Your Alt In Our Guild, My Shaman In Your Hands

There are now two Mimetirs.

She’s now also a male Tauren warrior on Argent Dawn (EU). This might sound like a bit of a break with the beaky tradition but it’s not too much of a stretch for a character who’s named for her ability to mimic other creatures. Being a warrior still makes her a birdbrain, after all,.

Why am I telling you this? I thought I’d share a happy occurrence with you. On Tuesday I heard (thanks Jaedia!) about Single Abstract Noun (SAN). It’s a community guild on Argent Dawn (horde side for EU, alliance side for US) open to anyone in the WoW blogging community, be ye a reader or blogger.

So, I’d like to thank Tamarind, Miss Medicina and crew for having the idea and setting it up – great thought, guys. I think the full story of how it came about – and the guild policies – are here (EU) and here (US).

The guild roster is already astonishingly long and guild chat on Tuesday was moving so fast it was almost impossible to keep up with, which was good to see. Not only that, it was lovely to see a whole load of warm welcomes when new folks signed up. So, if you’re in any way related to the blogging community – and if you’re reading this, you are – I think I’m right in saying that you’re welcome to roll an alt and join up, See moo there!

In other news …

meet my shaman, Ape. He quakes in his boots when he visits the badge vendors at the moment. At this rate he’s going to give all his frosties to the bartender at the Legerdemain in return for calming, calming wine. In the name of fun – and of my shaman’s sobriety – I’ve decided to put his dilemma to a vote with you guys.

You know how it is when you’re browsing the vendors in real life. You’ve tried various shinies on by this point. The blue top is only worth it if you get the new jeans as well. The stripey top only really works with some outfits. And the wristlet – well, it’s small and will put an inappropriately sized crater in your purse but then it is really shiny.

It’s easy to get in a tizwaz about upgrades to your wardrobe. Particularly if those upgrades have stats on them and it’s not just the colours that you’re trying to match to the rest of your outfit.

That’s how my shaman feels when he’s trying to decide which upgrade to buy next. I’m trying to decide whether to go for minor utility upgrades or to do what I think most of us should do more and say “dash and poppycock! I’m going to do the fun thing.”

I’ve seen and heard a lot of discussion about the various tier 10 set bonuses, and the sets themselves. I’m not going to ramble on about them here except to say the 2 piece tier 10 resto shaman bonus is nigh essential.

I will give a brief synopsis. Ape was in a mixture of 232s and 245s when he hit ICC. Several things were sorely in need of being upgraded and stats in need of being rejigged. To that end:

• I needed to upgrade chest and hands badly. My research dug up some info on the cloth 264 gloves and chest being somewhat marvellous, so Ape dilligently saved up for those first
• I examined and cross-examined the resto tier set and decided that I generally wasn’t very impressed with its individual pieces given my gear setup at the time
• Obviously I needed to get the two-piece tier bonus so i decided that head and shoulder pieces were my best bets
• I could also do with a new trinket (and belt). I’ve been running ToC25 and ICC25 as often as possible but haven’t once seen the relevant shines from them
• My guild does more 10 man content than 25 at present due to time constraints

At the moment I’m torn between three new additions to my outfit for different reasons.

I have 78 frosties saved up.

I’d like your opinion on which of them I should go for. I promise that whatever way the vote goes, that will be what I buy next – feel free to keep an eye on WoW-Heroes for confirmation. The options are:

1. I bite the bullet and buy the Purified Lunar Dust. Happily, it’ll solve the trinket issue. On the other hand Murphy’s Law says I’ll then get Althor’s Abacus and/or Solace of the Fallen quicksmart thereafter.
2. I save up for both the tier helm and tier shoulders and then buy them together: basically buy the set bonus, as neither item on its own is that much of an upgrade over what I’m currently wearing
3. I buy the shoulders now even though they’re a next-to-nothing practical upgrade. Why? Because I’ve heard about the shoulder-shoveltusk animation and I think it sounds really quite fun. I know, I know, small things. The catch here is then deciding which of the other options to pursue after the shoulders have made my day.

