It felt like it took forever to get everything for the game installed and downloaded on Friday. The computer arrived shortly after noon, and when I posted around 3pm, I was partway through the second patch download. I still had to download 2.3 (another biggun), install BC, and get all my addons in the right place. It was about 6pm before I was finally logged in and playing again. It was totally worth the wait though. Even standing in the auction house in Silvermoon with my bank character was completely stunning.... the detail! I cranked all the video options up to give me maximum detail for the environment, the spells, everything. Wow. I couldn't believe how sharp everything looked. Sort of reminded me how in the old days, the cinematic at the beginning of the game would be incredible quality, but then the actual game play had very blocky graphics. Over the years, the games have looked more and more like the cinematic. Now, I'm finally playing the cinematic.
I took my mage out for a spin in Dustwallow Marsh, and ... again, it's hard to describe how breathtaking it all was. The weeds all over the ground, the shimmers on the surface of the water, the bricks on the road... and then when I started casting spells! Amazing! I almost died in the first battle because I was so distracted by all the new animations surrounding me. I can't believe how much I've been missing.
So far, it's consistently giving me 60 fps, with nary a dip. I think I saw it go down to 50 once, but that's not something I notice unless I'm looking at the number. When I'm leaving or arriving at a flight path, I can see all the animation. When the zeppelin carries me from spot to spot, there isn't a full minute delay where I know I've arrived at the destination, but just can't see it yet. It's immediate. When I walk into an instance, I only see that loading screen for a few moments. I don't have to sit there wondering whether I've disconnected again, hoping my party doesn't replace me... Ahhhh! It's all so much more relaxing, more predictable. I love it.
[/new computer joy]
So, we played quite a bit on Friday evening, and then almost all day on Saturday and Sunday. I did meet all my goals for the weekend...
I played my hunter just a little bit. She wasn't fully rested, but had enough double experience saved up to get me to 52 just grinding greens on my way to some quests. I killed my way through the trolls in Jintha'Alor to make my own Mallet of Zul'Farrak. Easy peasy. I then decided to wander west and try to kill the giant spider Shadra. Turns out she was a bit out of my league, so I ended up abandoning my poor cat and making a hasty retreat toward the exit. Will have to try that one again later. (It was an orange group quest, but hey, my pet and I are like a group, right?) I had one more Hinterlands quest on my list... to get the ancient egg from the cave behind the area where I'd just made the mallet. Doh! I really need to read these quests more carefully after I receive them. SO, I revisited those trolls and swiped the egg. *Yoink!*
I also got my mage to 40. I mostly killed stuff around Dustwallow Marsh, but did travel a bit to get stuff for the mage-specific quests from Tabetha there. I got to the last quest in the chain, which involved killing the Demon of the Orb that she summons in the little garden by her house. I got his hit points pretty low on the first try, but he killed me before I could finish him off. I retrieved by body, ran back, and tried a second time. Again, so close. The Demon and I basically flopped to the ground at precisely the same moment. Damn! Again, ran back to Tabetha's cottage, and when I went inside, there was a pair of 38ish level human mages starting the same quest. So, I waited while Tabetha walked out and summoned the Demon for them. I watched them slay the demon (and even fired a helpful frost bolt in there as he began smushing one of them... I know, they're humans, but... he's a big demon!). They killed him, and as they were turning in the quest, I peeked in my quest log to see what the reward was, and noted at this point that it said "group." Heh... But I had come so close twice by myself! So, I decided to try it one more time. When the humans were done, I had Tabetha summon the Demon again. The humans followed me out in the garden to watch the fight...
I secured him in place with my frost nova and then hurled frostbolts and fire blasts at him until he was no longer frozen. I had to take hits from him until the nova cooldown was over, but then recast it as soon as I could, ran backwards and bandaged myself briefly. I then repeated with the fireblast, frostbolts, and cone of cold until he was on me again. I drank a healing potion, and then finished him off with everything I had. I was down to about 20% of my hit points as he finally crumpled to the ground. It was so awesome.
The human mages stuck around for the whole the battle (no complementary frost bolts for me, but I didn't care, since it was pretty exciting to down this Demon myself), and they both cheered for me and saluted me with respect after the kill. Too cool. That was one of the highlights of my WoWeekend. Somewhere along the way back to town I hit level 40, and then went to buy a mount. She now has a nifty blue hawkstrider.
We took our priest/warrior duo into Blackfathom Deeps so that my priest could kill Lorgus Jett, and my husband could complete a few lingering quests he had there. We wouldn't get much experience (if any), but we thought it might be a fun challenge with just the two of us, and we'd get a bit of loot for disenchants, rep, etc. We actually did quite well. We made it all the way to Kelris without a wipe, and dropped him like a bag of dirt. Yay! So, it was time to light the four trays on the altar. I'd mentioned to my husband that we should only light one at a time (as he hadn't done this instance before), but he lit one, and when it seemed like nothing happened right away, he ran over and lit a second one. Ooops.... so, we wiped. It had taken us so long to get there, and knowing how close some of our earlier scrapes were, we weren't certain we'd be able to do it, so we just decided to call it a night. My husband is very anxious to get a character to 40, so we may not pair again with these two until we've both leveled a bit. His warrior is at 37, my priest at 36.
