Gitr Knows WoW

I hit 43 some time Saturday around lunch, I guess. I was invited into a like-level run with an all in-house group to Uldaman. It was my second time in there, so it wasn’t completely new, but we had some quests and no healer. Right. 5 toons, no healer.

The group consisted of me on the verge of 43; Inebriate, 39 mage; Homerjay, 47 warlock; Foashin, 44 mage; and Whitekalen, 46 warrior. It was touch and go as we went on and faced more and more difficult mobs, but it was really our fault, and likely mine, being the n00best of the group. The rest of them all have 60s, or even multiple 60s and run all the time. Now their alts are actually high enough to fun with me and help me out.

The problem that around that I KNOW was my fault was quite simple and easily remedied. I saw that White often looked like she was going to shoot her crossbow to pull, but didn’t. She must have been walking around with it pulled out from shooting a runner or something. Well, one time we were in a room with a bunch of mid-40 elites and she pulled 3-4 from the left and I pulled 4 from the right. I was the only to die, but that was fitting. I have no idea how everyone else survived, but that was none of my concern.

Just before that, I’d experienced my first epic drop ever. BoE to boot, too. Gloves of Holy Might dropped from a miner boss near the back door to Uldaman. He was in a room with an Archaeologist, Geologist, and 2 body guards that I’m not sure what they were. We took the last 3 down in good form in under a minute to our great gladness of his loot. We all passed to do a greed roll. Because my memory is so bad, I can’t remember exactly why, but White got them and gave them to me to sell on AH. When I went to put them up, there were 2 already up. One was for 150g and the other 100g. I told ‘Neb’s alt, Intoxicated, to grab them up so I had a chance to sell the ones we got and put them up for 2g higher than mine. We are still waiting for them to sell.

I have started up my AH business and am making out quite well. I started with 12g of my own and worked up to 30-something and bought all I could and posted them. Things were going along nicely and noticed how nice things could be “if only” I could buy just this one thing that I saw. I asked a guildie for a 65g starting capital loan due Saturday. They agreed to that. My guess is that they will have their return today or tomorrow after the patch (please let it be tomorrow). I have great plans for the money, to which my guild will get great honor, much in the same way if I ever get large sums of money. 🙂 I will prove to be an excellent steward of what I am given and bring in great returns on investment.

Sorry for the lack of screenshots today. The runs were so busy and cramped that a good shot never really popped up when I was thinking, “blog.” I am going to ask around, but if you read this and have a solution, please post a comment. Is there a mod or other program for free that lets you store screenshots sequentially? I really hate ALT-Tabbing to Photoshop to paste a shot before continuing on with gameplay. Some of your blogs have so many shots, I can’t imagine that you all take that many breaks during raids to dump the clipboard to be able to take another shot. If that is the case, gratz, because I can’t do it. Heheh.

New topic: Can I draw more aggro right here, right now by putting on a shield and getting in defensive stance without a respec? With a respec? My goal in running instances is obviously to take as much damage as I can away from everyone else. My method for that has been to do so much damage that I piss everything off into wanting my head on a platter. I currently own the [Collection Plate] have had no interest in getting anything better until I need to respec or use it in Fury. This isn’t really a “I think you should do this” topic, but a hard fact scientific inquiry about aggro. Are there formulas out there for calculating how much aggro I can get and hold?

As a level 42, I’m not yet to the point that I’m taking on anything that hits for more than 300-500 in a group with at least one healer. Therefore I’m never really in any *real* danger unless my support dies if they draw aggro from healing too much.

I spend the vast majority of my time soloing, so I’ve built up a fierce Fury build with 196 STR for damage increase to kill things before they kill me. I have no interest out there soloing in lasting out a fight.

I heard from a fellow guildie that I needed to slow down in Uldaman tonight. It came in a whisper from someone who wasn’t in my party. I asked how he knew.

“I heard it on TeamSpeak. You’re really going at it, they say.”

Yeah I was. I dealt 41% of the damage and took 50% in a 5-man with a 37 mage, 38 druid, 36 warlock, and a 38 rogue. I was going a bit fast, but then again, I could afford to from time to time. I had a good pace with other groups, but not this one. It just didn’t feel right. I don’t know if it was because it was a new instance for me, or….. SHE was in it.

Yes. Miss Anti-gun. It was brought to my attention by a co-worker that I failed to mention that she is a fellow guildie. Well, this time she WAS the party leader, so I already knew no guns. That is probably the reason, because I am always using my gun when I can’t charge. We made it quite a ways in. I’d have to look at a map, but we beat the tall statue woman that looks like the princess in Arathi Highlands and then proceeded to kill 2 more big areas that were pulling tons of mobs linked together. First, a hall with about 7 scorpions, then 8 miners, and then a room with 8-10 miners. We wiped in the room trying to proceed out from there and called it a night. Why? Because it was 10PM and our leader has a bedtime. That’s right. Miss Anti-gun is still a kid. At one point I asked if I could shoot to pull and she said I’d have to wait until she ran into a corner and hid.

