Friday, December 31, 2010

New Years Resolution: A New Year of World of Warcraft

The time has come around again where the calender year has come an end and we begin all over again. It has been quite a year for me personally. I began playing World of Warcraft on December 25th, 2009 and have curbed my addiction for it for over 369 days now. I have changed a lot since my newbie Blood Elf hunter days when I wore Intellect robes because I just liked the look better... Yeah.

Recently, I have jumped ship to a different guild. <The Empire> was a great guild with some amazing players but some of them knew they were good and they were beginning to go down the Officer Only 10-Man guild route. And since I was a 25-Man raider and not an officer I was not seeing much raid time. I was recruited into <Dead Cell> on US-Garona and we have had some great raiding times in the last week.

Baradin Hold
Pit Lord Argaloth - Defeated


Bastion of Twilight
Halfus Wyrmbreaker - Defeated

Valiona and Theralion - Undefeated
Ascendant Council - Undefeated
Cho'gall - Undefeated

Throne of the Four Winds
Conclave of Wind - Undefeated
Al'Akir - Undefeated

Blackwing Descent
Magmaw - Defeated
Omnotron Defense System - Defeated
Maloriak - Undefeated
Atramedes - Undefeated
Chimaeron - Undefeated
Nefarion - Undefeated

We are currently 4/13 bosses in the expansion and I have personally loved all of the boss fights I have been privileged to encounter so far. This is my first expansion and to be raiding successfully two weeks after the release is amazing. It is also the first time I have been able to experience Progression Raiding when the content was still new. I started raiding with Icecrown Citadel in June of 2010 with a guild that was to put it lightly, not so great. We were still wiping on Professor on 10-Man difficulty in September. I got my Kingslayer title in a Trade pug sometime in October. So this is the first time I have gotten to wipe on bosses and not be asking myself "Why do we keep failing, this content has been out for months". We spent about 6 hours wiping on Omnotron and Magmaw each over the course of two days. And never once did I personally get frustrated. Yes, sometimes we died to really stupid things. But every time I laid on the ground, awaiting a res due to a freak phenomena where I get stuck on the loading screen if I release, I would smile and think, we got it this time. And the moment those bosses dropped there were screams of joy and we were all so happy.

There is nothing more rewarding to a hardcore than downing that one boss that has been killing you for hours. All the 50 gold repairs, all the 200 gold flasks, all the buffs, all the bitching, all the blaming, all the Urghs! was worth it when that Bosses health reaches 0 and you see his death animation. You slump back in your chair and take a deep breath and think... Wow, that was amazing. And THAT is what I live for as a hardcore raider.

Oh yeah, and this.


Oh yeah, Shout out the 4th biggest fail-er in the raid, Nawder, "Best" Enhancement Shaman ever. :)

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Friends In Azeroth

I've made a lot of friends in this little video game that have somehow spilled into my daily routine of "Real Life". Bloonite of <Cute> has been a close friend of mine since I stumbled upon US-Garona. We didn't get along so hotly at first because of his cocky attitude. But eventually he grew on me. He has a sick, demeaning, sexist attitude that would turn me off in real life. Yet, we spend several hours a day just talking on Skype about the most random things. He is the friend in-game that will ask me to go do the most random of things. Below are two examples.



Above is him and I around Pilgrim's Bounty time as I was attempting to get to Orgrimmar to sit at their Food Tables. We dried several times after level 85 Guards came and decided they didn't like a half naked guy in bunny ears and 2 legendaries alongside a night elf in full Pilgrim Garb sitting around their tables. 


Also above is a pic of us sitting around inside of Blackrock Caverns after I had healed him through regular mode in complete Winter Veil garb through the entire instance (no one died).

World of Warcraft has a way of bringing people together in the oddest ways. Do you have any stories where you have met someone that has changed your life even though you haven't met face to face?

