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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Playing Nice

Tuesday night guild night was even more drama filled than Sunday night. Five of our level 80s were present on time. So we signed up for a random heroic. Because that is what we do.

Takk was tanking, Militia was healing, and Sen, Ann, and I were dps'ing. We get Azjol-Nerub. It's not one of my favourites. And we don't get far.

We get down to where the first boss is with his 3 watchers. Takk is pulling the groups one at a time, pretty simple. We're not going for the achievement or anything here. And we die.

We do this several times. And I'm not sure what, exactly, is going wrong. Maybe Sen, Ann, and I just aren't cranking out enough damage. Maybe Militia is not cranking out enough heals. Maybe Takk's just taking too much of a beating. Who knows.

Takk, very discouraged after three or four attempts, suggests we pug someone else and continue. This is not the point of guild night. Guild night for learning to play together and, more specifically, learning to balance each others strengths and weaknesses.

Militia goes to check Takk's gear because he thinks theres a tanking belt that drops in Azjol-Nerub. Instead, he accidentally kicks Takk from the group. Takk logs off and we don't see him for the rest of the night.

So we pug. We finish Azjol-Nerub. Huzzah, huzzah, Emblems of Frost for everyone.

Sen decides he's not interested in doing more dungeons. Batra signs on. We make our way through Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron. Get some phat loot: Prelate's Snowshoes. All in all, a fairly lackluster night.


Monday, January 25, 2010

Week 2

Second official week of Guild Night and Social Night. Equally uninspiring.

We are having some attendance issues. Truthfully, attendance is not mandatory. But I thought that everyone was on board with creating an actual raid night. Thus far, attendance has been better on Tuesdays so maybe we'll have to return to that being our raid night. I guess this is just one of those things we'll have to tweak and retweak until we arrive at a solution that actually works for everyone.

There's also some drama happening over at Memento. Batra and Senach are really talented at getting on each others nerves. So much so that Batra /ignored Sen during a random heroic last night.

Allow me to tell the whole story. Sen, Ann, Batra, and I randomed our way into Heroic Trial of the Champion. We died a lot. The jousting part I expected to die in. Frankly, I'm terrible at it. But then its time to face Runok Wildmane, Zul'tore, and some other guy.

Lets be perfectly honest here. We're still noobs when it comes to ToC and ICC. Dungeon or Raid, it doesn't matter. But we know a few basics. We know to interrupt the healer. We know to keep the hunter occupied and away from the clothies. We know to stay out of the piles of green crap.

So, to start off I send my felguard after the hunter. I figure, the felguard can keep him occupied until Batra has enough aggro on Runok and whatshisface to spare a second to grab Zul'tore. I'm dps'ing my warlocky heart out on Runok. Several things happen at the same time. My felguard dies. I start to overtake Batra in threat. And an angry hunter starts firing his arrows of doom at me. We die.

At this point, our healer helpfully points out that Batra should be in frost presence. I also point out, as nicely as I can, that he also needs to remember to pick up the hunter. Because having my face peppered with arrows does nothing for our DPS.

Attempt number two goes marginally better. It drags on and on because Runok keeps healing himself. We die.

As we fly back on our spectral gryphons I have a brief discussion with Ann and Sen about interrupting the heals. This is also about the time when I take a few moments to apologize to our healer. I explain that we're all from the same guild and that we're trying to get our tank some experience. Said healer says 'No problem. I'm a GM, I handle this stuff all the time.'

Healer of Awesome, I salute you. This is my shoutout to Otic on Nazgrel. You were amazing. Thank you for your patience with our group.

Otic also points out that Batra is not defense capped. We are aware of this. Painfully and unfortunately aware of this. This time Batra drops the group to the shock and irritation of the rest of us. He cites Sen for always being on his case. I hope this was actually an instance of Sen giving constructive criticism. Sen is the GM, its his job, etc. etc. I don't know.

But, it's a random. We requeue, get another tank, and finish without much trouble. I did get zerged by one of the trash packs that comes with Paletres. That was totally my fault.

So, moral of the story: make sure your tank is defense capped. The random dungeon finder does not care about your stats when it picks a dungeon for you. While we're in the process of recruiting healers and a few more dps we will also be focusing on getting gear for our tanks.

Speaking of gear: I finally got Mark of the War Prisoner! Also picked up the T9 gloves, completing the T94pc bonus I was looking for. Huzzah, huzzah. Finally, picked up a Sword for my main hand. I'm out of greens in my gear, now working on getting rid of blues. A few small upgrades from the heroics. Nothing too exciting.

I can't speak too much about Batra and Takk not being def capped. I'm not hit capped yet. But I'm still working on it. Promise.


Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Research

Social night last night. :) We did indeed farm heroics. We farmed enough of them that I was able to buy the T9 leggings I've had my eye on.

I've started to think that with being able to purchase T9 gear with almost-free emblems that the list from the Warlock's Den may be a smidge outdated. Fair enough, I went in search of a new source of information. I found it here. Even more on the plus side, Oath is very entertaining.

I have only one green left to replace in my gear. To that end I've been going to H Violet Hold every day. I still haven't seen that stupid trinket drop.