A Hunter's Story

Woohoo! I have a new pet! Was doing the blood fishing quest down in Borean Tundra and Lady X suggested I fly up and check for Loque. So I’m flying around, NPC Scan goes off. I figure it’s just some hunter with a tamed Loque out, and then I realize it’s Aotona. So I look around, figuring no one really has him as a pet, and sure enough, just northeast of the Frenzyheart area, he’s flying around. I quickly tag him, to make sure he’s mine, and start taming. Of course an extra mob agros, so I had to kill it first, and Aotona did his nice little wing buffet thingy to make me go flying, but after losing a few extra heartbeats, he was mine!!! Now named Vree, he’s probably the prettiest pet I have. Now I just need a Hyacinth Macaw to tag along with us, lol.

So long post today, since I’m on vaca this week and Lady X is afk. Anyway, a good addon to get if you use the auction house is Postal. I won’t tell you what it is I’ve been making & selling so you won’t fight me for it and bring the price down, but the short version is that I sell 40+ of this item each day pretty much. So previously I had to open each piece, collect the gold, open the next, etc. But at the suggestion of a guildie, I downloaded it and it is SO nice! Just click “open all” and it collects all your gold for you. Quick couple tweaks to the settings, and you can make it only open the AH mail, leave X number of slots open in your bags, and so on. Postal. Good addon.

So final part I was going to talk about, are jerks. Two guys actually, that were such jerks I’ll even call them out by name. First is Bodie-Antonidas. I was helping a guildie out by running a low level dungeon with her. Took my 80 tank so we’d get in the dungeon quick, and could fly through it pretty fast. Of course, at the same time I was also on my main & running Lady X’s main to grind some rep back with Booty Bay & the other 3. But it’s a lowbie dungeon, so pretty easy to have a divided attention. When we get to the end and down Anub’Arak, and he says “Scrub-ass pally that just had a 74 out damage you”.

Now yes, that was true on that one fight. Considering it’s mana intensive for the tank, I’m a TANK and don’t do much dmg, and I was tri-boxing all at the same time, yes, a 74 out damaged me. I averaged 931 dps and he had 1120. Wow, big gap. Of course, he didn’t bother to check overall damage where he would have seen I did 38.3% of the damage in the dungeon and he only did 29.7%. But tbh, that’s hardly the point. What a jerk! Why would you say something like that? An 80 just ran you through a dungeon and made it easy for you. Just helped you out. Even if you are an idiot and think you did more dmg than him/her, why would you say something like that and ditch immediately after? The guy was being nice and running you through – be nice back! UGH. I hate jerks.

So jerk #2, Maglin-Garrosh. Running HoR, and notice the tank is taking forever, just standing at the entrance. After a few minutes, we ask if the tank is ready, and she replies “Sorry, my guildies and I were busy laughing at the shammy” and then starts the dungeon. We’re all like what? So my wife says “At me?” since she was on her shaman. Tank says yes, “Your gear and weapons are hilariously bad”.

Isn’t that just plain mean? I mean, seriously, if that’s true do you really have to say it? Jerk! Especially considering that she’s wearing all 200+ epic gear. Like, has 232, and 245 gear even. So she’s not poorly geared, that tank was just being a jerk. How mean is that?!?! I mean, if someone’s gear was really bad, then talk to them on the side or something. Don’t just be like “my guildies and I were too busy laughing at you to start the dungeon”. Especially when it’s not true! UGH, I hate jerks. So we figured rather than run with the jerks, I said “Well, that comment just lost you your healer too” and we both dropped group. Not our fault that the tank waited 5 minutes to start the dungeon, and then after starting it proceeded to insult one of the DPS, who happens to be in the same guild as the healer. I wonder how many waves they got through before wiping, but however many it was, I hope Bliz gave them double repair costs just for being jerks.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the very helpful tip I wanted to get up on the web! If you are thinking about the insane title, or the bloodsail one, when you want to get back rep with Ratchet, Booty Bay, etc… Yeah, go to the place just south of Ratchet. Kill the Southsea guys. If you have some way of not dieing when jumping off cliffs, it’s fast, easy, and awesome. Start in the south next to Northwatch Hold. If you run north along the coast, then up the hill, then south, then jump off the cliff and start over, it’ll go real fast. The respawn timers are short and you’ll be able to go nonstop, or until you get hungry/thirsty and need to make a trip to the kitchen, lol. It does not hurt your Bloodsail rep, so the only downside is that it’s boring. But then, so is every grind, but it’s a lot better than the Evacuee’s in Grizzly Hills. Zomg, we killed those for ages, but their spawn timer, while quick, is not very quick. Plus that little ship gets real boring real quick. Great way to level Vree though! Lol. Got him up to 80 by grinding rep there. But seriously – the Barrens is really the place to go. I think there’s another place or two similar, but those level 13 mobs go down real quick, lol.

