking, healing, or both. Why do I prefer these classes? Because they are the ones other people need.

When I look for a guild to join, one of my first questions is "what do you need?" All I want is a place where I can feel like an integral part of the group.

A year ago when I was raiding, I was raiding as a guest of a guild. I went with this guild from UBRS, through MC, half of ZG, BWL, AQ20, Onyxia, Azuregos, all 4 green world dragons, and half of AQ40. By the end I was #3 overall on the DKP chart. This guild had ranking titles to determine the dedication of their raiders, "crusader" being the ones who had priority on raid slots and loot. While I was given both priorities, I could not get the crusader title because I wasn't in the guild. This disappointed me because after all we had been through they wouldn't declare me a crusader because "it wouldn't be fair and they don't want to set a precedent." And every day I went on, fearing one day we'd have so many priests that they'd look and say, "well here are 4 crusaders ready to raid, and there's Elia. I guess we're going to have to leave her out today."

Since I didn't want this to happen, I took a look at what the guild needed. At the time they were severely short on warriors, so I rolled one. Unfortunately during the time it took to level from 1 to 60, they recruited several and one of the warlocks decided to roll a warrior as well. While we hit 60 at about the same time, he was able to spend his time earning PvP rank and I wasn't. I spent time running level 60 instances and MC/ZG trying to gear up as best I could. Unfortunately it was too late and the warrior slots had been filled, and I was in a worse position than I had started. I left the guild disheartened.

A year later, I heard that they had a need for healers. I happened to have one available and raid ready, a paladin. The same ranking system was still in place and I was told that if I performed well I might be promoted to crusader in a month and a half or so. I did as best as I could for this time, attending every raid available. It has been two months now, and last night rankings were adjusted guild-wide. I wasn't promoted. Instead, I was told that in the near future there would only be three paladin raid slots available and therefore our class leader would only be keeping two crusaders. In the short time I have been with the guild I have more than four times the DKP than the two crusader paladins combined. I lose out however, due to the seniority of the others.

Now I sit again in this guild, waiting for the hammer to drop. "Yes, I know you signed up first for our Vashj attempt but we have three paladins already so you'll have to sit out." Except it is never said like that. Instead I find out by checking the GEM signup on the day of the raid and see that my name has gone from P6 to S5... forced to a sub. I honestly don't know if I could take it. I'm already emotional enough about this as it is. I can feel the inevitability of it hanging over me.

What does it take to be a crusader? Apparently nothing I can give.

Edit: This post was not to put the guild's policies or decisions into question but rather to express my disappointment if failing to achieve a goal I have had for a year and a half.

Honestly, from the class leader's perspective she's looking at four paladins and three slots. Three of the paladins have been with the guild (in their current incarnations) for a long time, one hasn't. The choice on who to leave out is pretty trivial and it isn't her fault. They do give back too. Devereaux is wearing 13 epics and last night replaced one with another. I don't think her decision was unfair. I just want to be on the other side of the fence, that's all.

Messing around with Image Ready

2007-05-25T13:46:08Z

Over a year ago I downloaded a trial version of Adobe Photoshop so I could try editing images. I found I was able to do a few things that were pretty cool but there was no way I could afford the several hundred dollars it cost to purchase a license. With Photoshop came an application called Image Ready. It was also a trial version, but unlike Photoshop which made itself inaccessible after 30 days, Image Ready just had some of its functionality removed. I was able to make minor adjustments to images with this, but it wouldn't let me save images in any format other than .psd which is the photoshop file extension, so I didn't think I could do much with it.

Yesterday I poked around with it a little more and found I could still use it, as long as I flattened the image at the end and copy-pasted the end result into MS Paint where I could save it off as a .png without losing any of the image quality.

So I added a little bit to Triese's awesome drawing of Cammy.

Also, over on the Relentless Dawn guild boards, most people have signatures that contain premade character displays such as this.

Many people have 2 or 3 in their signature, but with all of my 60s I didn't feel that this was sufficient. I ended up creating an image file where I could adjust the levels of the characters as necessary, but take up far less space. Here is the end result.

A learning experience, and a lot of fun!

Get out of my head!!!

2007-05-07T18:51:37Z

All day I've been having the midi songs from old Nintendo games get stuck in my head. I've come to the conclusion that I played Mega Man 2 entirely too much when I was little.

Air Man
Metal Man
Wood Man
Bubble Man
Heat Man
Crash Man
Flash Man
Quick Man

... I still remember the order I fought them. XD And 20 years from now I'll be rattling off how I used to know the names of all the spec trees of the WoW classes. I am so useful for the advancement of society.

The Shadowrider Returns

2007-05-02T16:17:58Z

A few days ago Elia joined an Underbog run with a friend just for fun. Since I had kept her Disc/Holy the only way I felt she'd level would be by instancing. I was disappointed to discover just how hard it is to find groups, especially for the lower end Outlands instances. Since soloing was painful with the build I had and the Shadow build I put together just wasn't working for me, Elia got shelved. This Underbog run however, brought me to 62 and allowed me to train Shadow Word: Death.

SW:D doesn't come in too handy for a Disc/Holy priest and while it certainly was powerful enough on the level 3 wolves I tried it out on in Dun Morogh, I knew it'd be useless unless I went to a damage build. I was reluctant to retry Shadow because I didn't like it the first time I ventured through Outlands with it, but I really wanted to see what SW:D could do first-hand. Fifteen gold later I was picking up Shadow talents and heading back to Hellfire to catch up on the solo quests I had been ignoring for so long.

