Phoot >>> Bang

Amava's been an archer for her whole raiding career.

Entered Kara with the crystal crossbow from Ogrila. Got Steelhawk Attumen crossbow on the first or second kill. And before my next ranged drop happened, the 150 badger peacock became available.

Apparently it was going to be crossbows for life TBC.

When Sunfury dropped off of the 50 or 60th Prince kill, it was more of a joke because of how much some players had lusted after that shiny, and happily my team let me have it as an obsolete trophy rather than shard it for a void crystal. When wolf slayer sniper rifle dropped, I was gonna make a move for another trophy, but a rogue or warrior wanted it for fun, so I share.

But times have changed

With WotLK, I'm not raiding content that's been out for a year already, but rather while it still has that new dungeon smell (despite being recycled level 60 vintage).

Still sporting the peacock, our guild-first Patchwerk kill yielded me my new precious: Arrowsong.

Excellent speed, excellent tool-tip DPS, nice blend of stats.

But more importantly, she's a BOW. And she looks gorgeous.

Cross bows are ok, guns suck donkey balls.

A bow is what an archer should carry. I'm still fond of the good old days of Warcraft II, bringing in three packs of nine Elven Rangers (back when you could only group nine units together at a time in a RTS) to support my friend's packs of ballistas and another guy's paladins.

And Arrowsong has served the team well, aiding in the kill of boss after boss after T7 boss. Draining quiver after quiver after gold-sucking quiver. But I digress.

If you want to upgrade something, invest in it

I'm a big fan of enchanting a piece of gear that you want to discard. It appeases the Tiki God of Random Numbers. Plus, in the event of an angry god, you still do better anyways.

In the case of my beautiful bow, she already had the best scope in game at the moment. How does one invest?

How about 450g worth of Saronite into Arrow Machines?

Just that very day, I sent 9 stacks of saronite to my favorite engineer, and had my 6 new arrow machines waiting in the mail before the raid.

And wouldn't you know it, we whoop KT's ass and he coughs up the big boy: Envoy of Mortality.

Blech!!!

A gun!!!!

Blizzard uses the thesaurus to name gear

Envoy of Mortality?

Messenger of Death, much?

Well, I don't really care about the name.

I do care about the utterly annoying sound FX of the gun firing.

And even more so, I care about the sweet sweet numbers she brings.

Probably 50-75 DPS increase, which is pretty nice for a single piece of gear.

But wait? Earlier you said guns suck donkey balls? Is this true?

Unfortunately, yes, this is true. But a man night elf chick's got to do what a man night elf chick's got to do.

Any fun Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix stories?

Any TBC raiders out there?

How did your SBotP land in your bags?

When did you replace it?


Aside: The investment worked out financially as well. Probably won't recoup the full 450, but those arrow machines sell pretty nicely. Over just one night, several sold on AH in addition to the loose arrow stacks that had already been extracted from the machine. I'm sure you're all worried sick over the thought of me losing some gold.

Loot Council Strikes Again

Third night raiding under the Conquest Loot Council.

Third night getting phat lewtz.

Works for me.

But does it work for the raid? Lets take a look....


Raid raid raid....pew pew pew...kill kill kill...loot loot loot.

Along drops a token for tier armor. They tell me its T7.5, but I'm not really sure what that is. Either way, its a token for a chest piece. Chest Piece is one of the chief upgrades I'm looking for as my currently equipped item is pretty weak, but is chock full of hit, so I wear it.

The token is useful to a variety of classes, but for now, lets just look at the two hunters to keep things simple. You've got Hunter A who is a DPS monster, totally pwning the meters, and generally the backbone of the raid's boss killing capability.

And you've got Hunter B, starting off the raid season as a pretty weak link, who is creeping up and improving, but still has lots of room to increase contribution to the team.

You're on your third raid night. Hunter A has not gotten any raid loot in the first two nights, and Hunter B has gotten something both nights.

And now the T7.5 chest token drops. Who should the council give it to?

From the perspective of "rewarding good behavior", both hunters are on time, make thorough use of enchants and consumables, stay out of the fire, and keep the voice channels and drama channels clear, so this one is a tie.

From the perspective of "spreading the wealth", Hunter B has gotten stuff for two nights in a row already, and Hunter A has not, so A should get the loot.

