"Druid Tips"

A few pro "druid tips" from Kae.

PLEASE NOTE
All advice given here-in is entirely sarcastic.
Follow it at your own risk.
kthnxbai.

*(attack = a paladin)

...true story.

Beware asking me for advice in-game ;)

How to Ensure that You WON'T Be Accepted

Are you looking to apply to raiding guilds and not actually get in?

Are you wanting to be shoved to the curb or be laughed at for your guild application skills?

Well, look no further!
Follow this guide and you're sure to succeed at failing!


Preparation:

• Don't worry about your gear's enchants, gems, or itemization. Once you find a guild to carry you through content, it'll all get replaced anyway, or at least the guild will provide you with free gems or enchants for your gear.
• On that same note, don't farm heroics or pugs to better your gear. Crafted gear is also a waste of time if you can get your new guild to provide it for you. No one ever cares about your commitment to working on gearing your character yourself.
  
• Don't research your class' proper spec or itemization. Your's is perfect and unique and you're able to solo critters in the Deeprun Tram all by yourself without any help.
• Don't level your professions. You're looking for a guild to do that boring stuff for you, and profession-related bonuses in the higher skill levels really don't make any difference.
  
• Don't look into the guilds available on your server that are currently recruiting your specific class/role at times available to you. That's too much work.

What application?

• Post in trade chat that you're looking for a high-end raiding guild. Surely all high-end raiding guilds pick up their members from trade chat.
  
• Whisper any member of the guild you're interested in, asking for an invite. This may involve explaining yourself, so make sure to tell them "i wan2 raid". You might have to find an officer to invite you.
• If anyone mentions the word "application," ignore them. Applications are for jobs and schools, not games.
  

To ze forums!

• Well, if that didn't pan out, it's time to hop on the forums. Pop into the fast-moving recruitment forums, put up a single post that gives little to no information, and you should be golden. Keep it sparse, because recruitment officers who are looking for you won't read through long, detailed, informative posts. TLDR LOL
• Don't bump it. Everyone looks past the first page of the forums when looking through posts.
• Blanket-bomb every "LFM" guild recruitment thread on the first page. Just tell them that you're looking for a guild. Don't bother reading their initial post that contains relevant info on their server, faction, raid times, raid size, or even what they're recruiting: you're too awesome for that.
• If you want to include some details, don't include anything that can't be discovered by looking at wowarmory.
  
• If you *do* choose to tell them more info about yourself, don't bother reading through their posted info. Make them do the work of figuring out if their raid times of 6-11 mesh with your requested times of 11 to 3 on a different time zone, or if you're even a role that they want. Clearly, if they want you, they'll get in touch.
• If any of the guilds say to put in an app on their guild forums, just repost the same thing you posted to their wow-forums thread. Filling out apps to a zillion guilds is too hard when you can copy-paste what you think they need to know... even if it includes the things that are completely irrelevant to that guild and whatnot (like talking about how awesome it'd be to be one of their 25 people in their raids... for a 10-man guild). That's their job to worry about the details.

Okay, okay, filling out the guild's application:

• If the above things don't pan out, it's time to actually submit an "application" thingy to the guild. Don't bother reading the instructions, just skim down the list and answer whatever parts you think are relevant.
• If possible, shortly list points rather than describing them, even if the app instructions say otherwise. This avoids the aforementioned TLDR LOL
• If the app asks for a screenshot, just say you don't know how.
• If the app doesn't ask for a gearscore, this is a mistake on the guild's part. Make sure to include it, as well as your sustained DPS from a point in time where you were given free munching-aoe time on a pack of trash mobs while fully raid buffed... and round up. Even if you're a healer.
• If the application asks about your offspec, skip it. There's no reason any guild would ever need to worry about your offspec or experience with it.
• If the app asks about your raiding and guild history, be as sparse as possible and only include details about that specific character. The guild has no need to know that you have rage-quit from 7 guilds before apping to theirs, or that your only experience on all combined characters is a pug VoA you bribed your way into. As another example, your experience in ICC25 on your enh shaman will have no bearing on your fury warrior, so you can omit that, too... it's not like the strategy stays the same.
  
• If the app asks about something you don't understand, skip it. It must not be important.
• Personality-related questions are optional.
• Make sure to highlight in every section how awesome you are. What can you improve upon? GEAR is the only thing holding you back, you are so awesome. What do you hate about raiding? People who hold you back from being awesome. Why are you apping to this guild? Cuz your other guild was hindering your awesomeness. Etc.
• Link them pr0n (embed an image in the app or as a forum avatar/sig), even if the guild advertises that they're a family guild with children on their roster or if the GM is supposedly a girl. Girls don't play WoW.

Formatting:

• Misspell things, don't use capitalization, and don't use punctuation. cool kidz dont need thos thingz amirit lol
  
• Don't format the app for legibility. It's the forum's fault if it's hard to read your block of text.
• When linking to your armory or any other external links, make sure they're incorrect and result in a 404. If the guild really wants you, they need to work for it by figuring out the correct address by themselves.

Have you apped to them before and failed?

• App on a different character and hope they don't notice that it's the same email address.
• Alternatively, app again on the same character. They probably have really poor memories and don't archive their past applications, right?
  

Finishing Touches:

• Don't show up to the first interview. It's like playing coy and it'll make them want you more.
• Troll in trade chat while they're watching to show them just how cool you really are.
• Ask every single guild member what the status of your app is at least once a day. If you hurry them into a decision, hopefully they won't notice all of your severe problems.
• If you find one of their members afk in the bank, spam /sit on them until they come back. It'll make them like you.
• If any of the guild members has you on ignore for some reason, explain that must've been from one of the times that your account was hacked (and when asked, explain that you have no plans to get an authenticator...)
• When you are politely declined, be sure to argue fervently with the declining officer. Put your best drama to bear and throw as much a temper tantrum as you can pull together without being 3 years old, to the point that they start to question if maybe you ARE a toddler.
  

GOODLUCK LOL





BTW, Vortex is still looking for a decent healer and a melee dps.
I don't recommend following this guide when apping to us, though ;p

For Bus

Turkey.

In a loincloth. ;)

UI Design: Positioning Mods

It's been a while since I touched on this topic, so here we go: /revive old topic!

The base Blizzard UI only helps so much when it comes to raiding, and thus the vast majority of raiders use mods. It ultimately comes down to each user to arrange their own UI to suit their purposes, without sacrificing their situational awareness. While some mods are "required" for raiding, some mod-layouts could result in an incredibly cluttered screen that would decrease your raid awareness and reaction time, resulting in you standing in fire that you can't see because it's hidden under a mod, or just causing you to miss something or take 2 seconds longer to react to it because it's not where your eyes usually rest, or generally just being so cluttered that you don't notice important things.

Anyone fighting in a progression raid (or even pvp) with a pressure to perform their best can tell a tale on how important every second of situational awareness is. In two seconds, an interrupt could be missed, an add could spawn and kill a healer, a player could die from a debuff, your character could explode the whole raid, a cone effect could be turned toward you and blast you into silence-land, or any number of other destructive dungeon mechanics.


Role Priorities:

Understandably, each role will have different things they need to design their UI around.

A healer will want to prioritize these things:

• Visibility of the playing field
• Raid frames and the information they show
  
• Boss Mod timers
• HoT/Cooldown trackers
• Buff/Debuff alerts

DPS and Tanks will want to prioritize more on these things:

• Visibility of the playing field
• Boss Mod timers
• DoT/CC/Cooldown trackers
• Buff/Debuff alerts
• Aggro
  

There are thousands of mods out there (varying in popularity, efficiency, and scope) that you can choose from. Most mods, however, even ones such as map, action bars, raid buffage, and chat can have a significant impact on your situational awareness if the mod blocks out important information!

Thus, the actual layout of your UI is very important. You need to be able to see the important information without it blocking your view and without needing to split your attention heavily into the far areas of your screen!

Here are my recommendations: figure out what elements of your UI are most important, and move them to the center.


The Screen:

The center of the screen is, immovably, your character. This is the pivotal point from which everything should radiate; this is the spot where you're standing in fire, or behind the mob, or judging range to a target, or walking off a cliff. Every time you move and need to see where you're going, this is the spot your eyes will go.


Keep in mind that if you play zoomed-in on your character, the larger the amount of screen they take up, and the less you see of what's going on around you. I suggest zooming out a healthy distance.

Now, imagine making zones of your screen radiating out from the center like a target, and putting your mods in each zone according to priority.


Zones are rough estimates. It's more of a gradiant than specific, cut-and-dry zones, but you get the idea :)

1. Immediate character. This is your personal space bubble. HuDs, significant power auras, dot timers, buffs, and cooldowns are useful here. Anything in this zone should be small, translucent, and unclickable to allow visibility and interaction with the game world.
2. Begin Clickables: Here's where you start getting into a more comfortable zone to block your view (on the top and bottom) or make things clickable. I put my cast bars, boss timers, raid warnings, and several small, translucent clickable actions in this zone. Some of my raid frames touch into the outer edge of this zone, and my sexycooldown pulse splashes into this zone when a CD completes.
   
3. Middle range: Best place for your raid frames, IMO. You need to be able to see to the sides, however, so this is why I put mine at the bottom of the screen. You're generally more likely to get away with opaque things hiding the game behind them in this zone.
   
