Auld Lang Syne

Since my blog hasn't been around for a full year, I thought I'd treat the obligatory Year's End post as more of a guild round up. After all, if you've stuck around this long, you've probably already noticed I talk about them more than how to play a Shaman anyway.

January
We started off the year with a bang by clearing Serpentshrine Cavern. We killed Lady Vashj [Laeedee Vae-eh-sh] (I just can't convey the correct nasal pronunciation no matter how hard I try), on January 7th. Unfortunately, we were unable to kill her hair, which caused some concern due to the creepy factor. I also got to experience the awesomeness that is having your healer sitting next to you during a raid. Mase came to visit for my birthday and we enjoyed being nerdy together by playing WoW side by side. Before you judge, let me remind you that my town pretty much sucks, so it's not like we were missing the night life or anything.

February
By the end of January we were working our way through Tempest Keep, killing Alar and Solarian for the first time on January 24th. We spent February working on Kael'thas and avoiding those annoying goblin cupids. After all, we didn't want a stray arrow to make anyone fall in love with a Blood Elf (they hog the mirrors).

March
In like a lion, out like a...really ugly Naga? March brought the demise of Kael (and our eardrums as people whooped on vent), our entrance into the battle for Mount Hyjal and an assault on Black Temple. We killed Rage Winterchill and High Warlord Naj'entus shortly after kicking Kael's ass back to where he belonged--Magister's Terrace. We killed our first boss in Black Temple prior to patch 2.4 which did away with the attunement. Although several people missed the quest chain (something we have just now--we hope-- heard the last of), we were able to get enough attuned prior to the change to be able to say we earned it.

April
Supremus, Shade of Akama, Anetheron, Kaz'rogal, Azgalor, and Teron Gorefiend showered us with loot during the month of April. Fun times were had by all, except the few that really sucked at the Teron Gorefiend flash game.

May
Who needs flowers when you can save a tree? Archimonde hit the dirt in May saving the World Tree (and our sanity). Who knew keeping 25 people from face-planting into the ground and running through fire would be so hard? I'm pretty sure small children learn to avoid falling on their face or touching an open flame. Needless to say, we had a few issues and frustrations (we don't really excel at the GTFO fight mechanic), but eventually we did beat him. I personally like the fight, I'd just rather not bring 24 other people who missed the day of pre-school dedicated to fire safety.

June
We focused on Black Temple after learning to kill Archimonde (and not ourselves) and defeated the Reliquary of Souls and Mother Shahraz in June. I also decided to be a blogger. Pretty much the only post really worth anything is the one about the Second Kill Curse (although I'm probably reaching to say any of my posts are worth anything).

July
I got to go home for the Fourth of July and squeezed in a small get-together for some Texan guildies. We raided a decrepit bowling alley, but didn't get to keep the shoes. In actual WoW news, we downed Bloodboil (worst fight ever for me) and the Illidari Council. Pre-nerf, Bloodboil was a disaster for me on my Shadow Priest. It was incredibly annoying to be on the verge of pulling aggro the entire time even after waiting a significant amount of time to start attacking. I also stopped blogging.

August
In August we beat Black Temple. Illidan never dropped his Glaives for our rogues making them sad-pandas, but the fight was a fun one. It was nice to get to be at the top of the meters for once on my priest.

September
Over Labor Day weekend, a number of guildies traveled to Toronto for what has become our annual xeno Meet. More than 20 of us showed up from around the US and Canada for our third annual Meet. It was a great time in the Great White North, that suprisingly in September, wasn't all that white. We did see a statue of a moose wearing a Mounty uniform, so I guess that was a win.

October
I think we raided in October. And apparently we talked about Wrath of the Lich King, a lot. Not too sure what else happened. And I started blogging, for real this time. It was also All Hallow's Eve. Ooh, and zombies. How could I forget the zombies?

November
We stood in line (or in my case waited for ethical people even though there wasn't a line) to buy Wrath of the Lich King. And we missed our last Black Temple raid because of server failure caused by a mailbox revolution. Wrath of the Lich King rocked our socks, and we had our first level 80 within four days. Yay Silver!

