Loremaster Thistlefizz, the Seeker

I am well aware that getting the Loremaster achievement is a huge time sink.  But I’m finally finished!

It's time to move on.

There’s a Tom Petty song I’d like to quote from if I may;

It’s time to move on
It’s time to get goin’
What lies ahead I have no way of knowin’
But under my feet baby, grass is growin’
Yeah, it’s time to move on
It’s time to get goin’

I have decided to step down as the guild leader of Higher Education.  I don’t want to make a big thing of it or go into long winded details.  But I wanted to state on the record that I’m turning over the reigns to Wizzbang.

The rest of this post is meant for the members of Higher Education.  I won’t stop people from reading it, but from here on I’m talking directly to them.

So anyway….

I haven’t been tanking much lately.  Like at all.  Well, I’ve been running the Headless Horseman every day to get that damn pet and helmet (just got it! yay!) to drop, but that doesn’t really count.  No, the last run I actually remember going on was Heroic Trial of the Champion, sometime in the beginning of September (just after my trouble with Arthas).  So it’s been a bit.  Here’s what went happened (hmmm, suddenly I feel a little like Monk):

I have always been very self conscious about tanking.  Well, in PuGs anyway.  I know I’m a good tank, probably better than most simply based on my awareness of the rest of the group (hmm, you seem to be out of mana…maybe I’ll stop for a sec).  And when I run with guildies or friends I’m always confident and sure of myself.  But many times when I get into a PuG I just freeze up a little and become much more susceptible to criticism.  This is especially true when I get with groups where I know people have run Ulduar.  Whether they say anything or not, I tend to project my own assumptions that since they have run Ulduar they are running with better tanks, more experienced tanks, [insert I'm not good enough statement] tanks.  Most of the time people are pleasant about things and just want to get the run done.  But if anything goes wrong, if they don’t immediately blame the healer, they blame the tank.  Having played both, there is a distinct difference in the criticism.  When I am healing and screw up, if the blame is placed on me typically all that is said is, “Nice heals” (said snarky), or “Next time, heal me”, or “Dude, why the #%!@ did you let me die?”, etc.  And it usually ends there.  But when I get criticized as a tank the comments are much more…thorough. “Dude pay attention.” “Keep them off me.” “I don’t think your gear is good enough for this.” “Are you even def capped?” “Do you even know the proper rotations?” “You don’t know these fights do you?” “What, did you just turn level 80?”

Well anyway, I was in a PuG for heroic ToC.  I had run regular ToC over and over and over again.  Not only that, I had run it almost every day since the patch came out.  I say this as a preface to establish that I had run it before, on heroic, and had been successful many times.  But on this particular day the run was not going well.  We were having trouble with the champions.  We had a warrior, rogue, shaman combo (which in my opinion is the hardest combo).  The rest of the group greatly outgeared me, so I was having trouble holding threat against their high dps.  We wiped once.  I told them the issue, and said, “if you just slow down a little with the dps, we’ll get past this.”  They scoffed a little.  We went again.  They didn’t slow down.  We wiped.  The first thing the healer said to me was, “You aren’t geared enough for this.”  And not in whisper, in party chat.  Apparently that left it open for the rest of the group to rail into me.  It was crazy.  It was as if they had decided to let out every nasty thing they had ever held back but had wanted to tell their tank.  I won’t repeat what they said, as most of it isn’t appropriate for PG audiences.  Or even PG-13 audiences.  At first I let it go, cause I’ve had people rail against me in the past.  But after each person got in a good shot and then they started in for another round, I started to defend myself.  That seemed to just draw out their venom even worse.

And then they booted me.

It really shook me up.  Normally I can shake these off after a few days.  But with my string of unsuccessful events tanking during that time just made it impossible to get past.  And combine that with the great success that I was having on my shaman–why should I bother to put up with tanking where everything is negative, unsuccessful, and unappreciated when I can go heal where I am valued, appreciated, and dare I say, needed?

I don’t know as if I’m really going anywhere with this.  I guess I just felt like getting this off my chest.  I’m not posting this to give some dramatic announcement that I’m retiring from tanking forever, or that I’m making my triumphant return to daily tanking.  Mostly I just feel like venting.

And you know, I feel much better now.  Thanks Internet, for listening.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

I has a bunny. See?

The astute CoG reader has probably noticed that the image on my header is a picture of my character, Thistlefizz, standing in Dun Morogh.  I thought it appropriate to have a picture of the cranky ol’ boy.  But I also included my non-combat pet <Snowshoe Rabbit> in the shot.  You might ask, “What does a small, non-threatening looking bunny have to do with being a gnome, being old, or even being cranky?”  Well, on the surface, nothing really.  Having that bunny out doesn’t make me crankier, older, or gnome…ier.  I included the bunny in the shot because that little rabbit is as every bit an endemic element of Thistlefizz as his sword, shield, and roflcopter.

I was already partial to rabbits, as I have two of them in real life.  A black and white dutch, and a white and gray dwarf that bears a striking resemblance to the <Snowshoe Rabbit>.  So I thought it was awesome that I could have a bunny follow me around on my adventures.  And we’ve been on lots of adventures together.

That little bunny has been with me since my very first day of World of Warcraft.  My roommate, Wizzbang*, was kind enough to purchase one and run it over to me while I was still traipsing about Coldridge Valley.  Me and and that little lagamorph have been through quite a lot of adventures together.  From the highest peaks of Blackrock Spire to the lowest depths of Azjol Nerub.  Sure, I’ve strayed and pulled out other pets.  I have a lot of them, and enjoy variety now and again.  Occasionally I’ll pull out Egbert, the Worg Pup, the mechanical squirrel, or even the brown rabbit.  But my one true love is little old snowshoe.  I love watching him hop along behind me, his little frame flopping along.  He’s always their, faithfully charging into even the most challenging of battles.  He doesn’t give up when I mount, he’s not afraid of following me off cliffs, and he doesn’t hesitate when I lead the charge against the biggest baddies in Azeroth.  I can’t even say that about my most trusted guildmates.

I’m curious if anyone else feels this way about any of their non-combat pets.  Do you feel incomplete if you don’t have a specific pet following you around?

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]“

~Fizz

*By the way, I have some important news regarding him soon

…And they called him Thistlefizz

I ran out of time last night before I could finish this post due to my weekly raid schedule.  I knew it was coming, but I got distracted by that ‘new blog smell’ and kept tweaking this theme or that format.

Anyway, to continue my story from yesterday…ah yes, fate having other plans and all that.

I had been so determined to become the most annoying Gnome in all of Azeroth.  But I quickly discovered that I couldn’t even whisper people with a trial account.  To be honest, I’m still not really sure what ultimately made me decide that it would be totally fine to buy a regular account just to annoy people.  I’d like to think though that by that point the annoyance factor was really just more of a justification.  In truth, I was already completely hooked.

On this day a Gnome is born…

My initial foray into Azeroth was not exactly what you would call typical.  It was a dreary February day, I had been out of work for a long time, and I was very bored.  My roommate had been playing WoW for quite a long time (since it’s release I believe) and was playing his paladin.  I had played Warcraft 2 and loved it–although I had no idea there was anything after it.  So I began asking  him questions about what he was doing, where he was going, what the game was like and so on.  He was in Ironforge at the time and as I was asking him about the game, he was accosted by a gold beggar.  He was so annoyed by it that I couldn’t help but laugh at his frustration as he yelled at what pretty much amounted to pixels on a screen.