Been there – Done that.

It doesn’t seem like we are disbanding – and we moved forward in a leap, getting  “I Could say that this cache was Rare” last night, the Hodir hard mode speed kill.

We were off it by 1 sec last week,  but this week  on our 3rd attempt for the night,  minutes before yet another shutdown we got it.  I was getting about 9k Dps on the kill and the 2nd attempt. On the first attempt, we didn’t get as many stormclouds on the casters so dps was too low.  My dots and flays seem to scale pretty well with Stormcloud, so as long as I am running around chasing anyone who has the stormcloud – trying to get it rubbed off onto me I do well. Its been extremely helpful now that I have no screen freezes.

We also did Onyixia 10 and 25, and even managed to get the kill in less then 5 min achieve, and the no deepbreath one too on 10 without trying.  It takes longer to get to her lair, then it does to do the fight. 

 I have decided I am not pursuing the 4 set bonus for Tier 9.   Its crap. So I have orbs for my badges and I will get the crafted  Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers  , and at this point try and keep the 2 set bonus’s from T8 and T9. Besides the new bracers and a 620+ spellpower weapon I am just after new trinkets, I think I have every caster trinket except the ones I ‘need’. I will post a pic at some point of my small collection.

I am still trying to participate in as many ‘off the books’ 10 mans as possible because thats where I am getting half my upgrades, and it doesn’t count towards raid loot.  

My new Pc is ready to be picked up, but I will have the pc power if all goes well to be able to run around Dalaran without crashing.  To take better screen shots, and enjoy the game at higher settings.

When the Raid Leader’s away…

An interesting dynamic happens when the person recognised as the main raid Leader  isn’t there. Unless the new or reluctant raid leader is confident enough to pull it off, and is decisive enough to quiten down the naysayers then they will get eaten alive, or have their authority threatened because every one thinks its open season on coming up with a strat, or changing what has been done for weeks.

Even I find myself opening my mouth more for a suggestion, or even a offhand comment. We react to a weakness in the leadership.   

It’s also funny how new norms seem to slip into raid strats when people are left to their own devices,  they forget the way we did things.  We were doing Cat lady last night, and 15 secs to the pull someone says ” I’m sure the priests have worked out a fearward rotation”

I go – “uh.. we only used that when we didn’t have a Shammy so no tremor totem.  We have 3 Shammys in raid, aren’t they dropping tremor totems?.”

“Oh but there is lag so you need to do it.”  Theres always freaking lag  I am thinking.

So what happens,  the four priests come up with a fear rotation because we can.  I think it was silly because its unnecessary – yes maybe it free’s up a Shammy totem,  maybe it backs up the Shammys totem,  but I don’t think they even bothered laying one. It wasn’t being used as a back up, it was the primary system, we have never needed fear wards before,  and we have only have had one raid with no Shammy.  The fear rotation worked, after asking who was tanking the boss because no one had told us,   but at no time did our stand-in raid leader make that decision.  He has been in as many raids as I have,  and he let someone else change the normal strat.

Once someone shows weakness in leadership it opens the door again for other people to make far out suggestions, change strats or question decisions.  It happened again on Iron council, ( we went back for it)   everyone was looking to do easy mode stuff, and I suggested we do medium mode,  mainly to prove that we can do it with out our normal raid leader,  because I think we should already know what to do by now regardless of who is at the helm, and because we can.  It was agreed upon, and we wiped once because someone ran though the little arcane dudes when  the last guy was at about 20% , and someone tried to change something significant to our strat,  regardless that our wipe had nothing to do with their suggestion, and then they got upset when we refuted ( nicely ) their logic. I doubt they would have made that suggestion in the tone they did if the real raid leader had been there.

Our stand-in raid leader did do well,  he has stood in before,  he just needs to get more confident.   We had a decent night, but had to stop early due to instance server restarts at 10pm our time,

I think it’s  a bad tendency but it seems almost a natural inclination that the moment we sence a weakness, or indecision in a leader – we lose respect for their authority,  and say and do things that under firm leadership we wouldn’t.

Hunting for new possible guild.

This server transfer research is a pain. Especially since I am/was in a happy home.

I have a list of things I were I would  like them to be progression wise   Eg Yogg + 1 kill would be awesome. Yogg dead a must.  Half hardmodes done. TOC cleared, and either working on Ulduar hardmode  or HTOC.

Raiding 3 nights preferably,  am happy with extended hours if it’s only 3 nights,  but 4 nights a week 7.30-12 is way too much. I ain’t that hardcore.

