Heroic Azjol-Nerub

Last night, after the raids and before Violet Hold, Kuan and Viljo went into heroic Azjol-Nerub. I thought it would be faster than it was, but we had a hard time with the last boss, Anub'arak. With all his adds he is a bitch on heroic.

But we got him after a couple of tries, and he dropped the Rod of the Fallen Monarch, and Viljo won the roll. I felt bad that Valrauko didn't get it, but it was too nice pass on, even if Viljo had gotten the Stone-Worn Footwraps from the first boss.

a familiar obsession

I haven't mentioned it much since the expansion dropped, but last night Kuanchichi hit 395 2handed Axes, which makes him 395+ in all weapon skills. He's already maxxed in unbuffed Defense.

Now with 3.0, there are achievements for maxxing Unarmed, as well as 4 separate weapons. I will probably still follow the pattern I always do, try to take everything to 399 (max - 1) and then max them all in turn. Starting with Unarmed. If Kuan's bags are full (and they often are) and only the 2H weapons are below 399, I'll have him equip a fist weapon.

This is for outdoor questing of course. In dungeons and raids he'll wear his caster weapon... of course I'll stabby stabby with it if the mobs get close!

25 Man Raiding

Last night Kuan and Viljo logged in, after a horrendous queue. The queue wouldn't have been quite so terrible if I hadn't kept disconnecting about 75% of the way through it. Three times! Augh!

Anyway once Viljo was finally on he got a whisper from our friend Xstal, who is the alt of Jataka, the healer from the first ever heroic we finished. Anyway Xstal wanted to know if we wanted to come to 25man Vault of Archavon. I said sure, and it turned out to be a complete pug. But that was fine, because we still managed to one-shot the boss.

The loot that dropped was quite nice. Including the Valorous Frostfire Leggings! Another mage won the roll for them, but then the loot master messed up and passed them to Viljo anyway. So, much as it pains me, I have these lovely legs in the bank waiting for the GMs to deal with my ticket to move them to that other mage. Ah well it would be more annoying to look at them and know they should have gone to someone else.

Anyway after we did that we moved on to 25man Obsidian Sanctum. That went quite well actually, though neither of us got any loot, we did get nice badges from both instances.

It seems that both of the heroic (25 man) versions were easier than their 10 man counterparts. The bosses have more hp on 25man, and they do more damage, but all the raid buffs really help.

Raid Frames

Pre-BC, I used CTRA for my raid frames. They were displayed across the top of my screen, all raid members sorted by class.

Once Burning Crusade dropped I started using the native UI raid frames. They're a little bigger, and with Paladin in there my top got a little squeezed, but I made it work. Thus I was able to ditch CTmod entirely after a while.

But with Lich King, we have ten classes. It just doesn't work. Clara says use Grid for raid frames, and I'm fielding comments from friends to not use xPerl and to try sraidframes. But I don't want to re-memorize where all the tank raid frames are every damn raid. So I guess I'll try sraidframes, although I think they will not solve the real estate problem.

Defenseless

Defenseless is Kuanchichi and Viljo's most recent achievement. It is very specific!

Defeat Cyanigosa in The Violet Hold without using Defense Control Crystals and with Prison Seal Integrity at 100% while in Heroic Difficulty.

I suppose that would be a more significant achievement if I actually had known there were Defense Control Crystals to use, and under what conditions they ought to be used.

I guess Clara knew. But our party just treated it like Black Morass...

Frost Resist Gear

I've been doing a little bit of reading about Naxx. Just to figure out the bosses and such. And it looks like there is no resist gear needed, except for the second to last boss, Sapphiron. He needs a bunch of frost resist gear.

The cloth resist gear is the Glacial Robe, Glacial Slippers, and Glacial Waistband. And the mail resist gear is Icy Scale Chestguard, Icy Scale Boots, and Icy Scale Belt.

Each of these sets will give a total of 287 frost resist, if not gemmed for frost resist. Since, at 80, you only need 415 resistance to be capped against a mob 3 levels above you, which is the level of bosses, the missing 128 resist can be made up by Shaman totem or Pally aura.

There is also a Titanium Frostguard Ring, which can add another 68 frost resist, if some more mixing and matching is desired.

And even though there is an achievement for doing the Sapphiron fight with less than 100 frost resist on each person I think that will come a while after the boss has been killed with frost resist a couple of times. So I'll start looking in to the mats for these and seeing how expensive it is to buy the mats and find a crafter as opposed to just buying the gear off the AH.

Nexus and Azjol-nerub

Last night, as DraNgNon posted, Eeyan and Telt got to 72. After they leveled, and trained they went with a couple of friends to Nexus and Azjol-Nerub. It was a lot of fun to actually get them leveled and then to do some instancing. I always forget just how much fun it is to heal when I'm questing. Questing is fun, but to be honest Eeyan is a colossal bad ass, and really doesn't need Telt trailing along behind him. He's just nice, and lets her tag along.

The one downer about the Nexus run was that the tank was a druid who respecced out of boomkin. So he wanted caster stuff, too. This is cool, but I was kind of annoyed when he passed on a nice caster offhand and then got huffy when I was going to need it. I guess that is just a reminder to me to always get loot rules straightened out at the start.

It was a lot of fun to instance with Eeyan and Telt again :D

Lest I neglect Eeyan

Well, I have been neglecting him.

Eeyan's now in <Red Army>, which is really a guild of alts for Xstal and Siazi and friends, I think.

They invited me on a whim, becuase they wanted me to run heroics with them with Kuan and I said no, I promised Clara we'd get Eeyan and Telt up to 72 this evening. They thought about that and logged in their alts too.

Now Eeyan and Telt are 72, have the questing achievement for Howling Fjord, and moreover have run Nexus and Azjol-Nerub. Wheeee...

Teach a penguin to fish

Viljo and Kuanchichi got the Critter Gitter achievement tonight. Kuan took this situation as a teaching opportunity.

Viljo's first lvl 80 heroic

Yesterday we ended up playing a lot of Wow, off and on. Mostly goofing about and going the Winter Veil things. But we did decide to do the daily Heroic quest, which was in the Old Kingdom. Viljo assembled a PUG to get it done - us, two pallies, and a Tauren warrior tank.

There were a couple wipes, but all in all it went quite smoothly. The tank cracked 31K health after buffs which is crazy. Heroic has an extra boss; I noticed that Heroic Nexus does too. I wonder if they all do. But anyhow. Best of all, Kuan got a new hat! His T4 hat, which he's been wearing for well over a year, is finally replaced with [Brood Plague Helmet] which dropped off the first boss. I hit Need. I almost never hit Need.

