Last week I finished What a Long, Strange trip it’s been, and got myself a very pretty drake  
Was really beaten down by the RNG last year for this event,  and this year didn’t seem much better. Had everything except the Sinister Sqaushling. But after after summon-no X (did so many that I lost count) it dropped!  Thanks to K and G who both kept getting their alts in to summon HH also.

After Hallow End the traditional Day of the Death starts,  a moment for people to gather in graveyards to celebrate with and cherish the spirits of those they have lost.
This year I take the time to honor the spirit of someone, who I imagine floating around an awesomely pc, trying to get his green-see-through-fingers on the keyboard, so he can play a game.
Well, only in wow I beliefin spirits, in the outside world I am rather skeptical, doesn’t mean I can not have any fantasy’s..
Years ago I lost this friend, he was a guildie and we never met irl.  No clue how he looked like (the image that pops to my mind is that of an grumpy green orc..) or how the sound of his voice was.
I do know that he knew me better then most of my rl friends did,  and that he had a talent to motivate and inspire people. He also was one of the few people that I ever met in a game who could handle my rather rash humor I tend to display. This was a big part of my appreciation I dare to admit.

His passing away was not what inspired this poem, not did I write the poem myself.  It was written long ago and I only  found it back recently on a back-up of an old pc.

I do think today is the right moment to share it.

The Naming of Grrak
by Jerle

In the Empire of the Lady,
near the shores of Outlaw’s Bay
across mysterious waters
where The Darkened Isles do lay.

Gray mists rise ever slowly
then blow upon the beach
and cross Grave’s Lake, and wander east
to fall upon Fate’s Reach.

There in the dampened forest,
the ancient trees remain,
and from this deepened silence
a raven calls his name.

Gather ‘round ye dragonblood
and a story I shall weave,
of the warrior Bai, and his bride Bluesky,
and the son they did conceive.

Bai was a bounty hunter,
that’s how he plied his trade.
he killed outlaws with little cause
and enjoyed the money he made.

It was in his search for fortune
while he traveled far and wide,
thru the lands of Fortitude
that he would find his bride.

‘Twas not too far from here,
just south near the Dragon Drop
that Bai tracked down a vicious thief
by the name of Lucifer Lott

Now Lott had kidnapped the daughter
of a man he had recently slain.
The man was of the Raven Clan,
now she was the last to remain.

Her father had named her Bluesky
for the color of her eyes
so rare to find in a dragonblood
as you might well surmise.

So here was a stunning beauty,
a hostage of Bai’s fierce foe,
just waiting for someone to rescue her,
and that’s how this story goes.

Bai attacked the outlaw’s camp,
the startled Lott too late to see,
the sword that took his evil head
and delivered his destiny.

Grateful Bluesky was smitten
with her hero warrior Bai,
they wed in bliss, and lived in love,
but soon Bluesky would die.

The joyful birth that brought their son
delivered death that day,
to the mother Bluesky,
who now with Tolem lay.

Bai held his new born son
and wept for Bluesky’s death.
His tears fell full upon
the infant’s emerald breast.

A prayer he gave to Shana,
for the memory of his wife.
What shall I call this youth
to honor her sweet life?

A mist then fell upon the scene
of Bluesky’s funeral flame,
and from a deepened silence
a raven called his name.

Grrak … Grrak …

a raven called his name.

Use this day not only to get your achievement points or pet- for- a- day, think about those you lost, be it in or out game.

The feeling is the same I can sadly assure you. But please, don’t think about the sad dying part, but about the fun you had, the laughs you shared.

A person who ain’t forgotten isn’t really gone, grumpy old orcs least of all.

~Serae

for Jerle: if you ever happen to stumble upon this, lemme know if you mind me (re)publishing your writing. And more important to me, leave me a note, would really like to know how you are doing.

Druids have an unique awesome trick; we can resurrect someone while IN combat!
A slight problem pops up due to the uniqueness…. no one really understands it.

They fail miserably when it comes to timing, basic understanding of the spell and the correct way of (not) asking for the resurrection.

Therefore -15 tips- which will make you a more worthy subject for us druids to focus our amazing unique ability on.

