Everything old is new again

Wow... It's been awhile since I posted here. Real life has been very demanding. I am hoping when the Wrath King expansion comes out, I can squeeze out some more playing time. A couple of my friends gifted me with a 60 day play card. Isn't it great to have friends that know the right gift to give?

Went on what my guild called a "retro raid" through Molten Core last night. Ended up with like 30 people in the raid so it went really fast. Was very enjoyable seeing all the all bosses that used to take serious effort to down drop faster than a fluffer in a porn movie.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Well, it looked like I was finished with WoW, but my real life situation is so bad, I need WoW just to have a little stress relief. So after a month off, I am puttering around with lowbie alts for the fun of it. I'll stay around until I get a job or file for bankruptcy. Obviously, no chance in RL, still no job, no money, blah blah blah.....

As I type this, I am downloading the PTR client. Heck, I could type War and Peace in the time it is taking to do this download. I wanna at least get a peek at the upcoming content. I am sure once the new expansion hits, providing I can buy it, it will be like when TBC came out and all the lewt I busted my fat hinney to get will become history.

Some of my old friends in-game are looking to transfer to a server that is more competitive. Others are taking advantage of the PVE to PVP transfer option Blizzard is now offering. I wish all of them luck and I will miss them, but given my finances, paying for a character transfer is not gonna happen. I'd rather stick with my casual hordie friends on my current server anyway. I am sure at some point, the subscriber base will start to shrink. I hope when that happens and servers start being phased out, guilds will be allowed to stay together.

Requiem to a Guild

Well, I haven't been playing a lot of WoW so no updates here in a long time either. Real Life in all its wonder has been getting me down. I am one of the many folks struggling with the current economy and after a frustrating day of job hunting and repeating myself to collections agents, I am often too tired or just not in the mood to game when evening rolls around.

I am going to indulge in a little virtual drama now, as something recently happened that ironically has rekindled my interest in WoW somewhat. The guild I had been in for over 2 years on the Alliance side pretty much self destructed over a weekend. Now I have seen more than a couple of guilds fall apart but this was a guild that was started by friends I had known in gaming through two and in one case, three different MMO's. It was a well respected and established guild. Yet in the end, none of that mattered. Greed and selfishness took over and a handful of senior players, including my so called friends (those that hadn't left earlier due to disillusionment), split off without warning leaving the rest of the guild too fend for itself. It was a back stab, pure and simple. It came down to their own needs being more important then the guild they had shaped and built and the people that had trusted them. I had long since been been excluded from the "inner circle" because I saw the changes in attitudes and voiced my opinions so the shattering impacted me very little. Now that the guild is dead, several of the people that participated in the breakaway are suddenly deciding to "retire" from WoW, at least til the next expansion comes out. I guess the grass on the other side wasn't as green as they hoped and now everyone loses. I wonder if any of the many people that left that guild will ever see the goal they thought they were getting, that being to "finish" the game and its high end raiding content. I find it ironic that they had all the people and skills and desire together they needed, but lacked the patience and faith in each other. What a shame.

World of Warcraft is only a game. We each pay our fee and do a wide variety of activities to relax, unwind, channel aggression, whatever. But it is still a community, even though it is a virtual one. A gaming Guild is like a family, even if it is just a virtual, online one. In gaming, as in life, if you don't have family, you have nothing. What good is having the best gear around, or defeating every last boss if you have no one you care about to share that triumph with, especially those that battled up through the ranks with you? Seems a rather empty victory to me but for some, it seems the phrase "victory at all costs" means just that, even to the point of disrespecting those you play the game with.

I am fortunate. When I decided to explore the horde side of my server, I met a group of gamers with the same ideals as I have, as I thought my alliance guild had when it was founded. Though I have to say goodbye to one group of people I once called friends, I am blessed to have made new online friends that I respect and enjoy being with (even when they are pointing out out the boneheaded things I do, or maybe especially then). So I will enjoy thier company and raise a farewell toast to my old mates, who for a shining moment, were the best there was at what we did once upon a time.

I guess the point of all of this is to ask you, oh bored and confused reader, to remember that there is more to playing this game than *just* getting gear and beating bosses. Any console game will let you do that. The thing that makes MMO's special is how it allows us to create teams and forge a community. Please don't let yourself sacrifice that for some perceived short term goal. It may not be all you think it is. All that glitters is not gold... or always an epic

No news is...well...no news

Sorry, I haven't posted much here recently. The last few days I have been bedridden with a come-and-go fever of 102+ I feel almost human for the moment though. Hope I can get get back to playing soon. I am on antibiotics and painkillers and only my pharmacist alone knows what else.