Ever since WotLK dropped last month, I was expecting that Kuan's hat would be the first thing I'd upgrade. So it's been quite a surprise to me that Kuan actually hit 80 and still wears the T4 hat. So very happy to have that replaced and upgraded. It's such a big upgrade I equipped it even without the enchant and gems. I note that the enchant and gems were more than 200 gold, so even a drop in a PUG run isn't terribly free.

...too bad T4 gear can't be vendored. Someday soon I will type DELETE in the window for it all...

Merry Christmas!

Kuanchichi is now doing his 3+ weeks' probationary period in <Thwarted Destiny>, a small guild that raids Hawaii-time, which means it's good for my schedule.

The guild leader, Kelrain, invited me in and said let's see how you fit. Then I got pulled into Heroic Nexus, then 10-man Obsidian Sanctuary (including Viljo as a pug), then Archavon (including Viljo as a pug). The Obsidian fight was funny. The tank explained the first drake fight... and didn't realize his mike was off. Big wipe. It was pretty easy once that was cleared up. Viljo won loots in both 10-mans: [Circle of Arcane Streams] and [Hateful Gladiator's Silk Raiment].

I note there was another Ele Shaman in these groups. (He got the T7 gloves of Sartharion.) Kuan was about 140-160 dps behind him in the meters. I'm still adjusting to cast sequence and Kuan remains undergeared, so I don't feel too bad.

At the end of it, we have Christmas, and Kuan has 11 [Emblem of Heroism] and some nice achievements, and Viljo has two pieces of lvl 80 epic loot...

...I was dumb and took no screenshots. Anyhow, Merry Christmas.

frugal

So I got Ikoli past 175 Inscription last night. This is quite a thing, since I'm not actually buying any herbs. I am draining herbs from both my and Clara's reserves. But, why not? What are they for anyhow?

Tylara, on the other hand, is still mired with a need for mithrils to finish the Armorsmithing quests. But she's like 236 Blacksmithing now. Again, I'm not buying any metal. It's all too expensive. I should be selling it!!!

Red Winter Clothes

As an addendum to last night's PvP fun, I note that Telt and Kuan took a side trip to Ironforge. You see Teltanara is a tailor, and the goblins only sell the pattern for Green Winter Clothes in Orgrimnar. This means that the pattern for Red Winter Clothes is only sold in Ironforge. As usual it was quite easy, with Kuan along, to get into Ironforge. Getting out, however, required a few deaths.

Anyway Telt can now make Red Winter Clothes. At some point soon I shall have to do so. Then she can wear them with her Crimson Felt Hat. Mailbox dancing here comes Telt! I'll be sure to post pics. :D

Strand of the Ancients

Kuanchichi and Viljo restarted their former Monday night PvP tradition. PvP on Monday night is kind of nice. You can intersperse it with a few daily quests and it's all good.

Well we tried out the battle ground that is new for Wrath of the Lich King, Strand of the Ancients. Kuan had been in it once before, but Viljo never had so I was hopelessly confused at first.

Basically the battle ground has two phases. You either defend or attack. It seems that Horde defends first and Alliance attacks first, but I can't tell if that is just the random luck of the draw for us last night. Anyway there are 6 gates, which you have to get through with vehicles and bombs, and you have to defend the gates with turrets.

Viljo has craptacular health so I found the best place for him when attacking was in one of the tanks. On defense, I had less of a clue what do to, but I'll try to get one of the turrets next time.

80!

Kuanchichi and Viljo are 80! They both got to level 80 last night at the beginning of normal Oculus. Which they were running again with a tank we pugged in the other night, Ryegrin. Who apparently knows Babzy IRL.

Side note: Ryegrin is only 78 right now and was still able to tank Oculus just fine. The normal instances are very nerfed, and they have boosted tank threat generation a lot.

Anyway now Kuan and Viljo are both 80. And have each spent a crap ton of gold on upgrades to spells. I didn't keep track of how much it cost Viljo to train at 80, but for Kuan, DraNgNon said it was 317g.

Oh and they each got a chest upgrade from Oculus. Viljo replaced his Scarlet Sin'dorei Robes with Vestments of the Scholar from the last boss. And Kuanchichi replaced his Chestguard of Relentless Storms with Runic Cage Chestpiece from the first boss. It's quite strange to replace purples with blues, but I guess that is part of the leveling process.

Kuan's reputation plan

This is my plan for reputations and why. Of course I want them all exalted but with this championing thing I gotta focus on one at a time first.

rep - level until I switch to next - why
Kirin Tor - revered - head enchant
Ebon Hold - honored - cloak
Wyrmrest - exalted - gloves
Argent Crusade - exalted - that damned achievement
Horde Expedition (i.e. no champion tabard) - exalted - becuase he's Horde

and continued Kalu'ak dailies until I can get that fishing pole.

...then whatever. Unless I find out one of these also has recipes he can use but I haven't noted any.

the Oculus

Kuan and Viljo ran the Oculus tonight! It was a confusing mass of fun, as we did it in a pug where only one guy had run it before, and then only once.

I had been noticing that Kuan's hit percentage was decreasing after our run of Culling a couple nights ago. I swapped some of his gems for gems with +hit to see if they made a difference. They seemed to; but Oculus fights are broken up by flying on a drake form platform to platform, so the meters are somewhat useless.

But another exciting thing is the ring! One of the Oculus first quest rewards is a direct, onspec upgrade: [Ring of Temerity]. I immediately equipped it in place of [Ring of Unrelenting Storms], which I vendored after I got out of the instance.

Kuan has gquit Darkfall

I bitched a little too hard in guild chat about my dps issues and got told to shut it by all the officers. All I was trying to do was get a WWS to a Patchwerk fight they'd done already. When one turned around and told me he was sick of my self-esteem issues being in guild chat, I gquit.

Ah well. It's not like Kuan is viable for raiding, or like my schedule over the next couple months will accommodate it, so I might was well be guildless a while. I'll probably shove him back into Ancestor Cult for a while.

new thrown weapon

Culling

Last night we ran the Culling of Stratholme instance in Caverns of Time with guildies. During the instance they ding'd 79, too. The instance was pretty confusing and was the first challenge really; we wiped 3 or 4 times, mostly becuase we did not stick together, once becuase we didn't wait for tank to build any threat on the final boss. Anyhow I always thought that Arthas chose to cull Stratholme becuase he was sure it was plagued... in his head. Not becuase half of it was already turned to Scourge.

Like Old Hillsbrad, this is an instance where they convert everyone to human. Viljo is so very funny with his human bald pate.

The quest giver for this instance is our old friend Chromie. Very important we maintain this moment of inflection, she tells us. Very important not to mess with the timelines.

