I spent very little time in Azeroth this week as I was too busy being lobsterfied at the shore. Most of the time not at the beach was spent getting sand from said beach off of and out of various parts of myself. I did bring my laptop with me, and one night when everyone else turned in fairly early I logged on.
I ran a few pugs on my 30ish druid tank. I don't tank very often lately, and it takes me a little bit to get into the groove. I really hate it when an overzealous DPS or healer decides to pull more. I usually let them get pretty low on health before I pull them off just out of spite. I don't get what the "gogogo" attitude is about, especially with DPS. Are you in a hurry to wait another 1/2 hour to get in to another run? Even the queue for heals is running around 10 minutes. After a few runs in Razorfen and SM and adding more names to my ignore list, I logged onto a mage and hit the queue.
I got The Nexus, and things seemed to start off ok. The tank liked to get way ahead of everyone all the time, and that did eventually cost us a wipe. We had just finished Telestra. The tank ignored the two optional pulls and started in on the group on the left. Just as the patrol joined the fray, the deathknight nooblet managed to pull both optional groups with him. They peeled off him as soon as we went past the healer, turning him into a stain on the floor. The tank and the rest of us followed shortly thereafter.
We came back in and I think the healer went AFK for a few minutes at that point. We made our way to Anomalus and lost the DKto a D/C along the way. Someone eventually kicked him before we got to the boss. As we started the pull, either the healer or one of the DPS spammed "don't kill the rifts" and "let’s get the achievement" before we let them know that was for heroic runs only. After the boss dropped, I guess the tank had had enough and left the group.
We get a new tank and almost get through the run without any problems. The healer needs another AFK before the last boss, but instead of going into Keristraza's room he stays in the outside hallway. Eventually a patrolling mob makes him go splat. After we're all done laughing about that, we drop the boss and my WoW withdrawal has been satisfied for the rest of my vacation.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Weekend Update
Nothing terribly exciting this weekend. I did level up a few more alts, reaching the Lifebloom milestone on one of my druids. I find druid healing through Burning Crusade content to be rather non-stressful. Before you get Lifebloom, it's just Rejuve and Nourish with the occasional Swiftmend and Wild Growth if things get pear-shaped. Once you get Lifebloom, keeping that and Rejuve on the tank is almost all that is needed. Adding free Regrowths when Omen of Clarity pops is the norm. Removing debuffs along the way when I can, it's pretty much ez-mode.
Once in a while you know you're going to be in for an exciting run. Not necessarily good exciting, but exciting none the less. As I zoned in, the tank exclaimed "finally, a good healer". At first I thought that I may have run with this particular paladin and appreciated the comment, but as he continued on with "last healer was a suck priest" and "I love druid healers" I realized I’ve never played with this tank before. This would be my first and last run with this tank.
We progress with no problems to the room with the first boss of Mana Tombs. He pulls the boss with half of the adds still alive, so they all come running. I manage to HOT up everyone before they all kill me dead, and they are able to kill everything and keep from wiping. After being rezzed by the tank, we continue on.
We come to the room with 2 mobs that fear, and the tank feels the need to pull the entire room. We get fear-bombed and eventually wipe. We run back in (by we I mean me and two of the DPS) and finish clearing the room with a more sensible pull. The tank disconnects. While we are waiting, we manage to clear most of the trash in the next room via CC, careful pulling, and some well played DPS. I finally initiated a kick after it becomes clear that the tank isn't coming back. I also make sure to add him to my ignore list. We get a new tank and finish the run without any further issues. We even requeue and do another run.
I also did a run as a tank for a change. I recently got another piece of heirloom gear to complete the leather tank/DPS set, so I queued up on yet another druid (at least this one is a Worgen for a change). I get my most favorite dungeon, Gnomer. We get to the first ledge, jump down, and kill the first boss. After we make our way to the hallway down, between my tunnel vision from not having played a tank in a while and a WTF moment on the healer, I almost cause a wipe. I'm fighting the first pack down the hall, and I see my health steadily dropping. I finish the pull with about 1% health left.
