Squishy Feels

Warning: Whining

It seems like I always start the new year with vim and vigor and a lot of “RAWR! Let’s DO this!”

Not so different in WoW. Late December I managed to get my BoA inscription staff upgraded twice by doing dailies on alts to gather VP. This meant I was able to leave Arioch’s meager stash of VP untouched. It also meant that I didn’t really have time to add to that meager stash…

But I was having a good time (even if I did whine a lot on Twitter) and really felt like I accomplished something when I was able to equip the 2/2 upgrade. The cute little paintbrush tail is only trumped by the fact that I can now keep up with the people 10-15 ilevel ahead of me.

However, I can only keep up with them when we actually raid.

Prior to MoP we had a couple dramatic incidents whereupon the dramatic people left in a dramatic swirl of drama. Upside? No more drama. Downside? Significantly reduced roster.

So we entered MoP with barely enough people to field a 5-man at peak time. We have a couple more regulars but they are currently deployed abroad.

5.2 is on the horizon and we still don’t have a full 10-man group. We’ve been heading in with 7-8 of our own and pugging the rest. From that we’ve managed to pick up a couple new people, at least one has actually stayed.

Our raid schedule is terrible for me – Tuesday and Friday. Friday is the ONE day of the week when I might actually have a real life social engagement. Weeks that I have plans on Friday I feel bad about raiding on Tuesday. “Hi, guys! I’m here tonight and then you’re fucked to find a replacement for me on Friday! At least I’m just scrubby 474 DPS and shouldn’t be too hard to replace. Oh, but be sure to advertise that you’re looking for someone that can keep up with your cracked-out monk in case of Jasper Chains.”

I don’t think we’ve got a team of bad players. I think we’ve got a constantly changing team of players that aren’t gelling together. Communication on some of these fights is really important until it’s second nature, and the communication is lacking.

Related, Feng is a really boring boss to wipe to for an entire night.

In December, I was able to get around the less than stellar raid situation by throwing myself into upgrading my staff.

With the staff completed, I’m a little lost. I made a spiffy spreadsheet to list out what goals I had in mind to work on. Normally, this would be a huge motivator, but right now it just feels like a to-do list.

It doesn’t help that I feel like I should be doing SOMETHING outside of the game – writing more, stuff, crafting, cleaning, stuff, cooking, working, stuff.

But I was going to get VP capped on Arioch every week! I was going to run LFR every week! I was going to get shit done!

I did manage to run both halves of MSV the first week. I got in on a Sha of Anger and was NOT mind controlled at the end. (Still only gold, because apparently my DK is the only one that needs tier gear.) I was burning my profession CDs every day. I was doing the dailies… most days.

And then it crashed. I left my auctions sitting in my bags, unposted. I didn’t log in for a day. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I don’t think I need a break from WoW, I still want to be logged in and doing STUFF. I just don’t know what STUFF I want to be doing. I want to do all of it all at once and obviously can’t.

Part of me wants to focus on improving my gear through LFR/VP grind. But the other part of me says, “Why bother?”

So then I go work on reputations or pet battles or alts and feel guilty that I’m not working on my gear.

But I’m not really raiding, so why feel guilty?

I might start poking around to see what I can find in way of a guild that’s running a reliable 2^nd string or alt 10-man. I think if I can get raiding on a regular basis again (but still in a casual environment) I’ll feel more focused in the game.