What I'm Doing and Planning, January Edition

Been pretty busy around this house, trying to push an elephant through the eye of a needle. There just isn't enough room. My subscription to WoW ran out about the same time I stopped receiving child support, so I am playing the remaining time on hubby's account, then waiting until the tax return gets in to pay for a whole year, so that I don't have this problem next year. I'm not sure how long it will take for child support to kick back in, so I may be cutting off internet for a while, in order to push as many pennies at my mortgage as possible. Lunch ladies just don't make enough money to pay the bills of a 6 person family alone.

On a positive note, this will encourage me to get some spring cleaning done, work on my Wii Fit, and become a little more comfortable with a Playstation controller. I have been wanting to try out Fallout 3. Even though hubby has invited me over to his computer to play, I would rather do it during the week uninterrupted on the console while he is busy playing Battlefield Heroes with his friends. That, and we have all these other games on there that I keep hearing other people rave about; The Orange Box, Bioshock, Little Big Planet, and Lego Rockband. I am looking forward to trying them out, tying up the console while the kiddies do their chores and homework! Oh, and I found Oblivion sitting in a desk drawer. That could occupy some space on my laptop for a while. I never got past the first part of that game, as we were busy raiding Burning Crusade content when it was gifted to me.

As for in World of Warcraft, my fun with my druids was cut short, as was my unspoken goal to get Shawndra a couple of nasty two handed axes and return her to dps. Instead, I have been gearing my hubby's mage Sinnerman, and leveling his bank alt druid Bourguignon. I just love his druid! His coloring and horn style really make him look French, and the name we picked for him is so fitting (and makes me hungry!) When my favorite pally tank and company are not on (we now have a full group, with a healer and everything!) Bourguignon gets to heal lowbie stuff or place auctions, and when he is on, we run stuff with Sinnerman. Oh, and I have been leveling professions for Sinnerman, too. Sinnerman is almost to BC content with his jewelcrafting and enchanting. I think I also forgot to mention Muppsy, my baby gnome warlock. I had to have some way of hanging out with the Illuminati Order on my alliance server, and she is fun, even if I a frustrated by her always backing into danger while fearing off opponents. She got to run Ragefire Chasm yesterday, and got a new belt. What is it with people only going to the first boss, and skipping the one that drops the sexy red robes? Silly Alliance players.

So, that is what I have been doing and what I plan for some f the future. I will still have wifi access to update the site with tales of my escapes into video game land should I turn off the internet for a bit. I sure hope it doesn't come to that. I would miss my friends, and all of you! Have a great weekend. I hope to have a post up soon, probably something about bettering an arcane mage. Stay tuned!

Why Join The Queue At All?

Today, I started out checking my auctions on Rowena, then got a whisper from a friend. We could run together! We're only 10 levels apart now, so I suggested Scarlet Monastery, and roped hubby into logging in his 39 blood elf rogue. Then, she remembered she hadn't spent her talent points since they were wiped, and begged forgiveness and promised to run something with us later in the week. That's fine, said Nira, and promptly hopped into the looking for group queue. She's been living there since level 15, and it has treated her well so far. Tonight, Nira's first run was Scarlet Monastery - Graveyard. This went without a hitch, Nira got a necklace she couldn;t use, everone said goodbye, and that was it. Nira spent about 20 minutes repairing and restocking in Thunder Bluff before deciding that she didn't want to heal anyone else. So, I logged in Lostariel.

Lost's first instance was Gnomeregan. Tank number one disconnected shortly after zoning in, leaving us with 4 minutes until we could kick her. The warlock, mage, and I cleared some trash in anticipation of a replacement, as the hunter had left when we noticed we had no living tank. Lost dinged 28, took the quest for her grime encrusted ring, and a balance druid and a paladin joined us, We headed down the corridor toward the clean room. Someone said they had to go afk for a minute, so Lost cleaned her ring and a few grime encrusted objects The paladin disconnected. Then, another person dropped group. That was pretty much the end of it, and everyone left to do something else. Frustrated, I logged out and logged in my rogue, Maura.

