Beautiful

There are some moments when you do stop for a while, where ever you are in the game and you notice how much attention to detail actually went into it. Some things might be quite small, that you would only see if you were really paying attention, some are really large. Here are two, that I have kept on my Mac as I like them too much to get rid of them.

This one, I thought was quite funny. Pandas having chinese take-out.

And then this one. Took while I was waiting for some trash mobs to come back around before I killed a rare. Stunning.

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Boosting

So I had a little help on Pazima to finally get me to level 75 so I could carry on with my professions. I'd scrambled from 68 to 71 pugging dungeons but could do with getting there a little quicker.

In stepped Farouche, who whisked me of to Dalaran for a date with the inmates of the Violet Hold. I couldn't pick up the quest but I was getting xp from the bosses and with the extra 9% from the anniversary gift from Blizzard (when I got reminded to use it) my bar was slowly working is way across.

I had a moment of madness when I reminded him that I couldn't fly yet in Northrend. I was being tight and hadn't forked out for it yet. I needed to go to Exodar to pick it up, as being a Draenei, it would be cheaper. He logged his Mage so that he could portal me across and then back again. When we got there I couldn't pick up anything... He mentioned that we could go to my next highest rep city, I looked at my reputation page...

[Faraouche] Whats your next highest one?

[Pazima] Oh wait! Revered is higher than honoured isn't it?

[Farouche] Yeah, where do we need to go?

[Pazima] TO STORMWIND!!

Because I'd ditched the space goats as quickly as I could, I hadn't build up much rep for them. Stormwind was my highest rep by a mile. So, he escorted me to the Alliance capital and I picked up Cold Weather Flying for 425g.

We made our way over to Azjol-Nerub, Farouche steaming ahead on his mount and me slowly catching up the rear. I found his dot and he said to come down. Even going down was slow...

We got in to the entrance and set off. I had been here a few times on Emava and was able to pick up the quests this time. I followed behind, trying to not take too much damage, popping my shield whenever things might get a bit sticky. At the first boss I went round an collected up all the eggs I needed to. Farouche was collecting everything as he was low on gold due to buying mounts (lolz).

We got to a bridge that went down, with lots of spider webs under it. Farouche asked if I could do 'that floaty thing'. I could indeed levitate him. 'Follow me' he said. he jumped off the bridge and floated down. I followed him, or so I thought. Veering wildly off course I ended crashing into a wall and grabbing the attention of some nearby ant-spiders. 'Fuck' I whispered to him. He came back to sort out the infestation problem I was having and ran back off. I got charged at again by more of them. 'Still fuck' I whispered. I was finding the whole thing highly amusing for some reason. I hadn't died yet but by god I was probably close a few times. Farouche rescued me again and we went off. Another boss was dispatched and then we were onto the last one.

There is a huge stairway dropping down to the final boss. I was still levitating and could see that Farouche had gone halfway down. I breezed off after him. Completely forgetting that I wouldn't actually follow the stairs, I took off on my little white cloud and drifted completely past Farouche. 'Fuck' I whispered again closely followed by 'This is hilarious'. I landed right in front of the two guardians and after  that got over what could only assume was there initial shock at a space goat floating in front if them, they charged in to get me. I was left with some words of wisdom...

[Farouche] You walk in Zionxis footsteps :)

Im a huntard and a priestard... This is not good...

Guild Chat

It all started with some innocent linking of loot...







And then it went down hill from there...

















Until finally...







Tangy yoghurt is serious stuff!

Downfall

After yesterday having a crack at part four flex: Downfall, and not managing to get past the goblin in the golem, a calendar invite was put up for it to try and be completed tonight.

We had previously been running RBG’S, which drained me of half my brain power. Not the best start in the world. To add in that I had also been spending most of my afternoon rep-grinding with the very capable DK Farouche, I was at a wow saturation point.

We stepped into Seigcrafters lair and had a run through of tactics. It was a lot to take in as there is lots going on in the fight. I havent completed part three or four in LFR so yesterday was 'first contact' with Siegcrafter Blackfuse and his whirring Assembly Line. This time thankfully I didn't fall off the platform where the trash is, trying to get down the tube. Most embarrassing to utter 'Oh bugger' on TS as my corpse is dumped in the middle of the boss area for everyone to gawp at...

