Over the past week or so, I've been focusing my in-game energy on achievements. Loremaster, in particular, has been my goal, with a few straggling achievements I hadn't captured before on the way.

As someone who is a bit of a completionist, and also faintly bored with activities in Northrend at the moment, I rather adore achievements. In addition, one of my major goals before the release of Cataclysm was to finish off my Loremaster achievement, since I expect some of these quests will disappear, and this is a good way to make sure I get to see much of the lore and many of the zones before any incoming changes.

On the way, I'm finding new things I want to collect, in addition to experiencing content in a new way. I always hated old world dungeons, mostly because I always wound up lost. Now, however, having run Scholomance 18 bajillion times and Stratholme 16 million, I'm finally getting the hang of them. I even have a rough idea of how to get around Dire Maul. I'm getting lots of great blogging fodder, let me tell you.

For instance: Have you met Azuregos?

Now, I don't really mean to be a jerk, but when I spotted the member of the blue dragonflight wandering around Azshara (with his spirit form following closely behind), I thought to myself that he must be pretty bored and out of shape. And then I thought of the hateful Oculus and Malygos-Mc-Jerkface, both wretched relics of the blue dragonflight, and I decided right then and there that I was gonna pwn this noob.

Well. Let's just say that the noob was pwned, but the pwned noob was not a member of any dragonflight. Hmph.

After the walk of shame back to my corpse and my following resurrection, I noticed a strange debuff. Something along the lines of Mark of Frost. "Whatever," thought I, "I learned my lesson."

Apparently i didn't, though, because not long after returning to my body, I heard the sounds of another battle with Azuregos from a party of strangers. Wanting to lend my aid in any way possible, I ventured forth towards the dragon.... and immediately froze in place.

Hilarious consequences ensued.



Yeah. That's me in the middle. Frozen solid in the middle of the air.


He's not really very conversational once battle begins, for the record. (And before anyone asks, yes, this is my raiding UI - I was too lazy to set it up properly for non-raiding stuffs)



The party beating the crap out of Azuregos did not really find my situation all that sympathetic. In fact, they were kinda jerks. Oh, also, they thought I was male which really irritated me. Also, please note my waning health. Also, please ignore my annoying guildmate who keeps beating me to the awesome achievements.

The party of strangers defeated Azuregos after a few minutes, and seconds later my debuff faded, releasing me from my icy prison. As it turns out, the group was not in a party, as the individual who first struck the dragon taunted them by the fact that he got to take all the EPIC LOOTZ. I congratulated him on his many new level 60 epics, assuring him they would be very useful at level 80. The best part was when he starting jumping up and down in glee, insisting that Shadowmourne had dropped, apparently assuming that since no one else could see the loot, we would all be devastated and jealous of his treasure. I found that particularly hilarious, and after quickly dispatching a wandering elite giant nearby (so that I could feel better about myself), I left the remains to the dragon-killing strangers who were bickering about hunter loot.

When I joked about how fundamentally useless most of the loot was to a level 80, the warrior who had won all the loot asked angrily "Well then why the hell were you bothering to try and kill him, hunh?"

And this struck me as pretty sad. We talk a lot about loot, and gearscore, and I give lots of advice, and get just as excited as the next person when I great upgrade drops... but it's never really been about loot for me. Sometimes it's fun to collect things (I'm currently expanding my dwarf's wardrobe with fun old world sets), but if the only joy you get out of killing a dragon is from the treasure that remains after his death, you are entirely missing the point of why people spend so much time playing this game.

Oh, so I lied. It wasn't Upper Blackrock Spire that is included in today's Map 'O Misery. It's Lower Blackrock Spire. Psh. Which apparently I knew when I created this map several days ago, but forgot when I mentioned this in my post over the weekend.

What's fantastic about this map is that the base map I used actually included a handy dandy streamlined path that tells you the optimal way to travel through LBRS. As you can see, I completely ignored that. This map also includes a lovely new symbol for every place I fell down a pit and OUT OF THE INSTANCE. Grr. At least I didn't die. Basically, every place you could fall, I fell. Sometimes multiple times.

