Doing Heroics

I once said that I would never be geared for heroics.

Looks like I lied.

Again.

 I haven't done many heroic dungeons yet, but the few I have done have surprised me. They aren't impossible. They are doable. Dare I say it, they are even fun.

Allow me to make something clear, new heroics... maybe even new max level dungeons are what puts me off of new expansions. Ever since Cataclysm hit and I couldn't heal through one group, much less a whole heroic, I've become a little bit wary of new dungeon content. I am pleasantly surprised that Blizzard learned from the travesty that was Cataclysm and did not make heroics so punishing that they were un-fun again.

That's not to say I found it easy, I have pretty much the baseline required ilevel and have an average skill level. If it was easy for me, I would have been disappointed. If I were an exceptional player, I would probably find them too easy.

I've made it through all of the dungeons I've gone through with minimal mana starvation and only one or two party member deaths which were all due to lack of attention paid to mechanics on their part and not really because of my lack of skill or mana.

I am so pleased that I can complete them without A) going holy or B) ripping my hair out in frustration. I've been reading lately that a lot of players find that Disc output is lacking (maybe it's just for raids?), but I was able to keep my group up adequately and; therefore, have no real complaints except that I still want my Divine Hymn back without going Holy. I feel a little bit lost without carrying it around in my back pocket in the event I fall behind, get stressed, and want a get out of jail free card. I'm sure that will pass though, I still have plenty of toys in my toolkit to play around with.

I still need to work on using Spirit Shell optimally, but I think that will come with time.

Also, LFD has given me decent, non-douche bag groups lately. I didn't know those existed, but am thankful, I needed a break especially after learning that I'm being forced to work both Christmas, and New Years. If I could afford to quit... Anyone want to hire a poor college student trained pastry chef?

I'm trying not to dwell on that.

I suck at not dwelling.

I would also like to draw your attention to my blog roll. It seems that it only took me two months to learn how to make one, and I'd love it if I could get suggestions for awesome blogs to put up there. Priest related, or WoW related, doesn't matter, anything that's worth a read.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This is a rant. I had a pretty decent post planned to talk about my forays into heroics, but in light of recent events, I cannot concentrate on it and in lieu of posting nothing, I am posting this. Feel free to disregard.

I did poorly on my math test today. In retrospect, 73% is probably not the worst anyone has ever done on a math test, and it's probably not the worst anyone will ever do. In fact there is an Integral Calculus test on my parents fridge with a 60% and my name on it, that's how happy we were that I managed a pass. 73% is a terrible mark when you take into consideration that until today, I held a 100% average. 73% is horrible when you consider that I did all of the questions right, just had some careless transcription errors that I didn't catch when I looked over the test.

Worse though, than my disappointment that I lost marks over stupid mistakes, is my shame that I am too much of a perfectionist to be happy that I am carrying a 93% average and that it's thrown my whole day off.

As if my mood could not get worse, my class is being split up. I've spent the last 12 weeks making friends with these people, and now they are going to redo the class rosters. I am beyond pissed. I like my class. I like things the way they are. Not to mention that the other class is notoriously less friendly than my class. There are no good reasons as to why they would redo the class rosters.

To top it off I had to delete my WTF folder to fix LUI which wouldn't install itself for some reason... now all of my clique bindings are gone.

Feeling sad, annoyed, angry, maybe even a little betrayed.

Apologies for the lame post today

IntPiPoMo - Shiny new stuff

Well, the last two weeks I've spent farming have finally paid off. I got my Terrible Turnip this morning. I was so excited yesterday when I looted his ominous seed that I could hardly sleep last night. Even typing this, I'm so excited that I finally have one, and excited to share him with you.

Even disgusting root vegetables are adorable when you put eyes on them.

I also managed to get exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpents today, which means that this little guy

 

is now all grown up and all mine.

 They even threw me an initiation ceremony.

