Tyrk: Happy Memorial Day

Avenyx: Trolls

I hear the Cenarion Circle might let Trolls in. I guess that's all right for the Druids. You know, if there are Trolls who embrace that path. Personally, though, I've never met any Troll that didn't try to kill me. I'm not sure what kind of welcome they expect.

Oomshakalaka: Reflections on the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj

We cannot escape the War of the Shifting Sands. Rajaxx may have been defeated and C'thun cast down, yet we continually return to Silithus.

Fendral Staghelm first proved himself in that war. Whether or not you agree with his policies in Darnassus or his leadership of the Cenarion Circle, he did not come to his position by happenstance. He is an intelligent, capable, very powerful leader. And Teldrassil was his idea. Again, whether or not you agree with the decision to plant Teldrassil, it provided a badly needed rallying point for the Night Elf Nation. Our Empire, from Auberdine to Azshara, Hyjal to Feralas, had just been destroyed by raw elemental upheaval. We had, literally, sacrificed everything, our homes, our families, our immortal lives, to save the world. Yet we had no place in it. And Staghelm gave us that place.

Of course, we wanted Teldrassil to be all he promised it would be. Our new Home. Our new Nordrassil. Our new Immortality. Even while we knew it could not be, not without the Dragonflights' blessings, we still dared hope it might be. Or at least hoped that in working towards that goal, perhaps we could accomplish something good. And we have! Despite its flaws, Teldrassil is beautiful. Darnassus is a magnificent capital. Even if it has not been all Staghelm promised, it has become our home. That is no small thing.

I have to admit I find myself in the rapidly growing camp of those who do not always agree with Staghelm. But I understand, at least intuitively, the complex reasons he argued for Teldrassil. I empathize with his own personal hope to recover what he personally lost in the War of the Shifting Sands, what we lost to wars in general. I think at some level all Night Elves do. That's why we return to Silithus so often. Even if all that remains of the Silithid threat is a few weakened hives, some scattered cultist camps, we still continue to fight them. You see, the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj are not confined to a small corner of a distant desert.

Avenyx: In the Army Now

Have you seen how much a new set of plate armor sells for in the auction hall? You might be able to find a wolf set piece for 4 or 5 gold. A good bear piece, though, will get posted for at least 10 times that much. If you can find one there at all. I'm not paying that. I'm trying to save up for training a protection spec at the same time I'm going to want that new armor.

Fortunately, I have a couple of heirloom pieces. I picked up a helmet while fighting that lich over in Razorfen Downs. I'll be able to make my own leggings and gauntlets. To complete my set of plate armor, I've signed up for official soldier duty. Mostly I'm fighting the Orcs and their allies in Warsong Gulch. Sometimes I get sent to help out the Humans in Arathi Basin. Turns out the military outfits their warriors pretty well.

Coccinelle: Tree Form

I've got a horrible confession. When I'm in a battleground, like say Arathi Basin for example, and I ride into a fight, like I recently did at the Gold Mine, and see one of my allies throw a shiney bright ball of life and light into the fray, I make the conscious decision right then to remain in caster form. You see, that priest just made a target of herself and there's not a whole lot that will dissuade our opponents from trying to kill her. But one thing that might is a tree wildly waving around her arms full of healthy leafy greens.

So the horrible confession? After the cataclysm, I'm not going to miss tree form. Not one bit. I don't even like tree form. And I'm not just talking about being ugly. I mean it is ugly, but even worse than that is just how conspicuous the form is.

I rarely even use tree form. I stealth into Arenas, and leave stealth when I cast cyclone. I want to cast roots and moonfire and switch to cat forms to create distance. The only time I use tree form is when the opposing team starts to focus fire me and I need the extra armor. You know how they're saying the "new" tree form will be a cool down based ability to generate significant burst healing? That sounds really good for those situations.

Sometimes I feel guilty about deflecting attention to my sister-in-law, Leafpool. I mean, like, I'm not actually trying to get her attacked, but I know I could draw attention off her pretty easily and instead I stay all sneaky and mix up heals with cc.

Oomshakalaka: Leukemia

Heading into ICC for a progression night, Sholandria broke the news to us. Condon's 13 year old daughter had died Sunday morning to Leukemia. What do you say? Of course there was an outpouring of love and concern for Con and Shol. There was a moment of silence. Tears. Unfortunately, we know that no matter what we say or do, it doesn't change things or fix things.

There was this whole welling of emotions. Personally, I was angry. I wanted to rip through ICC, find a boss named Leukemia and kill him right there on the spot. Then come back next week and kill him again. And again the week after that, and the next week and the next and the next and when the Cataclysm comes and we've levelled on up past where raiding ICC serves any purpose, keep coming back anyway, every week, just to kill Leukemia.

Yet somehow, "let's go kill things" seemed like a hollow response to the death of a loved one.

So perhaps, in some cosmic, karmic way it was appropriate that our current progression is at Valithria Dreamwalker. We have tried the fight several times, mostly for a change of pace after beating our heads against the wall on other bosses. So we've seen it. Healers have to heal up Valithria while a continuous stream of adds come into the fight. Some are Suppressors, whose job is merely to apply debuffs to Valithria that slow down the healers' work. Most are just various types of undead come to kill us, drive us out.

Now that the other bosses are down, though, it's time we actually figure out how to save Valithria. We got into it and learned more about the fight. I learned Typhoon won't knockback the Suppressors, but it does slow them. Enough to kill them before they can begin channelling their debuff. We learned that there is an "enrage timer" equivelant. Eventually, the pace at which adds enter the fight increases dramatically. Too many swarm in for us to kill quickly enough before we are overrun. We tried switching up which healer was the primary on Valritha, how many entered her portals at a time to get the healing buff. Even, before figuring out the the acceleration of adds was actually an enrage timer equivelant, we had me try healing until the acceleration hit. My heal-fu simply is not strong enough.

Most importantly, I think we figured out that the if we let the tanks pull close to the center where it was easier to AoE all the adds together, and used ranged AoE to take down the Supressors, then the dps and tanking was not too difficult. So we tried bringing in a fourth healer. And it worked. While the rest of us kept the Undead occupied, those four healers were the night's heroes and we saved Valithria.

How I wish, I wish, I wish we could have done something like that for Condon.

Tyrk: A photo with lyrics