Encounter Design

What started as a random wishful daydream about an X-men Danger Room-style training dummy set up eventually turned into an idea about a raid encounter where the raid itself took very little damage. Trust me, somehow I made that leap.

But if the raid (including the tanks) aren’t taking much damage, what’s a healer to do? Another Valithria/Tsulong-type encounter?

Not quite. But close.

Imagine you zone in to the fight and find Thrall and Garrosh tearing it up. Like most “decorative” NPC battles, they would be locked in a stalemate until the party engages. So sit back, enjoy your Pandaren Banquet and watch the two heavies beat the shit out of each other. Garrosh, of course, has a gajabillion HP and damage reduction shield and probably all sorts of other buffs.

Moving in to the Barn

I think I need a “not dead yet” tag for posts.

There are three reasons I don’t post:

1. Nothing is happening and/or nothing new is happening and I can only rehash the same rants so many times.
2. There’s lots of new stuff happening but it’s not appropriate to print at all or the timing isn’t quite right.
3. And sometimes there’s just so much happening I don’t have time to post.

Thankfully, my latest week-long hiatus was for the reason behind door number 3.

Last week I posted about moving to greener pastures so it’s only fair I give an update on how that transition is going.

Caving to pressure

So you know how I posted yesterday that I didn’t have to run any heroics?

Well, I had that post sitting in my drafts for a few days before I actually got around to hitting publish.

I did get to 460 with what I could scrape together outside of heroics.

I did get to Revered with the Order of the Cloud Serpent in one day and bought the first four panther patterns.

I did run both halves of MSV and Sha prior to the Tuesday reset, netting me a belt off Elegon.

With no coins, I opted to only run them once.

On Tuesday, with my near-instant LFR queue time, I ran both halves of MSV again.

Heroics Required?

Hardly.

It’s no small secret that I hate heroics.

I used to love them.

Even with all the issues I had in BC playing with people that weren’t quite on the same page for dungeons (threat, LOS, single-target, etc. were all concepts that hadn’t been learned yet), I still enjoyed them.

In Wrath, we all got better and played with more advanced players. Heroics were fast and enjoyable.

Then came Cata.

I had a LOT of pressure to get Selwyn up and raid-ready ASAP. I was sick for the launch and had to play catch up, mostly in the form of my guild chain-running heroics.

It was terrible.

I’m not the best player in the world, but I was holding my own very nicely as a healer. And I almost deleted my healer after running the first Cata heroic.

So I’ve made it a point to avoid heroics like the plague. Arioch will eventually need to run a few to get my panda rep for the turtles, but I’m not looking forward to it.

Raiding hasn’t gotten much better in my guild. (The success of my recent rant post was short lived.)

We did get Elegon down prior to the nerf and proceeded to wipe 3 times on Will and had to give up for the night. I managed to pug my Will kill that night, I barely got my feat of strength for completing MSV. But I still haven’t set foot in to HoF or ToES outside of LFR.

(That was part of my exciting news, there’s one more squee piece to come later.)

Facing another tier of frustration, I decided it was time to get on the level train for Selwyn and start raiding with him. I will most likely pull one character out to find a new guild… then my guild starts talking about forming a second core… we are still pugging to fill our normal 10-man raid. /headdesk

But no raiding until level 90!

The weekend before last I bit the bullet and ran a dungeon. Happened to get a great tank from my server. We ended up running a few dungeons and friending each other. There was a plan to meet up to make the final push to 90.

We missed each other being logged in, so over the next weekend I quested my little heart out and hit 90 running errands for the Klaxxi.

I immediately dug through my bags and started equipping my saved stash. I had about a 435 ilevel when I started, some of my heroic pieces and tier from DS were hard to replace.

Ready to go in my bags I had a 496 crafted chest, 496 crafted gloves, Relic of Chi-Ji, 2/2 upgraded 476 inscription Crane staff, and after a quick flight to Townlong (after a detour to Jade Forest because I’m an idiot) the Sha of Anger quest boots. I was already using my Zen alchemist stone (upgraded its 1 level).

That put me in the 450s, which wasn’t quite good enough.

Off to the AH!

I picked up a couple materials to make a Band of Blood ring (450) and I snagged two 458 PvP pieces (helm and shoulders – meta gem and 2-piece bonus).

