Tank Prima Donnas

I don't like Tank Prima Donnas. Sadly, it seems since the new Dungeon Finder has come out, they seem to be cropping up a lot more.

They say it's the tanks that set the pace in the new runs, but it SHOULD be the healers. If a healer stops for mana, everyone else should too, including the tank. The tank should not be over 100 yards away agroing another set (or more of mobs) or worse, the boss, without the healer right next to him.

The few times that a group has wiped because I wasn't able to get to the tank fast enough, I've gotten "I thought you were right behind me." To which I've wanted to reply (but haven't) "No, you didn't think, you assumed, and that is the problem."

Just recently, I did a Pick Up Group of the one of the new 5 man dungeons, Pit of Saron. The tank was constantly ahead of the whole group, and was agroing two to three packs of mobs at a time. Finally, he had gotten so far ahead of me, that just as I caught up I had to spam heals and he went down because I got silenced right as he needed a big heal.

As we are all flying back to the instance, he says in chat, "So... what happened?" I replied, "I got silenced." He replies, "I see." I was very curious, was that an Ah, okay, gotcha 'I see', or a Oh, so your the one to blame 'I see'. I had no idea, and even though I was curious, I kept my mouth shut.

I felt bad the moment the excuse left my fingers. Yes, we wiped because the tank went down, but I feel the wipe was not on my shoulders. I really wanted to say, "We wiped because you agroed one mob that has an AoE and two that silence at the same time. We died cause you over agroed and refused to wait for the healer before you did so." But I didn't.

Why? Honestly, fear. It was the beginning of the run, and I still had over 10 minutes on my Debuff before I could look for another group. I was afraid that the tank would quit the party if I placed the blame where it belonged, so I just kept my mouth shut.

Again, I was on another run, doing Halls of Stone, and the tank says before we even make the first pull, "I'm skipping ALL of the extra bosses and if you don't like it, tough titties." One of the dps spoke up, but even thought he objected, he didn't ask if we could do them, he just asked Why. The tank said it was cause he hated the instance, and the dps let it go, even though I knew, like me, he wanted the emblems.

So, what am I getting at? I hate Tank Prima Donnas. I hate having to be in fear that our tank will leave if we tick them off. It grates on my nerves that the tank determines the pace of the run, and not the healer, who has a mana bar to maintain. The tank should, yes, move the run forward, but he should ALWAYS make sure the healer is there before he makes a pull, and that the healer has enough mana to cover the situation.

Chain pulling and than pulling the boss, while the healer is yards and yards away AND only has half mana is the signs of a BAD tank, and sadly, the more dungeon runs I do, the more of these types I end up seeing.

How to get to H HoR in 17 not so easy steps.

Sohma has been taking all of my free time. I've been running Heroics like crazy to get her Emblems and gear her up. I have no idea if I'll raid with her, but it just feels like it would be nice to be able to, if I so choose.

On my way to getting geared, I've been keeping a eye on the elusive new trio of 5 man dungeons (and it's precursor ToC). Now, I know that they have gear requirements, so as I've been getting new gear from Heroics, I've been keeping an eye on the list to see when said dungeons unlock.

On that page, I'd heard that H Halls of Reflection had it's difficulty setting set to a higher degree, after a lot of people were complaining that undergeared people were being let in by the random dungeon generator. Boy, was I taken for a loop when I saw just how much it had been raised.

As soon as ToC was unlocked, Forge of Souls was also available to me. So I did both of those, and the following Pit of Saron was open as soon as I finished the quest that took me there (with no additional Gear Check), but I knew that I wasn't ready to heal in HoR so I intentionally didn't finish the PoS quest, so that way HoR wouldn't pop up on my queue. Little did I know that I had nothing to fear about that. It would be a lot of gear later, before the generator said I was good enough to enter.

