“be prepared”
Yeah, I know. So much for quitting, right?
So in the last week, I've largely been prepping my 4 85 toons for the LFR system. I was truly surprised at how easy this was. While I am not the doom and gloom "OMG BLIZZ TOTALLY CATERS TO CASUALS AND THE GAME IS SOOOOOO EASY NOW" sort, I do have to admit that for the big bad end all bit of this expansion? It seemed remarkably easy to get caught up. Still, I've been having fun doing the LFR runs on my druid healer/tank, my shammy healer, my mage and my DK tank.
Which brings me to the run the other day.... we've pretty much blown through the 3 fights to get to Deathwing himself at the Maelstrom. As we're prepping up, this priest starts shouting that someone needs to drop a cauldron for him so he can have a potion. I reply that he should learn to buy his potions in the AH like the rest of us (although I make mine, alchemist natch!). He said he never did that, that he'd prefer to spend other people's gold. I replied that he was a hindrence to any raid that had the misfortune of having him then. What happened next was a 20 minute tirade of
OMG DRUID SUCKS KICK THE DRUID
OMG LAME DRUID SEE HIM SUCK
VOTE THE DRUID OUT OMG
over and over and over. It actually got pretty comical because I kept getting tells from people saying: "Is the dude blind? Can he not see recount?" I realize he was butthurt because I called his quality as a raider into question, but I stand by my assertion.
I show up to every raid:
1) early
2) with feasts and cauldrons already farmed
3) having read up on the fight at the very least, if not watched the videos
Don't get me wrong, life happens sometimes, but I can count on one hand the times I've NOT done the above 3 items in the last 10+ years (going all the way back to EQ). It's just a matter of respect for your team mates.
Still, we're talking about LFR, which is the equivalent of barrens chat combined with Alterac Valley and then toss in a few raid bosses to kill...so you can't expect a LOT from it.
closing down
Well, after 6 some years of Warcraft, I think the spell has finally been broken.
We'll see. I've "quit" before. We'll see if I managed to resist the fall lure of raiding once summer ends. Time will tell.
Taking Lead
One of the things that I've always found frustrating about players is that they love to piss, moan and complain, but none of them are ever willing to start something up themselves when it comes to leading a raid. A great example of this would be the trade chat on my server. You can watch 10 individual people advertising that they are looking for a Baradin Hold run, but it never seems to dawn on ANY of them to change the wording to say:
"Starting BH10 run. Send tells for invite."
So those 10 individual people will sit, trolling trade chat, just waiting for someone else to take the lead. It's mind boggling to me, actually.
And in that vein, I've become an officer in my new guild (we had a split from the old one. losing level 25 and those perks really, really sucks heh) that will be in charge of the weekend raids. This is largely because my guild raids tue/wed/thur. There's is a group of us that are not on prime time (european players and other third shifters like myself) and not able to raid on those days that would really like to see some of this content die by our own hands and not just belong to a guild that downed it. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'll be leading a late night weekend raid for those people and 1 friday "prime time" raid for a collection of real life friends and co-workers who would like to raid, but are finding it hard to break into it. Because I've seen every fight except for the 2 in Throne, I feel somewhat confident in my ability to impart to them what we must do.
I'm a bit nervous. I'll cop to that. I need to figure out some method of point system for my raid teams. I'm not a huge fan of DKP, but I'm also not willing to let people who come week after week suddenly lose the roll on a tier piece to someone who showed up for the first time. So a way to weight the rolls in your favor if you are a regular attendee, but without removing the ability for that first timer to still win because they ARE contributing to the current raid. Anyone out there got any advice on that?
heh. Long shot, I know. I don't think anyone reads this blog to begin with. 
I could just be talking to myself.
I'm also excited because I'll get the chance to show those real life friends a part of the game that I love so much. Hopefully they find it as challenging and rewarding as I do and I am not an asshole of a leader. I know I can be short tempered when frustrated, so I'll need to work on being "constructive" rather than just "short". heh.
It is also worth mentioning that it will be a new experience in one regard. All that bear tank gear I've been amassing as "Off Spec" rolls on my regular raids? I'm going to be the main tank for my group on friday rather than a healer. The pressure is on!
still here
I've actually been playing a mage a lot lately, so haven't had much to say on the druid front. I've hit kind of a lull in how far I can get raid wise with my druid due to my guild moving to 25 man raids during nights I work. I pick up "alt raids" here and there, but one of my primary ones has actually had a shortage of ranged dps (gasp!)...
...so I broke out my original toon from release. A level 60 gnome fire mage. Moved to horde, turned goblin and taken to 85 and decked out in a couple of weekend. She's been a blast (budmp bump ching!) to play. Goblins are truly awesome and ranged dps is definitely lower stress than heals/tanking.
I did go into Zul'Aman with my druid to heal a guild group and after 5 wipes on the first boss, tried to slink out of the dungeon in shame. My guildies told me it wasn't my fault, but man.... I mean, I know I'm not a shitty healer, but I just could NOT heal that first fight. People died left and right. Our shaman respec'ed to resto, boom, down the boss fell. He went back to enhancement and I didn't have issues with a single other healing encounter in that zone, so I'm inclined to believe what they told me about the fight. Still, that was a hell of an ego blow.
I've been picking up spare satchels for tanking here and there. Regular heroics are easy-peasy now, so I figure why not.
Other than that, just the same old, same old. Made a few darkmoon decks finally. My hunter husband loves me for his new agi trinket. 
raiding
This is my Cataclysm raid experience so far. It can be difficult as a 3rd shifter to find a guild that raids on the days I have off. I work sun-wed nights, which seem to be the nights most guilds raid. I've never understood why people largely raid on work/school nights rather than friday/saturday. Ah well. I did manage to settle in with a 10 man that runs on thursdays. We'd been doing BWD and BoT bosses while we gelled as a group. The other night, it was very clear that we had come together as we walked in and took down everyone but Nefarion in an hour.
