We got Freya down in Ulduar tonight. We’re now 10/14 in there.
And Christ am I tired.
It’s the 25 man PuGs that are sapping me. Today, I managed to win two things; the helm from Gothik and then the sword from 4Horsemen. I actually expected people to roll against me and was kind of surprised no one did. Then, when someone (don’t remember who) started muttering that I had already won the helm when I was given the sword from 4Horsemen, I almost passed up on it entirely even though I was the only mainspec tank in the run and it was a pretty tremendous upgrade.
Today was bad because, while there was very little loot drama, it was enough to make me just want to call the whole thing after Loatheb.
Don’t get me wrong; I love organizing the 25s. I love taking people in there to see content they normally wouldn’t get to see and I love having a nice, smooth run where we can relax and talk about Ulduar while we’re trashing Naxxramas. What I don’t love is people refusing to get on Vent and then, when I manage to /w them about half the loot rule, they fuck off out of the raid because we’re not going to give them everything. Well, dude, if you’re in Synergie, why the hell are you pugging Naxx and wanting any loot? Seriously, go run it with your Ulduar 25 top-end guild. We’re doing this so people can see stuff they might not get to see. Not so you can get ubergear because I’m supposed to be impressed by your guildtag.
If you want to impress me, you’ve got to be named “Diamster.” She’s the best raidleader on the whole realm and the most awesomest person ever. Seriously, if you’re not her, you’re not impressing me.
Add another name to the blacklist.
I also don’t like the “not getting on Vent” and then not wanting to follow the tactics as explained in /raid. And, seriously, if you’re going to act like a moron and ask for BoK or BoM or BoW every thirty seconds, don’t be surprised when I groan when you ask me anything later on.
I thought I was going to be disappointed to have to end these runs but really, I’m almost looking forward to not doing them. Maly 25 and Sarth 25 on Saturday are nice quick one-shots and will mean very little loot drama. I mean, there’s just not much to bitch about when you’ve only got one boss. It means I should be done with raids by 5 pm instead of 6 pm and I can take a week off because Grog will cover for me.
And no, I’m not going to even think about Ulduar. The only way would be if I could stack every run with Stormcrow healers and if we only invited DPS who we all knew personally and all knew would not be morons. We would never spam /2 for an Ulduar pug. Either you’re signed up through the website or you’re not coming at all.
Ah well. It’s just the constant idiocy of Someone Bitching Every Week For Ten Weeks Straight that has finally gotten to me. Naxx just takes too long, has too much loot, and is wearing me out. Going to the short raids means I probably won’t quit doing the PuGs entirely. I hate it for all the people who are going to miss out on seeing Naxx 25 but, really, it only takes one or two people to spoil a run and I’m tired of having those one or two people (seriously, are they all in some kind of assholes-only club?) every. damned. week. I don’t see how Diamster put up with it. Probably because she’s awesome and I’m not.
Raiding
Thorim Down!
It took all night and we got frustrated and irritated several times, but we finally managed to pull Thorim down. I must say that the gauntlet is the hardest part of that fight. The arena group stumbled on to an easy way to keep their end under control early in the evening but those of us in the hallway were struggling to figure out the knack there up until the last attempt when we got him.
That makes us 9/14 in Ulduar so far. Tomorrow we’ll try Freya and, if we can get her down without too much hassle, we’ll go back and pull Hodir down again. I’m really hoping we can get her down because it’d be nice to take a crack at Mimiron soon. I think that we’ll have Ulduar cleared in a few more weeks if we can just buckle down and learn the fights a bit better.
Also, this weekend will be the last weekend we do the Naxx 25 PuGs. I’m just getting so worn out from all the raiding and raid leading I’ve been doing and, with not a weekend going by without some form of loot drama, it’s turned me off doing them. We’ll go to doing Sarth +X and Maly on Saturday afternoons instead, I think. Much less loot drama there. And, I’m still leaning against doing Ulduar 25 in a PuG. My current condition is that we have every Stormcrow healer in there to make any arguments over that blasted legendary moot. Even then, I’m still really unsure about it because it’s not like Naxx where we can afford to have a few undergeared people in the run.