This is the gear I had when I finally finished the quest, thinking that I was good enough to enter:

With a GearScore of 4329 (not that I put that much stake in the addon, but I give you the number for a point of reference)

Malfurion's Headpiece of Conquest 232
Acrane Loops of Anger 232
Malfuirion's Spaulders of Conquest 232
Wispcloak 200
Malfurion's Robe of Conquest 232
Plague-infested Bracers 200
Malfurion's Handguards of Conquest 232
Sash of the Servent 200
Leggings of the Snowy Bramble 219
Earthgiving Boots 200
Band of the Invoker 245
Heartmender Circle 245
Spark of Life 200
Winged Talisman 200
War Mace of Unrequited Love 200
Temple Crystal Fragment 200
Idol of Flaring Growth 245

So that's 3 iLvL 245s, 4 iLvL 232s (T9, so I had both set bonuses), 1 iLvL 219, and 8 iLvL 200s. Not one piece, below a drop that you would get in a Heroic Northrend Dungeon. All of the items Epic, except the two trinkets and my off-hand, which were Rare.

After I switched out my belt for: (bringing me to a GearScore of 4385)

Belt of the Living Thicket 226

It finally unlocked for me. Not that I don't think H HoR should have hard requirements. I DO. I've been there on my mage, and it's not a cakewalk, but it seems the requirements are very high. There is no way that someone not spending emblems (and lots of them), or doing raids will be able to get into this instance. Odd since, it is a 5-man, and you would think that just getting gear from all the previous Heroics would be enough... you would think...

Three Wolf Moon Shirt

What's with that title? This is a WoW blog! So it is. So it is. So why the 3 Wolf Moon Shirt? My husband and I were eating out earlier in the week and sitting just behind us were two older couples. My husband leans in and says, "Hey, check it out. They are wearing the 3 wolf moon shirt." So I get up to get a refill on my drink, and to check em out. He was right! Two of the four elderly people there were wearing the now infamous on the internet shirt. This couple was probably in their late 50's to late 60's. I said to my husband that it was probably one of several reasons that they had the shirts. 1) They were hip, with it older people who were internet savvy. 2) They have children or grand children who got them for them. 3) They just happened to come across them at the mall and were like, we like wolves!

It got me to thinking. When it comes to WoW, what is the age range of people that play the game. There are so many people who play WoW. It is the most popular MMO, pretty much ever. So I did a little research and found this interesting website: The Daedalus Project It talks about the statistics of those who play MMOs. The chart I show is from their site and discusses the age of playes. It only shows "older" players as Over 35, but I find it to be very interesting nonetheless. Computer games, MMOs in particular, tend to attract older players than console games. This isn't surprising to me, especially about WoW. Blizzard has made a game that reaches out to all ages. I think this is a good thing. Games are meant for all, not just kids or children. I like the idea knowing that the people I play with might be older than me. At 33, I'm no spring chicken either, but I enjoy having all sorts of people in the game with me. What about you?

Presenting my 3rd Level 80 - Sohma

Here she is! With the Armory's new model viewer, I figured I'd link to her through there. I couldn't wait for her to reach full rested, and just ground out that last level doing Dungeons. I've since been doing dungeons like crazy and have bought her 3/5 T9.

I can't believe I enjoy healing so much with her. It's, dare I say, more fun than dps. Okay, back to more dungeons. That is all.

Wait, one more thing. So, the new Random LFG has you locked from the "newer" heroics, including ToC. I had upgraded ALL of my gear, except my bracers and boots (which were i187) to at least i200, that means WotLK Heroic drops, and I still had ToC locked for me. I than proceeded to get 2 pieces of T9, and ToC was STILL locked. It wasn't until I got the 3rd piece that the game decided I was okay to run H ToC, and in one fell swoop H PoS too. I, find that to be a bit of a jump. I would think I could attempt H ToC with Heroic gear, that I wouldn't be expected to have Tier Gear. Guess I was wrong.

Waiting for Rested

Why oh why when I'm waiting on Rested XP to build does it seem to take forever? I'm only a level and a half away from 80 with Sohma, and I decided that since I'm pretty much only doing Dungeons with her, might as well wait for Full Rested so I can make that last level and a half go twice as fast. However, all I want to do right now is get her to 80! So the wait begins. Every day I check and it's a smidge more rested. *sigh*

While waiting, I've been doing things on Madge to get some Achievements done that I have had waiting in the wings for a while. These 3 are Needy, which my previous post was about (and I still haven't gotten), 25 Tabards, and a Winterspring Frostsaber (for 3 achievements, one for the mount, another towards my 100 mounts, and Exalted Reputation).

