This will be, barring some crazy circumstances, the last post on this blog. It’s been over a year since my last one, and although I’m getting back into blogging, it won’t be here. Instead, I’m starting fresh with a new blog, Unleashed Lightning. Check it out, and thanks for reading.
Regression
20 04 2010Man, don’t you just hate it when your guild stumbles? Fights that you’ve blown by in weeks past come up and give you trouble, and you can’t figure out why. Over the weekend, that was the story of our ICC progression. The first hour and a half were clumsy attempts that didn’t get us out of phase one. Yech.
The last few days, minus Saturday and Sunday, were ordinary. Thursday and Friday both consisted of a random dungeon, followed by a random BG. I know, crazy times. Saturday, things picked up. I logged on around noon, and promptly joined an ICC 25 with some guildies. It was a good run, and we went through the first four bosses without any problems. Predictably, though, things fell apart afterwards. We couldn’t get through Festergut, and I’ve started to realize that it’s a fight where individual responsibility is paramount. People don’t need to think on their own for the first four; they just need to do some minimal movement, and switch to an add when required to. On Fester, movement and positioning is key, and missing a spore can be raid-ending. We had a Hunter who ruined the attempts each time, positioning poorly, not moving his spore, and doing 2.4k DPS. Yeesh. I left and logged, before coming back later in the afternoon and saddling up, once again, for Ironbound Drake achievements. I only need the last two; however, to lock in my spot I needed to be present the whole time. So I demo-gunned through Flame Leviathan (goggles didn’t drop), waited patiently through Razorscale, and DPS’d hard through Ignis and XT. I’ll admit, I was only half-playing through trash pulls, as I threw out a few Chain Lightnings and a Magma Totem before alt-tabbing to surf the web. There were a few highlights from the run, though. Notably, I discovered that if someone on a Mammoth gets Baby Spiced, it won’t scale up, leading to this:
Looking straight-faced and serious. Also ridiculous.
We finished up the run that day with the Iron Council and Kologarn, capping off the two-and-a-half hour run. I ended the night with some BGs before heading to bed.
Sunday, I logged on mid-afternoon for a continuation of Ulduar. Unfortunately, because our group couldn’t get their act together and we had limited time, we didn’t get Mimiron or Freya down. Firefighter is still hard, but Three Knocks is doable. Instead, we took out Thorim and Hodir, along with Auriaya, and looked to finish the run next Saturday. That’s fine with me; it means that, unlike the last time, I won’t miss out on Vezax. Ulduar ended, and after an hour, it was time for ICC progression. Or, in our case, regression. We got stuck in phase one, due to poor movement, adds not being picked up, or main tank dying, not cleansing quickly enough… you name it. Every problem we could’ve possibly had, we had. We managed to pick things up, though. We positioned ourselves closer to our off-tank, so we’d need less time on the move. We called out adds, and I threw out a Thunderstorm to knock them back where needed. We assigned a specific healer for cleanses, and tightened up the entire phase. Finally, we transitioned smoothly from phase one to two, where we died repeatedly. Again. We lacked the stuns, slows, or maybe just the coordination required for the Val’kyrs. Toss in Defile, and we were wiping it up. A lot. We called it eventually after we ceased making progress in phase two. ICC will be fresh this Wednesday, so we won’t be doing any Lich King attempts (probably), but our plan is to get there at the very least. I hope we can pull that off, since we’ll need all the time we can get on Arthas.
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Tags: achievements, fail, icecrown, raiding, ulduar
Categories : Diary
Take Heed of the Celestial Steed
18 04 2010I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I feel it needs to be said. The big deal in WoW recently: the Celestial Steed and Lil’XT. Blizzard just released both of these, and anyone can buy them from their store for $25 and $10, respectively. Now, WoW.com had a figure that said the queue for these things was at 140,000. That was a few days ago, which means they’ve probably made five, six, maybe even seven million dollars by now. I’m not even surprised, personally; it’s a really cool looking mount, and a really cool pet. I see the steeds everywhere in Dalaran, and in a raid I was doing, there were five players with them. Five.
What. The. Eff.