December
We cleared Naxxramas 10 and 25, Obsidian Sanctum 10 and 25, and Eye of Eternity 10 and 25. We kinda beat WoW. Marnas agreed to help me with the blog, and between us we managed to write enough to average a post a day. Not too bad for two WoW chicks with responsibilities.

Thanks for sticking around so far. I'd promise to bring you more awe inspiring posts in 2009, but we all know what I will actually do is share my thoughts and turn my frustrations into blog-fodder.

Happy New Year!

Gold - Green

Several years ago, back when I was a fairly miserable teacher, I went to an in-service training where all the faculty took a quiz to determine our personality "color." The things I learned from this training both about my own outlook on life and how to deal with people of contrasting colors stuck with me. I remember taking the booklet home to my family and making them take the quiz as well. Everyone's color combination was spot on. And it gave me an insight into their minds that I had never had before.

For some reason, I started thinking about this in connection with my guild today. I searched around the internet until I found a site that gives a basic breakdown of the colors from that system. (Of course, the quiz booklet itself is not there because the trainers want to make money, too.)

There are four main color blocks: Blue, Orange, Gold and Green. Individuals can have traits from more than one color, but the dominant color will be apparent.

Here's a quick breakdown (the terms in parentheses are mine):

Blue: Nurturer (Touchy Feely)

• A people person.
• Sensitive to the needs of others.
• Sincere. Cooperative. Caring.
• Idealistic.

Orange: Adventurous (Rebel)

• An action person.
• Center of attention.
  
• Risk taker. Creative. Bold. Energetic.
• Spontaneous.

Gold: Traditional (Bossy)

• A rules oriented person.
• Sees things as right or wrong.
  
• Practical. Punctual. Helpful.
• Organized.

Green: Visionary (Smart Alec)

• An inquisitive person.
• Explores all angles before making a decision.
• Logical. Persistent. Systematic.
• Intellectual.

When I took the quiz, I was a combination of Gold and Green, so I guess I'm a bossy smart alec. Which, actually, isn't all that surprising.

What I like about the system is it helps me to remember that some actions aren't meant to infuriate me, but are simply part of the person's personality. When the raid leader becomes nitpicky about every little spellcast, he isn't really criticizing us, he's trying to understand what happened; he's just being Green. When the new girl feels the need to share intimate details about her life and all that is happening to her, she is just being Blue (too Blue...way too Blue). When I bug the other officers about scheduling or tweaking our Code of Conduct, I'm not being bossy, I'm being Gold (ok, Gold and bossy--I admit I'm bossy).

Remembering this doesn't always make the minor annoyances less annoying, but it can help me to deal with the people. I know that to motivate someone who is orange, I need to make it a challenge or a competition. I know that if someone is Blue, a smiley face may make their day, and being there to listen to them is important, even if I sometimes feel like I'd rather take a piece of sandpaper to my eye than chat about their latest love interest. The Green guy may be a number cruncher, and if he is, he'll be a great asset to have helping you plan out the attack. And the Gold people like me are worth our weight in, well gold, because a guild that lacks organization can't always meet its goals.

So the next time someone in my guild gets on my nerves, I'm going to try hard to just think of it in terms of color. They aren't really a jerk, they're just letting their Orange show.

Yays and Nays

Yay:

• We downed Malygos in Heroic Eye of Eternity tonight. It took us more tries than it should have, but a few of our normal raiders were unavailable due to the holidays, so we were pulling in people even after raid time. We hit Obsidian Sanctum first, for an easy no-drake kill. We'll start working on leaving them up after the holidays I guess.

Nay:

• Mr. I. R. Uberheal was joined tonight by his buddy Mr. Dinnae Lissen. It made for a fun raid with I.R. telling us that he alone was responsible for every heal and Dinnae disregarding Raid Leader instructions because his way made "logical sense." Good times.

Yay:

• Marnas picked up her Valorous Plagueheart Gloves. Congratulations!

