WoW

I’m sitting here thinking about why I’m blogging WoW. Before October 2005, I had never heard the word blog. I don’t know how I managed that. I’m on the computer all the time. I’m a geek. I used to be a dork (I could do a whole post on the differences between geek and dork). When I discovered Blogspot.com, I couldn’t think of a darn thing to blog about. It basically came down to ‘What do I do every day?’ I ate, slept, worked, talked to K on the phone (or saw her), and played WoW. Out of those choices, I figured WoW had the potential for the most interest for others. It offered:

• contantly updated content
• content that at least 1 million people were surfing for
• little or no creativity at times (it happened)
• easy graphics (Print Screen)
• an instant community of geeks
• anonynimity

Within a month, my Blogspot site was showing up on Google with pretty good regularity. I’m currently #2. I’m #1 in Alexa. Readership is lacking, though. People are visiting and leaving right away. It is kind of sad to look at your stats and see 50 visits on a page and all but 3 of them are registering as 1 page and 0:00 time spent. That is when I decided it was time to really revamp things and make it at least look like people would want to stay and read. I used to have quite a few readers that have stopped. I don’t know why, but I hope it wasn’t my content or the look of the place.

I am a perfectionist at heart and I am always looking for ways to improve myself and the things around me. I suppose this blog is an outlet for my need to improve and control things. I even created two more Blogger.com blogs to have more outlets. I created an office humor/omg!/log and a more creative blog about my idiotic ideas about parenting. Those have virtually no content because they require creativity. I control the theme of the site. I control the words and photos I use. What I can’t control is you. The reader is in charge.

Now, I ask you, “What is it that you come here for?” My guesses have landed on the following things, but nothing has really happened to the readership. I am still getting Google hits and then they leave.

• guides
• tips
• links
• industry news

What I don’t want this blog to be is a link-fest to other WoW-related sites about releases, patches, and complex formulas for hardcore raiding tactics. What it also can’t be is a daily log of a raider going into the end-game instances like Gitr used to.

So…why ARE you here?

I imported all of Priestr’s posts and comments from his blog this morning. As you search for priestly things, all of his stuff is here now, screenshots and all. 

Deadr made his way to Stonard this morning. It was a harrowing journey through Ganklethorn Vale, as Shalkis put it, and a very maddening run through Duskwood. When I got to the bridge leaving STV, a level 45 Paladin on a horse dismounted and started casting crap on me. I bubbled and started running. I kept using Psychic Scream and bubbling. He, and I’ll use his name so he can Google for some attention: Conorr, chased me all the way to Darkshire where I took an angle to avoid the town and flight point.

After I made it to the Swamp of Sorrows, I grinned as I saw like-level mobs again. Everything was level 35-37. Perfect. And none of them run away when you are about to kill them, either. I hate chasing things after I kill them, which beats what I always had to do with Gitr: chase them TO kill them.

I followed Shalkis’ advice and started killing Dreaming Whelps after I got the flight point and some limited supply items from NPCs to sell. They do pack a whollop, though. They were ticking me off for about 145 HP per cast. I should look into some Arcane Resistance if I’m going to fight them for long. I got one Green Whelp Scales and it sold for 95s in the AH. Not one stack. ONE. I also say Itharius is an idiot. What right-minded individual, trapped in a cave, in a swamp, surrounded by dragons and jaguars says this when someone comes to rescue him:

I had to wait a few minutes to hearth back to Org, so I killed some time with jaguars and crocs. I was on crunch time with getting ready to leave for work while K got ready. I hearthed and re-posted my Volcanic Shoulders pattern for about the 10th time. Maybe Auctioneer lied about the deal I got. I looked in the AH for some of my wish list that isn’t BoP, and only found Sutarn’s Ring and noticed that the Staff of Jordan is down to 200G.

Tonight is steak night, so I’m looking forward to grilling. We can’t have grills out on the porches, so we got a grill griddle for the stovetop and I can really let things cook in their juices or marinades on it. It’s really fun to caramelize honey that drips of when I brush it on. It makes a nice golden color that looks really good when I put the grill marks on it at the end.