From the perspective of "benefit to the raid", boosting Hunter B would be a good idea, since the chest would be a massive upgrade for B. However, although not massive, it is also an upgrade for A, although breaking his 4 piece T6 bonus would be a short-term setback.

In this scenario, the Loot Council chose to spread the wealth and give the loot to Hunter A.

They made the right call, and there was much rejoicing on our Hunter chat channel. Sure, it would be nice for me to get more loot, but I'm happy with what I've gotten so far. I like to see my teammates get some love as well. And this particular teammate has been a great help, serving as a mentor for a wee lil hunter new to the guild, making the rejoice all the merrier at seeing him get some loot.

Fast forward through a few more bosses.....

And what drops.....

My precious...Arrowsong!!!

And what is one of the primary items on my Improvement Plan? Ranged Weapon.

A match made in heaven, as this is a massive upgrade over my current weps.

Loot Council hooks a brutha up.

It's so pretty. Not all gaudy like Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix or the Badge Crossbow, it looks like an actual soldier's bow.

I've been using crossbows for nearly a year now, and the animation of shooting the bow is so much cooler.

Rock on!

So in this case, I'd say the Loot Council's decisions through the night definitely serve to benefit the raid. Hunter A gets new shiny tier piece and continues to happily pwn the meters. Hunter B gets a sweet sweet bow and is now able to provide a more solid contribution to the success of the team. Both players and the guild win. Sure, the RNG was being all nice nice, dropping my sweet sweet bow, but random drops are random drops. How you manage them is what counts.

Now, where's an engineer when I need one? I need a fancy new scope, ASAP!

Loot Council - seeing both sides

Conquest uses Loot Council for distributing the wonderful shinies that drop during raids.

Read over the GM's description of the guild, and also one of the Council member's reflections on our first raid if you're so inclined to get some background.

To sum up: Loot Council distributes the wealth to benefit the raid the most. Loot is also used as a reward for all the nice behaviors we like in our raiders such as timeliness, lack of inappropriate afk-ism, proper gear care taking, using consumables, etc. When epics drop, members indicate a preference, and then the Council takes a moment to deliberate and then reward the loot.

The only system I've ever used in the past was a random roll, so I don't have a huge experience to compare and contrast with, but just like everyone else, I've got my opinions, solid foundation or no.

So, what's life like with the Loot Council?

First, some disclaimage is needed. Any praise for the LC that follows shall not be construed as asskissery in an effort to get more loot. I highly doubt any Council members read here, because they're all pretty busy planning our next kills. Secondly, any praise for LC has nothing to do with the fact that I've gotten a sweet sweet upgrade on both of our first two raids.

Some things I like:

1) Expectations. The LC made it clear a week before our first raid...if you want shiny, you need to do your homework. Each raider had to put together a loot wishlist for all of Naxx-25 and OS-25. Anything that encourages preparation is a good idea in my book.

2) Speed. Based upon the pre-work for the wishlist, looting moves very quickly. Once the loot master links an item, you've got 5 seconds to indicate your preference. Indicating preference is a no brainer since you already examined the loot tables and recorded your thoughts. If you deliver your preference even a split second after the end of the countdown, sorry charlie, no soup for you. I'm a big fan of remaining focused and efficient through these administrative parts of the raid.

3) Tension. When a bunch of people all indicate "interested" on the same piece of loot, the Council takes a moment to discuss on a private channel. The raid sits and silently waits, with all the interested folks holding their breath. When the Loot Master announces the decision, its like the Academy Awards or something. Win or lose, I find it much more fun than a random roll.

4) Meaningful. If you are the person who gets the loot, it means the Council considered all the team members, and thought you to be the most deserving. Feels much better than the cold impersonal RNG. However, there is an alternative interpretation, which I'll explore below.

5) Beneficial. Our tanks have generally gotten a slightly larger share of the loot than the other raiders. This is a good thing, since the raid lives and dies by their survivability. I'll gladly go loot-free in favor of our tanks.

6) Trust. This one is a slippery slope, but to me, its fundamental to the style of raid we run. The Council needs to build up the trust of the membership. This takes time, but if executed well, a fair and efficient Loot Council will cement the trust that the whole raid has in the leaders. If executed poorly, its open for lots of drama, but only time will tell.

