The Game Dame

[digg=http://digg.com/pc_games/A_Strange_PvP_Encounter]As I’ve noted, I play Slig on an RP server. As such, I’m not familiar with the world of ganker versus gankee. Therefore, when PvP happens outside the battlegrounds, I’m fascinated.

If you play the Horde side, you’re used to arriving at The Crossroads to find skeletons all over the place and your quest-giver or flight master coughing up blood. (Oh sure, a bunch of level 70 Allies couldn’t bother themselves to attack a town that might actually give them a challenge! But, whatever. ) I mean, it usually happens at least once a day. So, one day when Slig was still a teenager doing those mind-numbingly endless Barrens quests, I arrived at yet another ghost town version of Crossroads.

Except this time, it was just one druid. One crazy druid, probably level 70, laying waste to the entire town. I decided to get cheeky and see if I could bag some honor by helping to bring him down. I rushed him with my staff inside a hut where he was in bear form battling 4 NPCs with aplomb.

I whacked his head. I looked at his status bar. It didn’t move. In fact, his status bar didn’t even move from the NPCs’ hits.

I hit him a couple more times and he turned to me and hugged me. He hugged me!

“The nerve,” I thought. Sarcasm! So I kept wailing away, despite the obvious futility of it.

Then he emoted, “No! Not gonna happen,” and hugged me again.

I was flabbergasted and quite confused. I stood there watching the pummeling for a few seconds. I emoted, “Slig is confused.”

He asked for help.

I scratched my head. I mean, even if I had wanted to help him there wasn’t anything I could do. Besides, he didn’t really need help, he was healing about as fast as they were damaging him. So I backed out of the hut to see what would happen.

I knew he could kill me with one swipe now that I was flagged for PvP so I admit I was a little nervous at my rash behavior.

He followed me out of the hut and told me to wait. Then he ran off away from the NPCs.

Curious, I walked out of town through the gate where he’d left. I couldn’t see him; he must’ve stealthed. I shrugged it off and started going back to town to wait for NPC respawns.

I heard, “Wait,” again. I looked around: no one there. Then he materialized in front of me.

I didn’t hit him. I wanted to do something non-threatening so I wouldn’t get killed, so I sat down. He sat down too. He hugged me again. Pretty soon the Crossroads guards respawned and came after him again. He cried. I comforted him.

He ran away from the guards. He came back to me. This time he went into stealth form and “hid” behind/inside Slig. So I just stood still and pretended he wasn’t there. Eventually, of course, the NPCs found him and he ran out onto the road again. I followed.

With only emotes to communicate with, I didn’t know how to ask him what was going on. We saluted, we danced, we hugged, we laughed. It was so odd. Eventually, he bowed to me and said goodbye. I never saw him again, even though I looked for him in the grass around the Crossroads for weeks afterwards.

Have any of you experienced a similar thing? Or, perhaps, have you yourself done what the druid did? I’d be really interested in hearing your cross-faction peace stories.

I finished Bioshock last weekend. I had planned to review it for the blog this week. However, today I read this brilliant review. Mighty Ponygirl says everything I would’ve said and more. She is definitely a better woman than I am since she actually slogged through one of Ayn Rand’s books in order to compare the game to Rand’s philosophy. (I admire someone willing to take one for the team. Especially when it’s not me.)

Anyway, I won’t be reviewing Bioshock. So go to Feminist Gamers and read Mighty Ponygirl’s review instead. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

[digg=http://digg.com/pc_games/Dungeon_Tips_for_Your_Shaman_Part_3]Thanks to everyone who read Part 2 of this series and corrected me where I was mistaken. The beauty of an interactive blog is that the entire reader base can ensure quality control!

For those who haven’t been keeping score at home, here’s what’s happened “previously on The Game Dame”:

1. Dungeon Tips for Your Shaman – Part 1 – How to prepare
2. Dungeon Tips for Your Shaman – Part 2 – Totems and DPS

In Part 3 we’ll talk about healing and aggro/threat management inside the instance.

Healing

The game values healers. Since Shaman are healers who can wear more than just skivvies and can take a hit like a champ, we make great members of the dungeon party. Here are some general tips for healing instances.