I figured that a lot of my trouble the first time around was not using spells properly. I decided that Vampiric Embrace would be saved for instances or boss-type mobs and I'd take it out of my normal rotation. In my old Shadow days I used to start Mind Blast-SW:P-Mind Flay and repeat Flay throwing in Mind Blast whenever the cooldown was up. When BC came out and I tried to put VT into the rotation, I put it after SW:P and I was generally displeased with its results, quit using it, and got tired of Shadow as a whole. This time I put VT ahead of Mind Blast and either Shadow Priests got a major buff somewhere between now and the last time I tried, or this strategy made a huge difference. Eventually I figured that going VT-Mind Blast-SW:P-Mind Flay was the best way to go and I was simply amazed with the speed at which I was killing things. I would put on PW:S before each fight and I was killing things in about 15 seconds. My rogue and warlock aren't even killing things that quickly.

The first time I went Shadow post-BC I had a lot of difficulty with multiple mob pulls so I was afraid I'd have trouble with that again, but even that went smoothly. I went to the Mag'har camp where you had to kill grunts for beads and there were several 3-mob pulls. I could VT-MB-SW:P the first target then VT-SW:P the other two and by the time this was all done the first guy would just need a SW:D to finish him off and Mind Flay could quickly dispatch the other two. It was actually fun to play Elia again for the first time in a long time. I'm not sure how much focus she'll get, but it sure was nice to wield that kind of power. I did have to drink after every 5th mob or so, but the only other time I had this much damage output was as Yv in Fire Mage mode and she'd have to drink after every 2nd mob.

And to top it off, this was done with mostly +heal gear and very little +spell damage.

Night & Day: Part 2

2007-04-25T19:13:22Z

Lately I've been going to Karazhan in one of two ways. Either I've been going as part of my guild's alliance, or as a guest of another guild.

My alliance went to Kara in week one and was beaten by trash and by Attumen repeatedly. We didn't know where we were going or what we were doing, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Not entirely bad for only 3 hours on one day. Since then we've still gone at most once a week for at best 3 hours and had these results.

Week 1: Wiped on Attumen, Wiped on Moroes
Week 2: Defeated Attumen, Wiped on Moroes
Week 3: Defeated Attumen, Wiped on Moroes
Week 4: No attempt
Week 5: No attempt
Week 6: Wiped on Attumen.

Needless to say, being six weeks in and not being able to kill Attumen is seriously frustrating. On the other hand, the guild I joined as a guest with had defeated Moroes only once when I came in. Since then I've helped them defeat the Maiden, the Oz Opera event (they defeated the Riding Hood one without me on another week), and have made significant progress towards the Curator, all in half of the time because they go more than once a week. This guild is no model of efficiency as there are frequent face-pulls, stupid wipes, and members often have to leave which gimps the raid balance. But the progress is still gratifying and last night when downing Moroes they let me have the watch that drops so now I even have my first epic Kara loot.

I'm trying to figure out what I can do to make things better for our guild runs, but the problem is we don't even have 10 active people in the guild so we are at least dependant on others. I think our first step needs to be finding a group that wants to go at least three times a week, even if that means ditching our current alliance.

We're never going to get anywhere on 3 hours per week.

Night & Day

2007-04-23T15:18:55Z

Something possessed me to queue for WSG this weekend. Of course the initial prodding came from it being WSG weekend, but most times when this monthly holiday comes around I hide from PvP and find better ways to waste my time. But since I'm trying to get Devereaux involved in arena PvP, I figured I should do a little work towards the battleground epic portions of equipment.

Alliance WSG PuGs are so painful. I tried my best to be a healer and flag support, but with my build and being a Paladin to begin with, I couldn't do much in the way of killing. Often I'd get focused on and my teammates were too spread out or self absorbed to assist. We managed to win one game, but didn't even capture a single flag in the rest.

I had given up on WSG for the week when Slade asked if I wanted to join him in some games. I figured we might stand a fighting chance with him around so I agreed, and found the group invitation came from Cyansarios, a hunter from RD. Well hello there, now I'm part of the RD premade. At first we only had 6-7 people and we were struggling. We lost a few games, but they were against premade Horde teams so it wasn't much of a surprise.

When we filled the team out to 10 though, we went into high gear. We won almost every game, posting 13 wins total for the night. By the end, Painstalker (druid) and I were the only ones running flags unless the Horde had heavy defense while everyone else was free to control the middle and protect our own flag. We defeated several premade horde groups and obliterated some horde PuGs (mostly because they run in terror from premades so they can go trounce some alliance PuG instead).

Fighting with these guys was so different it was amazing. While I was out in the field healing, I would still get focused on, however other healers would heal me so I could continue healing the DPS. I really hope next week I can join them for AB. Shinare is 15 tokens and a mere 3000 honor away from the PvP belt which will leave her two visual pieces short of the complete post-BC PvP armor set.

Dancing in the dark, walking through the park

2007-04-11T15:55:20Z

And reminiscing.

