Gaming Diva

The Nexus is one of the first instances Holiterra healed shortly after hitting level 70 and I enjoyed it immensely. Fast forward to level 80 and you can still find Holiterra healing Nexus on heroic level. Since I dinged 80 last Saturday I’ve ran it five times.

The last boss drops a incredibly sweet mace that has eluded me each time I’ve been in Nexxus. Well yesterday it dropped, The Mace of Unrequited Love is now Holi’s. The funny thing is I had no intentions of running the instance, but my buddy Natak (thanks buddy!) told me we he wanted to run it so I could get my mace. Holiterra was one happy Holy Priest when it dropped. It gets even better after that heroic our group went into Drak’Tharon keep and guess what dropped? The Talisman of Troll Divinity from boss The Prophet Tharon’ja. With +73 spirit it a great way for Holy Priests to get some nice mana regeneration going until they replace the trinket for an upgrade from Naxx. What happens when I use the trinket?

Use: For the next 20 sec, your direct heals increase healing received by their target by up to 58. This effect lasts 10 sec and stacks up to 5 times. (2 Min Cooldown)

That’s pretty sweet, eh? Holiterra doesn’t run instances for the drops she really loves healing. The occasional upgrades I received from runs is just a nice bonus.
Over the past few days Holiterra has slowed down on heroics. She’s doing about two each day. Early on she was running around five each time she logged onto WOW. For the most part the heroics flew by thanks to the groups she was running with both in-guild and PUG’s. While it’s true that Holi PUG’s at least once each time she’s on WOW. Holiterra usually organizes the PUG’s making sure she tosses a few buddies in the group while filling the remaining slots with new players since Holiterra gear checks everyone before inviting them to the group she has an idea on how they should be performing within the instance.

Although I’ve hopped on Indrakshi to complete quests in beautiful Nagrand, the majority of my World of Warcraft gaming time has been devoted to Holiterra, my holy priest. She’s become quite popular on my server and as soon as I log on I’m receiving whispers from the various people I’ve grouped with to heal instances.

Holiterra is now is running heroics exclusively; however, she hasn’t received too many epic drops but she is in heroic blues with a few epics tossed into the mix. For the most part tanks and druids have been the lucky recipients. However, Holiterra was able to turn in her badges for upgrades and you know what… there is always Naxxramus. Holiterra will be entering it for the first time tomorrow evening and according to Be.Imba I’m ready. I still need to get a few items enchanted, which I should be doing later today, and I most likely will be replacing my current robe for an epic.

Preparing for my first run of Naxxramus
In order to be effective you have to be knowledgeable about your class, right? But guess what, it’s not always enough. You still need appropriate gear to tackle some of the tougher content.

Are you looking for the best healing gear? The Dwarf Priest has a thorough list of holy priest gear, and Holiterra has quite a few things she has listed. I’ve been reading Matt’s blog for a few months and really enjoy the style of all the writers.

Where do I find a Naxxramus Guide?
If you search the internet for Naxxramus guides you’ll receive a decent list my favorites are listed below.

World of Matticus: Naxxramus Healing Guide
Matticus writes about the instance from a healing perspective however the information in his guide is helpful for all classes. Matticus even included diagroms of some of the boss fights so it’s extremely helpful knowing where I need to be during the fight.

Zug Gaming: Naxxramus 10-Man Instance
I stumbled upon this earlier this morning and have a chance to read the Abomination Wing and the Spider Wing. It’s very informative and I’ll be reading more of the information later this evening.

I’ll definitely be writing more later, at the moment I’m looking forward to tomorrow evenings run and preparing, like my other guildmates, for the various fights we’ll encounter. We’re all adequately geared for the bosses we’ll encounter. I imagine this the raid will be an excellent chance to receive some new upgrades.

Since this weekend when I’ve logged onto WOW I’ve mainly played Holierra, my holy priest. Indrakshi, My level 65 Orc hunter is taking a break as Holi ran numerous Heroics. She needed the practice since she was hiatus for about three weeks as I leveled Indrakshi from one to 65, and now she’s back healing for guildmates and seeking out others through the numerous PUG’s. Holiterra loves PUG’s; Of course, now most of her Pug’s really aren’t “PUG’s” since she knows most of the people she runs with. Holi has a large list of buddies, much longer than the 50 we are allowed to add to our buddy list so she can normally find someone to run an instance with.

