This little spell caught my eye in the new stuff in the works for Paladins:
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
Do you know what this sounds to me? A Figurine of the Boar spell for Ret Pallys. Woo hoo!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
WTH
The pursuit of Frosties has hit a new low.
I logged in for my lunchtime run, and the LFD tool spat out Utgarde Pinnacle. This should work out, I thought. I'll end up with six Emblems of Triumph, and I'll be that much closer to getting another heirloom piece for my mage.
We did the entire Pinnacle in 10 minutes. Tops.
The tank ported in, began running, and didn't stop. He just skipped right on by the first two bosses and most of the trash, and would have probably avoided Skadi too if he could have managed it. He then hot footed it straight up to Ymrion and, with the rest of us following, we downed him in record time.
Frosties gained, people began splitting even before the loot was divvied up.
And not a word was said. Not a single word. Except for the facepalm that another party member got because he aggroed some extra trash going down the stairs.
Sheesh.
I logged in for my lunchtime run, and the LFD tool spat out Utgarde Pinnacle. This should work out, I thought. I'll end up with six Emblems of Triumph, and I'll be that much closer to getting another heirloom piece for my mage.
We did the entire Pinnacle in 10 minutes. Tops.
The tank ported in, began running, and didn't stop. He just skipped right on by the first two bosses and most of the trash, and would have probably avoided Skadi too if he could have managed it. He then hot footed it straight up to Ymrion and, with the rest of us following, we downed him in record time.
Frosties gained, people began splitting even before the loot was divvied up.
And not a word was said. Not a single word. Except for the facepalm that another party member got because he aggroed some extra trash going down the stairs.
Sheesh.
Monday, April 12, 2010
A Tale of Two Pugs
For all of the pugfail I've seen lately (mainly driven by Spring Break, I believe), it's also nice to know that when some bad things happen, some people can step up to the plate and deliver.
Take a Gundrak run a week or so ago. The initial pull started off okay, but then for some unknown reason the Rogue ran ahead of the group and into the snake area and managed to aggro all of the rest of the trash not on the tank. The Rogue, of course, proceeded to die very quickly. The tank was able to get everything else to aggro on him and between he, the Mage and I we were able to take care of the rest of the trash.
The tank then turned on the body of the Rogue and pointed.
"You!" he said. "If you EVER do that again, we're kicking you out."
Properly chastised, the Rogue was rezzed and slunk back into the back of the pack, behaving himself for the rest of the run.
On another run -Halls of Stone, this time- we lost the healer to the second trash mob. One minute he was there, the next we're all saying "Heals? Where'd you go?" Turns out another mob had aggroed on him and he was trying to avoid it. In the process, he ended up aggroing a couple more trash mobs, and he had this pile of Dark Iron dwarves trailing him as he was running away.
Straight. Into. Us.
My, what an ass-kicking that was.
After we all released and ran back into the instance, the healer apologized and for the rest of the run he stuck his tail-end right next to the tank's.
In both cases, we could have easily kicked out the person who screwed up, but after calling him out and giving him another chance, they turned out to be a valuable member of the pug.
No, you can't assume this will happen all the time (or even part of the time, for that matter), but I thought them notable enough that I wanted to mention that yes, it can actually happen.
Take a Gundrak run a week or so ago. The initial pull started off okay, but then for some unknown reason the Rogue ran ahead of the group and into the snake area and managed to aggro all of the rest of the trash not on the tank. The Rogue, of course, proceeded to die very quickly. The tank was able to get everything else to aggro on him and between he, the Mage and I we were able to take care of the rest of the trash.
The tank then turned on the body of the Rogue and pointed.
"You!" he said. "If you EVER do that again, we're kicking you out."
Properly chastised, the Rogue was rezzed and slunk back into the back of the pack, behaving himself for the rest of the run.
On another run -Halls of Stone, this time- we lost the healer to the second trash mob. One minute he was there, the next we're all saying "Heals? Where'd you go?" Turns out another mob had aggroed on him and he was trying to avoid it. In the process, he ended up aggroing a couple more trash mobs, and he had this pile of Dark Iron dwarves trailing him as he was running away.
Straight. Into. Us.
My, what an ass-kicking that was.
After we all released and ran back into the instance, the healer apologized and for the rest of the run he stuck his tail-end right next to the tank's.
In both cases, we could have easily kicked out the person who screwed up, but after calling him out and giving him another chance, they turned out to be a valuable member of the pug.
No, you can't assume this will happen all the time (or even part of the time, for that matter), but I thought them notable enough that I wanted to mention that yes, it can actually happen.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Putting points in the IRL Subtlety tree
I enjoy playing pranks in real life, and especially at work. A good prank can really lighten things up once in a while.
For instance, a fellow co-worker and I have been having a mini prank war for about the last 4 months. He's done things such as steal my staples out of my stapler every day for a week straight, or completely tape up my office chair, or competley rearange my desk drawers.
