Ah, Karma. How I love thee!

So Husband and I were doing a Deadmines run together on our new alts, and we ran into a rogue who decided that he needed everything! :D

He screwed a poor shammy over on a weapon, declaring that he rolled because "Blue is blue" -- even after letting us know that he had already gotten 2 blue weapons this run!  :o

So, being the smartass awesome person I am (who is also quite Neat), I rolled need on the chestpiece at the end and gave it to the poor Shammy.

I'm a hero! XD

Definitely Not Sleeping, either...

It's 3:35 AM for me right now on Halloween (or Samhain... or Beltane, for me in the southern hemisphere), and I have to say -- I am not tired, in the very least.

A lot has happened since the last time I posted... The patch has dropped, mages are uber-leet, from the last I heard, melee got squished, I began leveling a new rogue, and, oh yeah... I got married.  IRL.

I've been pretty busy with wifey stuff lately -- from trying to remember to cook once in a while (honestly, Will does most of the cooking around here...), to cleaning and sneaking bits of candy from the Halloween bowl... (shifty eyes)... I just haven't had a lot of time for WoW lately.

I'm not sure if it's because on a deeper level I am slightly disappointed with the patch, or if it's just because I'm really anticipating the expansion... Though, I think I've just hit a small bump in my WoW life - it just doesn't interest me that much at the moment.

Either way, I've been spending the time trying to find my balance in IRL things, physically, spiritually, emotionally.  My brother's son will be born soon (if not already), and my new husband and I will be heading up to the states in a few weeks to visit with my family for Thanksgiving.

So, until either I suddenly get cravings for WoW or the next patch, and/or expansion, drop... I might have a difficult time updating this blog.  However!  If you find you really do miss me, catch me on my personal blog.  If not, then I'll see you in game.  Eventually.  Perhaps.  Heh.

Wifeaconda

Das Patch!

The patch is coming tonight... I'm really excited.  The game's been feeling pretty slow lately (though I did get my mage to level 70 recently!).  The class changes and other crazy stuff that will happen will definitely change things up a bit, which might be just what we need.

I shall now point you to some blog posts on MMO-Champion and WoW Insider, because they are excellent resources for information and definitely will help clear things up for you.

MMO-Champion: Patch 4.0.1 on live servers this week
WoW Insider: Patch 4.0.1 introduces reforging into the game
WoW Insider: Upcoming changes to glyphs in patch 4.0.1
WoW Insider: Upcoming class mechanic changes in patch 4.0.1

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Cataclysm Heroics can either Make or Break WoW's Social Life

Video contains spoilers of dungeons in Cataclysm.

The video you see here is Heroic Blackrock Caverns, as described/discussed by TotalBiscuit from http://www.cynicalbrit.com/. As you can see, it looks fairly difficult, as do many of the heroic versions of instances that we have seen so far from beta testers.  But is this a bad thing?

Granted, once people start attempting to hit up heroics in Cataclysm, there will be waves upon waves of complaints about the difficulty of the instances (I've heard the complaints have already begun from beta testers but hey).  I pray that Blizzard refrains from nerfing the fights too harshly, because it's stuff like that that helps players find out where exactly they stand skill-wise, and what they should do to improve themselves so that they are playing at the level of the game rather than depending on gear to play for them.

But what does this all have to do with the social aspect of WoW?

I'm not really a "Dailies" sort of person.

My dearest warlock certainly has been busy lately! Like the title says, I've never really bothered with doing daily quests often (probably the reason why I still haven't gotten my Chef's hat and why I ended up dumping Jewelcrafting for Engineering...)... I don't know what inspired me, but I figured that since I don't have the recipe for Delicious Chocolate Cake yet, that I'd give dailies a chance. I did the Cooking dailies for Dalaran and Shattrath, and figured I'd try the Fishing dailies for the both of them as well.

I found this little guy in one of my reward boxes, so I'm quite the happy camper.  I'm always trying to find new little pets to add to my collection, so I was very glad to get the chance to meet him.

I (finally!) got my "the Explorer" title.  I was going through my achievements last night looking for stuff to do, when I came across the Exploration section and found that I only had a few more zones to do before I was finished.  Knocked those out in about an hour, and sha-bam.  Mandaconda the Explorer, proud owner of really cute baby crocolisk Snarly.

