Lo-Quality WoW

It’s amazing, I apparently get more done in WoW when I’m sick. Somehow, people must sense when I wanted to call it a night and that’s when I start getting invites. And of course, being the moron I am, I probably stayed on way past the point I should have. Medicated, tired, sick, it’s amazing I got things accomplished at all…

Things started out with a Vault of Archavon 25-man. I had mainly gone to Wintergrasp to spend some marks but people were asking for dps and since I was in the area, I figured I might as well. From the looks of it, it was mainly a guild run with a couple of pick-ups like myself. So I get on vent and start listening in. And I immediately start getting concerned during the first fight. The main tank was apparently surprised when he got grabbed and “eaten”. Now when that happens, the OT has to be on the ball and grab him immediately. Except I would watch Archavon switch between three or four others before settling in on the OT, and if those three or four were squishies who got hit, well, we started losing dps pretty fast.

We wiped twice and they were actually very good at examining the damage meters and noticed that some dps weren’t pulling their weight. Of course, when I asked them which off-tank I should MD to, they immediately said “A and B are the off-tanks.” I had to restate that I needed to know which off-tank gets the MD. Once I had that, it made it easier to get Archavon on the OT when the MT got taken and of course we were able to finish Archavon off.

Of course the other thing I noticed was that I top of the damage chart, well above the other hunters. Primarily I think it’s because I tend to use explosive shot a lot and that got a buffed which compensated for the steady shot nerf in this patch. Actually one of the other hunters noticed and whispered me. He was a BM and the changes really affected him and he was wondering if I was always a SV or if I had changed specifically because of the patch. Always funny when I’m able to help to convince a hunter to switch specs.

Next I went to Wyrmrest again to do the daily when I hear a call for a dps for a 25 man Obsidian Sanctum. I noticed it was the tank from last night so I volunteered. Of course a warning bell went off when I’m then told we were planning on keeping one of the drakes up. More warning bells went off when I heard three different strategies given and not much indication on which one we were doing. Naturally we wipe a few times until most of the people there finally said to “screw the achievement”. Of course the detractors were saying “Well such and such were able to do it with three drakes up.” The problem is, there’s a difference when it’s a dedicated raid guild doing a complicated battle than when it’s a PUG. But finally we decide to take out the last drake and just kill the dragon, and of course that’s when we get it done.

I headed for Coldarra to do the dailies there (trying to get Wyrmrest rep) when I got the invite to the Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom run. So it was off to there. I’ve been there before but for some reason we usually didn’t do the extra boss and this group planned on hitting it, so I was all for it. Typical run for the most part, even with me doing a screw up and pulling an extra group by accident. Fortunately, most groups are forgiving when you do that by accident and you don’t wipe. That and you have to make sure you never do that again. The run was pretty mundane, although for a while I was worried because I was fourth on the damage list, after the tank. I double checked and I was higher in dps but because there’s a delay before I engage, he was racking up some pretty significant damage before I got involved. I finally caught up during the boss fights and all was well. Speaking of boss fights, the Herald Volazj fight was interesting.. I’ve done the fight with two priests and that sucked because when the insanity hit, both of them stand there healing each other. This time it was two death knights in our group and with them grabbing me and pulling me to them, it made it very hard for a ranged dps like me to get through the fight. Regardless, I got my Heroic: Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom achievement.

Next they wanted to do Halls of Stone, which I hadn’t done on Heroic yet but just when we were about to go, we decided to do a quick Azjol-Nerub. It’s actually a fun instance and is pretty quick so I had no problem with it. In fact we ended up getting the Gotta Go! achievement. Not bad for a side trip.

Halls of Stone was next. That was a pretty smooth run except for the Tribunal of Ages fight. We wiped once, mainly because the healer accidentally stood in the damage beam and died. The second time, we lost one of the dps to the beam which made it just a bit harder but I wasn’t worried. I probably should have been since at the end of the battle, I looked around and found out that I was the only one alive and I was at half my hp. Which was pretty amazing considering I know I had intentionally grabbed some mobs to keep them off Brann. But hey, we got past the battle and that’s what’s important. So we got through and I got my Heroic: Halls of Stone achievement.

So, three more achievements, a couple of 25-man raids, and a bunch of emblems. Not bad for someone doped up on Nyquil.