I’ve been saying for awhile that I want to hit some 25mans with Sareya – that finally happened this past weekend. I have a good friend in the server’s most progressed Horde guild, who likes organizing our weekly Karazhan runs in his spare time, and who keeps his alts in Love Vendor. This time he went and set up a Gruul run. It was pretty much a friends affair, some TI people, their friends (which is to say some very fine folks from Love Vendor, including yours truly), friends’ friends, friends’ friends’ friends and eventually we got a full raid.

We had a very strange and unbalanced group makeup at the end. The token caster DPS we had was a warlock – a T6 mage was brought in to tank Krosh but swapped to his alt for Gruul. Two tree druids, a shaman, three priests as healers. The rest of the raid was entirely physical dps, most of which were after Dragonspine Trophy. Four hunters, a load of DPS warriors, two rogues, a retribution paladin and a prot one. Oh, and a T6 feral druid to OT Gruul, and a prot warrior to MT.

We were initially fairly worried about the lack of healers, but things mostly proved to be smooth – we botched one HKM pull as something got loose and began oneshotting our already scarce healers, but the second try went very well. My sister-in-crime Jundo, the alt of another Love Vendor-ian, and I were assigned to tank Kiggler, and I’m glad to say we didn’t mess anything up. Maulgar yielded the hunter shoulders, but let’s face it, the lack of agility on Demon Stalker makes it an inferior choice to the S1 shoulders Sareya is sporting, so I passed without hesitation.

After a couple of crazy trash pulls (one of the mobs decided to call out for friends) we finally got to Gruul. Buffed, flasked, Misdirect order assigned, onwards we ran in and started the fight.

What with the lack of healers, of course the inevitable happened and we lost the MT at around 20% – this was the point where I started thanking our lucky stars for having so many melee DPS. Nord the druid OT took over tanking, and rogues were popping their Evasions, the sole kitty druid going bear, warriors Shield Walling one by one as the others spammed Execute.

It actually is slightly funny watching melee drop like flies when the MT dies, but I digress.

I reckon around one third of the raid was dead when Gruul himself also bit the dust. I honestly had not expected to have such a fast and flawless raid seeing how we weren’t really an organized effort and we had all kinds of people – casuals, Black Temple raiders, PvPers, and best of all, the ten year old daughter of one of the LV paladins, for whom it was a first raid (the little one won T4 leggings, and apparently was so excited that she ran straight downstairs to tell her mother).

I like the Gruul fight from a hunter’s perspective. Oh, it definitely is easier than watching the health bars of the entire raid. I can bandage or HS out of Shatter damage, and my higher hitpoints mean it’s easier to survive unlucky Slam/Shatter combos – I survived one or two that would not have been possible as a priest. Managing my pet in and out of Cave In was also a lot easier than I expected. I usually would leave him attacking and Mend Pet was enough to keep him up. If he got too low I pulled back for a little. I’m proud to say he didn’t die.

Other than that, it’s the usual “watch where you are standing, and keep an eye on Omen”. I had to keep popping Fel Mana potions even though I had Viper up, but I’m definitely not complaining.

Gruul ended up dropping leggings I wasn’t interested in, Eye of Gruul, and the much-coveted Dragonspine Trophy. Sareya lost the roll on the Trophy, but I’m very glad to say one of “us”, my sister in crime Jundo, ended up winning it.

So how did she do? How did she do?

I couldn’t believe I had done so well – I did put 100% into it, but with a raid that had characters who were clearly superiorly geared, I didn’t think I stood a chance. The top three is entirely comprised of Love Vendor members/alts as well, which makes me very proud of my guild. We might not be the most hardcore of raiders any more, but when it’s needed, we do know how to step up and deliver the damage.

All in all I loved the fact that I got to go, and I loved the fact that the raid was so successful – the success means we might actually do this again, and perhaps even move on to Magtheridon and a little of SSC/TK.