Nay:

• Only item even remotely good for me that dropped was the Staff of Restraint, and I prefer one hand/shield combinations. Grats to Thren, though. :)

Yay:

• Just one more day of work this week.

Nay:

• Just two days until a day I'm not looking forward to this year. I really thought my life would be different by the time I hit this number. Guess not--unless something very drastic occurs within the next 54 hours...
  

Think About It!

So I really think that some people give little to no thought about what they say in vent. Unbelievable arrogance is quite common, but so is politeness I suppose. The arrogance just smashes the politeness into little pieces so it's hard to see mmm hear? I really hope it's more a matter of just being self absorbed and some people don't truly think they are "the bomb" as the kids put it. I don't talk much in raid vent because I'm too scared of making an ass of myself and really there's seldom a time I need to say anything.

Oh and for those of you tracking - my DPS was much better! Like I stated I will never top the meters, but I'm very happy with being in a comfy spot in the middle. Yay! Thanks my locky friend!

Need vs. Greed; or Why are Enchanters Lazy?

For a few weeks now, I've been participating in a late-night 10-man group of guildies that I've dubbed the Power Team (click here to read about the real Power Team--and quite possibly laugh. However, I would advise against laughing in the face of a Power Team member--these guys are BIG.). Despite the fact that I love to sleep and runs that last until at least 2:00 am make me tired, I love them. Every Friday and Saturday night, the same ten players (unless someone is out of town or otherwise unavailable) get together to speed through Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Eye of Eternity, and sometimes Archavon.

Our loot rules are simple, and we use the dice. If you are rolling for your main spec/role and it is an upgrade, you click need. If you are rolling for an off spec/role, you click greed. There is no limit to the number of need or greed rolls you may make, since it is a guild run (and we don't take loot whores). I know. What a concept, right? We use the in-game dice in the intended manner. It's strange, but it works.

The first run or two, the raid organizer (he doesn't like to be the raid leader, but he does the invites on the in-game calendar) and I made sure that everyone knew what the loot rules were. Since they follow our guild loot policies that are listed on our website, it didn't take long for everyone to get the hang of it. Well, almost everyone.

Tonight our resident Disenchanter made a fuss to the two of us because he wanted to hit greed for DE. We pointed out that that wouldn't work if someone wanted the item for an off spec. He still didn't seem to get it. He thought everyone should just hit need if they wanted it so he could just click a button instead of waiting by the corpse to see if he needed to pick up the item and disenchant it. He also argued that there really isn't much difference between the stats for items anymore, so there shouldn't be off spec issues. Although I got the feeling he was mostly being contrary because he likes to argue, it also made me shake my head in wonder. He plays a pure dps class, so the big decision when speccing for him is whether to do damage this way or that way. But the concept of hybrids isn't a new one. And I guarantee that if I rolled need on a piece with +hit on it, he would be the first to question me about it.

He is right that many stats have been homogenized, but not to the point that some discretion isn't necessary in deciding whether it is worth a need roll or a greed roll.

Here's my take on it:

• Resto Shamans don't get a lot of use out of spirit, so anything that is heavy on spirit, like The Impossible Dream probably isn't worth a need roll, unless you are using something really bad.
• Crit and Haste rating are good for us, so Hammer of the Astral Plane (damn you Mase) is totally need worthy.
• Items with a lot of mp5 are also good. Water shield will keep your mana ticking, but a nice base of mp5 gives you more regen, and acts as a buffer if you are short on global cooldowns to refresh it.
• Hit Rating is a greed, but I do not hesitate to roll on it. There are fights where I not only have time to dps, but I am also expected to (i.e. Thaddius in Heroic or Loatheb during the 17 seconds where I cannot heal). Having a few +hit pieces to toss on to minimize my misses makes my resto-dps more useful.
• I am also contemplating creating a decent enhancement set (although I haven't decided for sure yet), so I may start greeding on attack power items that no one else wants.
  

It isn't that hard to look at a piece and decide if it will help me heal people harder, faster or more efficiently; or if it will let me quest or dps easier. But don't be a lazy disenchanter. If the rules are need for main role/greed for off, please don't think that disenchanting is an off spec.