I just wanted to share the amazingly awesome event that happened to me and two friends last night. Two "real life" friends and I queued up for normal Forge of Souls. I was playing on Deedlet in her new healing spec, and my two friends were both recently 80 paladins, one a tank and the other ret.
The group we pugged into contained two other ret paladins. It was a group of all paladins! We completed the instance in good order and would have gone on for more if it wasn't so late. The whole time I was cracking up every time I glanced at Grid and saw all pink boxes.
In summary: Paladins rock.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Many Roles
Last time I talked about tanking with different classes. Today I'd like to talk about branching out in a different way: Trying out each possible talent tree for your characters.
On Honani, my main, I've filled every role a druid can fill. I've found that I dislike Boomkin, because I like to be up front and in the action when I DPS. I've healed extensively, and now I tank and kitty DPS as my main two specs. I feel like I have a very solid understanding of all that a druid can do, and I think it has greatly benefited my playstyle.
On Deedlet, my second level 80, I have both tanked and DPSd, and am now building a healing set. I want to try out that last talent tree just to see what it's like. Who knows, what if I really love healing as a paladin? And it seems a shame to have a level 80 character and not try out everything they have available.
On the other hand, during BC, I played a rogue named Jiyambi and never set foot outside of combat daggers spec. She's assassination now, but I've never ever seen the subtlety tree. If she ever gets to level 80, I hope to grab a duel spec and make a PvP spec just to try out that last tree.
Do you find it fun and interesting to try out many different options for your characters? Or do you pick one and stick with it? Have you ever been asked by your guild to change specs only to find that you really like your new one?
In other news, I am hoping to work on a new guide this weekend. We'll see if I manage to finish it!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Tanking: Druid vs Paladin
I've recently begun tanking on my paladin again, to take advantage of the daily frost badge random dungeon in hopes of purchasing some yummy [Primordial Saronite].The first thing I noticed when switching to her is that her gear really, really sucks.
The second thing is that paladin tanking is a whole heck of a lot different from bear tanking.
Luckily I was with guild mates, so while it was still horribly embarrassing when mobs went running lose among the group, I at least didn't get yelled at and called a noob... well, they called me a noob, but I like to think it was lovingly.
I thought I understood paladin tanking pretty well. 9-6-9-6-9, right? I even had a fancy addon to help me fail less. And my original tanking experience was on my pally. But I've found that transferring from druid AoE tanking (which uses all of one button) to pally AoE tanking (in which you actually have to target different mobs and build threat on them) is a big jump. And pretty much every trash pull is an AoE pull these days.
The main tank in my guild has a level 80 tank of every tanking class, and plays each regularly. How he manages to switch seemlessly from one to another is beyond my comprehension. I will say that, as a main spec healer, playing tanks has brought me some very useful insight into the tools available to those I heal.
What about you folks? Do you play a tank? More than one? If so, do you find it challenging to switch between them?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Non-WoW Guild Activities
Hi folks, yes I know it's been a while.
Before I get into today's article, I want to brag again that another of my guides is up on the WoW official site, this time my favorite - the tree healing guide. Of course, it's company on the site include several guides that have not been updated since before BC came out... but what can ya do.
Today I want to mention some fun stuff that my guild likes to do that is NOT involving WoW. I know I talk a lot about my guides on here, but I want this blog to cover a wide range of things related to WoW - the nearest and dearest to my heart being guide writing, raiding, tree healing, and guild management.
With that in mind, today I'm going to talk about incorporating non-WoW-related activities into your guild.
An Example
As my long-term readers probably remember, I help to manage a very small, dedicated raiding guild called Fianna. The guild is very close - I consider these people to be some of my best friends. But most of us just can't handle raiding for more than two or three nights a week. Still, we want to hang out and spend time together over the internet.
Luckily, most of us also love tabletop RPGs, such as Dungeons and Dragons. So I decided to start up a weekly D&D group, using vent and an online map program called MapTool. This was immediately taken up by many others in the guild, and we now have weekly gaming sessions, trading off DMs each week so no one gets too sick of it and so they have time to prepare. So far it's been a big hit, and its a great way for us to "spend time together" outside of WoW, but without having to drive hundreds of miles across state and country lines.
Choosing an Activity
First, you need to find out a common interest that many of your guild mates share, and it needs to be something that can be done online with multiple people. Do they all like Diablo or Starcraft? Perhaps a different but much more casual MMO (for a while a bunch of my guild mates got into the silly MMO Maple Story)? Even simply online games such as online card games or the kind of thing offered from Yahoo or Aim could be fun. Think of things you might play at a party, such as scrabble or pictionary - there are online versions of these as well. Perhaps your guild is intellectually inclined - you could have a guild book club or debate. Maybe your guild includes card players, either of the normal variety or of specialty card games like magic.
Setting up Your Event
Whatever the case, you will most likely be able to find one or two things that a lot of people enjoy. Once you have that, it's simple. Find a time that won't conflict with your guild's other activities and set up your out of WoW activity. I use the in-game calendar for mine, or you can use your guild website if you have one. If you aren't an officer, make sure you clear your activity with the guild management before setting it up.
