When I Grow Up...

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Don't know? That's ok, neither do I.

It feels like I've been thinking about what I want to do with my life for most of the time I've been on this earth. I'm still thinking about it. I thought maybe I'd work with the federal parks system, or the provincial parks system. I'd work outside, I'd love my job, make good money and generally be pretty happy.

After graduation, I searched for that dream job. (Spoilers: I didn't find it.) I took a job that was close to what I wanted, thanks to a friend's help. Now I'm stuck. After moving laterally in the company, I'm finding that there's no tangible way for me to move up. We have no HR department, so I can only voice my concerns to my supervisor. She's on my side, but getting anything done in my favour is hellishly slow. It's been 2 years since I asked for a proper raise, and it's 2 years and counting that I'm still waiting for it.

What do you do in a place where you can't learn? Where you can't better your skills? Where you don't feel like you're valued? I'm looking into taking courses on the side and maybe moving into a new industry. I'm tired of not learning anything new. I haven't used the skills I acquired in University since I started working here.

I'm close to my 30s, and this is the time of my life where I thought I'd have my shit together. But I don't, and that scares the hell out of me. Every job posting I've applied to has been met with silence, or rejection. The things I feel confident in doing are slowly slipping away from me.

So, what do I do? I could go back to school. I'm not in debt right now, but I really don't want to be in debt. But I want to learn. I could quit, find something temporary and just do something I'm familiar with (I worked retail for a long time). I could move somewhere new, try and make my way there. Unfortunately, my health limits the pie-in-the-sky dreams of just packing everything up and going, but a planned move wouldn't be too difficult.

I wish that I could bottle this feeling and give it to the fresh out of high school kid that thought she knew exactly where she'd end up. Tell her that maybe, she should give a wider variety of ideas a shot. To take the time to find out what she really, truly loves. That the things she's good at are all valid career paths!

School seemed like such a literal straight path, and I wish that I'd known that I could have taken my time to figure out what I wanted. Because I think I rushed through trying to just get that degree, and now, it just feels useless.

Losing Connection

This time of year is a strange time for me; I get little melancholic and a lot nostalgic. September seems to herald both beginnings and ends as the leaves change colour and the temperature cools; it's time for warm scarves and spicy cider. Classes begin and I miss the feeling of starting a new school year. Fall slips into the still-open windows while summer is ending, and the warm nights with long winding conversations outside go with it.

Every year around this time, I get the same feeling.

The itch to be around people, do something, go somewhere. Figure out what am I doing with my life. This year that feeling is particularly noticeable. The last few years I feel like I'm finally becoming myself. So much of my teen and adult life has been a cycle of "getting better" that I don't know what to do when I am well.

It's taken a long time to get where I am in terms of my health. Ten years ago I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. Between surgeries and trying all the different medications, I retreated into World of Warcraft. For a time, all I could do was play. It was too hard to go out, my friends were all further away than I was comfortable driving. Warcraft let me sit in my room and talk to my friends online when all I was capable of was sitting upright.

All of this history with Warcraft (meeting my boyfriend, and current friends) seems to culminate with this year. In February this year I stopped raiding mythic difficulty with Apotheosis in World of Warcraft. Seven years of raiding at the highest level I could until midnight, three nights a week and I'd finally had enough. Quitting entirely was not an option so I switched to raiding in a new, more casual, raid group. While I adore the people I play with now, I do miss my remaining friends in Apotheosis. And so, I'll log in to the Apotheosis forums to check on things or to be nosy (who doesn't?), but the other day I saw something that made my heart sink.

I logged into the Apotheosis website on a whim and found that the wife of one of the guys I've known for a very long time was hospitalized (she's now recovering out of hospital). Leaving that guild, and removing myself from logging in every day and chatting online with that group of people has directly separated me from what is happening in their lives now.

To give a little background, there was a core group of people that I've been playing Warcraft with for a long time. Over the years the group trickled down to a few people. These were people I shared a lot of moments in our lives with - graduating high school, getting into university, surgery, graduation from university, meeting my boyfriend, and more. Life happens! New jobs, moving, weddings, babies - lots of things that open the door for reevaluating how you spend your time.

Now I play WoW two nights a week and I'm thinking about dropping my subscription. I've met so many people through Warcraft that it feels a little blasphemous to even consider being done completely. The problem with WoW for me is that when I played it more, I had time. And it was at a time in my life where all my friends were close and everyone I knew online was a good friend. I'm not sure if I'm nostalgic for the game or that time of my life.

All things must come to an end though, and no game company has given me those feelings of missing my friends as much as BioWare has. Mass Effect and Dragon Age are two titles where the characters are so well written that when I'm done playing them, I have to go cry under a blanket for a few hours because I miss them so much. And then I usually load up the game and start again.

This year saw the final DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition released, Trespasser picks up where the main game ended. Your companions have all come back for one last hurrah while the powers that be decide what to do with your (now) very threatening military force. I learned that these characters, most of them friends to my inquisitor, went their separate ways during this two year hiatus.

Mirroring real life, Trespasser made me long for when I could just pop by a friends dorm room at school or see Dorian lounging in his armchair as I sped by to see Leliana. At the end of Trespasser, all your companions go back to their lives while your inquisitor (depending on how you ended the game) is alone.

The DLC starts off slow as you check on each companion one by one, catching up on the last two years. There are lovely reunions, new romances blossoming and even a wedding (if you romanced certain someones). But very quickly it starts to feel like you're careening towards the end, and there's nothing left to do but walk through that last mirror and no amount of saving will stop it and I knew it was coming so why am I so sad?

The characters I love in my games are there, they always will be - but their stories are done for now. Just like in high school or university, you meet people and say you'll keep in touch but you never do. That group of people with whom I used to roam the halls or enjoy an after raid chat at 2am are gone, scattered all over the country or lost to time.

Growing apart is natural, I just wish it didn't hurt.

Sara's First Cosplay: Annie Headband

I've recently gotten back into playing League of Legends, playing all sorts of champs. But of course, Annie is my favourite.  She's just so delightful and evil and I love stunning nerds so my ADC can stomp their faces.

