World of Warcraft

[PhelanArcetus]

Drama is very definitely sigh.

We did manage the rescheduled raid yesterday. We had to pug 3 people, all of whom were mediocre at best, and while I did get two very important pieces of loot (deflection band and my damn tier helm), which knowing my luck wouldn't have dropped on Thursday, I still think that overall it was a mistake. At least one person, a RL friend of the guild leader, was alienated by this whole thing, and basically the benefit was including two people who can't normally attend weeknight raids. When we ostensibly have raids on Thursday [i]and[/i] Sunday, though the latter have been falling through regularly.

That alienation resulted in a phone call, drunken, on Saturday night, in which I couldn't hear his side of the conversation, but I could hear hers. It ended with "when you grow up, you know where to find me", and the phone being thrown. It seems that he is being childish by believing that she will, as always, side with her boyfriend against him, and not adapting his everything to her every little whim, in terms of raid schedules, how he talks to people, how he treats incompetent people who are attached to competent people, and everything else.

It's still unclear to me whether it was 2 or 4 people who didn't feel like raiding. On the one hand, when I signed on, two additional people seemed unenthused. When I originally spoke to the guild leader, she said "other people" and I had to drag the name of her boyfriend out of her, but she made no mention of these two. Talking to a friend, he says that earlier in the day, they were enthusiastic about raiding. And while she mentioned them not being interested to me on Saturday night, I very distinctly noted that she did not mention them on the phone. So did we have 1 person unable to attend and 3 not bothered by raiding, or 1 and 1?

We almost didn't run yesterday, due to having to get 3 pugs. And while it was a smooth run with no wipes and fairly few deaths (except on Heigan, where a lot of people failed the dance, but that's expected if you're new to it). There were a few things that got my attention, though. First, the almost entirely blue-geared boomkin outdamaging our epic'd boomkin consistently. It's too bad our boomkin is bad and seems incapable of learning, but we can't ditch her because it would cost us our holy priest (her boyfriend). Fortunately, while they're a package deal when both are on, she's rarely on when I am. The other was the ret paladin, who the last time I grouped with was doing sub-tank damage, nearly matching the mage, who had a commanding overall lead, on Kel'Thuzad. I um... take nearly full credit. He knows when he's doing badly, and while I'd prefer if he could do the research himself rather than ask someone, unlike the boomkin he asks, and improves.

Loot, sadly, mostly went to the pugs rather than guild. Granted most of what they got is gear we would have disenchanted, but still. The pug boomkin walked out with around 6 drops, the pug shaman with 2-3. The ret paladin, who is guild even though he left (and is unguilded; but he has 2-3 other characters in guild, and I think we'll just re-invite that one) got Spaulders of Bloodshed, two shoulder tokens, at least 3 healing pieces...

Other than that, I doubled my Emblems of Valor on Saturday by running 25 man vault and sanctum (yes, I've now gotten 12 total on my warrior), which I intend to keep doing, to get a jump start on EoV loots with Ulduar. But I don't expect to be playing much this week; my wrist is acting up with what I assume is a repetitive stress injury, and since I can't skip work, it's WoW getting skipped to get my hand off the mouse/keyboard.

I think I've decided on Arms as my warrior's dual-spec. Despite how retarded night elves look using two-handers. I think it'll be more my style than Fury.

[RaceBannon42]

Got the Twilight Drake last night.


its pretty.


I still want a proto-drake though.

[Stego]

[quote name='RaceBannon42' post='1720908' date='Mar 16 2009, 11.33']I still want a proto-drake though.[/quote]





Loot Whore.

[RaceBannon42]

[quote name='Stego' post='1720926' date='Mar 16 2009, 10.43']Loot Whore.[/quote]

I'll take a green one. Then me and Burie's can hang out at Krasus's Landing, wearing our Twilight Vanquisher titles.

[PhelanArcetus]

Proto drakes are awesome. I love my blue one.

I'm wondering if I have a shot in hell of getting the 10-man Ulduar one.

[Greywolf2375]

Wow, got back from week in Atlanta to a good day of WoW. First thing I did was open my oracle egg, and instead of my typical nasty yoke, got the reins of the green proto, definitely like the look of that much more!

We then went to Naxx, cleared the first Spider, Military and got Noth in our morning session; in the afternoon wiped on Heigin twice before getting him - though that was more related to some of us spiking to 1900 latency than anything else - one shot Loatheb, then one shot Construct except for Thaddius. Got him on the 2nd try, but only had about 10 minutes for our first look at Saph. Got him to about 50% and then had to call it for the night.

Got a couple off spec pieces, got the ugly Thanes helm to replace the Eng tanking goggles, here comes enchanting and JC.

[BlueRose]

Stego, thanks again for your help with tank stuff. I'm now regularly pulling agro off the pally which makes me happy.

I tanked Naxx25 with my usual group (a bunch of alts from about 4 guilds, 5 of my guild, and 2-3 pugs) but since the epic bear tank was out, the one DK and I had to split the "MT" job. It went fairly well, except for the safety dance.... the DK had no idea what he was doing, and he didnt dance right at all and got a bunch of people killed. After the first phase 2, I took over tanking and the DK fired himself from the dance for next week. :)

Speaking of next week, we're apparently going to do the Dedicated Few since 5 of our regular guys are our due to spring break issues. That could be interesting...