As a fourth, ugly-duckling type option I could say dash it all, and go for the somewhat-shiny but not-critical-upgrade Waistband of Despair.

So what do you think – what should I go for? Cast your votes now! Feel free to either just post a vote or go as in depth as you like. Either vote here in the comments page or tweet @Juddr, voting closes on Monday or so.

This is a post by Mimetir, a druid of a raidleader on The Venture Co. (EU). You can find my twitter feed here.

Article images originally by Daniel Coomber and littleREDelf @ Flickr

Discipline’s Tier 10 4-piece Joke

Haha!  Hey!  Hey!  I got a great one for ya! 

“What do you call a 5% buff to Power Word: Shield?”

“Insignificant.”

Wait!  I got another one!

“Name something fun, interesting, and awesome that gets replaced by something as mundane as a bowl of rocks?”

“The Priest Tier 10 4-piece Set Bonus.”

Let’s bring everyone up to speed.  Not all priests are at a place where they can experience, or even look forward to the set bonuses of the current tier.  The current Tier 10 4-piece is as follows:

Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.

Avalonna at talesofapriest.com has a great write-up of how beneficial this was to Holy Priests.  Now, I have very little knowledge of Holy, since I’m primarily (and almost solely) Discipline.

From a Discipline standpoint, this was amazing as a tank healer, or even a Discipline raid healer.  Follow me on this one, as it’s my first attempt at something resembling theory-crafting.  I apologize in advance if my numbers are off a little bit.

The “Math”

Penance is 16% of your base mana.  You get 3 pulses of healing.  I can crit all 3 for ~14k.  Flash Heal is 18% of your base mana.  With Glyph of Flash Heal and Improved Flash Heal, it’s less.  I can crit and get about ~9k (with a 3-stack of Grace).  Penance is relatively cheap, and heals more than Flash Heal.

With full raid buffs and the Borrowed Time proc, my Flash Heal cast is ~1 second.  With Glyph of Penance, the cooldown is down to 8 seconds (thanks to the lovely Penance nerf we had a while back).  So, you’re telling me I have a chance to reset an 8 second cooldown with a 1 second cast?  Yes, please! 

Not to mention that Avalonna also points out in her post that this Flash Heal! proc doesn’t have an internal cooldown.  It’s possible that you can have a string of Flash Heal -> Penance -> Flash Heal -> Penance -> etc. etc.  Even without worrying about Grace, this becomes pretty powerful. 

The Fun

When I was first looking at the likelihood of getting my Tier 10 set, I was salivating at the mouth for a cool and interesting 4-piece bonus.  Look at what we’ve had in the past:

Tier 7 – Reduces Greater Heal cost by 5%. (Discipline doesn’t really utilize this in most circumstances.)

Tier 8 – Casting PW:Shield grants 250 spellpower for 5 seconds. (Obviously useful for Discipline.  Kinda “meh” for Holy.)

Tier 9 – Increases Divine Aegis and the initial hit of Empowered Renew by 10%. (Blizzard gets the idea to involve both specs.  Still, marginal increase.)

So finally, we get a Tier bonus that’s interesting, challenging to work with, and it gets tossed under the bus.  If it was deemed overpowered, a simple fix would be to either shorten the window needed to cast the Flash Heal, or reduce the chance for it to proc to less than 20%.  I feel that completely redesigning it was a bad move on Blizzard’s case.  People need to understand that this game is organic.  I personally enjoy having to tweak my playstyle a bit to get more “oomph” out of my healing.  The Tier 7 set had me speccing into Divine Fury and utilizing a Borrowed Time-hasted Greater Heal for a while.

The Replacement

Our incoming Tier 10 4-piece set:

This bonus now increases the effectiveness of the caster’s Power Word: Shield and Renew spells by 5%.

Sorry, I just gagged a little while reading it again.  Blizzard has gone the “easy route” and just given us a static stat increase.  As far as Discipline goes, it’s a sad one at that.  Thanks to math from Zusterke, I’m able to whip out some numbers for you.

Let’s say you have 3000 spellpower, raid-buffed or not.  Your glyphed Power Word: Shield will total 8,813 (as of right now).  At 3200 spellpower, it’s 9,177. 

