What "Annoying" Is and Other Exciting Adventures

I live in a small country. Granted, we're not totally backwater anymore, but still a fairly small country. This does not annoy me. I'm patriotic, I swear. On the rare and much celebrated occasions when I can actually get myself to leave the house, I find myself looking up at the sky and feeling "man, I love being here." What does annoy me is the people.

Yes, it can be said I'm somewhat anti-social. Not quite a sociopath but not on the friendly side of the stick either. This, although it might annoy others, does not annoy me. I like not liking people. I'm the best company I could ever hope for. So it comes as a bit of a shock to some people the way I glare at them when we first meet. I don't mean any harm, I'm just sizing them up. Not liking people in the broader sense has made me a good judge of character.

It is with this good amount of anti-social experience that I can most definitely say that most portuguese players (henceforth known as "tugas") are OMGSTFU-annoying. Seriously. I've been approached, time and time again by the same people, always asking me if I would like to join their now defunct "national" guild. The concept of an all tuga guild always put me off but I never actually minded them. So it was with a smile on my face and a sprint in my step that I heard they were done with the "national" part of it. Still didn't stop them from trying to recruit me every other day. This I find annoying.

I feel nothing but pity for their guild leader, as he is one of the few I have no qualms with. But their so called recruiters have been nothing but disapointing and/or rude. So, if by some off-chance you all happen to read this (you know who you are) please, STOP trying to recruit me or even talking to me. I don't care. Oh, and I will let you die every time it is within my power to do so. That's for telling me to go fuck myself, you non-Dark Magic releasing and unpocketed Sorc.

On to happier and more exciting things.

Our first ToVL run, albeit a short one, was a success. Mostly because the very first thing that dropped on the very first boss was the Glyph of Ualatp: Khaldun. Sweet, eh? Take that, Sentinel boots! (no, they still haven't dropped). We breezed through the first boss fairly easily, even though we had no ranged dps and three tanks. And apparently they forgot to reaply the guard the dude supposedly strips.

Moving right along, we got to the second boss and this one took a few tries. I had seen it done in a youtube video from this guy so I knew how it could possibly be done. But, although someone said it would be better if I did it, I wasn't keen on trying to kite the thing. So we tried it this way, and that way, this kiter, that kiter all to no avail. Finally, I stepped up and did it. First try was fail, second try was total win. This was, all in all, the best solution because I was the least dps-capable of the bunch and I could spam Flash of Chaos on myself if he happened to hit me once (no saving if he hit me twice though). Seeing as we kited him on the platform I was still in range to use my morale 1, Tzeentch's Talon, to help them kill it a bit faster. I also threw in a Harbinger for good measure. So, down it went and we didn't even take too long.

Third boss, not so win. I must admit, I wasn't as effective as I could've been, mostly because I didn't know if I should be coming or going when the beam thingies started. I have since looked into the matter (AKA, watched more vids) and decided the dmg from the beams can be fairly easily outhealed and thus I won't have to move around much. Which is nice, considering Dust of Pandemonium has a long cast time. Good thing it's critting for more than 3k too.

Alas, our healer had to bail and we decided to try and do it some other time. We got out, Crimson killed us, we took some BOs, a keep, unlocked Cunning Evasion/Assault, sleep.

Now that I think of it, that was probably one of the most ORvR filled days I had in a long time. We had to farm resources to try and open LotD up and we always seemed to end up in the middle of a keep take. Which was nice, for a change. Also nice cuz i "/point & /lol"ed at the afore mentioned sorc after it died while trying to hide behind a courner while we valiantly fought off the ordas.

Oh, and don't think I forgot Kahliah, Oh Great Broodmother. Seeing as you believe we should raise our recruitment standards so that they match a certain "star quality", I give you another tuga (actually a bunch of them) who is beyond annoyng, he's downright hillarious. He's got "star quality" alright. His momma told him so. She also said he was "special".



All of them are great fun, aren't they?
Note especially at 3:46, when our friend answers the question "What is it you think you have?" There can be only one, indeed.
This one's for you, Broodmother.

Guide to the Would-be Healed

Thanks to Mike and the boss for finally joining forces with me. They have more to say about the finer aspects of tanking and choppin than I ever will.

This post is in honour of Kaboose. If you're a RedvsBlue fan, you can understand just how promising this premise is.

We have a few new recruits in t2 so I logged my Dark Rites specced DoK, Enfermeiro ("Male Nurse", if you're wondering), to help out in scenarios. At a point we had an almost full premade ruling over t2 scenarios. Me and Sarephi, a new Zealot, were in charge of healing, while the boss on his Magus, Xone on his Blackguard, Kahliah the sorc and Krueg on his WE Lilrotir were in charge of the killing. And so it was that we were there, we were merry and we were pwning.

On one of many Mourkain Temples, we were joined by an auspiciously named Marauder. At first glance, a fellow RedvsBlue fan was a prospective vessel for my respect and even though Kaboose disapointed me in the end, we can all learn from his mistakes.

He started off with the succinct crowd favorite "Heal!" in /sc. Every healer that is actually healing knows how twitch inducing this can be. I wasn't about to have that. Especially because I had other people there with me to help bash the poor Kaboose. "WHERE'S MAH HEALS, KABOOOSE?" and several variants were my choice of taunts. We ended up taking home the cake and the 6 emblems and my healing won.

Now here's where it gets interesting and it is on this point I would like to focus on. Kaboose whispered me after we won the scenario and I'll dissect my answer to him step-by-step to help non-healers know what they can and can't expect from healers.

"I don't consider you to be a good healer because I was holding the artifact and I died right next to you." - Kaboose

After much rofling and lmaoing, my answer was as follows:

• "Kaboose, you're as smart as your name implies" - if you're in the dark, Caboose was the brainless comic-relief of RvB.
• "Next time, check your combat log before bitching" - if you think you're not getting healed or not getting healed enough, check your combat log before you nerdrage at whoever it is you think isn't doing his/her job. Sometimes you'll be surprised at how hard someone's trying.
• "There's only so much a healer can do" - sometimes, people go down faster than any cast time. Let's take Kaboose's example for a minute. When he so dramatically died while "right next to me", he was getting hit not only by all the dps Order had but also their tanks and the artifact itself. Me, a lowly DR specced DoK under rk20, had only Restore Essence and Soul Infusion to help him. And instead of falling back a bit, Kaboose bravely stared death right in the eye and died with his back against a wall.

Also, I had no turrets at hand. Turrets I use to spam Consume Essence to build up Soul Essence and also to use my Rend Soul. Unfortunately, most mdps are kind enough to destroy the turrets for me. I don't bitch about it much because their heart is in the right place.

To sum it up, please bear in mind that while you're thinking "if only I'd lived a second longer I could've killed that thing" a healer might be going "if only I hadn't lost LoS (line of sight) he could've lived a second longer".

In truth, I don't hold any grudges against Kaboose. I bet he's a nice guy. He just made a mistake. The mistake of thinking that having a healer makes one invincible, or perhaps the mistake of thinking that he was the only one in need of some healing. Or maybe even the mistake of thinking a dps was the best choice for artifact carrying. Whatever it was he was thinking, Kaboose made a poor choice of judgment. Or several of them in a row. But we've all had our days too.

And the Golden Rule would be, no matter how pissed off you might be, it's never a good idea to upset a healer. You might find yourself dead more often.