Come Get Tha Voodoo

Spine of Deathwing

2012-01-31T20:20:00.000-08:00

This past week Darkfall divided up into two 10mans for our raids. I tried to evenly split up the groups so everyone had heals and ranged/melee dps and a tank and so that people were in the same group as their friends. It's pretty easy to divide groups up, we've actually got a good core crew, but it can be tricky to get everyone with their friends. I could wish that more people would show up, but we're trying to work on recruiting, so hopefully that will fix itself soon.

My group pugged in a dps DK who also had a tank spec, so we made it through the first 5 bosses on Tuesday. Thursday we killed Blackhorn with a pug pally tank. Sunday we were missing people so we compressed down to one 10man and tried our hand at Spine of Deathwing.

Spine is an interesting fight. It's deceptively simple to talk about. Explode adds to blast off Deathwing's armor. Once you remove three armor plates you win. But the execution is tricky to coordinate. We're trying it with one tank, and 3 heals. I'm not sure that's the best way, in particular I could see using two tanks. That would certainly help with the swarms of blood near the end. But I think we can work around that by taking time to kill a bunch of blood before we pull another Hideous Amalgamation.

It's also hard to make sure that everyone gets gripped down for the roll. Well it's easy to get gripped down, it's hard to know when to get ungripped. But we had some good learning attempts Sunday night.

Dragon Soul Progress

2012-01-30T17:58:00.000-08:00

Blackhorn

Sunday night two weeks ago Darkfall killed Blackhorn on 10man.

We'd been following a strategy where we tried to burn the drakes as fast as possible. But we kept losing people to all sorts of bad stuff: melee adds charging, purple swirlies big and small, or sapper not dying in time. We'd only gotten to phase 2 twice and while one of those was close to a kill it wasn't really repeatable.

So we changed up the kill priority. Three dps were assigned to the melee adds, and a fourth was to swap and help kill them if we called for them to be burned. Of course everyone was still supposed to swap to the sapper as soon as it appeared. We made sure that there were never more than 2 melee adds up at a time. It drastically cut down on the random amount of death due to charge. Only having two melee adds up at a time also reduced the tank damage a lot. And as a final relief for the healers we told everyone to only hop into a small purple swirly when they were at full health and it was close to them. That increased ship damage a fair amount, but as long as we got every single sapper the boat got low but didn't explode.

Somehow this worked. I can't tell if we were super lucky and happened to be able to kill the last 2 drakes before they could drop off a 4th pair of adds, or if the mechanics were fixed so that we'd only ever get 3 pairs of melee adds. Either way, after the 3rd pair of adds were killed the last drake or two was killed and we pushed through to phase two. We had a couple of snafus with the shockwave and devastating roar. But once people remembered to get out of shockwave while the casters stayed more than 10 yards away from the boss to avoid the silence of the roar the kill went reasonably smoothly.

Zon'ozz

Two weeks ago Tuesday night Darkfall had enough people to do DS25. The first two bosses are pretty easy. We had a wipe on Yor'sahj because people didn't listen and stacked when the boss had the green buff. There were a few people not on vent and that made it pretty hard. Honestly the only thing that saved us was the Yor'sahj addon that DraNgNon found for me a couple of weeks ago. The auto announce for slime kill target and stack/no stack and add kill order of that addon is just fabulous. And I really need to add a vent requirement to my raid advertisement macro.

However, Zon'ozz continues to be a thorn in our side. I do not understand how to control the direction of the ping pong ball. And that consistently fucks us. We've got the damage to kill him. We've got the heals to survive his tank damage and his aoe phase damage. But when the ball goes sideways everything gets screwed. We got him to 4% last night. 4%! But we didn't manage to kill him.

I think that I need to step up and tank him so that he is facing directly away from the ranged camp. I have been reluctant to do that, due to healing considerations. But on 25man both of the tank healers are standing in the melee group anyway so they are close enough regardless of how the boss is pointed. However, if we do that the ranged group can't be too far back, both for healing/dispelling reasons, and so that I have time to get the boss in position if the ball goes sideways.

Either way Zon'ozz makes me want to tear my hair out. We've been so close so often and a seemingly random ball bounce will screw it all up.

Mr. Stomp

2012-01-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

Running around the base of Wyrmrest temple in the Dragon Soul raid are two NPCs, Mr Stomp and Gor'in "Punchy" LIttlebottom. Punchy is chasing Mr. Stomp around.

Mr. Stomp yells: Stomp now.
Gor'in "Punchy" Littlebottom yells: Aaaaaaahhh! We're all doomed!

Gor'in "Punchy" Littlebottom yells: No! Right! Go Right!
Mr. Stomp yells: Buuurrrnnn!

There is more, I think Punchy tries to get Mr Stomp to go left at some point.

This dialogue coming from a molten fire construct/elemental should be rather familiar. It's definitely a reference to Rhyolith. It made me smile when I first noticed it, though our usual foot steerer on Rhyolith has never actually said "Aaaaaahhhh! we're all doomed!" he's come close a couple of times.

MMORPG

2012-01-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

We all play WoW. (If you don't why are you reading this?) It's an MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. People forget this simple fact all the time.

It's annoying when people forget about the RPG part of WoW. Depending on how much they forget it can pull me out of the game myself.

But far more annoying is when someone forgets about the MMO part of the game. It is extremely important to remember that the other characters on the screen are played by people. People who may have had a bad day. People who may have just had the most awesome day ever. People who are snatching an hour or two of fun or de-stressing before they go to sleep or do yard work or whatever.

I've said it before but it makes me froth at the mouth with anger when someone treats me or others like we're not people too. Like we're just NPCs in their game. The people I play with are real. Some of them I've met. Some I haven't. All of them are still people, and deserve to be treated with basic respect.

So next time you talk to your guild or run a random, remember that everyone else is a person, too. They deserve the same respect that you want.

Kael'Thas Take 2

2012-01-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just before the New Year Tylara and Khyrie went to the Magister's Terrace. It was pretty fun to run through there. And it was a good change for us to practice tanking and healing in an actual instance.

Of course while I was there I had to screen shot Kael's ridiculous dialogue.

Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Vengeance burns!
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Felomin Ashal!

Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: I'll turn your world... upside... down.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Master, grant me strength.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: Do not get... too comfortable.
Kea'thas Sunstrider yells: My demise accomplishes nothing! The master will have you! You will drown in your own blood! The world shall burn! Aaagh!

The last line is the most hilarious. Kael is dead but has a ridiculously long line before he actually falls over.

Caroling

2012-01-13T19:02:00.001-08:00

This year's special Winter Veil gift was a Gaudy Winter Veil Sweater. It's main use, aside from looking truly horrible, was to allow you to carol. The on-use for the sweater was to "sing a festive song".

The new holiday achieve was A-Caroling We Will Go. Carol, with your sweater, in the enemy capital cities. If you were observant and slightly careful you could, with a flying mount, get to all of the Alliance cities without being attacked by guards. And thus get your achieve for caroling.

It was only the two of us, but I think that if you had about five or six people the different caroling sounds would combine to form an actual song.

General Update

2012-01-09T19:14:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit silent on the blog lately. It's been a combo of Holiday busyness and guild stress. But with the Holidays over and the guild calming down I think I have the mental focus and time to post about WoW without it being a complete rant. I have been having fun in WoW. The new raid and dungeons are fun and I think (hope) I'm doing a good job with the guild. I'm trying to push some of the work onto the other officers, but it's hard with a few of them still out for the Holidays.

This weekend Kuan and Morn went did a bunch of PvP. It was our usual Saturday night arena and hard cider. The arena's were their usual level of fun/pain, but the battlegrounds were especially bad. I swear sometimes the Horde has an awesome ability to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory. But we did eventually stomp an Arathi Basin. The arena's were helped by my checking Arena Junkies and swapping a few talent points and a glyph out for Mornara's pvp spec. Of course now it's even less suited to doing PvE damage, but I massively prefer tanking in PvE anyway.

Darkfall in general is making steady progress with Dragon Soul. We're very close to getting Blackhorn down. We almost had him last night, and I think next time we'll get him for sure. Probably I should take a peek at what I need to know for Spine of Deathwing. I look forward to falling off when he rolls us.

DraNgNon and I have also been doing our best to keep up with alts as well. Eeyan and Viljo are both just barely geared enough to get into LFR. Khyrie and Tylara are 80 and 81 respectively. I think it's time for them to head to Vashj'ir. I'm loving playing cat for the outdoors, and resto for instances. I do need to remember to make an obnoxious macro for her Tree of Life form. I'm thinking something along the lines of "SUPER BROCCOLI to the Rescue!" or "Form of Broccoli!!" or "SUPER BROCCOLI is here to Save the Day!!!1!!!one!!!" I'm really torn on how to make it both informative and annoying.

LFR thoughts: counterpoint

2012-01-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

What I'm seeing is that LFR seems to be suited for a certain type of player, the raid PUG-player. The attitude and expertise of these people is very precise, they are very aggressive and bossy, intolerant of wipes, quick to blame, and those that know the fights are clearly pleased with themselves when they know. In fact, they are exactly the people who made raiding Vault of Archavon in WotLK a painful experience. This person is not someone who can deal with progression raiding; the only challenge they are interested in is outperforming the rest of the raid, and when PUG'd in, usually drop group after more than 1 wipe on a boss. With LFR, Blizzard has given them their own playground, exactly suited to them. It's a face roll for any geared character played by someone who knows how to raid. LFR even has a loot system which is not merit based, giving the raid PUG person a perfect target for their displeasure.

I do agree that 25man raids are suffering, but not from LFR, just from the combined lockouts. We can't just go into a 10man to see the fights, then try it on 25. And 10s are easier by far, even if the odds of useful loot decrease significantly. I'm sure Blizzard is seeing this and will deal with it appropriately in Mists of Pandaria. There are quite a few remedies they could apply without significant recoding.

While the various tiers of TOC and ICC was crazy bullshit, I think MoP raids should go back to how Ulduar was done, specifically Hodir and XT, with 10 and 25 on separate lockouts, and "heroic mode" triggered by demonstrating in the fight via a gear check mechanic that the raid could handle it. Well, "heroic mode" isn't the subject of this post. They do not have to distinguish between 10- and 25-man gear. There's really not going to be any harm in letting people go after a boss twice a week.

But if they really want to avoid some people feeling they have to run both, I'd rather see 10 and 25s be separate raids, like in BC; but that would not work well with guild structure as coded in the game and would be the source of "left out" drama. Maybe 10 and 20, instead of 25.

LFR Thoughts

2012-01-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how I feel about the new LFR tool.

On one hand it's very handy. I don't really get fights until I've seen them. So what I used to do was look up strats and then have them make no sense until after the first few wipes. And then I'd have to look them all up again now that I have a bit of a mental model of what is going on. But with LFR I can go into there and then look at a strat, and it's not usually too bad to add a new mechanic or two. It's also nice to actually see all the fights and cut scenes. I've taken so many screenshots of the dialogue it's hard to sort through for posting.

On the other hand, I truly think it's the final death knell for 25man raiding guilds. Having seen how things went between Wrath and Cata I think that the only reason Wrath had so many 25s is because that is where the better gear was. And now that the gear is equalized very few people are willing to do 25s rather than 10s. 10s require a finer tuned balance of classes, but its a lot easier to find 10 non-idiots than it is to find 25 non-idiots. It also seems that many of the newer fights in FL and DS have a tendency for a mistake by anyone in the raid to wipe the whole thing. With 25 people it's a lot harder to get a mistake free pull that leads to a boss kill.

