joined a raiding guild with the 70s..

I joined a raiding guild with my druid and my lock. The guild is nicely progressed into SSC and TK. My gear sucks.

Never experienced a group before where my lock was #5 on damage. GAH! Feel like a noob!

But its fun regardless. I have never experienced those instances before, and I am glad I finally get to. For me, it is more about the fun about being part of a good team than getting the loot. Although obviously I need better gear now. So its a win-win either way.

I am in a casual guild with my priest — they are focused on raiding pre-BC, which is hilarious. I tanked parts of MC the other night and I am looking forward on healing the 60+ raids on my priest - nice loot for sure.

Tonight I may be tanking AQ20. Raiding guild goes into ZA, I don’t care too much for that.

I also tanked the new Magister’s Terrace on the druid, twice so far. The 5-mob pulls suck. Some of the bosses are immune to growl/lacerate, so I have to sit there mauling and mangling them until I have enough threat. That is hard on the dps’ers who can BARELY hold back long enough. Many wipes ensued on those runs. Not sure how much I like MGT — the bosses are neat, mobs blow. This instance must be a nightmare on heroic.. think Heroic SH and SL combined with a dash of MT.

Killing Kael’thas FTW though. ‘I KILLED KAEL!’

 

Has been a while..

I hate how work gets in the way of playing WoW.

Priest has hit 47 last night. I decided to respec her to Shadow for the time being. DPS is insane compared with Holy/Disc, and there are indeed times when I don’t feel like healing a crazy PuG.

Ill give it a shot and try to heal one tonight with Shadow spec. If it doesn’t work, then Ill keep respeccing before ‘important runs’ — I healed ST once with an awesome PuG.. yes, one of those PuGs that come together every once in a blue moon. Where everyone knows what to do and what his/her job is.

Shadow FTW. Holy/Disc FTW too though. Can’t even recount the number of compliments (’nice healing’) I got while I have been holy-spec. I do like it too, and she will go back to holy for sure once she hits 70. Until then, I will go back and forth between holy and shadow depending on the requirements. 

marine puppy video

I am sure by now most of you have read about the Youtube video that is showing a Marine throwing a dog puppy off a cliff. I have not watched it, because from what I can tell from the pictures on cnn.com that it looks like a puppy version of one of the dogs we have. I would probably vomit if I would watch it.

All I can say to this is that I am not sure what went on in this guys’ head when he did it (and the other guy who apparently said ‘ Oh you are so mean’ and laughed). I cannot even fathom doing anything like that. I cannot even *grasp* how somebody could think about doing anything like that. I don’t understand it one bit.

Then I think about just how much sick sh*t these kids (yeah, kids) must be seeing over there, and God knows what this guy has done / had to do while in service over there. I do not think that that guy knows empathy anymore, or knows the difference between right and wrong.

I have no idea in what environment that kid was raised either.

What happened is not the fault of the Marine Corps; this was one guy doing what he wanted to do. On the other hand, I am not exactly sure what the Marine Corps tells soldiers on how to value a dog’s life (it may not be high on the list of things to teach, not sure, tell me if otherwise). It seems to me that the reaction of the Corps may be primarily motivated by the media frenzy around it. I am not sure what the punishment will be.

I think teaching people the value of life in a warzone is a pretty insurmountable feat.

 Oh, shout out to Michael Vick: f*ck you a**hole. What you and your buddies did to those dogs is deplorable as well.

You abusers disgust me.

** Update

Check out http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4387128

I could smack the guy posting the article for showing the puppy images over and over again. Like, “hey if you haven’t seen the video, watch it now” - “how about now?”. Gah.

Anyway, mental professionals evaluated the video and tried to draw conclusions to explain the behaviour of the marine.

No cake 4 U

Stayed at work late last night, came home and logged onto my druid as soon as I could, at 7:02 PM. Main guild’s raid starts at 7. No spots for me. Gah! 

