Archive for July, 2009

Anyone who’s been reading this blog has probably noticed a severe dichotomy in my posts the last couple of days. Four days ago, I ripped raiding and instances. Three days ago I went to my first Heroic dungeon with my guild. Two days ago I joined them in my first 10-man raid. What’s happened? I’ll elaborate.

My guild has been asking me for a while to join them for a while now. I enjoy going with them but I have this huge fear of letting everyone down. I also still hate hardcore raiders with a passion. The ‘do everything the hard way, up hill, both ways’ thought process irks me. It finally dawned on me this morning, though, that I’m kinda just being drug along by my guild. I don’t feel I’m truly pulling my own weight here. I think this leaves me with two options: stop running instances with the guild, or put in double time so I can hold my own. For now, I’m opting for the latter. We’ll see how it goes.

My guild asked for all eligible level 80s to help on 10-man Obsidian Sanctum, and since I qualified, I tagged along. My first trick was figuring out where OS was. Once I did that, we ran through two backup healers before opting for another DPS and my guild leader respeccing his alt for healing.

We did ok clearing the western half of the dungeon, but the start of the eastern half was shaky.  We wiped on trash mobs when they ganged up on the main tank who promptly died, allowing the mobs to run amok amongst the rest of us. After that, we fought Vesperon, and I was part of the contingent chosen to go into the portals with the off-tank, along with the rest of the DPS and one of our healers. That fight was no big deal. Sartharion, though… that was a beast. I was warned to avoid the lava waves, to which I said, “what lava waves?” After it was explained, my guild leader on his restoration druid whispered to me to help with the healing to keep the tank alive. So, I was to pour on the damage and help keep the tank alive? *gulp*

As you can see, it all worked out. No one died, but I did get hit by one of the lava waves I was warned about. I was dying in a hurry, but Lay on Hands and Cleanse saved my hide. I then turned on my Fire Resistance Aura to help everyone cope. I kept one eye on everyone’s health bars and kept Sacred Shield on the main tank, firing off a Flash of Light when necessary. I got a few more Emblems of Heroism, but no loot. Oh well, maybe next time.

One last note: compared to my Heroic Violet Hold, I did much better, DPS-wise, ranking 2nd or 3rd, depending on whose recount you went by. My DPS in H VH was almost under 1k, but I nearly topped 2k in OS. Nice.

Well, a couple days and allot of gold later, I’ve got a mostly complete starter caster set of gear. Observe.

On the left, of course, is my normal, ret gear. It just looks vicious, huh? On the other hand, my new holy gear is rather subdued and the blue overtones make it looks mana-heavy (which it is). Some of the gear includes Dalaran Warden’s Legplates, Cloak of the Moon, Brilliant Saronite Pauldrons, and a  Brilliant Saronite Breastplate. My ret gear is more advanced, obviously, with my Spaulders of the Giant Lords, Savage Saronite Haubrek, Tempered Titansteel Treads, and Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak of Victory. I’m four heavy borean leather short of making some new goggles to go with my armor, too. I also want to get a Saronite Spellblade, but that can wait. I guess I’m all-in on the healing thing.

My fears were misplaced. My guild’s second in command and another high ranking officer invited me along to do the Leeeeeeeeeeeroy! achievement at Blackrock Spire. Myself and the other newcomers were a little lost as to a strategy to achieve this (we just hacked away at the whelps like crazy), but with my senior guild members there we got it done. Here’s a pic of our success.

Pretty cool shot, huh? I announced that I was hearthing back to Dalaran for a pint, and invited whoever wanted to come with me. Both my senior guildies joined me and we drank to our success.

However…

We weren’t there long when a mass mammoth migration took place in Dalaran. See for yourself:

That’s just a handful of the mammoths parading around Dalaran. And of all things, one of my senior guildies – the second-in-command – joined in (you can see him here; he’s the gnome with the green hair)! This was one of those surreal MMO moments that reminds you that you’re playing with other humans. It was just too weird to script.

Now, I may be reading too much in to this, but ever since we ran Violet Hold earlier today, neither of my guild leaders has spoken to me. No welcome, no ‘how are you,’ nothing. It’s a little disconcerting, especially with how poor I did in the dungeon. Like I said, I may be reading too much in to this. Then again… maybe not. If I end up demoted or /gkicked tomorrow, I’ll know why.

My guild leader and the second in command asked me to come with them to Heroic Violet Hold, so I complied. In the end, we slayed Cynigasa in one try and I got my first three Emblems of Heroism, a couple stone keeper shards, and a frozen orb. Sweet! My DPS sucked, but we won regardless. Ichoron was a pain, what with little elementals running to his aid constantly. They didn’t come when I taunted them, either, which was a pain. Moragg was the other random boss, but he was nothing special. It was a fun time.

Edited for Clarification and to add Links

Last night saw an interesting shift in Gavelier’s adventuring career. My guild leader made mention that we only had one healer in our 60+ members, so I opted to drop my prot spec for holy. I’d never actually healed before, but Gav was holy spec through his 20s, so it wasn’t a totally alien concept. So, with great anticipation, I went to Ironforge and respecced my prot to holy.