Maybe it’s because I have very little disposable income, but this just seems really, really dumb. $25 for an in-game horse. A cool horse, admittedly, but one whose uniqueness is diminished when everyone around you is riding one, and one that people will tire of, just like so many other mounts. I remember when I though I’d never stop riding my Great White Kodo. Then, I thought my new Hawkstrider was really cool. But that couldn’t compare to a Wooly Mammoth! That, however, wasn’t nearly as cool as my Black War Raptor. Which in turn wasn’t nearly as cool as my Thunder Bluff Kodo. However, once I started riding that I remembered my Great White, and promptly switched back to my old favorite. Only to abandon it to the badass status symbol that is the Mechano-hog. The story’s the same with my flying mounts too. I quickly replaced my Amber Drake with a Red one, only to change that in for a Hippogryph, before finally settling in with my Red Proto Drake. Even Ruby, though, will probably see a lot less airtime if I can manage to get my Ironbound Drake. For me, Lil’XT is a much cooler choice. It’s a pet, sure, but it still has XT’s voice, and even his abilities. Gimmicky, sure, but not no less than the mount. I won’t be buying either because I simply don’t have the cash, or even the need for either of these. I have flying mounts; I have pets. I don’t have the cash to throw away on items that I’ll end up replacing shortly anyways. I guess what I’ve been trying to get at, in a really roundabout way, is that buying this is dumb. It’s expensive, it’ll get replaced, and it’s something you can’t take out of the game. I know that others will disagree, and that they’re entitled to their own opinion.
But that doesn’t mean theirs is right.
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Tags: changes, fail, loot
Categories : Diary
April To-Do List
17 04 2010Keeping with tradition/laziness/forgetfulness, I’m doing this mid-month again. First, March:
- Hit 1800 in 3s – Yep
- Go 10/12 in ICC – See above.
- Get Jabba to 20 (at least) – He’s 24 at the moment
So, not bad! The goals for April:
- Kill Sindragosa
- Kill Arthas
Short and sweet, and Sindragosa has already been slaughtered (yay, alliteration!). Arthas is looking to be predictably ridiculous, but if can get through phase two we’ll be through the worst of the fight. Hopefully, we can get it down.
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Tags: To Do
Categories : Diary
Practice and Progression
15 04 2010So, I definitely jynxed myself on Sunday. Our main tank couldn’t make it back in time to raid after a lacrosse tournament, and we decided to do a fresh run instead. We also ended up having to run with a couple guildies from our non-core, with our replacement pally tank being in mostly t7.
It was the smoothest run we’ve ever had.
We got started forty minutes late after trying, to no avail, to save our former raid so that we could start on Arthas come Wednesday. We couldn’t get any alts saved, and then we realized that the tank/raid lead we were missing could fulfill the same purpose. Dur. So, we strove onward, with comfortable one-shots through the first quarter. I was waiting pretty anxiously for the Plague quarter, though; our offtank’s gear might not hold up as well there. Truth be told, he did die once on Festergut, although his role was quickly picked up as our feral druid went Bear form and off-tanked in his stead. We one-shot Fester and Rotface with our Pally OT, and then Bear-tanked Putricide. Although my Kilt didn’t drop (seventh time a row) I actually got the Ether Soaked Bracers from Rotface. Cool. We moved on after that to Dreamwalker, where I went Resto and we plowed through the boss, with myself and our pally healer hitting around 14k and 18k HPS respectively. We had twenty minutes left and we hurried over to the Blood Princes, where we tried a new tactic primarily because of our undergeared off-tank. Rather than 3-tank the fight, we 2-tanked. We had a DK strap on tanking/PvP gear for our ranged tank, and then had our MT pick up both of the other bosses. This freed up a ton of room to maneuver in, and our healers only had to concentrate on healing two tanks intead of three. I got to be in charge of keeping the bombs from dropping; compared to ranged tanking, this was cake. Our new strategy ended up working great, and just like that, we had another one-shot. Our time to end the raid was approaching fast, but we decided to go on for a single attempt on Blood Queen. We figured out the order we wanted, started off, and took her down without a problem. So, in the space of two hours, we killed all ten of our usual bosses, with a less-than-ideal comp. I think the pace we moved surprised all of us; had it been a normal raid night, that would’ve meant we still had two hours for progression. At that point, though, we finally called it. I was proud of my guild, and the progress we’d made since the start of ICC.
I did just a little bit more that night before hitting the hay. The run through ICC 10 had given me an unexpected boost in both gold and Frost emblems, and I got down to crafting my Lightning-Infused Leggings. I spent two hours spamming Trade chat looking for four Primordial Saronites and then a crafter to make the Leggings. I finally got ‘em made though, and I’m happy I did:
Four down, one to go.
