No, No, Not Dead Yet (and confessions)

I'm updating this due to a certain someone's not-very-subtle subliminal message.

Right. Shorsha is still well and alive, folks, despite her four months of absence. It's just that exams that were shoved in my face for the past few months weren't forgiving of any addiction at all, so I decided to try and forget WoW while it was going on. Luckily, it's stopped now, so lo and behold, I'm back!

And Shorsha is 70. Newly dinged, but 70 nonetheless. I started playing last Wednesday again, and by chance, got PMed by Tyaera (tank hard?), who invited me into I Choose You out of the blue. Of course, since I went in as a Friends/family rank, the constant question was: "Whose family/friend are you?"

Now that was a hard question to answer :P

Anyways, now that Shor is 70, I've been running SV as often as possible for the Devilshark Cape. No luck, sadly. But apart from that, I've also run other instances just for the heck of it, and sometimes... it develops into a horror story that would leave me shivering in trauma at the mere mention of it (Oh, I'm sure people would also feel the same when I caused a wipe on Mag. Running an instance with me when it's the first time I've run it would also be a worthy trauma experience). One of the instances where I outdpsed a hunter and 2 locks, for example.

Or the run on Shadow labs. Good grief. The 2nd boss must've took more than half an hour, with the rest of the group dying every few minutes or so after running back. Maintaining aggro was impossible to say the least, and then there's the mind control thing. I've realized that I'm indeed a very, very twisted person.

Confession #1: I enjoy seeing Shorsha whack the tree healer and the mage around. Heck, I enjoyed seeing us running around killing each other. What fun!

Confession #2: I break sheep with CC intentionally because I hate having any form of CC when the healer survives an encounter with 80% mana. Of course I apologize after doing so... but I was sneering maniacally after. Guess which CC I'm referring to.

Confession #3: I'm still beating myself up for not rolling a male BE, but I admit Shorsha does look hot. Especially with a two-handed weapon.

Confession #4: Regardless of what I said, the only reason I rolled paladin was because they're the only class for BE that uses plate. It's all for the looks, folks. Who doesn't want a scrawny, huge hammer wielding barbie doll? Pity I'm stuck with a puny sword and shield.

One last note: Awesome thanks again to Ty for providing me the crystalforged sword :)

Healer Agression

Why do most people blame healers upon their deaths? I wasn't the one healing at this Underbog run - but as I saw, "ffs do your job healer" from a very dead warlock we invited as one of the hunters left before Swamplord Mussek, my temper flared. Let me state beforehand that this healer is awesome - he keeps people alive by keeping me alive, and he didn't bat an eyelid as I start running around CCing stuff, he, by short, though a shadow priest, is the healer of my dreams. And I treat mediocre healers like gold. So he would probably be a precious Thorium or something, for me.

So I saw that message, and my previously light mood turned dark. This stupid, stupid lock who spams that orange thing RaW thing on the middle of the screen (did not quite catch its name), and who yells, and who gets lost dared be rude to my healer? The healer was clearly out of mana, obviously only enough to keep me alive. If you don't want to die, then install Omen and stop being an aggro whore, thank you. You and your pet, both.

The party chat was silent after that - until he asked for a rez (when priest was still OOM). The healer replied, "no, your rude," and I swear I would've hugged him right there for not taking any shit. Before I get any satisfaction from kicking the locktard, he left the party, and the only satisfaction I get is that I have yet another person on my ignore list - and the good news is, there are around five people there. Which means that PuGs aren't that bad. Let's just say I let out a yelp of happiness as I saw the events unfold.

Healers are rarer than gold. When you piss off one and end up on ignore, you've pretty much decreased your chances on getting a group... quite significantly.

Oh. And trapping. One of the hunters were going crazy with traps - unasked. So when it broke, it would immediately head to the healer. It wastes my taunt, the healer's mana, and when I decide to be nice and not break it, it risks other party members, and it's just plain stupid. Huntards, if you want to trap when there's no pretty moon on top of any heads, then do it right. If you trap, you chain-trap. Stop being so paranoid. I'm trying hard to do my job and you show your trust by placing traps left and right? Gee, thanks. Next time I'll just forget to taunt that thing that's coming to you. And of course I'll remember to ask the healer to forget healing too.

In the end, with a help from the healer's guildies, we downed the first boss, and Pauldrons of the Brute Force dropped. It seemed I ended up as the happiest member in the run at that time. By the way, healer and me ended up adding one another to our friend list, and after chatting for a good few hours (criticizing the party was one of the topics, of course) let me say - that guy is a nutcase.

Seems like I won't have so much trouble trying to find a healer, after this :)

And at 187 spell damage, I have concerns about holding aggro to non-Omen party members.

I'm a Blood Knight!

Whoever says that they'd saved 200g on the pally epic charger needs to be hammer of wrath'd.

One day, after tired of much prompting (and 'WTF, fiery? Buy your mount!' 'nooo... I'm too lazy.'), and general sympathy for my assumed money matters from various people who got told a 'no' every time they inquired about my epic mount, I decided to just do that quest. If only for the tabard. Yes, the only thing I wanted was the awesome tabard. And my dignity would never recover from having to ride a blue, skinny chocobo. The horse doesn't even look that good. Kinda overfed, IMO.

After a Ramps/BF marathon, I hopped on to Thottbot, and as always, before any quest, I would read it up. A guy mentioned saving 200g. Wow. Then I read the 150g + arcane catalyst + that 150g poison reagents. Now. assuming that I'm revered within Silvermoon (which I am), the arcane catalyst would still cost 42g, and the poison 125g (if I recall correctly). That's 312g. Give or take.

