Where to Now and Raids...

Three-point-one today. Another ginormous "We'll fix it!" patches, where Blizzard admits that their content wasn't quite right and is going to flip every other thing that all classes know around a bit. Oh, and a new raid content to explore and have many wipe fests on. Joy!

Forgive me if I don't sound super excited. I have mixed feelings about the patch.

On one hand, new goals to strive for, as well as the highly anticipated Dual Specs [which my druid and shaman are going to participate in -- resto/PvEferal for Losse, resto/enhancement for Kanta [I have an unhealthy obsession with healing, can't you tell? It's a good thing, I suppose, for everyone else! I'm just glad I can now be resto for my raids and still kill things effectively!]].

On the other hand, learning wipes. I hate learning wipes. I know and understand they're necessary and bound to happen, but, at the same time, I hate it. [And yet, somehow I'm in a raid where we die fourteen times over the span of four hours to kill everything in Construct and Noth. Eight wipes on Grobby-face, not fun! Ah well, they need to learn and have a guide...]

Also, I have only a vague concept of how to be enhancement. I was resto from one to thirty-nine, enhancement from then to about seventy-one [healed off spec for all instances though], and resto from then on, more or less. It's been two or so months since I've hit eighty, and a few more on top of that since I've truly been DPS. So I get to learn how to play enhancement all over again, and remember that button mashing really doesn't do much [never does, but I do it as a bear anyway]. Spec wise, I have the general gist, minus a few odds and ends here and there. Hopefully Stonebaby at Big Hit Box will be able to shed a bit more light on it all.

My mage, for now, will stay her frost/arcane spec. Her Glyph of Frostbolt makes PvP a pain, which is why I will be considering a different spec -- or even the same spec and a few tweaks with different glyphs for PvP. This would have to mean I would PvP a lot though, so it's an entire new dilemma.



Raids! RBD got their first KT kill a while back, and since then, we've been struggling weekly to kill him. Some weeks, we succeed, other weeks, stuff happens and we only have one shot at him or we have to end on Sapphiron. I am proud of RBD, but I think we can achieve more if we can kill during loot, as well as starting on time rather than waiting for all twenty-five, including subs and pugs, to show up. After a few months, Losse is finally feral for them, and she tanks every boss in Construct up to KT himself, where she gets to be on add duty thanks to her better survivability [so the raid leaders say].

Kaizen, Kanta's twenty-fives, got Sarth3D last week as well as the twenty-man Naxx run with only four healers, for which she was one of the lucky four. Her raid makes me cry a bit and wish Losse was with them. Losse deserves all of the best because she's my favorite and first, but Kanta's taking the spotlight. As long as I keep telling myself that at least I get to see the content and take those challenges, no matter who I am on, I am content...

Mel's Naxx10 was two deaths away from Undying this past week, which annoyed all of us. One of them was my dying -- healers didn't heal me through Jagged Knife, and I died -- and the other, because our raid leader stood too close to our healer on KT and she almost blew both of them up. We managed to save the healer but couldn't quite get her... She did, however, go do twenty-minute Oculus and got that achievement with one minute to spare -- it was the raid leader's last achievement needed, and, therefore, we were able to watch the raid leader zoom around on a pretty red proto-drake.

Where are we now?

Waiting for the servers to come up so we can dump our gold into dual specs and start moaning about the server instability that always occurs after a patch, and wondering if raids will actually take place today due to said server instability...

Not so Nubface, a Squashling, and Being Squashed

Fim, of Asleep at the WoW, spoke of our adventures last night. Feathermoon was down, so I went to go bother Fim on Draenor, as he attempted to do that with me a few days ago, but I, apparently, missed the memo and wasn't on. He, however, didn't, so I was able to find him fairly easily.

I decided that I loathed Westfall, just as a quick note.

So we decided to skip on over to another roleplay server (it's me. I like roleplay servers; Fim just tagged along) where we found out that the Annas was there too, but was about to hop off and go pester Matticus). So we kinda ran around for awhile -- Kinda, being that *I* ran around and killed stuff, Fim occassionally poked his head in from the collecting Gruul's and looted stuff, and got xp.

