On cutting tanks some slack

My paladin had almost a level of rested xp, yesterday, and I was itching to get her some levels, so I totally caved and bought her dual spec. She is now prot/ret, and it feels oh so wrong! I completely fail at being a retadin! But she is now level 82 and I've done two dungeons as dps so far and I realized I much prefer to tank in dungeons. 

Watching other tanks do an awful job is just too painful, and makes me wanna slap my shield on just to show em how it's done! - Wow, that sounds vaguely condescending! - I mean maybe they don't know the dungeons that much, and it's only reg, and I'm used to the heroic version, but it's killing me to see the small mistakes they make that I wouldn't make. And then I think about the mistakes I do and don't know about, and then I feel bad for thinking like that and I'm ashamed of myself. 

Bad, bad Lyr!

It can be hard to be a good tank. I know how much crap ppl give tanks in groups. I should really cut some slack to my fellow tanks, now shouldn't I? It's like it's a completely different mindset. When I'm tanking, I'm really hatin' on those stupid dps making my job a nightmare. When I'm dps'ing and the tank is doing a bad job, it annoys me to no end. 

Only recently - since I started tanking to be exact - I've realized how tough it can be to a fairly new tank. To position mobs correctly, to know when to taunt and stuff. Spine comes to mind. I hate when the tank does stupid stuff like getting all nine stacks of blood when the Amalgamation is at full health, or when he fails to bring the exploding Amalgamation close enough to the armour. But maybe it's just that overwhelming. Moving the mob to the bloods might not be an easy thing to do for an inexperienced tank. Maybe it's his first time actually doing the fight and even though he researched it, he just doesn't have enough practice to execute it properly. Or maybe he just panicked. Or maybe it just comes more naturally for some than others.

We are pretty quick to kick a "failing" tank in the Raid Finder. Because everyone wants stuff to go quickly. No time to waste. "I want my easy loot and VPs and get the hell out so I can re-queue with my ten thousand alts." Because if we wanted to spend hours in a raid, we'd be doing heroic progression. But I guess if we'd just let them try again, they might learn from their mistakes. But we usually don't even give them the benefit of the doubt. It's a harsh world, people. Be good fast, or get thrown out. That's why I'm never going to tank a raid for strangers. I'd get eaten alive. 

So to all of you tanks out there, queueing as a tank for the Raid Finder, you have my utmost respect.

Unless you really fail, of course. - You know, the ones for which there is no hope - In which case I'ma vote to kick you.

Quick Post : And then started the Twitter madness

I've had a twitter account for some time now, but never used it. Why? Because new things scare me sometimes, especially a "complicated" thing like twitter. To a noob, it can be pretty intimidating. But yesterday, I received a notification that someone was following me on Twitter. It was Asherrylie from Priest all the things. So I went and followed her, too. Then I added stuff to my profile. And then started the madness.

See I'm super shy, and usually keeps to myself, so going and following all those people (other bloggers) was a bit of an adventure for me. I've got eight followers now and I'm happy. Ya, I get excited easily. I'm weird like that.

Being social doesn't always come naturally for me. Guess this will help me work on that. Be nice with the twitter noob, people. =P

10 glyphs I'm excited about in Mists of Pandaria

I haven't been on the beta a lot since I got in. (Except to check out the Pandas' starting zone, which is a lot of fun btw.) The reason for that is that I don't wanna be spoiled. I checked stuff like professions, talents and glyphs, but nothing from the new continent, or any quests or anything else. I want to be able to log in the day that MoP launches and just discover it all with my boyfriend. It'd be easy to go and do it all now, but that just means I'll get bored with it faster. Levelling 10+ characters to the level cap does that to you.

But I've seen enough to be really excited for the new content. I wasn't thrilled when I first heard about pandas and I was wondering whether or not that would be the time I finally quit WoW. But the months passed, and I completely changed my mind. I'm still not completely sold to the pandas, and I don't know how I'll enjoy playing a monk, but there's new content coming, which is always good, and can't be worse than Cataclysm - oops, did I just say that? - and I'm just excited to get new dungeons, new raids, new gear and so on. 

I only just today looked at the new glyphs that we're getting in MoP, and a lot of those got me really excited.