Our paladin/shaman duo will continue to bulldoze the opposition, however. We did Ragefire Chasm together, just the two of us, since we were both significantly above the level range. It was so much fun that we decided to try running the whole of Wailing Caverns, just the two of us. I'd heard that folks can pretty much solo WC at level 30, so we thought there was a good chance we could do it as a pair of 24s, each with healing and resurrection capabilities. Turns out we were right -- we did very well. We approached each pull very carefully, and our deliberation paid off. We wiped only once, and it was when we weren't paying attention and got hit with a few patrols during a battle where we were taking on three at once already. We both decided to bail from the battle, hoping one of us could get away and resurrect the other, but my husband unfortunately took a wrong turn right into another patrolling slimy thing, and I, instead of jumping over the side into a clear area, took the ramp down instead and got killed. Doh!
Aside from that, we kicked butt. We killed all the bosses, collected all four of the gems for Leaders of the Fang, and then did the final event. I mentally prepared myself for the idea that we would not be successful in killing all the waves of monsters that emerged from the water around us, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy. Nooo problem.
While it was perhaps not the best use of our time (it took a very long time, and yielded very little experience, though we did both level to 25 upon turning in the quests), it was really very much fun. I loved the excitement of wondering whether we'd actually survive some of the fights -- some of it was easy, but some of it was quite challenging. This is what I love about running instances. I don't care so much about the loot or the lore. I enjoy working out the strategy for each pull, given the particular resources of the team, and trying to execute the plan.
Showing posts with label hunter progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hunter progress. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
State of the Main (and Alts!)
I managed to play quite a lot this weekend...
My hunter has hit 50! I finished off most of the available Hinterlands quests with a rogue friend from the guild. We each had a bunch of group quests we intended to pair up for, but then post-patch, many of them had the group label removed. We did them together anyway, and polished them off quite quickly. I've now wandered to Feralas where there are green quests galore, and I'm leveling up my leatherworking a bit. My friend and I will head into Zul'Farrak tonight.
I also played my mage a fair amount this weekend, and used up all the lovely double experience I'd accrued during her long rest. She completed Scarlet Monastery (with another frightening pug, but at this point, I think I'll spare you the tale), and most of Razorfen Downs. Still need to finish up the quests outside that instance.
My priest is 34ish, I think. Didn't play her much this weekend, but leveled up her tailoring such that she can now make stuff she can't wear yet. That's when I know it's time to slowly back away from the auction house... *cautiously steps back* No really, I had tons of silk on other characters, and together, they contributed toward the let's-move-on-to-mageweave-tailoring fund.
My paladin is at 20. Our paladin/shaman duo wreaked havoc on the harpies in the Barrens on Friday night. Steamrolled them! Bwahahaha, etc. We've yet to meet our match.
Onward!
My hunter has hit 50! I finished off most of the available Hinterlands quests with a rogue friend from the guild. We each had a bunch of group quests we intended to pair up for, but then post-patch, many of them had the group label removed. We did them together anyway, and polished them off quite quickly. I've now wandered to Feralas where there are green quests galore, and I'm leveling up my leatherworking a bit. My friend and I will head into Zul'Farrak tonight.
I also played my mage a fair amount this weekend, and used up all the lovely double experience I'd accrued during her long rest. She completed Scarlet Monastery (with another frightening pug, but at this point, I think I'll spare you the tale), and most of Razorfen Downs. Still need to finish up the quests outside that instance.
My priest is 34ish, I think. Didn't play her much this weekend, but leveled up her tailoring such that she can now make stuff she can't wear yet. That's when I know it's time to slowly back away from the auction house... *cautiously steps back* No really, I had tons of silk on other characters, and together, they contributed toward the let's-move-on-to-mageweave-tailoring fund.
My paladin is at 20. Our paladin/shaman duo wreaked havoc on the harpies in the Barrens on Friday night. Steamrolled them! Bwahahaha, etc. We've yet to meet our match.
Onward!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Aggro in Ulda
I played my hunter all weekend, soaking up the last of the delicious double experience I'd saved up with her. I had a couple things to do in Uldaman still, since my last pug there was unable to complete it, so I put my name on the LFG list first thing on Saturday.
I got an invite after an hour or so, and joined a group consisting of a mage and another hunter. I recognized the other hunter -- we had quested together briefly in Stranglethorn a while back. I don't remember which quest specifically, but it was one where we had to kill a bunch of trolls, and we got our butts kicked. We'd send our cats in, and within moments, we'd be stormed by angry mobs that had been standing just around the corner where we couldn't see, I guessed. After a final suicide run to retrieve our bodies, we fled the scene, getting chased by a pack of gorillas as we tried to get to safer ground. I thought it was completely hilarious at the time.
