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Ulduar Fights Where It’s Just Not the Healer’s Fault

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I’ve experienced just about type of death in Ulduar. I’d die to Constrictor tentacles. Early on, I’d get rocked by Hodir’s Flash Freeze. Sometimes I’d get unlucky with a Rocket Strike.

Today’s post is designed to help you identify under what situations a healer is at fault and when it is simply out of their hands. Keep in mind there are several exceptions. In most cases, tanks are the one that will be bearing the brunt of these abilities. If they die, odds are good they weren’t at full health. If it were any other player, well let’s take a look shall we?

This is a really long post. I’d consider using it as a reference when trying to troubleshoot your raid to see if there really was anything that could have been done to keep players alive.

Flame Leviathan

Nothing much here. I don’t send healers onboard the tank. I usually send up hybrid DPS who are able to heal in addition to DPS.

Razorscale

You died because of:

  • Devouring Flame – Your fault. Should not have been standing in them. It’s the blue stuff on the ground.
  • Flame Breath – Your fault. Don’t stand in front of Razor when this happens. Tanks are an exception.
  • Fireball – Our fault. It’s only 11000 damage or so. However, there are times when a player does get gibbed by these. I’ve been hit by this twice in a row in the span of a half second. I happened to have a shield up which saved me with a 15% health left.

Ignis

You died because of:

  • Scorch – Your fault. Why on earth would you stand on a big giant tower of fire?
  • Flame Jets – Our fault. Players should be in the green when Flame Jets connect.
  • Slag pot – Our fault. You can help even more though if you can. I cast Lesser Healing Wave on myself when I play my Elemental Shaman to help the heals out.
  • Construct explosion – Your fault. Run the heck out before it gets detonated.

Deconstructor

You died because of:

  • Gravity Bomb – Neither. It’s the job of the guy who got Gravity Bomb to get clear. If he’s too close, he pulls you in and detonates. Bomb guy’s fault.
  • Light Bomb – Both. It’s the Light bomb’s duty to also get clear. But the raid will take 2 or 3 ticks of Light Bomb damage. Our job is to heal that up. Requires effort on both parts.
  • Tympanic Tantrum – Our fault. We should be able to outheal the damage done by Tympanic Tantrum.
  • Bomb bot – Your fault. Should not be within proximity of these things when they explode.

Iron Council

You died because of:

  • Fusion Punch – Our fault. Unless none of the healers are dispellers. Then it’s the dispeller’s fault. That debuff has to come off quick.
  • High Voltage – Our fault. Steelbreaker’s aura. Everyone gets hit by it no matter what. It just has to be out healed.
  • Rune of Death – Your fault. Shouldn’t be standing in it.
  • Chain Lightning – Both. It depends on how much damage you take. If you die to a chain lightning, check to see if you were properly spaced up. You can stay with 1 or maybe 2 other players nearby. That type of damage is survivable. If your health was too low for a period of time, then its our fault for not getting you back in the green quick enough.
  • Lightning Whirl – Both. It should be interrupted. It’s normal to see 1 or 2 ticks slip through. Most players should be able to survive that. If you didn’t survive it, then chances are you weren’t topped either.
  • Overload – Your fault. When the little guy stops moving and starts doing his Kamehameha move, run out of the blast zone.
  • Lightning Tendrils – Both. It’s difficult to outrun this. Some players are going to get caught in them. At the same time, a concerted effort should be made by those not being focused to run away from it, not run towards it. Focused players are taking 3000 – 5000 damage per second. It’s possible if its one or two players. It’s a nightmare if it’s five or so.
  • Melee hit for 30000 – Not our fault. Ideally a cooldown will be popped. I know when I see Steelbreaker on the tank, I’ll drop a Pain Suppression reflexively on the tank to buy some extra time to get him repositioned. Sometimes Murphy likes to come along and crap on your raid with a Rune of Powered up Fusion Punch. One word: Screwed.

Kologarn

You died because of:

  • Shockwave – Our fault. No player should be that low when Shockwave connects. Otherwise they’re dead.
  • Stone Grip – Our fault. Gripped players just have to be kept alive until the arm takes enough damage.
  • Focused Eyebeam – Your fault. On the one hand, your health should be high enough to eat a tick or two if necessary. On the other hand, if you have several seconds to run and kite the beam before you start registering damage.

