I have slain the King!

It is done. Arthas has been put out of his misery by mine own hands. Well, not just my hands. Well, actually not really my hands at all, but I did keep those alive who did do the killing bits.

And along with his demise came these:

 

Precious achievements! My Precioussssss!

I am beyond happy! I was truly concerned that I wouldn’t achieve my ultimate goal for this expansion, and I would have had no one to blame but myself. I would have had this done long ago if I hadn’t taken a break from raiding and explored other realms.

I’m not sure if there are others in the guild that still need titles, but for now we are still scheduled to return to the Citadel next week. Maybe we will try some hard modes, maybe we will just grind it for badgers and fun. Either way, the pressure is off, and it feels wonderful!

 

Stuff My Raid Leader Says:

Our Alt group includes not one, but two Boomkin, lucky bastards! This little gem was said when they were standing next to each other in raid and they both procced a lunar eclipse.

They’re totally like girlfriends who hang out together so much that they get their period at the same time.

Oh, Sindragosa… again.

So, the Alt team is making its way through ICC 10 man. Since myself and two others who were on the progression team didn’t make it to the Lich King kill, we have been relegated to to the Alt team, which is really the only team. Are you confused yet? So am I.

We’ve killed everything, except for Sindragosa and the Lich King with the Alt group. This should be an accomplishment, but since everyone has already done it all on their mains (except the three of us), we kind of thought it would be a cakewalk. Well, not so much.

Welcome to nights of wiping on Sindy.

I managed to make the most of it, by playing with my Teldrassil Sproutling between attempts.

Ama playing with her Sproutling between Sindragosa attempts

As attempts wore on, the poor sproutling got kind of tired, and Ama didn’t blame her.

Sleepy Sproutling

One thing I have learned, sometimes Ama is perfectly content to be trapped in an ice tomb.

Happily tombed Ama

And sometimes Ama absolutely hates being trapped in an ice tomb.

Grrr! Ice tombed again?!

Particularly after Lady RNG has seen fit to chain tomb healer after healer until we wipe.

All in all, I think we are doing well. The first time we killed Sindragosa was after wiping on it for a week. This is a completely different group for all intents and purposes, and although we may all be the same people behind the toons, we are a different team. Many are re-learning how to do the fight in a completely different role than they are used to, and we are all re-learning how to work with each other in our different roles. We should be proud of getting her down to 8%. I have faith that we can get her down, but it was never going to be easy.

EDIT: The bony bitch is down! Woohoo!

Stuff My Raid Leader Says:

Today begins a new series that I intend to post once each week on Thursdays. Stuff My Raid Leader Says, is just that. Considering we kind of have a back-seat driver kind of method of raid leading in my guild, these quotes could really come from anyone.

Our Boomkins were struggling to battle rez one of the dps, and the following was said by the raid leader:

I think we’re all missing the most important thing here, that we had two men trying to get Heron up and they couldn’t.

Followed by Heron saying:

I don’t swing that way.

All names have been changed to protect the innocent, or something.

We killed the Lich King (except I wasn’t there)!

I know I’m so far behind the curve its not even funny. My guild killed the Lich King a few days ago, without me. I’m disappointed. I kinda went on a huge rant and vented my frustration at the guild, which was the wrong thing to do.

The night I missed, the night they killed the Lich King, was posted as a night for RS. No one wants to do RS. We all hate it. So I declined. If they had listed it as a Lich King night, I would have been there.

If I had been there maybe we wouldn’t have killed him. Sometimes I worry that I’m the fail factor that is making us not down things. Sometimes when I’m not there the guild gets things done.

I think what really made me blow up was because I was pumped up and ready to go kill the Lich King, only to find out he’s already down. Like I was loaded with testosterone, ready for the big game, except its canceled.

They say we’re gonna keep going and get everyone their title and get titles for alts, but I kind of feel like that’s just a pipe dream and that its not going to happen. But I’m taking things as they come, raid by raid. This week we got through the first 6 bosses, the easy stuff.  We shall see if we can extend the raid and get past Professor P with the alt team.

Discipline Healing in 25 Mans (A Rant)

My main is a Discipline Priest, and I don’t think I’m a horrible one, but I seem to always run into trouble when I’m asked to Main Tank heal anything that is not with my guild.

This morning I ran an ICC 25 half-pug with my friend’s guild, and I ended up rage quitting. This was just about the worst thing I could have done, but I did it. Emotional priest is emotional and erratic. Sorry.

Here’s the thing, I am a Discipline Priest. While we are designed as Single Target healers, we are not designed to solo Main Tank heal. At least this is my understanding of my class. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong and call me a baddie.

Since I started raiding as Disc during this expansion I have tried desperately to be a Main Tank healer, and I always fail (unless I overpower the raid dungeon through gear). Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe my rotation is wrong. Maybe my gear is wrong. I don’t know. I do tend to be OCD about getting my slot bonus for gems even when I don’t really need it, so my gemming is probably a bit wonky. I’m fairly confident that my spec is good.