So, recalling that fondly (unsuccessful though it was), I was looking forward to this Ulda run. When I joined, that made the group two hunters and a mage, so as far as I was concerned, as soon as we picked up a tank and healer, we'd be ready to go. Moments later, the hunter invited another mage. Hmm. I supposed my cat could tank, but I'd never be the first to suggest it. I just made my way toward the summoning stone and thought I'd wait to see what happened.
It seemed like it took a very long time to get a fifth. I think this is in part because we somehow were no longer on the LFG list for Ulda, and when I suggested that the hunter advertise in the LFG channel, he said he didn't know how. Instead, I think he just started looking for folks in the right level range and whispering to them. Must have been successful, because we finally got a fifth, a druid, who greeted us by saying, "Um, guys, I can tank or heal, but not both." Yeahh....
I seriously considered dropping from the group so they could find a fifth that would be more appropriate, but since it had taken us so long to get five together, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. At least if I stayed we'd all be playing instead of waiting, and if it was clear it wasn't going to work, we'd just call it quits. One of the mages pointed out that we should have pretty good DPS and crowd control capabilities, so as long as we communicated well, we should be fine. (I liked her!) I suggested that the leader (the other hunter) mark the pulls so we'd all know what was what. This ended up not happening.
Instead, it was decided that the other hunter and I would have our cats each tank a different mob to split up the aggro. So, at the beginning of each pull (some of these with six mobs ready to charge us), the plan was that we'd each mark a mob with our hunter's mark, signifying we were ready. Then, we'd release the cats and ideally, the DPS could focus on the two marked mobs first. In theory, this probably could have worked. The problem, however, was that the other hunter was specced Marksmanship, not Beast Mastery, so this meant that he was doing a lot more damage than his cat. He possibly could have compensated for this by delaying his fire and letting the cat build up some aggro, but he didn't make an attempt to do this at all. Each pull went like this:
1) He'd put up his hunter's mark, and then I'd put up mine. We'd both send our cats in.
2) I'd wait a few moments for my cat to growl before shooting. He would start shooting immediately, sometimes before his cat even got to the mob.
3) My cat would effectively tank its assigned mob. He would pull aggro on his mob and usually most of the others in the area, and they would come rushing over to our party.
4) My cat and I would kill the one mob I'd marked, and then I'd hurry my cat back to try to help sort out the chaos in the area where we were standing.
5) Lather, rinse, retrieve corpses, repeat.
The mages did try to sheep whenever they could, but mostly it was futile. At one point I asked the other hunter if he was using multi-shot, given that he was pulling so many mobs to the group on every single pull. He said he wasn't, so it just must have been due to poor decisions in timing/choosing his other shots. One of the mages finally asked to be leader so that she could mark a few mobs for sheeping. This helped quite a lot, but I swear, this other hunter pulled every single mob that my cat wasn't tanking on every single pull. It was unbelievable.
(Note, I did download AuldLangSyne, and while it isn't quite what I expected, it is kind of cool. Whenever you apply notes to another player, it includes them when you hover your pointer over them. So, in this case, hovering over the other hunter would make it say:
HisName
Level 43 Blood Elf Hunter
Moron
It made me smile every time.)
We wiped only once, but like I said, those poor mages had to collect their bodies many times during the instance. It was taking us long enough, too, that those retrieving their bodies had respawns to deal with, so the whole group had to go back to help at one point. The mage who was leading us showed us the back way in to speed up later body retrievals, but I was beginning to doubt our ability to handle the final boss, given the way things had gone up to that point.
We made it to the final room, and the mage now in charge suggested that the other hunter have his cat tank the boss while mine took care of all the adds. Seriously? I whispered her and said I thought my cat might be able to hold aggro better on the boss. I told her I was worried about the other hunter's cat doing any major tanking because the other hunter had pulled aggro to himself on every single pull. "Hold up," she said, and whispered a thanks for the suggestion. The way she said it, I thought she might be discounting the idea at first, but then she reversed her orders. My cat would tank the boss, and the other hunter would take care of the other stuff. Whew.
It was really a very close fight, but we brought down Archaedas in one attempt. It was awesome... my cat managed to hold his attention through lots of growling and some well timed intimidations. Both the druid and I kept her healed enough that she was still there at the end of the fight. She was down to 10% of her hit points as Archaedas fell, and I was down to less than half of mine thanks to some roaming adds I happened to engage during the fight. One person died (either a mage or the druid -- can't remember now), so ... not too bad. Way better than I was expecting.
Archaedas dropped the Stoneslayer, and again, in this group, everyone was rolling greed on bind-on-pickups whether they planned to use the items or not. I really prefer to pass on BoPs unless I plan to use them, but I finally said, "what the heck" and rolled greed and won it. I didn't feel too badly about it since it's doubtful that anyone other than the other hunter or I could use it, and the other hunter had just won Grimlok's Charge earlier (in a roll that I passed on).
