Return of the flailtank

So I'm finally patched and able to play WoW again!!! Chad mentioned a download app to Nov, and he told me about, so I downloaded the patch on my droid yesterday during work. (Thank you unlimited data plan requirement!) ...And then the fabulous @etherjammer sent me the 3.3.0 --> 3.3.0a patch. (My connection and the Blizzard Downloader won't even acknowledge one another at this point... I guess it was a nasty break-up?)

Got most of my addons redownloaded or working well enough to play, then hopped in and face-smashed a bunch of heroics on Cerys with @whatisboom, @raidwarning, and various other guildmates. Am slightly over the "raid minimum" Defense cap (at 542 in current gear, although that'll fluctuate as I upgrade gear), so I healed RW's big baer butt for a bit, then healed Kor's DK, then had RW leafy heal my flailadin butt.

I am really loving this new "Random Dungeon" feature. I think I went from 10 EoT to almost 60 last night, so I'm trying to decide how to use them. Buying multiple sets of gear is rough on the badges. Do I go for (2) set T9 tank gear, or (2) set T9 healing gear? One of each for now? (The healing (2) set bonus is really fucking underwhelming... maybe a holydin with a clue can tell me why my judgments need to last longer?)

I have finally tanked Old Kingdom on my paladin. What. The. Shit. Thank goodness Pippi is a good tree. We wiped once--on the stairs that end up leading to the insane zealot chick with all of the moronic followers. I was trying to LoS a pack and pull it back to the staircase and then BAM, dps all over every pack on that half of the room... a few dead dps and a dead tree later and we wiped it and ran back (where the spriest that caused the commotion the first time promptly dropped group). We got them replaced with some less whiny randoms and proceeded to actually finish the dungeon.

Last two nights have been going to town on Dia with the Random Dungeons. I'm a good heroic (read: 6 badges) short of another ring upgrade. (Goodbye Naxx rings!) I've seen the first two of the new 5-mans. Um, Scourgelord's lolshiteverywhere really hates my connection. I hope dungeon 3 isn't as bad as that was. Completely embarassing, being just fine all run (at least no disconnects) only to get to the tunnel and FREEZE. Then to finally get to the boss and... "you have disconnected" x 100. We did manage to finish it, after a dps/heal change and new randoms. Thanks for sticking with me Pippi (and random lfg death knight that was very understanding about the shitty connection and willing to stick it out).

I tried the random dungeon finder on my baby moonkin. Well, she's resto now so I can get groups. The only "random" dungeon they will queue you for at that level is Mara. Yeah... faaaaaaaail. I guess I need to uh... not random dungeon and queue for ZF until it's green. Hell, I still need to do Scarlet Monastery on her. (Maybe if I move her to Sen'Jin she'll get better randoms... hm.)

{Insert Baby Murloc Noise Here}

Renovations
So as I announced on Twitter Sunday night/Monday morning ... divinebubbles has a new header!!! =D Thanks for all of the feedback so far, I really appreciate it.

A few people have mentioned liking Cer's Blood Knight look--unfortunately it's no longer available. I used the General's/Warlord Lamellar set. (There are also at least 2 shields with the Blood Knight look/feel, as well as a few swords.) Her gear, however, is primed to be replaced and horribly mismatchy--not something I want to show off, by any means. So NPCish look it is!

Dia is in her gear--a mix of badge T8 and badge/VoA T9, although I don't have helm on in that. (lol space pirate helm) She's got the (2) set bonus for both T8 and T9, and it's actually pretty darn juicy for 5-mans, regardless of which spec I'm healing in.


Ch-ch-ch-changes
I've updated the sidebar as well. Those of you who have read it may have noticed two things.

First, the priest and paladin have had a name change and second, they've both found a new home in < Fury Untold > over on Sen'Jin. Let me just say now that I absolutely love it. We don't have the chattiest /g in the world (at least, not all of the time), but everyone has been friendly to me, and most of the PuGs we've pulled in to round out our various 5-man groups have been polite and at good at their class. (The jerk that was dual-boxing and didn't bother to tell us is a pretty obvious exception.)

Koriel (@whatisboom over on Twitter) has really been putting me through my tanking paces, mostly with his Tree keeping me alive. I've done ... ToC, AN (as heals), CoS, HoS, VH, and I think some other stuff. I flail when I tank. A lot. Kor's really helping me get over that--I really need to work on keybinds for the paladin. What I have just doesn't work. It's actually not working well for the priest anymore either.


