The Continuing Saga...Oh, the drama!

Ulduar - Part 2

The night fell, clear and cold in Northrend. Kalyara was feeling a little weary from her previous failures the night before. She couldn't let this hold her down. She had done her best, she had held her head high and done her part. She couldn't, no wouldn't, keep beating herself up. No Sir! She was going to go back in there and show them!

Maybe, just maybe tonight she would have stronger allies, surely it would go better tonight...surely...

We'll skip past the painful group formation of this raid. Since previous history proves that our raid leader, from here out known as Dr. Don't-Know, is seriously unable to form a decent group because he's trying to play the "nice" raid leader and take anyone and everyone, regardless of gear or skill.

Fast forward to the first mob encounter. Again, we're in the same position as last night, posed to try to get to Ignis because Dr.Don'tKnow read on line that we need to pull one of the Molten Colossus all the way back to XT-002's door to prevent the healers being silenced by them both back to back. Yay! No big deal right?

*face palm* The OT, our beloved, well skilled though under geared, warrior from the previous night isn't paying attention and I end up dragging both the monsters towards XT's door. Now I realize I have them, I avoid all multi-target damage so that I don't build too much aggro on the second one and stop moving. Finally, our warrior-wonder-boy, finally realizes and taunts off me but only to die an almost instant, painless death because his health is still way too low.

Now, insert the Full-of-himself-retardin, and I use this term lightly. Normally, I avoid using acronyms for any class, I don't believe in retardins, huntards or dumbknights. But this guy's attitude, if nothing else, earned him this beloved title.

Mr. Retardin, looses his patience, after one pull..which I can't blame because I was begging Dr.Don'tKnow to try to find us another OT and let Warrior-Wonder-Boy dps instead. I just did it somewhat tactfully in whispers and not openly in raid chat. And I didn't blast his gear and tanking abilities to the rest of the raid either.

So, Mr. Retardin, has a tanking set. Wow! Nice to know now, could have told us last night before the wipefest! And...it's not a bad tanking set. His stats are pretty good for a tank. Maybe..maybe...dare I say...will we make it after all?

We successfully pull the Molten Colossus and manage to kill them both with no problems! Mr. Retardin goes back to his ret set and leaves the off-tanking to our warrior-wonder-boy. The rest of the trash is no problem and we are ready to pull Ignis.

Dr.Don'tKnow, goes through is explanation, we remind him of a few things he didn't know about and I pull the boss. I'm not having any problem with Ignis himself but I'm also getting and holding the aggro on the Iron Constructs. Not surprisingly, we wipe.

No big deal, that's alright. Now the group has seen the fight. We know where to move, when to move and we got him down to 78%. My hopes are up.

*Release and run back into the instance*
Raid Warning: Let's move on to the Antechamber, we can just skip these harder bosses

What?! We are going to give the boss one attempt and pass him up for more trash and an attempt at another boss that people have never seen? Ugh! I'm all for progression but sheesh, give it at least one more go before giving up.

On to the Antechamber, trash clears go fine. We make it to the Assembly of Iron. Again, Dr.Don'tKnow explains the fight. I'm going to take on Steelbreaker while our warrior-wonder-boy takes on Stormcaller Brundir because "he'll do the least amount of damage in the first phase". I have my instructions...pull the boss to the right of the door keep him out of the blue circles, avoid getting close to the other guys, etc. Once Steelbreaker goes down I need to pick up Runemaster Molgeim. Got it.

Goes something like this -
Kalyara runs in, grabs Steelbreaker and kites him to the right of the door.
Warrior-Wonder-Boy runs in....dies...two shots.
Healers die.
Kaly dies.
Raid Wipes.
Release and run back in.
"So I guess I'm going to have to tank this too, huh?" - Mr. Retardin
"OMG, I'm sorry but there are two people in this group that I never care to play with again"
Druid Party Healer leaves the group.
Warrior-Wonder-Boy leaves the group.

Thus the drama begins to unfold...
Now to this point, Mr. Retardin had been tanking the trash, which I was unaware of. But did explain why the trash pulls leading up to the Iron Council were going so well.

As for the Druid Party Healer apparently she is the real life girlfriend of Warrior-Wonder-Boy and didn't like the fact that Mr. Retardin and the other druid had commented on him not being geared well enough to be tanking this far into Ulduar.

If that's not enough, now we have Dr.Don'tKnow pulling the drama queen (king)/oh poor me routine. "I can't handle this right now", "sigh, sorry that I took up everyone's time", "I don't pick people based on their purples, they have skills" and my favorite "if you want to be an elitist jerk then feel free to leave".

