Jan 31, 2008

KZ Minimums (by talent tree)


I had a difficult time getting this information when I first I went looking for it. What I needed was a general set of guidelines as to what constituted "entry level" requirements for the end-game level 70 raids. Well, I still haven't found one for the 25-mans but I mentioned previously that TTH had a nice little table for Karazhan.

The only problem is I can't link you directly to it. Also, I didn't think it was as accurate as it could have been so I've updated it. I also added a line for survival spec'd hunters since there wasn't one in the original, however I don't know the spec that well so anyone who does please feel free to comment and I'll change it.

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Kara Part 4

When last we left our series on the opening moves of Karazhan we had cleared the Maiden and the trash along the way to the Opera Event. Now that my posts aren’t taking the entire freaking page (unless you clicky the little Read More button) I think we can pick up where we left off and describe one of the more interesting fights in this instance.

As we parted ways the other day I left you standing on the ramp leading up from the orchestra pit aka Opera pit, below the stage. You may not have realized that was where you were, because there isn’t an orchestra there, but that’s where you were moving through.

Once on the ramp you’ll want your ranged casters and healers standing about a third of the way up on the stairs, and your melee closer to the top. The tanks can move out into the open area head. This is the backstage part of the Opera Hall and there’s a few mobs to clear. The first is a 2-pull pat(rol) that can be easily face pulled (letting them get close enough to you that you aggro simply by letting them see you). Many groups will inadvertently face pull these and if not done properly, you can pull one of the stationary mobs nearby as well. These guys hit hard and have debuffs that will mess you up. So please, let your tanks be the only ones out in the open and the rest of you stay on the ramp.

Each tank takes a target and once engaged the raid should focus fire on the kill order. At some point each of the bad guys will pop a column of white light, it’s very important to move the mobs out of the light or Very Bad Things result. So for you folks in the ranged department, be aware that the tanks will be deliberately moving the mobs around a few feet when the light shows up, and you’ll need to adjust accordingly.

The mobs in this area aren’t too hard to defeat. Once you clear your way to the immediate backstage area you’ll see an NPC named Barnes, the Stage Manager ahead. Don’t go to him yet. There’s a wooden stairs off to your left, send a tank up and pull the mobs back down (sometimes they like to pat back down and can nail your raid while your prepping for the boss fight. There’s a couple on either side at the top of the stairs. NOTE: it’s not a necessity, just a safety precaution.

Once cleared take a short break to call for full raid buffs. Include food buffs, lock cookies but you shouldn’t need flasks for this next part.

The Opera Event is a unique fight in which one of three “plays” is selected for you randomly. Your choices are
Hood, Oz and Romulo & Julianne. Each is handled very differently. A lot of raids will send in one person stripped of gear who will begin the event by speaking to Barnes and then run through the side door out onto the stage in front of the curtain. The rest of the raid waits, either in the pit below or simply in the room you cleared before you got to Barnes.

I’ve been in several raids that just position themselves out on the stage and take whatever comes without doing this. New raids should use the first method as it increases your opportunity to explain what will happen next and minimizes confusion and deaths.

Hood is basically Little Red Riding Hood and the boss is the Big Bad Wolf, linked above. He turns a random raid member into Little Read Riding Hood and chases her around the room til he kills her. He also has a fear and stun capability and cannot be aggro’d off Red during this phase, but DPS and tanks can and NEED to keep building threat on him or when Red goes down or fades he’ll turn on whoever is highest on the threat table. It’s best to tank him left rear stage away from the raid when possible. The Red Riding Hood debuff turns you into a little girl with zero armor. To stay alive you need to run the perimeter of the stage in a SQUARE, not an oval or a circle. BBW chases a spot just in front of the runner and if you don’t run in straight lines he can catch you.

Oz is the Wizard of Oz – there’s Dorethy, Tito, Roar, Tinhead and Strawman – see the wowwiki notes on strategy – easy fight – bring a lock and a mage for it. Kill order Dorethy, Tito, Roar/Strawman, Tinhead. Keep the straw guy feared and fire DoT’d and he’ll go down fast.

R&J – strangely enough I rarely see this fight. I know Blizz has said the events are random, but I don’t think I believe that. I think they are more likely to happen on certain days of the week, but then that’s just my subjective opinion. The unique thing on R&J is that you kill one, then the other then you fight both and they have to die within 10 secs of each other or they rez again. She’s a caster and he’s a DPS warrior. Good Luck!

Once you clear whatever Opera Event you get you now have an interesting option. You can either head through the door leading to the area ahead, which is the noble’s balcony. In there you can clear the mobs for some phat gold. I’ve been told each raider can get as much as 20g in there. You have to clear the area all the way up to the door that leads to the back of Kara, out on the Master’s Terrace.

If you don’t feel like risking it you can head back down and out the front door go to your left diagonally, crossing the foundation of the ruined house, across the river, up the bank and to the stairs leading up to the side entrance. It’s a long climb and you end up on a narrow bridge in front of the side door. I think you have to clear Opera to use it but I’m not sure. Here endeth Kara Part 4. Your next fight is another gear check and your first chance at a Tier 4 token.

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Woot! Figured it out!

Many furry thanks to the Big Bear Butted one John P. for the tip on making my blog more readable. I've debated going back and changing older posts so everythign lines up nice and neat, call it the OCD part of me. But I've decided to let the previous ones stand since the comments would be lost. However going forward I'll be using a new method that links to the main pages of each post and should make this mess a little easier to read.

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Kara - part 3

The Maiden of Virtue

Okay, you’ve handed Attumen his head, crashed the party in the banquet hall and silenced about half the people doing the Hokey Pokey in the dance hall (no lie, they really do the HP).

You’re back on the stairs and ready to drive on. Depending on whether or not you pulled the AOE non-elite pack on the right side of the top of the stairs, you need to clear it – so if you didn’t yet do so now – same drill as last time. Pull to stairs, AOE em down, focus heal the cloth cannons. One of your tanks will hug the right wall heading down to the far right corner of the dance hall to whack the mob standing there. Once engaged the raid should follow. There’s another non-elite AOE pack in the center-right of the dance hall – they die too. Watch for the elite mobs sitting along the walls – sometimes they come along with the larger pulls – just mark them for death first and hold the mob.

Clear the singles on either side of the door on the opposite side of the room, watch for any patrols that might pop through and send in your stealth to verify the area is clear.

Head into the next area – its an open space with many of the same mobs as the dance hall – AOE packs, both elite and non-elite. As well as single elite mobs. Use basic tanking procedures here – Line of Sight on the bigger mobs as they are needed. Leave the elite AOE pack over there alone – you can move without aggroing them, but take down all pats and the big non-elite pack in the middle of the room – tank hint: tank runs up to them and kites them away from the elite pack, then back to the raid while hugging the wall farthest from the elites and lets them stack on him, use a corner to hide in so they bunch up before DPS sets in.

Ahead on the far side of the room is another doorway with pillars, on the right wall is a single small doorway – head for the small one. Stealthies can peek to see where the pats are in there, if clear the raid can go in.

The raid moves in and to the left – there’s a long narrow hallway here and the raid should stack in there for the next pulls. There’s a few guards close by in the main hall, and some wandering hookers patrolling the halls. The respawn time is 1 hour in the hall – do not go into the side rooms. Those spawn on a 20 min timer. We’ll come back to that in a moment. Clear the halls 1 set of mobs at a time. There’s a 5 pull off to the right – leave them until both the pat and left side guards are down – but if the pat is a ways off you can pull the guards on the left, just do so that they run along the left wall.

