and now for something completely different…
I know I haven’t been posting. I’ve been learning to do this instead. Click on the link below and be gentle, gentle reader.
Out of Whack
As with all of us trees at the moment, I am a very powerful raid healer. There’s no question that the spells I have been given combine with the raid encounters Blizzard has created for current conent to make Druid healers exceptionally strong. This is proven to me every time I raid. Our druids pump out more sheer healing output than our other healing classes in almost every encounter, and certainly overall. Every time I join an ICC 10 pug I flat out smoke any other healers on the run with me. You might think that this healing strength is fun for me. Sometimes it is. On the whole, it is not. While I am always happy to contribute as much as possible, I feel out of balance. Read more ›
Arthas: All Man
Arthas shows his feminine side. (Image by ValsWife at DeviantArt.com)
Last night as we were kicking Sindragosa’s ass, the 88% of my raid that is male started discussing in vent why it was obvious Sindragosa is “a woman.” Ahem. Reasons that they gave amidst their guffawing and chortling were along the lines of her emo outbursts, her Frost Breath ability (they also made up names for her abilities like “Bone Freeze.” /snort), the fact that she sucks you in and spits you out… I’m sure you get the idea. Their glee was beyond their power to contain, bless their little, pointed, Y-Chromosome sporting heads. I suppose they may have had a point or two in there. However, turnabout is fair play, little men.
Read more ›
For Foreluney
My new friend Foreluney wants me to write about him. This is sort of challenging since I’ve known him for all of 3 days. But I like the guy, and I like challenges, so… what to say about Foreluney? There’s something about the way that we met that seems important to me, so let’s talk about that. Read more ›
ROFLStomping the Raid and the New TOL
I watched the Blizzard Developer chat unfold on Twitter last night and thought there was some pretty good news for us trees coming up in Cataclysm. Tranquility, for example, will be raid wide, last as long, but gain additional tics from haste. Hoorah! The New and Improved Tree of Life On a Cooldown TM (Batteries not included.) will “morph” existing spells making them behave differently, with some possible examples given such as Regrowth being instant cast and Lifebloom applying a 2 stack upon cast. All of our spells are getting the once over to make sure they have defined niches. But the one thing that really caught my attention and imagination was this:
Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War)
Now, I’m sure it won’t go down this way, but the first thing I thought of was how HUGE those Ancients are out in Zangarmarsh, and how FUNNY it would be if we got not only something like that shape, but something like that SIZE for shifting into TOL. Think of the advantages… we wouldn’t have to take any crap for standing in fire because we wouldn’t be able to help it. We’d get all the best loot because we could threaten to shift into TOL and squash the entire raid if we didn’t get our way. We’d do MASSIVE boss damage when we shifted and our butt pinned the boss to the far wall like a bug. Awesome. Awesome sauce.
Lessons from Tanking
Although I love Sylly dearly and raid healing on her is easily my favorite thing to do in WOW, I absolutely have my limits with her. She’s a skinner and leatherworker, so she’s generally no good for farming gold (the endless slaughter of animals for profit doesn’t much appeal to me). She’s so crazily over geared for heroic instances that they aren’t much fun at all to run on her. She’s Resto/Boomkin, so she’s capable of a degree of DPS, but DPSing as Boomkin is not my favorite way to pass the time (wrath wrath ECLIPSE cast starfi… DAMMIT! had to move! etc.). So I’ve been playing some alts for the last few months to keep things lively. I still have Frivolous, the mage who was 70 when WOLK came out and who I actually leveled to 72 before I started bringing up Sylly to the new level cap. However, poor Friv is still just level 75 and may rot and die at that level for lack of love, although I depend on her to remain my mining and jewelcrafting slave. I feel bad for her that I despise playing her so much, and I’m not completely clear on where this distaste came from, but it is what it is. I got to the point, though, that Ivery much wanted to understand fights from a DPS perspective, but would rather have not played at all than play my mage. To that end I leveled Harmonie, a hunter who I very much enjoy playing, and who is starting to have an ICC gear set of her own at this point. She’s my flask maker and herbalist, so between these 3 toons I’m quite the industry unto myself. The gold is piling up, too, because I have far fewer things now I actually need to buy. So this unit of 3… druid, mage, hunter… along with Mr. Moneybaggins, bank alt extraordinaire, had me quite satisfied for a while. The mage does nothing but the JC daily, gem cutting, and mining, but I was raiding on both the druid and the hunter when time and opportunity presented itself, and enjoying the more rounded understanding of the game I was beginning to have.
