Ventrilo Etiquette and You.

Don't be like this chick.

We all use Ventrilo or some form of voice communication when we raid, pvp, or just hanging out while questing. Often there are things people do on vent that they shouldn't.  Here are a few do's and don'ts. 

DON'T open your mic channel when you feel the need to burp. No one wishes to hear you burp no matter what you think. "But its funny!!" Often it can be comical but when the raid is in the middle of a boss fight it's not the time.

Do open your channel when you have something useful to say. Raid leaders like to hear feedback, ideas, and other strats when wiping to a new boss. Don't be afraid to speak up.


DON'T play music over vent. It often sounds terrible and far too loud to even understand.


DON'T use speakers and mic. This causes feedback when other people try to speak when you have your mic open. THIS SOUNDS AWFUL.  It's terrible. Buy a headset they aren't expensive.

DO use a push to talk key. Unsure of how to set this up? Open Ventrilo > Setup> Select Push to talk> Disable Sound Click> Input the key you wish to use. Its very simple. Still confused? Email me and I will give you step by step directions.

DON'T open your mic when you have fan blowing towards your face. We can't understand you. It sounds like you are trapped in a hurricane. Please do not do this. Point the fan away from your face or just do not speak.

DON'T call out every time you die in a raid. As a healer this is extremely annoying. We know your dead. We watched you die from standing in that <inset clearly easy to move out of AOE effect> You will receive your battle res when the time is right.

DON'T speak over other people. This is very annoying. VERY VERY VERY annoying. If someone is wrong in the way they are explaining something then wait until they are finished. Chances are someone else is going to tell them are wrong.

DO make sure to use Ventrilo normalization. This is a wonderful option. You'll never have to turn people up or down again. Here is how you do it.

- Go to Setup

- Enable Direct Sound

- Select the SFX Button

- Select Compressor and click Add.

- Under Compressor Properties use the following settings

- Gain = Adjust for how loud you want people to be. (I use 15)

- Attack = 0.01

- Release = Around 500

- Threshold = Around -30

- Ratio = 100

- Pre delay = 4.0 

DON'T open your mic if you are in a loud room. We do not care to hear your mother, wife, screaming children, or barking dogs on vent. 

I'm sure I've left out a few annoying things. Vent is great tool for raiding. Try to make using vent as pleasant as possible. Thank you :)

Banned

I decided to check MMO-Champion like I do everyday, and I log in to find that I've been banned. This confused the hell out of me. Apprently I was banned due to this post. 

Click to Zoom

I'm currently trying to appeal the ban. This seems a little excessive if you ask me. I've seen MUCH worse posted before. I believe I've actually posted worse before. I suppose I won't be posting on MMO-Champion anytime soon.

Geekgasm

Well, there are no words for this. Star Wars: The Old Republic released a space combat trailer at Gamescon this week. If you've been living under a rock then check the video below. I can't express how much this excites me. Eve Online has always teased us with flying combat and Star Trek: Online tried to do it but failed. I've been a fan of Knights of the Old Republic since the game came out. It is an amazing Star Wars RPG. Bioware is doing it so right here. The only thing that saddens me is that the space combat isn't multilayer yet. I'm looking forward to playing a Jedi Consular. They look like a lot of fun. Enjoy the trailer below :)

Another thing that looks amazing is this. I myself have never played Warhammer 40k but I've read a bit about it and the lore for 40k is awesome. I've watched my boyfriend play 40k for years now and he talks about it a lot.  I know most people tend to shy away from fully CGI movies, but you should give this one a chance. If you happen to be into Warhammer 40k or Warhammer Fantasy you should check out my boyfriends blog. Compulsive Gamers

First Impressions and Weekend Fun.

I joined a new guild on my priest this week. It's a Horde Guild on Scilla <The Panic Attacks>. The guild is 11/12 Hardmodes and currently working on HM LichKing like a lot of other guilds out there. Like everyone else when they join an new guild, I wanted to make a good first impression. Well as many WoW players know last night the loading screen was keeping players from logging in. We had a few issues with it. A handful of people got disconnected including yours truly. We ended up with tons of downtime due to the issues which always sucks for overall moral. We did manage to get in a few solid attempts to work on phase changes. After around the 5th or 6th attempt my internet decided to drop. What an awesome first impression. Why is it when you want your  net to go out it never does, but when you really want it stay on it goes out. I couldn't tell you how many times I've begged it to go out back in the day when we wiped for weeks on Lady Vashj and Mu'ru. Oh well, I can only hope my healing, well Bubbling made up for lack of a solid connection.