Ah well. I’ll worry about it later.
Sarth 2D Down!
Groggy just sent me a text message saying they got Sarth +2D down tonight! Congratulations Stormcrows! I wish I had been there but I was just too tired from all the PuG raids this weekend and I wanted to get some work cleared out on Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled.
Grats guys. Hopefully we’ll be able to try it with 3 drakes up soon. That would be just too awesome.
Getting Closer…
I hate to say this aloud because every time we get to this point, all hell breaks loose and we wind up back struggling just to get one 10 man group going.
My guild is so close to having a 25 man group running I can taste it. We’ve had a lot of good recruits from the weekly PuGs we run and more people seem interested in raiding since Ulduar came out. Where some of these guys were when we were struggling through Naxx, OS, and Maly, I don’t know but…well…maybe they’ll stick around this time.
We managed to get Hodir down in Ulduar 10 last night as well. We got a good look at the Thorim encounter but never managed to aggro him (Arena group had issues). I think we’ll be going back there Monday or Tuesday to give it another try and hopefully we’ll get Thorim down. That would put us 9/14 in Ulduar. We also have a decent chance of getting a second 10 man group going this coming reset. That would be awesome.
Some people in our PuG have been asking about doing Ulduar 25. The answer is “not until the Legendary has become as common as dirt or is removed from the game entirely.” Seriously, we have enough loot drama over purples from Naxx (and we added one more name to the blacklist today from it). Can you imagine the whining that would commence over that orange? Even if we were up front and said “all legendaries go to Grognak and he passes on everything else” people would still bitch and moan. If there were a way to guarantee that it never dropped, I’d consider doing an Ulduar 25 pug. Until we get that option, though, I’m not taking random people in there. The most I’d consider would be teaming up with another guild with a clear agreement on the loot arrangement for those shards but that’s it. And, at any rate, we’re dangerously close to being able to do it ourselves so…
Well, I’m going to get back to working on Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled again. I just needed a short break. I’m making real progress on both. I’m kind of hoping to have The Unexiled finished by Christmas so I can try to get it published next year or something.
Ulduar Progress!
We finally got Ignis and Hodir down this week. We were trying Thorim just a bit ago but couldn’t manage to get through phase 1. Ah well, maybe Monday or Tuesday we’ll get him down.
Just added another five pages on Alayne’s Story. If I can just keep working this much on it, I may go back to two updates a week soon.
Yay!
My guild just finished our first Ulduar run this week. We got Flame Leviathan, XT, Razorscale, Kologarn, and Aurianya down. We gave up on Iron Council and will start with them on Friday. This is the first time we’ve been able to get so far into Ulduar on the first night. Here’s to hoping it’s merely the first of a trend. 🙂
Next week, there probably won’t be any Ulduar runs. Grognak and Critic are coming down here to visit me so the three of us are out. That leaves them short one maintank, one healer, and one DPS/tank. Aereli, another healer, is going out of town as well so they’re down two healers. The only other tank they could take, Aichylos, doesn’t have the gear for Ulduar yet. He’s switched from DPS to tanking and still needs upgrades from Naxx 10 for his tanking set. I’m hoping that enough people from the guild help him next week so that he can get Naxx 10 cleared and, if the RNG is kind, get some good upgrades.
We’re so close to having a second ten man group that I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic. If we can find two or three more dedicated raid healers, one more serious-not-an-asshole raid tank, we should have it. That’ll save us all a lot of headaches since right now, the biggest issues in our guild are people QQing about having to sit out Ulduar raids.
Ah well. Here’s to hoping. 🙂
Raid Drama Redux
Well, our PuG managed to clear Naxx 25. We one-shotted everything up to Kel’Thuzad, wiped twice on him but managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat on the third attempt. Thanks to everyone who came, was on time, and helped us clear this dungeon.
