Pamena checks in!
It's been a while since I had any particular news to report, and since the expansion dropped, I've been very busy in game levelling Pamena and Papa to 100, Senta to 97, Parsifale to 93 and Nicklausse to 91 where she may spend the entire expac, in her garrison, making flasks. But, there is some news to report!
Team PM and Guild LFR this week -
First, Team PM has been doing heroic and some normal dungeon runs on our regular raid nights of Thursday and Monday - most of the team is now able to do heroic level dungeons, and I hope we can work our way up to about level 630 gear before we start trying to clear normal mode and heroic mode Highmaul after Christmas. Tonight, instead of our dungeon run, I put a guild wide LFR on the calendar - from what I hear, it will take about 20 minutes, as it is really aimed at folks who are not otherwise raiding, with gear at 520 and below. So I hope we can take some guildies along who are in that category and haven't been able to do Nina's normal runs on Tuesdays. We are still looking for a couple more folks to join us regularly, as a couple of people's schedules have changed and made it impossible for them to commit to a regular schedule. So if you're a healer or DPS with a healer offspec, let Pamena know in game if you're interested in hanging with us twice a week to kill some bosses in a relaxed approach.
Redentor Leads the Way in MC!
The big event for me this week was our guild Molten Core run on Saturday night, for Saturday Night Massacre. This is the WOW 10th Anniversary event, and requires an item level of 615 to get in (just like normal LFR does), but is considerably more difficult than Highmaul LFR. As I understand from Vanilla WOW veterans, the MC mechanics were basically all the same, and the mobs hit at a level more commensurate with players' current gear. Our abilities, however, have changed since MC was current content, so I think things like Mass Dispel and many AOE damage spells helped quite a bit. Our biggest bit of good fortune in there, though, was having Redentor with us - he knows the place like the back of his hand, and when we had no guild tank able to go with us, he said he would switch to tank and could guide us through. We had about 25 guildies in the group when we zoned in, and contrary to our usual experience, the system gave Pamena the raid lead, which I promptly handed over to Redentor.
I have to just say it: Redentor was amazing - calm, organized, assigning roles, not getting frustrated when people did not do what he asked (particularly the 3 other pug tanks), and just generally providing superb raid leadership. We had a tough first pull on trash, as I think people were still not prepared for how tough it was going to be, but after that it was very smooth sailing, and the whole thing took just under 2 hours, I think. What's even more amazing is that Redentor was doing all this from Korea, where he is currently stationed in the military - I am so glad we were able to give him a chance to raid on what was for him Sunday morning. One of the other tanks kept saying she or he wanted to marry him - I was afraid he/she would follow him home, but it worked out ok lol. Good time was had by all, and we have the massive Core Hound mounts to show for it, along with shiny new 640 hats, so it was a great night! Mageartin has put another MC run on the calendar for this Saturday, and I thought we might try a mid week one sometime over the Christmas/New Year's period for those who can't do much on Saturday nights.
Pamena rants about Wowinsider podcast:
This is just a quick rant that I feel compelled to put in here. I listed to the WOWInsider podcast yesterday, and the 3 hosts were extremely grumpy about what they perceived as a dearth of activities for level 100 toons. None of them are raiding this expansion, they all played the beta extensively, and now they're bored, waiting in queues for heroic dungeons and now LFR's, and they were very vocal in their criticism of Blizz for not keeping them entertained properly. I had no idea what the heck they were talking about - I am an altoholic, for one thing, so I have 5 garrisons to manage, and toons to level, and I am having a wonderful time with all of it. What was clear eventually from the discussion is that none of them were in a guild like ours, where dungeon queues can be avoided by grabbing guildies to go with you, and where guildies like Nina and others take the time and make the effort to organize guild activities like Tuesday night flexorama/normal runs and Saturday Night Massacres, and so on. It made me all the more thankful for our guild - especially now that the server seems to have been overrun with racist jerks from the high population servers who moved to Garrosh when they couldn't get into their own servers and launch and then decided to stay (Tay and Suluca have been VERY busy in trade chat combating the forces of darkness one troll at a time).
Finally a word about Tvath
I want to close with a quick word hoping that Tvath is home from the hospital as she reads this, and that things are going better for her. We all missed her last week and it was great to have her in game this week playing from the hospital! Stress kills, my dear - hope life gets back to normal for you soon!
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