Esplodine had been sitting at 88 for a very, very long time.  Since February, to be exact, when she was last spotted in the Valley of Four Winds making imperial silk and turning all the moths into floating baby polar bears.  (This was also prior to being renamed something more appropriate for someone who considers “running around in circles casting the circular Arcane Explosion” to be a legitimate rotation.)  Despite the fact that I make a point of getting all Pandaland level alts hearthed at the Shrine ASAP, she had never, ever moved out of the Goblin Slums in Orgrimmar.

It just so happens that she’s also got tailoring and enchanting maxed out, and I’m getting kiiiinda tired of buying expensive enchants.  (Also, additional bag space is always highly attractive.)   Hmmmmmmmmm.  Esplodine’s hour had come.

I gotta say, she got a little overconfident.  Knowing that she’s a bit challenged when it comes to mage-ing “properly,” Esplodine didn’t bother going to Townlong or (Gawd forbid) the Dread Wastes.  Instead, she hung out in Kun-Lai, where she safely trounced all the things – with a few exceptions.  But even the exceptions made her a little cocky – sure, she had to flee from four or five hozen that one time, but she lived.  Ok, so she only had like, 200 HP left, and if a CRITTER had hit her, she would’ve been toast.  BUT NOTHING DID, SO THERE.  Sprites?  Yeah, whatever.  Her own anger?  Ok sure, no problem.

Pay No Attention to Those Tiny Numbers
It’s a nice shot otherwise.

She breezed through to 90 on a combination of rested EXP, Slow, Blink and, of course, Arcane Explosion.

So upon hitting 90, she decided she was gonna help out the Darkspear at the last minute.  The scenarios went fine (thanks to Cav doing like, 100k+ damage).  Being ranged, she survived killing a few commanders in the Barrens for a few resources.  She took them back to Vol’jin, both expecting the Kor’kron attack and expecting it to be no big deal.

Unfortunately, within minutes, she realized that clothie + having taken Invocation because it’s a passive (which reduces the amount of HP it returns) + you can only Slow ONE thing + hahaha ilevel 430 hahahaha + these Darkspear guards don’t actually seem to be helping much = OH MY EFFING GOD HELP ME WHY GAWD WHYYYYYYY

She tried to be careful.  She tried to pick off the single Kor’kron here and there.  It’s just that every freaking time she tried these things, four or five freaking Kor’kron would stomp over and smash her face into the red desert dust.

Esplodine being Esplodine, however, she did not despair.  No, she spotted a shadow priest nearby, and thought, “dude, they got Power Word: Shield.  And heals.  And, frankly, I can use any help I can get.”  Random invite to perfect stranger?  NO PROBLEM.

It’s safe to say that the perfect stranger did not expect what watching Esplodine operate would be like.

BLINK SLOW FROST NOVA BLINK OGOD RUN RUN RUN
Eff that dignity thing, I’m going for SURVIVAL.

The moment four or five more Kor’kron made a beeline for her, Esplodine took off running.  Slow one, sure.  Blink, absolutely.  Buttonmash the ice shield thing until it comes back up?  Yep.  Stop running?  HELL NO, NOT UNTIL DEATH ITSELF TAKES ME.  Rocket Jump!  Frost Nova!  Nether Tempest!  Did Arcane Missiles just proc?  Too damn bad, she’d have to stop running and turn around to use it. BLINK!

Even with the assistance of a shadow priest, she still got flattened in Razor Hill.

Being 90 is hard.

What? You want me to port all your level 1 bank alts to the Shrine?
As long as you’re payin’, I don’t see why not.

Sounds Lovely
I’ll bring some chips.

Megaera apparently has a reputation for being a pain in the whozawhatzits for healers.  Still, I wasn’t too worried.  There’s only so much freaking out you can do before you simply canNOT freak out anymore because there’s just no more freaking out to be had.  I had expended all my available freaking out-type feelings on everything that had come earlier, so when it came to time to contemplate Meggies, I practically shrugged.  Eh!  Multiheaded hydrasnake thinger?  No biggie.

Bucket List
See, a total absence of caps or jibberish. Means I’m perfectly calm.

Other than emotional burnout, I had one other, semi-logical reason for not being too worried.  You KNOW when Megaera’s going to Rampage.  Because it’s so regular and therefore predictable (unlike, say, a DPS getting a crit to the head while trying to kick a turtle during the Tortos fight), it’s easy to plan for.  Healer A does something this time, Healer B does something this time, Healer C does something this time, etc. etc. etc.  If we’ve run out of things to do or mana to do it with, then obviously we 1.) have a problem, 2.) are taking too long, or 3.) guys, just stop healing already so we can wipe it.*

The biggest “tough thing” was the distance factor.  You gotta run more and farther away from the party in normal than in LFR, but that in turn means you just maaaaaaaaaay be going out of my range.  This COULD (and did) turn into an issue, because if I’ve gotta dash to get in range, I face the second tough thing of normal version of the fight: I can’t always see the bad ice stuff on the ground.  I don’t know if it’s too light, too puffy or too transparent, but usually that means GTFO sounds the klaxons of imminent doom and I perish.

Murdersnail
Why send the Alliance in after Garrosh? We should just get some snails.

The snails are still vicious, by the way.  I remain (and will forever be) disappointed that a snail was not any of the bosses and/or the end boss for the final raid of Mists.  I bet if you introduced a murdersnail to a Sha, real bad sheeyit would happen.  REAL BAD.  It wouldn’t just be the Vale.  IT’D BE THE WORLD.  I can hold out hope that crazy killer mutant sha-snails is the threat Wrathion is worried about.  Let me have my dreams, okay?

Anyway, I got assigned to nest team for Ji-kun.  It was deemed safer to keep the big-number, well-geared healers on the main platform, due to the mass amount of damage expected.  (And I’m totally behind that decision, man.  If it means more survival for all with less weighty responsibility for me, wonderful!)

I admit that I began to feel a teeeeeensy bit of terror here, though.  Even though I instinctively attempt to avoid stuff on the ground by jumping over it (which never seems to work), I have a tendency to get disoriented when I suddenly have to move in vertical space in addition to the usual horizontal.  I solved this by requesting they put a raid marker on the hunter I was to follow, and also by never, ever deselecting him, ever.  (That way, if I lost sight of him, I could always see my target on my minimap, to give me an idea of where to go.)  More DPS would’ve been good, of course … but I was too scared of falling to my doom.

Also, when those baby birds are small, they’re all adorable and biting at my ankles and crap and awwwwwwww, I can’t kill them!  Fortunately, the warlock and hunter can – and did.

All Dogs Go to Heaven
Ok, so I’m a Ghost Wolf. Does that count?

I spontaneously expired at the end of the Ji-kun fight for reasons that were not immediately apparent.  To be perfectly honest, I think it had to do with not actually plummeting face-first into a raid wipe while healing the nest team.  Because I lived, and was so shocked that I did, I could not continue upon the mortal coil.

Consistency
I should work on my negative feelings. Durumu’s not a bad eyeball, he’s just been in there for so lo… no, I hate him.

Durumu just wasn’t going well since we had a number of nooblets (me, for example), so we decided to call it quits and come back next week.  Alas, I was not on the roster that week, so I was not able to get revenge on Durumu then.  They also killed Primordius at this point in time, so when I was back in, we started with Dark Animus.  Because our normal shaman healer was back in the game, I got to nuke things!  Or try to the best of my ability while running around like a chicken with my head cut off, anyway.

There’s No Going Back Now

I don’t really have a large number of screenshots for any of these fights, because print screen only takes a screenshot and doesn’t heal/throw lava (sadly).  Also, I only got two hands.  If I gotta be moving with one hand and casting a spell with the other (SPIRITWALKER’S GRACE, I LOVE YOU), that leaves very little left for getting a good screenie.  (You’ll see this even more in the next post, with Iron Qon.  Screenshot of fire phase: check.  Screenshot of tornado phase: missing.  Screenshot of icy/barrier phase:  check.)

Back to Dark Animus.  My role in this was simple.  Goal #1: Beth, get aggro on THAT add.  Goal #2: stand HERE.  Goal #3: Don’t die.  Goal #4: When we say to, drag the add to the middle (p.s., don’t stand in front of anything while there plzkthx).  Try not to die.

Goal #1?  Yep, got aggro, kept aggro.  Goal #2?  Yeah, stood there like a pro, man.  I’m real good at standing.  Goal #3?  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Goal #4?  I’m also real good at training sheeyit to faraway places, so dragging the add to the middle was no problem!

Stay tuned for “Part Three: The Real Lei Sheeyit!”

*Speaking of wiping it, I always have conflicting feelings about doing so.  I’ve suicided by jumping off Wyrmrest when the Ultralixion fight seemed to be going badly, and I’m certainly known for doing things like running away too soon, Feigning Death the instant I get a faint whiff of an incoming wipe, etc.  So really, I ought to have no problem with wiping it up already to save time so we can try again.

But when I’m healing, there’s a part of my head that’s like, BUT BUT, I CAN’T STOP HEALING, I’VE COME TOO FAR TO QUIT NOW!  I STILL HAVE MANA!  I’VE GOT MORE HEALS IN ME!  OKAY SO WE DON’T HAVE A TANK/DPS/HEALER/WHATEVER, BUT I’M SURE WE CAN SURVI…

… and then reality intrudes.  It’s got a knack for that.

When it comes to fighting the Twins, I have a mental image of the guild hunter as some sort of well-armored ballerina, dancing out patterns that, if you look real close and squint hard, might actually resemble the Celestials.  He is dancing with precision and grace, but if you didn’t know what shape he was making, you’d be at a loss.

But enough of interpretive dance.  Let’s speak of Lei Shen, the guy who has no shirt and no shoes but expects service from the Zandalari anyway.  We intrepid adventurers went in to free the Zandalari of his oppressive regime for blood, guts and glory.  And gold.  And gear.

Right In The Middle With You
From this platform, Lei Shen makes it rain in the Isle of Thunder. Good job, Lei Shen.

