Who Knew PUGs Could Be Fun?

So Cawti's been having a lot of fun in Ghostlands, but at some point all good things come to an end. In this case, it was at level 20, after finishing all the quests there, and starting on the level 20 Paladin quest chain for my Blood-Tempered Ranseur. I'd gotten the insignia without any problem on my own, and was then faced with getting 3 different items from 3 different instances: RFC, SFK and BFD.

So, into LFG-land I go, starting with RFC before I level up and get too high for it. There 2 druids, 1 rogue and 1 warlock on LFG, and in 5 minutes I had a full group for the instance. The druids took it upon themselves to tank and heal, so I was basically in charge of killing things and helping out if anything goes wrong (which it didn't). One full instance clear later, our tank had to leave but the rest of us wanted more, so the next stop was SFK. I tanked, the druid healed, and all in all we had a blast.

Such a blast, that it was a shame to stop there. At this point, going to BFD for the Corrupted Kor Gem would have been great, but we ended up doing WC instead. But we were just having so much fun that I wasn't gonna let 1 quest item get in the way. There were also some nice gear drops along the way, but that's secondary...

By the time we finished up with that it was really late so we added each other as friends and called it a night. So that was a great evening - Cawti's 23, missing just 1 more item for her quest, and most importantly made new friends. You see? PUGs can be fun sometimes.

Slim Pickings

Don't have too much to talk about. Again. This post-a-day schedule is tough. Then again, if I don't stick with it, I probably won't stick with the blog, so...

Anyway, if you remember, I was going to start an "experiment" where I only do instances with Enara. Why? Well, why not? But, seriously, it's a combination of several things:

1. I want to take a break from the "usual" quests that I already know by heart. Since I don't have any high level Hordies, I haven't seen any of the higher level dungeon quests on that side, and even the lower level ones I don't know that well.
2. I'd like to see if I get much better gear that way.
3. I wonder if there's "enough" there to make it possible to level that way. Of course, if you just grind an instance, you still get XP for kills, but I hate grinding - the plan is to only run an instance until I'm done with all its quests.

I'm not sure it'll stick, though. For one, finding groups is a bit of a problem for me (time difference and all that). Second, I'm pretty sure it'll hurt my Herbalism and Alchemy (and, as a result, my wallet). But I can at least try...

So, first things first, last night I ran Enara around getting all the quests for RFC, WC and SFK. On the way, I managed to find a new quest I hadn't known before, specific to Herbalists. Yay me. Yeah, I know it's not related to any instance, but still - I'm not going to turn down fun when I encounter it.

After some running around the Barrens, killing raptors and exploring some oases on my way, I finally ended up in Thunder Bluff to get finish getting all my quests. Next up, finding a group. Of course, I'm level 21 and the instance is officially for levels 13-20, so no LFG tool for me. *sigh* Well, I joined the LFG channel and started looking... Not too many people anxious to go in, but I finally found a level 22 Hunter wanting to get a sword from Taragaman (I can only assume it was the Cursed Felblade he was after). So in we went, and at some point added a Blood Elf Rogue to our ranks ("only" level 18, but decked out in AH blues) as well.

It went pretty well until we reached Taragaman. He didn't drop the sword, and what a surprise - the Hunter* just had to go because something came up. The rogue only had the quests from Thunder Bluff, so we finished those and called it a night. Hopefully, I'll get at least RFC done with tonight, and maybe get started on WC.

So the run, however short it was, at least gave me chance to think about how I performed in a role I'm not entirely used to in instances, and with the Nostromo thrown in just to mix things up. Things I've noticed:

• My Pyroblast/Fireball macro, while pretty good had some problems with resetting the cast sequence. I threw a "reset=combat" into the mix, so we'll see if it fixes it (or kills it completely). There is also the fact that since I wasn't the one doing the pulling I wouldn't be "in combat" and threw around somt Pyroblasts where they were entirely unnecessary. Luckily, using the Nostromo for running a macro with a modifier seemed to work pretty well**, allowing me to override the Pyroblast (when I remembered to, that is).
  
• My sheep macro is broken. It didn't clear the focus when it was dead, causing some fumbling around to set it manually when the old corpses still hadn't despawned. I also though the modifier to force it to clear focus didn't work, only to realize that I hadn't actually mapped that button to press the modifier on the Nostromo. Both (the macro and the Nostromo mappings) have been fixed, and I'll check whether they actually work tonight.
  
• Fireball crits are really problematic when you have a Rogue tank that can't hold aggro that well. And that leads us to the next point.
  
• I completely forgot about Mana Shield when I pulled aggro. Might have prevented the 1 or 2 deaths in there.
  

So that's it. Nothing too impressive, but then nothing bad either. We'll see how this experiment comes along in the weeks to come.

That RL Thing

There are going to be some changes in my personal life and work, in the near future, which will probably effect my posting in some way. Just to let you know, so you don't freak out if a weekday comes along and I don't post anything...



* I'm still debating whether he was a huntard or just cocky - he ran with AotC the whole time and would often run in to melee mobs. He was also wearing a Bloody Apron - although I agree the +sta on it is pretty good, wearing cloth instead of leather means you take more damage, so it's probably not the best trade-off in the world. I could be wrong, though. And, of course, there's the possibility that it was just better than what he had before (if he had a level 10 white chest with less armor than the apron, then it's understandable).

