Hello, World.

The other day when some tidbits of healer information for WoD starting appearing, it dawned on me that I haven’t written a post here in almost five months. Wow. That is a pretty long period of radio silence! It almost feels like my first post all over again! Between not having a lot to say about druid healing, everyone being at the end of an expansion, and other things pre-occupying my mind I guess I just sort of fell into radio silence here. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say (believe me, I have thoughts on how I feel SoO is as a raid zone and how I feel about how the tier was structured and certain fights in the zone), I just didn’t have super strong feelings rushing me to post.

I have been planning a SoO retrospective, but we are still muddling our way through Garrosh so it’s a bit premature. I actually do have a lot of thoughts about some of the information we’ve received about WoD healing and the direction that it’s moving (mostly all good things!), I just haven’t given myself enough time to organize my thoughts on it enough to get a post drafted – and I wanted to see if we were going to get any additional information aside from what we’ve received already.

So, why I am posting if I don’t have much to say? Well, I figured after five months of not a whole lot it was time for an update on what’s been going on with me.

On Raiding

I’m still doing it. Still at two nights a week (and we are recruiting!). And we are finishing out Garrosh. I have to admit that it’s not been my favorite encounter, and it’s not particularly interesting to heal. It’s mostly periods of no damage followed by OH GOD SO MUCH DAMAGE that you pretty much just throw an army of raid cooldowns at and heal people enough so that they don’t die. Not really exciting. And I don’t really have much more to add at this time! Mostly I’m just ready to finish this tier and move onto our 6-plus months of farm content. Which, eventually, will turn into a one night raid week. Where after about month 3 of farm everyone will be bored. But that’s okay. I’m ready for a little down time and farm content.

On WoW

I am disappointed to say that, outside of raiding, I don’t feel WoW has a lot going for it right now. Normally at this point in an expansion I’d be blowing through alts like mad – but MoP has really killed my drive to progress alts. I have four characters at max level currently (at this point in Cata, I had roughly nine). The problem I have is that I find MoP leveling tedious. And once I get to max level there really isn’t a great progression path for those characters. Usually I get them ready for challenge modes, and I generally have fun with those, but once I’m done that character just collects dust. (A topic that is probably worthy of its own blog post).

I have little interest in running LFR/Flex ad nausem, especially on current content where I’m already raiding it weekly. I have even less interest in dailys and the hubs related to them. I find that pet collecting has become more about how much gold you can throw at rare pets than actually collecting them – which isn’t very fun. Leveling them just becomes tediously boring after your first 10 or so. Achievements have become so numerous that in addition to being tedious they are overwhelming. I will also admit that Blizzard lost me on achievements when I basically had to recomplete Lore Master.

In addition to all of that, there hasn’t been anything announced for WoD that has made me sit up in my chair and get really excited. That isn’t to say that it’s not going to happen, it’s just that all of the information that has been released so far has left me feeling pretty lukewarm about the expansion.

I don’t know. I am feeling very “GET OFF MY LAWN” right now. I don’t know if it’s me. Or the game. Or the end of the expansion blues. But nine out of ten times if I feel like gaming in my free time WoW is at the bottom of my list in terms of games.

On Other Games

I guess that seems like a good segue into this topic! If I’m not playing WoW, what am I playing? At this very moment, Diablo 3. But I won’t lie, it’s hard on my hands and I find that extended sessions aren’t really great for me. So I will play for a few hours, but I often need frequent breaks and have to be careful not to push for too long.

In addition to Diablo, I’ve been dabbling in Civ V, which has been interesting, fun and really addictive. It’s pretty amazing how much time passes by taking just “one more turn”. And before you know it you’ve been sitting at your computer for five hours and haven’t showered and missed lunch and…well, I think you get my point! One of the other things about Civ is that it’s pretty slow paced as far as the requirements on my hands. Which is nice, because it means that I can enjoy it pretty painlessly.

In addition, I’ve been enjoying some games on my 3DS. Zelda and Bravely Default to name a few. They’ve both taken a little bit of a back seat since the move, but now that we are settling in I’m hoping to get back to both of them!

I also have a really large queue of games in my Steam library (I may have a problem with Steam Sales. The first step is admitting it, right?!). Eventually I will get around to them. Probably even soon! Given the inevitable slow down in raiding as we head towards farm content.

On Becoming More Adult

I won’t say more grown up, because I don’t want to grow up! But one of the things that’s been keeping me very busy the past four or so months is that we bought a house. So after the shopping for a house. And then putting in offers on houses. And then having it accepted and needing to do all of the things associated with buying a house. And then packing. And moving. And OMG THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO! I’ve been busy. A good busy, but busy nonetheless. The good news there is that we are mostly settled in now…except for that one room where we put all of the boxes we didn’t know what to do with yet. But since nobody (including ourselves!) has to look at them, it’s almost like they are unpacked. Which means that we might finally have some extra free time again. A prospect that I’m looking forward to enjoying.

On What I’ve Been Writing About

One of the main reasons that I haven’t been writing nearly as much about WoW as I have in the past is because I’ve been really preoccupied with our infertility struggles. I’ve been chronicling that here somewhat regularly if you are interested in following along. But truth be told, it’s pretty much all consuming as far as my thoughts are concerned. And with my brain full, it’s really hard to have a lot of room or energy for other projects. Like writing about druids. Or complaining about how much alts suck this expansion.

And, honestly, I am literally running low on energy from all of the medicines I’m on and their respective side effects. Sometimes it’s all I can do to get home and cook dinner before I am ready to crawl up to bed and crash for the night. I often have to coerce myself to stay up just a couple more hours so that I haven’t thrown my entire sleep schedule off – and even then I’m going to bed much earlier than usual.

It’s been rough both physically and emotionally. And needless to say has impacted every aspect of my life.

So That’s About It!

I do hope to start writing here again with more frequency, but I make no promises! I hope things are going well for everyone and you are enjoying your gaming adventures, whatever they are 🙂