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.

Zhavi’s New RPG Crack

*unhooks herself from the crack that is Dragon Age* OMG! I forgot how much I love RPGs. *rolls around in all that is RPG goodness* Engaging Story? CHECK Pretty graphics? CHECK (The hub as been watching me play as we both have been impressed how the game feels like playing a movie. I really just love it. Maybe this is the medicine I needed. A break from a grinding time sink game for a game that has an actually storyline. So if I post gushing posts about my love for Dragon Age over the next bit you will have to excuse me.

I have been very impressed so far and it has COMPLETELY made up for the horrible taste that NWN 2 left in my mouth for rpgs. (special love is given to my father-in-law for gifting me a game.)

How do you deal with bad raiding environment.

Far too often for my own liking I am driving to rant out of game about the state of my raiding in the game. I raid as often as a I like, so the ability it certainly there. No, it really is the environment in which I raid. I came to my current group in BC as my hunter and still raid with them now as Zhavi. In that time we’ve seen some leadership change up and since Uld a major shift in the behavior of our raids. Looking back, certainly I am at fault in this as well. All too willing to bend until I break. Like Tuesday when having had enough I snapped in raid chat, healer chat, and then in my guild vent after the raid.

There is no excuse for letting a situation go this long. But ever there is a straw that breaks the camel’s back and Tuesday was it. Over the course of Uld and now ToC my raid group has gotten increasingly more hostile to eachother. It doesn’t matter if you are a tank, healer, or DPS we are going to yell at you. As I stated before we didn’t start out that way but really since Uld we have become that way. It isn’t always the leadership 9/10 it will be another member of the raid coming over vent to tell you how stupid you are for not doing X, Y, or Z.  No latitude for lag, disconnection, or anything else. No look at past performance to wonder why someone missed the charging yeti previously but caught this time. No, instead you will hear screaming over vent as at least 2 people, not the raid leads, rip into whoever did it.

Tuesday we raided VoA, ToC, and Ony. For VoA I ignored everything. I’ve been off almost 2 weeks from raiding because I knew this was grinding me down, I was tired of dealing with this crap. But a plea the night before that without healers the raid would be canceled saw myself signing up for a raid I knew I shouldn’t be in. Nothing confirmed this more when we wiped on Ony and my temper exploded. A tank invited me to a fight and I not only accepted, I backed up my argument and let it be known it was time to stop.

See our tank was given the wrong directions for Ony’s breath. As she flew over, not only was he out of range of us, he was in the middle of the fire. (The Shammy healer and I assigned to him not willing to stand in the fire to be close enough to heal him…go figure) A battle rez commences and the tank is back in the fray. However, the delicate tanking balance has changed. There are now 3 large dragonkin and the whelps. He has charged into the middle of them all to grab aggro. (See where this is going yet?) He has their aggro and only 2 healers, he hasn’t been fully buffed because on being rezzed he immediately charged back in. He died. Over vent I hear him telling the raid how he didn’t get any heals and that’s why he died and it is our fault. (that snapping sound you here is the last of my nerves after months of dealing with this coupled with the crappy way we have been treating each other)

I snap back that he was being healed and if he doesn’t know what happened not to say anything at all. All this is  said in raid chat as I don’t have my mic ( I ran it over and the hub spent time fixing it…don’t look at me like that I run over it all the time) Snapping in healer chat I tell the lead there and everyone else I’m done and tired of dealing with this BS. Because I really really am. I’m not the only healer to lose it in fact. Which tells me for sure I’m not the only healer tired of listening to this night after night. It isn’t that the tank talked out of his butt when I know I cast heals on him and saw two ticks of penance hit him before he died. No, I was tired of being in a raid environment where yelling at each other was accepted and condoned.

After the successful death of Ony and the raid was over my adrenaline and anger was amped up enough I walked over into my guild chat to talk to some other friends. Tank and the raid leader come in and I let it go. I really really am tired. Another healer in the chat stated “healers get blamed first every where whats the point?”

But do you? I know for a fact that until we started having problems with Hodir and Thorim the healers didn’t get yelled at this much. I know for a fact people didn’t come over vent and yell at each other. It wasn ‘t allowed it wasn’t accepted. So I put it to them Why are treating each other like crap now when we used to not? When I used to be glad to get on and raid with my friends instead of hate listening to the bickering and bitching all the time.

