http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/ en Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:56:05 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/2760-loss.html Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:42:03 GMT http://www.ajc.com/news/four-dead-in-floods-142739.html

This is something I've never seen in my hometown. I've been through some bad tornadoes and harsh hurricane seasons, but this hit a lot harder than anything else. Three of those who lost their lives overnight were classmates of mine in high school. I wasn't terribly close to any of them but just having had the chance to know them this is a deeply saddening day.

I've experienced loss before but nothing like this. To have so many people pass in one night is indescribable.

I don't talk much about my personal beliefs when it comes to religion and I truly believe that God has a plan for everyone. But for a deity to let something like this happen, its hard to believe that any good could come from this or that he would have this in his plans for someone. As much as I've been praying and hoping that the missing are being found, my faith is being tried today.

Please keep the families and friends of those who were lost in your thoughts and prayers. As well as the rescue workers and volunteers working through the continuing rain to find survivors.



this particular photo was taken less than 10 minutes down the road from the house I grew up in. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/2760-loss.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/1749-new-years-blog.html Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:28:01 GMT Ok, so its not quite New Years any more, but I've finally gotten around to feeling like blogging again. Hope everyone had a great holiday and came back feeling refreshed. I know I did, and its already started to pay off.

My guild took almost two weeks off of raiding due to the holidays. Its just nearly impossible to keep enough folks around to make raids happen. Maybe thats why we came back this week with a vengeance. The reset hit us last week and things weren't looking too good. The A group's 10 man didn't happen. We were worried that the others wouldn't get off the ground, but fortunately the B group came together and put together our first clear of Naxx 10. I walked away with Slayer of the Lifeless on Thursday night, and we finished it up Friday with Sapph and KT seeing their demise.

Pretty good way to start the weekend if you ask me. I woke up Sunday afternoon to an invite to the Naxx 25. The regular MT was out (again) and this time they plugged me in as the MT. Three and a half hours later, full clear (and my inventory a bit heavier due to Pauldrons of Unnatural Death and Cloak of the Shadowed Sun coming my way) with both Last Laugh and the Protector token dropping off KT.

Didn't with either of them unfortunately, but I was able to get in and prove myself to a much larger portion of the guild than I usually see.

Of course, the run didn't come without drama. We have an issue with Toy Train Sets in the guild. Between Grobbulus and Gluth we had a short wait as someone who was afk and dead had to run back. While we were waiting, someone dropped a train and an officer flipped out, ran off the drain leading to Gluth and insisted that she was done with the raids and wouldn't be coming any more. (She apparently has to hear he spellcasts in order to play from what her argument against the trains is) It was quite silly imo. Luckily someone convinced her to stay and we finished.

All in all, great week for raiding, and I finally got to get into 25 man and prove that I can back up my 'arrogance' in regard to my skill. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/1749-new-years-blog.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/1681-change-inevitable.html Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:44:54 GMT First off I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope everyone here is able to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy the company. I wish... First off I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope everyone here is able to spend time with their loved ones and enjoy the company. I wish you all the best of days and memories that come with the holiday.

I've read back through my old blogs, and I can honestly say I've come a long way since that first ZA adventure. TBC ended up with me tanking for a number of t5/6 pugs and picking up a couple pieces of gear through it. Heading into WotLK release I had left my guild and was looking into joining a more progression minded guild. Don't get me wrong, the guild I left had a lot of nice people in it. A few of them had so much potential. It was just time to move on.

So now I've joined this "non-raiding" guild, (I use non-raiding lightly as we currently raid 5 nights a week) and I find myself in an unusual position. I was the second horde warrior on my server to 80, first in the guild, first of the tanks to be uncrittable...I think you get the point. And yet, they insist on taking lesser geared and skilled tanks to their 25 mans on the principle that they are guild veterans. I can understand wanting to give spots to the folks who have been there the longest. But, when one of those tanks admits to having threat gen issues and others are unreliable, I think its time to cut your losses.

We currently have 5-6 tanks. On any given Naxx 25 night they run 3-4 depending on the quarter. This past week I was subbed in for one wing then asked to sit back out. Didn't win anything, and walked away with 3 Emblems. This has put me at a big disadvantage with the other tanks. I'm behind in Emblems and loot drops, yet they don't make any changes despite the claim that they want to gear up everyone evenly. Our GM has stated that he wants me in the raids, but isn't doing anything about it. So I told them that in order to ease the tank situation to just take me off even the standby roster.

Having been a main tank for so long its hard to sit by and watch others gear up and see the content before me. In our 10 mans, the 25 man tanks play second to me. (The 10 man organizer is one of the 25 tanks and will not MT the 10, nor does he know the strats.) The GM pulled all the tanks aside a couple days ago and suggested that we all work on off-spec gear. I told him I would, but, I rolled this to tank. I didn't roll a warrior to dps.

