When I was growing up, the kid by himself in the playground was nicknamed “Scott”.
Because he’S got no mates.
Gnomeggedon’s new nickname is Scott.
I was the straw that broke the Friday night’s group back.
- TreeHuggerDave had gone.
- Our recently returned from 12 month hiatus Healadin has let his account lapse.
- I accepted I wasn’t enjoying Friday nights as the Gnome with moderately big balls of fire.
- Our Tankadin was experiencing similar feelings
- And finally the glue in our group, Mr. Z!, that has kept us together through 4.5+ years of questing, grinding, instancing an raiding has decided it’s time to spread his wings too.
So Mates at War(Craft) are no more…
The last couple of months has been hard going for me, throw into the mix the renewed and serious search for a RL home for the Gnome’s family and top it off with an ever widening gear gap. It was time for Gnome to port out and Squidly to log in.
Unfortunately it was on the eve of Gnomeaggedon’s entry to Ulduar. In fact he had just touched down at the flight point out the front when the decision was pretty much made.
Aware that I hadn’t been around for a while, I logged on at our usual mustering time. An hour later and we were no closer to entering the raid and Gnome was getting a little bored doing laps around Dal, showing off his less that epic Naxx 10 gear.
Lag Free Wintergrasp… NOT!
Finally I decided to do the fishing daily, the one that requires fishing in Wintergrasp. Unfortunately the battle was underway.
Not a big problem of course, I don’t mind a bit of Wintergrasp action, so I joined the queue.
I took the Wintergrasp invite as soon as it appeared, but that was the last thing I got to do while I waited for WoW to crash for the next 5 minutes.
I logged back on, finally, and the group was pretty much ready to roll. So I jumped on a bird for Ulduar.
Ever watched a movie one frame at a time, or maybe looked over a storyboard?
That was my flight to Ulduar. One frame at a time. So I relogged again. I can’t say things were much better on my return, and when asked whether I wanted to pass up my raid spot decided it was for the best. No sense in me being the thing that ruined everyone else’s Ulduar experience.
Squidly Diddly Do.
I logged onto Squidly, not really feeling all that enthused about playing WoW, but I immediately noticed that the dread I felt at being logged on as Gnome disappeared.
I knew I wasn’t in for a special night with Squid, but at least I felt I could enjoy the time I played.
A long whispered convo was had with Mr. Z! During which my thoughts about Gnome’s future solidified.
Gnome is not gone, but he’s hanging up his raiding boots for a while. I think he will run some heroics, maybe go and do the Outland’s instances. Maybe grind out some more of Northrend etc knowing he isn’t keeping 8 mates waiting at a summoning stone.
Squidly PuGs some instances.
I saw a call for people to run RFD. This had dropped of my LFG interface, but I wanted to give it a run. Turns out it was a boosted run, but there was still plenty left over for me to chain lightning and chain heal.
I was then plucked from LFG for a Mara run. This is what I was looking for… Turns out that the tank from the RFD run was coming too, but this rime we were all in the right level bracket.
We stormed through to the Orange side entrance. I was doing 40% odd of the damage… for once I was off healing duty, accepting an off heals job instead.
Luckily I did and there was more than one occasion where my chain heal spelt the difference between wipe and clear. It’s a funny situation to be chain lightning then chain heal, the chain lightning, then chain heal etc… But it was all good.
Don’t tank the slimes!
Was all good, until we got to the slimes… the AoE slimes… the do not melée, just range AoE slimes.
The two warriors had engaged and died to the slimes before I had time to get up from drinking. The hunter and priest shadowmelded, so that just left me and 4 slimes.
So I ran… Not far, just far enough to wind up a couple of spells, then ran. I was on my own. The hunter and Priest deciding that remaining out of combat was the best option.
I wish they had joined in. When I finally went OOM, 2 slimes were dirty puddles and 2 were nearly gone as well. Unfortunately those slimes do AoE in a bubble and they caught me while I was under a bridge they were crossing.
Priest didn’t want to come “all the way” to the front of the instance (3 rooms) to Rez me, I didn’t want to spend 15 minutes in the Mara maze to get back to the instance.
The tank didn’t want to tank in any instance where a ranges DPS thought they could tank better (even though I explained that these were the only mobs that required ranged tanking/kiting).
He also wasn’t impressed at the fact that the two healers weren’t healing him through the AoE from 4 slimes at once. God knows what would have happened when he took on the 10 slime pit.
The group folded, leaving me alone in the instance…
What was I to do…
I took out the slimes solo… If only the group had waited another 2 minutes.