Druid Glyphs :

Glyph of the Stag Minor Glyph Classes: Druid Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Travel Form now appears as a Stag and can be used as a mount by party members.

Even if it's not as fast as a mount, it's still great. Levelling with a non-druid buddy just became a lot more fun.

Glyph of the Orca Minor Glyph Classes: Druid Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Aquatic Form now appears as an Orca.

I just think Orcas look a lot better than... whatever it is that the aquatic form looks like now.

Glyph of Stars Minor Glyph Classes: Druid Requires Level 29 Item Level 29

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Moonkin Form now appears as Astral Form, conferring all the same benefits, but appearing as an astrally enhanced version of your normal humanoid form.

I guess lots of people might love their moonkin form. Me, I hate it. With a passion. So yay for druid transmog!

Hunter Glyphs :

Glyph of Fetch Minor Glyph Classes: Hunter Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Teaches you the ability Fetch. Command your pet to retrieve the items on a nearby corpse.

How cool is that? Your pet can fetch loot from corpses that are out of reach, or just too far for your lazy ass to bother and pick it up yourself. The lazy ass in me is happy.

Glyph of Camouflage Major Glyph Classes: Hunter Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Camouflage ability now provides stealth even while moving, but your movement speed while Camouflage is active is reduced by 50%.

I can haz stealth? On my hunter? Can playing a hunter get any better?

Mage Glyphs :

Glyph of Momentum Minor Glyph Classes: Mage Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Blink spell teleports you in the direction you are moving instead of the direction you are facing.

When you're swimming, this becomes very useful.

Glyph of Ritual of Refreshment Minor Glyph Classes: Mage Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Ritual of Refreshment spell no longer requires the assistance of other raid members to complete, but has a 1 min cooldown.

You mean I don't have to pray anymore that the idjits helping me summon my table won't move for no reason and cancel the casting? 

Glyph of Mana Gem Major Glyph Classes: Mage Requires Level 68 Item Level 68

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. Your Conjure Mana Gem spell now creates a Brilliant Mana Gem, which holds up to 10 charges.

Oh hello 30-minute-mana-intensive fights. I'm ready for you now.

Paladin Glyphs :

Glyph of Consecration Major Glyph Classes: Paladin Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. You can now target Consecration anywhere within 25 yards.

Try and pull aggro from me now, suckas.

Glyph of the Righteous Retreat Minor Glyph Classes: Paladin Requires Level 25 Item Level 25

Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph. During Divine Shield, you can invoke your Hearthstone 50% faster.

/bubblehearth

There are other cool glyphs coming with MoP, but those are my favourites so far. Here's hoping they don't get removed before they even go live!

To all of you, retards from the Retard Finder

To all of you, retards from the Retard Finder.

When the Retard Finder was introduced in your favourite game, you thought: "Great! I've never raided before, but now I can!" And you were happy. You queue'd as a healer to get in faster, with no intention whatsoever to actually heal, and then you dps'd. You stood in the black goo on Morchock and had a puzzled look on your face when you died. You didn't switch to the oozes on the third boss because you didn't even know why (mostly) everyone else was. You didn't press the weird looking button on Ultraxxion and got healed through the ouchie by the other five healers. You killed countless corruptions on Spine, spawning way too many Big Bads, and then you killed the only one that had 9 stacks. On the fourth platform of Madness of Deathwing, you didn't switch to the tentacles (like many others, because you thought that you could dps the limb before the tentacles killed us all, and you - unsurprisingly - failed) and then we wiped.

And when someone called you on it, you bitched. You called us elitists assholes for telling you to step up your game. And when you had no other argument, you said something along the lines of: "it's not a real raid, it's the Retard Finder."

But those "easy-not-even-a-real-raid" bosses can wipe us, even in the fucking Retard Finder. Wipes cost gold. Hard earned gold. I'm sick and tired of wiping to easy shit, and spending all my gold on repairs, because of fuckers like you.

So to all of you cumbuckets, noobs or WoW veterans alike : fuck you sideways. If you can't be bothered to try and do your part, at least have the decency to shut the fuck up when you screw up. Ya, we wiped. And we're gonna go again. Try not to fuck up the same fucking way next time, mkay? 

