Alterior Motives

One of our friends, our primary raiding healer, had been thinking about leaving the guild for awhile and made good on his decision last night. That was sad but I understood his reasoning – he’s bored and wants a new challenge.

With our raiding schedule sort of hit or miss and not a lot of interest from the growing guild population, I get that completely. Maybe because it’s summer, but I think mostly it’s because there’s going to be months of waiting now until Cataclysm comes out. People know that much better gear is going to suddenly become available and make what we have now obsolete. And doing the same thing over and over is, well, boring. We’re not ‘progressing’ on our progression raids, and often it’s because people don’t show up consistently. Lack of interest is a big culprit right now.

My husband and I were leveling our hunter/warlock duo and that was fun – but since we hit 80 a couple of weeks ago, mostly we’ve done randoms, a little questing, and a few older-content runs with the guild. My ICC experience with my hunter last night was great and I want more.

I’m considering a few things to make it less boring for me.

• Start using my hunter as my main raider, rather than my fury warrior (perhaps he needs a break).
• Find another guild for my hunter so she’ll get to raid.
• Level our low-20’s alts.
• Try PVP.

Not so keen on the PVP idea, but maybe…

Last night my newly-turned-80 hunter took her first steps into ICC to do the Marrowgar weekly. As a long-time raider (fury warrior), my familiarity with those first encounters served me well – and thankfully I got in an excellent pug with 4 members of one guild and the rest from 6 others.

I was worried that my low gearscore (3400) might make things hard for the group, but that wasn’t the case at all. The others ranged from 3800 to 5800, mostly in the 4000’s. I chatted with the leader before being invited and he wasn’t concerned – it was a fun run for the weekly, not a serious thing.

I was happy that I did really, really well, mainly because everyone knew what they were doing. I averaged over 3100 dps (hey – I’m a new 80 and poorly geared) and hit 4000 on one pull. I played very competently, not aggroing and keeping my pet under control, and it was fun to see the fights from a distance rather than standing right on top of the tank targets.

I got the Linked Scourge Vertebrae belt, a huge upgrade for me, and I had a really interesting and challenging time – which is more than I can say for my main, who could do it with one furry tauren arm tied behind his back. I’d like to start raiding with my hunter on a regular basis.

This might not be news to anyone but me…

You can go to your toon at http://www.wowarmory.com, click on the Calendar tab and login, and see the live raiding calendar with your invites. You can sign up for raids here just like normal and the changes take place immediately in-game.

This might be helpful for raiders stuck at <shudder> work all day.

I was having a chat with our raidleader tonight after a fourth wipe on Deathwhisper (ranged DPS was not having a good night).  He told me ‘you’re much more raid-savvy than when you started raiding under me. You’re my most improved player.’

That was so sweet! It made my 700-lb cow all tingly inside.

My hunter Ruad hit 70 last night. Now we’ve arrived at Quel’Danas for reputation runs (for jewelcrafting recipes mostly). Looking forward to seeing something different for a while!

I’m closing in on 375 with jewelcrafting. It’s been a long slog.

This week we had two fun guild events – despite the loss of 22 members last week including several raid leaders. Apparently the rest of us are going to survive without them. Tired of guild drama like everyone else.

Tuesday we did OS with 7 guildies and got the achievement for that. Fast and fun run. That used to be so hard…

Tonight we returned to Ulduar – for the first time since the big patch, where two of our raid leaders who left said that they would ‘never go back’ because they’d finished it already. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the rest of the guild had never cleared Ulduar on 10-man and still wanted to, we were told it wasn’t going to happen.

Anyway…

Excellent time tonight – we cleared Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT, Ignis and Kologarn; not bad considering 2-3 of us had never seen a couple of the fights. And all of us got the Quick Shave achievement for Razorscale, a first for the guild.

Looking forward to continuing our Ulduar run on Saturday. I miss Hodir, one of my favorite fights.

Found a nice guide to setting up PowerAuras for various buffs, etc. used by Survival hunters. I set up one for Lock and Load in about five minutes (although I changed it around a bit).

Last night in ICC I got a nice surprise from Deathwhisper (our first guild downing) – a second Citadel Enforcer’s Claymore! This is the first time since I hit 80 that I’ve had a matched pair of 2H weapons.

I look like a very dangerous and well-lit butterfly from the back… And with the Helmet of Thunderous Rampage my crit is now 40.05% unbuffed.

Tonight we did the gunship battle – first time for half of us – in two takes. That was really fun, the rogue and I got to be gunners.

Standing ready for the third attempt at Saurfang right now.

What an awesome time we had last night.

A week before Christmas our guild leaders announced there would be a hiatus on raiding until Jan. 3. Many of us weren’t very happy with that, but now I think that was a good idea.

We were flailing in TOC and at Marrowgar, very badly. Ulduar was at a standstill (we’ve never finished it) and I think a lot of raiders needed a break.

During the ‘downtime’ my husband and I and often several other guildies concentrated on random heroics, ICC dailies, and the weekly. I also worked on upping my gold; I’d really like to be able to ride the drake I got about a month ago.

My gear score was about 4350 then. Last night when we met to start TOC, it was 4760.

What a huge difference that made, when everyone was so much better geared and relaxed. First we did TOC 10-man heroic – and we did all of it. That was the first time I’d seen the last 3 fights (that was true for about half the group). We one-shotted them all and most of us got the Call of the Crusade achievement.

Then (after a quick break) we headed to ICC to try Marrowgar again. The first time we went in there we had a horrible problem with the trash; the guild had only downed Marrowgar once.

Last night – a totally different story. We blew through the trash, no wipes or even more than 1-2 deaths. And then one-shotted Marrowgar.

I got this pretty new sword from him, a nice upgrade from the mace I won just two days ago. Berserking gets expensive when it’s applied twice in one week.

Oh, and I got the first ring from the Ashen Verdict. What a fun night – and tonight we’re scheduled to start on Lady Deathwhisper. Looking forward to it.

One of our guildmates had his appendix out – he’s been off for 3 days and we were wondering what happened to him.

He just logged on and is going with us to do one random heroic. Now that’s dedication.