I've been doing the 3 repeatable quests for the Frostsaber while waiting on Battlegrounds to become ready. Why Battlegrounds? Well, I only needed one tabard to finish the 25, and I looked over all the ones I didn't have and getting the Knight's Color's was the easiest. I only need 20 marks from WSG, AB and AV, and the best part was I could sell the tabard back and get my marks back (which I will need for those PvP mounts in the future) So, as of last night I've finished that and now have the 25 tabard achievement. Now, instead of waiting for Battlegrounds to queue up, I'm doing the same with Random Dungeons and my Needy Macro.

Even though I feel I am making some progress, all I want to be doing is playing my Druid. C'mon time.... hurry.

What do you do while waiting for Rested?

To be Needy you have to be Greedy.

I still have a handful of General achievements that don't require a mountain of gold. One of those is the Needy Achievement. This requires you to win a Need roll on an item above level 185. For the record, this is pretty most all Rares that drop from WotLK Heroics and up. Maybe a few of the level 80 Normal Dungeons too. So, 1) You have to be in a group. 2) You have to roll need. 3) You have to get 100. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Now take a person who is geared out from Emblems and low end raids and High End Heroics. There is NOTHING that will drop in a Heroic that I can feasibly Need, unless it's from the 3 new Dungeons. So, in order to get this Achievement, I have to roll Need on things that I don't Need which by the way I slice it, just doesn't feel right.

I decided that I had two courses of action. 1) Play with 4 of my friends for every Dungeon, set the loot option to Group Loot, and roll Need on everything until I get the Achievement. Now for some people this isn't a bad idea. Some people can get a group of the Guildies and friends and keep that group rolling through many, many random dungeons, every day. Alas, this isn't me. So, I'm left with option 2) PuG it, and be forced into the new Need Before Greed System. For my mage, I don't mind much, being on the bottom rung doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out, unlike my Druid. So, I chose option 2 and made a macro that says "/p Hi everyone! I'm working on the Needy Achievement. I will be rolling Need on CASTER ONLY (I put that part in for those who may not know the new system won't let me roll Need on anything else) items. If the item is an upgrade for anyone, you can GLADLY have it. I don't need the Loot, only the Achievement." I was real hesitant to go into the LFD and spam my little macro. I really feared that I would be kicked from every group from the start, but I couldn't honestly do it any other way. I would have felt like scum for rolling Need on every caster item, when who knew if it was an upgrade for someone. I didn't want to be that person who rolled Need, just because they could.

The results? Well, I did about 5 randoms in a row, and no one said anything mean or disparaging. I got a few "okay" or "that sounds fair". Even on one of the end bosses when all the items that dropped were caster items, I didn't get anyone giving me gruff. I am relieved. I know I will probably get that one group that can't stand the idea of me doing this, but knowing that most probably won't mind has made me feel a lot better about it. Edited to add: I did the first dungeon today where someone had an issue. They were upset cause it would mean less shard opportunities, since we had a Disenchanter in the group. I don't know if they were the Enchanter or not, but I told them that anything I won, I would gladly give to them for disenchanting. They didn't reply so I assumed they were okay with it, and I didn't have to roll Need anyway.

Here is the kicker. In the first group I chose to try this with, on the first item that dropped that I could roll Need on, I rolled a 99. I will be glad when I am done with this one.

Simple Winterspring Frostsaber Mount Guide

So, I'm working on getting my Winterspring Frostsaber mount on Madge, as I still need 17 mounts to go to get my Dragonhawk. It has been a slow and tedious process, since I don't really have the time to sit and grind the whole thing out at once. I made a little guide for those of you who, like me, want the mount but can't get it all done at one shot.

