New Patch!

I haven’t been terribly impressed with the new content. This is the first time I’ve played through a major change, and having my addons working one day and broken the next is annoying. Altaholic, I’m looking at you. A little annoying, having to go look up if I had an item for transmog instead of just mousing over it. That whole 5 seconds I use doing that!

Old content being really easy to solo is nice. I spent a lot of time looking up how to get past the healy dragon in ICC with my mage before I realized you can just walk past her. Going to try the LK heroic, here’s hoping the pony drops! Since soloing is so easy, I made a list of all the mounts and all the places I need to go. Not too overwhelming, as long as I don’t try to take all 9 90’s through all 12 things every week, and all 6 daily ones. I might have to focus on either running 1 toon through them all, or all of them through 1. 

I’m thinking the EoE for everyone, since the most annoying part about that is getting there. Kara too, since that’s just the first boss. I’ll work in my plans for the rest, I have a feeling it will change based on how bored I feel. Things die so quickly now. It might be fun to do a guild “mount run” night and just steamroll all the raids. I still prefer doing things with friends to soloing, but things die so quickly there’s hardly any need for more than 1 person.

I have my pet from thee quests, I’ll work on the Bronze Drake later. Right now, my plan is to do heroic/old normal Garrosh tomorrow for a quick kill with the guild. I did put a gear limit on that run, so I planned a normal/old flex run for Friday, with clean up on Sunday so those without the ilevel will hopefully have a shot at Garrosh (and I can practice monk healing in a low-stress situation). 

I managed a kill on my shaman and mage, so I have the int staff and my other toons can go for agility weapons. I always level DPS and swap to heals at max level. Just what I’ve always done, but it means I want my monk and druid to have an agility heirloom. Here’s hoping tonight’s run gets decently far, ideally past Spoils for a quick clean up on Sunday, and that tomorrow’s run has a quick kill.

I’m a little nervous about healing on my monk. From what little I’ve seen, monks tend to be on the bottom of meters. I used to fistweave a lot, so I am not sure how the stance dancing will work out for me. I’ll let you know what I think. I hope monks are still ok in WoD- I have to remember our toons are tuned to be approximately equal at level 100, and right now what I’m seeing means nothing.

What I've Been Up To

So, as the new patch looms over us, I figured I’d recap what I’ve been up to and what my plans before the expansion are. This is exciting for me, I’ve never played to the end of an expansion like this. I did start in Wrath, and played in Cata, but I stopped in both before the last raid tier had been released. Preparing for the next expansion is something completely new for me.

I finally managed to get Proven Healer. All together, I am guessing I’ve spent about four hours trying. It was in spurts. I’d get to 28 or 29, screw up and go pout. I finished it this weekend. I did not get Brawler’s guild. If I had known about mouselook earlier, I probably would have finished it months ago. As it was, I hit Hexos and stopped. I play on a laptop. I did not have a mouse at all, until I bought one I ended up not using for Hexos. Managed to get him down Sunday, but with the time I spent helping people with CMs I did not have enough time to finish the Brawler’s guild and get enough sleep to be functional in surgery this morning.  

Oh, surgery- I was anesthetist today. I think it went pretty well. Our dog (who turns out to be from the same family as our neuter) did not want to go down with her premeds, but took a long time to be what I considered sufficiently recovered enough to leave her alone. We did have one rough moment where she needed a bit more propofol to help keep her comfortably under, but otherwise she was nice. No hypotensive issues once they started cutting, she was the smallest dog so she had a fluid pump and the calculations for that were super easy. And at last check she was looking good.

And back to things I didn’t do: we never tried realm best times. Makes me a little sad, I was looking forward to trying.  I don’t know if we’d’ve managed one, but I think it would have been fun to try. And if we did manage, the title was pretty neat. Our tank/healer/DPS/whatever we needed him to do did not manage to get his rogue’s CMs done. I tried, but unfortunately he’s our best tank. What I learned from that: don’t go with sub-par tanks, you won’t get things done. I am also left never wanting to schedule anything ever again. Except these achievement runs, and I’m already thinking about future CMs, and raiding in WoD, and so many other things. 

I said several times I was done scheduling things for other people, but I kept going back and trying again. I have a short memory and a tendency to forget how bad things really were that keeps me going back.

I’ve been making plans to prepare for WoD. So far all I’ve got is make sure I clear the crap I tend to hang on to out of my bags and bank, and get good bags for everyone. I think my poor tailor still has netherweave bags in her bank slots. If I have time, I’d like to finish achievements for MoP raids, but I have a feeling I’ll be back at level 100. 

I’ve logged on a few toons to collect my JP/Valor gold, I was curious how much I’d get. So far, 11k with 2 toons to go. After spending all my JP on two toons for Wrath rep tokens. I saw my poor gnome and hated her face, went immediately to the barber shop only to end up with the exact same look. I did chance my druid’s face a bit, and I am going to look at the other tauren and troll looks to see if I can find a nicer one, but I think I’ll adjust to the new models quickly. Most things look the same from the back anyway.

Pretty Happy, but BUSY!

I’m excited to play WoW in a way I haven’t been for a while. I’ve had some really annoying things happening in game. My annoyance with raiding lately, some of our CM difficulties. But my monk has her set, my priest in an unusual show of luck received both drops from SoO LFR 3 I wanted (plus another trinket from Thok, just to taunt my other healers) and my mage got her shoulders. My horde shaman is not so lucky. I’ve got 3 LFRs left to try for a handful of pieces, plus some flex, if I feel up to it, but I am still missing a lot. 

Update: an AWESOME lock in our guild gave me the tier shoulders for my priest after they won the roll, since they had already won the helm. I am glad I was able to return the favor in a small way by passing on the tier legs that dropped, allowing them to win those as well. AWESOME lock. I was incredibly happy. Just like I’d had some more of the free coffee my professor brought in.

This week, we’re trying to fit in CMs where we can. I’m hopeful, this is an awesome group. I need to learn to mage better, fix some keybinds to better take advantage of shatter, but I think I am doing pretty well. I do need to go try to get a battle horn on her for SSB, but I’ll work on that. 

We did heroics again last night. Our last attempt was so disheartening, but tonight went great! We two-healed everything too. With me healing even! Which meant I had to figure out pacman, but I think I did ok. We got the first 3 down (my first Protectors heroic kill) and got Sha to 12%, but I was getting random really bad lag spikes and constantly kicked out of vent.

We made an attempt at SSB CM for one of our group. My monk was healing 2 groups, so she got it, our other friend took his rogue through with some other people so he can bring toons better able to help us. Unfortunately, we were going backwards. I’m not sure if I should ask our tank if she’s willing to go DPS just so we can get through, or not. 

I ended up asking our tank to DPS. I feel a bit bad, but she had been talking with someone who told her pallys are some of the worst for CMs. She was willing to swap, and we managed to knock them out fairly easily. I am glad it’s done.

Now I have a handful of friends who want CMs, so I am trying to get 2 groups going this weekend to start working on those. The group with my mage and my friend’s druid has been going well, with only a few nights and minimal hours, we have 3 left. Plus 1 for the tank who has missed every night, grr. If he misses thursday he’s on his own.

I think realm best times may be falling by the way side, but I will remind everyone and see if we can at least get together 1 night and give them a try. If for no other reason than I think it’d be a blast, and my mage and priest are both as well geared for it as they can get while maintaining my sanity.

I swear, when I am done with these I am throwing a “no more LFR’s” party.

My First Surgery

So, I had a post about raid leading and my leadership skills self evaluation written up, but I wanted to share something exciting to me. I did my first surgery! A castration, simple enough. I was primary surgeon, but thanks to my awesome surgery team who kept me straight and laughing so I didn’t overworry. 

