draNgNon progress 12/31

It's the last progress of 2007! Here is my progress based on last week's list. The progress is odd as there haven't been a lot of tanks on to speak of, so it's more focussed on outdoor-style quests.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on 2H Maces • 2-minute PvP trinket • Honored with Everlook • work on Badges	• nope • no tanks • got it • got this too, yay • Honored indeed • not a one more: Revered with Sporregar
Eeyan
• Kara key • get all Heroic keys • Onyxia key • Arcatraz key • Strat run • 365 blacksmithing • farm primal fires • do Skyguard dailies • clear Thunderlord quests • 335+ all ranged	• got it • got them too • omg still no • need the Mech piece • nope • 362 • no time • Friendly now • 3 left at last count • 330, anyhow
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	• still a couple to go • nope • nope

Here is next week's list. Gear enchants has really depleted my stock of primals, so I need Kuan to focus on that... Regular raids aren't restarting until next week.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Axes
• PvP... at least the daily...
• farm up some primals, whee
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, keys, 0.5 quests
• try a heroic
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 365 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires
• clear Thunderlord quests
• 335+ all ranged

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups
• 280 enchanting

Merry Christmas!

Eeyan and Teltanara now have the heroic key to Caverns of Time. And, the key to Karazhan.

Eeyan got his [Handgrips of Assassination].

Teltanara got the [Epoch-Mender] staff.

draNgNon progress 12/24

Here is my progress based on last week's list. I didn't make much progress, as I spent most of the week's playtime either working or offline.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on Maces • 12+ WSG Marks • Honored with Everlook • work on Badges	no progress on any of this stuff
Eeyan
• 2nd key frag • get all flight points • Onyxia key • Arcatraz key • Strat run • 350 lockpicking • farm primal fires • start Skyguard dailies	• got it • all but the Scryer one in SMV • omg still no • started • nope • got it • no time • did the runups to get to Skettis more: 360 blacksmithing!
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	no progress on any of this stuff

Here is next week's list... my time will be weird, I am more available to play, but also a lot of people I normally play with are unavailable.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Maces
• 2-minute PvP trinket
• Honored with Everlook
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, keys, 0.5 quests
• Kara key
• get all Heroic keys
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 365 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires
• do Skyguard dailies
• clear Thunderlord quests
• 335+ all ranged

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Teltanara is 70!

Woo! 70!! She hit 70 last night while she and Eeyan were killing ogres in Blade's Edge.

After a quick loan from Viljo she was riding a Blue Windrider. I'm a fan of the blue one because it matches most of her gear and the wings are purplish.

Now she's just got to get her 3rd key Fragment and run Black Morass, and then she'll be ready for Kara. Ha!

I am pleased that despite the fact that she was only 69 at the time and the druid bear tank was more or less chain pulling she did a pretty good healing Steam Vaults for the 2nd key fragment.

recipes

While looking for the best way to skill Eeyan up in blacksmithing, I found a new (to me, anyhow) site that listed all the recipes in the game, and the mobs that drop them. I checked and they do it for tailoring too. I think that's awesome as Wowwiki has this sort of thing for Alchemy, but not anything else.

The Blackmithing URL is http://wow.crafterstome.com/recipes/blacksmithing.html. Wowwiki links to it but doesn't dupe the information. Anyhow it will be sort of fun figuring out how to go get all the recipes I can, with Eeyan now.

Warsong Gulch Fix

Following on the heels of my last posting is a way to make Warsong less excruciating. draNgNon initially came up with this idea.

Statement of problem:
Warsong Gulch (WSG) has a tendency to turtle. Turtling being the situation where each team has the other teams flag, and is therefore unable to turn in the flag they have captured. When this happens and the teams are unable to recapture their flag and turn in their captured flag the game can last for hours or until one side gets bored and gives up. Either way, no fun for either team.

Proposed Solution 1:
draNgNon suggested that there be some change so that the game is won when a certain amount of points are accumulated. Points are accumulated when a flag is turned in, three turnins means victory. Points are also accumulated while your flag remains safely in your base.

