New Blog

Hello to anyone who happens by this blog.  If you are interested please check out my new Star Wars: The Old Republic blog called the Imperial Medical Corps.  Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you in a galaxy far far away.

UPDATE:  Imperial Medical Corps has shut down and a new blog is picking up at Eli The Gamer. Check me out over there for Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC gaming.

A Return to the Internet

Ah... life has been busy to say the least. First it was mid terms, then it was spring break and finally when I think I can return to WoW and blogging I have another hefty burden of real life to take care of. So I apologize for my absence and hope no one missed me too much.

Well it's Monday and I'm getting back in the swing of things so I hope to have some new stuff out soon and with life being so busy that I haven't had much time to play. I also don't think I will be to active on the PTR, wich is a bummer because I was really looking forward to tackling some new content before it released, but oh well. I'm sure I will get to it when it comes out.

Also last week lots of guild happenings occurred. For the past couple weeks the guild had been struggling to find itself, as to say that we had progressed nicely and were looking to be one of the top guilds on the server, then it suddenly dropped off. Attendance has been a problem, the raid leader has been inactive for a couple weeks and then he has decided to quit playing WoW... Our guild leader was debating about telling the guild what all happened, not sure if he ever did and since not that many guildies read this blog it's not to big of a deal to mention it here.

Because this is a blow to the guild. We have had a few officer talks about what to do and we need to regain our leadership. The guild leader has decided that promotions are in order. With that said, I would like to congratulate my brother on becoming an officer. He has quietly been gunning for the position as well as some others in our guild that feel they bring leadership to the table and will benefit the guild. But alas they did not get the job... maybe in time... but for now they will just have to be a raider.

Well anyway our guild is kinda stuck. However last weekend, that I unfortunately missed, was very successful and it would seem that our guild is getting back on track. I hope this continues and that we can get through this slump.

My only concern is that we still need to be recruiting and from the new faces that I have seen in the guild we are doing just that. We need to be recruiting because we haven't had the numbers we need to even field a full raid. And with that all the dedicated raiders that come every week, now have fresh or close to fresh 80's that they want to get in raids that we have on farm.

This is where my true concern lies. Sure we have content on farm and the player playing the fresh toons are good players that know the fights and everyone knows you can always carry some people in 25 man raids. BUT if we are only running with 21 or 22 people trying to carry alts will really cripple the speed and efficiency of the raid. It's really not worth it, they can only take one toon at a time. I don't want to waste extra time gearing someones alt. Maybe that's selfish and I am spoiled gearing myself twice since I am hybrid. But I can only play one spec at a time. I will talk about hybrids later, that's a whole other issue. I mean it's cool to have an alt and all, but please gear them on your own time in a pug or something. When someone is doing around 2.8 K dps on a main then they bring an alt in that only is doing 1.8k dps, sure they are doing good dps for only having blues, but that's a lose of just too much dps, imo. And that's all I am going to say.

It's Not Orange, But Close

I recently made a discovery for myself about the Bind on Account gear. Below I have everything listed with links and its only the PvE gear, so nothing from the wintersgrasp vendor. I thought this would be an interesting post. Most people have their main toons geared and ready for the next patch, or are currently gearing a lvl 80 alt. But for those of us that are slower to lvl an alt or want to start over or what ever, I am highly recommending the Bind on Account gear.

The shoulders grant a 10% XP bonus for killing mobs which is always nice for anyone lvling and you can't get shoulders til around lvl 20 and you can't get good shoulders til mid twenties at least.

Then for any physical dps class you can't beat a good weapon. Let's face it, having a good weapon lets you kill things faster but especially when you are starting out your abilities are pretty lame and cost more than they benefit in terms of downtime.

Of course for any caster I would hold off before getting the spell power staff or mace and just invest in as good of wand as you can and update it constantly. It will do far more damage per mana effcieny compared to casting spells.

Basically, these weapons though they aren't orange as in Legendary status but they are legendary for there lvl. I mean these weapons are godly compared to at level items plus it's a lot less work to get them.

