A tale of three princes part two

Part two

Mrs Puddlefeathers sighed deeply and with a fond look and a shake of her head told the young Princess about the plight of the Rat Prince. “The Prince I am afraid is currently a prisoner my dear. Some years ago a wicked goblin witch cornered the market in tasty Lancashire cheese (which all the world knows is the tastiest cheese…) and upped the prices by 1000%. Well the rats were being impoverished by these steep prices and kittens were going hungry so the Prince being the brave Prince did the Princely thing: He boldly crept into the castle past all the wicked tomcat guards and made his way to the witches larder. Unfortunately he set off a hidden magical alarm and before he could make good his escape with all the cheese he could carry he was caught, by the witch, and turned into a frog! He’s been stuck by the pond of her roof garden ever since.”

“Frog huh?” said the Princess, “well that shouldn’t be an issue seeing as I am a Princess. One kiss and I can see if there’s any truth to the story about those whiskers of his.” “Did I mention the warts?” asked Mrs Puddlefeathers. “Wa…wa…warts?” replied the Princess paling slightly. “Don’t worry dear” soothed Mrs Puddlefeathers, “I’ll get you some ointment.”


So that is how the Princess came to travel to the land of the goblins. It was very easy to get to, with a superb transportation network and a Starbucks on every corner(some say it was a Goblin who created Starbucks, but that might be just a rumour.) Before long she had arrived at Witches lane, the major shopping area for spells, wands, fortune tellings, curses and tasty Lancashire cheese (yes the goblins still own the monopoly on the importation of that particular luxury item, much to the distress of the poverty stricken rats.) As she walked down the main thoroughfare, past all the rows of Goblin Skymagetowers and being bustled by busy goblin businessmen barging past with barely a “times money friend” by way of apology, she spotted the tower she was after. Or rather she spotted on the public lawn opposite said tower a swarm of rats clustered around a telescope they had somehow managed to erect over the back of a bench and pointing at the roof of the tower. As she walked over to the giant pack she couldn’t help but notice the way they kept pushing and shoving each other to get a turn at the telescope (though they were all careful not to knock it) and so it was with some amusement she loudly said “Excuse me please, I am looking for the Prince of the Rats. Is he in that tower?” and watched them all fall over in shock and astonishment. “Blimey Miss” squeaked one “Don’t sneak up on a poor girl like that will ya you near gave me the death o fright. Our old prince he’ up in that there tower alright but there’ no way to get to him see. The towers rigged with magical traps, we’ve no way of getting past those blasted tommies that witch has guarding the door and even if we did get past all that… well he’s a frog now Miss ain’t he? Not a lot any of us ladies can do for the lad right now, just sneak a peak and try to see if he still has his whiskers”

“humph, mind if I look?” asked the Princess bending down and peering through the glass (though being careful not to move it) without waiting for a reply. Looking through she could see up on a balcony just a few stories up a small roof garden with, sure enough, a pond and a rather large frog. “I can’t see any warts…” she muttered under her breath, which produced a startled response from the rats that were clustered around her. Ignoring them however she stepped boldly forward to the tower and as she crossed the thoroughfare she could see the Tomcats at the gate had spotted her. Sure enough they had marked her out as she had spoken to the rats and now with arched backs they hissed at her “HISSSSSSS!” Now this would surely have seen off any rat so foolhardy as to try to gain entrance to the tower, but not our Princess! Oh no. Not at the prices they had charged her for a cappuccino just before she got to witches lane! So with a clap of her hands and a stamp of her foot she shooed them away (drawing gasps of admiration from the audience of rats behind her). She then pondered her next move, a tad concerned about the magical traps mentioned by that rat earlier. After all she had no wish to be caught, she came looking for a prince but being a frog princess next to a frog prince wasn’t what she had in mind. Soon however she came up with a plan and she braided her long dark hair. Turning the end into a lasso like in one of her books on cowboys she then had fun missing the railings at the top of the balcony with the end of it. “This is harder then it sounded” muttered the Princess “He had better be worth it. My arms are starting to ache.” She got it in the end though which just goes to show that sometimes a little perseverance is worth the effort. Climbing up onto the balcony she announced to the startled frog “I am a Princess! I’m here to rescue you!”