Wait a minute. Isn't that what Chromie is all about? Messing with the timelines in Lordaeron? Becuase of poor Cap'n Redpath? Wth?

Anyhow, it remained fun, and I was somewhat reassured to see that in an instance where the elites didn't fall over within 20 seconds Kuan did put out 1000+ dps. After running Utgarde Pinnacle the night before and only seeing ~850 dps I was very depressed.

Bound to happen

So Kuan has been carrying around the [Mazthoril Honor Shield], one of the original Badge of Justice awards, since, well, 29 Oct 2007.

Tonight he just got [Ritualistic Shield] as a quest reward that is an upgrade for everything on the badged one but stamina. And I bet a lot of that can be subbed in with an enchant.

Here's a pic of it. I am utterly fascinated at the detail they spent on the wood grain on the inside of the shield. I mean really, shouldn't they spend that sort of effort on perhaps making the ropes on the ships and blimps three dimensional...? More people look at those, than on the inside of a green quest reward shield.

Figureprint of Viljo

Calvin is the excellent! Calvin is the awesome!
Calvin gave me a Figure Print for my birthday!

I chose to get a print of Viljo:



Isn't Viljo awesome!? Here is a pic with me too. Note the giant grin. :D

Personal Quests

Last night we decided that we needed to do some Personal Quests with Kuan and Viljo. We had been feeling stressed from life and WoW and needed to take a break from questing in Zul'drak. We'd been trying to do a daily or two at the beginning of every evening anyway, so we just extended that a bit. We also decided that we were over not being 400 cooking and having no use for all those silly Dalaran Cooking Awards.

Kuan started out at 396 cooking, and Viljo started out at 393 cooking. And they both had only green recipes left, except for one yellow one that took about 8 pieces of meat. So we figured that it would be faster to skillup with the green recipes that only took one piece of meat.

Kuan and Viljo defended Wyrmrest Temple, and then helped the Kalu'ak. While they did this Kuan fished out every single fishing node we saw. Then we realized we weren't that far from revered with the Kalu'ak, so we went to Kamagua and did some quests there for the walrus people. More fishing and a few quests for the Taunka at Winterhoof Camp and we've finally got enough meat that both Viljo and Kuan are now 400 cooking. I think we even ended up with enough meat that Kuan is 402 and Viljo is 401.

Because of all the fishing there was enough herring to make some Haunted Herring. So the only "emotion food" left is the Tasty Cupcake.

The Explorers

Kuanchichi and Viljo got to level 77 last night. And with level 77 comes Cold Weather Flying. Which, as far as I can tell, is basically the trainer telling you to keep your wyvern's wings warm.

So anyway, we can fly! Yay flying! This means that we can run around and map everything with out having to deal with pesky terrain and pesky mobs. Well, except for all the flying elite dragons everywhere. But those were actually not all that hard to avoid.

Now, after having mapped all of Northrend Kuan and Viljo have the world mapped! It was so nice to get that last map point and have 3 different achievements pop up, one for the zone, one for Northrend, and one for the World!

Then we got mail from Brann Bronzebeard. He was all proud of us for exploring the world. And because he was so proud of us he gave us the ugliest tabard known to troll-kind! Trust a dwarf to mess that up.

But still we have mapped the world, and we have the title "the Explorer."

Riding a Giant

***This is a spoiler for any reader not yet quested in Zul'Drak***

Last night, determined to get Kuan and Viljo to 77, we took them into Zul'Drak. We had a choice of quests in front of us: Ebon Hold rep or Argent Crusade. Since our trolls are more partial to AC we spent most of the time on those.




While poking around we came across a Storm Giant imprisoned by the Scourge. He set off this whole quest chain to get him out, much to the dubiousness of the Argent Crusade dudes whose help we enlist. Once out, he's mad, and will gladly let the character ride on his head as he wreaks his vengeance. They did this with the new "vehicle" implementation that is throughout the WotLK.

So there are two reasons I'm posting about this event. Well, three. First of all, riding the giant was fun, but ooo boy the camera angles vs what the game thinks is a movement obstacle was annoying.

Second of all, it was bugged. As far as I can tell, opening the quest log stunned my giant, disabling all control keys as he stands there like a drunk dwarf until he's killed. And, it takes a lot to kill him. Exiting the game and logging back in did not rectify the situation. I spent like half an hour or more trying every button on my screen to move, attack, dismount, anything. I haven't ever been so frustrated. This happened twice, and I even disabled addons the second time. All in all I spent almost an hour sitting on a stunned giant.

Third of all is a bit more game-philosphical. Quite naturally it would be disruptive if there were lots of players on top of giants stomping around Zul'Drak and killing all those mobs everyone else is painstakingly farming for whatever other quests. So Blizzard phases the giant into some elsewhen the rest of the players are not. However, they also take out all the other NPCs. So the giant can be ridden about causing mayhem and destruction with no care other than for his own healthbar.

I think this would have been better done if they had somehow incorporated the other NPCs to this scenario. The Argent Crusade dude was dubious of the giant; maybe somehow make the quest fail if your giant stomps him. I'm not really sure. But seems to me it would have been a bit more of a challenge (mysterious stun notwithstanding) if care for the peeps on your side was incorporated into the event.

two unrelated things

We haven't gotten a lot of playing in this week; real life has seriously interfered. But we did take the time last night to key Mornara and Ikoli for Scholomance. Mornara decided not to bother clearing to pull Araj. I'm not entirely sure if our dying was the result of Ikoli being shitty as a healer, Mornara not quite mastering all the mad DK DPS/tanky skillz, or if it's just a plain mistake to take on Araj and his entire courtyard all at once with a 59 DK and a 55 priest.

Meanwhile it's not a lot of effort to progress on the screenshots, a few a day, and so I have. I came across this one from Nov 2006 and really liked it. Probably this image and the implied subtext is how Clara and I think of our mains all the time, for all they've been played together for 2 years since.



Oh, and, these are still the mounts we use.

LK Instances

Last week, we ran a bunch of instances, both on Viljo and Kuan and Eeyan and Teltanara.

Viljo and Kuan ran Violet Hold. Perhaps they are still used to Heroics? Perhaps they are still over-geared, since they are still in all their raiding gear? Perhaps Violet Hold on Normal is really easy? Either way Violet Hold seems like a very easy version of Black Morass with little running around. Viljo did get a nice neck upgrade, replacing Loop of Cursed Bones from Zul'jin with Pendant of Shadow Beams from the first boss in Violet Hold. Doing this had the happy coincidence of getting both Kuan and Viljo the Keymaster Achievement.