With this new “buff”, those numbers change to 9,254 and 9,636, respectively.  You’re looking at a 441 and 459 jump.  Even at 4000 spellpower, you’re only increasing your shield by 532 points of absorption.  With how bosses and mobs hit, this is hardly worth even considering. 

Even if you’re able to keep up PW:S on the raid the WHOLE time, you’re preventing only ~11,500 extra damage every 15 seconds. 

Hence, this bonus is far from worth it to me.  Dawn Moore wrote up on WoW.com her initial thoughts on the changes.  She writes:

“Still, the buff is exceptionally good. The only problem with it is that so many priests who turned their back on the tier gear for other badge items (such as shadow’s tier gear) with better itemization are now going to be screaming bloody murder.”

I disagree with the phrases “buff is exceptionally good”, “only problem”, and….well, hell, I disagree with her.  I really don’t know any Priests that I game with or interact with in the blog/twitter communities that were against the original set bonus.  If anything, those that were on the fence about the bonus were quick fans once they actually acquired the bonus.  This news of “4-piece hatred” came out of nowhere, as far as I’m concerned. 

Then again, I’m just one person.  It looks like I’ll be going the route of dropped loot, crafted pieces, and off-set badge gear.  This particular Priest isn’t too thrilled about the change.

Other Thoughts:

Lilitharien from Divine Aegis

Bati from Holy Nova NOW!

Miss Medicina’s “To Bonus or Not to Bonus”

How do you feel about it? How does this affect your gearing strategy as you make your way through the content?

Email: elder.thespius@gmail.com | Twitter: @Thespius

 

Cataclysm Stat Changes: Yes!

Between the removal of mp5 as a form of mana regeneration, many of the changes announced at Blizzcon have been explained in more detail by Eyonix.

The best change for me?

Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

If I read that right, does that mean no more Divine Spirit for Priests? If so, we’ll hopefully get another ability to compensate.

More importantly? A 33% reduction in candles used! Hooray!

More health

Anyway, there’s a lot of reading to do in between the lines. For example, if you check out the second post about changes to existing gear? You’ll notice there are some common qualities among the various roles:

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• Spirit instead of MP5. You’ll probably be happy with Spirit, though, because mana regen is going to matter more than it does currently. Healing paladins and shaman will benefit more from Spirit than they do currently.

This is Blizzard’s way of increasing the challenge of healing without having to resort to having stuff hit way harder and relying solely on reaction time. I did triage healing before during Vanilla, and it was quite the experience (it’s also something I want to write more about later on).

But notice how everyone is getting a lot more stamina. Health pool gaps between plate and other armor wearing classes are being narrowed. For healing, this removes a strategic component. An example is that on a fight like Blood Queen, if a Priest, a Mage, and a Paladin have the Pact of the Dark Fallen debuff, the Priest and the Mage would typically be prioritized first. Their gear doesn’t have as much stamina as the Paladin does. Since all classes will have similar amounts of health, we don’t have to spend that split second to prioritize the cloth wearers first.

I’m fairly certain that our healing spells won’t be scaling as high. We won’t be seeing as much players with full health in raid fights. Healing will revolve much more around priority, priority, and priority (more on that later).

Spell Power on weapons

One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

I love that change.

Questions to ask

• Is Divine Spirit actually going to be removed or is it just the spirit component of the various stat increasing raid buffs?
• What happens to Inner Fire? Does it simply provide a boost to Intellect with Spell Power being removed?

Cross Guild Training and Experience

First of all, a well played hockey game by team USA and team Canada. I had a sinking feeling in my heart before the puck dropped that this would not be an ordinary game and it wouldn’t be quite the clean sweep as I hoped it would be. When we scored those two goals, the pub I was at erupted into a huge roar of cheers, high fives and back slaps.

When that tying goal was scored with 24 seconds left, I guarantee you the entire country skipped a heartbeat. What an absolutely thrilling game though.

Team USA has nothing to be upset about. They beat the Canadians last week and came close to doing so again during the gold medal game. I truly expect that their generation of players will evolve into a dominating force in the next world competition (by Sochi).

