Tanks for the Memories

First off, just a comment to all those who tank the leveling dungeons. Most of you do a damn fine job, and I thank you very much. Some of you have some issues. I'm not talking about stuff like not knowing exactly what to do. I had a tank in Blackrock Caverns who wasn't very familiar with the place. It may have even been his first time there. He didn't know how to tank Steelbender. He did, however, take the advice given on how the pull should be done. And the advice was given nicely, even after we wiped the first time. The rest of the run was successful.

The issues I have with some tanks are the severe attitude problems that come from being a dick. I was in Zul'Farrak with my baby druid healer. The tank was at the high end of the level range, and pulled like an idiot. There was no time to loot anything, because if you stopped for a second, he was already off the mini-map. Several of us tried to ask him to slow down, but it was ignored. He also seemed to enjoy stroking his epeen and telling us how awesome he was.

During the gauntlet after releasing the prisoners, he jumped down into the mass of mobs and pulled them all. By using everything in my meager healing abilities, I was able to keep the jackass alive. Once the gauntlet was over and the prisoners were killed, he did a "gotta go" and dropped. If he did that while we were still in combat, it would have gotten his name posted up here. He was still a dick though, and I won't be healing him ever again. The replacement tank did a fine job, and we killed and looted everything else.

In other news, there must have been some guild drama when I was away. Several long-time raiders left the guild. The raid teams were also reorganized. I don't seem to have a spot any longer, which surprised me. It may work out well because of the upcoming summer months and various family obligations I have which are not very compatible to raiding, but it still saddened me a bit. I liked the people that left, and I really liked raiding with them.

Living Up to the Name

While my pugging has been going extremely well, I did run into an asshat last night. I was in the middle of a Violet Hold run that was going nicely. We had just finished the last wave of mobs before the second boss. The boss is released, and the tank leaves the party. We wipe. The new group lead re-queues us, and one of the other DPS drops group. Then the healer drops. The other DPS comments on how much of an asshat the tank was for dropping, then drops group.

I know the healer can get a quick queue, but why on earth would a DPS drop group? The wait time was anywhere from 12 to 30 minutes? I noticed that I was still queued. Thirty seconds later I was in a new group. I had to teleport out and back in to sync with them, and it was Violet Hold again. We proceeded to make quick work of the place, and because I had already completed almost two thirds of it previously I was very close to leveling.

I know there can be any number of reasons for someone to drop, but this wasn't a disconnect. There was also plenty of time before we got into combat to say "sorry, gotta go" and allow us to get out of dodge. I suspect that this person does this regularly, based solely on the actions and the name of the character.

Here's to you, Quiton - Blade's Edge. Thanks to you I was able to do one and two thirds dungeons in the time I would have normally done one and waited for the next one. It doesn't make you any less of a dick.

Elephants on Parade

The baby elephant from the D.E.H.T.A. quest hadn't despawned on my warlock yet, and it looks like a common occurrence. Every pug I've run for over a week has had at least two others with the same bug. I'm hoping for a run where all five of us have the elephant, as that would make a hilarious screenshot. The elephant disappears after a dungeon, but it's back again after a relog. Since my main is a gnome, the elephant completely covers my toon most of the time and it looks like death and destruction is shooting from the elephant's trunk!

I sent a bunch of time on my alts this week, and they've been leveling quite nicely without any pug issues. I did have a few issues on my Worgen druid. I was healing a run through Scholomance where the hunter was a bit trigger happy and/or ran into the next room and face-pulled some mobs. I managed to keep everyone alive, but just barely. The hunter did keep apologizing for the pulls and pulling aggro, but kept doing it anyway. About half-way through the drake room, the tank suddenly drops group. The hunter dropped a few seconds later. We got replacements rather quickly and continued on.

The new tank didn't know the dungeon, but we were able to guide her where to go easily enough. the rest of the run went smoothly until just before the final boss. In the room chock full of undead, the tank managed to pull the entire room and died before I could catch up on heals. I managed to get a battle-rez up and kept myself and the others healed though the resulting chaos.

