Mooonfire!

For today’s excitemment- A video! Hurrah!

Pirates of Booty Bay from Llanion on Vimeo.

If you look here, Matticus is causing trouble again. Well, if by ‘causing trouble’ you mean ‘making challenges’. I find it hard to resist a good challenge.

In fact he may not be causing trouble so much as being at the center of it; it’s a bit of a long story but the upshot, as I understand it, is that he provoked Saresa to write a list of a dozen reasons why Warlocks are the best lovers. This was followed by a post from The Pugnacious Priest on why it’s actually shadow priests.

Naturally, I disagree. It’s really druids, and here’s why:

1. Depending on the druid, you could be looking at a Force of Nature, Natural Perfection or Heart of the Wild- but we almost all have either Ferocity or Intensity.
2. Like it naughty? We deliver.
3. We can Rejuvenate without slowing down.
4. We have a good aura around us (varying by spec, of course, but someone always appreciates it).
5. Resurrection without stopping. ‘nough said.
6. Whoever heard of a druid getting tired early? We just keep going, and going…
7. We can always adapt to what you need.
8. We’ve got that Nurturing Instinct going for us.
9. Depending on the druid, we may or may not have as much stamina as the creepy goths, but we’ve got ways to go even longer
10. What other class has a set built just for them called the Symbols of Unending Life? That’s right. Unending.
11. Druids all have the ability to be calm, to be passionate or to blow you away with their love.
12. You like it wild? We do too.

The place is a mess, there are posts that need fixing, the various lists on the sidebar are extremely old and you have no idea what I’m up to in-game these days. Also, I have a developing rant about what makes raiding fun.

You do not, however, get any of these things right now, because my first post back after a long, long hiatus, is about my current spec, what makes it fun, and what I might change.

You can find it by examining me on the armory, and it’s something of an odd spec- A variation of the Dreamstate healer (itself uncommon) without the classic support talent Brambles. It takes the DPS-enhancing talents intead.

So why do I like this build? Versatility.

We were in Karazhan last night. We had zero warrior tanks. Nada. We had only two healers (both druids, neither me). Majinbill, a paladin, was our main tank. Maj and I have this understanding, and we’ve now tanked, as a team, all of Karazhan (and upper Kara twice).

We started out fine. No priests, so no real CC against undead. One of the DPS face-pulled a second pull during the stables. We didn’t even notice until after the pull was down. Midnight/Attumen were cake and, coincidentally, dropped the scope schematic I’d been hoping for for a very, very long time.

Moroes? No CC. Shadow priestess, holy priestess, prot warrior, ret paladin. No real trouble. Maj held Moroes/Ret and I held Moroes/Crispin until the priests were down. Fury warriors went to work on Ret. Crispin was my buddy for the remainder of the evening. I died due to healer inattention, but then we were running with two healers where our guild traditionally takes three.

Maiden? Maj and I both put on our healing sets. He cleansed and did spot heals, I healed, one of the fury warriors tanked her (We had already determined that I could in fact hold aggro on her just fine with only my instants, but two healers was insufficient for the damage flying around).

Opera? Romulo and Julianne. What’s the problem here?

No dispel.

Lots of interrupts- no dispel. We tried it with me tanking Julianne and Maj tanking Romulo. Problem? Not enough healing. Okay, I put on the healing gear and strap one of the fury warriors back into their tanking gear, away we go.

Curator? Cake. I have a partial arcane resist set, so I soaked up bolts and pretended to be DPS while Maj took the big guy.

Aran? Double cake. I just pretended I was DPS (and took out two of the water elementals on my own).

Prince? Triple cake. Drop into the healer set and let Mr. Pally have all the fun. Once we hit phase 3 the healing requirements slackened off, but we needed DPS, so… wrath away!

So why this post? We were talking it over in the raid, and realized just how useful it is to have a raid member who can, at need, be any of the three roles.

I love my spec. It makes me all happy.

(It’s pure gravy that neither our prot paladins nor our prot warriors can hold threat against me if I decide to take the mobs away- something we used to our advantage in Karazhan last night. “Llanion, you take skull, I’ll hold the others. Burn skull, then grab one off me and keep going.”)