Weapons:Bloodied Arcanite Reaper (2H Axe)Balanced Heartseeker (1H Dagger)Venerable Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge (MH Sword) Charmed Ancient Bone Bow (Bow)Dignified Headmaster Charge (Staff)Devout Aurastone Hammer (MH Mace)

Armor:Polished Spaulders of Valor (Plate)Champion Herod's Shoulder (Mail - Hunter)Mystical Pauldrons of Elements (Mail - Shaman)Preened Ironfeather Shoulders (Leather - Caster)Tattered Dreadmist Mantle (Cloth)

Trinkets:Swift Hand of Justice (AP Trinket)Discerning Eye of the Beast (SP Trinket)

I was messing around on an alt pally. She was decked out with bind on account gear (Bloodied Arcanite Reaper and Polished Spaulders of Valor.) Well I had just hit level 40 and trained plate. So I run to the bank and grab my Polished Spaulders of Valor and put them on, previously I had been using the mail hunter shoulders (Champion Herod's Shoulder) since I couldn't wear mail yet. Then I venture down to STV to do some more quests and come across a lvl 32 pally with the Arcanite Reaper, but also sporting the Polished Spaulders of Valor the plate bind on account shoulders.

WTF!! How is a 32 wearing plate? He road off before I could inspect him... so I send my shoulders to my bank toon who happens to be a lvl 1 pally. He was able to equip the shoulders. How you may ask? Well as it just so turns out when he put them on they were considered mail. Lame and now I feel like an idiot. I just wasted 40 emblems of valor on mail shoulders and leveled 40 levels with them on.

Luckily I have my shaman that still needs to level and since he is enhancement he will used them, but I still feel dumb for not figuring out that I could use the plate shoulders all along. This doesn't seem to be common knowledge because when I just started my toon and was about level 8 in Elwynn Forest I saw a low lvl warrior sporting the leather dps shoulders (Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders)

So for all those out there that want to lvl fast and efficiently farm the emblems on your main and hook your alt up. Go out and level and good luck.

Dreamstate Build Part II

It was a very successful weekend of raiding and with that came the very successful and thorough testing of the Dreamstate build. This past weekend I healed 25 man Naxx, Maly, and OS +2 drakes. We downed all the raids except OS +2 drakes because the tank had to leave early. We ended up having to settle with just doing OS +1 drake. All in all, it was a good test to see how the Dreamstate build holds up in raiding content.

I am happy to report that I found the Dreamstate Build to be raid viable. I was actually impressed and a little surprised by the results. It was like healing in a simpler time where druids didn't have an AoE heal. But, it was interesting nonetheless. I actually did more overhealing than usual because I was using regrowth more often as my primary heal. I was still rolling lots of HoTs off of members in the raid. I didn't really notice an increase in my healing but at the same time I didn't notice any decreases in my healing, except on Thaddius,a fight that I actually dps'd through half of.

In EoE the two healers that I was comparing my healing to were not there this week. But, I felt like I did maybe a little better than I usually do. Not sure if I actually did do any better but I didn't see any decrease like I thought I might before I tried the Dreamstate build.

Again I didn't have any mana issues but that's what the Dreamstate build is for. The increase to my Spell power was nice but not really necessary. I also did a little PvP with it, and granted I'm just a casual PvPer, I thought the build worked nicely. I probably would of tweaked the build a little and dropped the Tree of Life to get Natural Perfection or Living Seed because I rarely went in tree form as I favored casting Moonfire, Entangling Roots, and Cyclone. And my mana was never lacking which can sometimes happen in PvP because of my misuse of mana when I am spamming mana heavy offensive spells like Moonfire.

To conclude the Dreamstate build is viable and can be competitively used in raiding. It's even a nice change to my druid healing in a small way. I do like that I have options when it comes to healing and that a viable resto build can be different from the cookie cutter 11/0/60 build that so many druids have. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with the 11/0/60 build, I use one very similar to it normally but its a 14/0/57 build. It's just nice to have options. Heh, funny, I am talking about options on a hybrid. But really I tested this build to see that healing isn't just one spec or one tree and that it can be played around with. So I give the Dreamstate build my seal of approval and good luck to druids who want to try it.

Raiding 101

Ever since I started playing World of Warcraft it had always been my dreams to raid, to get online with a bunch of people and use strategy and coordination to take on something that one man alone can not. Don't get me wrong I do enjoy my days when I was an uber awesome Warrior in Diablo or my minion slavedriving Necromacer in Diablo II, and could take on Diablo solo. My fondest memories are watching my massive skeleton army get wiped out by one flame wave from Diablo and there I stand with only me and my golem thinking this is going to be a long fight.

