…I’m working.
Work on The Unexiled continues but is slowed down by a few things going on in my life. Namely, the fact that I’m moving to a new apartment. Or rather, I’m looking for a new apartment to which I can move. Once I get settled from that, I’ll have more time to work on my writing.
Also, my guild and I are collaborating on a new project that doesn’t involve raiding. More on that in the future.
But, most importantly, I have been killing the Lich King. Video proof below!
I had to split it into two videos because of the length limitation on YouTube.
Anyhow, back to work.
Well, on Monday my guild cleared Ruby Sanctum. They’d been having trouble getting raids going for the two weeks I was in the States due to about half of the guild also being on vacation or being distracted by that pesky World Cup thing. So, Monday, migraine notwithstanding, we went in and bagged Halion. I couldn’t record the first encounter because my video drivers were out-of-date and FRAPs was being an ass. But, I got the second encounter we did last night and uploaded it with credits to the people who were in the first kill. I’ll have to redo the credits to include the two others who were in last night’s kill but I’ll do that later.
So, for your viewing pleasure:
As promised, you can view all of my videos here: Rebel Raids. And, below is the teaser clip for my new guild’s intro to ICC.
Normally, I post updates to Alayne’s Story during my lunchbreak. However, when I was about halfway to work today, I realized I’d left the USB key with the story on it at home. So, that update will happen later this afternoon when I get home from work.
Thank God I get off work a little earlier on Fridays.
To tide you over for the next few hours, you can watch this totally awesome video* I made of my guild doing Icecrown Citadel.
*I’m not biased at all.
That’s the furtherest we’ve gotten General Verax down so far. 31% and then our healers were all out of mana, the eight saronite vapors had been used, and we wiped.
It’s a tricky fight. I suspect that we’re really going to have to work out a solid rotation, go more slowly on killing the vapors, and I’m going to have to get better at strafing the boss when needed.
Ah well. We’ll get him next reset. In other news, my husband’s guild (The Order of Azeroth) has gotten Yog-Saron down in 10 man.
Oh, and I’ve stumbled upon a new site to add to my reading links. Coffee With Sargeras. Check it out. It’s a riot. 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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