Of time ingame

Heya again, long time no post, which seems to be the going rule around here. RL blahblah and so on and so forth. I really lacked the inspiration during the past month and I honestly thought that my muse had died. In the meanwhile I have maxed Mining and JC on my DK and all was well. I was pleased. But (there’s always a but) what I hadn’t considdered was that just by havink the skill does not make you a licensed jewelcrafter. You have to learn the recipes and they each cost 4 tokens of which you only get one a day. Believe you me, that knocked my gold making dreams down a peg or ten.

Then I turned to my Warlock and saw it was seriously lacking. No gear to be proud of and he had his Enchanting in the 150 range plus tailoring about the same, slightly higher. In a fit of ingame rage I ditched enchanting and thought I’d pick up Herbalism for my up and coming Paladin Scribe. That las all through reaching skill 2 before it got removed too, go figure. I focused my full and undivided attention on leveling my Tailoring and PuG-ing with my DK, of the rare and soon to be extinct breed of Blood damage dealer. Got some nice upgrades for her, by the way, she is currently guildless and sitting on a 5.7 k groovy score, enough to grant me a spot in any GS PuG. Now if only I could work out how to change my rotation to take full advantage of the ilvl264 sigil it would be great. But I digress. Back to the Lock:

While camping the AH for cloth I figured I’d PvP for a bit. Mind you, I have not entered a BG in almost 11 months since I got incredibly disheartened by the survival chances of a shaman in a PvP environment and the number of leechers that joined and then did not move for the duration. I shelved my hard worked for Elemental and Enhancement PvP gear in the bank (this was before the Honor Jug was broken over BGs, when it took a week of loosing constantly to get an upgrade or a set piece – think ilvl 213 being teh bomb) and swore myself off PvP.

All that aside, I entered my first BG on my lock past lvl 29 in my full set of PvE gear and got mowed down repeatedly within seconds. SotA, 2 minutes left on the clock and the Horde hadn’t made it off the beach.

Damn! Things haven’t changed at all, I thought, until I remembered that I had 2 PvP set pieces in my bank, from VoA, things I chose not to roll on but were awarded to me regardless. Equipped them, gemmed and enchanted them and stepped back through the portal in my Affliction PvE spec. The alternative would have been Destro PvE and I never even tried it out, just got it because all the cool kids were doing it. Things were better. I even managed to survive for a while even though I was pummeled on. Sure, having a keybind for Fear helped a lot with that but I was pleased with the results. So much even that I respecced into Affliction PvP as OS. It was fun but I felt I didn’t pack a punch, really and for me it’s all about the big numbers. Respecced Destro PvP and after reading the tooltip for all the spells and talents I felt confident enough to go in a BG again. And I loved it. I still died a lot because of low resilience but with practice comes perfection and honor. I am currently sporting a 4pc PvP set (2 ilvl232 and 2 ilvl251) and almost everything I wear has resilience on it. I can even haz trinket!

I even has Arena team. It is fail because I am fail at arena PvP and my RL friend and partner is a resto drood that last did Arenas in TBC. We’re working out the kinks in the system and we even won our first match! Gogo sap-trinket machine! Oh, yeah, because I liked PvP I also maxed my Engineering skill for teh sweet toys. Not cheap, mind you!

The reason I did all this was because I was really bummed about my shaman, my first love. I hadn’t gotten any gear upgrades since fucking forever and really, not for lack of trying. I had the same darn MH since early December, the Anub 25 mace of awesomesauce (back then) and it was getting old logging to see that melon on top of a pike every time.

I joined a new guild on the shaman about a month back, that had the core of the guld I felt best in. Things looked pro and all I wanted was to bring down Arthas. Match made in heaven, amirite? No. Like with any good guild, there were raiding hours and they never were during when I could be online for the full duration. I either had to work those hours or have to leave for work after 2/3.5. Bummer. I went on an ICC 10 run with the GL and I guess I made an impression because I was asked again despite the guild having a shaman join per day for a week or so. Fast forward, I explained why I couldn’t raid, the GL said it’s ok and I went back to PvP on my lock. All of this until yesterday night, when out of sheer boredom I opened the Armory app on my phone. Saw a ICC10 HC run scheduled for the next day, and figured that if I tried really hard I could make 3/3.5 hours and then take a cab to work. I signed up and was online at invite time. And 5 minutes after. And 10 after that, during which everything was quiet. Out of the blue, when I got tired of re-listing auctions the invite swooped in out of the blue. There were so many to sign up (only 9, making me the 10th, when I had) that there were actually 2 groups put together.

