Fancy raiding!

This evening, after our first bit of guild ICC-10, I saw someone lfm for ToC-25, I volunteered and ended up tanking it.

It was really cool, but 25 people is a lot more than 10. So there was a huge amount of lag when I was running it at full capacity.

Here is a nice shot of the entire group. I really like this kind of shot.

Here we see the mass chaos that is the Faction Champions.

Now, the slightly less chaotic Valkyr Twins.

And finally, the kill shot.

Another Rogue Story

So, a standard test for a Rogue is to nab the Scarlet Key without killing any of the mobs in the SM Library.

In a kind of jerk move, I queued for the library and walked to the doan. There, I picked up my key and considered porting out.

Then I realized that I (in my heirlooms) could try and challenge myself. So I blew my cooldowns and tried to solo a level 34 boss at 37.

As a Rogue, I can be fairly disruptive to a caster mob. I begin by kicking him during his first cast, and then dismantling his weapon. From then on I proceed to wallop him with my strikes and heal my self.

I didn't quite manage to take him down, and I ported out before I died.

In any case, stealthing around is fun, and being an invisible killing machine is fun too.

How far can you go?

This is to ask the question about how far you feel comfortable insulting/bashing/complaining/arguing with (either directly or indirectly) some you are playing WoW with.

The other day, I was DPSing H-CoS on my new to 80 DK, with me were a healer friend and a tanking friend, the healer well geared and the tank with even less gear than myself.

So this hunter joined our group, and about a pull or two in, he said that he need to go afk. CoS is on a timer, so the waves spawn automatically. He missed six or seven pulls coming back when we had a boss to down. Then, in the Inn, he also left, although the waves there also automatically spawn and you have to keep up with Arthas.

Then, during the gauntlet run, he asked if any of us would like to run any of the Icecrown five mans to help him gear up. At this point I said something along the lines of "I'm not going to work to get you gear while you afk."

He responded with a remark about how comparatively poor my gear was. I made a remark about how my DPS was twice his and my damage done several times higher. He responded with "I'm not trying."

It ended with a boot to the hunter after pulling the last boss.

In other scenarios, when there is someone who plays a more regular role in my playing I try much harder to be polite- mostly when there are people in my random from Ursin.

In those cases I am extra cautious so that I don't get a bad rep. I do my best to be polite, humorous and helpful.

However, sometimes I snap. Sometimes a DPS is really annoying me, and since we're early in, I can't kick him, so I ask him to step it up. I always look at their gear and talents before doing this just to make sure that my complaints are reasonable. However, because of my high level of gear, if they start yammering on about how well the dps/their important role and they link meters, I can counter link meters showing me (or someone else) at the top, or focusing on the correct target.

But the one group of people who I work to keep happy and never insulted are my guildies. My guild is a primarily social guild and the point of being in a group together is because it is fun. If I risk insulting another Ursinite, but to protect one of my guildies, I'll do it. Even if the other people have strong ties to TOC, I still feel that guildies are due utmost respect.

The Legion Awaits

It waits to be wakened. It waits to be called. It waits to be roflstomped down in about three seconds by a group of ridiculously over-geared toons.

Man the Walls!

...So that you can kill the ghastly, ghostly curse-casting guards.

B is for Bad-Players

Don't be one.

Bad players can be classified by a few key things.

1. Swearing, esp repeatedly. Now, it isn't ALWAYS a bad player, but if they are swearing to the group then they have anger issues/skill issues. If they're swearing as part of their standard means of communications eg. whispers/g-chat conversation, it is not as much of an indicator.
2. Standing in the fire. Yeah- they die. You don't want to be that one.
3. Pulling mobs/trash that the tank didn't want pulled yet. Sometimes, if they know the tank, it could be that they know the load the tank can handle- but often its not a good sign. However, if they only pull one pack in a few runs, it could very easily be a tab-target error.
4. Boasting. Those who claim to have skills generally don't.
5. Mis-gearing. Now, I try not to be an Elitist or a Jerk, but if you are wearing tanking gear and trying to DPS or heal, or healing gear and trying to tank- shame on you. Now, at lower levels it is quite possible- but at end game, gear precisely for your role. Gem and enchant for it as well.
6. AFKness. Now, often real-life can interfere and that is fine. However, if they repeatedly go afk- that can be bad.

Don't tank the Oozes.

Or so I was told after I tanked the oozes. Thanks for the tip!

I had a plan...

And that plan was to get both my DKs that I'm interested in leveling to 80 before March 13.

I don't know how well its going to work out, because I have an inability to level more than one character at a time. One of them has leveled three times in as many days, with about 7-9 hours /played. He is a tank and therefore has been abusing the pugger system. The other one, although he has a tank spec does not have tank gear, and so he be a DPS. This means he can quest efficiently, but instances are just a pain for him.

If I take into account bad pugs, it is generally easier for him to just quest at this point rather than run runs.

I'd say more, but my brain is telling me to stop thinking, so I might do that.

Good groups

I'm going to continue on my series of PuG pseudo guides. I'm gonna tell some stories, give some tips.

