Stand by for Divine Intervention

Moving On

2009-10-23T12:08:00.002+08:00

So, I'm closing down this blog.

I've kind of outgrown it and I think it's time to move on.

To Wordpress.

No, seriously. I love Google but I'm not all that impressed with Blogger any more.

If you're still into reading more of what I have to say, you can find me at http://postcardsfromdalaran.wordpress.com. See you there.

Farewell, General

2009-08-18T08:03:00.002+08:00

It didn't take us 3 weeks, but downing Mimiron again was a bitch.

We're building up to 25s now. It's a slow process. We have 18 now. Or is it 19? Not quite enough for two teams.

Thanks to 3.2, we're running heroics like crazy. 6 or 7 of us already have their 4-piece Tier 8 bonuses thanks to badge T8.5 helms and chestpieces. So much for Herald of the Titans.

I guess what's important at this point is to get to Algalon. We'll work out the gearing later.

Requiem for a Fallen Hero

2009-08-06T13:04:00.003+08:00

In 1983, when Sen. Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, I was 7 years old and didn't understand what it meant. I only knew that my parents were crying and that something very bad had happened.

When the People Power Revolution happened in 1986, I was 10 years old. I didn't understand it either. But my parents were adamant about being in the middle of a very large crowd of people, so I came with them in my bright yellow Ninoy T-shirt and khaki shorts and I prayed aloud with everyone around me, heedless of the danger.

I'm 34 years old now and I understand.

Pres. Corazon Aquino passed away last weekend. She was the housewife-turned-president whose call to action ousted a dictator and restored our freedom. She was Ninoy's widow and a powerful center of opposition to the Marcoses. She became our president - the first legitimately elected president following the dark days of martial law and the Marcos dictatorship.

The many luxuries I enjoy in my life - including the ability to play World of Warcraft - I owe directly to Tita Cory and her martyred husband.

For the freedom to do the things I love, for the freedom to write (badly) about them, for the freedom to choose my own path in life, I am forever grateful.

Sleep well, Tita Cory. We will always love you.

A Picture Worth A Thousand Gold

2009-08-02T23:35:00.005+08:00

Three weeks of furious raiding.

Over 1000 gold per person in repairs and consumables.

Two pieces of loot (one token).

And we're still not sure we can get him down again next week.

A Picture Post

2009-07-01T10:09:00.006+08:00

Rage On is officially 8/14 in Ulduar as of last weekend; we downed Hodir and Freya on Sunday, and it looks as though the Iron Council is as good as dead in a few days.

As I'm swamped with work and rushing everything to prepare for an upcoming trip abroad, I'll just post some screenies that have been burning holes in my hard drive since last weekend.

There isn't much for a tank to do during the Loatheb fight, so I took a few screenshots. This one was my favorite. We ran two wings of Naxx to start gearing up Barrgrimm (our shiny new 80 warrior) and Liadon (our first recruit on Nagrand).

We defeated two Watchers, which frees them to aid us against Yogg-Saron; here they are watching over Sara.

Here we posed at Freya's Feet. We didn't take one for Hodir. Nobody likes Hodir.

And here are the screenies (well, kind of) to commemorate downing the Keepers.

Nerf QQ

2009-06-23T10:33:00.003+08:00

Euripedes over at Critical QQ has a fairly strongly worded post about the upcoming change to the Emblems that drop from heroic 5-mans and raid instances. In case you haven't heard, the existing Emblems of Heroism and Valor will no longer drop; instead, we will be looting the new Emblems of Conquest. Emblems of Conquest can be traded in for Emblems of Valor or Heroism at a rate of 1:1, so we will still be able to purchase the existing Emblem rewards; of course this also means that we will be able to purchase the T8.5 items that are currently only available to Ulduar-25 raiders.

I'm not sitting on a fount of Emblems of Conquest myself. So far I have 6 on my main - 4 from FL+1 kills and 2 from a heroic VoA PUG. The soonest I imagine myself purchasing anything with them is 2 to 3 months from now. I simply have no access to more; unlike most other raiding Guilds, Rage On does not run 25-mans. We PUG anything larger than a 10-man raid.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting more Emblems of Conquest.

There's been a lot of talk about how much this move sucks; about how Blizzard is making it too easy for players to get good loot. It's led to a lot of QQ from players currently farming Ulduar about Blizzard cheapening their achievements. And like Euripedes, I wish they'd shut the hell up.

Nothing diminishes their achievements. Nothing.

As a raid leader going through challenging content, I'm actually happy to see this change coming in. I know my little raiding team is ahead of the pack. We're not attempting Yogg-Saron yet, but we're halfway into Ulduar. We have yet to kill a Watcher, but we're working on that. We're not a premier raiding Guild. We're a band of friends who likes raiding together, and we're actually good at what we do, for which we are rewarded amply by the game system.

Most players don't have even that.

Right now I have eleven - yes, just eleven - raiders. Two of them are married to each other. Another two are in a relationship IRL. If either of those couples takes a break from WoW or goes away for a weekend, we have to call off raiding until we can find replacements.

Usually such replacements are, at their best, Naxx-geared. Sometimes not even that. It's a given that they won't be delivering the same output as our regular raiders. Jizal, our lone Retribution Paladin, can put out 3.5k DPS on average. Last weekend we ran with a PUGged Ret Pally who brought 1.8k DPS to the table. Respectable, but not nearly enough what we need for Ulduar.

Because we only run 10-mans, and those on weekends alone, we also can't expect players hungry for new content to come on board. Also, because we're a close-knit community, we have to ensure that new players fit in with the rest of the group. The ability to get along with everyone in our Guild is more important than the level of one's contribution to the raid. We can help with performance issues. We can't help with personality issues.

The remedy is to borrow alts of friends or toons of people who have missed their Guild's scheduled runs - which we do as often as is needed. Again, we can't expect these guys to be geared, or to know how to play their class at a level appropriate for Ulduar.

Allowing these players and characters access to higher level gear gives them a chance to perform at the appropriate levels. It means that Ulduar-geared players can PUG an Emblem-geared player and expect him to deliver results. Better gear doesn't replace skill, of course, or experience - but it does help level the playing field.

I'm looking forward to patch 3.2. Like everyone not farming Ulduar-25, I'm hoping it'll deliver on its promise to make higher end content more accessible to players like me. That's a promise that Blizzard is bending over backwards to keep, and I honestly appreciate it.

First Weekend of Raids

2009-06-22T17:00:00.003+08:00

We moved to Nagrand and changed our Guild name; we're no longer the Bank of NiHao (although that's still on Bloodhoof); we are now known as Rage On.

This was our first weekend of official raids on Nagrand. Here's what happened:

Saturday morning, 10 of us showed up and we stepped into Ulduar. We tried FL with 2 towers up, couldn't hack it, and took down one tower. Then we one-shot FL+1.

We killed Razorscale next and took a break from Ulduar to clear Vault of Archavon - our first time together as a Guild, and you can bet it's in our rotation now. I'd put up an Emalon kill screenshot as well but I forgot to take one.

Back to Ulduar, and we killed XT-002 and Kologarn in short order. Then we took a couple of tries at Auriaya, killing her on our third or fourth try. Hodir attempts next - 6 in total with not much to show for it. Then Ignis.

We attempted Ignis a total of 4 times (around the same number of times we wiped on his goddamn trash.) Then we called it a day.

Not enough people showed up Sunday morning, so we messed around and farmed instead. I left just before lunch as I had real life things to take care of. I went to my in-laws and spent a quiet afternoon in the company of family.

Driving back home, I got a text from Jizal (formerly Rizal) asking if I could log in. I was online within 15 minutes and got an invite into a Naxx run with a couple of PUGs from Happy Hour, a Guild we were looking at merging with when we were preparing to move to Nagrand. We cleared most of Naxxramas except for Kel'thuzad; unfortunately by that point in time 4 of us had to log off and we disbanded.

At 10:30 that evening I got another text from Jiz asking me to log in; there were 9 of us online and we would be clearing Naxxramas. I logged in and we proceeded to demolish the Eye of Eternity before heading to Naxx to kill Kel'thuzad. When he was dead, we moved back into Ulduar.

We killed Ignis on our fourth try. It took just over 6 minutes. It was 12:30 in the morning (2:30 am for poor Azmuth!) and we were all tired... but still high from a fresh boss kill.

We gave Iron Council a few tries before calling it a night.

Killing Ignis was the perfect way to cap our weekend of raiding. Most of us played too much WoW this past weekend - we'll get over it, I'm sure, but there's no way I want to make this level of time investment a regular thing. We raided for maybe 14 hours this past weekend. That's not healthy.

But it felt so good.

As Bladewisp (formerly Silverwisp) put it, "After the Ignis kill, I feel like a rock star."

We go after Hodir next weekend.

First PUG on Nagrand, My Healadin Spell Rotation

2009-06-19T10:46:00.007+08:00

I ran my first PUG on Nagrand last night, an Obsidian Sanctum-25 run with a Guild named Viable. While it wasn't anything special - four wipes attempting Sarth+1, then a plain Sarth attempt - I was flabbergasted at my healing performance.

We had 5 healers for the run - a Resto Druid, Resto Shaman, and three Holy Paladins. The Druid topped the healing meters, as expected, followed closely by the Shammy (damn Chain Heal!). Then came the three Holy Pallies.

Of 5 healers, I came in fourth. And I had slightly better gear than the other two Paladins.

My ego bruised, I checked Recount to figure out exactly what had gone wrong. And there it was - the top Pally had been spamming Holy Light on the tank with no Beacon of Light. The bottom Pally had been spamming Flash of Light on the offtank.

And me? Holy Shock + Flash of Light on raid members, Beacon of Light on the main tank.

I had to stop and think about what led me to this style of healing and my healing spell rotation.

In a typical boss fight, I set up like this:

Tank throws up readycheck. I cast Beacon of Light. When readycheck is done, I throw a Sacred Shield on the tank. He charges in.

Once he takes a hit, I cast Holy Shock and follow it up with a Flash of Light (two if the first was an instant cast). At this point the tank should be getting heals from multiple sources, so I can take a break from healing and throw a Judgment on the boss (Wisdom if Jiz is in the raid, Light if not). I follow up with another Holy Shock and my first Holy Light of the raid.

It's a mana-efficient spell rotation that allows me to get important buffs (Judgements of the Pure and Light's Grace) while keeping the tank alive. Holy Light is a great spell, especially when glyphed, but it's a mana hog. I know we're in trouble if I'm doing nothing but spamming Holy Light.

After the PUG, in the comfort of a 5-man Bank of NiHao group, I opined that the reason I heal like this is that the folks I raid with seem to take less damage in the course of a fight. I mean, sure, they'll eat the occasional Flame Wall or run off Kologarn's ledge, but we're quite good at yelling at each other over Vent to get out of void zones.

I gave the lead Pally's style a try after I figured out what was going on. Instead of throwing out Holy Shocks and Flashes of Light, I just stood and chucked Holy Lights at the offtank. Sure enough, my healing performance on Recount started to improve. That growing pink bar lifted my spirits immensely. I was healing like a champion.

I ran out of mana two minutes into the fight.

A Sign of Things To Come

2009-06-11T17:29:00.002+08:00

Well, I've made the move to Nagrand... actually four of us have. We're currently voting on the new Guild name via email. Bank of NiHao was fun, but we have an opportunity to improve on it along with a new lease on raiding.

Moving from a US server to an Oceanic server had one noticeable effect - it moved daily quest reset time from 3 pm local to God knows when. So I found myself with not a whole lot to do after 3 pm... and when I find myself with time to spare, I farm myself a Firefly.

It's a little known fact that I collect vanity pets. Avierra does, at least. Froufrou has exactly one pet Avi doesn't - the Phoenix Hatchling that drops from Heroic Magister's Terrace - but besides that, Avierra has 54. Yes, counting Stinker.

Yesterday made it 55.

10 hours of off and on farming. I'm still flying.

A Farewell to Bloodhoof

2009-06-09T11:04:00.006+08:00

As I write this, the Bank of Nihao is packing everything up in preparation for a server move - off Bloodhoof and onto Nagrand, an Oceanic server. We've been discussing the move for more than a month now, and in light of our small raider base and our need to grow as we move deeper and deeper into Ulduar, it's a move that makes sense.