I notice that the healer and one of the DPS are not in the immediate vicinity. It turns out that they are in the "safe zone" area using the machines to clean off the crappy drops that almost every mob drops in the run. It would have been nice to know that was where they were going, but I should have checked we were all there and ready before I pulled. We finish the run without further incident.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Northrend in the Summertime
I've managed to get a few more toons into Northrend and closer to Cataclysm content. It does sometimes get confusing as to which quests on which toons I'm on. I mainly have a set routine for starting Northrend. At level 68 I say goodbye to Outland and return to Stormwind to pick up Cold Weather Flying and any Wrath gear my profession stable can make. Between having almost all the heirlooms and all max level professions, I usually only "need" the blue quest rewards and dungeon drops to be completely uber-powered.
After I sail off from Stormwind, I'll do the quests around the keep and the ones around Riplash Strand and Farshire before heading off to Kaskala. I'll do the daily quest and take the turtle to Dragonblight, pick up the flight point, and take the other turtle to Kamagua. After getting the flight point, I'll swing by Westguard to get the flight point there as well. I'll fly over to Valgarde to pickup the breadcrumb quest "Fresh Legs" and get the Utgarde Keep quests. If I'm not 70 by then, a few quests in Valgarde usually takes care of that.
If I'm on a DPS toon I'll queue for a random while I take the flight to Dalaran, otherwise I'll queue after I've done my level 70 class training. While waiting, I make my way back to Borean Tundra to get started on the quests for the Nexus. After a few runs in Utgarde and the Nexus, my next stop is Azjol-Nerub. I usually forget to pick up the quests for Azjol-Nerub until after I've run it once. Sometimes I get luck and someone shares it, other times I have to get over there to pick it up myself.
Over the weekend I went from Blackrock Depths to Outland on my druid healer. The BRD run was pretty good. Since I've spent a lot of time in there I was able to assist the tank with where to go, which is a good thing when you have it near the end of Vanilla levels - the random ends with the last boss and not the quick boss. We did have a leech rogue, who I noticed wasn't participating but was rolling on drops. I asked in party chat if they we're planning on joining us during the run and didn't receive an answer. I initiated a kick as soon as the timer allowed, and we picked up a hunter and finished off the run.
My next random was in Blackrock Spire, and I was following what I thought was the tank up the ramp to the quest giver. It turns out that it wasn't and they pulled a pat which made me go splat. After that grand entrance, we proceeded along nicely. We had a hiccup at one of the Troll bosses when the tank pulled the entire room. With me and several others hexed, we wiped. We managed to kill most of the adds though, so after we ran back in it was smooth sailing.
We proceeded to complete LBRS, which was extremely long and yet extremely fun. I fired up my other computer and multi-boxed/boosted my druid and another toon through UBRS to finish off the quests and push my druid to level 58 so I could move to Outland. I boosted the druid to 60 in Ramparts and picked up a few drops for her and the other toon (feral druid).
I mailed the heirlooms to another druid on another account, and did a few last Outland runs before heading off to Northrend. I did my previously mentioned route as a boomkin, and healed a few UK runs. I also leveled one of my mages from 68 to 71 the same way. My last run in UK on my mage wasn't too bad, but the tank seemed to feel the need to move at ludicrous speed, leaving us all behind on almost every pull.
FYI tanks, if I need to loot or regain mana/focus/whatever I'm going to do so. If I'm healing, I might throw a HOT on you. I know there are "gogogo" DPS out there and it gets to be quite stressful, but you control the run speed - not them. Just before heading to Northrend, I was on a CoT pug with my mage. The tank wasn't familiar with the run, and there was a rogue that decided to start pulling the second the dragon landed with the tank still in flight. If I were healing the run, he would have been dead several times. Even with all the mobs he was attacking, I still did three times the damage he did. Plus I didn't almost die every pull. Let the tank pull, and if the tank is too slow for you then feel free to get back in the DPS queue - I can assure you that your wait will be longer. When I tank, if a DPS pulls that stunt I call them on it. If they continue with the asshattery, I let them tank it and die before I taunt the mob back. If you get a group that wants to sprint through and can keep up, then by all means sprint away. If you find yourself alone with a room full of mobs, perhaps you need to slow down a bit.