Hiatus ... ish
As we all know, Patch 3.3 drops today ... and MAN is it a large patch! The sucker's rumoured to be just over 1 gb in size. This means my connection's probably going to explode on the mirror downloading attempts. Not sure when I'll be able to play again. It could be in a few weeks (assuming broadband doesn't magically enter the playing field). It could be early-January. At the very least, I'm going to Huntsville over New Year's and Nov will probably let me copy the patch to my external drive while I'm there.

I won't have a ton to talk about (WoW-related) while I'm unable to play the game. I've got some old posts saved up,  and maybe they'll finally see the light of day. Something about my itty bitty gnome warrior wrecking faces in WSG, and an alternate reality story-in-progress. I just have to figure out how to word parts of it and make some grammatical changes. I'm pretty excited to let people read it, and it's long enough I may split it into two parts. We'll see.

No actual baby murlocs because my boss is being an asshole today.

Retraction

Two.
That's the number of over-the-phone Comcast customer service representatives that ASSURED me "yes ma'am, we can provide internet at your location!!!"

And you know what?
They are both fucking liars.

I got a call at 8:55 this morning from the technician saying he was heading out to the house to install my SHINY HIGH-SPEED INTERNETS ...Not even 15 minutes later he was calling back, asking me if I knew that our house was one-way* for cable and informing me that he was very sorry, but internet CANNOT be installed at my location.

(*layman's: my house is basically the black fucking hole of the internets, capable of receiving information (enough for say, cable television) but not capable of transmitting it back.)


...I would like compensation for the half-day of work we missed to ensure someone was at home. More than that, though,  I just want some fucking decent internet. Preferably that doesn't cost a fortune in installation fees. *cries* It doesn't have to be amazing! Something that can download the monster WoW patches in a few hours (instead of a few weeks) and is largely stable (enough that I can run WoW (25 man raid on minimal graphical settings) + Vent and not worry about monstrous lag).

Rural people want fast internet too! :(

Memories

I guess jumping on the "WoW 5th year anniversary" bandwagon is a good a topic as any this week. (And you can all thank @NDMiko for asking me about my first character over twitter.)

I started playing WoW shortly before Burning Crusade launched--a laptop that had WoW-worthy specs was a partial 21st birthday present from my parents, and the game was a birthday present to myself. I'd watched my buddies Chris and David playing: Chris PvPing on his warlock, and David raiding on his hunter. I thought the gameplay was absolutely beautiful, and wanted to know what the big deal was. Why my customers (I worked at GameStop at the time) and friends were totally apeshit over this game.

My very first character was a Gnome Rogue over on Arthas, so that I could play with Chris. I'm not sure why--Gnomes were totally cute and appealing to me in a way humans, dwarves, and elves weren't (and still aren't)... and for some reason I decided to go for a melee class. I have no idea what I was thinking, honestly. I was a total nubcake flailing around the starting zones--WoW was my first non-text based game that had more than a maximum of 4 players. I played on and off, got my little gnome to 15ish, and promptly got distracted by Burning Crusade, Draenei, and priesting. I'll admit it: I wanted to play a Draenei because they were the "hot" Alliance race once BC launched. I actually didn't fall in love with priesting as a Drae, and I still didn't "get" why this game was such a Big Damn Deal. Sure, it was fun to log on for an hour or so a few times a week and kill monsters, but it all seemed very pointless and boring for someone new to the game.

I mentioned as much to some other friends that played Horde-side, and they told me to roll an alt with them on Thrall. Fainche (my hunter) was born, and I finally *got* why my friends and customers were so obsessed with this whole online experience. The people! Holy crap. I could hang out with my friends for what amounted to less than $1 per night. Laughing and cutting up, getting to meet other people with similar interests... it was awesome!  The social aspect was hammered in even firmer when I moved out to Missouri for school--I still had this online tether to a chunk of my friends back home, and more importantly, had these new friends from all over the world. I even got to meet several of them! Mike and Frost, the resto shaman and frost mage duo that I got my arena feet wet with. DS, the Raid Leader we loved to hate (no, really, we really disliked the way he ran things, but he was a great guy when he wasn't in charge). Adam, the best, most-respected GM I think I've ever had, and the guy that I measure all other GMs against.