Well as can be imagined the frog was a little non-plussed by this, but the Princess moved swiftly smearing her lips with ointment that she hoped would work, crouching down in front of the frog and with two firms hands holding him (and trying not to notice his hideous warts) she closed her eyes puckered up and laid a big kiss on his lips. As she felt the frog kiss her back though a worm of doubt entered her mind. Why had he not changed back yet? “Oh no” she though as the kiss lingered “Am I kissing the wrong frog?” The final straw though was when she felt the big slimy frog tongue slip past her lips and brush the roof of her mouth: she’d had enough! As she broke contact trying very valiantly when alls said and done not to be sick there and then she did however spot that where once sat a frog there now stood a rather large (and if one were to be put on the spot a rather uncommonly good looking) rat looking at her with an amused glint in its little beady eye. “Jolly good of you to come and save me like that what?” he exclaimed “still I think you might want to consider getting us out of here sharpish. Before you know, Goblin witch, outstanding disagreement on acceptable profit margins etc, etc?” “Why yes of course!” said the Princess “Lets get out of here!” and so as the Rat Prince leapt onto her shoulder she went to the edge of the balcony gulped “don’t look down!” and abseiled down by her hair to the distant sound of many rodent cheers.

So it was as they landed at the base of the wicked goblin witches tower, the Princess found herself surrounded by a mass of cheering adoring rodent females (luckily rats don’t wear knickers or for sure she would have been covered in them) as they all pushed and shoved each other in there effort to see the Prince. “I love you!” they squeaked. Quite the rock star she thought to herself, looking at his whiskers. Maybe there was something to them she pondered while they hurriedly walked away into the sunset together for their happy ending, after all they were quite long and rat…YANK! The Princess was nearly pulled backwards and came to an abrupt stop. She couldn’t go a single step further and turning her head she could see why. Her hair was still attached to the railings on the towers balcony! And to make matters worse she had walked so far she had pulled the knot tight. There was no way she could get that loose! Panic overwhelmed her as she thought about the witches reaction when she caught her and punished her. “I don’t want to be a frog” she thought. The rodent lord however had quickly seen the issue. With a yell of ”Never fear Princess my dear, For I am here! HURRAH!” he scampered up her braid. At the top on the balcony his clever little fingers quickly undid a knot to tight for human fingers our Princess as the Gallant Princes final exit, swinging from the end of her braid to the safety of her shoulder inand one the princess feared might have to be cut off, yet none of that made as much an impression on a giant arch with the Cry “For Love and Cheese!”

And that dear reader is how the Princess came to meet the Prince of the Rats.

A tale of three princes part one

This being a story I wrote as a birthday present. Had some technical issues with it and ripped out alot of the dialogue as I wasnt happy with it. Part two to be posted soon when I resolve an issue with the ending.

A tale of three Princes

Once upon a time in the far away land of Yaslasyia lived a beautiful Princess in an enormous giant white tower that was so tall you could see from its summit for miles around. It had vast pretty gardens, a grand entrance hall and its many bedrooms were filled with all the Princess’s many many books that nobody else wanted to read. So many books in fact the housekeeper Mrs Puddlefeathers despaired of all the dusting she had to do as she waddled around the tower cleaning in between making the Princess cups of tea with the help of the talking teapot Henry and his accompanying cups Ernest and Percy. She had to admit she quite liked Henry, he was quite sensible as talking teapots go, but the cups could be just so silly at times!

