What to Expect!

Healing abilities and spells which automatically pick targets now follow consistent rules for tageting logic. Targets with lower % health will be preferred, and players are weighted more heavily than pets”

What, exactly, does this mean? It means that if you cast WG while everyone is at full life it will favor players instead of pets! This is a pretty great change all around, and one that will be favorable for resto druids.

Tranquility now targets 12 raid members (up from 5) each time it heals when used in a 25-play instance.

This is pretty great change for druids raiding 25s. While I’m not entirely sure it’s going to really even the mitigation playing field, it is certainly a step in the right direction and will give tranquility a bit of a much needed boost in 25s. As always, I encourage you to find the best time to utilize tranquility in each encounter and maximize its use throughout the fight. There are lots of prime opportunities for Tranquility in ToT!

Ironbark now has a cooldown of 60 seconds, down from 2 minutes.

This is another pretty great change for Resto, and helps add a little more diversity to the resto toolkit. At 60 seconds, ironbark can (and should!) be tossed around freely on your raid anytime someone is in danger and could use the extra survival.

Swiftmend’s area-of-effect component now heals injured allies within 10 yards, up from 8 yards

While not a bad change for swiftmend, I’m not entirely confident that it’s going to have much of an overall impact on the ability. As it is, you either dump it on melee (or another clumped up group) or opt to use it on a single target (such as the tank, or someone in need of quick healing). The extended range won’t hurt, but I don’t really think it’s anything that is going to have a significant impact on our overall output either.

Wild Mushroom: Bloom: Healing from this spell has been increased by 100%, which includes all bonus healing from Rejuvenation overhealing. In addition, the radius has been increased to 10 yards (up from 8).

Oh Mushrooms. You have the potential to be something great, and yet we are still brought down by your cumbersome placement mechanic and overall lack of cohesion with the resto toolkit.

This change is a good one for Mushrooms – bigger heal, larger heal radius – but still suffers all of the main issues of the base spell itself. When I was talking about this with Brade the other day we decided that 2/5 of the time mushrooms will be largely overheal; 2/5 of the time mushrooms will be in the wrong spot at the time they need to be used; and 1/5 of the time mushrooms will work as intended and be moderately awesome. It’s just really hard to get excited about a buff to a spell that is horrendous in practice.

In places mushrooms were good previously, they will be even better now. In places where mushrooms make you want to kill small kittens, well…just remember that neighborhood cats will be missed.

All of that being said, the buff to mushrooms will make a single mushroom more potent, so it may be worthwhile during downtime to spread some out amongst the ranged in encounters that are very mobile and it is unlikely there will be given stack points or the melee will be all over the place (for example, I find they are pretty great during Ji-Kun’s Quills, or to quickly top up damage from Caw). Let them charge and use them during raid damage to help top folks up. It will also likely be worthwhile to try to plan in advance to drop them for significant damage phases. While it would be nice if they retained at least some of their charge if you have to replant them, it will be smart to try to keep them planted in key locations when applicable.

Force of Nature is no longer on global cooldown and summons a single Treant. The Treant no longer has a control bar, immediately uses it special abilities on the Druid’s current target and accumulates 1 charge every 20 seconds up to a maximum of 3 charges. Restoration version of the Treant now casts Swiftmend on the Druid’s target when summoned. This version of Swiftmend does not require or consume a heal-over-time effect on the target.

While this is a significant upgrade to this talent – it will be very hard pressed to be competitive with ToL or SotF. There may be times where it might be useful, but its usefulness is not likely to be outweighed when compared against SotF or ToL. My advice would be to play around with it in LFR, see if you like it, but to continue to stick with your preferred staples in this tier as I still don’t foresee FoN outperforming either of the other abilities available.

Important Changes that aren’t Resto Specific, but you should still know about!

Players can now choose to receive loot for specializations other than the one that’s currently active. This feature can be accessed by right-clicking on the character portrait and selecting the option from the drop-down list. Loot specialization is available for bonus rolls, Raid Finder, and Pandarian quest rewards

This is a fantastic change, and one that I hope will prevent people from queuing into raid finder as a healer/dps and then changing specs to their preferred roll. It should also significantly help with the acquisition of off spec gear via raid finder.

Protection for bad luck streaks have been added to bonus rolls. Each bonus roll that does not provide loot has a progressively better chance to award loot to the player

Say it with me! “AMEN!” I don’t know about you, but using coin after coin and never having loot show up can be so discouraging. I’m happy to see that this is something that was noted and an action taken to fix. It should also make the ease of gearing an alt a little better.

Completing the Challenge Mode daily quest now awards a Heroic Cache of Treasures with a chance to contain an epic item

One more reasons to look into challenge modes! (Which I think everyone should be doing anyhow!)

Voidbinders are back in capital cities and shrines. Items upgradable by Valor now require 250 Valor to upgrade per 4 items levels, for a total of 500 Valor for 8 item levels per item. This is retroactive to all items that use Valor

I’m really torn. While I think these item upgrades are a relatively elegant way to “nerf” current content, having to continually VP cap is tedious and time consuming. The plus side is that the cost to upgrade an item is significantly decreased – which is good. But the time commitment to VP cap outside of raids each week continues to be cumbersome. Either way – if you are capped come Tuesday, you can do a total of 12 upgrades (or 6 total items fully upgraded).

Players can now use items that are in the bank or Void Storage for transmogrification

Always look good…without having to pay to take items in and out of void storage! Of course, if your Void Storage looks like mine, it’s chock full anyhow and you are already transmogging from your bank because that is where your gear lives anyhow.

Enjoy 5.3, and may you fell many new foes upon its release!

As always, I am happy to entertain discussion or answer questions. I’d also love to hear about your favorite 5.3 additions.

/sigh

Whatever! I have both time and desire to write at this moment, as well as things to say! So I suppose that we should get to that before I lose any of the above.

On Raiding

Wait, what?! (It’s okay, I know that you are probably thinking it, I can hear the wheels turning from here!). Remember that post about the 5.3 PTR I did the other day? The one where I said I had reason to believe that I’d probably have a little more to say about druids as we moved forward? No? Okay, perhaps we should start from the beginning here.

A while back, for varying personal reasons, Brade and I started discussing the possibility of me getting back into raiding again. The truth is that I missed it quite a bit and I needed an activity to really sink my teeth into and focus my mind on again. After few weeks of talking and weighing the pros/cons, those discussions turned into exploring the possibility of acting on what we were talking about. I made a list of things that were “musts” for me: PST schedule, adult environment, limited raid nights/in-game commitment and a focus on progression. If I was going to do this, it had to be something I was comfortable committing to 110% and something that provided me enjoyment.

One thing led to another, and about a month ago I enthusiastically accepted a trial with Skunkworks. I wasn’t particularly open about getting back into raiding – largely because I was a nervous wreck (I haven’t been a trial anywhere in eight years! What if things didn’t work out?!) – but I wasn’t exactly hiding it either if you looked in the right places. Anyhow, earlier this week I learned that I’d passed my trial (and there was much squeeing at my house), and since I anticipate being a little more vocal about druids again, I thought it was time to finish letting that cat out of the bag.

So there you have it. Yes, I am raiding again.