 I need to log into some of the other oceanic realms and translate the server time to my server time because I think some of them are different, or maybe I am thinking about the Aussie guilds that raid on Us servers.

Some guilds advertise on their servers/on the oceanic forums, in trade channel, on the Alliance recruitment, and people laugh at you if you post in those same forums ( level 80  TOC/Ulduar geared shadow priest LF Guild.) not that I have – or ever will   – Its a taboo, but really, in the age where guilds are bleeding members, and crying out”  Ooohh summer slump”  you’d think that they would be a little more open to the idea of the people who are openly on the market, and genuinely want to find a good guild.  I am not saying skip the application process or a trail period, A real raider isn’t going to want to keep skipping between guilds on their trial period of no loots forever. When you now have the choice  of servers, and factions,  raiders looking for the right home are flexible.  There is no one place for me to see who is recruiting ( or who keeps their recruitment up todate)

Remember the days where better guilds wouldn’t use trade for recruitment because they were too special. Well that changed.

I know your supposed to make the effort and feel grateful that a guild even reads your application and maybe my attitude is a little jaded, I’ve had some bad experiences.  Over a 2 week wait to hear back from an app.  Rejected 2 weeks before wrath release for not having a ZG helm, and the rest of my gear was perfect. Enchants. Gems. Spec.   Have your DPS heal while the healers take their time leveling, and not be guaranteed a raiding spot when they finally do make it to 80. One shadow priest refusing to sit out  of any raids so as to share the raiding between 3 active Shadow priests.  The guild I have been the most happiest took less then 10 min to invite me after an application. I think its been a good fit.

I saw one application form that wanted me to post a ss of my UI in a raid, and another that wanted you friendly with the Bloodsail.    I think I would  get declined if they saw my UI,  I still use most of the default UI.  I haven’t worked out how changing it would improve my dps, and so what if it’s ugly  – well beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I will not grind bloodsail, because I remember how frustrating it was trying to hand in a quest in bootybay to find out my quest giver was dead.  I will not do that to another player.  

My new PC has been ordered, and I should have a lot of left over ‘power’ to do a lot more fancy things, and at least not have my PC reset during the 25 Champion fight.  So I won’t embarrass myself on any trials  I may have to do.

Oh – Yeah.  I am still being positive about the survival of the guild,  but with over a week or so left on our month ” Lets give it ago”  we have lost as many geared raiders as we have gearing up raiders,  and we lost 2 decent applicants apparently because we really stuffed up a Sar 3d zerg by repetitious stupidity –  It was only a filler run and it was supposed to be simple, but  yeah it didn’t work out,  we got yelled out. We died lots.  We gave up. ( not my fault – unlike a fail immortal filler run last night- where my impatience and frustration caused us to died on instructor)  We are even losing our members/non raiders to better progressed guilds.  ( I thought that was funny… )

So I’m being positive untill it’s an official announcement,  then I give myself a couple of days after and then will be off looking for a new realm.

Cheese with a Whine.

Why is the Holy Priest recipient of the much sought after,  much loved Legendary Val’anyr spending as much time in Shadow as he is Holy?

He is only going DPS when we have too many healers for a particular fight,   it’s just that he never did that before he got the mace. Not once.

I’m not complaining because I wanted the Mace.   I currently have  Guiding Star  ( yes as a DPS ) because it was a decent upgrade to my Soulblade. It was a lot more spellpower, and I didn’t need the hit.

Vak’anyr is still a nice weapon,  but its got nothing on the variety that are dropping in TOC, and eventually I will get one.  So it’s not mace envy, and I know healers need a break –   easier to get someone to swap into a duel spec for a fight blah blah. 

BUT!

This is supposed to be the Cats pyjamas’  of all healing Maces.   Every raid moment not spent healing with this baby is an affront to the prestige and honor afforded by such an extra-ordinary weapon. Its not just an Epic  It is ORANGE.

 

So that’s why I am upset.    Dpsing  at all with such an auspicious item,  just seems to be SO NOT WORTH ALL THE EFFORT FOR ONE PERSON TO GET So yeah I am whining, and here is the cheese. Grated because its easier to throw at people when they whine. ( See I can make fun of myself)

Three Lights to a Gdisband Delay?

We got Yogg – 1 last night

Our designated healer recipient of the shards had collected his 30th Shard for the Legendary Mace  this week in our 25  Ulduar Run, and was waiting in anticipation for us to attempt Yogg without a keeper so he could throw the Shards in.

