I love gnomes...they're delicious.

Spriest is 85

2011-04-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

So I finally dinged the other day. I was a little concerned about viability in lvl 85 bg's but I am pleasantly surprised. I've done a handful of BG's. I only have a few pieces of crafted PVP gear but I managed to get away relatively unscathed and for the most part in the top 3-5 in damage. Even got a number two in SOTA. Of course that was probably because I actually attacked the tanks as one should. But hey, having fun. Anybody else spriesting in BG's?

Shadow priests in battlegrounds.

2011-04-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

So go ahead and accuse me of not reading patch notes. It's true, I don't. I'll figure it out as I go (thottbot, google, wowhead, etc.).But did something happen to spriests? I have always enjoyed battleground healing with my resto sham and Izabella took up well over 50% of my BG time. Other than that, warrior and DK never really caught my imagination. Enjoyed bg'ing with the hunter. Enjoyed bg'ing with the priest as disc. I tried spriesting in bg's a couple times in WOTLK but got sick of being thrashed. In fact, questing felt like running around completing tasks hoping I wouldn't get ganked. Gank a spriest anyone. Good times! Well, while leveling in Uldum (lvl 83 at the time), an 83 DK attempted to gank me. I did the usual, popped my shield, screamed, dotted him up, hit a mind blast and followed with mind flay and watched his health plummet.....what? The DK was dying! He was well below 15% health and he started to run. So what did I do? Followed him...mind spiked him twice and he was dead. Just like that. Did he suck? Maybe, but so do I. So I decided to sign up for a BG. And you know what happened? It was awesome. I was dealing death like Thanatos himself. DOT's here, mind spikes there, here a scream, there a horror....close to top in damage at the end. My god....are spriests viable in BG's?!?! For me anyway....yes. I have been having a blast in BG's with my spriest! Kicking butt pretty well I might add. So were spriests great for BG's before? DId I just suck and now doing it right? Or have spriests been fixed and they're now BG powerhouses?

Random BG thought...

2011-04-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

Is it my imagination or is "chain heal" the only healing spell that literally draws a line straight back to the healer so that enemy players can easily find them? Now don't get me wrong. I love my shammy. Hell, its hilarious to be able to hold off/occupy 2-3 enemy players because they just can't kill you! But, I'd really appreciate if one of my greatest battlefield spells wasn't a huge, brightly colored beam emanating from my fingertips and ricocheting all over the creation. Hell, I might as well have a sign glued to my helmet that says "target me!". Just sayin'...

Happy Holidays Horde.....and you little gnomes too.....

2010-12-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wow...it's only been a little over a month since my last post?! What a slacker! Anywho....I haven't upgraded to Cataclysm yet, so what's the use of posting anything anyway? When you have a newborn added to the mix it really puts a damper on your available time! Everyone enjoying the new crap so far? Hope so. I'll likely upgrade after the holidays when things aren't quite so manic. Happy Holidays to all my fellow Hordies and even a slight holiday nod to you alliance girls. Hope you all enjoy these days that go by much too fast. Be safe. Be healthy. Kill gnomes. Not necessarily in that order.

cataclysm

2010-11-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

I understand that it's all part of the lead-up to cataclysm...got it. But, it's really a pain in the ass when I log onto my level 40 druid banker at Thunder Bluff and I can't do anything because everyone is trapped in little cyclones and these damn air elementals one shot me and there's not a thing I can do about it...because I'm level 40!!!!!! I just want to sell some stuff! Where are the auctioneers?!?! SO I jump onto an 80 hoping to port over to T Bluff and put a stop to this stuff. Only problem it takes for frickin ever. I was putting up wind blocking thingies andanti-cyclone totems and fighting off an endless supply of elementals for what seemed at least 30 minutes with no appreciable effect. Guess I need to send banker to another city. Meh....zombie thing was fun....I'm finding this irritating right now...

Life goes on....

2010-11-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Amazing how difficult it is to PvP with a baby in your lap. Even auctions or blogging are next to impossible. Somehow at 4 weeks old, out like a light, the little beast can tell the moment I stop dancing and sit down in fron of the PC. Maybe I need to make a standing computer station. Hey! There's an idea! Anyway, currently working on replacing my furious gear with the relentless gear that is now available without arena points. Hope all is well with you and the WoW worrld!

Random patch thought...

2010-10-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

So I finally got everyone specced and glyphed. My shammy and priest were first. Resto-ele and disc-shadow. Healing was great. Mana seems limitless. Even using healing surge on my shammy, I'm hard pressed to run out. As ele and shadow, dps is awesome. That seems to be where it ends though. My MM hunter, arms warrior and unholy DK suck. I can barely generate anything. I did the HH and i was doing under 1k dps on arms warrior. Maybe it's the mechanics of the fight, I did notice that generally dps is atrocious for most party members. But even on the dummy it wasn't easy to get 2.5k dps. On brewfest boss, my arms warrior was doing 3.5-4k easily (moderately geared). My MM hunter was too (low-moderate gear). I can't break 3k on the dummies. Did I miss the patch notes that said the plan was to lower everyone's dps? Now I'm spending all my time trying to figure out how to fix this....

PS- K, enjoy the next chapter, hope to see you around some time. Somebody has to defend those delicious little gnomes.

PVP update and Strand of the Ancients

2010-10-12T11:57:00.001-07:00

So, on the excellent advice of Shamrockgirl, I added the glyph of stoneclaw totem and now drop stoneclaw at the intro to any pvp encounter. Generally I follow it with earthbind, but if fears are eating me and the group up I will drop the tremor totem. I'm not sure if I can quantitatively evaluate how it's working, bit a 15 second shield that absorbs almost 4.4k damage can't be bad. In the last couple days, I've been in a few BG's where horde was really getting smashed by a superior alliance force and I was able to keep myself alive and the teammates around me as well. At times I would have multiple opponents on me, but using the stoneclaw whenever cd was up as well as keeping earthshield up I managed to frustrate the hell out of some people! Survivability on a resto sham is nice. It almost makes me want to look into Arenas. Don't know alot about them but I've pretty much maxed the gear available to me without doing them so.....Anyone on Bleeding Hollow looking for a resto sham? Now onto SOTA.
As a healer there isn't alot to do on defense. I usually get on a canon at the beginning and try to take out tanks. I also try to call out tank positions and throw out the obligatory "focus on tanks not individual players!" mantra. If defenders really have the offense locked up somewhere, I'll join the battle and heal, but truthfully the secret to this battleground is the tanks.
On offense it's much the same. I may try to hex someone who is taking out tanks or throw out heals to those who are actually defending tanks. Again, tanks are really the main focus. One tip however is to always have a bomb on you. Whether you are in a tank or not, have a bomb, place it at a gate. Easy.
As far as strategies go, there are a few. Hitting one gate. Hitting both. Which graveyards to turn and when. The truth is I think the primary strategy is to destroy tanks on defense and defend tanks on offense. The team that does this without getting caught up in little pvp battles along the way will win, no matter what.
I'd say for the resto sham, heal when things are under control, focus on tanks and drop totems that best empower your team mates to do the same. SOTA isn't the most exciting BG for the healer, but I seem to get it quite a bit on random, so a comment on overall strategy seems warranted! Any resto sham specific additions for this BG are welcomed!

Warsong Gulch and the Resto Shaman.

2010-10-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

So I have read a number of strategy guides discussing how to win at each BG. I have nothing better to add to that. What I'll do is discuss each battleground as it pertains to the resto shaman.
The resto shaman is a powerful BG healer. We have incredible survivability and combined with totems and a great set of healing spells, we are a force to be reckoned with.
Step 1- Sounds silly but make sure you have Earthliving on your weapon. Many is the time I have gone through a battle with flametongue still on.
Step 2- In WG I usually start with earth shield on myself. In WG I always heal the flag carrier. You should too. It should be your sole purpose. Of course throw some heals around as you are doing so, but the flag carrier is your focus. Keeping earth shield on myself until someone picks up flag keeps me alive. Once someone picks up flag, put earthshield on them. The amount of healing from this spell is awesome and it can save you fc's life. As you can only have earthshield on one target, put water on yourself. Mana generation is your friend. If your fc is dead or not in range (and you haven't applied it to them yet) keep earthshield on yourself. A dead healer is a useless healer.
Step 3- Totems. You have a lot of choices. In WG i tend to favor the pvp type totems. Earthbind is usually my first choice. Slowing down your opponents is very useful. For fire I usually go with searing. I don't find myself lacking in healing power so I usually go with searing totem for the disruptive quality. However, flametongue is certainly a viable option. For water you can go with healing or mana. Both are useful. In long battles, mana is very helpful. Don't forget to have your big mana totem on your action bar so you can pop it when mana drops too low. The cleansing totem is a nice alternative too if you have a lot of rogues against you. I typically go with my wrath of air totem for the haste although being able to pop a grounding totem here and there is nice (to absorb enemy spells). I usually keep the totems that I like to pop at opportune moments right there on my action bar. That way I can drop my pre-sets and then change as needed.
Step 4- Spells. For me, riptide and lesser wave are my bread and butter. Riptide is great because of the substantial instant heal and some pretty decent HoT as well. Lesser healing wave I use alot because of the quick cast time. If I'm getting nailed and I need to get out quick relatively potent heals, LHW is the way to go. Particularly in WSG. By the time you cast CH, your flag carrier is out of range already. Chain heal is an awesome spell. And if you can stand back and the other team is foolish enough to ignore you, CH is the way to go. You can throw heals around to multiple people right in the heat of battle. If your opponents catch on to you, you will be interrupted every time you try to cast, so at least LHW is a much shorter cast time. At some point you may be stuck in a relatively static battle (defending your FC in your base for instance) and chain heal works great. But, again as you are healing the FC on the run, riptide and lhw are the way to go. Anyway, keybind all three spells and figure out what works best for you.
Step 5- If you don't already have clic/grid or healbot or whatever healing add-on you choose, get it. Now.
Step 6- Non-healing spells. I keep hex and frostshock close by at all time. They are great to slow down pursuers or to get someone off you FC or yourself. Damage is not your goal, but distraction is nice!
Step 7- Follow the FC. Make sure earthshield is up all the time. Hit riptide when it's up. LHW as needed.
That's all my brain is allowing me to write at this time. I'm sure I have forgotten a number of good tips but...meh. Feel free to add any of your own! Up next...Arathi Basin.

Welcome to the world....

2010-09-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Our new family member decided to show up Tuesday night, September 28th at 6:30 pm. All 6 lbs 2 oz of her. I think she's got my good looks.....

PvP: Some Basics

2010-09-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some basic ideas for someone who hasn't done alot of PvP yet and wants to. Very simple. Very basic. I am by no means a pro. Just some observations as I've continued my PvP trek.

Maybe a brief foray into stats:

Resilience: This stat essentially reduces the chance that your opponent will hit you critically, reduce the amount of critical damage and reduce the overall damage received. You need a lot of this! As far as I am aware, the latest cap is 1414.5 (.5? Yes, .5) So functionally lets call it 1414 or 1415. I think many still think the cap is 1230 but it was increased since 3.3.3. The difference between PvP gear and PvE gear is resilience. If you have high resilience, things are a lot easier. Get as much as you can.

Stamina: In my opinion, the next most important stat. Why? Longevity. The more you have, the longer you live. That’s why PvP gear has so much more stam than PvE gear. Think about it. In PvE, provided your tank does his job, the monsters never seem to clue in to the fact that the fancypants girl in the back wearing the long flowing robes and waving her arms about as leaves and stars and flashes of holy light go off around the party is keeping everyone alive. Note to monster….KILL THE HEALER! Unfortunately for the healer, PvP is a different situation. You have a bullseye on you from the opening shot. Any player worth his/her salt should know to kill the healer. You see it in BG chat all the time. “Kill the healer you *&%$’n noobs!!” The more stam you have, the longer you stay alive, the longer your teammates stay alive. That being said, I don’t do a lot of additional stam. When I have a blue slot, I put a stam gem. The PvP gear has quite a bit already. Just wanted to point out the difference between gear.

The beauty of PvP gear is that it does this for you already. Not a lot of thinking. Your other stat priorities depend upon your class.

In my case today, I’m talking about my resto-sham. The stats I focus on for her are haste then a tie between crit and MP5 (maybe 60% MP5 and 40% crit…). Spellpower is on the gear already and it’s more than enough to heal what I need to heal. I don’t really go out looking for more than is on the gear. Crit is nice because it gives you those big hits. MP5 is nice because even as a resto-sham, you’re gonna run dry eventually (more on that later). How you decide to balance those is up to you. You’ll find out during some drawn out battle in AB whether your MP5 is sufficient! This is simply my opinion and I’m sure others have varying ideas. I gem and enchant haste wherever I can (much like PvE). The point is that I know with my regular gear and no added SP, that I can provide more than adequate healing power without a problem. The key is do my slow spells hit in time. Nothing is worse than watching the cast bar for your slow-as-hell chain heal hoping it goes off before everyone near you dies. Haste reduces that cast time and allows you to get off a lot more healing.

In summary, when preparing to PvP there are a few things you should do. Get appropriate gear. Resilience and stamina are key differences in gear stats for PvP vs. PvE gear. Get what you can. Accept that you’re gonna get eaten alive until you get some more. In my opinion, how you gem and enchant is up to you. Whatever keeps you alive longer on the battlefield is good (just not hit gems…okay?). I think next I’ll go into a little more detail on techniques that I use as a resto-sham and after that maybe look at how that changes with the specific BG’s. Talk to you later.

Resto PvP

2010-09-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

So recent changes in schedule and life in general have changed my WOW habits quite a bit. I may be lucky to sit down for even thirty minutes a few times a week. Unfortunately, this is not all that conducive to playing WOW in general. Certainly it allows for some grinding/farming. Instances are pretty much out because I don’t like to join a group and leave half way through. Dailies have gone the way of the dodo as I prefer not to waste the few minutes I have on them. I usually jump on my bank alt real quick, check auctions, buy supplies if the price is right, send them to my more creative alts, make stuff, send it back, put it on the AH….you know the drill. That leaves about 20-25 minutes now. What’s a bored resto shammy to do with 20 minutes? Battlegrounds!

Generally speaking I can get into a battleground within about 3-5 minutes and BG’s are usually over within 15 minutes…..usually. Battlegrounds have always been an enjoyable diversion….something a might have done once or twice a week. Leveling my hunter in battlegrounds was a blast. She was covered in heirloom gear and it was great fun topping the damage charts while gaining xp very quickly! I lost touch with that little hunter at 80 though. Admittedly BG’s are way more fun when you have decent gear but getting trashed everytime I rezzed wasn’t the only reason. I just seem to have lost interest. Then I got hacked. Yes that’s right, hacked. How did that change my BG experience? The little bastards took everything but I was left with a decent PvP set for my shammy. I didn’t want to respec my elemental talents, so I decided to go in as a healer, and that was all she wrote.

Battleground healing can be a thankless task. It can also be a lot of fun! Nothing beats throwing out heals left and right, keeping your comrades alive and winning the node….awesome! In future posts I’m going to start talking about strategy, specific BG’s, gear and spec basics, etc. As of now I’ve only healed as a shammy and recently as a disc. priest (yes Miss Medicina, I finally switched!). I’m planning to work on my drood, but that takes time (which I have little of!) so for now I’ll have to be content with resto sham and disc. priest!

Not Dead......yet

2010-09-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

Greeting all! Yes...it's true...I am not dead. Actually some changes at work, some changes in the jobsite's internet policy and a new little monkey due in just a few weeks have left my blog at just about the lowest peg on my priority board (one notch below dailies). I do log on to my toons a couple times a week for 30 minutes or so but that's about it. I'm off of work this week and once my little beast hatches (mid-October)I'll be on family leave for 4 weeks. I plan on getting a little more playing and blogging done. Of course posts will still more than likely be few and far between but I'd like to shoot for at least one per week. The majority of my time has been spent healing battlegrounds on my resto-shammy so I'm thinking a focus on battleground healing may be in order, but we'll see. Anyway, glad to be back and hope to get through my feedreader within the next year or so! Adieu, adios, sayonara, aloha! for now

Restored

2010-07-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday, everyone is dressed. Of course I got so used to seeing my tauren bankalt in his undies that I left him like that. Don't be startled if you're in TBluff and a half naked tauren runs past you...it's just me! During this whole ordeal, I spent a little time playing an alt I have over on Terokkar. My orc shammy. Had a blast doing some pvp. Enhance shammies can kick some bg butt! That renewed my interest in PvP and I've been having a great time healing on my resto shammy. If you're a PvE healer and you're tired of the grind, go heal some battlegrounds. Every bg is different. Loads of fun and terribly under-appreciated! Battlegrounds can be awesome and painful one after another. Nothing sucks like getting owned. But nothing rocks like stomping the other team. I would enjoy bg's alot more if I could get the target off my back, but hey...such is the life of the healer!

Hacked Haiku

2010-06-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

A naked Tauren
Sits on my computer screen
Nice bikini dude

Day 8. Still nothing. Gotta call Blizz today to do some prodding. The hacker didn't fully strip my shammy, so I've been able to have some fun as a BG resto shammy. Been doing the faster easier dailies as well to get a little gold. What a pain in the ass!

Saturday Morning

2010-06-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Saturday morning and I'm still not playing WoW. I still have a bunch of mostly naked, broke-ass toons. I've run out of home projects. Teenager and wife are still sleeping. Little one is engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons. I suppose I could go over to one of my other realms and play one of those toons. Or I could start a new toon. Or I could go surfing...See ya, have a great weekend!

I've joined the leet...