We had a cute little dog, ~ 6 year old small mix breed. Small enough that we had to use a non-rebreathing system, so we had to figure that out. I am not looking forward to being the anesthetist for our group, they had probably the toughest job. Certainly the most paperwork. My job was easy- do the cutting and suturing, then stay with the patient until he woke up. My awesome team did all the cleaning and repacking of the surgery pack and packed my gown for me too. We ended up being first in and first out. I certainly wasn’t aiming to move fast, and really since we got our dog on the table at 9:30 and finished probably 45 minutes later, fast would certainly not be a descriptor many people would use. I was checking with my instructors- cut here, tear that, does my closure look good?

But Alvin came through, he’s awake and walking around and looking normal. Just have to check on him tomorrow morning, then he goes home. I’ll call the owner over the weekend to check his progress. He was a good dog to start with, small, no issues, and well behaved for us.

Here’s hoping the rest of our surgeries go as well this term.

I was a tad surprised when I went to the bathroom to learn my name tag on my cap was upside down and no one told me. Made me giggle though. I’m just glad it’s done. Once I got back to my room to lay down I discovered I was sore- I think I was just so tense and worried at first. But I was fine, I didn’t feel faint or lightheaded at all, which I was really worried about.

Things you learn in vet school: “There’s a nice little company called Skulls Unlimited, which is just what it sounds like.” To practice dental radiographs.

Ramblings

I’ve been busy, with classes and WoW. I have my first test on Monday and my first surgery on Tuesday. Eek!! I’m nervous and excited and turning all of that into doing nothing. I am working on changing that habit and making an effort to stop, think about what will help me and do it. This means I am trying not to turn to WoW as a way to kill time, even though I keep coming up with more and more ways to do so. 

I tanked again the other night, heroic Imm then to Shamans on normal. I also talked with one of the druid healers briefly about her glyphs and a few of the weakauras I use. Hopefully she’ll give something to track things a shot, and I’ll go through logs later and see how it looks. I still have to practice brewmaster and get better at using keg smash on CD, and using CDs more defensively.

I have come to the conclusion that I want to heal on my druid next expansion, rather than my monk. I’d be happy to tank on the monk, but if I am going to be healing I feel the druid or shaman will be better. Of course, this is based off of my love for druid and a few comments about the beta. We’ll see what ends up happening in November.

As far as CMs go, the original group my monk was in is still 7/9 after 2 different nights, each time spending an hour in SSB. Very irritating, since I had a discussion with the tank about the trouble I’ve been having with her. It’s gotten to the point that we’re almost backsliding and I can’t leave her alone for a second to do anything else. Everyone else in the group who knows things about pally tanking has started to ask “are you doing this or using that on CD” and trying to help. I feel like this should have been discussed earlier. But anyway, since the healer for the second group has been unable to make CMs, I ended up healing those on my monk and putting my mage to the side. That group is 8/9, so hopefully by Sunday my monk will have her set. Ideally I’d get it Friday or Saturday when we try with the first group again, but I’m not holding my breath.

Speaking of the mage, she got her shoulders this morning. I did the “I got my shoulders” song, which doesn’t come out as well in guild chat. So now all I am missing from BiS CM is the chest and ring from Ra Den and bracers from Megara that don’t have expertise. I actually tried to get a guild group together using my heroic ToT lockout. We wiped on Lei Shen so much I am turned off from trying again. Poor little mage, she’s unlikely to see Ra Den ever. So it’s just the bracers, which I will work on.

My horde shaman has not had much luck. A usable staff, I suppose. We’ll see if I can finish the rest of the LFRs for her, hopefully have some good luck. If I really feel like procrastinating or somehow feel super confident about Monday and Tuesday, I might try to pug a flex 1. Lots of stuff drops there. It’ll be nice to get a few things so I can knock LFRs off my list.

My priest has been poorly neglected, as far as CMs go. I’ll get her together a bit next week, if I can, so if I end up healing this next group I can do it on a new toon rather than my monk again. Not that I don’t love my monk, but I kinda like the priest transmog. She’s missing the Lei Shen neck, I might have to go for the 463 neck that drops somewhere so she has something. I think I am also missing Thok gloves and Spoils chest.  Ideally I’d get BiS stuff for her, but I might just go with what I have.

Still having internet issues in class. All week, either no internet or intermittent internet. Thank goodness it is working on my dorm. We’re “paperless” so all the notes are online. And some professor post them the day of class.

Today's advice from our therio professor: “Never truest an intact male. Most people get it. Oh, of any species…”

On pigs: “They have a pecking order. Not quite as bad as vet student pecking order.”

Back to School

My plan had been to log on during breaks between class and do some farming, but the internet is acting up on campus. It works for some, not for others, then it loads a page, then it doesn’t. Now, no internet would be fine if I downloaded powerpoints before class, but I usually do not. But since the only other things I have to do during my breaks is study, writing something seemed more appealing.

Got my horde shaman to 90. I’ll still go ahead and farm things for BiS CM gear, even if I don’t end up running any. It’ll give me something to do. I have a feeling my friend might be being too nice again and not actually need any help anymore, and just doesn’t know how to tell me. He had talked about tanking on his monk and letting me DPS as ele, but we’ll see. Either way, now I have a shaman and druid horde side, plus my 80 monk. 

People have asked me what I am going to level first. I can’t decide. I have loved my monk, and had a blast on her. My druid is still my first max level toon and my favorite to heal on. And I always think of myself as someone who plays a resto druid, and occasionally other things. So when asked who I want to level first I think everyone!

But I need a plan. So, I’d like to level my druid first, then my monk, then probably one of my horde toons. That last one will depend on what ends up happening horde-side, if I end up raiding or plan do run CMs over there in WoD. And that order could swap too. After that it’d probably be my priest and rogue to have a JC and enchanter. Plus I hate just selling lockboxes and dislike having someone else open for me when I can do it my self. Though if I end up doing nothing horde-side, I might have to put my mage in there for alchemy. Of course, that depends on how expensive enchants/gems/flasks are, and how the profession changes and garrisons work out.

In other news I successfully tanked last night! Heroic Immerseus, then up through Sha. I still have a lot to learn if I am going to keep tanking (unlikely) but I had fun. Took a few attempts on Imm to get things right, both me and the other tank (both monks) were tanking the heroic version for the first time. But we got it! I completely missed gouge on Protectors, and we used 3 tanks for Norushen so I could only screw up so much. If I am going to keep tanking I’ll set up a few things to help me, and as I become more familiar I’ll get better. I still can’t do the DPS as a tank I know other monks with my gear can. But I had fun, which I needed. Raiding lately has been a chore.

We’re not really trying for progress, more to evaluate people for raiding next expansion. Which means we are bringing anyone who shows up along, pretty much. And I need to remember that when we die to things, that these aren’t my normal raiders, I need to quit assuming what people can and can’t do.

And I know we need to either recruit or find from within a 20 man raid team for next expansion, but I wish we were doing it separate from raiding. In flex, say. But that’s just cause I get frustrated and then I get talky and complain, and then I make a nuisance of myself. I haven’t learned to shut up, and so far only 1 person (thank GOD for him) tells me to shut up. I try to tell everyone that it’s ok and encouraged to tell me to shut up, but only one person takes me up on it.

We have an hour to finish CMs tonight, here’s hoping they go well. I talked to our tank, just a very general “you’re really hard to heal.” I’m hoping she’ll take that and do some research, make things easier for all of us next time.

