WoW can be addicting. Seriously. Look it up on Google if you don’t believe me. If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you just can’t get enough WoW. Believe me, I am just like you. I wouldn’t write this blog if I wasn’t in some way addicted to this great game. If you’re not careful, though, WoW can flat out eat your life. Do you find yourself only logging in “for an hour” only to find yourself back in Kara, three hours later? Is your significant other chastising you to no end about that “stupid game” you’re always playing? Heck, do you even HAVE TIME to FIND a significant other? You have to try to find a balance at some point, so here are a few ideas to get you started.

Don’t Forget Your RL Friends and Family

Most of us forge fairly strong relationships in game. A lot of closer guilds actually find the time to meet up IRL. Heck, some people find their significant others that way. Don’t forget your family. Don’t forget your RL friends. We often go to great lengths to plan things in game. We set up Raids weeks in advance, set a time, get everyone organized. Why not translate that skillset to your real life? Set up a night out with all your old friends. Set aside time to spend a night out with your significant other, maybe plan a mini-vacation. Make sure that though you love to WoW, you show those people in your life that they still matter.

I personally don’t play Saturday or Sunday during the day. Why not? Because I have a wife and a little girl, and I spend all week at work. I don’t want to then ignore them on the weekends for a game. I also don’t play when I get home from work, though I’d love to. It wouldn’t be fair to them. Now, some of you may be lucky enough to have a spouse who plays with you, but I do not. I have to compromise because of it, but I NEVER regret that compromise. This brings me to my next point.

Schedule Your Time

Don’t just log on willy nilly whenever you can. This is what leads directly to those aforementioned 3+ hour sessions that were “only” supposed to be an hour. Make a schedule, and stick to it. Heck, if you have problems with that, you can even set parental controls on the WoW site to limit your playtime. It’s extreme, but it can work! It can at least give you a better idea of just how MUCH time you spend in game.

I log on every Saturday night at 8:30, and start my weekly raid at 9. My wife knows and understands this schedule, and because it is clear to everyone, nobody gets hurt. As far as weeknights go, I log on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights when her and the baby go to sleep. Now I would love to be able to make my guild raids that happen in the evenings on Tuesday and Thursday, but I’m not going to change my RL schedule for it. I owe my family more than that. Am I perhaps a little behind the curve? Yes. But I’m also a little AHEAD of the family curve compared to many I know.

Remember Your Old Hobbies

WoW hasn’t been around forever. So what did you love to do before you started to WoW? Have you forgotten? Maybe it’s time to pick up a book again, or maybe you should clean the old golf clubs and hit the links. Whatever it is, don’t forget the other things you love for WoW. Yes, I know, WoW is a fantastic game and is a fairly economical way to spend your money – but that doesn’t mean you should forsake everything else for it. Maybe it’s time you went out and ground out a RL tradeskill!

Your reading skill is now 375!

“Sweet, I can read War and Peace!”

I enjoy writing, and fancy myself being paid for it some day. (Technically, I am an editor for a “Fortune 500″ company now, but I want to get paid for FUN writing!) It makes me cringe if I think about how many good “writing” hours I may have wasted in WoW. That’s another reason for my aforementioned schedule, and also a reason I started this blog. It conveniently combines two things I love into one, and I’m very grateful that there is such an avenue available to me.

Conclusion

The whole point of this post is that, whether you realize it or not, maybe you need a little more RL/WoW balance. This is just a game after all, there are very few ways it can help you get ahead in life. I love this game as much as many of you, and at one point I WAS out of control. I used to stay up till 4 in the morning on a regular basis, log in any time I was able, and largely ignore other aspects of my life. Was I any better for it? No. In reality, the more segmented, scheduled way I approach the game has been MORE rewarding. I find that I really look forward to my play nights, and I enjoy the time I do spend in game to the fullest. Think of it this way. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Chili. If I had it for every meal, though, in time it’d lose its luster. If it only comes once a week I can really savor it. Try to savor your time in WoW.

The deadline to submit your pic for Phaelia’s Arbor Day Challenge is almost here! (Due by May 30th!) Don’t forget to submit your Tree in all its glory today!

First off, I want to apologize again to the cast of thousands that read my blog (ok, maybe not that many…I’m no BRK) for my lack of posts lately. I have been really under the gun at my RL job (the one that pays) and just haven’t had the time. That will be behind me soon, however, and I expect to be back on track within a week or two.

Also, I’ve changed the name I will use when writing posts, as people end up calling me PTD anyhow. I also only recently realized how close “Pummra” is to a certain animated pig. Though the physical comparison is close, I’d rather avoid it.