2010-06-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yep it's true. I am truly elite now. I got hacked. Logged on to my account and their stood my banker wearing nothing but bikini underpants and his BOA shoulders. Actually a big tauren with wing shoulders and bikini underpants is pretty frickin funny. It took a second to realize what had happened. Hacked. Checked everyone. All naked except for items that couldn't be sold or disenchanted. My ork DK was standing there with only his upper half in armor. Reminded me of a scene from Excalibur. Anyone? Anyway, we're about 3 days out now. According to Blizz it should take about a week. Blech. As well, I'm no longer able to post or even use the feed reader. Apparently you can read a paper or a magazine on your break, but web browsing is the work of the devil. Not sure how this will affect my ability to post or read with any regularity. But, if the three of you notice that I haven't posted in days....now you know why. Have a good day!

Elitist players are like Arizonans

2010-06-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Think about it. Elitist WoW players are upset that Blizz is dumbing things down so that everyone can enjoy the game. Changes that give everyone a taste but still only the elite few have the best. But those elite few still like to complain because they want to be special little snowflakes who can get the best gear because they are leet! Obviously economically, Blizz would like as many subscribers as possible, so they have to appeal to a wide market. They do that by making things accessible to all, but still some rewards that only the truly dedicated can get. Somehow, WoW elitists have forgotten that at some point they were noobs who had not idea what hit rating was and had no add-ons and bought overpriced water from the AH instead of the vendor. "Oh no!" they exclaim, "the difference is we learned our class!" We dedicated ourselves to maximizing our dps and hps and learned every boss fight there was. We mathmatically deduced what upgrades would be best and min/maxed everything....everything! Well....congratulations. That's very nice.
In Arizona people are squawking about immigrants. "Keep em out!" they yell. "They have to come in the right way". "They're just looking for handouts" or "they're all criminals". Arizonans are the elitists who have forgotten where they come from. As far as I know, unless you are Native American, your family immigrated. And with each wave of immigration people cursed and spat and looked down at the new wave. Then they pretend it's all about the legalities of it, forgetting that even up until the 1900's, immigration was simply getting here. You got to our shores and you were in. No complex processes. 99.9% of those new immigrants, legal or not want only one thing, a better life. They're not selling drugs, or raping white girls, or looking for handouts. They're busting their asses for a better life.
Now is comparing these two things ridiculous? Yes. I'm being totally facetious. All I'm saying is that people tend to forget where they come from and that at some point in history, they were the new kid on the block. Yep, there are some rotten apples, but give the benefit of the doubt, think about the other guy and relax a little.

Theme songs

2010-06-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've seen other posts about songs that are appropriate for certain fights, but what I'm wondering is if anybody else has songs that stick in their head while they're playing. To be more precise, are there certain songs that stick in your head while you are doing a specific thing or in a specific area? Does you toon have a theme song? Like, Gnomer's theme song would be "Short People" or maybe even something cool like "Cold as Ice"....or if he's really cool...."Ice Ice Baby" (it occurs to me after writing this that Gnomey may be a fire mage...but I can't think of any fire type songs at this time, so please respec if you are fire). Keredria's theme song would be some kind of loving healy song like "We are the world", or "People who need people" or something sweet like that. Riv's theme song would be any metal or punk song..."Screaming for Vengeance" or anything by The Sex Pistols. The second I drop into Orgrimmar, "The Mob Rules" starts running through my head (come to think of it, that song plays in my head at the initial rush in AV!). I always hum "Working in a Coalmine" by Devo while in IF. Nothing specific in TB or UC though. I'm sure if Silvermoon had a theme song it would be by Erasure or something. I suspect Zelmaru and TinkerTank have some kind of together, lovey dovey song like "On the Wings of Love" or "Muskrat Love" as their them song but not sure. Marcko's theme song would be "Money" by Floyd ( uhh duhh...that was a gimme). Gevlon's? Probably "What the World Needs Now" or "You've got a friend". My theme song is one I wrote myself and It fits all of my toons. I call it "I'm a special snowflake and I'm awesome!".
By the way....just in case anyone was wondering, I'm mostly kidding about the song choices. Riv's and Gevlons are pretty damn close though...so is Gnomey's.

Girls and WoW

2010-06-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

So Rivs and Bee had a discussion today about whether tis easier to be a male or a female in WoW. I can honestly say I don't think it makes a difference. Now, this may be due to the fact that I am over 18, married with children. I have seen boobs and vaginas before (sometimes even at the same time!) and don't get wood at the sound of a woman's voice. I honestly could care less about gender. I am at best a decent player, PvE and PvP. There are a crapton of male and female players who make me look about as competent as a chimp smashing buttons. I have two female toons. My belf hunter is hot. But I still get ganked. I haven't really noticed anybody flirting with her, but I haven't run all that many instances with her. The last time someone shamelessly flirted was a Kuwaiti guy in some lowbie instance (yes, he was Kuwaiti because he was shabbabing with his buddies in party chat the whole time). Does this mean Kuwaiti guys are more likely to flirt with "females"? Probably. Because come to think of it the most flirtatious anybody got with my cow was also a Kuwaiti guy. I do find that generally....and this is odd if you think about it, the only guys who do flirtatious things with my cow shammy are guys playing Taurens. Think about it. It's weird. Have I had an easier time levelling or anything else on the female toons? Not that I noticed. So old, married guy doesn't think it matters whether players are male or female. What the hell do I know. Yes, there are less females playing WoW. Yes, guys flirt. What was my point here? Oh yeah....no wait, that wasn't it....ummm.....what is this place?

Monday Haiku

2010-06-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

I must say I was a little disappointed when I couldn't condense "Gnomes, gnomes, the musical fruit" into 5 syllables....

Disc. priest tried to gank

My fair huntress and her cat

Eat lead ally dog

It's been awhile since someone tried to gank my leveling hunter and I was surprised that it was a non-shadow priest who tried it. For some reason every time I get to the borean tundra series where you talk to the tuskar who sends you to kill x number of vrykul and then to help the naga lady and kill the sea monster I get ganked. On my DK, my enhance shammy and now my hunter. I hadn't considered this a prime ganking spot, but I spose Tuskar are neutral so i think this quest line is open to both factions. I am glad to say I have won all 3 encounters. Of course hunter vs. disc. priest (at least I think she was disc. cuz she kept throwing bubbles and I can't imagine a holy priest actually trying to gank someone!) wasn't all that scary, but then again, a long time ago as a priest I humbled a warrior in Ashenvale who was a few levels above me and thought I'd make an easy target. I never attacked anyone as a priest, but scream and DOT's can actually win a fight if it comes down to it. What the hell am I talking about? Anyway, priesty tried to gank me and she ate black-powder death. My pleasure would have only been greater had she been a gnome, but hey as The Stones say, "you can't always get what you want".....

Gnome Olympics

2010-06-09T12:38:00.001-07:00

So I’m thinking about starting some form of gnome olympics. The idea came to me as I destroyed one after another in a particularly lopsided Arathi Basin the other night. Did I mention that hunter PvP is a blast? It is. Battlegrounds with my ele shammy are awesome as well. There truly isn’t much better in life than blasting allies off the cliff at the Arathi lumber mill or into the twisted nether of EOTS. But back to my brilliant idea. I was thinking that we could come up with some sort of gnome olympics for Hordies to participate in. Gnome punting would be an obvious event. Gnome target practice, again obvious. What about other things? Like how many gnomes can you jump? You could stack them for vertical jumps and lay them down for long jumps. Gnome wrestling would be cool. Who can take on the most gnomes hand to hand. Could you see like 10 gnomes hanging off a big stinky tauren? A gnome eating contest? Gnome skating (this is where you strap gnomes to your feet and glide around on ice) would be fun. The possibilities are really endless. Any other suggestions? And btw for you gnome loving trees, “not having gnome olympics” is not a valid suggestion.

Monday Haiku

2010-06-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go?
auctions, dailies, leveling.
What? Write my blog too?

Anyway, real life has been getting in the way of things. While I still have been reading blogs, I have had little time to write. Sorry Mom....I'm sure you've missed my witty daily comments.
Between kids, pregnant wives, and work craziness, there has been little time for WOW. What time I do have has been spent on the hunter, who is now level 68. PvP is a frickin blast. I'm in northrend now and looking forward to hitting 80. Couple weeks probably. That's all for now. Catch you all later.

totally and completely off topic!

2010-05-14T11:54:00.000-07:00

So yeah...this has absolutely nothing to do with WoW. If you were looking for helpful tips and analysis of instances and raids you were at the wrong place anyway because I have no idea! If you were looking for helpful and sage advice about playing your character you have again come to the wrong place. Being that this is the wrong place for any helpful WoW information, I suppose I shouldn't worry about being off topic anyway. Now, if you were looking for advice on eating a gnome you'd recently caught or beautiful haiku poetry from the various denizens of Azeroth you have come to the right place on the wrong day. On to my totally non WoW topic.

I'm currently putting together a ppt presentation about alternative medicine (CAM). I am in occupational medicine and work for a very large company. On occasion they let me out of my cave and ask that I give informative presentations to our employees. I have done diabetes, cardiovascular health, cholesterol, health maintenance, cancer and more.

My intention is not to endorse CAM, but to discuss it. To make our employees aware of what CAM is and how it may affect their health, particularly if they are taking medications or treatments for a chronic or acute condition. I was hoping to write a balanced, non-judgemental presentation that left people with an understanding of various theories in health as well as an awareness of their own health and that just because something is "natural", it doesn't mean it is automatically safe. The problem I'm having is the non-judgemental part. I am a raging empiricist and generally view CAM as a bunch of crap. I was telling friends and family that zinc for colds was a load of crap long before studies came out confirming that. Magnet bracelets are a bunch of crap. Colon cleansing is a bunch of crap. Alkalinated water is a bunch of crap. Those things that suck impurities out of your feet are a bunch of crap. Titanium bracelets and necklaces are a bunch of crap. Chiropractics.....crap. Yep you heard it here. The problem is that I think most CAM is a bunch of crap. If traditional Indian (ayurvedic) medicine worked, why do people not live as long. Why are lifespans up in nations that practice western (allopathic) medicine? Why have lifespans generally increased as western medical science has improved. Traditional medicine/treatment has been around for thousands of years, yet it has been with the advent of allopathic medicine that people live longer.
Does this make me a judgemental bastard? Probably. Does it make me a less effective medical provider? Maybe. Mind you I am never judgemental with my patients. I need to know if they are using any CAM and if they think I am going to scold them for it, they would certainly not reveal anything. I do try to be open minded and generally my feeling is (and me response to patients is) if something works for you, go ahead and use it (provided it's not bad/negative). If your chiropractic treatments are making you feel better, why would you stop? As long as it doesn't interfere with the successful treatment of other conditions, I'm okay with it. Hell, even placebos have a relatively high success rate!
So, I don't believe in most CAM therapies, but I understand the importance of being non-judgemental and keeping an open mind. How do I close down the pessimist long enough to create and give a successful presentation? Any advice on doing things you don't agree with or believe in? The topic is importance enough (about 38% of ppl report using CAM therapy) that it needs to be done, but I need to do it well and without alienating those that do believe!

A shameful admission...

2010-05-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true I'm a huntard fan. I am enjoying the hell out of my hunter. I can take on 4 mobs, solo elites and destroy people in battle grounds. It's like being an enhance shammy (except for the destroying people in battle grounds part!). Actually when I was leveling as enhance, I kicked the crap out of people who tried to gank me. But my battleground survivability sucked at 80...or maybe it was my skills. But I digress. I am loving my hunter! I'm at 46 and starting to battleground in the 40-50 bracket. I prefer not to enter until 46 because I don't want to handicap my team too much! I do have 5 heirloom items, so that could be one reason for feeling powerful, but I must assume that people get upset at hunters because things are easier for them. Tank pet and fire away. Easy. Fun. Fast.
That being said, I still have alot to learn. In PvE and PvP. I have so many things I forget. Cooldowns, traps, tricks, etc....hopefully by 80 I'll be ready to get into one of your random heroics and get labeled a dumbass and put on your blog!
Making money is nice too! I had mentioned before that money is coming in quite well. My LW is bringing it in quite nicely, as is my cook. SP and AP foods sell quite well in stacks of 5! Food alone brings in 200-400 gold per day. I'm not all that much into making gold and I'm quite sure that I'm sucking at it quite powerfully, but for now I am happy with the amounts. I will have enough by the weekend to pay for artisan flying on 2 of my toons. Either that or I'll put it into an IGA (individual goblin account) and see what happens.
Depending on wait times, I'd like to level to 50 in battlegrounds alone. We'll see how that goes. Any suggestions for glyphs? I'm using the mark of the hunter and the ice trap one. Didn't seem to be any others that compelled me to purchase them! Yes, I could look it up but I'm a hopeless, useless social who relies upon others to help me. Must be one of those damn ape sub-routines.

ramble on

2010-05-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's the title of an outstanding Led Zeppelin song. No, nothing about this post will relate in any way to Led Zeppelin. I'm just rambling....verbally. Or not really verbally..as I'm actually typing....rambling thoughtfully? Not sure. Anyway.

Who watched "Lost" last night? I had the feeling after that episode that they had no idea where things were going and were just looking for filler content. It's not that I wasn't interested in the back story of Jacob and the man in black aka the smoke monster, but explaining where they came from created the same set of replacement questions. "okay, that's where Jacob came from, and the man in black is his brother, but where did the lady come from and who put her there and what is the light????". Answering a question and simultaneously creating more does not clarify things. Anyway, we shall see. It was fun to see how Jacob's brother became the smoke monster anyway!

Klepsacovic loves to respond to Gevlon's ridiculous ideas (don't get me wrong, I love reading Klep's responses!). In Gevlon's world, it is black and white and there is no inherent right or wrong so you do whatever works best for you regardless of the effects on others. Obviously wrong. Many examples in nature show animals working together for the betterment of the group. I still read Gevlon for laughs, but his thoughts are so inflexible and theories so fundamentally wrong at their core that they have little effect on me other than making me chuckle. I think in today's post Klep was saying that you can't tell a person's RL "self" by looking at their "in-game" self. True to some degree says I. However if someone is a racist, sexist asshole in game, I can assure you that they are that in RL. My understanding of Klep's comment is that he feels this way as well. A hardcore organized raider could be a total spaz in RL. A stand in the fire guy could be a brilliant astro-physicist. But again, if you're an ass in RL, you will be an ass in game and vice-versa.

Speaking of assholes, when did everybody get so F'n rude? Was I sleeping for a decade and woke up in a-hole land? Turning on your signal to change lanes is an invitation for the driver next to you to speed up and close that space you were hoping to move into. Apparently it's okay to spit wherever you want. Apparently just because one car is waiting with turn signal on, it doesn't mean you can't slide in and grab that space for yourself. Used to be that whoever was closest to the curl of the wave had the wave. Maybe a gentle "going left!" for the guy trying to take off ahead of you. Nowadays every asshole within paddling range takes off on the wave. All that seems to matter now is that I get mine and screw the rest of you. Sounds like a goblin world.

Gnomochi-a delicious dessert

2010-05-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

In honor of Keredria, I thought I would offer you this delicious dessert that gets it's name from the flour(mochiko) used as well as the flavor(gnome extract) that provides it's unique and delicious taste. For our non-gnome munching friends, the recipe can easily be changed by removing the gnome extract. I had previously introduced you to a recipe that used gnome extract. Again, it can be purchased at better vendor stands and inns, but an industrious orc can go out and find his own with a little work. Again, remember that as you twist the gnome to get the extract, you must hold the gnome by it's legs and shoulders. If you twist by the head or feet, they may pop off quite easily as gnomes are quite fragile. If you are Forsaken or Blood Elf, you can find a Tauren friend to help you get the extract. Now, on to the recipe!

Ingredients
1 pound mochiko (glutinous rice flour)
2 1/2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 cups whole milk
5 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut
2 tablespoons gnome extract

Directions
1. Heat your hearth to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, gnome extract and milk. In a separate larger bowl, stir together the rice flour, sugar, and baking powder. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir to blend. Mix in melted butter and coconut. Pour into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated hearth. Cool completely, then cut into squares to serve.

A relatively simple recipe that yields a delicious culinary treat that will have your tastebuds
dancing! Enjoy!

Monday Haiku

2010-05-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today I was going to present a haiku of my own invention, but I came across this lovely piece attributed to a kobold named Snigglesnot. Now I had no idea these interesting creatures possessed the ability to think on an artistic, creative level, but I think you'll find after reading this that they do. This piece provides a fascinating glimpse into a creature many of us have encountered but few have stopped to consider.

Dig dig dig oooo gold!
Dig dig dig dig ooooo silver!
You no take candle!

Amazing. Inspiring. Looking into the mind of a creature full of hope and dreams.....just like you or I.

Weekend is coming!

2010-05-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

Addendum-Don't eat the gnomes you find near Gnomeregan. They taste awful.

So this weekend I'm planning on continuing my hunting ways. She has hit 40 and I really had a blast leveling the last few levels in BG's. I did some questing too, but alot of my xp for the last 3 levels was through BG's. I got the next level of riding, so it's nice to be a little faster. Not to mention her war chicken is very sexy!
One piece of advice I can offer to all new players, is, don't bother buying new gear as you move up. Save your money. I remember doing this with my first toon. As soon as I'd level I would be off to the AH to find out if there was some new item I could get. Leveling in PVE, upgrades are negligible. Of course I'm not saying you should be wearing your level 12 crap at 40, but just that quest rewards and maybe a few AH items should get you through no problem. Generally speaking, I may pick up a few items during each 10 levels. If I'm at 40 and still wearing a level 30 chest, I may check the AH. The truth is (in my world anyway) that those upgrades don't make a huge difference. Now, in PvP they do. If you plan to PvP, you should have some upgraded gear. I generally have travelled to the AH around level 17/27/37 for some upgrades. I usually don't PvP until then anyway.
Anywho. I finally got my LW cow at max skill and am making some decent money at that. I'd like to get artisan flying for her. PLan for the weekend is daily LFD for everyone, make some money and level that hunter. Time is limited, but I'd like to get 5 levels on the hunter before Monday. Fat chance, but I shall try! I'd also like to drop by my SAN toon and see what those monkeys are up to, but we'll see. My guild is setting up an ICC 10 on Saturday which I'd love to do but their raid times are like 2-3 pm my time. Not so great for a parent/husband/homeowner. Kinda peak responsibility time! Maybe I'll give wife my debit card and send her to the mall with the kids. I live on the edge! Anyway, hope all have a good weekend and get to work on those Haiku's for Monday!

