O Hai, Pre-Patch Lull

Ah, it’s that time again.  Raid attendence drops,  people stop paying attention, and all of a sudden we’re wiping on farm content.

Freya defeated us again last night, which has me wanting to cry in both sadness and anger.  It’s Freya, for fuck’s sake.  In Ulduar.  She’s a keeper that we used to be able to down regularly.   I don’t know where everyone’s head was, but if the trash wipes didn’t clue me in, a Freya pull by someone distracted by the TV should have.  I want to kill Yoggy, people.  :(

It’s a struggle for me, internally.  I’m telling myself that it’s just a natural lull, the kind that BoO has survived over and over.   Then there’s the part of my brain that is screaming YOU ARE THE MOST TERRIBLE GM EVER, and I hate that part.  I’m flailing at my support network on a regular basis (I love you guys).

I GM’d once before, in BC.  We had a cozy little group of friends, barely enough to scrape together a Kara.  Then one day my co-GM and one of our precious healers transferred off server without warning, and I’m afraid I was rather gutted after that and the guild slowly dwindled away.  Gwuh.  Will not repeat.

I’ve got an officer who is perpetually MIA…no, actually, two officers who are perpeutally MIA, though one of them at least occassionaly shows up and leads an off night raid.   Cranky Tank is on that wavering age of burn out and /game quit…again.  Of the other three officers, one is the former GM and lord knows where his mind is…and the other two are also sort of wavering uncertainly in burn out/bored land.  In other words, I’m really afraid to lean on anybody, and the number of people I feel I can count on is smaller than our number of officers.

Of course this just means that I’ll actually be leaning on the people who currently keep me raiding, officer or not.  Myss.  Oasic.  Celaeno.  Pyxy.  Kyr.  Rivyn.  Atropus.  Frost.  All of you who joke around and generally make my nights amusing.  

I have a couple of angry rants saved up, but I’m almost afraid to voice them.  Perhaps tomorrow will be Pull Your Head Out Of Your Asses Lecture Day, where I talk about things like continuing to stare at the TV and not the computer when your GM on vent is going “EVERYONE BACK UP BACK UP BACK OH GOD THE BOSS PULLED” is pretty damn fail.

To cap the fail, I missed taming Loque by like…a minute.  Then I hopped on my warrior and found Skoll’s corpse.  Bwuh.  Sad BM hunter is sad. /pokemons

Blargh.

Apparently you can two disc priest heal ToC10 up until…oh…Anub.

Then it doesn’t work so well.  :(

What the hell happened to our usual ToC10 lolfest?!  Damn you, Kotakh!  You and your dentist appointments! /shakefist

ETA:  Anub basically went like this…

LOLOLOL STACKS OF POISON EVERYWHERE!

DEATH LOL!!!

….yeah.  We made it to phase 3 once, and then failed because…well…I don’t know about the other two healers, but I was OOM.  And I was sad, because normally we just roffle all over that place.  QQ.

Warm and Fuzzy Bubbles

I don’t know what’s gotten in to me today, since I’ve been pretty angtsy lately, but today I feel…warm and fuzzy.

So, my fellow WoW bloggers-thank you.  So many have you been awesome, supportive people.   I started this little jaunt almost a year ago now and it’s been a neat experience.  Yes.  I said neat. 

To my readers-there has been of late around a thousand of you a day.  Holy crap.  While I strive to provide some amusement (even if through angry!) to lighten people’s days, or some help, or even just another soul that’s irritated at the same things you are…I never thought I’d reach that many people.  Hell, I was proud when I hit 300 hits a day.   You’ve all been pretty awesome, supportive people too.  Sometimes you’re even funnier than I am.  Thanks!

To my guildies-I heart you guys.  Thank you for sticking with us over the past couple of…years, for some you.  Thanks for putting up with my awkward flailings as GM so far.  You guys are what keep me playing, you know.  I don’t play for loot or achievements or even Spirit Beast pokemons.  I play because interacting with you guys is a riot, even if I do want to beat some of you just a little bit on occasion. 

I HEART YOU, AWESOME INTERNET STRANGERS WHO PUT UP WITH ME.

I hate bugs.

Last night’s ToC actually did…not go too badly.  We started an hour late because I had issues filling a larger-than-normal number of gaps, but it wasn’t without its benefits.  For one thing, I unknowingly ended up with the alt of a friend  in the raid. We almost didn’t take him due to gear-I wish he’d told me who his main was beforehand.  D’oh!  Thankfully I trust that guild tag in general, so I decided that a slightly undergeared Celestial Darkness person was better than a slightly undergeared Random Person.  You can only imagine my delight to find out it was my buddy Wyre.  Drood in warrior form!

