Wrath of the Boomkin

Explains alot

2009-07-26T16:01:00.002+01:00

Guest Post 1

2009-06-24T19:16:00.002+01:00

Many moons ago I asked my dearly beloved, and somewhat vociferous, guild/raid leader to contribute to this fledgling blog. What I wanted was an objective raid leaders view of what we are and more importantly what we sometimes do wrong (or right). I mean we know we are the best , right? Whats the harm in a bit of confirmation? Many thanks to Maz for his input and the time taken to write our first guest post. Hold on to your feathers and "enjoy"!!

Bloody irritating boomkins !!!!!

Boomkins form a Raid leaders prospective

The Boom Daddy asked me to write this a while back , in his grand scheme to create not only a vaguely readable blog about boomkins , but to have it be a resource for the boomkin community nest . At least that’s how he explained it to me. He seems to think boomkins will find this useful , I wasn’t aware most boomkins could read , but hey he asked nicely .

What do boomkins bring to the raid ?
A good question , well lets see , a funky dance , something approaching dps , a useful in fight raid buff , a battle rez , immunity to polymorph ( sometimes not that much of a benefit ). Off healing ( and more about that in a minute ) , raid buff , and semi viable crowd control , a slightly more viable crowd control for beast mobs , an emergency mana pool ,,, and ,,,, erm ,,,, okay that's about it . but that’s quite a lot

Whats all that mean ?
Arh yes , what does all that mean , it means a boomkin is a utility , a very versatile one that aside something approaching dps has other benefits it brings to a raid . BUT here is the bit that frustrates the hell out of a raid leader , all that is all well and good if it is used the right way , and a waste of time and effort if it isn’t . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon . So lets move on to ……

7 DEADLY SINS OF THE BOOMKIN ………………

SIN 1

The biggest single sin of the boomkin , ( and one that can be thrown at that other ultra versatile dps class the elemental shaman ) Healing.
Boomkins , and sharman alike have the terrible propensity to off heal in a fight .
Now sometimes that’s a good thing , and some times it isn’t , and knowing which is which is the real black magic of the raiding boomkin , and the bit so many get wrong so often. And you watch them slide down the dps chart and the boss hit enrage because the boomkin just did not trust the healers to do their job enough . They pop out of boom to put a heal on themselves , or on the tank , or a aoe heal on the raid , rather than just trust the healers to be on top of their job . Did the healers stop healing and dps half way through the fight for ten seconds , eating their mana pool , nope . So why does the boomkin ? Trust in the healers to do their job .. and you do yours .

I looked at some raid stats from a fight with ignis last night on heroic uldar ,, and bottom of the DPS was an elemental sharman ( not mine I may add , catch me healing when not required on a cold day in hell ) who’s dps was 400 down on normal ,, what could account for this ,, well I am only guessing but the since he spent 80% of the time casting dps spells and 20% of the time chain healing on himself .
This is a fight where we had six healer’s, who are completely on top of the fight , we don’t lose a single man it the kill.
That sharman has ”Boom disease” throwing about heals because he thinks it’s the right thing , or that its needed , or “just to help out the healers “ the equivalent of saying “yay look at me I’m participating “ As a sharman player I feel the need to take that young sharman on one side and slap him till he sees sence ,, as I do with every boomkin in the world .
The healers are on top , the raid leader has not said “ help off heal a little during phase X , Y , Z .. then don’t heal , even if your down to 5% health , don’t heal , let the healers do there job , pop a health stone if you have to , but keep on with the wrath and feathers . The raid leader will tell you in advance if your going to do any off healing , if he doesn’t, don’t unless mid fight he asks you to do it because a healer died ,, literally just do what your good at and DPS . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon

SIN 2

The wasting of battle resses , a minor seeming sin ,, “ hell the rogue died , I’ll pop a rez on him ..” and a minute later the tank dies ,, and the off tank picks up the mob , but the off tank has to off tank the add mob in 30 seconds and we need the tank back up and …..

Raid leader says ” you rezed the rogue ,, that one , that misbegotten piece of filth that has the dps of a wet haddock , the guy lowest down the dps chart every raid because he’s basically a waste of space and we bring him to fill out the raid and you rezzed him ????? that one who died a minute later by not running out of the AOE blast again , in exactly the same way he died the first time , and you wasted your battle rez on him ?????????”

The raid leader will , we’ll I always will , call for whom he want’s rezing , and by whom , And more than once it will be rezing a healer over a dps , or a tank over a healer ,, or that other boomkin so he can then rez the tree who can then rez the hunter who’s top end dps , and leave the rogue alone . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon .

SIN 3

The waste of innovate , now this is an odd one ,, about 5 months ago , I asked a boomkin when he was flat out of mana three quarters of the way through every boss fight ,, and he said “ I innovated the dis priest because she whispered me and asked for the innovate . “
Fair enough says I , well what was the problem in the next fight ,, “ I innovated the dis priest because she whispered me and asked for the innovate .”
And the next “ I innovated the dis priest because she whispered me and asked for the innovate .I think she has it on macro “
Right ,, how long have you be doing this , “ oh every raid for the last six months “
Raid leaders head hits table

Here's the thing ,, innovate is lovely ,, it’s a great get out of jail toy , particularly if a healer cops it early in a fight and gets soul stoned up or battle rezed and is on low mana , hell hit innovate , help out the team in a big way and lets party on .. but every raid , same priest , every fight ? then the priest has a problem with mana and needs to solve it , you need your innovate for yourself or the emergency ..

Perhaps you should mention this to the raid leader , because he would sooner have your innovate around for get out of jail refresh the mana of the MT healer , rather than matter of course oh the dis priest needs an innovate again …. Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon .

SIN 4 ,

Boomrage ,, the propensity to over agro with the massive aoe ,, learn to use it approximately see reference every fucking dps class in the world ever . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon .

SIN 5

Strut the funky chicken .. learn to move when you have to and where you have to and listen when a raid leader gives out instructions and take the time to read up on a boss you know is coming up , see reference every fucking dps class in the world ever . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon

SIN 6

Tidal wave (typhoon) . oh look I can knock back the mob ,, ,,,,,,,,
The tank will hate you , it’s a great spell use it at the right time , don’t use it just because its there see reference every fucking dps class in the world ever . Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon

SIN 7

“I’m a boomkin , I’m Special “ your not , your just another dps option , if you want to be first on the pick list for a raid don’t rely on being a boomkin to get you in , put it all together and be a fucking great boomkin . and remember the most important lesson

Utility doesn’t mean utensil , don’t be a spoon

Note to all SINs 4 to 7 are universal to all dps classes , but if you don’t get them right sins 1 to 3 won’t matter a jot because you will not be on the raid in the first place

Funny Old Month more like it!

2009-06-24T01:42:00.003+01:00

Boomdaddy has had it bad. But I'm still without a kitchen or bathroom.. this has not progressed much since early may, so he should stop moaning!

Me and the other half now have many things sorted out in the house (thanks to a lovely builder who knocked down walls, replastered, and a lovely electrician, who put things where they should be). What has caused problems is the plumber... nearly 4 weeks worth of problems now. At least we have a bath... nothing else plumbed in though. But the good news is that I have managed to install the kitchen - including the worktop. God I feel so butch. Powertools are my friend So watch out!

My thoughts on patch 3.2: the game has to progress and take the lower players with it eventually, and for that I'm happy with it. Make the higher level stuff available to all, once it's been done to death by the devoted few! (otherwise what's the point in writing the storylines? Only 2% of the players will ever understand the conclusion - that's an awful lot of unfulfilled, confused people. Very bad business practice and completely crap artistic practice).

I for one am not willing to spend 20-30 hours of my week, for 4-5 weeks trying to get a single boss down like the old days. That to me is pointless and silly. Big grats to all those people who want the first kill, but I'm not one of those. I'll try extremely hard to be a good player, but I always remember it's a game I enjoy playing in my spare time. I play it with people I like, and have a good time. What more do I want?

Lots of love,

BoomMummy

Funny old day

2009-06-21T23:46:00.002+01:00

Had a go at Warhammer...not truly impressed. It's clunky. Nice ,though ,that they stole most of the movement/fighting/casting dynamics from WoW to make the playing transition easier.

Raiding guild has disintegrated apparently, the officers and a few raiders left in the past week. Today was an Old Testament exodus by the looks of it. Guild has called a halt to 25 man raiding.

Its an interesting dynamic to me how fast a successful raiding guild can implode. Server 5th/7th/9th, couple of bad weeks and they do a Deathnugget explode corpse routine.

I guess one thing is always true in raiding guilds. It is easy to put up with hand shandy merchants when you are all progressing. When progression stops, everyone suddenly realises there is nothing left to make them put up with the twats they have been playing with. Most of the raiding guilds I would have a look at have already been applied to by the twats, so the Boomdaddy is unsure what to do. My one real friend in the guild left today also, so there are no ties at all there now. With no 25 man raiding on the agenda for the foreseeable future, what is a Boomkin to do?

Do we swallow the bitter pill of Blizz's obsequious pampering of scrubs and come back to WoW? Do we apply to a top raiding guild? Do we go back home to the old lovelies? Or just call it a day and jog on.

Its trickier than the thorny issue of why Horde boomkins do not have antlers.....they are presumably the females and alliance are males.....that's just too much for me. I can't shag a moo cow.

RIP WoW- or death by patch 3.2

2009-06-20T14:46:00.002+01:00

I really should not leave the country. I blame myself. A week or so away from WoW and Blizz seems to have gone completely apeshit bonkers. When I say that they are going mad, I do not mean they are going a little eccentric like your great Aunt Betty who smells of moth balls. No, I mean full bore window licking, diaper wearing, pant sniffing mentalist.

Yes Blizz, I am looking at you with my Boomdaddy eye of Mordor. Why are you systematically destroying everything that I care about in this damn time sink of a game?

What has got my goat? Patch 3.2 has. Most specifically, the proposed changes to the emblem and badge system.

ALL Heroic instances and Pre-Ulduar raids will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead of Heroism or Valor.

Heroic Daily and Daily Dungeon quests will also award Emblems of Triumph.

Ok, it seems that Blizzard is not satisfied with the already dumbed down product that WoW has become. Now it needs to feed T8.5 and T9 gear to the scrubs who cannot handle real raid content. I mean for fucks sake break this down.....lets say the average scrub plays for 3 hours per day Monday-Friday and 6-8 hours over the weekend. How many Emblems of Conquest can said scrub pick up in a good week?