We had our markers up and took position. We had Verdie tanking for us, which made it a whole lot easier. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing and could give out instructions. It was one of those encounters that I got better at the more times I died. I worked out my ideal positioning for the drills, swapped a talent to take care of the mines and made sure I was on max range for the blades. I did die a lot and I wasn't worth combat ressing which was both a relief and an embarrassment. It gave me the chance to see what was going on and see where those in RT1 positioned themselves etc but it also highlighted how far I had slipped down the gear scales. (Which is why I really need to be able to get a team sorted out for RT3 so we can get more people ready for when the expansion hits, myself included)

Back to the story, I wasn't the only one to die. We had many wipes on it. Some were for silly mistakes like not killing the mines but the majority were we just were a fraction or with positioning or a bit slow of the mark for moving an add etc. The more we wiped the closer we got though.
I decided that my nemesis was the laser. Every time I was kiting it away from the group I ended up dying and in more than one occasion I got trapped but the flaming shit that was everywhere (after a melee had it focusing on them) and the blades right when the drills popped up. My most spectacular death was when a saw blade focused on me and I strafed a bit to the right, which would have been out of harms way and then panicked. I then strafed left, into the blade and then got pinballed into two others. I stayed silent on ts but was laughing my ass off at my own stupidity privately. Eventually we had him down. And we all had a little nerd scream after. After that we ended up seeing the great orc himself, Garrosh Hellscream.

He was smaller than I expected and the beating heart thing above us was seriously creepy. We went through and gave it a shot with us stacking at one side and then moving. Unfortunately, due to us being tired/boss-boozled/idiotic we didn't make it.

We then organised another one for a weeks time. When it came round it was after reset so we went through them all again.

We ended up with a beautiful line of pale green across the middle of the raid bar. '4 hunters?' Rich and I commented in raid chat. This then increased to 5. '5 hunters?' 'This is going to be fun'. When we were ready Rich made us all aware that we were going with 'Transformers! Roll out!' Which then got reworked to the very apt 'Hunters! Roll out!'

Malkorok was dispatched in one. A vast improvement on when I was in LFR and everyone was running away from the puddles.

Spoils of Pandaria was also interesting, I'd done this once before, in LFR. It was interesting listening to the two group leaders talking to their teams and having to filter out what information was for your team. It was probably the most painless one of the lot and over in a flash.

There was also my second ever taste of Thok. I got dropped by the lizard-birds. Death number one.
I also had the unfortunate episode of talking to someone so my DBM was sending them updates. I had another two deaths in our first attempt. I got eaten when the boss turned around when I was trying to locate the second marker and I got eaten by it when it was chasing someone down the corridor. I quickly learned that if in doubt run away was a good ethos to have. Until we started to lose healers and then after I died the second time Roly declared over TS 'If your not near me you will die' Pink power!

We wiped on that attempt. Rich being the only one left alive and unfortunately couldn't bring the stupid dino down. I got a message from Farouche 'Aww you wiped on 1%' it was that tragic...

We gave the Dino what for on the next attempt, I died, again... but got ressed *hurrah* and actually made it to the end! OMFG! I didnt end the encounter staring at my ass on the floor. I had no end of re-rolls available to me so I had a quick check of what there was that I could possibly use. Not a lot so I settled with the gold.

Eventually we made it to Garrosh. This was the moment of truth.

I was tired, I had been working all day and been raiding all night. My brain was catching up with what I needed to do and my performance was at times sloppy. After dying AGAIN and AGAIN I was about to make it my last try and go and sort out my Bank Alt's guild tabs so that Chizal could use one of them to stash stuff. However, I wanted this kill, so I deleted the message I was going to send him about leaving if we wiped and set to it.

'Does anyone have a guild banner?' Alryisa asked on TS. dutifully three banners were placed in the marker 'Roly hates it when we do this' You could sense the frown of disapproval, even though he said nothing, as each of the banners plopped down.

