Recently, I have stopped playing Maerdred due to a few reasons. I’m getting a second job, and the hunt that goes along with it, so far, has cut into raiding times. Initially I planned to cut down on raiding, take a few days to job hunt, and then once I found something, work those few days and raid the others… But then there was more.

Raiding itself, Dailies, Farming herbs and fish for consumables for raiding… it has all begun feeling like a job in and of itself. I don’t want WoW to stop being fun. And while the raids are fun, the prep work is not. Not anymore. Or at least not right now. That’s another reason.

Maerrakech. My cousin and his roommates and a few other cousins and assorted friends asked me to come play with them. Since I spend most weekends over at the house playing whatever with them, playing Maerdred while they’re all playing their characters and alts on another server just seemed stupid, so I started a character with them, just on a lark, to have fun. He’s 47 now, and I’ve pumped 10$ into him for a paid name change…  Guess what. he’s fun!

See the ting about it is, with Maerrakech, there’s no stress. On Maerdred there’s tons of stress. I know I can log in and play Maerdred for a half hour and then call it a night, like I do with Maerrakech, but that half hour would be riddled with whispers. “Come heal SLabs.” “wanna heal Arc?” “Wanna tank heroic ramps?” “dude why aren’t you coming to Hyjal tonight? we need you Maer please???” I honestly don’t want to have to deal with the stresses of that environment right now.

I want to be raiding with my friends. I miss them dearly. My druid brothers, and sister!(Hi Sun!) My Tanks… I honestly call them My Tanks, and feel it is my responsibility to single handedly keep them alive. They know who they are. My Healers, I spend so much time along side you and you’re like family to me.

Maerrakech is a whole different story. I can log on, do a quest, or just sit at the AH, spend some time in /g chat talking to actual family, and then log off without having to feel guilty. I can stay 2 minutes or 2 hours. I can log in, sit in Thunder Bluff for 4 hours and not feel guilty about it, other than wasting my own /played.

I can spend a weekend online with these guys and get 7 levels in 2 days, go upstairs and whale on some Rockband. It’s all so low key and low pressure. I feel like I am playing a game again. It’s great!

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Name the band without using google and you win a prize.

So, I changed Hordie’s name. Since I was so keen on Marrakech, and Marrakech and Marrakesh were both taken on my realm by darn dirty humans, I decided to stick with the Maer theme. Maerrakech is now a level 47 Tauren Druid and is having a blast trying to balance specs and gear.

See, the problem I had was Maerdred just felt like… Maerdred. He is an entity all his own. I felt odd having the same name for both Druids So I knew I had to change the name. Maerrakech is different enough to be perfect. It even sounds like the name of a Tauren Druid. Doesn’t it? Don’t even ask why I wanted to name myself after a city in Morocco, because I have no idea. I just liked the sound of it.

My question, and the reason for the title of the post. Was the whole same name problem something others have gone through or was it all just in my head? I feel now that I can talk freely about Maerdred and Maerrakech and people will know what I mean, unless of course I just call them Maer…

oh bull!

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So, I’ve started playing my lowbie Druid more often. Partly because it’s easier to log on for 30 minutes at a time and accomplish something on that character than it is on my 70. Partly because my family plays on that server. But this has brought up a problem for me.

Both of my Druids have the same name. Maerdred doesn’t feel very tauren. So what I am thinling is spend the $10 and change it. I have had a few names in mind. Marrakech is at the top of the list, but there’s a character named that on my server. Poop. So next I think, what about Marakech or Marrakesh. But I don’t really want to do either of those. My other characters on that realm are a Paladin named Panzerr and a warlock named Panzarfaust. I could stick with that idea, But a druid would have to be something good. Panzerkin? Panzerbloom? Panzerkitty? Panzershift? Do they sound too contrived? I’m not sure.

Do I change my naming convention completely? Just take something more germaine to the whole Druiding thing? Bramabear? Heffercat? Those don’t seem like me. I could go with my general naming convention, Taking a name from a Phish Song or a Stephen King Character… But I’m not sure any of those works either.

What is your opinion?

I’m still not sure on the spec I want to use when I get to 70 on this character, if I ever do. He’s feral right now, but I’m thinking of swapping to balance if I can get some new gear. And he that’s what the AH is for right? When I hit Outland I was planning on going resto for our group but we may not need me to do so… we’ve recruited some pretty decent healers in the last few weeks who are moving up the ranks. So that’s all up in the air. Blah…. I just don’t know.

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Equip your weapons after fishing.

Don’t heal naked.

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So…. I started another druid. It’s a Tauren this time and on a server where my Cousins and their friends play. I’ve had him for a little over a month I think. Maybe a month and a half. I haven’t been really sure what I was going to do with him, but I like it. He’s level 36 now, and we had a great time in RFD last night. I forgot how fun that instance was. It’s not really fair though we had a 61 Shaman tanking and healing for us. LOL

I’m leveling feral, since I am doing quite a bit of solo questing. I forgot how fun Cat DPS was. If I could just do as much damage as my Rogue brothers I’d never switch. Once I get to, oh say…. 60ish.. I’m going healing. We’ll probably be running Outland 5-mans and whatnot at that time. I doubt we’ll ever raid. That’s just not the mentality of this group of guys. And i kind of like it. I’ve missed raids the past two nights with my 70 because I’ve been having so much fun with my cousins. It feels nice to do that sometimes. We have 4 T5 or better druids now, so if I miss a raid or two, I know I’m not letting everyone down like I was before. That’s a good feeling. I mean I liked being needed, but I like having freedom of choice.

