All aboard the failtrain

I've recently been looking around other blogs and checking with their authors on some advice on how to get a blog going, and their experiences in the first few weeks. Most have been in about the same position I'm in - a small case of writer's block. Having admitted that, a lot have led me to some blog communities such as the Twisted Nether Wiki and Blog Azeroth.

They both seem to be sites that want to help bloggers like myself get past the first couple of months, especially in those weeks where content just doesn't seem to be flowing. Blog Azeroth, however has a special little thing called 'Shared Topics'. I'm not too sure if I'm doing it properly, but from what I understood someone puts forward an idea, or a question, and everyone makes a blog about post about it!

Here's my shot at it then!

I am sure this topic has been covered, but among all my other fails I fail at searching.

I have noticed a string of my recent posts covered how I fail, often epically. I would like to see how others fail.

I think it is very good for newer players to see how those of us make dumb mistakes, even though we have been at this for quite a while.

I know what you're all thinking. How could a warlock as awesome as myself possibly fail at anything? Well sadly I've had my fair share. Most are barely worth mentioning such as that one time I decided to turn my motes into primals while flying very very high up. I've heard some people talk about Gnome pancakes before, but this was taking it to the next level.. of.. flatness?

However my most recent and probably most embarrassing was when a bunch of guildies failed at frogger. The boss after Patchwerk but before Grobbulus. You know the one, the boss that truly separates the raiders and the people with 'bad connections'. So I decided to stop one time and just add some salt to the wound. I put up a train set right on the corpse of a poor raider, only to get hit by an oncoming blob myself.

I'll have you know that my GM went on about it for the next hour, and made sure to remind me about it every time I decided to put a train set down.

Now that I've told you this, you'll do your best to forget about it as soon as possible and never mention it to anyone, ever.

It's pinker than I thought

Brewfest is upon us, and with it come all the things we love and cherish. Ram racing, dark iron dwarves, killing Coren repeatedly.. and the list goes on. More importantly though, is that I get a new mount! Some of of you might already know, but I've been hunting for the Violet Proto-Drake since it was announced. Doing all the festive.. festivities and whatnot. Twelves months have now passed and it's finally mine!

It looks awesome, it matches with all the purple gear a warlock is prone to get and more importantly it's fast. It's not faster than my last mount, but it's not slower.

While we're on the beer topic, I have a little cask of wine in my bank that improves with age. It has a one year duration, and nobody has any idea what's going to happen once it's ready.

I won't get my hopes up, but I've been speculating that maybe a little Panderan Monk is hiding inside. Now I know Panderan are beer lovers, and not wine, but a little gnome could only dream right?

The death of a guild, what does that lead to?

This week Ghostlands saw one of its core guilds disbanding. It wasn't something I expected, they were a great group of players, and they weren't full of themselves like many top guilds are. It was the guild I applied to before Cake, but got declined as they were full on warlocks. I tried explaining you could never have too many warlocks, but no luck!

This got me thinking. When are guilds due to disband? Cake formed from a disbanded Hide n Seek around the time attunements got removed, so it's fairly new compared to the other top guilds on the server.

We did come close to disbanding at one point when we realised most of our core Black Temple raiding team had either left or quit, but there was too much holding the guild together. Because of this soon after we had two officers leaving. As an officer myself the other officers start to become your biggest friends in the guild; they're the ones you trust the most to help with decisions or problems, so when two of them just vanish like that it feels like a huge chunk of the guild left.

The last nail in the coffin was when our GM also hinted towards leaving. We were given a heads up that he'd be leaving when 3.2 hit, and then it was announced a few days after that 3.2 was coming out that week. It was a very tense moment and he wasn't about to go back on his word. The other members had no idea what was going on, and it felt like chaos backstage too. Theories on what to do were flying around. Some which included taking the core players that were left and forming a close-knit 10man group. Another was merging with another guild on the server and do shared raids. These were just the tip of the iceberg.

We were asking ourselves what we'd do if the guild just disbanded. Some said they'd just stop playing, and I myself said I'd probably transfer off to the server my other friends play on.

All that's passed now. We made a smooth transition to a new GM and very few of the members seemed to be affected. We've cleared the Coliseum on normal mode, and are slowly making our way through the Ulduar Hardmodes. While I agree it's late, it seems to be keeping the raiders happy.