Ok, back to gaming and… grinding… Oh well, better than work! Lol.

Haven’t had a chance to get to this since my schedule has been so crazy the last few weeks, but I had a good time dualboxing HoR (regular) last week. We were going in looking for a cloak & shield, hence why regular. Anyway, we pug’d out the healer, got past Falric and the healer leaves.

In the words of Jar Jar Binks, “How Woood!”

Sooo I do my best and we get through to about wave 8 or 9 before wiping. I can only self-heal and block/dodge/parry so much without a healer… But then we sit in LFG again, to finish the place out. And after a little while, we gave up and I just dualboxed in my healer. I figured that’d be quicker, and it’d be a fun challenge. So with that, we took down Marwyn and went on to the Lich King. Doubted we could get far with him, but we actually got up to the last wall, and the last wave before I lost it. Unfortunately there was just that little too much going on, and I wasn’t able to heal through & tank it all. Ho hum. It was fun though, since it was a challenge. It’d probably be easier if I cheated and used some program to dualbox so I could do things like say “Cast Nourish Datouv” and it would cast it, but instead I just use one computer, 2 monitors (true dualboxing – no extra implements to make it easier). I haven’t done that in a while either, so it was kinda fun to go back and do it. One of these days I should try doing a heroic by myself…

WeWt! Monday we picked up a nifty little achievement. I consider it quite an achievement because, well, we did all of the achievements within it ages ago except for one. Stupid Moorabi. Was it a hard one? Nope. Our challenge was really just that the group of us that had been working on the various achievements didn’t really have the stuns. That, and that we never seemed to all be online at the same time, with no one saved to GD. Literally for months we’ve been trying to get around to finishing up the achievement and just haven’t gotten around to it, or the time or two we did, the few stuns we had didn’t work out (and usually the dps was too high, so that he’d switch forms and then die before we could all stop & wipe to try again). But yay! We finally did it! This means I no longer have to take Gal through for it, so I can at least take my paladin, thus adding 1 stun to the mix. Not much, I know, but my wife can also take her warrior instead of boomkin so there’s a few more stuns there.

So looking back at all the achievements, I don’t think any of them were particularly hard. Mostly it just needs everyone having coordination, and doing the right things at the right time. Or, luck. Especially with the ease of getting gear and cranking out higher dps, many of them are a lot easier. Got this one for two pugs last night, for example.

So speaking of hepling PuG’s get achievements, last night I also helped someone get the one for completing HoR. I felt so bad for the poor group! I end up in it through LFG. First thing I see in chat is “Hello competent person!”. Needless to say, they had already wiped about 5 times and hadn’t yet downed Falric. They had a healer who couldn’t heal it, and then a tank who couldn’t tank it. Normally, I wouldn’t make a statement like that since I wasn’t there, but based on their performance while I was in there, I would assume those are probably pretty safe bets. They knew where to stand, I didn’t have any trouble grabbing agro, and it all went pretty smooth. It was pretty funny though, when by the second wave they were already saying in chat “Yay, we finally have a good tank!” But considering we didn’t wipe in the whole dungeon, that might be why, lol. I really felt bad for them though. They obviously had been trying for a while. But in the fight with Falric, one of the dps died. Not a problem, we almost had the boss down anyway so it was fine. However, his body somehow went through the wall. Not ‘to the other side’, I mean through. So he was out of LoS and we couldn’t rez him because spells don’t work through the wall of the dungeon. Since the gates close, this means he was out of the fight for the rest of it until Marwyn went down. So we were plugging along with only 4, and on the 9th wave, as the mobs start running towards us as normal… 2 of them change paths and run to the gate. They get to the gate, everything disappears, gate opens.