Maura queued for the random dungeon and started turning in quests. She then set out to find the parts of a book, but ran into the Frost Nymphs. She took the head nymph's quest, then stealthed and picked all the lesser nymphs pockets, then gathered 13 of the 15 ice elemental shards she needed before she finally got her invite. She ported into Utgarde Keep, poisoned her blades, and got ready to start. Maura was just above the healer in dps, and just below the tank. The tank kept losing aggro to the other dps. At the pull just before the first boss, we wiped. the healer and the tank agreed that the tank needed a higher health pool, so the paladin dropped. Then, everyone else did. Maura ported out of the dungeon, turned in the ice elemental shards, picked the dryad's pockets one more time, and hearthed.

I logged in Niranjani one more time, thinking I might want to run another dungeon. Five minutes passed, and I just shut the game off. Ugh. Maybe I'll respec one of my three druids to tank and try that out for a while. Or, there is always Shawndra. I could macro a disclaimer before every instance. What would I say? Maybe,"My main is a healer. I haven't tanked anything since Karazhan. If you have crowd control, be prepared to use it." Yeah, that sounds good. And maybe, just to really scare them, I will equip my level 70 tanking trinkets, since they are all I have. No, no, I am not that desperate for a run with a tank in it that I would go and be one myself.

I started this post yesterday and am lost as to where I was going with it. *looking at title and rubbing chin* There it is! Tanks disappearing not even 4 minutes into an instance has to stop! That's all I have for today. I have been scooted to hubbys machine so he can fix my user interface(another reason I didn't feel much like playing yesterday, it's hard to dps the point and click way!) so that key bindings will work on my rogue. Lostariel is nearing her 29th level, and soon comes the gearing and enchanting fun. Stay tuned!

Come Back When You Don't Suck

I have about had it with the attitude a lot of low level dungeon runners have. Today I have been in two groups where the tank pulled as much as any tank that overgears a Northrend heroic and expected me to keep up. The last group I had a paladin pulled most of the front part of the room with Twilight Lord Kelris, and the boss, then when I was the last one standing...

If you care to read his parting lines, be my guest and click on that picture. Sure, I'm not wearing heirloom gear like he is , but I have kept up with my level in gear, and it's not feral gear!

I guess I will have to rest in the knowledge that some have told me I was doing a good job. I'm a girl, and I reserve the right to get snippity and stay that way for no good reason for hours. If this gal at Hots and Dots can, I can too.

3.3 .... WOW!

The little things. They are what keep me coming back for more in this game. Logging in to find a core hound pup in the mailbox was great! Remembering that Breanni was supposed to have a few new pets to buy, I ran to the pet shop and picked up a new snake and kitty. They'll have to make a 100 pet achievement soon, with all the pets they keep coming up with. I made sure to give them all play time, running a lap or more of Dalaran looking for the last three books for the Schools of Arcane Magic achievement.

Core pup in tow, I decided to try out the new looking for group tool. I made allowances for patch day newness by not getting angry over glitches that I knew would be fixed soon. Other than a 15 minutes of disgrace at having to leave an instance group that noone got summoned into, the grouping was rather smooth. Delgada was chosen to dps the first instance, then heal the second. The second was everyone's favorite instance, the Oculus. One of the group said," They didn't hit this with a (nerf) bat, they hit it with a sledgehammer." No truer words were spoken. The first boss was a pushover, the mage boss in the center died without me noticing any of his signature frosty floor patches. The end boss was very forgiving of movement impaired people, or I was just getting better at getting out of the way when the boss threw out his bubbles of pain. Loot was rolled on, mstly to be disenchanted, and that was all I did in LFG that night. I really enjoy the new system. I'm not sure if everyone is on their best behaviour, or if I am just getting very lucky. those two runs were the most fun I have had in a while.

