Tuesday, December 9, 2008

WoW Update - 9 Dec 2008: The Second Day

I logged in the next day with a slight hope that I would get invited back to the PUG. And lo and behold, I was - I got a whisper from the Revolution guys asking if I was coming back with them for the Plague wing. I accepted the invite and found myself with the same raid members.

The Plague wing was a little harder than the Spider wing, to be honest. I absolutely hated the safety dance, as raiding from Asia means I'm always going to be a little bit lagged when running from one side of the room to another. The other fights were more forgettable, but I do recall a steeper learning curve than the Spider wing's.

After clearing the Plague wing, we started clearing the Military Wing, but were abruptly stopped when the Revolution members asked if we would be interested in coming along for an Archavon-25 raid. We all accepted, and pretty soon I found myself in Lake Wintergrasp, getting ready to down the infamous "loot pinata".

We didn't make it. Twice.

At one point in the second attempt I figured it out - we didn't have enough DPS. They needed two people to volunteer to swap out for DPS so that they could get him down. As my friend the holy paladin volunteered first (and as I was a fourth tank, utterly unnecessary in the Archavon fight), I also volunteered to be replaced. The Revolution guys asked me if I would be available for a follow-up raid and I said I'd try - it was past noon and I was hungry, after all.

And that ended my first weekend of raiding in Northrend. I hope Revolution was successful in downing Archavon.

Monday, December 8, 2008

WoW Update - 8 Dec 2008: First Raids

Well, it would be nicer if they'd been GoV raids, but that wasn't possible this past weekend. I was logged in by 8:30 am local time, which was perhaps not the best thing for me to have done as I had gotten home at well past 3 the night before (and was massively drunk to boot). Raiding hung over is just as bad as raiding drunk. But I'd had a rough week at work and I really, really wanted to step into Naxxramas.

Except no one else seemed to want to.

At 9 am I ticked on "LFG Naxxramas" and typed "Noob tank - 24,000 HP, def capped" into the comments box. Within ten minutes I had a whisper from a rogue asking if I'd be interested in coming to Naxx-10. I said yes and got a raid invite.

The raid was already full by the time I got to Naxxramas. The raid lineup consisted of mostly raider alts and new 80s from Revolution, a raiding guild I'd seen around but didn't know much about. Apparently they'd run Naxxramas-25 the night before and wanted to get some experience in Naxx-10. Tanking along with me was a protection Warrior. Healing us were a holy Priest, a holy Paladin, and a resto Druid. And our DPS for the night were two Rogues, a Mage, a Warlock and a shadow Priest. I bonded a little bit with the holy Paladin (it doesn't hurt to make friends with your healer) and was surprised to find that she was, in fact, a she.

As I had more hit points than the Warrior, it was decided that I would be the main tank. I wasn't so excited about that - I was, after all, a self-confessed noob who didn't know the fights - and in the end we wound up relying more on the Warrior as main tank (although I got to tank some of the fights). We cleared the Spider wing with some difficulty, then moved on to the Obsidian Sanctum. Sartharion went down like a house of cards.

Even though I didn't get any loot this run, it was all worth it - the experience of raiding Naxxramas taught me a lot about what to expect for GoV. I won't lie: Naxxramas-10 is hard. I don't think everyone will be ready. But I'm excited about raiding again. Has it really been less than a month since Wrath of the Lich King dropped?

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Raiding Minimums for Naxxramas-10

As expected, I wound up looking for a PUG for Naxx-10 this morning instead of running with GoV. More on how that turned out later, but on reflection I'd like to put down what I think the minimum values for Naxxramas raiders should be.

Tanks
20,000 HP minimum, and of course more is better.
Defense capped (540).
Avoidance as high as possible without sacrficing Defense or STA.

Healers
14,500 Mana minimum. Again, more is better.
1350 spellpower minimum. But if your healers only have this much spellpower, take 3 healers and beef up your tanks and dps.

DPS
1,200 DPS minimum. We wiped repeatedly in the Plague Wing due to one DPSer bringing only 900 DPS to the table. 1,200 DPS will ensure that bosses go down before healers' mana pools empty completely. And of course, more is always better.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Out of Synch

As I have been effectively shouted down on the GoV forums for looking for a Naxx-10 group this weekend, I assume that I'm free to do as I please. Which means that by no means should I feel guilty about getting majorly wasted on Friday night and sleeping in on Saturday morning instead of logging to get a run going.

Other things I will not feel guilty about should I choose to undertake them:

1) A quick (or prolonged, one never knows) respec to Holy to work on my healing spec. Why, when I'm doing ok as a Prot specced pally? Because this is the way it's going to be in the future, with dual specs in place: Prot for 10-mans and Holy for 25-mans.

My healing gear is almost entirely blue, with two notable exceptions: a green trinket that gives me +41 INT, and my purple chest from level 70. It's probably good enough for a heroic run, but I won't know for sure until I respec and try it out.

2) A Naxx PUG. I'm not too proud to find my own raid. LF9M Naxx-10, awesome group so far, PST.

3) An extended let's-level-Froufrou session. Poor Frou's still at level 71, at par with Malago. Even Silverwisp has overtaken her. Maybe it's time I gave my favorite gnome some love.

4) More work on Avi-tank. This is not likely to happen. I'm already defense capped (uncrittable). I've also got 24k HP unbuffed, so no need to work on more hit points. I am NOT block capped yet (still at a lowly 75.5%) so that's what I should be working on next - but working on block caps needs a gear strategy, which necessitates raiding, so that's clearly out of the question.

5) A beach trip, effectively blowing off WoW for the weekend. I might just do this, except for the gray skies outside. I'd have to go pretty far to find a beach with sunny skies in this weather. Is Batangas far enough?

Bah.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

WoW Update - 2 Dec 2008: I'm Sick, Damn It

I played way too much World of Warcraft this past weekend, and now I'm calling in sick. Besides the usual ailments (eyestrain and hand fatigue) I'm running a low fever and my throat is sore. The fever and sore throat are probably due to a bug that's going around, but I've no doubt that my system was compromised due to too much time spent playing and not enough time resting.

But what a glorious weekend it was. I hit almost every goal I set for myself. Here's a breakdown of what happened -

1) Jewelcrafting to 420. Initially my objective was to reach level 400 so I could make myself a Figurine - Monarch Crab. But thanks to a few lucky drops in instance runs, I found myself with no less than 3 meta gem recipes in my possession that required 420 to learn. So I hunkered down and farmed ore to prospect. It took a day and a half, but it was worth my time.

2) Instances! Aranash wanted to run instances, so in one day we ran five. In rapid succession, we ran Drak'tharon Keep, Gundrak, Halls of Stone, Halls of Lightning, and the Oculus, pausing briefly to finish the Ampitheater of Anguish questline. Unfortunately, at this point he wasn't quite level 80 yet, so we didn't get to run any of these on heroic.

After he logged out we put another group together to run the daily heroic - Caverns of Time: The Culling of Old Stratholme. I grouped with Gwennell, Azmuth (a Death Knight), Grantilis and Nesian. We thought we'd have more trouble with the instance, but instead we just powered our way through. This was a pretty incredible group and I'm glad to have been a part of it. Between Azmuth, Grant and myself we were able to AoE down the undead swarms fairly quickly, and when the mobs started going after Nesian Gwen would shift to bear form and tank them while I tied up the elite undead waves.

The next day we had some trouble putting together a heroic group as there were only 4 80s on. So Rothgarth pulled me into a PUG heroic Anjol-Nerub run. It didn't go as smoothly as the CoT run, but we had awesome DPS and heals, so we finished the instance pretty handily.

And on the last day of this 3-day holiday we were able to get together a group for heroic Drak'tharon Keep. It was a really tough instance on heroic. We'd planned to run a second instance, but finishing the first took so much time that people had to log out once it was over.

3) Defense to >540. Instancing gave me reputation with the Wyrmrest Accord, and of course I got some pretty sweet drops from all the instances we'd been running. Over the weekend I managed to get a Breastplate of the Solemn Council, Bracers of Reverence, Gal'darah's Signet, a Solid Platinum Band, and a Seal of the Pantheon. As a result, I'm now defense capped and pretty solidly above 20,000 health - I'm at 23,000 now, as a matter of fact.

