Raid Team, guilds and throwing down

So, after some pretty heavy recruiting, we managed to get the last few spaces filled in what will hopefully be our core team for raiding.

As it stands though, I have 2 more people that need to start getting focused on their gear, with another 2 at just below the 460 point and the rest of us in full 463 gear.

Not too bad, however I had hoped that we would have been raiding by now.  The plan is now hopeful for Wednesday and at that point, I will start recruiting over those not ready.  It has been well and truly long enough for everyone to get geared and ready, if the GM can level an entirely new toon and be ready I will not believe that other people cannot do 5 levels and gear in the same amount of time.  To me that shows a distinct lack of dedication to the progression focus we want to have.

I don’t want to be server first and beating other guilds etc, but I don’t want to be waiting around for months before we set foot in there either.  I do want us to be ready so go in, do well and lay some smackdown.  A friend GM from another guild was telling me about their attempts in MV and I was amazed – they have a raid tested and proven raid team and they are dealing with laziness, how in hell will we do.  We have a largely untested raid team – all seemingly good players in heroics and in LFR – aside from me – so how will we go as a group.

This is one of the reasons I want to get in there ASAP, if people can’t handle it, I want to know sooner rather than later.  I want to make sure we get the best group we can. I want to be like the Frosties (who i miss immensely) and be getting heroic final boss kills for mounts and achievements. I don’t want to be scraping for kills an xpac later.

Small things weighing on my mind huh ?!??

In other news though, the guild is a smidge off getting to level 25!!  When I logged off last night it was 82% through level 24, so it may even happen today if we are lucky.

I have done no pet battles, in fact the idea of having to level my actual pets makes me want to cry.  As far as I can tell, and I have been so focused on raiding plans I have ignored reading everything else, I have to move my pets to areas of the same level…but really…effort – not something I have at the moment with that

Dailies.  Yes I have been Mrs Slack when it comes to those little buggers!  I was diligent the first few days and did ALL of them, but now…I am just not even doing any – mainly because I am trying to get heroics happening to get people gear, and doing runs for people as well.  I spent a couple of hours last night chasing the Lorewalkers thing instead of doing “important” dailies :p  But I now have a cloud to fly around on!!  I shall probably seriously start my dailies again this week.  Maybe.  …  possibly.

I also got over my fear of starting a PUG group and organised one for Sha of Anger.  Well really i just invited a bunch of people who then took over and I really couldn’t be bothered arguing.  But hey, I started it instead of not…so kudos to me   I was a little mortified when they started booted everyone below 90 and abusing them for being moochers and they should be leveling instead of trying to get loot off raid bosses.

Sorry for the long post and no pictures but wrap your arms around yourself and have a free hug from me – if you made it this far you deserve it!

MIA

I am sort of missing in action at the moment as I am just having so many issues going on in my RL I can’t spare the time or the motivation to blog.  Although I have a fair few posts I could write about all the things happening at the moment, I just can’t find the energy.

Life sometimes beats you down so much that you can barely find the will to stand, we have all experienced it at some point.  We all deal with (or not as the case may be) it differently and have very different coping starts.  However I am way beyond the ability to cope with everything at the moment.

I still love blogging, and I love my WoW, I love my readers and my commenters and everything the blogosphere has brought into my life this year, but unfortunately it does not solve the real life issues that crop up and so my focus is now on other aspects of my life. What is pathetically horrible is that all it boils down to is my inability to find a job.  I am not unemployed at the moment, but I am not in a job that suits – aside from me travelling for just over 2.5 hours to get to work each way, I am working with my parents which brings a whole swag of issues, plus the huge pay cut I took doing it to help out when my mum had her nervous breakdown thinking – stupidly as it turns out – that I could get another job with a snap of the fingers, I spend most days bored out of my mind because I complete things 3 times faster than my mum does.