I think I spent an hour on one level running around aimlessly. At some point I found these spiders, and I killed some, and then thought that was it, and turned around and ran around some more. After finally getting frustrated enough to dig up a map through google, I realized I was supposed to continue past those damn spiders. So that's my tip for you folks working on your achievements: Go forth to the spiders, slaughter them, and then continue going past them dammit.


There you have it, isn't it lovely? I would love an addon that worked a bit like a GPS tracking waypoints and paths so that you could see exactly the path I took. I mean, I did my best to try and recreate the effect, but it would be even better if you saw the real thing, with little waypoints that marked everytime I fell down a pit or died.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night I went through Upper Blackrock Spire with my fiance, and I think I drove him nuts.

"You don't have to kill that... WHERE ARE YOU GOING? ... Where the hell ARE you?!!?!"
"IDK IN THE ROOM WITH THE THINGIES"
"...."
Jessabelle has earned the Achievement Leeeeeeeeeroy!
"Wheeeeeeeee!"
"Okay, Jessica, hold on a second, we have to channel this thing."
"Loots!"
"Wait until this guy is dead, so that... where did you go?"
"Hey honey can you come help me? There are all these guys up here, and they keep knocking me back and stuff."
"What are you... "
Jessabelle has died.
"ARE YOU IN THE OTHER ROOM???! Dammit, why are you dead?"
Boingo has died.
"..."
"At least I have chicken."

I do believe I've mentioned on numerous occasions that I am very fond of maps. Maps are like graphs or charts in the fact that they display very useful information, but they are also more "user-friendly". There's that old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, if you throw a bunch of data into a map, it says both a thousand words and a thousand numbers in one easy to understand package. Maps display information in a way that just makes a lot more sense. You can look at a chart of data and it might mean nothing to you until you put it on a map - the spatial environment being pictured gives you a lot of context.

For instance: Let's say I told you that I decided to go back and try to clean up some achievements I'm missing, such as the old world dungeons. And then let's say (hypothetically of course) that I told you "I got a little lost". I count only five words there. Let's see if a map really does give it a bit more context, and if it's really worth a 995 more, shall we?



In my line of work, we also always include a section in our research called "Exclusions & Limitations" (which for those of you not in Academia, that's the section where you add all the shit that makes everything you just did completely moot and pointless), so here I shall tell you that does not include the 20 minutes I spent lost trying to find the damn graveyard because I went AFK and something 40 levels below me meleed me to death.

Next time on Miss Medicina... I venture into Upper Blackrock Spire!! As a little spoiler, remember how I told you I have a problem falling off of ledges in Oculus? UBRS has giant holes...

I've had a couple of emails, and some very pointy pokes from my friends so here's the skinny:

No! I'm not done blogging!

Hiatus? Yes.

I am currently working for the US Census Bureau knocking on people's doors, invading their privacy, asking them annoying questions, and overall just trying to avoid getting shot. I work at random hours based on when people will be home. And I am le tired.

Unlike working in an office, I'm not actually in front of a computer most of the time. I am only playing WoW somewhere between 2-4 hours a week, and it takes a lot of kicking and screaming to get me to do even that! I am woefully behind in my blog reading (see below).

Even before the Census job began, I was suffering badly from WoW Burnout. I don't know if it's the pre-xpack doldrums, or just the raider burnout I was/am feeling, but I go through this on a fairly regular basis. This is just the first time I've had such a long burnout duration while being a blogger... so I suppose it's more obvious!

WoW is still a big part of my life (is that really sad? I don't know), and much like my relationships with anything and everything, it ebbs and flows depending on where my head is that week.

I've been quiet because I don't like making excuse posts. I don't like reading posts that promise someone will be back in a few days, or apologizing for being absent. I'll write when I feel like writing, and I'm not gonna write filler crap in the meantime! If I post something, it's because I feel like it's worth other people reading. Otherwise, you'd read something like "Home ownership is stupid. It's like raiding. Because in raiding, there's always someone stupid who is dying in a fire. Wallpaper should die in a fire. Yeah." etc. (For the record, wallpaper really should diaf, good God!)