Lets see...
47 Emblems per week from Heroic 5 mans IF they only do each one once per week. (if you ran CoS and Gundrak daily it would be 77 Emblems just for those 2 instances).

15 Emblems from a Naxx 10 clearence

15 Emblems from a Naxx 25 clearance

6 from VoA (10 and 25)

2 from EoE (10 and 25)

8 from OS (10 and 25)

So whats that , then? 93 Emblems (or 123 if you do CoS/Gundrak) without breaking too much of a sweat. Jesus wept. Throw in 14 Emblems of Triumph for doing the two instance dailies for T9 good measure, why don't you Blizz?

Which ever way you shake it, the worst players are going to have T8.5, T9 and Ulduar crafted gear coming out of their scrub arses inside 4 weeks. Yes Ulduar best in slot crafted gear! Why? Because all those Emblems means Runed orbs from heaven, like it was Christmas.

And what is all this about? Money. Top end raiders (that are now leaving the game in droves)make up 5% maybe of the customer base. Casuals the other 95%. If Blizzard lose the 500,000 raiders due to the homogeneous soup of shit that the game is becoming, so be it. The will replace them with 4 million more punters that want to be spoon fed content and gear, without having to put any effort in to learn their class or instances. The scrubs will be visiting Ulduar for the first time with gear that already outclasses the instance content. Its ridiculous Blizzard, totally gut fucking wrenchingly obscene. But its what the whiners on the forums want, and they are the ones that will pay your juicy bonus at Christmas time and fluff your share options.

It ain't much and will make no difference....but you are not getting my subscription money this month psycho Blizz. Poke it where it smells funny. I am going to have a look at what else is out there, starting with a 10 day free trial with Warhammer. Yeah, its probably shite but it is worth a look and a change of scenery. Its at 20% download right now and taking forever. After that who knows. If nothing grips me it will either be back to WoW or give up all this MMORPG non sense and concentrate on work, and my screen play.

In the meantime happy Booming.

Raiding at last

2009-06-02T15:31:00.002+01:00

Its been a very boring 2 weeks for the Boomdaddy, running Naxx, VoA, EoE etc at weekends and such with guildies. The older content is starting to make my owl-eyes bleed. The process though, needs to be gone through. Why? Well,I have to show that my dps is good enough for a full raider spot. No one has said that these runs are all a little trial but it doesn't take a genius to work out that being top dps on Naxx 25 etc has helped my cause in getting a regular spot.

Hodir and Freya were on the menu last night. I wasn't picked for the raid but after a successful voodoo ceremony involving a virgin chicken, I got drafted in half way through. It was only the second time I had seen Hodir, so was nice to get him down first shot. More importantly i did beat a couple of the front liners in dps, yay for the Boomdaddy. Most importantly I did not die so was saved the indignity of looking like a noobling.

Seeing Freya for the first time was full of win. New content simply breathes life back into these bones. Ok we only had time for two quick attempts at her which ended in wipes but it was still awe inspiring. The location and landscape were a fabulous contrast to the rest of the towering structures of Ulduar.

BUT. There is always a but. I did not feel the same rush of excitement seeing these bosses as I had felt in TBC, seeing Hydross and Lurker for the first time. I do not know if this is because I do not feel part of this raid team yet, or whether I have changed, or whether Blizzard has messed with the game so much and dumbed it down, that I don't feel the right to feel proud or excited anymore. Maybe because things have become so accessible there is no thought or feeling of being special by completing this content. It is not the case now that only decent players got past Lurker and dreamed of seeing Black Temple. Its now a given, that it may take 3-4 months longer than the top raid guilds too see all content.....but you will get to see it. Good players and scrubs alike.

That makes me sad. The drive to clear SSC was partly to be one of the few who enjoyed the hospitality of BT. It was about new, challenging content that was a gear and skill check...but it was also about prestige.My old guild was ranked around 16-18th on the server when the nerf bat patch hit end game content in TBC and we were only 2-3 bosses into SSC. I think that tells a story when compared to guild progress now. I want to Cheer again when a boss goes down, not simply tick him off an achievement list. Am i wrong?

VOA- the duck is broken

2009-05-22T17:38:00.002+01:00

Not sure how "broke my duck" translates in the many languages of the blogosphere. I think its a cricket related term, meaning if you are out for no score you were out for a "duck". If you break your duck, it means you have finally scored. A bit like 6 months of getting turned down by hot females and then suddenly pulling a corker out of the blue.If you don't know what cricket is, then the analagy will be completely wasted on you.

Long and the short of it is, the Boomdaddy has been faithfully slogging it out in VOA week in week out since it was spawned from Blizzards bottom. We have never had a drop there. Nothing. Nada. Nitch. Fat fuck all. It's become a joke between me and myself. However, after last nights 25 man Naxx run (which I missed due to work) we did a run to VOA and what do you know? Yup, first new guild run and the T8 legs drop. Two droods in party, other one roles 51....Boomdaddy trembles like a shitting grey hound......71 boooyah. Gimme gimme gimme.....happy dance....flying feathers!

Changing more than a Lightbulb

2009-05-21T21:22:00.002+01:00

Yes, the BoomMummy is still here. I've lived through the BoomDaddy leaving the guild (on good terms - well done to him!). He hasn't murdered me, and nor have I disappeared completely into one of my many other incarnations. What has happened is that real life building work on my house has messed things up rather a lot. I still have no bathroom, and now wash myself before work while standing in a bucket by a sink downstairs. I also now have no kitchen (the previous one annoyed me too much...). Me and my partner now live in one room of the house - the only one we can fit into that doesn't have packing boxes or builders in it. The good news is that give or take a couple of weeks, we should be able to start living properly again. And yes, we do have new lighting everywhere! It looks gorgeous! So, anyone is more than welcome to pop round and play with my lightbulbs whenever they want!

Boomdaddy came round for a drinking visit before we started all this work, and we had a great time. Boomkins should always stick together after all :) He'll be round again once I can find more than one drinking glass.

Anyway, in honor of a time when I had slightly more hours to play games (and hopefully will do again soon) here is an early Friday Mage Joke. I know you've missed them - I can just feel it in my water. Enjoy! XXX

____

An angry moonkin was walking down the middle of the street, bobbing her head saying "88, 88, 88, 88."

Sally Fireball, our favourite mage from previous jokes, saw her and asked her why she did it. The angry moonkin replied 'I do it because it's fun!' and continued walking, shouting back 'You should try it!'

So, the angry moonkin and Sally Fireball both walked along the middle of the road, saying "88, 88, 88, 88."

All of a sudden a huge truck came hurtling along the road at great speed and the angry moonkin jumped out of the way.

The angry moonkin paused, ignored the crushing, splattering sound, then continued her journey, saying "89, 89, 89..."

______

Ooh, that one was mean! Lots of love, Boommummy XXX

Catching up

2009-05-21T14:49:00.003+01:00

It has been a mix of a week, for the Boomdaddy.

The new guild appears fine and dandy, a few very friendly people and no one yet has found themselves on the Boomdaddy's shoot in the face list. As always with a new guild it is a fine line to walk, between being keen and friendly on one hand and being an attention whore on the other. So for now we are keeping our antlers down a bit and just doing our boom thing.

Raiding has been a bit hit and miss this week. As a "social" member I always knew that I would have to bide my time and wait for some dead mans shoes to fill but I still feel frustrated when i don't get the shout for Ulduar. Saying that I did get to join the raid team twice this week and saw Hodin and Thorim for the first time which was a nice taster of the harder Ulduar bosses. Came 5th, 6th, 8th and 10th in the dps on Thorim, so was mostly pleased for a first time up against the front line raiders. School report would say "OK but could do better".

We did a guild Naxx 25 over the weekend which was great for the boombaby as she picked up some professor plums and I came second on the dps overall, which was nice "pick me!!!" bait for the raid leaders and officers that were there on alts etc.

All in all, very happy with the move to the new place. I do miss my old guildies, but I also feel like a weight has been lifted off me and I feel like I am actually chilling out more and enjoying the game a bit more outside of raiding. Logging on has become more of a choice, rather than a necesity.

Old and New

2009-05-10T15:11:00.003+01:00

Apologies if the last post was slightly esoteric. The guild of which I was an officer had decided to make some changes in the guild structure and ethos. The GM felt that it was time the give the members the choice of raiding or social membership, something that I put forward as an idea a year or so ago. After the Ulduar-lull and the general couldn't care bear attitude of many so called raiders, it was a good move and has galvanised the raiding team somewhat.It was good by fluffy raiding and hello serious raiding, hence the music clips.

Unfortunately, I had to bite my lip as many of the people who let us down in the lull were rushing to sign up as raider members and denied the fact that they play like socials. The frustration of having to go back to Naxx to gear up the players that had stopped raiding Naxx while waiting for Ulduar, was becoming intolerable to me. It is not easy to miss the irony of not being able to do Ulduar because so many were under geared as they had stopped raiding Naxx WHILST WAITING FOR ULDUAR!!!

So, the guild was probably lurching forward to a position where I would have been happier, in terms of the curve from social to hardcore raiding, but I was feeling increasing pissed off day by day. The new structure was to also bring in changes to the status of officers. Gone was the idea of elected officers,replaced by GM,deputy,recruitment and social member officer and a "raid council". While I was perfectly happy to see the streamlining of the officers (and step down), I had a troubling feeling about a whole new swathe of semi officers with their own chat channel. It felt like we were going back to the bad old days where we had around 15 or so officers.

As an officer, I did not have a clear role, as just like me, my GM is a control freak and likes to take the reigns on just about everything. I liked, and still like the GM alot, he is a great player and deep down a really nice guy, but it was coming to the point where all we did was argue and trade insults. That situation is not good for a guild and not good for anyone who is purporting to be playing a game. So I left, yup I simply downed tools and did the off. I perhaps should have made a farewell post on the forums but i honestly believe that it was just better to disappear. If people stand and look at a leaving post by an officer too long, they start to waiver and that is not good for a guild that I really do love to bits.

