and that's that

My paid playtime has expired, the time has come.

It's been fun, and it may be fun again at some time but, for now I am done playing World of Warcraft.

I don't really have anything else to say about it at this time, I'm not sad, not glad, just kinda apathetic about it.

New Druid legendary shirt

So, today Jinx released the Druid Legendary T-Shirt. It looks pretty sweet and I may buy one, even though I have pretty much given up on the game for a bit.

They also releases a pair of 'six slot wallets', one fr the Horde and one for...that other faction. I don't think I would go so far as to have a WoW themed wallet, but I'm sure somebody would.

Brewfest!

Jinx has a Brewfest T-Shirt on their site! Pretty nice logo and good idea behind it. Go pick one up if you are so inclined, their stuff is good quality.

You can use my referral too, if you want. It gets me some extra Jinx Gold. Hey, I'm not above a little self promotion.

break time

I got the achievement What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been and got my Barney colored 310% flyer...and haven't logged in to thte game since.

So, maybe this is the way it will be. I went ahead and canceled the auto-billing feature on my account and it will expire on the 6th of October. Unless I really start to miss it, which hasn't happened yet, I will be taking a break. I may come back to play Cataclysm or if the Winter boredom sets in.

It's time for a break. That's really all I have to post.

at the crossroads

...not the one in the Barrens.

I'm at a crossroads in the game. I just don't know what I want to do with my playtime. I have been playing a little undead priest to see what it's like to a) not be a Tauren b) play a clothie. I have not been playing on Vashj. I'm back in school and working 40+ hours a week at my real job, raising a family and trying to spend time with family and friends.

So, what that really means is I cannot dedicate myself to progression raiding or anything more than casual raiding really. I do enjoy running dungeons and heroic dungeons as well. The problem is Limited Warranty rarely has enough people on to do them without PUGging them and I really dislike PUGging unless I am really desperate. So, most days I just do a few dailies and run a few BGs or log on to the baby priest to have a little fun.

I have been talking with Greatjohn after he transferred to Bound on Staghelm and have explored the possibility of transferring over there to help be a support player for their progression raiding guild. Things like farming mats, running alts through dungeons and filling on raids that they are no longer doing on progression nights. I'm not sur ethis is what I want to do yet, but I have made some inquiries.

The other option is just quitting for a while and see if my interest gets renewed when Cataclysm comes around. I know I probably sound like a broken record and I have said much of this in the past, but it hasn't really gotten any better. Who the hell knows what I will do, I'm actually kinda confused and frustrated by my current play time.

thought on RP...

I don't think I could actually get into full RP play - or be on an RP realm that enforced any of the 'rules', but I guess I do RP in my own way. What I mean by that is this, each of my toons has a little bit of backstory that I keep in my head. I know that it causes them to behave in certain ways, that are different based on which one I am playing.

I have not gone into the deep details of each one, just a basic idea of there individual personalities. I have no real idea who they are descended from, of whether they have brothers or sisters, none of that type of thing. I mostly play Taurens and I kinda view them as more identifying with the tribe than with a specific mother/father unit. I usually associate them with the Stonehoof tribe, mostly just because not a lot is written about them and there is nothing terribly special about my toons backgrounds.

Okole - a Shaman, is very much like the weather. He is specced for Resto and Elemental. As Resto he is a healing presence, but it doesn't come naturally. I feel kinda chaotic when I'm healing with him. As Elemental, he tends to attack anything that is necessary to accomplish the goals that are put before him and sometimes that extends to the surronding mobs as well. He loves achievement and titles.

Bumwaller - a Druid, is aware of the nature around him. Currently specced for Feral tanking, previously has been Resto and Balance both. He tends to only kill what is necessary, nothing else. Swoops in with flight form does what needs to be done and get back out. Doesn't look for a fight, but doens't back down if one comes along. Only has one title - Guardian of Cenarius, and that pretty much sums it up.

Gugalana - a Death Knight, is my newest toon and still kinda bitter about his position in life. He knows he is not really in alignment with nature and has done some horrible things, which he now regrets. However, he is still pretty angry and takes it out on pretty much everything he sees. NPCs, mobs, snakes, squirrels, you name it. He had lots of animosity to deal with and is not doing a great job of it.

That's the basics - not super fleshed out, but the attitudes I take when I play those toons. How about the rest of you?

More Blizzcon stuff

By now I'm sure anyone who is reading this little blog has already seen all the major blog coverage of the new features and changes for World of Warcraft. I'm not going to even attempt to recap all of that, head to wow.com or mmo-champion to get all the juicy details.

