The Curious Case of Tiny Tim

So there’s an officer who’s our unofficial GM (the official GM is this guy’s puppet), let’s call him Scrooge.  He is basically all of your most negative, condescending, irritating gaming personality stereotypes rolled up in one gnomish ball of discordant strife.  Super-sized ego?  Check.  Loves rubbing other people’s faces in the dirt?  Check.  Can’t take the slightest hint of criticism himself?  Check.  Loves arguing about anything, anytime, any place?  Check.

The weirdest, inexplicable part about this is… I mean Scrooge is the first person to jump on anybody’s mistake and the last to let it go, but…

So we have this boomkin who is That Guy, to the infinityeth degree.  Let’s call him Tiny Tim.  Tiny Tim is not the sharpest tool in the drawer, he’s a dim bulb, he’s… slow. Basically he’s a sweet guy with his heart in the right place; he tries really hard and earnestly, perfect attendance, always flasked… but he is just incredibly, frustratingly, absurdly SLOW.  Slow to understand things, slow to learn, slow to react, slow to obey explicit instructions, just all-around unbelievably sloooooooooow.  A guy who needs BOTH his hands held.  Did I mention he’s slow?

We have geared him up the butt- Tiny Tim’s in the top 5 best-geared moonkins on the server, yet his damage done is consistently barely above the tanks, usually BELOW the feral tank’s.  We literally carry him through most fights, and when I say carry I mean he is dead for 95% of the time. He is a wet smear of feathers on the floor watching the rest of us fight.  If you Armory’ed him, you’d think he’s good because he’s got some fairly hard-to-get Achievements, but the sad truth is he was dead baggage as the rest of the raid 24-manned not some… not most… but ALL of them.  All.  Of.  Them. We handed him his Rusted Proto-drake on a 9-man silver platter.

So here is the burning question the rest of us raiders have:

Are Scrooge and Tiny Tim related?

Because, inexplicably, to the complete bewilderment of us all, Scrooge (an obnoxious prick notorious for mercilessly tormenting good raiders for hours over once-in-a-blue-moon fluke mistakes) is strangely, astoundingly quiet over Tiny Tim’s repeated, constant, spectacular-in-their-stupidity routine mistakes.  And what’s more… he defends him!  He defends him with all that obnoxious, sarcastic aggression he normally reserves for making perfectly competent people feel bad.  It boggles the rest of us.  There is a multi-page thread on the forums about how bad Tiny Tim is and why he’s still in the raid… that thread was started three months ago.  Guess who’s still lying there, a bloody lump discreetly tucked in the corner of the room in all our raids?  I don’t wanna sound elitist but it does make me grumpy to think that this kind of person may have a chance at getting a server first… it’s not right!

I just don’t get it.

Scrooge says stuff about how valuable Tiny Tim’s raid buffs are compared to his personal damage but, as the rest of us point out, his raid buffs don’t count for much when he’s dead 5 seconds into the fight.

Scrooge says the rest of us don’t know how hard Tiny Tim is trying, and how he’s breaking his back at a minimum-wage job so he can save up and buy a new computer and not lag so much.  Nobody responded to this because we just sounded like bullies after a while, but honestly?  It’s a game not a charity.  Not to be heartless but… should that really matter to the rest of the raid?

Anyway, lag is the least of Tiny Tim’s raiding problems.  A laggy computer is not what keeps making him give his innervate to WARLOCKS, or run to the exact frost patch we spent an hour telling people NOT to run to.  About ten people sent me LMFAO OH GOD messages when Tiny Tim was assigned to be a soaker on Twin Val’kyr, and sure enough he lasted all of 10 seconds.  Nobody says anything anymore when Tiny Tim flamboyantly messes up, vent stays eerily silent as we just let the stupidity sink in, and we’re all silently flabbergasted anew at how and why Scrooge can seriously keep his mouth shut about it.  And then we move on, as if we don’t comment on such vulgar things in polite society, just sweep the feathery roadkill under the rug.

I just wanna know, why?  Scrooge is just about the least likely person in the world to take on a charity case; he’s the opposite of a carebear officer type; what the heck is going on between him & Tiny Tim?

