ABsolutely ABsurd AB

I've recently mentioned how AB is my favorite BG now, especially since on the Emberstorm battlegroup, alliance seem to have learned how to play it. Now someone was reminding me the other night how a long long time ago I was painfully grinding AB marks for some pvp upgrade I needed. The grind was so incredibly torturous, that I forbid anyone to put the letters A and B together in guild chat, because it was that painful for me.

So its really nice to be able to play AB and actually have fun from it now. I think its also a lot better practice ground for arena than AV, which I used to play a lot. A couple of funny stories from my recent AB adventures:

1. Are we all healers here?

In one of my matches, I was going from base to base as needed. Someone called out that they needed help at the blacksmith, so off I went. Now once I got there, there ended up being 5 of us alliance at the blacksmith. So there we are going at it against 5 or 6 hordies. Now a minute or so passes, and I don't see much changing. The 5 of us are still all up, as are the horde. What was going on?

Well what was going on, was that all 5 of us alliance there at the blacksmith were healers. Four druids and a shammy. LAWL. I /s-ed, 'Are we all healers here'? We all laughed, and one person asked in battleground chat 'Um, can we get one dps to the blacksmith please'? A warlock came over soon after and we took them down. It was so funny though, that all 5 of us ended up being healers!

2. I'm just going to follow you around, ok?

I find that its not very common to find healers in BGs that have a lot of resilience. Thus, once folks realize that I can heal them to death while staying alive, they start to enjoy their "pocket healer". I've had multiple melee folks say that they will just start following me around to whatever base I decide we need to attack or defend so that they can get my sweet sweet healz. (Ok, maybe I exaggerated one or two sweet there).

The only drawback to this is when folks start to boast in battleground chat about their high number of honor kills with only zero or one death. When they do this, I do have to set them in their place, reminding them in battleground chat as well that it was only because I was healing their ass.

3. Cyclone: you are evil. But I love you.

There were many times it was just me and one hordie at a base in AB. Well clearly, I'm not going to be able to take them down. But hell if I'm going to let them take the base. So I'd just cyclone them over and over and ask in battleground chat for someone to come help me.

If I was being continuously cycloned, I would be seriously pissed. Its an eeevil eeevil spell. But oh, do I love it so!

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Random raiding thoughts

I have a number of thoughts/comments around raiding I wanted to share, so I shall just smush them all into one post.

1. Is it a full moon or something?

Isn't it odd how sometimes everything just seems to go all so wrong? I mean how on one night a raid seems to just be so off.... dps, healers, and tanks. We had one of these nights this past raid week where it was just such an off night. But nearly the same group came back the next night and kicked ass. I don't get what makes an off night an off night. Was it a full moon or something?

2. 1/10 = 10%

Now continuing from this first point, I won't start the whole debate again around 10 man vs 25 man raids. But Jess and I have talked about how a single raider carries more weight, or responsibility in a 10 man. One person is off, or not carrying their weight, that is 10% of the raid. Compare that to 1/25... I don't know what that is, but I know its less than 10% (complicated maths FTW).

I think its much harder to carry dead weight in a 10 man vs 25 man. Or maybe it is just more noticeable in a 10 man. Am I thus saying 10 mans are in a way harder? Well I don't know, because on a per raider basis I know that 25 man bosses require more dps. But I will say that yes, you do carry more responsibility to a raid in a 10 man.

3. "Feminine healing"?!?!

Larissa at Pink Pigtail Inn did a post bringing back up the old subject of gender stereotypes in WOW and how as much as she hates it, she feels that healing is "girly". The post and some comments talked about healing as standing in the back... being nurturing, passive.

It made me laugh because yes, I am a healer. Yes, I am female. But I bristle at the notion that healing is girly or that females tend to play healers because it is passive and nurturing. Maybe I play a healer not because I am nurturing and passive but because I know how to multi task and can time things well and quickly react to changing situations not only by the bosses but by what your raid members do? How about that huh huh huh? (Sorry maybe a little miffed here).

Now on the "passive" front, maybe its just different for me because as I told Jess, I am probably a healer with a tank attitude. Though Jess did point out that none of our tanks have attitude. Its true, except for when Jess tries to get lippy with me, our tanks don't have attitude. But what I meant with a tank attitude, was perhaps being more aggressive, taking charge, and wanting to run the show.

Trust me, you can take charge even if you aren't a tank. My guild has now taken to calling me the Empress Raid Leader, a nickname oh so lovingly conferred upon yours truly by one of our hunters Kalthan.