One note - be careful to be fair in your invitations, but also be cautious of the number of people you invite. If you have a large guild, inviting everyone may not be the best idea. You don't want to end up with a huge crowd of people and not enough spots in whatever activity you have planned.
Running Your Event
If your event requires preparation (such as a D&D game does), make sure this is done as much as possible ahead of time. There's nothing worse than sitting around waiting for something to start. Your guildies will become cranky and everything will just be a little less fun. During the event, try to be fair to everyone and give everyone a shot at the fun. How to do this varies greatly depending on what type of activity you are doing, so I won't go into details.
Planning for the Future
After the event, talk to your guildies. Find out if people enjoyed the event and ask for advice on how to improve it. If it sounds like people had fun, put another one on the calendar. Be honest with yourself - if people didn't seem to have fun, try something different next time!
Well that's all I have for today. Have fun with your guilds!
Before I get into today's article, I want to brag again that another of my guides is up on the WoW official site, this time my favorite - the tree healing guide. Of course, it's company on the site include several guides that have not been updated since before BC came out... but what can ya do.
Today I want to mention some fun stuff that my guild likes to do that is NOT involving WoW. I know I talk a lot about my guides on here, but I want this blog to cover a wide range of things related to WoW - the nearest and dearest to my heart being guide writing, raiding, tree healing, and guild management.
With that in mind, today I'm going to talk about incorporating non-WoW-related activities into your guild.
An Example
As my long-term readers probably remember, I help to manage a very small, dedicated raiding guild called Fianna. The guild is very close - I consider these people to be some of my best friends. But most of us just can't handle raiding for more than two or three nights a week. Still, we want to hang out and spend time together over the internet.
Luckily, most of us also love tabletop RPGs, such as Dungeons and Dragons. So I decided to start up a weekly D&D group, using vent and an online map program called MapTool. This was immediately taken up by many others in the guild, and we now have weekly gaming sessions, trading off DMs each week so no one gets too sick of it and so they have time to prepare. So far it's been a big hit, and its a great way for us to "spend time together" outside of WoW, but without having to drive hundreds of miles across state and country lines.
Choosing an Activity
First, you need to find out a common interest that many of your guild mates share, and it needs to be something that can be done online with multiple people. Do they all like Diablo or Starcraft? Perhaps a different but much more casual MMO (for a while a bunch of my guild mates got into the silly MMO Maple Story)? Even simply online games such as online card games or the kind of thing offered from Yahoo or Aim could be fun. Think of things you might play at a party, such as scrabble or pictionary - there are online versions of these as well. Perhaps your guild is intellectually inclined - you could have a guild book club or debate. Maybe your guild includes card players, either of the normal variety or of specialty card games like magic.
Setting up Your Event
Whatever the case, you will most likely be able to find one or two things that a lot of people enjoy. Once you have that, it's simple. Find a time that won't conflict with your guild's other activities and set up your out of WoW activity. I use the in-game calendar for mine, or you can use your guild website if you have one. If you aren't an officer, make sure you clear your activity with the guild management before setting it up.
One note - be careful to be fair in your invitations, but also be cautious of the number of people you invite. If you have a large guild, inviting everyone may not be the best idea. You don't want to end up with a huge crowd of people and not enough spots in whatever activity you have planned.
Running Your Event
If your event requires preparation (such as a D&D game does), make sure this is done as much as possible ahead of time. There's nothing worse than sitting around waiting for something to start. Your guildies will become cranky and everything will just be a little less fun. During the event, try to be fair to everyone and give everyone a shot at the fun. How to do this varies greatly depending on what type of activity you are doing, so I won't go into details.
Planning for the Future
After the event, talk to your guildies. Find out if people enjoyed the event and ask for advice on how to improve it. If it sounds like people had fun, put another one on the calendar. Be honest with yourself - if people didn't seem to have fun, try something different next time!
Well that's all I have for today. Have fun with your guilds!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I'm Official!
So, my good buddy eric over at WoW-Pro.com just pointed out that my leatherworking guide is on the official WoW website! While it's not my best guide, it's pretty cool to see it up there. I'll have to update it more often now!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Tree Changes in 3.3
I'm going to take a moment to talk about some upcoming changes for tree healing. So for you readers who don't play trees, just bear with me for a bit.
Blizzard is really keeping trees guessing about the next patch. There are several very big changes in store for us.
Gift of the Earthmother Nerfed
First, Gift of the Earthmother will be changing. The current PTR build reads thusly: "Increases your total spell haste by 10%." This is a huge nerf from the effective 30% haste that Gift of the Earthmother is currently worth for instant cast spells. Now, this is the PTR and things are subject to change. A recent update to the PTR shows Blizzard is toying with the possibility of an additional 10% GCD reduction for only Lifebloom. This would still be a pretty bad nerf considering the heaviest used spell in PvE these days is Rejuvenation, but it would be a bit better and may encourage more Lifebloom use. All in all, this change seems to indicate that we will need to stack more haste after 3.3.
