How much is too much?

This time last week I was still buzzing from the excitement of my one, lonely successful ICC10 PuG group.

But the past four days have each consisted of ICC raiding. To be honest, it was a bit much!

Tuesday rolls around. I posted last week that I was silently stalking the raid leader of the group I had such a great time with, and that I was going to conveniently be online when their raid was due to form. However, he beat me to the punch! I get a whisper- "Would you be interested in coming to ICC tonight?" I try not to explode into smithereens of absolute giddy pleasure and quickly respond, "Hell yeah!" There's an invite on my calender and I'm quickly stocking up on the things I need to raid, making sure I'm repaired, etc.

I ended up doing a ToC25 PuG in another effort to get 'my' shield or 'my' trinket, but we couldn't down Anub before I end up needing to leave to go to ICC. It was pretty spectacularly horrible. I wanted to bash my head against a wall by the end of it. I drop vent and head to the other vent, and immediately begin to feel better as I hear voices which are already familiar.

It was, as like last week, an absolute mind-blowing joy to raid with them.

I got boots off of Marrowgar which I almost refused to take because they were 'icky crit boots' but then I realized that baseline they still had more int, plus two sockets... so I took them. Which great reluctance. Now they're gemmed, but not enchanted, and I'm wearing them and sulking about it; just you wait until I get my crafted boots!

One shot everything and it's on to Valithria. I explain to the shaman healer I've been two-healing this with that I... have never successfully restored Valithria to her full health. That I am (tragically) a keyboard turner and am nervous about 'doing this fight right'. He explains that we just need to gather as many stacks as we can in the portals, explains he's on a laptop too and understands my pain, and then challenges me (in a friendly fashion) to outheal him; he says that even if I don't end up with any stacks, as long as I'm mainly healing the dragon he could probably heal it himself just with that little bit of help.

This makes me feel better. I beacon one of the tanks, and -get to it-.

It was actually kind of fun! Unfortunately, the last two portals I'd inadvertantly let my stacks fall off because I blew my CDs and went balls to the walls and didn't notice the portals opening, I was too entranced by the pretty green numbers with the, what, 19 stacks of buff? ... but we had it anyway, even with my lapse in judgement. (By the way, the shaman beat me- but not by toooo much!) She even dropped me some nice (HASTE) shaman mail that the shaman didn't want to replace my icky crit T10 gloves once I get my T10 helm! I'll wear them until I can accrue the frost emblems for the awesome off-set 264 gloves- om nom nom!

Then it's off to Rottie and Fester. I don't remember much except some people go upgrades, which was great! We still had some time... so, raid leader says we'll do one or two attempts on Putrecide and re-group on Thursday.

Well what do you know, we one shot the bastard.

Feeling great, we disband, and I enthuse to the shaman healer about how awesome it was to raid with them and how much I love cohealing with him, because shaman plus paladin equals pure sex in terms of healing composition in a melee heavy group!

Wednesday rolls around, and, oh, hey? You know how I got my shaman into a new guild? She's signed up for ICC10! Welllll ooookaaay. Twist my arm. I need the frost emblems to fund Dyna's boots anyway. We head in and...

Well, I don't know. I think I went temporarily retarded. Being DPS seems to do that to me. =/ On Marrowgar I kept finding myself not where I was supposed to be, almost missed the call for heroism because my macro didn't pop right. Deathwhisper, I kept critting myself in the face on the mobs I wasn't supposed to hit, and had to ask 'how do I know which ones I shouldn't hit?' which was responded to with 'they have bubbles around them'. Right. The giant reflective bubbles that mean I-- oh fuck I just crit myself in the face again. I felt stupid.

We wiped a few times on Deathwhisper then downed her. Then did the weekly raid quest, which was to kill a frost giant- that was fun, and I didn't fuck up there. Then we move onto Gunship, and we're told to get rocket packs. I go to grab a rocket pack, click past the text-- OH SHIT THE FIGHT IS STARTING. Guess who talked to the wrong NPC.

I wanted to slam my face into a wall, I felt so dumb. I was appalled at myself. Still, we one-shot it; I mean, lootshit, duh. Then we move on to Saurfang, and I managed not to look like a moron there; even got a shiny necklace upgrade.

I don't remember if we downed Festergut. I don't think we did.

Overall, I was the top DPS; but each individual fight I was second. The mage and rogue fought between first and third, but I was consistantly second. I guess I did alright, but my sheer stupidity elsewhere makes me cringe. I did apologize to the raid leader and I did fess up to my mistakes, I didn't try to let someone else take the blame, at least. This raid, though it had people I knew, wasn't as much fun as the one on my holy pala. The raid group Dyna raids with is so amazingly competent. I'm not really one to talk (apparently) because I failed a lot, but... I don't know. No one even said anything when I fucked up, other than 'oh shit we're starting' on Gunship. But, eh, ICC raiding. I get to do it. I'm happy.