Classes have been fun. I love our surgery professor. Just straight faced, no change in tone, tells us if we’re worried when we pull on the testicle to get it out and break attachments that we’ve broken something, that the tongue should move in when we tug on it and have someone check. Our therio professor is a large animal person right now. We’re starting with cows. She’s a blast, even though I don’t really care about getting cows pregnant, which makes classes fun.

Summer's Done

It’s been a while since I have posted. I’ve been busy, putting the time to use. Not, perhaps, the best use, but doing things a least.

For the first time since, ohh, probably 2010 I am completely unpacked. Might be a year or two longer. No storage shed, no boxes at my mom’s (except a few dishes, but I am not counting those) nothing anywhere. And I have discovered missing books. And duplicate books. I mean, I like Good Omens, but I probably don’t need 3 copies. 

In WoW, I’m very busy right now. My guild is doing 25 mans two nights a week, open to anyone who shows up pretty much. The other night we had 34 people who wanted to raid, so I broke off into a 10 man. Took us a while to get that last spot, but we did 8 bosses in two and a half hours, with quite a few breaks trying to grab that 10th person. Not too bad, I think. I did admit, I think I snagged one of the good tanks, even if he hadn’t tanked normal before. I had fun.

On the challenge mode front, 2 more left with my monk, and I have started some on my mage. Knocked 1 out, and I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. There was talk of trying for some realm best times, maybe. I hope so, it sounds like a ton of fun. I told my fried horde-side about it, since he’s actually got 7 of the realm best times, and is working on the last two. He is looking forward to the competition. And I was present with an offer to do CM carries if I managed to get an ele shaman together horde side. I’m working on leveling one. My friend and a couple of XP boost potions carried me to 79 really quickly, but I have run out of potions. I’ve managed to make it to 88, but classes have started back up so my leveling time has dropped. One and a half levels, hopefully by the end of Tuesday I’ll be set. Then on to farming gear, but I can run LFRs and study at the same time easier than I can level and study.

In other news, I am happy to say I can heal CMs with my monk. I know that’s an odd thing to say 7/9, but we’ve really been struggling with this group. I was really worried it was me, because the tank was just dropping left and right. Having healed another tank, the difference was amazing. There were still time he was taking lots of damage and I had to spam some heals his way, but he was so much easier to heal.  Pulls that had wiped us in the other group were simple. Our issues came from low DPS and repeated interruptions. I think we’ll be fine next week when our usual group is all together and I can get back on my mage. Our healer forgot we had CMs scheduled and was at work, so I swapped to heals and snagged a completely unprepared toon from an experienced friend and we muddled through quite well. To be honest, I liked the chance to heal on my monk. I really was worried that our struggles in that group were my healing issues, but nope, it’s bigger than just me. Not saying I don’t contribute to it, but replacing me won’t fix everything.

And I will get to tank normals on my monk next week! Admittedly I mentioned it to my RL because I really liked tanking and I feel one of our tanks is having issues. Didn’t work out quite as I planned, it’s me and the tank I’ve been feeling iffy about. But yay! I loved the chance I had to tank, it was fun. Here’s hoping I don’t screw it up and wipe the raid on accident. And I suppose I shouldn’t try to wipe them on purpose, probably too easy as a tank to just face things the wrong way and kill people. 

And back to vet school quotes: “What do you think you’re going to learn in this class?” “How to get a girl pregnant.” “Well, female, sure how to impregnate a female of one of our domestic species.”

“They keep telling me do’t touch the students, well I can’t help it.”

Eventful Week

Warning: this might ramble and be full of complaints and whining. 

It’s been an interesting week. The easy one- my raid group formed up with the others in that guild for a 25, and will be moving from Tues/Thurs to Mon/Wed. We didn’t down Immerseus on heroic, but we were making good progress.

And the more involved news: on Monday, I had a meeting with the guild leader of my guild and 2 other officers. Not the two who were promoted at the same time I was, but 2 who were part of the founding group. One of them didn’t show up, which was very minor in the whole thing, but a bit of a “hmph, really, I’m not worth the effort to show up to demote me?” and yea, that meeting was about demoting me. I had guessed but not really believed, but the other 2 officers weren’t on the invite, and didn’t have similar meetings coming up. I had done a flex achievement run on the Wednesday before, and used the guild’s vent. One of my friends mentioned the guild leader was a little annoyed at that and saying I was exhibiting manners unbecoming an officer of the guild. I’m going to rant and respond to her complaints here, to hopefully quiet the voices in my head. In the meeting I said nothing. I learned during the many meetings about the raid group before I decided to quit that if the GM didn’t want to try to see things my way, there was no point in even talking to her about it. So I whispered the GM of the guild I raided with and asked if I could join and /gquit all my toons and moved them. 

So why was I being demoted? Apparently I was exhibiting behaviors unbecoming an officer and she was worried about the image of the guild I was presenting to any new guildies I might bring in. What did I do? I quit the raid group when 2 other members (the other officers, one of which was the raid leader) had to drop out due to time constraints. I had originally said I would stay til there was a garrosh kill, but they were going to have to start over with a few weeks of gearing up these guys, and replacing 3 seemed as easy (or easier) than replacing 2 then 1 weeks later, to me at least. I had told them weeks ago that I was going to leave after Garrosh, and about potential replacements, they knew it was coming. But it upset her that I didn’t stay and help with the transition when the other 2 had to leave. If they had asked me to stay for a week and help, I would have. They didn’t. But would you really want someone in your raid group who doesn’t want to be there? I’ll admit, I felt bad we hadn’t killed Garrosh, but I had already stayed almost 2 months after I told them I would be there til Garrosh. I had not expected it to take that long, truthfully, and didn’t want to raid with them another couple of months to gear up the new people. But if they had asked me to stay a week or two and help with the transition, I would have.

Her other big issue was all those talks about the raid group and the document I wanted outlining what we, as raid assistants, could do. I wanted something in writing to answer any questions I had and refer to for future situations, and clear up the raiding policy to me. I enjoyed playing with that raid, and really wanted to work on the issues I saw to help things work out and get us a kill. I knew no one was going to be kicked from that group, which was fine, I do like everyone there, but I wanted to know what I could do to help people improve. The answer turned out to be nothing at all, so I gave up. I realized how I want to raid and how she wanted the guild’s raids to go were not ever going to be compatible. That’s when I said I’d leave after a Garrosh kill. A good month or more before I actually left the group. Apparently she thought the whole time I knew and understood the policy and just didn’t like it and was arguing to change it. To sum it up: friendly, low stress raiding with people only required to be competent at their class (and have DBM or big whigs and use vent).  I wanted to know how you defined competent, because to me a druid healer not using lifebloom… At all, some fights. Not knowing what it was when I said “hey, I see you aren’t using lifebloom, it would help, it was 13% of my healing that attempt” seems to be not basically competent. He really said “What’s Lifebloom?” And took 5 minutes to find it in his spellbook. (As it turns out, he had it bound to something and was forgetting to use it) Not knowing what some obscure, less-used in PvE stuff, like that thing that roots enemies that attack you, sure. But one of the basic spells of your class? Doesn’t scream competence to me. But again, I knew no one was about to get kicked from that group, so I wanted to know what I could do to work to help  other raiders improve. Did not come across that way to her, apparently. She seems to think I was just trying to bully my way into changing their policy because I didn’t like it and wasting her time. What I wanted was some clarity, and to know my limits as a raid assistant.

