Lo-Quality WoW

The problem I have when I come back from a trip is that I sometimes have a hard time getting back into a routine, like writting this blog.  And it doesn’t help that the past few weeks, all my runs have started to blend together into one big jumbled mess in my head.  So what has happened the last couple of weeks?  Let’s see, I picked up the Collector’s Edition of Starcraft II shortly after returning home, netting me the Collector’s Edition: Mini Thor Feat of Strength achievement.  Frankly, my friends were surprised I waited that long to pick up the game.  I guess you can never have too many pets right?

I finally got my hands on a Deathbringer’s Will, more due to the fact that pretty much everyone else already had it than anything else.  I also completed my 5-piece tier set with the Sanctified Ahn’Kahar Blood Hunter’s Handguards.  It means I no longer have to roll for Protector’s Mark of Sanctification, which was really the only drop I’ve been paying attention to lately anyway. 

During one night when we ended early and I hadn’t logged off yet, so the Palidrons took me to get some Dungeon achievements.  The first was Zombiefest! in Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme, which was interesting to do.  We also went to Gundrak to pick up the Less-rabi achievement.  That one was little funny in that we got Moorabi down to 50%, interrupted his transform and were quickly trying to figure out who would do the next interrupt when we killed him.  “What second interrupt?” 

Raid-wise, we picked up only the Portal Jockey (10 player) achievement.  I think the only reason we did that was because we didn’t have quite the right makeup to handle the Dreamwalker encounter on Heroic and we really just wanted to hit Sindragosa again on Heroic.  On normal, the fight was almost ridiculously easy.  Heck, I was so bored, I actually slapped a Heavy Frostweave Bandage on Dreamwalker myself.

During our last 25-man Blood Queen try, it was funny in that somehow I kept ending up being the person bit at the start.  As an SV hunter, I’m used to the the mages and MM hunter’s out dpsing me at the start, so it’s rare for me to get the first bite.  But it happened three times in a row!  Actually, after the first try, our shadow Priest whispered me “hey, make sure you’re the first bite again!”  I whisped back “I’m not sure how I did it the first time!”  I think it was mainly because he knew I could do the initial bite correctly, but it was weird to get the bite each time.

Actually, making it a bit more challenging, for the quest Blood Infusion, our Death Knight had to be my first targeted bite.  Which meant I had to ignore the instruction from our bite assignment add-on and spot our DK in the middle of the mess that was the melee group on the Blood Queen.  Fortunately, I got really good at switching my focus to my next intended target, which at least had me targetting the correct player.  It was finding them that added to the fun. 

And with all the fun and games, there were of course the bad.  A Lich King 10-man where people apparently forgot how to deal with the Defile which ended up with the defile coverying pratically the entire platform except for a small, thin strip just at the edge.  All I know it wasn’t me because I was busy getting molested by a Val’kyr Shadowguard both times it happened.  I’m not positive, but I think it was our Shaman, who has a bad habit of wanting to finish whatever spell he’s casting rather than move when he’s supposed to.

And the past two night we kept repeatedly wiping on 25-man Sindragosa.  We actually came pretty close the first night, but we were running two dps short, which would have been the difference.  Last night we had a full 25-man but then people started getting stupid again.  Tanks kept dying, with one healer trying to shift the blame to the tanks themselves.  “Well, if you guys would say when you were switching tanks.”  To which myself and several other dps pointed out that the tanks have been doing exactly that!  “Oh” was the only response.  And us having designated spots for Ice Tomb targets yet other people seemed incapable of not standing right next to those people! 

And the stupid part?  A lot of the stuff we were having issues on could easily be fixed if you just think about it.  For instance, during the air phase, people with the Ice Tomb marks weren’t getting into position quickly enough.  Why?  Because at the beginning of the phase, they ran all the way to the back of the stairs!  Standing on the middle of the stairs, and then moving appropriately once the marks appear was a lot easier but people couldn’t figure that out!

And phase 2 positioning.  If the bottom of the stairs is where we have our designated tomb areas, well, then ranged shouldn’t stand there.  I know I could comfortably stand about half way up the stairs and still dps yet only a few people would adjust like I did, the rest were standing at the bottom of the stairs and wouldn’t adjust even as the raid leader cried out that we were entering phase 2!  Again, people being so focused on getting their spell off rather than moving.  Which is easily fixed if they weren’t standing there in the first place!

So yeah, it was an irritating few nights.  Enough that I’m seriously considering dropping out of the 25-man runs for awhile.  There’s really nothing else I really need from them other than the achievements themselves and I’m getting tired of “experienced” raiders not being able to make simple adjustments to make their fights easier and increase the chances of it being a mistake free fight.

Then again, with my luck, I’ll drop out and it’ll be the week they blow through everything.  At least the 10-man team is usually pretty good, other than the fact that since Hunter’s usually get specialized duties, one slip up ends up with us getting a lecture about it.  And since our other Hunter has been moving house in real life, I was the only one which made stuff like keeping all the Kinetic Bomb’s up exciting and challenging.  It was a constant “okay, bomb at the back…nevermind I see Key’s pet on it.  Another bomb by the door…nevermind, Key got it.” 

And from the sounds of it, this coming week will have several people missing, so I’m not even sure which runs we’ll do.  I can live with that.  I’ve been leveling my DK a bit and I really need to focus on my Warrior.  I think I can just get her to under 5000 gs if I really push her.  However, until our other Hunter comes back, there’s too many fights where our strategy requires at least one Hunter so I can’t even bring her as an alt anyways!

Oh well, as always, it’s a game of wait and see.  I’m guessing we’ll probably start doing Heroic LK on our 10-man team sometime in the next month or two.  A little longer for normal LK on the 25-man though.  (Just not enough stablility in the raid group for that to be consistent.)  Of course, that’s just facing LK, not actually defeating him.  But damn, I would love to start doing some heroic 25-man ICC.