Bye Bye Vashj

Some months ago I moved Jools over from the pvp server Vashj to the pve server Aerie Peak.

The reason for this was that I really enjoyed playing her but she very rarely got any invites to runs or raids when she could attend because the healer spots were usually filled by badge-bloated officer healers.

I played a lot with some out-of guild friends, but they were doing the more hardcore raiding every night and I was feeling a little lonely.

So I moved her.

This was the first time I played seriously on a pve server, and I got a serious woot! Is this for real?? experience!

There were never any problem summoning raiders or replacement cause of summoning stone wars. It actually took me several Kara runs to realise that half the people outside at the stone were Horde!

While I still felt that initial adrenaline rush upon seeing a Horde when out questing, it petered out when I realised that they would not try to kill me, not now, not when I was attacking a quest mob, not ever.

Suddenly, whole areas of gameplay opened up again. I created a new alt and I will take her through Stranglethorn Vale again, a place that I really loved with that jungle theme and abundance of quests, but I have not been lvling there for years because the sheer amount of ganking I’ve experienced there.

My warrior dinged 70 just some weeks ago, and while it was pretty ok doing the last lvls in Outland since there was hardly any people around, Horde or Alliance, I dread the coming of the Wrath of the Lick King, when the new areas will be filled with people levelling, questing and - ganking.

Sure, I realise that you can accidentally flag yourself for pvp in various ways and get killed by a player of the opposite faction, but in almost all of my pv server encounters with Horde I won’t have to worry about that.

So, I was thinking of moving the rest of the flock over to Aerie Peak too. I have spent my entire time on Vashj detesting gankers and now I will get an awful lot of time to spend on playing instead of swearing, corpse running or moving to another area to quest.

The fact that sort of clinched it though, was that the guild I joined with Jools turned out to be a collection of real sweet and fun people! I didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t find any new friends because I already had!

So I started sorting out my bags and told my Vashj friends about my plans. I will miss them but I feel this is the right way for me to go. It’s a bit expensive though, Blizzard charges 20 Euro per transfer, so I am looking at a total cost of 120 Euros, but I have no doubt at all it will be money well spent!

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Srs raiding is the shit!

I stopped by Cenarion Post and picked up a brand new pretty feathered speed-bird for my srs raiding priest and then I flew off on said bird to the Coilfang reservoir and swam down the drainpipe to be ready and prepared, yes sir!, outside Serpentshrine Cavern at 2015 sharp yesterday.

I had a big picnic basket with me, 100 Sacred Candles with me, 20 charges of Superior Mana Oil, 5 Flasks of Mighty Restoration and more Golden Fish Sticks than even the most devout lover of fish'n chips could devour in a lifetime.

- Read up on tactics? Check.
- Repaired? Check.
- Bags full of mana pots? Check.

I Was Prepared.

Going to be raiding srsly two days a week now, Mondays and Wednesdays from 20.30 til whenever are now marked Do Not Disturb in my calendar, in the company of 24 more like-minded people in the Raid Core of Jools' otherwise casual Aerie Peak guild.

Yesterday was the kick-off for the Raid Core after the summer holidays, and we were going to Serpentshrine Cavern to kick the tender asses of the Lurker and Leotheras the Blind.

Was I nervous? Yes. Was I thrilled? Yes.

I had been on a Lurker kill before, after a wipeless Maggy kill followed by a successful High King Maulgar and Gruul kill, when we were all high on success and raid adrenaline and kept going to SSC and the lurking fish boss there, so I wasn't too worried about that fight.

I remembered some basic facts of SSC, like don't jump down the elevator, don't fall into the water, stay out of the green mist when the Bog giants die, and such, so the trash pulls went by pretty fast and I kept my tank alive without a fuss.

What is very important about the Lurker fight, btw? That's right, jump into the water when he takes a deep breath and stay there until he has finished spouting.

This was an ah, right-moment for me as he took his deep breath and aimed straight for me when he stared spouting. Result:

But I since wasn't the only one that kicked the bucket that fight we ressed, buffed up and fished that scaled monster out of his hidey-hole again.

What are the odds of the damned slimy boss taking that deep breath of his and immediately start spouting at the very same person (=me!) that just happens to be slightly slow jumping off the island.

Very high, it seems...

Wasn't that bad though, I had a rather good view of the fireworks from my position safely away from the action ;P

After we got our revenged and looted phat epix from the dead pile of stinking scales and fishbone, we headed onwards!

And who is to say that the guild spirit is not one for all and all for one? When one of the tanks got knocked into the water and the trash mob followed him there, he was first joined by a healer and a dps to help beat him down. After the rest of us had taken the mobs still on the platform down we all followed suit, like a flock of lemmings we threw ourselves down into the water!

Leo was a bit of a badass though, and sadly he lived to see another day while we got seriously pwned by him.

Possible reasons why we didn't kill him:
- seasoned raiders were a bit rusty and new ones were a bit unused to the chaotic havoc-wreaking and dazzling, screaming fireworks (it is very different from the 10-man raids)
- general bad luck
- and of course the general scape-goat: LAG! (although sadly I can't blame my mistakes yesterday on that because it was totally lag-free)
- hmm can't really think of any other reason...:)

But his respite won't last long, tomorrow we will take him down!!

I got an unexpected surprise as well in there, one of my friends from my old pvp server popped in on a newly created lvl 2 alt just to say hello!!

What I Learned From Yesterday's Raiding

from my own and my fellow raiders experiences and (mis-)fortunes.

1. Warlocks are handy. They will summon you back up to the platforms if you are a noob and fall into the water and an even bigger noob and can't find your way up.

2. If you die on the elevator down and your dead body goes up and down on it, don't accept a friendly ress unless the platform is at the bottom.

3. If you don't kill off your Inner Demon fast enough and end up being mind-controlled, and the raid wipes before they can kill you off, you end up being mind-controlled for the entire 10 minutes, after which you just die.

4. Don't pull more than one trash pack at a time.

5. If you rely on BigWigs or some similar boss mod to help you time your actions, do remember to enable it for the particualr raid instance you are in.

Hmm think that's all for now, folks, will undoubtedly have more words of wisdom to share after tomorrow.

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Gem from bgchat

You know, too often bg chat is full of morons spewing filth around, accusing everyone but themselves to be clueless noobs and that this bg will be lost due to that.

Well, once in a while you just happen to see a conversation that, due to some hilarious timing of events, just makes you laugh. I happened upon such a conversation today as I was doing some last honor grinds for my Runed Ornate Ruby, and I even had the presence of mind to screenshot it.

Enjoy!

The hilariousness of someone complaining that people were not coming down to join him at Frostwolf Keep while at the same time failing to defend a tower at said Keep was certainly not lost on me or many others in this bg ;P

(And no, he was not the only one down there by far, so he didn't lose the tower due to overwhelming Horde forces.)

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