WoW Backwards is Still WoW

After I left LOKI I decided to flip my WoW experience on its head. The night after /gquitting I returned to the night elf starting areas to work on quests towards Loremaster. It reminded me of the reasons I fell in love with my druid in the first place: the sereneness, the artwork, the feeling that good would always conquer evil. It also felt very backwards. There was no endgame, next boss, better loot, harder achievement I was used to striving for. Instead of progress I was completing. Backwards, but still WoW and still enjoyable. Maybe I was backwards the whole time I was raiding and didn't even know it???

Thanks for you faith in me... Priestess of MY OWN RACE

Yakra joined me for Azuremyst quests. We had a blast making fun of all the nonsensical things the NPCs said, since they thought they were talking to Draenei but they were talking to an elf and a dwarf... We were reading every word of the quests (at least I was!) Very backwards from plowing through pieces of Northrend content for rep or rewards, since they were needed for raiding. Maybe questing backwards, but still WoW.

I started a guild! Mostly for me and Yakra and for the few lowbies who signed my charter who I don't have the heart to kick. Its called Low Key. Get it... 'cause I left LOKI... Okay, I think its kind of witty, but, yes, you are allowed to lol at me all you want. It is supposed to be funny, but it is also supposed to be pseudosymbolic of that backwards thing again. Its still "loh-kee", but instead of meaning Lords of Killing Innocents it means... Low Key. The tabard is the same icon as LOKI's, but the colors are backwards.

Hey Yak, Shouldn't we have killed this dude before raiding Ulduar?

I used to try to fit a little of the Real World in my Warcraft. Now I plan on putting Warcraft only where it comfortably fits into my World. Backwards? I don't think either of them are. However you play, as long as it makes you happy and you are enjoying yourself, that's WoW forward to you.

I want to thank you all for the support you showed when I wrote my last post practically pouring my heart out. I was really going out on a limb writing it. I am overwhelmed by the loving comments and this post by Beruthiel (who is going to give me a big head!) Even for those of you who didn't comment, 95% of you are still reading - so says Feedburner. Allison at WoW.com wrote about this recently, way down at the bottom of the first page:

"If you've been writing long enough that people get curious about who you are as a person, then stuff like [why your guild sucks, why your raid leader sucks, why your server sucks, why your life sucks] isn't actually going to send them elsewhere; it's a sort of privilege conferred on bloggers who have already earned an audience."

I don't know if I like the word 'earn' there, but the 'curious about who you are' and a 'privilege conferred' describes exactly how honored I feel to have you stick around.

Tell me again why I needed the leaves...

Many of you realized that I posted after 'things' between Yakra and I were on their way back up. I made my last post on Wednesday. The Tuesday before was when Yakra took me out to dinner. We talked a lot and decided he would leave LOKI too. I couldn't put that in my last post. For obvious reasons that was something he needed to announce to LOKI in his own time. But since then things have just been getting better and better. I know we made the right choice for us for right now. Here are some of the awesome moments of my last week:

• Yakra took me out on a Tuesday night. OMG thats a RAID night!
• Questing on our mains in noobie zones and in Icecrown. Yup, Icecrown still isn't done.
• Going for walks. Probably 4 or 5 in the last week.
• Going on a NINE MILE HIKE yesterday! It was so beautiful. There were pretty trees. I thought of all of you!!!
• Talking about buying a piece of land or starting a business instead of recruiting DPS.
• Yakra picked me up and spun me around while we were on this one walk and pretended he was going to throw me down a hill. I know its cheesy, but those moments had been missing.
• Watching anime.
• Doing some projects around the house we had been procrastinating on.
• Really good s... um... intimate moments. Yeah, lets call it that.
• Just talking and listening and loving.

I Less Than Three You

Lords of Killing Innocence

One week ago I left LOKI. I have been hurting really badly the last few days. Today is the first day I feel like I can breath. This is an explanation to my friends and guild who might need more explanation. And another reason why the petals have been dropping off this blog one by one. This is me coping with my feelings. This is for my husband, because while I know he is 'getting it' and that means a lot to me, I figure seeing it in writing and with music (because we have always picked songs so carefully) can only help. So why am I leaving the guild that I have been in for two years and that my husband is GM of?

(1) Disagreeing with some things about Yakra’s leadership style AND my feelings about those disagreements not being heard by him. If he had sat down and listened to my thoughts and feelings I think I would have been okay. But I didn’t have a husband to listen to my concerns about the guild anymore I just had a GM trying to justify their every action.

