Epic flight - old skool style

One of my goals ever since she hit 70 has been to get epic flight for Seph. I scrimped and saved but it took me a while to get the gold together and by the time I had Northrend was upon us and Jez was my first character out the door to level up and get ready to raid. That achieved I started playing Seph a lot more and decided there was no point worrying about epic flying until I could train the cold weather flying skill at level 77. That day recently arrived and with much glee I also purchased the Artisan riding skill. Huzzah!

Now I was faced with a choice. I could simply train the epic flight skill or, I could undertake the original quest line. As someone who really enjoys the druidic lore it was a simple choice - I would do the quests and using the wonderful guide by Aurik at /hug it was an enjoyable and straight forward process. Although everything was a lot easier at level 77 I still had a bit of trouble on the Eagle Essence since I elected to stay in Moonkin form and burn the guy down. The other parts of the quest were cake and I just enjoyed the lore even though the running around all over Outlands and then to Azshara was a little tiresome. It just made me look forward to getting epic flight form even more! Emelin on his druid Broichan and Miss Csilla helped me out with a heroic Setthek Halls and finally it was mine (sadly the mount didn't drop)! Seph is now a very pretty, very fast, birdie!

Standing up for Druidic rights

*whispers* Hey everyone, it's me Sephi. I have to be really really quiet because I don't want to wake Miss Jez up but I heard about all the como...coma.. all the stuff going on and I think it's just really important to support my brother and sister druids out there. We can't let the big meanie corporate types oppress us! I'm just a bit worried that Miss Jez wouldn't understand, I mean, she's well, she's one of them. But I can't be quiet. I have to be brave and stand up for druids everywhere. So... *looks around carefully and takes a deep breath*

FOSHIZZZZZZZZLE!!!!

Uh oh. I think that was a bit loud *gulp*

PVP as a feral druid, stop laughing!

It took me some time to work out how to pvp on Jezrael, what abilities to bring into play, how to perform a role appropriate to the abilities of the hunter class. I'm pretty confident when I pvp now on my huntress although I'm by no means uber. With Sephiroh I'm experiencing that learning curve once again. A combination of sucktastic gear (for pvp anyway) and uncertainty about what I can best bring to the fray leaves me feeling pretty much next to useless a lot of the time.

After some fairly intensive bouts in various BGs I'm starting to get it together though and tonight I was able to pick up my first piece of PVP gear: the Merciless Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards.

But wait, you're thinking, you're feral aren't you? Yes, yes I am and I'm going to confess that I don't respec for bgs and hope and pray that Megan doesn't appear and smite me for bad form.
/cower

What I have discovered so far is that feral and BGs are not a grand love affair - unless of course tanking Drek or Galv in AV is on the cards. Therefore whilst in PVE land I'm having good times tanking or off tanking around the place I am getting my healy kicks in BGs. After playing a hunter for so long I get a kick out of buffing everyone as well as keeping people alive. Even though I'm feral I'm also in possession of a pretty decent healy set and am sitting at just under 14k healing with around 10k mana. I guess that's one good side of druids being such a gear dependent class - I can be feral and still push out some decent heals. The most annoying thing currently is that I'm just too squishy in mostly PVE gear - but that will change as I get more honour and thus more gear. Naturally the first thing I grabbed was my trinket with the 2min cd.

I've found different BGs require different behaviours but consistent to all of them is me running around healing people, entangling warriors and rogues and throwing cyclones on casters and especially healers. One thing that I'm needing to finesse is making sure I don't throw a cyclone on a player who is actually just about to get smacked down and instead making sure I am taking care of the ones who aren't receiving any special *love* from my colleagues.

I've found WSG to be the hardest BG for me by far to date. I'm not confident (or geared) enough to run the flag and am finding it challenging to work out what I'm most useful doing.

Some of my favourite moments in BGs on Seph so far:

In AV jumping from healer to tanky gear and tanking Drek, love that flexibility. Also healing a rogue consistently as we pushed the RH and having him be very grateful and trading me a stack of mage food as thanks.

