Today I realised that I have neglected the blog for 3 weeks and while I don't care about that so much I do care that I have let you, my readers down as I haven't even let you guys know about my "absence" and that makes me feel bad.

It all started back in September when MoP launched, my life got busy and a lot of guild stuff happened too. But things seem to be settling down and fortunately much of the work I have put into the can be used here too so I'll be back from the blogging wilderness with a bang soon.

Now that part is out of the way lets bring you up to speed with where I am in WoW.

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Things have moved on with Project Titan, I decided to go Horde as me and most of the folks from Exhumed haven't experienced raiding Horde. After a suggestion from my pal Gricey, I'v e gone on an RP PVP server, Defias Brotherhood EU and have even created a guild, ReExhumed.

The reason I selected that realm in particular was, according to WoW progress, that it was the most advanced raiding server of all the EU RP realms AND has a reasonable raiding population both of which means the AH activity is OK and will hopefully give us access to crafted raid patterns. There is also a nice Horde:Alliance population balance.

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It has been 4 long weeks since I killed Heroic Madness of Deathwing and in that time we have had the new expansion, to level up from 85 to 90, gear up through running scenarios, heroics and copious amounts of daily quests (don't you just love 'em?). But now the dust has settled and normal service has been resumed as we're all back raiding and aiming for progression at our various levels.

The boys and girls of Exhumed have had a fun time overall although it hasn't all been as smooth as I would have liked. Our success at the end of Cataclysm and new shiny content have caused us some challenges, and while those challenges have been the cause of a lot of debate, many guilds out there would probably love to exchange their problems for ours.

We ended Cataclysm on a real high and with a really strong raid team, that made us an attractive proposition to a lot of people who were returning to the game only to find their guild desolate or having found replacements for them leaving them with no raiding vacancies. We also had returners of our own, some damned fine players too I'll add. 

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I have a burning ambition to do something challenging. Some may call it stupid, others pointless but it is something that I want to do but I need help from 9 others to achieve. There is no time limit on getting the team together to do it though. You're probably all thinking what the hell is he on about. OK so you may not, but regardless. 

I'm going to share this dream with you today, because my dear friends, the dream I have is to become Evlyxx, Herald of the Titans (in game not in real life). Now the main issue I face with achieving this is that this became a Feat of Strength in Cataclysm and with the account wide nature of achievements, it is now possible to get it on your main regardless of their level. However, while it is still obtainable there is a catch; all raid members have to be level 80. The second obstacle for me is that I have 11 characters on my home realm and really don't fancy reopening my second account.

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Mana the enemy of all healers?

It is the beginning of the expansion once more and many healers are struggling for mana. Of course the top priority is not to waste your mana with a gazillion over healing or on that pesky rogue who always stands in the crap. But even when you've got these things under control sometimes things are still rough on us healers right? 

The first thing you need to do is, of course get as much spirit as possible, Gem it, enchant it, reforge it anything goes right now because while you can stack all the other stats you like they're are worthless without mana.

You also need to change the way you see your mana pool.  As it is NOT 300,000. Sure it STARTS at that amount but throughout a fight we regen mana and therefore over a long fight we use a heck of a lot more than 300,000. The trick is to use your cooldowns early and then again as soon as the CD is over.

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Again just a post capturing some valuable information that is no longer available from the original source. A transcript of the audio from the above video:

Motivation

Why should you care what speed your raids run at?

Slow raids lead to bored raiders. Bored raiders lead to more mistakes. And mistakes make raids drag on for hours. Learning to raid quickly speeds up farming nights and progression content, since getting to the hard boss faster gives you more time to practice.

During progression periods, Fusion raids five days a week, a little over twenty hours, and yet keeps up with many guilds raiding six or seven. We do this, in part, because we have a culture of moving fast and using our time in raids as effectively as possible.

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http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2009/4/15/128843248076036034.jpg

Below is not my own work it is some old stuff that I can no longer find at the original source that I think needs to be out there in the public domain:

1. DPS-spec'd plate can tank: 
   You can run with 2 tank-spec'd players and have extra tanks for trash if you just ask your tank hybrids to wear their tank gear during trash and help pick up mobs.
   