What I have seen that I like:
- Shakeup in the 'old world' makes leveling interesting again
- Heroic Shadowfang Keep sounds like a blast
- Worgen as playable class, they have an interesting backstory and can be Druids
- Guild leveling sounds interesting
- Path of the Titans/Archeology sounds like an interesting mini-quest game
- Flying mounts in the 'old world'

Things I'm not so jazzed about:
- Goblins

Things I am still not sure about:
- Removing Attack Power, Spellpower, etc from gear and using 'base' stats
- Troll Druids
- Worgen and Goblin Death Knights

EDIT - Just heard that Troll and Worgen Druids get there own unique feral forms! I like that.

Lots of changes

Reposting this from WoWHead -

• MP5 = GONE! Replaced with spirit, which will now be mana regen only—and non healers will have ZERO need for it.
• Spell Power = GONE! Replaced with Intellect, which now grants mana AND spell power.
• Attack Power = GONE! Agility now gives 2 ap for rogues, hunters, shamans, and druids!
• Defense = GONE! Tanks now receive ALL their anti-crit from talents!
• Armor Penetration = GONE! Replaced with "Masteries" through the talent trees!
• Block Value = GONE! Blocks will now be a REAL mitigation stat, preventing a % of incoming damage!
• Soul Shards = GONE! Will be replaced with a functionality more like DK runes, where you can use a "Soul Burn" spell once per shard per battle—and Soul Burn will increase the effectiveness of your NEXT spell a la Amplify Curse. Fears might become Instant, Searing Pains might have free crits, Death Coils might have increased Horrify duration, etc.
• Hunter Mana = GONE! Will be replaced with "Focus", which is similar to rogue energy, but regens faster when you use Steady Shot.
• Hunter Ammo = GONE! Replaced with an item, not a consumable!

WOW!

I mean, damn, I like it being simplified - but good golly. That is a lot of changes.

Blizzcon Time

It's that time of year again - BLIZZCON! I am not going and I am not buying the live stream, I'm just going to be watching the popular websites and checking the tweets from various people I know who are there.

Will we get confirmation of all the Cataclysm rumors? Will we get an announcement of the new MMO they are working on? Playable versions of SC2 and Diablo3?

Soon we will know the answers to all these questions and more...stay tuned.

W T F ?

So - I just say this post...http://www.wow.com/2009/08/14/new-race-class-combinations-datamined/

uhhh - new race/class combinations are speculated

• Human Hunter
• Orc Mage
• Night Elf Mage
• Blood Elf Warrior
• Dwarf Shaman
• Undead Hunter
• Tauren Paladin
• Tauren Priest
• Gnome Priest
• Troll Druid

I'm not yet sure if I like the idea, but my first inclination is that I do. I have never been a huge lore junkie, and this represents the evolving World of Warcraft. Why wouldn't some of those races learn to be new classes? Maybe we have learned from each other in the Horde and Alliance. Maybe we shared techniques and skills with the other classes and learned to adapt our race to thsoe new skills.

Most of what is listed - if true - actually can kinda make sense, except maybe the Tauren Paladin. I just don't see the Tauren buying into the power of The Light.

Now, I tend to play the Tauren and it is the inspiration for the name of the blog, and I am intrigued by the idea of a Tauren Shadowpriest as an option. I have never played a 'clothie' and maybe that could be an excuse to do it. The idea of leveling another toon does not inspire me, however.

Blizzcon is coming next week and I expect we will see this either confirmed or denied at that time. Hmmm.

this is kinda fun

I'm really kind of enjoying this bear tanking phase I have been in. Tonight I was able to tank Heroic Violet Hold and Heroic Nexus. Not the most challenging of the heroic dungeons, I know. But they were my first two heroic tanking opportunities and I took them.

I really had a lot of fun, I avoided playing feral at all for a long time, but I'm having a blast with it right now. It is just the change of pace I needed to keep me interested in WoW right now.

First up, Violet Hold with 3 guildies. We never did get a 5th to run with us, so we just did it with 4. Pretty smooth run, we got the water boss and the the big eye of the beholder. Handled both with ease and moved on to Cyanigosa, everything was going great until...somehow I shifted out of bear form and couldn't seem to get back in. We wiped on the big dragon. So we regrouped and went again, I hate doing VH the second time. All the same effort and no reward for doing it. We took down Cyanigosa on the second try and I got Staff of Trickery.