- An exasperated (and slightly impatient) altoholic.

Quick Post : On my own

After weeks of waiting for Mad to play his DK tank with me, I've decided to just level on my own. My poor shaman was stuck at level 72 for way too long. Diablo kidnapped Mad and won't give him back. He did ask me to play D3 with him, but I just don't feel like it. For some reason. I played the beta a bit and liked it, and from what I've seen/read so far, it's an amazingly good game, but I just don't wanna play just yet. I will though. For sure. Some day. And it will be as a wizard.

But anyway.

My paladin is now level 80, and I'm waiting on her to gather some rested xp before going any further. So until then, I've started levelling the shamy again. I switched to her elemental spec and queued for dungeons. I'm having a total blast pew-pewing monsters with lightning bolts of doom. And I use thunderstorm only when there aren't any mobs around, because I'm considerate like that. It'd be easy to lash out in vengeance for all the times I've had dps knock the mobs out of my reach when I'm tanking (must knock back ALL THE THINGS! /evil laugh) but I don't. 

Even though some tanks kinda deserve it. >.>

The reverse bucket list

I read this post over on Bravetank's blog, and I totally wanted to make my own list. So here goes!

I have never ...

1. levelled a lock or rogue to the level cap. The rogue got to 75 but I was so bored out of my mind that I deleted her. The many locks I tried to level never reached level 41. I intend to change that soon. The lock part, that is.

2. played a worgen, dwarf or gnome character. And never will. Because they creep me out.

3. actually participated in a fight for Tol Barad. I did join one once, a couple minutes before we lost. And I don't even really remember. So it doesn't count.

4. tanked any raids. Nor do I intend to. I might try to tank some heroic dungeons, though.

5. did any of the classic raids except for Molten Core, and it wasn't current content when I did. 

6. finished Vashj'ir. God I hate that zone. It's beautiful and all, but it's just so damn annoying. 

7. even thought about getting a legendary. I'm plain and simply too impatient. But I am jealous and envious of those who do have one.

8. healed properly. (Oh hello cooldowns that I fail to use!) To level it's no big deal. You can heal dungeons with a dps spec until OL, but at endgame, it's another story.

9. tried unholy on my dk. Of all my characters, I think it's the only spec I've never tried. I do have an unholy spec, (in a fit of rage after a failed attempt at dk tanking, I respec'd unholy. Bite me.) but I've never actually used it. I just love Frost way too much.

10. found the right guild for me. Over the years, my bf and I have been in many different guilds, but it never seemed to work out in the end. Either we're too picky, or we've just been unlucky.

Well, that was fun. It took me a while to find 10 things I had never done, as it feels like I've tried a little bit of everything. I'm sure I'll think of more after I hit the publish button, though.

Perspective

I've been pretty busy in game in the last couple of days. I've been working a lot on my bucket list in order to get as much stuff done as possible. And I've had a lot of fun doing it. 

Back in December when I started playing Swtor, I was very bored with WoW. I didn't feel like levelling new toons, the guild I was in was slowly dying, and I just didn't have anything to do in game anymore. Swtor was great, and for three whole months, it made me happy to discover new places, try out different playstyles and get engrossed in my character's stories.

But then, in the fourth month, when everyone started talking about Mists of Pandaria beta, I started missing WoW. I hadn't logged on in a couple of weeks, and I decided to give it another try. In a matter of minutes, Swtor became inadequate. Insufficient.

So my time in Swtor just made me realize how much I love WoW, and how much stuff I enjoy doing in Azeroth. Ever since I came back, I've been farming, levelling, raiding with the Raid Finder, gearing up my characters, and just having a blast. 

This week, I've farmed cloth in Tol Barad and in Icecrown to make bigger bags for my characters, and for some reason, it didn't bore me to tears. I actually enjoyed it and had a couple sessions of "farm all the cloth!" I also farmed elementals in Wintergrasp to gather mats for my blacksmith. I ran BC dungeons for hours to work on my reputations. Working on professions and achievements is suddenly entertaining, when a couple of months ago, it felt like a chore. I levelled fishing in a couple days, and it seemed to go fast! Admittedly, I was watching Supernatural on my second monitor the whole time. I never tire of looking at Dean.

