Monday Random Thoughts

- Against my better judgement I played an alt this weekend.

- It made it to level 100.

- So another character that gets stuck in the garrison grind with nothing else I want to do.

- Oh joy.

- I really miss valor gear for gearing up alts.

- That was always a nice way to gear up alts and helped me enjoy doing so.

- As always as soon as I hit 100 I took a trip to the proving grounds.

- My paladin was 601 item level, so 14 item levels lower than the lowest the proving grounds scale to.

- I leveled as prot, so that means I took the tank challenge.

- Missed silver the first time because for some odd reason I could not get aggro off that damn healer.

- She got herself killed.

- Can only taunt so much and apparently it was not enough.

- Honestly can not believe I could not peal aggro off her with attacks only.

- I know she generates a fair deal of threat but I never had that problem on any of my other tanks.

- So I needed to work more on DPS on my paladin to get this down faster.

- I did it on the second try no problem of course.

- This is now the third tank I have done the proving grounds with and I had three completely different experiences with it.

- My druid had to concentrate of survival as the healer was not good enough to keep it up.

- My warrior had to concentrate on interrupts because the mobs seemed to always throw fire under the healers feet and she would die because, well, she is a really crappy healer and too stupid to move from the bad.

- My paladin needed to go full on DPS mode as a tank to get things down faster or I would get overwhelmed and the healer with the horrible healing and even worse raid awareness would grab aggro.

- Three tanks, three different challenges.

- I have to say after all my experiences with the proving grounds, the tank one seems to be the absolute best one.

- The damage dealer one is about as boring as boring can get.

- And it does absolutely nothing to see if people know how to deal damage in a timely manner.

- I switched to retribution and decided to do the damage dealer proving grounds.

- It was then I noticed two problems.

- One, none of my talents were taken.

- Did I really manage to go through all of mists without ever switching to my retribution spec even once?

- Sure seems so.

- Second problem was I did not have a two handed weapon.

- Oh well, I'll try it as protection, what is the worst that could happen, I fail?

- I one shot it as protection, never even coming close to missing any turn and even on the tightest ones I had at least 6 or 7 seconds left.

- Goes to show you the damage dealer proving grounds has nothing to do with dealing damage but raid awareness.

- So the next time you see someone having problems with the damage dealer proving grounds do not tell them to work on their rotation.

- Apparently you do not need "good DPS" to do the damage dealing one.

- You need good situational awareness.

- Good positioning.

- Good target selection.

- Good interrupting.

- But you do not need to do good DPS to do the damage dealer one.

- If I could do it on a protection paladin 14 item levels under the minimum it scales to in the wrong spec there is absolutely 100% no excuse for any person that actually calls themselves a damage dealer to not be able to do silver in the proving grounds.

- Nope, that is not an elitist attitude, that is a realistic attitude.

- Even if you fail, just pay attention and learn the patterns.

- Let the healer heal someone you were working on?  Don't next time.

- Interrupt him, CC him, or kill him first.

- Got caught in amber?  Don't next time.

- They always spawn in the same place and always throw it at you.

- Use that to your advantage and capture something else with it.

- The healer is a good target to get caught with it. ;)

- That is all the damage dealing one is about.

- It is not about dealing damage.

- So now was time to start gearing up.

- Did not have much time so did not do much.

- Tanked skyreach normal so I could get the legendary line started.

- Won two pieces, one a trinket, sweet right.

- Noticed I had bracers, shoulders and a chest piece I had received from follower missions that I could not make since they required level 100.

- So I made those three 615 pieces, one was warforged to 621.

- So now up to 607 item level.

- Got in a drov world boss group that was on auto accept.

- Thanks for that because no one wanted a 600 item level tank and I do not think I could have gotten into a group otherwise.

- Killed it and got gloves, bonus roll got nothing.

- 608 item level now.

- I'll make crafted pieces later, want to get the beginner stuff out of the way to see which pieces I should make first.

- Seems like the logical course of action to me.

- Tried to get into a Ruk group, and did.

- We pulled the boss and there are four tanks.

- Three decently geared tanks and little old me hoping and praying I am just on add duty because a life total of 214K health is not going to last very long against the boss.