In WSG, keeping the flag carrier alive so that we could cap and on the other hand being a sneaky kitty and keeping a horde FC pounced and maimed long enough for back up to arrive. Lucky it arrived quickly cos stun locking ain't a kitty ability.

In AB: sneaky node capping and also keeping the melee alive defending nodes.

All said and done in BGs the flexibity of the druid class really gets to shine. As I get better gear and am harder to kill I look forward to being more and more useful. Maybe I'll even give arena a shot. Maybe.

Cat Fight!

As I play Sephiroh more and more, and I really am enjoying playing a druid a LOT, I have been looking around here and there for some good information on being kitty. I've got the bearkin and treekin side of things pretty much sorted in terms of great resources but hadn't seen much on kittykin until I came across Mostly Kaldorei and Flyv's Warcraft Blog. Both are now in my feed reader and on my blog list and I look forward to further reading. I've already learned that kitty was being a noob and gemming for strength when agility is much better. Quickly remedied and hopefully I'll now see better results when the cat suit is on mrowr!

GRAWR!

Oh wow! Everyone you are just not going to believe this! *bounce, bounce, bounce* Yep it's me Seph again and I had an even more fun and exciting adventure! Not only that but Miss Jez approved too. Yep, she really did. She's not all that mean, I felt kind of bad after what I said the other day *shuffles feet* I mean, I know she means well and she's just trying to look out for me and all, and she is kind of like a big sister to me. But, well, you know what big sisters can be like right? *grin*

But after my adventures in Karazhan and even though I did leave a big mess because I fell asleep because I was so tired and sort of left Wild Quillvine in the bottom of my bag and it got all mooshy and stuff, Miss Jez just smiled and sighed a little and told me that I did good in Karazhan and I could just tell that she was working really hard on not giving me a lecture and she didn't. I felt really good about that, like she's maybe going to start trusting me a little more to not mess up. I mean sure there was that one time where I got into a bit of trouble with Dirty Larry from the lower city and Emelin had to come resc.. er... help me but I'm much more responsible now! *wide eyes*

I guess Miss Jez really must be starting to think so because she asked me if I would like to make a visit to that troll infested place Zul'Aman in her place, something to do with needing to stay home and polish her new shoulders. I was to go with some really nice people from the guild and they were all ready to get me to put on my bear suit and help out Mr. Troa the paladin with tanking duties. I felt so honoured that they would trust me, and well kind of overwhelmed *blush* but I wasn't going to say no to an exciting opportunity like that. No way!

And because I wanted to show Miss Jez that she can put her faith in me I straight away made sure to get my leather pants armoured up nice and strong so I could be just a teensy bit more durable, and I made sure I had lot of reagents and some yummy stamina food. I guess I kind of forgot about elixirs but Mr. Troa kindly helped me out and I gave him some gold straight away and we made a pact between tanks not to tell Miss Jez which I thought was really really awesome of him. I guess he understands what it's like to have an older wiser person looking over your shoulder.

I'd never been to see the trolls before and I can tell you I was nervous! Everyone was very relaxed though and nice and no pressure, we're just going to see if we can beat some timers. I was all... uh... ok *shaky grin* sure. Mr Troa was very kind and was talking to me quietly and letting me know what I needed to do and that really helped. I was still a little worried though because even though I'm very strong now sometimes I don't think I SMASH things as hard as I can and then whatever I'm hitting might not think I'm hitting them hard enough and go see what someone else is doing and whether they can hit harder and you know when you are a tanking person that's not very good. No. So I was making very sure that I was on my toes and ready to GRAWR at anything that looked like it wasn't interested in me anymore. A girl has her pride you know! It's kind of insulting when a big ugly decides to lose interest in me. I should to get to choose when I've lost interest in them! Like when they are smooshy bits of clawed up bits on the ground!

As I had never been before I didn't know the way but the guildies kindly summoned me so that was fine and I was able to get future directions straight away. We climbed up the big stairs into the entrance and then we spoke to this explorer fellow and he told us we had to bang a gong. That was fun! I put on my bear suit and was head butting it!

