Saturday, July 2, 2011

There's a First For Everything

With the sudden need for Valor points, I found myself running heroic randoms again . . . the first time since I managed to become raid-ready in Cataclysm.  But, as I had only managed to fight Jin'do in the Troll Heroics, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble to try running them at all, when I could run a familiar and lower-level Cataclysm heroic, instead.  Fewer Valor points, true, but a lot less stress.

After one night of this, I started wondering if maybe, just maybe, I wanted to try to run a Troll Heroic.  Break out of my shell.  Try something adventurous and new.  Take a risk.  Something.

Saturday evening, I finally got the nerve to try for a random Troll Heroic instance.  I researched the abilities of the bosses, so I knew what I needed to do and not do, and I even made little notes on a piece of paper with keywords, so I would remember my research.

I looked at my 13-yr-old daughter and asked, "Am I brave enough to do this?"  She nodded and said, "Yes, Mom, you're brave enough."

I smiled at her and queued, just at her bedtime.  /waves bye to 13-yr-old.

Seven minutes later, I was in Zul'Gurub with a pally tank, a mage, a rogue, and a hunter.

Troll instances make me just about as lost as Kharazhan, but I knew as long as I stuck with the tank, I'd be fine.  And things were going well.  I figured out there was something about cauldrons pretty quickly (hey, it wasn't in the stuff I read about the place), and we were making good progress.

We might have wiped on the first boss, but a well-timed Battle Rez saved the situation.  As a matter of fact, we weren't actually wiping at all, and I was having some fun.

We weren't wiping until Jin'do, that is.

I remembered about standing in the bubble in phase 1, and I remembered about standing beneath the chains in phase 2.  So I did these, and easily got killed by the adds.  We wiped.

The mage hollered at the hunter to stop dpsing the boss in phase 2 and get the adds off the healer.  (To be honest, this mage was rather a know-it-all pain, but you meet those every so often.)

Tried again.  Wiped again.  Dratted adds.  Mage hollered at the hunter again.  Tried again.  Wiped again.  Mage was beside himself.  "Someone else is going to have to help dps chains!"

The hunter and the rogue left.  An elemental shaman and another rogue joined the group.

This time, the shaman was to keep adds off me and the rogue was to help with chains.  Tried again.  It was easier to heal this attempt, somehow.  It seemed like it was going to work.  I even somehow managed to return to chains when I was about to be charged, after dancing around nasty stuff and trying to avoid adds.  But we wiped again.  The mage hollered at the rogue to stop dpsing the big guy and help with the chains.

And suddenly, I found I was no longer part of the group.

My jaw dropped.

Never before have I been kicked from a group.  Never.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing, even as I was being teleported out of the instance.  An hour and a half, and I was denied the opportunity for Valor.  It was ripped away from me, after all my efforts to prepare and perform well.

I shared this amazement with a healer guildie in Druid chat, and his response was, "That's why I don't heal Troll Heroic randoms anymore."

I think I am no longer brave enough.  Those Cataclysm Heroics will do the trick, for as much time as I have to run heroics, anyway.

/rips up notes on Troll Heroic research

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