Enough about her. I got massive xp for not really doing anything tonight. I ran with Tox’s alt, Inebriate again. In STV we tried quest after quest and got decent xp all the way. I had a Singing Blue Crystal quest. Too bad it wasn’t ever the one ‘Neb had. 🙂 We went from place to place without them. Then, when we did start, the poor guy’s ag radius was too big. We wiped twice and eventually let the healer rez us to do the Uldaman run. I really enjoy running with Tox/Neb because he understands the game and the tactics involved. Never really getting mad when I’m stupid helps my training a lot, so I don’t get frustrated.

/*props to Tox

The AH had me drooling right before logging off. For the first time since I hit 40, I saw the legs I’ve wanted for more than a month. One day at work, we were looking to see how long it was going to be before I could get leggings better than my mail legs with +5 defense and 391 armor, which for some reason are not showing up on rpgoutfitter.com now. Anyway, we found them in [Golem Shard Leggings] at level 41. Very nice. I want them, I want them. Time to get l337 skillz in herbalism now to make extra money. One day with a mount should do it.

I got my skinning up another 2 points last night, up to 294 now. Tox is going to take me bear or bat hunting for 55s to finish off my skinning and get his reputation up.

Good night, and thanks for reading.

I have a slight dilemma with this blog: do I include my life or keep it completely pertaining to WoW and Gitr as if I don’t exist?

I’d really like to know what my readers want because you are the ones that read ir, or will stop reading it if the content is out of the expected mainstream for ‘Gitr’s WoW Blog.”

Right now, my life is slightly more interesting than Gitr’s because my life is so interesting that I haven’t had enough time to play.

For an example of what I would include if it’s an all-inclusive blog, see my previous post. I also noticed a posting on the bulletin board at work this week about an internal position for the IS department, which includes a promotion. I also had an interesting baby-sitting experience last night when I fell asleep and the kids stayed up too late watching TV, and it wasn’t even 9pm yet.

If those are too mundane or real-life, that’s cool. I’ll just start up a blog on me an link them.

Have a good one, and looking forward to tons of feedback. Lots and lots of feedback. Give me so much feedback, it chokes the server.

By the way, Heh, I’m looking into getting a domain and putting up an improved blog with “real” blogging tools. More feedback = more incentive to get going.

It was a very filled day yesterday. Notice that it was not a “fun-filled” day. Work was brutal by starting out twiddling my thumbs. I like days like that.

*birds chirping* (somewhere, but certainly not inside)*people having tea with their friends* (again, not here, but somewhere fun)

BAAAMMM!!!!
/*knock knock”We have a rush that needs to go out by tomorrow.”
“OK, no problem.”
“Just fix the text. We’re waiting on the drawings for the documents.”
“When is the meeting?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“Fine. I’ll get started.”

*An hour passes

BAAAMMM!!!!
/*ring ring”You know that document that we have until the 14th to finish? The guy in charge is leaving tomorrow for the rest of the year. We need it through processing by tomorrow morning.”
/*e-mail pops up”The images are being worked on by so-and-so and you need to get with them to put the new drawings in.”
I started putting in the drawings and realized that only one set was done for 6 docs!!

That is how my day started out. Not cool.

I got one done by 4:30 and left because the drawings STILL weren’t done. I met my girlfriend at Panera to help her with a project due today. Before she got there, I decided to download the patch. Huh-uh. The firewall was keeping BlizzardDownloader from working.

When she got off work and we ate, we realized how bad her professor’s instructions were. I had no idea what was going on because I’m not taking the class, she is. So after 90 minutes we go to her house to look at the book. Nothing helpful. So we did what all great college students do: B.S. Lots of it. It’s kind of hard when it’s “I want to see this data and your analysis of it,” but I think we managed wonderfully. I left at 9:45 after falling asleep as she was typing, but not before she walked on my back to crack the heck out of it from my miserable day. At least I got to spend 4 hours with her, even if the project was ick.

I was passing out on the way home, I was so tired, but I wanted to check my mail when I logged in. I fell asleep while the patch downloaded.

In an effort to level, I shrugged everyone off and went to Badlands to grind 38-41s and farm [Heavy Leather] for a guildie’s reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood. At one point, I took on 4 lvl 41s that kept coming before I got a chance to heal or bandage up. I had to pop a potion and eventually trip Retaliation, but that was some nice burst rest xp. I ran through my rest in about 30 minutes at a rate of 35,000 xp/hr. I was supposed to level at 11:45, until I realized that was not going to happen without rest xp. I decided to look for the quest grinding stuff in my log in the area. One of them was [Small Stone Shard] drops from some rock elementals just next to where I was. Unlike the ones that I needed help with last week, these guys were 38s, and I was taking them on 2-3 at a time. I got my 10 shards and turned it in with 900 xp to go for level 42. It took 3 wolves and a big cat to ding, hearth, IF AH, SW trainer, and log.