Auriaya

You died because of:

  • Seeping Feral Essence – Your fault. It’s basically a void zone. Get out of it.
  • Sonic Screech – Neither. Some players weren’t stacking up when it went off. Obviously if you’re at 5% health when it hits, you’re probably going to die. Should be in the green as much as possible.
  • Sentinel Blast – Our fault. It’s healer duty to heal up the initial parts of the blast. The faster the interrupts, the less we have to worry about it.

Hodir

You died because of:

  • Biting Cold – Your fault. Keep jumping. Keep strafing. Keep dancing and moving.
  • Flash Freeze – Your fault. Weren’t fast enough getting into a snow drift.
  • Icicles – Your fault. You can see the blue runes on the ground. You know where they’re coming from.
  • Frozen Blows – Our fault. There’s nothing you can really do to avoid it. It’s up to us healers to play triage on the whole raid.

Thorim

You died because of:

  • Charge Orb – Your fault. Should be standing near the center of the room to avoid this when in the arena.
  • Smash – Your fault. Should not be standing in front of the Rune Giant in the gauntlet.
  • Shockwave-like ability – Your fault. Dodge them.
  • Rune Detonation – Your fault. You see the fire shield above the target, get clear of them.
  • Chain Lightning – Both. Don’t stand with more than 2 other people. There’s only so much space in the room and you do have to dodge Lightnign Charges.
  • Lightning Charge – Your fault. When you see the streams coming from the wall towards Thorim, break off quickly.

Freya

You died because of:

  • Detonating Lashers – Our fault. Unless your raid manages to precisely kill all of them at the same time.
  • Nature Bomb – Your fault. When you see these big green balls on the ground, that’s your cue to move.

Mimiron

You died because of:

  • Napalm Shell – Our fault. We have to be able to heal this through.
  • Plasma Burst – Our fault. Tanks and healing cooldowns must be used so that they can live.
  • Shock Blast – Your fault. We can’t outheal 100000 damage all at once.
  • Proximity Mine – Your fault. No comment.
  • Heat Wave – Our fault. Shouldn’t be a problem healing this up.
  • Rapid Burst – Out fault. No good reason why we’d die to this either.
  • Rocket Strike – Your fault. Stand out of the red stuff on the ground.
  • Laser Barrage – Your fault. Nothing we can do about this either. Up to you to make a run for it.
  • Bomb bot – Neither. These things do a lot of damage when they explode. By now, your raiders should be able to survive at least one of these with you at full health. Hopefully the rest of your raid can kill these before they become an issue.

General Vezax

You died because of:

  • Shadow Crash – Your fault. Outrun these. We’ll do what we can to heal up the player or two that gets hit by it.
  • Searing Flames – Neither. Someone missed an interrupt. This should not be going off at all.
  • Surge of Darkness – Neither. Depends on the strategy. With defensive cooldowns, it shouldn’t be a problem.
  • Mark of the Faceless – Neither. Again, this requires the efforts of both. The target has to run out fast. Those nearby need to be healed up quickly.
  • Saronite Vapors – Your fault. Be very careful about staying in too late. As a Priest, I Prayer of Mending on stack 6, and Shield myself on 7 and escape with about half my health. Others may not be as lucky.

Yogg-Saron

You died because of:

  • Shadow Nova – Our fault. Unless your raid killed like 5 guardians at the same time.
  • Death Ray – Your fault. These green beams start off harmless at first and don’t move. When you see them, get clear. It amazes me how many players still stand there after it’s been there for several seconds. Drop what you’re doing and move.
  • Crusher Tentacles – Your fault. Shouldn’t be in melee range of these. They will kill with one blow.
  • Brain Link – Technically our fault. But run towards each other quick!
  • Squeeze – Our fault. We have to keep you alive long enough for the DPS to break you out.
  • Sanity – Your fault. There is nothing we can do if your sanity reaches zero.

And there you have it! Use this list only as a rough guideline. There are always exceptions to everything. Look into the context of what happened before making a judgment. You don’t always have to assign fault. But it is important to find out what happened so you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. You’ll notice that a lof of these deaths are easily preventable by healers. But there are some rare cases where there’s just nothing we can do short of a psychic Guardian Spirit on a player.

Yes, you’ll notice I didn’t add any comments on Algalon. I haven’t engaged him and it won’t be for a while.