And the thing that seemed to be the straw that broke the came’s back: my flex achievement run (I got glory of the orgrimmar raider, btw, yay!). I did it Wed, at 7, hoping I could ask a few people if they were interested in coming, to knock out part 3 before the guild’s raid at 8:30. I decided to run it Monday night, and didn’t see anyone on Tuesday or Wednesday to ask them. I asked a few guildies, but not a lot. I wanted a fast, easy achievement run with people who wanted achievements on their mains, not flex gear for alts, so I didn’t just announce to the guild and see who could come. I used the vent. Which, it was pointed out to me later, when we were made officers we were told it’s a 50 person vent and to use it at our discretion. Of course, I was reminded that after the meeting. In the meeting, I was scolded for not asking for permission. Of course, when would I have asked? I didn’t see any of the higher-ups on, since they pretty much only get on to raid and maybe 20 mins during the day for daily CDs. Maybe. I didn’t think using the vent would be an issue, but apparently it was.

What bugs me the most is that none of this was mentioned to me before that night. Not one word during the flex asking “hey, whatcha doing?” or when I left the raid saying “hey, could you stay a bit and help?” or during the meetings months ago about the raid to say “hey, do you get this and you just don’t like it or what?” Not one word. And that’s what got me.  I just don’t want to deal with someone who wanted me to be an officer, then didn’t have the grace to discuss things with me, or the ability to even understand my concerns. If she really thought I was pushing for so many raid discussions because I didn’t like the policy, she didn’t know me at all. And I learned during that episode that she wouldn’t even try to see other points of view. So I left. I didn’t want to be in a guild where the guild master thought I was good enough to be an officer, but if I did the slightest thing she didn’t agree with just logged it for a future complaint rather than talk to me and sort it out. 

Chances are, if I’d never been an officer, that wouldn’t’ve been an issue. I wouldn’t care about not being involved in things if I didn’t feel I was supposed to work for the good of the guild. I was always myself, no mater what my rank. I tried to help guildies with what I could. But as a member, I wouldn’t expect her to discuss issues with me like I thought, as an officer, I should at least be informed so I can answer the questions people asked me. Of course, if I’d never been an officer, I would have probably slowly moved my toons to the guild they are currently in, as I raided with them, and got to know them better.

It just hurt. I’d been in that guild for over a year and a half, raided with them all this expansion, ran flexes, helped people. I liked them. But I didn’t like how I was treated. I’m ok with not being consulted on every little thing, but promoting someone to officer (even if they had been one before) I feel a polite word about their re-instatment would have been nice. Or a response to my comment when I said I felt hurt she hadn’t said anything to us. Even a “I don’t have to say anything to you, it’s my guild” would have been better than nothing, I think.  Then there’s btag. I get the feeling maybe she hasn’t really liked me for a long time. I had her on btag for about 10 minutes, to help transfer some gold across factions, then she removed me and that was it. Never added me again, even though I asked once so I could catch her while I was horde side to discuss raid issues before I just gave up on that, and knowing she had the other officers. Which was a minor hurt, but still I felt a bit of a slight.

And that’s what mostly happened this week, on the WoW front. I have been ranting about it in my head, since all I said during that meeting (paraphrased) was I think it’s best we part ways, see ya around and good wishes. I didn’t see a point in responding at the time. I wish now I had at least mentioned that if she was going to promote new officers again she should try to be more open on communication or make it clear to them that their only duty was to invite people when the higher ups were not on, which seems to be about all she really wanted us for. Not to help with anything, because any events she planned without us, and decisions were made without us, and any discussions that we might have wanted input for on were done without us. If that had been made clear at the start, things would have gone differently.

Well, of course, if different things had happened, things would have been different.

But a good thing did come of this: I love my new guild, so far. I know a good number of them from raiding, and they are so much more active. They have been very kind to me. I offered to tell the guild master what went down, if he wanted to know. He is also my raid leader, so he  as known me for a while, and knew I was an officer over there and had never had any intention of leaving. I am an incredibly curious and nosy person, though I try hard to curb that. He kindly said if I thought they might cause problems, I could tell him, otherwise he didn’t need to know. He didn’t want the drama. And I appreciate it. 

And my poor friends, who had to listen to me go over this a few times, thank you. You guys are awesome, and it made me feel so much better to know I had people on my side who didn’t see the things I’d done as being egregious errors in judgement. 

That whole episode really, really upset me. I kinda knew it was coming, and I still was very hurt. So having my new GM immediately invite me and promote me to officer was a huge boost in confidence, as was having all my friends listen to me and comfort me. I think this will upset me for a while, but I will try to take it as a lesson learned and quit dwelling.

A Step Back

It’s been a while. I’ve started working again. Only 3 days a week, but 7-6 usually and on my feet all day, which leaves me a bit tired. I’m not used to being up and active for that long at a time, but it is nice to keep busy.

My dog is stable, I’d say, but not improving. I need to make some decisions soon. Lymphoma is the diagnosis. She still has a mass to remove, and maybe chemo. I’m not sure of cost, and I don’t think I can afford it. I need to talk to her doctor a bit more about it.

In WoW, I finally quit my guild’s Wed/Fri raid. I had originally said I would stay til Garrosh was dead, but 2 of the people who were a big part of the reason I was staying, with views similar to mine, were leaving due to work issues. It was weird not having a raid last night, but good. I was wiped from work and got to go to bed early. I had listed potential fill-ins, and the person who was going to take over had been organizing an alt raid and had that list of names to work with. I am glad that some of the people who were really eager to raid have a chance now.

We originally had a roster of 13 but rarely did all of them show up, and when they did the 3 listed as alternates stepped back. We only did 1 night rotating people in and out. I really liked it, but I get the idea some of the other really didn’t, so we never did that again. It was simply “these 10 are the core, these 3 are the back-ups, they come only if we need room.” Which turned out to be quite often as slowly we lost 3 from the core 10. And now they’ve lost 3 more, but have managed to fill in and get going.

Looks like they cleared the first 6. I was really tempted to be nosy and ask friends how things were going, just because it was so weird to be on but not raiding. I am tempted to try to find some heroic groups to run with, but I think I will wait til I am back at school, if I have the free time. My boyfriend and I will enjoy spending the time together until then.

This was a sad thing for me. I haven’t been playing that long, compared to others. I started in Wrath and stopped before ICC came out due to real life drama. When I came back in Cata I didn’t raid, just fiddled around a bit for fun. So this is the first raid group I’ve been a part of, and really involved in, for so long. At the start, I was just happy to raid. And I probably made some assumptions about my raiders. I told someone once I tend to assume everyone is like me and go from how I want to be (though I was told that was a bit egotistical. Doesn’t seem so to me) though that was about asking people who were AFK after a break and ready check if they were there in vent. But I assume the same for raids: you come prepared.

That means flask, food or knowing someone will be providing feasts, and knowledge of the fight. I don’t even list how to play your class because that should be so basic it doesn’t need saying. I was very wrong about that. 

That raid was a learning experience for me, and I suppose I needed to see that I have some sort of standards for raiding. It certainly makes me think a bit about what I will need to know before I join future raiding groups, and should I ever raid lead I have a clear list of things I expect as a minimum and knowledge of what help I am capable of providing and where to go to help those I can’t. So yay, lessons.

Anyway, time for another long day of work.

Been Busy

Lots and lots going on lately. Have been meaning to write regularly, if only to clear my mind.

Well, first:  Lina had her surgery, and there turned out to be more than expected. The mass seen on ultrasound was removed, but there was another deeper mass, approximately 8 cm, and based on its location and the vessels, it was decided to leave it for a surgeon. She didn’t feel comfortable removing it, or even aspirating for a sample. She did remove the mass we expected, plus another, and took biopsy samples. That was Thursday. Lina didn’t start eating til Sunday night, but she’ll only eat a few bites of chicken then stop. At least she’s eating. I would like to let her recover before removing the other mass, and I want to know the results from the sample sent in. Hopefully I’ll hear back in a day or two.

