Dreambound: Welcome to Dreambound

About Kae

Hi there, I'm Kae, player of WoW and druid since July of 2005.

I work part-time for a university, and in game, have been an officer in a few raiding guilds over my years of play. I am married, have two cats and a malamute puppy (puppy pix are common blog material). I also have a 20-gallon freshwater fishtank with a bunch of live plants. A lot of them. It's kinda overgrown, but the fishies like it. *shrug*

I am currently an officer of Vortex, a 10-man horde raiding guild on Turalyon (US). We were the World 2nd 10-strict guild to kill Hardmode Lich King in September 2010. We only have a 3-night raid schedule, so it gives me plenty of time to do stuff like get my Loremaster title and muck around on my alts: a horde rogue, a horde hunter, a horde enhancement shammy, and an alliance feral druid (who was my first character and original main). My main is currently a resto druid with a feral cat offspec, though I have been known to dabble in turkey.

Kae's Favorites

Things about the game that make me happy:

Minipets. My favorites are Boo, the Giant Sewer Rat, and the Sprite Darter Hatchling, though I crack up when I see Stinker and a Bombay or Black Tabby cat chasing each other around.

Flying. One thing I really missed from playing City of Heroes when I moved to WoW was the ability to fly. I was so incredibly excited when I found out that not only were flying mounts being added to the game in TBC, but also that I was to get a bird form shapeshift, to fly around unaided. I really enjoy the /console pitchlimit 99999 trick, flying about upside down to view the world in a new perspective.

Cooperative play. Teamwork makes an MMO far more enjoyable and engaging than any single-player game I have played. I dislike competitive play, though I do enjoy running battlegrounds with my friends, since we are cooperating with each other to win at a goal. It is for this reason that I don't like arenas, as all they are is a pit fight, yet I have the Commander rank on my alliance druid from running BGs with an old-school Marshal team (I even had a flag-carrying song)!

Exploring. It's amazing how much detail has been put into the game world, and I am always stumbling across new things. Did you know there was a daycare with a little playground in the mountains between Nagrand and Zangarmarsh? Or a hidden Landing along the coast north of Stormwind? Even within our own cities, there are little easter-eggs to find, such as Splinter the rat speaking with 4 little turtles.

One thing that drives me nuts about this game, though, is the factions: I'm a druid, I train with the Cenarian Circle who are neutral in the horde/alliance conflict, and yet I cannot choose to spend time with the "opposing" racial factions without being slaughtered by their guards or, in many cases, their players (typical "red=dead" mentality). As such, I have two druids: Kae, a feral night elf, and Kaelynn, a resto tauren. I've toyed with doing a faction transfer, but can't bring myself to destroy my characters' identities with it.

I don't get around to playing my night elf much anymore, but she's there if I need her.

My Druids

Kaelynn is currently ~~an officer~~ guild slave in Vortex, a ten-man raiding guild on Turalyon(US), where I also serve as a webmaster. She is considered my main, and is a resto druid with a feral cat offspec.

Kae is on Turalyon as well, where I've been soloing on her from time to time to keep in touch with my Alliance side. She was my very first WoW character, and is currently in a guild the same name as this blog. She's a cat/bear dual-spec, and used for pugging feral fun.

Raid Experience

--VANILLA--
I played Alliance resto on Azgalor server, through MC, BWL, AQ40 (except C'Thun) and a few bosses in Naxx40. I pvped as resto with a marshal group back when it was Marshals vs Warlords on a single server, enough to gain the rank of Commander and help a friend, Maxhunter, to Field Marshal. I had a hybrid healer spec enough that I was able to offtank for my guild in AQ40 and our brief forays into Naxx40, though still had innervate/swiftmend and was a solid healer of the old HT-rank-4 variety.

--Burning Crusade--
The first expansion saw a switch to raiding on Kae as an Alliance feral tank through SSC, TK, Hyjal, and BT. My guild had held through all of my vanilla raiding experience, and I had become druid class leader, but the stress of trying to manage a guild that was an unfortunate mix of hadcore and casual raiders led to complete burn-out for both my husband and I (panic attacks are bad). I decided to play casually on a friend's server, starting from scratch and experiencing the horde side of the game... but the raiding bug is hard to ignore, and someone with a hardcore mentality is rarely overlooked by another guild. I was nudged into applying as a raider to my new 25-man guild, and I healed through BT and Hyjal, though wisely stayed clear of leadership beyond helping with some front page webmastery. Eventually, drama struck in early Sunwell and my friends quit the game; I myself took a hiatus aside some casual side raiding with another friend's guild on their alliance server, as a feral tank, during the end-expansion lull when they were having trouble filling spots for BT/Hyjal progression. I was sad to have missed Sunwell, but at the time I wasn't interested in applying and devoting myself to a new raiding guild.

--Wrath of the Lich King--
As this expansion loomed on the horizon, my horde friends began talking: 10 strict raiding? Imagine it, a small group we can raid with and avoid the cliques and drama of the larger guilds. We quietly renewed accounts and transferred to Turalyon to form Vortex, one of the first 10-strict guilds, a month or two before the expansion hit. I was put to resto again, as my friends seem to think I'm good at it and we had more tanks available than otherwise. We leveled quickly together and dove into the raiding scene, and have progressed steadily through every instance the expansion has thrown at us. My WotLK tanking experience is mostly limited to PuGs and solo play. I have dual-specced in raids as both cat and moonkin dps, and do solidly better damage as feral rather than turkey; I prefer the kitty-spec over feathers.

--Cataclysm--
The new expansion is looming on the horizon, and Vortex is holding strong and continuing to work on toppling the remaining boss of WotLK: Halion hardmode. Not much will change for Vortex as far as its mission statement and raiding style is concerned, and I will probably remain resto for the expansion because people seem to think I'm good at it. ;)

Alts

Kaeya,
Blood elf rogue (they're so darn cute crouching down when they stealth!). She is specced mutilate and is mostly used to farm leather or ore and run guildies' alts through low level instances like a dagger-throwing whirlwind of doom :D I much prefer playing mutilate over combat spec, though the constant re-application of poisons to my daggers does annoy me at times. Tricks of the Trade is the one ability I'd like to steal from her for my kitty spec.

Stardance,
An old, old tauren enhancement shaman, who I created on Turalyon when the server was added to the game back in Vanilla days. I love wolves, so a character with a wolf form (and can now summon wolves as well) seemed natural. I'm not that good at playing her, but she serves as my alchemist/herber with the rare transmutation spec, useful for occasional gem procs.

Kotonni,
Blood elf BeastMastery hunter. I do love hunters for the mix between archery and cuddly critters. I have had hunter alts on both alliance and horde; my first, a night elf, played through Molten Core as my primary alt at the time and is sporting some old-school tier 1 armor. My pets are typically the Ghost Sabers from Darkshore, or wolves like the Prairie Wolf Alpha (who will bark when you click on him!).

Others,
I did briefly raid (as an alt) on my priest in TBC, and used her as my healer when I was playing my alliance druid as pure feral. I have messed around with a prot pally and prot warrior, but never past level 60. The only classes that haven't steadily held my interest are pure caster DPS.

The Blog

The blog Dreambound was created as a way for me to more easily share information with non-guilded friends, as I did have people come to me asking for druid advice or walkthroughs like I had posted to old guild forums. Specifically, Lilnahnah, a friend and former guildmate, asked me to send him some info for a struggling resto druid guildie; I had been following a few blogs, and decided that would probably be the best way to share my information.

Since then, I have been posting about 3-5 times per week, covering things like: