Oh, great – Grimm’s making us all take turns at this. Says it’ll be nice to see some of us that don’t talk much, get face time. Bah, and all that good stuff. My face is fine where it is.

An Eh Way. Here’s what interested us during the week. Your mileage may vary.

• Tamarind find out that blogging and being in a guild is a difficult situation, and takes the nuclear option. Fortunately for us, he’s still blogging. Unfortunately for him, being in a guild may be an incompatible goal.   Later on, Larisa riffs on the subject in more detail.
• What do you want to bet that either Curse or WoWInterface use this opportunity to talk more trash about WoWMatrix?  Cheap shots, we haz them.
• Now that we’ve sorted out how to control gravatar images for the various characters, Meta has started replying to some blog posts in-character.  This can only end in tears…
• Eyonix lays it on us with regards to how our stats are going to change in Cataclysm. There were a few surprises (Weapons skills going away completely – ORLY?) and some tantalizing hints (Reforging).  Possibly the most annoying side effect of this was that wow.com ran a full article for every variation of “Stat and System Changes for $SPEC_AND_VARIATION $CLASS.  I think they even ran one for pipe-smoking lesbian Nelf priests, specifically.
• Last week, Baron Soosdon’s Youtube account was suspended, and that, as he said, was that – end of the road, no more WoW machinama for him. But then, this morning, a miracle – the account restored, so therefore …. meh, he’s probably still calling it quits. Way to be a tease there, fella.  And, nevertheless, thanks for all the great stuff. I will miss it.
• A good laugh every now and then is essential to the soul. No Stock UI highlights one tool that can be used towards this end – Comix.
• Digressing from lore-restricted issues for a moment, Greyseer explains why he isn’t a big Knaak fan. He also demonstrates exactly why he’d make a great warlock.  He has his inner Palpatine charged up.  Later in the week, a review of Knaak’s latest work.  The reasons for Grayseer’s frustration are really obvious when you get a look at this thing.  I really can’t disagree on any point.
• Kaelynn at Azure Shadows provides some great non-specific tips for putting together your UI – design decisions, usability, that sort of thing. I can’t say I live up to all that – my UI is SERIOUSLY functional, meeting the feedback criteria quite well, but esthetically it could peel paint off a ‘79 Volvo wagon from fifty paces.  I’ll work on it, K, I promise!
• Gnomageddon ruminates about the departures from the blogosphere that we’ve seen recently – and ends with reassurances that he’ll be sticking around for some time to come. Yay!  Also: one of the commenters raises the question: what about Empowered Fire? They’ve been quiet!  Hours later – an answer!
• Part 2 in a series: Frost Mage PvP: 102 is posted by Spicytuna. \o/
• Sweet baby titans! Wow.com has apparently cobbled together the basic script for the upcoming Gnomeregan event from the updated sound files in the PTR client’s latest update. Spoiler-rific!  Apparently there’s one for the Echo Isles, too, but I haven’t got much invested in that. Aw, hell, WHO WANTS PIE?
• Tamarind @Righteous Orbs and Miss Medicina @ … Miss Medicina are colluding on a new project, the creation of a bloggish guild on Argent Dawn.  Tam has organized <Single Abstract Noun> on AD/EU, and Miss Medicina has organized <Single Abstract Noun> on AD/US.  We plan to be there in some form, just haven’t figured out what to roll, or if I’m going to transfer Grimm Jr or the belf flower picker warlock.  You’ll see it here, first, when  we decide!

Despite rumors to the contrary, I have not been sitting in a bar sulking over drinks.  Our guild has need of a healer. I serve the guild as a healer. It’s that simple.

So, for the past few nights, we have been working on Marrowgar-10. To “real” raiders, we fail, right there. To “casual” types, maybe there’s a small reason for respect. And of course there is a whole spectrum in between. Hello.

It seems like forever that we have been fighting this boss. And this week seemed like any other. Two or three bone storms, and we’re all dead on the floor. Same as always.

Last night, our esteemed MT¹ spoke up about the need for DPS to hold off until the tanks had achieved aggroage. This is pretty basic, and a good sign as to what sort of challenges our tanks face every day. That being said, once the obvious was pointed out and emphasized, we started to make real progress. Last night, we left the place with Marrowgar 39K away from downage. It was heartbreak, for sure, but also the best we had ever done, and we were as a group energized to try again the next night.

That being tonight.

There were two key pieces to success:

1. Let the tank tank.
2. During bone storm, you’re on your own. Don’t stand in stuff, and don’t worry so much about the flurry².

That’s it.

With that simple approach, we were able to gel on the strategy around the 3rd or 4th try tonight, and kill that four-headed freak with no casualties on our side.

Well done, vorpal bunnies!

Naturally, what’s-her-face pwned us. But that’s par for the course on a brand new boss. As with all progression raids, the challenge is in the next boss, not the one you just downed.

Later.

---

1. Have I mentioned how fortunate we were to find him when we did? Not only has he been a boon to our guild, but he brought another tank, a great DPS shammi, and a few other assorted players with him as well. [↩]
2. Consider this to be a grown-up version of Heigan, with actual damage during the dance. [↩]

I’m running through Un’goro trying to finish off the “To all the critters I’ve loved before” achievement, looking desperately for a parrot, and bombing out.  Suddenly, my sweetie, who was watching over my shoulder, yelled “THERE’S ONE!”

Parrot, Pterrordorax … both have wings, right?

“And,” I added, “they both begin with the same letter!”

This was not taken in the spirit offered.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Incidentally, the comments on WoWHead indicate that if you kill snakes, parrots will spawn in their place. So much for my “egg” theory.  But, I dutifully killed off every snake I saw, and when I returned to my starting point, a parrot was flapping around in the same location … so there might be something to it.

Well, after many many tries and wipes, today we went in and three-shot Maly as the weekly raid boss, and many of us popped [Champion of the Frozen Wastes] in the process. We’re such noobs, half of us didn’t know where the loot was. Bring in the flying gimmick, and we’re not exactly at our best.

We followed this up with a not very successful attempt on Marrowgar-10; I think our Boomkin ditched us out of disgust.  Or maybe I’m reading too much into the sudden without warning drop.  /shrug – know what, I don’t care. He can go do that, and as soon as a replacement is available for me, he can go do that without bothering me about it.

Marrowgar is a confusing fight; even with him scaled back to 10-man strength, the whirlwind is devestating.  We need a lot more practice.  Disc healing isn’t exactly useful at that point, either.

The one good thing I saw was that my T9 2-piece bonus really makes the Frisbee stand tall.

The scary thing for me with regard to T9 and T10 is that Blizz is pushing Crit down so hard for the healing sets. Crit is a Big Deal™ for Disc healers. We get some from primary stats, which do get stacked, but the loss of Crit is going to hurt. The mace that dropped off of Maly was biased in the same way. This brings up some really interesting gear decisions.

Been very quiet around here, lately, and for that I apologize. It all started with that bad ToC10 and got worse with the semi-fail Ulduar that followed. There is a certain bit of healer burnout in the air, and until I face that down here, I don’t think I can write about anything else.

So, burnout.

Actually, it’s escalated from healer burnout to raiding burnout. I’m of a mind not to raid.

There. I said it.

I’m not talking about healing. I’m talking about raids, in general.

I’ve asked the GM to find a replacement. We have several DPS peeps dual specced to heal, and we can fill in DPS more easily than healz, any day. Do the math.

This is not an effort to get Grimm or Flora into raids. Quite the contrary. I desire to be done with the entire framework of raiding. More precisely, being an officer in the guild during raids … taxes me. It taxes the GM, too, but she made her own life choices. This is mine.

We might even PvP to prove the point.

Note: I will not abandon my friends. Until a recplacement is available, for now, I will fulfill my implicit obligations. For now.

OK, that’s it for that. As big an element it is, I still don’t want to dwell on it.

Moving on.

-=-=-=-=-

Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about what’s happening in-game. For, beyond my traitorous desires to just play the game and have fun, I do have loyalty to what we do as a guild.

