Lame “I’m out” excuses

Nov6

Tonight I was invited to a 25 man continuation my mage ran last week, only we had 5 mages and were lacking healers, so I offered to switch to my priest.

It was supposed to start at 7:00pm but we didn’t get going to 9.  We did get down Sindragosa though, but not Lich King after maybe 3 attempts.  What I find interesting is the amount of people that leave a raid with no excuse, or an absurdly lame one like “well guys, I’m just going to leave now so you have plenty of time to find a replacement”.  Oh ok thanks for doing us that favor of leaving.  We also had a shaman healer doing something like 5% of the healing, which I believe Nilvana (Maice) said “was like 2 heals”.  I did discover that Power Word Barrier works well for the initial Infest assuming all the range is standing in it, which most were.  Without another disc priest helping to bubble though, repeatedly bubbling 25 people is out of the question.  We only got to the Relentless Winter part where the Raging Spirits quickly ripped everyone apart.  I did get invited back next week just for LK, so maybe I can get the title on at least one character.

I then ran WG with Rexe again, and although we’ve been losing more and more, and lose the one I ran before this, we won this time.  I have noticed however that the Horde are coming to the fort early and killing all our NPCs and guns, therefore ranking up enough to swarm us with vehicles.  People seem to ignore the warnings about the fort being attacked if they have no vehicles up though, which is not good.  They also do that with all the NPCs fighting at the bridges as well. I hope we wise up to this and not lose so much.

Ruby Sanctum

Nov6

…getting that out of my system I run two WG’s today with my mage friend who is ever grateful for the heals. I grab an updated xperl and try it out on a random BG, which was Strand of the Ancients, only we get spawn-camped by the horde and I die as soon as I rez. I am not pleased.

Ran WG again and 3 minute in the Horde had the outer west wall down and was working on the inner. There was nearly no alliance in the fort so I correctly predict tha we will “lose it fast” and we did 2 minutes later. In defiance I fly through their fort and take the portal to Dal. If I’m on my mage I’ll lay down a ice nova “fart” on my way out but on the priest getting Death gripped would be an embarrassing way to leave so I just get out instead.

I was supposed to have a Ruby Sanctum (RS) run on my mage tonight, only the raid leader was not on so I suppose that is off. I ran yet another WG and we crumble under the assault of like 10 vehicles coming in wave after wave into the fortress and lose it again. I’m not really clear on where they are getting all the rankings to built sieges so quickly. Maybe it’s part of tenacity? We’ve been spread too thin lately, yet some how the horde is able to take Sunken, at least one Workshop, Broken Temple, and harass us at towers, as well as have 16 vehicles driving along at a time. Perhaps we’re just outnumbered?

I am hoping for a not so pro ICC group and I catch a guild run as me as the only outsider. We do well up until Blood Princes were we wipe repeatedly, mostly failing on Keleseth. First the warlock tries to tank it, then the mage. It just doesn’t work out, and I know first hand how hard it is to gather the orbs, while keeping aggro on Keleseth, while avoiding being melee’d to death by him, WHILE avoiding Vortexes and such. It’s really hard. The druid then posts his healing stats, and he has indeed quite outhealed me. He also has 75% overhealing. I’ve found posting recount stats, when no one has asked, to be quite poor form. Even if you don’t say it, it’s like ‘wow look at how I am outdoing you’.

We go to Dreamwalker instead and wipe twice. At the last attempt we have an epic death where Blazing Skeletons spawning one after another, and we all go down after about 9 spammed Lay Wastes in a row. I think the healing just wasn’t enough on the dragon there. I was chain throwing greater heals when I could and it wasn’t enough. Oh well, I was hoping for a not very hard core group as I mentioned just to get my Ashen Verdict rep up.

WoW has no pvp? Wut?

Nov6

The other day I had someone note that WoW “has no pvp”.  I’m not sure where this misinformation is coming from.  Let me introduce you to the PVP menu.

