I break the chain

Six silly screenshots stored and saved down by the seashore? Eh, I was going for a tongue twister, didn’t quite work.

So I would totally play this game, except that I don’t really take screenshots. Pretty much all that I do SS ends up here anyway, so it would just be something that was seen before.

But then I found this. Um, yeah. I don’t really remember the backstory as to why this shot happened. Maybe it was inspiration for slash fic that never got written.

Anyway, enjoy.

"please do not use me as fap fodder"

If you are that one blog left who hasn’t done this and still wants to, then carry on.

 

I will not give you head

I’m starting to get sick. Not mentally sick, we’ve passed that exit long ago. Actual physical sick with a scratchy throat and nose blowing. So that is my excuse for being mean.

After a Firelands run last night, I decided to throw Jendora in to the 2nd half of LFR. I had done the first part earlier, so wanted to get that done for her.

It started off well. The trash before Ultraxion was already done and I managed to snag one of the crystals. The lootship was a bit trickier. It’s LFR, so I wasn’t really in danger of dying, but OMG apparently I cannot avoid the charges. I mean, there is a bright red line that I am in the path of, but apparently that doesn’t trigger anything in my brain that says “MOVE!” until I have been run down.

The upside is there isn’t really any competition for tier and I win the head token. Yay. It’s only my 3rd tier piece, so no bonus, but it will be a little upgrade over my 378 helm.

And then a cute little DK whispers and asks if he could have it.

LOL…um, no.

He says that he will trade me something for it.

Um, again, no. The only other tier that dropped was pants and I already have those.

Then he goes to full on begging and links the green helm he is apparently wearing. He REALLY NEEDS a new helm, won’t I please help him out?

No. I need it and I won it. Actually what I need by then is to crawl into bed so I drop raid like a ninja and take my loot and log out.

And so this morning I am curious if he really went into LFR with a green helm so I decide to look him up on armory. I had to log into the game to get his name off Recount and for a moment I couldn’t find it. Then I see it way at the bottom.

DPS 6581

Oh, dear. I also notice he is from my server. So that’s a great representative of Drak.

But, yes, according to armory he is currently wearing a green helm. And his equipped ilevel is about 6 points lower than his average. I can’t really judge there because I’ve done the same thing.

What I also notice is that the rest of his gear does not contain either a gem or an enchant. The only “enchant” he has is the DK rune on his weapon. This is where I have to shake my head and wonder what is wrong with people.

And because I warned you that I was in a mean mood today, here is the armory page so you can see for yourself.

So, no, you cannot have my helm. I will at least gem and enchant it.

Trolls just want to have fun

Finally, it’s all about Zarigar. The evening started with him collecting Elder coins and ended with a first-time kill of the endgame boss. (Non-LFR!)

So let’s start with the part you’re most dying to hear about. I was in Twilight Highlands, flying to the elder in the middle of the dwarf ruins… Oh, you don’t care about that…

Fine, into the raid. It was already going to be a good night because the raid make-up was 4 belfs, 3 goblins, and 3 trolls. 3!!! Trolls!!! This is a long way from the times when I was the sole troll representative. Back when a 10-man had no fewer than 7 belfs in it.

It was a bit disappointing that they all didn’t have the giant mohawks and Adoe didn’t even know at first what kind of hairstyle he had under his helm. It obviously wan’t a full mohawk, no way would that gloriousness be covered by a tacky helm. The higher the hair, the closer to God!

Most of the run was pretty smooth. Arv brought in his little goblin warrior to tank (The Tank!) and we learned what happens when you pull with rockets. (It doesn’t go so well.)

On Hagara, everyone looked to the trolls to see who would be the one to die during frost phase. Stunnah edged out Zarigar on the prediction of whose corpse everyone would be trampling on. But, haha, bitches…no one died. Take your haterade elsewhere.

Spine was noteworthy for Vanicus getting a worm in her hole. It’s exactly as dirty as it sounds.

I don’t like the Deathwing fight. I hate it on LFR, too. I hate moving and I hate switching targets and I hate trying to figure out if I’m standing in a bad spot that’s going to get someone killed and I hate leaping across platforms ever since I heard about people glitching and falling to their death.

So after a couple of attempts when some people brought up calling it there and trying again the next day, I didn’t care. I think I even cursed when Sorak said give it one more try. In Shadow Rising “one more try” actually means “ok, now it clicks and he dies”. And then, oh hai, I haz a new achievement.

Yes, it was a little bit anti-climactic because I’ve seen Deathwing die several times in LFR. But it was still exciting to get a “real” kill in, even if it was on “my alt”. Jendora has done everything else in Cata, so having it be Zarigar get this first was a nice bit of the circle coming back around.

