Dungeons and Video Cameras?…WHAT?

Every once in a great while an opportunity comes by that cannot be ignored. Below is the link to a great experience I got to be apart of. Who knew being a Dungeons and Dragons DM would net me on the net? It isn’t WoW related but I was just so excited to see the finished product that I wanted to share it with the rest of you. Btw *cough* I’m the girl from Seattle in case you can’t figure it out. The Hub even makes an appearance *grin*

The whole group of people I met doing the video and and interview were just awesome. They braved AWFUL weather in Seattle (freaking heat wave and I don’t have AC) to sit and chat with us, watch us game, and hang out with each other. My friends are in here, my family is in here, and well I’m in here. Also if you are thinking about being a DM, then you definitely need to check this out

Dungeons and Dragons Interview

Preparing for Progression Nights

On top of the usual buff food, flash/elixer, and gold for repair bills there are some of things you need to do to be ready for the long pushes on progression night. One thing above all others though will help make progression night run more smoothly (assuming you brought those consumables )

Strategies!

Take the time to research strategies for the bosses you anticipate encountering or for bosses your group struggles to down.

TankSpot has some great video guides to go along with their written guides. Bosskillers has also added what they call a talk through with video to their written guides. Seeing the encounter goes along way with instructions. Even if your group uses a different strat. than the one shown you at least know what to look for in the fight. Usually over vent I hear “Now that we have all seen the fight….” I can’t stress enough how having seen the fight can help you execute the fight.

I really do feel that video guides are the way to go on researching a fight, however if you prefer to read the strat. both sites do offer well done written guides. If your team is having problems both options is likely the way to go. The more ways you have to do something the more likely you are to find what will work for your raid groups makeup and play level.

Class forums and blogs are another great way to get a handle on a boss. I keep an eye on World of Matticus and Plus Heal’s instance forums for strats and to get an idea of where other groups are struggling compared to my own. Sometimes knowing other people beat their head on the same issues saps the frustration a bit. Plus Heal actually got me reading Upyursh (say that 5 times fast!) because of the well thought out posts there and the blog has some good break downs of the ICC fights as well.

I know research sucks and it means you can’t multitask because you have to pay attention, but it beats wiping. In my book anything that cuts down on wiping and the shrinking of my gold is a good thing. Take the time out of your day sit down and watch a video or two, read a blog or forum, and get ready to kill some bosses!

Addon Spotlight: Surgeon General

Our charter’s heal lead wasn’t there last Tuesday and by the power of healer voting I got to be the Temp for the day. The thought of being lead of the healers stresses me out at the thought. It is a balancing act of peoples’ strengths, weaknesses, knowing the fights, and typing assignments fast. (Really it is the last part that gets me) Except…that last part is a lie. Behold the power of Surgeon General! *cues the epic AWWWWWWW music*

A huge thank you to Tyrilian for letting me know /sg will pull up the menu for SG once installed. I didn’t have a chance to read over the mod before installing it again. I had it installed ages ago but never had the need to use it. Although, after that it was pretty straight forward to use and is updated for ICC. <3 I auto populated my healers and only needed to add one, a priest rocking a disc/holy hybrid the mod didn’t recognize. The save feature meant I could assign people for all the fights I knew ahead of time and not worry about it for the rest of the night.

Pros:

Auto populate healers in your raid

Manual add anyone missed (great for dual spec people flipping between fights)

Announce assignments to custom channel or to raid

Multiple phase assignments options

Save assignments by raid, boss, and trash

Make change on the fly

Cons:

If you crash you will lose your assignments

Doesn’t recognize hybrid heal specs (ie disc/holy)

Honestly, I lucked out between SG making my life easier so I wasn’t freaking out about typing out assignments fast enough for everyone and our core heal group being all present. By no means will I say that being Heal Lead is easy. But if you had to step up at the last minute I would suggest Surgeon General for your assignment needs!

This mod has earned the Lenelie’s Voice Seal of Approval *loud stamping sound*

Knowing Your Role: Death Knights

Often I read healer forums and have wondered why there is so much hate for the DK tank. Two of my fav tanks to heal during a raid are DKs and I’ve had good success doing 5mans with my friends who are DK tanks. Since the new LFG tool has been added however, I have come to understand my fellow healers’ disdain for the DK. Ultimately, I believe they suffer from the same problems as Hunters.

