The New Recruit Curse

Murphy’s Law states that if we have a new recruit along–either one thinking of joining, or one who just shelled out good money to transfer on the grand assumption that we don’t actually suck–we will, in fact, suck. At least a bit.

Of course the poor guy gets his first run with us on a night when we’re intentionally wiping on bosses for legendary shenanigans, so that’s splendid. Welcome to the guild, have some repair bills*. But theeeeen we proceeded to wipe on trash.  Three times.

“I’M BRINGING HOME A PUPPY.”
‘Shit, where did these scorpions come from?”
“AMG ANOTHER DOG.”
/raid splatters

….x2. Add in some fun with the fire elemental gauntlet and, well.

WELCOME TO SIB, WE WIPE ON TRASH.

SiB can’t be the only guild afflicted with this curse, though…can it?

 

*Gbank paid, though–we’re not that cruel.

Smote

I’ve been doing my best to level Lyrandre with something resembling haste, which has lead to me being terribly bored of smiting.

I mean sure, it’s entertaining at first–but by the time you hit 83/84, suddenly your mana bar seems to have sprung a leak, and holy fire/smite/smite/smite turns into holy fire/smite/smite/smite/smite/holy fire/smite/SW:D/fuck I misjudged, smite.

This is where you’d say Amber, isn’t Lyr dual specced?

Yes, yes she is.  Disc and nothing.

…what do you mean I should use that second spec for shadow?  Pffft. 

I’ve hit 84 and the dreaded Twilight Highlands, which means that I will be a paper armored smear on the ground several times from here on out. Woe.

My pugging experiences have been mostly good, until I got one of Those Tanks the other day. He was in partial casting gear (BARE tank, I’m guessing moonkin otherwise) and at one point–after I nearly died on the first trash pull–I made him aware that hey, untanked caster mobs tend to eat the healer.

He said that was fine. He was invincible!

No really, he said that he didn’t care if I died because he was invincible.

By the time I hit 85 the rust should be completely, brutally knocked off my healing skills…

So about that haste thing.

I finally got a chance to raid with all of my gear at least reforged to reflect the 4.1 changes and the DW frost DK’s new love for haste.

Just to give you an idea, I did 13.5k DPS in BH last night when I forgot to swap out of my PvP gear. Of course, I also DIED on trash because I yanked aggro off the pugged tank, so… >.> There is an increased risk, as well.

Throw me in a raid with actual PvE gear on (heh) and 15k on boss fights seems to be typical. This is a nice boost up from what it was pre-patch, so change good in that regard.

I can see why some people feel that it’s hectic. I found it less so, but then, my attention was caught by the ‘dead spaces’ in which I had nothing to do. It seems as if there’s a few more of those than there used to be. 

I blame the loss of blood strike, which was my “hmm, I need a button to press” go-to sometimes. Perhaps I will just restlessly spam horn of winter in these spaces instead, where the DPS warrior can promptly overwrite it with a shout.

That, or just run circles around non-cleaving trash mobs some more.  >.>

More PvP Musings

More PvP Musings,
Because That’s What I’ve Done This Week Instead of Raiding:
How to Not Totally Suck As A DK No Matter How Much You Actually Do Suck
(In BGs Because That’s What’s Fresh On My Mind And I’m Worse In Arenas)
Disclaimer: I am not as awesome Cynwise

It amuses me how some things have never changed–fighting mid field in Warsong Gulch is still stupid, and everyone still does it.  So I suppose that’s the first piece of advice–don’t do that.  Unless you’re actively chasing down a flag carrier, get somewhere actually useful.  Hint: it involves a flag carrier.

Speaking of flag carriers, you need to be all up in their business.  CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE DEATH GRIP LOL.  That is your job, wether it be hasseling the enemy flag carrier or peeling people off yours.

Not in a capture the flag BG?  FIGHT ON THE NODE FLAG, OH MY GOD.  Oh, and your job is now to eat healers.  Actually, you job is always to eat healers, but lacking anything else to do that is definitely your job here.

I was amazed at how helpful my tidy plates was in that regard–I had it set up so that my bars were color coded by class, allowing me to quickly focus my hatred on the appropriate target–the frost mage the potential healer.  Making it so that I could see cast bars right under their name was even more awesome.  I’M SORRY ARE YOU TRYING TO CAST HEALING WAVE?

Also, don’t forget Dark Simulacrum.  Like me you’ll probably have to hunt for it in your books because seriously wtf is that damned thing, but it does have good use in pvp.  Sometimes, of course, it will steal something useless like…oh…beacon.  Other times I’ve cast Repentance right back at the poor pally and giggled madly. 

Kill all the things!

PvP Has Taught Me To Hate You

I do 3v3 areans for lulz and much eating of floor.  When I PvP’d previously it was usually on a baby hunter, or healing on my paladin.  Healing taught me to hate warlocks and rogues deeply.

Melee is another matter.

Frost mages, I hate you with a burning passion equal to a thousand suns.  Every time the  doors open and I see a water elemental, I am torn between the needs to scream, and cry.  I can only silence and death grip you so often, you obnoxious motherfuckers.

