Archive for March, 2008

One of the big things about being a Hunter in WoW is getting to tame an animal and have it be your companion, dishing out damage and being your own personal meat shield. Even better, you get to name the critter once it’s succumbed to your charms. This has lead to some truly stellar names in the annals of pet naming history, along with some, erm, questionable choices.

The tale of my taming Mirya the Teal Kitty (yes, Matticus, she’s teal, not blue), as well as the reasoning behind her name, is well documented. But then there’s the other pets I’ve had. There was the black kitty with the white spots very early on in my hunter career that was named Sylvie after my then real-life kitty. I tamed a white windserpent once and named it Pip, after a character’s pet from a book series by Alan Dean Foster (excellent series). Then there was a leopard-spotted kitty I tamed that I named Kibble. Why? It amused me and still does. When I got my warpstalker, I named him Kieru. One of the definitions I found for it is “Vanish”, which of course is perfect for a warpstalker.

But then there’s the other pets out there. There’s the turtles named “Soup”, the “ugly” pets named “Pookie” or “Muffin”, or the odd gorilla named “Dkong”. Some of the best fun I had in beta testing TBC was when my class leader named her new pet after her hubby and I named my new warpstalker after The Boyfriend. Both gentlemen felt less than honored, while everyone else in the guild got a giggle or three watching “GuildLeader” die over and over while we were learning the new instances. I know I saw an owl wander by the other day named “Splat”. At one point I’ve seen a bat named “Booya”. There was a pink tallstrider named “Shrimp” that I used to see a lot, but not so much anymore. And then there was the one person that named their pet a very mundane name: “James.” I got curious and asked why they named them that. Their response? “It’s my soon-to-be-ex-boss. i like watching him get slapped around then stomped on. It prevents me from yelling at work before I put in my two week notice on Monday. ^^” There ya go, pet destruction as an anger management tool!

Anyone else seen any oddball pet names or just have a name you use over and over cos it tickles you?

Class Lead: ok I want to make sure Pally Tank has aggro on Leo during elf phase.
Class Lead: no more dying!
Me: I’ll try!
Class Lead:
Class Lead: well if you die, I have to molest your corpse
Hunter #3: well dang, that’s what I’ve been doing wrong!
Me: you realize you’ve just given me reason to die, right?

oh yeah, we have issues… >.>

We’re getting good at ZA. WE still have our stumbles (a couple of “oh god, THAT pull now” spots I can think of), but for the most part, we do good on the 4 animal avatars. Now, we’re really putting time in on Malacrass. Last night was one of our better nights, one that even with the frustration of waiting to get the group filled and into the instance, kinda made it all worthwhile. We finally got to see Malacrass hit below 20%. I know I saw 14% at one point, and someone else said they saw 11% before he started healing himself. The problem we’re running into is that every mana user is running out of mana before the fight ends. Yes, pots, mana oils, you name it are all getting used. Bandages and heal pots are all getting used by everyone to try and help out the healers. Hunters do the Hawk/Viper dance. Mages evocate. Everyone’s doing their damnest to help even the smallest bit, and we’re still dying because our healers start calling out “OOM” with everything on cooldown. I hear the frustration in their voices and know it’s bugging them even more than it bugs me.

At the same time we can be very pleased with ourselves for the work we did on Malacrass last night. We tried a couple of different methods and finally hit a good groove on the kill order of his adds, and really settled into handling the various specials he throws out. We would have had him that one time if we hadn’t all run out of mana, healers and dps alike, all at the same time. So we know we can do it. It’s just a matter of mana.

For those that might miss it, Matticus over at World of Matticus does a “20 Questions” every week or so with other bloggers. This week, I was his unlucky victim choice. Thanks Matt for the questions and thanks Big Bear Butt for poking Matt every time you saw him to ask “Hey, you finished those questions for Nightravyn yet? Wait, where’d she go? Is she hiding from Matt and I again? Oh Nightravynnnnnn!”

The past two nights of raids have been… frustrating. We’re working on SSC this week, and everyone showed up Tuesday night ready to kick butt. Tanks were assigned, healers were put in order, Hunters got their misdirects. You could feel the eagerness in the raid. We were there to kill. Three bosses in two hours? You are SO on.

End result? Two bosses and a lot of “…whut?” People’s timing was just ever so slightly off. It never went “OMG! DOOM!” wrong, but it wasn’t one of our better efforts. There was a lot of honest confusion as to what was causing the weirdness. So last night, once more into the breach we go… and had the same thing happen. This time though, it took us most of the two hours to get up and running, then we finally downed Tidewalker. Multiple wipes, multiple times, including one where The Boyfriend died within the first 7 seconds. As he was the Main Tank, it was a Bad Thing.

I hate those nights where things just won’t work out. You don’t know why it’s being such a pain, but things are just messed up all over the place. It wasn’t like quicksand, where not matter how hard you struggle, you just sink faster and deeper. This was just totally random. One boss fight would go 8 minutes, the next 30 seconds. It just ends up being a frustrating experience for everyone, knowing that you can down this guy, but something in the fates is giggling at your guild flinging themselves into battle.

Tonight’s ZA and I hope, I really hope, that whatever’s plagued us the past couple of days goes away and we can get back on track for Saturday. Otherwise, this is just going to be a painful 4 hours tonight. :;sigh::

The weekend was not what I had planned. Well okay, about half of it was what I had planned, the other half wasn’t. Friday night we went and threw bees in Leo’s face in SSC. I think we all just about died laughing on a 1% wipe as the last standing person, a rogue, was frantically stabbing him, trying to get that last little bit down right before he got slammed into the wall. Did I mention the enrage timer had kicked in by then too? Oh yeah, fun times.

We did get Leo down, and took our first look at Karathress. I managed to almost wipe the group… or rather my in-game cat and one of the real life cats conspired to try and wipe the raid. We’re standing around listening to the healers discuss how they’re going to handle the groups. This will be our first attempt at this boss, and we’re all pretty sure that we’re gonna be doing our usual “pull-fightfightwhoops-splat”. Hey, it’s tradition! But the healers still want to make sure everyone’s covered. Tanks are ready, hunters are ready with misdirect assignments, and everyone’s still clumped up in one spot so we can reapply any buffs needed before the pull. I have my MD-assigned tank’s mob targeted and we’re starting to wrap the healer talk up.

That’s when my real-life cat hopped up onto the desk, put herself between the monitor and the keyboard, flopped down, and rolled onto the keys.

As I’m trying to get her off the keyboard, I hear the “fwoosh” of Dash kick in and see Mirya racing off towards my MD tank’s mob. At the same time, I hear The Boyfriend calmly say “Pet.” Then slightly more concerned “Pettt.” Then pretty frantic “PET!” right as the Raid Leader yelps “PET!” What they didn’t see was me flinging one surprised cat onto a nearby bed and pounding the passive pet keys to get the other pet to return. At least Mirya didn’t actually trigger the mobs to attack. I managed to hit the keys fast enough to pull her back. Talk about waking your raid up! We didn’t actually get Karathress down, but we have a better idea of where we’re going from here on.

Sunday, Uber Pally took The Boyfriend and I through Sunken Temple on our level 50s so we could get those quests in there done. They’re done now, thank god, and I can move on to other things with her. Then Aerye had connection issues ::wishing evil things to her ISP and that she’s online again soon:: so I took her spot in Kara. It wasn’t the most ideal group that walked in, and we had to skip Illhoof and Nightbane, but everything else in there died nicely.

So wasn’t what I was expecting for a weekend, but was okay overall. Tonight? Time off. Mmm time off.