High Life – Count Crows: God Yakra, we became the worst kind of people and you knew it would take more than an apology to get us out of it all. All I wanted was for you to acknowledge how LOKI was changing us as people and to tell me it would be okay and to convince me that I should stay. Sorry for the random slideshow of the pretty girl and pets. It was the best sound quality YouTube had.

(2) Increased stress during raids due to Yakra’s louder venting outbursts. I don’t particularly blame him for this. Ulduar has been stressful and I’m sure people who play alone in a room yell and slam things on their desks when other people screw up. But I was constantly feeling yelled to and then he would get on vent and be calm and collected. Sometimes he would yell on vent also, which actually was better for me because then the person who was at fault got yelled at too and I wasn’t just the GM’s emotional punching bag.

Worth Dying For – Rise Against: Because it’s a fucking game guys. Is it worth the yelling and fighting and belittling? It’s made my husband mean. It’s made me mean. It’s made loved bloggers highly opinionated and commenters jerks. It’s given us time for guild drama and comments behind people’s backs. And It’s made boss kills feel like slaps in the face. I don’t want to be a hardcore raider anymore.

(3) Rumors of rumors of people in the guild who didn’t like me and people who had me on ignore. For me its enough for one person to not like me, I will just leave. I don’t know what I did to this person. I used to confide in them and they confided some pretty personal stuff in me and I really hoped for the best for them regarding that situation. It was exciting to think I had found a friend like that on WoW. But apparently the things they are saying are upsetting this other person enough that they feel they have to tell me and it is just tearing me apart. I would rather not know and think I still had a friend in this person.

(4) I finally /gquit when I went to Yakra again after a raid hoping he would understand my feelings about an issue. Instead he focused on a side issue slightly related to the one I had. He focused on justifying his actions, not on understanding my feelings. He then made a guild policy change related to the side issue/ This was a change he was adamantly against, so I asked him “What made your change your mind?”. “To get you off my case.” Wow. Just wow. You are going to make decisions for your guild to get your wife off your case because it is easier than listening to her. Do. Not. Want. /gquit.

Rest of My Life – Less Than Jake: LOKI was full of my best friends. Trust me, I felt like there was nothing else I could do. When things got worse not better, yeah, I questioned leaving. I was making a sandwich in the kitchen when I hit my all time low. The ending of this video where the couple looks like they are going to get back together but they don’t is how I felt until last night.

Things got worse before they got better. Yakra and I flipped between using sugar coated words to denying WoW existed and bodily standing between each other and doorways, screaming at the tops of our lungs. Not to mention every possible comment we could make to hurt each other. “Let me know when you ARE going to get over it.”

Stuff got so bad last night we reached a point where we could be blatantly open with each other. “I lied to you. I was on the phone with so-and-so.” We went out to dinner. Yakra made some decisions. He listened to my feelings, actually understood them and wasn’t trying to defend himself when he didn’t need defending from my feelings. He explained to me this thing I did (do?) that really hurts his feelings and I was able to sort out in my mind how it is possible for me to have a certain opinion about something and not use that opinion to hurt him.

Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated – Rise Against: We built our sandcastles on WoW. Really, what were we thinking? I don’t know if we will get another chance to leave raiding and start dreaming and hobbies anew. We have said a lot of shit to each other and to other people in the guild and its going to come back in our faces. It already is. But as long as I have you, Yakra, I know we will okay, right?

So how does leaving LOKI feel? It kills. It’s like a piece of me is dieing inside. I was in LOKI for two years and I don’t think I would have left for any reason other than thinking my marriage was in serious peril. LOKI totally made me who I am as a raider and WoW player. I would like to think I had some part in making LOKI what it is. The old GM only had good things to say. He was letting me reminisce about LOKIs ‘glory days’ last night and that meant a lot to me. So what are my plans for Aert right now? I might server transfer and will probably work on Loremaster. But it's not like anywhere but LOKI will ever be home.

The Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: If I had a theme song for LOKI this would be it. Because what more can you ask for in a guild than not wanting to change a single thing for almost nine months? But if this is a test of choosing between my guild and my husband, I would like to think I am passing.

If I could offer you only one piece of advice: Think twice before letting your significant other be your Guild Master.

Power of Two – Indigo Girls: This one’s for Yakra, because I took him for better and I took him for worse and I’m not going to forget. It’s also our wedding song…

When the Servers Go Down, the Down Raiders Get Creative

Some of us get weepy at the thought of missing a good night of raiding, dailies, or leveling. Some of us get ARG angry. That includes my husband. Okay, maybe I used the "f" word a few times to describe my feelings too.

