sprite

The thing that makes Thadd difficult is the reliance on a person's PC/connection to follow it through - this is something that has ALWAYS bugged me a huge amount with WoW, even though mine are both more then capable - well, most of the time

but they can get treeform and stacking hots so who cares about healing touch?

Those who can't override other people's HoTs... HoTs are lovely, of course they are. But if you are being forced into a HoT role, the fact that the person with +200000000 healing will ALWAYS be able to overwrite or prevent you from casting makes you pretty useless. (The current HoTs don't stack, right? Rejuv/Regrowth won't with the new patch?)

Ergo, it'd only be viable to have a tree or two - the rest of us will be using HT.

The other day, in WSG, a Paladin was in the Horde base and he got feared. You know as you run out the flagroom, to go to the GY, you have the logs sticking out - well, he got stuck there. He thought it was hilarious that he was out of LOS for spells, and that we could only hit him in melee. /laugh /spit /mock etc.

Until he realised the downside of being stuck - he was STUCK.

Could've just left him there, it would've been funnier I suppose, but eventually we killed him to put him out of his misery

Thaddius. Well. I have a love/hate relationship, with this one. I love that it's so varied, that you need to be on your toes, that it's all so exciting. I hate that the slightest bit of lag on a tank can mean they don't surface on your screen properly, to heal them, until after one of Feugen/Stalagg has already had a chance to hit them. I hate that people can't make the friggin' jump. I hate that a disconnect will with like, 50% certainty, wipe the raid.

At Razorgore, Nefarian, a disconnect sucked, sure. It *could* wipe the raid, in a "oh noes, our tank/kiter is down, panic!" kinda way. At Thaddius, if someone DCs, they just nuke people.

But, my connection held strong as it often did. I love 'dancing' here, and have managed not to kill anyone. Having not been assigned a specific target/group once Phase 2 began, I spammed the raid like there was no tomorrow, popping NR Pots whenever the cooldown was up to watch my own ass.

Until.

30 seconds.

Chain Lightning struck me repeatedly, absorbed by the pot, Rejuvenation ticking away, I stared at my potion cooldown, begging Thaddius not to hit me again whilst I cast a heal on myself. No such luck.

Kaywinnit has died.

I watched the fight unfold from my place on the floor, crumpled in a heap, until everything froze up.

I disconnected.

The first, and only time, I have ever disconnected at that fight. Fate killed me earlier so that I didn't ruin our kill, I've decided. Too scared to login as Kay due to some potential freak accident, I logged my alt and listened to the cheers on TS.

We won!

And then the laughter when everyone started pwning each other <3

My advice would be to have more people at IB, I've played games where we've not managed to get IB straight away, and had the GY behind us taken out as well, and the attack completely stops. The last time this happened, I was in for three hours, and it was a very close fight by the end. Much more fun than zerging to drek in half an hour.

The ridiculous thing, coming from Horde side, is that sometimes if you, God forbid, have more than ten defending Iceblood you will get shouts FFS MORE ATTACK!!! (Even though Alliance have about 25-30 in their attack force) Or you'll be told how the game is lost because they aren't able to sapture SH or SP or something. A lot of Horde are completely impatient and decide it's lost if we aren't at Aid Station in 10 minutes.

I even had the pleasure of meeting a guy called Moopeli, who on one game declared that the "only tactic that ever works is zerging the Aid Station" and that we'd lost since we were defending FW GY. We pushed them out, and won the game, the way it is meant to be. He was in the next BG - I asked him if he believed that defending can actually work and he said that "that silly defending tactics only worked once!"

Very glad I have my puppy now..

I want the ring too but I'm too poor Also thinking about the +dmg offhand for giggles but I'm.. too poor

I DID IT!!!

Last night I dinged exalted with the Frostwolf Clan during a losing game of Alterac Valley. Personally, I was done caring, I just wanted exalted, so I joined in the chaos briefly at the Field of Strife and picked up lots of Blood and Armor Scraps, cashing them in to hit exalted.

I now have my Frostwolf and my Lei of the Lifegiver

But... now what do I do?

11k to go, children! I'm nearly there! The frostwolf will be mine tonight.*

*except I can't bear sitting on the little chair out back in front of my old PC anymore. Yes I am playing Alterac Valley at work. Yes that is very naughty of me. Yes I'm very bad bad bad.

People weren't best pleased last night though, as we stood around outside Naxx with 13-14 healers (once Oldboy came online) and decided to call it off. One more would've made the difference, so that's all people see atm.

