Don't Stand In The Fire

When you are in a dungeon, don't stand in anything. I am not going to go into a lot of detail because, as I have been told, it goes without saying.

If you are in a dungeon and you are standing in something that is killing you, move. It's as simple as that. Move. I can not get over the number of people that will just stand in something that is hitting them for 8-10k plus damage (Normal Dungeon) a second EVERY SECOND. A few steps in any direction and they could be out of it. There are very few instances where you need to stand in something that is killing you in a normal or even heroic 5 man dungeon. The last boss in Halls of Origination, Rahj, is one of the exceptions.

Now when I start healing a dungeon on my Priest Brieonna, the first thing I say is "Don't stand in anything". That is my disclaimer. Someone will always say "That goes without saying", and it should go without saying. After that if someone is standing in something I will throw them a couple heals to give them time to get out of it, and if they don't move I let them die. I am a healer, not a babysitter. It's even in the loading tips at startup: Don't stand in the fire!

Heroic: Halls of Origination

I healed Heroic Halls of Origination on my Priest, Brieonna, last night for the first time. I was after one of two particular items. I was after the heroic version of either Soul Releaser or Scepter of Power. I currently have the normal version of Scepter of Power.

The run went very well, better than I could have hoped. The group I got in with knew what they were doing, used a lot of CC, and went at a normal pace. I have found, from experience, that it is usually the poorly geared, inexperienced, tanks that will not use CC and like to move along at a breakneck pace. They think running from one fight to the next before the last mob has even dropped makes it look like they know what they are doing. All it does is scream inexperience and usually doesn't end well.

Unfortunately neither of the items I was after dropped so it looks like I will be queuing into H HoO every day until one of them does. I went through that on my Hunter, Brieanna, in The Lost City of the Tol'vir, trying to get the heroic version of Seliza's Spear to drop. It took me about a week of running it every day before I got it. I guess I will have to settle in and run HoO every day until one of them drops for Brieonna too.

Wranngar - Level 83 Feral Druid

I worked on Wranngar for a little while today and got him to level 83. Wranngar is the last of my 80's I need to get to 85.

I was questing in Deepholm when I hit 83 and headed right over to Uldum to start questing there. I am more interested in getting to 85 than I am with rep or achievements at this time, I can always go back later and finish up all the quests to get the achievements later. I will get more XP per quest in Uldum and get to 84 quicker there which will then allow me to start questing in Twilight Highlands which will get me to 85 pretty quick.

After Wranngar is to 85 I will have to start working on getting them all geared. Right now my Hunter, Brieanna, is the best geared with an item level of 344. My Shaman, Breeonna, is the next best geared with an item level of 336 and my Priest, Brieonna, is next with an item level of 330. My Warlock, Gomorra, is coming in last with an item level of 320. It is gonna take awhile to get them all geared and I was more interested in getting them to 85 than getting them geared right away. Once they are all 85 there will be time for that.

Since they changed the armory around none of my character links were working. The ones in this post are updated and I will work on getting all the other links on this blog updated in the next couple days.

Blizzard In Game Support

Has anyone had to use Blizzard's in game support to get a problem resolved? Sometimes, most the time, it is not too bad, but other times...

I had to put in a ticket because I could not fly in Azeroth after buying the pilots license on my Hunter Brieanna.

While I was waiting for a response, I hit the forums and found one other person that could not fly anywhere. I immediately headed to Northrend to see if I could fly there. Guess what? I couldn't fly in Northrend or Outlands either.

Three days after I put in the ticket I finally received a response. I was told that I would be unable to fly in the starting area's of Azeroth as they are no fly zones... My problem was, as stated in my ticket, that I could not fly anywhere in Azeroth. They went on to say that they hoped they answered my question, but if not, feel free to put in a ticket...

A ticket is a maximum of 500 words. I could not express what I was feeling at that point in 500 words or less. I tried though. I really didn't want to wait another 3 days for more "advice" so I sent an e-mail directly to Blizzard. For those of you who do not know how to do this, the e-mail address is: wowgm@blizzard.com. That would be used for technical support only I would think. I received an answer in less than 3 hours telling me that they had fixed my character and I was all set. Sure enough, I logged onto Brieanna and could fly in Azeroth. I should have done that in the first place.

Anyway, because Brieanna could not quest in Deepholm, I switched over to Gomorra and he is now 83. I got Brieanna to 82 before I could not go on anymore due to not being able to fly. I will get Gomorra to 85 then go back and finish off Brieanna.