After the LFG fun, I ran regular ToC with some friends, and that was a blast and a half. Graham, my favorite pally tank ever (he reads this, I know, so I can say stuff like that. I'm sure he's not modest or anything. He's probably saying, "That's right, I am that good." to himself as he reads this. Makes up for how bad he rogues. -.^ ) tanked, I healed, and his two roomies (Hi Mar! Hi Ben!) were the reason for the group. Each walked away with three pretty purples last night, despite our lack of luck in getting leather or plate wearing dps to join our foursome. It was fun running ToC with people who were new to the instance, learning how to joust right there instead of through the tournament quests. I highly recommend it!

Tonight, kinda figuring I wouldn't get much play time in, I logged into Bladefist and my poor, neglected mage, Dinnaeh. She picked up her mail and set off to turn in some completed quests. She joined the heroic instance queue and waited. I thought for sure that being dps, it would be the same old thing, too many damage dealers and not enough tanks and healers. Dinnaeh had a group in less than five minutes. First instance she hit was Utgarde Pinnacle. She had never been there, so she picked up the instance quests, set out a table, threw intellect on the mostly melee group, and was second to last on the dps meter. Noone said anything (perhaps all their mods were still broken?Mine weren't, though they need organizing), and the run went smoothly in spite of my ineptitude (or lack of gear). I got three achievements in there, finished two quests, and ended up back in Zul'drak where I started. You know that fight with the guy on the dragon in Utgarde Pinnacle? Nerfed. I don't think that dragon breathed frost on the floor even once, and this was heroic! I'm all for making things accessible, but this was way too easy. This is where I have to say, why not just have people walk through an instance portal and give them a random iLevel 200 item, rare or epic, that is useful to the class. The instances I ran the last two days, with the exception of ToC, are close to doing that already.

I am mostly happy with what I have seen of 3.3. I haven't messed around with Delgada's shadow glyphs or spec yet, but she did pick up a mace that replaced both her damage and healing weapons. I enchanted it with Black Magic, so the mace has haste and now has a proc for more haste. I'll probably stick with the way she is for now, because if she starts running as many random instances as I know she plans, she'll be replacing gear pretty quickly.

I'm Not That Kind Of Hunter!

...Or, strange things players have done in my presence.

The day before yesterday, I had my bank alt, Minya, sorting through auctions when out of the blue someone asks me if I want to run Deadmines. Sure, I said, and was whisked to Moonbrook. The group consisted of Minya (23 hunter), a 17 hunter, a 18 druid, a 21 druid, and a 17 rogue. The rogue was only in it for the blade, and so was the hunter. I was just along for the ride, as were the druids. Before we settled on a full group, we had a few hiccups, but once we were all in, things fell pretty quickly, as we decided to let the pets tank. As we were rolling, and the hunter expressed that he needed that blade, I mentioned there was a better hunter drop at the end than the blade. As the rogue agreed (more so he would have no competition, I am sure), the hunter exclaimed, "I'm not that kind of hunter." To which I replied, "What kind of hunter are you?". Maybe at higher levels a hunter might decide to aim for more intellect than agility, or more attack power or hit, but the lower levels shunning an item with that much benefit seemed silly to me. Sadly, we did not get much further than Smite, as someone pulled a whole level of pirates down on our fragile heads, and heals could not keep up. The rogue said forget this and split. Then a druid disconnected. At that point, we had left a druid who professed to be new to the game (and was doing quite well), and the hunter, who had run out of arrows right before the goblin workshop. I told the druid to add me, and said I was sorry, but I had auctions to process, and I hearthed back to Stormwind.

Last night. after my cherry cheesecake was an uncomfortable memory (no, I shared, but something didn't agree with me last night), I logged in Minya again to sort through some auctions. I stood idly in the bank for a minute or so as I turned to see what the kids were doing on the Wii, and when I turned back, there was a human paladin standing back to back with Minya. I asked if he liked tall, dark, exotic women, and he replied, "YES!". I replied that I was likely too young for him, him being a 53 warrior to my lowly 24. Turns out his paladin was a leatherworker, and he wanted to help get Minya some better gear. Who am I to turn a guy down? He was very generous in gifting Minya some shoulders, boots, gloves, belt, and a cloak for later. He also crafted an armor kit for me, which I slapped right on my chest piece, since I figure I'll hold onto it for a while. We chatted, mostly one sided, as I didn't get the answer to my question, "Why did you choose leatherworking for your paladin?". But the guy was thrilled that he could help upgrade someone. It made his day. To me, that is just awesome. Here I thought I was just getting the benefit of someone hitting on a girl (he was trying to see Minya's face, because she had this fabulous hat on and it was in the way), and he was just one of those guys that really likes to help. I'm planning on sending him an anonymous donation of level appropriate leathers for him to work his leatherworking skill up, because I know he won't take any money.