• Know your role.
  • If you’re NOT the primary healer, don’t heal unless absolutely necessary. Don’t even heal yourself – unless the primary healer has given you permission — because the Priest may waste mana on you. Besides, healing yourself without permission will make you go blind. I swear. That’s what the nuns always told me.
  • If you ARE the primary healer, don’t worry about firing off DPS spells. Keep everyone healed and drop buffing totems when you have the mana to spare.
• Drop your Healing Stream totem.
• If things are going well, try to keep everyone over half XP by using lots of Lesser Heals to conserve mana and cast quickly. Healing Wave takes more mana and is longer to cast so it’s more easily interrupted. That said, you gotta use it, of course. Just try to balance when you need to all-out rescue someone vs. merely keeping them level.
• At level 40, you will train one of the coolest spells in WoW: Chain Heal. With this spell you can heal more than one person at a time. As the spell snakes through the crowd it loses potency, so make sure you target your most needy party mate for the first hit. This spell is a wonder to behold when it crits. Even Priests wish they had this spell! (Note the threat on this puppy, though. See below.)
• Whom do you heal first? Think about your party’s survivability and that should help you decide.
  1. Yourself. Shaman are wipe insurance for the whole party through reincarnation and resurrection. As long as you’re left alive — even if you’re the last woman standing — the party hasn’t wiped.
  2. Tank. He’s keeping the damage off you and the clothies. You can’t win if the mobs kill your DPSers so keep your tank healthy.
  3. DPSers. These are the folks who were voted “Most Likely to Kick Booty” at Azeroth High and you can’t take down bosses without them.
  4. Other healers. I’m assuming for this post that your Shaman is the primary healer in the group. Since you can do damage also, if you keep yourself and your tank alive, you can rez the other healers later.
  5. Crowd controllers. These folks are definitely nice to have, but I’m sorry, you die first if necessary.
• At level 30+, you are your party’s wipe insurance thanks to Reincarnation. Make sure you bring plenty of ankhs for this purpose. (For a two-hour instance, you may need 3, so bring 4.) This role carries responsibility. It means that if things get hairy and people start dropping, you’d better run to safety so the whole party can live to see another fight. Heal and drink up, then rez the other healers so they can start rezzing everyone else. Drink again.
• There are some good healer add-ons out there, but I have not used any of them due to my Elemental spec. I’ll do some research on them, but in the meantime, I’d ask your level 70 Priests, Resto Shaman/Druid/Pally buds what they use.

Threat Management

Between healing and DPS, Shaman generate a lot of threat, no doubt about it. When you pull aggro, remember my cardinal rule from Part 2: PULL AGGRO TO THE TANK!

The following tips tell you about the spells with which Shaman can generate the most threat. You’ll need to know about these for two reasons. First, don’t use them if you don’t intend to pull aggro to yourself! Second, use them to save the hide of a more vulnerable party member by pulling aggro to yourself. (And then taking it to the tank, right? Remember?) Okay, so it’s a list of “Don’ts” and “Do’s” all rolled up into bulletized goodness.

• Frost Shock is the fastest, single most effective way to get a mob’s attention in your direction.
• If your Frost Shock is still cooling down, you can drop a Stone Claw totem to taunt the trash to you.
• Chain Lightning is a sure-fire way (pardon the pun?) to pull multiple monsters in your direction. You’d better be sure you can handle them if you use this spell or you will be toast in, like, mere seconds. Use with caution!
• Any type of healing carries threat so if you’re healing, stay on the move and remember Rule #1 under threat management. (Don’t talk about healing?) Chain Heal carries extra threat because it affects a wider area and therefore more mobs.

This concludes my lecture series on Shaman in lower level instances. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog programming.

Please feel free to let me know your critiques and other tips!

Even though the queues were pretty long yesterday, I managed to get in about 5 battles at WSG. (Slig’s at level 59 so I’m trying to get him some good gear before hitting 60 and becoming a freshman again.) Out of the last 9 battles I’ve been in, Horde have won 7 of them. The two times we lost, we got absolutely crushed. In those matches I felt we were always a step behind the Allies and I really couldn’t figure out why.

There were some one-on-one match-ups that gave me trouble. For example, a level 59 Druid just owned me every time I went on offense. But then my team needed me for defense so I went back to our flag room. I guess Druid-boy got cocky and he came after me on offense. Little did he know that when you’re in MY house you belong to ME. He died in my flag room WAY more times than he killed me out on the field. That was a great battle because Horde were down 2-0 and we came back to win the thing. Awesome. (I credit my switch to defense. Heh.)  On the flip side, I kept getting Feared and Blinded, running around like an idiot.  I could never seem to throw down Tremor totem fast enough.  Buggerit.