Wtf?

I can only guess it’s a glitch that if someone is standing on the other side of the gate they can somehow pull agro, and the mob went through a week spot in the wall, thus resetting the instance. No clue. So now the poor group had to start back at wave 6. Told you I felt sorry for these guys! I’m just glad I could help though, and we went through the rest of it fine. Almost got the timed achiev for them too. DBM said we still had 22 seconds left when Jaina cleared the final wall for us, but I really haven’t figured out exactly what point you have to be under 6 minutes. It seems it’s a time somewhere between when she takes down the wall and when the LK steps up there, but I don’t know. Doesn’t matter too much though, the group was just ecstatic that we got through, let alone with no wipes. Of course, it’s things like that which make me almost feel obligated to tank – like it’s my duty to tank randoms each night just so more people can get in dungeons because I have a tank. Either that or it’s just that I like being able to help people, lol.

You know that bug where you could let the LK go first in HoR, and then follow behind him? Yeah, fixed now. He’ll just do his massive AoE spell and wipe the group. I know from experience, lol (thank you patch day…). But that was only part of what I was going to write about today… Had some real winners last night…

So I figured I’d gear up my healer a little more, so I’m doing randoms with him. Wind up in The Nexus and think ‘cool, 7 badges’. Right after I zone in, I see the tank only has 1700 health. A little confused how he’d be starting the dungeon that way, but w/e. I figure I’ll be nice and just heal him up real quick before buffing and all. So I start healing him, and get him up to 67% before he goes out of LoS. A little annoying, but hey, it happens. He might not have been paying attention to see I was healing him, or he just got a little too far. But I was wrong – he was already pulling the first trash.

Really? I mean come on. He wasn’t even starting the dungeon at full health. Plus, I was in the middle of healing him back up. I mean, it worked out fine because I was able to heal him back up the rest of the way, and buff, but still. That’s just plain rude in my mind. He then proceeded to chain-pull the entire dungeon. As in – before the group we’re working on is down, pulling the next group. And he did the infamous idiot tank move on Commander Kolurg where he tried tanking him in the middle where he starts. You know, he does have a fear. And if you tank him there, he WILL fear someone into the next group. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that NOT happen unless you tank him away from that spot, over in a safe corner. Yet we got through it anyway. And of course before CDR Kolurg’s body hits the ground, he’s already pulling the next group. So we get through Telestra and then through Anomalus, then he drops party.

Wtf?

So he’s a jerk for starting before any form of a buff is cast or being at full health, he chain pulls the whole thing, does a crappy job of tanking bosses, downs 3 of them and then just leaves party? Jerk! I mean seriously, at the speed we were going, it only would’ve been another few minutes and we’d have finished the dungeon. Even a ‘oh crap, gtg’ would have been nicer, even if it was a lie since he apparently wanted exactly 3 badges as quick as he could get. Geeze I hate jerks like that.

So, next dungeon, it’s on to HoR. And actually, the dungeon after was HoR too, and it was the pretty much same exact situation, so I’ll just explain them together, lol. In short, first part fine, LK not fine. I got some good practice with my brez. I don’t like locks that try to tank that first part (he did much better when I asked that he let the tank do the tanking). I don’t like tanks that tell hunters to MD them or tell druids to give GotW. I mean seriously, people in general know to do it, so give them the benefit of the doubt first off – let them prove you wrong. And if you don’t have a buff, and the person who can give it has no mana and is sitting down drinking… Be patient!!! Maybe they just healed everyone up after a wipe, have no mana, were drinking, and were waiting until the whole group was in range before casting a group buff. Oh, and if you enter a dungeon and it’s halfway done, and your first comment is about your shock about how a druid healed the first part? You can go die in hell. If you really think that a class can’t do something, and they just proved they did? CONGRATULATE them. Don’t make a condescending comment that makes them want to drop party and let you find a new player. Also, if the group wipes because the healer can’t heal themselves while half of the mobs are attacking them… It’s probably the tank’s fault. Just dumping group after the first wipe (well, second. first one was when we discovered the LK was fixed) when we wiped because half the mobs were hitting the healer… Yeah, kinda rude. Oh, and by the way, for any tanks out there reading this. In HoR, please have everyone kill the witch doctors first – they AoE damage the group real bad. And aside from the obvious ‘keep threat on the mobs’, please turn the dang Abominations. They puke in front of them, doing 10k dmg, and the rest of the group is not geared to mitigate that. And I still can’t believe I got in HoR twice, and that it was back to back, and that the dungeon went the exact same way both times with different people. In fact, in both groups the dps was fine. They were all nice, and willing to give it a couple tries. It was just the tanks that were jerks who were incapable of tanking the LK run.