First things first, set your hearth for Everlook so you can get back there on a daily basis. (Getting back to where you were after, that may prove a bit more problematic.) Also, keeping your hearth here will remind you that you are working on this grind if you slip and start to not do your set rotation, giving your more incentive to come back and finish. The only Quest Giver is in the north of the zone on Frostsaber Rock. The chain of quests are pretty simple. You start off Neurtal with the Frostsaber Trainers. You get one quest: Frostsaber Provisions to start with. It gives 250 rep and is the only quest you have until you reach 1,500 / 3000 of Friendly. Then you get your second quest: Winterfall Intrusion. This one gives another 250 rep. These two quests will take you to Honored. At honored you get your 3rd and last quest: Rampaging Giants. This quest gives 350 rep. This is a quest to kill level 59-60 elites, so be warned you might not be able to do this grind solo if you are too low of a level. So, unless you are human (than the numbers change), you would need to do the quests in this order:

FP - 6 times

than

FP and WI - 15 times

than

FP, WI, and RG - 38.8 times

See the small map to show the general locations of all the quest objectives. Once you've done the quests a few times, you can know how long it will take you to do a round of quests. I would suggest setting aside time to do 1-3 "rounds" of quests per day until you get it done.

Some notes, I've seen some people say to skip the gathering quest once you get the other two, but imho, it's on the way to the others, so why not do it? Also, WI, the kill quest, also uses mobs for another quest in the area AND for drops for Rep for a different faction, so you may have to compete for mobs.

I would suggest 2 days (3 quests per day) to do the gathering quest, than 5 (3 "rounds" per day) days for the next set, than 13 days (3 "rounds" per day) to do the last set. This would get you your Wintersaber in 20 days. Though that last set is pretty long going from top to bottom 3 times. So if you don't have the time, you can drop it down to two, or even just one round per day. This will make your grind longer, but will be less stressful per day of grinding.

I know there are probably more in depth guides to getting this grind done, but I wanted to post a little simple one that shows that you don't have to sit and grind away for days at a time to get it done. Just a little every day, and soon, you will have your own Wintersaber Mount.

How Bad do you Wanna Know?

I've been thinking about spoilers lately. It seems almost like you can't play the game fresh. If you walk into an instance, especially as a tank or a healer you are expected to know the fights, and in doing so, you probably have to read up on any lore concerning them as well. It's impossible to avoid spoilers in chat without turning off your channels. If you read gaming sites, it's rife there as well. Even though some sites will "try" to put up warnings in their intros, usually the title of the post gives half or more of it all away anyways.

Just today the rumor came out the Friends and Family Alpha for the new WoW expansion Cataclysm is coming soon. Next Tuesday, if the rumors or true. This has spurned a whole new discussion on how soon we will see leaks of information. When the WotLK was in Alpha and Beta there was a site that had all the spoilers, NDA be damned. If this site: Cataclysm Wiki has any truth to it, than the same people who leaked all the WotLK info will be doing the same for the Cataclysm stuff.

So, I'm down to asking myself. Do I want to know? With Wrath I didn't mind one way or the other, but part of me felt it lost some of the newness going into the game knowing everything ahead of time. Do I really want that going into Cataclysm? How much will I let myself be spoiled? Just what Blizzard tells me? What the blogs sites are talking about? What the spoiler sites are saying? And even if I want to avoid it all... how can I, when everyone will be talking about it. At the same time, if I hadn't know about the Achievements ahead of time, I might not have gotten my Violet Proto Drake that next year...

Just some food for thought, going into this next, possibly laden with spoilers, week.

When the Tank Whispers You...

There's been this odd thing happening to me as I've been playing in the Dungeon Finder as Sohma. Since I'm pretty decked out in good gear (4 BoA's and all the rest is the best Dungeon drops I can get) I usually am one of the better geared players in the group, unless we get with a pair or 3 of high levels that are slumming it in the "regular" dungeons.

This only happens when I get a decent to good or better tank. We will be running along, them pulling, me keeping em up, and keeping pace with em, and the whispers will start. The tank will send me tells bitching about the others in the group. It ranges from anything from the tank being the highest dps or ragging on someone's playskill or even laughing at them if they take a few too many faceplants into the dirt. But it's to me... not in the group. It's as if, because I'm a decent healer, and have their back (so to speak) I've become their best friend for the next 35 minutes. All I have to do is send a few, "I know what you mean." or "I see your point." and I could wipe the group and the tank would shrug it off cause y'know, mistakes happen. But if it was anyone else in the group, all heck would break lose.