On the pat – our raid calls it the whore (whoor) pack, I forget if there's one or two - think it's only one set. It’s a demon and an undead. Banish the demon if you can, or shackle the undead. Take only one at a time. One of them will try to charm the melee, the other will use a banshee howl – burn em down.

Note: everything here until you get the 5-pull gets pulled into the hall and burned there. The guards summon dogs so melee, watch your casters. Now, the 5-pull. You need MT and OT for this, shackle banish, etc. Clear those and there’s 2 guards at the end of the hall – shackle or OT one and burn them down.

Stop

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200.

Ahead of you is the Maiden of Virtue, your next boss encounter. I asked you not to go into the side rooms, which probably sounds reasonable unless you need to for one of the quests for Kara. Well, it’s still reasonable even if you need to ‘cause you can simply wait 5 hours for the packs to despawn once the boss is dead. That's right Snoopy, once a boss dies, all mobs associated with that boss despawn in 5 hours - since the raid resets only once a week - you can come back another day and freely wander the areas you've cleared. How? Form a group with another player and convert it to a raid, then walk in – by this time the dance hall and stables and the whoor’s quarters are all empty IF you killed the bosses.) Besides – no need to make the raid wait for you. There’s killin ta be dun.

Maiden isn’t hard, but she sure seems so at first. The link to Wowwiki describes the fight and the abilities she has. But the most important thing to know is that positioning is key. One SUPER important thing to know is her aggro radius is quite large. So hug that outside wall!

So here’s how it all goes. She’s in a circular room (she’s a mini-Titan btw) and there’s pillars surrounding her – she’s in the center on a slightly raised platform. Your raid leader will mark out or walk you to your spot. You’ll be hugging the outside wall AT ALL TIMES – hunters put your pets on passive and MAKE SURE THEY STAY WITH YOU. I’ve seen pets pull Maiden = insta wipe.

The raid leader will generally split the raid up so the healers are evenly spaced with DPS. Melee and tanks will stay put at the entrance and well outside aggro range.

Maiden does a few unique abilities, holy fire, repentance (stuns the raid for 12 secs – dmg breaks this). The key element here is to get your melee into a max-range triangle or square around her as soon as the tank picks her up – no OT needed here – go full out DPS.

As soon as the fight starts you can do one of two things, everyone can stand in the center of the space between the pillars AND on the edge of the dias (raised part), or can stand in front of the pillar they are on. However you all need to pick the same stance or she’ll holy chain fire you down because you'll be too close together to avoid it. She drops holy ground (holy dmg in the 300s every 3 secs – its not too bad) and she Holy Fires random people – that has a DoT that needs to be dispelled – make sure your clothies are removing it quickly. Keep melee alive and kicking and the rest of the fight is gravy.

Just make sure when you go back to the hallway you hug the side away from the whoor’s rooms. Make your way back out into the larger open room and to the door (now on your right) with the pillars, don’t get too close now – there’s baddies there.

There’re two skeletal guards here, both the MT and OT need to take on the same target – CC the other. ALL DPS holds for a moment because the guard will Ice Tomb the person highest on the threat table (Get OMEN, Seriously) and will go for the second person on the threat table. Now that had better damn well be a tank or your health monkey is gonna be eating floor. Once the Ice Tomb hits and your tank is safely encased – DPS opens the floodgates and down he goes.

Same deal for the CC’d mob and the next 3 guys – including the one pat – wait for him and burn him the same, then there’s 2 up ahead – you can skip if you want, but we always burn em to be safe. Now you’ll see that you’re in the theater area (stage not screen). Go up to your right – hug the wall and head backstage and down into the pit, across and then up the ramp – stop before you get to the top. I’ll leave it here cause the next part leads into opera – however you wouldn’t stop a raid here normally. But this is getting long.

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Jan 30, 2008

Still figuring out blogs

I have to apologize for the length of my posts. I'm not smart enough yet to figure out how to do what BBB and the other bloggers do regarding linking these to pages all on their own. I'll keep at it and when I do manage to wrap my paws around the method I'll go back and clean everything up nice n neat.

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Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 2

Moroes the Steward

Moroes is a pain for beginning raiders because the fight is a real test of your ability to manage multiple targets under a tight deadline. Once you get the knack of it though, he’s not so tough. As a bit of lore, he was the personal servant to Medivh while the master mage ran the tower. Medivh was the son of one of the guardians who fought Saragas in ancient times and was born possessed by the villain – long story. Toward the later stages of his life Medivh cum Saragas killed off Moroes and the castle cook, named … Cook. They are buried outside near where you rez. NOTE: you have to kill Moroes or you cannot proceed to the Opera Event – he’s a required boss. Attumen isn’t, nor is the next boss the Maiden of Virtue.

First of all your raid should gather on the stairs near the door leading out of Kara. We usually group near the base of the second flight of stairs. Up ahead of you – which you can’t see – is a large dance hall with a mess of non-elite AOE packs and a few single elites as well as some smaller elite AOE packs. Off to the left is the banquet hall, to the right is a door leading to the prostitute’s quarters.

Get a rogue or cat to stealth up and start marking targets. The single elites will be patrolling around – mark them up first. Toss a mark on each of the nearest AOE packs as well – one mark for each pack.

Once everything is marked – specifically watch those patrolling elites, you can pull one of the nearest AOE non-elite packs to you. Pull them down the stairs and let your casters go to town. Focus heals on the cloth cannons so you don’t lose too many – we usually end up with at least one dead.

Now that you’ve cleared the annoying non-elites, start pulling the single pats as they come by – take your time – the respawn on this area is a lot longer than on the stable trash. Kill each, pull the next, rinse and repeat. Now you should have a clear field within about 30 yds of the top of the stairs. It’s not necessary to clear the room – just anything that might wander into your raid or that is near enough to aggro on them.

You have the option here of doing the next pulls 2 ways. What needs to happen is this. There’s a banquet hall off to the left of the top of the stairs and in it are several tables, each with a non-elite AOE pack. There’s also some wandering single mob, elite Stewards (waiters). Your choice is to have the raid remain on the stairs and have your tank pull them to you OR have the raid hug the left wall, bunch up in the corner at the immediate top left of the stairs and have your tank pull the mobs there.

I’ve done both and each has its plusses. I like the stairs best ‘cause it lets me see more, but you also get a scatter effect as well. At any rate – the mobs at the table and the patrolling elites all need to be cleared (one group at a time!) Once you clear the near portion of the banquet hall you can move the raid inside -- MAKE DAMN SURE NO ONE PULLS THE AOE ELITE PACK standing nearby in the dance hall. It’s all too easy to do and can cause a wipe.

As you enter the banquet area, there’s two elite mobs standing on the right wall – their counterparts are on the far left wall – leave them alone for now. Also – there’s a raised stage at the back wall (the boss is there with his buddies) and there’s a table on either side of the raised area – more non-elite AOE packs. And finally there’s a couple more elite single mobs patrolling the area between the long table and the two smaller ones. There is also something called a Brittle Bones debuff the patrolling mobs give out when attacked – make sure if your tank has it that he isn’t the one pulling the next mob – let the OT handle.