[TerraPrime]

We failed. I failed worse.

I couldn't make the raid start time Saturday. By the time I could log on, they had already cleared all the wings and down to Thaddius. A few people had to go, so I stepped in to help. We wiped on Thaddis for 3 hours. Then people got frustrated and we went off to kill Sarth in vanilla OS25 instead. We went back in yesterday on Thaddius. Wiped again for 1.5 hrs, and called it.

So my Nax25 experience this week was wiping on Thaddius for about 4 hrs, with no gain. Go me.

We really need a better way of identifying the stupids who can't switch sides correctly. WTF people. It's not that freaking hard. I could get 9 other people to do it correctly, because we got Thaddius on our Nax10 in one shot. But add 15 others and apparently the world is about to end. Argh. The sad thing was that on Sat., they cleared the rest of the entire raid in 4 hrs, and then wiped on Thad. So sad.

We also tried Sarth+1 in OS10, and couldn't make it. A few times we got Tenebom down, but we soon lost our OT and the whelps killed our healers. We had a warrior MT, and a pally OT, with 3 heals (priestx2 + shaman), and we have 2 mages and 2 locks plus an enh shaman. I think we need a boomkin for boosting dmg. Or maybe try 2 heals and add another DPS. But mostly, we need people to not get hit by the giant moving wall of lava or for them to move out of the glowing blue fissure. The frustrating thing is that everyone in there can do it, but one of us will make a mistake each try and fuck'd the whole thing up. We just were not in synch. I got hit my firewall once because my demonic circle was on cd and I didn't realize it. A couple of our healers died to fissures because a portal spawned on top of it and they couldn't see it. Etc.

So for those who did Sarth+1, did you kill Ten after the first wave of whelps, or the second? We couldn't kill him until after the 2nd, and sometimes even the 3rd. Did we just not have enough DPS?

[Kalbear]

What's the method you're using for Thaddius, Terra? I've seen a couple suggestions that might help. One is to always move to the outside. The second is to set up a box around him with people at opposite corners, and make it so that at every polarity shift people are moving - iether left for positive, or right for negative. Of course if the problem is that people are dumb and can't move, well, you're just fucked anyway.

[quote]So for those who did Sarth+1, did you kill Ten after the first wave of whelps, or the second? We couldn't kill him until after the 2nd, and sometimes even the 3rd. Did we just not have enough DPS?[/quote]Yes, but really that shouldn't be a problem. I'd strongly recommend just killing the whelps as soon as they come out. But yeah, if your players are being hit by void zones and lava, you're not going to clear it regardless of your dps level.

[Stego]

Boomkins aren't the problem if you;re wiping on Thaddius for 3 hours, man. It's just basic raid skills that your people are missing.

[BlueRose]

Terra we've killed Sarth 1D 3 times, and once we had 3 waves of whelps, and twice we had 2. We take 3 healers, 2 druids and a priest.

Thaddius is the only boss in Naxx that my 25 man raid has problems with, I dont know why people cant figure it out. I assume all your raiders have Deadly Boss Mods or an equivalent, right?

[RaceBannon42]

What the heck is with Thaddius?
I mean really?
Seperate positive from negative. Front/Back Left/Right, it doesnt matter. just make sure people know. Call it out. Boss dies.
If someone cant wtach for a debuff and move when its called they are hopeless.
Missing the jump? sure it can happen. Being a bit slow and hitting someone with a charge can happen once in while, but wiping for 4 hours? Thats just crazy. I'm normaly the nice guy in raids, but I would be tearing people a new asshole if they were that stupid for that long.

Maybe they all need to go run the first boss in Mechanar a few times to get the whole plus/minus thing down.

[Nathanael]

You don't even need Deadly Boss Mods. It tells you when there's a shift, your debuffs tell you what charge you are, and you have a couple seconds to move.

Anyone who fails on Thaddius should be gkicked. IMO. :P

[PhelanArcetus]

We always raid warning before the fight.

<<<< POSITIVE (THADDIUS) NEGATIVE >>>>

I've been told to run clockwise, or counter-clockwise, to help avoid crossing charges while switching. As tank I normally just run straight through.

In a guild run I've never had it be substantially screwed up. Sure, people take a charge or two from reacting too slowly, and I've had someone die, but never to the point of wiping. I think I've wiped on him once, and it was on Stalagg and Feugen somehow.

On the other hand, on most fights, if someone screws it up, they die, and that doesn't necessarily kill the raid. On Thaddius, someone screwing up can kill him, and potentially kill or make vulnerable to a chain lightning kill, other people. If a few screw up at once that can definitely be a kill. And worse, on Thaddius you lose stacking buffs as well as the person's own dps. That part is quite likely the kicker.