I wasn’t really surprised to not make thefirst group, the A team, and was just fine with being accepted. I got my flasks and feasts and proceeded to ICC.

Buffs, trash, feast. Marrowgar HC. I had only seen this fight on HC once before, when it ended terribad and we did not try it again. One wipe. Rebuff. Feast. Kill. Rejoice. Lady Deathwhisper, never seen her before so pissy. Had the fight explained for the priest so I listened to everything except the tanking bit because I am not a tank and why the fuck should I care about tanking? I was wrong. It seems that she is untauntable in phase 2 which had me actually watch Omen. The second time around. Apparently the mage wasn’t listening either cause he snatched aggro in no time flat and whaddaya know, was 1 shotted. A death promptly followed by mine because I was next in the pretty aggro chart. A kill in two is not that bad, I wager, I have seen and been in groups flailing about and not able to down her despite the 25% (at the time) buff on 10m normal.

Onwards and upwards to lootship where I finally got my new weapon. Yes, it’s a healer’s weapon, it has mp5 but the trade-off was worth it. Some measly 50 crit for 120 SP plus a yellow socket of hasty goodness? Yes, please! I honestly wouldn’t have minded HC Muradin’s Spyglass either but I was thrilled to get an upgrade, any upgrade. And a weapon upgrade was to die for at this point, really.

Heroic Saurfang was the stuff of legends because of the tauntfail that had us bursting in laughter. Our KS (on another char), the OT, had 4 consecutive taunts miss, 2 of which being during Jr’s ‘oi, look at me, I’m big and bad’ phase. I was the only one on the floor at the end, got 1shotted by a blood beast when the boss only had 300k HP left -.- . Luckily I did not have a mark on me so it was all cool. 1shot, by the way.

This is where the HC bit ended, even though we easily could have downed Festerface based on the level of teamplay involved and the DPS we were pumping out. We got Festergut to hit the ground in 2 minutes and 10 seconds without using Bloodlust. I was honestly shocked to see this. Rotface posed no problem and dropped some boots for mah enhancement offspec (ARP meh) and then we killed the Proffessor although judging by the MT’s shoddy Abomination handling I thought we wouldn’t.

That was all the ICC experience I had, both in 10 and 25 man. I know it’s little, so late after the raid opened its gates and with the buff and all but just how things were. I find it weird myself if you’re asking.

Next up – Blood Wing. I had been in a few attempts to kill the Princes but nothing that even made it past 50%. One-shot. I knew the tactics for this one, which was more than I could say for Blood Queen. I knew the general direction the fight would be going in, with the biting and the lazor and the flames but never having seen it… I was reluctant to believe in myself that I would perform according to expectations. The healing priest admitted to not knowing tacts so they were explained briefly and I had my ears peeled. RC and gogogo, I blow all my cool-downs, which are not many – racial SP and EM and lo and behold, I am the first one to be bitten. The RL actually loled a bit at this (elemental shaman to be top bursty DPS? Unfathomable!) but then ignored me. No Bite assignments? Really?

I proceeded and bit the mage, which was the only other ranged DPS in the raid group and then before I knew it (was chained with the lazor once) it was over. Achievement pops up and I’m like yay, I have gone where no me has ever gone before! All on the inside, I did not need everybody to know that I was excited about such a ‘trivial’ thing as a new wing clear. I had to go shortly after so the frost wing and the LK will be rescheduled. I sure hope I can make it then!

So yeah. I like my Shaman again and that’s both good and bad news. I will now have 3 raiding characters again (the lock is always warlocky and greedy for some upgrades) and this means time. Time that is very precious to me actually. So far the only thing I have been cutting off on was sleeping. I am at an all-time record of maximum 4 hours per night and I don’t know if I should be proud or sad.

Stories of failing. Chapter 1/153246

Definitely not a new concept and one of the oldest and best implemented thoughts in the mind of WoW players and not only. There is a big amount of Fail out there and you have to try to not be a part of it. It’s impossible, lemme tell you that. It might not be your fault or it might not have anything to do with you personally but everybody fails at one point or another. I’m’a start you off with an example of my own failing and then move on to the really bad part: others’.