I've been hooked ever since. Oh sure, the hunter is mostly retired (I'm terribly mediocre at the class and don't really enjoy it... sorry Rilgon and Brig!) and I tend to focus on healing (or tanking!) these days, but I play just as much as I did during those early days... maybe even more. I've seen some huge positives in the game, made some amazing friends and crazy enemies, and watched as the game took a turn in Wrath that I'm not entirely sure I like. (Aside from perhaps Ulduar, which I think is a totally badass raid zone.) WoW has had a lasting power for me that other MMOs I've tried just haven't had. Something about it that sticks with me and leaves a huge impression. Maybe it's the people or lore. Regardless, I still plan on being around when Cataclysm drops, and I'm terribly excited to see all of the havoc that Deathwing will cause. :)

Storytime: Untitled Short-fic

"Spyriiii."

"What?"

I groaned, staring at Spyri from across the room. "You can't just turn the members of the Burning Legion into bananas, Spyri. I don't care what crazy ideas you got from that other murloc-obsessed gnome."

She grinned, the smile on her face impish and somehow wholly terrifying. "Lokkers? I still haven't figured out where the slots are…" She trailed off, before straightening and giggling. "If I add just the right amount of Dreamfoil, Zori! BANANAS."

I shook my head in exasperation as she plopped the Dreamfoil in and another cauldron exploded. Bananas, indeed.



[Note: Spyridoula is my Gnome Tinkerpriest, and Zoriana is my Draenei Shaman.]

Very Important Announcement

TwilightCat would like you to bask in his glorious sparkling during the following Very Important Announcement.

Twilightcat courtesy @PixelExecution, because he's the best future-hubby in the world.

Patching is merely a setback!

This is definitely filler until I get my hands on the copy of the draft of a post a certain person is doing. (I already know I'm writing a rebuttal to that post--after all, this entire thing spawned from a late night discussion and has been talked about by said other person a few times since.)


Anyways.

This is what many of the WoW players (judging from the Twitter and Official Forums annoyance I've seen splashed around) have been looking at all night:

(That would be my screen after a cleared cache, flushed dns, and reboot... it's finally at 39%, we'll see if it continues to give me the "failed to apply patch" error in a hour or so, I'm sure...)

Patching... on a Monday night. Oy, Blizzard, I think some people might've gotten just a teensy bit annoyed with you!!! I've had Bluebark shipments on my desk all day, please let me in-game to beat up monsters so I won't think about it.

La la la... if I were Other Amberbubbles I would probably have witty /g and /raid screenshots here, but alas. We here at < Auditors of Reality > (my bank/alt guild and current holder of my priest and paladin, due to some repeat drama from January with a different person (me) in the starring scapegoat (NOT spacegoat) role*) would like to remind you to please get your audits in or Cthulhu will be devouring your soul at tomorrow's extended meeting.

[*TL;DR in January I stood up for a guildmate that was getting the shaft for guild 5-mans. It resulted in a /gkick and the unraveling of my IRL relationship with one of the then co-GMs of the guild. Fast forward: The co-GM is no longer playing, leadership has changed... and the guildmate I stood up for is one of the ringleaders in assuring I cannot get a guild group. Finally after several weeks and Twitter giving me the proverbial stupidsmack to the head I hit the end of my rope and left.]

Yay my patch is hung at 41%. Again. Brilliant. Retry. Now it's hanging at 0% (just like before). Okay, this "minor" non-Tuesday patch is made of fail.

I leave you with this message from the ogres of Dire Maul:

  You hear that Blizzard? PUT THE TANNIN BACK IN THE BASKET.

Edit: For everyone bitching and moaning about Blizzard deciding to make Oculus more accesible for PuGs: GET OVER IT!

This content has been out for a year. Making the least-played 5-man in Wrath "more accessible" to players is NOT a bad thing at this point--if anything, maybe I'll finally be able to find a fucking competent 5-man for it without having to beg m'pocket rogue to wait until I can get home from work. Quit saying people need to "lrn2dragon"! Some of us KNOW how "2dragon", but we're tired of telling an endless stream of whiny, bitchy players what to do, only for them to ignore us and cause wipe after wipe. (Also some people, myself included, get physically ill every single time they do a fight like the ones found in Oculus and EoE because we have no firm, stationary point to focus on, and tend to avoid the zone for that reason.)

