The Old Becomes New Again…

One plus about this point of an expansion is that while I may exhaust options on my main, I also usually end up rediscovering toons I enjoyed in the past once again.  And thus is my current project…

 

Aulao – my gnome mage, currently fire.  I pulled her out and dusted her off and did a few HoT randoms and got enough gear to hit LFR quite quickly.  I wasn’t top of the meter by any stretch of the imagination but I was middle of the pack.  Typically, since BC I have not enjoyed playing caster dps toons.  I love healers, but not big on caster dps, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying it very quickly.  She still needs a bit of gear [she’s sitting there in transmogged Tier 1 from Molten Core].

So now, I’m wondering what toon I might discover I enjoy once again.  Will it be one of my forlorn forgotten disc priests?  Or rediscover that feral kitty is teh awesome?  Or will I finish leveling my druid healer and give that a whirl?  Or head back to Star Wars and ding another level in the forties on my Jedi Knight?  We shall see.  I’ll go where my notions take meh.

Raiding as a Couple from My Perspective

It’s always been amazing to me that the simple fact that my husband and I want to raid together is always taken as a sign that one of us [usually me] doesn’t deserve to be there.  I’ll fully concede that having space for two tanks is not always possible.  And we’ve paid our dues before and sat out together plenty of times.

For years, World of Warcraft has been our thing together.  It’s what we do and what we enjoy.  At first that didn’t include raiding but it eventually evolved to that point.  And the reality is that raiding without my husband is ridiculous.  It’s asking us both to give up our evening together [which is our time together].  And while I don’t mind one of us filling in every once in a while, I truly resent someone telling us that we’re going to raid separately and like it or else.

The other assumption that we get is that we’re demanding to go on every raid.  We don’t. We’ve been truthful in being up front with guilds we’ve joined about what we want and what we expect. If they can’t give us what we’re looking for, we’re quite happy to look elsewhere.

In truth, we didn’t expect to be in progression with our new guild. Being the new kids on the block and both being tanks didn’t exactly put us in the number one choice spot, but we’d been given the alt run to co-tank and do with as we pleased. They didn’t have tanks for it or a raid leader to organize it and we could provide both those things. Circumstance happened and we ended up co-tanking the progression run and bringing a pair of alts to the alt group.

I’ve dealt with rostering couples before and while not easy, it can be quite rewarding if you’re able to get it done. You get two people moving in sync and that can be a pretty powerful advantage to the raid [one of my previous ten mans had 3 couples working togther and we could be an impressive crew if I do say so myself]. The underlying assumption we’ve always worked with is that both people in the couple will do their best to maximize and continue to earn their keep, as it were. That’s how we did it in our previous guild… if one wasn’t qualified and they wanted to raid together – they’d both get sat and told why.

As for ourselves, we’ve always taken running as a couple as challenge to do better and better. We both need to deserve it and, not to be conceited – we both do. Back in Burning Crusade when I was a lock [hubby was still a paladin], we actually raided very little, because they seldom had a spot for the two of us. It was all good – truly.

I’ve been asked before how I can stand to co-tank with my hubby… that fulfilling the same role as their S/O drives them batty… Well the reality is that it’s quite easy for us. Being co-tanks and having been co-tanks since Naxxramas days, we’re incredibly in sync with each other. Our raid and guild leading experience only enhanced that connection. You could even say that we push each other to become better tanks. It also doesn’t hurt that hubby is the one who taught me how to tank. Yes, I learned to tank as a death knight from a paladin. [I learned the specifics of dk tanking on my own of course].

A lot of the “most annoying” or “most challenging” aspects of tanking are gone – out the window with a tank couple. Tank swaps? Not a problem. No ego to worry about on the other tank who might not be willing to share aggro. Sudden tank death? Not an issue. Hubby goofed one week and fell off Beth’s web. I hop up to manage Beth between drones while they battle rez him – just in time for him to pick up the next drone. Perfect complementing each other, magical timing, anticipating the other’s moves… And it actually feels that good. 🙂 We don’t have to mark on trash, we know who’s going to pull what, when and have known for quite some time. We each have fights and areas we excel at – and one class might be better than another on some fights. We try and optimize that where we can.

Our rhythm is so good and so second nature in fact, that on our first run with the new guild we had to throttle it back… actually make some of the calls on vent and let them get a feel for how we work.

The most common question we get, to our amusement is who the main tank is. We actually don’t have one between us. When we started in Naxx, we would have agreed that hubby [Venoym] was unquestionably the main tank. But we maintain our toons so evenly that neither is “better” geared. And again, we both excel at different fights. Venoym also has at least a year on me in tanking experience. It honestly depends on the fight regarding who is actually the main tank… some fights a block tank is more of an advantage in a certain role – whether that be “main” tanking or “off” tanking.