I do love her outfits - all her skins are so cute and, in my opinion, surprisingly cosplay-able.  I do love her classic in-game skin, but I decided to make the headband as featured in her splash art:

Annie's official NA League of Legends splash art

Now, just to put this all into context.  I have never in my life "cosplayed" anything.  I have dressed up at Halloween, and for various rugby events (Togas were very popular).  I do think of myself as crafty but not particularly skilled at it.  So this is sort of a stab in the dark in terms of my skill at making something wearable.

I started with a trip to the craft store.  My first mistake.  I should have started with a plan! I should have looked up things about making ears on headbands.  Oh well, you know what they say - YOLO.

Here's what I picked up at Midocco Art Supplies and Dollarama:

2 sheets of magenta card stock
1 sheet of magenta felt
1 sheet of light pink felt
Fabric glue
1 sheet light pink foam (I didn't end up using this, it was my alternate to the inner ear felt)
1 roll of magenta ribbon
2 junky plastic headbands.

I also used Binder Clips.

I had this idea in my head, and I think it was correct, that felt wouldn't stand up on it's own and needed some card stock to keep it upright.

I started by freehand sketching (in pencil!) the shape of the ears in the above picture onto the card stock.

I cut one out, and used it as a stencil for the second one.  Don't worry about the pencil marks, these are going to be covered with felt.  I left a bit of extra card at the bottom so I would have something to stick onto the headband, like little feet.

I used these card stock ears to stencil ear shapes onto the felt.  I used a marker because I'm bad! Fabric chalk would have been best here, but alas I had none.  I rationalized this with "cut inside the marker!" yeah right.  Use chalk.

  

When I cut them out they still had the black marker edges on them - I tried to trim it off but it was a mess.

They ended up looking reasonable when I cut them out.  I started putting the ears together first, thinking I'd worry about attaching them later.  I made loads of mistakes.  The bottoms are straight across/flat.  Heads and headbands aren't flat.  Oops.






I used the larger magenta ear stencil and freehanded the smaller inner ear part to cut out of the light pink felt.

Again, I used black marker! What is wrong with me, I'll never know.  These parts I was mostly able to keep all pink and trim off the black after I'd cut them out.

So I had all my parts for the ears and started gluing them together using Aleene's Fabric Glue.  I loved this stuff, it did exactly what I wanted - glued porous fabric to other stuff.  It says wait 24 to dry but I found it was perfectly dry in about 8 hours.  Waiting for glue to dry sucks.

Once I had all the ear parts together, I started working on the headband part.

I couldn't find a magenta cloth-covered headband, which is what I pictured.  No, of course, I went to the dollar store so all they had was this gem to your left. So ugly and not easy to glue stuff to!  So I decided to cover it in magenta ribbon.  This turned out to be a good thought, and I looked up a tutorial on how to do that successfully and it was pretty easy.  Started with making the ends ribbon covered, and just wrapped from there.  Super easy.

With the headband done and the ears all ready to go, it came time to attach the ears.  I made lots of mistakes here.  I didn't measure once, ever.  Big mistake.  So of course, the ears are crooked and too close together.  Don't do what Sara does.

This part I did do correctly - making the little feet out of the paper inside the felt.  This made it SUPER easy to glue these ears onto the headband, even though they weren't curved.  They are also super sturdy and stuck on quite well.  

 I used a healthy amount of glue and then left them to dry with binder clips attached: 

So then I though to myself - I don't want the shiny ribbon on the outside of the headband, her headband isn't shiny at all! So I cut out a strip of the leftover felt, cut two slits in it to fit the ears in, to place over the headband.  The strip looks like I was drunk when I was cutting it out, so again, measure twice cut once, unlike me.

It actually worked out okay, other than the edges looking extremely rough. 

I left lots of extra so I could tuck and glue and trim it to make it at least look a little presentable.

Again, I used the fabric glue and the binder clips to make sure it dried in place.

The ears ended up not exactly how I wanted, but I think they are pretty okay for my first (blind) attempt at making a cosplay prop.  Notably, the ears are too tall and pointy. But they are fun to wear, they are sturdy, cute, and comfortable. Oh and I had fun making them, except for waiting for the glue to dry.

These, in total, cost me about $11 and I got everything I needed at 1 craft store and a dollar store.

Back to my Roots

In July 2012, I wrote this post about changing my role in raids. Looking back, I'm glad I made the decision I did.

I was a main tank for my guild all through Mists of Pandaria. It was fun, challenging and I accomplished a lot. I tanked challenge modes and got the gear to prove it. I made the calls for the Stone Guard in Mogu'Shan Vaults. I tanked Rik'kal. I kited the meteor into Heroic Garrosh. I loved tanking with my boyfriend and I'll never forget that experience.

A few weeks after killing Heroic Garrosh, I took a break from raiding entirely. Close to 600 attempts on a boss really takes a toll on your mental state. I was sick of my guild and I hated the game. Eventually I came back, got my scorpion mount on one of the last kills we ever did and kept playing.

I wish I could say I was still tanking for my guild, but a number of factors caused me to make another role change. *

First, I changed classes at the beginning of Warlords. I chose to level my paladin tank, and leave my druid behind. I was tired of not seeing my transmog, or toy effects and I wanted to try something new.

It went well. I tanked Highmaul and Mythic BRF with a warrior and another paladin tank. I don't feel as comfortable with my paladin. It's not easy to explain because druid tanking came naturally, while paladin tanking is work. Paladin tanking for me is constant vigilance. If I slip up, I die. If I use a cooldown at the wrong time, I take more damage than I should. If I'm tired? Forget it. I could tank on my druid with one hand. With my paladin, my hand is gripped so tight on my mouse that I have physical pain in my thumb after a night of progression.

It may sound like I don't enjoy paladin tanking - I do! But the style is very different from my druid and I don't think it suits me.

Second, there were things I started to notice after a while that started small but chipped away at me. My suggestions or observations were often ignored on voice chat but then repeated by another and considered. My statements were interpreted as questions. If I mentioned a mechanic, people would jump to explain it to me. The tanks were continually asked to pull faster, to move the raid along through easy pulls for a faster night. I tried, for a while. When I told the raid I was pulling trash, I was met with silence. When the other tanks announced it, people answered. So I stopped talking. If I had a suggestion, I asked others to relay it. I stopped trying to lead.

