1. You read the forums and WoW blogs during your 10 minute breaks.
2. You see every exclamation point as an opportunity to do a quest. (This could drive you slightly insane if you make a living copywriting. Or you’re a college student with lots of essays.)
3. You see every question mark as an opportunity to gain experience.
4. The first thing you do when you play Guild Wars is roll a smiting monk and scream, “Why Blizzard, why are they more efficient in this game!?”
5. Your only active MSN conversation is a heated argument about how male Dranei cannot possibly look intimidating because they look more like a bunch of ridiculous Hulk cartoons.
6. You choose a dinner option that takes 10 minutes less to prepare and eat because that’s 10 minutes more of WoW time.
7. You wonder if you can hook your DDR pad up to your gaming pad so you can exercise and kill Horde/Alliance at the same time. (Which would be revolutionary. Obviously.)
8. You search in a frantic for your BlizzCon t-shirt to wear after you sweated the crap out of your Yoshi shirt while playing on that DDR pad earlier. Unfortunately, you still haven’t figured out how to hook it up to your gaming pad.
9. You look at your pet frogs and think about pads and think about gaming and think about WoW. Holy crap.
10. When your Dungeons and Dragons group suggests moving your session to a day where all the players can make it–with one less hour of playing time–you adamantly fight for this option so you can get one more hour of WoW.
11. You think it’s amusing that Guild Wars asks you to take a break after 2 hours of playing instead of potentially healthy.
12. You pull out the WoW fishing pole while you’re sorting through your Magic: the Gathering cards.
13. You have the Burning Crusade opening theme on your iPod.
14. You have the Burning Crusade opening theme on a playlist called “Shower Time.”
15. You set up your G-chat or Facebook status to a quote from the forums.
16. Your email signature includes a banner of your character or a forum quote.
17. You want to know why you’re limited to six-month payment plans. Two years for $10/month sounds awesome, right?
18. You’re pissed they put the World of Warcraft discussions on the smaller stage at BlizzCon. You also want to know WTF they were thinking when 80% of BlizzCon crowds around that smaller stage.
19. You have a name reserved for a Worgen or Goblin.
20. You eat pizza while playing World of Warcraft at least once a week. You might even complain about how /pizza isn’t an option.
21. You love the achievement system.
22. You have World of Warcraft installed on the laptop you brought with you to Hawaii. You even put your Wrath of the Lich King discs in your suitcase in case you forgot to upgrade it since your last vacation.
23. You wait in slightly painful anticipation for your opportunity to jump into the Cataclysm beta.
24. You wait in even more painful anticipation for presales of the collector’s edition to Cataclysm because you’ll be damned if you don’t get the noncombat pet.
25. You drank one of those disgusting mana potions they were selling at Fry’s. Then you bought another one and dared someone else to drink it.
26. You have a World of Warcraft trading card game collection.
27. You bought a loot card on eBay.
28. You have a blog dedicated to World of Warcraft.
29. You’re reading this post.
30. You’ve bookmarked this blog. You sly devil, you.

Tiny Update: Johanah is still on Cenarius (with that slightly different spelling even) and I’ve switched primarily to Holy PvP, which I still need to write more about. In the interim, I am playing my resto druid and leveling holy paladin on Sen’jin. I apologize for the lack of updates! (I also partially blame DDR.)

I thought it was due time to add something to the smite priest community and given that our spec is mostly for the rofls, another humorous post seemed fitting. If you have more to add to this post, feel free to comment!

Rather than write out yet another battered hilt guide, I thought I would point readers in the right direction for Battered Hilt information and how to complete the chain. Before you get started though, let me dispel three myths:

• The Battered Hilt no longer drops off skeletons in Pit of Saron. They fixed that in 12-15-09 to stop people from farming; and thank goodness, I was going insane.
• The Battered Hilt’s droprate is lower in Halls of Reflection. You can wipe and get more trash mobs forever, so it makes sense for them to do this. The change was implemented as of 12-9-09.
• Yes, the Battered Hilt’s droprate was increased.

Alright then! The following are the five best reads on the Internet right now for the Battered Hilt:

1. The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt from WoW.com
2. Battered Hilt: What? from the WoW forums
3. Battered Hilt: Do I have to? from MMOChampion
4. Battered Hilt and Epic Drop Changes from Spooncraft
5. WoWWiki’s Battered Hilt entry

Personally, I got my Battered Hilt right around Christmas (thank you, Santa) and I had to deal with a paladin QQ the whole instance about how he’s a tank and absolutely has to have that weapon. I politely explained I’m one of the main healers for my guild and then clawed at my face for 20 minutes IRL while I ignored the repetitious pleas for my recently won item. In other groups I’ve joined since then, I’ve had people get into similar “I need it more” contests and I just sit back and think how feral we WoW players all are.