Teltanara and Eeyan got a chance to run Utgarde Keep. We went with a guildie's alt warrior. It went pretty well, despite the tank wearing greens and not having played as a tank all that often. The only time anyone died was when there was a damamge shield up on a few of the mobs and they resisted the tank, and went to kill a couple of the dps. Other than that no deaths, even with the crazy AOE damage on the last boss. For that last boss fight I was very glad that I had changed Telt's spec to be CoH. I think all I did for that 2nd phase was spam COH and toss out PoM. But we managed to all live.

Both of these instances were really pretty. Especially Utgarde Keep, the new fire animation in there was really nice looking. And the boss fights were quite amusing.

Screenshot Tags

This entry will always be under construction.

Picasaweb seems to have a limitation right now; it only automagically collates the top 10 tags used in one's photos.

That makes it less useful for organizing my screenshots than I wanted. BAH.

Anyhow to address the deficiency for now here is a permapost with the tags so far.

By Horde Character:
• Kuanchichi • Eeyan • Ikoli • Tylara • Aurochh • Bhantha • Mathers	• Viljo • Teltanara • Mornara • Kairon
• Aristobolus • Arnazz • Ayriya • Bandwee • Bloodcry • Cemaros • Cerantra • Cylani • Darsethra • Dessica • Doogrom • Drognin • Eiri • Ellusionist • Elut • Evallen • Fanniemae • Fanxia • Gempknight • Gerthzol • Graeth • Handle • Hazemaker • Hellshot • Hellspirit • Hellwell • Herbu • Ironspike • Isd • Jobah • Kaviaa • Ladrean • Leif • Mikta • Ologhai • Paleforce • Pasiphae • Ramero • Ratrider • Serahlou • Shetawy • Smeagoll • Smoovesta • Soulshade • Telamos • Tobis • Voldum • Wabash • Wian • Woonie • Xstal • Zaan

By Alliance Character (yes, we tried out Alliance for a time):
• Montresor • Trismestigus • Vhaas	• Khirhee • Khyrie
• Chaypas

Guild Shots:

• Knights that say NI • Darkfall • Deterrence

Kalimdor: • Ashenvale • Azshara • Azuremyst Isle • Barrens • Darkshore • Desolace • Durotar • Dustwallow Marsh • Felwood • Feralas • Mulgore • Orgrimmar • Silithus • Stonetalon Mountains • Tanaris • Teldrassil • Thunder Bluff • Un'goro Crater • Winterspring	Eastern Kingdoms: • Arathi Highlands • Blasted Lands • Deadwind Pass • Dun Morogh • Duskwood • Eastern Plaguelands • Eversong Woods • Elwynn Forest • Hillsbrad Foothills • Hinterlands • Isle of Quel'danas • Searing Gorge • Silvermoon City • Silverpine Forest • Stormwind • Stranglethorn Vale • Tirisfal Glades • Undercity • Western Plaguelands • Westfall • Wetlands
• Caverns of Time • Shatterspear Village • Veiled Sea	• the Bulwark • Chillwind Point • Dark Portal • Deeprun Tram • Great Sea • Jintha'Alor
• Black Morass • Hyjal Summit • Old Hillsbrad Foothills • Onyxia's Lair • Razorfen Downs • Warsong Gulch • Wailing Caverns • Zul'farrak	• Blackrock Depths • Blackrock Spire • Blackwing Lair • Karazhan • Scholomance • Stratholme • Temple of Atal'Hakkar • Zul'Aman • Zul'Gurub
Outland: • Blade's Edge Mountains • Hellfire Peninsula • Nagrand • Netherstorm • Shadowmoon Valley • Shattrath • Terokkar Forest • Zangarmarsh	Northrend: • Borean Tundra • Howling Fjord
• Netherwing Ledge • Skettis	• Coldarra
• Arcatraz • Black Temple • Botanica • Gruul's Lair • Hellfire Ramparts • Magtheridon's Lair • Mechanar • Serpentshrine Cavern • Sethekk Halls • Shadow Labyrinth • Shattered Halls • Slave Pens • Steamvaults • Tempest Keep	• Nexus
• character select • common carrier • loading

By Event:
• Opening of Ahn'Qiraj
• Sylvanas sings
• Demoniac Scryer
• Hellscream's Redemption
• Tauren Chieftains
• Scourge Invasion

By Situation:
• achieve • animal form • chat • dead • ding • disguise	• exalted • flying • fishing • gear • marshmallo • maxxed • new mount	• pvp • quest text • riding • scenic • tableau • title

Progress on 3 fronts

Yesterday, after Kuan got his 250 Fish and Call to Arms achievements, Kuan and Viljo hit 76! ...and, they are still in Grizzly Hills. I'm grimly convinced they will not have gotten out of the southern coastal zones until they can fly.

Once they are 77 questing will pause, for Kuan anyhow, as he goes after Explorer title. The World Must Be Mapped!!!

After that we did a little swapping. Tylara and Kairon hadn't finished the Kalaran chain in Searing Gorge so we decided to get that done. (My intention was then to get the Burning Steppes flightpoint, and turn in the Molt, but I got distracted.) Now, I've done this quest chain with every toon big enough to do it. That is, Kuan, Eeyan, Tris, Vhaas, Ikoli. Clara has too. They've clearly nerfed it, the Twilight Cultists dropping symbol of Ragnaros are now low-level-40's non-elites; the guard towers no longer have elite Dark Iron Sentries; lame. But we were struck also that some of the mechanics have changed. It's a quest to grab the staff. It's a quest to open the chest.

Moreover, the quest is sarcastic.



I don't remember it saying that.

...Anyhow. After that we decided to play Ikoli and Mornara and finish getting the Scholo key. But that got interrupted by guildies wanting to run Utgarde Keep with alts, so out came Eeyan and Telt as that was next on their agenda. The first room is very cool, with the fire animation at the forges. It appears however that my screenshots failed and I forgot to get one when we paused to swap out a party member.

Also, as an observation, lots of people in guild at 80 now, including at least 3 Death Knights. And Wrath hasn't even been out for 3 weeks. I'm noticing folks starting to complain of being bored. Maybe they should have taken the time to read the quest text and enjoy the game. Then again, we are, and swapping alts, and clearing lowbie stuff, and we are still already 76.

It's not 4 anymore.

Habits are quite strong, and on Kuan I've had Earth Shock hotkeyed to 4 as long as I've HAD Earth Shock, which is roughly 37 months now.

He's also had 6,7,8 being Heal, Lesser Heal, Chain Heal, well, ever since he's had Chain Heal, which is probably 36 months now.

