FASTER Cataclysm FASTER!

Ugh, the world of pugging...I know, I complain about it all the time.  But I swear it gets worse when all the good players are taking breaks because there's no new content.  So I made a list of the generalizations I make when I see those pretty colors in party or raid chat.  I know there are others not mentioned, but these are the most frequent in my daily ventures on WoW.


Paladin
“The cocky bastard”
I'm so amazing. Watch me solo tank/heal/dps everything AT THE SAME TIME.

Druid
“The almost as cocky as the paladin meter whore”
I ooze awesomeness. Bet you can beat my hps/dps!
“The sweet healer (and sometimes tank)”
I spread love and joy wherever I go! (Usually a very talented player, but fairly modest)

Death Knight
“The completely incompetent tank”
I got this.
Dude, you don't even have a tank spec...or tank gear.
Doesn't matter, I'm a DK.
-squish-
“The completely incompetent DPS”
Death Knight: 50 DPS
How is your DPS that f'ing low? I could get on my DK, roll my head around on the keyboard and beat your DPS by at least a thousand.

Warrior
“The stoned so he doesn't rage in every raid warrior”
Dude, this raid sucks. We are wiping every few minutes. But it's okay, because I'm soooo fucked up right now.
“The perfect, quiet and talented 'strong type'”
Both of the above mentioned warriors can be tanks or dps and tend to make very good raid leaders.

Shaman
Honestly, I think this class tends to be the rarest, mostly because before the changes, shaman SUCKED to level, so we'll just go with this:
“The EXTREMELY patient player”
Ah, it's alright. We'll get this boss at some point. I got all night.
(I guess shaman are just quiet.)

Priest
"The completely terribad priest healer"
You're Disc.  Why on earth haven't you touched your Power Word: Shield?
It doesn't heal for much.
/facepalm
"The 'must know everything about my class' priest"
No!  There have been changes to my class!  I must research/browse forums/do math!
"The (sometimes very gay) love and joy priest"
This is the basic definition of a "priestpile" priest.  Accepting, loves muffins and people in general.
Interesting fact about priests:
In a random study done on the forums, a large majority of priests who responded are actually Agnostic or Atheist.  I find this amusing, seeing how we are a class based on faith.

Mage
“The overconfident DPS” (This one is so based on my fiance.  Sorry hon, you know it's true.)
Look at my DPS! Look at it!! Oh shit I pulled aggro! Get it off! Get it-*iceblock*.

Rogue
“The all-around douchebag”
Ha, you can't loot your quest item because you're SAPPED. Haha bitch. Sapped again! I could do this all night. (And he usually does...)
“The I can't spell my class's name right EVEN THOUGH IT'S STARING ME IN THE FACE player”
rouge lfg icc10
I didn't know make-up could raid...

Hunter
“The 'spell power increases my arcane shot right?' player”
-NEED-
Dude, why did you need on that? It's a healing item.
It says I can use it.
Attention hunters, just because it SAYS you can use it, doesn't mean you should.
“The 'I got this' hunter”
We need a tank.
I got this. Mr. Fluffy can tank.
-Insert epic fail raid wipe here.-

Warlock
“The cocky PvP warlock”
I'm pure amazing at PvP. Never mind that my rating is actually not that high. I know I could two shot ya just by looking at ya.
“The incompetent DPS”
What the hell are you doing?? Dotting the freaking floor?? The boss is OVER HERE.

When I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll probably realize that this isn't as funny as I think it is right now, but it's 3:30am and I can't freaking sleep.  I have to start moving in the morning, and I'm so excited I've got insomnia.

Quick Updates
I am saddened to say I left Kaos Knights.  I really did enjoy my time there, but everything was changing in Cataclysm, and I did not agree with the changes.  I wanted to leave on good terms, but the leadership there pretty much made that impossible, assuming that a difference in opinion meant "fuck you/I hate you all".  My alt that I left there to play with friends still in the guild was even removed, as well as my forum access (mostly because I was defending my opinion and friends who had left before me and were getting slandered) and even my Facebook group access.  Oh yes, and I was "unfriended" by the two in charge of Kaos Knights.  I guess me stating "no hard feelings" meant nothing.
Anyway, I'm in a guild called Pie, started by the supposed "instigators of the coup".  Basically we took about 10 of the extremely talented raiders in KK who did not want the changes taking place and created a small 10 man guild for Cataclysm.  I'm super excited about raiding with the guys in Pie.

Did I mention I'm engaged?  Chris proposed!  The marriage (in game and IRL) is scheduled for November 2011.  Any suggestions for an in game wedding?  Or interested in coming?  Comment!

Oh yeah, today's my birthday.  XD  I turn 22 today!

Competition does a DPS good.

The guild brought in a new shadow priest.  I was nervous at first because it was when my computer was out of commission so I thought I was being replaced.  But the officers have said over and over that they don't want me going anywhere and that we just needed more ranged.  They're also encouraging me to make friends.  I'm trying, okay!

What's the first thing I do?  I critique him.  Yeah, it's a bad habit.  Whatever.  He's almost perfect.  If you took the sticky on the priest forums and turned it into a priest, this is what it would look like.  He's got Woaden's spec and gemming.  The only difference is that his off set piece is Gunship Captain's Mittens instead of the pants.  I guess he preferred the hit from them.  I prefer my hit bracers and neck.  So far, he looks good.