** I promise another post on the Nostromo once I've had a chance to try it out on at least another character. As I said, I have to figure out a way to work "stance" switching into it as well. Current plan is to play around with Mokla this weekend and have the post up early next week.

I just don't get some people

So there I was, running through the barrens, when looking over my quest list I realized I had pretty much all the Wailing Caverns quests (except for the 2 you can get from the "skull"), and figured I might as well give it a shot - gear drops and quest rewards in the Barrens are nothing to write home about, so I figured it would be a nice boost (no, not that kind of boost - I'm poor, remember?). Especially if I can finish the "main" quest and get my hands (or at least one hand) on Wingblade.

So into LFG-land I go, and after a couple of false starts (groups that disbanded without making it to the meeting stone) finally got a seemingly nice group. We had a mage, a rogue, another warrior (who was higher level and had very nice gear) wanting to tank and a paladin to tend our wounds.

So I happily go in, brandishing my 2 axes when I notice our mighty warrior is tanking with a 2-handed sword in Battle Stance. Hey, if it works... Except it doesn't - pally and mage keep stealing aggro. Luckily, our tin can of healing could take care of himself, and keep us all alive.

We take down Cobrahn without much trouble, and go looking for Anacondra. Just as we find her, our Rogue goes AFK for a couple of minutes, but our fearless warrior is getting itchy. So in he goes, charging the boss dragging us all into the fight alongside him. Anacondra dies, with the Rogue AFK. Our warrior suddenly grows a conscience, and decides not to loot until the Rogue comes back. Now, I don't know WWBRKD, but I'm not about to let her despawn taking my gem with her. So we vote, and decide to loot. So of course she drops the Serpent's Shoulders, that only the Rogue could use. Pally gets upset that we screwed the rogue and hearths away, leaving us with no healer. But that's not enough for such determined adventurers as us, oh no...

We do some looking and find us a priest willing to heal. Great! We reset the instance, so the priest doesn't miss anything and go in once again. 1 or 2 fights into the instance and it's getting more and more obvious that our big cow just can't get the job done and protect our pajamas-wearing friends. So what does one do? Not wanting to cause too much drama, I quietly equip my shield, and take over tanking myself. A little harder than it used to be back in Dorni's days, but still I think I did a fairly decent job (we managed to keep a pretty good pace, and no clothies were harmed during filming). So, we kill Cobrahn again, and this time wait with Anacondra in favor of the other bosses.

Fast-forward to the mighty Lord Pythas. Standing there, so full of himslef, with a druid and a tree elemantal guarding him. Warrior suggests sapping the druid and polymorphing the elemental - nope, can't do that. OK, so sap the elemental and sheep the druid - no, not gonna happen either. So we settle for just sapping the druid. Rogue saps, and our mage sheeps Pythas (who didn't resist, yippee!). I dutifully head for elemental, when our cow figures it's OK for him to go ahead and charge the boss (bye bye little harmless sheep). He then goes on to Thunder Clap - completely useless against casters since it only slows down attacks, but it does have the added benefit of breaking sap. Of course, that wasn't a big enough mess, so the instance threw in a patrol to speed things along. So big cow is fighting 2 druids, I'm tanking a tree and a druid, and the mage and rogue are doing their thing, when the warrior has the nerve to ask "Why don't you heal me?" (no, he didn't use proper spelling and grammar, I apologize for the inaccuracy) after getting us into this whole mess. Still, it wasn't that bad... We only had 1 casualty (guess who? of course, me), and after the res went on our merry way. So what do you think, smooth sailing from here on? Of course not...

We go on a little further, and the rogue has to go. No biggie, we should be able to 4-man it, so we keep going. Then we get into a fight, fairly ordinary, no near-deaths, no runners, no patrols, nothing. Except that for whatever reason, the priest decides to shield me. I wasn't about to die or anything, so I'm not sure why I deserved such special treatment. I politely ask "Please don't shield me, I can't get enough rage that way", and then the world exploded. OK, so it didn't, but we got into an argument about whether he should or shouldn't shield me, ending in him leaving the group and HSing out (kind if a waste, isn't it? I mean, if you leave the group you'll get kicked to your home anyway, so why waste the HS?). And it wasn't that big of an argument. No name calling, no one was being rude, it was a fairly intelligent argument (well, not including the stupid remarks from the cow about why I didn't let him tank seeing that he has a better weapon)... But he just up and left. Would someone mind telling WTF? I mean, OK, it's not the nicest thing to do, telling someone how to play their class, but what has the world (of warcraft) come to, if you can't even make one small suggestion without breaking up the party?

Needless to say, it didn't go very far from there... We got through a few more fights, and after dying we decided to call it at that. So I finished up whatever quests I could outside the instance (Trouble at the Docks, Serpentbloom, and Deviate Hides) and went my own way. A shame, though. The 2 quests that would have given me useful rewards remain 3/4 done... I still need the final gem and to kill me some Deviate Dreadfangs. Missed the "waking up Naralex" thing too... :S

Oh, well, there'll always be other chances.