It's puzzling, and frustrating how someone else can slip into your role so easily. I felt like I had to claw and scrape my way in, to prove to myself and everyone else that I was good enough. I'm still terrified of screwing up somehow, and when I first started tanking it was like having a giant weight above me. I do think I'm a good tank, and I do think I'm capable but I'm tired of being talked over, or ignored. I'm tired of feeling small.

A miserable part of me thinks that maybe people just don't care to hear me on voice chat. Or that they tuned me out. Sure, sometimes I can be loud but in my role as a main tank, I need to be heard. Another part of me thinks that the loss of the other lady tank hurt more than I thought.

I started dreading logging on to tank and I hated feeling that way. I was constantly reminding myself that it's just a few hours and then the raid will be over. I volunteered to sit more often, or I asked to DPS - though, admittedly I'm not very good at it.

I feel like I let myself down and I hate it. I feel like I should keep tanking to prove a point, but I don't need to prove myself to anyone but me. I need to play the game for me, again.

To bring this all around, I stopped tanking for my mythic group as of February this year. Instead, I swapped back to my druid to heal. Before I did this, I was healing on my druid with another guild on off nights and it was easily the most fun I have had all expansion. Partly due to the atmosphere (more laid back, but still gets the job done) and the role I play. Healing (like druid tanking) is a natural thing for me. It's comfortable, it's easy and it's familiar. I follow the tanks and the raid and I keep them alive.

Things got very stressful and I was going into raids upset and continuing to be upset for the night. We lost people I care very much about to new guilds and real life. The atmosphere became hostile (as it does when content becomes stale and progression isn't happening fast). In addition to some poor communication about raid plans and goals that exacerbated my feelings, I decided that raiding for three hours until midnight EST for three nights a week was no longer for me. As of May 2015 I ceased all mythic raiding with Apotheosis.

This brings us to right now where I'm healing full-time for Business Time on Moonrunner doing heroic modes. Admittedly, I already miss mythic raiding but taking it easy on heroic isn't a bad thing for me. Now we're starting Hellfire Citadel and the first foray into the new content was an absolute blast. I'm really enjoying the encounters we've seen so far (I actually squealed out loud when Kromok pulls the weird creeping ooze from the different coloured pools).

I'm going to play Warcraft a little more casually and it feels weird to say. I don't think I've ever been casual about WoW until this year. I'm looking forward to maybe just fooling around and seeing the world again and playing on my own time.

* If you're interested, I was a guest on TankCast and spoke with other women regarding tanking in WoD! http://www.theincbear.com/podcastgen/?name=2015-06-27_tankcast20.mp3

Paragone to Hell in a Handbasket - Tanking Heroic Paragons

Congratulations on making it this far in Heroic Siege of Orgrimmar! While many of the fights have had more damage or different mechanics added, Heroic Paragons of the Klaxxi is on a whole new level. With the Klaxxi, any normal mode mechanics that didn't matter REALLY MATTER now. Those parasite casts you didn't notice? Hell, you better notice them now. Aim? Really hurts. Rapid Fire? Also bad. Korven? You better tank swap if you weren't before! The list goes on.

When my raid group was looking for tips on how to kill this boss, we couldn't find a lot of information. There was very little out there and of what we found, 1/4 of it was tank related. We ended up having to trial and error our way through much of the encounter (as tanks). It's my goal here to provide that missing link for future tanks who end up tanking this encounter. I'll provide links at the bottom to the various strats we attempted as we used more than one (and there is certainly more than one way to kill this boss). This post assumes you've already killed normal paragons, and if you're looking for a guide check out my previous post!

Let's get started!

Going Back to Cali: BlizzCon Edition

It's hard to believe it's already been two weeks since we were all gearing up for the excitement that is BlizzCon. I was wiling the hours away at work, checking the Meeting Stone forums and official site for something - anything! - to distract me from what I was doing. Now I'm grasping at straws for a way to get back to that feeling of shared happiness and belonging that I felt in Anaheim. I think that's the best thing about BlizzCon, it's unlike any other convention because everyone who came to this event is passionate about Blizzard games. You can have conversations with complete strangers about WoW/SC/Diablo and not get a confused look back. There were so many people to talk to and meet that when you come back there's this sort of... recovery time or recharge period, because suddenly you're at home not surrounded by thousands and thousands of people. Now that I've decompressed, I wanted to record my experiences and share them with all of you!

Our trip began on Wednesday. I took the day off so that I could pack and get things sorted out with the people who were going to babysit my kitties. I picked up my friend Sara (@SerrinneWoW) in the afternoon and she and I waited for my boyfriend Brian (@Chronis_) to be finished at work before we left. We drove out and picked up another guildmate, Andy (@Slout_ET) before we really started the drive to Buffalo. Let me tell you, if you need to get across the border quickly bring Chronis. I don't know if it's that Cape Bretoner charm or what but he didn't have his passport signed and we still got through the border in under two minutes.

It was so dark so we didn't see much of the scenery (although, it's Buffalo so we probably didn't miss much), but we got to our hotel safely and decided to get some dinner. We ate at this hot dog place called Ted's Hot Dogs because a) DONGERS and b) they have gluten free buns! They even changed gloves while handling my food so that was a welcome relief.

With our bellies full and the realization that we were so close, we all hit the hay and dreamed BlizzCon dreams.

To Live and Die in LA - Sara's First Blizzcon

To be honest, my brain is sort of a blur about what specifically happened at Blizzcon!  This post will mainly be about who I met (the most important and best part of the con) and then some game impressions.

Your Power Word: What?! bloggers ready to fly!

What is nice to know is that relationships in life aren't different on the game or twitter - those ARE our relationships.  I am going to try and restrain myself from going into detail about the anticipation, excitement, and happiness I felt meeting someone I've sort of fallen for over the last few months, but I will say that meeting everyone was really just awesome.  I certainly won't be able to list everyone here, I seriously met like 9847509 people (and I didn't even get a chance to see everyone I wanted to see.)

