But here is my very quick first-wing wishlist for Icecrown Citadel:

* Saurfang throws Mark of the Fallen Champion on the warriors.

I would have settled for "on the melee", actually, until Valinar got marked one fight and immediately exclaimed "WHOO! Free rage!" Turns out if he gets marked, he gets so much rage he can afford to stance-swap. We have two to three DPS warriors and one warrior tank in our 25-man, and they're all damn good at using those rage bars; giving them all hawt free full rage bars is never bad.

And let me tell you: Chain Heal + melee = THING OF BEAUTY. Not that this is news; Chain Heal + melee is actually why I tried out resto in the first place (I had a group that was two feral druids, a rogue, and a warrior, and we wanted to go pwn a heroic), and ever since I have had a great enduring love for it. Give me three marked melee and I'm your shammy; keeping three full-throttle DPS warriors alive through that isn't a huge problem (especially not when you have talented HoTtie druids and paladins running around throwing bacon -- and, uh, Hand of Salv -- on people).

Our raid has totally gotten the hang of this fight, even if some particular versions of it are harder than others. We know not to stand in the Blood Beasts. Our tanks are pro. We spread out enough. So I am not, exactly, complaining about the fight mechanics. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wishing for easymode heals mixed with holycrap hardcore deeps from the warriors on that fight.

1. "I like this ship! It's exciting!" It was actually a pretty fun fight.
2. Earth shield eventually went on a rogue who was stabbing one of the healers in the face, purely for the healing boost. Spell interruption was either total or nonexistent, so I really didn't need the extra interruption resistance.
3. Water shield on me for the mana boost; weirdly, I used more potions in that fight than possibly in all of Naxx put together.
4. Completely PVP totem set -- Earthbind, Cleansing, Grounding, which were easy enough to throw on the run, grouped or individually (*cliiiiings to TotemTimers*). Maybe a Searing next time. Mana Tide came in VERY handy. I wonder if anyone else was running out of mana.
5. Approximate spell rotation: purge riptide purge purge riptide CHAIN HEAL purge purge riptide purge SHIT RUN AWAY WHILE PURGING RIPTIDE purge purge HAHAHA HEX SCREW YOU SHADOW PRIEST lesser healing wave chain heal chain heal purge purge AUGH FUCK RUN AWAY... in other words, mess and chaos! But fun mess and chaos.
6. I never used to want to stab shadow priests right in the (insert name of sensitive body part here), but NOW I DO. Jerk.
7. I find myself wondering if we might be able to have healer priority for that fight -- "while we're fighting X, we must keep A, B, and C alive; while we're fighting Y, we must keep D, E, and F alive". Early on, it felt like the people to keep alive were our melee DPS, which was great, I'm good at that, and I was able to get Chain Heals off with no problem. Later, I wasn't entirely sure who, if anybody, to focus on. Of course, as the fight goes on, it gets easier!

What I learned, above and beyond everything else:

PvP on Teu could actually be fun. o_O That was... an interesting revelation. I will grant you -- I would rather (by a factor of eleventy billion) be healing friends and people I actually know than healing random n00bs. And if I'm ever in a battleground with someone who, after taking four times his entire health pool worth of healing and still getting his face eaten because he was unable to kill someone who did not have a healer, tells me, "Don't just stand there, do something", I will, in fact, say "I was healing you, assclown" rather than letting it sour me on the whole PvP experience.

But if I were gonna PvP on Teu, I'd need gear. And practice. And I have no idea how much I'd really like it. And, honestly, it's not really very in-character for her, which is unfortunate. (Nancie, on the other hand...) But hey, it's a thought.

(Dwarf shamans NOW PLZ. Ovi-shaman in battlegrounds? !!)

The Players

• Romney: The media center in our bedroom. Romney dual-boots into Romney-Vista and Romney-Linux.
• Shetland: The audio-recording computer in the craft room.
• Leicester: Val's WoW rig
• Dorset: My WoW rig, largely inherited from Val's castoffs, which also functions as the only computer in the house that will talk to the printer
• Perendale: My laptop

The Scene, Part 1
I walk into the bedroom and turn on Romney-Vista, hoping to watch a little Star Trek and knit on a blanket. Romney-Vista boots up without sound. Media Center won't start. AVRT.dll has failed entirely. Restoring the system to a two-days-earlier backup point does nothing, even though last night, this worked fine. Also, Windows Defender won't load and we've somehow lost SP1, which now refuses to install. CHKDISK fails. o_O

Romney-Linux has been having issues with DVD playback (known, fixable ones which Val will get to later that evening). I give up and read a book.

The Scene, Part 2

• 4pm: I boot up Dorset, print something, and set Dorset back to hibernating. There is no indication from Dorset that there are any problems.