So what now? Well i took a week away to think what I wanted. I put a baby alt into a ultra social guild that I had been a part of in a previous lfe before raiding. I then looked at what to do with the Boomdaddy. Through friends and aquaintances I was asked to apply to 3 of the top 10 raiding guilds on my server. 2 were purely hardcore and one was a very progressive hardcore guild with a strong social side. I have been Booming alot recently with my lady friend and I wanted to be in a guild where I could raid seriously but that would also be perfect for the other half also. Due to work, she cannot raid as often as she would like.

So we decided upon the progressive guild with the strong social side, unfortunately their raid roster is full so I had to make a social application too. They know, I think, that my social membership to them is a marriage of convenience and some have tacitly implied that I should be raiding full time as soon as a place appears. In the meantime I am doing social guild runs into Naxx and Ulduar and a bit of ad hoc raiding with one of the 2 hardcore guilds I mentioned earlier. General Vezax was a complete blast last night, I must say.

So, thats the state of play with the Boomdaddy. Hopefully there will be plenty to talk about again soon.

Boom love.

Old and New

2009-04-22T02:24:00.002+01:00

Old skool raiding.

That is the old. Apparently this will be the new.

Thank fuck.

Times are a changing

2009-04-22T02:06:00.001+01:00

Boomdaddy Busy with Boombaby

2009-04-21T01:09:00.003+01:00

Been a tad busy with helping a guildie level her Boombaby, chilling and actually enjoying the game for a bit. Its an investment as we are planning a podcast and she will be featured, telling her story from 70-80..... BoomMummy will also be on the podcast but she's not happy about it. Shes an internationally famous musical person but a bit shy.May take some encouragement.

Ulduar has come, thank god. Its hard..harder than a guy in a mac, standing on street corners, playing with mustard. Dirty mac, with dirty bits of onions where they should not be. We wiped on trash and we have never been so pleased. It has made the guild re-assess what we are and what we are doing. It is also seperating the wheat from the chaff.

We went back to Naxx 25 tonight, for a breather...and also to gear up some guildies. It is ironic that we are doing that now, when they could not be arsed to bother to sign up in the Ulduar-lul.
If they had all stuck around and raided in the lull, we would have been ready for Ulduar, they could not be bothered though, so we have to go back and pick up the pieces. The Boomdaddy was second overall in damage, but we did not run WWS so we dont know the breakdown. 4413 overall. Pleased enough, jobs a good'en.

As a side note Boommummy had her birthday today, she still whooped the pure classes even though she was a bit squiffy.God bless her and a big "happy boomday" to her. We all wish many happy returns...she got the Dying Curse, so can't complain, the moaning cow.

Summary is that Blizz may have saved its arse for a bit, as Ulduar seems a good enough gear and skill check for now. How are you guys finding it? Any adjustments being made in the guild to cope with it?

Friday Mage Joke

2009-04-17T16:33:00.002+01:00

Hi again!

Well amongst all the excitement with the new patch, I've managed to find time to track down this little joke for you all:

Sally Fireball, our favourite mage, has the same recurring nightmare, so decides to consult a local shaman.

Shaman: What's your dream about?

Sally: I was being chased by the Lich King!

Shaman: Where were you being chased?

Sally: Down a really long hallway.

Shaman: Then what happens?

Sally: Well, this is the weird thing. In every dream it's the same. At the end of the hallway is a single door, and when I come to it I can't open it, no matter how hard I push. I keep pushing and pushing but the door just won't budge.

Shaman: Interesting.... does the door have any writing on it?

Sally: Yes it does.

Shaman: And what does it say?

Sally: It says 'pull'.

Patch day- Ulduar

2009-04-16T00:53:00.002+01:00

Bring it on!

About goddam time.

Moawr dps.

(strangely raid sign ups seem to be back to overflowing, ho hum)

Mage Joke

2009-04-10T09:15:00.003+01:00

A Mage, Moonkin and Warlock were forced by a wicked witch to jump over a cliff, but their fairy godmother obtained a magical concession for them - whatever word they spoke before they jumped they would land in.

'Feathers' said the Moonkin, and he landed on a soft bed of feathers.

'Cushions' said the Warlock and he landed on a pile of nice cushions.

The Mage ran up to the cliff, tripped over, stubbed his toe, 'Shit!' he said...

Ulduar-lull

2009-04-09T00:44:00.002+01:00

Ulduar-lull seems to be killing everything, raid-wise. We will vent here a bit, as we are less likely to offend guildies. Decent raid composition is getting to be like rocking horse shit. People are not signing up, or are just waiting in under geared sidelines waiting to be lapped up and appreciated. Hanging around on alts, pouting and it is starting to drive me bonkers.

I DO like being in a social/rading/casual/whatthefuckareweguild. I do , honestly. But it has it's frustrations. Listening to the Epic Dolls last podcast had me nodding and shaking my head in tandem. Go listen, its good stuff. Casual, intermediate or hardcore...that is the question..and there are no slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Our guild manifesto clearly states that we will never be a hardcore raiding guild but our rules say that everyone must be fully gemmed, enchanted, buffed, food-ed up, flasked etc if they wish to raid. We do ask people to watch videos and learn fights.Too fucking right, I might add.

Are we social, are we dedicated? Laissez-faire or progressive? Caught in the gap, I think it will be called.

The problems are many and not easily solved.

Firstly, you have the old skool, the founding fathers. They were a bunch of good friends that started playing WoW and formed a guild of close mates, which then grew. Some are casual and social, some are pioneers and raid-addicts, some are lazy arsed bastards that cannot be bothered, as their role is set in stone.

Secondly we have many social members, as we are a "social" guild. Many are great and due to life's rich tapestry, can only play as social members. That is coolio in the Boomdady's book. They add allot on a social basis, that's we are about, right.

Thirdly -the Slackers. They have had their loot and now watch, like purvey raincoat wearing deviants. "Good luck tonight" they say before making some excuse as to why they cannot raid...then turn up on an alt and spend the night leveling.Or have "serious connection issues"....same old same old, ball sacks. I have never known as many connection issues, graphic card failures or other wibbly pc shit in all my life.

Fourthly- the lurkers. The ones that can not be arsed to enchant or gem their gear, or sign up for raids. They lurk in dark corners waiting to ninja a raid invite. They get asked to come as the raid is short, inevitably picking up gear that they don't deserve , after being given flasks and food because "they did not expect to to be asked to raid". Fuck off and die, please you gravy sucking pigs.

Lastly- plain old slags. Got the loot and have disappeared till Ulduar. Or the Cal-syndrome as I will call it. Because we are "social" you will all come running back when Ulduar drops. We will be understanding because you had serious pc issues, while you were actually off leveling your alts.

deep breath.

Is there any real way to maintain a "social/casual/wtf" raiding guild, long term? Or will the best raiders disappear to progress guilds every summer and chancers use us to get gear in the meantime?As they seem to do every year.

Can there be a good middle ground? or do intermediate guilds need to say "Fuck em all and share the kids out for Christmas". We maybe "casual" but it does not mean we have to be casual, or complacent or naive.

You tell me, rant over.

Boo-Yah

2009-04-07T00:02:00.001+01:00

Best in slot finally

Busy Busy

2009-04-06T17:45:00.003+01:00

Life has been busy mcbizz. And Wow has been weird, just plain weird. We were raiding Friday night and it was due to be an Eye of Eternity and then finish off the last 5 Naxx 25 bosses. Unfortunately, sorry arsed guildies continue to be in the Ulduar-lull mindset and are couldn't care bears. So Officers chat goes something like this-

GM- 21 signed up...1 not ready. Call it or do Sarth 20 man achievement?

Officers chat- *groan*

GM- Fook off we can do it

OC- Fook off, we can't

GM- WE ARE going to do it.

OC- *Sobs*

GM- In that case we will do it with 1 drake up too.

OC- *Screams of pain from officers.*

GM- Well, we lose 5 people straight away normally, so really it is like we have a full team, just without the deaths.

OC-Twisted logic, but logic just the same.

GM- GM logic at its finest.

Sooo long and short of it, half hour or so later we downed Sarth +1 with 20 peeps. Not bad eh, for a hardcore/social/casual/sort of raiding guild. After that little adventure you would think the Military quarter and last 2 bosses would be a cake walk, to complete a two day clearance, right? Nope, we then wiped all night on the Instructor with 25 peeps.

Funny old life huh?

Friday's come early!

2009-04-02T14:59:00.002+01:00

This one couldn't wait: enjoy the early Friday Mage Joke!

BoomMummy XXX

Tucked away inside a mysterious, backstreet building in Dalaran there’s a magical mirror. You stand in front of it and tell it one fact that you think is true. If that thought indeed is true, the magical mirror will grant you one wish… but if your thought is false - PLOFF! – the mirror swallows you up for all eternity.

A Warlock, Moonkin and a Mage walk into that very building - with a mission to get their dearest wishes granted. They head straight for the magic mirror. The Warlock goes first and says, ‘I think I’m the best DPS class there is!’ - PLOFF! - the mirror swallows her up and she’s gone for eternity.

Next, the Moonkin goes up to the mirror and says ‘I think Battle rezzing really nerfs my DPS’ - PLOFF! - now she’s gone too.

Lastly, the Mage goes up to the mirror and says, ‘I think…’ - PLOFF!

We love VoA

2009-04-01T00:11:00.003+01:00

Tuesday night before the reset, so its only one thing, VoA... We smish smash the horde into little pieces of orc juice in WG and head on in to VoA. (we love the horde really, they have droods too). For the gazzilonth time, nothing dropped for the Boomdaddy, but we haz dps. We like making mages cry, we like the taste of their tears, its always better though when its a grand slam....only a hunter was missing to humiliate.

Shammy 2nd, Shadow Whoos 3rd, Lock 4th, Mage 5th, Deathnugget 6th....shame on you all. And shame on the Boomkin in 9th and 11th...you need to read up on rotations you charlatans.

Moonkin Moaning

2009-03-30T23:40:00.004+01:00

BoomMummy is very sad that BRK is out of the scene for a little while - and yay, even some of my best friends are hunters - but my moan isn't about this.

Recently, out of boredom (and also having just leveled my fourth level 80.... whooops, how did that happen?) I decided to try some achievements. Now, I love achievements like the next person - as long as that person isn't the Boomdaddy, who looks upon them as a sore excuse for game content. But I don't care - I love em!

I just wish, to the bottom of my feathery heart, that all the damned rewards were not bloody drakes and obscure flying mounts that I'll never, ever, in my feathery dreams, end up using. Druids have an epic flight form at the click of a button. Why the hell do I want to wait a few seconds to do what I can do in an instant?

