Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Good news, and Good news (OK, Sorta)

Well last night started off good, and ended good, with lots of good in the middle.

I logged in and put in my authenticator code and came to the character choice screen. I realized bit at a loss of what to do. I could log in on Mich and get her some more Frost badges, I could log in to Paci and work more toward 41, I could log in to Orkette and figure out what I need to do next for her.... In the end I decided 41 was probably the closest goal, so I jumped in and hopped into the LFG. Moments later I am in a party and buffing people as I prepare to heal through Uldamann, which in my opinion is Raiders of the Lost Ark on drugs.

Let's face it, some developer must have been sitting at home one night drinking a beer saying to himself "OK, I need to build a new instance, it's gotta be cool, but I just have no ideas." Looking around the room, he sees a Big Mac box, "HEY! Maybe you can have to enter the golden arches...No. lame." (Though doesn't the entrance to the dig sort of look like it to you, or is it just me?). The plants on his desk, "Nah, we have to save that for the BC with Zagamarsh." Continues scanning the room. Eyes fall on the DVD shelf for inspiration..."Hmm Monster's Inc. it can be all doors! No, Disney'd crucify us. HEY! Raiders of the Lost Ark! Yeah! We can have them kill stuff or a staff, hide a amulet in a box...Yeah! That's the Ticket! Yeah!" (extra points to the person who gets the reference at the end there).

Anyway, I have digressed far and wide. I was talking about this group. First, I realized that I'd gotten hooked up with a tank from one of the South American servers, and everyone else was US. Not a big deal, I've done it before. Second I realize he's a Warrior. Again, not a big deal. Being bored because one of the DPS went AFK for a second I looked at his spec. Arms. Uh OH! I've never seen anyone tank that way before. He then proceeds to provide a soliloquy in spanish, of which I got 3 words that were tacked to the end. No. Hablo. English. I said a quick prayer to the LFG gods that this guy was saying that he is in the process of changing his spec, and he's a great tank, don't worry and we were off.

Apparently my prayer fell on deaf ears. 7 DPS changes later, not even half way through the instance my gear had taken a 45% beating from deaths, and the Tank finally left, which caused the rest of the party to fall apart. The only thing I salvaged from it was I had gotten myself to a point where a few kills outside got me to 41.

After that, I saw Alydar had logged in. For most of the afternoon I had been sort of feeling uncomfortable about posting about him earlier in the day, so I immediately sent him a tell to explain and let him read. I also told him that I'd delete it if he wanted. He went off and read, and came back in a bit that he wasn't upset, which was a huge weight off my mind. We then talked some more and agreed to do a non-heroic together to see how things went for him. We end up with Halls of Lightning. Which turned out to be a good instance. The party was good, and with the exception of a single wipe in the stupid hallway where fear can cause tons of adds it went well.  We talked about it after as well,

Things I noticed:
  1. Alydar is a good tank, he works hard, and knows his job and tries to do it. 
  2. He uses his abilities well, is cognizant of what is going on around him and takes good steps to make sure all is going well.
  3. Even in PVP/DPS gear, he held hate well and didn't get massacred causing lots of healer drain.
  4. He goes slower than many tanks I have seen in Heroics. I actually like this, though it takes a bit to get used to not having the "GOGOGOGO" feel that some people seem to want.
  5. I continue to believe that he is able to and prepared to do Heroics now, particularly after going through gear with him some at the end. I did explain that Resil is a PVP only stat. Also he doing some shopping for badge gear and gems. A few more enchants and he'll hit the def max. At which point its all a matter of replacing some of those PVP gear items.
After, I hopped off for a minute to fix something and found that I suddenly lost internet connection. It's back this morning. I don't know what happened. I just hope it doesn't happen again. Alydar, if you read this, sorry for ditching you last night. I didn't mean to.

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