Anyway, it makes total sense to me why that hunter and I had such problems in Stranglethorn Vale before. It's also becoming clearer to me why hunters have such a reputation for not knowing how to play their class. Seems like I've run into so many clueless ones recently.
(My hunter is now at 47! Whee!)
I got an invite after an hour or so, and joined a group consisting of a mage and another hunter. I recognized the other hunter -- we had quested together briefly in Stranglethorn a while back. I don't remember which quest specifically, but it was one where we had to kill a bunch of trolls, and we got our butts kicked. We'd send our cats in, and within moments, we'd be stormed by angry mobs that had been standing just around the corner where we couldn't see, I guessed. After a final suicide run to retrieve our bodies, we fled the scene, getting chased by a pack of gorillas as we tried to get to safer ground. I thought it was completely hilarious at the time.
So, recalling that fondly (unsuccessful though it was), I was looking forward to this Ulda run. When I joined, that made the group two hunters and a mage, so as far as I was concerned, as soon as we picked up a tank and healer, we'd be ready to go. Moments later, the hunter invited another mage. Hmm. I supposed my cat could tank, but I'd never be the first to suggest it. I just made my way toward the summoning stone and thought I'd wait to see what happened.
It seemed like it took a very long time to get a fifth. I think this is in part because we somehow were no longer on the LFG list for Ulda, and when I suggested that the hunter advertise in the LFG channel, he said he didn't know how. Instead, I think he just started looking for folks in the right level range and whispering to them. Must have been successful, because we finally got a fifth, a druid, who greeted us by saying, "Um, guys, I can tank or heal, but not both." Yeahh....
I seriously considered dropping from the group so they could find a fifth that would be more appropriate, but since it had taken us so long to get five together, I decided to go ahead and give it a try. At least if I stayed we'd all be playing instead of waiting, and if it was clear it wasn't going to work, we'd just call it quits. One of the mages pointed out that we should have pretty good DPS and crowd control capabilities, so as long as we communicated well, we should be fine. (I liked her!) I suggested that the leader (the other hunter) mark the pulls so we'd all know what was what. This ended up not happening.
Instead, it was decided that the other hunter and I would have our cats each tank a different mob to split up the aggro. So, at the beginning of each pull (some of these with six mobs ready to charge us), the plan was that we'd each mark a mob with our hunter's mark, signifying we were ready. Then, we'd release the cats and ideally, the DPS could focus on the two marked mobs first. In theory, this probably could have worked. The problem, however, was that the other hunter was specced Marksmanship, not Beast Mastery, so this meant that he was doing a lot more damage than his cat. He possibly could have compensated for this by delaying his fire and letting the cat build up some aggro, but he didn't make an attempt to do this at all. Each pull went like this:
1) He'd put up his hunter's mark, and then I'd put up mine. We'd both send our cats in.
2) I'd wait a few moments for my cat to growl before shooting. He would start shooting immediately, sometimes before his cat even got to the mob.
3) My cat would effectively tank its assigned mob. He would pull aggro on his mob and usually most of the others in the area, and they would come rushing over to our party.
4) My cat and I would kill the one mob I'd marked, and then I'd hurry my cat back to try to help sort out the chaos in the area where we were standing.
5) Lather, rinse, retrieve corpses, repeat.
The mages did try to sheep whenever they could, but mostly it was futile. At one point I asked the other hunter if he was using multi-shot, given that he was pulling so many mobs to the group on every single pull. He said he wasn't, so it just must have been due to poor decisions in timing/choosing his other shots. One of the mages finally asked to be leader so that she could mark a few mobs for sheeping. This helped quite a lot, but I swear, this other hunter pulled every single mob that my cat wasn't tanking on every single pull. It was unbelievable.
(Note, I did download AuldLangSyne, and while it isn't quite what I expected, it is kind of cool. Whenever you apply notes to another player, it includes them when you hover your pointer over them. So, in this case, hovering over the other hunter would make it say:
HisName
Level 43 Blood Elf Hunter
Moron
It made me smile every time.)
We wiped only once, but like I said, those poor mages had to collect their bodies many times during the instance. It was taking us long enough, too, that those retrieving their bodies had respawns to deal with, so the whole group had to go back to help at one point. The mage who was leading us showed us the back way in to speed up later body retrievals, but I was beginning to doubt our ability to handle the final boss, given the way things had gone up to that point.
We made it to the final room, and the mage now in charge suggested that the other hunter have his cat tank the boss while mine took care of all the adds. Seriously? I whispered her and said I thought my cat might be able to hold aggro better on the boss. I told her I was worried about the other hunter's cat doing any major tanking because the other hunter had pulled aggro to himself on every single pull. "Hold up," she said, and whispered a thanks for the suggestion. The way she said it, I thought she might be discounting the idea at first, but then she reversed her orders. My cat would tank the boss, and the other hunter would take care of the other stuff. Whew.
