The View Through The Branches

Yes! That’s Right! I PASSED MY TRIAL!

I am now a full member and raider of Praetorian Guards, of Terenas EU.

So, in celebration, I’m going to do a lovely long screenshot post full of lovely memories over the past couple of months.

There are some from a lonnnng way back but life wasn’t particularly fun filled in May and early June, so there’s just a few from then added with all the glory that’s happened since. So, chronologically, first we have Zal (no surprises there) lamenting about Gunship:

Please note, we’re talking about Zal the fat paladin here, not Zal in real life, who’s actually quite skinny.

Fabulous – when I start to go mad, I mix my words up. Somehow, rather than a three phase fight, we ended up with a three fight phase! Sounds pretty epic to me!

The easily distracted Yanader tries to farm a Hyacinth Macaw. Funnily enough, he got bored.

Someone gets a bit pissy when he’s the only paladin….

For some reason it’s always Zal that makes me giggle the most – I do quite like the idea of a hacker who secretly drives players mad!

Why go all the way outside when you can have a friendly warlock do all your leg work for ya?

Some strudels, you just shouldn’t trust.

Zal tries to level a new bank alt but gets exasperated with the nelf starting zone… gummy nightsabers?

a QQing sponge – snigger.

There was a reason. My mum wanted to see the cat…I’m not really one of those awful people that is always putting their pets on YouTube.

Total faith in my own abilities, as ever!

I was trying to make a joke when I was newly dinged 80 – trying to jovially say, “I don’t stand in void zones”. The two raid leaders who said “but it’s a frost boss” in response to my lighthearted comment “I don’t stand in fire” actually horrified me.

I’m dead classy, me.

The first time FotP attempted the Lich King… the healer channel may have degraded into mindless chitchat.

I was pimping out my druid in the Cenarion set – green furry shoulders and antlers for the win! Way way better than the paladin set!

Sometimes, our flames raid leader used to be a little bit more detailed than was completely necessary…

This is what happens when you look at the same character for three years without changing. When you play something new you get VERY confused.

Baby Spice + Gnome + Pet Biscuit + Kirin Tor Familar = epic win.

South Park + grinding Mana Tombs together for keys for Zal’s rep = slight insanity sets in.

That’s me told for whinging about money…what’d it be like with an alligator hmm????

To put into in to context, he nearly died in Escape from Durnholde cos he pulled the pack whilst I only had one leg in my tights whilst getting changed. Hopping across the room to save a paladin whilst having one foot in and one foot out of tights is NOT EASY.

And then I joined PG. Since then things have changed massively. My WoW experience has changed massively. I am constantly absorbed in what I’m doing. Things are new, and exciting. As I posted earlier today, me and Zal have become PvP fiends. Well, he already was one. Now I am a slightly inferior one. Very inferior! But anyway still awesome. Since I joined PG I have experienced:

Algalon – on 25 man. For a guild first:

I also got to watch one of our guildies complete the quest:

I have also been part of some other very exciting bits and pieces, such as:

Killing one of our poor guildies (thank you Manda <3 ) 179 times for Halaa tokens for our mounts… a team of 3 boomkins and my favourite pally:

Since joining PG, I’ve had the chance to work my way through some of the Ulduar meta-achievements, leaving me just Firefighter (blergh), Saronite and Yogg + 1. I’ve been desperate since the place was released to really go back and explore, and I’ve really enjoyed doing that recently. Fabulous stuff.

My happy times with my Zal continue withe the creation of RealID:

he’s got no faith in me does he? bloody paladin.

And then, there was this amazing day:

Me and Zal, back under the same guild tag again. That’s what makes PG even better. It’s an amazing guild, with an amazing selection people, and now my amazing best friend.

Since then the good times in PG have continued:

I got to defeat Halion,

Progressed further through ICC on heroic on 25 and 10,

Had some serious giggles,

took the piss our of a Geordie (it’s got to be done, thanks Thyphs!)

And of course, completed one of my other major goals of the game:

Die to…

then defeat…

The Lich King!

THANK YOU,

Praetorian Guards, their fab guild leader, officers and of course Dal my class leader for accepting me into your ranks

This is an amazing guild. I love it.

I hope I am happy here and can make people giggle and have fun and contribute to the amazing success they have already achieved.

Fabulous.

Long live Praetorian Guards – onwards and upwards!

I’m now halfway through my new guild Trial – 2 weeks in, 2 weeks to go.

Some nights I go in and I’m pleased with my performance.

Last night we wiped on heroic Marrowgar just once, which was a shame. And I may well have been partly to blame. I spent a lot of Wednesday night redoing my UI, and although I tried it out in a Wintergrasp that night, I don’t think I tested it thoroughly enough and had some quite severe problems – problems for me anyway.

Names weren’t big enough on the raid frames, and I’d tried to reimplement 3D Portraits (I use Pitbull for my frames as I like the class colour schemes for the entire boxes amongst other things), and my range fader wasn’t working.

This meant a lot of my heals didn’t land properly and things weren’t working at all. We did go on to down Marrowgar easily the second try, the raid (I was subbed out) went on to kill Deathwhisper on heroic, and then we did Gunship.

After that I was luckily out for the rest of the evening, which thankfully meant I could get my UI fixed. Range faders are now working, names are now big and I’ve got it showing my buffs/auras only, so I can track my rejuvs again etc.

My addon list is now greatly decreased and I’ve really started from scratch.