Two years ago this month Bryn wanted to introduce me to some RP buddies she had met. We went to the inn in the warrior's district of Ironforge and met a rogue and mage who were both (RP) drunk and yelling at passersby. At the time I was playing Zielia on Scarlet Crusade, and was still a heavy RPer who was in character all of the time. Z was very much against being drunk and didn't much enjoy the company of those who were so the situation was a bit awkward. It was however, refreshing to find more RPers as in my few months playing WoW I realized just how few people on RP servers actually RP'd. As it turned out, this rogue (Slade) and mage (Sarasvati - sarasvato) became much better friends through separate routes. I like to think back to this encounter as a root of where I am now. I'm definitely glad to have met you both and had your friendship over the last two years.

One year ago this month, Triese decided to give Kirin Tor a try and made a baby rogue with my baby warrior. Things were going very well for me raiding with Denizens of Azeroth and I wanted her to have some of the same experiences I was having. At the time I had three 60s and this baby warrior would later become my fifth. I posted this in one of my messages, "There are 9 classes and 60 levels to gain in each. That makes for 540 total levels. I have achieved 389 of them to this point."

As of today, I have completed 555 of 630 total possible levels. Devereaux has reached 70 and I have three of them now. We're still trying to piece together a raiding group that wants to make attempts more than once a week but finding the people has been difficult. I've got a decent character base now, so I should be able to provide someone in whatever role we're lacking. So far though, there has been no life-altering events in April of this year, but we'll have to see how I feel about that a year from now.

Kara(oops, we wiped before I could finish the title)

2007-03-19T17:16:44Z

Yup, that's about how well we did in Karazhan. We wiped to Attumen a lot, getting Midnight to 90% at best. Despite the massive wiping, I still had a lot of fun. It was really cool to see a new place and experience new bosses. I'm still dying to see the Opera and Chess events, but we'll get there in time. The only downer was one group member who had a really negative attitude and clearly wasn't used to wiping while learning new encounters. Hello? This is an epic rewarding raid instance. This is not UBRS. I expect we'll try to find a Holy Paladin replacement because we have enough of that class already and could use the abilities of a Paladin in the group.

I was aware that mobs hit hard in Karazhan, but wow I simply wasn't prepared (and neither were the healers) for this kind of bombardment. On our first attempt I was tanking Midnight and I got 2 or 3 shot and died before any heals landed. Then we found that initiating the fight after 25 minutes causes all of the trash to respawn and wtfpwn the raid. This happened to us twice. When respawns weren't forcing the wipe either the MT wouldn't be able to pick up Attumen before he ate a healer or two, the healers wouldn't be able to heal fast enough to keep me up, or my sorry bear self would simply take too much damage from being PvP spec instead of PvE spec.

After enough wipes to force us all to repair and come back, we decided we weren't getting any better at the fight and moved on to attempt Moroes instead. The trash on the way caused a couple problems of their own, but thankfully didn't respawn nearly as fast. I don't remember exactly who we ended up with, but we had 3 priests so I was really hopeful things would go well here. On our first attempt Moroes gouged the MT and we had no second in aggro so he went and killed the healers. On the second I was set up to offtank for gouges but shackles were being broken and that resulted in dead healers. Future attempts yielded similar results, and in each attempt we only managed to take down one add. I'll forgive Moroes for killing me though because he's got a cute voice. Since he's undead, I'll have to introduce him to Triese.

I'm looking forward to more attempts, but I think since my role appears to be offtank more often than not, I'm going to be switching to Camielle who has by far better tanking stats and abilities. It is very apparent that I need to gear up seriously, something I didn't have to do pre-BC because with Elia I had PvP equipment which was Tier 2 equivalent when I started MC, and by the time I took other characters, guilds had most stuff on farm status that being 1 undergeared person in a raid of 20 or 40 wasn't a big deal. I've made a list of all the equipment that I want to get based on rep, crafting, and quest rewards. I don't want to rely on drops to build my equipment, but I will also be fully gemming and enchanting my equipment as the set fills. I need to find a way above 10K HP unbuffed and around 14K armor.

Ring-a-ling Ding

2007-03-16T17:43:17Z

Camielle takes the #2 position for reaching level 70. I've been enjoying the warrior class a bunch the last few days and pushed through the last three levels pretty quickly while I had the enthusiasm. Now the two characters that were in a race to finish 4th and 5th to 60, are 1st and 2nd respectively to 70. Meanwhile poor Zielia (1st to 60) and Elia (3rd to 60) are getting no play time.

I'm looking forward to tanking in whatever capacity I can. With a druid and a warrior I have the best of both worlds and can fill whichever role is needed more once we finally get a Karazhan group together.

Next in line are my two 63s, Devereaux and Cammy. Lately I've been a lot more interested in Paladining than Warlocking so Devereaux will get the early push. Cammy still needs to get her epic fiery horse, which is also keeping her back. She's the only 60+ I have without an epic mount now, and I have already purchased Camielle's gryphon (I like flight form soooo much better though).

Now it comes to keying Camielle up. I'm already halfway through the Kara key chain, the Steamvaults/Arcatraz runs are next. I'm deciding whether or not I should respec yet since I currently don't have any word as to if I'll be raiding as a druid or warrior, and if I'm a warrior I may still be needed to DPS-Arms. I'm considering staying as I am (42/14/5), respecing to a more tanking friendly Mortal Strike build (41/0/20), or doing the heavy Protection build I would prefer if I tank for a living (10/10/41). I'll be playing more with the talent calculator to refine my ideas before I make a choice.

The good news.

2007-03-05T15:27:51Z

I would say that this weekend was a very good weekend.

