FFXIV: My House!

I'm decently happy with my decorating (despite the very small budget because I have no gil after buying it), so I thought I finally feel comfortable to show off my little house!

I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it here too because it's relevant. It is on Adamantoise, Goblet, Ward 8, Plot 47.

Exterior!

My little training dummy area with random decorations that happened to be cheap on the MB...

Boring other yard thing with my poor neglected Retainer out front.

Bedroom on the first floor. I think it looks quite cozy.

Living room / study area.

Dining room

And that's it!

 There's still a LOT of empty space to fill with stuff when I get around to it. The pictures very strategically did not show the extremely sparse areas just outside the frame ;^^
And my yard is awful.

Oh, I almost forgot! My apartment in the Lavender Beds is cute, but I forgot to take screenshots of it, so I'll do that tomorrow if I remember and just add it here. Although it's even more sparse...

I still exist!

I don't really have much time to play MMOs at this point in time, sadly. I'm still very much adjusting to being in school.

Class is going very, very well. Finally something feels right subject-wise. Next week is my last week of this class before I move onto the next one (I'm taking accelerated courses), and my advisor recommends another history class instead of a gen ed right now, so that's all the better for me! Crossing my fingers for a class on early America next!

I've been playing the new Pokemon game in my spare time though, of course!

Er, well, I was, until my DS decided to break a couple days ago. Just randomly shut off and wouldn't turn back on reliably. Appears to be an issue with opening it all the way, since it will run fine if I don't open the DS all the way. It still works technically, but it stresses me out. I just know that I'll find a shiny or something, get excited, my screen will pop all the way back and then poof! No shiny for Jenna!

Aaand of course every single store around me is sold out because of Black Friday! Well, unless I wanted a 3DS XL, but I'm not in the market for an expensive DS right now. I honestly just want a preowned 2DS or original 3DS since the only game I own is Pokemon Sun (my little bag of DS games went missing a few months ago, so Sun is the only game I own for it now).


But anyway, school is going great! The sheer amount of work I have is kind of crazy, but at least I feel productive for once! I finally feel comfortable with my choice, which is a rather new feeling for me, but it's good. I feel like I'm out of the fog I've been in since leaving animation school :)

Woohoooooo

So, I know I posted about this fairly recently, but I'll repeat it again:
I recently transferred to a different online school and switched my major to American History.

Second day of history class, and I have already crammed more information into my brain than I think I learned throughout the entirety of middle school and high school. So, yay me?

The courses I'm taking are accelerated, which means I'm essentially taking an entire class in the span of 2 months, so needless to say there is a lot of information being thrown at me at once.

I'm rather exhausted and my brain hurts, but I'm not having a bad time. Currently learning about post-Civil War, and more specifically working on reading through a gigantic chapter on Westward Expansion.

Had to pick a final project topic from a list of about 6, and ended up selecting the Women's Liberation Movement, which will be quite interesting to learn about because I don't actually know all that much about it.

Honestly, I'm still really excited, which is good because I'm not usually very excited about much. I can't wait until I get to take a class on early America / American Revolution, since that's my favorite. I'm from New England and I grew up taking trips to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail.
Sadly, since my major is American History I probably won't get to learn as much about the French Revolution and early Icelandic history as I might like (my other favorites), but oh well. I'm enjoying what I am learning about, which is more than what I can say for when my major was programming or hospitality...And yay, no art requirement.

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.

That was amazing

I just got put into Titan normal from roulette, and had an amazing run.

First time we wiped because both DPS got hit by Landslide and then the tank didn't get me out of Gaol.

Second time, a DPS got hit by Landslide very quickly, and then the tank got hit soon after Earthen Fury. Like, literally the first or second Landslide after.

The remaining DPS (Ninja) and I finished Titan off after that. It was amazingly hilarious. I was able to keep him alive as he tanked and killed it, and he was able to get me out of Gaols.

