Incredible Heights and Depths

The thing is, I’d run Blackrock Spire so many times on my various level eighty characters. Farmed it, even, if you will. Of all the instances out there, it is one where I know pretty well how to get through – at least the Upper part. Kill the rooms of channeling orcs, open the door, head through the trash to the Rookery, up the ramp on the right – through the room with the mini-boss rare spawns, jump down off the balcony to end up fighting Rend, which opens the door where you can run through to The Beast and Drakkisath. I’d wanted the dungeon one set chestpiece, you see. For my mage, and then my druid.

I had only a vague understanding that UBRS, perhaps, might not be a five person instance. This was my thinking. In fact, UBRS might want just a few more people that are level 60. Like, oh… ten, or so.

So when the pug said, “I think we could get the Jenkins achievement with this group,” I didn’t argue. There was a good chance we could have even done it. Heck, we had four paladins and a shaman. That’s an overpowered group, isn’t it? And we really were a bit overpowered. We mowed down the trash packs, killed the fire elemental guy, and were moving at a brisk clip – right up until the attempt to get the achievement left us splat, five smears on the ground.

Like so. Also, one thing not to say to a pug group that just wiped in UBRS: "Hey, this is going to make an AWESOME screenshot for my blog!" No, I didn't say it!

And after that, well heck, we were already in UBRS, weren’t we? Why not keep going? So we did, for awhile. The shaman wasn’t impressed with the plan, so she dropped group. (Foreshadowing)… We picked up another person immediately and killed Rend Blackhand and his trash. We killed some more trash. It was only when we reached The Beast that I began to have a sinking feeling. “It has 80K HP and a skull!” one of the other paladins said.

Hm, so it did. Somehow, being level 80, I hadn’t noticed this important fact the other times I’d come here. Well, they were game to give it a try, and so was I. Unfortunately being a ret paladin and overgearing the tank led me to commit the ultimate DPS crime – I pulled aggro and went splat pretty early on. The rest of the group managed to get The Beast to about 50% health. Which is pretty good, really! Just about half what you’d expect to need – for a monster designed to be killed by ten people and not five. Or four, really, since one was decorating the ground, but who’s counting?

Okay, so…no Beast. No problem. We’d move on to Drakkisath! We’d already come this far.

We wiped on trash. And then the healer had to leave. So we re-queued, this time with me healing. We accidentally pulled two groups and the tank died. So we tried again and just got the one group, and the tank died. These mobs were about four levels higher than us, at this point. Then he got mad and left, and we re-queued once more.

Incidentally: best undocumented pug change ever. When someone joins your group to replace someone else – they appear where you are instead of at the beginning of the instance. Thank you, thank you, thank you again, Blizz. This is awesome.

Except that where we were, at this point, was a short distance from Drakkisath who we were pretty sure we couldn’t kill, and a long way from LBRS, where we’d been intended to go in the first place. We had to find another tank and DPS, but that didn’t take much time at all. We ran back to gamely start LBRS. Our tank didn’t know where he was going, but I sort of did. We got as far as the spiders before I realized that I really had to go – the whole endeavor had taken, so far, two hours. I suppose the only real benefit was that we were getting XP the whole time. I hated having to leave the group “mid-instance,” as it were, but I’d only scheduled about two hours for the endeavor in the first place.

Hours it takes to struggle through incomplete portions of both Upper and Lower Black Rock Spire: Two

Black Rock Spire wipes: Five.

Black Rock Spire achievements: Zero.

The feeling you get when you realize you’ve been causing your poor pug to beat its collective head against a wall that was intended for twice as many players, and at a higher level?

Priceless.

I’m going to cheat and get my husband’s warrior to go back with me at some later time (perhaps when the mobs no longer offer XP). Even though I didn’t get the achievements, I feel I’ve earned them!

Vid’s also level 59 now. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to finish the Dire Maul and the other instances. I may queue for Hogwarts Scholomance specifically because I like it and I’d hate to miss out on it.

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That Which We Call A Troll

In terms of instances, I’m starting to sort of kind of reach the ones I am comfortable navigating my way through. The other day I managed a few more pugs. There’ll be no more reports of ten minute SM: Graveyard runs here, no. Instances nearing sixty (pre-BC, anyhow) are srs business. They’re taking at least an hour, usually more.

Take the Lower Black Rock Spire group I joined mid-way through their run. I was DPSing again – see what I mean about queue times as DPS? I don’t know how long they waited for another DPS – possibly milliseconds, but regardless, that’s what they needed. I zoned in and saw no one else near the entrance, which usually gives me a sinking feeling. “Can you find us?” the DK tank asked me. “I can try,” I told him gamely. And miraculously (to me, anyway) I really do know LBRS well enough that I had no problem. I know that you go under the bridge to the right to get to LBRS, and left leads to UBRS. I know that you jump down and there are a series of bridges and the like. It was really easy to just follow the path that they had cleared. I’ve come here multiple times on different characters to do things like the pet quests and other various stuff (including getting lost when I was actually looking for UBRS). I’ve farmed UBRS interminably for parts of the dungeon gear set that Drakkisath drops. I am an old hand at Blackrock Spire! Not really, because the only time I came here at level was on my druid when she was level 58, and I stealthed through most of the whole thing to do the pet quests, a feat I was quite proud of, I’ll have you know. Cat druid rushes in where others fear to tread!