The first thing that struck me is that I knew next to nothing about the talents in the holy tree. I spent a good half hour just reading them and seeing how they would affect me. Once I was set on my talents, I spent another hour arranging them on my action bars for ease of use. Out went most of my damaging spells and in went healing powers. I moved Flash of Light and Holy Light to prominent positions on my main action bar, and put Holy Shock center stage. However, the spell sucked. I wondered if it was just my gear that was causing it to do only 519 healing/340 damage. I finally remembered I had to go train it, at which point it hit full stride.  I was scared to leave town, though, since I was effectively damage-neutered. What I needed was someone to heal. I logged for the night without firing even one of my new spells once.

Popping in this morning, I swapped back to ret to run some dailies. When I got back to Dalaran, I was ready to queue with the masses for Wintergrasp when I had an epiphany: Take Holy to WG! There’s allot of healing to be done there! And so it was.

My biggest problem was my severe lack of caster gear. I had only managed to secure some new glyphs, and that was it. I was hamstrung with less then 7k mana, which seemed way short. I held strong to my conviction, though, and went for it. Holy Shock became my primary healing spell, with Flash of Light during HS’s cool downs and Holy Light for big heals. I was following the front line when I noticed a death knight with under 1k HP. I fired off my Lay on Hands spell for them, setting them right. I also cleansed quite a few players, keeping them alive. In the end, I was the third most successful healer in the raid, having healed over 176k HP of damage. I also wasn’t on the leader board for overheals, meaning I wasn’t wasting my time or mana.

It was a fairly successful trial by fire, I felt. There was a big ‘yeah, healers!’ after the battle, so I felt good. Maybe I’ve found my niche at last.

In my latest Wintergrasp match tonight, I was again on defense. Allot of defensive battles for the Alliance on my server, to be honest. Anyway, it went haywire about ten minutes in. I spent the first 8-10 minutes on a northwestern cannon, and did fairly well. Around 10 minutes in, though, the Horde made their push, and broke down most of the western walls.

You can see where I marked my cannon, but the important parts are all of the red x’s. Those were parts of the fort that the Horde dropped. Yup, half of the fort was down. I’m not sure about the far eastern half, since I was so preoccupied with the west. Anyway, we won again, this time destroying their towers and cutting their attack short. The last tower fell as we were being swamped at the gate with mere minutes to go. I actually didn’t die, either, thanks to lots of healing spells and good luck. I went in as a retadin for a change, and enjoyed being a little killing machine again. I was happy to take on a siege engine, one-on-one, because they were easy, slow-moving prey to me. According to the game, I helped account for 178 kills this match. Hell yeah!

In respect to my prot spec, I bought a Titansteel Bonecrusher today, and spent about an hour or two leveling my one-handed mace skills. Hopefully that’ll up my prot DPS a little.

No, Gav, that is not your dad. For one, your dad was probably a pally, too, and pallys can’t use staves. For another thing, he’s freaking HUGE. He probably just drank a Winterfall Firewater, but still. Lastly, he’s a prominent member of the Kiron-tor, and you’re not. He’d still beat you like he was your dad if you keep staring at him, though. Go ahead, try it. Just make sure you know where the nearest graveyard is first.

Sights Seen is where you can share your best/most interesting screencaps. Please don’t submit screenshots with the UI, or pictures that have beeen doctored. If you’d like to send something to Alazar’s Sights Seen, send it to me HERE.

I was back in Wintergrasp today and had my ineptitude driven home. We won another close defensive battle by blockading the one broken wall to the inner section of the fort where the inner sanctum’s wall/door is. We’re getting good at that, it seems.  Anyway, what I was saying about my ineptitude was that afterwards, a couple people posted their recount stats. The leaders showed players with 13k+ total damage done. I checked mine (I recently switched to Recount instead of Skada), and I had done less then 1.2k. I also died three times. I guess that’s my answer then. I really can’t compete there any more. Keep in mind that I was prot again (I think I fit a better utility role that way), not ret, so my damage was down from that alone, when you factor in stats, talents, and gear. My only bright spots were holding my own against a swarm of Hordies on more then one occasion. Once, I was fighting an Orc, when a Blood Elf came in, another Orc, and finally someone’s pet (a Devilsaur, of all things) before I had to bubble and heal. The bubble wore off, and I was again assailed, this time by the first Orc, a Tauren, and that Devilsaur again, at which point I finally fell. Not bad holding their attention that long, but c’mon, is it really worth bragging about taking longer to die? I’m supposed to kill them, not take solace in being a difficult target. Anytime I went to the front lines I died (or nearly did) in seconds. A few times I was able to run back and heal, or use my Lay on Hands or bubble spells, but that meant I was occupied and not doing anything to help.

I mentioned filling a utility role when specced prot. That’s because I can use Avenger’s Shield, augmented with Shield of the Templar, to silence three foes at once at a distance. My Titan-forged Rune of Determination helped allot, cutting down on time I spent stunned. I guess if I’m satisfied not being a key part of the attack, I can keep coming back. I just can’t expect to be anything more then a utility player/distraction.