666 Times 2

So I got tagged twice so I figured you bitches can have DOUBLE the fun!

•The rules are as follows:
•Go in to your image folder.
•Open the sixth sub-folder and select the sixth image.
•Profit! Publish.
•Challenge six more saps and link to them.

So yeah, like almost everyone else I don’t have 6 folders so I am just going to give you two pictures from each year.

My method, the 6th row, 6th picture down from the front, then 6th row over from the back and 6th picture up

Taken in HoL

Ah Blackrock Stout

Lyssi finishing Heroic UP for the first time

PPP leveling through Outlands

Hey look it is the shot I took for Ava a long time ago!

This was the first time I was far enough in the quest chain to channel embers and I promptly forgot.

Our first DW kill in SR

Non-Meme Reply post

Del over at The Den of Delerius had a post the other day about raiders vs raids or alternately titled: “Do you help the raid or does the raid help you? Do you help the guild or does the guild help you?”  Since I was mentioned in this post I felt that I should weigh in on it.

I also was chatting with him on gchat while he was trying to write it, but that is neither here nor there. 😉

My main is a blood elf warlock.  I love playing my warlock.  I think one of the main reasons I enjoyed my initial time with Shadow Rising was I got to just play my warlock.  There was no requirement that I transfer my druid and come heal.  I didn’t have to do anything more than kill shit.

I loved it.

There was nothing more complicated to worry about other than to make sure I was on the correct target and that I was moving out of the bad shit.

It was very refreshing.

On the other hand I have a Resto druid.  I fail at boomkin so she never dpses if I can help it.  This means that I am always healing on her.  Which is fine.  I enjoy tree healing.  The problem comes about when I get stressed over healing.  My guildies usually are pretty good.  It is when we get people who aren’t the most situationally aware in the groups where I flip out.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS BACON MOVE OUT OF THE FUCKING BAD!

That is all I ask when I heal.

Oh and stay out of my bubble.

That also applies to when I dps.

MY BUBBLE!  YOU ARE NOT WELCOME!

*grumble*

Now back to the original question.  Do you help your raid or does your raid help you?

I like to think that I help my raid.

When I am on my dps I do my utmost to be the best raid kitten I can.  I stay out of the bad.  I target switch.  I try not to do anything stupid.  If we wipe I am usually (not always) one of the last people standing.  I pride myself on my ability to not drive my RL crazy because I am not doing what they ask me to.  I just drive him crazy by doing things that piss him off.  😀 Totally different I promise! 😉

I love you Tir 😀

On my tree I just heal.  I am not actively trying to top the healing meters.  Most of the time I end up feeling useless because there usually isn’t much to heal in the 25 man raids (at least for me) and I end up with a metric boatload of overheals.  Despite all that, they love my heals.  I think it is the green stuff getting to their brains or something. 😉

Now given a choice, I will dps.  I have less stress while playing.  I can sit back and just enjoy the fun that is raiding.  Do I feel bad about this choice?  Sometimes.  As Del mentioned, if you have a character that can play a vital role (tank or healer) you should be open to using it.  I almost feel like I am not helping out as much when I dps.  This results in me telling the RL to just tell me what he wants me to bring.  This creates a back and forth with him (as in last night’s ToC 10 alt run) where I finally win and he picks which toon I am playing with. 😀

As I have mentioned before, I have an amazingly awesome guild leader who has told me that as far as she is concerned I don’t ever have to raid on my druid.  My warlock is my main and that is who will be brought on progression runs.  This has made me so happy I cannot even express how much.  This means that Lyssi will get to see everything and not get put on the back burner because she is dps.  This also means that I can push to level her to 85 first.

What will probably end up happening is I will level them simultaneously and just play one until the rested XP is gone then switch to the other.

I don’t feel like me playing my warlock is a detriment to the raid.  Yes I don’t exactly have a ton of buffs I give to the raid, but I do have my uses.

Our 10 man progression team doesn’t have a boomkin or an unholy DK (unless something odd happens and Tir comes in to dps) so I get to provide the 13% from Curse of Elements (which I fricken hate doing BTW) and the 5% buff from my improved shadow bolt.

Just an aside over the Curse of Elements.  When I have to provide it I lose 1k personal DPS.  Yes it is an overall raid increase, but those out there saying that your dps goes up too are full of shit.

