August 31, 2009

Guild Stuff
This past weekend with my priest's guild was a little disappointing. Our Ulduar 10 plans for Saturday fell through due to low attendance. Then our Ulduar 25 plans for Sunday also fell through. Even though there were more people on than the day before, still not enough for 25. And our two main raid leaders were unable to play, which made it difficult to coordinate anything. In the end, we did ToC 10 yesterday evening -- more about that below.

It's an interesting study of human behavior. Our two raid leaders are aggressive, charismatic, motivated guys. They are able to get people talking and moving. When they're not around, very little gets done. My fear is that the main one is not going to be around much because of school. And the other one might end up leaving the guild because he's anxious to progress.

My mage's guild went to Ulduar on Friday. We got down four bosses -- Flame Leviathan, Decunstructor, Kologarn and Auriaya. We made a handful of attempts at Hodir and a couple at Ignis. But, we couldn't get either of them down. It was a fun run, though frustrating toward the end. I enjoy playing with those guys.

Trial of the Crusader (10)
As I mentioned above, we did ToC10 last night. The toughest encounter was the PvP style one. We died several times. On the final attempt, they switched the kill order (Priest first) and I kept further back, except when running in to cast Psychic Scream. Those changes in tactics worked and we sailed through it. I think I was part of the cause of the initial wipes. I had been standing too close to the action and was killed by the various AoE abilities the mobs were using.

I got the Binding Light trinket. Though I'm not convinced that it is better than the Majestic Dragon Figurine. I've been wearing the latter for months. I suppose the trinket will only be better if I use the on-use ability intelligently. The problem is, with my priest I don't even remember to use Inner Focus. I'll have to get more diligent about using cooldown abilities. Otherwise, they're a waste.

Naxx 10
Since my guild's plans to run Ulduar on Saturday night fell through, I healed the 2nd half of Naxx 10 for a friend's guild (the mother of one of our raid leaders). That was a fun easy run, and it was good to get familiar with a few members in her guild. They're #7 on our server, so it's good to rub elbows with them.

I made one huge mistake...I stood on the wrong side on Thaddius and wiped the raid. I felt HORRIBLE. The only consolation was that everyone admitted that this guild does it backward compared to all other guilds. But, honestly, it was my own fault. As soon as the polarity shifted, I blanked. I couldn't remember which side to go on. Oh well, the next attempt went without a hitch.

One good thing about going to Naxx -- I was able to test out the setting in Grid to give me a visual clue on the toon that has frost blast on them. A few days ago I mentioned that I had stupidly set it up as a Buff, so it didn't show up. Now that it was set up as a Debuff, it worked perfectly. Big red box on the name...easy to see who to throw the heal on. KT went smoothly.

Alt Leveling
I leveled my shaman a little more until I was called to heal Naxx.

Miscellaneous
I received an in-game mail message from my old guild leader this weekend. He and I have maintained a friendly relationship after the guild split up. So, this message took me by surprise. He asked me if I remembered a while ago having accepted an invite to do an instance but then later removing myself so I could go to a raid instead. I responded telling him I don't remember that exact instance, but I have done that on a few occasions when I know I'm not critical to the event. I think he expected an apology. He's not getting one. Whenever I have removed myself from invites, I have done so well ahead of time. It's my prerogative to change my plans if a more interesting invite comes along. It's better than not removing myself and just blowing off the invite.

He hasn't responded to my response. So, I suspect he's angry at me. I'm not going to play that game with him. He's a good guy, but he's got so many darned rules and expectations of people's behavior. He needs to lighten up.