Continuation After a Few Years Break

Been a while! Recently I had the urge to write again, I've missed it. My mind is odd, I go through periods in which I can write and have ideas coming out of everywhere and periods in which it's hard to string a sentence together. Probably a typical problem for a prospective writer, but who knows.

First off, I did not realize how long ago I last posted. Norushen was my last post?! That was like 2 expansions ago now. I still continue running Legendary Exiles on Rexxar, which is unfortunately falling off due to the low population of the server and members leaving. It's been tough, people I have known forever starting to get more and more scarce - to a point where I'm usually the only member online. But, I manage.

We're currently on the Legion expansion, which in my opinion has stepped up it's game from the previous ones. The storyline is actually attention grabbing instead of what feels like filler. Major players that I've known of my entire Warcraft career have come around, and I am loving it - having plenty of fan girl moments sadly haha.

I'm back to my mage, and loving her for the time being. I played my druid for the first time in a long time in recent months and loved it, but while I enjoy healing nothing can beat the rush of flinging ice bolts at an enemy and critting for a large amount. Especially considering I have what a consider a savior complex when it comes to healing - need to heal all the people, even if it means I may die in the process.

I'm excited to see what the rest of this expansion holds, I'm worried I'll be unable to raid because of the low population of our guild but I'm sure I'll manage whether it be pugging or grouping with friends.

I've been playing a lot of Overwatch and Diablo 3 on my PlayStation with some good friends of mine, and have been enjoying that. I'll touch on that in another blog!

Week Two of Heroics - WoW as it Applies to Real Life (You can put that on a resume?)

This week we didn't attempt anything new as we missed Thursday due to multiple absences, but we did manage to kill Heroic Protectors and Heroic Norushen for the second time Tuesday night! Going to attempt to get a group together Sunday to make up for the missed day, I have my doubts but we'll see if we can get in and get to our next Heroic fight, General Nazgrim. If not, that'll be next weeks task.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/19/technology/world-of-warcraft-resume/index.html

So I read the above article today on a guildies Facebook page and I got to thinking, what has WoW done to effect my life that could possibly be placed on my resume? I feel that my raid leading skills has definitely boosted my confidence in a leading situation, am I nervous or unsure at times - sure, but it has gotten better as the past year has gone by. Wow, it's really been a year since I've started. Time has flown. Raid leading has also helped with my problem solving skills, when that one boss just can't seem to get killed I'm one of those looking for a way to make it happen. Last but not least, to be a good raider of course you need to be good at teamwork.

Question is, would I be I don't know, proud(?) or brave(?) enough to put my nerdiness on a piece of paper to try and get a job? At this time, I'm not sure. I have difficulties sometimes even admitting I play a videogame in my spare time to the people that think it's un-cool, so I don't think I'm quite there, but maybe someday my raid/guild leading will help me get a better job; we'll just have to see.

First Week of Heroics

I am pleased to report my teams first two weeks of heroic went excellent - definitely better then I expected going in!

During our first week of Siege of Orgrimmar heroic progression I decided we'd give Heroic Protectors a try, a fight that for some is one of the harder of the first four bosses as it relies on a groups strategy and coordination to complete the fight successfully instead of brute forcing your way through. Most gear checks are an example of this, like Patchwerk in Naxxramas; a fight that's easier on mechanics but has a quick enrage timer to beat.

So, we went in Tuesday before last to give Heroic Protectors a shot and I'm just thinking the whole time to myself "Please don't let this be too bad". I knew with the extra upgrades on our gear available to us that it may be easier, but I really didn't think I'd have a group capable of completing many heroics after our struggles with Garrosh. Our first few attempts didn't look so great, we've noticed that these particular bosses have adds that just don't agree with one shots as they don't like sharing their health pulls the first pull as they are supposed to...After those first few pulls, things just started to click and when we got to the time I originally wanted to take a break and continue going through the bosses on normal we were all feeling confident we could make short work of them. We continued until the end of the raid night on Heroic Protectors, with unfortunately no kill by the end of it.