To clear the room you want to mark up the patrolling elites and the non-elite AOE packs at the small tables. Pull each individually and burn em down. Next pick on one set of the paired up elite mobs standing on the wall on either side of the room. Each tank takes 1 each – focus fire on one til it’s down then shit to the OT’s target. Healers watch VERY CLOSELY to the drunken debuff the tanks can get – it’ll screw them up bad if you don’t dispel it fast. I’ve seen a lot of raids wipe on these.

Now we come to the boss fight.

Moroes is a rogue – not that he isn’t likable but he has Vanish, Gouge, Blind and Garrote capabilities and wields two daggers. His friends are worse.

From Wowwiki: The Moroes encounter tests your raid's ability to control several targets while also maintaining high DPS. Success requires a solid control strategy for his four dinner guests. If allowed to go free, they will quickly put an end to the squishies. Control must be established immediately on the pull and maintained throughout the fight.

Once control is established, the encounter becomes a race between the raid's damage output and the building damage caused by Garrote. Each time a Garrote is applied, the strain on the healers increases. Moroes must die before the healing needed becomes too much to handle. (interpretation – healers need big mana pools)

In fact – so this doesn’t get too long just go read the strategy page at WoWwiki that I linked at the top. About the only thing I’ve done on this fight that is different is changing up tank roles. New raids will want to have both tanks on the boss at all times – since either can be stunned or blinded and will lose aggro for a second or two – dispel the affects when you can and it should go smooth. We usually have the MT pull the boss and both MT and OT gank him while keeping him on the right wall of the room. You’ll want one of your melee nearby because both tanks can be stunned/blinded – doesn’t happen a lot but it does happen. Keep a melee near so Moroes doesn’t go for a healer.

The casters need to go down fast – esp the Spriest if she’s there – her mana burn can wipe your raid. A good rule here is to shackle/trap/sheep all but one of the adds, leave a priority cloth target out and have your melee and ranged DPS burn the add down. Recast your shackles and other CC every 10 secs (or chain trap/kite) or so to keep them locked up. Then take the next that doesn’t need a tank. Keep anything CC’d that might require a tank to kill. You should be able to burn 2 mobs, leave the others CC’d and turn ALL DPS on Moroes, healers are gonna get a work out if you dilly dally around due to the garrote ability – they basically have to heal through it. Shammy healers can mitigate this threat nicely with chain heal, but any good healer can make it happen. Pallys can BoP someone out of it – Divine Shield themselves if needed.

Once the boss is down get the raid out of the room and back on the stairs ASAP (without pulling the dance hall mobs) and let the tanks break CC and kite the adds to the door – no need to kill them, they will reset if pulled to the door. Once they do go get your loot. And get your fannies back on the stairs outside.


The alternate way I’ve done this fight was to have a single tank on Moroes and let the other tank the un-CC’d adds one at a time. This is an okay way of doing it – the non-boss tank needs a few shots on the boss to register on the threat meter – but it’s more risky if your tanks are less than ideally geared. I do like the method though because you can use a tank to bash the cloth around and that helps protect the raid. Just remember – the longer the boss is up, the more dmg your healers have to deal with due to Garrote.

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Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 1b

Ok – as important as some of that long-assed post on starting out is, lets move to the first real boss in KZ. Attumen the Huntsman. I’m skipping the animal bosses but you don’t have to. The only reason I skip these is that I’ve never done them. The raids I’ve joined skip these and I’ve been told the animal bosses give little in the way of rep or rewards. However I do know they are meant as a gearing, coordination tool for beginner raiders.

As you get in and gather in the courtyard, get your buffs up – mage table up. lock cookies have been handed out, stam food, raid buffs stack and your MT and OT get into position while the raid leader starts marking targets and announces the kill orders and CC icons. The horses aren’t that hard, but you should focus fire on them (all DPS on targets in a pre-determined kill order) until they are down. Let your priest shackle one as CC to help with that. You can also have your hunter toss out a trap to hold one for a few secs. If anything breaks off CC it again or one of the tanks will need to pick it up. Horses will often charge the ranged casters/DPS so it’s important that two things happen on the first few horse pulls.

First is your tanks need to bring the pulls into the main room, away from the hall (cause there’s a pat that comes by). The other thing is that you can mitigate the charges by grouping closer together – don’t let your hunter stand off by the door and lob shots in – or he’ll pull the horse across the room, wasting valuable tank rage and threat.

The trash leading up to the boss will respawn faster than most of the trash in KZ, you have a very short amount of time, I think 20 mins. So no afk breaks until after the first boss.

Yeah, 20 mins sounds like a long time but it isn’t. I’ve seen new raids miss this and have to go back and re-clear EVERYTHING – if you start the boss fight without doing so, anything alive in the hall will come up behind you and give you a big ole sloppy kiss. Once you start the boss fight the trash will not spawn while you’re engaged. Wipe and it’s a different story.

When you get the pull order down (basically take groups one at a time and use your CC when you can, try not to pull pats with other groups and when you get to the bigger room, pull the nearside first (right side)). Then pull the two left side mobs, then the 5-pull mob standing just outside Midnight’s stall. Once you clear this trash you see Midnight standing in the stable. She’s yellow until attacked.

As the first and easiest boss in Karazhan, Attumen is considered a gear check for those who wish to move further in. He’s optional; it is not necessary to kill him in order to progress to the later bosses.

As a bear OT my job is to tank Midnight. (I know Paly tanks that can tank both simultaneously as well, you just need to make sure the raid watches threat) You really want a warrior to tank Attumen if you can – simply for the disarm ability. At 95% dmg on the horse,. Attumen comes out to kick your raid’s butt for messing with his pony. Your MT picks him up, a hunter can toss a misdirect up on the MT as well. This is Phase 2. When the horse OR Att get to 25% health Att jumps up on his horse and Phase 3 starts. All DPS needs to stop here and the MT takes over both targets – which are now just the one.

Let your tank get Attumen’s attention and to also turn him so his back is to the raid. Now we hit a KEY POINT. The entire raid has to scooch up and sit at minimum range on the horse’s rear end. Why? Because Attumen gets the Beserker Charge ability in Phase 3 and if you have people spread out he’ll leave the tank and charge across the room. Keeping your raid bunched tight on his horse’s rear mitigates his charge, and won’t leave the tank to twiddle his thumbs.

Attumen actually goes down pretty easily and drops a few nice items. Once Attumen is down, clear the mobs near Koren the Blacksmith. He is required for quests, and your raiders who have at least Honored reputation with the Violet Eye can use him to repair and purchase Blacksmithing recipes. You don’t need to fully clear the trash at the end of the room Koren is in – just don’t let anyone wander over there.

Grtz! You’ve downed your first KZ boss and the trash around him. Now quit lollygaggin and git yer butts back into the entry hall and UP ON THOSE STAIRS!

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Thoughts and musings on Kara – part 1a

I posted the other day that if anyone wanted to hear my thoughts on instances or bosses from a bear’s point of view (or a hunter’s) that I’d happily share them. Well readers, Mosshoof graciously accepted my poor offer and asked if I would do so since his raid is just getting underway in Kara. Feel free to correct me or add to the general discussion at will.

Now, not that Moss or his raid need this, but by way of introduction to raiding in general I’ll begin with a short intro to raids, pugs, specs, gear and then move later into the first couple of bosses in KZ.

First of all I’d like to touch on Pick up Groups aka pugs. When I hit 70 on my hunter and spent some time getting attuned to KZ I thought I was the cat's ass. “Oh yeah,” I thought. “All I have to do now is find a team.”