(P.S. In IRL news, I got hit on by a carnie Saturday night. Apparently carnies appreciate women with curves. Go figure. I think he was about my dad's age though.)

General: Healing Meme

• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
      I play both of my max-level healers pretty equally. Cerys is a dual-spec Prot/Holy Paladin and Cerridwyn is a dual-spec Holy/Discipline Priest.


• What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
      Right now my connection is terrible, so 5-mans and the occasional bit of a 10-man raid. 


• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
      Paladin: BACON! Err… Beacon of Light makes healing 5-mans as a newer 80 so much easier, especially when the group is taking a fair bit of damage.

      Priest: As Disc, I’m a huge fan of the PW: Shield/Flash Heal combo. Lots of damage prevention and quick, big, mana efficient heals. As Holy, my absolute favorite spells are Lightwell and Guardian Spirit. People laugh about having Lightwell, but once I’ve trained someone to use it right they start asking me for it. It’s GREAT heals-per-mana and is effected by any buffs on the priest at the time, so when I can get it down right after Dying Curse and Lightweave have procced it is a metric ton of heals in delicious self-serve HoT form.


• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
      Paladin:  I’m really bad at remembering to pop the spells that help me. Damage reduction, Angel wings… yeah. I need to remember to use them more, I’m just forgetful.

      Priest: Holy Nova, regardless of spec. It’s okay in situations where you’re standing in the middle of the mobs (I know, I know… OMG WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! Trust me, being the bubble-covered Holy bomb in the center of the Big Angry Mobs is hilarious and fun until you go squish) and conveniently have some party members nearby taking a small amount of damage, but otherwise… BAH.

      I don’t use Greater Heal that often in either spec, and I’m very forgetful about my Circle of Healing as Holy. Other things I use rarely: Hymn of Hope and Pain Supression. I forget. It happens. 


• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
      Paladin: You get two tank heals for the price of one. Alternately, I can keep myself and the tank alive indefinitely during Heigan, as long as I’m smart with cooldowns. (No really, I did it a few nights ago. Me, a hunter, and our DK tank were the only 3 that survived the Heigan dances.)

      Priest: Holy—I can raid heal like nobody’s business, and I have just enough CDs to help other people keep the tank alive. I have a Lightwell that functions as a self-serve Greater Heal button for everyone in the group/raid.  Disc—I can bubble people to victory and get a tank from “omg dying” to “mostly alive” in 3 ticks of a Penance. I also have CDs (Power Infusion/Pain Suppression) to give the DPS (or myself) a boost, and to make those smacks to the tank hurt a little less.


• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
      Paladin: Healing is rough in 5-mans with a lot of AE damage. The lack of a “real” AE heal sucks at times, especially since the Glyph of Holy Light is a bit weak, imo. (10% at my gear level? Barely tops off even the worst-geared clothies.)

      Priest: Holy—having to pummel a tank with Greater Heal can be a nightmare on your mana pool, even with a replenish class available. You have to be really precise with your timing or stack a ton of haste (my gear is a bit more crit-heavy, although I have decent haste).

Discipline—The healing lead assigning two Disc priests to the same tank makes me sadface pretty hard. Otherwise, we’re a little bit weaker on pure raid heals.


• In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
      Paladin hasn’t done any 25s, but tanks or having me focus on 2-3 people that are going to be taking some big chunks of damage so I can Beacon one and toss heals on the other two.

      Holy Priest: Raid or group heals, with a call out for GS on specific tanks or a GS/PS rotation on a specific tank between myself and a Disc Priest.

      Disc Priest: Assign a tank and give me a small handful of people to bubble/top off, esp. if there are other Disc Priests in the raid. Doing a party-by-party assignment isn’t a bad idea for bubble duty. I can do raid heals, but it isn’t the most optimal thing ever.


• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
      Paladin: My *only* raiding experience on my paladin has been with two resto shamans, and it was okay. I think I’d work really well with a Tree or Holy Priest—Tree HoTs can help a tank while I’m waiting on my Holy Shock CD or casting a big Holy Light.