After I pick up Dying Light and do my typical "I just won an awesome piece of loot!" dance in my chair, I compare our gear.  We both have 4 set sanc, except his off set piece if Gunship Captain's Mittens and mine is heroic Sanguine Silk Robes (because I used to go holy a lot for this guild).  We both have heroic Dying Light.  We have several pieces of alike gear.  We both have regular Phylactery of the Nameless Lich, but I have regular Muradin's Spyglass where he has heroic DFO.  In my math deprived mind, I think "our dps should be about the same".

A little background info.  I'm extremely competitive.  I would be in a top guild if I could handle the social retards that tend to lead those guilds.  Some of my friends are in some FANTASTIC top guilds, but I can't seem to find one that needs a priest.  So I'm in this casual HM guild.  I love it here.  They're fair, relaxed and mature, and I've made some amazing friends.  They know I'm a crazy, but they like me for it.  Anyway, moving on with the little story.

My goal is to beat him on every fight.  Another shadow priest in the raid is really good for my dps.  I beat him on a few fights, but he beats me most of the time.  I check and compare our rotation, dot uptime, etc.  Everything seems to be the same.  Finally, I'm watching party chat, and I see something that gives me an idea.  Everyone in party is bragging about how high they can get with their spell power when everything procs at once.  I get about 5k, one of the mages 4.5k (mages tend to have lower spell power than priests, but more benefit I guess), and the new shadow priest above 6k.  6k????  WHAT?  I armory him and compare our spell power.  It's about the same unbuffed.  I compare our haste.  I'm sitting at 850 ish unbuffed.  He's at 1100.

I confide in my mage friend, and he laughs at me.
"Heroic DFO is a bigger boost than you think."

It's amazing how much a little haste and one trinket can do.  Now I want that trinket so bad I can taste it.

Sick and Tired of Pugs

So I'm leveling my druid again.  I'm queuing as heals, because it's faster, and I have a healing set/spec.  She's 74 right now, and healing is a breeze.

First instance queue pops.  It's Old Kingdom.  I glance over the party members.  Who is the tank...?  I finally figure out that it's the dps death knight that's pulling everything.  I start healing like crazy.  Several trash pulls, a brez, and an innervate later I finally get a chance to sit down and drink.  The "tank" pulls the boss.  He drops like a rock.  Fed up, I drop group.

I requeue.  OK again.  I switch back to my resto spec and figure out who the tank is as she pulls the first trash mob.  Shit...I'm still in my cat dps gear and I have no mana.
After the trash pull, which is somehow managed to keep us alive:
"Could I maybe get some heals?  I got to like 100 health there."-paladin tank
"Could I maybe get some mana?  I had like 100 mana there."-me, snarky because I'm already annoyed with pugs
"Dude, you only have like 5k mana.  That's so fail."-some idiot dps
 "Well then give me half a second to switch to my resto gear."-me
You have been removed from the group.
Wtf...really?

I switch to my level 30 paladin to heal some instances there.  I get Gnomeregan with a prot paladin, a ret paladin, and two other random dps.  The tank is pulling as slow as humanly possible...or blood elfinly possible.  Finally, the ret paladin gets tired of waiting on Mr. Protpally to pull and starts pulling for him.  Fine with me as I'm starting to get bored.  After a few ret paladin pulls, Mr. Protpally runs around in a circle gathering up a bunch of mobs, stands on the ret paladin's consecrate, announces "LET THE TANK FUCKING PULL" and drops group.
Well we wipe...of course.  I apologize to the group and inform them that I'm tired of bad tanks, and we all decide to just drop and try again later.

I think it's time to play Super Mario Galaxy.  I don't have to play with other people and I'm 12 stars away from opening up a secret level or something or other.

Side note:  My computer is deadums.  The 160w power supply finally gave out and I needed a new one.  I wanted to buy a 300-400w power supply, but because I have an HP Slimline, the only power supply that fits that motherboard is an $80 160w.  NO thanks.  I'm waiting on a new motherboard that I can use my 350w power supply with.  I should be back up and running on Monday!

Good Job Forum QQers!

Okay, so it wasn't your standard QQ.  But seriously, there was a lot of it.  Some of the posts I read had the most amazing arguments.  Unfortunately, I'm sure Blizzard employees did not sit down and read all these fantastic arguments and debate back and forth on each one.  I'm sure it wasn't the impressiveness of a clear and concise argument, but the sheer numbers of those opposed.
Anyway, on to my point, those of you who actually do stop by and read my rants/thoughts/advice (thank you!), you may think that Blizzard does not listen.  You may think that no matter how much feedback you give, you, yourself, will never change anything about a Blizzard decision.  However, that's not entirely true.  It's hard for Blizzard to listen to every single well thought out suggestion, but a suggestion backed by thousands of voices?  Possibly.  Next time you want to speak out against or for something, remember the impact of the average player during this little battle.

/steps off the soapbox

WoW updates
Moving on!  I seriously need to keep up with this.  As of Tuesday of this week, I am 9/12 25 ICC heroic.  ICC 10 I won't even comment on, because it's all mix matched.  I think I'm something like 8/12 (Princes is retardedly hard in 10 man) and 5/12 for the drake.  Something like that...

Shadow has become my main spec.  I've gotten a bit addicted to dpsing and find it to be good times.  Holy is my off spec, which I will find myself using less and less as we pick up some solid healers (I mean, ones that SHOW UP FOR RAID).  Sorry, I dislike those who don't give it their all but expect raid invites when they do happen to log on.  No, gtfo.  Disc is a thing of the past, for now.  We have a pretty solid Disc priest raider, and as we all know, having more than one is a bad idea.

