Hello, Goodbye…

I think it’s past time to close up shop here at ILB land. I don’t have a lot of WoW talk to share these days, and despite making an attempt or two, can’t bring myself to blog non-WoW stuff here, either.

But fear not!  You can find me over here form now on, instead. I promise I will still toss out the occasional flowchart, the content will just be a lot more…random in topic.

And then hell froze over.

Sunday Surprise

This is the only time you shall see me playing a fail angel:

“Amber, did you reactivate your Champions Online account?”

Maaaaaybe.

“And did you really sit there and try to recreate a Spirit of Redemption?”

…maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe…

Disc “vs” Holy

I was slogging through my feed reader earlier when I came across 2fps’s post here.

I can’t comment while I’m at work and I’ll forget by the time I get home, so TIEM FOR POST.

Way back in BC when my guild was faltering on Gurtogg Bloodboil I talked to the healing lead about possibly speccing into a deep Disc build for Pain Suppressioning our clothies on the Fel Rage. … Of course, nothing came of it because Holy was such a powerhouse by comparison.

Wrath launched and it seemed like Blizzard was listening to my stump speeches because Disc suddenly blossomed into a real true healing spec competitive not just with its Holy counterpart, but with any other healing spec from any other class as well.

The unfortunate fallout of this otherwise awesome turn of events is that so many priests have completely forsaken Holy altogether. …

Here’s the thing: despite your objections and your hot displeasure, Holy actually is a great healing spec with a ton of awesome tools to bring to the table and you’re only gimping yourself and possibly your raid by sticking with vehement denials.

One of the BoO “catch phrases” is that Real Priests Are Holy.  Of course half the reason anyone says this is to get my goat, but I am the only disc priest main in the guild right now.  If holy has now become maligned amongst the general populace I am certainly uanware of it.  It’s also silly.

One issue hindering the disc priest is that we don’t “stack” well.  You can have three holy priests in a raid.  Have you ever tried to raid with 3 disc priests?  If you are going with the raid Bubble trend, then what you have is three priests sniping bubble targets from each other and generally going insane. 

I don’t think that many holy priests turned away from their specs–not entirely.  Instead, I think there’s several priests out there sporting both specs.  Disc, for its many useful properties and holy for its…many…useful properties.  

The biggest bonus to disc, though, is that I don’t have this big shiny announcement to the world when I fuck up and die.

Karma’s a Bitch

One time we were doing ToC25, and my little sister was killed by Icehowl’s charge.  I openly mocked her, as was my sisterly duty.  The very next time Icehowl charged, I died to it.

Did I learn from this karmic retribution? 

Aww HELL no.

Last night we were clearing our way to Rotface, and we pulled one of the puppies.  The puppies are always a bitch for reasosn unknown…no wait, I do know.  We’re the guild that wipes on Gunship while one shotting everything else in Lower Spire-of COURSE the mini bosses are hard.  Anyway.  I see a tell-tale fail angel and teasingly tell the priest in question, Oasic, to Desperate Prayer more.

You see where this is going, right?  Of course you do.

AS MY PTT BUTTON IS STILL DOWN, AND I AM STILL TALKING SMACK, I died.

\o/

Mad skills.  I have them.

AFK: ____

Last night was Beat Our Heads on Rotface night.  It not was an ideal night, as one of our tanks had gotten hacked, another tank was gone for his father’s birthday, etc etc. 

I’ve heard some good reasons to AFK in my time, included “afk earthquake” and “brb, fire”.  I can now add to the list one of our own, that in the very least is….random.

We’re sitting there almost ready to pull Rotface again when Josh answered his phone, then abruptly gets up from the chair and walks away.  I halt the raid and flail in confusion while I figure out what’s going on.  The problem?

Josh’s parents are driving home from picking his brother up at the airport, and they’re going to stop by and say hi!!!!!!

…

…

…

/headdesk

Yeah, that kind of stalled the raid.

So, what are some funny/unexpected reasons YOU have seen for AFKs?

Rage, Real and Feigned

A lot of my infamous rage on this blog is, if not feigned, at least greatly exaggerated.  Rants are funny, I like being funny, so what could be better than funny rants?

Underneath the faux rage is, however, a very real build up of genuine anger.  I’m frustrated with some attitudes, and some people.  And some day, I’m not going to bite my tongue anymore.

It’s already starting to show.  Part of the problem is, of course, in my own attitudes.  I often tell myself, in relation to horseback riding, that the horse only misbehaves as much as I let him.  If I don’t get respect it’s because I’ve given people little to no reason to.  If people don’t do what they’re supposed to, it’s because there’s no repercussions if they don’t.