It was during an elevenses that the she noticed the Princess gazing longingly out of the window and she seemed down at the mouth, so she quacked “what’s wrong my dear?”. “Oh I don’t know” replied the Princess “I just keep watching the road waiting for a Prince to ride up and ask to court me, but they never do.” Well Mrs Puddlefeathers was quite taken aback at this” You do realise my dear that there aren’t many Princes floating around out there and besides your so pretty it probably deters potential suitors!” Henry chirped in then with a suggestion that maybe the Princess should approach a Prince herself? Ernest and Percy found that hilarious and proceeded to mock him as they always did like to poke fun at him, until Mrs Puddlefeathers snapped “Oh shut up you two, that was a good idea! Thank you Henry. Hmmn now lets see, who would be suitable?”

Well that Dear Reader is how the Princess came about travelling to the land of Rhinos to meet their Prince. He was widowed and a tad old, but as everyone knows the rhinos have a reputation as perfect gentlemen with impeccable manners, so it was certainly worth a visit! It took a week to reach the land of the Rhinos, a vast plain of grass and shopping centres where they served grass cakes with the coffee to cater to the locals in the Starbucks. The Princess found The Prince of the Rhinos in a retirement home next to a particularly good grazing patch where he seemed quite pleased to see her. She did admit he looked rather fine, with his purple velvet dinner jacket and immaculate black trousers, but those glasses he wore were enormously thick and he seemed hard of hearing: she had to speak very loudly and repeat herself a lot. The final straw though was rubbing cream into his bunions for him, the cream smelt horrible and made her hands all slimy. This wont do she thought, we have nothing in common at all. He doesn’t even read! So off she trudged back home.

Well as you can imagine the Princess was a bit depressed about the outcome of the trip, but Mrs Puddlefeathers soon cheered her up with a nice cup of tea and the suggestion she try the Prince of the Monkeys. “I don’t know” pointed out Henry, “the monkeys are all quite young you know. It might be years before their Prince is old enough to marry” “Well I can go and see” replied the Princess. “Yes” quacked Mrs Puddlefeathers, “Go and see what you think, you ought to get along swimmingly.”

So Dear Reader the Princess set off to the land of the Monkeys, a hot place deep in the jungle with lots of trees and creepy crawlies. It took a week to hike up there and they didn’t even have any Starbucks! that’s how far away it was. Well when the Princess arrived she met the Princes mother and they had a nice cup of tea and a chat, then went out to the trees where the Prince was playing with his friends throwing fruit at an elephant who was trying to sleep. “Come down from there and meet this Princess, she’s come along way to see you” yelled his mum. “NO!” “You come down right now mister!” “I DON’T WANT TO! SHES A GIRL! I DON’T LIKE GIRLS” “Don’t make me come up there and get you!” yelled his mum, to which the naughty prince put his hand to his bottom and taking something very nasty threw it at the Princess before retreating high into the tree out of sight. How rude! It got all in her hair and smelled horrible and that was the end of that! She was very angry as she walked home muttering to herself.

When the Princess arrived home at the tower Mrs Puddlefeathers ran a bath for her and washed her hair, then they sat down for a nice cup of tea. “I am not happy” declared the Princess “that horrible little monkey isn’t anything I want to spend time with. There has to be another Prince! Who else is there?”

“Ermm, well. Let me think. The Prince of the Tigers was shot last year by a big game hunter. The Prince of the elephants got married last year to a snake and the Prince of the Zebras has declared himself gay and run off with another Zebra to San Francisco. About the only eligible bachelor that springs to mind is the Prince of the Rats and well…”. “A rat?” said the Princess flatly. “Oh don’t be put off by the fact he is a rodent” Henry had been quiet until now and ignoring the giggles from the teacups he spoke on: “By all accounts he’s a very handsome rat, quite tall with a black coat and white belly. His whiskers are supposed to be incredibly dashing (if your into that sort of thing, which evidently Lady rats are) His courage though that’s the thing. You may not know, but all the Rodents elect their Princes and Princesses and the Prince of the Rats was elected by unanimous acclaim after a feat of the most astonishing bravery!” “Really?” replied the Princess, now intrigued “whatever did he do?”. “He squeaked at a cat! Now now, don’t look at me like that it’s a very brave thing for a Rat to stand up on his hind legs, look a pussycat straight in the eyes and squeak defiance at him. That cat was outta there I tell you! Ran for the hills.” “Sounds to me more like a scaredy CAT” muttered the Princess, to which Mrs Puddlefeathers pointed out the Prince of the Rhinos was still available. “Ok so the Rat Prince it is” beamed the Princess “where can I find this gallant rodent?”