Just one more Mark, and I’ll be icy-blue all over. The last three days have been sparse as far as playtime has gone; on Monday, I did some 3s (none of us were feeling it, but we needed our ten matches, and we tanked 60 rating), and on Tuesday I logged on for the daily random and little else. I did manage to fight the Lich King for all of thirty minutes on Wednesday so that was a plus. I’d been unable to make our raid time this week, but one of our ranged left a half hour early. So, I got brought in, and we promptly got killed in phase two over and over again. Defileeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. That debuff is terribad. I’m sure we’ll figure it out, but in the meantime… yech. Back to the wipefest that is progression raiding.
Come hell or high water though, I will get Arthas down. Game time.
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Tags: 3s, icecrown, loot, pvp, raiding
Categories : Diary
Progression Delayed
11 04 2010So, we were supposed to get Arthas this week; it didn’t happen. Not because we weren’t competent, but because we didn’t even get the chance at some attempts. Read on.
Monday and Tuesday weren’t too crazy; all I managed to do were a couple randoms and some BGs. I was looking forward to Wednesday, of course, since it was going to be our first night of serious Lich King attempts. I ended up running late, and texted/called my raid leader to let him know… everything seemed cool. I logged on to find myself as our 10th person, and in the midst of some heavy talk in officer chat. Our raid lead/main tank had had a bad day, and from what I managed to piece together, myself and a few others logging on at the last moment had put him over the edge. He logged off, insisting that a different guildie could tank Arthas. Uh, okay. His loss put us short a tank, and we weren’t going to get anywhere without him. Instead, I took up the task of leading an ICC 25, which actually went really well. We advanced through the first four bosses, and I even got passed the Amulet of Silent Eulogy from a guildie who won. My luck ran out there though; I came in second place for not one, but two Marks of the Protector. I resisted the temptation to ninja them, though, and they got looted out correctly. We finished up the night with a few half-hearted attempts on Dreamwalker, but people leaving after the first four bosses was enough to seal the deal. Getting the Amulet was a nice win, though, and it’s opened up some new options for gearing up. With that and the hit cape from ToC 25, I’ve started to look at crafting a pair of Lightning-Infused Leggings. Previously, their model was purple, and reminiscent of my t9 gear. Since looking good is paramount to me, I’d just planned to sanctify my t10 legs. However, since 3.3.3 dropped, they’ve had their model changed to that of Shaman t10. The hit/haste combinations on the cape and necklace would work well to replace the hit/crit found on my tier piece. Assuming I end up crafting the Infused Leggings, I’d be up 76 spellpower and 87 haste, and down 59 crit, a tradeoff I’d be happy to make. The material costs mean that I’ll have to wait until next week, but I don’t mind. Once I get those, all I’ll need will be one Mark for full Sanctified t10!
Thursday was pretty sparse for WoW, but Friday/Saturday were a blast. On Friday, I joined a ToC 25 which, predictably, couldn’t kill Anub-arak in one shot; half the raid deserted afterwards. Later that night, myself and four other guildies went to Stormwind, queuing up for BGs and harassing the Alliance while we waited. The five of us killed bankers, auctioneers, players… everybody that got in our way, basically. It was only when they formed up and outnumbered us that we finally fell, but a walk back from the graveyard continued this cycle for hours. It was a good, chill time, and there were a few classic moments there as well. My favorite of the night: a level 15 Paladin came up, and killed one of my totems, flagging himself for PvP. You can imagine how that ended for him. This all happened during a melee by the bridge into Stormwind, and was one of the funnier moments of our excursion.
Saturday, I sat down and leveled Jabba to 24 with the Dungeon Finder and some questing in Ashenvale. Notably, despite the finder being random, we got Stormwind Stockades four times in a row. Not only is that place extremely mundane, nobody drops loot. Greaaaaat. Later on, I got back on Sayis to kill Yogg/Algalon with Sieben for the Ironbound achievements. Except, we couldn’t kill Yogg. In fact, we couldn’t even get past phase two. Our melee seemed unable to get the brain phase down, and we wiped up time and again due to this fact. We called it, and I logged, before getting on later in the evening for a few BGs before bed.