Are gnomes evil?

2010-05-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well? Are they? Yes. Quite simply....gnomes are definitely evil. And this is how I know.

First, they are very short. As we know, there was a study written many years ago by a brilliant scientist and philosopher, Sir Randolph of Newman. After months of exhaustive research, Sir Randolph came up with some very interesting conclusions. In reference to gnomes:

They got little hands Little eyes
They walk around Tellin' great big lies
They got little noses And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet

This very clearly demonstrates the perverse little abominations that gnomes are.
Sir Randal then continues...

They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time

It's now very clear that through his studies, Sir Randolph has revealed that gnomes are the real scourge upon our world. Once punted, they should be consumed (or weighed down and placed in a very deep body of water) immediately.

Some observations I have made in my travels. Gnomes waddle. Skunks also waddle. Skunks are smelly and bad. Therefore gnomes are also smelly and bad. Sarah Palin (of Stormwind...) has a high pitched, highly irritating voice. Sarah Palin (of Stormwind) is bad. Gnomes have high pitched, highly irritating voices. Therefore, gnomes are are bad. Gnomes shift around alot on their feet as the stand. This is a sign of sneakiness. They are hiding something.

Now that we have established how horrible gnomes are, let me clarify one thing. They are delicious. Please do not be confused on this point. Gnomes are not good alive, but quite fantastic when thoroughly dead (and cooked...or raw if that's your thing).

Pro Tip: When preparing gnome, try using a spice rub. Kneading the meat once you've covered it with your rub allows the spices to work into the flesh and softens it up as well. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes with the rub as you knead intermittently. Enjoy!

Hunters and Gold.

2010-05-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yep, Thats pretty much been my focus in recent days. My poor warrior has fallen back into disuse. My shammy and spriest still get almost daily attention. My dk gets a little something a few times a week. Most of my time is going to the hunter. She's sitting just below level 40 now. I've risen a few levels just through battlegrounds. PvP is really fun with the hunter. Concussion shot is my best friend (that frickin' thing used to drive me crazy in PvP on other toons!!!). And ice traps! It's amazing how many people will stand and fight your pet. It's also amazing how many people will continue to follow you despite seeing you place something "invisible" on the ground. I have a ways to go in terms of skill, but it feels nice to see my name at the top of the list for damage! Often times I'm having enough fun just fighting that the outcome is secondary. I'm sure Gnomey would kill me with his little bare hands if he could. Which brings to mind this question. Female blood elf vs a gnome....hand to hand. Who wins? I say the belf.

I'd like to get back on my revolting little gnome and see how everyone in SAN is doing. It's been over a month since I logged on. With limited time and an inability to stay focused for very long, I'm afraid I have neglected that part of my WoW world. Anyway, hello to the three of you who read my senseless musings.

Did I say gold? Yes! I'm finally making some. I've struggled somewhat finding a way to make money. I'm not poor or anything, but training another artisan flying would wipe me out. I'd like to hit at least 10k gold at some point here! Then I'll get artisan flying for my cow. Borean leather has been so cheap lately that I've been buying it up like it was going out of style. I turn it to heavy leather and trade it for arctic furs to make the leg armors. I have a ton of frozen orbs from LFG. Leg armors usually sell for 160-170 gold. My spriest also makes up batches of the dragonfin and firecracker salmon dishes (AP and SP) for sale. 5 usually sell for an average of 45 gold and they're quite cheap to make. I haven't really found a niche for my enchanter or tailor (both leveled). My JC and inscriptionist aren't leveled yet. Either way, I'm making close to 600-800 gold per day with 10-20 minutes effort. Any suggestions here?!

Tuesday Recipe- Pickled Gnome

2010-05-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all, time for another delicious recipe! Of course, as you expected gnome is the dish of choice here. There are so many ways to prepare gnome. All of them delicious. I really encourage you to try different recipes. Explore! Let your taste buds soar!

So, for today I have decided to treat you to a popular snack beloved by the trolls of the Eastern Kingdoms. Pickled gnome is a tasty treat that children love to munch on after getting home from school and adults love equally well as a yummy pick-me-up after a long day of punting gnomes.

On to the recipe!

Pickled Gnome
3 cups gnome slices (I prefer thin cuts from the thigh, flank, or butt!)
10 li hing mui (optional)
1 cup rice vinegar
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup coarse salt

Place gnome slices in a clean glass jar with li hing mui, if using. Combine vinegar, sugar and salt in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil. When sugar and salt are dissolved, remove from heat and cool to lukewarm. Pour over gnome slices. Cover and let stand for 24 hours, then store in ice box.

Now, many may be aware that some humans love this dish but using green mango instead of gnome. If you are a fruit eating freak who enjoys the taste of a pickled slice of green mango over a thin, fresh slice of gnome thigh….that is up to you! Either way, enjoy!

Next week I will continue honoring our Eastern friends with a delicious dessert using gnome essence and a sweet rice flour! See you then!

Monday Haiku

2010-05-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Gnomes are not high on my "most loved beings of Azeroth" list. I suspect that very few of you knew that I had a "most loved beings of Azeroth" list. Well, I do. It is a work in progress (and it is, not surprisingly, quite short). Gnomes are not in the top 10. Neither are pig-men or plainstriders. As you may have guessed from some of my posts, blood elves are not particularly high on said list either. However, in the name of art and education and fairness, I have decided to submit this weeks haiku from a self-described literary genius from the too clean city of Silvermoon. A blood elf by the name of Alistair "Snootypants" Goldenlocks. And yes, I added the "snootypants" part...heh heh heh.

Golden light sparkles
From skin so magnificent
My word, I'm gorgeous

Some have at times suggested that blood elves can be a little arrogant and self absorbed. I try not to spend too much time around them as the perfumes that the males of the species smother themselves with makes me retch, so I'll refrain from commenting on that. Here is Alistair's piece anyway. Read it. Take from it what you will. Until next week, I remain.....green (cuz I'm an orc see).

Brain Block

2010-04-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

So yeah....I was going to write this really awesome something today. It was gonna kick ass! I hadn't decided whether I'd write a shaman healing guide, a heroic instance guide, a "how not to raid" guide or a "how to kill gnome mages in battlegrounds" guide. But seriously....take my word for it, any one of those would have been awesome! Anybody reading them would have been totally amazed and enlightened! But....I couldn't think of anything. I had nowhere near enough knowledge to create any sort of useful post. Nor did I have the organizational or writing skills to put such knowledge to good use. I have no graphs, links or pictures.

So instead, I've decided to make a noob guide to WoW. This would be good for someone who has no WoW experience, no video game experience, no fantasy/sci-fi movie or book experience, comic books or anything remotely imaginitive.

1. Okay, so its The Alliance vs The Horde- They're 2 teams who fight each other. Why? Because if they didn't the game would suck...now shut it and hold your questions till the end. The Alliance are the gay looking guys and the midgets, oh and the blue guys. They suck. They're the weaker team. The Horde are the cool looking guys with horns and tusks and sharp teeth and stuff. What? Those gay looking guys? Yeah...those are blood elves. They are gay but for some reason they got put on our team. I think to even things out. Only pre-teen boys and chicks play them, so don't worry. And I said to hold your questions till the end.

2. Choosing your guy.
If you suck and are a weakling and you chose Alliance, it doesn't really matter what race you chose. Humans, dwarves, gnomes, night elves and the blue guys. Doesn't matter which you choose, they all suck. Now they are going to get these cool werewolf guys pretty soon, so even though they're Alliance, they are pretty cool and I can accept you making one of them. What? Are we getting a new race? Ah...I don't want to talk about that right now.

Now for Horde:
You can be the green guys...orcs...who are awesome.
You can be the blue guys....trolls, who are also awesome.
You can be one of the big hairy bull guys....who are awesome.
You can be one of these cool flesh munching zombie guys too...they are awesome.
What? That pretty blond guy? No....you can't be one of them. I told you, those are blood elves. They're not even full members of the Horde. They're like conditional members. They're on probation. Why? Because! Look at them! You ought to see them dance! It's awful...awful! Just never mind. On to classes.

3. Choosing your class.

Warrior-you get to run up and smash stuff.
Rogue-you get to sneak around behind stuff and then smash it.
Shaman-you can smash stuff, heal stuff and shoot stuff with lightning bolts out of your fingers. Yeah I know...cool.
Mage-you wear a dress.
Priest-you also wear a dress but later on you get to turn into a dark, shadow guy and melt stuff. In a dress.
Druid-Sorta like shaman. You can smash stuff from the front, the back, heal stuff and shoot stars and leaves and nature crap outta your hands. Yeah...pretty cool. And, you get to turn into animals....like a mutant sea lion.
Hunter-You have a big mean animal pet that does all the work for you while you shoot stuff from a safe distance.
Paladin-no, these suck...these are what the gay guys are. If you chose alliance, you can go ahead and make one of these guys.
Death Knight-You get to run up and smash stuff and have everyone tell you that you're overpowered and retarded.
Warlocks-Also wear a dress, but you're evil and get to curse alot.

4. Now to start.
Use the keyboard or the mouse to move around. Find guys with yellow exclamation points floating above them. Do what they tell you to do. When you're done, go back. They should have a big floating question mark now. Talk to them. When you see things with names in red, kill them. You can smash them or pew pew them with your laser/lightning/gun/bow/explosive nature crap. Keep doing this for hours a day.

5. End game.
Now you can join raids and dungeon groups and get lots of cool stuff and pretend to be super cool riding around on your gay sparkle pony and have people tell you that you suck and should learn to play. Enjoy!

Disclaimer-this is tongue in cheek. In no way do I actually believe that all alliance members, paladins and/or sparkle ponies are gay (although I'm pretty sure blood elves are). And even if they were, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that.

Fishing

2010-04-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

So I've never leveled fishing on a toon. In fact I've never even learned it. Apparently I would have been at the gold cap on all of my toons by now had I been a fisherman....orc...cow....troll....elf.....you know what I mean. Anywho, as I logged into WoW last night to try and level my hunter, I realized I wasn't going to get much done. It's very difficult to focus on quests while I'm trying to pretend to listen to my wife. You see, the trick is that you have to listen enough to know when to say "mhmmm" or "yeah" or something timely like that. Feigning interest can be very difficult. Many times I've been caught by the "are you listening to me?"...."yes"...."what did I just say?" thing. Even after 18 years together I still get caught every now and then. I'm good, but everyone gets caught every now and then...everyone!

So anyway, how to I play WoW and pay fake attention to my wife? Can't quest. Instances are definitely out. Fishing! I'll learn fishing! I'm sitting here at Shadowprey Village anyway. I'll learn fishing! I can level while I listen (sort of) and I'll be at the gold cap by the weekend. Anyway, by the time I got the 25 fish achievement, I hadn't caught a single fish. Not one. Some weeds, and string, and driftwood and cloth. Not one fish. But I got the achieve anyway. Then on to 50. Got that achieve too. I think by that time I may have caught one sickly fish, but literally that's it. Funny. Bought the next level training and pretty soon hit 100 fish. Got the achieve again, but most certainly had not caught 100 fish. People talk about welfare epics and handing badges out like crazy. You should try fishing. I caught a bunch of crap. Maybe about 20 fish total. Leveled to 130. Got 6 total achieves I think.

So I suppose I need to move to another more advanced body of water to continue leveling, as around 120, I stopped gaining a level with every piece of crap I snagged. We shall see. And before everyone starts griping, I'm mostly kidding. I don't mix WoW and family. Not only is it virtually impossible, but it's not fair to my toons. They deserve my complete attention. So, once I've fed my children uncooked pasta with ketchup packets over it, I'll get back to it.

Nothing specific

2010-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if Wednesday has a theme. Wasn't there a whiny Wednesday? Anyway, guess I'll do a rambling Wednesday post. Do you say "wed-nes-day" as you spell it out or is it just me?

I got a random oculus the other day. Somebody wanted to do the achievement (think you kill final boss without red or green drakes???). The all-powerful dungeon guide/tank said "No, our dps isn't geared enough". Does the bronze dragon's power scale with the players gear? I thought not. Nobody else said "wtf" so I just continued on. I was on bronze anyway and have the achieve on that toon already.

Do you think the Horde has immigration laws? Doubt it. Alliance, for sure. They're conservative republicans. That little human kid king guy is their version of "W".
I can see the human soldiers walking around Stormwind asking gnomes and draenei for the proof of citizenship. "Oh crap officer! I left it on my nether ray!". "A likely story you blue space goat bastard! Now turn around and put your hands on the wall!".

I got an anonymous response on my racism rant. Someone wondered how my irl views related to my shoddy treatment of gnomes in the game. An interesting thought. We could certainly draw parallels between irl and the basic WoW storyline. But, can we actually be racist (or gnomist) by mistreating an imaginary being. Does my gnome-munching suggest that I may be equally evil to beings that inhabit planet Earth? I don't think so. Mistreating imaginary critters in game has no relevance to real life. I shoot snakes and squirrels and rabbits in the game all the time. But I can't stand hunting (now go out and hunt bears and such with just a knife or spear and we'll talk). Discuss.

We have several examples of cross species mating in WoW. Ogres and orcs come to mind.
What pairings would you like to see? Draenei and gnome? Tauren and troll? Hunter and pet? Ewwww. (Reminds me of the joke where the guy moves to a deserted island. The resident hermit who he is trading places with for a year tells him to fulfill his urges with one of the many sheep on the island. The man is disgusted. As the year wears on and his loneliness increases, he finally can't hold back. Just as he is putting the moves on a sheep, the old hermit comes walking over a hill to let him know his year is up. "Oh disgusting!" exclaims the hermit. "What?!?!" says the man. "You told me to do this!!!" "I know!" says the hermit, "but you picked the ugliest frickin sheep on the island!")

And with that...I bid you adieu.

Murloc cooking

2010-04-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I'd continue the murloc theme that I started this week by offering a delicious gnome recipe that is very popular among rural murlocs. A little known fact is that Murlocs have a very sensitive palate. In fact they prefer to taste the meat as opposed to covering it's flavor with spices and sauces. Their use of additional flavors is very limited and only when it enhances the flavors on the plate. So, on to the recipe.

Urgglllurglll Gnome (translated: yummy gnome)

1. As much gnome as you got. Preferably thighs or flank.
2. Gnome meat may then be cut into thin fillets (sashimi style) or minced (tartar style).
3. Place artfully on a bed of shredded cabbage.
4. Sprinkle with mrrgshburggl (a relatively hard to find murloc spice that brings out the delicate
flavor of gnome)
5. If you don't have mrrgshburggl, don't worry. Eat as is.

So there you go. Urgglllurglll gnome. Certainly an acquired taste, as the murloc palate is quite different from the usual Hordie. But, with an open mind, you may find that you quite like the taste of raw gnome. Delicate, tender.....delicious.

Haiku Monday

2010-04-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

In recent posts I have introduced you to the poignant poetry of a lesser gnown gnome gnamed Gnomoichi Gnakamura. I have decided to introduce you to some other equally brilliant minds. Today, for your pleasure....I would like to introduce you to a rare talent, Mrrglburlgl the Murloc. Of course I am sharing the piece in Nerglish. Translated to our tongue, the meter will be lost, as well as some of the feeling, but in it's native tongue, it is a thing of beauty.

Nurglburgllnrgggg
Murglshburrgglllshhnrgggburglllle
Burgllmrrrgnurgllle

*Translation
Fish good
Me like eat fishy eyes
gnomes tasty too

As I said, there is something lost in the translation other than the mechanics of the poetry form.
That being said, one still feels the longing this Murloc feels. The depth of his desires are apparent for all to see and share. A rare talent and a beautiful piece. Don't you agree?

Finally Friday!

2010-04-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

The weekend is upon us once again. It's funny because I look forward to the weekend thinking I'm going to get some rest and relaxation or something totally crazy like that. But, the truth is, weekends are busier than work! You homeowners know this. There's always something to do from lawns to cleaning to broken appliances or little fixer-upper kinds of things. You parents also know this. Particularly as children reach school age. Driving them all over for various sports and lessons is a full time job! So yes, I face every weekend with a relieved smile, convinced I'll get to sit back with the tv and a beer or something totally unrealistic like that. Well, I do get a couple hours of WoW in anyway. One before they wake up and one after they all go to bed!
On to WoW. Got my hunter up to 30. I put +15 agility on her weps. I got her dual AP daggers (the heirloom ones). Not sure if this was the thing to do, but as I understand it I need AP. Either way, things die fast. I'd love to hit 40 this weekend, but we'll see. I'm going to put stats on the heirloom chest. If I remember correctly, the shoulder inscription isn't available for lowbies, but I'll have to see. Is there anything I can add to the ranged weapon? I think there's a scope or something. I'm using the mark of the hunter glyph, but that's only because I didn't see something that sounded better in the AH. I'll have to look into that. I'm not all that worried about min/maxing everything while leveling, but anything that makes killing go faster, in turn makes leveling faster so.....
Why do I always get VH as my random heroic on my shammy and HoR as the heroic for my spriest? Seriously. It's very odd. I feel like I get VH almost every other day(or more!) and recently for the spriest I've gotten HoR 4 out of 5 times. I like HoR. I just cringe when I get it because I know others will be dropping at the first sign of a wipe. Nobody wants to do HoR because they don't want to work. Maybe Blizz can just mail 3-5 triumph badges and 2 frost badges to us daily and we don't have to do anything else. The HoR run was fun though. Tank dropped as soon as we zoned in. Replacement was a DK who did a fine job. Everyone had a good time. We wiped once when the healer and one dps ran too far during the gauntlet and got separated from the rest of us by the wall. It was mildy funny, and it was only one wipe, so big deal. Nobody bitched. We laughed and finished the run. Good times.
So that's about it for me. Looking forward to continuing on the hunter. Any input is welcome. Have a good (and safe!) weekend!