4. Standard-Screen edges: this is about the extent you want to be putting anything important, especially if you have a wide-screen monitor tempting you with further space. You need to still see things going on in this zone to the sides, so keep things as translucent as possible on the right and left, still, but this is a good place for the less-imminent boss timers. Raid frames can spill over into this zone for healers, but I really recommend keeping them closer to zone 3.
5. Peripheral: The things in this zone should be unimportant during combat, or only at a quick glance: a noticeable cooldown, chat log, damage meter. If you're putting important click-actions here, that's a pretty long way to travel your mouse and eyes. I suggest having only out-of-combat clicks in this area, otherwise having the actions keybound.
6. Far Corners: If you put something here, it should be of little consequence to your raiding, especially on a wide-screen monitor. Things like your name, your portrait, zone name, bags, and chat go well into these corners.
   

View:

As I mentioned before, mods have a nasty habit of blocking your view, even if you need them to be closer to the center of your screen... for example, raid frames. Even though these are of paramount importance to a healer, they can't be sitting in the middle of your screen. Keep these mods close, but ensure visibility, by putting them in around zone 3.

Beware the urge to put them on the far sides of your screen in zone 5, especially if you have a wide-screen monitor: you'll miss something important if you're fighting your focus between two far distances on your screen. Whether it's moving your cursor or just having to split your attention between the two areas, it does have an impact.


I know it's a pretty common place to put them. I used to keep my raid frames like this on the far left of my screen (regions 4 and 5), until I realized that I was having trouble moving while keeping a close eye on the raid to cast insta-casts while on the move. My raid frames and my character were too far from each other.

I've seen some UIs that slip sections of their raid frames over into region 6: the far corners! If you're a tank or a DPS, sure, I can understand putting raid frames in these further areas; the information isn't immediately necessary to those roles. A cleansing dps still needs to notice things to be cleansed, a RL needs to notice if someone is dead or dieing or has some important buff/debuff, but these aren't as important as the raid frames are for a healer.


So what's my recommendation?
I moved my raid frames from there to the bottom of my screen: region 3, spilling into 4. This is significantly closer to my center screen, while being far enough away that it's not blocking my view of something I might be standing in... and it's less likely to block my view than if I put it to the top or sides. I really enjoy this layout (and so does the stick figure!). If I need to move, my mouse and eyes are already fairly central with the screen for mouse-movement.


With the squarer, shorter health bars of Grid, I'm able to fit 25 boxes + pets in quite comfortably in this space. If you prefer wider, more traditional health bars, your raid frames will take up more space, but that'll be up to your own preference ;)


A note on Viewports:

Some players like running with viewports. These take your rendered game environment and downsize it, essentially shrinking your "monitor" down while leaving blank, unrendered space as a frame. This space is not technically blocking your view of anything if you're using a real "viewport," and the space is popular for putting in mods that would otherwise block your view.

Personally, I don't like running viewports, but that's my own preference. Whether you're running viewports or not won't impact the raw distance your focus/eyes/mouse have to travel between a mod and your central movement point, as compared to a fullscreen view... only the relative positions of the mods to your central character will impact that.


Beyond Positioning:

There are more things you can tweak for a mod than just its position, and these things can have a large impact on where you do end up placing it. For each mod, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it translucent? Can it be made translucent, by lowering the mod or frame's alpha, without making it hard to work with? (ie bartender, power auras, health bars/HuDs, nameplates)
  
• Is it big? Can it be made larger or smaller without sacrificing legibility? (ie button size, buff icon size, bar width, nameplates)
• Is it animated? Is the animation distracting, or is it not even noticed? (ie sexymap, sexycooldown, power auras, cooldown pulses)
  
• Does it look complex? Is this distracting, or make it hard to recognize peripherally? (ie power auras graphics, boss timers, combat text)
  
• Is it necessary? Do you really need to know that info? (ie overflow of combat text)
• Can it be key-bound and removed from your screen?
• How often do you need to look at it or access it during combat?
  

These things can impact where you can place the mod while still being able to make use of the information it gives. For example, boss mod timers that would normally cover a portion of the screen:

Thinner bars, overall more legible at a glance, and shows background more reliably. The information they grant is very important to me, so this reskin of my DBM bars enabled me to better pay attention to it, and move it closer to center-screen without loosing any visibility. (Instructions on this DBM reskin can be found here)



My UI Layout:

This is how I chose to arrange my UI as a healer/sometimes tank/melee dps), with the "zones" overlaid. It works well for me, though a pillar behind me is forcing my camera closer than I normally am zoomed.


An unedited shot, click to enlarge:



My UI is by no means perfect, nor is it appropriate for every player/role (for one thing, I have my threat meter down in the far corner!). Every UI has room to improve, imo. Just be sure you do your best to maximize efficiency without sacrificing visibility. So, when tweaking or building your UI, just remember these key things:

• Visibility of the Game Field: mods' position + size, transparency, zoom
  
• Importance of the Mod's Info: position + size, animation
  
• How long you have to focus on it in combat: position + legibility
  

Is it Greener on the Other Side?

This post is a word of warning to those in 25 mans looking to "jump the fence," as it were, for Cataclysm, to form a 10-man raid. There are pros, and there are cons, and some things are not easier. Before you decide, I want to make sure myths or misunderstandings are dispelled.

For starters, I really recommend reading through my post on what 10-strict raiding is like. It's long, it's in-depth, and it's as accurate as I can make it. It has far more detail than this post.


Raid Difficulty vs Gear:

If you're used to thinking of tens as easier because you were wearing 25-man gear, think again. 10s were balanced for 10-man gear in WotLK. Some food for thought: no ten-strict guild has yet downed Lich King hardmode, yet. Still. All these months. If you want to think it's from lack of skill, think again, and pull your head out of the sand. It's a matter of that slight bit more health, damage, and healing/shielding output: it does make a significant difference in survival and length of the phases.

It's not going to be a walk in the park in Cataclysm. Don't go to 10s just because you think the content will be easier.


Raiding Roster and Attendance:

The average raiding roster for a 25-man is about 35 people: 2 extra players per party in the raid. My own guild uses a roster of 14, which is the exact same ratio, except has less room to ratio between an extra tank or healer vs dps (that's where offspecs come in!).

There will still be attendance problems. Some raiders will stop raiding and you'll have to recruit a new one in their place. Some will have family emergencies, etc. And each one of them that has this crop up will be that much of your raid disappearing. It's about proportional. We've had to kill the Lich King with 9 raiders before; my guild also earned Less is More in Naxx very, very quickly.

When you drop your raiding roster down for 10's, your attendance problems will not disappear: instead, you'll have to pug up a player or run undermanned, and won't have an option to split up the raid and do separate 10's.


Offspecs:

Guess what? That PvP offspec may have to go the way of the dodo in a 10. With fewer people in the raid, flexibility for raid roles (tank, healer, dps) and even particular spec strengths (replenishment, AoE, magic type) comes down to each player having a PvE offspec... and they need to be able to play it well, and gear it, and use it. This means pulling a tank into a healing role, something significantly different than what they're used to. Or a healer into a tank role. Or DPS. If your class has more than one role it can play, be ready to get to know one of them very intimately.**

Every class has a different PvE spec they can set up as an offspec, and many of them require, at the least, different gear stats to maximize and a new set of abilities to learn how to use. For example:

• A warlock? Afflic and Destro are your two trees (as far as WotLK is concerned), be ready to swap it around and know how to rock out with both.
  
• Mage? Hmm replenishment may come into play, some times, or mana-management, or AoE from ze bombs.
  
• A priest normally holy with a DPS offspec? What if a fight suddenly demands disc?
  
• A resto druid who's scared of playing feathers? Get over it, starfall is OP (yes, this one's aimed straight at myself!)
  
• Rogue: personal single-target performance, or AoE love with a nice dps raid buff... or the best spec for dpsing with anesthetic poison?
  

A 25-man raider is more likely to get away with a single spec in their raids. In progressive 10's? Not so much. You need to know all the PvE aspects of your class... and you may not have another person of your class in your guild to look to for help.

Even aside from specs, hybrid roles need to be observed to maximize the raid's effectiveness, to make up for the smaller number of players in each role. Your DPSers need to help cleanse. Your ele shaman or shadow priest will need to suddenly swap to healing mid-fight as a healer dies or is ported into another plane of existence. Your cat will need to bear it up to take on some adds that are otherwise running rampant while your moonkin pulls off a battle-res on the tank. Your resto druid might need to cyclone something, or warstomp.

There's more offspec, offrole weight on the shoulders of each player in a 10m.


**EDIT: Erick's comment did remind me to add that some 10-man guilds might not care as much about hardcore progression, and so they might not require all of their players to forgo their pvp offspecs in favor of progression in pve. If this is a potential issue for your guild, I recommend addressing it before it causes too much strife as different players have differing opinions on how hardcore-PvE the guild should be.

**Along the same lines: there are some pvp specs that, while not absolutely optimal, could manage in a pve setting, depending on what talents were skipped in favor of pvp ones.



Easier Achievements?

You've likely heard the argument by now: "there's no way to balance the content exactly equally." To the nitpicky extents, this is true. We see it in the fact that no 10-strict guild has downed hardmode LK10, yet 25m has downed hardmode LK25. Could it be balanced, by lessening the severity of the fight? Sure... but after the fact. It'd take far too much time in testing/development to fully and equally balance the fights before live release to be worth it, monetarily.