After getting through the first bit and avoiding being killed by the Iron Star, we went into the next dream-like phase. We asked who goes down what side. 'Split evenly' was the decission. when we did split, as I was the last to load I saw that everyone had dissapeared off to the left, so I went right just as Alryisa asked 'Why is it just me and Roskva killing this add?' I joined in the fight and we were soon a Hunter trio taking it down. I dont know if I was imagining it but it looked like we were in the Temple of the Red Crane with Garrosh in the middle making lots of purple shit on the floor. We were soon dropped back into the action and killing mobs and weapons. Im pretty sure I died at this point and then got ressed (lolz). The interesting part was when lots of blobbs started coming out. They were everywhere... We were told to ignore them and not to kill them or they will empower, through the haze of purple swirling shit and the blobs the only think I could really focus on was Garrosh. We wiped. Oh my days, we were so close yet just didnt manage to get over the last hurdle. I could smell the achievment and wanted it so bad there was no way I was giving up, no matter how shabby my dps was (I feel at this part I was being boosted through, I was the worst geared player there by a long shot but it was great experience, even if I was completely shit). Alryisa was picking up on the hunters not missdirecting enough (there were five of us after all) and we dusted ourselves off and started again. We got through, all the way to the blobs and even with some of them becoming empowered, towering beasts we gave it everything. Zillions of hunter pets stormed into the fray. Crows were everywhere, Garrosh was still hammering Alryisa and then suddenly... Cust scene...

We had done it! Garrosh was down! I had earned my achievement and got past the big boy. Not on LFR but on Flex (obviously due to half of RT1 being there!)



I earnt two other achievments during this, the first was Unlimited Potential and then Strike!

Me so pro!

Just a little bit of self promotion here! Through my horde days you needed a dps meter to see how close you were from being kicked from a lfr group. Now for me it's used to see how I'm performing against the other people in the raid. In lfr I look to see if I'm anywhere close to the other hunters, doesn't matter what spec they are, I just want to be beating them (petty as it may seem but if I'm doing better than them, I feel like I'm doing ok)

Chizal is on the 3k valor part of the legendary questline. We were going to do a quick (if any current lfr can be classed add quick...) run on the Gates of Retribution. The queue time was 45 minutes, to be honest, we couldn't be arsed with that! We weighed up the options for 'quick' valor. We could pug a group for scenarios and a dungeon to bag us 130 vp, we decided to go to ToT Pinnacle of Storms. 4 minute queue and we only missed one boss.

Chizal was healing, and I was doing my standard pew-pew. I'd made a wager that I would die on the last boss and it would be by the lightning whip. True to form it is where I met my maker. I wasn't even trying to die there to prove a point, it's just I never know where to stand when he is chucking that thing about. That attempt ended in a wipe and even though I was dead for half of it I still had my eye on the meter. I'd been pipped to the post by a DK during that effort, sad times.

The went at it again. I was in group five so as instructed my group were to run around like chickens during the intermission. As Chizal was in group two I headed to green so he could keep me up (in lfr the only healers I trust are the ones I know) and so this sassy chicken ran off to green. We stood in the swirly puddles like good little palidins and hunters. You could see the mess going on at the other stations where 'don't stand in the shit!' was going on.





Anyway... I steadily worked my way through my rotation. Things did get a bit lax when the wind thingy started and I had to keep straifing one way and running the other to keep myself semi still so I could still fire. There was the bouncing balls of lightning, adds from the intermission that we still hadn't cleared up and then DBM announces that my favourite way to die is going to happen shortly, girder your loins...
After all the times I've run this, it was the first time I noticed that there was grey foggy stuff on the floor that people were avoiding. AHA! This must be where lightning whip goes on! I could see that the floor is grey and the fog was grey, helpful. I concluded that the only place I would be safe was behind the boss or over the other side of the room. Boss was closer. So while everyone was running away at full tilt, I swaggered up behind him, got a face full of Mogu arse and kept shooting arrows into it.
If I were him and I had someone yelling at me, punching me in the legs (he's tall) and battering me with a shield and someone else continually poking me in the bottom with arrows. I'd ignore the little guy having a tantrum at me feet and knock out the the one using me like a pin cushion. One can only assume that the tank was shouting 'yo mama' insults at him to keep his attention so well.

The moral of this long winded story is that I am feeling particularly smug due to my Skada result. Obviously it's an old raid to be doing but even then you get players with decent ilvl and have more of a clue about what they're doing than me. So one can only assume that the DK Néon was having an off day...

The Chat Box...

There have been many a funny thing end up in the chat box. Either in Guild Chat or while in LFR. It takes me a while to remember to gather them off my drive and to put them up and also to be paying attention to the chat box when they happen!

Here are a few that I have witnessed so far, I'm sure there will be many more...


While waiting for Spoils of Pandaria to actually be started. The tank was shit, and someone took a shit!



Talking about the stubborn weeds. Pitney had twelve of them on the farm and was just expressing that it would have been worse if it was the 'tentical' weeds as they take longer to pull up...