However, this solution would only solve the turtle case where each team is unable to get to the other team's well defended flag. It would not solve the case where each team already has the other team's flag and is unable to retrieve their own to turn in a flag capture.

Proposed Solution 2:
Change the game so that each team starts with a certain amount of points. Every flag reduces your opponents points, again three captures results in victory. Also add in the idea of reinforcements from the recent AV changes. So now every death on your team costs your team some amount of points. And to help speed things up, keeping your flag uncaptured will also reduce the amount of points your opponent has.

This is will put a finite time limit on the length of a game. So no matter how much turtling a team tries to do there will eventually be enough deaths for one side to lose.

Battlegrounds & AFKers

The Wow mailing list at my work is fairly large and active. There are of course people who post very regularly and there is usually a good discussion of several topics going on. Newbs are helped and high-end bosses are discussed.

However, some of the people on this list annoy me greatly. They have views which differ from my own in very serious and fundamental ways.

For example there are some people who feel that it is ok to afk during a battleground, specifically Alterac Valley. They were discussing the best ways and mods to do this. (NO! I am not mentioning any of them!) Finally I couldn't take it anymore. Someone asked if any of these mods were legal according to Blizzards TOS. I replied, by chewing out everyone who would go afk in a battle ground.

My point is basically that if you want the gear you have to work for it. If you want arena gear you must arena, and the better you are the faster you get good gear. Especially with season 3 upon us, you must have a certain amount of skill to get the rating for the high-end gear. If you want PvE raiding gear you have to invest the time and actualy raid the dungeons. If you want gear that you can only buy with honor points then you need to invest the time in the battle grounds.

However, because the gear that you can get with honor points is actually pretty good, there are a lot of lazy bastards who sit in the cave in AV and get free honor from the work that the rest of us do to win the match. I can't stand these people, especially their sense of entitlement. They feel that because Blizzrd has messed up the incentives for PvP in battlegrounds it is ok for them to just sit there and leech honor for my hard work.

Put plain and simple I despise the people who intentionally afk in the battlegrounds and have a method to avoid being reported afk. In the case where they are running a bot to do this while they are not home they are actually breaking the rules of the game. In the case where they hit the spacebar every so often to avoid the afk debuff they are breaking the spirit of the rules, if not actually the rules themselves.

Watch out for HAX

So, Darkfall is finally ready to try Mag. We were going to do it Sunday. Gruul ran too long, so we decided to postpone til this evening.

Wait, I forgot, 8 or 9 pm? I wanted to make sure I get home from work in time - I've not tried Mag and Kuan is now one of two top DPS ele shamans. I logged in to Darkfall's boards to see a post from one of our better-geared locks...

subject: My account has been cleaned out. 2007/12/18 04:51

Just thought I would post something here. I won't be on until this gets cleared up with Blizzard so please don't send anything to, invite to group, or in general talk to <list of alts> if you see them on.

whee.

draNgNon progress 12/17

Here is my progress based on last week's list. It's a bit deceptive. Kuan got to run Tempest Keep for the first time, even though he didn't see a boss down'd, he did get to see the instance and fight a boss. Eeyan down'd Murmur for the first time, albeit painfully as I have so never done that fight as a melee. Eeyan (regrettably) has 3 heroic keys now, but would probably be a smear on the floor of a heroic instance.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on 2H Axes or Maces • 12+ WSG Marks • Honored with Ratchet • clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir	• nope • nope • 348 2H Maces • no bg at all • Ratchet and Gadget • cleared
Eeyan
• start on Kara attunement • flying mount • Onyxia key • Shadow Labyrinth key • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing • farm primal fires	• 1st fragment • got it • omg still no • got it • nope • got it • no time
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	• nope • nope • nope

Here is next week's list... my time will be weird, as the holidays approach, and also a lot of people I normally play with are unavailable.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on Maces
• 12+ WSG Marks
• Honored with Everlook
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• 2nd key frag
• get all flight points
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 350 lockpicking
• farm primal fires
• start Skyguard dailies