Not so, super trooper. There were a lot of aspects [pun intended] I hadn’t considered and the most important ones were ability and gear. KZ is not hard … IF you know what you’re doing and IF you have the goods to wear.

For any class there’s a threshold you need to reach to really be considered a beginner in KZ. You can find this in a nifty format over at TenTonHammer –
Karazhan Minimum Requirements. I don't agree with everything on that list, but it's a nice general guide.

You can use this in conjunction with www.wow-loot.com to gear up your character. There are also lots of gear/gem/enchant guides for particular classes as well. In researching my bear gear I found several pre-raid gear guides. Not all were helpful but it put me on the right track.

As a hunter I chose
BeastMastery, which wasn’t a great spec until 2.3 hit – you see a lot more BM hunters now. I picked up the Beastlord armor set (dungeon set 3a). and worked on getting rid of my greens. (with some exceptions greens really shouldn’t be worn in KZ – work on getting a good blue item or matching set for every item you own)

As a bear I loved being on the front lines taking a beating or sneaking up blasting mobs with my pounce ability. So that lead me to the Heavy Clefthoof crafted set and a mess of little items that boosted my stamina and threat generation.

Since I was slotted as the Off Tank - OT - I also made sure I had at least a decent set of cat gear, since not every pull was going to require me to tank.

Communications
Some other things to consider as a new raider: get
Ventrilo or Teamspeak – both are vast improvements over the in-game version of voice chat. You’ll also find most raids will require Vent or TS. However, due to your hardware or cost, you may not have the option. If you don’t then very tight control of voice chat is required. If using in-game, I’d mute the non-key slots (not the tank or MH) until you get into a groove.

The ability to listen in is more important that getting a mic, but if you’re playing an integral part talking is essential. As a beginning hunter I just listened at first, but I got a mic soon after and it’s only helped my performance.

Lastly, make sure you have a viable raid spec. There lots of specs to chose from, but ask around among your friends, check out a few web sites and search the forums a bit. You should find enough to point you in the right direction. If you get it wrong, don’t be afraid to listen to someone’s comments on it.

When I first started raiding on my hunter I wasn't the cat's ass, I was a complete dumbass – thing is, I didn’t know how much I didn’t know (if you follow my meaning). I actually thought I was well situated and geared. My raid leader approached me quietly and said, “Hey, not to tell you what to do, but have you considered changing your spec?” It was a really nice way for him to let me know that I could be doing better on the DPS charts and he even shared a couple of examples.


My advice to you is, “Don’t scorn advice,” even if it’s sometimes put to you poorly.

So, why the big lead in? Why all the stuff about what to start as, gear, spec, et. al. ad nauseum?

Because the very first thing I’m gonna do when you list yourself in LFG for Kara (or PST me) is to use
Armory to see if you know what you're doing. I'll be checking what you are wearing and what your stats are and I may ask questions. I’m not sure if all raids do this but in my experience if they don’t know you they probably will look you up.

I’ve also learned that when listing myself in LFG (even for 5-mans) to use the comment bar – that saves time and gets you noticed faster. Example: Feral tank, half Kara gear, 16k HP, 24k AC, 35% dodge unbuffed. These are your bona fides - your proof that you have been to see the elephant and returned to tell the tale.

Add-ons
If you don’t run with add-ons, you should probably get at least a couple. As a raid assist I run BigWigs and Deadly Boss in case my raid leader DC’s in a fight. Both can be found over at
Curse These have built in timers for boss fights and give a shout out to the raid as to what’s coming next. You might want to simply download WowAce2 and use that to auto update all your addons.

Omen is a great one for anyone really. It’s a threat meter and it pops a small window on your screen that shows who has threat and at what rate they gain or lose it on a given target. That’s practically a must when raiding. It lets your raid know when they need to bump up or back off aggro.

Class play
You ought to know your class well. As a BM hunter this meant learning which pet to tame, chain trapping as a means of CC (admittedly a weaker one), shot rotations and mana conservation for long fights. As a bear it meant learning how to generate the most threat I could so my raid wasn’t pulling aggro on me, and my targets weren’t skipping off to grind our healers into tiny bear snacks.

Finally
One last word for you. If you are going to use this guide and look for a PuG spot, make sure you approach prospective raids with your hat in hand. Even well geared and experienced raiders will often PuG a group for various reasons, but the best ones realize they aren’t in charge. Well, you aren’t either. Don’t be telling the raid leader how to do certain pulls and under NO circumstances tell them Agro told you it was okay – cause it AIN’T! Raid leaders have a lot going on – don’t add to their stress or you will likely get /kicked. At the very least you won’t get invited back.

Good rules to follow:
Shut yer pie hole – No one needs to hear you joking, if you PuG you don’t know these people, so just watch and learn and do your job. Even if you aren't, inane chatter is annoying.
Don’t be a loot hog – if the raid says it’s open rolls – then take your shot if you NEED something, but don’t roll on something that will benefit you 1% when it would benefit someone else 30%. Learn to share.

No Whining – as BBB himself put it, there's no crying in Kara. You don't like it? Don't run with them again. (the corollary to this is that a good raid won't abuse you either - watch your ass, do your job, alter your play to suit the raid's needs and you should be fine.)
Come prepared – bring mana/health pots/ flasks/food/pet food/ bandages/bullets etc don’t beg for stuff. And be prepared to shell out gold for repairs too.


A raid is a team - be a team player, put the TEAM before yourself - especially if it's YOUR team.

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Jan 29, 2008

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in!


Get this friends n readers. Our main tank is apparently coming back.

When our guild leader told me this last night I was floored … stunned … flabbergasted.

But yea, apparently she heard through the grapevine that we booted the raid leader who caused the drama and that since we’ve been doing really well. I haven’t talked with her yet so I guess I am only going on third party scuttlebutt here, but … interesting at any rate.

I think that while last night’s performance showed the entire raid that even a good tank can be replaced and we won’t suffer horribly, I won’t be sad to see her return. It means our progression can return to normal and with the tank who’s been subbing in I think we might be able to pull off a second Kara team sooner than we’d anticipated. So instead of looking down the road at Gruul’s in a month or two, we might be looking at it a bit sooner – if we can coordinate things appropriately.

But I have to say, I still have that little thought in the back of my mind and at the moment – it’s growing, not fading. She went to a guild I recommended her to, I gave her my endorsement and then she apparently traded accounts with a friend. Very quietly I had a chat with the guild leader over there. He had put her in charge of one of their Kara runs and when the “switch” happened I talked it over with him to let him know the person I recommended wasn’t the person he got. Now she’s coming back and ditching them?

I have mixed feelings on this. I’m concerned our drama factor will increase, I’m thrilled she’s coming back, I’m wondering what she’ll tell her other raid. Will my guild leader buddy hold this against me? Ugh, so many questions.

In a number of ways it might be best if she stuck it out there. I think she’d be happier. We closed the books on drama finally and the prospect of it returning doesn't excite me. Yes, I’m very happy we have our tank back, but after last night we know we can live without her too.

No offense to her, I really do like her and any good tank is worth their weight in gold, but I have to ask myself, is there a potential for the emo to return?

Time will tell. But the upside is - I get my friend back - so I guess I win one way in the end.