I'm also trying to up my reputation with the Zandalar Tribe by doing Zul'Gurub a bit, grabbing those Bijous and coins, while attempting to grab some neat mounts before they get rid of the raid instance altogether on December 7th. I just hit Honored before the server shut down, so wish me luck.

Brewfest is over now, and my hopes of getting that ram or kodo on my warlock have subsequently gone down the tubes until next year. My hunter is very happy though, the only one out of 5 toons that ended up with any mount at all from Brewfest (actually she ended up with 2 rams and 2 kodos).  Still, it was fun while it lasted, and while I didn't think to grab another 80 or so coins on my lock for the little pet, I'm still happy that she got her Brewmaster title, and is one step closer to her proto drake.

Speaking of, I'm still working on setting myself up for the last leap in my What a Long, Strange Trip it's Been achievement and mount. I've only got Merrymaker left, so I decided to grind a few quests out and make it so I can do the Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la part of the achievement.  I even invested in a pretty handy little addon, called "Ogri'lazy" or something to that effect... Hey, in my defense, it was late, I was tired.

Enough about me though, what's next on the schedule?  Patch 4.0.1?  I've heard it's doubtful it will drop tonight, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.  The game feels like it's starting to grind to a halt, with everyone waiting for something new to happen.  The holidays can only distract us for so long...

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Dear Noobyconda,

I take time every day or so to drop by WOW Insider's website.  I came across October 1st's Breakfast Topic, which was "What would you tell your level 1 self?" and started wondering, what would I tell my warlock at level 1?

After a bit of thought, I came up with a list of five bits of knowledge I would pass on to young Mandaconda, and they are as follows:

1. Read the tooltips. I don't know if it was just me being completely stupid, or if anyone else had an issue with it, but reading the tooltips was not something I did.  WoW was my second MMO (after Guild Wars, and goddess knows I had no idea what I was doing there), so I didn't understand the basics of combat and the nature of the skills my warlock possessed, or eventually would possess.  For instance, I did not understand the concept of "damage over time" spells, or DOTS as they are also known as.  So, I would end up casting Curse of Agony over and over and over again.  Yep. Go me!

2. Don't be afraid to leave guilds if you don't like them.  I did eventually learn this lesson myself when I finally turned level 70. I only wish I had learned it sooner.  I joined a guild lead by a person that we shall name "J" for the sake of being nice for once.  I joined the guild, which was fairly active and had quite a few people in it.  A few people in the guild were fun, and I forged friendships with them, but the rest of the guild seemed very cold, and the guild leader was not very friendly.  She was actually sort of a bitch.

Eventually I did leave, and decided to take up making my own guild.  I didn't ask them to, but the friends I made in that other guild came with me, and J ended up harassing me because of it until she eventually quit playing WoW.  I do remember the sense of dread I felt, while /gquitting.  I think I was standing in The Valley of Heroes in Stormwind when I finally did.

3. Don't tolerate annoying people, and USE /IGNORE. If I could, I would be beating that into my lvl 1 self's head with a mallet.  People asking for money, asking for runs through instances all the time, telling creepy stories about their deepest fantasies for some reason, and people taking personal grudges against you for /spitting back at them. These are all things to avoid.  People are able to earn their own money, they're able to do instances with groups, creepers talking about doing their cousins can be remedied with a simple /ignore command, and the same goes for people who continually infiltrate your guild for no reason other than to be annoying.  Use /ignore.  Use it often as the situation requires it.

4. Read about your class. This goes hand in hand with my creative use of DOTS, but definitely look over information about your class.  Don't put all your points scattered across all the trees, follow suggestion 1, read the abilities, and make some sense out of them.  If you can't do that, then look it up online and see what other people are doing.  Figure out what sort of play style you like (Destruction, by the way. You can thank me later.) and look it up.  Read everything you can, and it will help you get better.  I would also like to take the opportunity to tell this to my current level 80 self.  Why is your DPS so low? You should be pulling out 3k more than you're doing right now, dummy!