I find it odd, being a dps for so long, that there exists a sort of bond between the healer and a tank even when running low level dungeons with people you may never see again. Oddly, I never felt this when when I was running as a tank with Critter. It makes me wonder, is it just me that feels this way? Or do others get it to?

On a different page, I did 3 runs tonight with Sohma, almost dinging 78. I did my first HoS, HoL and UP as a level 77 healer, and surprisingly all 3 runs went well. Even though we tackled General Bjorngrim while he was still electrified and we chose to stick close to Loken rather than run away. I managed to keep the tank and the group up through all the boss fights. Felt real good about my healing abilities afterwards, but I had a good tank too.

Meet the Druid

This is my Druid, Sohma. She is currently level 77 and soon to be my 3rd level 80 character. Sohma was my second Night Elf character that I made, the first being a hunter called Nightsand. The hunter went through two changes. I had gotten her to level 50ish before deleting her because I really started to despise her look. This was before the new hair salons or the ability to pay to change your looks. I got the second iteration of that same hunter, with the same name, close to 6o before I deleted her again. This time remaking her as a Draenei. The Drainei Hunter now called Yumiiko, is going strong at level 70 and will one day see level 80.

Why am I taking about a long dead Hunter when this post is about my Druid? Well, for a long time I thought that the reason I didn't like the Hunter was because of her being a Night Elf. I worried that I'd never level an Alliance Druid because my only choice was Night Elf. Luckily, that has not been my issues with leveling Sohma. Sohma is a Druid and there are about as many leveling choices with leveling a Druid as there are classes that can play a Warrior. I had no idea what I wanted Sohma to be at end game when I created her, I just liked the idea of a character that was a shapeshifter. Hence, the character's name. She was named for an anime character called Yuki Sohma from the anime Fruits Basket. The premise of this anime was that the Sohma family would change into animals when they were embraced by members of the opposite gender. I gave her the whiteish hair of the main character as well.

Sohma has had every spec during her leveling career. She started as bear as soon as I got the form and then once I got cat she respeced to cat form and went cat for quite a few levels. Around level 40ish I respeced her to healing, but didn't like it much, so she went back to cat soon after. At level 50, we went back to healing and I really started to like it, so I decided to level her to 80 as a tree. I had already come to accept that I would be leveling her practically solely by doing instances, and that didn't bug me. Since she wasn't my main, I wasn't worried about getting burnt out. I had a brief stint during her 60's doing Moonkin just to see if I'd like it. I thought I would since a Mage was my main and I thought a Moonkin would be like playing a Mage, but I really didn't and went back to healing.

Sohma is my Tailor and Enchanter. I try to have one character that is every profession. As of a few days ago, I just hit 450 with her Enchanting and is in the 400's for her Tailoring. She will hit 80 soon, as I am really enjoying playing her, but I have decided to wait until she is full rested to finish the push. I have been surprised at how much I really enjoy healing. I thought I was a dps 4 life kinda person, but healing instances with Sohma has been a real pleasure, and I can't wait to hit 80, start doing Heroics, and maybe even do some raids.

Welcome to the Dungeon Finder

Since everyone is talking about it, why not throw my two cents in. Just like everyone else I was ecstatic when the tool first came out, and I still am to some degree, but the love has waned. At least for my dps it has.

So here is my experience with it. On Madge, I blazed through the first 3-4 days it was out, doing Heroic after Heroic. I was even becoming an old hand at the 3 newer dungeons that they also added with the patch. I was getting groups left and right with just a few minutes wait. Little did I know that this wasn't going to last. Thought I guess I should have seen it coming. I was so desperate to get my new title and my pug that I didn't even think for a moment that it wouldn't last. After I burned myself on Heroics (I think on the last day I did 12 in one sitting), I sat back and walked away from the computer for a few days ranting to myself how awesome the new tool was, and how it was the best thing since sliced cheese.