So when is haiku day?

2010-04-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

So the vast throngs of insatiable readers who devour my blog on a daily basis....Okay....okay....the three people who read my ridiculous thoughts are clamoring...well, maybe not clamoring, but could have mildly suggested.....okay, the truth is nobody cares damnit. Fine then!
Zelmaru noticed yesterday that three bloggers posted a haiku yesterday. Was yesterday haiku day? Not that I know of. I propose that we make "Haiku Monday". Mondays require a certain amount of zen-like presence, so a haiku seems to fit well there. So from now on I'll be trying to post my haiku on Monday. If anybody else sees fit to join me on this useless scheduling of haiku that would make the masters barf, please feel free.
On to some actual fun. I got some nice heirloom pieces for my little belf hunter. She's wearing the heirloom chest, shoulders, daggers and gun. PvE is quite easy. I send the pet in and then fire away. It's really nice being able to handle 3-4 mobs without much problem. She's as 29 and a half right now. I think I'm going to level the rest of the way in battlegrounds. It's an odd feeling being at the top for damage. One WSG I was having so much fun I did what that little gnome mage hates! I fought midfield for 20 minutes and ignored the flag! *slaps own wrist
I still have a hell of alot to learn about PvP with a hunter, but for the most part it's been pretty fun! I think for 30-40 I'll start using the LFG tool. Anyway, that's it for now. Have a great Earth Day, eat some processed cheese, some farm raised beef and use some spray deodorant!

Gnomoichi

2010-04-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

I run from the orc

Who is also with a troll

Run fast, they are large

One can almost see the large hungry horde-mates chasing down the frightened little gnome. It brings to mind images of the wolf chasing the frightened rabbit. The rabbit leaps, dodges and changes direction in hopes of shaking his pursuer. It must be difficult to be a pink or green haired gnome and try to hide when you live in the snowy terrain around Ironforge.
It's quite remarkeable such frail creatures have been able to scrape out an existance, miserable as it is, in such a tough world. Now, I'm hungry....fried gnome cakes anyone?

Happy Birthday Robert Nesta...and other thoughts.

2010-04-20T11:03:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday to Mr. Robert Nesta Marley. A truly amazing individual.

On to WoW. I have been feeling a little burned out on my toons. I have 4 80's and they are all basically as geared as I can get them (except for alt specs) without raiding. I have essentially avoided raiding intentionally. I don't want to deal with the drama. People complain about behavior in pugs, but sorry, that behavior is amplified in raids. Even guild raids are full of drama. People yelling at each other over vent? No thanks. I don't need somebody being a douchebag because I didn't pew pew at the right time/right rotation, or didn't heal an in-the-fire-standing mage in time. I would really love the challenge, and would love to see the content. But I'd leave group/guild at the first sign of douchiness.

Solution? I've been fooling around with some of my alts. I have a hunter, lock and mage in the 20's. I was having some fun yesterday on the hunter. She's been sitting idle for almost a year now and it's amazing how much better I can play her now that I have a better understanding of game/fight mechanics, damage, stats, cc, etc.

I also have a druid in the upper 40's. He's currently my bank alt due to his incredible foot speed from mailbox to auctioneer! I am thinking about playing him again. I had him specced moonkin, and then switched to resto with some crazy idea of leveling him through lfg. Not sure now.

I was also thinking I wasn't going to level anymore till cataclysm, but truth is I could probably get one more to 80 easily before it drops. What to do......

If I choose one more to level, who should it be? I actually enjoy them all, but would like to have one pure dps class. Mage, lock or hunter? I would like to get whichever toon I choose set up with some heirloom pieces though so I may need to lfg on my current 80's a little more. But having those heirloom pieces would be nice. For speed and ease of leveling, I'm thinking lock or hunter. Suggestions? Oh yeah! My little girlie hunter ate a gnome yesterday...well, her cat did anyway! Poor gnome :(

Celestial steed and other thoughts

2010-04-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

I don't like the celestial steed and not because it's so sissy looking (which it is). I just think it's ugly. Apparently I am the only one. Zone in to Dalaran and the things are all over the frickin place. It's kind of funny actually. "Hey everyone! I had 25 bucks!". I can see the mounts earned through a certain accomplishment, but it's just sorta funny to see everyone parading around on their rare mount that they earned through.....payment.

I got almost nothing done in the WoW world this weekend. Kids really get in the way! It's hard to get into a group when you have to run off to ballet lessons in 20 minutes and then back home to take the other to tennis. "Honey can you drive the girls to their appointments so I can play Warcraft?" Yeah...that's gonna happen.

I'm working on leveling leatherworking on my shammy and jewelcrafting on my DK. I'm a cheap bastard, so I try to farm as much as I can to keep costs down. Of course that results in a much slower ascent! I have gotten up to the final level however, so at least I can make a little money on the crafted items.

On a side note....why is it when someone says "Looking for JC" in trade chat I still can't resist a wiseass comment? "Try a church". "He's everywhere." or something equally dumb. Damn godless bastard.

Maybe gnomes aren't that bad.

Had fun in battlegrounds as ele shammy this weekend. I didn't respec as pvp elemental though so I don't have the knockback (thunderstrike or thunderstorm?) spell. That makes it a little tougher. It's tough enough as a shammy in pvp. But if I can get you hexed, then an insta lava burst....adios (unless you're a filthy pally).

No....no.....gnomes are awful. But they taste delicious.

Last rant of the week...probably.

2010-04-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh…the rant. The lovely, spirit cleansing (unless you’re a shaman in which case you can no longer cleanse that) rant. Get it all out. Feel better.

What the hell is with birthers? The next person I meet who claims that Obama is not a natural US citizen is gonna get a throat punch. First stages of healthcare reform are through. Economists say things are on the upswing. The Dow is at it’s highest since 2008. What can we grief Obama for now? Oh yeah! Let’s go back to the birth certificate. Why is this such an issue? Racism. No president in my lifetime has had their birth so scrutinized. Why? Because he’s not white and he doesn’t have a white name. Racism. The Hawaii State Department of Health (Dr. Fujino, a woman I know personally) has verified that Obama was born here in Hawaii. ‘Nuff said? Hardly. Birthers continue to go after this ridiculous accusation. We even have a marine who is refusing orders because he claims said orders are illegal due to the fact that our President is not a natural US citizen. Just admit that you can’t stand a black man in a position of power. Quit hiding behind your bullshit excuses.

A recent NYT poll states that, oh revelation, most tea partiers are white, older men with above average income and above average education (NOT intelligence….education). So we have a bunch of white guys who were lucky to be raised in upper middle class families and blessed with an education most Americans don’t get. What? They don’t want to pay taxes? They don’t want to contribute? Yeah, screw the have nots. Don’t use my money to help them. WIC, healthcare, welfare. Screw ‘em. I got mine and you can get your stinkin’ hands off it.

Somebody at my clinic is stealing money from people’s purses/wallets. Unbelievable. Someone I work with is actually going into people’s desks/purses and stealing money. This truly baffles me. There are only 10 people in my office. Holy crap! In a way I want to know, but in a way I don’t.

Now, if I can get all the birthers, tea partiers and office thieves together in a really big room…..

Spicy garlic gnome....yum!

2010-04-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

Greetings fellow gnomemunchers! I have a special treat for you today. A recipe from a fantastic troll chef. I met Nesta Longtusk on a trip to Sen’Jin Village. While relatively unknown outside the troll community, his skills with spices and spatula are sure to make him a culinary star! I give you this recipe with his blessing. Please enjoy!

Spicy garlic gnome steak
· 2 (10-ounce) boneless gnome top loin steaks, 1 inch thick, trimmed of fat
· 1 cup(s) (loosely packed) fresh parsley leaves, finely chopped
· 2 tablespoon(s) olive oil
· 1 tablespoon(s) red wine vinegar
· 1/2 teaspoon(s) dried oregano
· 1/4 teaspoon(s) crushed red pepper
· 1 clove(s) garlic, crushed with press
· 3/4 teaspoon(s) salt
Directions
Heat grill pan on a medium fire until hot. Evenly season gnome steaks, on both sides, with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sautee a tablespoon of minced garlic in 1 tablespoon of butter. Place gnome steaks in grill pan and cook 16 to 18 minutes for medium-rare, or until desired doneness, turning steaks over once.

While steaks are cooking, prepare sauce: In small bowl, with fork, mix parsley, oil, vinegar, oregano, crushed red pepper, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon salt until blended.

Drizzle sauce over thinly sliced gnome steaks. Serve over beans and rice prepared as you like.

Hope you enjoy, and feel free to play with the spice mixture. Gnome is delicious in so many ways! Make this recipe your own! Good luck and good eating!

What's worse than a mage? A gnome mage.

2010-04-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Ha ha...just kidding. I have nothing against mages. Just with all the bitching going around I figured I should write something inflammatory. And boy was that title inflammatory...whew!
I keep seeing mage blogs going off about shaman complaining. Mages yelling here, mages swearing here...damn shaman, quit crying about your loss! One time we were underpowered too!
But I haven't seen all that much complaining on the shaman blogs. So....I'm wondering where this "suck it up and quit complaining" attitude is coming from? Is there endless complaining on forums or something? I don't read the wow forums, so I wouldn't know. The shaman blogs I do read have briefly lamented the fact that shaman will be losing utility. Losing utility kinda sucks for a class that sacrifices dps for utility. I think a little bitching is expected and deserved. I mean, we still have bloodlust, we haven't lost it, but we have lost our unique ability to provide it.

The argument that this group sucked before so now it's another groups turn is lame. People shouldn't complain, because one time, other people sucked too. I was beaten as a child, therefore I should beat my children. Makes sense. One time, people lived in frickin caves and had to fight cave bears with wooden spears and died in their 40's. Guess nobody gets to complain.

Anyway, just wondering why all the QQ. To complain about losses or changes that a class sees as negative is normal. I think the complaint of shaman is very understandable. If in fact mages sucked at one time, they should be understanding of changes that reduce another classes effectiveness. This is not a college fraternity or high school. I paid my dues, now life will suck for you!

Now I better get to leveling my overpowered mage so I can get into a raid group when cata hits.

The Orc (a haiku)

2010-04-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

The orc carries me

In his mouth, sharp teeth bite me

Please sir, let me go

A haiku, by Gnomoichi Gnakamura

One can almost feel the orcs teeth poking the tender flesh of the helpless gnome.
The pain and fear is expressed so clearly. Being such a fragile and fearful race, normal
beings can truly empathize with the gnomish plight.
Not that I condone the release and non-consumption of gnomes, but the next time
your axe is bearing down upon a gnomish skull, or you prepare to fire a lava burst that
will burn gnomish skin to a crisp, just remember. Feel the pain. Take a moment to recognize this tiny, helpless creature. Exquisite.

My WoW weekend (well, WoWish anyway).

2010-04-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I was looking forward to doing alot more than I actually did this weekend. I did do a little farming. profession leveling, daily heroics and even the weekly raid. Overall however, my grand plans gave way to real life. Leaking faucets, long grass, smelly dogs, tennis and ballet lessons....never ends.

So raiding...yeah. Finally did a raid. Ulduar 10. First time in a raid. I've been playing WoW for about 2 years no I believe and I've never been in a raid. I'm mostly a solo WoW player so the guild thing took some time to happen. When I finally did, it was a very casual guild. No serious raiding. A few members PUG every now and then, but no guild raids. I don't PUG raids because people just seem like such douchebags that I just can't bring myself to do it. Even in this raid, the PUG players were being jack-asses. Four of us were guildies. Two tanks, two heals and two dps were PUGS and they were bitchin' from flame leviathan (or whatever the first encounter is). And they continued through razorscale. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Learn to tank, learn to dps, learn to heal....awmahgahd!!!!! Shut your pieholes! One dps died, and we finished. Relax.

On a lighter note, I have no idea what happened in either encounter. I was late zoning in for flame leviathan, so no vehicles were left. I didn't think I could just run through the place where the dwarves and their helicopters are so I just cruised at the starting area. Of course nobody bothered to tell me what to do, so I don't care all that much. Then I found a teleporter, asked where I should teleport to. They had already started razorscale, the one dps died. I got there and started healing like crazy. I was just slightly below the priest and above the pally in performance so I was pleased. I must say I have no idea what happened during the encounter. Apparently there is a dragon there that eats you. I wouldn't know. There are also apparently some dwarves that come out of the ground and also try to eat you. I wouldn't know. I just looked at boxes and tried to keep them full. I also tried not to stand on or near anything that did not resemble the ground. I also tried to stay away from the dragon. In general that is good advice anyway.

So... there is my first raid experience. It was a little anti-climactic as I have no idea what really happened. It was also kind of what I expected as people bitched and moaned throughout. That is the primary reason I don't raid. I'd love to, seems fun, and challenging. I just can't stand assholes. Is it possible to find a group of non-assholes who play for fun and don't get all bent and serious about raiding? I'll let you know.

Anyhow....that's my WoW weekend in a nutshell. Exciting. and there was much rejoicing....yay..

Weekend is coming

2010-04-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

Well, as I said before, for seveal reasons I've had very little WoW time lately. Lately I'm lucky to get 15 minutes on any given weekday. However, as my wife loves to sleep in on weekend mornings, I should be able to get in some quality WoW time very soon!

So anyway, after running around Dalaran on your mammoth, do you have to clean the gnome out of the mammoths toes?

Speaking of that, who cleans up after all those beasts?

They should have signs out. "Please clean up after your mammoth." That would suck.

When mobs "run away in fear", how come they never actually run. They sort of casually amble off. Then, for some reason they get their courage back and come back at you.

Okay, I saw Yoda fight with the lightsaber and all, but melee gnomes are just a little silly.

Hunters have to feed their pets but thank goodness we dont have to feed our mounts.

So I'm getting over the loss of my dispels and starting to feel excited for some of the changes in cataclysm.

Goblins? Really? Bite me Blizz.

Priest changes for Cataclysm....half yawn...

2010-04-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

My initial thoughts on the priest changes? I’m still out. I don’t really heal much on my priest. I have a pretty decent set of mostly ilevel 232 gear, some 245. I just never really got into the groove. Healing with the shammy was different. I enjoyed it. Not so much with the priest. Most likely due primarily to comfort. Just didn’t spend enough time actually healing instances to get with the program. That being said, I love dps as a spriest. It’s fun!

Okay, so the proposed changes (focus on spriests here…). As many have noted, these aren’t written in stone. I’ll wait to really decide when it actually happens.

Heal-The new go-to spell for priest. More heal than lesser and less heal than greater. Yawn…okay.

Mind Spike-I’ve been dreaming of another spell that will give me some quick damage without having to get all my DoT’s and mind flays going. Half the time, mobs are dead before I can get anything done. Apparently this should do about the same damage as mind flay and provide a debuff which will increase damage of subsequent mind spikes.
Sounds good to me!

Inner Will- An option to Inner Fire. This will provide a movement speed increase as well as a mana cost reduction for instant spells. The priest will have to decide which self buff is most advantageous. I don’t foresee using this all that often, but okay.

Leap of Faith (life grip)- this can pull dumb people out of harms way. So now, I not only have to heal and dispel, but I would also have to grab people who can’t control their aggro or are not able to see where they are standing. No thanks. But, might be fun to screw with people (assuming you can use it on a friendly target whenever you like!).

Other Changes:

HoT’s and DoT’s will benefit from haste and crit innately. Sounds good to me.

Divine Spirit and Prayer of Spirit removed. Okay, one less thing to have to worry about.

Change to Shadow Word:Death…as long as it still kills things…okay by me.

Improve shadow for short fights. Amen!

Changes to passive damage boosters and hit modifiers.

Orbiting shadow balls of death. Yeah...okay.

Anyway, we’ll really have to wait to see how this all pans out. Nothing seems horrible here (like getting rid of cleanse spirit and cleansing totem!!!!!). Nothing seems awesome either, but I am excited to see Mind Spike. We shall see….yes we shall.

Shaman changes.

2010-04-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

While nothing is written in stone, some of the potential changes for shaman sound very interesting. Others I am not so excited about.

Unleash Weapon sounds pretty cool. Some additional damage for flametongue, and healing for earthliving. The thought of some kind of "wind weapon" flying out of my weps for the windfury spell almost makes me want to switch to enhancement...almost.

Healing wave....jury is out on that one. I suppose having another healing spell in our small but awesome arsenal couldn't be a bad thing.

Healing rain- this sounds cool. An AoE HoT...sounds like fun. Can't wait to see how it works.

Spiritwalker's grace-Anything that allows a shaman to move and cast sounds great to me! I suppose a shorter cooldown would be too much to ask wouldn't it?

The totem changes...bad and good. Making ToW the goto fire totem for all is cool. Simplifying things is usually a good thing. Allowing ele shamans to get that SP bonus from any fire totem....awesome. SP boost plus a damage totem....nice. Getting rid of my cleansing totem? Sucks.

Losing my cleanse disease and poison and gaining the dispel magic? Not so great. Yes I'm crying about it because it sucks. Cleanse spirit is a great spell. I don't see dispel magic as an even trade. Of course who the hell said things needed to be even, right? It just seems stupid, lore-wise, that a shaman can't cure poisons or diseases....a shaman...a frickin witchdoctor....whatever.

