Mar
22
2013

Pet Battling… need moar pets

Well. Its been a while. There was discussion about not renewing subscriptions. There was some boredom. I watched television and read books.

Then the patch landed.

I did a bit of pet battling when it came out. It didn’t do much for me. Then I got a freebie Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling off a guildies Blingtron and noticed I was only a few pets away from my Celestial Dragon (150 pets). So I caught a few. And a few more. Maybe a couple after that.

Then my little boy noticed what I was doing.

To date pet battling seems to be the most child friendly aspect of WoW that I have found. The small one is able to spot the paws, and a selection of 1, 2 or 3 is nice and easy for a savvy 5 year old. And we can celebrate the discovery of rare drops together. Between us we are now storming towards the 300 pet mark.

I am still raiding on the Mistweaver – and enjoying being  a bit of a rarity on my server (there are very few raiding MW on Mazrigos. We took down Megaera last night – first on the realm and everything. Just nowadays I bring Aeri Boom the Moonkin Hatching along for sightseeing and /dance opportunities.

Life is good.

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Nov
18
2012

Elegon and onwards

Got Elegon down this week – what an interesting fight it is. This is the second time the guild has got it down.

From a melee healing perspective  there is a LOT of movement to ensure stacks are dropped and keep healing up. Momentum and Transcendence helped a lot with getting to right place at the right time, and managing to maintain the healing buffs.

Key points to remember are to respot the statue for phase 3, clever use of Meditation and Cocoon can mitigate a lot of damage and try to look after yourself during the last phase.

I also dropped into LFR this week with some good loot success. I have replaced 4 pieces of kit this week with Raid Finder or higher… and the lockout hasn’t finished yet.

I do need to focus on more dailies. That being said more raiding tends to equal less time for other WoW pursuits.

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Nov
12
2012

Not related to Wow at all

I didn’t get any time on the Monk over the weekend due to trying to kill myself by qualifying for a bowling tournament (17 games of bowling in under 24 hours is painful if you haven’t been practising the sport seriously in several years).

For those interested I did fairly well and came 2nd in the Singles Handicap. The hubby came 4th in Scratch. Fun was mostly had by all, although we both now sport blisters and rather sore muscles.

I shall resort to my slightly more sedentary ‘sport’ while I recover from my aches and pains and get back to daily grinding and possibly a LFR this evening.

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Nov
08
2012

The Mistweaver goes raiding,,,

My guild took me along to a Mogushan Vaults raid last night. It was a fun night and I really enjoyed raiding again after such a long time – though that is not to say it wasn’t a nervy experience for me until I started settling in.

Stone Guard – Jade, Amethyst and Cobalt Guardians – An enjoyable if somewhat frustrating encounter. This combination of guardians left us with Chains, Traps and Purple Splobs of Goo on the floor. And of course typically I ended up getting chained to a range which absolutely burned my mana into the floor because I wasn’t used to relying completely on range healing. This is something I realized quickly I was going to have to get to grips with as there were bound to be situations where healing from range was just going to make more sense. For a first raid in… well… months… and on a new toon it wasn’t a horrendous showing, but it was quite unsettled from me as I was finding my feet, Thankfully I sorted my life out fairly quickly, and the research I had done on the fights really helped me out for the night. Loot-wise I acquired a lovely set of Agility pants for my Windwalker spec from this boss – not Mistweaver loot but hey purples iz purples and I have full intentions of having a viable kung fu off spec just because it stupidly fun to use!

Feng the Accursed – Now this was an interesting fight – and one where I can start to make use of the more unique Monk talents such as quickly healing stacked players using Spinning Crane Kick, Transcendence when having Wild Fire sparks, as well as being able to get up close and personal on the boss. My output on this fight was closer to what I was hoping for based upon my gear levels, and indeed the raid leader agreed that this fight could probably be two-healed in the future.

Gara’jal the Spiritbinder – OK now THIS fight is fun! A 2 healer fight that seems made for the Monks ability to heal players really quickly if you are willing to burn mana hard. Apart from when afflicted with voodoo dolls, I was going into the spirit world and cracking out fast Surging Mists and Uplifts to get the other players up to 100% super fast. This was also my first proper opportunity to scare the tank that hadn’t seen the giant green Mistweaver bubble before! I fight primed for Spinning Crane Kick and Revival heals with stacked players everywhere.

Spirit Kings – An interesting fight – which ended suddenly for me after an unfortunately timed roll which took me right into the path of a new volley of arrows near the end of the fight. Up until that point this 2 healer fight had been going fairly well, There are lots of abilities to avoid in this encounter, but the healing requirements felt lower than the previous three bosses. Whatever the case I got a very nice new Amulet from this encounter, and from my free loot roll Charm, I also got the caster cloak. Sadly this has no Spirit – but I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth! It was still a huge upgrade from my green-level Cloak!