But hey, we did it! And it was great!

I am extremely proud of myself right now

Last time I played FFXIV, I got nervous about fighting Ravana and quit playing for a month or two.

I came back yesterday and brushed up on my healing a bit, and today I just beat Ravana!

The fight went decently, I think. We wiped once. I think that one was partly my fault. I didn't realize I was the one with the purple circle around me so I was trying to run away from it, and...well, I was the one with the circle and it got me and someone else killed! So, that was one healer down, and then the tank fell off the cliff, and, yeah.

Second time around went fine. We had a couple deaths, but nothing that couldn't be revived, except for two people, who fell off the cliff early on.


Not only did I beat Ravana, but I also just did Sohm Al as well! Got to say, I really, really liked Sohm Al. It wasn't too healing intensive, which was rather nice. The last fight was fun running around. The second fight got a little rough at one point because I was targeted with every single one of the attacks where he slows the slimes, but I managed to heal myself up between each one, so it was okay. The first fight was absolutely trivial. The trash before it was harder. Fun fights.

I'm feeling really good right now, since I have never done real content while it's still rather current before. I mean, in WoW I'm level 100 but I've never done any dungeons or anything. It's nice to be doing dungeons in a game I'm comfortable with (as in, FFXIV). I can't see myself getting a static and doing Alexander or anything just yet, but dungeons are nice.

Tree of Savior First Impressions

I got to play the game for about 20 minutes and now I'm writing this quickly before I go to bed.

So far, rather enjoyable! I mean, I'm not even out of the very first area, but still. The game itself is much prettier than I was anticipating. Seriously impressed with that. Despite the very limited character creator, I think my character looks cute enough. My Swordsman feels like she has some punch to her.

Controls are a bit wonky, but they are adjustable. I think I'll keep them as they are for the most part (already had to go in and re-bind the key to sit/recover since my laptop apparently doesn't have an Insert key). If you've ever played Maplestory before they're a bit like that, but a even a bit odder than that. I've never jumped with X before, and I certainly have never opened my UI stuff with the F keys. F1 is stats, F2 is inventory, F3 is skills, etc. Rather counter-intuitive since I want to just click C for stats, I or B for inventory, and K for skills. F4 is Quests I think, which, again, I'd rather just click Q or J.

BUT I get why the menus are in weird places. Basically you control the game with the arrow keys (thank goodness; I thought for a minute there that it was click-to-move and I was deeply regretting spending $10!). Basic attack is Z, and jump is X. Interact is Spacebar. Your skills are bound to, like, ASDFG and QWERTY or something like that, and I already went over the F keys and menus. The only predictable control button is M for Map!

The stats and such remind me of my FlyFF days. It's been a rather long time since I've had to manually put in stat points, and the chat happening in-game is also very old-grindy-MMO-esque what with people selling weapons and talking about the best weapons and such. Hopefully the game will not be even remotely as grindy as FlyFF though.

I look forward to being able to upgrade my Barracks so I can have more characters. I'm saving one slot of my four because I heard you need a slot for a Companion, but I really want one of each class. I have my Swordsman for now, and an Archer, but I can't decide between Cleric or Wizard for the other one. I have reasons to want both!

I haven't run into any other players yet, although maybe the starting area is instanced, I don't know.

I will say that figuring out where to go is a bit wonky. The Map is pretty decent at showing you the general area of quest targets, and you do have an instant-warp thing that brings you straight back to the quest-giver when you're done, I'm seeing an issue with actually finding the quests themselves. Maybe I'm missing something, but there was no obvious exclamation point over anyone's heads (or maybe there was and it was just too subtle for my sleepy eyes?) or any reason to believe the random NPCs around would give me quests. Maybe there was a marker on my map, but it didn't occur to me to open it when I was getting the first round of quests.

