Prior to this run, I went heroic Magister’s Terrace with some random people: warrior tank, pew pew retri pala, warlock and a rogue. Did I have to franatically HOT people up during the Selin Fireheart and Vexallus encounters? Not at all. Seline Fireheart was especially more of a breeze. Vexallus still required non-stop casting of HOTs left and right, but Wild Growth certainly made it easier on the GCD.

At one point we somehow managed to pull two groups of mobs almost simultaneously. I’ve no idea how it happened. In fact, I didn’t realise we had pulled another group. We probably had eight mobs running about, and surprisingly, I didn’t get aggro once from any of them, despite healing like crazy. I simply love going into one of the harder heroic instances, with random people, and be able to survive a pull like that.

We managed to get Delrissa and her friends down on the third try. To be honest, I expected more attempts for us to succeed. We had the rogue Sap one of the adds, had the warlock Banish the little imp and the others were running loose. Using Fear was out of the question, as CoR no longer prevents fear effects: no more fear-juggling — something I will miss being able to do on my warlock.

I don’t usually check my healing meter, unless after a raid, but after this run I simply had to. As it turned out, I did a bit above one million healing during this run with about 10% overheal (mainly from LB).

We like the mechanic of having to harvest a special reagent for some spells. We don’t even think the spells are a big problem, with the possible exception of summoning a lot of people (and we are working on an idea for that last part).

Where shards really fall down IMHO is in the inventory management. We want them to be limited, but the way we handle that now feels a little old school, like inventory Tetris in Diablo. We do have a few ideas on how we want to fix it, but obviously I don’t have a big announcement to make on the subject yet or I would have made it already.

- Ghostcrawler, from the official WoW forums

Yes, there may yet be hope for the ever so in-your-face soul shard management.

In other news, I haven’t actually tried out my new deep affliction spec. I hardly count chain-pulling a level 66-67 underground tomb a certified way of determining its effectiveness. However, from what I can tell so far, Haunt seems like a most welcome spell to the affliction tree’s arsenal. In one occasion I had it heal me for roughly 1300 HP — Yes, please!

I can almost see myself trying out arena and dedicated PVP with Taash come level 80 because of this talent. It’s like a reworked version of Lifebloom only it does damage to a foe instead of healing to a friend, but the dispell mechanic is the same: dispell Haunt and the warlock gets healed vs. dispell LB and its target gets healed. Yet another spell that dispellers have to think twice about dispelling! I like it.

Did I mention the new spell animations to Drain Life, Drain Mana and Drain Soul?! They look awesome. I actually had fun grinding some shards last night ’cause of that reason alone. I was also trying to get a good screenshot of my UI as it looks like now:

It’s based on Caith’s UI and uses its kgpanels and pitbull setup, only it’s been reworked to fit my resolution (which I can’t remember what it is, silly me) and tweaked here and there. On a slightly other note, as I was fixing all this I was logged in on my druid, and as such, there is no frame for my little demon setup yet. Oh noes! Another note, my buffs and debuffs addon doesn’t support ButtonFacade yet, which is why my buffs’ borders look ugly.

Like the fact that SW:D hit me for 1337 damage wasn’t enough: I’d just been resurrected  — Resurrection Rank 1, I might add — by this SP in Gurubashi Arena. I’d just sat down to drink and eat up, and said SP leaves our party and throws his DOT spells on me. I instinctively HOT myself up, run away from the arena floor and hope he’s not doing more to hurt me. Alas, this SP claims he wasn’t aware he was pressing his SW:D keybinding (or something else equally silly). Lies, I tell you, lies! It was all planned out! The result? I died from a 1337 SW:D.

The most fun death I ever experienced on my druid so far, I think.

This is how my UI on my druid looks like in its current form (except for the uppermost action bar which is now gone) and I’m still not fully satisfied with it I have some serious UI updating to do, I feel. I don’t even have a proper place for ‘Grid’ as it is now, which is really bugging me.

In the anticipation of the pesky addons that will turn on me, I’m browsing through my WoW Interface folder to find there’s 64 MBs worth of files: 62 top folders, 981 folders in total and 3363 files. About 40-45 addons. Ouch. There’ll be a bunch of fixing, rearranging and rethinking to do. I’m quite looking forward to it, as long as the most vital addons don’t get completely wrecked with the upcoming content patch.

Addons I’d be crippled without

• Spellbinder, keybindings: It keeps track of keybindings for spells, items and macros. All I need in one lovely simple package.
• Clique, click-casting: As primarily a instant cast HOT healer, this is pure win. Having to actually switch targets only takes time.
• Omen, threat meter: Need I say more? No? Good.
• Ash DOTimer: keeps track of DOT and HOT spells’ durations.

There are many addons that affect the visual presentation of things in my UI. I could play without them — I’m quite sure of it — but I’d be much more annoyed without them, considering there are many things in the standard UI and visualisation in general that I’m simply not happy with.