So we were willing to keep going and we picked up a DK from another guild and ran through Heroic Nexus. We had a little problem with a fear wipe on the extra boss and wiped twice trying to do Chaos Theory. No loot for me, but it was the daily so I got a couple Emblems.

I had a blast - I'm liking tanking with my face.

Second Skin - MMO Documentary

cool things in patch 3.2

just some observations that I have of patch 3.2 in the limited time I have had to play

- Mongoose effect now shows up on Staff of Feral Furies, very cool combination
- I like being a gray bear/white cat, the new forms are great
- some of the gear in the new 5 man looks great, unfortunately I haven't been able to run it yet
- decreased mount time is very nice

That's it so far, hoping to get some play time in soon and check out the new instance and try my luck with the new gear.

The return of Bumwaller, with a new focus

I recently began playing Bumwaller, my Druid again.

When I resumed playing him again we had a decent percentage of healers, so I decided to try something I have never really done before...feral spec. Specifically, a tanking spec. I spent some fairly significant gold on crafting some gear and buying some BoE pieces that I found on the Auction House.

I found a decent post on pre-raid gearing over at Three Druid Noob that helped me determine what pieces to shoot for.

I also consulted the Big Bear Butt Blogger for help with specs and rotations, still waiting on part 2 of that one.

I gemmed everything up with some +24 stamina gems, then went to the Argent Tournament to get enough Champion Seals to buy a Staff of Feral Furies, and threw a Moongoose enchant on it, pretty high on the tanking lists that I have found. I still need to get some better rings and enchant the gear a little more. And, of course, run some more instances to get some better gear.

With my renewed interest in my Druid, I decided to get the Guardian of Cenarius title mostly because I think it looks awesome over the head of a Druid and also because I really had been neglecting the title gathering on this Druid.

I had done quite a bit of running the Coilfang instances back in the day, so it only took a couple of heroic runs to get Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition. I started out with the intention of soloing Underbog in bear form, which seemed to work just fine for me. The mobs had a hard time hitting me though, so it was hard to generate rage unless I pulled a pack of 3 or 4. I started pulling and playing with getting my fingers used to the new keybindings and was having a lot of fun. Shortly after, Ariki showed up and we decided to try out his new Arms build and we ended up duoing it instead of soloing, we followed up with heroic Slave Pens and then the next night did Underbog and part of Steam Vaults until I hit Exalted. Easy as pie.

Now, the daunting part - I was only Friendly with the Cenarion Circle. I never did much questing out in Silithus, Outland was too much of a draw and I just went to Hellfire as soon as I could. A few days of pretty boring grinding on the Twilight mobs and turning in Encrypted Twilight Texts and I had ripped through the reputation and had my title. I am a happy bear!

I am feeling pretty good about my gear right now and getting more comfortable with bear rotations, I think I am ready to try some Northrend heroics, maybe Utgarde Keep or Nexus. I have successfully tanked regular Culling of Stratholme and the guys were comfortable with my threat generation and we did fine.

So - that wall of text pretty much catches you up with what I have been doing lately. I'm still on the grind and switched things up a little to keep it interesting.

I have been neglecting the blog

I kinda suck - I have not been keeping up with the blogging on my toons, and I'm not terribly sure why. I have some ideas and some "excuses", but no solid reasons.

Keeping in the "in-game" vein, I just haven't been motivated to write about what is going on until now. The good thing about that is that I don't have a large group of dedicated readers, actually I'm not sure I have any. No matter, I mostly just write this blog for a few friends and to have an outlet for my thoughts.

There are a few things going on and I will write on them very soon, but mostly I have just been doing a boring grind of professions and dailies for the Argent Tournament to make some gold and keep have something to do.

I got another turtle!

Once again I was fishing up some Dragonfin Angelfish and I got another Sea Turtle. This time I got it on Bumwaller, the RNG luck seems to be with me lately.

Still no luck on the Proto Drake from the Oracles though, all I seem to get from them is Aged Yolk.

I got a turtle!

Yup - while fishing for some Dragonfin Angelfish, Okole managed to fish up the Sea Turtle. I love its idle animation, so funny.

are you freaking kidding me?

Nethaera over on the WoW official forums just posted this doozy:

We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

Just - holy - what the - are you joking?