1. Ulduar progression is coming along. We were dead-ended for a while because we couldn’t go more than a certain amount of time, and that got us as far as Auri. This week we got that far on the first night, and the second night we got a substitute tank to come in (our Warr tank had GF aggro) and she walked us not only through Hodir but Thorim as well. More on these in a moment.
2. The ICC five-mans have been thoroughly roflstomped by our core raiders in standard mode, and we got the first instance done in Heroic by accident with no sweat.
3. Ony can still stomp us hard if we don’t do it right. For whatever reason, the last attempt failed in Phase 2 every time. Part of it appears to be that some people were not following instructions and focus firing on the same target as everyone else. There were points where I just said “fine, you’re going down, I’ll heal the ones that are where they are supposed to be.” And naturally, I ran into deep breaths myself, too. Overall, bad deal.
4. ICC 10 was attempted on the 2nd night – with Marrowgar at 25-man strength. As you can guess, we wiped as many people did. If I must raid, I’m interested in seeing how we fare now that they’ve adjusted him.

-=-=-=-=-

Back to Hodir / Thorim. Both of these fights require a ferocious amount of group healing. The MT is hardly taking any damage, usually, so the hardest part is keeping everyone else up and alive, and our Shammi is hard pressed to do so. We actually had our boomkin druid swap to tree as well.

I finally found a good use for my talents though. I focused on two tanks and two healers as my priorities, and they focused on everyone else. Seemed to work. Maybe in the future I’ll just swap to shadow for those fights, and let the tree and shammi keep us alive.

-=-=-=-=-

Two new members of the clan on other servers.

First, Grimmtooth the Third – who was rolled on Kael’Thas for the Raid for the Cure charity drive – has renamed to Dvorkin¹. If you are on K’T and care for such things, there ya go. Also, LFG. My sweetie is there as well so I am looking for a very casual guild here.  In the time since RftC I have advanced to level 33 without trying too hard, and given sufficient impetus, could be 80 in a very short time. I’ve done it before.

Second, Yardiff Bey – or more properly, Yardifbey – on Bronzebeard is my Belf flower-picking Warlock toon, recently hitting level 11. I rolled him to hang with my sweetie who is in DotH on that server. Also LFG as my sweetie’s guild will not admit non-female members. So I’m on mah own.

-=-=-=-=-

Okie. For good or for ill, silence is broken. We all apologize for this, regardless of who “we” is at the time.

Ooooooh. And it’s published. I’m committed.

---

1. ”Dworkin” was taken, but if you follow my pet naming convention, this makes perfect sense. If not, I recommend to you the collected works of Roger Zelazny as an example of some of the finest fantasy and SF you are likely to encounter for quite some time. [↩]

Wretched.

That’s how I feel after our last few sessions in EoE.

For two or three nights running, we attacked that dragon. From the first pull, we did great in phases 1 and 2.  Typically we’re going in to phase 3 with five minutes left on the timer.

We rarely see that five minutes go in full.

Invariably I die within the first 30 seconds, but I doubt it has much effect since I can’t seem to heal worth a damn during that phase anyway.

It is very frustrating and made me want to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me.

It’s so difficult, to do everything in your power to ensure that you are geared appropriately, have the right consumables, have studied rotations and methodologies, and can go a full fight and still have plenty of mana left in most, then to find that it all boils down to a gimmick fight in which none of the hard won lessons apply.

“Bring the player, not the class”, they might parrot.  I contend that that is a cop-out.

You would never go into a raid with no healing classes, would you? Of course not.

If class isn’t important, then why do we have them? If levels and gear are not important, why are they in the game?  Why don’t we focus more on looking fabulous than getting that hideous mock turtleneck helm for its lovely stats?

Because class matters. Because gear matters. Because level and experience .. matter.  That malarkey about “bring duh player not duh class” was nothing but a catchphrase and it’s taken on a twisted life of its own.

This phase is unrewarding and discouraging. Right now that’s how I feel. I regret rolling on that damned key at this very moment because it put a quest in my quest log that I am at this moment considering … not doing.

We do Ulduar tonight, and I dearly hope we bring our ‘A’ game because I could really use the boost associated with doing, well, well for a change.

