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.

Absent in reality, but not heart (Raid update 7/30/2013)

     I am starting this early, as I will not be in raid tonight.  I am hoping it kicks off well, and I have full confidence in Gwyndolynn and Magilla to keep the ball running.  It may happen next week too as I have a niece coming in from out of town, and will be doing a family dinner that night with the in-laws, and will probably stay and visit afterwards.   Real life > Wow, and we don't get to see this niece all that often.

     Part of the reason is the fact I want to show off my new hunter helm.  Bridgeburners let me run with them last night, and I scored my tier helm off of Twin Consorts.  More importantly I got to see the fights on 10 man from Durumu to Lei Shen.  There were only two fights that I spent the last half floor tanking as well, which made me happy.  (Those fights being Durumu and Lei Shen) I didn't quite crack the DPS that everyone else was pulling, but I don't feel I was too much of a strain on their raid team as well.  Big ups to them though for being gracious enough to invite me along.  I even cleared my transmog so I could look all lizardy and stuff.  Yes, I am arguing for lizardy being an actual word.

      I will be back for Wednesday's raid though, and depending on how things go tonight, I put up a tentative raid for Thursday night, so if things do not happen Tuesday we will still have a chance to get two nights in.  If we do well enough, I may see if people want to raid all three, but that depends on interest.  A lot of us due to jobs/kids/etc... get overwhelmed if we do extra raid nights.  That's not to say it will never happen.

      Alright, Tuesday night rocked without me.  Due to a couple of absences the team pulled in someone from trade chat, and big ups to Izaziss from Crimson Shadows for coming in and helping out.  With his help the raid team downed Horridon so that makes a big win.  I managed to sneak into vent after I got off work and listed to the last bit of raid.

        Then came Thursday night... coming off a fresh win I rejoined the team to go fight the Council of Elders.  At first, this fight summarily destroyed us quickly.  We walked in and died very quickly.  Then our raid team did what they did best.  We paid attention.  Each pull we would take note, people would give suggestions, and we would adjust our strategy to these observations.  We worked hard and worked together, and end of story,

Council of Elders Down!

         So big cheers for Creap, Magilla, Gwyndolynn, Ithuriol, Gwyndolynn, Shaqia, Easybake, Lotauna, Carder (Wednesday's raid), Scorpiack, Armmond (Tuesday's raid) and Lazyeye. (Me)  Yes, I'm egotistical enough to give myself props, I admit it.

        That is three of twelve in Throne of Thunder now.   I did keep the extra raid open for tonight, and if enough people show we will fight Tortos a few times as well.  I would love to take down that villain in a half shell... ok, he's freaking all shell and the few pulls we got in last night took us down quickly.  However since that is how council started I'm looking forward to us taking him down.  We are moving forward, and will be doing some happy damage from here on out.

         I do want to give a shout out to Amelmi for switching to his DK Creap for now.  As one of our tanks is quitting the game soon for Final Fantasy when it re-releases, he is swapping to the second tanking position for now, and doing a darn fine job of working with Magilla.  Also a shout out to Ithuriol who is back as an officer, and hopefully as soon as things settle, I can convince to start working on that second raid team again.  Maybe... I want the first raid team secure first.  Mwha ha ha.

         If we raid tonight, I will do another post to address it.  I just wanted to make sure I shot this out with the same frequency of my other posts.

Lazyeye (I'm going back to one sig for now)

   

Out with the old, lets beat down the new!!! (Raid update 07/10/2013)

     I crack open my Apple Beer with joy (http://www.applebeer.com/) because we are now done with old content.  But let me backtrack a little.

     Tuesday night we ventured into Throne of Thunder.  We went in and quickly took down Jin'rokh.  After wading through the fun trash that some psychopath at Blizzard dreamed up we found ourselves face to face with Horridon.  The giant Dinosaur err.. Rhino himself

      I honestly didn't expect much here.  I know that Horridon has been referred to as the first wall in Throne of Thunder where raid teams get stopped for several weeks. Often he takes a lot of pulls and practice to work through.  So I was very pleased with the progress we made against Horridon through out the night. We kept pushing and were getting to the third door consistently.  This week I may be looking up strats that IcyVeins.com uses....

     Of course, Tuesday came to an end and we found ourselves in the Terrace of Endless Spring.  I also found myself not recording the beginning of our fight with Lei Shi, as someone (Carder, cough, cough) Ninja pulled in the middle of the explanation of the fight.  O.k., It was funny and we still love him.  Plus, we one shot Lei Shi on a ninja pull!!!! First time down for Fear Itself!!!!

      On to the Sha of Fear next, Carder was told to wait on the stairs... (yes I'm giving him crap) and we went through the boss fight.  First couple pulls where unsuccessful due to early deaths, but guess what, Third pull, and Sha went down!!!!

     That's right folks, Fear Itself is now done with old content and will be focusing only on the Throne of Thunder!!!! This makes me excited as I now believe we have a shot, and a great shot at finishing Throne of Thunder before the next raid is released.  I know it's possible, the official raid team of Convert to Raid has finished Throne of Thunder running just four hours a week.  I am excited and I know if we push ourselves a little we can do the same thing.  Then we can punch Garrosh in the face, which really, who doesn't want to do that at this point? 

     We had time and went back into Throne Last night as well.  We only had a few pulls, but we managed to get to the 4th door on Horridon.  We still need to figure out how to get through the third door more cleanly, but I think with enough effort, Horridon may be chopped next week.  I openly hope he is.

     Also as a side note, I'm happy to be raiding on my hunter Lazyeye now.  Yes I know I've had a bit of toon switching here, but I am trying to fit into the best spot I can on the team.  Right not that seems to be dps, and I will keep my Priest and Paladin on standbye should I need to step in on one of them.  Us 

altoholics can do that.

  So gratzy to the Tuesday team, (Laroth, Magilla, Gwendolynn, Ithoriuol, Shaqia, Carder, Easybake, Lotauna, Scorpiak, and Lazyeye (me)) for great progress against Horridon.  Gratzy to the Wednesday team, who was the same make up except Lotauna took a break and we brought in Moldievenom.  You all rock, and next week I look forward to bringing some more pain to an over sized Dino!!!

Lag, Dizzty, Lazyeye.