Meeting the guild was of course totally great.  Many of us have hung out before (Toronto, and visitors to Toronto) but meeting Sheepeater, Srs, Jack, Shawnelle, Sturm, Kristin, and the rest was great! We were pretty much just like we are in game - tease Sara mercilessly and party hard!  I actually felt really proud seeing us all in the shirts that Kal and Chronis made for us.  It was awesome to have a crew there to watch panels with and sit around with and joke with.  It was nice to be able to relax and not worry about guild stuff or officer stuff or raiding.

Our extremely good looking guild.

The sensation of normalcy was really vivid for me -I think I've talked to some people about how I really like day to day minutiae, routines, and the like.  There was a moment where I was in my hotel room with Sheepeater and Grumdy getting ready to go to a panel or something, and they were just sitting around talking about games and I was standing in front of the mirror putting on make up and chatting with them and it just felt so NORMAL, it really made me smile.

Me and Mr. Jack Lalanne

Meeting almost all of the <Something Wicked> attendees was also a highlight - I have spent a lot of time in game with these folks, in mumble, on twitter, etc. I talk to Esoth just about every day, and he has become one of my very best friends so meeting up (finally, it feels like!) was great - we were the dorks we always are.  He even brought me home brewed mead!

Meeting some EJ folks like Dysmorphia, my swole sister, seeing Hamlet and Perculia again (every moment away from them is hell, have I mentioned that? they are best kind) and other Twitter folks like Kerriodos and Theck, my bun brother, and Antigen and Rhidach and Tass was just so great - putting a face to the names, it was just wonderful to feel like totally not out of place, and nothing was different.  It was time to talk about bunnies and tanking and games and all manner of thing - just like it always is.  BUT getting to hug people like Arielle (and a few other Inc Bears) was obviously better than a retweet!  Freaking out when I spied Vidyala and Voss at the Hilton, squeeing at Jen and Baj at the CTR party (regret not yelling GET SHIT ON though), being too shy to say hi to Absallom and Ataxus (my achievement point idol!), comparing ink with Hestiah, it was all really really good.

@Warcraftjen!

Blizzcon was really a great social setting - I actually didn't feel overwhelmed by having to socialize and meet a million people, I LIKED it!  No one asked me about being sick or unemployed, they asked for a hug and put out a hand and exchanged drinks and wanted to talk about games.  I also feel like I had a nice balance between time spent socializing at large, with my guildies, with my boyfriend, at panels, and at parties.  Although I certainly paid for it - I have never been this tired in my life, I feel like I've been at a rugby tourney, not a gaming convention!

Arielle, myself, and Hamlet - I think this is my favourite picture!
Photo credit to @kristin

So speaking of GAMES, I'm also excited to post about my impressions of the gaming news and events at Blizzcon 2013.

What can I say about Warlords of Draenor?  All my toons are goats.  I'm excited about Black-Temple-Goat-Town.  I'm excited about Draenei NPCs and maybe even some storylines.  I'm excited that I'll maybe get to hang out with Korgath Bladefist and Ner'zhul.  The setting totally does it for me, even though I'm a total lore noob.  I did the Horde starting area and loved it - I can't wait for Beta so I can do a "Sara and her Beta friends" series like I did with MOP - I already met a Frostboar and oh man was he a qtpi.  Really looking forward to exploring vast zones and the new character models!  I would love if Serrinne could narrow her eyes snarkily even more than she does now.

The addition of tertiary stats (and removal of hit/exp/dodge) is interesting for sure - as a healer I never really had this issue so to me, this is just an entire mega bonus (although I suspect we will be seeing changes with Spirit soon.)  I have been dying for run speed in WoW ever since I started playing D3.  I am so thrilled this is being added to the game - I want to be the fastest goat in the west!  I  have always said that sprints/engineering boots/etc are always a raid saver and better than any few points of any other stat you can grab.  So basically this was my idea, right guys?  I am excited to figure out this new system, especially since I think it will make healing (more) exciting.

Thoughts on Mythic raiding?  I think it will shake out just fine - and that's my rational side talking.  I love raiding with as many specs as possible (which is why I raid 25 instead of 10 at the moment) so obviously that'll be sad losing some spots, but all in all I think it won't be bad.  Obviously so little info out at the moment about administration and logistics, so I'll just leave it at my initial impression.

The quality of life changes (like heirloom page!) and Garrisons will obviously be something I love when they go live (I was someone who liked dailies, so Garrison maintenance excites me.)  The "Trial of the Gladiator" arena change absolutely thrilled me - I will get to arena on alts! This is so incredible, and (yes, I know this is horrible) will allow me to play the flavour of the month comps for pvp.  This rocks!

As for the level 100 Priest talents, I think they probably won't go live as they are (at least the healy bits.)

Divine Clarity is akin to the original iteration of Spirit Shell, although I'd be hard pressed to see why I should take this and use it when I already have Power Word: Shield - I suppose we'll have to see how the cost comparisons shake out on live.  This talent seems super sexy for Holy priests - when was the last time you cast Greater Heal, seriously.  The shadow version of this seems odd since we're getting a Cleave stat - I would take this talent if I wasn't that into multidotting (and without snapshots, this might be a good choice.)

Power of the Void seems incredibly fun (to me, at least - I <3 void shift!) but it completely devalues your stat choices since it's based on health percentages.  In my head, I read that talent and thought COULD I STACK STAM AND VOID SHIFT ALL DAY ERR DAY?  Let's hope not - that is just silly.  Shadow version is another dot - unsure about how this would compete with DP as an orb spender, but nice to have an alternative I suppose.

Spiritual Guidance is a very interesting mechanic in terms of introducing a penalty as part of the spell - it is reminiscent of the mana cost increase per arcane blast for mages.  This will be a fun balancing act for figuring out how often you can cast this without crippling your other heals.  Only complaint is that, again, it totally devalues your stat choices since it's based on % max HP.  Shadow version seems awesome, especially since we can bank 5 orbs now (WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!)