1. Do not whisper a druid (esp. a resto druid) for a combat res.  Rez me plz…
She will likely not see your whisper anyways, and else pay no attention to it. The more Zzz that are included, the lower your chances.

2. The druid, and in some cases the RL, decides WHO will get the cr.

3. Mr I- am- known- to- die- a lot- shaman who didn’t Anhk himself, or  Mr Pity-me-I-wear-cloth-mage, you both are well down on the list of  possible targets.

4. The druid, has the ultimate power.

5. Do not whine for a CR after your 1st whisper did not have the effect you wanted. You might notice that you local tree is busy with more important things. Like healing others who have to make up for your failure.

6. Spells have a range, rebirth is no exception.  You could be out of range.  The simple solution is to die within range, but wait.. the more simple solution would actually be you not dying at all.

7. You learned 6, thus if you see a tree moving towards you slowly, with arms waving into the air. Don’t panic, she is likely on her way to you, and that arm waving?.. it’s how we heal.

8. Once you are honored with an in combat res- DO NOT WASTE IT.

9. Seriously.. do NOT waste it.

10. Know When Not To Accept, keep an eye of those pretty bars of DBM. Ask yourself: Is the boss about to do a special big damage thing? If the answer is yes, do NOT accept.

11. And… Know When  to Accept, keep an eye of those pretty bars of DBM. Ask yourself: Is the boss about to do a special big damage thing? If the answer is no, DO  accept.

12. Please realize, nothing is more annoying then ressing someone, simply to see them die 1 sec after accepting.

13. We druids are not responsible for your brainless actions.  Do not yell at us if you accepted at the wrong moment.

14. Keep a health potion ready, likely you get  a big heal upon res.. but it ain’t guaranteed.

15. We are the nicest bunch around PLUS we can res you in combat, you love us.

Follow this and you friendly neighbourhooddruid will be a more happy tree friend.

(or happy owl, happy cat, maybe happy bear, but stay realistic, resto druids are the best and most friendly bush bunch around)

Some extra fun for Brewfest:  in BRD you can make the band Tauren Chieftain come play for you! Yes, even for a night elf druid they give a personal concert, as long as you have a

Direbrew’s Remote. The only thing you have to do is to walk into the main part of the inn, talk to the goblin groupie and get rocking!

And something HUGE happened, we again manage to get our group for Ulduar together and tried Yogg….. a small 2hrs later:

Ain’t it freaking awesome?!

It wasn’t that bad even.  For sure way easier then Firefighter, but definitely the 2nd hardest of all achievements.  Typically enough we only killed him once before (with all Keepers up). After we done that we just went nuts on hard modes and never fully cleared Ulduar (10).  Untill Sunday that is:)

Can’t stop smiling and won’t stop flying.. its faaast!

~ Serae

Today was Pirates’ Day, YARR! It made me feel all cool and stuff, pity that shapeshifting makes you loose the cool looks Was actually rather fun to get the achievement done, the zone had a couple hordies, but they couldn’t beat my hots

After the pirate fun, Brewfest started! Always good to get some dwarven brew. Once you completely smashed, go and complete Drunken Stupor .

A tip to complete this: take some booze and travel to Zul’Drak. If you jump from one of the higher up things that have the water flowing into them (not sure how to call them..) into one of the same things that is a lower one.. you’ll done.  ( I wonder if that made any sense to someone who isn’t completly smashed!)

Most of the achievement are rather easy, just need some time. Really wonder if  I can get all done with the limited amount of playtime I have, but keep good hope.  If there would be a match for goat riding after all…. I’d win it easily

Have fun!
~Serae

I am talking exclusivly about Ulduar 10 Firefighter.

Ingredients:
- Several evenings of wipe after wipe.
- Flasks, in BIG numbers
- The Fire Extinguisher (for the mental boost)
- Motivation, alot of it

Preparations:
Heat up the oven to approx. 220 degrees Celsius. Trow in (random order) a Deathknight tank, Holy Paladin, Retri Paladin, Deathknight dps, 2 mages, a shadowpriest, 2 resto druids, and a warlock.
Let them bake for a bit. Once they look all sweaty and hot, press the Big Red Button!