Can we start a campaign for druid-worthy rewards? Here are a few suggestions, to help out poor Blizzard who seem to have gotten into a bit of a rut with druid forms:

1) Purple feathers

2) Toucan-style beaks

3) Throbbing Antlers that moisten when excited

4) Smaller arses for lady boomkins

I can only hope my words are heeded....

Love, feathers, pointy bits and all that,

BoomMummy XXX

A Moment of Sadness

2009-03-30T22:59:00.002+01:00

It seems that BRK is closing his blog door for 3 months. He will be truly missed . Great bloggers are few and far between and he is a gem. Hunters are next to mages on the evolutionary chain , just before belly button fluff, but I have aways read/listened to BRK because he is quality. I know that the hunters in my guild read his blog and take his wise words on board. He has taken the tard out of many hunters and as a raider, an officer and a gentleman, I salute his work. Through his writing he has saved many a raid because twig thwuckers and bullet bangers have read his blog and learned to be good hunters. Please click the link to his blog and give him a good send off, hopefully he can come back soon.

Those who are about to die (because huntards will return) salute you BRK. You get the Boomdaddy's love.

Link loveliness

2009-03-29T19:14:00.003+01:00

Well, it has been super size sexy to be linked and talked about by lovely bloggers. Thank you chickens of the lazer and battle variety, your mentions have warmed the feathers of our heart.. We are not phae, we are not epic theory-crafters, we are simple boomkins who wish to add our little bit of boomness to the blogosphere. We hope that we add something to the booom-munity. We swear a bit, we bitch and whine, but we are lovely really, honestly we are.

We danced the boomkin dance today, because of the links bestowed on us...it fed our innate bloggers need for some attention and recognition. But it reminded us about why we bothered to start Boomkin blogging.

We started blogging because it is good to talk. When a class can come together and talk about *stuff*, it will inevitably end in good things happening. Dialogue is what takes our class forward. Talking to the Boommummy has taken both our dps to greater hights. Reading other Moonkin blogs has led to us taking on new ideas.

The thing is, i want to learn and get better. I'm a awkward cuss that is always right, but often I'm not. Reading and taking on ideas from fellow Boomkin is the stuff of life. As Bob Hoskins said, its good to talk.

Friday Mage Joke

2009-03-27T10:15:00.002Z

Sally Fireball, mage, was taking gyrocopter lessons with Trixie Danglewrench, gnome engineer. "I'll communicate with you every 1000 feet to see how you're doing, using my new distotalkophone."

At 1000 feet, Trixie whirred the distotalkophone into action and told Sally she was doing great. At 2000 feet, Trixie was amazed - Sally was still doing well!

Right before Sally got to 3000 feet, the propeller stopped and Sally crashed to the ground. Trixie ran to where she crashed landed and pulled her out of the gyrocopter. "What went wrong?"

Sally said, "At 2500 feet, I started to get cold, so I turned the big fan off".

BoomMummy changes

2009-03-25T19:21:00.002Z

Hello my little lovely readers!

Well, can you believe it? I certainly can't! No, I can't! Yes, no, really! The BoomMummy has changed her spec!

Before you all keel over in shock, thinking I have turned into a dodgy looking tree or some drunken bear-type, I must hasten to reassure you that I still have my antlers and feathers. Phew! It's just a little re-jiggle of the talent trees, that's all! But an important re-jiggle nevertheless.

So, what made this happy little mummy change her mind? She was previously heavy Balance, with only 2 points in Resto. I was fine trotting along like this, but two things began to press on my mind. First of all, I was concerned with the changes in mana regeneration due in the next patch - what seemed to be a big nerf at first glance. Alex Ziebart on Wow Insider wrote a lovely article on this here:

click here

The second reason for my change was that the Boomdaddy began to whip my arse on raids (and not in the pleasant way I normally like on Sunday afternoons...). I really began to pay attention to his spec which leaned more to certain Resto talents - a mana-regen type spec.

So, my new talent spec is this (exactly the same as the Boomdaddy's):

clickie clickie

It really is fantastic. My damage has really improved quite dramatically, and on the last guild raid on Tuesday I whooped the Boomdaddy's arse on quite a few fights!!! Yay for revenge!!! I've practised hard at my spell rotation, have *almost* stopped trying to be a back-up healer, and feel I'm getting out of the little rut I found myself in recently. This new build should also help out when the next patch comes out when we may start being more pressed for mana.

Anyway - on a side note, relating to the Boomdaddy's previous post:

The marvelous thing about having at least two moonkin in a guild is that you can have these discussions, go to target dummies together and test things out. This didn't always seem to be the case, when moonkin were a rarity - in fact I was the only moonkin in our lovely guild, until the lovely Boomdaddy joined us. The first time I met him, I was healing - yes - *healing* a heroic Slave Pens - while in my balance spec. He was an inspirational moonkin, in full PVP kit and whacking out good damage even then (it was the only kit we could DPS in at the time, unless we went crazy for cloth on raids - which just upset mages and warlocks). At this stage in the game, spell DPS druids were hardly known or trusted, and I always stood a better chance of getting into an instance group if I pretended I was a healer. It *was* easier to heal in the game then as a moonkin - having tried off-healing once or twice since Lich King, I can tell you it is *really* tricky now - mana goes down quicker than a bottle of vodka in my house on a Friday night. So, I don't do it anymore!

Thanks for reading - hope you are all still lovely! Feel free to express your love for me with message of support, flowers, chocolates or - more importantly - vodka.

BoomMummy XXX

Nostalgia

2009-03-25T11:17:00.003Z

A few bloggers are getting all nostalgic recently, such as the egotistical priest. Vonya posted a nice piece on "the pivotal" event that shaped your WoW play/life style and I felt like I wanted to yap on a little bit here about my pivotal moments in terms of what lead me to where I am today.

Day 1 was the decision to go buy this crack derived game! I did not think that I would be playing after a couple of months , let alone playing for years! I have a very low attention span for pc/console games and 2 games have only ever gripped me.. Command and Conquer Red Alert and the Total War series for the PC. My only MMO experience before WoW was Runescape. At the time the concept of MMO blew my mind, what with all these real people out there interacting in a completely new phase of social interaction. I knew parts of Runescape was what I wanted but also that it wasn't right for me long term. Hence I did my research and ended up purchasing WoW.

I remember clearly the day I purchased it and the excitement of reading the little game manual while I waited for it to load. Then came the first and last time I had to consider what class I wanted to play.( The decision to play alliance and the Bronzebeard server were made for me, as a wonderful lady I had met in a previous blogging life played on BB and was going to take me under her wing. The only problem was, we found out the next day, EU customers couldn't access USA servers and I had purchased the EU version in ignorance! Doh.) It simply had to be a druid! Everything about them screamed versatility, variety and well, fun. From those early beginnings in the druid noob zone, to outlands to Northrend, my druid has been my only real toon, no alliance alt has made it past 29. The druid is me, no other class has "felt" right....even down to not ever changing how he looks, with haircuts etc.

The second pivotal moment for the emerging Boomdaddy was brought about by meeting the Boomgrandaddy. Salmonella to be precise. He was one of the only balance druids at that time on our server and was also a guidmate. He was THE only Boomkin that you saw in Stormwind, he was the guy everyone asked to dance because he was relatively unique. Sal was also a guildie and helped me through the different druid quests, taught me to be less of a noob, taught me where to fish Deviates (when it really was a secret on Alliance side) to make loads of cash in order to buy my first mount. He didn't boost me through stuff, he simply talked me through it, taught self reliance...he really was a true druid mentor and I think I would have given up years ago if he hadn't showed me the ropes. The pivotal day was when we both got trees for the first time and danced the night away in SW surrounded by shrubbery. That day the Moonkin contract was signed in blood, there was no was any other class could be so full of win!

Guild politics and Outlands cocktail, was really what led to the last defining moment. The casual social guild that I had belonged to split, for several reasons, but looking back I think there was an underlying frustration at not "raiding". Raiding was completely alien to me. Yes , I had run all of the instances in Outlands but the emerging Kara was simply a pipe dream, something those hardcore guys in basements did whilst high on Red Bull and pro plus. A few of us stayed solo after the split but we shared a group calender and started to schedule runs into the new fangled heroics. Tor the rogue, his brother Demon the lock, Sal, myself, Letro the Pally (whose moustache alone can tank 3 mobs-true story), Ysanne the priest hit the heroics most nights , sometimes 2 per night. We formed a great team, which looking back now feels like the first real exposure to mini raiding that I had. Bosses were tough, tactics were talked, we used in game voice chat. I read about recount and Omen, worked out threat and gear and suddenly started to absorb some of the plethora of resources out there for us all to use and learn from.

The team split up though, when the others up and joined this weird social/raiding guild. I was sceptical and stayed away for a few months but one day went on a pug with a few of them by chance into the Slave Pens. That was the first time I met the Moonkin , now known as the Boommummy. A few days later I made an application (my God, imagine having to apply to a guild!!!) which probably to the horror now of my GM, was accepted. It was great to be back with old friends and seemed like a really new chapter had started in my WoW "career". Then it happened. Kara.

I had been in a couple of times in a pug wipefest on Attumen, so was not completely green but OMG what a different world, the first real world of raiding. Suddenly I found what I had always wanted out of this game, raiding. Hard fights where you were completely reliant on 9 other people to be at their best, to get you all through. Really learning how to squeeze every last drop of win out of your toon. Learning strategies, rotations, threat and mana management....simply awesome. A dedicated , social raiding guild. Casual in chat but in no way sloppy in raid. The thirst for raiding, That's what Kara gave me. That was my pivotal moment.

What was yours?

Patchwerk Revisited

2009-03-24T18:34:00.003Z

Monday night and for the first time in a few weeks we had the numbers to complete a 2 night clean sweep of Naxx 25. Last night was just the Construct wing and the two Mr Bigs, it was also a night of god awful lag, never ever lagged so badly. Guessing every player and their dog where in Naxx before the weekly reset. A very mixed bad of results to be fair, 3rd on Grobbulus, 5Th on Gluth, a very special 2nd on KT and 5th (see above) on the Patchwerk. Patchwerk was especially pleasing as I added an extra 200dps over last attempt....may not have been the best, but I did my best. I did completely fuck up my rotation twice and ended up with Wrath eclipse which kept bouncing off the GCD, so there is definitely room for improvement. One month and we will break the 5k target , for sure.

