TankSpot - Blogs - klor

Friends or Progression....

klor — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:49:42 GMT

This is one of the many dillemas people talk about on their blogs these days, especially with WotLK drawing near. Many of us want to see the big "Game Over" in the middle of our screen before the new "click here to continue" button appears. The biggest hurdle most seem to find when trying to reach this goal is this:

"Do you stay with those friends who you have played with all those hours, those friends you will probably continue to play with in WotLK... or do you take the window of opportunity when it opens, climb through it without looking back, and jump the hurdle with ease..."

Well, yesterday....that window opened for me. It has its draw backs, things I am not so sure about, but the positive sides of it are far out weighing the negative...including the chance to see the rest of Sunwell and possibly seeing KJ die once or twice before Wrath gets here.... I think for once... I am going to crawl through that window without remorse...

For those of you who read my blog back when my last guild died, the one I main tanked for... you know that I am far from the selfish type. At that time I could have joined almost any guild on the server as my tank, but I stepped down from tanking to allow a very good friend a chance to find a good home and I took a step backwards to play my shaman (which these days, sadly, has became my main...atleast until WotLK hits). I stuck around in that guild until the very end, longer than I probably should have, and bid each of my friends farewell and best wishes as they lifted their anchor and sailed to other harbors. All the while, I cannot deny the fact that these friends that did leave ever so quickly, are the reason my shaman is as geared as he is today in the short amount of time that he was. If it were not for them vouching for me and my play style as well as what they had seen by my tanking, I would never have gotten into any of the guilds. Afterall, what kind of BT guild wants a resto shaman in Karazhan epics and no flying mount as well as very little raid healing experience? In the end, it turned out boding well for the guild that snatched me up (after all, most guilds would have readily snatched up a resto shaman with a tier6 tank alt for those "oh no we need ....class....." moments that all guilds reach.) as my raid attendance was 100% and these days I am sitting at the top or near the top of the healing meters on almost every fight besides the obvious gimmick fights for certain classes (bloodboil, illidan, etc etc). For this, I do thank all those friends that begged their new GM to invite my budget alt, and I thank the GM for actually giving me the chance to prove myself...but, like I said... its my turn to be the selfish person, to actually reach my own goal... I want to see the "Game Over". I'm tired of being so far behind in progression over the rest of the world, and I do not want to be one of the people in a year from now who tells stories of never seeing certain fights, but being ever so close. Hell, six months ago, I would have told you that I never would have thought to see SSC/TK, four months ago, I never would have thought to see the death of Kael/Vashj/and many other BT bosses....Two months ago Illidan was out of my grasp and seeing him dead while my tank standing over his body as he dies in his cinematic was something I thought I would never see due to the explosion of my guild, and before yesterday, I never thought I would have a chance to see Mu'ru or Kil'jaedin...but now...

Now the option is there and I am taking it :)

My only issue, is that the option involves people that I did not get along with very much when Good Guild was still in the picture. I had a run in with quite a few of them, and I do not know what this will bring as a result, but I intend to keep a positive look on things, overlook the past, and keep my chin high. When WotLK comes, I plan to be pushing the frontal content and hopefully be on the front edge of progression, seeing possibly even world firsts... I am sooooooooooo sick of being behind times....

One Last Challenge..

klor — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:46:35 GMT

As I posted in my previous blog post, I retired my tank and picked up on my shaman. I've been struggling to learn and to get the feel for healing and trying to take my mindset out of the tank mode. I still have problems finding myself worrying less about where mobs are going, what they are doing, and cannot seem to focus half the time on my healing. It's just turned second nature to me to keep a large awareness about while in a raid. It is going to take some getting used to. I have been working on my healing, slowly progressing and climbing the meters in the past few days to put myself where I should be on them. (Yes, I know meters mean nothing in healing, but there are things that can be learned from them and each class has their place on them... I am still trying to secure my spot in them). I've raided with the guild three or four times now on my shaman, but never on my warrior. He is there as a backup incase one of their others cannot make it. The night before last, they had brought a paladin tank from one of the former guilds on my server who had been their MT to the raid. Hes been a member for a while but has been a little inactive. We had already cleared everything up to mother shaz the night before, so two nights ago was the night we pushed to Illidan. He, much like me, had never seen the fight before and did not expect to be main tanking it that night.

I want to state this first, as I dont want this to seem like I am trashing on the paladin tank, because I do not intend anything like that. He kept getting sheared that night, even with doing everything properly. At first, the raid leader and the other members were just getting mad and talking down upon his tanking like many people would. It wasnt until after the night was over that I started doing research on the fight itself that I realized what the issue had been. The paladin was not "unshearable" with holy shield up due to the fact that sheer cannot miss. Thus he had a 10-12% chance each time to be sheared even with his shield up. It was a failed part on both the raid leaders and the tank himself for not doing the research, but that happens. No blame needs to be placed. It was at this point, the guild main tank sent me a whisper asking me why i wasnt there because they needed a tank on illidan. After telling him i'd never seen the fight, he told me if they did not down him that night I would be main tanking it the next night.

You really dont know how much stress it causes until you are in that same very position. The main reason they inducting me on my shaman with his lacking gear was because so many people int he guild had spoken so highly of my tanking abilities and how I play the game. Like I stated previously, the guild itself had never seen me in a raid scenario. Now, I am getting tossed into the flames and being asked to main tank the one fight in BT that I had never seen WITH all of this reputation to live up to on top of it not to mention the events from the day before making most people in the raid weary of bringing in new tanks to do the fight. I spent most of the afternoon gathering tons of mats to make sure I was ready for it. I dont like to fail. If its anything about me that stands out the most, its that I REFUSE to not step into something fully prepared when it matters most. I dont like walking blindly into something. I dont think my heart had raced that fast since the day my guild first downed Kael'thas. That last 10% of that fight... Everything resting on you staying alive...one messup and you wipe and you have to start all over...with no way to hide that you basically fucked up...

Yes...its quite the adrenaline rush... its what I enjoy about tanking the most... the pure adrenaline that pumps into your body... (Sad to say something like this about a video game? Probably...but I put effort into it...)

I ate 2 shears the entire night. Neither one caused a wipe, as I was able to ride my cooldowns quickly enough to keep myself alive and the healers were amazing. Was it luck? Probably, but I did not wipe the raid. I tanked Illidan sucessfully on my first night of seeing the fight. Heck, our first attempt we ended up wiping at 50% due to the warlock dying. Our next attempt was a 9% wipe because Illidan's enrage ate me from the trap being stuck in a terrible place... It took us about 3 or 4 more attempts after that with various small things wiping us...but we finally got him... It was quite the initiation process let me tell you...
I got to fulfill that goal I thought was lost for good the day Good Guild died.
I sucessfully tanked Illidan on my warrior and cleared Black Temple...something I had been told over a year ago that I would never see... something I was told I was not even close to being good enough to do..