We're not leaving Bloodhoof without regrets. We're leaving behind friends we've known for a long time - friends with whom we've formed relationships with over vent and Guild/party/raid chat. We're leaving two of our raiders behind as well - which hurts our numbers even more than I care to think about, but that's the way it has to be, I guess.

Our last Bloodhoof raids this past weekend were glorious. We downed Flame Leviathan with one tower up, Razorscale, XT-002 Deconstructor, Kologarn, and Auriaya before clearing out Naxxramas and the Eye of Eternity. A few months ago, if you'd told me we would be at this level of progression, I would have laughed in your face. We've struggled so much with so many issues that it's a wonder we've achieved as much as we have.

We're moving off Bloodhoof because we're running out of raiders. In the past couple of weeks, we've lost a Retribution Paladin and a Balance Druid. For us to maintain our momentum, we need to recruit. Constantly borrowing raiders from GoV just isn't feasible any more. A server transfer to a GMT+8-friendly environment seemed the best option for us to continue raiding.

Nagrand is the unofficial GMT+8 server. When the first generation of ASTIG raiders moved on, a large group moved to Nagrand. (The current ASTIG raids on Thaurissan.) By my count, there are four large Asian-time Guilds making their way through Ulduar on Nagrand. That means that we won't have to wake up early on weekends to PUG Naxx-25; we'll have the opportunity to PUG on weeknights instead. It also means that recruitment will be easier for us, or at least we hope it will be easier.

Oh, but I will miss Bloodhoof.

Bloodhoof is where I moved after ASTIG went stale... after ASTIG gave up on endgame raiding. It's where I first stepped into SSC and TK and Hyjal. (I haven't tried raiding Black Temple or Sunwell yet, although I still hope to someday.) It's where Froufrou learned to raid.

Bloodhoof is where our little band of brothers first put together the thought of raiding together. When we first started playing together, we were officemates first and Guildies second. Now, we're Guildies first and (ex-)officemates second, bound by beer, Ventrilo and shiny purple pixels.

And now we're leaving Bloodhoof.

I am sorely tempted to close this blog now. I've lost a lot of the angst that drove me to start blogging in the first place, and when I need a quick fix I can just hop on Twitter and let the world know I'm annoyed at something.

If anything, though, this blog is about remembering things as they were when they were fresh. Reading old posts brings me back, sort of like reading an old diary. (My God, was I ever that naive?)

So here's what I can promise: I'll think about keeping this blog up. I really will. I don't want to commit and not follow through, but I also don't want to lose this blog entirely.

So farewell, Bloodhoof, and hello Nagrand: I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Healer QQ

2009-06-02T13:53:00.002+08:00

Does everything in Ulduar have to hit like Godzilla on steroids? I think I've killed Malago thrice while Holy Light was casting.

/readycheck done

Malago runs in.

He takes 30% damage - Holy Shock! brings him up to 90% health.

He takes 35% damage - Insta-Flash of Light! brings him back up to 70% health.

Start casting Holy Light... he takes two hits and dies.

Me (on vent): Wipe it, guys.

This is, of course, assuming Mal doesn't run into Kologarn's pants like he did last weekend.

Ferarro

2009-06-02T10:05:00.004+08:00

Okay, it's time for me to put my 2 coppers in regarding the whole Ferarro mess.

I don't play a Retribution Paladin. I love my main character - who is, in fact, a Paladin - but Retribution is not my playstyle.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate good Ret Pallies. I recognize that other people make fantastic Ret Pallies. I play with a Ret Pally named Rizal who blows me away with his mad DPS skillz. I think Ret Pallies are a very welcome addition to the family of viable raid specs.

I learned a lot of things about Retribution Paladins from Ferarro's blog. I came there to be educated and entertained. For that I will always be grateful to whoever was behind the blog.

Regardless of what Jong says, the content was solid, and it remains a great resource for Paladins of all stripes.

But.

The Lost snippets, the photos, the non-WoW blog posts, they were what made me connect to the author of the blog. Did it help that she was an attractive blonde? Hell yes. But give me some credit; I don't follow bloggers at random based on their looks.

To find out that the photos were stolen from another blogger was a slap in the face.

To find out that other content was taken and repurposed was a stab in the heart.

These are things you do not do.

Like the rest of the community who visited Ferarro's blog, I was deeply disappointed in how the whole mess was handled by the nameless person at the keyboard. There were so many ways that it could have been handled better. Ways that did not involve the ongoing theft of another blogger's content to maintain a five-year-old deception.

I wonder how much the image of the WoW blogger has been tainted by this whole scandal. Speaking as a very insignificant member of this slice of the blogosphere, I can say that it just became a bit harder to hold my head up high.

So here's what I propose: let's call it even.

Nameless blogger, if you want to go out and set up your own Ret-Pally blog, that's fine. My best wishes to you. I may even drop by for a visit. If there's something there I connect with, I may even leave a comment.

In exchange, shut down Ferarro's blog. Right now. The guides can be hosted on Retpaladin.com if there's a clamor for them to stay up. But get rid of that blog; it's tainted.

And for Christ's sake, please leave Sarah Townsend alone.

I'm Still Alive

2009-06-01T17:52:00.002+08:00

So there's a pally on my server named Healismyjob. I see him all the time on LFG: "Prot/ret pally LFG".

Seriously.

It's been a month since I last posted; stuff's happened, and I'll be back soon once I sort things out.

Megan and Ferraro broke my heart, you see. You don't get up and walk away from that kind of pain.

No Time To Post

2009-04-27T15:14:00.000+08:00

Yay us.

Divine Anguish

2009-04-21T11:04:00.003+08:00

Right now, we're caught in what Seth Godin calls The Dip - that space right after the initial rush when you've first started something and you're still enthusiastic about it... when suddenly things are difficult and bleak and it's easy to slack off.

I can't say I saw it coming.

Last Saturday was one of our best raiding days ever. We downed Malygos in 5 attempts (down from 9) despite 2 weeks of not raiding. Then we marched into Naxxramas and one-shot all the bosses, getting Make Quick Werk of Him, The Hundred Club and Arachnophobia along the way. Then we gave Ulduar a try - and downed Flame Leviathan on the second attempt.

So far, so good.

We wiped around 6 or 7 times on XT-002 Deconstructor after that, but that was ok. We logged out on Saturday night with high hopes for the next day.

On Sunday we wiped to the trash leading up to Ignis no less than ten times. Then we wiped to Ignis another fifteen.

When the trash respawned, we made our way to XT-002 again and proceeded to wipe another thirty or so times.

At the end of the day, we logged out extremely dissatisfied. We'd learned a lot, but the cost was high - I spent nearly 600 gold on repairs, and that doesn't count consumables. I think we'll have to resort to raid stacking to kill XT-002, at least until we increase everyone's DPS significantly. I can't say I'm too happy about that.

I've been angry and irritable a lot lately (lots of things on my mind, including a pending issue at work). This doesn't really help.

The damn Dip hit at the worst possible time.

Healing QQ

2009-04-21T08:36:00.005+08:00

I asked three of my raiders to brush up on their healing (they're currently DPS) over the past weekend, as the state of our healers is dismal: we're reduced to 2-healing instances since our second Resto Shammy is on burnout break and our Resto Druid has gone MIA.

To my face they said that they would gladly learn to heal. Then I find out later that there was much QQing going on about that.

It's not like I friggin' asked them to take over main healing Ulduar, either. With Naxx on farm, we're clearing bosses so easily that gearing up and training a fresh healer is easy; our main specs mostly need gear from Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad.

My primary spec is Protection. It's to allow more people to raid that I throw Holy Lights around. Maybe I need to remind people of that.

Maybe it's time to go on strike.

edit: Or a break. I'm burned out-ish. Or headed that way.

Raidleading 101: Raid Composition

2009-04-16T13:44:00.003+08:00

So you and nine of your buddies have formed a Guild. You're level 80, in blue gear and ready to step into Obsidian Sanctum/Naxxramas/Vault of Archavon in the hopes of some nice purple loot. You're about to lead your first raid.

This and the subsequent Raidleading 101 posts are for you. I'm going to assume that while you've had some group experience, you're not an expert on the different classes and what makes them tick. I hope that you've raided before, either as part of a larger Guild or in a PUG.

If you haven't raided before, I strongly advise you to do so before becoming a raid leader. If you really have no choice - no one else will take the role - then by all means read on.

No job, not even that of the main tank, is as stressful as that of the raid leader's. While you're leading a raid, you're not one of the guys - you stand above them, deciding right and wrong. When you're not raiding you will be watching videos, reading strategy guides, and encouraging people to be ready and available for the next scheduled run. Whether or not your Guild is hardcore, your time as a casual player has come to an end.

There are three things you'll need to address as a raid leader: (1) raid composition, (2) raid conduct (including boss fight strategies), and (3) loot distribution. Today I'll discuss the first of these three.

(In NiHao we've split up these roles: I set up the raid, Azmuth runs it, and Malago distributes loot. It's a system that's served us well so far.)

Raid composition, in theory, is simple - you fill up the raid with the appropriate mix of raiders. For 10-man raids, the configuration we work with for progression raids is 2T-3H-3/2D: 2 tanks, 3 healers, and 5 DPS (3 melee/2 ranged or vice versa). For farm raids we drop one healer and put in one more DPS, making it 2T-2H-3/3D. But 2-3-3/2 will get you through most fights.

(For 25-mans, which we don't run, I believe the composition is 4-7-14 for progression and 4-6-15 for farm raids. The fights are a little more forgiving, so you don't have to be so strict regarding melee vs. ranged DPS.)

You will need two tanks - one to be the "main tank" and one to be the "off tank". The main tank's job is to tank bosses during boss fights; the off tank's job is (usually) to pick up adds. Even in 25-man runs you will have just one main tank; every tank who isn't the main tank is an off tank.

Fill up your tank slots first. A good tank makes or breaks a raid - you can survive with noob healers but not a noob tank. Our policy is to run with at least one of our "official" tanks - Azmuth (DK), Calimdan (Druid), Malago (Warrior) or Avierra (Paladin). When we run with a tank who isn't one of these four, they are always the off tank. I wouldn't dream of setting up a raid without one of these four tanking.

Because tanking is such a high profile role, plenty of egotists try to become tanks. Avoid these people like the plague; the last thing you need is a prima donna in this highly sensitive role. In the best Guilds, tanking is a shared responsibility shouldered by a team.

Sometimes your off-tank is better for a fight by virtue of his class - for example, some fights need AoE tanking, so your Paladin offtank will be better suited than your Druid main tank. Don't hesitate to put your offtank on it, and be sure to head off any drama your Druid tank is tempted to cause.

In general, I don't like to run with two tanks of the same class. Different tanks have different strengths; having my tanks be different classes gives me more flexibility in conducting the run.

When you've filled up your tank slots, get to work on your healers.

In general you're looking at your healers to fulfill two functions: tank healing and raid healing. Tank healers focus on one target and heal him almost exclusively - if anyone else dies, that's not their problem. Raid healers take care of the rest of the raid. If the tank starts losing health faster than the tank healers can cope, however, they're expected to pitch in.

Got a priest? Good. Make sure he's specced Holy or Discipline, though. Priests are the best all-around healers, hands down - a great Priest can solo heal a raid, but of course you wouldn't subject your Priest to that kind of stress. Get all the Priests you can; don't be shy about filling both (or all three) healer slots with Priests.

As an aside, I consider Priests to be the best health managers. They have the most tools to address health - Fortitude to boost hit points, direct heals and heal over time spells, and a shield to absorb damage. They give up a lot to be the best at this role, however.

What about other classes? I find Resto Druids to be just as effective as Priests, although that may be because I play with a very skilled Resto Druid. Holy Paladins and Restoration Shamans are somewhat more problematic for me (and I play a Holy Pally!). In general, Holy Pallies are fantastic tank healers and poor raid healers, while Resto Shammies are the reverse. But player skill can often make up for class deficiencies - I've run Naxxramas with 2 Resto Shammies, no problem. I'd still balk at running with 2 Holy Pallies, though.

Now take a look at your available DPS.

Melee DPS take the fight to the boss - preferably from safely behind him to maximize damage and so the tank doesn't get parry gibbed. In most cases, melee DPS provide a stream of consistent damage that you can count on provided they can spend enough time on target. There are exceptions to this rule - Retribution Paladins, Enhancement Shamans and some Rogue specs do bursty damage.