Anyone who has been job hunting or constantly rejected knows how horrible it can feel, and after 18 months of not even having one interview and redesigning my resume over 5 times, I am in a very bad mental place where I cannot hope to even be a good blogger – not that I was ever good per se.  I do not want my feelings to spill over into my wow life and so I will still be reading your posts and looking up blogs, but you will not likely see me comment much because I just don’t have the capacity right now.  Job hunting in NSW as well as VIC is going to take its toll on me and I cannot think of anything worse than making harsh or snippy comments and risking friendships because I am grumpy.

I am not sure when I will be back blogging again, it may never happen, but for those who want to add me and chat in game Dragonray 1445  is my battle tag.  I am still in game fairly often so more than happy to have a chinwag with people.

MoP Devastation Quests

I was doing a quest the other night and I found myself completely devasted by it.  I felt awful.  I was excited to find a tauren camp, I thought Navi would be excited to see others of her kind.  Then this unfolded and I was welling up. For whatever reason this reminded me of a post I read – ages and ages ago – I want to say it was Akabeko that wrote it, but honestly I can’t say that.  However the post was about the end of their days and I actually cried when I read it.  Like a baby I balled my eyes out – and I commented as much if I recall – I will see if I can find it again…

I wasn’t balling like a baby, but this really moved me. (Behind a cut as some people may consider it spoilerish – piccies only)

My thoughts so far on MoP

I am currently sitting midway into level 87 and I will honestly say – hand on heart – I am sick of levelling already. It feels long.  Really long this time. I normally don’t mind questing, but I am finding it particularly frustrating this time around.

My very quick reasons for this – is the maps are confusing and quests are spread out all over the place.  I have felt as if I have spent all day running back and forth for like 2 quests, or you find a random in a forest who has 3 quests but had you not walked past him you wouldn’t have known they were there.  I would prefer you have a map with one city in the middle and some dude hands you out 50 quests all at once, then I can just go around the map and do them in some semblence of order.  Yes – I want order!

The second issue I am having is being unable to find ways to get into quest hubs, yesterday I spent 30 minutes riding around an entire map to find an entrance that was on my map, but not when I got there. It has happened multiple times.  Yes I know it is not Blizz’s fault because I get lost, but if we sued the above solution, I wouldn’t be annoyed about it !  :p

See, very quick negatives, onto the other things!

I have run both available dungeons :

First time I ran it I got locked out of one of the boss fights because the tank ran in like a looney – although that seemed to be a theme with the runs I went on today (5 – if memory severs me correctly). I didn’t get a chance to enjoy my time in there so I really cannot comment,  I hate the first boss who requires you spend the entire fight running in a circle….what a stupid fight for people that need actually cast….stupid….

 

The last boss in this place, I SWEAR!!  did different things when I went in…so I am assuming there is a random element to it..it may help if I actually read the dungeon journal – I might do that tonight :p  I liked this instance, the litle elemental things are in it They are awesome! Bad image but you know which creatures I am talking about.

I have been taking great care to read things and just enjoy the small things that are always in the game but generally missed out on.

A guildie also found one later that said something along the lines of scratching their botom they sniffed their finger and will never do it again.  I must try and track it down, it was funny   I liked the Hozen, not as annoying as JaJa binks but almost!

I am having massive bag space issues as the gear I am getting all looks so awesome, I am wanting to keep it, but my void storage is completely full, so is my bank and my only options now are to go through and delete any double ups of gear – like for my tier 13 stuff I have duplicate LFR pieces that I was using for PVP etc…I can get rid of them now and that may free up some space, but for the few pieces that will get rid of, I have already gotten quite a few novelty items from quests that I can’t bear to part with like my puntable marmot.  So transmog is an issue.  I am a fully fledged addict.  I want to enter more competitions! LOL

I am having issues with my mage – my damage seems to be crap.  I tried frost with no luck – I was struggling to get the hang of it, and am now trying fire.  I seem to spend far too long killing one mob, my normal spells are hitting for less than 20k (they used to hit for almost 30k and up to 50k for a crit) - I have to investigate what changes were made, was the damage output reduced for everyone or are the mobs just that much harder to kill? I am feeling quite distraught about it.  Fire is still RNG, although I enjoy the playstyle, I was barely doing 14k on some fights and others I was hitting just over 23k….which in my mind is pathetic.  If I get a chance over the next couple of nights I will start my investigations, this will be an easy fix once I figure it out I am sure.