But it wasn't until I started playing WoW that I had truly embraced MMORPG's, I mean battlenet on Diablo 2 was fun but it could not compare to WoW's online play. I choose to start playing WoW over Guild Wars because I had more friends that played WoW. Which looking back was a good choice because Guild Wars has kind of fizzled out after a while, or at least to me it did. But enough about me pre-WoW lets get on to the meat of the article: Raiding.

Although I didn't raid pre-BC and it wasn't until my sever transfer that I got into more raiding or at least into raiding more than just Kara, but it still has been a while ago that I started raiding. And for all of those who have been raiding for a long while, possibly and most likely on multiple toons, they may take it for granted. I hadn't realized until just the other day that there really are new players out there that have not had all the experience with raiding and therefore need to be briefed on the basics.

Step 1: The most importan part of any fight is listen to the RAID LEADER. The raid leader has most likely, except possibly in the case of a pug, done his/her research on the fight, by either looking up strategies, watching videos, or just learning from other raiders. This leaves them with at least a basic working knowledge of the fight. So when the raid leader asks if anyone has NOT done the fight do not be afraid to speak up. You are ten times, maybe even a hundred times more likely to be looked down upon for wiping because "you didn't know" than if you had told the raid leader, so they could explain the fight.

Step 2: If you do not understand the explaination of the fight, after it is given, do not be afraid to ask questions. It is a positive thing to ask questions for a better understanding so you are less likely to make a mistake that could cost the raid a wipe. Raid leaders will be more than happy to take a little extra time to further explain the fight.

Step 3: Come to raids prepared, early, and ready to go. This means have all your flasks, elixers, pots, food buffs, and reagents bought and in your bags. Be online and ready to raid an hour to half an hour before raid time. Most guilds hold a policy that when posting raid times the raid time corresponds to the time of the first pull. Have your gear enchanted, gemmed, and REPAIRED. Make sure you are spec'd to your main spec so the raid is not waiting for you to run to the old world to respec. And another note on spec's have your toon spec'd to there respective PvE spec. Do not come to raids with a PvP spec. You are gimping not only yourself but also your raid.

Step 4: Minimize the amount of time you AFK and how long you AFK for. Take into account that when you are raiding nine to twenty four other people are counting on you to be present and contributing to the raid. And don't think that just because it's trash it's okay to AFK; you can clear trash faster with everyone helping. In short commit to your raid come prepared in RL with drinks, snacks, etc.

Step 5: Don't stand in front of the boss. In general bad things will and can happen if you are standing in front of a boss. You may either get the tank killed or get your self killed. And a dead dps = 0 dps. It could cause a boss to parry and strike the tank more and also bosses commonly have some sort of cleave or cone like ability that hits anything in front of them. So stand to the sides or behind the boss.

Step 6: If it hurts you...MOVE! This can not be stressed enough. So many bosses and even trash have abilities that can be avoided by simply not standing in them. Yet more often than not people tend to lose focus and not pay attention and find themselves dead. Even if they do survive they are just wasting the healers time, focus, and GCD's to get their health back up.

Step 7: Maximize. This step actually goes hand in hand with being prepared to raid but stands to be emphasized. Maximize what you bring to the raid whether it's healing, damage per second, or tanking, be the best at what you do. Each person should know the ins and outs of their class if they want to be the best and if you don't know research it or ask a class leader or another player on your sever that knows. There is so much information out there you just have to take the time and read up on it. Also have a rotation that will maximize what you are doing. All the classes have lots of abilities but not all abilities are useful in maximizing. Same idea goes with spec, not all talents are good for raiding.

Step 8: Have a main spec. Sure it's nice to dabble in gear for different specs and its fine to collect off spec gear when content is on farm. But when it comes to progression stick to one set spec where the raid leader knows what you are and what they can count on you doing. And most importantly raid the spec you want to raid as. Do not feel confined to having to raid a certain way, because WoW is still a game and you need to have fun raiding and doing what you want to do.

This concludes the Raiding 101: first edition guide to raiding in WoW. Hope you enjoy and point new recruits to this post.