Then I got the idea to roll a tank. Read more ›
Arise! … Arise, I said! … wtf???
Did anyone else see this post from Ghostcrawler in response to a post saying that, now that Heroism/Bloodlust was going to be given to more than one class, Blizzard should now remove the remaining buffs exclusive to one class? Hold tight, this is a little painful…
Obviously things like Rebirth can’t just be handed to out to more classes unless we did something like a second exhaustion mechanic for battle rez or whatever. For now we’re going to try the cooldown at 30 min again. In Icecrown’s world of limited attempts, a 30 min cooldown likely meant you just cooled your heels until the cooldown was available again. In Cataclysm the hope is sometimes you’ll have the benefit available but not every time, which scales back on how much of a game-changer it is.
So… it looks to me like they are considering not only keeping battle rez exclusive to Druids in order to limit its use, they are also planning to extend the cooldown not by doubling it, but by tripling it. This makes me so sad. I understand why they may not want it to be ubiquitous, but it has been SO nice when learning new boss fights that our druids have had their battle rezzes available for virtually every attempt. This 30 minute thing? Well that just sucks.
Edit: GC has been posting on the thread more today, adding this:
An alternative to a longer cooldown for Rebirth is something where one druid using it would trip everyone’s cooldown for a few minutes. That it’s a bit gamey, but might solve the problem.
Also keep in mind that Rebirth is much more useful in today’s game where people tend to die from massive damage. In a world where people sometimes die because the healers have run out of mana, then Rebirth doesn’t buy you quite as much.
In a 25 player raid, you’re most likely going to have a druid of some kind. The challenge is the 10 player raid. We don’t want a druid to be required (just like we don’t want a shaman to be required). You can argue that using Rebirth to recover from a death is just inherently harder in 10s since the opportunity cost is larger when 10% of your group is down, and yet another player is going to have to donate some time to bring that person back up. Beneficial, definitely. Mandatory? Maybe not.
I like this solution better than the 30 minute cooldown, certainly. The unfolding discussion reminds me, however, why I should not react to information rolling out right now with more than interest. To be passionate about it, even slightly, is just stepping onto an emotional rollercoaster. They’re tossing around ideas. They do this a lot. And although I haven’t always been thrilled where they come out, I’ve never for a day thought, gee, healing on my druid just ain’t fun any more. It always is. Now let’s relax.
Forming: An Opinion on Tree Form in Cataclysm
Sylly prepares to play a tree at the masquerade ball
Hey, hey, everyone! It’s been ages and ages since I’ve posted here. I enjoyed the break for the most part, and was considering letting my account with the hosting company lapse and letting Rolling Hots roll right off into the sunset. But there were many, many topics over these months that I considered posting about while I was away, and several that I sort of framed out in my head, as in, “this is how I *would* post about this if… you know… I were blogging.” Then I got an email that told me my bank account was charged via the convenience of automatic renewal with the web hosting service I use and, without necessarily meaning or deciding to, I had purchased my blog for another year. So I’ve had that rolling around in my head for a couple weeks. And then the Cataclysm class previews started rolling out and I, like so many others, sat on the edge of my seat waiting for the druid preview to come out. I was also asking myself in the back of my mind if I would be motivated to write about the changes. Read more ›
Moneybaggins and Sylly’s Holiday Gift List 2009
- Mr. Moneybaggins. Ironforge, 09.
Forward:
In the last 24 hours I have emptied completely the personal bank, guild bank tab, knapsacks, duffels, backpack and wallet of one Mr. Moneybaggins, Gnome Banker, Khadgar-Alliance. I depleted in one moton his carefully laid aside stores, built up since just about 10 days before Hallow’s End.
There’s some irony in the fact that he is, by way of class, a rogue. The fingers plundering his bank vault were mine alone. My Great Grandpa stood on the street in Coffeyville, Kansas while Jesse and Frank James rolled into town on their way to lighten the coffers at the Coffeyville bank. This isn’t quite that kind of story, though. We’re in cahoots, Moneybaggins and I, having conspired together for months in regard to our own bank caper.
