Blood for Blood run in ZA

After having defeated the bear boss in ZA with the Shide Devils on Monday evening my raiding guild Blood for Blood had a run Wednesday evening. Some of the people in the raid have had experience in ZA some none and other like maybe one entrance behind the doors. Our group was similar in group comp to the shide devils run. 2 tanks 3 healers 2 mages 2 hunters 1 rogue. As with any group that is trying to learn the dynamics of a new fight we had a couple wipes no ones fault just the learning curve. So we got the bear boss down on our 3rd attempt and we felt pretty good about or raid composition so we decide to give the bird boss a shot. We ran and completed the "gauntlet" the first time out and we all felt good about that. So we had people in the raid with experience explain how this boss fight would go, spread out dps and be prepared to run under boss during electrical storm. Our first attempt things got confused and we didn't get boss below 80%, so we run back in and prepare for 2nd attempt which would be our last because time was getting late. I wish i could say we gloriously defeated the eagle boss but no such luck although he was below 50% are timing on the storm was off. So I still think of the run as a success because we are still building our teamwork and each attempt at the bosses we get better. So the next time B4B goes into ZA bird boss be on notice we know your tricks now. So for all of those who joined me in there again ty for the building teamwork and the excitement of learning new encounters. We might have ended on a wipe but i think as a group we improved with or without phat bird loot.

How I View Paladin Tanking

First off I didn't come up with this I found it in the Paladin forums along time ago. I would love to give credit to the originator but I don't have their name anymore.

"My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
While I draw breath, they shall not perish.
So long as they live, our enemies will fall.
I am defender, protector,guardian;
I am Paladin."

The first time i read that i got goose dumps. OK i admit to being a nerd whole heatedly; but this is how i view an instance, a raid or even just grouping up to do a quest.

Zul' Aman

Some times the game gives one back to you. I had a poor run last Friday night on Grai in kara; and i have already ranted about that, this one is a happy tale of fun more fun and success. 3B had set up a one boss run into ZA for the sidhe devils for Monday evening mainly for some of us to see it and get our 20 slot bags for the quest. He asked if Fal would be willing to be the 2nd tank, I was more than willing so we had the team set. 2 tanks 3 awesome healers and 5 very powerful dps. Now I have never seen the inside of ZA before so i had a few nerves I really like my warrior Fal just was concerned about his gear. So we start it up and handle the first couple pulls okay a few problems and maybe 2 wipes more from some people being new (see dwarf tank) more than anything else. Now we are on the boss full raid buffed Fal sits around 17 k hp and 13k armor a little light for za but we gave it a shot. First try something went wrong most likely my fault but 3B said lets try again. After we run back we take a break to do the hex toads and got a purple tailoring pattern. Again 3B lightens the mood saying hey we already got an epic relaxing me a ton and calming my nerves alot. 2nd attempt I go down way early and leave 3B alone on the bear boss a 2 tank fight by most descriptions. Well our healers kept him up thru 3 changes with mangles and cleaves, yeah we have ubber healers i can't say that enough. So i offer to switch out Fal for Grai he has better overall gear and I probally am better at pally tanking than I am at warrior tanking. So they have to summon me and thru all of this there is no complaining or whining everyone is just waiting. So now I'm really nervous again, I have played Grai with sidhe devils before but he was holy at that time, so my first tanking experience is on the 1st za boss and I don't wanna cause a wipe because i missed a taunt or some other boneheaded move. So 3B says to start I pop the wings run in judge a righteousness and away we go. I'm watching the countdown to form shift so I don't have a consecration down so 3B can taunt and get threat. 1st switch was flawless now I have to taunt of the best druid tank I've ever seen. I'm thinking of everything that can go wrong but he switches form I hit righteous defense and bang I have the aggro. So we continued thru the fight and before i know it the boss is down. It was really nice to see new content and to be honest the nerves made it better, I wasn't worried about failing and getting "blamed" I didn't wanna let my team down. It was incredible fun because the stress wasn't about oh we gotta get thru this its was a fun run because we all looked for the fun in the run. So maybe wow gave one back or maybe its about finding that special group of people to run with. To all the sidhe devils I'm terrible with names so I try not to add any ones name so i don't forgot anyone. But I will yell as load as i can that we have some of the best heals and dps in the game, plus a great druid tank and i wanted to thank all of you again for letting me tag along to have some great times in this silly game we all play.

