Reflections From The Pond

Posts Tagged ‘Jools’

You know Archavon the Stone Watcher?

Big craggy dude hiding in a vault inside Wintergrasp Keep? Formerly a mighty raid boss, nowadays farmed for easy emblems?

Oh, and he also happen to drop some shitty old lol-epics like a pair of shabby trousers or maybe a battered hat. Pitiful, laughable stuff, I know, just look at the ilvl on those things – 200! They won’t even show up on an Epic achievement! Puh-leeease, I would not want to be seen dead in them!

Well, actually I would like to be seen living in them, they would be a huge upgrade from the leggings and headpiece Jools is still sporting, old left-overs from her srs raiding days back in Karazhan and Gruul’s Lair.

They have served her well in her journeys through Northrend, and are actually still serving her pretty good. She is working through her heroics in this gear, and on her first and so far only Naxxramas run with a mostly-alts-group consisting of Plague wing and Spider wing she dished out more than 60% of the healing done while the other healer, a terribly rude and annoying priest with Northrend blues, greens and some heroic epics but whose stats were on par with Jools’, somehow hovered around the 20%-mark, with the remainder being brought up by various self-heals from the dps and tanks.

She even managed to solo heal Noth the Plaguebringer without losing anyone when the other priest had been grating on everyone’s nerves long enough and had been removed from the group  – not only did he heal terribadly, he was also constanly whining about how he wanted to go to Ulduar and kept bragging about how he could 2-man Flame Leviathan and generally being an irritating twat, who then demanded that the group run out and summon him at the stone after he had died and released because he had no flying mount. A perfect example of How Not To Behave In A Pug.

All in all, I think Jools did pretty good that run.

Archavon the Stone Watcher is a boss on Naxx level of raid difficulty. Jools would have had no problem healing in that encounter, and maybe the gods of dice and random numbers would have smiled on her and dropped the holy cloth for her. Not that it would have been noticeable on her Epic achievement.

But Archavon is not the only boss in there, is he? No, he has some company – Emalon the Storm Watcher and Koralon the Flame Watcher.

Emalon is a boss on par with Ulduar, the next tier of raiding difficulty and thus he drops even shinier loot than his compadre, and Koralon is the latest addition with the sparkliest loot and is also the hardest to bring down.

It is this last boss that everyone wants, they are after the tier drop goodies that he strews around when he falls.

And I totally understand that, had I been dressed in tier 7 stuff I would have drooled over the possibility of upgrading to tier 8-something even though it is shit fugly.

I think Jools might have been able to hold her own in the Emalon fight even in her old worn robes, the priesty healing is simply amazing (I knew that of course but has temporarily forgotten after having raided with my resto shaman and mostly been ambling along questing and pvp’ing with Jools) and the new stuff she learned at 80 was beautiful.

Koralon would probably have been slightly harder. Especially with the proverbial fires and people needing to get out of them.

So people want a healer that they feel confident can handle all three of the encounters, Koralon for the actual loot and the other two for emblem pinatas, and they check this by looking at the Epic achievement. Because everyone know that gear is everything, rite?

People can be up front about that they are going to check your gear, and polite and apologetic when they say that sorry, you are not geared enough, in which case I say no problem, good luck. Or they can be rude and say lol and simply remove you from the group even though you have a comment in your LFG saying newly dinged 80 and you wonder why they invited you in the first place, in which case I put them on ignore.

The merchants in Dalaran must be overflowing with vendored Archavon and Emalon drops now (maybe they will hold a garage sale soon?) because there is no chance in hell that anyone who actually would benefit from those things has a chance of getting them.

The Vault of Archavon is effectively closed to anyone not epicced out, and it seems like such a waste to me.

It is the Fault of Archavon.

I recently took a flight from Fizzcrank Airstrip in Borean Tundra to Coldarra, going to clear out some very old quests from my quest log.

And you know what flight it was? It was an airplane.

Well, of course you know this.

Fizzcrank Airstrip has been in operation for a long time, and us immigrating Azerothians have been taking flights from there for almost a year now, and I think at least six of my flock of alts have been flying around in this area.