7) Less Waste. In random roll or DKP systems, players can choose to skip on some upgrades because they're waiting for a Tier drop that may or may not drop later that same night, resulting in raid-benefiting loot getting sharded. LC should protect from most of this type of behavior.


Since the top section was labeled "Some things I like", it'd be natural to call this "Some things I dislike" or some other antonym. Not so much, because I really have nothing I dislike about LC yet. So lets call it...

Some things I'm weary of:

1) Weakest Link Syndrome. This one hits home with me right now. I'm pretty damn near the weakest DPS link. The rest of the team has devoted much more time into gearing up at 80 than I've been able to do. In addition to gear, there is also personal performance and skill. The other DPS'ers in the raid are Michael Phelps versus my doggy paddle.

However, I've been rewarded with loot on each of the first two nights. The first night, it was largely uncontested since the other two players who could use the item both passed. The second night, 7 players expressed interest in the item, and after a slightly longer than normal deliberation period, I was given the gear.

On the one hand, I'm honored to get the prize, if you look at it from the perspective of loot as a reward for good raider behaviors. Also, being on a totally new server, with no friends yet, and not really having carved out a niche as an underperforming DPS'er in a guild of min/maxers yet, its is a reassuring sign that the leaders want to invest in you.

On the other hand, from the perspective of benefit to the raid, one could interpret this as the Council saying you're the weakest link. When coupled with WWS data that reinforces the message, a fragile ego like mine might have to go on a bender and drink heavily for a little bit.

I just hope that over time, the Council balances things out, because I'd hate to have my teammates feel like they work harder outside of raids, and that means that they get less rewards during raids. I'm not a big fan of being a weak link.

2) Fairness. This is not what you think. I'm not really weary of the Council being unfair and giving loot to themselves or to their clique within the guild. I'm actually going the other way. I hope that Council members get their fair share of loot. I hope that they dont err too far in the direction of giving loot to other people, so as to avoid being perceived as loot whores.


So that's all I've got. Meantime, I'm off to hit some Heroics to make the Council's decision a little harder when they choose to reward me some loot.

The Law of Conservation of Threat

The Universe loves balance.

In nature you've got such fun things as mathematical laws to explain how a every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

In accounting you've got such fun things as GAAP and double ledger entry to keep the books balanced, unless you like to shred (*).

In dating and relationships you've got a balancing act called "tit-for-tat". I have no idea what "tat" is, but I'm a huge fan of the other one and regularly provide my fair share of "tat" to maintain the balance of the Universe.

In WoW, we've got threat.

The closed system of PC's and NPC's love balance just like the rest of the world.

Do something mean to mobs and they correspondingly increase how much they dislike you.

Likewise, do something nice to someone that mobs dislike, and it will also increase how much they dislike you.

For every action, and equal and opposite reaction. Well, maybe more proportional than equal, but still, there's a reaction. Work with me, people.

So, does this Law of Conservation of Threat apply to the T5 healing bonus for Hunters?

If so, who gets the threat, me or Bubbles? T'would be nice if the answer is Bubbles.

Or is there some threat blackhole that it just sorta gets sucked into, like when I feign death?

Maybe there's some parallel universe where they just really hate everybody, kinda like when the river of Goop of Negativity runs through NYC in Ghostbusters 2, into which all the dumped threat and aggro resets go, thus maintaining the Law of Conservation of Threat across the Meta-Universe of these multiple WoWs?


Does anybody actually know what "tat" is?


(*) It is the official position of this blog and its author that "shred" is a bad thing, unless you're a feral druid.

The Dawn of a New Looting Age

Randomly dropped, limited quantity loot is so annoying. How much better would the game be if all loot was badge oriented, so team members don't have to feel in competition with one another for loot, but rather cooperatively gathering badges and saving up for stuff? Even if they made it Karazhan Badges redeemable for kara stuff only, Gruul's Badges redeemable for gruul stuff only, etc to make sure you couldn't just farm the lowest dungeon and get the best stuff in the game. Or go crazy and make the badges boss-specific.

But I digress...

Hot of the silliness of drama over some recent loot, we've decided to go with a loot distribution system and discard our current /roll if you want it system.

Not really interested in administering some complex DKP, with which none of our officers or raiders have any experience, we've decided to go with a basic loot rotation.

When we kick it off, we're gonna do a random ordering of the entire guild.