I also dual spec'd my Priest Brieonna to be Holy/Shadow. I have been wanting to try Shadow for awhile now and, with what I have seen of the Cata dungeons and how hard they are to heal, I figured now was as good a time as any.

Random Heroic Dungeons 5/21/10

I spent the night doing random heroic dungeons on Brieonna tonight. I still need to upgrade my 232 shoulders and hood to the 245 items, then I will have gone about as far as I can with triumph badges.

I had a couple groups I bailed on, the people were undergeared and there was no sense sticking around, they were not going to finish the instance. One or two undergeared people in a group isn't bad, you can usually do a run no problem, but when you get more than that you just don't have the DPS to take the bosses down.

I was in one group where we had a Druid tank. There was also a Paladin in that group that was pulling before the tank could, or pulling more after the tank pulled. I warned them and they said "maybe you haven't noticed I'm a tank", to which I replied "you're not the tank in this group, the Druid is". I told them if they pulled again I wasn't going to heal them. I guess they didn't believe me because they pulled again, so I let them die. They got the it after that and didn't pull anymore.

I really don't care if people want to kick me from groups like that, my primary job is to keep ONE tank alive, then me, then the DPS. Having two people pulling puts everyone at risk of a wipe.

ToC 10 Man 5/20/10

We had a half guild run, half pug run on ToC 10 man tonight. I was healing on Brieonna. It was my very first raid ever on any of my toons. It didn't go very well and I attribute that to most of us, in the guild, being new to raiding and we were hoping for some help from other people with more experience. What it boiled down to in the end was getting talked down to by people who must not remember their first raid. One asshole in particular, Faite a Warrior, who said he wasn't there to carry anyone. I don't think anyone from our guild was expecting to get carried, we just wanted to learn. He was nothing special anyway, I really don't see where he had any room to talk, he wasn't geared nearly enough to be talking shit. Anyway it was a lot of bullshit and probably the last raid I will do, I will go back to PvP, something I know and no one can talk down to me about.

Random Heroic Dungeons 5/18/10

I have been doing a lot of random heroic dungeons on Brieonna to get gear drops and badges to buy gear. That is coming along pretty well. Since Sunday, when my gearscore was less than 2900, I have managed to bring it up to 4672 between drops and gear I have purchased using the badges. I only need 2 more pieces to get the Epic achievement, feet and waist.

I did a few dungeons with a friend of mine, Arkantose, tonight. That went really well, his gearscore is right around 6000 and he was tanking. For the most part I was able to heal him using just HoT's, he really didn't need a lot of heals anyway.

We ended up doing Trial of the Champion, Halls of Lightning, The Forge of Souls, where I got a nice neck piece, and Culling of Stratholme all in heroic mode. The runs were fast and a tank and healer queuing together is pretty much an instant queue so the queues went really fast.

I had one bad group in Azjol-Nerub. They weren't really bad players, they were just really poorly geared. It's not too bad to get one or two poorly geared players in a group, but every once in awhile you get a whole group of them and this was one of those times. There were 2 under 3000 gearscore, another under 3500 and the tank only had a gearscore of 3700. We made it all the way to the last boss without any deaths, some pretty spectacular healing on my part if I do say so myself, but there just wasn't enough DPS to take the last boss down. And every time he did Pound it would kill the 2 lowest geared players, one shot them, so then we were down to the tank, one DPS and the healer, just not enough. I finally bailed on that group, I could have completed 2 instances in the time I was in there.

I am pretty confident I will have my gearscore over 5000 by this weekend.

Brieonna - Level 80 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 80 last night (Saturday). Now starts the long process of gearing her. I am doing random heroics for that. I get drops and also badges for gear. When I hit 80 my gearscore was around 2700, I have been able to bring it up to over 3800 since then.

I ran The Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection on normal with a guildie tonight and got a nice staff and wand out of them. I only have one of my BoA pieces now, a trinket and that will get replaced soon. That will be nice, no more sharing the trinkets with my Shaman, sending them back and forth.

I got a couple pieces of gear with badges today and might be able to get a couple more tomorrow.

Brieonna - Level 77 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 77 tonight, only 3 more levels to go. The good news is I might be healing a raid next week with my guild. It will be my first raid on any of my toons. Good healers are in high demand. Once I get a few raid achievements under my belt I will be able to do a lot more raiding.

