Alternately titled “How Vonya Got Her Bear Back”

Welcome to patch day!

Some of you may remember that my guild has been trying desperately to get all of our raiders bear mounts from Zul’Aman before they are gone forever.

So how did we do?

Eleven Bears. Oh yeah.

We got a bear for all of our raiders, including the treedruid who dinged 70 recently, and thus isn’t geared enough to do a full timed ZA run.

Oh man, I could tell you some stories. We had some truly epic runs. We had deaths on the eagle boss, deaths on the dragonhawk boss and internet connectivity issues galore. Though there was more than one time that we got the bear with more than five minutes to spare.

I think everyone in the guild, however, would agree that the day we got MY bear was quite possibly one of the most epic bear runs we’d experienced.

It started out simple enough. We gathered, buffed, hit the gong, and moved on to the eagle boss in good time.

Eagle boss fight starts, we get him down to about 50%, and all the sudden the entire raid lags out. It’s like a bizarre game of red-light green-light. Vonya would start a heal, and then freeze, heal still casting. About ten seconds later, the screen would flash. Three raiders would be dead. In Vent, all of us were swearing up a storm - it affected not just our raid, but every raid going on in ZA at that time.

Long after my death, I finally regained control of my character. Swiftly, we regrouped, but we had lost a lot of time. Too much, we were afraid, but we were going to keep trying anyway. One of our hunters put in a ticket, and a GM got back to us while we were taking down the bear boss.

No, we couldn’t get a free reset. No, we couldn’t get a free bear mount (hey, never hurts to ask, right?) and no, they weren’t going to assume any responsibility for our ruined run.

“Tough Peanuts” would be the TLDR version of that particular GM discussion.

Grimly, we moved forward. During the dragonhawk fight, our rogue disconnected. We weren’t terribly surprised - every time his family uses the microwave, he disconnects. They are the sort of lovely yet non-gaming family that doesn’t really understand why he can’t just pause the game to take the dogs for a walk.

We make it all the way to lynxboss without the rogue, and we have only a few minutes to spare. The seconds tick through those last trash pulls and the entire raid is on edge. The rogue is still not back, and we don’t have time to wait. We pull the boss and both healers (myself and the shaman healer) are dpsing as much as we possibly can between heals and dispells.

The fight was intense. Every second counted, every cooldown was burned, every eye flickered to that unforgiving timer. A minute left. Thirty seconds. Twenty seconds. Ten seconds, and the boss goes down!

The shadowpriest FLIES to the pot holding our loot, and every raider holds their breath. Did we do it? Did we get him down in time?

Amani War Bear - Need or Greed?

The cheers in Vent were probably heard all the way to Canada, where our rogue was finally getting his internet connection back.

I rolled need (as few bears as remained to get, we’d already decided what order they were going to be looted) and left that room with an incredible feeling of accomplishment, the cleanest sinuses this side of the MIssissippi, and one more roly-poly, adorably bouncy, troll-armored Amani War Bear mount in the guild.

/cheer

The Shattrath Bear Parade will be EPIC.

The Proposal
Not content merely to think of one Cooking Specialization (Condiment Chef), we here at EgoCorp have been working furiously around the clock to bring you a SECOND specialization.

We present to you…Brewmaster.

More Than Just Beer
Some may feel that a Brewmaster should be dedicated to the art of alcoholic beverages, content to serve a mostly-dwarven population, rejoicing at the ultimate compliment of “at least it didn’t make me blind.”

No! I decry such a wan and lifeless description.

Certainly, the Brewmaster should be known for drink that would put hair on a forsaken’s chest, brews that would knock a night elf into the Chartreuse Dream, concoctions that could have the most hardened orc warrior babbling about his love life.

Beers, yes, but not JUST beers.

I say a Brewmaster’s trade and skill with a still should be aknowledged with even greater feats.

Cleansers - Astringent and heavily acidic, made from a volatile concoction of wolpertinger fur and warp stalker scales which would eat the color from an armor set, leaving a silvery gray finish. This would be appropriate for the discerning adventurer seeking to homogenize a jester-like concoction of gear.