 

And here we are. The end of my IntPiPoMo journey.  I leave you with another photo from my archive. None of the other pictures I took over the month felt right, so here is a cat waiting for a boat - both the beginning of something and the end of something else. 

A huge thank you goes out to Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate for hosting. I had a great time participating.

For a list of participants, and links to their blogs click here

50/50

IntPiPoMo - Darkshore

This evening I took a trip down to Darkshore. I'm still in the mood to reminisce about my early days in WoW and Darkshore was the second zone that I ever entered. I took a trip down to see the wreckage in early Cataclysm, and to snap this ridiculous fan-girl photo with Malfurion.

  That's right. I tried to play it off like we were both waving at the camera.

I haven't been back to Darkshore since then, except to fly through. In fact, last night I was going down to Un'Goro to train my battle pets and, hopefully, catch some new ones, I flew right through. Normally, I would just watch the tv, but then I noticed the river underneath my character.

 

 I took some without the Hippogryph too, but I ended up liking this one the best.

It was then, that I knew Darkshore needed to be revisited.

 This is a waterfall by the Grove of the Ancients.

 

The Auberdine pier, this still makes me sad.

 

Enormous waterfall, appropriately in the "Maw of the Void"

 Bridge in Lor'danel, the new quest hub that replaced Auberdine, over one of the rivers that feeds the Maw.

46/50

Dailies, they get a bad rep

The flaws in the new dailies system for Mists of Pandaria, have been thoroughly pointed out. I'm not here to contest them, really. I completely agree, with the idea that valour point gear should not have a rep requirement. Also, if Blizzard really wanted to place rep requirements on valour gear, maybe they shouldn't have made dailies the only way to gain rep with all of the Mists Factions. Anyway, I'm not here to go over any of that information, that is for another post, another time.

Today, I want to look at the other side, the side nobody is paying attention to. Fact of the matter is, the daily quest hubs, they're not all bad.

I think my absolute favourite thing about doing my dailies comes from the Order of Cloud Serpent, the Anglers, and to some extent the Tillers. They incorporate your secondary professions. You probably don't know this yet, but I HATE all of the secondary professions. Cooking, sort of hate it. Fishing, hate it. Archaeology, super hate that one. I hate First Aid so much I never trained it, and still refuse to. I'm not going through the pain of leveling it just to complete one additional daily. Part of the reason I hate them is because they never had a place where they fit in my WoW experience. Time spent on secondary professions, to me, was time wasted doing something unbelievably boring that I could be doing something, anything else. By adding secondary professions to the daily quests they've given me a task, that levels up my secondary professions and only requires 5 minutes of my time spent on each every day. My Archaeology is 600, thanks to Cloud Serpents, otherwise I doubt I would ever have leveled it. My cooking, I leveled from 450 to 525 in 10 minutes because of the Tillers.

 They give me something to do in WoW. I fully admit I'm a WoW casual. Between school, work, and all of my other obligations I only really get one or two hours of play per night, if I'm lucky. I don't have the time to raid, and I don't have a real guild at the moment. My time right now, is split between pet battles and dailies. They are my source of WoW income and probably the meat and bones of what I'm doing in game right now. As someone who is in no rush to speed through content, I'm perfectly happy to take my time and slowly build my rep.

Farming, is awesome. No, not repetitively killing mobs, growing vegetables on my farm for the Tillers. 'Nuff said.

I can do them in Disc spec. That's huge for me, because I don't have a shadow spec. I need to be able to complete them easily, in a timely manner through spamming smite. I can; therefore, I rather like them.

Tabard dungeon farming for rep was repetitive too, it just didn't have a cap on how much you could do in a day.

Like I said, I don't think that the daily hubs are perfect, I completely agree that there are flaws and that they're not everyones cup of tea.I think though, that a lot of people are forgetting that, as with many things in WoW, your dailies are voluntary. So do them if you want to or leave them alone. The choice is up to you.