Farmed 1 1/2 primal fire (lock needed it to make a pair of Shadowcloth). Logged onto priest and queued her for SM, got into a group, PC crashed. I was like, ah well, turned the PC off and went to bed.

Meh!

Ulda - I am spoiled!

PuGged Uldaman last night. Yup, me being level 35 at the time, I was invited to an Ulda run. 38 ret pally tanking, 45 enhancement shammy, 41 hunter, 41 warlock. It went as smooth as it could have possibly been. The perfect run. I am NOT kidding. Kudos to the peeps from <peace and honor> and <the money> that were in this pug. We had ONE death, that was the lock running into a bunch of mobs. That was IT.

And they loved my healing. Comment from the hunter: “I will have you heal all my runs from now on”. Yeeeeees, I am a sucker for compliments. Who isn’t?

Downside is: I am spoiled now. This was a run that was as perfect as a well-organized raid. It will never happen again.

Heilerin has +80 bonus healing now and a mana base of about 3300 buffed up. She hit 36 last night.

Good times ;-0

Clinton wins TX + OH, McCain secures nomination

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/05/march.4.contests/index.html

So Hillary had a comeback of sorts and McCain is now the GOP candidate for president.

Hm, so the choice will be (Obama or McCain) or (Hillary or McCain). Since I am a highly qualified political analyst (I am not), I predict:

- If Obama ends up running against McCain, Obama will get wasted during the campaign. The stuff that Clinton’s team is pulling out (as the media calls it, throwing the kitchen sink at him), that is nothing compared to what the Republicans are going to do to him. Obama better be prepared. Bill OReilly and his cohorts are absolute asshats, but if they repeats his stuff often enough (OReilly even helps the viewers memorize his key points by listing them on the side of the screen while he talks — something I think is absolutely hilarious), it will stick. And there is some stuff that is not quite kosher with Obama (just google/read news etc), that I bet McCains staff is already digging into. I have a feeling Obama is gonna start crying once he realizes just how much crap conservatives can throw his way.

- If Hillary ends up running against McCain, she will lose. I think that there are too many people who do not like her or what she stands for (I think the only thing people remember about Bill Clinton these days is his affair with Lewinsky). Her healthcare plan, while well-meant, scares too many people into the whole OMG TAXES ARE GONNA GET RAISED I WILL EVEN HAVE LESS MONEY TO PAY MY BILLS THAT ALREADY ARE KILLING ME thinking.

If anyone is reading German news (right ), it is interesting how the major outlets (at least Der Spiegel, which is a very major publication in Germany) are pretty clear in supporting Clinton. Der Spiegel pretty much thinks Obama is all talk, no action, whereas Clinton is more experienced. I don’t know. I think overall, that both are full of sh*t and follow their own agenda no matter what.

- So, McCain is going to win. He is a ‘friendly old white man’, ‘headstrong’, ’says what he thinks’, ‘has his head in the right place’. He seems to be more sympathetic than Bush anyway. His agenda? Well, he is a republican, what do you expect?

Does it really matter what their agenda is?

I think that Americans don’t want change. Americans want the status quo, be left alone and not have to worry about any crap going on outside of their own realm of responsibility. They don’t want to deal with the mess in Iraq. They just want to make it go away (remember Afghanistan?).

I am not going to be able to vote in this general election, as I am not a US Citizen yet (I am German). The INS/BCIS is processing my application though, so it eventually will happen this year or next year. I probably would not vote anyway though, as none of the candidates appeal to me. I think Obama is a ‘Windei’, or ‘hollow egg’ as the Germans would say — not much substance. Nice to look at and listen to I guess, but nothing happening as a result. Not something we need here. We need someone with a plan on how to get us out of the mess overseas and here in the USA as far as the economy is concerned. Listening to Obama is like listening to music in an elevator - nice and soothing, but you forget it as soon as you leave the elevator.