The death knight tank is sitting on the back burner for the time being.  I bring her out for alt guild runs, which are rare.  My frustration at being turned down for every ICC 10 because I'm a tank with a gearscore of 5300 has become too much for me to enjoy playing her.

My hunter took my death knight's place as my first alt.  So much fun to play!  Nymarl of Nathrezim if anyone's curious.  Feel free to insult her gear.  I'm coming back to huntering and when I was actually a hunter, I was BM, because it was still the cool thing to do.

I will try to keep up with this as I continue to raid.  I'll post more stories and screenshots of us in raid.  We have a good time while we progress!

RL Updates (Like anybody gives a shit)
My boyfriend and I will be moving in November!  Into a larger, nicer apartment with some friends of ours.

This crazy kitten has actually begun to gain weight!  She might no longer be underweight.  She has also gained a friend (and part time lover....eww) by the name of Kon.  A huge black short hair tomcat.  Besides spending the first day hissing and running from each other, they now eat, play and sleep together, typically if they don't think we're watching.  They're quite an amusing couple.  Little Nym, the intrepid troublemaker.  Playful and loving but sometimes with the attitude of a grounded teenager.  And the larger Kon, the typical uninterested tomcat.  However, he becomes interested when he thinks it might eat him.  He's terrified of anything larger than him, excluding Chris and I, unless we're being loud and rambunctious.  The only thing Little Nym fears is the vacuum cleaner.  But she swears to me, in quite a loud voice, that that vacuum cleaner is going to eat her.

A Farewell to the WoW Forums

This time I'm not coming back.  My reasons?  I will list them plain and simple.

1.  I do not wish to be called by my legal name.  Thanks Blizz, but I don't even go by my legal name IRL.  College and jobs do not make me use it, why should a video game?  My Facebook is not under my legal name, but the name I am called by.  I find it ridiculous that you will not allow me to be called by the name those call me IRL.

2.  I'm sure I could be found.  My name is quite common.  However, if you know my e-personality, including my character, real name, and other things (like my accent), I could be found.  A true stalker could find all my information.  Even though this doesn't completely terrify me, it does make me nervous.

3.  A dear friend of mine has a very uncommon last name.  Excluding her family, I've never heard her last name anywhere else.  It would be simple to find her and that makes her very uncomfortable.  I continue to fight Real ID for her sake as well as mine.

4.  This is a ROLEPLAYING game.  Yeah, I'm lame.  I like being called Nym.  All of my characters are named Nym.  It's a name I use in every single game I play.  A variation of Nymarie is what I want to be called.  Not my real name.

5.  I highly doubt the trolls will leave.  As far as I can tell, only those who are regular contributors and dear to our forums are leaving.  So what will that leave us with?  You think the trolls care if we know their real name?  No.  It's their mains they want to protect.  Not their real name.  CAD summed it up quite perfectly.

6.  Blizzard employees will be exempt from this.  Excuse me?  So it's okay if a player is found and stalked, but not an employee.  Right, makes sense.  Blizzard obviously knows this is not a good idea.  Why on earth are they implementing it?

7.  I found where someone on Facebook said that they were banned for posting links that proved that this is illegal.  Their posts were also completely deleted.  Does this make me curious?  Very much so.
This is a copy of the post:
  • REALID IS ILLEGAL IN THE USA!!

    The Cyber Security Enhancement Bill of 2002 makes this illegal!!

    http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/homeland_CSEA.htm <-- guidelines you need to see, Blizzard. Guidelines the whole ruddy world needs to see!
    ...
    http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001030----000-.html <---- More proof that this is illegal in the USA!!

    We need to petition the Supreme Court to shut this down. Nearly 30,000 posts have been made about this. People are pissed, there is no precedent for this kind of behaviour... let's make one. Let's make it clear to the world that a company like Blizzard does NOT have the right to give out our names. A friend of mine, Khull of The Darksun Tribe, who knows about law searched these laws up and woke me up to tell me about it. He has a common first and last name, but knows enough about cyber security, being /b/tard, to know that even he isn't safe if Blizzard makes this change.

    Copy and paste on the US forums!!

 

If you honestly think you don't care if your name is there for all to see, good for you.  But don't be a dick and say that everyone should be okay with it.  You can't change people's opinions and some people just aren't comfortable putting their names out there.  There are other ways to combat forum trolls!!!!  I agree perfectly with the author of CAD:

  • If they've got the Battle.net account system in place, why not allow us to choose a single nickname associated with the Battle.net account. Any time you want to post on a Blizzard forum, this is the name that is going to show up. This is the name that you are known by in the Blizzard community, no matter which game, until you decide you've fucked up enough that you need to buy a new account to get a clean slate. And if you're really nasty, Blizzard removes forum permissions for that Bnet account.

I also refuse to use Real ID until a change is made.  I simply don't want to be known as my legal name.  I would like to either change the name on my account or use a nickname like mentioned above. 

Anyway, that's my stand on it.  If you don't agree, that's fine, but please think of other people before you decide your stance.

Come on, Cataclysm.

One thing I'm seriously ready for is the 10/25 shared lockout and gear.
I was told yesterday that I'm a lazy ass casual who doesn't care about their gear because I prefer not to tank 25 mans.  I'm not sure how the latter makes me the former.  I simply don't like tanking 25 mans.  Even if I did, my guild doesn't run an alt 25 man and I hate pugging...