In 2v2, Slade and I finally won a little more than we lost, and managed to start a set of matches without digging ourselves a hole that we needed to climb out of. Our rating at the end of last week was 1606, and we managed to raise it to 1702 where we will let it stay until Tuesday. Currently the Armory shows us as the second best 2v2 team on our server. I'm pretty happy with that.

Similarly, our 3v3 team made some progress. Unfortunately with 3 DPS classes it is difficult to beat many teams, but we still improved our rating from 1544 to 1600 for the week. This also was good for second place on the server.

Considering the classes we've selected, and our lack of l33t Karazhan epix, I think we've done extremely well for ourselves.

In my "downtime" I also managed to finish some important quests for keys. I'm now keyed for Arcatraz and Karazhan. While I currently don't have anyone to run Kara with, I think in a matter of time Slade will try to arrange something for us. I may just have to bite the nerf bullet and try to stick with Shin.

I no longer have any Alliance 60s, my final one Mey, got off of her lazy butt and hit 61. I excitedly went back to train, wondering what upgraded skills I'd get. What? Immolation Trap (Rank 4) and that's it? Are you serious? Oh well, level 62 will bring Steady Shot which will be an interesting addition.

Vati and Gera are making Horde lowbies to mess around with on the Scryers server and invited me to join. I looked at the Blood Elf models again, unhappy with the selections I have made to date. I needed to find a model I'd be happy with so I played around with the options again. I even *gasp* went away from red hair for a while and tried a blonde. I would have stuck with her too if I didn't like the way the back of the hairstyle was. In the end though, I created Camielle and Cammy again. Red hair, with a ponytail ^.^ It's my turn to swish. I played 6 levels into the priest and 10 into the paladin, and I like the look far better than the others I have tried. I'm really impressed that I still like both Aryna and Evani's models after all this time.

New Icon & Anti-nerfing

2007-02-28T16:52:00Z

Thank you Triese for the new icon!! I lurves it! Only 8 more to do right? >.>

---

It seems the priest complaining yielded some results. The Prayer of Mending cooldown is being reduced to 10 seconds from 20, and they are getting a half-hearted buff to PW:S and Circle of Healing.

It seems the paladins complaining got the Forbearance nerf eliminated completely.

It seems the druid complaining has gotten them nothing.

I really would like to continue playing as a druid, but I don't think I'll have a place. I suppose this is the drawback of having so many characters. I have a 70 with no keys to anywhere who doesn't get invited to much, and a bunch of 60-65s that have nobody to group with most of the time.

What should I do? Who should I focus on? I can see that in a few months I'll have several 70s and nothing to do with any of them since people will be raiding the 25-mans and I won't be able to get groups for the prerequisite quests and instances.

I'm trying my best to hang in there...

Nerf to me = ranty post!

2007-02-26T20:53:31Z

I suppose I'm obligated on some degree to rant about the major druid and priest nerfs being handed to us in the upcoming patch. So here's my take.

The priest nerf isn't so bad. I'm not sure how necessary it was, but in my opinion Prayer of Mending needed some kind of nerf because priests could survive through their entire mana bar with both Slade and I unloading full DPS on them. A 20 second cooldown seems fair for its intended purpose of a heal that jumps. If it's spam cast on one person it's not doing what it was designed to do. As far as the healing parts of VE goes, I can understand that too. The healing from a shadow priest was making it so the main healer's job often was too easy. A priest in shadow form should be doing damage, which they excel at. However, to compensate for this change, shadow priests need to be given some form of longevity when it comes to certain encounters. I often find our shadow priests OOM halfway through a boss encounter. I'd trade the healing for something that helps them go deeper into fights. There are rumors that some sort of priest buff is coming, we'll just have to see. Either way I'm not likely to be raiding or PvPing with Elia any time soon, and if I don't like what they did to Shadow, I'll probably just go back to Disc/Holy.

The druid nerf has me crying inside. Druids were mistaken for really good alternatives for tanking instances. While they were an option, they weren't better than warriors that wanted to tank. What kills me is all the Arms/Fury warriors who were whining about how good druid tanks were. If you wanted to be a better tank, spec protection!!!! A druid specs feral because they want to be able to tank! A bear tank has no shield to block with and no weapon to parry with. They can't use potions, they have no Last Stand or Shield Wall. A healer is severly taxed when trying to heal a bear tank. This patch makes it so much worse.

Now from the PvP perspective. People complain that druids can deal heavy damage in cat form. Um.. I got a 3500 Ferocious Bite crit once. To do that, I need 5 combo points on a target AND 100 energy. My Mangles crit for 1600, and Shreds can go up to 1800 if I'm lucky. But these require melee range, limited resources in energy, and Shred needs me to be behind my target. Now lets compare this to .. say .. a mage. Almost every battle it's Presence of Mind followed by Pyroblast for 4800 instant damage. This is quickly followed by a Fire Blast for 2000, Blast Wave for 1800, and Dragon's Breath for 1000. That's nearly 10,000 damage in 4 instant casts. And you're reducing my HP to contend with that? Ok, I assume to balance it out you'll let me do more damage from the only form that can absorb that kind of punishment, because if I was in cat form I'm already dead. But no! Mangle (Bear) is apparently overpowered! A druid in PvP can't be in any form except bear if they want to survive, now druids are a free HK. We either die trying to heal ourselves in caster form, die trying to DPS in kitty form, or die but last a few seconds longer in bear form scratching futily at the enemy.