How much was the training cost again?

10 sungrass, 40 runecloth, 5 darkrunes, and that other thing. I assume that guy would've farmed it all on his own. 0g. And how long would it take to farm those stuff? A few hours? Time is money, and in that regard, my hour is priceless, thank you. Therefore, I realized that his calculation is flawed.

Thus I went to the AH and bought them all except for the sungrass. 670g shrank down to 300g. Maybe even less. I kept bitching at party chat and to whoever wants to listen. I found out that the quest at Tyr's Hand was no longer elite, so I followed another comment at Thott's, stripped naked, and hopped on my mount there. I tried to find the back door to the chapel but couldn't, so I retraced my steps and went back through the front one. Only aggroed two mobs into the library, but seeing that I was fighting naked, soon I died with my shield on. I forgot to equip my mace. Never listen to the run around naked comment. That simply isn't paladin style. I'd rather die fully clothed and with dignity (oh, how I used to frown at those female characters running around naked. What would people think if they saw me?!), paying exuberant amount of gold, rather than shameful and bare to the world. After handing in the quest, I spammed trade for a Black pristine diamond. Seeing no results, I decided to go on an SP run (previous post) and call it a day.

...And logged back in a few hours later at 3am. Spammed /2 WTB black pristine diamond for a good 30 minutes to no avail. Re-checked the log, then found out that I've been mixing it up. It's Pristine Black Diamond. No wonder my link add-on didn't recognize it. Or maybe it's the other way around. I cycled around 3 potential sellers to finally snatch it for 50g (which is around the going rate for AH. According to auctioneer.). I /cheered, spammed smilies, went off to buy the rest of the vendor reagents, looked at my bag, and with a sinking feeling, saw 42g left.

;-( << My expression just then and a day after it.

Luckily, saving much frustration, Sari the holy pally decided to give me a run for the final part. Then I DCed. And couldn't get back online. That was the time where I would've happily went hammer happy with my modem. I went to sleep with much grudge. As I logged in at the same day, I was immediately offered a run again, and after a "I'M REALLY SORRY ABOUT LAST NIGHT!" we went for another attempt. This time he had the key to the city, so the whole thing took around ten minutes. I cannot possibly thank him enough.

I'm a proud owner of the blood knight's tabard now, and a glowing horse as a side-dish. Never have I felt more honored, both as a horde and as a blood knight. I sport my tabard and my thalassian charger with a renewed sense of pride, and finally and identity to wear proudly, worthy of the horde.

That being said, I miss the alliance side badly. I'll take a stroll on Ironforge and Westfall and its proximity for nostalgia's sake, someday. And yell, "FOR THE ALLIANCE!" for added effect. What can I say. I'm still an alliance in heart.

I'm a Jerk

Is what I kept thinking to myself after I saw that hunter leave. It happened during a Slave Pens run, with a holy pally and three hunters. Despite my initial fears of having three hunters in the same party, I braced myself and accepted the summon. Some of them were already in, and as I ran in to join them, I noticed that they were already attacking stuff without me, the tank, and HunterA was dead. Okay.

/p Can't you guys wait?
HunterA: Nope.

I took that as a joke. We went in, and because of the party leader's lacking marking system, I took over, and explained it to them. All went fine, until I noticed that my mob kept having that three red streaks on top of its head. One of the pets and me were literally competing for aggro. I told the owner, HunterA, to turn off growl. It got ignored. I figured he did. He didn't. I asked again and again, soon that smiley turned into curt orders. Then, as I wondered whether he spoke English, I barked off another 'turn that growl off' order, and lo, he left.

/p ...I only wanted that growl off... I'm a jerk.

Let me clarify this, I've never, ever caused anyone to leave like that in my gaming life. Ever. It made me feel bad for a while, I mean, this isn't my group, but rather one that I hijacked, and I caused an original member to leave. I got into a state of guilt. I didn't even shout at him, only told him curtly to turn that stupid pet's aggro off. Did I do the right thing? Should I just have ignored it and kept everyone happy? :(

On the other hand, I also /ignored a priest because he invited me multiple times without whispering first when I've specifically stated on my LFG, "Prot pally - please PST before invite."

PMS Shorsha = Fail.

On Nazan and Tankadins

Tanked ramps again today, with a group composition of: lock, shaman, hunter, holy priest, and yours truly. When we were LFMing, the following conversation occured:

Shaman: we need a warrior tank
Me: Why?
Shaman: because we always wipe with a pally tank
Me: Player problems?
Shaman: no, 4 times with 4 diff pallies

Right, he'd pretty much stereotyped all pallies as Nazan wipers. I can understand that. I have similar sentiments to rogues and hunters too. So I said, "well, if we can get a warrior who wants to tank, I don't mind healing," and we got the party full a few moments later - with me still as tank. I wanted to prove that not all pallies would wipe at Nazan. We went in, and after having to explain the marking system thrice, we mowed down Ramps without much difficulty. Well, except...

No problemo. I decided to AoE tank. The only form of CC (is it even called that?) I used was pet tanking, since the hunter couldn't trap to save his life. And so finally I used my blog's title. CC = Constant Consecration. Well, to be honest, not really. 1 or 2 consecrates should already stick them to me.

