Raiding and my obsession.

Yes.

Obsessed.

I had not been raiding for an entire week.  ONE WEEK!  I was having withdrawals until last night when I got pulled into a full DS run by some friends 🙂  We did Mor’chok heroic and that was about it, the rest we ran like manics through.  I felt so good afterwards…just having been in a raid was enough to satisfy me for a few days.

As mentioned previously I am in the process of updating our guild website with all the raiding information and strats I can find for MoP.  I already have most of Mogu’shan vaults committed to memory, just the last 2 I need to work on a little more.

I have done a couple of the Heart of Fear bosses, mostly committed to memory – they look like fantastic fights!  Can’t wait! But I have done nothing about the middle raid yet.  Yes I have been slack.  But committing that many bosses to memory is hard work let me tell you 🙂

All this raiding information has made me literally wanting to raid.  I want the kill and I really want to see us do it – I don’t want to fail as a raid leader, I want to push people to be better and I want to be better myself.

This of course brings me to my mage.  I sucked at arcane, I am now sucking at frost and I am going to try fire at some point over the next few weeks – probably whilst levelling?  I am feeling very very uncomfortable on my mage and completely out of depth.  I was hoping a run in DS would help me practice the frost rotation and in all honesty I was pathetic.  For someone with my gear I should be kicking arse.  Is this the end of my mage?  Have I really come this far to not be able to do another xpac on her?

NO NO NO NO NO!!!!  I will not give up just because shit got hard!  If I stop playing her its because I want to…not because I can’t handle the changes!  SCREW YOU no self confidence!!  I’ll show you!!

errr….

Sorry I momentarily lost my train of thought….and it doesn’t want to come back. So I shall leave you here with my little tangent of anger at myself 🙂  LOL

Also found out the store I am picking up my collector’s edition from – isn’t having a midnight launch like they have every other xpac..so now I am going to just go to work on Tuesday, pick up my copy on the way home and get Wednesday off instead. No midnight launch for me 😦

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 🙂

Heroic Yorsahj…I just don’t understand it

I have never been afraid of asking for help, and perhaps one of you out there can answer me this in a way that is helpful.

Mana voids.

It makes absolutely no sense to me whatso ever to keep the void up at all.

So, before everyone jumps in guns blazing, let’s start from the beginning.

The theory as I understand it is as follows:

Get it to 30/20%, then waste your cooldowns to regen some mana back to wait for another mana void to spawn so you can pop back up to full mana after it has sucked out the last vestiges of the small amount your regen got you back.

Right?

Explain to me how that is better than:

Mana void sucks your mana, pew pew to 0%, mana back, still have personal cooldowns for regen when actually needed?

Perhaps I am only looking at this from an arcane mage perspective being I require full mana to pump out any sort of DPS thanks to our class design, but it seems awfully stupid that I have to waste my cool downs to get my mana back and therefore stuff up my entire rotation because it will give me full mana later when I won’t actually be able to do anything with it since my mana regen will be on cool down anyway?

How was that for a circle of confusion?

Of course this is all on the basis that in a random fight, we don’t actually know if we will even get another blue quickly enough and may actually have to kill the first one anyway…so why not just spend the extra 15 seconds killing it in the first place?

I really just don’t understand how it makes it any better – and yes, more than 6 people have tried to explain it to me and so far no one has succeeded in even understanding what I am trying to say.  So it just goes around in circles. I have also read pages and pages and pages as to why it is better and I still don’t see why it is actually better?  Is this a case of someone said it once and then everyone followed and then now its the thing to do?

Are there any other guilds out there clearing H Yorsahj and actually killing the mana voids as they spawn?  Input…I would love some 🙂

Sexism, heroics, and assertiveness.

All three things last night combined to make me one grouchy grouchy person.

Firstly, YAY – we killed Heroic Morchok!! We still need a couple of raiders as I had to pug 2 last night because one of our guildies got stuck at work and was not online until 30 minutes after raid start, and we are still missing another actual DPS.