I now have:

Auctioneer Suite (on my bank alt only)
Postal – fantastic for opening mail when you have shed loads
Pitbull 4.0 – although I do miss 3.0 terribly I’m sure I’ll get used to 4
Decursive - curses to left click, poisons to right click. Perfect for Lady Deathwhisper etc
Power Auras – shows my Wild Growth, Swiftmend and Natures Swiftness cooldown, as well as a visual countdown of my battle res, a massive “you’re under 75% mana” rune symbol, and a symbol for missing flask/missing food.
GCD – recommended by Cranky, ideal for tracking WG and Swiftmend, especially the latter, which I used to hit before it was off CD way too often, wasting a click/GCD.
Button Facade – I almost went further and I tried kgpanels, but it was just too complicated for me. I do love how my buffs, debuffs and all my buttons have a lovely dary (I use the Onyx skin) on them, and a lovely gloss to them as well. I really really like this new addition.
SLDT – I’ve used fubar and broker in the past but this is my most favourite – clear text, tiny letters, no big black bar at the top, everything I need all in one easy line. Also another new addition.
Buffalos - I haven’t done much with this other than move my debuffs away from under my buffs to alongside them, in the middle of my screen at the top – slightly easier to see for me and they’re also framed with Button Facade which I like.
SexyMap – had this for ages, currently using the emerald dream skin. I really like the little touch of prettiness this gives my screen.
Clique – used alongside pitbull for my healing.
TipTac - I think that’s the name? Frames tooltips really nicely, plus it gives you this awesome feature of being able to see what people’s guild ranks are – there are some utterly brilliant ones.
Other’s of course include oRA2 and DBM.

That’s pretty much everything I’m using now so I’m quite pleased with the sleeker, glossier and more streamlined look everything has. I’m still not completely happy with my raid frames but to be honest I doubt I ever will be, I’m far too picky!

New guild wise, tonight we’ve got VoA and the weekly (Patchwerk for us), and then Ulduar 10 hard modes which I’m really really excited about.

Team this with the fact it’s Friday, I’ve got a quick half hour horse riding lesson tonight and then it’s the WEEKEND, my mood and things overall are definitely looking up.

Thanks,

Soph

Where were we last time I did a new-guild update?

*goes to look at own website because cannot remember what bloody day it is*

Firstly I want to say a massive thank you to all of you for your support. I know those that have followed me for a while have followed my own very public…squishyness.

You all saw me gush at how wonderful Mike is – to only realise that maybe some people have always been single for a long, very conclusive list of reasons which aren’t my problems to fix, to be brutal.

I’m 23. I want to enjoy myself and my life, not look after someone else.

You’ve all seen me come to terms with my own anxiety, and start counselling. Last Thursday, my counsellor said she truly believed I’d turned a corner. I’d started to realise that…a lot of the reasons I was unhappy were, whilst not necessarily completely my own doing, I hadn’t done anything to stop them, or to fix them.

I’d let myself be unhappy. I’d let myself be upset, let myself be backed into a corner and let myself be put upon because it gave me an excuse to be unhappy.

However, things are a-changing.

I have now been on a calorie counting diet for two weeks, and have lost 4 lbs. I don’t know what that is in kilos. It’s not a lot, but it’s a good start.

I have a list of objectives in my diary for every day of the week, and I try and do four to six of those objectives every day. I’ve started small. “Make my own lunch” is on the list, for example. As is, “Netherwing dailies”. I’m giving myself lots of little things to tick off – my mind likes that system. Same as my mind likes being able to type exact calorie numbers into a database and have things worked out for me. I’m a bit OCD like that.

I’ve turned a corner.

If I’m upset – I’m fixing it.

I’m unhealthy – I’m fixing it.

My game experience was bad – I’m fixing it.

From somewhere, as well, I seem to have acquired a boyfriend. That bit sort of snuck up on my unexpected, but I’m going with it so far! It does mean getting my passport stamped, visa acquired and every jab possible everytime I cross the England/Wales border to visit him, but…ya know, I’m dealing with it.

So, on to that game experience

Since 1st July, I’ve done some lovely raiding. Thursday was quite a relaxed night for me – an off night. I did some dailies, wandered about Azeroth and chatted a lot. Listened in on Teamspeak and absorbed some more tips and whatnot.

Friday we steamrolled through ToC and VoA as per usual. I also went into Molten Core and dinged revered. Now. Here’s a query for you all. I am now 1005/21000 with the Hydraxian Waterlords.

One boss run of Molten Core nets me 1050 rep. I need 20994 rep to hit 999/1000. That is 20 runs of Molten Core. That means one run every week for 20 weeks will take us to 24th November 2010. We all know Cataclysm is going to be out before that.I know the last 1000 is impossible so for now let’s just concentrate on me hitting Exalted.

What do we think is going to happen to Molten Core? I know Raggy’s off for a wander to the Fire plain thingies. But will the instance die? What will happen to the reputation faction? I’m going to try and do an MC every month, because even if I can’t get myself all the way to exalted, I’d like to get myself as far through revered as possible.

Any speculation? Does anybody actually KNOW the answer definitively?

Anyhow. I had awful internet problems for a lot of Saturday, however on Sunday we raided again.

We did Deathwhisper on normal, Lootship Heroic, Saurfang on normal, and then Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

Now THAT was a fight. That was a hard fight. Luckily, oh oh oh so luckily, I got to stay outside. We had a few wipes but we managed it. I’ve never, ever gone oom in that fight, ever, and towards the end I was literally waiting for my trinket to repop, for my mana to creep up for one more rejuv, just clinging on depserately.

And we did it.

Valithria Dreamwalker on heroic.

I’d be interested in any tips from anybody who’s done this a few more times than me, here’s the basic info:

Although the night wasn’t great for the guild – they’ve progressed much further than this and done a lot more on heroic – I had a fabulous time. I feel like I proved myself to be decent. I feel like I did my job, and although I ran oom, I know both the shammy and the holy priest who were outside did too.

I certainly felt, after Sunday, one hell of a lot more confident about my abilities to pass my trial than I had done the week before.

That’s when things started going wrong. Last night, after a fabulously lovely long walk with Jess (the bezzie), her mum, and three mad dogs, I got home to find a totally deceased internet. Latency varied from 5.5k, to 1.7k, to 2.5k, ms. That’s in between a 2 seconds and nearly SIX second lag on cast times. That would be a wild growth applied and expired before I would see it get through. I spent 90 minutes on the phone to BT, I had to cancel arena (Sorry again chaps ), and I couldn’t sub in when needed in the guild’s raid.

HOWEVER! The 90 minutes with BT seemed to fix things enough to play with, so I’m hoping to actually get something done tonight, and get some proper gaming done.

I might get a chance at an ICC10man tonight, which would be quite nice.

So yes! In summary, I am most definitely feeling more confident about my trial than I was.

Which is good.

Before I leave you, I’d like you to watch the below video.

I don’t know how many of you know about Ikea. And about Ektorp sofas. But as you can see by this lovely advert, the sofa covers are washable.

