Need New Favorite

Update: My flight was cancelled at 11:45, when it should have been taking off (already an hour late). Charlote has lost favored airport status. Think it falls to either PHF, the closest one to me, as long as they have free wifi. Otherwise, it may have to go to Grenada, for all their quirks, they have wifi.

Admittedly I didn't want to use it this time because I was too lazy to look up my LIME phone number to sign it, but it was there.

So, new plan: airline provided hotel, next flight out at 7:30 AM to PHF. Hopefully there will be success then.

Light in WoW- parts 1-8 and other miscellaneous stuff

Light in WoW, Matty’s challenge.

I’m a bit behind, but with finals week all the WoW I SHOULD have been doing is none, but I’ve really only been at my keys to raid, and then logged in in hopes that damn crab will spawn so I can get the pet. Last one I ned from the Timeless Isle. So that’s like not playing at all, right? I’ve only raided a little every day, after 8… no more than 3 hours a night.

On another note, the Tues/Thurs raid is progressing very nicely. We started the night with a one-shot of Nazgrim (the second kill of him) and promptly spent the rest of the time wiping in Malkorok. We’re a tad melee-heavy. Especially plate wearers, with 2 DKS and a pally, plus our DK tank, plus me fistweaving, leaving only 4 ranged. It took us a while to get it down, but we managed on the last pull of the night. They’ve put together an impromptu Sat raid to take on spoils. I’m excited, think they’ll let me DPS. I got off-spec tier gloves. And real tier gloves. Finally decided to switch from the last tier 2-piece bonus to this one.

Nazgrim was interesting, we were 2-healing it, and we lost my partner at 13%. I went “EEK!” ran out of mana and yelled at people to move through the lovely healy green balls, and we got there.

Forgot to mention how much fun our iron juggernaut kill was- one tank D/C’d halfway through, and it was due to our quick-thinking paladin and some misdirects that let us win. 

Update: Sat raid was not successful in killing spoils, but I did get to DPS a bit. Was promptly switched back to heals later, and stuck with that spec on the kill on Tuesday. Took a while, we decided to have most of the raid take the chains and switch sides rather than learning 2 rooms. We did get it, just took a few pulls.

And now, as I am stuck in an airport with free wifi but limited wall outlets, I figured it was time to go back to Matty’s challenge. Sidenote: Charlotte airport has become my favorite of the few I’ve been in- free wifi, rocking chairs everywhere, happy people. It’s also my last flight of the day, which makes me happy. I woke up at 4:30 am to get to the airport at 5:30, for a flight at 8. Seems really early, but in Grenada’s tiny airport it can take a long time to get through security and check-in, and I found a ride with some friends and that was when they wanted to go, so I went.

Anyway, light in WoW. I’ve had lots of time to think about this around finals. There’s the obvious light, which I’ll have a few pictures of, but light to me is also a feeling. Stress-free, happy. Since I don’t want to log on and chew up my battery taking screenshots, these first few are coming from my files. First, my very first WoW screenshot ever: Dragon line-up, in front of the entrance to Ulduar. I started playing in WotLK, and Ulduar was my first progression raid. Although I quit playing before we downed Yogg, we did make it to him. Ulduar is still one of my favorite places, and I’ve had a lot of fun there. Everytime I think of it, I remember trying to get the Dwarfageddon achievement, and my raid leader yelling on vent “How hard is it NOT to press a button?”

Next, an  event I have only attended twice. As soon as the first on was done, I was looking forward to the next one. The annual Running of the Gnomes for charity is an absolute blast. So many gnomes, all in one place. It’s hilarious, I giggle the whole way through it. These are some pictures from this year, when I managed to get 3 guildies to come along.

And a few pictures I feel show some of the lightness in WoW- I noticed around Easter in an LFR, the eggs in Ji-Kun’s area were decorated. I love the little fun things like this you can find in unexpected places.

And dancing pandas! The dance is the whole reason I wanted a male panda, an is the thing I dislike most about female pandas. That’s Washiun, my priest, leveled as a panda for the guild achievement That aTakes Class, as part of a competition. I leveled until about 87 with my boyfriend, then had to push to 89 with another guilidie and ended up finishing alone. But fun leveling.

Yak attack! I have many picures of this, and whatever it was that allowed it has been fixed. It was fun while it lasted. Poor Ruthers did get his revenge on us once- he did pull a boss. After that, our mage carefully stood back when popping yaks.

This one is some actual light- fire! Ragnaros, my first kill, last summer. I ran with a few of BBB’s weekend cross-real raids. I came along when he mentioned the plan to run Ulduar, and kept coming back cause it was a blast! You can see the many corpses and fireballs here.

This one is more light and good times. The priest in my second raid group likes to make my monk statue “extra special” and sparkly. I have a blast running with that group. They’re good peoples, I’m glad I responded to the LF healer request one night on the Timeless Isle.

And this I just find funny- I have many pictures of druids in odd places. Here, a stag mounted on a mammoth. Underneath him is the person also on the mount. A tad obscene if you have a dirty mind. As a lot of people in that raid sometimes did. Our raid leader once had to clarify that “forward ho!” meant go onward, not an outgoing prostitute.

That’s it for now, 8 picures for the first week and then some. Although my flight has been delayed an hour, and the outlets here are really bad (plug wont stay in- and when in, won’t charge) I still like this airport. Mints in the bathroom, rocking chairs, and free wifi- that goes a long way with me, since i am usually in Miami and they charge. So does JFK, where I spend a large portion of my day. Here's hoping for no more delays and an arrival at 1 AM, making it a 21-hour day, counting the time change. I think I sleep on some flights, just not well. Should sleep well tonight, and well into tomorrow afternoon.

Heals!

Healing issues seem to crop up a lot  with me. Probably because I’m a healer, so as long as no one is complaining about low DPS I don’t notice it. Unless I fistweave and have higher DPS than a pure DPS class, then there is occasionally some mocking. And unless the tanks really screw up I won’t notice that either. Well, I might notice having to heal a tank a little more, but I usually don’t think about it.

But healing issues. Navi posted about healer recruiting troubles, and some healing tendencies in SoO I had been pondering myself.

In general, my raids 3-heal, provided we can get 3 healers on. We have 2-healed some fights when our only option for a third healer was a DPS off-spec that was poorly geared, or involved losing top DPS to go get an alt. And we do just fine 2-healing some fights, but some we desperately need 3 healers. But there are some fights that just aren’t designed for 3 healers. The biggest one that pops out is spoils. Can and probably should be 2-healed. I’ve been gearing up my off-spec simply because the other healer doesn’t have a DPS off-spec. (and I’ll admit, since I got to to this the other night- it is FUN to switch to DPS and out DPS everyone cause I got to go melee and ignore the mechanics our ranged had to handle- different fight, not spoils)

But anyway- what I’m getting at is: I wish SoO was either strictly 2-heals or clearly 3-heals. I suppose in general the thought is 3-heal until gear goes up, then 2-heal when you can. But it means either having a healer with a good DPS off-spec or vice versa, or just 3-healing when we don’t need to, leaving me twiddling my thumbs half the time. 