And I lol at the people that pay real money for this thing. If you want to blow a ton of gold you’ve saved up on your WoW toon for it, that’s one thing — virtual money buys virtual things — but some of these Craigslist posts are ridiculous. Like this one:

Looking to purchase a battered hilt that you get from the new five man dungeons in world of warcraft, let me know if you have one and are willing to sell it for $35 send me an email and well figure out how to trade it ingame. Thank you. Please no scammers.

First of all: trying to buy WoW items with IRL money is a scam. So asking for no scammers is mind-boggling. Secondly, I know a great steak restaurant you can get dinner at for $35.

What’s your Battered Hilt story? Where have you read about this mythical drop?

I do these painful, exciting things outside of WoW too; such as participating in rigorously demanding writing events like National Blog Posting Month. Johannah the Smite Priest was part of the event in November, and my now-retired fiction blog had partaken in it in the past in the well, to the point where I thought I was secure to move on from that torturous endeavor. Then they sent me an email.

January’s theme is THE BEST.

And don’t WoW players like to know THE BEST of everything? The best spec, the best piece of gear, the best thing to scream when you run into a clump of whelps to intentionally wipe your raid. Well, Johannah the Smite Priest is here to deliver! For the month of January, I’ll be exploring the best of every aspect of the priest raiding world. There’ll be some PvP spice in there too, for sure.

Before I embark on this dangerous journey that will tear out yet another sliver of my insanity, I am curious: what would you like to see the best of? Answer the poll or, better yet, leave a comment with a suggestion! THE BEST will begin on New Years!

Remember: while Johannah the Smite Priest is a great blog for srs bzness Wrath of the Lich King priest reading, I Can Has Cheezburger is best one-stop source for AFK-raid-break entertainment.

WARNING: This is only available to the Alliance!

Freedom for All Creatures

This Lvl 47 quest chain is only available to the Alliance and ends with a Sprite Darter Hatchling reward. You’ll start by going to the Grimtotems in Feralas, which aren’t that far off from the Horde settlement. Climb up a thin path and find Kindal and Jer’kai Moonweaver:

• Freedom for All Creatures: Kindal requires an escort to open the cage below and free the Sprite Darters!
• Doling Justice (1): Slay those atrocious savages that dare hurt the Sprite Darters.
• Doling Justice (2): Go report how amazing you are to Tyrande in Darnassus.
• An Orphan Looking For a Home: You need to go back to Kindal for this; it isn’t immediately obvious since they send you to Tyrande in Darnassus at first. Apparently you loved these two Night Elves so much that you thought you’d go help them rescue the Sprite Darters again. This time, however, they have a baby they managed to save–and they want you to help the baby out!
• A Short Incubation: Make sure to bring 2 Elixirs of Fortitude with you before asking Quentin to fix your egg. By the way, this is all the way out at the Mirage Raceway in Thousand Needles. Crazy, huh? Wait until you see the next part.
• The Newest Member of the Family: Now you need to run to Aerie Peak in the Hinterlands! Oh noes! Hurry; there’s a timer!
• Food for Baby: Of course, now the timer is gone. You’d think the rush would still be on until you get your Sprite Darter, right? You need to go collect food for the baby to eat first, though.
• Becoming a Parent: You got your Sprite Darter Hatchling; congratulations!

Make sure to wish well for the animals during this International Animal Rights Day. Cheers!

It's Anzuette.

Thanks Elowyn! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. ^.^

Little girl playing WoW

Johannah the Smite Priest is participating in today’s Bloggers Unite event, Fight for the Preemies. How on earth is a World of Warcraft blog supporting premature births, you ask? By focusing on children that play World of Warcraft, of course!–too young to be born, too young to be playing Teen rated games!

“So you’re against children playing World of Warcraft?” Not necessarily. That’s for the responsibility of the parent and the maturity of the child to decide. Take a look at these two facets and then come up with your own opinion on whether World of Warcraft is appropriate for a child or not.

Parent responsibility.

While reading one of the hundreds of articles scattered across the Internet about how parents shouldn’t let their children play World of Warcraft – “oh no, cybersex!” and “they can’t handle the addiction!” are the two most common arguments, because, y’know, adults are doing a fantastic job on that one with people dying from dehydration and poop in Korea — I stumbled across a comment left by a parent about an article that was published in Computer Games Magazine on he and his son playing WoW together. Apparently, under his supervision, his son does valorous things like kill wolves that just slaughtered deer and chase rabbits to find the rabbit hole. This reminded me of my memories of playing Mario Bros. with my father and all I could think of was, “Win.”