Grai's Kara run

Last night was Grai's turn to run kara. He's currently helping a friend try to get some of the new people in his guild geared up to try and make a push to see some higher content before the xpac lands. It wasn't what one would call a smooth start, apparently we had a few last minute change of plans, but the group finally got formed. So we get thru attunemen without any issues and head over to the stairs. After pulling the 2 groups of non elite trash someones pet attacks the elite group of 5 first wipe of the night. Then we get thru moroes 2 tries, first one we had a problem with shackle and traps but we got it figured out. Now is when the run gets interesting, we are moving thru upper ballroom pulling the non elite trash that near the doorway to maidens hallway. Again we had someone pull the elite group so I run over to where the healers are grouped consecrate have all the nasties on me and then poof they leave me. 3B on my honor this is the truth, when the mobs suddenly depart from me I look up and see that i got DI'd; yeah one of our pally healers Di'd the tank. Needless to say we wiped again. Ok we clear thru to maiden, as MT I was setting up who would have Blessing of Sacrifice (BoS) on me so that at least one healer wouldnt be silenced. Ready check done I pop the wings run in judge righteous on maiden drop a max rank consecrate turn around and the ot decide to use every max threat ability and pull maiden off me, still don't know why. We wipe again. 2nd try same people same assignments
I do my little pally wings run in have maiden locked up with threat dps is going fine then boom I'm dead. The BoS pally healer who is supposed to be healing me has a full mana bar but I'm dead. I take the blame for alot of wipes but not this one. So his guild leader asked him what was he thinking, his response was that he was casting BoS and a down ranked holy light. Quick check of the combat log and he must have been casting holy light rank 1, So his guild leader a person with 2 70 pallys asked him nicely to use a higher ranked spell because he was the main healer for the mt. 3rd try after or dps ret pally switched to healing gear maiden goes down. Now on the the ushers a pain but doable we had a shackle so we only had one at a time. First pull I'm dead before they even tried to Ice block me again the same pally has a full mana bar and makes a statement that the Ot should MT these because apparently I cant. When asked again why he has a full mana bar he flips out cursing and accusing people of saying he's not healing. When it was pointed out that he had full mana bar he gquits and then leaves the raid. By this time im angry well maybe a little past angry, I understand wipes happen, I always take blame for wipes because as a tank its my job to make sure they don't happen. So I did something that I'm not very proud of a cursed in raid vent chat. I'm not a prude lord knows but i try to be civil and not use vulgarity because I've found that it has no redeeming aspect to most conversations. So i get up from the desk and walk around the house. Shrinn glanced away from her screen for a minute and ask "that bad" so I told her that I cursed over vent and am upset with myself and at this point the entire raid. By know we have spent over 2 hours for 5 badges. Well after we shuffle spots around we continue. We managed to one shot everything else up to chess. No illhoof because we didn't have a warlock. I hate to blame people more than i oppose cursing but I was glad to see that pally leave.

So it turned out okay I guess and I apologized to everyone for cursing in the raid. It just truly made me appreciate the smoothness of a good team of skilled players and not preeners. I gave my friend my word that i would help their guild so i will stay with them for awhile. As with everything in life it wasn't all bad, it was just a trying run that felt like a grind.

I'll put on my optimist hat and hope that are next foray is better and we learned as a group how to work together. As they say hope springs eternal,my spring got a little stretched i just hope it didn't go doing and break.

Why wipes are my fault

As the readers of Wulfa's blog already know SL went smooth last night. 2 1/2 wipes not perfect but not bad either. I would just like to explain here why I think most wipes are my fault. I have 2 tanks, and being the tomato can out front can be very fun most times for me. I mean how hard is it run in and make things mad at you and get hit. I often thought as a tank i have the easiest job, swing block thunder stomp or consecration depending on who's getting beat on(grai or fal) . So wipe one was completely my oops as I asked Xiliah(spelling) our SP to mind control one of the mobs in blackheart's room; now being tank they asked me to mark well i really marked the wrong mob, never have your Mc'd mob be closest to the next pull or u get them all. So after we run back and everyone was very nice and didn't question what was i thinking. We then cleared thru blackheart and vorpril and are on our way to mur'mur. After have a refresher on how to pull that hallway we get to mur'mur no wipes. On mur'mur our first shot didnt work your friendly short legged tank didn't get out of his aoe in time down goes the grp. Run back 2nd time we get mur'mur.

The reason i take fault for wipes is twofold #1) did i mark things wrong i.e. first wipe #2) did i not annoy all the mobs enough. So if I only have 2 jobs to do I should be able to handle that right. I'm not chain trapping, mind controlling or focus shackle or sheeping, I'm just trying to get hit and keep everyone in an area so the DPS can do their thing. So if i dont preform properly it can cause a wipe. We all know stuff happens but in general, I'll assume responsability because well its mine.