How to Earn Those Seemingly Impossible Alterac Valley Achievements

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av-achievements

Before attempting to shoot for several of these achievements, it is strongly advised that you have the following:

  • AV Preform Enabler installed and ready to go
  • A group of 10-15 friends
  • Several hours to kill

I won’t go into much detail about the AV Enabler. Veteran BG players understand why it’s useful and nearly a requirement in most preforms. There is no exception especially when it comes to AV.

Loyal Defender

This Achievement involves you killing 50 players while defending your general. It’s either going to be Drek or Vann depending on your faction. If you happen to join an AV in progress where you are losing, then it’s the perfect time for you and your crew to make their stand. Ideally, your defense will involve a couple of Death Knights. Have them Scorpion any unsuspecting Horde (or Alliance) players in.

As DPS, strafe in and out of sight as much as possible. Sneak out and try to bait players in, but take care not to get yourself caught outside. Death Grip from Death Knights work both ways.

Line of sight everything as much as possible. There are two columns in the back of Vann’s room which I’ve found perfect for the job. I’d be able to partially conceal myself behind it and still heal players around me. There’s probably something similar in Drek’s room as well.

The most important thing here is to don’t ever release. If you’re lucky, opposing faction members won’t loot your corpse allowing the healers behind you to pick you up manually.

I was able to get this achievement in about 3 minutes after dying and doing the run of shame back into Vann’s room.

Now make like Braveheart and hold!

The Alterac Blitz

Ready for the fastest AV ever? Here’s the roles you’ll need:

  • 2 tanks
  • ~4 healers
  • Miscellaneous DPS

You’ve got six minutes to win Alterac Valley. Once those gates open, your team is on the clock.

This is straight forward, PvP brute force tactics at its finest. With your team assembled and buffed at the gate, mount up and make straight for Drek’s room. Evade, sidestep, and ignore as many Horde as possible. Alliance players will be riding through the Fields of Strife along the west side while the Horde are going the opposite direction along the east.

If you’re lucky, you won’t get stalled heading down. Most of the time you won’t. If you do get held up, there’s nothing more you can do.

Assuming everything goes well, you’ll be staring down Drek and his four tower cronies. When Conquest got this achievement, we did it with 2 Paladin tanks. One of them picked up Drek and dragged him to the back of the room while the other picked up the other 4 tower marshals and peeled them away from Drek’s tank. The goal here is to minimize whirlwind damage as much as possible. Pop a Heroism and pray that your DPS is sufficient to take him down with the allotted time. You might have a few stragglers coming in from behind trying to put a dent in your plans. Dropping fear bombs and other forms of CC should delay them long enough for your strike force to take out Drek.

The other faction won’t even realize what happened. I’ll never forget the disbelief in Battleground chat when Drek died. It felt like Conquest went to Drek while the rest of the other players were working on Galv. Lot’s of “WTFs” and “Whoas” ensued.

Stormpike Perfection

Win Alterac Valley without losing a tower or a Captain. You must also control all of the Horde’s towers.

It is imperative that you do not attack Galv at all. I’ll explain why later.

You’ll be playing a tight checking defense at first. When your team comes screaming out of the gate, set up shop inside Belinda’s room and stave off the initial rush. Stonehearth is going to be assaulted at this point. Once Belinda is clear, head straight to Stonehearth and take it back. Use overwhelming force.

At this point, your team will need to split. The bulk of the forces will be advancing south and slowly capping towers.

Strong communication here is key. Definitely keep a player back on Belinda duty. You can watch from far away and see how many Horde players are going in. If it’s a substantial amount, alert the defense. The defense will be alternating between securing Stonehearth and Belinda. If Horde players manage to reach back, send 2 or 3 players to recap. It’s important to maintain possession of bunkers. If one is in the process of being turned by the Horde, and you manage to reduce their tickets to 0, you won’t get this achievement because you lost control of a tower. Even though they haven’t capture it yet, it won’t matter.

The strategy for the offense is to slowly and systematically capture towers. Note that the Horde have to have enough tickets left for this to happen. For example, if they have 40 tickets left and you still have two towers to cap, you won’t get the achievement. One tower will reduce the tickets to 0 while the other is still in progress. This is why you can’t kill Galv as it would drop their ticket count by 100 and reduce the time you have to capture towers.

We came close once to gaining this achievement but we lost a bunker at the last possible minute. This weekend. That’s my goal for this weekend.

Archetypes of a Guild: The Guild Egoist

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veruca-salt

Some of you may remember my article about the 5 Archetypes of Healers back when I was still a guest poster here.