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Veni, vidi, vici



(a famous Latin sentence spoken by Julius Caesar in 47 BC)

The quote is an old favorite and is well suited as a description for the events of last night’s Kara Clean Up Run. We rocked! I main tanked all the hard stuff, Prince, Nether, Night etc. It was my first time and I didn't let anyone down! I'm psyched.

I even ended up pulling in some decent cat gear for a change. About all I need now are my boots and my T4 hat and I can easily pug Gruuls or Mags. Honestly, I had my doubts about last night. I even voiced them in officer chat early just to let people know I didn’t want to put the raid at risk.

But my worries were groundless. As main tank I felt I gave an excellent performance. Not flawless, but still exceptional for one who’s never been MT on a raid. And yea, I’m done tooting my own horn now. I have some things to work on as well. One of the issues I have is getting the pulls confused between my raids. My hunter’s raid leader does things a bit differently and I’ve run more with them, so every once in a while I’ll do something other than what my group expects - last night I caused a wipe doing so – ouch. (Sorry all).

But learning is learning and the wipe was on trash, not a boss. So thanks for putting up with my learning curve guys n gals.

[Edit: Actually I was reminded that I caused 2 wipes and one was on Nightbane. I ended up moving and calling the raid to me during the rain of bones (something my hunter's raid does to mitigate damage to the clothies) it was messy and I apologized, but we picked it up next run through]

I know a lot of people who keep blogs tend to describe certain fights or different tactics. I tend not to do this simply because I’m not anything special in this game. My perspective is that if I can’t add to the common knowledge, why write about it?

So many of you have done Kara and are far beyond it now that my blogging about my tactics doesn’t seem particularly helpful (since there is a lot of material about the experiences from more seasoned players than myself). However, should anyone wish it, I have in my head the basic outline of a series of blogs on how to take on certain instances or bosses – from the perspective of both a tank, and ranged DPS hunter.

Respond in the comments section if there’s anyone who’d find value in this – otherwise I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.


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Jan 28, 2008

Clearing up the last of the mess.

In reading over my last week’s posts I realized I’d undergone a slight be definitive shift in terms of where my head was in this guild drama. I’d gone from standing outside it to taking an active role in resolving it.

While I made some statements here that may seem incongruous, I think they reflect a more subtle change of heart.

When I wrote that the raid leader was ruining my fun, I was angry and disappointed that I’d let someone else mess with my game time. When I heard about the troubles he was causing other people I realized he was ruining it for others as well. What really made me angry I think was that he was doing so deliberately – in an effort to bolster his own self esteem – “I’m leet – yur not.”

Sorta like the, “If I hate so and so then you should too.. my way is the only way or I’ll go and pout.” Which is sorta what he did. He took his ball and went home, so to speak.

I actually did have a chance to talk to him the other day. We were all on vent chatting about this and some other non-related stuff when he logged on. He got into the whole thing almost right away and began spouting his nonsense again. Well she shouldn’t have lied (attempt to justify) wasn’t really a girl and I know it (attempt to collude and justify). That bad thing that happened to her didn’t happen, etc

This went on for a bit and I could feel myself getting more upset. I was about to log when one of the others on vent said, “Agro said she was a girl, said he spoke to her and that she was on vent with him frequently.” (mostly true, a few times, nothing I'd call frequent)

I confirmed that the person I’d spoken to was a girl. I followed it up truth being a relative thing, that you can’t know one way or the other if a given bad thing happened or not and that it would have been better for everyone had the mean things simply not been said. He tried to shift his agrument back to the points about belief, and I countered with - "well, what good came of your 'disbelief? She's gone, we're now 4 weeks behind on progression and you aren't with us - so how did your comments to her "Help" us?' I added that truth didn't matter, since there's no way someone would know unless you knew them IRL - so what did it matter?

I think he had to admit that not only was I right, I could tell he had trouble swallowing that bit of crow, but that many of the people listening to us probably agreed with me – even if you didn’t believe her you didn’t have to make her so mad that she quit, or kick her out for doing what you yourself did. I also tried to reason with him in such a way that I didn't look like I was publicly berating him - just showing him I could disagree calmly and rationally, using logic skills. Eh, I'm not that smart, but I can act like the Old Bear of the Woods on occaion - I hope I did the right thing here.

Good lessons here for all.

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Outlands again!

Woot, I got my 3rd toon to the outlands this weekend. Osrik the Level 58.6 frost mage (yea I respec'd) made his triumphant arrival at Honor Hold on Friday evening.

And in doing so he ran completely out of rested XP ... so sad. But fear not! Thorney the pally tank has taken up the mantle of duty and is currently busting a hump in Un'Goro so he can be the leveler on days when Os runs dry on rested. I think we did this backwards. I should have grabbed my pally first since my leveling buddy is a shadow priest. that mana regen woulda been sweet!. She's got her 51 warrior going with me now and I'm sorta half-assed thinking I'll switch from pally to lock, just because of the mana issues. But I think we can catch them up and then we'll see what we can see.

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Laying down the paw



Ok friends n neighbors – long post ahead.

This old bear still has some bite left and this weekend my raid discovered the hard way that I’d had enough nonsense. I logged in on Friday for our KZ run and ran into the guild leader who asked if I knew any of the backstory to our losing our main tank.

For a quick update I’ll add in something I hadn’t yet shared. Our main tank had been through hell AND high water and came out the other side as one would expect. So great was the drama that on Thursday night she apparently decided she’d had enough and traded her account with a friend and returned to her old PvP server. Don't know if we'll ever see her again.

Now I wasn’t the first bear on the mountain, but I’m not stupid either. This whole thing smells like old trout and I have some thoughts on how a bear can deal, but we’ll go into that later.

My immediate concern on Friday was to force the issue of resolution. I had a quick chat with the guild leader and very simply said, “This isn’t fun. Either we lose the emo or I’m going to ask that you find someone to replace me immediately.”

The GL agreed and we got our group together quickly, minus the raid leader who was one of the prime sources for the drama. The regulars got into private vent after I and the GL chatted. We explained that our main tank was gone, described without detail some of the reasons for her decision and left it at that. We got a newer tank to pug with us, someone a few of us knew as being reliable but without the best gear. I OT’d most of the raid and while we went slower than normal, we one-shotted up to curator. We plan to head back tonight and clean the rest up, Prince, Nightbane and the rest. I will likely be main tanking tonight – my first go at it – wish me luck.

When I spoke to the guild leader about our raid leader’s actions that fostered this nonsense, I simply said, I don’t know him, I don’t have any bad feelings about him, he seems to be a nice enough guy, but I don’t really care. His actions to date have left us in a shambles while he’s off in SSC/TK and that isn’t fair to this group. Further, there’s no fun left – so let’s change it or break up the group.

Results
The raid leader isn’t coming back, and we’ve told everyone that we aren’t interested in hearing about the newest movie or newest love, even while we’re clearing trash. We aren’t putting up with BS any more and that’s pretty much that. Friday went slow, but vent was clear, people were focused and everyone said things went so much nicer than before.

Now for a bear’s thoughts. Our MT supposedly left our server and went back to her old one, giving her T4 tank to someone she knew. Apparently she’d only been here because of her now ex-bf. I can see some of that, but I know she was well liked and I have a hard time imagining someone giving up a character as well geared as she has become. But as I told the rest of the people who asked me, I am not smart enough to know when someone is lying to me. So I presume everyone is telling the truth. What gain could she have in leaving the entire server this way? And to do so because of ONE PERSON? What possible motive could drive a person to make up such outlandish stories? No, I don’t believe that and I took her at her word.