I’ve been paying for all this, and I plan to pay to have part of a fence put up in my parents yard so our other two dogs never learn they can jump out. It’s been expensive, and I’m worried about the cost of another surgery. My other dogs are old, so I know insuring them would be pricey (I looked when I started vet school) but any new puppies I get, I will have to look into insurance. If they’d pay even half this bill, it would have ben worth it. Hindsight, huh? Well, realistically- 3 large dogs, each were what, $40 or so a month for the two years I’ve been in school (assuming I had gotten coverage then, which I didn’t because of the price), would have been the cost of the surgery. Though ideally my dogs would be happy and healthy and not need expensive things, Lina apparently decided she was a vet student’s dog, so she had to have something wrong.

So after her surgery on Thursday, my little brother graduated high school on Friday. Where I got a lecture from my dad about proper ways to tell people you are engaged (hint- it wasn’t facebook). I do feel awful for not telling my grandparents sooner, it just honestly didn’t occur to me they wouldn’t know.  I told my mom (because she had know before hand he was going to ask) and she spread the word, and it was put on facebook. In Grenada, I only have e-mail and a cheap local phone. It honestly didn’t occur to me to send out an e-mail. Possibly because my cousins never did… heck, I only recently learned one of them had gotten married. But that’s no excuse for me.

And that weekend was full of drama. My dad, without talking to my mom or brothers, decided to have a graduation party for my younger brother, to be held at my older brother’s house. Not the ideal location. It is large, but not well kept. 6 kids live there, though not all full time, and it is well lived in. So we moved it to my moms, which upset my older brother. This was all handled poorly and at the last minute. Then there was some kerfuffle with the grill, and arguments with my mom, my dad, and my brother. Then me and my brother. Fun times. But party done, we just finished of the last of the cake and currently have a bunch of leftovers. The sangria was great, I loved it. Which is odd, since usually anything with even the slightest hint of alcohol in it I have trouble drinking. 

And then on the WoW front- we had that lesson in accepting invites, and on Friday started fresh since people were getting tired of wiping on Garrosh. Saturday evening was flex, which went well. Matty got the shaman transmog set I am trying to get, so grats! My shaman is jealous. 

Monday, my computer was in the shop for, as it turns out, a problem they couldn’t find. I got WoW running on my mother’s laptop (she says she may try to play, so it’s there if she does) and jumped on, prepared to kill Garrosh quickly and do CM. Neither of which happened, but I was there! Raiding without any add-ons at all was odd. Very quiet without DBM shouting at me, and GTFO making noise. 

I got my laptop back in time for Tuesday’s raid. We started at heroic Imm again, but were missing too many regulars to make a good go of it, so did an alt run. My druid got to come out and play.

Oh! My horde druid got her cloak. Only took 3 tries in the 4th wing of ToT LFR to get it complete- stupid server restarts <grumble> but cloak she has, and ilevel 545, enough to get into some decent pugs if I am bored.

And this next week looks to be interesting. We have an officer’s meeting on Sunday. No clue what it’s about, our GM didn’t answer the other officer when he asked. I’m still a little sad she never said anything to me about the promotion of the other officer- re-promoted. He stepped down, and was promoted back. Not that I’d object or anything, but I felt it would have been polite to say “hey, he’s back” or something.  I feel like we three were promoted as officers solely to be able to invite people since the original officer core isn’t on much. We can’t make decisions about things we run as guild events, even if supposedly in charge of, we aren’t talked to about things until we push because something small has blown up into a huge issue. I still like the people in that guild, I am just occasionally disappointed when I think about how things have been handled recently.

We have a raid meeting next Wednesday. No clue why, not even sure if the raid leader knows about it. I haven’t had much of a chance to chat with him. I’m curious to know what these meetings are about. I’ve decided to tell the other tank I am leaving after Garrosh. She’s cool, and fun to play with. She was someone I had issues with raiding because she was missing some pretty major class mechanics, but if you talk to her she is willing to try and learn which is really all I want from raiders. Not perfection, but willingness to try to improve.

Anyways, that is a lot of drama. I like to think of myself as a dram-free person surrounded by soap operas, but I did contribute to it a little this weekend. My brother was the last person I got in a screaming row with, and I guess I am still mad at him for a few things. I don’t have the energy to be constantly mad though, which is why I ended up stuck babysitting his 6 kids today. Not worth it to say no. But I was tryng to stop writing.

Well, I’ll end with the hope that I get lab results back for my dog soon and she starts eating regularly again.

A Lesson in Accepting Invites

Well, I did not accomplish any unpacking goals today, but it was a busy day nonetheless. Started the day very relaxed with pedicures with my Mom, then ended up driving around with my younger brother since he had to do a favor for my grandmother, and she’s tough to deal with alone sometimes. By the time that was done, it was late afternoon and I was really tired. 

Scheduled the surgery for my dog, tomorrow morning. We managed to get her to eat some food- just had to make her think it came from the treat box. She’s a good, sweet dog, but not the brightest. Hopefully I can get a fecal from her tomorrow morning, and I hope the surgery goes well. And hopefully that is the issue and she feels better once its all done. 

So new plan for tomorrow is put up shelves and finish unpacking the boxes of my stuff in the garage, followed by powerwashing the deck.

Raid tonight was canceled for a few reasons. Only 5 people had responded to their raid invites, and 2 of those 5 were feeling a little crappy and tired of Garrosh, so today turned into a lesson on accepting calendar invites. Whoo. That is something that bugs me so much- it takes 2 seconds to accept, I put them up usually during the first raid of the week, so for those who only log on to raid, it’s there when you are on during raids. And people still don’t accept. I am not expecting much of an effect, truthfully.

But anyway, hopefully we’ll kill him Friday and be done. There was talk of a fresh run, cause people are getting tired of Garrosh. I am hoping we just kill him. I want it done. 

Close Sorta Counts

Ok, so I didn’t quite obey the spirit of my plan to unpack everything in my room, even if I did follow the letter. Got everything but one box that I moved to the study last week so it would be out of the way when the movers put the furniture in. So it technically wasn’t in my room. I would have unpacked it, but I didn’t start til after raid ended at 10, by which point my parents were asleep. And to unpack that box, I need to put up shelves to put but I didn’t want to be hammering that late.

We did heroic Norushen tonight, and made good progress on Immerseus. We had some people coming and going, which made it tough. I got my boots from him, yay, making my monk 570 and officially my best geared toon. 

For my Wed/Fri raid, I believe the plan is more work on Garrosh. Hopefully we down him. We certainly have the DPS for it, it’s just a matter of people doing what they are supposed to in a timely manner. By now everyone should know what that is. A fresh start, after Friday off, hopefully did folks good and we can knock him out fast. 

My rogue got her cloak, and my horde druid ended the week 2 runestones short, so next week I can get her stuff knocked out and be done with LFR. I don’t know what I want to do with her- maybe gear up, PUG some normals. Why not? I don’t know, I’m not sure why I went and got her the cloak.Or rather, will get her it for her next week.

Heard back from the vet, looks like the aspirate of the mass showed necrotic cells and some inflammatory cells, but no bacteria. She is recommending an exploratory to take it out, with some intestinal biopsies to be thorough. My dog still won’t eat her food, but she’ll eat treats. Tomorrow I might buy another kind of food to try for her, see if maybe she just associates this food with feeling bad or something and won’t eat it. I might be personifying here, not sure how much of an issue that is in dogs like it can be with people. 