Lots of us roll alts. My husband made me roll a Death Knight. Killing the peasants was a little too dark for me: "I got a sick grandma back home!" Then I found out we were killing the wrong mobs and it was WAY too dark for me...

But no one dealt with the down time in as fascinating and entertaining a way as one of our hunters, MoneyX, last night in vent. (ps The X stands for 'Sex')

• Money: There is only one thing to do. Launching my Ulduar simulator. 
• Money: Send tells to Moonkin R for on time invites.
• Aert: Slash tell MR Invite!
• Yak: Slash tell MR Invite!
  
• Shaman U: Slash whisper MR Invite!
• MR: Invite Yak. 
• Aert: Slash tell MR Invite please!
• MR: Invite SU.
• Aert: Slash whisper MR Invite PLEASE!
• MR: Invite Aert.
• Yak: Okay everyone in your vehicles!
• Shaman Y: Aert gets the top of mine.
• Money: I call a chopper. 
• Aert: Slash tell SY How was your day?
  
• SU: Lokihealer Could you spam healing assignments again?
• Yak: Aert, why is your vehicle falling way behind? 
  
• Aert: Don't look at me! SY likes it when I'm on top! 
  
• Yak: There is a spider bot over to the left! Focus it down!!!
• Aert: Slash tell Money What are you wearing?  
• Money: Nothing at all!
  
• Yak: Money, Why is your vehicle way over there too? Oh, okay, your talking about important DPS stuff in DPS chat? Carry on. Carry on. 

Ulduar Simulator is cheap and easy,

unlike this expensive driving simulator.

It went on like this for fifteen minutes. And no, Darkspear is NOT a role-playing server. So next time the servers are down, just hop on vent and pretend you are having a raid! Its almost the same   : P   (No I'm not really pretending it is almost the same, but I can think of no other way I would have wanted to spend last night, other than in Ulduar.)

Were your servers down for an eternity? If so, what did you do with the down time?

You Don't Want No Drama

What you gonn’a do with all that time

All that free time spent on-line?

I’ma gonna, gonna, gonna, bitch and whine, 

Bitch and whine ‘bout WoW’s design. 

Design, design – tier seven raid design.   

My guildies going crazy, 

Their running out of dailies. 

They got all the best armor, 

So they’re startin’ rumors.  

Sick of doin’ achievements. 

Tired of Vault of Ancients. 

Puggin’? They be loggin’ 

Share their feelings on their blog n’   

Look at other guilds, guilds. 

Like they’ll make you fulfilled, filled. 

You can look but you can’t app, 

If you app you’ll start some drama, 

And you don’t want no drama, 

No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama.   

We say stop, but they keep bitchin’ 

Soon we’ll start gkickin’ 

It’s gettin’ kinda sickenin’ 

But we will keep on raiding, 

We’ll keep on demonstrating

Our guild. Our guild will not be killed. 

If you leave we’ll just be thrilled,

Won’t need to stop an’ rebuild, 

You know we’re way too skilled, 

Our guild. Our guild. Our guild.

I don't particularly want to blog about the boredom and drama I know every guild is experiencing, but there isn't a whole lot else going on to blog about. I know most of use are just twiddling our thumbs, waiting, and hoping our guilds stay strong enough to hit the ground running come Ulduar. Hopefully that gave you a giggle while you wait. 

I couldn't embed the original, but if you haven't heard in in a while, search You Tube for Black Eyed Peas - My Hump. There are at least two videos of it. But here is my preferred version (parody) of the song anyway!!!

A Little History of Me, Aert, and Yakra

Guildies have been reminiscing on our forums about their WoW history, so I posted this there. It will mean more to people who know me IRL, or who know me or LOKI in WoW. There are some cute WoW meets IRL events if you wish to read, but other than that my story could be any WoW player's story.  

Yakra and I first played WoW on a friends account in his dorm room. I rolled a lock and killed a few wolves. Yakra played the most while I studied Organic Chem. On the way back to my house he proposed. I think all the happy proposal feelings mixed in with the WoW feelings and I was totally hooked. 

That summer Yak and I got our own accounts. I rolled a lock named Auroraglory, after my LARP character. He played a paladin. We leveled and planned a wedding that summer. The school year came and I stopped playing because it was the responsible thing to do.

Spring break came and Yak slept in a lot, so I rolled Aertimus on his account and leveled her a bit - she was going to be LOLKITTYDPS. Return to school, Yak needed his account to raid MC with Fatalis Fodei. I got to play maybe 30 - 45 min a night before bed, when he would call me to get off his account. I listened to his end of raids over the phone and thought this was all very silly. Sometimes I would listen in on vent and think it was more silly.

