Operation: AoE ZA Tank

The scene: Heroic BM followed by Heroic SP followed by Heroic Ramparts
The players: My kitty, my gang of uber better geared people

In this gang of uber people, we have the single most resourceful person I have ever met on this game. She organizes people like no other. She can PuG Gruuls on a holiday weekend and have us kill the bugger. She can motivate a bunch of strangers to run into SSC and attempt Hydross for six hours. She is, in a word, awesome.

She also should have been in ZA that night.

However, her guild has this phobia of ZA without a paladin tank. Therefore, no paladin tank signs up... no ZA.

Meanwhile I'm running around on my cat and trying to chain heal (heh) and I pipe up that man I have too many alts. Then comes the question: really, what do you have? Well I have a shadow priest, a prot paladin and a hunter.

Wait wait, did you say prot paladin?

Well she's ret right now for questing purposes but her prot gear is way better and prot is more fun.

How's her gear? Kara?

No...

Heroics?

No...

Badges?

No. She's my fourth 70! How much time do you think I have? I have the T5/T6 mana battery, I have the T4/T5 bear and I have the T4/PVP hunter. Do your eally think I'd be sane if I had a T4 paladin to go with it?

Hey guys, how awesome would it be to have a prot paladin at our beck and call?

Umm... ok I could deal with that. But I'd need some help.

Karazhan, Friday, 9 server.

My paladin was in greens and blues when she walked into Karazhan. She was unenchanted. She was unexperienced. She had never seen a Badge of Justice on a boss, only in Supplies Packages.

She OTed Midnight.
She OTed an add and Moroes.
She dispelled on Maiden (as usual for me haha).
She ran like hell when Gnomed.



She tanked skellies on Nightbane.



She ate hateful bolts on Curator.
She tanked elementals on Aran.
She was a worg in Chess.
She healed (and dispelled) on Prince.
She tanked the red beam and the green beam on Netherspite.



Justicar Handguards were had, and here is the comparison with her Felsteel Gloves.



While it's not an upgrade for raids due to the lack of avoidance, it's damn awesome for 5mans and off-tanking harmless things due to the spell damage and block value.

And 22 Badges of Justice were also had, leading to Libram of Repentance, which bumped her up an awesome 5% towards uncrushability at the measly cost of 15 Badges.

That was Friday.

Saturday, I snatched up the last few materials I needed for her suggested crafted upgrades. I pounced on the crafters the moment I saw them log on (having friended them like the stalker I am). Bracers of the Green Fortress were mine, for the easy cost of 1 Primal Nether, 20 Primal Lifes and 6 Hardened Adamantite Bars. And later I picked up Belt of the Guardian for the also cheap cost of 2 Nether Vortexes, 10 Primal Waters, 5 Primal Earths and 5 Hardened Adamantite Bars.

Note that I say cheap because I'm a packrat and had most of the mats, as well as a comfy amount of cash to spend.

Then I put myself in queue for Black Morass, to work on my Keepers of Time rep for Glyph of the Defender and Timewarden's Leggings.

"Well I can get us a tank, but we're short a healer."

Well ok then.



For the record, it was fun. I decided to look at it from an "I need to time my heals" standpoint instead of "lolololol flash of light spam" and it was quite enjoyable.

And then I specced back prot for another run right after, which was a little less fun because people got offended I salved them when they pulled aggro (lolwut?).

On my way down for the second run, this is what MoneyFu told me:



I'm one run away from Revered now and in queue for a group for it. Hopefully it won't be too painful.

Has all this effort been worth it? Yes. Without even stepping into ZA, I will definitely say yes. Continue reading 'Operation: AoE ZA Tank'

There's A First Time For Everything...

So I took the baby shaman to Outlands today at level 59.64. I simply ran out of Azeroth quests that I wanted to do, and I didn't want to beg my best friend for another romp through Scholomance. Not to mention I want to level this thing like NOW. I figure I can make up for it by healing many instances as she levels.

So she donned her elemental gear, got herself a 29/0/21 spec and scurried off through the Dark Portal.

Continue reading 'There's A First Time For Everything...'

