Category: ramblings

Ugh, so tired.

Kurn / / gear, paladins, raiding, ramblings, ulduar

Tired, going to bed soon, but I wanted to gripe a little bit. It’s not a big deal, but just voicing my feelings and opinions will make me feel better.

Tonight, well, technically last night. Monday night. Anyways, we did Malygos. And the Elevated Lair Pauldrons dropped.

I have the T7.25 helm, shoulders, gloves and pants. I have the T7.1 (heroes) chest piece. I have, in case you can’t do the math, my four piece set bonus and I have equipped the best breastplate for me at this point in time.

Malygos loot is item level 226, as is Kel’Thuzad loot and some drops (2 drakes+) from Sartharion.

In Ulduar, it is important to wear all your highest item level gear for the Flame Leviathan fight. Even if it’s not your spec, even if it’s cloth and you can wear plate, item level stuff is important as it adds to your vehicle’s damage done and health.

Without knowing until after the raid that 3.1 was being deployed today, the 14th, I considered bidding on the shoulders. But they suck. No haste. No gem slots. And to keep my 4-piece bonus, I’d have to go back to wearing my heroes’ chest, which is really crappy compared to the chest off Sartharion.

But I was considering bidding on the shoulders for the Flame Leviathan fight. Ultimately, I didn’t want to waste my DKP (I’m already in the negatives) when I don’t have best-in-slot gear in all my slots. I could use a cloak upgrade, a trinket, a ring and, oh yeah, a MAIN HAND WEAPON. So I decided I’d pass on the shoulders.

And then got informed by the raid leader that if I didn’t have 226 level shoulders already, I should take them.

Take them? For one fight? Because God knows I will never wear them apart from that one fight. And you’re going to charge me 12.5 DKP for them, bringing me down to -45.5 DKP? When I have four upgrades from Naxx and Sarth I could actually use? When we’re not sure the patch is coming out this week?

As it happens, the patch is being deployed today and T7 DKP will be wiped and we’ll start earning T8 DKP. And we’re not going back to Naxxramas or Sarth or Maly, either. It’ll be all Ulduar. So I got a piece of loot, dipped even deeper into the negatives than I was, but all that will be wiped.

But I’m still a little cheesed off. What if I’d had to bid against someone for a main hand healing weapon off KT? Or the cloak off Sarth+2? What if I’d had to bid and then I’d lost because of this truly useless piece of gear?

I think the raid leaders should, for the most part, trust us to make wise gear choices. I understand a raid leader trying to ensure a smoother raid in new content, believe me, but I was a little cheesed off that a mage was trying to tell me what to do with my DKP with regards to my gear. 20mp5? REALLY? Ugh. I feel dirty even looking at them.

Then, to compound matters (all this after NOT succeeding on 6m Malygos), the port they put up outside was to freaking Ironforge. Thanks, guys.

So I hearthed, after thanking them sarcastically on Vent, and the mage raid leader was like “anyone who took the port to IF, there will be a port to Dalaran there in just a minute” and I was all “Already hearthed, thanks.”

And THEN, the thing that cracks me up, is that the mage raid leader then has the TEMERITY to ask me to go heal Sarth 10 with 3 drakes up.

Hi, you made me wipe 13 times for a total of over 120 gold in repairs tonight, not to mention 13 food buffs and over 130 symbols of kings. Thankfully, I used a flask. Then you told me how to spend my DKP and forced me to take a piece of crap pair of shoulders. Then your port brought me to frigging Ironforge, so I blew my hearth ANYWAYS. And then you have the nerve to ask me to go do something draining and, no doubt stressful, like Sarth 3D on 10-man?

Even if I HADN’T had studying to do for finals, even if I HADN’T had a killer headache, there was no chance in hell I would have healed for him.

Not that he’s a bad guy. I quite like him, actually. But wow, was I feeling bitchy last night. Not sure I’m entirely in the right, either, but I don’t think I’m entirely in the wrong.

Ulduar this week, raids on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Monday. Looking forward to it.

Heh.

Kurn / / paladins, ramblings

I should be writing or levelling the shammy or something remotely productive.

Instead, I specced ret, grabbed my crappy ret gear out of the bank and am currently on the bird to Light’s Hope so I can go in, clear Strat Live and then go through and clear Strat Undead. The first to complete the Strat achievement, the second for a shot at the mount. And all the while, collecting scourgestones and rep for the Argent Dawn.

I like Fridays.

Late-night, last-minute, unexpected run.

Kurn / / gear, paladins, raiding, ramblings

I logged on after the hockey game ended tonight, just to see what was up with my new guild. I guess I should stop saying “new guild”, considering I’ve been there for over a month now, but anyways.

Earlier in the day, I’d been playing with my prot set because I’m thinking that’ll be my dual spec. I’d even gone so far as to respec prot to get a good idea of all my stats. 24k health unbuffed, 22k armor, 20% dodge, 17% parry and 17% block. With 542 defense. Not too shabby for a holy paladin. I’d blown some Emblems of Valor on some upgrades (boots, necklace) and picked up some offspec gear in Naxx (shield, pants) so I was toying around with it all, and really, I’m kind of impressed.

So I logged on and I was like “haha, I’m still prot, that’s funny” and was just going about my business, pricing gems to cut and all… when a shadow priest in my guild is like “come heal 8 man Naxx?”