But as of hitting level 75, Kuan has gotten Lava Burst (which by the way has the lamest entry in Wowwiki ever as of this writing, perhaps I will take the time to fix). So I spent last night moving buttons around, and trying out different arrangements. And the above button placements do not make any sense any more, so after some fussing, I ended up with these.



Playing in Violet Hold (which struck me as super easy), and also against Arugal, what I finally settled on was not quite a cast sequence, but an opening fight sequence and the rest is as-cooldowns-dictate. If pulling (i.e. outdoor questing), open with Lightning Bolt, then Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning (Chain if CC isn't an issue), Lightning Bolt, Lightning (Chain if CC isn't an issue), repeat since Lava Burst unless CDs run out, then Flame Shock again. I didn't really see many things last that long. that didn't work so well on Arugal becuase of some immunity mechanic I have not researched.

However that niggled in the back of my head, so I went to the Elitist Jerks forums and looked at what they had to say. And after a lot of debate on how to fit 3 casts with 8 second cooldowns in a 16.5 second window and what haste would make it possible, the conclusion of the thread I was readying was screw sequences, just remember spell priorities (Flame shock > Lava Burst > Chain Lightning > Lightning Bolt) and try to keep as much as could be on cooldown (or dot ticks). If more than 6 seconds left on Flame Shock and you were moving (so instant casts only), cast Earth Shock.

Meanwhile, Earth Shock isn't 4 anymore, it's reversed spots with Flame Shock. And Frost Shock is 6 instead of Heal. I'll be hitting the wrong buttons for a while, I can tell.

EDIT (the next day): turns out I was misremembering about the heal keys. I found a screenshot of a Hakkar raid from Oct 2006 (yes, that's about how far I've gotten uploading the screenshots):

Minor Glyphs

The topic of Minor Glyphs came up last night. Specifically the OP Ghost Wolf Glyph for Shamans. "Hey look at me! I'm stealthed and regenerating health! Oh yeah, and I'm running away from whatever hurt me faster too!"

Meanwhile Mages get AI cost lessened, No feather needed for Slow Fall, or turn your sheeps into a penguin. Lame!

Scenic Grizzly Hills

Perhaps it's becuase I love the redwoods, but I think Grizzly Hills wins for prettiest zone. It totally beats out Nagrand.

half-way there

Kuan and Viljo are now 75. Kuan has Lava Burst, Viljo has Frostfire Bolt (and has re-spec'd), and both have spent a wee bit of time at the training dummies in Orgrimmar checking out cast sequencing changes and, of course, the animation.

Kuan now has a problem that other shamans have been whining about since the WotLK beta, namely working out the max DPS cast sequence when the Chain Lightning has a 3.5 sec cool down, the Shocks have a 5-6 second cool down depending on talents, and Lava Burst has an 8 second cooldown, and of course they are all subject to the global cooldown.

Gahhh. Possibly it's time to glance through the EJ shaman forums. Or, I can just do some damned math.

WTF?

I have always wondered why the directory that contains account information in the World of Warcraft application is called WTF.

spoilers and moral dilemma

There are very few poison quests Kuanchichi has done. He doesn't trust the apothecaries of the Forsaken, and agrees with the Druid standing at the entrance of Stonetalon mountains that the Shaman and Druid both have a relationship with Nature, and should act against those who poison it.

Kuan hasn't done the poison quests Lydon hands out in Hillsbrad, and still refuses them. One quest he did, at the direction of Master Gadrin, to down Shadra. That turned into a poison quest for Lydon and he was very upset.

In Dragonblight, in Agmar's Hammer, the Apothecaries asked him to take a package, and he did. But the Earthwarden there said they were up to no good, and when the "Plaguebringer" in Venomspite asked him to get ingredients for "Blight," he refused, thinking that sounds too much like poison.

All well and good right? It's a role playing game and that is how he is.

Until, I hear from Amy the barista about a quest chain that teaches us about Sylvanas. and from Patrick about the quest line that gives him "chills". From guildies about how "Wrathgate is awesome." From everyone else about cut scenes. "Do the blight quest, it's worth it."

It's hard to make good RP decisions when the player knows a little but not everything more than the character. Sigh, I did go and look up the blight chain. I guess it's not poison, per se, since it appears to be mustard gas to use on the Scourge.

So I did do the quest. The cut scene is pretty damned awesome. And the end result, Kuanchichi has a permamently changed game environment that makes him actually pretty satisfied... and more than that is a spoiler I won't post here.

what's wrong with the red dragons?

the leader of the black dragons became Deathwing.
the leader of the bronze dragons went missing.
the leader of the green dragons is caught in nightmare.
the leader of the blue dragons went insane.

what's the catch?

This insult could save your life

"If you're ever captured by the Legion, tell them 'Xar il romath da tidesbi.' They will kill you instantly for insulting their god, saving you intolerable torture or worse..." -Commanderr To'arch of Reaver's Fall

Well, actually it will just guarantee you a swift death, if you say it to forces of the Burning Legion. But better a swift death than torture.

Screenshots again.

I mentioned that I was working on uploading screenshots to Picasa. The link in my first post about it is now bad, and it's best just to look at http://picasaweb.google.com/draNgNon. I am not using Picasa for anything but Wow.

I've been trying to do a few every night before logging in to WotLK, and I now have 51 screenshots up there of varying quality, including some of Kuan going to Shatterspear Village and the opening of AQ on Hyjal, which was only the second server to do it. It's pretty obvious how much both my hardware and the Wow graphics engines have changed! Of course, the most important screenshot of that second set doesn't actually exist: Kuan getting the killing blow on Colossus of Zora. I was so excited, I hit cmd-alt-escape instead of cmd-shift-3 and *poof* there went my Wow client.

At some point this weekend I'll drop a permalink in the Blog UI for the screenshots. It will take a while before their subject matter... exits my LJ history and catches up to Blogger here.

Frostfire

So I did some research. And it looks like the top dps spec for mage at 80 is: 0/53/18 At least according to the most recent Elitist Jerks post on mage theory crafting.

It's an actual elementalist build! Or at least as close to elemental as you can get with the current talent trees. I guess it's really a deep fire build with a bit of frost talents thrown on top to make frostfire bolt even more powerful.

From looking at the talents and reading a bit, it looks like frostfire bolt will do less damage than fireball, but will have god-like crits. I foresee that Viljo will have to get a bit faster with the invis/ice block. Or, heh, maybe the tanks can actually build enough threat.

Content vs Levels

Well, Darkfall had 3 level 80s as of this morning, and it was plain another handful were on the verge of it. Holy cow!

Clara and I are playing for content. When Clara can't log in, I try to skill up Tylara's Blacksmithing (she's 225) or Ikoli's Inscription (she's 125 now). When she can, if they are not out of rest, we play Kuan and Viljo, and if they are, we have been playing Eeyan and Telt.