      As Holy: I love the synergy with a good Holy Paladin, Disc Priest, or Resto Druid. Druids are just good, versatile healers that seem to work well with basically every class. As a Holy Priest, I love that I can group with a tree and we can heal massive amounts of group damage. I love how I enhance Holy Paladin or Disc Priest tank healing with well-timed use of my Guardian Spirit CD (and greater heal if we get in a tight spot.)

      As Disc: I love the synergy with another Holy Priest (as long as they keep their paws off their PW: Shield button) or a Resto Druid. I haven’t really played with enough good, dependable Resto Shamans to tell anyone if I enjoy it or not. I think that Holies and Trees balance my bubbles really well, and both classes cover an area that I don’t shine as well in. I also love duo-healing with a Holy Paladin. Have the Pally beacon Tank A and heal Tank B, then have me go to town with bubbles, raid heals, and spot tank heals. It has worked really well for me in 10-mans in the past.


• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
      Paladin:  Anyone that’s a jerk. No, seriously, that’s my least favorite person to heal with.

      Holy Priest: Umm… see Paladin.

      Disc Priest: Other Disc Priests, esp. if they keep bubbling/PoMing my tank after I’ve asked them nicely to stop.

      **All: Anyone that strokes themselves to “healing done” meters or uses meters instead of a player’s specific strengths/weaknesses to decide who gets what healing assignment.**


• What is your worst habit as a healer?
      Reaching to top off that [mage, warlock, rogue] that did [insert something dumb here] or just had bad luck and missing the timing for the big heal my tank needs. Also standing in a bad spot and getting nommed by [whelps, lightning, cats, etc.]. (See: Portals on Sartharion, Whelps, Ledges, etc.)


• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
      “OMG HEAL ME” or “OMG DISPEL” is a big pet peeve. I have Grid, it shows me who needs heals, and I have a mental priority list. If you consistently say “omghealme!!!” you will probably drop to the bottom.

      Second: Not bringing food or water and expecting the healer to rez and heal you after you’ve done something stupid. I’ll rez you—it makes the run faster—but you better park your ass and eat/drink while I’m trying to recover mana. If you don’t have food/water, be polite and honest about it, and offer to buy some off someone. I’m not spending MY money on drinks to be your personal heal battery between pulls.


• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
      Paladin: Yes, although a raid with just paladin healers is kinda rough.

      Holy priest: Definitely. We’re extremely good at being a jack of all trades and a master of none. We’re great at filling in the gaps.

      Disc priest: Yes, but if there are multiple Disc Priests in the raid, they have to communicate with each other and the Holy Priests well to avoid stepping on bubble-toes.


• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
      Meters like WMO to evaluate my performance from week to week. Recount to get an idea of what spells I’m using a lot and effectively, and what spells I need to weave in better or quit using.


• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
      Paladin: Two-button heals, or so OP that we hit 80 and get a giant “faceroll here and keep everyone alive forever” button.

      Holy Priest: Not good at anything but Circle of Healing spam (not that we can, with the 6 sec. CD!!!) and Renew-tossing.

      Disc Priest: HAY THAT SPEC IS ONLY 4 PvP YOU NOOBTARD. (I still get this from people almost a year since the launch of Wrath and the rise of Disc as a viable PvE spec… seriously.)  Also that we’re raid-healing Holy clones with a more powerful bubble.


• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
      Holy priests: Crit is your friend!!! Yes, Haste is slightly more important so you can get the cast time on your Prayer of Healing and Greater Heal to come down, but the more you crit, the better chances you have for Surge of Light to proc.

      Disc priests: Time your heals well. It’s not always as important for us, with Penance being an instant that’s channeled, but there may be times when your tank needs heals NOW, can't be rebubbled, and Penance still has 4 sec. left on CD. Time your special abilities well, and if something like that does happen you'll be able to toss a greater heal with little worry.

    Paladins: ...I am a new healer of my class! But Beacon and Sacred Shield are your friends. Don't be afraid to use all of the wacky stuff in your arsenal, even if you're not healing with it. (Seriously, the undead group stun is amazing during The Black Knight in ToC/H-ToC.)


• If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
      Paladin: Lots of overhealing, high output, frequent use of Beacon, Sacred Shield, Holy Shock, and Flash of Light. Judgments of the Pure up almost 100% of the time during pulls.