Well anyway, I invited a new healer along who has run with us before. I like him, he seems capable and willing to speak up to help the raid, and he has a DPS off-spec he switched to for flex. We’ll see if he comes, and if the raid happens. It was left to me to post the schedule, which means I left a bunch of random notes and changed the raid name.

On that note- our raid needs a better name. Really, a name, we don’t have one. Either I’ll come up with one, someone else comes up with one, or we’re stuck without one. I suppose that covers all the bases, huh?

And all that is for the Wednesday/Friday guild raid. The Tues/Thurs raid runs steadily with 3 healers. On that note, we did FANTASTIC last night, killing the first 7 bosses in 3 hours, mostly 1-shots. I think Galakras and Shamans took 2 tries. Looks like we won’t need that lockout we saved from last week to get to Malkorok :) I think I was actually the worst, I was really tired and died to some stupid stuff. Note: Don’t follow the tank kiting the spawning slimes, you’ll stand right where the slimes spawn and die. Also: mistweaves shouldn’t try to tank things on Norushen or Galakras. Just sayin’ for future reference. Not intentional, mind you, but still happened.

Hopefully the guild raid will happen tonight. I need a break from all the pharm I am going to start studying in a few moments. 2 finals down, 3 to go. These last 3 should be easier. Pharm is tough, but no new material- just cumulative, so I have to go back and make sure I really remember things. Parasit is usually easy, as long as I don’t have to spell any of the names. And I like clin path, and have the whole weekend to study it. Here’s hoping things go as well as I hope.

An Off Day

Warning: this might read oddly, I wrote it Wednesday before the raid, and since it’s Thursday just went back and added stuff to it.

So, I blanked this week and forgot it was Thanksgiving! So no Tues/Thurs raid this week. We’ll see tonight about my guild’s group, we have 5 signed up but our raid leader never accepts so I am assuming he is coming til start time and I don’t see him anywhere. Here’s hoping that if we are short I can snag some of my second group to come along tonight. But I am a big believer in not worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, so on to new things!

I am down to 1 pet drop left on the Timeless Isle. yay! Sadly, it’s that crab, which is a royal pain. Here’s hoping I can get it next week when I will have weekday mornings available during finals. I swear I am getting my priorities in line, I just want that pet…

So tonight I will be bringing my monk to raid, assuming it happens. I’m a little nervous because we’ve been 2-healing a lot and my druid rocks it out. I am much more accustomed to fistweaving and being a supporting healer rather than the main guy. Even if I can top meters with her. But again with the worrying. It’ll be fine, or I grab the druid. No harm, no foul.

What happened: took Renala to raid, had some trouble with the second boss. Immerseus went down very well. Protectors had a wipe, so our hunter switched to his priest and we downed it no issue. Norushen? Took a long time, I think several people weren’t at their best yesterday. One tank kept dieing, another took an orb without looking at the boss’ health to realize only 1 add was left and we would be fine, I died to stupid on my part. And I didn’t take an orb at all, so fistweaving was less effective and it made me cranky. I swear, our raid leader has the patience of a saint to put up with us.

On another healing note, I approached a guildie with some druid advice. I hope I didn’t upset him, he’s just such a good shammy healer I know he’s a great player, but his druid was not optimized. Just missed a haste breakpoint, reforging out of spirit to crit in some places. Poor direction there from an add-on, but I see he’s taken my advice. I hope to heal with him again and see if it’s made a difference. Since I recently dusted my shaman’s resto spec off I appreciate him all the more. So many buttons! Totems! I make a bad shaman :) 

Now to figure out how to approach our other druid… And first, figure out world of logs so I can see a few fights and decide if I really need to. I feel like I should simply because it feels ridiculous to do literally half the healing in fights with 3 healers. But that is a topic for another day. I am proud I worked up the courage to approach the first guy, and things went well.

I did get a healing compliment passed along that made me smile. I’ve been making some changes to how I monitor buffs, so now I get WeakAura shouting things at me too. Seems to have helped. Now to add some sound effects to my monk one, because a bright orange lightning bolt to the head just isn’t enough it seems.

I’ll let you know how it goes, if it goes.

Can’t open the world of logs client, don’t know if it’s a “me” issue of a mac issue. Might wait til I get home and ask my more computer-savvy boyfriend for help.

Made it to Nazgrim

It’s been a pretty good week. My second raid got to Nazgrim, and should be extending the lockout and hopefully getting him down on Tuesday. We are 3-tanking it, which I think is an issue. Hopefully we get it, we’re very close. I feel 2-tanking it would allow is to beat the enrage, but since it’s the mages that are killing us more than the enrage timer… Well, we will get it tomorrow. We’ve been alternating 2 and 3 healing, depending on how we feel. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

Our guild raid made it past Iron Juggernaut. I love looting the boxes, so I stealthed past and managed to get 3. Our hunter stayed around to laugh at me when I died, so in addition to picking up flasks I provided entertainment :) I imagine we will be starting fresh. I am hopeful we will have 10 people at the start, and not have to fish around. On the plus side, now the other healer and I know we can 2-heal 3 of the first 4 bosses.Might be possible to 2-heal Norushen too, maybe if we send him down with the first wave to get the healing buff… but anyway, I’ll worry about that on Wednesday.

Flex cleared wing 1 easily, and made it to Nazgrim. I have faith we will kill him tonight, and we should get past the first few bosses in 3 pretty easy. We’ll see how Thok goes, that might be tough.

And last night we got back in to challenge modes, snagging 2 more golds in Shado-Pan Monastery and Scarlet Monastery. SM was tough, we got the gold with 0 sec to spare. That leaves 4 left for most of us, and 3 to go back and do with the hunter who ended up coming along. I really need to make a point of watching the resto druid challenge mode videos. Right before our last pull and gold, I watched the start of one- and in the first 30 sec got a hint we weren’t doing that shaved off a minute on our boss kill. So yeah, I’ll make sure to be prepared next time.

On the school front, this is the last week of classes. I am working to prepare for finals. I’m hoping everything goes well- I really want to go home. I don’t miss the cold, but I am ready for a break from school, and I want to see everyone again.

Settling Into a Groove

It’s been an odd week. We have only 1 more week of classes, and rather than studying I have been putting it off. Partly because of that, partly because last Monday was the first anniversary of my grandfather’s death, I’ve been in a crappy mood. Because of that I haven’t felt like doing anything, not even watching sitcoms on Netflix. When I am too uncaring to even sit there and watch TV, something’s wrong. I’ve also been snappy with my friends. I hope not much, I’ve mostly been locking myself up in my room, but I think some has leaked out. Right now I am trying to pull myself out of this funk and prepare for finals.

It really stinks to feel like you are going to fail all your finals, and you don’t care to study to change it. I’m not, I’m not that type of student, but I’m also not a great student. I’ll admit, I am not the vet student I would want to treat my pets right now. I am working on changing that. So I will be studying a lot more this week than I normally do.