In most of the winning matches I’ve been in, it seems like sending most of the team on offense and keeping them all together works best. You also need to have about 3 on defense, maybe 4. Having the Shaman and the Hunter there seemed key.

What do you think makes a team dominant in Warsong Gulch? Is it organization? A lot of top-of-the-level-range players (e.g., all level 59s)? Class mix (e.g., a lot of hunters and druids)? Better healers? Better defense? What classes are best on offense vs. defense? If you were the battleground leader and, assuming everyone would listen to you, how would you run it best?

[digg=http://digg.com/pc_games/Dungeon_Tips_for_Your_Shaman_Part_2]On Wednesday, I posted the first in my series to help newbie Shaman with lower level dungeons. In that post, I went over a shammy’s role and how to prepare. Today we’re going inside the instance to use totems (buffing, damage, crowd control) and deal DPS (Damage Per Second).

Link at Big Daddy Gamer, the inspiration for this series, already posted some great techniques he used in Ragefire Chasm. Hopefully, I’ll be able to offer even more tips to help you out. Maybe that way he’ll forgive me for taking two whole days to write Part 2. Heh.

Totems
For totem managment, I use Totemus which is an add-on for Shaman that helps you organize your totems by type and significantly declutters your screen. It’s also helpful to have a totem countdown add-on like Totem Timer so you can keep an eye on when you need to recast. Be sure to watch those timers and drop refreshes when necessary.

Totems are a huge reason Shaman get invited to dungeon parties. Yes, you can deal and take damage, but never forget that you are Buffmeister Extraordinaire! Buffy the Mobslayer! Buffkin Bumpkin! [ahem, sorry.] This function should be second only to healing in your party support priorities. We can buff everyone in the party and nerf enemies both at the same time. You’ll learn a lot about your totems by goofing around with them during quests, but here I’ll highlight the ones I’ve found most useful in instances and the reasons why I like them, in no particular order. Unless you consider “random” an order.

Earth Totems

• Stoneskin or Strength are your standards. I usually drop Stoneskin, but an Enhancement Shaman I know likes to drop Strength. Use one of these when you don’t need one of the other Earth totems below.
• Stoneclaw is great for pulling threat to you and away from a more fragile party member. If you see your mage getting walloped and your Frost Shock is still cooling down, drop a Stoneclaw and then pull that bully to your tank.
• Earthbind is about as close to Crowd Control as a shammy is going to get. It is awesome for places like the Razorfen instances or any dungeon with dwarves because the little buggers tend to run off on you before you get a chance to kill them till they’re dead. This totem also helps the tank and casters so their targets don’t get out of range too fast.
• Tremor is a very specialized totem that I haven’t used often in instances below level 50. Use Tremor for those times when they keep putting you to sleep (somehow it’s always me!).

Fire Totems
I mainly use fire totems when I or my party gets jumped by multiples and I need a little extra help killing things off. For example, when your hunter tries to pull one mob and instead you get five bearing down on you, a fire totem can be like having an extra slugger in the group. In general, be cautious with fire totems. They carry mucho aggro so watch yourself with them. Only use them when you must and be careful not to wipe the party by pulling too much aggro to everyone. I’ll go over these kinds of cautions in more detail in the next post of this series.

• Magma is my favorite fire totem. It’s got a small radius so it’s the safest of the fire totems. Its damage isn’t as high as Searing but it hits more than one bad guy at a time. Also, it makes a really cool fire explosion sound.
• I don’t recommend using Searing totems until you get the ability to snuff your totems with Totemic Recall. It packs a good punch but after it finishes off one mob it can then start bringing others to you if you can’t shut it down. Once you do get Totemic Recall, if you drop a Searing totem, snuff it IMMEDIATELY after you’ve killed off the intended monster. You’ll have to re-drop your other totems, but it’s worth it to avoid a party wipe.
• I tend not to use Fire Nova because even low level mobs are smart enough to bonk them before they fire. Only on rare occasions do I find it to be anything other than a waste of mana.
• More passive choices include Flametongue, which melee dealers really like and Frost Resistance which is good when you’re in an area where you’re always getting hit with ice spells.

