Too Many Annas

Guest Post: Keeping the Spark Alive

Comments Off Written by Anna on March 8, 2010 – 10:11 am

You can find today’s post over at Arrens’ blog.

Why Rirri is a baddie Death Knight

Comments Off Written by Anna on March 5, 2010 – 1:31 pm

[Rirri]: OH GODS WHAT IF IT’S /THAT/ PLAGUE AGAIN
[Rirri]: … I can’t give myself the plague, right?

[Rirri2]: … right. No. You can’t, don’t be dumb.

[Rirri]: … yeah but… like… just in case? Can I carry some kind of talisman? What about a potion?

[Rirri2]: … You’re being paranoid.

[Rirri]: I’m allowed to be paranoid. What happens if I get the plague again? I can’t DIE again. BUT IF HE WINS AGAIN? OH GODS.

[Rirri2]: You’re hopeless.

Doom-Free-Zone

4 Written by Anna on March 5, 2010 – 9:48 am

As a quick reminder, Too Many Annas is (and will remain) an expansion free zone until about 3-4 weeks before Cataclysm drops.

I’ll happily do another round-up post when that time comes, like I did for Wrath of the Lich King, but until then? Anyone avoiding spoilers or expansion stat/item/class discussions is welcome to come and hang out here.

The world of roleplay is one that relies little on what might be someday and relies heavily on the here and now. We’re dealing with the aftermath of Arthas (or his impending demise, depending on how you, your guild, your raid, and your server are approaching the issue), the possible rebuilding of the plaguelands, and there’s at least one more patch with ZOMGDARGONS before we have Cataclysm looming.

Expect to see some posts about allowing your character to rest, about how to RP during the “break” that inevitably happens, and other such related topics.

But you don’t have to worry about spoilers here, nor will you see much in the way of patch note discussions, nor will you find extended breakdowns of whatever Ghostcrawler said this morning after eating his daily forum-QQ muffin. You can find those elsewhere.

As my long time readers well know, I don’t give a rat’s arse yet. It’s too early, too much will still change, and there’s too much I still want to do in Northrend.

Much <3!

I think the RNG is trying to tell me something

9 Written by Anna on March 4, 2010 – 10:16 am

A short story, in three acts.

Act 1: When I first leveled Annorah, the RNG tried to tell me something.

I’d leveled her as elemental, and was happily an elemental shaman, until one day in Karazhan I realized I had a full mail healing kit and 3/4 of an enhancement set – both of which were better than my elemental gear. So I went enhance… and then found TRI, went Resto, started a blog, and the rest was history.

Act 2: So then, when I was leveling Aely, in the last 8-10 months of Burning Crusade, the RNG tried to tell me something.

Just like Annorah wasn’t goign to be a healer, Aely was not going to be a healer either. I was pretty dead set against it. She was for the hawt holy facesmashing retribution deliciousness. I had two healers at 80 already, and didn’t need a third. And so I ran some mid 60′s dungeons as I was leveling, and got nothing but healer loot. And then Pallyzhan happened (the same day she hit 70, actually) and I was supposed to go ret, since I couldn’t actually do any harm as a noobshat ret pally. Healer loot again.

And now I’m a professional Holy Pally. Go me.

Which brings us to Act 3: Annie Mae

I leveled Annie Mae as protection, but I never ran any instances. I leveled as prot because it meant I never died, and there was very little that I couldn’t handle all by myself. My intent was to go dual wield Fury at 80, and be a tiny spinning top of DOOM.

I tanked one Utgarde Keep run, one Nexxus run, and one Azjol’Nerub run before I hit 80. Since then I’ve learned a few things, (among them that leveling prot means my highest 2H weapon skill is… 53) but I’ve not really done a lot of actual tanking, despite being rather committed to it gear-wise. Last week the raid weekly was Patchwerk, and the TRI 25 man raid snagged Annie Mae to tank it so our tanks could bring their offset DPS alts.

He dropped the Hero’s Surrender. I danced.

So then earlier this week, after a failPUG in CoT:Stratholme (normal) that managed to hit every single bad-DPS-in-a-PUG stereotype, a few TRI/Cowbell friends convinced me to go run a daily heroic random. I had a fantastic healer, so I wasn’t too worried. My gear at that point had me at 26K health and 548 defense, unbuffed, and I had tank gear in every slot except my trinkets (WOOO! Look at me tanking with Chuchu’s Tiny Box of Horrors!)

We draw Azjol’Nerub.

The Essence of Gossamer drops. I do a little squee-happy-dance, and we finish the instance with no problems.

I tanked a real heroic! And I have a real tanky trinket!! YAY!

And then last night, while waiting for RPz to happen, I queued my small and spiky self for a random, normal level 80 dungeon, thinking it’d do me some good to stay in practice and I’m overgeared anyway so who cares.

We draw Halls of Lightning, and after cycling through three healers (who joined the group, zoned in, and then quit), we pick up an awesome disc/shadow priest with a pretty fail name (Xpriest-Stormscale, if you ever see this, you’re an awesome healer, but “Xpriest”?) and proceed to mostly 3 and 4 man the instance, after the warlock afk’d to offline. We eventually picked up rogue and blasted through the rest of the place with no trouble.

Pwnt Loken in the face… and the Seal of the Pantheon drops.

So yes. This week I ran two random dungeons, drew the two dungeons that drop the pre-raid tanking trinkets, and had the trinkets drop. (Every single other drop in Halls of Lightning was caster cloth though…) This coming immediately after my only 25 man tanking experience nets me a new shield off a one-boss gank run for badges.

I think the RNG is trying to tell me something.

(also, to all the tanks (including Spaceship Hubby) who ran normal HoL for months and never saw the trinket, please don’t hate me…)