Earlier this evening I logged onto WOW and ran three heroics; The heroic daily (Nexus), Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme, and Drak’Theron Keep. Lucky for me I love healing and Holiterra’ second home is inside of instances so I had a blast healing. I’ve received numerous upgrades over the past few days, and the epic gear is starting to appear on Holiterra.

Pets get heals too
I couldn’t help but smile when A guildmate thanked me on Vent for resurrecting his pet. We were in Draktharon Keep, and his cat put out a lot of damage but wasn’t able to hang in there. Pets are on my radar and get heals whenever possible however in this instance it wasn’t possible. All my attention was on the tank, after the fight was over I quickly res’d him so he could contribute to the next boss. The cat did a lot of damage.

Last evening I respecced I just moved on point around. You see, I’ve always wanted to try out Lightwell. Yes, I know some say not to get it because people won’t use it well I want to try it out for myself. In most of our runs people hop onto Vent, and strategies are explained before every fight. You know what people actually do a good job of listening so I’m thinking the same thing should happen when I explain how Lightwell works. Lightwell, I believe will be mainly used by DPS, the times when I’m unable to give them big heals because of the massive damage the tank is taking I theory they should be able to click on Lightwell and be healed for a little over 4k health.

I’ve really enjoyed playing my priest. She’s more social than any of my other toons. If I were on your WOW friends list and you looked to see where I was you would usually find her in an instance or at her mailbox to pick up mana potions, gear upgrades, consumable, and yes even WOW gold that one of her many bank toons would mail to her.

Let’s face it Holiterra loves healing. It’s a great chance to interact and see how well you play with others. I’ve met a lot of fabulous people along the way, one I “knew” as soon as I landed on Zul-Jin server and others I met during the many PUG’s I’ve been a part of. Although I’m in a guild that runs instances as well as Heroics daily you can still find Holiterra PUG’ing. I enjoy meeting new people, and let’s face it gives Holi the chance to meet some good tanks along with DPS. Knowing a lot of people in-game comes in handy when Holiterra wants to run a specific instance. There are times when those within her guild aren’t available and for Holi that isn’t a big deal she has met plenty of people from PUG’ing that now she is usually grouped with at least two people she knows.

Thanks to my Holy priest respec Holiterra now has additional heals available to her group members an now she is focusing on gearing up for heroics because she really wants to get in on those along with raiding. Raiding is brand-new to my toons, and I’m looking forward to it with great anticipation.

Around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday Holiterra reached the leveling cap. Yep she’s now 80. As I mentioned before the last 2.5 levels were mainly done in instances. Over the past few days I’ve run several, worked out the kinks learned some more things from good and bad runs and generally had a blast healing. Just like when I dinged 70 by handing in a quest I did the same thing this time around. I was a fingernail away from 80 when I left the instance Gun’Drak. (Gun’Drak is a new instance added in Wrath of the Lich King and is home to the Drakkari trolls.) I’ll be writing more about the various instances I’ve run, tanks who really aren’t tanked spec but try to tank anyway. Good tanks who really keep things running smoothly. Good dps and bad dps, and of course ranged dps (hunters and their pets.)

Realizing how important pets can be I try to keep them healed if possible(yes that includes locks and Dk pets too.) I know all healers don’t share this opinion. I’ve run instances with my Orc hunter Indrakshi when healers don’t even think about my pets and these aren’t messy instances. Naturally, as a hunter I try to keep my pet up mend pet when I can but at times it just isn’t possible.

Stepping back into the role as healer it made me realize how, at times, some do not really pay attention to their roles this can have negative effects on the group run. As much as I’ve learned about healing and ranged dps I still have a lot to learn and you know what I’m enjoying it immensely.

I’ve respecced from 41 points, 2 in shadow, and the rest in Disc. Holiterra now has 57 points stashed in the Holy tree and the rest are in Discipline. You can check my holy priest talent spec at the WOW armory. I haven’t healed with this spec, I just switched a few moments ago. The extra points I’ve added into the Holy tree will give me even more heals and I know have Guardian spirit. I’ll be writing more about this spec after I’ve had a chance to use it in upcoming instances. Heroics are right around the corner for Holiterra.

There are many creatures that can be found in Azeorth and one of my favorites has always been Uhk’loc. Who is Uhk’loc? Uhk’loc is a rare pet, and he only spawns once every eight hours being on a full server that has numerous hunters who can acquire them if the desire the competition can be fierce. Not only do you have to compete with other hunters wanting to tame him you also have to compete with the quester who is looking to hunt U’cha. I’m sure Uhkloc gets killed when he appears and comes to the rescue of U’cha.

