I signed up for college again! Yay, me? What is this, attempt number 5? Maybe it'll go well this time? I'm starting to think that the universe doesn't want me to attend college for some reason. Sadly, I can't find anything that I'm interested in that doesn't require a college degree so I have to push through somehow...
Let's see:
- First time: Panic attack. Dropped out on the first day of school. First panic attack I ever had, and I have had bad anxiety ever since. Was a really bad year after that. Near-constant anxiety.
- Second time: Was doing really well...then failed art class twice to the point that I really don't think I would have been able to pass it. I tried really hard. Dropped out. Severe anxiety for another half a year.
- Third time: Panic attack on the first day of school. Switched majors.
- Fourth time: Horrible experience with an online class. Teacher didn't grade our midterm until the week before our final, gave zero feedback, and I swear didn't even check our work. Came out of the class having passed, but not really understanding any of the content. Complication comes from the fact that the teacher was the head of department...
So now, attempt number 5! Online classes which will either end horribly or decently. Either I'll get okay classes and it'll be okay, or it will end like my last attempt at school. Won't end with a panic attack though. That's only in physical classrooms, apparently.
I want to at least get my gen-eds done this time. Even if the classes are horrible and the teacher isn't teaching anything, I can at least get my gen-eds done in that sort of situation. I always do well in English class so I'm not concerned there. I never do well in math, so, again, not concerned because that outcome is not going to be good regardless. So long as I pass then that's alright with me. I'm surprised I've never outright failed a math class, to be entirely honest. I was messing around on Khan Academy a few weeks ago, and it has me as pretty well stuck at 2nd grade level math.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
First Raid!
I did a raid for the first time in WoW this evening.
I think it went pretty well. We got the first two bosses of Emerald Nightmare down, after a bit of struggling but not too bad. Took us two tries to get the first boss down, and then a few tries for the second boss (we did the spider boss second).
I had been leveling both my Holy and Shadow artifacts, on recommendation from the raid leader to keep both options open. Today, at basically the last second I got both artifacts to the point where I've unlocked one elite skill each. I was ultimately told to heal for the raid, so I did.
Beginning started out a bit rocky for me. I haven't healed in over a week, and have been playing Shadow pretty much non-stop, trying to level it to a decent point. Holy was already waaay ahead, so I've been focusing on Shadow to get it up to par.
Of course, because of this, my gear is also relatively low, I think. Our requirement was 830+ and I went in with 838 or so. I haven't been doing dungeons and the idea of Mythics gives me anxiety. Raiding is different, since there's other healers to support me, but healing by myself for a group is very anxiety-inducing for me.
Basically the entirety of both attempts of the first boss I was dead. I think I was placing the puddles fine, but when it came to the enlarged bugs I kept getting messed up. I wish they had an indicator around them. I had no idea if I was too close! I have the GTFO addon, but when I'm in full-on healing-panic-mode I can hardly hear / notice it or DBM. I don't think I survived the first bug phase in either attempt. Sooo, I have not too much to say on this fight, okay?
Trash between the first boss and the second was pitiful. We melted through it. Minimal damage.
Spider boss took a few more attempts. First attempt we didn't place puddles correctly, so they were just all over the place. That was fixed by the next attempt though, so no big deal really. The rest of the attempts we'd just basically lose too many DPS during the part where you need to swap platforms, and we wouldn't have enough DPS to take down the boss. We figured out that it would be a good idea to send some healers to run across the webs too, rather than having all the healers take the feathers across. Due to the fact that Holy Priests have very, very little in terms of on-the-go heals, I was assigned to get a feather instead, so I don't know the specifics of how the web runs went.
I did die during the first transition phase from the wind attack, but someone in the raid got me back up and I was able to stay alive the rest of the fight until the absolute very end when I died again (again, during a transition), but at that point the boss had so little HP that it didn't really matter how many people were down (which I think was me, one or two other healers and a handful of DPS), because we were going to clear it at that point. I just want to point out that I didn't die in the transition phase once during all the other attempts until the last one, where I proceed to die to every transition :|
All in all, it was a good experience. I really like my guild and the raid group. They are very laid-back and nice.
I will say though, that this foray into WoW raiding has made me realize that I don't really like the style of WoW raiding. I already knew I didn't like the style of WoW's dungeons, but I thought maybe raids would be a bit better for me. I'm coming to realize that I really am just a FFXIV sort of person and should perhaps stop denying that so often. I really, really love the way FFXIV's dungeons and raids work. They feel faster paced, more complicated mechanically and yet more simple (colored circles and cones showing where the enemy is targeting is an amazing thing that I miss immensely). Trash in WoW is too numerous and is either extremely difficult or like wet bread. And you know, as much as everyone complains about the constant circular or square boss platforms in FFXIV, they're a bit of a blessing as well.