I say I am to blame because Tues never should’ve happened. I should have gone to my RL and explained what a sheer crappy experience raiding here has become and asked what is going on. I know he has a lot on his plate.

I put it to you in general. Is it acceptable to scream, yell, and treat people like crap? How do you handle it when your raids are ground down or demoralized?

Priestly Tier 10 Fashion…or not

Surely by now you have taken a look at the new Priest Tier 10 models. Perhaps you too have boggled over the look Bliz is giving us. It is time to dissect this look and why it isn’t a priest look at all.

Please see the picture here ala MMO Champion

Draenie Girls in Tier 10

Now, first off Purple YAY! But obviously one of the design team is a Huskies fan with that purple and gold comb going on. I love purple, deeply love purple. But I never have been able to stand it with gold. I dunno its just too yellow for me to accept. Normally if I have to take a metallic with my purple it is silver. The green is way to warlocky for my tastes but when I think of a shadow priest hmm it has potential. The orange and purple is just wrong. Plain wrong let me say this wrong. *shudders* ewwww The white and blue look very classic and nice though of all of them it is the most spot on.

Otherwise…WHERE ARE MY WINGS!?!? *takes Blizzard by the hand* Didn’t we talk about this the last time you designed my clothes? Remember how I told you it would be ok this time but that I wanted wings for my next set? And not the fake wings you’ve tried to pass off. I want wing, wings. These glowy shoulders are not wings.

When you look at these set of clothing do you think Priest? No I could be a mage for all you know.

By contract take a look at the druid tier 10. Any doubt there is a druid under there? No! Which is just crazy since druids spend a majority of their time shapeshifted but they more iconic gear. These are the things that boggle my priest loving mind. Boggle.

I relented and even accepted we were being swathed in clothing because it is freaking cold. The design made sense and accordingly Blizzard’s tailors heavily embellished our clothing to make up for the fact there is just so much more cloth now. But why do you have the make the colors so college team worthy (nothing against college teams by the way) and why did you leave out wings?

Priests should revolt! No heals until we get wings. “NO WINGS NO HEALS!” banners should go up all around the Dalaran. Priests should march around the squares with their signs demanding icon clothing.

Zhavi’s Truisms and Random Thoughts of the Week

Sometimes I have random thoughts that materialize into nifty (to me anyways) posts. Sometime they are just the random cluttering within my mind. I would hate to deprive you of my random thoughts of the week please below. More often then not they are inspired by listening to healer chat. So sad.

Bad Raids and Bad Groups Happen.

Sometimes what is bad about a pug can be bad about a guild (charter) run.

Healers will always been the first to be blamed.

My humor and sarcasm are funnier to me than they are to everyone else.

I don’t care no one gets my humor in the middle of a raid when we keep wiping and people are yelling at healers.

Hating your raid group will wear you thin no matter how awesome they kill shit or how much you want the loots.

Hating the instance will wear you thin no matter how much you like your raid group or want the loots.

A bad raid environment or raiding culture is like paying someone to abuse you.

Not paying attention is the hallmark of a bad player.

Not caring is the hallmark of a burned out player.

Not paying attention because you don’t care is the hallmark of someone who needs to /log.

Knowing it is time to /log usually happens well after you are knee deep and sinking faster.

DPS will always whine when they grab agro and die.

Ignore DPS when they whine, they will always whine and ignoring them now will save you headaches later.

When a tank tells you I didn’t get heals for <X amount of time> he is…blaming the healer.

Remember not to attend all the fights dps and tanks invite you to.

When you do attend make sure you can back it up with something witty like, “That is funny I see that <insert actual spells cast> landed on you in that time.” Or if is DPS, “You are right I made the decision to heal the tank so we don’t wipe, my mistake.”

Make friends with a paladin. They will bubble you when it comes to wipe time.

Make sure to rez said paladin first if they do.

Everyone thinks they know how to play a healer.

Most of those everyones are mediocre at best.

Remember we play this because we want to not because we feel guilty other people can’t find healers.

