Then and Now: Part One

I need to be at home for new screen shots, but let’s take a tour though Ye Olden Days, shall we?

Ambrosine: Paladin, the first character I ever rolled…

Gee, I remember that gear.

Jamethera: Had the privelege of being my only other 60…

Aedeminar, the druid:

Dear lord, bear form was really awful, wasn’t it.

I don’t have much in the way of baby!Lyr screenshots, it seems, so here you go, unless I find a better one at home:

And a death knight is never very wee, but here we are, the Vainglory in her early days:

Oh, I Remember This

Stands in Bad has recently added Nef to our list of Bosses We Are Chewing On (Cho’gall being the other).  The truth of the matter is that he’s going to take some time to down, and I’m okay with that.  We probably need more gear as well as practice–I’m not the only one still half in blues, thanks to the loot gods raining cloth and mail upon our heads.

Farming the earlier parts of the instance for gear to kill the end bosses?  Gee, this feels familiar!  It brings to mind walking uphill, both ways, in the snow…

It might not take that long, really–we’re already down to clearing farm content in one night, which is why we’re adding the previously ignored Throne to our list.  Sure, it’s only two bosses, but it might add some variety to our second day wipe nights.  We can focus on certain bosses based on our raid comp for the night, perhaps  (WTB 1x mage for Nef). 

I’m sure everyone is noting the stark contrast between Cata and Wrath raiding.  I for one enjoy it–the bar doesn’t seem to be set TOO high, we’re making steady progress while boss kills are still enough of a struggle that they mean something. 

Of course, ask me what I think after several more hours spent wiping on Nef because I apparently can’t kite.

WTF, Blizzard?

Today a horrible fact was revealed to me on the Twitter:  Blizzard is bringing back the old PvP titles, this time with rated BG requirements.  What the hell are you thinking, Blizzard?  I still show my old PvP titles on my alts.  Since they are only silly titles like “Private” and “Corporal”  they serve only one point–well, two, if you count showing how BAD at PvP I was:

To show the silly BC and Wrath babies that I played in Vanilla so clearly, I am better than them.

Why are you taking this away from me, Blizzard?  I just don’t understand!  Was my penis so large that you simply had to nerf it?  I mean, I don’t have a penis IRL, so the size of my in-game dick is critical to my sense of well being.

I demand you remove the Howling Blast nerf right this instance so I can go back to feeling important during trivial moments, like the trash at the end of Stonecore.

Noob Me Was Adorable

I didn’t spend as much time on yesterday’s post as I would have liked, as work was rather hectic.  Level 1 me–hell, Vanilla me, period–was a total noob and I’m sure I’d have lots more to say.  I had never played an MMO before.  The only other game I’d played extensively before that was Diablo 2.  While Google was not unknown to me, the only WoW particular resource I tended to hit up was Thottbott, because as far as I knew that’s all that existed.

I understood at least vaguely that as a holy paladin, I wanted things like intellect for more mana, and spell power healing power for better heals.  But I have no idea if I I managed to flash heal of light my way to Not Sucking or not (after I stopped Holy Lighting all the time–god, I remember doing that and I cringe.  While it may have been the flavor of Wrath healing, let me tell you, when slapped in the rogue group in Vanilla, that was totes not the thing to do).

I’m fortunate that I’m still in contact with a handful of my Vanilla-era raiding buddies.  I perused my AIM list–most of them are not online or away as I write this, but, lo!  There is Delbok.  Delbok is the reason I raid to begin with, as he was not only the co-GM of Unified but also my fiance at the time.  Although I played WoW first, he dinged 60 while Ambrosine was still frolicing in Tanaris and got me into raiding once I finally caught up.

 me:  I was wondering, via blog induced reminisicing.  Was I a BAD paladin in vanilla?  Certainly I was a big enough noob to have been…
Delb0k:  Why do you ask?
 me:  Becuase I was thinking about my level 1 noob self and wondering how much I really sucked in vanilla, that’s why XD
 Delb0k:  lol.. You were not BAD no… most of the time you were pretty good I think.
 Delb0k:  Your main problem was you were not used to being a huge raider.. so you were a bit slow sometimes

In my defense my COMPUTER was slow for a chunk of it.  It was so awful I couldn’t take the boats because my lag would cause me to get stuck in a loop of “fuck I can’t load fast enough to get off the boat before it leaves”.   If you think a 25 man raid causes lag, imagine 40 people in the Depression Suppression room with tons of whelps and AoE.   /shudders

Alright, so maybe I didn’t suck, but I was pretty noobish regardless.  I definitely would have had a lengthy chat with my noob self about research!  Even in BC I was late catching on to blogs.  Any and all hunter skill I have can be laid squarely at the feet of my hunter mentor, Olgas. 

Can I consider it ironic then that I am now a WoW blogger?

My early experiences have shaped me into someone who loves nuturing the noobs, though.  I don’t care if you come to me knowing nothing.  It’s a “problem” easily rectified–if you’ll let me.  I’ve gotten some awesome raiders that way.