Elegon – Now this is a complex fight. As it was being two healed due to the  tight enrage, this one would really test me out because I had 4 other players to look after exclusively for certain parts of the encounter. This took a fair bit of play style rebalancing on my part – and I have little doubt that a few wipes were caused by me either being placed wrong during the pylon phase, or just not managing my mana well. Again this is a encounter where chunks of it are spent away from the boss, and so it gave me a good opportunity to get to grips with the Thunder Focus Tea/Uplift mechanic, which I found saved a LOT of mana if used at the right times. I did find that melee healing works REALLY well on this encounter while you can get into range – the buff double dips the melee element of the Mistweaver class meaning heals from punching the boss are quite substantial  Sadly we could not push the boss much past the last transition on this occasion – but I am sure I will get another crack it soon.

The loot I received from this evenings raid has now pushed me into LFR eligibility – so I am hoping for a bit of luck in filling up some of my green item slots soon. My dailies are rolling on slowly, and everything seems to be moving in the right direction finally! The time has come to break out my BiS list and really start to fine tune my little Pandamonk.

Thanks to the Infliction raid team for allowing a dodgy-geared Mistweaver to participate in their Mogushan Vaults and I wish them luck in the progression through Heart of Fear this evening.

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Nov
07
2012

User interface and addons for Mistweavers

My UI has gone through some serious changes over the years I have been playing Warcraft. From the days of Vanilla healing with a basic Blizzard interface, to the era of being able to see about 2 inches of your screen during TBC, to the minimal stripped back performance-driven era of Lich King, and then to the  happy RazerNaga driven interface that was Cataclysm. I use a variety of heavily customised add-ons (often with large swathes of functionality stripped out), a small amount of Blizzard standard UI, and I rely on audio triggers when training myself with new classes. I do use a number of non-raiding ‘cosmetic’ add-ons as well just to make my life easier.

Follow after the cut to see what I use and for what… Read the rest of this entry »

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Nov
07
2012

Biting the bullet

Heroics have been tackled! Gear has been looted! The Panda is happier about healing!

With the assistance of a group of guildies (thanks to Vernert, Asteril, Wolfdina and Jammyshammy) I have now tackled my first two heroic instances – and while I obviously recognize that running instances with guildies is a whole host of less stressful than PuGging, especially with fairly well geared guildies, I am feeling a lot happier about the Mistweaver throughput in melee range. I was never worried about the range healing (barring caning my mana) – but I was having trouble working out throughput from melee healing. So far I have tackled Scarlet Halls and Shadopan Monastery. Of the two the mechanics in the Monastery were more challenging – I can see that being in groups that try to brute force some of those mechanics would stress my mana usage quite considerably – but I did not have any huge concerns about regen in the group that I was in.

I have also been working through the Scenarios – which are a lot of fun. One of my in-game buddies is a bit of an achievement hunter and so most of these are made more interesting by trying to hit his achievements for him. While I like achievements I have moved toons so often that I gave up trying to collect them all on one toon and just aim for ones I don’t have on anybody!

I wait with interest to see how the little Monk performs in a raid situation.

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Nov
05
2012

Level 90…finally!

Very quick update –

Have finally hit level 90! Currently very very busy with work, and dailies. Mostly dailies.

I have completed my Inscribed Crane Staff (the Inscription staff – while it will be replaced fairly quickly it is BoA and can therefore be handed over to my Priest / Druid when the time comes), and due to sneaking into a Sha raid when I was SO not ready, I also have the epic quest boots for the kill, and lucked out on my first bit of Tier! (Gloves!). I doubt I will be able to access the DMF trinket this time round, so this may have to be a project for another time.

My iLvl is slightly inflated at the minute thanks to some PvP gear – around 446 I think – but I badly need Spirit upgrades all over the place so I hope to gather enough courage (or guildmates) to have a look at these really soon. It is odd that I really feel I need a forgiving team for the first few tries at heroic Mistweaver healing - I havent relied on guildies for instances since LFG was revamped after TBC - but this is such a new character type to me, and I have so little experience healing on it that I would rather have a guild team to start with - I wonder who I can beg, borrow or steal for a few heroics…

I will be sure to follow up with an update on my first heroic experience once I screw up the courage to get it over with :)

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Oct
23
2012

Standing out from the Crowd

I’ve been a bit hit and miss when it comes to transmogrification. There are certainly some outfits that are nicer to my eyes than others but there is not a lot out there to make a player stand out. Each of my toons has some bits and pieces of transmog – but I have never really pursued a specific outfit. If I am honest I still kind of miss the days where you could waltz into Stormwind in your endgame tier and feel gently smug about yourself. Yes I know it sounds awfully leet but find me a player that raided at endgame level during Vanilla and TBC that didn’t do a LITTLE bit of a strut when they finally amassed their full tier (no matter how ugly it was) in those days and I will find you a liar…

The introduction of a more ‘inclusive’ style of play kind of killed that as more and more players began to access epic level gear – suddenly everywhere you looked were players wearing the same kit over and over. Your beloved tier didn’t really mean much as everybody else had it too. Transmog provided that bit of flavor to characters. It became another ‘mini-game’ to find your ideal outfit, and Void Storage came along to support that time-sink.

