Embarrassment

Things were going so well.

In a new guild.

Making progress with a nearly full roster.

Then the healers that were supposed to join disappeared.

And so did the next pair.

And the next.

So we slogged through a few weeks of Horridon with various PUG healers; all having their own strats, their own opinions, and apparently all having the worst internet connections in the world (judging by the number of “disconnects” we endured).

The funniest thing about all the PUGS we went through, was that the guild was actually functioning appropriately – we were in the right spots and the right time attacking the right targets, it was the PUGs that were all over the board in skill.

And then it happened.

Tir made a tough decision, but one which I am very proud of him for: there are more important things in life than progression raiding.

He told his 25-man guild that he didn’t have the time available to devote to raiding 4+ nights a week and he left.

There should be an account achievement for an absurd amount of faction transfers. That’s right, he came back home to the Horde. (I don’t care that he started as Alliance, he belongs over here under the red and black.)

Not only did he come back to the Horde, but he moved over to Area 52 and brought all his characters into the guild – including his paladin healer, which we desperately need.

So we had an established roster of 9 and a filler healer lined up. We went in to Jin’rok and were already chatting about our Horridon strat now that we had some competent (and consistent) heals.

Except we didn’t get there.

Encounter Design

What started as a random wishful daydream about an X-men Danger Room-style training dummy set up eventually turned into an idea about a raid encounter where the raid itself took very little damage. Trust me, somehow I made that leap.

But if the raid (including the tanks) aren’t taking much damage, what’s a healer to do? Another Valithria/Tsulong-type encounter?

Not quite. But close.

Imagine you zone in to the fight and find Thrall and Garrosh tearing it up. Like most “decorative” NPC battles, they would be locked in a stalemate until the party engages. So sit back, enjoy your Pandaren Banquet and watch the two heavies beat the shit out of each other. Garrosh, of course, has a gajabillion HP and damage reduction shield and probably all sorts of other buffs.

As Promised

I said yesterday I would provide an update on how the raid went last night so here’s a post!

But first, another really stupid thing I’ve done in WoW!

Yesterday I talked about leveling up cooking on my DK (who got his 522 neck last night, FYI) for the express purpose of making mogu fish stews for the mage and getting cooking points at the same time but then I realized that the fish stew was a 600 recipe so I basically just wasted time.

*deep breath after that run on sentence*

Last night I realized I had been doing something STUPID for the past couple of weeks with my priest.

Making Progress!

Alright, it’s been another week-plus since I had time to write, but there’s been valor to cap and bosses to kill.

Not to loot, just to kill. Because I just get gold.

Anyway…

I am now officially 16/16 in T14 content and ready to step up in to T15 Throne of Thunder.

So I had a bright idea.

I should use the +300 food for the new content, really squeak out that extra bit of DPS.

Hmmm…. I’ve got a DK that’s got cooking up pretty close. I bet I could level his cooking really quick and make my little fish stews to get points!

Moving in to the Barn

I think I need a “not dead yet” tag for posts.

There are three reasons I don’t post:

1. Nothing is happening and/or nothing new is happening and I can only rehash the same rants so many times.
2. There’s lots of new stuff happening but it’s not appropriate to print at all or the timing isn’t quite right.
3. And sometimes there’s just so much happening I don’t have time to post.

Thankfully, my latest week-long hiatus was for the reason behind door number 3.

Last week I posted about moving to greener pastures so it’s only fair I give an update on how that transition is going.

Greener Pastures

Hopefully.

The grass is always greener on the other side, but in my case I think the grass was greener EVERYWHERE.

The Sahara has greener grass. Mars has greener grass.

Raiding on Saturday was terrible.

I use the word “terrible” loosely.

Abysmal. Horrendous. Catastrophic. You get the idea.

It was decided to let the druid healer (punk kid) bring in his hunter and let a new (to the raid but longtime standing guild member and nice guy) take his place as healer.

Caving to pressure

So you know how I posted yesterday that I didn’t have to run any heroics?

Well, I had that post sitting in my drafts for a few days before I actually got around to hitting publish.

I did get to 460 with what I could scrape together outside of heroics.

I did get to Revered with the Order of the Cloud Serpent in one day and bought the first four panther patterns.

I did run both halves of MSV and Sha prior to the Tuesday reset, netting me a belt off Elegon.

With no coins, I opted to only run them once.

On Tuesday, with my near-instant LFR queue time, I ran both halves of MSV again.