But, I digress. I made it to the group easily and joined their merry band of “let’s murder some orcs.” Unfortunately, it was short-lived – because about five minutes later, our DK tank disconnected. I was sad to see him go, because 1) he was a Draenei and 2) he had actually been doing a good job and spoke in complete sentences. I had just typed “Should we try and wait for him?” when someone initiated a vote-kick. I voted no, but he was kicked anyhow. We puttered around a little bit waiting for another tank. It didn’t take too long before one joined, but unfortunately, I had a bad feeling about him. This time, a human DK. His name?

Vagtroll.

I’ll let that sink in a minute. What does it even mean? I spend far too much time examining the dirty underbelly of the teenage unconscious. Is he trolling… for vaginas? Does he think he is a vagina, in a derogatory sense? Does he wish the character was actually a born a troll, and so is contemplating the mystery of his birth in a form of bizarre navel-gazing?

Unfortunately, having witnessed the way that he ran into LBRS and promptly got himself killed by a wandering patrol, I’m going to have to conclude that he was simply a moron. The group fell apart quickly after that, as the healer dropped group, unwilling to wait for Mr. Troll to find his way to us, and I followed suit. I hadn’t been looking forward to seeing the kind of epic tanking he was going to put forth, and I don’t mind admitting I acted with extreme prejudice. But when you choose a name like that, you’re kind of asking for it, aren’t you?

I queued again and this time experienced another unfamiliar loading screen. I’d just put myself in flight to Feathermoon, intending to go and pick up one of the Dire Maul quests that I’m sure was there, but the instance popped up almost right away. Dire Maul! This time I was healing. I zoned into the instance and clicked to respec and change my gear, typing right after, “Excuse me, I just had to respec so I’ll need to drink before we move on.” I ran through the little hallway that leads to Dire Maul proper, and the next words the tank replied with made angels sing and rainbows arc across the sky.

“OK guys, hang on,” he said, “Healer needs mana.” This tank was the opposite of a vagtroll. He was a dream tank. If I could have fallen to my knees and thanked some deity I would have, but I just sat and drank some water instead.

Complete aside – enough with the Morning Glory Dew, already! I’ve been drinking this since level 45, and I can’t drink the Draenic stuff until 60. This is a bit of an oversight, here. It refills 2928 mana over 20 seconds. With a few happy buffs, I have over five thousand mana at this level. Do you think any pug is going to let me sit and drink for a full 40 seconds? If you did think that you’d be WRONG. I’ll forget about this in two levels as I pour Draenic water everywhere in celebration, but seriously. Lowbie puggers need better water desperately.

BUT. This tank was glorious and made of kittens and puppies and happiness, and he let me regain my mana. This is significant enough that I jotted it down on my little pug sticky notes. “Dire Maul – Pally tank. Waited for mana.” He was as considerate as the instant went on, at one point even calling a break so that I could drink when I hadn’t noticed I needed to. “Wait, healer mana,” he said. This guy should hold a seminar for tanks.

My tanking buddy and I. Yes, I took a picture, so I will remember him forever. Oh, and a big Ancient dude.

I also really just plain, flat-out like Dire Maul (so far). It’s lush and interesting to look at. We chased the annoying little imp guy all through the instance, and amazingly enough, didn’t lose sight of him or miss where he had gone to. I somehow managed to lose him when I came here with my 80 mage a long time ago. And then when I engaged him, I managed to kill myself with a Hot Streak proc to the face. Did you know that spell reflect is a powerful tool versus an inattentive and powerful mage? I’m here to tell you.

Another thing that’s a powerful tool of death…

Twitter. I play with two monitors so I’ve usually got blogs/websites/whatever open on my second monitor. I clicked over to ask some pally related questions, because I know that my Twitter list has fabulous holy paladins on it, who did in fact answer my questions. They should’ve told me, though, “Instead of asking about Divine Illumination on Twitter, maybe you should try healing your tank.”

Yes, Twitter was nearly the death of my beloved pally tank. I have another confession to make, too. I said… “Wow, sorry guys, I got some really weird lag just then!” …You know, like the kind of lag that comes from alt-tabbing out to a different window to talk on twitter when you should be healing. Mental lag, if you will. The kind that five minutes later had me ask the hunter by name to dispel the curses, instead of the druid. He said, “Srsly? …I’m a hunter.” Whoops. Of course, the druid never responded, nor did he dispel the curses. So I suppose the greatest example of pug idiocy in this group came from me, never let it be said that just because I blog about pugs I’m ‘holier than thou!’

Although I absolutely am Holier than most of them. Except when I’m not. Because I’m a Holy paladin, get it…? I’ll stop now, honest.

A few search engine terms:

how to heal deadmines on a paladin and can a paladin heal deadmines – The answer is “Holy Light” and “Yes,” respectively, although if you’re level 20 you’ve learned Flash of Light, use it well. And Glyph Holy Light. No problem!

holy pally leveling kings or wisdom – At earlier levels, I went with Kings. It’s immensely powerful for the level. I didn’t take Imp. Wisdom right away either, bypassing it to get further down the tree and only coming back to get it later. Of course the best answer is “Both!” if you’re lucky enough to have another paladin. I say switch it up. Sometimes a larger mana pool (yay Kings!) means you don’t really have to worry about regen too much. Once you start getting all the happy Int talents I think Kings is a clear choice, but please correct me if I’m wrong, resident Holy paladins who know more than I (that’s all of you). I’ve been buffing Wis lately just because I can do the Greater version, and it lasts 30 minutes, and I’m lazy.

cat lovers are masochist and dog lovers are awesome – I might agree, but I’ll never tell. I can hear my dog snoring on the other side of the wall as I type this. He has a very robust snore.

jak zbudować wind furry u shamana enh? – “Shaka, when the walls fell.” I think this might be Polish…? I have no idea how they wound up here, though. Except I do have a shaman. But that’s all I know.