But I digress.

I've levelled my paladin to a whoopin' level 75, and have tanked a couple of dungeons. I'm glad I can't get Nexus or Utgard Keep anymore as randoms because I'm sick of those. They are the only dungeons you can get for something like four levels. Old Kingdom turned out to be fairly chaotic. Especially the first boss. Many mobs, handle it! I think I'm doing a good job, though. I sometimes pull a bit more than I can chew, but not on purpose, honest. And we always survive. Either I'm decent at tanking, or I always get great healers. Maybe a little bit of both? Ya, that's good for my self-esteem. Drak'tharon Keep was a lot of fun to tank,  even with a dk trying to tank everything, and a healer drooling over the fact that I was a girl tank. Sigh. When I got Violet Hold, I was like "Nice! Never tanked this before!" And then I remembered. And I had a tiny moment of "Oh God what was I thinking?" But it went well. The group was on the second boss when I walked in. Maybe I should consider getting an offspec for my paladin, but I've been prot since level 10, and I'm not a fan of ret. I haven't quested since level 15, either. I kinda like the idea of having only one spec. If I even just buy her dual spec, I know I'm gonna end up healing or some shit like that and I really don't want that to happen.

Finally, my cutie druid got lots and lots of gear from the Raid Finder. If I could get my hands on a trinket and the staff off of Deathwing, I would be thrilled. There was a trinket I desperately wanted for my mage, and it took months before I won the roll. My druid? Got it on her first try. What's this, Blizz? Is this your way of telling me I should play my druid more? Message received. Loud and clear.

Battlechicken's challenge - week 3

I was late to the party for the second challenge, and the first challenge didn't inspire me, but hopefully, I'll make it in time for the third one! This week's challenge is an especially tricky one for me.

"Your challenge this week is to tell me about your main (or the small handful of characters you feel most attached to). This might be their backstory as you’ve imagined it, or how you imagine their personalities. It could be how they relate to you–are they your flamboyant side, or do you channel your thoughtfulness through them?

Maybe explain why you chose them or why you keep coming back to them. What would they say if I asked them to tell me about themselves?

Whatever form or idea that takes for you, the challenge is this: Tell me about your main character(s)."

I've never really given any of my characters a backstory in WoW. I do have a somewhat vague idea of their personalities, but nothing elaborate. Playing WoW for me has never been about that, anyway. It's always been about the feel of the class, the shiny purples, the dungeons, the professions, the raiding. And deciding which character would be my main.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years. For a very long time, I've searched for something. For the class that would be all that. That one class that I would say : "This is it. This is the one." I envied people who only have one character and are content. Complete. For years, I wandered off from a class to the next, never finding exactly what it is that I was looking for, but having fun looking for it. Every class has a little something I love, but not enough for me to settle on just one. I've finally come to the conclusion that  there simply isn't just one class that is all I need. I had looked all this time in vain. I could never have just one character.

However, I do have favourites. 

I have a lot of characters, and I love most of them. Others I just don't enjoy playing anymore, so they gather dust somewhere on a server far, far away. There are three of my toons that have always been my favourites, my mage, hunter and druid. I'm not sure exactly why, but they have a special place in my heart. I guess their playstyle just really clicks with me. Over the years, I've been a healer, a ranged dps, a melee, and recently, a tank. But I keep coming back to the "holy trinity". Mage, hunter, druid. I love my dk, my shaman, my pally, but it's not the same.

Whenever I transfer to a new server, I take my mage, hunter and druid with me. The others, I can reroll. I have no strong attachment to the character per say. I love the class, so I want one on my new main server, but not enough to actually pay for it to be transferred over. Although, with the transmog thing, I think I will actually have my dk transfered over, if only because she has the most awesome transmog set ever and I don't want to farm if on another toon. Because Firelands can die in a fire for all I care.

I've decided that my main is my mage, simply because she was my first toon, and I love her the most, with my hunter and druid being my two favourite alts. But there's so much stuff I love about my other characters that I made a list of all the abilities that make me love all my characters.

