Traitor? That's me!

Yep, that's right.

I started a Human Paladin the other day.

I feel so dirty.

Okay, I'm trying several classes, and he's one of them, but right now he's the one with the heirloom weapon.  Of course, since it's a 2H axe, he can't use it yet.  Figures.

Maybe it's because I'm so used to the "us against the world" and "nobody loves us so we all have to band together" aspect of the Horde, but I'm having real problems relating to a Human Alliance character.  I can't bring myself to appreciate the "oh, look at the poor humans, how they've lost so much" and "ooo, those MEANIE Horde people running around, they're all just vermin" that the Human NPCs radiate.

Excuse me? 

And you don't think that the Forsaken had it bad, losing their lives to the Scourge?  Or the Blood Elves, getting facerolled by Arthas and then accused of being traitors when they were left to their own devices?  Or the Tauren, who were getting beat up on by the centaurs?

Sheesh.

Now, it's possible -likely, even- that the other Alliance races aren't that bad.  Whenever I see a Draeneii around, Lorne Greene's voiceover from the 70's Battlestar Galactica pops into my head:  "Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, a rag tag fugitive fleet...."  And don't get me started on the Gnomes.  Way way WAY too much Polyanna in them.

What am I going to do?  Oh, I'll keep putzing around with Alliance characters for the moment, as the lure of seeing the questing from an Alliance angle would be very interesting.  Quint is less than 450 quests away from the Seeker, so the challenge of duplicating that feat from the Alliance side is tempting.

Hell hath frozen over

Last week was a very dramatic week...

There were a few things that all coincided. 

1. My raiding guild fell apart due to a number of the players wanting to split off and do their own thing.
2. My friend faction changed and transferred off the server to join up with RL friends of his.

It kinda left me with a hefty choice on my plate. 

I was offered a spot in the newly formed splinter guild, and they showed some promise towards progressing on a 10 man raid team.  However, I had a few reservations about joining them.  A few members of the splinter group I really enjoyed playing with, but there's a few I really didn't care for.  And I didn't really want to limit myself to seeing 10 man content with those few I didn't really care for.  Not to mention some inconsistencies with the splinter group.  They voiced some complaints about a few members.  And during my two days of trying to decide what to do, I notice the member they complained about is once again in their ranks.  This happened for two different people.  It just didn't make sense to me.  They basically reformed the same guild they were, just with new leadership and a new name and with out the previous leadership (who weren't bad players, just not strong leaders).

With that said, though, I still hold high regard for the friends I did make in the group.  One of which, is a contributing member to this blog, and I hope she will remain so.

One of my other choices was to help rebuild the current guild.  At this point in the expansion where the doldrums are hitting, I didn't feel that option would have much success.  And honestly, the other tank left in the guild I could NOT stand to be around.  So, I wished them the best, and chose my last option and best chance for overall success...  And I missed playing with my friend, who during our entire time in the past guild were not able to raid together because the group felt it was best to split us up.

To the Alliance I went.  I've been horde since day one.  Five years of it...  I was so anti- alliance.

Now?  Meh... It's all just about the same.  I dislike gnomes as much as I do blood elfs. 

The group I joined up with seems very nice so far.  They're all over 21, a good majority of the guild is in the military (or was), and there's quite a few husband /wife and father / son groups that play.  The guild has a STRICT no drama policy.  In fact, if you cause drama, you get removed from the guild.  AND, they have a structured loot system.  No more crying from others about losing a random roll on gear.  AND, they raid on the weekends, leaving quite a bit more time open during the week to relax and actually get some sleep - which also means, the wifey can join in raids now, seeing as she doesn't have to worry about staying up too late during the weekdays.

Yep... Souldat is now a human death knight...

I can't tell you how odd (but refreshing because it's all new) to watch the various attack animations and sounds of an alliance group.  A druid shapeshifts and an elf pops out... Uh....

The wife and I didn't want to leave our favorite paladin high and dry though, so he's got some mail waiting on him...

Even though I've joined the ranks of the good guys at level 80, I'd like to see some more of the quests, and plan on leveing an alt, now that I'll have time to do so during the week.

(I did one quest in the howling fjord where I had to test out a concoction a drunk gnome whipped up on a vyrkul prisoner... upon ingesting the vial, the vyrkul turned into a slime, to which the dozen guards or so standing at the ready were thoroughly grossed out by.  Asking what kind of a freak I was for doing that, and some getting sick - it was the first time I had actually laughed out loud because of a quest in a LONG time.)

Earth day

Here's my list of things to do today:

1. Take a moment today to fly about Northrend and apprecaite the landscape.
2. Recycle something - I will apprecaite my recycled (heirloom) gear today
3. Reduce / Reuse - Enjoy something that's been recycled - like armor graphics or the onyxia encounter
4. Use my spring flower to plant some flowers
5. Hug a tree druid

Note to Self

You can do Halls of Stone with four people.

