Get Down, You Fiery Bastard

   It was a little...well, a lot of hassle. Next to no one knew what they were doing - I, for once, almost wasn't one of them. I may have pulled a mob or two. And perhaps a patrol. But it was all fine! 2 wipes and the raid was done in an hour and forty five minutes. I realise I was carried, but I did my best at the same time which is better that than standing back like a couple of other people did. I earned my mount ^^ I expected it to go really badly actually, like I'd have to find several groups and give it several goes, but we did it in one which was great. No pet drops, and my helm was already 640 (engi, yay) but it's a great thing to have nevertheless :D
   Seeg and I did it together, which was annoying for him because he, somehow, got 620 before I even managed 615. It was a new gun that finally tipped me over, as well as a few 615 garrison mission. Still, that's done, and I can get into heroic dungeons now, too :B

Bloody Tanks

   I hate tanks. I do. They're glorified ass-hats. It's true that not all of them are so selfish, but when they're the ones leading the group and deciding when a mob should be pulled, many of them can be complete twats. But I suppose that's just pugs for you.

   I've not done dungeons really since Cataclysm. They became quite complicated at that point, meaning DPS like me couldn't just stand still any more. We had to move. And at the time, that was daunting as I never raided, so tactics were a new concept to me.

   I ran a lot of dungeons in Cataclysm, though, because I learned with everyone else, but in MoP, I think I did a total of 5. Not 5 different dungeons, I mean 5 dungeons, period. I was so scared of the changes and that it would be hard and I'd be shouted at (which I was because no one told me the tactics even though I asked and I hadn't found the dungeon journal yet) so I never went in them. As a result, I'd forgotten how stupid some players could be.

   I tried my first Warlords dungeon the other day. Seeg's best friend offered to take us through a few as a healer and tell us the tactics (we did read up, of course, but it's nice to have someone patient in the group, especially one in a position like Healer which can be hard to replace), and we went into Grimrail Depot.

   Our first tank said little, but they ran us through for a short while until they DC'd. Fine, can't be helped, and since the fourth player was another friend of Seeg's, we decided to kick the tank and find a new one since it was a safe bet that none of the group would leave because of it, and the tank had been running on the spot for a few minutes already.

   Well, then it fell apart. We got some orc tank who kept pulling more than he could handle. Sam, our healer, was doing a fine job keeping him and everyone else alive, but the tank couldn't keep aggro. I admit, my damage, somehow (probably because I'm a hunter), was through the roof, so I did take the aggro a little bit, but it wasn't just me, it was the others, too. We tried what we could to reduce it, but he got shitty with us for taking the aggro and left, but not before pulling a huge mob towards us, leaving the group in the middle of it.

   Then we got another tank, a tauren, and he got shitty with us for falling behind. He kept running ahead and pulling mobs before the healer was ready, other times before we were even with him because one of us had clearly said BRB or were drinking for mana, and left in the end because we wiped (guess why!). There was abuse thrown our way though it wasn't our fault, he just decided, as tank, to charge through at his own pace, never mind the rest of us, and blamed us for his arrogance.

   We weren't sorry to see him go, and it hadn't yet been our fault that any of these tanks had gotten so upset (though a few rough words were exchanged once the tanks started getting on our case) or were making mistakes. But it was taking a while to replace each of them.

   In the end we got our fourth tank for that first dungeon. It was a tauren, and I was dubious - no offence to tauren players, but from my experience, honestly the most asshats I've come across in the game have been tauren tanks.

   This guy, however, maintained aggro, laughed when we wiped and said things like "second time's a charm" before actually corpse running (so far, despite five previous wipes, none of the tanks had corpse run, instead insisting we res them, even though it would have been quicker for them to run with us given how long a res can take) back to his body and trying again. He had good humour and was a good tank, and we ran another dungeon with him after. We stopped after that since the first had taken us so long and the tank had to leave anyway, but while the story had a happy ending, I have been reminded, unfortunately, of how arrogant tanks can be.

   No, not all of them are so arrogant, like I've said at the beginning, but I think tanking does attract a certain type of player - some are leaders and can actually command the group, while others have superiority complexes and choose those roles to put themselves above the rest. A group can't go, after all, if the tank's not there, but the tanks seem to forget the need for the rest of the group, the healer in particular.