I encountered him for the first time on my Night Elf hunter, Kalindi. A quest sent me into a cave to gather pelts from the Thunder Stumpers, and I had to find the elusive U’cha. On that occasion as I was getting Ucha I saw this flash of light coming towards me at quite fast and he didn’t look happy. Oh my, that’s a white gorilla. I was overwhelmed with awe (yes, I know it’s just a game but there are many things in games that do that too me) and didn’t have the heart to kill him, so I tore out of there barely escaping. I faced no resistance on my way out of the cave since I ha killed all the gorillas to reach that location.

Why didn’t I tame Uhk’loc on my Night Elf hunter?
I had my Mistvale gorilla and had become attached to those pixels so had no desire to switch Lakshmi for Uhk’loc however with Indrakshi I decided early on that I would try to tame Uhk’loc and so for about a week Indrakshi has made a detour to Ungoro Crater on four different occasions. (I never stayed longer than three minutes.) I had a guildie accompany on four of my trips but each time we came up empty handed. Our last trip to Ungoro Crater was yesterday and I told my guildmate that I was parking Indrakshi by his spawn area.

The taming of Uhk’loc aka the white gorilla
I had read through many of the comments about this gorilla on Thotbott and they were extremely helpful. When I awoke this morning (around 3:00 a.m.) I decided to log on and see whether Uhk’loc had appeared. I was filled with anticipation as I logged onto WOW, selected Indrakshi and waited for the game to begin. Would he Uhk’loc be there? As soon as I surfaced in the cave I saw a flash of white and knew I was close the only thing I needed to find out if I was first. A quick look around showed me I was the only one there. I had picked up a trash gorilla the night before. I instantly set “gorilla” (I didn’t name her) on Ucha, and focused on Uhk’loc.

Uhk’loc has a nasty knockback but since my hunter is level 63, I didn’t worry about it too much. I laid down a freezing trap, initially stepped back a few paces to prepare for the next trap. I dismissed “gorilla” and Uhk’loc came tearing after me. As soon as Uhk’loc leaped into the air to deliver the mighty thunder stomp, I had him. He fell right into my ice trap and was frozen. He had only a quarter health left (AOE damage by “gorilla” had hurt him) once he was unfrozen he was by my side munching on grapes.

Renaming Uhk’loc
What did I name him? Hanuman, in honor of my beautiful silver mitt ferret Hanuman who died a few weeks ago. My ferret received his name in honor of India’s popular Hindu god, Hanuman aka the monkey god.

There are many things I love about the hunter class; I’m really enjoying trapping this time around and use it often. Funny, since I’m not survival spec, heh! I enjoy kiting mobs, and the pets… Well you can select a pet to perform a variety of tasks. Indrakshi has a gorilla, scorpion, and a cat but her preferred companion when soloing is the gorilla.

I had the Mistvale gorilla long before gorillas became popular (or before they got the Thunderstomp buff. Initially Thunderstom was on a minute cooldown now it is 10 seconds) and Kalindi, my Night Elf hunter could be seen with her faithful companion Lakshmi by her side. One of the perks, for me, was the ability to round up a lot of mobs, and have my gorilla pummel them, and keep them focused on her thanks to thunderstomp, while I stayed a distance firing my arrows. That leads to the thing I dislike about my hunter. I run out of bag space quickly. I’m one bag short since I have to use a slot for ammo, naturally my pet the gorilla needs a special type of food so I make sure I carry enough along because I hate going to towns, villages, etc.

When we are out in the exploring, questing, and enjoying the scenes in Azeorth my bags fills rapidly even though I have a heck of a lot more bag space with Indrakshi than on my Night Elf hunter (18 slots soon to be upgraded to 20 slot bags) I find myself still running out of bag space. Indrakshi is an enchanter so she disenchants everything she does not need. This has proven to be extremely helpful but I still run out of space.

What’s my solution to this? Well it’s an expensive one, but for me definitely worth it. I’m getting the mammoth. Initially, I was planning on purchasing one for Holiterra but since I created the hunter I’m going to get one for her. I already have the money to purchase it but I’ll wait for a while so I an have more WOW gold. The only thing I don’t like about the Mammoth is that it clearly states that you have a lot of WOW gold, but I’ll live with that if it means I can sell mob trash that I don’t need. Now if only it came with a traveling post office I’d be set.