Monday night, we took them into the Nexus, after piling up as many quests as we could. It was easy, which makes sense. Level 70 normal instances have been easy for a while. It was also pretty.



Kuan and Viljo started in Dragonblight last night. Finally, there are actually herbs showing up on the radar! ...and, they need Herbalism 400. $#^Q!*@!!! So after Clara went to bed, Kuan ran around Borean Tundra and picked flowers until he was 400. Then he went to go get Tiger Lily and some Dranei Shaman grabbed all all in front of him! Stupid Alliance!!

But back to Dragonblight and the content. The story seems convoluted with Horde finally fracturing along the cracks they have always implied it would. It is also clear, story-wise, that Kirin Tor are assholes and I personally am annoyed the game forces you to gain rep with them. On the other hand, the Undead story in Howling Fjord is funny. The Apothecaries just can't seem to get it right.

Mornara is 58

Mornara has left the Death Knight starter area.

After the defeat of the Death Knights at Light's Hope Chapel, she was sent to Orgrimmar. On her way through the streets of Orgrimmar she was spat on and had rotten vegetables thrown at her. She carried a letter from Tirion Fordring to Thrall, asking him to pardon Mornara and all the rest of the Death Knights. Fortunately Thrall has a more open mind than many of the citizens on the streets, and despite their calls for vengeance Mornara was accepted into the Horde.

First LK PvP

Kuan and Viljo were turning a quest in just before they leveled in Borean Tundra, when suddenly a dwarf hunter and a draenei shaman start attacking the nice Taunka lady. Well we can't have that! So we killed them. :D

I am most amused because the hunter tried to Feign Death, and I just stood on his soon to be corpse and exploded, like a good mage.

The only thing I'm sorry about is that I forgot Tanthalas' suggestion and didn't drop my Romantic Picnic Basket.

...aaaaand Ding

Kuan and Viljo are 71, even though we are deliberately not power leveling.

Ikoli

...actually, for all I've healed lowbie stuff with her, and I've healed with Kuan, I really don't know what I'm doing much for a healy priest. I knew all about mana effciencies and theorycrafting for one before Burning Crusade dropped, but... wheee! I've left Ikoli unspec'd since the 3.0 patch dropped. After all the spec doesn't matter when she's hanging around Ogrimmar, milling herbs and learning Glyphs, and waiting for her Knight in Black Armour, I mean for Clara to get her Death Knight out of the instanced area. Which of course will be a while as Kuan and Viljo are off questing in the newly opened continent.

I do know I want her Imp DS. So, here is what I'll do now.

For 80, if she gets there, I am thinking, perhaps erroneously, but hard to tell for me right now, that enough efficiency is available to me I don't have to overtalent for it, and I'm going to go for haste and crits. Perhaps that's my inner shaman talking. Anyhow, here's a shot at that idea, it's not got CoH, maybe I do want that, but right now, haste and crits. If it seems a bad idea, well, there are 10 levels she's got before she needs to even think about changing those points.

Speaking of my inner shaman, Inner Focus in the priest Disp tree is very similar in concept to the shaman Elemental Mastery. I should macro that in front of the standard 'big heal' Ikoli would cast most in a group situation, the way Kuan macros it in front of his lightning casts. But which is it?

Viljo and Teltanara's Talents at 80

Viljo:
Fire build. Not sure if I like all the places I've put points, but it's a decent guide for now.

Arcane build.

Fire with both Focus Magic and Icy Veins

Teltanara:
Holy build with Guardian Sprit.

Holy Build without Guardian Spirit, instead putting the last point into Inspiration.

Enough disc to get Improved Divine Spirit.

Screenshot Adventures

OK, whilst waiting for Clara to come home from work so Kuan and Viljo could explore Northrend, I sat down to figure out how to convert png screenshots of Wow on a mac to not ass-ugly JPEGs and upload them to Picasa.

Since I am occasionally methodical, the first results of these are a set of shots of Kuan and Ikoli flying about in August 2005. And, my since-then-deleted lock, Mathers, catching his first glimpse of Thunder Bluff in the moonlight.

http://picasaweb.google.com/draNgNon/WoW2005

And now, it's time to explore Northrend, at least a little. Or perhaps, wait in a queue...

Arthas Comes Home

Was thinking of this today after rolling my Death Knight, Mornara, last night.

TK Pug

Kuan and Vilo were offline when Darkfall killed Kael. We were both quite pissed as we are missing that vial remnant, and therefore lack a title and quest completion. Since Darkfall didn't raid this week because of upcoming expansion we weren't going to have a handy guild run to kill him again. So I decided, fuck it, I want to kill Kael. I'd gotten pugs together to go into heroics, a raid can't be too much harder since I can probably still get a bunch of guildies to come along.

So Sunday night I actually managed to get a raid together for TK. I'm the one who didn't talk on Vent for months after joining Darkfall, but here I was leading a raid in TK. I got a lot of help from various people. Had a couple of people doing the marking and pulling, and another couple telling me what mob did what and needed to die where for Kael. Without those people helping out the raid would never have gotten as far as it did get.

We oneshot Al'ar and Void Reaver and then only had time for 3 tries on Kael. Unfortunately he didn't go down in that time. So I told everyone that we'd try again on Monday night, and if they wanted to whisper me at 9pm server.

We tried again on Monday night, and had time for 5 tries, I think. Unfortunately that didn't go much better. We got the positioning for the advisers down and were able to reliably get to phase 4, but the MC in phase 4 just fucked us too hard. So no Kael dead, no Vial, and no title. :( Maybe when we are all mid-70s we can go back and kill him.

Now leading a pug TK raid on Vent was actually breaking one of my cardinal rules in WoW. Namely: don't let random people know that the male troll mage is a girl. My experience in the past has been that once someone knows you're a girl you're not really going to have a normal conversation with them, unless the other person happens to actually be mature. And even if they are mature, most of the guys will take a little bit of time to adjust to the fact that OMG!!1!! UR a Girl!! Girls play WoW??!?!!

So here I am, leading the raid, on vent. I did a little bit of talking, and someone was all "Is a girl leading our raid?" I briefly considered suggesting they leave if that was a problem, but settled for saying yes. There was a bit of talk about, oh good I was kind of afraid if that was a guy's voice. And most of it ended there.

Unfortunately not all of it ended there... There was a resto druid, who was pretty stoned, who hit on me a bit. He had clearly never encountered another female player, or at least another female player who admitted her gender to him. Not really surprising considering his attitude. He was quite surprised when I told him there were at least 2 other women in the raid.