Oh. Another note. Apparently, this server is a popular one for people to bum about on when their own server is down: people from the Argent Dawn and others from Feathermoon were there, and /1 General was just as terrible as trade chat on your average day. Something about French Fries, and the French, then reflection about the American government, was the theme of those... forty or so minutes we spent on there.

Once Fim ran off to Gruul's, I returned to Feathermoon, which had just come up. Got in a guild group for the Headless Horseman (Mel wants the mount, Losse wants the pet, and Cir wanted the sword), and had flown Mel all the way up to Chillwind when my Pet Tree whispered me and asked me to go to Gruul's. A ranged DPS, so I brought my hunter, who had never done it before.

It's always really interesting to see a fight one knows as a different role. I've brought Losse in as a healer before, and Mel, to (obviously) DPS. But an average DPS is different than being a tank for whatever-that-guy-is-that-sheeps. Got the High King down in two minutes, went to Gruul himself, and had no issues on him. Ended up being in the top three of the damage meters on him, getting 1302 DPS. Now I want to know...

SINCE WHEN DID MY BABY HUNTER DO 1302 DAMAGE, SINGLE TARGET?!

She's beast master, and wearing mostly epics from Kara, with a Brewfest trinket, her Violet Signet, and her one remaining trinket and ring being green. And she was doing more sustained DPS than my mage, who is slightly better geared.

And didn't have mana issues. My mage, when I tested her out later that night on the test dummies, does 1266 DPS over the span of 2.65 minutes, then she ran out of mana. I can push it up to 1300.9 in haste gear, but it means, instead of 133 hit, I have 80. Hunters are OP, non?

About the same result occurred in Mag's, and I walked away with nothing but amazement at my hunter's DPS.

-sniffle- My nubface hunter is no longer a huntard! [Until I manage to break my own trap again, that is!]

Afterwords, my Pet Tree, my favorite Aussie, and a guildie I haven't grouped with in ages went to Headless Horseman, and we switched out toons so that all three of my characters went, the Aussie brought two of his, the guildie also brought two of his, and the pet tree got to bask in all of the summons.

The pet dropped while I was on Mel, and I won it. Darn it, wrong toon though! Other than that, we saw the same three rings drop, most of which I got last year. Disappointing!

The Aussie had one or two more AVs left until he got his healing boots (having recently switched to resto from being elemental), and, so, I accompanied him after making the Pet Tree go to bed. (I'm... somewhat convincing. My method isn't as... curious as two of my friends, though. One will count sheep, and the other will sing the "go the sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep now, Liiiiin" song. I just pester them to go to bed until they do -- Pet Tree hasn't slept for twenty-four hours or so, which is why I forced him).

Alliance on Feathermoon normally don't suck at AV... but last night, it was just painful. Utterly steamrolled, and it took forever as well. There was a lot of fighting, and the Frostwolf Graveyard just wouldn't stay ours... but we got him that honor, and his boots.

Then I went and splurged, and brought two new shinies to play with for the mage: some pantaloons and a brand new neck piece, bringing her, in her haste gear, up to 173 haste. 2.25 Frostbolts, and 1.88 Frostbolts with Icy Veins.

Delicious.

Then a bit more screwing around doing absolutely nothing, then bed. It will probably be one of the most chaotic and fulfilling nights that I will have this week.

Except for Friday, but that's coming up later.

Spec Thoughts -- Steady or Oscillating?

I was talking with Cil the other day. He keeps trying to tell me how I should respec my mage to fire. (He's been telling me this forever now, but I keep ignoring him.) My reason? Mel has been frost forever. (She has dabbled into fire before (for Master of Elements, but found it not to her liking, and is now permanently frost.) I have found that with some characters, I don't mind respec'cing (such as Losse, of course. "Which spec are you this time?" is the best question to ask if one wanted to invite me to an instance, as I could be resto for one instance, then a few hours later, feral), while, with others (such as Mel and Cir), the idea of being anything but what they are is... strange.