Day two, we come back in and go back to work. Things just seemed to click quickly for us, and earlier then I expected - we got our first Heroic kill!

At the point we killed Heroic Protectors, we had over an hour left to raid and no one wanted to leave it at that. We moved on to the next boss, Heroic Norushen with me being totally unprepared (bad raid lead is bad), did some assignments on the fly and a quick explanation and started attempts. First thing we noticed, this boss really isn't that different from Normal to Heroic modes; things hit harder and there's an extra portal to take, big whoop. Three attempts later, down goes Heroic Norushen! Turns out maybe we should've attempted that one first!

Just one week into heroics and we managed to kill two, I was floored. Nothing could take the grin off my face at that point. I am incredibly proud of my raid team and even more grateful for those that have come in full time and part-time to help us out. We couldn't have gotten those kills without the great group of folks we have <3.

Garrosh takes a fall

It was a long time coming, but Garrosh is finally dead as of this evening. Took a LOT of work and determination to achieve it, but it was worth it to finally see that SoB dead in my opinion. We had a total of 268 wipes over a span of three months, a lot of time to spend on a boss for a group that raid together on a regular basis. Quite a few fill ins, including one on the kill, some days missed due to too many raiders being missing, and group members that either don't pay attention when it's needed or don't take advice that's given to them definitely did not help us get a kill sooner.

Next up, hopefully kill Garrosh again before moving onto Heroic Siege. I'm going to be taking a look at doing Heroic Protectors before attempting Heroic Immerseus; with the group of people that I have we can handle mechanics easier then gear check bosses like Immerseus and Norushen. Have to kill Garrosh again first though.

Unfortunately I am no longer raiding on my priest at this time, with some members of that team leaving it wasn't very productive to continue trying to fill spots with extras every week. We were hoping to get going again when we get some new recruits, but the longer time goes by the less I think that will happen.

Things have kind of gotten to a standstill in guild, with the Warlords of Draenor expansion not even in Beta as of yet we have no idea if we'll have it before the year ends. Recruitment has slowed to a crawl, they opened up Siege of Orgrimmar to be able to be completed cross server so people won't have to leave the server their on to raid. This with the fact that this raid tier has been out a year in September and many have completed the content is getting us back to the end of expansion blues. Hopefully we can continue raiding until close to the next expansion, but we will have to see how things go.

Garrosh times two, new team members and goodbye to Epicism

This week was a pretty great week raid wise - at least compared to the last few. The team I lead made it back to Garrosh with amazing timing, it was great considering we had our shadow priest healing and a member of the other team filling in on his mage. One thing I've noticed on Garrosh, enhancement is totally overpowered, the numbers are insane and I sneeze and the mind controlled people are broken. Wouldn't surprise me if I end up killing someone at one point, managed it while healing already!

 The other crew that my priest Angelcakes heals for had a good week as well, we welcomed two new members to the team - a windwalker monk and a combat rogue and they seem like pretty good fits to me. We've had another new addition in the past two weeks, a frost mage from the same guild as the monk joined us as well and we look to be well on the way to getting back to Heroic progression this week. Would be complete with our third healer, but that will come with time and more recruitment.

We did pull off a second Garrosh kill to end the Hellscream blood drought of the past few weeks, looking towards some progression kills this coming week!                                                                                                      

Within the last few weeks we found out that our prior guild Epicism is no more, the guild still physically exists but GM has been passed off again and there was another large amount of people leaving, including the majority of the officership again. The website is shut down and they are no more outside of game. I've found myself experiencing deja vu about the subject, it's almost as if when we left in November occurred again even though I wasn't involved. I am quite sad that they didn't put more of an effort in to rebuild and just abandoned the cause after two months. I know with who was left things didn't look the greatest for them, but if they got the right people involved and returned to the roots Gale (the founder) left us with I think they could have fought a pretty good fight and maybe scraped by for a bit and god knows maybe made a comeback.