And now, I can place my warrior on the shelf with a settled and content feeling...knowing that I made the goal I had set for myself. I'll never tank in Sunwell. My gear doesnt merit it and there is no place for my warrior on my server. I was thankful to tank this fight for this one last time. Now, my new challenge awaits...as I try to gain the same reputation on my shaman that I did on my warrior... and gain the same respect for an entirely new mindset of the game. It is going to be a slow, grueling process breaking myself of one play style and switching to the new, but its a challenge I can now welcome with open arms...

Though, I doubt the dust will ever settle on my warrior.... that urge to get back out infront of the raid doing what I do best will always be there... who knows, maybe they will need me to step in for Illidan again...if not, I can guarentee I'll be back to tanking when WotLK arrives... Once a tank always a tank :)

The End of One...The Beginning of Another

klor — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:25:23 GMT

Well, it sure has been a long while since I last posted on my blog. I got all caught up in guild matters in what little spare time I had, working as hard as I could to keep my guild afloat for as long as I could. Alas, one person cannot carry the troubles of a guild on their shoulder and hold the guild up. With all the good times had, it finally came to a rest as the two main officers basically ran most people off leaving us with people that should not be in BT, especially late BT, and thus killed the guild. I basically knew that when that came about, my warrior would be done. On my server, prot warriors are in high demand, but not for the progression I was in. Luckily I had a chance to fall back on my half geared shaman.

It wasnt until I had posted my message on the realm forums about me giving up my warrior due to the fact that no one needed him and the replies many of my former guildmates had posted about what I had done for the guild, I was swarmed with invites from the very same guilds that had talked so much garbage about me in the past few months and one particular guild that seemed very interested in both my shaman and my warrior. It was the same very guild that had been trying to get me to leave good guild for the past month to join them and the very guild that many of the people I hung out with most in Good guild went to. I told them I had planned to take a break from the game, but I could play either my shaman or my warrior. I was gone for maybe 5 or 6 days before coming back, letting the dust settle of all the bad rep I had got caught up in due to the guild tag I wore for so long, and picked up where I left off. When I came back, I was told that my fellow warrior tank from Good Guild had app'd to the same guild I had just been accepted to. That is when the guild leader came to me and told me to choose which character I wished to play. I could playmy warrior and tank for them, but if I took that path, they would decline her app simply because they did not need 2 prot warriors at that time. My other option was to play my shaman, pick up where they needed healers because they currently only have 1 semi active resto shaman, and they would accept her as a tank into the guild. Well, the decision itself for me was not a hard one, yet at the same very time it was. I had to give up the very thing in this game I loved in order to allow a very close friend the chance to earn her own keep where she deserved it most. To me, it was worth it. I've since seen her go from being the back tank, picking up slack where other tanks left off, to being forced to main tank all of Black Temple with a group of DPS and healers whom have the place memorized like clockwork. I watched as they tested her in every turn of the instance, and I watched as she stood in the same very position I had stood not two months previously... Standing infront of her fellow guildies, tanking, and blossuming because she finally got to do what every tank wants to do.

I won't lie. I sometimes look back at it, and I regret what I did. I miss being the tank in the raid, I miss the feel of being the one people are dropping their jaws over with every small save you make, and I miss not being that main tank that every guild looks up to. Though, seeing what I have seen so far, I would not change my decision if given the chance. By taking myself out of the equation, I opened the door for another to experience the game the same way I did, and to enjoy it the same way I did. To me, that makes it worth it.

Upward Swing...

klor — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:29:58 GMT

The past few weeks have been very very bumpy for my guild. Last week we barely even killed farm content. The guild itself is currently 6/6 4/4 4/5 4/9. Last week we managed to go 5/6 3/4 4/5 3/9. We degressed. We couldnt down Vashj, Kael, or TG. It was depressing. You could tell alot of people were affected by it.

We worked out the kinks with what little we could. Kicking healers that were getting out healed on boss encounters by shadow priests in shadow form, getting rid of bad dps, and working out the small flaws in our raid schedule...we were left short on people. There have been two days now that we did not raid due to healers not logging in. It did not settle well at all with many guild members. I honestly did not know how much longer the guild was going to last. We have developed quite the reputation, partly due to how we deal with people who mess up (usually resulting in a gkick or a removal of raids) and partly due to some people in the guild who became braggarts about our progression. I won't lie, I was one of those people. We had guilds attacking us, so we would throw in their face that we had already surpassed their progression. Were we in the right? Perhaps, perhaps not, but we were the new guild, thus we became the bad guys. It also does not help that many people do not like our raid leader. He is an asshole, but thats partly because his grasp of the English language is a bit off. I have heard him say things that were as rude as could be, and he did it without even knowing any better. Some people just cannot look past that.

We also worked out some issues with our loot system, with our officer system, and with the guild as a whole. I brought up the point that we needed more than just the three friends who created the guild to be put on loot council. I nominated the two people in the guild I felt knew the most about the classes they play and the game itself in general as well as people I did not see leaving the guild anytime soon, but this of course got me nominated. It was not a task I wanted. I've been the "titleless" guild leader and the raid leader, co raid leader, web admin, etc etc of a few guilds. I did not want the responsibility again.. but, I had no choice. I guess I have achieved the respect of too many people in the guild simply because of my nature of who I am to be able to hide from it. I deal with issues when I see them. I am usually that person behind the scenes exstinguishing the small fires that most guild leaders never get to see exist. We now have a very solid core group of officers and I feel the loot system is more stable than ever. We have not really had any complaints since...which is odd for a loot council. The last thing we fixed was our raid schedule. We were having problems with people not showing up on days they needed nothing from the raids scheduled, and only showing up for progression/bt/mh nights. So we switched to a chaos rotation. We designated our officer who shows up 5 minutes before the raid to determine at that moment where we are going. This way those that show up more often are rewarded and given chance at the progression kills rather than us taking those people who are more geared simply because they have all their farm content gear already and only want to log in for progression. I'll be the first to admit that I hate farm content. I was done with SSC after Lurker dropped my Mallet. After we downed Vashj the third time, I never wanted to step foot in that place again. However, I still show up every night, put in my effort of tanking for those people who need the drops, and sure..i complain a little bit, but I am still there doing my part.

This week, however, has been a blessing for us. One of the guilds that have been in BT for months broke up. This has opened the door for many many new healers to join us. It also opened our progression kills back up and moved us in the right direction. Our first night of raids, we cleared up farm bosses in bt/mh leaving only Azgalor and TG alive. Our second night, seeing as how we had 7 STRONG healers on for the first time in weeks... we put our attempts in on Archi. 40% was our best attempt which was not being seeing as how this was our actual first full night worth of attempts on him. I was impressed, and no one seemed to complain about the wiping. Everyone was excited to come back and down him. Last night, we got a nice kick in the face. Apparently someone has sold our Archimonde save to another guild notorious for stealing raid IDs. Go figure, huh? They cant down Brutallus, so they find it necessary to go back and bother other guilds. I wasn't even aware they even raided anymore to be honest. Another washed up guild that find it necessary to act like assholes because they downed Illidan. Oh well. We made sure that as a guild we did not let it bother us, and we moved on. We one shot Vashj and 4 shot Kael, ending the night in a high note and possibly ending the week since we are not raiding Sunday and possibly Monday due to the holidays and graduations.