I pulled my old alliance toons out of the guild they were in. It is a great guild but I didn't feel like I was contributing anything to justify my presence. I hope to tweak one of them when I get back playing and am toying with some ideas of what to do with her. With a little work, she would very ready for some of the more advanced content now available. Just not sure how much I can do on the ally side when my primary focus has been on this Tankadin of mine.

On a somber note, it may all be an exercise in futility if I don't find a solution of my employment/income woes. My WoW account is good til next month, but I may not be in a position to continue playing after that. Why do the simplest things have to be complex at times.

Conquering Ones Inner Demon

World of Warcraft, at its more advanced levels, is a game of inches. The smallest advantage can make the difference. Last night Amineh returned to Serpantshrine Cavern and I was filled with dread when the Raid Leader announced we were going back to visit the boss Leotheras the Blind. I went 0-3 the prior week and had not had any chance to upgrade my gear any so I was worried how much I could help the group. When I was selected again in the first round of the first attempt to fight another inner demon, I was thinking I needed to find a replacement as my record quickly went to 0-4.

With the quick advice of another pally with a lot more game experience than I in a series of whispers, I optimized my healing and tanking gear to keep as much defensive abilities as I could while increasing my damage to about +700 (or about x2 what it was with my best tanking gear on). That did the trick and I was able to survive the inner demon phase. It also helped that I wasn't tagged to battle one save one time during the fight. My reward for this humbling experience? My first piece of T5 armor!

I have to confess. I felt a little guilty taking it. There were players there I felt were a lot more deserving. I wasn't even going to roll for it until encouraged to go ahead and do so and then roll a 97 (I think the next highest of all the rolls was like 25). I guess I'll look at it as improving my toon so I can help others get the gear they need in future battles. Still, I hope they know how much I appreciate how their efforts have helped me.

Battling One's Inner Demons

I tell ya, just when I am starting to think I am making progress, this game of World of Warcraft is always ready to humble me! Last night I got to visit a boss for my first time ever, on any toon... Leotheras the Blind of Serpentshine Cavern. I have downed the first couple of bosses in that Raid a few times in different capacities, but was thrilled to see something new.

That is until the fight started. LOL. ZOMG, I was so pwned. A prot pally is not known for her DPS and that's what is needed for this fight. This boss at intervals spawns an "inner demon" monster on random players and the players have to down their own quickly or they are mind controlled and the raid must dispatch them. I couldn't seem to generate enough damage on any of my three tries to kill mine in the time allowed.

So now that I have decent tanking gear, and have built up a healing set, it appears I now need a 3rd set for occasions like this.... I have this image of Amineh wandering the countryside attached to a small cart like a pack mule with all the gear she is hauling around!

Seriously though, it was still mucho fun, the raid as a whole improved on each run, with both runs running out of steam at 13% and then 12%. Pretty good for a first boss try in any book. Now I have a new project to finish before I try it again.

When Worlds Collide

Wow, been a few days since I posted anything. Real life has been keeping me extremely busy. I am currently caring for 3 lowbie humanoids, levels, er, I mean ages 4, 3, and 1. How this happened is way more drama than I want to go into, but for now, this could be a long term commitment.

Add to that the ongoing search for employment and I have had to scale back on my WoW time :( Still managing to get to raids, but even that may have to be scaled back soon. When raids end at 11pm to midnight and I have to be up at 6am to keep up with these lil ones, it can make for a long day!

As far as my gaming does go, I have picked up a couple nice pieces this last week, thou nothing to augment my core (tanking) or backup (healing) sets. I am coming to the conclusion, I am much better asset to raids as a healer than as a tank. Gonna still work on improving my tanky skills, not so much as a toon but as a player. I think my biggest problem now is a lack of comfort in the role rather than any lack of gear for the content I am on. I think I need to improve my multitasking abilities :D

Need some Cheese with my Whine

This is gonna be a long whiny, venty, rant. You have been warned. All I will emphasize up front is it is not directed at anyone in particular unless it is aimed at myself. I think I have rewritten this post at least three times now over the last few days. I have something that's been gnawing on me but I can't seem to put it into words in a way that expresses what is bothering me. This is really just a "Dear Diary" sorta thing to help me get my feelings off my chest. So here goes...

