Wednesday 15 September 2010

Deathtank

I took a longer look than usual at my character selection sheet the other day and came to the sudden realisation that I'm a massive melee whore, of my level 80's, 3 of them are melee. I like playing all three, as they've all got different play styles but at the same time, I feel like a rogue when playing my Frost DK, I dunno why, I just do.

So I thought it was time for a change and respecced my 2handed "OS" to Bloodtonk. This was my first roadblock, as I really had no idea about DK tanking. I quickly armouried Abso's main DK tank and grabbed his specc, then respecced, as I'd just specced blood DPS by accident *facepalm*

After the tank specc was sorted, I decided to grab whatever tank gear I might have accumulated over the few months I've been at 80. So off I trot to the bank, to be greeted by a bank vault with a pink dress, some stupid Halaa battlemarks and buff food in it. I obviously hadn't collected any tank gear.

I did a few randoms and in time, had some blues with defense on from some dungeon or other and the T9 gloves. At this point, I'd be queuing as dps, waiting 10-15 minutes and then doing the dungeon. I'd had enough and thought I'd learn by diving into the deep end. Except, this deep end was full of big, fuck-off crocodiles.

I get a healer friend from guild to come along and in we go, me with my 470 defense, 28k hp unbuffed and 5/13 peices of tank gear.

BOOM

Pit of Saron heroic. I almost shit my pants. My healer friend actually did. It wasn't gonna be a nice dungeon run for him and as a first time DK tank, I was pretty damned scared but we actually did it, something happened, stars alligned, moons did something that astronomers say they do to sound "intelligent" when infact, they're just writing bollocks in a paper and we got through the entire dungeon without 1 wipe!

I put it down to awesome cooldown management, of course but in all truth it was my healer friends awesome healing that stopped me from looking like a massive fool. We even ran a few more heroics and I got a bit more tank gear, increasing my health and defense by tiny, tiny amounts.

I really did enjoy myself, it was kinda like dps except I'm y'know, getting twatted in the face by angry monsters/humans/undead/things and I liked dictating the pace of the pulls, instead of having the hang around waiting for senoir slow or almost die trying to keep up with speedy gonzales.

It's also gave me something to work on in the end of expansion bordem, as the perfectionist inside me is screaming out for me to get my arse up to 40k unbuffed and start tanking ICC10. Should be fun for me but it'll be hell for those unlucky enough to find themselves stuck with my tanking! *evil, tank like laugh*

Sunday 12 September 2010

who said that?

Bad things tend to happen when I get bored. I jump at chances to get un-bored so when a friend of mine Alliance side asked me if I was free to help them take on the Lich King, I jumped at the chance. 9/10 of the members where from my mates guild, so I thought it'd be a nice easy night, they had a Kingslayer and apparently their best attempt was P3. So with that, I got the vent details and hopped in. Now, not people able to match voices to names because I dont use the retarded Overlay, I was apparently in a group with...

a soft-spoken scotsman.
a posh fella
someone with a very thick eastern-european accent
a monotinous german
a silent shadowpriest
fanboy of the monotinous german
someone who'd learnt english from american films
a silent tank
and someone who could barely be heard

We gave him a shot, and was almost into P3 when there was a huge mess up. Our silent SP wasn't paying attention and after dropping his defile, didn't move fast enough, which caused it to chain. I dusted my little Gnomish knees off and got ready for another attempt.

It's quite depressing that our first attempt was also our best. Our monotinous german wanted to twat anything in sight, regardless of how much aggro a tank had on it, causing in adds running wild during the Transition phase. This didn't help the fact our silent shadowpriest was more than likely silent due to being a retard than not having a working microphone, as he just couldn't stop making useless mistakes - not moving when he got the plague? oh yeah. mind searing the Lich King for shits and giggles? hell yes! and last but not least, not dps'ing the frozen orbs resulting in the entire raid going BOOM-AARRRRrrrrrrrrr--*splat*

Now, after about 5 more attempts, our monotinous german started, from as far as I could tell (it's a bit difficult when a guys voice sounds like he's in a perma-state of "meh) get angry. First it was the Silent SP's fault, then the tanks, then the healers, then the tanks, then the healers, then the SP and then the tanks again.

This anger spread, mainly due to his fanboi getting in on the act, gleefully pointing out that everyone elses dps was lower than the monotinous germans! Which was like throwing fire on a monotinous bonfire! "Yes, they all lack the skill to do LK" he said.

I snapped...a little bit. I actually managed to hold my tongue but for the attempt afterwards, I didn't single target dps, instead, I put Living Bomb on anything that moved and used Flamestrike as soon as it was up. To which I went "oh look, I can AoE too" in /ra after our wipe from a terribly placed defile.