After I sail off from Stormwind, I'll do the quests around the keep and the ones around Riplash Strand and Farshire before heading off to Kaskala. I'll do the daily quest and take the turtle to Dragonblight, pick up the flight point, and take the other turtle to Kamagua. After getting the flight point, I'll swing by Westguard to get the flight point there as well. I'll fly over to Valgarde to pickup the breadcrumb quest "Fresh Legs" and get the Utgarde Keep quests. If I'm not 70 by then, a few quests in Valgarde usually takes care of that.
If I'm on a DPS toon I'll queue for a random while I take the flight to Dalaran, otherwise I'll queue after I've done my level 70 class training. While waiting, I make my way back to Borean Tundra to get started on the quests for the Nexus. After a few runs in Utgarde and the Nexus, my next stop is Azjol-Nerub. I usually forget to pick up the quests for Azjol-Nerub until after I've run it once. Sometimes I get luck and someone shares it, other times I have to get over there to pick it up myself.
Over the weekend I went from Blackrock Depths to Outland on my druid healer. The BRD run was pretty good. Since I've spent a lot of time in there I was able to assist the tank with where to go, which is a good thing when you have it near the end of Vanilla levels - the random ends with the last boss and not the quick boss. We did have a leech rogue, who I noticed wasn't participating but was rolling on drops. I asked in party chat if they we're planning on joining us during the run and didn't receive an answer. I initiated a kick as soon as the timer allowed, and we picked up a hunter and finished off the run.
My next random was in Blackrock Spire, and I was following what I thought was the tank up the ramp to the quest giver. It turns out that it wasn't and they pulled a pat which made me go splat. After that grand entrance, we proceeded along nicely. We had a hiccup at one of the Troll bosses when the tank pulled the entire room. With me and several others hexed, we wiped. We managed to kill most of the adds though, so after we ran back in it was smooth sailing.
We proceeded to complete LBRS, which was extremely long and yet extremely fun. I fired up my other computer and multi-boxed/boosted my druid and another toon through UBRS to finish off the quests and push my druid to level 58 so I could move to Outland. I boosted the druid to 60 in Ramparts and picked up a few drops for her and the other toon (feral druid).
I mailed the heirlooms to another druid on another account, and did a few last Outland runs before heading off to Northrend. I did my previously mentioned route as a boomkin, and healed a few UK runs. I also leveled one of my mages from 68 to 71 the same way. My last run in UK on my mage wasn't too bad, but the tank seemed to feel the need to move at ludicrous speed, leaving us all behind on almost every pull.
FYI tanks, if I need to loot or regain mana/focus/whatever I'm going to do so. If I'm healing, I might throw a HOT on you. I know there are "gogogo" DPS out there and it gets to be quite stressful, but you control the run speed - not them. Just before heading to Northrend, I was on a CoT pug with my mage. The tank wasn't familiar with the run, and there was a rogue that decided to start pulling the second the dragon landed with the tank still in flight. If I were healing the run, he would have been dead several times. Even with all the mobs he was attacking, I still did three times the damage he did. Plus I didn't almost die every pull. Let the tank pull, and if the tank is too slow for you then feel free to get back in the DPS queue - I can assure you that your wait will be longer. When I tank, if a DPS pulls that stunt I call them on it. If they continue with the asshattery, I let them tank it and die before I taunt the mob back. If you get a group that wants to sprint through and can keep up, then by all means sprint away. If you find yourself alone with a room full of mobs, perhaps you need to slow down a bit.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Catching Up
I'm finally back after a few weeks of really busy times at work. I was able to progress through the new dailies with my main without missing any days since the patch dropped, and I was able to get some drops from Ahune on some of my alts. I did, however, decide to take a few days off from work last week to have a five-day weekend to recharge my batteries.