I thought they said this would never happen...now I can turn my male Tauren druid into a female Night Elf druid? Seriously? I don't know how to even feel about this yet. Give me some time to reflex and I'll get back to ya.

strange

Just when I had made the previous post, I logged in for the heck of it and there were a bunch of my old friends. Go figure. Maybe I will try some of the dailies while I caht with them...I'm such a wishy washy person sometimes.

getting bored again

Maybe it's just the time of year - lots of stuff to do in the warmer months. Maybe it's the fact that a lot of my friends aren't really playing anymore. Either way, I'm bored with the game right now. I don't want to level, don't want to raid, don't want to do do the same dailies over and over.

The game is just not able to lure me in right now.

wow...

I'm sure most everyone has seen this already, what a boost to alt leveling!

• Regular land mounts trainable at level 20 (was 30) Cost: 4 gold
• Epic land mounts trainable at level 40 (was 60) Cost: 50 gold
• Regular flying mounts trainable at level 60 (was 70) Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Regular flying mounts speed increased to a 150% gain (was 60%) Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)

Mounts at 20? That will be great for getting around the Barrens and other large zones.

I am really looking forward to patch 3.2 now, working on my baby Shaman who just hit 40. Maybe this patch will let me fly in the early levels of Outland!

DING 80

I finally got off my ass and finished leveling my Druid to 80. Yeah me.

I feel a little like a traitor

Ya, I've still been playing - but I am playing on the side of the enemy. My playtime lately has been occupied by a Draenei Shaman on a PvE server. I'm leveling as enhancement this time and sitting at level 38, almost to dual wielding and wearing mail. I'm having fun learning the enhancement playstyle and going through the alliance quests, after leveling the Taurens for most of my WoW time, it's a welcome change.

I still miss the guys in Limited Warranty and hop over there every once in a while to do some dailies and chat with whoever is there, but I'm pretty much maxed out on what I can do unless I try to get into raiding again and I just can't invest that much time right now.

So...I'm still playing, but very casually and on the "other side".

Guess what....

I didn't quit playing after all. Nope, I am still a Warcraft addict and I'm okay with admitting it.

As it turns out, I actually still do enjoy playing and I missed it for the few days that I let my account lapse. So, no matter what anyone says to make me feel bad about it, I am still going to do what ever the heck I want to do.

A lot of my real life friends have quit playing, but for me it's still a good escape from the day to day boredom that always seems to set in. There are only a few shows on TV that I enjoy watching, and after that TV seems like a waste of my time...or an equal waste that WoW provides. There is the draw of neighbors and outside work, and I will still be doing that, WoW has never really interferred with that part of my life anyway.

I will be playing my mains, and I have started an Alliance toon as well, until I am ready to quit on my own terms.

The Good and the Bad

First - the Good. I got my flight form back on Bumwaller, makes herbing soo much easier.

Now - the Bad. Well, kinda Bad. A number of Limited Warranty members have moved along to more progression minded guilds. They did so with my blessing and on good terms. As I stated in the guild forums:

Unfortunatley, I think this might be when the warranty runs out for a number of players. Chances are good that my playtime is going to be dropping significantly over the next few months and I don't want you guys to be held back. In a few weeks I will be turning 40 years old, spring is coming and I have other commitments that are more important to me than the game right now. I appreciate the fact that you are discussing this on the guild forums and I have really enjoyed playing with you guys. It was a good run and we had a great guild full of awesome professional players. I encourage you to leave alts here and stay in touch with those who do not move on.

I really do wish them all the luck in the world, they are skilled players who take time to learn fights and get geared and ready to go. The guild they are moving to, ONSLAUGHT, has a lot of great people as well and I think it's going to be a good fit for them. I did some raids with them recently as an additional healer and it was a well run raid.

I guess I knew this was a possibility when I named the guild Limited Warranty, it was for me and my friends to have a place to chat and hang out in game. Now, many of the founding members of the guild are contemplating quitting the game.

As for me...the autobilling is turned off, April 29 is the expiration date. The problem now is, what do I do with my time after my projects are over? Any suggestions?

State of the Toons update

To help with my burnout and the massive time sink this game has become, I have tried to casually level my old main -Bumwaller, the Resto Druid, who is now specced as a Moonkin.

So far it has been pretty easy going and I have him up to 75 and I'm about halfway to 76. I can't wait to get the ability to fly again - I miss Flight Form herbalism. Being able to swoop in and pick what I need and get the hell out, without fighting anything if I don't want to, is awesome.

Okole - the Resto Shammy has been filling in as a raid healer in Naxx 25 and OS 25. I have gotten some nice gear upgrades and had fun running with ONSLAUGHT. They are a great bunch of guys and run the raids professionally. My problem is that I'm not sure I am cut out to be a raider, or at least a progression raider. Time will tell on this one - if I miss raiding, thne I will know.

