Saturday, April 30, 2011

Stable Keeper

Goblins are not the most savory characters. They have a pretty well established gangster culture. As in the person with the biggest explosions and most money wins, and the best way to create the biggest explosions and get the most money is to screw over other people.



So I'm not going to be trusting them with anything valuable or irreplaceable unless there is someone else watching them.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

I'm Here to Kill Dragons - Update

Tuesday night Darkfall ran our second guild 25-man. We had to pug some people, but there were 21 Darkfall guildies in the raid. We hit Blackwing Descent and, despite patch day woes, we killed Magmaw and the Trons. We had a few good attempts on Maloriak, but ran out of time due to earlier problems with the Trons activating in an entirely random order.

Our first guild 25man was in Bastion of Twilight on Sunday. We actually had only one pug then. I remain super pleased about that. And in true Darkfall fashion we did quite well on the bosses and absolutely noobed it up on the trash. We one shot Halfus, and 4-shot the dragon twins with a new strategy. But the trash in Bastion is brutally annoying. There isn't much space and the packs are very close together. Also after the gauntlet before the dragon twins we had a group that didn't reset to the right location. So there was a fair amount of confusion as to where the extra mobs were suddenly appearing from.

I think we still need to do more recruiting, but we're in pretty decent shape. It turns out that a bunch of the people we'd pugged in on Thursday, had been in a guild together. However, their guild leader quit WoW and disbanded the guild. So we ended up scooping up a bunch of new recruits. We also had a few people see my forum post and join from there too.

So, all considered, I'm pretty pleased with our progress towards full DF 25s. I just hope that our progress continues tonight, with good kills and less trash wipes in Bastion.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Rise of the Zandalari

Rise of the Zandalari (colloquially known as Patch 4.1) downloaded onto my computer yesterday. I'm kind of glad that there aren't new raids since we've only just now gotten a 25man together. But I'm rather dubious about the new 5man heroics.

Here is the patch trailer:


Yeah.... I'm not really sure what is happening.

Oh yes, it's quite clear that the Zandalari are rising and a new troll war is going to start. But WHY?

I ran Zul'gurub at level 60. It was the Zandalari, sent by Rastakhan, who were sending you in to fight the Hakkari and stop them from raising Hakkar. The Zandalari were supposed to be the highest caste of trolls. The priestly caste. The people who were bringers of, well perhaps not peace, but certainly some sort of order. Look at the chat log for Exhal, the Servitor of Rastakhan

Exzhal says: [Troll] Bring forth the prisoner. Place him in the circle of binding.
Zandalar Enforcer:[Troll] Right away, servitor!
Zandalar Enforcer: [Troll] Move!
Exzhal says: [Troll] Kneel, heathen
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Curious. A servitor of Rastakhan that does not know the Hakkari do not converse in the old tongue?
Exzhal says: I said KNEEL!
Exzhal says: Do you know who I am, zealot?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: You are a fool, soon to forfeit his life. No?
Exzhal says: I could crush you with but a single motion. Do not anger me.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: How pathetic. I am infused with the power of the Soulflayer. I fear nothing but the almighty Hakkar. I serve no one but my master, Jin.
Exzhal says: So Hakkar has returned?
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Do you really need to ask? Can you not feel him? Has the almighty king Rastakhan sent his Servitor and Hand here on a mission of diplomacy?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Oh yes, old one. Hakkar has returned. Soon the world shall crumble beneath his might. Consumed. Left in ruin...
Exzhal says: We will never allow it... We have banished him once from this world before and we will banish him again.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs maniacally
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: FOOL! Do you purport to even have one-tenth of the power you had during the Uprising? The nations were united and still were nearly consumed by the shadow of Hakkar. You stand no chance.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: And now, those nations that you would have called allies have joined forces with us... Yes, old one, do not look so surprised.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Bloodscalp, Sandfury, Skullsplitter, Vilebranch, and Witherbark. They all pledge their allegiance to Jin - their souls to Hakkar. You have lost.
Exzhal says: Times have changed. The younger races will join us. You will never succeed.
Captured Hakkari Zealot laughs
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: The young races? The infants? Humans? Orcs? Dwarves? You expect to defeat the Hakkar? To destroy a GOD?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: It shall NEVER happen. We are legion. We are united. Where are your heroes? Vol'jin sits in sanctuary at the side of the young Warchief, unaware. Zul'jin is missing, probably dead.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: And... do you expect to defeat the Primal Gods?
Captured Hakkari Zealot smirks
Exzhal says: The Primal Gods? Impossible!
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Is it? Call out to them, Servitor.
(At this point, Exzhal attempt to make contact with the Primal Gods with a spell emote similar to a Hunter switching Aspects. There is no orange-text emote for this.)
Exzhal uses his index finger to make a cutting motion across his neck.
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Where are your Gods now? WHERE, SERVITOR?
Captured Hakkari Zealot says: Strike me down. I shall be reborn... Even more powerful.
Captured Hakkari Zealot lowers his shoulders and exposes his neck
(The Zandalar Enforcer kills Captured Hakkari Zealot with a single swing of his axe. Again, no orange-text emote for this.)
Zandalar Enforcer spits on the corpse of of the fallen Zealot.