I also just don't really like healing in WoW as much as in FFXIV. Don't get me wrong, I like healing far more than DPS, but it just isn't as comfortable. Damage in WoW is really spiky and stress-inducing. I don't feel like my heals have as much of an effect, and I don't feel like I have a big enough toolkit. I feel like I have a whole lot of skills that just straight up heal a single target, and not much else. I have an AoE heal that seems to hardly do any healing, an AoE targetable heal that is affective but difficult to use in most situations, and Prayer of Healing which seems a bit unreliable. And none of these feel nearly as effective as, say, Medica. The damage in FFXIV feels more sustained and less spiky. It's more like a bunch of smaller hits rather than a couple of huge hits. Considerably less stressful.
WoW is also missing the sheer satisfaction that is avoiding a ton of damage to the group by playing a Scholar and using Succor + Sacred Soil. Best feeling as a healer, I swear. Maybe Disc Priest is similar, but I'm not about to go switch to that. Sounds too stressful (although our raid's Disc Priest was amazing).
Healing just feels more powerful in FFXIV. I feel like in FFXIV, I can help carry a group. I feel like in WoW that I am weighing down the group. I've been told I'm a good healer, but I still feel like I am weighing down the group. I feel like a bad healer because I see these huge bursts of damage going out, and I see damage happening so fast that I don't even have time to cast Flash Heal and I don't have Holy Word: Serenity available because I just used it to heal through the last big burst, you know?
All in all, I will still raid with my guild. I like them, and I said I would. I'll keep with my commitment. They want me to raid with them; it's not like I'm going to turn them down! But I may look into getting into FFXIV again, perhaps more seriously than before.
I think it went pretty well. We got the first two bosses of Emerald Nightmare down, after a bit of struggling but not too bad. Took us two tries to get the first boss down, and then a few tries for the second boss (we did the spider boss second).
I had been leveling both my Holy and Shadow artifacts, on recommendation from the raid leader to keep both options open. Today, at basically the last second I got both artifacts to the point where I've unlocked one elite skill each. I was ultimately told to heal for the raid, so I did.
Beginning started out a bit rocky for me. I haven't healed in over a week, and have been playing Shadow pretty much non-stop, trying to level it to a decent point. Holy was already waaay ahead, so I've been focusing on Shadow to get it up to par.
Of course, because of this, my gear is also relatively low, I think. Our requirement was 830+ and I went in with 838 or so. I haven't been doing dungeons and the idea of Mythics gives me anxiety. Raiding is different, since there's other healers to support me, but healing by myself for a group is very anxiety-inducing for me.
Basically the entirety of both attempts of the first boss I was dead. I think I was placing the puddles fine, but when it came to the enlarged bugs I kept getting messed up. I wish they had an indicator around them. I had no idea if I was too close! I have the GTFO addon, but when I'm in full-on healing-panic-mode I can hardly hear / notice it or DBM. I don't think I survived the first bug phase in either attempt. Sooo, I have not too much to say on this fight, okay?
Trash between the first boss and the second was pitiful. We melted through it. Minimal damage.
Spider boss took a few more attempts. First attempt we didn't place puddles correctly, so they were just all over the place. That was fixed by the next attempt though, so no big deal really. The rest of the attempts we'd just basically lose too many DPS during the part where you need to swap platforms, and we wouldn't have enough DPS to take down the boss. We figured out that it would be a good idea to send some healers to run across the webs too, rather than having all the healers take the feathers across. Due to the fact that Holy Priests have very, very little in terms of on-the-go heals, I was assigned to get a feather instead, so I don't know the specifics of how the web runs went.
I did die during the first transition phase from the wind attack, but someone in the raid got me back up and I was able to stay alive the rest of the fight until the absolute very end when I died again (again, during a transition), but at that point the boss had so little HP that it didn't really matter how many people were down (which I think was me, one or two other healers and a handful of DPS), because we were going to clear it at that point. I just want to point out that I didn't die in the transition phase once during all the other attempts until the last one, where I proceed to die to every transition :|
All in all, it was a good experience. I really like my guild and the raid group. They are very laid-back and nice.