I was quite proud we killed a heroic boss even though it was piss easy and in truth almost as easy as normal mode. Probably buff – but was it always that easy?

Update on so much stuff

I know it has been a few days since I updated, I had to have emergency surgery on a re-ocurring problem, and although I am mostly ok, I am still recovering and have been some very bad raiding with great pain killers.

I did Onyxia 25 man with my frosties and some other famous people again, it was pretty awesome 🙂  I scored 3 different achievements. Many whelps, killing her fast and not geting hit with the deep breath…sadly, no mount dropped 😦

Of course, my screenshotter did not take pictures…so I got a new screenshot mod…so sick of the old one not working!!

We also did Ruby Sanctum.  The only raid I have never done, neither had hubby.  I thought it was a very cool fight for the 3 minutes of it that we saw before the boss died!

I was pretty happy finally seeing that one, I have wanted to do it for a very long time. HAPPY!

I also managed to do a laid back raid with JD and do Onyxia on alliance side 🙂  Also fun and very fast, we did it 10 man and she was dead before i really even had one rotation off.  LOL.

Our guild got to level 3!  DING!  and is about 46% through the next level. A certain famous person placed a toon in our guild as well and I got all mental about it…hubby thinks I am insane…but I was hooting like a maniac…just a shame I was in hospital when it happened.

We also went back into DS tonight to get the last two bosses.  We had some trouble on Spine, but in the end got it done.  So we have cleared DS with the guild.  We are going to try for some heroics next week, morchok definitely and also Yorashj and perhaps Ultrax.

I know we are at a 30% buff and that makes things pretty easy, it is still an untested group and we still have some issues to be worked out.  So I think given that, clearing the content is pretty impressive.  We want to get some heroics done before MoP just so we can test out our group I guess. It will also help level the guild, but in all honesty, I am not sure how much longer we will be raiding for anyway since MoP is so close now.   We still need 2 DPS as we are still pugging for raids, but it has only been a guild for 2 weeks I think, so we are not doing too badly.

Anyway, that is all my updates 🙂 Sorry for the long post, but i am still post-op and on good rugs so I have to get everything in whilst I can still actually mostly type 😀

Guilds first raid last night

So, I meant to post earlier but didn’t have a chance.  We managed to get a guild group going in – ie 8 members of the same guild.

The reason this happened was because I got chatting to a lovely pally, who had a warrior tank he was going to bring.  he asked his GL and decided to join our guild to help us out. I am not sure how long he will be with us, but his thoughtfulness and aid have given us a massive leg up in the guild achievements.  Reyspada – you are a legend and thank you so much for what you have done.  Also Serpentine and their GL Giga, you are awesome for letting us borrow Reyspada.

We had a couple of wipes on Ultrax, just silly things really people not watching things properly, then we got stumped by Spine.  We kept getting close, but not enough you know.

All in all though, we smashed through everything, and for a guild that has never run together, with a tank (me) that was less than perfect and mildly geared but surpassed by Reyspada, we did very well.

The healing was amazing.  Simply amazing.  I have no idea if any of my ex-guildies read this blog, but I was always dying on my pally.  Keeping me alive was a very hard thing to do.  However last night, the healers kept me going without me being worried more than once or twice.  They were generally because of my errors as well.  This gives me hope.

We had a fantastic Shammy in the run Tauper, he was funny and was top DPS all night.  Another awesome pug which I was happy to have found.  He has been added to the friends list as well.  I am a little concerned about the stories he was telling us – crocs in tool box etc….very disturbing.  But it was enjoyable.

We were really hoping we would get through DS last night, but unfortunately people were losing focus by Spine I think and we had random issues of people not running into the hole etc.

Considering it was our first run together, I think it was quite good.  We are going to try and get another run in this week to clear it out. A complete clear would be nice, but this way we can start working on heroics next week for the first couple of bosses and recruit for that. It makes us slightly more appealing as a guild than just new. I hope.

