All good things...

Must come to an end.

No no, not my love affair with World of Warcraft. Hah, are you kidding???

What must come to an end is my short flirtation with end-game content. Since I joined the guild Katipunan a month ago, I've attended every single raid of theirs and become a regular fixture in the top 3 dps, alternating with a hunter and the warlock classlead depending on the encounter.

They've helped me get some great gear, helped me hit my spell hit cap and push my dps to the max with my socketing, and I've seen results in that I've reached near 1500 dps on straight-up tank and spank bosses. 1500! I couldn't even break 1000 regularly prior to this guild! Actually, the warlock classlead was never certain how I reached that high a dps and damage output based on my gear, and never understood why my average non-crit shadow bolt was over 3000 while his always hovered around 2700. I claim it's my trinkets, but more on that some other time.

They've helped me see Black Temple and actually down two bosses and try a third. I've tried Archimonde! I've downed all SSC and TK bosses except for Vashj and Kael'thas.

And I was loving it. This is why I played, this is why I researched my class so much. And with the raid finally seeing it's identity forming and the same people showing up night after night, I have to call it quits. The week before we were to start attempts on Vashj and Kael. The week before we downed Akama and discussed what we needed to move on to the next part.

Why? See my previous post here where I discuss raiding or death. I chose raiding at the time, and you know what, I was spot on with my assessment of the situation. I looked at myself in the mirror, and things were wrong. My hair was thinning. I'm 25. I have a history of receding hairlines in my family. But this was different, this was hair thinning all over. And you know what? That set off alarm bells instantly. Age, stress, whatever... LACK. OF. SLEEP.

That's all it is. I cannot stay up until 4:00am and wake up at 7:00am to go to work. Since I started raiding I have been getting on average 3 hours of sleep a night. That's 18 hours of sleep in a 7 week day. Some people get that much in two nights! To me, that was Monday-Sunday.

Nothing else matters, unfortunately, so I cut back on raiding right away. I ceremoniously attended a last BT raid (destroyed the dps charts on Naj'entus, fell in love with the Supremus fight.. ah good times). Then I claimed September gave me a new work schedule and I could not attend the raids, but that once in a while if my dps was needed I could make an exception.

I feel terrible for the group of 25. Hence the offer to show up when dps was absolutely needed.

Sad panda.

I WANT MY HAIR BACK!

[disclaimer: my hair isn't actually gone. It's not noticeable yet, but I know it's weaker than it ever was. That's all. And that's all I need as a warning sign.]

Just a thought

Hello there I figured I might as well introduce myself, mostly because I'm at work and would much rather be playing WoW and this is just going to have to settle for a close second. As far as WoW goes I have a lvl 70 Priest; who's spec I'm actually not sure of since a) This is the priest Latus referred to as 'My priest' so I haven't played her much and b) because I've been busy trying to get my Frost Mage to lvl 70. So close too, 65 when I left the house this morning and only 3 bars to go!!

As far as WoWers go I would fall under the category as a casual gamer; since I usually work later into the evening as well as attend school it doesn't really leave a whole bunch of time for raiding into the wee hours of the morning, especially since I value sleep much more than Latus. So I have resigned myself to the knowledge that there is quite a bit of the game I will most likely never have the opportunity to see. This doesn't really bother me that much specially since I tend to enjoy just wandering around the game, trying to get all the recipes I can get my hands on for whatever profession I've decided for the toon I'm play. On top of that I always enjoy myself since the WoW world has so much to offer for just about anyone who plays that game no matter what level of time commitment they have to offer.

Since its seems I've rambled on for some time for such a simple introduction post, there is only one more vital piece of information that you'll most likely need to know.

You may not believe this but I am one of those reclusive 'Girl Gamers'. Yup, I got a pair of boobs and I enjoy the geekier aspects of life. There are probably more of us out there than you realize.

So I'll be around to drop a completely different outlook of the WoW life, so keep your eyes open!

The Orcs Are Coming!

The brilliance of the WoW Insider column All The World's A Stage continues this week with the second installment of the history of the races and practical advice on how to roleplay that race. Once again, I'm one of those who smiles at roleplayers when I come across them in the same way that we smile at the very elderly or the very sick... but I love the WoW lore. (Ok, dirty secret... I'd probably have a blast roleplaying... I would just never admit it or do it 24/7 like I do simply playing my toon! Shhhh!)

In any case, this week features an article describing (briefly) the history of the Orc race and how one of their kind would be feeling, going through, etc, throughout the history of Azeroth and Draenor as we know it of late.