Now there Dear Reader lies a tale in itself…

T13 set bonuses announced

Yes folks T13 has been announced or at least the first public draft of them. Already on wowinsider and other places a chorus of tears has wailed its woe to the heavens asking "why oh great and furious ghostcrawler why? how art I angered thee?" Well firstly some of these bonuses are insanely op (looking at you hunter 2p) while others seem to very little. We have warlocks having their long doomguard summons getting buffed, we have hunters being so awash with focus we will be spamming instant arcane shots. We have ret paladins being able to use judgements to generate holy power and enhance shaman generating maelstrom procs with the ghost wolves and then getting buffed for the instant cast lightining from said wolves. Rogues can pop tricks for an increase of burst and kitties get a mechanic that rewards them running out of combat and then feral charging back in. Why oh Blizz gods Why did you do this???? I think I have a clue. The deathwing fight is going to be the ultimate dance boss. Melee wont be able to stay within melee and casters aint gonna be given 2.4 secs to stand still to get off a shadowbolt. Its going to be a pig, its going to be brutal and its just the type of arcane platform game that leaves me cold. So despite the fact this hunter is drooling over his glorious set bonuses (which honestly CANNOT make it live, we would be impossible to balance unless you want to half the damage of all our shots) I am crying tears too. In fact I broke my QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ key see? held it down so much :(. Difference between me and the forum tears though Is I am thinking about what these set bonuses mean, not just ranting on about how inner rage is rarely used on an arms warrior: think moron!! Its going to be if their raid prototype stays in its current alpha form. I dont know if this will happen of course. Its where I am placing my bets though.

The curse of server reset. Now I am bored.

Yes indeed, its that time of the week again. Servers just gone down. Normally this isnt an issue, I would be at work.. or playing something. Or sleeping. This time however I was doing arenas with a DK to desperately cram in cps before the cap.

How did it go you maybe wondering? well we did win 2 games. Lost 8. pretty much to the same thing actually: my partner getting squished. 3.8k ressil, but hes going down in 30secs v another dk (I locked the mage out with cc trap then after the trinket wyvern sting). I cant criticse too much, after all when I am double charged by a double warr combo I also go down like a sack of shit. Still he would have been better with a healer if only he could have found one at that late a date.

Speaking for myself, I have been slacking abit arena wise. Since I got the bow theres been not alot of point. 2p ruthless with 2.4k cps in the bank, but why spend them? What for? season 10 ruthless will be obsolete vendor trash as soon as S11 comes out and I have to replace everything with season 11 ruthless bought with honour. So why waste gems/enchants? Still I did answer the cry of a couple of late comers this evening. A resto shammy I took 4 for 6, this DK.

It did however disrupt what I was actually doing today: my enchanter/tailor protadin has hit 68 (from 52 last week) so I was leveling both proffs, all the way through runecloth and stupid amounts of netherweave, deing so much stuff that honestly I was wondering where I had got it all from. 2 bank alts worth of things to de and wow it took alot of time. Havent really finished, as I need to start on my frostweave stockpile for tailoring and was only halfway through the arcane dust for enchanting. All in all theres alot more to do. Still will be worth in in the end. After this gets to 85 its just the skinnner/herby farmer and my alchemist frost mage. Independence will be mine! Then I can go back to having fun doing fun stuff on my main (like losing arena matchs).