I haven't had the chance to look at the warrior, DK and spriest changes yet. Hopefully there will be some nice additions. We'll see.

Tuesday thoughts-screwing shaman world-wide

2010-04-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Getting rid of my cleasing totem?!?! No way! I love my cleasing totem! Getting rid of my cure disease and poison?!?! What the hell kind of nature loving shaman can't cure a frickin disease or abolish poison? Anyway...whatever. That is stupid...and yucky...and junk. Make mana cost higher. Makes sense. No problem. But the other changes suck.

On a totally different not....Facebook. When I started my page I decided that if anyone that I "friended" were to post, or advocate, or condone anything I found offensive, I would "unfriend" them. I'm not unfriending them personally. I'm just removing them from my facebook. If I allow someone to remain on my friend list and they have nazi propaganda on their page, I am condoning and indirectly supporting their crap. Am I right? A very dear friend of mine, who has been a friend for most of my life is also a drama whore. She also loves to say offensive things. Inflammatory things. Racially divisive things. Things I don't agree with. By leaving her on my friends list, I am condoning those thoughts. I am leaving those negative, offensive things up for all my other friends to see. As if I'm saying "hey, take a look at this".

Getting rid of my cleansing totem?!?!? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Okay, not ever...but it's pretty damn stupid.

Monday Haiku

2010-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had mentioned that I'd discovered a little known, but brilliant gnome poet by the gname of Gnomoichi Gnakamura. Gnow, knoming how much I despise the little bastards, it pains me greatly to recognize his genius. It tears me...deep inside....my heart.....my very soul. However, I would be a small man if I couldn't get past my visceral hatred to at the very least mention the existence of such a gnome. So any way, here is a brief introduction to the inner working of Gnomo.

I am not dinner

And certainly not breakfast

Please do not eat me

Can't you just feel the pain and angst inside the soul of this little nugget of tasty flesh? I'd almost hesitate if he sat upon my plate and spoke these words. "Don't box me in" he seems to plead. "Are we not more that morsels of deliciousness?". The sentiment is so raw and honest I'd almost consider not eating the next little bugger I see.

Well anyway, I'll bring you some more of his hauntingly touching work another day. One perfect haiku is really all I can do in a day.....

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, to all you religious nutcases and godless heathens, enjoy this holiday for whatever reason you enjoy it. I personally enjoy watching my evil little minions (children) mill about the house in a mad dash for easter eggs. The older one collects out of duty and the desire for candy. The younger one still holds onto the hope that a six foot tall bunny has entered our house while we slept and hidden eggs about our property. I enjoy sit on the couch and wait for the monsters to give me the candy they don't want. Usually works out pretty well for me as the older monster doesn't like peanuts!
On the WoW front, things are going well. I've been tanking more with my warrior. Gear is improving. I forget who it was (sorry!) who wrote about not just powering thier way through 5 mans, because we can still die on Xevoz in H VH. Well guess what? Xevoz came out and before I could grab aggro, dps starts unloading. Now if you're dps and you notice you have aggro it is your responsibility to stop damage and move towards the tank....okay? Got it? We have to get Xevoz moving or we're all going to die. If the tank does not have aggro, please stop damage and allow him to get it. Okay? Xevoz bites the mages face off. As the dps did not move and I did not have aggro, we were still standing right there when the sphere thingies started forming. I got aggro, started trying to kite. Too late, healer wasn't able to keep me up. Deathtard and Boomkin die right after me. Goodbye healer. Of course, it's my fault. "tank sucks ass". Well thank you very much. How absolutely classy of you. By the way, I can't kite him if I don't have aggro and you guys with gearscores over 5k are opening up a can of whoop ass while standing still. "Oh so it's our fault?". Yes, I would say so. WHen you have aggro on a boss, stop damage. I'll get aggro, just give me a second. Then we can start moving this bastard so we don't wipe in heroic VH. And yes, it does happen. Whenever people think they can just open up on Xevoz without kiting him. I see it happen a couple times a month. Your GS doesn't stop that from happening. Thank goodness for short tank queues, later folks, enjoy your dungeon in progress.

Balancing act

2010-04-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Not sure why, but seems that lately I haven't been able to log onto WoW as often as I'd like. I haven't had much time to write either. It doesn't seem that things are a whole lot busier, it's just that my time is tight enough that small changes/additions result in lost time.

So how do people do it? I don't think I'm ahead of the curve in having 4 80's and a few other toons at various levels. It seems that is a pretty normal number from what I can tell. I have been having alot of trouble getting anything done though. It seems I had previously been able to get dailies done for everybody, a little AH time on the bank alt and done. But lately, not the case.

How do you juggle your WoW time? Are you an equal opportunity player? Do you play mostly one toon and get on the others when the mood strikes? I try to get dailies done for everybody. I feel like I'm losing badges if I don't!

My normal procedure is to log onto my shammy, queue as heals and run one heroic. Then log onto spriest and run one heroic as dps. Get on DK and run one heroic as dps and finish off on warrior and tank one random heroic. This usually can be finished in an hour. Assuming I remembered to mail all my phat lewts to my bank alt, I then log onto him and do my boring AH duties.

On weekends when there's a little more time, I'll generally choose one or two toons to focus on, farming, professions, instances, etc.

I think the potential solution is to quit my job and sell my wife and children to the gypsies...although I'm still looking into the legalities of that.

You?

Off-topic rant

2010-03-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

It's interesting how so many people can be thinking along the same line. I didn't have any idea what I'd write about today. I've barely played since Wednesday of last week. Big Bear and Eda both talked about the power of words with Bear specifically commenting on racism. Which leads me to my rant.
I am married to a gorgeous woman who is a textbook example of how beautiful people of mixed ethnicity can be. My wife is Half Japanese and half African-American. Quite a stunning combination. My two daughters as you may imagine are a spectacular combination of Swedish, German, English, Japanese and African-American. They are breathtaking. Literally. Not just being a proud Daddy. When we go out people stop me constantly to tell me how gorgeous my girls are. Ladies, men, elderly, kids, 20 and 30-somethings, everyone. It never ceases to amaze me.
We have always embraced all of our ancestors. We love talking about all of the different lands that our distant relatives come from. We speak about our ethnic history with pride. Unfortunately, many people in out world are not proud, or respectful. They feel that people of certain ethnicities are below them, or inferior for the simple fact that they are different. I found out this weekend that my older daughter is catching crap from some kids in school for being of African-American heritage. Comments about stealing, or guns are thrown her way. When discussing "to Kill a Mockingbird" (which they are reading right now) certain words and comments are purposefully directed at her or accentuated. While kids have not specifically called her the "n"word, she says she hears kids using it around her intentionally so she'll hear. These are not friends of hers nor are they in the majority. It's a few punks (who ironically are non-caucasian minorities!?!?!) who don't have a clue how powerful that word is.
It makes me so incredibly angry, like frothing at the mouth angry, that people would do that to my child. It also makes me so angry and sad that people still continue this crap generally. I am so saddened every time I see some jack-ass kid on WoW use racist slurs or just racist/predjudiced crap of any sort. My mom would have smacked me so hard it would have inverted my skull if she heard me saying that kind of crap. Of course I was raised so it wasn't even an issue so she never had to worry about it. Thanks to Bear for calling out the jack-ass he partied with who threw that filthy word around like it was nothing. Not much will move me to violence anymore, but if I actually hear you use that word in my presence...particularly around my family, I am going to beat you.
Anyway, rant done. I think most understand that racism is total bullshit. It's weak and cowardly. It is fed by ignorance and nastiness. I suppose I am shocked how often I see racist crap on WoW. It makes me wonder sometimes if it really is a minority who feel that way. I had so little exposure to racism growing up that it still shocks me to witness it. I can feel my blood boil, even seeing something in trade chat. Thanks to all those who don't stand for that kind of crap. Sorry for the rant...just been bugging me for the last few days!!!!

Chewy Gnome Bars- a delicious treat!

2010-03-24T15:16:00.000-07:00

Okay….so I’ve decided that rather than find another well-known innkeeper who cooks up a mean gnome, I’d give you one of my own delicious gnome recipes. This is a relatively simple recipe, but the key ingredient can be difficult to find.

So, without further delay, Chewy Gnome Bars.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons gnome extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Procedure-Melt butter, add brown sugar and blend. Put mixture into bowl. Add eggs, gnome extract, flour, baking powder, salt and mix well. Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

The trick-Gnome extract can be difficult to find and quite expensive. It can be found at specialty shops. If you choose to obtain your own, be sure to hold the gnome by its feet and shoulders as you twist. If you hold the gnome by the head, it will pop off as quite a bit of wringing is needed to extract the essence. It is my understanding that a similar treat is prepared in some alliance cities substituting vanilla for gnome extract. I can’t imagine why one would want to do that, but thought I’d mention it.

So there it is. The recipe for Chewy Gnome Bars. Enjoy!

Random Thought Monday.

2010-03-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

No…there’s no actual random thought Monday, at least not that I know of.

Haiku Monday was pretty good, but hard to keep up with if you’re not all that creative. I have discovered a gnome poet by the gname of Gnomoichi Gnakamura. His stuff is pretty good (despite coming from a gnome) so I may have to post some of his work for your enjoyment later.

So…on to the random thoughts.

1. Female belfs are hot….duh….news flash. Is it okay that when I play my female belf hunter I have the camera closer than with my other toons? Oh yeah....
2. I have a beautiful cow shammy….but I find it strange that unless they’re Kuwaiti players, the only males who “flirt” with her are Taurens. I mean you’re still assuming I’m a chick in irl.
3. Female belfs again….their eyebrows are just a tad too long. If I was to date one, I’d probably ask her to trim those.
4. My troll stretches periodically. I’m guessing it’s because his back is sore from his horrible posture. Can’t he just stand up straight? The trollettes do.
5. Sorry, but even after all this….I still don’t get RP.
6. Mel Gibson may be a misogynistic, anti-semite bastard, but if he makes a viking movie…I am going.
7. Gnomes are small so that when you dry them, they fit nicely into a backpack.
8. Speaking of bags….did you ever wonder how much of an idiot you must look like walking around with 5 20 slot bags? I mean you’re running around fighting stuff while carrying 3 sets of armor, an ice-pitted blade, a bunch of cloth, some boar tusks, a bunch of meat and drink, some random animal claws and teeth, ichor of various types, a spider leg, a rubicund scale, a stack of leather, a mining pick, assorted gems, some weapon you picked up off the last boss, a hat, a recipe, some flasks, a scroll, some rough stone and fish bones. Seriously…how is that even possible?
9. Why does your pet/companion/minion always take the slow way? If I jump down the stairs, dog, you damn well better jump with me!
10. Darwin would have freaked out in Azeroth because the same damn creatures live on all the continents….even outland.

Well, those aren’t all of the useless thoughts that take up my day, but just a taste. While the questions may not have answers, nor are answers expected…if you have any input, I’d love to hear it.

Sticks and Stones

2010-03-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

Gevlon wrote an interesting post today referring to the whole CrankyHealer debacle. I've already voiced my displeasure at the the way anna chose to "take on" Cranky. I don't think I can state things any more clearly. Anna=wrong. Rather than repeating what I've already said, I'd like to address Gevlon's supposition that words can't physically harm you so why let them. He states that because we are thinking beings, intelligent humans, words should not be able to hurt us. It is not rational that a word...an idea can cause you pain. If there is no physical pain, then there is no harm..right? I say, it is the fact that we are intelligent, thinking beings that makes words just as painful as a punch. Human beings are intelligent, social animals that care about each other and how they are perceived. I can sit there calling my dog horrible names and she won't be the least bit hurt because she can't understand the meaning of my words. She may understand the tone of my voice if I were upset, but not the words themselves. Humans on the other hand (assuming they speak the same language) can understand those words. Words can make us happy just as well as they can make us sad. Your wife tells you she is leaving you. Those are just words, therefore you shouldn't be hurt. Your father tells you he's proud of you. Just words, shouldn't mean a thing. Words convey feelings, emotions, thoughts. It is precisely the fact that we are thinking, intelligent beings that gives words the power that they have. People have a responsibility to recognize the power of words, particularly those that have the ability to influence many. Unfortunately, those people often fail to see or care that what they've said is hurtful or inappropriate.

Too bad....See ya Cranky.

2010-03-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

RP is a strange animal. I don't understand it. It doesn't particularly interest me, so I play on non-RP realms. Easy. No problems. Well, now that I'm in the SAN guild on an RP server has it become a problem? Nope, not at all. I still don't RP and honestly nobody has tried to initiate RP with me. RP away. Have a ball. Doesn't bother me or interfere with me in any way. You want to PvP, raid, run heroics, be an AH wizard...it's your 15 bucks. As long as you don't interfere with my fun, I'm okay. That being said, I don't understand the whole RP thing. Do you create a backstory before hand? Is it planned out like professional wrestling? Or do you wing it and see what happens? The latter makes more sense to me and that's how I assumed it would work. As such, when I read Cranky's post about messing around with the bad RP'ers I didn't give it a second thought. RP'ers are pretending it is real, so what if someone really did show up and turn things on their head, as in vice squad or unpaid minstrel, etc. To me, and as I said I'm not an RP'er, these seemed like amusing ideas. Throw a curve ball and see what people do. How do they respond. Roll with it, play along, what? I sincerely think Cranky's post was good natured and in fun. There was no malicious intent. She wasn't trying to hurt or belittle anyone. She was trying to have some fun. Had she known that RP'ers would be offended, I seriously doubt she would have suggested anything like that. It really doesn't seem that far fetched to RP with the RP'ers. What it comes down to is a lack of understanding. This is a simple fix. "Hey. I understand how that would seem like a hilarious idea, but to be honest, we RP'ers take RP very seriously and I think alot of us would be offended by that." Wow....that was easy. To scold someone publicly on a much larger forum....not cool. The first mistake came out of ignorance....the second was intentional. If the intent was really to teach, it should have been handled differently. A response in the comment section of Cranky's post followed by new post on your own blog discussing RP and how others not familiar with RP should behave would have been far more appropriate. No pointing fingers, no scolding, no names. Yeah, yeah....it's a public forum..we can all say whatever we want and if you post publically you have to be ready for people to say bad things, hurtful things, negative things. I suppose I just expect better of people.

Whiny Wednesday?

2010-03-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

Where the hell have I been? There's a whiny Wednesday? Damn...guess I better get on the ball.
People who spit on the street/sidewalk bug the crap out of me. Get a little frickin class. Nothing is worse than seeing someone hawk up a big loogie and let it fly right where I'm going to be walking. Or, out of their car window without any concern about where said loogie may be landing. It could be a Western thing, not sure. I live in a culturally diverse city and the behavior is definitely common among some Asian and Pacific Islander groups. Not that it excuses anything, but I'm trying to be culturally sensitive here. My mom would have slapped my head backwards if I did that around her. I think I actually bitched about people being generally rude before and truly, this is the pinnacle of rudeness and classless behavior. And yes, I saw someone spit out of their car window before I got to work today. I just looked at her and said "nice", and kept driving. Disgusting. Okay, all done. On a related note, that's probably why the /spit in WoW bugs me so much. I wish they'd get rid of that emote.

A Public Service Announcement: The more you gnow(m)

2010-03-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Traveling across the landscape of Azeroth, it may happen that you come across a creature so evil, so foul that you may wonder how such a being even came into existence. Was this a practical joke by some omnipotent, creator-being? Perhaps a foul plan put into motion by evil creatures that dwell in the shadows awaiting the end of our world and the beginning of theirs? I have come across such a creature in my travels. Trust me when I tell you that this harbinger of doom does exist….and it does signal something terrible. What horrible loathsome creature could I be referring to? Please…cover your children’s ears and avert their eyes……I….am…..talking about……GNOMES!!!!
But rest assured that the brightest forsaken minds are currently studying these creatures. Horde experts believe gnomes may be some form of mutated dwarf, but even yuckier, twisted by demonic forces for some evil purpose that is not clear yet. It is suspected at this time that there is actually no heart inside their chests. They appear to be animated by some horrible and unknown magic. However, our undead scientists have confirmed that despite their apparently demonic origin, they can be exterminated by conventional methods. Remember, they are small and quick, so a large hammer or axe works quite well. But heed my warning….when you see that little bald head and long white mustachio bouncing menacingly down the path, eliminate it immediately. Don’t even allow it a word as it will surely throw a curse upon you that will leave you begging for a quick death. As you hunt stag in the forests of Ashenvale and you see a flash of pink hair flipping and bouncing about in a most malignant fashion, do not hesitate…for it surely will not. Flee for your life or destroy it without remorse.
Now I know there are those who say these evil bundles of hellish destruction are not so bad. But listen to me now my Horde brethren…these are the same people who said blood elves would be a good addition to our faction….and we know where that went. Gnomes could very well be the next scourge upon our beautiful land. As has been done with many invasive pests, they must be controlled and exterminated. To help ensure success, you can currently turn in gnome scalps for one gold apiece in Orgrimmar. Just ask a helpful guard, they’ll be happy to point you in the right direction.
On a related note, the gnome experiments in Undercity have revealed that while they are evil minions of wanton death and destruction, they are also quite tasty. In fact most Innkeepers throughout Azeroth will be more than happy to purchase gnome meat from you for up to two gold a pound!
Keep both eyes open brothers. For the Horde!

How to eat fried gnomes.

2010-03-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

Today was going to be a brief rant/scolding for the boneheads of blackrock exiles, but as you can see my favorite, tasty little friend Gnomeaggedon has already done a fine job. In his honor I'd like to instead offer another tasty Gnome recipe.
If you've been to Splintertree Post recently, you have more than likely tasted the delicious culinary skills of Innkeeper Kaylisk. A finer cook and lovelier orc I challenge you to find! What this fine lady does with gnome is truly genius. So succulent, so flavorful and yet so simple. The essence of gnome is not lost to the ingredients. In her honor I present one of my favorite of her recipes, "baked parmesan-crusted gnome".

