Wednesday, December 11, 2013

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.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

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.