On the WoW front, I have settled into a nice pattern of raiding normal 4 nights a week between 2 guilds, and 2 flex days. We’re actually close to the same point, one group working on Shamans, the other about to start Galakras tonight.  My awesome guildie has been tanking for my second group, and is doing a fantastic job. She seems to like it, so I am glad. 

In last night’s raid, we took out Juggernaut. I really need to work on taking bombs- more importantly, clicking my CD BEFORE I take one. Cause death because I forgot to click something is embarrassing. We three-healed shamans most of the night, just 2 attempts with me as DPS. I am proud to say I held my own as DPS, even though everyone else has 15-20 ilevels on me. Go Renala, kick things into submission! (well, nearly- that was a 5% wipe, then a 0% wipe)

On Elaylda’s raiding, we 2-healed 3 of the first 4 bosses. I am happy with that, and think I might suggest in the future our shaman going heals if we need her to. Or trying to have our hunter switch to his priest. Our shadow priest has been switching lately, and he’s not bad, but he’s not great either. On Norushen- with 3 healers- I did 50% of the healing on a few attempts. Without taking an orb to get the healing buff. So yeah, I’m going to be looking into getting our raids on World of Logs to see where I can improve, and offer suggestions to our other healers. Our raid leader is awesome, but has admitted sometimes the healing things aren’t his focus. I’ll tell ya, it made a difference on my monk when I realized my uptime on Renewing Mists was <50%. Yikes! Added something with WeakAuras, was 99% on our Iron Juggernaut attempts this time. Much improved.

So, the plan tonight: take down Galakras, get to Juggernaut, practice taking bombs on the druid (if necessary) which reminds me, I should make sure Might of Ursoc is in an accessible place, and decide if symbiosing the monk tank for Fortifying Brew of the hunter for Deterrence is better. I’ll update it sometime later with a progress report.

Weekend of Raiding

I had a pretty bull weekend. Today is going to be full of learning ocular, respiratory, and GI drugs to make up for it. I had a good time though, and all the groups I was in made progress. I did accomplish all my studying goals except the drug lists yesterday. It turned out to be a packed day.

Friday nights raid took out Norushen and Sha of Pride very quickly, and had some very good pulls on Galakras. We may have gotten it, if one of our cannons hadn't bugged out. I am looking forward to a good week of raiding next week with Icon.

On Saturday, our flex went better than usual. Took out wing 1 with no real wipes. We had one bad pull but half the raid ran out and lived, so I'm not counting that as a wipe. I was stuck doing kitty DPS since we had a surprise healer come along. He seemed very nice, and was putting up good numbers, and was confident about 3-healing for a group of 15. Which meant I was kitty for all but 2 fights. What I learned: my feral DPS barely cracks 100k on a good day. However, I managed to snag 1 flex upgrade and one LFR upgrade so here's hoping it improves. It occurs to me I will ned a good DPS set, one of the healers will have to switch for Spoils when we get there.

We ended flex half way through wing 2. Here's hoping on Monday we go back in, knock it out of the park and move on to wing 3. Following that I joined up with the OLRG and quickly knocked out Bastion of Twilight and Throne of Four Winds. Everything can be easy when you massively outgear the content, but it was fun to hang out with some friendly people.

That ended just in time for a quick 2-hour raid with my Tues/Thurs group where we knocked out Iron Juggernaut. Managed to get some bracers on a roll. Still my druid out-gears my monk, but both have at least reached 550 ilevel main spec, so yay! Got some good attempts in on the Shamans, but we were doing the 3-tank method and one of em was constantly DCing. And we locked a healer out on our first attempt, even though otherwise we did well. There was some talk of extending the lock-out, but I think the decision was to have one of the other healers switch toons and save the lockout if we needed it and start fresh on Tuesday. Since we breeze through the first 4 bosses in under an hour, I'm confident we'll end up at shamans by Thursday.

After that, one of my friends logged on her tank and announced she was going to tank an LFR, so I joined up to give her a dedicated healer. We did surprisingly well for zoning in on a group with 4 stack of determination, but I was so tired I was saying a lot of crazy stuff. Only took 1-shot for us to get out Norushen and Sha of Pride, and even with a messy win a win's a win, so yay! Right up against the berserk timer for Sha. She snagged 2 upgrades, I got one. A successful night.

By that time it was after midnight for me, and running on 6 house of sleep the night before left me woozy and not making a lot of sense. I am hopeful the surprise healer might join our raid. He was a disc priest, which would be helpful to have. When I did switch I wasn't that far ahead of him even with 20 ilevels on him. I really would like to have a steady set of healers in our raid so I know what to expect each week. Plus a disc would be nice to bring along. I've actually looked into finishing the cloak on my own disc priest and getting him prepared to take Elay's spot if need be, so to not have to do that would be awesome. Of course what I might end up doing then is taking a good hard look at my shaman, but at the moment I'd rather stay on my druid. I am really looking forward to the change in lockouts in WoD where I could raid with my monk and still be able to take her into other raids to help out if need be. Being able to swap to something with a tad more DPS if needed would be good.

And now I have put off studying more than enough, so on to drugs!

Lots of Pondering

Alright, going back with Icon for our 3rd week of raiding. We managed to go in on Wednesday, but with our awesome lock unable to come, and the substitutes we have, decided to call it after the second boss and leave Norushen til Friday. A good idea, I needed sleep and we were also down a healer.

I am proud we managed to 2-heal Immersus. We did end up right at the enrage timer, due to loss of DPS, but we did it. Ended up having our shadow priest go healy for the Protectors, made the difference. Discovered my other healing partner had a UI issues, so he never saw stacks of Shadow Word: Bane to dispel just a glow indicating dispelling was needed, and was just dispelling at the wrong time. I think when he gets some better gear, we can 2-heal a lot more. I will have to remember to bring up my thoughts on that to our raid leader.

Here's a topic I don't know how to discuss: improvements for my healing partner. He's in between a haste break point (and had reforged to get there), and I don't think he's even started the legendary questline. I once mentioned he was missing a major glyph after the patch, and a week or two later, made it for him and gave it to him, and it still took another week to get it fixed. He's a nice guy, and not a bad healer, but I feel like he doesn't go that extra step sometimes. For example: we discovered that UI problem last night, when I explained to he shadow priest who was switching what was going on with dispelling. My fellow healer has been healing it in flex with me for weeks, and I know it was explained the first few weeks we went in. How did he not realize beforehand? Of course, maybe my explanations were at fault. I tend to be a horrible tutor, because once I explain something once, I expect you to get it. 

Maybe I am just too pushy for my own good here. Perhaps I should just leave well enough alone, unless we hit a healing block. I suppose alternatively I could try to recruit another healer, since we seem to only have 2 available. A third healer would help. Or maybe I should switch which toon is in which raid, and bring my monk along. But is 50-75k extra DPS really going to make the difference? If we have to 2-heal, I want my druid. I've been a tree since I started in Wrath, and tree is where I am most comfortable. 