The downside of melee DPS is that they are, in many ways, marked for death. Their aggro pull threshold is lower and there are more boss effects in the game that can kill them compared to ranged DPS. Melee DPS are also very sensitive to location and position - in fights like Kel'Thuzad and Thaddius, bad DPS positioning can kill the tank quickly. Melee DPS also have the most difficulty spending time on one target, especially on moving fights. Expect their DPS to be lower than usual on fights that require kiting or target switching.

Ranged DPS, on the other hand, attack a boss from a distance. Hunters, Mages and Warlocks are the most common ranged DPS around, but you may find yourself running with Shadow Priests, Elemental Shamans or Balance Druids as well. Ranged DPS in general do bursty damage, although Hunters tend to have more consistent damage outputs, and Warlock DOTs (remember those?) help smoothen out their DPS curve.

Why take melee DPS when ranged DPS doesn't have as many drawbacks? The answer is mana. Every ranged DPS class is dependent on mana. While mana isn't really a problem for short fights, longer fights can take their toll on a caster's (yes, Hunters are also casters) mana pool. Warriors, Rogues and Death Knights - all melee DPS classes - can carry on the fight long after the casters have run out of mana.

There are two more functions your DPS have to fulfill - crowd control, or CC, and area of effect damage, also known as AE, AOE, or AoE.

Crowd control is simple: when you encounter more mobs than you have tanks, and you don't want your tanks to pick up more than one mob each, you will want to CC something. What makes crowd control tricky is that there are restrictions to every type of CC. For example, Rogue CC ("Sap") only works on humanoids and can't be applied in combat. Mage CC ("Polymorph" or "Sheep") can affect humanoids and beasts in or out of combat. Hunter CC ("Freezing Trap") affects practically anything, but it's dependent on position.

Knowing what classes can CC and what classes can't, and the restrictions behind each type of CC, is essential to your career as a raid leader. If you don't know, ask - you're not expected to know the intricacies of each class (although that can be helpful).

The other thing you'll want to keep in mind is Area of Effect damage. This is much simpler - the best AoE'ers are Mages and Warlocks. Other classes have some AoE - Paladins have Consecration, Rogues Fan of Knives, and Hunters Volley, for example - but Mage and Warlock AoE work best. Fights with a lot of small non-elite adds usually call for a lot of AoE.

As with crowd control, learning which classes can AoE and the limitations of their AoE is essential in your career as a raid leader. Not having good AoE won't keep your raid from downing bosses, but having it for some fights will make your raid run more smoothly.

So now that you've got your raid together, it's time to march into the instance and take on some bosses. In the next installment I'll cover raid conduct - how to prepare for your raids and more importantly, how to deal with your raid as it's going on. Till then, may your fights be easy and your raids drama-free.

Noob Spec

2009-04-14T14:16:00.001+08:00

So I'm specced Retribution.

This might not be an issue for other Paladins, but it certainly is an issue for me. Ret for me is noob spec - not that noobs play Retribution Paladins (although there are a lot who do) but that I'm a noob when it comes to playing Ret.

I've been specced Retribution for the past two weeks - during raid break, when it'll affect our runs the least. I'm getting a free respec anyway, and I had all this offspec gear stowed away in the bank.

So I specced Ret.

Here's the secret: I like it.

I don't like it enough to raid with it; we already run with two talented ret Paladins. But I like it enough that I've run dailies with it.

Thanks to Malago, last night I ran two Heroics in it as well. I didn't do too badly - 1,800 DPS at my lowest point.

The thing I dislike the most about Ret is how fragile I am. I don't die soloing mobs in Holy spec. I don't die in Prot spec. But I take dirt naps all the time in Ret spec.

But let me also say that I've never killed things as fast. One spell cycle is usually enough to down a mob. In Prot or Holy spec, I usually take two cycles.

Ret is awesome but it's not my spec. My hat's off to Ferraro, Megan and the many brilliant Ret paladin players out there.

Maybe someday I'll learn to do better than faceroll.

Guess What We Did Last Weekend

2009-03-31T11:16:00.007+08:00

22 February 2009: Naxxramas is repossessed after Kel'Thuzad defaults on his mortgage.

22 March 2009: The Bank of NiHao help Alexstraza collect from her deadbeat brother Malygos.

29 March 2009: The Bank of NiHao Foreclosure Team shows up at the Obsidian Sanctum. Sartharion and Tenebron snicker at the "flammable little insects."

29 March 2009: Sartharion and Tenebron learn to say I'm sorry.

Congrats to the Bank of NiHao for finally getting Sarth+1D down. To quote Malago, "You guys make me hard."

Big Red Kitty closes up shop

2009-03-31T10:36:00.003+08:00

I occasionally wonder how I'll end this blog - whether or not walk away from both game and blog in one tempestuous, emotionally-charged post, or quietly let the blog die, leaving its six or seven readers* bewildered as to the lack of updates.

Big Red Kitty shuttered its doors today for reasons I can relate to. Although it was primarily a hunter blog, I always enjoyed BRK's posts. BRK made it clear that there was a critical difference between hunters and huntards. His sheer love of the game and the great enthusiasm he brought to his craft made me appreciate my time in Azeroth more.

My hat's off to you, BRK. Thanks for everything.

* I should be so lucky.

Malygos DOWN!

2009-03-23T17:07:00.004+08:00

This should be a rather emo blog entry whining about how folks aren't punctual or don't update me on what their availabilities are; really, that's how this post played out in my head. But the truth is that we had a brilliant weekend raiding and while we definitely need to address concerns regarding punctuality and maybe even commitment, I need to talk about the great things that happened so I don't forget it months down the road when these achievements will have been eclipsed by newer ones.

On Saturday afternoon we began our Naxxramas run at 12:30 and proceeded to demolish every wing in the raid. We cleared the entire instance in 5 hours - still long compared to more hardcore raiders, but a vast improvement over our usual 9 to 11 hour raid time. We one-shotted every boss but Grobbulus and Kel'Thuzad. Grobb, a technically difficult fight, really caused us a lot of headaches. We were quite unlucky with our DPS positioning in some cases, which led to too many slimes spawned. Kel'Thuzad, on the other hand, was harder for us due to void zones spawning under the adds, where the tanks couldn't see them.

Azmuth paid for a new Ventrilo server for us, which we'll be trying out over the next few months. For the first time I really feel pressured to talk over Vent - it's different now that we don't have that many players around. I'd really like to maximize the use of the Vent server while we have it. The Vent server was quite useful for some of the harder fights, but as usual, we avoided using it.

We also tried out a new strategy for the 4 Horsemen, which led to a one-shot instead of our usual 5-6 attempts. The DPS start the fight right behind Lady Blameaux's position, while the tanks wait near the front of the room where Baron Rivendare and Thane Kor'thazz will start the fight. Once the fight starts, they then pick up the melee horsemen and kite them back to the ranged horsemen. On three marks, everyone swaps sides, and the tanks need to taunt off each other to ensure that the melee horsemen stick to their sides. While we had a few deaths, this strategy really worked for us, and we'll be using this in the future.

Sunday was a rough raiding day for us; even though we had a posted raid time of 12:30, we started at 2 pm due to lack of raiders. We finally downed Malygos after 21 attempts - 21! While hardly a flawless victory, it was a victory nonetheless, and we'll be coming back next week with high expectations for ourselves.

Killing Malygos unlocked an Achievement, of course, and I'm proud to note that Avierra is now a Champion of the Frozen Wastes, along with Azmuth, Silverwisp, Elauris, Damo, Brutusk and Calimdan.

Well done, everyone. Well done.

A Quick Post Before The Weekend

2009-03-13T11:34:00.003+08:00

One day more till Malygos.

Over the past week, we've seen fewer and fewer log-ins: for most of us, work is starting to pick up. Rizal's been sidelined thanks to major deadlines for one of his accounts, and I know that Calimdan's been dealing with midterms. I'm happy to see that some of us are still running heroics during the week, though.

This weekend we'll be taking on Malygos, in an effort to down him before the Ulduar patch arrives. We've all spent a considerable amount of time and effort preparing for this fight; let's hope it pays off.

So GoV...

2009-03-04T17:42:00.002+08:00

I've been tempted to post something in response to Cath's post on the forums.

But I'm quite good at resisting temptation, so all I have to say is, the best of luck to GoV, and thanks very much for everything.

New Paladin Tools in WOTLK

2009-03-03T16:39:00.002+08:00

There are two new tricks Paladins have in Wrath of the Lich King I'm relying on more and more.

Hand of Reckoning

I have only rarely needed to use the badly-named Hand of Reckoning a few times in protection spec, preferring instead to stick to my tried-and-true Righteous Defense. I don't use it to initiate combat - once the taunt buff wears off, the mob usually heads straight for any healer within range, forcing me to burn Righteous Defense anyway. That said, I've learned to appreciate it while farming solo, especially when I'm competing with others for mobs.

I use it extensively on Gluth. We don't rely on hunters to kite zombie chow, as our huntards are terribad at kiting. Instead I slap on my tanking gear for extra dodge and run around, picking up spawning zombies with HoR and cementing my hold on them through the occasional Consecration. I also use it on 4 Horsemen to ensure that the Horseman I'm tanking doesn't ignore me completely.

I understand that it's brilliant in PVP - a taunt that actually does damage, preventing rogues from stealthing - and I'm keen to test the report that it breaks through Divine Shield, preventing bubble hearths. Now if only it interrupted casting...

Beacon of Light

Four major changes to paladin healing have challenged me this expansion:

1) The need to judge,
2) The newfound viability of Holy Shock as a healing spell,
3) Sacred Shield, and
4) Beacon of Light.

Of these changes, Beacon of Light has forced me to rethink how I heal the most. Beacon of Light effectively forks your heal onto a second target, healing it for up to however much your first heal landed for. So if you had your Beacon of Light on Target B while you healed Target A, Target B would receive heals up to however much Target A was healed for.

Say, for example, that my main tank, Azmuth, was standing in front of a boss mob. Az has 29,000 hit points and the boss hits for around 6,000 on plate. Behind the boss is one of my melee DPS, Malago, who has 18,000 hit points. Unfortunately, this boss casts a spell which does 10,000 damage to a melee player in range. So Az gets hit for 6,000, bringing him down to 23,000, while Mal gets hit for 10,000, bringing him down to 8,000 hit points.

Let's say I had my Beacon of Light on Malago. If I threw a heal on Azmuth for 10,000, that would heal him back to full - wasting 4,000 hit points (overheal). Malago would not be healed to full, as he only receives 6,000 hit points back. So now I have a healing deficit; I need to throw another heal on Malago to make up the gap. This would be remedied by putting Beacon of Light on Az and healing Malago instead.

This is why Beacon of Light messes me up so badly. In order to know how to maximize my healing output, I need to be deeply aware of the fight mechanics. I need to know who will be taking damage - and how much - so I don't waste my Beacon on someone who won't be getting hurt anyway. If I shift my healing target, I waste one GCD on transferring the Beacon to someone else. More often than not I find myself forgetting to refresh Beacon.

That said, Beacon is insanely powerful, although I often wish they'd made it a 2 or 3 minute buff instead (it's currently a 1 minute buff). I like having it in my arsenal. Maybe I just need to learn to use it better.

Where We Are

2009-03-03T16:25:00.003+08:00

Raiding last weekend was very productive - six or seven attempts at Malygos in Eye of Eternity (none of which took us beyond Phase 2 due to the enrage timer), then an eleven hour run in Naxxramas which spread across two days. Avierra walked away with three new epics (four if you count the one I bought with Emblems of Heroism). It looks very much like I'll be healing for the foreseeable future; it took a failed Culling of Stratholme run to show me that while I'd gotten much better as a tank, I'd let my healing skills deteriorate over the past few months.

Naxxramas is far from being on farm, although we're making real progress in cutting down the amount of time we're spending in there. My goal this weekend is to cut down our Naxx time to 9 hours - 4 hours for the first three wings, 5 for the last two. Already we're starting to DE gear that no one wants to loot, a clear sign of content on farm. Given our gear, though, we're underperforming - Be Imba says we should be farming Malygos right now, and looking at our Armory profiles, we definitely should be doing harder content.