Thadius, Thadius, Thadius though, that's a different story altogether. We had an absolute shocker (excuse the pun). Don't know if it was the lag, murderous guildies, suicidal me or simply a bad, bad day at the office...we sucked, we blew....we blucked. Apparently then, I now bluck on two bosses, Thaddy-poos and Heigan. We see a trend. If we have to move, we die. We dance like our Dad. Not good news with Ulduar around the corner.

Sundays round up

2009-03-23T13:45:00.004Z

Was feeling a tad hung over and couldn't care bear, yesterday.....hence did not do anything really productive, well, except respec back to 55-0-16. I know the Boommummy will cry foul but i just feel much more comfortable with that raiding spec. Gone are IFF and Improved thorns, ill miss the thorns but my I will not worry too much about the loss of IFF. We will however revisit the talent after the next patch, if it becomes a 5 min deal. Ill hold my wings up and say I was not good enough at keeping it in my rotation, and using GCD, to make it really work for me. Our main tank is a furball, so the raid will always benefit from his FF anyhow. Target dummy likes our change back, over an hour over dummy thumping in Ironforge, we came out with an average 3106 dps, which is 2-300 up on last weeks efforts.

We liked that. So the call went out for "lfm dps VOA HC" over the general channel. Only a few guildies online, so we went with the pug. Usually I don't pug, I mean i truly loathe pugging any shit. If I cant do it myself, I will go with friends or guildies but eating cat hair is preferable to pugging. But it's only Voa, how bad can it be. To be fair, it was not even remotely painfull and it struck me as a useful exercise. What i mean is, I spend all my raiding (and most playing time) with the same set of people...i know their limitations and where they excel...i know from the damage meters where roughly everyone should be and can see who is having a blinder or who is having a lousy day at the office. So it was refreshing to compare my dps and raid competency with 24 unknown raiders....people who I have seen around Dalaran, checked out their kit etc. The results made for a mildly smug Sunday Boomdadddy..my dps was not earth shattering but sometimes we are an attention whore and like to see our name in lights.

Have a great Monday, Y'all.

How many Mages..

2009-03-20T17:37:00.002Z

How many Mages does it take to paint a house?
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
Depends how hard you throw them.

It's Friday Again - Mage Joke Time!

2009-03-20T15:28:00.002Z

A Mage went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," he told the salesman.
"Sorry, we don't sell to mages," he replied.

He hurried home and dressed up as a Warlock, borrowed a pet demon, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to Mages," he replied.
"Darn, he recognized me," he thought.

He went for a complete disguise next time; a full feather suit with beak and antlers. Perfect, he thought, he’s bound to sell it to a Moonkin! Just to be sure, he waited a couple of days before he again approached the salesman. "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to Mages," he replied.
Frustrated, he exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a Mage?"
"Because that's a microwave," he replied.

Boom-boom!

Wednesday, After The Wishlist

2009-03-18T16:04:00.003Z

As the commentator (many thanks for taking the time to comment) on yesterday's post pointed out, perhaps my wish list was a little ambitious. We barely scraped a 25 man team together, for the third week running and a few were either undergeared or inexperienced. That made for a scrappy night but hopefully it will help the guild in the long term. There seems to be a malaize similar to last summer, when raiding suddenly seemed too much effort for some. I guess it is Ulduar rearing its head and the anticipation of a whole new tier of gear. From my perspective though, we should be hitting Ulduar on day one kitted out in best in slot, not simply 4 pieces of T7 and some fill ins. We are a "casual raiding guild" but that does not mean we should raid casually (i prefer the term hardcore social guild anyhow).

I did not get any of the phat lootz that I was after, not even a moldy old limb. The only item to drop of any interest was the precious, tasty mage tears. /hug

Being a techno-tard, I haven't worked out to take a decent screen shot whilst at my home office, as I have two screens and it is baffling me.Any answers would be very gratefully recieved.

Patchwerk- Did not break 4.5k but did manage 4.38k which is a whole lot of happiness more than last week. We one shotted him, and the Boomdaddy came in 3rd, behind two warlocks as usual. The RNG was not at all kind and and I had to Wrath for what seemed like 30 seconds to get my first eclipse proc. Had fate and Blizzard been kinder, 4.5k would have got smished into tiny pieces, I think.We will break 5k before Ulduar , if it kills us.

Grob of green farts went down first time two, as he should, and we are pleased to have topped the chart on a boss for the first time in far too long.Yay for Boomkin. Gluth was a struggle but we still managed a very respectable second spot on the dps chart when he finally went to the puppy dog pound in the sky.

It was ironic that on a poor nights performance, the Boomdaddy had 3 of our best boss kill results.

No News Tuesday

2009-03-17T18:25:00.003Z

.......yep no news.
..
..
..

It is Naxx 25 tonight, though, so we may have some news tomorow, if..

1-We get enough sign ups
2-We don't get drunk after being shafted by biggest customer and get arrested for being drunk in charge of a molotov cocktail
3- We remember to turn the damn combat log on

What we wish for tonight....

1- At least 3 wings down
2-4.5k on Patchwerk- any less and we call fail. Failing non fail, we demand his arm/leg/limb
3- Some new bracers from the Raz-man or at least gimme the damn idol
4-Maybe new boots from Loatheb
5- Some nice legs from thenoob'rekhan
6-Sweet tasting mage tears

Yes we need upgrades, our wardrobe is looking soooooo February.

Old Skool Raiding

2009-03-16T17:09:00.004Z

Sunday night of boredom, then a glimmer of excitement when we are invited to go to Mount Hyjal . Was a run that was initially just to make up numbers for a very good friends son, but turned into a bit of a old skool guild run. We didn't ever finsh MH before THE patch, but it was nice to go back and finish off fatty. And yes, the boomdaddy was no.1 dps for the whole raid. Kaching.DPS peeked at about 5.3k after first boss, bit better than the last time we were here.

BoomMummy's Joke

2009-03-13T20:15:00.000Z

A Mage and a Warlock both jump off a cliff at the same time. Which one will hit the bottom first?

The Warlock, because the Mage has to ask for directions.

Boom Joke Friday

2009-03-13T13:04:00.003Z

Ok, so after a few drinkies the other night, myself and the Boommummy talked about a regular blog spot for mage related humour. As no one does any work on Friday's anyway, I guess today would be a good day to try it out. Please comment on who's joke is better, mine or the BoomMummys's! Also feel free to add your own.

After a gruelling day of being holier than thou, a young Paladin was strolling down the sandy beaches of Stranglethorn Vale, taking in the bracing sea air and thinking about all things bright and beautiful. In the distance he spies a small fishing boat, occupied by two legendary Moonkins. As he gets closer he spots a flailing, drowning gnome mage near to the boat and cries out in alarm. Thankfully the two Moonkin had obviously caught the poor mage by a rope and were pulling him on board to safety.

"Blessings of the Holy light be upon you two noble Moonkins" the paladin bellowed in his best clerical voice. "I will extol your virtuous actions in the Cathedral this very eve. Bless you again!"

The paladin continued his stroll with a jaunty stride, full of admiration for the heroes.

The first Moonkin turns to the second...."what a noob" he sighs,

"Yup, never been shark fishing".

BoomMummy has had nice Evening

2009-03-13T03:38:00.003Z

Well, it's bloody rude, that's what I say. I don't like the idea of moonkin misbehaving, and I think someone has made it up, just to make mages feel better. I don't think it's right. It's unnatural. I've expulsed an egg in shock with all this worry. I didn't even realise I was pregnant. I hope I will wake up tomorrow and everyone tell me it's just a nasty dream I had.

Lots of love and feathers...

BoomMummy XXXX

Naughty BoomBashers Naughty Boomkins

2009-03-12T12:43:00.005Z

As always this morning, I had a quick troll through the various sites I have linked to this blog. I was somewhat astounded by what I found as it shook my dangly,feathery bits for a moment. I had an initial pappa Boomdaddy feeling, then some anger and then some sadness. The offending article was posted on the blog of the ever lovely Egotistical Priest by one of her minions about Boomkins of all things. Now if it had been a rant about Magetards, that would be both acceptable and understandable, but to stab at the heart of the Boomkin establishment simply isn't cricket, old chap. The Boomdaddy played nice and kept his toys in his pram but it has spurred me to think about what the original poster said and why we need to listen and pay credence.

The basic gist if you haven't clicked on the link and read it, is a scenario where the balance specced druid (careful use or wording there, did ya notice?) has pulled almighty agro with starfall and presumably hurricane. The poster priest has to shield him/her in order to stop them becoming road kill, the tank struggles to regain aggro and the artist formerly known as a Boomkin, typhoons the mobs away, leaving the poor tank to scuttle after them and try somehow to regain aggro.

Ok wings up, all Boomkins have done this at least once in their careers. You know what though?, we did it as a laugh on the friday- night- bit pissed on cheap wine- instance runs with guildies. We have done it for comic effect to annoy our lovely feral tank and grumpy shaman guild leader. We have done it in runs through ZG, nuking the bejesus out of low level mobs in a retarded AoE contest with locks and Magetards. Ok, so read all the above, it was done a handful of times for shit and giggles.

If you are a Boomkin that does this kind of thing in PuG's, instances and raids, then the Boomdaddy's Eye of Mordor is on you. You are an embarrassment and a disgrace. Stripped of the Boomkin title, you will walk the street of shame being known as "just a balance spec druid". Mages and Locks pull this kind of shit trying to be top of the pops, we do not.

We remember what it was like in TBC when we were aggro magnets and how we couldn't put out the damage of dps clasess. We remember being told by a raiding guild that the only use for a Boomkin was on a BBQ and was told to respec.../gquit.We learnt the rules of aggro, we learned spell rotation, we tried to assemble workable kit (despite of Blizzard). Of course we want to do as high a damage level of possible, thats part of our job in a raid...part of, remember that. We rez, we cross heal and sometimes if you are really cute or have a sexy teamspeak voice we may even give you our innervate juice. Dps is the thing we do when not holding the raid together.

