3 instance race

Our guild merged into another a little while ago and we are starting to settle in and spread out to team up as a guild rather than as two guilds.  I decided to run a little team building exercise.  A Three instance race.

I chose three instances that required some travel.  Shattered Halls, Botanica, Black Morras.  We formed two 5 man teams.  Each team had a warrior, priest, rouge and hunter.  My team had a ret pally, theirs had a mage.  We are all pretty equally geared, so it was a very fair fight.

We all met up in Shatt.  The rules were simple:
-No Mage ports or Meeting Stone summons, or teleporting using the chick in lower city.  Public transit, hearthstones, and mounts only.
-Every boss Must die.
-Each team decides which order to do the instances in, and which one is heroic.
-The heroic is to be done last.
-Any buffs are acceptable. Feel free to Flask, pot, scroll, or whatever.

To sweeten the pot, on top of bragging rights, I bet 200G that MY team would win.  Winnings to be split among the winning team.  If my team won I would split the money 4 ways.

We had a BLAST.  My team did BM, Bot, then heroic Shattered Halls, their team did BM, SH, then heroic Bot.  We gained a lead when 4 of us could hearth back from BM (the rouge could not).  Their team also had 4 that could hearth, but the healer could not.  We got started on Bot missing the rouge, and she caught up when she got there (we were past the first boss).  That edge gave us the win.  That, and they wiped once in heroic Bot on the guy that does the hellfire. 

Good times were had by all.

/soapbox on

That is what I was hinting at Pie.  I do see the value of electing someone of any minority, and even more so someone with the Muslim in their family like he has.  That would speak volumes about us as a country and how we have overcome racism.

IF you could take Obama’s body and his family and put it on a candidate I could support I would be 100000% behind him.  I would be volunteering, knocking on doors, kissing babies and such all in his name.  However, the Obama that is running has a lot of policies that are dangerous to our country, and bordering on socialism.  His views on the UN are on the edge of almost giving up our sovereignty to their control, same with his environmental views. 

His view on healthcare is terrifying.  He likes socialized medicine.  Ask someone from Canada or England how well that works.  I live in Michigan.  My wife worked at the University of Michigan hospital before we got married.  She worked in the area with the doctors that did heart and lung work.  She said that she saw 5 patients a DAY that drove over from Canada and paid CASH to get a heart operation because they knew that they would die in Canada waiting for treatment.  They told her stories of getting the flu and having to wait 8-10 DAYS to be seen by a doctor.  The last time I got sick I complained because when I drove to my doctors to be treated as a walk in I had to wait over an hour. 

Is call to withdraw the troops immediately show a shallow grasp of nation rebuilding.  When you go into a country and tear its infrastructure to the ground, and kill its dictator leader, then leave…you are only going to invite another dictator into power.  If he gets elected and follows thru with an immediate withdrawal, he may as well follow that withdrawal with a nuke attack on the region.  That will be more kind than what we would be subjecting the people over there to.

The only thing more scary than all that is Obama’s feelings on immigrants.  If his ideas on immigration are implemented I’ll be moving to Mexico, because when the dust settles, that will be the nicer side of the border.

Oh, and we can’t rebel against the near socialist like ideas flooding out of Washington because Obama’s feelings on the second amendment is that the National Guard is the militia, despite it being controlled by the government.  So, in his ideology the right to have a weapon to defend yourself is not protected.  If you are being attacked you are to call the police and wait 5-15 minutes for them to come save you. 

So, in other words, when we are attacked by an illegal immigrant that walked across an unguarded border, he will have plenty of time to rape and murder us because as law abiding citizens we don’t have a gun, but if by some chance we survive the 20 minutes for the guys with guns to show up, we can look forward to a three day wait in the ER while dripping blood because the hospital is run with all the efficiency of any government office. 

Now that I have said all that.  I don’t particularly like McCain.  I look at it like a choice between a crap sandwich, and a crap sandwich filled with rusty bits of razor blades and broken glass. 

Take Obama’s body and history and put it on Ron Paul’s mind and ideology, and this country would regain the strength that this country was known for.  We would again earn the title Superpower.  Right now some people call us that, but that is only because we are one of the more powerful.  We have not earned the title Super in quite some time.