Mage : Being able to teleport almost anywhere I want. Blink. Mana cakes. Mirror images. Evocation. Mana gems. Invisibility. Ice block. Being able to play with fire, with ice, or with arcane. Scorch. Pyroblast. Arcane Missiles. Time Warp.

Hunter : Bows. Pets. Feign Death. Kill command. Watching my pet running full speed towards my enemy and biting him and clawing him to death. Being able to chose which pet I wanna carry around, choose it’s name, it’s color, it’s race. Shooting mobs from afar while my pet tanks them.

Druid : Bird form. Not having to “dismount” to loot, or farm herbs. Innervate. Mushrooms. Aquatic form. Starsurge. Swiftmend and the green circle of healy goodness that comes with it. Wild growth. Tranquillity.

DK : Anti-magic shell. Spamming Howling Blast. Dual wielding two weapons. Death grip. Army of the Dead.

Paladin : Avenger's shield. Crusader Aura. Lay on hands. Hammer of the righteous. The charger mount.

Shaman : Chain Lightning. Thunderstorm. Mana shield. Earth Shield. Riptide. Feral Spirit. Bloodlust.

I also have a priest and a warrior, and although there are things I do love about both those classes, I haven't played any of them much in the last months. I also plan on levelling a warlock soon, as they look like they're a lot of fun to play. And they just plain look cool. The only class I don't enjoy at all is the rogue, and that's fine. One less alt to worry about!

Why I WoW - Image Heavy Post

I missed Battlechicken's weekly challenges so far, but I guess it's never too late!

Why I WoW

Favourite transmog sets : Hunter Edition

My hunter is one of my favourite characters, so of course I had to go and find some good transmog outfits for her. I found it hard though to find sets that I really loved. It felt like the cloth classes have a lot more options than the mail ones. These are my favourite mail sets so far.

This is a PvP set from the Burning Crusade Era. I farmed a lot of honor for it, and it was a pain, since I hate PvP with a burning passion. But I kept going. It was for a good cause, after all. However, the matching boots and belt are not available in game anymore. So I looked on the AH and bought some "somewhat" matching pieces, but they do clash a bit (a lot). It was the best I could do at the time. For the belt, I used Ebonhold Girlde and the Pack-Ice Striders for the boots (not shown), which you can buy for JP in Dalaran. You could probably use the Ebonhold Boots, and it would probably be a better match. They are a bit expensive on the AH though, so you might want to farm it. 

I've always wanted this black set, as there aren't many black mail sets, except maybe for the Ebonhold Mail that is pretty damn hard to farm and usually very expensive on the Auction House.

This set is a mix-and-match of a couple sets. I found the pants on the Auction House and I just knew I needed to use it for a transmog set. It was sexy and gorgeous. I didn't love the whole Battleforge set (and it was way too expensive anyway, and I didn't feel like farming it all, I'm so lazy, and this parenthesis needs more commas in my opinion), so I looked for replacement pieces. So here's what I used.

Shoulders: Rocket-Chief Pauldrons

Chest: Marshcreeper Fen-Vest

Belt: Masterwork Girdle

Gloves: Runed Copper Gauntlets

Pants: Battleforge Legguards

Boots: Landing Boots

Bow: Skyfire Hawk-Bow

Polearm : Hellion Glaive (not shown)

I love the colors, and I love how sexy it makes my hunter. I know there are a gazillion other hunters out there looking just like that, but I don't care. Naesa loves to wear this outfit, and will cheer at anyone she sees wearing the same! The bow is one of my favourites, and I actually use it with other sets, even if it doesn't always fit. It's just so gorgeous.

I farmed this set in BC dungeons. It took me two days of farming. I didn't like the boots that were suggested, so I got another model on the Auction House, that I feel matches very well with the outfit. The polearm I use with this set is the Sonic Spear, which drops off Murmur in the Shadow Labyrinths. 

The fourth and last set is the 25man version of the hunter's tier 10 set from ICC. This was one of the first set I got, back at the end of WotLK. With this, I use Zod's Repeating Longbow.

I guess I'm just too picky, but I wish I could find more mail outfits that I love. My poor hunter is feeling so neglected compared to my mage. If you have great mail outfits that can be used for hunters, let me know! Happy transmogging!

