On Friday I sort of got unexpectedly pulled into a semi-guild/semi-PuG Karazhan run. At first, I was admittedly kinda wary about it. Mostly because the last few semi-guild/semi-PuG runs I’ve been in have been complete disasters and I was tired of dealing with feeling like a failure in the raid I love. Still, I went, because I haven’t gone in a long time.
It was… a surprisingly good run. Shade of Aran was the farthest we got because we were sorta taking our sweet time and people had to go, but I did successfully see Nightbane downed for the first time ever, which means I have gone back and edited him into my Karazhan guide, video and all! (FileFront instead of YouTube this time, because the YouTube limit is ten minutes and I couldn’t cut our movie down past about 10:30.)
Overall though, it was nice to be able to go back to the place and do it justice; it’s been so long since I’ve been in there with a good group. Oh, raid-buffed, I topped both 2000 AP and 30% crit throughout /flex Not bad for someone who still has a few blues. (Though in all honesty, Badge Epics do crazy gear-score-skewing things like that.)
I did learn a couple lessons. Lesson the First: Using crazy tricks to unfairly defeat bosses sucks. See, we ran into Shade of Aran the first time and did quite well, getting him down to 15% and only wiping because of bad timing with the elementals. On our way back, one of our PuGs asks us if we’ve heard of “The Door Trick”. The Door Trick goes like this: you all stand right outside the door, and a hunter sends their pet in to aggro Aran and then they immediately pull their pet back. The door shuts (with everyone standing outside) and you trigger the encounter, and basically all you have to worry about is Flame Wreath because all his other stuff stays inside the room. Aran himself mostly stays inside the room, too, but every so often he comes outside for a little and you DPS him until he disappears again.
We tried it. About five minutes later Officer Chat was filled with all of us talking about how heinously boring this was (because at this point he was only down to like 95%) and how we were never going to it this way again.
The “Door Trick” actually wound up failing because a fellow player and I somehow managed to get knocked off the ledge outside his door where we fell to our deaths, and I think that reset the encounter. At this point we were all begging the PuG to just do it the normal, fair way, and she obliged (although she seemed somewhat mystified by how we’d rather have wipes and repair bills over a “safer” method; maybe we’re the only people she’s run into that are like that?) Seriously though, don’t do the Door Trick, it’s lame and takes forever.
Lesson the Second is that during the run, the fact finally sunk in that I am super burnt-out with Tawyn. There are a couple reasons why I never log onto her anymore, one of those reasons is admittedly my work schedule but another reason is because I honestly do not find her as fun to play as my alts right now. Don’t get me wrong; I love raiding and heroics and level 70 Alterac Valley* but after a few months of it, it has burned me out. The whole time we were in Karazhan I was thinking “Huh, this is pretty fun, I still love Kara, but… I’d really rather be playing one of my alts.”
Which leads me to believe that Tawyn is either going to get unofficially or officially stabled until WotLK. I still view her as my main and I have no doubt that she will be my first character to level 80, but I’m just not feelin’ the spark right now. Currently I’m trying to decide if I want to make an “official” post about it on the guild forums and attempt to pass of guild leadership, or keep going as I’ve been going and log on to her super-casually once or twice a week.
What does this realization about myself mean for you? Nothing, I still love the game and hunters and will continue to write about them just as I always have, I’ll probably just focus more on alts. As for what it means for me, I’m still trying to decide. My pre-WotLK goals have always been clear Karazhan (just Netherspite left) so I can finish my guide, see Gruuls/Mags, and finally get Epic’d out. But at this point, seeing how burnt out I am with that character, I think I may only get around to clearing Kara. But… that’s okay. I guess we’ll see what happens.
In closing, does anyone know of a good way to measure personal DPS? I’m curious about it and my damage meter (SWStats) is silly.
* It’s AV weekend and I actually am feeling this urge to spec something more PvP-worthy and spend the day in there. Hey, last time I was in there, Alliance had finally learned how to cap towers, all we need now is to learn how to tank Drek! Right? Right? Bueller?
Well… Recount is supposedly pretty good from what I’ve seen.
And if you want a good spot to practice as a hunter, Dr. Boom in Netherstorm is the perfect target. He doesn’t move, and you can just blast him away ^^ (just make sure your pet doesn’t run into the bombs)
I hope that’s what you meant.
@ Paedolos – myself, I’d rather go to the mobs in Blasted Lands that don’t die, because then I can get my pet in on the action whereas I cannot with Dr. Boom. But, thank you for the Recount recommendation!
Playing alts always was one of my favourite activities due to the confuseness I feel at the end of the leveling game. Playing as a lvl70 character gives you soooo much way to step on (PvE PvP Arena Badge farm Money farm Qing Reputation farm ect). I like how low lvl characters can be maxed out in skills and other things. I like clearing Quest hubs, and maxing professions and ect as a lowie. And at the other hand playing one class at the level you play it screams for refreshment from time to time.
wow web stats
@ Anonymous – I’ve used it before and liked it but it’s too much of a hassle to set up on Linux =P
I’d also say go with Recount. It breaks things down really nicely, and even has a does a pretty real time chart of your DPS! I usually test on Dr. Boom too, I don’t know of these mobs in the Blasted Lands though…? Where are they? It’d be nice to see my DPS with my pet in the action.
I’ve been having some alt-love as well. I love Brajana, my hunter, but there is a time when you kind of run out of stuff to do. I pretty much just play her for raids now, or for doing my dailies when I’ve got the spare time. I’ve been focussing on my newly-70 priest, where there are still quests and instances I need to run and rep I need to grind!
I wouldn’t ever use a trick like that to down a boss the first time, but if it’s just like the random 13th time I’m fighting someone I won’t mind, if I’ve proven I can do it. Conversely if we’ve proven we CAN’T do it with the setup we have, I’ll accept it as well. If we get beaten over and over because something just isn’t working right, then I won’t mind. Otherwise yeah I’ll do it the honest way or not at all.
@ Brajana – they’re called Servant of [something] and look like normal mobs but once they get down to 1% health they turn ghost-like and don’t die unless you have some sort of quest item! You can find them all over Blasted Lands. I featured one in my Shot Rotations movie.
Don’t mean to be nitty-picky (is that even a word?), but I thought I should point out that Blasted Lands mobs have relatively lower armor than mobs you’ll encounter in raids, so your damage meters might be a bit off when testing with those.
But if you’re going for pet enjoyment, I bet they’re more fun than Mr. Boom 😉
Nothing measures your raid DPS like measuring your… well your DPS in a raid!
Get recount, then post-raid have a look at your damage breakdown 🙂
ROFL-we’ve done the door trick every time with Shade of Aran, mostly because we’re all old people and want to get to Prince before we fall asleep 🙂 We do feel like it’s a lame way to do things and every time we plan on doing it the right way next run ….. well, actually we tried the real way once and wiped. But it was the first time seeing the inside of the room for some of us 🙂
You can use WoW Web Stats using the guide that I wrote up a week or so back.
Indeed Loronar, and I do like WWS, but it is very hard to run on Linux. =(