PUG Raid Of Serpentshrine Cavern

So, last night after waiting on standby for the guild’s Sunwell Raid (first boss down!), a guildmate asked if anyone was interested in joining a raid going into Serpentshrine Cavern.

Our realm has a constant stream of these PUG raids going on now - SSC, Tempest Keep/The Eye, Black Temple, Hyjal… and of course Zul’Aman, Gruul’s, Magtheridon and Kara. Every week it’s easy to get into a decent run, if you’re decently geared, and this week was no different.

The raid was lead by a guy who is well-known over the past few months in our realm for putting together decent raid PUGs, having strict entry requirements and a solid friends list to call upon to fill out the ranks. I had run with him before, so I didn’t have to do the whole “gear check” thing - just headed to Zangarmarsh and towards the summoning stone for the Coilfang Reservoir dungeons.

Familiar Faces

When I was invited to the party, a few familiar names popped up and said hello, including a couple of Priest Healers I had been in the raiding guild with when I was raiding on my Mage back in the Jan-May 2008 timeframe. It was great to see them again!

One of them mentioned their spellpower unbuffed, which now represents their +healing, and it was around +1250, so my comment was “doesn’t that make you feel weak saying that?”, and the other Priest agreed - they had gone down from some 2300-2400 +heals to +1250 spellpower just like I’d made my 2k-1k drop, so they knew what I meant :) I personally was at just under 1090 spellpower unbuffed during this conversation.

So, since the conversation had been opened, we all discussed our various important stats - spellpower and MP5 (mana per 5 seconds/mana regen) while casting being the most important. It seems like the other two hadn’t figured out a spec yet to have their MP5 be decent, but I’ve got it going pretty well.

When I first re-spec’d after the patch, I thought I chose a fine spec until I looked at my MP5 while casting and saw how horribly neutered it was (I think it was at 54). I re-spec’d again with more in Discipline and got back to normal at around 202.

Four Bosses Downed, New Trinket Obtained

I haven’t been in many raid instances with this toon so I like these PUGs for the fact that I really can’t find gear anywhere else other than Heroic Badge rewards now. Anything that drops in Heroics or Karazhan is worse or equal to what I have. Zul’Aman still has gear for me but I don’t get into there very often.

We ended up taking down four bosses during the raid, but the raid leader didn’t feel confident with the group makeup to take on Lady Vashj, so he called it - which was fine by me, it was after midnight already.

I got a great Priest Healer trinket at one point: Earring of Soulful Meditation

Both of the Priest Healers I raided with 8 months ago were still looking for this trinket, so I felt very fortunate to have been top roller!

PUG Rolling Rules vs Raiding Guild Rolling Rules

In fact, after being awarded the new trinket, one of the healers asked me what had become of my Mage, because they were wondering if this Healer was a new Main or if it was still my Alternate toon.

In a raiding guild scenario, the rolling rule is “mains over alts”, but in a PUG the only rule is “main spec over off spec”, so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway if the Mage was still my main.

Of course that doesn’t stop people from feeling some type of “right” to a piece of gear, especially one they’ve been vying for for many months.

Recount Results For Healing and Overhealing

I made sure to take a screenshot of the Healing and Overhealing results for that raid, because even though there’s no proof that they’re real and haven’t been doctored in some way (ie: by me not resetting my meters), I know they’re not, and I was happy with last night’s result.

I was pitted up against three healers who outgear me but use around the same healing specialization/talents that I do, and I not only Outhealed them but I had a lower Overhealing % and less deaths.

But, to be truthful, I know that one of the healers could crank out a lot more if she wasn’t AFK for 10 minutes at a time and on /follow…

The current Friends list (and Ignore list) on WoW restrict you to 50 Friends and 50 Ignores.

If you’re like me, that’s not enough by a long shot. You have friends who play 5 alts, and meet a few people in dungeons who you’d like to play with again, and your list is full.

I’m constantly having to look at my list and remove alts of friends, or people I haven’t spoken to for the past couple of weeks, just to make room for more new people.

I’d love to see the friends list maximum size be increased to 200, to support the fact that those of us who are doing a lot of PUGs make a lot more friends than we can currently track.

Someone started a new thread on the Suggestions forum on the official World of Warcraft forums, and while I know it’s been suggested before, I’d really like it if YOU, the reader, would lend your voice of support in getting more attention to this issue.

If you would like a larger Friends and/or Ignore list, make your opinion be known here!

PS: Yes, you can make a channel and invite people to it, but that gets messy and being in a raiding guild I’m already subscribed to 3 external channels for conversation. Gimme more room for Friends!