/played

My /played between all my toons has indicated that I have been playing WoW for the equivalent of 24-7 for nearly 3/4 of a year.

If I hit one whole year of my life, should I stop?

This has been over the course of nearly 5 years.  I started playing on like Dec 26th of 2006, just before the release of Burning Crusade.  OMG, Troutwort turns 5 this year!  Anyways, I guess after the math, it’s roughly about 16% of all my time during the last 5ish years.  24% of all my time during that same period was spent at work.  Okay, wait.  That still only accounts for 40% of my time?  WTF am I doing the other 60%??  Well I’m guessing about another 20% I am sleeping.  So that’s up to 60%.  And the rest is all the other crap. 

16% though.  Seems like a lot.  About 4 hours a day.  I think I need more hobbies.

We’ve Got Spirit!

Despite taking the afternoon off yesterday, I didn’t do much WoW until later at night.  And I hopped on to check my Oracle Egg and then hopped over to Schubert to do some more questing and a dungeon.  He’s less than 20% left to 85 and finishing up his Deepholm quests.

I get in a dungeon and it’s Vortex Pinnacle.  I think, awesome, easy, quick, good times.  The group is pally tank and holy priest and then hunter, mage, and DK for DPS.  Which I actually thought was a really good combo, spells, ranged physical, melee.  Awesome.  We do the first pull and the hunter is AFK.  It seems to take forever to kill these things.  And someone says “Ghost, are you here?”  Yes he responds, I assume it’s the hunter, but as it turns out, it’s the DK.  I don’t really think anything of it until the next pull, the DK is doing 1.2k DPS.  Yes, you saw that correctly. 

Someone asks what spec he is while I quickly inspect his gear.  I mouse over the relic first and there I see it…Incription relic, with intellect.  I quickly glance at the rest of his gear: plate with intellect, plate with spirit…uh oh.  Oh, he’s also spec’d Blood also. 

Now, most groups probably would have just booted this noob and that would have been the end of it.  Someone asked how long he’s been playing, he replies “Since January, so I’m sorta new.”  SINCE JANUARY.  Now the guy is really nice, polite, isn’t cocky and when we ask to make some suggestions he’s more than willing.  Amazingly he’s already dual-specc’d so we tell him it’s better to do Unholy for DPS, he switches and immediately goes up to 4.8k DPS.  Much better.  But still could have been better yet with gear that was more appropriate. 

So I felt really bad for him, and the group was really nice to him.  I felt bad because obviously he was just going off whatever he could, he didn’t know what was best for him and why, maybe no one explained to him, maybe because he could keep surviving and leveling it never was an issue.  Maybe no one in his guild ever helped him.  So the group was great, we all offered some suggestions on what to look for, a DPS strength neck piece dropped from one of the bosses, we told him to take it and put it on replacing his intellect/spirit gear.  He was grateful and I was really proud of this PUG.  Here we were, 5 people, all different servers, none of us knew each other, and regardless that we had someone who knew little about their class, we all offered to help instead of criticizing. 

I wondered how it was for this guy.  Was he kicked out of his LFG groups by elitist jerks?  Did people say mean things to him all the time, laughing at him for being such a noob?  We might have been the best PUG he ever had because instead of making fun of his bad, we helped him.  It felt good.  The whole group felt good, because regardless of how anyone was performing, we really helped this guy out AND we still got the dungeon accomplished without deaths and some smart CC.  And noob DK really seemed to appreciate it too rather than being resistant or ignorant. 

So that’s my warm and fuzzy story for the day.  It was one of those reminders that there are still good people out there, even when faced with complete anonymity.

Broken Pt. 2

First off, thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement on healing from my previous post. 

I think I figured out a big chunk of why this is shaking me up so much.  I’ve always thought I was okay at DPS and tanking, I could get the job done, I wouldn’t top meters in a 10 man, but would usually do pretty well or in a 5-man I could hit pretty good DPS.  Tanking usually went well, making sure there weren’t lose mobs, moving appropriately, etc.  The reason Cataclysm healing has upset me so much is that if there was one thing I always felt good at in the game it was healing.

If I had to think of all the best moments in the game, the moments where I felt like my playing really made the difference, or just those awesome clutch moments where I pulled through, they all happened on my priest, while healing.  Those were the moments I loved, the reason I loved healing, I liked all those times where things went slightly bad but I pulled through.  But now I feel scared and completely incapable of making it through a normal dungeon in Cataclysm.  The one character I really felt solid on now feels completely awful and insecure.  All confidence in my healing abilities has been shaken.

I think this is why I’m taking this first Cataclysm dungeon so hard.  The one thing I felt good at in the game is now the thing I feel worst at.  I know that eventually I’ll give it another try again.  But for now, Elgar leaves me feeling a bit…lost.

Again, thanks for all the kind words of encouragement.  I’ll get back on the bike and try to learn to ride again, but for me, this was a pretty hard fall, so I’m going to need some time to lick my wounds.

