Wow has been quiet. My guild is suffering from people being busy, people having too many real life issues, people not having the same priorities as me and general end of expansion things. It kind of bugs me when people go on about it being end of expansion. You can’t actually say you’ve done everything unless you have killed DW on Heroic, have finished Loremaster, done all old raids on HC (or hardest whatever it was), got your achievements for all old dungeons, maxed all your skills, collected everything there is to collect – on one of every type of character. There is always something to do in the game and for me I would be happy to do any of these with friends from my guild. I thought the point of being in a guild that raided less frequently was so that you COULD raid less frequently and do all your other stuff at other times.

That is what WOW is about for me – the social – it’s my evening in the pub, it’s my days out shopping with girl friends, it’s my trips to the cinema. Once again I am missing it. This time around I am trying not to get too bothered by it. Trying to hold on to the hope that people will come back once we finally get Pandas – my guess is end July to tie in with school holidays. I think most children/students anywhere in the World are off at the end of July.

I have been playing my druid and having some fun healing with her. I couldn’t get to grips with Paladin healing, but have enjoyed things so far with my druid. I have a Moonkin offspec which allowed me to quest and all of a sudden….

I went questing to help Thrall from himself and at the wedding of Thrall and Aggra I seem to have caught someone’s eye….

Not a bad catch for a fledgeling druid eh?

Last night I joined another guild’s run in DS and had some fun, then snagged a few guildies and realid friends to humour Yssi while she healed her way through all the End Time instances. I had managed to buy, steal and borrow enough gear to get in almost as soon as I hit 85 and began yesterday on ilevel 371. I’d kind of like to be able to have a go at LFR rather than pug a 5 man instance so we went and did all 3 instances. I think we only died a couple of times – once to a disconnect and a few due to my misclicks and general not quite up to speed-ness, but I enjoyed myself and got some more new gear and ended the evening on 377 with only 5 bits of PVP cheat gear left to replace and lots more to gem and enchant.

I doubt I’ll venture into LFR tonight – I’m not quite that brave to try it on the last night before reset when it’s full of people geared as badly as me, who can’t quite seem to play at all – at least I AM trying hard when I play

At least now when guildies do alt runs I will have someone I am happy to play that I seem to be able to get the hang of OK enough to feel like I’m not completely letting the side down.

Oh – plus point boost to my ego last night in the run with the other guild – we have a mutual ‘help each other out’ type arrangement – the raid leader announced that he and I would be 2 healing Blackhorn (he’s a Holy priest, I’m Disc). PANIC! I’ve never 2 healed it and I often feel like I’m running around flailing a lot on that fight. He responded to my panic stricken whisper with… “We usually 2 heal this and you’re like super awesome – just thought it would be a good idea. ”

We managed and I felt super awesome and very, very special. Nice feeling

I am withdrawing from the Mog competition. I am so sorry that I have taken up people’s time and someone else’s space in the competition, but I can’t take the pressure. Ideally I’d get something ready, but I think this time I’d need about a month to feel good enough.

I can do any number of cloth entries – I have so many sets of my own, but I just don’t know any class other than a priest and hate feeling inadequate.

Sorry all and thanks to all who have supported me and helped my in previous rounds with encouragement. Hugs and chocolate for everyone!

I have been missing 2 achievements for the bony flappy thing for a long time, but was happy to potter along and see how far we got. We had some fun, some giggle and a lot of people gathered a lot of achievements. It is testament to the number of times that I have been in ICC that I can still recall all the speeches and all the little annoying pronunciations of words.

We got to the one that has evaded me for many a try – Screamy Lady Sindragosa. First try went a bit quick and we managed to get some ice traps all over the place because Phase 2 started a bit quicker than we were expecting! Second try we decided that whoever got ice blocked could take one for the team and provide somewhere for the tank to hide and drop stacks.

We did it!

We wandered up to see Arthas, but didn’t really expect great things because we only had time for one try. Sadly we didn’t get great things, so will need to save our instance and go back some time – hopefully next week.

I was feeling quite tired after the raid, but decided to chill out doing my daily run of disappointment, so wandered over to Setthekk Halls to kill some birdies. I was in the middle of killing Anzu when my son wandered in looking for something to help him with his homework. I asked him to just hang on while I finished off Anzu. He came and looked at my screen and muttered “Mount”.