And another thing, there's never a good reason to be rude or deliberately mean to someone. Even if you think they are lying to you, just don't play with them anymore. But to make a federal case out of such things is really childish, and you run the risk that IF a person is telling the truth that you really hurt someone's feelings. Our tank told us what was going on, sometimes a little TMI, but to challenge her statements would have been akin to telling a woman she didn't get molested. In other words, it cannot be said. For those of you out in the world who don't know this, there ARE some things that can't be taken back. There are some things once done that can't be un-done. So even if you think you're being had, walking away is always a safer option than starting a pissing match. At least you look more mature.

But yes, for those of you wondering, there is a little tiny corner of my mind that wonders if I am self-delusional about her statements and whether or not I should care. Right now I don’t care and am not going to think on it - time will usually tell in things like this.

I do know one thing though, I’ll miss playing with her.

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Jan 25, 2008

Soo close now



Os is finally within striking distance today. He’s a hair shy of 57 and has the whole of Silithius and Winterspring open to him. Fire spec rocks in snowbound regions – I totally love it.

The emo over at my bear’s guild is threatening to blow the roof off. I think we may be in for a house cleaning (or wrecking) tonight. I’m due to hit the server for our weekly KZ raid by 4:30 and I can anticipate that it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Last night our former MT buzzed me – we’re actually becoming good friends – to say that the raid leader over there was pulling the harassment routine on her for leaving our disintegrating guild. She had even offered to continue on as MT until we found one to replace her.

Bear in mind now that this raid leader left the guild and expected to still be the raid leader – friend of a friend of the GL sorta thing. And yeah, I cringed the first time I heard that too but by then the guild was dying so I said nothing.

Anyway, Mr. I'm20andGirlTanksEmasculateMe called her a liar, a cheat and a few other worse things (she told me what he said - blech, guys shouldn't talk to girls that way). When I logged in on my bear I had several notes from the guild’s officers waiting for me – I’m not sure what they hope to accomplish but they wanna talk tonight. I have to say that my recommendation tonight will be to call this raid and disband the guild. Rarely have I seen such venom in a game.

The notes were mostly asking me to step in, or get into a convo with them – I have enough stress at work, if it weren’t so sad I’d be laughing at the incompetence I’ve seen on display here. At the very least I'm not raiding with this kid anymore - his obnoxious, childish narcissism has all but ruined the experience for me. If we run with him tonight I'll have to go along one last time. The demands of honor require nothing less than a full effort - but I'll let them know I'm not coming back - for unspecified reasons - there's almost no point in even trying to discuss this - it's a hole without a bottom.

Oh, one final note for you soap opera hounds – I noticed today in my morning perusal of the WoW forums, all but one of the officers has an ad up on the realm forums looking for a new group/raid. – most of them posted 2-3 weeks ago….

Gosh, I sure hate burning bridges but there seems to be a serious double standard here.

On the good side I am working my pally again. I’m taking a serious look at bringing him up to 58 when I finally run outta rested on my mage. At the very least I can get some decent work done in alchemy.

I’ll let ya know how the emo goes, it should be good for a cringe or mebbe a laugh or three.


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Jan 24, 2008

Grinding to Hellfire

I hit 56 on my magus last night. Tiny little gnomes are fun to play. Not sure I’ll be taking anything else into raiding. I am enjoying the raids on my funter – (yea I said funter – that’s Fun+hunter – and I’m not a tard either) – but in truth, raiding is overrated. It’s fun with the right group, but there’s a ton of effort involved and it’s very time consuming. I’m planning on getting what I need to get on each toon as it approaches 70, tailoring my leveling experience so that each is essentially prepared to go nearly anywhere at a moment’s notice and then leave it at that.

The raid guild my bear is in lost yet another 2 people. Down to 24 now so we’ll have to wait and see if it stabilizes any time soon. The last to go was our main tank for KZ. She’s starting a diff kara group this week so adios darling and good luck! I know you’ll do really well for them.

I’m not in the least bit sad either. I’m happy for her and I have lost faith in our own group so if we can’t field a group this week I’m cool with that idea. That gives me more time to level my mage Osrik, anyway.

In the rush to gear up and run a raid, I’d completely forgotten how much fun I’d had leveling my alts. Yes, I know a lot of you are probably scratchin yer noggins right now but I have to admit – I do like the questing.

Sure Un’Goro is a pain, as is running all over hell and gone on stupid errands, but when you get those quests done, there’s a definite sense of accomplishment.

My current goal is to get Os to 58 and head him into the outlands. Once there I’ll backtrack and bring up my pally or my lock. I’d like to get 2 above 58 so I have some options when it comes to rested xp and instances.

Frankly – I‘d also love to be able to say I leveled 2 toons together. Sure it’ll take longer but I think it would be fun too.

My leveling buddy Cam hit 57 and is within striking dist of the Outlands. I’m sure she’ll hit it today or tomorrow. She’s outta rested XP tho so I think she’s thinking about parking Cam for a bit and working on alts as well. We cleared Un’Goro yesterday and have most of Winterspring and all of Silithius to do yet. Neither of us has even ventured up to WPL or EPL yet either so we have a lot of options open to us at the moment. Silithius is boring for me – I don’t mind Tanaris and the desert setting, but Sil is just – ugh. Maybe it’s the bugs.

I know a lot of people don’t like Winterspring either, but I do. Maybe that’s one of the effects of growing up on the tundra but the setting is fun and the quests are okay too.

WPL/EPL – I can take them or leave them. It’s nice to grind through a lot of stuff there. You can definitely get a lot done in a hurry with a partner, but it’s depressing – sorta like the high-end version of Duskwood. It’s a bit gloomy for me.

Oh, I suppose Azshara is left for us yet as well. That’s an odd place – sorta all out in the open. The colors are strange too. It’s nice if you wanna be left alone though, there usually aren’t too many others out that way so you can get a lot done if you stay focused, but my pref is Winterspring and prob WPL. We’ll see how long it takes me.

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Jan 22, 2008

Cheer for the little squeezer

My cub turns 1 today - so my head hasn't been on WoW or work much - it's a big deal. I should post a picture but I'm never sure if anyone else thinks he's as cool as I do and I hate being intrusive.

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Emo update

I feel obligated to post a quick update on some things. I’ve said in the past I’m a member of 2 guilds. I’m an officer in a quiet casual guild and I have a bear tank – for which this blog is named – in a newish raid guild.

I also said I’d been promoted to officer in the raid guild – which on further investigation I discovered isn’t really true. I was promoted to Veteran – which is a step short of officer, although I can see officer chat and have a lot of the same privileges – so I’m not really sure where I stand and for now I’m not asking since its kind of a moot point. Since the big melt down last week we dropped to 25 members. That’s down from 60. I forgot to look last night so it may be plus or minus that now – still not sure what’s going to happen there.

I feel like the unofficial chronicler of events so I suppose I’ll hang ‘til the end and provide an update on the official Time of Death. I really wonder if we’ll manage to field a regular KZ run this week. KZ 2 is down – probably for good.

That’s is from the bubbling slag pit of guild emo – I’ll let you know if anything else pops up.

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Shifting gears


Since I’ve been all but swamped in theatrics for the last week I am taking a pass at doing much of anything with my druid this week. I did manage to farm up a few hundred fel iron ore so I could make my flying machine last night, but over a few days that didn’t amount to a lot of time.