Why?

I think with Losse, my openness to her being something else comes easily, just due to the fact that she is a druid, and, in my mind, in order to take the most advantage of being a druid, I must be open with how I play her and her spec-style. As a tree, I can be found DPSing (Moonfire! Rawr!). As feral (bear), I tend to pull out of bear form (both for more aggro, and for the simple fact that I like to patch people up right after a pull so my healers don't have to drink as much. And to get Furor benefits after that. Feral, in PvP, means that I heal (and so does tree, clearly, but...). I always carry my feral and resto sets around on Losse (bag room is a jerk), so that I can switch gear with ease to do whatever I find necessary at the time (and, when I respec, I don't need to keep running to the bank!). It's such a versatile class, and I try to take the make the best of it. Losse comes from a history that left her nearly constantly seeking solace within nature, and she has always felt indebted to them due to the amount of comfort and peace that the woods lended her. In return, she feels compelled to both defend the forest, and, at times, to even become one with the woodland.

Now with Mel, beside the fact that she has a fair bit more of +frost damage than anything else, I just can't see her with anything but her faithful water elemental and a water shield, her hands glowing blue as the power surges through her. I originally chose frost because of the survivability -- I tended to die. A lot. So I figured that I'd go frost -- why not? We're supposed to not be as good of a friend with death as the other two specs, and we're fairly mana efficient as well. Great! Well, now, at seventy, with quite a few played days, she's still squishy as all anything and still is mating with death, as well as eating through mana like none other. But, despite it all, I love it. So when people suggest for me to try a different spec, I find myself refusing. "She's a mana junkie! Just think how bad she will be as fire!" or "She does enough as it is -- why would I want to die more?" tend to be my most used excuses for her. In the roleplaying sense, it is the cooling power of frost that keeps her lightheaded and less flighty, and her water elemental, Aeros, always helps to strengthen her resolve in battle...

Now, for my hunter. While I don't play her enough to really fuss, she's had her kitty, Void, since they were both thirty-three (ish). It's one of those panthers from STV (yes, she did quest through there), and both she and I love our kitty. (A friend can attest to the fact that I talk at my screen, and at Void, while I'm playing. In fact, I talk to my screen so much that he couldn't figure out whether I was talking to my screen/myself, talking on Vent, or talking to him.) As well, her having a cat is crucial to her roleplay story, due to the fact that panthers are... their creatures, I suppose. They revere them so, and it was just fitting that Cirwen has one and pampers it. With that light touch of the roleplay history, she has to be beast mastery, for that is the spec that pays the most attention to the pet.

So I guess my reasons for either staying a spec or flipping around have a fair bit of lore swirled into it, along with practicality and play style. The different characters, in themselves, keep things interesting, but thinking and understanding why things happen on one character but not another adds a whole different level to the game.

What keeps you playing? Why do you spec the way you do? Is there a story to tell from the why's and how's, or have you never really put much thought into it? I like to think of myself a writer, and everything can have a tale behind it -- consider your characters from that view.

[[ Bah. Stress! If people have been following me on Twitter, they will have seen my spaz a few days ago. It's been rather crazy over here, me shipping myself off to college (parents are *so* supportive), figuring out classes, remembering that I share living quarters with people now, and I shouldn't leave by crap EVERYWHERE... And then remembering to go home and grab a cable so I can hop onto the internet (ew for no wireless)... No WoW for a while, but hopefully, after I send this pos of a laptop over to a friend of mine, he will make it run WoW smoothly. (At the moment, there are days when I dread to run even Firefox. Eep!)

This is the first time I've been able to visit the blog since all of that stuff started. So my apologies for the slight poof there! ]]

Pure and Epic Win

That's all I have to say.

How Not To Upset Your Mage

Just because the mage crowd-control may be the most reliable and least fickle of them all, it does not mean that the mages themselves are the least easy to upset. In fact, in some cases, insulting one's mage may just be the last thing one gets to do... (Until one gets one's body back, that is.) Now how does one avoid irking their mage? Well, without farther ado, here's a list of things one really ought not to do...