You know what freaks me out the most about Lei Shen, regardless of mode?  It’s how the freaking teleporter pad thing puts you RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of his platform.  Of course, the middle is better than the edge, since that’s where HE is … but it just feels so exposed, like he might just turn around, go “WELL HELLO THERE,” and shock the sheeyit out of us all.  Fortunately he, like every mob ever, suffers from extreme near-sightedness.  (Next big market for goblins: mob optometry.)

In LFR, the Lei Shen sequence feels something like this, with arrows indicating a period of movement:

↑ THERE WENT A HEALER → BATTLERES ON THE TANK PLEASE ↓ CAN WE GET A BATTLERES ON THE TANK PLEASE ← JEEBUS HOW MANY WARLOCKS AND DRUIDS DO WE HAVE WHO AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION ↑ GO TO YOUR MARKER → STACK ↓ etc.

You basically pray that the tanks know what the hell they’re doing with this whole conduit business, and follow them around the square until the intermission/one section of the platform blows/etc.  It’s a certain kind of chaotic, but it has a predictable pattern.

In normal, the Lei Shen sequence (for me, at least) seems something like this:

→ ← ↑ ↓ → ↓ ↔ ↑ ↓ OW → ← ↑ ↓ → ↓ ↔ OH GOD THAT HURT ↑ ↓ ↔ WTF → ← ↑ ↓ → ↓ ↔ ADDS → ← ↑ ↓ → ↓ ↔ CRAP UM WELL REINCARNATION’S STILL GOT AN 11 MINUTE COOLDOWN

A Rare Shot
Trust me, they’re hard to come by. If there’s something I can stand in, I’m already dead there.

Seems similar, but while you don’t have to worry about the tanks knowing their sheeyit, following them around the square is a completely different ballgame.  You must stack, but you GOTTA spread out.  STACK!  Move away!  You can’t be so close because adds pain bad ow help death. STACK NO BAD STACK MORE GO AWAY STACK SPREAD STACK it’s like some sort of … weird interpretive dance, actually, with potentially fatal consequences if you fail to perform the attraction/repulsion routine just right.  I think we had to take seven or eight shots at it in all before we managed to ground the guy permanently (for the week).

Dear Lei Shen
This is why having friends is good. They can kick ass for you when you are dead.

Since this was my first time defeating being part of a group that defeated the “real” raid version Lei Shen, I achieved:

Does This Feat Make Me Look Legit?

Does this make me legit?

I credit the others for 97% of it.  The last 3% would be my own efforts that, while useful, were comparatively miniscule.  I don’t FEEL like a “real raider,” at least not yet.  (Maybe repeat exposure helps?)  Having the feat seems somehow surreal, as though I were some sort of dream-observer, watching from a different plane.  This could be due to all the time I spent dead.

Some folks have been bugging me to spend more time Alliance-side.  At the same time, the dedicated Horde players that I know have either been threatening to assassinate my poor lowbie spacegoat or stalk my paladerp if I do.  Ah, faction conflict!  Shows up even at the Friends List level.

As far as I’m concerned, playing Alliance-side more frequently has several issues (not including any charges of favoritism on the part of the game designers):

1. No goblins.  Goblins would have made the best cross-faction race, not pandas, since we’re loyal to the wallet first and foremost, and our competing cartels would work right into the faction divide.  But it’s a bit late to go back and change that design call, I suppose.
2. Gnomes are not goblins.  Let me repeat that: GNOMES ARE NOT GOBLINS.
3. After so long being short and green or arthritic and rotting, it feels downright unnatural to play a character that has a pulse and is considered sexually attractive.
4. They don’t label the damn docks down at Stormwind Harbor or tell you what boat goes where, so I’m always wondering if I’m getting on the right boat, or waiting at a dock that’s just there for show.
5. The game designers flipped the sides the bank and portals are on in the Alliance’s Vale shrine.  I’m ALWAYS going to the wrong side.  ALWAYS.

There are some advantages, though.

So Tall, So Weird
I fear no puddle. Which is good, because I don’t have Rocket Jump.

1. I’m tall!
2. I don’t have to swim to clear puddles or shallow bodies of water.

Despite the cons clearly outweighing the pros, I have been spending time on Niremere and Daschela anyway.  What’re friends for, right, if not confusing you with their unpredictable stature and getting you killed on a regular basis?  Daschela’s still leveling, of course:

Feign Death at Skill Levels 1, 2 and 3
1: Elevis, my pet, has failed to Feign. (Why can’t pets Feign?)
2: Daschela Feigns fine.
3. Soc “Feigns” by hiding all his HP.

Things frequently go wrong in the classroom at Scholomance, so I’m ready at a moment’s notice to drop to the floor and wait for sheeyit to clear.  (And why can’t pets Feign along with their owners yet?  I mean seriously.)

On the 90′s side, Nir’s running been some LFR for gear:

Not My Fault
Niremere. Party leader, tank killer, raid wiper.

When she’s not causing her beartank to plummet into the void, Nir has been having some semi-brilliant and mostly obvious ideas.  For example: using Vuhdo’s Buff Watch to tell when Inquisition is off!  Theoretically, she’ll hit a bit more like a dry noodle and less like a wet one now!

“Echo of the Elements: Water” Set

Class: Shaman (with mace/shield combo), Hunter

H: Helm of the Nether Scion | S: Nixod’s Chain-Threshed Spaulders | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Demonsbane Chestguard | Wa: Lifecycle Waistguard | L: Infection Resistant Legguards
G: Grips of Chronological Events | Wr: Not shown | B: Silvered Bronze Boots

1h Mace: Carapace Breaker
Shield: Bulwark of the Noble Protector

If using Staff: Devotion (Not shown)

Status: Finished

Thoughts: And here we have Electrika’s latest set, intended for use specifically with her resto spec.  I’ve found that if I’m going to carry two sets of armor for different specs, they have to be mogged VERY differently – otherwise I never remember to switch my dang gear.  Elemental and resto can kiiiiiiiiinda get away with that, of course, but when you REALLY want to throw some lava around, a set of gear with less spirit and more haste is better.

It was difficult to get a run for Bastion of Twilight normal, so when I logged on one evening to discover that my guild was inexplicably doing a Bastion of Twilight heroic run, I got super excited.  Uuuunfortunately, I totally compete with the very nice hunter in the guild for mail transmog gear.  So when the helm dropped, I had … well, I had a moment.  I was remembering how long I’ve wanted the blue treestump hat, remembering how hard it was to get in the joint with a group in the first place, remembering all those times when I’ve gone farming for gear only to not have it drop for months, etc. etc.   So  my inner goblin totally took over and I threatened to murder his poor sporebat if he won the roll.  I won, much to the sporebat’s relief.

The blue pokey shoulders also dropped, and I won that roll with an amazing 100, which I will never ever roll on anything ever again.  But by then, that conscience thing was kicking in.  I felt bad, being so vehement about a treestump hat.  Poor sporebat, it’s not its fault that it’s a sporebat and it only comes in three colors!  And I felt bad that I had needed on both and won.  So I traded the shoulders to the hunter.  The greedy goblin part of me was kicking myself, but the human part of me was like, “There.  Now I’ve balanced the scales, and I’ve also made up (I hope) for being mean to the sporebat.”

… in hindsight, though, I’m not sure my karma will ever recover from threatening to take down a sporebat over a hat.

Ah, hunters.

I Fear for the Ponies

Once upon a time, after Deathwing got bored with destroying the world in general and took to hanging out in raids instead, a troll by the name of Versebelg came to be.  She had no heirlooms, no clue and no distinction of any sort.  Still, she understood mining and shooting things in the face, so all was well.

Versebelg actually did stuff like completing quest zones, since it took some time before she realized you didn’t actually have to finish one zone’s quest line in order to progress to the next.  She never used that thing called LFD until she was in the 80s and desperate to get out of Deepholm.  She was my first to ding 85, o proud day!

But once she discovered the magic of transmog, Versebelg felt deeply dissatisfied with the way her troll toes always hid her shoes.  Unhappily, she also realized the creepy similarity between her face and that of every other female troll she had ever met.  In this dark moment, A WILD THERMALIX APPEARED.  Named for the “therm” in things like thermometers, thermodynamics, thermonuclear radiation and so on, she stomped into the world intent on taming all the things in all the best outfits.

And crap happened.  Pets were tamed!  Derps were had!  There was much mogging!  Basically, the blog!

Cal is Long Suffering

On the eve of patch 5.4, Thermalix Spendtrue is at ilevel 506 and stands as my second main, or primary alt if you will.  If I ever decide to go further with the Loremaster or Seeker titles, she’ll be my go-to-gal!  Not only does Therm have a huge head start on quests, but hunters are seriously THE BEST for soloing stuff.  They have a pocket tank that they can heal in addition to some crowd-controlling action for safety, and (of course) they can Feign Death if sheeyit gets outta hand. Ok, so she’s level 90 and the likelihood of things spiraling out of control in Mulgore is kinda low.  But she’s prepared JUST IN CASE!

Of course, hunters love their pets, so Therm was thrilled when Blizzard finally got over their “OMFG WOW IS NOT POKEMONZ” fears and increased stable space!  Therm’s tastes vary between the strange, the flamboyant and the downright adorable.

Think they’ll ever add tamable bunnies to the game?  Yes/no?

Electrika Goldwasher, Who Would Heal You With Lava

Electrika
Gearscore: 514 (elemental) / 507 (restoration)
Quote: “OGOD WTF THE DAMAGE, IT HURTS”

• Became the main for two reasons: OMFG LAVA YES HAHAHA and a second spec that actually does something other than more DPS.  Did I mention lava?  I need to point out lava again.  You know, that whole versatility thing.
• Electrika will NEVER have enough valor, EVER.
• Has no Lesser Charms/Mogu Runes of Fate of this writing and probably won’t by the time the patch rolls around, either.  /pro
• Electrika has the current tier’s 4 piece set bonus on her elemental outfit – the first such thing for me in my entire WoW career.  FOUR WHOLE PIECES ERMAGERD.
• Needs to freaking finish jewelcrafting.  She’s currently in Cata stuff, but I just.  Can’t.  Seem.  To take the last step.
• I’ve discovered something that hurts more than Durumu’s purple bullsheeyit, and that is heroic Jin’Rokh’s dance party of death, featuring lightning orbs that … well, really hurt.
• While the guild will be starting progression as soon as the Siege of Orgrimmar opens, it remains to be seen if Electrika will be present (being backup and all).
• Will be the first of my characters to faceplant into the new content.