Thursday happens. We have Blood Wing and our progression boss- Sindragosa. We one shot Blood Princes, and two-shot Blood Queen but sadly miss the weekly raid quest on it- oh well! Then it's off to beat our faces against Sindragosa.

I will admit it. I expected us to down her, going into that.

It took some work, though. We hammered out positions. We fixed our strats. We had some really heartbreaking wipes- 12%, if only, if only!! Then the PuG retpally says 'sorry guys gotta go' and drops. After, like, three wipes. You knew this was progression night, I call you a pansy for quitting. Pfeh! So we try to nine man it.

This doesn't work either; strangely, we have the DPS... but two healing it is killing us. Literally. We consistantly get to third phase, and consistantly, one of the healers gets blocked and the other one can't keep everyone up alone. Saaaad.

I manage to pique the interest of a friend who 'quit wow', but was lurking on a lowbie alt, who brought in her ICC25HM geared ele shammy... we try three healing...

It's messy. We made some mistakes, things that were preventable. But that damn dragon dies, even after the raid leader says 'well that was a good attempt guys...' Silly raid leader!

The ele shammy wasn't even the top DPS, despite her amazing gear; I think she was kinda rusty, to be honest. Still, she pulled out the stops at the end and self ressed, pumping every ounce of pain she had into the dragon.

That's how I became a 11/12 ICC10 raider in two weeks!

We visit Arthas, do one wipe just for fun, just to see how the fight starts, and we're laughing and giddy as we die. Turns out? The edge of the platform really does mean the edge of the platform. Not on the edge doesn't cut it. Who'd've thought it?!

Then Friday hits, and... well. Frankly I'm kinda raided out. I just want to hang out in my skivvies and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and eat jello because it's hot and my head hurts. But... I signed up for the 25man. And I'll be damned if I won't honor my obligations. Besides, Marrowgar drops a sexy sexy shield that I'd really like to have; I already decided if the shield off of Sindi drops for us (which it didn't) the shaman gets it, I won't even roll, just because I know he really really wants it, and I've already gotten a fair bit out of loot raiding with them.

So I log on. And I do the raid thing. And it would've been okay, except my head is pounding, it's hot, and, oh, the raid is supposed to last for five hours. Five. Hours. And if you leave early, you won't get another invite back. Ffffffff.

We one shot everything up to Rotface, we do the weekly raid quest, I get a butt-ton of frost emblems and rep and all, but nothing I'm even remotely interested in drops. Eh. Oh well. We wipe a few times on Rotface, then down him, and move onto Fester.

For fuck's sake, we wiped on Festergut at least nine times after waiting for someone who is AFK for half an hour, re-explaining the fight to new people PuGged in at least four times... we're wiping because people are running the wrong way, there's oozes in the raid, and I want to just bash my face into a wall because it would feel more productive than this.

When the trash respawned, I finally gave in. "I'm sorry, guys, my head is killing me and I can't see straight. I hate to be 'that guy' who leaves, but I can't do this anymore, I'm not even healing at max capacity'. Which was true. My tank kept dying. Mostly because we had a shit-ton of oozes and no one was doing the right thing, but even with me- ME, a paladin- AND a tree druid on him, he was still biting the dust. I can say I messed up a bit, trying to make him my beacon target and healing other people- he'd be out of range and then POOF die. And I messed up because sometimes he was just out of range after we ran out for whatever the crap that AoE is. I don't know. I wasn't at my best, and my tank died, and I don't know how much of it was me not being at my best, and how much of it was unnecessary damage from DPS being retarded.

And now it's Saturday, and I'm glad I've got no more obligations until next Tuesday. You know. Because, by the way? My cohealer shaman in that raid group? LOVES me. Adores me. And the raid leader has extended a tentative invitation for me to be part of their group, even if I'm not guilded with them. Hell, they even helped me gem and enchant my upgrades! It was- I mean, I felt so- happy... because I was a part of their group. And they wanted to help me. And I want to help them. And if I wasn't in an RP guild that I can't leave, I WOULD JOIN THEM IN A HEARTBEAT. Just so they know for sure that I'm not leaving them anytime soon, if only they'll keep me around!

I'm two days away from my T10 helm, then I get to wear my shiny new haste shaman mail. I'm 3/5 primordial saronite for my boots, then I'm working on pants. Because damn it. Those pants are really, really nice. Once I get the frost emblem gloves, Dyna's frosts will also go towards prims, instead of just Iztli's, and I'm hoping the process will become much faster. I'm still dreading it, though.

But yes. Raiding overload. Too much of a good thing... can be a bad thing. I think I'll stick to Dyna's ten man team, and skip the 25... probably... there's some really nice gear out of 25... Maybe DPS on Iztli for her group, if they even want me around after last week's show of stupid.