Ok so here we have Rastkahan, the leader of the Zandalari, sending trolls to help combat the Hakkari and stop troll armies from spreading across the land. This was in Vanilla and these NPCs are now gone from Yojamba isle.

Now in the current Azeroth we've got some troll leader gathering all the troll forces under his banner to retake Azeroth. All we know about this new leader is that his name is Zul. And that he seems to want to unleash Hakkar again...

I'm really wondering what happened to Rastkahan. Based on the people he sent to Yojamba, he seemed like a pretty level headed troll. I'm deeply afraid that, like the goblins, the Zandalar home island got destroyed by Deathwing. And that Rastakhan's corpse is either a pile of ash or under a bunch of rubble. Maybe both.

I'd like it even better if we get a chance to avenge Rastakhan and help his rightful successor restore the honor of the Zandalari.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Thrall's Balls

Thrall may not be the leader of the Horde anymore but he is certainly still well respected. He's still got a very loyal following. And even the people who are loyal to Garrosh still honor Thrall.



So it really amuses me that "Thrall's balls" is the new expletive of choice.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Goblin Starting Area

I don't want to be spoileriffic, but the Goblin starting area is pretty excellent. It's rather ridiculous, but a lot of fun.

Basically you start out as the next up and coming Goblin boss. You've made some cool inventions and are making a name for yourself. This means that Gallywix is annoyed with you, and some people want your help and some people need impressing.



Of course it's such an excellent setup that it can't last. Deathwing has just got loose and is destructivizing. You've got to get off the starter island and then off the next island you find yourself on.



Eventually you have some unfortunate run-ins with the Alliance and then meet up with the Horde. A bunch more cool stuff happens, which is very spoileriffic. You've got to stop the Alliance and help the Horde so that you earn the Goblins a place in Kalimdor.



Kinda cool that my little Nivki went from fancy dress wearing socialite to bad-ass trick rider of wolves.

She does miss those shades though. They were bling.

Friday, April 22, 2011

My favorite dwarf

As a general rule I don't like dwarves. I much prefer horde characters to alliance, and if I am forced to play alliance I'm more likely to go for a human or night elf, or pretty much anything else before I roll a dwarf at this point.

But there is one dwarf that I like. Stormcaller Mylra is a dwarf shaman. She appears in Deepholm and then again in Twilight Highlands. In both zones she is a questgiver or interacts with you while you quest for the Earthen Ring.

Her quests and dialogue in Deepholm are what have endeared her to me. You have to work with her to figure out what is happening in Deepholm and try to solve it. I'm not going to say a lot more since I don't actually want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't done it already.

Here is some of her dialogue, with the spoiler-ish bits not included:


Mor'norokk yells: Wait! You can't do this! You people must have a code of honor or something!
Stormcaller Mylra says: I'm a daughter of the Wildhammer Clan, and a shaman of the Earthen Ring. My code compels me to honor my ancestors and the elements.


Stormcaller Mylra says: Doesn't say a damn thing about dog-ugly ogres.