Thermalix Spendtrue, Professional Facepuller

Thermalix
Gearscore: 506 (for all the specs because all she does is shoot things)
Quote: “How many colors does that come in?”

• Hasn’t seen much action since she got a ToT LFR gun (her life’s goal is now complete) and Electrika became the main (Sorry Therm, bandaging people doesn’t count as healing), therefore she needs to relearn the finer points of Survival and Beast Mastery
• Wants to tame the red version of Portent, as she has the purple, blue and green ones.
• Needs to fill up her shiny new stable slots.
• Wants to start a campaign for having a hunter-tamable murderaffe in game, as well as a petition of some sort for making a sha-snail the next big raid boss.
• At some point, should begin and progress in the Brawler’s Guild.

Mechalis, Fast as a Rock With No Momentum!

Mechalis
Gearscore: 476
Quote: “WAIT FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

• So Mechalis, being a Death Knight, has become my only Horde platewearer and thus has been given all the non class-specific plate transmogs originally planned for the deleted paladin.  Accordingly, she’s been running Black Temple with two monks, which has been surprisingly painful.  It’s not the damage that’s the problem.  It’s just that monks can move like they’re on a sugar high, and Mech can’t.  She spends all her time running after them, following the trail of dead bodies they leave behind!  Still, she can’t object to her primary role being looter-in-chief.
• Wants to go to ICC for transmog gear, like just about every DK ever.  Can’t survive on her own, however, despite the reputation Death Knights have for being practically immortal.

Esplodine, Beauty Queen
Most enchanting, least competent enchanter ever.

Esplodine
Gearscore: 471
Quote: “Seriously, who needs 4k for flying now!?  This is ridiculous.  You need HOW MUCH for that enchant!?  Gawd, I need to get that recipe some day.”

• Somehow, the poor girl became the AH mastermind for my Hordeside characters.  Esplodine has a tendency to viciously undercut anyone on anything, because she gets sent ALL the things my other characters pick up, and she just wants to get rid of it all.  Right now.  Also, your high price on those ugly low level gloves is stupid.
• Needs to sell those Darkspear tokens … now’s the time!  Also the last chance.
• Needs to run LFR for enchanting mats.
• Must befriend the Shado-pan and August Celestials for enchanting/tailoring recipe crap.  Or was that rep requirement getting removed?  Can’t remember.  Got the spellthread from the Golden Lotus, so all is well on that front at least.

Ignitine the Ebil Will Nuke All the Things

Ignitine
Gearscore: N/A
Quote: “You made the shaman after me, so why am I still in Northrend?”

• Needs to get to 80+ for transmog purposes.
• Will not be choosing the Grimoire of Supremacy at 75 after all, because I find the sounds the Observer makes highly annoying.

Bombelina Likes Things Including fancy shoulders, lockboxes and not taking damage.

Bombelina
Gearscore: N/A
Quote: “I’m working on it!”

• Needs to freaking level or something, as it seems like she’s been 80 forever.  All the Ghost Iron lockboxes get sent to Mech, since she can craft keys and Bombelina’s too low to open them.  A maxed leatherworker would be nice, too.
• Too embarrassed to use LFD with Bombelina.  My DPS is THAT BAD.

Alexalis Wishes Fist Weapons Would Drop in Pairs

Alexalis
Gearscore: 463
Quote: “Wow, did I just see what I think I just saw?”

• Alexa has to run LFR for gear.  Most important would be another fist weapon/one hander, because she currently has two hands but only one LFR weapon.  Problem!
• Needs to get the belt for her mog set.  Seriously, it’s the last dang piece.

Ailabeth Blisswell. Mind Control coming soon to a brain near you.

Ailabeth
Gearscore: 444 (that’s a palindrome!)
Quote: “I can only do the Living Steel transmute for one of you two …”

• Can be found hanging around mailboxes in the Shrine, making flasks for Electrika from herbs that Electrika provided.  Sometimes does Living Steel/Trillium transmutes for Thermalix or others.
• Needs to get the dagger for her mog set.  Seriously, it’s the last dang piece.
• Maybe get to 460 gearscore.

Betheki says, “Resto is easy! Until you screw it up!”

Betheki
Gearscore: N/A
Quote: “NO! DON’T PULL ALL THE VRYKU…. sigh.  Yes yes, I know, I suck as a healer.”

• Betheki is currently at that awkward stage where LFD dumps you in Utgarde Keep an awful lot, as well as that slightly painful stage where you feel all competent to start with, but then you realize that you’re using the entirely wrong spells because OMFG SHAMAN HABITS CRAP WE’RE DEAD.
• Wishes tanks wouldn’t pull all the vrykul in the first little hallway of the Keep so she can take a moment to remember what to do other than “Cast Rejuvenation.”  But they never do, so she uses the wrong spell too slowly anyway, and everybody dies.
• Thinking about switching her alt spec back to boomkin.  If shaman got better around the 70s, maybe boomkin will too?  I can’t do feral (too much like rogue), so it may be her only choice for her DPS alt spec.

Niremere Lane of the Noodlearms

Niremere
Gearscore: 482
Quote: “My repair bill is more than the gold I got from that …”

• I hit like a puffball and take more damage than a tissue in the hands of someone with a sinus infection.  On the plus side, her noodle arms are now hitting for like, 50k!  Yay!
• Got to the 480s at the request of Ty, who wanted to run heroic scenarios Alliance-side.
• SOME DAY, THAT PLATE CHEST FROM SSC WILL DROP, I SWEAR.
• Keeping up with content tied reps (like Operation: Shieldwall) has become increasingly difficult for Niremere, because I ran out of time I rely heavily on decent gear to help me compensate for how I can’t ret.  The problem with this strategy: as Nir has gotten farther behind on both rep/LFR and content, she has also gotten behind on gearing to the point where continuing in current stuff kinda sucks.  She still hasn’t finished the solo instances that open up the different parts of the Isle of Thunder (though I haven’t started those again since hitting 480).

Daschela Tel, in a mog she does not yet have

Daschela
Gearscore: N/A
Quote: “Look, just because I have heirlooms doesn’t make me rich.  My money-making 90s are of the OPPOSITE FACTION.”  (Ok, so she said it a little less politely.)

• I want to get Daschela to 90 so she can take over content/progression-tied reps for Nire, and also because I enjoy ranged more than melee.  Enjoyment is necessary when going through LFR!  (There ARE times when you just gotta smash crap in the face with a sword.  Still, I generally prefer being far, far away from potential ouch over mauling something up close and personal.  Preserving the sanctity of my hide is priority #1!)
• I got several (some faction-specific) transmog plans in mind that look great on Draenei, though not so much on goblins, due to the way proportions of items change.  Must.  Complete.  Mog.  Sets.

Have you ever wondered what happens when ModelViewer screws up and you see all the possible hairdos and all the possible facial features, all at once?  No? Well, I’m here to give you nightmares, because it looks like this:

…uh, wow, can’t unsee

[Edit: oops, hit publish before I added all the images.  WORK IN PROGRESS HERE, people.]

… but I’m scared to log in, guys!

ALL THE THINGS

Timeless Isle

I admit it: I gave up on the Timeless Isle pretty fast.  Actually, really fast.  I would’ve given up on it even sooner if it hadn’t been for Cav, who insisted we kill some things and at least do some of the quests.  It’s not a “I QUIT THIS FOREVER” sort of thing.  As others have said, it’s a great way to gear alts, and Gawd knows I have a lot of them.  It’s just that … there are problems.  WRA is a high population realm, so what with the coalesced business and everybody and their mother being at the new Isle, I didn’t have a sense of “THIS IS AWESOME” so much as I had a feeling that was like, “holy crapbuckets, all the lag!”  I had maybe 10 FPS at best.  Elegon, is that you?  Oh wait, no, there aren’t any sparkly star people around.

It’s Either Determination or Stupidity
Since I could click on a flagged Alliance instead.

Problem number two: sure, seeing others in an MMORPG makes you think that the game’s still alive … I guess.  It’s just that, there’s practically nothing left alive on this island … oh wait, there’s a yaungol right there!  Nobody’s tagged it!  I’ll kill that!  Well, that turned into “OH CRAP FIRE HELP OW BAD,” especially when three more yaungol spawned right there and aggroed on me.  I guess that’s why the yaungol are still alive but hardly anything else is.

Problem number three: HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE COMMANDERS IN THE BARRENS, BLIZZARD!?  For eff’s sake, I am SO SICK of trying to loot and having to wait for like two minutes while everybody else does the same, because “That object is busy.”

Problem number four: I am also sick of specialized currencies and charms and crap, enough so that I’d shove my Timeless Coins in somebody’s eyeballs if I could.  You want how many of these damned things again?  Oh, I’ll give them to you, all right.  IN THE FACE.

So basically if I’m going to keep my sanity, I gotta wait until the place cools down and becomes less “OOOH SHINY NEW” to people.  Or go there at like 6 a.m.

I’m quite behind on the legendary questline (hey, at least I got my 40 trillium bars even if I haven’t done anything with them yet), so I haven’t paid much attention at all to the latest and greatest installations of it.  At least, not until all my guildmates started showing up with WEIRD SHINY WINGS.  Crap, man, weird shiny wings!  Now I GOTTA finish this.  A cloak alone is like, eh, even if the item level IS really high.  Insufficient motivation there.  A cloak that gives you WEIRD SHINY WINGS, though?  Oh yes, oh yes, I’m interested in that!  (FYI, if you are a tree, your wings will be on sideways.  Sorry.)

Flex Raiding

The guild started the flex raiding for funzies, and we pretty much facerolled the place until the third fight.