Once we got inside we were only interested in the really big baddies of course but we had to fight our way through a few annoying trolls. I got to practice my animal soothing skills too! I've never really bothered with soothing animals before. Why bother when I can CLAW RIP SHRED and then skin them *big grin*.

We went to see the big bear troll guy first. Mr Troa explained that pally on bear and bear on troll which sounded funny but I was too excited and nervous to laugh, but that was fine because I didn't need to be. We smooshed that guy real quickly and were able to rescue the prisoner too! Well we would later, we wanted to see if we could save some of the others too, because that's the kind of adventurers we are!

Next we went and ran through this gauntlet thing and up to the top of this platform where there is this big birdy nasty. Mr Troa told me to put on the kitty suit for that fight so I did and had lots of fun and it was neat because I didn't have to remember to run in for the storm thing he does. Miss Jez has told me stories about that fight and it felt much easier to me to just keep clawing at Mr ugly birdman and not have to worry about running in. We managed to save the prisoner here too so that was great!

Then we headed over the top of this big waterfall and snuck through a hut and around some ruins and then swam across a lake and killed a few big lynxes and I was looking at their pelts and wanting to skin them but there was no time if we were going to save the next prisoner and when you are on tanking duties that means being up front and ready to take on all comers and I wanted to make sure that all reports to Miss Jez would be good ones! We got to the next big meanie and Mr Troa explained that I would need to stand right next to him and when the meanie called his spirit cat thing I would need to make sure it didn't try and play with the other people. We had a few mishaps but by the time we'd smooshed all the lynxes and such in our path to get to him we'd missed the chance to rescue the prisoner anyway so that was no drama and we got him down after a couple of attempts and Mr Troa told me I did awesome! *blush*

We pushed on and went and killed some more trolls on the way to the last priesty boss - a nasty dragonhawky flame ball throwing baddie. And then the most exciting scary thing of the wholeadventure happened. Mr Troa told me that I would need to be the main tanky person against him! *big eyes* Wow! I was sooooo nervous! When everyone was ready I charged in and SMACK MANGLE LACERATE and so on and on and on and avoid the flame ball things. It felt like I stood there for a long time telling that guy to pay attention to me. We got him though yep! After a few difficulties with the hatcher guys anway. But it was awesome! I was so exhi... exhilar... happy afterwards that I couldn't help dancing about in my bear suit. I think perhaps, even though it wasn't very dignified, that Miss Jez would understand.

Oh and I guess because I was a good bear I got to take a souvenir of my trip home with me too! It makes me look a little bit like a troll but it will be fun for dress ups! And for helping out with healing too *grin*

(boss images courtesy of wow-wiki)

Is you like a nice hot cup of mangle?

Hello! It's Sephiroh here, you can call me Seph. I had such an exciting day yesterday that I just had to come and share it with you. I hope Miss Jez doesn't mind, I sort of didn't ask her or anything. I mean she's a pretty decent person for a hunter and all but she can be a bit... persni... pernikc... funny about things. Sometimes I think all that time fighting the Burning Legion has made her lose what sense of humour she has. Oh! Did I just say that? *blush*

So um anyway! *bright smile* I'm only a young druid but I've been working very hard on making sure I can do my best and help out my friends visit nasty places and beat on nasty people. See that's what Miss Jez says, that you have to stand ready at all times. She says that a lot actually, along with how I really don't know much about the world yet and what was my family thinking keeping me so sheltered and then she starts muttering about some lady called Vashj and then I just know that she's going to disappear for hours into the Lower City and come back later grumpy and smelling like Dwarven Lager. Oh wait, I shouldn't have said that either should I? *blink*