So it should not have been a surprise for me that flying out of Fizzcrank required you to be qualified to fly your own airplane!

Daissy, the gnome engineer, she knows how to do this, she even has her own noisy mechanical contraption she flies around in, but how anyone seriously can trust Jools, the daydreaming priest, to pilot a flying machine on her own is beyond me.

Granted, she usually has her head up in the clouds but having her whole corporeal head with attached body up there without anyone else being in charge of monitoring vital things like directions, altitude, wind speed and other aviatrixy stuff seems a bit hazardous to say the least.

And for those who think that there actually is someone else controlling the plane, let me ask you: Do you see anyone else in there? The cockpit’s barely large enough for Jools.

And for final evidence: Look who is steering!

Yes, that is Jools steering, hands firmly on the wheel! She is in control!

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(You don’t think it is anything similar to Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel do you? No, of course not!)

Well, of course I was gonna visit the barbershops when they opened up in Ironforge and Stormwind. My RL visits to the hairdressers are always pleasurable, and besides the actual haircut it includes gossiping, a scalp massage and a glass of wine or two. Of course I wanted to treat my loyal WoW girls to that as well :-)

And now there was this achievement too! Being the achievement nut that I am I just had to take the flock to get stylish(er).

First one out was Jools.

Her old look with that long blue braid on her shoulder wasn’t very cool, it was a bit of an strict old-maid school teacher look, not at all appropriate for my sweet Holy priest.
Now she has a soft shoulder-length bob haircut with a slightly side-swept bang and a white ribbon to hold the longer hair back from her face.

She didn’t dye her hair but kept the cornflower blue color since it sets off her reed facial tatoos nicely.

Next one out was Joaquime, my feral druid.

Like Jools, Joaquime also kept her original hair colour, but unlike Jools she kept the long tresses, not feeling truly feral without a mane of hair in caster form as well.

She has a slightly stricter hairdo now, no more hair getting in her eyes as it is gathered in a loose braid at her back, holding it back from her forehead with that gorgeous tiara.

Paynne went to the hairdresser’s as well, but after quite some time trying out the different hairdos and hairdyes available, she realised that there really is no such thing as improving pure perfection.

She did try out a set of larger earrings, just for the sake of the achievement, but she had to go back right away and get her old ones back.

Tessye had similar problems, there really was no other hairstyle that looked good on her no matter what combination of colours or styles she tried out, so after a lot of agonising in the barber shop chair she decided to keep her golden brown hair curled up on her head – the perfect hairstyle for a sneaky rogue.

She was daring enough to try out a new eyebrow ring and nose ring instead of her old earrings, which actually look kinda cool on her.

Larue dyed her dark curls light greyish blond but she didn’t really feel comfortable in that hair colour so she had to go back and get rid of the dye job. With that dark skin of hers the dark hair colour looks much better.

A good friend tells me that half the job when tanking is to convince the group or raid that you are capable of dealing with any issues or emergencies that may arise – in other words: you gotta look like you know the drill ;P

As such, it was way overdue with a makeover for my little warrior!

Her pink pigtails is gone, replaced by a darker reddish colour and a thick ponytail down her back. Now she looks like a real warrior and would get into any over-21-nightclubs without a hassle!

So, achievements all done, new looks for a few, and generally overall satisfaction with looks all around! Now, all I need is that scalp massage and the glass of wine…

This here is Jools in her current healing gear, wearing the Gladiator’s Mooncloth Robe and Mantle, complete with Teardrop Living Rubies in all sockets, a +15 spirit enchant on the chest and a Greater Inscription of the Oracle on the shoulders.

Its ok gear, but I do not like the look of it. It looks like some crummy old khaki desert uniform from two centuries ago with blingblings and epaulets and stuff, and it does definitely not set of Jools’ blue braid and bluish complexion ;P

So I am working on getting her something new to wear, and with my usual luck in drop rolls I ‘d better aim for something thats not totally dependent on having the gods of fate smile upon me.

