Mage Powa!!!! Not sure if i'm ranting or not.... 08/28/2013 Raiding update.

    Here we go again.

    I love my raiders, my raid team, and those who work hard to push us through.  I am starting here because I feel it is where I need to start.  Everyone who came to raid this week worked hard, and we got to Council of Elders... where we met an untimely death.

      We had 4 mages this week, and a Shadow Priest, meaning our whole entire Dps group was cloth.  From a DPS standpoint, I have no issue with this.  From a permanent raid team point of view I would like to shift that up.  Simply put, it is not a good thing to have 5 members of the raid rolling on the same gear.  It makes it take longer to gear up, and is frustrating for that poor soul who happens to be the 5th clothie to finally get their pants when they won't drop every week.  So, this is a thing that I want to find a different cure for.

     At this point, their are only 7 set spots on the raid team.  The people guaranteed a spot when they show up are Me, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Magilla, Skorpiak, Lotauna, and Easybake.  That leaves 3 spots for me to fill, and I can't fill them all with clothies.  (Ok, I may rant a little on this.  I love people for showing, but we can't run an all cloth raid.)

     That, and I would love to know who I am going to be raiding on.  Whether it be DPS, Tank, or heals, I would love to know which toon to work out first.  But until things are settled, I am stuck swapping every week.  Which is irritating.

      Let's be honest here.  If I have to run with 5 clothies for DPS, I will do it.  However, I would prefer people who want in to get an alt etc.. ready to go.  I am not going to ask Lotauna or Easybake to swap at this point.  It wouldn't be fair to them when they have been working on those characters all Xpack long.  I may look at starting us on flex next Xpack so I can work these people in then paring the team down as needed.  I am unsure yet. Depends on how the cards fall.

      I still would like a Tank or Heals to be recruited.  I am debating for the first time posting on the CTR (Convert to Raid) forums, or the Realm forums.  I have never done this before and I am afraid of the lash back I might get from those who would see the fact that we are extremely casual as a raid team as a bad thing.  I will probably do the CTR forums first, because I know that community is a lot more laid back then the general blizzard forums, and they tend to monitor them pretty well.  That being said when virtual realms are rolled out, we might get an influx of people and benefit from there as well.  We will see what happens.  As much as I want to do normal 10 mans, I would prefer to do the Flex raids and include everybody if that is my option.

       Anyway, I do need to give a shout out for Carixi, raiding with us for the first time in forever.  Also to all the other people who helped out this week whom are not part of our normal raid team, Belevina, Raiinspider, and Amelmi who stepped in Tuesday.  As it goes, on to next week to see what is in store.

     Oh, and keep and eye out for RBGs, we are going to work them out with Mission of Mercy eventually, mwha ha ha.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye

     

Your allowed to Rant. Yes you are. (Raid Update 08/22/2013)

      I was debating sugar coating this post, going through, talking about how everything is all right and being the calm in the midst of the storm.  F*** that.

      We went from a point where we one shot every boss up to Tortos last week, to this week where events made it so we didn't even get past Horridon.  If you are on the raid team you are allowed to be rant, be frustrated and be grumpy as I am this morning.  What happened you may ask?

      We had too much damn change in the last week.

      First of all, we lost Ithuriol to Bridgeburners.  We wish him well over there and hope he enjoys his time.  We may see him in guest starring roles occasionally as he has some characters still in the guild, but that leaves a hole in our raiding roster that needs to be filled.  Preferably by a healer as I don't want to swap who I am gearing again, but I probably will. /sigh.

       Secondly one of our tanks had real life commitments this week, and those always trump Wow.  So the first night I was tanking on Lag again, in a raid I had previously not really tanked in.  The second night I was on my hunter, then my priest when we tried to swap things up a little.

       We also had to pull in a couple people to fill holes, (1 the first night (I still count moldie as a standby for the raid team)) and 3 the next night.  (Two being Ithuriol and Khallon's alts respectively, and we thank them for helping.)  

      I want to point out that the issues we are having are nobodies fault.  There should be no pointing finger's or irritation.  Sometimes you lose people from a raid team, that happens.  Sometimes you have a few extra spots for a night or two, that happens as well.  This week they all just happened to hit us at once, and hopefully next week will be better.  Or I will have a stroke.  I am voting for better.