I’m standing on the edge of changing all that.  Brotherhood of Oblivion is my guild.  Not Steve’s, not Josh’s, not anyone else’s.  I do want as many people happy as possible, yes.  It is not, in any way shape or form, all about me.  But right now, it is not in my best interest or theirs that GMing BoO makes me miserable.  And you know what?  It’s making me miserable.

Not any more.

I have my pointy stick, and my sand, and I shall be drawing some lines.  If you cross them I will POKE YOU IN THE MOTHER FUCKING EYE.

/brandishes stick

/pokes self

…ow.

I want to continue having fun in raids, killing bosses while having ribald conversations about buttsechs-but I want to do it without being talked over in vent during loot.  Tell jokes about how I get lost in Gruul’s and ToC, but don’t arms tank when I explicitly tell you not to.   Be my lovably dorky crew without…you know…being douchebags.

Novel concept?

We’ll see.

How Blizzard Ruined Shadow Priests

I have an evil evil plot in the works that I did not get to finish last night…TOMORROW, you shall behold my evil.  Until then, I’m just going to talk about how I am a silly magpie, and how Blizzard nearly ruined shadow priesting for me.

You see, I’m not really….girly.  But I do like things that are bright and shiny, so spells like penance and holy nova are Awesome Fun Toys.  In hindsight, paladins have some of the most disappointing spells EVER.  I mean, okay, Sacred Shield can be kind of shiny, but shouldn’t beacon be a BEACON?  You know?  A BEACON OF LIGHT?  A BRIGHT SHINING PILLAR OF LIGHT?

I’ll never forgive Blizzard for failing me in that regard, just as I’ll never forgive them for what they did to my favorite Shadow Priest toy right next to Mind Sear. 

THEY RUINED DISPERSION.  It used to be that you’d turn into a FUN LITTLE BALL OF DARKNESS!!!!!!  Now you’re just…er…more…dark?  What? 

NO, BLIZZARD.

UTTER FAIL.

I can’t be a bouncing ball of inky evilness now!  This has totally ruined the spell and thus ALMOST RUINED SHADOW PRIESTING for me.

Don’t you DARE mess with my mind sear, or I’m going to have to do something drastic like…GO HOLY for my second spec, and we don’t want THAT to happen ever again.

I AM PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE BLIZZARD.

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.

Sulking Amber Is Sulking

I need a few items from normal ToC to help round out not only Ambrosine’s tanking set, but also her DPS set.  Things like trinkets, which have hated me for years.  You’d figure, as a tank, that I could find groups, yes?  I mean everyone needs a tank, right?

Yeah, not so much.  My fellow disc priest helped me for one run before she drew boyfriend aggro, and then after that I…couldn’t find another healer.  There was enough DPS in LFG to choke a dragon, but heals were scarce.

“But Amber,” you say, “Doesn’t Josh have a holy paladin?”

Why yes he DOES!  But see, he wanted to bring his DK, who wanted some of the same fucking gear I was after!  I mean that totes makes sense, right?

“What about the other heals in the guild?!  You have tons!”

Until I need them, sure.

I finally found a level 78 shaman who hadn’t played in awhile and we then proceeded to wipe on Paletress, twice.  On normal.  After that I pitched a small, angry “WHY ARE YOU ALL SELFISH PRICKS” tantrum and decided I was done for the day.

Really, people, I can play the “but I don’t need loot so I’m not going QQ” game, too.   I directed a large part of my tantrum in Josh’s direction, because my guildies can be twits but surely my own boyfriend should be willing to get on his god damned paladin to help me fix my gear?

Yeah.

/sulks

/goes to play Champions Online

Did you know that healing people in CO will result in HALF THE  ZONE TRYING TO EAT YOUR FACE?  It does.   Or maybe that’s just me-I have this bad habit of aggroing EVERY DAMN THING AROUND, even in WoW.  I’m already becoming infamous for flying too low, then landing to 3/4 of the zone gnawing my squishy face.   Oops.

By the way, you want to cure someone of keyboard turning?  Make them fly in CO.  You trying maneuvering with any finesse during full-speed flight with your keyboard.  Yeah.  It’s not happening. 

I’m not sure what it says about me that I sat down in front of CO and said, okay, what can heal?  I was really torn between Telepathy and Sorcery, and then I read the word pets and was so sold on Sorcery.  I CAN SUMMON A WOLF AND HEAL, GUYS.  FUCK YEAH.  And I have wings.  In fact, I accidentally created one of the most emo-looking characters ever just because I was like oh hey, I want wings and lets put some blue streaks in her hair!  And then I thought the trench coat looked cool and…um…yeah.  So fallen-angel emo.