Do not act the bollocks and get us bad raid rep, do not undo a lot of hard work by a lot of decent Boomkin players. Get your Omen threat meter. Analyze your spec and rotations, learn the consequences of your actions. Typhoon should not be taken out of your bag of tricks in a raid unless it is to get mobs of the healer in an emergency, The list of times when Starfall should realistically be used in end game WoTLK raiding is thinner than a hungry stick insect. That's why I call it an AK47 in the hands of a toddler, bad things tend to happen if you are not smart.

So what has gone wrong? Why are there some "balance specced druids" out there causing a kerfuffle. Lets look at the Boomkin timeline.

Early TBC

Lets face it we were pretty crap. Gear was mostly pvp or paint explosion mismatch of cloth and leather. Even specced for threat reduction we pulled more than Brad Pitt in a singles and divorced club. We were the poster child for Lynx deodorant. Half the time we were waiting for the Omen bong bong bong noise to go away. Raid guilds used us as target dummies for melon throwing practice.

Middle TBC

Things seemed to get better. Broader minded raid guilds started to pick up a few Boomkins and we became a steady raid members. Our reasonable dps, raid utility and buffs were finally considered raid worthy. Top 5 dps places were pretty standard.

Late TBC

As with other classes, things got silly. God gave us a viable AoE and crowd control. We nuked the Locks into second place. We were the daddy and the mummy rolled into one. Some people got lazy....that's problem 1.

Early Wrath

Problem 2 emerges with the rise of Wrath. Now that Boomkins were really BOOOOOOMKINS they started appearing everywhere. Every druid I saw seemed to have turned balance to get to 80. Good luck to them and I hope they enjoyed the experience. Some have not gone back to what they were good at though and we appear to have inherited a new tier of Moonkins. Lacking in experience, skill and code. Don't shout... my point is a player could have easily leveled from 70-80 in 3-4 weeks and that is not what I call experienced. Some are great though, of course!

Blizzard is partly to blame for the laziness in all the dps classes. When you can AoE bulldoze your way through NAXX with no real need for crowd control, people will take the easy option. This was one reason why our GM banned us all from AoE'ing mobs in naxx (apart from the obvious AoE groups), people were forgetting how to single target mobs and pulling AoE bullshit all the time.

Conclusion. The lazy nuking druids need to remember the basics and work hard again, the fresh faces need to do their research. In that way the Boomdaddy will not get indigestion from reading BoomBashing on very eminent and well respected blogs, and would get some work done. Where I would never like to read our spec being derided, it is good to hear others views on our class, so we can continue to improve as the highest evolution of druid.

BoomMummy celebrates

2009-03-11T20:17:00.002Z

Well, thank my feathers and antlers for that! Exalted with the Sons of Hodir at last. I really don't know why I put myself through so much suffering just for the tiny extra amount of spell damage and crit. It's been pain all the way, doing the same dailies that everyone else is madly trying to farm at all hours of the day and night. The alternative would be to spend a fortune on the AH - and what with the credit crunch and everything, that was a no go.

Does Blizzard really think that all I deserve after this monumental boredom experiment is +24 Spell Power and +15 crit. It's hardly very 'uber', now is it? I think +50 Spell Power and +40 crit would much better reflect the nature of my pain and suffering. What do the readers think? Do people actually enjoy dailies?

Die you dragon scum die

2009-03-08T23:52:00.001Z

Malygos dead. Sleep well sweet Boomkin.

Patchwerk Punting

2009-03-08T16:44:00.002Z

Patchwerk is old news for many, now. He is on farm status. So why bring his royal ugliness up? Well, the Boomdaddy finally broke 4k dps on him last night. I know I know, lots of Boomkins are claiming 6k and over....we salute them, but we had hit a brick wall at 3.7-3.8k dps on the bugger. Last night though, we thought we had done a great piece of work on the werk and after the match downloaded the WWS report with trembly talons.

Did we make top 3?...nope...7th place with 4011dps on him (lovely but infuriating rogue was 555 total damage done above me in 6th grrrr). The important thing is we have done it, stepped up to a happier , higher level of dps. Before the fight I had a quick half hour of "eye of the tiger" warming up on target dummies, with the best result being 2980 till OOOMitis set in.

On the loot front, Boomdaddy is a very happy thunder chicken today. We woke up with the delight of equipping Dying Curse ! It does mean a whole mass of changing gear and gems, but its a sacrifice we are willing to make. We can kiss goodbye to the trinket of non-proccness now. Die No Proc Whetstone .

After the Naxx clearance , we went on to say hi to Malygos. Meh i hate that flippin' boss, his death still eludes me.5th place dps was better than 7th though. I wonder if my regular top 3 spot days are gone for good.

PTR lurve

2009-03-07T15:53:00.005Z

Courtesy of MMO champion.

Starfall cool down has been lowered from 3 min to 1.5 min.

When you absolutely, positively have to pull/kill every muther fooker in the room.Twice. We like anything that gives us the chance to do more damage but still not totally convinced that starfall has any great use in PVE. Is is a huge mana sink. We do love it in PvP though and will make AOE farming quicker. B+

Eclipse now gives you a 33% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 30% (up from 20%) when you critically hit with Starfire.

I will wait to read what the theory-crafting numberkins have to say about this. Does it mean that starfire to proc wrath eclipse will be the new black? Damn I was just getting used to it! I think the pendulum swings back to Starfire proccing Wrath as the highest dps rotation, but without some bimbling about I'm unsure how the changes to natures grace will work. B

Owlkin Frenzy now affects all attacks. (Old - Physical melee and ranged attacks only)

Good to see Blizz have changed their minds again. Enough said. B+ for waking up, Blizz.

Celestial Focus now reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Cyclone by 23/46/70% and increases your total spell haste by 1/2/3%.

Losing the stun will effect PvPr's and leveling Boomkins the most. The stun was practically useless for raiding Moonkins. Think overall it just helps me sleep at night better knowing I have this instead of Owlkin frenzy.

Nature's Grace now increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 sec. (Old - Reduced the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 sec.)

Haven't had any coffee yet but i think this is good news. 3 second duration......guessing haste will become even more important so that you can get off 3 wraths or 2 starfires during the proc.

Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral) now reduces the armor of the target for 5 min. (Up from 40 sec) Duration remains 40sec in PvP.

Even without coffee, I know this is good news. Little bit of wee, good news. IFF will no longer be a ginger step child spell. 5 mins!!!!! Bloody fantastic! Mana efficiency without pissing about with rotations.5% armour reduction and 3% haste for the raid, additionally 3% crit to us lovelies.Roll up roll up. We like. We like more than that exotic dancer we met in Greece. A+

Insect Swarm: The bonus damage from spellpower on this damage over time ability has been increased significantly to match similar spells on other classes.

Again, this will be one for the brainbox Boomkins to suss out. But it looks like fabulous news for the DoT.A-

I think thats it. All in all some good news. We will just have so see what else comes out of the rinse and whether or not these changes ever make it live.

Boomkin 1 Technology 0

2009-03-06T12:24:00.005Z

I have to admit that the Boomdaddy is a tech-challenged. The pictures that have been previously posted have been courtesy of my lovely web mistress. She is a busy lady though and I need to stop bugging her with picture related crapness.....so its time to try and stand on my own two feathery feet. Exhibit A

Go me! Bit small but its my first attempt! I downloaded Gimp and have tried the picture crop, with some practice I may even become vaguely able to use the damn thing. Anyhoo that's a quick snapshot of last nights 3 wing clearance of Naxx 25. Curses on locks, hunters and rogues.

Exhibit B......why my guildies will never get the Heigan achievement.......

Yup, the Boomdaddy was lying down on the job again. Its a sad day when the raid leader says "and the Boomdaddy will be showing you all where the lava burst comes from" as part of his stand up routine. It was one of four deaths I incurred, in a little disappointing personal performance.

Crit watch says 57% on wrath and 82% for starfire. Crit based mana regen 185,000 over the 9 bosses. Eclipse procced 54 times. One stat that is a tad concerning is that the Meteorite Whetstone only procced 2 times over 3 hours on the 9 bosses. To me , that's a whole load of haste that ain't happening. Its a fill in trinket while we wait for the best in slots, yes, but still it needs to get its thumb out of its arse or it will get filed under b for bin.

Spec Speculation

2009-03-05T15:37:00.006Z

Duel specs are apparently on the way *insert trumpets now*. How do we feel about the concept? Dunno, at the moment its a mixture of ambivalence with a dash of shrug and a smidge of oh dear. I have read a few eminent blogger's views, done some navel gazing, found a little bit of smelly fluff and then mused some more. Conclusion being drawn in the Boomdaddy's head is that the jury is still out. It solves some problems and is a nice luxury to have , for sure....but its not without some drawbacks, methinks.On a purely personnal note, I may well invest in the latest gold sink but......

As to what the second spec will be ,I am still clueless. I am balance.I have always been balance.I levelled from 1-80 balance all the way (apart from 2 weeks of resto to help the guild finish Kara, and I will say anyone that levels resto deserves a big Boomkin pat on the back).I chose to do this because I fell in love with initially being a druid and then with the balance spec. I love my feral brethren, but being a bear head banger or a sneaky kitty cat simply doesn't float my boat. Our guilds top tank is feral, he's great, so let him have it.....me, I don't know the dribbly end from the stinky end of bears. I'm balance, Im the Boomdaddy, I was there when Boomkins were laughed at and not allowed to raid. I strove to learn my craft, read all I could, practiced practiced practiced...and by the time my guild hit SSC I was consistently in the top 5 dps, sometimes top.

The appeal of the balance druid for me, has always been the challenge to excel and the utility of the class. Utility, yes. We are the finest class around because we are flexible, hard working and have a set of abilities that are finally seen by guilds as being very attractive in raids. The rush of battle rezzing the main healer, cross healing till they are good to go and then swithching back to deal more death is awesome, and many times raid saving. Ok our dps will suffer and we don't like to be out of top 5 BUT we regularly save the day. If a specific fight needed a cross healer, there we were. I say all this because I don't wont to be a leafy drood. I'm more than happy to cross heal, rez and bring that utility to a raid but that doesn't mean I want to heal as a lifestyle choice.So is there a burning desire to have healing as an off spec? Nope, not even a warm tingle. I fought to make the Boomkin viable for raids whilst being a Boomkin, not a Boomkin with a spare healer in his luggage. My fear is for some of my brethren boomers who may get TOLD to have resto or feral as their offspec, that raid places will be assigned to those that have dps/heal rather than the dps'r that heals.