So I didn't get my reputation up with the Hodors (Hodor hodor hodor), but I more than made up for it.

Friday, November 28, 2008

WoW Update - 28 Nov 2008: Gearing Up For Naxx

I dinged 80 two nights ago and rushed to Stormwind to respec. Sandbox hasn't been working particularly well for me, so the only way I could identify gear holes was to actually spec protection and wear the gear.

I had a lot of help from Rothgarth, who loaned me some titansteel, Grantilis, who crafted the epic tanking set for me, and Gwennell, who made me a tanking ring. The result put me at more than 20,000 hit points, which was my target, but less than 540 defense (689 defense rating), which is now a problem for me to address.

So here are my goals for Avi, which she needs to hit by next Saturday morning:
1) Run Gundrak for the blue tanking quest ring. If possible, run Gundrak enough to get the blue tanking ring drop.
2) Level JC to 400 to get the 2 STA trinket items. At the moment my trinkets are pitiful. One is a level 70 epic without stamina (just parry). One is a level 74 blue that increases crit rating and is therefore useless.

And the secondary goals:
1) Level Wyrmrest Accord to Revered to get a Breastplate of the Solemn Council.
2) Level Sons of Hodor... er, Hodir to Honored for a Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle.

I hope we can get some instances in this weekend. I've been without a good healer for a while and it's starting to grate.

Grateful

Allow me to take inspiration from the Wowhead blog and say I'm grateful for World of Warcraft.

(And no, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the Philippines, but it's a really fantastic idea. A day to be thankful, how great is that?)

In a time when finances are heavy on my mind, WoW is the most cost-effective entertainment I have. It lets me keep in touch with distant friends, make new friends from places I've never been, and participate in storylines that make me feel like I'm part of something greater than myself.

I'm grateful for friends who are with me both online and off, who share a beer with me while swapping stories about instances and gear. I'm grateful for people who get why I need to have Wowhead and Wowwiki bookmarked and who spend nearly as much time as I do playing around with Sandbox and a Talent Calculator.

I'm grateful for a steady job that allows me to continue playing World of Warcraft, and where I have made friends who also play WoW (and not a few of who now play with me on Bloodhoof). I'm grateful for being able to work at a company that attracts other gamers.

I'm grateful for my beautiful wife and my loving family, without whose support I could not continue to play World of Warcraft. I'll occasionally skip a raid to go out and do something in the real world, but from their point of view it's really quite the opposite - I most often give up the real world to go raiding or instancing or farming. And they love me and support me nonetheless.

I'm grateful for my Guildmates, new and old, for the social experience of WoW. I'm grateful especially to the officers and raid leaders for their time and dedication. I'm grateful to the unseen multitudes who work on the resources that support my WoW experience - community contributors, wiki writers, bloggers, forum posters.

And of course I am grateful for Blizzard. I admire their dedication to making an already great game an even better experience for their players with each patch and expansion. I may not agree with every action they take, but I understand where they're coming from.

Thank you, everyone.

Monday, November 24, 2008

WoW Update - 24 Nov 2008: Home Stretch

I had a chat last night with some Guildies. It seems that as nearly ten of us are at level 80, there may be a few attempts at Naxxramas-10 either this weekend or next. Normally I'd be skeptical at our chances - I'm a firm believer in taking slow, safe steps - but all the instance content I've experienced so far has been pretty easy. Also, even if we wind up just farming Anub'Rekhan, that's at least one epic for someone on a weekly basis.

After some discussion with the rest of the Invasion it was decided that I would spec protection for the time being. I'm certainly not adverse to it, and while I will occasionally long for the comfort of a Holy healing spec, I'm not going to complain too loudly. The way I see it, I can tank at least until another tank (*coughmalago*) gets to 80 and gears up, and then we can discuss my transition back to Holy.

In the meantime, I dinged 78 last night and expect to ding 79 either tonight or tomorrow evening, assuming no interruptions from server maintenance. I'm already starting to pick up the tanking gear I'll need at 80.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

WoW Update - 22 Nov 2008: Friends Don't Let Friends Level JC



I'm currently in the beautiful city of Cebu, an hour-and-a-half away from Manila by plane and in many ways the second city of the Philippines. It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm anxious to go get breakfast and tan by the pool. I really hate looking like I didn't take a vacation when I've been gone from work a full week. I get ribbed enough for my WoW addiction as it is.

The screenshot above shows my paladin Avierra on the last day of my WoW vacation - and yes, that is indeed the Badlands, in my opinion the best place to find Iron and Mithril.

After a lot of thought and debate I opted to drop Engineering. It was by no means an easy decision to make. But with Rothgarth and Malago both in the Invasion there seemed to me to be no sense in leveling a third Engineer. I considered returning to Blacksmithing, but in the end utility won out and I went with Jewelcrafting.

(Gwen, on Guild chat, said, "I gotta warn you, levelling JC is a PITA." Then Roth said, "Yeah. I don't think I could level another JC." In hindsight, I wish I'd paid more attention.)

So I went out and dinged 77, purchased Cold Weather Flying, and farmed 200 Copper Bars so I'd have a good supply of materials to level quickly. When that was done, I speed-levelled from 1 to 201, where I stopped for lack of easily farmable mats.

I'd like to mention at this point that Rothgarth and Enishii (Biancangel's Death Knight) have been extremely helpful in my switch to JC. I wanted to create the flying mounts just before I dropped Engineering. I figured that even if I couldn't use the mounts, they would still count towards the achievement. Roth provided some of the mats and primals for the epic flyer. Enishii, on the other hand, sent over a lot of ore he'd farmed as his DK is a miner/herbalist.

And that's where my WoW level rush ended - at level 77 with a half-done Jewelcrafter.



And while I normally don't post photographs of people on my WoW blog, this merits an exemption - on the left is my buddy Damasso, also known as Rizal. On the right is Hotohori, who will soon be gracing the shores of Northrend. In the middle is... well, I don't know his toon's name, but he's from Nihilium. It turns out he's a friend of Hotohori's and in town for a holiday. He's taking a break from World of Warcraft but was gracious enough to chill with us as we geeked out about the new expansion. From the way he talks, it's pretty clear that we're playing WoW at completely different levels - I mean, I talk about dailies and the rep grind, while he shares stories about running Arenas in full Sunwell gear. It's crazy.

Anyway, I gotta go. Sun's waiting.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

WoW Update - 19 Nov 2008: Almost a Liveblog

Zul'Drak is so grind-friendly it's making me stupid.

I've been playing for almost 11 hours straight with a few breaks and I'm in "the zone" - extreme tunnel vision, eye and hand fatigue, and a general inability to communicate with the world in any civilized manner. I'm 33% into 76 and will probably grit my teeth and get to 77 before the night is out - all to purchase Cold Weather Flying.

Zul'Drak is a brilliantly designed zone. Here is our first introduction to two important game factions - the Knights of the Ebon Hand and the Argent Crusade. The Ebon Hand storyline is insidious and almost macabre. The Argent Crusade storyline is desperate but militaristic. I've done the Argent Crusade dailies twice so far (succeeding at the timer once, failing the second time) and each time I find something to appreciate about the amount of thinking Blizzard put into this zone and these quests.

The Troll quests are immersive and well executed. On my screen I am a weapon of justice, scything my way across the landscape of the fallen, corrupt Drakkari trolls who rose up and ate - ate! - their gods. I've been on this quest chain for the past two hours and already it's beginning to blur into one long, manic sequence of attack after attack after attack, pausing only to loot and occasionally eat and drink. This is not a good way to be.

I'm so deep into the mid-game that my quest rewards no longer provide STA and instead offer me armor penetration, critical strike, hit or haste. I've upgraded my retribution set a number of times, and although I've been scouring the questlines for suitable rewards, my healing and tanking sets remain mostly intact since my first steps into Northrend.

24 hours to go till my WoW vacation ends. 77 or bust.

WoW Update - 19 Nov 2008: Thoughts on WotLK

I've just hit 76 so I suppose I can take a little time to post something to my poor neglected blog.

