Prince Malchezaar is the big demon thing stomping up and down the ramparts at the top of Karazhan. I met him for the first time last night. It was hate at first sight.
I'm not exactly breaking new ground here so you probably know the fight. If not, go and read about it here and come back.
This is not a friendly fight for shadow priests and it took me a few goes to get to grips with the mechanics. To get close enough to mind flay you have to stand in range of the shadow nova — not normally a big issue but it's enough to kill you if you have been enfeebled. So I had to run in and out of range fairly frequently, which completely threw off my rhythm. I should be grateful I'm not a rogue, but I couldn't help feeling envious of the other casters who just stood by the door happily nuking away.
I killed myself early on in the first two attempts by running into the aoe when enfeebled. Meanwhile everyone else in the group — world-weary old hands of this fight — were proffering useless advice in raid chat, like 'avoid the shadow novas when enfeebled'. Really? That hadn't occurred to me, thank you.
The problem here, as in most situations, is not knowing what to do — it's applying it to your actions. With ambiguous BigWigs alerts going off all over the place and all the elements of the fight completely new to you it can be fairly overwhelming to a first-timer.
Misinformation doesn't help either. There was some debate about the radius of the shadow nova — opinions ranged from 30-40 yards. Now I know it's 24 (thank you wowwiki) I can use the range on my mind flay as a fairly accurate gauge and only move a few paces either way. The timing of the shadow nova was in some doubt too. To be safe, I ran out of range before enfeeble struck, and only moved back into range when it expired but if it only goes off four seconds after enfeeble I can stay in casting range and only move if I get the debuff.
All this adds up to the fact that I was off my game last night, which is never a good feeling. And some nasty business over loot left a bitter taste in my mouth. Against all expectations, the Nathrezim Mindblade dropped. I clapped my hands in glee and whooped and prayed to the gods of entitlement to nudge it in my direction. But a lock rolled higher and whipped it away. Nothing wrong with that you might think, except he already had a gladiator's spellblade. A bit of crit and +4 damage? Meh. Compare that to my current weapon and you can see while I feel more than a little aggrieved. Is luck the best way to decide these things, or should need be the primary factor? You can guess what I think. I'm down 82 spell damage and you can guarantee it will never drop for me again. Tell me I'm wrong...
Not just one Overton window
16 hours ago
3 comments:
I'm assuming like most guilds you use Spec, Off-Spec, Anyone, and Disenchant as your priority list for rolling on items.
Given that it appears you are using that system and it was set up in advance, it appears that nothing was wrong with what happened. Not that you shouldn't be disappointed.
Also given that this is a guild run and not a PUG, I would have expected the Raid Leader to ask the Warlock to pass in favor for you. Your +82 damage would benefit the group a lot more than his +4. The Raid Leader should be looking towards benefiting the guild and not the individual. This goes for all guildies and the Warlock should have also offered to pass in my opinion.
Granted if the Warlock refused to pass, as he did in this case, then that's the way it is and no foul.
Imagine how much easier the run would be the following week if this had happened not just for you, but for every drop out there? Somehow greedy people never realize how much more likely they are to get more advanced loot if they were to act this way.
You're right of course, I'm being totally unreasonable about this. Our loot 'system' is really just a loose understanding that you roll on something you need and pass if you don't. We didn't, until this point, consider relative need. I guess it comes down to what you understand by the term 'need'. Prince also dropped the priest T4 help token and a caster cloak, two things that I could also have claimed to need. But they wouldn't have improved my gear so I passed. I expect the same maturity from the people I play with and it annoys me when people act selfishly. But I'm already over it. Honest :)
Loot is always tricky. For raid teams still gearing up in kara, you should have some sort of agreement, ie everyone passes all the time, and you roll for it. Or each person is allowed to need only one drop per night. Or DKP points.
If kara is in farm and everyone is well geared, its a different issue. Nowadays when we step into kara, 99% of the stuff is disenchanted. We have some 6 stacks of void crystals. We got mostly for badges anyway.
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