on mage leveling

Before I get to the topic at hand, allow me to squee just a little bit - a couple of weeks ago, I took my priest to Naxx10 again (run by my friends) and, well, let's just say I got geared up the heezy:

• [Agonal Sash]
• [Heroes' Leggings of Faith]
• And finally, the item I had been drooling over for a while: [Heroes' Shoulderpads of Faith]

Oh man, gentle reader (yes, the one of you that is out there!) you have no idea how long I have wanted my glowy angel wings. And now I have them! (Although I did not realize that the particle effect would look kind of funny from behind, but oh well.)

/end squee

And now: after months of procrastinating (actually, I prefer to think of it as a "vacation" of sorts), I have finally decided to level my first character, Adenine. But not as frost.

...Wait, what?

YES, that's right, she is fire now. She has never been a fire mage. I knew nothing about fire mages. Turns out, it's not as scary as I anticipated.

But before I could set foot in Northrend, I had to do something of the utmost importance:


New haircut FTW! Now moving on...

I read Ekye's mage guide on the Ensidia website (link is over there to the right somewhere). Excellent guide. I decided to go with his 0/51/20 build, for the fact that I will eventually be wanting to use the ever-so-sexy [Frostfire Bolt] as my main nuke (also includes the glyphs he recommended for MAXIMUM DEEPS).

Now, a few observations: one, I forgot how much effin fun it was nuking the shit out of things. (I guess leveling as a holy priest does that to you.)

Two: FIRE - HOLY CRAP WHY DID I NEVER TRY THIS BEFORE?! Seriously. Wow. I love frost, always have, always will...but damn have I been missing out.

Three: I did not anticipate how squishy I would be. Or how quickly I would run out of mana. Hurm. Must remember to investigate further.

Four: Jame's Horde Leveling Guide - okay, not really an observation, but I'm pretty sure that if I tried to level without it I would take much too long (most of the time spent leveling Illythia went something like: *runs around for twenty minutes* "Hurrrrr where's the next quest hub guise?"). As of tonight, Adenine is 72 (I started leveling her about two days ago). My goal right now is to get to 80 as quickly as possible, and this efficient little guide is working quite well for that.

Next post: Old school raiding, and Children's Week!

naxxramas = death

I went to Naxx10 for the first time last week.

First time as in, ever. I hadn't even been to Naxx back when it was still a 40-man. So I was pretty nervous, but it was nice that I actually knew people in it. The run was organized by a RL friend and main-tanked by my boyfriend on his warrior; another of our RL friends came along on his tree druid for leet heals.

When I first came in, we were going to kill Heigan the Unclean, which apparently requires you to know the safety dance. I did not know the safety dance, so even though I did my best to follow my friend the tree druid around the room, this happened:


Ouch. Well, on to the next boss, then!

Next was Patchwerk. From him, I scored the [Drape of Surgery].

Grobbulus was kinda fun. He dropped [Handgrips of Turmoil].

Gluth was uneventful.

But then there was Thaddius...

Fight seems simple enough, right? Depending on the charge of the debuff you get, you run to the left or right side of the platform. Except, well...lag strikes again:

Illythia receives loot: [Ouch]x2.

Wait, there was something else:

Illythia receives loot: [Cowl of Sheet Lightning].

Yay! On to Sapphiron!

The way he spawns is just too cool.


The way he pwned my face, however, was not:


Apparently I did not stand behind that iceblock correctly.

Kel'Thuzad took some time, but we eventually got him to die. Let me just say this - the first phase of that fight is probably the most annoying thing ever. I mean, what is he thinking? "Hey, maybe if I make some random skeletons and abominations attack these adventurers ONE AT A TIME they will grow weary and leave me alone!" You have a whole room of those guys, KT. Not that I don't appreciate you making it easier for us, but if you really wanted us dead, why don't you just, you know...send them all in at the same time?

So, a few things I need to work on from My First Time in Naxx10:

1. Mana conservation
2. Not dying
3. Avoiding tunnel-vision

But I still had fun and I hope I get another chance to go. It's definitely much more fun when you're running it with at least a few of your friends.