The start: Stay huddled while 1 of you presses the button, wait till the first fires spawn (on you!) and then run out.
Phase 1: MT should pull the boss away to one of the other pie slices.  SPREAD

In contrary to regular Mimiron, you’ll definitely want Grid to show you the debuff  (Napalm Shell) here.  Still it remains valuable to check where the fire is heading, just keep in mind you need to be approx. 51times quicker with the healing in hard mode.

We actually struggled with the phase at the start, but once we let strategy guides go.. we  got our own hang of it, not the most pretty way, but it worked for us. We had 2 plasmablasts before we got this part down.

Do not step on MINES!

From phase 1 to 2: move as a group as close to the fire as possible, try to get it maxed out in a pie slice. I am told it is possible, not that we ever succeeded, but again.. it doesn’t have to be pretty to work out well.

Phase 2: Once you see the mechagnome enter the head SPREAD, try to have a  rejuv rolling on all raid members at start, it helps a lot to cover the first couple hits. This phase is frantic.

The ranged stayed on the outer ring a bit and spread, healers were also there, although at the 1st laserbarrage I ran to melee range and stayed there. It proved easier for our movement; I could keep all in range, while the other healers each had their part. 
Yes, I enjoy patching up and floating. At melee range I had a lot more trouble healing, but for half the phase it was doable.

Once you survived this complete utter chaos and madness.. it only gets worse.

Phase 3 we had a warlock tank the head, the holy pally was full time healing on her + we resto druids ran our hots. The MT didn’t need to much healing, except when the head was down and he had more adds to offtank. Do not get fooled by this!
Bombbots  were taken care of by the mages. Tip: put your V key on to toggle those red enemies bars.  Helps greatly. We left the cute, but very dangerous Emergency Fire Bots.  If you do the same..stay away from them, they hurt silence.
Keep hotting everybody up; watch your step and keep moving as a group and do not panick.. too much. You’re almost there.

From phase 3 to 4: stay as a group, but kill as many Emergency Fire Bots as possible.
Phase 4: here we had a huge problem, even with flawless phases 1-3 we managed to wipe here.. every bloody time.  Our warlock died (often), or I ran into mines, or our tank died, or our melee dps suicided.. It was a mess.

During one of the breaks I actually had a smart moment (really!) and read something about the MT getting the aggro of the head instead of the ranged.

This it the trick.

Couldn’t belief none of us has thought of it, or read it.  But we went in again, not perfect, but better. And we tried a couple times more, and then it clicked, dps was awesome, healing was great, our tank was dancing.. phase 4 arrived.
It is much, much, very much easier, to heal a MT who gets hit hard, then to heal a warlock and a MT who both get hit hard. Moving becomes easier due to it, healing others becomes easier. It flows more natural.

Stay close together, you can stay close to the boss if you want. Do be careful on where you walk. Everything should fall together here.
If have to , sacrifice yourself to keep a dps up.. twice (yeah me).

My 10 player group is working on finishing the Glory of the Ulduar raider.  Our latest triumph Firefighter! But soon a completely separate post about that

The only 2 we are missing now are I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning and One Light in the Darkness, I belief we can do both, but we have a problem…
People are slacking. I know this is the general thing with wow, but I hate, really hate, people who say to be committed to something, and then don’t show up for weeks. (without any notice) We were sadly not able to fill the group up with others, so we didn’ t see Ulduar for a while.

But finally.. last week we were able to give Yogg a try, not our full core group was there, but we found a few others who were up for the challenge. All excited and feeling a bit untrained we gathered at the entrance. One of our group had a saved Ulduar instance with only Yogg left. So nice, no cleaning, straight to our goal.

What he didn’t know was that someone else in that group had talked to all the Keepers.  And I can confirm Keepers do not reset. GM’s can not help you. My advice: do not risk it, take a clean instance with single minded people. Once a Keeper is down.. he/she will not come back up.
/sigh

No Ulduar this week again, instead we went to do the Trial of the Crusader. In short: the Trial of the Grand Crusader better be interesting, because the regular 10 man version is a joke.

