It Has Begun

And so it begins. Yes, the expansion isn't until November, but as always, there are events leading up to it.  Today, Alliance and Horde got to help their lil' buddies get take back their homes.

On the Horde side you help Vol'Jin take back the Echo Isles. You got a nice trinket that turns you into a troll, and you pretty cloak. And... well... it sure was fun. That's a group of us REAL people players helping Vol'Jin in his battle on the island.

The Allie version is, of course, all about Gnomeregan. It is less fun that the Horde version, imho. You get a similar trinket and cape. This is Naturegrrl. She's not high enough to do the whole event, but she could at least get through enough of it to get the trinket. She is on her night elf tiger mount as a gnome, with a helmet, of course.

How Girls Play

Beginning with a preemptive: Shut up. Yah I rolled another alt. I rolled a druid for two reasons. First, I'm very interested in the variations in the healing classes. I love playing my disc priest, but I am curious about the advantages and disadvantages of various healing classes. I rolled a shammy but I have to say I don't enjoy playing it at low levels. Sarah has rolled and leveled a druid healer which she simply adores, to the point of considering making it her main. So, this led me to roll my druid alt. Now I've rolled druids before and abandonned them before level 20 cause they are such a drag at low levels. But - DOH! - as my daughter pointed out to me, you can't level as a healer till at least level 40 cause the spells suck at the low level so level as a cat. I knew that. Cat is for fite.

I will, at some point, take another look at the shammy 'cause shammy heals are teh shitz. Supernovan is a great healer. But for now, I'm drood. You'll note, if you're clever, that this is an Alliance toon. It's also on a different server, for several reasons. Mostly, I just wanted to mess about on my own and not get ping'd with requests to bring my hunter to some dungeon run that I've done already nine million times. Also, when you're leveling your nine millionth toon, you really don't wanna see the same quests you've seen for the past five years. It's been a long time since I roamed the Alliance side of Azeroth, and it feels a bit fresher.

Now, if this toon takes and I dig it, I will transfer her back to Eitrigg and switch her to Horde. I may specialize in a portfolio of healers. I do enjoy the role. Any hows.... that's what I'm up to.

It's All Cool

Professor Putricide down at last. Note ManagedCare is there as a healer. The guild is now 10 of 12 in ICC. We can't get Sindragosa past 8% but we will eventually. Each time is an improvement.

So, I'm no disc priest virgin anymore. The guild dragged me along on an ICC25 (this picture is a 10-man), where I was one of two priests healing, five healers total (three druids). I did fine. I was given an OT to keep up and I did, except for two fights. In both cases we were sort of out of time and things were going to hell anyway. I didn't feel too bad about it. I'm completely comfortable with disc. now and use it in the heroic dailies and in guild 10- and 25-man raids. I don't seem to pump out the numbers that straight up healers do, that is, as a mitigation specialist my whole point is to avoid having to heal by protecting.

Meanwhile, Tynqua is pounding away on achievements, mostly to catch the ones that will be affected by the terraforming in Cataclysm. Sure is easier to go back and farm achievements as a geared up 80 than to do them at level. LOL.

I started a druid and a shaman on another server, mostly to see how those classes heal. I've been really impressed with the shammy heals (Supernovan, Chakchel), and I'd like to understand the mechanic. It's slow going though, to level those, partly cuz I'm sick of leveling toons and partly cause they're so weak at low levels.

Some of the guildies have gotten into 5-man arena, and it reminded me of our short stint in 2- and 3-mans with Viamedia. I just don't have the hand-mind speed for pvp. :-)