In the past few hours, specced Retribution, I've managed to do my dailies and of course level up. This is partly because Retribution is so powerful right now - in my quest greens and patchy TBC epics I've been able to do the equivalent of Froufrou's DPS at 5 levels higher. I can only imagine what this was like pre-nerf. I'll admit my spell cycle needs work - so far all I do is run in, judge Wisdom, cast Crusader Strike and then Divine Storm. After a short wait on timers I hit Crusader Strike before throwing a Hammer of Wrath. Pretty good for a retnoob! Right now I'm flying to the Kalu'ak vendor to pick up a Whalebone Carapace. I would also normally get an Ivory-Reinforced Chestguard but I managed to loot a Battlechest of the Twilight Cult on one AK run which is comparable.

Speaking of Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom, it's currently my favorite instance. I haven't run that many WOTLK instances yet, but this for me was all that's best in Lich King design: it's short and fairly straightforward, with some pretty challenging fights. We can clear it in under 40 minutes now. Someone mentioned R.A. Salvatore when he first entered the instance, and of course the theme of the instance is very Lovecraftian (especially the last boss). Hell, the whole Old Gods theme is straight out of Lovecraft.

One thing Blizzard's done right is to treat all the adventurers streaming into Northrend as seasoned veterans and specialists coming to a battlefront. There is a lot of ego stroking in Borean Tundra, when the Alliance officers fall all over themselves to greet you and get you to the front lines as fast as possible. It's a nice thing, being recognized as a hero of the Alliance. Of course, it doesn't last long - sooner or later, we all learn humility while questing.

Right now the fastest leveller in GoV is Akiross, who hit 79 earlier today. Roth is not far behind at 78. I think I've edged out G- (currently at 75), who got in trouble yesterday by intimating on Guild chat that he was one of the "top players" by levelling faster than most of the others (to be fair to him, he said he got it wrong almost immediately after making that statement). It's flawed thinking but fairly prevalent on the server. Already I'm seeing flying-mounted toons dropping in for a quick node ninja, which sucks as getting to nodes is a tricky proposition while still groundbound. For my part, I'm levelling quickly because I know I want a character at max level before I start really working on levelling Froufrou, and because I know I won't have a weekend to level. I fully expect to log in on Sunday evening to find that five or six more Guild members have hit at least level 76. And of course, I'll be back at work next week, so levelling will naturally slow down at that point.

I'm waffling back and forth with trying to decide whether to level Engineering or to drop it for Jewelcrafting. Engineering is a good profession for the helm, of course, and for the mote extractor, but we currently have 3 miners/engineers (Malago and Roth), and with the exception of Hotohori who just picked up the tradeskill we have no jewelcrafters. In the meantime, I've started farming Cobalt without using it - I have 200 Cobalt bars at the moment and something like 80 Cobalt ore. I intend to farm up to 200 ore before making a decision.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

WoW Update - 18 Nov 2008: A Numbers Post

Avierra's level: 74
% of XP TNL: 23%
Estimated level at end of "expansion vacation": 76
Average time between levels: 8.5 hours

Number of days spent playing so far: 3
Average number of hours of sleep a night: 5
Showers taken in the course of the expansion: 1

Gold at this time: 1223g
Number of respecs so far: 7
- to ret/holy: 3
- to prot: 2
- to LOLret: 2
Average cost of respec: 50g

Group quests soloed: 5
Group quests failed to solo: 3 (ouch)
Group quests pugged with total strangers: 2
Group quests done with Horde: 1
Superstar bloggers encountered in the course of leveling up: 1

Number of instance runs: 18
- in Utgarde Keep: 0
- in Nexus: 9
- in Azjol-Nerub: 6
- in Ahn'Kahet: 3
- pugged: 0 (Asian Invasion FTW!)

Asian Invasion members
- with the expac who've logged in since it hit: 7
- who've rolled a Death Knight: 2
- who don't have the expac yet: 2 (Jarvisius and Hotohori)
- retiring: 1 (Romola =()
- recruited: 1 (Biancangel, a.k.a. "Doc" from Bleeding Hollow)
- who aren't even at 70 yet but who log in anyway: 2

Number of beers consumed at computer desk: 6 (QQ)

Now back to the game..

Friday, November 14, 2008

WoW Update - 14 Nov 2008: First Steps

Avierra hit the Borean Tundra last night and immediately went to work killing various mobs and looting quest gear. I spent a total of 3.5 hours levelling, eventually logging off at 1 am at 69% of the way to level 71.

It was an interesting experience. On Bleeding Hollow quest mob repops didn't have a large queue, as ganking Horde players waiting for the same mob was just part of the new expansion experience. On Bloodhoof, there was no such thing occurring. Instead Horde and Alliance alike competed for the same mobs, and the most we did to shoo the Horde away from our quest mobs was to /spit on them.

The new content, the little I've seen of it at least, is gorgeous. I'm not going to say I won't get sick of it - I felt that way at the start of Burning Crusade, and look where that got me - but it certainly brought back a sense of awe and wonder that I've been missing for a while in Azeroth. Now I'm actually excited to get home and play. I've got goals.

On the loot side, I've ditched only one piece of equipment - my Sunward Crest - for a quest green, in this case the Plainkeeper Blockade. I haven't stepped into an instance yet, but that's just because I'm waiting for the rest of GoV to get into Northrend.

Queues on Bloodhoof are quite long and I'm not looking forward to trying to log in during the next week, when I go on leave from work to level my toons. But I'm going to wait. I think it'll be worth it.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Goodbye Outland, We'll Always Have Screenshots

I really should have done this earlier, but I wasn't expecting WOTLK to be available here early.

For posterity, here are my toons and their gear at this point in time (before Northrend):



Avierra (Protection Spec)
Head: Tankatronic Goggles
Neck: Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen
Shoulders: Pauldrons of Stone Resolve
Back: Gilded Thorium Cloak
Chest: Chestguard of the Warlord
Wrist: Vambraces of Courage
Gloves: Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden
Waist: Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable
Legs: Wrynn Dynasty Greaves
Boots: Jungle Stompers
Shield: Sunward Crest
Weapon: Gavel of Naaru Blessings
Libram: Libram of Repentance
Ring 1: Shermanar Great-ring
Ring 2: Signet of Eternal Life
Trinket 1: Ancient Aqir Artifact
Trinket 2: Violet Badge

Avierra (Holy Spec)
Head: Mask of Introspection
Neck: Shattered Sun Pendant of Restoration
Shoulders: Merciless Gladiator's Ornamented Spaulders
Back: Red Riding Hood's Cloak
Chest: Ecclesiastical Cuirass
Wrist: Bracers of Justice
Gloves: Brutal Gladiator's Ornamented Gloves
Waist: Guardian's Ornamented Belt
Legs: High Justicar's Legplates
Boots: Boots of Valiance
Shield: Enamelled Disc of Mojo
Weapon: Gavel of Naaru Blessings
Ring 1: Violet Signet of the Grand Restorer
Ring 2: Anveena's Touch
Trinket 1: Ribbon of Sacrifice
Trinket 2: Pendant of the Violet Eye



Froufrou
Head: Malefic Mask of the Shadows
Neck: Brooch of Deftness
Shoulders: Swiftstrike Shoulders
Back: Cloak of the Coming Night
Chest: Tunic of the Dark Hour
Wrist: Vindicator's Leather Bracers
Gloves: Netherblade Gloves
Waist: Belt of Deep Shadow
Legs: Skulker's Greaves
Boots: Edgewalker Longboots
Offhand: Swift Blade of Uncertainty
Main hand: Blade of Serration
Thrown: Xavian Stiletto
Ring 1: Ring of a Thousand Marks
Ring 2: Violet Signet of the Master Assassin
Trinket 1: Abacus of Violent Odds
Trinket 2: Icon of Unyielding Courage

Monday, November 10, 2008

Healadin 3.0.3

The other day I respecced Avierra to Holy from Protection - maybe not the best idea I've had, but it made sense at the time to try out the new talents, especially the much-talked-about Bacon of Light... excuse me, I mean Beacon.

To be honest... it confused me. I guess I'm not going to be Holy this expansion.