Now on to Nazan and his ugly rider. I've read some horror stories on Ramps, and I've noticed that their problem is mainly on Nazan. With a decent healer, it shouldn't be hard at all. First time we wiped because they didn't hold back their DPS. Second time it was suggested that I get its health down a bit before they would go all out on him. So I popped my seal of righteousness, and pulled the 2 orcs guarding Vazruden. As the only one left was on its last few percent of hp, I rushed inside, and immediately judged righteousness on Vazruden. I pulled him further back towards the middle for easy access on Nazan, and watched my screen for the descent message. Again, I immediately rushed to Naz - leaving DPS to deal with Vaz - judged, and the party waited for me to take a little bit of his hp. He stuck like glue till his death.

The key to this fight is to move a lot. I would strafe left and right on both fights, regardless on whether I was being burned or not. With this, you should take minimal damage every time Naz lets out that nasty fire breath. Don't stop. Move, move!

I'm quite satisfied with the result - as the first time wasn't a problem with my tanking, but with the much too early DPS. In the end, I asked the shaman whether he had changed his mind regarding pally tanking, and of course, I didn't get an answer back.

Amazing what a day full of wipes would do to your dedication...

First successful Outland instance!

Thanks for the encouragement guys, and indeed, I bounced right back and tried to run Ramparts and Blood Furnace again today. As always, put myself on LFG... and bam! invite sent. So there I went as a very anxious tank. My previous failure still haunted me, as I stepped through that swirly portal with increased dread. Group compromised of me, 2 mages, a shaman, and a hunter.

And alas, no wipe. Zilch. It all went as smooth as pie, laden with butter. Mmhmm. I couldn't believe it. Was the previous one a mere bad luck?

There were a few casualties, though, being one of the mages (salvation doesn't help), and me, twice. I still can't figure out how not to die at end boss. Or how to properly hold aggro on it. I would taunt, and then a few seconds later it would immediately turn its attention to DPS. Checked my omen meter... and seems like DPS and me are quite literally jumping up and down in position.

Ramps: Check.

Next: Ramps

Got an invited as a healer, so with minimal grumbling, I bought back the healing necklace I just vendored. I don't have any healing gears, so I told them as much, and the leader (a hunter) said, ”you don't have to heal me, just the tank."

Suuuuuuure.

Of course it wasn’t as ideal as that. Tank only has around 30% of damage taken, second most being the mage I ran with at BF failure run, who gains aggro like crazy even with salvation. Then I noticed that he opened with pyroblast literally a second after tank hits the mobs, or even before it. Told him to stop, and saw an improvement on healing done on him. Not bad. Rogue was tank #2 (unofficial). DPSing a lone mob or breaking sheep by yourself isn't funny. I thought of abandoning him to his own fate, actually, but oh, I’m not that egoistical to sacrifice DPS on a whim. Again, we managed to clear ramps without any wipe.

Yay me!

Ramps take 2: Success

Did a few more takes of BF and Ramps; with 3 wipes at the first one and 1 wipe at Ramps. I really can’t keep up with anyone’s HP at BF end boss; I would heal someone, then the next thing I know, somebody else went splat as the heal landed on my target. Then I would look down at their corpses, shake my head, and briefly die.

The wipe at Ramps was caused by me, sorry to say. I tried to pull a lone patrol before the boss, and, due to bad timing, ended up pulling the groups beside him. We went splat. After apologizing profusely to the group, we went on our way and killed Naz without any problem.

At the previous (fail) Ramps run, Slash was marking, and thankfully so. Seeing him do so actually made me learn a good few things about marking. In the end of the day, I quested with him and had a blast. Walk away defeated once – go back with vengeance.

Right now I’m levelling my one-handed mace skill up in STV. I got a Diamond-Core Sledgehammer on the (fail) BF run, and slapped a fiery on it for DPS. All in all, it’s been a great day, and to all the snide comments going on from my beloved friends: I’ll never spec holy, never!

...Maybe one day.

Wipe, Wipe, WIPE

I was excited this morning. "Finally got to do outland instance!" I thought. Boy, I was wrong. After a read through my brady guide book (oh well, that $50 better not get to waste. If only the shop boy wasn't that cute.) and some other sites for the general strategy for Blood Furnace and Ramparts, I immediately put myself on LFG with the message, "Prot pally - please PST before invite". Not more than a few minutes later, I got an invite - as the tank. We had a good group composition, me, a druid, a mage, a lock, and another pally (main healer). Things went... well, bad. We wiped. And wiped. And wiped. And wiped.

My total repair bill was 17g - does that say anything?

Somehow, we managed to get to last boss, but as he reached 10%, we began to drop like flies. After twice wiping on him, we disbanded. I got no blues.

Fast forward, ramparts with Slash the fury warrior, a shadow priest (main heal), a shaman, and a lock. First pulls went quite badly, as the shaman attacked the mob I marked for seduce. Because I didn't mark skull. In a pull of two. I'm sorry. I guess it's very not obvious that you should attack the unmarked mob in this pull of two. We need a big faaaarking skull above ze head every time. Zee comprehende?

Anyways, I did a few bad pulls too, mostly due to not knowing the layout of the place, and it's been a long while... So Slash got marking up. I guess I need to stop being lazy and start binding more than 3 raid marks.

So. We wiped. A lot. A helluvah lot. Sometimes it was the adds, once it was the beastmaster, quite a lot of times because ze heeeeeeeals didn't get to me on time (a few times I went splat when healer was on 80%-100% mana), but I think all of us had our fair share of mistakes there.