I have hit crits as high as 14k on heals and that was when I was still level 76 so I am getting there. My HoT's are ticking over 1400 every 3 seconds now and I was able to heal a Druid tank through one of the bosses in Gundrak tonight using only HoT's. That was a good tank though, there are some tanks that I have to throw everything but a medic at just to keep alive. Healing a tank like that is exhausting.

My top priority now will be getting geared. I need to start looking at gear with mana regeneration (MP5) on it so I don't run out during long fights, or with tanks that are in a hurry and don't give me time to drink. I had my share of those tonight.

I should be 80 this weekend and I can start doing random heroics to get badges for gear. Hopefully I will be able to get a few pieces of gear before the raid on Wednesday.

Brieonna - Level 75 Holy Priest

One thing I have very little tolerance for is people who queue for dungeons but don't have enough time to do them. They then expect everyone else to rush through the dungeon so they can finish it before they have to leave. My philosophy on that is, if you don't have enough time to do the dungeon correctly, don't queue. I am sick and tired of rushing through dungeons, not being able to loot because the tank is already attacking the next mobs, and wiping because we are moving too fast.

I just now bailed on a group of those people. There were 3 from the same server who figured they were going to do a "power run" through Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. I said at the start, as we sprinted from zoning in to the first mob, that I wasn't buffed and neither was anyone else, are we in a hurry? The reply was yes. After I died because the tank was pulling way more than he could hold aggro on, I told them good luck with that and left. I will take the 30 minute debuff rather than die repeatedly, try to sip mana whenever I am out of combat for a few seconds and not be able to loot.

That makes 3 groups I have bailed on in The Old Kingdom tonight. The other 2 were a bad tank that couldn't hold aggro on anything, and another group where everyone was pulling. Either way it adds up to me dying a lot and it is just not worth it and I'm not going to waste my time. If the tank can't hold aggro, or you get a hunter that pulls then feigns death, or a rogue that pulls then vanishes, it is the healer the mobs go for.

I did have some good groups today though. You can tell a good group by the fact that the tank is the only one pulling, the tank is the only one taking damage for the most part, and I am not dead. I have an ability called fade where I can fade out and drop aggro if something comes after me but it has a cooldown so I can't keep spamming it in the case of a bad tank or everyone pulling then dropping aggro.

I did manage to get Brieonna to level 75 though, only 5 more levels to 80.

Brieonna - Level 74 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 74 now and still doing dungeons. I am up to Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom now. I have a bit of variety of dungeons I queue into now so it is not as boring as when I was stuck just doing Utgarde Keep.

I win new gear almost every day, on rolls, and have been upgrading as I go along. I am usually the best geared person in the group with the exception of level 80's that sometimes end up in our groups. I was better geared than our level 77 tank we had tonight.

I only had one really bad run tonight and that was with a Warrior tank. I could not keep him alive no matter what I did. As usual I felt like it was my fault. Eventually he was kicked from the group and the rest of the group told me there was nothing wrong with my heals, it was the tank. He had a pretty good gearscore so he either wasn't in the right gear or he wasn't using the right spec, either way he was taking massive damage fast and dying quicker than I could cast. Usually when that happens we all die and this was no exception. We got another tank in and it was a breeze from there on out.

The only quests I have been doing lately are dungeon quests and they pay some pretty good gold. I really need to start doing more questing or I am not going to have reputation with anyone when I hit level 80.

Brieonna - Level 71 Holy Priest

I was hoping when I got Brieonna to level 71 I would stop doing Utgarde Keep and move onto other dungeons.

I did get another dungeon to do, the Nexus, but I am still doing the majority of my dungeon runs through Utgarde Keep. It is getting a lot better, I have had a lot more luck grouping with competent players but it is just getting old. I want some different scenery. I did 2 runs through the Nexus and that was great. I got a nice wand and a nice pair of boots from there. I was the only caster so I didn't have any competition for them.

I am still questing in Borean Tundra between dungeons but I have really slowed down, burning out a little. I need to get on my 80's and do some daily's so I can get some gold together for 300 riding skill for Brieonna and the Tome of Cold Weather Flight for Breeonna so she will be able to fly when she gets to Northrend. Being able to fly as soon as you get there makes questing and leveling go so much faster.

Brieonna - Level 70 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 70 now and questing in Northrend.