Addons that affect what I see

• ButtonFacade: allows me to customise how my spell and buff icons look like.
• Chinchilla, minimap customisation.
• CowTip, customisation of tooltips.
• Dominos, action bar handler: allows me to customise a set of action bars in basically every way I’d ever want to.
• Grid: a highly customisable raid frames addon.
• OneBag & OneBank: merges all your bags into a big one, backpack and bank respectively.
• PitBull, unitframes: allows me to customise the look of my unitframes: colors, information, position etc.
• Prat, chat: customisation of the chat windows, incl. time stamps and name coloring depending on class etc.
• Quartz, casting bar: a customisable replacement of the standard casting bar.
• SatrinaBuffFrames, buffs and debuffs: customisation of buffs and debuffs on myself.
• sct/sctd, scrolling combat text: allows me to show scrolling combat text on the screen wherever and however I want.
• WIM, WoW Instant Messanger: enables IM simulation of whispers with time stamps, different tabs for each player whispered, and a history log over previous chats. It’s your basic IM utility.

Then there are also PVP related addons that I find useful, and also ones that are purely for my own convenience.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch the latest episode of Heroes and afterwards dabble in the enjoyment that is addons and UI customisation.

Together with my Shadow Priest friend, we’ve played close to 300 games with about 50% wins. While this means we’ve never reached above 1600 rating, it doesn’t really mean we don’t know what we’re doing. The amount of times we’ve lost because of simply being OOM is very frustrating. Our combination of class and spec was doomed from the start. (If anyone reads this and knows about a succesful resto druid/shadow priest 2v2 team — let me know! :D)

The final bloom of LB after seven seconds has been a lifesaver on several occasions, especially against melee teams. I remember one occasion where we were faced against a fairly equally geared/rated Discipline Priest and Enhancement Shaman. It was a hectic fight, to say the least. Keeping up a squishy Shadow Priest whilst Heroism is active is not an easy task. We basically had to make use of a run away and keep your distance tactic, moreso than we usually do.

This was in the ‘Ruins of Lordaeron’ arena, so pillar humping and LOS wasn’t the easiest thing to accomplish either. (I’ve yet to remember where you can run up on and across that freakin’ grave successfully. *slaps self*) This arena is the one we loose in the most.

At this point, I had popped most, if not all, my cooldowns (SM, NS, innervate (I think :\), frenzied regeneration and my trinket), I was on about half health, my partner was on around 15% and his mana was very low as well. The opposite team were on about 25%-50% mana and more or less on full health. All I had mana for was putting up one LB on my priest, wait for the FSR to apply and put one on myself and keep that up all the while doing my best to LOS the priest, keeping my distance from the shaman and not get LOS from my partner.

I’ve no idea how it happened, but we managed to get the shaman down within a matter of a few seconds resulting in a won game. A shadow priest with that small amount of health left (around 1500hp), could fairly easily have been nuked down by any melee class — my experience from aforementioned 300 games tells me so. Had the duration of LB been but a second or two longer, my partner would’ve been dead. This experience applies to many encounters we’ve had against rogues, hunters and mages as well, but this one fight in particular.

The other week, I read a comment by a resto druid saying he was looking forward to the increased duration of LB through Nature’s Splendor from a PVP/arena perspective. His point of view was that it’d give him two seconds more to CC, run away and pillar hump/LOS. I think this is a very valid and good point. However, I’m still slightly anxious and undecided about investing points in this talent for the simple reason of then having a two second longer duration before a burst heal that is independent on mana cost (indirectly) and cooldown. Something I’m fairly dependent on against any burst damage setup/class.

Either way, with the upcoming Imp. Shadowform, Veiled Shadows and Dispersion talents we might stand a better chance and I won’t have to worry about it (as much). Time will tell.

In any case, I’ll be looking forward to taking teams by surprise with our setup of resto druid/shadow priest at level 80 as well.

Balance:

Tier 1:

• 5/5 Genesis

Tier 2:

• 3/3 Moonglow
• 2/2 Nature’s Majesty

Tier 3:

• 3/3 Nature’s Grace
• 1/1 Nature’s Splendor

Restoration:

Tier 1:

• 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild
• 3/3 Nature’s Focus

Tier 2:

• 3/3 Subtlety
• 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter

Tier 3:

• 3/3 Intensity
• 1/1 Omen of Clarity
• 2/2 Master Shapeshifter

Tier 4:

• 4/5 Tranquil Spirit or 5/5 Tranquil Spirit
• 3/3 Improved Rejuvenation

Tier 5:

• 1/1 Nature’s Swiftness
• 5/5 Gift of Nature

Tier 6:

• 5/5 Improved Regrowth

Tier 7:

• 3/3 Living Spirit
• 1/1 Swiftmend

Tier 8:

• 5/5 Empowered Rejuvenation
• 2/3 Living Seed or 3/3 Living Seed

Tier 9:

• 1/1 Tree of Life
• 3/3 Improved Tree of Life

Tier 10:

• 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother

Tier 11:

• 1/1 Wild Growth (Splash damage healing! Yay!)
  