Anyway, we may have picked up a new “regular pug” with the potential to turn into a guildie-and even better yet, they’re shaman flavored.  Yay, shamananans.

Despite the shortened raid time, we cleared up to Anub with minimal issues and got some attempts in on him, which was more than we’d done for the past couple of weeks.  I just want to know why we can handle everything up to that point and then all of a sudden it…falls apart.

Oh well, strat research time!

And now on to Things That Bug Me:

I appreciate opinions and strat suggestions.  I really, honestly, do.  However, once the fight starts?  If you’re not an officer, shut your mouth and don’t call out instructions.   We have seven bloody officers, do you think we any need any help cluttering up vent?  No!  :P  We run all over our own god damned selves just fine without outside assistance…

Monday, we meet again.

And I still hate you, Monday.

Welcome to yet another Token Post For NaNoWriMo.  Tomorrow I will attempt a genuine post, all about Amber GM Flailings and 25 Man One Room Raid and Other Such Things.  And then I should probably do another strat, because I find myself having to explain fights and going, bwuh?  You all really want to hear about how the orbs have AIDS, anyway, I know you do.

I’m still cautiously flailing my way through GMing, because the one thing the Amber is terrified of is Not Being Liked.  This might seems trange for someone as snarky as I am, but ’tis true. 

PLEASE DON’T HATE ME.

I have, in the meantime, mentally scribed two new rules of Amber GMship:

1) If you don’t want to go to a raid, take a page from Cranky Tank’s book and just flat out tell me you don’t want to go.  Don’t make up shit when I can find out about it later.  *stares*

2) Please don’t drunkenly call me at 2 am to yell about White Castle.  You know you you are, guildies.  You know who you are.  Sleepy GMs are sleepy.

Ulduar…

“It’s been awhile, so I forgot some of the nuances of the fights.”

“Didn’t you write STRATS for those?”

“Yeah, MONTHS ago.  And I didn’t exactly take note of the best way to assign DPS to the Trio of Bastardly Mobs, okay?”

Fuck you, Freya.

Dear Orb Huggers,

Just in case you thought it escaped my notice, we are watching you.

When you stand still DPSing whatevering as hard as you can and eat orb after orb on Twin Valks, we are watching you.

Why are we watching you?  Well because we are the dutiful healers players, skirting around Bad Orbs and nomming the Good Orbs so that they don’t come nom YOU, oh DPSer Player of the Other Color.   We’re paying attention.  I see you, Orb Huggers!

I see you, and I will find a way to reach through the screen some day and choke a bitch.

Suprise patch = surprise buttsechs.

So I’m already wound up enough, what with the first 25 man with me as guild leader, and then we have to have issues all night.  It started with the Beasts pull and our OT DCing…and being unable to log back on for awhile.  That was pretty much the theme of the night.

Pyxy, tank.  Ghostfacee, melee DPS.  Erdkrieg, healer.  Iknowyou, ranged DPS.  Mikata, healer.  Myself, healer, though I thankfully didn’t have patch issues.   It was a rotating cluserfuck of 24 manning nearly every gods be damned thing because we were always missing someone. 

Healing felt light and I don’t know if it was due it group comp, silly inattentive people, the particular tanks we’d chosen (Pyx is still catching up in gear to the other thanks and Mega just doesn’t have Zoja’s avoidances), server fail, or all of those.  I know I was lolfailing at one point, to my bafflement-I lolfail at many things, but to be hit by Icehowl?  ICEHOWL?!  On my screen, it looked like he was facing me, so I ran to one side, to you know…get out of the way.  Instead, I ran into him.  WTF?  GAH.  I think I’ll stick with “all of those” as my answer and cross my fingers for better luck next week.

On my Current Things To Do As GM List is “find my spine”.  I should get right on that.

ETA: Kestrel mentioned my name and the phrase “mad comic genius” together.  I feel better now.

Random Screenshot Monday

Warning: everything said in chat is subject to appearing in a screen shot.

Classy, Random Other Hunter.  Really classy.  Here’s what I say to you:

Die in a fucking fire, mmmkay?

You’re just jealous of the dinosaur, admit it.  Everyone is jealous of Omnomnom.  Except maybe the tanks, because they’re all, WTF that thing is huge are you really going to use that and I’m all, yes, yes I am.

By the way, those float after you break the floor.  Unfortunately, jumping off of them apparently makes water hard as glass, killing you.  Go figure…

See: first note.

…we’re just weird in the healing channel, okay?

Friday!

Now soliciting guest flow charts…?