- The warrior takes the lead on the boss.

- The other two tanks, god knows what they are doing.

- Things are going nice until around 50% when the warrior goes down and I get aggro.

- How the hell was I outpacing two much better geared tanks.

- I did not look at their gear but one was 388K and the other was over 450K.

- So they surely were better geared than I but somehow I had the boss.

- I am no rookie to tanking and did the best I could.

- I rolled cooldowns, I used every trick in the book.

- I lasted long enough for the warrior to come back and take aggro back off me.

- I survived, I was so happy, I did my job and I did it well.

- Well enough at least.

- Second time the warrior goes down I am not as lucky because not all my cooldowns are available.

- I did what I could and lasted a fair deal thanks to the little I had left and some great effort on the part of the healers I am sure.

- I went down and the bird started eating damage dealers and healers alike.

- The other two tanks?  Not exactly sure what they were doing but I know one thing they were not doing and that is tanking the boss.

- We ended up wiping at about 23%.

- As we are getting ready for the next pull one of the healers told me "great use of cooldowns, I did not think you would last 10 seconds".

- I said thank you, just hit 100 so trying to get some gear now.

- We are getting close to refilling and I am kicked.

- I am guessing because a tank with 214K health doesn't seem very useful.

- I know just looking at health and using that as a reason was good enough to kick me but really there were a lot of other issues that needed to be addressed before little old me.

- I just wish people would look before they leap.

- Me and the warrior tank 2 tanked that, the other two tanks did nothing.

- I was second in damage taken, which alone should show that I was the second tank.

- Not to mention if you think about rez timers, if I was second in damage taken that means I must have been alive a very long time and for this low of a health pool to take that much damage and still live it must mean I (and the healers) was doing something right.

- I was 11th in damage done, 12th if you looked at DPS, so maybe that is where your kicks should be aimed.

- When a freshly dinged tank with his whooping 11K DPS out damaged more than half the damage dealers maybe kicking them might have been better?

- When a freshly dinged tank with his amazing 7K HPS out healed two of the people that were there as healers you could have kicked them instead?

- While it is 100% true there are a million and one tanks they could have got that were better than me, more geared than me, or more useful than me, kicking me before you address more glaring issues like damage dealers that did not do damage and healers that did not heal makes little sense.

- Well, if there is one thing I can be happy about, it was that I had a couple of guild mates with me that when they kicked me they dropped too.

- So they lost their #1 healer that doubled the #2 one and their top three DPS that were actually killing adds.

- Sometimes kicking someone by looking at their health total only is the wrong thing.

- Look at the numbers next time before acting.

- In a group with four tanks I should have been just fine handling the adds alone.

- But I did adds and boss and still did fine.

- But apparently the fact I did fine means nothing when my health does not match some number they expect.

- Speaking of clueless people I joined a pug for heroic operator figuring I could take a shot at some tier shoulders.

- I figured I had some free time and it is an easy fight so even if we wipe a few times in a pug it is worth it.

- We had a few pulls, all close, but all wipes.

- 7%, 13%, 5%, 3%, 11%, all closs but no cigar.

- The raid leader is blaming the tanks, the healers, the DPS, everything.

- Not getting priority adds down fast enough, not having enough healing for those big moments, tanks not using their personal cool downs at the right time.

- Blame, blame, blame.

- And yet the raid leader never actually saw the real issue.

- Do you think any of this might have something to do with us always losing a few people early to trains?

- How about that one healer and one damage dealer that have died to the trains every single pull and early in the fight?

- Oh wait, they are your guild members.

- Sorry, but you have two options here.

- 1) Get the boss down by removing the dead weight or 2) keep going until you can find a group to carry your friends.

- I am not waiting, I dropped, my friend who was the tank dropped too.

- Someone else whispered us and said that after they lost the tank that everyone was following to avoid the trains and their top DPS the group fell apart.

- This is what happens when you refuse to look at the facts.

- If someone dies to trains, no big deal, but when the same two people die to the trains every time and early on, it is a kick.

- I would kick my own guild members for the same thing.

- Even more so in a pug than with a guild group.