Pvp and gearing

You know its frustrating turning 85. I used to find leveling boring and it is. Still its when you hit 85 the hard work begins. I ding I have ~85k hps, I cant queue for the normal 85 dungs let alone the heroics. No chance of a raid spot anywhere let alone a BH pug. I might creep into one, but I had better be lucky they dont inspect me and we oneshot it...

Anyway, only way forward there (aside from stupid amounts of gold spending) is to pvp gear it. a 16-18k honour grind that takes literally days of play time. No not a few days playing at 4-5 hrs a day I mean 30-40+hrs of play. Not the fun kind of play either: no getting loads of killing blows and achievments and winning bgs. Nope, this is being farmed being one shotted, going down in a rogue stunlock so quickly he decides "fk this bg I dont care if we win or lose, this guy is going to give me the wrecking ball achiev LOL!" Grats Scrubkiller. Grats on your achievment. As the goblins say "Glad I could help!" cant say I enjoyed it at the time.

Along the way though you discover things about the game and can I just say I have discovered this: Class>skill>gear. Yes sir its true. heresy maybe but its true. On a feral or enhancemnet shaman I can kill a skilled geared hunter and he has no chance at all. None. It like clubbing a baby seal. I am an awful enhance shammy, I keep forgeting totems and not dropping them, I miss doing things I should (like use maelstrom weapon procs) really numpty scrubness. I have 83k hps, I am wearing 2p t10 and 251 shoulders, heck my most advanced piece of gear is from hyjal and still I butcher hunters with 130khps. So very simple to do, I dont even need an 85 to do it. Put me against a rogue who knows how to play ofc its a different story, but then the rogue class isnt so badly fked versus melee who are unkitable. I think I am supposed to kite the rogue actually. Hmmn might have to try that.

Anyway digressing. As a lock its suicide in a bg. Long cast times combined with "is that it?!!!" dots and no heals/significant defensive cds. Really I have to say as a hunter I am sad sorry and ashamed of all the times I QQ'd about how shitty my class is: Locks have it worse. Paladins are lol for the most part real fun to play. I do very well with them and they dont need gear to work. I dont know why Blizz have made enhance and ferals so baddass, but its kinda silly. If you want some real fun you will find those classes dont need gear or skill. Just pick your fights: I recommend hunters and locks as your targets. My next 85 will be a frost mage. I cant wait.

Still wish there was a better way to gear though: oh wait there is! its called guilds running you through bot/brc to gear you... shame I dont have a guild that does that for my alts. Still the mage wont be so hard, I might even enjoy it.

tanking my first hc

What can I say? I got bored :P

theres nothing to do on nightgerby my hunter. I decked him out in pretty much what he needs. I cant be arsed to wipe 5 times to down a troll boss and it isnt woth an hr of my life for 140 "jps next patch" I raided some firelnad trash with pugs and the guild (to help out with the guild, my gm pays well for it) where my deeps is fine. Can I imporve him? oh god yeah. Do I need to? nope. Could do deathwing right now if I didnt log in for another 6 months. Comes from knowing my class and rotation oh so very well.

Anyway so knowing expanison is under a year away and planning for this I am busy trying to get my proff alts up and ready. By ready I mean geared enough to level to lev 90 without undue tears and hardship on a pvp server with gold to spare for 5000% flying and training etc. So on this protadin of mine, doing dailies, messing about and I misclicked. Yes I meant to queue for a bg. I hit the lfg and had a call for arms, thought screw it. After all worst happens is what? "l2p nub!" "you have been removed from the group"