When a piece of gear drops, it is first offered to the player present in the raid at loot-drop-time that has the higest ranking. As long as its equipable (no clothies choosing plate) if that person wants it, for any reason, they get it. Primary raid role, off set, just because it looks cool, whatever. If they pass, it is available to the next higest ranked person present. And so on. If nobody wants it, DE and at the end, everybody roll for shards.

If you take the loot, you drop to the bottom of the list.

And that's it.

Pros

1. Easy for officers to administer


2. Easy for raiders to understand


3. People will actually think before accepting loot, as there's a future consequence to your choice, which is just not there with our current system


4. Fair distribution over time. If you feel you got shorted on a drop, that person goes down to the bottom and you'll have priority on future drops

Cons

1. Infrequent raiders will perculate to the top, and thus will be nearly guaranteed loot when they do show up/get invited


2. No thought given to raid benefit when distributing loot, only individual benefit


3. Might lead to good loot being DE'd in hopes of a future drop. ex: a hunter at the top of the list passing on Garona's Signet Ring from Curator in hopes that Prince will drop Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix later that night. Then GSR gets DE'd, and SBotP doesn't drop, so overall the player and the raid get zero gear improvement from that raid night.


4. Same as in the previous one, excellent off-set gear, which might benefit the guild in different scenarios might be passed on and DE'd

I think that con #1 is semi-moot because (A) infrequent raiders are rarely present/invited to raids where the progression team is trying to get loot, jsut because the content is too hard. (B) it currently seems that new guys get lots of epics on their first or second night in kara, simply because none of the other folks need it, so I think #1 is kinda moot. Except for the one time a rare invite goes out to someone on a progression night and a veteran raider gets pissed that the other guy has priority. Oh well, go sulk in the corner.

The last three cons have the same issue at heart. I really want an epic that is any possible upgrade in any way shape or form to be taken by somebody rather than DE'd. I shudder at the prospect of people NOT taking loot that's an upgrade because they want a bigger upgrade that MIGHT drop at some point in the future. The raid and team needs that improvement NOW, thus allowing us to more easily access that drop that might drop LATER.

I also don't want to have people trying to skirt the system and feign indifference, bluff at passing on an item, in hopes that the officers award the loot, "forcing" the guy to take the piece, without bouncing them to the bottom.

There are a few areas that I'm not fully certain (ambivalent?) about how to handle...

Unknowns

1. Where do new guild members go? Me thinks they start at the bottom. Not sure if that would impact recruiting. But at the same time, a player who would avoid a guild because of feeling like there's a small delay before they're GUARANTEED priority for loot, perhaps its better that we do scare that person away.


2. If we run two teams in kara on the same night, how do we stack the people who take loot and drop to the bottom. ex: Somebody from team 1 gets a drop, so he should go to bottom. Same night, somebody from team 2 gets a drop, so he should go to the bottom. So who goes to the bottom and who goes to second from the bottom? If we have to keep track of the exact timestamp of the drop, I just might snap.


3. What to do about off-set gear that gets passed, or gear that's an upgrade but gets passed on in hopes of a future drop? I hate to see epics get DE'd, since all we get is some crystals (and therefore gold) from that. Crystals and Gold can be obtained from a variety of sources. Epic drops can only be obtained via welfare from boss kills, and come randomly at that.

So does anybody have experience with entry level DKP, or even a system similar to this one? I'd love to hear about different ways that people have introduced basic loot rules, what the process was like, how did the guild react to it, what drama evolved out of it, etc.

Downgrading Armor Types

So, do you let your Hunters roll against Rogues for leather armor that's got +hit, +crit, +agi, and +ap?

Do you let your Resto Druids roll against Priests for cloth armor with all the goodies that healers want?

Do you let your Death Knights roll against.....well, I'm not really sure what stats a Death Knight will need, so hold that thought.

In a rare display of drama, we actually had a minor tift over loot. Strange, because its not come up even once through 4 months of raiding.

See, in a recent guild raid, this one player rolled for loot that was a downgraded armor type, against a player for who the armor is the primary type.

This piece provides stat bonuses to the areas that both need for their primary raiding role, so there was no off spec thoughts involved. Primary Raiding Role.

