Getting Carried

Replaced my mother board. Finished my summer class. Should be good to go for awhile.

On Tuesday, Memento returned to TOTC-10 for a full clear. The weekly was Jaraxxus, but some of our members didn't have the achievement so we persisted. It was interesting. I've noticed a theme when we tackle TOTC. Either the Faction Champions are impossible and we essentially throw ourselves against a brick wall for an hour, or they're ridiculously easy peasy. Thankfully, we got the easy peasy variety and we were able to finish off TOTC with very little hardship.

I know there's some confusion because Blizzard was stupid enough to introduce two ridiculously similar sounding instances. Trial of the Champion (5-man dungeon) is denoted, in Maraworld, as TOC; while Trial of the Crusader (10/25 man raid) is TOTC for normal and TOTGC for heroic. Your acronyms may vary.

We went on to do Onyxia for kicks and giggles.

We met a bear-tank; he joined up as one of our pugs for TOTC and came back for Onyxia. Memento is (slowly) building a list of reliable pugs that we can call on to fill our raid slots. The goal is to eventually be able to avoid trade recruitment altogether. Trade has given us some truly horrid pugs.

On Thursday I asked for (and got) a happy-birthday-carry for Aioka in ICC. I only planned on staying for the trash for some reputation, but Mord was in for carrying Aioka through the first four bosses. She got some totally awesome, if hit-oriented, gear upgrades. I won't complain. Regardless of hit, I'd rather heal with the Sister's Handshrouds over the Moonshroud Gloves any day. Same goes for Icecrown Spire Sandals and the Aurora Slippers.

I healed most of the time. ... As a third healer. By which I mean I bubble-spammed everyone and tried not to freak out. Our trees, Hippy and Time, were doing the real healing.

I dps'ed Saurfang though. That was terrible. Militia's Rankwatch addon complained about nearly every one of my spells. Which explains why my dps sucked so hard in Heroic Halls of Stone.

And I knew, I knew, that my ui system was prone to screwing that up. It's supposed to automatically update to the highest rank of whatever spell, but it doesn't. And I neglected to check it. For like... 40 levels.

Seriously, I was using Rank 4 spells when I should be on Rank 9-13.

Anyway, after the Lower Spire, Mara replaced Aioka, no harm done.

We tackled Fester and Rotface, rolled face, etc.

Then, because we're silly, we threw ourselves against Putricide for two or three tries. It was very interesting. We made some good attempts. Got him down to about 50%. I'm sure our big problem was getting the adds down in a timely and efficient manner. I was spastic. It was "Zomg, green add! Zomg, orange add! Zomg, dps Putricide for like 4 seconds!". Rinse, repeat.

The really exciting part is that we are going to (try to) extend the raid lockout for more facerolling attempts against Putricide, Dreamwalker, and The Blood Prince Council. I have my fingers crossed. I have been wanting to try the Blood Prince fight for forever. It looks like such a fun mess.

On Friday we put together an ICC-25 pug. That was interesting. I got accused of ninja-ing loot several times. I was the loot master. I'll just let that information settle for a minute.

...

Yeah. We adopted similar loot rules to the ones DAY uses. The most interesting part being that Primordial Saronites and BoEs that don't get snapped up for MS use are rolled for at the end of the run. So if you leave early, you don't get to roll on them. And if you win something shiny earlier in the run, you don't get to roll on the BoE. It's an attempt to make life fair all around.

So when Lady Deathwhisper dropped some Primordial Saronite for us, the raid complained when I picked it up and put it my bag for safe keeping. Did they think I was going to leave it on the boss until the end of the run?

We laughed about it, but the pugs' inability to pay attention to simple things like loot rules made it impossible for us to make it past the first four bosses. Still, it's always an interesting trip.

The real life monster ate one of our truly awesome guild members. Timesink had to leave us, hopefully for only awhile, but possibly permanently. He will be missed, for sure. Stay sexy, Time. :)

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