Also, I got my shado-pan geyser, finally. Way back in that ToT PUG was someone who was good at jumping, had a mammoth, and had a friend who also needed the gun and he kindly jumped me around too. Here’s a pic of me turning Moth blue with it.

Also, because I am going through my screenshots, here’s a pic of my Tues/Thurs raid’s first “official” Garrosh kill. We’d all killed him before, but on different toons and stacking the odds in our favor somewhat. This was the first kill on our normal raiding toons. I had my watergun out, turning people blue :)

Here’s a pic of when Navi stopped by. That’s the challenge mode transmog, with the staff it took forever to get from Ulduar. It doesn’t quite match, but I love it too much to change it.

And here’s a picture of me on a giant yak, just cause.

Quiet Weekend

I’m going to try to get back in the groove of writing more regularly. I didn’t mention it earlier, but Navi stopped by a while ago. I was excited to get a chance to catch up, though she popped on in the middle of arenas. My friends were nice enough to give me some time to go catch up with her (as I keep being told, 100K will forgive all) so we got a brief chance to chat.  Not quite long enough, I felt bad keeping them waiting.

Someday I’ll have to put together an IOU for them. They know there’s no chance of my ever paying up, but I think they’ll get a kick out of it. 

I had a chance to join Matty for an OLRG run through ICC. Only 3 of us but we rocked out heroic ICC in the hour I had before flex. Missed 2 achievements, but Full House is easy, and it’s tough to do the one for the meta from the LK on heroic. More chances to die.

We did flex 1 and 2 last night, and I have definitive proof the shamans transmog set drops in flex. Unfortunately it wasn’t for me. :( But oh well, now I know you only get 1 chance per week no matter which difficulty, so I can quit trying for multiple difficulties. We had 23 (!) people, the most we’ve ever had. A big thanks to my Sacred friends who came and tanked and then swapped to better geared toons at the first sign of trouble.

I really need to get somethings going to finish out my achievements. I still need HoF normal achievements and heroic kills, and same for ToES. If I can find an heroic ToT PUG and knock that out, I might try to get a guild group going for the regular achievements. I’m not too sure, apparently last time they were there they had a lot more struggles than I would have expected. But now we have more people with better gear who are also becoming trained to listen to me, we might fare a bit better. And since I’ve been extending my heroic lockout from a few weeks ago, at twins, and one of my RLs has been itching to get to it, I might get lucky and run just the last 3 instead of the whole of ToT again.

This weekend was pretty quiet. I got a bit of motivation, and at least all my clothes are unpacked. Next up: get another bookshelf so I can unpack the rest of my things. I thought I had all my books, but as I was putting them away I kept discovering books missing. Tomorrow’s goal is to at least get the shelves up and the boxes in my room unpacked. I’ll leave the ones I found in the garage til Wednesday. You heard it, I am getting all my stuff done on Wednesday. 

No challenge modes this week, and I was trying this thing where I don’t bug people to do things with me because I am bored. So instead I spent some time in proving grounds. Managed to get you’re doing it wrong with the monk, fistweaving for the DPS ones. I made it to wave 28 on the druid, then screwed up my typhoon direction and lost it. That was my best attempt. The plan is to go back to it one morning next week, but since tomorrow is Tuesday I am going to try to knock out LFR first thing for the rogue and get her last runestone. Hopefully I can find some flexes for the druid easily, then knock out ToT in LFRs. She’s 6 runestones away. 

So to sum up: -finish runestones for rogue, try to finish them for horde druid, and unpack all the things currently in my room.

I also have a normal raid tomorrow, where I think the plan is heroic Immerseus, and if we get him, then Protectors and Norushen. Our Wednesday raid will continue on Garrosh, so here’s hoping we get him down and I have Friday free and can talk my arena buddies into some PvP then.

So What's Been Happening to Me?

It has been quite some time since I sat down to write anything. I have been busy: we moved house, and officially everything is out of the townhouse and in the new house. And my motivation to unpack has just plummeted since we got the last big pieces of furniture in place. The garage is full of boxes, a lot of which have been in storage for years because the townhouse was smaller than the previous house, so we got a storage shed. Then I had an apartment in college, and didn’t want to throw anything away, so I got a storage shed. Eventually they were combined, along with my brother’s (my family can’t throw anything away) but now all of that is in our garage at the new house. That’s my goal for the summer: clean out the garage. We’ve made some progress by giving back to their original owners anything that didn’t belong to anyone currently living in the house. 

The other thing keeping me busy is my dogs. One is unwell. Poor girl, and now she isn’t eating at all. I’m worried about her, but I hope the cytology from the visit to the internist shows something. I’ll have to look up or ask if eosinophilia from  mast cell tumors can come and go, otherwise that’s what I am thinking it might be. Unfortunately the nearest internists are about an hour away in opposite directions, so taking her up there was an all day thing for me. I did discover (eventually) where the library was, so I’ll have something to do if I need to go back, as well as a Sweet Frog and a great bakery, so I know where to hang out and eat while she’s there, if we have to go back. Aside from not eating and diarrhea, she still acts mostly the same, perks up when you grab the leash or a tennis ball, which is keeping my worry a bit a bay. I should hear back by Monday, hopefully with some news.

On the WoW front, my rogue is 1 runestone away from her cloak, and my horde druid is about halfway done with runestones. Our test horde challenge modes went pretty well. I blame a lot of mistakes on myself for being so tired, but we got 1 done and likely would have gotten another if we had enough invis pots.

Raiding this week was kinda bleh. My Tues/Thurs group worked on heroics a bit, but only took out Norushen before switching to normal to clear the rest. And nothing like cutting it close- we killed Norushen, and he turned around and killed us right back as he died. Probably should two-heal that for less dramatic kills. My Wed/Fri group worked on Garrosh on Wed and ended up canceling on Friday due to missing people. Probably a good thing, I just really really want to get him down and kill him so I can stop raiding with them. I’m not sure how many of the group know that’s my plan. I told the raid leader and guild leader, as well as 3 others. I have a feeling the guild leader told the other 2 officers, which leaves only 2 people I am uncertain about. None of them have said anything to me, so either they get where I am coming from or don’t want to try.

It makes me sad and relieved, the idea of leaving that raid. I like hanging out with those folks, but at the same time I put a lot of time and effort into raiding and get really frustrated when I feel others aren’t even trying at all. I do think they can rebuild- they are losing 3-4 people (not sure about 1 person, but I have a feeling she might step back too) after Garrosh, but I already listed a handful of names as replacements when I first mentioned leaving. 

I read Balkoth’s post about his experiences before starting his blog, and it sounded a bit like my reaction to this situation. I push and push and push sometimes to be heard, and I know it irritates people sometimes, especially when I disagree. I’ve told people if they tell me to shut up, I will. (At least for a little while.) With this raiding issue, I didn’t give up or decide to leave lightly. I had 2 meetings with the guild leader, wrote 2 incredibly longer than needed e-mails, was trying to set up a third meeting to make myself clear once again when I realized it was pointless. I was saying one thing and she was hearing another. In theory I like her idea- a no stress, social raid, but in practice I want people to be held to certain minimum standards. Things it never occurred to me you would have to explicitly tell people who raid, simply because I do them well before raid even starts. Like look up fights, be on time, and learn how to play your class.