Anzu died and I looted. The first few things were on screen – some gold, a gem, a blue gun – but there was another page. This is my chat window log……

Yes, 2 minutes to kill Anzu is a long time, but I’m a healer OK – I don’t have a kill stuff spec. I am thinking seriously about changing that actually. But only thinking at the moment!

Anyway – finally I got it!

A few tries into my attempts to get this mount I realised that there was no way to count how many times I had killed him, so I carried on and killed Talon King Ikiss as well, so that the game would keep a count for me. Last night was my 66th kill of him! That means I’ve been after this mount daily (although I have missed some here and there) for over 2 months.

It felt damn good. It looks damn good. I went to bed tired but very happy

My son tried to claim all the glory, but the glory is MINE! As is the Raven Lord’s Mount – squeeeeee!

Round one is detailed here

The next round means you have to use a druid or hunter and Marrowstrike or Glaive of the Pit. I had a complete panic because I don’t have a druid or a hunter that I play really. I begged my guildies to run my poor benched lvl 76 druid in Magtheridon in the hope that I would get the needed item. Then I read that I could submit a Mogit picture. Relief!

So here is what I would do if I had the time or energy (having had an upset stomach yesterday I’m not up to anything much really) to go about with my baby druid. I tried to pick out the lovely colours of the polearm – the blue and the gold and carry them through the outfit.

I wanted to use my druid’s blue hair which matched beautifully, but then thought a bit more and tried to make her recognisable as a druid and what better than the moose ears

Edit: Items used…

Head – Moon-Crown Antlers
Shoulders – Headhunter’s Spaulders
Chest – Powder Burn Vest
Wrist – Glyphed Bracers
Hands – Subduer’s Gloves
Waist – Belt of the Deep
Legs – Severed Druid’s Leggings
Feet – Cold Boots

I don’t usually show the cloak I’m wearing but if I did it would be this.. Crazy Cenarion Cloak and the off-hand I would be proud to be alliance with my study guide Replica Grand Marshal’s Tome of Power.

Here is a picture from the back.

Today is my turn to collapse in floods of tears. I miss you so very much. It hurts even more now that not many of my immediate family play WOW any more. I miss our almost daily chats as I drive to pick up the kids from school – you would have been SO proud of my son’s achievements last year in his GSCEs and my daughter with her singing and dancing and wonderful caring nature.

I miss chatting to you about healing, making gold, how to do things in the game – your sense of wonder at it all – it was fantastic to see someone in his 60s embrace learning. It also made me appreciate that not all people know everything about the game, or understand how to do certain things, or that you can approach playing in so many ways.

I re-activated your account this month to get myself a new mount and had fun remembering all the different realms you started new characters on and set up a banker with each – the things I taught you to do to make yourself enough gold so you could afford to make your characters the best they could be.

I went through my old screenshots with guild kills and found you present on them. I was (mostly) proud that my Dad played WOW with me!

I came across this one that sums it all up really. Dad – I’m still waving at you, I wish you had not got disconnected and could wave back.

Much love Dad – today and every day – your daughter, Seph xxxx

Pet Battle System

• For years blizzard has wanted to have mini games in World of Warcraft. They have also always wanted something more for pets but they didn’t not want them to be mandatory. The pet battle system allows a perfect solution for both, and gives players something to do after dungeons, raids, challenges, scenarios, and battlegrounds.
• The pet UI has been fully updated. On the left you will see a list of all the pets you have, and the ones you don’t as well as where to find those pets. When you click on a pet, you have, it will pull up a pet card with all the information on the pet
• Pets will have health, levels, attack, defense, and movement speed (which is an initiative type of value) . Pets will also have 6 abilities, of which they can choose three of. It will work just like the players talent system. Two per row, can only pick one per row. You will be able to change these outside of battle. You unlock more abilities by leveling the pet up
• You can name all your pets, and they will be shared across all characters.
• When you enter a battle, you will see both players along with that player’s pets lined up in front of them.
• You will be able to switch your pets between the ones you have selected mid fight. They also now run up to the enemy pet to attack it!
• When you challenge another player in the world, it’ll just kind of smoothly zoom in to this view. When you finish, it’ll just pull right back on out to your normal gameplay view.
• There will also be random critters and NPCs out in the world you can fight to level up your pets. As well as a queuing system to queue and fight other players.
• There are roughly 100 wild pets across Azeroth to collect.
• PvP pet battles are going to be a fun and causal. They do not want losing to feel like a big deal because that’s really what drives a lot of people out of it. They will only track the number of wins and not the number of loses. You will also not see the other players name, and the players can not talk to one another. It should feel like your playing against another NPC (that just happens to be very smart).

