A little off topic here but it’s what’s on my mind  So… who’s been playing Starcraft?  It’s my first ever RTS but I’m really digging it.  So much so that it’s significantly cutting into my WoW time!  Anyone else have that going on?  I’m kinda a little tempted to make a Starcraft blog too… I’m not really sure if I want to be talked into it, or talked out of it at this point  So I made a poll… as you can see below.

I’ve been mostly playing Zerg.  I did a little bit of the campaign as a Terran, and then started doing games as a Protoss… but once I tried Zerg I haven’t looked back!  Right now I’m doing lots of 1v1 and 2v2 stuff but it would be awesome to eventually get a 3v3 and 4v4 team going!  I’m actually really excited about it all as I’m sure you can tell from all the exclamation points!!!  I’m not even very good, but defiantly improving and that pleases me.   It’s been a long time since WoW was hard for me, so having to relearn a game and actually be challenged is awesome.

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As many of you already know, my healing mod of choice is HealBot.  I get a lot of questions about how to do things in HealBot, so I’m going to do my best to tell you about my basic setup.  I am in no way associated with this mod (just a huge fan!) and probably don’t know all of it’s ins-and-outs, but these are the features of it that I utilize the most when healing on my druid, shaman, paladin, and priest

click to enlarge	General The first screen you see when you open HealBot is the “General” tab. From here you can disable HealBot, choose to put it on your mini-map, ect. Nothing really exciting here that needs to be changed!
click to enlarge	Spells The second tab of HealBot is your spells tab. This is where you assign heals, cures, etc to different mouse click and key combinations. If you have an on-use trinket, you can use this to auto-cast it with certain spells. I have my Sliver of Pure Ice on auto-trinket to maximize the mana I get back from it. Also, you can assign a macro (instead of a spell) to a click so you could include your trinket or other non-spells into HealBot this way. Holy Nova (for example) is not cast on another player, but so that I could cast it more quickly I just assigned a key combination to a casting macro in HealBot on my priest.Also on this tab is “SmartCast when out of combat” which I choose to use for quick buffing and resurrecting while out of combat. You can enable it using the check box.
click to enlarge	Skins – Healing Next, we are going to look under the Skins tab, in the subsection “Healing”. This is where you choose who to have on your HealBot bars. You can see right now I have “Focus” selected because I set Valithria Dreamwalker as my focus target when healing that fight, and want her included on my bars. I usually have the boss set to focus, but it only includes friendly targets on HealBot so it’s not a problem to just keep this checked. I choose to ignore pets when raiding, but on my leveling characters running mostly 5-mans I have that checked.
click to enlarge	Skins – Healing – Raid Under the Healing subsection, is another subsection called “Raid”. This is where you can choose what raid groups to show. Sometimes we have D/C or on-call people sitting in group 8 and I can choose to not show them here.
click to enlarge	Skins – Icons The Icons section on the Spells tab lets you show what spells are currently rolling on your targets. I have mine set to show druid HoTs, but only the ones cast by me. I have found that I frankly don’t care what everyone else is doing, I keep HoTting the raid, and I don’t want it all junking up my bars. But it IS very helpful to see what HoTs I have rolling on what people, and since the icons fade as the spell gets close to fading, I know who needs a refresh. Also, HealBot does pickup rejuvenation cast by your t-10 bonus, so you can see that too!You can also choose to show raid marks from this screen. Since DBM and other raid mods often put raid-symbols on people for a healing-related reason, I find it is useful to show these marks on my HealBot.
click to enlarge	Skins – Bars This is where you setup what you want your bars to look like. Here is what mine look like: As you can see I choose to have long and narrow bars, and I choose to show the mana bars of my raid members. But you might like a totally different style, and this is where you change that
click to enlarge	Cure – Debuff Under the Cure tab in the “Debuff” subsection you can setup HealBot to show you people with debuffs. I have it set to check the raid for poisons and curses, as taht is what I can remove… and of course have a quick key setup for the appropriate curing spells. Make sure you actually check the box to “Monitor to remove debuffs” and “also in combat” or it won’t do you much good in a raid
click to enlarge	Cure – Custom You can also choose to monitor debuffs that aren’t curses, poisons, etc. One example of something I choose to monitor is “Mark of the Fallen Champion” so that I defiantly make sure I don’t forget who has it, and they get a lot of my healing focus. You can add any debuff you think will be helpful on this tab, and also select a color for your custom debuffs.
click to enlarge	Buffs I hate people who have to be told to buff. Or people who have to be told to rebuff the guy who died. You know, THAT druid? So I use the “Buffs” tab to check the raid for MotW. I also check for Thorns on the tanks using the “Name” option. HINT: when entering the names of people to check, separate them with commas and do NOT use spaces. If you use “SmartCast when out of combat” (on the Spells tab) then you can one-click buff people in need.