I attempt to make the point to Dr.Don'tKnow that we're not being elitist jerks but that he has thrown warrior-wonder-boy to the wolves. He knew his gear was bad. But still he brought him into something well above his gear ability and expected him to OT.

His gear was barely good enough to do heroics with. He was defense capped but that is about all he had going for him. His health pool was extremely low, 23,000 buffed, his gear score was only 355 and he was not enchanted or gemmed.

Now I'm not saying anything was wrong with the warrior. Honestly, I like him as a player. He has the potential to be an awesome tank. I commend Dr.Don'tKnow for wanting to help him gear. That's awesome but that's also what heroics, emblems and crafted gear are for. You can't bring a seriously under geared tank into something above his level.

It's easier to carry dps and even one healer, if the tanks and main healers are well geared. But you can't do that when you're the tank. Not when you are that far below.

So, thus ends our Ulduar group for the night. A few angry people because they are now locked to Ulduar and didn't down a single boss. A couple more angry people because they feel like they have been shunned. Then a few that just think the entire group is full of dumb asses.

I get a whisper from the Druid Party Heals shortly after getting back to Dalaran. Wanting to know my opinion on her boyfriend's tanking. I kindly tell her what I honestly believe. He has skill, he has potential, that's not easy to find. Now he needs the gear to back it up. That's the easy part.

And somehow...I've committed myself to helping him learn and get that gear. *sigh*

Happy Thursday!

Continuing Stories...Updates

Round 2 - _____________________________________________________________________
Shakya settled herself down onto the hard wooden floor. Pulling the bow from her back, she laid her weapons gingerly beside her on the mat. Slowly she settled onto her back, locking her hands behind her head as she stared up at the sky above her. The gaps between the large wood slats forming the ceiling of the shack allowed her a slightly obscured view of the night sky.

Sighing deeply as her body began to relax, Shay's thoughts wandered back to the events of the day.

The Orcs had given her various mediocre tasks to preform. She was sure it was nothing more then a way to test her ability. To be sure she was going to be an asset to the battle and not a hindrance. Rounding up cactus apples for the cook, collecting scorpid venom, checking on the peon workers in the field...nothing very exciting but she had done all that was asked of her without complaint.

Everyone seemed friendly enough. At least under the circumstances. One of the hunters in the camp had even shown her how to craft scorpid sting arrows. Subconsciously, Shay reached over to trail her hand down the strings of her bow, assuring herself that it was still within reach. She knew the bow she had brought with her wouldn't last much longer.

She had been approached shortly before sundown, handed a scroll and instructed to deliver it to the chieftain in Sen'jin villiage. The village was just off to the east and actually a very short run. Within an hour or so, she had arrived at the village. It reminded her of her home. There wasn't much to it, other then a few nicely crafted wooden huts. But the village was a bustle of activity. The population consisted mainly of trolls and for that she was thankful. At least her people didn't strain to understand her. ______________________________________________________________________
Round 3 - _______________________________________________________________________
The sun dawned early gleaming off the red rocks of Durator. Shay had been up and about for several hours, eager to get to work.

A hint of excitement bloomed within her as she thought about the day's task. She was making her way to Razor Hill this morning, then hopefully on to Orgrimmar. There was very little need for her services in the village. She had done all she could to assist the villagers. But the work was not as fulfilling as she had dreamed it to be. There was little glory in aiding the world against a few extra crabs and boars. Today, however, would surely prove to be more.

Placing her fingers to her lips, she let out a lough whistle has she exited the building. Waiting momentarily, listening closely as a huge smile spread over her face. The large shadowy figure topped the hill beside the hut. It's massive size darkened as the sun shown in a halo outline around the creature.

The large raptor let out a screech as it bound down towards her. Crossing the distance with minimal effort to stand beside her. His massive head butting against Shay's shoulder causing her to laugh.

"Good boy, Aladar" Shay reached up to stroke his head. Learning to tame the beast had been one of her many tasks over the past few days. The local Hunter in the village, the same that had taught her so much, had shared his secrets on beast taming with her. It was the art of a hunter. The mark that set their kind apart from all others. But it wasn't all that simple. Learning to tame Aladar had proven to be a very trying task.

The beast was at least twice her size. Her skull still ached from being thrown around by him. But it was the pains of love. He had become her best friend. If that were possible, he was her only real friend. And he was devoted to her and her alone. He fought by her side, defending her from would be harm. It was a relationship no other person could understand. The trust of a beast and his master.
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Nothing major to report on after this weekend. Shay dinged 14 finally, her story is only up to date to 10 so far. I will attempt to update that more tonight to tomorrow. I'm finding it harder and harder to actually write that in a story format, but we'll see how it goes.

