Playing with kids

And I am not referring to the 13 year olds out there. No I am talking about having two small children at home. My oldest are three years and the youngest almost seven months.

This means some troubles. First the ability to show up on time. In my old guild everyone wanted to raid at seven. Which is impossible for me. My oldest goes to bed at about that time and since I am usually the one tucking him in - my wife attends the small one att the same time - I can never be online at that time.

Some people (read older ones with kids) are very good about this. But the younger crowd don't understand at all. Not much to do about. I try to only join raids starting at eight or later. But this is still hard to meet from time to time. Getting a three year old to sleep isn't anything like exact science. Takes from 10 min to one and a half hour.

Then we have the 'waking up screaming' issue. Happens from time to time. Three year olds are just starting to have nightmares. Last time it was: 'Daddy it is a bird in my bed'. Turned out to be one of his cuddly animals. Apparently he imagines pigs lurking in his room also. God am I glad I have been very strict about not having him look while I play if there are a fight... Some vendoring, horse riding and gryphon flying we have done together. But no fighting.

But I don’t think the kids are the biggest obstacle when family interferes with gaming. Nope it is 'aggro from the wife-mob'. =D

But that will be another post...

The full run guide

I went into Kara last Friday with my new guild. I knew from before that they had downed Prince. And without too much of an effort apparently.

On my previous attempts I had only come to Moroes, even wipes on Attumen had stopped my progress before.

This time it was different.

To make a long story short. We took down Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Big Bad Wolf, Curator and Shade of Aran. This was done in under 5 hours. I was mightily impressed.

I tanked up to maiden then the original MT took over, since I didn't have the gear to make it. No plate drops at all though. But I got to see a lot of the place.

Mostly they are doing the instance in 2 days. First day up to Curator and maybe some more. Second day Prince. My plan is to play as much as possible on day one with them to get gear to progress up to tanking the rest also.

Big problem this time was that I felt like extra luggage, since I wasn't tanking - and we all know the amount of damage a protection warrior can make while dps'ing... =(

High velocity guild

I quit my old guild. For a little while I felt a bit bad since I stirred up quite a mess with my Wednesday raid, as seen in previous posts.

The thing that actually made me change guild was the fact that my two IRL friends in the old guild already had quit to join a small guild made up from their IRL co-workers. First I felt a bit mixed up about joining them. I want to play with them, but I know that this new guild is as far from RP as possible, and I am on a RP-PvP server.

Well, I joined anyway. 20 minutes after joining I was invited to heroic Underbog. In my old guild getting a heroic team going was hard work. Here it just happens all the time. We went in. I knew that the new guild was composed of mainly former hard core raiders, but I have never seen as many epics in one group before. Luckily the healer was a paladin - since keeping aggro is the hardest part in a heroic in my opinion.

Now on voice chat the first comment I got was: "Nice - a good old protection warrior in the guild!". I probably can't explain how good that felt. I was appreciated again! I told them I had only done a couple of heroics before so they should bear with me if I failed.

Well I didn't.

We went ahead, all was good. Some ridiculous wipe on a trash pull that all just laughed about. Then we met the two guards before Hungrafen. They are tough. No cc works and tanking them both spells disaster. So kiting is the only other option. My IRL friend, a frost mage, was set up for the job. His first big time kiting too.

The first guard went down easily. Then the other came running. He had made a cpl of growths and was HUGE! He two shotted me and the killed the raid. Well well. Rezz and repeat. Now he was easy as pie.

Tanking Hungrafen is a bit hard since its all about walking backwards, generating aggro and to look out for the enormous amount of mushrooms growing al over. But all went fine. Afterwards my fellow guildies said that they could go all out with no problem in this fight. That warmed a warrior heart. Any dps going all out and not drawing aggro is a compliment to the tank. And when it is in a fight where you need to navigate around a lot all the time it's a big compliment.

Rest of the instance was easy mode. The mantas are the only hard part since they are un cc'able and come in packs of 3. But I had gotten the hang of it by then and kept up easily.

Black stalker is actually a laugh... He spawns adds in heroic. But we killed him so fast they came at the moment he died.