Soooo, yesterday I was talking to some of my friends in the guild and we decided that we would like to go do some adventuring and that the Shadow Laboratory had been causing problems again and we should go and sort them out! We were organising to get the best group and all the important things we would need. You know, like beer, oh but um don't tell Miss Jez about that, she says I'm too young to drink. Unfair I call it! *humph*. Yeah so we were getting organised and then everyone is all 'so Seph will tank' and I was so excited! I've been working really hard at my leather working so I can make myself some nice tough leather gear. I guess my stitching isn't the neatest but that rune thread is nice and strong and I put lots of stitches in! I'm such a lucky druid too since Loa gave me a vest and Mr Mogri who is a very important tanking person gave me some boots and with my leggings that I made it's a matching set! Even Miss Jez was kind enough to make some gems for me so I'm feeling very strong RAWR! Although, with the stuff being so new and all the clefthoof leather is kind of stiff and pokes you uncomfortably sometimes *wince* but I'm all uncrittable and stuff and that's important.

We made it down to Auchindon and into the Shadow Labs and were ready to start. I was a little uncertain at first but I put on my furry bear suit and tackled the nasties that my friends told me to and GRAWR SMASH MANGLE!! It was sooooo much fun!! I know I should probably have a more serious attitude, Miss Jez would say so, but I just don't think she understands what it's like to be a young strong druid and testing your abilities for the first time! I guess there were a couple of moments when I got a little carried away and um my rage got the better of me which caused a little inconvenience *blush* but I soon learned from my mistakes and we made it all the way through and showed that Murmurer thing yes we did! I guess I must have done a pretty decent job because after we finished I got asked to wear my furry bear suit to Karazhan and help out with some of the tanking duties there! *bounces*

I'm sure it wasn't because some of the regular people were missing. Nuh-uh, I don't care what Miss Jez says *pout*. I made sure I had some yummy food and washed the blood off of my leathers and re-oiled them and was ready to go. I even made sure to go and get my shiny new gloves from the nice man on the Aldor Terrace which I got the last time I went to Karazhan in my kitty form. Yep I've been to Karazhan before, I'm not like... you know... completely naive! Just never in the bear suit *grin*. Miss Jez was muttering away but I think she just doesn't understand what fun it is to be able to claw as Kitty or mangle as bear or even put on my pretty robes and help with healing!

I had lots of fun in Karazhan, we finished off the last of those nasty people including the big demonic guy at the top. He sure thinks he's someone, well we showed him, smooosh! We were feeling pretty good after taking down the Prince in one attempt and so we thought we'd go make a call on the ghostly dragon Netherspite. This was my most nervous moment of our adventure since I'd have to help out with handling the red beam and that would be the most important thing I'd done apart from helping those cloth wearing spell caster people not get squished. Our paladin tank kept talking about dancing with the beam which I thought was a little funny and couldn't help giggling but once we started I saw what he meant and I just danced my furry butt off! I even helped out with the green beam when I wasn't doing the red beam shuffle and although it took an attempt or two we got him in the end! Hah! Take that Mr Grumpy ghostly kind of reminds me of Miss Jez on a bad day dragon!

I hope I get to wear my bear suit to Karazhan again soon! It was such fun although I was a very tired sleepy druid afterwards and I slept in and left my leathers in a big smelly pile on the floor, so I'd better go clean up before Miss Jez sees!

Sephiroh goes adventuring in Nagrand

We interrupt the great Night Elf debate of 2008 to bring you this update from Sephiroh. Our druidic correspondent is currently located in Nagrand and having a whale (bear? cat?) of a time...

Nagrand is I think my favourite zone in Outlands, it's a lovely verdant area with wide horizons, and for Sephiroh, full of lots of lovely skinnable creatures that the Nesingwary outfit pay her good coin to kill. You might think that a druid killing lots of animals isn't very well druidic but Sephiroh is all about the fragile balance of the ecosystem and if that means a little culling of the local fauna here and there then she's up for the challenge.

Sephiroh's varied adventures in Nagrand also included, amongst bouncing around in the sky trying to gather eggs for a little goblin bloke, the opportunity to practice the art of diplomacy.
Given the response received it's clear that her skills need work. Ah well, ogres are smelly anyway. At least she didn't try and convince them to kill any demons for her but perhaps the local representative of O.S.P.C.O. should be involved in the next diplomatic foray.