Overall, the week’s been a bit disappointing. We didn’t even attempt the Lich King, I didn’t win a fourth Mark, didn’t get a chance at Reign, and didn’t kill Yogg in Ulduar. Battling through Stormwind, leading a successful ICC 25 and some good times in BGs were upsides, though, and I’m confident we’ll put in some good attempts on the Lich King later today.
Assuming, of course, that we attempt it at all 
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Tags: achievements, alt, icecrown, loot, pvp, raiding, ulduar
Categories : Diary
A Quick Rebound
8 04 2010I got up on Thursday with a pretty cruel April Fool’s Joke (one of our core officers said he was quitting), which I completely believed because a) I’m dumb and b) it was early. It was a relief to hear otherwise, and that was the only thing of note on Thursday outside of absolutely wrecking some BGs. Friday was a good day, though. A couple guildies and I joined an ICC 25, and wow, I had some good luck! No, I didn’t win a Mark of the Protector (I rolled 2nd place again!), but I did get ilvl 264 healing legs, Marrowgar’s hit ring, and even better: a BoE from the raid weekly quest, the Carapace of Forgotten Kings. Wow. The going price on the Auction House was a whopping 8200g. Yikes! I promptly put it up for 8k, and after a few BGs, went to sleep.
Saturday marked the start of Easter weekend, and I ended up spending it at school. Since all my friends were at home for Easter, well, lots of WoW. WoW overload, even. And given how much I play, that says something. I started off the morning with some BGs, and was pleasantly surprised to see that my auction had sold. After receiving the 7600g (the AH took a 400g cut. Daaaamn.), I was sitting pretty at over 17k g. That evaporated when, at long last, I picked up a Traveller’s Tundra Mammoth. That thing is huge and awesome, and having a couple vendors wherever I go has already proven to be extremely convenient. I was spending my time in between BGs doing some quests and farming up Ohsu’gun powder in Nagrand, which meant my bags were filling up pretty quickly. Not a problem, though; thanks to my Tundra Mammoth, I could sell my excess anywhere I wanted. Cool.
16,000 gold later, I'm sitting atop my mammoth. Worth it.
The big deal with Saturday came later in the afternoon. Sieben, one of the better guilds on my server, announced they were doing an Ironbound Proto Drake run. I jumped on the opportunity, and got one of the last spots. Every single raider was decked out in ICC 10/25 gear, and we began to slog through the instance. We spent hours going through, and each boss went down after one or two attempts. We finally called it after downing Auriaya, and resolved to pick up the run Sunday. After grabbing some dinner, I sat down for some more BGs with my guildies. It was a long, but fun day.
Sunday, I actually did homework throughout the morning, then logged on for the mid-afternoon continuation of the Ironbound run. We started off with Firefighter, and yikes… that fight is pretty ridiculous. Even with full t10, I was taking a pounding, and I had my fair share of deaths. I can’t even picture doing that fight in t8, and it took us over an hour before we got him down. On our kill, we got him with less than half of the raid alive; I managed to survive, and I actually popped Lust a second time so that our Brez’d players could use the effects again. It was extremely satisfying, and a very cool fight. We continued onward, defeating Freya, Hodir, and Thorim. At that point, however, my luck ran out: the raid wanted to continue on to Vezax and Yogg, and I had to leave for our progression attempts. It was a terrible feeling, but I left the raid two achievements shy of an Ironbound Proto Drake. I was told they’d be doing another run in a couple weeks, but man. I know my guild comes first, but it was uncool to have to leave so close to success.
This week’s progression, we used a different strategy. We tanked Sindragosa facing the stairs of the room, so we had more room to maneuver around. Additionally, we decided to position both ice blocks in Phase 3 on the left, rather than spreading one on the right and one on the left. We got off to a rough start, but got better and better with each attempt. Finally, two hours in, with two of our DPS down, Sindragosa fell. Our raid was weakening, and with our last gasp we managed to get the kill. That meant, at long last, it was time to face down the Lich King himself. We put in two attempts Sunday, getting through phase one before dying in the transition phase. It didn’t help that most of our raid hadn’t seen the fight, and we were happy just to get Sindragosa down. Afterwards, you guessed it, I did a couple BGs then went to bed. Monday was uneventful, but man, I’ve been busy in Azeroth. I can only hope that we make progress on Arthas, and that I get another shot at that Ironbound Drake.