I think last night was proof to the guild that we are still strong as a whole. We had about 25% of the raid new to the Vashj fight, and they all did a wonderful job. I was thoroughly impressed by it. We then moved on to Al'ar...and man...did I lose all that respect for the raid as we wiped on it once, and nearly twice. Void Reaver was just as bad. We lost over 50% of the raid on the last 10% because people pulled agro and died. Just goes to prove how much people wanted to be there for farm content. I was really edgy going in to Kael... but low and behold...even with over 60% of the raid never seeing the fight, only seeing part of the fight, etc etc... We four shot him. We would have 3 shot him, but at the beginning of phase 5, I forgot about the few seconds of him nuking before the gravity lapse, and so did my healers. I didn't have the mace buff and got two shot. Live and learn. This also brought about some argument in vent, which lead to our only resto shaman leaving the raid and logging out. He bailed on us, so we decided he was no longer needed. He was gkicked on the spot to prove a point to anyone else who wished to do it. We brought in our only semi-active tree druid...who had never done the fight before. Explained the fight to him in less than a minute, and proceeded to collect our vials and loot. It also showed the resto shaman, who later logged back in and asked for a re-invite that he was not our saving grace and that we really did not need him. Punishment ensued for him. We have all been there, gotten fed up with small things, and over reacted...but we all dealt with the consequences of our actions...and so shall he.

Other than that, thats how my wow life has been lately.

Outside of WoW, things have been crazy. My life has been so busy I rarely have time to stop and think anymore. I had to take a day off this week just to let me body settle down. My mind is constantly racing because of some stress that has been laid upon me. I found out a few days ago that I am further in debt that I knew. There is yet another college loan, that I had forgotten about, that caught up to me. Its a nice set back, thats for sure. Work has been working me extra hard lately as well. I work anywhere from 9-14 hours a day and raid 4-5 hours a night, leaving sleep to be the last thing time gets alloted for. I've had 3 hours of sleep in the past three days, and yet I am not even tired. I don't know what it is, but hopefully this weekend will give me a chance to catch up on the much needed R&R time. My cousin is graduating, so that gives me reason to step out into the real world and enjoy life some.

On a side note, perhaps I will also get time to work on the guide I started last week for Mount Hyjal Trash. Its in the rough format, but I hope it will be enough to help alot of people who have so many questions or struggle with the Hyjal trash. I know I have seen more than one person ask about it in shoutbox, so I figured I would write up a guide for how my guild deals with it and it will allow others to share how their guild does as well, thus giving tons of options out there for guilds to try or perhaps fine tune to better their own strategy.

Sorry for the long winded blog today. I had alot to say, alot to get off my chest. I feel much better now :)

Disappointment.. in Kael

klor — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:03:14 GMT

Been a while since I posted to the blog. The new job has had me busy throughout the day and i've had very little time to sit down and post. Working 10-14 hours a day then raiding 4-5 hours a night is rough :-/

Anyway, I ended up sticking with the guild. We got our prot pally to come back, worked with our other prot pally to bump his threat up just a tad, and also told him he was no longer leading the raids that require accurate leadership and precise execution of strategy. After doing so, the very next time (last Thursday) led to our Vashj downing. We had spent 3-4 nights of attempts on her and had to rework strategies a few times, but eventually got it down. This week, we went back and downed him on our third attempt. (We woulda got her first try but the raid leader ...the prot pally who was not to be leading the raid... called out wipe it when one person was dead with 1 strider up, 1-2 nagas up, and the last core spawning. The strider had JUST spawned.) Alot of people had said we wouldnt down her the first time...then they claimed we couldnt repeat it. Now we have lurched forward ahead of them in progression and I do not think they like it.

(No screenshot available :( I forgot to upload it.)

After downing Vashj, we decided it was time to go back and finish what we started. Kaz'rogal's time had come to an end. It really is an easy fight. DPS is what wins this fight and fortunately this guild has some amazing dps. Even with 4 tanks in the group, we downed him rather easily. (Please disregard the fact that I already have his shield in the screen shot. It was looted to me right away and I put it on because it was sexy! :) That or this was from our second downing of him. I cannot remember)

Then last week was met with nothing but farm status as we started our attempts on Kael. We were a bit relaxed going in this time to everything we had on farm. We even managed to have 3 tanks die on Lurker in the same encounter. Basically what happened...Our prot pally wanted to tank. I stepped down and of course started spacing out when I wasnt MTing. Well, he got hit by spout, but we on the lip so instead of getting knocked back he just got insta-gibbed. By this point i was busting up laughing and managed to get agro after almost all the melee dps died. Me and this prot pally always give each other hell about how bad the other is and it keeps people laughing throughout the night. Well, sure enough, I ate the next spout. I wasnt paying full attention and literally the split second our raid leader called out "Everyone in" i was already flying across the water. I got back before the spout ended, but our feral druid also ate the spout and died as well. We all managed to get put on detention for that lol. It was worth it.

Last week we started our attempts on Kael, with the final attempt on Thursday being all weapons down with 6 seconds left in phase 2 and all advisors down with 10 seconds in phase 3... to us wiping at 79% because they failed to give me yet another staff buff. We had progressed. We went in last Night, fully confident of what was to come, and one shot Kael. This placed us as one of 16 guilds on our server to down both Vashj and Kael. Granted, it was with newer gear, but it was without any black temple gear.

Yay for being a "Hand of Ad'al" now. The ring is sexy o.O and after our next run in Hyjal, I will have the exalted ring! All in all, I was disappointed in the ease at which Kael became once you learned the strat. It was simply a DPS race and people paying attention. We only had one phoenix rebirth on us, but I did not eat a single pyroblast... The dps were on their game! Nice job guys!

With 4 hours being left on our raid schedule after dealing with loot, dealing with loot drama, and everyone going to get their smexy new rings... our guild leaders finally agreed to letting us step foot into BT. We deserved to be there, and it was our reward for doing what so many guilds on our server (including one that is 5/9 in BT and 5/5 in mh) have not been able to achieve even with the fight being 'easier with new gear' as many put it. The difficulty of the trash was laughable compared to MH, as were the bosses. Najentus was somewhat difficult due to some people having barely over the 8.5K hp mark (go go EH gear amirite?) but sadly it took us three attempts to down him. (I got to wipe the raid by throwing the spear at the shield after a wipe was called! I told them I was going to purposely do it.)

The loot was meh! Though I didnt expect any tanking gear to drop anyway. The paladin got his boots, so hopfully the bracers will drop this coming week and I'll get them.

From here we decided to push further to Supremus...and you really do not understand or cannot fathom how big he really is until you see him. Here I thought Gruul at growth 22 was big =-O

The trash in the area is fun too. We learned who the idiots in our raid were...and it took us yet another three attempts to down Supremus. (My guild has problems with the easy fights as you can see.)