• -Never, ever tell them that they are sheeping too slowly. Unless the mob has already hit you, the mage is doing his/her job. Tell them that they're not doing it fast enough will more than likely make them consider letting you get hit by the sheep a few times before sheeping it. That is what we consider slow. Letting them run closer to us so they won't pull a pat waaaaay out there isn't slow -- it's being cautious. Or you pulled while they were drinking and they wanted to get as much mana as possible before they have to sheep and fight. If that's the case... wait for your mage.
  
• -You know that Ritual of Refreshment you helped them summon at the beginning of the instance? Yeah, the one that looked kinda like a summoning portal? Yes, yes. They don't do it for themselves. Or to waste a few seconds of your time. They do it so you can have food/drink whenever you want throughout that whole instance and not have to ask them to stop and make more for little ol' you. Make use of it. We would like to think we didn't spend 17s for you to ask us to make you some individually. You aren't that special.
  
• -Three: If you like the poke the pork, go ahead. They dare you. It's not their concern when the pork decides that it doesn't like it, becomes whatever big, bad, scary thing it once was before they made it into a cute little bit of pork, and kills you. They did warn you, after all, and you should know better.
  
• -Four: Look at three, but change pork into a baah. [ Kestrel says they're "mutton", which works as well. I personally like "baah"s. ]
  

These ought to be able to help you maintain a healthy relationship with your mage. Outside of an instance, however, different rules apply.

• -While asking a random mage for water, keep in mind that he/she is not obliged to stop and create water for you so you won't have to get it from a vendor. If the mage chooses to provide you with refreshments, always thank the mage. Tipping them is a good way to show your thanks, and lets them know that they did not just stop whatever they were doing to save you a few silver, or a run to town, for absolutely nothing.
• -The same applies to a portal, and even more so, for [Rune of Portals] doesn't grow on trees, but, rather, costs them 20s per, not to mention their time.
• -Note: If they're traveling to you, especially, so you can sit around and look at the Auction House/bank/mailbox/finish trading, pay them travel fees to let them know you appreciate their kindness, and, this way, when you are in a tight spot and need their services again, they are more inclined to stop and aid you.

Keeping mages happy will save you a lot of long runs and flights (Darnassus to Stormwind, anywhere, really, to Theramore, from Azeroth to Shattrath) and a bit of gold too, in the long run (for buying food/drink, while not terribly expensive, isn't all that fun to want to spend money on either).

And, once you've befriended them... the chances of them letting you pay them for their services will probably disappear, and they'll offer them for free!

It's a win-win situation all around.

Hooooooooooney, I'm hooooooooome!

I'm done! Free as a bird, and delighted with the knowledge that I will never have to set foot in that place again. (Except, I will anyway due to the fact that I need to go back and get something edited, or, at least, transfer everything I have on there onto a drive before they go and revert to deep freeze and lose everything that I've done in the past year.)

So, with my finishing up school, I suddenly had time for WoW...

And in the first order of business, was, of course, to run a heroic. Kitty, preferably, and I got my wish. Heroic Mr.T, here we come! Two mages, me kittying, a bear, and a paladin healer. Kinda iffy on the tank/healing roles, as most groups that didn't have a paladin (or, at least, a warrior tank) that can eat the fireballs normally doesn't bode well... nor does having a paladin healer, but I wanted to kitty, and kitty I was going to do. We do all right up to Delrissa...

Then we hit trouble.

We got the naga warrior, the rogue, the hunter, and the shaman. Even with two mages, it wasn't pretty. People died. Really, really quickly. Whatever wasn't kept sheeped was being a pain in the rear, and the hunter had fun shooting and stunning the lot of us. Two deaths, and I'm at a 13g repair (having gotten half of them from the second boss), and I offer to bring my mage to help, as it seemed that we weren't going to get the boss down.