And I’m thoroughly enjoying it! The content is great, the environment is great and the people are great. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to say that I’ve been excited to log in on a raid night; and yet every Tuesday and Thursday I watch the clock at work as it slowly ticks to 4:00 and I rush out the door excited to get home and see what adventures await me that night. I was quite pleasantly surprised at how much this decision, and change, has reinvigorated the game for me. It was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve made and not once have I regretted it. (As an aside, Skunkworks is recruiting a few select classes, including a healer or two! Click the link above to learn more about progression raiding on a limited (2 night/week) schedule – particularly if you are a stellar player struggling to find time to raid and read my ‘must’ list and thought ‘man, I’d be interested in a guild like that too!’).

For those of you wondering…no, Brade is not raiding. When we talked about me wanted to get back into it, he indicated that at this time he didn’t really have the desire to commit to it again (even on a limited schedule). Now, from time to time, I do see him watching over my shoulder while I’m raiding – so who knows if that will change in the future – but right now, he’s content to play casually. Several people have asked me if it’s weird playing without him, but it’s really not. While I do miss playing with him occasionally, it’s also kind of nice to have my own “thing” – and, uh, we fight less . We still putz around on alts or do things CRZ quite a bit, so it’s not as if I don’t still get to enjoy this hobby with him, it’s just that I have a segment right now that is just mine and I’m kind of enjoying that.

ANYHOW! I’m sure I’ll have some additional thoughts about this tier of content (read: I absolutely have some thoughts) that I’ll want to share. So be sure to look for those soon-ish. Additionally, please do not hesitate to let me know if you have questions on anything specific that I might be able to answer. I’m uncertain if I’ll get back to the videos, since they were a huge time commitment and I don’t know if I’ll have that kind of time again. However, if you need help just shoot me an email! It might take me a few days (or a week…) to answer, but I will do my best to get a response out to you!

(Oh, and if you are trying to find me I had to change my name. I am now Berutheil – looks almost the same, unti you realize that the “i” and “e” are juxtaposed. I will try to remember to update my “about” link!).

On Blizzcon

So, I wasn’t going to go again. In fact, I was so convinced that I wasn’t going to go that we have already booked (and paid for!) a trip to Vegas over my birthday in August (yes…you do not have to tell me how hot it is going to be, I already know!). But then people were talking about it, and then I wanted, and well, AUGH!

Before I knew it, Brade and I were sitting at the computer refreshing F5 like champs and have once again managed to score tickets. I am pretty sure that he will never again believe me when I say “I think this will be my last Blizzcon”. But whatever! I’m really looking forward to it, and I anticipate it will be a blast.

On Community

One of the things about online communities is how amazing they can be. It is even more fun when that online community starts to bridge the gap from online to real life. I recently got to opportunity to enjoy a very fun fondue dinner with Lissanna, Tikari, Tinderhoof and his lovely wife. It was a great experience and I enjoyed it very much! Additionally, Tikari, Tinderhoof and I have started becoming table top pals over the months since we all met as well, which is amazing!

Anyhow, I bring this all up because I think these communities are amazing opportunities and I would encourage everyone to become involved! I’ve made more local friends from these online communities than I have from any other social event in Seattle.

On that same note, I had the pleasure to talk Druids with the fine gentleman over at The Training Dummies a couple of weeks ago, and you can find that here if you’d like to give it a listen! It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the experience!

On Other Entertainment

I’m currently reading the newest JD Robb “in Death” book. I have a “to read” list that just keeps growing right now! But I did want to say that on the recommendation of several folks I read a book called “Ready Player One” that was amazing – and if you’ve not read it yet, I would encourage you to check it out!

We are still slowly working our way through Buffy and Angel. I’m really enjoying them, even if we have spurts where we watch a ton and then watch almost none of them. Keeping up with TV has gotten a little more challenging now that I’m a little more occupied in WoW again, but that doesn’t bother me in the least! We keep up when we can, and when we can’t…well that is what Amazon Video and Netflix are for

I’ve also been slowly working my way through Luigi’s Mansion on the 3DS. I really enjoy the game and the story – but man the controls really bother my hands after awhile. Especially if you have to do a lot of ghost sucking in any given storyline/room. I loved the original Luigi’s Mansion to death and played it through numerous times – so I’m hopeful this one will find its way into my “favorites” library as well!

We’ve had several game nights over the past few months – but I’ve not really gotten the chance to explore some of the games/expansions that Brade and I acquired during the holidays (or because we saw it in the game store and went “gimme!”). I think this weekend we might take some time and sit down to figure out Netrunner. And then if we still have time maybe get in a game of Arkham Horror – but I think that might be pushing it since we have plans for Iron Man 3 this weekend!

I’ve also made the mistake of clicking on this link the other day, and now have a massive list of board games I want to download on my iPad (and will probably do a few of them this weekend!). WARNING! THAT LINK IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR POCKET BOOK! Ok, now that I’ve warned you, I will feel no sympathy when you click on it and all of the sudden spend $100 on apps. Nope, none at all!

Overall, it’s been a pretty good month

Aside from the doctors (there are many of them now!) still trying to figure out what is going on with my body (which it has been decided is what is causing the hand troubles), I can’t really complain about how things have been going the past month or so. I’m happy, in great spirits and generally just enjoying things.

It’s been awhile! So tell me, how are things with you?

Ironbark now has a cooldown of 60 seconds, down from 2 minutes.

While it could be argued that this wasn’t strictly necessary, it is a very nice change that I’m in favor of seeing. While a lot of people view this as a “tank” CD, I’ve often found use for it on members of the raid that are in danger. Being able to use it more freely in this regard is going to be quite nice and a very strong update to the ability itself. I think it’s a very good change and I’m happy to see it go in – hopefully everyone will be a little more aggressive in using it!

Swiftmend’s area-of-effect component now heals injured allies within 10 yards, up from 8 yards.

While I’m happy to see an increase in range, I’ve long since taken the stance that I’m either throwing this on melee, I’m using it on myself and positioning it where I want it, or I’m using it on the tank (or someone else not grouped up) and may not be taking full effect of the ground effect. It’s nice that it’s bigger, I just don’t see it really having a huge effect on the ability overall. I could be wrong and the extra two yards could be profound! I’m just not certain that is going to be the case. Either way, it’s not a bad change. So, yay?!

Wild Mushroom: Bloom now heals all allies within 10 yards (up from 8 yards) for 100% more, and includes bonus healing from Rejuvenation overhealing.

This change is very interesting. While I’m not entirely thrilled that they still haven’t fixed the main issue with this ability (the extremely clunky targeting mechanic) I’m also not positive that this change, as it stands, is going to go live. Ghostcrawler clarified that both the base healing and the bonus rejuv healing is getting increased by 100% – and, well, that has the potential to be just ridiculous!

Right now a set of fully charged mushrooms can pack a punch – just placing them, charging them and blooming them is incredibly cumbersome and heavily penalized if your raid has to move after they’ve been placed/charged. With the buff, this will be even more true than it was before. Not only that, but the amount of healing mushrooms will now have the potential to unleash is going to be enormous. Like mind blowing levels of enormous. Like I’d be surprised if this pushes to live like this enormous.