Indulge me here by defining “caper” as a light-hearted frolic which, in the instance at hand, was motivated exclusively by good will and overflowing holiday spirit.
In truth, he’s probably relieved to see nothing but packing peanuts and scraps of ribbon on the floor of the banking organization he maintains. I’m sure after his morning coffee and a look through the financial section, he’ll start to tidy the place up a bit. Dust. Lots of dust. For months the little banker toon has been stacking, storing, and categorizing whimsicalities and wonders from the far ends of the globe (and others, besides!). He has been most busy in his capacity as my Winter’s Veil warehouse manager while preparations for holiday gift giving in Azeroth have gone forward. Moneybaggins, you should know, is an affable sort of fellow who, in faith, has been tickled from his cufflinks to his toes to be minding the store.
While I’ve sent him large quantities of items I have gathered on my own, he has proven to be a great help in keeping a lensed and astute eye on the daily offerings in The Auction House. Further, I have been blessed tremendously to have the help of guildmates who have engineered and farmed many of the wonders I have gathered. Faelwen made Steam Tonk Controllers until they spilled out of her bags. Composite took my mats for 18 fireworks and sent back to me about 80 fireworks, all told. Yamie tried valiantly with me to farm Voodoo Heads and, when none dropped for Project Winter Veil, donated her own Voodoo Head toy to the cause. Good friends are good. I am thankful for mine.
Now at last the holiday has arrived! Gifts have been wrapped (wrapping paper, for use on non-stackable inventory items, is available daily from many general goods vendors, and comes in different varieties from Greatfather Winter’s attendant buskers). Countless parcels and packages filled with holiday gifts have been posted from us with love and affection to some of the finest players and people in the World of Warcraft. The bulk of our work is done, the joy of the holiday is here.
For me, the moment when Winter Veil truly began came last night while Apatheia discussed the strategy that led to our one shot of Deathbringer Saurfang. Gathered together, riding a wave of tremendous progression (3 TOGC hard modes and 4 ICC bosses have fallen to us in the past 14 days), listening to our captains lay out the battle plan, my guildies and friends filled my screen with eruptions of celebretory silliness as they played with the toys and gadgets I had sent them for the holiday. I laid out casks of wine, pastries, and fruit, while spontaneous firework displays erupted, remote control vehicles whizzed and popped along the floor, paper zeppelins and happy fun rocks tossed up among us all across the platform where we would soon bring this minion of Arthas to his knees. It was a wonderful, soul brightening thing to behold.
It occurs to me that, just as in the real world, there must be some denizens of Azeroth who adore gift giving as I do. Certainly there must be others who have not yet completed their own holiday shopping and are looking for bargains, suggestions, or ideas for holiday gifts in Azeroth. Moneybaggins and I have put our heads together and decided that our gift this season for the blogosphere and Warcraft community generally is our own holiday shopping list of the toys, gadgets, whizzbangs and so forth we distributed as holiday gifts to our Khadgar kith and kin*. I extend to you now, reader, this guide to the goodies which spread some joy around my little corner of the world, along with my best wishes for happiness to you and yours this Winter’s Veil, and in the new year to come.
Sylly and Moneybaggins. 15 December, 2009
* We have striven to ensure that items presented here will be Bind on Equip and purchasable from either the auction house (when available) or from a vendor in game. Categorization of items at discretion of Sylly and Moneybaggins, L.L.C.
MoneyBaggins and Sylly’s Holiday Gift List 2009
Fireworks, Crackers, and other Explosive Devices
We gathered fireworks by the hundreds for gifting this season, and found them to come from three major sources:
1) Fireworks made by Engineers
These fireworks are easy to get in large quantities if you hunt down the mats and bring them to your favorite engineer to transform into magical, mustache crisping explosive good fun! There are a number of fireworks that engineers can make for you this season, so throw them some cash (when else is their profession profitable, amirite?) and have some custom made for you. From this category of fireworks, this year I sent out dozens of Snake Burst Fireworks that were hand made by a friend.
2) Fireworks sold by Vendors
There are some fireworks which are always available from vendors in capitol cities . Others are available from holiday fireworks vendors at the end of midsummer festival. I found the Yellow Rose Fireworks that I gave out this year on Khadgar’s Auction House, along with some Red, White, and Blue Fireworks.