People astound me with the decisions they make in this game. When given arrows, why does a hunter continue to melee? Why choose a profession that does close to nothing for your character? Why do people show up for a raid without food, potions, water, bandages, and elixirs or flasks?

The world may never know.

Additional Instances Cannot Be Launched...

This evening was an exercise in frustration for me and 4 others, as we beat ourselves silly on the invisible barrier barring us from entering Scholomance. We tried all sorts of things. We tried disbanding and regrouping with a different leader. We tried disbanding and trying to get one person in. We tried sitting around and randomly taking runs at the portal. Noone contacted a game master, that I am aware of. Finally, as they were deciding to run Ramparts instead, I burst through the impenetrable shield and stood looking at skeletal guards and fantastic candelabra. I was in Scholomance at last.

I love this instance. The look inside is my absolute favorite. The candles, the oriental rugs, the wrought iron gates, the stonework, the books...all the things I'd love to have surrounding me. The skeletons and creepy spellcasters can vacate my palace anytime.

Once inside, our group, consisting of a paladin, a druid, a death knight, and my priest, Halinka, proceeded to decimate the place. I got a little to close a few times (forgot how low level she is), and died. Thank goodness we had 2 other people who could resurrect. Having to wait over half an hour to get in was well worth it, as we were able to get down all the normal bosses. We didn't get all the way downstairs, and we didn't summon the messenger, and we didn't aggro the entire student body. But, our friend near the alchemy lab was about ready to visit a lady conjurer, it seems, because he had this in his pocket:


Isn't it lovely? I also got a new hat that doesn't quite match, so I won't bother you with the details. This robe should help Halinka grind out her Wintersaber Trainers reputation in style.

Back to the point of this post. I'm reading a thread on this issue. Blizzard says this is happening only during peak periods, and I have noticed this happening only in Azeroth. I have never had a problem getting into an Outland instance or a Northrend instance. Are they hosted on different servers? I don't know. The thread I am currently browsing through is pretty heated, with a few posting helpful information for the game masters to pass on, and many just getting angry and not helping to solve the situation. I posted our problem on page 79.

Have you had any problems getting into instances lately? Let Blizzard know, or just post your thoughts below!

The Thrill Of The Ding

I can't help it. I love leveling new characters. Hitting max level is almost a let down for me, because it means I can't watch the experience bar fill up. Sure, there is always reputation leveling, and I may try that soon on Delgada. But the thrill of the ding, the excitement of getting to spend a new talent point, the glee at putting on that piece of gear that was too high level to wear is what I love. I'm sorry I haven't been raiding, everyone. I would rather run Scarlet Monastery for the millionth time!

Who have I been working on? Halinka has just hit 46, and I got to run Deadmines with a few guild members on Minya today, which sparked a renewed interest in leveling her as well. She was on the brink of 15 when I logged her in today, and now she sits halfway between 19 and 20, newly kitted out in almost twink gear. Do I take her in to Warsong Gulch for the fun of it, or do I grab that last level so she can use her polearm? I couldn't decide, so I flew her to Exodar so she could take care of some auctions.

That's all I have for now. I just felt like explaining myself. I'm sure my guild knows. This probably only makes sense to me, but I just have to escape my escape sometimes.

Just One More Level?

