Temperamental Tanks!

This is going to be a quick post, but I couldn't not share this story with you guys....

Since I spent the weekend leveling my mage's jewel crafting (which was horrifically painful, mind you), I thought I'd try and queue in for a quick dungeon before bed.

Well, after waiting in the queue for nearly 20 minutes I finally got into a group for Maraudon:  Purple Crystals.

It's a really quick run, not a whole lot of trash to deal with.  I was pretty excited.

I should have known that my happiness would be short lived, however.

After our paladin tank made the first pull...

[Party] [Priesthealer]:  Can I please have Wisdom?
[Party] [Priesthealer]:  NEED WIS
The tank, myself, the warlock and the hunter are trying desperately at this point to make sure the mobs die without the tank dying, since the healer was standing there refusing to heal. 
[Party] [Priesthealer]:  This tank is going to learn to listen one way or the other...
Paladintank is nearly dead.  I throw gift of the Naaru on him and freeze the mobs in place so that he can get a holy light off on himself...
[Party] [Priesthealer]:  Failtank needs to learn to give his healer wisdom...
The mobs are all dead.  Paladin tank runs up and throws Blessing of Wisdom on the priest healer.
[Party] [Paladintank]:  Here!  HERE is your f*cking WISDOM!!! Happy now?!  Happy?! 
Paladintank leaves the party. 

As soon as he left, the priest went off in party chat about him being a failure of a tank, to which I responded with:  "You, sir, are a complete and utter jackass.  Good luck guys." 

I ended up leaving the party...but I wished I had caught the paladin's name and server in retrospect.  I'd give him a high five!  

Not sure if any of you have been subjected to the "Dungeon Finder" grade moron yet...if you haven't then you are blessed.  It seems like these folks assume that just because we're not all from the same server then they get to just be complete tools in group and there are no consequences.  It reminds me of another Dungeon Finder story...

While I was on my warlock, I got queued into Utgarde Keep.  The group was made up of a paladin tank, myself, a mage, a druid healer and an enhancement shaman.

Note that I am telling you that this shaman was enhancement.  Keep this in mind.


Now, we got to the second bosses and a fist weapon dropped.  Obviously, the shaman rolled need because it had agility and stam or some such thing on it and it was an instant upgrade for him.  Well, our healer got all enraged over it and for the entire rest of the instance bitched and complained about wanting the shaman to trade it to him.  I even told him that my MAIN is a feral/resto druid and that we never, ever use fist weapons.  It isn't that we "can't", it's just that it makes absolutely zero sense since there are no feral off-hands and we can't dual-wield. 

Anyway, when we got to the final boss, the healer warned the shaman one last time that this was his last chance to trade it or we wouldn't like the consequences.


Well, right as we pulled, the healer left group and hit his hearthstone - wiping the group.

Nice...


A few days later, I had queued in again on my warlock and ended up in The Nexxus.  Lo and behold - Idiot Tree was there.  I "graciously" bowed out of the group - saying that I had zero intention of running with this healer because of what he did in the last run I had been in with him...I was asked what he did and informed the group.

I have no idea if they kept him or not.  But I won't run with him anymore.  Anyone who would wipe a group for such a stupid reason isn't worth the frustration.  I'd rather spend another hour in the queue than to run with an idiot like that...

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that, while the cross-server dungeon finder does allow for a little bit of anonymity,  people DO remember you if you've done something exceptionally rude or dumb or have screwed an entire group.  A little courtesy goes a long way.  Odds are low that you'll ever run into the same players again - but why risk it?  Just play your role as well as you can and be nice to everyone.  That way you don't have people calling you out every time they run into you in a group over one stupid thing you did. 

TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL CROSS SERVER

DUNGEON FINDER GROUPING (5 Mans)

(Things your mom should have taught you...)
1.  BE NICE
2.  Do your best - play your role as intended.  If you're not a tank, don't pull.  
3.  For the sake of everyone's sanity - Don't go afk a million times in the run.
4.  BE POLITE.  Ask before rolling need, ESPECIALLY if it's for an off-spec.  Say please, thank you, and congratulate people on achievements, leveling, or loot wins.  
5.  Don't purposely screw your group over.
6.  Don't be a douchebag.  Constructive criticism is fine when presented politely.  Being a douchebag is totally unnecessary.  
7.  Exercise good manners overall and life with your puggle will be so much better.  I promise.

Mount Farming Update

Well, I suppose this update is a little overdue.  I haven't had the time to post recently which has been bugging me quite a bit, so I decided I'd post today come hell or high water.

If you're wondering, both hell and high water are currently trying to prevent me from posting today.  *digs herself out of a mountain of paperwork*  Just thought I'd share...

Anyway...

I have a riddle for you.  

"I'm Swift.  I'm Zulian.  I'm a tiger.  What else am I?"

DES'S NEW MOUNT!  WAAHOOOOOOO!

Sunday was the strangest day I've had in a long time.  I woke up with this nagging feeling that I wanted to run Zul'Gurub.  I wanted to run it ALL day long.  I wandered around the house, did a little laundry, worked on some music stuff with my husband and still wanted to run it really, really bad!  Finally, around 8pm I convinced him to join a group with me so we could at least try to get one of the mounts.

Out of habit, we took on Bloodlord Mandokir first.  No raptor.  I was a little bummed because I know my husband would like to get the two mounts from ZG also and I had seriously hoped it would drop for him.  No such luck though...