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup dry bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 (4 ounce) skinless, boneless gnome portions

Directions
Get your stone hearth to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Melt the butter with the garlic in a saucepan over medium heat. When the butter starts to bubble, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Stir the breadcrumbs together with the Parmesan cheese, thyme, basil, oregano, pepper, and salt in a bowl. Dip the "gnome pieces" (nudge nudge wink wink) in the butter, then press into the seasoned bread crumbs. Place the "gnome" into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake in the preheated hearth until the "gnome" is golden brown and no longer pink in the center, 50 to 55 minutes.

This recipe serves one orc, or 4 blood elves. When Kaylisk prepares this dish whenever Thrall is in town, she uses about 40 gnomes to feed the big guy and his posse. Now where can we find 40 gnomes?

addendum-for those of you who think this recipe previously contained the word "chicken" or "chicken breast" anywhere in the text...you are wrong! It never said that....this was not a chicken recipe that i just substituted the word gnome. This is an actual gnome recipe...really.....seriously....no, for real....I am not kidding!

Mage project 10-15

2010-03-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

Yes...yes, I know. You've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for my level 10-15 mage leveling guide. I wish I was a little more familiar with the map and quest areas, but my personal experience has been that quests are a little better layed out in horde areas, or at least Durotar, Barrens, etc. I had to rely to some extent on just grinding to level, a technique I do not love.
So anyway, level 10. As I said before you get frost nova and frost armor 2. Continue to keep frost armor and arcane intelligence up on yourself. And don't forget to create food and water before you start questing. Frost nova is a great spell for mob control. But be cautious. If you cast frost nova and non aggresive mobs are around, they will be caught as well, and they will not be happy! My technique, which is probably the same for eveyone else is to cast a frostbolt, follow with fireballs until mob does or gets up to you. If the mob gets within eating range, I frost nova him, move back and cast again. Remember that your fireblast spell is instant so as the mob will not be stuck forever, this may be a good time to use it. Frost nova is also a good way to stick 2 mobs. Polish off one while the other is stuck then repeat the process. Again, be careful that neutral mobs are not in range when you frost nova because they will not be all that fond of you. Polymorph is also a great way to control more than one mob. Don't forget that the mobs health will climb quickly while sheeped and any damage including DoT's or that caused by a frost nova will break the spell!
At 12, you'll get an upgraded level 3 fireball, and at 14 an upgraded fireblast and frostbolt. At 14 you'll also get arcane blast. A great aoe spell that can be helpful with mobs that "run away in fear". It's a nice way to give them some fast, insta-damage so they don't go running off and aggro other mobs. Again, just like frost nova, any mobs in range, including non-aggressive ones, will be affected and not happy with you.
I'm not sure how crucial talents really are at this point, but as fireball is my primary spell (does good damage for less mana), I put my points into improved fireball to reduce the cast time. This allows me to throw out enough damage to generally down a mob before they reach me.
That's about it for me now. Remember that I know little about WoW and even less about mages, so take this all with a grain of salt. I think in the 15-20 guide I'll include some mage blogs that are excellent sources of valuable maging info. Until then, I'll see you in-game!

The evil gnome

2010-03-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, Imyummy has progressed to level 12...a few squares from 13. Impressive.
He is becoming a true bringer of death to the trogs and kobolds and spiders and bears (and occasional pigs) that inhabit the area around that dwarf town (what ever it's called!). Due to the vast array of spells and techniques(he he), I think I'll do a level 10-15 guide instead of 10-20. I actually have a few gold in my wallet due to someone buying my overpriced greens on the AH. My herb gathering and alchemy skills are both around 50-60. First aid I got to journeyman. Cooking...not so sure. I think I'm nearing 50. Anyway, some funny things.
I had my first RP experience (which truthfully wasn't all that RP....phew!). A higher level (72 I think?) player was farming in the area I was questing, but being from a PvP realm, I was oblivious to her since she wasn't an enemy. Then over gen chat someone says "Oh little mage! Where is the little mage I saw over by the tunnel rats?". So obviously this is RP right? I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond! Do I whisper? Do I gen chat? Do I say things like "thou" and "forsooth"? I have no idea! So I just answered her via whisper. Turns out she had found a number of items, including some green cloth items and wanted to give them to me. Wow. On my server, that wouldn't happen (or at least it never has!). I happily accepted the items. Our chat stayed pretty normal. I tried to speak casually but not so that it would seem out of character for an RP realm. Knowing I had bagspace issues, this player even went so far as to mail me 4 10 space bags from an alt tailor of hers. Wow! Maybe RP'ers are just nicer like that. Not sure.
Another cool thing. I got my first whisper from someone who admitted to reading my blog and /gasp enjoying it! Considering I have nothing helpful, deep or thought provoking to say, I was very, very stoked! Out of curiosity I travelled over to her blog and really enjoyed it! Some hilarious tales of fail! Anyway, can't wait to hit 15 so I can start using the LFG tool. Maybe even run with the new guildies.

The Joy of Cooking Gnomes

2010-03-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd share some of my favorite recipes found throughout the glorious lands of The Horde. I'll start you off with a delicious dish by Innkeeper Boorand at the Crossroads Inn in The Barrens. While he's not a huge meat eater, he cooks up a tasty gnome. The name of this dish is "Plum Good Gnome Thighs". They have a delicious, sweet, sour and spicy flavor.

Ingredients

1 1/4 pound(s) skinless, boneless gnome thighs
1/2 teaspoon(s) Chinese five-spice powder
1/2 teaspoon(s) salt
3 green onions
1 tablespoon(s) olive oil
1/2 cup(s) gnome broth
1/2 cup(s) plum jam
2 tablespoon(s) balsamic vinegar
12 ounces trimmed green beans
2 cups cooked rice

Directions

In bowl, toss thighs with five-spice powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. From dark-green end of onions, finely chop enough to equal 2 tablespoons; reserve for garnish. Cut remainder of onions into 1-inch pieces; set aside.
In 12-inch skillet, heat oil on medium-high fire until hot. Add thighs and cook 10 minutes or until they're browned and lose their pink color throughout, turning once. Transfer thighs to plate; cover to keep warm.
In drippings in skillet, on a medium fire, cook 1-inch onion pieces 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Stir in broth, jam, and vinegar; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium and cook 3 to 4 minutes or until sauce is syrupy. Return thighs to skillet and turn to coat with sauce.
Meanwhile, prepare green beans ; serve with gnome and rice; sprinkle with reserved onions

This recipe serves 4 blood elves, 2 trolls, 1 orc and as many undead as can fit around the plate. While fresh gnome is absolutely delicious, chicken can be substituted.

Next week we'll look at a delicious recipe coming out of the Inn at Freewind Post...yummy!

The beginner's guide to maginess (is that a word?)

2010-03-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

Well, since everyone else is presenting their guides to the new class/toon they are leveling, I figured I should quickly jump on the bandwagon. Not to mention, I'm busy writing a presentation about complementary and alternative medicine as well as its regulation under the Act and the PHS Act(....ooooooo exciting!) so I don't have a ton of time to actually come up with a worthwhile post. So if I don't have anything worthwhile to say, why say anything? I do not know. Because I can?

Okay, on to mages. I selected a gnome for the int bonus, but my feeling is you should use whatever race you want. I don't think any of the racial talents are dealbreakers. Okay, so to be honest, I actually rolled a gnome because I wanted to see him die frequently as I level him.

Levels 1-10. Fireball is your first offensive spell. You also get frost armor. Cast frost armor on yourself (you dont have any choice who you cast it on). Select your mob and begin to press cast fireball repeatedly until the targeted mob is dead.
Now here's the tricky part. You will need to keep doing this to mob after mob until you move up a level. To break up the monotony, you can also complete the little quests which will have you do certain things, go certain places or find stuff.

As you continue the inevitable progression through the levels, you will also learn fire blast, frost bolt, arcane missiles and frost nova. You can also cast these until the mobs are dead. On a serious note I like to hit them with a frost bolt first so they are slowed down as they run towards you to eat you. Generally you can down them before they reach you. If you choose arcane missiles as your spell, make sure you say "pew pew pew" as you cast. It increases your damage (if you're glyphed for it). If not glyphed, it's just more fun that way. If the mob does get to you and begins gnawing on you, cast frost nova (if you have it) and back up and resume blasting. Keep an eye on your mana as some spells burn more than others. Keep an eye on cast times. Some spells take longer. Spells with cast times are slowed by the mob salivating on you and trying to eat you (which makes sense if you think about it). I like to save my fire blast for those times as it is an instant spell.

Simply put, stand back. Select target. Frost bolt. Spam fire ball. Is mob dead? Yes, move on to next mob. If not, continue casting spells until it is. Try fire blast. Do you have frost nova and mob is still alive trying to eat you? Cast frost nova, walk backwards, cast a couple more spells until it is dead.

That should just about cover the first 10 levels. Dont forget to make food and water before you start killing stuff (assuming you remembered to see your trainer at some point). Apologies to any real mage guides. Apologies if you happened upon this "guide" while searcning for an actual real guide. Apologies for the time I took a pack of "juicy fruit" from the corner store without paying(had to get that off my chest...karma you know...I heard the reckoning is comin'...).

End of days...

2010-03-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, it's true. The end of the world is nigh. I hope your karma is in order. I....a tried and true gnome hater....muncher of all things short and cute, destroyer of all knee-biting, squeeky-voiced, gadget-building denizens of Azeroth...have begun to level my gnome. Now before you say anything..."oh yeah, I told you so" or "I knew you secretly loved gnomes", this was done only for the SAN guild experiment. ONLY!!! It twists my insides to see that little beast turn right when I hit "d" and left when i hit "a". My god man...this thing is under your control! The horror! The agony! And to top it all off I had to kill those cute little ice trolls. Serious internal confusion. I remedied that by telling myself that they were not Darkspear trolls, and many a nasty troll has met their end courtesy of one of my beloved Horde toons. See that? Rationalization and denial work wonders! And whenever the little bastard gets an attitude, I let one of those cute troll girls chew his face off! Right now the little beast is halfway to level 10. I'll keep you updated on his evil exploits as "Imyummy" spreads chaos, fear and death throughout the land.

Biology....amazing....

2010-03-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

So, on to a totally non-WoW-related posting. As none of you know, I work in occupational medicine. Basically that means I work for a company and I make sure our employees are safe and healthy. I'm locked away in my office/exam room all day with a line of guys outside waiting to come in and see me. And yes, I said guys. About 95% of my patients are men (just the nature of the job positions that I monitor). So what has 4 years of doing physical on mostly men taught me? A few things. For one, I am, comparitively, remarkably clean and well-groomed ( and I really had no idea until I worked here). Another thing I learned...my wife is incredibly lucky. No, not because I'm something great, but rather I am not horrible. From what I can tell, most men are stinky, rude, strange and to be quite honest unfit for breeding. This leads me to the inevitable question. How then is human life to continue? I can only hypothesize here. My theory is that there is some sort of cerebral shut-off that women have that literally makes them unable to see men for what they are. Somehow it prevents women from smelling, seeing and hearing the various offensive habits/behaviors that should theoretically send any sane woman sprinting at top speed in the opposite direction. Now let's assume this is true. Women have some sort of cut-off switch genetically wired into their brains, an ape sub-routine (heh heh heh). Is it just human females? Do other animals require this same switch? Are male rhino's horribly stinky (well, more than the females anyway)? Are male wolves not prone to regular grooming? Do male iguanas intentioanlly do things to infuriate the ladies (okay, that one was a stretch)? So to the ladies. I am not talking about your current bf's or fiance's or hubbies, cuz of course they are just dreamy (yeah right!). The fact of the matter is that numbers don't lie. Most the guys I see are stinky and dirty and it's not the job. They represent a wide range of guys from white to blue collar, educated to minimally functional. Now, the disclaimer. I don't see enough female patients to make a similar comparison, but percentage-wise, the females I see are not even close in stinkiness, dirtiness or need-to-do-laundry-and-bathiness. Ladies, are men as disgusting as they seem? I am reminded of the part in "Mulan" where she ends up in the guys camp and can't believe how gross they are. And yes, if you're wondering I just finished doing physicals for a particularly craptastic group of guys. And again yes, most of them were married with kids. Wow.... am I glad I like women....phew!

A new point of view.

2010-03-05T10:34:00.000-08:00

Starting a new toon(s) on Argent Dawn for the guild has been tons o' fun. While I'm still feeling slightly pained inside, playing an alliance toon is giving me a brand new experience. As yet I have only played my dk, but seeing the number of new toons makes me want to get my evil little gnome mage (Imyummy) going. I think running instances with this group is going to be a blast. Dueling Missmedicina in Goldshire is a definite highlight. My knees are still bruised and I think she may have bitten one of my tentacles.... Dwarves have sharp little teeth and may in fact need to be added to the munching list (thats a list of critters...gnomes in particular...that should be munched). I have nothing of any remote value to say today other than the last few days have been a blast. If you haven't come by, you should. And btw I find 2 other fellow islanders in the guild. Small world!

/join

2010-03-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

So after reading Miss Medicina's post(sorry! No time for linkage, I'm out the door!)about I immediately rolled a new toon on said server. Apparently everyone rolled healers. I rolled a gnome mage "Imyummy" and a space goat dk "Ikaika". Haven't started the mage yet. Playing alliance may take me some time. At least rolling a draenei makes me feel a little less "alliancy". Anywho, looking forward to meeting everyone! See ya in-game!

Healer assist.

2010-03-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

Do you help your healer? I started WoW as dps. A warrior, a priest (shadow) and a shammy were the first toons I leveled. I didn't want to tank and honestly rarely healed. I think wailing caverns was the last instance I healed on my priest! I enjoyed the simplicity of dps. It wasn't until recently that I started to actively heal on my shaman and priest. Once I started, I noticed a change in how I dps. Up until recently, I took my healer for granted. I didn't make things difficult by pulling or grabbing aggro or anything, I just assumed my heals would come when I needed them. But recently, I've noticed that I pay as much attention to the group (via grid) as I do when I heal. If I'm on my shammy I almost always ask the healer if they have a preference for totems. Some appreciate the extra armor of stoneskin (if you have a DK in your group stoneskin should be your default totem as HoW does not stack with SoE totem). Some want cleansing totems in HoR or AN or any of the poison throwing instances. Some healers would rather have the benefit of health or mana totems. If your healer is a shaman, check what totems they are dropping and change as needed. Duplicated totems have no added benefit. Depending upon the situation I find myself throwing bubbles on party members when I'm on my spriest (the final boss in FoS comes to mind...you know the one where dps never stops on "mirrored soul"). I can think of many instances where the extra bubbles made a significant difference. Of course how and what you do depends upon the healer, the instance and the situation. Don't assume your healer needs your help, but don't assume they wouldn't appreciate a little as well! If you started as a healer, do you dps differently? If you play multiple classes do you find that it affects how you play generally?

Monday Haiku

2010-03-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

"Go go go" says lock

"twenty minutes for AN???"

"your fail lol"

*Please note, "your" in the third line was intentionally mispelled to irritate those that are irritated by the common trade chat misuse of you're vs your (a certanin tree comes to mind). Also, for the sake of haiku accuracy (5 syllables in the last line) please sound out the letters "l-o-l" rather than read it as "lol".

Tsunamis are like patches....only worse, and more dangerous.

2010-02-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here waiting for the tsunami. It's expected to hit around 11:19. Before the tsunami hits, people tend to think of all the ways it's going to inconvenience our day. My daughter had an end of season beach party for her tennis team. That will obviously be postponed (imagine if a bunch of teenage girls were suddenly sucked out to sea. Justin Bieber would be ruined. If you know who that is, you have a teenage girl at home....you are a teenage girl.....or you need a serious talk about what's cool and what's not!!!). I'm supposed to go downtown to my office and open it up for the cleaning crew to do the floors. Not in a flood zone, but I have no idea whether the workers will show. Pretty much everyone goes into a holding pattern. It can last for several hours after the initial wave. Of course we only look at it as an inconvenience because the thought of it hitting and the damage that could be done is too abstract. I think we tend to not see the potential seriousness of things until they come and bite us on the ass. Sirens just went off and they're starting coastline evacuations. If the waves do hit with any force, the loss of life should be minimal if not absent. Property damage is another thing! We'll see how that goes. I'll keep ya posted! /holds breath.

God do I love work....

2010-02-26T15:45:00.000-08:00

Actually I do. I really enjoy my job. I may not enjoy my employer all the time. I may be frustrated by co-workers (for a variety of reasons!). I may scream about the bureaucrats who tell me how I can and can't practice what I went to school for so many years to do. But in the end, it's all about helping the people who come into my office. And that's what keeps me here. I have a tremendous opportunity to influence positive change in alot of lives. That being said, I also really enjoy reading my damn WoW blogs in between patients. I can only guess that the IT guys caught wind of it (paranoid much?) because my blog and all the other WoW blogger dot coms are blocked. Damn. What does this mean? I can still post. I can even read comments, as the "edit post" option on my dashboard is not blocked. The major pain is that I can't read the blogs I have come to enjoy. I won't link them, but they're all listed right there on the right! Grrrrr.....now what?!?! Guess I'll have to read at home. Anyway all, have a great weekend.