Both groups I went with are the type that you cannot pinpoint the mistake on. Both are good groups with fairly decent people, but somehow we just don't work. Whether it's the composition, our amateurism, or other x factors, we just don't work. I think it's the chemistry.

But for today, I failed as a tank. No, not in the aggro holding department (if it aggros DPS, then it's their fault. If it aggros healer, then it's because I died.), but in general working in group department.

Now that I've had a fair feel on the inside of BF and ramps, I hope I'll fare better next time. Learning those pulls really does go a long way.

I'll be back with more Outland greens, just you wait!

Total repair bill today: 24g.

Lesson of the day: Do NOT run an instance with your unfinished chemistry works on mind. You'd just fail.

Some things you just don't wanna know...

And I reckon you're feeling quite regretful on ever seeing this, eh? Some people just hurt my fragile senses...

Too good to rot away in my screenshot folder.

A word of advice, guys, we really don't need to know what's behind that 'brb bio' you typed. We'll just assume you smoked pot meanwhile, kay? Kay.

Farewell, Azeroth!

Finally, after 9 days /played and a gruesome battle against Altaholism, Shorsha hit 60 in Hellfire. Yeap, she finally got to Outland, and thankfully, still prot specced. After going through Azeroth contents god knows how many times, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a new one, and yesterday I demonstrated it by running around doing quests with much enthusiasm, something I hardly ever did while leveling 1-58. Thanks to the awesome green quest rewards. I just can't wait to see more plates! It's astounding, 2 levels after going through the portal, and my hp jumped from 4.3k to 5k, and mana from 2.6k to 3.3k. Plus, Shorsha gets to look A LOT better in her matching grey set, as opposed to the stupid blue leggings (no, not blue as in rare item, but blue as in blindingly sparkly blue color) she'd been sporting around Azeroth for quite a while with much shame.

Not all my Azeroth items went to the vendor, though. As my best friend through thick and thin, death and near deaths for 14 levels, I have proudly retired my Wall of the Dead into my bank. It did cost 150g after all - an amazing amount for a level 45 that I was. Now I proudly sport a landslide buckler to aid me in leveling.

On the other hand, I took a break from questing and began raising my first aid skill. It took around 2 hours to raise it from 60ish to 290. It freed a lot of bank space, and I get to sell all the left over cloth after that (20 stacks of silk? Ergh). Now I won't have any problem bubbling when my mana runs low.

Short-term goals:
- Get to 70.
- Do the epic charger quest. (200g to go.)
- Be proficient in one-hand mace.
- Stop hitting myself for not rolling a male BE.
- Stop littering my account with countless level 1 alts just because I like creating characters.
- Stop ogling over any male BE I come across.
- Just... stop this obsession for male BEs.

P.S Happy new year and (late) Christmas, and thanks to Slash for his one-man welcoming party to outland. I get to see how ugly your mount is :P

4 A.M for Sunken Temple run

For some reason, the logon server is down, so I'm either a) Stuck reading forums and in consequence be exposed to more idiots b) finish up the rest of The Sword of Truth series and The Wizard Knight or c) Blog.

I chose blogging for now, and hope vainly that it'll be back to normal after I finish this post. So yesterday, for the first time with Shor (I'm using 'with Shor' instead of 'this toon' because it adds more intimacy. Like how some people refer themselves as the guardian of a pet, instead of the owner), I ran BRD and ST. Both as a healer.

Result = LOTS of blue healing gears + Thicker friends list + Healing burnout

BRD was quite literally a crawl in the park. The tank, a prot specced warrior was nothing short of mediocre. He couldn't hold aggro, he tanked with duel wielding, he wouldn't pull. So after a few times of watching him go, shaking my head, and smashing my flash of light key repeatedly, I told him to pop his shield, use thunderclap (won't help much, but he was only focusing to one single mob. That, sir, would not do), and oh for god's sake, pull. My leadership is a bit messed up now; it would simply grey out when I would attempt to transfer leadership to someone else, thus I was stuck with marking.

So I would mark a skull, then waited for one of them to pull. And waited. And waited. So I said, "Go.", then they'd pull. And always the hunter. So I said, "You're the tank. You have a gun. Pull." Things went considerably faster after that. I literally told him how to do his job throughout the run, albeit in a polite (and often curt) manner. I don't care. I just want the party to advance to a walk instead of a crawl. Then he left due to GF yelling. Okay, so I'm left healing 2 hunters and their pets, and a rogue. This rogue, while a decent person, is an absolute nutcase on somehow getting aggro. I guess I forgot to tell him that we have an /assist command.

Oh well.

Pulling problem arised again. Everytime we finish up a group of mobs, I had to mark and constantly say, "Go." before they would start to pull. If they're considerate to wait for me as the healer, then I thank them for it, but as long as my mana is above 50%, I'm ready. I felt like a queen, right then, with them obeying my orders with resolution. I mean a (first-time) healer. Ordering tank(s) and DPSes around. AMIRITE?! Ooooh, the ugly head is rearing!

Now, two hunters is already a bad composition to start with. It is unavoidable that in the end we wiped due to mass dwarven gang rape, around 2/3 in the instance. I was tired of healing and that instance, so we disbanded. It was around 11 P.M when this happened.

Unfortunately, immediately after, I got a tell asking me to come heal to ST. I was already planning to sleep, but come on, how can I not accept this? I've decided that I would see all Azeroth instances at least once before hitting outlands anyways. I got an invite, and after running around for 15 minutes or so trying to find the entrance to BRD and retrieve my corpse (getting lost in-game. I fail.), I clicked on the accept summon, and off we went to ST.