But – the most exciting thing – I didn’t call stuff out.  Very occasionally.  I wanted to make sure people were doing shit without me needing to coddle them, it was a relief to just be watching my shit and not thinking that others needed the help.

The guildies we have picked up seem to be very nice and I have to admit quite funny.  I think we will all get along well providing we can push content. No resting on our laurels!!

Sorry for the long post!

 

I think i got bored…

then I woke up and remembered how much more I have to get done in game.

Yes, I have WoW dreams. I also have dreams about Glee and karate.  I have “How to train your Dragon” dreams.

Life is sort of just chugging along at the moment, hubby and I have quested through Vash’j and Uldum on our shammy/pally combo – I think I have managed to get paid about 6k for all my questing in those 2 sections – including some LFD runs.

Well worth it to get the questing done I think.

I have been slowly improving on my shammy.  I am having the same issue on her though as my rogue.  I am just not used to not actually pressing buttons. It feels very unnatural to just let weapon damage occur – hopefully it won’t take too much longer to get used to it.

Hubby is turning into a very good tank 🙂  We have really only had one arse in a run and he spent more time talking than healing and then wondered why hubby was taking so much damage, then started bitching about that. Had he shut up and actually done his job it wouldn’t have been an issue, almost turned the hubby off the job. Tanking is a shit job in LFD though because people just abuse you without even giving you half a chance.

We have a guild website up now, you should check it out!  We are still adding bits and pieces to it 😀  I may be bringing my pally over, so we can do a raid next week – if we don’t find a tank by then of course, but i hope I don’t need to :p

Transmogging and brain killer

Last night we went to DS, our intent was to do some heroic modes, we didn’t have enough people online so we did a normal run.

The alts vs main thing flared up AGAIN!!! I am so fucking sick of the argument and in truth I just wish they would call it quits with raiding until mop.

We had a pug rogue in the raid who was hassling our hunter for winning some vial trinket off yorsahj and I had to boot them because he kept hassling her. He then proceeded to mock us for our bad dps and being so shit…what’s funny is that we aren’t a guild who watches our dps or even really gives a shit about meters etc..The joke was on him really because we were completely uninsulted :).

The issue I have is that I agree with the rogue about the trinket…I am not entirely sure why hunters would use a trinket that procs a physical damage effect….do hunters even do physical damage? Yes I understand the agility is good for hunters, but same for rogues and shammies and more so because they benefit from the proc…can anyone clarify hunters for me?!?!?

I was outnumbered and when I explained about the proc I got told basically it was bis for hunters…sure?

Anyway, aside from that we only killed up to ultraxion after wiping the first time on him.

Transmogrify for the Olympics is killing my brain, I come up with outfits and then decide they aren’t good enough, do start again…I have to stop doing that. The competition has some of the best transmoggers competing though and I really feel I have to produce completely perfect concepts! Hehe I will get there though!

Alt run of shame

We did an alt run tonight because of the save to the DW kill. It was a pretty good run considering we had 8 alts in the run, we got the first four bosses down.

The shame I mention is my own. I was an awful raid leader tonight, I was so focused on trying to get my rotation as boomy that I wasn’t leading very well, so when I tried leading my rotation suffered. I couldn’t balance everything (no pun intended) but a boomy rotation is so different to a Mage. I do ok in LFR because I only need to watch my rotation and not anything else.

I healed on yorsahj because it was a little heavy for the healers, I sucked by the way. I gave it my best though and we got him down. I also called out badly on the colours which didn’t work and then we wiped, but then after copping shit for it, it didn’t wipe us the next time. Anyway, I guess something was different the other time, anyway I apologised profusely for my bad calls.

My DPS was barely above 16k all night, I have seen myself do much better, but I was just disappointed. If I want this o be my main in MoP, I have to be able to play the fucking thing better. My hubby however, jumped on his shammy and was fighting for top spot with 2 hunters, sitting at about 25k with pretty sub gear; he is so impressive as a player 🙂

Onto other things, hubby and I spent all day playing the shammy and paladin, we got them to 84! About 40% through, so not long to go :). We also have hubby’s druid to 83 and his tips were helping me in healing DS.