One of the attractions of any MMO is the ability to interact with others. It can also be one of the difficulties. We each have expectations of how ourselves and others should perform. Very often, we or they can't live up to those standards for whatever reason and frustration can start to detract from the fun of the game. I know I am way harder on myself than anyone else could be. I am that way in real life too. Yet I still foolishly take some things more personally then I should when I perceive that others I game with are disappointed by my performance.

I have been working harder than I have in the past on this toon in terms of gearing up and learning some of the finer points of this game that I have managed to stumble through over the last 2+ years. I have learned much to my own virtual pain (and often the pain of others) just how pivotal the role of tank can be. There isn't a lot of room for error, you have to be tracking several things at once, you need a well laid out interface, you need an awareness of a much broader virtual space around you and if you flub it up, it is pretty obvious to all as you set the tone and the pace of your group.

It is both a blessing and curse to be learning this role surrounded by veteran gamers like I am lucky enough to have teamed up with. A blessing from the standpoint that I have had benefited from oodles of advise and opinions and suggestions from those far more experienced than I. But it is the curse I am trying to work through mentally.


I point out often that I am not any sort of "uber" gamer, but I am a very competitive person by nature. I try to give 110% in whatever I do and at the end of the day, as long as I feel I have given my best effort, I can live with not being the best. Yet I can't seem to shake the feeling that it isn't enough.

I think one of the most frustrating things for me is the expectation of me, real or just perceived, that I know all the various instances like the back of my hand, even after a single visit. Maybe I am a slow learner when it comes to games like this, I don't know, but it seems like something that takes a little time. I take the time before I go into each new area to read up on the bosses and tactics, but one can read about that sort of thing all they want, until they do it a couple times, they are just not gonna be perfect. I guess I just wish I didn't feel like I am being seen as some sort of noob because I don't know all this stuff instinctively. I know that it may take me longer than some to master a given fight, but I also know I *will* do so given time.

The other thing that worries me is that I hesitate too much. I am reluctant to try areas I haven't been in before or often because my lack of experience seems to grate on others. The irony there is rather plain. The only way to get that experience is too go to those places I guess I am just used to being in a more "senior" position than I find myself in. I am used to being one of the people others look too if not for leadership than at least for advise and I don't even currently feel that I inspire a lot of confidence in the people I game with.

God, I talk too much. I guess when it is all said and done, I am just gonna have to try my best and if I am still not enjoying the game, maybe it is time to find another hobby.

Growing Up

Well, I made my first visit to Zul'Aman this week. I mean my first visit on any toon. It was fun seeing some new scenery and was more than a little intimidating. I wasn't prepared for the pace of it! real go go go stuff! I did some of my usual boneheaded stuff, but all in all was rather pleased with how the recent equipment upgrades worked out. My guildies deserved kudos for helping me start to get up to speed, I probably owe them all a little towards their repair bills. I'll get better guys, I know it.

To reward my efforts, I left with good addition to my healing set, Chestplate of Hidden Purpose which I promptly socketed and enchanted to use in Kara :) Oh yeah, I hit exalted with them too last night :) Amineh has now passed either of my old alliance toons in terms of progression. I lay the blame for this solely on my guild, Mediocrity in Motion, the best, most helpful, and fun guild on Skywall.

And the wheels keep spinning

Hi there! Don't know how many actually read this but sorry I haven't updated in awhile. I wish there was a counter addon in blogger. I am curious by nature.

Real life drama. Won't go into a lot of details other than to say the welware of children are involved and that trump's all other considerations. But with all the stress that generates, it makes the WoW time I get even more precious.

And I have been busy. Exalted with the Scryers and Netherwing, Revered with Keepers of Time, several drops from Kara, a 100 babge purchase and a slew of dailies to generate the gold to pay for all the enchanments has left me ready to explore new (for me) content. ZA, here I come! (I can almost hear my guildies groaning :) )


I started using several now mods that have helped me a LOT. Healbot for starters. I used this mod ages ago when I was playing a Restro Shammy but wow, has it improved. I frankly think it should be required for raiding just like Omen or any other must have mod. The other one I would recomend for tanks is called Tankpoints. It calculates aviodance stats, and displays a hit table and allows you to explore all sorts of "what if" situations. It have been a godsend as I try and get this toon on par with the rest of my guild.