The leader, this awesome ret pally, was tanking. Originally I argued for that position, because, alas, I hated healing with a pally, and BRD burned me out, but she defended because of her lack of healing gear. Fine. Sure rets are squishies, but at least they're the threat machine at this level. My god, she was good. The party kept commenting on how they've got a good PuG for once, and I believe this feeling is mutually shared upon each member. We were a happy bunch.

My healing - though I was commented as being an amazing healer more than enough times today, in each run - was horrible. In the 2 runs of ST I did, I let the tank die thrice. First, because I have my usual late-night lag, second, the mobs put me to sleep, and thrice, because... well, it was 3 A.M. I cannot possibly be on my full alert self then. My control freak nature simply cannot accept my (or my net's) blunder, and after that I simply mashed my flash of light (and sometimes holy light) button, disregarding whether I was overhealing or not. I believe I actually healed her when she was in full health a few times. Anything to prevent death.

That happened in our second ST run. I was ready to fall asleep on my keyboard anytime. I didn't know how she managed to drag me in there for the second time, actually, but as a fairly responsible person, I hated seeing a group disband when I could've been there and prevented it. I sacrified half of my sleep that morning and ran in with them. And loved it. I met an awesome ret pally, an awesome mage, a lock with actual wit, and despite my critiques to that BRD group; a group that entertained me with their humor.

I heart good PuGs.

On the other note: we had a less than likeable hunter on our second ST run that day. This screenie actually made me smile everytime. Yes, that teeny tiny blob is her corpse.

Leveling is like watching paint dry

And worse.

Shorsha hit 51 today, a few levels behind my initial schedule due to having friends. She was supposed to hit 52 yesterday, but after a day of alcohol, getting hit on, food, more getting hit on, more food, and shopping spree (or other general girly girly stuff. Ew.), I had to abandon her for a day. Leveling started to feel like watching paint dry, due to all the running and drudgery and kill xx mobs to get xx items going on. I'm only doing this for outlands. I'm not even instancing anymore because I think my poor heart cannot possibly take anymore bad PuGs. I'll start instancing again once I reach outlands. Levels like these is what makes me long for a good guild, but sadly, I have to be above 60 to even have access to such guilds. I'm not into joining a leveling guild with 200+ players too, seeing how socially inept I am currently.

Anyhow, since this is a majorly pointless post, I'll just add that if I could reroll...

I would reroll a male BE. Or a female human. Males BEs have superior one handed animation, and despite looking blatantly homosexual, they don't really look as if they should sip tea or be on a catwalk instead. Once you put a helm on them, that is. Wall of the dead looks pretty ugly on Shor, but on a male BE...

And female humans. They have thunderthighs, sure, but hey, they look normal (as normal as female toons are in WoW), and hey, just cute. At least their dance doesn't look like it belongs in a striptease bar. WoW is darn sexist, sometimes. I would never touch a human male, though. Playing an old geezer that would pawn Arnold Schwazesomething on benchpress is something else entirely.

...I should stop writing something like this.

dose hu tip liek dis r tardz

I'm curious on what other players do when they encounter a bad party. Do they stay there and hope for the best? Do they grind their teeth and try to refrain from pounding their keyboard? Or do they bail?

I bailed. My 3-man guild's GM; Nazzy and I were LFMing for Maraudon -since he was too low to really go to ZF- when a hunter joined. Okay, hunter. I try to avoid them most of the time, but alas, no one else was online. So. (And believe me, this isn't as bad as how he typed. I don't have the flair for bad typing, sadly, but I'll try my best to recreate. Oh, sometimes even I couldn't understand his 'english'.)

[Hunter]: ill be weeding here till u gayz com

I immediately hit guild chat.

/g I've got a bad feeling here. Kick?
[Nazzy]: Kicking him for bad grammar would just make us jerks.

Fine. Then that hunter told me to invite another warrior, and lo and behold, warrior only types slightly better, with all those intentional misspellings that every 10 year olds think is cool (some. Not all. Some. Met some really cool ones before.), and I asked him what his spec is. So he got into a full paragraph on explaining how he's fury but he brought a shield yadda yadda battle stance yadda yadda i can tank wid defen-

/p I'm prot specced, I'll tank.

Okay. So I kinda skipped what he said due to... well, utter lack of capitalization and bad grammar. I don't require my party members to type like I do, but for my sake, don't start typing like that. I'm prone to explode. So in a while, after guild chatting for a bit about how we're stuck in a potentially bad party, those two asked for another member to join. At this point I'm starting to have big doubts about their recruiting ability. Yknow, idiots always attract other idiots? We must be quite a big idiot magnet. Okay. So a druid comes. He types juuust like that. I didn't really seriously consider bailing until this point.

[Warriortard]: dis doesnt seem liek a good instancing group with 2 halers

2 healers? I glanced up at the party and only found a druid. Ok, so he meant me. I thought I said that I'm prot specced? I was pissed.

/p I'm not a healer, I'm a tank. Get your facts straight.

So this guy thinks a fury warrior can tank better than me? One who types like that?

[Warriortard]: lolol k 2 tanks then

/facepalm

[Guild]Nazzy: I thought we decided that you were tank 10 seconds ago?

My god, another subtle tank envy going on. Did the fact that I've mentioned the fact that I'm a tank more than a few times somehow eluded his simple mind? Yknow. Me prot. You fury.