Things on Smolderthorn have been quiet this past week. Too quiet, really, so after Delgada had finished her cooking and fishing dailies, and her mad rush for the Noble title, I logged in to my two alt mages (Esoterique and Gwenna) and hippity hopped their way to the polymorph:rabbit spell. That didn’t take too long, so I logged in to Minya, sorted out some auctions, hippity hopped her way to a head piece (those bunny ears…if there had been more time I would have taken every single one of my characters out just to get those silly things!). What kind of egg hunter was I? Well, by the time I decided to do this with a few alts, the insane camping of egg spawn points had been whittled down to a very few, so I just ran from egg to egg, getting most, and missing some. I didn’t even bother using the silly basket, as by running slower, I grabbed some spawns as people zoomed by me.

Noblegarden over, I logged in Halinka to do her Children’s week quests. When she finished hers, Esoterique set off to do her two sets of orphan quests. They were so much easier on a mage! It took as long on Halinka to do her one set as it took for Esoterique to do both sets. Done with those, it was a new day after all, so I logged in Delgada to do her daily cooking and fishing quests. While I was in Shattrath, she picked up her blood elf orphan, but didn’t do anything with her, because I had promised to do the achievements with the hubby. No chocolate cake recipe, no mini pet, no fishing pole. Delgada was only mildly amused with her new compass. Being a bit upset about it all, she stopped by the toy store and bought herself a few new toys to fiddle with.

Noone was on, hubby was off dropping 3 of the seven off at their mother’s house, so I was left to my own devices. I pulled out Halinka, hearthed to Menethil, and took a boat to the other continent. Theramore had many quests for her, and she dinged 37, then 38. She did all this even without Cartographer! I wonder if she would have hit another level still had she had a pointer to follow. Not long after the ding of 38, hubby got home, and it was TV dinner night, so I zapped a chicken teriyaki meal for him, pulled out a chicken parmesan for me, and sat down hoping for one more level. Then, having been in Ventrilo for all this time alone, it started getting more occupants.

One more level, please? Nope. Hubby logged in to start running some battlegrounds with the boys, and Delgada donned her newly crafted Frostsavage set and started enchanting some pieces with the materials she had. By the time that was done, they remembered to invite me to the group, and we tried out Strand of the Ancients. It was the first time I had been there, and I am still very confused. When I get home today I will have to read more about it. The battle lost, we hearthed to Dalaran, and hopped directly into Wintergrasp. I have only been to Wintergrasp to do Vault of Archavon and the fishing quests, so still confused, I picked up some anti-tank missiles and started blasting away. We lost. I’m sure it wasn’t my fault. I had such bad lag that I don’t think I got to do much of anything useful. I doubt I’ll do Wintergrasp again. My laptop can’t handle it.

After that, enough guild members had logged in, including hubby, to do the “Hail to the King, Baby!” achievement, so we picked up a lonely hunter from the lfg channel and finished it off. We wiped during the gauntlet because the silly healer didn’t get out of the dragon’s frosty breath (Delgada needs some practice mooovvviiinng). The hunter dinged 80, we finished the instance, achievement and all. Hubby and I headed out to the Argent Tournament grounds, and started out the quests there. My thought was that for the daily quest achievement, since it now only requires that you complete 5 daily quests, not the same one 5 days in a row, that there would be at least 5 daily quests out there that we could knock them all out at once. We finished one daily, then flew out to Grizzly Hills to kiss some frogs. That lady would not come out. I think we kissed at least a hundred frogs. By then it was late, so we flew to Ulduar and logged out, with the idea that we would gather stone and then go get wood in Crystalsong Forest to finish dailies 3 and 4, and that would leave one last daily, which would be the scourge killing. Busy day ahead of me when I get home, as we had also planned on trying to run Naxxramas (10) if we had the people to do it tonight (which is when I will be posting this!).

I am just slightly disappointed at the tease of having quests for the Oracles during Children’s week, and not actually getting them. Was I hearing things, or assuming things? I wanted a baby goreloc!

I Dusted Off My Tank Yesterday...

...and it was a horrible disaster! A friend needed a run through of Azjol-Nerub for his new death knight and his son's moonkin, and I was faced with the decision to either overpower the instance with heals and pug a tank, or to try and tank and pug a healer. In hindsight, the first option would have probably been best, but I decided to dust off Shawndra and put her into the fray. She was specialized well, in the protection tree as she should be, and she had all her Karazhan gear, with the new addition of some plate shoulders. Her glyphs had not been changed out for leveling, as she still had glyph of Revenge, Thunderclap, and a couple other tank specific glyphs. We grabbed my hubby's death knight to round out the party, as there were no healers available, and pugged a healer.