This weekend I plan on playing through Dragon Age Origins and Awaking again. I greatly enjoyed it. Biowear really knows how make a great RPG. I really love the story and the game play is really well done. I prefer the city elf storyline over all the others although I've still yet to play through the game as a mage so I think that's what I'll choose this time. Oh, Before I forget my Hunter alt is already level 57. I can't wait to breeze through outlands and hit northrend. Enjoy your weekend! I know I'll enjoy mine.

The long and winding road.

The long wait ahead of us before Cataclysm hits release is starting to take its toll on me and my friends. ICC has run it course for me. I'm sick of looking at the frozen halls of Icecrown and watching Tirion fumble to find his pally bubble during the Lichking encounter. I still want to play WoW  and have a good time but even alts are starting to get boring.  Achievements have their  potential since I have a ton of unfinished ones I could goof around and do. I've also been toying around with the idea of starting over on an RP server but I'm very RP shy. I've never done the whole RP thing before and I'm afraid I'd be terrible at it. I've only played DnD a handful of times and even then we end up goofing off instead of playing. If anyone out there knows a great RP server weather its Horde or Alliance drop me a comment and we'll come check it out.

I'm looking forward to so much in Cataclysm. Exploring all the new zones, revisiting old favorites and leveling my army of alts. I think the one thing I'm mostly looking forward to is the new profession Archaeology. It sounds like its right up my ally. I love collecting stuff. I have 4 or 5 teir armor sets, 93 vanity pets, tons of weapons and loads of RP type items. Archaeology sounds great from what I've read. Going out in the world and digging up things from the past. I also can't wait to start my goblin rogue. I've always wanted to be able to play a goblin in wow. I think they are adorable. Don't get me wrong Worgens look like a blast as well but I don't think I'll make one for a long time. 

All the priest changes look great as well. I'm not sure how I'll like holy in Cata but that remains to be seen. I'm really disappointed in the lack of changes to the lightwell talent and the fact that you have to take it to get Chakra. I've always liked the idea of lightwell but the way blizzard has executed it is very poor. I remember when the ToC 5-man instance came out and I saw the lightwell spell the NPC's had and I thought man that's a great way for lightwell to work. Who knows though its still beta and things could change. I really hope they rework lightwell and make it worth taking. I love all the changes to the Disc tree however. Archangel sounds awesome I can't wait to try it out. I also can't wait to see the new priest teir models and weapons. Like I said above I love to collect stuff. I still rock out in my T6 from time to time. Sadly however it looked better on me when I was undead. What are some things you are doing to cure your boredom with wow until Cata comes out? 

Fear my Felhound on a stick!

You can't do that while stunned.

First off I have a huge love/hate relationship with pvp. Everytime I arena it's always with a bad comp because I want to play with friends for "fun". It's always fun at first until your partner goes "Druids don't have any good CC moves" and you realize they aren't casting cyclone. ( no offense Geoff  <3) I remember the good old days of playing a resto shaman skillhearld arms warrior in season 2. We had loads of fun but we always lost to druids. As I stated in a post a few days ago I've been leveling a hunter by doing battlegrounds. Hunters seemed to be very easy mode at low levels until we hit the 40-49 bracket. Things started off semi ok until we got a game with 5 warlocks 4 rogues and one lonely 40 pally. Let me tell you that being feared by 3 locks at the same time while 2 rogues are on you is no fun what so ever. Battlegrounds are only fun when you have friends with you. Otherwise you have that one guy who is talking in all caps "OMG YOU GUYS SUCK DICK I ALWAYS WIN GAMES BLAH BLAH HERP DERP I R GUD" and when you open the BG stats menu they are always sub 5k damage and have 1 death. The class is usually a rogue or deathknight as well. I will admit this though. I enjoy killing the botters in pvp. Arenas are a whole different kind of hate. No one likes losing games and when ratings are involved you hate it even more. 