"If you've seen Lord of the Rings, or read any other fantasy story in which orcs are portrayed, you probably think orcs are hideous humanoid monsters charging mindlessly forward to slaughter helpless innocents. Azerothian orcs are significantly different, however, with a shamanistic culture that prides honor above all other virtues."

Warlocks spreadin' their seed...

Hot, ain't it?

Seven warlocks in a Mount Hyjal raid proved to be hilariously entertaining, as waves of mobs dropped faster than I've ever seen it happen. With each warlock doing just under 4 million damage, that was quite a lot of pew pew power that we had going.

One point of contention, though, centers around seven warlocks but usually only 2 of them worrying about the need for curses.

It should go without saying that not a single one of the warlocks, no matter the quality of their gear (or lack thereof) can go full out dps without pulling aggro. So we're stuck. We're stuck sitting there doing nothing for a good 10-15 seconds from the start of the wave. The class lead I've noticed always puts a CoE on the various mobs until enough threat has been built that we can start seeding. I've picked up on that and taken care of a CoW, less melee power on these mobs definitely can't hurt the tanks as they hold on to them... less damage, less strain on the healers, less strain on the dps as they get more heals... everybody wins. But then when a curse of tongues has to be thrown in, it's once again myself or the class lead running up to do it.

What exactly are the other 5 warlocks doing in that time? Dancing in the back? Looking for epic drops beneath the trees?

Roleplaying a Human

I'm not big into roleplaying... heck, if you want to do it, great, enjoy, but it's not really for me. I do, however, love to read about the histories of the races and the various characters. All The World's A Stage latest installment concerns some much needed basic Human lore for WoW players.

"If your human character is now over 30 years old, he or she may have witnessed all these events as a child or young adult, and may carry an abiding fear of and hatred for the orcs who very nearly destroyed humanity."

Find the full article here.

Hope is Restored!

I had a lovely chat with one of the GMs during my ZA run. In fact, at some point I had to ask the raid to wait 5-10 minutes as the GM was requiring some specific information from me... thankfully they all knew my situation and had no qualms about taking a break at that moment. I wasn't so cruel that I took the break during the timed run, but only afterwards.

All the items I mentioned in an email to the GM were later restored. Here is a quick summary of the essentials:

[3] Void Crystal
[67] Badge of Justice
[22] Large Prismatic Shard
[5] Primal Nether
[20]x2 Large Brilliant Shard
[11] Primal Fire
[20]x3 Eternium Ore
[20] Primal Earth
[5] Fel Lotus
[20]x4 Adamantite Ore
_________________
[20]x5 Purple Lotus
[20]x10 Dream Dust
[20]x8 Illusion Dust
[20]x2 Greather Nether Essence
[20]x2 Greater Eternal Essence


You know what that means? I'm RICH again! YESSSSS!

Take that, hacker!

Ahem!

Still no upgrades, lost the offhand from Rage and yet another Nethervoid Cloak drop... but! This is by far my highest dps output ever without boss-damage-modifiers. Lookie the gorgeous 1444!

Death VS End-Game

So Katipunan's US raid team is working out nicely so far. For once I've joined a guild on the upswing of things instead of in its swan song. They have awesome tanks and great healers, and oddly their dps is what is restricting them from going further. I have no doubt that any of the main tanks I've seen (Paladins/Warriors with 17.5k unbuffed, Druids with 14.5k out of bear form) can pretty much tank any end-game boss. But the dps needs work.

Last night's run through SSC (Lurker / Leo / FLK) went really smoothly through Lurker. Not a single death through trash + boss downing. Then a couple silly wipes (tank runs into a group of mobs while we're taking a 5 min break... then someone runs too close to the group of mobs to rezz the last person on recovery... then a wipe on Leo at 10% as a lot of people were doing it for first time and didn't understand how to do it. But that was pretty much it. So pretty smooth. I wasn't on CoE and got about 1250 dps. I'm not sure how, as I've never really had it that high on a consistent level without a bunch of aoe groups. I'm not complaining, and neither is the guild! I ended up 2nd on the overall damage meters as we did FLK while I was passing out and I would constantly lose conciousness for 15-20 seconds before snapping back to and shadow bolting the totems or the bosses some more. Ended up with 900 dps on the last boss and a hunter who decided to go nuts passed me on total charts. But I'm awesome, I decided.

Now, is it worth passing out at my desk to see end game content before Wrath? So far, yes. I might find a way to make this easier on myself, but yeah, a few weeks of it won't kill me.