Is there anything I’d change? Honestly, yes- I’d like a point or three in Subtlety. My aggro is still sufficient to match a Warrior, and I would have a higher cap on my DPS in raids when I’m filling the DPS role. I’m still thinking about it.
Hopefully my next post won’t have such a long gap. Peace!

~Ll

There are two goals in this battleground. Goal number one: Take towers (including the corollary- HOLD the towers).

Goal number two: Capture the flag.

A word on #2: The flag? It respawns. Refusing to capture it for five minutes when we have two towers and control center field is not just tactically unsound, but it’s stupid. And it makes me hate you.

Bah, humbug. I managed to break my pretty WordPress theme by converting my permalink style. *fistshake*

I fix later. I post later. LATER. Trying to learn French from a 1987 soap opera.

No really.

I get that we downed Horseman in fifteen minutes including trash.

I get that we burned Moroes after one abortive attempt (trap broke early).

I get that Maiden chain-fired us and we came back for a second try and pasted her against the wall.

I get that while this was happening we got two epics off trash. I get all that.

(I don’t quite get why this guy actually had these as an upgrade, they seem rather… out of place…)

Anyway. We were in Karazhan today. We burned Attumen with, and I’m going to brag here on other people’s behalf, such accomplished grace we made it look casual.

My nightmares about Moroes from last week? Gone. This week’s group burned down the adds, shackled, trapped, and in general blew a hole in the universe so smoothly that I was actually and honestly surprised at “First down. Second down. Third dropped.” coming through my headset.

Maiden? Well, I’ll be honest, I actually thought we’d down her more easily than we did. But, still being honest, the reason we wiped the first time was because we were too close together on the melee group. Adjusting for one melee more than we had last week was hard, and the tank caught the end of one of her Chain-Holy Wipe-o-Matic Cluster-Killers.

We got her the second time though.

Then there was some discussion. “Well, you know, we could just clear up to Opera. See what it is.” I didn’t mention that it resets and possibly changes after everyone leaves for a half-hour. I wanted to see!

The entire way up, I’m hearing- from the three people who’ve run Opera before- about how nice it would be if we got Red Riding Hood, since that’s both fun and simple.

I also heard how we had a good group for Oz…

…and how we must live in dread of Romulo and Julianne.

“Of course you know,” I said in jest, “Now we’re going to get them.”

Our brave few cast lots to see who would get to strip buff and go out onstage to provoke the curtain.

“Tonight” the stage manager bellowed as Wild shivered in his unmentionables, “we explore a tale of forbidden love!”

My headset lit up. “Crap! It’s Romeo.”
“Can we try it anyway?” I’m not sure who suggested that.

One reasonably-fast explanation later….

“Romulo’s 20, swap to Julianne.”
“Fifteen and six.”
“Keep at it- eight and four.”
“Four and two!”
“Two and one- she’s down, get him!”

“YES!”

I admit to yelling over voice chat. It was amazing. That was two hours ago and only now is the adrenaline draining.

What I don’t get is this.

In two weeks, I have gotten no fewer than five epics.

FIVE.

Gloves of Saintly Blessing. The VERY NEXT DAY, Mitts of the Tree-Mender. This week? Both dropped again (naturally I didn’t need them this time) plus Earthsoul Leggings and Bands of Indwelling.

I don’t get it! Please, give the tanks some love!

No. Really. Wild, you’re my witness here. If the Forest Wind Shoulderpads drop tomorrow off Curator- (because you just know that punk’s going down) I will cry. I mean it. I will actually cry. The Wrynn Dynasty Greaves or a T4 glove need to drop instead. The tanks need some love.

My apologies at the abrupt and complete lack of posts right after I opened- as soon as I had the place all nicely set up, my laptop deemed itself in need of a spa day, and the hinge shattered. I took it in to the shop for maintenance work (software I can do myself. Casting plastic is a bit beyond me). I have not yet recieved it back.

Nevertheless, I have endeavoured to finish the first of the Spellcheckers, posted just minutes ago. If you fill in your total Chromatic and Arcane power (aka +damage) and what rank of the spell you’re looking at, the Spellchecker will tell you the damage you can expect to do. There are some limitations, naturally, and it’s not finished yet but, hey, there it is.