Now I could only improve the player some. I accepted that I was never gonna be the best player in the world, but I was always able to feel like I could hold my own til I started runing this toon around. Maybe I am getting old and slow or something, but I just don't seem sharp like I feel I should. It's damned frustrating and I can only guess it is annoying to those I play with. I just keep hoping I am like the kid on the short yellow bus and in time, I will get it.

Maintenances Blues

Oh I hate Tuesdays. It seems just knowing that it is server maintenance day makes me want to play cuz I know I can't.

Well, I survived the weekend in Healer mode. It went mostly as I expected. Once I adjusted to the changes to the interface, it all sorta settled in. Of course, it was made easier by the fact I was with very skilled people and the fact I have plenty of experience healing on my Ally Shammy. Now if I can just get some luck in some drops occuring! Several trips to see the Prince in Kara AND Mags, and still waiting on the rest of my T4. Oh well. Need the experience badly. I guess when it comes to MMO's, I am a slow learner.

Of course, I may be using up all my luck. Tried MgT tonight after Mags (I had respecced back to Tank), after never even making it to the 1st boss in the PUG's I joined and thou there were numorous wipes, several of my causing, we made it through. The reward for my efforts? I rolled a 100 on a Phoenix Hatchling drop. Well, at least he goes well with Attumen's Horse.

The things you have to do for money (or gear)

So I have made some Kara runs, off-tanked few pulls in Gruuls, the priest on Mulgar and the first channeler in Mags. Starting to get at least the hint of some decent gear. So what did I do this week? Respecced to Holy! Huh? I wanted to be a tank? am I nuts? Not really, it is just that I am not really ready yet and aside from the above mentioned roles, I am not very useful. So I decided I had to do something to increase my available roles and thereby increase my ability to gear up and be a proper tank!

Our Kara runs need more heals and that was really the deciding factor. I can accept even speccing back and worth if needed. I have my epic mount so with all the dailies, cash isn't a huge issue. So I am playing with a 41/20/0 spec. I am so far rather pleased with it. It works nicely for soloing, seems to allow greater flexibility with my mana pool and in theory will allow me to heal pretty good. I can still throw on tanking gear to off tank so long as the DPS'ers watch Omen. It did mean shelling out a lot of money to get an initial set of healer gear and some enchants, but all in all, I think it is a great investment.

I am still gonna be a pally tank, I just may do a lot of healing to get the tanking gear I need to put me over the top in my ability to be effective. I was getting a little frustrated with the limits on the class. This is a nice break.

And now, on with the show!

So the first couple posts were sorta background. This one should lead into current events.

A pally Tank.... Tankadin. Maybe one of the more difficult classes to manage from a game mechanics perspective. Very gear dependant. A high need to balance many attributes and skills For example, with a hunter, you can always add more AGI and do no wrong, but a good Tankadin needs a balance of good DEF, STA and Spell Damage at a minimum. In raids, she can, um, tank, and after that, well.... a pally tank DPS's like an anemic toddler and heals like Kevorkian. Most other classes can fill a couple roles in a raid, but pallys don't really have that luxury.

So why on earth would I want to play one? Just to see if I can. After 2.5 years of WoW, the challenge is the game to me, that and the social aspects that come from being in a great guild.

I leveled as a Ret pally just to be able to deal a little damage, but when I hit 70, specced for Tanking and started doing the quests to get into Kara (still needed attunment then) Gathered a little gear, and marched into Kara as a vetaran of many raids..... and didn't have a clue what to do. Being a melee class, and especially a Pally tank whose ability to aggro a mob depends on threat generation by means other than raw white DPS was a far cry from running a shammy and staying back hurling boltz. This was work! But I learned.

Finally came my first true tanking gig as a MT in Kara. I was worried, nervous. I didn't want to screw up and look like a bigger noob than usual. A healer/dps can goof and more often as not, it can go unnoticed and be recovered from. Then a MT bones it up, its usually pretty obvious as the raid is running back from the graveyard.... But the chick must spread her wings and learn to fly. So there he was, Attumen. I will assume that you, dear Reader, know the fight well. It's not hard and on that night, it wasn;t either. But what did I get as a memento of my first tanking? He dropped his Warhorses Reins! First time I had ever seen an epic mount in a raid. Naturally everyone rolled. When i did, I saw... Amineh rolls a 97(1-100). I was like...OMG! I was hooting and hollering so much my roommate came in to see if I had hurt myself. Not a bad start to raiding career!