Immerseus
Lightning Shield + Water = Volatile Toaster-like Goblin

Immerseus: easy as hell on Flex, although probably a nightmare on normal mode.  I really don’t like mechanics that force healers to heal NPCs (in this case, good, purified, innocent and happy blobs) in addition to their team.  I feel like, what with the sheeyit-ton of damage a raid dishes out, healers got enough trouble to deal with without having to nurse some NPC back to full health.  Give me more than 300k mana, and then maybe I’ll change my mind.

Fallen Protectors
All the sads, not feelin’ ‘em.

The Fallen Protectors: harder than Immerseus, but still not bad on Flex.  I dread this fight on LFR, because you really do need to coordinate targets based on their HP, and Gawd knows that LFR’s not really all that hot at coordinating.  In any case, we wiped them all out uh, I mean, we released them from their suffering.  Right.  I know that I’m supposed to feel bad about what happened to the Golden Lotus.  But I don’t.  It’s possibly the goblin in me saying, “You had it coming” for all the times they tortured me.

One of the things I like about this guild is that one of our raid leaders is British, so you get to hear him give commands/curse/whathaveyou in what is possibly the best accent ever.  Getting told to target This Thing or That One becomes twice as awesome when it’s said in a British accent, trufax.

Amalgam of Wait, What Just Happened?
We were facerolling so well.

Norushen Amalgam of Bad Things:  Oh man, I do not look forward to this one on any mode ever.  EVER.  I really don’t know why they say you’re fighting Norushen here, as he just sticks you in a shiny box that he may or may not blow up if he determines that the Amalgam is Super Bad or something.  You’re actually facing the Amalgam and the adds.

This fight comes down to holy crapbuckets, puddles of something somewhere are hurting us bad but where are the puddles!?  CAN’T SEE AND WE’RE DYING.  Also, there’s an enormous rotating death beam, which is slow (and that’s nice), but which also seems to pop randomly, sometimes on your head (and that’s bad).  And adds.  Lots of those.  Oh, and for some reason you start off at 75% corruption, which reduces your DPS quite a bit …

You’ve gotta work out who soaks up the evil bad puddles of hurtiness, as well as who uses the shiny golden orbs to reduce their corruption.  Reducing the corruption means you do more of whatever it is you do, as well as enabling healers/tanks to soak up said crap.  We did get it down, but the fight was definitely a sudden stop to the facerolling party we had been having up to that point.

That said, Flex raiding is pretty much the difficulty I imagine “normal” ought to be.  But my standards are low and I like things easier than most, because I really don’t get what’s attractive about wiping 20+ times to any particular fight just because of one stroke of bad luck here or one bad choice there.

[Edit!  I want to add an illustration of bad luck.]

Example of Bad Luck
YEAH, LET’S STACK GUYS

I got a shiny ring, and I almost cackled with glee – until I remembered that I have like, 900 gold total after my LAST round of reforging/reenchanting/regemming.  It’s time to make all the alts donate every last spare piece of gold, man.

I’m an RP Master
All dat and a bag of chips even! /cough

Despite playing on a roleplay server, I have never really bothered with RP.  I picked the server simply because it was recommended by a friend and because “RP” was the farthest thing from PvP that I could imagine.

Generally, though I spend a lot of my free time in the game, I try to keep it “light.”  Roleplay can have elements of comedy, certainly, but a good deal of it is either serious or even dramatic.  Regardless of what the user behind the avatar chooses to add or discard, characters in WoW have an enormous reservoir of past trauma to draw upon by virtue of the universe in which they exist.  The very goals the player character is asked to undertake (defeat death itself, triumph over darkness) lend themselves to Serious Subject Matter.

I play goblins mostly because I like them (they’re spunky but have a hint of the acidic, in the sense that they have a corrosive edge), and because my personality is much like theirs.  Forget nobility, forget good deeds – get me the gold and the gear, and get me out of here!  It’s somewhat awkward to consider roleplaying when the characters are so much like you there is little to no separation.  Also troublesome is how I have no connection beyond milking the situation for all the money it’s worth.  You want to save the world?  You’re insane, but I got this shiny trinket here that’ll help you – wanna buy?

Or let’s say I roleplayed a Forsaken (my next favorite race).  I’d forever be angling for another Wrathgate moment, and never succeeding because I am a mere player character … and that’s depressing.  “Do you think we had forgotten …?  Do you think we had forgiven?  [....] Death to the Scourge, and death to the living!“  is quite possibly the best line ever, and it gives me the chills every time I hear it.  It’s pretty much how I see the rank and file of the Forsaken.  They paint Apothecary Putress as someone crazy, as a force that even Sylvanas couldn’t control -  but I think he’s closer to the end result of Forsaken logic than most care to admit.  You may “live” as best you can or even attempt to restore something that looks like your past life, but as Forsaken, you will never, ever forget what was done to you (Death to the Scourge!) and that your limited numbers will never, ever be safe as long as the living exist and think you don’t deserve to (Death to the living!).

Then, too, the general format I observe seems somehow stilted to me.  Having overheard the many long-winded emotes people type up, I feel it’s somehow odd to have what would be private moments or conversations seen by anyone in the immediate area.  Having witnessed and even taken up arms against the many Alliance guilds that attempt to roleplay “taking back Lordaeron” by killing Brill NPCs (or occasionally, attacking Undercity), there’s a sense of ultimate futility to it all that I can’t ignore.  Our characters, despite what agency we try to give them, are stuck in the same MMORPG inertia that lead characters are trapped in.  (i.e., why Varian Wrynn can’t do anything as productive but boring as stabilizing Westfall, or why the Plaguelands are still plague-y, or hell, why Arthas is chilling up on the Frozen Throne, kicking ass and taking names in era of pandas.)

Lastly, once they figure out that I really am female (and generally this doesn’t take too long, given the way I express myself), sheeyit can get weird.  Fast.  Did I ever tell you about the “fel-enhanced” warlock who was really interested in my goblins?  Yeah, I alternate between laughing my ass off and attempting to purge that memory with fire.

Still, I’ve participated in forum roleplay in the past and like the notion of character crafting, so I’ve never been completely opposed to someday giving it a legit shot.  While leveling Daschela, I met another person from my server through LFD and struck up a friendship.  There’s nothing quite like torturing a panda with bear puns while in Stratholme to convince you that you’d probably get along!   He happened to be an RPer.  Asked me if I was interested.  Oh, sure, why not, I said.

I picked Daschela for the purpose, specifically because her personality was mostly unformed (and she is not, of course, a goblin).  Draenei aren’t real heavy hitters when it comes to lore (Learn all the freaking night elf history? nothx), so it seemed like it would be fairly easy to carry one off convincingly.   We’ve done one point five roleplaying sessions at this point to introduce our characters, and my thoughts are:

• We used whispers, but the format still seems weird to me.  Perhaps I’m a bit too used to highly planned and organized forum threads.  The lack of a moderator or game master and, by connection, some sort of overarching goal or plan leaves me wondering what, exactly, the point is?  Where are we going with this?  Okay, so our characters know each other.  Now what?
• It’s nice to see the character, I suppose.  I insisted we go on site so I could take screenshots (this IS me we’re talking about).  Yet the fact I can see our “bodies” standing there makes the delay in response (which OF COURSE must occur when the other participant types) seem jarring.
• It’s much more difficult for me to not sound like an idiot craft a cohesive manner of speech, habits, etc., since it’s in the here-and-now, not in the save-a-draft-revise-publish world.  Though he says I did fine (and he’s the only one who would know, since it was just us), I’m not so sure if I succeeded in making Daschela Daschela and not just a serious version of myself.
• It seems like you have to choose to ignore the daily realities of a character’s MMORPG life in order to get something that makes more sense as a story.  Daschela’s been leveling constantly via LFD, for example, but how on earth would you make repeatedly killing Ingvar the Plunderer plausible?  (Never mind that whole magic-teleport-to-the-dungeon bit.)  I’m essentially discarding what is actually Daschela’s experience in favor of something that makes more lore-sense, but does that make sense?

Ever since I rolled my first character, I have been constantly trolled by stairs without rails, elevators that insist on going up or down at the exact wrong time, visual illusions that make me think there’s a floor where none exists, ledges that pop right beneath my feet, and the continued existence of the numlock key.  The latter is troublesome because I will sometimes hit said key without realizing it, which subsequently causes me to freak the hell out about how I can’t stop my character from running forward what’s going on, and CRAP, there’s a cliff, SOMEBODY HELP MEEEE!

In fact, I’ve only beaten the gravity god once in all this time – there was that day when Mech lagged out of reality and started trippin’ in the Valley of Four Winds …

Lighter-Than-Air Goblin
Either lagging hard or on something. Or both.

So it figures that the Siege of Orgrimmar would feature towers.  Orcish towers, of course, much like the ones in use for the zeppelins.  Clearly, orcs do not give a flip about architectural improvements or lawsuits over broken necks, because they didn’t add any rails to the stairs in these towers, either.  SIGH.

Stairs … This Can’t Possibly End Well
Somebody’s going to fall down ‘em, and it’s probably gonna be me.

The guild started methodically smashing through the raid already, so I was not present when they cleared everything up to Galakras.  A couple of the regulars had to call off on this fateful, towerful* night, however, so I was summoned to heal.  It’s funny – once upon a time, I would have considered my healing spec’s 510 gearscore to be amazingly hot sheeyit!   But after listening to the raid discuss gearscores (520s was a definite must), I felt kinda like I was running into this battle wearing a pretty dress and not much else, just like Aethas Sunreaver.  (Spoiler: HOLY CRAP, AETHAS SUNREAVER HAS A FACE.)

OMG HUGE DISCOVERY HERE PEOPLE
I dunno, for some reason … I never thought he had a face. Or hair. Or a head for that matter.

At first, I was on the “tower team.”  This meant that whenever the raid leader said, “my team, let’s go,” I’d run like hell up the hill to the tower (hopefully AFTER somebody else).  We’d then smack some orcs around and run up the stairs in order to take on the dude at the very top of the tower.  Defeating him would let us wrest control of this tactically important feature for ourselves!  That was the idea, at least.

