The end, the end, the end … you’d have to be blind and deaf and under a rock to not know that the end of WotLK is fast approaching. The blogrolls are getting lighter (or more blood-thirsty, depending on which ones you frequent), trade chat more barren, PuGs more hard to come by and raids tougher to fill as WoW players shake off the dust acquired through the past 2 years, and actually pursue other endeavours. But not me! No,…

As many players and bloggers out there have discovered, the end of the xpac is a great time for alts, and like many others, I’ve been living it up these days on a variety of toons, including one annoying cutesy Holy Paladin. Back in the early days of the expansion, my paladin was strictly a tanking toon, my favorite tank by far, but as part of my recent interest in expanding my healing horizons, I decided to swap out her…

Believe you me, I tried to abstain from the discussion on this one. As bloggers everywhere took sides about the introduction of the Battle.net RealID system, I stayed silent. As guildies and former guildies sent me random emails saying “Let’s be RealID friends!” (including one from a former guildmaster with whom I didn’t have the best relationship, a wtf moment if I’ve ever had one), I stayed silent. As the forums erupted in discussions of invasion of privacy or use-at-your-own-risk,…

Raid lockouts have been the talk of the town as of late, with Ghostcrawler recently providing more than enough forum feedback for ardent raiders and trolls alike to sink their teeth into. With Beta on the horizon and a number of connected and lucky players very anxious to post without fear of the NDA hammer falling, speculation, discussion, comparisons, and talks about the raiding end-game changes have been making their rounds. As an ardent 25-man raider (I do it on…

There’s no long post to be had here, folks, just something worthy of note: The Shaman Roundtable, part of a series hosted by the Raid Warning podcast, is being held on July 13th. There are some great community members taking part, and like the previous podcasts held for Priests and Pallies, it should generate some interesting topics of discussion. (It may sound silly, but I’m actually pretty bummed out about not being asked to participate. Feels like 3rd grade kickball…

Since I’ve been writing a bevy of serious posts lately filled with numbers, philosophy and the like, I thought I’d take some time to dial it back a bit and address a more critical question facing all spectrum of players. It’s a question we ask as we try to find a place for ourselves in the World (of Warcraft), as we ponder what color of Mohawk is “just right”, and juggle challenges like the personal philosophical impacts of the transition…

The last major instance of the expansion and one that has been explored by a large number of raiders, Icecrown Citadel (ICC) has been surrounded by criticism and drama since its release. It was an expanded testing ground for a number of new Blizzard raiding mechanics, including limited attempts, heroic toggles and regimented gating, all of which seem to have developed enduring magnet for raiders’ ire. And while some have since flip-flopped their opinions about the overall challenge to be…

For many, avoiding burnout and sustaining interest in the wind down time before Beta news floods WoW fansites means capitalizing on the chance to explore the world of healing, Resto Shaman or otherwise. In my forays through all levels of dungeons, I’ve happened across a good number of first-time healers giving the hps side of things a try and a handful of re-rolls anxious for a better healing “fit”. And wonderfully enough, (or at least as “wonderful” as things can…

In WoW, as it exists today, elitism is both a good and a bad thing; its connotation greatly depends on who you talk to. Most oftentimes, being an “elitist” is looked upon as a negative, and not with the tongue-in-cheek approach that a certain theorycrafting guild took when they launched their intellectual salvo against “uneducated” players the world over. It is a term applied in a variety of fashions, often slung in defense of a real or perceived accusation, and…

I have a slight confession to make; make sure you’re sitting down for this one folks. I am … a WoW elitist. I make no bones about it—I believe in optimal stats, optimal specs, optimal rotations, and optimal performance. I do believe that an optimal condition exists, and although I concede that it is unattainable, for all intents and purposes, it’s nonetheless my goal to get as close to it as possible. But I’m not telling you this so I…