I have TWO cats, and one puppy. One of my cats, the siamese, likes to sit in the soil in the garden, then sit on the white Ektorp sofa covers.

But it’s OK, right? That man! He split tea, and they’re WASHABLE.

But let me tell you this. Try and get the FUCKING covers back on after you’ve washed them is physically impossible. I spent 45 minutes last night struggling to get the (yes by the way, mud does come off, they were as good as new) fucking covers on. FOURTY FIVE MINUTES. All that had been achieved was that I was very red and very sweaty and very exhausted. I had the two back corners on, and one arm. But the other arm would not go on.

So I gave up, put the cushions on and threw a blanket over the uncovered arm.

My dad gets back from a fortnight in Italy tomorrow. I’m going to see how long it takes him to notice.

Adieu,

Soph

Firstly I’d like to say thank you to Kae, Seph, Cranky, Ophelie and of course Dal for being so supportive after my whinging post the other night.

I have downloaded GCD, and it’s AWESOME. I love my little Wild Growth and in particular Swiftmend tickers – that’s one I often hit when it’s still on cooldown and I saw a marked decrease in the number of times I did that thanks to GCD last night.

Anyway.

Apparently, the closed Cataclysm Beta is starting soon. I didn’t sign up for the Beta. I’m not…I don’t know how to say this but I’m not really that interested. Everytime I’ve entered new content, level wise, on Elsen – and to a lesser extent on some of my other characters, when I’ve quested through zones I hadn’t experienced before – I have truly been open mouthed with wonder, aghast at the monstrosities I see before me that have to be killed, speechless at the acts of heroism we see by NPCs.

I want my level 80 to 85 experience to be exactly the same – which is why I won’t be looking at *too* many screenshots (I have snooped on troll and worgen druid forms mainly because they won’t affect me), I won’t be dissecting quest lines, or going any further into the druid changes than I have already. I’m all about superficial analysis.

I may restart my series about the new maps – not including screenshots – because I think that was quite a nice way of going about things. A real sort of, “direct” comparison.

So anyway, yea, don’t expect to see any in-depth super good (HA! as if) analysis of the druid changes on this there poxy website.

Time for some more QQ?

SO! How’s the raiding going I see you all clamouring to ask. Look away now if you’re bored of me complaining.

When I last posted I believe it was just before my adventures into ICC normal with the new guild.

Well, in we went. I sucked on Valithria. I always suck on Valithria. I can’t portal bounce, I suck as 3D swimming and that, “bork” noise Elsen makes in her tree form when she pops a bubble always makes me jump.

I was healing with a resto shammy and a holy priest, for info. The priest stayed outside, and I went in with the shammy.

We then went on to Putricide, which I matched the other healers for, and Sindragosa. Sindy took me a while to grasp, and I did accidentally double frost tomb myself at one point. It’s funny though, when I managed to frost tomb myself, my heart sank and I said to myself – oh it’s a wipe. But no! I’m continually amazed by the quick reaction times and general bad-ass ness of these guys. If it was my old lot, we’d be floundering on our arses, no frost tombs getting broken and an invariable wipe. I got broken out and once I grasped the method of the boss I did OK, and she went down. I was only a smidgen below the others there.

We then went backwards and squished the BPC, and then heroic BQL. I love Lana’thel. Lana’thel is where I get to shine. Resto druids are AWESOME on that fight. Like, truly awesome. Pulsing raid damage FOR the win.

I love that fight.

Thankfully I then got to have a rest, as the team went on to kill the LK on normal, and then make some attempts on Professor Putricide heroic on 25 man.

During which time I managed to finish grinding my Kurenai rep! Netting me the Kurenai achievement, the Diplomat achievement, and progressing me to 79/100 mounts!

So that was Tuesday, right?

Well, along comes Wednesday. Raid lists go up. I’m in for Heroic Marrowgar, Heroic Deathwhisper, Heroic Gunship, 10man Sanctum and 25man Sanctum.

Busy night much?

On Marrowgar, I’m down to heal the tanks. Not a role I’m particularly best suited to or one I enjoy a lot. I’m not particularly good at tank healing or experienced at it. But anyway. I stand in the wrong place at first, but thanks to the lovely GM telling me where to move to I manage to plant myself in the right place and, whilst forgetting to breathe, manage to make it through.

On Deathwhisper, things get a lot harder. My tanks to heal are on either side of the room, and things go fine until I unluckily get hit by a Death and Decay, or am trying to decurse/cyclone and lose a tank. That happened a couple of times, so after a wipe I get switched round to looking after one tank and the raid.

I feel bad about that, because I feel like I wasn’t capable of doing the assignment given to me. But Deathwhisper heroic is fucking…insane.

Constant adds, constant mind control, and then the one time we did get her down past the shield, those god damn GHOSTS!

I think I only got hit by the explosion once, which isn’t too bad going seeing as I’ve never done it before, and I didn’t die until right at the end. I certainly wasn’t one of the first to fall. Small victories and all that, hmm?

We called it there and moved on to Sanctum.

We spent about 90 minutes in there, on ten man. Three groups went in, and only one managed to get Halion down. Not ours, unfortunately. The mini bosses went quite well (except for the first one, which took us a couple of tries), but the Halion fight itself is hard.

Phase 1 we did successfully every time. Phase 2, however, the first two tries I walked straight through a laser beam. What a fucking numpty. “OO, purple lasers! Let’s RUN THROUGH THEM”. Stupid feckin tree.

We got through to Phase 3 a couple of times but then got stuck against the corporeality buff with a bit of misunderstanding and not quite grasping it overall I think.

It then hit the end of raid time, and we called it.

I feel like I was a massive drag factor in that fight. Massive. It depresses me to think that with someone more competent who doesn’t walk through laser beams they might have got him down. It’s weird, because sometimes my spatial awareness is good – for example, I’m quite good at avoiding fire. I don’t tend to stand in void zones and I avoided DW’s ghosts. However when it’s an entirely new fight…I think somethings just take me longer to learn than others.

Sigh. All I can do is hope that I will have improved enough if I get the chance to go again and do better.