I suppose then my best advice for Level 1 me would have been: for fuck’s sake, girl, GOOGLE, read forums, and find mentors and love them.

Legacy Runs: Oh, Memor…wait, what happened to that boss?

Today several guildies will begin a Very Long Drive up to BoO Bash, our “guild meeting IRL” as it were.  Since this interferes with our normal raid days, I turned yesterday into a BWL run for shits and giggles.

It was an…odd…night for me.  I remember when BWL was progression.  I remember the first kills of Firemaw onward.  I remember being proud when my guild could clear BWL in under the 3 hours required for the Septer quest line.

So when we accidentally pulled Firemaw with a bunch of trash mobs and took him down casually (I tanked him in my Judgement), I was a little…sad.  Nevermind killing Vael in seconds,

While I think it’s need to to back into BC era dungeons that I missed, going back to anything from Vanilla is very bitter-sweet to me.

“Why, I remember how difficult this fight used to be.  Oh Vael, the guild brea…he’s dead already?”

Amber’s Musings on Druid Altness

There’s a lot of fuss going around about the potential change to tree form.  I’ve been sitting here blinking at it.  I don’t understand the kerfluffle, but then, I’m also a product of a by-gone WoW era.

There are, for example, no less than three resto druids in this screenshot.

Ah, Celonious.  A brother paladin.  Twig, the tank who never remembered his Onyxia cloak.  Art, one of our MTs (Cranky Tank’s predecessor, actually).  Delbok, one of our two perpetual locks.  And…the druids, Leola, Koufax, and Etheralmoon.

When you played a druid, you saw leaves–on your gear.  You hid your god awful moose antlers.  You watched your character do yoga as they cast spells.  As an elf.

There was no tree.  Tree didn’t exist–for what, two years? 

Eh.  So tree might become a cooldown.  I’m no fan of night elf models, to be sure–I hate the eyebrows.  I hate the crazy, long ass ears.

But it sure as hell beats looking like a stalk of broccoli forgotten on the kitchen counter. 

Color me unusual in this opinion, I suppose.

Bury the Corpse

This post brought to you by idle musings and background crap you’re not aware of.  And muffin tabards.

My first raiding guild was on Earthen Ring, and was called Unified.  I loved Unified.

They took me in shortly after I dinged 60, mostly because my fiance was already in the guild.  I’d like to think that they took me on because I was an amazing holy pally but, quite frankly, at that point in time I was not.

Anyway.

Unified was, in its heyday, a top 10 guild…I think.  I never honestly paid any attention.  I know that several of us had full t2, that we had BWL down to 2 hour clears, AQ 40 was clear to C’thun, and we were played around in Naxx.  Good? Yes.  Top guild on the server?  Hardly.

What was interesting, though, was to watch people leave…come back…leave…come BACK…always stating some version of “I missed you guys” upon their return.

The community that formed was strong, lasting-in many cases-years after the guild’s death.  I can still log onto Earthen Ring, poke my head in the /unitram channel, and say hello to any number of folks.

Unified broke up in BC as many former 40 man guilds did, torn apart by different sized raids, the sudden discovery that so and so sucked when not backed up by 5 others of their class, and the fact that our GM was-quite frankly-losing it.

Nostalgia was strong enough that after we wandered to our seperate guilds and found them lacking, some of us started raiding together again.  I ran Kara once a week with my hunter in my raiding guild, and then again on my paladin with this…former-guildie not-a-pug.

Eventually someone contacted our former GM, who actually handed over the old guild to us, and Unified was reborn.

It was not the same.  It never could be the same.  We had some of the same people, yes, but…there was no reviving Unified as it had once been.  Eventually one of the GMs-Josh-and one of the officers-myself-transferred off server to play with friends.  These friends-Brotherhood of Oblivion.

Corpses are corpses.  They need to be buried, not restlessly prodded with sticks.  They make good fertilizer, though-good things can come from what’s left, if you let them.

But you cannot ever expect them to be the same.

The Brotherhood is not what it once was.  I joined at the end of BC…and yes, it is different now.   Wrath changed it.  People leaving changed it.  The mere passage of time changed it.  My method of recruiting?  Changed it.  My blogging?  Changed it.   Now that I’m GM it certainly is-and shall become-something different yet again.

The Brotherhood of Oblivion is dead.
The Brotherhood of Oblivion lives.

This upsets some people, of course.  They look back at what once was and pine.

Cut it the fuck out.  It gets you nowhere.

Why don’t you come check out the flowers I’m growing here, instead?  The ride to wherever we’re going should be fun-especially as I have no idea how the fuck to navigate.   Quick, give Ky the map!

Oh, and eat a fucking muffin.

Memory Lane HO!

“And so, 40 man content was how I learned. And it was kinda sucky. In pre-BC raiding, it seemed to me that, in our guild anyway, out of 40 players fielded on a given evening, 25 or so were real damn good, 10 or so were fairly decent, and 5 flat out sucked.”   –Big Bear Butt

…wow, dude, only 5?  I swear to god we carried more than that, and when BC hit and we shifted down to 10 man content it was a sudden slap in the face.  “Holy shit,” we said, “Some of these people really suck!”