I've been looking around at gear and the information here and I'm trying to put together a dps suit. Its just not what I want to do as a warrior. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/1681-change-inevitable.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/928-coping-theft-fraud-success.html Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:00:14 GMT Ok, so I'm not the best at putting titles on these blogs, but this is my week in review. Its been an interesting one to say the least.

My week started off learning that my guild may not have one of our few experienced raiders with us when we start our in house Kara next week. I can't blame him for it, RL does come before this game. Thats something my guild has always instilled in our members. Fortunately we still have some experienced people goin in, so I'm hopeful for a good first night. Nothing lofty, of course. My goal is to down Attumen and Maiden and attempt Moroes. A very realistic possibility for my guild.

After one miserable Kara on my priest, I hooked up with a t5/6 Tankadin to set up a raid for today. So with that in the wings I had an opportunity to go into TK last night, but had to turn it down to help some guildies. The guild that I was to be running TK with was disbanded after their raid, they promoted a former GM back to leader and he kicked everyone, stole the bank, and disbanded the guild.

I've been running with this guild a good bit lately and have been trying to help them out as best I can. I offered them a place in my guild and after talking it over with their impromptu leaders we're going to be working out some sort of raid alliance. I even donated 3k of my own gold to help them get a guild bank started and try to replace some of what was stolen. Its just beyond me how someone could come in and destroy what so many people had worked for.

On a rather disturbing note, I had been talking to some people this week who have had their guild banks robbed by someone pretending to be an officer. Oddly enough, it happened to me yesterday. As I was out doing my dailies I received a tell from a character claiming to be one of my officers. The toon was named after the officer's toon with 'bank' added onto the end. Now, normally I wouldn't have given inviting the character a second thought, but the imposter tried to claim they were my roommate. So, knowing that she wasn't home at the time I asked the person some questions only my roommate could answer and when they couldn't they logged off and I imagine deleted the character.

http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=534891

http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=534893

Unfortunately ticketing the encounter wasn't worth the effort, apparantly nothing Blizzard can do since nothing actually happened. But, I did find out that they are creating a department for dealing with Item/GBank theft.

Thankfully as of now my week is ending on an up note. New alliance, new personalities, possible new encounters, and my guildmates may get some early experience in Kara.

Oh, and the run with the tankadin went great. Best clear I've had in a few weeks; and I finally got [item]Warbringer Handguards[/item]. So that puts me at 4/5 T4 with various badge/ZA loot. I'm probably going to put threat on the gloves again. I'm liking it on the felsteel to this point. I still need to enchant my [item]Boots of Elusion[/item]. Probably going to go with Dex to help make em even more of an avoidance piece.

Reading through the various threads here I think my gear is ready for at least t5 content. Here's armory for comparison:

Vissara on Archimonde

Just imagine the riding crop is actually the pocket watch :p ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/928-coping-theft-fraud-success.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/908-frustrations-raiding.html Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:10:47 GMT Why did I have to pass up on that guaranteed Kara clear?

Belive me, I'm kicking myself for it now. Granted I did walk away with [item]Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch[/item], [item]Boots of Elusion[/item], [item]Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable[/item] (which I'll probably never use) and enough badges to buy [item]Chestplate of Stoicism[/item]. The group was just awful. I had agreed to go and help one of my heroic regulars and her guild. Things were going well for a while, we one shotted everything up to Nightbane (which I found out later they had never done before) where we wiped twice and moved on. I've been biting my tongue the whole time as one of the hunters continues to tell me what to pull and when and just buggin the shit out of me. So on we went to Curator, another one shot, and the t4 gloves drop....roll and counting down to give em to me and at 2 the shadow priest decides to roll....I about screamed.

Past Curator the only thing we cleared was chess. No locks so Illi didn't happen, especially after one healer went offline. Shade was two wipes and move on. But they wanted to attempt Prince. It absolutely boggles the mind why someone wouldn't listen to the tank when they're giving advice. On each of the 4 pulls before Prince there was one rogue who insisted on standing in front of the flestbeasts. I told him on the first one to get behind it, he didn't listen and died. And continued to do the same on each of the other pulls. After the 2nd one I told the healers to just let him die. We get to Prince and the first thing I say is to stay behind him. But guess what happens...the rogue insists on staying to the side of me. Needless to say he got parried and Prince gibbed me for about 15k in about 1s. I let out a tirade at the rogue (who after I armoried found out he had about 130 hit, 0 expertise and nothing in Precision) and called the raid.

In the past two months of Kara raids that has never happened to me. I was pissed. One simple instuction and he couldn't follow it. I wish I had the combat log for it...they called out that the rogue had been parried 12 times before we got Prince to 60%.

Anyway onto other matters.