So. As it stands now, my “will I pass my trial meter” went from “quite unlikely” post-Algalon to “you know, there is a chance…” after ICC normal, to “well, if they’re REALLY short on resto druids” after Marrowgar to “you ain’t got a feckin CHANCE my girl!” after Halion.

I will update again soon…

Blergh.

What’s that annoying phrase? Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained?

So if I hadn’t have left Flames, would I have never known briefly what it would be like to be in a proper raiding guild?

I have now experienced two separate things with my new guild.

1. A VoA 25 & Sarth + 3D 25man zerg.

2. A guild first of Algalon the Observer – resulting in Observed, the Astral Walker title, and a brief period of time when I nearly died because I stopped breathing.

Tonight, I am in one of the ten man teams who will be going for Valithria Dreamwalker, Professor Putricide, Sindragosa and the Lich King. Thankfully, I’ve been left out of the Lich King team to break me into my first proper guild raid.

I’ve seen the logs for last night’s Algalon attempts.

I’m looking at the upside here, right?

Upsides:

a) I didn’t die at the beginning in any of the attempts. In fact I didn’t die in any attempts until we were essentially all dead. I was successfully understanding the fight mechanics, getting out of bad shit and whatnot. I also grasped the “black hole” mechanic quite well.

b) My healing is back to front. Normally Rejuv makes up over 60% of my healing, but WG was doing that and Rejuv WG’s numbers (on our successful attempt). I think my lack of knowledge of the fight, lack of understanding of “what the fuck was going on”, and general lack of not-knowing, meant I was more panic-healing than planning out my heals or getting into any kind of routine or motion.

c) Despite this, my ‘raw’ healing was only 100k behind the other Resto druid (who is so good it’s a little bit scary). My effective HPS was 900 behind the other Resto’s, at a pitiful 2.8k.

d) My activity was decent – 98%. I did 10.4% of the overall healing, just 1.5% behind a priest, 3% behind t’other druid. A very long way away from our Disc priest and the other two healers.

Downsides:

a) I am simply a good 10% behind the other healers. Whether this is down to not knowing the fight or general nerves I don’t know, but it needs to be improved on if I deserve a place in this team. Seriously.

b) I am outclassed completely and this affects my nerves and my abilities. I need to overcome my nerves, stop being such a fucking girl and MAN UP.

The thing is, tonight is the real test. Tonight I see how I do in fights I know, see how I do in fights I have done before, and “easy” fights (ie, ICC normal).

I’m so worried I’m going to fail. Flames isn’t my home anymore. I don’t…want to be there anymore. It’s not somewhere I can go back to, so if this new guild don’t accept me (which they shouldn’t do if I am not capable), then I’m back to square 1.

I expect, to be honest, I’ll take a break from playing, or go Horde full time.

I’ll keep you updated as to what the hell happens tonight…

Moving Guilds & Settling In

Moving guilds has been a strange experience for me.

I’ve got big fish in a small pond syndrome. I’ve gone from being guild banker in a tiny, tight nit guild with only 15 raiders, where my voice is one of the loudest, my opinions always heard and my mark on the guild everywhere…to being one of many.

One of a BIG many. A trialist (and to be perfectly honest – I doubt I’ll pass. I was shown some raw healing figures (which I know don’t mean much but you can effectively compare raw with raw), and I actually did a real life ‘quiver’. I did a full out “omfg-what-am-I-doing-here-these-people-are-uber-and-I’m-rubbish-and-the-only-reason-I-got offered-a-trial-was-because-I-spent-two-hours-on-my-application-and-it-was-really-good-and-hid-the-fact-I’m-a-rejuv-flailing-numpty”) amongst 40-odd active raiders and hundred or so active accounts.

I’m used to things being vocal…

But, I’m getting used to the changes. The chattiness is different in my new guild. It’s not really based in guild chat, but I’m in four different chat channels. I’m in a healing channel, where assignments get written down, battle rezzes are broadcast, chat is serious and kept to a raid relevant basis only.

I’m also in a druid channel. In there, it seems we mostly talk about cake. Battle rezzes also get broadcast, but conversation does seem to circulate mostly around cake. I approve.
I’m also in a /pervs channel, and a /ladies channel. Both of these are, like the druid channel, are very very chatty. People are friendly and lots of them have given me tips and hints and really helpful bits and pieces of knowledge in preparation for my first raid (which will probably be Wednesday). I feel like I’m starting to settle in. I am starting to know people and starting to take part more vocally in conversations.

Do I miss my Flamers?

But it will take me a while. After being in Flames, anything and everything is different. At the moment, I don’t regret my decision. I don’t honestly know how Flames will fare now. A very small part of me sees things not going well anymore and thinks – maybe now it’ll become clear that my way was the right way. And that to shoot me down and not support me is resulting in something fading. All I wanted was a bit of decisiveness and a bit of support.

But I might be wrong. Things might be incredibly successful, things may improve, and they may come out the other side stronger of it. Who knows? I think the whole situation is totally unpredictable right now.

Anyway. Back to pastures new. I listened in on Teamspeak last night. And at one point, whilst browsing my feed reader and hovering in Nagrand (I’m very, very slowly grinding my Kurenai rep), the raid leader shouted, “woa woa woa stop MOVING” and I jumped about 3 feet, tabbed back in and panicked, before realising I was still just hovering 60 feet up in Nagrand, unaffected by Festergut’s heroics malleable goo.

I think it’ll take me a while to get used to a different style of raid leading to Nyo’s very calm, slow, stoic descriptions.

How is raiding going to be different?

The main difference I can see – or that I think I can see – is that the responsibility is on the individual. In Flames, our hands were very much held. Spore there, spore there, cross/square move out, phases were called out, transition phases called out, information and descriptions on all the different possible boss abilities – all called out, even when stuff was on farm.

However, now, I’m going to have to be totally responsible for what I stand in, what I heal, what I avoid and what I do. It’s on ME to look for my spore. It’s on ME to avoid goo. I’ve become more spatial as time has passed, more aware of my surroundings and more au fay with boss abilities. I now know how to do things and what to stand in and not stand in. But I my comfort blanket has been taken away. So it will be very interesting seeing how things go. That’s if I even get taken to a raid! I wouldn’t take me if I was them.