I was watching a conversation on twitter between a few of my friends and it got me thinking. Like every social clique a Guild has certain roles or social archetypes that people can be categorized as. This post series will explore some of the more common ones you may encounter in your travels through MMOs, as well as offer suggestions on how to deal with some of the less savory. These posts come from a request made by Valkrierisen and Firewillow. I’ll add a disclaimer here, this is based on my observations over many years of multiple MMOs and pen and paper tabletop groups.

Today I’d like to talk about one of the bad personalities that people sometimes adopt, the Guild Princess. A Guild Princess is for all intents and purposes a  Prima Donna. This role is not gender specific in the sense of the player(both men and women can and do fit this role), but it’s almost always a in game female toon being played. The princess can be a destructive force in a guild, they can undermine authority and leadership, hold raids from starting on time, and can cause guild drama that can become something akin to Jerry Springer.Keep in mind this is an extreme, but it is something I’ve seen many times.

Now there are a few different varieties of a Guild Princess, lets take a look at them shall we?

The Prima Donna

This guild Egoist will usually attach themselves to the vulnerable player base of the guild, usually honing in on the more socially awkward ones first. They can often be found grinding or questing with this person and talking to them late night either in chat messages or even ventrillo/teamspeak. Prime targets are officers or people with power within the structure.  Once the person is enthralled enough, they move onto the next person. Sometimes they will find the other females in the guild and begin to cultivate friendships. They will often hide behind “solidarity” and try to build a  bond between the players, often times using a sob story or tear jerker to cement it. As with the first point, females in power or who are married to/dating someone in power in the structure is primary target.

This leads to two paths. First the person can and will usually try to use these relationships to get themselves elevated to a position of power, maybe a class lead or lower officer. If they can’t obtain the rank, they will settle for using the friendships they’ve had to get what they want, be it a raid spot, loot or the shunning of a guildie. If someone disagrees with them or doesn’t give up a raid spot or loot the princess wants, they will often times complain or cry to friends about how unfair they were and thus begin a social shunning of the “offender”. This same person will flirt with multiple males in the guild and sometimes throw them at each other when one has outlived their usefulness. They also have a tendency to think of their raid performance as above reproach and when presented with numbers indicating the level of improvement needed or that they are causing wipes, will often have a million excuses that are not their fault. They will often have long periods of being absent, especially during new encounters, but will still expect full loot rights.  Watch for canned responses, vague answers or sometimes even re use of an excuse.

How to Deal With the Prima Donna

This brand of Egoist is in the game for power. They want it, they want to be the center of it. There are a few ways to deal with it. If you notice the behavior above, tell your GM or a trustworthy officer right away your concern. The biggest thing for this one is to be proactive. Point out their behavior early so it gets noticed is key, this puts people on guard and allows officers to intervene if needed. This also helps to guard the rest of the guild from this behavior. Warn your close friends too, point out their interactions with other people as examples. Don’t get sucked into the sob stories that they lay out.  The worst thing you can do with this one is to do nothing at all.

The Vapid Vixen

This one is used to getting their way because they are a “female” in game. They use their sexuality to get what they want, be it loot, raid spots or whatever. When they don’t get what they want they are prone to pouting or tantrums. They are pretty much the spoiled brat of the guild. During raids they will often talk over encounter instructions, they often die to void zones, possibly even wipe raids all the while chatting away. They are used to being the center of attention and do everything they can to keep it, be it causing drama, holding up raids, talking with anyone that listens or even spouting random snippets or comments in chat or on vent. Anytime the lime light shifts away from them they try to do something to get it back, negative or positive it doesn’t matter as long as all eyes are on them. They are a disruptive force but often times it’s not intentional, they are just used to everyone dropping everything for them and expect it to continue on no matter where they are.

How to Deal With the Vapid Virago

If this behavior is proving disruptive quite simply, ignore them. They make an offhand comment not pertaining to the conversation? ignore it and continue on. They make a comment in vent or talk over instructions? stop talking. When they ask what’s wrong say nothing and continue on with the instructions. They throw a tantrum? After a short while they tend to learn that acting out gets them no where and they settle down. If they don’t settle down they tend to leave to find another stage to perform on.

The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

First of all I’d like to say that I respect any man capable of role playing a female accurately. I myself play a female toon, but I’m not certain I could ever accurately portray that in an RP environment.