I have been doing some of the Northrend dungeons too. Well, only one really, Utgarde Keep. The first run I had through there was great, we didn't have any problems and I didn't lose anyone until the very end where I ended up dying. Everyone said the last boss is really tough to heal and he is, he has this staggering smash thing he does that really deals out a lot of damage if the tank does not have him turned away from everyone. We had a Pally tank in that group.

After that I ended up in groups with one DK tank after another. None of which could hold aggro, all of which were losing about 3/4 of their HP every hit. It is hard to keep them alive when they take damage so fast and you are also trying to keep everyone else alive because they can't hold aggro. I ended up bailing on a couple groups.

We had one really bad run today in UK, it wasn't the tanks fault, we had a Pally tank and he was doing a good job. It was this Hunters fault. This Hunter, Whinn, from Frostwolf, was pulling mobs. They were the reason our first 3 tanks left, the last tank was putting up with them. They really had no clue what they were doing and it was making everyone's job a lot harder than it had to be. Finally in the end, after everyone told them what they thought of them, they aggro'd the last boss and left group... Good riddance but the boss bugged and we never got to finish. Losers like that shouldn't be allowed to group much less play.

I had another good group after that with a Druid tank and we finished that one out. I was starting to get a complex, from some of the previous groups where I couldn't keep them alive, until I grouped with some guildies and we did a run. It went really well and proved to me that I wasn't the problem.

I have run UK so many times now that I am really looking forward to level 71 in the hopes it will put me into a different dungeon.

Brieonna - Northrend

I got Brieonna to level 68 and can now start questing in Northrend. I got her the Tome of Cold Weather Flight, for 1,000 gold, and she learned that so she can now fly as soon as she gets to Northrend.

I am looking forward to doing the dungeons in Northrend (WotLK). I will not be eligible for the Ice Crown dungeons, Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection, until I do the preliminary quests. I think I will hold off on that for awhile when I am eligible because I don't want to rush right into healing Halls of Reflection.

I had a few runs through Sethekk Halls and I really don't like that place. It is one wipe after another. It seems like everything in there fears, and when they do, people get feared into other groups of mobs and things just get out of hand in a hurry. I will be happy if I never see the inside of that place again.

Brieonna - Level 67 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna up a few more levels, to level 67 now. I am less than 10 bars away from Northrend. I haven't completed any quests except dungeon quests lately, dungeons are all I have been doing.

I have come across a few good DK tanks in the last few days and a lot of bad ones. For the most part it is still my opinion that most DK's can't tank. They can't hold aggro like a Warrior, Pally, or Druid tank can. That is most of them, not all of them. There have been a few that held aggro great and it was a pleasure to heal them.

When a tank can't hold aggro it makes my job a lot harder. Instead of just keeping the tank healed, which I usually can do using only HoT's, I end up having to spam heal the entire group every battle. It is tedious and nerve wracking. Usually those tanks aren't very well geared either so they take a lot of healing too.

I am up to, and have completed, Sethekk Halls. That is the last one I did tonight and it was brutal. It seems like you can not do a normal pull in there, the tank tries for a small pull and ends up with half the room. It seems like everything fears too. I put fear ward on the tank when it wasn't on cool down but others ended up getting feared into other groups of mobs and it was just brutal. We finally did complete it though and I got a nice cape off the second boss. I can't wear it for one more level but I enchanted it and it is ready to go. My gearscore is up to 1905 now and my HoT's tick for around 800 every 3 seconds.

I got a nice pair of pants from a quest I turned in from Mana Tombs which I was able to put 3 +19 Spellpower gems in, that brought my spellpower up nicely.

I will be in Northrend tomorrow, I just don't have the energy to get the last 10 bars tonight, and I will be into a whole new set of dungeons there.

Brieonna - Level 63 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 63 now, 5 levels away from Northrend. I just haven't had the motivation to level her as much lately so it is slowing down.

I have been doing more questing than dungeons lately. I am finding that the people in the dungeons at this low Outlands level are not really geared enough to handle it, they are mostly still wearing Pre-BC gear and it doesn't help. It seems like a lot of these people have waited until Outlands to start doing dungeons too, they don't seem to be very experienced. The dungeons I have been in haven't been too bad though, just a little harder than they should be I think.

I am questing in Terokkar Forest now and getting good XP there. While I am there I will quest in Bone Wastes then move on to Nagrand, which is where I will probably hit 68 and head off to Northrend. It won't be long now.