/g Bail? Get an excuse, quick!

So we ended up apologizing to the party with an excuse of having to raid on a different server. We never did, of course, and later we wondered in gchat whether they had the wit to check or not. But I figured that damaged reputation with the likes of them would only be beneficial.

I miss my old rogue days where I don't care whether the group sucks or not as long as I live and we clear the instance. But then again on rogue's server, Malygos, there aren't really as much idiots there. Being a tank makes me a perfectionist, and thus a polite jerk at times.

Starting the AoE Grind

I've been referring to this post on the basics on how to AoE grind. I've actually tried it as soon as I ding'ed 35, but without reckoning at that level, my health was quite insufficient against more than 3 mobs, so I forgot about that for a while. After instancing and thinking, "Okay. drinking after every pull is ghei. Time to manage mana," I suddenly remembered my seal of light and seal of wisdom, so there I was, in my 3-man RFD (see previous post), juggling between Judgements, SoL, SoW, consecration, holy shield, and trying darn hard to hold threat with the goal of finishing the fight with full mana. If I consetrated enough, I could tank with no downtime, but I've learned that in order to achieve that, I had to pay with occasionally straying mobs. Having a warrior dual wielding fiery weapons didn't help at all. I'll try more of that later in a non-twink group.

In order to practice management of mana and health, I began trying to quest while AoE grinding in STV. So I would except a quest, get to the area, and immediately run around to collect mobs. I'm listing all the steps I go through while AoE grinding:

1. Prop SoL.


2. If mobs are spaced out, run around and hope they won't lose aggro while you collect 'em. 3+ preferred.


3. Judge SoL on one, prop it back up.


4. Consecration. I find that I can't do this more than once and going out of the fight with satisfying amount of mana.


5. I usually holy shield once or twice; low amount of mana required, good if you're taking extra damage or like to see the yellows flying up. I know I do. I take screenies just because of yellows sometimes. Oh hell yea, baby.


6. Wait... wait... till SoL runs out. If mana is running low, I judge SoL and prop SoW up.


7. Repeat.

Killing was painfully, painfully slow, and I was actually thinking of getting a book to read, but y'know, surviving is 1/3 of the challenge (oh we will survive). The other 2/3 is ending the fight with full mana and health. First few times I had 'FAILZ' on my mind, as I was in a constant near death, or survived with full health but low mana, or vice versa. As lately I've been getting better and better, and unless I get really lazy and just want to kill things fast, I end up with zero to no grinding time. Except rounding up all those mobs together. Right now I can survive on up to 8, guts too small to try more.

I told my guildie how much I enjoyed AoE grinding, and he said that his pally survived a fight with King Bangalash and 2 adds with 75% mana. So I thought that maybe I could do it, and decided to do it. And oh hey, I survived with almost full health and certainly full mana, with healings from SoL only. I would've never dreamt of doing this with my rogue or druid (latter due to laaaag). But then again, I was always a crap dpser anyways (or if they can, maybe I'm just a crap leatherwearer in general). Took me around 2 minutes to kill King B, but in the end I was a happy pally who has shed that lie down and die motto.

I want a prettier UI. Funny how I can take so much, but then immediately hit bubble when ganked by 2 casters.

Edit: I don't know why Shor's pic on the left looks awfully pixelated and stretched out, but eh, too lazy to correct. You can marvel at her matching set anyhow.

Post 40 - Fun Begins

Who said that a leather wearing warrior is bad? Oh well, they are bad, but hey, props to Slash for 2-manning Gnomer. As I promised him, here are the screenies to our endeavor (and we downed last boss too):

After this 2-man, we invited the healer we love most. So off we went to 3-man RFD. Well, initially 4-man, but Slash made the other druid /leave by his tactless joke. Alas, I forgave him because he was sporting our 3-man guild's hot pink tabard. First run went smoothly, but at the second run, we wiped twice. First due to me asking the druid to tank while I heal due to the fact that I was quite close to passing out on my keyboard. So she did. I equipped my robe of the lich king... and... immediately burst out laughing. I mean, robe. With a shield. And a Herod's shoulder. God, that was the most terrible toon fashion ever. At that time we were doing the skeleton boss. I got aggroed by 20 skeletons, and forgetting that I was bubble girl, we died. I laughed for 5 minutes straight afterwards.

The next wipe was, however, due to the utter idiocy of the NPC of that escort quest. Yknow, with the ring reward. Once accepted, he kept dashing to that huge melting pot, aggroing rooms at his wake. Like, uh, weren't they supposed to help us fight? Results:

Then:

Finally:

He's pretty darn stupid for a dragon.

Up and through that milestone

Yeap. You (probably) guessed right. Shorsha is a proud level 40 pally tank, and with a great ding event too. She dinged just right after Whitemane died. Pretty memorable ding with a pretty darn great party. Now I just have to get more plates upgrade, and quickly. What's with people putting level 40 plates for 20-30g (and more) anyways? One blue chest plate piece, and vying for more. I'm coming, ZF!

On a side note: I got a scarlet chestpiece in SM today. Well, actually, I unintentionally ninja-ed it; thinking it was BoP. But as I called for a re-roll, and later traded it to her, she refused, along with the warrior who originally wanted it. Probably since Shor's the only main there, and flat broke. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for it :)

After instancing pretty much from 30-40, I've come to learn and improve in many aspects of mid-level tanking, and occasionally, healing; and along with that, instancing mates. They were darn enjoyable leveling sessions, and I must say that my alt-aholism is pretty much cured. I'm pretty sure that I'll take Shor to level 70 now, hopefully in a few months' time.