I, on the other hand, have done things to him like stolen all of his pens every chance I get since the day he started here, applied superglue to a bar of staples every day for three days so a lump of solid glue was on the bottom and watch him get confused why the stapler wasn't working, to even applying glue boards (the kind you use to catch mice) to the underside of his desk and chair (it works GREAT if you put the board right about where you reach natrually to adjust your chair height... just put the glue board there, and lower the chair all the way).
Or adding a command in one of his imaging scripts to just echo a text line that states "dan is a douche." And also adding a line to his local hosts file that redirects his favorite guitar website (he runs a heavy metal guitar forum) to guitarhero.com (which he HATES). That one actually got him to call up his buddy and tell him they've been hacked, LOL!
And the more subtle you can get, the better. For instance, I'm standing in line today buying my lunch and the gentleman ahead of me is acting rather jittery. He's buying an energy drink, sugar, cigarettes, large bag of chips, and 5 hour energy pills. The cashier asks him "do those pills really work? They don't mess with you at all?" To which jittery guy goes "Yeah, they don't make you jittery at all because there's no sugar."
I coudln't help but actually LOL.
So how does this tie into gaming?
Heroics can be rather boring, and bringing some levity to them can really be a fun change of pace.
The setting: Halls of Reflection (Heroic)
The setup: My DK, A fellow guidee Pally tank, and a Fellow guildee on his DK Alt all que up as tank and dps for a random heroic. We then proceed to argue who's going to tank through out the whole first half of the dungeon, complete with taunts flying all over the place, Armies of the dead going nuts, and a boss who's too busy ping-ponging everywhere to actually do much of anything. We really put on a good show.
The truly funny thing though, that was the smoothest run I've ever had of that place.
So this week I'm challenging you to do something unique in a random dungeon.
**Edited in more co-worker pwnage.
For instance, a fellow co-worker and I have been having a mini prank war for about the last 4 months. He's done things such as steal my staples out of my stapler every day for a week straight, or completely tape up my office chair, or competley rearange my desk drawers.
I, on the other hand, have done things to him like stolen all of his pens every chance I get since the day he started here, applied superglue to a bar of staples every day for three days so a lump of solid glue was on the bottom and watch him get confused why the stapler wasn't working, to even applying glue boards (the kind you use to catch mice) to the underside of his desk and chair (it works GREAT if you put the board right about where you reach natrually to adjust your chair height... just put the glue board there, and lower the chair all the way).
Or adding a command in one of his imaging scripts to just echo a text line that states "dan is a douche." And also adding a line to his local hosts file that redirects his favorite guitar website (he runs a heavy metal guitar forum) to guitarhero.com (which he HATES). That one actually got him to call up his buddy and tell him they've been hacked, LOL!
And the more subtle you can get, the better. For instance, I'm standing in line today buying my lunch and the gentleman ahead of me is acting rather jittery. He's buying an energy drink, sugar, cigarettes, large bag of chips, and 5 hour energy pills. The cashier asks him "do those pills really work? They don't mess with you at all?" To which jittery guy goes "Yeah, they don't make you jittery at all because there's no sugar."
I coudln't help but actually LOL.
So how does this tie into gaming?
Heroics can be rather boring, and bringing some levity to them can really be a fun change of pace.
The setting: Halls of Reflection (Heroic)
The setup: My DK, A fellow guidee Pally tank, and a Fellow guildee on his DK Alt all que up as tank and dps for a random heroic. We then proceed to argue who's going to tank through out the whole first half of the dungeon, complete with taunts flying all over the place, Armies of the dead going nuts, and a boss who's too busy ping-ponging everywhere to actually do much of anything. We really put on a good show.
The truly funny thing though, that was the smoothest run I've ever had of that place.
So this week I'm challenging you to do something unique in a random dungeon.
**Edited in more co-worker pwnage.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tank Etiquette
Okay, this is a question to the tanks out there. (I guess that means Souldat, but you never know who else might be reading.)
When a monster drops an AoE on the floor -like the Reanimators in Drak or the Maiden of Grief in HoL- is it considered proper etiquette to pull the monster away from the middle of the floor? I've seen in several runs this past week where the tank just lets the monster or boss sit there while they wail away, but I have to split and then watch remotely after unloading my distance attacks.
I know Soul will pull them out of the center, and I've seen plenty of other tanks that do it too, but the batch I got this week either don't understand that melee DPS can't stand around in the black stuff on the floor or don't care. Or maybe they have tunnel vision and don't notice, which is something I've been guilty of when I've done healing.
Sloppy Sloppy
One drawback to improving my gear is that I've discovered an alarming tendency to get sloppy at the wrong times. The old mantra "gear is no substitute for skill" is still alive, and a Halls of Lightning run this morning (::checks clock:: okay, last morning) highlighted that.
Halls of Lightning = iron dwarves with whirlwind attack
I know it; I've sure lived it. But that didn't stop me from wiping on it.
For the first two or three pulls with the iron dwarves, our group obliterated them before they could whirlwind. So I got careless, thinking that we had these metal monstrosities down pat. The very next pull, we take a bit longer, and they whirlwind. No problem, I bubble and keep on wailing, and we take them out.
Then the next pull comes, and I don't have a bubble and the dwarves whirlwind. What do I do? Keep wailing just a bit too long.
I wipe.