The question is, what class to play now? I really wish I had a mage to PvP with, but alas, I'm only 14. I tried some Shaman this weekend but I don't think I'm good enough with that class, plus I'm only 30 now.

I've never been good at hunter PvP...
Paladin PvP isn't my style...
I'm ok with a rogue, but never have the gear to compete, and I can't stunlock for my life...
All I'm good for as a warrior is tanking stuff in AV...

...

Which I guess leaves warlock.

More updating and arena stuffs

2007-02-21T15:23:58Z

Let's see...

Shin made tons of money questing in Netherstorm, then spent it leveling enchanting and helping Devereaux leveling blacksmithing. Our progressions is as follows.

Hellfire Citadel:
Ramparts (Complete)
Blood Furnace (Complete)
Shattered Halls (wiped on end boss)

Coilfang Reservoir:
Slave Pens (Complete)
Underbog (Complete)
Steam Vaults (not attempted)

Auchindoun:
Mana-Tombs (Complete)
Sethekk Halls (Complete)
Auchedai Crypts (not attempted)
Shadow Labyrinth (Complete)

Caverns of Time:
Escape from Durnholde (Complete)
Opening the Dark Portal (Complete)

Tempest Keep:
The Mechanar (Complete)
The Botanica (not attempted)

Elia finally made 61. I got into the swing of Shadow Priesting again, and I've worked Vampiric Touch into my cycle. I still have trouble with multiple pulls though.

I've messed around a little with Yv, only 25% through 60. I put her back to Frost and it was much better than when I tried leveling with Fire. The water elemental is a lot more helpful than I had originally thought. It is pretty annoying she's on the wrong side of the fence. Evani leveled, but that only makes her 9 :(

The first week results for the arena came in and I was very disappointed with the results. I originally thought that you would get points for all of the teams you are on, but apparently that is not the case. I've heard that you'll get the points for the best team you're on, which, while disappointing, would be somewhat reasonable. However when I expected to get 481 points from my 2v2 team and 376 points from my 3v3 team, I ended up with 320. Everyone on my 3v3 team had exactly 320. I contacted a GM and she explained it was a display issue that was known and being worked on. Here's to hoping I have 857 points, or at least 481.

Weekend Update with Dennis Miller

2007-02-12T17:23:55Z

((How old does that make me, that Dennis Miller is the SNL news anchor that I remember most? I also had Kevin Nealon come to mind.))

Shinare became my first 70. Only 8 (maybe 9 if Yv is lucky) more to go. Cyclone is cool, but either needs to be instant or needs to last longer. A 1.5 second cast for a 6 second CC that doesn't change the target's position like fears and polys doesn't quite cut it. I have respec'd to 31 points Resto, 30 points Balance to get Nature's Swiftness and Swiftmend strictly for the Arena. The rest went into Balance to increase my damage output, now I just have to figure out how to actually do damage between heals.

Camielle is up to 64 and is expected to take over for Shin as the MT for the guild. Tanking up to 70 as a Druid works great, but bosses will start requiring smaller HP pools with damage mitigation over enormous HP pools that just soak up healing. I love tanking though and will be happy to leave Camielle on the PvP sidelines while I gear up in +defense armor. I have also respec'd to Fury, just to test it out for a while. The numbers aren't as pretty, but the build does seem to get the job done. I think I prefer Arms better still due to the pain Whirlwind and Retaliation can dish out with a slow 2-h instead of a fast 1-h. That's live saving stuff when it comes to multi-pulls. It does get tiresome having to bandage after each pull though.

Devereaux is my 5th to reach 61. I'm still happy with the decision to return to Holy/Protection. I'm nearly impossible to kill except when fighting in an area choked with fast respawning mobs. Even then it usually takes a caster to take me down. I think I'll be a viable healer, and might pass for a tank (though probably just an offtank). I don't however, expect to use her much.

I made no progress on Zielia, Cammy, Elia, or Mey this weekend. While I do need to push Elia up in order to progress her Enchanting properly, the rest are little more than novelties right now. Funny how that happens to my DPS classes. I guess I just like support classes better.

Aryna and Evani have taken a back seat to Outland leveling for the time being.

Poor poor Yv. Does anyone have a resurrection spell that will let her be a human again?

Finding my own style

2007-02-07T17:10:05Z

This post is inspired by my recent respec with my Paladin Devereaux. When the 2.0 specs came out and Retro Crusader Striking was all the rage, I switched off of my Holy Holy Shock build to give it a whirl. At first I thought it was neat that Paladins could finally take mobs down quickly. I didn't have much use for my Paladin at the time so I didn't think much about it and went back to my other characters. When it came time to take her to the Outlands though, I found that I was hating a class that I once loved dearly. The cost of being able to kill quickly was a depleted mana pool. The mana of a Paladin is her survivability, and on multiple mob pulls I would find fights challenging. When I leveled originally I was heavily Protection spec'd and while I didn't dish out the damage, nothing could take me down. I suspect a large reason to the ineffectiveness of my Retribution build was the poor quality of my equipment (mostly tier 0 with a ZG 2-hander), but I simply didn't enjoy the strategies involved with that style.