This is my most favorite screenshot of the night :) I love the angle of it.

As of last night, that puts us at 6/6 4/4 3/5 2/9 after going on our fourth week of raiding. I am very pleased with this guild, and I am 100% enthused about seeing what BT holds in store for us. We're going back tonight to knock out Akama and maybe even Teron....then from there... we'll just have to see!

Domino Effect...

klor — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:16:50 GMT

Well, I guess this is where I could add all kinds of metaphors...

Dont look a gift horse in the mouth. All good things come to an end. Thats how the cookie crumbles...

They all lead down to this. No matter how well a guild is going, people are going to get fed up with things. When a raid leader is an idiot, and a terrible tank, others tend to not like being in 'his shadow'. Last night the only reliable prot pally in our guild left. I am not sure as to why, but I can only guess that it was because he was tired of being in the shadow of the raid leader. I personally do not blame him. Even with our fast progression, it did not once have anything to do with our raid leader short of the fact that two prot pallies made Tidewalker a joke. I do not want to toot my own horn, but I know how to tank. I know this because I have had many people tell me so. Our raid leader, however, does not know how to tank. He claims he has a level 70 druid, warrior, and paladin tank. It really makes me wonder how one can make such claims, when I have seen the very opposite. We did not down Lady Vashj because of this tank. He was basically dead weight in the fight. I found myself rushing around to pick up naga, knowing each time which healer it was going to, and calling it out on vent when I already had one on me, but yet still this paladin failed to pick it up. I would intervene in the nick of time, taunt, and turn just in time to watch someone take a cleave... my fault? perhaps... but if I hadnt done it, dead healer meant we would have wiped because he was the only healer in the center. The paladin responded when I called him out on vent for it "I tried." Well, there comes a point where trying just doesnt cut it anymore especially when you're so egotistical that you call everyone out on their mistakes yet have no idea what you're talking about.

Last night, we had 3 people split from the guild because our raid channel is only accessible if an officer moves you in. Someone moved a hunter in, and the raid leader blew up on him. He told him he was an idiot, and gquit, taking 3 friends with him. These people were also friends with our reliable prot pally. Notice the picture at the top? it only takes one person to be pushed down for the rest to follow. My question now is, where shall I go when this guild collapses? The last time a guild collapsed because of the raid leader ( Rest in peace ), I rode the guild to the very last breath before leaving. I guess we shall see tonight. I managed to pick up the experience I needed and got back my self-confidence in tanking new encounters, perhaps its time to finally take up one of the offers of the BT guilds that have been handed to me...

All I know is, this guild is dying fast. Raid leaders who have foot in mouth syndrome and cannot admit when they are wrong is the quickest way to kill a guild. Perhaps its for the better, perhaps not. I just know that I refuse to stick around and put up with a terrible tank especially when he is failing but refuses to give up his spot to let another tank that can do it better do so. Last night he could not survive the burst of the shaman on fathom lord, but would not let the druid with 3K more hp and 10K more armor do the job. When pride and ego gets in the way, its time to step down as a tank. The guild needs to come first, always. I stepped down tanking Anatheron last night because the reliable prot pally took less damage than I did, and I wanted to down the boss. Its just been a whole lot of BS in the guild the past few days. I guess I'll talk to the prot pally tonight and see why he left, maybe I can talk him into coming back then call out the raid leader on his ignorance. If not, then good bye to yet another guild. It only takes one person to mess up a raid, and when its the raid leader...thats just too many issues.

Kael'thas Finds His Keep Empty...

klor — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:00:43 GMT

had yet another solid night of raiding last night. We moved our sights onto The Eye and focused our attempts there for the evening. Being the type of guild we are, we HATE skipping bosses just because they are hard. From what we have seen, if you hammer the hard boss while everyone is awake and paying attention, you get better outcomes than going straight to the easy bosses and downing them, then back tracking. We did Hydross before Lurker, and last night we made Al'ar attempts before anything else.

We made the pulls to Al'ar smoothly. I was more comfortable here, as I've actually ran pugs in TK, so I knew what was going on and what could go wrong. The other two pally tanks also had this going for them, so needless to say, the trash was easy and trivial. We pulled our way into Al'ars room, and stared up at the Phoenix god, discussing strategies. This is the thing I love most about this guild, the raid leader, unlike many, is open to discussion and advice. He tells us that if his way doesn't work, then we need to find a way for it to work, and we do. We decided the two pallies were going to pick up adds, and myself and the feral druid would be on the platforms. I had 1 and 3, and Babyjoker had 2 and 4. Neither of us had done the fight before, but the guild trusted us. Our first attempt, we had Al'ar at ?38%? if i remember correctly in phase 2. One thing I will say about this guild, they are very redundant, we all trust in each other's abilities, and we each seem to know our own class. Our tanks, espcially the prot pallies and the feral druid, are some of the best I have every co-tanked with. I am proud to be apart of that group of people. We sync VERY well together and watch each others back. Lets not even talk about the healers...wow... is all I can say. They have managed to keep me alive so many times when I have nubbed up and taken a crushing blow or two due to me trying to do too many things at once and forgetting my shield block. My fault, but they saved me...many times. The dps...well, the dps is the best group of dps i have ever tanked for. I have not ever seen things blow up as fast as they do...its very very refreshing. Anyway, back to the al'ar fight...

We had to adjust our strategy a couple of times. I got myself killed once by running in to get knocked back by Al'ar in phase 2, then the raid took flame buffet. Was my fault, but I learned. We adapted our strategy so that everyone spread out around the purple circle in the center, with me in the center. Even if I had the melt armor, I would run in and smash al'ar and the prot paladin would taunt him off me instantly. With spell reflect I could ensure that no flame buffets occured. GG Al'ar. On attempt 5, the Phoenix God lay before us lifeless.

To be honest, I enjoyed this fight. It relied heavily on the tanks doing their job, one mess up causes the raid to be in a pinch...two mess ups could wipe it. It made sure we were on our toes. I would definately call this fight a tank check, and we passed!

From here, we moved on to VR. We actually wiped on trash in VR this time. We nearly wiped again, but yet again the resiliency of our tanks cleaned up the mess. I fell on the big destroyer, one of the prot pallies was able to pick it up just as he got loose. Then Babyjoker died too, just as the one that killed me died. The destroyer got 2 healers before it was able to be picked up (and we were already down 2 from the demons) so the pally tank died, leaving only the other tank alive... He managed to snag the agro and with 7 people they finished off the destroyer, the demon, and the humanoid. Not bad for our last VR trash pull.

Another thing about this guild. We hammer the hard bosses out like they are nothing, but when we get to the trivial bosses...we sometimes fail. Void Reaver gave us a fit at first. We actually got into an argument because people were getting upset over the fact that we did not do well on him due to his "lootreaver" title. Things have changed in 2.4, as they moved a bit faster and mods no longer worked. We had to adjust our strategy a few times after we calmed everyone down and told them to relax. We had people arguing and such, but it died fast. I reminded everyone how we have downed every boss thus far. We strategize with one another, and not assault each others ideas. Needless to say, attempt 3 or 4 (i dont remember.) we brought VR to a hault. Three minutes remained on the enrage timer...