After the run was over, I wasted no time in getting my shiny new gear gemmed and enchanted with these pretties:

• [Sparkling Sky Sapphire] in the gloves
• [Luminous Monarch Topaz] in the helm
• [Insightful Earthsiege Diamond] for the meta socket
• [Arcanum of Blissful Mending]

I'm being a bit lazy about finding someone to do the +28 spell power to gloves, but I'll get to it.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, mining is no longer a pain to level when you have an epic mount. Hence, I have actually caught up on this profession, and can actually mine nodes that are at my level. GASP!

speccing shadow, or how i tried to learn face-melting

For a couple of months, I specced shadow on my priest. Now, the last time I was shadow was back in Burning Crusade-era, around level 61. I played around with holy and discipline specs since then, but I never put anything into shadow, nor did I even think about it ("Me, spec shadow? That's crazy talk!") That is, until my boyfriend hit 80 on his druid, Grimcow, and wanted to give resto a try.

He is lucky he is cute.

First, I went with a 14/0/57 build. Since I hadn't been shadow for, oh, about 19 levels (I'm not even going to try and convert that into real-world time), I suppose you could say I was pretty rusty at it. And by "pretty rusty" I mean I "completely forgot how to play shadow". This was reflected in my DPS. which was, in a word, embarrassing...

But after doing "extensive research" (read: perusing Elitist Jerks forums while at work) I was able to find out how to improve my shoddy DPS: keep your debuffs up, use spells once their cooldown is up. Simple enough, right? Well, let's just say I still need to work on it.

This was the rotation that I tried to follow:

• Opening: Vampiric Touch --> Devouring Plague --> Mind Blast --> Shadow Word: Death --> Shadow Word: Pain --> Vampiric Embrace --> Mind Flay.
• From here, refresh your debuffs in this order:

1. Vampiric Touch
2. Devouring Plague
3. Mind Blast
4. Vampiric Embrace
5. Mind Flay

• And cast Shadow Word: Death ONLY when you have to move or when you're waiting for Mind Blast to come off its cooldown and still don't need to refresh debuffs.

LET ME TELL YOU, INTERNETS, juggling DOTs is harder than staring at health bars for an hour straight. And although I haven't yet fully grasped the intricacies of melting faces, I can at least say I had fun and I would try shadow out again. It's definitely something I'd like to get better at, at least.

Before Illythia went back to the priest trainer to spec discipline, she and Grimcow decided to pay a visit to an old friend...Onyxia.

I finally got to see what it was like tanking a big angry dragon.

And twenty minutes later, we kicked her to the curb and made off with some Tier 2 helms. But why doesn't the priest stuff ever drop?

When she was done sulking, Illythia picked up Onyxia's ginormous head, somehow stuffed it into her backpack (don't ask her how), and returned to Orgrimmar.

And then, for the first time ever on any of my characters:

Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, baby!


Next post: PVP DISCIPLINE. HELL. YES.

on my first time healing karazhan

A couple of weeks ago, I was waxing emo to my boyfriend about how I would never find a guild who actually still ran Karazhan, and how my priest would never be geared unless I PvPed for it, and how I didn't want to PvP on her yet until I saw some raiding...I was going on and on in this vein, until I got a random whisper from a rogue. He asked me if I was interested in running Karazhan, and also would I be interested in joining his guild?

After silently blessing him for his perfect timing, I gave him an emphatic yes and became a member of Unholy Fury. My first impression of the guild was overwhelmingly positive; when I joined it was all of two hours old, and had around thirteen members (all of whom were friendly and enthusiastic). The GM had planned for a guild Karazhan run the following Wednesday, which I almost immediately signed up for.