In the AH, I saw 2 one-hand [Mug O’ Hurt] maces that I really wanted for their dps and speed alone. To dual-wield those would have been funny awesome. Too bad they didn’t have any STR or AP stats.

It was now 12:45 and WAAAYYYY past my bedtime, but at least I was a 42 and got to use a talent point and train up some more.

More text to come later from work. Pics from home computer. A teaser, though: did you know that I can swim while a corpse? I can also die very fast while on Thottbot when I land in Redridge.

Alrighty, then. Back to the daily grind of the real world. This was quite the weekend that included two more runs of SM and about 5 hours of Twisting Nether, a Deadmines run with my rogue, and having a blast helping a guildie’s low-level alt smash through Loch Modan’s elite quests faster than I ever thought I could kill level 20 elites.

From the beginning: Friday night. The evening began with a great Lightning hockey game against Chicago with a nearly full-house. I’ll summarize by saying: overtime, shootout, Lightning win. Great experience. I came home and logged in Gitr to run to Desolace so I could get the SM quests that Tox told me about. I got about half-way there and got invited to SM anyway. Sure! I’ll go regardless of quests in my log. We had me, a 26 warlock, 41 hunter, 35 hunter, and a 45 pally. Totally not naming names, but what do you think the strategy should be in SM with 2 hunters, a tank, a healing/tank, and a utility? Hmmm. mmmhumm.. right. That’s what I think: hunters with their long range should pull the mobs by 1s, 2s, or 3s, and let me tank them while the pets and other go freaky on them. What usually happens is that I use my gun and pull around corners into established safe areas to finish off small clumps. So that’s what I was doing, but that’s not the beginning of the story.

Sit down and pull up a better chair. This is a great debate. (*Ayae and Sequoia especially) On the way to SM from Southshore, I had to clear a path at one point and used my gun. I see in chat, “I hate guns.” Fine. I can understand that, however, this is a game with guns. I kept silent, even as another said, “I don’t even have one. I use a bow.” Then we get in there, although separated at the time, and I went in the wrong door because I couldn’t see which one they went in. By the time I got into the right instance the whole hall, and I mean the WHOLE hall is at the beginning end attacking the group. Good Golly Molly! Challenging Shout, Thundering Clap!!! It took about 90 seconds after I got there, but we didn’t wipe. I held my tongue and didn’t chew out the one that pulled an ENTIRE hall and proceeded down the hall to shoot and pull a single target. “I hate guns,” again.
Kill. Bang!
“Stop using the gun.”
“??”
Group leader (pally), “I think you should stop using the gun.”
“Yeah, right. That’s good tactics.” I used it two more times in the courtyard before the hound master.
“STOP using the @##$@$ gun!!!” came the desperate cry.
“Gitr, please stop using the gun. Apparently they have a real problem with guns.”
We went back and forth for a couple of minutes, but in the interests of the guild and not getting kicked from the group, I complied. However the new tactic became pulling with pets, and worse yet, bodies into groups of mobs. It got messy. Screw that, if we’re pulling with bodies, it’s going to be mine so I don’t have to rip aggro off our healer and squishy. I started charging and killing as fast as I could. I didn’t care if the warlock didn’t have any mana, the anti-gun whatever. I had absolutely no sympathy or compassion over the issue at this point, because it should have been disclosed before the instance. In the last room before Doan, I didn’t use any special moves and charged in with full 100 rage. We dropped him in about 12 seconds and called it a night after doling out the drops.

So, my debate is: In an open community, should one person have the right to completly alter the tactics or style of an entire group because of a personal issue? If you have a problems with guns, are you going to play Quake or Doom? Probably not in this person’s case. In hindsight, and removed from the present situation of fighting, I can come to the understanding of one thing: if you were a victim of a violent crime or injurious accident involving a gun, I can understand the sound sending chills up your spine EVERY time you hear it. I can have compassion about that. But what are you doing playing a game with guns? Does she go around asking every hunter out there to use their axe or sword?

Enough with the debate and ranting.

I like Twisting Nether. I hate gankers. I’d like to gank gankers, but that is impossible. Too bad. I spent a good 4-5 hours as Little Gitr trying to level him for more skills and get some money flowing in the very poor economy on that server. I have 8 slot bags and started the day with 75s. I ended as a 15.5 with the same bags and 1g 64s. The AH has almost nothing. If you want something, it’s got to drop. I completed about 15 quests, 5 in Redridge amidst getting ganked just for being me. At least I was never far from the cemetary.

I used all of his rest want to keep leveling him so he can run with The Forge, our military patrol against lewd horde creeps. Have fun, and keep gaming.