Air Totems

• Your melee dealers will kiss your face if you drop Windfury. This buff is awesome for doubling damage.
• On the other hand, your hunters will worship you if you drop Grace of Air. Rogues like either one.
• If we’re dealing with monsters that shoot arrows, first priority is to drop Windwall over by your clothies (casters and healers) so they don’t get swiss cheesed.
• Grounding totem does the same thing but against casters. You can redirect a significant amount of damage every time you drop it. I sometimes drop this one before we even pull a mob so that their first cast goes straight into the ground.

Water Totems

• The default totems to drop are either Mana or Healing Stream. Sometimes it’s tough to choose which one. You have to gauge it by your party’s weaknesses. If you’re geared for +Health, the Healing Stream can really help out your healer — especially if that’s you. On the other hand, if you simply need to overpower your enemies the Mana Stream totem can help you and the caster squeeze out an extra spell or two. If there’s another Shaman in the party, you can both drop the same healing or mana totem and they will “stack,” or double their power.
• Two of the MOST HELPFUL totems on the WoW planet are Poison Cleansing and Disease Cleansing. You can save yourself, your healer, and your druid a ton of mana and time away from DPS if you use these when dealing with poisons and disease. For a very small amount of mana you can abolish these DoTs for everyone in the party in “set it and forget it” style.

DPS
Some of you have been very patiently waiting for the good stuff. “Tell me how to moida those bastidges!”

• This tip will be one of the single most important things you’ll learn about working in parties. It took me to level 45 to learn it. I beg you to learn it sooner than I did. Ready for it? Here it is: PULL AGGRO TO THE TANK! She’s there to take a beating so that no one else has to. If you pull aggro to yourself using the techniques below, jog your Shaman self over to the tank and drop off that bugger at the station. Don’t question this tip, just do it. You will become renowned for being a hero and a genius. Trust me.
• Weapon buffs: A good all-around buff for your weapon is Flametongue. That way if you drop Windfury, you’ll get a double whammy on your weapon. Rockbiter is also a nice choice.
• Spam Lightning Bolt. Seriously, you could just stand still and do this all day. It’s fairly mana efficient for the damage it does and can crit nicely.
• Use Frost Shock to pull aggro off of a more vulnerable party member. Frost Shock generates the most threat in your spell book so unless you’re using it on a mob that’s attacking your tank, you’re guaranteed to get the mob’s attention.
• Stop enemy casters with Earth Shock. Be careful with both Earth & Frost Shock, though. They use a lot of mana and if you use them too often they won’t be cooled down when you really need them.
• Use your specced talents. If you have them, take advantage of Elemental Precision, Clearcasting, Shamanistic Rage, etc.
• Along those same lines, use your racial talents liberally. For Tauren, War Stomp is the bomb. Draenei can add extra healing with Gift of the Naaru. Trolls and orcs? Do your thing. (Um, whatever that is.)
• If you’re not the main healer, keep an eye on your mana in case you need to backup heal.
• If you are the main healer, don’t worry about casting unless thou overfloweth with mana. Use your melee skills to do the talking for you.
• When in doubt, whack something on the head.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll talk about healing techniques and aggro management.

Tee hee! I just had to share this site. (No financial interest, just thought it was funny.)

Well, this is quite interesting. So many people must’ve fled Blogger for Wordpress after they discontinued letting people leave comments with something other than a Blogger ID that they have added it back. Kind of. Click here or on the picture to the right. This image is a screenshot of what you now see when you want to leave a comment. (I was commenting on Need More Rage.) It allows you to click the drop down and sign in with something other than a Blogger/Google ID. Unfortunately, it’s not really clear how it works at first. What you have to do is put your blog’s URL in the space asking for “Blog Name.” Don’t put the name, put the URL. Then it pulls your name from the Wordpress website you entered. No passwords or anything. Just so you know.

[digg=http://digg.com/pc_games/Dungeon_Tips_for_Your_Shaman_Part_1]On Monday Link from Big Daddy Gamer requested that I do a post about playing a Shaman in lower level dungeons. So in the interest of public service (hey, I’m a giver), I’ve written some tips for 5-man instances. I did, however, get a bit carried away so I need to break it up into a series. Hey, just think of it like one of those old-timey cliff-hanger matinee idol thingies!

