Wow, oh wow, it's WoW!

OK…fair warning, this post is mostly about WoW. So, if you have no interest in WoW and lack a desperate need to understand what’s been going on in my head lately, then you probably want to just skip it. Seriously. *shrug* You were warned.

So, on Tuesday night, I quit my guild. If you follow me on twitter and/or facebook, you know that I have been agonizing about my guild for some time. The guild and I had been heading in different directions for some time. The GuildMaster left temporarily to handle some real life issues. Given the extended nature of his absence, someone needed to take over. The Wingman did so. In my opinion, he did the best job he could but he never felt any ownership…more like a manager in charge while the owner was unavailable. So he tried to guide the Guild in the direction that most of the membership wanted. Soon, his management team and core personnel consisted of some fairly strong willed individuals who wanted the guild to be something it wasn’t. And they proceeded to push it in that direction.

Now, I objected all along. But I was in the minority AND persona non grata because of my personal nature. I have never been a ‘serious’ player…I treated the game as a lark and a lot of the members came to dislike me because they saw my casual, carefree attitude as interfering with their serious efforts. (For example, if I rolled on and won a trophy, I might not use it. That’s just how I rolled. This frustrated them, as they would choose to use in immediately, had they won it. So they felt it was wasted.) As time passed, I was ostracized more and more, even though I could and did change those attitudes and behaviors to be more in line with what they would have wanted for a teammate. That is part of the source of the frustration…I mean, I genuinely tried to change for these people but they didn’t seem to notice or care…

On Tuesday, I logged on about 10 minutes after the official invite time, nothing unusual…a good 20 minutes before ‘first pull’ and found that the groups had been formed. Apparently, the invite and ‘first pull’ times had been moved up. With no notice…at least to me. It was in the calendar invite, which I was admonished for not reading more closely but I didn’t see any other notice. And basically, I was casually blocked from participation in favor of pugs. For me, that was the last straw. I became so angry that it became a physical force…I couldn’t stop shaking and my vision was literally tinged with red. I did the /gquit and acted quite rudely towards the officer I was conversing with. (I later apologized; I was unforgivably rude.) She tried to continue the conversation so I put her on ignore. (I later took it off as part of the aforementioned apology; like I said, unforgivably rude.) I couldn’t deal with it.

The hard part, really, besides the ‘fear of the unknown’ and not knowing where my next raid is coming from, is the feelings of anger I have towards the Wingman. I mean, he is probably my best friend in the world and I have just been really really pissed. I know it is in no way his fault…What kind of sense would it have made for him to try and force 20-30 people in a direction they didn’t want in favor of one, me? None. Intellectually, I don’t think he could have handled things any other way and I know he tried to keep it moderate enough for me to ‘hang in there’. Maybe if he had been on the game Tuesday night, things might have been different, I dunno. But he wasn’t and they weren’t. So, I have to try and find a way to get over these feelings…Cuz, despite how they FEEL, I KNOW they are not worth it…friends are few and far between and should not be compromised lightly. And we have brains to get past our emotions and do the right thing…I am dedicated to finding a way to do that.

So, anyway, I joined a ICC pug immediately, to try and salve myself. It was your typical poorly planned and average run pug…took 45 minutes to form up because people kept losing faith and quitting…I ran outside to summon replacements no less than 6 times. Once we started, we handled the 1st room trash with some skill but we lost 3/10 people…which is pretty bad on 1st room trash. Then, in the second room, we activated a 1st room trap and one of the hunters, who had been rezzed twice, failed to run in the second room, leaving us to deal with the unnecessary Ward. Finally, we wiped on the first boss…and, of course, people bailed. Honestly, I was glad to not be saved, though who knows if I’ll get a 10 man this week…

I bounced around for a while…dumped some gold in the AH to level some alt professions…did the weekly…did VOA 25, where I led the dps with 7495 on Toravon. I think that was my highest dps EVER and I was pretty excited. Of course, having no guild, I had no one to share it with :( which hurt and made me question my decision…I sent a tell to one of the few guild members on my friends list and she commiserated with me. She also told me the pugs in her group were fail and they were wiping a lot, which made me feel a bit better as well….nothing like the misery of those who wronged you to pick you up, right? The VOA ended as WG started but a bunch wanted to run 10 man…so I sat around and waited for WG to end, hoping that the Alliance pulled it out…What else did I have to do? The Alliance won and I got a decent 10 man done but what kind of loser waits the whole of WG for a 10-man pug? This kind, I guess.

The other thing I did was something I had been putting off…I took my new stockpile of Frost Badges and bought the last two of my 8 total Tier 10 pieces…completing my 4 piece bonus on my tank set. So I had to run around for Arcanums and Shoulder enchants and gems and stuff but I got it all put together. I put it all on and my tank set cleared 3000 on wow-heroes, which was nice. In the end, I stayed up way too late doing unnecessary stuff, running worthless and pointless heroics (healed Occ on the alt, which impressed the hell out of myself. Died on the last boss as I am quite fail at green dragon but whatever, right? They pulled it out without me.) Went to bed around 1:45a. Miserable over the whole mess.

