Special Delivery: Roundup Of The Best WoW Posts Of The Week

 

Last week I started a mostly regular Saturday feature whereby I do My Thing for you guys here at WoM. No,that’s not putting on a light display shooting lazers from my eyes. Embarrassingly I’ve generally switched raiding mains as it is and am considering switching again (shh, don’t tell Matt), so lazers are much removed at present. But what I do do is gather the best posts from around the WoW blogosphere and deliver them straight to my readers at my website, MMO Melting Pot. And that’s what I’m doing on a Saturday: rounding up the best posts I’ve read during the week, with a focus on the posts about healing, leading or raiding so that they’re just the right cup of tea for WoM readers.

Things have been a little quieter in the blogosphere this week, particularly on the healer-chatter side of things. Y’see, the end of October hails, well, November. Many bloggers are focusing on preparing themselves – or their guilds – for Cataclysm. Some are blogging less because they’re focusing on the now traditional (inter)National Month of Novel Writing (NaNoWriMo). Some, well… what can I say. It’s Halloween. We’ll just have to send search parties out if they don’t come back after midnight tomorrow.

But all of that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on in the blogosphere at all. Tumbleweed hasn’t come to town by any means. Some people may be battening down the hatches against the coming storm but a lot of them are still writing. Heck, some of them are even creating a whole new website. What do I mean? Let’s take a look at that – and more – as it’s all fairly exciting.

  • Brangwen: new site for MMO leaders – great news everyone! Brangwen of Non-Elitist Raiding Diary revealed that she and several others from all corners of the blogosphere have started up MMO Leader: a home on the internet for MMO leaders. If you’re in any kind of leadership role – officer, guild master, raid leader, class leader, you’re welcome to go on over there and join in their forums as much as you want to. They also have articles for your leadery-perusal. And yes, you can give writing your own articles for the front page a go, too. It’s fantastic that us leaders finally have a place to rally in.
  • Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Beta Healing – Vixsin at Life in Group 5 says that healing is going to change in Cataclysm: it’s not going to be anything like what we’re used to. She says we’re going to have to adapt, and gives 7 points of what’s going to change for us. That sounds like a taster, mind – from what she says, everything’s changing. But there is hope. Vix rounds off the post with an excellent call to healer-arms (granted that’s more likely to be sparkles of light) and reminds us that we can do this – it’s why we’re healers.
  • Beruthiel: How To Prepare Your Guild For Cataclysm – any expansion’s a shaky time for a guild, and Cataclysm even more so with its guild talents. So Beru’s survival guild is essential advice for any guild. Her guide is lean and gives you exactly what you need to know to get your guild rolling for Cata, from tips on what to say to members to when to do it, and how to keep morale up. If you’re a guild leader, you’ll likely get some ideas from her. if you’re a member of a sleepy guild, maybe wave it at your officers – you might inspire them to get moving!
  • A Priest’s Guide to Chakra Healing – this is for holy priests out there, fresh off the press from Derevka at Tales of a Priest. He’s going through the chakra mechanic, explaining its two different states and what you’ll be using them for. He also looks at how to change chakra states and gives helpful tips about how to track which spells you have available to you, when. A learning curve? Yes, Derevka says, but one that allows holy priesties huge flexibility.
  • Fresh Brew: Addons That Help You Inspect People, Run Guild Raffles And Set Fire To Things – our addon roundup this week might well be useful to you. There are a couple of guild related ones in it, such as one that allows guild officers to use the new in game flares more easily and another that’ll let you set up guild raffles for fun and giggles.

That be it for this week. I hope this lot keeps you entertained over your morning coffee. Or your evening meal, or brunch, wherever you happen to be. ‘Til next week – have fun, and don’t let the midnight horrors bite!

What do you think – have you got more to say about any of these articles, or even another article to contribute to the list?

Owl Returns With Special Delivery For You

Hi, I’m Mimetir, and I’m a member of the WoM crew. No really, I am. A few months ago I would rant and mutter disconsolately on a weekly basis about the importance of being a care bear or how to slay your latest internet dragon. I haven’t posted for a while. Yes, I know, bad panda, no cookie. And from what I’ve heard of boomkins’ mana at 80, we really need cookies.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about today. See, I haven’t posted on WHoM for a while because I’ve been working on my own site, MMO Melting Pot. I premiered it here at WoM a few months ago and since then have been trekking through the wilderness of the WoW blogosphere to find the most interesting articles. When I find an interesting article I drag it back to my museum website and post bits of it up with a short summary, credit and a link, so you can go read it fully yourself.

Just in case that’s got you running in terror thinking I’m some kind of creepy museum curator with a speciality in dissecting innocent blog posts, let me rephrase it simply. Over on MMO Melting Pot we find the best posts and put them all in one place for you to peruse.