All in all an eventful night and I am exhausted.

Selfish and annoying

I confess, I was very angry tonight, in fact I had /gquit typed into my chat window I was so angry. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised it was my fault for being selfish, but I can’t help it – it angers me.

Since we killed DW a few weeks ago, I have been wanting to ensure our long term members get this kill as well, I have been pushing that agenda because I know people will start losing interest soon.

Done and dusted

Onto the excitement, my Shammy got to 83 yesterday 🙂 I am so happy for her. I am playing enhancement and enjoying it more than I thought I would to be honest!

I am lucky to have a very gifted enh shammy that I married and he was giving me some great tips 🙂 I have never been a fan of melee, but shammies seem to handle it better…or maybe I am not clueless….no idea 🙂

We should have hit 85 sometime this week with these current toons, so that is a little exciting 🙂 That will make my shammy toon number 5 at max cap, my priest will be hot on her heels!

Onto the guild drama though!

So damn close :)

There was a bit of drama tonight behind the scenes alts vs mains argument again.

Bah humbug!

Anyway after that was sorted we semi-smashed through everything and got beaten by the lag/dc boss on spine.

Zonozz, the ball went to France on the middle bounce and the tank was chasing the ball everywhere. Yorsahj, we lost four people for no apparent reason, but they managed to kill him, painfully slowly. Hagara we killed just as a frost tempest was starting to happen so people died because they stopped moving and the ice walls got them 🙂

Ultraxion, no problems; warmaster, one healed from blackthorn dropping – with a couple of DPS down and the second healer and MT lagging at this point. We managed to do it though!

Every single time we got to the third amalgamation the tank and healer would start dcing…it was so annoying!

The upside of tonight, we would have cleared in one night if the lag and dcing had not happened. We started at about 7:45, and by 8.55 we were about to start spine. We had 30 minutes to kill 2 bosses – easy could have done it!

We are going to head back in Sunday, finish off the two we have left and then we may even try an alt run for people.

Overall it was a brilliant effort to get through so much in one night! Very proud 😀

Another thank you to Bursar as well, he joined us again on his rogue, it was nice to not be wiping constantly 🙂 once again he was patient with us and having some fun!

From the bottom of my heart – thank you.

Too often we bemoan people and the game, but today I wanted to thank a couple of people because they have made me complete.  By me, I of course mean my mage, and by extension – my self happiness.

Last night, we wanted to do FL and get some Rag lovin’.  We were short, so we pugged a couple of people, one had a Rag’s lockout. WOOT!

Did you SEE that!?!?!?!?

We did it!!

We fucking did it!

We Fuckadoodleduck DID IT!!!!

Didn’t raid last night :(

Up, down, up, down, up, down.

I swear I feel like I am on a roller coaster that I just can’t get off because the guard is laughing maniacally at the gate and pushing the machine to go faster, pussycat, faster!!

We had 5 people online last night, so we are hoping Thursday is a go.  I really thought given we smashed through 6 bosses on Sunday that people would be all busting chops to go… 😦

I have found myself looking at guilds again…secretly…when I think I am not looking….it’s pathetic – I agree – but I just can’t shake the feeling that I am completely and utterly addicted to the game and raiding specifically.

Holy Cow…we actually raided last night.

We raided like men gone mad 🙂

Yes I know there is a 25% buff at the moment, but I tell you what it kicked butt 🙂

We started just after 7.40pm, 9 manning with 2 healers.  We figured we had been 9 manning the first 3 bosses well enough for a while we would just continue,, but honestly, we got all the way to Hagara  with one down and we were doing it fast. We wiped once on Zonozz because the tank forgot the fight :0) it was ok though.  At Hagara we had a guildie come in just to add an extra person, we smashed through Ultrax and Warmaster and buy 9:16pm we had cleared up to our usual spot.

My cup runneth over!

I cannot express how happy I am right now 🙂  It has been an absolutley epic day!!  EPIC!!!