Stupid Stairs
I DEMAND AN ELEVATOR … on second thought, maybe stairs are for the best.

In reality, where was the tower team’s healer?  Ummmmm, well …

A.) Your healer fell down the rail-less stairs and had to run up a second time.
B.) Your healer got knocked the hell off the tower and plummeted to her doom.  (What, you didn’t hear her screaming on Vent?  The healer had the mic on mute, you say?  Oh.  Good.)
C.) That one time your healer got bounced off the tower but DIDN’T die on impact, she tempted fate by expressing her surprise.  So she got shot up and THEN died.
D.) Your healer was really concerned about NOT getting knocked off the tower.  Therefore, she was trying really hard to see the “don’t stand here” stuff on the ground that wasn’t there yet, so YOU died.  Sorry.
E.) Obviously, gravity slows the casting of healing spells by a factor of four.  That’s your healer’s story and she’s sticking to it.
F.) All of the above.

Correct answer: F.

So then they put me on the “ground team.”  Basically, the ground team stays on the ground, which I bet you didn’t expect!  They take on every opponent that comes down the path while preventing the Important NPCs from getting themselves killed, because if one of them goes down, everybody else spontaneously gives up and goes home.

Dangit People He’s Just One Blood Elf
They’re everywhere! We can get another!

Since gravity is SUCH a downer, you’d think that being on the ground team would be a great improvement for me.  It was, sorta, since I no longer had to explain my inability to ascend a spiral staircase at a run.  But it kinda sorta wasn’t, because then I had to explain my inability to stop standing in sheeyit.  (“But it’s everywhere” isn’t considered an acceptable excuse.)  Poison clouds got me sometimes, but my #1 biggest, most overwhelming issue was fire arrows.

I swear, it was like I was being constantly bombarded with the things.  You’ll always take some damage from them, but you can avoid the rest of the damage by moving a bit.  Seems like the obvious solution is to never stop moving!  So, um, why’s the healer dead?

A.) I DON’T KNOW BUT IT HURT
B.) Spiritwalker’s Grace was on cooldown, so when they shot me in the face practically constantly and I had to keep moving, I couldn’t get any freaking heals cast on myself or on anybody else, and I got overwhelmed by the initial damage.  Again.
C.) I tried to run away from some fire arrows, but then I ran into some poison instead.  Again.
D.) Actually, I didn’t see what killed me that time either, but I’m pretty sure some fire arrows had something to do with it.
E.) All of the above.

Correct answer: E.

I felt bad for the other ground team healer, who was pretty much carrying the whole thing despite saying that he couldn’t solo heal it.  I don’t know if it’s a lack of practice or what, but it’s like I just can’t make the right decision at the right time – hold still and finish casting this heal at the cost of eating some fire arrows?  Avoid eating more fire arrows at the cost of not finishing the cast?  Either way, this is going to hurt.  Enough consecutive bad decisions and down you go.  I WANT to live, it’s just that I don’t know HOOOOW.

Honestly, I don’t mind being backup.  It means that I don’t always have to be there, which is good, since the guild raids on Pacific time.  (I like shinies, but I also like sleep.)  Being backup does have its challenges, though, because I will always have a lower gearscore and less experience.  The lower gear means I have less oomph to my heals relative to the damage we’re taking, and the lesser amount of experience means that I move a fraction slower than would be ideal.  These things aren’t always fatal, but in current raid content, that sliver of time can mean a lot – especially when it’s a lot of little unconscious hesitations that end up adding into a ton of damage.

Towerful
Lots of towery towering towers.

* This is a totally legit way of describing things.  Got a lot of towers?  This place is towerful.  Are the towers very important to the whole encounter?  Those towers are towerful.

Niremere has long been Retribution/Protection.  Of those two, Protection was my favorite – prance in, throw shield, smash things, dance out!  For the Light yay!  I did, however, chicken out big time when it came to tanking LFR, and I went back to Retribution.  I didn’t exactly LIKE Retribution, but I didn’t really HATE it either, and maybe gear would make it better?

We’re More Laid Back Here
Downright relaxed, even.

I decided to keep on Retting it up after the patch to see if the 5.4 changes made any positive difference for me.  Alas, patch changes or no, I still don’t get Retribution and I just can’t seem to have fun with it.  Sure, Inquisition lasts for a whole freaking minute now (OH BOY DON’T I FEEL SPECIAL), but I still don’t like having to expend Holy Power to keep it up.  Nope.  Nobody need expect the Spanish Inquisition here, because it ain’t happening.

Sure, I Can See My Hands
Owait, no, because they’re in front of me and my camera angle’s from behind.

Inquisition doesn’t even LOOK cool.  Sure, it gives me glowy hands, but I can’t even see my freaking self in combat half the time, let alone my dainty little hands!  I hit like a tired poodle and I am not feeling the two-handed weapon love, because I still love shields and that’s not changing dammit.  I can only cast like two Flash of Lights before running out of mana (I can’t use Word of Glory for healing somebody, silly, I gotta use that Holy Power for Templar’s Verdict Inquisition I don’t even know anymore) and I can’t offtank worth crap, so there’s no running in and saving the day all dramatic-like in emergencies.*  There’s only repairs.  And being boring.  And feeling like I’m fighting in neck-deep mud.

WELP THAT WENT WELL
Tank died. Tried to pull the Celestial Protector off a healer. Got eaten. Celestial Protector then had a nice, priestly dessert.

Despite that, I kept dragging Niremere through Throne of Thunder LFR, and she wound up with some shiny tier tokens!  I was then regretting exchanging them for Retribution gear (even though I hadn’t actually done that yet), when this conversation more or less occurred:

Me: I know I should use them for Ret … theoretically, a set bonus would help …
Friend: Wait, use them for the spec you hate?
Me: Yesssssssssssssssssssssssss.  Because I shouuuullddddd.
Friend: That’s stupid.  I don’t even know why you play a spec you hate.

Suddenly, I didn’t know why either.  I gave the spec a chance, really!  It just never took.  Niremere has been in Ret spec for the better part of 80 out of 90 levels, aside from tanking sprees here and there.  To continue this way was like bashing my head into a brick wall in the hopes of developing some sort of brain injury that might possibly change my personality, which in turn could possibly make me like Retribution.  It clearly wasn’t working out, if only because I have a really thick skull.

So I decided to commence PROJECT “I DON’T KNOW IF I LIKE HOLY, BUT IT ISN’T RET SO THERE.”

First step was to get gear, because nobody wants to run into an instance naked.  Accordingly, I ran all the LFRs ever, then died my way around the Timeless Isle looking for chests, and finally I bought PvP crap off the AH to fill in the holes.  (I have a new protip for the loading screens: “Warning! The Timeless Isle hurts like mother trucking HELL if you are undergeared!”)

Unfortunately, I am forced to neglect the “finishing touches,” as it were.  Since Nir’s gear rocketed up so quickly (we’re talking like twenty item levels), I can’t afford to fully reforge/enchant/gem it.  She’s reforged and mostly gemmed at this point, though there is no way in hell I’m enchanting that wep from a heroic dungeon whether I can afford to or not.

Once she had something to wear, Nir ran to the nearest Paladin trainer and gave him gold.  It was then time to HEAL ALL THE THINGS.  Kinda.

The worst thing about starting healing with a new class at level 90 is that you are stricken with a general feeling of “oh my GAWD, all the things wat the hell is going on,” which can’t be helped except through exposure to the spec and the diligent application of effort.  (True understanding comes even later.)  And aside from reading a guide to get an idea of what you should be doing, your only real option is to literally click the buttons to see for yourself what they do.

Turns out that not only is it really hard to figure crap out when you have all the things to learn all at once, it’s ESPECIALLY hard to do when they’re almost all named “Holy” Somethingorother.  I CAN’T REMEMBER WHICH HOLY DOES WHAT HEALING THING.  I actually had to write notes down.  NOTES.  TO PLAY A GAME.  (L-shift click, Light of Dawn, HP click, multi target!)

The only other classes I’ve healed extensively on in recent memory, shaman and druid, don’t really have an equivalent to Holy Power that they have to build up in order to spend. As a result, I spent a fair amount of time freaking out about dropping HP clicking on buttons furiously while wondering why nothing was happening.  I would subsequently (and usually abruptly) realize that I had no Holy Power and this particular Holy thing needed it, therefore, fail.  I actually do have the bright red status text on my screen for things like “Not enough Holy Power.”  I just never read it.

Feeling somewhat overwhelmed, I made a little dwarf paladin with the idea of “learning from the ground up.”  But somewhere around level 3, I decided that the effort required to learn crap from scratch at level 90 was probably going to be less than the effort required to level from 1 to 90, so she got left somewhere in the snowy wilds outside Ironforge.  I haven’t deleted the character, though, because people on my friends list had a fit were extremely confused when they saw me playing a female dwarf.  Maybe I’ll surprise them again later!

So I grabbed a beartank friend with good gear (he assured me that with his self heal, he could solo heroics) and off we went into LFD land.  I warned him to be prepared.  I warned him I had no clue what all the buttons did, and also that my keybinds were all freaked up, and finally that I still had to set up Vuhdo properly and whatnot, so be careful!  Did I get said beartank killed?  YEP.  YOU BETCHA.

The next morning I queued randomly by myself, which ended up being embarrassing as well.  I got caught red-handed with Righteous Fury still on from a failed-ret-tanking episode the night before (see * at end, again).  Ugh!  It’s like the hunter who leaves Aspect of the Pack on for the whole fight (which I have NEVER done, nope, believe you me, 100% truth telling here).  Fortunately the party was quite helpful and gave me a number of tips, and there was a shaman who covered for my general ineptitude (in addition to pointing out that whole Righteous Fury thing).

Now THAT’S the Skill for Me
Proposed Paladin revamp makes Beacon of Light into something even BETTER.

Later that day, I felt I at least had the basics down because people weren’t dying anymore in heroics.  When looking at the Raid Finder to see if there were any LFRs I missed, I realized that Nir had the gearscore to queue for SoO … hmmm.