I finally got the bug out that was screwing up the columns for Internet Explorer. It ended up being the Digg Reloaded plugin. I guess my CSS and HTML are better than how concerned I was getting about my skills. I could have kept looking at the code all day every day and never found anything wrong with the code for the styles.css

I have everything the way I want, except I will be making the header fade move over to the right enough to cover the third column. I will be brainstorming some ideas to make my blog fresh. It needs something special to stand out. The graphics aren’t great, and the coding is pretty plain, so it is desiring some bang. I got the idea to get some more bang from Copyblogger’s post: What Prince Can Teach You About Effective Blogging.

On the life note, we took K’s care to the auto shop last night. He ran some diagnostics this morning, and it was one of the three things I feared: the engine, computer, or transmission. It was slipping and refusing to shift and stalling at the worst possible times. The tests showed it all being related to the torque converter putting strain on the engine for the stalls, and the obvious issue of slippage. Married for three weeks, and financial strain already. It sucks, but we’ll get through it. I’ve got a decent position that allows me to work more overtime than I’m physically able, so getting hours won’t be an issue.

I played for about half an hour this morning before work, just trying to wake up after such a nasty awakening this morning. My alarm went off! This was my first morning being tired since we got married, so I guess it was long overdue. We had a long day yesterday, so we’d best get some sleep tonight, because we BOTH have work tomorrow. K has Thursdays off to catch up on errands and housework. Errands are getting postponed until I get off work because of a lack of a “K-car.”

It looks like we can view cached pages from gaming sites from work now, so I went through my slots today and came up with a wish list. Any comments or improvements to the list are very welcome.

Head:
Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator

Neck:
Glowing Eye of Mordresh

Back:
Mantle of Lady Falther’ess

Shoulders: I’ll put up with Twilight Mantle of the Owl until I can get something else.

Chest:
Robe of Power
Robe of the Magi

Waist:
Deathmage Sash

Hands: I’m stuck with my Gloves of Old and Twilight Gloves of Healing

Legs: I’m fine with my Necromancer Leggings

Feet:
Thoughtcast Boots

Finger:
Underworld Band

Advisor’s Ring

Trinket:
Rune of Perfection

Main/Off-Hand: I bought, but need to ding 36 to use my Spellforce Rod
Illusionary Rod
Staff of Jordan

Wand:
Lady Falther’ess’ Finger

OK, so you’ve just killed Sneed, now for the Foundry. The spiral ramp isn’t a problem for you as a healer until you get to the bottom. Stay to the outside wall. If you get too close to the inside rail, you will pull a goblin or two or three from below the ramp or on the center platform. With all the healing going on all the way down the ramp, you are going to be high enough on the threat meter to warrant an attack, then you will die, then everyone else will die, and everyone will be pissed at you for being a noob. Don’t do that. As long as you can use good pulling techniques and clear the room, the boss, Gilnid, is easy. He drops a nice ring and crappy pants.

Clearing the mine to the next set of doors is easy as pie, and just mana/heal up before you blast the doors down with the cannon. As you go through the doors, make sure you clear out the goblins to the right if you have anyone pretty low level in the party, because they will come running after a 14 or 16. Clearing your way to Mr. Smite is smooth sailing. Have the tank go after Mr. Smite and generate a lot of aggro before anyone else hits him. Besides, everyone else needs to go after the guards. Put Renew on the tank and take care of the rest of your party. Smite will stun everyone twice as he goes for new weapons, but as long as the tank has aggro, everything will be fine.

My preference when I am group leader is to go left at the ramp and go after Cookie. He has the best wand for many, many levels to come, and the group is doing a good thing to make sure their healer gets some goodies. Otherwise, he drops his mace, which is so-so, but not great by any means.

