Lots of Grr.

Not sure what to say about this weekend. Right now I am so tired, I feel like I need to write something to keep awake.

Challenge modes- did not go so well. I am a bad DPS, this is why I heal. I forget totems, I forget cooldowns. I spend so much time setting up, I end up with very low DPS. I offered to be the one who sits out to rotate new people in. I’ll keep working on it, of course- I should be capable of way better. 

Flex went pretty well, we made it up to Nazgrim on Saturday, but we had low DPS and couldn’t get him down before berserk. It was still a ton of fun. Our Monday night flex now has an ilevel requirement, since the plan is to do parts 3 and 4. I think everyone who was close worked to get the level required, so no one who usually comes should be left out. I felt a bit bad about it, because I knew people want to come who didn’t have the ilevel, but we didn’t enforce it the first time. I also feel worse if I know we aren’t going to pass a boss because we have 2 or 3 people who can’t pull their weight. Hopefully I remember to bring the druid tonight, at least for Thok. She can pump out some nice heals. I remember one flex the pally who was assigned to BoP me for tranq kept sending me <3s, cause they thought me heals were awesome. That was fun.

Update with Monday’s progress: took 2 tries on Malkorok, and on shot Spoils with our flex group. Which was pretty neat, since it was that tanks first attempt tanking either of those. Thok went not so well. I remembered to switch to the druid for our last few pulls, but it didn’t help much. I think our best attempt was 20-ish percent. For some reason I can’t seem to pop out the numbers I remember from that previous flex. Still doing pretty well- though I need to get the stacking together a bit better. Maybe I’ll just mark someone else next time and say stack on them- we always seem to get mixed up. 

Something that has been on my mind lately is raid breaks. Yeah we need them, and I appreciate a timed break. I can do some stuff, get a snack, not feel like i’m holding anyone up. But how long is too long? When I started raiding this expansion, we took 10 min breaks and ended at 11. Somewhere along the way it morphed into 15 min and 11:30 end times. When we reformed for SoO, one of my requirements was I had to be done at 11 on weeknights. I’m an hour ahead, and I have morning classes. So even though I may stay up another hour on my own catching up on How I Met Your Mother, I don’t want to be required to because of raid. An extra 10 min to get a kill now and then, sure. But I don’t want to be late all the time. And this has strayed away from our 15 min break topic. But we start at 8:30 (supposedly- starting on time is a myth) and go til 11. We often don’t start til 8:45, sometimes as late as 9, though that is much rarer now that we have a roster of more than 10. So in reality we have less than 2 hours of raid time, because there’s always someone missing after our break for another minute or two. I wonder if break times are something I should bring up? I think 10 min would be plenty, and most likely turn into 15 anyway as late people show up. Really one 5-minute break with a timer is probably enough for me, but that would be a bit of a radical change for some others.

And another topic- I was reading the Officer’s Quarters on WoW Insider this week, and one of the complaints (that was extensively discussed in the comments) was someone never released and ran back. I know 2 people like that- one I don’t like to raid with for other reasons as well, and one a healer for our 10 man, and we need healers. So I’ve just learned to live with it. I’ve never said anything to him about it, so if I should get mad at anyone for that it would be myself for not talking to him and still rezing him. I do not like it, it comes across as lazy to me, to do that every time. I actually have a few problems with this healer, mostly stemming from the fact that to me it seems he doesn’t care about raiding as much as I do. And there are a few people in our raid group I get that feeling from, and that makes me alternatively sad and frustrated. And worried, for next expansion, when normals are flex. We invite everyone to flex now, we won’t be able to do that in WoD. 

I guess my problem is this: I want to raid with people who care about raiding well. People who will look up all the fights before hand, run LFR to get upgrades and see the fights, show up on time, and answer raid invites. And I approach every raid- flex, normal, LFR- with that same attitude: I want to do well. I don’t want to be the person holding us back. People know we’re doing flex 3, can’t they look up the fight themselves and not rely on an explanation? Sure we’ll explain, but watching a video can be very helpful. But flex is casual, so I only grumble to myself a bit.  But I hope for normal that can be expected, without asking. And that doesn’t seem to happen. Admittedly, we decided to extend on the fly last week, rather than start fresh. But I would have hoped people would look up the fights when it looks like we’re getting close, not when we’re already there. 

I think my real issue is stress. School has started up again, I am getting less sleep, and I am trying to do both too much in some areas and not near enough in others. All combined to make me edgy. I am going to try to go to bed earlier- as close to midnight as I can with raids. And wake up a tad earlier so I can get outside for a few minutes, in the sunlight and cool air. Take a walk, relax. I think those two things will help a lot, at least at reducing my bitchiness. Making me less aggravated with fellow raiders? Maybe that too.