Back to Townlong to hit up the JP vendor. Another ring and a cloak upgrade got me to 460 by the skin of my teeth.

I was saving my VP for the 522 neck, but at 1250 valor that means it meant it would be sometime during the next week before I could claim it.

460 attained, everything gemmed/enchanted, off to LFR!

So much for improved drop rates.

I got a Spirit of Harmony in one fail bag and got a belt of Elegon (pushing ilevel to 464).

Even as a fresh 90 and at the bottom of the gear level for entrance, I still think I held my own healing.

Mana feels a little weird and Solace doesn’t seem to return as much (or as often) to feel useful.

Prayer of Healing not creating a DA shield is hard for me to get around, I’ve moved a couple buttons around but it’s still hard to remember to use Spirit Shell first to do what PoH used to do by itself. I think it will get easier as I get a better feel for the damage spikes in the fights and I retrain myself.

I opted for Cascade – OMG that puts some big numbers on my screen! I still think Halo is a prettier spell, but it’s hard to argue with what boils down to Prayer of Mending on crack.

After enjoying my 2-3 minute queues for LFR, I flew out to the Arboretum to start my Order of the Cloud Serpent reputation. With one onyx egg and one championed heroic ran with the guild, I’m halfway to Exalted. In one day. My little serpent must have been on steroids, but he was ready to fly after one day of poop-picking.

I have the 4 basic panther patterns and should have the onyx one in another day or two. Now to collect a bunch of mats.

This brings me to 4 level 90s… how long until I pick the fifth to get the next achievement?

I Bought the Farm

Actually, you get the farm for free!

(Still not the post about the exciting stuff, the farm is just too cool.)

If you are exalted with the Tillers and have unlocked all 16 plots, you can go up the hill to talk to Nana. She will give you a quest to talk to Yoon.

Talk to Yoon and he hands the farm over to you, walking off to talk to Nana.

When you leave and return to the farm, Yoon has been replaced by the Work Orders board. (Don’t worry, he’s just wandered down to the market proper to hang out with the other Tillers.)

Currently I have orders available for several factions and they all have a I after them so I bet eventually we get different versions of the orders.

In a Word – Relief

Quick post because it’s late and I’m tired.

Huzzah!

So it’s not everything that I was hoping for, but the decision to dump valor down to justice has been overturned.

Clicky here for blue words.

Additionally, it’s not looking good for a 5.2 release on 02/26/2013.

Clicky here for blue tweet.

Basically, they will give us 2 weeks notice for the end of PvP. We have not seen the announcement for the end of PvP. So no patch on the 26th, yay!

DMF – Final Score

Tied!

Or down by one?

Or success with a save?

Let me explain.

So I had meticulously planned out exactly how many tickets it would take for me to get all the DMF pets before the end of the faire.

All but the last one had some wiggle room of either a couple days or a couple quests.

But Jhaelen was in charge of getting 2.

DMF – And the score is…

Because I know everyone is breathlessly awaiting my continuing saga of trying to get the rest of the DMF pets this month!

OK, we left off with having just acquired the mount and and a pet, leaving four pets to go.

I’m pleased to report that Arioch and Selwyn were both able to purchase a pet.

Now it’s up to Jhaelen and Kaayn to bring it home.

A Gift of a Fish

(Clearing out my email and found this piece I had written and sent to myself back in October.)

As some of you may be aware, my mother plays WoW.

Growing up, I watched her devour Nintendo games with a feverish passion.

The entirety of the Zelda world was carefully mapped out, square by square, on a pad of grid paper. Every inch of every screen was bombed and flamed, the results meticulously noted.

Then she discovered strategy guides.

Castlevania was cleared.

Numerous princess were found to be in other castles.

Games I had never heard of and have long since been forgotten were conquered. I remember lots of side-scrolling RPGs that made little sense but the graphics (at the time) were magical.

In short, my mother was a gaming fiend.

Apathetic to Frantic

Last two weeks have been BLAH.

And then, suddenly, the clouds parted and I woke up with renewed vigor.

Yes, I was vigorous and antsy.

The pendulum had swung from “do NONE of the things” to “do ALL of the things… NOW!”

The worst part is that I’m not sure which “ALL” of the things I should be doing.

Obviously I can’t do “ALL” of the things or I’ll risk burnout and apathy once again.