The Holland (Heineken) House had massive lineups during the Friday game. That game didn’t start until 630, but the place was full and had lineups starting at 230 that afternoon. Of course, if you were the bearer of a Netherlands passport, you could bypass the line and enter in for free (resulting in someone else getting kicked out).

I had a friend who works at the games downtown, and he told me that there were lineups at pubs and bars at 8 AM. Either they were full early or they weren’t quite open yet. It was difficult to tell which pubs were already full and which ones were yet to open. Today was the first time in my whole life where I thought the city of Vancouver could actually run out of alcohol.

That same friend got a picture with Cheryl Bernard. Lucky guy.

—

Alright, down to business. When I got home from the various celebrations, it was fairly late. The 10 man guild ICC run was already well underway and I had no desire to flex the GM muscle to get myself a spot. The healers in there wanted to get some extra time working on some of the progression bosses in there for 25 anyway.

In any event, I was asked by a player in a different guild if I was interested in healing a 10 man Icecrown for them.

On heroic mode.

Naturally my interest was piqued. I hadn’t gotten to Lich King 10 yet at all so even getting a look at some of the new boss abilities first hand alone would be beneficial. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check it out and get my cooldown for the week used.

“How do you want to handle loot?”

“I’ll take whatever your guys don’t need. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a guest and I’ll be satisfied with badges and taking notes.”

Compelling reasons to cross train with a different guild

Existing player chemistry. It’s not quite the same as pugging as you’re raiding with a different organized group of players. Most pickup groups don’t have that level of precision or familiarity with players. The night before, I jumped into a pug Freya 10 man hard mode (Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood) and while the players in both that group and the ICC 10 man group were of roughly even quality, it was the chemistry that was notable. These guys had played with each other for a long time and all of a sudden, I became the new guy in their group who had a short time to pick up on their methods.

Quality. Generally speaking, raider quality is above average. But that varies greatly from guild to guild. It’s different running with an already established guild on the server compared to running with a guild that was formed two weeks ago. Only you can be the judge of that. At least you can rest assured that players won’t flake out after the first four bosses in ICC are dead (Usually).

Fresh perspectives. I can tell you that watching videos, reading strategies, and whispering people for ideas doesn’t always work. There are communication barriers, misunderstandings, and the like. When that happens, the next best thing is to simply witness how it is done first hand. For me, that’s when things often click and a light bulb goes off.

Obviously, it’s way more ideal to keep raiding with your own crew. Sometimes it isn’t always possible. Gold medal games and closing ceremonies get in the way. Sadly, the only way to get known is to camp trade and join any groups at first opportunity. I usually do this if I know I won’t be around during a scheduled run. At the end of a successful run, I’ll usually exchange contacts with the leader of the group in case we need each other again. If the run wasn’t so successful, then at least I know who not to go with the next time I’m prowling trade chat. I’ve amassed quite a few contacts this way and it helps build up the networking.

After the night was over, I scored myself a nice set of kills and achievements. The hard modes that I thought were hard were challenging, but not quite beyond reach as I had first imagined.

Or maybe I simply just got carried.

Thespius and Matticus featured on “Power Word: Fail”

Image is courtesy of Brian Hough.

Kind of a fun title, no?  I’m ready to let the “fail” jokes ensue!  Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

In all seriousness, the folks over at Raid Warning (xSeven and Epiphanize) have assembled this special podcast (scheduled to be released March 1st) – a roundtable of some of the community’s most prominent priests.

Raid Warning’s last roundtable, Wild Shots, was a huge hit.  It was a roundtable of some very well-known hunters in the community.  You can follow links on their site to listen.

As for Power Word: Fail, I cannot be more excited for this event.  I’ve been recording with these guys for a while, and it’s always a blast.  If Wild Shots is any indication of the level of discussion we’ll have, then you’re sure to get some detailed insight into “The State of the Priest”.

