WoW Update - 16 Jun 2008, Keeping At It

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

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

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

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

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

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

WoW Update - 10 Jun 2008, New Server Love

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

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

So.

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

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

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

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

Looks like I've found a home on Bloodhoof.

WoW Update - 26 May 2008: No Love for Healadins

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

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

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

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

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.