One quest in particular, which I think was called "Lost in the Forest" or something like that, confused me immensely for a few moments. It involved starting bonfires from firewood that you found lying around in an area. Well, I found what I thought was the Firewood. I swear it said Firewood, but it was not interactable, and I kept trying to figure out some way to make it work. I tried hitting it, jumping on it, killing enemies next to it, sitting down next to it, etc. Nothing. It wasn't until it occurred to me to go across a nearby bridge that I found the actual firewood I needed. Note that at this time it was past 12 PM, the marker on the map showed the area I was in, and for some reason the quest had removed itself from my on-screen quest list. Turns out that the Firewood I was trying to use was for part 2 of the quest, so it all worked out in the end.

As a huge plus, my character currently has a cute little onion monster on her head, so that's nice.

Okay, I'm too sleepy to keep typing, so I'll play a bit more tomorrow and then I'll surely have more to say!

Yes!

Officially in Heavensward content!

Or, I will be as soon as I'm done writing this and actually go accept the first Heavensward quest.

Keeper of Lake went fine. We wiped once on the second boss due to everything going wrong with the fire puddles, and also one of our DPS got disconnected, but we cleared it easily after they came back and we figured out better fire puddle positioning.

The Chrysalis went well as well. Again, we wiped once, and it was in the meteor phase, which was perfectly reasonable, honestly. We lost a lot of DPS during the second ball phase, and one of the tanks told the healers to LB and resurrect the DPS because we were just about to enter the meteor phase, and they said that they had been in a group that has cleared the meteors without DPS LB. Well, we got the DPS up (although one died shortly after in meteors), and we were soooo close to finishing the meteor phase. SO close that I honestly thought we had cleared it when we wiped. But no, we wiped. Second time went so easy that it was kind of anti-climactic, honestly. OH, and so exciting: my healing partner was an Astrologian who was in Diurnal Stance! First time I've seen that, and honestly, that's probably part of why we did so wonderfully! Yay for synergy!
I was so proud of myself in Chrysalis though. I felt like I did well as a Scholar in this one. Whenever we got Triple Spark I would Adlo the main tank + Virus Nabriales or Eye for an Eye the tank if Virus was on CD. And when he would do his explosion after the ball phase I would Succor + Sacred Soil (yay!).

Steps of Faith went pretty flawlessly. I was assigned main healer (thank goodness! I was so worried I'd have to do the Dragonslayer part, and I was so nervous about the idea of having that much responsibility!), and basically spammed Adlo on the tank and/or Succor whenever everyone was taking damage. Whoever was on the Dragonslayer missed with it like, twice, and I think we got the counterattack from it on the last one because we very nearly wiped. I say very nearly, but we did actually all die. It's just that, our deaths were staggered. I was in the first group to die, which consisted of me and half the DPS. By the time we had run back to the boss, the other healer and a tank had died. By the time the second tank died, the original tank had made it back, etc. Weird. We won in one try though.

And now I just got done watching allll the cutscenes, and I'm in Heavensward!

Astrologian here I come!

I might also try Dark Knight. Not sure yet. I stockpiled some tanking accessories from the MSQ and I also have a full set of Monk/Ninja gear (also from MSQ) for if I ever want to play that. Neat.

Big sigh of relief!

Making very fast progress on the MSQ if I do say so myself. I'm on Before the Fall - Part 1 quests now (just starting them).

Last night was interesting, doing the Dreams of Ice patch quests. Primarily because I ended up being on the same quest as another player, and we ended up grouping up. I then did Snowcloak and Shiva with their guild. I stayed up way later than I liked to doing Shiva with them, but it all worked out in the end, so it was fine!

And then I went to bed dreading today because I knew what the next encounters on my list were. I think I had nightmares about hard mode Primals.

Did them bright and early this morning. Ifrit was wicked easy. Trivial, in fact. The group DPS was so high that he only did one rush and we never got even the second plume pattern.