Ulduar and Me

I am sure most of us have ventured over to the WoW community site or to MMO champions to check on the little amount of info on Ulduar, which is the next raid that will be coming to Wrath.

I am very excited to check out the new content as are most raiders. Blizzard is saying that "Ulduar is the first example of the expansion's much larger, truly epic scope of raiding." This stance leaves me with high expectations of raiding in the the future of WoW. And on a side note Blizzard has went in a new direction of making most fights accessible to multiple class, i.e. not needing a specific class to do certain jobs because other classes can do it. Also making buffs more raid wide rather than just party wide lends to more or rather less class diversity needed. So no more will be the days of needing a specific person to do a very specific important job that if they mess up wipes the raid. I view this as good and bad. It is good that multiple classes can do given tasks so when guilds are lacking in diversity they can still successfully get through content. However some of the group makeup is lost in that you don't have to place certain classes with other class so they get the right group buffs. Plus there is no new trial by fires, so to say, of a new guy that has a very specific job. I guess that means the new guild scrubs are off the hook. Well not exactly because you can still mess up. But this is always minimized by LISTENING to your raid leader. Plain and simple, imo.

Forgive me I got a little off track. The first encounter is apparently one with vehicles, that scale with gear. So no more naked wipes, i.e. last boss in Occulus and no more equality of players' vehicles like in maly. This sounds like a very interesting encounter that I won't go into detail about because there are the links to them. Although it sounds interesting, I also have a little tinge of dread about it. As my raid leader and me have commonly went on Occulus runs just to entertain ourselves with how even decent players can devolve to total noobs when you put them on the back of a drake. Same goes for maly; even with our more or less skilled raiding core it is still not possible for them to all stay in a clump. They feel a need to spread out and loss coordination. We will see how this first encounter turns out to be. Maybe it will be a noob check to get really going in the instance.

The new raids most interesting concept is a hard mode on bosses. It is stated that eleven out of Ulduar's fourteen bosses will have a hard mode to them. The increase difficulty will reward guilds with better gear and more challenge to fights. This is an excellent concept. Right now 10 man content seems to be harder than that of 25 man. Which is a backwards deal because it may seem like smaller guilds can easily just stick to 10 mans but with increased difficultly in fights like maly and OS with drakes up, 25 man instances have a clear advantage. The saddest part is that after completing these difficult 10 man raids the rewards pale in comparison to that of 25 man content. In a nutshell, I am hoping that the hard mode will prove beneficial and help balance 10 man and 25 man content, but I think I am reaching in hoping that.

All in all I am excited about the hard modes on the bosses and am looking forward to Ulduar. Blizzard claims to have PTR testing up soon on patch 3.1 where they will begin testing on Ulduar bosses, Freya, Thorim, Hodir, and The Iron Council. I am hoping to find the time to get on the PTR and do some Ulduar raiding so I will be more prepared for the upcoming raid. I will encourage and invite my guildies to undertake this adventure into Ulduar with me. Plus the prospect of jumping into unknown territory with no established strategy is just plain AWESOME and hardcore.

Quotes and info taken from WoW community website and MMO champions.

Raiding on Holidays

Well unfortunately last weekend was more or less a flop. When Saturday rolled around we were surprisingly heavy on healers and short on dps. I took the opportunity to roll boomkin for Naxx. After the first pull our raid leader, who is also one of our stronger healers had to leave due to getting called in for work. Which left us even more shorthanded. We were trying to do Naxx with about 21 or 22 people and we were struggling. Early wipes on patchwork got people discouraged. I ended up having to step in and heal a few fights that were harder on our healers, but the stand-in raid leader didn't really want me to respec because for some bosses we could use the extra dps over healers. Needless to say I was a true hybrid in the raid and cursing that dual specs wasn't out.

Not only was the raid struggling but so to was I trying to heal with a strong balance build that skips over most the neat mana management talents. I still had Omen of Clarity, but with only two points into Intensity and zero points in Dreamstate; my mana pool was failing. I haven't felt this way since I first started raid healing. Normally when I am resto I hardly even need to Innervate myself yet I was having to pop it before the fight was even half over.

The moral of the story here is that raiding on holidays even the likes of Valentine's day can have disastrous effects. I hope to see things pick up next week and I still plan on field testing the Dreamstate build I have set up.