I really hope there will be a separate achievement tracking system for 10s and for 25s. Separate ranking systems. The 25s stand on their own; the 10s stand on their own. Otherwise each dungeon tier may be dominated one way or the other due to slight discrepancies in balance, to the point that the most hardcore guilds have to swap between 10s and 25s regularly to strive for those world-firsts. You can imagine the logistical nightmare.

Don't go into tens expecting to get achievements easier. It's going to swing both ways. Some fights will be easier on 25, some will be easier on 10. It's the same way, now. Things can be balanced closely, but never 100%, and when it comes to world-firsts, that matters.

---

Choose carefully when looking ahead for your raid size format. Don't pick it because the grass looks greener: pick it because you LIKE the raid size itself, from its social aspects. Pick it because you want that weight on your shoulders as a 10-man raider requiring more flexibility or you want to be a face in the crowd that plays one spec; pick it because you like the intimacy of a smaller group, or because you want to be raiding with an army.

On Nourish

Nourish is a resto druid's level 80 healing spell: leveling druids learn it as they reach the WotLK level cap and begin running dungeons. It's also a healing spell most 25-man raiders haven't used very often through WotLK, as they favor raid healing by rolling rejuv and wild growth alone.


So what is Nourish, exactly?

Nourish amounts to our flash heal. It replaces Healing Touch at 80 as our go-to casted heal due to its quicker cast time, lighter mana cost, and the fact that its power is boosted by the number of different HoTs you have on the target.


Nourish Replaces Healing Touch

A nourish cast, while you cannot cast it while moving, doesn't take longer in your spell rotation than does casting any of our insta-cast spells, since all spells require you to wait for the Global CoolDown (GCD) to complete before casting another. While Healing Touch can reach this cast-time with talents and a glyph (while also reducing mana cost and healing power with the glyph), Nourish does so without wasting a glyph slot just to make it faster, and is more powerful as it is boosted by HoTs. Most druids will remove the plain HT from their bars at 80.


When is HT used at 80, then?

Healing Touch works best at 80 macroed to Nature's Swiftness. HT is our most powerful single-target heal in its raw form, especially when boosted by talents such as Empowered Touch; it is just useless due to its long cast time compared to the Heals per Second of our other spells, and our need to keep HoTs rolling on targets.

Macroing NS+HT can done like this:

#showtooltip /cast [combat] Nature's Swiftness /cast [@mouseover,help][help][] Healing Touch

Sometimes you may wish to use HT out of combat, and you'd prefer to save NS for upcoming combat. To allow for this, simply add a [combat] modifier into the macro to prevent NS from firing when you're not in combat.


When do I use Nourish?

Personally, I use Nourish when I would use Swiftmend, with these stipulations:

• a) They need a quick heal but Swiftmend is on cooldown, OR
  
• b) They need a quick heal and I need to save Swiftmend for upcoming movement.
  

Remember, Nourish may be quick to cast, but it cannot be cast while moving. There are some fights where movement plays a large role, and anticipating that movement means saving Swiftmend as an insta-cast heal-on-the-go. In any case where I don't think the target really needs a Swiftmend (ie the HoTs will take care of the target or they don't need to be full-health immediately), I don't use Nourish.

When using it to tank-heal, make sure to HoT-up the tank by keeping stacks of rejuv, regrowth, and lifebloom rolling on the target. These will increase the spellpower of your Nourishes, especially if you've glyphed for it. Casting a Wild Growth on the tank will buff it further for a 4-HoT buffed nourish, and should splash on nearby melee.

Other things that may impact your use of Nourish include:

• Co-Healers: your use of Nourish will depend on the other types of healers present in your raid. Sometimes it's not even class but the playstyle (or even the skill) of your cohealers that determines whether or not you need to cast Nourish very often. If your raid is heavy on other direct healers (paladins especially), you will not need to cast this as much, except when a dps/healer gets themselves in trouble... which should hopefully be less often than your Swiftmend cooldown. This is the reason many 25-man restos don't use Nourish very often: they are able to focus entirely on just HoT-healing the raid, while other healers manage the direct healing.

• Raid size: the smaller the raid, the more likely you'll need to use it, as you're called upon to shoulder more of the direct healing. In some cases, between 5-mans with a "squishy" tank or in progression raids, a druid may need to focus entirely on tank healing (ex. Valithria, heroic LK), and then Nourish becomes a large part of their healing.

Cataclysm and Nourish: --no "leaks," just blue posts--

From the information Blizzard itself has given us (and remember, everything is subject to change as the expansion is still in its alpha phase), it seems as though they intend Nourish to be used as a "spot heal" (blue posts). Regrowth will be gaining prominence due to the splash-healing its crits can provide, and they have stated that they wish each healer class to have a small, medium, and large casted heal (in addition to AoE) to homogenize the healing classes out from their niches: using regrowth, nourish, and HT as these spells for druids. While I personally think Nourish would be the small and Regrowth be the medium, in terms of cast time, mana cost, and HoTs, it could be different depending on how they alter the spells.

The following cataclysm talent changes are going to impact it:

• 0.5s cast-time reduction talent seems incongruous with a cast time that already matches the GCD. This suggests that either:
  • a) we'll wait for GCD like we do for insta-cast spells, OR
  • b) they might be increasing the base cast time. As far as I know, all numbers for this are rumors and unofficial, but a longer cast time has its own implications on how Nourish might be used.
    
• It will refresh lifebloom duration on the target. This can disrupt your healing if you want to have the bloom go off, especially in situations where your emergency heals are on cooldown. This will impact your spell selection.
  
• Crits will reduce remaining the cooldown of swiftmend by 0.5 seconds. I really like the concept of this one, though 0.5 seconds off a 15-second cooldown is rather tiny.
• It is loosing 20% bonus healing from empowered touch.
• It is loosing 25% crit from nature's bounty.

We'll have to wait for the spells' changes to be finalized before we know for sure what is to come for Nourish, but it is definitely a spell to keep an eye on for the next expansion.

Vortex Haiku

Haiku from my guild
Aren't we creative people?
See what boredom brings.


"Recruitment Bumping"

Quickly now you post
A bump in haiku format,
Creativity.

My, this forum moves.
Like lightening, it dumps your threads
to the second pane.

Do guildies stop bumps
Because they just want to see
All of my haiku?

It is getting late,
but that doesn't stop the bumps,
not until I sleep.

"Good morning to you,"
says the black cat on my bed,
as claws stretch at me.

Grumble Grumble Grrr
Morning time has come for me
Time for some waffles.

Clearly Scythe must learn
How to write bumps in haiku.
At least it's not dull.

I agree with Kae
We must keep using Haikus.
Don't fail the mission.

Five beats for the first,
the middle one has seven,
You can do it, too!

It's really easy
Even for a Death Knight see.
What is the problem?

I grin at edits;
makes me wonder if it was
Miscount, or reword?

Edits do happen
Usually due to spelling.
Only I will know.

I once saw an app
Entirely in haiku
I wish I saved it.

Tonight is alt night
but I have dinner with friends
so I might be late :(

I wish I could write
As well as you two can do
but this is just poo.

I is a shaman
I can pew pew and heal too
and sometimes hit stuff

Flame Shock Lavaburst
Elemental Oath go go!
then spam lightning bolt

eff aye eye ele dot
zo-mah-gawd, Scythe, just haiku
exclaimation point!

That was pathetic,
At least make an attempt, man.
Fail druid is fail.

This thread needs something.
What could be missing from here?
Oh, I know! Haiku!

You call these bumps, eh?
Hm. This thread has degraded.
I do not approve.

T T T T T,
T T T T T T T.
T T T T T.

Lunch time sees me free,
Flying over Azeroth.
I'm in ur fire.


"Raiding"

Mmm cake, om nom nom,
Better than mystic buffet,
Sindy's a fail cook.

Hardmode Lich King now,
healing infest is "teh sux."
Shadow Tarp! Kaboom!

A chill portal swirls
Raiders line up for battle
Don't take my loot, nub.

The trees are burning:
leaves flutter and turn to ash
as Halion lands.


"Druid"

Yellow leaves flash by;
A punch as I run in: rawr!
Rabid melee tree.

Swipe makes the big crits
Mmm big numbers, happy cat.
Oops, now a dead cat.

Nerubian bugs,
Mantis, standing proud and strong,
until my cyclone.

All the health bars drop,
Ack, the party's going down!
Nope. Tranquility.

Keyboard stroke rhythm:
a machine gun, rat tat tat!
blanketing rejuvs.

All you tanks out there,
Why you gotta swing that shield?
Parry with the face.

I'm a fluffy bear
on a boat, up in the air,
guess where I have jets?



~~ I'll add to this as we come up with more :) ~~

How to Bump *THREADS* with Style

*edit: Calla, get your head out of the gutter ;)

Recruitment is a big deal these days. It's the doldrums of WotLK, as content stalls and eyes focus ahead to an unreleased expansion pack; some players loose interest, some just have a change of summer plans, some graduate and have to completely change their lives. It's expected.

Of course, with that, comes a slew of recruitment posts on forums, which have to be repetitively bumped back to the first page of a forum to ensure maximum advertisement. This is referred to as "bumping."

My guild is one of these forum recruiters.

Now, I have a strange kind of honor upon myself to be creative in my bump posts. It feels like spam to just bump a thread for the sake of bumping. Posting filler content to bump a post to the top of a forum feels like downright cheating. Examples include:

• Bump
• /bump
• Up
• up!
  
• .
• ..
• ...
• bump bump
• bump!
• And every other variation of these in repetition, punctuation, and capitalization.
  