And, in this specific scenario, the downgrader would get an stat bonus increase over his current gear that was 400% better than the increase the other player would receive from the same piece. He/she only chose to roll after inspecting the other toon and seeing what a dramatic difference there was in how much of an upgrade it was to the two of them.


The downgrader won the roll. Minor drama ensued.

So what do other raiding guilds do? Do you allow downgrades if its for a piece that will be used in your primary raid role? or do you offer priority to those for whom it is the maximum armor type available, and only offer it to downgraders after all others have passed?


I'm on the fence. I can see the argument on the downgrader's side. It provides a direct increase in utility to the raid, because it makes him/her better in the role that he/she is invited to the raid for.

I can also see the argument for the non-downgrader. If you are a class that is restricted in what armor types you can equip, you will generally have fewer drops that are options for you to make use of, so when a piece that is your primary type drops, you're interested in getting it.

Luckily, all the people involved are mature adults, so the situation is over and done with.

But going forward, we're debating making a "formal policy" on where the guild stands in this situation, and I'd love to hear more about what other raiders do.

The Secret to Guaranteed Loot Upgrades

You want better loot? You got equipment that you're just waiting to get your hands on? Sure, you're running the right dungeons for boss drops, and you're grinding the right factions for rep rewards, you're farming the right mats for craftables.

But the gear you want just feels so slow in coming.

Whether its the random boss drops, or strangely inattainable faction currencies (read: Apexis Crystals), or that silly crafting random number generator that just won't give you a skill point for that yellow recipe, no matter how many stacks and stacks of mats you're throwing at it, or that 5-man crew who normally farms heroics that suddenly brain farts and cant even scrape up a single badge in a night of hammering away.

Just seems that something is keeping you away from your beautiful loot.

Well, I've got the secret for you...

Invest in your current gear. Heavily. The moment you've dumped a pile into a piece of gear you're looking to replace, that's exactly the moment the stars will align and get you the real upgrade you're looking for.

It really is that easy.

Case Study: The Crystalline Crossbow.

Having hit Exalted with Ogri'la, I want my Crystalline Crossbow, as its a nice upgrade over my Sky-Fire Hawk Bow, despite being a drop slow for my taste, and amount of haste (sorry, I couldn't resist).

But those damn Apexis Crystals felt so unattainable.

In a parallel stream of activities, my engineering friend recently got the schematic for Stabilized Eternium Scope off of Attumen. Only issue is that getting him to 375 skill level takes mass quantities of Adamantite, Eternium, and Khorium. So farming we went, yadda yadda yadda, he's at 375.

Cool, 1 scope, pls!!!! Thank you, drive thru.

Now the question: sitting there with my still-unequipped scope in hand, I'm in a quandry over how long it'll take me to get the 4 Apexis Crystals needed for the new crossbow. Do I apply the scope for a phat crit upgrade to my current kit, or do I sit on it and then apply to new xbow, if/when it arrives? Although I farmed all the mats other than one of the Star of Elunes, so in effect the cost is negligible, the opportunity cost of the mats is worth somewhere around 400g. And, sure, the gold is no problem, but a girl's got to have her principles of spending, or else she'll be broke in no time.

Clock ticking down towards Saturday night's Kara run...in the back of Amava's mind is the Warlock who's getting better and better and nearly beating her out on overall damage output for a Kara run (although its those damn AOE packs of dinner guests that make the difference. Grr, /scream for buff to Volley, lol. I still pwn on boss fights)....Amava gets impulsive and click, roughly 1.25% increase to crit rating. Outstanding. Gimme Gimme Gimme. Kara run goes even better, 1.25% of which was due to the new scope :-)

Roll forward to Sunday night and my previous post...no Kara run...yes BEM crystal farming...yadda yadda yadda, I've got my Crossbow and find myself farming Eternium Ore again, as I'm still short 7 Fel Steel Bars of a replacement scope, and unless I'm lucky along the way, I'll have to pay for both the Star of Elunes, as they're too rare to wait for 2 to drop off of normal mining activities.

But out of spite, I refuse to pay for the Eterniums. I don't care if I have to buy a Khorium Scope temporarily knowing fully that I'll throw it away, I'm just strange like that. And actually, that sorta fits the theme of this post, and if I do attach a Khorium scope, that'll guarantee that Eternium Ore drops much more frequently. I like it :-)

See, invest heavily in gear you hope to replace, and ye shall replace it.