It started off with Molten Core rep farming and DING!

MC was my first ever raid, and I never ran it enough to get exalted back in vanilla – only honoured,  it has taken me years to get it done.  I really wanted it to be completed before MoP – I just had to find the time to do it!  Next is BT which I only have to clear 5 times.

I also found fantastic transmog robes – I love them!!  I have since discovered finding things to match it will be a problem. I will persevere though, there has to be some sort of outfit I can make with them.

The image doesnt really show the lovely leaves around the back and gorgeous detail.  I really love them though!!  So I am on a mission now!!

I then did LFR on my druid and scored my tier leggings, which gives me a set of 4 now.  I am so wrapped as that was the last piece I was chasing 🙂 I will continue to gear her up with VP gear and LFR stuff, but I can do 10 mans on her now as she s above the 385 ilevel that a lot of people ask for.

Anyway after a few false starts for DS pugs, we just always had a couple short that we couldn’t find, and so would wait around 40 minutes then disband. So after some more waiting around, I found  a group made up of people from he previous pug I had run which was a success.

That is Deathwing – DEAD!!!!!  After all the horrific PUGS in the last few weeks I never thought it would happen.  We would get so close and then just not go anywhere.

I also got the 25,000 Valor Point achievement as well but my screenshotter didn’t get it.  I thought it was kind of cool that I scored that achievement with the DW one.

Then I had an epic roll of 98 to win the Staff 🙂

So after all that excitement I decided to log off and just bask in the fantastic day I just had!  I am content now, I have killed DW on 10man, I just have to get Rags down and I will be completely up to date and ready for MoP 🙂  I can just focus on chasing the achievements I want to!!

LFR lols old post I forgot to publish :)

Every week without fail I run LFR on my Druid for the VP and gear. I despise it, but until I get to 385 Ilevel I can’t really get into a PUG!

Today had me amazed though. We wiped on Ultraxion trash, then we wiped on Ultraxion because apparently only 3 people were doing above 20k DPS. If you switched it to current fight though, there was 8 people doing 20k. It never helps when people start fights early though, half the raid was at the wrong end of the platform and so it was all a mess anyway to start with.

Anyway, when we got back in and re-did, loot drops and then everyone was needing on everything, so then huge arguments started about people taking loot when they didn’t need it, someone had a 403 chest and they took the LFR token.

What amuses me, is that people complain bout the DPS, yet it is almost impossible to get gear to improve their DPS. Anyway we then wiped on warmaster and I decided to leave.

I jumped into another LFR, I came into a wipefest and got worried, but we killed warmaster and then more crying about loot, we killed spine easily enough and then wiped 4 times on madness because people kept starting before we had a full group. On the fifth start- we had three healers and they started it. I dropped and decided to give up on LFR for the week, I got most of it done and I don’t need a weapon, the extra VP would have been nice though.

I am moderately geared on my druid, and I can’t really do much better DPS than what I am doing. So I am trying to get my VP up so I can buy more gear, but I would really like one more their piece for the four set bonus. Hopefully next week 🙂

I do giggle every time people whine about loot whores, there is nothing you can do, and I do wonder how the new changes are going to alter the aggression in MoP.

Sucker for punishment :D

I was going to do LFR on my druid last night and ended up going to DS with a pug – guild group with a few short.  This guild clears heroic bosses, so I had high hopes of it being successful.

Overall it was, we started at 8 or 8.30pm and it went until 11.45pm, by which stage I had to leave and so did a few others.  We wiped once on Warmaster, and then wiped about 4 times on Spine.

So I have yet to kill DW.  Last nights run was the closest so far, and I will keep trying.  It was a pretty good group and they were a pretty fun bunch of people until the wiping starting and then it got tense.

They are recruiting people and kept making commenting but they are far too hardcore for my tastes. The raid leader said they stopped running 25 mans because it was too hard to single out individuals who sucked.