Back on my shadow priest, I was able to score some cheap Cataclysm greens off the auction house. I have a set of the new level 80 cloth gear to replace my heirlooms when I hit 80, but these were level 79 greens that were above and beyond anything that came out in Wrath and filled out a few of the non-heirloom slots quite nicely. I also finally hit level 2 on my alt guild, and my main's guild just hit 25 this week as well! I don't know if there will be any raiding this week due to the holiday, but I will most likely spend some time on my main doing the new Troll dungeons. 

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Getting Back Into the Groove

While on vacation, I had brought two laptops with me so the other members of my family could check their emails and such. My wife has also replaced her morning smoke with Pogo games while drinking her first cup of coffee in the morning, so I had to make sure to have that available for her. I did attempt to logon to WoW one night, but when I tried to logon the account was flagged and locked for suspicious behavior. They must really be stepping up the security monitoring, because I've played WoW from several different states over the years while traveling and I've never run into this. I do have an authenticator, so I feel this is a bit of overkill. Instead of going through the password change and whatever else needed for getting back online instantly, I sent them an email from the account registered to WoW and explained the situation to them - I was on vacation in FL, have an authenticator, and I don't want to change my password. By the time I got home from Universal Studios that evening, my account was unlocked with no further issues.

I was playing my warlock and restro druid this week, and the pugs went pretty smoothly. I like the change in the LFG reward system. I normally play one character though all the rested state and then let them sit until the next week. Sometimes if they are close to leveling, I play them until they reach the next level, which usually involves more questing than pugging. Instead of getting only one reward per week, I'm usually getting at least three on my DPS toons and all seven on my healer/tank toons.

With all the pugging, I still haven't run into any real drama. There was one run through Dire Maul where a huntard (my raiding main is a hunter, this was a huntard) seemed to need every drop and started the run pulling instead of the tank. The tank asked him nicely not to pull, and he stopped. Mostly.

On my alts, I don't really care about whatever gear that drops. I have them decked out in all the heirlooms save the ring. I have alts with maxed out professions that can make stuff to fill in the other slots. If I get an upgrade on a LFG pug, I consider it a happy bonus. I rarely roll need unless it's an upgrade for one of my heals or tanks. If I'm on my dps and an item drops that a healer or tank will get better use from I'll roll greed. After watching the huntard roll need on everything and how they were specced and playing, I figured they player as either really new or very young, or both. I think everybody else did as well, since nobody called him on it. It wasn't worth calling him on it as nothing of any real consequence dropped, and nobody else needed anything.

I plan on running my warrior tank tonight, and I haven't played him for almost a month. So a rusty tank going into the LFG may give me some fodder for the blog, but I really prefer not having anything to write about.

Back from Margaritaville

I got back from vacation and the only thing WoW related that I did was update my add-ons and WoW itself. The next day I pugged a bit on my shadow priest, and they went pretty smooth. I managed to hit 75, and made my way to Dalaran to pick up the Violet Hold quest. I got in on my last pug, and it started a little iffy.

The bear tank seemed to have real issues holding aggro, and the mage finally called him on it after pulling the mobs off him for the nth time. I was constantly having to fade or stop dps myself. I quick look on recount was showing the tank putting out less than 500 DPS, and as the mage and the tank started going back and forth I had doubts as to getting the quest done.

The bear bets the mage that he can't pull the next boss off him, and to his credit he managed to keep the boss on him. He also started putting out better DPS and threat, which he kept up for the rest of the run. I turned in my quest, and sent the heirlooms off to my mage.

I've been having a lot of fun on my frost mage, and this was no exception. My first run was to zone into a LBRS run already in progress. We tore through the run, and I dinged 59 at some point. I queued up again, and found myself at Hellfire Ramparts. With DPS ranging one to two levels higher than me, I figured I would be at the bottom of the damage meter.