I will say though, that this foray into WoW raiding has made me realize that I don't really like the style of WoW raiding. I already knew I didn't like the style of WoW's dungeons, but I thought maybe raids would be a bit better for me. I'm coming to realize that I really am just a FFXIV sort of person and should perhaps stop denying that so often. I really, really love the way FFXIV's dungeons and raids work. They feel faster paced, more complicated mechanically and yet more simple (colored circles and cones showing where the enemy is targeting is an amazing thing that I miss immensely). Trash in WoW is too numerous and is either extremely difficult or like wet bread. And you know, as much as everyone complains about the constant circular or square boss platforms in FFXIV, they're a bit of a blessing as well.
I also just don't really like healing in WoW as much as in FFXIV. Don't get me wrong, I like healing far more than DPS, but it just isn't as comfortable. Damage in WoW is really spiky and stress-inducing. I don't feel like my heals have as much of an effect, and I don't feel like I have a big enough toolkit. I feel like I have a whole lot of skills that just straight up heal a single target, and not much else. I have an AoE heal that seems to hardly do any healing, an AoE targetable heal that is affective but difficult to use in most situations, and Prayer of Healing which seems a bit unreliable. And none of these feel nearly as effective as, say, Medica. The damage in FFXIV feels more sustained and less spiky. It's more like a bunch of smaller hits rather than a couple of huge hits. Considerably less stressful.
WoW is also missing the sheer satisfaction that is avoiding a ton of damage to the group by playing a Scholar and using Succor + Sacred Soil. Best feeling as a healer, I swear. Maybe Disc Priest is similar, but I'm not about to go switch to that. Sounds too stressful (although our raid's Disc Priest was amazing).
Healing just feels more powerful in FFXIV. I feel like in FFXIV, I can help carry a group. I feel like in WoW that I am weighing down the group. I've been told I'm a good healer, but I still feel like I am weighing down the group. I feel like a bad healer because I see these huge bursts of damage going out, and I see damage happening so fast that I don't even have time to cast Flash Heal and I don't have Holy Word: Serenity available because I just used it to heal through the last big burst, you know?
All in all, I will still raid with my guild. I like them, and I said I would. I'll keep with my commitment. They want me to raid with them; it's not like I'm going to turn them down! But I may look into getting into FFXIV again, perhaps more seriously than before.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Updates!
I forgot to update! Oh no!
I've been level 110 since...er...one or two days after Legion launched. A couple days ago I hit ilvl 830 too.
I've been leveling as a healer. I leveled the entire way 100 - 110 as Holy, which was mildly torturous, especially looking back on it. On the plus side, I only died about twice. The first time I died was in the Exodar scenario because I kind of got swarmed by demons right at the beginning. The second time was leveling in Highmountain and someone ran by being chased by a bunch of enemies. I was innocently fighting one enemy nearby, healing myself as I went...and apparently I got aggro, because they all went after me instead and I died.
Anyway, sometime while working through Suramar I thought "Heeey, I bet it would be easier to do this as Discipline," so I swapped to Disc for questing, and it's been MUCH better. I tried it as Shadow too, but kept dying. With Disc, I have 2 traits invested I think. The one they give you by default, and one for increased damage to Penance. Haven't died once since swapping to Disc!
My Holy weapon, on the other hand, is progressing very nicely! I think I'm at level 17 with it, or something like that? 16 or 17, I think.
I haven't been doing LFG groups so much. I've done a couple, and they weren't necessarily bad experiences, just not really good experiences either. Lots and lots of damage going out, and if I let even one person die by accident my anxiety starts acting up and I don't perform as well.
I'm fine doing guild runs for the most part, although they do make me a bit anxious too. Much better than LFG though.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to raid with my guild this time. I've been getting my gear level up and practicing a lot. People in the guild say that I'm a great healer, so maybe I'll get in? I'm just worried that there might not be space for me.
Legion is okay for me thus far, although I don't like how much time the artifacts take. I want to make alts, but I feel like I can't because it's wasting time that would be better spent improving my Holy artifact. And the idea of doing Legion quests and artifact grinding with more characters makes me overwhelmed.
My only other complaint is that it doesn't seem very "non-raider" friendly. If I don't make the raid team, what am I going to do with my time? Professions are locked behind dungeons that I don't always feel up to doing. I like the world quests well enough, but they're kind of boring at this point. I mean, that's how I got my ilvl 830 gear, so I've done a whole bunch.
Just my thoughts.
UPDATE: Guess who made it into their guild's raid team? Meeeeeeee
I've been level 110 since...er...one or two days after Legion launched. A couple days ago I hit ilvl 830 too.
I've been leveling as a healer. I leveled the entire way 100 - 110 as Holy, which was mildly torturous, especially looking back on it. On the plus side, I only died about twice. The first time I died was in the Exodar scenario because I kind of got swarmed by demons right at the beginning. The second time was leveling in Highmountain and someone ran by being chased by a bunch of enemies. I was innocently fighting one enemy nearby, healing myself as I went...and apparently I got aggro, because they all went after me instead and I died.