For starters, let's describe how I used to heal:

Up to 3.0.1 Avierra was a healbot. She stood in one place and spammed heals and Cleanse. Occasionally she would throw out a Lay on Hands, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Freedom or Divine Intervention. That's it. I used to bind keys 1-4 for heals: FOL 3 on 1 (free heals for when I ran out of mana), FOL MAX on 2, HL 5 on 3 (later upgraded to HL 6) and HL MAX on 4. And Cleanse on Q. Key 5 used to be another heal, but I later changed it to Judgement.

I used to have to remember how much each button healed for (1 - 600-1000, 2 - 1300-2000, 3 - 2000-3000, 4 - 4000-6000). Then when someone was low, I'd click on them and throw the appropriate heal.

That's it. No Seals, except in the rare raid when I'd be on melee duty as well. No Judgements. No Holy Shock.

Patch 3.0 changed all that. Now there's constant pressure to cast Holy Shock (to trigger Infusion of Light). And to Judge from a distance (to trigger Judgements of the Pure). So that's two abilities I have to work into my casting cycle.

Beacon of Light is the third.

It's a lovely spell, really. It forks heals so that your heals on Player X are duplicated on Player Y - usually the tank. It makes sense for battles with a lot of splash damage. I've considered putting the Beacon on the DPS most likely to take damage, but that didn't make a lot of sense in 25-main raids, so on the tank it went.

Other than that, it's fairly straightforward. It would be even better if it affected everyone's heals, but it's caster-only; Amihan's heals won't trigger it.

Now I'm just confused as to what to do as a healadin.

I used to start simple: two quick Flash of Lights to keep the tank up while he gains aggro, then a downranked Holy Light to get the Light's Grace buff. But downranking got nerfed, so no more cheap Light's Grace. At least I have Divine Favor macro'd so I get 60% of my initial heal cost back if I want Light's Grace up.

I'll tell you what I like about the straight-up Holy build: with ranged Judgements and Holy Shock I'm farming much more easily. But I've also messed up with Judgements, breaking CC in 25-mans twice on trash pulls due to poorly timed Judging.

Also, Holy has great potential for being a farming build, with Consecration benefiting from the overall buff to spellpower. I wouldn't be unhappy farming in Holy; it's just that I don't think I can raid in it. The Beacon build is clearly not for me.

So I respecced to Ret/Holy... and again to Protection... and that's where I'll be for the foreseeable future.

Closing The Burning Crusade

OMG I have so many things to blog about.

For starters, we're on the run-up to the expansion, due out later this week. The Burning Crusade is officially over - Kil'jaeden's been beaten back into the Sunwell, Illidan is a crumpled corpse on the ramparts of the Black Temple, and his little buddies Kael'thas and Vashj are merely dark stains on the boots of millions of adventurers who streamed through the dark portal nearly two years ago.

Yes, nearly two years ago. It's been ages since we first took our noobie selves into Hellfire Peninsula. At 60 we were the shiznit. At 70, well, we're still the shiznit.

I started TBC a happy ASTIG raider and am ending it a maybe not-so-happy GoV raider. (I'm quite happy in the Guild socially, but disgruntled at raid progression... familiar story, yes?) I started in purples on one toon and blues on another; this time around, I'm in purples on both toons with significant raiding experience as a rogue and paladin (both healing and tanking). And I started TBC quite poor, unable even to afford epic riding skill on Froufrou. Now... well, I've got epic flying mounts, it's true, but let's just say that other things don't change.

So what's The Wrath of the Lich King looking like for my toons? I had hoped to put Avierra behind me as the Paladin class is so effin' problematic. Instead I find myself constantly affirming how great paladins are to play despite the constant nerfs. I still can't play a retadin for shit, but my buddy Rizal has shown me that not all retadins are noobs by constantly topping the DPS charts, outstripping even my tricked-out rogue.

And I'm not despairing of Froufrou either... she's still rocking 800+ dps in raids - consistently sixth or seventh (depending on who's online). In 10-man raids she's often top DPS, and here's the best part - she doesn't die that often any more. I'm still solidly in Combat as it's the best spec for raiding, but Subtlety has grown on me. I wouldn't mind using a good hemo build if I could find one.

I intend to level Avierra solo as protection. I intend to level Froufrou with the Asian Invasion. Those sound like good ways to go.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

WoW Update - 30 Oct 2008; Capping the Weekend

On Monday after our Kara-ZA clean up I found myself with Calimdan (Feral Druid) and Rizal (Damasso's Ret Pally) taking on Heroic Underbog. We three-manned Hungarfen and called it as heroic reset was approaching.

Tuesday night was server maintenance so no WoW for any of us.

Then last night, Wednesday, we put together a 5-man group (Malago, Amihan, Froufrou, Rizal and Rothgarth) and marched into Heroic Magister's Terrace.

While clearing to the first boss Rizal inadvertently pulled him, locking out everyone not in melee range. Malago, Rizal and I found ourselves alone in a room with a heroic boss, and damned if we weren't going to give up without a fight. So Rizal switched to the occasional heal and I poured on the damage. When the smoke cleared we found ourselves a Badge of Justice richer and very, very shocked at how quickly he went down.

On the way to the second boss Romola logged in while on holiday in Japan, bringing our count to six. So we left Magister's Terrace (first downing the second boss, we shouldn't waste a Badge of Justice, after all) and marched into Karazhan. We 6-manned Attumen and the world event boss (Rizal picked up the Arcanite Ripper this time). As we were clearing to Moroes, we picked up Hotohori, who had just logged into the game. Then as we were clearing to Maiden, we picked up Grinble.

We 8-manned Maiden, Opera and Nightbane before calling it a night.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

WoW Update - 28 Oct 2008, The Weekend Concludes

With Saturday's raid a blight in our consciousness, we reassembled the next day to take on Tempest Keep. Last week we downed 3/4 bosses, stopping only at Kael'thas thanks to the server crashing on us. This week we intended to finish the job.

Unfortunately, a third of the raid never showed up, and we were forced to wait for six more raiders to log in before we started cleaning up trash. Tempest Keep trash pulls are notoriously hard, and we wiped twice or thrice before reaching Al'ar.

After a few wipes on Al'ar, I opted for a new strategy for myself: I would be up on the platforms with the melee DPS, providing heals and judgments as needed.

It seemed to work well enough that we would reach Phase 2 without a hitch. I learned to watch Al'ar instead of my boss timer - the boss timer would warn me too late to jump off the platforms and I would die to Flame Quills. I learned to recognize the difference between Al'ar setting up for Flame Quill and Al'ar just moving to another platform.

Phase 2, however, was an unmitigated disaster. We wiped so often that we wound up having to re-clear Al'ar, and then we wiped some more.

We called the raid after around 7-8 wipes, having downed not one boss in Tempest Keep. Everyone was unhappy.

So when we put out a call at 1 pm for a Karazhan raid (originally a ZA raid, but we lacked the numbers), there were raiders willing to come kick ass with us.

By this point Avierra had specced Protection to offtank Karazhan (Malago was on and main-tanking). We had three healers and a lot of good DPS. We blew through Kara like it was the Deadmines, downing even the new quest boss (Avierra looted the Arcanite Ripper). I switched to Froufrou for Prince and Netherspite, finally winning a helm token for a Netherblade Facemask.

At the end of the run I was grinning like a madman. We'd spent three and a half hours clearing Kara - more than I'd like, but we had a couple of newbies and we had to go over strats carefully - but the payoff was very, very nice: 19 badges for Avierra and 5 for Froufrou.

I logged out to catch up on some sleep and wasn't on again till almost 9 pm. I expected to farm gold and log out early, as is my habit on Sundays. Instead I got an invite for Zul'Aman. Aranash, it seemed, was logging in and wanted a ZA group to blitz through the instance.

I was a bit surprised to find that I would be offtanking again - after all, Aran is usually the paladin tank, not me - but I took to it with a great deal of enthusiasm. We blew through the animal bosses quickly, reaching High Lord Malacrass in around an hour. We cleared the first three timers, a first for the Guild. I passed on a Signet of the Last Defender as Malago didn't have it yet, and a Girdle of Stromgarde's Hope that went to Aranash for his healing set.