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Alt Character Blog

I decided that now that I have some downtime I'm going to start an Alt human paladin with the RP ideas that I've been having since I started playing. I didn't want to fill up this blog with Alt posts so I made a little side Blog that will hold adventures of my little side project. Her blog can be found at

http://LightofDawn2010.blogspot.com

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Upcoming Altoholic...?

The druid is coming on having her raiding gear ready. <The Empire> downed the first boss in Baradin Hold last night (without me sadly). And I am coming to the point where I will have nothing to do. I am not entirely sure what I am going to do when I get there at that point. I have about 4 low level toons that I have yet to start that I could play. Undead Priest, Goblin Mage, Human Warlock and Worgen Warrior. I have three other 80's that I could level to 85. Draenei Paladin, Draenei Death Knight and Draenei Hunter. I am currently stalking out Arcturis the Spirit Bear to tame on my Hunter. Or level my 62 Draenei Shaman. Or I could just mess around and do random achievements on my main. I'm really not entirely sure what I am going to do right now. I have yet to throw together my Boomkin PvP set since the new PvP season started yesterday. I'm kind of sad that it took such a short time to get to a point where I could get no more gear other than from raiding which my guild is not doing yet. I know I rushed to it so I would be ready but still :). I don't know exactly what I'm going to do yet exactly.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

A New Wave of Healing

Cataclysm has officially been out for a week now and boy has it brought some changes.

The first few days I spent leveling and reached Level 85 mid-Thursday afternoon and after I reached the item level 329, I went headlong into Heroics. At the moment, Heroics are absolutely terrifying to me. People are very relentless to heroes and if we wipe once, I end up getting kicked because I couldn't heal everyone as they stood in fire. My guild is very hardcore on my server so a lot of my guildies are raid ready already. I still have a few more pieces that I need to pick up before my BiS healing set is complete. So now that a lot of them are already geared they won't run heroics anymore. So I have two choices; either run with the lower class players who are on alts/are not very good or PuG the Heroics. 

PuGing... Terrible! A lot of the groups are all guildies except for me. The tank and the other three DPS are all in the same guild, probably in vent talking, and I am the cross server healer. They know each other and I don't them. So when the tank pulls and the Boomkin hits Starfall and breaks the CC's and the Paladin DPS has already pulled threat and I'm crying because my mana is already gone. There's a wipe. I'm kicked because I couldn't keep them all up. 

True Situation: I got into a Heroic Deadmines and they were already on Foe Reaver. I had just moved my UI around a bit so that my Forte (which shows my HoT ticks and Clearcasting Procs) closer to my Grid so I could actually notice when my Omen of Clarity or my Lifebloom Procced. We pulled and we one shotted it with no deaths. The tank never dropped below 50% because I had Lifebloom up on him at all times and used Healing Touch whenever my Clearcasting Procced. We pull the next trash. They pulled 3 miners and 2 bunnies and the Palli DPS Divine Storm'd and broke all the CC's, pulled Aggro and we died. Before I could even run back from the inside DM Spirit Healer to the Entrance I was removed.

True Stiuation: Death Knight Tank and Mage DPS are running together. We finally get the first boss of Lost City of Tol'vir down. The next trash mob the Mage pulls the group and Ice Blocks and they reset, this is after he is almost dead. He then begins to bitch at me because I didn't heal him through his pull. I kind of blinked in shock. It was the first time I had encountered a DPS deliberately pulling in a Heroic. He then bitched at me for five minutes about how terrible a healer I was and that I needed to quit the game and go back into the kitchen and then I was removed.

Moral of these stories. Be patient with your healers. Coming from a healer; these dungeons are difficult. And we are also dealing with new mana issues. I used to be able to Rejuv everyone, throw Wild Growth out there and then go AFK. Now if I put out 5 Rejuv's I lose 28,000 mana. And if I look away from my Grid for more than six seconds the tank is dead. Now my three main heals are Lifebloom, Healing Touch and Nourish. ALL of those heals I NEVER used to use ever. So as a Resto Druid I am learning a new form of healing. And to kick a healer just because of a wipe is kind of ridiculous. Not only that but most of the raid damage is completely avoidable. So 99% of the time you are doing something wrong. And if there is unavoidable damage (Grand Vizier Ertan's Cyclone Suck In or Lord Godfrey's Strangulation) use your personal cooldowns to help with healing. I personally now have Barkskin on my main bar and use it often. Be patient with us, we're learning. And don't be a deliberate dick... Us who are trying to gear don't have time for it.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Hard Modes Are Hard...



