Moving

Destructive Reach is finally ready for its move to http://www.destructivereach.com . Please update any bookmarks, links, or readers you may have. Looking forward to seeing you all over at the new, shiny, disturbingly pink site. Oh, and yes there are still a few kinks for me to work out… I am getting there slowly, let me assure you!

Lazy Git Syndrome strikes again!

*Pulls out self-flagellation whip* I took a day off.  I am a lazy and horrible excuse for a blogger.  Please feel free to punish me with the most dreaded of blogger happenings – meaningless spam! *Puts away whip*

K, so now that that’s done with, let me fill you in with the events that occurred yesterday.  I know I should have possibly put up a ‘Sorry, won’t be in today, keep yourselves entertained by making one of these awesome voidwalker doorhangers instead of reading!’  Shame on me, shame.  However, I WAS busy at work trying to improve my self hosted version of the blog.  It is still not near completion, but it is a darn sight closer than it was before, and I am working hard on the colour scheme at this very moment.  Unfortunately, I suffer from a slight case of perfectionist-ism (I am sure there is a real word for this somewhere, but I can not think of it!) so it might take a little longer.

Then I decided to treat myself with a football game after all that hard work, so I made the trip to Sydney (well, my mother drove, I vegetated in the back of the car) and watched my team play an awesome game.  ‘Twas excellent indeed.

So, there was no post love.  None whatsoever.  To compensate, I might make an attempt at ‘live blogging’ my raid tonight.  I can see this as being fraught with problems, so I make no promises.  Computer crashes, the fact that raiding can sometimes be a wee bit boring for those who aren’t in there, and general laziness may conspire to make this a non happening.  In that case, I’ll… um… yeah.  I’ll do something.

The Fail Tank Strikes Again!

So, I was mucking around a little on Hermia the other day (as I do) when I got asked whether I wanted to come help a friend’s guild out in a Gruul’s Lair run.  Specifically, I was asked “How good is Hermia’s gear” to which I replied “somewhat craptastic”.  Personally, I don’t even feel comfortable with the idea of taking Hermia into Kara, let alone Gruul’s!  However, after much stat discussion and checking, the guild deemed that I was good enough to tank a HKM add, and off I went!

The first order of the day was to suss out if there were any enchanters in the raid and get my chest enchanted so that I had hit the ‘uncrittable’ defense mark, otherwise things could have gotten very nasty.  While I got that done, I also grabbed a couple other enchants since I was at the AH (-300g now from the epic mount fund!).  I got summoned back there, and ran in the door…

… and then realised that I forgot one of my trinkets.  Doh!  So, back to the dreaded Shattrath went I (via my inconvenient hearth at SMV), and once again crashed my computer.  What a bother.  Since my whole computer decided to die as well, I couldn’t even say anything on Vent.  Luckily for me, by the time everything loaded waaaay back up, they were still waiting for me.  So nice.  I am guessing Alorah mentioned that my computer is super poo.  I grabbed my trinket, got summoned back, and was all ready to go.

Happily, I didn’t die on any of the trash pulls (Sar nearly always does!  She is such a noob).  I changed into my SuperSpunkyBearSet, and was asked to tank Kiggler the Crazed.  Since this was my first time at tanking something which was serious, I was kinda scared.  OK, more than kinda scared!  I was very close to getting bear mess all over the floor.  I know Gruul isn’t the cleanest guy around, but I still didn’t think he would appreciate it.  I was given the sage advice of ‘back to the wall, begin with a moonfire, have fun!’, and off I went.

All seemed to go well for starters.  Heals hit me regularly, and I held on to Kiggler for dear life.  Then, the DPS started, and things went a little awry.  I lost him!  I still don’t know how he got away from me, but he did, and went running like mad towards Krosh Firehand.  I chased him frantically, spamming Lacerate, and with a good Growl I eventually got him back to me.  But boy oh boy was it messy.  Then, since I was trying to pull him back to where we started, I got knocked back a few times.  Not good, my friends, not good at all.  Somehow though, we got him down, I whacked on my cat weapon, and went to work on HKM himself.  We got him down first go, so that was pretty good in my book.  And I got myself a shiny new kitty helm!  Hermia’s first ever epic!  Thanks guys.

I had to go to my scheduled raid then on Sar, so I bid my sad farewells and logged off, thinking ‘sure, I didn’t exactly nail that… but I didn’t really fail too badly either’.

So, when we did our fast Sunday runs into Gruul’s and Mag’s, I decided to ask if I could bring Hermia to Mag’s.  I figured, hey, I really wouldn’t be tanking all that much, and we didn’t especially need the DPS.  Since I was given the big OK, all was well and in I went.  I was designated a channeler to tank, and once again, I was sooo scared!  The first time, I stood behind my channeler and waited for the go ahead.  Imagine my surprise when he took off towards the MT!  Eeeeek!  I frantically chased him and pulled him back, but boy oh boy did I feel stupid.  So, the second time around, I decided to stand in front of him and intercept his path.  Up top for thinking, right?  Well, once again, I failed.  Bah.  So off I went, chasing again like an idiot, feeling twice as stupid as I did the first time.  We wiped again, affording me a third chance to finally get it right.