Alternatively, I can talk to someone about this and get another opinion. I'm both not pushing as much for progression in our run because I am a bit further ahead in another, and frustrated that I can clear 4 bosses in an hour with another group, and be stuck on 3 all night in this one. Has absolutely nothing to do with wanting the pet from Sha of Pride, not at all :)

Speaking of the Tues/Thurs raid: made it to Iron Juggernaut this week. I think we would've gotten him down if we didn't have one laggy tank and a constantly DC'ing other one. And only an hour to raid. I did get to bring my guildie along, on her mage. The raid leader had asked me earlier if I knew this druid with a decent tank set in our guild, and if they were willing to tank for us on a steady basis. So it was nice to bring her along and let her meet everyone. I still don't know how she feels about tanking, but I know for sure she got the message, and can ponder it at her own pleasure. She did talk about needing to do her "tanking homework" so I hope she does join up with us. She's truly awesome. But I am trying not to be pushy.

Stepping back in to SoO tonight to work on Norushen, hopefully we'll get it tonight and take a good whack at Sha of Pride too.

Update

I get antsy for spoilers. I play Magic: the Gathering, and sometimes I like reading spoilers more than playing. So all the comments about the next expansion have got me antsy about what we'll learn at blizzcon. I would be happy with more dranei lore- I'll admit,  I can be shallow and I think dranei just look awesome. The first toon I intentionally put a transmog together for was my dranei shaman (cause there are a lot more pretty mail options than leather) and I did it before reaching 90. Which meant I spent a lot of time leveling wishing my reforge mount let me transmog too. But she looks awesome, in my opinion.

A recap of the week so far, starting with WoW. Raided on Tuesday, knocked out the first 4 bosses in an hour, and spent the rest of the time bashing our heads against Galakras. Did make progress, so yay. I have no doubt we'll down in tonight. Or at least get the the second phase reliably. Ok, maybe I have some doubts, but only a few.

Wednesday's raid was cancelled due to lack of attendance, so my druid didn't get to play. Ended up doing an LFR with a friend. I've realized I've become very pushy and impatient, and spoiled this week with good flex groups that one-shot (or nearly) everything. So I hung around for the first 2 bosses in hopes of getting the pets, and left before Garrosh. And no pets, so maybe next week. 

Hoping Friday's raid goes off without a hitch, I know we'll get the first 2 down, and I think we'll make good progress on Norushen. 

Wasn't able to do challenge modes this week, but maybe we'll find some time on the weekend. I've been working on the Shado-Pan meta with my druid since I've realized it wasn't account wide, and I've got 3 left. Getting around with the shado-pan will take the most time. I gave up on these when i realized I needed a gold challenge mode, but now that I will probably get one... back to grinding those dailies.

On the school front: I'm upset about the pathology test, but I am getting past it. I did well enough, I just don't think it's fair to ask anatomy or parasitology questions on a pathology test. And there were 3. But anyway, other than that it's been a pretty nice week. Our parasit professor takes pleasure in showing gross videos of maggots in eyes, which Cuterebra in a bunny? Kinda creepy, and hard for me to watch. The opthamology lecture was hard enough last term, pictures of unheathy eyes are creepy.

Speaking of, our professor just loaded up a video and walked out of the room so she won't throw up. Lovely.  Indeed a gross video. I believe one of my classmates even called it "better than popping an abcess" which if you don't know, can be very gross. But yet rewarding, watching all that gunk come out and cleaning it up. Fun times.

Finally Raiding

We finally got a guild 10 man together for the first time this patch and stepped in to SoO. Managed to take down the first 2 bosses in a reasonable time, and get a few whacks at Norushen. Yay! One of our tanks was a little worried about being undergeared, which I thought was very sweet considering how undergeared most of the group is. Besides <flex> I'm an awesome healer, and his deaths were entirely due to me not paying attention when he pulled trash because I was alt tabbed checking something. Just because I'm right there jumping and /charge-ing one second, doesn't mean I won't pop away the next. Actually, I felt a little bad about that one. I had been right there, then I just mentally wandered off. And one of his deaths may have been because I stood too close on Immerseus and took a corrosive blast to the face. That wasn't a good thing. 

Then we did flex on Saturday. Both in raid and flex I kept dying to silly stuff- basically, mistweavers are not tanks, and I should quit trying. Totally accidental, and I will be more careful in the future. I know better than that, I think I just got excited.

I do think I am going to change to my druid for our guild's raids, and stick with the monk for the other raid I seem to have inadvertently joined. Going to double check with them, but if they raid Tues/Thurs now instead of Mon/Tues, I will be happy to keep coming along. Especially since I feel such a change is kinda my fault, since I told him I would be unavailable Mondays until an hour and a half after the raid was scheduled to start. Plus, I feel Elay is the better healer and until my cohorts in healing get some better gear, I'd rather have Elay there. I'd even feel comfortable 2-healing, if we had to, on the druid. I could do it on the monk, but since I mostly fistweave I'd have to adjust my style to manage 2-healing better. Not that I think we will have to, but I will let the raid leaders know my thoughts.

My real concern was this: do we need the little bit of extra DPS the fistweaving gives to clear stuff? And I think we'll be fine. We have a few DPS working on their legendaries still, and finishing that will really help them. But if people are dying to lack of heals on Norushen, then to the druid I will go! Plus, even though everyone calls me Renala now, and I love my monk, at heart I am still a druid. (Even though my feral DPS...needs work) I look forward to taking my tree self into SoO normal, even though I will miss healing spheres on Immerseus, I'm sure I will adjust.

Challenges

It's been a while, but I've been busy. First- some good news! We've finally started challenge modes, and got a silver on our first (well, first complete one- we reset it several times) attempt! Yay team! I had to go for something else I had signed up for, so I'm a little sad I couldn't get us to gold.

I know I tend to place the blame on myself/give myself more importance than perhaps I have, but I was healing. And people died. That's pretty simple there. I am sure there are several things I can do to increase my efficacy and performance. For one (and this is probably the most noob-like I've felt since I realize that guy when was third on the healing meters was the DK tank and we were 2-healing- halfway through the Naxx run) I've set my party frames to look like raid frames. My biggest difficulty is noticing DPS health loss. That helped a lot, the next deaths came from all of us standing in bad stuff cause we pushed the boss a bit faster than expected. But we've since gotten 2 golds!

I also intend to learn how to better use HotW, if I can. I fistweave, I can darn well learn to heal and DPS on a resto druid. Anything that can shave off seconds should help, right? Alternatively, I'll just pop NV on cooldown the whole run. I've got a decent set, I think. I'd like to get a neck and cloak with sockets, but I'll work on it. I was great on mana- only OOM 2 times, when I had to pop tree and spam regrowth.

I am anticipating golds in the future :) Sadly, I have learned the the Shado-Pan meta achievement does not count account-wide achievements, so I either have to go back and finish them on my druid or get my monk set up for challenge modes. Still undecided there.

Next, raiding- Icon is setting foot in SoO this Friday! I've been raiding enh, steadily enough with this other group. Still need to talk to the guy running it to see if it would be possible to do both raids. Not sure who I'd bring to which. He's moving house this week, and raiding with them has been cancelled so I can put it off another week. Both toons are equally geared- in fact, due to Ordos' love of my druid and dislike of my monk, Elay has passed Ren in ilevel. 