My end-of-expansion bucket list

I've seen several bloggers make a bucket list for all the things they want to do in game. Aralosseien over at Achievements Ahoy has made a list (back in january, I know, I'm late to the party) of a couple bloggers who made one. I love bucket lists, and I feel it helps to get ready for the incoming expansion. So I decided to make my very own bucket list. It can be found here as a permanent page for easier updates on my progress. (It's actually been there for quite a while, but I decided to make a post about it.)

I want to do all those things before MoP is released, but I probably won't. I sometimes go crazy and score a lot of achievements, grind rep and farm stuff like there's no tomorrow, then I get burned out and stop for months. I've been trying to go slowly this time and do just a little bit of grinding each week so I can get things done. There are still several weeks if not months before the pandas get here, so I think I can realistically get at least a good chunk of those done before MoP, and the rest after. It doesn't really matter when I do it. I always get sidetracked anyway and end up doing something completely different. The point is to have fun, after all.

Druid

- Farm the Raven Lord from Anzu. (Yay for stealth!)

- Get a cute RP outfit for fishing or hanging out in Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff.

- Find a good transmog set. (or two...)

- Level fishing to 525. (250)

- Gear her up to at least 378 ilvl. (375)

Hunter
- Finish Loremaster of Northrend (Zul'Drak, Icecrown, Storm Peaks.)
- Get a Darkmoon cub or balloon.
- Get two trinkets from the Raid Finder.

Mage
- Finish The Oceanographer. (Winter Squid)
- Farm Embersilk cloth.
- Make enough 22 slot bags for all my level 85 toons' inventories and banks.
- Make a couple Hyjal Expedition Bags for the druid.
- Finish What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. (Midsummer Festival)
- Complete The Burning Crusader. (Thrallmar, Lower City, Keepers of Time, The Sha'tar)
- Raise 35 reputations to exalted. (31)
- Finish Loremaster of Cataclysm (Vashj'ir - about 75 quests.)
- Finish Loremaster of Outland (Blade's Edge Mountain, Shadowmoon Valley, Netherstorm.)
- Complete Loremaster of Kalimdor.
- Complete Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms.
- Complete 3000 quests and get the Seeker title. (2096)
- Get a Darkmoon turtle.
- Get tier 4 set for transmog.

Paladin
- Level to 85. (70)
- Level mining to 525. (390)
- Level blacksmithing to 525. (375)
- Get a Darkmoon cub.
- Gear her up to at least 378 ilvl.
- Reach exalted reputation with Shattered Sun Offensive; buy the tabard, title and shields.
- Get tier 6 set for transmog.

Shaman
- Level to 85. (72)
- Level skinning to 525. (448)
- Level leatherworking to 525. (400)
- Level fishing to 525. (94)
- Farm the Giantstalker recolor set for transmog.
- Gear her up to at least 378 ilvl.

General
- Try to level a warlock and not give up at 40 like the last five times (or six, or seven....)
- Buy the heirloom leather helms from the guild vendor.
- Find a good name for my future panda lady and pick her professions.
- Level engineering on a character. Any character. 'Cause... goggles.
- Transfer my warrior and death knight over to the new server. At some point. Maybe.
- Get the warrior some tank gear and try tanking.

I think that's all for now. I might update it if I ever find something else I want to do. It's quite a big list, and it should keep me busy for a good while. I have to say I'm really excited for account wide achievements, as I notice I have a lot of stuff done on different characters. My mage is sitting at around 8600 achievement points right now, and I'm pretty sure when they all get merged, I will hit Over Nine Thousand, if not more. This list would be a lot longer if I wasn't counting on some titles and rewards to be available to my alts in a couple months.

For example, I wanted to get the Guardian of Cenarius title for my druid, and the Argent Champion title for my paladin, but since my mage already got those, I decided to wait and see if it will be given to all my characters in MoP before re-farming it all. Would really hate to waste time doing it again for nothing.

I'm the biggest idiot ever

I just now went to Darkmoon Faire Island to check it out.

Oh. My. God.

I haven't had that much fun in, well, quite some time. Why the fuck didn't I pay attention to people saying how cool the DMF Island is? How can anyone resist a fun evening at the Faire?

