it’s all about the timing.

With Naxx25 cleared over Wednesday and Thursday and plans for Malygos and Sartharion-plus-three-drakes in place for the weekend, that pretty much left a light ‘n’ easy, stretch-your-legs run through Naxx10 as Friday’s excursion. Anj was there, remarking to herself on how comparatively quiet the TeamSpeak channel was and hey, wow, what’s this?! Double-figure framerate? Cool!

We’d taken down Grobbulus, had a little break and a talk-through tactics before heading down the slimepipe towards Gluth. Anj was assigned to Zombie Chow kiting duty along with a couple of other ranged DPS, and there was much rejoicing.

As soon as the fight started, it was clear there was a problem.

Um… I’m not firing.

Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Auto Shot… nothing.

Back in the Burning Crusade days, every so often, I mean it was pretty rare, I would become the unwilling victim of some kind of a bug where my Auto Shot would stop working, I’d have to relog to get it back again, but this was different. No shots were working at all! What? What?!

Panicking, checking various possibilities commenced while zombies were making their way ever closer to Gluth. Then in my character window I saw a strange red border around the icon for the crossbow. Checking the tooltip was not pretty.

Durability 0 / 90

Oh noes! How did this happen?! Seriously? Okay, so I was summoned to the raid without time for repairs but no big wipes were planned and DurabilityFu showed an average of 55% for all gear! All, it seems, except the one weapon any hunter simply cannot exist without. And it chose the one encounter where it was needed more than anything else to present itself.

So…

So I…

Elune, forgive me…

I had to run up to Gluth and use (jarring chord) a melee weapon, up to this point largely uncontaminated by the blood of various baddies! Oh, the deliciously-inconceivable shame! That included clicking Raptor Strike and Mongoose Bite from the spellbook when the cooldowns were up because, to be honest, I just don’t have them on my action bar! Why the hell would I? There’s a Wing Clip Plus Raptor Strike macro, that’s about it, it was only about a week ago that I discovered Mongoose Bite didn’t need a dodge to be usable any more.

Of course I still did my bit by breaking away every so often to set down a Frost Trap, but still. My name is Anj, and I’m a Melee Hunter. Hi.

I can only thank my guild for being a kindly, forgiving bunch and laughing it off while clearing trash as I hearthed back to Dalaran, got repairs and flew back in time for Thaddius.

It will make a great story for the grand-kids some day… :\

oh what, this old thing?

The Undeath Carrier! *glee!*

Dropped from Heigan The Unclean, a fight in which I was the only one to die. Pretty early on too. A kindly druid had to battle-rez me and I ruined everyone’s chance at The Safety Dance. *shame!*

So, you know, as beautiful a staff as it is, ’twill forever be tinged with tragedy. I’ll get over it. Tomorrow is another day!

Oh, and Torn Web Wrapping too, once again I find myself way over the hit cap.

see, this is what the chess event needed…

They (the “They”) say that the British love a good queue. They will walk across burning coals to get to one, regardless of what is offered at the end of it, just for the chance to stand in line for something, all civilised.

Now, I’m technically British. I’m not sure how much weight that carries for it was, after all, the sheer chance of birth location and I have no love for the concept of patriotism, but being as how I hang around with a lot of other British people I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has said “A queue?! Where! Get me to the queue!”. Queues are annoying, but I think it is true that your British people will join them begrudgingly and silently seethe to themselves whereas your Americans will just flip out and splash Uzis around semi-colon, close bracket.

But look! Look!

Naxx25, after the Four Horsemen encounter and instead of everybody jostling to the front and clicking like mad on the chest (as happened countless times in Karazhan), almost without any instruction whatsoever everybody formed an orderly line. There’s me and Bups at the back there on the top picture, dancing and talking amongst ourselves as we filed gently to the front. So civilised! As queues go, it was a joy to be in it.

So, yeah, Naxx25. In with a group that could officially label me as “Being Carried”, I found out a few things:

1. I am saving up for a new compuper but I am sure that this one cannot do twenty-five player raids. My framerate was below ten for most of the fights. For all I said about The Macro a few posts back, it was only the fact that I was spamming one button that got me from 16th (a few fights in) to 13th (at the end) on the damage meters. Sorry, The Macro, you have your place.
2. Turning Spell Detail right down to the minimum is all well and good, but I honestly think that I’d be doing okay for FPS if there was another option to turn everybody else’s spell casting effects off! It wouldn’t be ideal but, hey, my poor elderly compuper. :(
3. All video effects down to a minimum and 1024×768 :O By comparison it had the look of a cute 8-bit game bringing back lovely memories of my happy Amstrad CPC6128 days, which was okay I suppose. Maybe next time I’ll try 800×600 and keep living on pasta so maybe I can get a new machine next month.
4. We didn’t do the Plague Quarter so I didn’t see if Arrowsong dropped, although I did get some new boots. However, having decided I needed to replace my boots to drop some haste, I managed to collect a replacement pair with even more haste. I have too much haste! WHY IS IT SO HARD TO AVOID HASTE?! My Steady Shot cast time is just over a second! :p More apologies and defense for The Macro, at least spamming that keeps my rotation in check without going mad.
5. Finally, Naxx25 is really easy! When…  you’re in with a group that downs a boss under two minutes. :\

Welcome to the “I’ve Slapped Kel’Thuzad, Big Style” Club. Thanks, ooh a card too? Marvellous! :D