Saturday, May 31, 2008

Link: Paladin Solos Onyxia

Last week, a video surfaced showing a Druid, Serennia, soloing Onyxia. There was some controversy as to whether this was actually a 'solo' kill since a hunter was inside the instance at the same time.

Last night during our MC run, Aeth told me about a Paladin, Par, doing the same thing, only this time truly solo. The video is really long, nearly 2 hours, but its a legit kill. He said the first time he did it, which wasn't recorded, took him over 3 hours. Crazy.

I love to see things like this. I have perfected the 45-Minute Baron Run, tried ZG solo, and so on. I am actually looking forward to WotLK, so I can try things like MC solo.

Screencap: Back to Molten Core!


Tonight, the Keepers along with 3 other guilds banded together and took down MC with a rotating cast of 18-20 toons. There was an early wipe (total mistake on my part), otherwise it was smooth sailing all the way through. I ended up getting 3 pieces of the Lawbringer set, including my shoulders. I also got the Drillborer Disk, which still has the coolest shield animation of any in the game.

Hawtas' rogue, Ginsu [60 Rogue] also got pimped out with two epic daggers and two pieces of Tier 1. There was a lot of lock and hunter stuff tonight too.

Once we got to Rags, it was pretty much open and shut. Our DPS took him down so fast, he didn't even have time to bring in his adds. It was great fun, and we had a blast with our allies.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Raid Night: Zul'Aman

Last night, we went into Zul'Aman again. We were just running in to fight Nalorakk, when the timer ran out. We should have the Bear boss down on Thursday by the timer. That will be a great success for us in my opinion. Aeth got the Mask of Introspection for his healing set, and might I say, this is a wild looking helm.

We had some trouble with the Eagle boss again this week. It seems like this guy is feast or famine for us, but when we did get him down after the second gauntlet run everyone seemed to get it. While I say he is on farm, its annoying to wipe on him. I picked up Bloodstained Elven Battlevest for my dps set.

We made our way to the Lynx boss with only a couple of wipes, and tried him three times. Twice he was pulled accidentally by healers, and the middle time we had some other healing problems which caused me to go down quickly. The boss has a big Saber Lash which does 12K-18K damage, but splits it between the two tanks. It seemed like I kept eating the full lash. Our off-tank was in position correctly, and he took a full lash as well during the second attempt. I am not sure we can do anything else about it, other than to get Isbaern's health up above 18K.

We got the first two bosses down now, we just need to start working on getting the trash pulls on the way to them down. Once we do that, we will have a better chance of having more shots on Lynx. Since we started ZA, we have faced the Lynx 7 times with no luck.

Monday, May 26, 2008

WotLK Alpha Leaks Part 1

This weekend, a version of the Alpha client for Wrath of the Lich King was accidently released, and boy is Blizzard pissed. Doing a Google search for the information, after hearing about it on The Instance, left me with a bunch of dead links and "Blizzard said, 'Stop That!'" posts I was frustrated. Then I came across WotLK Information Wiki.

NOTE: I don't expect to get a C&D from Blizzard, but the links in this post may not work much farther past the time this post was made. Be warned.

NOTE 2: SPOILER WARNING! This post will be full of WotLK spoilers. If you don't want to know whats coming up in the new expansion, outside of what Blizzard spoon feeds you, then I ask that you move on to the next thread. SPOILER WARNING!

First up, is a great video of some awesome shots of the towns and scenery from WotLK. I like the light effects from the lighthouses. Here is another great video from Caverns of Time: Stratholm. This place looks really cool, and I am all for adding new content to old dungeon hubs like CoT. I plan on doing a whole Deathknight column soon, so I will save my comments about the talents and spells, but I did want to dive into the juicy bits.

Warrior Spells and Talents: I have only leveled a warrior to 36, so I am not the best judge of what is good or bad here. I do like Trauma though, as I do like bleed effects. Titan's Grip is awesome, and I am curious if that means you can carry two 2-h weapons in a dual wield sort of way. Stalwart Protector is nice for tanks, but I don't think endgame tanks have many rage problems. Perhaps someone can fill me in on that.

Mage Spells and Talents: My Mage, Obret (70 Dranaei Mage [Frost]) is going to love Shatter Sheild. Any way to AOE mobs around me is going to be great. Frostfire Bolt is an excellent way to have another tool against mobs that are resistant to your normal spec.