      Holy Priest: Fair bit of overhealing with high output. Frequent use of Prayer of Mending, Renew, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing. Probably needs to use Circle of Healing more. Has a Lightwell and has trained a few of the monkeys to use it.

      Disc Priest: Med to high overhealing with a low visible output. Frequent visitors are PW: Shield, PoM, and Flash Heal. Renew makes several appearances on self and low-damage-tanking DPS. Needs to play with Penance more.


• Haste or Crit and why?
    Both are important, but I place an emphasis on crit over haste. Crit, to me, makes a better appearance in my spells. As a paladin it makes my more limited spell arsenal more powerful. As a Holy priest it makes Surge of Light proc more often (in theory, at least). As a Disc priest it makes my Prayer of Mending, Flash Heal, and Penance stupid powerful.   


• What healing class do you feel you understand least?
    Shamans... and I'm leveling one to counteract that.


• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
    Addons: Grid and Decursive. Macros: Nothing on the paladin (need to fix that), and I have all of my spells set to mouseover macros as a priest. Being able to hover over a name to heal is love.


• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
    I stack spellpower and int, then try to go for more balance with my haste and crit, with a slight emphasis on crit over haste. Spirit and Mp5 make an appearance if I otherwise love the stats on a particular set of gear.


This originally also had a "tag another healer" bit, so... I would love to see Lodur, Chris, and Erica fill this out, if they're so inclined. ♥

Cerys: Ding! and Healbitching

Before I get into the meat of this post, I just have to say one thing.... MY PALADIN HIT 80 WOOHOO.

Didn't catch the glowy, but I did catch the achievement across my screen. Also hello there, shot of my UI in action. Anyways, my first action as level 80? Healing *all* of VoA-10. I didn't disconnect a single time, which was AMAZING. (Especially considering I am playing on dial-up out here!) I also KEPT MY TANK ALIVE once we uh, established which healer was on which tank. No gear--Koralon dropped Prot Paladin gloves and they went to the prot-specced paladin in the group (QQ), Emalon dropped absolutely nothing, and Archavon dropped a Ret piece that went to our (gasp!) Retri Paladin. We did some heroics after, and I did a pretty good job of healing (except in Pinnacle when Skadi landed on our warlock's head and 1-shot him, lol).

My gear isn't amazing. (Linky) It's basically a mix of ToC and anything-I-can-get-my-hands-on-that-doesn't-have-spirit. (I also just bought the Deadly Gladiator Libram of Justice, so I have a decent Holy libram...)


Now for the rage that prompted this entire post...

Hollow Hallowed

Cerridwyn has earned the achievement [G.N.E.R.D. Rage]
Cerridwyn has earned the achievement [Hallowed Be Thy Name]
You have earned the title, "the Hallowed".

No screenshot because I was actually disconnected when I earned the achievements. Cerridwyn didn't actually log out of the game until I'd been on my bank alt (the lone DK) for a few minutes. So bizarre watching myself log out (since both characters are on the same account).

No, I am not close to getting the mount from doing all the the holiday bullshit. In fact, the ONLY reason I was pursuing this one was because it was the only achievement I had left for the title. I am very casual about the Warcraft holidays. I do the events/quests/things that are fun/interesting, and pretty much ignore everything else. (Otherwise I'd have gotten those two achievements last year.) As for the Holiday Meta? I still have something like 5 holidays that I'm not done with, and a few that I haven't even touched. (Flame Keeper meta I'm looking at you, since I haven't been able to play at ALL the past two summers during that event.)

Warcraft holidays are supposed to be fun. (Unlike their real-life counterparts that typically leave me in a curled-up, hair tugged out, quivering ball of stress.) I make it a point to keep them fun, which means doing the events/achievements as I want to do them, and ignoring the things that are unfun or frustrating. I will never be a Merrymaker, because having to get a gnome costume and then survive long enough to do... whatever the PvP requirement is... on a priest? LOLNO.

There is only one thing I could kick myself for, as far as the holidays go, and that is not getting the tickets the first year to get the Brewfest Ram before it became a "super rare" (meaning: everyone will see it before you, scrub) drop. (Fact: I have been in ONE group ever that had a super rare mount drop (the drake in Heroic Pinnacle)... and I lost that drop by one point to SOMEONE THAT COULD NOT EVEN FLY.)

Anyone have any amusing holiday stories they want to share? :)