I can’t solo heal a single tank through the Festergut fight on 25 man regular. Is this wrong? Should I be able to do this? I don’t know.

This is not a new issue for me. This is part of the reason I left Resolution and quit raiding so long ago. This is the main reason I rarely do 25 man raids. This is the reason I am always hesitant to 2 heal a 10 man dungeon. This is THE reason I don’t do VoA EVER. I’m a fail tank healer that needs back up. You’re better off bringing a Holy Paladin than bringing me into your raid. I will only disappoint you, and in turn end up disappointing myself.

I’m awesome at being a support healer. I can balance any group by helping with tanks or with raid healing. I am awesome on fights with AoE damage because I can mitigate this with bubble spam. Put me as the Main Tank healer on any fight and expect me to be able to pull it off without any help from other healers, you’re asking for a dead tank.

I know there’s a ton of Discipline Priests out there in the Blogosphere. Help me out here. What am I doing wrong? How do you tank heal? Am I really as fail as I’m feeling? Time to roll a Paladin?

TLDR: Disc Priest fails to keep tank alive in ICC 25.

Obligatory Lich King Post

Oh, Arthas...

I’ve finally made it to The Frozen Throne.

There will always be those who don’t really understand or care about the lore, who don’t understand what is happening in the final cut scene. These are the ones who want to sit on Santa’s lap.

Me, I kneel at Arthas’ side in quiet respect. When this is over it will be a bittersweet victory, but rest assured I will kill the Lich King.

Progression Ama?

Ama has secured herself as a member of the guild’s progression team (which is really the only team, despite all of our talk about having a second 10 man group).

I’m starting to feel useful and good about my Discipline spec and healing. It’s about time. I should have installed the Recount + absorbs addon a long time ago. I’ve always just felt like a crappy healer because my hps sucks. I know meters aren’t everything, but it sucks consistently being the low man on the totem pole.

I still feel like Disc priests are a dime a dozen and I still want a raid healer (gogo druid), but at least now I’m starting to feel confident in myself. The failures I’ve had in PuGs have not necessarily been my failures, even though I’ve felt like they are.

Despite my off and on complaining, I love my guild and I love our raid team (when the whole team shows up).

The guild has actually made progression this week. It was progression for me too.

We killed Blood Council for the first time the other night. Yeah, I know, easy peasy, right? For some reason progression for us went:

Festergut–>Rotface–>Prof P–>Valithria–>Sindy–>Blood Council

You’d think after Sindy that we would be able to do anything, but we had it stuck in our mind that a dps could tank Keleseth, and well that didn’t work so well. We have learned the error of our ways, and are one step closer to Arthas.

Ama has finally gotten that last bit reputation with the Ashen Verdict, and gotten the uber ring of awesomeness, as well as a fancy achievement/title.

It’s not as shiny as Kingslayer would be though.

 

Achievements Galore!

Ama’s been very busy.

I finally got to see the Professor P fight, and watching him die gave me:

And I also got to see Valithria, and watching her live gave me:

Then we went off PVPing and I got:

and

Best Achievement ever!

I’m actually having the time of my life when it is time for me to play with my guild. We have a new priest in the guild too. She is Holy and the two of us heal together with near perfect synergy. I haven’t had a healing partner fit so well with me since Jezzabell. It feels really good.

Puggle Trouble

Sometime last week a few guildies and I got pugged into another guild’s ICC 25 run. Loot rules were very simple, MS roll first, then OS, then DE. Once you have won something for MS, you may not roll on another item for MS (trying to spread the loot around). Simple right?

An item dropped and it was a decent upgrade for our rogue. He rolled for MS and won it. As soon as he got the item the warrior tank began crying. Apparently he’d been trying to get that item for his PvP set for a long time. He whispered our rogue and asked if he would sell it to him. The rogue gave him a price of 7k gold, which I think is quite reasonable for an ilvl 264. The warrior countered, offering one Primordial Saronite. This offer was kind of a slap in the face to the rogue, so he said no. At which point the warrior began berating him and calling him a fail rogue, etc.

The rogue eventually had to take it to the RL who ended up taking said tank aside. I have no idea what was said,  but he stopped bothering our rogue anyway.

Here’s the thing. Said warrior tank was not doing that great of a job as it is and was admittedly playing an Xbox game while he raided. Who is the fail in this situation? Besides, why should you be more entitled to an item that is for PvP for you, than the person who it is a real MS upgrade for? (The rogue did admit it was a very small upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless)

When we took down Rotface we killed him right at the enrage timer. The top DPS for the fight was from the PuG guild, but 2nd, 3rd and 4th were all from my guild. #3 was our rogue.  Don’t go calling people fail when they are carrying your raid. Without us or some dps of equal value there they never would have made that enrage timer.

Needless to say, we’ve decided not to join that guild’s 25 mans anymore.