Yes, Scythe, I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

So, when I get a poke from my guild to go help bump the recruitment threads, I take a moment to consider what I'm going to write. Some examples:

• "Dot dot dot" Scythe? Moar DOTS! :3
• I'm here cuz Scythe made me do it. /ducks
• I'd shapeshift out of tree to cast more moonfare, but then people might die and that'd be bad.
• AH! Loud noises! I wonder if sound can travel through a pally bubble?
• Moo! Moo, I say, Moo!
• <---spends more time ARGIEING about bumping threads than actually bumping them. Just sayin'.
• Yellow leaves flash by;
  A punch as I run in: rawr!
  Rabid melee tree.
  
• Vroom vroom kitty kitty with a pretty post!
  Zippy zippy tru da forum
  Scythe's done bumps da most!
  Shifty shifty CAPS LOCK I CANS SINGS A SONG
  Here's hoping they aren't scared away
  As I sing it all day long!

Come on... how many recruitment threads sing for their potential applicants?

Now, there are bonuses to this: it keeps you and your guild entertained while doing what would otherwise be an excessively boring chore of thread-bumping. It also gives your potential applicants a glimpse at your guild's personality: their ability to write legibly, their creativity, their typos or use of l33t 5p34k, and how formal or joking they are with each other.


BTW, we're recruiting a healer (sham/pally) and a melee dps (rogue/shaman) for 10-strict raiding, 11/12 hardmodes. ;) If you are interested, clicky here to app!

SPOILERS: Cata Talent Trees for Feral Druids

In case you didn't read my little ramble on the resto version, here ya go:

I don't like posting about things that might not be true, so I avoid blogging about any of the leaked data. I'm also a staunch supporter of the NDA: if someone has agreed to keep a secret, then they shouldn't betray that trust. In addition, if the developers haven't said it themselves, it's not worth believing... especially in as early a stage as an Alpha test. Since Blizzard has now released some "official" talent tree previews (the ones at MMO-Champ have designer comments), we can now "safely" look into what they're considering for druids in regards to Cataclysm. Important note: the wowtal (mmo-champ) calculator appears to differ slightly on numbers than the wowhead calculator. I don't know at this point which is more accurate, but I'm going to guess and hope it is the wowhead calc, as the wowtal one says swiftmend heals for 1, wg got a nasty nerf, and imp bark only does 20% bonus armor.

Anyway, some good feral-talents discussions I've seen are Alaron's, Icedragon's, Saniel's, BBB's.

FERAL

First Tier:

• Savage Fury moved here from 2nd tier, renamed Sharpened Claws.
• Ferocity and Feral Aggression appear unchanged.

Second Tier:

• Shredding Attacks moved here from 4th tier. The shred energy-reduction has been nerfed down to 5 per point from 9.
• Thick Hide and Feral Instinct appear unchanged.

Third Tier:

• Predatory Instincts moved here from 8th tier. It is no longer limited to cat form, but it also no longer grants any sort of AoE-damage reduction: it is only a crit damage boost.
• Feral Charge moved here from 5th tier, otherwise appears unchanged.
• NEW: Imp Feral Charge: for bear, it increased the damage of your next three attacks, and for cat, it allows ravage to be cast without being stealthed. That's going to mess with my [stealth] modifier macros.
• GONE: Sharpened Claws no longer exists in its old form; the name was salvaged to rename Savage Fury, but the talent's old effects were nixed. The talents it opened are now independent or reworked into other talents.
  
• Feral Swiftness appears unchanged.

Fourth Tier:

• NEW: Fury Swipes, an auto-attack proc to grant an extra auto-attack in cat or bear. This was probably added to even out our white-to-yellow damage balance, which in WotLK is much more heavily reliant on yellow attacks.
• GONE: Primal Precision.
  
• Nurturing Instinct was moved here from the 5th tier; appears otherwise unchanged.
• Primal Fury is unchanged, aside from removing the pre-requisite talent.
  

Fifth Tier:

• Predatory Strikes: no longer a pre-req for Heart of the Wild and has been slightly reworked. At 2 talent points (previously 3), this talent now focuses purely on cat-form. As before, it retains the effect of proccing insta-cast nature spells off your finishing moves (20% chance per combo point consumed); however, instead of boosting raw AP, it now boosts the crit of Ravage by 50% if your target is high (90%+) health.
  
• Brutal Impact was nerfed in terms of the bash cooldown: reduces by 10 seconds rather than 30.
• Heart of the Wild moved here from 6th tier and made into the pre-req for LotP; appears otherwise unchanged.
  
• Survival Instincts: moved here from 3rd tier; appears otherwise unchanged.

Sixth tier:

• NEW: Endless Carnage. Increases the durations of rake, savage roar, and pulverize (new bear ability) by 6 seconds.
  
• Survival of the Fittest nerfed; it no longer increases all attributes by 6%. The armor bonus and built-in "defense cap" are unchanged.
  
• Natural Reaction appears unchanged.

Seventh Tier:

• King of the Jungle: no longer reduces the energy cost of feral forms, and is now a pre-requisite for a new talent, Primal Madness. Moved here from 9th tier.
• Primal Tenacity nerfed; reduces damage by only 15% while stunned in cat form, down from 30%.
• LotP and iLotP appear unchanged.

Eighth Tier:

• Protector of the Pack and Infected Wounds appear unchanged.

Ninth Tier:

• NEW: Primal Madness 2/2. Cats extend their energy pools by 12 extra energy (112 total) for the duration of Tiger's Fury and Berserk, and bears get 12 rage immediately with enrage and berserk. Part of this is remnant of the old Intensity talent in the resto tree.
  
• Mangle and Imp Mangle appear unchanged.

Tenth Tier:

• NEW: Nom Nom Nom. ........... I can't stop grinning over this talent name, and I seriously hope they keep it. A pure cat ability, when you FB any target at or below 25% health, it'll refresh the duration of your rip on that target. I like.
• GONE: Primal Gore. Presumably this is because all bleeds and HoTs and DoTs will inherently crit, now.
• NEW: Pulverize. This talent and ability now replace Primal Gore, with Rend n' Tear being its pre-req. It is a bear ability that consumes lacerate applications for extra damage as well as buffing the bear's crit chance for 10 seconds by 2% per lacerate consumed by the attack.
  
• Rend and Tear itself appears unchanged.

Eleventh Tier:

• Berserk appears unchanged.

RESTO-for-FERALS

First Tier:

• GONE: Imp MotW.
• NEW: Blessing of the Grove, increases the damage of Claw (!) and Shred by 4%. These 2 points will be used to open the third tier, in place of the old Imp MotW.
  
• Furor appears unchanged.

Second Tier:

• Naturalist is no longer on this tier; it has been moved deeper. You'll need the 3 points of Natural Shapeshifter (which appears unchanged) combined with Blessing of the Grove to open up the third Tier.

Third Tier:

• GONE: Intensity. The rage effects of this talent have been put into the new feral talent, Primal Madness.
• Naturalist has been moved down to this tier from the 2nd. While the cast reduction now also applies to Nourish, the physical damage boost is unchanged.
• OoC and Master Shapeshifter appear unchanged.

It is unlikely a feral will go much deeper into the resto tree than that :)

SPOILERS: Cata Talent Trees for Resto Druids

I don't like posting about things that might not be true, so I avoid blogging about any of the leaked data. I'm also a staunch supporter of the NDA: if someone has agreed to keep a secret, then they shouldn't betray that trust. In addition, if the developers haven't said it themselves, it's not worth believing... especially in as early a stage as an Alpha test.

Since Blizzard has now released some "official" talent tree previews (the ones at MMO-Champ have designer comments), we can now "safely" look into what they're considering for druids in regards to Cataclysm. Important note: the wowtal (mmo-champ) calculator appears to differ slightly on numbers than the wowhead calculator. I don't know at this point which is more accurate, but I'm going to guess and hope it is the wowhead calc, as the wowtal one says swiftmend heals for 1, wg got a nasty nerf, and imp bark only does 20% bonus armor.


Some other good write-ups I've seen on the resto-talent preview include Beruthiel's, Keeva's, Jasyla's, and Icedragon's.

First up, since it's my current mainspec, is Resto. I'll be looking at the feral stuff in a later post, and I'll leave balance to those who know it better :)

RESTO:

First Tier:

• GONE: Imp MotW.
• NEW: Blessing of the Grove is replacing Imp MotW and provides direct buffs to specific abilities instead. All druids will probably take it. For restos, it increases healing of rejuv by 4%; it also increases moonfire's direct damage by 4%, as with claw and shred.
  
• Furor is still for non-healer specs, and appears unchanged.
  

Second Tier:

• NEW: Perseverance, a pvp/survival -spelldamage taken talent.
  
• Subtlety is still being looked at/considered, so is probably due for some future changes.
  
• Natural Shapeshifter appears unchanged.

Third Tier:

• GONE: Intensity.
  
• Naturalist is now located here from the 2nd tier, and also reduces the cast time of Nourish. This is interesting, because that puts nourish (with 5 points) at a 1-second cast WITHOUT any haste, assuming nourish stays at a 1.5 second base cast-time. This means that it will always be clipping our GCD, based on current game mechanics. Something to keep an eye on. EDIT: it is theorized that Nourish will have a much longer cast time in Cataclysm; I cannot confirm if it is rumor/leak, or something from Blizzard itself. Regardless, this talent raises some questions about Nourish in Cataclysm.
  