That being said, if the change makes it I think it supports using your mushrooms singularly when your raid isn’t clumped up. Right now, on certain fights, I’m already just placing them under ranged or lining them up along the path the raid will be moving.

I do worry a little bit if such a big change doesn’t risk running them back towards rotational. I also dislike the fact that they encourage some poor healing to maximize their effectiveness (much in the same way I disliked the original version of Harmony). I also worry that they are going to become so much of our healing that we are going to be slow to see any changes to them (if we ever were to begin with), simply because druids will be making even more concerted efforts to use them. I suppose we will have to wait and see how it plays out. I would very much like to see some mechanical changes to the ability emerge, but it seems like Blizzard is very hesitant to head in that direction to date.

(And yes, I still hate mushrooms. So very much. I don’t care how much healing they do, until they are less cumbersome to use I will always take issue with them!)

Tranquility now targets 12 raid members (up from 5) each time it heals when used in a 25-player instance. This change also applies to players using the Symbiosis version of Tranquility.

This is a very nice change to tranquility and a buff I do think is needed to the ability. It’s very cool that they are opting to adjust it based on raid size so that it mirrors what it is able to achieve in a smaller setting. I am happy to see this change go in, and I hope that it is a buff that makes it live.

That being said…I don’t really feel that this change is going to solve much in regards to Druid woes. I talked a bit about this a couple of posts ago – but I feel it’s important to reiterate. Throughput is not the number one issue facing druids right now. Is that our toolkit is ill equipped to deal with today’s healing environment and that mitigation healing is so dominant that it stomps on the potential effectiveness of throughput healers. Sure, it’s going to promote slightly higher throughput in the situations that we utilize it – but I suspect in the big scheme of things it’s not going to be make or break (I’m hesitant to say it will have a negligible effect, because I don’t think that’s entirely true, I just don’t think it’s going to all of the sudden right resto druids).

Overall, I think these are good changes.

While I’d like to see more to even out the mitigation vs. throughput playing field I’m not really sure this patch is the place we’d see that play out. I will also admit that I was hoping for a little more relative to Ghostcrawler’s “druid changes” tweet, but will also concede that if all of these go through it is not a terrible haul.

I’m curious what all of you think about the changes! Need? Un-needed? Fixing all the wrong things?

Now that you understand the rules, let’s give it a try! I’m going to post a picture below, tell you it’s from LFR and you are going to have a reaction. Let’s see if it works!

What was the first thing that came to your mind? If it was “how many times will we wipe to this” or “I wonder how many people will die” or “UGH DURUMU!”, then I would speculate that you’ve experienced this encounter in LFR and had an experience relative to mine. But never fear! Because I’m here today to tell you how to stop the madness and guarantee a one shot Durumu kill each and every time.

Ok, maybe not, but I promise you less people will die!

How to Succeed at Durumu Without Really Trying

So I was in a LFR this weekend with my shaman, and as is typical, we got to the eye beam phase and 3/4 of the raid died. We wiped and had to start it over. Only before we pulled a second time I decided to have faith in LFR and the players there, and I asked if anyone would like me to explain how to know which side of the eye beam to stand on. I was a little surprised by the overwhelming response of “YES PLEASE!” – especially when I was expecting something more like “lol just don’t be bad lol”. So I took two minutes to explain it, and wouldn’t you know it, in the two eye beams we had only one or two people died.

You see, the problem isn’t the “maze” part of the phase as much as it is solving which side of the eye beam you need to be on to start the maze.

After we finished, Brade looked at me and said “you have just planted a seed that will save hundreds of hours of LFR pain for many people”. So with that thought in mind, I thought I’d go ahead and share the message with more than just the 25 folks who happened to be in that LFR.

It’s All About the Purple Squiggles

The trick to being on the proper side of the eye beam to find the maze is actually really simple! Basically what happens is the following:

• Durumu will announce that he is pre-casting eye beam and lasers will start shooting out of his eye.
• The eye beam will always start facing the entrance of the room (look for the staircases that you came down to enter).
• Immediately to the left or right of the eye beam the floor will have little purple lightning squiggles shooting through it.
• These squiggles indicate the side of the room the eye beam will move, and which side of the room will subsequently reveal the maze.
• You want to stand in the squiggles (they are safe!), and then move with the maze.
• Collect Loot.

To help better illustrate, here is a graphic! (Be in awe of my mad paint skills!)

I was honestly shocked at how many people understood the maze, but simply just didn’t know where to stand as it was starting and died as a result. Once we fixed that, the fight was simple!

So, in the interest of everyone’s sanity, please share this and take the time to educate and help your LFR compatriots! If enough people do this, Durumu determination will be a thing of the past and we can save our energy for trying to convince folks that Dark Animus really is easier if you don’t AE all the golems down at one time

A while back on Twitter, someone commented that they were surprised that the 5.2 changes to resto druids really didn’t seem to have the results that he was expecting to see – and that they felt a bit bad for the resto on their raid team (I think it might have been Derevka). At the time, I made a snarky comment that amused me greatly – but followed it up with the more serious comment that a druid’s mileage is likely to vary largely depending on the number and strength of their disc priests and holy paladins. It’s the latter part of that comment that I’d like to explore a little more today.

I think I heal just fine

Anytime that the topic of resto healing comes up, there are always two groups of people: those who are incredibly frustrated and those that come out of the woodwork (see what I did there?!) and state “I heal just fine” or “I always top my healing meters”. The statement of that second camp of folks ultimately leads to the declaration that they feel “druids are fine”. Which is then followed by an uproar of those who disagree and, of course, nothing ever good really comes from the subsequent conversations.

For a number of months I’ve dwelled quite a bit on why druids haven’t seen a little more love come down from the dev team – and I’ve come up with what are likely some good reasons (strength in PvP, stronger in 10s, etc.) and some pretty irrational and bad reasons (i.e. WHY DO YOU HATE TREES, GC!). But one of the things that has consistently continued to bounce around my head is the concept that a druid’s output will vary significantly based on the number of paladins and priests in their raid (i.e. absorbs) and how strong those players are, which means that the spectrum of druid output swings wildly  - and makes it increasingly more difficult to evaluate yourself comparatively amongst your class.

Mileage May Vary

I, personally, find this fluctuation a little bit fascinating (albeit frustrating) and can’t help but wonder if it’s a root cause for why we haven’t seen many bones thrown our way thus far in the expansion. I mean, what do you do when you have one druid raiding with a plethora of mitigation based healers struggling tremendously to keep up – yet right next door you have a druid who raids with a disc priest who thinks spirit shell is a candy coating, a paladin who still thinks holy light and flash of light are the only spells in their spell book and, subsequently, is completely dominating the other healers on their raid team? (What? You don’t believe this can happen? Go run a LFR or  two and tell me it doesn’t boost your leafy ego just a smidge!).

The question then becomes how is a discrepancy like this reconciled when developers evaluate a class as a whole? Honestly, I’m not really sure that if it can be; at least not if mitigation continues to play such a large role and continues to dwarf the value of throughput. I mean, there will always be the discrepancies of a strong healer performing with a team of weak healers versus a strong healer performing on a team of other strong healers. It is true that there are some druids out there that feel the class is perfectly fine and feel like the class is performing well. But in all my log searching (and yes, if you make the statement you think everything is just fine, and people are simply over-reacting, I do go and look at your logs if I can find them) I’ve yet to find a single druid that has made the claim that “everything is fine” this expansion that is raiding with multiple strong disc priests and paladins, in any combination.