Some days I wish I was there for the end, I know that us leaving was essentially a firestarter and I do have a bit of remorse about it. But, I know that I'm better off where I am now, I had a lot of built up stress in that guild that I haven't found myself experiencing lately. I can't imagine what could have happened if that was allowed to blow up but it would probably have cost more then leaving did.

RIP Epicism, you had a great run until towards the end - just shows what one person can do to a group of people. World of Warcraft may be just a bunch of pixels, but behind every character is a person; it's not wise to take others feelings lightly.

Another week of raiding!

My raiding week is halfway done, 3 raids down and 2 to go! My raid crew did amazing this week, we got 2 progression bosses down in a matter of 2 raid nights! This Tuesday will be more Garrosh progression, woot woot!

 Apps for our guild are finally flowing in so hopefully we'll be able to get some Heroic progression bosses killed soon. It's about time people started to join our awesome group of peeps, it looks like our fresh start is only just beginning.

A New Beginning...

Well, yet again I've slacked off on posting to my blog!

Lots of thing have gone on in the past two months; bit of guild drama in what is now my previous guild, a fresh start with some familiar faces with all of it leading up to now. I have to say night now I'm pretty content with my current in-game situation, I'm busy a lot of the time but I get to do what I enjoy!

Quick overview of what happened:
- A troublesome female joined my old guild and did what most people think female gamers do, caused drama. Our new GM essentially fell for her, it was messy and he was willing to not see it any other way then his.
- The new GM screwed up - badly and would not own up to his own mistakes, instead tried to remove the entire officership because we were at fault supposedly. Bad move since the four of us were in agreement minus the GM.
- A large amount of the guild left, including the four officers and we created our own guild - an inside joke as we called ourselves the Legendary Exiles. Somehow my raid team managed to all come over with us, I was very shocked but I still have my raid team minus one of our tanks that had to leave due to a job change.

And that pretty much sums it up. It was an interesting journey, involved a lot of heartbreak from me due to leaving a guild that I had spent so much time and energy on, but I am happy to report that I am now happier then ever minus the Drama Llama(s). Took us a lot of work to build back the guild that we had; we still have more work to do to keep both of our raid teams going, but we're getting there.

 I am currently the GM of this ragtag group and am still actively raid leading. I'm proud to say that my team has made it to 11/14 bosses down in regular Siege of Orgrimmar to this date. The other team (formerly Anger Management once a name change poll gets completed) have killed Garrosh as of last week! I am currently raiding on both my shaman and my discipline priest (I'm the pretty one in tier 5 in the picture!) so I had the pleasure of being one of the members that contributed to the kill! Very proud of both groups, AM managed to pull together and finally get a well deserved Garrosh kill and the former Team Fail Status, now Team Legendary is still steadily getting progression kills.

Looking forward to continuing our new start with a great group of people, hoping to have some more good news the next time I post here!

Raiding Siege - Week 11

I'm glad to say that we have killed both Nazgrim and Malkorok last Thursday! It was a great night, two progression bosses and I may or may not have distracted everyone by acting like my nutty self mid Malkorok pull...we wiped, but it was great. Looking forward to another great night this evening.

Blizzcon was this past weekend and there was a lot of information pouring out to those who didn't purchase the virtual ticket. My last post covers the majority of changes.

I'm not sure how I feel about a lot of the changes right now, I am glad that my character's race will be showcased by visiting one of their home worlds but I'm hoping everything else doesn't ruin that for me at this point. Will have to wait and see, they hope to have the expansion out before this coming summer so it won't be too long a wait before we get some more information.

Blizzcon Recap!