Down to One

I really cannot stand raid leaders who yell. I also cannot stand raid leaders who insult people. Wonderfully, my last one did both. So after a particularly frustrating raid with only half the group on vent and sporadic DCs during which he kept insulting people with very derogatory comments and snarling, I had had enough.

I don't care how much loot these guys helped me get. I don't care that they got me my Commendation of Kael'thas. I don't care that they got me my T4 helm. I don't care that they got me some badges for my Embrace of Everlasting Prowess.

I will not wear the same tag as people who are intentionally disrespectful of others. I will not put up with more raids of being told I should go resto because I have nice healing gear. I will not put up with more fights spent listening to my raid leader bossing the healers around because not everyone is at 100% health.

Maybe I just have high standards. I don't particularly think so, but I can't seem to find a raid leader that doesn't drive me up the wall.

I didn't leave on very friendly terms. I have a few people I may still talk to, but all in all I am relieved to no longer be guilded with them. They are not representative of who I am in this game or as a person.

So now my priest is in my friends and family guild, my babies are in my personal guild and my druid is once again guildless. We'll see how long that lasts this time. Continue reading 'Down to One'

Ugh

This guild is trying to progress too fast with too many idiots and bad structure.

Excuse me while I try very hard not to bash my brains in while standing at the Karazhan summoning stone for another hour.

PS: PVP-oriented players and characters do not a raiding guild make. Continue reading 'Ugh'

Woot Trinket!

Got the ever desirable and tasty Commendation of Kael'thas on my druid tonight. I even tanked the instance, which used to be a HUGE terror of mine. We struggled, it sucked, we were well-geared and smart but OMG IT SUCKED. And I have to go back there for the kitty trinket.

We also got 3/6 down in ZA tonight. No timed chests, pugged 1 of each category (tank/DPS/heals). It was still kinda nice though.

This raid leader yells a bit too, sadly. Not as angry sounding, just frustrated sounding. He yells at the healers though, tells them who to heal. That makes me cranky. They're doing their best. But he's a good guy.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping the 10man/25man raids in WotLK turns out as awesome as I hope. I love the concept. Blizzard, don't fail me now. Continue reading 'Woot Trinket!'

*squeal*

So last night was Karazhan Group 1 with my druid. We did a half clear (11 badges). Would have gone farther but our Pugged healer was an idiot and people were trying to convince the hunter not to MD onto him... and it was so so tempting.

Anyway, I MTed everything and it was my first time MTing EVER and it was SO FUN. I even MTed Nightbane, which was terrifying and exciting and I could only see his back and had a Hunter's Mark in my camera angle. I didn't get any loot (other than BADGES), but then again I wasn't expecting any on the druid. He's now up to 80 badges.

We're cleaning up that run on Monday.

And tonight was Karazhan Group 2, which I managed to wind my way into on my hunter, of all characters.

Attumen dropped the Steelhawk Crossbow. Then Prince dropped Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix and my T4 helm. Oh and it was a full clear.

So a few hours later, I've got her a meta gem and I've got it activated with only 3 sockets (thanks to a warrior who thinks faster than me about how to gem my hunter, curse you Tier 6 jewelcrafter - I kid). Still need to search around for a scope for that TASTY baby of mine.

And since I'm going to do my best to bring her on Group 2 runs as much as possible, she may get badges. Gasp. But I'll focus on replacing her belt/boots/bracers before replacing her now totally awesome and gorgeous bow.

Meanwhile my new GL (druid's guild) has exclaimed "is there anything you CAN'T do?" as I managed to get us a healer, pointed out I had 4 70s and held the #3 DPS spot on my second most backlogged alt (behind a T6 ele shaman and a warlock), clocking about 600 DPS.

Yes I'm feeling quite smug right now. :D Continue reading '*squeal*'

Some Changes

I took the priest out of her raiding guild today. Spoke to one of the officers before I did it, sent an in-game mail to my GL. I would have liked to speak to the GL directly before leaving, but schedules sucked and I just couldn't get on at a time to talk to them when they weren't in a raid.

And then I found the druid a potential raiding home. I told them I wanted to try things out, see how they went, so we'll see. I'm staying bear and they can suck it up if they'd rather have a tree. I like tanking better than lifebloom-spam. Anyway, they're very new but ambitious. We'll see where that goes.

