20 Questions with Siha

Every week, Matt gets a chance to sit down with a WoW Blogger chosen by Matt’s right wing. Find out a little more about your favourite bloggers as he tries to get to know them a little more!

This week, Siha of the Banana Shoulders was awesome enough to stop healing for a few minutes to answer a few questions.

Tell us a bit more about yourself and how you got into gaming and World of Warcraft.

In the real world, I’m a very geeky girl living in Brisbane, Australia. I’ve always been into geeky pursuits, and I’ve been a roleplaying gamer (i.e. pen-and-paper/tabletop gaming, particularly Shadowrun, Exalted and Dungeons & Dragons) for fifteen or sixteen years. I first got into MMOs with Ultima Online – a bunch of my workmates were playing, it sounded awesome, I picked it up… and loved it, until they all fled UO for EQ and somehow I missed the MMO memo. I came back to MMOs with SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) and that led me to EQ2… and then WoW.

How did you come to power in your Guild?

Well, my guild – Southern Wardens – was formed in 2003, as an Aussie guild in Star Wars Galaxies. In mid-04 people started getting excited about the upcoming EQ2 and WoW releases. Most of the guild went to EQ2, and I was guild leader for the EQ2 section of the guild, but over time people started trickling across to WoW as it was frankly much more fun. Eventually I went with the flow, picked up WoW in early ’05 to check it out… and I don’t think I ever logged into EQ2 again. I became an officer in SW fairly quickly; I’d been an officer in SWG and guild leader in EQ2, and the guys knew I’m an organiseaholic (and therefore good for delegating stuff to!) We had three previous guild leaders in WoW, but all had to stop playing or drop back to very casual hours for RL reasons; I tended to work very closely with the previous incumbent, so when he had to stop playing, I was the obvious choice. The short version, of course, is "because no other lazy sod would do the damn job when I tried to give it away". 🙂

I asked Kestrel if he had any advice for up and coming GM’s. I’m going to ask you something similar. What is one mistake that you’ve learned the most from throughout your time as GM?

Not communicating things quickly enough. Good lines of communication are essential with your guild; if your guild trusts that the officer crew are managing things equitably and transparently, they’re more willing to accept that the decisions you make are for the good of the guild, and more willing to speak up calmly about problems instead of causing storms of drama. And, of course, you stand a better chance of actually keeping your guildies satisfied.

What are your initial impressions of 2.4?

I really like it. I think some of the high-level raid decisions by Blizzard are fairly insane – like taking stamina off a lot of the T6 pieces in Sunwell Plateau, or adding T6-equivalent badge loot – but I think the world event is going to be much more fun (and less server- destroying) than the AQ40 and Naxx world events. The Shattered Sun quests are a great expansion to the dailies, and overall I’m just happy with it. Plus there are some great specific additions – the ability to link spells and quests in chat channels like you can now with items, for instance, or the badges of justice that will be dropping from many 25-man raid bosses. Thumbs up.

What made you pick a Paladin over the other 3 healing classes?

I like healers, and always have. My SWG main was a Master Doctor/Teras Kasi Master (TK being the unarmed martial arts in SWG); my EQ2 main was a Templar (a plate-wearing cleric)… the ‘healer who can take a melee beating’ is just a fun archetype. To be honest, though, I didn’t really realize I was picking a main I’d still be playing and raiding with three years later!

Why are protection Paladins so freakin’ hard to kill and what is their one weakness?

Hard to kill: like any other tank, they have great armor, stamina and survivability. They’re hard to kill in PvE content, too – just ask the raid bosses who die at their feet every week. 😉 Plus from a PvP perspective it’s particularly tough for melee classes to take them on; the mechanics of tankadins means that they specialise in reflected damage (from Holy Shield, Retribution Aura, Blessing of Sanctuary and some gear choices) so any meleer who’s trying to beat on a prot pally is more likely to kill themselves than the pally. Weakness: can’t kill a damn thing? Does that count? More seriously: everything a paladin will use in PvP (unless they’re a Ret pally) is a Holy spell. Lock down their holy school with interrupts, counterspells, slams and the like and they can’t do _anything_ – no Holy Shield, no bubble, no heals, no nuffin’.