So, in conclusion, YES I will be back, NO I have not quit. Oh also, no, sadly I'm not knocked up like any feisty blood elf warlocks you may know (you crazy kids)! I am currently keeping myself frazzled by the following:

• Knocking on strangers' doors, asking how many people live there, hoping they don't hate me
• Making a huge mess by attempting to paint bedrooms so we can sell this Godforsaken house
• Preparing to move about 50 miles south
• Working out a way to go back to uni to finish up my graduate degree and/or get a Real Job TM
  
• Trying to transform a Bachelor Pad House into something someone with any sense might actually consider buying (Sorry honey, but the storm trooper helmets and the alien heads will soon be in storage)
• Documenting all the house stuff "properly", because writing about remodeling a home is way more fun than actually doing the remodeling of a home.
  
• Avoiding my google reader like the plague, because it's really scary...

For shits and giggles, here's some random stuff for your viewing and linking pleasure.

• My guild is named the Lothar Swingers Club (and we've recently added a few to our roster, so we now actually have ten people!). I'm considering purchasing this residence for our clubhouse. Totally a Swinger's house, amirite?
• Druids don't approve of low cholesterol diets. Proof.
• Quit taking smoke breaks during the raid! Start Vaming!
• WoW situations that make map-lovers sad.
  

Yes, yes, Christmas was good. I spent most of it around the house with my fiance, enjoying being lazy and trying out a new game. I've been struggling to put together something reasonably coherent lately, and I have no idea why. I'm sure I'll be back on track in no time.

I finished my internship (hurrah!) and now I realize just how much time I spent at work doing blogging stuff. Because now that I have "free time" I'm spending a lot more of it actually playing the game instead of writing or reading about it.

I have focused most of my writing here on World of Warcraft, with a touch of D&D 4e here and there, but depending on how things go with the newest addition to my gaming aresenal, I may begin to include some information about healing in Aion. Expect a mini-review in the near future. That's not normally what I do here, but I'd like to believe I could provide a perspective on it that others might appreciate if you were interested at all in the game.

If you've been wanting to try Aion (like myself) but were waiting for NCSoft to make some kind of demo version available, well it's here, kinda. The North American release of Aion is about three months old now I think, and now they are offering a Refer a Friend program (finally!) which I've been waiting for since the game was released. I don't just buy games, I need to try them out first. I started on a Refer a Friend basis (provided by Fulguralis <3), style="font-weight: bold;">If you are interested in trying it out, but don't have any friends who play it, let me know, and I'll see if I can set something up for you.

That's enough Aion for the moment. I would like to share a story about more utter fail with you. I know how much you all truly enjoy hearing about my blatant stupidity at times, and I have a fresh epic story to share that simply cannot be ignored.

Sometime last week my fiance was telling me about his debate regarding buying the t9 stuff for his druid. I, assuming I was an expert on all these things of course, told him he could not get any t9 gear unless he ran ToC for the trophies.

"What are you talking about? There's a vendor right here that sells it all for badges."

"No there isn't - he requires you to have trophies too in order to buy them."

"Where are you buying your gear? The guy right outside ToC sells them for badges alone."

"....No he... No, see the... WHAT?!"

See how quickly a pair of Dwarven legs can get you to the Argent Tournament grounds? Observe as all my badges are rapidly swept away to buy two pieces of t9 gear, and gold spent gemming them up, enchanting mats devoured in new enchants.

The entire time I have been going to the vendors in Dalaran to purchase my Badge of Triumph gear, never registering that somewhere in the lands of Icecrown, a lonely vendor stood, awaiting my arrival and my purchases in order to feed his growing family. Instead, I bemoaned my three pieces of t8 gear, weeping over my inability to get a fourth piece to activate the awesomest 4 piece bonus ever for a Disc priest, wondering where on earth that lost rumor of t9 had gone. I had stopped doing random heroics because I didn't need the Triumph Badges anymore, and I didn't really understand why so many people were grinding them for so long, convincing myself that my gear was obviously just quite superior.

