Yes, still here, although I’m aware that there’s been quite a long gap between posts in the last few weeks, which was a product of a few circumstances and projects that have squeezed my time quite a bit.

Such as?

One of those things is that I’ve recently become an Officer and co-Raid Leader in my current guild, which is an honour but also a lot of work!

As anyone who’s been part of guild leadership will testify, the run up to patches of any kind and expansions in particular are some of the busiest times behind the scenes: you tend to have a lot of roster changes and main swaps needing discussion and attention, your guild’s policies need reviewing and maybe rewriting in preparation for the new content, and that’s on top of the general flood of new information that you’ll be expected to get to grips with. Plus, you know, raiding as well!

It’s not my first rodeo, as they say, but the last time I was involved in guild leadership was around a year ago so there’s a lot to relearn.
Fortunately, a new site launched a couple of weeks ago called MMOLeader, run by some of the big names in MMO leadership. I’ve been keeping an eye on it, although I’m mostly absorbing rather than contributing so far.

Anyway, the upshot is that you might spot a few more leadership-related posts turning up here from time to time. They’ll have their own category as always, so you can avoid them if you like.

So what else is new?

Well, now that Beta raiding seems to be hitting its stride I’m beginning to tap into the flow of information to put together strategy guides for the upcoming Tier 11 raids. I’ve got the menu sorted out but I’ve not got any of the strategies ready to post yet; they’ll start appearing over the next few weeks though, as and when I get time.

There probably won’t be many actual posts until Cataclysm itself, since I’ll be spending my time on strategies and guild stuff. I’ll be back with a vengeance in December though.

I also wanted to say that I’m not raiding on the Beta, and this is a conscious decision.
I’m quite happy to help beta test the solo content and some dungeons, but I want to march into the new raids for the first time with my guildmates lined up by my side, so I’m not doing any Beta raiding.

Will there be a Cataclysm Disc guide?

Yes. I’m working on that in the background as well. I don’t know if it’ll get posted much before Cataclysm gets released, but it will arrive at some point!

Possibly Related Posts:

• [Cataclysm Beta] I’m in the beta!
• The Value of Commenters
• State of the Cataclysm

Having raided a couple of times now and seen how 4.0.1 has played out, I went back to rehash my 4.0.1 guide. I’m still getting quite a lot of hits for it, so I figure it’s a useful exercise.

All I can say is Wow! I really missed just how little use there was for Heal in 4.0.1. That unfortunate misjudgement had ended up tainting my talent spec suggestions (Strength of Soul rather loses its shine when you never cast Heal) as well as cropping up a couple more times throughout the guide.
I’ve remedied that embarrassing little problem now, thankfully, and the guide should now correspond a lot better to the actual 4.0.1 experience.

With retrospect I realise that a slow-and-small-but-cheap spell would have been tricky to shoe-horn into the existing content, but I can’t help feeling an opportunity has been missed to practise using it in a raid situation where we’re not also trying to contend with new fight mechanics at the same time.
As it is, with almost infinite mana in ICC gear you can just do what you always did, spamming Flash Heal on tanks and bubbles on the raid.

Ah well, this just postpones the learning phase, I suppose.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Discipline 4.0.1 Guide
• Heroic Madness of Deathwing
• Heroic Spine of Deathwing

I happened to spot that yesterday was my 6-month Blogiversary! Go me! It feels a little bit silly to be making a special post to pat myself on the back, but when I started this blog I had no idea if I’d be still going in a month let alone half a year and yet here I am, going strong and looking forward to Cataclysm still as keen as ever. I think that’s worthy of note.

I’ve definitely noticed that I’ve matured quite a bit as a blogger; I’ve worked out some of the kinks in my writing, settled on a ‘personality’, and I feel a lot more confident hitting that “Publish” button now, although I still get a little buzz every time I post something new. I’ve also reached out to the community, joining Blog Azeroth and spreading comments across a wide range of blogs, which is also something that I wouldn’t have done 6 months ago. Blogging has been a nice boost for me personally over these last few months.

It’s also really nice to see so many people visiting from links posted on guild forums. That’s great evidence that I’m actually managing to directly help people, which is just awesome.

What’s helped a lot is the support and encouragement I’ve recieved from around the internet.
At the risk of forgetting other significant people, I’d like to mention Zelmaru for including me in multiple Parliamentary Papers and generally being a source of encouragement; Beruthiel for highlighting me in her Community Spotlight and giving me my biggest influx of readers and subscribers to date; the fine folks over at Blog Azeroth for at least quadrupling the size of my Google Reader list as well as for the wealth of guides and tips they’ve amassed there; the Twisted Nether Blogcast for mentioning me multiple times too and for including me in the Wiki; Karatheya for getting me started; and everyone who’s commented on my posts, subscribed to my feed or linked to the blog. Thanks all!

And to end on a gratuitous statistic: according to Feedburner I’m sitting at around 55 subscribers, which is frankly astonishing to me. I really didn’t expect that many people would be interested in what I had to say.
Thank you for taking an interest, and I hope you stick around.

Possibly Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

So in the end I’ve moved to a new host (the recent niggles were the final straw, and I was up for renewal soon in any case). I had a few false starts, but I think I’ve got the wrinkles ironed out now. Cpanel makes backing up and transferring pretty easy, which was a relief.

I don’t expect anything to be broken, but if by some chance you do spot anything especially unusual or non-functional, do let me know by leaving a comment here or by emailing me (malevica at typehforheals dot com).

Apologies if you’ve noticed anything odd this evening, but it should be pretty much smooth sailing for a while now.

Possibly Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

I’ve been having some pretty annoying site niggles lately so I’ll be doing a lot of poking around tonight, which may or may not end up with the site being offline for a few hours. Please bear with me, and I’ll apologise now for any weirdness!

Possibly Related Posts:

• No Related Posts