A New Perspective on LFR

Over the holidays the hubby and I have been letting our son play WoW with us.  We have a third account and he’s got a mage on it and a hunter I just finished leveling today [and they both have cele two piece].  He’s only five years old but he’s remarkably astute about some things.  But he’s also given me a little clue into some of the stereotypes I see in LFR.

1. Time Warp popping mage.   My son’s “main” would be his mage I expect.  He tools around on some of the lowbies on the account, and the hunter but most of his small amount of game time is spent on the mage.  He loves the mage because he can make everyone in the group BIG.

2. Summoning of things – He loves dropping the table to feed everyone.  Just about every pull.  He also loves summoning his friends [mirror image] so he can have help.

3. Needing on everything – He’s pretty good about greeding stuff but occasionally he just NEEDS to “get a present” from the boss and will forget and need everything.  That’s not a big deal in Ulduar or ICC.  We just have him trade something if someone else wants it.  And frankly, it’s irrelevant in LFR now but more for LFD.

4. Incessant bouncing.  Doesn’t matter what toon he’s on he’s bouncing everywhere.

5. Randomly following a pet around during a fight/not dpsing the boss – there are more interesting things than boss fights!

6. AoE on single target fights – because arcane explosion [number 9] is fun!

7. Pulling for the tank – because starting the fight is important and fun!  Besides, he has to drop a flare under the boss and “set them on fire”

8. “GOGOGOGOGO” – because he’s five… and can’t sit still.

9. Trolling the tanks – “I’m sorry daddy, I didn’t mean to press the button and start the fight” [Mimiron].  Next week: “I’m gonna push the button again!”

So… just pretend everyone in LFR is five years old and is just learning to read.  Whole new perspective.  Now he just needs to discover how to turn growl on and Aspect of the Pack on his hunter…

Wonderful Monday!

We had such a fantastic time tonight!  Monday night is when we run our retro stuff and tonight we were in Firelands.  We finished Glory of the Firelands Raider for 8 people in the raid… just needing to finish “Do a Barrel Roll”.

 

Glory of the Firelands Raider!

 

We cleared the rest of the heroic modes for the other two who needed them and ended up calling it early to take screen shots of us on our new mounts at Shrine.  Apparently created a little stir too… had a couple people standing on top of us and asking about the guild 😛 so all in all, not too bad

 

 

 

After that, I got a note from Endyme of Unholy Randomness [whom I happen to know in Real Life] and got invited on her guild’s alt run of Mogushun.  We cleared the first three bosses on heroic mode and ended up doing a few attempts at Spirit Kings.  Ven and I both ended up getting heroic Jasper Clawfeet for our offsets but the look at the four heroic modes was fantastic… can’t wait to bring that back to our raid.  Endyme’s guildies are completely psychotic… but in a fun kind of way.

 

Apparently I’m not the only one who likes the in game toys!

It is Done.

 

Yup, I finally managed to finish out Shadowmourne after what, three years?  I remember doing the infusions at level… well 2 of them at least.

 

I honestly don’t have a lot to say, other than that I appreciate the members of both my current guild – Band of Misfits and my old guild on Thorium Brotherhood – Wrath and Retribution, for banding together to help me finish it.  Almost everyone has their metas finished, with only a couple people who couldn’t attend regularly missing a few things.

 

Oh, here’s me in the tabard, glowing:

State of Things

My main’s doing quite well at this point in the expansion.  I’m exalted with all the reps except Shadopan [16k/21k] and August Celestials [9k/21k].  I’ve maxed out every profession at least once, so I have access to them all on my main server.  I’ve gotten two alts to 90 – including my horde alt on another server [yay achievements!]

I’ve killed Heroic Nefarian, finished the “Glorious” achievement of killing the rares, managed Galleon kills two times [got nothing], am best friends with everyone on the farm and even have my second alt to 90 exalted with the tillers [and all I did on her was login, replant her farm and do the tiller dailies in 15 mins or so].  I’ve done a couple Firelands retro runs, and even killed the first boss of Mogushun Vaults with whomever we could pull together in guild and a couple out of guild friends.  We also got the second boss to 26%.

Pet Battles have been what’s fallen to the wayside.  I know they’ve captured most people’s attention instead of all the other but for me it’s been the reverse.  I really want to do more for that in the coming few weeks as I’d like to get the upper level pets and I’d be ready for 5.1.  It just… well the grind to get a level 25 pet seems so painful looking.  My highest level pet is 10 right now.

I would post some screen shots, but at the moment I am without my computer 😦  The hard drive died and since I have the laptop [and access to Venoym’s computer during the day], we decided it would be easier just to wait till the weekend to swap some drives about.  So, when he can move the data over, I will have some screenies, though I have posted a few things on twitpic.

National Novel Writing Month is this month and I have written a bit thus far…  I’m still not sure I’m participating.  I’ve already written 125k this year [my goal was 100k, but I revised that and raised it to 150k] so I’m not sure I want to push myself to cram another 50k in but I’m writing daily as is…  I may just see what happens.

Mists of Pandaria

Askevar is 90… hit it Friday in fact [with Venoym].  This was the fastest and hardest we’ve ever pushed to level.  I know a lot of people like to savor initially, but we both prefer to just get our main to 90 and worry about savoring later with alts.  That’s why they exist after all?  Anyway, Askevar’s main set is going along well.  I do a couple scenarios a day as well as a heroic or two in the evening.  All my pieces, save a 442 blue ring, are 450 or better, with several 463 items.  I’m doing my daily rep grinds and I’ve maxed all my professions both primary [Inscription/Jewelcrafting] and Secondary [Archaeology, First Aid, Cooking, Fishing] and I got access to the end food for the Way of the Oven [aka the tank tree].  I also have all my on server alts parked at Halfhill to farm various veggies to max the other ways or to create the max Oven food.  By the way, if you do this, the Outpost Zhu flightpoint in Krasanger is the one that connects the Jade Forest initial town to Halfhill.