I started raiding as a resto druid, and at heart I still consider her my main, even though right now all the raids I do as a druid are PUGs. I ended up switching to my monk back in MSV because we were cutting it really close on an enrage timer- like 3%, so I figured that tiny extra DPS would push us over, and the other healer we had was a resto druid, so I stayed monk. I was really happy to be raiding on both of them for a while, but then we got to Garrosh and I figured double resto druid (especially since counting it up, we had very few interrupts) was tougher than needed, so I grabbed the shaman. But before I switched to these toons, I made certain I was confident healing normals on them, that they had great gear, and that I understood my spell, rotation,  CDs, and how to use all of them. It’s why I ended up on the shaman (and not so show off the pretty transmog) instead of the priest (who also has a nice transmog, and got a race/name change in anticipation of raiding). I had a few people who told me I should bring priest over shaman, but left the decision up to me.

Well, I was switching to get an extra interrupt mostly and disc priests? Not so many interrupts. Yeah yeah, druids have glyphed faerie fire that works, but swapping to bear is a pain, and time consuming when I could be healing. (it does work in p3 Garrosh- I did test that) But I did some test runs in flex on the priest, and even though she was 545 with the cloak, I was struggling way too much. My horde druid at 535 without the cloak heals better. I just don’t quite have enough of a disc priest healing grasp to heal normals, so along came the shaman.  

And the point of that was to illustrate that I make sure I can play my class before trying to raid on it. The exceptions are spur of the moment groups my friend sometimes puts together where he tells me to grab a DPS, which I only have 2 that aren’t healers or otherwise committed to other raids. And I love my mage (fire! all the fire!) and have been playing my rogue more often lately, I know I am an awful DPS. I just don’t practice it enough. And he knows that before he asks me to bring one along, and I go because they’re friends.

So anyway, that’s what’s been going on, plus some ranting. I guess I’m still sad to be leaving that raid, even though I know 2 others are leaving with me and are relieved to be doing so, and will do so regardless of what I do. And I have gotten accustomed to having them around, and certainly don’t want to raid without them there. 

Decision is Made

I finally realized that my guild leader was never going to see the issues I was seeing as a problem, so I told her I would stay and help kill Garrosh then I was done with that raid. I am both sad and relieved. I like those people, they are fun. It’s not like I’ll never play with them again- they are guildies. And relieved, because that was stressing me out, trying to figure out what to do, how to help, and then being told there was no issue and I couldn’t do anything. I still need to tell my raid leader that is the official decision, but he know I was contemplating it.

I really want to be stubborn and keep pushing my point, but I know it would be a bad thing to do, and sour my relationship with the guild leader. She’s super sweet, and that’s the problem here: she’s still trying to not say “no” to anyone, or say anything that will make them feel bad. And she thinks talking to that healer about healing would make them feel bad, like we think they can’t play or something. She keeps saying they’ve been playing for years, but you can do something a long time and still miss major things. And I tried to list the issues with missing major raid mechanics for weeks- not minor ones, but things like Malk’s shield. As a healer. For weeks. But she doesn’t see these things as major issues that need to be addressed, like I do, and I don’t feel like intentionally handicapping myself and not being able to work with them for improvement.

I have no problem with people who don’t know what to do, or are undergeared, or inexperienced, and genuinely want to learn and improve. But if you don’t even want to try? The one and only conversation I had with that healer, back when we were 3-healing, he told me he saw me and the other healer going all out so he didn’t. And that thought was unbelievable to me, to not do as well as I can because there are other people doing it. And I’m just ranting because I can’t believe she didn’t see these things as problems to address. And I wasn’t saying “kick him” just let me work with him, and make trying to improve a condition for raiding. And I didn’t want instant perfection, just signs of effort- a better uptime on lifebloom, maybe talking about how the night went, things like that. But I mentioned numbers: I said 50% uptime on lifebloom, and that was no good. Couldn’t track numbers for improvement. The raid leader could say keep it up on the tank all the time, but we couldn’t look at the numbers to see if he was actually trying and improving.

I personally want to know if I am doing something wrong, or not doing something I should be. I want to improve. There are times I am half asleep and lazy and doing a crappy job partially intentionally, but that's LFR or old runs. If I actually need to sit up and heal, I will. I might feel stupid if someone says something like "hey, that uplift spell? Kinda important for a mist weaving monk. Maybe you should cast it more." but I will be happy to improve, and only feel silly for a bit

She wants the raid to be social, low stress, and not requiring performance. The listed requirements for raid are stable internet, good attitude, and competence at your class. But there is no definition for competence, and no contingency for working for improvement. And then there was the debate about what the other officer and I actually did in the raid, since it’s a 10-man, and there’s the raid leader, do we need 2 lieutenants? was the question posed. But that won’t be an issue anymore, since I won’t be there.

And I feel bad, because I know if I leave there is a strong chance a few others will as well. Well, they kinda told me they wouldn’t stick around if I left. Which was part of the reason I wanted to make it work, I feel bad for the rest of the people who won’t be able to raid now. But if we can kill Garrosh next week (and we easliy have the DPS, people just need to interrupt MCs) I’ll feel a bit better about it. Since my other raid group has put together some weekend Garrosh kills, about half my guild raid has gotten the achievement from filling in for that group. So even if we don’t kill it this week, and the raid gets too frustrating for me to continue, most of them have it now.

Ok, that was a huge rant. On to more fun things: I am 100 conquest away from full prideful gear, yay! We’re going to start challenge modes horde-side, so hopefully soon my druid will have a decent transmog. Good thing about being a druid, if you don’t want to put together a transmog, you can just pop into whatever shapeshift form is appropriate and never see it. 

I found someone who was doing a MSV achievement run, including show me your moves which is a royal pain.  About an hour after we finished, he did a heroic ToT. We didn’t finish, but it was fun. And I’ve been motivated to finish my achievements this summer. 

I’ve moved all my stuff to the new house except the big furniture, which the movers will take on the first. I’m working on unpacking all my books now. I needed to swap the small  bookcase for a bigger one, because I don’t want to double stack my books like I have in the past. I suppose I could put all the old horse books from when I was 10 away, but I have a desire to read them all again. I doubt I will get to all of them, but some of the good ones I plan to make time to get to.

Anyway, time to get ready for the day. Guild raid tonight, so I can tell the people who need to know my official decision. And then to figure out what to do on my newly to be free Wednesday and Friday nights.

My Raiding Future: Still Unclear

So lots has happened. First, I’m home, in Virginia! Done with year 2 of vet school. On the WoW front, I set up a tank spec and tanked flex for our group. Didn’t go too badly. I needed to set DPS up again for our Garrosh attempts, so I haven’t tried to tank again. No work on heroics this week, we were missing too many people to make a good effort likely. My other group is working on Garrosh, and we’re not doing too badly. Still having issues with people killing MCs and not using actual interrupts on empowered MCs, but we did better than I expected. 

And truthfully, the fact that we do decently makes it harder, I think, for my guild leader to see what I have a problem with. She thinks “that healer is putting out over 100k HPS, how can there be issues with his healing? His numbers aren’t that much lower than yours.” I haven’t been able to get two points across: One, he’s gimping his healing by ignoring 2 pretty important abilities: lifebloom and harmony. Two: it’s a healing issue, but it’s mostly an effort issue: it feels like he doesn’t care and doesn’t try.

We finally had that meeting, and it was pointless. The answer for “what can we, as raid lieutenants, do” turned into “We don’t think we need the two of you to have that role in a 10 man raid” after the answer in the document of what’s expected/what can we do was: nothing, it’s all the raid leaders job. Ok, fine, that was a clear answer. Something that still needs to be sorted out. I told her what I wanted, though I have a feeling it wasn’t clear. 

I will try one more time to get my point across, before I just stop. I like these people, I have fun raiding. I also would really like them to at least get a Garrosh kill before I stop raiding with them. She keeps saying she’s known that healer for a long time, and he’s been playing for a long time, so he knows how to play. I should have said doing something for years doesn’t mean you’re good at it. Which I will say next time. I have requested 10 minutes of her time to try one last explanation.