How the hell am I going to think up names for all 185 of my pets? Also – 100 wild pets to collect – wheeee – more pets! I hope they are new ones, or some of the rarer trading card ones that I didn’t get round to buying. Squeeeee!

I for one think that this will be fun. It’s anonymous. You can do it on your own. I love the way it has de-personalised the pvp for pets. I can play and compete and not actually feel like I’m hurting or really bothering someone. I think Blizzard have realised that a large proportion of players are those who are obsessive compulsives and this provides us with something else to keep us playing

If you click Install you get this…

I think I need to find a bit more out about this Diablo thing. As far as I am concerned a Diablo is a circus juggling toy that I will see when I go to watch Cirque du Soleil next month. Hints or tips anyone?

Gathered, buffed, RL mickey-taking over we killed him. This time it was me and a Shaman healing. It went very well. I think we had 2 deaths when the button didn’t press. Stupid button. He dropped the book of disgusting spells. Now, although I won Ragnaros’ Staff last week this is my BIS. I rolled and won. Then I started plotting a main hand to go with it. If all else failed I would buy the one from FL to make do. Next worry was how to trangmogrify it. That one I still need to work out!

We moved on to the boat. As we had some people who had only done the LFR version more explanations were needed. More relentless mickey taking of poor Mr Bear Raid Leader He loves it really. The boat was saved first try too! Things were looking up.

Spine….. this has been a bit hard in recent weeks, but not last night. We were working like a well oiled machine. Maybe some of us were well oiled – it was Thursday night – traditionally pay night and have a few beers. More explanations (I researched a little on Mr Robot, WOW Wardrobe and Loot Rank while things were explained). And we managed to prise off Deathwing’s armour plates in one try too.

So….. we came to Deathwing, expecting to wipe a fair few times, but we were all up for it. It was only 45 minutes into our raid time. Plans were made and we began. Everything went smoothly. Nobody went swimming when Thrall miss-clicked lifting them to the next platform. We spread out well, we avoided things and WE DID IT! First try of the night!

We celebrated with some cake. My guild LOVE cake….

… click to make it bigger!

Pictures taken, time for loot. The dps dagger thing dropped. Our raid didn’t have any melee dps so much rolling was done. There was lots of angst as the highest roll was a 31! Another lucky priest (well, there were 3 in the raid)!

Next up – Maw of the Dragonlord – my other BIS and the last bit of gear that I’ve been really lusting after. I’ve won the odd tier piece, but for the rest I’ve grafted VP each week, bought mats and crafted things and generally worked hard to make myself the best I can be, but have had zero luck on weapons in LFR or even in FL (apart from this week, of course). I rolled and won that too! O M G.

We had a break for me to tuck my daughter in bed and I danced around our lounge like I’ve not done as a result of WOW in a long time! I feel happy, relived, incredibly pleased. This kill was the first ‘real’ kill I’ve achieved with my new guild – although I was there for the first Ragnaros kill, I had already killed him. This time it was my first one as well. It really cemented my place in the guild and made me very happy.

Thanks to all who were there and all who could not make it last night – it’s not just those who were there for the actual death – but the others who have helped along the way and been part of the learning process, part of the supply chain with fishies, potions and cauldrons, etc. A real team effort. Well done Enthusiasm!

After the high of our DW kill we went to FL and had some Heroic fun. We took some attempts on Beth’tilac, but then killed her Heroic for the first time, then tried Shannox, but I think tiredness was creeping in and he lived on this week so far.

I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks too – we should (people signing permitting) get our warlock her staff. I really hope the attendance boss does not hit us again – it would be such a shame to not get FL finished off and a guild legendary staff made. Staff for her and new pets for us all!