After about 8 attempts I think it was,  we got it.  We are playing with people for who this was their first Yogg kill, so I think 8 attempts was a decent go.  Only one set of yells to ” Get our act together” and lots of disparaging “Just wipe… ”  when too many people were dead or insane..

Its great when it all comes together,  167 dispels on my part I was told, as we didn’t invite Mim down for the party, so we were slower, and there was more things to dispel.  Shadow Priest Dps in that fight.. Lol.  No time, but it’s another notch on our belt,  and considering it had been a month since our last Ulduar Achievement I hope that its enough to tide the people thinking that we were going to fail as a raiding guild over for another week.

I will be pissed if we fall apart now –

They have picked a 2nd person to get the shards now,  as the back up person ( for when the main wasn’t in the raid)  who had gotten 4 shards already transferred off. It would be nice to be around for a 2nd mace for the guild.

  So among Toc Lag,  Instance server restart, and Server restarts in the middle of our peak raiding time,  we managed to kill Anub’arak finally this week too.

/rant  (  even though they were supposed to be 2 hours after)  Server /Instance restarts in the middle of Oceanic Aussie raid time 2 nights in a row ( our wed and thur nights last week )  really put a huge dent in the time we had to do stuff PLUS there was a bug because we had already made it to Anub’arak right before a instance reset, when we zoned back in,  there was no one to speak  to, to get us back down in his lair, and TOC was really laggy. Like really again..   Fix it Blizz please! 

/End Rant

Owning up.

One of Gevlons sentiments in a post about one of my posts  Brick Wall  – (  I think I’ve explained my thought processes in the orginal post Gamers or Raiders   and I’ve talked about wiping as learning experiences before)  

But Gevlon, in discussion about giving feedback  talked about a players reluctance to take ownership of an error, and that they will lie, rather then admit to making a mistake.

This is going to sound quite odd, but I am happy to admit I screwed up, firstly because that means I beat the person who tries to tell me I screwed up; thus depriving them  of superior satisfaction.  It takes the wind out of their sails**, and  secondly when I screw up now – I deserve to be ‘punished’ ( to a point) Yes, I  know I screwed up, and that the people who matter will probably know I screwed up, but I would rather take ownership of the issue because I think the embarrassment of you admitting an error is a lot less then   being called on it.

To stop being called out on things like missing interrupts we have macros shooting off all the time ” I kicked you”  “Misdirect on ”  I set a Shackle macro  up in the days of Kara so they would know I was casting what I was supposed to.  They are pretty much people trying to cover their butts.   “See my macro went off… I did cast it…”

Ideally you don’t want people to make mistakes.  It’s going to happen to the best of people,  If more people were honest  – and then fixed the issues  then there would be less pointless wipes, so the campaign of ” Own up – and Suck it up” Shall commence ( <– kidding) I do think that if you skip hiding behind your avatar hoping you don’t get busted will make you a better player, and put you in better light with your guildys.

I do have a funny story about the lack of ownership though.  last night while attempting TOC  we got to the faction champions and my game started lagging.  My fear didn’t work,  I couldn’t get my dots up on the skull.

At the time I was thinking  –  Awe crap – whats my PC doing?  Is my Virus Checker running? Is Windows doing an update?  Is  it a graphics problem and my Pc is going to die on me.  Is it my ISP  ect.

The funny thing is that 24 other people were thinking the same thing,  interrupts weren’t happening,  people weren’t being healed,  CC was breaking, and they were all too afraid to talk about their problem.

Until someone said eventually almost 40 odd  sec’s into this terrible lag.  “Uh is anyone else lagging really badly”  you should have heard the sighs of relief, and the ” I thought it was just me”  as people who were so worried that it was their own individual performance that no one was game enough to admit to having a problem.

I don’t expect people to keep the guild updated on the health of their PC,  but if the 1st person who noticed that their stun or heal or spell didn’t work said “I’m lagging” and it was just them, and said so,   it alerts the raid that eg the tank healer might not getting enough heals right now, that a CC target was going to be loose ect.

Should have I owned up  ?  Nothing I was doing was particularly important on that fight,  and to be honest I thought it was my Pc being sick again, not an instance problem so I was being slightly hypercritical hiding behind my avatar hopeing it would fix itself. If I died in a fire due to lag, I still would have said  I lagged, and it would have been true,  ( though it’s never happened due to lag)   When I died to the rocket on Mim, and  got hit by a Shadow Crash on General,  I DID IT – IT WAS MY FAULT. I did  find it  amusing how long it took for people to admit a problem, when it was raid wide because they didn’t want to admit it.