Here’s what I’m NOT going to do in this series:

• Explain what an instance is
• Explain the basics of how a dungeon party functions or general party etiquette
• Differentiate between the Shaman specs (Elemental, Enhancement, or Restoration) — I’ll try to be spec agnostic
• Tell you about specific dungeons and strategies

What’s the Shaman’s Role?

Shaman are a hybrid class. For the other so-called “pure” classes, it’s easy to know what your role will be. For us? Not so much. We need to be clear at the outset what is expected of us. We usually have a primary role and a secondary role. For example, you can be the primary healer (especially in lower level dungeons) and be the backup DPS as long as your mana holds up. Or, you can be asked to throw DPS at range and off-tank as a secondary function. That’s the strength of the Shaman class: versatility. No, we’re not going to replace the mage or the warrior, but a party leader might just choose a Shaman over a rogue to back up both her warrior and her priest. So, pipe up at the beginning of the dungeon and ask what they want you to focus on and whom to support if they get into trouble.

How Shaman Stack Up Against Typical Dungeon Roles

• Tank: We’re not typically the tank of choice, but we can take more damage than pure casters and can pull aggro to the tank without crumbling into a fleshy pile. Enhancement spec is best at tanking.
• DPS: Elemental specs can deal quite a bit of casting damage — especially Nature damage — and can then take the hits that result. Shaman have only a couple of DoT spells so it’s really a moot point to even discuss them.
• Healer: Resto specs can often heal lower dungeons without backup. (Even as an Elemental spec, I healed most of the times I went through Scarlet Monestary and I was Elemental spec. Ideally, though, you want to be a backup healer and party wipe insurance (the ability to resurrect oneself and others).
• Crowd Control: Word on the street is Shaman have no CC. I’m going to disagree, but only partially. No, we don’t have the mad Sheep Skillz and whatnot, but in an instance you can still support CC with totems.
• Buffs: Again, we are not going to completely replace Buffy the Buff paladin or Arcane Intellect and whatnot, but totems do provide support that most classes really appreciate.

How to Prepare

1. Know your class. Know what you can and can’t do well. When you’re questing, pay attention to how long your mana lasts and what works against a variety of enemies. Notice what causes aggro and what can slip by. Notice whether you do better pulling enemies or bashing away at them. (More on this in future parts of this series.)
2. Know your role in the party, as described above and by your party leader.
3. Know your spells and what they do. The most important thing you can do to be invited back to more instances is to know your own class’s capabilities and play it well.
4. Repair your armor before you go.
5. Bring intellect and stamina scrolls or potions.
6. Bring healing and mana potions too.
7. Bring drinks, bandages, and food.
8. If you’re level 30 or above, bring a stack of ankhs for resurrection. I usually bring 5 to be on the safe side.

Now that I’ve convinced you that Shaman can have a viable, impactful role in the instance, in part 2, we’ll talk in more depth about totems (buffing, damage, crowd control) and DPS (damage).

[digg=http://digg.com/pc_games/Tips_for_Your_Shaman_in_Warsong_Gulch]Slig is level 59 now so instead of rushing right to 60 (which is a level that’s pretty meaningless with Burning Crusade anyway since you get to go to Outland at 58), I decided to take advantage of being at the top of the range for Warsong Gulch. I wanted to get some honor and rack up some gear before I hit 60.

Since I had to learn the hard way what I know about playing a Shaman in Warsong Gulch — with a few hints from my buddy Bubbajuju — I decided to write up some tips for playing in this battleground so that other Shaman would have it a bit easier than I did.

What I am NOT going to do is give general PvP tips. First of all, I play on an RP server so I dunno from PvP servers. In fact, the techniques I offer for Warsong Gulch may not even work in that type of dog-eat-dog world where everything attacks you but the trees.

I am also NOT going to tell you how to play Warsong Gulch in general. You can go here for tips along those lines.

What I WILL do, however, is tell you what works for me as a shammy at any level in the WSG battleground. (Note that all tips will work for both Horde and Alliance shammies except the War Stomp, which is unique to Tauren.) Since I play an Elemental spec, you’ll see some references that only apply to that talent tree.

General Tips
Use these ideas on both offense and defense.