• OoC and Master Shapeshifter appear unchanged.

Fourth Tier:

• Imp Rejuv now applies to swiftmend as well.
  
• Tranquil Spirit appears unchanged.

Fifth Tier:

• GONE: Gift of Nature. The raw spellpower boost will presumably be rolled up into the talent tree's masteries.
• Nature's Swiftness and Imp Tranquility appear unchanged.

Note: Unfortunately, this does seem to be a point where I have to look at talents I'd prefer to skip in order to open the deeper tiers, with 3 talent points "free." They have discussed reworking Tranquility, so that may be where 2 points go (in addition to 3/3 subtlety, depending on what they do with it), or else into Tranquil Spirit.


Sixth Tier:

• Nature's Bounty has been reworked significantly: it is now the pre-req for Swiftmend, it increases regowth crit by 50% WHEN the target is below 25% health, and allows your nourish and HT crits to reduce the cooldown of Swiftmend by 0.5 seconds. Since you'll be using those casted heals when swiftmend is on cooldown, I like this, though the lack of straight crit rating that this talent original gave to RG and Nourish will be missed and must be made up for with gear stats.
  
• NEW: Fury of the Stormrage, appears to grant insta-cast wraths on a proc off of casting nourish/HT: something to play with and decide the usefulness of. Possibly a PvP talent.
  
• Living Seed moved here from 8th tier; appears unchanged, except that it is now needed to open up a new talent in a deeper tier.

Seventh Tier:

• Swiftmend is now opened by Nature's Bounty; otherwise appears unchanged.
  
• Empowered Touch has been moved here, and reworked: it now causes Nourish to refresh lifebloom stacks on the target, while keeping HT's 20% healing boost. I have mixed feelings about this: for one, it's a "free" refresh of lifebloom. On the other hand, what if I could really use that lifebloom stack to drop while I'm spamming nourish, for the huge healing the bloom would do? Are they looking at us to use healing touch if we want the stack to drop? Is this related to a possible increase to the nourish cast-time?
  

Eighth Tier:

• NEW: Efflorescence is opened here by the pre-req 3/3 Living Seed; what it does is provide a stationary AoE HoT in the location of a person you crit a regrowth on. At 7 seconds, it's got the same duration as wild growth, but it will probably have less power: 30% of the amount your regrowth healed for (I am assuming on the initial hit of the regrowth, rather than including the HoT component).
• Empowered Rejuv now looks to include its healing bonus to Swiftmend.
• Natural Perfection has been moved down to this rank from the 7th; it's also been nerfed, where it no longer increases your spell crit.
  

Ninth Tier:

• Some big changes here.
  
• Tree of Life's changes: 15% healing boost, 50% movement speed penalty, and an un-detailed "alteration" of WG, LB, RG, wrath, thorns, and entangling roots. I would guess that the Fury of Stormrage talent may play into this new ToL somehow. 45-sec duration with a 5-minute cooldown. The fact that it's a "click-use" spellpower buff is demoralizing, nevermind that it is paired with a "snare" effect; no word yet on how it will impact those specific spells.
  
• The related Imp-ToL talent will reduce this cooldown further to 3.5 minutes, and apply the 15% bonus to your damage as well, rather than its old effects of increased ToL healing by spirit and increased armor.
  
• Revitalize has been overhauled: we can no longer use it to grant energy to our raiding buddies, which I find unfortunate. I really enjoyed having that special ability to grant energy to the cats/rogues, runic power to the DKs, rage to the warriors/bears, and I will miss it. Disc Priests had something similar, but I still felt special with it. What it will do now is replenish 3% of our mana back to us whenever the Hot-portion of our LB and RG crits on anyone. This may be an attempt to make up for the removal of Intensity, providing an optional mana-regen talent that we can spec out of depending on our mana useage/gear.
  

Tenth Tier:

• Imp Barkskin no longer reduces the dispel chance. Edit: the wowhead and mmo-champ calculators seem to disagree about how much the armor contribution will be: wowhead says unchanged (160%), mmo-champ says 20%.
  
• Gift of the Earth Mother has been reworked completely: it no longer impacts spell haste, but instead increases LB's bloom healing by 20% and gives Rejuv an insta-HoT-tick for 15% of the total periodic healing (reminiscent of the set bonus). The bloom-bonus is an interesting counter-point to the earlier Empowered-Touch change, where Nourish refreshes the lifebloom duration.
  

Eleventh Tier:

• Wild Growth got nerfed to a 10-second cooldown. Possibly also in spellpower: 686 base healed rather than the old 1442. 686 is according to the wowtal calculators at MMO-champ; the wowhead cata talents have it listed as 2905, instead, as does the actual post on MMO-champ's front page. I wonder which to trust? Perhaps it is confusion over spell ranks?
  

BALANCE-for-RESTOS:

First Tier:

• Genesis now boosts swiftmend as well.
  
• Starlight Wrath appears unchanged.

Second Tier:

• Moonglow now applies to Starsurge as well, a new deeper-tier balance talent.
  
• Imp Moonfire nerfed; only increases damage done of moonfire (no more crit boost)
• Nature's Majesty appears unchanged, except that it is no longer required for any Tier-3 talents.

Third Tier:

• Nature's Splendor has been moved to a deeper tier, so we'll have to spend more points in Balance to reach it now.
  
• Nature's Grace is still being looked at, so it is unknown if that will be a useful talent to resto-druids again (I'm going to bet yes given the changes to GotEM).
  
• NEW: Solar Beam, looks like fun: an interrupt on your target, with a 10-sec, 10-yard cone of silence effect on that area afterwards.
  
• Celestial Focus has been moved here from the 4th tier, but no longer effects spell haste. It does apply its pushback reduction to the new balance talent Starsurge, though.
• Nature's Reach appears unchanged.

NOTE: I am unsure of where a resto druid would put the 1 extra talent point they need to open up the fourth tier. I suspect it will be in Nature's Reach, given the damage abilities granted by ToL and Fury of Stormrage in deep-resto. Celestial focus is an alternative for hibernate/hurricane pushback avoidance, though I wish it applied to cyclone as well.


Fourth Tier:

• NEW: Lunar Justice, will drop a small, single-use mana restore (up to 6%) to whoever (friendly target) picks it up first, whenever you kill an appropriate-level target. I am curious if it requires a killing blow, or if healing (say prot paladin) while the raid kills the target will still drop the mana-cookie, granting at 1 talent point a 2% mana restore to that pally tank who happens to be standing there. The mana-drop lasts 15 seconds or until it is picked up by you or a friendly target.
• Nature's Splendor appears unchanged, aside from being moved down here from the third tier and no longer requiring Nature's Majesty.

It is unlikely a resto druid would go much deeper into the balance tree.

So, what do you think? I'm excited about the changes, though I am still hoping that the new treeform art isn't as ugly as the old tree, and curious about what the new Treeform will actually do to our spells. There are a lot of spell-altering talents in there, even without treeform's changes, and a big flag has been raised in regards to how Nourish and Healing Touch will be used in Cataclysm.

Want to watch us wipe repeatedly?

Tonight is our first work on LK10 heroic mode, a boss fight that no ten-strict guild has succeeded on in the world, yet.

One of our locks is streaming the fight here: http://www.justin.tv/damorons

We'll be raiding til 11:30pm EST. Come say hi if you'd like :)






Lifeblooom is mah friend.

Society and Life: Gaming and Alternatives

Beru asked a question yesterday that I've been pondering on, myself, for a long while now:

What would you do if you didn't play WoW?

The answer is, for me at least, the same things I do now:

• Yardwork and housework (cleaning up after hubby and pets)
• Play with pets
  
• Volunteer Scout stuff (developing a short summer camp)
• Read fantasy/sci-fi and the occasional hiker/backpacker novel
• Watch TV
• Find games to play when I get (quickly) tired of the non-interactive TV, preferably ones I can play cooperatively with friends.
  
• Hang out with my equally quiet and domestic friends for movies, crafts, and RPGs.
  

....except that I'd be missing out on time spent chatting or experiencing a virtual environment with in-game friends I've known for anywhere from a couple months to 6+ years. I'd replace it with more of the above. Or I'd find another cooperative game that I can play with my friends... and do you know how hard it is to find those kinds of games? Even dominos is like "ZOMG BEAT YOU RAWR!" I can find more cooperative play in Unreal Tournament than in a lot of card and board games.


What do people do if they don't game?

A lot of the media and political anti-gaming stances are basing their opinions on the idea that either a) games make people violent and dangerous, or b) games are a waste of time that result in unproductive citizens.

Let's look at some of the things I see non-gamers do with the same amounts of their time:

• Go to bars to get drunk and socialize, often not remembering all the details of their nights and sometimes endangering others on the road afterwards.
• Host parties (that likely involve alcohol): more for the extroverts. Usually involves drinking or gossiping, and usually both.
  
• Sunbath for hours on end. Greetings, skin cancer.
• Watch TV all evening.
  
• Get high on drugs for lack of anything else to do that they view as "cool."
• Join gangs and wage turf wars.

How are these things any more productive than gaming? How are these things any less "dangerous" and "violence-causing" than gaming, for the community as a whole?

Let's look at two of the most common alternatives:

• Why is sitting on the couch watching TV viewed as less of a problem by media/politicals (who tend to control society's general viewpoints and information) than gaming? I don't know for 100%, but I have a few possible ideas along the vein of propaganda control and advertisement marketing for economic stimulation.
  
