Casual Raid Leader

I had an old friend of mine stop by last night to chat.  We’ve played together since he was just a new player back in the Burning Crusade days.  He did the traditional WoW route.  He started as a hunter because EVERYONE told him to play one.  Its simple they said.. and you know what?  He got pretty damned good at it, but it wasn’t quite fulfilling for him.  Ok that’s a lie.  Due to financial difficulties at the time that Wrath came out, he just couldn’t afford a copy.  So he did what any redblooded casual WoW player would do.  He started an alt.

Since that time, the Alt became the Main as far as raiding is concerned.  He’s learned by trial and fire how to tank.  He’s discovered that he really likes it.  I mean hell…. who wouldn’t like getting their face beat in day after day. 

Lets be honest, its a very high profile position in a raid.  What’s the first question the healers ask?  “Who’s the tank?”  Who do people pin their hopes on in 25 mans and 10 mans?  The Tank and the healers, but honestly.. tanks are more visual.  When you’re looking at killing the boss, you see the tank.  You half the time don’t notice the guys propping him/her up and keeping their furry …er… plated…. buttocks up and running.  Its not fair to healers, but it is what it is.

We keep in touch from time to time.  He has moved on to tank on the Alliance side on Whisperwind.  I’m of course tanking on the horde side on Thunderhorn.  So as I was babbling on, we got to talking and the conversation kind of progressed like this….

Me:  Rough night in ICC.

Him:  Which boss?

Me:  Not a boss, more of just a general feeling of people being off tonight.  Not terrible, just didn’t quite make it as far as we wanted.

Him:  Yeah?  …. hey do you mind if I ask you a question?

Me:  No sweat

(queue… long wait)

Me: Uh oh.. must be a long question??!!!

Him:  Ok… so I’m pondering is it normal to feel like you want to be the Main Tank and not the Off Tank anymore?  Is that a normal feeling? 

Good question… lets pursue it shall we??? Read the rest of this entry »

Some times you just kind of run dry.  You try and try to come up with things to say… and in the end you just sit there..and can’t really think of anything that you’ll find that important.  What’s most interesting about taking a break is that it does wonderful things for your creative juices as well as kind of putting you back in touch with why you do this.

I think when I started this blog, it was for an entirely different reason than why I write now.  I won’t ever be a Matticus. 

I won’t ever be hard core theorist.  What I am… is a 30 something disorganized raid leader with a little bit of whit and a whole hell of a lot of sarcasm.  Plus I have some good friends who watch here looking to see what I am doing from time to time.  Which is encouraging.  I’m not an expert at anything in particular.  Some people would say I probably don’t give myself enough credit, but to be honest, I believe in thinking you always have group to grow and learn. Read the rest of this entry »

I know… its been quite a while since I posted anything here.  To be honest… I just haven’t had it in me.  While I’m going to take a week or two to think about it, at this point I’m likely coming close to the point of shutting the doors down here.

Now… why?

Well lots of reasons.  Not the least of which is… I am a very busy man.  I have a lot going on with my kids.  I’m extremely busy at work, and I find my free time in the game filled with a million details as we work our way through Icecrown Citadel.

When I I first started this blog to be honest I was bored at work, I had a lot of free time and my kids were younger.  Since then my son’s in Karate 4 days a week and we’re trying to juggle everyone’s schedule and I have a different situation at work. 

I love to write, but its just not something I feel I have the time to do well…  I’ll give it a couple of weeks to just kind of mull over, before I put my final decision here.  In that mean time, I may post… or I may not.

*salute*

Happy raiding folks.

Last night was a good night to die!!!  Well for Saurfang it was.  We had spent Wednesday working on clearing the first three bosses, but as we thought we’d only have 5 attempts at Saurfang, we figured we’d hold off after a long night of raiding to do Saurfang on a fresh day.  Thursday I knew would be a very busy day for me.  My daughter had a music program at school, so I really didn’t anticipate having time to raid, but about 8:30 I jumped online and there the group was.. waiting for me to show up.

So we headed on in to Icecrown Citadel.  I suspect there was a bug as we were granted 8 attempts at Saurfang, but I’m not going to complain… we downed him.  Lets crank it up and see what we learned about Deathbringer Saurfang. Read the rest of this entry »

The new LFG system has left us with some cool ideas.  This particular post is based off of an idea we were tossing around in guild.  The idea is to challenge your group, specifically your tanks and healers will be put to the test.  What’s the 15 minute challenge?  Turn the page and lets see shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

So I’ve been pondering a bit about what makes the new five mans hard and yet interesting.  I noticed with TOC, that about a week after running it, plenty of people had already converted it from… OMG… this is NEW to… yeah… we’re gonna run it, but only because it has gear we need… and its quick…

But what is it that has made the newer instances like Pit of Saron so interesting?  Why do they seem like they are a hell of a lot more fun? Read the rest of this entry »

Its funny how we kind of find ourselves in a rut.  I think in an MMO, its kind of a natural thing.  You end up stuck… you’ve done most if not all of everything in the game and then.. things slow down… they crawl to a halt and you find yourself just filling in the spaces….

I’m sorry if you disagree, but Blizzard in my opinion has proved why they deserve the king of the hill for MMOs.  With the release of 3.3, they’ve redefined what it is to play WoW… again. Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous guild, people just hated the Faction Champions fight.  I can understand their frustration.  They viewed it as a PVP fight in a PVE game.  I will admit my first impression was somewhat similar.  As I’ve grown in the game, I’ve found that overall it is one of my FAVORITE encounters in this expansion. 

Let me explain why after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been brought to my attention that many of my posts here are pretty subjective.  Well, I know that in my heart of hearts that its a true challenge to provide accurate statistical analysis.  However after spending the last two weeks reading up, I wanted to present to you with an in depth analysis of Azerothian Math. 

I’ve consulted with the Azerothian Tinfoil Hat Society in an effort the gain a statistical view of the math within the game of WoW.  The ATHS has presented deeply inspiring works such as Pallies QQ Moar: A mathmatecal proof of Blizzard’s hate of Pallies and Do it From Behind: An in depth Rogue Analysis, but they are most famous for their work on Blue Man Group: A trend analysis of Blue posts related to Blizzard’s hate of “pure” classes. 

WARNING:  The following post contains theory crafting as well as mathmatical theorems.  Read at your own risk. Read the rest of this entry »

So I was sitting there this past weekend on Friday or Saturday figuring I’d play a little WoW.  Most people I think kind of skim past the launcher screen, but I thought I’d stop and read it.  My PC isn’t the fastest thing in the world, but hey… it is what it is.  Until my wife wins the lottery, I’m pretty well stuck with what I have. 

So I was sitting there reading and saw that Blizzard had $5 copies of the base game for the weekend…  Ruh Roh Raggy…. um… Well see I’m an altoholic.  And I was just bitching about how I didn’t have enough support structure right?  Well…. see… I kind of made the mistake of mentioning it in Guild chat that I was thinking of picking up a copy and testing out dual boxing as a nice easy way to level some alts quickly to level 60.

Lets face it… I’m bored.  Moving to a new guild came at a price.  The price was…well… everything is on farm.  So our raiding takes 1.5 hours.  Done.. out for the week.  Ulduar is off the table.  And we’re working on TOGC, but only one day a week.  So ok… fine… our raiding take 4 hours a week, but we haven’t been very consistent on TOGC.  Plus I have this desire to get at least ONE support character to a position where they can help my main. 

Little did I know the wave I’d start…. Read the rest of this entry »