More SM runs - respawn timer FTL

Pugged another SM Library run last night. Was an alright group, we ended up 4 manning it since the feral druid d/cd early on. I was able to hone my skillz some more because of “I stealth and pickpocket and aggro mobs that way” rogue (a different one than the night before) was aggroing mobs left and right. We had to deal with 8-mob-pulls twice - accidental pulls - and I kept us alive! That made me feel good

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the entrance to the last room before the library endboss, pally did not realize that there were mobs left and right and ran right for the mobs at the entrance of the boss room. I knew that at that point, a wipe was unavoidable. 8 mobs - yeah ok, we can wing it. 10 mobs? Threshold. :-/

Anyway, I started running after pally got killed almost immediately (threw up PW:S on him and biggest heals, he wasnt able to aggro them all so I had 4 mobs coming for me).

Unfortunately, the entire instance had respawned right behind our back, so I got killed in the yard area. We called it, as we would have had to reclear the whole thing and one of the players had to go.

Ah well, XP is XP. I think it is time for me to focus on Armory — and maybe Cathedral soon - hopefully. Even got my first Ulda quest (yeah, right.. its red, but that doesn’t even tell you about the insane level range that whole instance has — I think the endboss is a 50 elite?).

On another note, I guess I am guild shopping. I am looking for an active leveling guild on Rexxar. I have a feeling by the time I find one, I may as well join a raiding guild as I will have hit 70.  ;-/

Me want to raid

I love to raid. But I dont have 7 nights @ 6 hours a week to raid. Therein lies my personal problem. I know my chars (lock, druid and an upcoming holy priest) very well, but I can’t use them because I am not in a guild where I can use those chars to their full potential since I cannot make the 7-12 PM server time every day that many raiding guilds (at least on Rexxar it seems) employ.

A casual raiding guild would probably be the first match for me, because of the looser restrictions. However, many players in a casual raiding guilds are wanna-be raiders: they want to raid because its cool, but they dont want to put in the commitment that is required. They don’t care about being prepared or want to put in time that is needed to learn a fight. They complain about repair bills, as if others would not have to pay them as well.

A ‘hardcore raiding guild’, or ‘regular raiding guild’ as I would call them is of course different. People know their place, know what they need to do and do it in a professional manner. But you are usually required to attend most of the days. If you don’t, you lose your spot.

I just want to raid, enjoy the team atmosphere. The feeling of accomplishment in the game when you clear the raid instance. I enjoy the ability to get together with a bunch of people and ‘conquer’ an instance.

Thats my dilemma :-/ I want to explore and experience the game, but I can’t find a guild I can do it with, considering the time commitment. I want to eat the cake and keep it.

Hmmm, cake.

A PuG weekend: ignore list FTW!

So, as I mentioned before, my ignore list grew immensely this past weekend: from 0 to 6! All due to SM Lib + Armory. What is it about those instances? Well, there are a lot of neat drops in there, so I figure a lot of people want to have those. Even the people that shouldn’t have them, but run around with a ‘Cudgel’ for the rest of their player lives (Cudgel is one of the starter weapons you can have). Because they suck.

SM Armory PuG: warrior (arms, yes, he tanked),  rogue,  hunter, one other and me. I was a little too low-level (31 for armory which starts at 34), so I was pretty busy healing and drinking a lot. Warrior was a 35. He did take a lot of damage, plus the rogue was one of those “i stealth to mobs before we engage, dance around them, pickpocket, jump some more and accidentally hit a mob and aggro an entire group”-kinda dude. Plus, the warrior says things like “I got dps gear, whats my damage at, I bet I got more than rogue, here, let me fight 2 more mobs so I can outdps”.

I did mention that him being a tank, he takes more damage than usual, and he should look into getting some tanking gear. He loled at me, telling me that I should heal more than complaining the whole time. I did mention before that they should wait before they engage while I am DRINKING. Because NO MANA = NO HEALS. They didn’t care. Ran off, engaged mobs, happened a lot.