Since I don't want to have any characters that I don't want to play, I needed to find a way to enjoy Devereaux again. Holy is nice for healing, Protection is awesome for tanking, but each of these roles works best in instances, which Dev will not be going in. Despite Retribution being the suggested soloing build, I just couldn't take it so I respec'd last night to get something I hoped I would enjoy. I went for a balance between the Protection I liked leveling with, and the Holy I liked instancing with at 60. In a short amount of time last night trying out the build I have to say I enjoyed it much better. Sure it took longer to kill stuff, but I suffered no deaths and only one of what I used to call a "two panic button fight" where 5 caster mobs chained on me.

I learned what Reckoning was, and do I ever love it. I'm back to having a free critical heal every 2 minutes. Seal of Righteousness provides a steady stream of DPS compared to the much more bursty Seal of Command. When I run out of mana, Judgment/Seal of Wisdom seems to work better. My 1-handed weapon is the Silent Fang which procs a short silence, and seems to have had its proc rate seriously buffed. I'm missing Holy Shock, but I'll get it back by 70. But honestly, I don't need it anyway. This fits my style much better, and I'm so glad I switched.

Regarding other characters and builds for which I have questions.

Elia - As was common, I switched to Shadow for ease of leveling through Outlands. So far I'm not even remotely enjoying it. I think it mostly comes from having all +heal gear equipment from my raiding days so my DPS is sub-par. Also, everyone sings the praises of Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch, but I never used either in my original build and they mess up my timing severely. Since I had liked my lollersmite build so much, I'm considering returning to that. I'm holding back for now before I spend more money on poor respecs than I want to. I will need to improve Elia soon though so that she can get better enchantment formulae.

Mey - At 59 I switched to Marksmanship to do a little PvP .. and I hated it. Maybe it came from leveling up as a Beastmaster, but I just couldn't figure out how to do things right. When I made my way into the Outlands, I couldn't stand having a gimpy pet and pulling aggro from him so much. I went back to Beastmaster and feel much better, but I still seem to pull aggro too quickly and I figure it's because of the increased damage output from the equipment. I like being able to use Intimidation though, which is almost always enough of an aggro generator to keep Memphis tanking.

Cammy - I leveled with Affliction up into the low 50s when the 2.0 changes came. I had to try the Felguard out so I went Demonology for the first time ever. It was so great that I never looked back on my way to 60. Now that I'm here though, warlocks are getting smacked around with the nerf bat. DoT damage is being reduced, Felguard damage too. I have never liked being Destruction though, so it has to be a choice between Affliction and Demonology. At this point I expect to level as I am, and will reconsider Affliction when PvPing in the 70s.

Shinare - I love Feral. However, for PvP goodness, I think I need Nature's Swiftness. Trying to pop out of bear form, hit Barkskin, and survive long enough to get off a Regrowth or Healing Touch is difficult. I know that being able to jump out, nearly fully heal myself, and pop back in to bear form will sink the hearts of most Horde that are wading through my 10,000 HP. The only trouble is that the way talents are laid out, I will need to choose between Mangle and Nature's Swiftness. Mangle is very tough to give up as it's a heavy source of damage in both cat and bear form. If Camielle begins taking over as main tank for the guild, I'll also start considering a Balance/Resto mix like Abryanna has.

Camielle - Right now I'm Arms and it's working for me. I'm a bit sad I have retired my ZG claws that turn me into a tiger. I'm reluctant to vendor them (14 g!) because they have great novelty. Unfortunately they work best with a Fury spec. I'm using the AV hammer (yes, the Unstoppable Force) which has proven to be effective soloing. Warrior leveling means a lot of dying, but I think I'm doing alright considering. Camielle is my second highest right now, and will likely switch to protection at 70 to take over tanking duties.

Zielia - I had heard wonderful things about Mutilate and when Cloak of Shadows got removed from Subtlety and Z got removed from raiding so she could drop her Combat daggers spec, I decided to check it out. At first I didn't like it at all. I've always been bad at stunlocking and exposing enemies so they have their backs to me. I did get into a decent groove for a while though, and got comfortable with the spec. However Slade recently mentioned that his backstabs are doing better damage than Mutilate so we both experimented and found it was true. We came to the conclusion the only thing Mutilate was really good for was the bonus combo point. Because of this I'm looking to re-evaluate my build. I want to acquire some good swords and try a Hemo build at some point.

Yv - She's unfortunately pretty much retired. She's my only 60 who hasn't ventured into the Portal yet (though I really should just to see it from the Horde perspective). I had spec'd her Fire for a while for PvP, but I most definitely will go back to Frost if I intend to level her to 70. When it comes to PvE, survivability and low downtime are my style and Frost fits that bill perfectly. I do love the mage class, and look forward to having one to play again. Evina, my Draenei replacement may start as Fire like Yv did until I have enough talent points to get Ice Barrier in a respec.

Aryna - My little Elemental Shaman is up to 25. I always hear that Enhancement is the way to level, but I'm really pleased with my choice so far. I might want to try a respec just to get a taste of Enhancement life (plus 1 second Ghost Wolf is yummy), but for now Elemental fits me well. The common complaint is that they run out of mana and have high downtime. My fights don't have that issue though as I start with a pair of Lightning Bolts and a Flame Shock and cast no totems or other spells for the rest of the fight. By the end my mana is mostly regenerated and my health is maybe a third gone. After a few pulls and my health gets low I can Gift of Naaru for a nice manaless heal and I'm back in action. It's too early to think about end-game PvP builds, but since I think I'd want an Elemental/Restoration build anyway, my current path is going well.