My latest FAIL moment on my shaman was a couple of nights ago, and, of course, by night I mean 6 AM. Random HC pops up and it’s ToC. I was actually relieved that it’s not HoR which can drive you bananaz if you get that one tank that is gearing up, or the healer with lag or the dps that can’t tie his shoelaces alone (I have nothing against you, guys, but I think I wiped in Halls of Reflection more than I did in ICC. And it was your fault! /sob). An instance that is not HoL or HoS or any other instance where half the mobs resist my spells? Gief! OK, so the loading screen does its thing, we mount, kill faction champs both horse, or rather wolfback and after dismounting and then comes the part where you loot the chest, watch everybody else roll on the item Disenchant and then talk to the Belf. Side note: this was always a point of high suspense for me. I wanted Eadric and I wanted him to Drop Aledar’s Battlestar for my Enhancement offspec. Farmed for 2 of them for 1 month and then the first ToC 10 I ran I got upgrades. Meh. Still, it was one of my “oh, GOD, let it be him, let it be him!” moments in the game. Surely enough, he comes and the 3×3 mobs assume position.

The tank goes to the usual starting point, left as you look at Eadric, and does his thing (seriously, are there groups that start on the right? Anywhere?). I cast my totems and start LvB and CL-ing away. The priestess goes down and I’m half asleep at this point. Getting a heroic I like is nice but it’s not going to race my pulse. I then TAB to the next target which just so happens to be the priestess from the second group of mobs and paying no attention I start my rotation of OMFGIMBADPS. In two or three seconds I have all 3 on me and while the tank and melee dps are slowed down by the stupid bubbly Argent Monk that had just died and can’t intervene, the healer is getting omnomnommed for trying to heal me. Wipe. Plain and simple. The group was cool, though and we laughed through it and then went on to get our two frosties each. After that I logged my DK which I am insanely trying to gear up right now, to the point where I no longer care if an item has STR or AGI on it, if it has a better GS than what I have I’ll take it! Not really, but the principle stands. I want to have the GS to be able to PuG ToC 25 and I have to carefully plan this as I do not have “Achie” and need to find the Tuesday night group that is desperately in need of people. It wasn’t meant to be this week. Maybe the next. Short inner pep talk.

A surprisingly short queue has me standing in HoL. The warrior tank looks really good with his 47k HP unbuffed and the healer is a 40K mana paladin. Good short run, says I, and then I go on to greet everybody with my baby blue writing. I always queue as Dungeon Guide. Don’t really know why, tho, I guess I like the color. Or maybe it’s the closest that I’ll ever be to leading a raid, despite not having any actual powah. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The tank says Hi and then turns around, runs through the swirly instance entrance and vanishes, not dropping group. “Erm… tank?” I say in a squeaky pigtailed Belf voice. I hate it when somebody calls me by the function but that never stooped me from doing it. Do unto others? Nonsense! “You’re all on your own,” the tank replied. “Come back or drop group,” the pally healer stepped up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you lol” And we were all flabergasted. He did not drop group, but the healer and a rogue did, immediately. The balance drood and I waited out the 5 (?) minutes and then kicked the tank, I switched specs and tanked for the new group. I really hate tanking. With fervour, especially tanking trash. Bosses I can handle, the taunt button is hit off CD and I manage to pull it off but invariably I have one DPS in the group that keeps dying when I tank. Statistically it’s the 3rd one down, dunno why. The new group consists of me, DK tank, Boomkin, Resto Shaman, Ret Pally and Hunter. The hunter apparently did not agree to the slow pace I had in mind and kept pulling. And pulling. And pulling. Without any Misdirect. He just pulled 2 packs at a time and after that let me and the healer deal with it. The shaman was awesome and did a bang up job but we were both growling. As we had kicked the previous tank we were all out and had to deal with it.

At one point I tell the hunter, in a very polite manner, that if he is going to pull for me he can at least MD. He does not. I tell him again to MD, explain while auto-attacking, inbetween taunts and casting D&D and Howling Winds, so in extremely short sentences, that I haz 2 taunts, Dark Command and Death Grip and that he is pulling to many at once and my gear doesn’t allow massive threat generation. Heck, the best item I’ve got is the Onyxia Head quest trinket reward! Nothing. He was from Hakkar and that might explain it. It’s better if you’re not in the know but if you’re curious go Google the stories about them. They’re all true, I swear!

After a short talk with the Shaman we decide to let the hunter die the next pull. Which we promptly execute, in outstanding fashion. He was dead within 2 seconds and I did nothing. NOTHING, you hear that? After he died I D&D’d and did my thing and we moved on.

“Rez plx”

…

“REZ PLS”

…

Hunter drops group.

Damn, that felt good. Tomorrow I think I’ll ride a bus without a ticket!