3) Fireworks for Auction
On the auction house. Mhmm. Seek ‘em out.
One last word on Fireworks of all description and degree of wonder. Think twice when gifting them to dwarves along with huge steins of ale and such. Think the consequences through, mate. Caution is yer man. Or perhaps your only man is the pint of Plain. Perhaps that is the way of it, after all.
Toys, Whizzbangs, Zippity Goodnesses of Various Description
Again, some organization into sub categories seems warranted, as Azeroth offers an amazing array of fantabulous contraptions to the holiday shopper this season.
Mechanical Mayhem:
Jepetto Joybuzz in Dalaran provides an abundance of light hearted fun and provides easy access to lots of inexpensive, silly, endearing gifts. At his shop I purchased stacks of Heavy Copper Racers, Trusty Copper Racers, Zippy Copper Racers, Grindgear Toy Gorillas, and Paper Zeppelin Kits at the toy store.
I asked a friend to help me make dozens of Steam Tonk Controllers, which have many more uses and the added fun of being remote controled by their operator for small level combat operations unfolding across the toes of bear tanks everywhere.
Charms
I was tickled to find a couple of Lucky Charms on the Auction House to people who are a lucky charm to me in one way or another. I also farmed a handful of Rabbit’s Feet one afternoon in Loch Modan. May the road rise to meet you.
For the need to nom nom nom
Although last year I gave out many Delicious Chocolate Cakes from my own oven, this year I focused on a handful of other culinary treats. Tigule and Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream was my confection of choice to give out this year. I picked up a couple of stacks in Thousand Needles and handed them out liberally. I also picked up a nice Dalaran White Wine.
Seasonal Samplings Stored for Four Seasons
I had a couple of stacks of holiday items in my bank that I’ve held onto for 12 months and gave out to friends. There are always numerous seasonal items that you can store away in this manner. I brought out some Preserved Holly and Snowballs from last Christmas. If you didn’t hold onto any from last year, these items are now available in game and quite easy to gather up for gifting.
Sylly’s Special Winter Treasures List 2009
I watched the auction house for months for a handful of items that I picked up whenever they appeared. These were the special treasures I gathered, my signature gifts this season, and which are now in the satchels of my friends in Azeroth.
Here is the list…
Coal*
*by special request from Greatfather Winter
Odds and Ends
There is the matter of a collection of other prizes that I gathered and gave along the way that ought to be categorized, but the staff has taken the rest of the day off to begin the Winter Revels in their own personal ways. Therefore, I beg you grant me a big of license in gathering them together here in this corner. I know we also were able to gift an assortment of Tree Frogs, and Steamy Romance Novels that found their way into the stockings of my compatriots. Perhaps a recent jaunt to the theatre with my daughter played some subconscious role in this selection. I gave a bouquet of white roses to each lady on my list.
There may have been a couple more items that have slipped my mind, it is hard to say. However, the shopping list above is as close to comprehesive as I care tomake it at the moment, and was sufficient to lavish joy and good times on 40 friends of mine. I hope that, in one way or another, the list brings joy to you and yours, too.
Happy Winter’s Veil!
Sylly
Stand By…
The future of the blog here is, admittedly, quite uncertain at the moment. I’m deep in the interview process of two different jobs. Either of them would be great for my family, but would probably mean death to the blog, as either of them would require of me a one way commute of at least two hours from my home. I don’t know if I’ll get either of the jobs, but much as I love blogging and staying in touch with all of you out there, I surely do hope that at least one of these places makes me an offer! In the meantime, I’m finding it very difficult to find time to blog about World of Warcraft. My days are filled with activity. Research, writing out practice interview answers, shopping for clothes for interviews, and actually interviewing, as well as preparing for things like child care, animal care, etc. in case I do get one of the jobs, have filled up my days. So, I am afraid that the blog is currently in limbo. I know that many of you enjoy coming here and reading me yammering on about WOW, and I’m so glad that you do. But I hope that you will find it in your hearts for me to cross your fingers that I get one of these jobs. Even if it means the blog will end. I surely do appreciate it! Peace love and RAWR unending, Sylly.