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.

Attention world!

Kurn / / ramblings, shamans

The shammy has Steve, repeat, the shammy has Steve and is parked at Valiance Keep.

Level 68. I’m scared, to be honest. Now the tough stuff begins. And honestly, Borean AGAIN or Howling Fjord? Hm.

/facepalm

Kurn / / paladins, ramblings

Back in the day, when my hunter was my main raiding character, I would always be REALLY picky about other hunters. How they played, how their spec was, etc. And I was pretty noobish myself back then, but I could trap spam (feign + retrap = win!) and I knew not to pull something to my trap with Serpent Sting and I knew how not to make my pet wipe the raid… Hell, my pet would pull Baron Geddon and Shazzrah, purposely!

Having spent the last two years raiding with a holy paladin, I’m still more or less picky about hunters, but I’m even pickier about paladins — holy paladins.

A RL friend asked me to go to H. VH on my hunter tonight, with her on her shadow priest. So I went, and our tank was a RL friend of hers. The other DPS was another shadow priest from my friend’s guild. All that we were missing was a healer.

Enter: The PUG Pally.

As soon as the guy zoned in, I inspected his talents.

51/5/15. Cookie-cutter, right?

WRONG.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sxA0gGzGVzMxotaZVf0x

Go on, click the link. It’ll open in a new window.

Let’s go over the problems with his spec, shall we? First, the holy tree.

Spiritual Focus: Good.

Divine Intellect and Healing Light: Good and Good.

Illumination and Improved Lay on Hands: Good and Good.

Improved Concentration Aura and Improved Blessing of Wisdom: Mehhhhhhh and Good.

Divine Favor, Sanctified Light and Blessed Hands: Good, Good and … wait a second, wtf. Blessed Hands? Really? I have a bad feeling about this.

Holy Power: Good.

Holy Shock: Good… wait, wait. WAIT. No Light’s Grace? NO points in there? NONE? Oh, dear Lord.

Infusion of Light and Holy Guidance: Good and Good. (Really, though? No Light’s Grace??)

Divine Illumination: Good. And yet no Enlightened Judgements? Oh, this just gets better and better.

Judgements of the Pure: Great talent. But how often is this noob going to actually judge when he has to be within 10 yards of the mob?

Beacon of Light: Good.

Next, the prot tree.

Blessing of Kings, Improved Blessing of Kings: Have 0 issues with this, honestly. Perhaps the best part of the whole spec.

And then the ret tree…

Benediction: Good. (Thank God he didn’t pick up Deflection, which I was almost expecting.)

Improved Judgements and Heart of the Crusader: I prefer to stick 2 points into Improved Blessing of Might, but there are arguments for improved judgements. Not having Enlightened Judgements just kind of RUINS any arguments this noob could possibly have made for picking it up, though.

Conviction: Half the reason one goes into ret anyways, good talent.

So some seriously questionable talent point choices by this guy, who was wearing a leather chest with 72 spirit on it enchanted with 8mp5…

Well, the run actually went okay, except for the PUG Pally telling me in /party “hunter move” instead of actually healing me. I’d moved out of the fire before you hit enter, buddy, thanks for the lack of the heal and leaving me down 10k health when everyone else in the party was topped up just fine.

So what WAS this dude doing instead of healing me?

Consecrating. Consecration hit mobs 121 times for damage.

He Holy Shocked mobs twice.

Meleed 9 times.

Judged — and this is what got me — JUDGEMENT OF VENGEANCE twice. I don’t know what’s more insulting, that he only judged twice in the whole instance or that it was Judgement of Vengeance. Hi, yeah, that’s a TANKING *seal*. Why the hell aren’t you judging light? Why the hell aren’t you judging? I mean, you have Judgements of the Pure AND Improved Judgements… oh, that’s right! You don’t have Enlightened Judgements for the 30 yards of extra range! Dumbass.

Oh, and he used Holy Shock to heal twice. TWICE. All instance.

When you have a 2.5 second holy light cast and you’re not judging for your haste buff from Judgements of the Pure, and you have Infusion of Light, why on EARTH are you not holy shocking for all you’re worth in the hopes of proccing an instant Flash of Light or 1.5 second Holy Light?

Did I mention that despite being specced for Improved Concentration Aura, he didn’t use it? He used Devotion Aura. And wasn’t even specced for Improved Devotion Aura. In an instance where there’s a ton of magic damage. /facepalm.

And yet, this dumbass has Heroic: Twilight Duo, Heroic: Fall of Naxxramas and Heroic: The Spellweaver’s Downfall.

I don’t know if I’m more offended by his shitty spec and playstyle or that he’s managed to get so far in progression. But I’m definitely offended on behalf of good players and good pallies everywhere!

Weird runs…

Kurn / / healing, paladins, raiding, ramblings

I was online tonight because I couldn’t sleep due to a headache. So I decided to get on WoW and play with my holy pally’s UI.

After futzing with it for a bit, I wanted to try it out in a raid scenario or something and there in Trade, someone was looking for a healer for Normal Vault of Archavon. So I said I’d go.

I get into the group and I look at the classes. There’s a druid… who is in moonkin form. There’s another paladin, who only has 6k mana. There’s a warlock. Three hunters. A rogue. A death knight. And then they bring in another druid, so I figure, hey, it’s a resto druid. Sweet.

Uh, no. The druid is feral and is MTing.

… so I’m the only healer?

Apparently, I am.

Piece of cake, didn’t lose anyone.

Anonymous WWS here, to protect the stupid:

http://wowwebstats.com/23rhuez5aagak

I’m “Gemini”. The moonkin (“Dew”) tossed out a few heals, and didn’t DPS hardly at all, but really, I healed the living crap out of that place.

/flex