Mor'norokk yells: Stop it, you tiny, angry woman! I'll tell you everything! What do you want to know?


~~~ Interlude where Mor'norokk spills his guts. ~~~



Stormcaller Mylra says: You were never in any danger, sweetheart. My friends down below would've caught you. You're worth too much to us alive!


Then it's a little wierd. Because Mor'norokk does actually die by propeller. I'm not sure if she dropped him, or if he intentionally fell. Based on his dialogue after this point I'm inclined to think that he suicided. Either way I'm not going to lose any sleep over a dog-ugly ogre.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Earthen Ring has opinions on druids too

I just wanted to mention that we're not the only folks who think Cenarion Druids are dumb. Earthen Ring thinks so too. Here's what they confided to Eeyan whilst he was questing in Twilight Highlands...

Ghouls

Though I much prefer tanking, Mornara does have two talent specializations. Obviously the blood tree (tanking tree) is my favorite. However, I do enjoy the unholy (dps) tree as well.


The unholy tree is all about diseases and pets. Yes, pets. Now in the normal course of things I'm really not someone who likes pets in WoW. My experiences with my hunter has taught me that my pet is going to run off somewhere random and attack a mob two or three packs away. And then bring all those very angry mobs back to me... And don't even get me started on warlocks, or, even worse, frost mages.


But Unholy! I like it! I drop diseases on everything in sight, smack people in the face with a large weapon, and fire death coils at anything in sight. My ghoul swats who I tell him (or her) to swat. As often I can, I supersize him (or her), and he (or she) swats them harder.


I'm not really sure of my ghoul's gender because I'm not really sure of my ghoul's name. Yes, yes, I should notice these things. Its only the undead creature that I've ripped from the earth and commanded to serve me. I ought to learn his or her name. It's only common decency to do so.


But it's a different ghoul almost every time, I tell you. The undead creature doesn't stick around. Often, it bites the dust in a rather painful fashion, since I'm usually unholy in the arena. But sometimes the ghoul just fades out as I swap specs.


And that's leaving entirely alone the issue of the names these ghouls choose. Rootgrinder? Bonechomp? Braintaker? Limbface? Ratripper? Batchomp? These names are neither memorable nor inspiring. All I can do is wonder what the ghouls were doing before I summoned them to my side.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Cenarion Druids are Dumb

Cenarion Druids are Dumb. That is the overwhelming impression I'm left with from doing all the Mount Hyjal quests.



You want me to climb a tree, grab an angry and uncooperative bear cub, and hurl it onto a target. You don't think that the cub will maul me or worry that my aim may be off? Nothing could possibly go wrong? Really?!?

Between this quest and the quest a slightly earlier in the zone that has you saving fluffy little animals from the fire, I really wonder if they have any brains at all.

I clearly remember thinking in BC that the Cenarion Expedition was full of stupidity. But, based on Silithus, I had concluded that the Cenarion Circle had sent all of their idiots to Outland. Now it seems that between Outland, Borean Tundra, and now Mount Hyjal my conclusion was erroneous. Perhaps instead the druids in Silithus ran to the horrible and insect filled desert to hide from the stupidity of the rest of the Cenarions?

Friday, April 15, 2011

Whale Shark!

We killed the Whale Shark. It happened a while ago actually. But still, Whale Shark dead!



It was really annoying to tank. See, the whale shark does roughly one million damage per hit. No, really, he hit Mornara for 900k only because her armor mitigated some of that damage. However, to balance this out he swims really slowly. And to balance that out he will drop threat if you're more than 20 yards away. Also, just for fun, his hit box is itty.

So I ended up swimming backwards in front of him on Mornara, but not too fast. And thumping the whale shark with all the ranged things I could think of. There were only about twelve of us, so it took a while to whittle him down, but it worked out.



In fact, a few days after Kuan and Mornara killed the giant annoying fish, Viljo and Eeyan did too. I wanted to beat Wian for suggesting that I tank again on Viljo, but it was actually a lot easier on Viljo that on Mornara. Viljo has a talent that lets him cast scorch while moving, so I just slowly swam in front scorching.



Its rather disturbing to see that mouth bearing down on you. Also, for scale, you can see Eeyan going stabby-stabby on the right side of the shark.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Old Crafty

I'm not all that big on fishing. In fact, it's pretty safe to say I think it is dead boring. I only every really started getting it seriously leveled on any character until achieves came out.

Unfortunately for me all the good food for tanking, caster dps, and healing is made from fish. And the caster/healer fish is really hard to catch. So I've dutifully been doing the daily fishing quests. I hadn't really been trying for any achieves.

But then I fished up Old Crafty and got the achieve for catching him.



It turns out that Kuanchichi has been trying to catch him and get that achieve for months, perhaps even years. So there was a bit of anger from the seat next to me. Fortunately for me Kuan caught Old Crafty only a week or so after I did.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Icecrown Citadel 10 achieves