I switch over, and we try again, the group being so enthusiastic that we could do it now with three mages.

Aaaaaand... well.

Lets just say that roughly four months of not playing my mage (I spent a lot of time on my druid healing everything, and slowly getting back into feral-ness as well) meant that I forgot a timer that I really, really shouldn't have.

My sheep... which happened to be the rogue.

Now, I won't say that it was that act of forgetfulness that brought the group to another wipe. No.

What did rather do the trick, on top of my sheep running around and killing us, was the fact that the tank never told us the kill order of the sheeps, and I automatically went for star (my normal killing order). I don't know what he was going for, but not something else... and. Well. It left us with two of the mobs up, which, apparently was too much, and we wiped.

Oops? I'm sorry?

They didn't take that too well and that's when half of the group called it quits. The healer and I remained, and we rebuilt the group with two mages and a warlock (I hopped back onto Losse). Got the third boss down no problem this time (and she dropped [Vial of the Sunwell], which the healer already had (although, when I'm going to use it, I don't know. In the really, really challenging stuff? I'm geared enough that nothing is challenging enough that I foresee myself using it, but... well. Good to have, and more stuff to lug around, which is always fun).

Pull before Kael was cake... but Kael himself...

Well, the paladin couldn't keep up with me, as I couldn't eat or do anything really for the fireballs, and, therefore, without enough healing, died... Two times of it and the paladin has to go to Kara... and everyone else leaves with him, for one of the mages and the warlock were his guildies.

And, at that time, I was done. Enough dying, and didn't have the energy to actually find people to do Kael, and, therefore, left myself.

Two voids, three badges, and a shiny new trinket... and around 20g repair altogether (which, for me, is decently high. I don't normally let repairs get past 12g... makes me thankful that I don't have really shiny gear from pretty raid places higher than Kara).

My first experience in WoW in two/three weeks, and I'm already getting sucked into the endless cycle of dailies, instances, repairs, rinse and repeat. (And, occassionally, leveling my baby shaman.)

Is it worth it? Probably not.

Do I have something else I could do with my time? Not really.

Is it addicting? For sure.

Personal Space Issues!

"We will be moving you far far far far away to Major Faction City if you are touching the light." -- GMs.

Well. Lets just say that crowded is an understatement for how terrible it is near the vendor. I took pictures, but those will have to show up later; my home computer is spazzing out from the amount of people here. Can't even sneeze without getting lag. (Heck, can't stand here without things in slow motion.)

So, with all of that said and done, lets see what is on my Shopping List.

2.4 Shopping List

Bear:
[Ring of the Stalwart Protector] - Going to replace my [Ring of Unyielding Force], I believe. Has the same amount of armor as [Violet Signet of the Great Protector]... I'll make up the defense with enchants and play with gear swaps. More armor and adds dodge. I want it.
[Embrace of Everlasting Prowess] - One of the first things on my shopping list. With this chestpiece, I will have gotten rid of my last piece of Heavy Clefthoof, which will make me very happy. Finally.
[Tameless Breeches] - Belongs somewhere decently down the line. [Forestwalker Kilt] is good enough to last me for a while... as a druid, with such a big shopping list, it really ought to!
[Handwraps of the Aggressor] -- And my second on the bear list of gear to get... Will finally be rid of my [Verdant Gloves], which I have had forever. -cheer-

Cat:
[Staff of the Forest Lord] - What druid could resist? Well. What druid that isn't into hard-core raiding could?
[Angelista's Revenge] - Lots better than mine... yummy agility and stamina!
[Belt of the Silent Path] - A bit better than [Dunewind Sash] (okay, more than a bit, but really not enough to make me want to go and buy this... at least at this point in time. Later, possibly... although, LK might have come out by then, with how many badges I need to collect to get my full wish-list.).