So Blizzcon was this weekend and here's my quicknotes:

Storyline (spoilers!)
- Garrosh escapes before his judgement and somehow manages to travel to an alternate dimension/timeline to go into the past without screwing up the present. 
- He finds his father (Grommash/Grom Hellscream) and tries to prevent the orcs from drinking the Blood of Mannoroth, thus stopping the chain of events that would lead up to current events. Garrosh uses future technology to create the "Iron Horde".
- Garrosh is not the main villan despite the fact that he started this expansion, his story will end one way or another.
- What are we doing? Entering the new version of the Dark Portal and stopping him and his allied Orc clans of course, at least in the beginning....*I don't really understand this, if it is indeed a parallel timeline like they are speaking of and it shouldn't effect our timeline, why not just let him go?  He must take all the purples with him*

Features:
- Improved models of every race up to Goblin/Worgen (they're hoping to have them finished in time).
- Level 100.
- New talents, you can view what they have planned for them currently here: http://www.wowdb.com/talent-calculator-wod
- The ability to boost one character up to level 90.
- 2 new raids, 7 new dungeons at launch including UBRS making a comeback.
- Change in raid makeup/difficulty (refer to Jungle's post). Raids will be able to be consisted of 10-25 people, like Flex is now except when it comes to what is now Heroic difficulty - renamed Mystic. That will be for 20 man groups only and will not adjust depending on the amount of people. Raid groups will need to progress through three difficulties instead of two, Normal (approx current Flex difficulty), Heroic (approx current Normal difficulty) and Mystic (approx current Heroic difficulty).
- New Arena ladder system that is supposed to help with queue times and finding exploiters.
- Adventure guide to help players identify what raids they are ready for and what content they should be doing.
- New bag features: Heirlooms, toys and possibly tabards using the same feature as mounts and pets. Quest items will no longer take up bag space (about time!). You can craft directly from your bank.
- Garrisons - Personal bases with followers, a mine and a fishing pool. Followers can be hired and sent on quests or raids (if you have enough) to collect things for you. WoW's version of housing.
- New zone, Draenor. Technically Outland prior to it being destroyed. The current area named Netherstorm will be added in a future patch. Alliance's main city will be at what is currently the Black Temple (Karabor). Horde are somewhere that I don't care..I mean at Bladespire Citadel in Frostfire Ridge.
- Removal of dodge, parry, hit, expertise, reforging, some gem slots, meta gems, and some enchanting slots will be removed (ex: all glove enchants).
- As mentioned here earlier, gear will change depending on your spec, say for example on my shaman the gear would switch between agility and intellect.
- Item squish, no more big numbers!
- Bonus valor for completing things with friends, aww <3
- 10 billion dailies each day is supposed to be a thing of the past!

A ton of information to look at, next up last weeks raid!

Raiding Siege, Week 10

Well, I've slacked off again, because you know..I never do that!

On week 10 on raiding Siege right now, downed 7 bosses thus far and keeping things together! We're working on #8 this evening, General Nazgrim and if we're able to get timing down for his 10% phase we'll be golden I think; crossing my fingers to see Malkorok tonight!

So, since Siege came out and I found out about the Dark Shaman transmogrification set for Shamans I've wanted it; that's one sexy set! Tuesday night on the last pull of the evening we killed the Dark Shamans for the third time and guess what dropped?! The chest with the Dark Shaman gear in it of course. I adore the set, I think it will be something my character will be wearing for a long time yet. Finally a helm I don't feel embarrassed wearing this expansion!


Honorary mention for Epicism's other team (named Anger Management) here, they're 13/14 and have been doing progression on Garrosh for the past few raid nights. Crossing my fingers they'll get their kill very soon! Currently I am not streaming my own raid until I get better equipment to do so (FPS drops too much while fighting), but they've been doing so at Bitingcold's stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/bitingcold. Linking for you know, that one person that looks at my blog! <3 my fan! Good music, I have the stream open for every raid.

Next time, hopefully I'll have General Nazgrim and Malkorok on my belt; cross your fingers for me!

Week 2 and 3 of raiding Siege

Had some fun and productive weeks these past two, got a total of 3 more bosses down! We encountered some dps issues on Norushen, but we got past that just last night. We are lesser geared then the other team so I'm not totally surprised that we encountered that, but I didn't think we'd see it that early on. Main thing is we killed bosses and had a bunch of fun while we were at it :).  Had one of the people we had come in that hadn't raided with the guild prior tell me this morning I did a great job leading and that I achieved my goal of having a fun loving group that can get down to business when we need to. That made me feel pretty good about myself and my abilities as a raid lead. It's hard to believe some times that it was just a few months ago that I was unsure that I could do it. I can't take all of the credit, if I didn't have the team and the support that I had, I don't think I'd be saying that I am still raid leading right now.