Broken

Last night I did something for the first time since the release of Cataclysm.  I healed a dungeon.  No not a heroic, Elgar doesn’t even qualify yet.  But he does qualify for all the normal dungeons, so I tossed myself in queue and thought, what the heck.  I asked in guild if anyone wanted to come to a normal, but no dice.  So I went it alone.

I got a great group, they were a guild group, 4 people, and I explained that I haven’t healed any instances in Cataclysm yet and please let me know if there is anything I should do or anything I need to know about the fights.  They went slow, were very patient with me, used CC.  All good things.  But…

It was horrible.

I was going near OOM on most trash pulls (oh this was Halls of Origination) but I had read this was sorta typical for most healers, so I wasn’t too concerned.  We get to the first boss.  Chaos.  People are out of range, I can’t find them even, I am panicking to keep everyone alive, my heals seem so trivial to their 105 to 145k health pools.  I’m trying to work in smite to keep my heals larger and get back mana, but there isn’t time.  I’m using Inner Focus every 45 seconds…it’s just chaos.  The tank dies.  I keep mashing buttons and somehow between the two hunters pets we tank and kill him. 

I am less than encouraged at this time.  I didn’t even let a tank die the first time I did ToC 5-man on heroic.  Clearly things have changed.  I try to remember this, but I feel literally sick to my stomach as I’m rezzing the tank.  I want to cry and barf.  I make some comments into guild chat and soon people are telling me that disc priests are broken, it’s not just bubble people anymore.  And I do realize this already, and I think I’m doing the right things, but all my heals cost so much mana and heal for SO little.  But basically it’s a resounding, disc is broken or you need high gear to play it.  Great.

We continue on, it’s horrible.  By the end of the instance (we killed everything – there are optional bosses??) my recount is showing that there have been 20 deaths, 6 of which are the tank.  I was literally barfy.  I wanted to delete Elgar (don’t worry, I didn’t, I won’t really do it).  Someone suggests that I try holy, but unfortunately disc wasn’t the only think broken last night.  My spirit and confidence in healing was also broken.  I literally sat there stunned in my chair, ready to barf, and possibly my hands physically shaking.

Is this what healing has become?  Or is it just that disc really is that broken?  Either way, I couldn’t believe it.  Something I used to love so much has now become something that I never want to do again.  And I sat there thinking that Elgar’s endgame experience is going to be transmuting, fishing up Mr. Pinchy, farming up herbs, and digging up artifacts.  Hardly what I expected. 

I logged over to Rossini to DE a staff Elgar won.  I like Rossini, but he’s not Elgar.  No one is Elgar.  I logged out and looked at the loading screen.  I know Elgar still has some gear improvements, but this was a normal dungeon.  Normal.  And it was so horrible.  I looked at him.  How is it that my favorite character has now become a placeholder on the log-in screen?  I truly am broken. 

I guess the one positive thing about the night is this:  I know what NOT to dual spec the shaman, paladin, and druid as…heals.

December?!?

Today is December.

I couple weeks ago I posted about things I wanted to do before Cataclysm.  I have failed.  Okay, I’m not even sure what is on the list because now I feel like I have a new list.  Basically there are some things I need to do, and some things I want to do.  I need to get all my characters to places where they are ready to do whatever it is they are going to be doing at the start of Cataclysm.  Mostly, this means getting them to Capitol cities to make sure I can train professions.  This isn’t such a big deal, but I think I still have too many left in Dalaran.  He he.

I feel like it’s all happened so fast, like once they announced the actual release date “December 7th” it was off to the races and there was just TOO much to do.  And now here I am, just a few days before the Cataclysm, and I’m not ready.  I’m trying to gain some sort of focus or clarity on what to do.  Do I finish up some Northrend reputations or questing on characters that are Revered…part of me says, you can do it later…another part says, but you can still get heroic groups now.  The same holds true for the alts not yet 80, I could just level them later, but once Cataclysm comes out, will they just be shelved while I push to 85 and then really delay seeing all the new and AWESOME zones that are currently there?

With past expansions, I haven’t felt so…disoriented.  I didn’t have to level alts or literally have a whole new world to see before the expansion.  I only had to focus on getting my new characters leveled.  In fact, I remember taking advantage of the mad rush to Northrend and staying behind and mining Thorium on my mage while everyone raced to 80.  I made a ton of cash since the Thorium market bottomed out due to everyone being in Northrend and people were trying to power-level professions on their new Death Knights. 

I also am feeling the pressure to level to 85 this time as well.  Since I am now a “regular raider” it’s a little weird for me to feel obligated to level up.  Ha!  I’ve never had this experience before and I’m feeling quite nervous about it as I know my tendency to not rush and instead try to enjoy it all.  I mean, I’m the kinda guy who wanted to do as much of Silithus as I could before Outland because I wanted to have a clean quest log. 

December.

Crap.  So much to do…I think I just need to remind myself I have all the time in the world and I will eventually get it all done.  Relax Trout, relax.  Plenty of time. 

ARRRRRAARRRRGGGHHHH!

Okay, I feel better now.