Tree:
[Anveena's Touch] - +66 healing on a ring, plus MP5 (okay, not that great for druids, but it's still mana return), plus the stamina bonus...
[Shroud of Nature's Harmony] - I want. It is quite a bit better than [Robes of Summer Flame]. -drools over the +healing and spirit- I think I have a new first-buy, especially as I"m currently resto, not feral... except... it's not a dress. Darn. Still. Too good of an upgrade for me to whine about. How unfortunate. At least it's not bright green and kind of matches.... [ EDIT: Change of mind. [Gown of Spiritual Wonder], while dark green, is still a dress and the stats don't change much from the leather version. Getting this instead. ]
[Gavel of Naaru Blessings] - No MP5, but twice as much healing, not to mention the stamina and intellect increase makes it far superior to my [Gravel of Pure Light], which I've had for freaking forever. I'll take it!

Mage:
[Fused Nethergon Band] - Mmm. I have sucky spell hit for the mage; this ring will help quite a lot!
[Tormented Demonsoul Robes] - For that much crit, I'm going to break my Frozen Shadoweave Set. I would hate doing that, but the crit is just unpassable.
[Corrupted Soulcloth Pantaloons] / [Legwraps of Sweltering Flame] - Hrm. Tough decision! Hit or Crit... Currently I'm wearing [SpellStrike Pants]... I need both, really...
[Boots of Incantations] - Hrm. For the hit, to exchange out the [Frozen Shadoweave Boots] that I am breaking the set for? Yeah, I think so. Sounds good.
[Scryer's Blade of Focus] - Mel's health is ridiculously low. For that much stamina, I'd take the loss of crit... (current being [Blade of the Archmage]].

Geeze. With this kind of list, I'm going to be spending every second up to LK farming for badges. I hate being a druid sometimes... and looking at the amount of STUFF I want for Losse from a badge vendor is one of those times. And I have absolutely no idea what to get first... x_x'

Last notes:

"Smith Hauthaa is having some serious personal space issues at the moment. Please let her have some room. I know you all want to check out the new stuff. But you can back away and do that."

And the Senior Game Master Keynalla has popped in as well: "This is Senior Game Master Keynalla. Everyone within 5 yards of Smith Hauthaa needs to relocate immediately. Failure to comply will result in transportation to another location. Repeated attempts to clutter the NPC may result in further measures to ensure that it does not happen again."

Tune in next time for pictures of the opening, of what a GM wears, and... well... skeletons.

Couple of Notes

It's been a while. Again. I know. Life's been busy, and I've been trying to sort out stuff in my relationships as well... But that's irrelevant.

In WoW:

Now that I've gone resto (as of last night, actually), one of the best pieces of news in feral history (okay, in a while)... On the PTR:

Swipe: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.

This will be absolutely amazing for feral druids, and give those of us (-coughs-me-coughs-) a fantastic reason to use swipe more! This also applies to Multi-Shot (hunters), Avenger's Shield (paladins), Chain Lightning (shamans), Felguard Cleave (warlocks), and Cleave (warriors). Which means, as BBB has pointed out, no more mages (again, such as myself) hating the group because SOMEONE broke their sheep on accident! Okay. It'll probably still happen as there are still idiots out there, but... Less so! Oh, happy days for the druid AND the mage!

And the best thing that has come to the land of WoW music for a while has to go to BBB for his adaptation of a Johnny Cash song... (Click the link to his site to hear!)

Right. Enough with the Big Bear Butt. Really. Just because I am missing my own (although the tree is very pretty!) doesn't mean I have to haunt BBB's blog!

A-yup. That's right. I am a tree now, and am slowly starting to realize that I can heal heroics. (Something I should have known ages ago, as my gear hasn't improved too much since I last was resto, but ah well). Here are my stats as a resto druid:
Stamina: 411
Intellect: 494
Spirit: 526
+Healing: 1302
Mana Regen: 341

With Mark of the Wild and my [Nightstaff of the Everliving] (the enchant is 30 intellect) on. With my [Gavel of Pure Light] (and +81 healing) and [Windcaller's Orb], it would be:
Stamina: 390
Intellect: 458
Spirit: 477
+Healing: 1398
Mana Regen: 321

So really, the Nightstaff is better, and would be even better had I enchanted it with healing, but lack of materials for that, and now, lack of actually being able to farm well as a resto druid... well. It probably won't get done. Besides. I worked hard for those two exalted items...