Crossing my fingers that we'll be able to clear through Sha again this coming week, I'd really like to see Galakras before next week is out. Myself and one of my tanks already killed it with the other group last Sunday when they needed fill ins so we already know what's going on, it gives us a leg up on that fight in my opinion!

Week one of raiding 5.4

This week my guild started tackling Siege of Orgrimmar and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed what I'm seeing from Blizzard in terms of fight mechanics, I haven't seen alot of "mechanic recycling" thus far. Our first team made it through the first four bosses, putting our guild at #1 alliance side (you guys and gals rock!). My team made it to the second boss and at this point I think the majority of the issue is that we weren't entirely prepared for the content, even though we had a few days to catch up for day #2. Crossing my fingers for some improvement from them this week. We tried Flex raiding this week as well, interesting concept with increasing or decreasing difficulty depending on the amount of people. It was great for us, when people felt too tired they could just leave and not feel guilty as as long as we had 11 people we were good to keep continuing without searching for more people to join us. Made it up to Norushen in that difficulty and got some quality time with my guildies, we haven't done much of that for the past while!

Big thing that came out this week, Legendary cloaks! I worked on that as soon as I possibly could and the last step was fairly easy and quick to get, took me a whole hour! (sarcasm intended) The addition of the legendary seems to be getting some of my group members into gear to get it, I've known that there are some that haven't put in alot of time outside of raiding and I'm glad to see that they are now trying their best to get caught up to the rest of us.

Almost a year...

Wow, I can't believe it is coming up on a year since I've posted anything; time has flown! It's almost like another lifetime ago.

Alot has gone on in my WoW career. I've become a raid lead, I've been reinstated as an officer of my guild in April and also I've changed which role I play when I'm raiding, I've gone from being a Restoration Shaman to Enhancement (it's a melee dps class for those that aren't familiar).

I've celebrated my two year anniversary with Epicism this past March and am I glad I stuck it out after last year, it's almost like I've become a different person in the meantime. Some may say that I "got my head out of my a**" or that I've grown up, it may be either one but I like to think that with everything I've gone through in my personal and WoW lives that I've finally become capable of dealing with the stress of things a little better, not perfect mind you but a little bit at a time.

For those that have read the rest of my posts you may ask, what happened? Well, to keep things at a TLDR level I'll keep it as simplified as I can! Prior to 5.2 coming out I was given the opportunity to become a raid lead, it was either that or I wouldn't have a full time raiding spot. I didn't enjoy the team I was raiding with for Mogushan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of the Endless Spring anymore and I really felt that there needed to be a change to see if I still enjoyed the raiding aspect of WoW. This is a game after all, I play for my enjoyment! And so, with the raid lead position taken up there was only a space for an Enhancement Shaman, a spec I've played on a casual basis when it was needed since I've created the toon in Wrath. That was all in February.

By the time April came around, we didn't have a whole lot of active officers. The majority of them quit the game or raiding for the time being to have more time with their non-gaming lives. That left a bit of a predicament for the guild, with one officer left there was alot of burden for them. By default since I was a raid lead and starting to chip in on the work that the guild needed done I was offered to have an officer's position again, which of course I accepted. I like to think that I'm doing pretty well with handling it so far, I just take it easy instead of seeing it as a job like I did in the past. It really helps.

For the most part, that's what has happened this past year. The guild has also gotten a new Guild Master since the other was inactive and we promoted some others to complete our officer core. Wondering how my raid team ended up doing with 5.2 Throne of Thunder? We did pretty well considering I've never raid leaded when people listened to me instead of trying to overpower. We cleared out 12 out of 12 bosses in normal mode, it was an incredible journey and my goal for the tier was completed so I am extremely pleased. We had our ups and our downs, but I feel we've become a better team in the end of this tier. I'm confident we'll perform even better this coming one.