I'm skipping instances this week in favor of farming - this past weekend cost me nearly all my gold after I bought enchants for nearly all my gear. I'm not done yet, though - my War Mace of Unrequited Love is still unenchanted. I spent most of last night farming gold, and I'm finally back to 500g; I expect to be at 1.4k by the end of the week - a comfortable number, given that dual specs will cost 1k when they're finally patched in.

The Ulduar info I've been reading online is a bit daunting - we're not a hardcore raiding Guild, and I really don't know if we'll have the time to master Ulduar before the next tier of raid comes out. I'd really hate to miss Icecrown Citadel when it comes out, though, so it looks like we'll be spending more time in Ulduar than we are in Naxxramas. I may even have to remove Naxx from our raid schedules once we're more or less geared for Ulduar.

King of Nothing

2009-02-26T08:15:00.004+08:00

I've been out of the blogosphere for a while, and for that I apologize; there's just been too much going on for me to take a little while out to blog about it.

First off - Naxx CLEAR. After a marathon session last weekend in which we ran Spider, Plague and Military wings on Saturday and Construct and Frostwyrm wings on Sunday, we downed Kel'thuzad. Most of our raiders were in Naxx for eight to ten hours; I wasn't part of the Sapphiron kill as I had a family function to attend; when I returned to my computer, they needed me to step in and offtank for Kel'thuzad, which I gladly did.

The blue circular blob next to Adamae is a dead Lich; his demise and the subsequent looting was much enjoyed by all.

In the meanwhile, this is probably one of the last screenshots I'll be posting with the Asians sporting the < Guardians of Veeshan > tag. Things have gone from bad to worse with GoV, and a lot of issues have been raised on the forums regarding the guild's inability to progress in its raiding and our role in the issues. I must admit that the drama is a major part of why I haven't been blogging; I was largely unhappy with things that were going on with GoV and worried that the unhappiness would make its way into this blog.

In any event, things came to a head last night and we've since left en masse. We haven't decided on a new Guild name yet - we're currently guilded together in our bank alt guild so we have the benefit of Guild chat and some kind of Guild tag. We'll probably set up a new Guild in the coming weekend, as raiding with the < Bank of NiHao > tag is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

So that leaves me free but thankfully not alone; still with the friends with whom I set out to raid with at the start of the year. We're looking forward to Ulduar, and we'll be farming Naxx on a weekly basis now.

A quick post

2009-02-05T15:03:00.001+08:00

Apologies for the delays in posting, but over the past couple of weeks I've been carefully negotiating a job change. I'll be moving from my agency to a competitor in the next few weeks and so far, managing the shift has been somewhat challenging. Fortunately I have a ready stress reliever in the form of countless virtual villains to beat down.

The Asians (and Australians, omitted here only for the sake of brevity) have been quite busy raiding. Our first and last Asian Sartharion run surprised us immensely. We put together a 9-man group last Wednesday night in an effort to fit the Obsidian Sanctum into our raid schedule. Not only did we one-shot Sarth, we also managed to kill him in under thirty minutes. Our next Sarth attempt will be a Sarth+1 - without drakes up, it's clearly no challenge.

Also on the same night, we ran and cleared Archavon-10 (also with 9 in the raid) and downed Anub'rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina and Noth the Plaguebringer in Naxx-10. Sunday afternoon, we put another group together to finish up Naxxramas. We downed Maexxna, Patchwerk, Hiegan the Unclean, Loatheb, and Instructor Razuvious, putting the Asians at 8/15 for Naxx-10.

Yes, that's correct - we're more than half done with Naxxramas.

I'm not entirely sold on farming VoA. It's certainly nice to farm the 2 badges a week that it can deliver, but the T7 drops are practically a lottery in which it is possible for no one to win. Given the time investment, I'd much rather be in Naxxramas or the Obsidian Sanctum. I've no compunctions about dropping it once Ulduar gets patched in.

So anyway, we have a run tonight, and I'm hopeful we can get 10 raiders together. I'm holding off on OS-10 until we can get a good group together, as I'd really like to start farming Sarth+1, so this will likely mean we'll start with Naxx-10 (Plague Wing). I'm also looking at a new strategy for Anub'rekhan, where the Anub tank basically just eats the Locust Swarm instead of kiting the boss.

Things are moving and I am glad.

Oops!

2009-01-21T14:13:00.002+08:00

A couple of months ago I decided to change this blog's template and changed it through the Blogger management tool. It took me another half hour to put Wowhead integration back in (although, in fairness, I was doing that and a few other things at the same time.)

One of the things I forgot to put back into the blog is my Google Analytics tracking code. This blog has apparently been going for a couple of months now without any kind of analytics running on it.

What makes it especially embarrassing is that I handle Web analytics for an ad agency.

Progression

2009-01-19T10:29:00.006+08:00

This Saturday morning, GoV as a whole ran Naxxramas-25 and wiped repeatedly on trash before pulling out and running to Obsidian Sanctum-25. With Sartharion down and four pieces of loot distributed to deserving Guildies, the raid officers called it a day. The end result - 4 Emblems of Valor for more than 3 hours of raiding.

On Saturday afternoon, the Asians and some friends went into Naxxramas-10 and downed Anub'rekhan and Noth the Plaguebringer. As we were worried we wouldn't have enough DPS (it was quite low on Noth), we didn't attempt Faerlina or Patchwerk. Instead, we marched into Heigan's room and wiped a few times in learning the Safety Dance. We came back the next afternoon, downed Patchwerk, then wiped around 7 or 8 times again on Heigan. These efforts cost me close to 80 gold in repairs and earned me exactly 3 Emblems of Heroism, although we were able to distribute 8 pieces of loot.

This is progression raiding.

I often forget that the dynamics of progression raiding are very different from the dynamics of farm raiding. At the end of Burning Crusade we were 8-manning Karazhan in Kara and badge purples; today we're struggling to clear trash in Naxxramas while other guilds are already farming Kel'thuzad.

This weekend I had so many tells coming in about the slow pace of raiding that I quite neglected to point out that the previous week, we'd failed to down Sartharion. The problem DPS'ers we had the previous week were doing much better this week.

Progression raiding is, by definition, slow. A boss that you down one week is not going to be as easy to down the next - and this isn't anyone's fault, it's just the way it is. There is a steep learning curve to raiding that turns off a lot of people.

This past week I opted to bench a raider who told a heroic instance group that s/he was not interested in downing a boss that had wiped them thrice so far, effectively putting a halt to the run. I did this because that attitude is anathema to progression - it is in no way acceptable. Never mind that I like the raider a great deal personally; progression is a harsh mistress.

What are the measures of progression? Some folks think it's loot or number of bosses downed. I think they're wrong. Loot is good, loot helps because it's a great multiplier - 1500 spellpower or attack power is going to provide more bang for your buck than 1200. But gear is always just a multiplier; the base factor is skill.

Number of bosses is a good way to keep track, but it's not the end goal of progression. And I do like seeing new boss fights. I haven't had the pleasure of learning a 5-phase boss fight yet, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

For me, progression is about becoming a better player. It's about learning new and better ways to do things. It's about the group striving together towards a shared goal. And it's about seeing your friends and companions get better in the pursuit of that goal.

This week I saw a lot of that, and I'm grateful and humbled to have been witness to it. My buddy Silverwisp, who was new to World of Warcraft until a few months ago, cranked out 1500 DPS at Patchwerk on his second day of raiding. Our Australian friends Damo and Elauris doubled their DPS in the span of a week. And Theramor, who until this weekend hadn't set foot in Naxxramas, went from being undergeared in level 70 purples to main-tanking Patchwerk. I should also mention Brutusk, who kept Thera alive all on his own - Plikta and I were busy healing Azmuth, who was forced to step into the main tank role after I respecced to Holy this week.

Raiding with people like this - with people who strive to be better players, and who are good companions to boot - makes it all worthwhile.

So this weekend I looted 4 Emblems of Valor and 3 Emblems of Heroism. We must have wiped twenty times in ten hours of raiding, and I know for a fact that I spent nearly 200 gold in repairs and consumables.

I still think I came out ahead.

Seal and Judgement Effects for Raiding Paladins

2009-01-14T11:58:00.002+08:00

Cross-posted to the GoV boards.

In Wrath of the Lich King, each paladin tree has a talent (or two) that affects the Judgement mechanic.

RETRIBUTION:
Judgements of the Wise: replenish mana upon cast of Judgement
Heart of the Crusader: increase critical chance against the Judged target by 3%

PROTECTION:
Judgements of the Just: reduce melee attack speed of target by 20%

HOLY:
Judgements of the Pure: increase caster haste by 15%

Of the three trees, two have effects dependent on the Judgement debuff remaining on the target. The third tree, Holy, does not modify the Judgement debuff, and instead buffs the caster.

In a case where multiple paladins are using the same Judgement on a single target, each consecutive Judgement will overwrite the previous Judgement on the target, including all additive effects. Here's an example:

Paladin A (protection paladin) casts Judgement of Light on Target X. Target X now attacks at 80% speed.
Paladin B (retribution paladin) casts Judgement of Light on Target X. Target X now attacks at 100% speed, but is 3% more likely to take critical damage.
Paladin C (holy paladin) casts Judgement of Light on Target X. Target X attacks at 100% speed with no additional chance to be critically hit.

This is why, in a raid environment, or even a party environment with multiple paladins, it is important that all paladins coordinate their judgements to maximize their effects.

PROTECTION

YOUR SEAL: Seal of Vengeance (Alliance) or Seal of Corruption (Horde)

Why: Seal of Vengeance/Corruption ultimately deals more damage than Seal of Righteousness, allowing you to keep more threat over multiple mobs for longer periods of time regardless of whether or not you are active or incapacitated. I also suspect that striking multiple mobs via Hammer of the Righteous has a chance to apply the debuff to all affected targets.

YOU JUDGE: Judgement of Light

Why: While it will be nerfed in a future patch, Judgment of Light currently provides additional threat from its healing effect.

The 3.1 patch will remove the threat effect from Judgment of Light. The preferred Judgement will probably be Judgement of Wisdom, as mana regeneration also causes threat and provides another source of mana.

HOLY

YOUR SEAL: Seal of Light with the Glyph of Seal of Light

Why: Glyph of Seal of Light increases your healing effectiveness by a flat 5% while your Seal of Light is active, providing a fully scalable bonus to your healing regardless of effective spellpower.

YOU JUDGE: Judgment of Justice by default. Judgement of Light if no protection paladin will be using it (2nd priority). Judgement of Wisdom if no retribution paladins or mana regeneration mechanics are available.

Why: Even though Blizzard has made it attractive for Holy Paladins to judge, it's still a difficult spell to work into a healer's repertoire. Judgement of Justice doesn't really affect its target, but it does trigger Seals of the Pure.

If no protection paladins are available to judge Judgement of Light, use that instead to reduce the strain on healers. Judge Light over Wisdom unless there is a real need to use Wisdom instead - that is, when the healers are running out of mana. (In my experience, this is usually signifies a problem with the DPS, so if you're judging Wisdom at all please consider ending your run after that fight.)

RETRIBUTION

YOUR SEAL: Seal of the Martyr (Alliance) or Seal of Blood (Horde)

Why: Seal of the Martyr does more damage than Seal of Command, procs more often and scales better with attack power. In a raiding environment, you should not take significant amounts of damage from the seal due to Judgement of Light and splash-heal effects (which will restore your mana as well).

YOU JUDGE: Judgement of Wisdom by default, Judgement of Light if no protection paladin is available

Why: Judgement of Wisdom provides mana over and above that provided by Judgements of the Wise and increases the retribution paladin's raid utility.

If no protection paladin is available, Judgement of Light is the next best judgement, and should probably be the default judgement after the 3.1 patch is implemented. Judgement of Light mitigates the damage caused by Seal of the Martyr and provides raid utility. However, it is also increases threat by large amounts, and should therefore be used with caution.

Raiding 25s, Last Weekend's Fail

2009-01-13T15:07:00.003+08:00

Once more, I didn't get to play a lot of World of Warcraft over the course of the last weekend as my wife and I went out of town with some friends to celebrate her birthday. On Saturday morning, however, GoV was able to make a Sartharion attempt with 22 raiders. I was lucky to be available for the run.

We got all 3 drakes down, but Sartharion himself was beyond our capabilities. We lacked healers, DPS, and most of all coordination - people were getting hit by Lava Walls despite repeated call-outs on Ventrilo. We had too many tanks as well, something that we urgently need to address if we want to progress.