Mitigate...the untold story

2010-02-24T15:17:00.000-08:00

Well, thanks to Miss Medicina for setting off a world-wide firestorm debating the proper use of healing terms such as reactive, direct, and mitigate. Currently at the forefront of WoW philosophizing...mitigation vs. prevention. Or something like that. Anyway, reading Miss Medicina's post and Wugan's follow up one realizes that there are many different ways to define and interpret healing and the words we use to describe it. There are a few words that came up in particular. The word that started it all was mitigation. To lessen. In healing terms to lessen the effect of damage. By definition all healing spells are mitigation spells (for the sake of argument, "all healing spells" includes actual heals, shields and poison/curse/disease eradicators), because all of those spells have the potential to lessen damage. A shield will lessen damage, in fact it may prevent the damage from a blow entirely. In a raid/instance, it is unlikely that a shield will be entirely preventative, as it will more than likely absorb the maximum amount of damage before it times itself out. For the sake of easy numbers lets say the shield could absorb a 5k hit and the tank was hit for 10k. 5k damage was prevented....and the 10k hit was mitigated....it was lessened in severity. Now, if the hit was only 2.5k and the mob only hit once before he died, then yes the bubble was entirely preventive. A cleansing totem can be both preventive and mitigative. Hunter gets hit by poison bug in AN. Damage starts to roll. Cleansing totem ticks and abolishes poison effect. It has mitigated the effect and prevented further effect. Can a healing wave do this? Or a flash heal? No. They can only mitigate damage. Damage occurs and a traditional heal spell heals the damage...mitigates it...lessens it. Life was removed from our health pool, and the spell filled it again. So all healing type spells mitigate, but they don't all prevent. Some can do both...but not all.

So, if we're clear on my vision of mitigation vs. prevention, let's move on to the next set of words I saw. Proactive vs. reactive. To be fair, the spells themselves are neither proactive or reactive (for the most part!). It is how they are used that is proactive or reactive. If a druid casts an HoT in anticipation of damage, it is proactive. Same for a shield. Same for a chain heal. If it's cast before damage, to either prevent or mitigate by landing as close to simultaneously as possible...it is proactive. The key word is before. A bubble could be cast as much reactively as it could proactively. The priest sees a dps going down but the tank requires some fast healing. The priest could reactively bubble the dps to prevent or mitigate further damage. Therefore, I suggest that proactive and reactive be reserved to describe healing itself. The style with which one heals. Obviously any healer uses both, and all healing spells could be used both ways (for the most part! One would not cure disease or cleanse something proactively so those dont apply). I also said the spells themselves are not pro or reactive, rather it is the cast that is. Casting an earth shield is proactive. However, I would say that the way the spell itself works is entirely reactive, as is PoM. I suppose they are proactively reactive. We still on board here?
The last pair of words I saw were direct vs heal over time. This is the obvious one. All traditional spells fall into one or both categories. I think really, these are the only two words we need to describe traditional healing spells. Do they fill the health pool right away, slowly, or a little of both.

In conclusion...all healing type spells mitigate. Some prevent. Some do both. The healer casts his/her mitigatory or preventive (some of which may or may not be direct or heal over time) spells in a proactive or reactive manner. Man I am so lost. Feel free to comment on my awesome philosophization.

An alarming new trend.

2010-02-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention (through certain unnamed sources), that some members of the alliance have actually begun to eat certain Horde races. Yes. You did not read this incorrectly. The alliance has begun to consume their Horde foes. Now I'm not saying all alliance members are doing this, and I cant be sure that all alliance races/factions are participating. I can however tell you with no doubt, certain gnomes have eaten Hordies. Tauren, orcs, undead (gross!), trolls and blood elves (not so bad, most Hordies have at least thought about it), all have been on the menu. Now, we all know that gnomes are delicious. There is no debating that. But crunching gnome bones and enjoying a mouthwatering dorf eyeball is absolutely Horde territory. We expect that. We're Horde for Pete's sake (Pete was Thrall's lesser known brother...infamous for enjoying juicy gnomekabobs). If these reports are true and munching on Hordies is any more that a rare isolated incident, then we should all be very concerned. This crossover foe-munching could signal a break down in our socio-economic strata that has up till now maintained things the way they are. What's next? Trolls and night elves living together. Tauren and dwarf couples? Gnomes and orcs hanging out at work together? I shudder to think of the possibilities.

Migraines, healing, grid and healbot...

2010-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my intent was to post my thoughts on grid vs healbot yesterday. Unfortunately I was sidelined by a migraine. I've only had one other migraine in my life, about 7-8 years ago. For those of you who get these anymore than once per month....I bow to you and offer my sincerest sympathy. I don't get headaches in general that often, but when I do they're usually not much more than a nuisance. Migraines however....man, that knocked me out. Fortunately I only had morning appointments so was able to leave the office and sequester myself in a room with some painkillers and no lights until it went away. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling all that great so WoW wasn't on my list of priorities. A little later in the day I did get in a random 5 man on my shammy. Which leads me to the second topic in my title....healing.
I am still a relatively new healer. I'm no longer at the bottom of the learning curve, but certainly not at the top yet. Truthfully I have been known to drop a group when the HoR or PoS loading screen pops up. I just haven't felt ready to heal those. And I figure the group is now in front of the queue so they'll replace me in less than a minute...no harm, no foul. Yesterday however was different. I queued for a random as a healer and sure enough up pops PoS. I let group know that I had not healed this instance and they were all okay with it. Everything started out quite well. Moved through the trash without any problems. Got to Garfrost and finished him off no problem. Of course it was after Garfrost that I realized I had entered the instance without any mana restoring beverages....duh. Fortunately mana regen with water shield and mana totem is pretty fast so again group was okay with my noobishness. Moved on to Ick and Krick, one shot. Easy. Everyone did what they needed to do. Cleansing totem was a great help and despite retpally dc'ing during fight we still did it relatively easy. So far so good, I was feeling pretty confident. Of course its the mobs on the hill as you move up to the ice tunnel that are the real test. First group, tank falls off side and loses aggro...which quickly shifts to myself and the others.....wipe. No problem, we dust ourselves off and get back on it. Tank marks everyone this time and we knock out the first group. Hate those fire guys man...they are killers! Mark second group and finish them. Then we move on to the skeleton guys. Thinkgs get a little laggy and I don't get a heal in time and tank dies...el wipo (that's spanish for "wipe"). No problem, we're all okay finish off the rest of the skeleton yucky melee and caster guys. We get to the tunnel and all run for the middle plate/disc thingy. Tank spams thunderclap, I throw RT's on as many people as I can and we easily make it through the first wave. Then tank decides not to wait for everyone (not sure why???) and start second part. Myself and another caster who were getting mana are left behind...result....le wipe (that's french for "wipe"). Tank apologizes, we rez and everyone arrives at tunnel entrance and for some odd reason the tank starts in...ZOMG! We're all at half health and half mana, but we manage to pull it off. We agree to one shot tyrannus which we do actually quite easily. A good learning experience over all. Thanks to the boomkins colossal dps (retpally and spriest were not so stellar, but not bad) we made it! I had just changed my glyphs too. I now have earth shield, LHW and CH. LHW works perfectly for the other 5 mans, but for these ICC 5 mans, it's definitely underpowered. You must use HW. Fortunately with the speed buff from RT, HW works very well. Big heals, relatively fast. I am considering changing to HW glyph instead of CH glyph. Totem choices for PoS. Obviously the cleansing totem for the ick/krick fight (I use mana otherwise). Wondering if the frost resist totem is useful and if so do the benefits outweight the loss of the flametongue totem (my default fire totem). Otherwise, stoneskin and wrath of air for the other two.
On to the great grid vs. healbot debate. Crankyhealer pointed me to a great comparison that had already been written by Keeva at Treebarkjacket. A better and more thorough comparison I could not have written. The only thing I had to add probably has more to do with clique than grid as grid and healbots frames are pretty similar (grid being a little more modifiable with addons). One of the things I didn't like about clique was that binding spells to an unmodified left, right or middle mouse click leads to all kinds of problems when using those buttons for their other ingame uses. It is possible that I have not figured out some modification that makes those functions only apply when over a grid unitframe, but not sure. The mouseover click feature of healbot is smarter so it literally only applies when you're over a unitframe. This means you have more possible mouse key bindings. For me, shift and control are the only easily useable modifiers, so that gives 9 bindings on healbot to cliques 6. I use a combo of keyboard and mouse so it's not a huge deal for me particularly with the limited shaman spells. Priests however have just under one thousand spell choices, so having those truly functional extra three mouse click bindings is really nice. As I said, I may have missed something in the setup that negates all of what I just said, but for now that is my two cents (for what it's worth!) on the topic. Again, check out Keeva's post for a really nice, easy to read and thorough evaluation.
That is all.

Clique/Grid vs. Healbot

2010-02-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about which healing add-on is the best. Truthfully I don't know that one could be objectively proven better than the other. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it comes down to personal preference. I personally use grid and clique. I found the basic functions of both to be very easy. Grid gives me a simple, clean unit frame that shows all that I need it to show. With a little work it can be modified to fit your tastes. Clique is a very simple way to bind spells to mouse/key clicks.
Healbot is an add-on that I am not at all familiar with. I have never used it. I've heard people sing it's praises many times however. So many times in fact that I decided I should check it out. I have a 42 druid that I have never healed with. I decided to download healbot and check it out. I have only just started so have little to report as yet. I expect that after this weekend I should be able to give an informed report as to the the plusses and minuses of both. I can say this now. I often hear that healbot is much better/easier out of the box. To be honest I found the setup and initial use to be no easier and no better than clique/grid. Both took about the same amount of time and effort to get it set up as a useable healing add-on. Anyway, if I'm feeling adventurous I'll even try healbot on my shammy. Might be a better experiment anyway to try both on a healer I am comfortable with.
Any suggestions or pre-experiment thoughts/advice?

Priest Healing

2010-02-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

So the priestly healing effort went much better yesterday. I tried to use bubbles and renews on party members to keep them up/topped off. For light party wide damage, PoM and CoH worked well. Keeping tank up is no problem. Last time it was the boss encounter damage (party wide) that I couldn't seem to keep up with. My problem was that the spells I was using weren't getting people back up fast enough. With Eda's advice, I kept my stacks of serendipity up and used PoH instead to bring party back up after heavy aoe damage. I suppose as a holy priest running 5 mans, its a little damage mitigation (bubbles and renews on the group members who seem to be damage magnets) combined with some whack-a-mole healing (grid/clique). Right now I'm using the PW:S glyph, FH glyph and PoH glyph. I'm at about 21k mana and 511 mana regen and what I notice is that it feels as if my mana is going fast. It's not uncommon for me to get below 50% and even close to 25% mana. Granted, I'm only in about 1/2 healing gear (still haven't completed full set). I may be used to healing with my shammy, where my mana rarely drops below 80%, but is this normal? I feel like I need to drink relatively often. I'm assuming this will improve as I get more spirit with my healing gear. Or is this normal for priest healing? I admit to being paranoid about running OOM!

New talents for Cataclysm.

2010-02-17T11:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not able to read most WoW forums, websites, etc, due to filters, so this topic may be out and covered already. But, as it is my blog and I'm mostly talking to myself anyway, I shall post it. 5 new talent points for cataclysm. What will they do? Will it just add to the talent tree we already have or will new talents be added? Or, will old talents be modified? I've thought alot about what I'd really like to see. While I haven't given the dk and warrior alot of thought, I'd love to see some kind of new spell for my spriest...some kind of shadow bolt sorta thing....priesty death fire or something. Right now it's pretty much dot's, mind blast, SW:D and mind flay, lather, rinse, repeat. I want to shoot some kind of fireball or death bolt or holy missile of doom! For my ele/resto shammy I'd love to see something more instant for damage. Shock spells aren't really used other than to place the dot and make lava burst crit. The lightning and lava spells are pretty long casts so often mobs are dead before my second spell hits. I know, I know...we're a hybrid class....not pure dps, damage should be less. Why? I want more! Don't get me wrong, I usually do 3.5-4k dps in a 5 man (and I'm only moderately geared), which I'm happy with....I just hate the cast time. Maybe decreased with new talent points...i dunno. For my resto spec I'd love to see a decrease in the riptide cooldown. It's a great spell and I'd love to share it with more of my party, as druids and priests do! I'd also like to see something changed with chain heal (cast time, or some kind of additional aoe effect?). I love that spell, but it either hits melee or ranged...rarely both. Could there be some kind of aoe or party wide cast? Or some other instant added to help keep up those that CH didn't hit? Anyway...what would you like to see as far as talents/spells for cataclysm?

Lunchtime H VH...yeah!

2010-02-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I live 5 minutes away from my office so I always go home for lunch. Wallet stays fatter and stomach stays skinnier! Anyway, I ate and decided to log onto my shammy and heal a quick instance. I selected Violet Hold since it can easily be finished in 15 minutes. Second to last portal before cyanigosa, we get the group of dragons who come from one of the upper portals and split into two groups. Tank was a little late getting up there so he allowed them to split and waited for them by the entrance/exit tier. The fury warrior decides he's not patient enough to wait and begins tanking one of the mobs. He dies. I'm unable to rez before next wave. We finish of last portal keeper. I try to rez again but boss combat begins before I can. Now in all this time, he could have so easily run back. Right? In fact his only comment was "guess I'll just lie here and watch". Wtf? Is that your only option with VH? I mean the GY is perty darn close. Once we down cyanigosa, I mention that he could have run back. One group member comments that he couldn't have because the door is locked. Another group member comments that we should have kicked him. Now I have absolutely died in VH, run back, talked to the lady in front of the locked door, and teleported back in. Right??? I mean like even up till last week. So once instance is over, he is still lying there dead. And asking me to rez him. I let him know that I was busy skinning. Seriously? I think Gevlon commented on this some time ago. This is not real life. No effort will be expended running back. Are you seriously so frickin lazy that you can't pretend run your pretend character from the pretend GY back to the pretend instance? Well, then I shall pretend I don't see your dead body lying there....ha!

Protocols and SOP's....yuck

2010-02-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

Well, I've avoided work for about as long as I can now. This morning I am happily writing up protocols for tuberculin skin testing/reading/reporting within the various departments that I work with. Wow! Is that exciting. Today is my administrative day where I don't have patients but get to catch up on all the paperwork I don't have time for when I see 40 ppl a day on all the other days! Of course I only get one 4 hour block of administrative time (not the whole day!). And of course I'm using that time to catch up on WoW blogs! Ha ha! Being that it was Valentine's day and a long weekend, I actually didn't get all that much WoW time. Most of my computer time this weekend was spent editing last summers family vacation photos/videos into a DVD. How did I get roped into being the video guy? My brother is the tech nerd, not me! Anyway, as I have little to say (of any importance anyway!) I will guide you to some funny/interesting blogs this morning. Keredria had a funny post today with a play on Dante's Inferno. Gevlon provided my daily "huh?" as I'm afraid I didn't really catch the meaning/significance of his post. However drop by, read it and prove that you are smarter than I. I suspect I had the same look on my face reading his blog today that I had for most of my econ, accounting and stats classes in college! Now I have nothing else for you unless you'd like to discuss CDC recommendations for reading TB skin test results in an occupational health setting for at risk and not at risk employees. No? You sure? You can read over my new protocol and standing order? Really? Okay...let me know if you change your mind!

Priest vs. Shaman healing

2010-02-15T11:34:00.000-08:00

So my healing experiment continues. As I've said, I have healed quite a bit with my shammy now. I've done quite a few heroics and feel pretty comfortable. For the most part, with earthshield, riptide and an occasional LHW, the tank is quite easy to top off. Riptide has a longer cooldown than I'd like, but it works well to top of individual damage and chain heal is great for group wide damage. Range, casting speed (including the fact that there is only one instant heal) can be an issue but it forces you to be aware of where your group is. Generally one CH followed by 1-2 LHW's for those that were missed by CH works great. Yesterday I decided to try out my holy priest. Granted he is only in about half healing gear, but I found priest healing much harder. There could be several factors here. I chose VH as my trial grounds. DPS was very underwhelming with top being around 2100, lowest 1100. However, this is not PoS or HoR. It's VH, and that should be enough. We got Xevozz as second boss and tank was having a hard time kiting him around. We had alot of those spheres and the squishier DPS were not moving well and I couldn't keep them up. It was taking too long to burn him down and group wiped twice. It could have been a combination of these things, but I just felt underpowered and awkward. For the tank, things were easy, PW:S, PoM and rolling renews. With heavy group wide damage however I was at a loss. I'd have a PoM going around at all times. CoH just didn't feel like it was doing it. Plus, with the longer cooldown I was having to use FH to top people off. With the fast and furious damage that comes in during Xevozz I just couldn't keep people up. The group was getting too spread out for HN to be of any use although maybe the extra dps could have helped. TBH I forgot about guardian spirit and that could have helped too. I'll find out today!

The smell of WoW...

2010-02-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

So it is possible that I am just an idiot (but I don't think so cuz my mom always told me how special I was), but does anybody else wonder what WoW smells like? I know, I know...totally random. But it's a good question. What does WoW smell like?

Tauren-If you've ever been near a herd of bison or elk, you know. I suspect that's what tauren smell like. Which also leads me to believe that Thunderbluff must smell really, really bad.

Orcs-No idea. They must smell awful. But it can't be your garden variety human body odor.

Trolls-Not sure either. Weed maybe? They're all natural-like so it can't be all that bad.

Undead-Well they're frickin dead, so they must smell awful!

Blood elves-Perfume and flowers (the females too)

Alliance (all of them)-I only play horde, so I have no idea. I suspect they smell like fear, urine (from wetting themselves) and zit cream. (Except for gnomes...they smell just like chicken)

Stinkiest zone- My guess, Zangarmarsh....or Duskwallow.
Best smelling zone- Ashenvale (but I still hate it!)
Worst smelling city-Sorry Horde, but Orgrimmar must smell awful. Then again, Undercity must totally reek! Thunder Bluff probably has a good cross breeze, otherwise it would be at least in the top two. I'll have to get back to you on this one.
Best smelling city-Silvermoon (night elves look a little stinkier than belfs).

Basic survival list for the 5 man newb.