      I do appreciate everyone working hard in a bad situation, but the situation as it stands may kill any chance of great progress in Throne of Thunder at this point.  Patch 5.4 drops in a few weeks on Sept. 10th, and I am not sure we can get our crap together before then.  Of course I could also be over blowing the situation and I may swap back to Dizzty and find out the raid is fine.  Right now though, I am just so frustrated, and not just for myself, for everyone else on this damn raid team that have worked so hard to get to the point of progressing again.  I owe you guys a better experience then this.

     So, this weekend, I will find a fill in.  I will look mainly at Pally or Priest heals, but will also look at DPSers.  Agility leather, Agility Mail, Strength Plate are all areas that don't have a lot of MAIN spec distribution right now, depending on how things shake up.  At this point, I will push whatever toon I am working on through the legendary quest to get them caught up, and once they are legendary, I plan on getting my other two pushed to that point.

    That's right, I plan on doing the damn legendary quest three times.  Though to be fair both Lazyeye, and Lag are well along it.

     As far as inspirational happy thoughts go, on Sept 10, we get siege of Ogrimmar.  That is a new raid.  New content, and a fresh start for us to start progressing again.  At that point, we will go one night ToT, one night Ogrimmar until ToT is done, and I plan on saving the progression since the new raid finder gear will have a higher gear score then the content we are working on.  We will push forth, and prevail.

Lag/Dizzty/Lazyeye.

What is Guild Loyalty?

    I am writing this because I was listening to Tauren Think Tank (a Wonderful Podcast) a week or so ago, and they addressed the subject of why people are loyal to their guilds was discussed.  This came as someone had written in asking why with real ID, Cross realm grouping, and other such features people are loyal to their guilds anymore.  He had written up and clarified that he was meaning Loyal to a guild after a guild mistreats you, or doesn't value you as it should, he wasn't just saying you should go guild less.

      We have run out guild for almost 6 years now.  We haven't always been a big guild, or a guild that focused on more then raiding etc...  As a matter of fact, I remember it was at the end of Burning Crusade when we decided to open up to people outside our family, and my mage started porting to the starting areas for all the alliance races and spamming macros to get people to join.  At this point, we were discussing starting to raid, and looking in that direction.  This was interesting to me, because at the time my raiding character, my hunter Lazyeye, was in another guild named Midnight.

     Midnight had made me and my wife officers.  I had already discussed with the guild leader the fact I was also recruiting for Fear Itself, and he knew that I was working on building both guilds in my own way and being careful about not dividing loyalties.  I managed to maintain this without creating any issues and all seemed fine.

     Then me and my wife disagreed with a move the guild leader and co-guild leader (his wife) made.  They had given a character probation, then kicked him the next day before the probation had even truly started (Which didn't match their guild policies btw).  My wife took this personally because she had been the person who would work with this character on fixing the issues people where having with him.  We voiced our opinion to the guild leaders, and the next day, when both where logged out our characters where kicked from that guild.

   This turned out to be for the better.  I was able to fully focus on building Fear Itself, and Midnight imploded shortly afterwards. (The only reason I am using the actual guild name is the fact it hasn't existed on Zangarmarsh since the beginning of Wrath) Several of our friends followed us from Midnight after it fell and joined, and more then a couple are still friends in one fashion or another in game today.

     I mention this, because before we where kicked from the guild... me and my wife where discontent there.  We had discussed leaving already and the kick out the door wasn't ideal but I was more upset with how it was handled, then the fact it happened.  So I look back now, and I wonder why I hadn't left before things reached the point where it ended.  What kept me from leaving before that happened.

    I will tell you.  Attachments to my friends.  Desire to not let their raid team down, when they planned on me being there.  The feeling that I had made enough difference in that guild, that I felt obligated to keep it going.  This all kept me in that guild, splitting my time two ways etc... and those things can keep you locked into a guild today still.

    The question comes back too, does that matter when you can real ID folks from a guild you leave, so you can continue to help them here and there?  What expectations should a guild have on keeping someone?
What should a person expect from their guild?  If you put time and effort into the guilds raid team, do you owe it to them to stick it out or should they thank you for the time you contributed and not worry about you moving on?

     I really don't have the answers here, because I believe that are unique to the individual playing.  There are times I have wanted to work on alts, or considered finding another guild to run with on occasion, but I am always stopped because any effort I put there now, is time I am not putting into this guild that we have built.  I would love to find a night to consistently run older content, but right now it isn't plausible as I have kids and work that comes first.  So if I get that time, it will be folded back into Fear Itself, and not elsewhere.