(No picture. Void Reaver does not deserve a kill shot.)

From there, we moved on to Solarian. I wont go in Detail. It was a one shot, a few people blew up a few people, but meh it happens and we moved on. Again, no kill shot as Solarian is not worthy of one.

After words, we all disbanded raid..and someone went into vent "We should go kill Rage...we have 50 minutes left on raid. Just have people put 1 in raid if they want to go or something..." and well...all i saw was 25 people scrolling my chat box with green 1s. On to Hyjal we went! Hyjal was interesting, and definately awesome to see. We two shot rage (after we got everyone to go get their trinkets and we learned the fight) and called it a night.

After 3 back to back to back nights of raiding, has went from just stepping into 25mans, to being 5/6 in SSC, 3/4 in TK, and 1/5 in MH with Gruul and Mag added as well. On Sunday, we start our attempts on Vashj. I honestly cannot wait to see the fight. This group has a solid chance of downing her quickly. We communicate well together and work together very very well. It is sooo refreshing to be in after the months I spent guild hopping and pugging. I am very very very grateful that they begged me to join and I caved. If I hadn't, I would have missed out on one of the best guilds I've ever been in during my WoW career. I have seen more content in the past 3 days than I had in the last 9 months...

Hopefully Vashj dies Sunday and we start Kael on Monday...

Knock Knock Knockin on Kael's Door

klor — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:49:19 GMT

Last night was yet another one of those nights. Raids started at promptly 7. I had spent most of the time before hand gathering the mats for my flasks, consumables, and ironshield pots for the evening. I was not sure if I was going to be main tanking Tidewalker or not, but I wanted to be prepared if I was. I acquired 37 [item]ironshield potion[/item]s to help mitigate more top end damage.

I'm not going to lie...when I found out that I was going to be main tanking Tidewalker even though we have two paladin tanks and one druid tank, I was a bit intimidated. I've not had to worry about a mob actually crushing me to death for a long time. That was prince back when first learning Karazhan those 9 months ago. I am only thankful that our healers are top notch. I had also asked one of our dps warriors to keep up demo shout for me so I could concentrate more on my own survival. I did not bother asking him to keep up thunderclap. I know how much of a pain it is to stance dance while dpsing, and I really do not like relying on others for such a key aspect of the fight. If it falls off and I die to crushes, then I want it to be my fault and not someone else's fault. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the fight. It wasn't me taking crushes that caused us to wipe on our first attempt, it was the raid and paladins trying to work out the strategy for for murloc. I did take an 8K crush on our first attempt with 25% of the raid dead which finished it off for us. Our second attempt, Tidewalker was licking the dirt. (Better than popping his own fart bubbles I suppose!)

At this point, we started clearing trash to Fathom Lord. I decided now was as good of time as any to take a quick afk to order my pizza. (This comes in to the story a bit later.) We clear to fathom lord after learning how the bog lords work, and put in our first attempt. No one healed the Paladin on the hunter and the pet, so he went down. I picked up the hunter, but the pet nuked people. We reset it. (Kinda surprised the hunter and fathom lord hit like a sissy. I only had one resto druid healing me at this point and keeping my head above the water without much worry at all.) We regrouped, move our placement around a tad bit, then made the pull a second time. Our dps just destroyed all three adds. I was honestly disappointed when our group killed the shaman. Fathom Lord did not hit hard at all, even with his windfury. The hardest part was moving him with the totems, which was trivial as I had told the raid where i was going so the healers could move with me. (And by healers, I mean the still single resto druid that kept me alive by himself until the hunter died as well.) At 55%, my doorbell rings... Yeah...perfect timing. I had to stand up, yell out the window to the pizza guy, and have him come upstairs so I could sign the paper while just spamming my shield block button on my mouse. (This is why I was disappointed. From 50% til 20% I was just hitting shield block with dps no where near my threat level. Such an easy fight :( ) I gave the guy a 7$ tip and thanked him for bringing it upstairs, then watched people get excited over their loot. Another boss in the bag. Oh look! My black temple attunement quest! Perfect timing since Al'ar is tonight and Rage might be this weekend!

We slacked off a bit from here. We even managed to wipe on a trash pull we had already cleared. The raid leader did not see a mob, so it went unmarked and killed a few healers, then one of the tanks pulled the patting bog lord as well. It was the entire raid's fault, mostly the tanks' faults. The raid leader took the blame though, and put himself in our detention rank, which means no loot for the next boss downing unless we are going to DE the item, then they can get it. We cleared the back way to Leo first, wiped again on trash. (We were getting sloppy) We decided it best to move back to the front side of Leo and come in from the other direction. This was probably the best idea, as it made the trash alot easier rather than guessing what is around the corner and trying to fight an entire 7 man pull against a wall as to not pull Leo. Our first attempt on Leo, I found this to be just as hard on testing my tank skills as Tidewalker and Lurker were. (Yes, Lurker was a test of my tanking ability because I did not just sit in the water to fight him. I was jumping in and out, dodging and weaving, having to keep up my own shouts, claps, SB, threat, etc. It was definately one of the harder tests in tanking I have had for a while!) To be honest, Intervene is the best thing you can use as a warrior to pick this guy up. It only messed me up once or twice, as I intervened someone just as he switched to a different target and went the other direction. We had 4 tanks fighting over agro on him, and I only saw three times where someone besides me was the first to pick him up. Our first attempt, we got him to 6%. Most of our melee got wrecked by whirlwind JUST as he split at 15% because the timers fell unlucky. The second attempt we burned him hard. I almost wiped us the second attempt as I tabbed and hit the demon with my shield slam (crit for 1400 ftl :[ ) instead of leo. This allowed me to receive a nice death. A quick battle ress, and whirlwind, and I was back picking Leo up. Leo down... 2nd attempt.

I can honestly say that I feel like I earned my tier5 gloves. It was the only item in all 5 kills that I took that other people might have needed. It is one of three items in all of ssc/tk that I even need...so I dont feel so bad about them autolooting them to me. I will be in here quite a long time tanking these mobs for them, so every little bit will help. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I belong in a guild...

All in all, however, I was disappointed. SSC was extremely easy. Short of the Vashj fight, we honestly struggled more on Lurker than anything else.... If that makes any sense. Tonight is Al'ar, VR, and Solarian. We'll hit Al'ar first as we dont skip bosses, then finish the night with Solarian and VR. I am somewhat intimidated again by Al'ar. I've not seen the fight, short of the video, and I know it relies heavily on the tanking. Its the kind of nervousness that gets your adrenaline pumping knowing that you and 3-4 other people are the ones that can mess up the raid the most. I cannot wait! Kael'thas, we're coming for you my friend. I hope you geared into spell haste since 2.4, because our DPS is going to nuke you :)

ALSO!!! I would like to thank all of you in shoutbox for all the advice you have given me in the past few days. Thanks so much guys! It was a tons of help and helped me to be sure I knew the small things that you cannot see when researching and watching videos.. Thank you!