I laughed and responded I’d had very little sleep and was tired, but maybe next reset.

Long story short, 15 minutes of begging by a mage, the shadow priest… I ended up running to the Cathedral in SW and respeccing back to holy. Not only was it going to be 8-man Naxx, oh no. It was going to be … Undying.

Continue reading “Late-night, last-minute, unexpected run.”

Oof.

Kurn / / raiding, ramblings

When I first joined my new guild, I was sat out of “progression” fights, or the more difficult ones, anyways. That means Sapphiron and KT, Malygos and Sartharion with three drakes up.

The first reset, I was in for 3 wings of Naxx. The second reset, all of Naxx and Malygos. The third reset, all of Naxx, Maly and Sarth3D.

Since doing Sarth3D, my job has basically been to heal the living crap out of the tanks who are on the blazes. Also, not standing in bad shit, as per usual. Occasionally I then move to the main tank (on Sarth).

Thus far, not difficult, nothing to worry about.

Tonight, in possibly the most draining raid experience to date, I was one of two healers on the MT.

Not something I’d necessarily care to repeat, lemme tell ya. ;) I was really only on the MT due to a lack of holy or disc priests in the raid. We had one holy priest and then me for two “get out of jails”, as my raid leader puts it. Guardian Spirit and Hand of Sacrifice, which I still always want to call a blessing, combined with the tank’s leet DK cooldowns, was the plan.

Well, neither me nor the priest had ever healed the MT on Sarth3D, so we not only didn’t really know where to stand (to avoid tail lashes and breaths during lava walls) but we also weren’t sure when to blow our get out of jails. The tank whispered us to cue us to cast our abilities on the next flame breath cast we saw — which, of course, meant a focus window on Sarth.

Let me tell you… Watching:

– tank health

– own health

– chat window (for incoming whisper)

– direction of lava wall

– fissures

in addition to then watching the focus window for the next flame breath… not fun! At all! :)

I kind of jest. It was a really challenging night, since we also incorporated a few people in the fight who had never done it with us before, and me and the priest were new to our assignment, but we did get him down and we did learn where to stand and when to cast things and stuff. So it was a productive night. But I am so glad the GM opened up guild repairs from the bank because I died.. I think it was 23 times, total. I think that was over the course of 19 or 20 attempts? Like I said, it was a challenging night, which would have been a lot less so if only we’d had another holy or disc priest in the raid or had done what we normally did with the other drakes, too. I started the raid with 300 symbols of kings. I was down to 54 at the end of the night. (I was on kings for all 10 classes.)

Ultimately, thought, I kept my target up more often than I let him die and I pushed myself to the point where I actually had to take a mana potion. So it was a good night in that I was challenged and an exhausting night because I wish it hadn’t taken quite so many attempts. :)

I really do love this stupid game, 23 deaths on the night or not.

/faceplant

Kurn / / general, raiding, ramblings

What I miss most about being GM of my own guild: Setting the hours.

Tonight, we raided from 7pm-9pm on the PTR and then raided on live from 9-11:30pm. I was on standby during the PTR raid on Iron Council because we couldn’t get 25 people to show up (it’s a PST server so a lot of people are on the West Coast), and I’d already seen the fight, so I didn’t need to see it again to gain experience.

Staying awake for 2 hours of basically doing nothing is not easy. ;)

And then, after that, getting thrown into Construct, Spider, Sapph and KT, short healers (we did basically everything with 4 healers), the adrenaline’s going and all… and I could honestly just collapse right this instant, if I didn’t have crap to do.

Four and a half hours of raiding or at least paying attention to vent and not randomly going AFK or whatever… it’s a little much for me. But it’s a lot better than the alternative of not raiding at all. I’m not really complaining, I’m just commenting.

And Patch FINALLY dropped his damn belt for me, thus allowing me to get the Epic achievement. Wootage.

Also, I’m really frighteningly close to getting 1s GCD in a full raid buff situation. No wonder I actually manage to go OOM if I’m not careful.

Okay, enough talk. Stuff to do, sleep to get.

Today's Edition of Kurn is a Shammy Noob

Kurn / / general, ramblings, shamans

Around level 65, I soloed Banthar, Bach’lor, Gutripper and Tusker, with no issues.

I received the Totem of the Plains as my reward from good ol’ Hemet Nesingwary.

Now, I’ve been master looter of more than my fair shair of raids.  I saw the Totem of Healing Rains drop a dozen times, easily, watched as the Totem of the Maelstrom got DEed every time it dropped…

Never once did I pay any attention to the flavour text that says “Counts as an Air, Earth, Fire, and Water totem.” Nope. Not once. Not even when I got my own Totem of the Plains, my first relic item on my shammy.

Until I was chatting with a friend back on Eldre’Thalas who was like “you’re not still carrying your four totems around with you, are you?”

“… why wouldn’t I be? Don’t I need them in my inventory to be able to drop, you know, totems?”

“Do you have a relic?”

“Yes…”

“Kurn, read the relic.”

“Huh.”

So I put my totems in my bank (rather than destroying them on my friend’s advice) and proceeded to drop all my totems as if I still had all four in my inventory.

I love (and also hate) that this game is so vast that I still learn things about it three and a half years in. Like, things that aren’t even new. Relics were introduced when, pre-2.0? Way to go, me. Way to go.