I guess having a documented break is something understandable. I needed a night off, I posted telling how crappy I was feeling and that was that - I don't think anyone held that against me even though that raid was cancelled, too. Had I however not said a word, not signed up and gone to play my other lvl 60 alt when my presence could've meant the raid going ahead well.. people might have felt a bit.. out of the loop and shafted :\

Hoorah! At last, a fine example of the Horde absolutely pwning.

I joined an AV mid-battle yesterday afternoon *cough* whilst still at work. My friend went the feral druid route and I went healbot, and we made our way to Iceblood just in the nick of time it felt like. I started healing people up who were about to die and he started charging into anything that moved. One guy, obviously died in the first wave or so, said "IB is lost" to which I replied, "Err, no it isn't?" He said "Well, IB is by some miracle still standing, then".

We kept pushing them back, they really weren't making it through, and eventually they formed what seemed like a 35 man defence in their base. We headed north to try and help out, when the cries for "No one's healing - 10 points to <name> who is the only one bothering." I said "I'm on my way, ready to healspam!" and I received a reply like "Don't be so up yourself, Kaywinnit" - charming. Healers CANNOT win in Battlegrounds.

A few of us headed into Vanndar's room. It was messy. The messiest I've seen. Whilst our guys were holding off the Alliance outside we were working him down (tanks kept switching aggro though, bleh! ) and finally spammed him down.. it was ace!

Just try and co-ordinate joining with a few people If you get 40 people all sign up together at the very same second, odds are you'll open a new one due to Ally queues lol

"DON'T PULL MARSHALLS!"

"We'll respawn at Stonehearth and lose!"

"DON'T PULL UNTIL WE HAVE A GY.."

Vanndar Stormpike yells....

Chanti, you scare me. Honestly though, I remember being in a right state one day and I actually just didn't want to raid because I thought I'd made the wrong decision and that I should've just cut off entirely, and I was at work, staring at the signups, wondering what to do.

Then two of my friends came in and demanded my presence for the evening. Dilemma solved, and then the next day I went to Zul'Gurub, and the day after that I PvP'd with folk until 4am or something ridiculous, and I was very very happy

It wasn't because I didn't like Chimaera or anything (I do love the guild <3), but just from an individual perspective it was all completely overwhelming. All the little jokes that mean nothing to you, the voices that you can't identify, stuff like that. But now it's like "Grox got aggro? Lol" and it means something to me... I feel part of things and so just really enjoying it all now.

It could've gone either way though I mean it's easy to just sort of retreat into yourself and not make the effort to settle in with the new peoples, but I'm really glad I did as it made a huge difference to me.

Maybe I was more burnt out from it all than I thought.

I thought that for the first week, because it's the hard week, but then once settling in and all it felt <3 <3 <3 <3 again.

Thaddius is a meanie, though. I think I hate his lightning spam the most because it absolutely destroys people. And everyone needs to be full health when the fight starts or it's bye bye which meant, for the first time in absolutely yonks, I pulled heal aggro. (But only after Trunx's imba rejuvs )

ANNND the polarity shift. I didn't realise at first, but every time it happens, and I move into position, I'm holding my breath to find out someone is in the wrong place and kills us all horribly. And then I let it out again, aah.

Well, having a better time of it now. I've reasoned that AV in the daytime is full of kids who haven't got a clue, but start grinding after midnight and things are a lot more organised and enjoyable.

Last night I teamed up with a warrior and another druid and a rogue, between the four of us we were doing very well. Warrior 'charging' (more like steadily moving forward) in and attracting their attention whilst me and the other druid hid behind trees to heal him, protected by the rogue who picked off those who were onto us.

Of course, we only actually won one last night, but the other two were very close! And now I'm 10000/12000 honoured with AV. So that's 23,000 to go! It's getting near...

I want to cry! I can't take it anymore! I have 29,000 rep to go. I've only got 11,000 so far. I think the maths are right, anyway.

Everyone runs off to attack.

Two defend Iceblood. It's run over in seconds.

Four/five make it to Frostwolf GY, we hold it for a little while, until their zerg.

They completely demolish the Relief Hut, and eventually people come back to defend.

So what did the 30+ attackers achieve? SOD ALL. They got the Stonehearth GY then promptly lost it again. That was it. They didn't do anything else, save call me whiney for begging people to defend.

/cry

Hehe I really like the more DoTs one

I finally hit Exalted with the Zandalar last night, and managed to scrounge enough Bijous to get my enchant on shoulders. Wooot Big thanks to all that donated some.. though I don't think any will see this. D: That's the trouble when you go from a guild who lets the banks handle bijous (well, up to a week or so before you left) into one where it's all /FFAd

Whats the matter? Scared that a Paladin may be able to out-tank you? Good grief.