I do like that the LFR is such a handy way of gearing up any missing items and your offspec. It's been a few weeks and I'm still hoping that I can win a hat token to replace Mornara's Daybreaker Helm. Yes, she is still wearing a helm from Bastion, but nothing else has dropped! Hopefully she'll win the token from LFR or we'll kill Blackhorn soon. But aside from that she's gotten a whole lot of pieces for her dps set.

One bad thing about LFR is that it's such a low bar people can basically face roll through it. When I bring Mornara in there with her initially crappy dps gear and a PVP unholy build I expect to be hovering above the tanks on the dps meters. I don't expect to be 6th or 7th on damage every fight. And it's really quite sad when people spew abuse at the dps or heals after a wipe where mechanics were misunderstood. I have not yet seen a wipe in LFR that was caused by lack of dps or healing. I have however seen many wipes caused by confusion about how the fight needs to be done.

I think that in general LFR is going to get more people into raiding LFR but it won't increase the number of people doing normal raids. It will, however, kill the last few 25man guilds out there. I am not going to be the least bit surprised if in Mists of Pandaria the only options for raiding are 25man LFR and 10man normal and heroic.

Macro it!

2011-12-30T00:55:00.000-08:00

Mornara killed Ultraxion for the first time tonight on Normal mode. It was a pretty fun fight, though there is really no room for error in there. Well, there is room for one error, as long as it can be fixed by a speedy battle res. But in general it was a fun fight. I liked it a hell of a lot more than Zon'ozz, who I now refer to as the ping pong boss from hell. But that's a post for another time.

It was not Darkfall's first time killing Ultraxion, but only about half of us had killed him before. So there was some learning to be done. Fortunately I had some good advice from DraNgNon, who had killed him before on normal mode.

I'm embarrassed to admit that several of the wipes were my own fault, either from not staying in for Hour of Twilight, or not getting out for Fading Light. However I was having a very hard time making sure that I clicked the button at the right time. I mouse with my right hand, and also hit my Vent talk button with the right hand as well. And doing both of those at the same time to call out the bad stuff was not working for me.

So I remembered the cardinal rule of tanking. The cardinal rule of playing WoW. The rule that underlies all the other stuff you need to do: Keybind! Keybind your abilities, but especially keybind your cooldowns. And if Heroic Will isn't a (fight specific) cooldown, I just don't know what is.

/click ExtraActionButton1

So, keybind that sucker: make a macro and put it on a action bar. Once I did that we got him on the next try.

Granpa Deathwing

2011-12-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

hi everyone, sorry for the long hiatus.

Today, the New York Times has an article discussing the upcoming release on Star Wars: The Old Republic and its impact on Wow. The writer has been playing both games quite a bit lately and has some rather insightful commentary. He doesn't think the games will really fight for players, although I disagree, since not everyone who plays MMORPG has unlimited time and funds.

Anyhow it mentions the time and effort BioWare has put in making the voice acting and visuals slick for SW:TOR, which makes the text-base questgiver interactions in Wow seem clunky. The article also points out that Wow has lost 2 million players - 2 million!!! - since Cataclysm came out.

Partway through the article, it has this fabulous picture of Deathwing.

whoa! hey whoa! that's not what Deathwing looks like when I see him, every damn time I log into the game. what I see is Granpa with ill fitting dentures, not mighty scary dragon as above.

wait, wait. those two images are the same exact scene. I bet that Wow wouldn't lose nearly so many players, if the first picture really was what we saw in the game.

and before anyone thinks, well that's just not possible with the graphics maybe they haven't looked at SW:TOR after all. or even Rift.

Tired

2011-11-28T01:19:00.001-08:00

Perhaps now isn't a great time to be making this post. Perhaps I should wait until I'm calmer and in a more reasonable state of mind. Perhaps if I were able to chill the fuck out enough to do that I wouldn't need to make this post at all.

However it is not the case that I am calm. It is not the case that I am feeling reasonable.

Let me say it again: I AM NOT CALM.

I'm tired, sick and fucking tired, of having people second guess every single raid call I make. I'm unhappy to hear that people aren't enjoying the raids. Especially since the people complaining most loudly are actually the ones causing the raids to be so excruciating. And I can not stand it when no matter what strategy I use for a fight someone doesn't like it. Often the same someone who whined about the original strategy until I changed it to the new one.

It saps my will to lead raids when I hear that the guild raids suck, or are run badly, or use strategies that are terrible. Fuck, it saps my will to play at all, when I get constantly get told how terribly hostile the guild is by the very person who is making it such a hostile environment to begin with.

Sadly, I'm not drunk and won't post this to the guild boards. But I'm having a really hard time looking forward to my imminent guild leadership with any thing other than horror.

Vile of the Sands

2011-11-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

Kalimdor Archaeology. it is so dead boring. and yet that is what Kuan is stuck doing, waiting for queues to pop for arena, battlegrounds, waiting for raids to form and parties to be ready. becuase Kuan is an Alchemist, and he needs Vile of the Sands.

did I mention how boring it was yet? one can't get all the spiffy Archaeology achieves, those mostly require going across all the continents. but the goal is to get as many Tol'vir Dig sites as one can get. and those are only in Kalimdor.

Kuan's gotten 3 Canopic Jars so far, but no recipe, only mummified guts. on the other hand, he picked up [Ring of the Boy Emperor] early on, and now, a scepter which I really thought was going to be some BoA wand.

but nooOOooo:

And here I thought having a Red one was cool.

Cultists and Elementals

2011-11-12T01:07:00.000-08:00

These two short scenes are how I think Mornara dealt with the the elemental invasion ahead of the Shattering. I wrote them almost a year ago, but never got around to posting them. Ah well, better late than never.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cultists wandered the streets of Orgrimmar. Grim orcs in robes gathered in the shadows to preach death, destruction, and despair. Death by fire and earth, wind and water.

Mornara strode by, her armor clanking only a small amount. Cult of the Damned or Twilight's Hammer Cultists, all of them were far too in love with death. She smiled grimly, well, with the idea of death anyway. She couldn't see a difference in goals between either cult. So she was on her way to report to someone who would let her help clean the current crop of them up.

Mornara frowned. "Stupid idiots, the whole lot of them." Having just finished with the Scourge and the Lich King in Northrend she wasn't sure what these stupid cultists were afraid of. Yes, there had been some earthquakes, and bunches of elementals appearing here and there. But with the war in Northrend finished, aside from cleanup actions, there were plenty of soldiers back in Kalimdor to keep it all in check.

Some of the followers gathered around a shadowy preacher flinched aside as she stomped past. Mornara sneered at them; never mind that the orc they were listening to was ranting about the world breaking in fire, they were afraid of a single death knight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shock traveled up Mornara's arms as she parried yet another strike from the gigantic earth elementals in front of her. Her arms were numbed just enough that she couldn't move fast enough to dodge the next blow. Mornara roared in pain and anger as a stone arm of one elemental smashed into her shoulder. It didn't dent her armor, but she felt the muscle in her shoulder pull and perhaps tear as the rock and stone landed on her.

But before her roar of pain finished echoing she felt a druid's spell wrapping around the torn muscles. Energy soaked into her shoulder like the warmth of a summer day spent lying on the grass under a tree. The pain left her shoulder and Mornara was able to parry the next blow from the elemental in front of her.

Out of the corner of her eye Mornara saw one of the elementals peel off following the path of a bright chain lightning strike. The elemental was headed towards a figure surrounded by balls of lightning. As the troll shaman raised his shield and prepared to fend of the elemental Mornara saw it was Kuanchichi. She yelled to attract the elemental's attention, and sent an orb of shadow streaking into its body. Fortunately the elemental decided that Kuan was less interesting and came back to hit Mornara. But before it reached her Kuan cast a huge gout of fire and lava and the elemental crumbled at Mornara's feet. Kuan gave Mornara a tusk-filled grin and started firing lightning bolts at the next closest elemental.

"Damn elementals," muttered Mornara under her breath as she cast an area of disease on the ground and all the earth elementals got even angrier at her.

Machinanima Idea

2011-11-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

I've had the song "The Last One Alive" by VAST stuck in my head for a while now. Perhaps because I only have a few albums ripped into my work laptop and since I like it it keeps coming up in the mixes. It's actually a pretty good song, and one that I can fool myself into thinking I sound ok when I sing along with.

I think that this would make great theme music for a Death Knight video. Start out with a recently rolled DK and use shots from the starting area and then shots from ICC and specifically the Frozen Throne where you fight Arthas.

Vast - The Last One Alive

There’s a place not that far from here,
where people go when their dreams have died.
As I walk from its faceless streets
I must be the last one alive.

Start out with your DK in the later phased sections of the DK starting area, so that everything is dead and ruined and empty.

Where are you?
You're not with me.
Numb my mind with this fantasy,
watching people live and die on screen.
Where are you?
You’re not with me.
Where are you?
I'm free.

From there cut to the Battle of Light's Hope Chapel, specifically the sections where Arthas beats up Darion Mograine and then gets chased off.

You left me high and dry; it changed me.
You lied to me, now I am angry.
And if the sun comes in your room
and awakes you from your vanity
you won't find me cause I’ll be atop a mountain
Pissing on your grave

After that go back to the Dk starting area, but earlier, so there are some terrified Scarlet peasants running around. And have a Valkyr resurrecting the protagonist DK.

There’s a place from where I just arrived
and I escaped the last one alive

Where are you?
You’re not with me
where are you?
I’m free.

Have your DK walking out of either Zul'drak or Naxx with lots of dead scourge in the background.

You left me high and dry; it changed me.
You lied to me, now I am angry.
And if the sun comes in your room
and awakes you from your vanity
you won't find me cause I’ll be atop a mountain
Pissing on your grave

And end with a carefully cropped set of shots of the DK standing over a dead Arthas. (Carefully cropped so kill stealer Tirion isn't there.)

I don't think I have the tools or artistic ability to get this done right (or at all), but if someone wants to do it I'd be happy to volunteer Mornara's likeness for the protagonist DK. :)

Mailbox Dancing

2011-11-08T09:18:00.000-08:00

Ohhhh Myyy. (said like George Takei)

I just realized what outfit Telt will be wearing once Transmogrification comes out. Oh, yes.

Long, long ago Telt made an outfit. I'm not sure what I was thinking. It did take some work to get the pattern for Red Winter Clothes, so it could have been after that. Possibly it was when she got a hold of the Crimson Felt Hat from level 60 dead side of Stratholm.

Regardless, my snooty blood elf priest has an outfit called Mailbox Dancing.

Yes, you read that correctly. Hey, a young blood elf sometimes makes decisions that weren't the wisest at the time. Bloodthistle is not cheap, and a girl's gotta make ends meet somehow.

I'M SO CALM

2011-10-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

So there is a legendary for the 4.2 patch and Firelands. It's a caster dps staff. It has lore for the blue dragon aspect, as well as being a stupendouslu awesome dps weapon.

It requires a lot of effort from a whole guild to make. There are at least 3 big collection quest stages where you only get boss drops. There are a few solo sections, some lore-ish and some actually challenging. And there is a boss that takes a raid to kill.

We'd chosen a mage to get this staff first. It wasn't perhaps a well thought out choice, but he was actually in the raids when we started getting the first quest item drops. I accept responsibility for that ill-thought out and foolish choice.

Tonight that mage gquit.