I announced as I went in that "hey guys :) I am a new tank this is my first hc :) if you want me to leave I will, but I will try my best and any advice/tips you can give appreciated". Well they were firm about me not leaving. Something about the length of the dps queues... The shad priest and lock I admit impressed me. My hunter couldnt have matched them yet they never stole aggro (got to love players who know to fade/soulshatter/etc) the DK had 9.6k gscore (my hunters on 8.8) so obviously raid geared. We took every achievment from the place. A great run, didnt get any gear but I enjoyed it. Its so much fun playing with normal people not idiots and the iceing was the final comment at the end as they all dropped group: I had asked them for comments on my tanking and thanked them for playing with me he said "your tankings fine you never lost aggro. queue again!"

oh tanking oh pain oh joy

What can I say? I made a tank. A proper tank. A paladin omg "sick bitch" tank.

I played at tanking before with my warr, but really It was a poor experience. This one though my word. Helps I heirloomed it to death. Spent a fortune on enchants, blues and armour kits for the duration of her trip to level 85. She always had gems in the mail box from my jc for all her tbc and wrath gear slots. Was a mixed experience.

You know looking back, the questing was a dream, fantastic, real fun. Even after the magic lev 60 when yr in "boring" old content it was dam good fun. She rolled so much shit over, did nagrand and zul arenas at her lev SOLO (roflmao) went into ungoro at lev 49 and killed devilsaurs for the giggle. elites 6 levs above me. Damn Blizz nerfed this game so hard...

Anyway, so ya ridiculous silly leveling. Sitting outside the alliance port in howling fjord on a spawn point and leting it auto attack its way 3 levels for 6 hrs was cool ya. Pvp though: what was that? didnt do alot on this one. a few bgs at lev 12-13. one shotting rogues with avenging shield. Learning to fear hunters. Met a shadow preist in stv while questing, it dotted me, I rode off, rode deep into the hills and hit lay on hands. Idiot followed me. opps. avenging shield silences. then my stun. then oh knows, yr dead. this was in my lev thirties. I didnt pvp much after that, a few alterac valleys (kills 17, deaths 7. kills 20, deaths 5. that sort of thing) made so much easier by being a tank. Healers like tanks in av. That has to be what it is. On my hunter, I get death gripped and raped by 4 bad guys and 15 guys ride past without helping. Simply announcing hey guys I be a tonk, well its simple aint it? get me with a healer to the last boss and we win and its triples all around at the bar afterwards. I get death gripped, theres 3 healers spamming me heals with rogues, dks all around spazzing out on the bad guys. Cant get killing blows in for all the help I get :P.

World pvp apart from the silly spriest, I met a shaman in borean tundra, it attacked me after I had rounded several other mobs up. It died in my aoe along with the gnomishmechnognomes. I thought it was a rare :P until the honour gain and I couldnt loot it lol. then it anked and popped wolves, and tried to heal. Well I might have flown away from the ankh, cos I aint a cunt, but the wolves is a duel flag as far as I am concerned. Might as well have hit bloodlust. Avenging shield interupts heals, hammer of oh I am sorry you appear to be badly wounded, and yey more honour to me. At lev 83 I went back from deephol to vashir to unlock the earthen ring qmaster, had a lev 80 paladin attack me. He did it strangely, we were both killing eels. he killed mine, I helped him kill his. after we looted, he attacked me, so I stunned him and swam off to give him time to think (with me being 3 levs up on him and having deepholm gear etc), but he followed. So I killed him swiftly. Went on my way. Well next big trash pull I did for next quest, had 3 briney serperents on me, he showed up again with a friend! a lev 80/81dk. They both died in my aoe. Honestly this sounds sicker then it is, but really as a protadin you hammer off an aoe rotation on 2-3+ mobs which isnt much short of yr 1v1 rotation and you really spank asses. Yes I use aoe rotations in bgs and yes I do rape people with them.