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So this is how it feels to be Horde, aye?

Last weekend was Arathi Basin weekend for us. I tend to be more an AV gal, but since it was AB weekend, I decided to check it out a bit. OMFG... I played maybe 6 games in a row and won all 6. Only one was close, the other 5 were pretty much blowouts. I probably ended up playing 10 and lost only 1.

What? Alliance actually communicating and working together in AB? What? Alliance understanding the subtle balance between attacking and defending in AB? Knowing when to attack, when to defend, and how many folks are needed for each?

It actually was a thing of beauty, to see so many Alliance BG teams working so well together and understanding how AB is scored. It did show me that yes, Alliance can win more than just AV. But you know what I thought? This is how it must feel to be Horde.

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Anonymous vs non-anonymous blogging

When I think back to why I first started this blog, it was mainly to capture some of the adventures the Claws were having in game, as well as to share random thoughts and stories of mine. Thus, I shared the name of my toon, my guild, and server from the very beginning. I definitely chuckle when friends and guildies and yes, even complete strangers whisper me in game around something related to the blog. That's probably why I didn't make it an anonymous blog, and I don't regret doing so.

But I also think I started this blog as an avenue to be able to vent about stuff in game as well. For me, writing about things sometimes helps me to get it out and perhaps let it go, or even see it from another perspective. Thus, there are times when I do wish for the complete openness and honesty that can come with total anonymity. If this was an anonymous blog, I would probably share or comment or vent about a lot more stuff. But its not anonymous, and I know the people who are reading it (yay statcounter! hee hee), whether they are friends or other folks.

Anyways, not sure what I'm trying to say here, but my blogger friends can probably relate to some of what I'm saying. Damn, I really do wish I could vent more here. It's my freakin blog... I wish I could say all I wanted to say. Maybe you're asking me, well why don't you then? Well, even I have limits, or a conscience. If I really vented here, the way I do to close friends, I would feel a bit guilty, even if what I was saying was true.

Trust me when I'm venting, its pretty damn funny... being part amusing, part super super feisty, and part downright scary. Hmmm... maybe I need to create a level 1 alt and go troll the server forums or something. :)

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Its just not right

Today I'd like to discuss something that started out for me as minor perturbment (is that a word?), then moved to irritation, and now oscillates (yes, oscillates) between sadness and downright anger.

What has me feeling this way you ask? Two things. First, the fact that I still have yet to get a drake from the Oracles egg and secondly, that I still do not have the turtle mount. Let's investigate these two things a little further.

First, the Oracles egg. I became revered with these folks pretty early on... I can't even remember how long its been. And ever so patiently, faithfully, with a glimmer of hope yet still each week, I go and pick up an egg. And yet, week after week, no drake. Come on, you Oracles folks! I really love how you guys will jump into the lake in Sholazar yelling "Whee"!. I really think you guys are super cute, way cuter than those other guys you keep fighting with (seriously, can't y'all work it all out?). What I do not love is that week after week... no drake. Grrrrr the anger is boiling up again.

Secondly, the turtle mount. I pretty much provide all of the fish feast for our raids. I think we've started a little game where if we're having a tough raid night and have a lot of wipes, I'll ask the raid to guess how many fish feast I've put out. Wut won the other night. I don't know... whoever wins should get some sorta prize. Fish maybes?

Anyways, so this is a lot of fish I'm fishing. And yet, no turtle mount. I'm telling ya, its just not right that me, Salty K, the provider of infinite fish feasts can't get the turtle mount. Sigh... now I'm sad again. :(

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Friday raid funnies

A couple of raid funnies I didn't get to share:

1. I probably said something funny and true but kinda bitchy:

Jess: Hmmm... the bitchiness is strong in this one.
K: And you just realized this now?

2. K gets crap from Kalthan (a hunter giving a healer crap? seriously?!?! what is this world coming to?!?!):

K: Note to self: put post-it note over Kalthan's box in grid

3. While Jess was away I think I was the default raid leader for two raids. Let's look at a couple things I said in raid chat:

K: Successful raid leader-ing is about assignment of blame.
K: I wish Jess would come back to lead the raids. That way I can just be the back seat driver and point out everything that should be changed or could be done better.