Enthusiasm – a home for cakeloving, fun-seeking raiders, altoholics and elfbearcattrees.

We can be found on the EU Darkmoon Faire RP-PVE realm.

Who are we?

A tight-knit 10 man raiding guild, passionate about WoW and about raiding. Your average Enthusiast is in her/ his best age with various RL responsibilities, owns some sort of house pet (cat / dog / kids / dust-balls), loves a good cake and a bottle of rum, with a slight addiction towards late night jokes on Mumble. We have members with more alts than achievement points, members that spend all day looking for the perfect Transmog outfit, members that enjoy a good Horde-whoopin` Battleground, and members that hunt Achievements or Rares / Pets / Mounts like there was no tomorrow. What we all have in common is the desire to come together as a team and experience the various, challenging content Blizzard has bestowed upon us. Aka; The Raids.

What can we offer?

A lovely WoW family and a relaxed and social raiding environment, with all the benefits and perks our guild has achieved. On raiding nights we can provide Cauldrons and Fish Feasts (also known as Hank the Lobster), along with the mandatory and accidental face-pull followed by a “OhGodimsosorryguys”. We are nowhere near hardcore. We stand in fire, we fall of edges, we get distracted by cats on the keyboard. But we always kill the bosses in the end. And always end the night with a good laugh.

What are we looking for?

Likeminded, mature and dedicated people. Since our members have a lot of love for their alts, we don`t care much about what Class you are, as long as you are happy with what you play. Gearscore and experience is of no concern, as long as you are willing to learn and improve as part of a team. We expect you to have a understanding of what Real Life actually means, and look upon raiding with a relaxed sense of humour and enthusiasm. Elitists and divas is NOT on our wanted-list.

Anything else?

The application process happens trough our website (see below). The response time is between 2-6 days, depending on how fulfilling the application is. Our raiding days, times and “guildrules” (we call them guidelines) can be found on the website aswell.

Please bring cake. Thank you.

- Sherise, Officer of Enthusiasm –

A small taste of some of the members in Enthusiasm:

Theanorak: Our beloved guildleader. Has the most brilliant sense of humour, so paddings should be aquired to avoid fall damage when you ROFL.

Daineiara: Mistress Of Fire. Has the biggest collection of Male souls in the guild, which can be heard screaming in agony if one listens closely when on Mumble. Is a walking WoW-wiki with boobs.

Alquiel: The sweetest bellydancing druid there is. Has the highest score when it comes to standing in fire. Has developed super fast skills when it comes to de-catting a room before raids.

Coltoon: Alquiels husband and partner in crime. Is the dedicated sacrifical gnome in the guild, to ensure everyone gets the loot they are after except him. Is usually found dead somewhere, with the explanation “Blink failed me”.

Tanyanka: Miss Farm-a-lot and Huntress Extraordinaire. Is a brilliant cook, and luckily shares her recipes with us on the forum or her blog.

Baxtoor: Can be found at the nearest pub with a beer in each hand. Have trouble deciding what absorbant pants to wear on raid nights.

Minona: The guilds Mascot. Sweet as sugarcoated chocolate, with the most entertaining In-Character blog of them all.

So there you have it! If you would like to meet the rest of our “family”, you know what to do. Hit that apply button! *

* Ahem…found on the webisite below.

Wesbite: www.enthusiasm-guild.com

Well you may remember I inherited my Dad’s Paladin when he died. I’ve not really played her, but have used her to farm and as something for my son to play with that isn’t any of his characters. She is currently sitting at level 83 and is Holy and Ret specced (I can’t see myself ever playing a tank).

You can have a look at her here.

I would like to get her set up to provide me with an alternative character to play with my guildies when they all run their multitude of alts through LFR and Seph has already been.

Healing is what I do best. I use Grid and Clique to heal with. I’d like to set up my buttons so essentially they can do similar things to my priest but I have no clue how a Paladin should heal. I know that they are solid tank healer and don’t have much aoe, but beyond that I’m a bit clueless.

Please can anyone point me at some good guides, or give me a quick how to paladin start guide? I’ve looked at the normal Elitist Jerks and that sort of site, but not having grown up with her at all they are a bit lost on me.

Thanks lots all <3