That’s sort of a random post title, don’t ya think? Well, there is a fairly humorous reason for that. Apparently our guild is chalked full of tanks and healers. Actually we have excess tanks. Far more than we need. But we seem to be lacking DPS. Go figure. We couldn’t go make our 25-man Malygos attempts last night which left everyone to fend for themselves. And I had the bright idea of taking the reins of a 10-man Naxxramas. Warbull needs some (more) gear and there were a few pieces I wouldn’t mind picking up.
We found some healers, had 2 tanks and we lacked . . . two DPS. So we thought, PUGing DPS, it can’t be that bad. It’s just DPS. Oy. Way to prove me wrong. The run started well enough. Clearing, you know, things. But I would like to express the amount of hilarious failure that was 7/10ths of our raid when it came to the Heigan dance. That’s right. 7 of our 10 people died during the Heigan dance. Luckily the 3 people that stayed alive was the tank, a holy Paladin, and myself. While it would have been faster to wipe, to that we said nay! And I ended up having 49% of the total damage. Go figure.
There were a few things I still wanted from Naxx 10-man. And I think it’s safe to say I got them. We grabbed an Arc-Scorched Helmet, a pair of Trespasser’s Boots, a Cloak of Mastery, and the Key to the Focusing Iris which turns into the Pendant of the Dragonsworn once I kill 10-man Malygos again. Now I am pretty happy with some of the the things I picked up, but the run became more painful as the night went on. We ended up kicking a Rogue who apparently couldn’t figure out how to get on Vent and wouldn’t move out of the Void Zone thingys on Kel’Thuzad. But it could have been worse. Not sure how, but it could have been worse.
Not everyone likes gear posts so I won’t bother linking things I have picked up recently. But if you are interested, check my Armory. I’ve been lucky lately.
But now I want to share a story with you if you don’t mind. Recently on WoW Insider had an article called Ethics of a Botched Deal. The Greedy Goblin wrote a very insightful response which you can read right here. There are some great points made about erring on the side of the consumer and what not. My story kind of relates to that on the side me erring and repercussions later. And while my story probably wouldn’t have any effect anymore if it happened today, when this took place, it was a much different time.
When I was still playing my Warrior, Aratar, I was browsing the Auction House for Blacksmith patterns I didn’t have. Now I have say this was a long time ago. Most of the server wasn’t level 60 yet. Only a few people had epic mounts at this point. And I mean only a few. There wasn’t a confirmation box on the Auction House or anything. Money was hard to come by and I was constantly being inspected and whispered because I was rocking Valor gear as I made my money selling Ornate Mithril gear on the Auction House, because that’s how I rolled.
I was placing small bids on patterns I didn’t have yet. These bids were in the size of 10s, 15s, etc. No amount of money anyone would second guess in the current game. And there was the plans for the Silvered Bronze Shoulders. I placed my bid of 25 silver and headed over to the mailbox to pick-up a few other auctions that I won. But much to my surprise, when I opened my bags, I was missing far more than a few silver. In fact I was missing 25 gold. That’s a hefty amount when your total stockpile was only like 100 gold after being one of the first people to grab an epic mount (I was rocking the old school pure black Nightsaber by the way).
Ahhhhh crap. I ran back over to the Auction House to confirm my mistake. Someone named Vicious has sitting on my bid of 25 gold for this level 20 Blacksmithing pattern. “Calm down” I thought to myself. “/who Vicious.” 0 players found. Post on the realm forums. Come on random person name Vicious. Log on! Later that evening, sure enough, Vicious, the level 37 Warlock, logs on so I make contact. I tell him that I placed a bid on his auction but mis-typed. If he would be willing to cancel the auction I would still pay him 10g for the patterns, waaaaay more than what they are worth, just so I could try and recoup some of the loss from me being a moron.
He said he would think about it. *Sigh* Very well. There was only a few hours left on the auction. So I waited patiently. And later that evening I whisper him again. At this point he informs me he is just going to let the auction run its course. He is almost level 40 and his brother’s Paladin is almost level 40 and they need mount money.
His Warlock and Paladin brother. Need mount money. /facepalm
And that’s where I thought the story would end. I accepted responsibility of mis-bidding and moved on with life, letting anyone know that if they wanted some Silvered Bronze Shoulders made, come to me. Mine would be awesome. Let’s fast-forward a bit to the part where we are the number one raiding guild on the server, we’ve cleared Molten Core and Onyxia and I am the main tank and famous for my collection of weapons including a Hand of Rag, Teebu’s Blazing Longsword, and a Runeblade of Baron Rivendare. Here’s how it went down:
Alaina (Guildmaster, now Shandara): Ara, there is a post in the recruitment forums you should go check out.
Aratar: Why?
Alaina: Just go look.
Alt-tab out to our site, nav to the forums and check out the new apps. And there it was. Sitting as a new thread just waiting for me.
“Vicious, level 60 Warlock” was the thread title. Now my guild knew this story. They knew it well. And I laughed when I read Alaina’s/Shandara’s post that read “Vicious, we are going to turn your application over to our main tank, Aratar. Perhaps you know him.”
“APPLICATION DENIED.”
Of all the bad deals I have had through out WoW, that one stuck with me. Maybe it was the part where his application said he was helpful and giving person. Maybe it was all his decision to keep the money way back when. Who knows. But in the end the only thing I did was deny this Warlock the ability to raid with us and the opportunity to be a big jerk. But that day I smiled a little demonic smile.
