Another Week Gone By

Sat home sick most of the week last week. Head so congested I felt like I was at the bottom of the sea. Of course, that means a decent dose of WoW during the non-passed-out moments. Sucky way to follow up a vacation, but such as it is.

A small sample of what went down:

150 Badges

Server opened up the new badge vendor, and I got a new crossbow. Looks stupid, rains pure death upon thy foes. I no longer have any badges.

Kara Shuffle

The guild doesn't have enough tanks/healers to run a second team in Kara yet (what else is new?). With the no-longer-recent departure of our former GM, we really don't have anybody with a recruiting spirit, so the situation doesn't look to be changing any time soon.

Since we cleared everybody besides Netherspite, we're turning the first raid night from "blast through all farm content as fast as possible" into "bring a mix of new players so people can get gear, learn fights, and generally be included in guild activities".

Feeling sick, I was more than happy to sit out of wednesday's fest. Of the 4 new players we wanted to include, only 2 could make it, and both were DPS. Really need to get another tank and healer to learn what the place is like.

I can PVP all night like a Lumberjack

In addition to a sinus infection, I got infected with the BG bug and decided I needed a new belt.

Played more AB than i would have imagined possible to grind out 40 marks. The Lumber Mill feels like a second home. Played more AV than i would have imagined possible to grind out 17k honor. The Frostwolf Relief Hut feels like a third home.

Lots of fun. Alliance had a few streaks of outstanding teamwork in AV, with minimal complaining and whining. With even a drop of listening to a proposed strategy (IBGY, ftw! Skipping Galv, FTW!), its amazing what 40 strangers can accomplish.

Lots of pain. Alliance had a few streaks of garbage teamwork in AV, with zero positive energy and entirely too much complaining. Please dont say "oh well, looks like this one is over, you all sux" when we've still got 500 reinforcements.

I got my belt, which was a direct upgrade for both raiding and PvP. My PvP set now has 270 resil, which is kinda fun. This replaced my second to last blue item, with only Hourglass of the Unraveller trinket as a non-epic. I suppose I could equip my Skyguard Cross, but its ok for solo, but not for raiding.

WSG can burn in h3ll

With my new belt in hand, I set upon replacing a ring with a BG ring, as it, too, is a raiding and PVP upgrade. This one requires 30 WSG marks.

I started with zero WSG marks. I now have 21 marks in the bank. I played 19 games to earn them.

There was a streak of 11 games during which the ONLY alliance flag capture was one that I nailed. Depressing.

Watching the team rosters during the prepatory minute is hysterical. Horde instantly load with 10 players, 7 of which have some healing capability. Alliance starts with 4 players, 3 are hunters and the other'en is a rogue. Depressing, I tells ya.

Even a single victory during the grind for these last 9 will validate the entire experience. Then it'll be back to AV to gain the rest of the honor for the ring.

Then I can focus on a pair of pants that'll be a PvP piece only, and probably not make it into my raiding set.

Zul'Aman

I suppose Nalorakk is a gear check. There's only two gimicks in the fight. (1) the tanks need to taunt off eachother to ensure they handle each phase appropriately, and (2) the tanks need to position such that they share the cleaves.

Once your team has those two tricks mastered, wipes are basically due to not enough DPS, not enough healer mana, not enough tank damage mitigation.

We are clearly under geared for the fight. Best try had Nalorakk down to 19% so we're close, but most of the tries had him closer to 50%. We plan to continue wiping until he's dead.