Whilst prowling around the perimeter of another ogre encampment (Nagrand is seriously over run with these lunkheads) Sephiroh happily bumped into a couple of friendly guild mates who convinced her that she should undertake the Ring of Blood challenges for "fun and profit" and "you need to get your staff". Having heard rumours of this Ring of Blood permeating the grass lands of Nagrand Sephiroh was willing to give it a try. As tank you say? Fine, let me shake out the bear suit, it's feeling a little unweildy after running around as rawrkitty all the time.

Sephiroh proceeded to growl and swipe and mangle and so forth as well as getting angry about certain people not allowing her to get aggro, yes you're level 70 and I'm level 67 and there's a little disparity there. Oh you died, whoops, guess you're squishier even if you're older. The final challenge against some Mor..person proved quite tricky with only four of us. We were a 70 lock, 70 resto druid, 68 ret pally and bear tank Seph. We got there in the end with the pally doing heals as well. Result: a glowing sense of achievement and a nice new staff.
Clearly the staff was a popular, if perhaps in some cases... odd, choice. Waving goodbye to her friends Sephiroh excused herself with important business to undertake and zoomed off, her cheetah form soon just a spotted speck in the distance.

Sephiroh was on a mission, well actually several missions but they all had one goal in mind: the attainment of flight form. It took some time and quite a few ogre kills (I did mention there is an absolute plague of ogres in Nagrand right?) but eventually Sephiroh was able to return to the Moonglade and her friendly (actually he's a little taciturn but Seph was in a great mood and didn't really notice) trainer to acquire amongst other new skills, the ability to shapeshift into a lovely black... crow? raven? No more land-locked running for this young druid! To the skies! Squeeeeee!

Night Elf culture: just tree hugging hippies?

I happen to work with a couple of avid role players of the old school table top variety. One of them also plays a lot of Warcraft and the other has dabbled in WoW but is mainly a Neverwinter Nights player. Unsuprisingly a lot of our non work related conversations revolve around roleplaying and Warcraft. It's not unusual for our other workmates to come across us in the kitchen deep in a conversation laced with acronyms and terms which they find completely unintelligible.

I've been using these two guys as an excellent sounding board for some of my ideas about Jez's character description and back story and recently we got into a discussion about how Night Elf culture is presented in Warcraft and the presentation of elves generally in fantasy fiction.

I consider myself pretty widely read in the fantasy fiction arena - it is, and has been, my genre of choice for many many years now (how unsuprising that I should play a game like Warcraft). However I'm not very widely read as regards the lore of Warcraft itself. Most of what I know has been gleaned from the quest dialogue in game. Yes that's right I am one of the people who reads all of the quest text. Of course! It's one of the aspects of the game that I find very appealing.

**a little intermission music**

I started writing this post before work this morning and found some time today to do a little research and also continue the discussion, this time specifically about night elves.

The opinion presented by my esteemed work colleagues is that elves generally in fantasy fiction are presented as namby pamby tree hugging hippies. I bristled immediately as I admit that, yes, I am a fan of the elven races. You can keep your short smelly dwarves thank you very much. In the interests of disclosure I should mention that of my two friends, one plays a warlock and the other favours rogues. Yup. We can probably dismiss their argument right now *grin*.

When I think of elves in the fantasy world a specific representation come to mind: the elves of Tolkien's world. In my opinion (and the opinion of many others) this representation is one of the foundations for elves in modern fantasy fiction.

In Tolkien the elves are not particularly aligned with nature and are certainly not namby pamby. They follow various crafts and their culture includes both warriors and healers. They built great civilisations and while capable of acts of great valor they were by no means perfect.

Enter Warcraft's representation of elves which I would argue draws strongly on Tolkien influences. If we consider the lore of Warcraft itself - the night elves were initially the creators of a powerful civilisation centred around the Well of Eternity. They were powerful magic users and their delving into the mysteries of the Well was what alerted the Burning Legion to its' existence.

