Snowball Fights: One of Those 5-4 Nights

The night started out lagtastic for me and didn't get much better from there. On the wrong side of a lot of seven minute 5~4 matches, the majority of present I picked up were traps, that sort of thing. Even the one decent streak I put together was marred by our fourth member loading about a minute late into every single match of our 20+ wins. Managed to eke out my daily 25 wins but it was a grind. Actually a little more. Unfortunate events that I'll get to in a little bit meant I had to abandon my night even though I had a little more free time with which to play. Up to about 5.4k Gamer point, another 100 or so candycanes and a handful more Zaishen keys in the bank, so call it a good 30~35 wins today om a few hours of playtime. Not bad considering that

Maybe it was that I rerolled as a Monk. Want to try out different classes each day (Tomorrow I shall be....a Warrior) and not get stuck in a rut. Monks are amazing and really help out running the presents and that's what it's all about really. Mesmer seems pretty hot, too, but I don't think I have the reflexes for it. I also figured out that the duration reducing runes on your armor are non-stacking so there's no point in having those and a condition mod shield at the same time and I wanted to redo my weaponry. +Dazed Axe of Enchanting and a HCR focus is what I'm rocking right now although And maybe that threw me off, but, personally, I think my play has been fairly strong. I mean, I can't singlehandedly win matches by myself and I'm having problems winning the running battles when I'm not a Dwaynite but I'm rarely getting outplayed one on one and definitely making some key plays here and there.

It was just my teammates were, by and large, a liability. Like that one match where I ran in each and every present while my teammates were busying playing the faction farming game and killing everything in sight. And I don't mean that I was quick on the button and lucky in guessing the spawns and I trotted in the gifts while they rode herd, mowing down our foes along the way. I mean they rushed the opponent's base and didn't budge a single inch towards any present drop once. We won that fight but it caught up to us the next. There was the aforementioned individual apparently attempting to play through tins cans and a lengthy string. And a slew of other late loaders and disconnects. The leechers seem to be gone but people dropping inexplicably or never loading in the first half are still with us and no less aggravating.

It got so bad that I got my first Dishonorable today just because I had to leave those two and three person teams that looked to have absolutely no clue so often. I, obviously, am not a big fan of arbitrary mechanics that keep me from playing and, instead, force me to team with the slack-jawed idiots I'd rather avoid with deft map spiking. But, really, putting aside the fact that I'm pissed, if a team is down a member or two then there shouldn't be a penalty for leaving, especially if your teammates won't resign out because they're too busy asking what happened to their skill bars and if there's a level differential and, sigh, in that case it's pretty much all you can do unless you want to just sit there and get pounded in the ass.

Anyhow, I'll cut the ranting short since I have to go to the police station now and swear out a complaint against the neighbor who pounded on the door in the middle of the night, three sheets to the win, and nearly punched my lights out. I so love being home.