Here’s who you’ll have the pleasure of hearing:

• Matticus from World of Matticus and Wow.com
• Thespius from World of Matticus and Raid Warning
• Aliena from TankSpot
• Fox Van Allen from Wow.com
• Avalonna from Tales of a Priest
• Derevka from Tales of a Priest
• Jonny from This is Outcasted
• Jov from Snarkcraft
• Lilitharien from Divine Aegis
• Xenoaurora from <Vendetta> (US – Fizzcrank)

This podcast is going to center around questions you provide by emailing Raid Warning here.  We take your questions and discuss them throughout the podcast, as well as current news and speculation. 

I hope you’ll all submit questions, and check it out on March 1st!

Email: Elder.Thespius@gmail.com | Twitter: @Thespius

How to Master Priest Tier 10, Ruby Sanctum Thoughts

Granted, if you’re just aiming for the bonuses, the Priest healing set just doesn’t look as hot. That being said though, I picked up the four set a week and some change ago with the determination to try to master it. In terms of stats, the tier 10 is better than the tier 9 (Intellect, stamina, and all that fun stuff).

But how do you pursue the bonuses?

(2) Set: Your Flash Heal has a 33% chance to cause the target to heal for 33% of the healed amount over 9 sec.
(4) Set: Your Circle of Healing and Penance spells have a 20% chance to cause your next Flash Heal cast within 6 sec to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance spells.

For one thing, you can’t rely on the Renew spec that Holy Priests are using. If you’re a Renew Priest, then I think you’re better off switching out to non-set pieces. The bonuses aren’t even worth it since Flash Heal isn’t the dominant heal for you.

Another eye needs to be kept on the cooldown timer in regards to the 4 piece. 1 in 5 of your Penances or Circle of Healings will trigger the reset.

I feel like I’m playing a Rogue healer. It’s a lot to take in. Some fights, it doesn’t go off when its needed and in other fights it’s a godsend.

At the same time, it’s also dependent on who needs healing. If the bonus triggers, and the cooldown resets and no one needs healing, not much can be done.

My cast sequence doesn’t change very often in either spec.

As Discipline

Power Word: Shield, Penance, and a lot of Flash Heals. If I get the Penance reset, great! I’m also doing my best to maximize the 2 piece Flash Heal HoT. If it’s already on one tank, I’ll drop it on another tank to try to get it going.

As Holy

Circle of Healing followed by (you guessed it) lots of Flash Heals. I find I don’t Renew as often because I’d rather use the GCD on more Flash Heals. I’ll keep a Renew on myself and the tanks going at the very least.

In order to best utilize the tier 10 Priest set pieces, your style of play is going to revolve around Flash Heal as the main healing spell. If it isn’t, then that’s going to be an issue. If that isn’t your cup of tea, then you’re better off passing on tier loot entirely and gunning for non-tier sets like I mentioned earlier.

Why?

1) It lets the Priest who does play that style gear up quicker and more efficiently. The sooner their bonus gets activated, the better your raid will be. Again, it’s all about loot maximization.

2) I’m not entirely sure of this (and I know someone out there will correct or confirm either way), I think that pound for pound, non-tier items have a slight edge on stats.

Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Robe – Sanguine Silk Robes
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves – San’layn Ritualist Gloves
Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings – Lightweave Leggings

On second thought, maybe it’s just the extra gem socket.

—

In other news, the Ruby Sanctum is going to be in the next minor content patch. Sounds like it’s going to be a small-ish instance, possibly ToC or Malygos sized. It looks like it will contain about four raid bosses in a “Defense” type encounter, akin to Hyjal.

Bet there’s going to be a Ruby mount! Possibly a title involved? The last boss is named Halion the Twlight Destroyer (I guess he hates vampires too). “Matticus, Destroyer of Twilight”? Too much to hope for.

Will you Lend Me Your Brain?

 

Halloa folks! Just a brief post from me today. Today, I’m appealing for your braaaaaaaaaaaains.

No no, I’m not trying to get you to come after me with pitchforks blazing and braziers sharpened (or something). Instead I’d like you pitch in your thoughts to a brainstorming session I’m running at the moment. I’m looking for all sorts of people: bloggers, blog readers, forum users, theorycrafters – anyone. All you need is to play WoW and have some passing interest in the World of WoW blogs.