Namenivob - the Hunter, just doing some randon DE work, no leveling at all.

Badhoof - the DK, just can't seem to get the hang of playing a DK. I may delete him and be done with it.

So that's it. I'm feeling kinda burned out still, but I like the game and I'm trying to find the balance that keeps me playing, but not feeling burned out. Can I find the balance?

Still undecided

I still don't know exactly what to do as far as my account goes. Over the past week I PUGged OS and Naxx 25 and had a lot of fun, even though the Naxx group couldn't get past Patchwerk and was kinda disorganized. The chaos was kinda nice and it passed the time well.

I have a feeling that I will continue the account but limit the playtime to times when everyone else is watching TV or projects are finished. I have a number of projects planned for the outside of the house and yard, so that should keep me busy for a while.

My future game direction is probably achievements, 5 man guild runs and PUGging raids when I am needed and have the time to commit. Right now I am leaning that way - but that is still subject to change.

What to do?

I recently found out that one of guildies is quitting in a few days and another quit a few days ago. I don't mean "quit the guild", I mean "quit playing WoW". This has lead me to ponder my Warcrafting future.

I like hanging out with the guys and chatting it up, the guild is having issues fielding 10 toons for Naxx raiding, and with 2 quitting that is not going to get better anytime soon. I have not had a lot of luck with recruiting and I don't want to give up the guild I have. As far as progression goes, we have hit a wall as a guild. Sure, we can all PuG the raids and still get some gear, but that is not a guild event. I am not really sure if I enjoy playing the game anymore or if I just enjoy the people. So I am making a step, still reversible, that will somehow alter my future in this game.

My current subscription is paid through April 29, and I have canceled the recurring billing renewal on the account. So, in effect, my account is currently canceled.

Not what I had hoped for

We did a guild run of Heroic Nexus - easy mode right? Not so much, we wiped on the Mage chick 3 times...3 freaking times. I hadn't wiped on her since we did it the first time. And then she didn't even drop the bracers that I keep running that place to get. I was just not on my game, and neither was the tank. We seemed to be fighting our instincts and thinking too much about what to do next. That is not the way I usually play, I am much more instinctive.

The good news, though, is our newest 80 Mage got a couple upgrades while we were in there, so it's not all bad.

Patch 3.1 PTR Notes

Moving one step closer, the PTR notes are up for 3.1

This is the patch that will bring us dual specs and make me a very happy Resto Shaman, with an Elemental leaning. Most of my gear should translate pretty well between both specs and I have been consulting lootrank.com to put together a shopping list of DPS-centric gear as I go along.

It looks like the cost for getting your dual spec will be 1,000G, which is about what I had figured. Not a trivial amount, but most 80s won't have a problem handing it over to gain a second spec. I'm wondering if we might be able to add slots later, like we do with our bank? I would envision that cost going up incrementally to obtain each additional slot.

Matthew Rossi at wowinsider.com wrote a great article on the propsed changes, which you can find here.

It looks like Shamans are getting some love, no major nerfs to the way I play. I am not a huge raider, so the Bloodlust change (5 min CD, 10 min Debuff) is not critical to me. Usually we only use it at the final few percentage of the boss fights to speed it up a bit. That may change and will affect hardcore raiders and 25 man progression guilds a lot more that it does for me.

All in all, I like what I am seeing for this patch so far.

My thoughts on recent raiding

A post I made to my guild website:

So...yeah...

After reflecting on the runs we had over the past week, I have come to the conclusion that we probably need to do some more work in heroics to farm gear and badges for gear.

If you would like to PUG the raids, you have my support. But, I'm not sure that we are totally ready to be raiding as a guild quite yet. A couple of weeks of heroics should make a HUGE difference for all of us.

Recruiting is also something that will need to be focused on and I have made a macro that I will be using when I'm around the major cities. I will post it if you want to see it and use it as a template. We have 8 solid players, and 3 or 4 that are possibles based on their schedules, so we really only need to recruit a few more. Another healer, or a respec from the guild, and DPS with CC are our main needs at this point.

What do you think?

I got positive feedback on this post and we have tried a few more heroics. I am always struggling with where a casual guild stops and a progression guild starts. And where do I wanna be, anyway? With a small guild am I being unrealistic with my expectations?

I really like the crew I am playing with and I want everyone to be happy with the content we are doing, and still maintain the balance we have had. I guess it comes down to the fact that I like the people better than the content.