The legendary is roughly 2/3 done.

I am ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS. I managed to keep my calm and get the raid going tonight, but most of the time I wasn't talking on Vent I was saying "fucking ******".

Perhaps it wasn't explicitly stated when he initially got the first quest items, but I thought there was some sort of agreement whereby the guild worked to get him the staff and he stayed in the guild, at the least until the staff was finished.

I want to be absolutely clear here. It's ok to leave a guild if you're not happy in it. If you don't fit in it's far better to leave before you cause trouble. However, it is NOT ok to get a guild's help for what is basically a group quest credited to one person, and then bail before finishing all of the quest. Especially when only one person can get the quest items at a time. If you're not in it for the long haul you should not be trying to complete a legendary.

Also the circumstance of his gquit are enraging.

He'd been busy on our first raid night of the week, and had missed killing the first 4 bosses of FL. Tonight he wanted to bring his rogue alt, because his mage was saved and he wanted to make sure that his mage got all the quest items he could for the week. Officers said ok, but we're going to bring mains before we bring your alt. Now, because we had to work around him it took us some time to get the raid set up. We had 2 spots open and were about to bring his rogue alt in when I don't even know what he was angry about but he gquit all his toons.

Just fucking like that.

We weren't willing to blindly gear up his rogue and so he took the guilds hard work and ran off with it.

Fuck I am so angry.

****** No, I'm not going to give out his name. I'm sure if you want to figure it out you can, but I'm not going to give it to you.

Attack on Taurajo

2011-10-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

I have been leveling Khyrie in Kalimdor. With all the leveling speed buffs and doing an instance every so often I've been doing green quests almost all of the time. However, I really wanted to see as much of the post-Cataclysm quests as I could.

There have been some really good changes to the way that many of the zones were upgraded and streamlined. A fair amount of it sadly feels on rails, but the new quests in general are interesting and entertaining. However, the Southern Barrens really just ripped my heart out.

What used to be the single big rolling plain of the Barrens, is now split in half by a huge and horrible lava filled cleft. The Northern Barrens remain similar to what they used to be: a relatively safe area where the Horde is carving out a place to live in Kalimdor. However the Southern Barrens are drastically changed.

In particular I almost cried when I saw that Taurajo was a burned ruin filled with looters.

There are several quests to go back to Taurajo from the refugee camp to the north. Someone wants you to kill looters, but Winnoa Pineforest wants you to Honor the Dead. You've got to take a Tauren funerary totem and place it by the dead bodies of four Tauren who stayed behind in Taurajo to make sure that others escaped.

Omusa's Spirit says: No, stay with the others. Escort them north, away from the fighting. I will stay here with the wyvern and cover your escape. Go!
Omusa's Spirit says: ...wait, is it over? I've been run through... Ah. Of course. I understand now. I am expected elsewhere.
(Then Omusa's spirit flies off on a spectral wyvern.)

Drahn's Spirit says: I can feel the embrace now of all living things, the Earthmother's eternal peace. Thank you.

Krulmoo's Spirit says: I ran to wake the others up when the attack hit. Were they able to escape? I tried to fight the soldiers off with a skinning knife...

Yonada's Spirit says: Alliance - they've surrounded the camp! What are they doing here? Why are they attacking Taurajo? Get the children - run! RUN!

I was deeply saddened by the destruction of Taurajo and the sacrifice of the Tauren that I eulogized. I'm not ashamed to admit that Khyrie slaughtered as many Looters as she could find.

Making Bank

2011-10-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

For a long time Lithui, my little blood elf paladin, was our banker. He is still currently GM of <Bank of Balou>.

But he's transferred his banking duties over to Nivki, my little goblin rogue. She has that fabulous Goblin racial for discounts on everything. So Nivki is scanning the AH, and listing Ikoli's glyphs and selling random crap that is in our bank.

Possibly I shall enlist DraNgNon's help to transfer GM from Lithui to Nivki.

Karazhan: Shade of Aran

2011-10-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

Shade of Aran is roughly the 8th boss in Karazhan. Order depends on if you kill him or Illhoof first. We would usually kill him before Illhoof, because once he's dead you can port up to Aran's room from the front door.

Shade of Aran yells: Please, no more! My son... he's gone mad!
On engagement Shade tries to pawn us off with (true) accusations about his son.

Shade of Aran yells:I am not some simple jester! I am Nielas Aran!
Shade of Aran begins channeling his mana into a powerful arcane spell.

Shade of Aran says: I'm not finished yet! No, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve...
Here is where Aran summons four water elementals.

Shade of Aran yells: At last the nightmare is over...
I often felt a bit bad for killing him, but at level this was such an annoying fight. It was entirely too easy for someone with too much lag or twitchy fingers to wipe the raid during the Fire Wreath.

I'm sure I'm missing a few of his speeches since we killed him so fast. But the general idea is there. Shade is a mage boss, and does lots of magey things.

Bat!

2011-10-13T01:16:00.000-07:00

Khyrie reached level 60 a few weeks ago. And shortly after that she went back to Orgrimmar to visit the nice Troll cat druid who explained a few things from the Loas. Most notably there was an explanation of flight form!

The Loas gift the trolls with a bat form! Because it's only regular flying the bat is just a bat, with no fancy armor.
But still! BAT!

Watch out! I'ma bat! I've got rabies and I'll bite you!
But I'm also a druid so I can heal you too!

Garrosh's Horde

2011-10-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

Bit of a spoiler for Southern Barrens here.
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Basically you've got the old commander who isn't making any progress defending or taking back the territory that the Alliance took during the actual Cataclysm. So the new commander is coming in to get things going.

So what happened here is that Gar'dul asked you to meet him up in a tower, hoping to get rid of you and the new commander before he was "officially" replaced. However this didn't work out for him. Between your character and Bloodhilt, Gar'dul was pretty handily defeated. And Bloodhilt, well, he threw out the old commander, literally, using a window.

Khyrie was a little bit shocked by this. She is a druid and they do try to strive for some sort of balance. Now Gar'dul had tried to kill her and Bloodhilt, so she wasn't too sad to see him go face first into the ground below that tower. But still "Garrosh's Horde" didn't leave that great a taste in her mouth.

Molten Front Dailies and Quest Design

2011-10-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

The 4.2 patch was a while ago, however, Mornara and Kuanchichi have still not completed the Molten Front dailies. Mostly because they are dead boring, and the rest of the game is a lot more fun to do. Those quests are so repetitive and anything new adds on to the very end of the sequence of quests.

Blizzard for some foolish reason decided to make the Molten Front Dailies a giant quest chain that you have to repeat every day. You can't skip the horrible and tedious Wisp Away quest when it is up, not unless you don't want to do the rest of the quests that follow it. Also, is it really the case that the Druids of the Talon and the Shadow Wardens are so completely incompetent that they lose ground every single day and we have to help them retake it?

I think that the cause of all this misguided chain of daily quests is due to Blizzard learning exactly the wrong thing from the Death Knight starting area in Wrath.

See, the Death Knight starting area is quite well done. You wake up a slave of the Lich King and he and his lieutenants send you to do stuff. You get one or occasionally two quests at the same time, and until you do those quests you don't get to do anything else. It is extremely linear, but that's ok, because you're a slave of the Lich King. You have no free will. LK says jump, while in the air you ask how high. LK says kill peasants: you get evil encouraging whispers as they die. Eventually the Death Knights are released from his control, but up until then any Death Knight is on a straight and narrow path of doing exactly what they are told.

But in the Cataclysm expansion Blizzard decided that they wanted to take more advantage of their fabulous phasing technology. This is fine on the surface of it, but it has led to very linear story lines. There are usually a couple of paths to take, but they all ended up at the same exact place eventually. For example in Mt Hyjal, you can do the 4 ancients in whatever order you want, but you have to rescue all four of them before you can move on to the next part of Hyjal. Unfortunately every Cata zone is like that. There are few to zero side quests that are in there for fun or randomness or to help flesh out the world. Everything is all about YOU the HERO coming to save things.

I really wish that for the next expansion (Mists of Pandaria or whatever it is) Blizzard goes back to their older style of questing where things were a lot less linear. But especially I want any daily quests to not be some sort of linear chain of painfulness.

PvP Update

2011-09-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

Kuan and Mornara continue with the PvP.

We've apparently been doing a fair amount of it. 25,000 conquest points is not an insignificant achievement. And i think we're both at the point where we have no more armor to buy with honor points. So we're doing BGs but mostly because we want the daily 25 conquest points from them, and they have achieves. :D

What type of a name is "Plaguecruncher"? I suppose it at least references the fact that Mornara is unholy when she has a named ghoul and is doing lots of diseasing.

Also, if I can manage to pull the opposing team off of Kuan, the ele shaman is a beast in the arena. This fight they foolishly went after me first.

Braingobbler is a name much more likely to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. We're going to slaughter you in the arena and then my ghoul is going to eat your brains!

Moat Monster!

2011-09-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

As I've said before Patch 4.2 added new cooking and fishing dailies in Undercity and Thunder Bluff. There are some excellent ones that are both poignant and funny, but my favorite by far is Moat Monster!

It combines a few of the previous cooking quests in UC into a most awesome fishing quest.

Making fun of the Aliance never gets old. ;D

This week in Raiding

2011-09-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

This week the Firelands nerfs hit pretty hard. A week ago Darkfall was at 4/7, and we'd only killed Shannox and Rhyolith on 25man. By the end of last night we were 6/7.

On Tuesday we had 22 DF people in the raid suddenly. I'd like to think that all of this was due to the super recruitment efforts of everyone, and for sure we did have a bunch of new people show up. However, the suspicious part of me also considers that some people were motivated to show by news of the nerfs.

Anyway, my suspicions aside, we had a very awesome raiding week. That first night we killed Shannox, Rhyolith, and Beth pretty handily. Our only slowness was due to having to pug a few people in, and to needing to swap people around later in the evening. We even had time for a few pulls on Baelroc.

Thursday we killed Baleroc and then Alysrazor. Despite about half of the raid not having seen Aly before and all of us having to learn the fight together as a 25man we still killed Aly the first night we actually saw her on 25man.

As a side note, my new trick for getting the raid to kill stuff is to tell them not to worry about dps and just focus on getting the mechanic down. It worked like a charm for Bael.

In preparation for Sunday night I watched both the Majordomo and Ragnaros fights. But honestly I figured we'd be really lucky if we got Domo down. The mechanics are deceptively simple, and it's one of those fights were one person can easily wipe the whole thing.

At raid time last night we had 25 people on and ready, plus a few more people who logged on after we'd started. It was fortunate we had some extras, because we needed to make some replacements as the evening wore on and a thunderstorm took out one person's connection while general lag/bad connection from Australia took out another person's.

We killed Domo on the last pull of the night. It was the thirteenth pull. Again it was our first night of seeing the fight as a group, or for most people, seeing the fight ever. And given that and how unforgiving some of his mechanics can be I'm super proud of how well we did. Really, when I think of how long it took to kill Lurker or Leo or Yogg or the Lich King, I'm absolutely awesomely impressed with us. I am super proud of Darkfall for getting to 6/7.

***
All that said, there was a lot of tension in and after the raid last night.

There has been a tendency in the last couple of our raids for people to argue about strategy on vent. I and others have suggested that people keep it to whispers. However either way, there are a lot of people with their own ideas on what we'll be doing. This is fine, I like suggestions. I like that people are engaged. But I want to keep vent clear. And I don't always see or have time to respond to all the whispers I get.