Durids r da best!

2007-01-24T16:51:44Z

So last night as I'm tearing apart a group of three mobs calmly and easily as part of a (Group) quest that I'm doing solo, I get to realizing just how super cool being a druid is right now. I literally have 0 downtime. Low on health? Heal. Low on mana? Innervate. I'm honestly considering just getting rid of the stack of bandages and Draenic waters since I never use them.

Long tunnel full of mobs guarding a quest target? Stealth to the end!
Surrounded by PCs trying to tag the same mobs? Moonfire tags mobs instantly!

I now have about 8000 HP in bear form, which combined with 9000 armor gives me a lot of survivability. In those multiple mob fights that bring my health low, I can generally switch out to caster form, Barkskin->Rejuv->Regrowth->Healing Touch. Since I'm in caster form my max health drops to ~5000 HP which means this sequence will typically top off my health, then shifting back to bear brings me instantly back up to 8000 HP. Healing 6500 HP for the price of 4000 is priceless.

Aquatic form in Zangarmarsh is awesome. I keep getting quests that give you underwater breathing potions that I just throw away.
Stormcrow form comes at 68, which I hear will save me 800g on training for flying mounts. Seriously? Wow.

The Tier 4 gear looks a little goofy, but the Tier 5 stuff looks fantastic. I can get a feral set and a healing set just in case, though I haven't had to take on a healing role for anything yet.

There's just so much stuff to gush about. I'm extremely pleased I picked Shin over Camielle because I'd be getting killed left and right as a warrior.

Hellfire and Azuremyst

2007-01-18T22:00:10Z

Blizzard has done a really excellent job of introducing fun new twists. While the great majority of quests are still either "Go here and kill X mob" or "Go here and kill mobs until you get X items", there are quests that just change the whole paradigm. The Kessel Run and totem sequence in Azuremyst was cool, but I really loved the bombing runs in Hellfire Penninsula. I'm really looking forward now to seeing what other neat ideas they came up with. After finishing a bunch of quests with my new old family (IRON CRANE IS REBORN! OUTLANDS IS NOT PREPARED!!), we decided to test our feet in Hellfire Ramparts. None of us had been there before but Slade had apparently read a little about the bosses. We had our share of wipes for a new instance due to bad pulling and tanking (Shin isn't smarter than the average bear), but we learned a lot and should do quite better on any return trips. I think we all gained a lot of confidence in our group and our potential.

Maybe we were a little over cautious on the second boss, but it was really neat having a 5-man boss feel like a raid encounter. I wonder if PuGs are clearing the instance as easily as we did or if they are struggling figuring out the bosses' tricks.

Back on Bloodmyst I'm enjoying the new sequence of quests for the Draenei. I'm actually really sad that I'm going to have to leave at level 20ish and head back to the places I've done innumerable times. I'm afraid I might lose interest in Aryna at that point, but I suppose that wouldn't be too much of a bad thing considering I have so many 60s to work on too. Still, I am thoroughly enjoying the shaman class separately from the place I'm leveling so that may be enough to sustain me. I'll have to throw in a couple WSG games.

I kinda feel bad for the people who are already level 65. I'm enjoying the expansion so much and I'm not even 61 yet. I'd be depressed if it was already half done.

First impression

2007-01-16T15:06:17Z

SO. MUCH. FUN.

After an initial scare where my discs kept failing part way through the third disc, I was able to get BC installed and my account upgraded. I watched the movie, listened to Illidan mock me despite having just recently kicking his butt, and told him that I would be prepared soon. I decided that I had had enough of my 60s though and it was time to delve into newbieland for the first time in a long time. I made my 2 Draenei and 1 Blood Elf as promised. They are:

Aryna - Draenei Shaman
Evani - Draenei Mage
Camielle - Blood Elf Rogue (Blackwater Raiders server)

I'm going to save Evani to play with Triese some if she wants to explore Azuremyst Island with me. Camielle will be left alone for when Vati, Tri, and I go play our evil counterparts together. This left Aryna and so in I went.

And wow, it was great from the beginning. I was totally lost and it was neat to have that feeling again. This was the first brand new thing I had seen in about 6 months and it was certainly welcome. Since it wasn't midnight yet in Mountain or Pacific time zones and most of the Central time zome was still driving home and installing, the newbie areas were fairly sparse. I only ran into one set of mobs that were a pain to compete for, but going through levels 1-6 went pretty well.

Leaving the initial area and out into the Elwynn Forest/Teldrassil/Dun Morough of the Draenei brought many surprises. Blizzard got very inventive with quest ideas and captured my attention with several of them. I'll try not to give any spoilers but I'll probably fail later. I was even enjoying the Shaman class despite having already played it to 38. And, OH MY GOD, I love the Draenei healing racial ability. As long as it can't be silenced or dispelled, it might actually be viable for PvP. I walked into the Exodar, and I really like the city's layout. It's straight forward and everything is readily accessible.

Before quitting though, I had to check out the Outlands. I hopped on as Shinare and flew over to the Blasted Lands. I ran through the portal and was immediately amazed at what I saw on the other side. Thankfully they let you ride a gryphon to the first base once you get in so you don't have to fight your way through. The view was amazing. I landed at Honor Hold and picked up a few quests just to see what it's going to be like. I was surprised to see most of the creatures were only level 58-59 and the quest rewards were seriously good. I decided to do one that would reward Shin with a very feral druid focused staff. +19 STR, +19 AGI, +30 STA, and +46 AP while in animal forms. What? For a simple hunt and kill quest? I am more excited now than I was before BC came out.