And now onto something I may even be more excited for than the WoW expansion:

DIABLO 3 IS GOING TO BE AMAZING SOON!  And that's coming from someone who has played dilligently since release.  Loot 2.0 and the Crusader (both of which I experienced at Blizzcon) are going to be awesome.  Crusader is super shiny and looks great, with some awesome animations.  The new act is totally fantastic, especially if you liked A1 - similar atmosphere with + ghosties.  I also got to try Adventure Mode and I did the "endless" thing where you just kill monsters until you spawn a rift boss guy - exactly what I love about Diablo.  Farmy farm farm time!  I also got to watch Mike play it on PS4 for a bit, which looked absolutely beautiful at that resolution.  Pretty excited for him - he is salivating over that version already.

Overall Blizzcon was an absolutely perfect weeekend, I'm looking forward to many more in my future!

I'll end this off with some thank yous: Kal and Chronis, I wouldn't have been at Blizzcon without you.  Thanks for bearing with my travel woes - I'm not a good traveler!  Thanks to Perculia for all her hard work on the Wowhead Blizzcon coverage - without her I wouldn't have known what I had missed!  Thanks also to Hamlet for organizing a lovely dinner, and for some downtime chats.  And thanks of course to Mike for everything.

Para-gong Show - Tanking Paragons of the Klaxxi

Kalbeari the Prime has a nice ring to it... I think I'll keep it!

Now that Siege of Orgrimmar is finally completely open to the masses with the last LFR wing opening today, there are more folks coming up against the later bosses in the instance. After many boss fights that come down to simple tank swaps, Paragons of the Klaxxi - with its NINE mobs who each have different abilities - can intimidate the best of us. I'm here to help you break this fight down into a manageable order and to walk you through everything a tank will need to worry about.

At any given time, three Klaxxi will be active during the fight (until the end when no more can jump down). That's three mobs that need to be tanked and all three of them do something different. Some Klaxxi can't be tanked after you've tanked their partner while others require tank swaps or massive healer cooldowns.

The order in which the Klaxxi join the fight is static. At first, you will have Rik'kal, Skeer and Hisek. Next to spawn are; Ka'roz, Korven, Iyyokuk, Xaril, Kaz'tik and Kil'ruk.

The kill order Apotheosis uses is this; Rik'kal, Skeer, Hisek, Korven, Iyyokuk, Xaril, Kaz'tik, Kil'ruk and Ka'roz.

Please do keep in mind this is meant as a guide primarily for tanks. If you're looking for a basic how-to, Evrelia Gaming has an overall guide. If you want to know how to heal this fight (and an even more in-depth look at the fight), check out the excellent post by Healiocentric. It is also worth noting that each guide has a different kill order than the one my guild uses.

Looking back at Throne of Thunder

With the release of the new Siege of Orgrimmar trailer and an official release date for the patch, we're steadily moving towards new content. I thought that we'd take a look back at Throne of Thunder and talk about what we liked and didn't like about Heroic fights in the instance.

Everybody walk the dinosaur!

I asked two of my guildmates - Sara, our discipline priest and Slout, our elemental shaman - to help me weigh in on our general impressions of each boss. Look for tanking thoughts in this colour, healing thoughts in this colour and ranged DPS thoughts in this colour!

And the winner is...

Congratulations to... Hamlet! I'll be sending the code along to you shortly - look for it in your DMs on Twitter.

 Thank you to everyone who left a comment, I love hearing about what people are excited out with BlizzCon coming up. I hope to see some of you there, and if you aren't attending let me know what you're interested in the most and I'll try to take some pictures/tweet about it!

BlizzCon Excitement!

Image from BlizzCon 2013 website

Ah, BlizzCon.

This year, my boyfriend and I were determined to go - as soon as we found out what our tax returns would be. We (or I) nervously waited to hear back and Friday night before the second batch of tickets went out, we knew we would be able to make it.

Saturday, the excitement grew and grew on Twitter. We checked and double checked (and checked again) to make sure our information was correct, that we had a payment method ready and we downloaded Google Chrome for the faster reload time on the website - Thanks Rhidach!

The time counted down, we had all the pages open and ready. 3 minutes to 1pm I started refreshing the ticket page. There were a few times where it seemed like the website had to pick up its socks and handle the influx of hopeful gamers. Otherwise, the reload time was much faster than my go-to browser.

Suddenly, BOOM! The checkout box! In the wrong place! Argh! We clicked through and found ourselves at a respectable 1740 and 1860 - clearly Chronis is faster at clicking than I am, but I blame the checkout box being moved.

We breathed a sigh of relief, but watching the stock tick down so fast was disconcerting. We communicated with another couple to see if they we getting their tickets at the time too. Then, as we waited we debated picking up an extra ticket. We ended up grabbing three total (the other couple did as well) and now there's two more people from our guild who can make it. The excitement of the whole process was new for us but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish we could have grabbed more tickets for people but even one extra was stretching the limit.

Just a snippet of the excitement on Twitter

We haven't booked hotels or flights yet, but we're looking at the same place we stayed two years ago and this time we'll probably drive into Buffalo for way cheaper flights. Seriously, flight prices to California from Ontario are just ridiculous.

I'm really looking forward to meeting up with my guildmates, there's at least 10 of us going and last time we had a blast hanging out and drinking by the pool (bar) together. I'm looking forward to the opening ceremony, seeing all the cosplay, and sitting in on more panels. There's been some talk of ALL THE TANKS getting together so that will probably consist of all the awesome tanks I follow/read blogs of and then me in the corner being shellshocked.

I missed the costume contest last year, so I'm going to make it my mission to get there and see it this year. I'm looking forward to all the meetups and I'm planning on finding all the druids (and former druids) I can. I also want to meet as many people from Twitter as possible. There are people I want to meet that I've met via Twitter and I'm so glad so many of us can make it. Ceraphus put together this huge Twitter list of all the attendees that we know of https://twitter.com/Ceraphus/blizzcon2013 . Go check it out!