I have ran with tanks that think they are the be all and end all of "tanking", once in Gruul's I ran with a self described "god" tank we wiped but oh well. I make no claim to being anywhere near that good. I try my best to have the proper gear and I hope by now a little skill, but first and foremost I try to be a team player and do my job.

So when the runs over and hopefully team mates,guild mates or pug mates get some gear I can be happy for them because we all got the job done. The credit I think always goes to the following in the following order, CC/DPS if you are doing 2 jobs its harder than mine, healers without whom we would get nowhere, then finally the meat sheild why tanks last you ask and my only answer ever is always the same " I just get hit" and how hard is that.

wow way longer than i thought i would be if ya hung in thru all of it ty

Hmmm isnt the tank supposed to have a sheild?

Yesterday afternoon as i was checking mail and what not on the character sheet; I got a whisper from a guildy they needed a healer for Sunken Temple. Although Fanabb is shadow at his level its not a big deal so i said "sure throw me an invite." Well we all get there warrior,hunter,mage,rogue and me(shadow priest). Sounds like a killer group for ST, we have 4 forms of cc and including shackle for those nasty undead. Well we were progressing fairly well get thru all the mini bosses figuring out who's cc what and kill order etc. . Was running oom(out of mana) alot but i could normally heal 2 pulls before i need to drink. We drop down to the dragon area and then the warrior links his off hand weapon he's been using. What the tank is duel wielding. I have 2 tank capable classes so I'm thinking what is this guy doing. Needles to say it turned into a wipe fest. I have a huge problem with ST other than the fact that i have to go there to do the lvl 50 class quest i stay out. So I run back get back into the instance and immediately get lost. So this continues for a few minutes, we have respawn and apparently some of the group thinks i can solo them (insert laugh track). After 2 or maybe 3 more gy runs we are up against time now( dinner hour) so we decided to try to summon the dragon didn't work as i ended up oom again.

So please all you warrior's & pally's pls if u wanna tank bring a shield and help out a poor old priest every once in awhile.

Or if ya wanna tank without a shield roll a druid.....rumor has it BRK still needs pets so u might even get to be exotic

my rambling rant is over and this one was definitely a misadventure worthy of the gang

Going Public....well kinda

Thanks to the ever chatty gnome (shrinn) among us its time for me to share this address. Talking to myself isn't good ( or at least that what all the doctors say). Alot of major changes in the last couple of days. Grai is back to prot (for this week) and trying to help out a friends guild with some progression. The rest of the merry band is now in Sidhe Devils, and having a wonderful time.

The main reason i started this was a way of saying thank you and a poor attempt at imitation. I'm as nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Numbers, formula and just about any machine tool I'm good with, writing is not a strong point.

But hopefully i can add a funny story or two here about some of the silliness i have a tendency to get the guys into. Farming nagrand at 59 because i have a mote extractor and hey primal airs will pay the repair bill. wondering why at 52 my aggro radius in zangamarsh is half the map. These are truly the misadventures of some of the character sheet.

Well thats all for today......Gonna tell a few people about this know i guess.......

Uggggg

Last night was one of the tough ones. Just couldn't seem to get the heck out of our own way. We made it to chess but at 3:30 am est we decide to say phooey. I think most of had our heads someplace other than the game. The healer most likely the worst one. 15 badges so Grai is down to 7 more for the badge chest piece. Hopefully with the new cp ill be over 1600+ healing here's hoping.



Falromord gets to go tonight not a guild run. Helping out some of the wonderful people over at Sidhe Devils. Will be incredibly fun just to be pure dps. No OT no MT and no healing just get to go in and break somebodies stuff. Ah the beauty in simply being a angry dwarf. Being fury in Kara i have no drop list just badges and if i could hope maybe an odd piece of t4. But for a smooth run and good teammates ill give up drops, i need a fun run tonight had the work one already

Hello all

Hello everyone. Let me introduce myself to you a little bit, I have 5 toons of note that i hope you will enjoying hearing about. A 70 pally currently holy, 70 warrior currently fury, 63 combat rogue,58 hunter and last but not least a 52 priest. Graimerin (pally), Falromord(war), Carack(rogue), Padrad(hunter), Fanabb(priest). They are the gang never could choose just one to play. I'm painfully new at this as I'm sure is apparent but who knows i may even prove to be funny.



The main reason I've started this is some incredibly nice things have been said about me by some wonderful members of this community. So I thought if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I'd give it a go. I post no names now as not to embarrass anyone by my attempts at doing this.



Well dinner, then guild kara run.



Hopefully somethings will be blog "worthy" we can only hope