If you have any other questions, or if I missed something that you’ve been wondering how to do, leave a comment and I’ll try to update this post to include your question!

So… About a podcast…

A friend and I were kicking around the idea of doing a podcast.  We would basically discuss what’s new in the blue-posts but… that just doesn’t seem like enough.  If anyone has any brilliant ideas for what to talk about, leave a comment, your suggestions are appreciated!

OMG 10 Man!

I’ve been threatening to make a 10 man guild for a long time now… cuz well… I love running 10 man content, and it seems like it’s going to be totally viable in Cataclysm.  Plus, so many guilds are falling apart right now, maybe I can snag a few people?!? So… I’m doing it!  Interested?  Check it out!!

It’s been about a year now since I first remember hearing about the upcoming changes to the talent trees, and what stuck out the most in my head was the general vibe I got that they aimed to take out all the “must” have skills (adds 5% to healing type stuff) and leave us with some really fun options to customize our character.

Well… That’s just not the case. See for yourself!  [view tree]

I know this is just preliminary but already I have so much I just don’t like.  I mean, to get down to the second level of the resto tree I have to WASTE three clicks, which is a lot when you consider we have even fewer clicks now.  And yes, they are wasted…. don’t argue, they are.

And a lot of the talent trees (ours included) still have those “increase spellpower” must-have clicks on them.

Please, try again, I’m not happy.

Plus, there are so few choices you almost can’t screw up.  I mean… really… let’s just take it to the next level… here is my proposal for even more idiot proof talent trees in cataclysm:

So… anyway I haven’t been posting much lately… last week was the first week since April (OMG guild drama) that we’ve actually gotten into ICC 10 and focused on H-LK.  Got to phase three in our first week!!  I’m psyched.  Anyway… focusing on that, once that’s down what will I do?!?  Probably spam my blog everyday

P.S. WTB Beta invite!  Anyone able to help with that?  If so, drop me a line

Hey Trees!

So as you know Ruby Sanctum opened up yesterday  I have a video for you but I haven’t talked over it yet… give me a day or so, that takes a little more time!  But I wanted to mention some quick tips here for people who are still working on this:

1.) Make sure you add these debuffs to your healbot (or whatever you use): Mark of Combustion and Mark of Consumption

2.) The above can be dispelled as either magic or a curse, so…. in short WE can dispel it.  BUT be careful not to dispel it on top of the raid, make sure the debuffed raider gets out first, and FAST

3.) Avoid all sorts of bad stuff on the ground including the circles dropped by people you dispell, the fires, and the circles that tell you where the meteors are gonna land.

4.) Inside the portal… the 2 balls connect, so just find a ball, and follow behind it.  That makes this part SOOOOOOO easy.  Honestly, just follow a ball, have everyone do it, it negates all thought.

5.) Resto druids are better inside than out in p3, there is AoE damage and we can heal while moving.

I did the video below with our tank, Cosain (his website) so you can see the switching perspectives.  When we go into p3, you’ll see that I’m inside the portals and he’s outside so you get a look at both.  Basically outside is a copy of P1 and inside is a copy of P2.  Enjoy!

I’m actually working on some healbot tutorials for trees because I get TONS of questions about using it… but that’s not done yet  I just wanted to drop a quick line and say my friend Cosain made this video about the Lady Deathwhisper 10 player full house achievement and I think you should watch it  Maybe if you subscribe to him he’ll make more?!?!  Anyway here it is:

Who here remembers the old fire festival?  I remember back in vanilla when my *main* was a hunter, under level 40 because I had no mount at the time but I reeeeeeealy wanted those flaming shoulders.  Back then you didn’t collect flowers, there was quests to touch four flames on each continent.  I have very vivid memories of running, dying, running 5 more feet, dying, until I finally reached that last fire in the eastern plague lands!  I was so pleased with my shoulders.

The next year I had my druid who at the end of the festival was 49 (I think!)  I just remember that I went into all the cities and got the flames because I was desperate for the crown of the fire festival (can you tell I like vanity clothing?!?!) and I couldn’t turn it in because I was just a couple bubbles shy of being a high enough level… and damn was I pushing those levels!  Those flames sat in my bank for an entire year.

You know I’m pretty sure the quest useto be to honor the flames in the opposing faction’s cities… something about “we all honor the flame blah blah blah we’re alike” and now we desecrate them.  We got all evil.  As much as I like the gold from all the fires (and XP on my lowbie) I sometimes miss the old days.   Oh well at least it breaks up the raiding!