The day of Karazhan, I stocked up on the following consumables which are a must for any healer (with druid and paladin buffs, they bumped my healing up from+1200-ish to around +1300-ish):

• [Golden Fish Sticks]
• [Elixir of Draenic Wisdom]
• [Elixir of Healing Power]

As for the run itself, I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly it went. We cleared all the way up to the trash right before Shade of Aran before people had to leave with no boss wipes. The encounters were not difficult to heal through (especially not with a decently geared tree druid and holy paladin). I cannot stress how much Prayer of Mending rocks - I just threw it on the tank whenever the cooldown was up and watched it bounce around between melee. I also got to practice the fine art of Greater Heal cast-canceling, which makes for amazing mana regen (I think I only had to use a mana pot once the whole raid).

The only part I had trouble with was dying in the beginning of the Opera Event (after Psychic Scream wore off on Roar, he ran straight for me and promptly pwned my face), and dispelling Holy Fire during the Maiden fight (it seemed like I was the only one dispelling, and so I had to run around to try and get in range of everyone. Lost a couple of DPS that way. /sadface). The rest of the raid was also pretty understanding about my occasional disconnects (speaking of which, I have an insolent router to kick into submission).

By the end of the run, I walked away with two new shiny purples:

• [Bands of Indwelling]
  
• [Blue Diamond Witchwand]

Conclusion: Illythia's first foray into Karazhan was a success, and the new guild seems to be getting off to a great start!

Next update: Macros that help me be a more efficient priest!

my first character

Adenine at 60, rockin' the [Robe of the Archmage]

Before she was relegated to the position of chief farmbot/lowbie instance-runner, my mage was my main character. She was the first character I created back when all I had was the 14-day trial account. She was the only character I focused on until she hit 60, hell, until she hit 70. She's (for the most part) decked out in tailoring/PvP welfare/Karazhan epics. So why was she demoted from "main character" to "main alt"?

Adenine at 70

Probably a number of reasons, actually. I (for reasons unknown even to myself) refuse to spec her fire, thus gimping her ability to be an effective raid DPS-er. Also, when playing her in PvP situations, I'm, well, not very good (which is to say, I kind of suck). But! I don't mean to say that I hate playing her. She's quite fun to have around, and does enough damage to make farming on her kind of fun. If farming can be considered fun. However, the main reason for abandoning her for my priest was that I was just burned out, and healing was something fresh and exciting and I actually felt that I was good at it. Also, when I first started playing (and for a long time afterwards), I was a clicker. Yeah, that might have had something to do with my ineffectiveness as a mage, haha.

But anyway, on to reminiscing!

• The first-ever time I went into an instance, I didn't actually know it was an instance. I was leveling in Silverpine Forest when I came upon the entrance to Shadowfang Keep. "Hmm," I thought as I stared at the swirly instance portal, "I wonder what that is. It's shiny!" So of course, I ran through the portal, was momentarily confused by the loading screen, and then I was utterly destroyed by a pack of elite wolves. I must say it was a rather appropriate way to introduce me to the world of instances: "Welcome to instancing, young, noobish, oh-so-squishy mage. First lesson: this is what happens when you get hit by elites - you die. Horribly."
• I honest-to-God did not know there was another continent, which led to much confusion on my part. Orgrimmar? What's that?
• Speaking of getting lost in major cities, I didn't fully grasp the concept of Undercity in my first venture to the Forsaken capital, and spent about half an hour trying to swim through the sewers in the Ruins of Lordaeron to try to get to this (what I was beginning to think was imaginary) place, before I decided to follow another character and realized that there are elevators.
• Ah, level 40 mounts! Remember those? Of course you do. I farmed the Deadmines constantly for [Wool Cloth], which was going for 2 gold per stack on the auction house at the time, and bought my [Blue Skeletal Horse] two levels before I could actually use it. Oh, and I was thrilled that I had the Sergeant's discount.
• Also, having to spec into Improved Arcane Explosion in order to make it instant, and Evocation. The SECOND I had instant Arcane Explosion, I ran around town spamming it furiously.
  