Tanking though...
it warrents a seperate post. In a nut shell it was traumatic. I dont care what the group does, I soloed every dung at my lev until I hit northrend without drama. I recall one dung where the dps had given me grief (blackrock mountain) they all died cos they pulled while my everything was on cd, they all died and were calling me to wipe. They watched from their bodies as I soloed the boss, then ressed them one by one. Then asked them to please let me pull. Yet 50% of all groups will not let me pull. Yeah I am a paladin but I dont have an aoe taunt. If the hunter starts nuking the axemaster and the lock starts on the warmaster and the frost mage frost novas the 3 caster mobs half way to reaching me (despite I pulled them with avenging shield cos the silence makes casters melee me which lets my melee attack them holding aggron on them and not on you) I have a big problem. Its so simple, so easy for me, just give me 5 secs

5 secs.

AGAIN just 3 globals!! 5 fucking seconds!!! WTF is the matter with you? and then the abuse comes: "this tank..." "noob tank" "l2p retard" "l2 hold aggro". Fuck you all. I would rather solo the content. I would rather forgoe the leveling advantages of dungeons and solo quest/pvp to 85. Fk you and your sad and sorry shit. No a free pet/mount bag isnt gonna make me do it. They can go wallow in their 45 minute dps queues. Now I am 85, buying gear of the ah, ran a bh pug with a nice group let me roll with them despite undergeared (ya tanks are really short full stop. strange huh?) they were like ya a tank!!! omg, ya YOU dont have to worry about gear...

Long story short. Ya I am a tank. You wont be seeing me in yr lfg queue though. You cant pay pay me enough to suffer your bullshit.

The difference between leets and pros

The difference between a "leet" player and a pro player is when a "leet" meets a "nOOB" he tells him so. "L2p" "YOU SUCK" vote kick reason "nub" and my favourite of all "please leave". A pro player will work with what hes got and get the job done. Enroute the nub either learns whats offered or gets kicked/wastes the opportunity. The leet whines about how wow is hard because of the scrubs, how they prevent him from getting on. The pros dont need to whine.

I was reading http://thenoisyrogue.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/please-leave/ not so long ago and it got me thinking. Not up front, more at the back of my mind gnawing away. Theres been similar threads on mmo champion about stuff like this as well. I have had some experiences myself of this (of course) I've been asked to leave or vote kicked from lfgs before.

I also listened to totalbuscuit over at cynical brit http://www.cynicalbrit.com/news/blue-plz-new-year-epicsode/, discussing this (round about 25 mins to 32 mins into the podcast). I listened to the podcast, cos I fell asleep new year about 5pm and though I meant to spend my new year listening to him I guess working 15 nights in a row caught up with me. His comments there also made me ponder the point. I will sum up here very simply: he talked about a guy pulling 3k dps in heroic grim batol, who after the third wipe on the boss because of his low dps, had the guts to say yeah its me holding you back and then left the group so they could continue with a better dpser. His comment was I want to give that guy a medal, he has guts, he has balls, he has a SPINE.

Well as my memories come back to me of various fuck ups, screw ups and rows with idiots like flashbacks almost, I recall my first experience of the "leet" a guy called yorken or some such. I started lfging for the first time in my early(mid?) 30s. I had been playing wow less then two weeks and had been doing rather well by myself, but pretty much like I always do with anything important I went and researched to death beforehand what I was supposed to do before I went into the dungeons. My research being the Brady game strat guides (yes i am one of those guys who buy strat guides, they normally serve me well). Well these were vanilla guides and atlases, full of infomation how to trap dance, how to offtank, how to scout and lecturing how I must watch my healer and if an add starts eating his face its my job to stick a distracting shot into it and lead it back to the tank or to my frost trap. ie not relevant to the wrath babies in full heirlooms zerging the bosses.