More soon.....

So how did did I get here?

Ah dear reader, I salute you. I tend to ramble. That you read this warms my heart.

I thought I would outline a little game play history on how I got to where I am. In August of 2005, I purchased WoW. I was playing Final Fantasy Online at the time, and resisted WoW when it first hit the shelves. So there I was with my new Night Elf Hunter (she is still semi-active thou many alts have come and gone). I picked a Hunter solely for the chance of have a kitteh pet. In FFO, I had been in a guild called the Kitty Kat Gang. Can ya see a pattern here? :)

So I leveled her with a few other guildies from FFO. We had all made the leap to Guild Wars and now to WoW together. In time I was raiding in Molten core and AQ40 and farming Ony when TBC came out. And suddenly, a hunter seemed like the relative at the family reunion that no one really dislikes, but they don't really want to have over to dinner either. The guild just had too many. So I created the one thing our guild needed, a Draenei Restro Shammie. Wow... suddenly I was Miss Popularity. My poor hunter gathered dust as my shammie leveled, entered and conquered Kara, Gruuls, and was starting in on TK and SSC. (In fact the poor Night Elf is still wearing Beastmaster gear).

But here something odd happened. The same gamers I had played with across three games and five years seemed to change. Our casual style disappeared as it become more and more challenging to progress. I wasn't able to raid with them consistently due to real life events. And to be honest, I just didn't pay enough attention to the little things to play at that level. So we started to drift apart. I was a little bored with WoW and decided to create a Horde character just to see some new scenery and quests.

Thus was born Amineh. I decided to make a Paladin just because it was the one class I had never really played on any alt. I was invited in a starter guild of great people and leveled away, spending less and less time on my Ally toons. When it become clear I wasn't going to welcome to return to raiding with my old so called friends. I found a guild that still had a place for a new raider.

They opened my eyes to a side of WoW I never knew existed. This guild is truly like a family. We help each other, just to help. They mentor noobs like me with the patience of a saint (even when I cause a Raid wipe single handedly, more on that in some future post!). They made the game fun again when others had made it seem like work.

So that really is were I am today. Future posts will talk about some funny stories of life as level 70, offer *coughs* pearls of wisdom that I have learned about pally tanking and in general just babble on as a way to pass the time. If you bored enough or just curious, please read on and I will even beg for a comment so I know I am not typing to myself :)

Welcome to the corners of my tiny little mind

I often have wanted to write stories about the characters I play in games like World of Warcraft but I seldom make the time to write. As I play this game and try to learn how to play a new class, I decided I wanted to journal my experiences.

I have a blog over on myspace about my so-called life. It seemed to me there was as much in it about about my gaming as about the real me so I am gonna move my gaming chatter here. But since there is a real person behind the toon, I'll add a little here about me.

My friends call me Tina, but it says Christina on my ID. I am a 48 year old divorced mother of one and surrogate grand mom to four living in Southern Mississippi. When I can find gainful employment, I am a computer geekette that has been in desktop support and Network administration for a little over a decade. I graduated from Purdue University in 1990 after doing a tour in the Army to get the money I needed for school.

I got hooked into gaming way back in the day when RPG's were Dungeon & Dragons type pencil and paper affairs. I was dating someone that was into it and gaming together was a way for us to be closer. After we went on different paths, it was an outlet for my imagination. When computers entered the arena, I was first seduced by Diablo II. Then gaming was like crack to me. I played a Korean game called Talesweaver that no one that speaks English has ever heard of, followed by Ragnorok Online, Final Fantasy Online, City of Heroes, and finally World of Warcraft.

I have never been, nor do I foresee ever being an "uber" gamer. I play to relax and unwind and I am not overly ambitious. I like to think I am above average at what I do but that may just be my own conceits showing. I always considered myself a fast learner, but when it comes to WoW, I am constantly humbled. I am a "Cancer" and tend like many born in that time to be reflective, a bit of a homebody, fiercely loyal and since I am also a redhead, entirely too emotional and quick to anger.

I have been playing WoW since 2005, starting on the alliance side where I have a Night Elf Hunter and a Dranaei Shaman in semi retirement/alt status. Playing them has led me to Amineh, my Blood Elf Tankadin on the Horde Side. All are level 70's and raid at various places.