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Karma

Teltanara and Eeyan ran Sethekk Halls last night. It was mildly painful, because the group was clearly a bunch of alts. Our druid was only so-so at holding aggro, our warlock did a lot of the pulling, the other (shadow) priest was obsessed with mind control, and quite honestly I'm not yet all that great a healer with Teltanara. I had just gotten Prayer of Mending, and wasn't always sure when I should refresh it. I also am finding myself deeply dissatisfied with my current UI, specifically my heal button layout versus my questing layout. (Any priests wants to give advice on raid frames and action bars that they use? With links? Pretty please?)

Anyway, we wiped here and there on trash. Teltanara won a blue gem from the first chest. We took out the first boss on our first attempt. We wipe on more trash and I learn a lesson about when NOT to pop with a soulstone. Another chest comes up and there is another gem. I announce in party chat that I'm passing because I already have a gem. The warlock salutes me for, basically, not being a loot whore. I am amused and think that Karma is always a good thing to have.

Finally we are at Ikiss. Ikiss is a bitch. Viljo has never seen the Incanter's Trousers drop, and Ikiss likes to, you know, kill everyone in the party with stupid explosion or missiles. On Viljo I usually get to watch most of the fight while lying dead on the floor. But apparently they nerfed him last patch, because we kill him first try. And with only one death.

We all grab our quest item and the key to Shadow Labyrinth. The loot is a mail belt and the Hallowed Trousers. Ohh! Hallowed Trousers!! I am so excited! But remember there is another priest there. He is excited too. He asks if I mind if he hits need. I say it's up to him, but I'm going to hit need. I end up winning with an 11, because he was nice enough to pass. This is clearly the karma I saved up earlier coming back to help me out.

Eeyan is now Offically Undergeared

But in theory, he can go anywhere he wants, that's outdoors at least.



Well, except Onyxia's Lair. Does that count as outdoors...?


Edit: LAME blogger crops the picture

Tempest Keep

Darkfall (Viljo and Kuanchichi included) went in to Tempest Keep last night. It took us a while to get a full group together, since a bunch of raiders were busy or just missing. But we got it together and headed in.

Whee! New content! Whee trash pulls that need mages! Whee sheeps that break every $%^$#@ seven seconds! Oh wait that last one wasn't whee at all.

Well anyway we got to the room with Al'ar, we bypassed him and went on to the Void Reaver. Void Reaver has a bunch of trash that needs some very coordinated crowd control from both mages and warlocks. That was... interesting. Up to getting to Void Reaver's actual room the trash wasn't too hard, but the trash immediately around VR took us a few wipes to organize ourselves to deal with.

Then we had time for 2 attempts on VR. The first one was basically to let us see what we were up against. I have to say that the stupid arcane orbs confuse the crap out of me. It's really hard to see when they have finished with their explosion. And it's even harder to watch your neighbors for their explosions, even with various mods to help out.

The second attempt was a little more serious. We wiped at 38% of his health. That's not bad, but as several people on our guild boards have pointed out we, as a guild, have got to get better dps. We were missing a bunch of our main raiders, so I'm too not terribly worried. Also as we figure out the orbs there will be less running around like headless chickens or getting killed by your neighbor's orb.

draNgNon progress 12/10

Here is my progress based on last week's list.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • [Hauberk of the Furious Elements] • farm for Major Prot recipes • 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces • [Gladiator's Mail Leggings] • clear last new quest in Mudsprocket • Honored with Steemwheedle • clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir	• nope • got it, woot! • no. stupid Astromancers • got it • ran a bunch of AB • done with that • Ferelas mini giants are only 25 rep • nope but: Exalted with Aldor! and: Tier 4 legs!
Eeyan
• flying mount • Onyxia key • Honored with Scryer • Shadow Labyrinth key • help Teltanara Honored with Aldor • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing	• heh, no. • still no • got it • nope • she got it • nope • 348...
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • RFD • Start on Badlands	• nope • cleared it • nope

Here is next week's list... the [Gladiator's Mail Leggings] need WSG marks, although trying to get them is not so urgent now Kuan has T4.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Axes or Maces
• 12+ WSG Marks
• Honored with Ratchet
• clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir

Eeyan level cap, blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• start on Kara attunement
• flying mount
• Onyxia key
• Shadow Labyrinth key
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 350 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Arcane Protection Goodness

Yesterday evening, after the ZA attempt fell through due to a complete lack of healers, Kuan and Viljo did a round of daily quests. Part of their path is to stop at Oshu'gu and kill all the Vir'aani Arcanists in sight.