Tommorow in Part 2, I'll look at Druids, Warlocks and the Enchanting skill through 450.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

PVP and Guild Meeting

Xanice (70 Human Priest [Holy]) and Dorabel (70 Dwarf Hunter [Beastmastery]) were the PVP work horses tonight, doing all 10 3v3 games. We went 7-3, with Rhianne (70 Night Elf Druid) losing 2, and Hurricaine (70 Night Elf Hunter) losing 1. We finished with 1418 on the week, which isn't bad for a casual group.

Aeth (70 Human Paladin [Retribution]) was talking about Season 4, and how it is not geared towards the casual player do to Personal Rating requirement on all the good S4 pieces. Its going to push out the casual player completely. I like doing Arena though, and maybe S4 will force me to get more serious about it.

Last week I was able to get Vengeful Gladiator's Chain Leggings this week, which is a nice upgrade from the badge loot pants. I will still keep those for raiding, as it has more AP and Agility. I am now over 200 Resilience now, so I am quite happy.

We also held our guild meeting, but there was a low turnout. We are looking for a new recruitment officer, as we really need to start some solid recruitment efforts. It was a good meeting, though, and we were out of there quick.

Quick Note: Guild Meeting

To those Keepers that read my blog, don't forget our guild meeting tonight at 8pm server time.

Raid Night: Karazhan

Since we moved Karazhan to Saturday, we have yet to get it off the ground, but thanks to some allies we were able to get a group going tonight. I took Obret (70 Dranaei Mage [Frost]). We got through the first 4 bosses without a problem, but Nightbane gave us problems. We needed more dps.

On our way to Curator, once of our players went AFK and never returned. We kicked him from the group, to add Hawtas (70 Dranaei Mage [Fire]). The AFK player never got kicked out of the instance, so we were never able to get Curator. If you are going to be AFK for an extended period of time, please do the right thing and drop. This ruined the evening for some of the players.

I did get a couple of upgrades. I picked up Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran off of Moroes, and Trial-Fire Trousers off of Oz.

After that, I logged onto Adormra (50 Night Elf Rogue [Assassination]). I played through 49 by leveling up my Leatherworking Skill. There is a nice series of crafting quests that gives alot of XP, and some LW recipes. This took quite a while though, as the Turtle Scale's took forever to farm. I have decided to go Elemental Leatherworking.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Raid Night: Zul'Aman

For the first time in three weeks, we were able to get a Thursday Zul'Aman run in. Over all, it was a night very similar to Tuesday. The raid had reset, so we had all the bosses to do over again, which is fine with us. Again this week, we had problems with the stupid gong. Took a couple of minutes to get the timing down. I wonder what the trick is.

We did the four pulls up to the Bear boss, with a minor hiccup during the third pull. Once we got to Narolakk, it was an easy nine minutes. Although, I did have to have a Battle Rez near the end of the fight. Jaralon (70 Draenai Hunter) got Fury.

We moved on to the Eagle boss guantlet, and wiped the first shot. It was the first time we have wiped on it so far. While a downer, we were able to get it the second time. I still contend its a fun fight. We gave a shot on the Eagle, but I was killed after the first collapse. The second try was a success, and we took him down without a hitch. Guill (70 Human Warrior) got Akil'zon's Talonblade.

We had a number of wipes on our way to the Lynx, including another with the last Akil'zon's Handler pulls, as none of them we were able to crowd control. We finally made it to the Lynx boss with about 20 minutes left in our time. This gave us two shots. The first time, we wiped after the first split, with the boss at 58%. The second shot had us wiping at 59%. I took a 16,800 last from him, and survived. Rhianne and I were both amazed.

The Lynx is a tough fight, and we are going to need more time with him to get him down. I expect it will happen next week. We need to wipe less on the trash, even if our unofficial name is "Wipes on Trash" (the future second raiding team will be called "Did You Get The Quest?"). Once that happens, we will be able to get the timer mission down. Especially the first boss. Its only a matter of time.

I expressed that I felt I wasn't doing a good job leading this raid, but Rhianne said that she felt the same way during the early days of Kara. I would have never thought that, as she always seemed so cool about it. I am going to try to choke down that feeling in the future.

Good run tonight. Looking forward to getting down the Lynx next week, and getting Kara this weekend.