The Scene, Part 3

• 5:45pm: I hit the "power" button to bring Dorset out of hibernate. Nothing happens.
• 5:46pm: I power Dorset down manually and try to restart it. Dorset tells me there's some kind of CMOS error and asks if I want to continue. I blink a few times and tell it "yes". Val loads up WoW on Leicester as usual.
• 5:47pm: Dorset fails to boot.
• 5:48pm: I power Dorset down manually and try to restart it. Dorset boots, but bluescreens as soon as I load it up.
• 5:49pm: I power Dorset down manually and try to restart it. At this point, I'm getting a little worried.
• 5:51pm: As a requirement for boot-up Dorset asks us to choose one of two options using the keyboard. The keyboard is USB, and the boot process has not loaded USB at this point. Val tracks down a PS/2 keyboard in the garage so we can try again.
• 5:53pm: Val starts working on Dorset after Dorset's third blue-screen. I use Leicester to whisper my raid leader that HOLYSHITWTFCOMPUTERERROR. Everyone shares a moment of "OSHIT".
• 5:57pm: It starts becoming clear to me that Dorset isn't going to be booting up tonight. I switch to Perendale, which, mercifully, has WoW and LK installed, but which doesn't have the latest patch. I patch it and panic about my addons, trying to figure out which ones are absolutely necessary to go to raid. I come up with TotemTimers, Grid, GridManaBars, PitBull, Omen, ORA2, Bartender4, and BigWigs. I pray this is sufficient. I start installing addons.
• 5:58pm: I steal the mouse and keyboard off of Shetland and plug them into Perendale. The mouse is three-button instead of five and the keyboard isn't ergonomic, but it's better than trying to play on the trackpad...
• 6:17pm: Val continues working on Dorset while our raid goes and takes down Flame Leviathan. Go TRI!
• 6:20pm: Patched, terrified, on a keyboard where I keep hitting "space" instead of "alt", and having to use "Y" for push-to-talk, staring at a 1280×960 screen (as opposed to my usual 1680×1050), I log into Vent and load up.
• 6:22pm: I land in Ulduar for those last few trash pulls before Deconstructor. I get 6fps. I panic some more and try to beat my UI into some semblance of shape. BigWigs and ORA2 frames are taking up the entire screen, I have no raidframes, and my performance is abysmal. I ask my raidleader if he can find someone to replace me. Turns out I'm the fourth person to have computer failure tonight, and the raid is looking dire.
• 6:26pm: I set every single setting to minimum (except anti-aliasing, without which I get seasick, and projected textures, without which I will die), turn off every addon I can possibly live without (this includes PitBull at this stage), and log back on. This brings me up to 15fps, sometimes as high as 30fps. This is playable. I go back to fussing with my UI.
• 6:34pm: The raid has been filled with bodies, and my UI is playable even if it terrifies me. I have Grid back. We go smash the crap out of Deconstructor.
• 6:42pm: Getting killed now makes me say "Oh, thank God, I can work on my raidframes." During the trash and setup for Kologarn, I successfully set up Grid and get my alert for Stone Grip working. We kick the crap out of Kologarn.
• 6:50pm: I have a UI again. In fact, I'm starting to kind of like the new UI. It involves TotemTimers, Grid, GridManaBars, Bartender4, BigWigs, and ORA2; I have decided that MT frames are actually kind of neat. My screen is still not at native res and therefore looks scary-bad, but things are working pretty well all things considered. I can play this way.

OH MY GOD. No, really. OH MY GOD. This is not something I really wanted to deal with last night. I'm hopeful that the issues with Dorset will be fixable, but I'm grateful to say that I can play like this tonight, at the very least. I'm really grateful that my laptop is powerful enough to run WoW. Today I got Quartz running on the laptop in hopes that it won't eat up too much memory and that it'll help me with some things, and I looked really carefully around at the Blizzard UI, trying to determine what I can actually make use of. I found an option to use a modifier to cast something on my focus target, which, OMG, wow, that sounds amazing -- I mucked around with some keybindings to see if I can make use of that.

In the meantime, my raid is awesome for putting up with me last night, and I am glad I did not completely go "splat" when trying to heal. It was a rough night for everyone, but I felt like our camaraderie and morale was at a surprising high for all that. It was one of those nights that reminds me how much I love my raid and makes me glad to be there. *warm fuzzies* I was especially happy with the healing squad, who was down a player (I'd say "key player", but our heal squad is so tightly-interwoven that we're all key players, and we work amazingly well together), and had one of our beloved boomkin step in for us, shaking those branches with the best of 'em. (I was so distracted with the UI issues that it took me forever to notice her, but once I did, Teu squeaked and clung to her branches.)

