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:

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.

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!

WoW Update - 16 Jun 2008, Keeping At It

Life's been a bit more hectic than I'd prefer lately, but I've been able to do dailies on a rather irregular basis; Frou is now back to 2750 gold. I had hoped to have 3k gold by the end of the weekend but things conspired against it. But that isn't such a big deal, really.

I've been farming mats for a Cobrascale Hood and am happily sitting on 12/15 Primal Air (thanks to Malago, who handed me 3!) and 7/15 Primal Shadow. Primal Nethers are more expensive on Bloodhoof - 75/80 G buyout on the AH as compared to 50/55 G on Bleeding Hollow - but I'm only going to need one anyway. I only have 3 Cobra Scales, but they're not hard to farm. The Coilskar Cistern is really one big closed loop that's very conducive to cobra farming.

I also made a mistake in bidding 150g for a Pattern: Boots of Utter Darkness, which I eventually won. Seeing as how GoV is still farming Karazhan and these are inferior to Edgewalker Longboots, I'm seeing this as a waste of money. I'll still farm mats for them, however (although 2 Primal Nethers is painful).

In other news, I was able to raid with Guardians of Veeshan again on Sunday morning. I was fortunate to be in the maiden raid that took down High King Maulgar (on the fifth attempt, too!). Things looked stacked against the raid - we downed him with 23 members, and 2 were level 69, and we were woefully short of healers. For some odd reason GoV is heavy on Druid healers with a few Priests as well. The two Paladins I've seen online are specced protection instead of holy.

From Gruul, ten of us who weren't raid-saved moved on to Karazhan, where we killed bosses till Opera stopped us cold. We had a bad raid composition for Opera. We drew Wizard of Oz without any mages and with a melee-heavy DPS group. We called it a day at 2 pm, leaving Froufrou sitting on 50 Badges of Justice. 55 more and I can finally purchase a Blade of Serration, which will boost my DPS up to above 500, I hope.

More on this later... it's time to get back to work.

WoW Update - 10 Jun 2008, New Server Love

I bit the bullet last Wednesday and paid for a one-way server transfer for Froufrou to Bloodhoof. I spent Sunday and Monday on Bleeding Hollow saying my goodbyes; Isorla gave me the keys to the Guild bank and let me rob it of all the primals I needed for my Primal Intent leatherworking set.

Right now Avierra's got around three weeks left on Bleeding Hollow before her account lapses (yes, Avi and Frou are on different WoW accounts). I respecced her to Protection, which allowed me access to a Karazhan run as off-tank and a couple of Heroics. I've since decided not to log into BH any more, at least not on Avi; there's no point, really, since I'm about to let the account lapse. Avi is sitting on around 20 Badges of Justice.

So.

Froufrou found herself in a new server on Wednesday night. As I was going to be in Bohol on Thursday till Saturday, my first real day on Bloodhoof would be on Sunday. Fortunately for me, I woke up fairly early on Sunday morning and logged in just as my officemate Pepper texted me to get on for a Karazhan run.

I was thrown a Guild invite to Guardians of Veeshan and found myself in a Karazhan raid in fairly short order. It was a pretty good group, and we failed only in bringing down Netherspite (no time) and Nightbane (a coordination issue rather than one of capability, as we were able to down Prince). I was pleasantly surprised to find myself quite high on the DPS list. I walked out of Karazhan with a replacement for my Ring of the Shadow Deeps - Ring of a Thousand Marks, which dropped from Prince after our fourth attempt to kill him.

In the evening of the run I found myself with my officemate (Malago, a Warrior tank) in Heroic Auchenal Crypts, the daily heroic. And the next day we also completed the daily heroic, Heroic Mana Tombs. So Froufrou now finds herself with 43 Badges of Justice - not even halfway to her Blade of Serration, but it's a very good start.

So right now Froufrou's gotten her hands on The Night Watchman, which she's using until she can farm the mats for a Cobrascale Hood (already have the pattern). Other than that, she's mostly purpled out, which is wonderful. I'm happy to be raiding again and to be contributing to something - and to be honest, I'm really enjoying my time so far in Guardians of Veeshan. The players are mature and friendly, and even if nothing comes of the raids it's good to be part of an active community.

Looks like I've found a home on Bloodhoof.