In other news, Love Vendor might actually start running their (well, our) own Karazhan raid again, seeing that we got some fresh blood in the form of old friends’ alts, who are all fairly experienced and itching to start raiding. I personally enjoy being a free agent for a variety of reasons (basically, in a formal, organized raiding guild you might have to tolerate people you don’t really like, but as a free agent I get to pick and choose my own people to raid with), but getting into some guild raids with people I haven’t played with for so long doesn’t sound like a half bad idea.

Massive drop in rating, not sure what to chalk it up to – horrible play, unfavorable matchups, not working well as a team, everything. DPS felt abysmal tonight, it was as if no matter what we did, things weren’t going down. Last season we had a mage who I would call overall less skilled as a whole, yet we did so much better.

I believe the issue lies simply in the lack of coordination and communication, first of all – match starts, I’ll start brainstorming on targets, if I miscall a target no one says anything, match ends, suddenly “we should have done this and that”. Anyone has a better idea, I want to hear it then, not have to have a complete change of strategy halfway through a match.

Another point is that as a team we simply have different ways of thinking, I will be thinking “what poses the most target to us as a whole” ie thinking defensively, while my mage is thinking “what can we burst down fastest” ie offensively. As a result, if the expected burst doesn’t happen and we need to go on the defensive, we fall apart due to lacking the mana efficiency and not really having planned ahead to coordinate the crowd control.

Case in point: Warrior, resto druid, disc priest. I vote we go for the priest and CC the warrior to keep him off me, negating the threat of mana burns – also, the druid will be busy healing the priest (so no cyclone), they will be forced to go on the defensive as a whole, and it’s not terribly hard to keep a priest stunlocked and CSed to deliver the DPS. My mage votes we drag the warrior out of the healers’ LoS, pin him down, and nuke him before heals come in. The approaches are very different, and depending on our individual playstyle and the options available to us at any given moment, both might work, only one might work, and none might work (we used one of the above approaches, which ended up not working).

We’re simply not clicking as we did with the setup last season, and risking QQing a bit, me feeling horribly inferior doesn’t make things any better. I have a lot to improve as far as my game is concerned, and I’m aware I’m still not quite there yet – pre-TBC I hardly ever did organized PvP for ranks (still sporting Stone Guard, that’s Horde rank 6 for you Alliance folks), and playing alongside two Conqueror titled people who were PvPing when Elysiane was in short pants, one of whom runs 2k+ teams on his main, doesn’t help my nervousness. I feel like I always fall short of some invisible standard, and that our losses in some way can be chalked up to that.

I’m considering a major UI overhaul as part of improving my game, probably going to work on that soon. UI is my one weakness as I’m a creature of habit and it takes me a while just to get used to the simplest of addons. I’m still using the Blizz default UI with Proximo, Grid and the usual Enemy Cast Bar addons for arena. But I think I need something better organized (it’s all a massive mess atm) that basically rubs in my face what the hell is happening at any point at any time in a match.

Other than that, Sareya got a lot of new goodies as a result of our last Karazhan badge run, which I’m really happy about – Curator finally coughed up his ring, Chess gave me the boots (which I am banking for the moment), nabbed the leather leggings no one wanted from Netherspite for the +agi over my old ones. And after the run, had enough badges to get the amazing Gauntlets of Sniping. At this moment, sitting pretty at 1640 AP, 25% crit, and 580ish agi, all unbuffed, not even Hawk. Also one single hit rating short of the cap.

Although the one bummer came when I neatly gemmed everything blowing hundreds of gold after the raid, put them on, admired my new stats…

…and realised hey, my metagem isn’t working anymore.

/facepalm

Go grab two Nightseyes, resocket gloves, resocket leggings.

Proceed to really be pissed off at self for wasting the gold. That two blue requirement is really a killer for PvE, where all I currently want is red and yellow gems.

I was thinking that if I ever get Ring of a Thousand Marks, I would socket and use Fiend Slayer to make up for the lost hit over my Violet Signet, and if I stick in agi/stam gems those give me the requirement for the meta. Which means I can resocket the gloves and leggings… yet again.