Topping off this post, I have a code for a Lil XT that was given to me (last August, for shame) by Opheron on Twitter. If you're going to BlizzCon, watching via the Virtual Ticket or waiting to hear what the news is, leave a comment here about what you're looking forward to this year at BlizzCon! If you don't want the pet, but still want to leave a comment that's ok! Just let me know in your comment. I'll announce the winner via my blog and on Twitter May 14th.

Are you waiting for news about Titan? Looking for new costumes to drool over? Anticipating WoW news? Excited to meet anyone in particular? Hoping to catch Ghostcrawler at breakfast? Hoping to hear about something I missed?

 Let me know and you'll have a chance to win a Lil XT - I hear he's a great battle pet to have!

** I won't be accepting any more entries after May 12th at 12:00pm. One entry per person, even if you comment multiple times. I'll choose the winner via a random draw. 

Tranquil, Undaunted and Still Alive!

Hi everyone!

Boy, it's been a while and a lot has happened since the last couple posts. When I wrote my Guardian gear guide, I had just found a job and started working in earnest. Now that my boyfriend and I have moved and settled in, I find I have a little extra time to write.

In game we've been fairly busy, I've been tanking as one of three main tanks for Apotheosis and we are now 7/16H! We snagged a heroic server first kill along the way, and are currently dancing with Qin-xi and Jan-xi until we beat them into the floor. (And we're recruiting, come check us out!)

I got my green dragon,

Other than raiding I've been mostly puttering around on alts, I leveled my priest to 90 and my new monk tank to 85. I still haven't done many dailies, or grinded up the rep for many factions. I'm sadly sitting around honoured or revered for most of them. I did make it a priority to finish up the Order of the Cloud Serpent, and got the rep for gear I would need to get into raids but I haven't pushed through for Golden Lotus, or the August Celestials.

I tried out Brawler's Guild and was horrifically embarrassed when I got pecked to death over and over by Dippy. I think I've been scarred for life. I don't want to go moonkin on my druid and many of the fights favour ranged over melee. I may need to get my priest some shadow gear and try that.

And I washed my yak.

The thing that's held my interest for some time has been Challenge Modes. I recently got my Challenge Conqueror: Silver on my druid and got to pick my pretty phoenix! The really awesome thing about Challenge Modes is that as a guild, we've been rotating groups and people through to try and get everyone at least Silvers so we can all get phoenixes. We had one group get Realm First Challenge Conqueror Gold, and that spurred a lot more people to get involved.

Pretty biiiird, pretty biiiird.

I've tanked every CM on my druid and healed some of them on my priest. It's my intent to heal all of them on Kaleri and I have a group interested in Golds so we're shooting for that. I've thought about tanking Gold CMs, but you really need a set group and swapping folks in and out (the way I got my silvers) isn't ideal.

I'd like to blog a little more about Challenge Modes in a future post, not guides but more what they were like and how I felt tanking as a druid and healing on my priest. Stay tuned!

Flying off into the sunset

One's Too Many, A Thousand's Not Enough - MOP Disc Priest Glyph Choices for PVP

Well, it looks like the "choices! choices! choices!" mind set in WoW development has manifested itself quite obviously when it comes to choosing glyphs for Disc Priest PvP in Mists of Pandaria. Where PvE Holy Priest glyphs are in a famine state, there are (arguably) around 17 choices for glyphs for PvP'ing as a Disc Priest.

In this post, I'm going to go over these choices and explain why having a glut of glyphs might not be so daunting after all.  After all, we're lucky to have so much choice, right?

So the way I look at it is that each of these glyphs are going to be extremely situational and choosing between them will require some planning, data, information, and guess work.  The main thing we're going to have to suss out is what comps are popular for Arena and Rated Battlegrounds - this forthcoming information (i.e. what you end up seeing when you queue up after September 25th) will allow us to set some parameters within which we can decide on which glyphs to use.

I actually dipped my toes into the two new Battlegrounds this week and got absolutely stomped all over.  Couldn't kill anything, couldn't stay alive - I think I'd forgotten that first week of expac PvP is all Glads vs. me in zero resilience.  I bet I looked tasty.  In any case, most of my glyph choices didn't matter because things were...a little crazy.

In any case, here are the glyphs that are looking viable for this season's Disc PvP:

Glyph of Desperation:  This is one of my top choices in any PvP situation, and it has proved to be invaluable, especially in 2s.  An obvious good choice - and after this week's BGs, where I felt like every class has a stun now, I would definitely make this one of my #1 glyphs.  This glyph remains unchanged from Cata.

Glyph of Dispel Magic:  As with the other dispel glyph, these usually are too understated to have any real impact.  I had 362k hp in epic PvP gear at level 90 on Beta - 4.9k isn't much of a dent.  Only pro is that offensive dispels don't have the same cooldown as defensive dispels now have, so it's ostensibly spammable.

Glyph of Fade:  Damage reduction is always good - this is high on my list now that mana burn is out, since instead of burns/cc's, I assume healers will be focused even more now.  In addition, if your arena/RBG team doesn't require you to take a tier 1 CC talent (because you have other CC'ers) then this would be great in conjunction with the tier 1 talent, Phantasm.

Glyph of Fear Ward: Same as in Cataclysm - while this may have been vaguely useable in the past, taking up a precious glyph slot may not be worth it.

Glyph of Holy Nova: I found Holy Nova pretty useful in Arena against Death Knights who were trying to catch me with a Dark Simulacrum!  But, like the Fear Ward glyph, I'd say this probably isn't great at this point.

Glyph of Inner Fire:  In season 11, I swapped from using Inner Will to Inner Fire because, among other reasons, I was having trouble surviving against melee and thought a little armour might help me - if this remains the case in Season 12, this might be a useful glyph but...probably not.

Glyph of Inner Focus: MUST HAVE.  I cannot stress this enough - please glyph Inner Focus.  This is the only problem I have with the new talent system - lots of awesome tidbits that were originally baked into priest talents have been removed, like this beauty.

Glyph of Inner Sanctum: Depending on which comps are popular, the spell damage reduction may prove useful - also this is dependent on you using inner will, so if you don't...don't glyph it.  With the new movement talents, the movement speed portion of this is arguably not required anymore.