I’m a bit curious if the large differences that we’ve seen the past two tiers with regards to this dynamic (those with and without mitigation) aren’t thwarting some of our overall desires for change within the class. I mean, what happens if you bring druids to a point that they can be competitive with a mitigation heavy raid? Do you run the risk of making druids who don’t raid with strong mitigation healers seeming disproportionately strong and imbalanced? This in turn, makes me wonder if our struggles will ever be solved by adjusting druids upwards. I’m not sure – and I’m not really one to suggest nerfing another class, when I’d rather see everyone brought up to having an equal chance at feeling successful.

So where does that leave us?

Well, unless the current concept of mitigation healing is completely reworked, those classes are heavily rebalanced or something drastic and exciting happens to the druid toolkit, it pretty much leaves us right where we are now. With that in mind, I think it is important to reiterate that your mileage may vary as a druid. Now, more than ever, your performance will be very heavily tied to the strength and composition of your healing team. The next time you are offering your thoughts on the current state of druids, I implore you to keep this in mind. Before you offer commentary, in any medium, carefully consider how the above plays into your perceptions and remember that (especially right now!) experiences will vary quite a bit!

And today it hit me. I was at physical therapy, chatting with a new therapist because my regular one was on vacation, and there it was. A blog post writing itself in my head.

You see, back during vanilla, when I had the misfortune to be both a night elf and a hunter, I was one of the first people on our server to have completed and obtained Rhok’delar. I was so proud of that bow. I worked hard to obtain it. I researched each of those demons, I had pots, I had wing clip, I had that damn sinew from Onyxia taking up my bag space. I was ready to go and started after those demons with a vengeance…then I hit Winterspring and I learned I was terrible at kiting. No, really. I’m not exaggerating here. I was awful. I couldn’t jump shot if you sat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s on my desk and told me it was a reward for when I got to the end – you’d simply have ended up with soupy ice cream. And that is just a shame.

But that sure wasn’t going to stop me! Rather than being frustrated at my complete and utter inability to succeed at this one task, I treated it like it was a difficult passage in a piece of music, and I practiced it ad nausem until I was perfect. I started slow, with owls. And then I moved to Felwood and wolves (they were quite fast and if you failed to snare them, they would catch you – just like the demon). I spent hours running up and down the corrupted streets of Felwood until I could not only kite, but I was pretty darn good at it. And the next time that demon in Winterspring spawned, I killed him.

Um…Beru? Why on earth are you talking about an eight year old questline, and pray tell, what does it have to do with Challenge Modes?

I’m getting there! Honest!

Anyhow, one of the things that I thought was so absolutely fantastic about the hunter class quest is that it really made you expand your knowledge of being a hunter. Each demon forced you to not only understand, but perfect different aspects of the class. You had to think a bit outside of the box, and it was fantastic. In short, completing the quest made you a better player.

When Blizzard stated that they weren’t overly keen on the class specific quests, and they didn’t foresee additional development of a similar type quest I thought it was a pity. Granted, you could argue that the green fire quest for Warlocks seems to be a return to what these original quests were, and we can only hope to see more like that down the road – but I would argue that Challenge Modes have, in a sense, replaced these quests.

Stick with me here! The thing that I loved about that hunter quest was that it really made me understand my toolkit, and what I could do with it. And the thing I love about Challenge Modes is that they really force you to be creative, and play with all of the abilities you have available, not just the ones you use for raiding or instancing. Not only that, but as a healer they really push your ability. They force you to anticipate, they require you to adapt, and they make you use more than your standard spells and think through what works best in a given situation. In short, Challenge Modes require you to become a better player and learn more about your class.

And that is fun.

When I went into them with Beru – I was working with a class I’d had eight years experience playing, and I still learned things. In fact, I had to clear out room on my toolbar for spells that needed to have years of dust shaken off of them. Not only did they teach me about myself as a player, they also gave me the confidence to explore how I healed and encouraged me to find new ways to be a better healer.

“What? You still had 150 life left, I TOTALLY had this!”

However, I think it was really my experience with my shaman that hammered home what a great learning experience challenge modes are. I’ve always felt myself an adequate shaman. I enjoy playing her, I generally performed well with her. And back in the day, I could spam chain heal with the best of them. But it wasn’t until we started challenge modes that I really started to understand how to play her. Suddenly some of the dynamics of the class just fell into place and her utility and power became crystal clear. As we progressed through Challenge Modes, I felt myself becoming a better, more involved shaman.

I was using totems that had previously pretty much just taken up space and looked pretty on my bars. I learned to appreciate the benefits my druid had with regards to mobility. I found new ways to tweak my healing for better results – and I simply just understood the class better. Challenge modes straight up made me a better, more knowledgeable, shaman.

“Beru, you keep saying you have no mana, but I see 20%. That looks to me like you still have mana!” ~Rehr

So why should you do Challenge Modes?

Because they will make you a better player. Okay, okay. Also because they are a lot of fun. But really, anyone who is looking to expand what they thought they knew about their class will find that they still had things to learn though the process of completing challenge modes. And that is the beauty of them. They really make you understand every aspect of your role. Every random talent has potential benefits. Every outside of the box solution has potential.

There is also the nifty group aspect experience to them as well, which is quite fun.

But for me, I think the reason that I can’t seem to get enough of challenge modes is simply that they require me to learn. They force me to become more than I was when I started. And they teach me about my class. Which is something that is completely invaluable. And, subsequently, is why I find challenge modes an experience everyone should consider. In my mind, The Undaunted is basically the new Rhok’delar. And one of my favorite things about this expansion.

Recently I decided to pick up Diablo 3 again. I hadn’t played it in a quite awhile, and when I had stopped it wasn’t because I wasn’t enjoying it, but rather because I had a flare with my hands and the Diablo controls were pretty hard on them. But now that I’m not spending a lot of time playing as much WoW and abusing my hands with raiding, dailys and whatnot there, I figured I’d check out the many changes that were made in Diablo (most of which I really like!).

It’s been so long since I’ve played, and there have been so many changes, that I found myself pretty lost. While the spec I was running when I stopped playing is still serving me very well, a little bit of research has shown me that other specs may now be more viable. That being said, I don’t know if some of the more popular specs really fit my preferred playstyle so I’m toying around with meshing what I like about my spec into what I like about those specs and seeing how it works for me. Anyhow, because I felt so out of touch, I decide to simply restart inferno from scratch and play my way through again. I’m at the point in act two where I’ve finished assembling Zultan Khule and I need to go meet his treacherous, double crossing self. In the process I’ve found three legendaries (two of which I am pretty sure are rubbish) and gained three and a half paragon levels. Not too shabby.

Since I have decided to pick the game back up, Brade also decided to update his and resume playing again as well. We generally had a lot of fun playing together and I imagine that once his schedule settles down (and I’ve finished my current play through), we will pair up for shenanigans again. One of the topics that came up while we were discussing some of the changes was the auction house (not the real money one, which we’ve never used, just the gold one). He made a statement that he thought the game would have been more fun without the addition of the auction house – and I tend to agree with him.