But, when I was asking about 264 off set pieces vs. 251 Tier 10 for Death Knight tanking, I was told it didn't matter because I obviously don't care enough to gear my character "correctly" or "the best way possible".

My favorite thing to do on my Death Knight is tank ICC 10.  I think it's fun.  I can run with a ton of friends on their alts and have a good time, but I still want to be the best I can be for them.

But yesterday, I was completely disgusted by this prick of a 25 man raider calling anybody who doesn't do 25 mans "lazy" and "uncaring" when it comes to their character.

"25 mans aren't that hard to do or get in to."  I never said they were.  I said I don't enjoy tanking them or pugging them.

People need to realize that just because they enjoy the game a certain way doesn't mean other people do too.

Everything's going so well!

Not.

I jump into the first 25 man raid I get to go on with this guild and everything decides to hate me.
We pull trash.  Some new trial pulls two different groups and we wipe.  ON TRASH.  WITH A 20% BUFF.
/sigh

We get to Marrowgar.  Something odd happened....and we wipe.  Wtf?

We approach Lady Deathwhisper.  I decide it will be fun to spill coke on my keyboard.  My b and p fall in love and I cannot type one without the other appearing somehow.  Then, completely random, my mouse dies.  So I think, I'll tab target this fight.  Ha.  My tab button becomes spacebar and I can't target anything.  I attempt to restart my computer and don't make it back in time.  I miss the emblems from LDW and the quest reward.

We start the Saurfang fight.  Suddenly, everyone's lagging.  Then BOOM! server crash.  I mean really?

Now I'm sitting here staring at the "Logging in to game server" screen while the majority of the raid is already logged back in.

Okay, Fates, whatever it was that I did to piss you off, you think I've paid for it enough now?

Baby holy priest

Well she's not really a baby, just an old abandoned 80 priest from Naxxramas.

I'm absolutely frustrated with the fact that there is a lack of caring in our guild.  I got into a pug on my death knight tank last night and got as far in 10 man as our guild run did.

So...I'd rather stay on the server but I want to raid again.  I miss it.  But the only guilds on the server recruiting any sort of priest want holy priests.  While I wait for a response from the guild, I have specced little Caestine from Bladefist holy and I intend to learn the only priest spec I don't know so that I can raid again.  It's not really learning from scratch.  It's still a priest...and I did play holy when I was leveling to 80.  But it's been so long!  I know almost nothing.

Okay work time!  <3 the arcade.

I'm back!

Yeah....I'm back.  I've been posting on the priest forums, so I figured I'd start back up here.  I don't hard core raid anymore, so I'll just blog about things I learn, whether it be about the priest class, certain achievements or WoW in general.  So what's Nym doing now?

I've moved to the server Hyjal with some RL friends.  And somehow...I became the guild leader of a small 10 man raiding guild.  Though we're having trouble with a consistent tank healer.  I have become the "dps with a heals offspec".  So I'm Shadow as much as I am Disc.  I have both specs' 4 piece set bonuses.

My baby Death Knight has become a badass little tank.  She completed Storming the Citadel (10 player) this past week.  Tanked the whole thing with no messups.  ^_^

Started a little Ret/Holy paladin on Hyjal.  I will learn to heal with every class!

I got exalted with the Sha'tari Skyguard.  Awesome looking Nether rays for the win!  I'll post a SS later.

We did some old raids.  Got some badass old gear.










Though I had to dps next to some naked mages.  -_-










The strangest things seem to happen in our raids.  o_O




















I really need to get some sleep so I can't blog much more tonight!  More updates and screenshots to come!

But...we were getting along...so well...

Last night we downed Blood Queen Lana’thel on 25 man!  Grats Inevitable!  Way to keep your focus even after raiding so long!  So now for the rundown of the fight.  First off, I was shadow for this because we needed the passive healing.  I have healed it and I know how to heal it, but this may be mostly from a dps standpoint.

There are several debuffs that you need to watch out for.
  • The first one is Swarming Shadows.  This is a lot like the Legion Flame from Jaraxxus.  Just run along the edge of the room until they go out.  Be careful where you run.  Avoid melee and the center of the room.  When I got targeted, I just tried to get as close to the wall as possible.  (Ranged, don’t dps against the wall!)
  • The second one is Pact of the Darkfallen.  This is cast on three raiders in 25 man and two in 10 man.  The raiders must run to each other to get rid of this high damage debuff.  Anybody caught between the raiders joining up should get away because they will take damage too.  The raiders will have red strands connecting them creating a triangle (in 25) so it’s obvious where the damage will be.
  • All ranged should spread out as much as possible.  She will randomly throw Bloodbolts at raiders, which can splash and will do damage to any raiders within 10 yards.
  • Another thing to point out is the debuff the closest raider to the tank gets.  It's called Blood Mirror and it causes the offtank to take 100% of the damage done to the tank.
  • At least twice, Lana’thel will run into the center of the room and fly into the air.  The entire raid will be feared.  Breaking the fear is recommended as the raid must quickly spread out.  Lana’thel begins casting Bloodbolt Whirl which sends a bloodbolt to every raider.  The splashes will kill stacked up raiders.  Be sure that ranged dps continue to dps during this phase (after spreading out obviously).
  • Something for the healers to pay attention to is Shroud of Sorrow.  This is the constant aoe that starts the minute you engage Lana'thel.  Think of the aura from Twin Val'kyrs.
The most important part of this fight is something I haven’t mentioned yet.  After 15 seconds, the highest estimated dps will receive the debuff Essence of the Blood Queen.  This basically turns them into a vampire.  The dps will grow in size and turn a pinkish red.  (And do lots more damage with no threat but the important part is how cool they look, right??)  They also heal for 10% of the damage they do.  After 60 seconds the sides of the vampire’s screen will turn red and his bars will disappear to be replaced with a single ability, Vampiric Bite.  The vampire must bite someone in 15 seconds or they will lose their mind to Lana’thel.  Each bitten person becomes a vampire.  We created a spreadsheet to organize who would bite who and when.  This seemed to organize the fight quite a bit and prevent a huge clusterf*ck.