Holiterra has been on a much needed vacation the past few weeks and only recently has she started to stir from her weeks of leisure to get back into her healing role. She was spotted healing instances Nexxus and the Utgarde Keep and is getting back into the swing of healing this week.

Holiterra should hit 80 before the holidays are over, if I had been leveling as I had initially I would have been 80 a long time ago. It should be a blast healing heroics and its something I’m looking forward to both on my Holy priest, Holiterra and also my Beastmaster hunter.

Look out for detailed writes ups of the instances that Holiterra runs this weekend along with the new goodies she scores along the way.

Well Gaming Diva is fully functional now. Users who tried to view individual posts were greeted with a 404 error: File not found on this server. Something told me to check to see if I had .htaccess on the server and you guessed it. It wasn’t installed. Many thanks to Lunar Pages, my hosting providing, for assisting me with the questions I’ve had during this transfer. Thanks, LP you really are the best (and yes I tell them that often.) I moved to a dedicated hosting plan. I have lot more space than I did under a shared hosting plan. However the set up is different. Under the shared hosting plan it used CPanel, under the dedicated hosting plan Plesk is used (Plesk 8.6.0 to be exact) Some things are similar but many of the things are completely different. However I’m love learning so am having a blast, even though at times I have wanted to yank my hair out.
More on what’s up with my Holy Priest, Holiterra and my BeastMaster hunter, Indrakshi in a later post.

Indrakshi hit level 60 yesterday and just like with my Holliterra one of my favorite buddies/mentor in game was there to join me. WOWgrrl was online and crossed over with me into the Dark Portal with her troll toon BluehairMage. True I already had the port to Shatt. One of my mage guilmates ported me there soon after Indrakshi reached level 50. The reason I went early was simple, I wanted to get the additional training needed for skinning and Enchanting. I set my hearth there but rarely was in Shatt. I just parked Indrakshi at whatever area I was questing. Once I hit level 58 that is when I truly started to venture into the Outland.

Initially I was planning on stopping leveling her when she hit this level but now I’m thinking I’ll play her until she hits 70. When I hit that level I’ll alternate between Holiterra and Indrakshi questing and running instances. When Indrakshi finally makes it to Northrend I’ll drop skinning off Holiterra and most likely pick up Inscription. I’m mainly picking it up so I can provide my toons with the glyphs.

Running Instances as DPS
I finally got Indrakshi into a few instances this past week after one truly epic Huntard moment. What was it? I forgot to set my Kali the gorilla on passive and she decided to say hello to some brand new friends. However they did not want to be friends and proceeded to pound her hard. Luckily our group did not wipe but it was a nice lesson to always be attentive. That mistake did not happen again.

I’ve really gotten into my DPS role and am enjoying it immensely. I make sure I keep my eye on the clothies and my pet Kali’s main goal is to protect the healer if needed. I know how important that role is having healed many instances from level 16 onward so I do my best to protect them. If the healer draws aggro I fire Distracting Shot, Kali is set on the mob with, I lay a Frost Trap in the mobs path if I have room kite the mob I do firing, as I kite I make sure I keep the mob in the frozen area since this slows down there movement by 60%. Kali usually has regained aggro by this time and more importantly the healer does not have to worry about healing and beating off a mob.

There is still al lot to learn about playing DPS effectively in an instances and as with my healer I’m eager to learn and am always willing to listen to those who know more about this class than I. Stepping into a DPS has it perks I get to watch how others heal and take notes of their style whether it is good or bad.

Indrakshi makes money
As with all my toons it didn’t take long for Indrakshi to make money. By the time Indrakshi hits level 70 she will be able to purchase her epic flying mount immediately. Yep she has made over 5k thus far and no I grind I hate it. I mainly made money from professions, and buying things low in the AH house and reselling them for a higher amount. I’ve noticed on certain items that some people will drop prices on average 70% lower than everyone else since my toons have a lot of money I scoop these up and resell them at the average price, instant profit. She snatched up her epic ground mount soon after she hit level 60.

Can Holiterra my level 77 Holy Priest hit 80 without questing?
Holiterra is about to ding 78 and I’m wondering if I can hit 80 without questing. At this time I’m burned out with questing on her but I truly love healing so we’ll see. I’m planning to run a few instances on my Holy Priest, Holiterra with guildmates later today and I’m looking forward to a few weeks of healing on her.

In other news: Website issues
Many thanks to WOWgrrl for pointing out that my posts aren’t showing up on the Gaming Diva server it should be fixed very soon.