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.

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?

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.

GnomeClone Adventures: Things That Piss Me Off

So far, being a Gnome Clone–at least, when among other Gnome Clones–has been delightful. I dinged 24 last night and now begin assembling the gear we’ve decided on. Since we’re going to be dipping our toes in the water of instances a wee bit ouchy to us for some of the gear that we need, I’ve been trying to assemble the best gear that I could along the way, but I’ve…be having trouble with that.

The only way to guarantee that you get a drop from an instance should it appear is to go in a full guild run. That’s just the way of things as far as I’m concerned, if I run it with pugs I always risk the chance that another member of the party will need it and win the roll.

That’s the thing though: I stand a chance of that happening. But I’ve experienced something…annoying.

You see, I’m re-discovering (gasp!) that people are assholes. Over fucking lowbie loot.  More than once now I’ve grouped with people who are all from the same guild/server, and each time they thought it was fine and dandy to all roll on loot I was trying for and give it to the priest/mage/whomever among them that really wanted it.

Seriously, guys? It’s a piece of fucking lowbie gear and all 4 of you are going to roll on those cloth shoulders?

Why don’t you just go fuck yourselves up the ass with a pine cone while you’re at it?

You can GO GO GO straight to fucking hell.

I made a mistake last night. Our second 10 man folded due to a last minute cancellation, and the new priest wanted to run heroics, so I thought I would offer to go with. I needed a few more VP for another piece of  gear, anyway.  So. Another guildie who is also new to the guild was tagging along as well, which would put us at a healer and 2 DPS. Eeeenh.  Surely I can tank a Zulroic with 2 pugs and not want to shank people!

No.  Absolutely not.

I have not run the 5 man ZA and ZG much at all.  In fact, I’d say I’ve MAYBE done them each twice, and none of that was terribly recent. I tanked one of them once, but I don’t even remember which one it WAS, so my familiarity is…lacking.

And I’m not a very confident tank. I function fine as a raid tank for my guild, where I know the people and I know the fights. Throw me into an instance that I don’t know very well–where, in fact, I have old memories of tanking it when it was a raid layered over everything–and I slow down a bit, and flail a bit more.

I was, apparently, not fast enough for the pug hunter. Now, I was already head scratching at this hunter because he kept tossing down frost traps. Not the ice cube making trap of helpful CCness.  Not the fire trap of more damageness.  Not even the snake trap of LOLSNAKESness.  No, no he was throwing the frost trap down…on trash that did NOT contain scouts…for no apparent reason. Now, I got my hunter to 85 and then proceeded to not do much with her, but I don’t recall that suddenly becoming useful.

And then he started the GO GO GO nonsense.  I paused and told him, politely, that I was not a tank that liked to be rushed. He then proceeded to ANGRILY AND IN CAPS yell at me when I did not move the next boss fast enough (see: lack of familiarity with fights). I became less polite at this point, telling him to chill or to go back to enjoying long ass DPS queues because no one likes to tank for assholes. Later on in the instance, after a pull went…less than well, he told me he sucked and left.

…thanks!

I’m now back to never tanking for a heroic group containing any pugs at all.  I’ll go sit in my long ass DPS queue.

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…

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!   >.>

Responsibility.

If you are a public figure, it is my belief that you have a certain amount of rseponsibilty to totally not be an ass.  After all, whether you want to or not, you are setting an example.

This applies even on a smaller scale–even on our scale, here in the World of Warcraft flavored corner of the internets.  I am the GM of Stands in Bad.  I know that my behavior refelcts on my guild, so I try–in general–to not be an ass, because that affects other people (we want awesome people to join the guild, not turn away because I gave in to the urge to be a raging buttnugget one moody evening). 

I am a blogger and not the smallest fish in the pond (hi guys!), so my behavior reflects on other bloggers/priests/hunters/deathnuggets/whatever I am that week.   This is another solid reason to not be a total jerk face even if everyone around me is being one.

And that’s why behavior like Frostheim’s gets my goat.

Regardless of the fact that he “may” have not known that oops, pulling that boss will wipe the group, pulling a boss without everyone else is still a dickish thing to do.   Yes, if he said no to the optional bosses they should not have gone ahead to try to do them anyway, but contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t give you the right to be an ass.

