Quick Update

Sorry there has not been any update for a little while.  Between work and personal life what little free time I have had has been spent trying out the new content from 2.4 and getting settled into my new server and guild.  I will be posting a few thoughts on all of this later today.  (Hopefully) 

Rent the U-Haul it’s Time to Move

This past week it was time for me to make some tough decisions about my guild and if I was going to stick with them.  If you read my previous blog than you know I was disgusted last week with our raid in general and feeling like I was having my time wasted.  From a personal stand point that is one of my biggest pet peeves in this game and since I have no patience at all sometimes this makes for a bad combination. 

After my last post even though I was upset I decided that one bad week of raiding was to be expected and I should see how this week goes.  Tuesday evening I log in and get into the Kara raid, get all my raid items, and head to the stone to help summon the other 6 people who can not take the time to be at the instance we are running that night.  (Strike 1)  The previous night they had cleared the first 3 boss’s before they had to call it for the night so I was looking forward to this being a fairly quick and painless clear and getting prepared for ZA the following night.  (did I say painless ????  ) 

Instead of getting better than last week I think we had broke out all the 12 year olds to raid this night.  We had some moron who kept pinging the mini map while the raid leader was giving instructions and even after the raid leader ordered it to be stopped they still did it thru the whole fight.  (Strike 2)  This was really annoying since we had along a new member who had never been to Kara and we were trying to give them a few pointers on the run.  (they actually did really well considering everything else) 

Now the immaturity level is bad enough but than we decided that since it was not bad enough wiping 9 times we also had to have some people go to Stormwind since they needed more potions or regents or just to go sightsee around the town.  Who knows what they were doing but they were wasting my time and I was getting pissed.  (Strike 3)  I am married, work full time, have a infant child, and if I can dedicate time to raid than the other people in the raid could at least have the respect for there fellow raid members to dedicate there time also. 

Miraculously we did finally finish the clear of Kara after about 5 hours, but I knew there had to be a change.  WoW is my escape from reality and I enjoy playing it and having all the online friends, but for the past two weeks I had been ending the raid nights disgusted and grumpy. 

So I took an inventory of what I wanted to do.  Either way it was going to be a tough decision since I really liked the guild leadership and felt that I owed them for immediately bringing me on raids and giving me loot.  In the end though I knew in my heart what my decision was going to be… it was time to move on.

It also came to mind that this was a good as time as any to move servers and see if the grass really is greener on the other side.  So after much research I decided on a different realm and a different guild.  After informing my current guilds leaders and explaining my decision I transferred off the realm, ended up having to choose a different name (/cry) but am now in the process of getting established on my new realm and in my new found guild. 

Will the outcome be any different?  Who knows.  I certainly hope so.  I enjoy the challenges and friendships that are forged in raiding and I want to find a guild that I can call home.  I thought I had found it before but I was wrong, maybe this time will be different.    

Hurry Up and Wait ?

If there is one thing in real life and in WoW that I really need to work on it is my patience.  I have none.  Not even a little bit.  You see one thing I always keep in mind is that when I am in a group I am depending on the rest of them to put forth the time and effort to run the instance.  Whether there is 5, 10 or 25 members of the raid I do not want to waste there time and I do not expect them to waste mine either.  It is just common courtesy and I use it in game and in real life. 

This past week we had a couple of bad days of raiding.  We wiped several times on farm content, people were not paying attention, they were not prepared to raid, and to top it all off there was always someone going afk between pulls.  I mean use a little common sense on when to go afk.  I understand we all have lives but when you commit to raid do not waste my time waiting for you to return from an afk every few minutes or having to hearth and be summoned back since you forgot the regents that you require to do your job. 

Now that was bad enough but after clearing Kara we still had 2 hours left of raid time so we head for ZA.  Now ZA is not farm content for us and we still expect a couple of wipes along the way as we are getting used to all the pulls.  So miraculously one of the people suddenly finds something else to do while still being online and leaves us with only 9 people.  So than something interesting happened, we are 1 person short to start the raid, holding up everyone, and one of the head officers tells us he would rather PvP than raid.  WHAT?  I mean I agree with not forcing people to raid or make a certain percent of raids, but if you are online and playing your character and you could help us get started than I think you should. 

I would like to add one side note here since I am not sure who from my guild reads this blog.  We had one of our pallys have to leave early due to a family emergency and this did put us under our healer limit so we had to call the raid.  BUT this person took the time to tell the raid leader of the situation and than have to leave.  There is no problem at all with this.  Family has to come first and when there is something unexpected that happens and needs your immediate attention than by all means go.  If it was me I would too.  I just do not want that person to feel that I am speaking about them when they are not at all part of the problem.  
 
 

Day for Criticism ?

Well today must be the day to blog about criticism since I have found 2 excellent blogs on the subject so far.  First was an excellent blog by Matticus on Criticism and Raid Healing, and another one at Ardent Defender on People can’t handle the truth.  Both bring up some excellent points and are a worthwhile read, of course pretty much any post you find on either of these blogs is a worthwhile read if you care about getting better in WoW.

The inspiration to write on this matter did strike me at first but after my waaaayyy to long comment on the World of Matticus post, (sorry Matt), I think these two post pretty much cover every point I could possibly expand on so I will just let you read them and enjoy. 

First Time and First Kill

Last night the guild decided to go to ZA for the first time and see if we could learn anything about the trash encounters and attempt to make it to the Bear boss and get some attempts in. 