Right from pull one I had trouble gaining rage. I chalked it up to my not knowing how to play a warrior, having been so deeply involved with my priestess. So, I shrugged of having lost aggro to the death knights, and pulled again. My rage starvation continued. I apologized, got to the first boss, and pulled again, hitting my rage generation button and prayed as I started Thunderclapping and using my new AoE stun Shockwave to help the healer keep me up more easily, and hoping it would help to gain on aggro generation. A little better, but I had still very little control over the mobs. But I had more rage! Got to the boss, used devastate, heroic strike, shockwave/thunderclap, and sprinkled in taunts to try and keep him on me. I think I remember dying just before the boss went down. I was resurrected, and we skipped down to the next boss' lair. Pull number one? Wipe! I forgot to mention we had wiped at least once on the way to boss number one, and once pulling the mobs directly in front of same boss. 3 wipes in, our priest says, "You guys are beyond bad." and leaves group. I had disclaimed myself before the run, and apologized after he hearthed out, thanking him for sticking it out. Seems part of my rage starvation was directly the cause of having been bubbled. I didn't say anything to him about that, but started figuring out how to continue this run so my friend could get what he needed. End solution? Pull out the overpowered healer and bring in an overpowered death knight to tank. Instance completed shortly after, no more wipes.

So, where did I go wrong? My hit rating is abysmal. This could have been a problem. I have no doubt that that was a big part of it. No recent practice, and no careful study of other warrior tanking blogs. I need to know what attacks to use, in what order, in different situations. guess I'll be looking over some tanking blogs! And, I need an overpowered healer to back me up while I tank guild runs until I figure out this tanking thing again.

Will I pack Shawndra away in mothballs again? Maybe not, but she definitely isn't my top priority. If you have any suggestions, places to go, stuff to try, alluring tanking items to equip...

Please leave a comment after the article!

Some Resolutions For The New Year

It's time to resolve to do, and not do.

Before I get into what mine are, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and remind you to find a designated driver and chain them to your hip tonight! Have fun out there, but not so much that you forget to act responsibly.

Now, my resolutions are few. I have my one eighty. I am happy with her.

Number 1- Take time off for a walk or to play Wii fit with the kids at least 4 times a week. For some reason they really like to do the jogging game with me. Weird kids...

Number 2- Pug more often. I need to develop a thicker skin. Most of my guild before this expansion hit had pugged places in many raids. My skills and gear when they started this were comparable. Priest For Hire. Yup, that's gonna be me!

Number 3- Blog more often. I have noticed on a good week I may post 3 times. There are many weeks I don't post at all. Perhaps I can tie this one in with number one, and dictate my post to my mp3 player as I jog. In between huffs and puffs.

Number 4- Lure the hubby back into game with whatever I can, and find a way to keep him playing with me. Anyone got any suggestions?

Number 5- Cook dinner more often. I think I'll aim for 4 times a week, with at least once on the weekend. Tuesday and Thursday nights are leftover nights, for obvious reasons (are they obvious? Tuesday is reset day, and Thursday is day 2 of raiding. for some reason our guild had a hard time getting Wednesdays going).

That's it. Too many and I feel bad that I didn't accomplish all of them. Keep it short and simple, and you're more likely to succeed!

Happy New Year everyone!

Something old, and something new...