Thus, my e-peen epiphany that left me humbled, with a slightly flatter forehead from bashing it against the wall.

So, having given up on ever acquiring the elusive fourth piece of t8 (for now anyway), I am currently putting together the rest of my t9 set. Problem is, I hate grinding heroics. Other people hate grinding dailies, or crafts, or things like that, but for me it's heroics. They are usually incredibly boring to heal for me. I was into it for a little while as I learned the Disc routine, but now that I've pretty much got it down, no challenge remains for me unless it's in the new ICC dungeons.

Now for the third item on today's docket - my first RP character!

Meet FABULOSEAUX.

One of the best things about Aion is the amazing degree of customizability you get to use in designing your characters and even their gear. I imagine this will lead to a much stronger RP base in the Aion community. But you can't trump FABULOSEAUX, the true ladies' man. I mean, look at those kissable lips.


Yes, I see all the ladies in the audience attempting to still their trembling knees. Expect more FABULOSEAUX fabulosity in the coming weeks. He's a Priest as well, and is trying to earn the love of the elusive Snottydin, who he hears is a girl IRL, and can solo heal anything lol. He enjoys fine boxed wine and his own delicate limbs.

PS I know some of you are quite eloquent in French (I'm looking at you Ophelie!), I'd love to have some really stupid pickup lines in French. Don't tell Fabby I asked, by the way. This has nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

I wanted to get one of my fiance's toons through the ICC5 man questline, so several of us in our guild decided to run through the three ICC dungeons on heroic. Unfortunately, I'd already run the first two on heroic, so I was saved on my priest. You know what comes next.

I had no choice but to bring out the RETPALLYOFDOOM. Our resident shammy did the healing, and we pugged the fifth slot.

To the hunter who joined us, thank you for your patience. You must have thought we were awful. Of course, the four of us were chatting in guild chat and vent, but our pugged fifth had no idea we were all talking. At some point in the beginning of the run, I noticed the hunter was inspecting me, and I figured "oh here comes the schpeel." But she never said a thing.

And five minutes later, I looked at my own gear, and noticed I was wearing my holy set, not my ret set.

As per my typical Pally rotation (Judge -> Divine Storm -> Die) i spent a lot of time facedown on the floor. No, I did not get out of whirlwinds. Whenever there was bad stuff on the floor, I was most likely standing in it. Also, I was never attacking the right guy. Again, I just flailed my axe around wildly, thankful that Gordin is a Dwarf and therefore short, and hoping I hit something that was unfriendly. (Part of the reason why I'm so awful at melee is that I just can't make any sense of stuff that's happening right on top of me, i.e. in melee range - I need to be at a distance from it. That's my excuse anyway)

But the hunter never said a critical word. Her DPS was three times as high as mine, and I also kept forgetting to give her the proper Might buff, because I hadn't loaded PallyPower.

In fact, she even joined us in the next heroic, Pit of Saron. She wasn't especially talkative (but of course, neither were we in party chat, since we were talking in vent), but whenever she spoke, she was very friendly and polite.

The whole time I failed miserably, I wanted to shriek "No really! I'm not an awful player! I have a priest, and I swear she's really good! IM NOT A TOTAL FAILURE I SWEAR", but I resisted the urge.

We parted ways after the second instance so that I could jump on my priest, and we could do some other group changes, since GordinDwarfTank had to leave.

And as the hunter left the party, I thought to myself, "What a great pug." She likely had run through these heroics multiple times at a much higher speed, with much fewer deaths. She was possibly very frustrated with my failness. But she never said a critical word, and instead just went cheerfully about her business. Maybe somewhere right now she's writing a blog post about this truly awful ret pally she met in a pug the other day... and I wouldn't blame her.

So let me just take a moment to thank our Shammy who was healing, and hopefully laughing at my utter failure, and not cursing me. And also to you, anonymous pugged hunter. Thanks for your patience, and for not pointing out how much I suck. I will never forget your kindness - and I have no doubt you will earn your "The Patient" title!