As such, I wanted to explore that thought a little bit – but break it down into two areas: The dominance of the Auction House “game” and the subsequent loss of community by virtue of the convenience of the auction house.

Now, before I go any further I want to state that I have an understanding of why both the gold and real money auction house were added to the game. I understand (or at least think I do) what they were created to combat. And despite anyone’s tinfoil hat theories regarding them, on paper, from a purely logistical standpoint they both make a lot of sense. Ok, now that is out of the way let’s talk about the auction house’s effect on the game.

The Auction House Game

While Brade and I were talking he made the statement that he wished he had never starting using the Auction House. The basic premise behind this thought is that, at least in very early Diablo, the game really ended up being more about “playing” the Auction House than it was playing Diablo, which inherently seems backwards. The Auction House is supposed to be a feature of the game, not the main focus. Yet the nature of Diablo meant that you often obtain loot that was a) a downgrade, but still decent; b) terrible; or c) a great item that you simply had no use for. This, in turn, lends itself very well to the auction house as you often had things of no value to you to sell.

But this also meant that rather than grinding through the game, holding your breath at each drop that RNG was your friend, you simply had to scour the Auction House to find the item you wanted. Subsequently, it also meant that you had to list your items so that you had the gold to support purchasing the items on the Auction House. And if you were really into the Auction House Game, you could simply buy low, sell high – gear your character to the teeth, and defeat everything with limited amounts of time actually spent “playing” Diablo itself. And while that may be energizing and exciting to some, I also feel that it isn’t a model that is likely to retain players. I suspect that there is only so much Auction Housing that one can do before it becomes tired – and if there is no other reason to play the game, because you’ve monopolized your corner of the Auction House, decked yourself out in the best gear and beaten all of the content – well, what’s the point of continuing to play?

Now, since my return to the game the only time that I’ve visited the Auction House was to look at the front page – laugh that things were somewhere in the range of 300 million gold – and move along. For now, I have made the decision to enjoy the game of Diablo (as opposed to the game of the Diablo Auction House). And once again, as I find my yellows and oranges, I find that I am secretly crossing my fingers that I might be opening up something exciting. And, well, that seems a lot more satisfying to me as a player. I find that I am happy to plod along through the story, and be curious at what lies behind each hidden drop. At least for now. I don’t know if my opinion on this will change as I continue to play, and I reserve the right for it to do so, but at this time I am certainly finding that letting RNG truly play its intended aspect in the game is more exciting than trying to save up enough gold and/or window shop the Auction House.

Which, of course, leads me to question what would the game have been like if it didn’t release with an Auction House? Would people have enjoyed it more? Would more people have spent more time becoming engrossed in the story and game play and less time in the menu screen? Honestly, I don’t have a definitive answer – and I do acknowledge that there were some issues with the release version of Diablo – but I can’t help but think that the game inevitably lost something when they effectively took away the excitement of having a rare item drop and uncovering the treasures underneath.

Did the Auction House dilute the potential Diablo Community?

In the interest of full disclosure – I never played Diablo 2 while it was current. However, as I understand it, the game built a great number of communities that lasted for many years. Some were trade oriented, some game oriented – but regardless it fostered communication regarding the game. However, with the advent of the Auction House in the game it seems that the need for some of the game community has been erased. I mean, why get to know other players when everything you might need/want is right there within the game itself?

Sure, it’s convenient. It’s easy. But with the integration of the new, advanced Battle.net system implemented and required to play the game, it seems that building communities was meant to be a focus. And that makes sense – because communities bind people together, and subsequently facilitate tying them to the game. As such, the added convenience of the Auction House seems to be counterproductive with strengthening the game through a strong community.

Since my return to the game, I’ve been trying to get up to speed on the changes. I’ve found two main resources (and maybe I’m missing something): The Official Forums and Reddit. Unfortunately, both of these places are well known for their proof of the great internet fuckwad theory. However, I ventured forth anyhow. I will admit that I have found some helpful resources – I’ve also found an equal or greater number that are significantly outdated and last updated around the time I stopped playing. This seems indicative that many people stopped playing around the same time I did.

When I think about this a little more, I liken it a bit to the advent of Looking for Raid in WoW. While the tool is convenient, and serves a certain (debatable) purpose, it is seemingly at a very high cost. Sure, you can throw 25 people together to “see” raid content, but at what cost? There is no team work involved. No planning, no strategy. If it weren’t for the frequently immature behavior, you could be tossed into a single player situation with 24 AI characters filling the other roles and you would never know the difference. In my opinion, community is one of the strongest things about raid teams. Unifying 25 people, with a common goal, to overcome challenges. And without that community – what is the point? I mean, you could take this argument even further by arguing that things like LFR, that require no community, take the “MM” out of “MMO” – although this is likely a topic that is probably best left for another day, as I’m starting to take this tangent out of context.

So where was I? Right – Community.

Now, I fully understand that Diablo is perhaps meant to be a game experienced Solo. And I don’t doubt that there are people who fully embrace that and only see Battle.net as a huge pain in the ass that they must deal with to play. But I’d argue that solo play isn’t the direction Blizzard went with this game. While I do not think that it falls into an MMO category, I do think that it was the intent that this game be experienced with friends – and the option to make new friends in the process. Which, in turn, could be argued is meant to help build a Diablo community.

And in that light, the Auction House seems to completely contradict that goal. The simple convenience of utilizing the Auction House means that you never have to venture out and meet new people within the community if you aren’t having the luck you need to find your gear. All you need to do is have enough gold, or time to amass enough gold, and go visit the cold interface of the Auction House. Which, in turn, seemingly encourages more insular play and less community outreach.

Is it possible to find a balance?

I honestly don’t know. I mean, I am sure it could be a huge pain in the ass if you wanted to organize a trade previously. But you also probably spent more time actually playing the game. I know that I am having more fun with Auction House free game play – and perhaps I am just being naïve, but I feel that I appreciate what I do in the game more. I appreciate the possibilities behind each drop. I appreciate each elite pack and boss. I appreciate the time I spend doing what are frequently viewed as mundane things.

What do you think? Would Diablo have been more fun for you without an Auction House? Can you think of any creative alternatives to the Auction House that would encourage community?

I haven’t given up on the blog here and I’ve been meaning to post for awhile and every time I sit down to write I just got…distracted. I couldn’t even tell you by what – just that I’ve started this post probably no fewer than five times, and I somehow couldn’t manage to find the words that fill the page. I know it’s not the best of excuses, but none the less it is what I’ve got to offer. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I don’t think I’m quite ready to be done with this blog. I probably won’t post with as much frequency as I once did, and my topics may vary more than they have in the past (although, they were pretty wide spread to begin with!). So, I am sure you are wondering why, if I am going to keep blogging, I haven’t posted in a month. The truth is that after we stopped raiding, I spent a lot of time not really doing any gaming. I’d log in, and then decide I’d rather be doing something else – which meant I’d log right back out. And I’m not going to lie, there was a few weeks that I questioned if I’d even keep logging in.

