How to make Zulroics suck less: a pair of experiments
It has already been beaten to death in blogs far more informative and interesting than this one that order to be a progression raider I have to spend every damn minute of my free time farming the same two pieces of ancient recycled content over and over and over and over until I want to die. This is not what I am planning to talk about here, so rest easy! Instead, since I DO have to go through this horrible soul-destroying nightmare of tedium, I wanted to find some ways to make it slightly less shitty.
What I learned is that trying to cap my VP on the weekends (which is the only time during which I may do so, since I can both stay up late and the gup naps twice in two-hour stretches during the day, hallelujah) turns me into Jules Winnfield.
Experiment: queue as heals.
DPS queues blow. Everyone knows this. Thirty or forty minutes sitting like an idiot in Stormwind with my thumb up my ass to spend two hours with one-to-four complete social misfits who would be right at home in a FUoS screenshot is not a good use of my very limited extraraid time. Therefore, I had a brilliant idea: I have a million JP and nothing to spend them on, so I will buy T11 healing gear and whip out my holy spec. BRILLIANT.
I know that some of you are groaning right now, because DPS in a quick-queue role is a terrible awful no-good very bad idea, but in my defense I currently play a holy priest hordeside and I was a healer on Aro for an excruciatingly long time. So: I know how to balance my chakra, I understand how to heal some shit, it’s just not my preferred role on my raiding character. I am not a complete bad, I promise!
So I am prepared to have mana struggles, I am prepared to admit at a group opening that I am new to healing on this character, I am READY to GO. And, in fact, I get ZG and I own it in the FACE. The dps is pretty struggly, but the tank knows what he’s doing and people only died because they wouldn’t own up to not knowing how Zanzil or Jindo work, so I am feeling pretty good about myself. Perhaps I will be able to cap this week, which would be AWESOME. So I queue again.
And then I realize that I maybe did not think this thing through.
I get ZA, which I hate anyway, and have for four years. There is a mage, a dps warrior, and a warrior tank all from the same guild, a feral druid, and me. There is PVP gear fucking everywhere. I am doomed.
The run takes two and a half hours, because I am also stubborn and bitter. We wipe on Janalai approximately eleventy hojillion times because a) the “tank” has no idea what he’s doing, b) the “tank” cannot keep adds off me to save his life, and c) as was a theme throughout the evening, only the feral druid would ever click the lightwell. Ever. “Please click the lightwell. Please please please.” “lol no lightwell sucks”
Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness.
At the successful conclusion of the run, the previously quiet tank goes on a six-line rampage about how I should be raped to death and die because I suck so bad.
Outstanding.
VERDICT: a partial success, if you consider a decent group followed by unprovoked misogynist rage a success.
Experiment: drink a lot.
So okay look, I am done with dealing with these assholes. I’m just done, at this point. Frankly I think it’s actually pretty telling that having a random group full of sane, reasonable individuals is notable enough that it can be the subject of its own post.
While my awesome guild does not require me to cap my VP every week, I still feel a personal obligation to try to come as close to that as possible, and since the vast majority of players in a random dungeon group are hateful, bad, or hatefully bad, I need to find a way to deaden the pain. Because, you guys, it’s a lot of pain. Seriously.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
The good news is that as DPS in a random I can move mostly on autopilot and be done. It’s a constant balancing act, determining whether waiting in a dps queue or putting up with a healer’s share of abuse is more painful or ridiculous. Paying attention means more specific and direct pain, but DPS requires more patience on the front end. When one is deadening pain, therefore, one goes for the less attention-requiring task.
Really, after a certain amount of time and reports for harassment, it is in my best interests to start summoning my pet Mr. Cuervo and his little friends Mr. Shot Glass and Mr. Lemon Wedge.
Eventually, it’s a better return on investment to just start drinking straight from the bottle.
VERDICT: did anyone get the number on that truck? …hey, where’d all these valor points come from? oh sweet, I capped!
"Eventually, it’s a better return on investment to just start drinking straight from the bottle."
I agree; buying shot glasses each week because I drunkenly smash the old ones against my monitor as I aim for the ignorant fool that eats the panther boss's wave EVERY FRICKIN' TIME gets to be expensive.
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FOR REAL. And then I end up squirting myself in the face with the lemon because otherwise the goggles do nothing. :(
You know who drinks tequila with a lemon?
A complete NANCY, that's who. >:( I HAVE TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THAT.
Yes but if I hadn't put that bit in there it wouldn't have been so FUNNY, so STOP RUINING MY JOKES. >:(
Oh, the photos are priceless. They underscore perfectly the depth of your pain. Sorry I'm laughing, I can't help it. Yep, the general population makes me fear for the future of the human race.
He wants to tank ZA in PvP gear? Call HIM out on it. From the start and every time he dies or needs miracles to survive trash. Shame him and make them vote you out. At least then you're not stuck with a deserter debuff.
My tolerance for alcohol is too high. I'm pretty sure I can't actually afford to use the "Drink a lot" option. :)
I queue Holy on my Paladin ONLY, as the other alternative is being the Tank. If you think healing idiots over their head in the Zs is a nightmare, try herding that kind of stupid through on a Tank. Other than that, it's worth the time to save my poor sanity, so I queue DPS on everyone else – for everything else – once I hit the level cap.
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That's why I suggest Cuervo, because it is disgusting and cheap! :D :D
Every now and then I think I want to try tanking and then I try one and people are such assholes that I respec back to deeps and cry my little heart out. I don't know that I even have any sanity left to save at this point. XD
So… Yeah. Basically I hate people like that. The ony downside to landing an all or mostly guild group is the fact that they take advantwge of your giant healer mana pool. But there's nothing like getting a decent tank who starts off being okay and quickly turns into a tool by the end. Man, I should write an already-dead-on-the-subject post anout the pitfalls of guild groups.
I love my guildies, I do. But man. Also, if you ever need a healer, lemme know. I'll go with you. ;)
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Honestly I just que for regular heroics now if not in a guild group. Two of those usually take as much or less time as the new, and I am so burnt out on the Zuls. Plus heavenly shards are running dangerously low in the gbank and sell for almost as much as crystals on our server.
Yeah, even as dps the regular heroic queues are shorter, and I'm a LOT more confident healing them just because they're not nearly as ungodly long. People are still complete shitheels at times, but it's less to put up with. XD
I have a similar issue on my warrior tank. I have a choice of herding cats as a tank and trying to keep threat on 3 mobs that all 3 dps are attacking separately (which let me tell you is hard when they open up by popping cd's or trinkets). And then when it all goes down the drain, its my fault. Trust me DPS, its not worth the special bag at the end.
Even on my full-time healer, I have only ever managed crappy useless potions in my special bag. XD My experiences with low-level tanking have been so completely atrocious that those of you who are brave enough to do it at max level just completely awe me.