And hey, as far as raiding goes, we get to eat our spell power smorcs now.  Free buffs are um… mmmm smorcs  I should go get some marshmallows and chocolate at the store, but I’m thinking that would  be a bit messy at the keyboard.

Anyway, happy mid-summer everyone

Well I got an email a couple of days ago telling me that “Real ID” would be coming to World or Warcraft (and other Blizzard games) in patch 3.3.5.  So what do I think of that… hum.  Let’s look at what it brings us:

Real Names for Friends: Your Real ID friends will appear under their real-life names on your friends list, when chatting, communicating in-game, or viewing a character’s profile. Real ID friends can also see who’s on each other’s Real ID friends list, making it easy for players to connect with other people they know.

My real name is “Angela” and my character’s name is “Angela” so I’m not too bothered about this.

Cross-Realm and Cross-Game Chat: With Real ID, friends can chat cross-realm and cross-faction in World of Warcraft, and will be able to chat across future Blizzard games such as StarCraft® II.

Yeah I like this.  I plan on playing Diablo 3 when it eventually comes out so, that will be handy.  And cross-realm / cross-faction, that’ll be nice too.  It seems so many people I’ve played with are now scattered to the wind and it would be easier to keep in touch with this.

Rich Presence: See additional info on your friends list about what your Real ID friends are up to in World of Warcraft and upcoming games like StarCraft II in real time.

I thought Facebook was the only tool a cyber stalker needed, now I see they also need to know exactly what everyone is doing while on WoW.  OMG if I don’t know that you’re in the auction house, when your status says “Ironforge” then we aren’t  really friends are we?

Broadcasts: Broadcast a short status message for all of your Real ID friends to see, whether you want to issue a call-to-arms or let your friends know about an important change of plans.

Um, Ok… but you know I’m probably on vent with them anyway so… eh, whatever

Friend Once, See All Characters: Real ID friends will automatically see all of each other’s characters on their friends list – even characters created in future Blizzard games – helping players stay connected with the people they enjoy playing with most.

I occasionally have a hiding character that nobody knows about, and this will sort kill that huh…  So very sad.

All and all, I guess I don’t mind it.  I think I like it more than I dislike it  What do you guys think?

Just thought I’d update you guys and let you know that I’m back  :)  I got a more reasonable GM with this new ticket who actually looked at my case and reinstated my account.  Thanks everyone for your kind words when I was so annoyed!  I can’t wait to get back to make actual WoW-related posts LoL

I have a few choice words for Blizzard right now.  No, none of them are nice.  I’m just so frustrated.

Here is the short summary: Account got hacked and subsequently banned, waited a week and a half, got items back and got unbanned.  Raided one day.  Account got re-banned “Exploiting the economy”  and I put in a new trouble ticket.

Well tonight I got the reply to the new ticket:

Greetings,

Thank you for your follow-up email regarding the account ASHTARTE. This account was closed after a Blizzard Entertainment investigation produced evidence indicating the account was associated to multiple accounts that participated in exploitative activities. Upon further review, we have determined that our original findings were accurate and the action was in line with our current policies.

Please take a moment to review the World of Warcraft Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html). The reoccurring exploitative trends present on accounts associated to the account listed above have led to the closure of all related accounts.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope we have addressed any concerns you may have had. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance to you.

As a reminder, only the Account Administration department can address disputes or questions about this account action. To learn more about how we are able to assist you, please visit us at http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/21505.

Sincerely,

Game Master Syntharous
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com/support

Um… I associate with exploitive accounts? Yeah, I’m sure after my account was hacked and all my items were sold they probably did give my gold to one of their stock gold selling accounts.  From what I understand that’s how it works.  BUT you knew I was hacked, and you restored me!!  Only to re-ban me a day later.  I didn’t do anything different from what I have for the last five years.  WTF?!?!

If they’re really permanently banning me over this, I’m done with WoW.  I’m not starting over now.  I just feel so annoyed that I would be treated this way.  Don’t I contribute to the WoW community?  Before I was hacked was there ever any problem with my behavior or my account?  Does anyone even care?

Sorry to vent I just am boggled at it all.

Wow… I just renewed my domain name today, it was about to expire in six days.  You know what that means… this website is officially one year old!  In some ways, it sort of feels like a lot longer than just a year.  Maybe it’s because I played around with writing other WoW related blogs before finally deciding to just blog about my druid…  Anyway, thanks to everyone who follows me  Let’s hope I get my account reinstated (again) so we can look forward to another year together