The enrage timer is very tight so the debuffs must be utilized to the best of everyone’s ability.  The raid cannot afford to allow any vampire to be mind controlled.
Another thing we noticed is that the best way to control who gets the first bite is to allow that one raider to pop cooldowns immediately while all others slowly dps.  This means that all other dps must constantly attack with no cooldowns or high damage/crit abilities.  One of our paladins did not pop any cooldowns but hit the boss with two high damage crits and then backed off completely.  This caused him to be the bitten because Lana’thel estimated his dps from only those two attacks because he did not continue to attack.  So attack continuously but don’t pop cooldowns or use high damage abilities.

Well that’s Blood Queen Lana’thel.  My shadow gear is a bit lacking so I was one of the last dps to get bitten sadly, but I enjoy this fight immensely.  It’s quite possibly my favorite encounter so far.



In other news…I have learned how to tank.  Didn’t think it was possible, huh?  Well it is…and I did.  I’ve received many compliments.  I’m amused that no matter how hard you try and how much you do your research, you will always run into that one person who thinks you’re an idiot.  I’ll give you a good pug story from my tanking and a bad pug story.  Bad one first?  Okay.  In both of these, my boyfriend was the doofus hunter attempting to make the dull groups more interesting.

PuG story #1-The Baddie
Chris and I were thrown into a Slave Pens pug after sitting in LFG for only a couple minutes (yay for being a tank!).  This was not my first instance to tank.  I had tanked Hellfire Ramparts several times and Blood Furnace once.  All were successful and I had received several compliments.  I also took Miss Medicina’s advice and attempted to compliment someone in every group.  Well this one was hard to do.
A few pulls in and all is going well.  I’m level 62 and having no problem with threat or survivability.
Shaman healer:  “nymora r u a f*cking idiot?”  Huh?  Okay I’m not quite secure with my tanking just yet but I am secure in my knowledge that I’m not an idiot.
Nymora:  “Excuse me?”
Shaman healer:  “go back to ebon hold and get a real tanking rune” I open up my Runeforging.  I’m using Spellshattering.  The only other runes are quite obviously dps runes.
Nymora:  “If you’re so wise, please inform me, which rune should I be using?”  I link my Runeforging just so he can see what’s available.  Party chat goes silent for a few minutes so I continue to pull.  A few more pulls and the healer drops group.
“I guess he didn’t want to admit that he was wrong,” one of the other dps says.  We share a laugh, grab another healer, and finish the instance.
Here’s my advice to this shaman.  You want to call someone out?  Fine.  Do it nicely.  Don’t assume everybody’s an idiot just because you’ve had bad luck with pugs.  Also, good grammar gives you more credence.
Shaman healer:  “Nymora, I think you should be using a better rune.”
Nymora:  “[Runeforging] Which one?”
Shaman healer:  “Oh you don’t have it yet, I’m sorry.”
Nymora:  “No problem.”
Group continues.
See how much better that was?

PuG story #2-The Friendly One
Chris and I then joined an Underbog pug.  He teases me while I’m tanking.  He misdirects to me while I’m eating.  I let him pull aggro a few times, but then taunt off before he gets hurt too bad.  All in good fun.  I jokingly apologize to the pugs and tell them my boyfriend’s retarded and they finally realize what’s going on.  We finish the instance, which was a ton of fun because of the goofing off.  The conversation that follows was one of the best ever.
Priest healer:  “That was some of the best tanking I’ve seen in a long time.”
Nymora:  “Thanks.”
Chris:  “Yeah, she’s great isn’t she?”
Priest healer:  “It’s hard to believe she’s a 62 Death Knight!”  Best compliment EVAR.

So here’s my problem.  As a healer, I almost understand the shaman’s frustration and definitely understand the priest’s surprise.  A Death Knight that can properly tank?  Wow those are rare.  Wait, this one’s not even out of Outlands yet?  Okay now you’re lying to me.  How is it that I find this so simple yet I meet so many fail death knights?
Stack tank stats (except block obviously).  Well duh.  Lots of dodge and parry is apparently good.  Stamina and defense too (not beyond the cap).
AoE pull?  Death grip ranged.  Throw down Death and Decay.  Silence/Mind Freeze casters.  Spread diseases.  Switch between adds to keep up your aggro.
Single target pull?  Death grip or taunt.  Death and Decay?  If you want.  Or if there will be adds.  Then keep up your diseases…and dps?
I mean how hard can this be?
Wait, I think I got it.  Research.  Reading.  Willingness to learn.  It still amazes me how many people expect to be spoon-fed the game.  It’s becoming more and more about the players who use their brains than the ones who stack the right gear.  That’s how we see more fail players nowadays.  Not because it’s easier to get gear but because it’s more obvious that they don’t do their research.  They don’t learn about their class.
Rant almost over.  My message to anybody reading this:
Don’t just pick up a class and expect to do well.  Or expect people to tell you how.  Look it up.  Use guides.  Read your talents and abilities.  Use trial and error!
Don’t want to learn about your class?  Just want to play?  Don’t play mmos.  For the sake of the rest of us who do.