Anyway, not that I didn't already appreciate Drognin and the other RLs we have, but leading a raid is hard. I imagine it'd be easier if it was an all guild run, where you can trust people, at least mostly, to do what they are told.

Obama in WoW

Long time No see

I've been so busy I haven't updated this in a while. The 3.0 patch dropped! All those achievements... that Kuan has done... and has no credit for.

So, first things first, got the 3-4 map points that were missed taken care of. Then a bunch of other random stuff. Then, some methodicals, Classic Dungeonmaster, and only one BF run away from Outland Dungeonmaster.

Raiding wise, shaman is fully nerfed. Eeyan does way better than Kuan, to my bitter disappointment...
and those of many others. Here are some links for future reference:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065154535&sid=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10951965318&sid=2000&pageNo=1

Blue promises to have a serious look at it... before next expansion. But agrees ele shaman tree + coefficient nerf needs to be looked at, and will... sometime before the next expansion. Great.

I spec'd Tylara, still prot, but haven't really played her much. Paladin has changed so much I have to learn how again. Ikoli still remains unspec'd, I have no idea how to spec a 50-something healy priest. But she needs to be healy, she will play with Clara's death knight after next week.

Ikoli is also 75 inscription now. She's got a long way to go, but that's OK. She can learn the daily minor glyphs. Her first one was some hunter one.

Inscription

I will have my DeathKnight do Inscription as a profession. And DraNgNon has taken her priest, Ikoli, to be a scribe as well.

So here are a few useful links for how to level the profession:

WoW Professions - Inscription
WoW Guide - Inscriptions

My new favorite addon

Gossipmonger.

"Automatically skipping greeting/gossip text is convenient, but what if you are actually interested in seeing what the NPC has to say first? Or perhaps even better, what if you want greeting text to be shown alongside the vendor window/bank/whatnot? This addon will let you do just that!"

I love it.

glyphs

I'm dumb. Those glyphs aren't out til the expansion. OK, I'm going to try the Flame Shock one for now 'cuz it's cheap. We'll see if it works.

all about Kuanchichi

I tried out this spec for Kuan last night in SSC and was beside myself with the waste; he never really dropped below 80% mana. On the other hand, his DPS suffered a lot. And, he did drop at times to like 15% health on Nature damage. (Well, there were a few 0% health too, but at that point I blame the group-assigned healers.) It's quite disturbing to see the green bar far far below the blue bar in a raid, and the number 14 in front of my toon's name on the damage meters. Especially when the main tank was at #13, and the secondary tank at #7:


Here's what I will try tonight in Hyjal. I don't do this lightly. I am usually pretty careful about Kuan and I don't respec him often, I expect it to cost maybe 15G.

I've only loaded the Flamtongue Weapon Glyph for him so far. I will probably take the Earth Shock and Chain Lightning glyphs as well. I haven't decided what is more important for now vs lvl 80. Chain Lightning would be pretty handy on Hyjal trash. Earth Shock with a shorter CD is just pretty handy all around (just not 5 talent points' worth of handy). So really it's a question of meters vs usefulness I guess. sigh I s'pose that answers that question.

Anyhow, about that SSC run. They really did nerf the hell out of it. We cleared 5 bosses and Kuan got to see something he never has before:



...And just in case this post sounds like I'm exaggerating for melodramatic effect, yes both those images are cropped from the exact same screenshot, taken before we tried Vashj.

Achievements

We finally got a chance to log on last night. The 3.0 patch is pretty spiffy.

I'm really appreciating having more banks space due to learning mounts and pets. Also the conversion of Badges of Justice and battleground marks into a currency instead of the previous item that took up bank and bag space is just great. I only wish that more items had been converted into a currency. For example I'd like it if the Halaa tokens or the Cenarion Circle items, or the AD repeatable item quest rewards had all been converted to currency. I'd gain another 6 or so bank slots. But really I'm just happy about the 3 mounts, 8 pets, and 5 currency objects that are no longer taking up space. :D

I'm also intrigued by the achievements. I was quite displeased to learn that I did not in fact have all of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms mapped for Viljo. I was missing a few spots in 2 or 3 zones on each continent. As Kuan was too they ran around together for some mapping goodness.

The one achievement that is displeasing me is the Loremaster. I'm missing many many quests in EK and Kalimdor. Which can be dealt with, though it is annoying. However, I'm only missing a few in Outland. I know that in Nagrand one of those quests is the talbuck poo quest. I don't want to pick up poo for stinky draenei. :( We'll see if I cave on that or not.

third time's the charm

I got past the character selection screen pretty fast. but still FAIL.




...at least this time I had the patience to get the little flying dragon in the shot.

I'm going to the gym.

...and my second...

I tried Silvermoon that time.

Clara tried Shatt and got world server down.

my first authentic WOTLK experience

I didn't even get past the Kalimdor loading screen

Patch Day!

It's 3.0 patch day! Wheee.

I will be swapping Ikoli from skin to inscription. My plan eventually is to have 4 lvl 80 characters - Kuan, Eeyan, Tylara, and Ikoli. Clara will have Viljo, Telt, and Mornara (who will be a death knight); she may or may not bring Kairon all the way up along with Tylara. I wanted Tylara and Kairon further along by now, but as the dearth of posts here lately might have hinted, life has come along in the last month and really interfered with Wow.

Anyhow, I had some specs worked out in a saved-but-not-published post, but a quick perusal shows me trees changed again. But we will be heading into Wrath of the Lich King with Kuan and Viljo hitting Northrend from the Kalimdor side, Eeyan and Telt from the EK side, and the other toons hitting Outland.

Pants! or: Old World Stubbornness

I've been busy with Real Life things keeping me away from the game! That will continue for another week or so.

I never lost my determination to get Eeyan all the way through the Tier 0.5 gear quests. (Kuan never cared about this quest chain.) Lately, given the renewed interest in AD rep, we've been taking Kuan and Viljo about once a week through undead-side Stratholme, up to the Magistrate, and then swapping Eeyan in. This has been a heretofore vain attempt to convince Rivendare to drop [Shadowcraft Pants], something he's never done for me since Eeyan first started running Strat in what, January 2006. That's all Eeyan needed to complete Anthion's Parting Words.

OMFG, tonight, we made another run of it again he did it. I got to turn in the quest!



Now, I have the last set of quests to do so Eeyan can complete the chain. Woo!



...

...well, and work on getting the hat from Gandling, and the chest from Drakk. :-/ At least Kuan still needs AD rep, so Scholomance works for that. Getting people to run UBRS now, hm.

Pet Training

Recently Kairon and Tylara have reached level 52. And Casimir is now level 51 as well. So it is (past) time to get the next set of skills for my tiger.