Tree’s a Crowd

Oh why helloooo there, are you still around?  Poor blog, all neglected…

Well if you’re bored you can check out my recent video log of the guild’s 25 firefighter achievement!  Yea I don’t think I’ll really become a regular vlogger, despite recent prolificity, but I do wanna film the cool stuff.  Like if we get server first Anub down!  Crossing fingers…

Things have been going pretty well, WoW-wise.  My new guild is pretty good & I really like & respect most of the people, there’s just this one person (hey if I’m not anonymous anymore should I not gossip/gripe about people anymore, cos their identities may be guessed at?) (nah who would go to the trouble anyway) who I could rant about if I wanted my comeback post to be angry, but let’s save that for a rainy day.

There’s a bigger problem than personality conflicts, anyway!  Such as… We have three core raiding resto druids.   And if I may be so bold, we’re all three very good, top of our game I’d say, and very well-geared.  With perfect attendance.  This used to be okay, but now with more & more healer apps and fights requiring more precise group compositions, we’re all three taking turns sitting much more than we’d like, me moreso because I am way too obliging of Babyfresh’s feelings.  I’ll just say it straight- the officers prefer me & the other druid (who is an officer herself) so Babyfresh is the one most often chosen to sit out, for both 10 mans, 25 mans, and special achievements (like Algalon).  He’s aware of this & has been getting steadily depressed, questioning himself, asking me if he’s not good, etc., and the sad thing is, he IS!  He’s excellent, and in any other guild he’d be a hot commodity.  It’s just really too bad that this guild has all three of us… and all three of us are so dedicated.  The obvious alternatives have been suggested- for one of us to go boomkin, perhaps make another toon our main, etc., but all three of us apparently have the same tastes- we love resto healing the best.

Anyway, in my adopted role of Babyfresh’s older sister (or something), I’ve been switching with him a lot when they try to sit him out.  But a little too much, I think.  Because I’m actually the one sitting out the most now, and it bothers me more than I thought it would.  I thought I could be mature, not whine & question myself & go all emo & threaten to quit the game the way Babyfresh does… and I haven’t been… but it’s getting a little close for comfort now.  I honestly don’t know what kind of good answer there is for this situation… I keep thinking, if only Babyfresh had stuck with his original warlock toon, but I feel guilty for thinking it because he’s absolutely got his heart set on druid healing now, and he really is a great one.  But… I don’t like sitting in Ironforge anymore and… I don’t wanna go boomkin!  :(

A Woeful Night but Lo, a Guiding Star Shineth

So last night we brought in six new recruits to Heroic Ulduar.  Two performed excellently, one was average, two were in need of improvement, and one was gkicked for turning out to be one of those persistently clueless bumblers.  Of course you make allowances for someone’s first time, but I think that if you continue to fail for 3 attempts by making the same mistakes over and over again, and even go so far as to raise your voice to the raidleader and get all lippy (“I know, I know!  I know what the skull over my head means, okay!“) while wiping the raid, it’s fair to write you off as a bad egg.  I’m just happy that our officers aren’t hesitant or wishy-washy about kicking people like that. 

We only got Flame Leviathan, Razorscale and Deconstructor down.  All in all it was the worst Ulduar run we’ve ever had.  Our shortage of viable tanks is really hurting us.  Snuffles is an excellent main tank, but we really need better off-tanks.  Right now we’re using DPSers who’ve dual-specced but are unaccustomed-to and reluctant with tanking.  Which means adds were gambolling amongst the healers & dps.  LF good tanks plz.  If I sound a little bitter it’s because, well, I was slapped around all night by iron constructs.  >>>:^[

On the bright side, I got the healing mace.  Woot.  And a ring.  Yays. 

We use the EPGP system for loot, which I honestly feel is the best loot system I’ve personally experienced since everyone can see exactly who it’s gonna go to, where they stand in the priority line and why… but I guess nothing with loot will ever be drama-free.  We’ve got this one rogue who is one of our top DPSers but regrettably has developed a very poor attitude- he doesn’t want to waste repair bills fighting bosses that don’t drop anything he wants.  So he doesn’t bother coming in until we’re onto a boss that he wants.  Like if we happen to start up a Naxx run, he says quite reasonably, “Invite me when you get to Kel’Thuzad.”  And what’s more, he’s started a campaign against the EPGP system because we recruited a new rogue who will, in a few raids, be a viable contender for the same loot.  Very regrettable attitude.