That’s a pretty harsh reason for people not to run 25 mans, but that is my opinion and I am sure it is quite fair for hardcore guilds.  But it just reinforces my confusion about raiding.  I was pretty high DPS most of the night except on fights like Warmaster where I have never ever done well, but I really felt like an idiot most of the night because they seemed to be able to play so much better….but then…a hunter and DK…were giving me a run for my money – I have to remember that neither of those classes has DPS issues though – face roll much :p

(watch all the hunters and DK’s fire up :p)

I did cop flack for using food and potions, and then later about some stuff on my gear.  Neither impressed me at all.  I am not in a top end raiding guild, and even if I was I would still do the same anyway I think.  I like using different foods and potions on different fights, and at the end of the day, that small amount is not going to make the difference in a fight.

I hate it when people assume everyone else is an idiot and don’t know anything about the game.  I know how to get my toon ready for raiding – and I am sorry,  a +40 gem over a +20 gem (an example only people!) is NOT going to make such a huge difference that you will be able to see it on the logs – END OF STORY!  Certainly not with a player like me who is not ever going to be in a Top 10 guild and perhaps on patchwerk it might because there is no interruption to a perfect rotation, but in the current fights….no way.

Anyway, I had fun last night and it was great to get through so much as quickly as we did.  I was not having a super night with my procs…which annoyed me a little as my DPS was not as high as I have seen it.  But hey, that is fire spec 😀

I am a little ranty today 🙂  Sorry.  It was meant to be an upbeat post about my enjoyment last night!

This is why i don’t PUG

and it is why i join guilds for raiding – expecting to see content.

I went on a DS 10 man PUG this morning, as in, I started at 11.30 or so?  It is now, 4.20pm and we are still trying to kill Hagara.  Admittedly at 2.20 we had a 50 minute break until about 3.15pm.  Hagara down at 4.30pm.  We are now waiting to do Ultraxion trash, I will be leaving after we do Ultrax as there is no way this group can do Warmaster.

Now, don’t get m wrong, they were a very very nice bunch of people, but i spent over 300g in repairs and I got nothing out of it except annoyance.  Most people would ask why i hung around, and i still have no die, I kept hoping we would get better…..that it was just the first boss, then well it was a fuck up on the send…you know…I just kept hoping…

Now, the tank has left because of lag and we need to find another person to replace him, this has happened on every single fucking boss. We lose someone after each wipe, so then we spend 20 minute looking for another person and I tell you now…..I AM OVER IT!

I should have left after the first wipe, but two healing zonozz with 2 shammies isn’t the best idea…no matter how good they appear to be.

We wiped on Ultrax trash, then had to wipe on Ultrax because someone left and we couldn’t summon the replacement in the shadow realm, then they called it because another person had to leave.  5pm.

Seriously?!?!?!?!?  Aside from the one Ulduar run I did a few months ago to get my mount – that is the calibre of the PUGS I am always in.  whY!?!?!!?!??!

Why do people say they know the fights in LFR when they can’t avoid the fucking ice crystals on hagara, or that PURPLE IS THE FIRST COLOUR, or that you have to jump into the red crystals (ok bad example there) – clearly YOU DONT KNOW THE FIGHT?!?!!?!?

I am annoyed with myself more than anything for wasting an entire day only clearing 4 bosses…Oh god…I hate my WoW life.  I was top DPS all day though by a fair bit..a hunter was close to me most of he time, about 5k difference.

This was spurred on by the LFR I joined before the DS pug, as healer, they had no tanks so i offered to switch then as I was doing so a bear ran into the mobs and grabbed 2 groups of slimes…..I dumped that one straight away.  Why did I not do the same thing when everyone else “Dc’D” to get out of the run after one wipe!!!

I hate pugs.  I hate everything.  I hate hate hate people who can’t admit they don’t know what they are doing, and I HATE IT when people just keep being dumbarses!

/end rant

/maybe

/start sobbing hysterically.

All I wanted was to kill Deathwing on 10 man to complete my achievement.  That’s all.  Maybe I should pay a guild for a run???  That’s not a bad idea.