Successful Progression Raiding..Why I Rolled Prot.

klor — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:09:07 GMT

It was soooooooooo hard to fall asleep last night. My adrenaline was pumping from the awesome first raiding night my new guild had. It has been every bit of 3 months since the last time I was in a progression based, raiding guild. I am not going to lie, I guild hopped for quite a bit when I first hit Laughing Skull. I stayed in one guild the longest, but it crumbled under us as the raid leader went crazy. This tossed me into my swirl of many many pugs (in which I met quite a few friends and have made connections all over the server because of it. It has netted me invites to tier6 guild pugs etc etc). One thing this does for me? I have ran with quite a few people on this server, and I tend to remember those weird off the wall things about people. Last night, the raid leader told me they were going to make me recruitment officer. Who said guild hopping was a bad thing? Its not like I took loot from any of the guilds I joined. I actually stepped into most of them being the best geared or second best geared tank.

Anyway, back on topic. We started out small, wanting to get everyone acquainted with raiding together and pushed Gruul. Two minutes, twenty four seconds is how long the High King Maulgar fight took. This definately set the course for the evening. We moved quickly to Gruul, lost one person to shatter and downed him by growth nine. (Sorry Masterwolf and Bull, no pics here! I figured neither Gruul nor High King merrited a screen shot.) After divying out the loot we moved on to Magtheridon. Took one pull for the locks to get in gear and drops curses while the rogues found their kick buttons then we breezed right through the trash.

We only had 4 tanks, so I ended up putting on a bit of avoidance gear and tanked the 3rd and 4th adds. We had four of them down by the time Mag spawned (because the two I was tanking were healing one another and people would not stay on one mob to interrupt so it took a bit longer.) The paladin was going to MT mag, and I am still not sure what happened, but the Paladin moved to the wall between the very first cube and the one clockwise of it, but Mag did not follow. He turned and smacked a dps, and my tank instincts kicked in. I instantly picked Mag up after the first dps died and the raid leader (who was the mt) called out a wipe. I yelled out for healing, backed Mag to the wall, and finished up the fight in my half avoidance half threat gear. I was surprised to see people adapted quick to pick up my cube, but we didnt have a single issue and downed Mag. That definately set people into the mood.

Our next target? Hydross. On our first attempt we were a bit sloppy, but we were definately tearing up Hydross. We had someone pull back across the line as we had him at 69% which ended the encounter. Our next attempt we got him to 45% (same thing, idiots pulling across the line.) The very next attempt, we had him... 8%...and low and behold...someone pulls agro becuase they got over zealous... Guess where they were standing? Then they tried to justify that moving across the line was pointless? I am still not sure where they were trying to go with that argument, but none the less...

And [item]scarab of displacement[/item] found its way into my bags instead of a nice void crystal (which is what they wanted to do with it).

We moved around, clearing the trash above Lurker, and made our attempts at him. I had never done this fight before, had watched the video more than once, but never did understand that the main tank cannot side step the spout as easily as he can just dive forward into the water and avoid it. I took 2 spouts to the chest on the first attempt. The second attempt i tried one last time to avoid the spout, taking yet another to the chest before getting frustrated and asking the raid what I was doing wrong. Third time was a charm for me. The fight was a rush. I chose not to tank him in the water (as some suggested) which made it harder for me, but it kept me on my toes. Keeping up shouts, tclaps, shield block, my health, my threat, keeping an eye on my oh shit buttons, moving in after whirlwinds, out before spouts.... man it felt sooooo good to be tanking again! Even as the mallet of the tides did not drop... I was not disappointed one bit!

I am very happy with this new guild. They have the small things that every guild has, but we work together and everyone understands that some of us are still learning, however, those of us still learning are picking up quick and not holding everyone back. We adapt...quickly. I see alot of good things for this guild in the future. Tonight we face Fathom Lord, Leo, and Morogrim...with a possible pot shot at Vashj if time persists... Tommorrow will be spent on Vashj if all goes as planned. Right now, this guild is formed of all the people that got fed up in other guilds at the lack of paying attention and has caught alot of heat for the quitters, but I think if we are on Vashj by day three, it will shut alot of people up. I cannot wait :)

Biting the Bullet

klor — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:08:02 GMT

So, after a few months of break, I finally decided to stop goofing off and get back into raiding. I dropped my guild (that was basically me, my alts, and a few real life friends) and joined a newly established guild of quite a few experienced members. I brought one of my RL friends with me, one went to a BT/MH guild, and my roommate stayed in the guild since he currently doesnt have time to actually raid. It is kind of refreshing jumping into a guild and people actually supporting your ideas on bosses rather than the old "You're not the raid leader and I dont have to listen to your ideas even if they do make sense." I have actually raided with alot of these guys, including their main paladin tank whom respects me as a good tank...so I feel its going to actually be a good place for me for once rather than being outside of a clique guild trying to struggle to keep my head above the water.

They really wanted me to join, as I got whispers from about 8 of their members over the course of the weekend because apparently they really needed a prot warrior. As of current, we have 2 prot pallies and myself, all well geared and well experienced. I wont be arrogant to say i am an excellent tank, but compared to probably 70% of the tanks on my server, I definately get noticed. If we manage to find us a well geared feral druid, we will be set for tanks with probably the best setup you could ask for.

I ended up spending all my time and gold this weekend, mostly saturday and sunday, farming primal shadow (freaking 30g apiece on the ah this weekend...of course it was the weekend I needed them so prices jumped) for my resist set. Late sunday night, I had finished it. I did the normal Kara, which took a bit longer than normal due to some people not paying attention. (We wiped on netherspite for the first time in a long time and i actually had to tank him for quite a while without a red beam...that was fun.)

I did...after 6 months of Gruuls, finally get my shield to drop off of him in one of the worst gruul pugs I had ever been in. Luckily it did not have my name attached to it as I was not the one leading it, but it all turned out in the end. I also did some ZA on sunday, only to have the undergeared OT out roll me on both the malacrass helm AND the zul'jin trinket. Which was fine, I probably would not have used either and would have passed them to him...it was just irritating that he loot whored both items. Typical reasons why I never pass in a pug...ever.

I cannot wait to start raiding on Tuesday. For once, I am excited to be back to raiding in WoW. Its about time I get the urge to raid.. :)

Just Another Day...

klor — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:15:05 GMT

Typical weekend yet again. My major part of wow playing occured when I ran my usual PUG karazhan and for the third week in a row cleared it in 3 hours. I have met tons of new people this way and managed to find quite a few reliable players to run groups with. Its far more enjoyable than going with the same people time and time again, isolating yourself from the rest of the people who play the game on the same server. 0 wipes, good times, one shot every boss. Always a good night.

