No, I have not fallen off of the face of the planet…yet!
No, I have not quit WoW…yet!
Yes, I have been slammed with work to the point of exhaustion, leaving me little time recently to post!

My apologies for my lack of posts the past few days, I’ve been extremely busy, and have barely had time to raid…more or less post!

We are currently working on Three Lights in the Darkness to complete my mace.  On our first real serious nights of attempts, we made it to 10% in phase 3 before falling apart.  It was so exciting!!!  I completely failed (and was humbled) at figuring out how to throw those shards into Yogg’s Maw.  You basically have to literally be at his mouth, and time it just right, which is extremely difficult while trying to keep the tanks alive   We are hoping to come out this week with a mace in hand!

Hopefully I should have some free time coming up and will get back to my regular posting schedule!

In case you all were not aware, Mountain Dew has been running a WoW promotion.  Part of this promotion is an in-game little robot pet that “fuels” up and will burst into action if it is around other pets that have “fueled” up in the opposing factions color.  You do not have to purchase anything to obtain the pet, just sign up on the site (you should be directed to the official site by clicking the picture above), and then click the link to obtain your pet.  As far as I am aware, you can still sign up for this promotion and obtain the pet.  The pet will be sent to you in your in-game mailbox.

I only mention it now so that if you are collecting pets, you do not miss out on this limited time dealio.  Having registered awhile ago, I intend to collect mine when I get home from work this evening =)

This weekend a number of exciting things happened.  Our 10 man got Yogg down (/cheer), and our 25 man made some serious progress on him!  We went from wiping in phase 2, to wiping in phase 3 regularly, and we even saw a 15% and 10% wipe last night!  I am so proud of how well we have done with the fight in the 3 nights (roughly 12 hours of time)that we have spent on him.  I think that our 25 man should have him this raid reset barring something catastrophic occurring during the raid week.

There are a few things of note that I’d like to touch base on, however.

After being fairly disappointed about not being able to pull the data regarding the extra heal out of my WWS parse from last night, I did a little more digging about what other people had to say about this set bonus.  I have uncovered the following information below!

• The first thing I uncovered is why the set bonus was not being picked up in my WWS parse.  Let me start by stating that, to date, WWS has had fairly poor support for Ulduar, which is somewhat disappointing.  However, in the combat logs the extra heal from the set bonus is being recorded as an unranked Rejuvenation.  So, when WWS parses the information, it is just throwing the set bonus heal in with all of my rejuvenation heals.  This means that currently you are unable to distinguish the set bonus via a normal parse of WWS.  (does anyone know if there is a way for me to ask WWS to distinguish this, via a manual command of some sort?)
  • Side Note:  Apparently WoW Meter Online (WMO) is distinguishing between your ranked Rejuv and the unranked one being cast by the set bonus.  From those running WMO, the reports are that the set bonus is accounting for 8-10% of their overall healing.  Not too shabby!
• I originally posted that the set bonus was a flat figure based from your base healing, which is what my early, but very limited, test indicated to me.  I was wrong.  The set bonus DOES scale with your bonus spell power, which would be why I was seeing variance in my numbers last night as my MDF ebbed and waned.  There are also a number of other people testing exactly how this proc works, and posting their results, over at EJ.
• Currently the proc is not benefiting from Genesis, Improved Rejuvenation or Gift of Nature. 
• Currently the proc cannot crit.
• Currently, the proc is benefitting from Empowered Rejuvenation, Master Shapeshifter and Tree of Life.

There is no word yet as to if this lower tick from the set bonus is a bug, or “working as intended”.  Either way, there isn’t too much to complain about, in my opinion.  It is still a free extra heal to your target.  It still increases and improves your ability to heal your target.  If I had to wage a bet, I would say that it is “working as intended”.  They can’t make the bonus so powerful that you will never want to switch away from 4 piece tier 8.

I’m curious to hear anyone else’s experiences or thoughts on this!  What do you all think?

Keredria tagged me for this rememberance, a meme started by Averna, who had propounded on the thoughts brought forth by misself.  Fun!  *Puts on thinking cap*

So…where I may differ from others is that I didn’t actually start my WoW career as a nice, respectable class…say like a noble druid.  Oh no!  I was even NEWBIER than that!  I am somewhat ashamed to admit *buries head* that my very first character was that of a Night Elf Hunter…which, yes, had a name based from Middle Earth, albeit from a footnote.  (Earendiljade).  Hey!  I can hear that snickering from over here you know, at least it wasn’t some form of “Legolas”!

So…here it is!  Bornakk and Ghostcrawler have finally explained how the proc on Val’anyr works.  And guess what, it really IS good for all healing classes, including druids!  Enjoy!