The Robes of Heavenly Purpose that drops from Nalorakk in Zul’Aman looks cool, but I do not know when I’ll get there. I have never even once seen the Masquerade Gown drop in Karazhan, and the Gown of Spiritual Wonder is shit ugly (and I’d rather spend my badges on the Gavel of Naaru Blessings anyways).

So what else is there?

As you all probably know, Season 2 Arena gear will be available for honor points when Season 4 goes live, and the Merciless Gladiator’s Mooncloth Robe really looks hot.

Worn with the Pauldrons of the Solace-giver that the big ugly Curator dropped for her on her last Karazhan run its a really stunning outfit.

If the prices for the S2 gear follow the S1 ones, the Merciless robe will be available for 30 Arathi Basin marks and about 14 500 honor points.

If gemmed and enchanted like before, this new pretty outfit will net her about +15 mana/5 (in combat), but she will lose about 9 healing (since the shoulders dont have any gem slots) and a whooping 34 stamina.

Well, I like mp5, and Jools is less than a dozen badges shy of the Gavel of Naaru Blessings, which would help alleviate that stamina loss, so I guess I can justify choosing looking-good over somewhat better stats.

However, the belt she is wearing is the Nethershard Girdle, and the Guardian’s Mooncloth Belt will also be for sale for AB marks, 40 to be precise, and 17 850 honor points.

Replacing the Nethershard with the Guardian belt will give her back the lost 34 stamina, and also increase her healing with about 47, while she loses 2 mp5.

So what I’m reluctantly beginning to realise is, that I’d better start doing those AB matches real fast, cause I am going to need 60 AB marks and 32 250 honor points til tomorrow!

Aerie Peak is a highly populated pve server and Jools’ new guild has a lot of members. SW was more crowded than I have ever seen it.

I was pretty nervous when I logged in for the first time here, and whispered the recruiting officer of the guild for an invite.

Was a bit like going to a new job for the first time, you are really careful not to make an ass of yourself, like laughing at the wrong things, saying the wrong things or generally put your foot in it.

Well, I was invited and heartily welcomed by them all :-)

Some guildies wanted to do a heroic and I offered my services as a healer (trepidatingly, cause I did not want to mess things up and lose ppl due to sucky healing on my very first day here, but I figured I might as well jump into the boiling pot as soon as possible, so to speak ;P)

I got extra nervous when I discovered that all my addons had been resetted during the transfer, and all my customized help-for-a-confused-healer was gone. Hurriedly I tried to set them up from memory, and I got the basic parts covered.

Anyways, off to the Ramparts we went, me, a bear tank and three hunters. I needn’t have worried, the run went smooth and fast and it was a lot of fun. I didn’t lose anybody, which was more luck than skill on my part though cause there were some real close calls when I misclicked or was just plain absentminded.

Well, I did die myself once, due to my own stupidity… *slaps head* Psychic Scream, dummy, use that when the mobs are beating on you, Fade is on cd and the bear’s Growl is resisted! (Well, use it in situations like this at least, when there’s no risk that the feared mobs will draw new ones to you.)

All in all, it was not a bad first-night-in-the-guild for me. To paraphrase an aviator’s saying, “any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing”, and I think I was able to walk from this one pretty good.

So, hello my new guildes, it was good to meet you and I am looking forward to getting to know you all :-)

Type rest of the post here

This day Jools moved to the Aerie Peak realm.

She spent the last weekends’ mornings doing some heroics with some of her friends on Vashj, getting her Exalted with the Sha’tar, concluding with a quiet come-together around a bonfire in Elwynn Forest before she packed her bags and transferred.

Aerie Peak is a pve realm = no more being ganked while peacefully questing!

Jools has found a new cool guild there and although all her sisters are on Vashj I think she will like it a lot in her new home.

It’s not likely that she ever will forget the fun times she had on Vashj, and if she comes even remotely close she can always watch this video made for her by one of her dearest friends! (And yes, I cried a lot of happy tears when I watched it :-)

So, this is a goodbye from Jools to everyone she knew on Vashj. May you all live long and prosper, may your days be sunny and warm, and may you all be careful what you wish for, because you might get it!