Anyway, sometime while working through Suramar I thought "Heeey, I bet it would be easier to do this as Discipline," so I swapped to Disc for questing, and it's been MUCH better. I tried it as Shadow too, but kept dying. With Disc, I have 2 traits invested I think. The one they give you by default, and one for increased damage to Penance. Haven't died once since swapping to Disc!
My Holy weapon, on the other hand, is progressing very nicely! I think I'm at level 17 with it, or something like that? 16 or 17, I think.
I haven't been doing LFG groups so much. I've done a couple, and they weren't necessarily bad experiences, just not really good experiences either. Lots and lots of damage going out, and if I let even one person die by accident my anxiety starts acting up and I don't perform as well.
I'm fine doing guild runs for the most part, although they do make me a bit anxious too. Much better than LFG though.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to raid with my guild this time. I've been getting my gear level up and practicing a lot. People in the guild say that I'm a great healer, so maybe I'll get in? I'm just worried that there might not be space for me.
Legion is okay for me thus far, although I don't like how much time the artifacts take. I want to make alts, but I feel like I can't because it's wasting time that would be better spent improving my Holy artifact. And the idea of doing Legion quests and artifact grinding with more characters makes me overwhelmed.
My only other complaint is that it doesn't seem very "non-raider" friendly. If I don't make the raid team, what am I going to do with my time? Professions are locked behind dungeons that I don't always feel up to doing. I like the world quests well enough, but they're kind of boring at this point. I mean, that's how I got my ilvl 830 gear, so I've done a whole bunch.
Just my thoughts.
UPDATE: Guess who made it into their guild's raid team? Meeeeeeee
Thursday, September 1, 2016
WoW Legion stuff part 2
I am currently level 108, still successfully leveling as Holy Priest. I am always very thankful when other people come along and kill the same enemies as me, because doing quests is so slow with my lack of damage. I never die though!
I've died precisely twice. Once was during the Exodar scenario. The other time was a few minutes ago because someone died near me, and all the enemies that were after them decided to go after the defenseless healer who was minding their own business nearby.
Just doing the Stormheim quests now. Did run into a bug with the opening quest, but abandoning it and reattempting it fixed the bug.
Stormheim is giving me serious FFXIV: Heavensward vibes. I don't know. It might be the fact that I just had to rescue Dragoons, but there's more to it than that. Part of the music sounds like the music in...whatever the zone it is that Hraesvelgr lives in. And the dragons. And the fact that there's apparently a world boss in Stormheim named Nidhogg. And the atmosphere feels similar to that zone too.
And yes, I am very well aware that it's because they both draw rather heavily from Norse mythology (including the Nidhogg part). I know my Norse mythology, thank you. It's mostly just the music in Stormheim that feels like Heavensward to me. I'll see if I can find the song I'm thinking of and report back.
Perhaps after I reach 110 I'll go check for the songs? :D
I do want to hit 110 today. I had my sights set on being the third in my guild to 110, but someone got ahead of me overnight. So now I have my sights set on fourth. Little competition right now, so I think fourth is a reasonable goal. Everyone else is at least a good level or so behind me, so if I hurry it up a bit I think I can reach fourth.
I've died precisely twice. Once was during the Exodar scenario. The other time was a few minutes ago because someone died near me, and all the enemies that were after them decided to go after the defenseless healer who was minding their own business nearby.
Just doing the Stormheim quests now. Did run into a bug with the opening quest, but abandoning it and reattempting it fixed the bug.
Stormheim is giving me serious FFXIV: Heavensward vibes. I don't know. It might be the fact that I just had to rescue Dragoons, but there's more to it than that. Part of the music sounds like the music in...whatever the zone it is that Hraesvelgr lives in. And the dragons. And the fact that there's apparently a world boss in Stormheim named Nidhogg. And the atmosphere feels similar to that zone too.
And yes, I am very well aware that it's because they both draw rather heavily from Norse mythology (including the Nidhogg part). I know my Norse mythology, thank you. It's mostly just the music in Stormheim that feels like Heavensward to me. I'll see if I can find the song I'm thinking of and report back.
Perhaps after I reach 110 I'll go check for the songs? :D
I do want to hit 110 today. I had my sights set on being the third in my guild to 110, but someone got ahead of me overnight. So now I have my sights set on fourth. Little competition right now, so I think fourth is a reasonable goal. Everyone else is at least a good level or so behind me, so if I hurry it up a bit I think I can reach fourth.
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