Monthly post time

I really should get into the habit of posting more. Like... more than once a month, maybe? Maybe I'll try and make it a habit to post after my weekly run with BoO. Those have been going swimmingly, btw... I mean, when I actually sign up for the right date and not a raid that went on a week ago. I hope no one noticed that, because it was pretty embarrassing. And I suppose if no one noticed it then, someone will get a good lol out of it now. The ToC run on Wednesday wasn't all that bad. I don't remember dying too often... Faction Champions eated my lunch, though. They're pretty rude to healers, especially those of the clothy variety (aka PRIESTS). So... this blog was supposed to be about, what?

WoW + RL? Well... It's more RL than WoW now... especially since, for some reason, I just can't bring myself to do dailies. I hate repetitiveness, I guess. It's ALMOST too much for me to raid once a week, same raid, same day every week. Almost. However, each time there are so many factors that could possibly change what happens since the other 9 people you play with all have minds of their own (Well, most of them do, at least I suppose). Unlike dailies. Dailies can DIAF.

On the other hand, Faction swapping completely reset alot of the quests I did Horde side, so I can now go back and redo quests for money. Not a bad idea actually, and I've already done quite a few. Wrathgate, Bronzebeard, and Shadow Vault quest chains are completed. There are still a few more phasing quests that I haven't completed that I need to.

On a totally unrelated note, I was wandering around Terrokar trying to heal things to death on my broccoli sprout and an old guildy asked me where Myss was. I explained that she's now a space goat and he made sure that I knew that Draenei racials were inferior to Human racials for a healer type. As if that ever made me think twice. Human females are ugly and have huge hips. Don't even get me started on Dwarves. I almost did Night Elf, but for some reason... I've always disliked night elves. The only viable option for me was draenei. This, however, may change when Cataclysm comes along. Gnome priest? kthx I'll have.

A new day dawns...

I know... the title is a little melodramatic. HOWEVER! >_> It's true. This morning I went through with a faction swap and server transfer so I could join the folks on Azgalor in Brotherhood of Oblivion and my new second favorite priesty spacegoat Lyrandre. Why is she my second favorite?
Because... Myss is now a priesty spacegoat. Unfortunately, the faction swap means that I now have to redo ALL of the Argent Tournament quests... Except the Black Knight maybe. I still have that achievement, so I may not have to redo that chain. We'll see... in like two weeks. Also, notice how the horde picture is bigger, shows more of Myss, and is just better overall? While my new home is with that ugly blue color the alliance tends to like, my heart will always beat red. =/ I already miss my hoardie friends, but this was as much an experiment in trying new things as it was an option for a new raiding home. =] And I already know I'll make great friends on this side of the Wrathgate as well.

I've been cheating.

On WoW

I feel like some salacious harlot standing at an MMO intersection. Champions Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online (free to play now, btw), Guild Wars. What's wrong with me?

To be fair, the majority of the people that I enjoyed raiding with in my guild left for greener (i.e. more active) pastures while I was on vacation, and the guild most of them joined is now full of healers. Hopefully my plea of "I won't even raid if there's no room, I just want to be where my friends are" might win over the powers that be. Not only that though... the few people that were there and active raiders were discouraged and have stopped playing those toons. So... not only am I not raiding with the people I want to, but the people I don't even necessarily want to raid with aren't even raiding.

You guys can't see it, but there is an extremely unhappy sad face going on right now.

That being said, since I'm not doing much on WoW, I've been playing other games. Champions online is fun, but not really healer friendly. DDO is mostly just because I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons since I was 12, and the fact that it's free to play. Guild Wars is *amazingly* healer friendly. You really don't do anything without a group. If you're not one to enjoy actually playing with other people, you enlist the help of NPC henchmen. These NPCs aren't the smartest cookies in the box, but they do a good enough job that I can just heal away while they take care of the mobs. =] I enjoy this a lot, but I still miss my friends and my Myss.

=/ Anyone looking for a decent Holy Priest to add to their arsenal of healers? I may be willing to faction/server change. I don't want to leave my friends, but I'd rather not put my hard work to waste.

In which Myss goes Holy and pwns....... hard

AMG Not much time: work soon. Quick post before I go... O.O I'm actually doing Ulduar. I've been disc almost exclusively since the expansion, but a lot of my guildies have been down on the spec (DIAF all you Holy paladins, stop stealing my tank healing slot). So, yesterday I went Holy for our Ulduar25 ran (with an allied guild). And...





I outhealed and under overhealed a large majority of people geared significantly better than me. WTF?! Is this what Holy priest healing is like? I know I know... the meters aren't important. I should realize this. Especially after being Disc for so long, and I still prefer disc more. But... if I do this well as Holy (the meter doesn't lie about how much healed, and being number one for the majority of the run is nothing to scoff about, imo), and more than just that, if people STAY ALIVE a little more when I'm having to raid heal most of the time anyways, then I will probably be Holy for most of our runs. Yay for looking impressive again!

On a side note: I have been feeling down about myself in our progression stuff in 10 mans (which we do prominantly with only guildies), because people die and the other healers always say "Disc is shit, go Holy you'll pwn." I suppose the VERY succesful 25 run helped lift my spirits significantly.