[Zadok]

4 hours on Thaddius is beyond ridiculous. I mean sometimes there's that guy who despite the charge locations being spammed 10 times in raid thinks that he should still do it like he did in his 10 man, but that's only one wipe. The Heigan fight would defintely be the worst if it wasn't so forgiving. Half the raid can wipe and you can still easily down him. It's just mind boggling to me that after all this time there are still people that consistently fail, on that crap.

Having couples in the guild is also a pretty terrible idea as at least one of the players is sure to be absolutely awful. Not just your generic WoW awful either, but that special kind that defies comprehension. And they never, ever learn either.

[Kalbear]

[quote]Having couples in the guild is also a pretty terrible idea as at least one of the players is sure to be absolutely awful. Not just your generic WoW awful either, but that special kind that defies comprehension. And they never, ever learn either.[/quote]Totally agree. Thank goodness that my wife carries me and we need healers so badly that they'll take my sorry ass.

[RaceBannon42]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1721309' date='Mar 16 2009, 15.21']Totally agree. Thank goodness that my wife carries me and we need healers so badly that they'll take my sorry ass.[/quote]

Very lucky.

We have quite a few couples. By and large both parties are good players. In some cases like with Kaal and skylark her skill way eclipses his, but thats the exception. We have had a few couples where one party is much more annoying than the other one though. Like Stego and Mo. Mo is nice and...

[PhelanArcetus]

[quote name='Zadok' post='1721305' date='Mar 16 2009, 16.18']Having couples in the guild is also a pretty terrible idea as at least one of the players is sure to be absolutely awful. Not just your generic WoW awful either, but that special kind that defies comprehension. And they never, ever learn either.[/quote]

Bwahaha (to all the posts up here).

In general, we're not [i]that[/i] screwed. I mean, in no way does the guild have anyone truly exceptional, would definitely be recruited into a world first guild, anything at that level. My skill level varies with how much I can be bothered that night, even. There have been times when I've completely zoned out on a boss fight, and we've definitely had trash deaths because I was trying to talk instead of tank.

I'd say the bad ones in our couples are more of the generic WoW awful. The guild leader's boyfriend is more lazy than anything else, though he's bad about taking advice or doing research.

I've forgotten the name of the blue-geared boomkin who outdamaged our epic'd boomkin, so I can't compare stats, and even there I'd have to estimate what pre-epic stats were (she got about 5 upgrades). But our boomkin has only recently started outdamaging the tank.

Problems with her start with her not understanding that being the lowest dps dpser is not something she should just expect due to gear and being a boomkin (they definitely used to be gimp). Other problems include a spec even I can tell is wrong, despite my boomkin being a mid-20s AH alt. Here: [url="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?tal=55222131253313332130353112310000000000000000000000000000020000000000000000000000000"]the spec[/url] I divorced it from the character just because it's right to do so. All the key resto talents are missing. Bunches of unimportant talents are taken. I'm reasonably sure Owlkin Frenzy is not good for PvE, but she thinks it's so good she can't understand why the other boomkin wouldn't take it. She's also had a bad habit of switching to pure moonfire spam towards the end of a fight. But the real problem is that she thinks she knows what she's doing and thus doesn't look to improve, or take kindly to advice.

Fortunately, she works nights, so she's normally only around on weekends. And also fortunately, despite being a bad boomkin, she still provides the boomkin buffs, which means that our mages derive a lot of benefit from her (we don't have other people with the corresponding buffs).

[Guest thebadlady]

WoW brings out the worst in men. If you want to know if someone is going to be a poor mate, play wow with him.

[Zadok]

[quote name='PhelanArcetus' post='1721336' date='Mar 16 2009, 15.57']Problems with her start with her not understanding that being the lowest dps dpser is not something she should just expect due to gear and being a boomkin (they definitely used to be gimp). Other problems include a spec even I can tell is wrong, despite my boomkin being a mid-20s AH alt. Here: [url="http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?tal=55222131253313332130353112310000000000000000000000000000020000000000000000000000000"]the spec[/url] I divorced it from the character just because it's right to do so. All the key resto talents are missing. Bunches of unimportant talents are taken. I'm reasonably sure Owlkin Frenzy is not good for PvE, but she thinks it's so good she can't understand why the other boomkin wouldn't take it. She's also had a bad habit of switching to pure moonfire spam towards the end of a fight. But the real problem is that she thinks she knows what she's doing and thus doesn't look to improve, or take kindly to advice.

Fortunately, she works nights, so she's normally only around on weekends. And also fortunately, despite being a bad boomkin, she still provides the boomkin buffs, which means that our mages derive a lot of benefit from her (we don't have other people with the corresponding buffs).[/quote]

Yeah that spec is really bad. You hit on the real problem though, being bad at WoW is something that can be corrected rather easily, especially if you're playing a DPS if the person is willing to listen. Boomkins are definitely not gimp though, the one in my guild is usually pretty close behind me for top spot on bosses and absolutely smokes me on trash.

We had a ret paladin that was doing pretty awful DPS due to a few points in the wrong place, using the wrong seal etc, but he was new to the game and once someone talked to him and he realized where he was going wrong he became one of our best melee DPS.