We killed all the Arcanists in sight all the way around the central dome. Sadly there was no Arcane protection potion to be found. So Viljo and Kuan picked up their gems for the month. They are revered now so there was "a little extra tossed in for you this month."

Then just before they were going to port back to Shat'rath for the rest of their daily quests DraNgNon says to me "Lets just kill one more. This one will be sure to have your potion recipe." I was dubious, we had been doing this for days now and Viljo had yet to see the recipe except for the time that Kuan had won the roll for it. So inspite of my misgivings, we went and killed one more Arcanist. And there was the recipe!!!

Now Viljo just needs to acquire a few primal mana and discover the cauldron.

the benefit of the mindless...

I've been super busy with non-WoW things this week, so I've really only been able to log in and do mindless activities. But that has resulted in a couple nice things getting done.

First of all Aurochh cleared RFD! Viljo walked both him and Evallen through, and he got a couple upgrades. What was funny was I had only ever been in RFD a couple times before, and then it was a straight run to the end boss. So there were all these quests and bosses I never knew about, and we down'd them all.

Last night, Eeyan just mosey'd on over to Firewing point, and killed Blood Elves until he had enough signets to hit honored with Scryer. Finally! A vendor in Shatt he is honored with!

This morning, I had a look at what he could get. Shoulder inscrip with some +crit - I shouldn't wate it on the crappy shoulders he's wearing. Blacksmithing recipes - he's got at least 9 skillups to go. :-( Ah well! At least that's out of the way.

Anyhow, after getting honored with Scryer, Eeyan refocused on Nagrand questing. *boom* The story suddenly has regained coherence, and I was reluctant to log out...

draNgNon progress 12/3

So, it's clear that the Alliance toons have gotten simply parked with very little in the way of progression. I blame Blizzard for making Alliance just sort of offputting at Honor Hold. I also think the Hordeside I've encountered is just more interesting of a story. Anyhow here is my Hordeside progress on last week's list; I'm not going to list the Alliance toons anymore becuase that's sort of a waste of space.

As far as Horde toons go, I destroyed my lvl 30 UD warrior. It wasn't fun and seeing her just annoyed me. Buh-bye.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SV • [Treads of Booming Thunder] • farm for Major Prot recipes • 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces • battlegrounds • 100g to guild bank • clear last new quest in Mudsprocket • Honored with Steemwheedle • 5 Ethereum Prison Keys for Consortium	• got it, turned in • [Windshear Boots] instead • Shadow • 342 • AV and WSG; doing dailies • done with that • nope • no time • turned in
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • Underbog redux • Clear Terrokar outdoor quests • help Teltanara Honored with Aldor • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing • Start on Garadar quests	• nope • almost 5000 now • nope • got it • a little bit • nope • 346... • these and round 1 of Nesignwary and: Old Hillsbrad more: level 69!
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • RFD • Start on Badlands	• nope • nope • nope

Here is next week's list... Kuan is left in a Blue chest and Pants. After next week, Darkfall is starting on the Eye, so he has a week to upgrade.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• [Hauberk of the Furious Elements]
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces
• [Gladiator's Mail Leggings]
• clear last new quest in Mudsprocket
• Honored with Steemwheedle
• clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir

Eeyan level cap, blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• flying mount
• Onyxia key
• Honored with Scryer
• Shadow Labyrinth key
• help Teltanara Honored with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 350 blacksmithing

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• RFD
• Start on Badlands