So I entered my first ever pug, got uld, opened my atlas up on the desk next to me and started to roll. Was horrified when yorken ignored everything the guide said and just mass pulled 3 packs at a time, mass pulls that were out of all control, rushing ahead while one pack isnt even totally dead to pull the next and generally being a nightmare. the healer fell behind because he was drinking, I fell behind and so did the rogue as we were looting and our tank started screaming over party chat about our low dps and to keep up. After the group wiped, 3 dead with the healer being saved by myself with my cc and kiting, as the healer ressed the others I interupted the tanks diatribe to point out he was going too fast, the group wiped because of him and he should leave his mouth of me, because if it wasnt for me saving the healer he wouldnt be being ressed right now he would be doing a long corpse run. The next thing that happened was I was kicked from the group. Well I was outraged. Not so much at the moron, but at the others for voting yes.

Anyway I requeued and what do you know? inside 3 mins i get scar mon cathedral. Yorkens the tank. So i guess the others had the sense to quit after i was kicked. So I was like "oh its you" and got simliar posts back. Anyway apart from a few snides over p chat to each other ("your not letting yr healer drink again" "stop looting and keep up hunter") we just got on and did the job. Then at the end of the dungeon as all the others left he said "nightgerbil:"
and linked a recount. It showed I was firmly 4th dps, below the tank and just above the healer. The other hunter did half again the dps I did. Then he said "that other hunter was using volley: you are doing single target dps. You need to use vollies." Now you cant argue with that. Numbers dont lie. So I said "ok I will fix that" and I am delighted to say I never met him ever again. Turns out I couldnt train volly until I turned 40 anyway and I have no idea how heirloomed up those guys were but I was in crappy gear with bad talents.

Still as I say the numbers dont lie. I sucked. I didnt enter another lfg until I was in my 50s 5-6 weeks later, after having conversations with many others enquiring as to why I was avoiding the dungeons. It was being noted, I was fking about fishing, exploring and doing stupid achivements instead of getting on and getting to 80. Having been encouraged to try, I found I was actually quite good. Volley spam worked but when the brown stuff hit the spinney thing I saved groups from wiping and they seemed to like it. My first raid on the other hand was in uldar for a weekly. Never had been in, didnt know shit. The raid leader knew this as well. He picked it up from the fact i didnt know to get into a vechile. I got a w to jump into his vecihle and via /w he told me how to fire, got me firing at stuff which i did ok at, when we got to razorwing dragon thingy, he set me to the harpoons on raid chat "because the hunter can dps at range and do the harpoon" in private he explained to me in words of no more then two syllables exactly what i had to do. It wasnt hard. The boss went down we all got our frosties I got a gj in /w and I really really appreciated how he didnt humilate me in raid chat and what a wonderful differnece this was between my first lfg experience.

Meanwhile on my dk I have been kicked from groups leveling up through outlands. Pretty much I have agreed with the kicks to. Doing 400dps when the others are doing 1k, ya I suck. I am a shitty dk. I cant make it work. it seems basic enough, frost rune strike, plague rune strike, puts 2 dieseases on the target. Then hit pestilence it spreads the dots. They need time to tick ofc. Then theres my deathstrike that hits hard and heals me a bit. theres other bits of fluff, but basically i can do single target damage while the others aoe crap down and my aoe takes 3 gcds to even start ticking, by which the trash is normally dead if the group is any good. I tried dropping death and decay, I tried using other abilties, I guess it doesnt help the things not in heirlooms and hes still in his dk starter gear at 68, bar the the nagrand arena weapon, but yeah... I suck. I cant do dungeons as I get chain kicked. So I have given up on it. It gets taken out for a few quests now and again and I have to say, its fking awesum to solo with sooo resilliant, able to take bad pulls and lay watse to ten mobs at a time all at higher level. It is good fun to play. Unplayable though as I cant do dungeons with it.

Lastly theres my Holadin. Oh my I have never had so much fun. Its gross. As a healer topping dps meters while not letting anyone die, ya its awesum sauce, never been kicked yet. I have actually got a few real id requests, heh. I did however stop some dks being kicked. Bless erm they only had 400 dps, below mine but screw it we got the dung down anyway...