*I am not going to change what the raid is doing every single time someone has a new suggestion*

*I* am running the raid. The officers are helping me. As raid leader it is my job to delegate and get input to determine what we'll be doing. I need to work on delegation, but in general things are NOT going to be improved by changing them every pull. Darkfall is not a bad guild, but we're not world or server first guild either. And I'm sorry, but we have a variety of skill levels present in the raid. Darkfall has never used the cookie cutter strategy for our kills, we don't usually have the "ideal" raid composition to do so anyway. So we try and fail and progress until we've got our own strategy that works for *us*.

We have made phenomenal progress in Firelands, and I'm sad for anyone who isn't proud of that.

Firelands: Lord Rhyolith dialogue

2011-09-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

Lord Rhyolith is the 3rd boss that Darkfall killed in the Firelands. He is a gigantic fire elemental who lives on an island surrounded by magma.

Rhyolith has two phases. For the first phase Rhyolith doesn't care about the raid. He just starts walking to the magma and once he gets to it will drink and then kill the raid with fiery death. The raid has to steer him away from the magma by hitting his right and left leg. He's also stomping which creaties volcanoes and spawns adds. So the melee is steering Rhyolith over active volcanoes to reduce his armor and the ranged is killing the adds. Rhyolith also causes the craters of the volcanoes he stomped on to erupt spewing lines of magma all over the place.

Phase two happens when Rhyolith gets down to 25% health. He breaks his remaining armor and goes all molten. If he hasn't been steered over enough active volcanoes by this point and still has any of his damage reduction buff you're going to die horribly.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Hah? Hruumph? Soft little fleshy-things? Here? Nuisances, nuisances!
Lord Rhyolith yells: I'll crush you underfoot!
Lord Rhyolith yells: Buuurrrnn!
Lord Rhyolith yells: Succumb to living flame.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Sear the flesh from their tiny frames!

Lord Rhyolith yells: Oh you little beasts...
Lord Rhyolith yells: Succumb to living flame.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Stomp now.
Lord Rhyolith yells: Graaahh!
Lord Rhyolith yells: Buuurrrnn!
Lord Rhyolith yells: Augh - smooshy little pests, look what you've done!

Lord Rhyolith yells: Oww now hey.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Eons I have slept undisturbed... Now this... Creatures of flesh, now you will BURN!
Once you've got him to 25%, and his armor is off you're mostly home free.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Uurrghh now you... you infuriate me.
Well home free unless you've taken too long and he superheats, which will wipe you.

Lord Rhyolith yells: Broken. Mnngghhh... broken...

The above shot is our first 25man kill and below is our first official 10man kill.

Poshken's Ring

2011-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

With patch 4.2 a number of daily random fishing and cooking quests were added to Thunder Bluff and Undercity. Some of these are hilarious and some of them are sad.

One of the fishing quests in Thunder Bluff has you going to the caves in TB and helping one of the undead there who has lost a ring. Since it is a fishing quest you fish until you've caught a bloated fish that, coincidentally enough, has eaten the ring.

So here is this undead who has a ring that he offers a reward for, but he can't remember how he got it or why he keeps it?

I read that quest text and looked at the ring and almost cried. Poor Poshken.

Roach Coach

2011-09-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

4.1 added a whole new set of cooking and fishing quests in Thunder Bluff and Undercity. The Undercity cooking quests are all about finding something for the Kor'kron Overseers to eat.

If you stick around a bit after turning in the quest you'll see some actual Kor'kron coming to get the (in?)famous Three-Spice Crunchy Stew.

Hungry Overseer (1) says: Aren't you worried about what's IN that?
Hungry Overseer (2) says: Not at all! If my gut could take three years of Razor Hill barrack's Stinky Cactus Grub Soup, a bowl of roaches isn't going to kill me.
Hungry Overseer (1) says: Roaches?! They wouldn't! Would they...? That's disgusting.
Hungry Overseer (2) says: HAH HAH HAH! Enjoy your stale rations, then. This slop's delicious.

It amused me that when I did this on Mornara both of the Overseers were female orcs.

up through Lich King

2011-09-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

after an entirely too long hiatus from working on this stuff, I have uploaded all pre-wow 3.0 screenshots I had, and am working on the 3.0, pre-Lich King shots. here they are. I wonder if I shouldn't just put a permalink on the LHS of this blog.

doing this reminds me I should be more mindful of screenshot opportunities as I play in Cataclysm. they can't all be achieves, boss kills, and stupid things people say in chat.

Lifeblood, Berserking, Elemental Mastery

2011-09-15T21:04:00.001-07:00

So, I am an idiot.

Here's Kuan's Chain Lightning macro. It's set this way so I don't blow a substantial percentage of the Berserking buff waiting on the GCD of an instant cast (proc'd by the Elemental Mastery). Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst are similarly macro'd.

#showtooltip Chain Lightning
/stopmacro [nocombat,noharm]
/castsequence [combat] reset=15 Elemental Mastery, Berserking
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast Chain Lightning

I totally spaced on how Lifeblood was a 20s buff of 480 haste with a 2m cooldown.

Berserking is still a 3m cooldown.

Elemental Mastery is 3m too, but subject to Feedback, which reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds every time.

I messed with putting the sequence with Lifeblood in between there, and tried it on a heroic dummy just to watch the result, and was unpleased. That setup really doesn't work too well, since the cast sequence will "stick" on the spell that isn't on cooldown.

So, I'm going to unwind the cast sequence. It'll blow a portion the Berserking at first pull but it won't really matter, the GCD is also hastened.

#showtooltip Chain Lightning
/stopmacro [nocombat,noharm]
/cast Elemental Mastery
/cast Lifeblood
/cast Berserking
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast Chain Lightning

Kel'thuzad

2011-09-13T17:10:00.000-07:00

Last night a bunch of us Darkfall people did our usual Monday night fun run. Yesterday's destination was Naxxramas 25, and associated achieves.

Most people were missing a fair number of achieves. In fact Mornara hadn't even completed Naxx on 25man ever before. So there was much achievement dinging through the evening.

The above picture includes Morn (tanking), Vikai and Earthen meleeing the boss, and Kuan and Klasky (Klasky and a mirror image?) off to the right attacking from range.

After we'd killed Kel'Thuzad we headed over to slaughter Sartherion and then Malygos. And it turns out that Malygos once again drops blue and Azure drakes. So we'll be hitting my Malygos on a regular basis for that drake.

Venn Diagrams

2011-09-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

I am usually amused by a clever Venn Diagram. I try to find where I fit in the picture.

WoW Venn Diagrams I try to actually stand in the best spot. The location of most overlapping healing goodnesses and least boss bad-on-the-ground.

Sometimes this is easier than other times, but no matter what it's important to try. But as a tank I sure do love all the overlapping healing that I can just stand in and soak up.

Too Much to Drink

2011-09-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Khyrie might have had too much to drink while on the Speed Barge in Thousand Needles.

But hey! At least she got to barf on a gnome!

Firelands: Beth'tilac dialogue

2011-09-02T16:18:00.000-07:00

Continuing my series of dialogue from the Firelands bosses we killed Beth'tilac the other night.

Seeing as Beth is a giant horrible spider she doesn't actually say anything. She just sits on her web for a while and sends lots of smaller spiders of varying sizes at the raid. After a while she deigns to drop down and try to burn the raid with her fiery spiderness.

Fortunately the raid is not quite as flammable as giant horrible spider would like.

Summer Doldrums, Lord Rhyolith, and Guild Administrivia

2011-09-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

Summer Doldrums

Darkfall is deep in the summer doldrums. We usually have anywhere from 14 to 18 people on on a raid night, however roughly 4 or 5 of them are not going to come to a raid, either due to lack of level or gear or interest.

So the tentative plan we've got is to pug to fill a 25man on Tuesday, see how many we've got on Thursday, and do a 10 on Sunday. Last night was Sunday so with only 15 people interested in coming to the raid and only 3 heals and 1 tank in that group we went with a 10man.

I have to say that it was excruciating to have to pick and choose who to bring to the raid. I did my best to fill the raid with raiders and get a good class balance. Unfortunately that left out several people that either I'd really have liked to bring or who will be quite grumpy about not being there or both. I'm not looking forward to dealing with the drama from that, but I need to remember that I'm Here to Kill Dragons. And while I may want to keep people happy my *job* is to lead the raid to victory and shiny purples. Hellshot can soothe the ruffled feathers. (Sorry to throw you to the wolves Hellshot.)

That said, over the past couple of days we had 4 people leave the guild. And then Hellshot and I booted all their alts. So the guild info log looks pretty bad, but it's just 4 mains leaving. I'm always sad to see people leave, but of those 4 people I'm not actually sure that we're going to miss any of them as a raid.

Lord Rhyolith

So Sunday night we went into FL10, and actually did a fabulous job. Shannox was already down from Tuesday night. I think we were all a little bit burned from wiping so much on Beth'tilac (also on Tuesday), so we headed to Lord Rhyolith first.

We had a pretty good start, and once we worked through the add control, fire avoidance, and especially steering issues we got him down. I had been worried about the second phase, but once Rhyolith turned molten he seemed to fall over really fast.

I even remembered to take a screenshot this time.

After Rhyolith we headed over to Beth'tilac.

Poor Earthen, he really prefers to be boomkin, but with me the only tank in the raid he had to go bear for Beth and the trash leading up to that giant icky spider. It worked out pretty well though, he did a super job with the drones, keeping them in the corner and away from all the spiderlings. The rest of the bottom team was also fabulous with add control. And the top team still had the meteor avoiding dance down. I think it only took us 3 wipes to get Beth'tilac down. Two of those were web fails, and the third was spiderling fail. Once those were corrected Beth fell over pretty handily.

It was nice to end the raid on the high note of having killed two bosses in one night, especially when one of them was a new kill for us. Darkfall is officially 3/7 Firelands now. Only Shannox is a 25man kill, but I'm confident that when we actually have a full Darkfall raid in there the other bosses will be 25man kills as well.

Darkfall Officer Administrivia

I also need to make a few posts on the Darkfall forums.

One post with raider attendance requirements. I'll also try to stress that if we drop to 10man sometimes I'll try to fill the raid with an eye to raider rank, but that will come second to class balance. It's nice to bring all raiders, but we need healers and tanks along too. It's also important to make sure that we don't overstack a certain class, especially in 10man. And, of course, noting that everyone is welcome to sign up for the waitlist, especially if you were bumped from the raid due to space issues.

A second post saying that we're actually going to try to be disciplined with raid times. I think we can give ourselves a lot more time to work on the bosses, if I start raid invites at 8:45 and we plan to have the first pull at 9. Of course this means that *I* need to be home and ready to go at 8:45, which is not going to be easy.

A third post will deal with the way we're dealing with EPGP. I bumped the decay to 7% last night. There was a lot of discussion in gchat once I did that. I'm not sure that everyone understands how EPGP works. Regardless, it'll work a lot better once we start regularly killing bosses, and people stop worrying that the loot they see today is the last time they will ever see it.

A fourth post will announce how we're doing the Eternal Embers for the legendary caster staff. Currently they are going to the person in the raid with the highest number of embers. If there is a tie they will go to the higher rank person. I know several people were unhappy about that, but we do actually want someone to get the staff. And with anywhere from 1 to 3 embers dropping from bosses it won't take too long to get the first person their initial quest done.