And, speaking of being on time: if you /w me at 13:59 for a raid that starts at 14:00, don’t bitch when I tell you “the raid is full.” Even if you did come on Saturday, if I looked for you up until 13:45 and you weren’t online, I’m going to assume you couldn’t make it. Especially if you did not tell me you were coming. Now, once I’ve told you “I’m sorry, the raid is full. We looked for you but didn’t see you and you didn’t say anything to us so we went on,” don’t keep /w’ing me QQing about it. I will ignore you for a while but if you keep it up, I’ll add you to my /ignore list and put your name down on my “don’t invite” list. Seriously: if we say “the raid starts at 14:00,” that means you need to be logged on before then.
Meh. Stupid people are stupid. I probably would have been better about the whole thing if that guy hadn’t kept it up and if I hadn’t managed to pull a whole friggin’ shelf down on myself while cleaning my apartment this morning. I managed to bruise myself up pretty good, twist my ankle, bang my head, and create a bigger mess than the one I was trying to clean. Go me. It scared the shit out of my downstairs neighbors, too. He came running up the stairs and started buzzing the doorbell and banging on the door, afraid I was being attacked or something (there’s a “zone sensible” not too far from us). I managed to crawl out of the mess and tell him “no, I’m a klutz.” He stayed and helped me get the shelf back up and offered to take me to the hospital if I needed it. Since nothing was broken or bleeding, I told him I’d be fine, finished cleaning, and then dug my painkillers out of the medicine cabinent and proceeded to go raid lead my Naxx 25 run. Now I’m relaxing on the couch, comfortably buzzed from pain-meds, and am working on the next updates to Alayne’s Story and The Unexiled. If I can keep up the workload, I might actually finish The Unexiled by the end of the fall. I hope I can find an agent to help me get it published. I’m pretty excited about it.
Stormcrows Naxx 25 PuGs and Loot Drama
I’m one of my guild’s raid leaders. Okay, actually, I’m the one who generally has to organize the 25 man pugs we run in Naxx on Saturdays and Sundays. I enjoy doing it but it is a lot of work. Yesterday, we had these two morons in our group who acted as if the dungeon were going to disappear after the run and they’d never get their lewts.
Fastest way to get on my nerves? Loot drama.
I run the pugs because I enjoy giving people who might not get a chance to see the 25 mans a chance to get in there. I’m there to have fun and see the encounters. Getting nice gear is a bonus but it’s not the primary goal. I cannot stand people who come on these runs and ruin it for everyone by trying to get every last piece of gear for themselves. That’s not fair to the others who come. That’s why we have a rule: one need roll per raid. If you’ve won something and someone else wants something you’re rolling for afterwards, it might go to the other person if they’ve not won anything. The goal is to let everyone get a chance to walk out of the run with a good drop. The goal is NOT to gear up one or two characters in full 25 man gear in one go.
The end result of yesterday’s drama was two names added to our “never invite” list. That list has several names on it now. Those people will not be coming on anymore of our runs. And, since our runs are getting to be fairly well-known, it’s just going to work against them in the long run.
Ah well. Just needed to vent about that for a bit. Now time to grab some lunch before I have to log on and put together today’s run.
Ulduar Is Hard
My guild has been doing Ulduar ever since it came out and…it’s hard. Last night, we spent the entire night wiping on the Iron Council and couldn’t even get Elder Stonebark down for Freya. We’re doing pretty good, though. We can clear Flame Leviathan, XT, Razorscale, Kologarn, and Aurianya with minimal problems. Right now, we’re just hung up on the Council and Ignis. We did have an attempt on the Council where we got Steelbreaker and Molgeim down but wiped with 42% left on Brundir.
Hopefully we’ll get them down next reset. It’d be nice to see those bosses dead. 🙂 I really wouldn’t mind getting a good crack at one of the Keepers. I wants my toga!