Perhaps in honor of GeoCities’ demise, Miss Medicina is doing a web ring thing. At first I decided against doing it because all the interesting blogs in the world had already done it, and there wasn’t much that I could offer over that. But then this post of Jong’s inspired me. Yes. I will share with you my healing things, because being a Disc priest is just that awesome. I’m not tagging anyone. There’s nobody but Matticus left to tag now, and nobody wants that on their conscience.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Jasra, Priest, Dis ::crack:: cipline with a side of Shadow¹.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

I’ve been healing five mans, Heroics, and 10-man raiding for months now, usually as MT healer in raids and group healing 5-mans.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Tough call. I would say Power Word: Shield, because I like bubbles.² Bubbles make me think of carbonated drinks, which reminds me that it’s time to freshen my RumandCoke.

But let’s be honest here. Penance is about the coolest thing out there. Not only do I get to heal with it, but in a pinch it’s an offensive weapon!  Not only that, but when you slap your MT with this baby, he knows it. His or her whole body jerks as the healing energy gets in there and kicks butt.

“The path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of epic bosses. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through Naxx on badge runs. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost loots. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious Smites those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Healer when I lay my Penance upon you.“

Well, something like that.

The thing with Penance is that it fits in with healing as if Jules Winnfield had chosen to play a priest after he gave up life as a professional assasin. The same verve, passion, and exacting attention to detail as he, invariably, would have brought to the table.  I’m not saying you need a hand-stitched wallet with BAD MOTHER FUCKER embossed on it, but I’m not saying it would exactly hurt, either.

Except I’m fine with bacon. Bacon is delicious!

Anyway. Penance. It’s cool.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Greater Heal; when I rely on that, Jas is OOMPriest in no time. My spec has and glyphing has perverted Flash Heal into my “slow” heal of choice. For the really big heals, see “penance” above.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Priests are really the jack of all trades when it comes to healing. We can be point healers, raid healers, or even emo shadow-loving trickle healers and mana battery bitches. All other classes have at most one healing spec.  All of our specs can heal, for some value of ‘heal’.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I like tree Druids and resto Shammis in raids because they compliment my point healing. The only down side of the shammi is that chain heal is unpredictable at times and we end up overwriting each other a lot without meaning to.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

(1) Situational awareness. I’ve been known to die without realizing it.  (2) Renew. I drop that sucker on everything. Tanks, DPS, pets, shrubberies and other decor… No wonder I go OOM so much.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

(1) People that attempt emotional blackmail and indirect methods to get you to come heal thier group.  Listen, just ask directly, OK? And if I say I’m busy, don’t try to bargain.

(2) Playing alongside Captain Obvious types. In other words, I don’t like healing stupid people. However, if they shut the hells up, I might toss a frisbee their way.  QUIET stupid people are moderately tolerable.

(3) People that stand in stuff. JUST DON’T.  If you make a habit of it, I will let you die.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Classwise, yes. Specwise, as long as I stick to my strengths.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I don’t do healing meters.  I know if I did my job, if my charge(s) is/are still standing. If we downed that boss.  And I know when I didn’t do my job.   Recount is good to evaluate how you used your heals, but the HPS meter is useless, in my opinion.   But if I see a certain spell’s healz to mana ration is low, I get interested.  I don’t ignore analysis tools, but I only work with appropriate ones.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

That we’re everyone’s bitch. I run with a good bunch of people, so largely I am given proper respect as a person. It doesn’t hurt that a lot of them have healer alts, so they appreciate my work, and I theirs. That helps a lot. But there are so many people that will abuse a healer’s very nature.

While I’m on the subject, my favorite NON-healing role is the Tank. More than anyone else, the tank earns the healer’s respect and loyalty. A good tank knows the healer’s got his back, and a good healer knows that tank will take a NUCLEAR WEAPON IN THE FACE for you as long as you keep those heals coming.

In a way, it’s kinda a co-dependent relationship, but it’s the axis around which all over roles revolve. Discuss among yourselves.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

(a) Situational awareness. Almost everyone knows to load up Grid and bind things, right? But learning what to do when circumstances change … that’s the rub.  Don’t stand in stuff. Stay alive. Learn to heal and be mobile (something I still need work on).

(2) Know when NOT to heal and conserve mana. Again, guilty. Sometimes it’s unnatural to not be doing anything. I recommend playing with your wand in those cases.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of over healing, low healing output, etc)?