Nymarie has MAD SKILLZ! And is way behind....XD

This is going to be a long one.  (Well a bunch of little ones in one post.)
Anub-ToGC25
Last Thursday, I was able to step into a ToGC25 on Anub with 50 attempts left.  It was very much a mix between ToC25 and ToGC10.  The strategy was fairly simple.  Three very spread out ice patches were dropped (four if you include the "tank" patch).  The person targeted in Phase 2 ran to the outside of one of the ice patches (order was back, front, back).  A paladin would bubble the raider, allowing the raider to stand in the spikes until the bubble is almost up.  Then the raider runs onto the ice patch, stunning Anub.
On Phase 3, the healers focused on keeping Penetrating Cold targets alive.  The groups were kept up with passive healing.  However, this isn't failproof.  Myself and a couple others died from the Leeching Swarm at the very end.
With 48 attempts left, I finally finished ToGC25.  And we got our Mad Skills achievement.
Update:  This week we had some major server lag on Tuesday. Both guilds in the race for server first Tribute to Insanity wiped on Anub25 heroic. Next week, we have it!

Yogg +0
Monday night, we worked on Yogg +0.  Fairly simple until Phase 3.  You just don't have Hodir's random ice block if you die or Freya's beams of sanity.  So you have to really watch your sanity.  What does Mimiron do again?  Oh well, I guess it wasn't important.  Phase 3 gets very difficult.  Thorim is not there to kill the adds so they will continue to spawn until Yogg dies.  The good thing is that their damage is minimal when at 1% health.  They have to be dpsed down just as much as Yogg.  I'm not sure if we have decided on a strategy for this yet.

Blood Prince Council
Now that we're up to speed...this week.  Curious, we went to the Blood Prince Council first after the first wing.  When you enter the room, you see three dead princes lying on a platform.  Above them Blood Queen Lana'thel hovers, channeling a spell.  On the left we have Keleseth from Utgarde Keep, Valanar from Naxxanar, and on the right we have Taldaram from Ahn'kahet.  After killing the trash and walking a little bit further into the room, you will see Lana'thel rez the three princes and fly up into her room.
The princes have a "shared" health pool, however only one will have the health pool at any point in time.  This is the one that must be dpsed.  They gain a buff called Invocation of Blood, and they basically become more annoying.
Keleseth
This one needs to be range tanked.  His abilities are single target only.  He melees for around 60k so the ranged tank must stay away.  He does a Shadow lance for a good deal of damage.  His Empowered Shadow lance will one shot the ranged tank if he does not have any Dark Nuclei.  Dark Nuclei are large purple orbs that spawn around the room.  They attach either to the closest raid member or the last raider to hit them.  They decrease shadow damage.  The ranged tank must have three to survive Empowered Shadow lance.  They will slowly kill themselves.  The best plan, it seemed, was to have another ranged pick these up and bring them to the ranged tank.  At the beginning, the ranged tank will probably be hit by a few Shadow lances before he has any Dark Nuclei.  Healers should use cooldowns to keep him up.
Valanar
This prince to me is the most annoying.  First he throws a kinetic bomb into the air.  It must be kept in the air or it will explode, dealing a ton of damage and knocking over everyone back.  His main ability is a shock vortex.  It appears as a small circle of electricity on the ground.  All raiders must get 13 yards away from it.  It deals damage and a knockback.  Empowered Shock Vortex is much more difficult.  All raiders within 30 yards will get this under their feet.  All raiders within 15 yards of them will be hit by it.  Melee must get out and away from other raiders.
Taldaram
This is the fire prince.  He inflicts Glitter upon his enemies.  Yes....glitter.  How threatening.  This can be dealt with by simply dispelling any raider who has it.  Conjured Flame targets a player and flies towards them.  Any player near the targeted player should move away to avoid extra damage.  The Empowered Conjured Flame does much more damage but will do less and less the more flares it throws out.  These are little flames that do a small amount of damage to nearby raiders.  
That's the fight in a nutshell.  Not too hard when you get it down.

Professor Putricide
Finally got this down on 10 and 25.  It's a three phase fight.  Each time he drinks a new flask, he gains a new ability and gets uglier.
Phase 1
For the first phase he summons slime pools around the room.  The person in the Abomination (this should be your offtank) needs to eat these to keep them under control.    Putricide casts a spell called Unstable Experiment. This experiment switches back and forth between spawning a green ooze and spawning an orange ooze. DPS should kill these quickly. The fight starts with green. The green ooze will pick a target a few seconds after it has spawned and attach itself to that target with a long green tether. That raider will take damage and be unable to move. When the ooze gets to its target it will dish out an AoE that will one shot if several raiders aren’t stacked on top of the target. A spread out/collapse rotation must be used. The orange ooze uses a tether as well but the raider is able to move. Nothing will save the raider if the ooze gets to them so they must kite him against the wall while the ooze is quickly killed. (Body and Soul is great for this.) At 80%, Putricide will cast tear gas, freezing everyone in place and run to his experiment table. Try to get him to 80% when there are no oozes up.
Phase 2
Putricide will drink one of the flasks on his table, causing him to sprout tentacles from his back. This gives him a couple of new abilities. One is a gas bomb, which appears as two small orange flasks on the ground. The tank must now begin kiting him. The second is Malleable Goo, which our raid refers to as “flippies”. He also retains the abilities he had in phase 1. At 35% he casts tear gas again to go into the last phase. Watch for the oozes; it’s even worse to have one up in Phase 3.
Phase 3
The tank in the abom will get thrown out and the abom will despawn. The two tanks must now start a taunting rotation as Putricide gets stronger. Towards the end of the fight, tanks and healers must pop cooldowns on the tanks to keep them up. Beware of the slime pools, flippies, gas bombs and ticking AoE. Get through this phase quickly and you have him!

