(( Thinking about Araatris, who’s a Demon Hunter in the Netherbane… ))

Demon touched
Tainted by the Legion
Our life is such
That we stand our ground

Unseen, Uncared,
Outcast, Ignored
A danger shared
We stand alone

Sacrifice the fright
Sacrifice the Sight
Sacrifice the light
Fel warrior of the night

Who are you to judge us
We stand for you
We ask only for trust
Instead hatred you pursue

Sacrifice the fright
Sacrifice the Sight
Sacrifice the light
Fel warrior of the night

Blinded by ignorance
You fail to see
Blinded by Fel
We choose to fight

Ashamed of our burdens
You outcast your own
Burdered with demons
We find strength

Who is truly lost?

We fight until the end.

Until the Legion’s end.

Until we end.

We are the Netherbane.

Sacrifice the fright
Sacrifice the Sight
Sacrifice the light
Fel warrior of the night

Inspired by @geekgirldiva for this post. I wanted to write my own thoughts.

I’m a casual gamer. Do you want to know why I’m a casual gamer? Because I would drive myself insane otherwise. I’m a perfectionist. I don’t like to fail. So, every time some kills me in a game, I fail to kill something, or, in the case of my priest, I fail to keep someone alive… it irks me. A LOT.

I’m no innocent on vent either. I grumble, I curse, but when it’s all over I’m ready to try again unless I’m exhausted and I try to be optimistic. As someone who has been playing computer games since they were too young to remember it on a Commodore 64, I think I may have a bit of pride just because I’ve been playing games that long.

After all, I’m a girl gamer. I want to be taken seriously and not like a bit of fluff. So, I don’t like to be told I’m doing something wrong. I like to learn things myself and figure out my own style. It was part of the reason I’d avoided healing mods and blogs for the longest time. However, I realized that I don’t need to do all of that. I can be proud of how I play no matter what. It’s gotten me this far. It doesn’t matter how I do it.

I have a Nostromo page for my left hand. I have it set up differently that anyone else I know. I use all the buttons on my keypad for abilities. I scroll to select different sets of abilities (the different color sets for the device). By now, I bet you’re wondering how I move. I use the thumb-stick… (waits for explosion).

I use my mouse to turn, but I use my scroll wheel forward to auto-run, scroll back to jump. And I still mouse click some things. I also use Heal-Bot so I have a lot of spell bound onto all of my mouse buttons… and I don’t have Alt, Ctrl, or Shift bound even though I have keys bound to them.

Speaking of which… does anyone regularly re-evaluate how they’re playing to see if they need to redo things? I tend to have a spring cleaning where I evaluate how my current setup has been working and what I’d like to do to make it quicker and better.

I’m half-way tempted to just grab clique and get rid of Heal-Bot, but I’m not sure yet.

Just playing with ideas. I’ve gotten side-tracked, but really what I want to say is that we can all be proud of our gaming accomplishments no matter how we play. That goes for @geekgirldiva and many others out there.

Rock on and play hard!

I’m not a hard core raider, and I know that doesn’t surprise anyone who reads my blogs. However, I do run Heroic 5 mans and raid. That means that I understand what it takes to make it through fights. However, a number cruncher I’m not.

1) Skill
Skill is something you only get from experience. Sometimes it’s just a certain fight or with your class and abilities. I dual spec and I know that there are times that I’m not using my abilities to their utmost. I would love to say that I react perfectly every time, but I’m only human. You know that Desperate Prayer button. It sits under my left ring finger for fight after fight and guess what? When I actually need it, I still forget to press it. I’m constantly working to improve myself and my skill to use more and more of my abilities to their fullest.

2) Spec
I’m dual spec. One’s Holy and the other is Disc. Again, I’m pretty sure they’re not perfect and when I get a moment, I’ll research and update them. It happens, especially when they update talents and suddenly one talent is more useful than another. Again, this is something as a player I work on.

I know there are several people who have asked me why I dual spec’ed healing if I’m not always raiding. First, if I want to DPS… I’ll hop on my mage. It’s much more satisfying for me. *grins* Second, I find that certain fights can require a different style of healing. I’m particularly attached to Disc, but I find Holy can be very useful when I lot of people are taking damage.

3) Gear
No matter my skill. No matter if I have the latest uber spec. There are times when my gear is just not up to snuff for the job. And I have thrown myself at that wall desperately to try and get my group through a fight… and sometimes I scrape by through luck. Luck, is just that, luck. You want to be able to make it through a fight consistently through hard work, not just luck.

I recognize that. I have accepted that. Last week, I struggled with some of the Heroic ICC 5 mans. I failed at 10 man TOC. So, I looked at my slightly better than Naxx gear and said, “You aren’t doing it for me anymore.” I took a serious step back and realized that if I really wanted to main heal for my tank, then I needed to up my gear to be able to handle what was dished out to him.

I still have more upgrades to go, but after a week of gearing up through our local PUG finder and hitting certain heroics for upgrades, I’m starting to not dread the Heroic ICC 5 mans. I’ve worked hard to get my reputations up and I can now get great helm and shoulder enchants. I’m starting to look forward to seeing what I can do in 10 man TOC.

I’m not confident. After all, you succeed or fail as a team. I know now that I’m doing my best for my group. I can make flasks for them. I can drop down a fish feast. I can give out enchants through my alt for those who need them. I’m doing my best to give my group the best chance we have… and if we do well, maybe we can start looking at doing the 10 man ICC. So, here’s to hoping.

Good luck to all you casual raiders out there that have similar goals!