So at this point I realized that 3 of the players in the group were from the same guild. I realized it since they started ripping on my healing. “This would go better if the priest would actually heal” etc etc.

Well.. see, as a healer (and as a tank) you have a choice.. you can get another run relatively easy, so there is no _need_ to finish the run with a specific group.

So, after Mr Rogue stealthed into a group of 5 and pulled all of them, I shielded myself, said “take care guys” and walked out of the instance.

I put them all on ignore, as I could tell from the party chat that they were rather displeased with this. Don’t have to deal with the fallout.

A PuG weekend: SM GY and a funny rogue

Played my priest last weekend, she hit 35 last night!

I respecced her to disc/holy. No more mind flay. That’s ok, I had only been using it for a short while and haven’t really gotten used to it too much anyway.

So, when I solo, I usually do:

PW:S - Mind Blast - SW - Smite x3 -  Mind Blast -  Wand. It’s not very exciting, but it works — sometimes I throw in a Chastise to stun.

At the same time, I really only solo if I am half-3/4 quarters through a level from instancing and want to ‘wrap it up’.

Cleared Gnomer twice this weekend, wrapped up all the quests. You know, I have to change one of my basic stances as far as this is game is concerned: Gnomer does not suck that bad.

Yes, I said it. With a good group (or at least a group with players that have a basic understanding on how their toon works — excluding the balance druid I pugged with, who had a mana base of 1300 @ level 29 and meleed with his staff a lot – I saw him yelling in SW later on that day ‘WAT IS BETA A WARLOCK R A MAGE’ - draw your own conclusions) Gnomer is actually fun in a way. Tons of XP since their are millions of gnomes that need to be killed. And I like to kill gnomes. Yes. I like the ‘ayeyyayaaaaaaa’ they let out before they fall backwards and die.

So anyway, Gnomer was fun.

I also started running Scarlet Monestary. GY once (story about funny rogue in a sec), Lib and Armory as well.

Not sure if it is the level range, the atmosphere in the SM instances or what, but I ended up adding 5 (!) people to my ignore list this weekend due to SM PuGs (next article).

The GY rogue was funny and harmless. Some blue BOE dropped (forgot what), tank needed on it and won it.

Conversation went like this:

Rogue: ‘can I have for alt’.

Group: no, players on their current chars in the group have priorities.

Rogue: but Pally has already won so many items (he was right, Pally tank had gotten a blue BS pattern and another item before - sucks for us, lucky pally, but have to deal with it)

Group: yeah, but Pally can use item.

Rogue: Pally is a fatty.

seriously.

I was like ‘huh, what did he just say?’ *scrolls up*

“Pally is a fatty.”

OK, so there are some conclusions you can draw out of this.

I came to the conclusion that it must be a kid and socially somewhat inept. You dont get what you want - URAFATTY -

Anyway. We killed endboss in GY and were done with the run (we kinda just ignored the rogue and wanted to wrap up the run), then Pally stated that he had another 20 minutes on hearth CD, mage had another 10. Rogue asked us to stay to help him level, he was 1 bar away.

Well, I could care less about the rogue at this point obviously, but the others did a good job (also, they didnt run away and aggro their own mobs as rogue had done many a time in this run), so I decided to hang around and keep cleaning up the GY — after all, many mobs left!

We started killing, rogue kept asking us to please please stay and make sure he levels (mind you, after he insulted the group). I said “I am not staying for you, I am staying for the Pally and the Mage. After all, you insulted us”. To which he responds “is that so”. “Yup”.

Now for some reason, the LFG gods had made him lead. Which he used to remove me from group. Inside the instance. The healer.

I smiled. Then I loled. Pally whispers me “hey, hang on, Ill leave group too, aggro, bubble hearth”. I lol. Pally leaves group, invites me, starts running around, bubbles. I shield and hearth. Rogue died.

That was fun.