So then it was on to OK. They wanted to do the achievement on Nadox. I’ve done it before, and I really don’t care to do it again – particularly with a PuG. But there were 3 guys from the same guild in the group so I figure I’ll be nice and tell them how to do it and see if we can get it. Had to explain it, because their first idea was “let’s just not kill the adds and take him down”. Yeah, he goes immune – only way to do it is with 2 tanks, and to separate him and the mobs so he doesn’t get the immune debuff. But they listened, so I figured I’d at least give it a shot or two. First try? Mobs hitting me = I can’t heal myself or the tanks well. No prob, now they understand. Well, they understood but still weren’t able to do it. Oy. Oh well, at least they figured we should just go on, so we killed him the normal way. And then wiped twice on trash. Ugh.

Seriously, what was up with my luck last night? I was looking for a few quick dungeons for some fast badges. Wound up with jerks and bad groups. I just wanted some badges! Please people. Play nice. It’s ok if we wipe. It’s ok to wait an extra second or two and start at full health. It’s ok to say “hi!” at the beginning. Most people (I hope) pop into LFG hoping for nice people, so be nice – it’s ok to not be a jerk. And it’s also ok if I get even a smidgen of good luck next time I want to do a couple quick easy dungeons!

It’s amazing to me, the spread of people you wind up with in a PuG. For instance, we wind up in HoR on our mains. Went through the usual wait for people to leave party so we can get a full group. Finally end up with a group. One of them has only done the first boss, and the tank has never tanked it before. No biggie. Yes, it’s a hard instance, but it’s not that hard. Not surprising we wiped on the first boss, but by then the tank knew what he was doing. He asked for tips, and we gave him some advice. We not only got through the whole instance, we also got him the timed achiev on the Lich King. Pretty cool, eh? Everyone had a good time and now this tank knows how to do it next time he’s in there.

So then later I’m tanking on my alt. Wow. I’ve already mentioned some of the rude tanks or annoying dps, but we had some real winners in the healer department! Enough that I can’t even remember all them! Lol. There was the one in Pit of Saron who wanted to do a full clear. I only had time to really do a regular run (which takes out almost all the mobs anyway). So after we clear about 4 or 5 of the trash pulls, then the healer decides to leave so they can go do full clears. Couldn’t have left before the first pull when we determined we weren’t going to do the full clear. Couldn’t stick it out, since most of the trash is killed anyway. No, had to wait until 1/2 way to the boss. Oh well, w/e. Annoying, but certainly not the end of the world.

Then there was the healer we had when a guildie was tanking – who came in on the last boss of Pit of Saron because the previous healer decided one wipe meant he should leave. First thing the new one said? Whose tanking? “Me” says our guildie. “Only 27k health?”. He gets buffs and things going, since we were still running in from the wipe, pops up to 36k, and says “Better? lol”. “Better, but this is still gonna be real tough” says the jerk. I think he even commented on how he has low/bad gear too. I mean, seriously? We obviously got this far, so he must have been tanking pretty decently until then. And since when is 36k health low for a tank in heroics? Sure, it might not be as nice as 42k health, but it’s still doable. And, in fact, we did get through just fine in one shot. I couldn’t help but comment how we were lucky our tank had only 36k health because MAN that was so TOUGH! But I was put in my place by the healer because we were lucky that he was one of the best healers on his server, he said. Yeah, him in his like 219 gear commenting on the tank being undergeared with the same rough level of gear. Geeze.