After that we made our way over to High Priest Thekal.  With my husband's kitty dps, the fight was pretty quick...and then...

I think I might have actually shed a tear of joy when this popped up...I kid you not.  Obviously I rolled need on it, and really expected my husband to do the same.  Unfortunately...or well...fortunately I guess for me...he passed on it.  He said that it was the least he could do considering how obsessively I've been farming mounts for the past few months.  He's so sweet.  If you're wondering, yes, I would have passed for him too.  I asked him about 300 times if he wanted to change his mind before I learned the mount - to the point where he got really annoyed at me asking and told me to shush up and learn the damn thing already.  So I did.

It will forever be one of my favorite mounts - not only because of the fact that it's a rare drop and a much coveted mount...but because my husband was so sweet and gave it to me.  I'm sure it killed him a little inside.  It made me a little sad that we didn't just roll for it like we're supposed to.  I don't have a problem farming for mounts and it's nice to be able to go tank stuff and have him get nifty things too.  I'll have to start badgering him about going on mount runs with me.

At any rate, the only "old world" mount I have left to snag from a raid or instance is the one from Karazhan.  That's going to go much more slowly on account of only being able to go in there once a week.  I'm hoping that it drops before the expansion hits.

As far as my Mountain O' Mounts achievement, I'm currently at 90/100.  I need to farm up some gold to start making more mount purchases.  There are few I could get soon, but I need to first get my tier 10 upgrades and gem and enchant those - and that's not gonna be cheap, unfortunately.  Speaking of which, I need to go update my mount tracker list.  

*  Here's the link to the mount tracker I posted earlier:  ALLIANCE MOUNT LIST (that doesn't require ridiculously amazing raid groups/raid achieves)

I will post some screen shots when I get home hopefully of the tiger and that sexy little achievement flash :)

With love, 

Des

58 Runs Later...

It may have taken me 58 runs, but it paid off.  That's right!  Kael'thas finally dropped his Swift White Hawkstrider for me last Thursday!  YAY!

It's very reminiscent of the Chocobo from Final Fantasy...but I digress.  I'm so excited that it FINALLY dropped.  I'll post some screen shots here in a few minutes.  

You know, if he wouldn't have dropped it during that run, I would have been frustrated.  It wasn't a normal run for me.  I had just updated my spec for feral tanking and I didn't have the AoE damage reduction in kitty form that I normally had.  I was taking damage from his stupid phoenix like you can't even believe!  I switched to bear in time to hit frenzied regen and pop a few other cooldowns to stay alive, but I never did manage to kill his phoenix before the Anti-Gravity phase...

The damage that bird dishes out isn't fun.  I found myself spam healing myself til I was oom during the first anti-gravity phase, so I never got a chance to take out his phoenix until after the second liftoff.  Once I landed I killed the phoenix egg and then after the third round I managed to take out Kael'thas.  Phew!  I was pretty close to dying, as you'll see in the screenshots.  

The fight didn't go as smooth as it normally does, so...being the superstitious bear I am I had a feeling he was going to drop something cool.  I just didn't expect it to be the mount.  Anyway, enough blah blah about the fight.  Here are the screenies:

Blocked

I have had a crazy writer's block lately, which is why I haven't been posting.  I sat down here and stared at the blank page almost every day for the past...few weeks.  It's been incredibly frustrating.  It isn't that I've had a huge lack of things to write about...I think I've just had my mind wrapped up in too many things and you know how it is when you work for a living.  Things at work have been pretty crazy as of late.  Crazy enough that I just can't think straight right now...

But, this post is long overdue and damnit...I will write SOMETHING if it kills me.  (So, what I'm saying here is that I apologize in advance for the post to come...it's probably not going to make any sense and more than likely...it will be painfully boring.  I'm sorry.)

Not a whole lot of excitement recently.  I got to tank for the new guild for the first time last night.  I'm not sure if they knew I was still in vent or not, but I overheard them talking about my tanking.  Surprisingly, they had a lot of really nice things to say about it!  YAY!  Maybe if I start working on my tier 10 bear gear I can hopefully tank some ICC for them sometime.  It'll be a nice change from healing for sure.  I get stressed about tanking because I am always terrified of losing control of my targets or being too squishy or not moving correctly...very stressful for me.  But if they're willing to let me tank for them, I'll put more effort into getting some nice tanking upgrades.

Oh!  And I'll update my tanking spec.  Turns out I never switched it from my kitty/bear leveling spec...and I didn't really realize that until last night when I got pulled in to tank Vault of Archavon (10m).  It was actually pretty fun and reminded me about all the things I missed about tanking.  So, here's to hoping I can snag more tanking opportunities in the near future.

Let's see...what else...what else...

Hmm...Oh!  My warlock, yes.  Finally got her to Northrend.  Unfortunately, I started off in Borean Tundra.  I'm not a huge, huge fan of Borean Tundra but it'll do until she's a high enough level to go hit some of the other zones to unlock all of the factions she's going to need.  Currently she's about 73% of the way through level 68.  Still an Affliction spec, but I'm starting to pick up a few Destruction talents to help out.  The 2 minute shadow bolt cast is killing me...


I guess that's really about all I have to say.  Still no luck on the mounts I've been farming lately.  I'll post if any drop. :)  


I guess that's it.  


I'm praying this stupid writer's block goes away soon so I can get back to regularly posting.


With love,

Des