Good Advice

Here's one of my fellow tank's explanation on how to tank the Rotface fight.

It's Good to be Back

I had a nice surprise awaiting me when I logged in this morning.

Twenty five mails of stuff.

And one corehound pet for each toon.

I haven't seen the e-mail from the results of the investigation, but at least my stuff is back.  I was a bit rusty in UK and ToC, tho.

Two BC Races - A Study in Opposites

It's been mentioned before on this blog that a race's starting area is designed to influence your thinking and enhance the viewpoint of that race.  That's what makes the Forsaken stand apart from the other Horde races:  enemies on every corner, they are consumed by vengeance; hemmed in and reviled by the living, they learn to give as well as receive; hunted by the Scarlet Crusade, they despise them as much if not more than the Scourge.  The Tauren have the lush, rolling fields, the spirits and hunting paths to guide them; and the Orcs and Trolls learn early that the world is a rough place and you have to claw and fight your way if you want to survive.

The starting areas are what make the two Burning Crusade races such a study in opposites.

Blood Elves are set in their old homeland of Eversong, learning how to cope without the Sunwell.  Some Blood Elves can't handle their addiction to arcane magic, and turn into the Wretched.  The Scourge and Arthas are to blame for this, we're told, but there's hope for the Blood Elves:  they know that there's an Eden awaiting them in a magical place called Outland.  You learn to deal with the Wretched, push back the Scourge from the infected forests of Quel'Thas (renamed the Ghostlands), and wreak vengeance on the necromancer Dar'khan Drathir.

By Contrast, the Draenei starting area is an unknown.  They've just crash landed on Azeroth, hunting for this "Alliance" to help them out with the Burning Legion, not knowing where the hell "here" is.  You start off thinking that your group is the only batch of survivors, and you pitch in to help the group survive.  After a while you discover other Draenei and you are led through the starting area by the hook of finding others of your kind.  You also learn very quickly that Blood Elves have followed you there to eliminate your threat.

Interesting, no?

Having played several Blood Elves, I know without a doubt you never hear about any of the following while you're leveling:

• Draenei
• Outland is in turmoil with the Burning Legion
• You're the bad guy

Likewise, the Draenei haven't heard (as of yet in the toon I'm playing) of any of the following:

• The Scourge
• Arthas, Illidan and their relationship to the Burning Legion
• You landed on the Blood Elves' homeland

When you play a Blood Elf, you have absolutely no idea there's something wrong in Outland until you reach 58 and can port to the Blasted Lands.  Then, right before you go through the Dark Portal, you have that conversation with the Draenei and the Orc leaders, you start to wonder WTH is on the other side.

I have no idea if the Draenei are fed a steady diet of "hate the Blood Elves", but if the BE model is transposed onto the Draenei, they won't have an inkling up until they reach Outland that a whole boatload of despised, evil Blood Elves are now fighting on your side.  Talk about hitting you with a 2x4.

I have to admit that Blizz has done a bang up job in creating stark differences between the two races.  If I develop split personalities later in life, maybe I can blame these two races for my malady.

Hmmm.... What to do.... What to do....

Since I seem to have a copious amount of time on my hands, I've been thinking about the future.  No, not Cataclysm -I'm trying to not think about that too much- but what I intend to do once my main goals of Loremaster and Seeker are achieved.

I guess I should specify that my main goal is to have Quintalan complete Loremaster and Seeker on the Horde side.  Once that's done, I figured I'd slip Quint into semi-retirement, using him to accumulate Emblems for Heirloom items.  (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)  He could chill around Dalaran, or hang on a park bench in Silvermoon and harass the newbies all afternoon. 

"Whining about Dar'Khan Drathir, are you?  You young whippersnappers don't know how easy you have it!  Why, back in my day we got ganked 10 times a day in Tarren Mill, and we liked it!"

"Aw, shut up you old Geezer!"

"Come back here or I'll whack you with my cane!  I'll have you know I got this wound fighting alongside Sylvanas Windrunner herself!  Call me Geezer, eh?  STAY OFF MY LAWN!"

But what after that?

Originally, the plan was to transfer and faction change Quint to follow Souldat and Millalyn to Ysera, but since I can't really finish the Horde side Loremaster that way, Quint will have to stay Horde for the time being.  At the current rate I was on with questing, it would have been about early summer before Quint would ding that last quest to capture both achievements.  With my account in a holding pattern until my stuff gets returned, that timeline will slip into mid summer.

My backup plan was to generate a new Alliance toon on Area 52, load the toon with Heirlooms, and ship him/her over to Ysera to begin a new life.  (And start running instances with similarly leveled toons that Soul and Milla would have.)  I was planning on shipping a Paladin over so I could take my lumps as a Holy Spec without the backup of an overgeared tank, but it might be smarter that I ship my Blood Elf Mage over instead.  She's already at L26 and has all but the Heirloom trinkets.  I'd have to find a decent Alliance toon that has her snarky BE attitude, but that might make the most sense.