We got married. We went on our honeymoon. We came back and FF had disband. I didn't work that summer so I got Aert up into the 40s. Yak raided with LOKI for a few weeks, but his overtime was getting in the way. I just thought LOKI was getting in the way of quality time with my husband. I was pretty mad at raiding. Fall/school came again. I stopped playing because it was the responsible thing to do.

Christmas break rolls around and suddenly I got the desire to really play (Left and Ava were playing by then.) I reactivated my account and I leveled Aert on Yak's account while he leveled Auroraglory on mine. Thats when I started to be the healbot for our questing and instancing. This continued into the school year, when Yak wasn't leveling Yak in BC. I reached the 50s and joined Dissension because all my friends were there.

Off to outlands I went, where I could play with YAKRA... except that... Aert and Yak were on the same account. So I legally changed my last name, 1 year after getting married, so I could move Aert to my account and Aurora to Yak's account.

Dissension blew up and Ava found MoH, who was trying to get Kara going. We all went there. The first Kara raid was planned. I was keyed but not level 80, so Yak and I spent all day leveling me to 80 and my very first anything bigger than I 5 man was that night. It was our first anniversary.

MoH was full of high emotions for me because it was my first real guild and I didn't know I would meet so many awesome people online. We got through Kara, but felt a little held back from the inability to effectively work two groups. Left left and app'ed LOKI, using his friends as bartering chips to get into the rouge full guild. So I never actually app'ed to LOKI. It helped to get in as Yak's wife too, since he left Ruff on good terms.

Stuck it out in LOKI missing MoH SO much, but loving raiding. LOKI got flooded with bad players who brought us down and PvE disbanded. I went back to MoH for a little bit, but then stopped playing because THE SCHOOL YEAR STARTED AND THATS THE RESPONSIBLE THING TO DO. Christmas came, I saw Yak playing and was SO jealous of ZA and watching him raid again. I finished college and started raiding again and, well, the rest is history (and archived)!

Awesome...

...LOKI that is!

Our... (*gasp* I almost called him our main tank! Don't let my husband hear that! But that is a sign as to how much LOKI shares responsibilities.)Lets try that again...

One of our awesome tanks made this awesome high def video about his awesome self and our awesome guild - LOKI. He put this out there at exactly the right time. There has been a little bit of guild drama, and for a guild that is relatively drama free, that feels like a lot. I know I have been bummed by it, that's one of the main reasons I haven't been posting or reading; I couldn't handle anything else stirring up negative feelings.

But then I watched this video yesterday and my love of LOKI was rekindled anew! We even went into 3 Drakes that night and made some good progress with a new strat. It is working so well that we are going back tonight instead of to Malygos and Naxx!

Enjoy!

Blogging to Hear Myself Blog, WoWing to Feel Myself...

...nothing. That's about all I feel. It was fun while we were leveling. But Yakra pushed the guild into raiding before I wanted to. I mean its fine if other people want to raid, but I havn't even finished 4 zones yet. I finally figured out what pre-Naxx loot I liked and wanted - then I'm in Naxx. I've started reading strats - I've started a "Best Resto Druid Gear from Naxx 25" list (since I'm the type to have to choose for myself) - but I definitely haven't finished. I haven't felt like I was really raiding since Illidan, just faking it. 

Is it Wrath? Is it the fact that Yakra is guildmaster now? Is it that I'm so busy with teaching? Is it that I am jealous of the the people who have the time to read strats and loot tables and write blogs from work? Is it just winter blues?

I don't really expect anyone to answer. I do expect more people to unsubscribe from my blog like the 9 people who did after I was so excited that I had 200 subscribers. Maybe that's one of the reasons I feel down. Right before my number of subscribers jumped by like 40 I had come to the conclusion that reader base didn't matter - I was just blogging for myself. Then they jumped and I guess I got hooked. It was kind of nice.

/endQQsession

Apocalypse?

• I am scared I will have no mana. 
  
• I am scared my reduced global cooldown will throw off my internal body clock and I will age 20% faster. 
  
• I am scared every poor "I stack spirit!" gear choice will be rendered useless.
  
• I am scared it will take me 6 hours to reset every personalized thing I have done to grid over the last 9 months.
  
• I am scared I will not be able to find things on my bars and I am more scared our paladin tank will not be able to find things on his bars.
  
• I am scared I will assign healing targets poorly as my priests suddenly become main tank healers and my paladins suddenly become viable raid healers.
  
• I am scared my husband will have a nervous breakdown from zero points into cruelty. 
  