   
2. Don't ignore repeated mistakes: 
   While you don't need to rant and rage over each minor error, don't let repeated screwups be ignored. No one likes "that guy" who doesn't care enough to pay attention and causes wipes to the same stuff each week -- say something to him.
   
   
3. Have fun: 
   No one will want to raid if you suck the fun out of it
   
   
4. Don't be afraid to wipe: 
   You will wipe when first pushing your limits, that's fine. Don't make a big deal about it (unless it was a repeated stupid mistake -- see #2), just pick up and continue.
   
   
5. Don't stop for deaths/rebuffing: 
   Unless you lost a significant portion of the raid, there's no reason not to resurrect the 1-2 people who died and just rebuff on the fly. There's no raid buff so critical that you can't do trash without it.
   
   
6. Set goals: 
   Set goals for clear times each week. If you prefer to set your targets by wing/subsection, you can use the in-game stopwatch (/sw) to track it in real time.
   
   
7. Plan AFK breaks: 
   When people know one is coming, they will wait. This reduces the constant revolving door of AFK's.
   
   
8. Be impatient: 
   Always be pulling more trash if healers have enough mana and there aren't too many people dead.
   
   
9. Fast Loot: 
   Even at "only" 5 minutes per boss in most instances you will spend 30 minutes of loot over the course of an entire raid. Use Master Looter if you can't make fast decisions, so at least the raid can continue clearing.
   
   
10. Delegate: 
    The buck stops with you, but don't do all the work.

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Overview

This dynamic encounter is similar to the Omnotron Defence System seen in Blackwing Descent as we will be fighting multiple mobs with an energy bar that we need to monitor and some very have special abilities for us to avoid.

In 10 man mode, we will only be fighting 3 of the Guards at once but much like the Halfus fight from the Bastion of Twilight the three we fight will vary. Our 4 opponents are:

• Amethyst Guardian;
• Cobalt Guardian;
• Jade Guardian;
• Jasper Guardian;

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No not that one!

Like many folks, I mess with addons and I raid. Sometimes that can create conflict as if I'm not ready to raid because that new alpha version of an addon has broken my lovely UI I'm screwed and as a healer and raid leader so are my guild, That simply isn't cool. So what I do is have a test environment which replicates my normal WoW but if that new addon breaks my UI, I have a safe "live" version ready to go and the idea was originally put to me via a post by Matticus, but as I recently tried to direct a friend there and neither of us could find that post, I thought I'd share the technique with you all.

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Vale of Eternal Blossoms

End of week one of Pandacraft and people are already settling in to the new way of warcraft life. Most of the raiding community are 90 and gearing up for raids while the more casual type players are still enjoying the process of leveling up to level cap. There are loads of people around and that is a great thing to see.

What better way to start my post than a review of how I see things at the end of this first week. It is not a review of everything that is in the expansion just my views on what I have experienced so far.

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No not the mage skill but rather the ability to "Appear Off-Line" in Battle.net. Awesome stuff Blizzard but why has it taken this long?

Anyway rather than regurgitate Blizzards words, I'll simply quote the text:
In the coming months, we're planning an update to Battle.net that will give you more control over your online presence when playing Blizzard games. Soon, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III players will be able to select "Appear Offline" as one of their Battle.net social-status options (along with Available, Busy, and Away) for those times when they want to wander Azeroth by their lonesome, dominate the galaxy in radio silence, or slay demons in solitude. When you choose this option as your status, all of your Real ID friends, BattleTag friends, and character-level friends will see you as “Offline” in their friends list whenever you’re logged into a game.
The “Appear Offline” status option will be added to World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo III separately in future updates for each game. For Diablo III, we expect to add the feature in a patch after 1.0.5. For World of Warcraft and StarCraft II, we expect to add the option sometime after the release of each game’s upcoming expansion.
Thanks for your continued feedback, and we’ll share more information on the availability of this new feature in the months ahead.

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I am please to report that the valiant Exhumed raid team got Heroic Madness of Deathwing down on September 24th 2012.

Yes, that's right the day BEFORE the expansion, 40 minutes to be exact). While the team last night did the dirty deed, the whole raid team deserve full credit and those that were not there last night will be sent off to repeat the kill later but for now we have new lands to explore.