Best in Show
We went back and killed Festergut and Rotface.  When we killed Precious, I noticed the loot was assigned to me.  I crossed my fingers and searched the corpse.  There it was!  My very own Precious's Ribbon!  It gives a silly little buff that says "Best in Show" and doesn't look too bad.

I also received my Perky Pug.  Cute little thing.

I’m absolutely loving the new guild. I feel like I’m already starting to fit in and find my place.

I apologize for the long blog.  I've been busy still unpacking!  I'll attempt to keep up with it more.
Plague wing healing guide to come soon!

Loot from the past two weeks:
Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom-finally got my rep ring
Kilt of Untreated Wounds-last week's ICC 10 man, gemmed with spell power and intellect (since I needed a lot for BQL)
Amulet of the Silent Eulogy-got this for offspec, but it's better than what I was using for mainspec! (Gemmed with hit for my offspec set...not sure what to do about that just yet.)
As of right now, I’m still using Nibelung to heal because of the increase of spell power over Illumination. Planning on Frozen Bonespike and Shadow Silk Spindle.
I have killed Blood Queen Lana’thel in 10 man but not 25. I’ll go over her abilities when we down her in 25.

Not so Invisible Fire

I got to run with my new guild last night. It was a lot of fun. It was interesting to be the one learning instead of teaching. They were serious but fun. Marrowgar I got my first glimpse of the officers and how they work. I was just doing my thing like normal. Healing and avoiding things. On Lady Deathwhisper, the first phase went well. Second phase came along with the ghosts. I skirted along the outside of the semi circle, bubbling and trying not to clump up. Everywhere I went, ghosts spawned. I was trying desperately to survive. Looking like a tard in my first raid with a new guild was the last thing I needed. Finally I had a small break and was able to cast a few heals. At that exact moment, two ghosts spawned within 5 yards of me. One on either side. I watched helplessly as the two exploded almost simultaneously. My finger flew to my desperate prayer keybind and I was rewarded with “You can’t do that while dead.” Awesome.

“Goodbye new girl.” Several laughs.
As I lay there chewing on the floor, I realized two things. One, that when Lady Deathwhisper wants someone dead, she makes certain that it is accomplished. Too bad she was too fixated on making me look stupid to notice the raid kicking her ass. Two, that this guild didn’t know me well enough to know that me dying is a once in a blue moon thing.
“Goodbye new girl.”
Nymarie: -_-
I sheepishly accepted my rez and turned to talk to my friend who had come over to watch me in the new guild.
“I don’t die.”
“I know.”
“No you don’t understand. Nymarie doesn’t die.
“Relax. Stop being so focused on making a good impression and just heal.”
I bit back a retort and turned back to the computer.

At the end of the first wing, I was asked to step out for a core healer so they could get Putricide. While speaking to the guild leader and one of the officers, I realized that my death hadn’t made a big impression. One of the officers assured me that I would get to see the second wing with them.


“Goodbye new girl.”

Yeah right. Looks like I’m here to stay.

Moving On

So I made the switch to a more "hard core" guild.  It's a little more serious when it comes to raiding but still fun loving.  They have downed both Algalon 25 and heroic Anub 25 and have A Tribute to Skill.  Things that I envy.  >_>
I raid with them tomorrow (hopefully) and I'll let everyone know how it goes!
I'm kinda in between guilds and sorta in a transition phase so I'll blog about kitties!  Who doesn't love kitties?!?
So for now, I post about my demon child.  Oops, I mean pride and joy.


This was Little Nym.










She was dehydrated...
...overheated...
...malnourished...



Covered in fleas and plagued by worms









After cleaning her up and getting her healthy, she began to grow very quickly.











She became curious and playful.






This is what she is like now...(Random pictures)





Why you always sitting here playing on that computer thing?  Look at me!  I'm cute!  Pay attention to me!








You can't see me.
I am ninja!











Macbooks are for warming butts.












I see your wet hand creeping towards me.
No I don't want to get into the tub.









No you stay in the tub.
I'll stay here...next to your towel.










Oh dear...she got me in the tub.











Bitch...









The DRAIN!
It makes funny noises!











Mmm warm and dry in a towel with Mommy.

Bad news daddy.

Wednesday night, we did our ICC10.  We killed Festergut fairly easily.  We went to Rotface and slowly learned the fight, but seemed to get him easily enough.  We had started fairly late so we didn't get any tries on Putricide.
Thursday night, we went back into 25 man and downed Festergut with 6 healers.  Rotface didn't take as long to learn as Festergut and we had him down towards the end of the raid.  We were able to get two attempts on Putricide.  I don't have much info on Putricide so I won't try to write about him just yet.  Let's just start with Rotface.