We cleared Malacrass in one shot and went on to Zul'jin. It took us a couple of tries to get used to the fight, but in the end we downed him - a Guild first, and certainly a first for most of us. I looted a Chestguard of the Warlord to replace my Panzar'thar Breastplate and rolled a lucky 98 for the Blood of Zul'jin, a quest turnin for some gold and 10 Badges of Justice.

At the end of the night I found Avierra with 97 Badges of Justice - within striking distance of the Legplates of the Aldor for my tanking set. I decided to hold off for the time being, aiming my sights instead at the Gavel of Naaru Blessings instead at 150 badges. It would be a great help now for both my tanking and healing set, after all, unlike the legplates which would only be of use in one spec.

I logged out at almost 1 am tired but happy. We'd done good this weekend, and our failure to clear TK and SSC didn't feel so painful now.

WoW Update - 28 Oct 2008, The Weekend Begins

Well, it really was a wild World of Warcraft weekend. With my better half out of town all weekend, I was either out with friends, fast asleep or playing WoW. Quite a few things happened to me online that I'm happy to blog about.

Saturday morning found me up at 8 am and ready to raid by 8:30. I logged on as Avierra and got thrown an invite to Serpentshrine Cavern. Never having been there, I was excited to take down some bosses and see some new content.

I paid 45g to respec Avierra back to Ret/Holy, as we had a number of tanks at that point already. Aranash, our Guild Leader and one of our tankadins, had specced pure holy for this raid. While we were the only healadins on this run, we also had two retribution paladins (Rizal and Grantilis) along for DPS.

We downed Hydross the Unstable fairly quickly with one wipe, due to the adds being mainly unaccounted for. This was a sign of things to come, as over and over again we would have add problems.

The Lurker Below also died pretty easily. I was really unlucky this boss - I died several times by being too slow to jump into the water or Divine Shield. More to learn for next time, I suppose.

I thought we'd try for Leotheras the Blind next, but instead we wound up heading straight to Lady Vashj. Which, of course, was a mistake - we wiped thrice on her before deciding to call it a night.

It wasn't much of a raid night - 3 badges and no new gear for me (which was fine, I'm pretty well geared on Avi anyway). I did, however, get a Sinister Squashling from a Treat Bag, which cheered me no end.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Holy Light crit for 20k??!

I didn't think it was possible, but my Holy Light 11 crit for 20k.

I took a screenshot of it, too.

This is pretty unusual for me - I normally expect Holy Light 11 to critically heal for around 8k. I had been talking in our private channel about how my HLs were coming in for 10-11k criticals when I landed a 20k crit.

Unfortunately, I haven't landed one like this in combat yet. I was checking healing distances when I took this shot.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Rest in Peace, Ephoenix.

The world just got a little bit darker.

Rest well, brave one.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

WoW Update - 22 Oct 2008; A Quick Update

Right now, we're going through a bit of Guild drama. Two people have left the Guild over differences with the officers; one of them I rather liked and am really going to miss raiding with.

That said, I can't say that I'm not enjoying my stay on Bloodhoof. Monday night was a blast as eight of us Filipinos were online together. If only some of the others weren't saved to Karazhan, we could easily have marched in and taken down some bosses. Instead we resorted to farming the Headless Horseman, which was something of a disaster as neither his mount nor the pet dropped. Instead we got the rings, which are nice to have but ultimately not all that great compared to the loot we were really there for.

Jarvisius, Hotohori and Romola have been level 70 for a few weeks now and we're pretty impressed with how quickly they've gotten used to raiding and instance runs. Jarvisius is almost completely epicced out and the other two aren't far behind. We're trying to convince Hotohori to spec her Druid as a tank, but so far she hasn't made up her mind one way or another yet. Her DPS is a bit low as a cat, but that's likely the fault of the spec.

I now have just over 5000 gold on both Avierra and Froufrou - enough to buy Avierra's epic flying skill but not much else. I'm convinced that one day of dailies will suffice to get her both the skill and a gryphon. I'm also considering saving up for the hippogryph, but that's a big investment at 1600 gold.

In the meantime, Sei is stuck at level 40 as I haven't found the time to level her yet. I've stopped leveling her trade skills in the expectation that she'll be dropping them for mining and skinning at level 80, but that's such a distant prospect that I'm not including her in my new content plans at all.

We ran Heroic Slave Pens on Monday night with Avierra tanking - her first chance to try the new Protection talents that came with 3.0.2. Tankadins are doing more damage than ever before, I'm happy to say. Between Consecration, Seal of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous, AOE threat generation is a breeze. I almost never lost aggro... the few exceptions being the times that I was feared with cooldowns blown.

Between Prot and Ret/Holy, though, I must say that I'm enjoying Ret/Holy more. There's something about the insane celerity with which I can down mobs that fills my heart with joy. After all, I didn't become a plate-wearing, hammer-wielding avatar of the Light because I wanted to spam Flash of Light and Cleanse. Healing's fun, especially in raids against mobs four times my size and thirsting for my tank's blood, but most of the time I just want to kick ass without having to cast Divine Shield or Lay on Hands. And I think many of us feel the same.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Avierra's 3.0.2 Build - Pally Mana Battery

Last weekend rocked. Big time. Over the course of two days, GoV cleared Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair, and most of Tempest Keep. As a matter of fact, we probably would have cleared TK had the server not hung as we were assembling before Kael'thas.
I was excited to try out Avierra's new build, which was recommended for healers over a straight-up Holy build. I somewhat regret not being able to try out the new Beacon of Light spell, but so far I'm having lots of fun with this build.
Take note that I'm mostly geared to boost spellpower and crit (formerly +healing and +spellcrit). I don't really have any haste items on Avierra, which I somewhat regret.

RETRIBUTION (whut?!!) - 34 points
Benediction - 5 points. I expect to judge a lot, usually whenever it's up.

Improved Judgements - 2 points. Reducing the cooldown on Judgements allows me to judge more frequently, regenerating more mana for myself and the rest of my raid.

Heart of the Crusader - 3 points. More raid utility! Works very well with DPS whose specs proc off criticals.

Improved Blessing of Might - 2 points. And even more raid utility. This build really only has two blessings, so I thought I might as well talent both of them.

Vindication - 2 points. You can't raid all the time, and this talent helps in farming. Every so often you'll find a miniboss who'll be vulnerable to this.

Conviction - 5 points. A straight-up 5% critical chance increase to all spells makes a great deal of sense, especially to a crit-hungry Holy healing build.

Pursuit of Justice - 2 points. I originally wanted to leave this talent out, but I needed a 2-point sink. I've since learned to appreciate it, as I often have to run into melee range to judge a boss before running back to the ranged DPS and healers.

Sanctified Seals - 3 points. I'm still unsure whether or not this talent affects healing spells, but I'm hopeful that it does.

Sanctified Retribution - 1 point. More raid utility here, although I've mostly used it to farm.

Vengeance - 3 points. I thought I'd need this for farming, but it turns out that I'm using this in raids as well. My spell cycle now includes Hammer of Wrath, which can critically hit and proc Vengeance.

Improved Retribution Aura - 2 points. Retribution Aura is my main farming aura, and I really enjoy grabbing up to 5 mobs and grinding them down with spellpower-boosted Consecration.

Judgements of the Wise - 3 points. Replenishment is a great buff and much appreciated by any caster. Having a Judgement give back almost a thousand points of mana is also an experience worth having.

Repentance - 1 point. I originally did not put points into this talent, until I saw two of our ret paladins CC loose mobs with it. I think it's tremendously overpowered for a 1-point talent and therefore well worth the extra point in Retribution.

HOLY - 28 points
Spiritual Focus - 5 points. Much more useful for farming than for raiding, but certainly more desirable for a healer than the other Tier 1 Holy talent, Seals of the Pure.

Divine Intellect - 5 points. A bigger mana pool and more spellpower make this a no-brainer for any caster.

Healing Light - 3 points. Again, a no-brainer for a healer, and well worth the extra talent points at Tier 2.