Garuda, also easy. I would dare say easier than normal mode. We skipped the last phase entirely, I think. We just kind of ignored the adds since she was already basically down at that point. Mostly solo-healed that one as well because the other healer forgot they were in Cleric Stance and was healing with it on.

Titan...was not as bad as anticipated. There were two deaths, but they were both the same person because they didn't dodge the bombs at all. I had a few very close encounters because I kept getting hit by the plumes even though I wasn't standing in them. Don't know what was up with that. I don't think it was lag because then I would have had problems with Landslide, and the game didn't feel laggy except for the plumes hitting me strangely. Oh, and the other healer was an Astrologian in Nocturnal Sect again. I have yet to see an Astrologian in Diurnal Sect. Ended up being fine this time because we had practically 100% upkeep on shields without draining either of our MP because we just kind of switched off.

Keeper of the Lake will probably be a breath of fresh air, oddly enough, and then on to...Chrysalis. The encounter I said I never, ever wanted to do ever again. But, then again, I kind of thought the same thing about Titan Hard, and that really wasn't that bad. Oh, I hope Chrysalis doesn't go horribly on me.

Honestly, I can't tell if things are easier this time around for me because players as a whole are better geared than they were last time I did these, if I'm just getting wicked lucky with groups, or if I'm a better Scholar than I am a White Mage. Probably a combination of the three, honestly. Except maybe the last one. I don't think I'm a great Scholar. I don't like stance dancing and I always forget about Eos. But I am good at shielding! And placing Sacred Soil! I love Sacred Soil. It's my favorite Scholar ability and I wish I got to use it more often, but it often feels like a waste when it takes Aetherflow stacks that could probably better be used for Lustrate. Lustrate is great, but it's so boring. And even though I do forget about Eos, if there is a ton of damage happening, I often Rouse + Whispering Dawn without really thinking about it.

Take that Garuda!

Guess who just completed the hard mode versions of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan?!
ME.

If you had told me a couple months ago that I'd beat Garuda hard mode I would not have believed you at all.

But I did it!

And more impressively, my DF group got through Titan HM with zero wipes, although I'm not as proud personally of that one. I am proud of my group though.To be honest, I felt like dead weight in Titan HM because the Astrologian was amazing and pretty much solo healed the whole thing! She left me nothing to do! Well, that's a lie I guess I helped a bit during the AoEs and with keeping the tank up, but it didn't feel impressive. I hope she got a whole ton of commendations! I know she got mine. :)

More importantly, this all means I can continue in the main story questline to the "Before the Fall" questlines, meaning that I am on the precipice of the expansion content now!
And that Astrologian has totally inspired me to make one as soon as possible, so I'm excited.

Huge update on my FFXIV playing!

I am now level 50 (actually, 51 now, sorry, I'm late on the announcement)!
I am also about half-way or so through the level 50 personal story stuff. The Crystal Braves were just formed about one quest ago.

Healing is still going well, or at least I think so. It's difficult to tell if I'm doing well or not in these 8-person groups with another healer. I sometimes can't tell if I'm helping at all, or if I'm just deadweight. I hope I am helping and doing my job correctly, and I just am too nervous about it to tell! These past three Primal fights have been kind of rough, you see. King Moggle Mog is so confusing. I read guides beforehand, but I was so confused by all the different moogles, and once I got into the fight I got killed by something (still not sure what. I swear I was one-shotted, but I was the only who died...), but I felt like I was healing okay up until that point. Leviathan was fine, although I was a little more stressed out than usual because our tanks were arguing, and there is a serious lack of guides out there for Leviathan. I don't care that he's apparently so easy that I shouldn't need a guide, I need a guide because otherwise I get incredibly anxious. And then Ramuh was a big bunch of I-have-no-idea-what's-going-on-even-though-I-read-three-guides. I didn't die though, so that's good!