• Why is getting drunk at bars viewed as less of a problem by media/politicals? At least we aren't out making the roads unsafe. Again, I don't know for 100% certainty, but I tend to believe it's because they're out spending money and being "social"... coupled with the fact that rowdy drinking's been a part of society for at least a couple thousand years, and gaming (and TV for that matter) is the new "upstart."
  

Alternatively, someone could lead the society-ideal life of a healthy mix of volunteer work, casual sports team play (or martial arts), reading and/or writing, craft or outdoor hobbies, a bit of TV, and family/friend-time. Why is it bad to throw a bit of gaming in there to offset some of that TV time? Instead of watching a string of the latest reality shows involving 20 guys trying to win the heart of some fickle girl, I prefer to cooperate with a group of friends to go "save" a virtual community from imminent doom.


"Productiveness"

As I just mentioned, there are things that are healthier or viewed as more productive uses of time:

• Sports or martial arts
• Volunteer time (scouts, cleanups, helping neighbors, etc)
• "Community involvement" (ie politics)
• Family time... assisting homework, board games, teaching, attending little league, etc.
• Doing anything that spends money: amusement parks, hotels, theaters, sports events, etc.

....and why is there a view that gamers don't do these things?

Answer's easy: because of the legacy stereotype of the shut-in basement gamer who leeches off his parents and does not have the socialization to fit into "polite" society, in addition to media hype that likes to highlight the occasional cases of psychopathic violence inflicted by someone who happens to game. Since such cases are alarming and unusual, of course they make the news... but many read into its highlight as if game-related-violence is more prevalent or more "wrong" than violence over alcohol (including DUIs), drugs, money, social disagreements (work, mating, "turf" be it gangs or religion or politics or even sports teams, etc), and the psychopaths who happen to not game. There are violent people out there, and that's regardless of whether they happen to play WoW or CounterStrike or any other game.

In addition, who's to say a gamer is not productive when they have a stable, legal, productive job that they do well? Or a volunteer, playing on computers at a firehouse or rescue-squad station while waiting for a call to go out, a game that they can play together and drop what they're doing immediately when the siren sounds? Or a student, still earning good grades but taking a mental breather from studying to destress with a game?


Moderation:

Just because you enjoy gaming doesn't mean you can't have a more "productive" life than someone who doesn't game. I know people who don't game that lead less productive lives than I do, and I blog and raid!

Gaming--especially in a game as social as an MMO--is an excellent way to spend time expanding your horizons beyond what you can experience at home in your safe suburb in a non-life-threatening way, has interaction far more than a TV can give, yet still allows time to keep up with life, studies, physical fitness, and whatever else you want to do...

It all just depends on moderation.

I'm in a 3-night raiding guild: that's only 12 hours per week of committed raiding time. I get on just about every day for at least an hour or two to run a quick daily and see if I can get Anzu to drop, maybe say hi to friends if they're around, help them with something, or just chat with them about their day. That's time that most people I know and grew up with would instead spend just changing channels on TV complaining there's nothing to watch.


PVR:

As relatively little as I do watch TV, there are some shows that I enjoy watching. For this, I have PVR: my TV records the shows I like, and I can watch them when I feel like it, often during my lunch breaks, which I am lucky enough to be able to go home from work for (a rarity in American society, where work commutes are often 30 minutes to an hour). I can fast-forward through commercials to reduce time that I personally view as "wasted" by those advertisements, where a 1-hr show is reduced now to 40 minutes (fits well into a 1-hr lunch break when you consider food prep, cleanup, and a short commute).

Short of the Long:

The way I see it, in the middle-class American society that I've grown up with and know, most people spend their "at-home freetime" watching TV. I--and many others--replaced that time with the more interactive gaming. Anyone who does game can still take care of family/house, go out for weekly social events, do sports or other physical exercise, and volunteer for things: I know, I do it, and I've gamed with others who can manage it with kids (just having to play less to account for the time they devote to their children). It all depends on how you handle your playtime: moderation in favor of other responsibilities to family and self.

I think gaming is a better use of that chunk of time that many in my society otherwise devote to drinking and watching TV.

The Traitor King

You know how they refer to healing as "whack-a-mole?"

It's got NOTHING on trying to Shiv a single red bug in a tangle of 30-40 other bugs to de-enrage it, with all the name plates moving around and every click falling on some other, un-enraged bug that just got in the way. >_>


How we did it:

(10-man, btw)

The Bug Group:

• Paladin tank (prot spec) in nature resist gear, standing on a thick pile of frost at the south end of the room, taunting and healing herself like crazy with righteous fury active. More details for the pally at the bottom of the post.
  
• Two healers spamming on her; if they have no threat dump, I suggest trying to stay out of the way so the tank can see when they have bug aggro. We also suggest priest and paladin for these roles due to fade (threat dump) and low threat.
  
• Rogue amidst the chaos using shiv to apply anesthetic poison to enraged bugs, and trying not to die or get too many stacks of bugbites (acid-drenched mandibles). More on that below.
  

Everyone else:

• Stick in the north end of the room as much as possible during bug-spawns (kite phase).
  
• The rest of the raid deal with killing burrowers (one tank picking them up), tanking Anub (another tank), one healer keeping an eye on all of them, and dropping more frost patches.
• Anub-kites must be taken to frost patches AWAY from the paladin tank; reserve those frost patches for when the bug group gets their own anub-marks.
  
• All bug aggro must be kited through frost patches to the pally tank; with most of the raid at the north end, the bug spawns typically came to the south-end group anyway.
• Keep 4 or more frost patches dropped on the bug group, as they will get used up as Anub tries to persue anyone of the bug group. Drop these during the normal phase when Anub is up and not burrowing underground, as little bugs do not spawn in this phase.
  

ROGUE:

If you're the rogue, I seriously suggest turning off nameplates. It's easier to target the big red adds without having to sift through a zillion nameplates.

• Anesthetic Poison on Offhand
• Crippling Poison on Mainhand (helps slow some that try to escape)
• Use Shiv to apply anesthetic to any giant red bugs beating up your pally tank, but prioritize any big red bugs that are escaping her to beat on someone else. The tank can handle a few enraged beating on her for a bit, better than a dps or healer can.
• Avoid using Fan of Knives to apply the poisons; the poison proc is not guaranteed, and the fan will do a lot of damage to adds you want to keep alive for nearly 4 full submerge phases.
  
• Use CoS to drop stacks of bugbites when they get above 7 or so; you may only get two uses of it in the course of the fight so choose well when you decide to use it.
  
• Use Vanish midway through the 3rd submerge to dump the aggro you've been building, or all the bugs will eat you.
  
• ToT is unreliable here. Don't attempt to use it to put a loose add on the tank; a taunt is needed.
  

PALADIN:

A prot pally works best as the bug tank for this achievement due to their unique mix of plate (better NR gear available), tanking, and healing with righteous fury.

Gear list:

• Head: Wildguard Helm (Nature resist Enchant from Ebon Blade rep Vendor)
• Neck: Pendant of Withering
• Chest: Wildguard Breastplate
• Legs: Wildguard Leggings (Nature Armor Kit)
• Finger: The Natural Ward and Runed Ring of Binding (Onyxia)
  
• Nature Armor Kit - Enchant on Hands

From our Pally-tank:

"I used old gear with the most defense I could find to give me 525 Defense to be un-critable to those level 80 mobs. (Note 540 is for level 83 boss mobs) I re-gemmed and enchanted whatever old gear I used (Shield/Shoulder/Hands/Cloak) to add more +Def or in the case of the hands a nature resist kit. With all of that and a nature resist totem or Aura I was at 430 Resist. 20 Over what is required so you can skip the two nature kits, HOWEVER ... I kept them because a 30 yard Aura might go out of range from a hunter, OR a totem might fall off during a kite. The hunter's aura for us was NOT up 100% of the time when he was kiting, so this was helpful for us. 20 extra resist is better then none, as by the end your add tank is taking a tonne of damage in spikes. I used Consecration rank 2 to try to help keep adds on me without killing them. I also healed when both of my taunts were on cool down to get healing threat."

On a semi-related note, during the course of farming for resist gear we used on the bug-tank:

Another Quiz, this time On-topic

The Alt-Raid (Rant) Quiz

For the following quiz, assume the following scenario: you are looking to raid ICC10 on your alt. Multiple Choice; partial credit allowed for some questions. 20 points per question.

1. If you were to form your own alt raid, how would you do it?

• a) Post to your guild/realm forums a few days in advance, selecting players first from your guild and extended friends' list, then carefully screening puggers to fill in necessary roles/buffs *if* you don't feel comfortable "carrying" them.
• b) Impromptu raid formation, selecting players first from your guild and extended friends' list, then carefully screening puggers to fill in necessary roles/buffs *if* you don't feel comfortable "carrying" them.
• c) Impromptu raid formation, selecting players first from your guild and friends list, then posting in LFG/trade chat to pick up any pugger who happens to say they might fill that role.
  
• d) Impromptu raid formation, if your guildies notice it going over trade chat, then they might come, too.
• e) Trade chat, and advertise gearscore limits.
• f) e, but with spamming! Also, don't invite (or inspect and then kick) anyone that might take the loot you want.
  

2. If you were looking to just join an alt raid, how would you do it?

• a) Join in a pre-planned guild alt night.
• b) Gather some guildies with alts that might like to go, and see if any would like to lead one.
• c) Gather some guildies with alts that might like to go, and merge your raid with one being advertised in LFG-chat.
• d) Watch trade chat and the LFG chat to find someone advertising their raid group with slots open for the role you are interested in.
  