Being a necessary part of a team is stressful. I have been, or at least I feel I have been, an integral part of this team for over a year and a half. We’ve leveled from 60-70 in that time and gone from a guild who could hardly down Attumen’s trash before it respawned to a group who killed Najentus and Supremus the first time we ever saw them, with only 24 raid members. It’s been an amazing ride and I’m not ready to get off it just yet, but it sure feels good to be able to take a break once in a while.

Wow… that post took a weird turn.

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Coming At ya with another healing guide! This time, we’ll be talking about Magtheridon, you know, the guy you can see through the floor of Blood Furnace? That’s Our Mag!

Mag’s the new Ony, and I think that can field the proper raid should be killing him weekly. Gems, Bags, T4 Loot… Sure, the T4 is useless to some, but those guilds don’t need this guide, so let’s ignore them. For a new guild starting out in 25-man raiding I’d say the new Mag can be done in Kara Gear. You don’t have to have killed Gruul or High King to get Mag down, and his fight is actually a little easier to learn.

You’ve by now read the guides on killing him, and if you’re like me, you may be a healer or raid leader thinking to yourself: How do we heal this fight?

If that’s describing you, then you’re in the right place. Mag has a couple of “phases” So we’ll talk about them.

When you start the fight you’ll need 4 to 5 tanks with dedicated healers. This depends on your tanks gear level. A t4 Druid or paladin can handle multiple targets easily. This is for the Channelers around the room. The tanks will pick up the channelers and need heals. Most groups take the channeler in front of the door first, and move Clockwise around the room. The room won’t aggro until someone attacks, so spread out before the pull. Make sure you have a good mix of healers. Druids and Priests can Hot multiple targets so stagger them to get the largest number of tanks covered. Shaman healers should stick to healing the infernal damage, as they may hit multiple targets. Keep your eye on those Warlocks. If a banish breaks they could take some hits before getting it up again. The healers should switch targets as the channelers go down and follow them around the circle. Remember, as Channelers die, the ones which are left will do more damage. Plan accordingly.

When Mag is about to pull, be sure to have 3-4 healers pulled off to the main tank, who should be in the middle of the room just in front of Mag. Keep your healers off to Mag’s sides. In front is a bad place to be. As you get Mag, you’ll probably still be killing Channelers or infernals. When they’re all down move all tank healers to the Mag tank, keeping the Priests and Shamen for raid healing. Make sure your raid healing is spread out and can cover everyone. Remember you’ll have people at the cubes.

Mag does lots of damage, so you’ll want all your Hots on the MT as well as those Pally and Priest nuke heals. For a group just starting out in Mag’s lair 8-9 healers is not unheard of. When your tanks get better gear those numbers can drop making room for more DPS.
Now, for the Blast nova. Hopefully with the nerf to the cubes this part of the fight is easier on you than it was for us. Take 5 Competent people, place them at the cubes, have them watching Mag’s cast bar, and possibly have one of them calling it out. This here is a sensitive part of the fight. If they do it right, you won’t have much healing to do other than the tank. The Clickers will take damage from clicking the cubes. Your healers are spread out, right? This is why. Heal the Clickers. They take 800 damage every second while channeling the beam.

Now, if your clickers don’t do their job well, you’ll have a TON of raid healing to do. Priests and Shammies get to work. That Blast Nova does 10k damage over 10 seconds. So let’s hope your clickers get it interrupted. Taking a tick of nova isn’t fatal, but in T4, most members of your raid will have less than 10k health. That’s bad news for you if your clickers aren’t up to the task.

So we’ve got the Tank covered with the Druids and Pallies. The Raid’s covered with the Priests and Shamen, we’re all set right? Not really. At 30% Mag will cave the roof in on you. ALL of you. It’ll do 6k+ damage to everyone in the raid. So, you want to make sure everyone is topped off before this happens. 30%. that’s a hard coded number. Remember it. Look for it. Heal the raid! Everyone should use a HS or pot right after this to help you healers out. Make sure the Main Tank gets nuke heals or he’ll go down in no time. Only then will you focus on the raid. Get everyone back up. Especially the clickers. they still have work to do.

After he caves in the roof, and for the rest of the fight, random areas will get AOE damage from cave-ins. Just like grull if you’ve fought him. Don’t stand in cave-in. Heal that damage the best you can.

That is pretty much Mag in a nutshell. I welcome any comments or questions. thanks for reading.

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So yesterday I finally bit the big one and joined a 2v2 team with a warrior in my guild. I have never done any type of serious PVP before, as you can tell by the post before this one. He has. But I’m thinking not much 2v2. So, we played our requisite 10 matches and got handily slaughtered in 8 of them. The two we won I’d love to say were bouts of synergistic wonder, but that would be a lie. The Druid Warlock team we beat was just plain… laughable. the other team we beat I can’t even remember what they were.. The teams which beat us: pretty much anything you can imagine… The Druid Warr teams I had issues with. Who do I CC? If I CC the Warrior and we focus on the healer, he heals himself full and the CC breaks and the Warrior’s all over me. If I CC the healer the Warrior pwns me, while ignoring my partner. I think I need to farm BG’s and go ahead and get that PVP trinket everyone mentions. The one that frees you from stuns or whatever. The one that every raid leader I’ve ever known has just expected every member of the raid to have… Some of us don’t PVP… Why would we have that?

In other news, I got into a WSG yesterday that had apparently been going on for 14 hours. The alliance flag was nowhere to be seen, and there were two horde members in there with over 500 hk’s.  I stayed for about 30 minutes farming HKs myself before it got to be too much to handle. Then I did Dailies.

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