Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites

This post is part of Saga’s 20 Days of WoW Blogging Challenge!

Oh man. Blog and website favourites? This is not going to be easy.

I guess we’ll start with a couple of blogs that I always read ASAP when a new post pops up in my feed reader.

Blessing of Kings – this is one of the blogs I was reading back when I started blogging. Anytime Rohan writes something, I read it.

Righteous Defense – one of my more recent additions to the ol’ feed reader, sometime back in Wrath, Rhidach’s blog is where I like to keep mostly up to date on prot pally stuff. Protection is really my preference for an offspec on Madrana. Despite the fact I’m currently holy/holy (no joke), I occasionally enjoy tanking on Madrana. I haven’t actually tanked on her since 4.0 dropped, so I’m fondly remembering how OP I was in Wrath heroics wearing T10 tank gear… but I really feel like a failure of a hybrid if I don’t at least know the basics of another spec. I’ve never really liked retribution, although I did use it to level up in Cata’s beta and in live, too. It just made questing that much faster.

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon – Ophelie is pretty awesome. I met up with her IRL back in January and I really enjoy reading all her posts. :)

I really do read a lot of blogs, but those are the three paladin-related blogs I run to read as soon as they’re updated.

For news sites:

MMO-Champion – Boubouille keeps MMO-Champion up to date on everything. This site is priceless.

Wowhead – I love Wowhead as an item database, obviously. Who doesn’t? But its news is getting to be competitive with MMO-Champion’s, especially with their relatively new blue post tracker. The amount of advertising is getting pretty obnoxious, though, which is a bummer.

For research, resources and help apart from the above:

Wowpedia – Everyone and their brother used to go to WoWWiki, but the Wikia hosting caused some major changes and most people involved with WoWWiki went to Wowpedia. Wowpedia is my choice of research sites when it comes to in-game information (lore, history and a lot of boss fight info).

Learn to Raid – A great new strat site with awesome videos. Some background: Learn to Raid was founded by two members of vodka, Killars (a rogue) and Kinaesthesia (a priest). Their videos are great and have been really helpful in forming our own strat variations in Apotheosis.

RaidBS – Raid Boss Strategies is an awesome site with images, written strats and generally high-quality info for the whole raid and each role within the raid (tank/heals/DPS). Not sure if it’s still being updated, though. I had to start going elsewhere (like L2R) for strats when Apotheosis hit Nefarian and the Raid BS info wasn’t up yet. (It still isn’t.) Still, some very helpful information here.

TankSpot – Ah, TankSpot. Sort of known as “the” site for raid strat videos. I used to really like the site. A lot. Ciderhelm was awesome. I still like some of the movies — Papapaint’s Heroic Chimaeron video, for example. But I can’t deal with Aliena’s voice. Drives me up the wall. I know her first language is not English and I’m sure she’s a great player, but I can’t stand to listen to her narration. Still, if you don’t have an issue with her narrating the vast majority of the videos, you may prefer TankSpot to L2R. There’s still good information, and plenty of it, it’s just not a “favourite” of mine. I list it here because of how good some of the information is, though. I wouldn’t ever go into a fight without having watched the TankSpot video at least once.

PlusHeal – A great resource for healers. There’s also a healer exchange forum if you’re seeking a new healer or if you’re a healer looking for a new guild.

Elitist Jerks – I don’t always agree with what EJ is saying, but it’s always good to be up to date with what the theorycrafters are muttering about.

WoWLemmings – Great site for recruitment!

Nothing to do with WoW:

MetaFilter – Great community blog site that is an integral part of my day. I visit it 4-5 times a day for sure.

xkcd – Awesome web comic. This one is my favourite strip because my best friend is a doctor and she was AMAZING at the “blow into the cartridge until it works” trick. I sent her this in an email and added “how on earth are you allowed into a hospital, much less an OR?” and her response was something along the lines of “hehehehehe”.

Ctrl-Alt-Del – Another awesome web comic.

And that’s enough for the time being!

Yesterday – Your First Blog Post
Tomorrow – Bad Habits and Flaws