Friends with (raid) Benefits

Sooo… You’re lookin at a BT raider.

Contrary to my expectations, even after being informed that I would not be joining his guild, that retired military GM (let’s call him Strategos) continued to invite me to their raids.  Quagmire, Babyfresh & I have become “part of the family” (quoting his words to me last night :^D), & can always expect a place in his raids, even though we’re in a different guild!  Woot!  And honestly, they did give me a bad first impression, but the more I raid with them, the more I’m starting to like them.  Strategos informed me that he held a guild meeting  last night & everybody’s feedback was unanimous: they considered us “Good people, considerate, top of their classes & eager to raid“.  Heh!  You dang skippy!

So I’ve helped them down Naj’entus & Supremus in BT.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!  I love BT.  I also love Strategos… he’s going out of his way to treat us so kindly! 

Like, Babyfresh & I started our Hand of A’dal quest chain.  FYI, the second part of the chain involves a few 25-man raids: you need to kill Fathom Lord Karathress in SSC, then Al’ar in TK, then Rage Winterchill in Hyjal.  Strategos, bless his gallant heart, arranged his whole raid to get Karathress & Al’ar down for us, and I’m sure he’s going to schedule a Hyjal quite soon as well.  And we’re not even in his guild!  It’s too much!  <:^D 

It’s really amazing, I would think that doing so much for non-guildies, or even our constant presence in their raids, would cause grumbling & complaints within their guild, especially since a couple of my friends have won loot from them.  I don’t know if it’s excellent hardcore officer leadership or just an extraordinarily whiner-free compilation of guildies, but they seem to harbor no ill-will at all.  It’s all just really humbling.  Lord knows the little circle of QQing beeches in my previous guild would’ve had plenty to say if our officers had let outsiders become a regular part of our raid & roll on lewtz. 

Not to belittle our contributions to their raid though… I’ve been giving their top healer a run for his money & have become mighty quick on my feet (Boar’s Speed ftw!), which means basically I haven’t died a stupid death in a while & have created kind of an expectancy for being the last healer standing.  And Quagmire & Babyfresh are also consistently headlining the damage meters and, with a little secret bullying, I’ve made Babyfresh get really sharp on summons & soulwells while their own locks sit oblivious, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the officers. 

So yea, I do believe it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.  But like… Strategos sometimes allows me to bring in some less geared newbie friends out of pure generosity.  I mean, he even benched his own officers once to give my undergeared friends a chance to see new fights.  And they were all so gracious about it!  The benched folks sat on vent and cheered us on instead of complaining about being taken out for lesser-geared non-guildies!  It’s incredible, and just a really nice thing to have found, when I was so bleak and depressed about not having any opportunities to raid in this casual friends guild.  And we found each other so completely randomly, I feel blessed I really do.

<:^]

Tragedy & Humiliation in SSC

Ugh!  Humiliating!  I died to SPOUT!  Me, the original Spout-Evasion-Technique Ninja Master!  I looked like a noob!  Arrrgh!!!  Hehe… oh but it stung… dishonored my name… Lol~

Okay so… They’re not the friendliest guild, despite my instant rapport with their GM.  I’m talkin bout the one that invited me to SSC with them, whose officers are all retired military men. 

I was the only non-guilded member there the other night.  Now, in my old guild if we’d had a new guest with us on a raid, a whole bunch of us would’ve chatted up to the stranger and tried to make them feel comfortable, or at the very least politely responded to their comments.  This other guild… well I understand they’re a very serious guild, but I did feel kinda cowed by the cold silence my friendly little overtures were met with (in raid chat).  I got too intimidated to even slip a pun out there.  They were Quite Serious Indeed.