I'm counting the picture at the top for my IntPiPoMo so 40/50. 10 to go :D

IntPiPoMo - On Ethics

In a good raid group everyone is expected to pull their weight. Part of a raid leaders job is to identify and solve potential problems, which has just as much to do with roster as it does actual encounters. This, is why I'm not a raid leader. Typically, I would describe myself as non-confrontational. In fact, that's probably putting it lightly.

Much like raids, in real life, one team member cannot, or rather, should not get a free pass, and leave the work to the other members.

I apologize in advance, this will be mostly non-WoW related. It's just something that has been bothering me.

For context you will need to know that one of my classes had a group project assigned. We've been working, in a group of four, for the last month to prepare a 20 page research report. We finished the report yesterday, handed it in this morning. Great right? Well...

Half, or nearly half of our mark comes from our group members.

I'm not concerned about my mark. I'm confident that I contributed my portion. I carried my own weight. The problem is that not all of my group members did so. In fact two of us did 90 percent  of the project and what the others did had to be completely edited and revised to be usable. I know that this is unfair, and that their marks should reflect it and I guess that is where my ethical dilemma comes in.

My group leader contacted me, and he wants me to fail one of our members. His reasoning is valid. X, the member he wants to fail did not pull his weight. He left group meetings early, did not provide any input and did not complete tasks assigned to him in a timely or acceptable manner. By all means he deserves a failing grade.

I know I shouldn't let the fact that we are good friends, or my personal feelings get into my marking but I have a lot of difficulty doing so. I'd hate to fail anyone... much less my friend, even if he deserves it.

Also, I feel pressured by my group leader to assign marks the way he wants me to.

I'm just not sure what to do. Do I fail my friend because it is the right, and honest thing to do and not because my group leader is upset with him? Do I give him a pass because I will feel bad failing him?

Either way he will never see the mark I assign him.

Pictures are completely unrelated, they just make me happy.
 39/50

Blog Azeroth: Thanksgiving Event, Also: IntPiPoMo - I'm a little Lost

I'm a Canadian, my Thanksgiving has long passed. I thought about not participating in this because of that. I've since changed my mind. I've decided that there is never a wrong time, to say "thank you" and that I shouldn't need a statutory holiday to express my gratitude.

Before I start, I think I should give credit, where credit is due. I would not be writing this post had I not read this one, by Erinys on her blog The Harpy's Nest, first.  So, thank you, for the inspiration that I needed to write this.

I doubt that anyone listed hereafter in this thank you will ever read it, and as a result, I feel there is no need to name names. They have no blogs to link to, anyway, at least not to my knowledge.

My thank yous start 7 years ago, in Redridge, before the bridge was repaired. I was a level 20-something rogue, seated on the bridge (it used to have benches) waiting out resurrection sickness. This was before I had even completed my first months subscription. A higher level rogue came and sat beside me. Our conversation ended with a guild invite, and him taking me, a fledgling rogue, under his wing. My mentor and I became close friends, we leveled together, ran battlegrounds together, and through that time he taught me everything I knew about being a rogue. I was a fine rogue. At level 55, he gave me my first epic. A purple dagger, called Shadowblade. I still have it you know.

More important than any of those gifts though, was the invite to his guild. Since the dissolution of the original guild I have been searching for a guild that made me feel like it was a part of me as much as I was a part of it, like that guild did. Some of my fondest memories in Vanilla are the runs through Scholo, and Strat as we tried to fill out our Dungeon sets, both 1 and 2, also, lockpicking my way into Scholo. I miss the banter, and I miss having all of my friends congregated in one guild. I also want to thank all of the members who put up with my cloth farming, for Stormwind rep, because I did it back when you had to pass in stacks of Runecloth.

I also want to thank the members of my first arena group. I know I was terrible, but thank you for putting up with me. It was all worth it, I think, that time I one-shot a warlock with Ambush and won the match.

I want to thank my dad, who paid for my subscription for years, and who recently gave me
my kite pets. Thank you dad. You're the best.