** not everyone has that tone.  My belief  is delivery of feedback is just as important as what you say.

Gamers or Raiders.

The weekend brought a Guild meeting on our Vent, and the possible dissolution of us as a raiding 25 man guild.

Its not that we can’t kill the content,  we are 13/14 Ulduar  4/5 TOC on our 25 ‘s  The bosses can be killed,   we are just not being immediate successful on hardmodes and they are the true progression measure.

It seems its been a long time coming – There is a division between the people who want the hardmodes , and those who don’t.

Where do I sit?  I recognise that Hardmodes are progression, and I want progression,   Clearing content in 1 or 2 nights  without challenge would get old fast.

What I don’t want is feeling like I am hitting my head against a brick wall.

Apparently to be a hardcore raider I am supposed to enjoy hitting said head against the brick wall. I disagree.   I think there is a massive difference between productive attempts and attempts for the sake of it, and I think too many attempts are Die.  Run Back, Die, Run back ect  I want more dialog with the raiders as to why we died. What we did right, what we did wrong but too much dialog increases  the chances of another dc,  another afk, another slow person running back after a buff.   Maybe we just aren’t hardcore enough.

I wrote some more points, but they came out as more handholding,  even to me,   real life doesn’t like Machiavellian approaches,  regardless of the sense he can make.  “It is better to be feared then loved”  he said in The Prince, because fear lasts longer.  However no one wants to be afraid while they are playing a game, and maybe that’s the distinction.  I am a gamer that raids.  I am not a raider that games.

More people would be interested In the hardmodes if they were easier, that’s not the point though, hard modes are the new division between hardcore and casual raiders it seems,  and the most often quoted ( mis quoted ? )  stat is that only 1% of people playing  are expected to get the hardmodes.

I said before that this was my last raiding guild.  Would I have said that if I realised that I could be this far off the next expansion without being a raiding guild? I think not.  So as soon as the first lines came out of the Gm’s mouth about that the guild could not survive in the direction it was heading,  I was on another guilds recruitment forums looking. Just looking,  because that’s the decision, flog a dying horse,  or   revive the horse, and hope it stays on its legs long enough, to get to next destination.

I am fence sitting, because If I was a dedicated raider,  I would throw it all in, and start apping elsewhere because that hardmode call needs to be greater then guild loyalty if they can’t deliver.  I’ve found a guild where I am content, but maybe I like it because I can raid and have my friendly pieces of cake too,  but one of those pieces of cake server transferred for better progression, and it looks like the raiding might disappear.  I don’t want to be in a social guild.  I am beyond that.  I want to be in a place where I can see new content and succeed at it.

Maybe  the Asshats of the serious raiding guilds are just products of that progressive drive, because that’s what you need to be come better,  become the best.  Too many people not willing to lose ‘friends’ because they won’t make hard calls.  I worried a while ago I would need to be more detached  – I thought I found a place I didn’t have to be so.

Maybe I am also  still scrub,  and that the standards of raiding fell down to my level, instead of  me getting better, and that self doubt is also bad because I potentially have been comparing my performance to mediocrity.  I am doing ok in my fishbowl,  I don’t need to look for another, or so I thought.

The likely-hood of a success should be clearer in a week or so, and an injection of some fresh recruits, and a new or at least a defined attitude with the raiders in the guild, but it seems that maybe another hard choice is coming up soon.

Targeting with /Tar

We have been doing a lot more hardmodes attempts, and I even got dragged into a 10 man Freya Hardmode  quite successfully the other night. The fights are getting more and more complicated  – they aren’t just stand there and Dps one target. You need to be quick, and you need to be flexible.    I’ve been mashing up quick /tar macros to Target the most important targets in a lot of encounters, some as recommended by strats, and others because it means I don’t need to look at my screen and try and target and click something  through my add on warnings and other various add ons, or the general mess of a million mobs and fellow raiders.

One fight I’ve been using /tar Hodir – on is the  Hodir fights every now and then,  because I am dispeling,  trying to max my dps by standing in a beam,  helping free the mages,  I get turned around and confused.  There’s a lot going on,  so /tar Hodir makes my life a little easier.   Because I don’t have to try and click on him through the clutter .  We sometimes use Ora2  – the tank target list,  but often we don’t so  Simple Macros make it a lot easier to target the right thing at the right time.

 On  Thorim,   I did a macro for the Evokers, and the Champions so I can single target them down in the arena .