Squidly is their savior
This morning found Squidly doing a couple of quests in STV. Well he would have been if he wasn’t responding to calls for help from other too s struggling with mob density.
Not sure while they were struggling. One told me he was struggling because it was 3 on 1. I was happy to even the odds, but as I wa taking on 4 at a time just to get to him, I began to wonder…
Is Squidly OP?
No wonder Alliance used to QQ about Shaman in Vanilla…
Gnomer and Out…
Or is that Squidly and Stout?
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http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/07/
scott-no-mates/
I, too, find playing a shaman rather odd, as it seems I’m invincible while leveling.
I think it’s a combination of powerful offensive spells, powerful healing spells, and that whole “water shield gives you infinite mana if something is hitting you” thing.
Especially if you have decent gear, most mobs in Azeroth hit like feeble kittens.
I was a bit miffed for the first few levels… I am too used to 1, 2 or (worst case) 3 shotting mobs…
No of course I realize if need be I can take all day, because the DPS output is balanced by the healing input.
Mind you, the mobs are dropping in about 3 shots these days… the more of them, the easier it seems to be.
Unlike Mage AoE where it’s all about snaring, running, blasting, snaring etc.
Shaman AoE seems to be.. pull them, let them hit you… give them payback.
I totally get what you’re saying about semi-retiring your main toon. I went through a bad phase where RL obligations made it hard for me to raid. Unfortunately, this was met with very little understanding by my raid leader and guild, so I lost interest in my main.
Instead, I melt faces with my baby spriest and wreck havoc in AV on my kitty druid, and I’m having a GREAT time of it!!!
I started returning to my main, now that she’s in a more casual guild and doing stuff like loremaster and the netherdrake rep grind. Taking my mind off the whole raid focus has really reignited my enjoyment in game!
I’m loving my Shaman, but I must admit, by stepping down from my Friday run, and as unfortunate as it is, that my mates are going to part ways as well (I will feel less guilty about doing my own thing while they try to find one more), I am already feeling more relaxed about Gnomeaggedon… and already making plans.
I might not start those plans in the next week or two, but I don’t have the trepidation I felt on Friday night.
It sounds as a relief, but at the same time I know how much you have enjoyed the company of your buddies. So I think I her a stroke of melancholy between the shaman OP happiness lines. We all need somewhere where we feel that we belong. somtehing more consistant than a LFG PUG.
But considering the very social nature of this gnome, sorry draenei, I guess I needn’t worry. It won’t be long before you’ll have a stead crew around you again, eagerly waiting for you to come online.
And btw… don’t shamans have balls too? Thos annoying things swirling around… Don’t know if they’re made of fire, but it seems as if you’ll basically stick the the theme of this blog, even if you’re switching to another char for a while now.
Yes, there is some melon & cauli, but I know that most of them will still be online, most likely we will join in vent regularly, but there wont be as much tension between us.
Maybe, just maybe I will join in the guild activities…
Ohh yeah!
Lol…
Squidly… coming at you with big blue balls of Mana!
trust the 3 foot pink pigtailed Gnome to notice!
It’s amazing how refreshing playing an alt can be…. but yeah, it can be difficult to log into your main, especially when the normal, regular, “core” crew just isn’t all there.
Sounds like you have more alts & crews right now that you do minions… of course maybe that is a part of your fiendish plan…
Muwahaha I’ve always got a fiendish plan in the works.
Gnome, I know what you mean about feeling OP playing a different class while leveling… maybe it’s just that leveling mages are a tad underpowered (can I say “UP”?)
Today with my pally, I did all the quests in Tanaris and all the quests in the Hinterlands. Those two zones took Rhii many days and many deaths. Aside from an occasional pvp gank, Myrhani blazed through them like the mobs were made of paper and glass.
It’s really weird what a buzz you can get from soloing “impossible situations” too. My favorite accomplishment of the weekend was soloing the black dragon quest (2 level 50s) in Badlands when Myrhani was 45.
Leveling ret pallies are OP.
It’s great.
I don’t think Mages are UP… they are squishy, and when things go wrong and you fail to use the escape tools provided (cooldowns, mis-timing, resists), then things can quickly go pear shaped.
However when you can handle a few hits, 3 shot a mob (or multiple mobs at once) and heal yourself through the incoming damage, it does start to feel OP.
Ret Pallies on the other hand need a nice big fat nerf stick…
Gnome runs for cover before big fat ret pallies chase him down with their nerf sticks
I don’t think mages are UP at higher levels, but leveling this pally has been revelatory a little lower down.
I don’t think it would have taken me 8 months to reach 80 if I had chosen a different class.