Although I’ve been mildly worried since the off about my level of ability in comparison to the healer team, it was only yesterday, when I saw the scary ass numbers, that I really started to shit myself.

YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!

I am, however, as prepared as I can be. I have 70 flasks of the frost wyrm. I have 60 odd spineleaf. I have 40 pieces of firecracker salmon, in case there are no fish feasts. I have made notes on the differences in between normal and heroic on every boss in Icecrown. I don’t learn well off video – I find writing things down easier.

I even have 20 toasted smorc in my bag for that extra spellpower.

A well oiled machine…

I had my first experience of the well oiled machine that is my new guild on Friday – for VoA and the weekly. In VoA they did all four bosses, FINALLY netting my my Emalon achievement *shameface*. The weekly on Terenas this week was Sarth.

I said to Zal – getting ready to pull Sarth now.

2 minutes later, I got three achievements. 25 man When the Volcano Blows, 25man Twilight Duo, and 25man Twilight Zone.

I said to Zal – Sarth 3D zerg down.

Wow. Actual wow.

I barely contributed.

One only hopes I am more useful and effective in a proper raid.

And now, to my reptuation/achievement grinds!

One thing I am finding, with all this time spent on Elsen but not raiding, is that my rep grinds are sloooowly slowly advancing.

Before Wednesday, I was only friendly with Skyguard, neutral with Netherwing and Honoured with Kurenai.

I am now revered with Skyguard (2240/21000). A lovely guildie did a bit of farming with me for Time-Lost offerings, and we’re using up a couple a day. We’ve got about 9 or 10 left I think, which is another 5k ish easy rep. With Skyguard, I’d also like to migrate myself out to Blade’s Edge, and start doing the Ogri’la quests. By doing those (1,350 rep a day), I should hit exalted by July 10th. (That’s presuming in that time I do the Terokk offerings we’ve collected, and missing the odd day out because I have no time, and/or too pooped!)

I am honoured with Netherwing (7575/12000). I easily completed all races except Skyshatter – which I failed at. I will keep trying it I think and hopefully grab it eventually. Tips have included grabbing a paladin for Crusader Aura and essentially flying inside him. I will keep having a go and seeing what happens. Luckily yesterday I also grabbed 5 eggs. I can now, at honoured, collect a huge number of quests, netting me (if I do them all! over  2k rep a day. Once I hit revered, I’ll be on 3k rep a day, so seven solid days would hit me exalted. I’m essentially also aiming for exalted by July 10th.

The third rep I am concertedly working on at the moment is my Kurenai. After being stuck at about 8k honoured for ages, I put a bit of work in this weekend and have progressed to 3512/21000. So I’m in to the home straight. I have also now collected 220 obsidian warbeads. This means I am over half way through collecting the number of beads I need to reach exalted, and the number of beads goes down as I collect them. I’m working it out as I go along and it’s satisfying to see some actual progress. I haven’t got an end date for the Kurenai rep – so let’s say, July 20th.

This will result in me being able to buy 6 nether rays (71 + 6 = 77 mounts) and one non-combat pet (110 + 1 = 111 pets) from Skyguard, 5 (plus one free) netherdrakes (77 + 6 = 83 mounts) and 8 kurenai mounts (83 + 8 = 91).

I will also be able to collect two more tabards (21 + 2 = 23 tabards, plus destroying my current midsummer one, and collecting the opposing colour = 24 tabards).

These three reps will also take me to thirty eight exalted reputations.

So how am I going to grind my way to the last bits of my achievements?

I’m missing one tabard.

I’m missing two reputations.

I’m missing nine mounts.

I’m going to go for Ogri’la next. That will net me 39 exalted reps, and will complete the grind for 25 tabards.

After that, I’m going to go for two different reps at essentially the same thing. I would like to get my Scale of the Sands rep to exalted – however this is dependent on being around when a Hyjal run is in existance, and the groups doing well, and me getting one every week. I’m also just barely into revered – it would take me roughly 3 – 4 more full clears to ding exalted.

The second rep of choice will be Stormpike Guard. I’m halfway through revered here, and AVs would do me good – I will be able to grab some honor – I only have 1 out of the 6 available mounts, and it would also allow me to grind enough honor for some non-set PvP gear.

This would take me to 40 exalted reps and another pimpin title.

And finally – I’m missing 9 mounts.

I can get five of these nine mounts from PvP – I own the stallion but am missing the Stormpike ram, the IF ram, Gnomer Mechano, Battle Cat and Elekk.

This will take me to 91 + 5 = 96.

Four mounts left!

There are three relatively cheap buyable mounts I don’t own – The Armoured Snowy Gryphon, the Red Drake and the Ice Mammoth – buying those two will get me 96 + 3 = 99.

That’s one more mount to get. Logic would say drag Zal along to tank for me to Gun’drak and Oculus – I only need Less-Rabi, Ruby Void and Amber Void, to complete Glory of the Hero. That would take me to 100 mounts.

One option for mount number 100 would be to save up enough to buy the Grand Ice Mammoth (I only have about 10k gold right now – the drakes, rays, talbuks, drake/gryphon/mammoth will clear me out, really).

Another option would be to pay a Horde (a friend of mine paid one 3k), to be killed 70 times. Killing a horde 70 times would allow me to collect 70 Halaa war tokens, teamed with the Oshu’gun Crystal Power I’m collecting from ogres for 15 research tokens, would allow me to collect my 100th mount – the Dark Riding Talbuk.

I think one of those three is certainly possible.

I am aiming to have completed these three awesome achievements by the end of August.

That’s 25 Tabards, 40 exalted reputations and 100 mounts.

That’s some seriously large amounts of awesome!

Sophxxx

My readers will know how dedicated I was to Flames of the Phoenix.

They will have read how my time in Respice destroyed my spirit as a World of Warcraft player, and how my promotion to Guild Banker filled me with the glow of responsibility.

I took it upon myself to make the place I loved somewhere everybody could love. I thought about things I felt were necessary – a regularly updated forum thread on recruitment, on progression, on intiates – and updated them.

I kept the guild bank in absolutely fabulous order. Everything was there, nothing was lacking, everything was available. I was on hand for anything that was needed.

