Listening to raid instructions

There is a running joke in the guild that Jess' raid instructions are like lectures and the rest of us are students. In keeping with the analogy, folks ask for Cliff Notes sometimes and the joke is that Vel and I are sometimes caught "passing notes in class" and not completely paying attention:

Jess: Ok, Vel?
Vel: Huh? Sorry, I was whispering K.

On a little more serious note though, I think its important for us healers to listen to all of the raid instructions and adapt our healing strategy based on that. Now I'm not talking about knowing what the boss or encounter is going to do, but knowing what your specific raid leader is instructing your raid to do.

I guess listening to what the tanks are instructed to do is a bit more obvious, such as preparing for a switch in tanking by throwing out hots to the second tank. But listening to what the dps is instructed to do is important as well. Knowing where folks were going to be and which dps was assigned specific duties ensures that healers keep them within line of sight and can perhaps pay special attention to someone who has a critical role.

Does this mean Vel and I will promise to hang onto Jess' every word? Hmmm... we'll see.

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Did you ever know you were yourself?

One of my favorite things to do on the weekend mornings to get up, make some great yummy coffee, and log in to do some relaxing herbing. As my guildies have heard me say, herbing + coffee = love.

However, this weekend, I had more than just herbing and coffee. I had a little humor too. Hopefully BRK (yes that BRK) will not mind me posting this, but it was just too funny! Apparently BRK owes his readers something? An explanation or something?

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WOW with bubblegum and cotton candy

Have any of you heard of a MMORPG called Nostale? O....M....F....G.... just check out some of the images from this game:

From a website called Cute MMORPGS, Nostale has some similarities with WOW:

"Nostale centers around conquering a series of instanced dungeons. The design of the dungeons emphasize player comradery, and beating a time-limit. As you advance, it becomes almost impossible to play these dungeons solo. And because clearing dungeons is also an integral part of the game’s story, it’s essential to make friends and work with other people.

Another fun part of Nostale is building your house and showing it off. As one advances and accumulates more wealth, the player can purchase and place items in your housing area."

They have player housing! One thing I wish WOW would have! Nostale even includes a pvp component (how could I even kill one of these too cute toons?!?!). Anyways Nostale has its own wikipedia page. This looks like the different classes you can have:

Can you even imagine? I can't quite decide if I think its incredibly cute or whether or not it'd be too much bubblegum and cotton candy for me.

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Ignis and Kologarn down - No room for slackers!

Hope everyone had a good long weekend. As for the Claw, we had two new kills in Ulduar, Ignis and Kologarn. We actually got down Kologarn first:

Next was Ignis, which we finally got down! And can I just say that I <3 Rejuv + Swiftmend glyph + Swiftmend to deal with the crotch pocket?

I think Ignis sort of became our Shade of sorts. While we had gotten to the point over the last week or so where Razorscale and XT-002 were easily kills, Ignis was still giving us trouble. It gave us so much trouble that Kalthan refused to die on the ground:

It was definitely gratifying to get down two bosses who we had trouble with just the week before, but almost strange to see them go so smoothly. I think I held my breath for most of the Ignis fight! And yes, there was a lot of discussion over whether Ignis was a tank fight or healer fight or dps in charge of the constructs gone wild (DVD to come out shortly) fight.

Now compared to Naxx runs, I think that there is no room for slackers in Ulduar. Naxx was easy enough that you could have a person not completely pull their weight or not know a fight or move out of the way of something. Others could pick up the slack. But there is certainly no room for that in Ulduar!

I felt that our Kologarn and Ignis kills required all 10 of us to really be at the top of our game, kicking ass individually and together. One person screws up, its a wipe... which is why I think both kills were achieved with all 10 folks up at the end. It did sorta put the pressure on everyone though, knowing how important they were. But the fact that you are running with 9 other folks who not only kickass and really know how to play, but are also damn funny and who you truly enjoy running with, and it all adds up to a pretty damn good time (what's up with all the damns, right?) Iron Council, we iz coming for yous!

Finally, I haven't talked about drops for a while, but I just had to mention this. I have finally upgraded my weapon! I got Plasma Foil off XT-002. Wanna know what it replaced? War Mace of Unrequited Love. Yes friends, I've had a mace from heroic Nexus this whole entire time. /embarassment

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The many sides of K

Some cute random screenshots because well, they are cute... and well, I am random.

Here I am sitting like a lady at the Argent Tournament. I love how my hands are so nicely folded in my lap.

Here is the total opposite of the pic above, K being a total badass by driving a chopper for Flame Leviathan. She is yelling at everyone to get out of her freakin way.

The real K? Well probably a little bit of both proper and badass. Finally, Jess and I stopped bickering long enough to peacefully fish side by side. Funny part is that while we agreed enough to be fishing, we are fishing on totally opposite sides and casting our lines across each other!

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Better with drinks?

Anyone else think that their raids are a little more successful with drinks? I think some of our guildies perform best after just one or two drinks, where some folks seem to perform better with even more than just one or two drinks (you know who you are!). Personally, I am not a big drinker, but I would say on average our guild raids seem to do best when folks are just a bit more relaxed after that first drink or two.

On a more serious note, I'm curious what people think about the relation between gear and skill in success. I've seen first hand skill outperforming gear, but how far can skill get you? Would skill play into 60% of success and gear 40%? 55% and 45%? 70% and 30%?

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Why isn't it ever a "tank fight"?

During one of our last Ulduar runs, this tree had a revelation. I can't remember exactly which boss we were working on, but a comment was made to the effect of "this is a healer fight". I paused for a second, held up a branchy arm, and posed my question over vent, the gist of which is:

Why is it that you hear from time to time the phrase "its a dps check" or "its a healer fight" but you rarely or hardly ever hear "its a tank fight"? Was it a tank that came up with these two phrases so that tanks aren't ever "blamed" for a wipe? If dps and healers can be blamed, I think its only fair, don't you? Amirite or Amirite?

Everyone laughed and agreed. There was more laughter on a subsequent night when we wiped on some boss and I declared, "Sigh, this is so obviously a tank fight". I definitely recognize when certain fights are dps checks and others are very much reliant on the healers. I wouldn't have a problem with that if certain fights placed the crux of the responsibility on the tanks. Or is it that there really is no such thing as a "tank fight"?

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Where K gets pwned by Blizz

After a lot of going back and forth about whether I was really going to go to Blizzcon, I finally decided to do so. But then what happens? I totally got pwned by Blizzard! I was not able to get tickets on Saturday. Boo. Apparently when they say tickets go on sale at 10 am Pacific, they mean you can enter the queue earlier than 10 am. Knowing this, I'll have to try again on the 30th.

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