Instead I worked on one of my various alts. I am currently sitting on 4 that are above 50 and a shadow priest who’s at 44. The list includes a fire mage at 53, a tankadin at 52, a demo-lock at 51 and a fury warrior, also at 51.

Last night I broke out my mage and went questing with my long-time questing buddy Cambrai, a 55 Spriest. Cam’s main is a 70 hunter and we’ve been playing MMORPGs together since City of Heroes came out a couple of years ago. She’s a co-officer in my casual guild and her son is the GM – eh – it works for us. Cam and I have leveled 2 toons each to 70, mostly together, though her main, Opharion (lvl 70 funter), was a level 60 when I started WoW.

Osrik, lvl 53 fire mage: What fun. I love melting stuff and blasting things outta my way. We are currently in Un’Goro and as big a pain as that is, I fully expect to hit 55 there within the week. I’m dropping out of a lot of other things this week in order to level my mage to Outlands so I can hang with Cam again. My raid schedule got so hectic that we’ve not had a lot of time together since I joined the new raid guild. I fully anticipate dropping raiding on Ag for a while as the other guild I run him in disintegrates – the way things are going, probably within a week or two I think I’ll be done with that guild and if that happens and our regular kara raid folds, I’ll park him for a while or maybe pug a kara once in a while.

Un’goro Crater, as many of you know, is home to lots of annoying ‘gather’ quests. So we’ve been spending our time whacking bloodpetals and dodging the giant T-Rex critters. At some point I’ll need to jump on Ag again to make up some mithril casings for the ape escort quest but for now we’re having a good (if repetitive) time crashin through all the fun stuff there.

As soon as I hit 55 we’ll bust a hump up to WPL and clear that, then cross into EPL and hammer out some Argent Dawn rep. I’ll probably need to head back to Felwood and finish those as well. I’m sure somewhere in there we’ll need to find a few dungeon runs, or maybe get someone from the guild to lend a hand.

One lament I have as a mage, I do sorta get tired of the constant requests for ports and conjured items. I really wouldn’t mind if the people asking were kind about it, or if they tipped, (reagents aren’t free ya know). But some of the requests are more like demands, demands that go unanswered for the most part. My M.O. has always been to show up for whatever prepared. Bring food, water, Band-Aids, bullets etc. Expecting someone else to provide for you is sorta needy and holds up the group.

I’ve taken to hiding out of plain sight at whatever area I’m currently in. I’m sure all mages have the same lament and I am probably spoiled since I’ve never had a toon that had so much to offer to other players. I’m hoping Cam can be around tonight as well, I’m looking forward to grinding out Un’goro and getting it over with.

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Jan 21, 2008

Add-on feature

With all the nonsense of guild drama raising it’s head last week I’ve decided to move on to greener pastures in terms of topics. There’s only so much to be learned from watching a guild self destruct.

So, in the spirit of helping out my fellow players I’d like to highlight something you may have missed. There’s a blog called The Khorium Toolbox that looks suspiciously like my own (except he’s been around longer) and last week WoWInsider highlighted a nifty post regarding Cartographer, a mapping add on for WoW.

Cartographer is a neat way to replace your world map with something that has a number of extras that don’t come with Blizz’s UI. I used to use Cosmos’ AlphaMap, and in fact I still have it loaded while I test out Cartographer. But I’m quickly becoming a convert.

The piece focused on Cartographer Routes – a small section of the module that allows you to plot, in a visible format, a patrol route for your gathering needs. Need to find Fel Iron? Use CR to plot your trek through Hellfire. Couple that with the Track Minerals option for miners and you’ll get not only small icons on your minimap that show deposits, but small circles that show where they can spawn, much like Gatherer does. But, and this is a big but, you can also get an optimized path showing you the best way to fly/run along a route. I installed this over the weekend and spent most of Sunday mining Thorium in EPL – I cleared 150 ore in about 2 hours that way.

So friends – go check it out, this guy has the smarts this bear doesn’t!

The Khorium Toolbox

WowInsider story on Cartographer Routes

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Jan 18, 2008

Theater 101 (redux)

I had a post called Theater 101 up here a bit ago and I’ve decided to pull it – I think I am letting the guild emo affect me too much so I’ll pull it for now and see how I feel about it in a day or three.

Suffice it to say that guild emo raised its ugly head last night and it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with it since joining WoW – remember I’m a noob and I have been a lucky one at that.

The end result of all the emo is that a couple of people left – one gquit without notice and later, one of the guild officers told me we might fold. Dumbfounded all I could do was frame a request that the officers immediately begin discussing this so they can come up with a unified announcement for the guild’s general members. I mean – we’ve been recruiting for a while now and some of these new 70s are well geared and came based on the rep of some of our leadership – if we’re folding common courtesy would demand an immediate response.

It seems only fair they get the skinny on what’s happening. As for me, I was promoted to officer last night – somewhat unannounced (and unknown to me – I found out when I noticed I could see officer chat) and sort of at a bad time. I got clued into a conversation I’d rather have skipped. I don’t think the people discussing realized I was seeing their stuff either – I logged to save face and feelings just in case.

Guild emo is a shame. While these folks have some great qualities, they are of an age, and that age is slightly under experienced when it comes to handling delicate social situations I think. Not that they can’t get along or that they are in any way poorly adapted to work through them, I think it has more to do with experience at learning how to handle themselves and others in such situations. That’s not an easy thing to learn, in fact I’m not all that great at it either, but I’ve had some exp with this and I know what I’m seeing when it happens. I also know a few ways to get around it. The one thing I never learned was how to address these without sounding like my grandmother or a gruff old platoon sergeant - neither of which would work in such cases.

In fact, I’d rather just be a solider. I was a sergeant for many years and I never made it higher than leading a group of about 20 or 30 people. And all I was ever responsible for was their care and well being, making them get to places on time, with food and water and the necessaries. I was never a logistics planner and I never wanted to be the guy who wrote the orders, I’d rather be on the team that carries them out.

It may very well be that I’ll be forced into moving again. It sorta sounds like several of the guild’s officers are considering leaving for better, more established guilds – if that happens I’ll land on my paws, but it would sure have been nice to know that last week.

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Theater 101

This one has been moved off the main page for now. see the one proceeding it.

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Jan 17, 2008

Shiny

I got my new shinies last night - +35 agil to my 2-hander, all decked out in all kinds of enchants etc.

And, thanks to BBB for some of his archival posts on daily quests, I should be able to replace the dent in my gold supply fairly soon. I'd only been doing a few of the dailies -the cooking BG and Skettis quests - now I'm heading to Ogri'la and will try to max my dailies.

Kara this week should be interesting with all the new stuff. We're starting Gruul's soon too, but the guild wants to run on Sat night, which I can't and won't do. we raid on Friday, Sat and Sun nights - often going all night on Fridays and Saturdays. That's too much - I need time with my cub - who turns 1 next week btw. So, sorry all, no Gruul's updates from me, but KZ should be fun.

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Jan 16, 2008

Bear's (buyer's) remorse

I mentioned in my last post that I had transferred my lvl 70 bear tank alt to a new raid guild, run by old school raiders. Everything else I own including my main officer/hunter is in a casual, friends ‘n family guild – one I still think of as home.

Now I firmly believe we all go through something called buyer’s remorse whenever we make a big change or spend a LOT of cash. Like when you buy a car or a house. There’s always a period when you think to yourself in the small wee hours of the night, ‘omgwhatdidIdo!’