1. Apologize, but not too much: I've had people apologize for accidently pulling mobs. Thats ok. If they die, and I manage to pick it up and keep everyone else alive- well- they're the one with the repair bill- so I consider it even.
2. Know who to blame: If the healer dies, its the tank's fault. If the tank dies, its the healer's fault. If the DPS dies, it is their own damn fault.
3. Explain yourself: If you don't want to skip a boss, let them know why. If you do want to skip a boss, let them know why. Same with achievements, or full clears.
4. Make (reasonable) suggestions: In today's H-Gundrak (try 24 this week for Less-rabi) the healer shaman asked if I thought I could sustain myself through the boss fight if they went enhancement to DPS the boss. I was pretty sure I could and gave the go-ahead. If I had gotten the achievement, I would say that was why.
5. Know class trademarks: Knowing certain skills like Heroism, Misdirection, Death Grip, Army of the Dead, Divine Intervention, Tricks of the Trade and others can be very helpful when leading/tanking/healing a pug.

Look! An even five. Score!

How to Pug.

Be a good pugger. There are a couple things that are very important to do when you are pugging. I shall list them nicely for you.

1. Don't be a ninja: Being a ninja gets you blacklisted. Also if you ninja before the last boss, you may get kicked from the party and you'll have to wait the queue again.
2. Don't get in front of the tank: Stay behind the tank at all times. If you get in front of the tank, you are liable to pull something. The tank may not care to save your ass.
3. Don't be an ass: Be polite, say hello, maybe talk during the instance- if you have time. Eg. In Culling of Stratholme, make fun of Arthas, you have the time and the motivation. A bad place to type lots of things would be Black Morass, Violet Hold or the first bit of Halls of Reflection.
4. Know the instances: Know where you are. Know how to get to where you are. Know where you want to go. Know where the bosses are. Know the boss fights. A big help for this is the Atlas addon. It includes maps of all the instances, along with boss locations.
5. Know thy GYs: Know where the graveyard is and how to get back into the instance if/when you wipe.
6. Know how to play: Try to figure out your best rotation/priority system. You can visit elitestjerks or some other theory crafting site, or you can figure it out yourself. Look at your talents and see what improves if you do something else before it- think for yourself.
7. Let people be aware of your intentions: If you have a time limit, certain quests you want to get done, or an achievement to do, let people know before you start. This way, if they will not let you/cannot help you, you will not have to explode when bad things happen.
8. Give (and recieve) tips: If someone is standing in the Whirlwind, or standing in the fire let them know, kindly. If someone tells you that you are standing in fire, or that you are not standing in the sparklies (which can be good, on occasion) thank them, and adjust your strategy.
9. Watch the mana bars: Especially if you're the tank, make sure people have enough mana to keep on goin. If you're in a group with 2 rogues, a warrior, a DK and a priest, well the heals still has mana- make sure they have enough before CHAERGEING in.
10. Thank them: Even if your granny and your 2 year old cousin could do better than the healer and the tank, thank them for getting you through the instance.

Amazingly enough, it came out to be exactly ten. When I first 'finished' the list, I had 6 then I added more because, well, they're important.

Almost there! Almost there!

So, If you've been looking at my recent achievements, you can see I've gotten several more for Glory of the Hero. And, if you looked at the title, you can probably guess I'm almost there.

A few notes:

Most of the Heroic bosses that did things every 25% have now been modified to use there ability only once, at 50%. This includes Anomalus, Jedoga, Elder Nadox and Svala Sorrowgrave.

This 'nerf' makes the achievements associated with the first three easier, but now you only have one chance to sword-kill the hulk. The change was made because groups that averaged 2k+ dps were going through them to quickly so they spent a good portion of the fight immune to damage and/or out of range of the melee.

Additionally, the 5 emerald tactic I described in More of Before does not work. Eregos will only take 1 stack of the debuff so he will do 75% damage. Now, it is in fact possible to survive on 5 Emeralds because of their ridiculous healing abilities, but it does not work well.

All I need to do to get the Meta, and my Red Proto-Drake is Less-Rabi. I tried it a few days ago and on our second attempt (first failed) a DOT killed him. Today I accidently used my interupt early and so we failed. It was a pug so no-one wanted to volunteer to suicide for more tries.

Puggerific!

Sometimes you have good pugs, sometimes you have awful pugs.

Some pugs are rote, some you actually do well....actually, scratch the second part.

Sometimes your tank can't and your healer is oom.

But there are stories that can be taken from these, stories and lessons.

In Utgarde Pinnacle, whenever we get to Gortok Palehoof, who has for trash mobs in front of him who are spawned in a random order (Furlborg, Worgen, Rhino, Jormungar (sp?)) I always shout out which one I expect to spawn first.

In Halls of Stone I pull to Krystallus without Divine Plea dropping off me. It lasts for 15 seconds. Then again it restarts every time I get hit and as a tank, well, I get hit a lot.

Then there are the less fun runs.

I'm in Heroic Halls of Reflection, easily the hardest five man in the game, possibly harder than Sarth, Naxx and the first few bosses in VoA. The priest (healer) asks that we don't use the LoS method where we hide in corners to pull the mobs. This is because he NEEDS to shackle one of them. Otherwise the tank will die. I was tanking and I have successfully tanked it before without any CC. I tell him this. He then argues that the LoS method will make him less able to heal because we'll be out of LoS of him. Note: we won't be. But he's the healer so I agree with him. Then the warrior goes AFK. In the middle of the fight. This being the first part of H-HoR, the mobs will keep on spawning. He's gone for three waves. At that point I ask if we should kick him. The healer says "He's my friend, if he goes, I go." Without the extra dps he would be offering, we would have a very hard time on the boss. In fact, we wiped.