Illumination - 5 points. This is my main mana-regen strategy: cast critical heals and get mana back, judging as needed to get even more mana back. Illumination is key to half of this strategy.

Aura Mastery - 1 point. It was a toss-up between this and Improved Lay on Hands, and I went with this for more raid utility. I feel justified in keeping my point here as I have not yet had a need to cast Lay on Hands. 20 minutes isn't so bad, considering what the cooldown used to be.

Improved Blessing of Wisdom - 2 points. I love putting points into this talent. More mana back is better.

Divine Favor - 1 point. It's cheap and well worth the point investment. Also, it's a prerequisite for Holy Shock, which I intend to get once I'm able to spec up to it again.

Sanctified Light - 3 points. Every so often I find myself in a situation where I need to spam Holy Light instead of Flash of Light.

Holy Power - 2 points. I wish I had more talent points to put into this, and certainly as I level up in Wrath of the Lich King this talent will be my first priority.

RESULTS:
The lowest I've gone in a boss fight is 54% mana - and the one time I let a tank die, it was because I hadn't figured out a judgment strategy. That was the first boss fight I'd been in since I'd respecced to this build.
The trick is to find a playstyle which will let me judge. I typically put up Seal of Wisdom at the start of the fight, even when I know I won't be coming into melee range to strike the boss. Then, in between Flash of Light spam, I run in, throw a judgment, then run back to my place with the other healers.
Checking our stats via Recount, I typically find myself at the top of the healing meters (and manaregen meters). Unfortunately, I also find myself at the top of the overhealing meters. That's the way it is, I guess... I'm willing to let it slide as I only really have two heals available to me, and downranking my spells actually increases their mana cost. I've had Holy Lights crit for 11k (and the resulting heals from Glyph of Holy Light can also crit, which is very nice). My Flash of Light typically heals for around 1.7k and crits for 2.4k.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

WoW Update - 16 Oct 2008: 3.0 Hits

Bloodhoof was finally up by the time I got home and logged in. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my Schematic: Mana Potion Injector had sold on the Auction House, and that meant I was 600 more gold closer to my objective of an epic flyer for Avierra.

Avierra specced Retribution until Judgements of the Wise and Holy all the way after that. I put 2 points into Pursuit of Justice instead of Deflection as I'd earlier intended. I was dismayed that I wouldn't have Holy Shock any longer, but I hoped that all the points I put into Retribution would make up for the loss of my staple direct damage spell.

I spent another twenty minutes adjusting my actionbars. The new Judgment and Hand system kind of confused me for a few minutes. I was also a bit shocked to realize that I now had only 2 Blessings left to me - Might and Wisdom - after the respec. Light was gone, Kings was an unreasonable use of my talent points, and Salvation, Freedom and Sacrifice were now Hand spells. I headed into the Auction House and picked up a Glyph of Holy Light and a Glyph of Divinity, as per Siha's recommendation. Thus armed I headed to the Isle of Quel'danas.

The new spec is less prone to burst damage than the old spec. With Consecration, Retribution Aura, and the occasional Seal of Righteousness crit (and a Judgment damage pop) most mobs died pretty quickly. I didn't miss Holy Shock one bit, although I took a little bit more damage than usual thanks to the loss of Redoubt and Anticipation. And with Judgments of the Wise, Improved Blessing of Wisdom and the occasional Judgment of Wisdom I had no trouble whatsoever with mana.

The only thing I haven't been able to do is incorporate the new Avenging Wrath into my spell cycle, but no doubt I'll have that in hand by this weekend.

Froufrou's respec was much more straightforward. I put 2 points in Blade Twisting instead of into increased dodge as Blade Twisting gave me an additional 10% damage to my Sinister Strikes. Savage Combat was a passive proc and the only new ability I would need to integrate into my spell cycle was Killing Spree.

I picked up a Glyph of Sinister Strike and a Glyph of Slice and Dice from the Auction House and proceeded to do dailies. Killing Spree was a nice addition to Frou's already potent arsenal; my only complaint about it is that she doesn't really finish off all five strikes as whatever she hits usually dies by the third or fourth attack.

I'm also considering dropping Unfair Advantage as I haven't really seen it proc. That may just be a function of my scrolling text and the lack of my recording mods - I haven't updated Grim Reaper or Recount yet, after all. I'm keeping it on for now.

I tried to log into Sei to try out her new talents but for some reason she couldn't get on. It turns out that the server had somehow not loaded the entire continent of Kalimdor (Sei was in Theramore) and was booting anyone who tried to log in there. If you were unlucky all your characters were somewhere on the continent and all you were getting were "World server is down" messages.

The verdict - World of Warcraft 3.0 brings a much-needed breath of fresh air to what was becoming a stale, monotonous game. The new content is very much welcome, as is the opportunity to reconnect with one's characters on a new level. I'm looking forward to hitting Northrend with both my 70's when the expansion pack comes out - in the meantime, there're all sorts of Achievements I want for my toons.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

WoW Update - 14 Oct 2008: Preparing for 3.0

It's Tuesday night, which normally means server maintenance. With so many WoW players in the office, we're all updated on what's happening to the server - and yes, tonight there is indeed a twelve-hour maintenance scheduled while we anxiously await Patch 3.0.

I know it's long past time that I did a bit of talent work on the site - the last being, perhaps, Avierra's long-drawn-out flirtation with Protection spec. But unfortunately, with Wrath of the Lich King on the near horizon, I'm forced to think about how I'll spec to level.

Here's what I'm considering:

Avierra: from her straight up Holy/Prot build (link this later) will go Ret/Holy for Judgments of the Wise. I'm tempted to go full Holy at first as I won't have the benefit of Holy Shock until I hit my mid-70s, but I'm not going to have JotW if I do that.

I'm really going to miss Divine Illumination, though. I think this spec will definitely push my healing down, although my raid utility is going to increase.

Froufrou: 15/41/5 Combat will give way to... 5/51/5 Combat. I still miss the Subtlety talents I spec in when I play PvP, but I had to sacrifice some things to get the new talents in Combat. I somewhat regret maintaining my Dagger build for Burning Crusade - I blame my own ignorance for that. I understand that Lich King will be kinder on Dagger rogues, though.

I still intend to level Sei to max level, of course. I'm not looking at getting her out of Beast Mastery spec as I expect her to be my dedicated farmer. I've stopped levelling her tradeskills. When she hits 80 I expect to drop Mining on Avierra and Skinning on Froufrou so that I can fix my tradeskills like this:

Avierra - Engineering / Jewelcrafting
Froufrou - Leatherworking / Enchanting
Sei - Mining / Skinning

I'm flirting with the idea of getting Inscription for Frou instead of Enchanting but herbs are going to be expensive.

When I get home from work, I'll be downloading mods to replace the ones that are going to break in the new patch. I'm psyched about farming in 3.0 - I expect Avierra to do more damage when her healing gear consolidates to +spellpower. Maybe I should wake up early to start patching my client...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

WoW Update - 23 Sept 2008: Introducing Sei, A Raider's Interface

I'll be trying to make this blog a bit more friendly to people who aren't me over the course of the next few months. Posting about what I did and what I looted gets terribly boring after a while. I think I like posting screenshots, though, so expect more of those.

First up - a week and a half ago I started a new character, a Draenei hunter named Sei. I was intent on leveling her to 70 as quickly as possible, and indeed she's done quite well so far. As of yesterday, her eighth day of existence, she was at level 26, with nearly 26 hours in her /played. I'd have levelled her faster but I wanted to work on tradeskills as well. At the moment she has 135 Enchanting and 130 Jewelcrafting, helped along by generous donations of gold, gear and crafting materials from Avierra and Froufrou.

Introducing Sei

For her first pet, she has Mangeclaw, the white bear from Dun Morogh. I kind of like the white motif so I'm thinking of taming a white owl or thunderhawk for instancing or raiding. I also like traveling with a Hawk Owl I purchased in Darnassus - it's fun to see the bear and the owl running along behind me while I'm running around questing.

This is the first time I've had a hunter since my third character on Bleeding Hollow, Ungrinn, a dwarf hunter I created to level with Froufrou, then my wife's low-level rogue. I didn't get far on Ungrinn, but the experience left me very impressed with how quickly a hunter can level.

