Death Knight Love and Other News

I promised myself I wouldn't succumb. I swore I wouldn't roll a death knight until I had leveled all three of my 70s to a decent level. I vowed that I wouldn't be one of the masses when Wrath of the Lich King released.

I failed.

BUT SHE LOOKS SO GOOD!

Miyasi Ironhide, fallen shaman and Knight the Ebon Blade.

I am in love.

In other news, I haven't leveled Zgu at all. I ran into this problem where I couldn't bring myself to level another character before Salanthe. So instead I'm playing a death knight while waiting for my collector's edition to arrive from Wal-mart so I can unlock WotLK on Sal's account and start playing her. I'm very anxious to get that process underway. Hurray up Wal-mart!

As to the big news I alluded to in my last post, well, I said farewell to my guild of almost a year. It was very hard and I've been agonizing over it for a couple months now. I wanted to cut back on raiding and retire from 25-mans though, which meant leaving my guild.

I was with them almost one year and witnessed 10 guild first boss kills with them. I started as a back-up restoration shaman and rose to the highest officer rank and healing class lead by the time I left. I originally joined because they were willing to give me a chance to prove myself when no other guild would. I owe them so much and it was so very difficult to leave. But I haven't left the server and I only hope that they don't hate me for leaving and will still talk to me. I made good friends that I don't want to lose.

So in tribute, thank you, Ascension, from the bottom of my heart. It was an amazing experience and I owe you everything for taking a chance on a poor resto shaman that no one else wanted. I wish you all the best of luck in the expansion and may you see many server first boss kills. Much love.

The End

And there it is, the end of the Burning Crusade.

I am so fortunate to have come so far. When I came to Moon Guard a year and a half ago, I never thought I would raid, let alone "beat the game." It's such an odd thing, thinking back on all that has happened. That the cranky old shaman and teacher of The Earthwalkers should find herself standing before the Sunwell after defeating Kil'jaeden... I'm sure Salanthe herself is as shocked as I am!

I joined Ascension because I had something to prove to myself and to others. And for one other very important reason - they promised to give me a chance. They certainly did. I owe them a lot.

Random Musings

I have a lot to write about regarding the expansion, but not the will to do so just yet. The one thing on my mind most recently has been to figure out how to organize totems amongst my shaman, since they're going raid-wide. It's trickier than it sounds.

I also want to discuss some of the resto shaman talent trees and talents. I made a post on my guild's website with several different spec ideas, but haven't received any feedback yet.

Basically, I need to do some more research before I write about some of the things rattling around in my head. When I do, I will certainly update the blog.

In lieu of any meaningful posts regarding the patch, beta, or the expansion, let me talk to you about a dare of sorts. As you are well aware if you follow this blog at all, I have a healing problem. Both my 70s are restoration and I have an interest in leveling all four healing classes so I can learn how to heal on them. It is one of the things I find most enjoyable about the game.

I also find it to be one of the most frustrating things and my complaining inspired a friend of mine to suggest that it might be a good idea for me to have a class that cannot heal. Yes, I have the warrior, but she's been stuck at level 66 for a while now. It's not that I have no interest in leveling her; I just have more interest in other things at the moment.

That is how Keiaz the mage became the focus of my efforts. At my friend's encouragement, I've been working hard at leveling her. She's a tailor and enchanter, of course, and I've had brief thoughts of possibly making her my main come the expansion. There are so many reasons I can't picture it though; namely that she is a troll mage and not a tauren shaman. She is a good diversion though.

In other new, I was promoted to a full officer and healing class lead in my guild. Huzzah.

Unintended Consequences

One thing I did not intend upon being promoted to a guild officer was being forced to carefully consider what I put in my blog. I don't want to air the guild's dirty laundry across the Internet for all to see. On the other hand, typing out my situation is the best way for me to think through whatever issue it is that I'm dealing with. I'll have to think carefully about what I type.

Regardless of all that, I'm finally being forced to step into my role as guild officer. I'm not sure why I thought things wouldn't change once I had that new rank after my name, but I did. It's disconcerting to find myself taking responsibility for other people again. It's been so long since The Earthwalkers disbanded that I've forgotten what it feels like to be in a leadership position. Here's hoping I still have the ability to do it well.

On an unrelated note, I finally got Miothe's herbalism up to Outland level. She can pick almost every flower Salanthe needs now. Upon reaching that mark, I decided that it's time to drop herbalism on Sal and pick up leatherworking. After buying out all the thick leather on the auction house this morning, Salanthe is stuck at 269. Let me tell you how irritated I was that I couldn't get that last point!

I will have to spend some time farming rugged leather with Miothe so I can continue leveling leatherworking on Salanthe. Hopefully I'll have Outland patterns by the end of the week.

Patience is a Virtue

A few days ago, I wrote about how the shaman class lead was leaving the game and how I wanted to be the class lead in his place. I didn't know how to broach the subject with the guild leader though.

Well, tonight she asked me. So I am now an officer of the guild and the leader of the shaman class! There are officially five female and six male officers in the guild. How unusual is that?!

I also got to inspect a WWS parse of tonight's raid, so I have a better idea of the healing differences between the new resto shaman and me. It seems as though he is a more reactive healer and doesn't manage his mana as carefully as I do.

For a while, I thought he was making liberal use of nature's swiftness to emulate haste. I knew he was casting more heals than me and that's hard to do because I am always casting. Upon examination tonight, I noticed that he uses lesser healing wave much more often than I do and he uses a very low rank healing wave to top people off. He also uses a higher rank chain heal than I do, though I can't tell if he uses rank 4 or 5 (I use rank 3).

