Search Terms, also, I Give Up

So, Blogger is kind enough to track traffic sources and I like to take a look at what search keywords were used to route people to my blog. Most of these are quite reasonable, but some are a bit of a stretch and the last... well, I'll let it speak for itself. These are the top search terms that routed traffic to this blog over the last week:

Holy Shield in 4.2

I'm a patient man, I think. I don't panic when patch notes drop, I don't freak out about nerfs, I don't chew my nails thinking about how Ghostcrawler is going to nerf my class to the ground. Generally, I am of the opinion that the developers will keep the various classes competitive, roughly equivalent and productive to be able to accomplish what we want in game.

That said. Man, am I getting tired of being jerked around just because I play a Paladin.

UPDATE: Changed my mind. Love the change. Sorry.

HOW TO: Cho'gall

This is part 4 of a series where I'll cover the way my guild does all the normal-mode encounters on the 10 person difficulty in the current raiding tier. I'll cover the fights in general but also talk specifically about tanking from a paladin perspective and give any hints I can about how we assign DPS and healing.

HOW TO: Ascendant Council

This is part 3 of a series where I'll cover the way my guild does all the normal-mode encounters on the 10 person difficulty in the current raiding tier. I'll cover the fights in general but also talk specifically about tanking from a paladin perspective and give any hints I can about how we assign DPS and healing.

This is a long one, as the trash between Valiona and the Council is annoying, and the Council itself has a lot of stuff going on.

Favorite Items In Game (Day 5)

Fridays is turning out to be the day I do my 20 Days Of... posts, it seems - so be it! Today I'll talk about some of my favorite items in game, and I got remarkably nostalgic about it all! I was surprised. Anyway, a few items jump to mind immediately.

For instance, I have saved almost every single tanking sword I have used since the beginning of Wrath in my bank. From Broken Promise and Slayer of the Lifeless in Naxxramas to Stoneguard and Titanguard in Ulduar, from Crusadr's Glory in ToC to The Facelifter in Icecrown, I have them all saved and stored, polished and gleaming.

I Want My 7 Boss Tier Already

The current tier of twelve bosses is killing me.

My guild raids two nights a week, three hours a night. One week of the month, we have an extra night just to try to push progression but attendance for even one more night a month is iffy. Every week I have to look at the people logging in and make a decision - do I push progression or do I farm?

HOW TO: Valiona and Theralion

This is part 2 of a series where I'll cover the way my guild does all the normal-mode encounters on the 10 person difficulty in the current raiding tier. I'll cover the fights in general but also talk specifically about tanking from a paladin perspective and give any hints I can about how we assign DPS and healing.

HOW TO: Halfus

This is part 1 of a series where I'll cover the way my guild does all the normal-mode encounters on the 10 person difficulty in the current raiding tier.

I'll cover all of Bastion of Twilight first, then Throne of Winds and the lastly we'll go over Blackwing Descent. I'll cover the fights in general but also talk specifically about tanking from a paladin perspective and give any hints I can about how we assign DPS and healing.

Raid Respec

Firstly, I have a guest post up at MMO Melting Pot about how I use audio clues to supplement visual information while gaming. Very kind of them to host me today!

Right.

Having worked on the current raiding tier for a few months now, I have grown pretty comfortable with most of the fights except for the 3 end-wing bosses. Cho'gall still gives me a bit of heartburn, our two hours on Al'akir this week were productive, but frustrating, and we haven't really even spent any time on Nefarian. But the rest of the content? It's pretty much on farm, and I can yawn my way through it at this point.

So, last night, when we were going in for our second night of Al'akir pulls, we had a last minute drop out, and no one to take his slot except for a pretty under-geared tank in the guild. Rather than go through the frustration of having two people re-spec to accommodate this tank and train him on the fight, we decided to skip the good Caliph.

Since we had this tank and a recently picked up healer who were both a little bit behind us in gear, I thought it wouldn't be bad for them to gather some gear, so off we went to Blackrock to farm some bosses. I also went ahead and swapped to Retribution and let the new guy take my spot in the raid while Issacc continued his duties as per usual. And let me tell you, it was a completely different experience.

Blogger Boggle & 20 Days Of... (Day 4)

Looks like the Blogger back-end took a crap yesterday and Google had to roll-back all the posts to Wednesday morning, which ate my last entry. I'm sure they'll restore it at some point, but it also ate one of my drafts which I was planning to post today...

This might be the first thing that makes me consider either self hosting or moving to Wordpress. But for now I'll stick with Blogger as I generally enjoy the Google tools quite a bit, and am a huge fan of GMail and Google Documents in particula

Anyway. Next week I'll start posting a few raid-guides I've been working on. For today, let's go continue along with the 20 Days Of... which I haven't updated since March. Oops.

DAY 4: Your Best WoW Memory

I was interviewed!

Just a quick note to say that I was interviewed by WoW-Insider about writing Entombed. I found the experience really neat, but also a bit embarrassing (being so excited for winning a fan-fiction contest seems a bit silly.) Still, I'm excited that more people are getting to read that story, as I'm rather fond of it. Having an opportunity to briefly talk to a WoW Insider writer I respect very much was an added bonus.

It has made me think about doing more Warcraft oriented writing. I am working on some original material for self-publishing but that road is a long and difficult one - I think maybe supplementing it with a bit of writing on the side might be a good way to keep my creative energies going and maybe provide some reading material to people who liked Entomed.

No decisions yet, but it's something I'm thinking about and chewing over a story that would be long and complex enough to justify such an undertaking. Right now, I'm just happy to glow in the penumbra of the spotlight.

A return to stability?

After the mess of patch week madness last week and despite the finals-week chaos of this week, we managed to get in a regular six hours of raiding and killed 7 bosses this week. I was hoping for a full set of previously killed bosses (11) but I'll take what I can get. The good news is, we managed to stumble on a couple of good folks through PuGing again. Despite my last complaint about Moon Guard PuGing - we do also run into very good players.Our guild began as a rag-tag PuG group back in February of 2010, after all.

Have I mentioned how happy I am that LFG is trying to build server-groups before expanding its search? It is fantastic to see familiar names and faces when I hit that Random Heroic button. So, after the current round of recruitment, our roster is a bit over-full, which makes me happy and comfortable. I like knowing that if someone can't make it, I have an option or two to fill in that slot.

Alts and Guild Experience

I've been busy with my main and alt (Paladin and Warlock) and have been having a lot of fun with them, both in PvP and PvE - but I kind of want something completely different lately.

For a while, I was thinking about playing another game on the side and there are some very good and solid games out there, and if I wasn't playing Warcraft, maybe they would hold more appeal to me, as I love exploring a brand new world from scratch, but I miss my Warcraft friends way too much (even if just on Battle.Net) so I log back into my server, but then, I think, I've been missing the Horde lately something fierce just for a change of scenery.