I hit level 85 early yesterday afternoon and I was at ilvl 329 within a few minutes after I emptied out my Justice Points and I was running headlong into heroics. And man are they freaking scary! Mobs have 1.2 million health a piece. And my mana is gone almost instantly. My Rejuvenations are 5,593 mana per cast. I have about 80,000 mana buffed. Which means I have about 12-15 casts of Rejuvenation per pull before I am incapable of casting anymore. This is SO very frustrating! I have for the meantime switched over to Boomkin for randoms (and paid the price of 45 minute Que times) until I have some better gear and some more intelligent groups.

<The Empire> went into Baradin's Hold and Blackwing's Decent late last night in a random 10 man to see how the raids kind of are. Oh my god! We got the first boss in Baradin's Hold (this raid is Cataclysm's VoA) down to 8% when we kept hitting the Beserker timer. That boss is reasonable after the first few tries. But Blackwing's Decent... Oh... my... god... We wiped 12 times... TWELVE! on the two guardians of Magmaw... That's trash! The only reason we downed them the last time was because we had killed one and the other enraged killing all but two of our raiders. Our epic warlock, Debriatus, kited the last add at 8% and dotted him as our resident epic Enhanc Shaman, Aephix, chased after him and Flame Shocked him to death. We cheered and laughed histarically as we were excited to have finally downed the trash boss! As we looted him we found they dropped 20g, giving us 2g a piece. Debriatus, excited calls out "I don't know about you guys but that covered my repair bill!"

We then wiped several times on Magmaw, getting him down to 89% at the farthest, and said "fuck this". And called it a night.

Moral of the story. I am definitely gearing up now! I have about 6 pieces collected already that are my BiS. Helm, Neck, Cloak, Chest, Belt and Boots. I would have more but Heroics are still fairly difficult to down in pugs. I have some serious work to do!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

In the Last 24 Hours

Oh my gosh! Is anyone loving Cataclysm as much as I am!?

This expansion has absolutely blown me away and it has only been 24 hours into it! We still have about two years left of it and so far I am looking forward to every second of it! Server first was finished at about 10 or 11 hours after the initial launch and went to Scorchr, Level 85 Mage, <Edge> of US-Garona. And they began to slowly pour in after that. I leveled from 3 a.m. to about 8 p.m. (so about a total of 17 straight hours) and am currently sitting about 20% into level 83. What can I say, I'm a really slow leveler because with mobs with 50k health it takes me forever to kill anything.

I love the new zones! I went to Mount Hyjal first and after you got passed the people who were being jerks (to all those who get on giant ass Proto-Drakes and sit on quest givers, gratz, you have no life at all) and began to phase people out it was really enjoyable. However, it started getting repetative about the 90 quest mark and I couldn't wait to get out of there. Then I continued onto Deepholm and man that place was beautiful. Gorgeous zone and really cool quest line. Then it was onto Uldum where I settled myself for some well deserved rest for my tired little bird wings. I started the expansion with about 900g after I bought the flight license and all of the new Enchanting/Jewelcrafting recipies and logged last night with 2,100 gold. So, the quest reward money is some GOOD stuff :D. I will be doing the grind to 85 tonight and will probably be there on Thursday if I am forced to sleep in the middle of 84. (There's a total of 9.1 MILLION exp in just level 84 to 85 alone!). Pic of me dinging soon to come!

The dungeons are VERY difficult. Not difficult in a Sindragosa way but difficult in a Lich King way. I love them! They're not face roll anymore. You HAVE to move from things or you're going to die. You can't just stand and heal through things because things one shot you! Trash pulls in The Stonecore made me go OOM when several phases of Lich King didn't do that! I don't do them very often, about once per instances for the quest experience. But they are beautiful instances with awesome boss encounters. RAZ SMASH!