• I am scared LOKI will explode.
  

I do have a plan. This is it. I know it isn't written in stone, and I can change it if I have no mana. As for the addons... I'm thinking of sitting myself out from the raid with a bowl of icecream, because there is no way I can get home early to do them and even less way will I trust Yakra to set them up for me. 

I hope everyone sleeps well tonight. Our last night in the World of Warcraft version 2. See you on the other side.

The End is Near!

The end of the summer that is... I enjoy playing stay at home wife WAY too much. I have gotten loads of projects done around the house, have made something along the lines of progress with lesson planning, slept until at least 8 most morning, and been enjoying some extra WoW time. I start in-services for school on Aug 15th QQ

In the LOKI department ~ We recently downed Reliquary of Souls. One night, three hours total. Oh ya! It was in NO way a hard healing fight for us. The first time we got RoS into phase three we downed him/her/it. It really is all about the interrupters, but here is what we did for healing RoS: 2 paladins on the main tank (a warrior in phase 2 and a paladin tank in phase 3); a resto shaman on the melee group; and 2 CoH priests, another resto shaman, and a resto druid assigned to each of the 4 mostly ranged dps groups. Everyone DPS phase 1, a lot of us off DPSed phase 2, and then healed our little hearts out in phase 3. We just kept to our assignments so no heals or time were wasted cross healing.

We have lost some good healers recently, but we had differences. Even though they were good and took some good gear with them, I would rather not have to deal with... well... drama. So it is less stress for me over all. We have more paladins than I really know what to do with. I try to get them all in for the bosses they want the most, and we have done some insane things pally heavy (like 1 druid, 1 priest, and 5 pallies for Azgalor.) And we could use another resto shaman or two who show up for freaking raids! But what else is new with alliance?

As of tonight I have a new co-healing officer! I am rejoicing!!! He is going to be SO much better than the last two other co-healing officers. (I'm still very good friends with one, but he just didn't like to talk that much in raids so he probably wasn't the best.) Aforementioned new healing officer is going to be awesome. He comes to like EVERYTHING, have been in the guild for almost 4 months, has totally the right attitude about progressing and loot, talks in vent, takes healing reports and strats seriously, but still jokes around a ton. And he doesn't think I'm a total freak for having my spreadsheet of my healers!

Our DPS officers have been AFWoW for a month. This is starting to impact my and Yakra's sanity. Ruffles is at least great, makes almost everything, and can do DPS. We have two temporary DPS officer types, just for during raids to coordinate, they don't deal with apps, drama, etc. But what we really need is for our current officers to come back or for two official new officers.

Making My Guild Understand Healers

I wrote this on March 10th, shortly before I got my job, but never posted it. I didn't notice until now, so... enjoy? (Even if it is totally random!)

I can sympathize with Leafshine's concerns about how often fellow guild members seem to not understand healing or think it will just happen. I believe LOKI was seriously in this boat back in Dec or so. We were trying to kill Mag, who we had killed multiple times in Aug and Sept, but no one was doing anything along the lines of healing assignments. After we spent 3 hours wiping, I decided I needed to step up and do something. When I approached the healing officer about my setting up assignments, just to make sure I wasn't stepping on any toes, he told me he was used to just winging it with healing. Obviously in later raids this 'winging it' thing does not work. Said healing officer is very lucky that I have a secret crush on them or they would be very dead.

I have worked my little tree branches off to make my fellow officers understand and respect healing. I think I have had extra challenges being the only female officer, however, being married to our tanking officer is helpful. Its amazing the lines of communication that open when you remind the tanks that they can sleep on the sofa!

Pushing Archie

Time flies when you have a real job! I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since my last post!

Real Life Update:
I am still liking the job. There was a week or two in there that was really bogged down with paperwork, but somehow I managed to crawl out from under the 14 feet of labs and worksheets I had to grade. I'm ready for summer because I want to get ahead with planning and have great plans, instead of only okay plans. I'm not a fan of being only one week ahead and sometimes having to drive to get my printing in time. NINE MORE DAYS UNTIL SUMMER YAY!

WoW Update:
Shade of Akama was a cake walk, like we expected. Taron Gorefiend was a little frustrating. We spend about 3.5 nights over 2.5 weeks working on him until we killed him. Of course it was the inability to kill the shadowy constructs. There is a simulator game we all played, but I don't know if it helped me. I am used to watching and clicking on dots (boxes) on my screen. What I'm not good is actually clicking on mobs that may be standing in front of or right next to each other. I noticed the healers seemed to be the worst at killing them. I don't think it is a coincidence - I think it is our tunnel vision. And I don't know if there is any way to help besides doing the fight more or having a ranged dps alt and just grinding crowded areas. I have had a serious lack of practice since I have only gotten Shadow of Death TWICE in all our attempts. I don't want to be "that girl". Who always wipes the raid... We killed Gorfiend once and are now putting BT on hold until Archie is down.

