I’ve been busy.

LFR has been kind of me–even while the loot gods extract their payment in simply not dropping the transmog gear I want. Woe.  At least I match. I also leveled my druid to 85 and got her to LFR level…and she is yet another healer, ladies and gentlemen.  WILD GROWTH ALL THE THINGS. We’ll see if she inherits the LFR loot luck or must flail around being That Healer in PvP Gear for awhile. I seem to be doing much better with my under geared druid than I did my priest at the same gear level–the other day I healed Well with a  full guild group where the tank was in DPS gear for giggles. In my pvp blues. What?

Anyway. Lyr. I had her transmogged into t9 but liked this set enough to strip the transmog from it–except for my helm, of course. Halo forever. I think I need a new weapon to really match it, but…well, later. I remain frustrated in my ability to play Word of Dresscraft because the loot gods are just NOT dropping my PRETTY gear.

Except for the druid, who got lucky in Ulduar and landed a lot of the transmog gear I wanted in one shot.

So…by that logic, she is probably screwed for actual gear. Fuck.

Anyway. Hi. I live. Doing LFR as much as I am, surely I’ll have blog fodder…at some point…right?

 

Inevitable Betrayal

My priest is now solidly geared, with more pieces of tier than my main (probably because I keep giving away tokens to guildies for their 4 piece….).  I am still working on Lyrandre because her DPS shoulders and chest still have to go, but the bulk of my alt-obsession has refocused on my druid.

Poor Aedeminar. She was rolled in vanilla and never got anywhere, really. I can conquor my hatred of questing by tackling the LFD though!
…yeah. We all know what my leveling LFD life is like, don’t we?

There is a REASON she is tank and resto specced. It’s because when she hit Wrath content and Utgarde vomited up all the Tanks Who Were Not Tanks, I said AAAAAAAH FUCKING CUMGUZZLING WHORES and started tanking.

Well, I hit that point again the other day, after healing a couple of really special cookies. So I queued as tank and got Halls of Stone.

Auuugh, but okay. I was pulling cautiously because, come on, it has been a LONG TIME since I have tanked on Mina–at least a year. Shit CHANGED, yo, and I have hardly any idea what I’m doing. At some point, however, I observed that someone was running ahead, grabbing additional mobs, and dragging them back to me.

Hey!  Hey, mother fucker, that’s rude! I don’t know if I’m prepared for that shit! Of course the obvious answer is to LET THE IDIOT DIE, but wait.
Wait.

When I saw who was doing it, I was shocked. IT WAS THE HEALER. THE MOTHER FUCKING PRIEST HEALER.

WHY DO YOU BETRAY ME SO, HEALER? ARE WE NOT KINDRED? DO WE NOT KNOW HOW FUCKING ANNOYING IT IS WHEN SOMEONE DOES THAT BECAUSE THE TANK CAN MISS SOME AND THEN THEY ARE BEATING ON YOU AND OH GOD WHY.

WHY. I CAN’T EVEN LET YOU DIE OUT OF REVENGE, FUUUCK.

And then I saw him using mind sear on single targets and I was just like dear lord, there is just no winning this.

Healing is an Addiction

I don’t know what it says about me that I’m back to heavily leveling alts, and that they are both my resto druid and my resto shaman in particlar.

Oh, and don’t forget the priest, still gearing up.

HEAL EVERYTHING FOREVER. And bitch about bad tanks. Oh my god, the lowbie tanks, guys.

But it’s okay. For every tank a group kicked (1), there was a tank the group gently mentored. I do hope that the adorable nub-DK tank didn’t listen too much to the warrior who didn’t even know what a rotation was, though.  Spirit mail is not for you, little DK tank…

Of course, do I really love healing this much, or do I just hate long queues that much?  Hmmm.

What is this I don’t even

I left Lyr in the image so that you can appreciate this happening when I’m on my priest and not my DK.

My Life As A 75 Resto Druid, In A Nutshell

• Cast ALL THE HOTS
• Get ALL THE ADD AGGRO
• Die
• Remember Shadowmeld
• Cast ALL THE HOTS
• Get ALL THE AGGRO
• Shadowmeld!
• CAST ALL THE HOTS
• Get ALL THE AGGRO
• Shadowmeld is on cooldown
• Die

This is how bear became my off spec. It might be time to revist that…

Um, how do you bear tank again?

Dear DPS in Full PVP Gear

ETA: If you can go into a heroic in pvp gear and do 15k DPS, this post is not about you.  Also, there’s a line between “I am a PVPer stepping into PvE content” and “I’m a PvEr who bought these blues off the AH when I dinged 85 and didn’t bother to reforge, gem, or enchant anything, so that I could have random people carry me through heroics.” It is the latter who have sparked my ire.

Dear DPS in Full PVP Gear,

Look, I realize that using PVP gear to cheese the ilevel requirements is a quick and easy way into the new heroics. Really, I do–see my own pvp shoulders?  But please understand one thing: the heroics themselves will not be quick and easy while you’re limping along doing less than half of the DPS of everyone else. 9k is not an acceptable amount of DPS.