With that said, this category is for the guys who play females toons and pretend to be female to get what they want. Their main motivation is usually one of the two aforementioned items (see Prima Donna and Virago above). Either they want power, or they want attention and they are using the pretext of a female toon and supposed female player to get them. Pretending to be female lets them prey on the socially awkward of the guild and fill the role of a Devious Diva or Vapid Vixen. They tend to be very open about sex and sexual conversations and will launch into graphic detail if prompted. They tend to be a bit more flirty, refuse to talk on vent (usually with an excuse of shyness or no mic), and tend to be promiscuous in the guild.

Dealing With the Wolf

The same rules for the Virago and the Prima Donna apply here with an added items. If they are being disruptive and causing issues and you want to get rid of them, catch them in the lie. Get them to talk on vent or make a comment that outs them. Usually they disappear shortly after they are found out to start over again somewhere else. It’s not easy but once it’s done they are 99.99999% likely to leave and be gone for good.

The guild princess can be a very disruptive force in your guild. Identifying them early can save your guild a ton of drama and keep things together. Letting them run rampant can splinter the guild and potentially the friendships that you’ve built up. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty. Find your guilds “Bad egg shute” and help direct them towards it.

Have you had to deal with a Prima Donna in guild? Have any interesting stories or experiences to share about a Guild Egoist?

Until next time,

Sig

Image of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Is Applying to Multiple Guilds a Sin?

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Found this intriguing question on Twitter today that was directed to me. I’ll try to paraphrase it as best as I can.

”Is there anything wrong with players applying to multiple guilds?”

From my perspective, no. The way I see it, if I’m a guildless player who is looking to get involved with a raiding guild somewhere, I’d take the shotgun approach. I won’t get into why such a player should or shouldn’t apply to this type of guild. Let’s assume that I’ve done my homework and have answered the self-help questionnaire on the type or guild I want to be a part of. For example, I want to be in a raiding guild that’s just started Ulduar and is utilizing a DKP system that happens to only raid on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from a period between 6 PM – 12 AM.

Let’s say I hit the jackpot and there happens to be four guilds that fit the criteria.

From the applicant perspective

Why not? I want to raid. It doesn’t matter to me which guild I get into as they’re all pretty much the same. I’m flexible with my hours. I can raid from 7 – 11 PM for example. The time frame I listed above is the window that I am willing to commit myself to raiding. By applying to 4 different guilds, I get to maximize my chances. The odds are higher that at least one of them could use the role that I play.

From the guild perspective

It’s nice and flattering to hear from a player that they’ve looked only at your guild and want to be a part of it. They didn’t even consider any other option. What if the applicant doesn’t fit or if you don’t have room? It’s nice to know that the player has some other plans to fallback on. It kills me whenever I turn down a player sometimes. Some of them genuinely deserve good guilds to be a part of and wish to contribute to raids. Sometimes there’s just no space.

I’ve seen guilds who adopt this attitude that their guild is awesome. In fact, it is so damn awesome they can’t fathom why anyone who has applied to their guild also applied to other guilds. Clearly it’s an insult to such guilds. When a guild gets wind that an applicant also applied elsewhere, they just shoot them down. On one hand, it makes the process a little easier for the app as it does weed down the number of remaining guilds.

Cover your ass

When I applied to post secondary schools, I applied to no less than 3 institutions. Why? because I knew there was a very real chance that I would get rejected. It’s the same mentality when applying for jobs. Apply to many as you can and see who wants you. Then from there, you take the best possible offer.

There’s nothing wrong with the business sense. Don’t try and pull the loyalty card here either. The guild hasn’t accepted the applicant yet. There’s no incentive for them to be that loyal so early. When a player of outstanding calibre happens to apply (let’s say a player with Immortal or Champion of Ulduar or something), it’s up to the guild to change gears and sell themselves. The guild has to essentially put up a neon sign that says “JOIN US!” Ultimately, the decision is always going to belong to the applicant whether they accept or otherwise. If a guild truly wants that player, they’ll start talking and eventually extend an invite. If not, the guild will pass and one of the other guilds might consider the player.

It sure as heck saves a lot of time, too. Lots of guilds have response rates varying from hours to days to even weeks. If I were planning to raid, I’d apply to all the guilds at once. However, if there was one organization that I’d want to join, I’d make it known to them that they were my first pick. Would other guilds feel slighted? Well, probably. But if they needed the extra set of hands, they’d overlook that. If they didn’t, then the applicant would get turned down anyway regardless. It’s certainly faster than applying to one guild, waiting for a response, getting rejected, and then repeating it with a different guild over and over.