Some nights we rock Hyjal and one shot everything in two hours. Some nights it take 3 hours to get the first 3 bosses down. I have no idea what is going on there. Maybe it is burn out? I know I need to start stacking the healer classes for those fights. I want to consider it farmed content and let my healers have some say on what bosses they come in for and what they sit out for, but we just aren't there yet. And I don't believe the healing problems are player problems, just class differences I have been trying to ignore. No T6 for me yet. Its not like I don't have the DKP, I just don't need the gloves as much as some other people do.

We have spent about 2.5 nights total on Archie now. I think we are starting to work out the kinks on where we are going to run from fires and where groups are going to stand. . A few people seem to consistently die to dumb things, and I think people are being too brave too close to fires too near to fears. (Myself included). We are running healer heavy now. I figure if we can't live until 10%, who cares about the DPS race at the end. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. Our best attempt was about 54%.

We have had a HUGE healer turn over. I am expecting healers to make at least 40% of our raids by hour. Any less than that and they don't come enough to be worth teaching the fights to and giving the gear too. When most of our healers make 60% or so of raids, I don't think 40% is too much to ask.

We have never tolerated people being consistently too low on the healing meters, and are getting a little stricter on this. Yes, some fights will be better for some classes. Yes, our CoH priests are always going to out heal or Imp Spirit priest. But no one should be consistently far below the other healers. We had one healer like that. We asked them to consider themselves a non-raiding member of the guild. (They are really in it for the social stuff, not the raiding.)

Healing Kael' Plan B...

Wednesday night we made a handful of Kael' attempts. Our raid schedule has been seriously reduced for the week and we have lots of members unable to raid this week because of the Easter Holiday. (I'm glad family and friend obligations are of high importance to our officers and members, but thats a story for a different day.) We did have one attempt where we got all the weapons down though! Hardly, maybe, but we did it! And we were able to get a good handle on what DPS order and tanking rotation works for us. It felt like progression all night. What phase or transition will make us feel like we are banging our heads against the wall? I have gotten the serious impression that happens at some point...

Yakra made some changes to his original tanking plan shortly before the raid and sadly I did not have the time to adjust the healing plans appropriately. (You would think that having the healing and tanking officers married to each other would increase officer communication, but that is not always so. Sometimes our officer comunication involves screaming at each other at the top of lungs in our office and freaking our guildmates out if one of us pushes the push-to-talk key.)

So healing was sloppy. Very very sloppy. And I feel really guilty. I spent some time this afternoon re-meshing the healing to Yakra's tanking plan while including Lonetree's advice. (Thanks again!) I probably should have considered Swiftmend's Strat a little bit more, but I have been so busy with real life stuff... Without further adieu, here is my New and Improved Kael' Healing Plan:

All Healers
Phase 1.1: DPS and Raid Heal
Phase 1.2: Heal Sangruinar Tank (Tank 2)
Phase 1.4: Heal Engineer Tank (Tank 3)
Phase 4: DPS Shield When Up As Able
Phase 5: Raid Heal During Gravity Lapse

Healer 1 (Pally)
Phase 1.3: Lock Tank
Phase 2: Tank 1 (Sword & Shield)
Phase 3: Tank 1 (Finishing Shield) -> Tank 3 (Engineer)
Phase 4&5: Tank 1 (Kael’)

Healer 2 (Shaman or Druid)
Phase 1.3: Lock Tank
Phase 2: Tank 2 (Mace) -> Tank 4 (Axe)
Phase 3: Tank 2 (Sanguinar)
Phase 4&5: Tank 1 (Kael’)

Healer 3 (Druid or Shaman)
Phase 1.3 -> 1.4: Raid Heal -> Ready to Heal Tank 3 (Engineer)
Phase 2: Hunter (Bow) -> Tank 3 (Daggers and Staff)
Phase 3: Tank 3 (Engineer)
Phase 4&5: Tank 1 (Kael’)

Healer 4 (Priest or Pally)
Phase 1.3: Tank 4 (Conflagrations)
Phase 2: Tank 4 (Axe)
Phase 3: Tank 4 (Finishing Axe) -> Ready to Heal Tank 4 (Phoenixes)
Phase 4&5: Tank 4 (Phoenixes)