My Job. Not Yours.

Hm. Ever come across someone who questions your way of tanking, although, nobody is dying (unless they do something stupid, like pull massive aggro before the tank even gets to hit the mob)? Well.

It's not appreciated. Really.

I tank fine. My guild considers my tanking as "well". Yet, today, in Heroic Ramparts, I had a ret pally ask me why I wasn't swiping to multi-target tank. He said that he had a feral druid himself. That was all good and well. I'm open to suggestions.

Just not people questioning how I tank, insinuating that I don't do it well enough.

For me, multi-mob tanking involves a focus target, a main target, and, if I really must have a third target, a target that one must NEVER hit until we kill the others. Hit it, and it's not my problem anymore, it's yours. I'm not going to watch my bear bum run after something that should be on me to start with, and is on you instead because you wanted to break the damage meters. Sorry.

Pulling. Starfire pull the third mob, moonfire (if I have time) the focus mob, drop to bear before they come and eat my face, mange and lacerate the main target (skull, always), then lacerate twice the focus target (without shifting my target from the main target -- my macro for that is rather complicated, but works perfectly fine for me. I'll share it the next time I'm in game, or if I recall where I actually found it). Swipe once for just in case, and settle down with mangling when it's up, lacerating the focus target every few seconds, and mauling/lacerating the main target to death. Main target down, the third mob gets focused, and rinse and repeat. Maybe a few extra swipes if I have a lot of rage, but not normally.

Might be bulky for some, but it works well enough for me, and as long as the group is doing what it should be and only killing the target marked, I have aggro and no one else. I don't exactly know why I don't swipe a lot -- it just never fitted into my rotation, and if I did employ it, it is for groups bigger than three, where I play the "love me" game, sending attacks everywhere, and, somehow, all of the mobs do love me

My response? "As long as the rest of you aren't dying every pull because I am a crappy tank, I think I tank well enough, thank you. Unless you would like to bring your druid to tank? I'd be more than happy to DPS in your spot." (Okay, perhaps not quite as eloquently, but the essence said just that. "You guys aren't dying unless you do something stupid, so unless you want to tank...".)

He didn't say anything after that, and we got through the instance pretty much without too much incident. Except for that one pull of the pat where I got no heals (still not quite sure how that happened -- our healer and everyone else had at least 90% mana, if not full, and I died faster than a mage blinks).

No belt. Again. But I did manage to upgrade my ring to [Averinn's Ring of Slaying], so I guess I can't really whine (from what, I shan't say. The embarrassment would kill me. I will note that it was a green... that I had for a really... really... long time). But I really am beginning to wonder whether [Tree-Mender's Belt] actually exists. Ah, well. Maybe next time. We can keep hoping!

The same healer and I went to Heroic Slave Pens afterwards as well, as he needed two more badges, and I wanted the trinket ([Quagmirran's Eye]) for my mage. Didn't drop. Predictably, but still. (Makes one wonder -- what on earth does he still need his eye for anyway? And... I want an eye that is that special! o.o).

The loot gods are quite unkind...

So, what else is new?

Druids, Raids, and Spellblades

Raids. Ah, wonderful things. Really.

Lets backtrack a bit. A while back, I told my raid leader that I won't be able to make most of their raid times due to school and work. He accepted that, and replaced me with a darn good druid I've grouped with before. That part was all right. Skipping forward to Tuesday night...

"Hey, is Kara going on tonight?"
"Yes. Want to bring your mage?" [ It is my druid that goes with this raid. ]
"The mage goes with GWX-1."
"Right."
"But I could bring Losse."
"Your replacement is here this week, and we don't need any healers."
"Okay..."
[ The conversation continues as I log to my hunter, also in the guild. ]
"What kind of DPS do you need?"
"Not a hunter. Or a rogue."
"Losse isn't either, and she could backup heal."
">.< I'm a druid."
"I'm sorry."
I didn't respond.