It was really a very close fight, but we brought down Archaedas in one attempt. It was awesome... my cat managed to hold his attention through lots of growling and some well timed intimidations. Both the druid and I kept her healed enough that she was still there at the end of the fight. She was down to 10% of her hit points as Archaedas fell, and I was down to less than half of mine thanks to some roaming adds I happened to engage during the fight. One person died (either a mage or the druid -- can't remember now), so ... not too bad. Way better than I was expecting.
Archaedas dropped the Stoneslayer, and again, in this group, everyone was rolling greed on bind-on-pickups whether they planned to use the items or not. I really prefer to pass on BoPs unless I plan to use them, but I finally said, "what the heck" and rolled greed and won it. I didn't feel too badly about it since it's doubtful that anyone other than the other hunter or I could use it, and the other hunter had just won Grimlok's Charge earlier (in a roll that I passed on).
Anyway, it makes total sense to me why that hunter and I had such problems in Stranglethorn Vale before. It's also becoming clearer to me why hunters have such a reputation for not knowing how to play their class. Seems like I've run into so many clueless ones recently.
(My hunter is now at 47! Whee!)
Monday, November 5, 2007
The Good, the Bad, and the Inconsistent
= The Good =
After playing my priest all day Saturday (now at 33 -- woo!), I decided to take my hunter out for a spin on Sunday. To take full advantage of the huge amount of double experience I'd racked up, my cat and I wandered to the Alterac Ruins to kill elite ogres and finish the last quests in the chain The Crown of Will. My mission was to find and kill Mug'thol inside a building with tight corridors, teeming with ogres. The layout of the building made it a tad challenging, because often you didn't know how many you were pulling until you actually walked in the room and they leapt upon you, but was fun and I was doing fine, even taking on several mobs.
Then, I got a whisper... "You have all the heads?" Heads? What heads? Was I in the LFG for Uldaman, because I'd considered trying to get a pug together for that? No, I wasn't in the LFG channel and there was no Uldaman quest involving heads. Then, a Tauren hunter appeared from around the corner with his cat. Oh! That's right... the quest before this one involved collecting the heads of a few other baddies in the area. I whispered back and said I'd done that one, but that I'd be happy to help him with it, so we partied up and headed upstairs for Mug'thol.
We did pretty well together, killing our way up to the third floor where Mug'thol was. The Tauren drew aggro a few times and he died twice, but seemed to take it well. We cleared the two mobs in front of Mug'thol without drawing him, and then sicced our pets on the big guy. No problem.
The Tauren asked if any of his kills were in this building, and they weren't, but I remembered where the others were, so we marched north, stopping in buildings to collect the heads that he needed. I then agreed to help him go back in and kill Mug'thol so he could complete the quest, too. All in all, a good time, with good banter, and mostly clean pulls. I added him to my friend list, and will look for him again for group quests, I'm sure.
= The Bad =
Of course I had to run into at least one jerkface over the weekend. After turning in Mug'thol's head in Tarren Mill and then the Crown of Will in the Undercity, I added myself to the LFG list for Uldaman. While I was still clearing out my inventory from the last quests, I got an invite to a group. "u want 4 ulda?"
I think I'll spare you the play by play on grouping with this guy. The summary:
1) When we still needed one more for the group, he asked me specifically to advertise this in the trade channel since I was in a city. The trade channel?! I suggested he advertise in LookingForGroup instead. General is one thing, but the trade channel? That is so annoying.
2) He is one of those people that just cannot stay put. While everyone else is sitting, drinking, rebuffing, and waiting for the leader to mark the next pull, he is wandering off way up ahead. He was a rogue, so he was often sneaking around invisible right next to the next set of mobs. He did a few accidental pulls this way when nobody was ready. Again, very annoying.
3) In one part of the instance, rather than clear all the mobs in the area before summoning the boss (as the leader asked us to do), he just walked right up and summoned it. The leader of the group was like, "oh well, I guess we're done here... you just ruined the instance." I thought this was a bit dramatic (though never having done Ulda, I had no idea whether it was true), but the rogue said, "no just pull the boss." Turns out we'd cleared enough that we could just pull the boss, so it did turn out fine. After that, for the next 10 minutes we got to hear from the rogue, "so did i ruin it? huh?" over and over.
4) A strong iron lockbox fell at one point, and we all rolled greed except for the the rogue who rolled last: Need. "Mistake," he said. So, all this and a ninja, too. Brilliant. At about 5 o'clock this morning, when I was lying in bed wondering if I'd remembered to change the time on my alarm clock, I was thinking about this again, and I realized that if you are a loot ninja, particularly a rogue, this is the ideal drop to make your "accidental" need roll, because presumeably, you can just unlock it and whatever is inside will not be bound to you. I know he could unlock these, too, because earlier, when I won the roll on a lockbox, he said to me, "I unlock 4 u." I said no thanks, that I'd take care of it later. Sounds like I made the right decision.
5) At the end of the instance, he was complaining his head off about how much it was going to cost to repair his armor. (I whispered to the leader that maybe whatever was in the lockbox he ninja'd would cover it.)
Anyway, this guy is on Do-Not-Party List now. What an ass.