Also, has anyone else noticed that out of all the dungeons, Toto-Rak appears to have the highest chance of something going horribly, horribly wrong? I swear I haven't had groups wipe on any other dungeon as much as Toto-Rak. I mean, I was warned about Brayflox and Stone Vigil, but I have yet to wipe on those nearly as often as I do on Toto-Rak. The majority of the time I can get through Brayflox and Stone Vigil without someone dying, but I cannot say the same for Toto-Rak. And it doesn't ever appear to be the fault of my healing abilities because all the wipes we've had were completely out of my control. I'm talking people standing in the green poison puddles during the final boss, tanks running headfirst into the Fleshy Pods and then keep running ahead so I can't Esuna/Heal them, DPS pulling things, DPS accidentally pulling things and then running waaaay away from the rest of the group where I cannot safely take care of them and the tank, etc. Don't even get me started on ranged DPS standing in melee range of enemies that do poison AoEs, or the serious lack of picking up adds during the final fight.
And then, there was a lancer I was in a group with earlier today. You know how in the final boss room there are fleshy pods all around the room, and you're supposed to get rid of them with ranged attacks so no one accidentally runs into them / gets pushed into them? Yeah, those. Well, this lancer ran around the room purposefully running straight into each group of them. There was absolutely no way I could have saved him. He was dead before I could even recognize that damage was being taken. That one was impressive, and I'll give him credit: He did take care of about two groups of those things, and we did end up beating the boss. He just didn't get to participate in the boss because you can't Raise in battle at that level.

Really though, what is it about Toto-Rak that people can't seem to grasp? I don't have any trouble with groups in any other dungeon. Is it just because it's kind of the first one that's more mechanic-heavy and has AoE poison? Is it the Fleshy Pods? I just don't understand.

Well regardless, my character's name is Ayame Miyumi and I'm on Adamantoise. I'm happy to heal dungeons if I'm needed, just don't ask me for directions in those dungeons because I have no sense of direction. That's one of the reasons I like playing as a healer; I don't have to know where I'm going because my job is to follow the tank around :)

Very busy!

So, our puppy, Pacha, arrived yesterday, and I've been wicked busy with him. He's very sweet and not at all a troublemaker, but he is very clingy, specifically to me. He is also luckily very easily distracted. He is very excitable and active when he first gets up, but soon wears himself out and is sleepy the rest of the day (which the rescue center representative said is typical for Chihuahuas). So the problem isn't that he's trying to get into everything, it's more that he only wants to sit on my lap no matter what I'm trying to do!

Also yesterday, my beloved twelve year old cat was diagnosed with liver cancer. They didn't give us any sort of timeline, but he's on homeopathic medicine for now to ease the pain and hopefully make him feel a bit better. I'm absolutely heartbroken, and yesterday was a weird day because I was excited about the puppy, but also feeling like I was going to cry all day for my cat. This cat has been my best friend for so many years, and it's heart-rending to see him in pain, and to know that it's approaching the end.

Gaming-wise, I'm switching my time between FFXIV and GW2 because I am still enjoying FFXIV, and one of my close friends was begging me to play GW2 with him. So yeah, splitting my time.

Really proud right now

Well, I've successfully defeated the story mode Ifrit, and I'm really proud of it.

It wasn't even half as stressful as I thought it would be, although the part with the nail was a little scary because it didn't feel like we were killing it nearly fast enough, but we were okay, as it turned out.

So yeah, I'm feeling pretty good thus far.

Sastasha = Fine
Tam-Tara Deepcroft = Fine
Copperbell Mines = Fine
Story mode Ifrit = Fine

Feeling good right now :)

FFXIV may cure me of my dungeon-phobia

I don't know if this is normal for FFXIV dungeons, but the two I've been in (Sastasha and Tam-Tara Deepcroft, both for story quests) have been amazingly calm and non-stressful.

Everyone has been so nice. I have yet to run into anyone rude. And people see the little new-player sprout icon next to my name, and they emote pat me on the head and cheer me on and help me along, and it's great. Thus far, I am feeling very welcomed and it is putting me at ease and making me more comfortable with group play. Which is good because I generally actively avoid group play.