Crazy?  Hell yes.  Still, it seemed like a slightly less crazypants idea than learning how to paladerp heal via PvP, which was Goa’s suggestion, so I queued up for it.  It was definitely an enlightening experience.  It turns out that not only do I need to know buttons, but I also have to relearn mana management, blah.  Electrika has almost zero mana issues at present because of gear, Water Shield, Mana Tide totem and the Telluric Currents glyph (which returns a bit of mana if you use Lightning Bolt).  Betheki (the druid) is at level 80, which is too high to have the noob type of mana issues, but too low to have LFR “holy crap, please kill it before it ‘zerks” kind of mana issues.

So yeah, who spent practically all of the Fallen Protectors fight using only Holy Shock and Light of Dawn?  That would be meeeeee. While I am more than perfectly happy to coast when it comes to DPS (heeeey we got like, six people doing 200k?  SWEET), I feel immense guilt when it comes to coasting on heals.  I almost left the group three or four times because I felt my heals were too low to justify my presence.  I wound up staying anyway because there was an amazing shaman who covered for me and at least one other healer as well.  Overgeared?  Overachiever?  Don’t know, but he was the key to Nir getting the first gear token from this tier.  (I am overjoyed that the paladin LFR color scheme does NOT involve nuclear snot green.)

* So let me tell you about the last time Nir was fighting Will of the Emperor, a.k.a. Jan-xi and Qin-xi. As you no doubt know by now if you are a regular LFRer, adds and bosses spawn on the far side of the room, opposite where the entrance is.  The idea is to drag the bosses from that end back over to the other, positioning them near the two separate staircases that the raid entered the fight area with.  One boss per set of stairs, easy!

In this particular LFR, we had a tank who wasn’t quite clear on what to do other than “get aggro.”  He grabbed his boss, yes, but then he stood with it at the back of the room, which is bad.  It exposes the DPS to unnecessary heavy damage (which in turn stresses healers), and it’s not like the DPS can go somewhere else to avoid it – adds continually spawn back there for the duration of the fight.  Everybody yelled at him but he went nowhere with the boss, so I whispered him and told him to go up front by the stairs, which he did – sorta.  He pulled it to the same staircase that the other tank/boss was at, which elicited further shouts of dismay from the LFR.  I kept on whispering him, telling him where the second staircase was, and he WAS trying to listen.  It’s just that he dragged his boss over about halfway, which is ALSO bad, because that puts the boss right on top of the healers.

So finally I put on Righteous Fury, used Reckoning twice, and ran like a bat outta hell for the right set of stairs.  Defensive bubbles?  If only I had realized just how squishy I am despite the freaking plate, I would’ve used one.  I took 1.5 hits and was DOWN.  But hey, since my corpse was apparently much easier to see than my living self, the tank finally got the boss to the right spot and we didn’t wipe.  Hooray!

Turn Around Right Now
It’s not worth it! Leave it down here and lock the big door!!

When I was a kid, I was a bit of an odd duck.  Sure, I liked My Little Pony and horsies and whatnot as young girls usually do, but I also had an enduring fascination with geology (volcanoes specifically), meteorology and all kinds of dinosaurs (interests which persist even now, actually).  The thing is, as a wee little Prinnie, I also had an overactive imagination – no mere monster under the bed would suffice for me!  For example, there just could be mummies living in my backyard who might climb in through the windows after dark, but who could be defeated by touching something white in their presence.  (My bedsheets were white, which made the whole concoction most convenient.  It was nicely thrilling AND I could still sleep at night!)

So even though I loved dinos, GIANT MEAT-EATING DINOSAURS always scared the sheeyit outta me (despite every last one of them being deader than a doornail).  They definitely had to be both Giant and Meat-Eating, because these qualities are very important for inspiring just the right amount of terror.  Jurassic Park was like a horror movie for me.  I got through the book just fine, but when it came time to watch the film, I had to leave the freaking room.  I had nightmares about getting eaten alive by T-Rex for YEARS.

OHAI GUIZE DON’T MIND ME JUST WANT LITTLE NOMS
Velociraptors are scary too ogodhalp

I remarked once that I was glad Horridon was not some sort of Giant Meat-Eating dinosaur with cannons, which of course was probably tempting fate.  And even though I know that my personal karma has nothing to do with why Blizzard went and put THIS guy in the new raid, it kinda still feels like it influenced the decision somehow.

Om Nom Nom?
NO NOMS. BAD THOK, BAD.

Thok is Giant.  And he is Meat-Eating.

LITTLE NOMS?
Bad Thok! What did I tell you about nomming on people!?

So Thok, being the Giant Meat-Eating dino that he is, must fulfill his destiny by mercilessly terrorizing anyone in the immediate area.  He does this in a couple ways.  First, he interrupts casting and locks you out of that magic school for two seconds with increasing frequency as the fight goes on.  This, predictably, is annoying as everliving hell if you happen to rely upon spells that aren’t instant.  But if you were thinking that melee had it good, well, no, not exactly.  They are the most likely to get eaten if they don’t get the eff out of the way, after all.  Can you sleep at night, or do you hear big pointy teeth chomping on your armor?

But perhaps even worse for everyone involved, Thok will eat other prisoners in the enclosure and as a result gain abilities that make the life of his next intended dinner – yes, that would be the raid – miserable.  Say he eats the Saurok – suddenly you’re handling not only a mad and mean dinosaur, but one who is all of the above AND poisonous!  Or let’s say he chows down on the Yaungol.  Things also become unpleasant – for when he bleeds, he bleeds fire everywhere.  And there’s nothing you can do to stop him from EATING ALL THE THINGS, other than kicking his ass and staying the hell away when he’s chasing after YOU.

…
I AM GOING TO DIE

Since my first run against Thok was with friends who are like, ninety million times more competent and geared than I am, my responsibility in this fight was simple: don’t get eaten.  My personal goal was not to squeak in terror if I got targeted, and I’m proud to say that I shrieked loudly when I did.  Ghost Wolf form helps one escape from being eaten, what with the 30% increased movement speed!  Unfortunately, Thok has a movement speed increase of his own.  I was within feet of becoming a bite-sized snack before a priest Leap of Faithed me the hell out of the danger zone – which is pretty much anywhere in front of Thok and his teeth.

MORE NOMS PLZ
One goblin is not nearly enough.

Sometimes, I wonder what kind of abilities Thok would end up with if he ate a tiny terrified goblin such as myself.  Would he be able to do the female goblin giggle?  Shoot lightning beams out of his eyes?  Kill players via a Big Derp attack, where he unexpectedly trips, falls over, and squashes everybody underneath him?  Or would he be inflicted with a debuff, something like, “Indecision: You cannot pick a mog and are stunned for four seconds until you figure it out.”

My only regret was that I had been told there was a snail kept in the vicinity, but I didn’t see it.  Apparently no one wanted to let it out of its cage …

NO NOMS FOR YOU
I’m going to move away now, before he bites me because he was totally just faking.

Sometimes LFR Does Things Like This
The “raid leader” took his group arrangement duties very seriously.

Since the new raid is just about done rolling out in LFR, I figured it might be too late helpful to share my “mental survival mechanisms” that enable me to make it through repeat exposure to LFR.  Well, I guess my unsolicited advice could be annoying as hell too, but hey!  That shrill, insistent quality of mine should be nothing new.  /grin

Warning!  TL:DR.  I spend a lot of time thinking about LFR.

1. Don’t tell folks you don’t know what you’re doing.  No, seriously.  Nobody wants to know.

Don’t Tell Me This
Lalalala I’M NOT LISTENING lalalala

Trust me, if you really don’t know what you’re doing, we’ll figure that out soon enough.  They say ignorance is bliss, and I want my last few minutes of it before my idealistic dreams and my poor body lie shattered upon the ground.  If you are a tank, take a moment to talk to the other tank instead of telling us all that it’s your first time here.  If you are a healer, you might find it helpful to do a DPS run beforehand.  And if you’re DPS, nobody really cares unless the group wipes repeatedly.  Viva la DPS!

2. Always dress for the occasion!

Go Home and Try Again
And NO, your DPS set will not do.

Whoa whoa whoa.  Why are you in Heart of Fear wearing Firelands gear?  That’s like walking into a nuclear reactor dressed in a bathing suit!

3. This is not 10-man normal.  Or 25.  Or heroic, even.  Or whatever it is you do in your spare time.

When In Rome …
You never touch the freaking blue head. We hate that one. IT NEVER ENDS WELL.

Assuming that LFR will do things the “Normal,” “Right” or “Your” way is highly likely to be fatal.  Because 25 strangers are not likely to become a cohesive raid team with solid communication anytime soon, LFR develops standardized methods for approaching every boss and area within an instance.   These defined roles and routines increase everyone’s chances of survival, including yours, whether or not they are wrong and/or inefficient.  Case in point: Megeara.  NO NO NO NO NO WE WILL NOT DPS MEGEARA’S BLUE HEAD IN LFR BAD NO STOP.

4. Don’t turn into a freaking elitist.

Why Not to Be an Elitist
Because sooner or later you’ll end up saying something dumb like this.

Sooner or later (most likely sooner if you’re attempting the new, fancy LFRs), you’ll encounter the LFR elitist.  The LFR elitist is always unhappy because he or she feels unfairly burdened by carrying everyone else.  At the same time, said elitist is subconsciously aware of his personal inadequacy, for if he really WAS carrying everybody else, the group would’ve cleared the content!  This person typically manages to have a morally superior tone despite lacing language with profanity.   The LFR elitist has no problem detailing every way everybody else is failing, but be aware that he or she may experience issues with grammar and spelling while absorbed in self-righteous fury.  The LFR elitist is a fair-weather player and prone to temper tantrums when things aren’t going so well.

Don’t be that guy.  Remember, numbers don’t justify being an asshat, especially because …

5. Recount is a lie.

Recount is great for getting a sense of where you stand in general, but very bad for getting a sense of where you stand relative to people in this particular LFR.