We need to learn that we as a country are lost.  We are lost because it takes a strong person to lead.  Our “leaders” are too influenced by special interest groups and PC’ness.  If anyone had the guts to stand up and say NO, I’m NOT going to take money or gifts from people that are bribing me. I will listen to what you have to say and make a logical conclusion, then we would have a leader that would take us back to the days when everyone wanted to be like us because we were doing better than anyone. 

People need to take responsibility for their actions, and for themselves.  I don’t see Obama’s ideology making that happen.

/soapbox off

I need to say something

I heard something on the radio last night that got me upset. 

They were talking about the election.  They interviewed this woman that had just voted early for Obama.  She said “I’ve been waiting for a long time to vote for a black president.  This is a big stride forward for blacks everywhere.”

Now, I don’t want to pretend that racism does not exist.  However, this is not 1900.  there are no “whites only” segregation at restaurants.  There are no Jim Crow laws.

What that woman said is a classic definition of a completely racist comment.

If you don’t agree, consider this.  If you head me on the radio would you call me a racist if I said “I’m voting for Mccain because he is white.  I don’t want a black man as president.”  If I said that you would call me a racist, my house would burned, and I would be beaten to death by a mob for being a racist. 

If she said “I’m excited to see a well qualified candidate, and I’m glad that he is black” that would slightly racist, but acceptable.  She would be celebrating that there is a good candidate, and she would be celebrating that the possibility of electing a black president is a good sign that racism is on its heels and is almost defeated as the social disease that it is.

Being happy that a good candidate is black is not racist.

Saying that you are voting for someone ONLY because he is black, and that it is about time that a black man is president IS racist.  Being black does not qualify someone to be president.  Being black does not instantly qualify anyone for anything. 

People are stupid.  I hate when they talk and their stupid gets all over me.

Baby shower

What a BUNCH OF CRAP.

This Saturday I have to drive three hours to a friend of my wife’s house.  We have to pay for all that gas, a hotel room, and two days of eating out.  We are going there for a “couples baby shower”.  Oh, and, I have to bring a present…myself.  I can not simply sign my name to the gift my wife bought. 

I want to object to this for a multitude of reasons:
1) There is no such thing as a “couples baby shower”.  Baby showers are a girl thing.  They get together and get all maternal and flood the room with estrogen. 

2) MEN DO NOT BELONG.  The women will be all in mommy mode, and the guys will stand in a corner feeling out of place and mutter to each other about what a load of crap this all is.

3) I do not enjoy hardly any parties where beer is not involved.  Nuff said.

4) This is her THIRD kid.  Seriously? 

5) This is a form of socialism that is unacceptable in our society. 

I say point #5 for a reason.  My wife and I have decided not to have kids.  We are not 100% against it, so if she got pregnant we would not die, but we will not try to have one.  This decision was done for a lot of reasons that are personal.  By choosing to not have a child means that we are thereby choosing NOT to pay for a child. 

These people are choosing to have a child, so they are choosing to buy a stroller, a crib, those little bath tubs, dinky socks, clothes, those little blue snot sucker things, cabinet locks, socket covers, and all the other things that you need to have a child.  By their decision to have a child, they are choosing to buy all those things.  So, what is the next step?  They throw a “party” that I’m obligated to go to and bring them a present. 

I am forced to pay for THEIR decision to have a baby. 

What’s next?  Hey, we just bought a new house, I think everyone should come over and pay our mortgage.  I just bought a car, everyone should get together and put new tires on her.  I just decided to go on vacation, who is going to chip in on the hotel?

I think I should throw a “no baby shower”.  We are not having a kid, but we are obligated to buy them a present for their decision to do so.  I think I should have a party to obligate them to buy me things for my decision not to.

I think I may bring beer.

my pets

So, I have posted about this before, but I have a black bear as a pet.  I trained him at level 10.  I leveled up with him to 60.  I tried a couple other pets , but kept liking the bear more, and kept going back.  My toon’s name was Lump, so I went to name the bear Lumpey….but accidentally typed Lunpy.  It was stuck.