WoW Warlords of Draenor Prepatch First Impressions

Let me preface this with two things:
1. I did not do the pre-expansion quest chain during the beta, so it was 100% new to me, along with some other things I hadn't messed with yet, like the Toybox and the new Reagents system and storage.
2. I'm a great big beam of sunshine-y happiness compared to the WoW forums today. Expect very little negativity here. I'm completely satisfied.


Now that that's over with, what do I think about the prepatch?

• My characters look great, for the most part. Toysatomimi needed a hair/hair color change. My Draenei needed complete makeovers (especially Gensokyo. Her skin color isn't quite the same as it was, and it's not matching with any hair colors, really). The only models that I have problems with are the female Draenei and female Tauren. The rest I'm pretty good with. I love human females, in particular.
• The prepatch quests were decent. I was hoping they'd be short, and they were. I really wasn't feeling up to a whole long chain. It wasn't a bad questline by any means. Not the most exciting, but not the most boring either.
• My Shadow Priest is feeling great. Level-up glyphs have really helped me out.
• I messed with some of my lower leveled characters, and I'm having no issues fighting things whatsoever. If anything, it seems like I'm downing things in fewer shots than yesterday.
• Stat-squish has somehow made it feel like I'm doing more damage than before. I might just be confused and out-of-touch with numbers though.
• I'm a big fan of the ability pruning. All the skills I lost on my Shadow Priest weren't that important to me. The only one I was mildly sad about was Renew, but I understand why it's gone, and Desperate Prayer makes up for it. I still have Power Word: Shield, so I'm good.
• The game itself doesn't feel like it's changed much. The nicer models are a plus, although not all that noticeable unless you're specifically looking out for them.
• Toybox sounds great. I don't have many toys, so I haven't really gotten to mess with it. That, and whenever I try to put a toy in my game crashes, but I'm 100% certain that'll be fixed soon.
• I LOVE THE NEW REAGENTS SYSTEM. IT IS AMAZING. So many shiny new tabs to keep all my cloth in! And the Reagents stack to 200! DO YOU KNOW HOW AMAZING THAT IS?! Toyosatomimi's bank was previously completely full of cloth with no space for anything else. I have so much free bank space now!
• I've already finished the prepatch questchain, so I've got my shiny new title and less exciting pet. I'm kind of obsessed with attempting to collect titles at the moment, so I love having a new, easy to get one at the moment!
• Warlord's Deathwheel looks great, even if it is mildly obnoxious sounding.
• My only character that is legitimately ruined is this random level 5 Orc Warrior I have on Nazgrel named "Beautyitself." Well, her, and a level 15 Tauren Shaman on Nazgrel. But that's because I think the female Tauren model is...lacking.
• Quintella is looking great. I also feel like the only person who actually really likes the new Female Forsaken run animation...

Was logging on this afternoon a pain? Certainly. I didn't expect it to be a smooth login process. My game patched fairly quickly. It did get stuck at one point, but a quick restart of my computer fixed that. My game got stuck at Connecting (not surprising; it did that to me in the beta as well), but Run as Administrator cleared that problem right up.

All my vital addons are up and running. Lag isn't terrible, especially since the Blasted Lands don't appear to be CRZ (that, or only Tanaris-Greymane players were playing today, which seems unlikely, as we're often CRZ with Stormrage).

All in all, I am extremely pleased. I can go back to my leveling in peace, and my characters will look better doing it! That, and the leveling zones are fairly quiet today since everyone's busy on their 90s. Heehee.

FFXIV: ARR First Dungeon: Complete!

So, I did it!
This morning I queued in the Duty Finder for Sastasha, and I got through with no problems!

My group was friendly and seemed to know what they were doing.
We had a couple of problems with adds in the last boss fight because from all that I read from guides, those bubbly pits are a whole lot farther away from each other than you expect. It's hard to get to them in time!

