That Was The Week That Was

Pirates > Ninjas
It’s been another interesting week.  Sithica got to see Trial of the Crusader 10 man as a tank in a random PuG.  Yes, a PuG.  I’m still getting used to the idea of people doing Pickup Groups to the latest raid content and beating it, my Vanilla WoW heritage is showing.  I guess it’s true that 10 man ToC really isn’t anything to be scared of these days with the multitide of options available to people to gear up their characters.  Heck, Sithica went in there with the Tier 8.5 tank chest and Tier 9 tank shoulders and the last time she was in a raid was when Naxx 25 was still considered mildly challenging!  Anyway, ToC10 – not scary if you know your stuff and are geared even slightly appropriately.   But I digress, the raid group itself was pretty competent and the bosses dropped quite nicely despite my going into spanner mode on Twin Valkyr and forgetting to switch into Frost Presence.  I apologised profusely to the healers and they were fine with it, everyone had a laugh at my expense, it was that kind of group.

However.

We’ve all read stories of Ninja Master Looters.  I’ve seen warnings about certain individuals spammed in the trade channels, as I’m sure you all have.  In five years of playing I’ve never actually encountered it myself, until this ToC10 raid.  What actually happened was that Binding Light dropped from Faction Champions and the Raid Leader invited anyone interested to roll on it.  Note, that’s anyone interested.  The usual protocol on Hellscream EU is that you roll for the spec you’re raiding with first, if no-one wants the loot for main spec, offspec rolls are invited.  I’m absolutely fine with that, even if it means I never get any dps gear on my tanks, since they’re always, you know..  tanking.  But heck, that’s what badges are for.  Anyway, the point is that on this raid, anyone could roll on anything they could use.  Great.  Now my Deathknight isn’t interested in any healing trinket, obviously, but the Holy Paladin was, so he rolled and won.

Then the raid leader, a Resto Druid decides that it’s not a very good trinket for a Holy Paladin and since he “really really needed it” he took it for himself.

Whoah!  Hold on there, cowboy!  There was a minute of “Uh, didn’t the paladin win the roll?” type of comment but as the paladin, strangely enough, didn’t seem that bothered, everyone let it go and the raid continued.

Er..  http://www.wtf.com?  Alarm bells were very definitely now ringing.  I wanted to say something but you don’t want to be the lone voice of dissent when even the injured party doesn’t care about it, so I held my tongue and we continued.  Then we down Twin Valkyr and lo and behold, Reckoning drops.  The Hunter in the group immediately started jumping cartwheels, as well he should, it’s an amazing two-hander for a hunter.  It’s also significantly better than Sithica’s current two-hand dps weapon, even if the stats aren’t perfect for a Deathknight, they’re still pretty damn good for her Blood dps offspec, and so this being a raid where you can roll on any useful loot and “anyone can get loot if they win a fair roll” I roll on it too, as does the Retribution paladin and the Warrior Tank.  And I win the roll.  And all hell breaks loose.

“That’s not a tank weapon!”
“Well spotted, I don’t intend to use it for tanking.”
“It’s useless for a Deathknight!”
“You don’t play a Deathknight much, do you?”
“It’s better for the hunter, they need agility and you need strength!”
“Yes it is better for him but it’s not useless for me and he didn’t win the roll.”

And then the raid leader gives it to the Retribution paladin.  Who just happened to be his guildmate.  And who rolled lower than the hunter.  Apparently, Blood Deathknights don’t get any benefit from Agility but Retribution Paladins do.  Well I’d have been okay to pass the weapon to the Hunter because it’s clearly better itemised for him and nowhere near as big an upgrade for me as it was for him, but the Ret Pally?  No fucking way, José!  What rankled most was that this was clearly the kind of raid where you were only getting a drop if it wasn’t any use to the Leader and his cronies.  So since I had no desire to see myself screwed out of any tank loot because the Leader “really really needed it” for his Bear offspec or his Warrior mate, I left the raid and hearthed out.  Life’s too short to waste it with arguments over pixels, but my time is not there to be used to twink someone else’s mates.  Sorry, and bye.  The most bizarre thing about it all was except for the loot drama, they’d all been really nice raiders.  The mind boggles.

It doesn’t end there, of course.  I can’t get anything meaningful done for the next ten minutes as the Raid Leader and all his guildmates spam me with whispers either begging me to come back and tank the last boss or calling me a noob, ninja and loot whore.  Yes, apparently, I get screwed out of a winning loot roll because the Master Looters’ mate wants it, and that makes me a ninja.  Go figure.  So I switch to Calli for some peace and quiet and spend some time doing cooking dailies and working the Auction House.

An hour later, they’re still in /trade, looking for a tank for last boss ToC10.  I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but I’m mean, petty and vindictive like that.  Felt sorry for that hunter, though.

Twink My Alt
So it’s been ups and downs in ToC10 this week.  The call went out for any dps spare for a ToC10 consisting of the alts of players in our servers’ top raiding guild.  Two of our guys, including The Mighty Jingles, join the group to round out the numbers.  The group’s being led by the hunter alt of one of the other guild’s top warriors.  He’s known to have a “bit of an ego” but when you’re at the cutting edge of raid progression on a server you have something to brag about, and he’s never done me any harm so I tend to ignore any malicious gossip.  He, and the rest of his guild, all know their stuff, so this should be a cakewalk.

Oh dear.

Northrend Beasts was painful.  I mean it was just embarrassing.  Myself and the other rogue alt of one of our officers accounted for 75% of all damage to the snobolds on that fight.  Let me just stress, rogue alt.  Melee dps.  Melee dps who should have been stabbing Gormok in the ass while the ranged dps killed the snobolds.  But since The Mighty Jingles was the only ranged dps who seemed to be even aware of what snobolds were, he was forced to do something about it.

Three wipes in and still no bosses dead, I looked at the leaders’ gear, since he was being about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike as far as dps was concerned.  He only had a couple of blues, but the rest weren’t purple.  He was doing ToC10 in greens and quest rewards.  We decided at that point that discretion was the better form of valour, made our excuses and left.  I have no interest in running up a repair bill just so I can play “twink the alt” of someone who should really know better.

But this is not a failpug post!  After what feels like years of dutifully cracking open an Oracle egg every week, something great finally hatched!

I just wish protodrakes weren’t so damn ugly!

And just to prove that not all Trial of the Crusader groups suck, Calli earned a couple of new achievements over the course of the last two weeks.

You can’t win them all, but you can win the ones that matter.  Anything else is just life experience.