A few wipes later and it just fell apart, I've never heard so much negativity on my life. The word "Fail" was wrote/spoke for times than when A level papers are marked and with that much negativity flying around, it was as if the Lich King had a new ability, something that affects you after death and keeps going, like Ressurection Sickness but it only affects dickheads, the voices on vent had turned to...

the soft-spoken scot was still soft-spoken and scottish
the posh fella sounded like he was complaining over the phone, to a foreign phone operater - he did a lot of shouting and repeated himself about 20 times.
the thick accented eastern european was stuck on the words "omg how are we failing?"
the german was still monotinous.
shadowpriest was still silent
the monotinous germans fanboy was following in his "heros" footsteps and just being a dickhead
our american film fella had turned into a whiny camp sounding american with a terrible accent
our tank was no longer silent and was correcting anything that was said by the monotinous german using combat logs
and the guy who couldn't be heard now could and all he was doing was swearing.

Needless to say, the so called "raid leader" who in all honesty only held that title because it said [RL] next to his name in the combat logs, called the raid almost an hour a fifteen minutes before the end time. Much to my relief.

It really did make me appreciate my guild(s). Both present and past, mainly because I've so far not found one that has more than 1 dickhead, who usually gets booted in a few hours because they've been found out to be a...dickhead. It also made me appreciate knowing who's talking, so you can tell them to shut the fuck up if needed.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

The "lesser" of two evils is actually quite fun

My Alliance characters on Argent Dawn are stupidly poor, and no one's to blame but me. I'm lazy, when it comes to dailies and levelling my (rather poor gold making) professions. I recently got in a guild with an old friend Alliance side (until other plans come into affect!), he actually helped the process a lot actually and they seem like a very nice bunch of people. They also raid 25 mans, which I did say I wasn't too keen on but at the same time, I'll try anything once except incest and morris dancing.

I've been trying to get rid of all my blue quality gems and at the same time, regem for fire and with my lack of cash, I either had to queue for dungeons or PvP. I'm impatient so I chose PvP.

Now, I've never really PvP'd anything other than a hunter or rogue, so mage was a very, very steep learning curve but I find out pretty damned fast that...

-I need PvP gear.
- Keep the hell away from anything with a big-fuck-off axe/mace/sword and an angry look on their face.
- Living Bombing pets is a bad idea.
- I need PvP gear.
- I dont like warriors.
- I need PvP gear.

Now, I dont have the badges and/or the honour to spend on PvP gear, so I thought I'd attempt to make do with running around with 18k hp, being a massive target to anything that wants an easy honour kill and spamming Living Bomb on everyfuckingthingthatmoves™ (except for pets! BAD IDEA!) I also decided on doing the following...

- Stayed with a group. On my own, I'm about as useful as a cat in a bin. In a group, I can be that little guy that stands behind the big one going "Yeaaaah!" But in this case, instead of going "Yeaaaaah!" I'm actually THROWING FIRE IN YOUR FACE!
- Ice Block is the universal sign for "Arrrrrrgh! I'm dyyyyyying! Heal meeee!"
- Ice Block is also a very big Warrior/Rogue/DK magnet, meaning that while you're iceblocked, they're hitting you and not your friends!
- He who runs, often finds a friend who's bigger and badder that what's chasing you.

After that, it got fun. I farmed 36k honour in about 3 hours and got a bunch of achievements, I'm in love with Warsong Gulch and Isle of Conquest but I still hate Eye of the Storm with a passion but I hate it slightly less than running in circles in Dalaran waiting for the dungeon timer...

Friday 3 September 2010

Trial by fire

The Alliance side has ground to a halt. The guild I'm in is going through some management changes, lost some of it's main raiders and hasn't fielded a full, competent team for almost a month now. I've decided it's time to start looking around for a new guild, which is something I'm really not used to doing.

I've got a few friends Alliance side and I mentioned this to one, who offered me a trial raid right then and there. If I liked it and they liked me I could pop on the forums and put up an application. I got invited, summoned and was stood, infront of this 61 million HP monster - the Lich King. I have to admit, I was a little scared.

I was then told, it was a "wipe night" and that they were trying to master controlling the Valkyrs and Defiles, which is apparently quite difficult on 25 man. I said I didn't mind, while I quickly sold some un-used epics to front the repair bills.

First thing I noticed, was that I was significantly out geared. There were 3 other mages, all in Sanctified gear, 264 weapons and trinkets etc etc. The second thing I noticed was that I was the 5th lowest dps.

I'm used to being 1st or 2nd in most of my alliance side raids but here, I didn't even get a say in the top 10 the majority of the time. These guys knew how to dps and from our first try (55%) they also had a basic grasp of tactics. The best attempt of the night was a 37% wipe and it became apparent that a few people were making the same mistakes over and over, which was costing the raid group.

After the raid ended, I was mulling over applying, my friend said he'd link me their site the day after as he had to log quickly and it gave me the night to think it over. I was on the fence for a while, I mean, it could definitly give me a boost in gear as the majority of the casters didn't need anything from normal 25 man anymore but at the same time...25 man raiding just doesn't suite me. I like 10 man raids, there was no friendly banter on their voice chat (still using TS! lol) and it all got a little bit too serious at times, with the raid leaders blood pressure rising as fast as the decibels of his voice.

I've still got some other options which I might find better suited for me and I'm always up for a cheeky server transfer or something if need be but looking for a new guild is harder than I thought it would be...