So in the meantime of waiting for Cataclysm to launch and sick of looking at my 0.9 fps in front of the Stormwind Flight Master I decided to do some calculations! Below is a list of my personal choices from Best in Slot Restoration Druid gear list to head into the first raid tier with. (Relic not in the calculations because I'm a dork and spaced on that little thing!) After looking them over, am I glad I capped my Justice Points!

Helm - Cluster of Stars (2200 Justice Points)
Neck - Quicksilver Amulet (Karsh Steelbender (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Shoulders - Mantle of Bestilled Winds (Altarius (Vortex Pinnacle Heroic))
Chest - Robe of Forgetfulness (2200 Justice Points)
Waist - Thatch Eave Vines (1650 Justice Points)
Pants - Leggings of Late Blooms (2200 Justice Points)
Feet - Awakening Footfalls (Anhuur (Halls of Origination Heroic))
Bracers - Armbands of Change (Corla (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Hands - Deep Delving Gloves (Slabhide (The Stonecore Heroic))
Ring - Red Dragonheart Ring (Battle of Life and Death Quest Reward (Twilight Highlands))
Ring - Diamant's Ring of Temperance (Therazane Reputation Reward (Revered))
Trinket - Witching Hourglass (Lord Obsidius (Blackrock Caverns Heroic))
Trinket - Tear of Blood (Azil (The Stonecore Heroic))
Main Hand - Biting Wind (Ertan (Vortex Pinnacle Heroic))
Off Hand - Prophet's Scepter (Neptulon's Cache (Throne of the Tides Heroic))

Total stats. This includes all of the gear stats, all of the best enchants, and all of the gems with some of the socket bonuses. Buffs, talents and initial starting stats not included. This is strictly what the gear will give me. Also does not include the Procs from Weapon Enchant/Trinket. This includes no Jewelers gems but the two ring enchants.

Intellect - 3,678
Spirit - 1,052 (8.79 MP5)
Haste - 1,757
Crit - 6.4%
Mastery - 3.20%
Spellpower - 5,476

Total Mana from Gear - 70,911

Woah! That is A LOT of mana! Considering my druid went through most of Wrath of the Lich King with 24,000 max when we stacked Spellpower and not Intellect. I also have all of the Intellect talents (Furor increases maximum mana by 15% and Heart of the Wild increases total Intellect by 6%) and those aren't even in the calculation of total mana and neither are buffs like Mark of the Wild and Arcane Brilliance. All in all I haven't even gotten to the first raid tier and my best in slots give me about 85,000-90,000 mana. And I'm going to need it since the recent nerf of Druids awesome mana regeneration and the increase in mana costs to all of our healing spells.

Monday, December 6, 2010

New Resto Leveling Guide and BiS Posts on Elitist Jerks

It's Monday night, I've been waiting 6 days for Allison over at WoW Insider to post a Restoration leveling guide as she promised at the beginning of the Feral leveling guide. But alas, it's come up a bit short seeing as I kind of don't wanna read it 3 hours before Cataclysm is actually set to launch. So I went over to Elitist Jerks and began sniffing around the Druid Forums and found the two posts already up!

http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t107636-resto_guide_updated_cataclysm_release/ - This is a very indepth look at Trees in Cataclysm. This will give you everything from Talents, to Glyphs, to what Stats to specific enchants for pre-raid gear.

http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110101-resto_cataclysm_pre_raid_itemisation/ - This is a long list of our best in slots from heroics. These are the items that you want equipped before you tackle your first raid boss.

Cataclysm is going to be very interesting for some people. Heroics in Wrath of the Lich King dropped epics and if you had a Blue or Green item going into one of the beginning raids you were kind of laughed at. Heroics in Cataclysm don't drop any epics, it is all superior level gear and you are expected to go into the beginning Cataclysm Raids in full blues unless you craft some epic gear.

