Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Patch 4.2: for the flames.

A lot of stuff going on. A few changes to locks. There are also changes to pets. This is good since there was a whole night I couldnt figure out why my pet was going around randomly. My tanks were pulling fast so it took me half of ICC to realize it was on aggressive stance. Full notes can be found here.

Look for balloons in Stormwind and Ogrimmar.  There are a new balloon pets for Alliance and Horde.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.2.0
  • New Daily Quests: The Regrowth and Molten Front
    • In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed Mount Hyjal up to and including the quest Aessina's Miracle. //I suggest finishing Hyjal I thought the stories were really great.
  • New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds
    • A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters.
  • New Raid: The Firelands //Watch the trailer if you have not for Firelands. It is excellent.
  • New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
    • The legendary item questline is only available to druids, mages, priests, shaman, and warlocks. //Are you getting it? I'm not in line. There are others with more attendance in guild raids that I would want to have it. But as my DPS officer is a lock, he will most likely be the first. Then I vote for the mage.
  • New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal //I expect this to get a lot of critisisum. Nice that Blizzard is trying.
  • Recruit-A-Friend now awards bonus experience and free level grants to level 80, up from level 60. //always nice to see content faster.
Classes: General
  • Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). //I didn't even notice until this was in the notes. I fail to dance.
  • Buffs
    • All class abilities which place a buff on friendly targets no longer generate any threat. // I always thought that was the case, oh well.
  • Crowd Control
    • Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction. //FEAR IS NOT ON THE LIST.
  • Pets
    • The Aggressive pet stance has been removed and replaced with the Assist stance. This stance will cause the player's pet to attack the player's target. The pet will not change targets unless the master attacks a new target for a few seconds. //No more accedental pulls! Well at least from the pet running away.
    • The Defensive pet stance will now only cause the player's pet to attack enemies which attack the pet or the master.
  • Spell Interrupts
    • When interrupted while casting a single-school spell such as Mind Flay or Frostbolt, players will now be able to cast dual-school spells such as Mind Spike (Frost and Shadow schools) or Frostfire Bolt (Frost and Fire schools). However, being interrupted while casting a dual-school spell will still interrupt all respective schools as intended. //If I PVPed more I would tottaly aim for the dual-school casts.
Warlocks
  • Soul Fire is now available at level 20, down from level 54. //another long cast for lower levels. SB seemed long enough.
  • Soul Harvest has a new spell effect. //I now know to watch for it.
  • Glyphs
    • Glyph of Soul Swap now applies a 30-second cooldown to Soul Swap, up from 15 seconds. //boo boo hiss hiss
  • Warlock Bug Fixes
    • It is no longer possible to leave combat while channeling Drain Soul. //I thought that was "working as intended".

Items
  • If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll. //I would love to hear a nijia discover this one.
  • Applicable tier 11 items now cost Justice Points. //maybe I will get some more pieces.
  • Darkmoon Card: Hurricane damage done when triggered has been increased by 40%, however, it can no longer deal critical strikes and no longer receives any modifiers to its damage from the equipping player. //need to check my trinkets.
  • The Keyring bag slot has been removed to make room in the user interface for new features. //Remember when how many keys you had was a brag?

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Raiding Happens

The Spawn in May wearing her "Noctum"s Little Star" Shirt.
I have raided. Then I got sick for three plus weeks and no raiding happened for me.

I had a rhythm going there for a while. I actually got to raid one night a week, maybe even two!

The Spawn started sleeping long chunks at night starting at two months. The nurses all told me "sleeping through the night" is only four to five hours. When The Spawn started doing that, there was much rejoicing for me.

At four and a half months The Spawn started sleeping in her own room. This was a HUGE deal. She had no problem being in there. I was worrying about little things like "How do I know if she is still BREATHING!!" At this same time she started sleeping six to seven hours straight at night.

I then learned that she is a noisy sleeper. Crying or talking in her sleep and not really being awake. I can now sleep through those sounds now! I was afraid at every sound and would come wide awake. 

Since we were on a more stable schedule that was when I was able to start raiding a bit. This whole time Husband was able to raid more then I but less then he would like.

But I was able to raid!!

I was able to talk about something other then baby for three hours with other adults. I cannot explain how much those few hours meant to my sanity.

This might be why I have put off going to traditional baby meetup things. I have a "To Do" for just that, mostly because The Spawn is really social and needs the play time. I'm told that I would benefit too. Unless they are other "old" lady gamer moms with infants also I don't see us having a lot in common. I am to tired to be fake for people.

Then a few weeks ago I got sick. Like really sick. It has been over a decade since I have felt that exhausted from a cold. I don't know how those super moms do it, I'm just working on being a mom.

That ended my consistent two-ish month raiding schedule.

I'm better. Now I would like to get back to it.

I have yet to see the two troll dungeons from Patch 4.1. Heck, I have not even see all of the original dungeons. One of these nights I hope to convince a guild tank and healer to do not so random dungeons. I would like to see each at least once really soon.

Raid wise I am 10/13 normal. I think that is right. The guild just points me in a direction and I kill it.

One good thing is that I am really good at remembering mechanics of a fight even if I have not done it in a long while. This has come in really handy. Plus I have some great raiders I can whisper too, so I can clarify what needs to be done.

Because of my reduced attendance, I have designated myself as Curse of Elements lock. This frees up the two other locks to maximize their dps.

Hydra and warlockery is always on my mind. Miss you guys!