You can’t count on some uber DPS trying to cap VP coming along and carrying your sorry, lazy ass. Murphy’s Law states that you will be tossed in a group with all or one of the following:

• other DPS doing the exact same thing and sucking just as hard
• someone on an alt still figuring out WTF they are doing
• some fucking idiot who thinks that wearing half healing and/or tanking gear to DPS is somehow fucking hunky dory
• someone with 2 FPS
• someone with perfectly good gear who is just That Guy who is terrible no matter what

And then things won’t die fast at all and your healer will run out of mana healing these super long fights while the 2 fps guy stands in bad and OH GOD THE PAIN WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Newsflash: the normal heroics are STILL IN THE GAME.

GO FUCKING RUN THEM YOU LAZY ASS COCKKNOB.

Get some other heroic loot and some JP stuff and then maybe, just maybe, you can fucking SUPPLEMENT your shit with pvp gear to cheese the last bit of ilevel, okay?

BUT YOU REALLY CAN’T WEAR JUST PVP GEAR AND NOT MAKE ME WANT TO RIP OUR YOUR ANUS VIA YOUR THROAT.

Welcome to 2012. Nothing has changed.

After I asked, in exasperation, for the paladin doing 10k DPS to gem his gear after we were done:

 

The funny thing is I didn’t see him in any healer gear. I saw him in TANK gear…but not…healing gear.  I…I don’t even.

We won’t even touch the rogue in mostly PVP blues doing 9k. Actually, yes we will. HIS crowning moment was saying, after our first tank dropped in disgust (I was their second healer): “Oh thank god he left, I’ve been trying to kick him since the first boss.”

I could marinate in the irony.

Instead I am indeed going to cry myself to sleep, despite only needing 50 more VP to get new boots.

Coming Soon to an LFR Near You

Coming soon to a LFR near you: that mother fucking disc priest in PVP shoulders, a +hit chest (albeit reforged), and a fucking blue weapon.

Fuck yeah, baby. Lyrandre’s back in town. You know you missed me. I sure as hell missed you.

Don’t look at me like that, internet. I promise I will gem and enchant ALL THE THINGS before I hit LFR.  Even if they’re PVP and +hit things. Except maybe the weapon. I’m just going to have to replace that piece of shit.

The healing reflexes were pretty rusty when I started this project, but I think I’ve got them mostly working now. I haven’t wiped a 5 man in awhile–just that one time, when the tank and I ran in opposite directions by accident. I’m excited to get Lyrandre back into a raid situation–even just LFR–just to see how it flows.

When all else fails, retreat to what you know best.

Dealing With Personal Weaknesses

Everyone has weaknesses in the way they play. I have a myriad of them, but after many years of raiding, I’ve learned how to best counter myself.

I am a creature of habit. Reflexes are my way of forming mental filters and handling complex fights. Once I figure out the rhythm of a fight, I can devote my full attention to doing my best. It’s not unlike learning to drive–at first it’s all OMG THERE’S SO MANY THINGS TO REMEMBER but it becomes second nature before long. I must master the individual layers before I can excel at the whole.

This means that when things change too much I’m the derpiest of derps.  I’m used to working like this, and it’s one reason why I seldom pugged raids  even when I had the time. The constants of a guild raid week in and week out were better for me. I’m self-aware enough to not court failure more than I must. I struggled massively with my guild’s Rags attempts because I only raid every other week, and with two different raid leaders, the strat would literally be different every single time I went. I’ve never felt so unsure of myself as when I was failing left and right on Rags. Thankfully that’s not a situation that comes up much, and after I’ve done a fight the same way a few times, I’m okay. I just need my crutches in place.

There’s a reason I was only in a “top 5 on the server” guild in Vanilla. In 40 mans, who really notices 1 of 7 holy paladins dying? NO ONE.

Suffer from left/right confusion? I know of many people who rely on post-it notes to not only remind them which way is which, but of other assignments as well. I sketch things out on paper on my desk sometimes (ex: THIS SON, dumbface) as a visual reminder.

I couldn’t get through life as a responsible adult without post-it notes.

What are your personal weaknesses, and how do you cope?  Are you a perpetual keyboard turner that remains extra aware of stuff on the floor? Did you used to be a paladin tank who had to install an ad-on to yell when you didn’t have RF up?

Share your failures!

Advice For Venturing Into LFR

Disclaimer: I’ve had a whopping one whole LFR run.

I wasn’t really planning on hitting the LFR. The LFR was scary, after all. I just wanted to do a couple of heroics for VP, but then a bunch of guildies wanted to go, sooo…sure, why not?

Bits of Advice:
-Don’t go with absolutely no clue of what to do, unless you’re confident in your ability to figure it out on the fly.  Watch at least the 10 man videos first (even though it’s 25 man), just realize that a lot of aspects of the fight will sort of fly out the window. I say this becuase I went into it cold, and when I asked what each boss did, I was told to figure it out. When I tried to read the dungeon journal, they pulled the boss. You might get someone who explains, but don’t count on it. On the other hand it’s not TOO hard to figure it out on the fly if you’ve been raiding awhile (at least, for the first 4)–I only died once, I swear! Just follow the other nubs when it seems like they are running away/towards something. Baaaaa.

-Don’t even bother to hope for loot. No really, don’t even bother. There’s 24 other people derping along in there with you, and you’re better off saving your sanity and assuming you’ll get nothing. Becuase you probably won’t.

-While you’re at it, don’t even look at damage meters, especially after you’ve lost loot. The person who won it will be terrible. That’s just how it works.