Ease of play. Why are there billions upon billions of hunters out there? Because leveling is easy when you have a pet to sick on things and can Feign Death when it gets hairy. It is not to say that all hunters are bad hunters. The nickname huntard however has joined our vocabulary simply because of the rarity of a good player (this was worse in Classic aka Vanilla WoW than I find it to be so now) Truthfully, hunters didn’t get replaced for having a bad rep until the Death Knight. Starting off at high level , coupled with the fast leveling meant that everyone and their brother was going to make one. If you were to go look in your own character screen I am sure most of us have a hunter and a death knight kicking around.

Ease of play leads to class proliferation, which means quality of play is watered down. It is harder to find the good DK in the sea of mediocre or bad players. I had thus far been so lucky has to avoid running into a DK so bad I would swear off the class all together. But thank you LFG random group I have now done so. (With the caveat that the DK tanks I already loved are except from this new anti-DK stance)

What would cause me to swear off an entire class in a single day of LFG?

1. Not wearing tank gear. I don’t care how awesome your DPS gear is and that you can grab aggro with it. You make my life as a healer harder. When I die because I am burning my mana healing you and the mobs think, “Mmmm eat healer she make this harder on us,” and they tear through the tissue paper that is my armor faster than you can notice they have stopped looking at you. We have a problem! (this happened more than 3 times in a single night with a different dk tank each time)
2. Aggro management. Speaking of me being made a snack for some mob…mmm high you are pulling a lot of guys could you learn to Death and Decay? I know, I know silly priest asking you to do something. But hmm yeah so when you pull a bunch of mobs and they beat on  you, I tend to heal so, you know, you don’t die on the pull. Such as when you pull two packs instead of one because you are high as you tell the group and not paying attention but it makes WoW so much funner…Yes, funner for you but not for me. Do something about generating instant aggro. I know it can be done. I’ve seen it done. I don’t die when it is done.
3. Take the time to know other classes. When a druid casts a battle res there is a timer. If on the next pull you do #2 of the above and get yourself killed instead of me, don’t yell if battle res is down.  Especially, if you are the person that called for the first battle res. It has been 2 minutes since it was cast and is still down. Just saying.
4. Manners please? I don’t know how many groups I have been in the last 2 weeks and have had a DK tank just drop group. One night 3 groups each time the DK tank left after the first boss. Didn’t say a damned thing just left. WTF?!?! They weren’t skin of your teeth kills either. Otherwise I’d get it. VH first boss, dead smooth as silk, DK poof the moment it died. Old Kingdown…AN….same thing. I dunno I want to think that when the DPS jives and the tank isn’t taking lots of damage and is getting healed things are going well.

Ultimately, there are good DKs out there, just they are harder to find. I’m betting a healer figures out they are good and won’t let go of them to his/herself. I know I would. If you are a DK tank establish and maintain aggro in tank gear. If you do nothing else those things will get you ahead in this PUG world.

Christmas Loots!

The lovely gift of a Razor Naga on Friday precipitated a change in my healing Addons. Much as I love Vuhdo it just doesn’t support the 17 key massiveness that is the Naga. (btw <3 Razer) Instead, I’ve changed addons and picked up Healbot. I could’ve gone back to Grid but didn’t relish the time spent setting up the addon to give me info the way I want to see it. (Yes I am lazy) Instead,  popped some views of the Healbot interface and decided it was easy enough to config that I would give it a spin. Besides, a friend (as in real life friend I see regularly, as in I see him twice every other week face to face…yes both for gaming nights) is a huge fan and offered to be my tech support should I need it. How could I say no?

Overall, I am happy with the set up. Mind you tomorrow’s raid will be the real test. Having 12 buttons under my thumb keyed to my heals is rather daunting. I tried dpsing with the set up over the weekend. Bad idea. Shadow dps takes concentration for me to be any good at it (aka put up competitive numbers) and learning a new mouse was not the way to go. I am satisfied with my initial healing set up and since I am using the Razer addon( Dominos like addon), I am peached to be able to look at my screen and know which key is going to pop which spell. I always hated that in the heat of combat if I forgot a key combo for say Remove Curse I was SOL with Vuhdo, no opening the config screen in combat. I may have let people die that way…a few times.