I’m unsure where I’d actually put the last ‘this or that’ talent point. 3/3 Living Seed would create a nice synergy with 3/3 Nature’s Grace. Meanwhile, the 2% mana cost difference between rank 4 (8%) and rank 5 (10%) of Tranquil Spirit doesn’t strike me as something highly crucial and therefore I don’t believe leaving one point out will make that much of a difference. However, it depends on how much I’ll be using Nourish. I’m not fussed about Healing Touch, I only use it in conjunction with NS.

Many thanks goes to Horns over at Yet Another Warlock Nerf for clearing up how to get spells and talents to show when you hover links. Much appreciated.

• Leveling my warlock outside instances. Leveling as affliction all the while efficiently grinding materials. Sure, it’ll take longer, but I’ll hopefully get a bunch of useful and money-making things along the way.
• Leveling my druid inside instances. Resto all the way.
• Pairing up with B to explore every single pixel of Northrend, all the while playing our mating ritual game druid tag. Chase –> Lifebloom –> (Swift) Flight form — Rinse and repeat! You’ll confuse each other as well as laugh and die together! The fun factor can be huge, especially depending on the environment! (GCD + Ground + Enemy guards = WIN!)
• Picking shiny new herbs.
• Achievements! Achievements! Achievements!
• ‘Revive‘ and ‘Nourish‘. The latter heal combined with Swiftmend and Glyph of Swiftmend should make for some nice burst damage control.
• A bunch of Warlock talents, especially in the affliction tree. (I wish they turn out as neat and helpful as they sound.)

So, what does one do at a time so close to the upcoming expansion?

Gear. Getting new, fresh gear is rendered useless as it’ll much likely be replaced once I reach Northrend. I do have some rare gems that can be replaced with their epic counterparts. Just because I can. If it happens, it happens.

Reputation. There’s something. I’m one or two thousand points away from exalted with ‘Lower City‘, more than halfway (19.8k/21k) exalted with ‘Honor Hold‘ and 13.5k/21k ‘Keepers of Time‘. It shouldn’t be too hard to attain. I’m about halfway honored with ‘Netherwing‘. The simple reason for this being being a restoration druid inside mines where spell pushback and no ‘Entangling Roots‘ becomes a nuisance. My soloution, you ask? Borrowing B’s shadow priest for that extra sweet DPS boost. Plus it’ll earn him some money as well. (Turns out I have 1000 gold more than he does. Oh well.)

There’s also ‘Sha’tari Skyguard‘ and ‘Ogri’la‘ to consider, but being just friendly with the first and only neutral with the second it’s not the biggest of my concerns. I haven’t even finished the bloody prerequisite for starting to earn reputation with the Ogres of Ogri’la.

I’m also considering working on the factions of Azeroth, but we’ll see about that.

Fishing and cooking, must be done before I hit Northrend. Cooking: 344/375. Fishing: 310/375.

This entry feels cluttered and disorganised. Oh well.

But now? Not so much. The motivation and inspiration isn’t there, for whatever reason — a reason I’d appreciate if I knew what it was and work on fixing it. Today and yesterday’s been an improvement, however. I hope this “spark” of slight enthusiasm will remain (and grow?) and that, if it should burn out, I’ll be able to light it up fairly easily again.

Edit: I really should be doing something useful.

No, really. I’ve spent basically all my childhood being a responsible little goodie-goodie. If I had the guts, I’d pick up my stuff and leave, get on a plane to somewhere and forget where I came from. Exaggerated, but the message remains the same.

B was saying last night how “dreams seem to involve things from daily activity“, which I agree with. Dreams are a way to deal with problems subconsciously, I think. This is the bizarre part: what’s all this got to do with daily activity?

I’ve spent most of each day (we’re talking twelve hour periods and longer here) during the past two-three months doing stuff with B: may it be playing WoW, laughing at anything and everything, flirting or falling asleep on my keyboard whilst being on Skype. So, in that sense: B = daily activity.

The rest remains a mystery. I have my ideas regarding problems and issues needing much needed attention, but I can’t relate those to this dream, at least not in a way that makes sense. Maybe that’s what it’s all about: to stop looking at things objectively — to trust my feelings and follow my heart instead — to stop trying to suppress them because they don’t make sense. I say try, because I’ve tried and failed. These feelings just keep coming back screaming at me, screaming at me to accept that what is is, and I still find myself trying to convince myself it’s not what it is. What “it” actually is, I’m not sure of.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. Much needed ramble.