Ebb and Flo

So, yesterday, sitting at work, I was going through some old WoWInsider articles, and came across one from last June, an Art of Warcraft column talking about dealing with PUG battlegrounds. Most of it dealt with how to enjoy the experience, and not rage at it, and overall, was some really good advice. Most of it was redundant for me, things I’d sort of subconsciously realized and adapted to during the time where I was building my first PvP set, as it was the only way I could get any higher level gear, and that meant PUGS. It’s different in a battleground tho’, as there isn’t the rigid “this is how you handle this boss” attitude, and things are happening so fast, weaknesses of players (i.e., my own suck-age) are a lot less glaring, and so less likely to be commented on.

Looking back to then, I realized I’m in sort of the same situation. Back then, I was guild leader of a very small, tight guild, and raiding, even heroics, were beyond us. We were very PUG shy, when it came to instances, and my only real alternative was to do BGs, to get any sort of decent gear. Eventually, I ran into Repgrind, and found a high comfort level, and started getting into some higher level content. Eventually, my own guild fell apart, and I went to Crits, but left vs. right coast scheduling proved to make it extremely difficult to progress with them. Not long after, I decided to just take a break.

Now, I’m just a guild member, of a very casual guild, Moonlight Requiem, headed by one of the guys I work with. The guild is really just getting off the ground, but Caraway, the GM, is very good at getting people in. Most of the people I’ve met through the guild seem pretty cool, but I’m still finding myself soloing a lot. A big factor in that is the holidays. People have a lot of time off to play, and they’ve leveled at an insane rate. On the flipside, a lot of my play time has been sporadic, due to family aggro. It will be interesting to see now how it levels off, and what happens.

Doing a bit of introspection, I’m realizing that if I want company, I need to be more outgoing. LOL… not really my forte’, but hey, I’ll work on it. Looking at the big picture, Caraway has assembled what seem to be a really cool bunch of people, so in essence I have a “pre-screened” group.

Anyway, to get back to where I was originally going, I was musing on how far I’ve come. I started, unintentionally, on a PvP server, and used to gnash my teeth at the ganking. I moved to a PvE server, and once there, grew to really like PvP. Now I’m back on a PvP server, and while I still despise the random griefing, it’s more of a roll my eyes thing now, rather than real rage. And, full-circle, I’m back to taking refuge in the battlegrounds, this time for leveling as well as gear.

Originally, I’d planned on leaving Lajos over on Winterhoof, in Crits, but I’m starting to rethink that. I’ve got a perfectly good level 80 mage, well geared, sitting, doing nothing, and realistically, I’m not going to be spending much time over there. If I do, it’s not like I’m going to be in a position to run content. Basically, I’m just “keeping a presence”, and I’m debating whether it’s worth it. If I do a character move, I can bring money, heirloom items, etc. over that will make life a lot more productive on my current server, including leveling our guild.

And of course, I’ve got a guild bank over on Winterhoof, full of stuff that would be really useful. My DK sits as guildmaster, and the stuff languishes in an upper tab. Those people who stuck with the guild after the melt-down have given up and bailed, and I can’t say as I blame them. I just really lost my enthusiasm for WoW after the events of last summer. Now that I’ve rediscovered some of that enthusiasm, it’d be nice to profit from some of my labor.

Off To Battle

So, when I started my discipline priest, I told myself I was going to be leveling a lot in battlegrounds. Then I totally got carried away in some of the new quest-lines, and looked up, and I was at twenty, then thirty, then forty. Each time, I’d resolve to knock out about seven levels, then hit the BGs. Each time, I’d look up, and go “damn, I’m at level twenty-nine… and on a quest”, etc.

And then I found out, belatedly, about the new five-level brackets. Oh, REALLY???

So, at like level fifty-one, I started queuing up. With visions of Fiaked dancing in my head, I chuckled gleefully, prepared to enter battlegrounds, and wreak havoc…

… and in my first Alterac Valley, promptly got my havoc wreaked. Well, damn.

See, I knew the theory that a battleground healer has to avoid getting focused, hang back, etc. Well, a couple battlegrounds beat that theory into me very, very well. I didn’t realize that my guild tabard had a big bullseye painted on it. However, it apparently does, as I became a very popular target.