For that matter, I’ve now maxed out every profession on my account except Blacksmithing and Skinning.  Suffice to say, our guild has the heirloom legs already, and not just through my efforts either.  Sadly they are only good through 85, which I think is a little silly, but I was able to buy a pair for my level 20 monk.  Oh, we also have the guild shirts because a group running scenarios last night saw we were only two away and decided to finish.  They’re kinda cute but you can’t see it with my armor on [as it should be for a tank].

My offset gear is crap [its unholy now, gave up frost] and a quarter to half the pieces are still level 85 stuff that I need to replace, but, on the flipside, I’m quite a hardy tank right now.

Honestly, I don’t see any of my alts getting to 90 very quickly.  I’ve got 2 at 86 – my bank alt/gatherer and my horde pally [the horde pally would net me 2 account achievements].  With our guild not even discussing raiding for another two weeks, I might get one leveled but who knows?  My main priority, as always, is going to be getting Askevar’s tank set raid ready – everything else is bonus.

Sundays have become achievement night and due to lack of interest from our guild [a lot of people are still busy leveling and that’s alright], we’ve been pulling from cross realm friends.  We’ve gotten a lot done though and we’ve had a blast doing it.  We even managed to 9 man Heroic Chimaeron just before MoP hit – with 3 healers, 2 tanks and the rest dps – and that’s what we managed to get… we had intended to 2 heal, but with everyone wanting to try out their mainspec, extra heals never hurt :D.

 

I will admit, at times the dailies feel almost endless, but once I get the reputations to max, I’ll be gold.  I’m already revered with Order of the Cloud Serpent and well into honored with most of the rest so it’ll get there 🙂  And I’m not finding these dailies near as painful as some have been in the past either.

 

Goldwise – I’ve already spent a ton between buying the Grand Expedition Yak and speed leveling some professions.  Despite that, I’ve actually managed to make money on Askevar and I’ll make back the rest and then some when I level the alts, so it’ll all work out.  Hey, don’t look at me that way… I saved and ground for that Yak for several months before MoP dropped and I’m darn proud of it!  There is nothing like achieving a goal you set out to complete.

 

Speaking of achievements, for the first time since I was maining a warlock, I have finally passed my husband in total achievement points.  Now, so it’s said, that won’t last as he’ll do all those achievements and catch right back up… but for once it’s nice to be ahead!

A Dirty Little Secret of GMs and Raid Leaders…

As a former GM and a former and current Raid Leader, I’m going to let you all in on a small dirty little secret.  Retro runs are more than just “fun times” for people in those positions.  And if you’re new to a guild, it’s in your best interests to go to a few and to take it somewhat seriously.

For many GMs and Raid leaders, it’s a chance to see how new people perform.  While a certain amount of goofing off is expected [and even encouraged], things that you do can get you a progression raid spot, or cost you one.  Over the years of my experience I’ve seen a lot of things in these runs and I’ve watched people cross themselves off the list of folks I would call on for a progression run.  I’ve also seen people impress me so much that I pursued them for a spot in my raid.

Now I’m not saying it’s the end all/be all, or that one true mistake will cost you.  But there are some things you just DON’T do.

1. Wiping a raid on purpose “for fun”.  No one cares for a wipe.  Wipes can still happen in old content if you have too few people, if people are careless, or if people don’t know some of the fights [hard modes in particular].  But doing it on purpose?  Likely not going to score you an invite to the progression run.

2. Refusing to listen to the raid leader.  Yes, these runs are often LOLfaceroll, but listening to and respecting the authority of the person in charge of the raid is something you should do.  Deciding you don’t have to follow what they’re wanting you to do just because you want to be stubborn?  Not good.  Intentionally messing up an achievement because you take the notion to disobey the raid leader?  Not a good impression.

3. Standing in Bad/Refusing to Obey Mechanics – This is what I always looked for most.  The first two items are automatic red flags, but this one was also quite important.  If you’re dying to “bad stuff” in old content, what’s that going to spell for your ability to avoid it in an actual stressful situation [ie progression]?  If you’re the one standing in every defile/etc or getting a debuff on you and killing half the raid time after time – outlook: not good.  Telling the raid leader that you can stand in [insert bad here] because this is lolfaceroll shows not only a lack of respect for the raid leader but for the raid in general – and your healers specifically.  Making mistakes in this category happen but I’d venture that most raid leaders and GMs are saavy enough to know the difference most of the time.

4. How you react when you make a mistake and do wipe the raid/kill people [we all do it at one point or another].  Seeing someone say “I’m sorry about that, won’t happen again” makes me happy.  You know X was a problem and you’re taking responsibility for it and are going to correct it.  Then just do.  You’d be amazed how that kind of attitude will stick with a raid leader.

4. General Obnoxiousness.  Enough said I suppose.  Having fun is one thing.  Being obnoxious is something else.

Raid leaders and GMs are watching and it’s not a bad thing either.  They’re watching where you fall generally on the dps meter [on retro runs your numerical dps really doesn’t matter but they’ll watch where you are relative to current raiders particularly on boss fights] as well as how you move out of bad.  They’ll be looking at what spells you use as a healer and how your threat is and how hardy you are as a tank.

For me, new people get slotted into about 5 categories in terms of progression – 1. Ready to Raid; 2. Has Potential/Almost There; 3. Major Work Needed/Red Flags Sent Up; 4. Undecided/Unknown; 5. Heck No.  No, not all of them are interested in raiding and it may not be the most fair thing to view things through these lenses but a few retro runs will definitely leave an impression.  What impression do you want to leave?