Sunday April 20, 2008

...a few comments, in order (keeping in mind I'm exactly halfway through the season):

"Right, the plot train has just gotten derailed and is going for a merry stroll through the countryside."

"You know that plot train I mentioned earlier? It's met a few flying pigs on its way."

"Now the train's been joined by a bunch of pink and violet unicorns and is merrily frolicking in a field of roses..."

"...with the addition of a few packs of tapdancing elephants."

And of course, the omnipresent "Is there any point to this or is it just the writers being bastards to the characters again?"

I probably should just sit back, stop analyzing the plot as if I were a writer and try and enjoy the ride. :|

(And yes, I know it's a TV show and not a movie. I'm too lazy to add a new category. :P)

At the long last, we found a strategy that worked.

No, I wasn't there for the kill (though I was there for a decent chunk of the attempts; story of my life - still haven't seen a Felmyst kill even though we've been killing her for three resets now), but I was watching and it was awesome. Now to repeat the feat next reset, eh?

(And I just repeatedly typoed "Eredar Twins" as "Eredar Twinks". The mental image of the two ladies in a battleground slaughtering everybody is just too much.)

On the upside, we did end up go to Black Temple afterwards (after skipping it last reset to work on the Eredar Twins some more), and although the random number generator was a bastard to me (no ring from Supremus, no trinket from Bloodboil, no necklace from Reliquary and no goddamned boots from trash - I have the feeling I'll get the necklace from Brutallus and boots from Felmyst before I see either of the latter two), I did finally get my Tier6 chestpiece.

Which when socketed with 3x 15sta gems, is a whole 60sta upgrade over the badge chest I've been tanking Mr. "Hardest hitting boss in the game" Brutallus in for a bunch of resets now.

(Last reset I tanked Brutallus without having a warlock's imp's stamina buff in my group... I never got summarily three-shot by the stomp + mainhand hit + offhand hit combination, but there were a few close calls I'd rather hadn't been there.)

I might be getting up to having a decent health pool yet. :P

Monday April 07, 2008

Remember me saying I'd post poetry I like? Yeah. I ought to do it more often.

This is rather famous (especially the last line), and could even be called cheesy, but I like it nevertheless.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Friday April 04, 2008

Ended up tanking Felmyst for all but the first three of our learning attempts. Fun times. We're doing pretty good at learning to stay the hell away from the green stuff, too. And the only times I got splattered (as opposed to the whole raid wiping during a flying phase) was when too many healers were dead, and that one time I stupidly backed out of healing range (one of the melee got Encapsulate, and my brain went "ack! damage bad! move away!" - which, in retrospect, turned out to be a bad idea).

Most priceless wipe today has to be the one where one of the mages avoided deep breath #2 with the rest of the raid, then ran into it via moving too far north in preparation for deep breath #3, got mind controlled, and promptly turned and Dragon's Breathed the raid, leading to everybody else getting caught in deep breath #3.

Tomorrow's a free day; we're going back in on Sunday. I don't know if I'll be picked for the raid again (I was surprised I was picked for today's, nevermind that they actually had me tank the boss for almost the entirety of it). Either way, I'm happy.

Almost forgot to mention. ^^

I've been running Magister's Terrace (both heroic and non-heroic) to death (exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive ftw). Seen the mount drop once, on the first day (didn't win it though, and neither did my boyfriend - grrr!), seen (and won) the 20-slotter bag (just one more to go... *twitch*), seen (and won) the Orb of the Sin'dorei (although I'm grumpy that shapeshifts cancel it... surely it wouldn't be that hard to code it so I can shapeshift in and out and still be a blood elf?), got all the items I could've possibly wanted (as well as the fairly useless healing trinket and the enchant pattern), lost the roll on more rare leatherworking and enchanting patterns (BOE world drops that have been added as BOP from Kael'thas) than I care to count, and seen (and won) the phoenix hatchling.

I have to say, having a baby phoenix following me around almost makes up for me fishing up a second Mr. Pinchy and not getting a Magical Crawdad this time around either. (Or the fact that somebody in my guild got a baby crocolisk off their very first fishing quest.)

So I'm in a new guild in World of Warcraft.

They recruited my boyfriend because they were in need of a holy priest, and recruited me as an addition even though 1. I was really rather undergeared and 2. they weren't looking for a feral druid at all. The idea was that I'd be geared up when possible and used as a tank (or as a healer, though more as a tank than as a healer) in Hyjal, Black Temple and eventually Sunwell Plateau when needed, but without a 100% guaranteed spot. I was perfectly fine with that (some raiding > no raiding).