Firelands: Shannox dialogue

2011-08-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Shannox is the first boss that Darkfall killed in Firelands. He's a big flamewalker (or fire naga as I say when my brain stops and my mouth keeps going) with two hellhound pets.

The basic strategy for killing Shannox is to have one tank for him and one for his dog Riplimb. Rageface, the third dog, will randomly attack people and needs to be focused down ASAP. Shannox will also drop traps on the raid and throw his spear for Riplimb to fetch. Riplimb needs to be kited over the crystal prison traps to freeze him so that tank debuffs can drop, and Rageface should be kited over the immolation traps for extra damage on him.

Shannox yells: Yes, I smell them too, Riplimb. Outsiders encroach on the Firelord's private grounds. Find their trail. Find them for me, that I may dispense punishment!

To get Shannox to spawn you have to kill a bunch of raid trash. Then he patrols around a fairly large area of the raid instance.

Shannox yells: A-hah! The interlopers! Kill them. EAT THEM!

Once you've actually pulled him though you've got to keep the group of them all fairly close together. Shannox and Riplimb will enrage if they are 60+ yards apart.

Shannox yells: Go for the throat!
Shannox yells: The Firelord will be most pleased!

Every so often Shannox will tell Rageface to eat someone's face. If that someone had done something like stand in an immolation trap or the healers weren't on top of their game you've now got a dead raider.

Shannox yells: Oh, you murderers! Why? Why would you kill such a noble animal?

Of course once you kill Rageface, Shannox is extra angry that you killed his dog.

Shannox yells: Riplimb! No... no! Oh, you terrible little beasts! HOW COULD YOU?!

And he gets even angrier when you kill Riplimb.

Shannox yells: Twist in flames, interlopers!
Shannox yells: Ohh... the pain. Lord of Fire, it hurts....

Darkfall's first kill was on 10 man, but we have now killed him on 25 as well. If the trapping of Riplimb doesn't go perfectly it can be really hard for tanks to drop their stacks of the nasty debuff without leaving the healers out of range.

Black Temple: Illidan

2011-08-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

A week ago we killed Illidan, yet again. We may have gotten the Warglaive achievement for the guild but with Transmogrification coming people are searching for any old sets they are missing. And of course some people still need the Black Temple achieve and Ashtongue Deathsworn rep.

I wasn't happy with any of the screenshots that I took to try to capture the dialogue. About a quarter of the time when I take a pic some or all of the image isn't rendered. So I dug through my WoW screenshot folder and pulled up some images from January 19, 2010.

Illidan Stormrage yells: Akama. Your duplicity is hardly surprising. I should have slaughtered you and your malformed brethren long ago.
Akama yells: We've come to end your reign, Illidan. My people, and all of Outland shall be free!
Illidan Stormrage yells: Boldly said. But I remain... unconvinced.
Akama yells: The time has come! The moment is at hand!
Illidan Stormrage yells: You are not prepared!
Illidan Stormrage yells: Come, my minions. Deal with this traitor as he deserves!
Akama yells: I will deal with these mongrels! Strike now, friends! Strike at the Betrayer!

Illidan Stormrage yells: Stare into the eyes of the Betrayer!

Illidan Stormrage yells: Is this it, mortals? Is this all the fury you can muster?
Maiev Shadowsong yells: Their fury pales before mine, Illidan. We have some unsettled business between us.
Illidan Stormrage yells: Maiev... How is it even possible?
Maiev Shadowsong yells: My long hunt is finally over. Today, Justice will be done!

Maiev Shadowsong yells: It is finished. You are beaten.
Illidan Stormrage yells: You have won... Maiev. But the huntress... is nothing without the hunt. You... are nothing... without me.

Maiev Shadowsong yells: He's right. I feel nothing... I am... nothing.
Maiev Shadowsong yells: Farewell, champions.
Akama yells: The Light will bless these dismal halls once again.... I swear it.

***
Some thoughts:

First: Both of the Stormrage brothers have goofy wing things. Illidan has demon wings. Malfurion has those weird feathered arms.

Second: I always feel a bit bad for Illidan. He seems to have started out trying to do the right thing. Or at least trying to get the girl. But no matter what he did it just didn't work for him. Even him joining the Burning Legion, just got him beat up by Arthas.

Third: What is it with the kill stealing? Illidan and Arthas both have enemies (Maiev and Tirion, respectively) come in and disrupt things when they are at low health. Illidan has the raid locked in shadow prisons and then Maiev comes and busts us out and helps beat on him. Arthas actually manages to kill the raid before Tirion busts himself out of the iceblock, and we all get rezzed for pinata phase. I'm not sure whose kill is being stolen here, the bosses kills of us or the raids kills of them, either way: Kill Stealing is not ok! And it gives me some unhappy thoughts about Alexstraza or Kalecgos or Thrall being all kill steal-ish when we finally face off with Deathwing.

Volo, I miss you

2011-08-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

WoW is hard sometimes. I have guildies and acquaintances and friends and a few real friends in the game. Sometimes a friend up and disappears one day. Maybe they went to a different guild. Maybe they quit WoW. Maybe they stealth server transferred, or deleted that toon in a fit of rage. Maybe they died.

No matter what happened, if they were a reasonably nice person their loss will be felt. More the closer you were with them.

It seems like I wouldn't have to spell out that the people I know in WoW are friends. We play a video game together. ISD. Gnoxen. Woonie. Smoovesta. Ariyn. Babzy. Ratrider. Nothinman. Drognin. Jataka. I know them by their character's names. A few of them I've met in person. But even the ones that I haven't met in person I consider friends who have fallen out of my life. And I miss them. Just as much as if we'd met in person and had taken classes or worked together.

At the end of July Clariana/Oldbw/Ildiavolo let everyone know that her account would expire in early August and it wasn't going to be reactivated. Volo was bored of WoW and wasn't going to be coming back.

We all took screen shots together. There were a few last hurrahs, as we ran a last dungeon or raid as a group.

Because WoW is all character names it's next to impossible to keep in touch with any of the people who leave WoW. (Unless you go RealID, and I'm only doing that with four people who I don't mind knowing what character I am on all the time.) It's like a friend moving to another city and changing their name. The person you know has disappeared and you have no way to get in touch with them again.

Maybe he or she will start playing WoW at some later time. Maybe years in the future you'll find each other in some other game. But probably not. Probably they and you are forever swept apart by the Real World, which doesn't even count that your friendship was real.

This is the last time I saw Ildiavolo online. She was planning on logging out sitting right there at the base of the falls in Orgrimmar.

Bye Volo. I miss you.

EDIT: Between the time I wrote this and posted it Volo got in touch with me! Totally made my day! Maybe sometime DraNgNon and I will get to meet up with Volo.

Stood in the Fire!

2011-08-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

Mechano-Hog Part 2!

2011-08-26T00:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday I was doing a few random quests when I realized Mornara had mail. I ran over to the mailbox and lo and behold! There was a package for Mornara! It was wrapped up in red ribbon and had a very nice letter. Samajaja, the most awesome disc priest in the world, had given me a Mechano-hog. She had apparently decided that not knowing my birthday wasn't going to stop her from giving me a present!

I saw it and squeeeed. Morn looks so cool, almost as cool as Eeyan.

The Mechano-Hog turned out to be Mornara's 50th mount as well. So after squeeing at my present I learned it and got a double achieve surprise!

Oh, yeah. This hog is pure pwnage.

Too Many Dwarves

2011-08-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Over this past weekend DraNgNon and I helped a guildie friend of ours get Glory of the Hero her Red Proto Drake. She had most of the achieves already, but we did end up needing to hit about 5 Wrath heroics.

Because we are 85, and awesome, three-manned all of this and had a good time joking around while we did so.

While we were getting Abuse the Ooze in Halls of Stone, we each popped various dwarf disguise items. I guess if we have to help Brann we might as well look goofy too?

Annoying Trends in Teleportation

2011-08-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

It used to be that Viljo made decent of pocket money teleporting the lazy or low level. This was back in Vanilla, BC, and Wrath. People needed to get to some other city and Viljo was more than happy to set up a port for the lazy. He'd only ask for enough to cover the cost of the rune. Viljo was obliging but, of course, there were limits, if you were too cheap to provide the 20s the rune cost he had better things to do. Most people were nice and would tip more than that. It was pretty common for a lowbie alt who wanted to get to Shatt'rath or Dalaran to give a 5g or 10g tip.

But then the Cataclysm happened.

When Deathwing burst out of Deepholm and destructivised Azeroth, he messed up the portals.

Khadgar, greatest living mage, could no longer make portals from Shatt'rath to Azeroth. Even with the Wind Chimes, I mean Naaru, helping him.
All the mages in Dalaran were suddenly unable to make portals from Dalaran to anywhere else.

Yes, they got a little of their ability back as time passed. Their efforts have now resulted in portals from Dalaran and Shatt'rath back to Orgrimmar and Stormwind. But they certainly have not gotten all their skill and power back, there are nowhere near the number of portals that there used to be in either Shatt'rath or Dalaran.

At the same time the Shamans (Shamen? I'm not sure how to pluralize here.) are now able to make portals. The Earthen Ring have set up circles in both Orgrimmar and Stormwind where they will send you to any one of five different locations around Azeroth and Deepholm. The Earthen Ring have also set up return portals in Mt Hyjal and Deepholm. And the Shamans at Dragonmaw Port have a permanent portal set up to allow travel back to Orgrimmar.

So what *is* going on here? The Cataclysm happens and now the mages can't make permanent portals, but the shaman can? This seems fishy! Viljo doesn't like it! How is a mage supposed to make an honest gold?

Mists of Pandaria???

2011-08-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently Blizzard has trademarked the phrase "Mists of Pandaria" in relation to computer games. People all over are scrambling to put forth their ideas on Pandaren and new continents/islands/zones. Bandwagons are fun, so here goes:

I think it's entirely possible and even likely that this will be the next expansion. With Blizzcon coming up this is the right timing for the name of the next expansion. My gut instinct is that we'll get a new continent, south of the Maelstrom, with a climate reminiscent of Stranglethorn. I'm specifically thinking of the bamboo in Zul'Gurub when I say that, which always made me think of pandas in the wild in China. I'm also inclined to think that we'll get a new joint capital city run by the Pandaren.

Burning Crusade: new races for each faction.
Wrath of the Lich King: new class for both factions.
Cataclysm: new races for each faction.
Mists of Pandaria??: I'm guessing a new class for both factions.

I'd like to see demon hunters. It'd fit with the way that DKs were added. There could be some fun phasing with the naive blood or night elf in the Black Temple being trained by Illidan to hunt demons. Maybe some big reveal with Kil'jaeden smacking Illidan around or Illidan getting killed by *your faction* band of nameless heros, and Maiev being very angry/taking under her wing the demon hunter students. If the demon hunters were allowed to skip Outland the way that DKs were allowed to skip vanilla I could see that making a lot of sense.

I'd also really like it if Maiev had a better ending to her story. I ran Black Temple again the other night and her lines ("I feel nothing, I am nothing") when Illidan is dead are just kind of lame. Giving her a bunch of baby Demon Hunters to train would be a good continuation. She isn't some sort of has-been just because she made it her life's work to hunt Illidan and actually *succeeded* at it.

Also if the Demon Hunters were allowed to skip Outland that would let Blizzard put off redoing Outland the way they redid Azeroth. I don't think there is enough Dev time to make a new Southern continent (Pandaria) and also to redo all the quests in Outland to account for Illidan and his lieutenants being defeated for the past three or four years.