This is off to a really good start.

7 hours and counting

2007-01-15T22:18:14Z

I'm off to stand in line at EB! Wish me luck! I'll see you in the Outlands !!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Football Digression

2007-01-15T17:57:16Z

Vati, I am told that I need to say this to your father today in a Cartman-esque voice.

"Na na na na na na, ha ha ha ha ha ha"

Who does he like and why does he hate my team so much? XD

Et Fin

2007-01-12T15:52:26Z

I have completed the bonus campaign and while it was very interesting from a lore perspective, the gameplay was kinda dumb. There really was no way to lose. Essentially you just zerg bomb everything until you win, skill only makes it go faster. But the whole thing was a good break from WoW. It was pretty funny to go back and have Vati grab me for a Strat Live group, only to go and kill Balnazzar. I'm thinking to myself, "Hey, didn't I just kill you two days ago? How did you get back?" If Balnazzar is in Strat Live, and Varimathras is in Undercity, where is Detheroc? These are the questions that make WoW go 'round!

Incidentally, I was tanking Strat with my newly-re-re-respec'd Feral Druid. I realized there are a lot of benefits to being a bear tank as opposed to a Warrior tank, and this has me reconsidering who I want to push forward first as the guild's MT. The Warrior should always be better at holding single target aggro, but in places like Strat where there are quite often large group pulls, Sunder doesn't cut it. Swipe on the other hand does a better job of getting the attention of multiple creatures. Warriors have Cleave, but it has to wait for the next melee swing while Swipe is instant. The other thing I found seriously beneficial was that Feral Charge is always available while tanking and has a relatively short cooldown. Intercept requires stance dancing to a stance that increases damage taken (bad for tanking situations) and it has a longer cooldown which makes saving healers more difficult.

On top of all that, there's still the benefit of being able to pop out and Innervate a healer if necessary and heal as well. I can even scout ahead in stealth to figure out and mark pulls. Oh and I can get instant rage by simply shifting into bear form! Feral is love.

I have also seen the Tier 4-5 stuff now for Warriors and Druids and the Druid stuff fits my style much better. The Warrior stuff makes them look like some rusted futuristic robot out of Unreal Tournament or something while the Druid stuff continues on the path of leaves and horns and is simply more stylish.

I'm suffering a similar quandry when it comes to selecting who my PvP character will be. I will be selecting from Mey, Cammy, and Zielia, and each has certain draws to them. I'm expecting Mey to get dropped first since I really don't have much connection to the character, but Hunters hurt so bad it's hard to just dismiss them. I'm loving the new talent workout for Rogues and went back to the Assassination tree. I need to figure out how to get behind my enemies better, but I've always loved the benefits of stealthiness.

And then there's the new races... oh so much to think about and decide upon! Is it Tuesday yet!?

Storm, Earth and Fire, Heed My Call!

2007-01-11T15:05:52Z

It took a couple extra tries, due to annoyingly perfect timing by the computer, but I was eventually victorious. It seemed like whenever I made a force to attack anything, a counter attack would come from another direction. My tactic of holding two and not worrying about the center beyond that wasn't working because after Illidan would take a place for a 3-1 lead, I would get attacked at my base and by the time the defense was finished, Illidan had gone to capture the final undefended obelisk. The tactic did pay off when I finally counterattacked after Kael'thas got killed in my base. I wasn't able to wipe out the Belf base but I crippled it so much that they couldn't produce any more attacks. This essentially made life very easy as defending only one front was simple. I was able to finish of Kael'thas, wait for Vashj to die in an attack and counter on her base wiping that out. As I planned, I ignored Illidan's base completely and just ran through all of the oblisks taking control and leaving no defense. The computer doesn't try to take undefended places any faster than defended ones so my attack force steamrolled in a circle.

The ending movie was sorta boring, but very impressive from a computer graphics standpoint. I was hoping a little something -else- happened. I guess we'll just have to wait for the Northrend expansion to go kick Arthas' butt. The ending song was kinda neat, a song for the Horde and all. But they really needed to find something else to do than play it 2.1 times for the credits.

So after this was finished, I went back to WoW and rolled a half-orc/half-ogre hunter. Strangely, I got a bear pet from the start despite only being level 1. I milled about Durotar for a while doing the beginner quests, travelling back and forth from Orgrimmar. Eventually I got bored and snuck into Theramore to go see Jaina. I died a couple times trying to get out, aggro like WHOA, but there was usually a graveyard nearby so it wasn't a big deal. -- Oh wait, no this is the "Bonus Campaign" which doubles as the Horde campaign. Apparently they wanted to get a smooth transition for players from WCIII to WoW and this actually does a decent job of doing that. The levels are REALLY LONG though and there is a lot of walking back and forth as would be expected. Thankfully an early quest gives you a hearthstone-like object that you can use. When I bought this expansion, I actually did play this level and when it completed it said, "Look for Act II and Act III later on Blizzard.com!" Naturally those hadn't been released yet and apparently I lost interest in Frozen Throne right away since I never played the real campaign. Now the other two acts are out and I'm partway through Act II. Hopefully I'll be finish tonight and back into WoW tomorrow.