I admit: a fun joke, did have a good time:)

Phase 3 of the beast encounter I really like. Being a fast running tree, who can giggle when big yeti charges into a wall; can it get better then that?
The worms;I like them a lot less, not terrible, but just not my thing really.
Then the demon, I had never done that fight before or read anything about it.  My comment after the fight I am happy to repeat.. Who needs tactics when raid warnings exist? Not a bad fight, but not overly interesting also.
The Faction champions. They are freaking awesome! Decursing, hotting, running, more hotting, cycloning, running.. really had a blast with them.
The Twins,they seem much more confusing then they actually are. The server kept kicking us off at this fight, but that also made sure we had free practise. We never wiped, but instead popped up at a reset or in Dalaran. The only time without a server kick we killed them

All in all it took us approx. 2hrs,including the serverkicks, to clean all the bosses.

Is this a good or a bad thing? It seems too easy…I like the idea of  short raid instance, but it scares me nonetheless.  How to keep the people motivated for Ulduar hard modes when gear is much easier to get in Trial of the Crusader? They are not all like me, wanting the completion for the sake of completing it. I am not sure even a extra-fast-flying mount will be enough.

I can not do else then to keep my hopes up , if the Trial of the crusader is 1 night of harmless fun, it leaves enough nights to finish off Ulduar. Right?

¬ Serae

We already knew it, but it’s now official, The  Cataclysm!

Go check details out here and here! (Edit) also check wow.com

I am extremely excited about it all, my dearest wish for a wow expansion was a redoing of Azeroth, and maybe something big happening that would change the world. I imagined the plaguelands green again, or desolace with flowers, or.. allot more things.  But my imagination didn’t dare to go as far as Bliz actually did.

Flooding the world? Breaking it? Awesome!

I will not add any more to this, seeing other sites offer you all the info you need. But I do have some tidbits about Mr Deathwing

Deathwing – big bad dragon – black dragonflight.
Is at this time likely in Grim Batol.

His history in short:
- His name was Neltharion, and he was(/is?) the aspect of his flight.
- He got is crazy because the Old Gods were are messing with his mind.
- They managed to convince him to create the Dragon Soul. For some reason this disk was incredible powerful, but had a weakness for dragon scales…
- He convinced the other aspects to add power to this artifact ,thus making their Flights unable to damage the disk.

Neltharion revealed the depths of his betrayal at last. He was the only one who did not give of his powers to the Dragon Soul. Now with the disc at his command he wanted all races and the demons to see his power and to bow to him. The Dragon Aspects attacked Neltharion in an attempt to take the Dragon Soul from him and to reason with him in hopes of determining the cause of his perfidy.

- He almost complety wiped the blue dragonflight, which resulted in  Malygos going mad.
- All Aspects went into hiding.

The growing corruption in Neltharion’s heart warped his body, as the angelic dragon began taking a more demonic appearance similar to how Sargeras changed to a more demonic form after his corruption. Neltharion’s body cracked open, revealing his molten heart, and magma and fire flowed off his chest. His eyes became aflame in red, demonstrating the magnitude of his power and the depths of his evil. Thus was Deathwing the Destroyer born, and the Dragon Soul was renamed: the Demon Soul.

- Deathwing went to his cave lair. Here he had armour made to protect himself from the power of the demon soul, but it wasn’t over yet.
- the  Old Gods true intention was to escape their prison, and they hoped that the demon soul could create means to that.
- But.. Malfurion Stormrage (you gotta love him!) came through the Emerald Dream and stole the Demon Soul from mr. big black death.
- Malfurion managed to not get corrupted, and after some time  (an argument with his brother and such) the stone got safe and hidden away.

This are merely a few “highlights”, I recommend further reading:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Deathwing
http://www.wowwiki.com/Nefarian
http://www.wowwiki.com/Demon_Soul

Certain legends surrounding Deathwing claim that as the Earth-Warder, Deathwing shaped the land so the races would not go to war over land and resources. When he went mad, Deathwing lowered the mountains and allowed the races to intermingle. He ruined fertile land and destroyed other terrain so that the races would be forced to fight for food.Deathwing’s efforts gave birth to an occupation that has remained with all races since then: war.

I only recently discovered Postcards from Azeroth. I love it!
I can’t help but wondering “who could I sent this one to? Or this one? Or.. “ Let just say that this case a picture says more then a thousands words could do.

Another recent beauty I found is The Unconventional Priest.
I got intrigued by  Loregasm! and when I then found turtles AND disco Kael…

For the warlock in me, Destructive Reach is rather fun to read. Evelish, warlockish, enjoyable.