Then I discovered Petopia and learned why I liked my bear so much, he does not die. 

Bears have +armor and +stamina.  They have -DPS, but I provide most of that anyway, and a dead pet does 0 DPS. 

At level 70 I tried a cat.  I liked the DPS, but it was squishy.  I raid Kara, but most of my play is solo, or small groups.  In 5 mans my bear could off tank.  In heroics he could take a few hits to slow down a mob that was tearing up a squishy caster.  

I tried a raptor.  Again, better DPS, but squishy.  I tried a scorpid.  He lived, and I liked the DOT, but the DOT got me killed because I could not trap the DOT’ed mob.  I tried an owl.  I liked dive and screech, but the noise and the constant motion drove me INSANE. 

I had a gorilla I trained (U’cha the light brown one from the back of the cave in Ungoro Crater).  I had him leveled up to 60ish.  I liked him but leveling was a PAIN.  The gorilla is named Magilla.  I have a boar I trained and leveled up to 64, named Kevinbacon. 

They both have been stabled for many months.

So, with this patch we all got new pet things, and almost all pets are viable choices now.

I whipped out Magilla after reading about how pets were instantly leveled now.  Wham, 65.  I have been playing with him and got him leveled to 67 now. 

I was rolling around getting all the exploring achievements that I was close to.  I rolled thru Brill to get that one and realized that I did not have the Scarlet Monastery achievement. 

I rolled into SM.  A little history here.  SM was my old farming grounds.  I would spend DAYS grinding there.  I know every mob, every pat, and have done that place literally hundreds of times.  Even at 70 I have been thru there quite a few times with peoples alts.  I have a special place in my heart for SM. 

So, I have a TON of experience there, and know exactly how hard everything hits.  I know that my level 70 bear could handle 8-10 mobs if I left Mend Pet burning.  More than that and I really had to focus fire a few down, trap one, and let some beat on me to keep my bear up. 

My gorilla is not 70, he was only 66. 

I ran into the Armory.  I walked thru the first hall and courtyard without aggroing anything.  Cool.  Coming out of the courtyard my pet aggroed a guy.  I told the pet to follow me and I just ran for the hall.  I assumed that I would pick up 3-4 more, but it would not be an issue. 

I got to the last hallway before Heror and spun around to fight the few mobs that I figured I must have pulled.  My gorilla comes around the corner.  All of a sudden 30 plus guys come around the corner.  CRAP.  They pulled every single guy in all of those halls. 

I knew I was going to die.  I popped thunderstomp and dropped a volley.  One add got close to death and fleed.  He pulled the entire rest of the hallway down to herods door.  Another thnuderstomp, and a couple more volley’s.  I picked off the runners and looted over 50 bodies. 

HOLY CRAP!!!!

The thunderstomp was enough aggro to allow me to have Mend Pet going, and to do a volley without getting aggro.

Later I decided to solo in Blood Furnace.  I have done that before, and it was work.  I had to trap, and misdirect on every pull, and do some kiting.  It was a challenge.  This time it was like running with a pally tank.  Send in the pet, misdirect two more groups onto the pet, thunderstomp, DPS, loot, do it again.  I had almost no downtime.  It was GREAT!

I am actually giddy about being a hunter again.  It feels good.

Slacking

I have been sick.  When I’m sick the entire planet stops spinning.  I’m pretty sure this entire economic meltdown is due to my illness.  The economy saw that I was sick and is sitting there holding its breath to see if I get better. 

Diet coke and Miller Lite stocks are falling.

The people that make Comtrex and Musinex stocks are going up.

When I’m sick my entire existence reverts to a series of grunts, and discontented moans. 

Seeing as wordpress does not have a grunt and moan font, posts have not been possible. 

On the plus side, my gorilla pet is so cool it is almost pornographic. 

I’ll be back when I’m better and can think again.

Onyxia Attunement

This Tuesday a sad change will happen.  With the big patch prior to the Wrath release they are eliminating almost all attunement quests.  However, there is a more pressing need.  Saturday our guild and another are going to raid Onyxia for some old time fun. 