I miss posting on WoM. And things are getting exciting post-patch. So, I (and Matt) thought, why don’t I do a roundup of posts that’ve cropped up recently relating to healing, guild management or raiding articles, here at WoM? That’s win-win for everyone: I get to post here (read: ramble at you), you get interesting things to read and Matt gets a regular Saturday post.

Well, I say it’s win-win for everyone, but I understand holy paladins are chewing the walls in frustration. Sympathies guys. Anyway, here’s your roundup delivery with some paladin halp thrown in. Some of these are posts we’ve linked already at MMO Melting Pot, some of them are posts so far unfeatured and fresh for WoM’s roundup:

  • Guide to Dispels in 4.0.1 – Ecclesiastical Discipline guest posted for MMO Melting Pot last week with a complete list of what us healers (as well as other classes where applicable) can dispel now, as some of it changed in the patch. No more shamanistic poison removal? Noes!
  • Perhaps Healing Isn’t So Bad After All – TwilliK over at Arcane Envoy says that paladin healing’s actually not too bad. She’s recounting her recent experiences healing in Heroics and it looks like it’s felt like being thrown in at the deep-end, but also really rewarding getting it right. Makes me want to revive my own holy pally…
  • Holy Paladins in 4.0.1 – A Beginner’s Guide – are you looking at your holy paladin and cowering in fear? Aunna over at Bandage Spec has a straightforward guide to get holy paladins on their feet. There are loads of guides out there covering everything for the patch but given Holy Paladins seem to have it worst off, I figured linking this might be helpful. Her guide has information on your spells, gear, glyphs, spec, and crucially – what to expect and how to play.
  • Tell Us How Your Spec Is Doing In 4.0.1 – most weeks the editors at MMO Melting Pot throw up an editorial feature. This week, the patch has been about for a while and we want to know how you’re getting on. Healer role changed a lot and it’s great? Terrible? People are dying left right and centre? Tell us your tales!
  • Impressions On Healing So Far – Zinn over at Jinxed Thoughts has written a roundup of how he’s found healing classes work now. He starts off with a general overview of the similarities between class healing spells then goes through the healing classes with what he’s enjoyed or been disappointed by. He’s also got a separate post on quite how much he loves Chakra as a holy priest.
  • Nils and Raven say levelling needs balance, and soon – two bloggers with the same worry: that the levelling game is too easy and doesn’t teach players, including healers, the ins and outs of their class. The quality of play after waves of new characters level to 85? Don’t think about it. Both Nils and Raven say it needs fixing, and have ideas.
  • Thought of the Day – Getting Rid of the DPS role – a brief thought from Spinks over at Welcome to Spinksville. Short but sweet, this one’s interesting for everyone. How do you think getting rid of player DPSers would affect healing, if at all?

Last but not in any way least, some sad news:

  • Lights Out – Lara of Root and Branch has shut up shop. Root and Branch has been a core part of the resto druid blog community for so long that the lights dimming on it is going to leave a big hole in the resto druid community. She’ll be missed, if her commenters are anything to go by – but we all wish her the best, safe travels and epic (real life) loot. /tree cheer

That’s it for this week. I’m planning to do this weekly for WoM, as often as possible.

What do you guys think? That’s the sort of thing we do daily over at MMO Melting Pot, though it’s not always roundup posts. Did you get an interesting read out of it, or has it inspired you to throw your thoughts into someone’s comments arena?

Introducing A New Site For Your Reading Pleasure…

Melting Pot

I mentioned yesterday that I’d be posting some happy MMO news. I said it’s all hush hush – you know – toodle pip wot-wot, under your hat old chap. …Yep,I know you’re all looking at me a bit oddly now. Anyway, the news has been a tightly kept secret all right – until now.

A few months ago I put out a call asking you folks to lend me your brains. Thanks to everyone who responded! Since then I’ve been beavering away on designing a website. Originally it was going to be a purely WoW based blog doin’ things my way; then the idea grew. It grew to include a wide range of MMOs, and have a community side too.

A couple of weeks ago it split into two projects and the primary site morphed into something different again. Doh. Flexibility for the win.

The Melting Pot is a manual aggregation site for MMO blogs. We actively look for interesting, witty or intelligent opinion-based articles from around the blogosphere – currently from mostly WoW blogs. We then link what we find to let you guys know they’re there. We also give some thoughts of our own to get the discussion started, ‘cos hey – we’re bloggers too, and find these discussions genuinely interesting.

Now, it’s still a lil’ site and adapting daily but it’s ready for general perusal. So without further ado as its Editor in Chief I’d like to invite you to have a gander at MMO Melting Pot.

Feel free to add its feeds to your RSS filters – we’ll be posting daily, from a ever wider selection of sites and games. Prod the shiny comments system with your own opinions – it won’t eat your children. Tip us off about interesting articles you’ve stumbled upon – we’re open to suggestions. And, when you least expect it, community bits n’ bobs might shuffle onto the menu bar too.

So. Drop in, say hi, grab a cup of coffee from the Pot – you might not know what’s in it, but it’s good stuff, mon.