The Freeing Feeling of Playing One Toon

For those unaware, I have made my priest my one and only raiding character. I had been spending too much time gearing up multiple toons, so I focused on my priest. The only time I log on the other toons is for professions, usually for my priest. I spent the mage and warriors badges to get some saronite for crafted pants and boots.

I feel free.

I'm actually doing some PvP now. I forced myself to go Holy for raiding, but I sucked it up and did a Disc Smite build for PvP. It works pretty well, I tend to get a fair share of KBs, and I can burst heal like no body's business. This is great for BGs, where I can heal if there are only a couple of healers, but if we have too many healers, I can start throwing 4k smites.

There's a whiner in our guild about people using PvP gear in raids. He seems to forget the fact that a 31 ilvl difference is significant, even if you waste itemization on resilience. I was padding my GS to get in the raid with 4 PvP items (Relentless cloak, Wrathful bracers, Relentless belt, SP Battlemasters Trinket), and according to the Recount Effective Heals/GS, I was still performing extremely well.

I also tend to think that PuGs with PvP gear usually have better spacial awareness. But, since everyone can get PvP gear with Wintersgrasp, I guess at the very least it gives them more stamina, which gives them more time to get out of the fire.

Also, as a distraction, I downloaded DDO and plan on giving it a shot. And if I think the game is good enough, maybe I'll throw some money at Turbine.

One Profession to Rule Them All: Tailoring

Ok, so 3.3.3 hit, and I'm excited. I recently made my priest my main, and this gave me a chance to spam make all the moonshroud I needed for crafted items, so my guild will let me raid (more on that later).

As I was standing in Shattrath making my moonshroud, I noticed something amazing. For those of you who weren't tailors, there was a seemingly pointless buff you used to get when you crafted specialty cloth. Here are the links.

Spellweave - Nexus Residue (20 Haste)
Ebonweave - Residue of Darkness (20 Crit)
Moonshroud - Moonshroud Residue (20 hp5/mp5)

Well, as I was making it in Shattrath, I noticed that I was still getting the buff, over and over again. It used to be a buff you got once every 4 days, in the middle of dragonblight. While it's not a huge buff, you can now do it anytime, anywhere, without a cooldown.

For example, you can do it when you're staring down the Lich King on heroic mode.

Tailoring used to be a competitive profession for casters, but now that you can stack all three of these residues for attempts on hardmode bosses it is a clear winner. And when you're done, you can just sell the cloth for the price of the mats and do it again.

So, if you're a caster class going for hardmodes, I suggest power-leveling tailoring to get the most out of your class. At least until Blizzard knocks it back in line with the other professions.

3.3.3 Can Eat One

WTH Blizzard? You've had that background downloader on for the past week and you don't deliver my new patch? My priest just hit 80, and I was expecting to welfare out some serious Runed Orb/Crusader orb gear using the essentially free Moonshroud that comes when you lift the CDs off tailoring.

Now I'm in the strange situation where I can either shell out some gold to get one piece now, or not raid ICC 10 at full strength this week (read: not raid ICC 10 at all this week).

Way to get my hopes up, Jackholes.

Brought to you by Whiny Post Day.

It's Boring out Here (Link Love)

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last week. We've been doing our normal, 6/13 ICC 10 man, with nothing new to report. I wanted to try to go back to my arcane spec, as I was somewhat sad about my damage, but I was cornered into ice, as I was the only source of replenishment.

I do have to report that my Priest is now 80, and I'm gearing him up for raiding as Holy. Our guild lacks good raid healers, so I figured it would be worth it.

My priest was my first 70 when I started playing the game in TBC. I rolled priest, fully intent on healing, as my previous experience in MMOs was playing a monk/mesmer healer in Guild Wars. I did everything I could, to make sure I was ready, including getting my tailoring up so I could craft Primal Mooncloth items, and at 69, my guild told me "GG, you're our shadow priest lol." As a good little soldier, I did everything to become the best mana battery possible, and I did a pretty decent job, if I say so myself.

By the time wrath rolled around, the changes to replenishment made me kind of sad, so I decided to take my warrior as my main, until I found out the guild needed a mage.

Sukutaklu, the Troll, is back in action and looking to finally get a real shot at healing. Despite my low gear score (sporting nothing higher than ilvl 200 epics), I was able to raid heal through all the bosses in VoA with no deaths (and yes, I was healer 2, not healer 3)!

And I wouldn't have been able to do it without the help from Bloggers like Miss Medicina at Miss Medicina, Amber at I Like Bubbles, and notTamarindlol (his ubersecret name change) and Chas (not actually sure what class he is) at Righteous Orbs (recently added to the reader).

So consider this a link love post from a long time stalker who's finally getting to use some of the stuff you all talk about.

What's the Size of Your R-Peen

Recently, there's been an uprising that I've seen from people in various LARP and Video games.  These people seem to have this idea that the way they're playing a game is right and the way someone else plays the game is wrong.

People make all kinds of justifications for why nerf and buffs should or should not happen.  A lot of responses are "don't worry, it's not a problem if people don't Power Game," or "There's an RP way to deal with it."  All of these arguments are intended to be a social way to bully people from playing the game they want to play.

LARP in Your Backyard

One of the hardest things about finding a LARP group to join in the US is location.  The United States is a big place, and you would often have to drive hours to get to a game.

Even though I am blessed to be in Ohio, which unbeknownst to me could the Mecca of LARPing (I checked and found about 35 groups in a 5 hour radius), sometimes you just want to play in your backyard.

Originally, your only option was to play your own spin-off or rule set to run, but then the game seemed like a played out D&D session, and it only ever meant something to you and your friends.

However, there is a new game out there that supports people playing in the backyard while simultaneously interacting with people around the globe.

I introduce you to - The Dreaming

Half Boffer LARP, Half Social Networking.

The jist of the game is that you exist in a world of "wakes", who think they're awake, even though they're part of the dream.  You, however, play a denizen of the dreaming, anything from a Dead God to tricky Fae.

The game hasn't really started yet, but we're going to give it a go and see what happens.  If you're interested in something like this, check out the web page and see if anyone around you is playing.

ICC-10 Fo' Mages: Festergut and Rotface

A while back I did a piece about the first four bosses in ICC. My guild hasn't progressed much farther in it for various reasons, but I can give a bit of information on the bosses I have seen.

This set will be focused on Festergut and Rotface (more like Festernuts and Rottencrotch, Amirite?)

The Proper Use of Cold Snap

I've been trying my best to make frost work lately.  The biggest thing is that I want to be prepared for when the patch comes out.  I did a ToC 25 and ended up at a solid 5th place as frost, despite no shaman and no crit chicken to give me buffs.  Beat out the other mages as well, rocking between 5k and 6k DPS (save for gimmick fights where damage was higher).

The real trick to playing frost is maintaining the priority system and responding quickly.  It's been a long time since I played fire, so I wasn't responding fast enough at first.  Cold Snap is a tricky bitch that has caught me a number of times.  Here's how you use it.