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Tags: achievements, healing, icecrown, loot, raiding, ulduar
Categories : Diary
Disheartening Defeats
6 04 2010In the last week, I have done a ton of stuff in WoW. I’ve cleared out UBRS, gotten the Jenkins title and a new pet, saved a ToC 25 run, wiped (and then defeated) Sindragosa, and gotten 10/12 Ironbound (yes, Ironbound) Proto Drake achievements done. Lets put it this way: enough happened that this will be the first of two posts.
On Tuesday I sat down and committed myself to going into UBRS and clearing the place out. What followed was an excruciatingly long, painful, and confusing run. Even trying to find the entrance was annoying. And when you can’t figure out where to walk in, well, it doesn’t help the rest of the instance. The whole place was confusingly laid-out, and getting through (and getting my quests done) meant using a map and plenty of reading on Wowhead. I even died on General Drakkisath when I pulled him without clearing the room, which promptly aggroed onto me. COOL. I did get a Worg Pup pet and the Jenkins title, but even that didn’t go smoothly. Why? Because the first time when I pulled the room, I went inside, hatched all the eggs, and then realized I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and died. FUN. I ran back, pulled a bit less, then threw a magma totem. I clicked Fire Nova as the totem ticked, saw a bunch of big numbers and my game literally stopped due to the graphical strain. I dc’d, logged back in, and saw my corpse on the ground. GREAT. I self rezzed, pulled 2/3 of the room, tossed the totem, and made sure I was zoomed as far out as possible to lessen the strain. The third time was the charm, and I got my Jenkins title, before going through and then wanting to gouge my eyes out from having to deal with UBRS. Now I’m done with it, though, so good riddance. Hopefully I can get Loremaster without having to set foot in a dungeon. I finished the night up with a VoA 25 (nothing dropped) and some BGs.
On Wednesday, I joined up a ToC 25 that was forming, since I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to get Reign of the Dead. We went through pretty quickly, and lo and behold, the cape from Faction Champs dropped. I rolled a 68, good enough to beat a 67… for second place. Damn. However, the first place roller ended up passing because of the hit on the cape, and I was more than happy to pick it up. We cleared up to Anub’arak, where, and I know this sounds arrogant, I singlehandedly saved the raid. How? One of the adds didn’t get picked up by the off-tank, and burrowed. Uh oh. As he picked up the next two, it came back up, and suddenly he was tanking all three. His health went from 100%, to 75, to 50, to 25, to 1%, and at that moment, I Thunderstormed all the adds away. One of the adds took that opportunity to burrow, the tank got healed to 100%, and he tanked the remaining two with no problems. The big add unburrowed during Anub’s underground phase, and was promptly tanked and killed. Reign didn’t drop, but I was immensely satisfied with my how I’d handled the situation. Later that night, we went to progression. I wish I could say it went as smoothly as the ToC.
I wish I could say that it was really great… unfortunately, it wasn’t too awesome. We started off forty minutes late because a raider got new gear, and had to resocket almost all of his gems. He’d put that off until the raid was beginning. Great. So, we started forty minutes late, and on Lana’thel, where we left off, bam, we wipe. Now, a couple guildies end up getting into a fight, which smoulders for the remaining time in the raid; more on that in a bit. The attempts we put down on Sindragosa afterward got progressively better, but were plagued by disconnects, poor movement, and more. One of our healers would d/c every attempt, which meant that we were essentially trying to 9-man (and 2 heal) a progression boss. Eventually, we managed to get a replacement, and we got the firs two phases down. However, upon getting to phase three, all hell broke loose. People would get an ice block, and not run out, wiping the raid. If they did run out, there was no guarantee that their block would get broken. Our best attempt got her to 15%, but man, it was a long night. We called it for the night at around 1 am, feeling pretty unsatisfied. Our officer chat afterwards was a more intense one than usual; the fight was mentioned, as were the delays in getting started, and our resolution to keep that from happening again. And after this, I got to talk to one of the guildies who’d been in the fight, and had taken it pretty poorly. That lasted another hour. I logged off feeling pretty disheartened that night.
