News and Opinion

I got a laugh from reading a post coutesy of Kulrayk (or Aylii) about Ventrilo environments and how they might be different. Although she does post a great question that I should go out of my way to look up. I really have no idea what the average age of the Guild is. Kulrayk has been a guest on my Guilds vent at my request. I figured she might be interested in learning about how Carnage operates during raids, and here are some of her conclusions:

• Carnage had longer periods of rated X talk than my guild. This leads me to believe that the average age of members on carnage are lower than of those in Echoes.
• Accents. Most of my guildies are east coasters. carnage seems to have an abundance for west coasters, and surprisingly enough, many live here in Southern California!
• There is more talk of PvP-QQ on Carnage, which once again leads me to believe that the members are younger.

But I can say most of us (with the exception of Netherscrub ^^) are past high school. I love it. I can’t wait until she hits 70. She’d fit in well, I figure =).

Image courtesy of rrss
First, I have a story to share for the sake of context.

One Raid

The other day, I assembled a a Guild Zul’Aman run. The goal is to keep a consistent ZA group that would run once a week in the hopes of eventually gelling together and running ZA with relative ease on a raiding off night without the displeasure of having to pug ZA groups. As usual, the group was built around a Prot Paladin and a Druid as well as the other miscellaneous classes that would be needed.

One Player

A DPS player from my Guild was interested in coming. Let’s call him Bruce. The only boss he needed was Zul’Jin and he really wanted the kill so he could get his weapon. I never really had a high opinion of this player in the first place but I didn’t care all that much about it. I just wanted to get the job done. He wanted to know whether or not this run would be a full clear. I told him that I could not guarantee a full Zul’Jin run. While my team scoffed at the idea, I exercised caution as there was still a few players who were new to the instance. I myself was rusty in Zul’Aman. Sure enough, we ran into a few bumps along the way. We started at approximately 8 PM and brute forced our way to Zul’Jin at 11 PM. The instance was slated to reset in 8 hours so we would not have the benefit of an extra day to come back.

We took 3 or so shots on him and managed to blow by phase 3 with relative ease. Unfortunately, we couldn’t follow up on our momentum and finish him off. We had a few EST players and it was getting late for them. As a result, we killed the raid and disbanded the raid.

Bruce wanted another attempt otherwise all of the efforts up to this point would have been for naught.

One Remark

A week later, the same core of us decide to go back in again. In Guild chat, Bruce stated that he’d like to go again but felt that the previous attempt was a waste of his time and hoped to be able to kill Zul’Jin again.

And that really struck a chord with me.

After all, Bruce only wants a weapon off of Zul’Jin. And if our little motley crew can’t kill him consistently enough, then that little remark implies that he would only be wasting his time by running with us. That is absolutely fine with me. I don’t really care much for the guy. If our Guild was a hockey team, he’d be a 4th line player and would see 6 minutes of ice time in a 60 minute game. As a result, I’ve no intention of taking Bruce into any kind of runs I do ever again because I’m afraid that it would simply be a waste of his time.

And I don’t like to waste people’s time.

I just finished having lunch at Mcdonalds (and as a consequence, I’m eating nothing but salad next week). It’s a typical cloudy day over “beautiful British Columbia”. As I’m boarding the bus that goes to the Skytrain to school, I came face to face with the most haughtiest bus driver ever. He had a scowl on his face that, I swear, must have been chiseled there from birth.

He reminds me of Drew’s boss on the Drew Carey show (Nigel was his name, I think).

Anyways, my initial impression of him was correct. We’re heading down the hill towards the last stop before the train, and there’s a gentleman standing at the stop waiting to get picked up.

“For Christ’s sake, it’s only a 2 block walk!” I hear him mutter (over Andrea Bocelli on my iPod).

I was a little taken aback at first. The gentleman boards the bus, flashes his pass, and heads toward the rear. The doors close, and the drive just floors it hoping to beat the light.

It was a useless gesture as he was not able to make it before it turned amber and then red. He flung his arms up and cursed in disgust. Sounds like someone’s having a bad day.

As we pull up to the terminal, I head towards the front of the bus because I wanted to say something to the guy before I stepped off. He turns towards me with a look that would make a tiger cower and I look at him square in the eye.

“Thank you! Have a good day!”, I tell him.

He stares at me for a moment before his face breaks into a grin.

“You too, son. Have a great day!”

I step off the bus and head for the platform pondering at this remarkable shift in attitude.

During a raid, your QB has the mammoth task of figuring out which classes should go where. Often times, I find myself parted from a Shadow Priest or a Resto Shaman in order to increase the longevity of other DPS classes.

It’s like a big void within me suddenly appeared.

If I was the raid leader, and I didn’t give a crap about the DPS or the tanks or what not, I would structure *MY* healing group to look something like this.

Resto Shaman

What they bring to the table: Lots of totems. If you’re Alliance, you get space totems. Having a Resto Shaman in your group means Mana Tide, Mana Spring, Wrath of Air, and that funky Draenei Mana Regen racial thingy DRAeNEI MANA REGEN RACIAL IS ONLY FOR PRIESTS! FIRED!

What others miss out on: No windfury for the Rogues or Warriors. There’s only one Shaman out of 25 players, and they’re mine!

Shadow Priest

What they bring to the table: Not only do they consistently regenerate your groups heath but they regenerate your groups mana.

What others miss out on: Sorry Warlocks, looks like you’re not getting increased shadow damage this time. If I get the health and mana regen, it means YOU aren’t getting the mana regen (Completely forgot, MK thanks).

Holy Paladin

What they bring to the table: Auras for just about any situation you can think of. Most of the time, it will be concentration aura so we don’t lose cast time during annoying attacks.

What others miss out on: The tank doesn’t really NEED Fire Resist aura does he?

Resto Druid

What they bring to the table: The tree aura is nice to have around. It’s good to know that their innervate’s are close by ready to be blown in case us Priests need it.

What others miss out on: Oh right, the tank would probably benefit more from tree form then I would. Too bad. Hey, my ship!

If I were leading the raid, I would screw over other classes completely. To hell with group optimization. We all have our dreams. Blori would probably tell me to wake up because he would never part with a Shaman in the melee group. But alas, that’s why I’m just a measly grunt and not a lead.