Still, even though Sartharion managed to get the better of us this week, I have no doubts that we'll down him by next week, provided of course that we can muster up enough raiders to make another attempt.

After our Sartharion run the Asians re-formed for a Naxxramas attempt, this time with our Australian friends. We had to borrow a DPS (Fazzy) and a healer (Dhjey) from the guild at large. It was nice to step into Naxxramas with Damo, Elauris and Pinkmoon, although I have to admit that this was a hideously bad run. We couldn't even down Grand Widow Faerlina (Anub'rekhan we downed after four or five attempts).

Looking at our performance, it's pretty clear to me that we need to spend a bit more time beefing up our Aussie friends. Heroic runs are on the agenda this week, and plenty of them - we want everyone as ready for raiding as possible. I have no desire to repeat our poor showing once the weekend rolls around again.

The End of (Holi)days

2009-01-05T16:46:00.005+08:00

So I'm feeling much better now, thank you very much, and if I seem twitchy to you it's probably because I didn't really get my progression fix over the weekend. Sure, we downed a few bosses in Naxx, but that was to basically piss on the notion that we were finished as a raiding group. We didn't get to go back to finish the job and loot a few more epics.

If anything, the past couple of weeks have been more about connections than anything else. I got to hang out with Malago, who flew back home from Singapore for the holidays. I spent a little time with Rizal's friend Obispo and his cousin Calimdan, who are both awesome guys, and we can't wait till they hit 80. I got wasted at Rizal's wedding. I shared beers with Rothgarth and Silverwisp for Christmas.

And of course we sorted out some issues in the guild. I think the less said about that, the better, at least for now.

(Oh, and I ran into a superstar blogger in Dalaran - not that big a surprise, as Dalaran isn't a particularly large city, but still.)

I may have less than a thousand gold on my toons, but that doesn't mean I'm not rich. However much I cursed, scowled, frowned and Scrooged*, I still came away from the Yuletide break happier and therefore wealthier.

Now if I can only get my progression fix...

* Bah, humbug.

2009 begins!

2009-01-03T02:02:00.003+08:00

First off, if you are one of the people who left GoV over the holiday season, fuck you very much.

As you can see, we're still in Naxxramas raiding. This was me (Avierra) and Azmuth tanking, Amihan, Brutusk and Plikta healing, and Rothgarth, Rizal, Grantilis, Silvertip and Malago on DPS. And yes, that is Patchwerk down - we took him down along with the entire Arachnid wing and Noth the Plaguebringer. One afternoon, we basically took a team of Naxx virgins and wiped out every boss we downed before you left. We didn't one-shot many of them, but these five bosses took us just over three hours. And we did it with a minimum of fuss, no Guild drama, or unnecessary chatter on Ventrilo.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I've been quite irresponsible where this blog is concerned - I haven't been posting (or publishing my draft posts) as I was snowed under by work last December and by social demands over the holiday break. I haven't been able to articulate properly the joy that was two weeks of raiding into Naxxramas. Loot or no loot, it was great to be raiding again. (Well, I got some loot.)

Then on Christmas day, the Guild leader decided he was tired of GoV and /gquit, taking with him three of his closest friends. Two more followed shortly after - all level 80s with extensive raiding experience. They showed up in the ranks of Sovereign minutes later.

I wasn't around ASTIG when this happened to them (a large number defected to HP) so this is the first time I'm experiencing this kind of betrayal. If I sound bitter, it's because I am. As with many things about GoV, this Could Have Been Handled Much Better. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and the fallout is that many of my favorite people were left hurt and hanging without any kind of consolation.

So. That drama is still unfolding, and I doubt we've seen the last of it. The important thing is that we're still intact - the Invasion continues, and with more of us hitting 80 we're looking at more and more Invasion-led raids in the days to come.

Happy New Year, indeed.

WoW Update - 9 Dec 2008: The Second Day

2008-12-09T19:12:00.000+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 8 Dec 2008: First Raids

2008-12-08T17:24:00.002+08:00

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?

Raiding Minimums for Naxxramas-10

2008-12-06T20:34:00.002+08:00

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.

Out of Synch

2008-12-04T10:40:00.004+08:00

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.

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

2008-12-02T08:54:00.004+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 28 Nov 2008: Gearing Up For Naxx

2008-11-28T12:09:00.002+08:00

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

2008-11-28T10:43:00.002+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 24 Nov 2008: Home Stretch

2008-11-24T17:36:00.004+08:00

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.

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

2008-11-22T09:01:00.009+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 19 Nov 2008: Almost a Liveblog

2008-11-19T17:24:00.007+08:00

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

2008-11-19T14:53:00.009+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 18 Nov 2008: A Numbers Post

2008-11-18T11:54:00.002+08:00

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..

WoW Update - 14 Nov 2008: First Steps

2008-11-14T17:35:00.005+08:00

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.

Goodbye Outland, We'll Always Have Screenshots

2008-11-12T17:00:00.007+08:00

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

Healadin 3.0.3

2008-11-10T14:54:00.003+08:00

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

2008-11-10T14:41:00.004+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 30 Oct 2008; Capping the Weekend

2008-10-30T16:23:00.002+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 28 Oct 2008, The Weekend Concludes

2008-10-28T11:59:00.003+08:00

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

2008-10-28T11:08:00.003+08:00

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.

Holy Light crit for 20k??!

2008-10-25T16:57:00.003+08:00

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.

Rest in Peace, Ephoenix.

2008-10-24T10:39:00.002+08:00

The world just got a little bit darker.

Rest well, brave one.

WoW Update - 22 Oct 2008; A Quick Update

2008-10-22T17:46:00.001+08:00

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.

Avierra's 3.0.2 Build - Pally Mana Battery

2008-10-20T13:27:00.004+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 16 Oct 2008: 3.0 Hits

2008-10-15T23:56:00.002+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 14 Oct 2008: Preparing for 3.0

2008-10-14T17:31:00.003+08:00

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...

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

2008-09-23T23:52:00.005+08:00

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.

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.

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

2008-09-15T00:04:00.004+08:00

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.

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

2008-08-28T08:43:00.001+08:00

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!

WoW Update - 2 Aug 2008: Magtheridon Down!

2008-08-02T17:26:00.004+08:00

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!

WoW Update - 24 Jul 2008

2008-07-24T08:29:00.006+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 7 Jul 2008; Welcome Back To Penury

2008-07-07T11:59:00.003+08:00

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.

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

2008-06-29T23:56:00.004+08:00

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

2008-06-23T07:56:00.003+08:00

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

2008-06-17T18:58:00.002+08:00

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

2008-06-16T09:55:00.004+08:00

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

2008-06-10T14:26:00.002+08:00

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.

WoW Update - 26 May 2008: No Love for Healadins

2008-05-26T22:26:00.002+08:00

Bleeding Hollow sucks.

As I write this, I'm firmly convinced that my future does not lie in Bleeding Hollow; I've certainly said this before, but this time I might just fork over the $25 per toon required to get my characters to a server where I might be happier.

We have maybe four to six months until the expansion hits and ASTIG has no members online. Over the last weekend I've seen maybe a dozen log in. Doc's regular Karazhan runs have been suffering from a lack of members (also a lack of geared members, as the current raid group can't even down Prince any more). Chokulit's been organizing ZA runs, I understand. But beyond that, well, I guess it's time I kissed Avierra's title dreams goodbye.

But I have options.

Dragonblight is home to a few friends of mine who, I think, would be happy to see me transfer over. Same thing with Bloodhoof (they raid on Saturday mornings! Woot!) And thanks to a lucky run-in with a Filipino in AV, I'm told that Mannoroth also has a number of Filipino players.

So why haven't I done this yet? It's simple: ASTIG is the only Asian time raiding Guild on a non-Oceanic PVP server, Alliance side. If I transfer Avi and Frou, I'm going on a one-way trip.

I'm just not feeling the love right now. Bah.

Quick notes: Frou is at 374 LW (so boring to farm for the mats), Avierra bought her High Justicar's Legplates and slapped a Golden Spellthread on them.

I'm currently at 3700 gold and counting... so much left to farm.

WoW Update - ASTIG on Hiatus

2008-05-16T17:43:00.002+08:00

I've been farming over the weekend, but not very diligently. Too much Desktop Tower Defense on Kongregate and Friends for Sale. But I'm at around 3600 gold total now, which is very good. I expect to have enough for an epic flying mount by maybe next weekend.

I'm a little frustrated at how ASTIG suddenly seemed to have gone on hiatus. No more 25-man raids, and the only raid group that's moving isn't one I'm in... Chok's group has nearly cleared ZA. It makes me wonder whether or not we can kill Rage Winterchill in Hyjal -- I mean, ZA should be around Hyjal level, and Winterchill's supposed to be just a tank and spank fight. I'm absolutely certain we have more than 25 good raiders who are going to be more than up for the fight.

Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one who feels this way. My email to the three group heads either came back negative or didn't come back at all. I'm giving serious thought (again) to transferring off the server... although I may postpone doing so until after WOTLK comes out so I can have a Death Knight on Bleeding Hollow.

Last night Froufrou got into a Karazhan group set up by Larrygibb and Enishii. We cleared Attumen to Opera, saving Curator and the rest for tonight. While Froufrou didn't loot anything of note, she did hit Revered with the Violet Eye, which of course led to a new Violet Signet. And, better yet, it unlocked Pattern: Shadowprowler's Chestguard. Making the Chestguard put me at 373 Leatherworking and lessened the pressure on me to craft Primalstrike Vest.

But I'm still farming for mats for it. Kara tonight is going to be very good for me.

Froufrou is now KoS

2008-05-06T06:16:00.004+08:00

No real WoW update today - the server was ridiculously laggy last night, so I had to curtail my farming. I was able to get a Cobrahide Leg Armor done, though, which was my main goal last night. I'm at just under 2000 gold on Froufrou.

Here's why my beloved gnome rogue is now Kill on Sight:

That's right: it's a King's Defender. I picked it up after last night's Chess event as Supsop already had it.

Now to get my hands on a Sun Eater.

WoW Update - 5 May 2008, The Weekend That Was

2008-05-05T00:12:00.005+08:00

Just to recap: I filed a leave on May 2 to have a four-day weekend. Work's been a little stressful lately and I felt myself begin to burn out. I wanted to be able to spend some time playing WoW without being interrupted; my beautiful wife would be out of town the whole weekend, too.

From Thursday morning to Sunday evening I was on the computer for nearly 12 hours a day. Most of that time was spent doing dailies. I resolved to finally go after my epic mounts - the Cenarion War Hippogryph for Avierra and a Purple Riding Nether Ray for Froufrou - which will mean an outlay of more than 12,000 gold. As of week's end I am at nearly 3,000. I hope to get at least one epic mount in May and a second in July.

Thanks to a few crappy instance runs and a few lucky Supply drops, Avierra is at 82 badges. I'm torn between saving up for a Chestplate of Stoicism and splurging on a High Justicar's Legplates. If I buy the Chestplate I'll be a better tank on the rare occasions when I indulge my tankadin side. If I buy the Legplates I'll heal better, which is in line with my role as a raid main healer. At the moment I'm leaning towards the Chestplate. I'm doing quite well without the Legplates just yet.

Oh, and Avi finally looted her Libram of Souls Redeemed from Karazhan when she PUGged it on Thursday morning. Which means that she's officially all purpled out; all her healing gear is epic level, no exceptions. Woot!

And on an unrelated note, she had her first critical Lay on Hands the other night. LOH for 13k... brilliant.

On a ZA run the other night, Avi looted a Mask of Introspection. With a few gems, it turned out to be a moderate upgrade from the Justicebringer 2000 Specs, although the loss of a meta gem slot really hurts. Avi's mana pool and hit point pool are slightly bigger now, though, which is nice, and I've even managed to raise her +heal by a few points. Still, I've put the old specs in the bank just in case I ever get a shot at crafting the Justicebringer 3000 Specs.

Froufrou, meanwhile, took up most of my attention. I wanted her to exalt with the Shattered Sun Offensive for her first title... and so I present you:

Nice, huh? That's the orphan from the Children's Week event. The Draenei kid is already taller than the gnome. Bah.

Froufrou had a really good weekend. Doing 24 dailies takes only four hours on Frou while Avi can take almost six. Her Leatherworking is now at 371 and I'm seriously looking at crafting the Primal Intent set for her, as there are no easy to get leather chestpieces in Karazhan.