Having a new class as opposed to a new race for each faction also lets Blizz devote more time to making sure that the Pandaren get the attention to detail that they deserve. With a name like "Mists of Pandaria" there has to be Pandaren central to the story in there. There would be too much drama if the Pandaren joined either the Horde or the Alliance, whichever faction was left out would pout and whinge the entire expansion, so that leaves them as a big neutral faction. And to be perfectly honest, if Blizz leaves the Pandaren as a neutral faction, they can either portray them in a way that doesn't offend China or swap them for another race in the Chinese version.

I never played any of the original Warcraft games, so perhaps I'm missing out on the allure of the Pandaren. Were there many references to them in the RTS games? All I can remember from WoW is an empty keg that belonged to Chen. So my knowledge of the Pandaren is limited to their love of alcohol and their Asian/Chinese clothes. I'm getting some sort of "Drunken Master" grade B martial arts movie vibe here.

I'm far more excited about the new class that would be introduced in this new expansion. As noted, my preference would be the Demon Hunter. However I could also see a Monk class being introduced. I hope that either monk or demon hunter would have leather or mail armor. There are already three each of cloth and plate wearers, but only two each or mail and leather wearers. This *might* help with loot table distribution. (hahahahahah /wipestears)

In fact, thinking about the TWO pieces of leather gear that dropped in my 10man raid the other night, I'm hoping that whatever new class is added wears leather. (Both of them went to the same druid for offspec...)

Adding Monk in as a new class would fit with the Pandaren. Especially if the Pandaren are so desperate for help that they will share their martial arts knowledge with the Horde and Alliance in return for military aid fighting off whatever is encroaching with or through their Mists.

I could see both Demon Hunter and Monk as leather wearing classes. Though I think that Monk would work better as a cloth wearer. I think they would both be some sort of melee damage class. Monks would prefer maces and fist weapons, or maybe a nice staff, basically no bladed weapons for monks. Demon Hunters would have to use the stereotypical double swords (Warglaives of Azzinoth), but I could also picture them with double axes, and possibly also fist weapons and daggers.

Resource systems would be a little bit tricky. Can't reuse combo points for another leather wearer, and don't want to have focus for another class that has hunter in its name. For monks at least it would depend on the source of their power. If we've got some sort of holy monk, like we see in Scarlet Monastery, then some derivation of holy power might work. If we've got drunken master type monks then maybe a battle intoxication or rage derivation might work. Demon hunters might have some sort of sight they could employ. Insight into the enemy that lets you use more abilities, but done like DK runes and rune power instead of rogue/cat combo points?

Anyway I'm voting for Demon Hunter as the next new class. That would let the focus shift back to the Burning Legion as bad guys. It's time for Kil'jaeden to make a reappearance. The Burning Legion has had time to lick their collective wounds and should be ready to go on the offensive against Azeroth again.

Another Announcement

2011-08-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcements and buff to tank threat, there are announcements about patch 4.3.

The patch 4.3 raid will be Deathwing, the Abyssal Maw plans have been scrapped for now.

There are allegedly going to be 3 new 5-mans. One of which might be a new place in Caverns of Time. All of them will actually be new dungeons.

The Transmogrifier will be arriving to change the appearance of your gear.
- You can only change to the same type of armor. Mail to mail, cloth to cloth, etc.
- Legendary weapons are out. (I was already looking forward to Eeyan running around with those Warglaives all the time and am now disappointed.)
- You probably will need to already own the armor you want to change appearance to, which only makes sense.

Void Storage is a new sort of bank tab.
- You'll have a large number of slots for storage of old armor.
- It's likely that that old armor will lose enchants/gems/profession enhancements when stored in Void Storage.

Some rough thoughts:

Deathwing is the next raid boss we'll deal with. Great, I'll be happy to finally kill him, but I really hope that 4.3 isn't for a while. Darkfall is suffering summer doldrums, and only last night did we kill Shannox on 25man. I would really like to kill Ragnaros before the next patch. I'm not sure if that will happen, we're a good guild, but not a great one. It is possible, after all we got Cho'gall before 4.2. Either way I'm really not ready to start thinking about the next raid; I'm busy with this one still!

I'm glad that any new 5 man dungeons won't be recycled. I understand that Cata is about revamping Azeroth, but so far we've had a lot of repeats. Firelands is just Molten Core 2.0. BWD is BWL 2.0. ZG and ZA are, well, ZG and ZA. It really feels like most of what we've seen so far in Cata isn't new, its just redone. We're not really seeing any new stories, hopefully with actually fighting Deathwing that will change, and we'll see new stuff.

Transmogrifier and Void Storage. Okay, these I'm honestly excited about.

So far they have explicitly mentioned armor and weapons being the only item that can be stored in the Void Storage. I'm hoping that ends up including tabards. Viljo and Mornara both have several bags worth of old gear and tabards taking up space. In fact Viljo still has every awesome looking weapon he's owned, since he won the roll for the Azuresong Mageblade in MC at level 60. Mornara still has all the blue gear she got out of the DK starting area with. I know that Kuanchichi has all or most of the T2 and T5 shaman sets. Getting at least 3 bags worth of slots back would be so awesome.

The Transmogrifier is also rather intriguing. I hope that it will be the case that you have to actually obtain the armor yourself before you can transmogrify your current stuff to look like it. I approve of requiring that the armor type stays the same, plate to plate etc, and the class restrictions are kept, which only makes sense if you have to actually have the item before you can transmogrify your current gear to look like it. This sort of change, though, will practically require everyone to have an addon that puts current ilvl somewhere easy to see.

Now the important change from adding the Transmogrifier is what will I have Mornara, Viljo, and Teltanara wearing? Viljo I'm thinking T5, or maybe what I have him wearing in the Figureprint I got. Telt, I liked the Primal Mooncloth set, and perhaps ether the Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader tier gear. Mornara I need to take a look at the ICC sets. I suspect I'll want to go back an get all of that, and perhaps upgrade it to the heroic pieces. Since I didn't really start playing her in raids seriously until ICC I barely remember what the different tier sets were before that. Either way it's definitely time to take stock of all the lovely gear out there and start grabbing up any items I'm missing that are particularly fabulous.

Threat Redux

2011-08-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ghostcrawler Revisits Threat
Helloooo! This is a surprising and rather large change!

The TL:DR version of that link is that tanks should worry about survival not threat. They are massively bumping the amount of threat generated while in tanking mode (blood presence, bear form, etc.).

Pertinent quotes:

"We’ve gotten over the concept that threat needs to be a major part of PvE gameplay. We have therefore decided to buff tank threat generation in a hotfix this week to where it’s generally not a major consideration. We expect the community to gradually stop using threat-tracking mods as players realize they don’t need them."

So, this week(a week from now?) there will be a hotfix:

"Hotfix: The threat generated by classes in their tanking mode has been increased from three times damage done to five times damage done."

There are longer term plans to change threat and survivability, but those are not things that can be applied in a hotfix.

For example, the next content patch will likely have a change to the way vengeance works to buff the speed at which it stacks. That will make tank swaps a little smoother, so the new tank doesn't have to worry about both popping cooldowns and putting out enough threat so that the old tank (with their full vengeance stack) doesn't pull off them immediately.

There are also some plans to potentially change pallies, warriors, and druids to have a active survival mechanic similar to how blood DKs have with death strike. However, the plans for that seemed hazy and not something that would happen in the near or even medium future.

I'm excited that threat will be buffed. It's not hard to keep threat now, but the first 20 seconds can be hairy if I dodged an attack and don't have a lot of vengeance when I drop my first runestrike. Especially if there is an enrage timer and people are going balls to the wall with dps. Now, as others will point out, if they haven't already, these threat changes won't fix anything if you've got misbehaving raiders. No threat buffs are going to save the situation if someone jumps the gun and pulls before the tank or is dpsing the wrong add. But these changes will smooth things out.

I admit to some shock that Blizzard thinks they are or will be buffing threat enough to curtail the use of threat trackers. Perhaps I've been prioritizing survival over threat for a while now, but the top dps are usually not that far behind me in threat if we start on the boss at the same time. Perhaps I'm only remembering the first 30 seconds of the fight? I'll look during the raid tonight. Either way, to expect that threat trackers are obsolete means that there is never the smallest chance that a dps can pull off of a tank, even in the first few GCDs of the fight. It's a noble goal, but I'm not sure it will ever be realized. Though I'll happily eat these words if it does come to pass.

Watch out pebble!

2011-08-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Watch out Pebble!

New Zul'gurub

2011-08-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

I like the way they redid ZG, as I've said before. It's pretty reasonably paced and has some interesting mechanics to deal with. The bosses are familiar but not exactly the same.

In particular the end boss is no longer Hakkar, but is Jin'do the Godbreaker. He has some nefarious plans that involve overpowering and taking power from Hakkar. In fact, the party has gotten here just in time, as he's already siphoning power from Hakkar.

Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: Welcome to de great show, friends. Just wait 'til ya see what I got in store for ya.

Spirit of Hakkar yells; Your deceit is unforgivable Jin'do. You spit in the face of a god!

Once you've beaten Jin'do for a bit he jumps into the spirit world and pulls you in with him. There you get to see the chains holding Hakkar imprisoned and do something about them. Once you've destroyed all the chains you also get to see, the now unbound, Hakkar face off with Jin'do. This doesn't go so well for Jin'do...

Spirit of Hakkar yells: You overstepped your bounds, Jin'do. You toy with powers that are beyond you. Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten what I can do?!
Jin'do the Godbreaker yells: No... NOOOO!!!
Spirit of Hakkar yells: be freed, insects. I will deal with you another time.

Poor Jin'do, I'd feel sorrier for him he he hadn't planned to overrun Azeroth once he stole power from Hakkar.

Dragon Kite Hilarity.

2011-08-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

I love my dragon kite.

It's seriously the most awesome non-combat pet in the world.

BWL: Vaelastraz and Nefarian

2011-08-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

The several weeks ago Mornara, Tylara, and a few others from Darkfall went to MC, BWL, and RAQ.

I've always liked the story behind Vaelastraz trying to stop Nefarian. You help him in LBRS, and that was the way to get into UBRS. And, if you had his ring, he'd help you against Rend while Nefarian watched. But then it didn't go so well in BWL for Vaelastraz. He was a big strong red dragon, but Nefarian was the acting leader of the black dragonflight.

Vael gets more or less curb stomped by Nefarian.

Blackwing Technician yells: Run! They are coming!
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Ah... the heroes. You are persistent, aren't you? Your ally here attempted to match his power against mine - and paid the price. Now he shall serve me... by slaughering you.
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Get up, little red wyrm... and destroy them!

Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: Too late, friends! Nefarius' corruption has taken hold... I cannot... control myself.
Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: I beg you, mortals - FLEE! Flee before I lose all sense of control! The black fire rages within my heart! I MUST - release it!
Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: FLAME! DEATH! DESTRUCTION! Cower, mortals before the wrath of Lord... NO - I MUST fight this! Alexstraza help me. I MUST fight it!

Vaelastraz the Corrupt says:
I... I have failed, <Player>. The Lord of Bla... The Lord of Blackrock is too powerful. He consumed my energy with... with ease. I turn... I... kill me... you must... you must kill me.
Player says: I cannot, Valeastraz! Surely something can be done to heal you!

Vaelastraz the Corrupt says:
I perform one final service. I pray it is sufficient...
Player says: Vaelastraz, no!!!