Oils - Basilisk spit and harpy tears combine to create an oil that should be swiftly spread over a broken weapon or piece of armor to provide a temporary, quick-hardening seal, giving that armor 1 durability point for an hour and allowing the adventurer to continue his or her swath of violence without a pesky trip back to town.

Poisons - Serpent venom, Wasp poison, and Worm spit combine to make a poison so easy to apply that anyone can do it (not just rogues)! A single vial will last an adventurer at least half an hour when applied to daggers, swords, mallets, or even arrows!

Potions - not the drinkable kind. Sleep potions, made from basilisk spinal fluid, thrown in battle to send all nearby enemies into a blissful snooze for a short time. Love potions, made from succubus blood and (oddly enough) a few drops from a skunk gland will send any mob into a frenzy, increasing a mob’s attention on the thrower. Tanks are advised to wear protection. Even one or two that could be thrown on group members to wake them up or cleanse a magic or poison effect.

Sauces - They would, of course, also provide some of the ingredients needed by the Condiment Spec.

Tricks - “Specialty” drinks. Zangarmarsh Zingers - one drink and you glow like a wasp for ten minutes. Cenarion Thicket Shots, for someone wanting to see the world in purples and greens.

Azeroth DESERVES more beer, and players deserve more options that are fun, useful, or just plain silly. Brewmaster is the obvious solution to these problems!

(Okay, okay, some of those things probably should be made by alchemists. But they’d be fun to have regardless of who made them!)

You know how Alchemy has specializations, right? Potion, Elixer, Transmutation - when performing the Alchemy of their chosen specialization, Alchemists have the possibility of creating extras!

Two mana potions for the price of one! Or, more impressively, two Earthstorm Diamonds for the price of one!

Regardless of my current bordering-on-psychotic-hatred of the current proc rate, I do think that specializations are a good thing for Professions in World of Warcraft.

I’d LOVE to see Cooking Specializations.

Oh, sure, you could go with the obvious. Meat versus Fish, extra procs just like Alchemy. Maybe you could give some uber healing recipe for the fish-chefs, and a super-melee recipe for the meat-chefs.

But that’s all so very ho-hum. Boring. Predictable, even.

I submit to you that we can do better! We are the Warcrafters! We demand creativity! We will not settle for a tired, recolored, repeat of the same old thing we’ve been looking at for ages! (*coff*ArmorRecolors*coff*)

No!

And in that spirit, I bring to you…Condiment Specialization.

You - the proud, the brave, the saucier - you have eschewed the obvious and more celebrated route of cookery. Instead of cooking the main dish - painstakingly breading every Golden Fish Stick, lovingly spicing every Hot Talbuk Steak, and agonizingly de-clawing hundreds of Spicy Crawdads.

No.

No, instead, you take those marvels of modern cuisine and make them better!

You thought that Hot Talbuk Steak was spicy before, wait until you add a little Harpy Hot-Mustard Heartburn! Guaranteed to add an extra +3 to your melee hit, as soon as you stop crying from the pain.

Your Golden Fish Sticks a little limp and unappetizing? Add a little Chimera Ketchup to give you an extra +2 MP5!

And let us not forget our beloved tanks. One can only eat so many Spicy Crawdads before getting bored with them. Why not add a healthy dollop of Goblin Guacamole Gas Gust! You’ll get a bonus to your dodge, although we do recommend turning the mob and tanking facing the raid, to keep from applying a rather nasty debuff to your compatriots.

Join the few, the proud, the Condiment Specialization Chefs! Augment existing foods with exciting spices and sauces!

…That’s “sports bars”, not “sports bras”.

No, I don’t want to hear about how it’s all about the support. *glares at Aensu pointedly before continuing*

Right, so it occurred to me the other day that healing classes are a lot like sports bars in different cities.

See, all the healing classes play the same game, and they’re constantly pitted against each other in order to determine who is the “best.”

The answer fluctuates year to year, as Blizz makes tweaks and implements changes to better balance the teams (trading players and drafting new ones).

But every year, all the sports fans (healers) gather and play, cheering and rooting for their favorite team (class).

We like to hang out at the same sports bars, so we can talk about how great or crappy our team is this year. Woe unto anyone who isn’t a fan of our team who starts talking about its flaws and downfalls, though - that’s liable to earn you a broken nose, a black eye, and a hasty exit through the door, regardless of whether said door happens to be open at the time.