Is it more proper to say "Star of Elunes" or "Stars of Elune"? Probably the latter, but the former sounds more fun.

And my favorite, my xbow skill is currently 1 (one). Yep, never equipped a crossbow yet. I suppose I'll have to do some homework before Tuesday's kara run. Maybe combine Eternium farming with ranged skill up'ing.


Disclaimer: Past results to not guarantee future performance.

Gaaaaahhhhhhhh, the horror

This is actually a nice tale, with a twist of tragedy. The horror doesn't come till the end, so scroll down if you dont want to hear about the guild.

Slight digression into what we're doing about our raiding in the guild....

We're altering our approach to Kara teams. They're no longer "guild assigned", but rather, there's team captains assigned and that capn's job is to form up a team and ensure that team is made up of appropriate classes/specs and that the players get geared appropriately. And that captain is also supposed to devise a schedule that the players can all attend.

I like the idea of spreading out the burden of recruiting and scheduling. That's probably the good side of this way of doing things. The downside is that you'll end up with internal competition for scarce resources, such as healers in our case. Additionally, I think too much of the onus is put on the capn to gear people up. I'd much rather be surrounded by people who want to gear themselves up, know what they need, but they just need me to go on the run with them. That would be awesome. But in this environment, twould seem that the burden is on the leader. Overall, I see the approach as an obstacle to guild progression, but what does my opinion matter?

Where we're at now is there are two PM team captains, as the third candidate for the position (me) said he'd rather stick pins up under his fingernails and type up a copy of the bible before getting involved with that mess at this point. Just what I want, a pack of DPS'ers looking to me to solve all their problems and who will now be pissed at me for the lack of healers. No thx. So we've got two capns. They both approached me, I picked one I'd prefer to run with. So two teams, instead of three.

Either way, back to last night

Talking with the capn of my chosen team, we've got three healers who actually approached him because they want to run with us, and what would appear to be 2 tanks. Also a mage, which would put us at 3 DPS. I've got my fingers crossed for a shammy and a shadow priest, who are as yet unaffiliated with a team.

Taking a cue from WoW Grrl, I'm all about greasing the social wheels, so I'll be hitting up the team members hard to make sure they're getting the runs in that they need for the loot they need. Even better if it overlaps with a dungeon that drops Desolation gear, as I'd love the +35hit bonus from another one of those puppies.

Unfortunately, nobody else from the team, or potential recruits, were on last night, besides me and the capo. I want to get into heroics more, so we go after a PUG. He needs some thing-a-ma-bob that drops from Heroic Slave Pens, so that's the one. And they drop Desolation something or other in there, I'm a big fan.

Started with a tank who's been in our guild for a few days.

Picked up a rogue who somebody knew.

No healers. Anywhere. Other than raid dungeons. Every single resto/holy spec'd level 70 on anybody's friends list or /who results was in a raid instance. We became sad :-(

Not too sad, as I was just circling around Zangarmarsh picking flowers (lol, about 200g worth. ding!!)

Finally find a holy paladin who had just stepped out of Tempest Keep and wanted some Heroic action. Sweet.

Rogue was afk and nowhere to be found. Boot.

I had a shammy friend who was in BG and she said she'd join in a minute.

We totally rocked the place. The 4 of us were in pre-kara gear, and the healer was much better equipped. But we really did awesome. The DPS was good enough to burn everything down, felt like we were on normal mode.

Sure, we wiped a couple times. For CC we had my traps, warlock seduce, and although I'm not too familiar with how it works, there were times when the shammy would whip out some windfury and save our ass. Long story short, not too much CC, so lots of chaos on the multi-pulls with mobs who fear the party. I made pretty big use of kiting with wingclip and concussive shot when traps broke early or when I actually double trapped on purpose once and on accident twice. Pretty cool stuff.

Overall, an awesome time. Feel good moment of the night...healer from raiding guild and much further progressed than player I've ever worked with....chimes in with major kudos about the trapping, and he's never seen action like that. I was a bit surprised to hear that.

Ok, on to the horror......

When we took the second boss, the giant lobster, down, there was some akward discussion about the loot. Not drama per se, but the raiding healer wanted everybody to pass and then we discuss and loot, where as the rest of us were used to pretty standard need/greed/pass-DE situations. The loot wasn't anything that there was competition for, as the party had pretty distinct gear needs. Just a bit of confusion as to the process, and some tense words. Not angry words, just tense because nobody wanted to mess up but we were clearly not understanding eachother.