And back to school, which complicated the raiding issue- can I raid 3-4 nights a week, work on challenge modes another, with 2 flex days, and still study for all my tests? The answer is yes, IF I actually start working harder. But do I want to? Still not sure. I managed to ace the pharm test, whoo! A little worried about virology on Friday, but if I work towards it I'm sure I can pull up my grade. This stuff is interesting, finally diseases! But the presentation and test format, not so good.

And I will end on gnomes. The running of the gnomes was last Saturday, I talked 3 guildies into coming with me, and my BF logged in to come as well. We had a blast, even if one could hardly move. So far the only number I've heard is a tentative 944 gnomes and escorts showed up to run.

Here's a picture of the heart in Booty Bay. Those aren't my guides, just some random gnomes and me, dancing on the bed.

Why Do I Fight?

Why do I raid?

Even before I finally downed Garrosh in flex and got the quest that led to Lorewalker Cho's "why do we fight?" cutscene, I'd been wondering that.

I spent just about every waking hour on Saturday in a raid. I woke up at 10, went into a flex at 11, left that at 3 to join a guild flex, finished that at 6 and took a nap til 8, then had another flex at 9. Why? Why do I like to raid? 

I don't do it for the gear (at least not entirely)- by the time my guild run came around, my 2 main toons had run flex 1-3, and the toon I brought to that raid could gain no gear and very little valor since I was almost capped. I just brought her because I like to play my monk, even though I have 4 other 90s, 2 even with the gear to not shame me in there, who could have gotten rewards.

I like to do things with friends, that certainly plays a part. My guildies are good people, usually cheerful and fun to talk to. But that's clearly not all of my reason- most of my groups were PUGs, and I still had fun, and plan to sign up for more on OpenRaid in the future.

I'm also perfectly happy to spend hours killing dinos for bones, or farming ore, or fishing. So why then do I try to raid so much?

The reasons are a bit varied. In part I think it's because I feel raiding is the end-game for me. Collecting pets and achievements is fun, but my goal is always to complete raids. Some of it is to get gear. I am very competitive and like to top meters even if I don't crow about it. I rarely play DPS but when I do, I like to be able to hold my own with the regular DPSers. I like to be able to out-heal everyone when I try. I know it's not important and meters don't tell the whole story of a raider (and certainly not a healer) but who doesn't like to see their name first? 

So I raid because I enjoy group activities, enjoy a the challenge raiding give our groups, to get better gear to play at a competitive level, and because for me, raiding is the goal.

On another note, I think OpenRaid is bad for me. I have had some bad experiences in LFR, so I tend to avoid it lately and find PUGs on OpenRaid. Which means it is very easy to sign up for ALL THE THINGS and have no free time to study.

Darkmoon Faire

Moonfang! Some new reason to be on the Darkmoon Island. This is a bit late, but here she is, surrounded by 2 people with the mount, and me ruining their shot. I'm the panda in red. 

I did end up with the pet, on Friday night. It was a great day for pets- finally got my darkmoon eye, 2 extra Dandelion Frolicker from 1 sprite killing spree, and Moon Moon! Thanks go out to my fruit friend, who offered to kill Moonfang with me to help with my chances of getting the pet. 

I basically parked a toon out there, logged on ever hour to forty-five minutes to check for wolves, and alert a few friends also hunting the pet.

I did have 1 bad moment at the fair this past week. Not my many deaths to moonfang (I only lived through 1 fight) but with the PvP thing there, for the trinket. Clearly you can tell from that comment my PvP knowledge/ability = almost 0. I was mistweaving ( to try to stay alive against moonfang) and the announcement went out. I got there, 2 other folks came in, and we proceeded to fight. Me mistweaving, a pally beating on me, and a resto druid. I managed to kill the pally,  and me and the tree fought til the pally rezed and ran back in. I thought it was fun, had a grand ole time. The druid got the trinket, but I lived, killed the pally again and his warlock friend he brought along (I assume- from the same guild) At the end, I made some comment like "that was fun" and got a "#*&! you" in response. It really made me sad. I felt it was uncalled for. If he was truly in it for the achievement, and had whispered me asking about it, I would have let him get it and helped kill the druid. I was just there for fun, and to work on the achievement but it's not that important to me. I think my big problem was that he was in a guild I had friends in and admired. 

On a side note- I keep the profanity filter on. Makes it fun, guessing what people are saying sometimes. Do you know they bleep out LSD and semen? Perfectly legitimate comments about class, bleeped out. 

Undecided

I've finally had a chance to dip my toes in on SoO normal. Another guild was short a healer, and asking around in chat. I offered to come, and have gone in with them again this past week to shoot down the first 4 bosses. The raid leader approached me about joining the raid.

I'd love to! They seem nice, our guild hasn't had a normal raid since a few weeks before the patch dropped. They raid early, and end at what is a very nice time for me, both pre- and post- daylights savings, when it comes.

Here are the issues: one of their raid nights, I have a study session. I can't afford to miss it. Right now, it ends an hour and a half after they start. After daylight savings, that'll be only half an hour. I told the guy I'd never be able to make Monday raids, but now I realize I could- if they were ok with me being late.

The other 2 issues with Monday night- it's my board game with friends night. We may be able to move it to another night, which would probably let a few more friends who don't like to be out from 8-10pm on Monday come along, but I'd have to talk to them about it. It's very informal, so I think they'd be ok with it. The second issue- my guild runs a flex raid Mondays. Maybe I can talk the raid leader into moving it to Wednesday or Thursday, or even Friday. I'd have to ask, but I feel weird skipping a guild flex run since I was recently promoted to an officer. Especially to run normal with another guild.

I also feel a little weird running with another guild if it would prevent us from running normals. I have another healer I can bring, and I'd love to play my druid more. I still think of myself as a tree, even though I am getting used to being called Renala instead of Elaylda. I have no idea if this would stop us, last time I mentioned raiding to our guild's raid leader he said I was the only one who had approached him.

So my dilemma- is it ok to raid with another guild, as an officer? On one of our guild flex nights? Do they even need a healer anymore, or have they found one?

I think my course of action, at the moment, is to wait until Tuesday. If I am invited back to raid again, I will talk about joining up if they are ok with me being late on Mondays. If I hear from them early on Tuesday for an invite, I will talk with my guild's raid leader. We are very laid back as a guild, and have another officer who does more serious progression raiding on his horde tank. I don't think it will be a problem with anyone, but I worry. I feel a little guilty missing flex as a healer, but our guild never makes flex mandatory and they have done just fine when I have had to miss flex before.

My biggest worry is that this would affect normal raiding for our guild. It would limit the nights I can run, and since I'm one of the most reliable healers (from an attendance perspective) that might hurt us. That's 2 nights out. I'm not worried about the toon, I have my druid equally geared. And truthfully, if I'm on my druid I will recommend giving two healing a shot.