I only do heroics when I have time to do heroics.  This means that I do not do heroics (unless with guildies) right before a raid, even if I have an hour to spare, because 1) queues are mercurial in temperment and length 2) you never know what will happen and 3) I hate feeling pressured for time.

Frostheim said that he “can’t stand people who leave halfway through a heroic — as if they didn’t know how long it would take them”.   But wiping the group because you were short on time was okay, though?

No, sweetheart, that’s not how it works.  Again, I’m not excusing the rest of the group.  But you are Frostheim, a fairly visible member of the hunter community.  A community that’s already suffered under a negtive stereotype, I might add.

Don’t add to it, cockwaffle.*

*I am fully away of the irony granted by scolding someone about their behavior while tossing around words like cockwaffle.  But I’m not scolding him for his language, damn it.

Also this post should count towards my NaNo word count for the day.  YOU MADE ME ANGRY ENOUGH TO STEP AWAY FROM MY NANO, FROSTHEIM.  /shakes fist

Why I Tank

I tank on 4 different toons for two reasons.  Well, I do kind of enjoy tanking as well, but that’s beside the point.

1) Faster queues.  Even a healer has to wait one or two WHOLE MINUTES for a group.  What the fuck.
2) OH MY GOD, LOWBIE TANKS SO OFTEN SUCK.

By “suck” I don’t mean just generally fail at getting aggro.  I mean suck as in not even TRYING to have decent gear.  And by decent mear I mean “things even remotely suited for tanking”.

If you are a paladin and your gear consists of ungemmed Kara tanking epics, 1 random Kara epic DPS belt, and half SPELL POWER GEAR, some of which is LEATHER, then FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WHY ARE YOU QUEUING AS A TANK. 

NO.  BAD PALADIN. 

We wiped on the last boss of Utgarde Keep, twice, because there was no way I could pour my whole mana bar into him and keep everyone else alive at the same time.  I have never mashed all my buttons so hard so fast in my entire tree life.  Only to die. 

I also had a DK in partial SP plate (WHY).   I just…I…what is this I don’t even.

Since I run into many more bad tanks than bad healers, back to bear-LFDing I go.

MY SANITY, I MUST HAS IT.

Bubble hearth, GO!

I joke about bubble hearthing because it’s just one of those things that comes with being a paladin, but it’s not something that I do. I play on a pvp server and I’m hopelessly terrible at pvp, but instead of bubble hearthing when someone gets a jump on me, I just stick it out. I don’t recall ever using it in instances, except maybe when I’m the only one alive and there are a bunch of ugly mobs who want to give me not nice hugs. Even that’s rare because I’m stubborn and it’s easier to just die and run back than it is to make way for the instance again, at least that was the case until the new dungeon teleport system. Bubble hearthing feels really rude in a way that my beloved Divine Intervention doesn’t, even though they pretty much perform the same function in avoiding repairs.

You see, I suffer from healer guilt. I like to make jokes about letting people die to fix their stupid, but in reality I do my best to keep everyone alive because I’d feel bad if I didn’t. I don’t bail on instance groups after wipes – in part because I want to make things work, and because I would feel guilty about letting another healer stumble into a mess that I left behind. So basically, it takes some real abuse for me to throw up my hands and say “screw it”.

For the first time in a long time, I reached my breaking point. It was Drak’tharon Keep; the tank was rushing but it wasn’t anything unmanageable because RAWR PALADIN MANA POOL (/flex). But after we downed King Dred, the druid tank asks us to wait at the bottom of the stairs. His warrior friend (from the same realm and guild) repeats this, and expounds with “DON’T FOLLOW HIM, DO NOT HEAL” in all caps, I guess so we’d know he was serious. I decided to humor them, and when the druid rounds up about 4 groups and goes splat as he’s pulling them down the stairs (well out of my healing range) I laugh a little and get ready for what’s probably going to be a wipe, because it just wasn’t very likely that I’d be able to keep a dps warrior alive with four packs of angry trolls on him. Like I thought, he dies before I can even get a holy light on him, but all the while he’s freaking out in party chat.

After that he proceeded to call me a dumb cunt.

Bubble hearthing? Was totally warranted. It even felt GOOD.