A druid blog I been following for a long while actually is Tree Bark Jacket . The place where Keeva used to talk  about end gaming. She stopped that and now talks about all diffrent druid related things.  Grid post are also worth checking out!

The last tip for today is to pay a visit to the Greedy Golblin. I guess you either love him or hate him, so I suggest you go there and see which side you are on

Enjoy reading, you can also find those  + more  at
<———– that side

~ Serae

One of the things that I love about wow is the small things, the little extras that Bliz put in. Not talking about all the Easter Eggs here, seeing half of the pop-refrences I do not get.

But things like: a black cat called Badluck. Don’t make him cross your path!

Or a sign outside a store that asks if you care for some cheese while you whine?

These are things that can make my day when I notice them the 1st time, and still make me smile the 2nd , 3rd and even 567th time I notice it.

One of the more special stores, and my no. 1 favorite, is the Dalaran pet store.  From a leech to a ball, and -everything else you can possible need for your companion- is sold in this store.

And the store owner.. none less then Breanni herself!

In the rare case you do not know who I am talking about she is, the maker/owner of , where you can track your collection, or find a guide to get a sprite darter, or check out my collection, or .. just go check it out yourself.

There is so much more to find in Dalaran!

Take the snake in the first-aid center – would he be poisonous?

Or else did you met Windle Sparkshine and helped him light the lights?

Looked up at Wonderworks and noticed a train going out and in the wall?

What are you favorite extras that Bliz put in? Do they make you love Dalaran as much as I do?

~ Serae

A Deathknight healing

K is convinced that healing is the most stress full, difficult job there is. He healed 4H twice on his (druid)alt. To be honest.. without me calling out “LB”, “Rejuv”, “the mage!”, he would have looked like the nab healer he is.

A Tree with moonfire?

Now turn that around, imagine ME doing dps (picture feathers instead of bark, reindeer horns instead of broccoli, got it?). It freaking stresses me out!
Unsureness creeps up on me, I feel like I am standing in the fire constantly without knowing how to get out.

Half the time I need to ask K (in a panicky voice) which target to dps, or he has to shout at me to move from that bloody deathrune (as if it isn’t obvious glowing green). To be honest..without him yelling I would look like the nab dps I really am.

Tree vs Owl viewpoint

As a tree I focus on health bars mainly, but I am also convinced heads up healing is really important.  It gives a lot of extra awareness if you know where the persons you heal, are actually standing. So I use a combination of the 2 targeting ways.

I know how to avoid clouds on Yogg  without stopping to heal. I know where to make my WG land to get the most out of it. I know know when it is better to sacrafice the gnome for the greater good. I can keep hots rolling on 2 tanks, in the meanwhile keep several other raidmembers topped off and still position myself correctly.

My UI-setup is made for those purposes, my focuses in the middle (grid/target/focus target/myself/DBM warnings), less important stuff small on the side (buffs), MT targets bit on the right and extra boss info on the other side (the not-so-urgent stuff).  This gives me a very clear view on what is happening.

As an owl I can forget (a bit) about health bars.  I still keep an eye out for them, but less focused. My focus now is on the big guy with the skull above his head. I need to make sure my dots are on.  Need to watch their timers, eclipse timers, and  keep the rotation going.  Can not waste a single global cool down, it would hurt my dps.

When I need to move I get confused, I managed to do 3 moonfires in a row  for no better reason then to just do something with my gcd.. /blush

And yeah, it is nice that my UI is clean, but I have no time to look around me.

Conclusion

An owl is fun, but it isnt as easy to play as it seems. You change perspective. The way you look at things is diffrent.  My focus must be somewhere else, I get pulled out of my comfort zone. I have to stand at diffrent places, do diffrent things, and still need be able to not run into that cloud.

I do really enjoy to dps, the stress makes sure I stay on my toes. I only dpsed sofar in Ulduar 10, mainly on fights that I not find challeging as healer.  It sure does keep the fun in running Ulduar, and last but not least it gives more understanding of the fights.

It resulted for me in a sharper and better playstyle, both in bark and feathers.

So what about you? Do you get out of your comfort zone and do you enjoy it or not?

~Serae