I'll start with the new first. A few of my guild mates wanted to run heroics last night and couldn't find a healer, so I offered myself up. I had not run a heroic, so I figured they'd be nice and start with something easy. Well, they decided to do the daily regular and heroic dungeons, both of which were Halls of Lightning. Never having been inside, I figured, how bad could this be? I had the flight point, courtesy of a run through that other dungeon over there (something about stone with an event featuring one of the Alliance's favorite bumbling explorers). So I grabbed some candles and accepted a summon. The first bit was ok. I only killed them all once in the area with the forges as they ran through. For some reason, I lived, revived them all, and we trudged on. Well, we got to the end, and we met Loken. By then we had wiped completely maybe twice, and I'm willing to be it was the healer's fault (snicker) both times. I was given some pretty simple instructions. Fight close, and when I say run, run straight away on this line of lightning in the floor. Well, let's just end this saying the healer is great if she can stand still...They decided when things started respawning to call it and run Naxxramas instead. I, feeling like a shmuck, stayed out. If I can't handle a silly heroic, why should I go to Naxx?

As I was moping in the Crystalsong forest picking the carrots for my stew and hoping the stag and wolves out there would supply my last piece of chilled meat, someone asked if I would heal a heroic. I pleaded, " I just healed my first heroic and found I suck @.&. Please allow me more practice on my guildies, as I hate being a bad pug." They replied favorably, so I continued looking for one piece of chilled meat. None turning up, I decided my next bet would be to respec. I batted my eyelashes across the desktop at my hubby, and begged 100 gold for respec and a couple pieces of gear off him, and the set to fixing my problems. I hadn't specced into Circle of Healing, why I can't remember, so I did that, still keeping my Divine Spirit buff. As I was respeccing, someone whispered, "Heal Kara 100g" at the same time people were breaking off from a particularly bad run on Naxxramas. I had already promised to help my hubby with the Greench quest, so I excused myself from subbing in to help him. We finished up, and I traveled back to Undercity. As I landed I got another whisper, "Heal Kara, 150g". Alright, it couldn't take that long, so I said invite me.

Well, we had in our numbers a couple of relatively new 70's, some in their early and mid 70's and 3 80's. The trash went down quickly, and so did Attumen. Every encounter was a run in sloppily and kill them all sort of thing. Shackle? Forget about it..I'm a death knight and I'm gonna lay my aoe circle on top of your shackle. Heal through it, %*#@^! Then it was Maiden. I wasn't able to keep the tank up, and then after the tank went down they moved her off the platform, causing all sorts of line of sight problems for me. Most everyone died, but so did she, so revives all around and on to the opera. Wizard of Oz...no fear (what? 2 priests and a hunter are fear enough!)..it was a mess but it was probably the one we died the least on. up the steps and through the trash like a steamroller, we met up with the Curator. Again, tank down, messy as hell, did I mention that one of the group had been disconnected since before Moroes? Eh, I handed over the shards I had made, and maybe that was the reason the mage disconnected and never "really" came back. I had been toying with the notion most of the time. When someone thinks they have to tell me to heal them or buff them or resurrect them, it really irks me. I got on my soapbox, and said,"Please allow me to anticipate your needs. I know my job well." Well, that got completely ignored, as I was still getting "Healz plx" and "Buff me" and so I countered with a "I have an order to things. Dead healers get first priority, then healing, then buffing." Again, ignored, asI was still getting the same requests from the same one person. SO I responded with, "Bite Me", and stated that "If you ask for me to heal you again, I'm leaving". Which was promptly responded to by one of the other 80's by, "Chill out, let's keep this fun, we're halfway there, noone needs to leave." I reminded the raid that I, at 99/100 exalted with the Violet Eye, did not need this run. So, I stuck it out, finished Illhoof, finished Shade, killed Llane with my pawn, and proceeded on to Prince. Now, I asked if anyone needed to know the fight, and tried to explain it. They ignored it, discussing loot options instead. They wiped. I dusted off my robe, rezzed everyone, and the fight was explained again. They wiped again. So I resorted to something I have NEVER done. I feigned a disconnect. Any of you from my server reading this that was with me on that run, I apologize, but I cannot abide by groups that will not listen to boss fights and follow the rules. There are some fights that you cannot steamroll through.

So there you have it. I kept no shards, got no loot except enough cloth for one netherweave bag out of the deal, and my gold count went from zero to about 43 (after numerous repairs). I'll consider that payment in full.

Maybe someone will ask me to heal Serpentshrine next. I haven't been there yet...