Adjusting to the Casual Side of WoW

If I am being honest, once my raid schedule was gone, and subsequently my obligations in the game, I felt a little lost. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I knew that I had a whole laundry list of things that I wanted to accomplish, yet when I logged in I felt…displaced. The only real goal I had was to have fun. And yet it seemed so abstract and convoluted and I questioned if it was even possible to meet that goal anymore.

The truth is I was simply having a hard time adjusting to no longer being part of something that defined my WoW career for eight years. I didn’t (and don’t) have regrets about it – I just didn’t know where I fit in anymore. How to spend my time or what I wanted to do with that time. This, subsequently, meant that I was finding other (less confusing) things to do with my free time and spending less time in WoW while I worked it out in my head-space.

It took me some time, but eventually I realized that stopping raiding wasn’t closing a door for me – but rather it was opening about one hundred other doors. All of the sudden I had all of this free time to do whatever I felt like doing, and this realization was freeing. It was like someone turned on a light bulb over my head, and all of the sudden I was making lists of things I wanted to accomplish in WoW and started checking those things off those lists.

And the best part? Everything is on my schedule.

If I want to log in and play, I can. If I’d rather sit down at watch 4 hours of Buffy, I can. And it is…liberating (in its own way). I guess it just took me a bit of time to be comfortable with this new found free time and work out, in my own way, how WoW now fit into my (suddenly open) schedule. I will admit, making the adjustment was more challenging that I thought it would be. The adjustment of more free time was immediate and welcome, but the adjustment of figuring out how new WoW fit into my life was not as seamless as I would have thought.

Making New Memories

One of the things that I did after I stopped raiding was to finish out challenge modes with Beru. It was challenging, fun and at times frustrating (Um…you died. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my fault. But maybe you should check and get back to me!). The entire experience was amazing and I think will probably be in my top three WoW memories of all time, right up there with finishing my legendary and killing C’thun. There are a number of reasons for this – but a big part of it was that I was able to do it with some of my favorite people in the game. I know people always say it’s the people you play with that define your experiences in the game – and this particular experience completely reinforced that for me.

I went from being unhappy, feeling like a failure and being made to feel terrible about myself almost nightly to once again being exhilarated and confident. The experience probably did more for my confidence as a healer, and a player, this expansion than anything else – and in an expansion where druid healing was beyond frustrating it was a much needed boost in both areas. And the people I spent my time with were simply amazing – truly some of the best players I have ever had the experience to play with, in both skill and attitude. When I look back at it years from now, I guarantee that I will remember the four other people in this group and file it away as one of the best things about my WoW career.

In fact, I enjoyed the experience so much I am planning to do a second (and third!) round of challenge modes. This next set I am going to run on my shaman, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the differences in strengths between  the two classes. Challenge Modes teach you so much about yourself as a player and push you to the limits of your class, that I can’t recommend them enough. If you think you might be even remotely interested in them, you should find a group and give them a go! Even if you are intimidated – don’t be afraid! There will be (a lot of) wiping, and there will be pulls where the tank is dead before you could even think about tossing out a heal. But they require strategy, organization and team work, with the end result being having fun and finding success; everything an MMO should be about. It certainly has been one of the highlights of this expansion for me and I am more than happy to offer advice or answer any questions to anyone who is trying (or struggling) to get into them. I may write more about them later, but for now all I will do is encourage everyone to consider participating in them.

Setting Goals

As I mentioned above, one of my biggest problems with dropping raiding from my schedule was feeling a bit directionless. And, truth be told, it was one of the hardest things for me to accept and adjust to and I’m still not 100% sure that I have completely. However, one of the things that I realized is that I am a very goal oriented person. Which is pretty much true in all aspects of my life. I’m a planner, I like defined goals, I like timelines and deadlines and do some of my best work under pressure.

As such, I really struggled finding my place in the game and how I now fit into WoW – and subsequently the druid community that had become as important to me as the game itself. I think it was those last few challenge modes that finally got me out of my funk, and made me realize the game is now about what I make of it. Which will take some getting used to, but doesn’t mean that I can’t still enjoy it.  And so I set some goals for myself.

I wanted to finish the safari achievements and have been slowly capturing my way through Azeroth. I wanted to finish the cooking and fishing achievements and have been working on them. I finally have an alt to level 90 and have been enjoying playing it, and even have plans for my next one. I got to level this one with Brade – something I missed out on at the start of the expansion – and is time together that I wasn’t aware how much I missed. I am catching those rare spawns (hello minfernal!) and working through a list of adventures. And, while it took me awhile to get there, I realized those things are enjoyable and productive ways to spend my time. I may not be getting progression kills and fancy titles or mounts, but I am comfortable with where WoW fits into my life right now.

I won’t lie, sometimes I miss raiding. But at the same time, I don’t miss what I had to give up to get there. And it’s very hard to reconcile those two things into a happy medium. We are starting a very casual raid with 5.2 that I am looking forward to running. It won’t be anything on the cutting edge of progression, and I would be very surprised if we saw a single hard mode – but it will be fun, playing with people that I truly enjoy (yes, even you Dendrite!). And I’m looking forward to it.

Right now I would place my state of mind as “content”. I am happy logging into the game. I am enjoying the activities, group and solo, that I am participating in. And I enjoy that I have the flexibility to say “I don’t really feel like WoW tonight”.

I don’t really feel like WoW Tonight

So…what are you doing with all the free time, Beru? (I can hear you thinking it from here!)

Well, I’ve been watching more TV – although this has tapered off some as time progresses. I am completely hooked on Nashville, and am about halfway through Season 3 of Buffy. Both are quite good, although Season One of Buffy was moderately painful to watch and get into. While I don’t want to become a couch potato, it is nice sometimes to just veg. And Brade and I have been catching up on some much needed vegging.

We have been cooking more. It’s nice to not have to do a week’s worth of shopping and pre-prep meals for raid nights. We can play it by ear, and stop at the store on the way home or go out for dinner or a movie mid-week. And that is something I’ve been rather enjoying. I enjoy not rushing home to sit down at the computer, but instead taking my time with no schedule to follow. I don’t regret that we did these things to be able to raid on an East Coast schedule – but I really enjoy the freedom we have in this area the most, I think.

I’m still reading, although not as much as I thought I would. I blame the vegetative state we’ve been enjoying! I suspect as time passes I will pick up the reading. Before I played WoW I would go through one to three books a week. But right now I enjoy picking up my book as a nice filler when I have a little bit of free time. I’m almost finished with the most recent JD Robb book and am debating what I should read next. Probably the new John Grisham thriller! I can’t help it, I’ve been with him since A Time to Kill and I’ve enjoyed all his writing (good and bad)!

We’ve been playing more board games, which is something I talked about getting more involved with before we stopped raiding. And we’ve made more time for game nights with friends, which have been wonderful for me. We are branching out socially a bit due to this hobby, and I’m looking forward to exploring this a little more, especially since not having many local friends was something that made me hold on so tightly to WoW and I am glad that we are meeting some new local folks (several through WoW, even!). I’m still really enjoying the boardgames, and have recently picked up a two player card game called Netrunner that someone on Twitter recommended to me. We haven’t had the chance to play it yet, but I’m looking forward to it as soon as Brade’s current project finishes and we have a little more free time in the evening.

Overall, I’ve been enjoying things.

