RTMT: Rock. Hard Place.

Scylla & Chrybdis by Darkscarecrows

Today's Random Tuesday Morning Thought is brought to you by Tough Choices, Inc. "Where you only have one life to live, so get it right!"

The Story of Stupidity
Human fallibility takes up a lot of my brain space, especially my own. Last week, for example, I had finally obtained the entire set of the Serpent Deck, cards Ace through Eight (hey, there should be Kings, Queens, and Jacks, too, and bonus mount if you get the Joker!). Ceniza spent weeks making them, literally. Momokawa worked her tail feathers off to get to level 90 so she could fly around and pick herbs for Ceniza, and Ceniza worked on her farm and picking her own flowers, milling and grinding every chance she got. The Darkmoon Faire decks make trinkets. Fabulous, fabulous trinkets. Trinkets that are damn near impossible to get as drops, and the only way to get them is to grind forever and anon dailies with the factions to obtain them with valour points, which also take forever and anon to obtain with a weekly cap of 1000. (Oh, remember BOA bindings and boots? How cool was that?)

The serpent deck is made. Now, do I sell it and buy an orb to make a panther, or do I keep it for myself and give it to Zeptepi? What to do, what to do!?!? Well, I decided to sell it. It goes for about 16-17K on my server. I could make up the orb shortfall easily. I put it on the auction house for 16,000. And when I checked Ceniza's mail a few days later, I was the proud recipient of 7.3K.

What? Oh no. OH EFFFING NO!!! What did I DO?! Was I tired? What?! NOO?!!!!???!! I seriously still do not know what I did. I know the AH takes a big cut (why? why does THAT happen?) but how could I make that kind of stupid, stupid mistake? Did I start crying? Yes. Am I ashamed to admit I started crying because I just cost myself about 9K in play money? Yes. To a point. Though CD Rogue and baby bear cubs just told me to not worry about it, it's only a game, they've made mistakes too, yadda yadda yadda, to me it was just so damn annoying! I don't have a lot of time to grind for reputations, and the drops on LFR have been abysmal.

Ceniza after she checked her mail box...

An Hypothesis Tested:
On Saturday, as an experiment, I took the Shaman of Dulled Blades through every daily available to get to 90 lesser charms for her three elder ones. It took all day, and yes, I watched the clock. Then, in order to try for the Claws of Shez'keer, I went in there a total of four times in one afternoon, and used all my elder charms, and got gold every time. Lest you think this is the ONLY time I've tried for the weapon, no. DBM informed me I had already had 12+ kills. This is four months, going on five, of doing LFR weekly, sometimes repeatedly, with elder charms for a weapon, either the fist or the healing, and no luck. But it's not luck. It's silly. And trinket drops? Haven't seen a single one. Rings? Sure. Got a drawerful of them. My shaman is still wearing blues. It's frustrating to see everyone else doing 60K, look over their gear, and yup. The RNGs smiled upon those players.

Now I am not complaining. Okay. Yes I am. But I really shouldn't. Zep has gotten both the staff and the healing mace with relative ease. But she's not Mataoka. I love playing her, it's true, but again, I pay for two accounts, and I still wonder why the one player, me, can't have account bound things? Oh yeah, I forgot. End of the civilization and all that we hold sacred. That's right.

Speaking of Zep, and tough choices: A few days ago little Miss Priest-Sans-Pants was hanging by the guild bank, and a player whispered her about being on a raid team. The player seems very pleasant, and thought, sure, why not? I have always wanted to raid with Zeptepi, and she is more gear-ready at this point. (See Subsection A, paragraph 9.4a) The player said two things that started to nag at me: One, would I go Disc/Holy, and two, they raid three nights a week for three hours each. Dios mio. I thought I would be able to handle it, and even asked CD Rogue if that would be okay, (not for permission, but try to keep a happy balance and mutual respect, blah blah blah) and already I realized I had a meeting scheduled for this Thursday night.

As raiders know, it's not just the actual raid hours. It's reforging, researching the fights, making sure gear is optimal, strategizing, flasking, feasting, etc. I have no issue with a guild stating their expectations, in fact, that is exactly what should be done. One of the biggest erroders of guild community cohesiveness is miscommunication. That's a nice way to put it. I'll leave it at that.

I am La Reina del Gremio, jerks
Oh, there was a third nagging issue. If I raid with them, I would no longer be in my little cottage guild, and this--yes--irrationally upsets me. I have wondered many times why can't Blizzard change the guild structures a bit? A free-agent sort of thing? That if you're raiding with a group that character doesn't have to quit the guild their in, but share or give credit to the guild one is raiding with? I really think this current system needs to be restructured, that all guilds are not created equal in terms of raiding goals and world stats.

Tough choices all 'round. Spend more time grinding for Shado-Pan? Yes. I kind of have to. Spend more time grinding for August Celestials? Sure. But I hear there's good news on the horizon. Supposedly, in 5.2 we will be able to get charms from pet battles. Cool! 

But.

Give. And Take. And Take. And Take.

There is a place in Icecrown where the death knights spawn like bunnies, and every Darkmoon, when I had the quest to get 250 ears (we all know that's what they use to make the crunchy frogs crunchy, right? And they are the main ingredient for Darkmoon Dogs, right?) Well, Zeptepi easily grabbed all the ears she needed from LFRs and the like, and Ceniza was just waiting for some time when she could boogie over to Icecrown and get her ears on, so to speak.

What? What's this? No ears? What, oh no! Yes. I confirmed with Tome that no longer will ears drop from any level of kill, but that Ceniza would have to do dungeons, again and again, at her own level.

Nerd Rage ACTIVATED!

Calm down, girl. Easy girl....steady.....

Consider this:

This is the famous Ironsally. Ironsally is Tome of the Ancient. Tome tried to help me out the other day by a CRZ expedition to hunt for a scourged whelping. The fact that we didn't see one makes no difference to me whatsoever. Blizzard can keep their charms and ears. I've got rocking friends who continuously show me how fun Azeroth can be. And as soon as I can, I'll be back there again, swimming for shore.

Postscript: I love how tall Draeneis are. Makes up for being the giraffe in middle school.


Theme song:
Pepper/Crazy Love