I just keep going over this in my head, probably making a big deal out of nothing. It might be a moot issue, they may have found a replacement healer. Hopefully I can get this all straightened out on Tuesday and quit worrying.

Sad Healer

I've come to a conclusion that leaves me a little sad. I've always thought of myself as a good healer, but today I took a closer look at monks than I've taken since I started healing on one. I'm healing suboptimally. For healing with 3 healers it's fine, but if we go to 2 I would rather switch to my druid. I don't like that, I should be equally comfortable on both.

So when I get a chance, I will try out solely mistweaving and try to say good-bye to fistweaving. I've enjoyed it and learned a lot from doing it. I've essentially been DPSing (poorly) and healing. Probably stems from my desire to DPS more and my hatred of not being top on DPS meters. As a DPSing healer wherever I am on meters is fine. It shouldn't be that way. I am a healer first and foremost, and lately I've only truly felt like a healer again on my druid. I will be resetting Renala to mistweaving after this Tuesday's LFR, in hopes some gear will drop for me and I won't be wasting gems.

I'm hoping it will be an easy transition. I have been working on my monk best practice's for a while, and I feel without the added DPS pressure my healing will increase and should we do 10 mans again we will be able to 2 heal on the nights we are down a healer.

I two-healed a flex with my druid and felt awesome. I was very happy when we found a third healer, because my first partner wasn't bad, but didn't seem to grasp proper dispelling. The successful take down of the second boss in SoO Flex wing one included 33 dispels by me, and 4 by them. I'd like to have the feeling I'm rocking out healing no matter what toon I'm on. Excepting you, priesty- you're kinda around to DE only. And shammy, your healing spec is for faster LFR queues. Thankfully I've managed to realize 4 raid-ready toons aren't necessary, especially since I will never have that many raid lockouts, I don't want to bring the priest, and I'd rather DPS on the shammy and we are rarely at an excess of healers to allow me to DPS.

Hopefully next week will bring an upgrade on Renala's healing and a return to that rocking healing feeling.

Finally Flex

Raiding hasn't been going too well recently. I can't remember the last time we had a raid, much less a full guild group. Real life has kept some folks down, and other just haven't been showing up. So our raid leader has decided to take a break to re-organize. I hope we can start again, cause the only other groups advertising for recruiting on Alliance side raid way later than I can stay up, especially when daylight savings comes around for fall, and I don't follow it. And darn, just realized it was Tuesday, which means Sunday I missed the Wander's Festival... again.

Anyway, 10 man raiding woes aside, we made it to flex. Got Immerseus down on the second try I was there for (I showed up with only an hour left). Sadly, I thin k Monday night flex will always be that way for me. It coincides with half price pizza at a local restaurant, and my friends and I go and play games. Usually King of Tokyo, since it's quicker than Munchin or Catan. So my awesome raid leader added a Sunday night flex so I can go to that one :)

For having no clue what I was doing, and only half- listening to a Fatboss video, I'd say that went pretty well. We hit the next boss twice, but had no real idea what was going on. I can say one thing- when we start raiding again, the boss raps are going to be super long.  /sigh. Oh well, gives me time to study while the raid leader explains. I mean, of course I pay attention to everything he says. I totally did not get up last night in the middle of an explanation to get a shower. No. (came back just in time for the roll call ready check too)

I've been seriously considering looking elsewhere to raid, and it saddens me. I've gotten over my 'go go go' raiding feeling, but seeing other friends get through the first 4 bosses on 3 hours on their first raid night of the patch, while we can't even scrape 10 people together, makes me antsy.

Well, here's hoping we can at least keep flex going. It was fun, and some folks who can't make regular raids got to come, so yay!

No loot though, but there's always next week.

Loot Isle

I've been spending a lot of time on Loot Isle lately, trying to get all the pets that drop from rares. So far, I've only picked up the one from Garnia, but I did manage to snag this mount the other morning, on my second kill of the day. I let Ren be in the photo shoot, even though Elay did the work. But Elaylda is stuck on the isle, camping rares, and you can't mount this there. So here it is.

It took me a few days to realize this dropped a mount, but with the huge crowds that were forming every time this guy was about to spawn, it was kinda obvious something was going on.

It was nice to see so many people. And get the mount, of course. It frees my time up to go camp other rares :)

I also managed to snag the Crazy Cat Lady title. Not by finishing the tournament, as I would have like to get the Xuen, but with the help of my local AH. Still happy, and a new title.

And just for some fun, here's a picture of a stag-form druid with a giant hammer it it's mouth.

Standardization

Warning: whining and moaning ahead.

We've had our first 2 tests of the term, and the third one is coming up on Friday. And as usual, we find things to complain about. The school is in the process of going paperless. So we're using a testing program, ExamSoft. We've had several issues with it, as students. Some people have computer setting reset, backgrounds replaced, iTunes library wiped out. Not to mention the program is so ugly. I know cosmetic changes are low on the priority list, but come on. This program has the look of the stuff I did in 4th grade, when computers were just becoming a big deal.

But my real issue is this: I want to know what I missed. When we did paper tests, you would finish the test wait til the allotted time was up, hand in the answer sheet and then, still with the test paper, they would show you the answers. For all classes, all teachers. Now, each teacher can set the test to give us a  numerical score, let us see what we missed, or let us see the whole test after we finish. But they don't have to, and we don't know until the test is done.

I find it a tad annoying when teachers say "you don't need to know what you missed, you should be able to figure it out." Well yeah, if you give me my score, I can talk to friends and go over questions and discover where I went wrong. The test yesterday? No score, no answers. Not helpful. Makes me a sad panda. I just wish that were standard across classes. If it's going to be a standard "no score, no answers" I can suck it up and deal, but this back and forth confuses and irritates me.

Especially since we have a few students who have some need to take the test on paper and get extra time. I'm fine with that. However, this year (our third term, and the first time they've done this) half the teachers have suddenly said that because of this, tests will only be 15 questions. Because you have to administer the same test to everyone, which is fair, and the special needs students get extra time per question. Sure. But the number was cut down so they wouldn't be late to the next lecture after the test. Because apparently, when we start tests at 1:30 and are told we have half an hour or thirty-five minutes to take a test, the extra 20-25 minutes after the test before the next class isn't enough time. So we get the questions cut down, which makes every mistake hurt that much more.

It just all comes down to "we're paying almost $60 grand a year for this?" sometimes. The testing situation, not to mention the proctors. That's another rant in and of itself, but here's an example: we had one woman scream at us, really scream, because we were passing around a sign-in sheet another proctor gave us. Yeah. Before a final.

Anyway, I will try to write something about what being a vet student is to me, and my future career. But for now, here's a rant about our testing.

Alt Appreciation Week- Hunters

Hunters! Ah, hunters. My first toon ever was a hunter, because they have pets! What kind of vet student would I be if I didn't go for the class with the pets? 

This is Zulyani. She was my first toon ever, and lies abandoned here. As it turns out, some friends were also playing WoW, and had just started a guild on another server as Alliance. So I rolled a night elf druid, and the only action Zulyani has seen in years was about 30 minutes while I took her to Undercity to get a cockroach.