I spent a lot of time on my main, doing the full 25 daily quests per day. This netted me another piece of heirloom gear from the Argent tourny vendor, a nice ring from the new Firelands faction, and exalted status with both my guild and Therazane. I also leveled up my healing druids through pugs with varying results. Same with a few of my mages.
Most of the runs were great. The tanks weren't idiots, and even if they didn't know the run (Such as the Durnhold Keep CoT one), they let the others know and we helped as best we could with explanations.
And then there were the idiots.
If you are pugging a run, there are a few ground rules you should follow. It's not cool or leet to not give your fellow puggers a chance to loot or regain mana by either chain pulling the entire run of a leveling dungeon. This isn't a max-level heroic, where the quicker you finish the quicker you can run another one for more badges. Pulling a boss when I'm low mana and giving a snarky comment after I ask for a second out of combat so I can replenish my mana is going to put you on my ignore list. There's a million other tanks out there - I don't need to waste my time with assholes like you.
Don't queue to tank after level 30 if you don't have a tank spec. There's a reason for the spec, and dual-spec training is dirt cheap. Don't be the pally trying to tank in holy spec in a mid-60 level dungeon. You will get kicked. If you don't know how to do it, do some research. Take five minutes and Google it at a minimum. Please.
Don't go AFK during scripted events (I did quite a few CoT runs). To this tank's credit, he did stay after we all asked him not to AFK just before the last waves and boss of Durnhold. If you are healing a run, don't drop in the middle of the event as well. Don't drop group in combat either. These weren't disconnects, they just dropped group. That makes you an asshole. I've had to drop out of groups in progress, but never while in combat or without letting the group know. It's just common courtesy.
During a pug run, I don't want to hear how drunk/high you are, nor do I want to listen to any sexist/racist crap. If you do the former, I will initiate a kick you if you are not performing and you will make my ignore list. If you do the latter not only will I initiate a kick, but I will leave if the kick fails. Either way you will make my ignore list and I will report your actions to a GM. There are too many other people to spend my time with, I don't have to waste it on assholes.
I spent a lot of time on my main, doing the full 25 daily quests per day. This netted me another piece of heirloom gear from the Argent tourny vendor, a nice ring from the new Firelands faction, and exalted status with both my guild and Therazane. I also leveled up my healing druids through pugs with varying results. Same with a few of my mages.
Most of the runs were great. The tanks weren't idiots, and even if they didn't know the run (Such as the Durnhold Keep CoT one), they let the others know and we helped as best we could with explanations.
And then there were the idiots.
If you are pugging a run, there are a few ground rules you should follow. It's not cool or leet to not give your fellow puggers a chance to loot or regain mana by either chain pulling the entire run of a leveling dungeon. This isn't a max-level heroic, where the quicker you finish the quicker you can run another one for more badges. Pulling a boss when I'm low mana and giving a snarky comment after I ask for a second out of combat so I can replenish my mana is going to put you on my ignore list. There's a million other tanks out there - I don't need to waste my time with assholes like you.
Don't queue to tank after level 30 if you don't have a tank spec. There's a reason for the spec, and dual-spec training is dirt cheap. Don't be the pally trying to tank in holy spec in a mid-60 level dungeon. You will get kicked. If you don't know how to do it, do some research. Take five minutes and Google it at a minimum. Please.
Don't go AFK during scripted events (I did quite a few CoT runs). To this tank's credit, he did stay after we all asked him not to AFK just before the last waves and boss of Durnhold. If you are healing a run, don't drop in the middle of the event as well. Don't drop group in combat either. These weren't disconnects, they just dropped group. That makes you an asshole. I've had to drop out of groups in progress, but never while in combat or without letting the group know. It's just common courtesy.
During a pug run, I don't want to hear how drunk/high you are, nor do I want to listen to any sexist/racist crap. If you do the former, I will initiate a kick you if you are not performing and you will make my ignore list. If you do the latter not only will I initiate a kick, but I will leave if the kick fails. Either way you will make my ignore list and I will report your actions to a GM. There are too many other people to spend my time with, I don't have to waste it on assholes.
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