So when you are out adventuring, and you just happent to meet that cute fellow adventurer that makes your heart double beat, what do you do? Why, you flirt, of course!

Sadly though, Tessy comes across like a hot-air-head when it comes to flirting. She really needs some practice in this area, because what kind of strong handsome stranger would be attracted by lines like “You got me all a-flutter”, “My turn-offs are rude people, mean people and people who aren’t nice” or “I need a hero”? Only guy to fall for that is someone who was behind the door when the conversational skills was handed out, thats for sure (but then again, maybe it isn’t conversation that she is angling for?).

Jools and Joaq both are a little more flirty, and they like to say things like “There’s nothing like sleeping in the forest under the moonlight”, “Sure, I’ve got exotic piercings” and “If I wasn’t purple, you’d see I was blushing.” Well, at least it seems they are both truthful when they say that “I’m the type of girl my mother warned me about.”

Szorcha is more direct and to the point, she knows what’s going on and what she expects, so when flirting she boldly states “I’ll have you know I can flatten steel with my thighs”, “I like tall men”, and “I’d like to see you in a kilt”. She also prefers not to waste too much time as she says “Enough with the flirting. I know you think all dwarven women look the same”, but she likes to seem at least a little hard-to-get, so she claims that “I won’t fall for a bad pick-up line, you gotta try two or three at least.” You go with Szorcha, you better be prepared, she wants it her way.

Larue is not that much of a tease-flirt either, she rather directly hints that “The nights are so chilly on this planet” and when she thinks she’s certain to score she says “Are you thinking what I am thinking? Good. Bring ample supply of butter and goblin jumper cables”. Butter? Better not ask unless you want to experience it.

Paynne is very picky when it comes to flirting (mostly because she feels that no-one can really compete with her knight in shining armor, the valiant paladin Stauros), so she usually settles for the more careful phrases like “I do not find you completely disagreeable” and “Your ability to form a complete sentence is a plus”, indicating that she is really not very interested in anyone else.

Dizzie is more verbal and spontaneous, she can say things like “You are cute” or “At this time, I think that you should purchase me an alcoholic beverage and engage in diminutive conversation with me in hopes of establishing a report” but once in a while her engineering interests shine through, like when she exclaims that “I don’t feel that a 1-10 scale is fine enough to capture subtle details of compatibility. I would prefer a 12-dimensional compatible scale with additional parametes for mechanical aptitude and torque.” What can I say, it is lucky for her that she is cute ;P

Now Rancour is sure of herself, “I know, my natural beauty is intimidating”, and she is sure of what she wants “You’re the type I’d like to sink my teeth into”, but “I won’t bite you where it shows.” If the prospective lover seem hesitant when he hears this she asks “Aren’t you going to ask me out?”, but to be fair she also warns him that “When enraged, and in heat, a female troll can mate over eighty times in one night. Be you prepared?” Well, are you?

Another one who is sure of herself is Sweetsheeks, who tells you that “My mana tap bring all the boys to the yard”, “Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?” and “Is that a mana worm in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”. If you get down to business too fast she tells you that “No, no I won’t do that. But my sister will”. Or if you are lucky, maybe you will hear her say “Normally I only ride on epic mounts, but … let’s talk…” or “I’m addicted to you, baby.”

And the real Tess, how does she flirt? Well, I think most of my girls have some fun flirt lines, and maybe I’ll use them sometimes, but I have a few nice ones of my own too. So, if you are a cute strong adventurer out doing heroic deeds, maybe we will meet and maybe you will find out what they are…;P

Got a tell from a guildie, asking if I could heal heroic Magister’s Terrace. Well, of course I could, been through it all just a few days ago, remember?

Cocky, cocky, cocky… should have known better than to make such a bold statement…

It was me, my shadow priest friend, a rogue, a mage and a paladin tank heading into that sunny place. We got through to the second boss with a few minor glitches, but generally doing ok. On Vexallus, however, it was a dead end. Literally. I have never felt as useless as a healer.