Both in the game and out of it. It took me some time to get used to WoW without raiding, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but right now I can say I feel like I’m in a good place with the game. And in a great place with life outside of the game. I’m not sure if anyone else has any tips to offer for wayward raiders who are struggling with the change of pace into a less structured approach with WoW – but the one thing that I think I can offer from my own experience is that the sooner you realize the game will be what you make of it, the sooner you will be able to find your place again. And it may be that place doesn’t include WoW at all. But either way, it is important to remember that you control what happens. And I’m happy that my immediate future still includes WoW and looks to do so for some time to come.

Do you know what has always amazed me so much about Jim Croce? The fact that a voice like his comes from a mustache like that! Okay, okay – I’m (half) joking! It’s the way that so many of his songs really hit home. I sit and listen to the lyrics, and I can pair almost any significant event in my life to a Jim Croce Song. I am not really sure how I came to really know him as an artist, as I would consider the 80’s my decade, but somehow I came across his music at some point in my youth and couldn’t get enough. I bet I had his greatest hits album on loop in my car in college for almost a full year. (Well…that and Graceland. I can’t help it, I love Paul Simon!).

Anyhow, if you aren’t familiar with the work of Jim Croce I would encourage you to do yourself the favor of looking him up and blocking out an hour or so to really listen to what he is saying when he sings. Seriously. It will be time well spent, and if you don’t tear up at least once you simply aren’t human. 

I’m sure that you are probably wondering why I am talking about (probably one of the greatest singers of all time) Jim Croce here on my WoW blog. Well, I’ve spent a lot of time the past couple of weeks reflecting and remembering some of my greatest memories in WoW. And, of course, Time in a Bottle seems so appropriate any time that you are thinking about what has been and what is a history past that can’t, or won’t, be repeated or rewritten. What is so odd about this, is that I have draft posts that are several years old where I try to put some of my favorite WoW memories into words, and simply can’t find the right words. It’s strange how memories that seem so vivid and fond are so hard to illustrate. Perhaps it’s simply because some memories are meant to be private.

So…you are probably wondering what I’ve been up to since my last post.

Well, I took a complete week away from WoW and went to Disneyland. It was so much fun. I have, in no uncertain terms, decided that you are never too old for Disneyland. We went to character breakfasts, and got excited to see things in the park, and rode Pirate of the Caribbean more times than I should probably admit. It was delightful and carefree. I had so much fun and truly enjoyed it.

I’ve been spending a moderately unhealthy amount of time in front of the television, cuddled up with the dog – and sometimes Brade – catching up on some television shows that we let fall behind. We are finally up to speed on Bones, and I got up to speed on two of my guilty pleasures: Pretty Little Liars and Ice Loves Coco. I have both American Horror Story and Downton Abbey on my “to do” list, and went through Netflix last night queuing up a few new things (did you know there is a documentary about the lady who did Xena’s stunts?!). It’s been relaxing, but I am trying to expand my “WoW Free” activities past the sofa!

I’ve still been reading. I finished up Cold Days – the latest in the Dresden series, and I’m pretty sure that Jim Butcher can do no wrong. I’ve continued to plug along through the Rizzoli and Isles books, but recently took a break to read the latest In Death book. I’ve been adding to my “to read” list at a somewhat alarming rate. I’m not sure if I’ll make it through everything that I’ve recently placed on the list, but it won’t be from a lack of trying! I also treated myself to a new toy, and recently purchased a Kindle Paperwhite. It’s scheduled to arrive today and I can’t wait to get home and get it all set up.

Brade and I have played some table top games in our down time, but not nearly as many as I’d like. Perhaps that will be our activity tonight. We acquired some over the holidays that are shamefully still in the packaging, just begging to be unwrapped. Amongst our holiday gifts I got two of the expansions for Arkham Horror. Unfortunately, one of the games (LotR Nazghul) that I got Brade (and have been looking forward to playing) is three or more players – so perhaps we will have to host a game night so that we can break it out of the box and give it a spin! I’ve also been reading a lot about Risk Legacy – so perhaps once we’ve tackled our current new games I will pick it up and we can have a go. I wonder if it’s playable with only two people. Hmmmmmmmm.

As far as video games go, I haven’t dug as much into my pile of shame as I thought I would. And I have so much to play. I’d like to go back to Diablo and see what the changes are, I never finished Portal 2 or Skyrim. And we won’t get started on the mountain of unfinished (or started!) console games sitting on my shelf looking for some attention. I think that I will probably get to these in time, but right now I’m trying to find my place without a raid schedule. And for whatever reason more video games just haven’t come to the top of that list.

Brade and I went and toured our local Y over the weekend. It’s a very nice facility, with several classes that I think I’d enjoy and programs that I could see myself becoming involved with. But (yes, there is always a but), I question our ability to get out of the house once we are home for the evening and actually participate. I know that it would be good for both of us, but it is also very nice just coming home, cooking dinner, and not having to rush to do something. I’m rather enjoying the freedom of not being “scheduled”. So it’s something I need to think about seriously. Although…if we join before Thursday we can waive the joining fee. Which is quite tempting.

In a change of pace, I am happy to report that I saw a new rheumatologist yesterday and…I liked her! The first thing is that she spent more than 10 minutes with me, and did more than look at my hands and say “well, that is odd”. She poked, prodded and asked lots of questions. She is having a plethora of blood work run, and has some ideas about what may be causing the problems I’ve been having with my hands for the past 18 months. And the biggest thing she was concerned about was the fact that my white blood cell count has been chronically high! Something that I have been worried about since I learned about it. I am hopeful that I have finally found a doctor that I can work with, and who I feel is genuinely interested in my health. And she is willing to work with me on solutions that are pregnancy friendly while we work on our attempt to create a small human. I am so excited about this development that I’m not entirely sure I can put my excitement into words!

As for WoW, well, I haven’t spent a lot of time online. We’ve been working through challenge modes (only three golds left!) and I’ve found them to be very fun. They provide an adequate challenge and require a measure of teamwork that is refreshing. And the group that I am running with right now is wonderful. We are running a two melee group, so have some unique challenges that sometimes require a creative solution, but it’s absolutely doable. In fact, we are having enough fun with them that Brade and I are going to do them a second time with some other friends. We are debating using a different set of characters – Brade’s DK and my Shaman – but have not decided yet. DKs seem crazy over powered for them, and my shaman would allow me to bring bloodlust so our hunter can be more flexible. We will have to see if we can get them ready in time, and if we feel comfortable enough to be successful. But it is nice to have another goal to work towards.

I have also been poking around with pet battles. Not as much as Brade, but here and there. I would like to do the Safari achievements soon, I think. So far my problem with being a “casual” player is that I don’t feel I have goals to work towards outside of challenge modes, and so I log in, putz around a bit, and then log out and go do something else. The challenge for me, I think, will be to create my own goals. Catch all the pets. Level that new character. Do those achievements I’ve been putting off. Finish my reps. Brawl. There is a lot left that I want to do, and I think can keep the game fun and fresh for me, I just need to make a list and start checking things off. Of course, I need to be motivated to log in and do them, which also seems to be a problem. I figure it’s nothing a little bit of time off won’t fix – but I could be wrong!