This was when I had a brain fart and asked a lvl 90 if they minded if i rolled need on a ring that had absolutely no use for.

RT3 does ToES

After last week's poor advancement through Terrace of Endless Spring we managed to get a full raid group together. From the people committed to RT3 we had Chizal, Lightning, Sanndo, Jollyjane and myself. We had an off tank and four dps. It was coming up to raid time and a sixth member wasn't logged in and we needed to find people. Luckily for us, RT2 had been forced to call a raid for tonight and while they were making their own fun in the new PvP based raid 'Shrine of the Two moons' they decided to come and help us out.

I did try and convince a friend of mine to join in the 'new raid' fun. He was sat on his Rogue, slacking when I suggested he log his Hordie.
"You should log your horde, Jesters are rampaging at the shrine"
"How many of them are there?"
"Oh about ten, and one of them is Marvv..."
"I think I'll stay here then!"

Shamanessa, Raidana, Wilfwolf, Alrdruid and Raymus completed the line up. (Thanks guys!)

Raidana was leading on ts, even though it's a pretty easy raid to do as we must have done it no end in lfr it was good to have someone explaining the process and reminding us where to focus. It was pretty uneventful, no screw ups (well, not many) and it was all very relaxed we knew we were there for fun add it were, wanting to tick boxes of on our armory stats!

The Protectors of the Endless were first up. We briefly discussed going 'hard mode' by keeping Protector Kaolan up until last. We decided not to. I've done this before and it was a pain in the ass. Granted, no one had gear like we do now but it was traumatic and expensive enough for me to have 'done it once, never again'. The unfortunate thing about not being able to see who is typing can lead to unintentional dismissal of ideas...

Raidana: (on ts) so are we going for elite?
[Raid chat][Chizal]: Regail, Asani, Kaolan
[Raid chat][Raidana]: can someone give Alr assist?
[Raid chat][Zionxi]: noooooooo
Zionxi: (on ts) Oh, Raidana that wasn't meant for you!

We went for the easiest option as we weren't going for glory, just to get it done.

Kaolan didn't actually do much protecting (he's getting sacked in the morning) and bit the dust without much complaining. We moved him all of five steps before he dropped.
We were calling out to get our lightning prisons removed on ts
"I have lightning!"
"No you don't"
"I thank you"

Onwards to Regail. With Raidana calling out the add and also when to move for the lightning storm.

"Add... good job"
"Lightning, everybody out, and in"

"Lighting storm, out, in... Nessa!"
"Bahhh! I was running!"

"Lightning, out, in..."
"In-out, shake it all about..."
"I was just thinking that!"

Tsulong was next, as there were alts and some who hadn't completed the green fingered achievement, Alrdruid took it upon himself to keep the plant alive. I got this achievement last time I was here, seemingly by accident. It was only when it popped up I actualky looked around and spotted it. Not sure what the benefits are to keeping the plant alive apart from the achievement! This also went quicker than it did last time, hardly any adds spawned (or so my untrained eye lead me to believe) most of us only got feared once. We were aiming to dip into the sunbeam once we were on ten stacks, the amount of times DBM screamed at me that I had twelve stacks was frightning. I'd be running over to it while trying to dodge the shit on the floor only to be a gnats whisker away from getting in and then it moved. At one point I was standing in the other side to the group and as usual, I was nearly dead. "I'm gonna die!" I squealed over ts trying to find a healer. "There you go" Alrdruid soothed, my health bar slowly going back to green. Once we had Tsulong under control, several people got the plant achievement. Good little tree!

Lei-shi was our sticking point last time. And this time was no different! Raidana went through the tactics and we accidentally pulled. Seeing as weer were slightly against the timer we went for it, probably not the smoothest of boss kills and didn't set out tanks up for the best start! Somehow we lost a tank and a healer near the end, just before the last spawn of Animated Protectors. We got the healer back up just before they spawned and had to go for broke, if wet didn't make it through this it would be game over. The tank courageously held them off until weer got them down and then faceplanted. Lei-Shi then started chasing everyone while we frantically tried to get away. Somehow I managed to get aggro without realising until Raidana said over TS "Zionxi is tanking" heals poured in like they were going out of fashion. I started running away like she had cooties without thinking about it. "three percent!" Blam. She decided to stop harassing us and go hang out with the Sha of Fear.

The last boss, you could see how far we had come, literally. A few skeletons littering the floor on the way up. This was where it got serious. Kill this and we had done it!