Me when doing Arenas

I used to play as a disc priest which is VERY easy to play in pvp. I dislike the lack of control you have over the enemy. Playing a healer in pvp is nerve wracking. The amount of burst some classes have is ridiculous. I tried my hand at shadow for a while and I  had loads of fun doing it. I however didn't like the fact that if the enemy team had an enhance shaman I was basically dead before the match started. I really hope that Cataclysm  fixes most of the pvp imbalances and makes it fun again. I miss Burning Crusade pvp and Vanilla world pvp.  I'd personally like to see a buff in pvp much like the one in Warhammer online where when you get stunned, rooted, feared, blinded, and generally anything that makes you lose control of your character you'd get a buff which would make you immune to those effects for 5 seconds. I'm not saying make it exactly like that but something close would be wonderful. There is nothing worse than watching teammates die in arenas and battlegrounds while your CC'd for the 9th time in a row. Perhaps its just my lack of skills in pvp that make me hate it, or maybe it really is as imbalanced as I think it is.  What do you hate about pvp? What do you love about it? Got any tips for me? Share your pvp rage with me.

The reason I play male toons.

I get this question a lot. "Why do you play male toons you're a girl?" "Do you have penis eveny?" "Why are you out of the kitchen?" and so on. The reason behind me playing male toons is simple. I'd rather be judged on my skill first than my tits. I'm usually the quiet one on vent just doing my job and listening. Sadly however I tend to open my mouth and that's where the trouble starts. It goes from "Wow Honsue you are a great healer" to "Wow Honsue your voice is hot now make me sandwhich" if your female then you know exactly what I mean and if you are male then chances are you are 99% guilty of doing the same thing. I'm not a crazy feminist or anything but female gamers get a bad rap when it comes to MMO's and WoW in general. Have you ever had that one female in your guild that was either the guild leaders wife or an officers girlfriend? This person is generally terrible at the game.They always find their way into main raiding slots or even hardmode attempts. They always die to standing in fire, or some variation. They always have very bad dps and have no idea how to spec/gem. The worse part of it all is no one tries to help them. No one tells them nicely that they need to fix their spec, gems, enchants and rotations. When you do decided to say something to the person they get offended. Don't get me wrong here this person isn't always female its sometimes male but rarely.

Don't I look stylish?

Females also get a bad rap in WoW for being e-skanks. Whats an e-skank you might ask. Well these are the females who make statements like "Oh ouch my boobs hurt or "I just like got out of the shower and I'm all wet" attention whores 100%.  These females generally aren't terrible at the game but they aren't good either. If you play Horde they are  generally female bloodelves. If you are Alliance then female gnomes or nightelves.  E-skanks always try to befriend the guild leader or officers and get what they want from the guild and move on. They rage quit over loot or for not getting a raid spot. I've come across all types of females in my wow career. The worst one was the married woman who was an e-skank and her husband played along with it. She sent the guild leader nude pictures for raid spot and gold. The word got out about her naked pictures and she ended up changing her name. She is still at it though. I'll never understand why females are this way. If someone comes to you to help you make your toon better listen or take the 5 -10 mins out of the day it takes to read up on your class. There is no need to whore yourself out over a video game to get raid spots or loot. If you are knowledgeable about your class and an overall reliable raider you'll always get a raid invite.

My love afair with alts.

They also all have "THAT RETARDED HORSE"

                                  