I’m not saying we’re the best – by any stretch of the imagination. But we ARE good. We ARE solid. We’re good alone and even better together.

On another note – Please feel free to check out my husband Venoym’s blog – Holy Necromancy. His updates will probably be much more spaced out than mine as he’s not a big blogger but I’m trying to get him to blog more frequently.

NaNoWriMo

42020 / 50000 words. 84% done!

Well… I’m in the home stretch of NaNo.  The story has come to me faster than I could have dreamed – I wrote my daily goal today in about 45 minutes and I even wrote extra.  I’m still aiming for the 1667 daily target [I like that blue bar to be full] and I’ve met it all but a 2-3 days.  I’ve even exceeded it significantly a couple times.  Each night instead of just laying awake trying to go to sleep, I’ve been plotting out some of the next day’s story [and I usually fall asleep before I’m done].  So eh 🙂  I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit and it’s not taking over my life.

This progress was probably helped along by the fact that our guild took a couple weeks break from raiding [we’re now back and working on Raggy again… just a hair from phase 3].

The lock I’m leveling with Endyme’s baby priest hit level 60 last night.  The undead hunter I worked on a bit during the 2 week break is level 50 [heirlooms and guild xp really is sick].  Askevar [my main] got the 378 tanking boots crafted the other day.  Hubby should be getting them tomorrow with luck.

So it’s actually been a quiet month.

Askevar, the Camel Hoarder

Hubby was leveling his rogue out in Uldum and his NPCscan went off indicating a camel figurine nearby.  He summoned me over to help find it and had me take it since I’d brought my main over.

I clicked it and got teleported.  And voila!

I now have a title and feat of strength and a mount I never expected to see 😀

Naturally I was so excited I had the NPCScan thing up during the screen shot… silly me 😛

State of the Toons:

It’s been a bit since I’ve posted so I thought I’d give a “state of the toons” post.  I have a few other posts in mind and some of those should get developed soon 🙂

My Main
Askevar – I’ve been busy.  🙂  Hubby and I actually ended up changing servers and now we’re on Azuremyst in Eff the Ineffable.  Askevar’s been capping her VP most weeks, or near enough and she only needs two more pieces of VP gear for mainset.  She’s tanked in Firelands once and is scheduled to go again tonight.  We also managed our Defender of the Shattered World titles.  We’ve gotten to see downings of Shannox and Beth’tilac as well as the Effer’s first Baleroc downing!  I’m currently working on all the new Loremaster achievements and edging toward hubby’s 11k achievement points :P.  I’m 6 pets shy of having 150 – so I really need to get on that too!

Toon Army
Askalaphos, Alika, Allixie, and Arica [now Aricaa] all came to Azuremyst as well.   Alika and Allixie are still my primary alts and Askalaphos and Aricaa I enjoy playing on occasion but want mostly for their professions.  Hubby also insisted I xfer my mage, Aulao,  to our third account for free ports yo.  Most of the rest of my toon army have gone into what I call “semi-retirement” on Thorium Brotherhood.

New Alts
To be honest, I’m playing less and getting more done, or at least that’s how it feels.  We raid – we’ve done t11, t12 and also some retro stuff in the last few weeks and hubby and I are leveling a couple new toons each.  I’m leveling a resto druid which is paired with this fourth pally on this server and I’m also trying to catch up a new shaman to his rogue [he’s leveling that to help with the insane title].  So in the evenings we often run a random or two on either those or our mains for VP.

Thorium Brotherhood
While I said truthfully that most of my Thorium toons have gone into some semi-retirement state, I did roll another Askevar death knight over there, named Askevar [but who I’ll dub Askevar3] who is already level 60.  And I also got a level on my resto druid over there – Poem [mostly because waiting for hubby on the other druid is a pain at time :P].

Argent Dawn
I still log onto Holykau over on AD – very occasionally.  I got invited by a guild group in that horde guild to do a ZA run and then got ditched after the second boss when one of them apparently didn’t get the item the wanted, so I’ve honestly had less time for that guild due to that rude behavior – Kau has always had better luck pugging than guild groups.  I’ve actually started working on the AD disc priest a little more ally side.  She was stuck at level 80 for months and months… well, really since Cata hit.  She’s now 83 and I’m catching a random on her once a day or every other day rather than questing, so she’ll eventually hit 85.  Askevar2 will probably be sitting till Brewfest hits and we have that holiday dungeon to hit.