The other day, though, I found that I was running low on funds. In six days of play I had gone through nearly 200g for gear and trade materials, so I decided to make gold farming my first priority over leveling Sei. I'll be trying to get some game time on Sei over the course of the next two months, though.

Over the last few months, Malago's famous Asian Invasion has been creeping up the level ladder on Bloodhoof. My officemates Romola (human fire mage) and Hotohori (night elf cat druid), as well as Hotohori's RL boyfriend Jarvisius (human demonology warlock) are well over level 60 and are closing in on level 70. Not far behind them is Gabgab (gnome arcane mage), also an officemate of ours, who is currently in her mid-50s struggling through Un'goro Crater. We've been watching them with no small amount of excitement as we prepare for WotLK. At the moment there are five of us 70's on Asian time - Malago, Amihan, Damasso, myself, and Obispo (human destro warlock). We also have some guildmates on Australian time, which overlaps our regular play schedules by a couple of hours. We've got three more recruits with some distance to go - Thunderstick (draenei enh shammy), another officemate, in his early 30s, Muertas (human demo warlock), also an officemate, and Silverwisp (night elf hunter), a drinking buddy of mine, both in their mid-20s.

In the interest of showing off my new interface, allow me now to present a screenshot with comments on which addons I'm currently using. Not listed on the SS are Deadly Boss Mods which gives me boss timers, Auctioneer which gives me AH data and analyses, and GatherMate, which tracks mining nodes and treasure boxes for me. I also quest using BetterQuest and bless on Avierra using PallyPower.

Monday, September 15, 2008

WoW Update - 18 Sept 2008: Updates Coming... /sigh

I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft without blogging about it. Generally life's been good, although our raiding has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. After a brief visit to Tempest Keep, GoV finds itself unable to down Magtheridon. As a result, any future sojourns to Tier 5 raid instances have been curtailed by the need to bring down the big, bad demon in Hellfire Peninsula.

We're still doing 5-mans when we can (they're rare now, though). Here's a screenie from our recent Shadow Labs run. We finally got Murmur down after around 8 or 9 wipes.


And here's Froufrou in Zul'Aman. Our ZA efforts have finally gotten better, we're able to down the first boss at least within the timer. Our attempt at the second boss came within a hair of the timer, but we ultimately wiped and had to take him down without any bonus loot.
Incidentally, this is the furthest Frou's ever gotten in ZA - to Hex Lord Malacrass. This run and the Kara run following this got her enough badges for her Tunic of the Dark Hour. Finally!


Lately, lag has gotten terrible - I blame the weird weather. Despite this, four of us managed to head to the Caverns of Time for our own Don Carlos' Famous Hat. We had ourselves a little dance party in Gadgetzan, and a Tauren Druid joined in the fun.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

WoW Update - 29 Aug 2008: What's Been Happening

Blogging's a hard habit to maintain, especially when this much time's passed between posts. Still, with Blizzard experiencing "connectivity problems", I guess it wouldn't kill me to churn out a couple of blog posts, if only to keep the two or three of you who read this blog updated on what's been happening with me online.

The past few weeks have been spent pimping my rides:



Yes, that's a Black War Elekk, and Froufrou is in 2/5 Merciless Gladiator (head and chest). The Elekk is the Ford Expedition of epic mounts, and it looks even more badass when a gnome's riding it.



Thanks to a timely loan from Amihan and Malago (already half paid off!), Froufrou is now the proud rider of a Green Riding Nether Ray. Now I can zip along from one daily to another as I try to make back what I spent on the epic flying mount skill.




Avierra spent some time raiding with GoV these past few weeks (Frou too, but more Avi than Frou). Avi's been to ZA a few times, and was part of the Guild's first Hex Lord Malacrass takedown. She left that raid with a shiny new Enamelled Disc of Mojo and a Bloodstained Elven Battlevest.

And that's it. Oh, and Frou managed to snag a Malefic Mask of the Shadows. Woot!

Saturday, August 2, 2008

WoW Update - 2 Aug 2008: Magtheridon Down!

GoV usually runs Karazhan on Saturday mornings, so I was surprised to receive a text message from Malago saying "Log in early, we're doing Gruul's today since we have so many people online."

I'd gotten home at past three in the morning so logging in at a quarter of eight was a little bit of an imposition. Still, I logged in and immediately found myself with a raid invite. After a little discussion, I switched from Froufrou to Avierra as the raid was short of healers.

The weather's been hellishly bad lately, so my connection's been prone to go bad at the worst possible times. Midway through the High King Maulgar and the Gruul fights I found myself disconnected from the server - my wireless router had lost the signal from the ISP's cabinet - and it took me a few minutes to reconnect to both WoW and Ventrilo. Still, I'm glad I didn't get replaced, as the Gruul fights were short and sweet. It's fairly obvious that we now have Gruul on farm status, leaving us only Magtheridon to defeat at the Tier 4 level.

So we headed over to Magtheridon's Lair. I was not happy with my connection, but the group was determined to down him this morning and so was I.

The result:

Before -


(That's me behind Magtheridon's left leg, keeping Judgment of Wisdom up.)

And after -


Congrats to GoV for a first Magtheridon kill!

And of course, as I did this on Avierra, that naturally means something...



All hail Avierra, Champion of the Naaru!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

WoW Update - 24 Jul 2008

Yes, yes, I've been very negligent; I haven't updated this blog in around two weeks, and sadly they've been very busy WoW-wise.

A quick recap: GoV downed Gruul a second time (finally!) after a disastrous attempt two weeks ago, Avierra replaced Froufrou on a Kara run as a second tank was needed, we got Damasso his Tempest Keep heroic key, and much badging was done all around.

Now the highlights:

Avierra's Kara run was good badge-wise as we full cleared Kara. Unfortunately that Karathon took six hours, and you can bet we're not keen on repeating that. If we can keep Kara down to four hours we'll be extremely happy. With her badges I was able to get Anveena's Touch to replace her Mender's Heart-Ring. Next up: Waistguard of Reparation (75 badges), and after that all I have left is the 150-badge weapon (Gavel of Naaru Blessings) that I'm not excited about getting anyway.

She also looted Gorehowl and crafted a Furious Gizmatic Goggles as I'm considering going ret for leveling when the patch hits. But after trying the gear out, I'm not convinced I'll enjoy it as much as prot AoE farming. Oh, and after more than a year, Pauldrons of the Justice-Seeker finally dropped... except that my Merciless Gladiator's Ornamented Spaulders are much better. So they're sitting in the bank for now, but I'll probably vendor them soon.

Froufrou, meanwhile, is sitting on 51 badges. Thanks to a loan from Amihan and Malago, she's got 4100+ gold now and I expect to have her epic flyer this week. If all goes well, then I'll be running Karazhan with her this weekend and by next weekend I'll have another badge item.

Oh, and here's a quick screenshot of us in Heroic Steamvaults. We finished Heroic SL and Heroic SV to finish up Trials of the Naaru: Strength. We've been talking about running Heroic SH but so far it hasn't happened yet as we usually lack a fifth member. We're hoping to get it done this week.



And welcome, welcome to Romola, another RL friend who is joining us in Azeroth. We're looking forward to getting you through the content so that you can join us in the endgame soon.

Monday, July 7, 2008

WoW Update - 7 Jul 2008; Welcome Back To Penury

As I write this, I have around 800 gold shared across two toons - the lowest amount of gold I've had in recent memory. As neither of my toons has an epic flying mount, this is a particularly alarming phenomenon.

And it all started this weekend.

With no time to game last week, I had to make do with spamming instances on Saturday morning. Hung over and short on sleep, I started my day with an 8 am Heroic Magister's Terrace with four guildies... only to find that one of them hadn't completed Magister's Terrace on normal difficulty yet. So we stepped out of the instance, reset to normal, and cleared it in just over an hour.

We started wiping when we walked into Heroic MgT. We managed to down the first boss but wiped over and over again on the second. We called it at just before lunch (four hours in Magister's Terrace... /cry) with just one Badge of Justice to show for our efforts.