If I diverted my attentions away from the tank to toss a Renew or Power Word: Shield on any of the dps’ers dealing with the adds for a second too long, the tank’s health dropped precariously and I lost him more often than not. Tried both spamming Greater Heal and Flash Heal with the same results. Dead dps or a dead tank.

If I tried AoE heals like Circle of Healing when all of us got hurt, the instant ~1000 heal/gcd did not add up fast enough to keep the tank alive through the boss’s massive onslaught. Result: a dead tank.

We had a shadow priest with us and we tried with his Vampiric Embrace backup heals, and we tried with him in healing gear for backup heals, and we tried making him shield/renew every add-taker so I wouldn’t have to add the precious second and a half of the global cooldown from shielding another group member to my cast time for the tank heals. Same results, all dead, dead, dead…

We wiped 7 or 8 times at that boss, getting him down to 10 % on some occasions, but never did we get to kick his sorry excuse of an ass.

*walking out of there with a huge repair bill and a hanging head, confidence in my healing skills seriously shaken and general spirits somewhere down around my ankles*

Soooo… time for some more research! How can I avoid feeling sucky again?

Trawling dah intarnet yields some conflicting information, but they seem to agree on some things.

Only been in there a few times, and only twice in heroics, and I was a bit busy both times trying to keep my group members alive so I cannot vouch for all this information from my own experience. (Yet.)

Weirdly enough, Vexallus melee attacks are Arcane damage only, albeit about 3 k of it in heroic. He has a ranged attack as well that does about 2,5 k Arcane damage with a dot that ticks for 250 Arcane damage every 3 seconds for 12 seconds.

He also has a randomly targeted Chain Lightning (Nature damage) that jumps from target to target with increasing damage, making it imperative that all group members are positioned as far away from each other as possible.

At 10 % health he will start casting Overload, a AoE spell with unlimited range (=it will hit all of you) that does 1 k Arcane damage and gives a stackable debuff that increases Arcane damage taken by 10 %.

Vexallus also spawns a pair of adds, called Pure Energy, when he reaches 85 % health and then at every 15 % drop in hp until he reaches 25 %. The adds move slowly flying around the room, (although likely to hit the tank at first since he is closest to their spawn point) sparking off Arcane energy bolts dealing about 3 k damage to the targeted player.

When killed, the adds give a debuff in the form of an Arcane dot, ticking for 300 damage per seconds for 30 seconds but also increases the player’s damage output by 50 %. These debuffs stack up to 10 times.

Sounds like a real heaven for a healer, right? No trouble at all healing through this inferno of Arcane blasts and dots ticking away…;P

Anyways, I found some tricks that might make me feel a little better (and maybe get him to drop that sweet Rod of the Blazing Light for me…)

If you have a lot of gold (or some Primal Manas just lying around unused) you can get some Major Arcane Protection Potions, or maybe some Arcane resist gear, maybe equip your Violet Badge for the fight, which will make your healer breathe a little easier.

A lot more healer-friendly than the usual zerg seems to be the approach known as the Slow and Steady.

In this case, after each add is dead, you just hold dps on Vexallus until the debuff has worn off after approximately 30 seconds, to avoid stacking the debuff and make the healer miserable. The 300 damage per second tick is easily healed through with a Renew.

When all players are debuff-free, start dps’ing again until the next pair spawns.

After the last pair is killed you immediately go for Vexallus, dps’ing him down fast and furiously to avoid that nasty Overload. The Overload can be interrupted it seems, so a warrior with Shield Bash, a rogue with Kick or a mage with Counterspell would come in handy here ;P

Another useful tip I found was that the chandeliers in Vexallus’ hall seems to act like grounding devices that suck up the debuff, so if the dps stand as close to these candles as possible the debuff will hit them and then pop off. No need to wait that 30 seconds for the debuff to wear off then.

Other interesting facts I found about this fight was that he actually does no physical damage at all, meaning that he doesn’t actually need to be tanked by the tank. A warlock or shadow priest with good Arcane resist can tank him, and I have read that a Demo warlock’s Felguard actually makes a great tank for this encounter – something I’d definitely would like to try next time I bring Paynne in there.

