DPSing in a healer's costume...

Yesterday Escape made a few attempts in killing Yogg without the help of Mimiron. We attempted to go with minimal number of healers and that meant that yours truly was to go DPS into the brain.

Facts:

• My gear is better than Naxx level by a couple of pieces but overall based on tier 7. I do not consider this as adequate and our RL and officers were aware of that.
• I have not raided significantly as retry, nowhere near as much as the 1/10 of my raiding experience as Holy which spans for about 4 years.
• I am accustomed to the healer's type of awareness, not a melee DPSer's and only now I am beginning to develop the latter (after the introduction of dual specs)
• I do not consider myself particularly skillful and I had never seen this fight from another perspective but as a healer outside the brain room.

As you can imagine my presence as a warrior of light was... miserable. I constantly failed to get out in time of the brain room, sometimes because I was not clicking properly, others because I was seemingly late. Although I can not fathom how faster I could be. That, coupled with some reluctance on certain parts of the fight and a misunderstanding with the portals did not help much. In fact it was so bad that I was banging my hand on my desk like XT having a tantrum. My wife-to-be was having seconds thoughts on my mental state... I am not happy at all wiping my raid, I am not happy at all wasting the time of others and I am not happy at all not being in control of my game. But...

Bearing in mind the facts above I must say I find it fairly reasonable. My performance I mean. Yes, the fact I sucked as DPSer. Out last attempt of the night was with the help of Mimiron, me healing in the brain room, our druid brain healer going boomkin and us one-shoting Yogg. Well, one-shoting him with Mimiron and me as healer at least :-p. I was sooooo pumped up with being back in the healers boots that for the first time in many raids I was first in healing. You see my healing style does not ever earn me any meter-prices; I like to believe (or fool myself) its more subtle. And no portal issues this time, going out of the brain room fast. Still... I felt so good to be in control of my game, so good to be back where I feel comfortable that I gave it all I had. Maybe it was guilt for screwing up and wiping my brothers-in-virtual-arms. Maybe because I wanted to prove myself to what I know best. Maybe because I wanted to have my vengeance from my other self. Kind of my real-life work situation these days. But that is a different matter...

Yogg fell, but I could not help thinking of what I had seen. I have been immersed in a different game, where my awareness of the surroundings was totally different. The closest experience I had of a melee play style was judging light in MC and smacking things with my Quel'Serrar for kicks. Ok and some 5-mans. But I had to make an impact here, watch the raid, stop thinking of those bars going black and watch the bloody clouds. Oh, the ordeal of a healer in DPSers boots...

Still... I am not giving up. I will continue to gear my paladin for retribution and I will be there when my RL needs me. Even that will be a rare occasion, rarer as I continue to fail :p . My holy set is almost complete, some tiny bits and pieces here still needed. Granted, it will take some time before I develop the situational awareness of a DPSer. But... as with anything in my real life that is difficult and seems daunting, or impossible... I will push forward as much as I can afford. I'll try to not do it at the expense of others.

Vengeance will be mine... Cookies too...

Yogg-Saron is no more

Yup, took us three visits to the Old God of Death to get him down. We have been....tenacious enough and entered phase 3 a few times before the recent nerfs so we were pretty confident he would be dead. In fact, the recent nerfs made him kind of a walk in the park in my humble opinion, although we already had tackled the affected phases. Nonetheless, we raid 3 days a week so we do not complain. The old god is dead and that keeps the guild spirits up is excellent. I got my 4th Tier 8.5 (or whatever the number is, I have lost count) and I look more like a Samurai than a Paladin...

Escape's 1st Yogg-Saron kill

Now, Escape will focus on getting some of the hard-mode achievements going, get out emblematic priest his fragments for his Val'anyr and gear up our raid pool as we go along. Hopefully I will eventually be able to collect the deathknight-looking armor set from off-spec bidding, equip the Scarlet Tabard and make a scarlet crusade-themed video...And possibly at some point get those fragments myself.