Stats: We're still going to be stacking Intellect all through Cataclysm. We stacked Spellpower a lot in Wrath but now SP is gone except for on weapons/weapon enchants. Our Spellpower and some Crit comes from Intellect now. For every 1000 Intellect you have you get a 2% crit chance so if you have about 3,000 Intellect you will have about 6% just from stacking Intellect. You want to be Haste capped as well. 915 is the magic number to get an extra HoT Tick on Rejuvenation. That isn't really a big number and with the huge stat increases on gear it shouldn't be a problem to hit the cap.

Reforging: If your gear doesn't already have Haste on it, reforging Haste is your priority. After you reach 915 haste it's between Crit and Mastery. Some columnists have said that Spirit is viable for us now but the mana regen is so incredible low I try to remove as much Spirit from my gear as I can since I see no personal use for it with my play style. Oh, and I have Innervate for that. :)

Gems: Again, all Intellect except our meta requires two yellows that means you need two yellow, orange, or green gems somewhere in your gear (probably two that have a red and yellow socket bonus) to get your +54 Int and +2% Mana bonus. What are we!? Paladins!?

Gear: There are very few items that are actually bought with Justice points that are our best in slot items. A lot of them are actually World Drops, which sucks because it will be overly difficult to farm anything with hundreds of others killing mobs for quests. If you're a Resto Druid however our BiS Gloves are rewarded from Hyjal rep and our Head enchants are Hyjal rep as well. So I guess I'm not questing in Vashj'ir like I had first planned.

Thanks to those at Elitist Jerks for taking the time to make these lists for those of us who weren't in the Beta! Really gonna help me when I'm gearing up for opening raids!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Flame Leviathon (Orbituary 10-Man)


As promised the Ulduar 10-Man Drake Achievement run. Ignis the Furnis Master will not be in the line-up because we skipped him. XT-002 Deconstructer will not be featured because my awesome friends pulled without me actually being there. And Yogg-Saron was not downed do to multiple people randomly DCing or leaving after only 4 total attempts. So, no video of me flying around on an Ulduar Proto like I had hoped but we killed Algalon on our third try and got the group Starcaller. Oh, and I got the Planitarium Key. All in all amazing run I had a lot of fun and I thank everyone in and on US-Garona that came and helped us out to get these achievements and hopefully we'll see Yogg fall one day! Lich King kill video tomorrow and we roll into Cata. See you all there!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Blood Prince Council (Boomkin Perspective)


One of the few times you will ever see me as a laser chicken! I generally only go to my DPS off-spec when I am soloing random dungeons or questing through levels, however a friend of mine who I allow play my Druid to PvP with (hey, free honor!) ended up saving her on Tuesday so instead of healing my own guilds all Heroic Frostbrood Drake run... (anime vein >..<) I went back in for him and downed some more bosses. Look at my awesome Crits bro!

Friday, December 3, 2010

WoW Insider Show Questions: My Answers

I'm sitting here listening to the WoW Insider Podcast and their talking about Cataclysm.

What Are You Doing For Release Day?: I have already bought the online version of the game and will be sitting in the warmth of my home awaiting 3 am for the content to be released. I live in the middle of nowhere and would have to bother my Grandmother to drive me down to the store that is 20 minutes away just for a video game. And it's December in New York so it's going to be -10 degrees. So, I'm gonna be doing the digital download thing so I can play the very first second that it is available.

What Zone Are You Hitting First?: Ann is doing the same thing I am just sayin'! I am however going to Vashj'ir personally because I have read several blogs that say the reputation in that zone is better for Druids because the rep enchants are better. And I kind of wanna get my Abyssal Seahorse right off the bat! :D And water combat is something that I haven't gotten to experience in game yet and I would enjoy making Cataclysm about new experiences. Then Deepholm is next on the list, I have no reason to go to lower places twice when I can level faster. Then Twilight Highlands will be last on the list. I will then go back after I have gotten the Blue gear and do the other quests for money and green's to DE and what not.