= The Inconsistent =
So, this would be our entire Ulda party, myself included. I mentioned before that I was nervous about my role as a hunter in instances, and someone putting me in charge of trapping something since I hadn't practiced it much yet. When the leader explained the marks he was going to use and the kill order, he said, "blue square = freeze trap." Hoo boy, I thought. Here we go. When he marked our first big pull and I saw that blue square, I felt a jolt of adrenaline, but I was pretty sure I knew what to do. I laid the trap and selected the mob, and waited for the tank to run in before shooting the square to lure him to me.
The leader wanted the moon sheeped, the star sapped, and the square trapped. The kill order was skull, x, star, square, and then moon. Charge! *insert Benny Hill music* I shot the square, but someone (I'll just assume it was our rogue friend) drew him away and he was diverted. The tank was getting a huge beatdown from the skull, the x, and the star. I sent my pet into assist the tank and resumed trying to draw the square. Then I saw the moon chasing the mage, and they ran right at me and into my trap. Wow... it was a complete and total mess. We managed to kill everything and stay alive, but this did not bode well...
The second pull, same general theme. We seemed to be completely failing at crowd control, as the sheep and square kept getting hit before or while they were trapped. I whispered an apology to the leader, and mentioned the problem of folks breaking the trap, and he reminded the whole group that they should be wary of what they were hitting, and to be careful not to break the cc traps and spells. The following pull went much better, but then the one after was as bad as the first. As we got deeper into the instance, we were terribly inconsistent and did not seem to improve from pull to pull. There was just no telling what was going to happen. We wiped at least three times before getting to the final rooms.
I did get some successful trapping done in there, but I admit a few bonehead maneuvers where I accidently broke my own trap. By the end, I was pretty comfortable with what I was supposed to do, but had to improvise many times when the trap got broken or resisted. In one terrible pull, both the trap and the polymorph spell were resisted, and everybody died except me and the rogue. (I thought for sure we were going to die, too, because the rogue kept messing around in stealth mode near our next set of mobs while the others were still running back from the graveyard. Argh.) As we approached the final boss, it was pretty clear we were not going to be able to complete the instance. Two wipes in a row in the room after the one where the stone statues come alive one by one, and we decided to call it a wash. Our crowd control skills weren't strong enough, our DPS wasn't high enough, our healer (a non-holy specced paladin) couldn't keep everybody healed because we were all taking too much damage, and our tank wasn't holding aggro. Alas. I did level in there though... that was nice. (45!)
It was fun to try a new instance, and one where the pulls were quite challenging. I'm frustrated that we didn't seem to improve over the course of the instance though, like as a group, we weren't learning anything about how to do these pulls better as we went along. In the cases where things did go better after a wipe, it was only because there were fewer mobs, since we managed to knock off a few in the previous battle. I look forward to trying Uldaman again if I can get a group together, hopefully with a more consistent performance from myself as a trapper and the group as a whole.
After playing my priest all day Saturday (now at 33 -- woo!), I decided to take my hunter out for a spin on Sunday. To take full advantage of the huge amount of double experience I'd racked up, my cat and I wandered to the Alterac Ruins to kill elite ogres and finish the last quests in the chain The Crown of Will. My mission was to find and kill Mug'thol inside a building with tight corridors, teeming with ogres. The layout of the building made it a tad challenging, because often you didn't know how many you were pulling until you actually walked in the room and they leapt upon you, but was fun and I was doing fine, even taking on several mobs.
Then, I got a whisper... "You have all the heads?" Heads? What heads? Was I in the LFG for Uldaman, because I'd considered trying to get a pug together for that? No, I wasn't in the LFG channel and there was no Uldaman quest involving heads. Then, a Tauren hunter appeared from around the corner with his cat. Oh! That's right... the quest before this one involved collecting the heads of a few other baddies in the area. I whispered back and said I'd done that one, but that I'd be happy to help him with it, so we partied up and headed upstairs for Mug'thol.
We did pretty well together, killing our way up to the third floor where Mug'thol was. The Tauren drew aggro a few times and he died twice, but seemed to take it well. We cleared the two mobs in front of Mug'thol without drawing him, and then sicced our pets on the big guy. No problem.
The Tauren asked if any of his kills were in this building, and they weren't, but I remembered where the others were, so we marched north, stopping in buildings to collect the heads that he needed. I then agreed to help him go back in and kill Mug'thol so he could complete the quest, too. All in all, a good time, with good banter, and mostly clean pulls. I added him to my friend list, and will look for him again for group quests, I'm sure.
= The Bad =
Of course I had to run into at least one jerkface over the weekend. After turning in Mug'thol's head in Tarren Mill and then the Crown of Will in the Undercity, I added myself to the LFG list for Uldaman. While I was still clearing out my inventory from the last quests, I got an invite to a group. "u want 4 ulda?"
I think I'll spare you the play by play on grouping with this guy. The summary:
1) When we still needed one more for the group, he asked me specifically to advertise this in the trade channel since I was in a city. The trade channel?! I suggested he advertise in LookingForGroup instead. General is one thing, but the trade channel? That is so annoying.