So tonight in Kara Froufrou was able to get herself into the final final bosses (doing crap dps, but that's the way it is when you're a mostly blued combat rogue with poor skills). She downed Prince and Netherspite for the first time and paid a repeat visit to the chess event. My crappy connection conked out on me during the Illhoof fight, though, so we had to leave Kara with Illhoof and Nightbane still at large.

Karazhan put her above 45 badges, which meant a new weapon: Swift Blade of Uncertainty. And she also walked out of Karazhan with Skulker's Greaves. As Nethercobra Leg Armor is expensive (500+ gold on the AH) I'll just use a Cobrahide Leg Armor to get by. The new pants have lower stamina than my old Nomad's Leggings, but they do offer me superior DPS, which I definitely want in a raid.

And that's it. I'm hopeful this new week will be great.

WoW Update - 28 Apr 2008, Two Weeks Gone

2008-04-28T07:33:00.003+08:00

Sorry, I've been busy for the past two weeks with work and a good bit of WoW. I haven't been raiding (much to our RL's dismay) but I did get to alt run Kara with Froufrou and PUG with Avierra at least once.

Since there's too much to recap let me just write in what's different today:

Froufrou - Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless,
Enchant Weapon: Mongoose on my Emerald Ripper, Leatherworking at 365, Shattered Sun Offensive Rep at 11000/21000 Revered, 38 Badges of Justice.

Avierra - Well...

She's currently in Prot spec and has 70 Badges of Justice. I'm considering farming 100 Badges for some Prot gear instead of more Holy gear since raid progression seems unlikely at this point.

More WoW-talk this week, or not, as the work is getting somewhat harder.

WoW Update - 17 April 2008

2008-04-17T15:22:00.003+08:00

Forgive my extended absence from this blog, but the truth is that I haven't been playing very much. World of Warcraft has taken a back seat to other things - work, family life, and the bits that come in between. I'm still heavily involved in raiding and occasionally farming on Bleeding Hollow, though.

In the past week and half Froufrou has run Heroic Shattered Halls (didn't finish, didn't loot anything but badges), Heroic Underbog (finished), and farmed QD. I'm quite anxious to get her into the first four bosses of Karazhan, if only to get her better gear to boost her DPS. Avierra, on the other hand, has hardly raided at all.

Other than that, there's not really much to say.

WoW Update - 10 Apr 2008, ASTIG is Epic Fail

2008-04-10T18:43:00.002+08:00

The best part about WoW last night was my running the dailies. I am not being sarcastic or facetious. I really mean it.

After three days of not doing dailies, I logged in to find Bleeding Hollow around 19% into Phase 3. Smith Hauthaa was out, sans her anvil, and there were three new Quel'danas dailies waiting for me.

I must say that farming these dailies as a holy Paladin is a real pain in the ass. Isorla concurs, adding that DPS classes have it much easier. The Quel'danas dailies took Avierra nearly two hours to complete. Froufrou finished them in forty-five minutes.

Avierra marched into Gruul's Lair with ASTIG, but downed only High King Maulgar. We simply had too many melee classes in the raid. Two rogues, five warriors and a feral druid meant that we would have no chance of downing Gruul. During Ground Slam the melee classes would smash into the ranged DPS and the healers. In the end we called it a night with the intention of finishing the instance the next evening.

ASTIG is currently going through so many problems and to be candid, I'm glad I'm not in it any more. I am happy to provide a different point of view if asked, and of course I am happy to raid with ASTIG, but I am really unwilling to return. It really upsets me, though, that my former Guildmates can't seem to work out their issues.

Anyway, Gruul dies tonight, assuming that we can put together a good raid.

WoW Update - 7 Apr 2008

2008-04-07T08:22:00.003+08:00

I'm blogging from the beach. How lame is that? I'll make this quick as there's a nice breakfast waiting for me in the dining area.

Avierra and Froufrou each managed to finish all their dailies on Friday and Saturday, which propelled Avierra to Revered with the Shattered Sun Offensive and Froufrou to Friendly. What sealed the deal was Froufrou running Magister's Terrace (and finishing it!) As usual, Froufrou died just before Kael'thas bit the dust. I really have to learn to play her better.

Froufrou the lootwhore picked up a Cloak of the Coming Night, Nightstrike, and best of all, a Phoenix Hatchling.

Avi, on the other hand, flubbed her Magtheridon's Lair raid. ASTIG failed to down Magtheridon - in an epic way, no less. As I've no wish to dwell on that bad experience, I won't set it down here. Let's just chalk it up to learning the learning curve and leave it at that.

WoW Update - 4 April 2008

2008-04-04T10:21:00.002+08:00

First off, the bad(?) news... no World of Warcraft for me this weekend. The Powers That Be have declared a long weekend (Monday is a national holiday, woot), so instead of spending hours in front of my computer thinking about getting drunk, I will actually be getting drunk at the beach.

Avierra's Shattered Sun reputation is now comfortably at 11k/12k Honored. By this evening, assuming I have some time to run dailies, I'll hit Revered and be extra happy. The completion of the portal event means an extra daily to do on Quel'danas, which is fantastic for both rep and cash.

But enough about Avierra... it's time to talk about Froufrou.

Last night Anyssa scheduled a Karazhan run, but she overbooked her healers. She offered to step back from the raid, but instead I removed Avierra and joined the raid as Froufrou.

I know I've brought up Froufrou in this blog before, but I've never gone into the history of my beloved gnome rogue. To start with, she wasn't really mine to begin with. In 2005 I was able to get my then-fiancee to join me in Azeroth. We got a second World of Warcraft account for her, and we both rolled toons that we leveled along with some other RL friends. Yz was among that 'batch' of toons, and is probably the only one still playing today. The others have since moved on from WoW.

At some point in the mid-thirties my fiancee found herself getting bored. Our friends had started to stray, so she asked me to level her character for her. So level Froufrou I did - taking it from level 34 to level 60 in around three months while my main, Avierra, was raiding Molten Core and Zul'gurub. When Froufrou hit 60, I gleefully told my (new) wife that her gnome was ready.

Of course, she never came back to play it. She had other things occupying her mind at that point.

So when Azeroth gave way to Outland, I found myself with two 60's to level. Avierra was my main and favored character; I took her to 70 with ease. And despite my having spent time on Froufrou, I wasn't so comfortable with her; it took me almost three months to get her the ten levels to 70.

Once I hit 70 with Froufrou, though, I farmed Consortium and Scryer reps, aiming for the epic daggers Guile of Khoraazi and Retainer's Blade. And then I stopped. Froufrou became my farming toon while Avierra became my raiding toon. Before I took my last hiatus I had almost 4000 gold on Froufrou... and around 300 on Avierra. Frou has since exalted with the Skyguard and is revered with Ogri'la... but is mostly just honored in the instance factions.

I've since run Karazhan once with Froufrou.

So last night I was pseudo-RL while Anyssa took it easy. We downed Attumen, Moroes, Maiden and the Opera Event (crone). Froufrou walked away with 7 Badges of Justice, Emerald Ripper (to replace Guile of Khoraazi), and the Zierhut's Lost Treads. Not bad for a noob rogue who needs to learn to raid.

I logged out with a big smile on my face and a sense that I'd be raiding with Froufrou again. It's nice to have something else to do in a raid besides heal.

WoW Update - 3 April 2008

2008-04-03T18:35:00.003+08:00

We had a Gruul's Lair run last night, one of maybe 3 or 4 more that ASTIG will do before removing it from the schedule of raids. I know people are excited about running Black Temple and Hyjal, but I'm not really very optimistic about the prospect of running these instances with ASTIG at the moment. Maybe I'm just burning out as a raider; God knows that Supsop, Anyssa and Isorla are already kind of burned out.

(If not for the badges, I wouldn't really be running Karazhan at all. The only things I still want from there are the Libram of Souls Redeemed and Pauldrons of the Justice Seeker, and even those aren't critical upgrades since I'm quite happy with my Merciless Gladiator's Ornamented Spaulders and can purchase a Libram of Mending.)

Gruul's Lair went by pretty quickly; there were a lot of dead raiders, but there were also a lot of dead ogres after the dust cleared. I wasn't healing so well, but maybe that was because I was on the main tank. Naturally I was overhealing a lot.

Not having any ASTIG DKP, I sat out the looting. I picked up my 5 Badges, bringing Avierra to 145. Only 30 more to go before I start to feel comfortable - I've decided to pick up both the Ecclesiastical Cuirass and the High Justicar's Legplates. I know that I can pick up the legplates right now and that I don't have to wait for the Shattered Sun badge vendor, but I'd rather not spend badges I don't have as I want the chestpiece quite badly.

After the run, I respecced to prot and walked into Magister's Terrace with Nataliandrea (resto shaman), Herri, Larrygibb and Arindul (hunter). We finally downed Kael'thas, unlocking Heroic Magister's Terrace for us and giving us a nice amount of reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive. At this moment, Avierra is at 8.8k Honored, which means I have just over 22k rep to go until Avi hits Exalted.

I didn't complete all my SSO dailies yesterday as I was quite sleepy already, but the Magister's Terrace run more than made up for it. I'll probably hit Revered this weekend. And if the dailies continue to give reputation all the way till Exalted, it shouldn't take too much time to exalt with the Shattered Sun Offensive.

Yesterday, My Enemy

2008-04-02T15:02:00.003+08:00

While questing on the Isle of Quel'danas yesterday I caught the attention of an Orc Warrior. As I play a Human Paladin, you can imagine that I was not particularly happy about this development. He hadn't attacked me yet, so I just made sure I was healed up and ready for a fight. I switched to Retribution Aura and braced myself.

Instead of charging into me, he threw me a /wave. Happy to have been spared an unwelcome gank, I /waved back. He /flirted. I /flirted back.

And so it went. I ran into him a couple more times as I was turning in quests, and each time we would /wave and /flirt and move along. I didn't think anything more of it until I got a tell from a level 40 human pally.

It turns out that the pally was my new friend's alt - probably on a second account, as Bleeding Hollow is a PVP server. He asked me if I remembered him from pre-TBC; I didn't. He said that he'd run into me on the boat to Ratchet before and that he'd ganked me then. And then he said that he remembered running into me in WPL and ganking me again... and I was so angry I searched the whole zone for him to exact revenge.

To be honest, I don't really remember. It certainly sounds like something I would do. I hate being ganked. Anyone who was a paladin pre-TBC no doubt felt the same. I looked up to paladins like Jessicalight who were consistently at the top of the PVP rankings, but I had no clue how to PVP as a paladin (not that I've got much of a clue today).

And to be honest again, I don't really remember the names of the people who gank me. I just don't like dwelling on these things. I remember Bocarwa, but that's because he became one of Anyssa's friends after he'd ganked her maybe a dozen times. But Necro-whatever, who tried to gank me in Hellfire Peninsula the other day, and who really irritated the Alliance guys in Quel'danas... I won't really remember him much. Because a few months down the line there'll be another bored asshat trying to ruin my day.

I finished up my quests and said goodbye to my new friend. It's nice to feel remembered. Avierra's been on Bleeding Hollow for years and I hadn't realized how much like home it's become. I'm probably one of the oldest characters on the server and I still remember some of the old Guilds that used to dominate Bleeding Hollow. I remember the warm fuzzy feeling of coming back to BH after a four-month hiatus and getting tells from people in Shattrath welcoming me back. That was a good feeling. I should try to hold on to that.

I tried to /friend my new Horde buddy, but unfortunately Blizzard doesn't allow cross-faction friends. Pfft. Typical Blizzard. I wonder how Thrall and Jaina keep in touch.

WoW Update - 1 Apr 2008

2008-04-01T00:31:00.002+08:00

It was a good day for WoW. Working from home meant that I had access to the dailies, which of course I was happy to be able to do. I've no idea how I'm going to do them tomorrow - I'll probably have to wake up early on Wednesday morning to do even the Shattered Sun dailies - but it's only for, what, a month? Bleeding Hollow is progressing pretty slowly from all accounts.

By the time 9 pm rolled around, I was happily at 3000+/12000 Honored with the Shattered Sun Offensive. Just 30,000 more rep to go - and I think that's doable, especially if I can spam Magister's Terrace next weekend.

But Karazhan was a good run. We didn't get to down a lot of bosses. Three wipes on Nightbane meant we were going to run short of time. But Avi looted a lot, and that's what counts...