5. Definitely show up in the Arathi Highlands around July 10th, 2007.  Yes, I know it sounds weird, but do it.  You'll meet the most amazing person in the world there, and you will fall head over heels for each other.  Even if the times get rough, if his internet craps out for a while, or if you get bored of the game, still stick it out and keep him in your heart.  You'll move to Australia someday to marry him.

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Malvenor on Youtube

There's a few Cataclysm spoilers in the above video, but if you choose not to watch it you are missing out.

It appears that he has been around for a while now, but I just recently discovered Malvenor, a machinimist that specializes in the RP and Lore aspects of WoW Machinimas.

Above is a movie he made focusing on two dwarves in Loch Modan, going about their day and coming across an interesting troll. It touches on the daily lives of the citizens of Azeroth rather than the MMO players lives, which is something you do not often see in popular wow-oriented videos these days.  The amount of skill and effort put into it is breathtaking, and I am very much looking forward to his next video(s) in his "Faces of Cataclysm" series. So if you haven't gotten a chance to already, I highly suggest taking a look at some of his work!

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

/Picard Facepalm

Herald Volazj Damage Done meter in
Heroic Old Kingdom today... 

So I did a random with fiancee Bulkham today on my pally.  He tanked, and I ret-pally'd it up.  We got H.OK today, which made me cringe at the load screen.  We got a fairly interesting/disappointing group today.

The Warrior, as seen to the left on this Damage meter from Herald Volazj fight, was more than enough to make me cry on the inside.  Yes, I do know that the Herald Volazj fight is kind of broken up into awkward pieces, which is why everyone's dps is low overall.

Mr. Warrior was specced into his Protection tree, complete with tanking gear, but had queued up as DPS.  He never broke 1k dps.  Overall for the entire instance he did 11.1% of the damage, with an average of 913 DPS with his 3297 gs.

The Shammy and the Priest were a bit better, but not by much.  The shammy had a 1085 DPS average overall for the instance. He had a 4128 GS and did 9.9% of the damage overall.  The only thing I can complain about was that they kept blasting the mobs away from the tank and melee dps, which was a pain in the ass.

The priest was healing, so I can't whine about that.  He told me he was healing in PVP gear, but looking at his armory page now, I don't think he was.  He had a 5400 gear score, and seemed to have little trouble keeping us up, so that's no big deal.

Why do these people plague me so?

I understand people may be fresh 80s.  I get it, I've been there, several times in fact. But if you've got >4000 GS, you should be pulling more than 9.9% of the damage in the instance, and if you're a DPS, you should not be specced as a Tank.  I thought that these were pretty simple ideas, but clearly I was mistaken.

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Brewfest! YEAH.

Probably what drunken dwarves see while lying on the ground.

Ah, the holiday season is fast approaching us.  I have been anticipating the change of pace from "WTF U SCRUB L2P STOP WIPING BLAH BLAH IM A KINGSLAYER SO I R TEH BEST" to "Hey, check out my Wolpertinger!" for weeks now.  On my love, Mandaconda, I've only got the Brewmaster and Merrymaker titles left to get before I can get my glorious mount.

It's funny, though.  My hunter, Veradae, seems to get all the luck when it comes to mounts.  I've been trying to get the Blue Drake on Mandaconda for a while now, and Veradae was the first of my alts to get it so far.  Then, unsurprisingly, she ended up grabbing the Brewfest Kodo from the boss last night.  Typical.  I guess animals just like her better.

How purdy.

In other news, I got to take Thadea and Veradae to some ICC's this week.  Thadea got a Mark of Sanctification or whatnot, but she can't spend it quite yet.  I also finally got to replace her blue cloak with a nice epic 264 one from the frost badge vendor.  As for Veradae, she's now got a new necklace (from Pit of Saron, but hey), an ungemmed (leather .... :(  ) chest piece, a new ungemmed staff, and a fanceh rep ring to play with.  Thadea's GS is sitting happily at 5336 while Veradae's is 4886. Not bad, overall.  Levielle is at 5033, with some help from dear fiancee's pally tank and his insta-queues, haha.

Pumpkinspice, my mage, is going alright, dinged 63 last night.  Made a new guild for her: [Definitely Not Alliance], for no reason other than to get rid of [The Brood].  Well, mission successful, haha. I guess that's it for right now.