Have you ever been treated differently as a female gamer by other > players?

Never, actually. I wish all female gamers were as fortunate.

So with all that healing gear you have on, how is levelling in the expansion going to be?

Just fiiiiiiiine, thanks to the change in 2.3 where healing gear adds spell damage. For a healer/offtank-specced character, I can put out some decent DPS – I’m not going to be winning any contests, but it’s fine for most questing. I’ll likely respec to 40/0/21 shockadin spec for some heftier DPS (sacrificing my ability to offtank, which doesn’t matter for levelling) and I’m not anticipating any problems at all.

You have your own domain and webhosting for your blog so I can see > you’re fairly committed to the blogging enterprise. Your 2.4 notes have been terrific and insightful. What can readers expect to see from Banana Shoulders in the next year?

I’m hoping to have time to get deeper into analysis and some light theorycrafting about paladins and general game mechanics. I also enjoy writing guides, like my guides to the daily quests or to holy paladin tanking, so there will be more of those if I see a subject that needs writing about. And finally, I’m really hoping to get into the WotLK beta (as I did for the TBC beta) so you can expect a lot of WotLK blogging if that happens. In particular, I wrote a popular jewelcrafting levelling guide during the TBC beta ("Siya’s Jewelcrafting Guide" for those of you that used it), and I’d like to provide a similar service for Inscription (and, of course, Jewelcrafting 376+).

What would the 51 point holy talent be?

I’m not actually sure, to be honest. My initial response would be "please god, some kind of multi-target heal" but I’m not entirely sure that’s appropriate. That one needs some thought. So for now I’ll just say "a multi-target heal, please!". 🙂 >

Speed questions

Being a successful raid healer requires:

Situational awareness and focus.

Best way to wipe:

The very first time a hunter discovers that pets path funny when he jumps down from a high ledge. Hellooooo, half of BRD, we’re very pleased to see you!

Most common excuse for your tank dying:

On Teamspeak: "Uh, guys, WoW crashed. Have you pulled yet?"

Buff:

Mages.

Favourite non-combat pet:

The Robotic Homing Chicken, from a loot card in the WoW Trading Card Game.

Favourite non-WoW related stress releasing activity:

Watching escapist TV – current favourites for that category are NCIS, Family Guy, Scrubs or Burn Notice.

I can’t heal without my:

background music.

Name of your 2H DPS mace (all Paladins have one, don’t lie):

That Thing In Bank Bag #6 That I Don’t Have Room For In My Bags. (Actually, it’s a Hammer of the Naaru off Maulgar.)

Best way to say no to a guild member:

Make my 2IC do it. (We’re good cop, bad cop.) …I kid. Mostly. The best way is to be firm but fair, and try and suggest an alternative that might meet their needs.

3 things you want to see more of on other blogs:

• Well-written guides that make information accessible (eg Dwarf Priest’s guide to priests in PvP, Big Bear Butt’s guide to feral tanking, etc.)
• Universally-useful information – for example, not just "we killed Gruul today!" (though that’s great), but "we killed Gruul today, and here’s a new strat we developed that works really well for that fight if you don’t have enough healers!"
• Links to me! 😉

Special thanks to:

My 2IC Alinden for all the hard work he puts into helping run the guild and coordinate our raids. My guild as a whole for being so damn awesome (four first kills in four weeks, hooray!). And the folks in the Blog Azeroth chatroom – especially Valenna, Nightravyn, TJ, Bear, Bellwether, Phae, Megan and your good self – who have all provided lots of good company (albeit at weird hours, you strange Northern Hemisphere people, you!) and an inspiration to be a better blogger.

Banana Shoulders is an excellent resource for Holy Paladins and authored by a terrific person! While you’re visiting, don’t forget to subscribe to Siha’s blog!