When I finally came back to WoW, I decided to let the Mage sit for a while longer. Since my husband was going out of town for about 5 days, I decided it was time to make the push to 80 with my Druid. (When he's gone I find myself driven to level.) So, I played my Druid who was level 71 at the time I started. I had been dual spec for a while, since level 50, and was really enjoying healing so I decided to take her into a few instances to heal, thinking that I could get XP quicker that way than doing quests. It was rough at first, with all the DK's who think they are tanks but aren't, but since I had complete dungeon gear with four BoAs as well, I was good enough even to keep subpar tanks up, mostly. It was fun, and I leveled her this way the entire time that my husband was out of town for, with the exceptoin of a few quests here and there.

Then it happened, I put myself in the queue with my 71 Hunter, thinking that it would be fun to see how I stacked up to all the dps that I had been healing over the last few days. And I waited, and waited, and waited... It seems that the newness of the DF had worn off. Even though I could get groups quickly with my healer, my dps was taking longer and longer to get into a group.

Now, I don't think this is a 100 % bad thing. At least not for dps that is still leveling. I mean, dps have it easier to level by questing and grinding, so I guess I can just do dungeons in between my questing rather than doing questing in between my dungeons which is how I was doing it on my Druid. It's the same way on my Mage, only not as bad, but the wait is still there. I worry that it's going to get worse as time goes on.

I really like the system. It takes all the hastle out of queuing up for a dungeon, and just let's you sit back and wait. When you queue up with four of your friends, you can just select the dungeon you want and boom you are there. There is no more running to the stone to summon. When you are done you get plopped back where you started, very nice. I don't like the fact that there seems to be a timer on kicking someone from a group. When you get into a group, you can't kick someone in the first few minutes. Now, I haven't had the urge to do it many times, but there have been a few. One specific time was when someone in the group used a racist term to describe the race choice of another group member.

I look forward to using the new system and with the exception of a few quirks here and there, I'm not upset with the way it works, but I am a bit worried for how the system will fair in the coming time. Who knows what the situation will be a few months from now, or even how it will look right before the expansion. I have no doubt though that once the expansion hits, groups will become quicker, even for dps, since more people will be coming back to the game.

All in all. I give Blizzard a +1 for the Dungeon Finder.

Meet the Mage

Guess I'll start off with a few posts dealing with the main characters that I am playing right now.

Here's Madge! She's my main character on Perenolde server. She's a level 80 Gnome Mage with 450 Herbalism and 450 Alchemy, and all 3 secondary professions at 450 as well. Madge's current Achievement score is 6485. When it comes to getting stuff done, she's the one that I like to do it with. So when I say that I'm a completist, it usally means on this character. However, feeling like I am a completist isn't just about getting everything on one character. It also means I want to experience everything. So I want to have one of every race, and one of every class, both on Horde and Alliance.

Let's see, what to know about Madge. She was named Madge after the spokesperson for Palmolive Dish Detergent. She's Frost with a secondary spec of Arcane. When I decided to make a mage, she was going to be fire, so I had her with the bright pink pigtails, but after playing for a few levels, I fell in love with Frost and decided that was the way to go. Since I am a HUGE fan of cordinating things (just wait till you see my "green" warrior), I really wanted to switch her hair to blue, and I was getting so sick of her staff cutting through her hair, that as soon as hair salons were put in the game, she switched over to blue hair, sans tails.

I was the Guild Leader, with Madge, of a small friends and family Guild called Ordo Disordo for a while, before I decided that once I hit 80 I really wanted to try my hand at raiding, so I left the Guild in the hands of my husband and ventured off into the great unknown. Two Guilds later, I am very happy in the Deadly Vixens Guild, a very fun casual Guild filled with great people. I've raided a bit, hence the second spec of Arcane, but feel that at times it can be a heck of a commitment time-wise, so I am not currently involved with any scheduled raids that the Guild does. I have to admit, this has made it hard on getting all of the Dungeons and Raids Achievements, but much like the PvP ones (something I am horrific at), I fear those may have to sit on the back burner for a while. With the exception of the latest raid (IIC), I have at least stepped foot into all of the others.

Right now, as a player, I am focusing on getting my third character to 80, a Night Elf Druid named Sohma, but I still log onto Madge to run daily dungeons, check for hatched egg, and other various things. She is still my main, no matter how many alts I play.