Sunday, August 17, 2008

Completely random observations

1. Healing in instances is both easier and more difficult than in PVP. In PVP, for example, you often have many targets to heal, and once the other side realizes you're healing, then their strategy often becomes "Kill it with fire! And knives! And whatever other weapons and spells you have!" However, I only once pulled aggro in the Scarlet Monastery yesterday morning on my shaman, and except for two bad pulls, had to only focus on healing the tank and occasionally the mage.*

On the other hand, in PVP, no one cares if you go out of mana and can't heal so long as you start swinging your mace, and will often protect you from enemy players — I usually pick up a pocket rogue as soon as I throw a heal in the battlegrounds. Whereas, in an instance, you can announce you're out of mana and drinking, tell people to wait a minute, and then, after they pull anyway, you get the idiot hunter who makes you sad asking why you aren't healing his pet. Dude, I'm drinking and you have Mend Pet, use it and wait a damn minute.

2. Once people find out you are resto specced, they will not leave you the fuck alone. "Mara crashes my computer, I only group with guildies, and I am in an instance right now. Also, I hate you." "Come on, please heal us? You'll get better loot! We'll give you kittens!" "Well ... maybe ... HEY! STOP IT!" /ignore

3. I have been so lucky on the rare occasions I group with Ideale. When I have been grouped with another hunter, they have been damn good. And if they have sucked, they've been extremely willing to take advice and check out recommended sites; it's been ignorance, not deliberate stupidity. But today, I saw where the huntard stereotype comes from: This hunter named after a truck brand rolled need on tank boots because they were mail, tried to steal aggro from the tank with his pet, went off and did his own thing and nearly wiped us twice, insulted the mage (my guildmate and a damn good player), and generally acted a fool. I actually whispered the tank to explain that not all hunters were awful and please don't judge us all by that ass.

4. Speaking of hunting, I'm "adventuring" with Ideale again — I'm at an impasse in Outland (I've mostly been doing dailies) and much as I love the battlegrounds, I'm ready for a little battleground break. Usually this means hitting the Plaguelands, but with Ahami in Feralas, one of the greenest places in Azeroth, the idea of visiting the Plaguelands just depressed me. (And Ideale needs a vacation — she's been working hard for months.) So I took her to Durotar this morning and started doing the starter zone quests. I want to get her exalted with the Horde without wasting a ton of runecloth. And let me tell you, it's kind of FUN to ride around one-shotting mobs. I think I did most of the Valley of Trials quests in under five minutes. Once I knock out the starter quests I missed, I'm going to find all the lowbie dungeon quests and go do them all, just to see the content and for the rep.

5. I recruited a friend. She rolled a priest and I rolled a druid, the class I can never seem to get to 20 (and, like with my priesty, I figure if I hate it past 20, I will switch to a hunter and move on from there). The triple XP is INSANE. I am referring my friend to some priesty blogs and stuff so that this doesn't fully harm her ability to play the class well — and best friend and I will make sure that she gets into some instances. (Gah, more instances.) But I don't know who should get the zhevra mount! Ahami might be a little tall for it, and I really wanted to get her the black war kodo. But Kresha's still at level 22, and my casual alt time has now been split into thirds.

6. Baths are entirely awesome.

* I am currently playing around with an undead priest, playing with my best friend. I was never much interested in the priest class, but I really love the character and can't imagine her as anything else, so. Anyway, the point is that priests seem much more adept at yanking aggro than shamans, so far. I can whale away with offensive spells, but the second I put a heal on her voidwalker, everything we're fighting goes straight to me.

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