Hell, I like to hand out underwater breathing.  Just because 😀

Ultimately I feel that you have to play what you have fun playing.  Even if you have an off spec that can tank or heal, if you don’t enjoy using it, then you shouldn’t have to use it.  It takes away from the fun.  It can also mess up a raid, but that is a story for another time. 🙂

The Syphilis Meme

Tam over at Righteousorbs.com started a Syphilis meme, aka a blog content exchange and I was given a topic:

Ooooh, I notice you’ve been PUGing a lot recently.  Bwahahaha.

In which case: What are your 7 Deadly Sins of PUGs, and how should those who transgress them be punished by the WoW gods?

Hmmmm, my deadly sins of pugging.  I had fairly decent PuGs on my mage this weekend, but the horrid ones on my druid are still fresh in my memory, so I will do my best to not be too too bitter.

1.  Running away from your healer.

Yes I know you are totally uber and leet and you don’t have to have a healer with you, because you know, you could totally solo heroic Halls of Reflection.  Who needs to make sure the healer is even in the same room?  You don’t!  You also don’t need to make sure the mobs are gnawing away on your healer’s face, because you are so leet the mobs will be dead before the healer does.  They can heal themselves, they will be fine.

First of all, if you DIDN’T need a healer then the group would be queued up without one.  There is a reason there is a shortage of healers.  It is you dipshits who ignore us, run away from us and allow the mobs to chew our faces off.  I will not heal you and most likely I will drop group.  If you keep running away from me then I know that you don’t need me and I will not waste my time playing with you.

Punishment – Being one shot by Hogger every time they log in

2.  Running so fast that you should have the final boss killed by the time everyone has zoned in.

OMG why is this taking so long?  We have been in here for a whole 2 minutes!  We should totally be done by now!  God you are so fucking slow!  I’m going to pull this entire instance in the first 5 seconds because my DPS is so awesome that I can just AOE the shit out of everything and then move onto the next instance and fly through it!

Not everything is better faster.  In fact most things are better savored.  No I am not saying that you have to take an hour to do once instance, but would it kill you to wait 30 seconds for everyone to be on the same page?  Faster pulls are sloppy.  It is one thing when everyone in the group is ICC 25 heroic geared, but shocking fact, NOT everyone is that geared.  Not everyone is doing 5-6k dps.  I know, I know, HUGE surprise, but there it is.  If the whole group is good for moving at lightning speed, then go for it.  If however your healer is 3 rooms behind you getting mana back because she had to rez the dipshit DPS that died on that last boss fight, then maybe you should WAIT THE FUCKING 20 SECONDS IT TAKES FOR HER TO GET MANA BACK!  Just saying.

Punishment – Every time they do a heroic they are stuck inside for an hour and they cannot zone out or log out.  The instance will always take a minimum of 1 hour no matter how quickly they try to go.

3.  Kicking low DPS.

Oh what a nub!  They are only doing 1k-2k dps.  They suck!  We should totally kick them!  They aren’t good enough to play with us.  Everyone vote kick to get rid of this fail dps! /votekick

Not everyone rolls into level 80 fully geared to the teeth in T10.  Some of us are still in quest/crafted greens/blues/purples.  We are running heroics to gear ourselves up.  We are not running them to mindlessly farm badges.  When everyone starts out in heroics they should be pulling 1k-2k dps.  If they are on the upper reaches of 2k, then they know their shit no matter what gear they are in.  Give the people a chance before you immediately kick them.  Remember you were here at one point too.  Or if you weren’t, then you were carried by your friends/guild and are a blight on the game, L2P.

Punishment – Every time they are zoned into a group they will be kicked out, no matter what dps they put out.

4.  Assuming everyone knows the fights, especially in the new dungeons.

The patch has been out a whole 2 hours, you should know this fight by heart.  There is no possible way you have never been here before so I am not even going to bother telling you anything about it.  You can learn by mutely following behind me, cause I am so UBER that I don’t really need you to know how to do anything in here.