I still hate rogues, especially the ones that appear to be on some sort of drug.  You know, the ones who jump around like fire ants are eating their junk?  Yeah those.  I hate you.  Die in a  fire.  My fail, keyboard turning ways cannot cope with y0u, so clearly this is your fault.  Jerks.

Druids.  Oh god druids.  Just fuck all of you.  Stupid shape shifters.  With your cyclones.  Mrrr. 

On the other hand, death gripping hunters to me makes me cackle every time.  >.>  <3

BWD: The Elevator Boss

Don’t mock me for writing this strat.  The Elevator Boss has claimed many lives, including several members of SiB.  It may have even claimed some of them more than once.

Tips and Tricks:

As I discovered personally, the engineer’s habit of reaching for his parachute in times of crisis will not serve you well here.  While it’s true you will not splatter on the ground, you will slowly…casually…glide right into the lava.  Where you will die.  And you will not be able to be rezzed by a snickering guildie and you will have to run your arse right back into the instance to brave the elevator again.  I can only imagine that levitate or slowfall will have the same result without perfect timing.

Trying to heroic leap off the elevator early to show off how awesome you are will, more often than not, result in you making an awesome blood smear.  Right Pix?

For the highest chance of not dying, stop on the edge of the elevator platform and wait patiently.  Do not tab out–this is not a dawdling elevator.  By the time you belatedly look over from your 2nd monitor and 4chan to realize that it’s there, you will wander off the edge only to find that it has already left.  Wait and run onto the platform as soon as you see it, especially if you’re laggy.

Levitating someone else to make them float into the lava pit/splatter is cruel.  Hilarious, but cruel.  Lifegrip can also be abused in amusing ways, proving that priests are OP and need to be nerfed.

Someone else with more forethought than I was kind enough to provide images for this tough boss encounter!  You can find them here.  Or here, here, and here if the WoW forums are blocked but you can see imageshack.

Remember, avoiding higher repair bills can be as good as loot!

Anything you say…

We are a seriously fucked up crew.  It’s delightful.

And my guildies will tell you I only post things that make others look bad.  That’s totes not true, here’s me being a floor tanking nub:

I take entirely too many screen shots of my character.  And…Ori’s character.

Icecrown gets cold, okay?

I am a terrible rogue.  Terrible.

Baby Rogues and Awesome People

I rolled a gnome priest.  She was so cute I rolled her again on another (RP) server.  Then I rolled a human hunter.  Then a gnome rogue.  Then a human rogue.  I’m indecisive, have too many servers I want to play on, and love rolling characters.

So far it’s the human rogue that I’m leveling, if by leveling you mean get to level 8.  I’m terrible at rogues because I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to die at least as many times as I’ve dinged.  Cata or not, I’m still reminded of why I quit rogues the FIRST time, 5 years ago!

I might turn the gnome rogue into a PvP twink just for lulz.  That and then I wouldn’t have to level her much.  Duh.  >.>

In other news, I have to say that the WoW community is hilariously awesome.  There’s a bunch of us–some bloggers, some not–who have formed a surprisingly tight knit Twitter community.  Think what you will of Twitter, our little corner of it is…unique.  When the Lil Ragnaros and Baby Moonkin pets were put into the shop yesterday Twitter exploded–both with people squeeing with glee, and with a few sad laments of how some people didn’t have the money to spare right then.

Now Cranky Tank and I extremely lucky these days, and having been kindly gifted with some money lately, I wanted to pass along some cheer by gifting one of the pets to someone.

…the problem is that I keep getting beaten to it.  Everytime I go “oh oh that person, I’ll get them one!” SOMEONE ELSE DOES IT FIRST.

I’m sitting here giggling because my niceness is being thwarted by other people being entirely too nice faster than I can manage.

It’s easy to forget all about asshats today. 

Still have a baby moonkin looking for a home, too! ;)

Death Knugget Flowchart

Melee Misadventures: The Accidental Tank

I’ve been spoiled lately by having Solt as a tank.  He’s ICC geared and I’m not, so generally the only time I end up face tanking is when I’m over enthusiastically whacking on something I shouldn’t be.  Yesterday, however, I grabbed a rather freshly dinged druid from guild and decided to run around with him.  Decked in almost all blues (I’m at least…more than halfway epics now?) he must’ve convinced the magical gear match maker that tanks in all blues were awesome.

And you know what?  They were awesome, in the sense that they weren’t lacking in skills and generally seemed to be decent folk.  They just weren’t prepared to handle me and my AoE Icy Dick Punch.

It also says something about Isis as a healer that I managed to not die.  Close! Omg, close!  But I never actually died.  \o/

When one tank was actually so shiny new he had never been to ToC5 before I coo’d a little bit (I love new tanks, I really do) and instantly burst into Helpful Mode.  I marked things!  I gave him very brief rundowns on what to expect!  I held in my urge to run forward and howling blast right away!  I carefully followed my own marks (or his target) and…still pulled with Killing Machine procs but you know, there’s only so much I can do.

But I apologized and gave him hugs and he never yelled at me.  <3

I think I actually prefer the tanks-in-blues, even if they don’t prefer me.

Sorry guys!   >.>