Suddenly, I thought.  Moonfire!  Duh!  So I grabbed him this time around with a moonfire pull, not letting him get away from me.  Huzzah!  I finally succeeded!  My competence must have passed on to the rest of the raid, because we downed him, despite a frantic moment where the MT got swatted at 3%.  Then everyone got hit by his AoE, since the clickers must have freaked and didn’t click.  At 1% there were only a handful of people remaining, and they magically got him down. Phew!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the perfect end to the night, rolling a ‘2’ on my chest piece.  Rats.

I guess though that I learned alot over those two runs, and that is the main thing.  Moonfire is my friend!  So is the mod Itemrack (after a nasty part where I didn’t expect to be tanking anymore, changed into my kitty set, and then was asked to tank an add and didn’t have time to change before the pull).  I figure the learning is worth 20 loots!

Decisions, decisions

I am in a quandry.  I have decided to level up a new alt, but I really do not know which one to go for first!  I am torn between two options – Pewts, the level 11 mage (with a very rudimentary learning of enchanting and tailoring under her belt), or Eleyth, the level 22 priest (who has excellent alchemy skills thanks to Hermia levelling herbalism but not alchemy).  Both classes hold appeal for different reasons, but there are also different reasons why I do not want to level them.

Pewts:

• She is adorable, which is a plus.
• I do enjoy the whole ‘sheeping’ aspect of the class… but I guess it could wear thin
• I already planned out her professions and talents gosh darn it – so I plan a little in advance, shush
• I already have a warlock, do I need another pewpew caster class?

Eleyth:

• Is already 11 levels ahead
• has prettier gear because she is 11 levels ahead
• I would like to have a healer to round out my trifecta
• has great professions
• I have no idea how I want to level her though!  Shadow seems so unappealing for some reason.

Heeeeeeeelp!!

My Secret Ambition – World Domination!!

OK, OK, so I don’t really want to dominate the world. Well, it would be kinda nice… but altogether too much responsibility. My secret ambition is something I have never really discussed much to be honest. My pipe dreams are often, well, exactly that. While I have been lucky enough to see many of them achieved (becoming what I would term a ‘serious raider’, beginning this blog – and still writing it!), this is one that I know will just never happen. Oh, to have My Own Guild.

Why on earth would I want to run my own guild you ask? Well, there are a variety of reasons. The biggest and most selfish of them all is that I am an alpha-female. I like to be in charge, I enjoy being the boss. I also think that I happen to have excellent organisational skills, which in my opinion is one of the most important things to guild leadership. I like people, and I like dealing with people. Guilds are about people.

Many people assume that a good guild leader should be the best at their class. I don’t agree with this. I think I certainly know a lot about warlocks – most of my friends think so too I suppose, because they generally ask me all their lock related questions. I can give fairly sound advice on most matters warlock related. I may not be the top DPS, but I do fairly well for myself all in all. However, I have a rudimentary understanding of other classes. I build upon this understanding through exhaustive research, and through not being afraid to ask questions. In my mind, a good leader is the one who wants to know as much as possible about everyone’s role, and who is willing to occasionally make themselves look stupid to find out the answer.

I also think that I am capable of dealing with drama. Face it, I am going to be working in a profession where I have to see over one hundred hormonal teenagers each day, I had better want to be good at dealing with people and drama! The inner counsellor in me thrives on helping people sort out their issues with each other, and doing so in a manner which encourages and fosters respect.

Now, we all know that no one is perfect. I know that there would be things I would be outright bad at. I am occasionally too concerned with people’s feelings, and when something needs to be said bluntly I hesitate. Conversely, if I am having a ‘wrong side of the bed’ kind of day, I can get snappy, and am sometimes prone to exploding. Gosh darn moodiness!

The biggest thing that stops me from starting my own guild though is that I love the people in the guilds that I am in at the moment. While I would dearly love a leadership role again in Dying Breed, I can easily see why I do not have one. That makes perfect sense. I don’t long for one so much in Arcis, and I can’t really explain why. Perhaps I feel I haven’t paid my dues there or something. If I were to start my own guild, I couldn’t poach people from others in all good conscience. I am completely unsure how one goes about building up guild membership from scratch – I do not know that many people who aren’t happy where they are. The whole situation is positively fraught with problems!

So that is why I will probably never be a GM. No matter how much I want to do it, I just don’t know how to go about it. Especially without hurting those whom you love and respect.

A Milestone – Thankyou for reading!

999 views of Destructive Reach so far!  Thankyou for all your support, and I am looking forward to hopefully meeting more people through this blog.