Healer 5 (Priest or Druid)
Phase 1.3: Lock Tank
Phase 2: Tank 1 (Sword & Shield)
Phase 3: Lock tank
Phase 4&5: Lock Tank (Finishing) -> Tank 1 (Kael’)

Healer 6 (Pally, Priest, or Druid)
Phase 1.3: Tank 4 (Conflagrations)
Phase 2: Tank 3 (Daggers and Staff)
Phase 3: Lock Tank
Phase 4&5: Lock Tank (Finishing) -> Tank 4 (Phoenixes)

So Deeply in Love

I fall so deeply in love with everything: songs, LOKI, healing, my students. Once I decide something is worth my time and energy I give it 100%. If its not worth doing to 100%, its probably not worth doing at all. A few things have brought up these thoughts recently:

Yesterday I subbed at the high school where I student taught and ran into some of my former students. I got to see their faces light up, see them smile and wave, and hear how their new semester was going. It reminded me how much I thought about them and invested in them and their education while I was teaching them. And how much I missed them. They were , and still are, worth 100%. More than anything else I have ever found. I cried the whole way home because they made me so happy.

A few days ago, I was on standby for Vashj, and my old guild asked if I would come do High King and Gruul's with them, they needed another healer. So I went and I remembered how much time and effort I invested in them. They are great people and learning Kara with them was some of my best WoW experience. When my group of RL friends decided it was time to because of some serious conflicts with a few people in the guild, it broke my heart. It was one of the hardest things I had done WoW related, because these people were my friends too. So of course I cried myself to sleep the night I left.

Two nights ago Ruffian removed some guild members. The one's I was speaking about before, that gave me grief about invites even though I wad trying to be fair. They had been giving him even more grief apparently. This makes me feel a little sad, because I want my healers to be happy so badly. I wish we had found a way to work it out. Thank you to those who did give me some advice. I think I am going to continue comparing raid attendance to boss kills to track major differences. But when it has come to close ties over the last few nights I have tried to use things like who needs loot of a boss, who hasn't seen the boss downed before at all, who is a better healer, who has been in the guild longer, and who has to leave early or wasn't able to come the following night because of work/kids as my deciding factors, instead of the one or two actual percentage points.

It seems hard and it is a little time consuming, but I feel like my healers are worth 100% and LOKI is worth 100%. Once they aren't, I will probably stop playing wow all together.

Seeking Raid Invite Advice

I am look for some feedback on my system for inviting healers to raids.

I was originally trying to cycle healers in as fair as I could, just going off my memory. Then one particularly good healer asked me one night if he could get in for more farmed content, since he tended to get brought in for progression content but not farm content. I was surprised by this, because I ALWAYS want to bring him because he is good, so I assumed I DID bring him a lot. So I went and I looked at our DKP stuff and low and behold - he had really good raid attendance, which can mean hours spent on trash, farmed bosses, progression bosses, or sitting outside on standby; but he had really low boss kill attendance, which means he has not been brought in for a lot of our farm content.

Our DKP page makes it very difficult to compare guild members attendance. It does, however, track the % of events people have been on since they have joined the guild: % of Lurker Kills, % of Hydross Kills, etc, % Raid Attendance (Which, again, lumps together new and old boss time, trash, and stand by, but NOT early bonus DKP.) So I thought to myself, hypothetically, a person who has high raid attendance should have a high boss kill attendance and people who have low raid attendance should have proportionally low boss kill attendance.

I set up a spreadsheet, so I could be as un-bias as possible. It divides each players Boss Kill % by their Attendance % to give them a Total %. I low % would mean they have invested many hours in the guild, either on new content or sitting on stand-by, but have not come to many boss kills and I should try to get them into more farm content raid nights. A high % would mean they have not spent much raid time NOT downing bosses, like maybe they never sit on stand by or don't show up for progression night (for whatever reason) and they need to "do some time" on the bench or come die to some new bosses.

Here are are some examples for SSC:
Myself: Raid Attendance: 100% (Yes, really truly.) Boss Kills: 81% (I've sat on standby some.) Total: 81%
A New Guildie: Attendance: 40% (Okay, lowish.) Boss Kills: 17% (But has missed a lot of farm nights.) Total: 42%
An Old Guildie: Attendance: 76% (Good.) Boss Kills: 83% (Hmm... They get in a lot for farm.) Total: 110%

So the other night I needed to sit out 2 healers for some farmed content and I sat out the above old guildie for the new guildie. I got tells from multiple people (not officers) saying I was was being unfair and playing favorites. When I tried to explain how I made the decision I was told I should bring in the old guildie because they have to miss some raids because of their work schedule. I truly believe and understand this, but I also didn't think it was my responsibility to keep track of and cater to everyones' real life schedules when I make up the raid. I feel like my job, when it comes to raid makeup, is to bring in our best people on progression nights and try to fairly distribute the Boss Kill DKP and chances at loot on farm nights.