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Technical issues

Ok so Jess put up a post yesterday detailing some of the issues I've had on vent recently. Now yes, I freely admit that I am not the most technical person, as exhibited with this little story of when I got my Macbook. Now I've never used push to talk, but prior to this Macbook, I never had this problem. I do think I might have fixed the problem. However, I keep thinking its fixed, and it keeps coming back. Grrrr

But let me just respond to Jess' post a bit. First of all, its Schlitz not PBR! Get it straight! Hahaha... actually it probably was a Diet Coke with Lime (yum... my vice) because I am not a beer drinker. Its also funny whenever Jess hears sirens and says something like "Its like you live in a city or something". Um yeah... I live in Chicago?

Now Jess says that the raid doesn't mind when they can hear everything going on but here's why it drives me crazy. So I'm a pretty fast typer, which several of our raid members have commented on. Atania says that she can guess my mood during a raid by how fast or furiously I'm typing. If I'm typing even faster than normal and pounding away at the keys, whoa watch out. I don't know, I think I type the same all the time, but who knows.

The other issue is that if folks can hear me pounding away and they don't see something come up on raid chat or come across as a personal whisper to them, they know that I am whispering someone something. I don't know... I guess I would just rather keep my typing and the sound of me unwrapping my chocolate poundcake to myself.

But finally, when did tanks think they could make fun of healers? Um hello... the ribbing goes one way here. Just like healz go one way from healer to tank, the ribbing goes one way from healer to tank. kk?

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When you raid with a blogger

We had an interesting week of raiding last week. First, we decided that we'd do Flame Leviathan with one tower up. So we start the encounter, and we were ready for the light beams, but WTF Flowers? Fires? Yeah... in our quest to do FL+1 we accidentally started FL+4. Oops. It was kinda funny though. We came back and took down 3 more towers and successfully did FL+1. It was nice that just leaving one tower up on 10 man resulted in two badges of conquest!

So we took down Thorim this past week. Woot! Didn't end up getting Freya down, but I think we're very very close. I actually forgot to take a screenshot after Thorim. Oops again. Now we had left a bunch of easy early bosses that a group of us went back to clear. So we're going to do Ignis, and had a healer who had to leave. We brought in a dps and could have switched Jess or Chachi out and brought in their healers, but I knew that Jess and Chachi both had drops they wanted off of Ignis.

Since Ignis is relatively easy sauce now, I decided "Hey, lets challenge ourselves" and suggested that we do Ignis with just two healers, Breld, a pally healer, and myself. From the slight pause in Breld's voice, I'm guessing that he thought that I was crazy (he probably wasn't the only one). But my hope was that with 6 kick ass dps, we'd burn him down before too long. Plus since I knew that we could still heal if we got in the crotch pocket, I thought we might be ok. And hey, if it doesn't work out, then we'll just switch someone in.

So yeah, I had to work and try a little harder, but Ignis was one shot with just Breld and myself healing. My reaction as soon as he went down? BOOYAH! And it was a good plan since the gun dropped for our hunter Chachi off Ignis.

Now I'm not sure what the deal was this past Sunday night, but Sunday's raid ended up being incredibly incredibly naughty. Terms and phrases were mentioned and discussed that required the very innocent Jess and Kalthan to look up via google or wikipedia, after which I'm sure they had to clear the cache/history on their computers. Our little gnome Nkm was so traumatized that he emoted using little mittens to cover up his little ears. I don't know... there must have been something in the fish feast I put out because it was just out of control. Even I was blushing, which tells you how bad it was.

Sometimes I wonder how it is for my guildies and friends to raid with me, a blogger. Do they wonder what will get posted and what won't? Are they sometimes surprised by the way I see things and post them? Are there things I post that they wish I wouldn't? Let's take a look at a quick raid conversation from one night:

Suzzy: Now don't you go putting that up on your blog K!
K: Sorry Suz, I think you all well know that by raiding with me there is an unwritten and unsaid understanding that anything you say or do is rightful fodder for the blog.
Chachi: Yeah, I ended up figuring that out.

But seriously, I do think I'm pretty good with not putting anything up that they wouldn't want me to put up. However it is nice to have an avenue to put up stuff like this:

So Jess had some connection issues and ended up lagging for a while before Iron Council. Here is Jess simply running in place, so vigorously so that the snow got worn down!

Well what did we do while waiting? I think it was Vel that put bunny ears on Jess, while I ran over to get screenshots. Wut mentioned that this would be the WOW equivalent of someone passing out drunk and their friends drawing on their face. Hee hee.

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