Other than that, it was fine!

Guess what?

Guess who got their invite to the WoW Warlords of Draenor beta?

Me!

And there's no non-disclosure agreement, which means I can post on here about it!

Now, I just have to be able to log in. I can get as far as the realm selection screen, but then it freezes up at "connecting" before finally disconnecting me.

This will be much more exciting when I can actually jump in and play, but it's still exciting nonetheless!

Well...

You know how I said I was playing Leaf Green with my boyfriend?
I just beat the last gym, and I'm training for the Elite Four with him now...
Although I'm way behind since he's got level 70s already.

My team:
Dragonite: Level 56. Quirky nature. Earthquake, Fly, Surf, Thunderbolt.
Victreebel: Level 41. Quiet nature. Vine Whip, Giga Drain, Cut, Acid.
Charizard: Level 52. Naughty nature. Aerial Ace, Brick Break, Flamethrower, Slash.
Persian: Level 42. Lax nature. Shock Wave, Flash, Bite, Pay Day.
Nidoqueen: Level 47. Hasty nature. Strength, Rock Slide, Body Slam, Double Kick.
Graveler: Level 26. Careful nature. Tackle, Magnitude, Selfdestruct, Rock Throw.

Obviously, I'm leveling my Graveler up. I can't evolve it until tomorrow, since I need to trade with my boyfriend to evolve it. After that, I just want to level everything up one by one.

Why did I never play a Shaman before...?

I'm having so much fun on my Shaman! Why did I never play one before?

Since I got Earth Shield, healing's been a breeze. Hardly even have to worry about the tank, and, if the tank is decent, no need to worry too much about the DPS either.

On the tank, just pop Earth Shield whenever I need to, keep Riptide up just in case. For the DPS, Riptide as needed for small damage, for large damage, just Healing Surge. Haven't even needed Healing Wave yet. No one's gotten that far.

I keep Watershield up on me at all times, and Riptide if I need health. If I'm getting attacked I just pop Astral Shift. On boss fights, I put down a Searing Totem, and sometimes use Flame Shock is no one's taking damage.

I'm enjoying this so much more than my Priest. Sure, Power Word: Shield is really nice and all, especially how I can apply it to multiple people at once, but Earth Shield is just as good, and lasts much longer. It doesn't prevent damage, but it heals when they're hit. The only downside is that it can only be used on one person at once.

I'm enjoying this too much, I think!

Just hit level 27. I can't wait until level 30 so I can get Earthliving Weapon and Healing Stream Totem. Those will probably make things even easier! I'm actually not stressing out about getting to higher levels as a healer this time! I've been stressed out about getting to Scholomance again, since I remember Rattlegore being terrible to heal through, but I'm not very concerned this time around. I'm pretty confident with my Shaman.

What else am I looking forward to...Reincarnation, Ancestral Awakening, Resurgence, Chain Heal, Tidal Waves, Healing Rain, Spirit Link Totem, Mastery: Deep Healing, Spiritwalker's Grace, and Ascendance.

I'm writing this while sitting in Darkmoon Faire watching the Tauren Chieftains, which is entertaining.

Finally! Pictures!

I figured out where my screenshots for FFXIV: ARR are stored! So, picture time!
These are all from a few levels ago, since I haven't really been able to play since I last posted! I was, sadly, busy during the times that it was easy to log in, so by the time I got home, the servers were already full.
But, since that's (hopefully) fixed now, I can play at whatever time (I hope)! I was able to get in just fine this morning, with my only issue being a 5006 error that went away when I relogged.
Anyway, here's my character, Panha Fashonti!

Then, there's that alt-obsessive bit of me saying that I should make a new Miqo'te since Panha doesn't stand out much: I don't know about the other servers, but on Adamantoise, all I ever see are white-haired Seekers of the Moon!