September 10th is the date 5.4 is supposed to be going onto the live servers, with the Siege of Orgrimmar raid being included....meaning Garrosh Hellscream better be prepared to meet his doom! It's almost time for another round of racing with the other guild group and the server, crossing my fingers for my WoW luck to continue and having another great tier!

Feng gets Fanged, Gara'jal proves to be a wall

This past week my team did manage to kill Feng the Accursed, yay! Got myself a nice ring out of my token roll, it didn't use my need roll for the week so I was pretty impressed by that. Loving the token system that was added in Mists, for 90 coins a week you get 3 tokens (each turn in) that will allow you to have an additional chance at loot, that no one else is able to roll on. It's pretty sweet!

 I'm incredibly pumped about how geared my shaman is at the moment, I've never been one that has been able to achieve the top 20 under on the server due to my previous guilds, but this time around it looks like I'm in the running! I'm currently sitting at 15th on the server, 3rd shaman (only 1 Alliance ahead of me), 3rd Alliance side, 1st in my guild. This past week I had a moment where I was in the top 700 shamans in the world (651st to be exact)! Very exciting stuff for me!

Gara'jal the Spiritbinder has proved to be a brick wall for us, we just can't reach the dps required without switching one of the healers dps. We tried having me go dps on Sunday (I was the only one with a decent off set), and the other two healers just couldn't keep up /sadface. Hoping to have better luck this week, possibly having one of the monks healers go dps may help things; hopefully they've upgraded their offsets to the point where they'll be able to help out.

 I started leveling my monk as well this past week, and I have to say that Brewmaster is crazy fun! I've tanked one dungeon so far, but I've really enjoyed it. The idea of throwing specialty brews at mobs (including an AoE one with no CD!) is very appealing, I can't wait to get to higher levels :).

Week one of raiding, one boss down!

This week we managed to get into raiding; had to take some people that were 90 because some of our team members weren't, but oh well whatever works!. Last night (Sunday) we killed the first boss of Mogu'shan Vaults, the Stone Guard. All I know is, man these fights are designed to drain a shammy's mana dry! I had barely any mana for the majority of it and I have a feeling this will become the norm since the second boss Feng seems to be just as mana draining, possibly even more so! I'm currently attempting to up my spirit and some crit (without losing 50% mastery benefit) so I can benefit from more mana via Resurgence , we'll see how that goes.

Got myself the Sixteen-Fanged Crown off of the Stone Guard, which I find looks kind of odd with it's large plume, thank god for transmog and the ability to hide my helm! Rest of my gear still looks pretty hot, liking the detail on the crafted item models. Because of this upgrade, I've moved up to the #1 shaman on the server (take that Farm Status! I'll gloat while I can ;P).

Tomorrow's the start of another raid week and hopefully at least another boss down. I can only hope :).

Mists of Pandaria release - End of first week

So, tomorrow is the mark of Mists of Pandaria being released for one week, woot! My poor elbows and wrists are telling me all about it....been playing for the majority of my spare time. My shaman hit level 90 the other day and the goal since has been of course grinding dungeons and doing dailies each day, which by the way takes quite a while if you're trying to do as many as possible! I hate that I need at least honored with the Golden Lotus faction in order to get leatherworking patterns, the grind is so slow with dailies being the only way to get reputation.

 Got myself a few mounts this week, the riding turtles from the Pandaren faction, my blue dragonhawk and the wonderous Grand Expedition Yak (for only 108k gold :P). I love having myself a mount that people keep asking where I got the gold for that from, the answer is being smart and selling things before MoP release :).



Hoping to get my nose into raiding next week. We have a raid group meeting Thursday to see where everyone sits. I just hope our druid healer is able to log on and level before then! I'm fairly well geared and hope to be even more so by then. Speaking of gear, I like the models for the dungeon/questing gear available to shamans in MoP, my shaman looks darn sexy in my opinion :P.