Ok, so time to regroup, and adjust. I did. It went better (relatively), and once I started getting a quick finger on Shadow Word: Death, I even picked up a few killing blows.  Those first few BGs, were just plain rough though. I’m getting better at picking a teammate, and just tagging along with him. Let me also say that while I was already something in awe of Fiaked, now I’m at the point of stuttering, remembering a particular WSG fight where he and I stormed the Horde flag-room, and commenced a 2-on-5-ish kill fest, him healing my mage. It ain’t easy, folks. Nothing prepares you for those first few waves of incoming red nameplates, all gleefully heading for YOU, and enveloping you in a constant wave of stuns, interrupts, and what-have-you, while you’re desperately trying to get off a Flash Heal.

Honestly, after PvPing as a mage, I know that in time, I’ll get better. I also know that I was sadly light on stamina gear (which I’m remedying).  And I’m sitting here at work plotting tweaks to my add-ons to give me better info. I’ve made it through three levels almost purely on battlegrounds. After that, I picked up wife-aggro, and had to adjourn to get caught up on Dexter. However, I expect to get 55 early tonight, and then it’s off to a new bracket. Since I’m (mainly) healing, I can still work effectively at the bottom of a bracket, since hit percentage doesn’t come into play. Now it’s a matter of getting to that point where things seem to slow down, and I can pay attention to things like cooldowns, dispels, etc. Time to start tweaking Tell Me When.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve noticed that things were tweaked in general in 4.0.x, so priests are still being dialed in. Whatever.  It will get better, and I’m going to just look at is as exercising with ankle-weights, so to speak. When things do get dialed in, I’ll be that much better off.

Adventures in Healing

So, from midweek, on through the weekend, I was fighting off the latest crud going around. In my case, it manifested mostly with wracking cough that by Thursday had my diaphragm in perpetual cramp, but I got the stuffy head, etc. Luckily, this was a quiet weekend. I spent most of the weekend playing WoW, which was a nice change.

I work on the principle of total immersion, so I’ve pretty much ignored most of my other characters, and concentrated on my dwarf priest, Coosh. Just to recap, I got him to Kharanos, did a bit in Loch Modan, and then headed to Elwynn, more to see how the quests looked than anything else. From there, I went out to Westfall, and got thoroughly hooked on the questline, which ultimately sent me off to Redridge, where, among other things, I got to do the new Bravo Company questline, which is a tongue-in-cheek Rambo parody, and an absolute blast. Cataclysm continues the BC and Wrath pattern of achievements for completing a certain number of quests in an area. I got the one for Redridge, which then sent me along to Duskwood, where I knocked out the quests for the achievement, and then happily headed for the new Northern Strangelthorn area, where again, I got the achievement.

A quick word on the new quests: so far, an enthusiastic Two-Thumbs Up. Gone are the “slay things endlessly waiting for certain items to drop” quests. Most amusing, to me, was the fact that the one quest where I had a low drop rate on a needed item was killing Murlocks, which are supposed to be irritating, so I view that as game-flavor. Along the way were some downright engaging quests, some reworks of old classics, and some very creative new ones.

Spirestone is a PvP server, so ganking comes as no surprise.  I’ve been pretty fortunate so far, only one real ass-hat encountered. My first brush with “the enemy” was out in Redridge, where I’d gotten myself in over my head with a pack of gnolls. Suddenly, I see the pillar flash and crash sound of moonfire, and a gnoll evaporates. I was in “keep alive” mode at that point, and another moonfire came crashing down a cooldown later, and I turned to see a Tauren Druid tapping away at a mining node. I bowed, and saluted, and sent off a /thanks, and was on my way. Example 1: Classy Player, can obviously squish me like a bug, but helps out the lowbie. In my opinion, the way it should be.

Yesterday, however, I was in Northern Stranglethorn, and I saw a rogue vanish. “Here it comes” I thought, and prepared to take my medicine. Sure enough, one shotted. The rogue did an apology emote, so I figured he was gonna leave it at that. I ran back from the spirit healer, and resurrected. Bam, one shotted again.Rinse, lather, repeat, a couple times.