WIDT: The Last of Stranglethorn

After seeing Iron Man tonight, (wait till the credits are over to leave, easter egg there) I got online and spent an hour working on Adormra, the NE Rogue. I hit 48 during my last session with him, and was working through the last of the Stranglethorn Vale quests. I decided to leave STV, and not finish the zone. I have leveled so fast through the 40's, I have been able to skip most of the quests there.

I am really looking forward to doing BRD in the next couple of levels. Then perhaps Stratholm and Scholo. Been a long time since I have done those on level. I do Strat Dead on Asher all the time, farming shards for gold, and Barons Mount. Done 20 runs or so with no luck. Its hard to drop all my gear off and get up there for maximum profit, but when I do I try to do two or three runs in a row.

I need to discuss my Baron Mount run strategy at a future date.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Raid Night: Zul'Aman

We had a great night in ZA, much like our first run in there two weeks ago. We had a few hiccups on the Bear boss pulls, but were able to teach the 4 new people we had the fights. We only had one mage tonight, Hawtas (70 Dranaei Mage [Fire]), so some of the CC was tough. Once we got to the boss though, it was smooth sailing. Our second tank, and former Keeper Guill (70 Human Warrior [Protection]) and I clicked along perfectly. At one point, I went down, but our healer Saffrin (70 Night Elf Druid [Resto]) gave me a quick battle rez, and I was able to pick up my rotation without a problem. She was quite good tonight. Took 9 and a half minutes, but we got him down. Rhianne got Bladeangel's Money Belt.

We moved over to the Eagle boss gauntlet, and took it down again in one shot. It just doesn't seem to be a problem for us, even though alot of people complain about how hard it is. We just haven't seen it, and its a fun, fast paced fight.

We got to the Eagle, explained the in and out rotation during the storms, and got to it. I pulled the boss before Guill could get his dps gear on, oops. We moved through the fight very easily. Hawtas went down early, but another battle rez got him back into the fray. We seemed to have the collapsing and expanding out perfectly, and with 22 seconds left on the frenzy timer we downed him. I got the Chestguard of Hidden Purpose for my healing set.

We took a break, and came back for our run to the Lynx boss. We had a few more wipes during these pulls, which put us way behind. By the time we got to the Lynx himself, it was 11:30pm server time, and we could only give him one shot. We made it through the first split, but lost a couple of people early to the lighting totems and it was a wipe.

Would like to thank our friends at the Champions of the Realm (rotten name stealer's!) for joining us this week. Looking forward to having you out on Thursday.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Horde Monday: RFD

I got home earlier than I expected today, and was able to get onto Wyndistorm and quickly burn through 34 in about 90 minutes of questing. People started logging on, and I wasn't sure I was going to get a spot, so I just kept questing. By the time I got an invite, I had already worked my way through half of 35.

We decided that we would hit Razorfen Downs. I have only been there once before, back when I played my very first toon, an Undead Warrior. Our tank, Direhoof (36? Tauren Warrior) lost his connection, so Keli (37 Tauren Druid) took over. We did really well, with no wipes. I was 40% higher on the damage meters than anyone else. My pet was doing 34% of my damage roughly, so I was getting 6% higher damage than people two levels higher.

I have been doing this experiment with Adormra (48 Night Elf Rogue) and Wyndistorm where I focus strictly on Agility. It has been paying off in spades in my opinion. As a hunter, I rarely am taking damage so outside of PVP there isn't much need for Stamina. On the rogue, I am killing mobs so fast that the amount of damage they are doing is minimal. I think this may be part of why I am doing so much more damage than the others.

While we were in RFD, I dinged 36. I need to run to Desolace soon, so I can learn Claw (Rank 5).

Sunday, May 18, 2008

State of the Blog: 50

This is my 50th post. I intended for this blog to grow into a real life account of someone who plays WoW. So far, I think I have succeeded in that goal. With a few exceptions, I have posted daily, and about some interesting things that are going on around me in game and out. While nothing I have written has been especially groundbreaking, I think I have made note of things that are cool to me.

There are a few things I like: "Regular Features" like Screencaps and What I Did Today are very fun. I would like to expand my coverage of WoW podcasting. Perhaps review shows as I listen to them. There is one thing I don't like: Very few readers. Outside of the few Keepers and allies, there isn't much of a readership. While I appreciate you guys that are here, I need to get the word out there, and start keeping active on some WoW boards and blogs to get my name in the know.