     I am tied to the guild completely at this point.  I sometimes hide on an alt or two if I want to go level or play quietly, but at the end of the day, my commitments all tie to Fear Itself.  I am not sure what would have to happen to break those ties either.  I have put years of effort into raiding there.  Worked hard to build and maintain the guild.  This thing is my baby.  Short of an all out war with the guild leader (which is never happening) I don't believe I would vacate my home, and at the point I did, I am not sure how long I would play after losing all that I have gained.

What do you think?

Lag/Lazyeye/Dizzty

   

I need an Heir(loom)

     So, i'm pondering the newest idea that blizzard is instituting.  Heirloom weapons on good old Garrosh Hellscream.  Well, regular Garrosh Hellscream.  Alright, filthy evil Garrosh Hellscream.

     The loot table on Garrosh Hellscream, for the 5 people who haven't heard, drops heirloom weapons that level with you up to level 100.  So that means (A) We are getting 10 levels next expansion, and (B) this means you won't have to toss your weapon from the last boss of the expansion for a green that drops in the first area you explore next expansion.

     Now, 10 new levels is going to be a switch from the last two.  I am not sure if that means we are going to have more content to level through, or if they intend on the levels to go quicker so you get to receive more dings before you gain the level cap.  I hope the second one, as I am a confirmed alcoholic and don't want to have to work my way up through 10 long levels with all the characters I like to have at my disposal for raiding.

     It is worth mentioning that these weapons don't have an XP gain or anything that might give you an advantage on leveling other then the fact you won't have to swap out your weapon until you hit that 100 cap.  There will be little or no reason for people to rage on the forums about these... but we all know they will regardless.

      In order to get one of these weapons, you have to beat Garrosh on a level that is not LFR.  This means he has to go down on flex, normal, or heroic mode to reward you with you own heirloom weapon to wield.  So, that means your LFR only character doesn't get his toy, he has to actually go in with a planned raid, whether it be a flex-raid pug, or a 10 man normal.

      This does make me wonder what other ways could Blizzard give us for heirlooms like this?  Could instead of burning Justice Points, or gold on your next Heirloom can they make it a quest or achievement?  Maybe open up some heirlooms if you beat the first raid Tier of an expansion?  If you complete a complex series of quests?  Maybe for hitting a certain level of Achievement points?  What other ways could Blizzard give us for these things that are more engaging?

     What do you think?

Lazyeye

The Turtle Soup Edition!!! (8/15/2013)

    Before raid yesterday, someone posted as the daily guild message that we would "Dine on turtle soup tonight!" (I suspect Ithuriol) How right they were, but I digress.

    First of all Tuesday's raid was fantastic.  We one shot the first three bosses.  Jin'rokh, Horridon, and The Council of Elder's all went down in less then an hour.  This is important to me, because in order to kill off Throne of Thunder at this point, we need to be killing an average of 6 bosses a night, so this means we are in the time frame we would need to be looking at.

     Anyway, we had a little over an hour to work on Tortos by the time we got to him, and not only did we prove we hadn't regressed on progression, we steadily worked things closer to killing him.  It was apparent by the end of raid, he didn't have long to live.

     Wednesday we went in again.  While we did not one shot Tortos, we did have him dead in under an hour!  Hazzah! Another boss down.  That means we are officially 4/12. We then booked it through the small amount of trash between Tortos and Meagara (Yes, as a matter of fact Blizzard I am being sarcastic here) and got to work on the next boss for about an hour as well.  Once again, we made good progress and I could see next week moving us up to 5 or 6 out of 12.  Not kidding.   I think we really could do it.

     Gratz as always goes to the raid team, Magilla, Creap, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Ithuriol, Lotauna, Easybake, Scorpiak, Guiness, and little old me, Lazyeye.  If we had managed this kind of attendance over the last few months, as we have seen in the last few weeks, I have no doubt that we would have finished Throne of Thunder already.  This does kinda segway into my next point.

     5.4 is imminent.  They released the trailer today, (man I am excited to kick some Garrosh Hellscream in the face) and it is awesome.  I am not a fan of the thought of someone in that trailer not being around for the raid. (Spoilers, if you want to know, watch the trailer)  That is the brakes though.