Take, for example, my Recount screencaps above.  The DK was clearly rofflestomping the living daylights outta everything ever, but the rest of it is a bit more hazy.  Consider Mr. K.  His Recount was showing him “in the top 5,” but what, exactly, was he looking at?  DPS?  Damage Done?  Was he looking at overall data or for a specific fight?  And even if we are looking at the same thing, everyone’s Recount will show something slightly different.  When I looked back at my screenshots, I had one showing overall DPS (including trash, Galakras and Iron J.) which put poor, unhappy Mr. K at #8.

6. Have a Stupidity Limit.

Everyone has a limit to their tolerance, some line in the sand at which you will go no farther and to hell with those who try to push you over it.  When it comes to LFR, I recommend setting a special Stupidity Limit far lower than your point of explosion, but somewhere above the feeling a papercut gives you.  When your Stupidity Limit is reached, leave the LFR.  That way, you surf past the minor stuff, but you leave before things get to be Too Much.  

The Porcupine Leads The Way

Sounds obvious, right?  But we hang around for all sorts of reasons, even when we’ve become irritated or angry.  Perhaps we don’t want to queue again, because it took so long the first time around.  Maybe you have a friend or a guildmate in your LFR group who just really wants to down the last boss so he or she can get into the next segment.  Sloppy boss kills may drive you up the wall, but there’s that one piece of gear that you really, really want from the next boss, so you’ll stay a little longer anyway.  Maybe you think these people aren’t putting in the same kind of effort that you are, but you need valor for upgrades, so you feel like you’re S.O.L. and have to put up with it.

But once you’ve reached a point where you feel nothing positive or even feel like a victim of the “bad community,” you end up contributing to your own hate of LFR.  You’re forcing yourself to do something that upsets you, and there’s no way that can possibly end with you feeling happy about much at all.  Additionally, if you act poorly towards others as a result of your feelings by snarking or pointing out how you’ve never wiped on this boss before el oh el, you contribute to their hate of LFR.  Either way, you have become part of your problem.

So when your Stupidity Limit is reached, take a break.  Go away.  Do something else.  You will be happier for it.  My personal Stupidity Limit seems to be somewhere around three or four keyboard warriors actively attempting to prove their righteousness and/or that they’re right in instance chat.  That’s when I reference a nope.jpg to remind myself of the solution, and leave the group.

7. Have realistic expectations.

Normally, when people say this, they mean something like “what were you expecting, a real raid group?”  It’s got an additional meaning when it comes from me, which is, “don’t assume this group is a piece of sheeyit before you even get into it.”  LFR is merely a bunch of strangers who may or may not share your priorities.  They are likely distracted by something somewhere, which could be anything from a pet or child to dinner or a recent breakup.  They will have varying levels of skill and knowledge.  Some will come in well experienced and some will come in expecting to learn by doing.

For the most part, they are average people of average intent.  They’re not necessarily there to coast on your skills, eff you over by mucking up the mechanics or intentionally racking up the stacks of Determination.  They’d like to land some loot, get some valor, or see some “content.”

They are, in short, like you.

The Dream vs. The Reality
No matter what you say, it still won’t have ‘em.

Obviously, overestimating the capabilities of strangers will set you up for disappointment.  But consistently underestimating them doesn’t mean that you’ll be pleasantly surprised, either.  It guarantees nothing more than you coming into the LFR with an attitude that’s already kinda lousy and prone to getting worse.  So you think the community sucks and you pretty much never try talking at all anymore?  You’re not the only one, which may be why nobody ever tries talking at all anymore, which may be part of why the community seems to suck and … well, you get the idea.

This is my roundabout way of saying “People, I love you, but not every LFR EVER sucks, and your constant complaining is annoying me while simultaneously contributing to your own unhappiness.”

8. If today is not the day, well, today is not the day.

RNG is Not Your Friend
And RNG delights in your misery.

There are days when you just can’t win, and forcing yourself to try is both an exercise in self punishment and a study in futility.  If you are already cranky, angry and tired, don’t even bother queueing.  If the game/RNG seems to have it in for you, don’t go jumping from the frying pan into the fire!  One of the nice things about LFR is that it will be there later.  It took me three runs to complete “Last Stand of the Zandalari” on Daschela, for example.  The first party was just too derpy to live, which didn’t jive well with my general brokeness (repairs ack).  I requeued the same day, but the second party had some jerks that I just did not feel like dealing with.  So I left it alone for a couple days, and the third party I had?  We made it through with no problem.  They were even friendly!

Remember, there will always be a next week, and sometimes peace of mind is more valuable than shinies.

TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT
Or something like that?

“Wings of Heaven” Set

Class: Paladin (Shield as shown requires Alliance)

H: Savage Gladiator’s Ornamented Headcover | S: Chilled Shoulderplates | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Breastplate of Winged Triumph | Wa: Magroth’s Meditative Cincture | L: Not shown
G: Savage Gladiator’s Ornamented Gloves | Wr: Not shown | B: Glintrok Sollerets

Shield: Skyguardian’s Shield
1h Mace: Mace of Transformed Bone

Status: Finished

Thoughts: So Niremere’s been enjoying a renaissance of sorts since I switched from Ret to Holy; the new spec gives me A CRAPTON OF SHINY BUTTONS that sparkle and stuff when they proc and say USE ME!  Lord knows I like having shiny buttons to press regardless of whether or not the spell in question is even useful.  As her gear has improved (NO MORE HEROIC DUNGEON WEAPON THANK GAWD YAY), she’s been having fewer mana issues over all – though long, damage heavy fights like the Fallen Protectors still pose a challenge for me in terms of mana management.  (Is Divine Plea off cooldown yet?  Is it now?  How about now?  Anytime soon?  How do we not have any shamans in this LFR?  Oooh a druid, can I get an Innervate?  Hello?)  I even glyphed Lay on Hands to give 10% mana back when used … but I’ve realized that 10% isn’t actually all that much.  /sadface

But still!  Shiny buttons!  When I want to smash my way though an old school transmog run, I use Protection and am happy.  Then when I want to actually interact with people, I go Holy.

Nir’s been damn lucky with loot, and is currently the only gal I’ve got who has the tier chest from LFR.  When I turned it in, I was most pleasantly surprised to discover that unlike a lot of LFR sets (the shaman’s LFR Firebird look or the paladin’s LFR Lightning Emperor getup, for example), the paladin one is not nuclear snot green!  In fact, it was actually ATTRACTIVE.  The color scheme even made SENSE for an Alliance paladin!  My mind, it was boggled!

So of course I had to mog something around it, amirite?

“Midlevel Druid” Set

Class: Druid (with staff), Rogue, Monk

H: Tracker’s Headband | S: Spell Focus Shoulderguards | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Jinxed Hoodoo Skin | Wa: Runic Leather Belt | L: Kilt of Living Growth
G: Gloves of Restoration | Wr: Not shown | B: Not shown trollololol

Staff: Staff of the Verdant Circle

Status: Finished

Thoughts: This is the logical sequel to the “Lowbie Druid” Set and uses a couple of the same items, namely the staff (it’s just so druid-y!), gloves and the headband.  When I first planned this set, my druid was a night elf who wore shoes.  Of course, now that my druid is a troll named Betheki, I don’t really have to worry about shoes so much.

I kind of miss shoes.

Goa really wanted to level his warlock to 90, so I wound up leveling Betheki too.  Now that she’s at max level, it’s likely she’ll have some fancier “High Level Druid” outfits in the future.  Though I do have one more happy colorful druid yay outfit in the works, I’m kind of tired of the whole “green life” theme, so her other planned sets are much darker.  As Amber-Shaper Un’sok says, “From death comes life, and from life, death …”

In the immortal words of Mike Rowe, “Now THAT is a MACHINE!”

Siegecrafter Blackfuse

When we first entered the area where we would fight Siegecrafter Blackfuse, I felt amazement because OMFG PIPES AND THINGS!  At last, I had found something cooler than a big evil cavernous hole in the ground filled with fire and angrypants crazyass orcs!

Because this was the first time I’d been in this fight, I automatically suffered a bad, bad debuff to my critical reasoning, spatial awareness and overall level of comprehension, mostly because I was too busy taking screenshots and freaking out about all the things.  The raid had the good sense not to put me on the conveyor belt team (because belts move and stuff happens, duh), so all I had to deal with was the crap on the main floor.

As a result, the fight seemed quick.  Easy, even!  Well, unless you count the lines.  At one point, folks started to tell me not to stand inside the yellow lines, but I didn’t see any yellow lines to stand outside of.  Nope, thanks to my color settings, I saw orange lines.  Given the debuff mentioned above, it is probably no surprise that I thought orange lines CLEARLY could not be the yellow lines my teammates mentioned.  No, there must be yellow-yellow lines that I’m not seeing!  Must look for yellow lines, need to be on the lookout for yellow lines!  Turns out that they ARE the same (duh #2), and if you stand inside the lines, you’ll get machined into a million pieces by sixty billion drill bits from the depths of hell.  Whoops!

DRILLBITS OF DOOM
They’re numerous. They’re practically everywhere. And they kill you dead.

Para-gones of the Klaxxi

GOOD FOR YOU
Now go be “lucid” elsewhere, plzkthx.

See wat I did thar!?  The Klaxxi were generous to Electrika and gave her the leg token for the tier, as well as a dagger on roll.  THANK GAWD, is all I got to say.  She was previously using Amun-the-heck-is-this-thing (I mean, WTF?  An intellect fist weapon?) and do you know how few good fist weapons there are to mog!?  Beyond that, most of what I remember from this fight is “lsa;fdkjas;lfkjas;lfj bugs.”  I guess they have different abilities and crap.  One even likes math!  Still, they’re trying to kill me!  Somebody get the Raid!  SEE WAT I DID THAR AHAHAHA

Okay fine stopping now.

SADDEST MOMENT OF PATCH TRUE STORY
Alas, poor Kovok!

Garrosh Hellderpscream

Drinks All Around
We’re fine, thanks. No no, you don’t have to go out of your way, Garrosh.