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Tags: achievements, drama, healing, icecrown, loot, raiding, ToC
Categories : Diary
Two Days, Six Raids
30 03 2010Blech. So, my entire weekend was homework, WoW, eating, and sleeping. Saturday began with a ToC 25, probably the smoothest I’ve ever been in. We one-shot every boss, nobody died, and the average DPS was around 6-7k, with our lowest hovering at 5. Unfortunately, my cloak and Reign of the Dead didn’t drop (again). I did manage to win another trophy, which I sold for 150g, and we also got Salt and Pepper 25-man with time to spare. All in all, it was a good run, and it only took forty minutes, so no complaints here! Later that night I joined what looked to be a good ICC 25, and I wasn’t disappointed as we downed the first four bosses along with the raid weekly. However, we ground to a halt after that. It was sort of sad, really, as much as I hate the Gearscore addon, well, everybody had one of 5.5k or above. But many of the people in the raid had never seen past the first four bosses, meaning out attempts in the Plague Quarter were fruitless. Dreamwalker, too, wasn’t saved because our healers couldn’t get the job done. On top of that, there were no Marks of the Protector, meaning I’ve gotta wait at least another week to get a shot at one. I closed out the night with, surprisingly enough, Zul’aman and Ulduar 10. ZA was fun as usual, since a few friends and I have been putting together a troll set for the upcoming Sen’jin event. Ulduar 10 was where the real action was though, as my guild decided to do some spontaneous achievements, and I ended up having to heal. Lame. What followed was us doing XT, Kologarn, Iron Council, Auriaya, Hodir, and Thorim hard modes, all of which were cake. I also picked up the quest to get to Algalon, and my eventual Starcaller title. Since I’m dumb, the hard modes we did on Hodir and Thorim didn’t count towards the quest, since I didn’t turn it in… yeah. It’s alright since we’ll be back there for some extra achievements later, but it’s still annoying to have messed it up. I went to bed satisfied, and a little nostalgic. Ulduar was, and still is, my favorite instance in the game.
On Sunday, I did something a little different: a Halaa world PvP event. Someone over on my server had organized both Horde and Alliance players, and we were going to grind out some kills to get enough Halaa Battle Tokens to buy the Dark Talbuk mounts. This seemed to be the only chance I’d ever have to see the mounts, so I took it. It ended up being pretty cool/well-organized, despite some annoyances. Namely, a second group forming to steal kills from the main raid that made the whole thing last twice as long. The event took about an hour and a half, and I got some cool screenshots to show for it too.
 The Horde force at Halaa
|
 A view from above |
 Even more people, stacked in the sky |
 The battle afterwards, post-charge. |
Afterwards, I got to be the guy who led the Horde as both sides charged at one-another. Needless to say, it ended poorly for me. But it was really cool to see a mass of people following, and we won the fight. Pre-charge, everyone with a ‘hog was even lined up in a V-formation. Awesome.
Sunday finished up, of course, with our ICC 10 raid. Notably, I finally got enough emblems to get Maghia’s Misguided Quill, replacing my Elemental Focus Stone from Ulduar and allowing me to take out my hit cape, and replace it with my Wrathful PvP one. As for the Quill itself, I’m enjoying it thus far. 700 extra spellpower, combined with Elemental Mastery or Bloodlust (or both!) packs quite a punch. We went through ICC scoring one-shots up through the Plague Quarter and Dreamwalker. Our good fortune ended at the Princes and Blood Queen, however; we took out the Princes after a few attempts, but some bad RNG (including one of our healers DC’ing) combined with our raid starting an hour later than usual meant that Lana’thel survived the night. As usual, none of the pieces I was looking for dropped; the hit cloak from Dreamwalker, cloth bracers from Rotface, and that elusive kilt from Putricide were all no-shows. Lame. Still, we’re saving the ID, and should be making our attempts on Sindragosa this Wednesday, and hopefully, the Lich King by Sunday. Kingslayer Sayis has a nice ring to it…
Finally, yesterday. The only thing that went on was a random dungeon and BG, followed by a foray in Black Rock Spire, since I want to get it done for the achievement. I also picked up some quests for the instance, figuring a few more towards Loremaster wouldn’t hurt while I was in the area. Ugh, what a mistake. BRS is probably the most confusingly laid-out instance in the history of ever. Trying to do some quests, I read online and found out I’d missed an item back by the start, and I had a poison debuff that I couldn’t cleanse since I had to be… milked… for the quest. Yeah. I’m a Tauren. That makes it worse. I ended up getting a pet spider from one quest, but it was the dialogue from the milking quest (Mother’s Milk) that made up for BRS’s annoyingness.