Okay, we had five, but one was a bot.  The Healer picked him out after the first couple of trash pulls.  "Why is a Warrior with 5200 GS only doing 1000 DPS?" he asked in party chat.  Then, when I went to go tell Bran to get a move on, I suddenly realized I had a shadow.

"He's on follow for you," the Healer whispered me.

Unfortunately, we couldn't kick him at the time because we had the "protect Bran" event going on.

"No heals for the bot!" the call went out.

Amazingly enough, the bot died second.  We lost the Lock first, and then the bot.

For the last two minutes of the event, it was just the tank, myself, and the healer trying to keep threat off of Bran and keep ourselves upright.  Kudos to the Tree who did the job.

We kicked the bot -it was set to Need everything too- and then we finished up with the last boss.

Stupid bots.

The rise and fall...

Hello! I'm Satyana. I'm a new contributor to the blog. I hope that what I have to say is interesting or thought provoking...

I guess I'll just get straight into it. =P

Now, I've had a lot of experience dealing with different types of guilds - you'd know if you took the time to read the novel I wrote about myself >.< I've seen guilds fail and I've seen guilds succeed. The common denominator in guilds I've seen fail was disorganization and lack of strong leadership.

This isn't to say that is always the reason for a guild to fall apart... its just what I've seen. Tonight (or last night - however you want to look at it) I saw a guild fold. I felt absolutely terrible about it. After what seemed like weeks and weeks of not getting any progression done due to one reason or another, several people, myself included, felt that it was time for a change. Over the weeks, I had voiced my concerns... Made a post on the guild website, but I'm not so sure they were taken very seriously. They were talked about briefly but then they just seemed to fade away.

My intentions were not to watch a guild fall apart. I just felt that it was time for me to be with a group of people who seemed interested in what my concerns were and felt the same way I did. After speaking with the GM, I said my goodbye in guild chat and left the guild. On my way out, I was bombarded with whispers asking me what was wrong, what happened, etc. I told them why I left and then all of a sudden, people in the guild were leaving and asking for an invite to the newly formed guild. I was floored and felt awful. I did not think that by me and a few others choosing to leave would cause such an upheaval.

I truly care about the GM and the members of the guild. They took me in after I stopped raiding for a few months and I was given the opportunity to experience some of ICC.

BUT... to be honest, I felt this coming for awhile. The indecisiveness of whether or not someone should stay gkicked, the folding to a whiny raider about loot, the tolerance of people just not showing up to raid although they had gotten themselves locked to it and knowing it was going to be continued the next night, the constant uncertainty of who would be in which raid group and starting 45min later than what is scheduled... these issues not being properly addressed when brought up are what I believe lead to the falling of this guild.

Again, I feel awful about what happened. I really wanted them to succeed - even if I wasn't there to see a boss die for the first time with them. I feel like I let down a large number of people and for that I'm really sorry. I hope they do not have any ill feelings toward me. Each and every one of the members were a joy to be around and socialize with.

Whether they follow to the new guild, stay behind, or move onto different guilds, I wish nothing but the best for them.

The Hardest Part of DPS

I've done Hall of Reflections three times now, and the last time was the first one I didn't die on.

Part of this is the benefit of experience.  You can read about an instance all you want online, but until you actually do it, you won't internalize the details. 

The first time HoR came up in my early morning runs, I was completely unprepared -hell, I didn't know I had the gear capable of it until the picture popped up- and I dropped almost as soon as possible.  It wasn't the proudest moment in my WoW career, bugging out of an encounter due to dread, but I knew I wasn't ready.  I spent the next lunch hour reading up on HoR online, and when it came up in the queue again, I told myself I'm going to try.

"Oh crap," said one DPS.  "@#$%!" said another.

The healer was unimpressed.  "It's not a big deal," said the Priest.  "You'll live through it." 

Of course he could say that; he had a 5900 GS filled to the brim with ICC gear.

The first trash mob, I wipe.  Everyone else is busy staying alive, so I figure that the trip is a short one so I release and fly back to the instance.  When I get there, I realize I'd forgotten one of the things I'd read online:  DON'T RELEASE AND RUN BACK!  THE DOORS REMAIN CLOSED!

Luckily, after the first boss the doors flew open and I came back inside.  The rest of the instance I didn't die, but it was a very near thing.  I'm used to making an impact of some sort, but about half of the time I was healing myself to keep up with the load the priest was handling.  I felt very out of place, kind of like the last time I tried my hand at healing an instance.

That brings me to another part of surviving as a melee DPS:  understand tanking.