A cut here for the people who care, since this is like, THE MEANING AND CLOSURE AND STUFF of the expac.

I See What You’re Trying For Here, Garrosh
But I don’t know if it’s WORKING for you.

You can tell a lot about somebody by their interior decor.  If you look at my couch, for example, you immediately know I own cats who do not get their claws trimmed very often*.  Likewise, whenever anybody hangs A FREAKING BEATING HEART in their room like a chandelier, you know they’ve lost it – it’s just that obvious.  (He could’ve gone with crystal or something, but no.  Old God.)

LORE ALERT PEOPLE
Important info here.

Thrall was kinda cute, attempting to intervene and take responsibility for putting Garrosh in charge and stuff.  Dear Thrall, may I remind you that you did not take on Deathwing directly?  As it turns out, Thrall can’t cope with elements corrupted by Garrosh’s dark shamans!  (Wait just a second, I play a shaman too!  How is this working out for me!?)  IT MATTERS NOT.  Watch out, Garrosh!  BEHOLD THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

OSHEEEEEEEEEEEYIT
I don’t see this heart-to-heart ending well.

Or not.

I’M SORRY I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY
You can have it back now!!

Actually, lots of not.

He May Be Geared, But …
Sometimes, there’s just too much crap.

See, GARROSH IS REALLY AN ORC WITH DEEP FEELS WHO IS DEEPLY TORMENTED BY Y’SHARRGHHH AND DOES NOT APPRECIATE YOUR LACK OF CARING FOR HIS WELL BEING, and he will smack the CRAP out of you for it.  He may smack the crap out of you with a weapon that he throws at you, and which puts a puddle of bad on the ground.  This puddle is relative in size to the health of the weapon, the idea being that you dot the thing up and keep fighting Garrosh.

Or he might “accidentally” shake loose a gigantic katamari iron star that will both squish you and burn you up.  Since Garrosh spent all his extra cash on that lovely discussion piece of a chandelier, they didn’t really have a whole lot left to keep these things from rolling all over the place.

He might smack you the old fashioned way with an axe to the face.  Or he could transition into a weird dream zone where he attempts to crush you for saving him from Y’shargleargle.  Or, better yet, he could do some MIND CONTROL, which can only be removed if your fellow raid members beat you almost senseless.  It’s for your own good, really, because if nobody beats you senseless, you will rather abruptly expire.

Sadly we ran out of time to actually beat him.  But it’s not like he’s leaving the bunker anytime soon, and we’re going back in tomorrow.  YOU WILL SEE JUSTICE FOR DENTING MY TRANSMOG, GARROSH.  I mean, you know, FOR ALL THE THINGS.

*Seriously, I have no clue how the hell you’re supposed to do this without plate armor, and I’m too poor for plate armor.  And I have two cats.

Places I’ve Met Bling
He’s everywhere!

Blue, blue caravan
Winding down to the valley of lights

My true love is a man
Who would hold me for ten thousand nights
In the wild, wild wailing of wind
He’s a house ‘neath a soft yellow moon

So blue, blue caravan
Won’t you carry me down to him soon

Blue, blue caravan
Won’t you drive away all of these tears
For my true love is a man
That I haven’t seen in years

He said,
“Go where you have to,
For I belong to you until my dying day”

So like a fool, blue caravan, I believed him
And I walked away

Oh, my blue, blue caravan
The highway is my great wall

For my true love is a man
Who never existed at all

Oh, he was a beautiful fiction
I invented to keep out the cold
But now, my blue, blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing old

Oh, my blue, blue caravan
I can feel my heart growing old

“False Dusk” Set

Class: Priest (with helm), Mage, Warlock

H: Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Helm | S: Duskhallow Mantle | Cl: Not shown
Ch: Tormented Demonsoul Robes | Wa: Belt of False Dignity | L: Not shown
G: Amaranthine Handwraps | Wr: Not shown | B: Sorcerer Slippers

Status: Finished

Thoughts: The original idea behind this set was an “elaborate alchemist.”  Not necessarily the typical Forsaken alchemist in uniform or even in direct service, but rather someone with an alchemical background who has been around the world once or twice.  Someone who has had time to pick up fancypants more elegant tastes.  But then …

OOOOH!  HORNS

HORNS ARE COOL

YEAH

The set originally called for the Eye of Flame, which is very appropriate for the theme even if it doesn’t stand out very much.  But then I mogged the Crafted Dreadful Gladiator’s Mooncloth Helm on a whim, despite the “scales” behind the head not 100% matching when not in Shadowform.  That was it.  I could not go back.  I felt they were so awesome, I had to keep them.  Maybe it’s because I can’t indulge in my love of evil-looking horns as a goblin – somehow, being short and prone to explosionating makes the same horns look more silly than sinister.

And yes, I know.  I took mog screenshots while in LFR.  Priorities, yeah?

I don’t really have any specific weapons chosen for this getup, mostly because Ailabeth seems to change weapon type every other week or so.  First it was a dagger, then it was a 1h mace, then back again … and now that she can get into LFR, I have a suspicion that it’ll be a staff next.  As soon as her weapon situation settles down, I’ll probably pick something and/or be on to the next mog.

Almost a year ago to the day, a friend of mine actually listened to me talking up WRA and made a tank alt.  He asked me to make a healer to level with him, so I did, just like a good responsible “you should switch servers”-talking friend should.  There was, however, a small problem: he rolled a DK, so I was fifty-sixish freaking levels behind from the get-go!  As a result, my poor druid never did catch up to him, and that, I thought, was that.

But then Goa got another case of alt-itis.  I’m sympathetic to this problem because I know alt-itis well.  I’ve had it on many an occasion, and some might even say that I show the symptoms of a chronic case.  Around level 70, Goa mentioned wanting a leveling buddy … and wouldn’t ya know it, I just so happened to have a stalled druid sitting at that exact point!  Thus began the odd leveling partnership between one evil soul-stealing goblin warlock and one shoeless treehugging troll hippie.  (It was weird.  No, not the whole warlock and druid combo – the whole me not being the goblin thing.)

Once we got past Utgarde Keep and I re-familiarized myself with something that wasn’t a shaman, things went pretty well.  In fact, they went freaking great except for those couple of times when I got smacked by things and fell daeeeed to the ground.  Overall, I was shocked.  I had no idea this druid thing was so EASY.  I didn’t have to do much more than Rejuvenate until I got into the 60s, and even after that point, most situations felt laid back.  Rejuvenate and chill, yo.  Whooshy sounds!  Maybe put that green circle thingie down.  Nice lookin’, isn’t it?  I like the little leaf thingies that float up, those are neat.  Oh, I guess I should cast a heal or something, earn my keep.  Nah, we’re lookin’ good, I’ll just Rejuv + that other HoT thingie that stacks.  What was that one called, anyway?  Lifebloom, that’s it!

And on it went.  Wrath dungeons?  Druid healing was totally easy.  Cata dungeons?  Druid healing was very easy.  Stormstout Brewery?  Druid healing was STILL easy.  Temple of the Jade Serpent?  Druid healing was mostly easy, unless the tank decided to pull the whole Courtyard full of Sha when I wasn’t even in LoS yet.  Siege of Niuzao?  OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE THIS IS CATASTROPHIC I REGRET EVERYTHING HOLY CRACKBASKETS

Always Shoot for the Stars Blah Blah Blah
And if you miss, land face first.

My druid’s first Siege of Niuzao run turned out to be The Moment in which I realized I’m Doing It Wrong.  To be sure, it wasn’t the first time I’ve observed some randomass things in LFD and have subsequently wondered what I’m doing with my whole existence, like that one time a feral druid showed up and tanked the whole Siege of Niuzao in cat form.  I told him he was the skinniest bear I’d ever seen!  Still, underweight grizzly or no, he overgeared the whole thing and that was that.

But when I was an at-level druid faced with healing an at-level paladin tank clad from head to toe in PvP healing gear, my lack of true druid comprehension bloomed into a freaking nightmare.  No longer could I rely on a simple, trustworthy combo of Rejuvenation when needed, Wild Mushroom + Efflorescence (OMFG HOW IS THIS FREE), Wild Growth and a bit of Lifebloom to touch up on things, only tossing in one big heal here and there when necessary.  Rejuvenation had been my primary healing spell ever since I got it at level 4!  DPS got smacked by shit before the tank got aggro back?  Rejuv.  Tank taking more damage than Lifebloom can handle?  Rejuv. All the adds on me?  Rejuv.  And prior to that awful Siege of Niuzao, it WORKED.  It healed what I needed by the time I needed it (a.k.a. before the target died), and I always had more than enough mana to spare.

But during that Siege of Niuzao and after, I hit a skill wall where not only did Rejuvenation NOT compensate for the damage a target just took, enough people were taking MORE damage for LONGER, causing me to use Rejuvenation even more frequently, which of course ended in me being OOM or nearly so long before the fights were actually over.  And just think, that was five people.  Now that I’m trying to heal 25-man LFRs on a druid, I’ve had to abandon Rejuvenation as a staple almost completely.  If that trucker’s up on more than like, three people, I got a problem.

I Was Doing So Well
And then End Game hit me in the face.

I also realized that (at least right now) as a druid, I overheal ALL THE TIME because I feel like I can’t efficiently respond to sudden or drastic downturns (which, of course, contributes to my persistent mana issues).  I don’t know if fate has it in for me or what, but if I don’t keep people topped off, SUDDENLY SHEEYIT HAPPENS AND IF SHEEYIT HAPPENS WE ARE DOOMED HOLY CRAP.  Somewhere around 50% HP, tanks will inexplicably start taking a ton of damage that I just can’t overcome by spamming what I think is my Big Guns single target heal intended for said situation, Healing Touch – that is, if I haven’t already gone OOM.

People make druid healing seem so effortless.  It seemed so effortless, once.  Now it seems like I just can’t do it Right, or like the Right way made an abrupt turn at level 87 or so and forgot to tell me.  We’re gonna have to work on this.

Welp That’s Not What I Intended
It started off so well and somehow ended up like this.