“Milk me, John.” “With pleasure… just let me savor this moment for a minute longer.” “Do it… do it now.”
Oh Blizzard.
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Tags: achievements, healing, icecrown, loot, raiding, ulduar
Categories : Diary
Two Busy Weeks
27 03 2010Business in and out of WoW. In the last two weeks, I bought my fifth piece of t10 and sanctified my third. I also managed to get exalted with the Kalu’ak (finally!), grabbing the Mastercraft rod and the pet to boot, all while finishing up quests in Howling Fjord to become Loremaster of Northrend. At the same time, 3.3.3 has dropped, and naturally, I’ve been farming BGs like there’s no tomorrow. Yikes.
Outside of an ICC 25, last week was pretty uneventful. This was due to Saint Patrick’s Day falling on a Wednesday. With most of my guild being either collegiate or older, well, that meant no raid day, which was fine with me. Then, my GM’s computer died; he’s also our main tank, and that meant no guild raid on Sunday, either. I spent the week doing my daily random, and the occasional BG or Kalu’ak rep quest. I also spent time running through Howling Fjord, getting halfway through the zone by the end of the week, and seeing some pretty cool quests. Notably, I got to see my Inner Turmoil (he was defeated quickly) before getting a slow fall buff, and then jumping off the mountain I was on. So cool! I also took the time to run a couple guildies through BRD, using my mole machine to get us there; it was a quick, fun run.
 Rockin' full t10 at last! |
 Facing down my Inner Turmoil |
 It's a long way down... |
 Sitting like a King in BRD |
The weekend arrived, though, and with that came the ICC 25. Hoo boy. The week’s lack of excitement was instantly made up for when not one, but two Marks of the Protector dropped.
I then proceeded to roll in the mid-70s, good enough for third place. This was followed by a long sigh, a face palm, and immediate offers on the Mark.
At that point, things turned around. I ended up talking directly to the guy I was bidding against, and I paid out a whopping 7.5k g for the Mark, leaving me with only 500. However, I’ve got this to say right now: completely worth it. Why? Because I got the Sanctified helm, and man do I look cool.
My Sanctified Helm, in glorious high quality graphics
Once again: completely worth it. This is only the second time I’ve cranked my graphics up to high for a screen shot (the first was for my Mechano-hog), and you can’t see it here, but I’m chugging along at around 2fps. Awesome. I put off buying the Quill until next week, opting instead to sell a couple Primordial Saronites and complete a round of Argent Dailies to bring me back up to around 3k g; I’ve found that having less than 1000 is a terrible feeling.
Moving on, I ran an ICC 10 with a PuG (they only got the first four down, surprise surprise) and did little else until 3.3.3 dropped on Tuesday. Verdict with the patch so far: very cool. The Random BG Finder has made getting into BGs a few minutes faster, and a lot more rewarding, although I’ve gotten Strand and Arathi Basin far more than any other BG. Either way, the biggest difference so far? The ease at which honor is obtainable. 6k honor from the first win, followed by 4k afterwards? I remember when I was ecstatic at seeing 2k from an Alterac Valley, and that took fifteen minutes of que time, followed by thirty of hard fighting. Now… wow. Just wow. They’ve already made it cake to get into a full set of Furious gear. If this doesn’t drive a few people into the Arena, I don’t know what will. It’s also interesting to note that epic gems have seen a price drop already on my server; getting an epic with 10k honor no longer means doing 10 BGs, it means doing 2. I’ve personally already sold about 1000g worth of gems, simply because PvP’ing is way more fun than questing. The only other things of note recently have been a couple achievements; I finally picked up Warsong Expedience, and I ran ZA awhile with a few friends too. There was some pretty cool looking Shaman gear in there, and the troll aesthetic is something Blizzard doesn’t do often with gear. Coming off the ice, bone, and otherwise dark coloring of Northrend gear, it was a refreshing change. I’ve also been enjoying the slight DPS bump from 3.3.3, and I’ve swapped out my Flame Shock glyph for Glyph of Lava. So far, it’s looking like a 200, maybe 300 increase, and the ability to crit on a FS tick has been cool for PvP. Having Elemental Oath as a passive buff is also nothing to complain about. So far, 3.3.3 is shaping up to be one of Blizzard’s better minor releases.
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Tags: achievements, changes, icecrown, loot, pvp, raiding, Shaman
Categories : Diary
Bloodlust 