On a side note, its sad to see people leave the blogging community but I appreciate they want to move forward. Blog Azeroth has lots of new authors cropping up and I'd like to think that the 'nouvelle vague' of wow blogging ( I place myself in that as well :p) will keep the community active as ever.

Ulduar up on us...

As always, right before I set off to work and while eating my chocolate flavored cereals I am sitting in front of my computer, browsing through Wowinsider, Mmo-champion and my guilds forum. Ok, and some sports-related websites :p

Today, I more or less expected to see the confirmation that the patch would be deployed this week, a few hours earlier to the US, followed by the European servers. Just as I went through the first lines of the news-posts my eye fell on the video square beneath... King Varian ready to crit someone... So, naturally, I clicked and saw the promo video from Blizzard... Go on, check it , I do not want to spoil it ;-p

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You're back?... So yes, the friction between the Alliance and the Horde is there once again. As well as an underlying `pact'. Varian and Garrosh are bitching, where as Rhonin, Jana and Thrall seem more... thoughtful. Yes, stereotypical, as warriors clash their blades, where as `scholars' and 'spiritual-attuned' people seem to be thinking a bit deeper. And in the middle Brann and his discovery... Yogg-Saron is slowly going stronger...and loose from his prison...

So, two levels here. One the Alliance-Horde friction, on the top level of the `political' aspect of the Ulduar-era lore. I expect this to be even more apparent further on. On the second level its the need to stop Yogg-Saron. And that is where we all come in. Our factions probably will fight for the territorial advantages, but we will have to dig in deep and do the hard, covert (well, not so covert but you get my point) stuff and go 'commando' on Yoggy (how we wow players turn every name into a pickachu-like-name is beyone my comprehension, even if it refers to inconceivably dark entities).

Jana looks troubled (with an `edited' face), Varian and Grosh mean, Thrall baffled and Rhonin... Ah, one of my favorite old heroes has now proper dialogue... And when Rhonin speaks we all better listen...

So, I leave you to enjoy the video, read the patch notes and prepare. I expect the usual service disruptions, as many people will return to the game, the usual issues with the add-ons and lots of running around! I will be back with something Ulduar-related in a few days...

On Lore progression

In the past I mentioned briefly my love for the Warcraft lore and how I am totally hooked on certain stories. TBC was relatively shallow when it comes to lore as we got to kill certain important figures without truly exploring their past. Those figures were mainly from the most popular Warcraft period for many - that of WC3. They eventually got to be end-bosses where we 'killed' them (and one case re-'killed' them :p) without some justification in regard to their past actions. Or at least not enough. We never get to see the past of the Illidan brothers and their relation to Tyrande, the relationship of Jana, Kael and Arthas, the importance of Lady Vashj in the elf lore (and possibly a future expansion with Azshara). But we did get to see Kil'Jaeden and that is quite big :p

Wotlk changes this to a large extent with visions of Arthas' past, the active involvement of the Dragons (which in the books/lore are all over the place affecting our future - and sometimes our past), the Bronzebeard brothers, King Varian and his return, a very interesting development in Wrath gate, the return of the Ashbringer and Tirion, the tension between Alliance and Horde etc. Lore is all over the place and things crop up as we go deep in Northrend. Even some `loose ends' like Matthias Lehner, or Bolvar Fordragon are quite prominent and make lore-aficionados work their minds overtime with assumptions and predictions.

And now Ulduar comes...

For those that have seen the relative information on Yogg-Saron, recently published, we get to see various important points of the lore with some interesting mechanics. We get to see `hidden' messages, we get to wonder why, what, how and when and possibly we get to see what happened to some of those 'loose ends'.

I wont spoil the fun with details etc, you can always go look if you are interested. What I know is we are much more involved in the story now. One story that slowly comes to its conclusion (or not), closing some of the remaining chapters of WC3. And quite possibly a few new threads, generated, that in will return spin-off to new paths.

All I know is that now is the time to enjoy the story; more than ever in World of Warcraft.

P.S. Picture source