Thanks to the new LFG system a lot of people who never did instances are dipping their toes into instances.  Many of these people have never been in even the most basic heroic dungeons.  What is routine and boring to you just might be brand spanking new and confusing to them.  This does not mean they are a bad player.  I did a regular HoL with a hunter this weekend who had never been there before.  When I let him know about the fire room and to put his pet on passive, he said he already did that and knew to do that before we went in.  He was a great hunter and knew what he should do even without having been somewhere.  He was not a “nub” he just hadn’t been in that particular dungeon before.  The guy knew his shit.  I’d rather run instances with guys like him and have to explain every fight than just be dragged behind some jerk who blithely assumes I know what the hell is going on.

Punishment – The tactics for every fight you do change each time you do them.  They are never the same and you never know what you will need to do.

5.  When running lower level instances you run them like you are an overgeared 80.

Why should I slow down and let the healer who has no mana regen get mana back?  The faster we do this instance the quicker we can level and the faster we get better gear!  No I don’t need to slow down, everyone agrees with me that faster is better.  No one but you is complaining!  Shut up and dps noob.

First of all, all healers have shitty mana regen until they are 80 and get gear with mana regen on it.  Most healers (not all I know) usually heal in dps gear when they are not 80.  They might have a piece or 2 of “healing” gear, but they really don’t have a full healing set.  This means that they will need to stop and drink after fights where they have to overheal because your dipshit ass pulled the whole room.  Not everyone is geared to the teeth at lower levels.  There is no reason for it because your gear gets upgraded too quickly for it to be logical and/or practical.  Just remember that you are NOT at max level or overgeared for the instance.  Stop and think, your groupmates will thank you.

Punishment – Anytime you do an instance you are stuck doing auto attacks or standing and not healing because you will always be out of mana/rage/energy/runic power and there is nothing you can do about it.

6.  Pulling more mobs when you are not the tank.

Man this tank sucks.  They keep marking the mobs when everyone knows we need to just dps them all down really fast.  I am going to go pull that group of mobs around the corner so we can kill them faster.  Stupid tank.

If you are not the tank then YOU DO NOT PULL!  No ifs, ands or buts about it.  I don’t care how slow the tank is doing things.  Maybe, just maybe, the tank is not geared enough to do those kinds of pulls with the overgeared DPS in the group.  Not all tanks are UBER upon hitting 80.  I have a guildie who is a fantastic tank.  However, she knows that she cannot pull the entire instance and hold aggro, so she marks and keeps a steady pace.  She gets yelled at for not chain pulling large groups.  This is not acceptable.  If you are in that much of a fucking hurry dps, then you can find another group.  Her favorite tactic when she gets jerks like that is to pull a huge group of mobs then leave group.

Punishment – Every time you go into an instance and start fighting, you will gain aggro on every mob and you will be unable to lose the aggro.  You will die every time.  Enjoy your repair bill.

7.  Not taking care of your healer.

I cannot stop chain pulling or we might not finish the instance in 30 seconds.  Well I cannot stop AoEing because my dps will go down.  So what if the healer has 6 mobs hitting them, they can heal themselves.  Interrupts?  What are those?  What do you mean the healer is dead?  Wait did the healer just leave?  Why would they do that?

KEEP THE MOBS OFF THE HEALER IF YOU WANT THE HEALER TO LIVE.  Healing generates a lot of aggro.  If a healer puts a HoT up on the tank right as the tank pulls, they can sometimes pull the aggro off the tank.  Sometimes when there are a lot of mobs and the tank doesn’t have great aggro on them all, the healer will be the next person they go to.  Some healers *cough* druids *cough* don’t have readily available offensive spells while in healing form.  When I am healing on my druid I cannot cast offensive spells unless I switch out of tree form, which I should NEVER have to do.  When the healer is being gnawed on by 20 million zombies they cannot get any non-instant heals off.  I don’t know about you, but my instant HoTs don’t heal a shitton right off the bat.  I need to use my 1.5 sec cast spell to pull off bigger heals when you are taking a lot of damage.  If I am being whacked around like a hacky sack then I cannot get that big heal off.  All it takes is for one DPS to get those buggers off me.  Trust me, the healers will love you for it and you won’t have to wonder if you are actually getting healed.  Because if you think you aren’t getting heals, then you most likely aren’t.  I know that I won’t heal stupid.

Punishment – No matter when or how many times you put yourself into LFG you will never get a healer.  You will never be able to run instances.