Go back to the ramp and head around the other way. This is just killing mobs that are obviously more resilient than the ones at the entrance, but nothing special. When going up the final ramp, make sure any lowbies stay close to the edge away from the ship if the patrol is walking by. You don’t want to fight them and trash mobs when partially prepared. If you successfully clear the ramps and get onto the ship, mana up and heal for pulling the patrol, which includes Captain Greenskin. He drops a great staff, but the quest reward for Van Cleef is a better staff for priests. Regardless, either staff will be replaced by the Illusionary Rod in SM in your 30s. The patrol is pretty basic. Just heal. If you have a good tank, you’ll be fine.

Now for the moment everyone in the group has been waiting for: Van Cleef. You all want his head. Why else would you be in Deadmines? If you have a high enough rogue or stealthable player, have them stun VC and start in on his guards with the other 3 members. When the stun breaks, the tank needs to take him fast. When he gets to 50%, he will spawn new guards; ignore them. Take VC down fast so you can concentrate your healing on the tank for that part, and then spread it out for taking out the new guards. Loot the body, turn in the head, and you are done. Congratulations.

Next guide: The Stockades.

What would a Priest guide to Deadmines be without some good old stories about grouping as a 20s healer? Enjoy.

Heel me

March 19th, 2006 by Gitr

OK, people, there are obviously a few things you need to know about grouping. I know this is preaching to the choir for most of you, but good grief, save everyone in the group trouble and don’t accept an invite if you’re going to do stupid stuff.

Last night I tried for 15 minutes to get into PuGs for Stockades to get going on the Defias questline after killing Van Cleef. I had to talk a hunter into letting me in. He was level 24 and had a level 25 rogue with him. I got one good mage I’d grouped with before into it at level 25, and we sent an invite for a 31 priest who was on her way.

There are standards to 5-man groups:

• If you are a n00b, at least let the leader know, if not the whole group. Then they can advise you on what happens in that instance. In most cases, the rest can even adjust and be ready for your n00bishness.
• If you might have to leave, say that up front. Nothing is worse than spending an hour going in and not being able to finish everyone’s quest because of one person. If there’s a real-life issue or emergency, those are understandable and the group will just be disappointed, not pissed.
• If you see a green drop, hit Greed unless you want to wear it then or within a level or so. In the case of equipping, select Need and let others know the first time to feel out the group. 99% of groups will tell you that’s fine and keep the extra info to yourself.
• No looting for friends or alts unless you ask the whole group before making your selection.
• Use people’s names or shortened versions of them. Don’t keep calling people warrior or healer.
• Don’t pull without people being at full mana!!
• Don’t pull too many mobs or be stupid with your positioning so you do a body pull from pats in the middle of the fight.
• Pull mobs off the squishies ASAP. Don’t make them cry for help.
• Don’t keep asking the healer for healing. Over and over again. Here is an example:

My leaving came after telling them 3 times that they don’t need to ask for heals. I told them that I’d either heal them or I was out of mana. All they have to do is look, not type an idiotic request for healing when that is impossible. In this case, Lorenna is the other priest, more than capable of fading, bubbling, or killing the 2 mobs she had on her, but the others were too busy working on one mob than come help her. This also came after my repeated requests to not pull until I was at full mana. Brenie could confirm I asked about 10 times in the course of 15 minutes. The last response I had in this hallway was, “priest, we ARE FINE.” Fine. Die then. Idiot. Hearth. /ignore.

It took 8 rooms for us to wipe. Now was that becuase we were fine, or they were just dang lucky they had someone to heal their numbskulls? I’m not saying I’m the best priest out there for my level, but no one dies when it’s even a moderately bad situation. All hell has to break loose before any group I’ve been in wipes. In 10 DM runs, I’ve been in 3 wipes and all were because of bad pulls. In those runs, how many have died? 16. All of us 3 times and a level 11 pet that had 2 mobs on it. I have the Lavishly Jeweled Ring, Cookie’s Stirring Rod, Corsair’s Overshirt, and the Emberstone Staff from Deadmines. That’s all the blue drops from all the bosses in DM. And someone thinks they need to tell me they need healing? Get out of my group. Oh, it’s not my group? C’ya.