Fast-forward a few weeks, and I'm promoted to member, in 4 pieces of Tier6 (and a blue chest *snort*), decent healing gear as well, praised for my tanking abilities, and so on.

Patch 2.4 is released, and though I've tanked in Black Temple and Hyjal (including main-tanking every Hyjal boss but Rage Winterchill and Archimonde... tank #1 was having connection issues, tank #2 was a paladin and didn't really feel up to maintanking, tank #3 had respecced DPS for Hyjal and didn't feel like going back and respeccing again), I sit out and just watch for Sunwell, as expected. Kalecgos gets killed saved, and the guild moves on to Brutallus attempts. A day of good tries, but no kill.

Then the last days of the reset, there's only one tank other than me available for the beginning of the raid. And somebody pops up with the suggestion that I tank Brutallus for a bit.
So I finish burning through battlegrounds for new bracers so I can replace my chestpiece and remain uncrittable (feral druid in T6 tanking gear = flag-carrying hilarity... unless every single horde decides to pile on me, I'm virtually unkillable, especially if people bother healing me) replace my blue chestpiece with a badge chestpiece (unfortunately the only option in that much of a hurry, though it's a bit of a lousy tanking chest), grab a bunch of flasks, approximately fifty billion Ironshield Potions and stamina food, and get flung head-first at a large pitlord. We get some good tries in, then the other tank comes online and I get replaced. And they kill him. Yay for the kill, though I'm a bit sad I couldn't be there for it.

And then it's Wednesday and the raids reset. We go Black Temple for the first night (due to raid composition and wanting to gear up some people some more); then Sunwell tonight. I'm idly fishing in Terokkar, with flasks and potions and food sitting in my mailbox but not really expecting anything, and up pops a raid invite.

o_O

*looks at guild list*

*sees only three tanks, me included, online*

So I pull consumables from the mail and wander off to Sunwell. A few trash pulls later, I'm staring at Kalecgos and wondering exactly how many times it'll take me to learn the tanking rotation. (It only took three or so attempts at Brutallus for me to get that one down; but I try to never be too confident.) The first three attempts, I mess up somewhat - miss a portal, take a portal too early, that sort of thing. The fourth attempt, the gods of the universe clearly decide it's time to give me a hand... the fight starts, and I immediately get popped into a portal. Wasn't my turn, but okay. Walk in, taunt the demon, tank it, get punted out, taunt the dragon, tank it, have it taunted off me, move off, wait for portal... get popped into a portal automatically again. Oooookay. Taunt the demon, tank it, get punted out, taunt the dragon, tank it, have it taunted off of me, go look for portal... okay, this one I have to take on my own... pop in, taunt the demon, tank it, get punted out, taunt the dragon... ooh look, we won. O_o

Off we go to clear trash packs to Brutallus. I mention to my boyfriend, "they'll need to replace a tank with a dps, unless they want me to dps, but if they're smart, they won't want me to do that". The raid leader starts saying in Vent, "okay, [me], I'm going to replace you with..." and one of the warriors pipes up saying that it's silly to replace me, since a feral druid does more damage than a prot warrior when not tanking, and on Brutallus every little bit helps. And since he got all the drops he possibly could've wanted on the previous kill, he would step out.

o_o

Okay!

So for the rest of the evening, my screen is full of gigantic pitlord. There's a few very close wipes: 1% wipe due to enrage, 3% wipe ditto, a few sub-20% wipes due to Murphy's Law (such as the first, and only, taunt resist I got in the whole raid... grrrr).

And then we pull again - last try of the night, as we're already beyond the time the raid was supposed to end.

And he actually dies.

Best fun I've had in a long while. And I'm still grinning like an idiot that I'm actually seeing Sunwell Plateau first hand, killing things, rather than just watching it from other people's perspective. I'd pretty much accepted as a fact of life that such a thing wasn't going to happen.

And now it is.

(I forgot to take proper screenshots, though. Was too busy bashing keys like mad and trying my damnedest to hold aggro off a full complement of Tier6 raiders going full out. Ahh well... next time.)

So I finally found the courage to try and make no-knead bread again, after failing miserably last time I tried.

This time, I didn't add too much water. \o/

It was still a mild disaster, since I ended up with flour all over my kitchen (the instructions say to "generously coat a cotton towel with flour", and knowing exactly how sticky wet dough can be, I might have floured the towel a bit too generously); but I succeeded.

Best damned bread I've had in years. Yum. Definitely going to be making it again.