Its no secret. I'm an altoholic . Just recently I've been working on my vanilla rogue. I've joined a horde guild on Scilla called Vanillaclysm.I've been having tons of fun farming and doing all those old quests.  The battle for Darrowshire has always been one of my faves. It took me around 26-27 Headmaster Gandling kills to complete my shadowcraft set. I'm slowly starting to upgrade it because Darkmantle looks awesome. I've also been leveling a hunter pvping mostly. I know hunters in low level BGs are 100% unfair, but come on you have to admit its fun as hell! My friend Geoff  also rolled a hunter. Focus fire plus two hunters = dead players. We're up to level 37  after around 2 days played which isn't bad considering the small amount of questing we've done. I really really really REALLY wish Blizzard would increase the amount of experience gains in battlegrounds, or make it so you get small amounts of experience for killing players in BGs. Warhammer did this really well. That is one of the very few things I liked about that game. The lore was great and the leveling via RVR combat was fun even if it was a grind.( RVR = Realm Vs Realm combat for those who don't know). Geoff and I have a fun game we like to play in BGs. Anyone who is on  "That Retarded Horse" is an automatic kill on sight. You would be amazed at how many times they die before they figure it out. We had a Retardin Pally who finally stopped using his after around 20 deaths or so. We've decided we are going to make the hunters 80 and just BG on them until Cata comes out. My question is: "What's the most fun/best way to spec a hunter for pvp?" Leave me a comment or share your alts with me! 

THAT RETARDED HORSE

                                        

That epic feeling

There are no words for this. Just listen and remember all those epic times you had in Vanilla and Burning Crusade. No more screaming dragon here folks.

Awesome Beta News!

Have you ever had to change your glyphs depending on what fight your doing? Do you PVP on a regular basis and have to respec your second spec? Well never have to pay those high auction house prices again. 

Glyphs

• All glyphs are now found in the spellbook of each class on beta servers. Ultimately, classes will learn glyphs as "spells" and will only have to buy the glyph once to definitely learn it and swap it at any time. 

This is awesome news. I know that I often have to respec my second spec from Disc, DPS, and PVP specs. I've spent at least 800 gold or more changing my glyphs. The AH prices on Scilla are rather steep when it comes to glyphs. This is a very welcome change for sure!

New Beta Priest tweeks!

 I'm really digging the new Chakra changes. The Discipline tree looks awesome as well. Archangel for shadow seems great. I wish I was part of the beta club! Stay tuned for more  thoughts on these changes shortly.

Discipline

• Focused Will now reduces all damage taken by 3/4% (up from 2/3%) and increases healing on you by 4/5% (up from 3/4%) after taking a critical hit. Can now stack with Blessed Resilience.
• Grace now also affects Heal.
• Archangel now also increases your frost damage when used as Dark Archangel (Shadowform).
• Twin Disciplines now increases damage and healing done by instant spells and the damage absorbed by Power Word: Shield by 2/4/6%. (Up from 1/2/3%)

Holy

• Chakra is now a Tier 5 (Down from Tier 6) and 2 Ranks (Down from 3 Ranks) talent. Revamped - When activated, your next Heal, Renew, Prayer of Healing or Smite spell will put you into a corresponding Chakra state. Lasts for 30 sec. Heal - Increases the critical effect chance of your Heal spell by 10%, and your Heal refreshes the duration of your Renew on the target. Renew - Increases the healing done by your Renew spell by 10%, and reduces the global cooldown of your Renew spell by .5 sec. Prayer of Healing - Increases the healing done by your area of effect spells by 10% and reduces the cooldown of your Circle of Healing by 2 sec. Smite - Increases your total damage done by Shadow and Holy spells by 15%. 6% of base mana, Instant cast, 1 min cooldown
• Test of Faith is now a Tier 6 talent, up from Tier 5.
• Lightwell is now a Tier 3 talent, down from Tier 5.
• Spirit of Redemption is now a Tier 3 talent, down from Tier 4. No longer increases total Spirit by 5%.
• Holy Concentration is now a 2 Ranks talent (down from 3 Ranks) and now increases mana regeneration from spirit by 10/20%. (Up from 5/10/15%)
• Divine Touch is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks.
• Deliverance (Tier 3) is now named Serendipity (Tier 4). When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 6/12% (Up from 3/6/9%). Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec.
• Improved Holy Nova is gone.
• Improved Healing is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks.
• Inspiration is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks. Now reduces your target's physical damage taken by 5/10%. (Up from 3/7/10%)
• Divine Fury now reduces cast time by 0.15/0.35/0.5 sec. (Up from 0.1/0.2/0.3 sec)
• State of Mind *New* (Tier 6) - Your successful Heal, Renew, Prayer of Healing or Smite spell casts increase the duration of your corresponding Chakra state by 4 sec. Passive.
• Heavenly Voice added as a Tier 5 Talent. Your Divine Hymn also heals you for 12/20% of your total health during its duration, and the channel time of your Hymn of Hope is reduced by 10/20%.
• Blessed Resilience added as a Tier 5 Talent. Critical hits made against you have a 30/60% chance to prevent you from being critically hit again for 6 sec.
• Desperate Prayer is no longer a skill and is back as a Tier 2 talent.