As fall out from the arrival of the Burning Legion and the destruction of Archimonde the elves split into three distinct groups with the kaldorei or night elves eschewing arcane magics in favour of more nature based magics. They saw their role as the protection of the land and their people from further corruption by the Burning Legion.

This might perhaps sound like the night elves are namby pamby but let's think about the methods they use. Tyrande actually broke Illidan free from his prison to attain his aid in defeating the legion. The Silverwing Sentinels are in constant skirmish with the Horde over their deforestation. Some Farstriders are known to kill strangers who breach too far into the woods of Ashenvale. Hardly namby pamby.

The quests that you undertake as a night elf character in the game may well at surface level appear to be about 'saving X from the corruption of Y" but looking a little further below the surface reveals a culture that will use just about any means necessary to protect their world.

An exception to the emphasis on Tolkien influence is the role of the druid in night elf culture. My friends see druids particularly as the embodiment of namby pamby tree-hugginess and whilst I have no problems with hugging a treekin any day of the week I do also take umbrage to this opinion.

The night elf druids in Warcraft are, in my opinion (again, I'm just full of opionions) influenced by the druids of Celtic mythology. Following the druidic path is not easy. It requires great mental strength and fortitude. I mean let's face it, nature does not always wear a pleasing aspect. It's not all flowers and bumble-bees. Nature can also be incredibly powerful and destructive - think of the voraciousness of a forest fire or the implacable force of an earthquake. If one is going to train to have power over nature it's going to require a lot of self discipline. An example of this willpower is the agreement of the druids led by Malfurion to spend centuries in hibernation within their barrows as their spirits wandered the Emerald dream.

I rest my case.

Cat durid is for fite!

Young Sephiroh my feral druid has been zooming her way towards 70 recently. I picked her up and dusted her off after a lengthy sojourn in Hellfire Peninsula at 61 and have fallen in love with playing the druid class all over again.

Don't tell anyone I said this *shifty eyes* but I'm finding playing her more challenging than my hunter Jez. Not playing within the class mechanics - huntering and shot rotations and trapping and pet management are plenty challenging thanks, but rather gearing and itemisation. As a hunter I'm used to a core set of statistics and what not that you focus on. This could also be because I've played my hunter a long time and done a lot of reading and so I'm very familiar with all these things whereas with druids I'm not. Then again I've been reading talk of 3:2 shot rotations by BM hunters using the new badge crossbow (which I have) Crossbow of Relentless Strikes  and confess that I'm not entirely sure how that all breaks down.

With my dear Seph however I'm constantly making gear choices across what I see as four possible roles: bear tank, cat DPS, boomkin and restoration. While I'm currently feral specced when choosing quest rewards and the like if I don't see an item that is an upgrade for my feral tank or DPS sets I also look at the healing options. I'm quite probably going to roll resto when I hit 70 so I'm gathering gear with that in mind and starting to broaden my druidic reading beyond all things feral. Two blogs I'm now going to add to my reading list are Resto4Life and 4 Haelz. There are literally dozens of great druid blogs out there so I'm sure my reading list will continue to grow. Which is a little problematic as I have a hard time keeping up with it at the moment.

So gearing up for different roles means I'm needing to learn about all of them. I admit I'm unlikely to roll boomkin since I already have a ranged DPS character, but 3 roles is still plenty. Luckily I have a knowledgeable bunch of guildies plus Emelin is also Broichan the druid of awesomeness when he isn't being an evil (and ugly human) lock so I get to ask him a lot of questions.

I'm looking forward to taking Seph to Kara with our regular weeknight group as soon as she dings and retiring Jez who I'm really quite frankly sick of taking to Kara. I feel like I could run that place blindfolded on her as it has all become so rote. With Seph and especially doing heals it will be a whole new ball game and an opportunity to learn new things about raid dynamics, boss strategies and the like.

While my blog posting has been sporadic *apologetic look* I have definitely been thinking about a lot of posts I want to write:

* Night Elf culture: Treehugging hippies?
* The 3rd in my UI series looking at the mods I use
* Jezrael's backstory and character description

I'm definitely intend to get there... I just need to get Seph to 70 first!