Once the toon gets shipped over, then what?  Just run LFD?

Part of me wants to go for Loremaster on the Alliance side, just because I can say that I've covered all of my bases.  (Crazy?  Yes.  Insane?  Nah; it's just another challenge.)  Another part of me thinks that it would be smart to get in early on PVP, so that you don't have to learn what the hell you're doing at 80 in the battlegrounds.  Either way, my time spent online ought to fit with within my budget.

Well, I've got plenty of time to stew over my options, although I definitely wish I had less time right now.  My trigger finger is getting plenty itchy.

Progress? It does exist!

Awesome, awesome raid week with my new guild.

We downed Rotface in 25 man, which was both a new kill to me and the guild.  We also were able, in one night, to get 8 bosses down in icc 10.

The Valithria Dreamwalker fight was really fun.  And it was even more fun to listen to the hoots and hollers after downing (raising?)  a new boss.  As a side note, our one holy pally had a crit heal on the boss for 83,000.  *boggle*

And, on top of that, I joined up with a resto shaman for a twos team, and we got up to about a 500 team rating.  Not bad for the first week.  And I am teamed up with the very same resto shaman and a ret pally for a 3s team.  ZOMG, combine my spiffy new sword from icc 25 + heroism (bloodlust) + ret pally bust damage = something dead and FAST.  Our 3s team is at 739 after my first week of joining them.

All in all, it was a great week of PVE and PVP content.

Being a "good guy" has its benefits.

Arena.. schmarena

So... I lost my 2s partner when Soul left.. I was quite sad because we were actually starting to do well and I had no doubt in my mind we'd be hitting at least 1800 soon. /sigh.

Well, last night before resets, I was asked to do some 2s. I said sure, might as well at least get my 10 games in for the points since I only have 1 upgrade left before I need ratings.

Now, this person plays a hunter... Hunter/Priest? I really couldn't see it working very well, but what the hell, I wanted my points. First map is Nagrand Arena. YAY! This is probably one of my favorite arena maps. We go in and I tried to live as long as I could, but my partner just didn't have the burst to dps down 2 plate wearers.

Second map is Ring of Valor. Not really my favorite, but it doesn't bother me. Both DPS focus on me.. Not really something I'm a stranger to since most people tend to want to pick on the priest... Except I don't think they were prepared for a priest with 1334 Resilience and just under 30k HP. I lived forever it seemed, however my partner just lacked the burst to kill either one of them. /sigh.

Right as I queued for the next match, he says to me in vent, "Are you ready to give up? Cause I am". I was like, uhh no, I'd like to just get the 10 games in. So we go into the third match. The same problem... I live live live live no one can kill me, however my partner's dps wasn't enough. He managed to get the rogue down and almost had the other guy dead as I died... but it really seemed that once I died, he just sort of gave up. MEH.

Fourth game... Dalaran Arena.. one of my least favorites but hey, whatever, I go with what I get. We're up against a resto druid and a ret pally. Ok, I figured this was probably going to be a difficult team for us because my partner lacked the burst to kill the druid and his sustained dps wasn't going to kill the pally. I gave it my all though.. I kept him alive although he was being focused. For the most part, I was left alone running around keeping my partner alive. I knew this team wasn't very versed in Arenas because I was allowed to heal at my heart's desire. Regardless of this, my partner emo-spiraled because I guess he realized how bad he really was and just left the game. Yes. He left the arena mid-battle. I was left alone in there. I left the game, asked in vent if he's just going to give up when it gets rough, and he replies with "yeah". Well eff you too. I logged out of vent and out of WoW.

I'm a pretty patient person... and I think Soul knows this since our first week or so in Arena was rough, but we still had fun. Our 2nd week, we started winning games and we were having a great time... I came from a 2k rated 2s team on my old server, so I do know a bit about it. This isn't to say that I think I'm some sort of pro and I'm this god's gift to arena. I don't believe that at all... but I do believe that to get to a rating like that, you can't just give up. We may not have had the best comp for 2s, but who cares? If you try and do your homework, we may have been able to get some wins in.

This person has pissed me off to no-end a few times before last night. I don't hold grudges.. pretty much just say "Hey you prick, you pissed me off. Don't fucking do it again". Then I just move on. I've done that on 2 recent occasions already... Should I do it again? Probably. Will I? Doubtful. Why is this time different? Because its a trend with him... it doesn't go his way, he'll emo-nerd-rage. Will I keep raiding with him? Yeah, I want to raid... and I won't let personal feelings get in the way of that... but will I continue to do things outside of that with this person? No.. probably not... at least not voluntarily.

A Short Update

 I've received an e-mail from Blizz saying that I've been assigned a specialist in my case, and he/she'll be contacting me via e-mail with the results of his investigation.  My account's password was reset (and lo, I changed it yet again within a week).  They also gave me the standard they'll do their best to restore my stuff and whatnot.

So, at least I've got a little acknowledgment that my ticket has been received.  I have time now to read plenty of WoW blogs while I wait, I suppose.