Oh yes, and I also got Elders of Cataclysm, so it was a successful evening all around.

That magic moment

You know you love it in LFR. That special little moment between when the boss goes down and the loot flashes. The waiting and anticipation.

C’mon, big money, big money, no whammy, stop!

waah waah!

Isn’t it annoying when nothing comes up for you? Don’t lie to yourself, if you’re using LFR it means you want some upgrades. “But, Zari, you get VP.” Bitch, please, you can get VP faster running dungeons, especially if you get in an awful LFR.

(What is one of the scariest things to hear in LFR? When the tank says: “How does this fight go?”)

Even worse than seeing nothing for you are the tease loots. At least when there is nothing to roll on you can just shrug and go on to the next boss. What qualifies as a tease loot? Basically something you can’t really use or something you already have but those pretty Need dice show up on them.

Ooh, tier gloves. Since it’s the token you have to open up your character sheet and see what you currently have and– oh, nevermind, I have these already. Pass.

Ooh, a new trinket….hmm, that procs off heals. My ele sham does not want. Pass.

But then comes the cruelest part of all. When something drops that you want and is an upgrade and would turn your life into rainbows and bunnies. MY PRECIOUS I MUST HAVES!!! Unfortunately you have to roll against other people who also wants their preciouseses.

When you do win, it’s so satisfying to hear that little clunk or tink sound as it drops into your bag. The clouds part and you hear a choir of angels. But when you don’t win…oh the sadness. Oh well, you can try again next week and at least you got some VP for your trouble.

But then some stranger–someone from another server whom you will probably never again meet–opens up a trade window and passes you the tier shoulders you just lost. Why? What is this? Is this a mistake? Is it some random good deed? Did he just like my hot pink mohawk?

*tear* I love you, random hunter.

People still suck and I get a little more awesome

Let’s start with the awesome: Zari finally got actual epic shoulders and got the achievement and got to throw away those horrible blue heroic shoulders. I blame shitty RNG and the fact that you can’t buy shoulders without tier tokens.

It was amusing to see the other people in the group focus on me after I rolled Need. Like they had to inspect me and verify that I actually needed them. Yes, bitches, there are still people that can use dungeon drops as upgrades.

Now for the sucky people. The reason I was doing instances was to cap out Zari’s VP. One of the runs was Well of Eternity. The initial roster was as follows:

1) Me

2) Pally tank

3) Pally healer

4) Mage

5) Kitty

After a few pulls the kitty gets bored or something and stops doing anything. It doesn’t look like he dc’ed but he doesn’t respond to any “are you there?” inquiries. So he gets booted and replaced by a DK.

1) Me

2) Pally tank

3) Pally healer

4) Mage

5) Kitty

6) DK

The first boss goes down pretty easily and the tank wins the leather belt. Maybe that was all he came in for because he decides to drop without a word. His replacement is a warrior.

1) Me

2) Pally tank

3) Pally healer

4) Mage

5) Kitty

6) DK

7) Warrior tank

It’s a quiet run to the next boss and we don’t even do the “who has interrupts” dance. The tank just charges in. The interrupts are fine but killing the hand is too hard for some. (Why-when I am controlled-does it always change my lightning shield to water shield? It’s very annoying.)

After the fight the warrior decides it’s time to make the run interesting and asks the mage why his dps sucks. He then flashes the numbers for that fight. They aren’t super great but that’s kind of a stupid fight to gauge someone’s dps. There are target swaps and mind controls and interrupts to worry about.

“You were only 1K higher than the tank!”

The mage doesn’t say anything but the healer speaks up and basically says who cares about the dps when things are dying.

“You don’t have to defend him because he’s from your guild.”

Well, no. They are actually from different guilds and the healer says so.

“same server at least”

Um, ok. It’s possible the healer and mage did know each other but it sounded like they didn’t. I don’t excuse someone or stick up for them because they are from my server. The majority of my ignore list is probably made up of people from my server.

The mage apparently decides he’s had enough of this so leaves. He is replaced by another mage.

1) Me

2) Pally tank

3) Pally healer

4) Mage #1

5) Kitty

6) DK

7) Warrior tank

8) Mage #2

The warrior pulls the last boss while asking the new mage if he knows how to dps. Such a charming fellow. Then the healer does something that should come as a surprise to no one. A Slice is pulled and he drops right in the middle of the boss fight. Even though it results in my death, I applaud this maneuver. It is something I would have totally done and I absolutely approve.