In the past 15 months since my guild's inception I've had to boot two people. Yesterday was number three. We don't ask a lot of our members, but the single most important thing we ask is that our members treat each other and the people we game with with respect. I took a break for dinner last night and came back to find one of newer members detagged. After a quick conversation I found out that another member, and someone I had gamed with for years, was disrespecting the newer member's deceased mother. I saw the chat logs and after talking it over with my officers we went about removing the offender from the guild. Its hard to believe that someone could be so insensitive and disrespectful, not only towards the person who's mother is passed, but also towards myself and the officers and one of our very simple rules. We ended up losing one other person because of it,the offenders friend. But we were able to rectify the situation and get our member back.

We're going to be holding our first guild meeting this coming week. I'm actually kind of stoked about it. Be able to address any concerns or issues people are having and help prep people for the start of inhouse Kara. We're going to field questions through the vent chat and I'll probably record it.

One last thing before I go: here's my armory Vissara on Archimonde if anyone has any suggestions on where to go that'd be great. I know I need to enchant the boots, not sure on fort or dexterity, and I'm probably going to save up for the badge legs next, gloves have been a real bane for me and I'm hoping next week in Kara I can fix that. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/908-frustrations-raiding.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/898-not.html Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:51:57 GMT That is the proverbial question. In a way it rings true for WoW. Ok, change a few words around and it does; To leave or not to leave is my... That is the proverbial question. In a way it rings true for WoW. Ok, change a few words around and it does; To leave or not to leave is my predicament. At times I find myself stuck. Not so much in a rut, I'm still finding new things in the game and always something else to work on (grinding fishing as I type this). My problem is progression and my guild.

I'm sure it happens to many of you as well. You get in a group with another guild, things go well and they extend you an invite to join their guild. Its fairly common for me to get 6-7 invites a week. Because of the size of my guild I tend to run a lot of pugs. My guild has recently started to talk about running Kara and there's a fair amount of interest in it. But the fact is we're not a hardcore guild, nor will we ever be (at least for a long time now). I want progression, but at the same time I don't want to have to leave my guild. Its become very apparant that I'm not going to be able to get any farther without doing that as many guilds have stopped letting outsiders run with them.

This is my guild. I started it and built it to where it is now. We started with 10 accounts and we've grown by leaps and bounds since we started and I'm very proud of where it is. We recently had some turmoil when two members wanted to raid with another guild that was going to require them to detag. We told them that in order for the guild to remain on its course of starting Kara that we needed both of them in the guild. One flat out told me that he was more interested in gearing his toon than helping others. The other removed one toon and logs it on twice a week to raid with this other guild, but continues to play with us full time and is helping push for us to get into Kara.

The other part of my dilemma is that I know a good bit of my guild IRL. Hell, I live with two of them. After what we've been through in our guild history, it would just be a big slap in the face if I were to leave to raid. Since we started WoW our guild has seen two mass exodus from the guild (not sure on the plural) because 'we weren't hardcore enough' for some of them. We had a split because one former officer was abusing their privilages and some people decided to support her. And yet we still have been able to move on and grow. Its just really a drag at times, and no matter what I do there's going to be a sacrifice I have to make. Do I hurt the guild and those in it so that I can experience the new content or do i forego the chances at that and try to continue leading my guild into relative obscurity?

One of my officers suggested finding a new server and rerolling there as a guild. It would probably help with growing our numbers, but at the same time we wouldn't get to see much more of the BC content we're getting now before WotLK. I worry though that this would cause ill feelings because we've been on our server since launch and many of us have invested so much time there. We've talked about mergers before, but no one really wants to go through with it. They can be messy and there's no guarantee that we would be able to combine leadership status or people could get left behind. Of course there are other issues that could come from mergers, especially if it were to an established raid guild. Preferential treatment, loot priorities...

I just don't know any more. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/898-not.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/872-lessons-oting.html Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:59:43 GMT I learned a hard one last night.

A few weeks back I started this toon in Kara offtanking to a Paladin. (Who is actually the reason why I'm trying to level one.) The past two weeks he ran with another group and I was only able to find one run, which I posted on in my first blog. After the run where I MT'd, I guess I kinda got full of myself.

Last night I had the opportunity to run with that Paladin again. We had a very solid group and some great healers. We flew through the run, only having two stupid wipes on trash: one someone pulled a 3rd Usher and the other was extra mobs before Maiden. Every boss was oneshotted and I actually walked away with two more tank pieces; http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28502 and Barbed Choker of Discipline only two tank drops on the night for us.

I really had to fight my threat gen to not pull agro in several places. A few times I did and paid for it. The healers were so used to the Paladin tanking that when I pulled something I didn't get any heals. I think it was more my fault for not trying to stay under the pally than anything else. Its strange going from OT in ZA where I know I was undergeared to start and trying to learn the raid, to having to OT something I know that I can MT easily. The biggest thing for me is the change in mindset between the roles of OT and MT.