On the other hand, I am a very steady healer. I stick to chain heal rank 3 and up-rank (use 4 or 5) depending on how much damage the raid is taking as a whole. I rarely cancel heals once I've started them because I gamble on them actually healing something by the time they land, which is also why I down rank so much. Why waste a lot of mana on over-heal? I almost never use lesser healing wave, with the Supremus fight as the notable exception. The only time I use healing wave is when I'm healing someone after a rez or pulling a "Hail Mary" heal off on the tank.

So the difference between us is due to healing style. There are positives to both methods, certainly, but we can both learn from each other as well. At this point, I think the one thing I will try to adapt from his healing style is some of the reactivity. I am a little slow to cast heals sometimes, partially because I'm already healing someone else. I'm also not as good at positioning as I should be, so that's something to work on.

It will be very interesting to see how the new resto shaman does when he gets his two piece T6 set bonus. We're already neck-in-neck on the healing meters.

Can't Catch Me!

I have decided to level a tauren druid to replace Zgu as my level 39 twink. It was a debate between leveling Heneli, my priest, or making a druid and the druid won. They are so powerful in pvp. One good druid in a battleground can win a game.

The reason I decided to roll a new twink was because a couple of my guild mates have twinks at level 39. I'm having so much fun playing with them! I don't want to stop. Hence the new twink.

In other news, that Alliance guild beat the Illidari Council tonight. It's an end of an era for my guild, but I'm not as sad about it as I expected. My guild still exists and we're still progressing, even if we have fallen behind because of good people leaving.

Speaking of people leaving, rumor has it that the shaman class lead has up and disappeared permanently. I smell an opportunity, but I don't want to say anything! I am the logical choice, since I am the most consistent and reliable shaman in the guild right now. So we'll see what happens. The guild leader is out of town until Monday which means I have plenty of time to think about how to broach the subject.

I would like to be promoted without prompting, but the druid class lead went unfilled for almost a month until someone stepped up and said they would take it. I'm not sure the shaman class lead position will be filled until someone says something about it and if I wait too long, that new restoration shaman will say something before I do.

New People

Last night was an interesting one. After the guild drama I wrote about previously, I was apprehensive concerning last night's raid. As I said before, one of the people that left has been instrumental in helping us beat Reliquary of Souls.

Well, it was not a smooth night. We started late because so many people logged on late. We ended up 23-manning the trash to Gorefiend. And the disconnects and afks! My goodness! Once we finally got rolling, we downed Gorefiend easily despite the new folks, and things looked bright. Well instead of going on to Bloodboil, we went to RoS and proceeded to wipe for the next two and a half hours. The problem? Our brand new fury warrior (who happened to join not two days before the old one quit) was learning how to do interrupts. We actually got RoS down to 5% and then 1%, but too many people had died during Phase 2 for us to pull off Phase 3.

That attempt where we got it down to 1%, I reincarnated at the last second, just as the last person died and tried to frost shock the damned thing down, but it had just a few too many health points for my meager resto dps. It was sad and would have been absolutely brilliant if it had worked. Oh well. The lesson there is that I should have reincarnated earlier to help heal the remaining dps. In my opinion, one of the hardest aspects of playing a shaman is knowing when to use that ankh.

Despite all the pitfalls tonight, I feel somewhat reassured about my guild's future and I'm hoping that most of our attendance issues are due to the time of year - final exams and the beginning of summer. I hope that things will improve once those real life things settle down.

I do have one somewhat selfish concern though. I have to spend about a week moving my stuff from Kansas to Minnesota at the beginning of June. I'm worried that my guild will end up downing Illidan while I'm away! That would be unspeakably awful. I hope things improve faster rather than slower so we can get Illidan down before I have to take a week off!

Guild Drama

I wonder how many more people we're going to lose. Drama from months ago is still being dredged up by the officers and more and more people are quitting because of it. WTB diplomatic guild officers, please!

Our only fury warrior left tonight, along with a shadow priest. They show up for almost every raid and the warrior at least is pretty much essential to us beating Reliquary of Souls. I'm afraid that these two losses will set us back in progression and I'm worried about losing more core raiders.

Not only that, but the new people we have recruited can't show up to raids. I swear, they only joined for the guild tag and have no interest in helping. I loathe users and that's what these new recruits seem to be.

So I think it might be time to consider my options as far as raiding on Moon Guard. If my guild goes up in smoke, there is literally no where else to go. There is one other guild on this server making progress in Black Temple and they are on alliance side. The other horde side raiding guilds are still in T5 content.

It pains me to think of leaving Moon Guard, but that is the only option if my guild dies. I don't want to retire my shaman yet. Yes, I could try starting another raiding guild, but there aren't enough people on this server to make it viable. Not even close.

I have at least one friend who is interested in transferring with me, which is nice. I think I would probably be miserable if I didn't know anyone on a new server. I'll have to talk to at least one other person to see if he would be interested in transferring as well.

The hard part is trying to find a server and guild that would be a good match. I'm a T6 resto shaman and perform very well in raids. I'm a solid player and would be a good addition to any guild. I don't want to be second string though. I enjoy being an integral part of my guild and I like being valued. It will be a challenge to find a guild that fits both my needs and my friend's needs.

For now at least, this is speculation. Only time will tell.