I made a couple of faux pas and only one really big mistake besides getting Spouted on… I had a brain fart and battle rezzed the best healer.  Unfortunately, this was during a trash pull.  I’m not sure what I was thinking, looking back on it… Well, 1. there were several dead at the time and 2. I never saw the Leotheras fight before and I had a confused impression that the trash & Leo were connected because as we were fighting the trash they were talking about Leo strats in a very ambiguous manner (ie., “As soon as those are dead be ready to pick up Leo”)… but I know this was my fault for not being as aware as I could’ve been.  And 3. It honestly didn’t matter in the end because by the time another battle rez was needed, the cooldown was finished.  I guess no one could’ve predicted that tho. 

Anyway, I got barked at pretty harshly by 2 of the officers: “NEVER use a battle rez unless you’re told to!” <– this was kind of unfair because during the Hydross, Tidewalker & Lurker fights I’d used them with excellent judgment without being told to, and a couple of other times when the best choice wasn’t clear I’d asked them for their preference.  There was also a lot of other commentary from other people, several painstakingly enunciated “You do not use battle rezzes during trash pulls” and variations of the same thing which I felt were kind of unnecessary.  I mean, it was a mistake & I apologized.  Over the night, I battle rezzed 9 times… that was the only time I messed up, and it was only because I saw the best healer go down in the middle of a difficult pull (that I mistakenly thought was connected to the boss fight).  It kind of sucked that the whole guild had to chime in at that one point, as if they hadn’t seen me exercise better judgment previously.  No one said anything to me at all before, but just that one time all those previously silent ppl just had to speak up… >.<  Not the way I would’ve treated a new guest raider if they messed up… *mumble mumble cut cut*  Whatever! 

Nevertheless, all in all besides the Misfortunate Spoutage & the Brez Incident, I think I acquitted myself pretty well.  I tend to dwell on my mistakes a lot (perhaps you’ve noticed), but honestly I think I did alright overall.  It’s clear that they have some very good quality healers, but I kept up with them okay & in the end inched my way up to 2nd on healing charts, 2nd lowest on overheals.  Their lead healer was this ridiculously awesome priest who’s really the only one I think I would have a hard time matching in terms of skill even if I did acquire equivalent gear… man of few words there, but I think he thought I did alright too.

The GM invited me to go with them to Hyjal tonight.  I said I’d love to, but went ahead & told him I wouldn’t be joining his guild, whereupon he kinda-sorta rescinded the invitation (said he’d “let me know”… I don’t expect to hear back from him =P).  I always knew that I wouldn’t join a guild just for progression, even if I am itching to raid.  I was tense & apprehensive during the whole raid with them, and certainly that Brez incident made me feel pretty crappy.  Plus, they have a princess chick that I think I would hate being guilded with.  Any girl who can condescendingly say to a much older officer, ”Sweetheart, you have no idea how much my repair bills are” is not someone I’m gonna be sisters of traveling pants with.  I’d like to raid with them again to up my performance, do even better & of course see Hyjal again, but it’s not the guild for me & I already know it, so no regrets either way.

Still can’t believe I got Spouted… it’s because he’d just come up & started facing just to my left instead of starting at the tank as usual!  Still, I could’ve avoided it if I’d been standing at my usual spot right at the outer edge, but I’d moved to get in range of someone to heal during the add phase…  Okay, no more dwelling.  =P  Grr…

And So the Drama Thickens

Things are looking pretty rough for the guild right now.  Yesterday I saw new sides of Mom & Mr. Moderate which dismayed me quite a lot. 

Basically, Mom kinda flipped out from the stress of having only 11 raiders show up for the past 4 raids, and kicked a whole bunch of people from the guild… injudicously kicking certain people who didn’t deserve it & threatening others who have been busy IRL for the past couple of weeks.  She did this in the middle of the raid, which brought the low morale even lower. 

Then Mr. Moderate showed cracks in his perfect raidleadership… it became clear that he’s got a real needing-to-be-in-control problem.  I hate criticizing him because honestly I think he’s the best thing since cheesy bread and flying mounts, I probably have a little e-crush on him and in real life I think masterful guys are totally hot… but it’s not good for the guild.  It really isn’t.