Meanwhile the little shaman is almost level 51 and I am reaching the burn out point again. I healed a BRD run-through today with her and it was pretty fun, I don't think I'll mind shaman healing later. I also picked up some nice ele pieces (mostly leather but eh) for when she'll switch back. Continue reading 'Some Changes'

Badgers!

Heroic Shattered Halls (with Timed)
Heroic Mana Tombs (with Consortium)
Heroic Sethekk (with Anzu)

Total Badges: 12

Plus one Badge from my Dailies. :D

Total now is 69 on my druid, with 100 as the cost of my first upgrade. And I had a blast, did them with an awesome group from an early T6 guild. (Hell I know more people from their guild than I know from my raiding one.)

And I broke 3.5K gold again without driving myself nuts with dailies. Whee. :)

Now to sleep. Continue reading 'Badgers!'

ZA: First Impressions

I logged on my priest today expecting to just do my transmute and hop back onto my alt. It was a very boring alt-heavy day and I really wished I was doing a raid or something. So imagine my surprise when an invite pops up on my screen and I get two whispers asking me if I want to do ZA.

After checking with the bf, who reluctantly agreed to let me go, I hopped a port to SMC and flew to the Ghostlands.

I know I seem really negative about raids in general, but I do like the 10mans. I like smaller groups where you can get to know people and you can joke around. 25mans are very business-like and as a newbie I feel very awkward. It's not that bad in 10mans.

That said, when we were pushing for the first two timers (got both), I was a little cranky. After that, we slowed down and I began to have a lot more fun.

ZA is an awesome instance. As someone who loved (and lived in) ZG back in the pre-TBC days, ZA is like going back home. I love the different aspects, the defined short trash runs from boss to boss, the encounters... it reminds me why I like raiding.

We one-shotted both Bear and Eagle. Two-shotted Dragonhawk. One-shotted Lynx. And then we played with Hex Lord and on our best attempt got him down to 16%. All in two hours.

It definitely made me rethink about wanting to haul my priest out of her guild and never touch her again. I could easily show up for ZA attempts and not get all anxious about it.

So I'm cautiously optimistic now. Hopefully I'll be able to get a stable ZA group for the priest and find a stable Karazhan group for the druid. :) Continue reading 'ZA: First Impressions'

Thoughts on Raiding

This is going to be fairly stream of consciousness. But, then again, most of this blog is.

I've been raiding T5 content on my shadow priest for a bit over two or three weeks now. I've only seen the Lurker fight and the Void Reaver fight on her so far, but I've also seen the Hydross fight on my druid. And I've seen way more trash than I really want to.

1) It's kinda boring.
Especially since we're not really progressing. It's the same trash pulls, the same boss, the same time to kill him, the same loot, the same spell rotation. The only difference is if I use the special SSC/TK mana pots or the general kind.

2) Very defined, inflexible roles.
Not saying that I want to be a holy priest, but it kinda bugs me to think that if one person deviates from their role the entire thing goes to hell. However, in 10mans there's a bit more leeway to compensate as it only involves 9 people reacting not 24.

3) It takes a lot of time.
Our scheduled raid times are an awful 9-1 my time. It's really draining to me and I find myself wishing I could skip raids because I just don't want to be in a business situation for that long, without any downtime afterwards before bed.

4) And doesn't give me much personally.
As a fully crafted-geared shadow priest, I was expecting to see more than just 1-2 upgrades in T5 instances for me (VR's helm and Vashj's robe). Instead, it's more beneficial for me to badge grind and visit my cousins in ZA.

5) It's late.
As I mentioned above, it's 9PM-1AM. They also like to run Kara or ZA after the raid, which is just not possible for me. It's also destroying my ability to run those instances, as everyone else is locked in by the time I'd like to go.

As the above indicates, I have a few crucial questions to ask myself. Do I like raiding? Do I like raiding 25mans? Is it just T5 that bores me? Would it be better if I were on my druid? Am I willing to put up with horrible raiding times?

I think I know the answers. Now to act on them, heh. Continue reading 'Thoughts on Raiding'