Then we get to the last boss, the giant pile of moss shaped like a humaniod swamp thing. Spank him down, and instantly somebody loots so up pops four items. Primal Nether, some spell damage plate chest (ret pally?), some epic spell damage mail shoulders (shammy), and some either trinket or off-hand spell damage thing-a-ma-bob.

Immediately there's all kinds of chatter about what to do, what to do. My part is easy, as I don't want any of it, so I'm just gonna pass on everything, I just want my badge. So the healer is insistent that everybody pass, and then we'll figure out what to do. Ok, everybody passes.

Warlock says he wants the off-hand trinket thing-a-ma-bob. Everybody says ok.

Shammy walks up, bends down, and receives the thing-a-ma-bob.

Ugh.

Warlock is clearly pissed, letting out a nice WTF on voice.

Shammy is totally beside herself, as it was a total mistake. Aparently she was just going in for the Badge of Justice, and fat-fingered it and clicked the wrong thing.

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

Supposedly that thing-a-ma-bob was the actual reason we went into the run in the first place.

Damn. One tiny click, and wham-o, no turning back.

Blizz, please, give us a 1 minute mulligan so we can fix mistakes like that. PLEASE!!!!!

So now everybody thinks she's a ninja. She's so upset she actually wants to pass on the shoulders, which I wont hear of. Damn epic shoulders, take them. The other guy will get over the fact that his thing-a-ma-bob is gone. Nothing we can do about that now.

Yuck!!!!

Onc click, basically ruined the run, and maybe the social rep of an awesome shammy. Not to mention, they all look at me as a bad guy for bringing a ninja into the team.



How many times you think I can fit "thing-a-ma-bob" into one post?

The Big Leagues

I don't know what it is, but I suddenly feel like I'm in the Big Leagues. When I hit 58, I went through the Dark Portal to Outland, but only to get some profession training to up my limits from 300->375. I then went back to Azeroth to finish some quests.

Then my new guild's leader coordinated a run through Scholomance. I thought to myself "Scholomance? Is that Scholo? Don't the big boys who talk about raiding and Kara and other hugely intimidating stuff like that, also mention Scholo sometimes?"

So that sort of put me in a fun mood, realizing that I'm getting into some of the fancier stuff the game has to offer.

Then in Outlands, I log in, and I'm at the inn in Honor Hold. 2 seconds later, I get an invite from a guildie to "run ramparts". What is ramparts? I had no idea. But I said OK. We go in there with 3 guildies and 2 pick ups, and have us a pretty sweet run. First time I ever ran with a mage doing sheep cc. Well, that is, other than the time in BG that I got turned into a sheep, again and again.

We run pretty smooth and sweet and get to the first mini-boss of Hellfire Ramparts. Burn him and his little healing friends to the ground. Then looting time. A pair of total hunter sweetness leggings drop. First time I've ever seen an item with gem slots. Mouth watering!!! Of course, we're there with 2 hunters, and I lose the roll. Wouldnt you figure. And to add to the sting, he was lvl 59 and couldnt equip it yet. Devastating!!! The guild has no official looting guidelines, but stuff I've read usually mention that "need" is only for a direct upgrade you plan on equipping immediately. After winning the roll he did say soemthing like "i've got 2 bubbles left till 60". And in his defense, he did ding 60 within a half hour of completing the dungeon. But I was not a happy camper.

I did give him the totally fake "congrats" text message. Its like when the runner up for Miss America gives the winner a hug. Yeah, that's sincere. Instead of patting her on the back, you know she's thinking of burying a shank between those ribs, but good taste prevails and you say "congrats". At least over text he couldnt hear the grit in my voice.

Luckily I have my semi-mature moments, and I got over it quickly and we finished a great run of the dungeon.

The whole experience just gave me the feeling that I'm in a whole new world now. I'm looking at loot that makes a serious difference and isnt just random BoE greenies I buy in AH. I'm running dungeons that have Heroic modes, so anything I learn about the instance now, will probably be useful in the future.

In general, it just feels like I've gotten the call and its time to step up to the plate for my first Big League pitch.