Going Down

It was a somewhat temperate night in South Carolina so my wife and I decided to try to stick it out. The new A/C is being installed on Thursday, so it would just be Tuesday and Wednesday night we had to deal with the heat.

My guild was most happy to see me online. My Raid Leader asked me to make up some Mana Injectors before the raid, which I did quite happily. I often feel bad that I don't contribute more to our Guild Bank. I don't have a gathering profession, and as a Tank, I don't solo or farm well. So it's hard for me to really contribute much. I did enjoy this opportunity to help out, even with other people's mats.

We got to Mount Hyjal and started pulling trash. I could sense a vibe in the raid. We just weren't concentrating the way we should have been. I'm sure every guild runs into that from time to time. It's a familiar instance, with familiar people, doing their familiar jobs. Warcraft can be rather unforgiving if you aren't on your game 100% of the time.

After a little 'pep' talk from our fearless leader, we blasted through the trash and got Rage Winterchill. I managed to pick up a set a Leather DPS bracers. I've actually received quite a few pieces of loot in Dominion. Outside of my Tier 6 gloves, and Tier 5 shoulders, most of what I've gotten has been offspec stuff that went to me only when no one else in the raid expressed an interest. I never bid against healers for healing gear and I never bid against DPS for DPS gear.

After killing Rage, we set up for Anetheron. While we were doing the trash, my wife comes over and starts talking to me. Our daughter was really uncomfortable and we were rethinking if we should have stayed home or not. Meanwhile, there are still trash waves bearing down on the raid. I was able to do my job, but not able to talk much in vent. I sent the Raid Leader a quick message to tell her what was going on. We decided it was too late to do anything and reaffirmed our decision to stick it out.

We pulled Anetheron and he was acting really strange. He would cast his Infernal. It would fall from the sky and *poof* it would despawn. We thought we might have just gotten lucky on the first one. Then it happened again, and then again on the next one. The Fire Resist tank abandoned her post, pop 'Reck' (Recklessness) and went in swinging at ole Antheron.

We had gotten a late start, but 2 bosses were down. We headed to the Horde camp. Unbeknownst to my guild (at least until they read this), I put in a GM ticket to inform Blizzard of the bug on Anetheron. I didn't mind the easier than usual kill, but I knew I had an obligation to report the issue to Blizzard. If it was a systemic problem, I'm sure they got dozens of reports from other guilds.

As we rode over, I got a tell from a former guildie of mine, telling me about their success in Black Temple. They had gotten a progression kill on High Warlord Najentus. I was really excited and happy for them. Then this person links the Paladin Tanking boots (Tide Stompers Greaves) that Najentus drops. Apparently, they dropped and went to Ryken, one of the Holy/Ret Paladins. They almost went to a Warrior or might have been disenchanted. I've never once seen the boots drop.

The message that my former guildy was trying to send was not lost on me. 'If only you had stayed with us, you'd have those boots right now'.

I've always had horrible luck with drops while the person who plays Ryken has always had fantastic luck with drops. Our first time running with him in Karazhan, nearly every boss dropped an item he needed. When this same player originally took his Warrior through, he got all the tanking drops in a couple of runs. It was months between drops for me.

Even if I had stayed, and even if I had been in the raid, they might not have dropped. But let's put that aside for now.

I'm not in this for the loot. It is true that I want those boots very badly, but until I get them, my Sabatons of the Righteous Defender will work just fine. I know Mortel, one of the Tankadins I've followed on Maintankadin since his T5 days, has cleared Black Temple in its entirety. He still doesn't have them.

I still care about the people I left behind in both Heroes and Mal Katai. I WANT them to succeed. I hope they down every boss they set their sights on. I am happy for them, and I celebrate their successes as if they were my own. When my favorite Resto Druid in Mal Katai linked me the loot she got, I was as excited for her as if I had gotten something myself.

But here's the thing. I don't regret my decision to leave Mal Katai or Heroes. I'm in Dominion now, and linking a set of boots to me isn't going to make me think I made some horrible mistake.

With those thoughts rolling around inside my head, we got over to the Horde camp and went over assignments for Kaz'Rogal. We are about to pull when a couple of our raiders get disconnected. We wait a couple of minutes for them to come back, when one of them tells us on vent he's stuck at 'Retrieving Character List'.

Then we see the dreaded "Server Shutdown in 15:00". A collective groan went through our vent. Not 10 seconds later, we see another message. "Server Shutdown in 00:30". That was the fastest 15 minutes known to man.

The entire Nightfall Battlegroup was offline.

We hung out on vent for a few minutes. A couple of guys started playing Starcraft or Warcraft 3. I went onto my Tauren Druid alt on Mannoroth and leveled him up to 36.

We waited until 12:15am Server Time. There was still no ETA. The raid wasn't so much called as it just petered out. I found out this morning that the servers didn't come back up until 3am Server Time.

Comments

Darraxus said…
The heat has been terrible here. Im just glad I have a working AC. Its funny that you post about the wife aggro while tanking because last night my GF was talking my ear off while we were doing a trial SSC run for new members. I tanked thru Leo and all the way up to Fathom Lord off of vent. The tanking neck dropped which I didnt get. I didnt mind as long as it is going to good use with another tank.
BigFire said…
Well, that stupid boot dropped last week for my guild, after 6 months on BT, and after 1.5 months of killing Illidan. Now I just need the Akama bracer and Illidan shield to make me feel a full fledge T6 Paladin tank.

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