So here are my questions:
1. Do you think my system of comparing time spent in raids to boss kills is fair to individuals?
2. Is my system fair for the guild as a whole?
3. To what extent am I obligated as an officer to cater to people's real life schedules?
4. Is having people /roll for raid slots each farm content night a better system?

In the end, I switched myself out at the next boss to bring this player in, simply to stop the complaints before I started /gkicking. However, based on my system, I "deserved" the DKP and chance at loot more.

Thanks for any input!

Be Imba! and Be In Pants

I have a new favorite toy! Be Imba! It lets you quickly analyze a character on their PvE-ness. It analyzes gear, looks for gems and enchants, suggests instances, and for does a talent analysis (for some classes at this point.) Of course there are some flaws and some things are subjective. Some of it is down right funny, such as my husbands ability to free up 1 defense rating! Here is me - I smell like PvP:
I foresee myself using this a lot, especially once all the talents are done for all the healing classes. I think it will save me a lot of time dealing with new healing applicants to LOKI. Instead of mousing over every single item and looking at each talent page and making notes, this will just do it for me. Obviously some things must be taken with a grain of salt. Does it matter if someone has a green gem or one of their enchants isn't the most expensive one out there? No probably not. But if the have 6 unenchanted items and they think they are getting into LOKI, they don't deserve the time it would take me to mouse over each item!

All my friends in my Kara raid tonight found this amazing and had me look them up one by one and tell them what was wrong. This lead to the apparently hilarious comment by me: " Gamish, you have one low quality gem in your pants!" It didn't sound that bad when I was saying it, I swear!

And speaking of pants, I made a birthday gift for our great guildmaster today. He has not let me hear the end of it for getting the first and so far only druid T5 pants. So I made him these:
Wow Item Creator!

OMG Officer!

It has been a busy 24 hours-ish in my World (of Warcraft). This afternoon I logged on and got grabbed by some guild-ies who wanted to talk about playing alternate healing characters that might be more needed than their mains. I went to run some of it by Ruffian and after it was all worked out I was hanging out in the channel. And Ruff was like "Oh, yeah, congratulations." And promoted me to officer!!! So excited! We had spoken about it before, but he wanted to promote the current priest/druid healing officer to a commander (like a general raid and assistant guild leader.) So now I am officially a healing officer and no longer unofficial. I have some pretty big roots to fill though.

I also have finished editing the Fathom strat to reflect what I learned last night.

In other news, my FBI clearances came today and I touched up my letter of interest and resume so I can send in my packet for substitute teaching very soon! It will be very nice to be in schools again!

About Time

For years I kept a journal - like the real paper and pen thing. At some point I switched to Xanga, which I lovingly called "StalkAmy.com" Both were full of pre-marriage angst, or at least I wanted them to be, however, I'm wasn't quite angsty enough to maintain such a facade. Since I have been married I have found very little reason to journal, not because life isn't worth sharing, but because there is always someone there to share with.

So why attempt to start a blog now? Because as I have searched the edges of the internetz for information and ideas to help me be the best HoTs Tree I can be, blogs by fellow resto druids have proven to be some of the most helpful. And we all know that what the internet really needs is more tree babbling about stacking spirit and rolling lifebloom.

I am just a little druid on the "behind the times" server, Darkspear. (Illidan was just downed last night by Vox Radix for the first time - I know I am proud of them!) I am in the guild, LOKI, known for our ability to fall apart seasonally and regroup at the drop of a hat, and for our guild master, RuffianX, who has a unique way with the ladies. I started playing WoW about two years ago. I never hit level 60 pre-BC and only reached 70 this past May. I went on my first Kara raid the day I hit 70, fell in love, and never looked back. I am married to Yakra, a prot. warrior, who is one of LOKI's main tanks and officers. I like to think we make quite the team. Our DPS is abysmal, but we can run a pretty mean group and, my God, are we hard to gank.

In the "real world", I am a recent college graduate, with a BS in Chemistry with Teaching Certification. I am currently unemployed due to vast amounts of time it takes for paperwork to get through the system. Hence the free time to write a blog and ponder the ways to put out more healing. If I am very lucky I will be subbing soon and this blog will fade into oblivion.