In case you were like me and looked at pictures of the mouse and put that together with the number of keys under the thumb and assumed it would be huge and awkward under your hand? We are wrong. It fits nicely in my womanly hands and the Hub with his big hands find it a bit small. (but he really loves his Death Adder so I think any mouse will fall short compared) Time will tell how well both the Naga and Healbot work for me, but thus far I’m happy and more than a little eager to give it a hard and fast test tomorrow.

Face Palm Moments

Some days the face palming is more active than others. Today was a face palm epic per-portions for my druid.

Reading Plus Heal druid forums today I literally swacked myself in the head and was thankful I work in a corner far away from other people. (thus they missed my groan or assumed a bad customer caused it) That’s right! My night elf druid has NEVER used her shadowmeld…ever! Because I forgot she had it. “What do you mean druids drop agro with shadowmeld OMG I have shadowmeld…FRACK!” is how the thought went through my head. I fail as a Night Elf. Utter failure.

In my defense I never had to use it with Illisan because…she’s a hunter I have Feign Death for those, “OMG I HAVE AGRO!!!” moments.

I have lamented often to friends that I miss shield and fade. Now I can take fade off the list and just lament shield. Oh what was that? Did you say cast Barkskin and then switch to bear or do a kitty cower? Well frack me it is game over!

To review what I learned today:

Shadowmeld = Win!

Just because I am a Resto Druid doesn’t mean I have to stay in treeform when things try and kill me.

In case you too play a Night Elf druid and didn’t know these things *raises a pint in your honor* Join the club

The High of the Game

It is amazing what a week makes!

Overall the changes with 3.3 haven’t affected my beloved Zhavi much at all. I’ve always consumed more mana in 5mans than 10-25man raiding and that hasn’t changed. Though, Heroic Halls of Reflection tested my love of mobs in waves. (Which I actually enjoyed during Hyjel…sick I know!) I found my self using Pain Suppression on the tank for added reaction time and Hymn of Hope for mana. That fight might be the only thing to get me to drink mp5 flasks. I always prefer the sweet taste of more spellpower to mana in the handy dandy flasks, but H HOF had me panting. And I liked it!

It has been a long time (read since General V in Uld) since I’ve strained my mana pool so thin. Perhaps it is the rush of knowing you are giving it your character’s all and then coming away with the win. There are certainly highs and lows with gaming and raiding specifically. Running to the wire always leaves me walking away with a high. I could tell you that I’ve had lows but given the time I’ve taken off both WoW and the blog speak enough to how burnt out I was feeling.

This could be on the mind because I watched a documentary on gamers last night. E-@thletes takes a look at competitive Counterstrike teams and tracks their story and performance through some competitions and the changing landscape of competitive gaming. The interviews are a few years old but general it documentary held up pretty well. The two followed in the movie are 3D and Complexity. I won’t give it all away because it is actually worth the watch. The Hub and I found ourselves pausing the movie to debate things said and behaviors we noticed. E-@thletes definitely engaged my mind in how I view the competitive nature of the games we play.

Right, now a lot of us are riding the wave of new content and shiny new toys. Inevitably, the lows will return. For now, I’m going to enjoy being pushed to the edge of my mana pool and be glad my tank is still standing and the boss isn’t! J OH! And if you get in a pug with a rest druid named Delith try not to give her too hard a time

3.3 Has Landed!

Tuesday’s raiding was fraught with the usual problems of a patch day. Though no connection issues for our people this time which makes it highly unusual.

The new LFG interface is pretty snazzy. My druid got into a kicking little COS run using it. My expectations for the group were low, especially considering we had a pally in mostly blue/greens. Color me shocked when we stomped through the instance with 6+min to spare. Lost the roll, but then I don’t have epic flying on her yet…what! I’m cheap I admit that. The second time my under geared druid got thrown to the wolf that is Forge of Souls…I love the PUG I got stuck with though for putting up with me; first time there and I knew nothing about the fights etc.