Woke up Miserable over the whole mess. Went to work miserable over the whole mess. Spent the day miserable over the whole mess. So the wife picked me up and took me out to dinner. Now, we can’t afford to go out to dinner. And I told her that. But she said she’d find the money if I would stop being miserable over the whole mess. Normally, I would call that a bad deal, but there are not a lot of things on this earth that I wouldn’t give up for Chico’s wings and pointless misery doesn’t make the list. So I cheered up and we got barbeque. But I told her I wanted to be home early to get on by 7:45 to try and find a pug spot in a guild ICC run. Have to get back on the horse and guilds aren’t going to find you. She didn’t disagree but dinner took a while and we had to stop at Walmart for staples. Further, she became fed up with my rushing and took the opportunity to give me an earful of her opinion on the situation. (She thinks I should take some time off Wow. I know, crazy, right?) Still, she did buy dinner so I backed off the deadline and gave up on raiding…Got home, put the stuff away, worked on the pool, got the baby to bed and managed to log on around 8:30 or so.

Looked like the guild runs had failed. Day 2 is always tough when you have pugs involved. If just one person bails, the whole run is FUBAR. So again…their misery is my salve. But there weren’t any obvious runs being formed. Some bs ‘Anybody wanna do ICC10?’ on Trade but that’s it. So I ran my daily, CoS. Some of the randoms failed and we had to run the gauntlet like 3 times but we still got the mount for a dude and finished in 35 minutes or so.

Back in Dal, sitting around staring at trade and I see a request for ICC25 come through. It bounces too quick due to gold spammers, so I scroll up and read it. Guy is advertising for ICC 25. dbw reserved (I had to google that. :() min dps 8K. Remember, my best was 7495 so I couldn’t do 8K. So, no fit…Still, I do have a spiffy new tank set on. So I whispered him and asked if they needed a tank and how late they were running. He replied that they WERE looking for a bear tank, were ending by 11 (12m our time) and would I like to go? So I said yes. Got the invite and told the wife I would move downstairs to raid. She looked at the clock and told me I could go if I got her some ice cream. I told her to forget it as I didn’t want to delay the start. Still there were 12 open slots, so I went in the kitchen and got her the ice cream (she acted all surprised, like there was any doubt.), took a leak, and went downstairs.

Well, I sat there for like 40 minutes. At first, I don’t think they were really focused on filling….half of the 13 we had were from one guild and they were all offline on alts. I got the vent info and go on and no one was talking...finally the guy who invited me came on and started doing invites and switching people to alts. At about 10:30 we started pulling trash with 24 and one kitty on the way.

The trash went amazing. I mean, they treated it like par for the course but this was a 75% pug group and we downed the first through third pull without a death. I don’t think my health bar dropped the whole time and I had some real aggro going. On the 4th pull…the stairs to room 2, someone pulled the main middle group midway through…Groups I’m in, that’s an autowipe…grab your ankles and lube up. But I was gonna do my best so I grabbed a couple of the ice dudes and pointed them away from the raid and then I started taunting some stragglers who were harassing the casters. And what do you know…we survived…with like 2 deaths. Out of 25. I was in a good group. The raid leader was pushing us to go…we never got to stop…2nd room ended up with 3 Wards…1st one…then one from the 1st room got dragged in…then the 3rd…but I just did my best and they kept me up. Though I had most hps, I had lowest threat gen of the three tanks (story of a bears life.) so I deemed myself OT and let them hold the wards while I kept the still up misc trash off the healers and clothies. It worked…we survived with minimal deaths and went on to 1st boss.

Got 1st boss on the 1st try. Smooth as a greased up baby’s butt. Some shoulders dropped and loot was one per boss so I rolled. Got em :) Cultist's Bloodsoaked Spaulders

Second boss, I was assigned to left side. No one was assigned to any particular side or adds besides the tanks. I am not good at a whole side but I did the best I could…mostly my dudes ran into the raid and I pulled them back with taunts. No one bitched me out or complained other to politely note that they were free. After three add rounds, the boss freed up. I got on her and went to it…they called for me to take her third and I managed to pick her up and hold her and even move out of D&D (go me!) long enough for her to die. As soon as she dropped we were all on the elevator…no milling around or chit chat. Nothing dropped for me on her.

We were already in the next trash before the first piece was even rolled on. The raid leader advised us that we’d have to end on time because their guild run started at 11. They were doing LK (10 man run with 9/12 down). They invited any of the tanks to join them…I pondered it. I had noticed a couple of things about this run...the raid leader was pocketing the Saronites…not unusual, I guess they were reserved for the guild. The raid leader would link loot but he called for rolls on Vent. This meant that, if you weren’t paying attention to vent, you didn’t get to roll on Loot. This did piss one guy off who claimed he didn’t hear the call for a roll but he was just screwed. (in all fairness, 23 other people heard the call…) Also, the 8K dps rule was NOT being enforced. The raid leader noted the dps and even called people out on it but he didn’t keep the roll winners from getting the loot when they were below 8K. I actually felt good about that….as a fail dps, I hate those rules.