Jori started by visiting the animals. She particularly liked to see Mabaka the giraffe, Violet the tallstrider and Gargantua the gorilla.

Jori then played some mini games, scored some achievements, rode a pony, got a cute little sea pony companion pet, drank beer and ate Corn-Breaded Sausages until she couldn't eat any more.

Cassie and Jessie went to the Faire as well, but they only did their professions quests for some bonus points. Cassie wants to try and get enough Darkmoon Prize tickets to buy a Darkmoon cub. Naesa might try to get one as well. She heard how much fun Jori had tonight and decided to go and check it out for herself. As for Jori, she wants to adopt an adorable Darkmoon turtle. They're all looking forward to next month! (And I sorta wish I had started this sooner. At least I'm not looking to buy any of the more expensive mounts.)

Edit:

When Cassie went back to the Faire to try out the mini-games, she came across a dancing bear that was just sitting there.

She started dancing, and he soon joined her!

And she also saw the Strongest Woman Alive!

And later, Naesa got her very own Sea Pony!

Lastly, Naesa went to the L90ETC concert and had a blast! The music was amazing, and she danced her little heart out!

 She may or may not have left with Sig Nicious after the show. Rock stars are hawt, trufax.

Quick Post : Funny Machinima

I saw this video over on WoW Insider today, and it made me laugh. I really love Oxhorn's work. Plus, I kinda agree with him, and wish I could do the same.

Too much or not enough

When Mad and I switched servers, we both created new alts. What else can you do on a new server? 

As expected, my baby shaman picked skinning and leatherworking as her professions and I've been having lots of fun farming leather with her. I often made up to two levels per farming session just by getting enough mats to make 50 points of leatherworking. The only part I didn't enjoy as much was the part where I had to kill Nyxondra's Broodlings in Badlands, just behind New Kargath. There's an elite there that kept aggroing me, and even though I had no problem killing her whatsoever, it took a pretty long time, and it felt like a waste of time, as she didn't give more leathers than the small, quickly killed ones. Although, those bastards are swarming the place, and you can't ever run out of mobs to kill, so it was pretty quick nonetheless, even though I needed over 400 leathers from them.

The shamy is now level 71 and healing Northrend dungeons for Mad's dk tank. Outland went by so fast I barely felt it. Mad was tanking and I was healing, so we just chain-dungeon'd our way to 70. We probably won't do the same for Northrend, though, and will probably add some questing into the mix. Healing isn't my favourite thing in the world, and I could really use a break and just go an destroy monsters and collect their hide.

The second alt I rolled was a prot paladin which is now level 60! I got tired of running BRD - which is the only instance you get for something like 6 or seven levels -  so I went to quest for a while in Blasted Land and it was pretty nice. The Tainted Forest looks kinda cool, too.

For the record, questing as prot is fucking amazing. Avenger’s Shield procs and does insane amount of damage, and I ended up two-shotting mobs of my level.

After that I started tanking Ramparts and the Blood Furnace. It went pretty smoothly. Except for the stupid DKs dying to every single mother fucking bombs in BF. Or the fucktard hunter that pulled everything in sight "because I wasn't pulling fast enough". /stranglekittens

Healers never complained about my tanking, and they never looked to struggle at all. I was also pretty proud of myself for not snapping at the DK that kept death gripping mobs THAT I WAS TANKING OMG LEARN TO DEATH GRIP FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!! THERE’S A CASTER RIGHT THERE! DG IT!! NOT THE MELEE I HAD AGGRO ON!!! 

Tanking makes me rage more than anything else in this game. People just have no respect for tanks whatsoever. (At lower levels anyway. I have yet to level a tank to the max level.) And after that they wonder why there are so few tanks out there. Some groups are great, and don't "order" me to pull faster, or just don't plain pull shit - while I'm waiting for Avenger's Shield to come off cooldown - and then complain that I didn't pick it up. 