Rotface
Like Festergut, this is a very new sort of fight. It’s less confusing than Festergut but harder to execute in my opinion. The tank keeps Rotface in the middle of the room, with all of the raiders stacked behind him.
Rotface will target a raider and cast a poison debuff on them, much like the debuff from Grobbulus. Everyone else should stack on the tank (who will now be behind Rotface) to avoid the spray that he does. After he sprays, he will turn back to the tank and the raid must get behind him again.
The raider with the debuff must at first stand still while he turns to do his spray. When he is about to spray, it’s a good idea for that raider to start moving. The debuff can be dispelled or it will wear off. Either way produces a small add that starts off with a large amount of aggro on the raider that spawned it. It doesn’t do much damage.
The second raider that gets the debuff must run his little ooze into the first little ooze. They will meet up and form a big ooze. This add does a lot more damage than the small one and must be kite tanked around the outer ring.
As raiders get the debuff they should meet up with the kiting tank, drop their add and make sure that their add forms up with the big one. When enough adds converge, the add will explode and the cycle starts anew. If two small adds join up and a big one is already up, the two big ones will not come together and the aoe damage from the two makes this pretty much a wipe.
After he spawns enough adds for the big add to explode and despawn, the raid needs to spread out to avoid everyone being hit by all the add's explosions.  Once the add is finished exploding, run back in to the boss.
As if this isn’t enough to pay attention to, the adds will throw little poison pools on the ground that must be avoided and Putricide will be causing slime pipes to pour slime onto sides of the room. The slime doesn’t do as much damage as the little poison pools but it does slow you down quite a bit and should be avoided as much as possible.
Well that was a long explanation for a very fast paced fight. However disgusting these two bosses are, they are quite the interesting challenge. I can’t wait to see them on heroic.
He dropped the wand and I won:  Corpse Impaling Spike

Well this was a very short post but I'm attempting to finish up my Ulduar achievements for the Rusted Proto Drake!

"Dead Dead Dead!"

Well, the new ICC wing came out yesterday. It makes the first four bosses look like easy mode heroics. My guild did not down any of them. However, it was a fantastic raid. We blew through the first four bosses. The Abacus did not drop again. How typical. I’ve been saving dkp for that bloody thing. But I did get one of my “wishlist” items. The ring from the Gunship battle. I gemmed it with the basic 23 spell power.


We then moved on to Festergut. There was a new version of Frogger directly after Saurfang. I wasn’t paying attention and when I was ported in, I took a step forward and died. It’s a fairly simple Frogger, just have to avoid the icy blasts that come out of the walls. They are very slow. The trash before Festergut was interesting, definitely keeping things alive. First you fight a Val’kyr that flies down and attacks you. Then two abominations that will do their little chain grip. You have to be careful or they will grip you into more enemies. A few more basic trash pulls and you come across Festergut’s puppies. One named Stinky and one named Precious. Needless to say Precious was not at all precious. The two puppies are basically the children of Gluth from Naxxramas. They both do a decimate. Stinky sends out rows of painful gas and Precious summons ghouls to eat and regain health. Precious must be kited around the room. After killing a few more geists, we were in Festergut’s room.

Festergut

This is definitely a new sort of boss. Forgive me if I don’t completely understand it, I have not been able to get on tankspot to look it up so I was just following orders last night. Basically, you need two tanks. These tanks must switch before 10 stacks of one debuff or they will explode. We didn’t test this so I’m not sure whether it just kills the tank or hurts the melee as well. The tanks will also get another stacking debuff increasing their damage taken as the fight goes on. (This is incorrect.  See the edit below.) We discovered that spammy heals aren’t enough. Healers and tanks need to be rotating cooldowns. After fixing our cooldown rotation, we got to the enrage every time with both tanks alive. Thursday, we just need every raider to focus on staying alive. The ranged must be spread out 10 yards apart around the room. Festergut will send out a debuff that causes the raider to vomit, which means they are incapacitated for a few seconds. This debuff will hit anybody within a ten yards range of its target. He also sends out spores into the raid. Each spore will land on a raider’s head. Every single raider must be near a spore when they explode. He does this three times. Every raider must have three stacks of the buff from these spores when he does his aoe or they will not survive. After he does his aoe, he starts the spore-spore-spore-aoe rotation all over again. He’s on a five minute enrage timer, which makes the fight very difficult. I think the best way to do this fight is with 6 healers and 2 tanks. We’ll see what we’re going to do on Thursday.

Even though we didn’t down any of the new bosses, last night was a good raid. Everyone was in a cheery mood, excited to see new content. We all worked together, giving advice to each other and thinking up solutions to the different problems that Festergut presented. This is one of the reasons I truly love my guild. I left the raid in a good mood even having wiped on Festergut for almost two hours. I know we’ll get him Thursday and I’m sure I’ll get to kill him in a 10 man tonight. The 10 man tonight will also give us more experience with him and possibly more ideas and options.

Oculus
Perhaps it’s not an accident that ever since last Tuesday, I’ve gotten Oculus only twice. Perhaps they hotfixed something. Perhaps they knew something was wrong. Whatever they did, I’m pleased with it. If I continue to get heroics other than Oculus, I will go back to doing Oculus whenever I get it.


Edit:
We downed Festergut on Thursday night.  A few things I got wrong.  First, Festergut doesn't put a debuff on the tanks that increases their damage taken.  He gets bigger, which increases his melee damage.  We also noticed that the best plan for the healers was to stand in the melee so that they did not have to vomit.