They would likely see that the resto shammi was outhealing me and /kick me. Buh bye.

Seriously, Disc priests are not chart toppers. Single-target heals with little splash compared to multi-target heals with big splash. It’s like comparing Blizzard versus Frost Bolt.

Haste or Crit and why?

Crit, then haste, because Crit has greater immediate effects. Haste has a downside, too: faster on the mana drain.  So something that gives me moar healz for the same mana makes me happy.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Holy Palli. I really have no idea how that works. I need to work on that.

What add-ons do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Grid. Clique. Decursive. Quartz. X-Perl. Rating Buster.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I tend to overbias on a stat until I reach a point I am happy with, then work on others. For example, for the last two months I have focused on SP over regeneration; recently I have decided I went too far on that so I am now biasing more towards regeneration until I can heal Iron Council without sweating bullets. Once I am happy with those two, I’ll probably work Crit.

Of course, if I can get all four in an upgrade, I’m ecstatic.

There you have it. Enjoy, if possible!

---

1. Shut up, Flora! [↩]
2. See wut I did thar? [↩]

So, I’ve had a meltdown. And yet, all other things aside, we’re still headed back into Naxx to finish it up.

So, what to do?

When you get thrown from a horse, the sooner you get back on, the faster your recovery. Or so I’ve heard.

So. I logged in. Did my dailies.

Parked at the flightpoint … and waited to see if the GM (who I did apologize directly to) would risk asking me back into a raid.

She did, I went. We had Plague wing and KT left.

And we steamrolled them. We even got an achievement out of it.

There was one amusing moment, when we started Noth. Or I should say, THEY started Noth. I was in the doorway, apparently just a bit on the outside of the line, and when somebody pulled¹, the curtains came down and I found myself on the outside. Worst, they were tanking him in the far corner (as per normal) so I couldn’t even help.  Two adds DID come for me, but I guess I evadebugged on them and they left.

So, at least for some value of ’success’, I succeeded in raiding.  I won’t be on Oprah documenting that any time soon.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Let’s talk about our run. Every boss was a record for us. This raid is no longer a serious challenge to the experienced ones, so we need to look at how to change that up.  I have a couple of thoughts.

1. Move this to Saturday as a solid block, and then move Ulduar to two or three nights in the week.
2. Swap out some alts.
3. Go for the 8-man achievement with the mains.

I’d also like to see us go for EoE soon. I guess I need to practice that stupid quest in Coldarra.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Regarding TotC, I really want to walk away from it and never return. It’s not that it’s hard. It’s that we (a) have most of Ulduar still to do, (b) Ulduar is interesting, (c) TotC is not.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Due to personal matters in RL, much of the guild leadership will be unavailable for raiding this week. I don’t really want to be in the middle of such things, but I know one or three people interested in VoA and that sort of thing, so I probably will help organize them. I’d rather take the week off myself, but being selfish is not the hallmark of a good officer. Bleah.

---

1. I have no idea if it was on purpose or not – I wasn’t in Vent. That was one thing that helped keep me sane, not having the chattering in my ear. [↩]

Remember a couple of months ago where I had thoughts on two tanks dropping offline in the middle of a raid?

My turn.

Tonight was our first ever foray in to TotC-10. We took down the Beasts, and we took down Jaraxxus. There was no way we weren’t going to wipe on the Champions.  And we did.  This is a progression raid. That sort of stuff happens.

But somewhere in the postmortem, I reached my End. That point at which I could no longer function. I took my leave, logged out, and went and watched Jon Stewart until I remembered how to laugh again.

I have no idea what to say in defense, because I have nothing to say in defense.

They should have sent a poet.

Well, last night’s third ever Ulduar raid was an exemplar of how our guild can take something that’s working great, and make it go awry.

After one-shotting Loot Leviathan twice, the last thing you’d expect is for us to wipe two or three times, and the one where we won was a just-barely affair. But there you have it. Typical of how we do things sometimes. Similar to the Naxx before last where we stalled on Grobbulus – almost the same crowd put him down like a bad habit the next week. When we have off nights, we have off nights.