Personal Brewfest Update: 
Mandaconda is now sporting the title "Brewmaster," and while she hasn't won any Brewfest mounts yet, Veradae has won the ram and ANOTHER kodo.  Jeesh.

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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Girls don't play WoW!

Ha.


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(¸.·´ (¸.·`¤Mandaconda¤

Imagination Time.

Imagine this:  You've been in queue for upwards of 30 minutes, you're level 56, and questing in Winterspring.  Suddenly, the queue pops.  It's BRD!  Sort of a mixed blessing, but you're willing to put up with this instance one more time in order to bring yourself that little bit closer to 57.

So you accept, happy that your queue popped at all at such a late hour.

After zoning in, you buff the group with Intellect and move on your way through the now unlocked door to your left.  The group seems fairly normal, thank goodness.

Oh wait.

No, it's the group from HELL.

I Hate The Lich King

 

Seriously, I hate him.  It's an easy fight, for the most part, just a few things to remember, timing to get right, people to coordinate, and mechanics to cross your fingers on.  Like the Sindragosa fight, it seems to be slightly reliant on your internet connection as well.  I mean, if you're lagging on Sindy, you risk iceblocking your entire raid, or not being able to run out of that crazy vacuum thing she does.  For Mr. Menethil, you gotta book it for defile and hope you don't DC, and you've got to pray to the internet gods that you won't lag when there's a Valk'yr.  

We're kind of slow to get our guild past ICC 10, yes, but it's because we've been having to switch up our core raiding team for the last few months, lots of IRL stuff for different people, etc.  I slept in, so I'm missing their attempts at LK right now... :( Being on a different time zone really messes with my playing time.  It's Monday for me, but Sunday for the rest of them. 

My druid's gear is coming along fairly nicely, as well as my hunter's... I'll do some more updates on them later, but I've gotta head out for the day.  Siiiigh.

-Mandaconda-

Freshly Dinged 80 Druid + ICC 25 =

Awesome new chest piece!  And, I'm nearly Friendly with Ashen Verdict, so I'll get a new ring soon too.

I was doing dungeons with Fiancee a little bit when suddenly one of our guild leaders whispered me and was like, "Leave fast, come to ICC 25" and I was like, WUTNOWAI, but I came, and I was surprised at how little crap I was given haha.  Got a few people saying "3300 GS Resto druid??" and stuff like that, and even got another druid crying because he lost the roll for mah new chestpiece, but overall, I was extremely pleased that I got to go.

1900 heals per second wut wut? Haha. Oh god, I'm so embarassed.

The best part was the trinkets I was sporting while healing.  It was that, plus a "Requires Level 60" trinket.  I finally upgraded to one of the 245 ones from the vendor in Dalaran, but Ohhhh man. I would have been so pissed if I were one of the other druids there, inspecting the 3300 GS druid that just joined.  "Wtf is this, Requires level 60!?  THIS IS MADNESS!"

I feel bad for being carried, but it gave me that boost of confidence I needed for healing.  I barely outhealed the shadow priests, but now I'm excited about gearing my dear Thadea up for healing more... Even if Cata is coming out "Soon".  :)

DROOD!

Well I did it. I finally levelled my druid to 80, and she has since then been working on her healing gear, as well as her feral kitty gear (Though, I'm not doing too well with that spec, dps has gone down the toilet since I dinged).

I ended up missing ICC with my guild on Friday because I logged on 10 mins late on accident, and they filled my spot sadly despite my signing up before most people.  I was kinda bummed, because I lost track of time (and trying to synch Server Time and my time zone down here in Australia sucks), and then my wand ended up dropping. FFS.

Life as a lvl 80 druid has been pretty interesting... Mostly it has been spent cursing at my computer screen.

Fiancee and I leveled our latest toons to 80 at the same time (he made a Shadow Priest with a Disc healing offspec).  We have been switching off and on with healing and DPS, which keeps it exciting for us.

The best part, though, is the amount of complete asshats we have been getting in our random heroic dungeon queues.   Oh wait, did I say best? I meant absolute WORST.

DING. :)

It's awful!