Oh, and I did get some folks going in on the chicken-sacrifice plan with me, from the healer squad, after Razorscale once more refused to drop our healy hammer. I don't know about anybody else, but for me, I just want to see things DROP. If something drops even once, even if I don't get it, at least I feel like someone's getting some benefit out of it (and with my healy team, I never feel like an item is wasted so long as one of us gets it; I'm just as happy for everyone else as I am for me). If we never see it drop, that's when I get bitter. I'm seriously considering getting started on the sacrificial chickens tonight, but I'm kind of exhausted from wrestling with computers all last night, and I'm not sure I can handle doing a roast before raid. Next Thursday, though, it's going to happen.

More seriously, here are the three caster shields in 10-man and 25-man Ulduar put together. (*sigh* Same three shields as there were in Naxx, except the haste/mp5 one has been moved from 25-man to hard-mode 10-man, and we get a socket on the 25-man hard-mode one.)

10-man: Pulsing Spellshield. Deconstructor. Comments are saying that as of 3.1.2, the spellpower has been fixed (73 instead of 37). 46 haste/36 crit/73 spellpower. NOM.

10-man hard mode: Ice Layered Barrier. Hodir. 46 haste/74 spellpower/15 mp5. I wouldn't kick that out of bed for eating crackers. (Er. Actually, if my shield were in bed with me and eating crackers, maybe I WOULD kick it out of bed. Wait, I don't sleep with my shields in the first place! Although if I had this next one...)

25-man hard mode: Wisdom's Hold. Thorim. 40 crit/47 haste/75 spellpower, blue socket with +5 spellpower bonus.

Dear Thorim: Your days are numbered. Fear the wrath of paladins and shamans who have been totally freaking shafted by the RNG over and over; WE WILL PREVAIL. I'm putting in a Costco-sized order for chickens to sacrifice to the RNG gods; TRI paladins, you wanna get in on the action? After the chickens are sacrificed, CHICKEN SANDWICH RATIONS FOR ALL!

3.1 brought about a host of nasty mana regeneration nerfs. Most notably for me, Mana Spring Totem got changed to a replenishment-esque x mana every 2 seconds buff to a Blessing of Wisdom clone -- perhaps even the anti-Blessing of Wisdom, since Mana Spring totem now removes Blessing of Wisdom if I drop it. (Eeeuuurgh.)

I hit on a metaphor for why I don't like the mana regeneration nerf the other day, and if this is too pretentious, forgive me, but here's the deal:

Healing is an art, not just a series of spellcasts. Working with a really good healing team is utterly fantastic, because between knowledge of each other's personalities, tendencies, strengths, and instincts, you have a pretty good idea of whose healing is going where when stuff starts happening to the raid. Ulduar has given us a bunch of nasty raid-wide damage to deal with, and yet because of our healsquad leetness, we've adjusted pretty darn fast and have come up with a lot of reasons to use utility talents and abilities that didn't come up very often in Naxx/Maly/Sarth. The healer channel is full of intelligent strategy and ways of keeping people alive, and that? That's fun.

I will grant you that perhaps the complete and utter lack of worry about mana regeneration is not what Blizzard had in mind for healsquads. Given that Mana Tide totem is a 31-point talent -- once the crowning glory of the Resto tree -- you can understand that they want us to need that sucker. But it's frustrating to have synergistic abilities (Mana Spring totem/Blessing of Wisdom) turn into competing abilities -- since Mana Spring removes BoW, if we're going to use BoW at all I can't have Mana Spring up at all, lest it remove the buff from someone who's going to go out of range later. It's frustrating to know that I can help with mana regeneration, but to have one of my key utility abilities (+1% hit) party-only, so my raid has to pick between stacking me with the healers for mana regen or stacking me with melee -- and usually the tanks -- for hit, tremor totem, and disease/poison cleansing totem.

Worrying about mana regeneration is like having to worry about how much your paint costs. Okay, yeah -- paint costs do go up, especially with the economy in the shape it's in now. But at this stage, our healsquad has a team that's been winning blue ribbons at art shows for the last six months, and now we're being told "your art is too nice -- we're increasing the cost of your paint so your paintings will look crappier."

Sigh.

I like working out new ways of working with the healsquad to improve our efficiency, help each other out if we've got issues, and stack our buffs in the most synergistic way possible. I'm sure in another month or two, we'll have worked around this. But it's a pain in the tail having to rework my spec over and over again because the artwork the healsquad turned out was too damn good.