::sigh::
I should have known that was coming.
The moral of the story is, you can't let your guard down. Internalize things. Don't be an uber-geek about them, but you have to be aware of your surroundings. Like not dying by standing in the green stuff.
And using the remote attacks like Exorcism while the Maiden of Grief is standing in the middle of the black stuff on the floor. Sure, you could go run and stand in it, but that's stupid and taxing to the Healer.
Halls of Lightning = iron dwarves with whirlwind attack
I know it; I've sure lived it. But that didn't stop me from wiping on it.
For the first two or three pulls with the iron dwarves, our group obliterated them before they could whirlwind. So I got careless, thinking that we had these metal monstrosities down pat. The very next pull, we take a bit longer, and they whirlwind. No problem, I bubble and keep on wailing, and we take them out.
Then the next pull comes, and I don't have a bubble and the dwarves whirlwind. What do I do? Keep wailing just a bit too long.
I wipe.
::sigh::
I should have known that was coming.
The moral of the story is, you can't let your guard down. Internalize things. Don't be an uber-geek about them, but you have to be aware of your surroundings. Like not dying by standing in the green stuff.
And using the remote attacks like Exorcism while the Maiden of Grief is standing in the middle of the black stuff on the floor. Sure, you could go run and stand in it, but that's stupid and taxing to the Healer.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Seems Like Old Times
Last night was the first night in a couple of weeks that I was able to hook up with Soul for a good batch of runs. Although Soul's wife was unavailable, it was good to get back into the swing of running some instances with the old Death Knight again.
The runs this past night were very enjoyable; I'd snuck in a Culling of Stratholme run just prior to hooking up with Soul, and I discovered that I was pulling threat from the tank. I knew I outgeared the tank -a Warrior- by a minimal amount, but I suspect it was the boost that Paladins get from attacking undead and demons that was causing the problem. Therefore, I was in an uncomfortable position of having to slow down my attacks a bit and keep a careful eye on the threat meter.
You know one good thing about running instances with Soul? He doesn't lose threat much -I can't say "at all", since I've seen it happen with Boomkin every so often- but I don't have to worry so much about losing threat and can pay more attention to important things. Like, say, that puddle of green goo I'm standing in.
Our first run, through The Old Kingdom, turned out great. The early morning runs for some reason avoid two of the bosses and head straight for Ye Olde Herald, so it was refreshing (not to mention nice for the achievement) to actually hit all of the bosses in the instance. The PuG was great and worked well together, and when this run was over four of us stuck around for Violet Hold and Drak'Tharon. The Warlock, Mikaya (sp?), did a great job without overloading on threat, and the Priest Cezz was great too. There was one point in Ahn'kahet where I thought that Soul might have pulled too much at once as I saw his health teeter below 10K and heading rapidly in the wrong direction, but Cezz pulled him back. Having been a healer, I was impressed.
Mik split after the Drak run, but we ran an instance of Forge of Souls afterward. By mistake it was a non-Heroic run, and I had to split for bed before they queued up for a Heroic version.
All in all, an enjoyable night. I didn't wipe -always a good thing- and I got to see some real skill in action. Mik didn't talk too much, so I didn't get to tell her what a good job I thought she did, but Cezz was very chatty and easy to work with. As I told Soul afterward, it's too bad that she is on The Underbog server, because you can never have enough good healers.
The runs this past night were very enjoyable; I'd snuck in a Culling of Stratholme run just prior to hooking up with Soul, and I discovered that I was pulling threat from the tank. I knew I outgeared the tank -a Warrior- by a minimal amount, but I suspect it was the boost that Paladins get from attacking undead and demons that was causing the problem. Therefore, I was in an uncomfortable position of having to slow down my attacks a bit and keep a careful eye on the threat meter.
You know one good thing about running instances with Soul? He doesn't lose threat much -I can't say "at all", since I've seen it happen with Boomkin every so often- but I don't have to worry so much about losing threat and can pay more attention to important things. Like, say, that puddle of green goo I'm standing in.
Our first run, through The Old Kingdom, turned out great. The early morning runs for some reason avoid two of the bosses and head straight for Ye Olde Herald, so it was refreshing (not to mention nice for the achievement) to actually hit all of the bosses in the instance. The PuG was great and worked well together, and when this run was over four of us stuck around for Violet Hold and Drak'Tharon. The Warlock, Mikaya (sp?), did a great job without overloading on threat, and the Priest Cezz was great too. There was one point in Ahn'kahet where I thought that Soul might have pulled too much at once as I saw his health teeter below 10K and heading rapidly in the wrong direction, but Cezz pulled him back. Having been a healer, I was impressed.
Mik split after the Drak run, but we ran an instance of Forge of Souls afterward. By mistake it was a non-Heroic run, and I had to split for bed before they queued up for a Heroic version.
All in all, an enjoyable night. I didn't wipe -always a good thing- and I got to see some real skill in action. Mik didn't talk too much, so I didn't get to tell her what a good job I thought she did, but Cezz was very chatty and easy to work with. As I told Soul afterward, it's too bad that she is on The Underbog server, because you can never have enough good healers.
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