I can't count how many DK tanks we've gotten that are wearing DPS gear.  When asked if they have any tanking gear, they reply that they ARE wearing it.  I understand that if you want to gear up you should be doing heroics--I  mean, I'm doing the exact same thing.  But when you take the e-lives of four other people (and their gold for repairs!) into your hands, we all expect you to be able to take a few hits without dying. Because when you die, we all die, and that's not fun.

I swear, if  I hear one more excuse, "I queued as tank because it's faster" or some variant, my head will explode.  Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD.

We ran into a fury warrior (It's always a fury warrior, isn't it?) that rolled need on a +Agility dagger that dropped.  He refused to give it back, saying it was an upgrade.  We asked why.  He replied, "Armor pen and item level."

People.

PEOPLE.

I have never seen a warrior wielding a dagger.  It's just laughable.  Why in your right mind would you even possibly think for a second that a warrior with a dagger is a good idea?  There's nothing intimidating about a warrior wielding a dagger. It's pathetic.

We wiped a few times because the (really nice, but way undergeared/wearing DPS gear) DK tank couldn't take hits as well as we'd like, and we came upon another problem: The Fury Warrior couldn't find his way back into the instance.

What is with people STILL not knowing their ways back to the ICC 5-man instances. Really, people? I mean, I know it's complicated, but it's no worse than running back to BRD or ST. Hell, it's a shorter travel from the spirit guide to the dungeon entrance than ZF.

Needless to say, I did not tell him how to get back in, and only rezzed him after he told me he would give the dagger to me.  I know, I know, it makes me come across as a super huge bitch, but he had no reason to be needing on that weapon anyway, and I think it was an even trade.  A dagger for your soul? :)

If this keeps on happening... Yes... there WILL be blood.

We started (jokingly) teasing the warrior as we continued our way on to the last boss in Pit of Saron, and he ended up dropping group after declaring that he hated us.  I felt kind of bad at that point, because maybe he was a young kid and didn't understand that we were just joking around... :( So Ramil, if you're out there, I'm sorry if we came across as douches, we were just joking around.

We ended up finishing the instance, nice upgrades dropped for the tank, and we all bid each other farewell.  Special thanks go out to the rogue who joined us and had to endure a few wipes, (We ended up two-healing the final boss because the tank was taking hits too hard).

That's been the general gist of what the last week or so has been like.  It's been frustrating but exciting at the same time, both in game and out.  Woooooo....

<3Mandaconda

Sincerely, Your DPS

Let me say this clearly to all those self-entitled, center-of-the-world, you-would-be-nowhere-without-me-and-you-know-it tanks and healers out there:

Just because you are the most in demand parts of a group does not make you somehow 'above' the rest of us.

DPS is important too.  Without us, sure, you could MAYBE get through a few pulls, but in the end your mana pool would drain and your tank would crumple into teeny tiny little pieces and have to dish out tons of gold to repair his precious armor.

Opening a dungeon with: "We are here for achievements, if you screw it up for us both the tank and I (healer) are leaving."  isn't exactly what we want to hear.  Sure, we went along with your achievement run, but treating us like we're somehow less than you is not right.

See the above picture.  Let me paint the entire picture for you.

• Tank and Healer enter instance, demand that achievements be done right and threaten to leave if failed (even if it were an accident).  
• DPS has no choice but to comply, for the sake of not having to wait for another set of healer/tank combinations.  
• Without even thinking about what other people may want, they completely ignore other bosses in the instance.
• When asked if those bosses could be done, they force the group to go through what THEY want first. Selfishly still holding over their head that the DPS wouldn't be able to finish the other bosses unless THEY get what THEY want.  

In the end, I played nice and didn't wipe them (only because I can't STAND when people do that... but I would have if I were a jerk).  They got their achievements they worked so hard to step all over other people for.  The other bosses did get downed.  But it left a bad taste in my mouth, clearly.

Invisible readers, what do you think? Have you ever had anything like this happen before? Is this something you would do to other people?