So You Want to be a Raid Healer

Reading Tankingtips reminded me the healer side of that coin. How do we get into a raiding guild or a prime slot on progression? So here is my take on the whole situation. I’ll be skipping the whole use a guild angle he had. I find it repulsive from a personal standpoint. Also at least on Silver Hand there are plenty of guilds that market themselves as leveling and gearing guilds already so I don’t see the point. I mean if you look in trade or general there are people advertising you a place to level your alt and get runs in with them. Why be deceptive when you can just avail yourself of these guilds? (Of course I am assuming this is true on other servers and may not be)

If you have come to 80 or are fast approaching the current end of your leveling affair you may have cast your sighs on end game raiding. Perhaps trepidation creeps in as you ponder how to go about becoming a raider. Luckily for you the path there is easier and a bit more straightforward than you think.

I need a head…I mean pumpkin!

By the changing colors on what few non evergreen trees out my door, all evidence points to it being fall. The plethora of pumpkins sold in stores and by street stands means it is time to get ready for Halloween. For Azeroth this means tricking, treating, and killing headless knights on demon horses!

I’ve been playing WoW since Dec of release or there about it could’ve been Nov but I’m 99.9% sure it was December. In all this time I’ve not once even seen the Headless Horseman. He was in Scarlet Monastery spending time with the dead bodies of the psychotic Scarlet Crusade and I felt pretty good about leaving him with them. I mean…seriously wouldn’t that be torture enough?

It was with much groaning (ok not really) I agreed to go help my friend Leagnis on his DK alt with my druid alt healing. It seemed like a bad recipe waiting to blow up. I’m on an alt not yet 80 to heal a group of mostly unknown people. But never one to turn down a challenge especially one aimed out my healing ability I went anyways. (it was odd being the only non 80 in the group) But to their credit no one questioned my ability to get the job done. (which wins them points for that alone if nothing else.)

Honestly it wasn’t half bad. I didn’t really know what to expect having never done it before. I was a little heart broken no pets or mounts dropped. However, both casty rings dropped and were easily claimed by me! I even asked before taking the second one even though I was the only casty type with two melee and two hunters. I felt manners should take precedence and wasn’t wrong wheneveryone laughed and agreed I should have them to level into.

Sadly, those rings like to drop like candy. Zhavi saw something like 4 drop on her run. *shakes head* It was sick. I’d have been happier had there been people there that could’ve used them. Rotting loot bothers me but such is the fate when loot is random.Nevermind, everyone in Zhavi’s group (including me) just wanted the mounts.

Overall, I thought the fight was fun and slightly regret having missed it in years past. This seems to be the year for me making up for missed holiday bosses. I finally saw Ahune this summer as well thanks to Jairone taking me in to kill him. I believe this just leaves Omens in Moonglade to summon and kill. Ahh the tracking of holidays by who you have to summon and kill.

Quick achievement note: take a 5 summon group in to kill old Headless and you will get enough candy to get sick and receive the “Get it out” achievement. Everyone one I went with got it during the downtime waiting on the pumpkin to respawn; which if you have done it before you know is super fast)

DPS Comes Full Circle in ToC

It is always odd to me when a company professes there is nothing wrong with something in the face of hordes of people crying foul. (I’m talking to you Blizzard the Beast Master in Illisan still screams in horror at what you did to her spec.) But I find it a ploy to buy them time and to pat themselves on the back and then point saying, “See we DO listen.” Yeah you listen…you listen when it is advantageous to do so.

Onyxia Raids You!

Some raids just aren’t meant to be. Some days I am just not meant to get the loots. Like this weekend, I went home sick from my dnd game where we just made epic! (my swordmages awesome just quadrupled with epic since she took Archlich as her epic destiny) Being sick was the low point of the weekend though and since I got better no complaints here.

This weekend I took Illisan and jumped into what seemed like a super late night cobbled together raid. I hesitate to call it a pug since it wasn’t really just a few slots slapped together (like my dps) VoA went well and a snagged a niffty new pvp belt. (Better stats are better stats) Seeing that we seemed to work well together an expedition to Ony was in order. (At this point it might be helpful to know that its a 10man huh?)