I designed us a new website, and I investigated finding a way to keep old content yet transfer to a new set of forums designed to be controlled/admined by all officers (not just one person who had left 3 years ago), and gave us a bright, exciting colour scheme.

However, when I proposed this last change (migrating forums from proboards to phpBB) my enthusiasm was met with…angst. I think angst is the best word. Angst from an ex GM and an inactive officer who both claimed they would therefore be leaving the Flames forums for good, and one would be leaving the guild.

These people were staples of the guild and I felt deeply troubled by the prospect I had inadvertently caused – so I informed the officers I would stop my actions, and move to a new guild.

This was not a rushed decision. A series of failed raids due to people stopping to care and stopping to sign and attend, even for farm nights, meant we had stalled in progression again. I was unhappy with signing constantly and getting no…enjoyment.

There were some people beginning to permeate the raid team I didn’t enjoy the company of. I hated our 25 mans. We were, to be honest, carrying 13 people through ICC.

When our team was selected, the team was our best 12/13 people. They were chosen by raider rank first and then members second. People were not taken unless we knew they could perform.

However the raiding alliance guild brought new people every week – some of our regulars saw Sanc. Marks go to brand new people who hadn’t stepped foot in ICC before, or who didn’t even have any Tier 10.

It was disheartening, seeing people standing in the same void zone week after week. I used to spend the whole four hours whinging, moaning and complaining, which can’t have been very nice for Zal nor Riccah.

And then last night, I spent four hours in the company (on vent) of an American who proceeded to ask, “what’s this orange ball?” in Blood Princes, as well as “what’s the white thing on the floor?” and “why am I over here now?” and other such marvellous comments.

I have also started seeing someone new. I found it very difficult not being able to tell my guild the numerous reasons I had dumped him, and the several thousand, thousand issues my ex had, and because I worry, sometimes, about what people think of me, I found I was thinking – I bet they think it’s all my fault, I bet they think I’m a right slag, yadda yadda yadda. I mean, let’s face it, they weren’t. But I was worrying they were. Plus there had been in the past disagreements between Darren and another guild member, before they joined Flames.

This had carried on into Flames (not from Darren, mind you), and I was getting stick for dating him. I should be able to date whoever I bloody well want, without fear of saying anything or doing anything in case I upset somebody.

So they were my main three reasons. I applied to a new guild (who have a link to this blog so may see this – evening chaps, if so), and was accepted as a trialist.

And now? I’m SHIT scared.

I’m somewhere new, and I’m going to have to prove my worth. I’ve spent six months basking in the glow of Zal, and his awesome holy pally-ness, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. I don’t know what I AM going to do without him. He’s my lifeline, my best friend, my little brother, my agony aunt. With Zal healing next to me, we could do anything.

But now? I’m healing with other druids. Other druids who are undoubtedly a damn site better than me at doing this druid healing lark.

What will I do? How on earth will I cope! I honestly don’t know. It killed me to leave Zal and the others last night and I will admit I had a bit of a cry on vent and afterwards.

But this is a new start for me. I might get the chance to raid alongside people who can teach me, show me where I’m going wrong, and maybe together, with my new guild (if I pass my trial!), we can kick some ass!

This post is just my way of asking a question, because I’m nosey, and curious about the answers, of how things work rank-wise in different guilds across Azeroth.

In Flames of the Phoenix, we have one Guild Mistress (a man, Nyo), kept as Guild Mistress in memory of our ex-GM who led the guild through thick and thin, but has retired from the game.

We then have one Guild Banker. That’s me. I make our flasks and feasts, sell BoE epics, keep an eye on the gold total (we sit comfortably around 70k right now which I think is more than enough), keep everything stocked up and deal with deposits.

We have Overlords – our officers. We democratically make decisions and discuss the guild, but we feel it is important we all have distinct roles – Zalduun raid leads, Jazir recruits and deals with conflict, I am obviously the banker, Nyo is the GM and raid leader, and our new officer, Shamubar, is our class-go-to person – anyone with problems in their playing or who might need improvement goes to Sham for resources, help or guidance. We can all promote, demote, guild invite and guild kick.

Below that is a rank reserved for Officer Alts.

Then comes the raiders. Our raider rank is a privilege, to be earned and to be kept. Raiders, as part of their obligation, must attend one ten man every week. We have ten raiders at the moment (not including Me, Jaz, Zal, Sham and Nyo). Raiders can take repairs from the Guild Bank, for raids. Your raiding spot has to be earned – you have to have signed up for raids, made an effort to attend, perform WELL,  and attend one a week. Becoming a raider does not come purely with time. Becoming a raider is not something you get to be purely by having been in the guild a while.

Below that is Members. We are a largely social guild, and therefore we have tons of members. Members can buy out of the guild bank just as raiders can, and may be permitted repairs if they attend many guild raids. Promotion to raider from member is certainly a possibility. Members make up the general majority of our guild.

Initiate is the rank given to people when they first join. On average, people will spend 30 days as an initiate, before officers will chat and decide whether or not the player is a good fit for Flames and is therefore allowed to stay in the guild and be promoted to member. Initiates who do not log on for a month will be kicked.

Other than that, nobody will be kicked. We have an “inactive” rank for people who have not logged on for more than a month, once they have reached Member rank. Flames has been in existance for over 5 years and we have some members who have not logged in in over 3 years.

Finally below that we have Mouthy Slag. These people can’t talk in /gchat, and it’s where I send our main tank when I’m in a mood with him.

I’d be curious to learn about other guild structures, how fair people think ours is and also how others work promotion from initiate-member-raider, if such promotional systems are in place.

Last night, for the first time, Petranne the hunter stepped foot into Icecrown Citadel.

By her side was Aura the shadow priest (known better to you as Zal from BoFish), Athubar the pally tank (normally Shamubar the melee shaman), Dragonsigel the druid tank (normally Kabooms the mage), Shavar the ranged shammy (normally Darkstarelf the kitty druid), some of our non-raiding members (Fugazi the rogue, Gerrard the warrior, Madmac the mage) and two fabbity fab fab pug healers – a holy paladin called Prothero and a lovely druid called Ellune.