Dear Group-Droppers,

I understand that you probably don't like Halls of Reflection.  I also understand that you might be nervous that we won't make it, even though we had a more than acceptable healer (she even had a Kingslayer title).  What I don't understand is why you had to drop group.  Moreso, I don't get why you didn't at least attempt to give us a reason why before dropping group.  After you left, the healer left too.  Then the other DPS, saying "Well, I guess that's it."  You left me alone in Halls of Reflection, Group-Dropping Tank.  You... you left me. /sniffle

Listen.  Since the LFD feature was brought to us, dungeons have been colder than they used to be.  Yelling at people that were always from your realm for standing in the stuff on the ground has been replaced by a solemn silence, with random outbursts of " YOU SUCK YOUR BAD " and random group dropping. At least you'd see the people hearthing out on your own server.  And that has the word "hearth" in it.  Before the LFD feature, group dropping could even be considered... a warm experience. But now... People just vanish.  For no reason. With no warning.  What is coming to the world! (of warcraft)

Here's where I can help you out here, Mr. Group Dropper. Check out these awesome tips to keep from coming across as a complete douche bag in random dungeons.

1. Break the ice! Say hello to your group.  It's not hard, and if you don't want to talk for the rest of the instance, you don't have to -- and you don't come across as a jerk for never saying anything.

2. Say you're sorry!  If you made a mistake, wiped the group, or somehow found a way to mess up a dungeon run, apologize for it.  It's only human to mess up, and sometimes people need a reminder that it's actually another person behind the dancing gnome with the naked bug going on.

3. Don't point fingers!  After a wipe people may be irritated or embarrassed that they died, especially if they're already deep into end-game raiding and should have known better.  If someone else caused the wipe, don't exacerbate the situation.  It's only going to make it worse.  E-tensions will rise, nerds will rage, and someone will end up either being vote-kicked or leaving out of their own volition -- and it may not even someone who was involved.

4. Play your class, not theirs.  Yeah, this may be your alt that you're on, but when the tank's the same class as your main, and isn't pulling the same way you do, it doesn't give you the authority to jump in and tell him how to play.  If he asks for your advice, then sure, go for it. But don't jump on his back because he plays differently than you do on your main (unless he's missing Righteous Fury or something, but even then, whisper him to remind him).

5. Warlocks need Kings, not Might... Watch your buffs, make sure you give them to the right people!

6. Be understanding.  You don't know the people in the group, so you don't know what's going on in real life for them.  They could have a mental disability.  They could have kids pulling at their arms while they're pulling mobs.  They could be having a real emergency at their house.  Try to understand if someone messes up, or has to leave because of something going on at home.

7. Let people know when you're leaving.  Like I stated above, it's horribly annoying when people just drop group for no reason, with no explanation whatsoever.  At least let us know you're leaving, so we don't have to try and get through the boss we just pulled without a healer.

8. Give thanks or say good-bye.  It's common courtesy to do so, and it's not like it's gonna kill you. Tons of people do it anyway. C'monnn, don't you wanna be cool?

So, there's the list, Mr. Group-Dropper.  I hope it made sense to you.

Regards,
Levielle, the Paladin from the group you dropped earlier tonight.

So I'm levelling a Shammy

So I'm levelling a Shaman on an RP-PVP server.  Her name is Rosaani, and she's adorable.  She's a Resto shammy, and healing is going alright so far.  At lvl 28 she can pull an alright amount of dps while healing, which entertains me to no end.

Really short post... but I thought I'd share.

Sitting in Dalaran

Ding! Hunter 80

Pugging makes me a sad panda.

I've been getting bad groups after bad groups all day.  The last one I got was Halls of Stone.  I accepted, zoned in, and got ready to begin.

First pull was very sloppy.  I Misdirected to the tank, aoe'd, and tried my best to help keep threat on him, but it didn't help.  One of the bigger mobs was already wailing on the mage.

I dropped a Freezing Trap on him, got him frozen, and continued to attack the tank's targets.

Suddenly the giant ice block to my right disappeared.  Curious, I looked to my side and noticed that the lone rogue was stabbing white damage on him.  I asked, "Why did you break my trap?" and got no response.

Here's what happened next:

DK Tank: my target noob
Rogue: mmhmm
DK Tank: use set focus
DK Tank: is easy

*DK pulls next group*

*Rogue dies*

*DK dies, healer dies, mage and I zone out*

Shammy Healer: god dman tank
Shammy Healer: u could cleary see i wan drinkin mana
DK Tank: you have 9k mana
Me: /facepalm
DK Tank: lets go

*DK pulls more*
*Contents of screenshot above*

During all this I managed to escape by zoning out again.  The healer was like, I'm not healing this, zoned out, and waited for someone to kick the tank.  No one could.  The tank was waiting until the healer left.  Nothing happened.  It was at a stand-still.