Overall, I am enjoying myself!  I can’t wait to get to 90!

Dragons everywhere!!! OH GOD!!

So first couple of days in Pandaria and I have over 40 screenies with dragons in them.  Just dragons – everywhere!!   I can’t help myself,  I would say I am spending almost as much time taking pictures of dragons as I am actually questing! (possible exaggeration)!

I am just amazed at how wonderful the artwork is!

I was tempted NOT to hand in the quest in which you have to collect the 4 little dragons, just so I could have them wth me all the time, but I figured they wouldn’t last out of the area or even if I logged out…I didn’t want to tempt fate…but  I loved having four of them trailing around!!

This is also being added to my headers because it is pure win!

Here are some more that I got to ride on or past or around!

Seriously, I will stop here, I know it is only 4, but I would bore you all to death with just more dragons!  LOL

I am in heaven!!  DRAGON HEAVEN  TELL YOU!!

Scenarios and awesome things

Tonight, I was determined to do the new scenario, and I loved it!!!

I had heard mixed reports, and as usual I had no complaints I can’t wait to see more of them as thy will be quite enjoyable o do when you just want iTunes with a couple of mates though some quick things.

I liked that I could blow stuff away and not worry about aggro or threat or healing etc. Obviously having a healer does make a difference if you are grabbing bundles and bundles of pats, but if exercising caution, you could survive quite easily without.

Anyway when I came out of my scenario, I landed on top of someone. Just another person until the name registered in my brain and I actually squealed. Hubby thought I was mental. I then proceeded to jump like a maniac because Akabeko was standing right in front of me!

Akabeko! THE AKABEKO!!

After a moment of complete speechlessness, we had a quick chat and swapped battletags. Of course, I was too chicken to actually talk to her after that, but small steps ok? I also have to thank another special Druid for helping that connection

I did the scenario on a couple of toons, did some healing on my pally in PVP and then decided to call it a night!

But, immense night tonight!

Beavertown

Yeah, busy like beavers…you thought I was going to the gutter again didn’t you :p naught naughty readers!!!

I have barely been online this past week due to things..just random things, but things nonetheless.

Our guild got to level 10, I missed it sadly, but I was there for our level 11 ding!  YAY!

I also discovered, stupidly slow again, that there is no cap on the dailies anymore. I knew it was happening but didn’t think to check as I thought it was a MoP thing.  So I spent one day going nuts with the dailies and then haven’t done them since. I must get another couple of days done, on a couple of different toons, I want to have more money saved up for MoP.

My shammy managed to beg a couple of runs with the guild and now has enough gear to get into the twilight heroics, however, I am a little meh about playing her as enhancement…I shall see how it goes though, I am missing totems, it was what I played the class for. Apparently Elemental is the way to go!

I am certain my levelling experience through MoP will be my mage, druid, paladin, warrior.  The last two being interchangable depending on time factors etc.  In previous expacs I went nuts with my mage doing everything possible before worrying about the next, however there is no demand for that this time so I will just get them to 90 and spend time alternating on them.  Aside from raiding requirements on my mage of course

I will probably level a monk with the frosties so I have a healer/tanking toon over there, rather than just a tank.

I am going away this weekend as well, so will be MIA a little bit, hopefully will get online tonight for a run of some kind, and a scenario or two   I can’t wait to see it!!!