I ended up getting sick on Saturday night and almost called off the Karazhan pug, but I stuck it out and crashed hard at 1am... I didn't feel any better the next day, so I ended up staying home instead of visiting the family for Easter. After sleeping a few more hours I forced myself out of bed, and managed to get a ZA pug together. We one shot Nalorakk, Eagle, and Lynx...missing the third timer by 2 minutes. Not bad for a complete pug. Then came the wonderful trash where everyone always seems to forget how to play. I <3 Dragonhawk >.< I dont know why it seems everytime a group busts through the other bosses, that they get lazy and sloppy for Dragonhawk, and it usually ends up killing a good group. This time, though, everyone stuck it through and we downed him and worked our way on Malacrass. Malacrass is rough with only 2 resto druids and one holy priest... oi. We are finishing it tonight.

As of today, my company has been bought out by another company. This is leaving me alot more busy, but it also has me not logging in Tankspots as much anymore, if any at all. They have made it clear that any person found using their network for anything besides work will be terminated. Perfect reason for me to go back to being the person that got me the job in the first place...a hard worker.

Today has been a terrible day. Ever had a day where you suffered from Murphy's law? I set my alarm last night a half an hour early so I would be at work on time to make a good impression for the new owners...only to find out I set my alarm a half an hour behind..making me a half an hour late for work. I managed to leave all the documentation that I was supposed to fill out this weekend laying next to my bed as I layed it there so I would not forget it...which left me driving back to my house to get it and making me miss even more hours. My desktop has been acting crazy all morning even to the point that with my network cable unplugged all weekend long, cutting it off from the outside world, it managed to install Norton's by itself...when I use McAffee...which caused it to BSOD due to them fighting one another for control...wheee. Still havent figured that one out as to how it happened.

Short of that, I just wanted to say goodbye to those people who left me with hours of entertainment and advice during the long boring weekdays while sitting at my pc with nothing to do. If any of you ever need to get ahold of me as I doubt i'll be showing up much at all anymore even after hours, you can get ahold of me in a few of the following ways.

Email: klor56@gmail.com

Ventrilo (this is my personal vent for my pugs):
( url): chi4.ugt-servers.com
(port): 15147
( pw): pugs

Or just hop on laughing skull and send a mail to Klorry :)

Good luck to you tanks out there!

but some people have no choice.

klor — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:45:26 GMT

After my last stretch of wow boredom started spiraling into place, I found myself guildless yet again. This time it was not of my own doings, for the most part. I gquit, which was my doing, but only because my real life friend and roommate was booted from the guild because he refused to run Karazhan with them when they decided to run it unscheduled and needed one more. (Hes a pvper...he had no reason to go to Karazhan.) After which, I left. It wasnt until after this that I came to realize...some people just are not meant to be in guilds. Ever since my very first guild fell apart, I sort of lost faith in them and could not find one that I liked at all. Since my transfering to Laughing Skull, I have bounced from guild to guild trying to find a place I fit in, trying to avoid the clique guilds...

They don't exist. No matter the guild, there is always the clique. There is always those that are favored due to RL friends, long term wow friends, or whatever the reason may be.

Those were some of the things that irritated me most about many of the guilds I was in. Then there are the asshole raid leaders, the ones who actually dont listen to reason and refuse to try things another way, and cause the same mistakes to happen each time just because their last guild did it that way or they read thats how its done on a strategy somehow.... The very same Raid leader who allows those people who cannot even click a cube to come back to Magtheridon becuase their dps is good... News flash...when the raid is dying, dps does not matter.

It was from this point that it came to me... The reason I was not happy in any guilds was because they were all the same. They were built around a solid schedule, and if you didnt show up, you were punished. I have a job IRL, and I dont need one in the game I play to escape...

So.. I came to realize that my guild would consist of me...and possibly one or two of my RL friends. I had done quite a bit of pugging when I was in Girlie's guild. THey didnt need my help for Karazhan as they had their tanks. I was just a backup incase someone did not show. This gave me the option to PUG with tons of guilds that were lacking a tank and many of them grew to respect me for doing so. I've pugged with everything from MH/BT guilds to small just starting to clear kara guilds...and from there is where I decided to draw my pugs from.

I felt that with the high pop server, I could risk booting someone from the raid and not have to worry about the repercussions to come for them failing at their task. My hopes were set in stone on Saturday night when the first moron blew up our entire raid with Solarian at 25%. I do not think there was a single person in the raid that felt the guy should stick around...and was thus promptly booted. The clique/groupie motion does not apply. If they want to leave with their friends, they are replaced and we keep on moving. Keep in mind, most of these guys probably will not have a chance to see ssc/tk again for a long while...when something like that is held infront of someone, they tend to pay more attention.

Another thing I noticed. When you tell people loot rolls are free rolls...it removes loot drama from the table as well. People care less about things and try to have more fun.

I can honestly say, I had more fun in that pug than I did in any raiding guild... Plus it got to let people see those horror stories they hear about how hard certain fights are, then watch as those horrors are only because one person was an idiot. The crazy thing is, people come back next week to try it again. Who needs a guild? I log in every night now and get whispers from people asking me to start a random pug for a random raid. It just takes one person to set it up, the rest follow. Just like in Field of Dreams... "Build it and they will come" :)

I am hoping after this coming weekend my pug will be at 1/6 in ssc and 2/4 in tk. No obligations, no arguing. Just fun, loot, and learning. Isnt that what wow is supposed to be about?

One thing I forgot to mention. The one reason I loved leading raids in my previous guild. Its those people that have never been there before. The ones that know their class, but are held back by some reason or another, that are there to prove themselves. The ones that light up when they know they earned the gear...yeah...those people make it worth it. Its one thing to get your T6 from a guild that has MH/BT on farm. Its another thing to step into a raid with ~24 other people you may or may not know and have grouped with raided with before, and know that you have to do your job or those other 24 people will be relatively upset.. and to actually succeed in doing so? Yeah... that makes it worth it for me :) Even with the ridicul I get from guilds I was previously in, or have app'd to about pugging. I am having fun while they are only 2-3 bosses ahead of my pugs and are struggling.. I'll take that any day... I feel like I actually earn my gear when I pug for it.

Why 33/28/0 > 8/7/46...

klor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:14:38 GMT

This weekend was quite the eventful one for me. On Friday night I had decided I was not going to spend much time on WoW and actually go out to enjoy RL for once...yeah that was an Epic fail on my behalf. I spent most of friday night just grinding honor and having fun on WoW...which is typical. On Saturday, I spent the first half with getting my pvp out of the way. Did a 5v5 arena team that was a complete flop...which is particularly the reason I stay in 3v3s..and did a few more BGs, but quickly got burnt out on that.

So I then got a whisper to tank Mag... I have been trying to get a Mag group together for quite some time as I want my title. It wasn't until AFTER i spec'd prot, and offered to go that they told me "Oh sorry, a mag pug is out of the question...We're doing Gruul's lair." I was a bit disgruntled at this, but meh...It was a chance for me to get back into a 25man raid. I ended up main tanking both Gruul and High King, but the group split up after the second wipe on Gruul. (Wowowow for fun memories of people nuking each other in Shatters.) It didn't help that the OT had less hp Buffed than I did unbuffed. By growth 10 the hateful strike was one shotting him.