Then I dropped group. Sigh. I swear, these kids...

ZOH MAH GAWSH

LOOK AT THAT BEAR.

3 days.

At least 11 hours today alone.

Thank you, WoW gods.

Arcturis, you will be the death of me.

The moment I discovered that at level 74 as a hunter I could tame the spirit beast known as Arcturis, I became obsessed.  Every hour or so I would check back to see if dear old Arcturis was at his spawn point, and each time I was disappointed.  But the first day, I did end up seeing him.  As I flew back to Amberpine to check up on him, I noticed something weird going on below me.  Alas, it was a lvl 75 paladin, young and strong, holy whatevering my beloved bear, and ultimately killing it right beneath my nose.

Saddened, I decided to try again later.  I waited all yesterday... never saw it once.  I have been off and on today, haven't come across him at all whatsoever.  I've offered gold, /pray-ed to the WoW gods... but still no bear.

Will I ever see this bear again? And will I ever tame him? I don't know.  

In-Game Entertainment

As you may or may not know, in Shattrath there's a place called the 'Worlds End Tavern' in the Lower City. It's been a while since I've had any characters need to go wandering around in the Lower City of Shattrath before, so I decided to take my time.

While wandering around trying to find quests to increase my rep from Lower City, I happened across someone advertising for the 'Elite Tauren Chieftans' being about to play in the tavern.

Remembering that these were the people who sang such wonderful songs as 'Rogues Do It From Behind' and 'I Am Murloc', I decided to drop by.

It was entertianing to say the least, and I was surprised that I hadn't run into this in all my years of playing WoW.  I remember running into the comedian who had those horrible jokes... haha.

But anyway... It got me thinking. With the Cataclysm's Closed Beta popping up now, we are getting much closer to Cataclysm coming out for us all to play.  Will we be seeing this sort of thing when Cata comes?  Or will the overall mood of the game be one of doom and gloom?

Northrend Away!

My baby druid has finally made it to Northrend, where she has just dinged lvl 70.

I tried healing reg UK today... It didn't go as well as I would have liked.  With 8.5k mana, one wipe, and several deaths for the warlock, the DK, and a few for the tank, we did manage to finish the instance.

It was pretty crazy.  Part of it was that the warrior pulling too big of groups, but I do believe that it was also partly my druid, for not having enough mana. The DK was pretty supportive, sending me tells saying I was doing fine and that it was really the tank pulling just too large of groups.  For that, I thank you, Mr. Dk. :)

Anyway, I'm back in the swing of things, and Thadea's questing her little heart out.  Wish her luck as she tries to get rid of her horrible Outlands gear, because she'll definitely need it.

"Never argue with an idiot. He'll only drag you down to his level and beat you by experience."

Probably the best advice I have gotten all night.

On another note, look I out-healed Jerry on his lvl 69 Shaman!

Go me :P

Just keep on truckin!

Take a look at that.

Finally got flight form for my dear Thadea.  At the time of the picture, she was suffering from some magic thing from Blood Furnace, but it made for an interesting picture opportunity.

The guild leaders haven't exactly been online (that I know of) lately because they're enjoying IRL stuff (for which I am very happy for them, that they can be together again).  As such, I haven't really had a chance to talk to them about the previous occurrence.  At this moment in time, I'm still a bit miffed, but now I'm thinking of different ways to approach what had happened.

One of my ideas is to "hire" hella geared horde characters on our server to mercilessly slaughter my newest enemy a few times.  Overkill? Maybe, maybe not.  I've already got one taker, an orc rogue so geared that it makes my teeth want to fall out from how sweet the situation is going to get.

          You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

Outlands Ahoy!

58 at last!

My lovely druid Thadea is now lvl 58.  Pretty good considering she was 44 just a few days ago.

AV weekend is mostly to blame for this... I gained like 6 levels today, and I'm hoping that my queue pops again so I can get even more XP.