A marker was put down so we could see the protected cone area to stand in when breath of fear was active. And it began. We popped cooldowns and went for gold, ominous cackle took half the team away and all of a sudden we were left with lots of cloudy stuff being chucked at us. It seemed from nowhere there were six adds all at the side who needed dealing with. I ventured out to deal with one of them, the group hadn't returned yet and the breath was coming. I ran back and almost had one foot in the cone when it activated. I went running off like a loon, health rapidly decreasing. It wasn't long after that we wiped. Too much focus on the boss and not enough focus on the adds. Second try, we concentrated on the adds and only the boss during breath of fear. The ominous cackle was infuriating Raidana "what! I've been picked again!" I think there was only one time that he wasn't carted off to the 'bandstand'. While he was over there, the rest of us for the adds down. It made everything so much easier. It seemed to be taking longer but upon hitting 5% we had enough time to host a party before he went beserk. Triumphantly we got it down and ran around his neon corpse with our glowy speed up buffs. "Ooh shiny" "look at my golden stripes" (secretly, I think we had more fun running around like idiots than killing things...)

Should it be a privilege?

I'm lucky enough to have found a home in a great guild. Everyone is friendly, non-elitist and willing to help.

It's the willing to help that had recently caused some strained relations between guild mates and also highlighted the divide between those who make things happen and those who want things to happen.

Recently, there was an incident where two raid groups were doing flex. The ability to have any number of people between 10 and 25 means that it's an invaluable tool. A way of people to see new content and learn while being able to have the support of people who have done it before, while it's slightly easier than normal mode but more challenging than lfr, and without the idiots screaming like children when things don't go to plan (essentially, to complete lfr you should be so pro you would have soloed Garrosh HC while blindfolded otherwise GET OUT NOOB! *kick*) Getting back to the flex, RT1 and RT2 were in there learning the mechanics. On their own at their choice. This caused some issues. There had been a guild wide flex put up for the same day but had been taken down a day or two before. People had signed up, and then not logged in for a while to suddenly see it not there, to then look at the guild roster and see that there were many people in SoO, to then put two and two together and get five.

The divide in people's attitude started to show when I got a whisper asking if they were doing flex. I had an invite to it still because I'm back up, but due to levelling my chars and only logging in on my main when the raid had already started I didn't see it until it was too late. I replied that they were (which was true) this then caused uproar from two members. They saw flex as a way of being boosted by the main raid teams, and the only way they would be able to get gear. When it was explained that it was a raid for primarily RT2 to learn the tactics with help from people who had done it. It was then stated that it was on the calendar for everyone, it was then cancelled but they did it anyway, how was that fair? Unfortunately this was being said in whispers and in guild chat so that everyone could benefit from the argument.

The explanations that were being provided just were not good enough it seems. I had already said that for the purposes of getting gear we were trying to start a third raid team, however this was going to be "impossible to do" and we should be doing flex as it's "there so people can get gear". What people were failing to realise is that flex isn't an easy way to progress. It's harder than lfr and is there to enable you to just take an odd number of players in. It's brilliance lies in the fact it enables your whole raid team to participate, back-ups and all so that everyone can keep up to date and standard before taking the bosses on in normal mode.

Many times it was suggested that they could take their own team in to do whatever they wanted. After much arguing it was decided that a guild wide sign up would be created for the Gates of Retribution. So anyone who wanted to do it could, no matter if they had experience or not. This also caused uproar for another member when they decided that they would voice the 'opinion of the guild' and log into ts, go into the raid channel and shout the odds at the people in there. It showed their true colours and they were swiftly removed from the guild. Needless to say they didn't take too kindly to it.

The day of Flex came around and the person who had made a big deal about it and insisted that an event was made so that 'everyone could benefit, not just the raiders' wasn't even online! He was supposed to be the raid leader but he didn't even show up...

Where do you draw the line between holding people's hands and letting go?
Should people expect to be carried through raiding by the more experienced members or should they make their own teams?
Should flex be used to boost people or is it better to be considered as another raid level along with normal and heroic?

It was frustrating to say the least. Many times I've said that we are getting the third raid team up and running, still people either ignore it or just don't think it will work and then moan that they can't raid. We are so lucky that there are a lot of really helpful people in the guild but they also need to realise that if they tried, they could form a team of their own. Some people it seems, just won't get off their backsides.