A member of our guild that I have spoken of a few times is the mom of one of our warriors.  “Mom” played that warriors mage alt and helped us in Kara for a couple months until we found a replacement.  She started her own character, and has been leveling since.  I have kind of taken her under my wing and been showing her the ropes.  She is growing nicely.  She has a 55 pally, and a 45 priest.

With the announcement that we were going to Onyxia on Saturday I made it a mission to get her into that raid.  Last night I got on and our pally tank was on his warrior PVPing, and our shammy healer was on playing with him.  Mom got online, and was quickly joined by my RL friend with a 70 mage. 

I told everyone that we owed it to Mom to get her into that Ony run, but that meant getting her attuned.  In one night. 

So, Off to Morgans vigil, slay some dragons, to Stormwind, to Morgans vigil…all over hell and back, to winterspring, into BRD, to every nook and cranny of the instance, to UBRS, and finally killed Drek.

First: BRD is INSANELY easy with a mage in blues and greens, an Epic geared PVP warrior, an Epic BM hunter, an Epic Shammy healer, and a 55 pally, that by the end of the run had replaced both rings, and 5 other greens with blues. 

Second: Tanking The Beast in UBRS was the most epic thing I have ever done.  The last time I was in there I was freshly 70 and my bear got ganked in three hits.  This time he tanked with only my HOT healing him. 

Third: The trot thru Stormwind when you are going to confront Onyxia is STILL a big event, and still draws 8-10 people to ride along with you. 

Fourth: 4 people Spending all night working to help someone get an attunement to go on ONE run before the attunements are removed, is a gesture of kindness that almost moves them to tears.

Single Greatest Search EVER

Ok, this WordPress tool that shows you what people searched for to get to you is getting funny.  Most of the searches make sense.  Searching for my name, for Kara hunter guide, Snake Trap, Mororse.  These are all things I have written on many times. 

I just saw one that made me snort coffee.  (p.s. that hurts)

“WoW how to stop receiving leather balls”

This means that someone out there was receiving so many leather balls that it was annoying them, but also that they felt compelled to stop playing and spend some time on Google trying to find out how to stop getting them.  How tough is this guys life that an excess of leather balls is worthy of some time on Google? 

If you are that guy, here are three tips.  There are three ways to get rid of a leather ball.

1) Throw it at someone else. If someone in a raid is throwing them, then just keep them, and throw them at someone else after the raid.  Most people enjoy getting one at random. 

2) Vend them.  Save them up while people are throwing them, then walk to a vendor and sell them.

3) Delete them.  This is the last resort, because why not make a little money off them.  If you are in a run and people are stuffing your inventory with balls, just delete them.

You don’t see yourself grow

So, I heard a psychologist once talk about how people don’t perceive themselves growing, but rather the world seems to get smaller.  This happened to me in WOW.

After going thru Kara on and off for a year, I have everything I need, everything I want, some things I think I could use once, and some things I took just for the coolness. 

I have not been in Kara since before I took my little Conan break.  Even before then I was going with the same group week in and week out, so I did not really see myself growing that much. 

Friday night I jumped on.  One other friend made their way back from Conan.  To celebrate four of us went to AV.  We ran as a squad.  A hunter, a rouge, a warrior, and a healing shammy.  Pain abounded.  Crippling poison to slow the runners, I decimated the clothies.  It was sick.  We ran 4 games and never lost, even on the one turtle. 

One of the group was a friend from another guild.  After these 4 rounds he said that he had to run because they were about to start Kara.  A few minutes later he asked one of our squad, who is out guilds MT, if he wanted to tank.  I said “You can’t have the Ubertank without the UberDPS.  If he goes I go.”  They got a laugh, and took me along.

Now, I have three of the badge gear tier 6 pieces, and all the Kara gear I could want.  I do not lack in DPS what so ever.  The same is true of our pally MT.  He is the only tank I have played with that I have to make an active effort to be able to pull aggro from. 

We get into Kara. 
The MT tells the raid leader “Give Lump marking privileges, he is my puller.”

Guild / raid leader: Normally I mark targets.

MT: Well, we normally make it to Attuman in 10ish minutes.

Guild leader: Ok, giving Lump marking privileges.