Mr. Mod is our One and Only Raidleader.  I think having more raidleaders would be beneficial, actually it’s necessary.  We are lucky enough to have a few leader-types in our guild who are very capable, love to research new fights, are patient and good with explanations.  They are currently sitting around twiddling their thumbs feeling bored and redundant because Mr. Mod never misses a raid and always takes the MT/raidleader position. 

My suggestion was that it would invigorate those would-be leaders AND take pressure off Mr. Mod to let those other guys try leading a raid once in a while so we could see how they do.  If they do well, maybe we can create some new Raidleaders so if Mr. Mod needs to miss a raid (which he’s had to recently), we won’t have to hit a panic button (which happened the first time he was absent) because we’ll have other known raidleaders able to smoothly take the lead.

To be honest, I thought Mr. Moderate would like this suggestion.  I half-expected Mom to object because I’ve noticed she doesn’t like changes to tradition, and indeed she did object strongly, but I really did think Mr. Mod would approve, be relieved to shed the burden of being sole raidleader and take the other would-be leaders under his wing.  Mm.  Nope.

If the would-be leaders were lacking in some way, I wouldn’t be so disappointed in their reactions.  But I wouldn’t even propose someone that I didn’t have confidence in, and in any case what I was suggesting was to give them a chance to lead a raid, to test them and just see how they’d do. 

Last night Mr. Mod had to work late, so I talked Mom around to letting one of the itching-for-more-responsibility guys, Angel, lead the raid.  He took a straggly group of 15-18 people into TK and we cleared up to Void Reaver with 2 wipes.  He was quick with the marks and positioning, delegated target assignments to class leaders (something Mr. Mod never does, he assigns everything specifically himself), and generally I was extremely impressed with what he did with such a half-assed, lacking-in-DPS raid.  Biggie whispered me, “Who is this guy? He’s good.”  The people Angel delegated class assignments to seemed happy as well, they really stepped up to the plate and became mini-leaders to the others in their classes, I’ve never seen them act like that before when Mr. Mod made all the decisions.

Mr. Mod logged on when we hit VR.  He re-designated himself as the MT, which had the other tanks sending me unhappy tells, and took over the leading.  Mom, surprisingly, told him in officer chat to be quiet & let Angel continue leading.  I didn’t say much because, as a junior officer, I felt I’d pushed my opinions enough with the suggestion in the first place.  It was truly disappointing to me that Mr. Mod behaved, there’s no other way to put it, childishly for the rest of the night.  He complained in officer chat through everything, saying “We’re going to fail, this is gonna fail, what a waste of time,”, etc.  And continued to interrupt in vent.  And seemed inappropriately pleased when we wiped.  It was bad.

We took VR down in 2 attempts.  After 4 attempts on Solarian, Mr. Mod cheerfully called a wrap.  The guild, having been greatly reduced in size during the raid (Mom had her rage-induced gkicking spree, remember?), was full of discontent, which all poured out on me in a barrage of tells.  And let’s not forget the unfortunate gkicked people who directed their angry tells to the person who didn’t agree with their kickage.

Mom & Mr. Mod are not happy with me or the guild.  The guild is not happy with Mom.  The tanks and wannabe-leaders are not happy with Mr. Mod.  QQ ensues. 

Bottom line, one of the people Mom threatened to kick is NiceGuy, who hasn’t been online lately cos of real life issues and job searching.  If he really gets kicked, it’s going to set off a chain reaction in which Biggie will also leave.  If Biggie leaves… well…

It’s an ugly thing when guilds get to this point.  It’s all really depressing.  I just wanna raid.  Preferably with people that I like.  That’s all.

Breaching Mount Hyjal

Wowwww… where to begin.

So yesterday!  Mom & Mr. Moderate decided to take us into Mount Hyjal and clear some trash, just for a break from our SSC disappointments and to perk up the crew some. 

What an awesome idea.