How many feral druids do you know that take the place of warriors in raids currently? Not many.... because healing is needed more than warriors, and it's not as if a prot warrior, who has spent 100 days /played or so gearing up his character to an awesome tanking standard, can suddenly turn around and do viable raid DPS, so then he'll be replaced by a rogue, or a mage, or something.

Do you anticipate that guilds that have supported their warriors and built up relationships with them will suddenly turn around and say 'oh, hang on, this paladin can do your job, bai m8'? That's even *if* a paladin would be able to step right into a warrior's role. I confess to speculation as I don't have the time nor willpower to study the class that intensely...

It's more than being just about abilities and talents, it's about helping and supporting your friends/comrades who are more or less forced into only one role. Yes, maybe shaman are forced into a healing/totem stomper role, but that's only because that is the thing they can offer that no one else can.

Even within the healers, each compliments one another. A tank with a Renew/Rejuvenation/Regrowth on him is better than the tank in the raid group with 10 priests and no druids, where he only gets the one HoT. A tank being spammed by a priest's choice spell, a druid's choice spell and a shaman's choice spell will get a constant stream of staggered healing, according to the variation in cast times etc. A party getting chain healed will survive longer than the one who only has a druid casting Tranquility every 5 minutes.

Exaggerations, sure. But each class compliments one another. No one said being a healer and conserving mana was going to be an easy job, I'd argue it as one of the more difficult in fact, thus we all struggle. And there's an awful lot of responsibility on your shoulders. Take the shaman out of Hordeside raid groups and they will suffer massively, guaranteed.

And going back to Blizzard's descriptions well, no one said they were meant to be true of raiding, did they? Druid: "Hybrid, Primary Healer, Excellent solo class" or similar. No one says that the 'hybrid' part is *meant* to apply in Naxxramas. That's only one aspect of the game, and one we've all been in for so very long that it might be hard to think outside it.

Going by Blizzard class descriptions is dodgy ground, the amount they change the classes.

Druids, for example, have been referred to as 'hybrids' and 'primary healers'

Oh, now we're both lol

Shammys and Pallys are both the same, though... http://wow-europe.com/en/info/classes/index.html

Roll druid!

I'm a jumper. I can't help it. It's just.. it's what I do.

But about the ninja/pirates thing, I know Moofasa (tauren warrior) goes ninja or pirate for specific bosses just because running around and trying to be accurate as a big fat cow can be particularly tricky

I meant to say social really

There's a distinction between the person who comes along to BWL once a week and the person who raids Naxx a bit less than others

Aye we do. Speed varies. BWL is open to 'PUG' members who want to buy epics that would otherwise be disenchanted. So often there is some explaining involved for them

It's about 2hr30-3hours though depending on the above and how many AFKs etc

The thing is, BWL night is also a night off for many people. Chimaera has some casual members too who come along, which means that those who raid Naxx who are all finished in BWL can happily have the night off raiding, and making it an AQ venture too would mean bringing some more of the Naxx raiders in/losing the 'PUG's etc... always time involved with something like that.

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=21839 is very shiny, about the only thing I really get terribly excited about... same with most AQ stuff, to me personally, is that some of it is marginal upgrades but arguably not that worth it.

Two bosses into Naxx and you can get http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=22942 + http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=19312

So, hmhmhm.

The thing is, AQ40 does have good DPS loot and Chim *did* go there, ok so didn't spend years there and all but people still got loot, experienced the fights, downed the Twin Emperors. And C'Thun is still going to die, so you could say about missing out on the sort of enjoyment aspect of seeing it all but we won't, because we will kill him.

Then Naxx appeared and Chimaera started doing well there, with arguably better rewards.

So why spend ages in AQ40 if it becomes not so necessary? I wasn't in the guild at the time but the decision was made not to go ahead to C'Thun, maybe because people weren't enjoying AQ and if you're not enjoying something why do it? PinkMoon seems to indicate that a lot of people didn't like it much. Of course, I know some did, but how can you *ever* please everyone? Why condemn that decision? Yeah, ok, maybe if Chim never even went to AQ, but that wasn't the case...

They were ahead of us. Me, Ulala, Cowfields, and so when we'd seen all there was to see in BWL, there was the option basically 'hmm, AQ40 or Naxx?' I suppose. But as Chimaera were ahead, they've now done both...

It's not like ignoring BWL like you say Ulala, because they didn't ignore the hypothetical BWL.