I have already spent some time recently visiting some forums and poking a few select folks first. You folks know who you are – you’re being most helpful and a pleasure to work with, so thank you – I really appreciate it. I have a few more on the ‘to poke’ list, whom I’ll be contacting soon.

But anyone who is interested in participating in a spot of research about the news and blog scene for our collective hobby is welcome to do so.  Be assured that I don’t want any information about your personal life and that the research has no-one’s, and no blog or company’s, interests at heart. The only interests at heart here are those of the community and, well, me, because this is an interesting topic.

So if you’re interested and you feel you fit the bill as described above – great.  Wave a hand, jump up and down, bedazzle me with chocolate chip cookies, anything you fancy. Put that pitchforks down before you set the cookies on fire and let me know you’re interested.

Other methods you could use to contact me (which might work better) include commenting on this post and dropping me a line at Mimetir @ googlemail. com, sending in a contact form or poking me on twitter. Send in a hail, let me know who you are, and we’ll go from there. If you don’t feel this is your cup of tea but you know someone who might like this flavour of research, feel free to spread the word.

So, What’s Up?

It has been a long time since my last decent sized post. I’ve never been a fan of blog posts where bloggers try to justify their absences. The pattern I see that ends up happening is that a blogger disappears for a time, comes back and apologizes, goes hard for a few posts, then disappears again before coming back and apologizing while promising never to leave again and then disappearing for good. But I am still here.

For the past month I was busy saving the galaxy, the citadel council and getting into a relationship with a really cute sounding Quarian.

So there. That’s where I’ve been. But I’m all done now. I’m done saving the galaxy. Given the choice between destroying Undead monarchies and surgically striking aliens, I much prefer the former.

The guild

How’s Conquest doing? It’s doing okay for the most part. It’s not quite excellent and it’s not at the level of super crappy yet either. I am not a happy Dwarf. Attendance has been gradually declining and we’ve been able to scramble replacements and other socials to cover the empty spots. But tonight was the first night where the raid was immediately called due to a lack of players.

I had 2 spots open and it was already 10 minutes past first pull time.

That doesn’t make me happy at all.

If you’re looking for a raiding guild to join, do check mine out and get in touch with me if you have any questions or concerns. I should say that I make no promises nor guarantees on raid spots. Ideally, I’m looking for people that play a lot and can keep themselves occupied or entertained.

For example, I don’t want the guy who logs in and sits around Dalaran for 3 hours while waiting for an invite.

I want the guy who logs in and manages to farm herbs, do some quests, engage in BGs/PvP, runs random dungeons or whatever while waiting for a raid spot. If someone lags out, a simple whisper, invite, and summon and they can fill the gap at a moment’s notice. At least this way, their time won’t be a lost cause entirely.

The future

3.3 is to be the last major raid patch before Cataclysm. This is where I get a bit scared.

What the hell can I possibly write about between now and Cataclysm?

It’s going to take some serious digging deep in order to fill that time. I guess I’m a little concerned and worried about it. I did recall there being another content patch that will be inserted between now and Cataclysm. I suspect it will be something akin to Isle of Quel’danas (not necessarily a Sunwell type raid, but just quests and such to do).

Actually, while I’m on the topic, any ideas or guesses as to what it might be? Maybe the Troll city out in Zul’Drak will open up. We went by this entire expansion without a Troll raid instance.

A whole expansion with no killing of Trolls in a raid.

Vanilla brought in Zul’Gurub. Burning Crusade had Zul’Aman. Wrath? Zip.

I want to kill me some freakin’ Trolls.

With the Olympic break starting soon, perhaps I can find the time (and most importantly, the motivation) to engage in writing again. I still have some blogging assignments sitting here that are partially complete. In any case, how have you been?

Lodur Joins WoW.com

Not sure if you’ve heard the news, but our very own Lodur’s signed on with WoW.com and will be providing his usual Resto Shaman expertise in the newly expanded Totem Talk.

Congrats!

Last I heard, he’s also willing to accept suggestion columns for Resto Shamans. Well Lodur, since it is that time of year, here’s what I want to see from you:

“How to seduce that elusive shaman”
”13 uses for totems that will satisfy your partner”
”Tail management for the new guy”

Although, those will never see the light of day.