There were a couple PUGS but mostly the guild.  Almost all of us were complete Hyjal virgins (not me tho >:^D), and Mr. Moderate was using his Moviefone voice to walk us through the strats very well.  We were actually doing quite excellently with the trash, getting through them fast and neatly with time to spare for drinking.  We wiped a few times, as expected, and then…

Rage Winterchill DOWN!!  We took him down to Chinatown!  Everybody was so happy, and Mr. Moderate was doing his, “This is incredible, I never expected us to get this far!” thing that makes everyone feel so good.  One of the PUGs immediately applied to the guild.  Everybody was just dancing around, we were so pleased with ourselves.  We’re stuck in SSC, never even downed Void Reaver in TK, but here we are progressing in Mount Hyjal!  Yea baby!  I think it’s time we go back to TK and give the Void Reaver another shot.  In the jaw.

Btw, updates to those who’d been following my guild stories: Snot was booted (not sure why [I mean, besides the obvious]), Overhealz is on indefinite hiatus because he took a long-distance truck driving job, and Biggie of all people has been pressuring me to become a guild officer.  He and Mom have become close confidants, it seems.  It’s strange because a few weeks ago he was thisclose to gquitting, but now he seems to care enough to consider taking an officer position himself.

What do you call a narcoleptic Tauren?

What do you call 2 hardcore gamers who live in constant fear of being ganked?
Pair o’nerd. LOL.

So yesterday I hung out with Snuffles some, he’s joined a new guild where he hates the guild leader. (-_-) Discontentment with guild leadership is the reason why he left our guild also. I think he oughta just make his own guild and be done with it. Like I’ve always said, I like Snuffles a lot…. But. I wish he’d stop making fun of my guild now that he’s left it. Sure we have our problems, especially with our raid progression (going nowhere- last night’s SSC was canceled once again due to lack of attendance), but it’s still my guild & I like it.

I think the progression problem is getting dire, though. Biggie told me recently that our guild raids “suck the fun outta the game” for him, and he was very happy that it got canceled last night. It’s because we’ve been losing good seasoned raiders and gaining new recruits who are…. well, not the best listeners. So it’s wipe-wipe-wipe on bosses we should have on farm by now. The guild leaders are getting more & more short-tempered, even Mr. Moderate!!! It was kinda-sorta the worst raiding night of my life when Mr. Moderate got so frustrated that he, probably unaware that his mic was still on, let out this huge demented scream in vent… Mr. Moderate always had this Atticus Finch, Morgan Freeman, Moses-like image in my head, and to hear him scream like a certain Angry German Kid kinda hurt something deep inside me.  Kinda like seeing your dad go berserker insane.  (._.) LOL… sighhhhhhh. I mean I guess it’s funny in perspective… but… felt so sad.

I wanna progress! I wanna stay with my friends!! If I had Ultimate Power I would make a few prompt /gkicks & coax Snuffles & Tangent Boy to come back & promote certain people & demote a certain person & things would be swell. But I don’t so I can’t so they’re not. Nnnnngrrraaaw (<– Mr. Moderate impression… LOL… sighhhh).

Whatever, life goes on.

 

p.s. A BULLDOZER.

Moment of Silence for Snuffles & Tangent Boy

mah baby Peanut & Me

This is my cute pet, Peanut, whom I adopted after completing the Children’s Week quest. He’s been my pudgy, adorable little shadow ever since.

Snuffles left the guild, as did Tangent Boy. I’m not devastated, but very dismayed. I liked Snuffles a lot (despite what he did that one day)- he was a capable raid leader and we got along famously. I think I may be even more dismayed by the loss of Tangent Boy though… I haven’t mentioned him before but he’s one of those kooky yet intelligent characters you run into once in a while who have these weird, random, out-of-this-world thought processes and every conversation with them makes you feel like Alice trying to communicate with the Cheshire Cat. For example, the first interaction I had with him was when I needed a jewelcrafter to cut an epic gem. Tangent Boy offered to do it, but only if I could explain to him the process through which yogurt is made. I took up his challenge, being the fount of random Wikipedia knowledge that I am, and the subsequent memorable exchange struck off a bizarre yet highly entertaining relationship. He was definitely one of my favorite people in the guild… I guess I say that about a lot of people, because I fall in like very easily, but he really was especially dear to my heart. I like weirdos, and he was one of the weirdest. Sighh.