Think I might just skip that.

Anyway, I think that at the moment, as far as PvE gear goes, Sareya has about hit her ceiling. There are no upgrades I need from Karazhan (save for Ring of a Thousand Marks, which I see as more of a sidegrade than an upgrade), and the only immediate “upgrade” I can think of is the badge bracers, giving her a marginal amount of +AP and some armor penetration. And I can regem my helm if I ever really start bugging myself about that one single hit rating needed to be capped. All in all I consider her ready for 25-mans and Zul’Aman, except our circle of friends isn’t going anywhere with that stuff, and I don’t want to apply to a raiding guild with Sareya as my main.

But that’s another woe entirely.

One does not simply PUG heroic BM in half Karazhan epics, half blues, and expect to succeed.

This is a DPS race. Can you generate threat fast enough for DPS to start right away? Can you deliver balls to the wall DPS over a long period of time? Is your healing endurance enough to go without drinking for 5-10 minutes at a time while keeping a tank up?

Are you aware of what the instance is like?

Obviously you aren’t, dear mage who thought you had to talk to Medivh instead of just ride past him to start the event (and so ninja-started it the first time), dear warrior who waited until the whole group caught up to engage the next portal and wasn’t aware portal placement was random, dear enhancement shaman with lower damage done than the tank.

I’m sorry, I just had to bail out of that one.

Much love,
The huntress who delivered 47% of the entire group’s damage.

P.S Yes, I feigned when the first boss was on 1% – I could have killed him, I just chose not to and not to get myself saved. I shudder to think of what the next 10 portals would have been like if we had such trouble with Deja. Ugh.

So tonight, Sareya is giving getting Scryer exalted another push, and that entails doing all the quests she never did along the way as long as farming signets and tomes.

She’s doing the manaforge chain in Netherstorm, and she’s come all the way to the end – off to Manaforge Ara to try to solo the 3-man elite. Maybe pick up some signets along the way too.

I enter the main room, and run into three Alliance on the same quest. I don’t intend to kill them. I never attack unless attacked myself. I even try to give them a hand with the demons. But the druid attacks, shortly after the rogue joins in, I die with the druid at 1%.

Oh misguided little ones.

You have guaranteed the fact that little quest of yours ain’t gonna complete itself tonight as long as I’m around.

Corpse-run back, res around the corner at one of the gates, hide behind the little ledge next to the door. Eat and drink to full, summon pet, aspect, the whole deal.

Wait patiently until they get to the elite. The elite spawns.

Target lock, slam Intimidation, Bestial Wrath, send pet in. He’s dead before he realises what happened. Next in line is the druid who is still tanking the elite, between the elite, my pet and myself, short work of him is made. The rogue realises what’s happening and vanishes right after that, I quickly Feign and back out, the elite owns poor Swifteye in the face.

The rogue comes back at that point and eh… a BM hunter ain’t a lot of good in between a lot of demons and at half health with no pet. On hindsight I should have attempted to kite him, but either way led to a lot of mobs and I didn’t want to risk it.

When I ran back, they were gone. My death is irrelevant to the point, revenge is sweet.

Or well, rediscovered.

See, me and PvP, we do get along, but not so well.

I do PvP. I play on a PvP server, I moderately like it, etc. I just have never been very good at it, or strived to be good at it, unlike some people I know. In the two years I have been playing Elysiane, I have figured out how to be effective (and annoying as all hell) in PvP as a healy priest, but that’s about it. “Effective” is as good as I get.

When I started Sareya, I never had any desire to PvP with her – she was more for the moneymaking. Now, Elysiane can make her money, no doubt about that, but when something needs farming, it brings tears of frustration to my eyes to go lolsmite things to death. Or well, did before the healing to damage conversion patch.