And we were clear up to C’thun and poking into Naxx by that point, too.  I can’t even promise that Iwas good back then.  Certainly at the start, I wasn’t.  Then again, playing a paladin back in the day was spamming your one button on your target(s) and saying a quick prayer.  Sometimes, you used your other button, and BoP!  O snap!

I sort of miss the 4o man days, though.  I had 8 other holy paladins to bond with.  8 other people who “get” it, 8 other people to bounce ideas off of, 8 other people to come to with questions.  Who the hell was 5+ of any given class these days, never mind of the same spec?

…I don’t miss assembling those raids, though.  Oh boy, was that a pain in the ass even just as one of the ones WAITING.

Monday Randomness

Let’s say that you have a small windfall of gold.  Do you buy dual spec for your alts?  Put it towards epic flying for an alt?

Oh hell no, you go buy that gryphon that you’ve lusted after ever since you were a wee 72 and saw it in Wintergarde.  YAY EPIC WHITE BIRDY.  I’m happy now.  :D  I still refuse to dual spec holy for fear that I will end up repeatedly healing on her.  NO.  NO MORE PALLY HEALS. 

Now I’m back to hoarding gold like a miser “just in case”.   Of…what?  I don’t know, but…just in case.

I spent a good bit of time leveling the hunter, because Steve was harassing me to.  I love the Tadpoles quest so…so much.  I will sit there and click on them over and over and over and over!  In fact on Lyr, I have a macro set up to make the baby murloc noise every time she eats mage food.  I will eat magefood for no damned reason. 

Jamethera dinged 72 while out there as well.  8 more to go!  Replacing hard-won epics still makes me sad, by the way.  I’m tempted to put my t4 gloves back on for the sake of matching until someone finally pries the entire set away from me.

After discovering that my devilsaur Omnomnom isn’t always the best choice for elite tanking, I went out and tamed a tanking pet, since everything else in my collection was DPS.

In actuality, I just wanted to tame a tank pet and name it Josh.  The choice of a crab is not entirely without forethought and snickering.  Cranky tank is cranky!  See what I’m reduced to using for a tank when you quit the game, Josh?  Shame on you.

 Dual spec for the hunter is currently being mulled over-for now it would be dual BM spec (one DPS BM and one LOL SOLOING THINGS I SHOULDN’T BE pet tank build) until 80, in which case it’d be…well, BM and Surv.  Which I would use only after complaining bitterly.   BITTERLY I TELL YOU.  I was BM before the first hunter talent review, and I’ll be BM when WoW finally bites the dust.  Deal with it.   Knowing me, I will probably be “considering” dual specs for the hunter until she hits 80 and then never do it.

Holy shit, it’s Kyr’s priest not in shadow form!  I had no idea what Maedchen looked like before.  Ky was trying out the Fail Angel spec for only the second time, I believe.  Add that to my scrub faceroll tanking, and naturally we got a bugged portal in H VH that continued to spit adds at us.  GG, Blizz. 

I did not ignore my warrior over the weekend-in fact, I finally took her through The Epic Questline.  The best part was 1) she’s on an RP server and 2) I had an audience.  For those of you who do have not had the pleasure of meeting Lyestra IC, you’re missing something.  Take the general angry ranty-ness you can find here, and make it dialogue for a temperamental Kaldorei warrior.  She really, really didn’t like being yanked around by “over sized fleshbags.”

And yes, I know I spelled shield wrong.  I do it every.  Single.  Time.  Sigh…

Anyway.  Since our Naxx raid ID was ninja’d, we got the bright idea to go do BWL.  Only in the process of attuning people, we bugged the quest out, so…we decided to go do Molten Core instead. 

 

I don’t recommend pulling Shazz and Baron Geddon at the same time, BTW.  Doing so can still cause you to wipe in MC at 80.   Also, I need to tweak Ambrosyne’s UI…I started to tweak it to match Lyr’s and then never finished.  Nice to see that I was “tanking” without RF there, too.  MC is serious business, yo.

OT: Bind on Pickup

Once upon a time, a warrior apped to my raiding guild.  Now assembling a 40 man raid was something of a chaotic mess, and our apps were often left in the dark until the last minute regarding if they were going our not.  This one particular warrior picked me out of the blue to ask what was up, and in my usual helpful way I kept him informed of the madhouse antics until he was extended a /ginvite.

And then he was just another tank, albeit one noted for being a fellow RPer, until well after the guild broke up…

We kept in touch, however-many of us from that guild did.  At one point we started RPing together for the hell of it.  I was in the throes of a terribad rebound relationship when we started IMing a lot, and he somehow became the ear for all my bitching.  He’d bitch about his exes in turn, and one day I said to myself, “Self, he bitches about some of the same things you do.  In fact, he seems to want to same things you do-unlike your current loser boyfriend.”  Then I got the bright idea that maybe I should date HIM instead!

Two years and a “transfer” from one state to another and the best loot I’ve ever gotten from WoW remains my Josh.  ;) 

But the bind on pick up jokes are so very obvious and so very bad…