1) Me

2) Pally tank

3) Pally healer

4) Mage #1

5) Kitty

6) DK

7) Warrior tank

8) Mage #2

9) Priest healer

So now I am the last of the original group still here. Awesome. What’s not so awesome is I can’t ankh so it’s a run back to the instance. Does anyone think the warrior ran back?

Hahaha

Well, he tries not to, at least.

“rez me”

The problem with that is that when the first healer dropped he pretty much turned tail and ran off into the woods somewhere. Then he released. So good luck finding his corpse. Could I have used a Mass Rez? Probably. Did I? Of course not.

It was more than worth it when he finally got in and complained “heals doesn’t know how to rez.” OMG, yes, insult the healer 15 seconds into them being in the instance. Then he charges into combat with half health and no buffs. I seriously thought I would need to update my group listing with a 10th person but, sadly, the boss goes down.

Special kudos to him for calling for lust AFTER the instance was technically over and we had already gotten our valor points. It only took 9 different people to get those 150 points for me.

But at least I got a new charming person for my ignore list.

LFR: pixels bring out the best in people

Yesterday Zarigar queued in for LFR. I usually only do the first 4 bosses and then I might do the Deathwing part later on in the week if I have time.

I am barely zoned into the raid when the raid leader throws up a warning. It basically calls out the fact that there is a guild in this raid and that they will ninja all the loot for themselves and nobody else is going to get anything. ZOMG!!!!!!11

Erm…ok. I mouse over the raid and, yes, there are 10 people in there from the same guild. There are other people in there with their guildies but apparently the 10-person guild is the one we are supposed to worry about.

The raid leader isn’t from their guild or even their server and it’s a fresh run with the trash not yet pulled, so I’m not sure why he’s trying to stir anything up. By the time we get to Morchok he’s repeated himself 3 times.

The people in that guild don’t even bother defending themselves. It’s a lot of “shut up” and “qq moar.” They don’t deny it but they also mention that in bringing 10 of their own in they are helping ensure the success of that raid. The implied undertone seems to be “we deserve more because of what we are bringing into the raid.”

I personally don’t agree with rolling on something for the purpose of trading it to someone else. But we haven’t even gotten to a boss yet and people are accusing each other. If that guild did come in with the specific intent to do that, then of course they are assholes, but it seems unfair to outright accuse them of that before they do it.

By now other people are questioning if they will get gear and some are starting to drop. Really? The guild in question has an assortment of different classes being represented. Their players are in all 3 roles. There is no way all 10 of them can roll on every item and win it all even if they were trying to. The Role Bonus would weed out a lot of their rolls. Maybe there might be an extra roll or two but nothing earth shattering.

Then up comes the window to kick the raid leader. I click no but it still passes and off he goes. That sets off the people who were on his side. They blame the guild for getting rid of him even though it’s something we will never know. It could have come from someone being an instigator. (Not me! There was more shenanigan potential in keeping him in the raid!)

Someone blames the guildies for kicking the raid leader with their 10-vote bloc. For some reason I thought it took a majority vote. Is 10 really all you need?

Morchok gets pulled. And then people start to drop. People dropped so quickly that at first I thought it was the guild in question just leaving en masse. It turns out to be everybody else. Whether it’s because they believe the ninja accusations or don’t agree with how the raid leader got kicked or just don’t think this raid is worth it, the raid dwindles down considerably.

Still the boss might have gone down except near the end of the fight someone pulled one last trick and aggroed the surrounding mobs before dropping. The raid was reformed with people who probably wondered what kind of noobs died on Morchok and continued on.

Did that raid roll Need to pass onto its guildies? Honestly I don’t know. I didn’t care enough to check. There was not one piece to drop that I could use. And, really, even if there was something, I would not have bothered.

When I lose a roll I don’t check to see if the person who won actually needs it. (It’s more sheer laziness than anything.) Are there people out there abusing the system? I’m sure there are. I just can’t be bothered to get worked up over little purple pixels.

But I will write about those that do.

Pulling a Slice: Part 2

I think I am slowly moving towards becoming one of those elitist people. Well, maybe not elitist but is it so wrong to expect that people have some idea of the encounters they queue for? 4.3 has been out for a while now; so why is it me that keeps getting these groups where no one has a clue? And why always on my healer????

When I queue up Jendora to heal I usually like to do it when there is a Call to Arms reward. Even if I have to wait a little bit, sometimes I’ll do other things while I wait for CtA to pop up. Maybe that’s not the intended use that Blizzard had in mind, but I like getting a little extra something for my effort. Even if it’s a stupid agility flask.

But I wanted to knock some out quickly so I went in without the CtA. Bah. End Time isn’t my favorite. People try to take the “path of least resistance”: AKA dodge all mobs, and yet someone usually finds a way to pull them anyway. And I know that other people love it, but I don’t like the final boss. The hourglass reset concept is cool but I usually spend the entire fight trying to avoid bad while keeping people up and cursing at the people who don’t reset faster.