1. Is your character participating in the Tourney? (If no, are you doing it OOC?)
   Teuthida, Ovistine, and Nancie will all be participating in the tournament -- in Teu's case, largely OOC (she was happy to champion the Exodar but is a bit bored of the festivities; however, it's worth a lot of gold and I'm trying to get her some non-combat pets).  Ovistine has discovered that she'll be allowed to champion Stormwind and is both excited and very, very nervous, and is working up the nerve to step forward and do so.   Nancie pretty much thinks this whole event was made for her, and if they could just somehow combine it with Brewfest, she'd be thrilled. 
    
2. If asked "What is your home city", how would your character respond? If the answer is not their "Faction Capitol" -- why not?
   Teu would say "Shattrath", in spite of the time she spent on the Exodar and her ties to the people there. Shattrath is definitely Teu's home city, although she's also really fond of Telaar. She likes sunny, grassy areas best. 
    

   Nancie is an Ironforge dwarf through-and-through, but her "home" is wherever Geoffar is, especially if Nancie's been adventuring/fighting/at war. Right now, Geoffar is stationed at Wintergarde, helping with the mine, and Nancie is with the troops there. (Nancie and Ovistine have not done the Wrathgate quest line.) 
    

   Ovistine is a Stormwind dwarf; though her parents were both from Ironforge, Ovi was born and raised in Stormwind. Her parents are Ironforge dwarves, her culture and heritage is Dwarvish, she certainly speaks fluent Dwarvish, but Ovi is from Stormwind (and she gets pretty pissed off at people who equate "Stormwind" with "human"). The tournament presents a little bit of complication for her in the IC/OOC realm; I'm going to play it as if she's representing Stormwind from the get-go, and will definitely be getting her to Champion-level with Stormwind as fast as I can. 
    

3. There are rumors in Dalaran that a Dwarven Expedition has unearthed an Old God -- how will your character react?
   Teu is not clear on the details of what Old Gods are and what they represent, but is willing to help her friends fight anything. The threat from Yogg-Saron is enough to get her mind off the way everyone's cleared out of Shattrath, as if there's nothing left to rebuild there--at least for now. She is very confused about how being repeatedly bitten by cats is helping matters, though. (Also, I really think people sitting down and explaining Azeroth lore to Teu, in-game and IC, could be highly entertaining...) 
    
   Trying to suss out what Nancie thinks is difficult, due to the fact that the Lighthammers haven't been through the Wrathgate. (Argh.) Taking this from Nancie's perspective after Angrathar, she's got bigger fish to fry and is not interested in working with the Horde. 
    

   Ovistine (again, after Angrathar) is very determined to help however she can (and her mum is not happy about that). Her current skills and armor aren't up to par to go up against an Old God, and she knows it, so her job lately has been research; as much as she wants to help, she's also aware that sometimes help can come from archives and libraries, so that's where she's been spending most of her time lately. 
    

4. Does your character side more with Varian/Garrosh, or with Thrall/Jaina?
   Teu is not certain about this. It really goes against her instincts to ever trust an orc, any orc, even if they're not fel orcs. For the time being, she thinks they're probably all on the same side, and she's hesitantly okay with that, but she's also the kind of person who would blast first and ask questions later if any orc were threatening her, or looked like he was threatening anyone she knows. 
    

   Ovi sides with Thrall/Jaina (again, post-Wrathgate; again, this is not making her life with her mum easier). Nancie, on the other hand (again, post-Wrathgate) would follow Varian Wrynn into the flaming bowels of hell itself, and she'd sooner be hung from her toenails and roasted alive over a spit than work with any Hordie. ...actually, that more or less describes her pre-Wrathgate, too, but moreso afterwards. 
    

5. Meta Question: Are there things you do with your character that are OOC, but have IC rewards? (Reputation for a Faction Item, farming for a non-combat pet, or Dailies/Quests for a title like Loremaster, for example?) Do you have an IC explanation?
   Yes! Teu is farming symbols for a tiny sheep (if it's tradeable, the first one goes to Ovi; if not she'll keep it). Ewes are kinda new to Shattrath, but Teu was very intrigued by them and would love to have a pet with hooves. Agness, back in the day, was exalted with Ironforge so I could get her a ram. IC, that was because Nancie was her mentor when she was learning to be a priest, and she ended up in an exchange program with Ironforge; she thought the rams were adorable. There are probably other examples, but I'm not thinking of them at the moment... 
    

As for Ulduar, I'm sure that'll be a post all on its own in the long run...

You know how I said Sarth+3's days were numbered?
And to start counting?
And not to make it a big number?

The number, it seems, is zero.

Grats TRI! Yea, verily, we doth rocketh.

(Except for the part where my screenshots didn't actually go off. I thought I had one of everyone's "Twilight Vanquisher" titles showing -- which was the first time I'd turned on player names since I was raiding Molten Core. Oh, well. I'll see if Valinar got a good one!)