• e) Join the LFD tool, then give up after seeing no one else is using it and posting something along the lines of "[class] LFG [raidinstance], pst" in LFG and trade chat channels. Eventually, someone will post a "LFM" that you'll respond to and ask for an invite for, because they never saw your "LFG" post.
  
• f) Spam trade chat every 5-10 seconds with an annoying macro that is sure to win you a trip to the server's ignore lists.
  

3. You discover another player in the raid plays the same class Main as you do. Do you:

• a) Say nothing. If they know you're an alt, they might try to guilt-trip you into passing on loot.
• b) Grin and point out your shared class, and then move on. Perhaps now the others in the raid will better respect your opinions regarding strats for that role, if they know your main.
  
• c) Discuss Cataclysm changes for your shared class during trash pulls.
• d) Try to impress the other player with your main's gearscore.
• e) Try to impress the other player with your "knowledge" of the class, most of which is completely inaccurate.
• f) Both d and e, finishing by either going emo or saying the other player "fails."

4. You aren't familiar with the strategy for a boss, from your alt's role. Do you:

• a) Ask for details/suggestions on how to handle the fight in your alt's role before engaging the boss.
• b) Mentally review what you've seen others do during the fight in that role, asking for specific advice on a mechanic you remember but want clearer details on.
  
• c) Keep quiet and hope for the best; be extra watchful for mid-combat instructions.
• d) Shrug and dive in; you know you'll pick it up in a few wipes.
  
• e) Feign knowledge and tell everyone else what to do, as far as you remember, hoping your apparent "knowledge" won't lead them to question you when you fail to dps the right target (or similar role-fail).
• f) Feign knowledge and tell everyone else what to do incorrectly, arguing against any corrections the other players make.

5. This is an end-expansion content instance. Do you:

• a) Research your alt's class and spend time gearing the character and learning how to play it, including proper rotations, spell use, mechanics, stat caps, gems/enchants, and macros?
• b) Do your best to gem/enchant every piece of your gear, even if it isn't "BiS," and spend some time learning how to play it, though your badges may go to your main's saronite purchases and you know you're not as good as a main?
• c) Get dragged along by friends (or strangers desperate to fill a raid slot) even though you feel under-geared and inexperienced?
  
• d) Put on higher iLevel gear to hope to slip under the radar, even though it is not as good as the set-bonuses of your lower gear or just plain not as good as other equipment you have... such as resilience gear or subpar trinkets for your class.
  
• e) You're a "Casual" with a capital C. Your gear is haphazard, little to none of it is enchanted or gemmed, and you aren't even aware of certain spells that your class has and is expected to use in a raid environment... like cleanses.
  
• f) You're a "Casual" with a capital K... special. In addition to e, you're broke, and spend half the raid begging for gold for repairs and/or reagent purchases. You also jump on every equippable piece of gear that drops, moping to the raid about how much you want the item and how sad you are when it goes to someone else.

Extra Credit: 10pts
[ True / False ] You elicit this reaction from your fellow raiders:






/facepalm.

Kae's IceHUD

Updated: 2/2/2011

IceHUD is a head's-up-display addon. What this means is that it puts bars around your character in the middle of your screen, enabling you to see at a quick glance the status of things such as threat, health, mana, and even the duration of certain buffs you specify.

(mangle icon is from Debuff Filter)

I've tested a few HUDs, but none have really compared to the customization and long-term stability of IceHUD.

I use it for: (in order of priority)

• My Mana (DruidMana)/Rage/Energy
• Lacerate, Maelstrom, and Combo Point stacks
• Threat on target
• Slice 'n Dice and Savage Roar durations
• Range to target
• CC durations on my target or focus-target
• My GCD
• My target's health
• My health
• Fatigue or swim-breath timers
• My pet/vehicle health

It can do more, in terms of player (inc DK runes), pet, focus, and target (including cast bars and buffs), but those above are what I specifically use IceHUD for.

Defaults:
The default package can be seen in the screenshot below:



Customization:
What I enjoy most about IceHUD is that I'm able to customize each bar to fit these priorities, sizing and placing them in different locations depending on my own preference. It's taken a good year of tweaking (and IceHUD's own updates) for the mod to reach my current level of preference, and my recent UI loss forced me to redo it all from scratch... which reminded me that I'd never actually posted specifically about IceHUD before. So here I am :)


In addition to the options that ship with the default addon, you can add your own custom bars, counters (ie maelstrom weapon), and cooldowns for the mod to provide monitors for. That is how I added Savage Roar for my feral kitty.



My LUA Settings:
Unfortunately, the makers of IceHUD haven't provided a handy-dandy export/import string like with Power Auras, so I'll have to give you the straight LUA if you want to copy my settings.

This text goes in your WTF/Account/[AccountName]/SavedVariables/IceHUD.lua file, NOT in your addons folder!

I have copied the entirety of my IceHUD.lua from the savedvariables file here; for reference, the "Default" profile is my edited version, and the "Kae" profile is my backup of the raw default settings. I know, confusing, but it made it easier to propagate my favored settings across all of my characters :)