By post 100, I would like to have another 25 regular readers, and post Screencaps 3 times a week. I also want to review all WoW podcasts I listen too.

Feel free to comment with any ideas or suggestions that you may have.

The Great Reinstall

As I talked about yesterday, I had a virus. I decided that I would get rid of my pirated operating system, and buy a copy of Windows XP Home Edition OEM. No tech support, but nearly $100 cheaper made it a good buy. Once I started the reinstall, it went as smooth as possible. No burps, no hiccups, and all my previous partition problems with Windows 2000 were gone.

I am glad I decided to get a legit copy in the end.

Screencap: 10K Latency


I recently got a hold of a virus, which every night at midnight (and whenever it was removed) it would send adware and keyloggers looking for passwords. Nothing I had was getting rid of it, but I still played on as I don't know my password. It changes every day, via a randomizer. So a keylogger is useless, as I never type it in. But, it did use a lot of my bandwidth. Note the 10K+ latency.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

WIDT: Rogue Leveling

I hit 47 today with Adormra. I have been stacking Agility, and have been very impressed with it. I am building towards Mutilate, so I am looking forward to that. I also leveled up a few points his Leatherworking. Need to farm up some Thick Leather for the last few points till I get Rugged Leather stuff.

Other than that, not alot going on. About to update to Windows XP, from Windows 2000. May be offline for a couple days as I reorganize my computers.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Real Life WoW

My wife and I were at a Sharper Image that was closing in a mall near us. I was wearing my favorite "Make Games, Not War" tshirt when we found this great gaming chair, that has built in speakers including a big ass subwoofer in the back. We carried it to the front counter, where this 20-something guy was helping people out. He looked at me, then at the box and smiled.

"You have a gaming shirt, and buying a gaming chair. What game are you playing?" He laughed.

I responded, "World of Warcraft." He laughed again, harder.

"I play too! I have a 70 Hunter on so-in-so server."

I told him my server, and the 3 70's I have. He smiled, and checked us out. Its funny sometimes when the real world, and WoW collide.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

News: New WotLK Information, 2 Sources confirm!

I learned today, through MMO-Champion, and others, about two news stories out in the WoW world today. Eurogamer has a story about WotLK, as does Gamespy.

Some interesting tidbits:
  • All dungeons will have both 10-man, and 25-man components. In other words, everyone will get to experience the content. Better rewards are given for 25-man raids. Heroic 5-mans will return.
  • Vehicles in WotLK will have realistic physics, and can hold up to 6 players at a time.
  • A new winged dungeon called the Nexus, which will include 70 and 80 5-mans, as well as raid content.
  • Arthas will have multiple forms, starting out in Dragonblight, but moving into a dungeon of his own during the final patch of WotLK, similar to Sunwell Plateau.
  • Dinosaurs. Need I say more?
  • Blast from the past: Kolbolds, an "insane" Scarlet Crusade, Argent Dawn, the Scourge, Venture Company, and more make a return.
  • Inscription will use Herbalism, and create Glyphs that modify your spells. Each player will have 4 major, and 2 minor Glyphs.
  • Death Knights will start at level 55, and are plate wearing tanks or dps. Any player who has a toon 55 or higher can create one Death Knight per server.
There is a lot more info in the two articles. Feel free to comment about what you like, and don't like about the preview. Would love to hear your comments.

Podcast: Instance #105 - How do you spell AIE?

The latest Instance is up at their website. If you haven't checked this out before, its a great hour of WoW discussion.

No ZA, Slave Pens, alt leveling, and blogger update

Blogger has been up and down the last couple days, so I apologize for not updating more regularly.

Wednesday: I didn't play at all. Took the day off, and enjoyed playing a rousing best of five game of Fluxx with the missus.

Thursday: We tried to get ZA going, but we were short a tank. Our second, Isbaern was out of town on business, so he couldn't go with us. Most of our friends were in SSC. After that we tried doing Heroic Magister's Terrace, but we just couldn't get it together, and went to Heroic Slave Pens instead. We wiped once, and finished in less than an hour.

