Natural Perfection

3.1 and…the sky didn’t fall!?

I took a break from anything terribly time-consuming this week to focus on the release of Ulduar and my plummeting 2s rating. Oh yeah, and school. I honestly blame the 2s failure on being completely distracted upon stepping into the arena and allowing ourselves to play the same teams over and over again. When you’re at a casino and you’re losing enough to be demoralized, you don’t keep playing—you dig?

Anyway, it’s here whether we’re all ready or not. I’m hoping most of you are ready, or at least frantically preparing.

Last night, my guild took the plunge into Ulduar 25 man with the intention of starting with Hard Mode achievements. Icecrown did not come up until roughly 8pm-ish CST and so given that our raids are scheduled for…8pm CST, we were all rushing and largely unprepared. We missed the boat on Hard Mode for Flame Leviathan, since we forgot to activate it. I must say, as a staunch hater of vehicle combat (seriously), I found the encounter to be…fun!? I was a siege vehicle passenger, and so I had anti-air defenses, a sweet cannon, and a handy shield at my disposal. Our server was laggy and one vehicle got locked out, so we had to give it a second try to down him. His defeat was swift.

We then moved on to the trash preceding Ignus. We were all set to pull when we found out that he was bugged ><. Oh yeah, and then the server went down for like an hour and a half. Great! Moving on to Razormane when the servers came back up was interesting for a poor druid with a broken UI (Grid decided to “roflpwn” me and I felt like someone had just cut off my mouseover-loving legs). I persevered, though, and it went fine. We only got 2-3 serious attempts in—it was getting late and nearing the end of our raiding time. Apparently, people have to work in the morning? Weird… (/snark)

Here’s the part where you start caring.

Our regen is NOT crippled! I wasn’t really having mana problems, to be honest. I mean, if you’re a druid that’s consistently OOFSR, you’re (dare I say) “doing it wrong.” I didn’t even have to Innervate; do note that our attempts were not short by any means, so that isn’t really a loaded statement by any means. I liked Lifeblooming every now and then to let it burst (and boy, does it BURST!) and give me a little mana surge. My healing style is favors HoTs in a large way and I grew very comfortable with Nourish as a direct heal in encounters like Sarth+3D and so I don’t feel as if it was a big transition for me. I was never a Lifebloom devotee—I mean, I used it but not really religiously like a lot of druids did. I’ve never felt like that was a problem, either; if I’m below #2 or 3 on the meters, I’m probably either a) fighting Razuvious or b) disconnected from the internet. More important than the meters, however, is keeping the target alive (which I do on an extremely regular basis, as all skilled healers should be able to claim).

Tonight, my guild’s achievement team is going into Ulduar 10 to get started on our Rusted Proto-Drakes. We’re two-healing it, I’m assuming, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say about how that pans out for us. The other healer is another tree and I think we work extremely well together. We’re often very close on healing meters and frequently talk about what we could do better. If I can, I may get him to guest post at some point :P. He knows his stuff and I think talking to him after our run tonight will really shed light on a lot of these changes that have been made.

So, there’s much to see and do with 3.1 and I know I’m enjoying the other additions: the new fishing daily (especially after getting this on my first turn-in!), the Argent Tournament, dual-specs (I am totally loving going from bark to feathers on a whim and blowing things up!!), and the anticipation of what s6 will bring for Restos (expect on article on this soon). I hope you’re enjoying the exploration and progression that comes with new content as well.

Look forward to information and specs for s6, a little boomkin action, resto glyph discussion, and more!

Welcome to Natural Perfection: Wall of text crits for 20000 (3000 overkill).

Hi!

After much contemplation, I have decided to create my own Druid blog named after a quite useless PvE talent/less useless PvP talent. I don’t know many Druids in general and I thought that this would be a good way to interact with others that are serious about theorycrafting and the analysis of upcoming changes to the game and the class. That said, here’s a little about me!

My main character is Prométhazine on the Icecrown PvE server. However, I have not always been a PvE player. This character was leveled on Sargeras PvP server and transferred over when I chose to make a move that I felt would benefit both my in-game happiness and progress. I am a Resto devotee, though I have full 25-man sets for both Bear and Balance. From 1-80, I leveled as Balance and so I definitely know my way around the talents, playstyle, and itemization requirements. As for being a Bear, I’m slowly but surely learning how to tank—a topic that I’m sure will receive much attention in this blog. Honestly, I’m not sure what I will pick as my second spec when 3.1 comes out. I’m leaning towards Balance, since my guild has expressed to me that tanks are definitely not needed (however, that 5% spell crit buff is!). I’m currently in Instability and I really enjoy it. It’s a friendly and serious progression-minded guild and it has been a great and welcoming home for me on my new server.

I haven’t always been a Druid, however. My old main character is Maemi on Sargeras PvP. I played it for quite some time and grew disenchanted with the Rogue class as a whole as well as just DPS in general. I had healing on my mind for a long time before I took the plunge and chose to start over in the middle of Wrath. It was a choice that changed my WoW experience, though. I’m so glad I did it and I think it would take a lot for me to feel otherwise. As for current alts, I am enjoying leveling a shaman with another player on Icecrown as well as my personal side project (pure DPS, le gasp!): Codêine.

I enjoy PvP as a healer as well! I run Ret/Resto in 2s with a guy I see on a regular basis IRL. We’ve only been at it a few weeks (which is actually the extent of my entire arena experience), but our progress has been increasing by leaps and bounds. We both feel we can go far together and the onset of s6 is exciting to me :]. If I’m not in Arena, you can often find me in WSG, AB, EOTS if I’m feeling masochistic and Wintergrasp (a new interest of mine as of late). Icecrown is in the Nightfall battlegroup, for those of you who don’t know.

And finally, a little bit about myself: I’m a female WoW player (I know, the Holy Grail) as far as this blog goes. However, there’s a lot more to me than that! I’m a senior in college, gearing up to graduate in May with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Women’s Studies. The idea is to go on to grad school in the fall (in Sociology), but that is not definite by any means. I’m also currently job searching (mostly in the areas of PR, HR, and non-profit organizations)! I’m an RA at my midwestern university as well as previously involved in many other organizations as well. I would consider myself a hardcore WoW player, since I still have lots of time with which to min/max and hone my skills as a player.

I encourage feedback and comments on my posts, since communication is a large part of how we better ourselves as players. If you would like to email me directly, contact me at myvelouriaa@gmail.com. So, thanks for checking me out and, again, welcome!