The first one is Wintergrap, a large siege style battle that runs every 2 hours.  I’ve noted it in this log already; I like to attend as much as possible.  It pits the Alliance against the Horde on winning the Wintergrasp fortress which allows you to run VOA for JP, gear, and earn Honor for a multitude of things by completing the weekly  WG quests, and killing the opposite faction.  For more info see http://www.wowwiki.com/Wintergrasp

The battlegrounds are Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, Eye of the Storm, Strand of the Ancients, and Isle of Conquest.  I believe I’ve talked about all these as well since I like to do them at least once a day.  These each have their own objectives too. Thing is about these is you can queue for them at any time, sometimes without needing to wait, which all depends on the server.  On my server you can chain battlegrounds immediately just about all day long. And these, unlike WG, are instanced so if one is full, another one will start up.  Battlegrounds can earn you exp as well as honor and if you win, you receive quite the decent chunk of exp. I levelled from 78 to 80 over a weekend in the Call to Arms (featured) battlegrounds.

Then you also have arenas in 2v2’s, 3v3’s, and 5v5’s, which work like the dungeon finder only you have to put together people on your team that you registered in a group, and then queue for it.  These sometimes have long waits on my server. The arenas as I understand it, can be “fun’ no point skirmishes or the rated ones. High arena scores lets you purchase the top pvp gear, through team and or personal rating.

Then there are always duels between players, and on pvp servers you can kill the opposide side at any time.  I play a PVE server which means I have to flag before I can be attacked.

Anyway, that comment just pissed me off raw. L2 has sieges but we have Wintergrasp and much more often, L2 has Olympiad and we have arena (and much more often), L2 has fortress battles and Territory Wars and we have battlegrounds (and much much more often).

IliIlIilI

Nov6

I log in and spend some time looking at new pvp and pve gear, and conclude that this close to an expansion I really have nothing to gain from trying to buy the entry level T10 sets to get the 4 piece bonus.  While I’m looking at this I note that the iIiIiIiIi name trick is not unique to Lineage 2.

I decide to try to level cooking so I head out to Elwynn Forest, then the logging camp, then Westfall in search of meat or fish to cook.  When in Westfall I run across a frost mage who asks for help with 3 quests, named Ryangaraas.  As we head out to the area he goes afk for a phone call and I kill some of the quest mobs he needs.  I also have to go afk for a few, but by the time I come back he has disbanded party and logged off.

No matter, I run to Moonbrook and heal/shield/buff a paladin and another frost mage while I’m out there.

I work up to about 119 in cooking out in Lakeshire,  and then note that WG is up again and queue into it.  I run into Rexe, a mage who has been thanking me for healing the last few runs, and whisper him that he’s becoming my little WG mage friend. This person is probably the first mage I’ve run into that hasn’t been stupid or annoying, and I find out he has nearly 150,000 Honorable Kills.  After talking a bit I make my first ever MAGE friend.

Later I head out to Lakeshire again and start farming my lowbie meats for cooking.  I signed up for our first guild run of VOA in quite a bit, and Cinor signed up on his DK but did not show up. It hardly matters when we were the only ones signed anyway besides Lila.  On my way in I get my ass kicked by a blood elf paladin named Thedonjuan, but I was not buffed nor prepared and die.  Ugh.  It was well worth waiting for a “guid” VOA however and I roll a 100 on Wrathful Gladiator Boots of Salvation, the 264 pvp boots! I’ve been trying for those on my mage for months so this is more of my good luck kicking in!

Apparently everyone is in “frost” mode still and all leave after the frost and fire boss. The raid falls apart shortly after, however we reform to fill a 25 man weekly raid, The Obsidian Sanctum.

It goes well, and I get two achievements, though I fail and roll a 14 on the dragon hide bag and an 88 on the Large Satchel of Goods but lose that roll. I can’t be spoiled all the time I guess XD

Ended the night running another very thrilling WG, where we could not even get the towers down, and must have smashed up at least 30 horde vehicles and won!  I got my GNERDS Rage achievement there too. Phew! Calling it a night.

I love UK

Nov6

I run my HH this morning, Trick or Treat, then run my random Heroic.  I love UK

The DK says I can ask him to go blood if need be, but the DPS is rocking and we destroy the whole place in record time.

I then queue for a random BG and get Strand of the Ancients, unfortunately half of the alliance goes afk and we lose rather quickly.  I spent more time trying to keep myself alive than anyone else.