That’s pretty much it.  Life is good, both in and out of game 🙂

No Ordinary Raid Leader – by Venoym

Raid Leading

What is a raid leader and what makes an effective raid leader… a look inside the mind and experience of a raid leader in a casual family guild.

Raid Leader – words that make people cringe when applied to them, or the possibility of doing that job. Most people think that a raid leader does everything, knows everything, and controls everything the night of the raid. Funny, the raid night is the easiest part of the job. A Raid Leader never stops, and the hardest job happens between raids, let’s look at what makes a raid leader successful.

1. Charisma. Not just a skill on your D&D character sheet. This attribute makes people listen to you and receptive to your thoughts. It also makes a raid leader effective. Anyone can learn to have charisma, you just have to step up a notch and be noticed. If you are wrong on a call or a strategy, admit it and move on but maintain control of the situation. This attribute is the only attribute that anyone will ever notice in a raid leader, but it’s probably the least important.

2. Team Building. Above it was mentioned that the raid night is the easiest part of a raid leader’s job, Team building doesn’t happen raid night. It happens every other minute of every day that is not spent in a raid. Talk to the people in the raid or you are thinking about having join the raid. This single item is probably the hardest of anything a raid leader does. You have to take 9 or 24 other people and network them together so that they will perform… it takes a LOT of conversations and time spent together. If you are not online or they are not online, you can’t team build with them. In my personal experience I tend to do this behind the scenes in a way that no one notices. I run randoms, help out with quests/questions, take an interest in alts and latest thing they have done. Your raiders are your children, when they do a finger painting… post it on the proverbial refridgerator!

3. Research. This will take the most time of anything you do. You have to know almost everything about almost everyone in your raid… or know who the raider can talk to that knows everything about that class/spec. You don’t have to know everything all the time… you need to know where it can be found at a minimum so that you can direct people to that source to help themselves improve.

4. Recognize Hunger. This item takes the most sensitivity to your group and to people who “surround” your group (i.e. alts/standbys). What’s the difference between a DPS’er doing 9K dps in ilevel 359 gear and someone who is doing 6K dps in ilevel 359 gear? on the surface, 3K dps. Underneath you may find that you want the 6K dps’er in your raid. Why? Because if the person doing 9K dps is happy where they are and are unwilling to listen, and the person doing 6K dps is frustrated that they aren’t doing more… you have a hunger situation. The person doing 6K dps doesn’t know what is wrong and doesn’t know who or how to ask for help. This is where you as the raid leader step in. You talk to them… I’ve usually approached it this way, I catch them online and then talk to them one-on-one in ventrilo. I usually start with “Hey, I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes about your dps and see if there is anything I can do to help.” Let them say something, then continue with “Well I took a look at your gear and spec and did a little research. If you want we can work on this because I know you will feel better if you are doing better… and that leads to downing bosses.” The hunger is their desire to do the best that the character can to help the raid. They are selfless, but don’t know what they don’t know.

5. Dynamic Strategist. This requires all of the previous numbers, but is about the easiest. Once you know your raiders, how they perform, what situations they are good in, you can formulate strategies on the fly that will work. As an example we were working on Crazy Cat Lady (Auriaya) in Ulduar and couldn’t control both the Feral Defender and the boss. We’d get the boss to about 60% before the healers mana was depleted. So we ignored the Feral Defender until it was about to die… then killed it on purpose. I had no less than four of my best raiders whisper me saying that it wouldn’t work and was a hard mode. I knew the group, I knew the research, and I went on that limb… and we got the boss to 35% first try. I knew that having a huge number of things for people to remember like “kill add 3 times, stay out of bad, kill boss, interrupt boss, regroup on boss’s toes…” was too much. So we shortened and the strategy worked. It worked so well, the 3 ten man groups started using the same strategy and 2 of them downed that boss for the first time the next week. That is the power of the Dynamic Strategist.

6. Janitor. Raid leading is a thankless job. You get all of the blame and none of the credit. All of the excrement of upset/disheartened/irritated or otherwise cranky people is your job. You get to handle loot whores, entitled jerks, elitest jerks, and the general brown end of the stick as Dr. Walter E. Williams would say. Simply put, either be teflon or stain proof, because the smell never goes away but at least you can be clean once in a while.

7. Cheerleader. Not only do you have to do the job of the janitor, you have to keep the spirits of your raid members alive. This is not a pom pom waving job, this is a “I know you can do it” or “Almost, but we just need a little more!”. Sometimes there is nothing you can say… for example when the boss smashes your entire raid in under 13 seconds (yes… Halfus laughed many times at us in under 60 seconds). It’s your job to keep the spirits alive because when the spirits go… so does the raid.

Well, that’s all for now. This isn’t everything, but it’s a good overview. Cheers, and happy raiding!