• LOL, oh, talent points. When I first realized that I had them, and YAY places to put them (which was around level 18 or so - what! I was new), I put my points in everything. Yes, I did put one in each little box, across all three trees. You can all stop laughing now.
• I randomly chose my professions (enchanting and tailoring), but that was one thing that didn't end up biting me in the butt later. I'm rather glad I chose them way back when I was a level 5 lowbie and knew absolutely nothing about either.
• My first encounter with Alliance: A random dwarf hunter challenged me to a duel; of course I lost, and a minute later she killed me. I have no idea how. Oh, and I also tried talking to her, but was rather offended when she didn't answer back. I mean, seriously, how rude, right? It wasn't until later that I found out there was a language barrier. Oops!
  
• Adenine's love of non-combat pets was started by a [Cockroach]. And I was so afraid of it dying, or losing it, that I would put it away whenever I had to take a flight path or whenever I thought it was going to get killed by some mob. I still have a fondness for my first non-combat pet, but hell if you're ever going to get me near any cockroaches in real life.
• PvP! Once I hit 60 it was pretty much nonstop battlegrounds for Adenine. I grinded her all the way up to Blood Guard before they took away the ranking system. Okay, so it wasn't the leetest rank, but I was pretty proud of myself for getting that far.
  
• Last but not least, old-school raiding! The first time I raided on my mage was in Molten Core. I scored not one, but two epics that day: [Mana-Igniting Cord], and the [Azuresong Mageblade], which I had first seen as a level 20 on another undead mage who was standing around Orgrimmar. The moment I laid eyes on that weapon, I knew that it was what I wanted when I finally made it to 60. And when it dropped that night off Golemagg, and the raid leader master looted it to me after I made my bid...it was nerd ecstacy.

Oh, Adenine...all I have of you are fond memories. Whatever happens, you will always have been my first main character. <3

obligatory introductory post

Hello! So I guess I should tell you about myself or something. I started playing WoW in October 2005. My first character was an undead mage (Adenine, who is and always has been and always will be frost-specced). When Burning Crusade came out, I made a blood elf priest (Illythia) and left her alone for a time while I leveled Adenine to 70. Once that was accomplished, I turned back to my priest...then decided to switch mains. I've found I prefer healing to DPS (not sure why, but it might have something to do with the power that I wield over the lives of people in my group).

I started this blog to chart the progress of my priest as she slowly gears up and learns more about the world of healing. Here she is now, my 23/38/0 holy priest:


Her current gear isn't amazing, but I'm working on it. Yesterday, I went on a 5-man frenzy and acquired a number of new items - cloak, wand, trinket, boots - then had my smexy new belt crafted. Here's a list of her current gear:

• Head: [Junior Technician 3rd Grade Goggles]
  
• Necklace: [Natasha's Guardian Cord]
• Shoulders: [Hallowed Pauldrons]
• Cloak: [Cloak of Whispering Shells]
• Chest: [Hallowed Garments]
• Wrists: [Goldenvine Wraps] (with [Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing])
• Gloves: [Bloody Surgeon's Mitts] (with [Teardrop Blood Garnets] in both sockets)
• Belt: [Belt of the Long Road] (YES, my first epic on this character! I need to upgrade the gems, but for now they're socketed with a [Purified Shadow Pearl] and a [Luminous Noble Topaz])
• Pants: [Hallowed Trousers] (with [Silver Spellthread])
• Boots: [Light-Woven Slippers]
• Rings: [Celestial Jewel Ring] and [Keeper's Ring of Piety]
• Trinkets: [Oshu'gun Relic] and [Lower City Prayerbook]
• Main Hand: [Staff of Divine Infusion]
• Wand: [Soul-Wand of the Aldor]

For now, I'm focusing on stacking healing, but I really need to do something about my woefully low health - at 5511, I'm squishier than squishy.

That's all for now, I suppose! I hope I can get into some Karazhan runs soon, but what with an unmotivated guild, my lack of purples, and PUG runs that require +1600 healing, it's been decidedly difficult.

Next update: I'll introduce my very first character, Adenine. She needs love, seeing as how of late she's been demoted to primal farmbot for Illythia.