So another healer in Pit of Saron (can you tell which dungeon came up a lot for us? lol) when I was tanking. We go through the whole thing fine, no wipes, at a decent pace. All the sudden when we get to the final boss, before we begin, and the healer starts telling me what to do. I’m like, really? It would’ve been annoying if they did that from the start, but at least at that point they don’t yet know if I’m a good/bad tank. But when we’re at the final boss? Yeah, great way to make me happy to have come this far. But w/e, I let it slide off – maybe he’s just trying to be helpful. So we wipe. Why? Because on a boss that requires movement (kiting over the frost) – healer had the balls to tell me I got too far from him. Really? Ever heard of legs? Walking? I can’t control where the frost falls on the ground. Therefore, I can’t run in a nice little circle around our annoying healer – I have to take the boss where the frost is. In fact, if you look at where I am, and where the next frost patch is, you can probably guess where I’m headed next! Imagine that! So for him to place the blame on me for getting out of range when it’s not in my control and he could MOVE… Needless to say it kinda ticked me off. Try 2 – you know what got me even more annoyed at him? He wouldn’t stop healing everyone and topping us off to full health when he had the Overlord’s Brand on him. So he literally healed the boss from 25% health back up to 75% at one point. Then, running out of mana and all the other joys of a fight lasting longer than it should – we wiped and he blamed it on me for dragging the boss over the frost. Really mad at this point! Third try we finally got it. Probably because my wife was the one with the brand on her, and she actually knows what to do when that happens! I did pick up a nifty sword out of it though, so I can only complain a little, lol.

So anyway! Long weekend and lots of annoying healers. Why can’t people just play nice? Let the tank tank, healer heal, and dps dps. If someone asks for help and you can help, then do so. If you want to offer advice and they haven’t asked, try it politely in a wsp instead of telling them they’re an idiot in party chat, even though it’s your own fault – not theirs. Just because it’s a PuG doesn’t mean you should lose all sense of politeness. If you’re not a tank or a healer, be appreciative of the tank and healer because there are fewer of them. If you are a tank or healer, recognize the fact that the dps just had to wait 15-45 minutes for this dungeon. Seriously, just play nice! So we can have more of my first example, and less of the other ones.

Ho hum, the inevitable TUE Patch Day.  I certainly don’t mind the downtime, since I’m at work all day, lol.  The changes though, are interesting.  Apparently the ghost waves at the beginning of HoR are being adjusted so we no longer have 2 mages or 2 mercs, among some other minor adjustments.  Why interesting?  Because it was doable beforehand.  Tough, but doable. I’ve done it on my DPS, Tank, and Healer in fact.  But I think the main reason behind it is that too many people were leaving party as soon as they popped in HoR.  Bliz seems to want to make it so the majority of people can see the majority of the content.  Makes sense.  Though I don’t mind that some heroics are harder than others.  I just wish that the LFG tool worked a little better in respect to gear and ability.  I know, they can’t really code ability in, but it just seems that some people wind up in places they shouldn’t.  Like the tank we wound up with in HoR with who still had greens on him.  Not a problem if we’re doing Nexus or something, since I enjoy helping others gear up, but HoR?  Yeah, kinda wish there was a way the LFG would not put him in it – he’s just not ready.  However, it’s only really one or two instances, so it’s not a big problem.

So the “or two” means there’s another for me to discuss – Occ.  Apparently this one is the real problem, that no one wants to play.  They’ve already nerfed it by adjusting drake health and such, but it is so shunned that they’re upping the loot.  I don’t much care about the badges or gems, but the Amber Drake is enough to make me PuG EoE.  Why?  Occ you can still get through, even if half the group doesn’t know how to do it.  EoE seems to require that most know what they’re doing.  Not to mention one is a group of 5 and the other 10 (or 25).  I only wish that I could do Occ with guildies and we try specifically for the mount.  That would make it a lot more inviting to me.  Otherwise, it’s the random LFG which means that we only have a small chance of being put there.  Not really a problem doing the other dungeons – I’d just rather do the others on my alts for the badges, and Occ for the mount on my main!  But then, I don’t mind doing Occ, so I’m really not the one Bliz is targeting with this marketing effort for Occ, lol.