Here we have Example 2: The No-Class Cork-Soaker. I truly have problems understanding this mentality. Ok, so a level 80 squashes a level 30. That’s not something to feel proud of, it’s just a fact of game mechanics. Once is someone feeling bored. Not a problem. But to repeatedly grief someone… that screams to me of a truly pathetic personality. We all play the game for rewards, whether it be satisfaction, challenge, whatever. What kind of person is rewarded by making someone else miserable? Or in this case, thinking they were making me miserable? I pretty much just rolled my eyes, then after the fourth or fifth time, went and got more NyQuil, sampled some of the wife and daughter’s baked goods, then returned. By this time, he’d gotten bored and left. No doubt an e-peen that tiny can only take so much self-stroking before they have to go take a nap.

Later, my guild leader (and co-worker) Caraway invited me to heal his group in an already in-process Maraudon. I was still a bit low for the instance, but he was pretty comfortable tanking, so no problem. After all, how could I resist a trip to see the hottest babe in WoW, Princess Theradas? I’d just gotten a point into Atonement, so I was anxious to see how effective using Smite to heal actually was.

By itself, not terribly effective, especially with melee DPS in the party. All too often, I watched the healing go to the rogue, not the tank. For the most part, I felt I did okay. Could have used more mana, and since I hadn’t been planning on running an instance, I didn’t have much to drink with me, but all in all, it went well.

Nick, in his usual fashion, is dithering around with 3 or 4 characters, but he’s out of school, so he should be able to get his pally up to near my level, so we can start chain running instances. Either that, or I’ll have to ground him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not So Cataclysmic Changes

So, a few months ago, I started taking a break from WoW, and playing Starcraft II, then discovered Minecraft.  Between that, and familial obligations and fun, I’ve let a bit of the WoW burn-out fade. I’m still not actually going to purchase Cataclysm until Christmas, as I can’t get it without getting Nick a copy, and I refuse to do a major purchase for him this close to Christmas. It’s a parenting thing, what can I say?

A couple of the guys at work are habitual “get expansion, play until tired of it, then deactivate until next expansion” players, and they’ve been urging me to jump in. One of the frustrating difficulties I’ve faced in the past was playing with East-Coasters, and then not being on in time to make the raids, etc. So, when the guys hunted up a new server, with a low ping, in Pacific time, I allowed myself to be dragged back into WoW-space, and logged onto Spirestone to create a character.

I considered doing my stock mage or warlock, but since this is going to (at least in theory!) be a group effort, and I haven’t really looked a the new talent trees much in months, I figured I might as well start fresh. I’ve been meaning to do a healer type for some time, so this seemed to be a good time to jump in with both feet.

Of course, conventional wisdom says priest leveling is best done with a Shadow spec, but that isn’t going to do much good when I need to heal party members. Oh, and did I mention that this is a PvP server? My first server was a PvP server, and getting ganked used to frustrate me beyond belief, but after my arena sojourn with Fiaked, I’m a lot more comfortable with PvP, AND was massively impressed with what a discipline priest was like in PvP, so I decided to go Disc, and a Dwarf, as a further nod to Fiaked.

Thirteen levels so far, and loving it. It’s a challenge, and yeah, I’ve died a few times, however, in every case, I could have been smarter about how I tackled the mobs. Basically, I wanted to see just how much I could handle. Three wendigos or trolls at once proved to be a bit of a stretch. For the most part, I haven’t had many problems.

Thus far, I’m enjoying plodding through the revamped quests. As a rule, I hate the dwarven starting area. I don’t mind hills, but for the quests, it makes it a pain, and much more effort than it should be. I’ve done some area jumping, dropping in on Elwynn, and then back out to Loch Modan. Frankly, I expect to do the majority of my leveling through LFG and PvP, and I’m in no hurry to do every new quest. Plenty of time for that. Right now, I just want to get to level 20 and get my mount, and then start checking out instances, old and new.

It’s going to be a fun learning experience. There’s not a lot out there about leveling a discipline priest, post-Cataclysm, and a lot of theory-crafting is still in progress, and a lot of that’s not going to be relevant until I have enough talent points to get farther up the tree anyway. Right now, I’m just happily mixing Mind Blast, SW:Pain, Smite, and Penance to see what works most efficiently, and getting used to my heals. Good times.

I’ve toyed with the idea of transferring my main, but I like being in Crits on Winterhoof, even if the time difference makes it a bit frustrating, so any decisions along those lines are going to be down the road… much as I’d like to get my heirloom gear over to Spirestone!