Monday night I took our fun raid to ICC for normal mode achieves. We didn't do anything on heroic. All we did was the ICC 10 Drake Achieve for every boss.



Well, almost every boss. We started a bit late, so the raid only formed up at 9:30. We got the achieve for every boss up to LK, though not every one need every achieve. In fact, I think most people were only missing at most six or seven achieves. But they were spread out over about 10 bosses.

Most of the achieves were rendered pretty trivial. With the massive health, damage, and healing buffs that we've all gotten from Cata things would have been pretty easy. When you add the 30% ICC buff on top of that some things were just silly. Mornara for example, had 226k health. I remember being really happy when I got her to 30k health in the middle of Wrath...

However, the Sindragosa achieve was NOT trivial. Her frost tombs are still pretty fatal. I think they do a percentage of your total health as damage while you're in them. Also, her achieve is All You Can Eat, which is to make sure that no one gets more than 5 stacks of the mystic buffet debuff.

It was brutal. We went with a 3 tank setup: Mornara, Wian, and Earthen, just so we'd have a little bit of leeway for stack dropping. There was at least one time where we had to wipe because I got pulled in for biting cold right before I could hide behind a frost tomb and drop my stacks. :(

We also had a fair number of unintentional wipes where multiple people got tombed. Either someone didn't see the mark on their head and tombed the entire group hiding behind the current tomb, or the previous tomb hadn't been broken out yet and we had a 3rd tomb up. And then, usually the person in the first tomb would die.

But we persevered! And it was a sweet sweet victory to get All You Can Eat.


Next week, we'll do an hour of fishing to work on the guild feast achieve and then go to ICC10 to finish up the last LK achieve. Been Waiting a Long Time for This I suppose the name is rather appropriate.

the things our toons put up with

when he got the [Fossilized Raptor], I adjusted Kuanchichi's raptor mount macro to include it. And it never came up!

Until he had occasion to visit Brunnhildar Village.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Accidental Heroic

Yesterday I was home sick. After napping and other sick related activities, which I shall not go into, I woke up around 4-ish feeling slightly better. I went down stairs to the lounge and puttered a bit. Put some music on, petted the doggies, settled on the futon with some hot chocolate.

I logged in and did some WoW stuff, too. Khyrie got a level or two. Mornara did her daily JC quest and the fishing quest. I hopped on Telt and did the daily cooking and fishing quests with her, too.

Then I thought that perhaps a nice dungeon run with Telt would be a good thing. She's just at the point where normals are pretty ok. In theory, her gear is over the limit for running heroics. However, in practice I think some of the gear that is counting towards that limit is for her damage set. DraNgNon has been agitating for Eeyan and Telt to run heroics. Especially since Eeyan needs Chaos Orbs for the Blacksmithing. So I figured that a normal dungeon would be good for getting some more rep and maybe a piece of gear or two.

I queue Telt up and 7 minutes later the window pops up and I'm healing.

It was an in progress Halls of Origination. The gauntlet part had already been cleared and the group had clearly wiped on Anraphet. But I kept us all alive, and we handily killed him. We go up the elevator and also handily kill Isiset.

Well, perhaps not quite handily. These pulls were taking all of my mana. Even the trash pulls were leaving me with only mana left. It was pretty rough, the everyone was taking a lot of damage. I took a quick look at the tank's health and the dps of the group. The tank had a fair amount of health, was he just stacking stam and not picking up any mitigation stats? Hmm, the dps were actually not doing as much as Eeyan was the other night, in Halls of Origination, but as a group their average was at or above that previous group. So why were things taking so long to die?

Anyway we engage Rahj. Not too bad a fight, even if the mage decided that standing in my healing range was a silly idea. But then Rahj drops dead and Telt gets the achieve for HEROIC Halls of Origination. OMG Heroic! I thought this was a normal. My jaw literally dropped. I had healed a heroic, and I hadn't even noticed. I struggled a bit because I thought it was a crappy group, but, aside from frantically remembering all my mana regeneration tools, it hadn't been all that bad.

I even won the Chaos Orb.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Ascendant Council

Sunday Darkfall went into Bastion of Twilight again. This time we had the whole evening to work on Ascendant Council. It was a rocky start, since we had a bunch of people who hadn't seen it at all.

It took a bunch of attempts, but we got phase one down and I started calling out every single upcoming thunderstorm and quake in phase two. Then we started getting to phase three regularly. And of course in phase three we died horribly to start with.

But we persevered! Our winning attempt was a crazy mess of people dropping like flies to the gravity and the lightning. I was spamming every single survivability cooldown I had. Death Strike FTW! It ended with me and our dps death knight the only ones still up. The other DK had jumper cables and even managed to get them to work on Kuan after the dust settled.



Our phase 3 was a crazy mess of running about, but our phase 1 and 2 on that attempt were just about perfect. No one died in either of the first two phases, and we had both pairs of bosses hit 25% health at just about the same time.

I'm so proud of Darkfall. :D