Yes, my tabard is grey and my druid is guildless.  Speaking my mind and suggesting that people not say the word "fag" brought on rudeness from some fellow guildies (and I use the term loosely), so I /gquit out of irritation.  My other toons are still in there, but I'm still kind of pissed about how rudely I was spoken to (and apparently ABOUT).

So yes, that is where dear Thadea stands at the moment.

And to you, sir...I'm not surprised that you turned out to be a dick. I could see it coming a mile away and you deserve a swift kick in the pants.

Insert random guild drama here

Middle finger! Middle finger!

Don't exactly have a cap of what went down, but I thought I'd share one little gem that Daisy and I experienced while in a random dungeon.

We had been waiting a half hour for our queue to pop when suddenly we were dropped into BRD or something.  Immediately after joining, our chat frames were filled with completely stupid macros courtesy of Cornedflakes - Windrunner and his buddy Mimiron - Windrunner. And No, I'm not ashamed of putting their names on here.

About forty seconds in, I whispered the warlock in the group and asked how long they'd been doing that, to which he replied, "20 mins."

I tried to ignore it.  Daisy reported them for spam but nothing could be done, and they weren't ignored after doing so.  I switched to combat log. It was just annoying.  Thirty seconds later, I had to leave. Even the chat bubbles were annoying me.

I know that by complaining about it, they're winning.  But, I did report it to a GM, and they're going to look in to it (you know, the usual.)  I hope that they get what's coming them, seriously.

They usually say I'm too nice

In real life, I try to be as kind as I can, as respectful as I can, and as pleasant to others as I can, only because it makes me feel good to treat others the way that I would like to be treated.

In WoW, I try to abide by the same general idea. I am nice to people, I say please and thank you, and sometimes it gets me into hairy situations that involve ex-guildies spilling the beans on their deepest fantasies about their cousins.

Yeah, creepy.

Since that... incident... /shudder... I have been trying to find a decent balance in between nice and reasonable.  I'm still looking for that balance, and even now I feel kind of bad for snubbing people.

Like this kid, named similarly to the country I find myself in.  I was minding my own business, waiting for my BG queue to pop, when suddenly the IGN (IGS? The gold seller guys that do this) warlocks started doing their thing in SW trade district. A few people were laying down and messing up their words for fun, so I thought that I'd kill a few mins trying to do the same.  Spelled out some word, IGN(S?)LOOM, with our character's bodies, and had a laugh about it.  Then I decided to go play around in SW for a little bit.

One of the kids who had spelled IGN(S)LOOM with me spotted me, and this conversation occurred, all the while he was following me around ceaselessly.  I got out into SW Harbour and started to run up to the trade district, while he followed me and insisted that I show him stuff and that he show me some hack, which I honestly was not interested in knowing (besides, it's against the TOS, isn't it?).  Anyway, he followed me halfway up the ramp and then I typed it. The big slash i g n o r e enter.

After /ignore-ing him, I again started up the ramp, and he continued to follow me, apparently oblivious to the fact that I could not hear/read what he was saying. I then proceeded to cast Teleport: Moonglade and be done with it.

I don't feel bad about it though, because we lost WSG horribly and now I'm cranky. Sighhh

Calm Down, Bro

So I had a fun time tonight.  I was tanking (that's me, Thadea) on my druid, having a fairly hard time keeping aggro since I was a few lvls lower than the others, but more or less keeping it together.  We were doing Mara, and we finished, killing Princess.  The Blackstone Ring dropped, making me really happy, because I have been needing to replace Archaedic Stone of Intellect, which has been sitting cozily in my tank gear.

Then this happens.

Let me say this slowly. It is a game.  And as such, I can literally roll on whatever the heck I want.

I needed this ring because it had Stam and Hit on it, which I need (I keep missing, and I don't really need Intellect as a tank.)

But the fact that this kid got so wound up about it made me feel kind of sick to my stomach.  I gave the kid his ring, though I do regret it now. I didn't realize that he had won BOTH rolls until afterwards. Greedy little bastard.

The thing that irritated me the most though, was that he didn't, at all, apologize for acting like a complete fuckhead.  Well buddy, I hope you're happy. And I'll try to find some happiness knowing that someday (probably soon) you'll get creamed by a mob because you can't watch your threat.

Sigh. I'll get a new ring someday.