Monday, January 26, 2009

Difficulty Level Set to Heroic

Warning: This post is whiny and self-deprecating which is my least favorite type of post. I really shouldn't be writing this. Particularly not today. Just be warned.

There is a great line I heard once that once you're on your fifth divorce, you can no longer really blame the other people. The idea being that there is obviously something wrong with you. The first two I can see being not your fault, by five you have to start questioning your own abilities.

Such is the case for me with heroic runs in WoW. I have had five (count them five) unsuccessful heroic attempts in the last week. These are instances that we get into and die so many times that we just give up. This is not after the first or second death by the way. This is normally after ten or so deaths. Where we are all so tired of the same fight that we can just no longer think straight.

Despite Jeff's best assurances I have to wonder how much it is me. I'm on a mission to increase my dps. I was third on the charts last night but I should be higher. I respec'd Destruction this past week in an attempt to move up. In Naxx I moved from seventh to sixth. (and remember we have two healers). When I'm only barely above the healers, that's just not good enough. So today I'm reading, heavily. To see what I can do.

Last night we tried Naxx again before the reset. We were dying repeatedly on trash pulls in the Plague Quarter. We never even came close to the boss. Then we broke into groups and moved to Utgarde Pinnacle. Only one boss down there. Finally after dying too many times to count in the Trophy Room, we moved to Utgarde Keep. And couldn't get past the first boss. Now in all fairness we were going in with a new tank that was slightly undergeared.

But this is not the first time I've had problems in heroics this week. And after this many deaths in one week, I just have to wonder if it's me.

{As you can see, not my best mood. But I warned you.}

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiya. I just started reading your blog a bit ago when my friend linked it to me. I was amused she found a fellow library worker and WoW player.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. As a DPS your contribution to the overall survivability of the group is comparatively minor. I bet you aren't pulling when people aren't ready, getting adds, or otherwise directly getting people killed. In the best of circumstances you're responsible for 20-30% of the overall damage. Even if you're half as good as the others in the group the difference is negligible.

I don't know your group setup but things get much easier once your healers gets enough new gear to make up for the huge drop and mana regeneration and your tanks hit uncrittable again.

Cat B said...

Thanks Delbin!

Glad you found me. I'm always good to hear that there are other people who are both librarians and WoW players.

You are right that I very rarely cause the group to wipe directly. If anything I tend to be a overly cautious player in raids.

But I heard this phrase recently and it just rings true.

If the tank dies, it's the healer' fault
If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault.
And if the DPS dies, it's their own d@mn fault.

I'll just think of this past week as motivation to learn more about my class. I just shouldn't have written it when it was so fresh in my mind. And you are right, the early runs were with new healers, and the runs that night were with a new tank. An experience and well geared group makes all the difference

Anonymous said...

Hi Myraina..

Yes, our tank was supernew, and really wasn't quite sure how to tank anything and i couldn't keep her up despite spamming flashheals..

Peeked at your Armory and, you have a LOT of questionable or missing enchants.. talk to me when you're on and i'll share my conclusions, but those'd help..

Otherwise, peek at other warlocks in the guild and compare spec's, or get that tailoring up and craft yourself some Spellfire gear!

Delbin's right, as dps all you do is "pewpew" - cast spells and avoid overtaking the tank's aggro.. and in the meantime, go to the level 80 instances on regular to gear up more.. heroic promise great loot, but without solid tanks/healing, they're terribly frustrating!

I still avoid quite a few of them!

Cat B said...

Thanks Nez,

I know that most of my enchants are questionable and I would love to hear your comments on them. A majority of them have been cast on myself as I try to level my enchanting. That means I only cast the ones that will give me an additional level. So a bit of mismatched enchants.

I'm looking forward to doing more regular instances and then some more heroics. I wrote this at a bad time...so don't think I'm ready to give up on heroics yet. :-)