Ugly horse with mail > ugly chocobo with skinny legs

WTB Night elf mount.

Burning out with PuGs

Let me just say this; bad PuGs will throw you off instancing for the rest of the day (or the week), but a good PuG would make everything totally worth it. Such case is what I've encountered during my runs on SM. First run today, I think I've encountered the most arrogant twink I've met; an undead rogue. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Pass leadership please so I can mark.
Arrogantwink: I'll mark
Me: Nah, I prefer I'll mark since I'm the tank.
Arrogantwink: Do you have a 70?

...Wow. I never knew that in order to mark you have to have a 70 toon. Truly astounding. I've learned something very valuable in that conversation. Those without a 70 toon are idiots by default and unworthy of marking. We should not tank. We should not mark. We should not show our face in PuGs. We should just /ignore Mr I HAVE A 70.

Okay. I admit, I'm still mad over that. Now this is a case of bad PuGing. Let me clarify some details. Our group was compromised of: Mr I HAVE A 70 arrogantwink rogue, a tauren warrior, a priest, and another rogue. So regardless of my seething rage, I ran with them, and Mr I HAVE A 70 (yes, I'm copy pasting.) would always sap, even if it's only a pull of 2. By then I simply did not bother to say that CCing with me in SM armory is pretty darn worthless. So oh hell, I complied with his markings like the nice angry tank that I am. Don't get me wrong, he was a good player, but any arrogant attitude immediately gets a down marking from me. Regardless of how good you are. I prefer running with a mildly bad player who's honestly learning than an arrogant twink who knows everything about his class.

Now, this is where everything became worth it. As I uttered sarcastic replies regarding his 1337 level 70 toon, I got a whisper from the other rogue. We shared a common hate, it seemed. So we bonded against that evil twink. We chatted, we insulted each other, we joked, we whispered during that whole run. We became fast friends. I was no longer the angry, lonely tank, but lo and behold, I am the still angry, but having fun tank. Everything became better. So the Arrogantwink left, and we were left with the warrior, who recruited another warrior.

Now this is where it became bad again. Warrior A kept shouting "LEEEEEEROY JENKENS!" (yes, jenkens. Not Jenkins. Jenkens.), and warrior B was... well, of one kin with warrior A. So Awesome Rogue and me coordinated bail after sticking with them enough. I feigned lunch while he feigned shower. I said, "ZOMG GAIZ! Maid been shouting for lunch!" and left. That was bad etiquette, but PuGs burned me out, and I had no patience to deal with another one. I'm sure I ended up on people's hostile list today.

So after that me and Awesome Rogue coordinated our own PuG. We 4-manned SM a few times with 2 different groups, and I've met a huntard who wanted only to be run by a 60-70 yet queued for an instance (then wanted to join after he questioned my herod's shoulder), that Arrogantwink wanted in again (I don't have a level 70, sorry), and I lost herod's helm for the second time, but by the end of the day, after multiple instances of tanking/whispering, I was no longer wary.

Bad PuGs can ruin the day, but a friend can make a whole world of difference. I thank that bad PuG for the start of a wonderful day.

Are you sure you want to know how old I am?

Do you really?

I regard any question like that an attempt to flirt, or a debauchery of privacy. How old do you think I am, 10, 17, 23, 40? Say whichever you want, and most of the time I'll just agree on whichever digit(s) you chose.

But in the case of the screenie above, I answered with a simple, "Old enough."

Being a tank in some cases made me ill-humored ;)

And oh come on, I said 'toilet break', not 'potty break'.

Let's all loot Herod!

Today is a historical day. Shorsha did her second full run of SM armory! (First run was... a bad experience of being run through) Well, first time with a full group with me tanking. We had a 37 pally, a 39 mage, a priest, and me, the 34 pally. Since the 37 was a retardin (with 400 hp behind me), I ended up tanking.

All in short, this is probably the first instance I had to remotely pay attention to tank. The retardin kept hitting the unmarked target, and the priest kept pulling aggro, so there you go, salvation. With all the higher leveled toons around, it was a bit harder for me to manage aggro. But oh well, I did. Sometimes not. Damn retardin who couldn't control his aggro worth anything. Since there was a priest, I didn't particularly manage my aggro range nor runners, so I let em run away and pull another group, and went, "hell yeah!", then immediately afterwards, "OMG! We're gonna die!" Which we never did anyways.

A problem I encountered though, was the priest who kept bubbling me at the beginning of the fight. I warned him once, but he didn't heed, so I just let him do it. I'm over with warning people after all the instances I tanked, anyhow. I had relatively easier time to maintain aggro at the next run after the priest left, so folks, remember to not bubble your pallytank unless you want those big bad angry mobs to bite your flanks.

In no time we reached Herod (pulling a few groups at a time -albeit unintentionally- really does speed it up), and guess what I got? Yeap, Herod's Shoulder. That made me a really happy pally tank. I refrained from spamming the chat with smilies, thankfully. So the run was over, and the priest left, and the rest wanted more. Outwardly I feigned concern by saying, "are you sure we can do this?" though inside I was thinking, 'w00t! No more bubbles!'



So short story long, we ran again. This time I was extra careful in pulling, letting the mage sheep mobs, even in a pull of 2. Since I wanted that run to end up without any deaths, I reproached the retardin (now healadin. Heh.) when he kept hitting the wrong mobs. Wait a sec. A healer who dps? I ignored that. We were only pulling 2 or 3 at a time anyways.