3.1 Update

Hrm... I haven't posted in a long time. Ooops.

On Dual specs:


Right now I'm specced Disc/Shadow. It's very nice to be able to do my dailies in less than a bajillion hours then be able to heal a heroic/raid without batting an eye. However, I'm thinking about changing my shadow spec to Holy... because I really like healing, and this would make me like... the Superman of all healers.

On Priest stuff:


I'm very excited about the different priest changes, despite the mana regen nerf (which I have felt, but still not even enough to like... use a potion... or a shadowfiend... or even an arcane torrent). Disc became even better, and Holy suddenly became very good. I was very unimpressed with some of the changes that happened in 3.0 (For example: Holy concentration and Serendipity). The newer versions of each, however, are vastly superior. I'm in love. On a Shadow-note: Critting dots makes me feel strange.

Wherein I talk about real life a little bit.

This blog is not just about me and WoW (though I wish I played a little bit more now-a-days to actually talk about WoW some more). It's about me and life too. So if you came here looking for my thoughts on maybe the new T8 stuff (which I probably won't see), I'm sorry.

For some reason, this week I got back into the habit of doing what I hope will be my profession in the future: writing. Specifically writing poetry. It started when I went back to my alma mater. That makes it sound like I took a cross-country visit to some college, but not really. It's kinda on the way home from work so I stopped by one day (also note, I only graduated a few months ago... I just like saying that I have an alma mater). I stopped by Lamar University to pick up the most recent issue of our literary magazine where I have two award-winning poems published. I got some money for them, and they were the best! (out of the 100 or so English majors that actually submitted poetry at the school).

Without much further ado, I'd like to present those two poems, plus the one that I wrote after talking to a few of my professors while I was there. =] Enjoy.

First, winner of the Eleanor Poetry Award. Which is the category for the best overall undergraduate poem.

An Address to My Father

The first time I saw you cry was the day your father died.
I was outside playing when you drove up.
You hugged me then told me the news,
and that he wasn't coming back.
At first I couldn't understand, but seeing you fall apart,
sad that you had forever lost that piece of your life,
told me that this was death,
and I wept with you.

The second time I saw you cry was the day that
I explained that I always felt different.
You turned away and didn't talk to me for weeks.
A month later you drove me out to the cemetary,
where your father lies, and held me close
while tears ran down your face,
sad that you had forever lost some piece of your son.
And I wept with you.

This next one won the Barnes Poetry Award, which is the award for best structured poetry. It's a sonnet, to be specific, and I was told by both of the professors at the university (who are both well-established poets) and by Morri Creech (who was a visiting and even more well-established poet) that it was one of the finest sonnets they'd ever seen. =] I had a big head for a little while.

On Shelley's "Ozymandias"

A traveler from an ancient land once said
that kings and kingdoms all to rubble fall.
But common people suffer too. They dread
the graveside mourning and the ghostly pall.
For when the peasant piece is gone and dead,
a whispered letter in the poem of man,
no soul remembers all that came before;
no soul believes the lightness of the span.
So on my stone--it's owner, friend of sod:
"My name is Garry, son of workers poor.
Look on my grave and feel despair, ye gods.
All men and kings live only for decay."
And so amount to nothing but foul clods,
until their time when they are washed away.

This last one is one that I just recently wrote, and if anyone actually reads these, I would *more* than appreciate any comments (good, but especially bad) that you have. =] Thanks.

Fleeting Moments

Sex is most profound in those moments
just before two people first make love.
It’s in the way two people, almost unsure,
almost scared, touch and look
and feel each other in those
vulnerable seconds before their
bodies bond.

It’s the way his breath washes
over you like cinnamon,
sweet and hot and bitter.

It’s the way, just before things
get heavy, my pulse speeds,
my breathing deepens.

But only when the act was over
and we fell asleep looking
into each other’s eyes,
I realized that a moment
had slipped away,
and I’d never get it back.

Theory Craft

As you can see above, I've tried my hand at a little bit of theorycrafting. Just something I did while at work because I was really bored. Unfortunately, there are some things that I'm not too sure about. I should also mention that this is according to the current news on 3.1. The live numbers for Disc are going to be slightly lower. The gear level is assuming 2k +sp, I'm assuming that's kind of the median that people will be at when 3.1 hits live. Finally, the specs/glyphs that I used to consider the final numbers are here(Holy) and here(Disc).

Finally, a few observations: I've noticed that the two specs both have their major weakpoints addressed through crit. With Divine Aegis, disc's throughput increases with crit. A disc crit is actually 45% more effective than a holy crit, and that may have even more value since that 45% appears in the form of a bubble. I know I moaned and complained about Rapture being nerfed, but if you look at the above chart, the spells that disc is going to be using the most have better mana efficiency than holy, and almost as good (or much better in the case of Penance) throughput. So I'm not worried about Rapture, and Divine Aegis isn't as useless as I thought it might have been.

Holy, on the other hand, has problems with mana efficiency. Crit for them increases their mana regen, and with enough crit a good holy priest will have Holy Concentration up close to 100% of the time. ^_^ Enjoy my number crunching, I'm pretty sure I did some things wrong, and if you see that, tell me. <3