People were late. People were dropping offline. People had places to be with the kids, were distracted, or otherwise … meh. One guy had a shooting on his street AND his cousin die within the same hour, and the hunter’s cable modem had to be reset by his ISP. We spent longer looting Leviathan than we did on the whole gauntlet.

XT and Metalbird were oneshot. I got a nice bracer off of Razordrake, too.

Did we attempt Ignis? What,  are we stupid? I swear, if the boss had suggested that, I would have possibly run for the hills. Fortunately for my sanity, we had to call it early so that people could take the kids out trick or treating.

This was very frustrating from a healing perspective. Metaldrake was almost a wipe since everyone thought that that blue crap was a great place to stand, and “healing through it” was becoming less of an option by the second as my mana bar headed for the basement. Early on I had to make a choice between a retpalli that knew better and the MT. I finally had to blurt out on Vent, DON’T STAND IN BLUE STUFF, GUYS!  I probably should have added YOU KNOW BETTER but I didn’t.

I want to go stand at the far end of the circle, where the guides show, but I’m not convinced everyone’s playing by that same game plan, so I’m worried that I’ll cause a wipe if I do.

Maybe I’ll just say screw it and do it anyway, and then cajole people into the right places retroactively. Progression means sometimes you wipe.  And if this bunch can’t be arsed to watch a video, maybe some pain will convince them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I finished the evening pleasantly enough, well, the whole crowd did, really, as we made our final attempts at the Big Burning Horsie. It did not show, but the Helm of Even More Awesome Laughter did drop, and our Gnome DK received it. It was the only thing she was looking for.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Ever read the story of the Headless Horseman? It’s pretty sad. A knight of the Silver hand, he went mad when he accidentally slaughtered his own family.

He turned against the Scarlet Monastary and was beheaded. But he was reanimated by demonic magic (thus the fel fire), and once a year he is brought back to life to suffer for his attack on the Crusade. During that time, he sees us as walking dead, and believes himself alive.

I had a very bad feeling about this evening’s Naxx.  Just a vibe.   It turned out, it was completely unfounded. We rolled over three wings and had time for a heroic after.

Our MT and two main DPS were complete beasts. We set guild records for every kill. As an example, Anub went down before the second insect plague. Faerlina’s enrage timer barely went off (after we killed all her acolytes). We had time for two swaps on Four Horsemen, no more.  We HALVED our time on Razz, almost.

That was awesome.

I tried a new healing approach; Renew was only used in special circumstances. Otherwise, I kept to PW:S, Lesser Heal, and Penance when off cooldown. My mana was never in danger of draining.

I’m looking forward to trying this on Iron Council.

One thing I recall from the announcement of the new expansion was the outrage over some of the new class-to-race combos. One that people scratched thier heads over was Gnome priest.

Personally, I scratch my head pondering those people.

Haven’t you ever been in the Clean Room in Gnomeregan?

Who’s this?

Sure, you’re going to say there’s a big difference between a ‘medic’ and a ‘priest’. I agree.

What I am addressing is the people that think that Gnome priests are something out of the Ether.

I disagree. There’s a foundation, right here. The rest … is embellishment.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Incidentally, to those people thinking that Gnomeregan will be restored as a new Gnomish capit0l city, I’d like to give you one reason why it won’t.

The Horde.

If the Alliance gains a new capitol city, and the Horde does not, the tears will be bitter and widespread. The QQ will be epic. Those delicate Orc warriors won’t be able to deal with such an affront.

So, if it DOES happen, there will be a tradeoff.  I wonder what it might be?

Maybe it’ll be half of Ashenvale and the rest of Hillsbrad. We already know they’re swinging Horde, and I have heard of no territory given over to Alliance. So maybe Gnomer will be the tradeoff.

Or maybe something will open up for the Trolls.  ZF?  Or maybe ZG – we’ve already heard of massive changes taking place in STV.

Well. Something to consider.

We returned to Ulduar this weekend and I’m happy to say that XT, Razorscale, Kologarn, and Loot Leviathan all dropped respectfully before us, one shots all.  I seem to be having a problem staying vertical, though.