This here is me on my pretty new mount, a Swift White Hawkstrider that dropped for me on a heroic Magister’s Terrace run last night :-)

It was a pretty fun run actually, although it started out a bit weird because the tank in our group was someone that had been on my ignore list for a long time, so I couldn’t see anything he wrote in partychat.

This guy was in our guild for many months a long time ago, and struggled with us as we were progressing through Kara. He got our first T4 helm drop from our first Prince kill, and promptly the day after he /gquit.

Turned out he had been applying to other guilds for some time without telling any of us, not satisifed with the way our guild progressed, but apparently satisifed enough to keep coming for the phat lewt.

When asked why he had done what he did he had some vague explanations, all contradictory, and none of them even remotely reasonable. Asshattery, in other words, ooh shines for me-mentality, you know the type… So I put him on ignore and he has been there ever since.

Ah well, I thought when I saw that he was going to tank heroic MrT for us, let’s give him a chance and if he acts nicely maybe I will remove the ignore. I thought it a bit strange that he was in the group to start with, since all the rest were guildies of mine.

I told one of the members that he was on my ignore list so he would understand why if I didn’t reply to anything the tank said. After a while this guildie whispered me again and asked if he, the tank, was still on ignore, and when I indicated that this was the case, he told me “lucky you”.

Seemed there was a lot of whining going on on the part of said tank, no surprise really because I could induce that from the others’ comments in partychat.

No reason to whine really, it was a heroic run and a few deaths and wipes were not something you should be surprised at, nor whine about.

Anyways, it was a pretty smooth run for me, I healed the rest as well as I could and mostly kept them alive.

I greeded on the purple drop from the first boss and apparently noone needed it, so the tank was upset that the one who won the greed-roll (not me) couldn’t disenchant it.

The second boss went down without a hitch, but the third boss was a bit trickier.

On our first try I got stunned and couldn’t heal for long enough to lose some of us => wipe, and on our second try I got feared into one of the packs to the side behind the boss => wipe.

This seemed to spawn yet another bout of whining on the tank’s part, since my guildies made quite a few acid remarks to him in partychat.

The third try went smooth and the Pristess dropped Formula: Enchant Cloak – Steelweave and Vial of the Sunwell for me!

So we proceed to the last boss, getting there without a hitch. It was my first time ever in heroic MrT and I died pretty fast on our first try at Kael’thas himself.

The second we were all dead the tank left the group, apparently after having said a few choice words about me.

No big deal, I asked in gchat for a tank for last boss, and we got one right away.

I was just surprised that the whining ex-guildie tank didn’t kick us all out of spite, since he was the group leader, which would have teleported us all away and left him free to find another group and kill the boss.

Because the last boss did drop a very special treat for us – the abovementioned Swift White Hawkstrider!

We all needed on it and I won it with a 100 roll! Happy me!

And later that night we went to Kara and I finally got a replacement for my Essence Focuser – the Maiden of Virtue dropped the Shard of the Virtous for me!

(Hmm this was really a me! me! me! post, but I was really happy for my drops yesterday :-)

On a side note, as I logged in today I got a message that said “Ignore removed because player no longer exists” – and yep, it was the whining ex-guildie tank that had removed himself from our server ;P

The Isle of Quel’Danas is the new ganksta heaven it seems, the summoning stone more cluttered with skeletons and dead bodies than the one at Kara even. As we were trying to summon a friend here we got killed (of course) by the many sad loser hordes who should do as their parents tell them and go to bed members of the opposite faction engaging in world pvp. And as my priest Jool is specced for Improved Death of course the blue-white angel poofed up above the slaughtering scene.

And if you disagree, I am going to quote another line from Star Wars to you:

Darth Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

And you better remember what the black-clad cyborg did to the man he was speaking to as he uttered those words… You don’t want Obi-Jools to end up Darth Jools, now do you?

(But as a side note, I am not really sure I agree with the tooltip, because (and to quote yet another character from the Star Wars movie)

Han Solo: I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.)