   The dungeons were good fun, Grimrail Depot in particular, and I loved all the little cut-scenes (I'm sure they'll get annoying in time), but I can't say much for the loot system. Still, I suppose it keeps your bags from getting cluttered and when there is loot, you can use it and there's no worries about anyone else needing on something they don't need, or having bad luck at rolls, though you still need luck at drops. Still, it was good fun, possibly because I was running it with a group of people I knew (look at me! I have friends now!), but the dungeons themselves weren't bad either.

Warlords - My Impressions

   I'd planned to blog a lot when the new expansion came out, but there's been a lot going on at the moment with my shop at the forefront, but also an abrupt trip to the Netherlands to attend the cremation of Seeg's grandmother.

   Seeg and I have been playing together, which is nice since the only other games we play together together is Pokemon (don't judge us) and Lego Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit (again, don't judge us!) Otherwise I just watch him play, or play other things by myself. So it's been great to play WoW with him. Unfortunately, it does feel sort of wrong to be anywhere in Draenor without him except within my garrison.

   But, my impressions: it's awesome. The intro was great, and when we did it it was just the two of us. On my second run-through, with my shaman, there were other people there, but it was awesome with just the two of us. Frostfire Ridge was also quite awesome, and having read little to nothing about the content of this new expansion, I was surprised to see how big a part your garrison plays in the zone's levelling and questlines. It was cool, though, to have my own little place and gradually build it up with what I need, and to have such awesome individuals joining me along the way.

   We hit 100 in exactly a week. We started playing Friday afternoon, the day after its release (Amazon decided to take forever to deliver the game, so I didn't get it until 3pm, half an hour before which we agreed to start the next day instead since it seemed it wouldn't be in with enough time for us to actually use it and get stuck in), and we hit 100 on the morning of the following Friday. So that was quite cool.

   I really liked the Spires of Arak, and it's actually my favourite zone. I liked all of the stone and all of the dark forests, plus it was great to get more info on the Arakkoa. Plus there's a Hobbit reference, three Gronn sat around a fire with a chest containing Dwarven Beard Rings and a Burgler's Vest.

   I also learned mining on Daeaye instead of skinning - you'd think I'd have had mining with my engineering, but you'd be wrong. I'm glad that the mining works the same way as it did in Pandaria, it's nice to not have to fly around mining copper ore to reach just 50, and while mining fragments isn't much use, I'm really glad that you mine full ore in the garrison's mines.

   I also like the way rares work, though only to a certain degree. The fact that they drop their best loot on the first kill kind of makes them pointless to farm, and while farming does suck, being given everything to easily and quickly is a bit...anticlimactic. I can't be the only one who enjoyed the excitement of looting them in the old world, though admittedly the disappointment kind of sucked, but now it feels as if it's as easy as buying them from a vendor, and I don't really like it.

   It's true that not all of the rares spawn so easily, though, and I've yet to see any of the mount-dropping rares. There were a few we found that required 'summoning'. The first we encountered was within Deathweb Hollow - upon entering the back of the area, there were prompts of noises heard nearby, a sense of tension and being watched, and when you moved through the spider eggs, you squished the young ones. After messing around and doing this for a while, there were more prompts, one of which was that something was moving closer. We kept it up for a while, and eventually Taladorantula, a giant, rare spider spawned. That was pretty awesome. As was finding the four blood elves caught in the cocoons and being rewarded by them upon returning to the camp.

   I'm still really busy right now, which sucks because I really want to get stuck in and level my Shaman, who I decided to put the level 90 boost on from level 63 rather than my level 60 rogue (being level 60 also boosted professions), but the business is at least for good reason now. Curse my own success!

   I wanted to start Atherya's diary back up from where I left off, but since I've not had the chance for quite some time, I fear that where I pick it up from will seem a little out of place. But, I really enjoyed writing it and never had the intention of stopping, just taking a break, and it's about time that break was over. I wrote a catch-up diary entry a few weeks ago with the intention of posting it once I'd written three or four more, since they don't take too long, but I ended up getting swamped with other things and The Wyvern's Tail has seriously taken a back seat. Something had to, though.

   I will be blogging off and on about Warlords, both with exploration and screen shots, but I will also be bringing the diary back. I like to write several entries at a time so that I can make sure that I never post just one and then let it die again. At least this way, if it does die, there are several entries lined up to spark it again that will also give me the chance to write more in between. Fingers crossed I find the time. My book has priority when it comes to creative writing, but it's always good to have a more whimsical, less important project on the go to direct my creativity elsewhere and keep things from getting stale.

   So...I'll be back eventually.