The team that has brought us here are:

• Tanks: Acheronos, Brimar, Maxizilian
• Healers: Elysha, Evlyxx, Lifeshifter, Seleigh.
• Melee: Funforhire, Jehst, Kojiro, Pewpewboom.
• Ranged: Baniza, Emalie, Gasp, Hellsmiss, Sophina, Zuf.

There are also some players that have been able to step in from the shadows during the past few months and I'm hoping to see more of them in our Pandacraft campaigns.

After the gremlins ate my screenshots or I was sooo excited I was pressing the wrong button, Elysha saved the day with the image so a special thank you to Elysha.

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When conflicting demands occur I look for ways to provide a win-win situation. I only wish Blizzard would do the same when it comes to their midnight launches on a Monday night/Tuesday morning and allowing retailers to sell boxed copies of the game prior to the launch date.

Let me explain the issue. I'm a bit (OK maybe a lot) of a WoW fan, I like to be there first when the big in game stuff happens, I may not kill the big bads in world first or server first time-scales but I like to get my ass in the door of the new content when it happens. Blizzard loves faithful players like me.

Because of my love of the games, I buy the Collector's Edition too, not because I want the pet (or the mount in Pandacraft) but I like the big box on my shelf, the artwork book and the soundtrack and the DVD too. Therefore when they announced the launch and the CE I pre-ordered the boxed version on the day. I was, what we English call "keen as Mustard". I wasn't able to get what I wanted digitally direct from Blizzard.

My usual game provider, ShopTo.net, are great at getting games to their customers the day before big releases (I think Pandacraft qualifies as a big release) and for Cataclysm they had dispatched my boxed CE on Friday December 3rd 2010 and it arrived late-afternoon on Monday 6th December 2010. Awesome! Fast forward to 2012 and they didn't dispatch my order last Friday, I have been checking all weekend and my pre-order is still that a pre-oder. No dispatch time or anything. This morning I checked expecting to see that it was dispatched already and it wasn't. It is now 15 hours before the midnight launch I want to be experiencing so I call ShopTo, they advise they have not been allowed to dispatch until today which means I will get my pre-ordered boxed Collector's Edition "sometime tomorrow" Which most likely means late afternoon tomorrow.


This means this WoW fanboi will have missed the midnight launch excitement, leveling through content with my friends (who all slacked and bought the digital copy) and all the fun that goes with it.

I'm not a happy, in fact you could say I'm a sad panda, heck I can't be a sad panda cos I have no panda!

There is a solution for me though, I can buy the digital verion and then upgrade my account. Great! Except that my £60/€70/$80 Collector's Edition will now cost me an extra £30/€35/$40. Sure there is a chance that I will get a replacement key for a standard account when I upgrade, but I have an account I don't need a 2nd key. 

What would be great is if Blizzard changed the system a bit and used one of the following solutions:

• Credit me with £30/€35/$40 worth of gametime when I upgrade to a CE account if I buy the standard edition from the Blizzard Store;
• Supply companies selling pre-orders of the game a code that they can pass onto their customers that allows 48 hours of upgrade to an account (not a subscription);

Either work for me and my situation and I'm not the only one suffering from this scenario I know as I have read forum  posts like http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/5348735687.

This has put a real downer on the start of the expansion for me lets hope Blizz learns from the experience this time.

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Can I play with Madness?

Well the simple answer is yes! After the fine boys and girls of Exhumed finally got round to killing Spine of Deathwing on heroic Just goes to show what perseverance and some dedicated folks can do when they want to.

We had a few pulls of Madness and thought that we do still have a chance of killing him before mists lift on Panderia and we're aiming for a server last and heck if we go to the wire on Monday it could even be a world last in Cataclysm. 

We're still recruiting (see the panel on the right for our needs) and if things continue in Pandacraft as we have ended Cataclysm we're looking in real good shape, so if you're looking for a new home in a non-hardcore guild (no attendance requirements and upto 9 hours raiding a week over 2-3 nights), where you can have fun and kill heroic bosses, with no elitist douchebags we could be the guild for you!

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