By the end of the run we'd downed Nightbane (2 Badges of Justice), Illhoof (2 Badges, Breastplate of the Lightbinder), Aran (2 Badges, Pendant of the Violet Eye) and finished Chess (2 Badges, Legplates of the Innocent).

WoW Update - 31 Mar 2008

2008-03-31T20:50:00.002+08:00

I had a lot of time to play WoW yesterday, which was good, because there was a lot I needed to do. Mostly they involved Shattered Sun dailies, which I've been fairly religious in doing. I'm hoping to be Exalted before Phase 4 arrives so that I can have the Shattered Sun title.

At 2 pm Anyssa asked me to run Heroic Shattered Halls as a tank. I happily obliged, and spent most of the rest of the afternoon and evening in instances. Here's the breakdown:

1. Avierra (protection specced) - Heroic Shattered Halls with ASTIG (Supsop, Anyssa, Xahmyob (mage), Sagrado (shadow priest)). Downed 4 bosses, looted 4 Badges of Justice. Completed Trials of the Naaru: Mercy.

2. Avierra (protection specced) - Heroic Shadow Labyrinth with ASTIG (Kalabog, Anyssa, Blinquemasta (warlock), Xahmyob). Downed 4 bosses, looted 4 Badges of Justice and Shockwave Truncheon. Completed Trials of the Naaru: Strength.

3. Avierra (holy specced) - Karazhan with ASTIG. Downed 5 bosses, looted 9 Badges of Justice and Vambraces of Courage. This was my first run as RL... it felt so strange.

As interested as I am in other epic gear, I kind of like the Shockwave Truncheon. I think I'll hang on to it even after I've upgraded past it.

Avierra now has 132 Badges.

WoW Update - 30 Mar 2008

2008-03-30T00:09:00.002+08:00

Today was a good day for WoW. I logged in at around 9 am to start my dailies. And there were so many of them! Bleeding Hollow is midway through Phase 2 of the Shattered Sun Offensive and naturally there were a lot of quests to do.

It took me three hours to finish fifteen daily quests. Fifteen! I walked away around 200g richer; unfortunately, by the end of the day, it was all gone.

Just after lunch, I ran Heroic Mech again with Anyssa, Kalabog, Herri and Larrygibb. This time, I ran it as tank - my first instance as a protection paladin. I hit Exalted with the Sha'tar right after Mechano-lord Capacitus. Once we got back to Shattrath I picked up my Crest of the Sha'tar and Gavel of Pure Light.

Around an hour later, I joined Supsop, Anyssa, Payat (rogue) and Herri for Heroic Shattered Halls. We almost completed it in time, but unfortunately Anyssa's Internet connection was acting up. She disconnected twice during consecutive Bladefist attempts; during the third attempt, we wiped when Bladefist charged and whirlwinded her.

I was dragged in for a Magtheridon's Lair attempt at around 10 pm, but I left after the first attempt as my wife wanted us to spend some time together. It also means that right now, Avierra is Holy; I'll be doing dailies later as a Holy pally. And I need to farm; right now I have just 27 gold on Avierra.

At the moment she's also got 112 Badges of Justice (I spent 15 on a Libram of Repentance). I was considering saving up for a Gavel of Naaru Blessings (150 badges) but instead I think I'll just spend badges on a Ecclesiastical Cuirass (100 badges) - the upgrade is greater, plus I have an epic weapon now anyway.

WoW Update - 28 Mar 2008

2008-03-28T15:43:00.003+08:00

Last night was a pretty good night for Avierra. I logged in at around 9 pm and did a couple of Shattered Sun dailies. I cleaned out the auction house and my bank alts putting together the mats in the shopping list I published yesterday (since removed from this blog due to bad formatting). Then Anyssa sent me an invite for Magtheridon's Lair.

By 10 pm, most of the raid had materialized, and I figured that this would be a good run. We had nine healers, but that was ok. Everyone brought flasks and consumables. We headed to the instance and waited.

And waited and waited and waited. People were going afk on bio breaks and generally needed to be taught the instance. It was so frustrating. By the time we were ready to start, I had only ten minutes left on my Brilliant Mana Oil.

Eight wipes later the frustration reached boiling point. It wasn't that the instance was hard. As a matter of fact, it had been nerfed in the 2.4 patch. It was that people were making mistakes. The healers (myself included) messed up one attempt by failing to keep the main tank up after the first blast wave.

And the DPS... oh my God, the DPS. At least four wipes came from one of the DPS failing to click on their cube at the proper time.

We called it quits at close to 1 am. I was sleepy but determined: I would exalt with the Sha'tar that night. I sent a tell to Isorla, who was on an alt, and we put together a Heroic Mech group. Along with us for the ride were Larrygibb (a warlock), Kalabog (also a warlock) and Anyssa. Yeah, we had 2 healers and 2 warlocks. But it was Heroic Mech, so we figured it would be an easy, short run.

It was easy - so easy that we basically just laughed our way through the instance. We needed to de-stress after the pathetic Mag run we'd just botched. We wiped once when we overpulled, but otherwise we breezed through the instance pretty quickly.

So Avierra came out one Large Prismatic Shard, one Primal Nether, and four Badges of Justice richer. But not, sadly, exalted: she's just over 1k rep shy of Sha'tari exaltation.

But one Primal Nether! That means Tankatronic Goggles, which is known far and wide for its sheer tankadin goodness.

Isorla helped me out by enchanting my chestpiece after that. I guess I'm farming engineering mats later today; at least, that's what I'd like to do. That's if I'm not out getting a beer to celebrate.

It's been a long, rough week, after all. Azeroth can wait.

WoW Update - 27 Mar 2008

2008-03-27T17:34:00.001+08:00

I logged in last night expecting either a Magtheridon's Lair run or a lot of Magister's Terrace spamming. In the end it was the latter - Supsop cancelled the planned run because of instance lag. So Isorla, Biancandrea (Doc's Retri pally), Herri, Yz and I grouped up to run Magister's Terrace.

For those of you unfortunate enough not to have run this yet, well, it's a hard instance. It's as much a pain in the ass as Shadow Labyrinth was when the expansion first hit the scene. There are trash pulls of four to six mobs; if your group can get past those, then there are boss fights that are harder than they originally seemed.

Or maybe I've just gotten spoiled with ASTIG instance runs and the presence of well-geared raiders. Biancandrea, while mostly epicced out with S1 gear, was still sporting greens. Yz, who had barely instanced since hitting 70, was still in mostly below-level blues and some greens.

The first boss took a while to kill. The second boss wiped us twice before we figured out a strategy to kill it - namely, having Yz put Dampen Magic on all of us except the tank so we'd take less damage from the Pure Magic mobs he summoned. The third boss we one-shotted, although we didn't kill her cleanly, Yz having died early in the boss fight.

Kael'thas was ridiculously hard. We wiped around a dozen times. We left the instance to repair and then came back to wipe again.

There were a lot of things working against us - bad class composition (three pallies), undergeared players (Yz, Bianca, even myself), and a boss fight that makes a pally healer weep in frustration. I just couldn't throw out heals fast enough in phase 2 of the Kael'thas fight. Often Yz would die early in the second phase, as he just didn't have enough HP.

We called it a night at 1:30 in the morning. I didn't get to do any dailies - Bleeding Hollow's 44% into Phase 1 so far - and I didn't get to kill Kael'thas.

After a lot of discussion with Isorla and Anyssa, I'll be respeccing this weekend to protection just to have a shot at finishing Magister's Terrace. There's no way I can heal through that instance alone, even with the gear I've currently got.

To help me prepare for a respec, I've gotten Herri and Isorla to agree to a Heroic Mech run tonight. I'm one Heroic Mech run away from exalting with the Sha'tar, which will in turn give me the Crest of the Sha'tar. I'll stick my gearing thoughts in another post so that I can refer to it at leisure; in the meantime I just want to crawl under my desk and fall asleep.

Sigh. Progression hurts.

WoW Update - 25 Mar 2008, New Patch Goodness

2008-03-26T14:43:00.003+08:00

Avierra didn't do much on the 24th. Just had a really bad Botanica run, bringing her up to around 17500/21000 Revered with the Sha'tar. More on that in another post, but the real meat of this post should be the 2.4 patch.

As the patch maintenance ended at around 3 am today, I wasn't expecting to get to play WoW till this evening. But at around 5 am, our dogs woke me up by barking loudly and scrambling at the door to get out. I groggily headed downstairs to the PC to start my add-on downloads, fully expecting to get back to bed in a few minutes' time.

On impulse, I started up WoW -- and the rest, as they say, is history.

I brought Avierra and Froufrou up to the new island as soon as I could to start with the dailies. There were so many people there, an echo of expansion day. Avierra was ganked just once by a pair of enterprising rogues, but she took one of them down (surprising me with a Honor Kill: Warlord notice) with Retribution Aura and Consecrate.

The new island is a real pain in the ass for a paladin. The constant mana burn and pressure to keep moving, lest one get ganked, means that Avi was not once at full mana while she was farming. I had a couple of invites to run Magister's Terrace, but I declined them, as I still intended to sleep after doing the dailies.

Froufrou, on the other hand, had a ball. No one tried to gank her. Froufrou finished the dailies in half the time Avierra took. I parked both toons and logged out. When I get home this evening I will do the dailies again.

There were a couple of idiots in general who kept asking where the new badge vendor was - clearly, not everyone who plays WoW enjoys checking out WoW Insider and WoWWiki. And the roving gank squads were very annoying. Other than that, things seemed to be moving on at a good pace. When I logged in at 5 am, the server progression to unlock the second stage was already at 6%. When I logged out at close to 6 am, the server was at 9%. By the time I log in this afternoon I won't be surprised to find us at second or even third stage.

Since Isorla's PC is down, I might respec this weekend to prot to spam Magister's Terrace for reputation. I will see about dragging Anyssa in to heal for me; I'm sure DPS won't be that much of an issue. I'll also bring Froufrou in for some instance runs; I want the title for her at least ("Froufrou of the Shattered Sun", how nice). Avierra already has the Master Sergeant title, after all, and is quite likely to get the Champion of the Naaru title soon.

WoW Update - 24 Mar 2008

2008-03-24T13:17:00.002+08:00

In an effort to keep domestic peace, I didn't play much WoW today, forgoing even my dailies. I turned down two instance run invites to finish off some quests and to craft a Goblin Rocket Launcher - an utterly necessary trinket for my (still-pending) respec to Protection.

Nothing much more to report beyond that I finally got my Overlord's Helmet of Second Sight, replacing my last green in my "farming" gear. Good-bye, Ash-Covered Helm. I won't miss you too badly.

WoW Update - 22 Mar 2008

2008-03-23T17:35:00.002+08:00

More farming today, with two very drawn-out and ultimately aborted runs.

1. Avierra - Heroic Botanica (pugged). Downed 2 bosses, looted 2 Badges of Justice. Avierra's badges at 115. Left group 2 hours into the instance, I'll write about that later.

2. Avierra - Heroic Shadow Labyrinth (with ASTIG). Downed 1 boss, looted 1 Badge of Justice. Left group after 2 hours due to prior commitments.

There's more to tell but that deserves its own post. Avierra has 116 Badges now. 84 to go and I'll have a second badge epic.

WoW Update - 21 Mar 2008

2008-03-22T15:15:00.002+08:00

We're on Easter Break (called Holy Week here in the Philippines) so I have a lot of free time to play WoW.

I got into a Heroic Slave Pens PUG pretty early in the day.

Avierra - Heroic Slave Pens (pugged). 3 bosses downed, 3 Badges of Justice looted. Also picked up the SSC attunement quest.

I spent the rest of the day farming primals and gold. Thanks to Waven, Yz, Doc and Herri, Avierra is now Ogri'la enabled, which means a little extra gold on days that I can afford to spend time farming. From under 100 gold Avi is now up to 350+.

We ran Zul'Aman last night as well and downed the bear boss. We didn't have the right group (undergeared characters, etc.) to down a second so we called it quits at midnight.

As of last count, Avierra is now at 113 Badges of Justice.

WoW Update - 20 Mar 2008

2008-03-21T12:44:00.002+08:00

Quick Kara run last night to finish off the last few bosses. We got them all.

Avierra - Karazhan (Supsop's group). Downed Curator, Illhoof, Aran, Netherspite, Chess and Prince. Looted 13 Badges and Gilded Thorium Cloak.