I was looking forward to working on Nef (new fights/1st kills are largely why I play), but it turns out our group is now going to run Tue BWD and Thur BoT. So I'll see the end of BoT, but not BWD. Sadface is sad. I'm trying to get together with another group running BWD on saturdays, we'll see how it goes.
As for the fights themselves? I'm largely enjoying them. Loved the end of the Chimaeron fight. heh. TREENUKE! Mostly, I enjoy a fight where once you figure out the mechanics, the fight becomes easy. Atramedes seemed the best example of this. Almost all of the damage was avoidable if you knew what you were doing. And that's been the theme of this expansion for me...it requires everyone to know their place and what they are doing...no slackers. So far, the fights I have encountered seem tuned just right that they aren't total ball breakers, but they ensure every one is on their toes and earning those epics.
The defense system fight is still chaotic as hell for me. :p I'll take the Ascendant Council "buff dance" (we got him to 3% on my last attempt on them...they die next time!) over them any day.
My shaman got his first taste of BWD as well. He's struggling a lot more with mana pool/regen issues than I did on the druid. I'm hoping the Tol Barad trinket helps out (I should have the rep on him to buy it tonight).
it’s the little things
I'm almost ashamed to admit how happy I am to read that we will be able to rearrange our character screen finally in patch 4.2.
Don't mind me. I'm THAT dork.
a quick catch up
Hello folks.
I've been pretty quiet here because I've not actually had a lot to say that is WoW related. We've had a pretty hectic few weeks in our home...we turned in (and had approved) our application for adoption. This means a lot of training classes, etc, as we get licensed for foster care/adoption. Which means a less obsessive WoW schedule, particularly if I become a parent.
But it isn't like I quit WoW in a huff. Here's where I've been:
- I got my mage to 75 and maxed inscription. This was easier than I thought it would be and I've been making darkmoon cards to try and get my decks for my various toons.
- I've been doing my daily dungeon somewhat faithfully. I'm quickly losing patience with PUGs...which doesn't leave me a lot of options on a 3rd shift schedule. Fortunately, a change in how you can get your weekly allotment of points seems to be coming, which will work well for our "lets group with real life friends and run heroics" weekend nights.
- Did I mention I'm losing patience with PUGs? I realize that everyone has to learn sometime, but there's a lot of wilful stupidity out there. I've ranted about tanks here before, but how about other classes? Like the hunter yesterday that decided the blue square and all the "hunter why aren't you doing frost trap???" messages were clearly meant for the priest. *boggle*
- My shaman has been sitting on the sidelines a bit in favor of the mage. Goblins are awesome. Seriously.
- I gave my dusty warlock some loving and got him to 83 one night when bored at 4am. It made for some nice gold...which I needed because....
- ....I finally bought my vial of the sands parts and did the combine. Having to fork out 22k gold may seem like chump change to some, but not to me, so I've spent the last few weeks (since I got the recipe from archeaology) doing my transmutes, farming, etc. All so I didn't have to spend more than that vendor price stuff. It took a while, but I got it! I'm a bearcattreedragonbird!
Our time in game may be spotty due to all of the classes for our adoption license, but like most MMO players, we still find time to pop in game. I've debated giving it up. It has been 6 years. My previous MMO was 5. That's 11 years spent in virtual worlds. It seems like a lot when I think back on it.
We'll see. Lord knows, the only way I quit EQ was to play WoW. heh.
tanking – you’re doing it wrong
And this is a prime example of why I think every healer in every group needs to call bad tanks out each and every time rather than suffering with them hoping to avoid queuing for a new tank. This guy, even when the group tried to CC, was willfully breaking it and then acting surprised when I as totally OOM after every single pull. That extra 20k mana you seem so concerned with? That's less than 3 more heals (greater healing wave at 7k mana).
So let me be abundantly clear "Tanad", I've healed heroics with 80k mana and yes I'm at the "starting" end of the range. However, when the tank allows CC to take place, I end trash pulls at 80%. When your dumb ass charges in there and the 16kdps DK pulls threat off of you via aoe and causes me to have to spam heal him 3x as much as I am healing you? Guess what? I GO OUT OF MANA.
So just because you've had near raid geared healers that have allowed you to learn bad habits, is not an excuse for you to not get your head out of your ass, particularly when I and the group call you on it. CC is not rocket science, it isn't hard, and it makes sure we get through the dungeon as quickly and painlessly as possible.
I'm so close to just letting tanks die that refused to CC. If they vote kick me, oh well. I can get another group...hopefully this time with a better tank who actually has a brain rather than just charges a group of mobs and then bitches that his healer runs out of mana trying to keep his ass alive. And for the record, I wouldn't ever do this, not because I care about the crap tank...but it isn't fair to punish the rest of the group just to make my point.
Luck of the Draw
It currently provides a 5% buff to damage, healing, and health if you have at least one random player in your group. With patch 4.0.6, we are increasing this buff to 5% damage, healing, and health per random player, up to a maximum of 15%.
Nice! I was sceptical about my archaeology buffs adding anything significant to a heroic run, but in the end, it really was noticeable, so this change should be quite lovely.
That being said, this line made me crack up:
In the process of working on this change we actually discovered that the Luck of the Draw buff has not been working in Cataclysm at all, save for a few specific dungeons. This means that the difficulty in almost all normal and Heroic dungeons for those using the Dungeon Finder tool was higher than expected.
Nooooo. Ya think?
We all knew that weeks ago, but thanks for the verification and the buff! heh.
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