So those are the 7 deadly sins of pugging according to me.  As a return post for Tam – Since you are now on an RP server, how much, if any RP are you doing?  If you are RPing, what kind of characters have you created for your toons?

If anyone else wants to get in on this, you can either post a comment here or on Tam’s original post.

DPS Survey

So I did the healing non-meme thingy, now there is a DPS one out from (http://dkdeathgoddess.blogspot.com/) so here I go with it!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary dps?Millea, Affliction Warlock

 

What is your primary dpsing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Mostly 5 mans, although we have had enough healers lately that I have been able to go on the 10 mans.

What is your favorite dps spell/ability for your class and why?

I love Haunt.  I love how it sucks your life away, then gives me a nice big heal at the end.  The added buffs to my other dots is really nice too 😀

What dps spell do you use least for your class and why?

I’m going to keep in the affliction tree because there are a bunch of spells that I don’t use that the other trees do.  I am going to say Seed of Corruption.  I mostly don’t use it because I forget I have it.  I am so used to just spamming Rain of Fire that popping out a few Seed of Corruptions doesn’t come to me.  Although I am getting better at it.  We did a heroic Oculus run the other night (right after Ulduar mind you) and I used it on all those irritating whelps in the first part of the dungeon.  Seeing all those numbers flying up was awesome.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your dps class and why?

Our ability to be self sufficient, especially affliction locks.  I can life tap to regain mana, and then Haunt and the Siphon Life effect heal me, on top of my Fel Armor.  I routinely tell the healers that they usually do not need to heal me unless I have major aggro and am taking more damage than normal.  I don’t want the healers to feel like I am using their mana bar to refill mine.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your dps class and why?

 Affliction warlocks really lack the burst damage.  I will get put on things that have to die quickly, and I just cannot get them down fast enough.  I am built for taking you down one DoT tick at a time.  The longer I have, the more damage you have done to you.  Having me kill the bomb bots on XT just doesn’t work as well as one would think.  I am also not so great with the webs in Naxx.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best dps assignment for you?

The boss.  As I mentioned above, I don’t have burst damage ability.  If I can sit there and drain away on the boss, I will rock your socks off.  Don’t put me on adds, and I don’t have much raid utility (outside of imp sb).  I am made to kill bosses, and I do it quite well I might add.

What dps class do you enjoy dpsing with most and why?

I love me some elemental shammies.  Their delicious totems help with my dps big time.  I don’t like how they always pass me on the meters, but there are a few times I can beat them 😀

What tanking class do you enjoy dpsing with least and why?

Other warlocks and mages.  It is purely a competitive thing on my part.  I only like other warlocks if I can beat them.  I dislike how my damage sucks on the overall meter when compared to mages, but I LOVE how I usually beat them on the boss fights.  It does make them cocky though.

What is your worst habit as a dps?

Pulling aggro.  The rule is the lock has to die.  I somehow manage to pull aggro off the best tank.  I always wait before I let loose.  Hell most of my spells take a moment to even build up aggro, but I still manage to pull it off.  WTB better soul shatter.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while dpsing?

People asking me for a table, or telling me that my overall dps sucks.  People expecting me to have better burst damage.  I AM NOT A MAGE!!! FFS.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other dps?

I do.  We might not bring a lot of utility to the raid, but what we do bring is lots and lots of damage.  I usually am close to the top with overall damage on boss fights, where it counts. 

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a damage dealer?

I check recount.  I look to see how badly I am clipping DoTs, and my DoT uptime.  I look to see if I beat the mage and rogue.  (Nerf rogues please! :p)

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?

That I am a mage.  I AM NOT A MAGE!!!  Destro locks come close, the wannabe mages, but I am not destro.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new dpsers of your class to learn?

How to keep your DoTs in order.  How not to clip them, and how to keep them up.  Affliction is a lot easier than it used to be, but it still takes practice.

What dps class do you feel you understand least?

Rogues.  I dislike playing them.  Despite Andrew telling me how you just “Press 1, then press 1, then press 1, then press 1, then press 3, then press 1, then press 1, then press 4, then press 1 etc” I can’t get into their playstyle. 

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in dps?

Umm other than recount, nothing.  I know I am supposed to be using Omen, but I could never understand it, so I haven’t downloaded it.  The built in threat meter in the game works well for me.  I am sure Mis will be unhappy about this, but since he pulls shit on me while I am healing him, it is only fair game ^_^

Strength over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?