This is Renessa. She was born during Mists, along with my BF's hunter, Bariel. I wanted some of those rare pets, darn it! She's been parked in Winterspring, where she got me the mount. Just haven't move her to Outland yet. The goal is to level her, catch pets, and have a max level class that can solo just about anything, especially combined with my BF's DK. Kinda been lazing off about that since his DK hit max, and he's been helping me farm stuff.

But she has an awesome transmog I spent some time farming for all the pieces. Just need to get my bow!

Late to Alt Appreciation Week

I haven't participated in alt week at all, so I have a backlog to get through. I realize I'm a bit behind, so here goes: 

Deathknights, I have a few of those running around somewhere....

Only 2 of the 3 made it out of the starting zone. We'll go little to big:

This is Whirlectra. This is the first time I have logged on to her in years, solely to snag the screencshot. She was made because I liked the name, and I wanted a little gnomish pile o'death. Sadly, I never got around to leveling her.

This is Rosalice made solely for the purpose of getting the worgen racial pet while spending the least amount of time playing a worgen. Go through that starting zone? No, thank you. And here she is, standing next to the man who sold her my Gilnean raven.

And this is Mavelin. She was made when I transferred my main to my brother's server, to try to get another max level character fairly quickly. I also wanted an enchanter to DE stuff for me, and make my enchants. I like to be self-sufficient. I made it to 75, and hated every minute of it. She languished there for more than a year, manning the bank of a defunct guild for me.

Recently, we made it to 80 (cheer!) leveling with my BF's lock. We still don't click as well as the monk and I do, so leveling is slow. (Of course, putting plate instead of mail heirlooms on may have helped...At least they were agi, and not int, right? right? anybody?)

Anyway, she has made it all the way from Dalaran to the Dwarven District, where she now mans the extra storage and auctions for me there.

So those are my DK's. We still don't click well. I play better than I used to, but I have little idea what or why I am doing. Thank goodness I have a lock with me, the two of us together can take on anything! (Within a few levels of us)

Next, Druids! Ah, my druids. Probably my most numerous class. I'll start with Elaylda, my first max level character. Begun because I joined a forming guild, and had no idea what to play. This was only my second character ever. Someone suggested druid, for heals if we needed them, since the other 2 healers were a priest and pally and the goal was to eventually raid. So Elay and I leveled feral to 80, switched to tree, and never looked back (until we Cata when we had to level again, but by then we had dual spec)
I owe thanks to that guild's pally, who would swap specs before dual spec to tank so I could practice healing heroics.
We had some good times, clearing Naxx. Never got Yogg down in Uld, but the general there was my  favorite fight.
Possibly the best time I've had in a PuG was back in LK, a Naxx10 started by 2 guys who just wanted to do it for fun. Everyone was overgeared, and most loot wet to off-spec or vendor. Took me an entire wing to realize there were only 2 healers. I was new then, and didn't realize the red in third place on the heal meter meant DK, and was actually our tank... We picked up several achieves, including Safety Dance, which eluded me and our guild for quite some time due to my wonderful love of standing in fire/poison/ice whatever will kill me on the ground. to live through that. Elay has been my main until this recent switch to the monk. It was a hard choice, and at heart, I am still a tree.

The my other druids have little history. They were made on various servers, when I just wanted to level something new, and go horde or to a PvP server or to a higher population server. None made it very far, and all languish, forgotten.

Back to School

It's been a few weeks since I've updated. I'm back in Grenada, starting the second week of class. I am trying to be a better student this term than I have been in the past. It's much less stressful to study consistently and prepare for tests early instead of cramming the weekend before, like I have done in the past. And I've found that logging in and parking myself in Deepholm to hunt Aeonaxx while I am studying makes me feel like I am being productive in WoW which makes me less likely to go to LFR's on a toon that's never going anywhere *cough my shammy cough* so yay, productive Sunday yesterday. No sign of the dragon, but that means I still need to park a toon there and hunt while I study. I suppose if (hopefully when) I get that mount, I'll have to hunt for something else. Maybe the Time-Lost Proto Drake....

All that aside, we're getting ready to try Tortos this week. Due to folks missing raid for various reasons, we didn't get to him last week. Our fill-ins and a bad night meant we didn't even get Jinkroh down (eep!). I'm hoping this week we get the turtle down Wednesday, and the heads on Friday. Ideally I'd like to get 2 down in one night, but our raid can be a bit slow. I'd love to get most of the place cleared before the patch drops. So much to do before then, I still need to do my archeology stuff before it hits, and... ok, that's all I want to do. I'm already close to valor capped on everyone who matters (and some that don't) the 2 toons I raid on probably already have the ilevel for the LFR when it hits, and I need to stop trying to gear 4 toons for raiding, when I really only need 1. We're a small guild, only 1 raid group, and I'm a graduate student. I can't afford to spend more than the 2-3 nights a week raiding, and I probably could stand to do less.

So, goals for this week:
-Keep up the studying and get Aeonaxx
-Do some archeology
-Maybe try to get the shammy through the first part of the legendary....
-Study more.

Wow, not a lot of goals. I think my boyfriend's waning interest in WoW recently has made me cut back a bit too, even though we're in different countries. Well, here's hoping I keep up the studying and get a new mount soon!

End of Summer

I fly back to school at the end of the week. It's been pretty great, being home for the summer. And this last week has been one big shopping week to get stuff for school before I go back. The biggest debate going on in my mind is: should I get an iPad for notes? (Yes, I have other, cheaper, debates too) I've talked my self into and out of it at least 3 times. Actually bought one, but it was going to be shipped too late, so I canceled my order. I have 3 more days to decide that.

On the magic front: (and the MtG games is a check in the iPad yes column) I came in second at our local game day, just missing out on a pretty playmat. I lost to someone I know from previous drafts, a good player I have lost to many times before. I was excited, since the deck was from last game day and hadn't been touched since (and did pretty badly then). So yay! for that. Now I have to remember to return all the cards I am borrowing.
I will probably look at spoilers for Theiros, but place to play magic in Grenada are pretty limited. Hopefully I will keep sharp enough to put up a good showing in drafts come winter.

On the WoW front: I update this so rarely, I can't remember if I mentioned we beat Horridon. On the night I complained so much about being stuck on him. Now we're stuck on Council, which I mind less as that is more chances for Living Sandling pets :)  Raids have been cancelled this week a bit due to some unfortunate real life circumstances. I wish everyone the best, and wish I could do something to help.
Bone farming has been going great! One of our tanks just loves killing dinos, so I am 30% of the way to the mount, and got the pet already. And 3 eggs. The first one had the mount I already had, the second had the same mount! So hopefully the next one will be a different color :)
I have decided to leave the shammy as DPS, and see how she does. Lobbing fire at people is fun! And I remember why I hate non-healing queues so much.
Tonight is the second raid's raid night, so hopefully that will be happening and go well.

Updates come usually from procrastination, so as school starts up I expect to be writing more often.