What Is Your Favorite Change About The Shattering?: Hmm, I haven't done a lot of things that have pertained to the Shattering actually. I haven't gone and seen a lot of the changes in the zones and I haven't done any of the quests. I HATE questing with a passion and only do it when I need to level. I really to be honest didn't care about the changes because I'm to pumped with the new content that's almost here. The one thing that I do like about the Shattering is the dungeon quests. You had to go to zones to get quests to go into dungeons and then run back and if you picked the higher ones like me to level faster then you missed out on a lot of cool quests. I like how they have added the new Quests immediately entering the instances and the changes to Stockades. Hogger being the final boss, awesome! 

Does anyone else wanna smack Matt and tell him to stop saying Scourge incorrectly?

What Class of The Two New Are You Going To Play First?: WORGEN! That isn't even a question. I am strictly Alliance on US-Garona. And honestly, Goblins have never interested me much at all and neither has much of the Horde anyway. My druid is going to be race changing to a Worgen as soon as I have the funds to do so. But I have my Fury Worgen Warrior's name already saved and I cannot wait to finally be something other than a night elf! If I could pick ANY other race than a night elf on my druid than I would have in a second honestly. I really don't like the night elf models but that's just my personal taste.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Halls of Lighting [Test Video]



Just finished my first upload. This was a test video that took place in Halls of Lightening with a PuG. It looks STUNNING in full screen in 1080p. I am shocked that this is free software. I cannot WAIT to start using this in Cataclysm! Big shout out to the makers of Hyper Cam 2. I had little tweaking to do all I did was bump up the FPS to 5.5 since it seemed to run a little slow on my computer and it was off I went. I was a little afraid of the graphics in the playback since it seemed to stick a bit in the Windows Media Player but once it was uploaded to Youtube and played on Full Screen in 1080p quality it looked as though I was watching a replay of my screen. Extremely amazing quality and software in general, don't watch it unless it's in 1080p or your missing out on a lot. If you have any questions about my character or add-ons in general leave a comment. Suggestions are welcome too. A friend of mine is taking me to an Ulduar 10-man to hopefully get the drakes before it's WAY to faceroll and I will sure as hell be recording ALL of it! Hope to see you there!

What I Am Doing Before Cataclysm and What I'll Do First Thing

There are only five more days (according to WoW Insider) until World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is released onto the world. And there are a few things that I am doing before the Official Launch.

Capping Justice Points: I am running Wrath of the Lich King Heroic Randoms until I am about ready to puke. I am working on getting 4,000 Justice Points before the launch. Being able to buy two or three pieces of Heroic Blue gear right out of 85 will be exceptionally useful. I am also getting Exalted with the six Alliance factions through the new experience tabards which is a welcome addition since raising city rep was always a pain.

Applying to Raiding Guilds: I am not currently in a hardcore raiding guild and am shopping for one. Raiding has always been my passion so a guild that will eventually get into Cataclysm hardmodes and Achievement Runs is something I am looking for. Currently, I am waiting to hear back from <Edge> of US-Garona, the top guild on my server and currently #13 in the world. I'm not really expecting anything to come out of it personally but it doesn't hurt to try.

Researching Cataclysm: This seems like a no brainer but I love looking up new things that are coming up in the expansion. Currently, I am watching healing videos about the newest Heroics and Raids.

Selling Everything In My Bags/Bank: Once Cataclysm is released all of the old gems and materials are going to be completely worthless. So I am clearing out my personal bank and alt bags to make as much money as I can before the new content hits. Working on getting at least 4,000 gold so I can get Epic Flying before Cataclysm on my main.

I have thought long and hard about what I am going to do once I get into the actual expansion and when I actually got around to thinking about it there are a hell of a lot of things that I need to do!