As a new toon, my Monk doesn’t have the background of gear collecting that some of my older characters have, and running around in my crafted leatherwork kit like every other Monk on the server was a bit depressing. I also took an instant hatred to the Monk Tier 14. To combat this I undertook to find myself the loudest, most garish transmog kit that a monk should never wear… Cue a request to Wolfdina of Infliction for a Stylin’ Purple Hat, and an evening of running through Maraudon to find myself the ideal combination of Headhunter’s and Ghostwalker pieces. Thanks also to Verner for picking up my Horde AH purchases for me, and Asteril for suggesting accessories… I just have the Leg slot to go now for the actual armour, and then I will have to find options on 1h/OH and 2h weapons to match. And a hair colour change to match… Somehow I suspect if I keep the kit, no one will ever be able to say they didn’t see the healer! A picture will be posted once the outfit s completed…

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Oct
22
2012

Enter the Mistweaver

Aerisan has FINALLY reached Pandaria and has started instancing again!

Its been a bit of a painful slog at times, finding times when both me and the husband has been available has been – and remains – challenging to say the least – though it has given me plenty of opportunity to give my alt toons a bit of tlc – with a fair majority of them well on their way to maxed professions, and two of them already creeping towards the level 90 mark – I will certainly have no shortage of farms to get food matierials from!

Onto the main topic though - with the assistance of a team of fairly overpowered guildies – thank you to Verner, Asteril, Seduced and Gravenstein of Infliction for their time – I went and ran Temple of the Jade Serpent, and Stormstout Brewery a couple of times over the weekend to get a feel for Mistweaver management at this level. What I was really there for was to connect with the class, to see how it handles in encounters I had not seen before and to try to find out what I would need to work on over the coming weeks. These are my observations:

-        Knowing encounters ahead of time seems vital to this class. I was frequently finding myself in the situation where I had run out of chi just as a I needed it – Chi Brew saved my bacon a few times and is turning into a very useful Talent – having that Cooldown to blow is a lifesaver – literally! This is not something I had experienced before, and usually you can just jump feet first with most healer classes - but not ‘knowing’ the fights n these new instances made it a lot harder to anticipate damage and therefore anticipate chi consumption. Result: Checking strategies in advance – or having a team that knows the instances and can communicate to you – will be vital for chi management until you know the fights yourself.

-        The jump in mana management at this level was more substantial than I had anticipated – getting on top of burning chi to make Mana Tea will be a priority for a while along with maintaining Hots and renewing them at the right time – there were several instances where I had run myself virtually out of mana even with a OP team! I had been told to expect it – but it still took me a bit by surprise by how fast I was getting through it – I suspect I would have really struggled going in with a equal level group to start with. By the 3rd and  4th run I was feeling more confident in knowing when I could go and melee to generate Chi, and when I couldn’t, and it really showed. Result: Practice mana management more, possibly look into using Power Auras to give me sound or visual indicators for certain spells or situations.

-        Some of the spells I have been used to relying on do not seem so powerful at this level – my channeled heal feels much less powerful than it was – and spinning crane kick definitely so.  Also Uplift wasn’t healing for the percentages I was expecting – though this may be down to the levels of the players in my groups versus me. Result: Monitor spell usage with both OP and equal level teams.

-        Placement. Having played melee before I know the golden rule of attacking from behind. It was surprisingly difficult to maintain this while concentrating on Grid, ensuring buffs were maintained and covering the Meleeweaver rotation while shuffling around a moving boss. This multitasking skill will have to come in time – the Mistweaver combines the skills required of a healer and a DPS into one package. Result: PRACTICE!

-        There were a LOT of green healing orbs that were not getting used unless someone incidentally popped them – this isn’t too surprising – as the first Mistweaver in the guild most of my guildmates will not have actively used MW bubbles before. ‘Teaching’ players that green blobs = good will be more important at raid level. Result: Try to get groups with as many guildmembers as possible – they won’t know unless they see how it works!

I got a couple of nice upgrades from my leatherworker-made kit – but the experience was far more valuable. The plan now is to return to questing and mix in instances on the way up.

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Oct
10
2012

Plodding on

I haven’t had a lot of time for Warcraft this last week, what with illness and bowling tournaments!

Aerisan is plodding along through the mid-70s levels – and will continue to do so for a while due to my hubby’s availability. In my spare time I am leveling up my Shaman and Hunter (which I am finding very divergent in terms of solo damage – the Hunter far outstripping the poor Enhancement Shaman in terms of survivability and speed of killing at the same gear levels.) Both of these toons have valuable professions which I am using to prepare a smooth way into bringing my Monk into a raid ready state.

Sadly I cannot say when that may be, unless a bit more time comes my way.

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