Horridon Down

So right after my last post, we downed Horridon. Wasn't even on the last pull like normal, we had an hour to go poke at the council. Which is where we are stuck now, the sand adds love to chew up the squishy healer.

In other news, I am a minimum of 2 weeks from finishing my epic cloak on Renala, and maybe 2 weeks if I get lucky on Elaylda. I was hoping to get it today, but the runestones were't dropping for me.

Pet leveling is going right along, got my Anubiseth Idol to 25. He makes so many fights easier, it's ridiculous. Big spell about to kill me? I think now. Peck away at me with little damage? Nope. Course, it can take forever to kill them, but I can swap in low level pets easily with no fear of them dying.

In other news, second raid group made it through Garalon last night. Since I have healers to spare, I offered one up. But i didn't like heart of fear much, so I hope they finish it soon.  On to pet leveling, back another day.

Stuck Waiting

I am stuck on hold trying to change my ticket home in December. So far, it's 20 minutes and counting. Don'tcha just love automated hold music? Makes me wish I had just bought through American Airlines like I normally do. Oh well, hopefully the flight on Caribbean Air will be fine. (fingers crossed no lost luggage) 

Stuck on Horridon in raid. It is frustrating to be stuck and seemingly making no progress. But I am hopeful we will get it tonight. I really really want the pets that drop, so we'll see if we get lucky. In other news, I am down to only needing to run 8 LFR's a week (well, I only care about 3 toons, who only need 2, 2, and 4 LFRs) so I can get 2 toons knocked out on Tuesday with the good groups, and the priest done on Wednesday. Yay! Got the raiding with leashes part 2 achievement (I cheated and bought 1 pet off the AH, but it was a great deal. 900G for the stupid bird...)

The DK is decently geared, and now the BF and I can take on the warbringers ourselves. Mount hunting, here we come! G'nathus will happen eventually, we'll see how that one goes. 

Had a nice holiday yesterday, and a great morning at work today. I ended up being all by my self, which turned out just fine. Slow morning (but the afternoon was packed, so I was glad to book it out of there) I start shadowing at the emergency vet next week. I hope it goes well, we will have to see. I might have to study up a bit to not sound like an idiot.

Finally got through to customer service, I will be coming home on December 11th now not the 14th. Not a big change, but I like to get home quickly. And the 14th would have been 4 days of nothing but the beach. Now I have a final, a relaxing day to pack, and I am out of there, hopefully halfway through my time on the island. I do love Grenada, but I get a little homesick. Plus I will have more time to shop for Christmas presents and take a break before I go to work. Holidays are busy times for boarding kennels, so they will be happy to have me back there. Total time on phone to change the flight: 44 min. TIme I talked to a real person: way less than 5 min. 

I'm a Zookeeper!

So the top news for the week: I got the Zookeeper title, yay! As a vet student, I was looking forward to that title a lot. Only took 3 days of on and off camping, with several other people, to get it. Everyone was very polite, it was nice to chat with other pet collectors. My boyfriend flew up and got his in about 2 minutes :P, but it only took me a half an hour to get a minfernal, so I can't really complain. Next stop: soloing Kara on everyone who can to get the pet from the last boss. Doing the chess event 6 times, ugh. Not fun. But that pet and the one from Al'ar are the only 2 I am missing for raiding with leashes: part 2.

Got my ICC25 meta last week. There were some issues and the BF missed the one part he needed, which was very annoying. We'll have to look on open raid to find one next week. I really want the heroic LK kill, which we didn't do last night. Couldn't get the coordination down with the folks we had, very annoying, but I had the achieves for the meta from an earlier run.

BF got the DK to 90, so now we can duo the warbringers when he gets some gear. That's the hope, anyway. So that's one thing down. My shaman hit 90, I bought flying and haven't been back on her since. I am getting tired of gearing up toons I know I won't raid with. My rogue, mage, druid, and priest are all on the list before her anyway, so she might rest in the Vale for a bit.

In non-WoW news, my three dogs are very happy with the bag of tennis balls I brought home yesterday, and have been running around the house making a nuisance of themselves to show it.

So goal for today is Kara, and running the DK through LFR. We'll see where we end up tomorrow. No progress on Horridon. Hopefully more to report Wednesday there.

Grr

Grr, another night wiping to Horridon. Sigh, perhaps next week.

No luck with my Quiraji Gaurdling hunt. Just missed a few. I can't decide wether I should move around or camp one spot. I am not a good rare hunter, I get too antsy and bored. And I only have 1 computer and account, so I can't be doing something productive at the same time.

On the plus side, I am only missing 2 pets from raiding with leashes. Sadly, on is from the last boss in Kara. While it is cool to see the place, running it every week is getting old fast. So here's hoping the pet run this week gets it.

Off to bed, hopefully a better raid next week.

Server Maintenance

It's that time again, servers are down and I can't start my weekly LFR runs. So I figured I would list my goals for the week, and hope I can knock them out quickly.

-run the monk through the last 2 ToT LFRs for legendary quest drops
-run the druid through ToT LFRs for her legendary quest drops
-remember the priest does not need to do the legendary stuff, just get sha crystals for enchanting, and run through some of the earlier LFRs
-(probably run the priest through ToT LFRs anyway)
-level my shaman that last bit to 90 so my boyfriend's DK can hit 90 too
-gear up his DK as quickly as possible so he can come tank for our raids, our second tank an go back to healing, our second druid healer can go back to boomkin, and our hunter can put his sporebat away for a while
-run the Raiding with Leashes- part 2 raids and hope the Eye is kinder to us this time
-get bored and run all my alts through Kara to get to the last boss (and the final pet I need) since I learned to solo chess following this helpful guide

And once all that is done, probably time to level the hunter to 90. Stuck at 60 since I plopped her in Winterspring to finish the mount quest. Only took twice as long as it should since I kept forgetting that daily. I might set the shaman up to heal, give that a shot. I love my mistweaver healing, but sometimes I think I forget how to just heal and not "cheat heal" through DPS and smart heals. Plus, then me and our tree wouldn't be competing for the same armor and the int mail won't go to waste. Of course if that was what I am worried about I'd level a pally and heal since our pally healer has been DK tanking for the last few months.

But for this week- I hope we get horridon down, and he drops that staff (and pet and mount) and that I win the roll above all the others who will want it. I have the perfect transmog for it.

So there is my goals for the week. I'll come back to those next week and see if I was successful.

Long Break

Yeah, long time without an update. I am back in the States for the summer, and being home has been distracting. Had some housework to do (and had a screaming argument with my brother- ain't family just grand sometimes?) But I am a quarter of the way through vet school now.

On the WoW front we finished out HoF and have been wiping on Horridon. We tried 2-healing it pretty successfully (though I think our druid and pally or priest would be a better team than my monk and our pally) and I hae hope that we will down him this week when we have our regular crew back.

More on all that later. Just felt I should update after trying Navime's Moving House Giveaway. Boy, that was tough, only found 9 of the 16. Partly becuase I started late, and didn't go through methodically like I had planned. Oh well, grats to the winners! Awesome job on Navi's part with the hidden clues.