As we approached the boat for the 3rd ‘boss’, the raid leader called a halt and did something I’ve never seen before. He set it to heroic! My first realization was that our raid leader was a Kingslayer…I’ve never run with a Kingslayer. My second realization is that I know JACK SHIT about tanking heroic gunship. :{ So I jumped on WoWwiki and read up on it…luckily it is just like regular except the dudes are tougher and you have to be perfect in avoiding the rockets as they can both knock you back and one shot you. Nothing I couldn’t handle…

Heroic Gunship was rough but fun. Not difficult but I was dodging rockets and grabbing aggro like you wouldn’t believe. It was very draining because of the concentration needed. But we pulled it out and the loot came up…There were two pieces for me, which was REAL exciting, as I don’t’ have ANY heroic gear. I lost the roll on the tank trinket to the other tank which was fine. Then I lost the roll on heroic Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder to a dude I’ll call LuckMeister, cuz he was and cuz that will give him away to anyone from the raid reading this. LuckMeister was the kitty and he was averaging about 5K dps. Not 8K. The raid leader even hesitated before giving it to him…but he got it. Now the rule swings the other way…I guess you take the good with the bad. I let it go.

Time for Saurfang. Raid Leader called for one of the tanks to go dps. I got nervous. I am a fail dps remember, I don’t want to post a shitty dps score and embarrass myself. I admitted that I had a dps spec. On other tank did and then he stated that his dps was only like 6K in that spec. I stole a page from his book and also admitted that. The Raid Leader said it was fine and he assigned me to dps for the fight. I got behind the boss and resolved to do the absolutely best I could. So I jumped on the boss and executed the rotation, playing close attention to my addon which tells me the priority move to make. Well, we downed him…a bit sloppy, so adds got stuck in melee but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t me. I immediately loaded up the Recount and checked my dps. 3200??? Oh, I remember this…have to set it to the single fight. I set it. Well, whaddya know?

Bigger version here

10485! Holy crap! That’s awesome. Of course, I know there were some mitigating factors. For one, in this fight, I just stand there and dps…easy on the concentration. For 2, Blizz has got the bonus on ICC set so high…I am sure the +20% or whatever played a role. But still, AWESOME! Of course, TWO marks that are good for me drop (you can see that in the lower right) and of course, I fail rolled and got nuthin’.

We tore though the next trash as we were running out of time. Made it to Rot in what I would call record time but again just par for the course for these guys. I got to tank first and we kept all three tanks. After my turn, I switched to kitty and dpsed him…every little bit on Rotface. At about 3% I hear, “GenWar, take him!” on vent. WTF? We went through BOTH other tanks?! My heart stopped but I smacked the = key which is my hotkey for bear when in cat and ran through him, whipped around and taunted. The current tank was at 9 and I got my first in less than 3 seconds. Since 10 is autowipe, I think most folks don’t realize how close we came to fuckin that up. But we didn’t and he died seconds later. He dropped some leather parts with high stamina…nice upgrade for tanking set…I rolled and got em. Gangrenous Leggings

Down the hall to Fester…I was assigned the main boss on this fight because that was where my experience lied. Again, not much to it…you stand there and hold aggro and move when the acid rains down…the healing was outstanding…downed him first try and he dropped a tanking neck. Will wonder’s never cease? My tanking neck is my worst piece of all. I’d been rocking the Endurance of the Infernal for as long as I can remember. One last minute roll to top the other two tanks and I am now the proud owner of THIS badboy: Bile-Encrusted Medallion.

We did one try at prof putricide but the guild members in the group were late for their 10 man, so we didn’t try again after 1st wipe. I rezzed myself and headed for the Dal portal…as I did, I noticed that they raid leader was taking rolls on the Saronites…only if you didn’t win anything…I thought that was a particular nice touch…one last chance to make it worth it. I thanked them for the raid and headed out. After a few minutes, the raid leader sent me a tell and asked if I was looking for a guild. I said I was but I couldn’t raid 12m to 3am EST. He said that that was 10 man and that 25 man was 8 to 12m on Thursdays. He then pointed out that I don’t need any 10 man gear…not STRICTLY true, I do still need some of the weapons but it’s true that 25 man should be my focus. So I said what the hell? He sent me an invite and promoted me to initiate. This means, I’m not a full member…I have to go through a trial run (25 man next Thursday) and then do a 2 week trial period for personality fit. (Probably a good thing for me as well as them.) But I might have a new guild only one day later. I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is…I was really scared that I would have to pug forever.

So, that whole long boring story later, I am in a good mood today. I’m excited about my trial run next week. Nervous but I think I can hold my own with most tanks and the guild is DEFINITELY tank light so I might get a bit of slack…We’ll see…

-gen