That’s natural. At least I think it is. And I’m having those … okay – let’s make this perfectly clear … I don’t have “feelings,” (blech). But I’d say I’ve been thinking about that lately.

The guild I joined was formed from pre-burning crusade raiders – the people who spent 100 hours a week on the game, those who had no lives but BWL and Naxx. I can relate but I do have a life outside WoW. (I do so have a life outside this game and all you people who know me, SHUT IT!).

I sorta know what those ‘omg’ ppl go through ‘cause I think that about the new guild. I'm not unhappy, but I'd say the shine came off that gold coin within the first week. They have some great people, fun to talk to, access to vent (so much nicer than in-game chat), will have a very nice web page for resources and scheduling etc. I said just a moment ago it's stocked with old school raiders, which is true, but I probably should have said old middle-school or maybe old high-school in relation to my idea of "old school."

Now that's no dig on them, it really isn't - young they may be (I think the avg age is 20-22) they aren't noobs. But I'm over 40 and one of the sad facts of older GenX'ers who game is ... we have to get used to playing with ppl who could be our kids – no lie bud. I have a buddy who hits Halo3 hard every weekend – he’s 53 and does IT troubleshooting for stratosphere execs at one of the largest insurance companies in the world.

What's that mean the GenX compatibility thing? Meh, it means I see in them things I've been through already. The over anxiousness, the awkwardness of youth, the overzealousness of new relationships, the overstating the virtues of a game or car or brand of pizza - all the rambunctious BS of youth. It's not unpleastant, it's just ... old news ... to me anyway.

But all in all, they are cool. And even though they aren't noobs, they are wet behind the ears in lots of other ways - and that to me is almost as much fun as the game itself. That probably sounds odd but the way I see it is this, I came into this group as "the noob" at least to their thinking. And as far as the game goes, they know more than me .. but life is a game worth playing too and my progession through that game exceeds theirs.


So while I'm listening to the saga of my 20-something raid leader's hour-long gush to a recent 5-man guild group about how beautiful, warm, sensitive and good smelling his new 18-year-old beau is, all that went through my head in no particular order was – Daayuum!; gratz on hittin that!; Ugh, PLEASE STOP TALKING!; make sure you get her HIV test results; get her to sign the pre-nup; and while you're at it, get a gander at her mom 'cause you know that'll be her in 10 years....

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Jan 10, 2008

I dood it

After a bit of hemming and hawing I finally made up my mind. I moved my druid to a new raid guild, staffed by people who seemed to have been around long enough to see the proverbial elephant.

So if you come looking for me I'll be in Absolution. So far the guild is small - 30 people or so, which I like a lot. But I don't know more than a half dozen of them. All in all they seem like nice folks though. One or two are a bit young for me - early 20s, but there's plenty of old salty bears like myself so it's a nice mix.

We're in the process of getting a second kara team off the ground -so far we have 70% for that and they are running on Sunday's with PuGs in the open spots.

I'd like to comment on moving guilds. It's probably not a wise choice to move a lot - I know some of the more serious ones look at your history and frankly - it's sometimes harder getting into one of those than it is to find a IRL job. I'm sure they have their reasons and they are good at what they do, but I tend more toward the less bossy side of things. I'm a paranoid at heart, but I'm old enough to let other people make their own foolish decisions too. If someone creates a problem that's the time to deal with it - not before. Otherwise you look like a bunch of stormtroopers.

I'm not German - (I'm actually Irish/Austrian - so yes, I can drink beer AND plan a military campaign)
so I tend to shy away from bossing people around - it's hard, sometimes my natural tendancy is to shoot first and ask questions later, but for all that I think of the other guy a lot too.

Even so, in moving guilds you need to be a little sensitive to the idea that /gquit can burn bridges if not done correctly. If you plan to move your toons around - talk to folks first. You don't have to tell the whole guild, but you should plan on talking to a leader or the GM. And if you have friends there you should let them know rather than letting them see you bail.

For all that... I found it really hard to leave my guild. There's something about playing with a group of people day in and day out that made that one feel homey. I've still got loads of alts and my main hunter there, but the actual decision to move even one toon was tough. Esp my tank. I've got no regrets. I'm sure I'll learn a lot in this new group, and I know they can handle themselves well so it's a good fit. But I'm going to have to make an effort to play on my alts a few days a week to keep in touch.

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Jan 7, 2008

Back to the salt mines

Ok, starting off the new year took a bit longer than I had planned on here. I normally write these over my lunch breaks at work and I haven’t had a lot of time lately, coupled with the fact that I had nearly 2 weeks off for the holidays and last week was a short week.

But in that time I’ve had a chance to do some comtemplatin. I’ve mentioned a few times I started raiding on 2 toons. What I haven’t said is that’s the pressure is on to move at least one of my toons to a raid guild.

My hunter’s raid has been really cool with this and has never even so much as asked me to move. I think they’d be cool if I did but they know who I am and while they are really good and are among the server’s oldest raid groups, they aren’t pushy either.

My druid, on the other hand, gets a request a week – sometimes more often. Usually I re-describe my goals, offer to step aside if that is a requirement and will even help them find someone who is willing to move. But I’m not willing. Don’t get me wrong, I like these folks. A couple of them need a whack upside the head once in a while but nothing too serious and there’s nobody among them I wouldn’t pug for. But the requests are getting a little old and they are stepping up a little too. Last time someone said they really wanted “everyone in Kara 1 in the guild” to make it easier to contact everyone. They have a web page, and a list – how much easier would it be to contact people?

Meh… like I said, the pressure is increasing. I may have to have a chat with someone – or they may ask me to go. Or maybe I should just join them. My own guild is cool, but they aren't into raiding. I think i fI explained it they'd encourage me to put a toon there, so long as I don't abandon my own roots entirely.


Kara on Friday – What … a … mess

Apparently not everyone was ready for the run last Friday night. (our first offical post-holiday run) There was a lot of chatter on vent, making it hard to hear anything I needed to know. The RL looted himself a cape that I think at least someone might have rolled on (we run open rolls on non-tier 4) and we wiped more than usual … okay ... we wiped a whole lot, especially on the bosses leading to Curator, which no raid group our level should be doing at our stage of progression. All this happened the week after they cleared Kara and 1-shotted every boss, in a single night. (yeah they ran while everyone was on vaca – pug’s from TK I think).

After we got the giant mechanical wonder, “The Gallery is for museum guests only…” we called it. My bear’s raid has a lot of experienced raiders in it, most of them know each other. They all said – thanks for coming – we need to have a little chat and we’ll talk to you all next week.

Apparently the raid officers had a very long chat – some 2 hours or so. The upshot was that our RL got his head handed to him for not controlling the raid, the loot thing etc. Now, I’m not one who likes to see someone lose a pound of flesh, but I came ready, spent the dough to be prepared and was on time. So yeah, it was annoying. The whole danged night was a shambles and I went to bed mad. So I’m glad they worked it out.

I ran into the raid leader on Sunday and pugged his Kara 2 group with my hunter – since that one hadn’t been saved yet this week. It went okay – though I must say I think it can still go better.

I like the way my hunter’s raid works. The RL is nice, not afraid to lay the smack down if called for, but not a jerk either. He also calls out a lot of little perks, like reminding ppl to use trinkets, or when to use a certain spell in a certain fight, etc. I think one could learn from the other.

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