On Freya  hardmode /tar Strengthened Iron Roots and I use both normal and hardmode  /tar Eonar’s Gift for a quicker reaction to the tree, and if  you want you can macro a Snaplasher, and two elementals too for quick target switching.

On Yogg during intense dispelling phases,  I stand with my back to him permanently and use a /tar Yogg Macro to help me keep my dots up on him in between dispels, and a /tar constrictor in the earlier phases to help get people out as quickly as possible.

Having tank targets up all the time would certainly make some of the macros un-necessary – but this way I’m covered if its not, and it makes sticking dots on stuff and moving on a heck of a lot quicker

A Better Cloak?

I’ve been wearing the Shawl of the Old maid for a little while now.

So I went looking for what would be considered an upgrade.   Checked Shadow Priest.com’s gear list because thats just what you do..  and the Shawl is  #15 on the list.

So I go oh dear, I hadn’t realised I had fallen that behind on BIS for Cloaks.    I better not be passing on practically any Spellcaster  cloaks in Ulduar  – and to be honest  I’m not sure I have actually seen many cloaks drop in general.

So there on that list at #7 is the Deathchill cloak – and It was in the AH for 600 gold, so I brought  it – and Embroidered it and equiped it and had a look at my stats.

 

and by Equiping the Deathchill Cloak I lost
11 Spellpower
0.13 Crit
26 mana regen

and only gained
1.61%  haste which works out to be
0.02 secs off my Mindblast/vt
and a 0.04 sec reduced time on my Mindflay

I don’t understand how  it got ranked so much more higher,  and I thought I understood the stat rating  somewhat – but the effect of losing the Intellect and spirit from the Shawl  – Is NOT worth  1.61 Haste. 

So yeah..   Just wasted 600 gold..

( and yes I know  66-59 does not  = 11)  but thats what it did to my spellpower..  Im trying to find a current source that explains why but all my googalage brings up all the older stuff.

Smacking Gophers on the head.

Image Courtesy 0f  ‘got apps’   Smack A Toon LITE

Yogg is dead for the Second week in a row, and on the Tenth attempt for the week. My main role in this fight is a Dispeller I need to get the diseases, and Magic effects off people asap.   I have said that using Decursive, and that clicking on those little boxes makes me feel like I am hitting Gophers on the head.  Right clicking Cure Disease,  Left clicking Dispel Magic. 

 

The most obvious affect of spending alot of time dispelling  is that DPS Suffers.  So I expect to be a lot lower on the charts.   Another downside of dispelling is the Mana cost  – I have a 20/0/51 Spec for this fight to help in the reduction of Mana costs

3/3 Absolution, and 2/3 Mental Agility goes a long way to making my Dispels a lot more  mana efficient – Meaning I can DPS more, and Dispel more because I have lower casting costs.   I had to put 1 point in Unbreakable Will to get the 15 points required for  Absolution and Mental Agility.  Or I would have rathered 3/3 Mental Agility.  I had to keep 51 points for Shadow so I could still use Dispersion.   I’ve done some reading of Forums, and there doesn’t seem to be alot of stuff about who should be dispelling,  bar ” anyone who can”   I approached our DPS lead because Mana was a serious issue of mine, and he agreed to let me try out the Spec, and I used it for Both our Yogg kills.  To show it works here is a parse of the Log for our attempts.

To be honest I dislike staring at boxes,  Should I have to like it ?  I like that I had a problem, ( mana)   had an idea of solving it ( a more mana efficient dispel spec) and was given the freedom to try a solution – and I feel proud that it works.I think the results speak for themselves.

However – there are alot of variables in the fight – The less  Tentacles that are up = the less things there are to dispel. Attempt 6 had me doing 127  dispels at 39.4 % of all dispels but  the sucessfull kill fight,   I was top dispeller again,  but with only  39 dispels, and 41.1%  The more Dps on the Tentacles  the less there are of them.  So I hope as the fight gets easier there will be less demand for dispelling because DPS will be better  –  so less mana used, and more time I can spend Dpsing so I can get back my duel spec.

I also dislike the idea that anyone who can dispel should.   Because that anyone can be 7 people, healers, dps, tanks, and if 7 people stop what they are doing, to cleanse one thing,  then thats a waste of concentration.  It seems to be now assumed that I will be the main dispeler in Yogg, and as much as I hate staring at boxes,  it makes more sence  to let me –  so that 6 other people can concentrate primarily on their task  – Gimp one person,  not 7.