EDIT: updating for 02/02/2011

IceCoreDB = { ["profileKeys"] = { }, ["namespaces"] = { ["LibDualSpec-1.0"] = { }, }, ["account"] = { ["barHeight"] = 133, ["settingsMoved"] = true, ["barSpace"] = -8, ["modules"] = { ["TargetInfo"] = { ["enabled"] = false, ["fontSize"] = 15, ["mouseTarget"] = false, ["filter"] = "Always", ["scale"] = 0.9000000000000001, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["stackFontSize"] = 12, ["mouseBuff"] = false, }, ["TargetCast"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["PetHealth"] = { ["offset"] = 1, ["barVerticalOffset"] = -1, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 135, ["scale"] = 1, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, ["lockUpperTextAlpha"] = false, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -50, }, ["PlayerHealth"] = { ["offset"] = 2, ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["side"] = "RIGHT", ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, ["showLootMasterIcon"] = false, ["barFontSize"] = 11, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 4, ["statusIconOffset"] = { ["x"] = 22, }, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["PvPIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = -20, ["x"] = 32, }, ["showLeaderIcon"] = false, }, ["TargetMana"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["DruidMana"] = { ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, ["side"] = "LEFT", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 14, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textVisible"] = { ["upper"] = false, ["lower"] = true, }, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -29, }, ["CastBar"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["TargetOfTarget"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["LacerateCount"] = { ["vpos"] = 20, ["gradient"] = true, ["lacerateMode"] = "Graphical Bar", ["lacerateFontSize"] = 17, }, ["PetMana"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["Threat"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["TargetHealth"] = { ["offset"] = -1, ["raidIconXOffset"] = 5, ["side"] = "RIGHT", ["raidIconYOffset"] = -22, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 11, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 71, ["barFontSize"] = 10, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["scaleHealthColor"] = false, ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, }, ["ComboPoints"] = { ["enabled"] = false, ["gradient"] = true, ["comboMode"] = "Graphical Bar", ["hpos"] = 10, }, ["PlayerMana"] = { ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["lockUpperTextAlpha"] = false, ["widthModifier"] = -1, ["barFontSize"] = 20, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 154, ["tickerAlpha"] = 0.4, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 50, }, }, ["barProportion"] = 0.13, ["fontFamily"] = "Skurri", ["barWidth"] = 142, ["colors"] = { ["ScaledManaColor"] = { }, ["ScaledHealthColor"] = { }, }, ["verticalPos"] = -80, }, ["global"] = { ["lastRunVersion"] = 826, }, ["profiles"] = { ["Default"] = { ["barHeight"] = 174, ["modules"] = { ["TargetCast"] = { ["enabled"] = false, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 54, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["barVerticalOffset"] = -1, ["widthModifier"] = 1, ["offset"] = -2, }, ["PetHealth"] = { ["lockUpperTextAlpha"] = false, ["offset"] = 3, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 79, ["barTextureOverride"] = "GlowArc", ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["barVerticalOffset"] = -1, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["side"] = "RIGHT", ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, ["upper"] = false, }, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -108, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["scale"] = 1, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, }, ["PlayerHealth"] = { ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["lootMasterIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = -156, ["x"] = 54, }, ["offset"] = 0, ["barTextureOverride"] = "GlowArc", ["showLootMasterIcon"] = false, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 4, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["PvPIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = 16, ["x"] = 37, }, ["showLeaderIcon"] = false, ["side"] = "RIGHT", ["leaderIconOffset"] = { ["x"] = 0, }, ["textVisible"] = { ["upper"] = false, ["lower"] = false, }, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["PartyRoleIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = 2, ["x"] = 57, }, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["barFontSize"] = 10, ["statusIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = 18, ["x"] = 16, }, }, ["ComboPointsBar"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["ComboPoints"] = { ["comboMode"] = "Graphical Bar", ["vpos"] = 160, ["hpos"] = 210, ["gradient"] = true, }, ["Maelstroms"] = { ["countFontSize"] = 20, ["scale"] = 1, ["maxCount"] = 5, ["onlyMine"] = true, ["hpos"] = 0, ["countGap"] = 6, ["enabled"] = true, ["auraTarget"] = "player", ["countColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["b"] = 0, ["g"] = 0, ["r"] = 1, }, ["usesDogTagStrings"] = false, ["auraType"] = "buff", ["vpos"] = 200, ["countMode"] = "Graphical Bar", ["countMinColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["b"] = 0, ["g"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, }, ["auraName"] = "Maelstrom Weapon", ["graphicalLayout"] = "Horizontal", ["gradient"] = true, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = true, ["customBarType"] = "Counter", }, ["SliceAndDice"] = { ["offset"] = 1, ["side"] = "LEFT", ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 11, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["enabled"] = true, ["textVerticalOffset"] = -8, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["barTextureOverride"] = "GlowArc", ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, }, ["DruidMana"] = { ["offset"] = 14, ["lowerText"] = "[FractionalDruidMP:Color('3071bf')]", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 14, ["barTextureOverride"] = "GlowArc", ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, ["side"] = "LEFT", ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -29, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["enabled"] = false, ["textVisible"] = { ["upper"] = false, }, }, ["TargetCC"] = { ["enabled"] = true, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["forceJustifyText"] = "RIGHT", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 0, ["barTextureOverride"] = "RivetBar", ["offset"] = 15, ["barVerticalOffset"] = 138, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -8, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["scale"] = 1.15, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["TargetInfo"] = { ["fontSize"] = 11, ["scale"] = 0.9000000000000001, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["enabled"] = false, ["mouseTarget"] = false, ["mouseBuff"] = false, ["vpos"] = -30, ["filter"] = "Always", ["stackFontSize"] = 12, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = false, ["ownBuffSize"] = 26, }, ["Lacerates"] = { ["countFontSize"] = 17, ["scale"] = 1, ["maxCount"] = 3, ["onlyMine"] = true, ["hpos"] = 210, ["countGap"] = 0, ["enabled"] = true, ["auraTarget"] = "target", ["countColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["b"] = 0, ["g"] = 0, ["r"] = 1, }, ["usesDogTagStrings"] = false, ["auraType"] = "debuff", ["vpos"] = 160, ["countMode"] = "Graphical Bar", ["countMinColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["b"] = 0, ["g"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, }, ["auraName"] = "Lacerate", ["graphicalLayout"] = "Horizontal", ["gradient"] = true, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = true, ["customBarType"] = "Counter", }, ["RangeCheck"] = { ["vpos"] = -30, ["hpos"] = 100, ["scale"] = 0.8, ["rangeString"] = "[HostileColor Range] yds", ["enabled"] = true, }, ["CastBar"] = { ["offset"] = 2, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 150, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 34, ["enabled"] = false, }, ["TargetOfTarget"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["TargetHealth"] = { ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["raidIconXOffset"] = 112, ["raidIconYOffset"] = -10, ["showClassificationIcon"] = true, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["classIconScale"] = 0.6000000000000001, ["classIconOffset"] = { ["y"] = -153, ["x"] = 108, }, ["upperText"] = "[PercentHP:Round]%", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 0, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["PvPIconOffset"] = { ["x"] = 117, }, ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, ["barTextureOverride"] = "GlowArc", ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -8, ["npcHostilityColor"] = true, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["classColor"] = true, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = false, }, ["barFontSize"] = 10, ["scaleHealthColor"] = false, }, ["TargetMana"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["PlayerCC"] = { ["offset"] = 14, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["barVerticalOffset"] = 132, ["barTextureOverride"] = "RivetBar", ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["enabled"] = true, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, }, ["Runes"] = { ["scale"] = 1.4, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = true, ["vpos"] = -10, }, ["Threat"] = { ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["onlyShowInGroups"] = false, ["offset"] = 3, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["lowThresholdFlash"] = false, ["textVerticalOffset"] = 87, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["barTextureOverride"] = "Bar", ["textHorizontalOffset"] = -49, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["showScaledThreat"] = true, ["enabled"] = true, ["widthModifier"] = 38, }, ["PetMana"] = { ["enabled"] = false, }, ["EclipseBar"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, }, ["FocusCC"] = { ["offset"] = 15, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["forceJustifyText"] = "LEFT", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 12, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["enabled"] = true, ["barVerticalOffset"] = 138, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 6, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, ["scale"] = 1.15, ["barTextureOverride"] = "RivetBar", }, ["GlobalCoolDown"] = { ["desiredLerpTime"] = 1.316, ["enabled"] = true, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["barTextureOverride"] = "Bar", ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["widthModifier"] = 38, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, }, ["HungerForBlood"] = { ["offset"] = 3, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["side"] = "LEFT", ["textVisible"] = { ["upper"] = false, }, }, ["Savage Roar"] = { ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["lockUpperTextAlpha"] = true, ["lockLowerTextAlpha"] = false, ["lockLowerFontAlpha"] = false, ["auraIconYOffset"] = 0, ["hideAnimationSettings"] = true, ["desiredLerpTime"] = 0, ["offset"] = 1, ["usesDogTagStrings"] = false, ["scaleManaColor"] = true, ["barColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["b"] = 0.203921568627451, ["g"] = 0.5725490196078431, ["r"] = 1, }, ["auraIconXOffset"] = 40, ["maxDuration"] = 0, ["myUnit"] = "player", ["reverse"] = false, ["lowerTextColor"] = { ["b"] = 1, ["g"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, }, ["customBarType"] = "Bar", ["upperText"] = "", ["upperTextColor"] = { ["b"] = 1, ["g"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, }, ["lowerText"] = "", ["trackOnlyMine"] = true, ["forceJustifyText"] = "NONE", ["scaleHealthColor"] = true, ["displayAuraIcon"] = false, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["lowThresholdFlash"] = true, ["lowerTextVisible"] = false, ["buffOrDebuff"] = "buff", ["textVerticalOffset"] = -8, ["buffTimerDisplay"] = "seconds", ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["widthModifier"] = 0, ["enabled"] = true, ["barVerticalOffset"] = 0, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 11, ["side"] = "LEFT", ["lowThreshold"] = 0, ["shouldUseOverride"] = false, ["textVisible"] = { ["lower"] = true, ["upper"] = true, }, ["buffToTrack"] = "Savage Roar", ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["auraIconScale"] = 1, ["barVisible"] = { ["bg"] = true, ["bar"] = true, }, ["inverse"] = "NORMAL", ["lowThresholdColor"] = false, ["scale"] = 1, ["barFontSize"] = 12, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = false, ["displayWhenEmpty"] = false, }, ["PlayerMana"] = { ["shouldAnimate"] = false, ["lockUpperTextAlpha"] = false, ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["upperText"] = "[PercentMP:Round]%", ["forceJustifyText"] = "LEFT", ["textVerticalOffset"] = 189, ["textHorizontalOffset"] = 47, ["barTextureOverride"] = "Bar", ["myTagVersion"] = 3, ["lockTextAlpha"] = false, ["widthModifier"] = 44, ["textVisible"] = { ["upper"] = false, }, ["updatedInverseExpand"] = true, ["tickerAlpha"] = 0.4, ["barFontSize"] = 14, ["shouldUseOverride"] = true, }, ["PlayerInvuln"] = { ["updatedReverseInverse"] = true, ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["Sunders"] = { ["countFontSize"] = 20, ["scale"] = 1, ["maxCount"] = 3, ["onlyMine"] = true, ["hpos"] = 0, ["countGap"] = 0, ["enabled"] = true, ["auraTarget"] = "target", ["countColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, ["g"] = 0, ["b"] = 0, }, ["usesDogTagStrings"] = false, ["auraType"] = "debuff", ["vpos"] = 0, ["alwaysFullAlpha"] = true, ["countMinColor"] = { ["a"] = 1, ["r"] = 1, ["g"] = 1, ["b"] = 0, }, ["auraName"] = "Sunder Armor", ["graphicalLayout"] = "Horizontal", ["gradient"] = false, ["countMode"] = "Numeric", ["customBarType"] = "Counter", }, }, ["fontFamily"] = "Friz Quadrata TT", ["detachedTooltip"] = { }, ["barSpace"] = -10, ["showText"] = false, ["verticalPos"] = -80, ["minimap"] = { ["hide"] = true, }, ["showIcon"] = true, ["updatedOocNotFull"] = true, ["colors"] = { ["ThreatDanger"] = { ["b"] = 0.5607843137254902, }, ["ScaledManaColor"] = { ["r"] = 1, }, ["undef"] = { ["b"] = 0.6980392156862745, ["g"] = 0.6980392156862745, ["r"] = 0.6980392156862745, }, ["ThreatHigh"] = { ["b"] = 0.7686274509803921, }, ["TargetHealthHostile"] = { ["g"] = 0, ["b"] = 0.09803921568627451, }, ["ScaledHealthColor"] = { ["g"] = 0, ["r"] = 1, }, ["ThreatPullAggro"] = { ["b"] = 0.6549019607843137, }, }, }, ["Kae"] = { ["modules"] = { ["TargetInfo"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["TargetCast"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["PetHealth"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["PlayerHealth"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["DruidMana"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["CastBar"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["TargetMana"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["TargetHealth"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["PetMana"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, ["PlayerMana"] = { ["myTagVersion"] = 3, }, }, ["detachedTooltip"] = { }, }, }, }

So, yeah, copy-paste that over your WTF/Account/Name/SavedVariables/IceHUD.lua and you'll have my settings :)

To edit things further to your own liking, type /icehud in-game to bring up the menu, and you can click on the configuration mode to preview while you make changes:


Just remember that if you don't want all of your bars to be the same shape, you'll want to edit the bars' styles manually within each of the Module Settings, rather than in the master IceHUD Bar Settings. :)

Enjoy!