- In a guild group I might be willing to spend time to teach them to get better but in a pug the bottom line is killing bosses, this is not a place to learn.

- Funny how I set the line higher in pug content than I do in guild content.

- There is a reason for that.

- I do not mind teaching my guild mates, it will only make my guild stronger in the long run.

- However I do not wish to teach people I do not know and will never see again.

- I'll give them all a chance, but 5 attempts, 5 death from the same mechanic, all 5 early on, sorry, you are no longer welcome here.

- Again, not elitist, realist.

- Elitist would be demanding perfection from the second you walk in, realist is asking that people learn from their mistakes.

- I am not an elitist but I am a realist.

- If I do not see improvement I will ask someone to leave for the general betterment of the group as a whole, no disrespect meant.

- Funny part is that at some point he will find someone to carry them, with enough persistence.

- I am really beginning to hate the group finder.

- Joined a run on butcher, yes still looking for the trinket, and as soon as the raid leader inspected me he said "sorry but I thought at your time level you had the trinket, I don't want anyone rolling against me so I have to remove you."

- Didn't even give me time to say I don't care, all I want to do is roll.

- At least he did not ninja it which would have really pissed me off.

- A friend of mine was in a pug looking for a weapon, was told it was open roll, his best in slot weapon dropped warforged with a gem slot and the indestructible stat.

- Cue drooling now.

- He rolled a 98 and he felt confident he would win it but the group leader gave it to someone else.

- Not by accident either, he even said he was giving it to him because he was here the whole run and you only came two bosses ago.

- He was raging and I agree he had all right to do so.

- I told him put in a ticket.

- If loot rules are clearly stated in chat, which he said they were, then you might get a nice GM that will help you.

- No word back yet, but just one more reason to hate pugs.

- Whenever I see a group not using personal loot now I think of things like that.

- If people choose to use master looter that usually means they are up to something.

- Heck, even when they are not up to something they could still be up to something.

- Like say a butcher run, I could get a group filled with hunters, all friends of mine because they either do not need it or would be willing to pass on it for me and we all roll and as long as someone wins it they pass it to me.

- Not like I would do that, but with master looter I could do that.

- There is nothing good that can come out of master looter in a pug.

- But loot drama aside, do you know what I hate most about master looter?

- The time it takes to assign loot after a boss is killed.

- With personal it is kill and keep moving, with master it is list loot, wait for rolls, wait for people to decide if they want to roll, wait for people to decide if they want to pass, wait wait wait wait wait.

- I am not a fan of wasting time.

- I think I might have mentioned that once or twice.

- So no pug group should ever use master looter.

- Simple as that.

- When I join a pug I join to get practice or to use a coin.

- If I win something, awesome, but I never expect too.

- I would rather get 6 bosses down in a pug than 5 down because we wasted time passing out loot.

- Yes, personal loot does save that much time.

- Did highmaul heroic on my warrior this week.

- Did kind of well, but I still can not figure out how to survive brakenspore when I get higher in stacks.

- I always need to call out for external cool downs.

- I can not survive on my own without them and I hate that feeling of being weak.

- Amazing I can do the rest on heroic, but that one boss destroys me.

- I was 650 when I went in, but thanks to two new trinkets I won, how freaking awesome is that, along with upgrading my crafted legs, I am up to 658.

- Maybe it was my 650 item level that was making heroic brakenspore harder on me?

- I think those two new trinkets I got will really help the next time around, that is for sure.

- How can I tank the rest of the place at 650 and have no real issues but one boss, an early one at that, gives me fits.

- Sometimes things are weird that way.

- Now to end this on a rant about RNG and how it hates me.

- Just so people feeling bad about their missions have a reason to feel better about themselves.

- My misfortune can be something to help you look at the brighter side.

- My highmaul caches, the last 6 of them resulted like this.

- Mythic gloves I don't need, mythic ring I don't need, same mythic ring a second time I don't need, same mythic ring a third time I don't need, mythic neck I don't need, same mythic neck I don't need.

- The last 6 highmaul missions I had all give me things I do not need.

- Feeling better about your missions now?

- Glad I could help.

- Have a great day.