I got an extra Primal Nether towards my Blazeguard (only 4 more needed) and the Doomplate shoulders. Real nice - but more of a 2h-er armour. Well I will keep em in the bank for now...

Oh I almost forgot. My IRL friend the mage told me that the other in the group had asked him afterwards why I wasn’t allowed to tank in Kara since I did such a solid job. I really like my new guild :)

The guild drama

Haven't written in a while due to the fact that we have had some high grade drama in our guild. As I have written before we have this core raid that should be the regular crew going into Karazhan. The A-team if you like.

Since many didn't get spots in the A-team me and two others started a Wednesday raid.

But now the core raid wants to forbid the Wednesday raid to go, because if someone might get locked to Karazhan and then needed in case of emergency in the Core raid. That would be bad.

This means they want the rest of the guild on standby just in case...

Of course this have made us quite angry. We can't come and we aren't allowed to do anything else.

Big drama is under way. Raid leader is resigning because members don't appreciate him enough and blah blah blah.

The most interesting thing is that he has confessed that the core raid ain't made up from the most suitable to the task - but from senior members because they deserve to go.

This is actually quite funny. Guild management is a bit like "Management for dummies".

Attumen aint my bitch

Unfortunately I must say - he really isn't.

We went Karazhan again yesterday with the motley crew we have. Half from our guild and half from an other guild.

This means zero preparations. No communication - since downloading Ventrillo seems like an insurmountable obstacle for some.

We have this sign up system on the site. First come first serve. Three people had signed when the raid was due to start. I really don't get it.

Well - anyhow. We vent in and was one tank short. So after a bit of asking around we got an PvP specced warrior as OT. I thought that it wouldn’t pose a problem since they can do nice dps and therefore good aggro even when rage starved.

Right after entry we made our first mistake. While waiting for OT we started to clear horses - slowly. Since they are on a timer we managed to pull the horses on the opposite side of the plank at the same time as we pulled Midnight. Raid vs. Attumen: 0-1.

We got going again - starting to clear out the trash quickly. A bit too quickly. Some dps classes couldn't really handle aggro management. A mage died three times on the way. I usually don’t care when they do kill themselves, but we was a bit low on morale and this didn't improve it.

Well, at Midnight the OT pulled Midnight and started tanking. I took care of Attumen. BUT - our aggro happy dps constantly pulled aggro from the OT. Since OT don’t have that much threat moves it is understandable. But it was a constant thing. We wiped. Raid vs. Attumen: 0-2.

We made an other try. Cautioning the raid. Same thing happened, Raid vs. Attumen: 0-3.

One more go folks! Run in before respawns. And now I tank Midnight and OT tank Attumen. OT didn't manage to get an hold on Attumen - he ran rampage and wiped raid. Raid vs. Attumen: 0-4.

Four wipes on a single boss was enough, especially since we had respawns.

We went and killed the beasts. To get some nice stuff at least. We killed, and killed and killed till we were at the end of that part of the castle. Not a single boss spawned. I have no clue why. They shall spawn after a certain number of beast kills - but no...

That was not the best night for the raid and certainly a downer. I hope this wont get it even harder to get some raiders for next time.

My favourite foe

For some strange reason I don't like murlocs or naga. Not that they are particularly difficult but they just dont feel good to fight with. I really can't describe it better but they aren't real foes in my eyes. Sure they hit hard and can wipe your raid but...

It might have something to do with the instances they inhabit. Coilfang reservoir is a bog. After a hard night in an instance you just don't feel good when saying: "I have been in a bog all night killing fish people and mermaids with tridents." I got this feeling already in Black Fathoms Deep. Damp and boring.

Orcs on the other hand. Or Dark iron dwarves in Black Rock Depth!!! That is what I want a dungeon to look like! Lava pouring from the walls while walking around in a hell version of Moria. I really loved that place. When I went to Outland and landed inside Hellfire citadel i got happy right away. Cool looking orcs in awesome armor, big demons and a run down citadel. My type of place all over.

Then we have this middle ground: trolls in a jungle. Me don't like...
They are skinny, have bad posture and all to much vegetables all around. This is a bad sign for the coming Zul'Aman (if I ever get there).

Am I the only one feeling like this? Do you have some place that you like more than the rest for aesthetic reasons?