Brieonna - Level 60 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 60 tonight and got her a Snowy Gryphon flying mount and 225 riding skill so she can fly it. That was a total of 275 gold, 225 gold for 225 riding skill and another 50 gold for the mount itself. That is not bad at all. It used to be 800 gold for the riding skill and another 100 gold for the flying mount. I did some daily's today and will need to keep doing them so I can get the Tome of Cold Weather Flight, so she can learn cold weather flying in Northrend at level 68 instead of 77.

I did a combination of questing and random dungeons to get the 2 levels I needed. I did one run through Lower Blackrock Spire, where she got her Worg Pup, and 2 runs through Ramparts in Hellfire Peninsula, in Outlands. In the Outlands you get really good XP from quests and of course you get good XP from doing random dungeons. I got a couple pieces of new gear and have a quest for Blood Furnace which will give me a nice pair of pants to upgrade the pair I got yesterday, a lot more spellpower.

Brieonna is moving along nicely and will be in Northrend in a few days I think.

Brieonna - Level 58 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 58 tonight and am now in Outlands. The first thing I did when I hit 58 was abandon all my quests in Azeroth, I won't be needing them anymore.

I did some daily's on Brieanna tonight to get some gold together for Brieonna's 225 riding skill and mount. Ever since I got hacked I don't keep a lot of gold on hand, I earn it as I need it. Blizzard restored all my gold, with the exception of 1,500, but if I get hacked again I don't want them getting any gold, or very little.

I grabbed a few quests when I got to Outlands but haven't started to do any yet. I am not sure which dungeons I will be queuing into there, the top end Pre-BC ones or the BC ones. It really doesn't make a difference, there is good XP to be had in both.

I did a few runs in Lower Blackrock Spire tonight. Some were good, one was not. In one of them we had a Pally tank that could not hold aggro. On anything. I came into that one in progress, their healer had left. It didn't take me long to realize why. In the first fight I was the first to die. I threw a HoT (Heal over Time) onto the tank, a very low level, low threat heal, and all the mobs came off him and right over to me. He had no threat, he couldn't hold aggro. Usually in a wipe the tank is the first one to die. I went through 2 wipes with that group, which were only 2 fights, same mobs, before I bailed. In both wipes the tank was the last one to die, what does that tell you? They weren't interested in him at all, the tank, the guy that is supposed to be holding aggro...

I did have a couple good groups though, with good tanks and those were a breeze. We got the instance done and I got my achievement.

Brieonna – Level 56 Holy Priest

I got Brieonna to level 56 tonight. I finished up and turned in a couple quests in Un’Goro crater in Kalimdor then headed to Western Plaguelands to quest, and did a couple quests there. I would much rather quest there as it is a lot closer to the trainers when I have to train and a lot closer when I hearth back to Dalaran. When I was questing in Kalimdor it took me 10 minutes, or more, to get back every time I had to train or hearthed for any reason.

I did some random dungeons, I am up to Dire Maul East now. I did 3 runs through Upper City in Blackrock Depths and 2 through Dire Maul East. Those were good for a lot of XP.

I did a Priest quest in Azshara that was part of a chain. The end reward was, I thought, a nice wand. When I checked it against the wand I recently received, as a drop in BRD, it wasn’t as good. The final quest called for me to go into Sunken Temple, which I am kind of past now, so I dropped it. I would have had to queue specifically for that dungeon and it just wasn’t worth it.

I am now less than 2 levels away from Outlands, I am going to have to start doing daily’s again on my 80’s to get some gold for flying lessons and a mount.

Brieonna - Level 54 Holy Priest

Brieonna is level 54 now and I have done very little questing lately. I have been getting all my experience from doing random dungeons. I got 2 1/2 levels today doing them.

I am only 3 1/2 levels away from Outlands now. I am now pretty much only queuing into Blackrock Depths and Sunken Temple, although my days in Sunken Temple might be over now, I queued into BRD the last 5 times I queued. I stayed with one group through 3 runs in there. The part we are queuing into is the prison. The boss in there is not that far in and you can really get it done in 5 minutes or less. What we were doing after that is going through and killing all the other bosses we could kill at our level, spending another hour to an hour and a half in there each time. The XP is incredible doing that and that's how I got my levels and bars. I also got some enchanting mats from disenchanting items so all in all it was definitely worth it.

There is a scheduled shutdown, so after that I will be back to the dungeons and more levels. I hope to have Brieonna in Outlands within the next day or two.