I want to thank oen of my best friends in game, who quit nearly two years ago now. He gave my my monk pet for my 18th birthday. I want to thank him for the hours of conversation, for always being willing to give a helping hand and for being there for me in game, for whatever I needed to talk about. I miss you.

I want to thank everyone who was in Eternally Lost, on Staghelm, and everyone who was in it's second incarnation. I want to thank everyone who was in the Knights who Say Ni, who we merged into and all of the friends I made while I was there. I want to thank the German crew, who took me on early morning raids when my schedule was horrible. I want to say goodbye, to Leo, who always invited me along, and who, tragically, passed before I got the chance to thank him.

And maybe now, that I've thanked many of the people from my past, I too can move on and focus less on the loneliness that they left in my heart and let another social, family guild in.

 

I want to finish this off with a thank you to Cy, the best guy a girl could ask for, who surprised me with chocolates at work today and a Path of Cenarius card yesterday.

And thank you to you, anyone who reads this.

I'll leave you with a gloomy picture of Karahzan, my favourite raid instance of all time. 

36/50

Wow Item Creator!

IntPiPoMo: Leveling

What is IntPiPoMo you ask? International Picture Posting Month. It is a yearly event, put on by Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate through the month of November to coincide with NaNoWriMo.  For more information, or to join in see this post.

I've started leveling my hunter, she's currently at 75 and I've started hunting around Sholazar Basin, in the hopes of running into my favourite spirit beast, Loque'nahak. No sign of her yet, but I'm sure she'll turn up.

The Rainbow in Sholazar Basin.

The waterfall on the other side of the River's Heart.

 

 My hunter's fox is named Todd... like Todd from the Fox and the Hound, one of my favourite movies as a child.

In other news, my shaman hit level 86 this evening in the jade forest, and made it out with some screenshots to boot.

 

 I don't remember which little town this was taken in, but it reminds me of what I like best about Pandaria, how alive it is. Everywhere it is teeming with life, be it pandaran, or wild life.

 

29/50

IntPiPoMo - Dailies

What is IntPiPoMo you ask? International Picture Posting Month. It is a yearly event, put on by Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate through the month of November to coincide with NaNoWriMo.  For more information, or to join in see this post.

These were taken this evening as I did my dailies. You know, I didn't think I would like having a bunch of daily hubs to do my rep grind with but I'm actually enjoying it. They are getting me to do all of the secondary professions that I neglected all through Cataclysm. Even fishing, which I hate.

The first three are all the Gou-Lai Halls in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

 

The crane statue and rolling fields of farms are both from the Heartland, in the Valley of the Four Winds

24/50

IntPiPoMo - The Barrens

What is IntPiPoMo you ask? International Picture Posting Month. It is a yearly event, put on by Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate through the month of November to coincide with NaNoWriMo.  For more information, or to join in see this post.

I've been spending a lot of time in the barrens lately. I'm trying to catch myself a giraffe calf. Since WoW came out, I have wanted a barrens giraffe and now I can finally own one and the darn thing won't spawn for me.

This guy was prancing about, teasing me that he didn't have a baby for me to tame.

No baby here either....

I found a whole family, being stalked by a horde... but still no baby.

I went sightseeing in Tanaris out of frustration...the dragon soul instance area is particularly beautiful.

Further in.

While doing my dailies... I found some lovely pink clouds in the jade forest.

19/50

IntPiPoMo - Birthday

What is IntPiPoMo you ask? International Picture Posting Month. It is a yearly event, put on by Angelya of Revive and Rejuvinate through the month of November to coincide with NaNoWriMo.  For more information, or to join in see this post.

It's my birthday today. In keeping with tradition that one must get presents on her birthday, I spent a bit of my gold hoard and bought myself a couple of yak mounts. Oh man are they cute.

New. Favourite. Mounts. The stirrups sit a little low for me though.

I just can't get over them. I wish they could fly, so I could ride them all the time.

I also hung out a while in Kun-Lai, to get some pictures of wild yaks. I found this little family and a couple of lone yaks too.

Aww. I just love them.

13/50