By contrast, Korean parents let their child die because they’re whole-heartedly addicted to World of Warcraft. I call this a knock at bad parents more than the game itself (kind of like the myth on how Dungeons and Dragons encourages us to be evil); obviously, Blizzard is not developing events like Children’s Week to propagate the corruption of the youth of today’s societies. Just like there’s these random (and thankfully rare) cases where parents let their children suffer in the name of World of Warcraft, there’s cases where parents can teach their children a lot about mathematics and teamwork through World of Warcraft as well–which I’ll be looking at in a minute!

Check this out, though: a child in China commit suicide by “re-enacting a scene of falling off a building” from the game; and now the parents are suing. What do you think?

Okay, so on to the second point:

Child maturity.

When a seventeen-year-old refuses to go to school unless he gets to compulsively play World of Warcraft, there’s a problem. Same for if an adult refuses to go to work. It happens, and it’s what differentiates addiction from fun play. There’s several stories where pre-teens are playing World of Warcraft without any problems though–and even using it as a means to communicate with “real life” friends after school–and this proves that the mature child can play this game wisely.

Some children are even increasing their academic skills, such as writing, thanks to World of Warcraft. No joke! Read the psychological study.

But then, others think World of Warcraft teaches the wrong things, like… working together is better than working alone? /sigh to the overly independent thinkers of American society. Teamwork in business is okay!

What kinds of parents and children have you seen while playing WoW?

I’ve personally witnessed a mother and daughter playing together only for the mother to divorce the daughter’s father and go out with a guildy. The daughter doesn’t play WoW anymore. That’s a parent responsibility FAIL.

I’ve also seen a parent that plays with all of her children online and is able to interact with college student, high school student, and elementary school student alike. The family loves it. That’s a parent responsibility WIN.

When I started playing on Kalecgos, one of my best instance and questing buddies was a 12-year-old hunter from Australia. He even taught me how to make some amazing oven-baked nachos. I got to watch him struggle through guilds that wouldn’t accept him and guilds that  would; regardless of his social situation, he was through-and-through a good player, an excellent person to talk to, and a very intelligent human being. I was bummed when he transferred. That’s a child maturity WIN.

I’ve played with people that OMG WY R U RUSHEEN DREK that I swear have not yet experienced a sixth-grade literary test. I’m not sure who’s behind that thick layer of stupidity, but regardless of the age, that’s a childish maturity FAIL.

For further reading, check out:

• World of Warcraft Parents blog
• Children That Play WoW from Kourtnie the Shaman
• Forum post, OMG Our New Tank is 11

The writer of this blog was a “preemie;” over a month premature, no less! Please be aware of this medical crisis. It is the leading cause of death for humans under one month of age. Visit Fight for the Preemies whether you’re “For the Alliance!” or “For the Horde!”

Johannah the smite priest in ToC-10

Johannah the Smite Priest will be participating in National Blog Posting Month for November 2009. This means that there will be a post-a-day until the end of November! That’s 30 days of fantastical smite priest goodness to shake the World of Warcraft priest community with excitement. (Or maybe rage, who knows.)

And in case you think my brain will explode at the end of the month, I can assure you that I have poisoned bettered myself with this experience before; A Sliver of Fantasy, my all-too-now-outdated fiction blog, participated in NaBloPoMo in the month of July.

If you would like a particular topic on smite priests to be addressed, please leave a comment so that your ideas may be included in the Johannah the Smite Priest November marathon. Even in the lonesome world of my own creativity though, I am brimming with different topics to address to validate, hilarify (that should be the new word of 2009), and illustrate the wonders of Wrath of the Lich King smite priests. Get ready for things like:

• Smite priest PvP (in battlegrounds and arenas)
• Smite priest raiding (with performance charts)
• Smite priest lore
• Smite priest macros
• Tricks of the trade to liven up a smite priest’s rotation
• An in-depth look at holy damage and how it affects you (applicable to everyone since I’ll be looking at resilience)
• Holy priest healing (complete with a second Lvl 80 guide)
• A smattering of hilarity

Make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed so that you can stay up-to-date with the daily smite priest mayhem at Johannah the Smite Priest!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Johannah the smite priest!

If you’re still trying to get The Hallowed or learn more about the WoW Halloween event, try out these links:

• OverAchiever’s Guide to Hallow’s End from WoW Insider
• World of Warcraft’s official Hallow’s End page
• WoWWiki Hallow’s End page