Non-chalant

The beta for MoP is out and I haven't been paying attention to the changes being talked about. However, I did check out the Paladin challenge sets and tier that are shown below. I think I like the challenge set better for looks. And with transmog it really doesn't matter, I can always go back to the Heroic Tier 10 that I'm currently rocking.

Mists of Change

Several things have happened since my last post.

The Bad News
I left my guild. I miss <Censored>, but the old Censored. Back during Wrath. when we had active players and a GM who didn't hold a guild hostage and run it into the ground. There is a bit of goodness to come form this. We did start a new guild, <Redacted>, and got several long-time Censored members to come with us. We're still small, but out aim is quality over quantity currently.

The Good News
The Mists of Panderia beta is out! I signed up for the one-year WoW subscription, so it's only a matter of time before I get my beta-key and can try out the new expansion. I've never gone to a PTR server before, and I'm kinda of hesitant to. I don't want to get bored of the new content before it goes live.

Additionally, Blizz released the character models for female Panderans (pictured above.) Storm and I think they'er super adorable. I can't wait to fill my 11th character slot and play my monk.

Recap
All in all, it's been a bittersweet month. Mostly, I just want to move on and enjoy my $15 a month again. and from the looks of what Blizz is bringing out, that shouldn't be too hard to do.

New Talents = New Toys

I was just checking out the updated Mists of Panderia Talent Calculator and have to say, I think the Pally ones are going to be fun. I really like how most of the really cool abilities have a damaging and healing effect depending on how they are applied. not only does this give Holy Paladins something to do on their downtime besides casting heals and upping the their over-healing it also makes Retribution and Protection Paladins more flexible and more of an asset to the group as a whole. When I started playing Mirax, that was how you played a Ret Pally. You would cast Blessing of Protection on the tank when asked, you covered heals if you were waiting on the healer to get battle rezzed, and you did all that while pumping out crazy amounts of damage. Now as long as Blizzard doesn't mess with the mechanics of playing a Paladin (like they did when Cataclysm came out), Mists looks to be a fun time to play a Paladin.

Tearing Up The Charts Again

It's been awhile since I last posted. I'll admit I've been a bit distracted by real life, but I'm still addicted as ever to WoW.

I can gladly report that I am once again running on Mirax as a Retadin for raiding. In fact, I've been consistently the highest DPS in guild for all of my guild's 4.3 raiding. The best part is that I'm actually loving Ret once again. With the introduction of Holy Power in Cataclysm, Retribution changed completely from it's incarnation during Wrath. It took some time to become comfortable with these changes and I was decent at playing my class, but not as good as I could have been. A lot of that had to do with me healing more often than not during both 5-man dungeon runs and raids.

In a previous post I noted my decision to be a main spec Holy Paladin for the remainder of the Patch 4.2 lifetime. True to my statement, as soon as Patch 4.3 came out I went back to being Ret and have kinda put my foot down on the swapping specs for raiding. In fact, I haven't even healed on Mirax since 4.3 came out. Sure, I've gotten some upgrades for her healing gear, just I haven't made that my gearing priority. One thing that has helped me in being able to stay as Ret, are some real-life friends, Rolo and Ruckis, who x-ferred to my server and joined my guild. I have to say they are far better raiders than half the people in guild, and I respect their talent and insight into class and raid mechanics. They've also been supportive of "not making your highest dps heal," as one of them pointed out a few weeks ago when the RL was going to ask me to go Holy and then started looking for a new melee dps even though I had not agreed to heal. Since that time I've proven myself to be a consistantly high dps and being one of the two dpsers in guild who can hold their own against the PuGs we bring in to fill out raid team out, the other being Ruckis.

I'll admit, I'm kinda of missing playing Holy a bit. But ow that I have an equipped ilvl of 390 for my Ret set and average close to 30k dps on boss fights, I think I'm ready to start working on my Holy set and playing Holy again. That's part of why I've been logging out in my Holy gear so I can check it out on Mr. Robot and get it all itemized properly. I don't think I'll be going back to raiding as Holy any time soon, but I won't mind switching into it for a final boss attempt or two if a healer leaves early. This happened two weeks ago and I brought my Shaman, Rhysati, in to heal thinking that we wouldn't down Ultraxion. Well, Rolo and I two-healed it and while I have credit for the kill on Rhys, Mirax doesn't. I don't want my alt to end up farther along in progression than my main again just because the alt is the healer.

Mirax and Ruckis at the Faerie Circle in Tirisfal.

Cheater That I Am

So I've been cheating on Mirax. I've been cheating on the Alliance and my guild. I've been leveling a Horde Shaman, Zorkelle. I rolled a Horde because my friend Ryland plays on Horde side and since he leveled his Alliance DK to run with my Alliance toons I figured I'd level a Horde to run with his Paladin. I've been having fun with it. I've also been leveling my Warlock, Scerra, and I have to say it's really odd not playing a hybrid class. Especially when I get stuck in groups with fail healers and as a lock am doing the most healing =/

Zorkelle

 

Scerra

Making It Official

Prior to raiding on my alt tonight I made the comment in vent to our two raid leads that I was going to be rolling as Holy on Mirax for the current raid content. Starathir said he was probably going to need me to go heals for Firelands tomorrow (well now it would be today, but I have yet to go to bed) due to the melee dps that had been coming to our raid in the last two weeks. Given that my dps pales in comparison to other melee dps and I can keep up with healers I think I'm just going to suck it up and go Holy for now until 4.3 when Blizz is slated to screw up Holy. Besides, I've gotten more Holy drop in FL than Ret drops. It makes me sad, but I've officially become a Healadin.

Mirax in Ret Gear

Guild Officer Blues

I got some disturbing news tonight. After talking to the GM of our guild, one of our officers found out that our uninvolved GM has no intention whatsoever of relenquishing control of the guild. The GM doesn't talk to guild chat, doesn't interact with members and NEVER talks to the officers to let us now what's going on or to keep up to date with guild happenings. It makes me want to take all of my alts out of guild. I know that's rash and drastic, but it's my gut reaction. Hell, even before all of this, when the GM logged on my gut instinct was to log off. I'm not going to do anything just yet pending a guild meeting I heard the other officers want to call.

But this whole situation really has me on edge. I've been one of the few people fighting to keep this guild together. All of the new recruits think I'm the GM and keep asking me for things I can't give them or do for them because I'm not the GM. The other officers and I have been frustrated with the lack of involvement by our GM. Granted the GM has been through some rough times in real life recently and I can understand needing tie to deal with things. But if you're having that rough of a time why are you clinging to control of a guild you are not involved in and not even asking your officers for help? We all voted you in because we had confidence in you but this behavior is undoing that confidence. I don't want to see everything fall apart, but right now it feels like the guild is on the verge of that. I know that I'm on the verge of falling apart as a result.