Bringing us back to the Raiding…I was pleasantly surprised with Icecrown Citadel. Specifically the overall ambiance of the raid and the musical score. But what really peached me? Being asked to shackle! I’m not sure why shackling makes me giddy, but it does. There are casters on the way to Lord Marrowgar. Tuesday our 25man wasn’t able to get in sync to down him However, Wednesday our 10man group downed him and then danced upon the crushed bones of his body. *re-enacts dance for you* Like so. Although, we were stopped at Lady Deathwhisper. Partly due to dps on the shields and finally because of player connectivity.

I’ll point out Blizzard’s refusal to give me cool looking clothing persists, but I knew they weren’t going to cave to my demands for more style and less blah

Back from the Break!

It is amazing what taking lots of time off of WoW can do for my psych. The hub is happy I’ve taken myself (mostly) the Dragon Age iv drip I was going on. But it made my logging back into WoW this weekend. I didn’t play more but the feeling of refeshment was enough to inspire to sign up for two raids this week. I’m on standby for tonight which is fine and tomorrow isn’t slotted yet. I have a definite lack of stress or concern either way on being slotted. If it happens good I’ll go and give it my all. If not, either more Dragon Age or more time on my druid.

Of course, now I need to bone back up on the prep for 3.3 since I’ve ignored it for a few weeks and it really does feel like with WoW you have to be up on it all the time. Not going to stress it just add it back into my daily readings…next week. Its holiday week and work is running at full steam with so many different fires to put out at any given moment. I’m determined though to keep the laid back groove I’ve developed and apply it liberally to my hobbies.

See you Wed!

Dragon Age: Origins

I will do my best not to give you too many spoilers. But this is fair warning that I’m prolly going to say something you don’t want to know if you want to experience the game pure.

First, let me thank Bioware for the love a care they obviously put into this game. I remember seeing the Dragon Age title on their forthcoming titles for years now and wondered what was up with it. The wait was well worth it for the  game Bioware produced. In fact, it was almost enough to make me think EA may not destroy my favorite game company. (I’m holding judgment on that for the time being. Yes I’m a hater)

Graphics: Well overall this are very beautiful. There are some areas that appear less developed than others. But overall the game looks great. Mind you I’m playing wide screen HD so your mileage may vary. The character models are a HUGE improvement since NWN and you can really see the progression on customibility even from Mass Effects. (which I just picked up on Steam. *taps her rpg gaming vein*) So Kudos to them on the graphics. I really felt like I was immersed in the game from the get go. Getting to have such large control on how my character looked was a big draw for me. If you haven’t picked up the game yet swish over and download the character generator. It’s free and you get to play with the models!

Story: I won’t go into too much detail about the story but…As the name implies there is an Origin story. Which I thought was damn skippy. I’ve only played through 2 so far, Mage and human noble but what I’ve seen has impressed me. Normally you start off in an rpg game already experienced, this time  you get a better feel about where you are from. No personality traits are forced on you, but you definitely understand where your character is coming from and why he/she is so drive. Overall the dialog for the game is seriously improved over past rpgs. You can definitely tell Bioware listened to their community and gave us a rich world, with a rich history, a compelling story, and dialog that didn’t seem like a prepubescent boy wrote it. This isn’t some wish fulfillment story about power. It is far more gritty and mired in reality. The struggles of both the characters and the world at large seem believable and thus engaging. Your companions along the way are actual people with thoughts, feelings, and agendas of their own.  Unlike previous games, pissing them off will make them leave, another nice element as you work on the main story. There are TONS of side quests to keep you occupied as well.

Combat: Bless them for keeping the pause combat in the game. It allows for greater control of the battlefield and the abilities of your party members. Enemies like to kill you…a lot. So playing smart in any combat is a big plus and aided by the pause. The group AI is customizable with combat tactics and behaviors. Another plus for them since I like to send my range guys ahead to kill off opossing range guys and leave my melee sitting infront of me to absorb their melee. Default will send your party after your target. The tweaking is minor and I go back and forth depending on the fight.