The Edge of Fail

I stand on the rim.

Teetering.

An unanticipated breeze could send me over the edge.

Or at least that’s how most of last night felt.

…

We raid Wednesdays and Thursdays.

According to the calendar, anyway.

Something came up for our MT and two of our core healers on Wednesday. And some DPS was missing.

No problem, we’ll just scrape up some guild mates and do VoA and Ony as neither of those raids are really “progression” anymore.

We did very well against Ony, netting the whole group:

The secret to She Deep Breaths More is to just bring her down in phase 2 so WTF fast that she doesn’t have time to think about breathing. We took her breath away. Haha.

Phase 2 went so fast we only had 1 spawn of whelps and the big guy.

Oh, and our Ony tank DCed right after she landed.

Thankfully he made it back in time to get the achievements.

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve got Ony pretty well covered now – a far cry from the first couple attempts where we were 3-healing with 2 shaman in the raid for the fear totems.

One of our tanks sounded like he was dying so we called it a night (a successful one at that, people got some gear!).

…

Last night I was out the 2 healers again. And some DPS.

Start pulling people in again.

This is actually a blessing in disguise for at least one guild mate that just needs the opportunity to strut his stuff and show he’s progression-worthy.

It’s still a fucking nightmare for me getting a gabillion tells and watching guild/officer chat be all clogged with variations of “so are we raiding tonight?”

We hit up normal ToCr with 2 healers, when we normally go with 3.

We had a couple bumpy spots and a wipe (or 3 on the faction champs) but we pulled through and got the full clear.

So here’s where the fail, on my part, enters.

I never particularly wanted to lead raids.

I find it stressful. Mostly because I want to trust everyone to do their job, but forget that maybe we have a different comp and have members that haven’t run the content to death like some of us.

So I remember to get the flasks out of the guild bank.

I even hand out the flasks to the appropriate people.

I then completely and totally forget to actually click the little icon to make me drink one.

Right before Anub when someone mentions their flask is low, I realize that I never took one.

Well that would explain part of why I’m sucking on the meters.

I’m so used to trusting the healers to work it out amongst themselves that I forgot we had a different healing comp.

They figured it out.

The tanks thankfully are smart enough to discuss things between themselves.

I forgot that we didn’t have our normal shaman in the group.

So I forgot to tell him when to lust.

Right when the tanks engaged the Twins I realized I didn’t switch to my Incanter’s Absorption spec.

I’ve never remembered to switch for that fight – the WHOLE REASON I have that spec is for that fight.

I realized at the start of the Anub fight that my Frost Sphere macro was fucked up.

But when it didn’t work the first time, I froze, totally confused.

(Turns out I grabbed the wrong icon off of the macro page, no idea why I had another one that looked similar with an almost identical name.)

Thankfully the add tank put it together pretty quick that something was wrong and death gripped a sphere down.

Overall, my damage for the night was the worst I think it’s been in a long time.

I felt really bad looking at the parse after I loaded it.

Not being flasked hurt a little, but I think I was just off my game.

My positioning on a lot of the fights was awkward.

I was trying to mark the snobolds as they came out and was finding it hard to mark and call it in vent out at the same time – the equivalent of walking and chewing gum I suppose.

During the faction champion fight I was trying to call out the next target and would space on colors and symbols. Just kill the one I want you to kill dammit! Don’t ask me which one, just do it!

And every time I goofed, it made me that much more sluggish to respond to the next situation.

It was just an awkward night for me.

…

I did redeem myself slightly in a 25-man VoA where Koralon again refused to drop my pants.

I’m not even asking for dinner and a movie first, just drop my fucking pants already!

For some unknown reason I decided to further compound my stress for the evening by doing the massive gear upgrade I’ve been planning.

It probably had to do with Lightbane Focus dropping, making it possible for me to pull out the Sunreaver Disciple Blade I had tucked away in the bank.

I’ve been hoarding emblems, hoping to get my pants out of VoA and Crusader Orbs cheap off the AH.

Made a list of every piece that I should be wearing, the gems, and the enchants.

Fuck, I still need that stupid fucking Abyssal Rune out of normal 5-man Trial. Fuck me. I’ll upgrade without it and farm it later. Trinkets are easy enough to switch out.

I need 13 gems just for my sockets and another 3 for the bracers.

My hubby has extra emblems so bought orbs for me and I bought them off him. He also had extra heroism tokens so got me several of the gems I needed and cut them.

(I need to think of something to get him to pay him back, any clever ideas?)

Get my new head arcanum from the Kirin Tor QM.

Fly out to Storm Peaks and get a new shoulder inscription.

Make my Merlin’s Robe.

Make my Bejewled Wizard’s Bracers.

Get my Talisman of Resurgence (yes, I broke down and got it and I’m going to hate it but have already macroed it to my other CDs).

Get my Band of the Invoker.

Get my T9 helm and PANTS since Koralon seems to be frigid.

Get everything gemmed up.

Get everything enchanted.

Realize that I’m a fucking idiot and did not get new shoulders so have a Greater Inscription of the Storm for no reason and there is no same-cost buy back on that item so it’s going to sit in my bank until it becomes BoA or I get T10 shoulders.

The funny thing is, I switched out 9 pieces of gear (and regemmed everything), yet you can only see the change in 2 pieces – 3 if you look closely at my feet.

I also had to respec to regain my missing hit rating (and reduce mana cost on spells again).

So I’m standing at the trainer and merrily plugging my points back in where they should go… and have 2 extra points.

I have no idea where they are supposed to go.

Fuck it.

I can never remember to switch to the IA spec, let’s toss a point in that for giggles and one into the pushback talent and call it good.

My second spec will probably become a variant of the Arcane Shatter spec that I used to use when I did arena and that is experiencing a revival by Rip over at Critical QQ.

I’m sure my spec is missing something important somewhere, but it’s going to have to do for now.

Here are some before and after stat shots:

 

Before

And…

 

After

I gained a little over 200 spell power and 2600 mana. Took it in the shorts on mana regen though. Need that stupid Abyssal Rune trinket to get the rest of my haste and I’ll be pretty good for a while.

Now I get to wait a whole ‘nother week before I can *hopefully* get this gear broken in proper in a raid. Maybe I’ll even remember to flask up.

And my new offhand is the shrunken head of a KISS band member.

I might link all the items later. Right now it’s late and I have failed to get to bed at a decent time.