This is the last week in cataclysm, and I am sad and happy and excited and nervous and so many emotions.  As alway,s I get emotional when it comes to this game. I love it.  I love the world and I love the story.  I am amazed that people have created this just for my pleasure   I could think of nothing better than spending my days playing this game and just chilling out with my pets and dragons and oomkins

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have never had a problem with the changes or things that Blizzard do to this game.  So far, each time has been better with awesome changes and more fun.  I can’t wait for Pandaria and I am just excited to be blogging through another xpac!!

 

So close but so far away

I was having a chat with hubby last night, it seems we are not likely going to get a 25 man ICC off the ground before MoP hits, and I am sad.  I only need a few achievements in there, not even heroics.  So I am going to have to spend today as much as possible trolling trade chat and hoping a group forms up.  I could always start one myself, but I am not that great with a complete group of random strangers…one or two is fine….I am happy with my 10 man version - I am, but the 25 man is closer to the one in the video and what captured my heart all those years ago.

I am going to have to see what I can organise as I only have a little bit of time left.  I also want to find a consistent 5 man group to help get the achievements for the heroics, because I have not done any of them at all.  It would be nice to run a couple of heroics each night and get a couple done for that mount, but you need a solid group who can do it together at the same pace to make it easier for others…or..let me rephrase – screw everyone else I need 4 people consistently who can drag me through :p LOL

Then of course there is ULD 10 – I want that mount as well, I never seem to see a 10 man group running always 25 man.  IN theory I could get both of the ULD and ICC ones done in one day – but the heroic dungeon one will take me longer…do I have enough time and luck on my side? I wonder how many poeple I need to get the Uld ones done – I mean worst case scenario…I think for razor you would need more for the DPS..I have to check which ones I actually need with that meta

I have to do the grocery shopping now, and then some laundry when I get home, then cooking of the week’s lunches, so after all that…I may be able to get something done heheeh  Sure Sure

**Edited to add**

I am not saying I would not love the others done as well, but I came back midway through Cataclysm and I feel slightly undeserving of anything in here, especially since I ran with a guild that couldn’t do the content..I don’t want to be stuck like that again, I want to see it all and do it all in moP.  I want to get the achievements and the mounts and I know once again that won’t happen because we have people now who don’t want to rehash content the second it is no longer valid.  This breaks my heart that I am always always putting up my boots for other people.  I never get to do what I want to do – which is farm old shit until all my achievements are done and collect everything I can and be doing it with people who also want to do it, so I don’t feel like I am dragging them kicking and screaming with me.  OH WOE!!

There’s a bear in there!

Today – there is nothing I can say.  NOTHING!

I was inspired to run it on most of my toons until I finally won the roll Thank the Blizzard gods for account mounts is all I can say.

I tried to get the original one I don’t know how many times, I am still annoyed I never got it – so this has made me somewhat happy.  I could not stop grinning like a madman!  Thanks for those involved and thanks for getting me inspired before dinner to continue doing it until I had it!

Just chilling like monkeys do

We went and did some PVP last night and attempted a bear run and failed by about 1 minute – wiping on that damn Hawk dude was what screwed us. We may try again tonight for my damn bear.

We didn’t organise a DS run because we had hoped we would be running 25 man on Saturday night,  however due to some miscommunication that doesn’t look like it will happen, so I am going to try and find a DS to this week on my mage.  I can’t handle not raiding – I swear!!

To prove my obsession – I am currently updating our guild forums with the raid strats and video links I can find for the bosses in MoP.  Yes, already!!  I know,  I know we need to get to 90 first and get geared etc, but I want people to be ready and know wtf they are doing.  I love this part of raiding to be honest, researching and disseminating information in a way that people can understand.  It’s very satisfying for me.  I am weird right?

One of our guildies got a Vial of the Sands, really really cheap…I am very very insanely jealous   If I could handle doing archaeology, I would chase it, but it is such a horrific profession.

I also have to call my Eb store today and confirm the details of my CE copy and if they are doing a midnight launch etc.  I am so excited