I love me some spellpower and haste.  They are oh so yummy.  The more spellpower the better.  Spellpower gives me the oomph I need and haste speeds up my casts.  The more haste I have, the more Shadowbolts I can get off before I have to refresh Haunt.

So I need to tag someone, ummm how about http://arrens.net/ and http://clearcasting.wordpress.com/

Go go!!

Meme that I stole

One of the other reasons that I wanted to start a blog was to be able to do all the nifty memes out there.  Now I wasn’t tagged to do this but I wanted to do it anyway!  So there!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Tatia, Resto Druid – Treeeeeeeeeee

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

Umm usually 5 mans or 10 man raids

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

This is a toss up between Rejuv, Wild Growth & Nourish.  I love Rejuvs because I can pop them up on everyone.  Wild Growth is a quick fixer until I can spam Nourish.  Nourish is a big heal and fairly quick.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? 

Regrowth.  For the amount it heals it just isn’t worth it to me to spend the time casting when I can get more heals faster from Nourish.

 What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Group heals.  I can heal a lot of you at once

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Tank heals on raids.  I have one cooldown I can blow to get a super heal if the tank takes a big hit, but I am better off healing everyone else and just giving back up HoTs to the tanks.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

I have only healed 1 25 man and it was the new fire boss in Vault.  I was put on raid heals with an OT to watch.  I think it worked out rather well considering I lived and my tank lived.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

Shamans.  Vel our resident resto shaman is an awesome healer.  Him and I have great healing synergy and can 2 heal many things that we should probably have 3 healers on.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Disc priests.  Our new disc priest Heleva is an awesome healer, but I am not used to allowing tanks to drop to such low health.  I know her bubbles are awesome at damage mitigation (they are :D) but my bars are down and it makes me panic and throw heals on people, thus making me overheal more than I need to.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Clipping my HoTs and spamming Nourish when if I was just a moment my HoT will have fixed the problem.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Tanks running off before I am ready.  Mis has admitted he does this just to fuck with me.  Pisses me off soooooo much, you can’t even understand.  I am not quite to where I will stop healing the tank, but I am getting close.  You hear that Mis?  The clock is counting down on you brat.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Oh most definitely.  I feel that trees are ideal raid healers.  This means that we work well with most other healers.  I haven’t had the opportunity to heal a 10 man with a holy priest (the “other” raid healers) so I might change my mind once I do, but for now I agree.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Did people live?  Seriously, that’s what I do.  When I first started healing I would bug people about how well I was doing, now I just rate myself on how many deaths I caused.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That I should be tank/OT heals.  That I can spam this giant heal fast.  I can do that once every few minutes.  Not exactly a great spam people.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

The rotation and what to gear for.  When I hit 80, even with healing regular dungeons, I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing for a rotation.  EJ was no help for me.  Luckily one of my guildies knew of a site dedicated to newbie trees and sent me there.  Here is the site – http://www.wow-pro.com/class_guides/jiyambi_tree_healing_guide

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Lots of overhealing.  I mentioned above why that is.

Haste or Crit and why?

Haste.  Yummy, yummy haste.  It speeds up my nourish casting time and in the new patch it is supposed to speed up my HoTs.  At least if I am reading that stuff correctly it is.  I do like crit, it makes my nourish nice and tasty, but I love haste more.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Priests.  I am not used to running with them so I really don’t have much experience with them.  I also cannot seem to level my priest at all.  So I don’t know anything more than what I read on people’s blogs.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

I use Healbot.  However the most recent update has removed my character picture and that of my target.  So I’ve had to disable it.  Pisses me off.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

Ummm I just know I am supposed to go Spellpower, Haste, Spirit, MP5, Crit, and I probably got that wrong too.  I use ratings buster which breaks down what each upgrade does for me, so I usually go with stuff that is more green overall.  Yeah I am really bad about my druid.  If this was my lock I could tell you right off the bat, not so much with my poor tree.

So that’s that.  Apparently I am supposed to tag some other healing blog so that they can do this.  The only problem is I am not really on these people’s reading log, soooooooooo me tagging them most likely wont do any good.  So whomever is reading this, if you have a healer, fill it out! 😀