I am proud to say that after 4 attempts Nalorakk was downed as a guild first for Unchained Rage.  It has been a long time since I have been along for any guilds first kill, last time for me was well before TBC, and if you have never been there than there is no way I can explain to you the amount of feelings that happen when you see the boss dead and hear your fellow guild members congratulating each other and just being happy.  It is a great feeling. 

As a side note I am the new proud owner of Robes of Heavenly Purpose which I am very grateful to the guild for giving to me.  I do take a little bit of a loss in the mana while casting department, but it actually improves my overall stamina, healing, and spirit once they are properly gemmed and enchanted.  At first I was a little reluctant to break my primal mooncloth set but after I saw the minimal change in mana while casting and the big increase in my stamina and spirit I was very happy.  As Matticus likes to point out:  a healer with not enough stamina is a dead healer and no matter how much healing you have it does not help when you are dead.   

Anyways grats to Unchained Rage on a great first kill and making my first days in the guild memorable. 

*** EDIT ***

Another much more experienced healer just pointed out the solution for having 2 perfect chest options, use the Robes of Heavenly purpose for all progression content when I need as much stamina as possible for learning encounters and than as we progress further use the Primal Mooncloth Set for the higher mana per 5 (especially for the timed ZA run where there is no time for extra regen).  This sounds like a perfect compromise for myself and appreciate there time in pointing this out to me. 

New Guild Time

Well after doing a lot of soul searching about my current situation in game on my priest I decided to leave my guild and try out for another. It is not that I did not like the people in the guild it is just that as a whole they were not very helpful or involved with there members. If you asked for help with something you rarely if ever had anyone offer to help you and they were never interested in running heroics or daily instances, which I personally like to do when not raiding.

So after speaking with some of my trusted friends I decided to put in an application and speak with the leadership of a guild called Unchained Rage.  I am not real picky about progression as long as the guild is at least into Kara and willing to help and be friendly with the guild members. So after speaking with the guild leader I was invited to raid Kara with the guild last night and see if we fit each other.

On the agenda was dropping Price, Nightbane, and Netherspite which we did with very minimal problems. I was the only priest in the raid so I did feel a little extra pressure to perform well. We had one wipe due to 2 of the infernals being dropped into a bad position which gave the healers no place to move in time, but we got right back up and dropped him.

While speaking with the members during the raid I was very happy with how friendly everyone was, and while they were serious about killing boss’s they also were having fun while doing it. So long story short I accepted there invitation and I am now a proud member of  Unchained Rage.

As a side note I had 3 group quest I had been trying to complete for 2 months with my old guild, and in my first night in guild a couple of us competed all 3 of them in no time at all.

Cartographer Routes

I am not sure how many of you use or have tried Cartographer Routes but until recently I had tried it and threw it out all in the span of about 24 hours. I just could not seem to get the hang of setting up the routes and the nodes. I mean I use cartographer regularly for the zone maps and I even use the herb and mining node locations but setting up the routes just seemed beyond me…. until now : Enter the Khorium Tollbox Engineering Blog and there wonderful step by step guide to seting up this program.

I followed there instructions exactly and had everything set up and running within about 25 minutes. It has made my mining route much more efficient and in turn probably helped me make a little more gold over the last couple of days.

Thanks again to the folks at Khorium Toolbox Blog for taking the time to supply this information to the community.

Matticus Live Blogging While Raiding

If you are like me and will probably never see the inside of some of the 25 man raids in WoW currently (or at least not any time soon) than you just might enjoy keeping up with Matticus’s latest blog post where he is live blogging while raiding SSC and TK.

Very nice idea and I for one am enjoying reading the updates. Hopefully this is something that other bloggers will try so we can see how different class’s see the raid progressing and there perspective of the raid.

When in doubt…. roll a Tank ?

So after doing a lot of thinking on the subject of my last post I have decided to roll an alt that can tank. This is one of the few alts that I do not have and would like to try. After doing a metric ton of research on the different tank class’s and thinking about as a healer which class I enjoy having tanking my instance runs the most, I rolled a pally. I would like to thank the following 3 sites for all the very helpful information they provide to all types of paladins:

Banana Shoulders Blog

Ardent Defender Blog

Maintankadin Forums

Without further ado let me introduce you to Sarmation, my level 21 dwarf paladin.

Will it last, I am not really sure.  From 1 – 21 so far has been a lot of fun so it just might last for me. I mean one of the things I enjoy about playing certain class’s is being a major part of the different party’s I am in and the ability to have enough say in how the party is run. That is why I have always enjoyed playing a healer.

So add another alt to my growing list of characters. One thing I will say is that reading all the information on paladins and talking to several that I know and respect, this could very easily become a second main to my priest. This will be very nice having a tank and a healer, so that way I should always be able to find a group. That will make me a very happy person.

WTB: Server That NEEDS Healers

I know it sounds like a joke and I am just as astonished as everyone else.  I have never heard of a server having an overabundance of healers but mine sure seems that way.  Usually there is at least 3 – 4 healers in the LFG channel posting about groups at all times.  Of course this is even more evident with the overwhelming lack of tanks in the LFG channel.  Now I am starting to wonder if I should have rolled a tank…. 

Don’t get me wrong I still love my priest and will still play it as much as possible, but patience in finding groups is not my strong point.  I despise sitting around for an hour or more with 4 people in the party and having to keep posting “LF tank” along with about 5 other groups.   

Recently I have made some tank friends that I do run with when they are on but most of the better tanks I know are in raids 90% of the time when they are on so that limits when I can ask them to help. 

Just wondering if all servers or like this or maybe I should look at a server transfer for my priest.  Right now I am just really frustrated and venting.