It was nerve racking. I was, quite frankly, dreadful. My dps varied from just under 4k to around 6, depending on how the fight was going. Not that I use these tools to measure skill, but I was firmly number 10 out of 10 in average gear ilvl. Which made me feel better about my low DPS. We killed Marrowgar. We killed Deathwhisper. Someone accidentally started the Gunship whilst one tank was still on the platform, so we wiped there. We downed the fight after that. We had two wipes on Saurfang, and on the third try we killed him.

As the night progressed, I got slightly more spatially aware. I find it incredibly hard to learn and adapt to new situations and I was so deeply, deeply out of my comfort zone. Marrowgar’s cold flame, Deathwhispers Death and Decay, target switching. It’s hard! But I did progressively get better as we carried on. I did the first half of Gunship with viper on, but that was my only mistake. I was on frost trap duty for the blood beasts, and there were a few times where I was a bit slow, or didn’t quite make it, but I did OK. I hope I do better though – I know I can do better and so I would like to!

We then went on and killed Precious and Stinky for rep, and then Svala for the extra frost badge. We died a few times, but we enjoyed ourselves, we progressed through the content and although we were slow we did it. We’re essentially a brand new team that’s grown from wanting to include more of our guildies in more of our events. Half the team was made up of alts, and we pugged two healers, one of which who has already put an application in on the guild website to join us.

I feel like we’re a little like the under-funded rejects. We aren’t uber uber, we’re all hitting 4-5k DPS on bosses, we’re a mismatched team, but I feel proud of us for getting as far through as we did, and I feel proud of me and Zal for organising it, pushing it through and moving onwards. I feel like there are some negative feelings of, “it won’t work”, “it’s not worth it” coming from some people, and that puts me on a downer. But I think we pushed back that bad feeling and we progressed and went forward and we succeeded, and I’m pleased with that.

The main Flames raiding team has been raiding ICC-10 since it was released, and we’re reaching Sindragosa weekly. But this team are treating ICC as if it was released just now. We aren’t even ToC geared. My gear still contains a ilvl 200 pair of boots and ilvl200 cloak. So to clear the Lower Spire in our first night?

WELL DONE to all of us.

And to the miserable people? Well screw you. We were awesome.

I’ve scheduled a continuation for Tuesday. I’m not sure if we will manage to get Festergut or Rotface down. I know we need three healers for Festergut (we ran with two last night, with Zal back up healing on his priest), and although our winning Rotface formula was to go down to two healers, I don’t know if our two pug healers will be returning, or if they will be able to manage Rotface with only two.

We will see what happens – it may be a case of us not carrying on on Tuesday but clearing the Lower Spire every week for a few weeks in order to get ourselves geared up and push onwards. I hit friendly yesterday but forgot to pick up my ring, and I’m on 35 frost badges (I never do my daily – I’m too lazy), so not too many badges away from being able to upgrade my cloak.

Although I was disheartened by some peoples attitudes last night, and by my own mediocre performance, I was heartened by our progression, our team, the enjoyment and the fun we had.

Will I ever swap mains? No. Healing is what I do. Elsen is my character – she’s my “me” in game.

Last night on Precious, Zal whispered me: “I’m having tree problems”. “Oh?” I said. “Yea, I keep thinking it’s you”. “YOU keep thinking it’s me? I KEEP THINKING IT’S ME!”. Seriously. Especially when we were stood close together so I could see her model on top of my own. I really keep thinking it was me at times. It’s very disconcerting. But did I enjoy playing my hunter to help our guildies get some enjoyment out of the game they haven’t had before?

Hell yes I did. This is what I love about Flames. We help each other. We don’t just sit and let things get stagnant. I am determined that what has happened in previous summers before expansions in Flames – that raiding has died, that the guild has dropped down to an absolute bare empty shell – that won’t happen. I love this guild and we will keep raiding throughout summer. We will keep going cos even if nobody else wants to do it – I will.

There may be a couple of weeks where we have to suspend stuff – I’m going away for a week in August and I’m sure Zal will be as well. But the Flames core will stand strong throughout this pre-expansion lull and we will carry on raiding, carry on playing and carry on providing our guildies with whatever we can to make their experience more enjoyable.

Because I’m an officer, and that’s what I’m here to do.

Flames is recruiting. What we need right now is a couple of healers – we’d love a disc priest and/or holy priest. We’d also like maybe one other healer of any class or spec.

We always accept social applications.

During summer things are going to cool down. People go away, less people sign, less people turn up, etc etc. Although I am greatly opposed on this by our GM, I think we should be recruiting for everything! We’d love to build up our guild more – with social applications mainly.

But please do stop by; http://www.fotp.eu, to come and see us. If you’d like to pop on to Terenas and try us out, you’re more than welcome to. I’m not our official recruitment officer, but I can certainly chat through with anybody interested about how Flames works.

Serious-time, our ICC progress is 11/12 in our main ten man team. We run a raiding alliance with another guild and are 7/12 in ICC-25, with the Council as kill number 7. I would love us to be able to run our own 25s mans at some point before Cataclysm, but our main focus is ten mans – that’s what we will probably continue to do into Cataclysm, unless something drastic changes.

Personality wise? We are a 16+ (mostly 18+) guild. Bad language, rude words and general banter is pretty much continuous. The insult “your mum” is cranked out by me on the odd occasion, and I have been known to demote our main tank to the rank of “mouthy slag” on more than one occasion.

Initiates to Flames spend one month as an initiate, before being promoted to member. Those that join as raiders may be promoted to raider rather than member after the initiate period.

We have never ever had any loot drama. Myself, Zal and Riccah use our healing channel exceptionally well (we complain about the DPS a lot), we raid 3 nights a week, and we’d love to have you.

Please, stop by and say hi: http://www.fotp.eu

Well, I haven’t done an update in a week or so so here goes.

Cataclysm wise, my map-series got cut off quite quickly when the images were removed from MMO-Champion. I know they will be living on the web somewhere dark and nasty, but I don’t want to go there. I will just wait. I will restart it once they reappear, along with any other commentary. I’ll keep up my post on the talent trees as well, as I think that was quite interesting and I was quite proud of it.