Vaelastraz the Corrupt yells: Nefarius' hate has made me stronger than ever before! You should have fled while you could, mortals! The fury of Blackrock courses through my veins!

Vaelastraz's last act while in control of himself is to give the super buff Essence of the Red to everyone in the raid. It's pretty self sacrificing of him to give us the ability to defeat him.

The rest of the instance doesn't have all that much in the way of bosses with great story or dialogue until you get to Nefarian.

Lord Victor Nefarius says:
Do you expect me to cower before the mighty legion of <Player>?
You are nothing to me. Less than nothing. Had I desired your head, it would have been presented to me on a pike.
You have made the mistake that all mortals make.
<Lord Victor Nefarius sighs.>
Time does strange things to those that use it as a form of currency.
Player says: I've made no mistakes.

Lord Victor Nefarius says:
In your rush to glory, you assumed that the pace of the game revolved around your actions. Can you even fathom how preposterous that sounds to a being like me? A being that if so inclined could cause your own insignificant thoughts to crush the peanut sized mass of grey matter floating within your skull.
Player says: You have lost your mind, Nefarius. You speak in riddles.

Lord Victor Nefarius says:
It's simple really. Allow me to summarize...
Player says: Please do.

Lord Victor Nefarius yells: In this world where time is your enemy, it is my greatest ally. This grand game of life that you think you play in fact plays you. To that I say...
Lord Victor Nefarius yells: Let the games begin!

And then he turns into a gigantic black dragon that you have to fight, after you kill a bunch of drakonids of different colors and which he rezes later in the fight to fight you again.

Nefarian yells: This cannot be! I am the master here! You mortals are nothing to my kind! Do you hear me? Nothing!

As a side note: Nefarian is doing some experimental interbreeding of the different flights of dragons in BWL. You see many different colors whelps and black dragon eggs, in the first and third bosses. There are also some chromatic drakonids you have to fight as part of the trash, and, of course, Chromaggus has all the different flights abilities. However there are no undead dragons or drakonids until you get to the end and fight Nefarian himself. BWD copies this, with the rezing of Ony and the Animated Bone Warriors for the end fight there.

Heroic Lich King

2011-08-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

Exactly one week ago I organized Darkfall's Monday night fun raid to go to ICC10 for the second week in a row. The previous week we'd killed everything in the first four wings. So this week we only had the LK left. Unsurprisingly I was able to put together a full DF raid. We actually had a few too many people and a couple people had to sit out.

It took us a bunch of attempts. We had the first phase and those stupid shadow traps down pretty well. Our only real problems were with defile. I hate defile. We went with a strat of popping lust in P2 and then in P3 when everyone jumped out of the sword we all run away to avoid the immediate defile. Barring a few messups due to lag spikes it worked like a charm.

I'm super proud of everyone who was there and the guild as a whole.

Rogues do it from behind

2011-08-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

The redone ZG and ZA are pretty fun to run. They have bosses with good mechanics and especially well done dialogue.

Icecrown Citadel Dialogue: The Lich King

2011-08-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Completing, at long last, my dialogue posts for Icecrown Citadel, here is the dialogue of the Lich King. I've had these images sitting around for a good 10 months at this point and have finally gotten around to captioning the cropped bits.

I have to admit that I really enjoy ICC, and I really like the Lich King fight. It's still challenging at level 85, espeically if you do heroic. And I think that this fight has some of the best dialogue. I particularly love the starting part. It's right up there with Lady Deathwhisper and far ahead of anything in the unholy wing.

The Lich King yells: So the Light's vaunted justice has finally arrived? Shall I lay down Frostmourne and throw myself at your mercy, Fordring?
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: We'll grant you a swift death, Arthas. More than can be said for the thousands you've tortured and slain.
The Lich King yells: You'll learn of that first hand. When my work is complete, you will beg for mercy -- and I will deny you. Your anguished cries will be testament to my unbridled power...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: So be it. Champions, attack!
The Lich King yells: I'll keep you alive to witness the end, Fordring. I would not want the Light's greatest champion to miss seeing this wretched world remade in my image.

The Lich King yells: I will freeze you from within until all that remains is an icy husk!
The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: Hope wanes...

The Lich King yells: The end has come!
The Lich King yells: No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before you relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury...

The Lich King yells: Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder...

The Lich King yells: You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice.
The Lich King yells: Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azeroth's fall will come at their hands -- and you will be the first to die.

The Lich King yells: I delight in the irony.
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: LIGHT GRANT ME ONE FINAL BLESSING! GIVE ME THE STRENGTH... TO SHATTER THESE BONDS!
The Lich King yells: Impossible...
Highlord Tirion Fordring yells: No more, Arthas! No more lives will be consumed by your hatred!
Terenas Menethil yells: Free at last! It is over, my son. This is the moment of reckoning.
Terenas Menethil yells: Rise up, champions of the Light!
The Lich King yells: Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear.
The Lich King yells: They cannot fear...

Then there is the cut scene that is still available to see in Dalaran where Fordring almost takes the crown of evil, but Bolvar takes it instead.