Glyph of Leap of Faith: I have been frustrated in the past (mostly in RBGs) that I will LG someone and they won't move because they are under a movement impairing effect - this is, of course, my own fault but I was always of the opinion that Leap of Faith should just freaking move you regardless.  This glyph will give you that.  If you aren't running with a paladin, this one is probably a good idea - it's basically a 2 minute Hand of Freedom for priests!

Glyph of Levitate:  I think for this glyph to be worth of an entire slot, you'd have to be willing to spam Levitate - will probably end up being a waste of globals.  Also after some testing today, this glyph is self only.  Not worth it for that miniscule increase.

Glyph of Mass Dispel:  Obviously, an amazingly useful glyph - reduces base cast time of MD to 0.5 secs.  I have been stuck without this glyph in arena a few times (due to my own idiocy) and sorely missed it.

Glyph of Penance:  This is the celebrity-status new glyph for MOP for disc priests.  Penance while moving?! Yes please!  I think this may end up being a required glyph in arena at 90, although I didn't use it for the last two weeks of arena at 85.  Since Penance also causes Atonement healing when used offensively, this glyph basically triples its effectiveness.  I can't wait to play around with this one!

Glyph of Power Word: Shield:  Kind of a no-brainer - you're going to be shielding people anyways, best to have it give an instant heal as well.

Glyph of Prayer of Mending:  For me, this glyph (and it's Cata iteration) is a favourite - I rely heavily on PoM, and cast it on cooldown.  This glyph makes that very worthwhile.

Glyph of Purify:  Like glyph of dispel magic, I'd argue this 3% is too small to have any real effect.

Glyph of Reflective Shield:   Replaces a talent that no one took anyways.

Glyph of Renew:  Glyphing renew for Disc PvP is something I've always done because I rely on instant heals almost exclusively when Inner Focus is on cooldown.  At specific haste breakpoints, this will still be worth glyphing (see Derevka's Haste Breakpoint Chart and further discussion on the renew glyph at Tales of a Priest.)

I have omitted the Atonement buffing glyphs (Smite, Holy Fire, etc) although things may change as we get more gear with resilience.

And a final note: ABSOLUTELY NEVER USE THE MINOR GLYPH HOLY RESURRECTION IN PVP!  Might as well wear a "Kick Me" sign.

Good luck in the new PvP season!

Mists of Pandaria Pre-Raid Gear for Guardian Druids

As we're all getting ready for Mists, the question circles around "Who's making a gear list for <insert class>?" I decided to post my own pre-raid gear list by slot that I wrote up for personal use and maybe it'll help give some of you an idea of where you want to start!

Quick note: Most of the rep gear is listed first. This is because the ilevel of the available rep gear is 489, and therefore has more stats allocated to it. Heroic gear from dungeons comes in a close second. Don't stress out if you can't get all the rep gear right away; there are great heroic dungeon options!

Helm:
Red Smoke Bandana Hit and Mastery - meta and blue socket + 180 agility - Klaxxi
Windblast Helm Haste and Mastery - meta gem/red socket + 180 agility - Siege of Niuzao Temple
Soulburner Crown Hit and Crit - meta and yellow socket + 180 agility - Scholomance

Neck:
Delicate Necklace of the Golden Lotus Crit and Mastery (Quest Reward)
Choker of the Klaxxi'va Hit and Crit - Klaxxi
Engraved Amber Pendant Crit and Haste - Siege of Niuzao Temple
Scorched Scarlet Key Hit and Exp - Scarlet Halls

Shoulders:
Imperion Spaulders  Hit and Crit - yellow socket + 60 agility - Golden Lotus
Fizzy Spaulders Crit and Haste - red socket +60 haste - Stormstout Brewery
Doubtridden Shoulderguards Hit and Exp - red socket + 60 exp - Temple of the Jade Serpent

Chest:
Softfoot Silent Wrap Hit and Exp - Two sockets (Y/B) + 120 agility - Golden Lotus
Greyshadow Chestguard - Crit and Mastery - Two sockets (Y/Y) + 120 agility - Leatherworking
Korloff's Raiment Hit and Crit - yellow socket + 60 agility - Scarlet Monastery

Cloak:
Blackguard Cape Hit and Mastery - Shado-Pan
Windsoaked Drape Crit and Mastery - Temple of the Jade Serpent
Aerial Bombardment Cloak  Hit and Crit - Siege of Niuzao Temple

Bracers:
Quillpaw Family Bracers Hit and Crit - The August Celestials
Lightblade Bracer - Crit and Mastery - Scarlet Halls

Hands:
Fingers of the Lonliest Monk Exp and Haste - The August Celestials
Greyshadow Gloves - Crit and Mastery - red socket + 60 crit - Leatherworking 
Hound Trainer's Gloves Exp and Mastery - Scarlet Halls

Belt:
Klaxxi Lash of the Burrower Crit and Mastery - blue socket + 60 crit - Klaxxi
Icewraith Belt Crit and Mastery - Scholomance

Legs:
Dreadsworn Slayer Legs Crit and Mastery - red socket + 60 agility - Klaxxi
Wall-Breaker Legguards Exp and Mastery - red socket + 60 mastery - Gate of the Setting Sun

Feet:
Tukka Tuk's Hairy Boots Hit and Haste - The August Celestials
Dashing Strike Treads Crit and Mastery - yellow socket + 60 agility - Scarlet Monastery

Rings:
Seal of Ghoulish Glee Hit and Crit - World Event (Hallow's End)
Pulled Grenade Pin Crit and Mastery - Gate of the Setting Sun
Signet of Dancing Jade Crit and Exp - Temple of the Jade Serpent

Trinkets:
Lao-Chin's Liquid Courage Static stam + mastery on use - Shado-Pan
Relic of Niuzao Static stam + dodge on use - Darkmoon Ox Deck
Relic of Xuen Static agi + agi proc - Darkmoon Tiger Deck
Brawler's Statue Static dodge + dodge on use - World Event (Brewfest)
Heart of Fire Static mastery + dodge on use- Shado-Pan Monastery
Iron Protector Talisman Static stam + dodge proc - Mogu'shan Palace

Many viable trinkets here, so it depends on your playstyle! (Or the encounters you will be coming up against.)