2) He is one of those people that just cannot stay put. While everyone else is sitting, drinking, rebuffing, and waiting for the leader to mark the next pull, he is wandering off way up ahead. He was a rogue, so he was often sneaking around invisible right next to the next set of mobs. He did a few accidental pulls this way when nobody was ready. Again, very annoying.
3) In one part of the instance, rather than clear all the mobs in the area before summoning the boss (as the leader asked us to do), he just walked right up and summoned it. The leader of the group was like, "oh well, I guess we're done here... you just ruined the instance." I thought this was a bit dramatic (though never having done Ulda, I had no idea whether it was true), but the rogue said, "no just pull the boss." Turns out we'd cleared enough that we could just pull the boss, so it did turn out fine. After that, for the next 10 minutes we got to hear from the rogue, "so did i ruin it? huh?" over and over.
4) A strong iron lockbox fell at one point, and we all rolled greed except for the the rogue who rolled last: Need. "Mistake," he said. So, all this and a ninja, too. Brilliant. At about 5 o'clock this morning, when I was lying in bed wondering if I'd remembered to change the time on my alarm clock, I was thinking about this again, and I realized that if you are a loot ninja, particularly a rogue, this is the ideal drop to make your "accidental" need roll, because presumeably, you can just unlock it and whatever is inside will not be bound to you. I know he could unlock these, too, because earlier, when I won the roll on a lockbox, he said to me, "I unlock 4 u." I said no thanks, that I'd take care of it later. Sounds like I made the right decision.
5) At the end of the instance, he was complaining his head off about how much it was going to cost to repair his armor. (I whispered to the leader that maybe whatever was in the lockbox he ninja'd would cover it.)
Anyway, this guy is on Do-Not-Party List now. What an ass.
= The Inconsistent =
So, this would be our entire Ulda party, myself included. I mentioned before that I was nervous about my role as a hunter in instances, and someone putting me in charge of trapping something since I hadn't practiced it much yet. When the leader explained the marks he was going to use and the kill order, he said, "blue square = freeze trap." Hoo boy, I thought. Here we go. When he marked our first big pull and I saw that blue square, I felt a jolt of adrenaline, but I was pretty sure I knew what to do. I laid the trap and selected the mob, and waited for the tank to run in before shooting the square to lure him to me.
The leader wanted the moon sheeped, the star sapped, and the square trapped. The kill order was skull, x, star, square, and then moon. Charge! *insert Benny Hill music* I shot the square, but someone (I'll just assume it was our rogue friend) drew him away and he was diverted. The tank was getting a huge beatdown from the skull, the x, and the star. I sent my pet into assist the tank and resumed trying to draw the square. Then I saw the moon chasing the mage, and they ran right at me and into my trap. Wow... it was a complete and total mess. We managed to kill everything and stay alive, but this did not bode well...
The second pull, same general theme. We seemed to be completely failing at crowd control, as the sheep and square kept getting hit before or while they were trapped. I whispered an apology to the leader, and mentioned the problem of folks breaking the trap, and he reminded the whole group that they should be wary of what they were hitting, and to be careful not to break the cc traps and spells. The following pull went much better, but then the one after was as bad as the first. As we got deeper into the instance, we were terribly inconsistent and did not seem to improve from pull to pull. There was just no telling what was going to happen. We wiped at least three times before getting to the final rooms.
I did get some successful trapping done in there, but I admit a few bonehead maneuvers where I accidently broke my own trap. By the end, I was pretty comfortable with what I was supposed to do, but had to improvise many times when the trap got broken or resisted. In one terrible pull, both the trap and the polymorph spell were resisted, and everybody died except me and the rogue. (I thought for sure we were going to die, too, because the rogue kept messing around in stealth mode near our next set of mobs while the others were still running back from the graveyard. Argh.) As we approached the final boss, it was pretty clear we were not going to be able to complete the instance. Two wipes in a row in the room after the one where the stone statues come alive one by one, and we decided to call it a wash. Our crowd control skills weren't strong enough, our DPS wasn't high enough, our healer (a non-holy specced paladin) couldn't keep everybody healed because we were all taking too much damage, and our tank wasn't holding aggro. Alas. I did level in there though... that was nice. (45!)
It was fun to try a new instance, and one where the pulls were quite challenging. I'm frustrated that we didn't seem to improve over the course of the instance though, like as a group, we weren't learning anything about how to do these pulls better as we went along. In the cases where things did go better after a wipe, it was only because there were fewer mobs, since we managed to knock off a few in the previous battle. I look forward to trying Uldaman again if I can get a group together, hopefully with a more consistent performance from myself as a trapper and the group as a whole.
Monday, October 29, 2007
WoWeekend
I had one of those glorious weekends that didn't require that I go to work, so I essentially did nothing but play WoW. I mostly played my priest (who is now at 30), hunter (now at 44), and our paladin/shaman duo has shuffled along to The Barrens, now in the early teens.