Mists of Pandaria release, first two days

 So, MoP came out this past Tuesday and I have to say, it's been quite the blast! I've really enjoyed the new content even after leveling to 90 via the Beta. The journey is taking longer because of the increase in exp needed, my dungeon guide is helping folks, the new gear (even the greens) looks really nice and the new features are extremely fun from Pet Battles to the WoW version of "Farmville" (I don't see the two as one in the same really, some likeness but not entirely). I love getting to see the scenery again from a different view as I am leveling Elemental questing instead of Enhancement while trying to do quests I didn't do on Beta, makes it feel like a bit of a different experience for me! Has some funny things happen the day before the release and now, a cubed box on a Fel Orcs head in the Netherwing questing area (got my mount!) and what looks like a barrel on my Ghost Wolf's butt, made me giggle a bit!

Dungeon Guide Completed, Alliance pattern sampled

Not a whole lot going on these past few days, I've completed my Mists of Pandaria dungeon guide (you can find it here:  http://www.epicism.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=3704, it is a public forum on my guild's website) and I'm crossing my fingers that it will help some people out as I'm quite proud of the work I put into it :).

I made a sample Alliance lion knitting pattern the other day and am going to make myself an Alliance themed scarf with it, putting one lion on each end. I think it'll look really nice in Alliance colors! I already have someone debating on buying one off of me depending on the pricing, going to need to go shopping for some cheapish wool to make it cost effective.

Mists is in 2 days 5 hours and counting!

Theramore's Fall, now on Twitchtv, Sinestra killed

So, yesterday the new scenario Theramore's Fall came out of the live servers. Yet again, another Alliance town demolished by the Horde....when will they get a break? Not to mention the loss of Rhonin, a great mage of the Kirin Tor and someone I loved to read about in the World of Warcraft books.

 Overall, my impression of the scenario was so-so. I enjoyed having new content to do, but felt that it lacked in storyline as I had little to no idea what was going on. I didnt find out about Rhonin afterwards by reading the WoW forums :(. Scenarios themselves are an interesting concept, not really difficult, not so easy you could do them in your sleep (some opinions differ) but I would really enjoy knowing what was going on in the Theramore battle without having to go and pick up one of the WoW books (even though I'll probably get it anyways).

 In other news, I am now on Twitchtv! You can find me under the handle fulgora_epicism. I will be streaming any of the Epicism raids that I attend and some Diablo 3 when I feel like it :).

 This past week our guild's main goal (besides farming current content) was to kill Sinestra. Since I was sitting from the farming this week I decided to join in. Managed to get her killed after going through 3 of the 4 bosses in Bastion of Twilight on Heroic first (Council was done on regular for the achievement) and going back another night. Two healing it was not incredibly easy, even two tiers later! You can find a video of that kill on my Twitchtv channel.

End of Cata Blues, Mists incoming soon!

It's called a few things; burnout, end of expansion blues, etc. but I like to call it boredom. Bored with grinding the same content over and over, every week doing it the exact same as when you first killed the boss. Week before last Blizzard added patch 5.0.4 to the mix, changing our whole talent system and adding a bunch of new stuff into the game. Do I like it? Meh at best, shaman talents and glyphs are fairly underwhelming; there just isn't the same variety that it available to the other classes. I think my beta testing may have made them a little more underwhelming then it would be if I saw them for the first time then, but I'm not complaining.

 MoP is less then two weeks away today, yahoo! Less then two weeks until I wake up before 4am to (hopefully) get into the new content and gain some new levels on live. In the meantime I'm doing the usual, raiding when I'm scheduled to raid on one of the teams (I'm hoping this won't become the norm come MoP) and working on a strategy guide to all the MoP dungeons for my guild. Hoping to have that done soon :).

 Non-game I've been doing a hell of alot of knitting, currently I'm working on an Alliance banner pattern that I would like to turn into a scarf with the Horde banner on the other end. Will post pics when I have my samples patterns done :).