2010-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Now that I am pretty actively playing all three classes (dps, heals, tank) I am rapidly building more appreciation and more awareness for each class. Now I am by no means pro at any class, but the majority of my experience is as dps (ranged and melee). I have absolutely been guilty of unloading on mobs with little regard for kill order or aggro (sorry!). Due to my periodic (very, very rare!) errors, I have decided to write a brief list of pug/instancing tips for the new player (or the seasoned player who forgot!)

Tanks
1. Relax. For the most part you control the pace of the group. Don't let group outpace you, but don't outpace your group (especially your healer!). Being on a different page from your healer is definitely a bad thing!
2. Please let buffs get done, mana and any other prepping before your go running off to the next fight (i.e. check mana bars...pay attention!).
3. Keep on eye on your mobs. Don't get tunnel vision. Your healers or dps may not let you know that they are being chewed upon.
4. If you'd like something done in a particular way, please let the concerned party or parties know.

DPS
1. Relax. Giving the tank 2-3 seconds to establish aggro is absolutely not going to make a bit of difference in your total instance time. If you don't have the extra 35 seconds to spare, maybe you shouldn't be playing right now!
2. Do not outpace your tank. If you pull something, you better be prepared to tank it yourself. Your tank may or may not help. Your healer may or may not help. If you do accidentally pull a mob, or entire room, apologize. Easy.
3. I know you feel your epeen size is directly related to your dps, but the truth is, it's an inverse relationship (he he). It's not about recount. If you ramp it up, pull aggro and die, who cares if you were doing 6k dps. Staying alive and doing great overall damage is more important. The whole group staying alive and having a good time is even more important!

Heals
1. Relax. You'll do a better job and have alot more fun!
2. Let your group know what you need. They can't read your mind.
3. Sometimes people forget. Friendly reminders are nice!
4. Have whatever supplies you may need. Mages may not be there to be your personal drink dispenser.

Group
1. Relax. It's a game!
2. Be aware of others. If you queue, please be an active part of the group.
3. For the most part, if the floor on which you are standing is currently not the same color (such as purple, green, red) as most of the instance (particularly if mysterious little red numbers are scrolling up your screen around you), please move.

So there ya go. Some simple tips to make everyone's lives a little easier. Feel free to add any tips that you feel may be needed as well!

Something about me.

2010-02-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

Wugan over at Flow, has a great picture on his blog, and it got me thinking. Being that many bloggers share a little something about themselves irl, I figured I should do the same. I grew up on the West Coast, Solana Beach CA to be exact so surfing was/is a huge part of my life. I now live on a lovely Pacific island so I get to continue my passion. Anyway, I have this picture on my wall in my office and I love looking at it. It is truly beautiful. Perfect. Just figured I'd share the love! For those of you in the snow, look at the pic and imagine a warmer place!

Newb tanking

2010-02-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the tanking experiment is going well. Thanks to some good info from Darraxus , I've had some decent experiences so far. I have only tanked VH a few times and nexus twice so we'll see what happens with more difficult content. Charge in when I can. Thunderclap, shockwave, devastate, revenge, SS. Switching targets, Thunderclap again when it was up. All in all it went pretty well. It certainly requires more situational awareness as you must keep an eye on others, particularly your healer. Some problems I was running into were in highly geared groups, there may be some trouble building aggro as they are usually not willing to wait the 3-5 seconds for me to grab the mobs attention and the mobs die so fast they are for the most part doing little damage to me leading to almost no rage build-up. My feeling is that if the group is that well geared, then my ability to effectively tank is really irrelevant particularly in the easier heroics. If this whole tanking thing doesn't work out I may go ahead and start writing lengthy articles about the social ills of saying "ding" and "grats" or alternatively linking anal in trade chat all day. Either way it's a win:win for me.

Shaman healing

2010-02-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

Wugan posted a nice piece about shaman healing over at Flow. And thanks to Miss Medicina for linking it in the first place. One of the great things about shaman healing is versatility. Now I often bemoan the fact that I don't have all that many instants. Only one to be exact. Riptide. But it has a nice instant heal and then keeps rolling after that. When followed by a chain heal or a few lesser healing waves, it's a very powerful combo. Of course the shaman must be very aware of party movement because of cast time. The versatilty really comes in with totems. It's great to be able to adjust your totems for the specific situation. At this point I'm only running heroics, but I change up my totems frequently throughout an instance. In AN or TOC (with rogue) I will definitely drop my cleansing totem. Nature resistance is nice for lighting damage. Stoneskin totem is really nice for some damage mitigation (but if there's no dk and I'm in a nice mood, I may drop strength of earth for you...maybe). Frost resist. Fire resist. Even dropping your elemental totem during tough fights (black knight, phase 2!). We have so many choices. For me what works well is to have my default totems set up (stoneskin, flametongue, mana, wrath of air). I then have my other common utility totems set up on their own bar (using bartender), cleansing, life, resists, elementals, etc. It's nice to just drop my defaults and then change as needed with a click. Using key bindings and clique/grid then puts all of my healing spells within easy reach and keeps a nice clean interface for me. Right now I have RT, LHW and CH bound to my F, E, and R keys. Earth shield, cleanse spirit and HW are then bound to the mouse through clique. So far it's working well. Any other ideas or thoughts on how you've streamlined things or things you've done to tighten up your healing?

The scoop on my oculus complaint.

2010-02-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

So, 3 people in the world...oh wait, 4 (me!)....no wait, 5! I forgot the GM....zertfizzle or whatever his name is. So, somewhere between 4 and 6 people in the world are aware that I have been stiffed 2x...2x!!!!! in oculus when there was no bribe bag for me in the trunk! I wrote a mini-rant last week and Jenn (clearly a person of extreme genius) recommended I open a ticket. And open it I did! It was hilarious. I simply wrote up a report that twice now at the end, when collecting loots, there was no extra bag for me. Essentially there were only 4 in the trunk. I mentioned that this had happened to another pugger in a previous group as well. I asked if they'd heard it before and was there anything I could do to avoid it in the future....other than not run oc. The first response was classic. It was basically "Thanks you for your information you provided us re: that thing you wrote about. We shall keep it on file. If you have any questions please let us know. If you have no other questions, please click message read." Huh??? In other words, your very important issue will now be filed and placed in the giant storeroom where we're keeping the Ark of the Covenant. TYVM....
So of couse I had to write back. "Um yeah....I have a question still....huh? You didn't even remotely address my concern. I'm not expecting free stuff, but at the very least, say you have no idea why it happened, you're working on it and as soon as you have some idea how to avoid it again you'll contact me. Otherwise, I'll just d/c everytime I get oc." So next letter I get is some tongue in cheek response about retrieving my bonus bag from a goblin the the Barrens. Nothing about the issue itself, but at least I got one of my bags. Has nobody had this happen yet? I must be special :)

first timer

2010-02-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

So I think I've been playing WoW for about 1.5 years now. I have never tanked. Seeing the abuse heaped upon tanks should any error occur pretty much kept me away from that! However the recent changes to lfg and the obvious shortage of tanks (including my guild) has made me rethink that. I have been trying to decide whether to go with the dk or the warrior. By default, the warrior won as he had more tank gear. I spent a good part of yesterday reading about glyphs and spec and things of a tanky nature. Got my troll geared. A few purples, mostly blues. Got the numbers. Hotkeyed some talents. Got "omen" (although I have no idea how it works yet!). Decided to start easy and queued for H VH. Took all of about 1 second and I was in. Let the group know it was my first tanking ever and that I was appropriately geared. One dropped, the rest hung in and we went at it. Things went very well! I held aggro at all times. I don't think that's saying alot with VH, but that is the reason I chose that instance. My healer let me die a couple times, but no wipes so it was good. I'm doing glyphs of blocking, sunder and cleave, with the idea that that will give me better aoe aggro (less target switching). Now, devastate is better than sunder due to the damage effect, but my question is does glyph of sunder armor work when I use devastate? Gonna have to check on that. Otherwise I guess I'd be better off with glyph of devastate. Any other ideas? Basically I wade in, demoralizing shout, maybe a thunderclap, devastate (use revenge and SS in between). I've also been putting a rend on mobs with the assumption that the dot would help with aggro although I don't know how much truth there is to that. I'll try some of the easier heroics today and we'll see how it goes!

To tank or not to tank?

2010-02-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

I have a warrior and a dk. Both are totally dps. Never considered tanking. Never. People are such douchebags that I just have no interest in doing it. That being said, my guild has a tank shortage. If we're going to get anything going we're going to need some tanks. I have collected a decent number of epic gear from instances. I have rep with enough factions that with crafted items added, I could put together a tanking set. I don't really want to waste time dual speccing both. My question to the 3 or 4 people who have glanced at this blog is....mechanically....or whatever.....what is easier to tank with, warrior or dk. It seems both classes have advantages and disadvantages. Anyone care to break it down for me.....in simple terms...me brain hurt when read EJ.

Oculus....what? Again?

2010-02-05T11:57:00.000-08:00

Yes....just a very quick rant. Oculus is by no means hard. I suppose if you have difficulty with the flying/3D aspect I can understand. Not a problem for me. I get excited when I see the loading screen come up. I'm going to get another 2 badges, some gems for my jc and the chance at a cool flying mount (which I got on my shammy!). But twice now I have not been able to loot the bag from the chest at the end. There just isn't one for me. I see everyone else with their bonus gems and badges....just not me... :( Anyone else having this problem? Bribes don't work all that well when the briber doesn't follow through!

Random pug healing...finally.

2010-02-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I finally did it. Yesterday I signed up for healing heroic VH. Easy. Just wanted to get the fingers going. Then I sucked it up and entered the queue for a random...as a healer....yikes. So hilarious that I was actually nervous...lol! Anyway, I did breathe a sigh of relief as the screen for UK came up. Zoned in and I asked the tank to go semi easy as I was a new healer. He said no problem. Then again there aren't any really big pulls there. Most of the pulls were 5 or 6 mobs. Pretty easy. I'm glyphed with water mastery, LHW and RT. For the most part I just keep my earth shield up on the tank, RT(+85 sp per, stacks x3 for 15 sec.) and LHW as needed. Of course I use chain heal quite a bit too, particularly if I have a melee heavy group that is taking alot of aoe damage. I wish the cooldown on RT was shorter. Do the other healing classes HoT's have that long a cooldown (6 secs I think)? Anyway, now I'm wondering if the glyph of chain heal is a better deal. It seems the glyph of LHW only benefits the tank (+20% heal when earth shielded...i think?). Any wide aoe, it would certainly be nice to have a 4th target for CH, but then again that's assuming all are within range of the bounces. Any shammies care to add? So the UK run went fine. No deaths. Easy instance though. Queued up again and got HoS. Made me a little nervous as this instance has a layout that allows for big pulls. Again asked tank to "tank it easy". He said no problem and pulled the entire instance in 3 pulls instead of 2.....Things went okay though. No wipes, several deaths. Lots af aggro running around. Tank couldn't hold very well. 3 melee so lots of damage to heal. I was majorly lagging as well. All things considered I thought it went quite well. Suppose I'll hit random again today and see how things go. Fingers crossed!

IRL money for in-game services

2010-02-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

Lots of different people play WoW. And all of those people play WoW differently. Some PvP. Some RP. Some sit in Dalaran and troll trade chat all day ("know why they call it an xbox 360?"...grrrr). Some love making money. Some love raiding and anything else is painful for them. Others are totally content doing a little 5 man, a few dailies and getting some new gear every now and then. Which brings me to my point. I'm hearing a lot of people worrying about paying irl cash for in game services. Buying a pet for actual dollars. Buying a faction change. Buying a server change. Clearly Blizzard's intent is to make more money. No problem says I. If people want to pay for a little monk pet or to be human instead of troll...cool. Blizzard seems pretty clear that people who pay for additional items/services with irl money should not and will not have an advantage over players who don't. AH access on your iphone? I don't really play AH, but I can see how this could be seen as an advantage. However the truth is all players have access whenever they want. Whether you go off to work or school and ignore your auctions for 8 hours is entirely up to you. To be able to check AH remotely is certainly convenient, but everyone has the ability to monitor their auctions as frequently as they'd like. So it's not providing something to paying people that isn't available to non-paying people. The truth is it would be fine if people were given the option to purchase gear for irl money. Not everyone wants to level and gear up. That's not the fun part for them. If you buy full t10 do you have an advantage over me? Nope. I can get it. I just have to jump through the appropriate hoops. Now if you sold gear that was superior and only available through irl purchase, that would be different. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with Blizz offering things for irl money. It's really just cosmetic (pets) or convenience (iphone AH access) but not truely an advantage because we all have access. Each of us determines how we'd like to play and the amount of time we're going to put into it. If you can pay 200.00 bucks to have a level 80 geared toon waiting for you, no skin off my teeth. I could do that too. I can buy one or level one but the end result is the same. Thoughts?

Random acts of WoWness...

2010-02-02T14:09:00.000-08:00

So it seems (to some degree anyway) that most of the complaining about douchebaggery and asshattery had declined in the last week or two. Have the douchebags and asshats given up? Hardly. I suspect that along with the cross-server LFG tool, people were just shocked by the sheer number of d-bags. They're still there, we just aren't surprised by it anymore. Some would say "it's my monthly fee, I'll act however I want", or "it's just a game" or "whaddayougonnadoaboutit?".
I think it has little to do with the fact that it's an anonymous video game. The truth is we run into this kind of behavior irl all the time! Many days I think there are more d-bags than not in the world. Is it really hard to hold a door for someone? Does it really take alot out of your day to let another driver merge into your lane? Is it a major inconvenience to pick up your trash? Maybe I just wasn't aware of it when I was younger, but it just seems this selfish and downright rude behavior has permeated our everyday lives!
My solution. My proposal. I decide, in all aspects of life (videogame, irl, whatever) who gets to continue. Doesn't matter whether you've paid or not. I will henceforth be the GM in life and will decide who will be banned (permanent or temporarily). So, of course the current problem I'm having is how to actually implement this. I mean logistically it's no small thing to make yourself the overall GM of the world (not to mention how to do the bans!). I am working through some kinks now, technical and legal (apparently you can't just perma-ban people from life!?!?!). So if you have any suggestions (I believe Darraxus favors the simple uppercut), please let me know.

Monday Haiku.

2010-02-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

In the interest of continuity (and I know little about giving WoW advice other than "don't stand in fire", nor did I have any horrible pugs since last group and couldn't think of anything else to write), we'll do another Monday haiku. Feel free to add one of your own. Very zen.

Gnomes....very tasty
Fried, baked, broiled, sauteed or raw.....
Really, I love gnomes!

I'd like to dedicate this Haiku to Keredria and all of her cute (mouthwatering), pink haired (delicious), spunky (tasty), full of life (not for long...) little friends! ;)

Fail guild, fail PUG.

2010-01-31T14:13:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of running with a group of apparently 12 year old boys today. H CoS with a group from the guild "Paste Eaters" from Arthas. I should have known by the guild name that I'd be dealing with retards. So, to deathspartan, lajon, beztroski and gimped....F you (to put it nicely).
Uneventful run. Everyone doing their part. Nobody under 2500 dps. Get to the infinite corruptor. Plenty of time. He goes down. Drake comes up. Myself and one other roll need. I win. He "sighs" and one of his fellow retards says he should have mentioned something and they all would have rolled on it to improve his chances. One second later, on the way to malganis, I am kicked. Apparently that is my punishment for winning a random roll. Very cool. TYVM guys. So I don't get my final badge nor do I get my 2 frost badges. Very cool. Again....paste eaters from arthas...you guys are wankers. Ah well....the local school's special ed. program called and they're missing some kids.....time to queue up again.

?

2010-01-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

So today's post is not WoW related but couldn't be passed up. I had a patient yesterday who after his physical asked me in a very concerned voice if he could ask me a question before he left. I said no problem and in an embarrased but very serious voice he told me that he was very concerned because as he was gaining weight and his abdomen getting larger, his "manhood" was simultaneously getting shorter. Oh really? I did not laugh. I did not snicker. I didn't even crack a smile. I looked at him and told him that it wasn't that he was getting shorter, its that he was getting buried....so to speak. That being said, I also had an office staff member who very honestly told everyone that when she was pregnant, she could tell which poops were hers and which poops were the baby's....by the size. ??? As if that wasn't enough, when I was in college working at Kinko's, I had a lady ask me to copy her resume on some nice paper. She then handed it to me and asked me to fax it to the number she had written on the cover sheet. I did. Handed her back her resume, cover sheet and confirmation sheet. In a very nasty, pissy voice she then started asking me why I didn't fax her resume. When I told her it had been faxed, she looked at me with the bitchiest, most know-it-all face and said "if you faxed it...why am I still holding it in my hand?!?!" It seriously took insane amounts of self control to explain to her that a fax machine doesnt transport the actual document magically to it's new location without making her look and feel like a complete idiot. And we wonder why there are 80's in blues and purples doing 600dps.

Healer Hissy Fit.

2010-01-29T16:10:00.001-08:00

Yes...yes....I had one. It had to happen eventually. So far everyone has been great. Helpful, cooperative, understanding. So yeah, it had to happen. Zone into nexus, lock with a 13000 gearscore (slightly exaggerated) starts telling dk tank to pull everything, multiple groups. I ask them not to do that. Dk decides 7 mobs should be a manageable number. Of course our neighborhood lock who does 3k dps just passing gas takes all aggro and immediately dies. I heal through the rest. Nobody says anything to me but lock asks tank "what tank? You know how to play?" I rez lock, throw one LHW before I'm out o' mana, and start drinking. Tanks response to the lock is to decide to charge that damn dwarf general/sergeant/captain whathisshortness. I have about enough mana to cast one or two LHW's. Instead, I decide to drop group. I know...I know...it wasn't cool. I really love the vision of them all going bye bye though...lol!