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]is so AWESOME." Um, perhaps. What is not awesome is not asking everyone in the group if this is how they'd like to proceed. I actually like to play through instances. I want the experience points, I want the practice. But, I decided not to be a baby about it. I'd just do a real run later. (When you turn in one of the quests, they ask you to go back in again anyway, so, no big deal.)
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
Seemed unlikely I'd be able to get another BFD group together right away, and my priest had gotten to the point where all her regular quests were group quests, or quests she wasn't strong enough to complete alone (yellow quests can be tough when you're squishy), so I set her aside to play my hunter a bit.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
Early on Saturday, I started looking for a BFD group for my priest. I was available on the LFG list for most of the morning while I popped around, questing in Ashenvale and Thousand Needles, and finally got a note from someone just after lunchtime. It was a name I sort of recognized, but he wasn't on my list of people to avoid, so I joined his group. Long story short, is paladin is on the list now. He screamed at people the entire time in all caps, calling them idiots and so forth. To be fair, we did have at least one person in the group who didn't know what they were doing. It was a hunter (I think people use the term "huntard" too liberally, but I think that in this case, it may have applied). Her pet ran all over the place, attacking things willy nilly. Instead of screaming, I asked her nicely to please turn off growl, put her pet on passive, etc, etc, etc, but she never responded in any way (not a verbal acknowledgment of the request even). When we got to the bit where we all had to jump across the platforms in the water, she did so without dismissing her pet, and so the cat ran all the way around, bringing a trail of murlocs behind it. Greaaaat. After this, one guy left the group, and I really wanted to leave, but it had taken so long to get a group together, I was determined to stay on.
We got a fifth person to join, and so the jerky paladin ordered me to come help him summon them and ordered everyone else to stay put. The hunter, of course, followed. Again, a rollicking all caps berating, but it did not deter the hunter. So, he told me to stay behind since this hunter was so insistent upon coming with him. Soooo... hunter got yelled at for the entire run back to the stone. The person they were going to summon must have taken this as a warning sign and dropped out of the group, as did the other guy who was waiting in the instance with me. So, I dropped out of the group and decided to try for another later on. (Oh, and why I recognized the name in the first place -- turns out he'd hassled my husband before about joining his group for an instance, though my husband declined and was spared the experience I had just had.)
An hour or so later (after this paladin had logged off), I put myself on the lists for SFK and BFD. I got a bite for SFK first, and it was easily the highlight of my weekend (pug-wise). I was a mid-instance replacement and I was the second priest in the party. They asked what my spec was, and I said shadow, but that I'd mostly been healing in instances so far. I said I'd be fine with either role. The other priest was lower level, and she suggested that she heal since I could deal out a lot more damage. "You'll probably end up tanking, too," joked the rogue in the party. Heh... anyway, it was a total blast playing in a group as a shadow priest, and I'm actually questioning now whether I'll respec her to holy later. Still plenty of time to decide...
After that lovely group finished, someone asked if anyone would like to stay on for BFD. (Hey, sounds like a story I told before!). I agreed to stay on, since BFD was the instance I'd hoped to do in the first place. Again, one person had to leave, so I crossed my fingers for an equally nice/competent replacement. While we were waiting at the summoning stone by BFD for folks to finish their training and repairs, one of the other remaining people left and were immediately replaced by another person from the rogue's guild. I wondered why they weren't added as a fifth. It came out shortly after that this new person was the one I'd replaced in SFK. Huh. And then, a level 70 joined the group. Grr...
I fired a quick message to the group leader, the rogue, saying, "Oh, so we're getting a walkthrough?"
"Yeah!" she said. "[Her Guild]
Somehow, even though we had a full group now, it was taking forever for us to get started. The rogue was waiting for her dad to call her (for "just two minutes"), and so we were left to sit by the stone watching the new arrival (level 25 or so) duel the level 70. It was funny for about the first 10 minutes, and then I just started to get bored. Again, knowing that the instance itself would be quick, I tried to control my impatience. We finally got going and the level 70 totally blew the doors off the place.
The first thing my hunter did was trick-or-treat and get turned into a frog. I hopped my little froggy body out of the inn in Grom'gol and ran to the mailbox. As I passed by the bonfire, someone cast a buff on me and my giant cat, who was running behind me. They said the sight of the two of us cracked them up, that it was the funniest thing they'd seen all day. I said I was just grateful that my cat still recognized me...
I'm still a bit nervous about doing instances with my hunter, because I'm still not comfortable doing much beyond letting my pet tank for me. I know how to let the cat hold aggro and so forth, but I haven't played around much with traps or anything like that. BRK's videos have been eye opening. It's clear that there's a lot more to being a hunter than siccing my pet on a mob, waiting a few seconds, and shooting at it.
But anyway, I did run Scarlet Monastery (Cathedral) with my hunter, and everything went fine. (Well, except that everyone else in the pug thought it was fine for people to roll greed on BoP items, even if they couldn't use them. I can't wait until I get to a point where I can run more instances with my guildmates...)
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