After wiping in there a few times I found myself back in Shat where someone on trade was asking for a well geared OT for ZA. Knowing that I probably would not have a chance to run it with Girlie's guild before the reset, I offered to go. I did not realize until after I offered to go that the people that made up much of the group were from the very guild that acted like complete jackasses to me. Fortunately enough, these guys were not the ones that had acted that way and they were a bit weary at first about a tier4 warrior...but we ended up clearing 2 of the timed events, would have had the third if we had not stopped for looting the chests and had not died once to dragonhawk trash. We were 2 minutes off on the timer. We full cleared ZA in just over 2 hours...which really made me happy as its been a while since I was able to see Zul'jin dead. I even walked away with two upgrades. One tanking (the shoulders) and one dps (the chest) and made a few good friends along the way.

After that was said and done, I got one last whisper...this time from some random person asking me if I wanted to tank Karazhan. Since it was the first time in a week that I had even been spec'd prot...I figured, Sure what the hell... and went for it. Little to my knowledge...it was YET again another group of the very people that were complete jackasses to me on that guild app...the ones that said my gear was terrible and that I did not deserve to be in their ranks. I made sure to make him bite his tongue as I was pushing out 1200-1400 tps in Karazhan. He kept making small remarks the rest of the night, but he kept quiet for the most part. We ended up clearing through chess and stopped at 5am. I was dead tired...so I went, sold the crap in my inventory and crashed.

Sunday rolls around and I'm extremely excited to go gem and enchant my new shoulders. First thing I do is run to the bank to see how many holy dust I have... and look for my shoulders... They were no where to be found. It took me two hours to finally get ahold of this sweet GM who joked with me a bit and finally told me that she had done some research and I had vendored them many hours before. Thats what I get for selling my garbage after Karazhan at 5am...never again. When all was said and done, she bid me farewell and told me "May all your hits be crits" Me being the smartellic that I am quickly responded "Nooo....I'm a tank. Me taking crit hits are bad..." Her response to this was "I was talking about your hits. I hope you don't get too hard" Fun typoes always are worth the laugh :) I didn't give her any grief over it, just laughed, Screen shotted, and went on my way.

My guildies finally talked me into tanking SV for them after I had finished running Mech with another guild who did nothing the whole time but try to recruit me because their MTs had bailed on them. This is usually a sign no? Anyway, the SV run. After finally getting everyone there and ready, I notice the mage who is a pug and a friend of a guildie is in the guild which has previously caused problems with me. had previously ninja'd my heroic mech save for the day as well as mouthed the entire guild outside of ZA as their leader sat there...I do not like this guild, and mentioned it in say. I should have left right then...but no, I am a nice person that gave the guy a chance....big mistake. We start pulling, first pull...the priest DCs. I manage to tank two heroic elites by myself, in my full threat gear, using concussion blow, healthstones health pots and bandages just to have the priest log back in after the fight. Again..should have been a sign. Next few pulls go fine, then the mage decides to run up and agro the mobs by the first big door. He uses Sheep to pull apparently because I thunderclapped as soon as i saw them move his way and put them both on me. His comment "Thunderclap breaks sheep." I'm thinking to myself now...Ok, I know how to tank. I've done it tons of times...so i tell him "Its the only way I have to pick up mobs when you pull initial agro with a CC skill." His comment to me "Use Demo shout..." I about died right there. Was this guy truly trying to tell me how to tank when I just saved him a repair bill? He sure enough was. We continued the instance a bit more, I had broken sheep once or twice because he decided to sheep right on top of me in a group of four mobs. Sheep is easy to replace, and its not like i did it continually..I usually tried to time it to hit it before he sheeped them because he was moving a bit slow...but I did mistime it a few times. Again, the comment came out after I had said something "says the warrior who doesn't use demo shout to pick up threat". That right then was when I just blew up on him. I can take constructive criticism. I know I am not right all the time....and I always love to hear tips and such on things I do not know, but when a DPS tries to tell me how to tank when they cannot even focus fire the right marked mob? Yeah, I lose my nerve especially on a pug. I mean correct me if I am wrong, but not once have I ever seen ANYONE designate circle as the first target when there is a skull and an X marked as well? I may have went a little overboard on the guy, but I had already had a rough day and the last thing I wanted to deal with was some pug trying to tell me that Demo shout pushes out a good deal of threat for picking up multiple mobs so he doesnt have to reapply sheep simply because he sheeped it under my feet. Not once did anyone die because they pulled agro off of me...and even with 2 warlocks we only used the sheep as the only CC. I think I did pretty well even with having to avoid breaking the sheep at my feet every pull. With that said and done, i left that group after dying three times on the last boss because they refused to focus fire the tanks....THREE TIMES... and i died because i was taking .5 second swing timer 6700 hits...the priest could not keep up and the dps was blaming him for it and almost tried to blame me...I thwarted that idea fast. We finally got him down...I had to yell at them in vent because it was a bit over done...three times i tell them to dps the tanks, three times they refuse to do so quickly and worry too much about dps on the boss and I have to pay 5g per time.

After the run was over, i find myself earning a 26g repair bill for 3 deaths...lovely.

That is why 33/28/0 > 8/7/46. Running heroics only allows me to gain a repair bill because people tend to always mess up and i need nothing from them. Its human nature...but atleast a mess up in a BG or an arena does not cost me gold..it only costs me time....and I have alot more time than I do gold.

"Veterans" and how they amaze me

klor — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:59:45 GMT

Yesterday as I was settling down with my typical wow evening, checking the AH and watching the casual passer by in Org, I started inspecting an orc warrior. He had very nice gear all except for one trinket. He had the [item]figurine of the colossus[/item]. So I asked him why he had it? Its not really that great for a warrior and is more of a paladin trinket unless you're pushing for uncrushable... Which based on his equipment, I can tell you he was no where close. This must have offended him as his response to me was "Yeah, well you should replace your shield. ( I wear [item]merciless gladiator's shield wall[/item] )

I was kind of amused by his comment, and sparked up a small debate with him. He tried to tell me that resilience has no use in PVE and does not apply to the crit immunity rating. Hey, thats fine. I used to think the same thing, but it was when he used the phrase "I know. I have been tanking since beta" comment that I lost it. It gave me a nice laugh and only furthered many points made that people can do the job, but not know why they are doing it nor understand any mechanics of the game. This guy was convinced that because none of the tanking gear in the game has resilience on it, that it just does not work for PVE. When I asked him why dodge works in PVP even though none of the items had dodge rating on them, he dismissed this and ignored it.

He even tried to tell me that he was right because his other tank felt the same way. I directed him to this site, hoping maybe he'll take heed in it, but I doubt its going to happen. Some people just really amaze me. Thick headed tanks who think they know everything are the bane of a raid and the tanking community as a whole because they are typically the ones who start false information spreading....especially when they are in a progressed guild. **Doesn't point to Nihilium's MT**