Picking back up after a bit.

Did my last post in August and have been running around a bit with parent in laws and World event achievements to get. First let me say that I think it's unfair to place a years worth of effort on a random drop. Although I've got my Squashling and Helm on two different characters I feel the pain of anyone that has not. One of my characters still hasn't got a Toothpick yet and I find that I'm running out of time. While it's not so important that both characters get it I feel that this should have been addressed similarly as Hops in the Brewfest. Something vendor purchasable to allow the unlucky to motor on. /endrant

That out of the way I turn to some more Druidly things on the horizon. I'm kind of disappointed in my Druid brethren at the amount of commotion that was caused with the nerfing of rejuvenate. Loss of one tick was not nearly as bad as the commotion caused. Loss of the GCD nerf from Gift of the Earth Mother. They may not be connected but it seems we won't be through Rejuv as often as we can now and that's made Blizz happy enough. Whatever the effect we'll motor on.

In raiding, my guild is pushing hard on getting Yogg down. With good results. Only a handful of hours attempting him and we are into P2 pretty strong. This all in the same night we do Ony, VoA if possible and full clear of TotC. Very nice.

What kind of player are you?

I've been thinking about a question that you can ask a person to attempt to gleam what kind player they are. Unfortunately its difficult to discern the lines I'm trying to define in the question.

In the simplest form the question is: Would you prefer to put in the work and live stylishly, accept what you get now and live comfortably or play the lotto every week and hope to win?

I define people in WoW in three different categories: Those that know how to play and work towards bettering themselves (general raider metality), those that enjoy the game but don't go out of their way to better themselves (usually social players) and the rest of the idiots who would prefer to do everything half assed and complain when things don't go right.

I'm looking into this as our guild opens recruitment to find another healer. Our guild is a hodgepodge of player types, mostly held together by friendships. Some are ex-hardcore raiders and want to man up and crush content. Others are socials that don't do enough research to make themselves viable in their class roles. So as we progress we have to get more stringent. We have to better understand our raiders PoV and what drives them. Only then can we work on those that we can and cut those we can't.

So what am I? A lot of Style and a little Speed. I'm meticulous in how I gear my character and what enchants and gems I use. I research the gear and methods before hand and I study boss fights. But on the other hand I roll my luck with people who do not do so. So it's double edge for me.

So what are you?

Understanding your healers

One of my biggest qualms when raiding in BC was raid leadership that didn't understand healing class strengths. Back then things were a bit more clear cut. Priests were the AoE healers, Shammies were melee healers, Paladins played wack a mole with health bars and druids were the best tank healers with rolling hots.

These days things have homogenized but we still have strengths. Shaman and Paladins seem to have been the only ones that have stayed the same truly. Aside from Riptide and Beacon of Hope they provide the same functionality. Shaman chain heal is good for focusing on groups huddled up (IE Melee). Beacon of Hope gives Paladins the ability to assist with healing one target while healing the group.

Two of the bigger changes for myself is the viability Discipline priests and the introduction of Nourish and Wild Growth to druids.

I have no problem showing my ignorance time and again. However I when I don't know things I will search them out. Previously I had no understanding about Disp Priest and one landed in our guild. As lead on healing I needed to help him gear and learn the ways. I'd like to thank Bobturkey for helping me do this: http://bobturkey.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/dr-turkelife-is-in-the-house-ii/

While I was looking at our WWS I couldn't really read how well our priest was doing because he was doing roughtly half the healing I was. Power Word: Shield absorbtions do not report on them. So I had to learn to add that information in for myself. Disp Priests also can push your tanks mitigation higher. Post heal buffs can push their armor total upto the armor cap of 75% damage mitigations. Huge contribution.

For druids I was used to rolling lifebloom. No longer possible. Now we actually have few different specs and glyphs for us. Druids can spec and glyph for raid healing by emphasizing Wild Growth or we can spec and glyph for tank healing which is emphasizes Nourish. Both are viable you just need to know which is more useful to the players you are running with.

I won't say that I know everything about all the healing classes. I don't expect anyone to. I just think that you should focus on group and player strengths to give your group the best chance of success. As well, understand that any healing class can do raid or tank healing. It just maybe less efficient than if you chose another, but you'll have to work with what you have. :)

An attempt at blogging

I regularly read two blogs. Those are www.restokin.com and http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/ . I do so because both of them give a great deal of insight on the class I play which is Druid.

The question I ask myself is this: "How will I differentiate myself from these two that I get information from?"

I'm going to attempt to fill this blog up with information, not only about Druids but also about raiding and pvp. I'm a lazy person so this may fall flat lol.

Anyways a bit of information on myself. I play Dillion on Dalaran. Mainly specced Resto but on occasion I've been "allowed" to DPS as Moonkin. I've raided classic, BC and now working on 10 man content in WotLK. Not bad for only being back 3 months.

In that time our guild has produced 3 Red Protos from Glory of the Hero achievements (one being mine), cleared Naxx, Sarth +1, Emalon and Archavon, Malygos and 8/14 in Ulda as of last night. We have a few kinks as a guild but we are working things out.

All in all I hope I can provide some good information, insight and perhaps even some experience to new and old players in the coming future.