DK hit 72 last night. She's been a lot of fun to play. And we found the cutest thing ever last night. Making our way to Agmar's Hammer in Dragonblight, in the top of the tower you will find a bunch of little tiny baby cows. That's right, there is an orphan matron there taking care of the Tauren baby's. They are sooo cute. I did take screen shots and will update tonight when I get home to show them. They are adorable!! It's finding things like this on the Horde side that makes it so interesting to me.

Tanked my second instance over the weekend as well. All in all, it went great and was a ton of fun. Did a Nexus run with some guildies, including a level 80 shadow priest, who I was able to keep aggro off of! There was only one wipe and it was not my fault!! The hunter's pet decided to go off and aggro two groups. I did attempt to regain control of the situation but keeping me up with two groups beating on me didn't go so well for Matt. But I do feel more confident and think I might actually like tanking....really. The poor hunter on the other hand...was a totally different story. First off he runs out of arrows and decides he can..melee it? Wow, yeah..that was interesting. Then to top that off...he NEEDS on a caster off hand drop off the rift boss?! WTF does a hunter need with an off hand book, with spellpower, int and mp5?! Oh well...some people give "Huntard" the true meaning of the word.

Matt's work schedule this week is a little sad...he's 2 - close every night, so I'll sadly have more time for the Shay and less time for the DK. Good news..she may actually get her pretty green raptor mount to match her beautiful red raptor pet and the adorable little raptor hatchling pet! Yay!!

A new journey

______________________________________________________________________ Shakyra approached the orc standing in the middle of the small settlement with slight hesitation. Of course she had seen orcs before, just not so up close and personal. Her tiny village consisted of only a few dozen trolls. Each of whom she knew by name and had since she was a child.

She had never been allowed to leave the village. Had never had any need to until now. She thought back fondly of her home, of her mother and sisters she had left behind only a few days prior. The journey hadn't been a hard one so far. A couple days walk, that was all. Nothing any well trained troll couldn't handle. Though she would never admit to anyone else, her feet and legs were beginning to ache. Fatigue was starting to set in and she was getting hungry.

Shakyra, or Shay as has she was use to being called, took a moment to survey her surroundings. She made note of the small cave located directly behind the Orc. Wondering for a moment if there was a place to rest inside. There was a few other trolls and many orcs scattered around the encampment. Each seemed to be oblivious to her presence and for that she was slightly thankful. She had never been one to draw attention to herself.

She watched the orc standing in front of her for a moment. His presence alone proved him to be a massive force. His armor was slightly worn in places. Shay wondered what the orc had seen in his travels to cause the lines of age around his face to be so prominent. She guess him to be a few years older then her own 19 years. But for an Orc that still didn't justify the marks of ages that drew attention to the emptiness of his eyes. She assumed that like most orcs, his skin was once a vibrant shade of green, but now was fading to an aged shade closer to yellow. None the less, this was not her business and of that she had business of her own to attend to.

Approaching the Orc more confidently this time, Shay walked forward, bringing herself to her full height and made eye contact for the first time with the man she was sent to see.

"Sir, my name be Shakyra Nakuta. I be here to pledge my services to da Horde. I be sent to represent da village of Siruttia." ______________________________________________________________________

So, I don't claim to be an RP'er, or to that thought even a story teller. But I found myself playing this scene in my head last night after I rolled my little baby troll hunter. Maybe I'll continue on with this story in my journal posts about her, maybe not. Who knows. But anyway. Shay is still only a level 5. But those 5 levels did go by extremely fast, as they normally do in the first 10 levels of any toon. I rolled her with the intention of learning the Horde side lore and working towards the Lore Master title. Will I stick to it? *shrug* Maybe. I figured I could do something with my free time while Matt's working. I wanted to take screen shots of her journey and make a journal about the entire rise to 80. I still think it sounds like fun, so maybe it'll happen.

For a strict Alliance girl gone Horde, I'm having a lot of fun on the "dark" side. I feel like such a rebel..hehe. I have found a new fascination with Thrall...yeah, such a dork. I have a ton of screen shots from my DK's adventures in outlands and plan to continue those through Northrend. Visions of an awesome WoW scrapbook dancing in my head.

Other news...Kaly and Ythane attempted ZG again, for the 10 millionth time, last night. Still no raptor mount drop. We're still trying to get another baby raptor pet for Matt's mage. By the way..have I mentioned I LOVE my baby raptor pet?!?! My obsession for the raptors may secretly be the whole reason for rolling a troll...shhhhh!

Hmm, I really should go back and start marking off things from my "To do before Cataclysm hits" list. I even forget what's on that list...

*mental note* - Update list

Ok, so that's in for my nightly wow news, back to the real world! Happy Hunting all!