     When 5.4 drops, I plan on pulling us into Siege of Ogrimmar.  We may do one night siege, one night saved progression on Throne of Thunder, I'm not sure yet.  (Throne will be getting a 20% nerf at this time)  But I want to meet the new content head on, and I plan on keeping hitting it, until it starts to break.  I want to cook me some orc!

     This is the plan.  Me, and my shiny new bow (did I mention I got a bow last night?) will lead the way into Ogrimmar, and leave dead members of "the new horde" behind.  Sadly, this means the alliance is going to be wussy, step out of Ogrimmar and leave it to the rest of the Horde after Garrosh is gone, but I digress.  It will be glorious while it lasts.  (So if we just wall Garrosh up, don't kill him, can we stay in Ogrimmar killing Hordies? Just curious)

This weekend, I will give an opinion update.  If you guys want me to discuss anything in particular, let me know.

Lazyeye

Why you should be a Huntering

     I was probably twelve or thirteen when I was excited because my older sister has some friends over and they were going to play Dungeons and Dragons.  I had never had the opportunity to play before and I wasn't even sure what the game was completely.  They gave me a quick run down of the different classes, and races to choose from, and of course, once I found out that the ranger not only fought from a distance but could train and have an animal fight alongside him, I had found my calling.

       Soon I found myself fighting alongside my new found companions and  I grew very excited as we came upon a group of flying creatures called stirges.  I of course tamed one since they where the first animals we had come across and I wanted a pet dang it!  Finally, I had my own animal companion.  For those who haven't played Dungeons and Dragons, let me point out a stirge is a giant mosquito.  That's right, my ranger had a pet mosquito.  I was mocked, laughed at, and had eyes rolled at me, but I loved my blood sucking buddy.  I think when I tell this story, my present Hunter's pet firefly Serenity laughs at me.  A lot.

     I tell this story, because the hunters we play in World of Warcraft are very much evolved from the ranger class in Dungeons and Dragons.  Of course that is not the only place you find your hunters.  If you look through different stories you have Robin Hood, Aragorn/Strider, and Davey Crockett whom could all be considered different versions of Hunters.  Your classic Hunter would have been one of the folks who were more comfortable outside the cities and villages, communing with the animals and avoiding most society.  They were your trackers, your guides.  They could at times provide food for the community or furs to make clothing and keep folks warm.  Most are not obsessed with worldly riches wanting nothing more then to challenge the wild world around them.  These are the Hunters that have always been my obsession.

     Now, I will admit my first main character in World of Warcraft was not a Hunter, I originally played a mage named Pyreknight until the end of Vanilla Wow, and my hunter Lazyeye was born about half way through the Burning Crusade.  It was at the end of the Burning Crusade, when I first started raiding, I took my hunter into Karazhan and never looked back.  From that moment on, I was interested in raiding and moving through end game content and would work on making that one of my biggest in game focuses.

     My hunter took a hit half way through Wrath of the Lich King however.  We ended up needing a tank after our main tank on the raid team called it quits.  I quickly power leveled a Death Knight, and started tanking to take up the slack.  Then I power leveled a Paladin (Lag) who would be my main character from the end of Wrath up until recently in Pandaria.  Recent events however have made me pick my neglected hunter back up.  I only call him neglected because he wasn't my main raider.  Lazyeye still managed to see raids all the way through Wrath until now, he just wasn't the character I was spending most of my time on.  I am now excited to have him re-introduced as my main as far as raiding goes.  I feel I have taken too much time off of DPS (Damage per second) classes and it is nice to get reacquainted. 

      I love the feeling of playing a character who has ties with beasts who obey him.  I love sitting back and watching battles from a ranged perspective, being able to increase my field of vision and call out fights better then I could while tanking in a bosses crotch.  I love shooting bosses in the face, putting up competitive DPS numbers and contributing in a new way to my raid team.  So here is my list of things you should look at if you are thinking of rolling a hunter.

     Do you want to contribute to your raid? Hunters have it all.  If we select the right pets we can fill in for any buffs our raid might be missing.  No attack speed boost? No problem, magic serpent here we come.  No battle rezzer? Get a Quillen pet.  No Blood lust/Heroism?  That's cool, bring a Core Hound to raid.  While some of these are Spec specific, you can fill in for whatever your raid is missing if you plan ahead.