I really need to get my guild motivated and started in Kara. I have no goals of anything past maybe gruul/mag for the guild before WotLK. We're not a hardcore guild, but there's interest in raiding. (Which reminds me I should post something about the the ragged history of my guild.)

On the plus side, I discovered that my dps suit isn't that bad. Was pushing 600 dps during Nightbane and Shade. And I started using ClosetGnome, which has really cut down on time changing gear. The only issue I have with it, is at times it can't find pieces of gear in my inventory, even though they are in there...any suggestions?

(meh got one item link to work....) ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/872-lessons-oting.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/864-lady-luck-za-tanking-milestone-2.html Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:33:32 GMT Not sure if anyone read my last blag, but for a quick recap: I finally MT'd Kara for the first time and had a very good run, only loot however was my third Eternium Greathelm (wish I could figure out how to do those wowhead popups). Then two heroics later I used my badges on the Brooch and the new Belt, which helped make a pretty nice ER/HR set. They put me around 80 HR and 22 ER.

But I digress. I spent some of my time in yesterday sitting around in Shat trying to see if there were any Gruul/Mag pugs. I was just about to log off for the night when I saw a group looking for an OT for ZA. Sure, why not I'll send him a tell. We talked for a minute and he checked out my armory. (14.5k, 19.8/16.16/24.25 at the time) Surprisingly enough he came back and said, yeah you're a little low, but we'll take you. I found out later that they had been looking for over an hour and I was the only one who inquired about it. Which, as it turns out, was really good for me.

My first venture into ZA was quite a trip. The MT was a paladin and we took in 3 healers. We two shotted the eagle boss, but missed the chest by 1 second :mad:. BUT! I got the Bloodstained Elven Battlevest, a pretty nice upgrade for offspec over S1 Chest. We went on to bear boss and we had some really bad luck on spike damage. (been reading about the chances of that here for a while and finally saw it happen) A couple times I got spiked for 4-5 attacks in under 2s and we had to reset. But we got him down and the loot: Jungle Stompers to me. Which immediately got put on. I was using Flesh Beasts going in.

As we're going I'm doing my best to read up on strats and figure out what to do. Thankfully I had went and grabbed a couple flasks and stacks of pots. Onto Jan'alai where I'm now MTing the boss while the paladin tanks dragonhawks, after two quick resets we down it and we get: Bulwark of the Amani Empire, again to me. We're crackin up in Vent and the MT is going damn you Viss, it took me so long to get this stuff. Going into Halazzi, the MT says that if he drops the boots that I'm going to get them. And sure enough we one shot him and Skullshatter Warboots drop. I'm 4/4 on loot for the night and the raid just can't believe it.

We had already planned on only going to Hex Lord and calling it. So we get there and I think we downed him on about the 6th attempt. We switched from the Pally MTing the boss to me doing it after the 4th wipe and we got it on attempt 6. Nothing for me this time but the raid did get: Voodoo Pauldrons and Coif of the Jungle Stalker.

Great night, I didn't even notice the repair bill at the end I was so stoked. Raid was jokin that I was going to be the MTs new BFF :p

I really need to get to work on using ItemRack or something to get my sets straight. After the new gear, right now in my SBV suit I'm sitting at 31%. I think I have my calcs right on how much SBV I have. I followed a formula I found in the Raid Zone min thread and came out with 428 SBV...if someone reads this could you double check that? ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/864-lady-luck-za-tanking-milestone-2.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/845-first-tanking-milestone.html Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:52:28 GMT I've been OTing in Kara for about a month now until last week when our raid never got together. I've been picking the MT's brain about pulls and kill orders and have picked up a lot.

Last night I got an invite from one of the folks I run heroics with regularly to MT for their guild. I was worried that I wouldn't live up to the raids expectations or mine since my gear hasn't progessed much in the last two weeks. She reassured me that it would be fine and I agreed to go.

Most of the group was decently geared and we had a full T6 Lock who had issues watching his threat. (The only problem I had with the raid was split DPS at points and the rogue insisting on pulling...) We had a fury war for our OT (who had much better tank gear than I) so that helped on some of the larger pulls. I ended up solo tanking Attumen which was quite fun, took Moroes and 2 adds (one CC, OT took one)...any way I'm rambling.

We ended up with a great run, just under 3hrs full clear. It surprised me how easy it was to tank. (Aside from one wipe on trash, cause the T6 lock was impatient and pulled the group of Wanton Hostesses and a pat) It actually seemed much easier than some heroics I've done. Bad part of the night was that the only plate drop was Eternium Greathelm, which I already have 2 of. So no upgrades, but it put me just shy of 100 BoJ, so I get to go shopping it seems.

Good times and can't wait til next week. ]]> Vissara http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/vissara/845-first-tanking-milestone.html