So that’s my story. Thoughts, comments, etc. Post ‘em here. :)
Haha, that last story was a fun one xD
So… did you end up selling a lot of those shoulders?
@Lupius A few. Not nearly enough. :(
Ah, Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold.
Hunter revenge is best served by several Misdirects in a 5 man to the same player until you get booted.
Tanks are so OP now it’s almost impossible to pull aggro with 3 shots, unless you intentionally pull another group to your MD target.
Then again there’s that fail tank once in a while that you pull aggro off of with 2 autoshots while popping cds…
Alright. I lol’ed.
While reading the comments, I’m reminded of my “/cast [target=said] Misdirection” macro that I use in raids to try and get our unsuspecting cloth healer ganked. Jokingly of course. :P
It goes without saying, he has one too to remove MD’s. >.>
So, to veer wildly into another topic, there is another good reason to discuss your post title today. Namely, trap dancing. While it may not survive the ptr, explosive shot is being tested at .18*RAP=476. At current raiding AP levels, this more than doubles the damage of explosive shot.
While initial raiding WWS from the PTR show Hunters now slightly trailing TG warriors and Aff locks in single-target DPS, a technique called “trap dancing” is being espoused to make SV hunters the new OP FOTM. Namely, one stands 5-8 yards from the boss and pew-pews. Every time immolation trap cools down, you take a few steps forward (preferably during an ES CD, so you don’t lose a steady), place the immo, then step back before the immo CD is up. Instant LnL proc; ES-Arcane-ES, and back to pewpew.
It is, of course, a technique fraught with potential execution difficulties, but was already in use prior to the ES buff to maximize SV dps on some fights. And with raid-buffed ES now hitting for over 6k non-crit, oh, the possibilities…
Perhaps soon, we’ll ALL be dancing.
….18*RAP+476, not 18*RAP=476. Bloody shift key.
You should have asked for 25G as an application fee.
/slam dunk
That is probably one of the best WoW stories I have heard.
Klinderas’s last blog post..Follow the White Rabbit…
So “Key to the Focusing Iris” is the new Wrath ledgendary?
Or im just so special that it appears orange on my computer?
Great blog, keep it up! :D
@Vortex Haha, oops. I forgot to add in the class in the HTML tag to make it purple. :)
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
The goblin opinion about the story: a warlock applied to your guild, 2 things possible,
* the warlock was unskilled/ungeared or otherwise useless. He should be denied, end of story, and unrelated to your bid. Maybe you can feel better that the guy who was smarter than you in business is a crappy warlock.
* the warlock would be a good addition to your guild. Yet the guild leader decided that instead of adding this warlock to your guild, let you had your pitiful revenge on him for YOUR mistake. This case the guild leader was completely unfit for lead.
Or:
3. The warlock proved to be an unreliable business partner, and the guild leader decided the cost / benefit analysis showed it would be better to go with a slightly less skilled and geared player who was more reliable to not create drama.
Another one:
4. A warlock businessman decided to screw his customers at every opportunity, and ignore customer service. This affected his business negatively.
@gevlon That’s a fair assessment. But considering our guild was the the premiere raiding guild through AQ40 with every server first in BWL and liked by both factions (we even had a 40-man Horde raid come help kill Thunderaan just because they liked us) our guild leader did an excellent job of handling guild affairs. Sure it was petty revenge. But two things that I remember is:
1) Be careful on what you bid on. I never made the mistake of mis-bidding again. I was overly cautious from that day forward. .
And 2) Be fair in your dealings with people because you never know when you might need something from them. Now I am not trying to preach against goblin philosophy. That’s how economies work. Like you say, you make your money off the stupid folks. And that day I was one. I never once blamed anyone but myself for the mis-bid. But how he chose to handle it after I contacted him stuck with me. And when he wanted to join the organization I was an integral part of, that incident reminded me how he chose to handle himself.
Drotara’s last blog post..Friday Ramblings: White Raiders can’t Dance
@ Gevlon there is a thing called business ethics.
Everyone of us Humans behind these keys makes mistakes, being unforginving about a mistake someone else made is deserving of Dro actions. Could have been handled several ways. From the Locks side, could have negotiated if the terms weren’t to his liking.
And in closing what happens to this Lock when in RL he does this to your Grandmother or someone unsuspecting. I choose not to associate with people like this so I would not want to raid with some 2 faced liar. As helpful and giving (per his app) as the Lock was to Dro. Not to mention he should have noticed your guild tag when the dispute was going on prior to applying.
Speaking of the old times I remember when only 2 people on our server had keys to UBRS, One became a friend of mine because the whole server used to beg them to open it up. Being nice and talking to him got me lots of free openings.
To each there own but mind you what can bite you in the ass. Dro that would have been sweet sweet jusctice. Hunter stlye from long range:)
Great story.
Gev, you’re forgetting that their guild didn’t need the applicant to be successful. According to the story, they were already successful. The GM decided to trade the application for a bump to guild morale, which helps decrease attrition.
GoW’s last blog post..Child’s Play can make you awesome
I would have done the same. Not for the revenge but because experience has shown that he’s not willing to be reasonible and a fair (even in your story when he would end up with more gold then he was going to get normally from you’re offer).
Noobiewan’s last blog post..Tagged and to Tag Again!
That is karma paying you back for not blowing up, and accepting your mistake. You handled your folly like a vet and you were rewarded. Pretty straight forward.