Shadow

• Mind Spike revamped - Blasts the target for 1082.81 to 1144.05 Shadowfrost damage, and increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Shadow Word: Death cooldown changed to 10 sec, down from 12 sec. Damage increased by 10%.
• Mind Flay now deals damage over 3 sec, down from 5 sec.
• Vampiric Touch no longer deals damage if dispelled.
• Twisted Faith is now a Tier 2 (Down from Tier 5) 2-Ranks (Down from 3 Ranks) Talent. Revamped - Increases your chance to hit with shadow spells by 1/2%, and grants you spell hit rating equal to 50/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects.
• Mind Melt now stacks up to 2 Times. (Down from 3)
• Empowered Shadow Orbs is now named Harnessed Shadows.
• Improved Mind Blast now gives your Mind Blast a 33/66/100% (up from 20/40/60%) chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 25% for 10 sec.
• Improved Devouring Plague is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks. Revamped - Your Devouring Plague instantly deals damage equal to 15/30% of its total periodic effect.
• Paralysis *New* (Tier 5) - When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 2/4 sec.

What is this.. I don't even.

 So there I was doing a daily random for frosties on my warlock with my friends and this guy happens to be our healer Clueless Priest .  Like many wow players I inspect him which horrified me but hey its just a heroic who cares about gear. We happen to be in Heroic: Forge of Souls which if you are a healer and undergeared you know the trash pulls can get a little hectic. Things were going rather well until we hit the trash pull before the first boss. I notice I'm sitting at sub 3k health for the longest time, so I start to drain life and look to see if the healer is low on mana or just maybe he went offline. I'm a little thrown off by what I see he was just spamming prayer of healing while standing at least 50 yards away from the group. I took a close look at recount and notice he hasn't casted anything other than prayer of healing the entire time. I asked him why he wasn't casting PoM, CoH or Renew. He replied with " That takes too much time". We barely finish the instance alive and we collect loot and get the hell out. I decided I would armory him and take a closer look at his talents etc. What did he do wrong? Why do I care? Well its simple really. WoW isn't a hard game to play at all. It requires minimal reading skills and some sort of an attention span. I know I shouldn't be bothered by people who are like this but I can't help it. Anyone have any horror stories from the Random Dungeon Finder? Share them with me.

Who is Honsue?

Hi my name is Honsue. I'm a 28 year old female gamer and healing is my passion. I've been playing WoW since closed beta back in 2004. My very first toon was a male undead rogue. (Gotta love that laugh). I remember the very first time I stepped foot in MC. I fell in love right there on the spot with raiding. I rogued my way through MC, BWL, AQ 40 and I was even one of the few people to down most of the bosses in Naxxramas. Sadly though Naxx became the downfall of our guild. One late night I decided I'd roll an alt. I always liked to way shamans looked and they seemed so fun to play. Spammie the female orc shaman was born. I leveled my way to 60 and quickly found a love for pvp. I joined a PVP guild and met some awesome people.  (I know I know I should just get to the story.) When BC came out I didn't have the heart to level my rogue. I decided to keep him at 60 and chose to level my shaman. I think I might of been level 62 or 63 when I decided to spec Spammie resto and I never looked back. I chain healed my through Kara, Gruul, SSC, TK and BT. I LOVED healing! I love playing the support roll in raids, instances, and pvp. On the server I was playing on and in our guild we were always short on one thing. SHADOWPRIESTS! A friend of mine had a priest who was level 61. (I know I know I cheated!! I didn't level it from level 1) He gave up wow and I'd always wanted to play a priest so I took the priest and never looked back. I played as shadow all the way through to Sunwell and early Naxx. I'd heal on night we were short but other than that I never really healed until Wrath. I still love healing and my priest is number one in my heart. This is my story.