Rejuvenation Nerf Reversed
In a recent post post, Ghostcrawler indicated that Rejuvenation will be returning to it's 15 second duration. The spell scheduled to be nerfed, but Blizzard felt like hitting druids with two hard nerfs back to back was too much, so they are reversing this decision in favor of the Gift of the Earthmother nerf. What does this mean for druids? Well, it means that the new glyph may be a more viable option. Which brings me to...
New Tree Glyph: Rapid Rejuvenation
Patch 3.3 will introduce a new tree glyph: [Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation]. This glyph will cause our haste to make our Rejuvenation tick faster. This means more HPS, but it also means we will have to refresh our Rejuvenation more often. I think the choice of whether to pick this up or not depends largely on the individual druid. I mainly heal 10-mans, and I'm usually raid healing, which means blanketing the entire raid with Rejuvenation. Usually it's fairly easy to keep HoTs up on everyone, especially if I don't have to worry about the tanks. With the return to an 18 second duration, I am definitely going to pick up this glyph and try it out.
Tell me trees - what are your thoughts on these changes? Will you be picking up the new glyph?
Blizzard is really keeping trees guessing about the next patch. There are several very big changes in store for us.
Gift of the Earthmother Nerfed
First, Gift of the Earthmother will be changing. The current PTR build reads thusly: "Increases your total spell haste by 10%." This is a huge nerf from the effective 30% haste that Gift of the Earthmother is currently worth for instant cast spells. Now, this is the PTR and things are subject to change. A recent update to the PTR shows Blizzard is toying with the possibility of an additional 10% GCD reduction for only Lifebloom. This would still be a pretty bad nerf considering the heaviest used spell in PvE these days is Rejuvenation, but it would be a bit better and may encourage more Lifebloom use. All in all, this change seems to indicate that we will need to stack more haste after 3.3.
Rejuvenation Nerf Reversed
In a recent post post, Ghostcrawler indicated that Rejuvenation will be returning to it's 15 second duration. The spell scheduled to be nerfed, but Blizzard felt like hitting druids with two hard nerfs back to back was too much, so they are reversing this decision in favor of the Gift of the Earthmother nerf. What does this mean for druids? Well, it means that the new glyph may be a more viable option. Which brings me to...
New Tree Glyph: Rapid Rejuvenation
Patch 3.3 will introduce a new tree glyph: [Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation]. This glyph will cause our haste to make our Rejuvenation tick faster. This means more HPS, but it also means we will have to refresh our Rejuvenation more often. I think the choice of whether to pick this up or not depends largely on the individual druid. I mainly heal 10-mans, and I'm usually raid healing, which means blanketing the entire raid with Rejuvenation. Usually it's fairly easy to keep HoTs up on everyone, especially if I don't have to worry about the tanks. With the return to an 18 second duration, I am definitely going to pick up this glyph and try it out.
Tell me trees - what are your thoughts on these changes? Will you be picking up the new glyph?
Friday, October 23, 2009
A Return to Blogging
Hello blog readers!
I have been away from my blog for a while now. This has been due to starting my graduate program. Now that things have settled down and I have classwork under control, I am returning to my blog.
I'll kick off my return by announcing an update that should be done this weekend to my Tree Healing Guide. I'll be completely changing the gearing section - instead of a big, unwieldly, and often out of date list, we'll have several links to useful tools such as Rawr, MaxDPS, and WoWhead. I will explain how to use these tools to choose the best gear for your tree, based on your current gear and your personal healing style. This is *much* more useful than a static list, because a static list does not reflect the various differences in healing style and the current stats on your gear.
Additionally, this weekend I will be getting together (online) with Jame from to set up a new release of his leveling addon. This will fix the issue of the addon reading as "out of date" and generally clean up the addon work in progress page over on WoW-Pro.
I'm hoping to start work on a guide for the next major holiday (the WoW equivalent of Thanksgiving) soon.
I'm going to try to post at least a "food for thought" post every few days over here. Hope you all enjoy!
I have been away from my blog for a while now. This has been due to starting my graduate program. Now that things have settled down and I have classwork under control, I am returning to my blog.
I'll kick off my return by announcing an update that should be done this weekend to my Tree Healing Guide. I'll be completely changing the gearing section - instead of a big, unwieldly, and often out of date list, we'll have several links to useful tools such as Rawr, MaxDPS, and WoWhead. I will explain how to use these tools to choose the best gear for your tree, based on your current gear and your personal healing style. This is *much* more useful than a static list, because a static list does not reflect the various differences in healing style and the current stats on your gear.
Additionally, this weekend I will be getting together (online) with Jame from to set up a new release of his leveling addon. This will fix the issue of the addon reading as "out of date" and generally clean up the addon work in progress page over on WoW-Pro.
I'm hoping to start work on a guide for the next major holiday (the WoW equivalent of Thanksgiving) soon.
I'm going to try to post at least a "food for thought" post every few days over here. Hope you all enjoy!
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