That puts Avi up to 109 Badges, enough for Ecclesiastical Cuirass. Time to work on badges for Greaves of Pacification.

WoW Update - 19 Mar 2008

2008-03-20T20:27:00.003+08:00

After a brief hiatus, I'm back. We ran Karazhan last night to farm badges; once more I wound up looting lots of gear.

Avierra - Karazhan (Supsop's group) - Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, BBW, and Nightbane. Looted Eternium Greathelm, Red Riding Hood's Cloak, and Barbed Choker of Discipline. Also looted 9 badges - Avierra's now at 96.

4 to go till Ecclesiastical Cuirass. Woot!

Whoops, No WoW After All

2008-03-15T12:17:00.003+08:00

At 7 am I received a text message informing me that my grandmother had passed away. I'll probably be at the wake in my free hours until the funeral (Wednesday morning), so it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to play WoW this weekend.

WoW Update - 15 Mar 2008

2008-03-15T12:13:00.004+08:00

No Mag run tonight; Supsop announced it as a "free night", which of course meant Karazhan. Two Kara groups formed tonight. Unfortunately, I wasn't in either of them.

With Isorla back in action, the plan was to run heroic Shattered Halls to complete Trials of the Naaru: Mercy. Anyssa gracefully stepped aside to allow me to run it with Isorla, as she was busy helping Supsop get his video card problems under control. Thanks to an ASTIG warlock, Magenta, we were able to put together a group: Isorla as tank, me as healer, and Magenta, Silencioso (rogue), and Jopaxz (hunter) as DPS.

We wiped a little too often to make the timer, but by the end of the run we were quite satisfied with the results. We'd gotten the timing of the gauntlet down pat. We didn't get to finish heroic Shattered Halls, but we would have an easier time of it next run.

Two bosses down for Avierra, giving her 87 badges. I'll probably run Kara this weekend to farm more.

WoW Update - 14 Mar 2008

2008-03-14T12:07:00.002+08:00

This update comes kind of late, I know. Bear with me; I've been busy with non-WoW things.

The raid formed by 9:30; a little late, but still reasonable. We started clearing trash by close to 10 pm.

The objective was simple: get to Phase 2 and kill all five channelers. We didn't expect to down Magtheridon on the first night. We just needed the experience.

So in we went, and by the tenth attempt we'd gotten it. All five channelers down. Of course, by then, close to a fifth of the raid was dead.

The next run is on Saturday night. We'll see if we can down all five without losing anyone. I think the next milestone after that is to get Mag down to 32% without anyone dying.

Total repair bill was around 35 gold, but it was definitely worth it.

WoW Update - 13 March 2008

2008-03-13T16:43:00.003+08:00

I regret to report that I've been playing WoW for the past couple of days with a dearth of results to show for it. Avierra has just five Fel Armaments; Froufrou has just a little more gold. This is the part of life on WoW that I hate - the constant farming for gold and materials to get a better enchant or to replenish gold used up in repairs or consumables.

One of the principles they drilled into me in management training is that you must focus on the best and highest use of your limited resources; that is, you must make use of your time in the way that best helps you achieve your goals. That said, my time has most definitely not been spent in the best and highest way. I've been struggling to farm Stratholme without dying; so far, for about an hour's work I've generated 2 gold in profit. Not the best at all.

Last night was another disappointment. ASTIG moved into Magtherridon's Lair. To be fair to our raiders, most of them were ready for the raid. The few who weren't, though, really disappointed me. Add to that the crippling lag that most of our raiders experienced last night, which forced us to abort the raid after clearing the trash leading up to Mag himself.

We're set to run again tonight. Hopefully Blizzard has fixed whatever's wrong with the server and we can finally get some attempts in. I've no illusions that we can down Magtherridon on our first try, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to down him in the next week or so.

WoW Update - 11 Mar 2008

2008-03-11T02:45:00.004+08:00

Well, today was neither here nor there. I was expecting to log in to WoW and run Heroic Shattered Halls with Isorla, but he didn't answer my text messages today. This isn't new - he's as moody as I am, and vanishes oftener than a rogue with unlimited flash powder.

It also meant that I wouldn't be running Heroic SH. Anyssa and Supsop put a group together to run it in preparation for Mag on Wednesday night. (They didn't make it, sadly, as someone disconnected with 30 minutes left on the timer.)

Here's the thing: of the Trials of the Naaru quests, I have to run Heroic SH and Heroic SL to be ready for Mag.

I am just not willing to run them without a paladin tank. Preferably Isorla.

There's a good bit of arrogance behind that. I'm a pretty damn good healer. In half purples and blues I can outheal epicced-out priests. I expect my tanks to be great; it's why I am careful about which PUGs I join.

Isorla, besides being my buddy, is a great paladin tank. And great paladin tanks make heroic instances easy to run.

So I filled up my evening with other things: I farmed gold in Strat (hard!), farmed another Fel Armament with Froufrou, and played in a few arena matches (all but one lost). Then I started to reconsider respeccing.

If Isorla is taking an extended leave of absence from the game, I might be better off respeccing to protection to run heroic Shadow Labyrinth and heroic Shattered Halls. At least I know I'll be able to get a good healer (Anyssa) for my runs.

To do that, I'll have to do the following:

1) Exalt with the Sha'tar for the Crest of the Sha'tar. I'd better pick up a couple of Solid Stars of Elune for it, too. And an Enchant Shield - Major Stamina.
2) Craft a Goblin Rocket Launcher to fill up my second trinket slot.
3) Farm mats for an Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health, Enchant Bracer - Fortitude, Enchant Boots - Fortitude, among others.
4) Purchase at least four Enduring Talasites to fix my gems.
5) Purchase a Libram of Repentance. (boo!)

If I can get these done, I'll have 491 Defense, with 57.91% avoidance (almost 88% with HS up), and around 12k HP. That should be more than enough for heroics.

The People In My Neighborhood

2008-03-11T01:44:00.005+08:00

It goes without saying that I don't play WoW alone.

I thought I'd write a little bit about the people I spend online time with. It's no surprise to me that they're also people I enjoy spending offline time with (even though it's been perhaps two months since we've hung out together.) Without them, Azeroth/Outland would be far less interesting.

I know I've mentioned Anyssa previously. She came into the game relatively late into classic WoW and immediately rolled a dwarf priest. She's famous for not having any other alts (not really true, but it's mostly true). She's never specced shadow, either. We used to joke that she turned SM into her favorite department store, she was in there so much.

She's living proof that all it takes is a girl's voice on Vent to make most World of Warcraft players go nuts. I've seen guys hit on her on /1 and /2 while killing time in Shattrath. I've seen Horde hit on her - and we're on a PVP server!

She's also one of our best healers. We constantly chide her for being partly afk during raids - she's usually got the TV on or something like that - but more often than not, she's at the top of the healing meters. Tanks beware, though... she's been known to healbomb tanks she feuds with, just to make them wake up and pay attention.

Isorla is perhaps the friend I'm closest to who plays WoW on a regular basis. Actually, he's got five toons at level 70 - the product of an extended vacation in front of his computer. Of his toons, I'm the most attached to Isorla. He was once a Holy Paladin, but lately he's shifted focus to being a Protection Paladin. He claims that he did this on the strength of Anyssa's and my recommendations, but we know better. After all, he's spent months acquiring every tank drop from Karazhan in addition to his healing gear.

We kind of leveled up together when the expansion came out. Anyssa, Isorla (on his hunter, Rothgarth) and I would run instances together... up until we hit level 68. At that point we knew we were doomed to split up, as our DPS guys just weren't geared enough to allow two healers to be in one group. Thanks to some pretty bad scheduling, we weren't able to run Karazhan together until fairly recently. Now that we're all together again, though, we're looking at powering our way to Serpentshrine Cavern and beyond.

Up until Isorla respecced into protection, we were a pretty solid healing clique in ASTIG. Offline, we talk about healing strategies and raid composition. Online, we talk about loot. We're funny like that.

Supsop is the only one of our buddies who we didn't know offline before WoW. He's currently Guild leader of ASTIG, one of the Guild's Raid Leaders and a main tank, to boot; how he handles the stress is beyond me. He and Anyssa usually team up to run dailies and instances. It's a perfect symbiosis: as a tank, he needs a healer, while naturally a healer works best with a tank. I don't get to run instances with him very often anymore, as he partners with Anyssa most often. Every once in a while, though, I'll get on Froufrou so we can all be together in one party.

Every so often Supsop comes back to Manila from Singapore, where he's based. When he comes into town we set aside WoW for a little while to share a beer and look at pretty girls.

My RL buddy Yz doesn't get a lot of mentions on this blog; that's because his game time has, in recent years, been curtailed by a pretty hectic work schedule. When he's online, though, things pick up; he's a funny, funny guy and he makes our private chat come alive. His gnome mage Yz hasn't even set foot in Karazhan, despite having been attuned for months. We're just waiting for the day he's free enough to run instances with us again.

Herri is another buddy I haven't brought up enough. He ranks pretty high on our server's list of hunters for sheer attack power. We PVP together (I'm in a 5-man team with him) and occasionally run Kara together. The biggest obstacle to us getting more playtime together is his work shift; he's perennially got the night shift and it means he can't play WoW easily.

There is no truth to the rumor that he opened a hole in his company's firewall so he could play WoW from the office. None whatsoever.

Last but not least is "Doc". That isn't his toon's name; it's what we call him since he's really a doctor. We've been friends since our college days, but we drifted a bit since he went into medical school after graduation. WoW reconnected us.

Since he games from home and clinic (while waiting for patients) he's managed to level up four toons. He alternates between his shaman and his mage for raiding, although his warrior is always available to tank. Lately he's taken to PVP with a retri pally.

I know I've left out perhaps ten to twelve other people who I consider friends but don't blog about much. They've made WoW a really great experience for me, and they were the real turning point in my decision to stay on Bleeding Hollow.

WoW Update - 9 Mar 2008

2008-03-10T18:38:00.002+08:00

Farmed 2 more Fel Armaments with Froufrou again, bringing Avi's total up to 4 - halfway there! Then, after doing Skettis dailies, I logged out Frou to bring on Avi.

Which led to a nice, quick run of Heroic Steamvaults.

1. Avierra - Heroic Steamvaults (Waven (Prot Warrior), Mitayka (Fire Mage), Daynah (Mage), and Bakekang (Warlock). 3 bosses downed, 3 badges looted (total: 85). Also looted Breastplate of the Righteous, and of course Kalithresh's Trident.

Signed up for Mag's Lair right after that. That happens Wednesday night.

WoW Update - 7 Mar 2008

2008-03-08T04:04:00.003+08:00

Nothing much to report; I just logged in with Froufrou to farm gold. The wife wanted some downtime together so I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time for any WoW. I walked away with around 30 gold and a Fel Armament.

No WoW this weekend, as I'll be in Baguio getting away from the world.

WoW Update - 5 March 2008

2008-03-06T09:25:00.003+08:00

I was determined to log in early last night so I could do a little farming before any instance runs. I was online and farming gold by 8 pm, which was good - I figured that I'd have an hour before we put together a 5-man group. The heroic daily was Heroic Arcatraz, which boded well - it was an instance we knew how to run effectively.

What I hadn't counted on was that (a) Supsop/Kala was on night shift and thus unable to join us, and (b) Isorla was studying for a certification exam, which meant we would not have a tank. Anyssa found out that Lylanna, a Feral Druid and one of two Druid tanks in the Guild, would be online by 10 pm, so we put together a group and waited.

10 pm arrived and Lylanna logged in. We started our run by 10:30 thanks to a bit of running around; someone needed to kill an elite, then it turns out it wasn't necessary after all. Then bad things started to happen: it turns out Lyl hadn't run Arc in a while and didn't remember the pulls or the strats, and our warlock hadn't run Arc at all! Our mage and warlock kept pulling aggro off the tank, and lots of little things kept the run from proceeding smoothly.

By 11 pm we hadn't even taken down the first boss. We had wiped perhaps three times so far. There wasn't a whole lot of time left, as we had an hour before heroic reset.

So we skipped the first boss and proceeded to the next two. We killed them both with twenty minutes to spare. Then we went back and killed the first boss.

Avierra looted Rubium War-girdle and three badges, bringing her to 82 - but how unsatisfying!