I love my guildies

Our regular OT and I decided to run some Heroic Violet Hold to break up our boredom....bad idea. We got one of those PUGs. You know the one, where the guy barely breaking 1K DPS is harassing the tank and healer and telling us we aren't doing the instance right. He went so far to say that I should go back and do it on regular to learn the fights.

Now, I'm not "pro" or "elite" of any of that, but I am a solid healer. I don't like being called out like that by a Unholy DK only doing 1100DPS. I know he should be doing better, our DKs pump out high mid 2000s regularly.

That wasn't the point of the post, really. The point is this - I love running with my guild, there is no venom or belittling each other. I don't understand why people do it, but I'm glad my crew doesn't.

So for those Limited Warranty guys who might read this - Thank you for being so professional and awesome.

Over the fence we went

We made it over the fence!

Only 9 showed up for the Naxx run, but that is a significant portion of our small guild. Almost everyone was on time-ish, repaired, ready to go.

There was some confusion on where to start, so we tried the first spider boss - I forget the name. We took 3 shots at him with the 9 we had, only Mishandala and me healing. We only got him to around 50% and decided to move into the plague quarter.

Noth the Plaguebringer went down easily for us and Kariki and Mishandala were able to grab some nice upgrades. The night ended shortly after that, as 2 of our team had to study for midterms - eduation comes first.

Overall I was pleased with our performance and we downed a boss. I know some of you laugh and say Naxx is EZMode, but we are pretty casual and didn't raid a lot in BC either. I am proud of the crew that went and we will be downing more bosses in the near future.

Here goes nothing...

I have scheduled a guild run of Naxxramas for tonight. A lot of people have been asking about doing it and I am throwing my hat over the fence*.

I sent an invite using the in-game calendar, and the guild website, to all the level 80s in the guild. I'm hoping that everyone can show up, ready to go and we can get some raiding going. I will be very disappointed if it does not happen. I really think we have a great group of players and we can be successful - if everyone is dedicated. That might be where there is an issue.

Getting this organized has not gone as smoothly as I would like. I have gotten very few responses on raid night and time preferences. We are set for tanks and healers, but the DPS is where we are lacking. I hate to resort to PUGging it, but we may have to.

I have so many thought swirling in my head right now, and some of them will make it to this blog later tonight. Stay tuned.

* "Throwing my hat over the fence" - based on a story I heard once, don't remember where. A guy was trying to decide whether to climb over the fence (for some reason or another) and was having a hard time deciding what to do. So, on impulse he tossed his hat over the fence. Now he is left with two choices - go get it or forget about the hat. It's an expression of forcing yourself into a decision.

I'm an Elder

Another of the "holiday" achievements has been accomplished successfully. This one wasn't terribly hard, but it was time consuming to track down all 75 of the elders. I like the "Elder" title, I think it fits my character pretty well and I will probably be wearing it most of the time.

It was pretty easy to get into the Alliance cities to visit the elders and I only died on the way out of Stormwind when I accidentally ran into the auction house. So it goes.

The dungeons were easy enough and it allowed us to get some additional heroic runs in, to get some extra rep.

Next up is the "Love is in the Air" event, looks like there might be a few tricky steps in there and a lot more PvP to get the next title.

We can be heroes

So, Limited Warranty has begun doing our heroic runs recently and so far have plowed through Nexus, Utgarde Keep and Culling of Stratholme, and have made it part way through Violet Hold.

Things I learned:

• The resto build I am using is much better for healing heroics but not as good for the questing and dailies, still manageable, it just takes longer.
• UK and Nexus are actually not too bad on heroic, we went through both with very few wipes. We adapted to the fights very quickly and got some loot upgrades.
• The Violet Hold VoidWalker boss SUCKS! We were not able to get past him and gave up. We need to research that one a bit more. We did down the boss with the spheres successfully.
• Meathook kinda sucks, he is by far the hardest boss we fought in Culling of Stratholme. His Constricting Chains attack always seemed to hit me, the healer, and kill me first. We finally got a good strategy on him after multiple wipes and I think we should be okay next time we try it.
• Prince Arthas in Culling of Stratholme would be booted from any PuG I was running. He doesn't follow kill orders, runs ahead of the party, aggros damn near everything, and is a whiny little bitch when he pulls the whole room and goes down. Seriously though, his AI kinda torgues me and those gauntlet pulls can get dicey when he aggroes the group past the one you are working on.
• Last, but certainly not least - I love my guild and the people in it. We work pretty good together and, even in frustration, work to get a solution and get our strategy worked out. Great job guys!