So the guild lost one of its most interesting personalities, and an excellent raid leader. Tangent Boy left looking for a PVP guild, and Snuffles… he gave a reason on the guild forum that smelled a little fishy so I sent him a sad little PM, we’ll see if he replies.

On the plus side, we did gain a few promising new members. The 2 female applicants who I’d briefly mentioned earlier got in, and while one of them’s on the quiet side, both are really nice and definitely not one of those girls. Things are going alright!

Did I mention we are now 3 bosses down in SSC? It was great, it was only our third time seeing the place and we had more than a couple SSC-virgins. We one-shot Hydross, 2-shot Lurker (it was only our 2nd time seeing him!), and on our very first glimpse of Tidewalker, got him down in about 4 tries. <:^D Happy… It was just a fun raid; during one trash pull there was a wild mob running around flattening people left & right. Mr. Moderate, in a calm, soothing attempt to keep guild morale up, announced, “It’s okay guys, this is a progression run! This all part of progression!” And after that, every time someone died we would cheerfully announce, “___ has progressed! ___ has been progressed upon!” It kept people in high spirits, I think as long as we have Mr. Moderate around this guild will be in good shape. :)

Archimonde is HARD!!!

Are you shocked? xD Yeah that’s right, I got my first peek into Mount Hyjal last night!  It… wasn’t with my guild.  In fact, our guild-scheduled raid didn’t even pan out, as only 15 people showed up online.  It’s not looking good… Although on a brighter note, despite yet another canceled raid, Biggie and I had the following heartening chat:

“You- you’re not gonna leave?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because of you!”
“<3!!!!”
“Just kidding.  It’s too much hassle.”

Teehee.  Whatever the reason, I’m really glad he’s staying.  Biggie’s awesome!

Anyway, so after the disappointing cancellation of our guild SSC raid, I was moseying around looking for a ZA pug when I got the sudden whisper from Mr. Moderate- he was going to main tank Hyjal for another guild, did I want to come along? 

I usually prepare for new raids by reading up & making study guides for myself & all that.  Frankly we’ve only gotten past Hydross & Lurker in SSC, so I never even started looking at Hyjal fights yet.  So I was scared about joining this raid completely blind, but of course I wasn’t going to decline!

The first boss (I don’t even know his name) was very easy!  Well, not that easy considering it took us 3 tries to take him down, but compared to Archimonde he was a walk in the park.  There were 4 people from my guild there; unfortunately, one of them was Overhealz & he really did an incomprehensibly poor job.  He was new to Hyjal too, but the biggest problem was that he kept inexplicably throwing Salv on the tanks mid-fight, until the other guild’s people were all yelling at him in Vent.  He was also predictably bottom of the healing list, with 65% overhealing, and died twice to Rain of Fire.  The other guild kicked him from the raid after the first two wipes and brought in another healer, whereupon we completed the first boss.  I think Overhealz probably hasn’t mastered how to use Pally Power yet, but really, throwing Salv on tanks during boss fights is one of those laughable things you only hear about as jokes!!  It was especially bad because all our tanks were warriors, and all the warriors were Prot.  And he did it more than once, and never once Salv’ed the DPS classes who kept repeating requests for it.  I was embarassed for my guild…  D:  But Mr. Moderate was a great Main Tank of course, and the other healer and I topped the charts.  I only made one mistake on the first boss, which was to not run far enough back when I got Doomed, but it wasn’t too bad.

Archimonde, however, is another story.  I was helpless- got Gripped & Airbursted on the first attempt & that was that.  Died in the first 10 seconds!  >.<  2nd attempt I lasted a bit longer, but Mr. Moderate went down & that was that.  The 3rd attempt, I, errrr, didn’t move away from the trail of fire quickly enough, and wasted too much time trying to HoT myself up.  We gave it about 2 more shots then called it a wrap.

Everything happens so faaaast in the Archimonde fight!!  *whine*  I’m scaaaaared, it was so hard to keep up and I had to hotkey the Tear-floaty thing and change my Decurse button and couldnt go tree cos I had to run away from Fire trails and Decurse and, and, and….

So! Much! Fun! <:^D  I hope they invite me again…