You know how this blog was really supposed to focus on priests and pallies?

Well, see, the way that actually works is that I try to give helpful advice about priests, and present to you my stories of utter fail with my pally. And so, today I would like to showcase a tale of holy pally craptacular goodness.

It was VoA. Voa is a cake walk, I run it every week. Actually, that was part of the problem - because I run it every week on my priest via PuGs, I was saved, and after our little Sunday night 10 man group finished up Naxx, we thought we'd give VoA a try, since we had plenty of time left on Wintergrasp. So, in utter trepidation, I hopped onto my Paladin, with the intent to DPS.

We started with the easiest boss first, and Archavon went down without a hitch. Then we moved towards Emalon.

Our gear and experience on our alts wasn't enough to quite cut it on Emalon, and as I felt somewhat useless flailing about wildly with my giant mace and usually just facing the wrong way anyway (OH HAI WALL), I offered to switch over to heals so we would have three healers.

What followed was a successful takedown of Emalon, sure, but there was a lot of yelling going on in the basement of my home. The druid healer in the raid was my fiance. And he gave the healing assignment, which I did not like (helloooo? that's MY JOB mister. BACK OFF), because when he's leading he just barks out orders and takes control of everything (control freak!) so he put the disc priest, Abigora, on the add tank (aka Ful!), the druid on the MT, and me on the add tank with Abigora. He said he would handle raid heals as well. lolwut. Fine, fine. You look cute in black, so I'll shut up and let you have your way. As a side note, I wonder if there was as much yelling going on over at the Fuus' place as there was at ours? Hmm.

And then the real yelling began. "If you're going to have two MT healers on one tank honey then STOP PUTTING YOUR HOTS ON MY TARGET" to which he yelled that he wasn't paying attention to names, just health. Every time I saw a HoT, I yelled at him, and then he'd yell back insisting it wasn't him, and I remembered that Disc Priests DO have Renew. Whoops.

Not much later, he's yelling "Who the hell is healing the main tank with me? His health keeps jumping up!!!" me-> "LAWL PWNED BY BEACON OF LIGHT BITCH"

And so on, and so forth. No one expects a Beacon of Light heal. nomnomnom.

So yeah, yeah, that all sounds well and good, but then we get to fire dude. No, I don't remember his name. This time I glared angrily at my tree fiance and insisted I do the healing assignments. He rolled his eyes and agreed, so I told Abigora to focus on the MT and OT with me, and let the druid take care of the raid.

First, we didn't have much time, and my Treedude was having problems with Healbot, which he was sure could be fixed by running in and out of the instance... repeatedly. He glared at me when I suggested he simply type /reloadui, and then proceeded to run in and out even more.

Finally we get started, and proceeded to wipe three tmes. Each time was more fabulous than the last, let me assure you.

The thing is, if you've never played a holy pally before, you may have the following misconceptions:

1. That pallies don't run out of mana and
2. that they only have three spells.

So, so, so wrong.

Granted, maybe a pally that doesn't suck as badly as me doesn't run out of mana, but I am all badness. Also, I am awful at keeping track of my cooldowns. Sacredshieldwut? LOLJUDGE. I can't tell you how many times I would finally remember to judge, and then be like "Ooooo this is nice and speedy. I should really do that more often..." I probably cast Beacon of Light every 30 seconds, even though I also have the glyph. Oh and Sacred Shield every 2 minutes. Sigh.

My mana would get low and I'd just hit every magic proc buff button I have - Divine Favor, Divine Plea, Mana Pot, Avenging Wrath... you name it, I would just hit it. I have no idea what I'm doing here.

And let's not even get me started on hands. What? Hand of what? HOW CAN I POSSIBLY HAVE THAT MANY APPENDAGES?!?!?! Should I tie all these thingies to hotkeys or something? My current strategy is just to completely ignore that row of buttons and pretend they don't exist. Lalalala I can't seeeeeeeee you! Again, I have no idea what I'm doing here.

I mean, I probably could try to learn but... what would I post about then? FailPally is way more fun and entertaining, don't you think?





... Anyone?