Also, finally beat Mass Effect 2 and got the super good ending. Now I can spend my time back on WoW.

Quarians are hot. There’s something about masks and environmental suits.

It Came From The P.U.G.!:Voted Off The Island

For those who might not know yet, my gluttony for abuse knows no bounds. As a result I find myself in a rather large number of P.U.G. groups. At the end of the day I bring you, my readers, the stories of my travels in the random grouping of Azerothian adventure!

This week I bring you a story of a monumental event. Something so earth shattering that babies cried, women ushered their children home and men cowered before it’s terror inducing visage! You may need to sit down for this… ready? Lodur was vote kicked from a heroic group! Now I’m sure there are some questions about what happened and what was the build up. Here goes my tale of woe.

I’ll start by saying yes I was healing, and yes the mace was equipped. I was decked out in my shiny new T10 loot after freshly enchanting and gemifying them. I queue up and promptly my invite button pops up. I join the group and off I am to an adventure… or so I thought. The screen load shows the Pit of Saron and I’m a bit excited. I enjoy healing the place and it beats out Gundrak any day of the week! The instance loads and I’m looking around for the rest of the group. I notice that most of the mobs have been cleared. This is red flag number one. My immediate response, in a joking tone of course

“What did you guys do to the last healer?”

I get a response from the rogue of the group

“Horrible healer we vote kicked him.”

Ok, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mainly DPS folks have been rolling in as healers to get quick frost badges so it wouldn’t surprise me too terribly if that’s what happened. I see they are over at the Ick and Krick encounter and make my way over. We buff up and pull. Things go smoothly until two things happen. First I notice the prot warrior is taking a whole lot more damage than he should be and his health is only at 29k total. Second thing that happens is the poison nova. The rogue tries to cast Cloak and run but instead becomes a stain in the ground. Not believing that you can release and come back while the encounter is happening , they wait dead. We’re doing fantastic though otherwise until the boss marks the hunter and chases after them. The hunter then proceeded to drag the boss back past it’s threshold point and the boss leashes… at 1%. Ok, stuff happens I’ll just res the rogue and we’ll get started again right? Wrong! As I’m sitting to drink so I can resurrect the rogue, and before the tank is ready, the hunter pulls, runs to us and then casts FD. Needless to say I got squashed with the rest of the group. We run back in and drink and buff and get ready for round two. I inspect the tank and see he’s in some pretty low tanking gear… and a bunch of dps gear. I make a mental note of the fact he’s not defense capped and look to see I still have 7 minutes left on my LFG debuff. Time to soldier on! Before we’re ready again the hunter pulls, this time the tank picks it up and we proceed as normal. The rogue dies again to poison nova but this time we kill the boss.

This happens two more times with various mobs on the ramp leading to the final leg of the instance until finally I say something

“Dude, stop pulling.  I need to drink and you’re wiping the group .”

It was then I noticed something I had not noticed before. All of them were in the same guild. Everyone stopped moving and there we were sitting at the base of the ramp leading to the collapsing tunnel. There’s this long, hanging silence while we sit there and then next thing I know I’m booted from the group!

Back in Dalaran I’m in shock at what just happened. Seriously I got kicked because I called the hunter out on pulling and doing stupid things! I look up at my buffs and notice the debuff was just wearing off and that I can re-queue, but still… wow just wow.

Luckily the next one I get is full of people who communicate and pull sensibly. All from different guilds but all with the same rough gear level. We plow through Halls of Lightning, I get my two Frost Emblems and we part ways.

Seriously I’m alright if you want to do wacky things in a guild run. One of our DPS raiders rolled a healer so when I’m on my tank I like to do silly things (within reason) to mess with her (Hi Jaha!) but we always laugh about it, and I never do it when it’s a non guild run. If there is even one pugger in the group I try my best to behave. But to be kicked for calling someone out on pulling and feigning while watching the group wipe, that dog just won’t hunt monseigneur!

Any interesting P.U.G. stories from this week? Good, bad, awesome or terrible? That’s it for today folks.

Until next time, Happy Healing!

 

Image courtesy of CBS

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