After lunch, we picked up the daily heroic (Heroic Arcatraz) and walked into the instance. Unfortunately, this run was as sloppy as the day's first run, so we only managed to clear it after 4 pm, when the heroics reset. But it was enough: Froufrou turned in 105 Badges of Justice for a Blade of Serration.

With both badge daggers in her greedy little hands, Froufrou now does more than 500 dps and shows up higher in DPS charts. Next up: Tunic of the Dark Hour, at 100 Badges, by September.

I found a friendly enchanter on the Trade channel and got Mongoose on my new dagger, along with an Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility for my Netherblade Gloves. And I was set!

Just before midnight, I pugged Heroic Mana Tombs, which gave me three more badges. 97 to go...

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. Too early, as I got home from bar crawling at past 5 am. I was at my PC and raid-ready by 9 and even got a few dailies done before 10, when Kara would start.

And then I found that I wasn't on the raid list.

I was mulling a few more hours' sleep when the raid leader asked me to step in for someone else. I got summoned into the raid three pulls away from Attumen, which gave me not a lot of time to prepare. But we downed Attumen and we downed Moroes and we downed Maiden. (Froufrou even got her long-sought-for Edgewalker Longboots.)

The trouble is that we were really, really sloppy in going about it.

Everyone was at fault. The tanks weren't holding aggro, the DPS kept pulling aggro, and the healers were not on top of healing. The tank died during the Maiden fight, taking half the raid with her. And we wiped a few times to trash. No one was happy.

The raid leader asked me very nicely if they could have Avierra for the run, so I hearthed out and brought Avi in. Things went smoothly from that point on. We cleared every boss in Kara except Nightbane, and Avi just kept looting tanking drops (Justicar Handguards, Shermanar Great-Ring and Panzar'Thar Breastplate). Avierra walked out of Karazhan with 46 Badges total... not all that far from her next badge purchase, Anveena's Touch.

I next logged in after dinner so we could run Damasso through Shadow Labs. We'd been trying to get him to ding 70 for the past two weeks, running him through Auchindoun instances so he could get better gear and experience. (The Lower City rep was a bonus to that as well.) We'd helped him through the prerequisites of Karazhan attunement and now it was time for him to get his first key fragment.

Amihan joined us for that run, which was good as we weren't going to be able to three-man Shadow Labs. We cleared Shadow Labs by midnight... and were pleasantly surprised to find that Damasso had dinged 70 in the process.

So why am I poor? Well, it's like this...

I started the weekend with around 2,800 gold on Froufrou.

When I looked through the Auction House I saw an epic I'd never seen before: Belt of Deep Shadow. A glance at Shadowpanther.net confirmed that this was one of the best PvE rogue belts in the game. Unfortunately, it cost 1,750 gold on buyout... no way was I going to just bid on this! That brought me down to 1,050 gold. and I blew 60 gold on two gems to fill out the slots.

Then I needed gems for my new boots, so I bit the bullet again and bought a Rigid Lionseye for 300 gold. I already had a Deadly Fire Opal from a previous heroic run, so that went in the boots too.

I made back some money with dailies and spent some money on raid consumables. Then I loaned Damasso 600 gold for his flying mount.

Which left Froufrou with around 170 gold.

So I guess it's time to farm extra hard. Because time is running out for my epic flying mount. Hell, I don't even need two. Just one.

I can't wait till I see my little gnome on her own nether ray.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

WoW Update - 30 Jun 2008; Stop, Drop and /Dance

It was a good weekend for WoW after all.

First off, congrats to GoV for a nice, clean Nightbane kill:




We went through Karazhan one-shotting every boss and eventually full clearing it. Well, except for Illhoof, who took two tries to down. No loot, but Froufrou did exalt with the Violet Eye, which unlocked the Violet Signet of the Master Assassin. It also gave Froufrou the Blazing Signet, which is half of what she needs for SSC attunement.

Along with the Heroic BF and the Heroic MT runs (both dailies) that we ran last weekend, Froufrou farmed herself up to 98 Badges of Justice. Just 7 more and she has a brand spanking new dagger. Woot!

Gruul's should have given her five more, but unfortunately GoV was short of healers. So Avierra stepped up to bat.



I'm happy to report that Avi topped the healing charts during High King Maulgar, despite her losing both her tanks (Olm the Summoner hits like a truck...) Gruul himself, however, was not her finest moment. She lasted till Grow 12, when a combination of four Shatters and a Cave-in did her in.



While I was happy to raid with Avierra agin, I wasn't so happy to lose the opportunity to down Gruul with Froufrou. Frou not only needed badges, she also needed the Earthen Signet from Gruul. I'm badgering Malago to get Frou in for the next Gruul run to rectify this.

In other news, Froufrou farmed herself a Brazier of Dancing Flames over the weekend. Here are the results:


Monday, June 23, 2008

WoW Update - 23 Jun 2008; Gearing Up for Gruul's



That's me and two of my buddies, Malago and Damasso, in normal Old Hillsbrad Foothills. We three-manned it. While I won't say it was easy (it wasn't), it was a good run and definitely the first of many to come.

Damasso is, incidentally, also a RL friend and officemate. Since I moved Froufrou to Bloodhoof, he's been subjected to random WoW-talk about how much fun the previous night's run was. His main, a retribution Paladin, is still on his home server, but I'm glad that he chose to move over an alt to join us anyway. Once he hits 70 I'm sure we'll be in instances 24/7.

This past weekend was very good for Froufrou. She finally finished up farming mats for her Cobrascale Hood on Saturday afternoon, with a lot of thanks to Malago, who sent her primals. Saturday's Karazhan run left Froufrou with a T4 hand token, which she promptly turned in for Netherblade Gloves. Her hit rate is now at 212, which is nice but not fantastic... after all, the rogue combat daggers hit cap is at 363.

I'm due to see a drop in hit again soon as I spent 800 gold to buy Pattern: Swiftstrike Shoulders on the Auction House. I also spent 700 gold on bids for two Hearts of Darkness, which means all I have left to farm are the Primal Airs. I'm excited about seeing how the haste affects my attack speed and, consequently, my DPS.

Midway through my Karazhan run (right after Curator) this weekend, I had to log off abruptly as my dog Frou Frou started giving birth and we had to rush her to the vet. Unfortunately, the puppies were stillborn and we couldn't do much for them. Frou Frou is now well and back at home, however, and we've been pampering her full-time.

It did, however, mean that I missed out on loot and badges. I'm pretty sure I missed out on a T4 head token and at least 8 badges. Froufrou is now at 66 badges and I'm debating whether or not to blitz to 105 before Sunday's Gruul's Lair raid. I have the mats for a second Mongoose enchant (I just put one on my offhand) and it would greatly boost my DPS to have the 105 badge dagger.

The Midsummer event also occupied a lot of my time this weekend. I had a lot of fun stealthing into the Horde capitals to steal fire. Plus there were a lot of Horde bonfires scattered throughout the old world... I'm saving up for one of the 350-blossom rewards, but I haven't decided which one yet. Maybe the Brazier of Dancing Flames, as I don't find the Captured Flame pet that impressive. I've got around 290 Burning Blossoms so far and will probably have 350 by this coming weekend.

I'm seriously considering porting Avierra over. ASTIG is so dead at the moment, it might as well be a defunct Guild. I'm just holding off because the expansion's due to come in soon.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

WoW Update - 17 Jun 2008; Return to Heroic Mechanar

Froufrou hit Heroic Mech last night with Malago, Amihan (resto druid), Shef (warlock) and a disc/shadow priest from LFG. It wasn't the heroic daily, but as the heroic daily was Heroic Ramparts, we figured that we could get the same number of badges with half the effort.

Four wipes later, we finally found ourselves facing down Pathaleon the Calculator. We had twenty minutes to down him, and I'm glad to report that it took just one try. He dropped the Abacus of Violent Odds (to replace my Bladefist's Breadth) and the Tunic of Assassination (a collection piece). Our disenchanter, Shef, was even kind enough to give me the two Void Crystals (from the Vanquisher's Legguards that dropped) which will definitely go towards my Mongoose enchant.

And that left me with 54 Badges. More than halfway!