Well, there goes my frame of mind... until I died vs 3 mobs. Upon my death I glanced at his mana bar, only to see it full. Like, what in hell, dude? So I told him to stop dps and concentrate on healing. The rest of the party seemed to snap out of the trance and agreed too. Also had to warn the lock against pulling when the mage was drinking. Uh, hello? Do you not realize that she was doing... oh, around 60% of the dps? Right. Let me pull. Thank you. I got a "ty :)" from the mage for that.

We went to Herod without any other dead pally tanks, and to make it safe, I commanded the retardin to stay up there and heal. He downed while I tank/heal, and dropped the helm. Which I lost with a roll of 5 =/ Oh well, let that pally have it since he lost the shoulder. I sighed and stared at my laptop screen dejectedly, outwardly appearing nonchalant but inside I was in a turmoil of emotion. Since I hated losing. Then imagine my surprise when Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade dropped! The lock also wanted it, so I told him to just roll need seeing that we both wanted it. I wasn't exactly confident that I'll win, so I kept looting all those corpses, then I saw on the chat: [Warlock]: T_T

I scrolled up... and... Oh em gee! Oh em gee! OH- Okay, you get the idea. So I shift-B and tried to find that stupid tabard. Right. A tabard with a cloak icon. Once again I refrained from spamming :D on party chat but indeed smiled like a fool IRL.

Thus I present Shorsha with her new tabard:



P.S I recall the priest /p Wow, I hardly have to heal. Love pally tanks.

I didn't comment on that one, but heh. That put a swell of pride, at least. And a brief smile. <3 self.

Best thing that's been said to me

[Shaman] whispers: are you a girl?
To [Shaman]: How did you know?
To [Shaman]: O wait. No, I'm the manly man.
[Shaman] whispers: i didn't know, only that you don't sound like a horny 9 year old.
To [Shaman]: ew.

I ROFLed in real life. Really. But I feel bad for 9 year olds everywhere. They're not as horny as that, really. One I've met is really quite decent, and guess what, he played a male BE. If only he didn't insist on tagging with me every time...

And sadly, he typed better than most folks I've met. Irony.

Ding 32 after almost wipe in RFK

Wow. Astounding. I actually dinged 32. I had truly thought that I would have another 5 alts around mid-20 and Shorsha would be abandoned. Thank god that's not the case. Shorsha is a proud 32 now, 3 more levels until she can run SM and RFD smoothly.

The other day she had successfully tanked a 4-man run on RFK. Well, initially 5-man. I had a prot pally (who wanted nothing but to heal), an elemental shaman (who said that he couldn't do anything but heal), a warlock, a fury warrior and me. Shaman and pally are two that I group with almost every time - and I had a bad feeling about her - and the warrior was a not-so-random someone I met earlier. At this point I was seriously avoiding partying with someone I haven't partied with before, but alas, I had to since all the people in my friends list are... well, healers.

Okay. And one mage.

Whyyy? Whyyyy did I not befriend dps?!

Oh right. Roguetards and huntards.

Anyhow, remember the saying to not judge a book by its cover? Well, I apply the reverse for PuGs. People are always what they seem. They type like a 10 year old on sugar rush? Well, chances are, they play like one. So as always, I explain the rules first to them: First kill skull, then cross. No answer. Fine. They started summoning, and once again I repeated that instruction. First pull, warrior started attack unmarked mob. I warned him about it, and got a positive response. The lock, however... why do I know that for her skull = last kill?

That besides, there was quite a problem at first regarding the healing role. Those two didn't want to give up their role, so I suggested alternating heal, as in one would heal when another mana's ran out, otherwise pick another role. It worked quite fine, but then the pally left. So I shrugged and said, "oh well, wanna 4-man it?". The shaman replied, "might as well see how far we can get. Maybe worth some blues."

So off we went 4-manning RFK. In short time we downed all the bosses, only dilly dallying by grinding on bats because the shaman wanted the leather. The problem, however, arose after we defeated the boss. There was a case of almost wipe, where I dropped down bellow Razorflank's tent, proceeded to hit a group of mobs, almost killing the caster before it ran off to aggro another group. Warlock got DCed, so I was like, oh, okay. 2 groups? Easy. THEN another mob ran off and aggroed the third group. By this time I was panicking. A slight glance at the top of the screen revealed that the shaman's mana was non-existant, and I had around 1/5 of my mana bar with me. Warrior's health was also running kind off low. Right. I couldn't hit my oh- shit button, since it'll wipe aggro, so I self-healed while the shaman focused his remaining mana on the warrior. Since the warrior had decent hp by now, I let him tank a few of the mobs. Slowly we killed them off with the shaman's minimum heals, until around 2 was left. Then the lock jumped down.

...And fire rains another group.

Indeed we didn't wipe. Indeed we somehow survived being mobbed by four groups of elites chockful with casters.

Later: /ignore locktard

Alas, good news is that I've gotten all the blues I want from this instance in two runs.


P.S Someone, please remind me that pallies have a seal that prevents FLEEING.

I can't stop beating myself over that potential wipe. I need more mastery over my hotkeys. So for this post, I'm also labeled as one of the idiots. Down with me.

/cries in a corner

Goals for next week:
- Get mithril spike installed
- Start running SM
- Down thermaplugg in Gnomer for that quest pants and shield