Doesn't seem so hard, right?  You let the tank acquire threat, wait a couple of seconds for the tank to get a good lock, and then go behind and start supporting the tank.  If the tank directs you to a different target, you go to the different target.  If you see something bad getting ready to happen -like the tank standing way too close to the cliff in Pit of Saron that a simple knockback would turn the tank into a skydiver- you call out to let the tank know.

Well, the second HoR run gave me a different insight on tanking. 

The first two times the PuG tries, we wipe on the trash.  It was getting very frustrating, particularly so since I wasn't able to really get going before I watched in surprise as I pulled threat from something other than the tank's -and my- focus.

Time to reevaluate things.

The third trash attempt, I waited and watched.  Those first ten seconds of the trash pull were the hardest ten of my pugging career, as I itched to close the gap and start taking the pressure off the tank.  But as I watched, I saw something I hadn't before:  the speed of the trash closing in on the tank was incredibly slow, completely unlike the trash in any other instance.  The first one or two undead get there at the same time, but the last two or three are up to four or five seconds behind.  It was those latter two that were giving me trouble.  Therefore, I had to wait more than twice as long as I usually do before closing and starting combat.

Sure enough, that did the trick.  I didn't die and I contributed significant DPS to the cause.

This last time I ran HoR -with Souldat as the tank- I put my knowledge to use and waited.  Having run with him since the beginning, I knew Soul could handle the hits for a while.  That wasn't a hell of a lot of comfort, as I sat and waited like a bump on a log for that last straggler to zero in on him.  However, I knew my job was to a) keep myself upright so I could b) lay the smackdown on these undead.  You can't do part B if you're a smudge on the floor, and if you've got a warrior tank instead of a DK or Pally, you need to give him/her that extra time to lock down the trash or the instance will turn into a threat-fest.

Each pull is different, and you can't assume that what works one time will work in another.  When in doubt, err on the side of caution.

Anatomy of a Fail

I don't often leave an instance in progress.

Now, I do have limits, but I can tolerate quite a bit. Holding my nose while finishing the run is more like it, and if the offending party is on my server, they immediately go in my Ignore pile. I have been known to report real abuse -like racial epithets- as well.

Today's run in Ahna'khet, however, set a new standard for inanity. I port in and start doing the usual blessings. Also, as seems to be traditional, two people immediately drop. (What, The Old Kingdom not quick enough for you to get your Frost badges?) I, the tank and a DPS hung around waiting for the replacements to pop in, and we're immediately joined by a Holy Spec Pally and a Warlock.

Oho! Another Pally. The early morning runs have a plethora of Druids and Shamans, but few Priests or Pallys as healers. The Old Kingdom isn't a great instance for a Pally to heal, but it can be done. I ping the Pally to ask if he wanted Blessing of Kings or another one.

"KINGS IS GOOD"

Okay, fine.

"I'M HIGH"

Oh oh.

Well, I thought, as long as he actually pays attention, I'll be okay with that. About half the time such announcements are all BS anyway, so I decided to ignore ol' smokey.

So, everybody is squared away and we start the run. The first trash pull seems to be going okay.

"YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND BABY LIKE A RECORD"

Crapola.

"I LIKE BIG BUTTZ AND I CANNOT LIE"

The trash pull ends, and we're moving forward. Nobody took any significant damage, so we hit the next couple of pulls and the only thing out of the ordinary is....

"HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME"

"TELL ME DID WIND SWEEP U OFFA YR FEET"

This is starting to get really annoying. I'm beginning to think this guy really is high. I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this for upwards of the next half hour.

We get down the stairs to the pulls before the first boss. The tank pulls one of the mobs to him; I wait, rush in, and start hitting things. The previous pull I came close to yanking threat away from the tank, so I'm watching threat closely.

"A FRIEND WITH WEED IS A FRIEND INDEED"

Yeah, whatever. Then I hear the telltale boom of someone acquiring threat. Sonofa... I was WATCHING my threat!

I look over at the meter and I discover that no, I hadn't pulled threat. Then what...

I start getting hit from behind by another trash mob with the magical "On You!" message suddenly appearing on my screen.

"U NO THAT U GOT WHAT I NEED"

The Pally goes running by me from behind.

The tank hollers "WTF!"

I immediately die, followed almost as immediately by the tank and the Lock.

From my vantage point, I can finally see what's going on. The Pally Healer is bopping around to his own weird internal beat, throwing an occasional heal, and in general wandering all over the room, picking up the threat from everything nearby.

I release and start running back, and the Pally Healer drops group.

That's it, I've had enough. I drop group too. "Steamed" was not how I'd describe myself at this moment; more like "a towering inferno of fury."

WoW may be a game, but getting high and running instances isn't going to let everyone else share the love.