The whole bullshit "bring the player not the class" is simply going to get worse. By homogenising the classes so much, dumbing down the game content and virtually destroying any need for diversity or crowd contol, Blizzard have not done the player base any real favour. Feel free to throw rocks at my head but that's the way I feel. All the classes were there for different reasons, with different responsibilities....now its all some soupy mish mash. I feel for the pure dps classes on this one. Unless they get a bit of love many could feel the chill when they are left out in the cold. Having a completely viable raid with 25 droods or 25 palaroaches strikes me as hysterical. The current content (hopefully Ulduar will be diferent) simply doesn't require the diversity of TBC and duel specs will make this even more apparent.

It will make raiding simpler, the great unwashed shout! Yes it will, and that bloodywell blucks. The content needs to become harder not easier to keep the game a challenge and to keep its product life cycle in growth ,not decline.

From a guild perspective, duel specs could be great for ensuring everyone has the opportunity to do instances etc that they need. It will ease tank and healer shortages, even if the majority of them are clueless how to play their role. It might be nice "for a change" too. All pluses, for sure. I think our hardcore social guild will tell everyone that duel specs are optional and raiding will continue based on current mains. If people want to duel spec, its completely down to them. My fear is that this will not be the case in all guilds and that's where the little bit of "oh dear" comes in.

Back to Boom

2009-03-03T15:01:00.004Z

Hmmmmm I have been remiss on posting the last couple of days, due to a lack of any happy content to share and due to car crashes involving knife wielding ,non insured hoodies. But this is about the highest evolution of druids and not my secret agent like life....so on with some news.

25 man Naxx. Don't even go there. Nope, we were shite.Not just bad but shite.Don't know if it was the mix of battle rezzing, off healing, frequent deaths or what...but we were ashamed to be the Boomdaddy. Some how we managed to both suck and blow at the same time....we blucked I guess. Even the tight arsed magetards ate us up and pooped us out like twiglets.

The upside is we finished off 25 man Naxx again last night followed by Sartharion 25 with one drake up. I didn't capture the figures for the final two bosses in Naxx, but on the big cuddly dwagon (plus friend) the BoomMummy came in second placed dps and the Boomdaddy came in 5th. 3380 dps and 3090 dps respectively. A little pride was restored to the Boomkin nest at least. Warlocks seem unbeatable in raids at the moment...but that may change a little now the Boomdaddy has a new toy......drum roll

Good Head Love

Yep, the T7.5 helm voucher dropped and we were high enough placed in the epgp list to nab it, Sorry Boommummy. That little beauty gives me the 4 set bonus (helm, chest, gloves, shoulders) and we are a token or two away from the legs also. Happy days. It's meant we can swap our crit legs for the haste leggings of the winged serpent. Stats stand at 1742 spell damage, 299 hit, 27.66% crit (now effectively 32.66% with the set bonus..weeeeee) and 333 haste.

Roll on the next raid to see if any of that makes any difference!

The missing stats.......

2009-02-28T18:52:00.003Z

Ho Hum. Well, we knew it was going to be tough to get a top 5 finish with the quality of some of the other dps. Boomdaddy is a tad dissapointed not to break 3k dps across all the bosses but that cant be helped when we are completely useless at Heigan. When i say completely useless that may be an exageration, we do have one use. Designated dead body. For the good of the raid we lie down quietly in order to show everyone where the lava burst come up from. True story. We do also have to admit to being a little pissed for the second half of the raid, as the wine was tasting rather too good. Bad Boomdaddy.

On the good side, we did like 58% crit on wrath and the whopping 79% on starfire. When we finally get the fourth piece of T7, we can add another lovely 5% crit across the board on top of that. Yummy scrummy. With regards to the new spec we think we need a few more raids to see if its any better. Improved faerie fire, is just a pain in the chocolate starfish at the moment, as it screws my rotation to buggery. We will give it a proper go though and see if we can click our way through it.

Naxx 25 second leg is in an hour and i have put 3 sticky notes on my monitors saying "TURN ON COMBATLOG YOU KNOB-END", we shall see if that was subtle enough to get through the Boomdaddy's thick skull.

BoomMummy Gloats

2009-02-27T18:10:00.004Z

Hmmm, well! Its looks like the Boomdaddy has finally come over to my way of thinking. As I was saying in my last entry, crit = boomlove, and it seems to message has finally got around!

The Boomdaddy’s spec is now very similar to mine, with just a couple of minor differences. I don’t have the 5 points in the Resto ‘Furor’ (instead, I have my 5 points in Balance ‘Genesis’). I also have 3 points in ‘Brambles’ rather than Improved Faerie Fire. I tend to use my dots a lot, and try to keep both up in raids, so Genesis is quite useful for me. I could quite happily swap Brambles for Improved Faerie Fire – but I do love my little trees! Any chance to get them doing a bit of extra damage I’ll take (even if they miss too much on bosses, the naughty little buggers!).

I never went for the resto-mana-regen spec – wanting to try to maximise my mana through crit. Even on the early raids with the guild, this worked out okay (although I did have a couple of pieces of big mp5 kit, which kept for fights where I knew mana would be tough – hey, they dropped, no healers wanted them – who was I to say ‘no’?). Even before I was hit capped, I was whacking out a good bit of damage in the raids with this spec.

Now I’ve got 4 pieces of T7, and along with a few other nice purples, I have enough crit to keep the mana going and I never use the mp5 kit anymore. For some odd reason I’ve managed to get over 300 hit and haste without trying very hard (must have been on the vodka when I did that). So the Boommummy is generally feeling quite pleased with herself! Well, I would be feeling very pleased with myself if I could get my hands on those bloody illusive kit upgrades. Things seem to have dried up for poor little me recently. I still need the T7 helm – 7.5 would be lovely – still need something to replace the blue Kirin Tor dagger… I just don’t seem to get the drops. Ah well – roll on Ulduar! Let’s hope there’s lots of gorgeous things in there I can stuff under my feathers!

p.s. Boommummy will get back to raiding soon – she’s been busy dyeing her feathers and varnishing her beak! Looking this gorgeous doesn’t happen by accident you know... XXX

Fandabydosey, its Friday

2009-02-27T10:55:00.005Z

Naxx 25, post match report. Well there would have been if I hadn't only just remembered to turn on WWS before the Widow fight and then not got dc'd straight after...sigh. I thought the report was still running and was looking forward to some serious data from 2 wing clearances +2 bosses, but alas all i have is the poxy Widow stats. Im annoyed, as we were very interested to see if the new build was raid-tastic, but also due to the fact that guildies were pumping out some serious pain to all the Naxx inhabitants and it would have been a great report for thr guild forum. A few of the bosses went down in record time and there was a minimum of fuck ups...all in all a very decent show from the finest hardcore social guild on the planet. Below is the overall dps for the one fight.

Fourth place for the Boomdaddy, its not top 3 but its not bad. Bloody rogue was top again,if he wasn't lovely he would be on the shoot in the face list. Sneaky, thats what they are, sneaky. As you can just about see, the elemental shammy came in just behind me. He's high up in the guild, so we let him hit stuff on his own and get ahead on the charts so that he feels special, bless him. 3205 dps is getting there but again it would have been necessary to have had all the boss fight data in order to make an informed decision on the new build.

Now this, the Boomdaddy likes. 55% crit rate on wrath and 79% on starfire. Thems the onions alright and no mistake. No misses, just shows that 275 hit is fine if you have a spacegoat and a priest of shadowness in the party. Moral of story this week, is to get a tad more hit for 10's and stack other loveliness for 25's....job done. On the crit/mana regen scorebaord we estimate 6325 mana cash back in the 2 minutes 32 second fight. That would get the BoomMummy moist for sure.

Edit 1. The lovely hunter in the raid managed to succeed where I failed miserably and captured all but the first fight on WWS. Webmistress is working on the pictures now and should be up in the next hour or 2. As far as our estimate of 6325 mana regen from crit goes, we suck the sweat off a dead man's balls when it comes to maths. Having studied WWS further, the actual figure was a whopping 17,868! That will help take the OOM out of Boom, for sure.

Pre Raid Reshuffle

2009-02-26T17:46:00.002Z

Naxx 25, looks like a goer for tonight. Yay, as no real raiding in a while has made me grumpier than ever! With a heavy heart I have to share some very serious news, yes I'm respeccing. I'm dropping the super cool Boomdaddy mana -regen build in favour of something with a little more bang for your buck.

Good bye to best mana raid build money can buy 55-16

and say hello to my new fwend 64-7

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating of course, but there are some very heavy hitters on the raid tonight and the Boomdaddy doesn't like to me made to look a douchebag. The main reason is though, that on the last few 25 man raids, I have finished with a very full mana bar and not enough dps. We may even goto 66-5 as there are 3 other droods in the group all with 2pts in IMW.

Master stroke, or Mongolian cluster fuck? 5 hours and we will know.

Patchy Mcpatch 3.1.0

2009-02-26T11:53:00.003Z

There is alot of buzz around about the ptr and about patch 3.1.0. As usual the list of tweaks and modifications to the Boomkin class is nose-bleedingly long. God knows how blizzard developers get so much thoughtful, incisive and big brain work packed into the half hour on Fridays between their 5th Kryspy Kreme and scratching their balls.

Balance

Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.

Hats off to them. One possible change listed and its a bag of bollocks.Good work fellas.

Owlkin Frenzy
Rank 3
Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10% and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting Balance spells. Lasts 10 sec.

This talent has really always been for the PvP specced Boomkin, as its application in PvE is limited at best. This change however will solidly stick it in PvP only builds for good, if it gets through to the live realms. As Gray pointed out , the only time in Naxx that any Moonkin could benefit from this talent, would be if they consistently stood in the lava AOE during Sartharian. Even then the healers are probably going to be thinking "BBQ chicken on the menu tonight then" if you pull that kind of nonsense.

Are we bothered? Yes and no. No, because we are a raiding Boomster and do not use this talent in our build. Yes ,because it further nerfs balance druids in PvP and as I wrote the other day, things just aint rosey in the Boomkin garden of BG's.

I suspect that they will scrap it before the patch goes live, but only if the developers got sprinkles on the last doughnut. Otherwise their response will be "You have THE dance ffs, what more do you want?".

One other nugget that may have slipped through some druids fish-nets , is this quote by Ghostcrawler regarding mana regen changes in 3.1.

