belated weekend update, continued: Saturday

Saturday's Kara run almost, *almost* didn't go off, and not because we were short a healer. You won't believe me when I say it, but we were short DPS. DPS! Everybody wants to DPS! Fortunately we were able to find a priest from another guild (the guild leader, in fact) and we were off, just a little bit late.

First stop, Prince. Trash clearing went very smoothly and after a few minutes of stratigizing, we were good. In we go to Netherspace, position an imp at a certain mystical spot (not sure why, actually), and after his next patrol we were off. As soon as the tank started running to his position I noticed that one of my group-mates, another DPS-er, disappeared. D'oh! I assumed that the raid leader was going to call off the attempt, but he didn't and we hit Prince hard. The tank did an amazing job holding Prince and we poured on the damage. The infernals fell fortuitously and we got that bastard down to 2%. Two percent! With only nine of us! Unfortunately, his axes went nuts about then and chopped us all down. We ran back, found another DPS to replace the still-missing guy, and tried again, twice. During the second attempt the infernals fell almost directly on top of us each time, and we had some bad falls the third attempt. By that time we were getting fatigued, I think, so we decided to go back to the other targets, then maybe come back at the end of the night.

Next: Netherspite. This was a pretty straight-forward fight. I got assigned the blue beam for half of a round which was pretty cool. I didn't see the giga-crits for uber damage that I was led to believe I would see, but maybe I missed them. It was hard keeping track of what was hitting where and when. I really need to get WoWWebStats running so I can go back and figure out how to improve. I know I need to get better about using and swapping my trinkets, but I'm sure there's other ways to improve my damage output.

Next up, dragon number 2: Nightbane. What an amazingly fun fight! There was so much going on that I didn't get many screenshots until the end, which I'll share with you when I get home. It's a nice picture of me, dead, watching the last 1% of Nightbane's health drain out. It seems to be a recurring theme for me in boss fights, that I die just before the very end of the fight. What a pain. All that time I'm lying there, dead, I know I could be pumping out more Starfires. Hell, even Moonfires at that point. Why conserve mana when the boss is at 2%? I die so freaking fast, though, that I hardly even notice before I'm dead. Hmm. In loot news, Llanion finally got his [Stonebough Jerkin], so grats to him!

By this point we're all fired up and full of ourselves, so we race back upstairs to try Prince again. This time the fight is almost a piece of cake. We get reasonably-placed elemental drops (that is, we didn't get the two elementals that surrounded the tank, like in an earlier fight), and we blast through Phase 3 before the axes do too much damage. Hurray! Prince is dead! So here comes the minor drama.

[Helm of the Fallen Defender] drops. We had been joking all run that this would drop, so our tank could get his Tier 4 helm. I had forgotten that this could represent *my* Tier 4 helm, too. There's two other druids, me, and our warrior tank who could use it. Two of the druids pass immediately; they're happy with their current helms and the drops they've already gotten this run. And I'm torn. Two things are clear to me. 1) We only go as far as our tank takes us; if he's undergeared, we don't go far. 2) I want that helm. By guild loot rules, it's mine. I'm a main, he's on an alt. He's got an epic helm already -- one of the ones crafted from engineering, I think -- and I'm in a blue. A decent blue, to be sure, but this would be a significant upgrade. And I'm now torn. Can I take this drop, knowing how rare tank drops have been in the past? Who am I? I'm new to the guild. The tank has been in the guild for a long time, and is actually one of the acting GLs while the regular GLs are on a hiatus. Nobody else wants to venture an opinion. I keep trying to convince the tank to roll for the helm. That seems reasonable to me. We've both got a claim to the drop and it represents an upgrade for both of us. What would you do if you couldn't decide between two druids? You'd roll, right? He keeps refusing to roll and eventually gives in, citing the loot rules. He's on an alt, I'm on a main. So now I've got this awesome helm and feel absurdly guilty. Am I a loot whore? I sure hope not. I'll probably feel guilty until he ends up getting it, assuming he does.

That wraps up the adventures for Saturday night. When I got back to Kara there was an announcement that somebody had just defeated Kael'thas (the real one, not the Sunwell one) and so there was a buff to Sha'tar rep and damage done in Tempest Keep. I tried to organize a Bot run but we couldn't find a tank. After asking around for a little while and getting no takers, I realized how late it was and decided to turn in. A waste of the buff, but I really didn't want to PuG a tank. DPS I could possibly tolerate, but not a tank. It just seems like a recipe for frustration.