“We have received many questions about how the proc works on Val’anyr, the Hammer of the Ancient Kings. While we originally intended for this effect to be a mystery, we realize that guilds now know what the tooltip on the proc says without necessarily knowing the details on how it works. This leads to situations where a healer may not know if assembling the hammer is worth it for them (hint: it is), and perhaps even worse, a misinformed leader may not think you deserve the hammer (hint: you do).

Players also wonder if the proc makes the item deserving of its legendary status given that the stat allocation is normal for items of its item level (Hint: it does).

The effect reads “Your healing spells have a chance to cause Blessing of Ancient Kings for 15 seconds allowing your heals to shield the target absorbing damage equal to 15% of the amount healed.”

The way this works is that when the proc happens (which is a 10% chance whenever a hot or direct spell heals, with a 45 sec internal cooldown) you gain a buff (the Blessing) on yourself. Now all of your heals for the next 15 sec cause an 8 sec damage shield. The shield stacks with itself. It includes healing done by subsequent ticks of existing hots on the target. Note that the spell has to actually heal, so hots ticking on a fully-healed target cannot cause the proc. However the shield is based on the size of the heal itself, not the amount healed – i.e. 100% overhealing will not proc the Blessing on the healer, but the shield itself includes overhealing once the Blessing is active. The shield can grow to a maximum size of 20,000 damage absorbed.

Example 1: A paladin casts Holy Light for 10K on the tank, which partially heals her. The Blessing procs, so the paladin’s Holy Light immediately causes a shield on the tank which will now absorb 1500 damage. The tank dodges the next two hits, so no damage is absorbed. The paladin then casts another heal for 8K, but only heals the tank for 600 before she is at full health. The shield is now at 2700 damage absorbed (1500 + 1200) for 8 sec.

Example 2: A druid casts Rejuv on the tank, healing her. The Blessing procs on the druid on the second tick. A shield is applied to the tank which absorbs 15% of the amount healed by that tick and each remaining tick of the Rejuv. If the druid also gets Lifebloom and Regrowth on the tank while the Blessing is up, then those ticks also contribute to the shield. If the shield goes down because the 8 sec duration expires or it absorbs that much damage, it can go up again as long as the Blessing lasts, which is 15 sec.”

One thing that we ask our guild to do as content releases is research the gear available to them, and come up with a “wish list” of gear that they would like to see equipped on their character.  We found that this was extremely helpful for people to plan their gear and know what they want from the zone, as it helps alleviated the “I think I want…but I don’t know if I do” that everyone experiences from time to time.  This also prevents someone from requesting an item that they may well just upgrade in a few weeks over someone who wants the item as their best in slot.

No matter what level you raid at, I think making a wish list is a best practice, and I would strongly encourage it!  I do it for all of  my characters starting from the 5 man dungeons forward into wherever they may get gear from.

Based on the current information available to me, I have finally completed my tentative wish list so I thought I’d share it with you! 

Not Immortal =(

We came in and completely, totally kicked ass through the entire zone…and then one shaman moved out of a void zone and next to a mana blast.  Poof, goodbye Immortal.

While I am really dissapointed that we didn’t get it (again), I can honestly say that it was by far our best effort and people played fantastically.  We went out fighting, and if the patch comes Tuesday, I feel that we really did give it our best shot.  I’m really proud of how well Monolith did, even the one guy that died.  And in the end, I have my Reins of the Plagued Proto Drake to comfort me.

Yay! Keeva over at Tree Bark Jacket is picking up the torch on Azeroth Arbor Day. 

Everyone should stop on by and enter their submissions!  I know I will be =)

So, now that I have everything mostly set up (still need to figure out the whole custom avatar thing!) I figured I start with an introduction.

Who I am:  I am a healer.  It’s what I love to do.  My primary focus is healing with a resto druid but I have healed on all of the healing classes.

What I hope to accomplish:  Really, I am hoping that this blog can be multi-functional. 

 Firstly, I’d like to provide what I hope is a resource to people.  Not just on Druiding, but on raiding in general, and to a lesser extent on guild leadership and management. 

Secondly, I’d like to try to branch out a little more into the number crunching/theory crafting behind my class.  I feel that I have the mathematical mindset to do this, but have always relied on others for information.  I think that I can make an attempt (albeit a meager one) to help provide to the community, at least somewhat, in this area.  This area is also something that I’ve grown increasingly interested in exploring.

Lastly, I’d like somewhere to put out my thoughts and maybe get feedback on them.

So, in short, welcome anyone that happens to venture out this way.   Hopefully you enjoyed your stay and found something interesting while you were here! =)