As far as druid information goes, I’ve haven’t been keeping up with it as much as I might have a year ago. I saw the mushroom fix, and I think it’s an awful solution. I simply don’t see how making you spend time to “charge” them, which requires you to know well in advance where your raid is going to be standing to make adequate use of them, solves any of the problems associated with the use of them. I actually think it creates even more problems with the ability and penalizes you even more if you have to adjust where they are placed. I am, however, glad to see the overall increase to our healing. It was needed. I just question if it will be enough.

As for how I’m holding up after all of the changes over the past month, I’m doing okay. I continue to strongly feel that the changes were positive and the right thing to do, and despite some harassment and particularly cruel things being said, I continue to have my Time in a Bottle with friends keeping me afloat and happy. I am at peace with our decision, and that is all I think I need to worry about.

And with that in mind, I’ll just leave this right here

So, in the interest of getting back to my roots (pun intended!), this post is going to be personal.

This past Monday Brade and I disbanded the raid team in Monolith. It was not without hurt feelings and controversy – and I will not be surprised if someone childishly (and most likely cowardly) posts hurtful things in the comments to this post (which I reserve the right to monitor and remove). But the truth is that it was long past time. Back at the end of Cataclysm Brade and I discussed at length, over the course of several months, shutting down the raid team. Ultimately, after much back and forth, we made the decision to continue for one more expansion. We thought Mists had promise – and many of the things that were weighing on our minds, and most personal conflicts, seemed resolved. So it was with enthusiasm that we pushed forward.

Unfortunately, once we got into the expansion it became clear that those resolutions were not permanent, and many of the things that made us question continuing on into the expansion resurfaced, and seemingly multiplied. It was disappointing, but because we are stubborn and committed we put our heads down and continued to push on. We don’t quit simply because things are hard – we have over eight years of success to back that statement up.

But then, on January 2nd, as I was driving into work, this happened:

I was driving my normal route, moving with the flow of traffic, when my car hit an ice patch on an elevated part of highway and I lost control of the vehicle. It did one of those scary spin around things before hitting a car entering from an entrance ramp and getting hit by the car that was travelling in the lane next to me. Fortunately for me I drive into work early in the morning, before rush hour traffic is in full force. And that the bus behind me had time to react and stop before plowing into me as well. And that I purchased a car with a very high safety rating, and a bajillion airbags.

I walked away with a minor concussion (a bump on my head about the size of an orange), pretty beat up (they took xrays of my knee to make sure it wasn’t broken) and extremely shaken. Driving to work today, with the weather in the same conditions as it was the day of the accident, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I drove like a grandma, and just about every other car on the highway passed me, but I made it to work in one piece and imagine I will be a little less scared next time.

Anyhow, the accident had a profound effect on my thoughts. It’s strange how one, very scary, thing can make you see things more clearly. Things I had been struggling with, were now crystal. The fact was that Monolith’s environment had morphed into something completely unrecognizable, and completely unenjoyable for a lot of people – including myself. I realized this was no longer the guild that Brade and I had decided to fight to hold onto, and we no longer wanted to see it continue to degrade. Attrition was high – for any number of reasons – mostly real life. And community was almost non-existent. After a blow out on Sunday night, Brade and I spent a lot of time discussing this, and after Brade fell asleep I stayed awake with my thoughts.

The truth is, life is simply too short to do things where the enjoyment doesn’t outweigh the stress, and to surround yourself with people who make you feel bad about yourself and miserable. My car accident was a trigger to make me finally acknowledge this. I realized that I want to write my history in more than pixels, and I want more than regrets on the pages. And letting Monolith’s community degrade to the point that it was a shadow of what we had worked so hard to create was a regret I didn’t want.

Upon announcing that we were disbanding the raid team, many cruel things were said to me. I was told I was selfish – despite the fact that I had given over eight years of my life putting everyone else’s happiness in front of my own. I was told I was mentally unstable and needed to seek professional help – despite the fact that this is the best decision for everyone involved, even though it probably doesn’t feel like it at the time. I was told that the guild deserved to die under my leadership – despite the fact that it didn’t die, we killed the raid team and all the toxic vitriol that came with trying to maintain it, but in the process saved the community and the guild.

And while I would be lying if I said these things didn’t bother me a little, I can honestly say that I’m not upset about them. I am 100% comfortable with the decision we made, and I know it was the right one. But for every nasty comment I received, I got two from those who understood and supported our decision – those who agreed with our assessment of the situation and valued the importance of community. And for the first time in months I logged in and enjoyed guild chat again. There was laughter and fun. People were in high spirits and joking around. It was almost like playing an entirely new game, and I was reminded why we valued certain things over others.

For those of you wondering if the current state of druids played into my decision – I would be lying if I said no. Was it a main factor? No. Was it a top 10 factor? Yes, but towards the bottom of the list. I truly feel that Blizzard needs to do a better job of balancing classes if equality is their goal. I continue to feel they should abandon the idea that 10s and 25s are equal, because they never will. Hating my class was certainly a factor in my decision, and certainly had an impact on my ability to enjoy the game. For right or wrong, I struggled with coming to terms with how poorly resto druids scaled in 25s, and got to the point that I almost didn’t even want to try because it didn’t matter. And, in all honesty, I don’t feel the “new” mushrooms, in their current iteration, are going to improve our situation any – but that is likely a topic for another time.

New Adventures

So many of you are probably thinking “what now, Beru”.

Well, I’m not really sure. Something I haven’t been hugely open about is that Brade and I have decided to start a family, and have started trying to conceive. Because I want to bifurcate my gaming blog with this effort, I did start a new blog, Wind Blown Tree Tops to chronicle my adventures. Right now, it’s simply a completely generic, blank blog as it has been since I created it in September. But I imagine in time I will have a lot of things to say there and will nitpick both the style and the content until I’m happy with it. You are all welcome to follow me through this adventure if you’d like, although I don’t know how exciting it will be

Will I keep blogging here and about druids? Well, I don’t know. I’d like to, but I also don’t know what I’ll have to say. I suspect only time will tell. Will I keep playing WoW? Brade and I have decided to play very casually at this time. We are finally getting around to challenge modes (which are immensely fun!). In time, we will probably do a 1 night a week ten man with friends to see what the new content is all about. I will continue to enjoy the addiction that is pet battling. But I don’t know if I will ever raid seriously again. I find that as time goes on I am less inclined to have my gaming environment constrict my time. I want to be able to take the aquasize class that meets two nights a week. I want to be able to come home from work and relax, game if I want or watch TV if I want. And I strongly suspect that as I continue to have less of an obligation to be online, the value of no longer having a raid schedule (and all the things that come with it – like dailys) will outweigh any desire to be competitive again.

And, I am content with that. For the first time in years I feel a freedom that I had forgotten about. Will I miss raiding? Yes, absolutely. And I will continue to cheer on and support those of you who are still pushing through it. I have many happy memories brought to me from raiding and I think it is a fantastic group effort that can teach valuable life lessons. I don’t have any regrets about the time I spent in WoW – it was well worth it and got me through some of the most difficult times of my life. It is my hope that I can still continue to enjoy it, just on my terms now.

And, well, if things go as planned, I have some big changes on the horizon