Because you just know that if I catch you pulling shit on purpose, I'm letting you tank it. I've heard people complain about tanks that do that, that it's the tank's problem no matter what, but I completely, violently, disagree. I don't have to put up with people's shit. That's not what I signed up for. You wanna be a dick and pull half the instance? Go for it. But don't expect me to clean up your mess. The low level mage aggroes by accident? The lock's pet decided to misbehave and runs into a pack of mob? Eh, no worries, shit happens. But don't stand there, tab-targettting and shooting mobs that weren't pulled yet, and think for just one fucking second that I'll go out of my way to taunt them off you.

I didn't intend this to be a "bitch about fucktards in pugs" post, but there it is. I love to tank. It's a lot of fun. Healers are usually great and really know their stuff, and I can count on them when the shit hits the fan. But for some reason, the dps are often complete idiots and I wonder why that is.

One man army and twenty four others

I love the Raid Finder. I love it a lot.

Why? Simply because… I love free epics. I enjoy being with 24 people that I don’t know, one shotting raid bosses and getting loot. The raid finder is like the friday night T11 alt run that my old guild used to do. You can make a drinking game of it and still win. (ie: you drink everytime someone does something stupid, or dies, or aggroes random stuff. Trust me, you drink a lot.)

I do miss being with people that I know, sometimes. I miss the friendly atmosphere. Most pugs hate your guts, just for being a random stranger. And I get it. I don't particularly like most random strangers, too.

I love doing my thing on my own. But raiding has always been a social activity. You usually have to use Vent or the equivalent, and sometimes people are funny, or plain stupid, and then I mute vent… but that’s besides the point.

In the Raid Finder, you can listen to music and not even pay attention to chat and still win, if you have even just the faintest idea of what you’re doing. Even on spine, if you know what to attack and when, you can pretty much wing it. Most of the time, I like that. It’s like a one person raid. The other 24 people could be NPC’s for all I care. NPCs that steal my loot, mind you.

Sure it can be painful at times. Some groups can't figure out what to do, or just don't care, and we end up wiping to Spine or Madness. I can't tell you how many times I've had the urge to strangle strangers through their monitor. I often fantasize about being able to physically inflict pain on pugs douchebags.

But sometimes, you're lucky, and the pugs will be quiet, or even won't say a word at all, they won't die stupidly and you will kill the bosses in a relatively smooth manner. Just sometimes, things die fast, and you don't have time to actually feel the pain that is pugging. Some people love pugs that talk and are friendly. Me, I prefer the silent ones. It makes it so much easier for me to pretend they aren't people. Now, that doesn't mean I'm a jerk and roll on stuff I don't need or make their lives miserable by standing in bad and hitting the mob the tank had no aggro on. No. I'm considerate towards those "not real people." But I don't feel like I have to be especially nice or friendly to them. It's not that I don't like people. It's just that sometimes, I just don't feel like being social.

I haven't raided in months, other than the Raid Finder, and I like it that way. I got tired of the commitment that is raiding. I find that I don't always feel like raiding three hours a night, three nights a week. I enjoy being able to raid whenever I feel like it. Maybe that will change in MoP. I'll probably try and find a raiding guild at some point. But for now, I'm just enjoying being on my own.

Newbie Blogger Initiative

Two bloggers from my blogroll were talking about this NBI thing this morning, and as I am fairly new to the blogging thing, I decided to check it out. You should too, whether you're a blogger or not. It's there to help new bloggers get some visibility, some advices from more experienced bloggers, and also, to encourage you to start your own blog if you want to. I think it's the best thing ever. Because blogging is awesomely fun, but not everyone knows exactly how the hell to get people to read what you have to say.

When I was still blogging about Swtor, I found it easier to just go and comment on other people's blogs telling them : hey! love your blog, btw I'm new here, you should check my blog!" because the Swtor blog community was fairly smaller than WoW's. And also, everyone was rather new to it. Since Swtor is four months old, not counting the beta.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it intimidating to try and make my way in the WoW blogosphere. There's so many other bloggers out there! Amazing bloggers. Some of them have been blogging for years. I feel like a little ant in the world of the giants, trying to get one of them to pay attention to me and my ramblings. But maybe that's just my low self-esteem talking. XD 

So thank you NBI, and thank you to the people that make it happen.

May will be the month of write ALL THE THINGS, make ALL THE FRIENDS, and have ALL THE FUN. =D