Weapons:
Inscribed Tiger Staff Crit and Mastery - Inscription
Snowdrift's Bladed Staff Exp and Mastery - Shado-Pan Monastery
Firestorm Greatstaff Crit and Haste - Scarlet Monastery
Amber Spear of Klaxxi'vess Hit and Haste - Klaxxi
Spear of Xuen Crit and Mastery - Archaeology
Ghostheart Crit and Haste - Mogu'Shan Vaults

Mists of Pandaria Leather Reputation and Dungeon Gear

Mists of Pandaria is only a few days away and there's plenty of information out there. In the interest of having something easy to read, I've compiled a list by location of various reputations and dungeon bosses that have the gear that Guardian or Feral Druids may be interested in.

Reputation Gear

Klaxxi
Honoured:
Bracers: (crit/mastery) Cruel Mercy Bracers

Revered:
Neck: (hit/crit) Choker of the Klaxxi'va 
Belt: (crit/mastery - blue socket + 60 crit) Klaxxi Lash of the Burrower 
Legs: (crit/mastery - red socket + 60 agility) Dreadsworn Slayer Legs

Exalted:
2H Polearm: (hit/haste) Amber Spear of Klaxxi'vess


August Celestials
Honoured:
Cloak: (crit/haste) Bladesong Cloak

Revered:
Hands: (exp/mastery) Fingers of the Loneliest Monk
Bracers: (hit/crit) Quillpaw Family Bracers
Feet: (hit/haste) Tukka-Tuk's Hairy Boots 

Shado-Pan
Honoured:
Legs: (hit/mastery) Tough Mushanhide Leggings
Ring: (crit/haste) Mark of the Dancing Crane

Revered:
Trinket: (static stam/mastery on use) Lao-Chin's Liquid Courage
Cloak: (hit/mastery) Blackguard Cape 
Helm: (hit/mastery - meta and blue socket + 180 agility) Red Smoke Bandana

Golden Lotus
Honoured:
Gloves: (crit/mastery) Surehand Grips

Revered:
Shoulders: (hit/crit - yellow socket + 60 agility) Imperion Spaulders 
Chest: (hit/exp - yellow and blue sockets + 120 agility) Softfoot Silent Wrap
Ring: (hit/haste) Anji's Keepsake

While you're leveling (or afterwards if you plan to farm some dungeon gear) here's where to look for leather drops:

New Mists Dungeons - Normal ilvl 410 Heroic ilvl 463

Stormstout Brewery

Ook Ook
Chest: (crit/haste - heroic: blue gem slot + 60 agility) Nimbletoe Chestguard (Normal) (Heroic) 

Yan-Zhu the Uncasked:
Shoulders: (crit/haste - heroic: red socket + 60 haste) Fizzy Spaulders (Normal) (Heroic)

Hoptallus
Belt: (hit/exp) Belt of Brazen Inebriation (Heroic)

Gate of the Setting Sun

Saboteur Kip'Tilak
Bracers: (haste/exp) Saboteur's Stabilizing Bracers (Normal) (Heroic)
Ring: (crit/mastery) Pulled Grenade Pin (Heroic)

Raigonn
Legs: (exp/mastery - heroic: red gem slot +60 mastery) Wall-Breaker Legguards (Normal) (Heroic)

Shadow-Pan Monastery

Master Snowdrift
2H Staff: (exp/mastery) Snowdrift's Bladed Staff (Normal) (Heroic)
Trinket: (static mastery - dodge on use) Heart of Fire (Heroic)

Taran-Zhu
Ring: (hit/haste) Seal of Hateful Meditation (Heroic)

Siege of Niuzao Temple

Vizier Jin'back
Neck: (crit/haste) Engraved Amber Pendant (Heroic)

General Pa'valek
Cloak: (hit/crit) Aerial Bombardment Cloak (Heroic)

Wing Leader Ner'onok
Helm: (haste/mastery meta gem/red socket + 180 agility) Windblast Helm (Heroic)

Temple of the Jade Serpent

Wise Mari
Cloak: (crit/mastery) Wind-Soaked Drape (Heroic)

Lorewalker Stonestep
Trinket: (static agility + haste proc) Windswept Pages (Heroic)

Liu Flameheart
Ring: (crit/exp) Signet of Dancing Jade (Heroic)

Sha of Doubt
Shoulders: (hit/exp - heroic red socket + 60 exp) Doubtridden Shoulderguards (Normal) (Heroic)

Mogu'shan Palace

Gekkan
Trinket: (static stamina + dodge proc) Iron Protector Talisman (Normal) (Heroic)

Xin the Weaponmaster
2H Polearm: (crit/haste) Ghostheart (Normal) (Heroic)
Feet: (haste/exp - heroic yellow socket + 60 agi) Boots of Plummeting Death (Normal) (Heroic)


Scarlet Halls

Houndmaster Braun
Hands: (exp/mastery) Hound Trainer's Gloves (Heroic) 

Armsmaster Harlan
Bracers: (crit/mastery) Lightblade Bracer (Heroic)

Flameweaver Koegler 
Neck: (hit/exp) Scorched Scarlet Key (Heroic)

Scarlet Monastery

Brother Korloff
2H Staff: (crit/haste) Firestorm Greatstaff (Heroic)
Chest: (hit/crit - yellow socket + 60 agi) Korloff's Raiment (Heroic) 

High Inquisitor Whitemane
Trinket: (static hit + agility on use) Flashing Steel Talisman (Heroic)
Feet: (crit/mastery - yellow socket + 60 agility) Dashing Strike Treads (Heroic)

Scholomance

Instructor Chillheart
Belt: (crit/mastery) Icewraith Belt (Heroic)

Jandace Barov
Legs: (crit/haste - yellow socket + 60 haste) Ghostwoven Legguards (Heroic)

Lillian Voss
Hands: (hit/haste) Tombstone Gauntlets (Heroic)
Trinket: (static crit/agility proc) Searing Words (Heroic)

Zone: Helm: (hit/crit - meta and yellow socket + 180 agility) Soulburner Crown (Heroic)