Monday, October 26, 2009

PUGs and Laziness

Server: Khadgar (US) - PVE
Character: Keleili (80 Draenai Priest)
Others: Keliki (60 Nightelf Druid)
Achievements:
  • The Hallowed title
  • Chasing Marcia Achievement
  • Keliki hit 60!
  • Keliki learned her flight form!

On Sunday, I hooked up with a PUG for Heroic Trial of the Champions. It was myself (priest), hunter, pally (tank), mage, and balance druid. Hmm, I thought. Mostly ranged. This should be EZ-mode.

Well, we made it through without any wipes. No wipes, but there were plenty of deaths. The catch is that everyone in the group was VERY well geared. So, what went wrong?

1. No one bothered to mark the champions during the joust. We were all picking on different champions, which allowed the different champions to pick us off one by one. Luckily for us, it's a short flight from the graveyard back into the instance. I was one of the unfortunate many, and I admit it was kind of hysterical to watch me get dismounted by one champion, then immediately trampled by another before I could hit the ground. So, I died and hurried back in, grabbed another mount and made sure to stand on the tauren champion so that he couldn't remount. Even then, with 2 champions left, it took us several minutes to finish them off, leaving me to wonder why. What took us so long?

Then the champion fights began. We were lucky enough to get the troll AND the orc. Joy. However, I took comfort in the fact that we had twice as much ranged as melee. This should be totally easy. Besides, at least we marked them?

2. Then the pally decided not to move the champions out of the poison. *sigh* I healed him through it, but it was close, and the hunter's pet died. Then the mage started taking damage. WTF? looked up from my health bars and realized... the mage was standing in poison. Just... standing there... casting. Not bothering to move. Hellooooooooo?! I almost let her die - because my priority is keeping the tank up. But she survived. (Darn.) Then the hunter started taking damage. When I realized that HE was standing in the poison - not bothering to get out of it - I actually had to do a double take and make sure this was the hunter and not the mage. Surely I wouldn't have 2 stupid people in one PUG? I know, I know, that's a silly thing to ask, but if you are geared enough to kick butt in H ToC, then one would assume that you know how to handle the fights? Again, I almost let him die, healing the pally first (because, of course, the pally is still standing in the poison), but the hunter lived, as well.

So, while we finished the champions without anyone except the hunter's pet dying, I was left exhausted and... baffled. Did I have party members who were being totally lazy or did they seriously not know how to handle the fights? The problem is that I can't imagine how they could not know. I mean for one thing, if you have DBM, it screams at you - "POISON! MOVE YOUR ASS NOW!" How can you miss that? And for another thing, if you are watching your screen at all, you should notice that there is a BIG GREEN BLOB at your feet. In what universe does BIG GREEN BLOB = HAPPY BUNNY LAND?

So, why, you ask, does it matter whether my party members were stupid or lazy? Because, I have to admit, that it actually makes me angrier to think that they must have been lazy. Being lazy means intentionally making me work harder. Yes, I am well geared. Yes, I *can* heal you through it. But comparing the effort it takes me to heal you through it vs. the effort it takes you to MOVE... let's re-evaluate this, shall we? >.<

I'm not spitting mad or anything, but I admit to being slightly annoyed. Rude people tend to annoy me, and the way I see it, the only explanation can be that my party was being lazy and inconsiderate and rude. Of course, it didn't end there.