Friday: I played around with my Rogue, Adormra, and hit 44 with him. I am getting alot more comfortable with the class, and am looking forward to doing some on level instances runs in my 60's.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Zul'Aman: The Long Road Back

About 10 days after patch 2.3 hit, and Zul'Aman was opened, the Keepers went in there to see the place and give the first boss a try. We were told that it was hard, and boy was it. We couldn't get pass the 2nd pull up to the Bear boss. We were disheartened. About six weeks later, we went in there again, but couldn't get the last pull before the Bear. Again, we were disheartened.

Enter tonight. We were prepared, had flasks and food for everyone. We had a couple of blips on our way to Bear. The first shot, we didn't have the tanks correctly positioned. In the second try, I taunted the boss off of Isbaern (70 Night Elf Warrior [Protection]), which caused us to wipe. On the third try, Isbaern and I had the switching back and forth perfectly, and were able to down the Bear! Xanice (70 Human Priest [Holy]) got a cool healing robe.

We moved over to the Eagle guantlet, and began. I was in the rear, taking down the elites from the back, so I wasn't able to see much of the fight. We killed the birdman, and explained the Eagle boss to everyone. We started the fight, and things went perfectly. We were able to collapse and reform with perfect timing, the heals were great, and the dps was steady. We finished the fight with five players up, but we downed the boss the first shot! We were so proud! Isbaern picked up a chest piece for his dps set.


We took a couple of swipes at the Lynx boss, without any luck. We need some more time to work on it. Maybe we will get him down on Thursday.

I am so proud of the guild for getting these two bosses down! We have another shot at them on Thursday, and I am really looking forward to this!

WIDT: Horde Monday!, Dueling outside Ironforge

I logged on to Wyndi tonight to see if there was an open spot, but there wasn't. A third group is being formed, but other toons are farther behind me. I may have to wait another month maybe? I don't relish that. I had such a good time running in Scarlet Monastery last time, I just want to get a run in.

After I logged off, I headed over to Adormra, my Rogue, and got through most of 42. I only have a few bars, but a real-life friend wanted to join the guild, so I logged onto Asher.

I invited my friend Nano, to the guild and we chatted for a bit. Then I dueled Rhianne and Hawtas, beating both. When fighting Rhianne, we were banging on each other, and she got me down to about 1500hp. I popped Lay on Hands (instant heal for 14k), stunned her out of her heal, and beat her down the last couple thousand hp. It was a nice duel, and I had to pop a cooldown to win. Good fight, Rhi.

Tomorrow is ZA. I am worried.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Screencap: Asher's Giant Shoulders


This was tonight when we were doing group quests. This is what remains after Dimensius the All-Devouring is killed. I thought it looked like giant shoulders, and made comment to it in /s. It got a few chuckles.

WIDT: Group Quest Saturday

We got to talking about it today, and decided that we would run Heroic Shattered Halls, followed by the daily Heroic Underbog. We had me, (70 Dwarf Paladin [Protection]), Xanice (70 Human Priest), Rhianne (70 Night Elf Druid [Restoration]), and new High Council member Alphaquasar (70 Human Warlock). We were looking for a mage, and a couple of guildmates with mages came on (Hodo and Hawtas), but were off doing other things. (Happy Birthday Hawtas!)

So we decided to do group quests until we found a fifth. After our first quest, we picked up a pug 70 Dwarf Warrior who ran with us for like 3 hours. Quiet, but did his job well. It was nice to make 200+g today with friends.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Ding! 34

Hit 34 today on the huntard. Looking forward to Horde Monday this week!

Late Night

I did all the Shattered Sun dailies on Dorabel today. After I bought the Mageblood potion recipe, for 1200g mind you, I have been seriously broke. On top of that, all the dough I have spent on gems and other item enhancement for Asher. I am getting awfully bored with dailies. I may have to go back to farming ore, herbs, motes, etc.

I also ran Wyndistorm for a bit. I am about 2/3 through 33, and want to get to 34 this weekend in time for Horde Monday!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Last Nights Raid

We went into Karazhan for our last, regularly scheduled Kara run last night. We took out Nightbane, Illhoof, Shade, and Chess. We bounced off Prince 4 times, including a heartbreaking 1% wipe on our 3rd try. I really wish we could have tried him a few more times, but it was already the end of our scheduled raid time.

So next week starts ZA on Tuesday and Thursday. Looking forward to it.