I feel that mages are a bit OP, as I topped the chart by a considerable amount. The tank had a very good handle on keeping aggro with bigger and bigger pulls, which let me blizzard like a madman. On the few mobs that pulled off I either has built up fingers of frost/frostfire proccs or the tank taunted them back. After the run, I went to Outland and ran the quest chain to get the Ramparts quest. I queued up again, and proceeded to tear up Ramparts. This tank wasn't as capable of managing groups, so I either toned down the DPS or used a few tricks to keep the mob(s) off me when I pulled aggro. I dinged 60 on the last boss and ported back to Stormwind.

I spent some time leveling up my tailoring to get some useable items for my level, and then went back to Outland to turn in my quests. I was killing\skinning some hogs while queued and got Ramparts once more. Another quick run and I was almost at 61! I continued killing\skinning hellboars for that last little bit. If it wasn't so late I would have stayed online and gotten another level - I'm really digging this toon.

Uldaman

I queued up on my level 40 druid to heal a random after swapping my talents around after the latest patch changes. I ported into Uldaman, picked up the quests, and caught up to the rest of the party already in combat with a few troggs. The run went pretty smooth, although the tank liked to charge off out of range every now and then. I didn't let anyone die, and between quests and killing I hit 41 at the end. Again with the nice and friendly people. Normally I would be raiding on Thursday night, but I'm going on vacation this weekend and most likely won't be playing WoW for a week.

Two toons, four levels

I logged onto my 55 frost mage and queued up. I zoned into a Blackrock Depths in the middle of a battle just outside of Golem Lord Argelmach. I guess the last half of this dungeon is just too much for some people, as I seem to get this pretty often. There aren't any problems at all on the run. I'm a few bars short of 56, so I do the Children's Week quests. I ding 56 with almost a full level of rested left, so I queue up again. Same dungeon, same spot.

Everything goes well until we hit the Grim Guzzler. The tank does so much AOE that he pulls too much and overwhelms the healer. Everybody dies, except me. I think I have perfected escaping from this place when things go sideways. Al the elites have died, so the regular mobs stop chasing me before I have to run too far. Things get slowed a bit when we lose a DPS and the tank has a hard time figuring out how to use the mole machine to get past the Grim Guzzler.

The rest of the run is mostly uneventful, and we continue on. I think the folks working on recount need to do a little more bug fixing, because at one point my DPS was around 768k. Even though things were dying pretty quick, I doubt my blizzard was critting for over 200k. I did manage to screenshot my recount numbers, but I'm having trouble getting a readable picture. I'm almost 57, so I head on over to the Swamp of Sorrows to quest for a bit.

If you haven't done the quests here since Cataclysm, you should make some time for it. I was the only player in the area, and must have been for some time because I snagged two rare spawns - Fingat and Captian Wyrmak. Between the launching from cannons and the new quest line in the non-instanced portion of Sunken Temple, the zone is a lot of fun. I hit 57 and before I knew it I had quested and killed though 58 without the rested bonus.

I ported home and mailed my heirlooms off to my 70 warlock. I queued up and did some questing. After a short wait, I entered Utgarde Keep. The run went pretty smooth, and recount showed a more reasonable amount of damage. It must just be the mage. I was questing along afterwards, and I was doing the quest where you have to kill Clam Master K. At least I thought I was. I always remember to save the wine bottle quest to pair it up, but I also always forget to turn in the quest needed to get the one to kill Mr. Clammy.

I kill a shark and get to the wine, and I start looking for Clam Master K. There is another character fighting him and getting hit by two sharks. As I'm targeting one of the sharks, I get an invite from the other player. I take out the sharks while the other player kills K. I didn't get credit for the kill, and I realize I'm not on that part of the quest chain yet. We share a laugh and I thank the other player for being so thoughtful. I turn in my quests, go back and kill K again, and hit 71.

Lately I've been able to play with some pretty nice peeps, although the illusion of an asshat-free WoW is shattered the moment the trade channel comes up