• Put Frostbrand on your weapon – stopping an enemy is easier when he’s been slowed down.
• Use your fastest weapon – the more hits you can get with the Frostbrand, the more likely you can freeze them. Face it, you are not going to be the heavy hitter out there — leave that to your rogues and warriors. Just whack the beejeebus out of everything and try to stun it as often as possible. Don’t worry about shield vs. no shield — you’re gonna die a million times anyway.
• [Tauren only.] War Stomp often! Use it in fights as often as it cools down. If you’re a macro type (which I’m not), set up a macro to cast it or remind you to cast it. Again, stunningness is next to killingness.
• Cast Lightning Shield whenever you can remember to do it. Mana is not a problem for Shaman in the BG since you often die before you can use up all your mana anyway. Be liberal with this shield because you can at least hurt others who are trying to hurt you (and you get honor for the kill if they die).
• Cast Elemental Mastery as often as it cools down if you are specced for it. You can often 1-shot kill a wounded flag carrier — or anybody else you wanna take down. I usually cast Frost Shock with it, but if it’s a caster coming at you, feel free to go with Earth Shock to stop their sticky little fingers from blasting at you.
• Don’t use potions or scrolls. Trust me on this. Rely instead on buffs from your teammates. You will waste your pots and scrolls because I guarantee you will die over and over again. Just leave them in the bank.

Offense Tips
By all means, go after the enemy flag. Either go for it yourself, or follow the teammate who gets it.

• Purge, purge purge!! Purge like a madman! Priests, mages, rogues… other shaman… show them where they can put their buffs!
• Use Earth Shock to stop casters from hitting you or your flag bearer.
• Use Frost Shock to slow down someone stealing your flag. Heck, just spam Frost Shock everywhere when you’re not spamming Purge.
• If you get to the flag, use Ghost Wolf and run like the dickens with the flag! You can’t mount and carry the flag, but you can shapeshift (ask a druid; they know). No one can catch you… unless they have another shaman coming after you and even he must shapeshift to slow or stop you with a spell. Serpentine as you run so their casters and hunters can’t get a bead on you.
• If you don’t have the flag, follow your flag carrier and heal, heal, heal them. Frost shock or War Stomp along the way as you follow him. Also use Earthbind or Grounding totem if your flag bearer gets surrounded (see totem tips under Defense). Skip along merrily after your flag bearer and drop totems like you’re dropping rose petals at a wedding.

Defense Tips
I really like to play defense. I get a huge charge out of killing someone in my own flag room and sending them all the way back to their graveyard. I mean, this is my house! No touchy the flag, punk!! Shaman can be extremely effective on defense in the flag room. Basically, I stand right next to the flag and keep spamming 3 totems over and over again, watching the timers so there is always coverage on them. Here are the totems and the reasons I use them.

• Earthbind Totem – slows down every creep trying to touch your team’s flag either coming or going.
• Searing Totem – I call this my anti-rogue security device. When a rogue or druid tries to stealth into the flag room, even if I don’t see them, the Searing Totem will start shooting at them. And then they are MINE. Heh.
• Grounding Totem – for those annoying little mages and casters in your life. If they try to come at you with some crowd control spell, it will hit the totem instead and you can bust that little caster’s chops.
• On offense, I often cast these three totems near the enemy’s tunnel entrance, or upstairs if I am attacking from above into their flag room. These totems serve as either an early warning device that someone’s coming at me up the stairs, or in the tunnel they can slow down and aggravate anyone trying to chase you as you leave with the flag.

Challenges
Okay, so I don’t know everything. Heh. I could use your help with these challenges.

• I haven’t learned how to deal well with hunters which stinks because there’s so darn many of them. I usually use stunning techniques on the pet and then run like crazy to get away from the ranged shots. If you have better ideas, please share!
• I don’t usually use a water totem since mana, health, poison and disease are not big deals in the battleground. Does anyone have any ideas about water totem usage?
• What do you prefer to play — offense or defense — and why?

In this post, I tagged five bloggers, as Big Daddy Gamer instructed on his original post, to continue the “5 Lessons/5 Years” meme and I promised to link back to those who played along. Now I pony up the links! I’ve added these sites to my blogroll in appreciation:

• Big Red Kitty (even though they credited Big Bear Butt Blog with tagging them, but I forgive them because they were so imminently witty!)
• Jon at the Bronze Kettle
• Shelbi at the Bronze Kettle/Vector Vixen

Go there! Now! This means YOU! Git…!