It also seemed – at least to me – that we didn’t bring our ‘A’ game. There were more than enough people to fill it out, but I didn’t feel the energy. Maybe it was just me.

Ignis did not light my fire

The MT had a thing he wanted to try, so we gave it a shot. I’m not entirely sure if everyone grokked it or not, considering that nobody ever started out where he said to. And as usual our DPS (which was rip-roarin’) had a tenancy to start as soon as he made contact. I finally suggested that he call out when he was settled, and THEN they attack. We promptly had two DPS start early anyway.

One officer offered to drop out to make room for a better DPS. We were pretty sure, however, that DPS was not the issue. As with last week, getting the adds together and killing them is the big thing, and we’re failing on execution.

The Iron Council

Eventually the boss decided it was time for a change of pace, and we went to test the waters with the Iron Council. Initially we failed to manage too well because we were using a 25-man strategy; once we had the chance to realize that we started making headway; phase 1; phase 2 (revenge of the phase); eventually we were left with one guy to take down, the dwarf caster. We had a bit of a deadline which we intended to meet, but we had that ‘five percent go fever’ going, in which nobody wanted to leave it at 5 percent, or 4, or 3. So we made two more attempts…

Now about that mana thing …

This is a LONG fight. There is easily time for two shadow beast evocations in there, and that’s without a shadow priest talent tree. I had pots. A druid innervated me. I had elixirs. And still, mana – not so much.

I have been doing homework. I’m starting to see that I need to change my habits.  One of the first things, probably, is to get my HoT off of a hotbar.  My mechanic is skewed towards direct heals and bubbles. I need to learn now to drive that better.

Until then … :: sigh :: … MP5 is back on the table as a major player in my gearing decisions.

Our Naxx run tonight was unusual in that we had more applicants than slots. I did volunteer to sit it out, but there were … personality … issues that would have made that problematic.

The GM actually asked me to lead the raid for a moment … talk about blood running cold!

Don’t get me wrong. I think I could do it, or at least as well as we usually do. But, to quote a former demon hunter … I was not prepared.  I told the GM later that given a warning I will be more than happy to give it a try, and live with the results (likely: fail).

As it was, with three melee DPS, two ranged, three healers, and two tanks, we made it through Arachnid Okay but got hung up on Globbulus. Our melee DPS was taking massive damage, and it was just impossible to keep them up. In retrospect maybe I should have handed out healing assignments, but hindsight is 20/20, eh?

Ah well, a couple of peeps got upgrades, so I am “not prepared” to go emo over that.   Given the conversation that followed in vent I’m actually far from unhappy. Progress has odd little zigs and zags.

A story.

Bob was hitting his hand with a rock, over and over again, causing himself much pain.

Sandra asked him why he was doing that.

“I wanted to punish you for wearing that ugly hat,” he said, hitting his hand once more.

Thus is the logic of the /emoquit.

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We took down Sarth+1D last night. Truly, much tougher than one might suspect, or at least if you’re not prepared for it, it falls apart f-a-s-t.

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As you might have guessed, more /emodrama. I give up. Go sit in a hole and weep bitter emo tears. Come back when you can envision yourself typing “I disagree with your desision, GM, and here’s why” instead of “/gquit”.

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Headless was kind to us last night, in which he dropped his mount for one lucky guildie (not one I am fond of but oh well) and at least three squashlings, one which I received. /petcheer

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It saddens me that the esteemed Ratshag at Need More Rage is hanging up his blogging togs, and presumably the rest of the team as well.  Not counting WoW Insider, his was in the first three blogs I started reading, along with BRK (also now gone) and Hydragyrum (formerly “Liquid Silver” over on Vox, currently Almost Evil).   And, due to Meta’s early exposure to his musings, he’s largely to blame for much of the way that this blog came to be. True story!

There are many Ratshag favorites out there, let us share ours:

• What he likes about being a warrior
• The Helm of Evil Laughter. Also, it has groupies.
• That other – tupid – hebet. Redux.
• Emo Kinnavieve
• Quite possibly, we’re not saying, inspiration for this.
• Five words: Nipple chain.  Maybe. Maybe not.

Thanks for the memories, you big glubberthumper.  And you’re always welcome to drop in here if you want a taste of true obscurity.