However, what dawned on me even more is that it's not just our core raid group that's changed, but the attitude of most of the new players who are new to raiding. I'm pointing my blame finger at hardmodes and achievements here. Before people raided simply for the joy of raiding, and the occasional loot drop. Now I notice that players feel like they need to do hardmodes so they can show what awesome raiders they are. While striving for hardmodes is fine, I feel like a lot of players are starting to get sour about it. Cake is not a hardcore guild, we don't kick players if they mess up too much or if they disconnect all night. Because of this, we can't expect to be the best guild ever and it's fine by me, I'm enjoying myself. We're a friendly group of players who like to raid; at least we were.

Something's changed, and I'm not sure what. It's got me confused, and constantly thinking about it. Sometimes while raidleading, something happens and I just feel like I don't have the patience for it anymore. Maybe it's me that's changed. Seeing things from on top as an officer, rather than just being another chess piece of a raider. Maybe I'm seeing things that frustrate me. Why can't that guy just move out of the fire in time? Why can't he just read up on what his rotation should be and do more damage than the tank? Why can't they do some research on what they should be gearing for? So many things to look out for when raidleading, and maybe I really don't have the patience for it anymore.

Or maybe it's the weather.

Blargh.

I'm so casual

I got my T9 Leggings and Gloves off Koralon this week. I feel dirty.

Now I don't mean to come across as an elitist, but I find there's more satisfaction when you get tier gear from the actual proper raid bosses.

On the bright side, I have 2piece T9 and T8!

I'm still unsure on the value of 4piece T9. I averaged it out to be worth around 100 spellpower or so, which is hard to get with two pieces over the T9 bits. I'm also pondering on whether it's going to step up affliction's dps by a reasonable amount. Enough to make me spec into it full-time for raiding so I can get my hands dirty in some PvP instead of my current destruction PvE spec.

Of course, this means the raid will be left without its local replenishment supplier, since our retlol has vanished.

But there are some things you'll just have to get used to.

Or I could just never touch PvP and ruin the whole point of this post.

Well, half the point.

Half a point?

What?

Bah.

I think I broke it..

Heartbreaker down!

It's been a confusing couple of weeks. Between having raiders who eagerly want to do hardmodes, even if we wipe a lot, and raiders who don't want to do them at all. We've had to decide and it's mostly come down to 'We'll try once or twice and move on.' But this week we set out a game plan.

Guild MOTD last Tuesday:

"ASSIGNMENT: Study Ulduar Hard Modes - start with XT and Hodir"

Well I doubt a lot of people actually did that, but we gave XT some good hard tries and he eventually dropped. We'll be trying Hodir on Sunday, and Yogg+3 so that we could finally get the legendary mace.

Oh, funny thing; when XT died only one person was left alive.

Warlocks in the Coliseum

So all the bosses in the Coliseum are finally unlocked, and I've downed them all on the normal version already. Here's some things I've managed to pick up from each encounter that would help you do that little extra more.

Gormok - This fight is extremely easy and you shouldn't need to do anything other than stand and kill stuff. It's a good idea to run into the melee if you get an annoying snobold on your back, that way it gets hit with their AoE attacks.

Acidmaw and Dreadscale - At the start of the fight try and get a Demonic Circle up near your Dreadscale tank. This way you can make sure you get rid of your Paralytic Toxin as fast as possible.

Icehowl - This fight is extremely trivial, however if you are having a knockback with the charge here's a good tip. Drop a circle, and strafe a bit left or right from it. After the knockback stun wears off you can quickly teleport out of the way if you're the charge target.

Lord Jaraxxus - There's nothing complicated to this fight. if your guild asks you to drop the legion flames on the outer edge, feel free to drop a circle there to please them.

Faction Champions - I don't look for dps in this fight, but rather control and efficient CCing. At this point I give Belfip a break and bring out my felhunter, Nheekun. I've noticed the mages are too busy pretending they're doing anything by sheeping random stuff, so they don't actually interrupt the main first targets; the healers. I put Nheekun's spell lock on manual and do the interrupts. Use your fear as much as you want, on anything. Don't bother trying to keep one target focus feared, cause eventually DR will hit and they'll be immune to it. Once you fear one NPC, swap to another. Keep your death coil ready. It's happened to me twice where three of them bunch up on you. Death coil gives you that extra second for your tanks to react.

Twin Val'kyr - Probably my favourite fight in this raid. Keep your circle up on the opposite portal for quick swapping.

Anub'arak - Nothing really special to do here. If your guild asks you to nuke the adds, dump a CoD on Anub'arak.