My own, in-game preparations for Cataclysm have slowed to an almost halt. I stare at my priest with slight embarrassment whenever I log on, knowing she needs another 23 levels before she’s level 65 and therefore capable of becoming a 450 tailor/leatherworker, finishing my complement of characters, leaving me purely without a skinner. I will try once more to get around to her this weekend – I just invested in dual spec so really she should be able to quest her way through these 23 levels quite quickly, as only the last 5 are 60-65 therefore ‘difficult’ in the comparable scheme of things.

Raiding wise Flames of the Phoenix downed Sindragosa for the first time just under a fortnight ago, and are hoping to start work on the Lich King if we don’t lose raiders to burnout/progression night non-signing. Our 25mans plod on. I find my motivation for them waning, as I don’t particularly enjoy them, I saw my BiS neck go to a mage last night, the Abacus refuses to drop off the Gunship, and my other gear upgrades are minimal. I did finally get my first mark of sanctification last night, however, so I upgraded my helm. Just need to save my frost badges  until I have enough for my tier legs (I’m doing some swapping about) and then I can use them for some arena-suitable PvP gear. Another fortnight and I should have enough, and they will be the second piece I get sanctified, should I win a second mark one of these days.

There is one thing bothering me though. There does occasionally seem to be an attitude of – it doesn’t matter if we don’t do it right, because we killed the boss. I’d be curious as to what other peoples opinions were on this.

Is it OK to stand in Death and Decay, be out of range and bone spiked, melee the blood beasts in Saurfang – if the boss goes down? I am very firmly of the opinion that the boss has to be done the right way, because how can you expect to, for example, move with Swarming Shadows in BQL the right way/direction, if you can’t manage to not-use AoE attacks when Saurfang’s beasts are out? You know, maybe it’s the way I’ve been ‘brought up’ in game – we do things the right way, and that’s shadowed my opinion, but I sort of think… I don’t know. Things should be done the right way I guess. Letting people get away with doing shitty things like that results in under-performance, laziness and therefore slower progression. There’s a lot of reasons Flames is doing so well (which we are – yea, we aren’t hitting heroic Sindragosa, but we’re doing very well in my opinion) and one of those reasons is we do things right.

So yea, opinions anyone?

Flames wise I am in the midst of a guild bank reorganisation. We have a tab full of glyphs that just aren’t used so I’m simply going to flog the lot and then turn the tab into something more useful. I have also very almost finished clearing out our deposit tab! Just some rep items to get rid of and then I’m sorted. Other than that the guild continues to succeed and move on strongly. Although we are full on raiding spaces (18 sign ups for last nights 25 man with only 12 available slots), we are receiving good social applications all the time and I think it bodes well to the future. We do actually still have an opening for a good quality raiding, ICC ready healer, who can raid on Fridays definitely and possibly Sundays. I love the idea of us being able to run our own 25 mans before Cataclysm, if at all possible.

The first outing of the 2nd ICC-10 group is next Thursday, the one I’m ‘leading’. I use that in the broadest sense of the word, as I will be leaning heavily on Zal. As always, we are sparse on healers and that, if anything, will stop us running. I am nervous because I am easily stressed but I want it to succeed so much. If success was down to willpower alone, we’d be in there, sitting on ol’Arthas’ knee.

I’m hoping I can do the numbers I’ve asked of other players – 4k in theory, I managed that in ToC (except in Anub where I had viper on the whole time and I was doing the orb shooting down *ahem*). I need a big flashing add on that says, “YOU’VE GOT ASPECT OF THE VIPER ON, YOU IDIOT!”.

So hunter wise, things are going OK! I’ve managed to pick up my pre-raid BiS belt, I just need some boots, a ring, a trinket and a cloak. The cloak is in theory from Frost Badges but this weekend I may just chain FoS Normal til the other possible one drops, chain ToC normal until the trinket drops and I can probably confidently go into ICC then and know I can perform to the best of my abilities.

I don’t dislike DPS, but I feel more pressured than I do in other situations. I’d like to think I can pull my weight and stuff but we shall see. We ran a disastrous alts run to HoR heroic yesterday where nothing actually dropped that was useful, and Yanader threw himself off the cliff again. I felt sorry for poor Nyo who came along on his mage and saw us all at our very worst!

Blogging wise, I am slacking on taking my own tourism screenshots. I just do not have however long a day to devote to trekking round Azeroth finding photos. The project is a big one and one I do want to finish, but it will most likely be general screenshots and images as I simply do not have any time. Maybe when things have slowed down and whatnot over summer I will have more time.

I hope people are still reading and still enjoying Elsen’s take on the world and the events of Azeroth’s past, despite my slacking timetable and crappy pictures. I thank people truly, from the bottom of my heart, for stopping by, commenting, reading and everything. It really does make me very happy.

My subscriber numbers stay roughly the same, occasionally going up, which is nice. Although I am frankly wary of all the numbers and things that are given, different sources seem to say different things.

Thank you, anyway.

Real life wise, I continue to plod on in a mess of stress, possible depression and body confidence issues. I’m visiting the doctors on Saturday morning in order to talk about my stress and depression (linked? one? both? neither), but I know the doctor I’m seeing and I get the feeling he’s just going to go – “don’t talk bollocks you’re FINE”. But I look at the alternatives and none of them appeal. My sickness record is bad enough already at work. I don’t want to go on long term sick. I don’t want to go on anti-depressants. What I’d really like, would be to be able to work from home every day – or maybe 2 days a week or something. I love my job and I love what I do, but I find the actual work environment, the office environment and the people around me really quite hard to deal with. I’m actually more productive at home, as strange as that may sound.

But I just don’t think that’s a possibility.

I actually tried to mend a couple of bridges I burnt some time ago over the past few weeks. Two of them have…unfortunately, failed. But one seems to have succeeded which is nice. I’d like to redevelop some of the friendships my hot-headedness, and general twattishness have caused to break down in the past.

I also have an intensive canter-jump half hour lesson tomorrow. I’m so excited! I love my riding so much. It’s the very very best thing in my life and I wish I could spend more time around the horses, more time riding, more time at the Stables, because it’s where I feel at home and it’s where I feel happy and it’s the only place I ever go where I forget everything that’s bad with my life and everything that makes me unhappy – when I’m riding or even just at the Stables, all the bad goes away.

And also,

everyone should go and watch Glee.

It’s really, really awesome.