3) Luckily for us, we got Eadric. EZ-mode, right? So, why, pray-tell, were my party members getting stunned by Eadric's flash of light? How hard is it to turn around during that attack? Honestly? Every single flash caught at least 2 people stunned. Honestly? *facepalm*

4) Do you think the Black Knight would have gone any better? Hah, you'd be wrong. Phase 2 was a nightmare. I don't think there was any AOE, which is strange considering we had a hunter, a mage, a balance druid and a pally. O.o I spent the entire time getting ganked by ghouls with my fade on cooldown (because I was using it every chance I had), and the rest of the party was equally fighting off ghouls one by one. ONE BY ONE. It was so bad, that there were so many ghouls left that the BK couldn't explode them all, leaving one to continue to beat on ME (ME! THE HEALER!) during Phase 3. Did anyone bother to take it off me? No. When the BK went down (miraculously, with only 1 death), I was still getting beat on by that ghoul while the party looted the BK. *facepalm*

I left the group feeling stressed, exhausted and... baffled. What was up with those people? Did they think it was funny? Were they so confident in their leet abilities that they could be lazy and let the healer take all the stress? The thing is, the people were nice. But the way they played their classes and the way they handled the fights... I was not impressed.

The lesson to take away is this - please. On behalf of all of the healers out there. DON'T BE LAZY! Unless you know the healer and have made arrangements with him/her ahead of time, don't assume that leet gear overrides proper playing tactics!!

Friday, October 23, 2009

Halloween and the RNG of FAIL. :(

Server: Khadgar (US) - PVE
Character: Keleili (80 Draenai priest)
Accomplishments:
  • Masquerade and all basic Halloween achievements EXCEPT the sinister one
  • Some exploration
  • Some PVP
  • A couple new pets

It's been almost a week of Halloween celebrations, and I'm beginning to get worried that I won't get my title. I have done everything else, but I cannot seem to find the hallowed hood, or whatever it's called. I have never even seen the thing drop. I've killed the headless horseman every day, and I've trick-or-treated every hour. I've even gone back to do the Saving Halloween quests every day because there's a chance that those rewards can drop it. Nothing. I don't even know what it looks like, and I only have one more week to see it drop and then win it. *sigh* I see other people in the guild get everything they need and I try oh-so-hard to be excited for them, but why-oh-why does the RNG hate me so?!

Meanwhile, I had a frustrating experience with the Headless Horseman when I was running with friends, so I'm only running it with PUGs now. It works better that way - there are no hard feelings if you roll on something that someone else wanted, and you don't have to worry about never having it out when they are around (because it's likely that you'll never seen them again).

My other issue with Halloween is... the candy. WHY is there SO FREAKING MUCH OF IT?! I mean, seriously, I must have collected almost 100 of each type of candy from Trick-or-Treating around Azeroth, and when I kill the headless horseman, I get 100 pieces of tricky treats every day. Then when you add in the wands and the broom (WHY isn't it a proper mount like everything else?!), you can find yourself spending almost 15 slots of space in your bags on halloween stuff. My off-set gear doesn't even take up that much space!!! It's rediculous, honestly.

My bank isn't looking much better. I'm going to have to totally clean it out one of these days. But every time I try to, I... ugh... I look at things and go, "What if I need this some day?!" And then there's the holiday stuff that I've been saving from previous years, the Naaru know why. I have preserved holly and valentines and fireworks... And, yeah, 3 masks. Because I have to collect 30-some-odd masks to get the major mask achievement, and that's going to take me several years.

I guess that's my mission this weekend. Spring cleaning of the bank. Possible tactics include:

  • Turn all of my cloth (I have 1 stack of each type) into bolts. Buy enough cloth to make a stack of 20 bolts of each type, then sell the rest. Don't keep any more than 1 stack of bolts of cloth of each type. That should be plenty to make something for a lowby if I need to. This will help condense things, because I currently have a stack of bolts and a stack of cloth for each type.
  • Get rid of stuff that I don't *have* to have for events. Used valentines tokens? Gone. Fireworks? Do I really need those? Well, I could use them at guild events... OMG, I'm such a packrat! No! Get rid of them!!
  • Cooking materials for anything less than Northrend recipes. I've gotten credit for the recipes, not get rid of the food.
  • Old gear (like, from Kara). GET RID OF IT!

This isn't going to be pretty. I need to use the "if I haven't touched this in 1 year, I will never again touch it, so make it go away" philosophy. Wish me luck?