Attack of the Real Life

I'm so sorry for abandoning my blog for so long. It's not that I haven't had anything to write about. Far from it! I've just had a hard time mustering the energy.

I've been sick for the last couple of weeks, and life is conspiring to keep me in just enough of a stressed out state that recovering is taking forever and ever and ever. The details are unimportant, stupid, and anticlimactic, but they're still kicking my ass.

I will be back, but that time is not now. It is hopefully "soon" and I mean that in as non-Blizzard a way as possible.

In the mean time, go give extra hugs to your loved ones, and take care of yourself. You never know when the little things will pile up and pull you down. And you never know what new disasters tomorrow may bring.

Good luck to you all.

For the Alliance!

Actually, at 9:30 pm on a Monday night, it was more like, "Give us our bears, now."

The Night Crew, Honored Exiles, and a few of our friends finally got tired of trying to PuG this achievement with random strangers, so we banded together and tore through the Horde leaders like they were made of tissue paper. We're all experienced PvPers and raiders, so any resistance we met was easily dealt with and crushed. We suffered a handful of deaths in the process, but for the most part it was easy as pie.

Mmmm...pie....

It was hilarious, afterward. Sindorella had a horde guildie defending, and when she came back from playing her DK with us I watched over her shoulder as she apologized to him for ganking him. They both laughed it up, and a good time was had by all. I hope he gets his 10 more Alliance kills for City Defender soon. Good luck to him!

p.s.
The screenshot above only shows a few of us who were there for our city raids. Some of our group had logged off immediately, one stayed in UC to kill more hordies, and some just didn't want to bother. Also, some people who ARE in the screenie just happened to be there and couldn't resist showing off their bears for no other reason than to show off.

Down they go...

So, I don't think I mentioned it before. Our group raids on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons. So, today was our second day of the week...and boy did we get some progression done!

First we went after Ignius on a vengeance run. It felt good, smacking him around. We got him killed after a few tries, and all was right in the world. I got the hot pocket achievement, too. Thank goodness I can heal myself in that thing!

Next we went on to Auriaya and hit her with a grand oneshot, and a leather healer helm dropped. (It's shaped like a moon. My druid is mooning the raid, now. haha) The next bosses were a bit on the tougher side, though. Thorim was a bit tricky for our stay behind group. I did the gauntlet, and it was pretty easy to heal, but that doesn't matter when the other group doesn't stay alive. We finally got it sorted out, though. Something about dispelling something that was making our shaman healer cast times ridiculous. It was a pretty fun enounter. I won the roll for the T8 shoulders, but since I'd already won something I happily passed on it for our mage. I'm just stoked I would have won it. We then went in and said hi to Freya...and took her down on our third attempt. The trash in that room is, uh, interesting. But, I got to sleep things for the first time since Sunken Temple! Go go druid CC!

Freya's room is full of herbs, including two near the door that aren't pickable. They're underground or something. It would have been all well and good, but the rogue kept getting all the herbs before me or the mage could get to them! And, instead of handling it like an adult, I went all passive-aggressive and snarky. I was just so exasperated! It's not even that I needed the herbs that bad, I was just frustrated that I wasn't taken into consideration. So, we need to find a better way to handle that.

I won the Alchemists's Cache tonight, and we were all a bit surprised by what it all contained. I sent some of the potions and mixtures on to other members of the raid, because it really seems like a ridiculous amount of stuff to go to one person. I kept the herbs and the vials and the eternals, though. I hope we all bring the same characters each week, so the other two alchemists in the raid get the bag in turns. We'd probably guild bank the items, but the three alchemists in the raid a) aren't in the guild on these characters, and b) nobody ever gets stuff like that out of the guild bank anyway. It's like this black hole or something. There's a few things in the first tab that the common folk like me can take one of each day, but I have yet to learn the secret to gaining access to any of the rest of the stuff. Even asking for a heart of darkness for Shavra to make new shoulders way back when was a bit of an ordeal. Sure, we've been burned before, but at the same time if we can't do anything useful with the useful stuff, what's the point in having the guild bank? I don't even want the shit in there, but it feels a little off that it's ALL off limits.

Meh. That's a rant for a different day.

All in all, today's trip to Ulduar was a raving success! I think we need to iron out some kinks and stuff, both in the raiding and in the picking of the herbs, but we got the job done and we learned a lot. Barring disaster, next week will go a lot faster and we'll get to see more bosses! Yay!

Mostly rambles

First topic on the table. Does my priest want to heal you?

I don't know. Let me mind flay you and see how well that works.

For the last year and a half, my priest has been a pretty dedicated shadow priest. I have other healers. I MIGHT dual spec her at some point in the future, but I doubt it. I'm just not all that great at priesting these days. I brush her off about once a week, do the jewelcrafting daily, and fly around Icecrown looking for saronite.

It's not that I hate holy or disc, I just never got the hang of them. I "grew up" a three-button healer, so all the options on my priest gave me the centipede's dilemma in the worst way. Now that I'm used to healing on a druid, with many more healing options than I thought I'd ever get used to, I might give priest heals a try. I might not. But, no matter what, no. I don't want to heal your PuG.

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Secondly, yesterday morning I helped my sis-in-law get her baby mage her "the Noble" title. At level 10. Well, okay, she wasn't 10 when she got the title, and that makes us all sad. She made a discovery ding before she got the actual title, but she did all of the work at 10, so we think it counts.

It was pretty fun, escorting her on my paladin while my brother escorted her on his hunter. He'd hit things that might be a problem, and I saved her life more than once from something that had snuck up on her. We got her all the way through Tanaris, Un'goro Crater, and Silithus without a single death. Go team us!

I've seen a screenshot of a tauren actually at level 10 with the title, and that made me a bit sad. We could have done it, if we hadn't insisted on killing things while she was in our party! Oh well. I'm still pleased with my level 38 hunter with the title, so I'm sure she's happy with her level 11 as well.

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And, on the raiding front, XT nerfs saved the day. In one night we downed Flame Leviathan (duh), Razorscale (oneshot), XT (twoshot), Assembly (took forever, but we got them down), and the bridge boss (oneshot on our first attempt). We're not hardcore, so we're all pretty pleased with this, but I know I'm not the only one who feels a bit cheated that we couldn't get this far without the XT nerfs. I really like a good challenge. The tantrums were a bitch to heal through, but we had it if our dps had just been a bit better geared and we'd all known what we were doing.

Oh well. I beat the other healers on dps when XT dropped his heart. That gives me a lot more smug satisfaction than perhaps it should.

Also, finally, I enjoyed healing last night for the first time in a long time. I felt like I was on my game for once. I'm looking forward to healing tomorrow. It's back to being my comfort zone, and I need my comfort zone more than I need things changed up. I go back and forth, and I'm sorry to anyone who has to put up with me like this, but that's just how I am sometimes.

I'm taking a bit of a break from the game today, but I can't play all the time! Next up, leveling my paladin from 70-80. Maybe I'll try to see just how fast I can go. Wish me luck!