Forwarding on. Wednesday night came rolling around. My mage's raid. Normally we're down to looking for one melee DPS, and the two weeks before that I had been able to supply one. This week, I came up with a mage friend of mine. I offered to bring Losse instead, so they would gain a mage and a melee DPS. (Yes, I suppose that not going with the guild paid off. That, and "karma" came and bit Vese, the co-guild leader, because something -- I don't recall what -- from the Prince dropped that Sol, our guild leader wanted and the shadow priest outrolled him for it). They took it, and we went. Things went fine, more or less. A few deaths here and there, but nothing noteworthy (nor stuff I recall a week and a half later, rewriting this part of the blog for the third time... I have yet to figure out Blogger all of the way, and this post seems to give it a lot of trouble).

So we get to right outside of the Opera Stage. The sets of guards out there were being tanked by our warrior MT, and OT'd by the raid's normal feral druid. The MT gets frozen, and, instead of the OT getting aggro, the rogue and I did. The rogue, being just that, did his fancy move that got rid of aggro, and it came to eat my face. I hopped into bear form to absorb the damage, and started to maul away with an occasional mangle to continue my damage while waiting for the OT to pull him off of me and making it easier for the healers to keep me up. I ended up tanking that one until it died.

After that pull, he mentions, "bear form and mangle creates aggro".
"As a druid, I know that. Bear form allowed it to die, instead of me dying. And it's easier on the healers."
The others chimed in with, "it's always the DPS's fault if they get aggro".
I had absolutely nothing to say to them either, except, "I wouldn't be able to pull aggro if he had Omen so I knew when I was close to passing him."

This was true. The OT didn't have a threat meter. Heck. The MT didn't either until we brought it up one day and convinced him to do it. Why the OT didn't is beyond me. Also, I waited four seconds for the tanks to get aggro before I started attacking, and that is normally ample time for them to get more hate than me shredding their back ever gains in that amount of time. Oh, sure, it is the DPS's job to watch their aggro, but I would also like to mention that it is the tank's fault if he doesn't generate enough aggro (how he doesn't is beyond me. I had a DPS reach seven hundred threat per second or so (far greater than what I was causing as a cat, I would guess) and he couldn't pull aggro off of me, and yet...)

The raid leader (also the MT) told us to stop, and we continued on getting Opera (yay. First time in at least a month that we -haven't- gotten Romulo and Julianne! (Wizard of Oz).) and slowly made our way up to Prince without too many more difficulties. (At least, none I care to recall). We got him down, and [Nathrezim Mindblade] dropped.

My mage friend is practically jumping around, excited. The other caster, a warlock, already had it, so it seemed like she would get it.

Our loot is what I call the "three tier system". Everyone gets lumped into a role -- DPS, tanking, caster, healing. The people in those roles get priority in rolling. That's tier one. Counts for your epic of the night.

Open roll -- anyone can roll of they can use it. Tier two. Counts as the epic of the night as well.

Trash roll -- last roll before shards. Doesn't count as an epic for the night. This is where you roll if you got something earlier as well. Anyone can roll for any reason -- roleplaying and the like (as Feathermoon is a roleplaying server).

So my friend already wasted his priority roll, so he had to wait for the trash roll. No one rolled under priority or open, so it was down to the trash roll. He rolled.

Then the feral druid off tank rolled.

And he beat him.

So. The feral druid that was a perm. off-tank got the blade.

Left me and my friend upset. Thankfully, that was the last kill of the night, and we both left. I mentioned to the raid leader (and our hunter, who was in the chat with us), that I found it ridiculous. He agreed, and the hunter did too. However, he also mentioned that he was irked that my friend wanted two epics from the raid.

...

-blink- He's a feral druid. He's a mage. Isn't it common sense that casters should have priority on caster gear no matter what? I guess not.

He has put the druid on ignore. I can't, as I raid with him, but I wish I could. It was quite a jerkish move.

Did I mention that I loved raiding?