On to the topic at hand. I have a tendency to peruse the official druid forums to try and keep up on any developments in the druid community. While dodging posts whining about arena left and right, I also notice a lot of posts that ask this question: “When can I heal heroics?” The answers run the gamut from 900 or so healing to one guy who actually suggested a minimum of 1500. Quite a range, there. So what is the answer?

Heroics Are Tough

I’m sure we all know this. A well geared healer can sleepwalk his way through any 5 man (well, any 5 man outside of Magisters’ Terrace) but can end up getting his or her head kicked in once that difficulty is changed over to heroic.

In heroics, you have to be on your game. (Unless you have the fortune to be paired with a fully T5 geared tank and DPS. Most of those guys aren’t interested in running five mans anyhow.) In a realistic group though, you have to be on your toes. The tank is going to be taking a LOT more damage, and quicker. There will be more overall splash damage to the group, and clothies and healy types can often go down in one or two hits. The bosses will often have new abilities to boot, and everything has more hit points.

It’s tough.

It is called HEROIC after all

Numbers Do Matter

Obviously, gear plays a big part in mitigating a lot of this difficulty. A well geared tank goes a long way in making things easier, as well as DPS that can manage threat AND pump out the damage. Then of course, there is you.  I really don’t put all THAT much stock in numbers, but with a gun to my head, I’d say you need the following:

• 900+ Heal for Slave Pens, Ramparts, and other “easy” heroics
• 1100+ for the next “tier” including Blood Furnace, Steamvaults, and others
• 1400+ to comfortably heal just about any heroic (though some are nasty, regardless of your numbers)

Still, these are just numbers. They aren’t hard and fast rules. I didn’t get real comfortable healing heroics until I got around 1200 or so, then it started to get a little easier.  I’m still a little scared of the tough ones, like Arcatraz, Shadow Labyrinth, Shattered Halls and the new bad boy, Magisters’ Terrace, but I’d step into any one without reservations.

Skill Matters More

Sadly, there is no real way to quantify this. You can’t do it by gear, you can’t do it by how long someone has played the game, you can’t do it by whether or not they’ve killed Lady Vashj. The only real way to measure skill in WoW is to see it.

Heck, even then, it can be difficult.  Sometimes, a really good healer is kind of transparent. If he’s really good, you might not even notice it. You just keep pumping out your DPS and get used to the heals being there when you need it.  Of course you’ll notice the healer if you are wiping repeatedly, but when things are going smoothly sometimes we are forgotten.

That’s a good thing.

A skilled resto druid can keep a 3 stack of LB and Rejuv on the tank, spamming Regrowth and Swiftmend when necessary, and be quick enough to toss out a few spare LBs or Rejuvs to the party, without letting that 3 stack of LBs on the tank expire. A skilled resto druid is aware of what’s going on all the time, and can anticipate damage to mitigate it early. A skilled resto druid knows when to blow Nature’s Swiftness, or when it’s time to hit Tranquility.

Again, none of this can be measured. But when you get down to brass tacks, I’d take a SKILLED druid with 1200 heal over a doofus with 1500 any time. Things can go south in heroic in an instant, so you can’t afford a slouch.

Conclusion

Still, after all this rambling, I’ve concluded that I haven’t concluded anything. Heck, this post seems more about what the answer ISN’T than what it is.  A lot of this is due to the difficulties in gauging skill.  IMO, skill is the REAL determining factor in success in heroics.  You may be reading this and wondering “So when the heck can I heal heroics?” Well Chachi, there’s really only one way to find out.

“Resto Druid LFG for Heroic Slave Pens.”

Trust me, it’s the only way to really know.

I just wanted to drop a quick note about some of the news that has been coming out on places like WoW Insider.  I personally think it’s premature to be talking about this, and Gwaendar at Altitis agrees.

First of all, who knows how any of this stuff will hash out?  Just look at how many things can change from the PTR for small patches?   This is a major expansion we’re talking about here, and there will be MANY, MANY changes before it’s released.

Besides that, who’s to say any of this “leaked info” is for real?  Alpha is VERY limited right now, and this leaked info could be nothing more than a bored geek in his basement dreaming up changes.  So I say ignore it!

Excuse the corporate speak, but it has come to may attention that a lot of bloggers are trying to get the word out about a potentially unjustified perma-ban issued by Blizzard. I say potentially, because I don’t know enough of the situation personally to make any kind of a judgement. I still thought it was a good idea to put up a link to a post by TemerityJane about the incident. Feel free to read it and decide for yourself. If it was unjustified, it needs to be rectified, sooner rather than later.