I am personally going to be logging out in Stormwind right in front of the Flight trainers. I am going to pick up the Master Flying Licence, Illustrious Grand Master Enchanting and Jewelcrafting and Apprentice Archeology before I set out for Cataclysm. I ended up leveling my two Primary Professions long after I had hit 80 and started raiding and ended up spending way over 12,000 gold on them together, so I will be leveling my professions as I level my character this time around. Then I am going to head out to Stormwind Harbor and make the trek to Vashj'ir to begin leveling to 85.

Needless to say Cataclysm is right around the corner and we are ALMOST there. It has been many months since I have needed any gear from raiding and have spent to much time reading trade chat so it will be a welcome pleasure having something to work towards again. So I ask you, what are you doing to prepare for Cataclysm and what is going to be your first mission when it finally hits.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Introduction: A Little (Lies!) About Me

Hello and Thank You! for finding my little corner of the internet about my World of Warcraft obsession. I wanted to make the first blog post all about me! Well no, that isn't exactly how it was intended but I figured if you're going to take the time to sit and read about my opinions on Restoration Druids in the upcoming expansion why not know a few things about me that made me decide exactly why it is that I play.

My main toon in World of Warcraft is EraƮna of <Pondera> on US-Garona. She is a level 80 Restoration Druid and my second of four total 80s. My first level 80 toon was leveled in March of 2010 and was a Unholy Death Knight. Needless to say, I realised quickly that melee DPS was not the gameplay for me. I was terrible to say the very least and got carried through absolutely everything that I have and I am not afraid to openly admit that. I eventually rolled a Druid after a few months of ridicule for being terrible by both friends and guildmates and I fell in love.

I am by far not the best Restoration Druid on my server. I will never admit to that since it would be a lie, which is kind of why I wanted to make this blog in the first place. I am not exceptionally gifted, don't have access to awesome perks of PTR's or Beta-testing, I am just average like a lot of WoW players are but I love and know my class and I top healing charts 90% of the time. With the new expansion coming up I wanted to make a place where I can talk about the changes and challenges of World of Warcraft as a whole with a slight biased towards Resto druids.

I began playing initially around March of 2009 where I rolled my first toon after playing the one week trial. My first toon was a blood elf hunter named Bloodwings on US-Galakrond. This was back when I was guildless, when it took me a month to get from level 10 to level 20. When I wore cloth robes on my hunter because it was prettier to look at. Back when you had to PuG Blackfathom Depths in Trade Chat and when PvP didn't weild any experience. Oh, nestalgia. Eventually, after a fall out with a guy that I spent a lot of time in game with and September rolling around (school) I decided to stop playing. (Update: In October of 2010 she was Realm Transfered, Race Changed and became my 4th level 80 and first PvP toon!) Eventually, I met another guy around December of '09 that played WoW and I decided that I would put WoW back on the new computer I had ordered for Christmas. He brought me to US-Garona where all of my toons reside now (and he quit a long time ago) and I have had a rollercoaster ride over the past year.

My Restoration Druid dinged 80 on June 06th, 2010 at 11:12 p.m. ST inside of Halls of Stone. I initially made the druid so that my previous guild could bring me on something other than my Death Knight. She was in full T9 and raiding ICC10 six days after she dinged because I spent six sleepless nights running Heroic after Heroic to get all of the Badges of Triumph to get my 5-Set and all of the other over 200 iLevel item that vendors in Dalaran sold. I have been raiding for a total of six months now and I have a Kingslayer title, a 3222/5939 Gearscore and a toon that I love. And now, with only six days away from the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, my first expansion, I will be starting all over again.

This blog is going to be pretty simple hopefully. I will be writing about things that I find in-game that are interesting, I will probably complain about how Blizzard nerfs us constantly and /cheer when we get awesome buffs. I will be writing about my personal experiences with leveling, raiding and over-all gameplay throughout the expansion. And I will be writing about other things such as Guilds, Realms and just randomness that I experience through my own personal playtime. I wanted to write this blog for the simple fact that sometimes it's really hard to get into some blogs out there because they have so many perks (like Beta testing for starters) and other things that normal WoW players may never experience. So why not try it out by just being a normal player like most?