The rivalries run deep, and for some it’s more than just lighthearted fun - they can become rabid evangelists for their team of choice, to the point of alienating even the fans for the same team.

And most of the time a dangerous silence fills the room when a fan of another team walks through the door and orders a drink, proudly sporting their team’s colors and jersey, like waving a flag in front of an angry bull.

Most of the time it’s all in good fun though. We’re fans. We enjoy following our favorite team through the ups and downs, to watch and discuss in minute detail every aspect of every change that happens through the year. Or maybe just to sit back and enjoy a few cold ones while we listen to the sportscasters (bloggers) go on about the teams.

At the end of the day, though, we’re all still fans of the same game. We all deal with the same problems and approach them with different strengths and weaknesses. We share common ground in our hatred of bad calls by the ref (changes to Lifebloom for Druids ring any bells?), in situations where the odds are stacked against us (I don’t know any healers that are fond of Mortal Strike, Silences, Kicks, Counterspells…) and in how much we enjoy the game and art of healing.

So this is me, sitting on my comfy barstool at the local priest watering hole, the Tipsy Frisbee, tipping my hat and raising my tankard for the other healing teams out there. This game wouldn’t be half as much fun without you guys in it.

Helighast the murloc stood at her post, though she would have been severely reprimanded for slacking in her duties had she been seen by Ranglash the Spotted.

It wasn’t her stance that gave away her inner turmoil – she stood up straight and held her polearm at the ready. The long, colorful spines that lined her back lifted at the proper angle to show her current status as an outer guard for the colony. Nor was it her expression that would have gotten her in trouble, for it was was suitably solemn and businesslike.

No, it was her skin that gave her away, the bright patterns that lined her froglike back shifting from green to blue to purple and back again, her vivid excitement spilling in uncontrolled pigment across her back for anyone to see.

Luckily, she was alone and had no superiors nearby to accuse her of inattention, no fellow guards to try and pry her secret from her.

(more…)

This isn’t a post. Seriously. Not a post. It’s an illuuuuuusion.

Besides, it’s about something silly, so it wouldn’t count for a post on a normal week, even.

My healy shaman is a male draenei (what can I say? I love me some space goat). During the course of leveling him, I discovered two very important facts about male draenei.

Fact 1) Male Drae keep their mounts inside enchanted peanut butter jars.

Seriously. Watch a male draenei mount. The first thing he does is whip out an invisible peanut butter jar and start unscrewing the lid. Once he’s got it open, he dramatically tosses the lid into the air, and his mount appears in a cloud of smoke.

It’s like watching an episode of Dragon Half.

Fact 2) Male drae are down to earth, good-time healers.

How do I know this? Ever watch a female drae cast a spell? It’s very flowy, very magical, very…very mystical. Well, granted, there’s that whole chest-thrusting thing that makes you think maybe she did some time giving lap dances to pay her way through priest school, but still.

What about the female nelves? Very mystical, with the graceful hand movements and that finishing stance.

Male drae? You won’t catch THEM being all graceful and flowy. Oh no. That wouldn’t be manly. Male drae like to drink beer and watch football and secretly listen to disco music while they’re traveling.  The number of songs that the male drae run fits PERFECTLY his hilarious. Including the Wolves of the Sea (techno pirate) song from Eurovision this year.

Where was I? Oh, right. Beer and football.

But the male Drae realizes that he needs to heal. He performs a valuable function. That heal’s got to get to you somehow, he just doesn’t want to use girly dance movements to do it.

So he came up with the perfect solution. He can heal you and work on his weekend game at the same time.

He bowls the heal to you.

Seriously. Watch it sometime. He starts out channeling the holy (or nature) energies in his hand, then he goes into the perfect bowler’s stance and spins that ball of healing energy your way.

When I get a critical on my heals, I am often surprised not to hear the crash of bowling pins in a perfect strike.

It has come to our attention that one of the members of Aetherial Circle, Kelektra has been bearnapped!

The onus for this crime has been laid upon the doorstep of EgoCorp, and we wish to set those allegations to rest.

Although EgoCorp did indeed embark upon a partnership with Kelektra (affectionately known as ‘Kel’) for mutual benefit in Magister’s Terrace, it is folly to assume that her current disappearance is in any way related to our business relationship.