     Do you like soloing content? With a hunter/pet duo you will find that you can fight your way through some fights that other classes may have a hard time with.  When it comes to leveling you have great survival skills and you are less likely to find yourself getting killed or over run by mobs.

     Do you like challenges and switching things up?  There is always another pet to find, or new pets being introduced into game.  Some of these pets have unique challenges that make them not only rare, but hard to tame.  Plus, you can switch out your pet to whichever one you would like to run with you at the moment.  You can keep five pets on you, and up to fifty pets in your bank.  That is a lot of options to switch through if you want to take the time 

     Do you like being competitive DPS?  While hunters are not always the top class for blowing up charts in raids and other game play, they are very rarely near the bottom. We have enjoyed at the worst being steady, consistent DPS,  and at best dominating charts while other classes fight to keep up with us.  Oh, and lets not forget that unlike yonder days of mana bars, we can now DPS on the run as most of our shots can be fired while moving.

     Now, there are reasons you might not want to roll a hunter.

     Hunters are not tanks.  We have mad kiting skills.  We have pets that can take a pounding and hold aggro for a bit.  We do not have the skill set to mitigate damage for an insanely long amount of time and keep the raid alive through a boss fight.  While there are a couple people who may be able to pull something like this off on a hunter, most of us will just get our raids killed if we try.

     Hunters are not healers.  We have bandages, we can mend our pets, and sometimes our Spirit Beasts can cast a heal that helps out our raid.  We can not keep you alive, we would much rather be shooting something big and ugly in the face.

     Hunters are not Melee.  O.k., we no longer have a minimum range and can fight up in a bosses crotch without much penalty.  Trust me on this, you are much happier fighting further away from the boss where you can see what is going on and can feign death and watch your raid die stay far enough away from bosses to avoid some damage or avoid repair bills during a wipe.  

      So, if being a hunter appeals to you, go roll a character and see how you like it.  Others of the hunter class will welcome you with open arms.  If not, that's alright too.

     Someone needs to play the inferior classes.

Lazyeye.

Perspectively Motional (Raid update week 8/8/2013)

Yeah, I have no clue what that means as well, but it sounded good.

From my time as a prospector.... on a movie set.

      This week saw some limited progression.  We one shot both Jin'rokh and Horridon, which one shotting Horridon the week after we started on him is a big deal to me.  That means we have the fight figured out for the moment.  Council of Elders on the other hand, gave us more then a little trouble and we spent most of our evening there, until we re-strategized and took them down with most of the night gone.  It was comforting after that to see we hadn't lost all our pow on Tortos, while we didn't get him down in the two pulls we had, we hadn't lost all the progress we had made on him last week.

       

     Sadly this week Khallon bid out raid team goodbye and has moved over to Bridgeburners.  When they aren't running we will have access to his DK Carder if we need him, but for now he has moved on.  We wish him the best over there, and the door is always open should he choose to come back.

      Moldievenom also had a good return this week after a few weeks of no Wow.  This is limited as he starts school in a few weeks and will be gone after that.  Which means, my raid team is as follows.

Me, (Right now Lazyeye the Hunter)

Magilla, (Solid rock and Tank extraordinaire)

Creap, (Tank whom sometimes cross dresses as a 'lock)

Gwyndolynn (Guild leader and doo-dad heals)

Ithuriol, (Never knows if he's heals or deeps, but puts up with us anyway)

Scorpiack, (Now with 100% pure lightening)

Shaqia, (He only heals dwarves, or sometime Tauren)

Lotauna, (The requisite gnome for an alliance raid team)

Easybake, (Yeah, she tops dps charts while sleeping)

Unknown, (This spot is where Moldie or someone stepping in is/has been taking up.)

      I may start looking to fill that last position with someone who can stick with us a little more permanent.  We are starting to make good progression, and with a solid team I think we will start to fly forward.  This last position I would love to be a Agility Leather wearer for loot distribution purposes. (Druid/Monk/Rogue) I will probably start poking in guild first for this person, and then if we don't get it filled, I will start looking elsewhere.  Obviously if we end up with someone who isn't a Agility leather wearer, I'm good with that too.

Yes, he did a new version of this song.

      That is our status for this week.  We march on and forth to victory, and will triumph.  Despite a little bit of a lack of new boss kills this week, I feel we are moving forward,

Lag.