Applying to multiple guilds allows players to gauge the level of interest a guild has in their services. There’s nothing ethically wrong with that.

Image courtesy of woodsy

Where Have I Been?

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I owe you guys an explanation. Normally, I don’t believe in the “Sorry guys, life owned me” type blog posts that offer insight as to why a blogger hasn’t been writing as much. With that in mind, I’m not going to apologize. Instead, what I will try to do is paint on a blank canvas exactly what’s been going on with me recently.

Once upon a time, I read that writing could be viewed as a therapeutic process. It can serve as a valve or an outlet to express everything you want to say. Apparently. I’ve never tried it. Wouldn’t know, you know?

Summer is the time of year that raiding guilds dread. Not many organizations are able to last past it. Not many GMs are willing to put in the time and work to re-energize their guilds when their players just don’t feel like playing. There isn’t much the boss can do about it other than go shopping. About 5 or so guilds that were more progressed then my guild on my server had collapsed internally due to a myriad of reasons all relating to cancelled raids and so forth.

The first raid I had to cancel was one last week. There was simply too many holes on the roster and there was no way our bench depth extended that far. I understood and accepted this and opted to give the crew a day of rest instead in preparation for the next instance tier that will debut (very soon, I might add, especially at the rate of background patching).

Ulduar’s been out for approximately four months. Players at the upper end of the curve are either bored or are getting bored.

 bored-curve

Naturally, the image is a clearly gross exaggeration. Don’t take it seriously. Although this does remind me to clean the dust off a post I had been meaning to write many months ago on the perceived Raiding Curve and explore it in more detail.

It’s very difficult to shoot for hard mode level content when your varsity players are slowly dropping out one by one. Although its easy to continue to draft players and recruit them, not every pick is going to turn out to be a stud. It’s a challenging decision to make to go after the hardest bosses in the game with players who may not have the gear to adequately face the challenge.

Guild management: It accelerates the aging process!

On to the personal side of things. It’s a little rather demoralizing. I’m currently undergoing what I consider a mid-academic life crisis.

Allow me to explain.

One of my assignments for this online class I’m taking (and the last as I clearly do not have the discipline to participate in an distance education course) is to visit court and write a paper about what I observe. So during my field trip, I observed two cases. One was about a street racing incident, and the other was about a hydroponics incident in some guy’s basement.

It’s an eye opening experience. Enough for me to give pause and consider a career change. I mean in the first case, I watched a bus driver get grilled about how the height of his driver’s seat could affect his vision. Naturally, the defense attacked his memory and credibility. Poor guy. The hydroponics case had a lawyer dispute the admissibility of evidence after it had already been admitted and allowed.

And that’s when it hit me. Is this something I want to get involved with? No, not really. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It wasn’t until two years ago that I decided to start this blog. In the time since then, I’ve never really realized how much I enjoyed writing. Only recently did it occur to me that it could lead to something more and be a viable career path.

But I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve already committed so much into my current major in terms of time and finances. When I first started it, I really liked what I was learning. Now I just don’t seem to care about it as much. I’m so tired of school. I’ve never taken a semester off since I graduated from high school.

Going to end off this post with a link to an interview I did a few days ago and a brief question. Realized I haven’t published it here yet.

Have you ever experienced burnout in WoW? If so, how have you dealt with that?

No, I’ve never truly experienced burnout in WoW. Not at the point where I felt like I had to uninstall the game. I’ve been playing the game since Vanilla. I think Zul’Gurub had just been released. I’ve maintained a steady pace. How I’ve managed to avoid burnout is a mystery even to me. You’d think a player who has done so much and has played so often would get sick of everything and just step back for a while.

You know, I think I partially credit that to my blog. I’ve always wanted to maintain a high level of quality and production on my blog. And no matter what anyone else says, it’s hard to write about something you’re not interested in. You have to keep some hours invested in the game to come up with fresh content and material. I had no desire to be one of those fly by night blogs where I’d post strong for a while and then disappear forever. It was my goal to try and become a regular resource and voice. In order to do that, you just have to keep playing.

I watched the Ugly Truth the other day. I thought it was a fairly funny movie. I wonder if I can pull off a series similar to that about WoW.

“Death Knights: They will kick your ass before you can even respond. And that’s the ugly truth!”

Maybe not.