Mana Regeneration changes in 3.1 and effects on Innervate

I don't think it will suddenly make druids regem from Spirit to Int. We'll see.If you mean these changes will nerf Innervate, yes, it will. On live Innervate can be 120% of your bar, say 25,000 mana. Historically it was more like 75% of your bar, and it should be closer to that with these changes.

I'm going to leave this one for a full post on mana regen changes but I'm feeling a little edgy.

One for the fodster

2009-02-25T21:39:00.003Z

Some times we all have bad days, so there is nothing like a meaningless achievement, nudity and certain death to warm the cockles. Extreme angling, Boomdaddy style, with my lovely assistant foddy. This ones for you hun!

Sartharion 10 man

2009-02-25T16:15:00.011Z

Okey dokey. So we mooched over to Sartharion Tuesday night, as frustratingly we didn't get the numbers to finish off the last 4 bosses in Naxx 25. My much needed T 7.5 head piece will have to wait another few weeks, I guess. The Boomdaddy isn't the most clued up technocrat on the planet but I have attempted to post the WWS reports from the final fight of last night where the big guy went down quicker than a crack whore. "Final" fight? Yes I said final.We had a few tries at keeping one drake up, which whilst did not furnish the gang with rewards, it certainly gave us a few giggles. Moral of story, don't all jump through the portal.

Ok...the pictures have come out too small, my web mistress is working on it.*Edit-well done mistress*. Anyhooo on the boss-death fight the Boomdaddy did ok, second place to our lovely rogue is never a terrible fate. Sneaky stabby slag. 2625dps feels a little light, but I know I'm lacking 4 pieces of professor plums before the BoomDaddy is back at his fighting weight.

Soooo...what do we see that we don't like? 4% miss on Wrath is livable with but doesn't make me happy. A hit rating of 278 obviously showed tonight for sure. There was also no benefit of a Spacegoat 1% to hit nor a shadow priest 3%. 10 man's are still posing gear questions with regards to caps depending on group composition. Eclipse only procced 7 times in the 3min 17 second fight but did give a 59% crit rate.That the Boomdaddy likes.

37% crit rate on Wrath is interesting me, in terms of crit based mana regen. Mana was always an issue for me in 10 man's, I will be honest. Last night , though, I was in good mana shape all through the fight.I'm no stato but I figure that the following simple maths might not be far off the mark.

Wrath hit 44 times, critting 37% of the time, Boomkin form gives us 2% instant mana regen per single target crit...so

0.37*44=16.28 occasions where we get back 2% of 17000 (total mana)

thus (.37*44)*(.02*17000)=5535 total mana regained by wrath crits. In my book that is two pots worth.

I'm not jumping on the BoomMummy's caravan of crit love just yet, but the Boomdaddy will be watching this stat closely.

BoomMummy reporting

2009-02-23T19:53:00.006Z

Well, goodness me!

It’s so nice to have you all sitting here waiting for me to speak up at last. I love you all, I really do! I felt so privileged to be asked to contribute to this blog, I almost wet myself and made a mess of my feathers. But that's a story for later!

I have a terrible confession to make –me and the Boomdaddy have a terrible disagreement….. I like crit, and I like it a lot. I like crit more than I should do…. I’m beginning to think that the only thing I can think about is crit. CRIT CRIT CRIT!!! And there in lies our difference, as he is all hung up on hit.

You may think Moonkin are all the same, but that is not true. They can be played in many different ways. Me and the Boomdaddy spar on the damage charts, arguing about the best way to play. We both have very different specs but both push the other dps to their poor little limits. Who are we to decide what’s right? We are just two, lonely Moonkin, crying into our‘please-be-a-back-up-healer’ soup.

Night night, all you young Moonkin, I'll be back soon!

Keep your Feathers Bright! XXX

The Nicest Things

2009-02-23T17:45:00.005Z

Stormwind, late in the evening doing God knows what. We get a whisper out of the blue which in Stormwind usually means beggars. No but not this time, no sir-ee. It in fact was a brief moment of Moonkin magic.

Grasshopper: hey.

BoomDaddy: err hello......

GH: I'm a druid too.

BD: Good man, good man....but the answer is still no.

GH: No what?

BD: No you cant have any gold.We appreciate you have chosen wisely to become a druid but don't let the side down by begging. That's for lesser classes, like Mages.

GH: Oh. But I don't want money.

BD: That's good then. Nice to have met you then. Cya.

GH: I just wondered if you could help me a minute.

BD: (wracks brains...lvl 17.....sea lion quest) Well I'm a bit busy to do the sea lion quest right now....

GH:I did that. I just wondered how you did that.

BD: Did what?

GH: That.

BD: What??

GH: That thing your doing.

BD: OK mate I'm not sure what I'm"doing"

GH: The BIG thing with horns. It looks cool.

BD: Ooooh Moonkin form. Well, you get to chose what kind of druid you want to be. Healing druids can become trees, feral druids are bear tanks that hit things with their head or sneak around as cats pretending to be rogues. Balance druids go Moonkin. And we call them antlers not horns btw.

GH: What do Moonkin do?

BD: We top the damage charts.

GH: Oh.How?

BD: Through skill and determination we blast the bejesus out of things with mighty Wrath and Starfire onslaughts, carefully ensuring we don't cause wipes like lesser classes. Well, unless we hit the "oh-fuck" button, of course.

GH: Whats that?

BD: Starfall. Its like an AK47 in the hands of a toddler.

GH: Coooool.

GH: When I am big I am gonna be like you.

BD: (teardrops forming) Bless you my boy, bless you..../hug

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2009-02-22T19:37:00.003Z

We like Sundays. Fresh coffee brewing in the Krupps and plenty of time to kill, messing around in battlegrounds. Since Wrath was rolled out, the Boomdaddy has been very quiet on the pvp front. There are three reasons for that I guess. Firstly, since hitting 80 all my spare WoW time has been spent raiding Naxx, Voa, EoE etc etc. Fill in time has to be spent making the money to pay for the luxury of raiding three or four times per week. With potions, elixirs, repairs and the such like I think we all rarely get change out of 750g per week. Being a crappy leatherworker does not unfortunately line the pockets with oodles of gold but that is a post for another day.

The second reason would be related to this damn achievement system. Again, my personal view of achievements can be left for another day but needless to say I'm not entirely happy about the whole system. Going back to the days of vanilla wow and TBC, pvp and arenas were an integral part of being a Boomkin. There simply wasn't the gear around to make us effective without spending huge dollops of time battering horde in AV. God bless that season 2 battle staff, merciless gladiator's shoulders etc etc. I did my time, got geared up the best I could and killed my share of wrong'ens. Knight Lieutenant is still the title I am most proud to display over my lovely shiny antlers. I WAS THERE MAN, I WAS THERE!!!! Sorry, flashbacks. Anyhow, with the achievements debacle, it appears that I am back to being a newbie in terms of pvp,after months of pvp the ignominy of having a big flashing achievement pop up displaying my first victory in AB was too much to bare. Hence pvp has been put back up the shelf until this last week.

Thirdly, we are feeling a bit crap at pvp. I dont know if it is that other classes have got much better at it with all the changes, or Boomkins have simply got much worse but back in the day being top dps in a bg was a fairy frequent occurrence. Now I feel like a seven stone weakling getting sand kicked in my face by death nuggets and even shaman. Warriors were always our favourite target dummy, so easy to root and nuke...but it appears not any longer.

Enough is enough though, and i cannot resist the urge to plunge nut deep back into some serious pvp, I've spent some time getting new shiny pvp things, resilience is at 670 and I'm going to try and reclaim the Boomkins rightful place back near the top of the pvp tree. I'll let you know how it pans out....28,215 wrong'ens down, which one of you hordies wants to be 28,216?

Mage-tards the new Huntards

2009-02-21T00:06:00.007Z

Huntards are huntards. The poor things can't help themselves. Unless they have been well versed in the teachings of BRK or Liennas , then in which case the boomdaddy can give them a pass. The others that cannot be arsed to learn their trade can be resigned to the tissue I wipe on my boomkin boot.

Mage-tards, now thats another thing. Mages have always had it so damn good,they were always THE ranged raid dps to beat, but now always cry more than a prostate examanee. Huntards are crap because they were used to solo'ing and no one was there to tell them how to play nice in groups.They were not invited, so they did not learn. Mage-tards, on the other hand, just think they could translate wham bam into thankyou mam and screw the rest. Well you can't, you pointy hat wearing freaks.

Picture the scene, lovelies.Malygos 10 man/person/mage pond life....after a few tries. Get the big guy down to 34% after first phase. Boomdaddy's feathery sack is jingling like its christmas."Melee get on the discs " says raid leader, but oh no , on hops leiderhose wearing magetard for an achievement instead of allowing the melee. Wipe again , after the prick gets his achievement.Boomdaddy sighs a throaty, feathery sigh.

Do I blame blizz for making achievements, in order to fill the void in content, or the magetard for putting them before the raid?

Both are on the boomdaddy's shoot in the face list.

A new dawn, a new day, a new blog...hopefully

2009-02-20T10:54:00.000Z

Having blogged in the past (in a purely navel gazing fashion) this is my least favourite post to make. It always feels like some form of justification has to be made as to why I feel I'm eminently qualified to write a blog at all, let alone one concerned with the highest evolution of druids, the Moonkin.Truth be told, I don't feel like the most qualified author of Boomkin musings but considering the apparent lack of Moonkin reading matter out there in the blogosphere, I do not feel that this little venture can hurt.

What I hope this blog will be........

Well, my aim is to share my Boomkin musings on a regular basis.The goal is a simple post each day but having blogged in the past, I know this can sometimes be a pipe dream. I hope that it will be possible to build a small resource here for all balance druids to talk, laugh and qq together, with useful links to balance druid information and the wider World of WoW. I will be asking for input from some fellow collaborators, such as the Boommummy who is a fellow artistic balance druid in my guild, but also from up and coming druids who can give focus to issues not only pertaining to level 80 boomers.Eventually, all being well, podcasts and other such loveliness will be forthcoming.

What to expect........

Humour and grumpiness. Occasional mage -bashing. Shameless links to eminent blogs that we read in order to become famous.

What not to expect......

Elitist Jerk number crunching, I am simply not that bright.

Welcome, from the Boomdaddy and the Boommummy!