I just want to know something is going to be done to work with this raider. I offered to help because druid healing is what I do and I feel I do it well, but I don’t have to be involved, I just want to know he is willing to work.

Someone who logs on only to raid then logs right back off (and is late at that almost every week), misses major fight mechanics that have been explained for weeks, and when someone says something to him gets testy is not someone I want to raid with. I just want to raid with people who care about progress and playing their best who also aren’t jerks. I don’t want to be in a raid that allows people to coast along like we have. I mean yeah, ok, you get bosses on farm and just coast through them, but I feel like we pulled this person through progress he didn’t care about.

I should be happy: I do have that in a raid group, just not in both groups. And I know people who are excellent, and who I know want to set something up for next expansion. So I know I can get that in WoD.

Finals Week!

So our raid leader (who is also our main tank) was missing on Wednesday! Had to work late. Leaving me in charge for Garrosh!  Pretty sure I talked 10 minutes straight going over the fight again. Luckily we have an awesome person who could tank, and I had a friend from my other raid fill in the last spot. We were clearly not prepared for Garrosh. I even put “stack here” markers for ranged and people were not paying attention, running the other way. Since tanks were dying really easily, and a few people were kinda pushing for fresh (even though we had 2 items that were upgrades/sidegrades for main spec out of the first 6 boss kills- a sign to me we should be killing Garrosh) so after an hour we went back to a fresh start. We have a lot of work on Garrosh, and I have a feeling I will need to do a lot of calling out for “move now” so people live a little better.  But really, we were losing people before we got a second Iron Star coming across the room (though no one stood in in, so there is that at least.)

I dislike that, but mostly because I personally pay attention to timers and know what’s coming and don’t like to clutter vent. I have to realize it does help other people. Good thing our raid leader does and when he is there he calls out all the stuff.

Our fresh start did go pretty well- we did have a wipe on Galakras. I shared something to track shuffle with our monk tank, hopefully that’ll help them a bit. We will probably go back to Garrosh next week. Truthfully, we probably need to extend and just practice and wipe and practice. I’ll talk to our raid leader about that. Yeah, there are still upgrades to be had from the start for a few people. I think only 1 person can’t use anything. But it’s mostly just 1 trinket, or a ring, excepting my new healer who needs 3 things, and the new tank toon who can use 3 or 4. But we’re all 550+, so we should be good to kill him.

Just practice I guess. Seeing the mechanics, learning what to do/not to do. 

I ended up feeling kinda crappy on Thursday and asked to be replaced, if at all possible, and went to be early once I knew that raid was god to go without me. Friday’s raid was canceled. Too many people missing and I was still feeling a bit bleh. 

And now it’s finals. And that raid stuff we started talking about is still unresolved, and I really don’t want to deal with it til after finals. My plan is to set up a time to discuss things after my last exam on Friday and before out next raid on Wednesday. I’ve been very frustrated and want things cleared up, but now that it has gone on longer than I think it needs to, I’m willing to let it wait a bit longer. I’ve already come to the decisions about what I want from a raid, and prepared for things going either way.

Internet is out today here as well. Which is great on the studying front.  Hopefully I can get a good grade in pathology. Half this stuff we were taught last term, at least the hemopoietic things, so I should be fine. I just worry. 

I wouldn’t expect much from me til after exams. Since we now download before we get to the exam venue, I don’t have to sit in the room for half an hour doing nothing which led to writing posts at midterms. Now I’ll be in there for 10-15 min, so I’ll probably just read fun things.

Since my raid leader was missing, I didn’t push to set up a meeting with everyone. I am hoping we can all talk after my finals are over. I’ve already prepared a brief comment should I decide this raid is no longer for me, and I’ve outlined before a plan to help work on the things I think need work that I can feasibly help should I stay. We’ll see what happens.

Not a Week of Garrosh Wipes

Looks like it’s only half a week wiping on Garrosh, my Tuesday raid started fresh. We killed up to Malkorok, pretty good I think. If this becomes my only raid, I might talk to that raid leader about some things we do that are bugging me.

For example- we 3-tank Shamans, and we’re a melee heavy group. But we never send the melee up the hill, we leave them at the bottom to die to the slimes when they fail to pay attention. Makes no sense to me. We also 3-tank Nazgrim, which made a bit of sense at the start when people were dying to adds. If I had it my way, that mage would die first and we’d just have someone interrupt the shaman. But most people don’t feel the same way and prefer I mark shaman with skull. Anyways, we 3-tank that, but it means the DPS is close at the end. We only recently started using hero at the end- used to pop it right at the start. Which doesn’t make sense to me. If you want to use hero at the start, use it during berserk when the boss takes 25% more damage is my thinking. But everyone is alive and has trinket procs at the start… if I let someone die in the first minute, I’m either AFK or they did something very dumb. But anyways, we killed him, it just takes more effort than I think it needs to and we’re often right at berserk or we struggle with that last wave of adds. And even if nothing changes there, I can talk to that raid leader and we can explain our reasonings. I think I have an issue thinking I’m always right. Ok, I know I have a problem. I can probably let the shamans go- we do kill them easily. Nazgrim we’ll often wipe once or twice on. We’ll jump to 3 tanks in a heartbeat, but suggesting 2 heals is crazy talk. Though we do 2 heal those fights.

Anyways, we’ll start at Garrosh this week for the Wednesday raid. Still a little nervous with the shaman, but I am confident I am a decent healer and wipes will come from learning the fight anyway. Managed to catch up with my guild leader briefly. I’ve been worried about an e-mail I sent her. A lot of the discussion we had was about performance of raiders- one in particular, and I was talking healing numbers, a bit. A druid should never have a fight where lifebloom is never cast, much less an average of 30% uptime. I have many issues with that person, I just used those numbers because that is something that can be fixed with effort. But I feel all she got was I think he’s playing his class wrong. So I wrote an e-mail listing several other issues that seem to be comprehension things. Like failing to see what to dispel on Protectors for months. Lots of dispel issues. Major fight mechanic things, not just “occasionally stands in the bad” but “we’ve talked about this several times as a healing mechanic and he still misses it” and I don’t know how to fix that. I do know things to help track lifebloom, and that can be fixed. Other issues? No clue. So I talked about the one that is fixable, but I thought she missed the point. Then I didn’t hear anything from her for days and I was very worried. I caught up with her briefly, she is working on what we requested and will get back to us. 

Well, we’ll raid tonight, and we’ll all be there. Hopefully we’ll at least set up a time to talk. It’s good she is putting serious effort into it. I know she hasn’t been feeling well, and I would rather get something with time and effort and though put into it. I just want things resolved.

Vet School Fun:

“Really only a few things we can do with this. Anyone know what that is?”

“Euthanasia?”

“That is always an option. …Dialysis”

For the few kidney cat transplants- you get a second cat! Because you have to adopt the cat they took the kidney from. Makes sense to me.

“Know who Cthulhu is?…He’s one of the elder gods hell bent on destruction of the world. I am personally going to name a chihuahua this one day.”

“If you haven’t seen it you should. Over the summer when you don’t have to study for my exam.” About the Breakfast Club.

“We actually have something better than vodka. It’s called 4MP… at least in dogs.”

“Started treating it [the cow] with IV ethanol … walked a cow by him, and he got an erection, called it beer goggles and called it good.” —For ethlyene glycol treatment and trying to figure out if cow was drunk or ethylene glycol toxicity was responsible for the ataxia.