Dash (rank 3) - pet level 50
Hinterlands - Vilebranch Raiding Wolf (50+-51+)
Blackrock Spire - Blackrock Worg (54)

Bite (rank 7) - pet level 48
Felwood - Felpaw Ravager (51-52)
Hinterlands - Saltwater Snapjaw (49-50)
Hinterlands - Ironback (51-52)
Hinterlands - Vilebrancy Raiding Wolf (50+-51+)

Claw (rank 7) - pet level 48
Felwood - Angerclaw Mauler (49-50)
Felwood - Ironbeak Ravager (50-52)
Ferlas - Ironfur Patriarch (48-49)

So it looks like in the short term I'll be going to Felwood to get the next bite and claw. Fighting my way to the top of Jintha will have to wait, even though it's not elite anymore it's still not something I want to do casually. Also I think we still need to get the Ancient Egg quest lined up.

Guild Turnover

Recently Darkfall lost its best geared holy priest as well as a (annoying) tank and a pally. A week or three earlier the priests really good spriest friend had left, claiming our raid times weren't right for him anymore. Now I'm not at all sorry to see the tank leave; he was an idiot and annoying to boot. But the spriest and the holy priest had joined Darkfall before they were 70, and the guild had done a lot of work to gear them up. Not just giving them drops, but farming and transmuting and tailoring. So it's a bit of a slap in the face to see them leave and go to another guild.

The holy priest made a rather lame post on the guild boards saying "it's not you, it's me", Darkfall wasn't fun for her anymore, and she wanted to try other guilds. I've heard from a couple of sources that the holy priest's issue was really the lack of "progress". Now a fair amount of the recent lack of progress is due to us being short a healer when she bails on showing up for a raid. And some of it has been that Labor Day weekend was back to back with the Gl being gone for a week, both of which put a crimp in raiding. But both of these situations are the standard "Whaa! I have loot from boss X, lets move on to boss Y," with a complete disregard for the other people in the guild who still need loot.

The lack of team work and selfishness shown by that attitude is completely infuriating to me. I understand that sometimes a guild doesn't fit a person, and it's just better to move on. But moving on because you don't have enough patience to help the people who helped you is rude and obnoxious.

the Internets is not my Friend

I finally grabbed my 1% wipe rant and tried to polish it enough to post to our guild board.

Which is down, now.

In other news, apparently we are caving in to the temptation. Next week, Darkfall will be trying out Naxx. Kuan is still only about 5K Argent Dawn Revered. I better get on it if I don't want to be blowing mats for getting keyed.

Another visit to Hyjal Summit

Monday we tried TK but Monday was a US Holiday, Labour Day. So Darkfall had poor attendance and couldn't get Al'ar down before the enrage timer.

To make up for it we went into Zul'Aman after and did a full clear. Kuan got the daggar off the dragonhawk boss, [Wub's Cursed Hexblade]. WOO! That is his new instancing/caster weapon.

Today we had better attendance and we went into Hyjal. Kuan got a trash drop, [Claw of Molten Fury], WOO! That is his new farming/enhance/battleground weapon.

Anyhow setting up for Anetheron takes some time. They have to have everyone placed Just So. Group 2, which usually consists of mages + an ele shaman, always stands on the hill to Jaina's left. As we stood there waiting for the guild leader to finish explaining the fight, everyone eventually noticed us and took a screenshot.



For the record, that's Elut, Sardonique, Kuanchichi, Point, and Viljo.

FWIW we took down the first three bosses in Hyjal, no problem. For boss loot, Kaz dropped stuff that fully went to offspec. We will start working on later bosses after next week.

Raiding with Telt

Last night we didn't really have enough people online, but Darkfall tried to do Magtheridon anyway. We had about 8 or 9 pugs and Mags was a semi-disaster. Ok it wasn't a complete disaster, we eventually killed him, but it took 4-ish wipes first. :(

Anyway Telt won a roll on the priest t4 robe, but I passed to a guild tank who can make much better use for it. :D Caffinator, our friend from Australia, had been wearing a blue chest. Now he's got his t4 chest so I have a warm fuzzy feeling. And even though Evallen didn't get her t5 chest she got the very nice offhand that Mag drops.

After that we tried to run SSC, but with Labor Day it just wasn't gonna happen. We were not going to pug that. >.< So Kuan and Telt got pulled into a fresh ZA.

The ZA was pretty good. We easily got the first couple of chests. We started at Eagle boss and oneshot both him and bear. Then we ran into a little trouble at Dragonhawk. We had about 3 people, including me and DraNgNon, who had never seen him die before, so between that and changing up our strategy a couple of times we had a few wipes.

I think we should have gone straight to Lynx, as the 3rd boss. We one shot him when we got there. :D Unfortunately after there people were getting a little sleepy. So we needed 2 tries for Hexlord. Sadly the caster dps trinket didn't drop for Kuan :( But Telt did get the healing trinket. :D

Then we tried Zul'jin. That didn't go too well. :( In fact most of the wipes were Telt's fault. I messed up on the mass dispel at least once and was not speedy enough on healing the claw rage target in phase 4 a couple of times.

Tylara the Tank

Tylara is 50 now!

...and as she hit it, still without a carrot. That was no good, so Clara pulled a pug together for ZF. With me tanking! OMG! That was pretty hard, especially since we had an impatient enhance shaman who kept bloddy pulling. But we cleared it (skipping the Event) in less than 90 mins.

It was actually quite instructive. I've not been sure of what to hot key and button placement. Now I see some abilities I didn't have hotkeyed totally need to be, and I need to unhotkey others... I may have to define a separate action bar for tanking, as some abilities like flash heal are useful when running about outdoors.

...I sure hope pallies get more mana efficient at higher levels...

the night of New Content

Today, we were supposed to try try Azgalor. This apparently scared people.

Instead Kuan and Viljo got pulled into the tail half of an all-guild Zul'Aman. Now, in the last few months Kuan's been there once, just to down Hex Lord, and I wanted another shot at the [Hex Shrunken Head].

It dropped, and they gave it to the spriest. Drat! But more importantly, we decided to go after Zul'jin. He was waiting for us.



We'd not tried the fight before, and only one person in the raid had even seen it past phase 4. The raid leader was surprised there was a phase 5 even. Anyhow, we tried him once, and got paralyzed. Then we tried again, and got claw'd. But third time's the charm. Viljo dropped dead, but everyone else survived til the dragonhawk phase. So we got him down! Even though I was thinking it was going to be a 1% wipe again.


(I note, that dead Tauren in front of Kuan is Tobis.)

Viljo got a nice haste neck item from him, [Loop of Cursed Bones].