We, here at EgoCorp, find the disappearance of Kelektra to be highly suspicious, possibly implemented in order to keep our organization from conducting further business with the highly skilled druid and other members of the Aetherial Circle Umbrella corporation. We have unconfirmed rumors that BRKWWA, when confronted with news of EgoCorp’s intent to conduct future business with Kelektra, grew wrathful and hotly denied any such possibility. “She is my precious!” he was quoted as saying.

Please remember, these rumors are not yet confirmed - we simply wish for our audience and stockholders to be as informed as possible in this time of flux and crisis.

(more…)

It has come to our attention, here at the Egotistical Priest Corporation, Unltd (henceforth known as EgoCorp), that the BRKWWA has hinted at allegations concerning the loyalties and alignment of EgoCorp, which has caused quite a bit of concern among our stockholders and employees.

At this time, EgoCorp can neither confirm nor deny these rumors, but we do wish to reassure all of those associated with us that there is no need for panic or alarm.

We wish to reiterate our company goals - to bring useful and timely information to the World of Warcraft Gaming Community - and to remind everyone that we shall remain firm to those goals.

As the expansion gets ever closer we are seeing tidbits of info. Some go through the trouble of data mining each small patch to look for any minuscule amount of information as can be found. We here at Ego are willing to even go above and beyond that! Ego has sent me personally to dig through trash and hide in air ducts just to secure world first knowledge pertaining to changes in the game and the ramifications those changes can have. Here, for you readers, is the first taste of those efforts.

The Housewife Class

Housewives are the masters of their domains. You can rest assured, while having one in the group that not a single strand of a raid member’s hair will be out of place! They are ready and willing to clean that smudge from your chin with a smidge of spittle on a ready napkin. Much like racial buffs, every Housewife receives a +10 skill bonus to cooking, and are capable of discovering recipes as they spend more time cooking! They bring powerful group buffs, such as the Reassurance Aura (5% Stamina and Spirit increase to group members).

In addition, it turns out that Chastise was originally a housewife spell, but they cannibalized it for a priest racial when the class was scrapped.

The original text copied from in game group chat:

Vonya: For a short period, they toyed with the idea of having a Housewife class - someone who would furiously scrub the enemies with harsh scouring powder, bake cookies to buff the raid with Sugar Rush or apply a debuff of Oh My God Is That A Dead Beaver In My Soup, and give an AOE bonus of Babysitting to all gnomes in the raid.

But they abandoned it after they realized that nobody wanted to do the daily quests of The Dishes and Taking Out The Trash in order to be eligible to raid.

Sad, really.

Aensu: That class still has a few diehard proponents though…but all they can do now days is head for goldshire to roleplay waitresses, and dream.

Kwane was raised by Werepygmies in the southern part of North Lostenburg. There was very little to do, you know because most of the time everyone else was a pygmie.

Little was known of his adventures after leaving the werepygmies until he was found in waste basket at the corner fish market. The garbage collector had seen him in the bin and kindly announced to the fellow that this was no place to sleep and if he did not move, would be placed into his truck with the rest of the refuse and promptly crushed to smithereens. Kwane was happy for the knowledge the kind fellow gave him and made his way away from the fish market. The fish that had owned the market waved and said their morning hellos as he left. Kwane even noticed the sturgeon that was sweeping the floor was wearing a burgundy apron and thought to say “Hey, that color looks nice on you”.

Making his way down the road after having been so kindly asked to remove himself from the trash bin on pain of death, Kwane came upon an interesting black rock on the ground. This he decided to kick along the road as he walked. One such kick saw the stone collide with something rusty sticking up out of the ground on the dirt and gravel road he was proceeding down. Stopping to check on the rusty item in question, it was easy to see the rock had split apart and the inside was shiny.

It turned out the rusty item was nothing of consequence. Kwane however was a person of great importance, as the world would eventually find out. It was he that single-handedly stopped one of the greatest hedgehog bombing schemes in all of history, organized the first annual World’s Largest Pancake contest, and rescued a small kitten from a tree. The Egotistical Priest heard of his adventures and opted to hire him to write in her blog.

As a small side-note, he has been known (from time to time) to lie. Just a little.