Anyway, so I made Sareya, thought I’d powerlevel her to 70, and then if anything needed farming she could go do it, no need for Ely to get her bony undead ass outside Shattrath. However, a lot happened in between the day I started leveling her and the day she got to 70 – primarily, I left my raiding guild. As a result, consumable, primal etc needs suddenly became nonexistent, and I had a lot of gametime left on my hands to do whatever I liked.

So I ended up actually playing Sareya, as more than just a farming alt. I read about specs, shot rotations, how to be successful in 5-mans and raids. I got her heroic keyed with all factions (back when they were Revered req), Karazhan ready (I mean really, honestly ready, not “Look mom I’m 70, let’s go Kara now lolz!” ready, don’t get me started about those alts who go into Karazhan in Hellfire quest rewards and expect a free ride), took her to Karazhan, rocked the damage meters. I learned it was fun to actually play a hunter in PvE. Like with everything I did, I vowed to be good at it.

The one thing I never tried on Sareya was PvP. It took me 95 days /played on Elysiane to actually learn how to play a priest in PvP (granted, I didn’t try too hard). I just didn’t want to suck and/or die repeatedly due to lack of PvP gear.

But I needed new boots (you see where this is going, right?), heroic Botanica was out of the question, and damn Fiend Slayer wasn’t dropping. Enter EotS.

/target Squishy /petattack /shootshootshoot

Ok, that was fun. Let’s try that again.

A couple of HKs later:

“SQUISH IIIIIIIIIIIT!”

However, I ended up grinding the honor for my boots, and then promptly forgetting about PvP. Until a few days ago, when I was reading Renoobed and got inspired, and thought “Hey, why don’t I log Sareya and attempt a few games”.

And it went from there. None of that “most honor in the least amount of time” stuff either – I played WSG most, even, because guarding the flag with 1-2 other like-minded individuals is just that much fun. I’m having the time of my life, even if I die in about three seconds under focus fire (blame my pro 40-odd resilience). And racking up a little honor to boot.

I need that PvP trinket. Fast. -.-

Although we did some mad D in WSG the other day with a lock and a druid… boy oh boy. Trap flare, NE druid dashes in with his tiny entourage, gets slowed, chain felguard Intercept, Feral Charge and Intimidation, concussive and aimed, 5 seconds later the flag has returned to its rightful owners and we’re cleaning up the rest of the Alliance offense.

We were furious because they got the first cap – that same resto druid was being guarded in their graveyard by a resto shaman and holy priest. Oy vey. Needless to say the flag never left our flagroom ever again. Good game.

Speaking of good games, my last AB game on Sareya was awesome today. Horde rocked and rolled it, in the face of an equally good Alliance force.

Was it a 5-cap where everyone farmed HKs at Trollbane Hall afterwards? No. Was it a premade? No. It was a simple PuG game, 15 intelligent, level-headed and skilled team players coming together. 3-cap, hold it until the end.

We capped farm, mine, blacksmith and held them. No one protested about playing defense, not a single node ever had less than 3 people in it. The other 6 people were an extremely rapid and responsive mobile force, running from base to base as needed – and no base went without an attack for long. Defense was never idle either, busy holding off very well-organized attacks until the mobile force could come squish the attackers for good.

As soon as a base was under attack, it got announced in /bg, and people actually *gasp* responded to this, a steady stream of attackers to exactly where they were needed when they were needed. There was no meaningless stables zerg, no one fighting in the middle between farm and blacksmith, no one needed to be told to defend.

It was a game played the way AB was meant to be played, and it was more fun than any game I have played in a while. Slow, steady win. And damn fun to boot, thanks to a very well played Alliance opposition that always kept us on our feet and guessing – there was a moment where the mine got flanked pretty strategically from both sides and we were sure we would lose it, but thanks to a couple of talented healers we managed to hold them off until the cavalry arrived.

Hunter PvP is funzies. As long as I don’t re-fall prey to the “I must grind an item and I must do it very fast” mindset, I’m enjoying it, racking up the marks and the good times – and well, if as a result of that, I eventually end up having enough for an item, all the power to me.