Well I zone in and they are on Jaina. All the fragments are collected and the pats around her cleared and some ghosts are making their way back. Hmmm… That’s kind of ominous, but maybe they just had a bad healer or got to close to a pat the first time.

Then they pull and, yeah, it’s them. No one is stepping on the flarecores, in fact the hunter runs away from several. They interrupt nothing, which isn’t too terrible, but the tank makes no attempt to dodge the claw things. I’m trying to get the flares myself but the tank is taking too much damage and one goes off. Gah. I have to use Tranquility on the Jaina fight, how noob.

She goes down and I cry at the hunter under 10k and the warlock not much better. The next boss is Baine. Well, ok, we got the 2 easiest ones. I won’t run away yet.  If it was that bullshit one where they have to interrupt starlight I would have been back in Org so fast…

They try to dodge the adds. They get pulled anyway. Some people die but I don’t, so that’s the important thing.

Then onto the boss.

Oh.

My.

God.

People are swimming in the lava. They get knocked off the platform and they just swim la-di-dah, no hurry, I’m not taking any damage or anything in the lava. And no one throws the damn totems. And their DPS still sucks.

Do you know what happens on that boss when they don’t take him down in a reasonable time? He eventually pulverizes every single island.

Do you know what happens then? You die because there is no platform to stand on. A wall blocks you from even going back to shore.

So everyone is swimming in the lava and dying.

Do you know what happens then? That’s right.

Slice out, bitches.

With no fanfare at all

I now have a level 85 death knight.

There was originally no plan for it, though. I just logged into Drak, watched a tumbleweed roll on by, then decided to take my DK out mining.

Once I logged on and saw that she was 76% through 84 with the little left being all rest XP, I went “eh” and decided to quest out that last little bit. It’s kind of sad; all of my other toons I was happy to get to 85 and once they got to the Cata zones it was all about questing and dungeons and getting to the end.

But now…eh. Sabryel actually hit 85 finishing up the questline in Twilight Highlands where you go into the Maw of Madness or something and Thrall yells at you because you suck and let the whole world die. So she actually got that achievement at the same time as the 85 one.

And there were no grats because, of course, no one was on. In a weird way, that was sort of fitting for her, since I’ve treated her like the redheaded stepchild of all my toons. Even now that she’s max level I don’t really have any plans for her. She most likely has a long future of being a mining bitch ahead of her.

Once the others hit 85 it was all about doing heroics and, later, gearing up for LFR. Now, it’s just more eh. Playing a DK still feels like random button mashing to me. Ooh something lit up, let’s press it.

Maybe I will take her into some instances just to see how awful she is. I should start tracking “Sabryel/pug/sucks/noob” to see what kind of blogs posts she becomes the subject of.

Or maybe if some guildies are ever on Vanicus can relive her triumph of healing a run of all death knights. What a glorious moment that could be for her.

Queue queue

Hey bitch,

If you queue as healer then be prepared to heal. Yeah it sucked on the first boss when you let the tank and 2 dps die, but if you can’t do it then just leave.

Maybe that sounds mean, but no, I’m not going to swap with you and heal. And neither will the dps pally. Even if my healing spec was actually formed out I wouldn’t heal for you.

We dps ate our long queue time. You as a healer had a much shorter time and probably have a nice Call to Arms bag waiting for you at the end. Suck it up and do the job you selected.

I have a lot of patience for someone struggling but trying. Not so much for whiners who spend the time complaining and asking for someone to please swap roles.

Have a great day

Love,

Zarigar

2011 in review + Real raiding is hard, yo

For people that like numbers and such. Maybe 2012 should be the year I blog more.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

***

Last night was my first step back in a “real raid” since Dragon Soul first came out. And, um, yeah. When all you’ve done is LFR–where you basically can just stand in one place for almost all of the fight–having to deal with actual mechanics can kind of suck.

Hagara: I regularly mock the people in LFR who die to ice walls (one person died from running into the one in front of him!!!) so it was a rude awakening to remember that there were also things on the ground to avoid. Hello, dead troll.

Ultraxion: push the button when DBM says so and win. Wait, there is another mechanic he throws on you? Am I supposed to run out of the raid or just eat it or push the button for this, too? Oh, too late. Hello, dead troll.

Spine: what is this “get in the hole” supposed to be except for making me giggle? Hello, dead tro– no, wait, lifegrip saved me. Yay!

After that raid I had to go back into an LFR and feel awesome in my mediocreness again.