12 minutes later we downed Attuman.  The guild was blown away, as their previous best was 22 minutes, and that was trying for speed.  We pulled and cleared to Morose.  Marked the targets.  I said “Square is my trap.  I kite him a bit, so don’t hit him.”

Guild leader: Your traps won’t last thru the entire fight, after we kill the other two, we will kill that. 

Me: ok.

We kill the two that are not shackeled.  Then DPS switches to Morose, because they forgot about my trap in the corner of the room.  Morose goes down.  Our MT runs over and pops my trap and we down the add. 

The rouge complained that I had Might, and they had Salvation. 

MT: how many times have you pulled aggro and died.

Rouge: Twice. 

MT: Well, you get Might until you pull aggro, then you get salvation. 

We ran up and cleared toward Opera.  Here is a tip, those big guys that ice tomb the tank, and go one shot the person that is #2 on the threat list are hard.  If one is shackeled that helps a ton, but what normally happens is Tank #1 breaks the shackle, gets ice tombed, and the mob bee lines for the priest.  Tip: have a hunter misdirect to tank #2, then have tank #1 break the trap while the hunter shoots.  The mob gets tank #2 on the threat chart and heads to them instead.

So, we get Romeo and Juliet.  It goes smooth.  We get to Curator.  We one shot without hesitation.  We start clearing to chess.

On the way to Chess there is a room I love.  It is a large round room filled with Etherials that do a debuff.  I like this room because we chain pull it.  I love pulling, so this is a very fun room.  With my guild we usually pull 3 on the first pull, and I pull in one more for each one that dies.  The room goes fast. 

This guild HATES this room because they wipe here a lot due to bad pulls (and warrior tanks not dealing with multiple mobs well).  I ask our tank how many he wants.  He says “well, lets take it easy, only two”.   Just as I pulled the raid leader said “Oh, only two”.  So…doing what any chain puller would do, I pulled two more.  Just as all 4 mobs bee-lined for the tank the MT said “umm, I think he was being sarcastic, he really wanted 1 not 4.”  My reply “well, we have 4″.  The raid leader talked about “being sure to die somewhere good”.  I said “just DPS, we’ll worry about dying if it comes to that.”

We killed 3 of them, so I went and grabbed two more.  The MT picked them up.  The Raid leader had a FIT.  Apparently, they were used to stopping and drinking before every single solo mob fight.  So, after that we gave them a break. 

We did Chess, and called it a night. 

The MT BUSTED up laughing in guild chat.  He did not have the heart to post it in Raid chat, because the rouge was bragging that it was their best night of DPS ever. 

He posted the Damage Meter into Guild Chat. 

#1 Me with 26% of the damage
#2 the rouge with 16%
#3 a mage with 15%

And it went down from there.  Our pally tank was #5 on the chart, followed by a mage.  There is no excuse for a mage being behind the tank in DPS.  Because I have been growing at the same rate as my group I did not realize how much stronger I had gotten.  Running with that group showed me where have grown.  It was amazing.

A good Misdirect Bug

I was running a friend thru Uldam.  I remembered those pits of scorpions, so when going thru cave areas I made sure to keep them far behind, so they did not body pull them.  I would send in my bear, then misdirect and multishot.  That guaranteed at least 4 mobs on my bear. I would DPS them down. 

After the second one of those I got a little adventurous.  I tried something new.  I have used misdirect then Volley (hunter AOE) on a group.  What happened was 3 mobs went for the bear, and the rest came to me, and all three hits of misdirect was consumed.  I dropped a snake trap, and then misdirected a volley to my bear.  To my surprise, all the snakes went to the bear, and no charges of misdirect were used.

The best I can figure is that when misdirecting the bear gets credit for shooting volley, and pulls the mobs, but there is no threat given for the DPS itself.  I Multi-shot and three mobs were hit, and misdirect was used.  Those three mobs stayed on the bear.  I targeted another mob.  One autoshot pulled aggro.  The reason I think that the DPS from volley is not being misdirected is that the one autoshot did less damage than the volley, but still pulled aggro. 

If this bug remains into Wrath, when volley has its cooldown removed, this would be a good way to pull many groups of mobs to a tank at one time.