And we end up with a new Lich King. Someone who started out "good". Well, if you discount the mind controlled by dragons bit. But, regardless, we have someone who has good and noble intentions sitting on the Frozen Throne. Bolvar will devote his energies to holding back the Scourge.

~~~~~~
It drives DraNgNon nuts, but almost every time we pull Arthas I recite most of the starting lines. Especially the "you will beg for mercy - and I will deny you" part. I've only ever done the LK fight with Mornara and it's always poignant for her when the Lich King is being a bastard.

Mirror image image

2011-08-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Archaeology is a rather time consuming profession. It is clearly designed to take up the maximal amount of time. And honestly, if I couldn't do it while waiting for BG or arena I am not sure that I would do it at all.

A very few of the items you can get from it are awesome. There is some armor and a few weapons that are very awesome. But most of the stuff you unearth and piece together is vendor crap. More rarely you can also piece together random fun usable things.

The Highborne Soul Mirror is one of those random fun items. It'll create a stationary reflection of yourself.

Here you see Kuan and Morn goofing off with their reflections while waiting for a pull in ICC25.

Here is someone goofing off with the potion of illusion, and me being silly back with my mirror.

Cenarion Idiocy

2011-07-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

DraNgNon and I have long thought that the Cenarion druids are dumb. We are not the only ones with this opinion.

I really just want to beat Mylune to death. She and her stupid little wild creatures are not helping the bigger fight against Ragnaros. Stupid Cenarions.

Making of another death knight...

2011-07-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Yogg's brain is a rather scary place. When you take the brain portal in you'll see one of three different memories where Yogg-Saron influenced history in ways that weren't good for the mortal races.

There is the Deathwing making the demon soul, Garona assassinating King Llane, and the Lich King torturing someone into being his death knight.

Before Ice Crown Citadel was broken into, there was some debate as to who the Immolated Champion was. It turned out to be Fordragon. He was poisoned by the Apothecaries and then burned by the red dragons. Neither of these were good for his health. When we see him in Yogg's brain he is prisoner of the Lich King. He is being tortured as Saurfang the Younger (already broken) looks on.

It's always a sad and scary vision for Mornara to deal with.

Balloon Boy!

2011-07-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Patch 4.2 added a lot of new things to the game. New dailies, new raid, new gear, and a few new quests.

One new quest is to find all of Jaga's balloons. His dad bought him a bunch of balloons from the Darkmoon Faire and the wind blew them away.

If you're nice enough to help him out, he'll even let you have one of the balloons. Then, well, he is a small orc boy, and there are a lot of balloons that you just found for him...

Season 10

2011-07-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

With the recent patch (4.2) the new arena season started. New gear! An additional venue for arenas! Reset ratings!

In theory this is good. In reality this is excruciating.

Oh, the new arena venue is fine. Mornara finally got the World Wide Winner Achieve because she was able to win an arena battle in the Ring of Valor.

But the reset ratings and new gear is not so great.

The gear that Kuan and Morn sweated and bled for last season is worse than all of the new stuff. So all of our PvP, both arena and battle ground, is painfully and under geared.

Also the ratings are all messed up. The team ratings were all reset. So our ratings for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 are all at 0 or just above. But the MatchMaking Value (MMV) was NOT reset and is inflated from the previous season. It feels like we're starting fresh like we had to when we hit 85, but with a big rating handicap.

Dark Phoenix

2011-07-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

Mechano-Hog!

2011-07-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

For years now DraNgNon has been wanting a Mechano-Hog for Eeyan. Because really, what looks more bad ass than a rogue in a hog?

Samajaja, an awesome priest in Darkfall, was nice enough to give DraNgNon a hog as a birthday present. Eeyan promptly took a tour around Durotar with Telt in sidecar.

Pretty badass, no? Well actually there is something that looks more badass than a rogue in a mechano-hog.

A rogue in a mechano-hog with Warglaives of Azzinoth.

Molten Core

2011-07-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Last night a few of us smashed through the level 60 raids. It was the usual Monday fun raid, and it was still fun even if only 4 of us showed up. Moo and Sama joined DraNgNon and I in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and then Sama swapped out and Wian came to Ruins of Ahn'Quiraj and the first boss of Karazhan.

It was actually rather amusing that four of us could so handily kill everything in Molten Core. Not surprising, but very amusing.

Ragnaros only tossed me once and was quite amusing to deal with.

Part of me had been hoping that there would be drops for the various legendary weapons that can appear in Molten Core. Alas there were no bindings, and no Eye of Sulfuras.

However, there was an Orb of Deception that dropped from Ragnaros. Tylara won the roll for it. We all demanded that she equip it immediately, so we could see what ugly alliance race she turned in to and laugh.

Eee! Draenei!

Defender of a Shattered World

2011-07-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've had a frustrating time with Wow since 4.2 dropped. The laptop isn't handling the graphics well. I lock up and crash on Occu'thar, and Firelands is better, but still and exercise in frustration. The Season 10 Pvp gear far outclasses Kuan's all-epic season 9 gear, so most of pvp has been taking a dirt nap.

I was cranky but Clara finally convinced me to come along to a Throne of the Four Winds raid. I did horrible there too, DC'ing means you get punted by the squall line, but I took a bunch of cool screenshots (well other than all the D/c's kept un-hiding my quest objectives). But we did manage to bring him down, and that was quite satisfying.

I'm sure it won't stay this frustrating. But meanwhile, Kuan and Morn have the title, "Defender of a Shattered World". I have to say, the icon for it is kinda cool, I hope it isn't prescient for how the game evolves.

Nefarian down

2011-07-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Nefarian down!

This actually happened 2 weeks ago, but better late with the photo than never.

It was after 4.2 and they really did nerf the crap out of him. We killed him on our 2nd try. The only reason we didn't 1-shot him was because one offtank had a mouse malfunction.

Ghoul Names, Part 2

2011-07-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

Time for another episode of "WTF is my ghoul called now?"

Also, my ghouls are ugly. Not nearly so well preserved as some other undead that I know of.

Children's Week

2011-07-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Children's Week is actually one of my favorite holidays. You've got an orphan you take around for a whole week. Showing your little orc ward around Azeroth and your young blood elf ward around Outland. The quests are fun and the achieves are pretty good too.

This year the Orgrimmar orphan quests were redone because of Cataclysm. So my little orc friend had all new adventures to suggest. Of course we did them all, but some of his ideas were a bit crazy.

I'm really not sure that the rocket is supposed to shoot quite that much flame little guy... But, hey, it's goblin technology so who knows, and at least we didn't didn't actually die.

There was some epic dragon kite flying that happened on the bluffs above Org. The orc orphan really had a lot of fun running around with the different dragon kites.

Ah, but probably the best part of the week was teaching my little buddy about PvP. And more importantly the proper way to smash Alliance in Warsong. It's very important for a young orc to learn about Warsong Gulch and how to pwn properly.

Ony Kite!

2011-07-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

SQUEEEEEEEE! Ony Kite! Ony Kite!

My Kiting Loot Card finally arrived today. It took a while, between several scheduling mistakes where I missed the ebay auction and one huge Paypal fuckup where they ENTIRELY LOST my bank info.

But the card is here now, so all is well.

I shall be running everything with a dragon kite trailing after me now.

Fashion Choices

2011-07-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

Some characters in WoW have awesome armor. Their weapons glow with purpose and their armor gleams with magic. Other characters... don't.

Look at Therazane. Technically she has no armor, but then again she is made of stone so all of her is armor? Either way, she is not attractive. She is distinctive and awesome. But her look is not so great.

Thrall as world-shaman has new armor as well. Most of his gear looks pretty good. He's a shaman and you can tell that by looking at him. But his gigantic beaded necklace is a tad bit ridiculous.

Both of these characters have armor that fits them and their purpose well, but it's not all that great looking in an absolute sense. At least they are luck enough to have a matching set. Mornara was just starting to get a full matching set and now the Firelands pieces are coming in and looking silly....

Goblins

2011-07-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Goblins of Warcraft are portrayed as mobsters with a strong explosive bent. Their main loves seem to be money and blowing shit up.

They don't seem to have a particular care as to how they make their money. They'll sell you whatever you'll pay for and the more you pay the better.

Blowing shit up is a pretty big priority for the goblins.

Well maybe money and bombs aren't their only loves. Perhaps the male goblins like other types of bombshells too:

Cho'gall DOWN!

2011-06-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

Cho'gall down!

That stupid ugly two headed ogre is finally dead. He dropped some delicious purples, but the best part was coming together as a team and kicking his eyeballed ass. I am super proud of the guild as a whole, and especially of everyone who was there tonight.

It was our second and a half night of trying him. We'd had one night of 25man attempts before, and had a couple of tries in 10-man. But tonight we knocked over BH first thing and then reactivated a lock so we could go straight to beat Cho'gall up.

And even though we had a few pugs in the group, we still had enough people to make it a Darkfall run! So guild achieve too!

Now if you'll excuse me I'll go back to my chair dance of celebration. Squeeeee!

Pebble.

2011-06-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

When questing for the Therazane's followers in Deepholm, trying to build their trust so Therazane will yield the Third Fragment of the World Pillar, a side quest chain comes up, to rescue a baby earth elemental named Pebble. Pebble takes a liking to the questor, and the rock giants issue dire warnings about being too nice to the elementals. The end.

Except it's not. Every once in a while, a quest will pop up in the Therazane dailies, where the tender of the baby earth elementals says, "Pebble has gotten himself lost again, somewhere deep in the Crumbling Depths.... He seems to like you. Please, go and find him and bring him out of those tunnels..." It's a basic escort quest, with little baby earth elemental Pebble tagging along. It's so cute. Pebble is cute.

Then I found out that doing the daily 10 times marks the Rock Lover achievement and Pebble becomes a pet! Since Kuanchichi the elemental shaman clearly needs an elemental pet, I started watching for the quest. And that's when I noticed something: Pebble doesn't just trail along, he'd attack anything I was fighting. Look at him go! ...he's in the upper right.

Pebble is Bad Ass! Here's the combat log from that same screenshot! He's hitting for around 300 a swing. Not bad for a companion!

I wondered if that would keep up once I got the achieve. That would just be too cool. I watched to see if Pebble ever changed, but he would always track behind the mob, and pound on them with his little Pebble arms. And then ding! I got the achieve. Kuan now has Pebble as a pet.

Of course pets are non-combat. I was clearly dreaming.

Nonetheless, Pebble is, actually, super special. Why? Becuase even as a non-combat pet, Pebble is Bad Ass! He's level 83 with the health to match. Don't be attacking Pebble!

Anyhow, Pebble is now the pet Kuan has been keeping out. I'm not sure he isn't out of his depths getting dragged all over Azeroth, but he is very loyal even when his favorite person does things beyond his, or anyone's, understanding...

art shot

2011-06-09T02:27:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I've always thought they did the westering sun in Thousand Needles just right.

Arena Fun

2011-06-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

On Saturday nights Kuan and Mornara do PvP. This generally consists of a battleground and then some arenas. We started out just doing 2v2, but after doing this for a couple of weeks we gathered, well audience isn't quite the right word. Perhaps its most accurate to say we inspired more people to do PvP on Saturday nights.

Our friend the fabulous disc priest was interested in coming along. So we started doing some 3v3 as well. Sama joined our 3v3 team "Stands in the Bad". It's a lot of fun, though I do feel bad every time a rogue stunlocks and kills her in the first 15 seconds of the match....

We've also got a 5v5 team that plays occasionally. 5v5 is quite chaotic. It's really hard to figure out who to kill on their team. And I'm thinking that the tracking is a bit off. I assure you that our hunter did not do that much healing.

We've been steadily getting better at both 2v2 and 3v3. Our rating for last week's 3v3 was 1006, and for 2v2 is is currently 1027. For people who are just out there to get some conquest points that's pretty good. Especially since we don't have actual pvp specs.

25man progress

2011-06-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

It's taken Darkfall a while to build up to a full 25man raid. However I'm very proud to say that last night and Tuesday night we actually had full DF raids.

It was glorious!

Not only do I have to spend less time explaining every fight, but we are actually starting to gel as a team. And the loot is faster to give out as well. Though I'm not sure if that is an artifact of Earthen distributing it instead of me or it actually being faster.

On Tuesday We knocked out 5 bosses. We took out Argaloth and then the first 4 bosses in Blackwing Descent. We had a couple of attempts on Atramades as well, but ran out of time. We'll go back on Sunday and wipe the floor with him and then beat on Nefarian for a while.

Last night we plowed through Bastion of Twilight. We one shot both Halfus and the Double Dragons. And, the actual sign of progression, only had one stupid embarrassing wipe on the trash, when I didn't explain a new strategy for the last pack of trash before them well enough.

But the triumph of last night was that we finally killed Ascendant Council on 25man. We last killed them on 10 man in early April.

Even though we already had a 10man kill shot I made everyone stand in front of the corpse so I could take pictures. If you click through and look closely you can see the belt that is all that is left of those stupid elementals.

Zaela and Garrosh

2011-05-27T23:11:00.000-07:00

Zaela and Garrosh sitting in a tree.
K I S S I N G
First comes Love!
Then comes Marriage!

...
Do I really need to type out the rest of that silly song?

But really I think that if Zaela and Garrosh got it on everyone would be a lot happier. She is a bit uptight and Garrosh is a warmongering fool. If Garrosh got laid he'd calm down. And if Zaela got laid she'd still be just as much of a badass, but would also have the 'I'm a sexy orc' card to play.

Atramades Down!

2011-05-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

Booyah! We killed Atramades for the first time last night.

It is definitely one of those fights where we need a lot of coordination, and specific people doing very specific jobs. It did take us 8 tries last night, but it was pretty excellent to see the blind dragon fall over dead at the end.

Garona

2011-05-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Look familiar?

Kael'Thas

2011-05-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

We rank Tempest Keep a while ago and Mornara was lucky enough to win the Verdant Sphere off of Kael'thas.

And this is why we always take a head as our trophy. You can be sure someone isn't going to come back to life if their head is mounted on a pike somewhere.

I always feel bad for Kael'thas. He just wanted to save what was left of his people. If Garithos, the racist human dick, hadn't been, well, a racist dick, then the history of the Blood Elves and Outland itself could have been much different.

Chimaeron

2011-05-15T23:29:00.000-07:00

Chimaeron Down!

Once we got the feud phases down that last 20% was a real nailbiter. We had one wipe at .1% with and then the next time we kicked his ass. It was lovely ;-D Die stupid overgrown poison hydra thing!

Black Dragons

2011-05-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

The black dragons are evil. They have been for eons now, ever since Neltharion the Earth Warder was seduced by the voices of the Old Gods deep in the earth and became Deathwing.

Deathwing betrayed the other dragonflights. He killed most of the blue dragons which drove Malygos insane. And he enslaved Alexstraza to the Dragonmaw orcs. Since then the rest of his flight has taken joy in sowing chaos and destruction. Even when you help them against the Scourge in Dragonblight, they boast of all the death, destruction, and despair they have caused.

I still feel bad about potentially causing their extinction.

Blogger :/

2011-05-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

To the three people who look at this blog: Sorry for the reposts/missing posts. Blogger was down yesterday and un-published some posts that were already up. Fortunately, I don't think that anything was actually lost, it was just rolled back to scheduled instead of published. Anyway, the blog itself should be correct now, but the reader might be a little fubar.

Fossilized Raptor

2011-05-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

While waiting for a battleground or arena queue to pop up I generally do some archaeology.

Kuan and Mornara have regularly been doing PvP on Saturday night, which means that my archaeology is maxed out and I'm starting to get some fun stuff. This past weekend, while waiting for arenas I ended up completing the Fossilized Raptor

It doesn't look like the smoothest ride, but sometimes you have to sacrifice the comfort of your posterior for looking cool.

Guild Level 25!

2011-05-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

About a week ago Darkfall reached level 25! I'm super proud of everyone in the guild.

It turns out that once you're level 25 and exalted with the guild you can buy a ground mount. For Alliance it's some dumb looking lion thing, but for Horde it's the Kor'kron Annihilator, a super badass scorpid mount.

Most mounts do some sort of roar or rear or snarl if you press space while standing still. The scorpid does something I have loved forever. It waves it's claws up in the air.

Long, long ago there were two night elves. One of them was a hunter. One of them was a druid. The hunter had reached level 12 and wanted a pet. But not just any pet, this hunter wanted a a black scorpid with red spots. When you're level 12 the only place to get a scorpid with that look is from Durotar. This is quite handy if you're in the Horde. Unfortunately for the Alliance this means a death run up the coast of Dustwallow Marsh, through what was the Barrens (none of this North or South business), and into Durotar, one of the home zones of the Horde.

But the night elves persevered! They ran and died and ran back to their corpses like pros. Finally they made it to Durotar. There they camped out for a while, because, of course, a scorpid that looks that cool doesn't spawn all the time. It didn't take too long though before a very handsome scorpid was tamed.

Some discussion ensued, and the oh-so-handsome scorpid was named Dorano. Dorano accompanied the two night elves on their adventures through Azeroth and even into Outland. And every so often Dorano would put his claws up and sway back and forth like he was holding a lighter at a rock concert.

And now my very own Kor'kron Anihilator mount does the same claw wave thing. It makes me happy every time.

Shadowfang Keep

2011-05-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Shadowfang Keep is one of the new dungeons that was updated for Cataclysm. There are some Gilnean undead renegades hiding out there.

I'm rather a fan of the way it's been updated. A lot of the old bosses still have cameos, and the new bosses are interesting. There is also a hefty dose of story/lore spread through the whole instance. Cromush and the Forsaken troops he's monitoring have some nice dialogue.

Baron Ashburysays: I'm trying to convince Godfrey to just kill all of you to end your misery, but he keeps telling me no. More pain and suffering for the lot of you, then!
Forsaken Trooper says: Bastard.

But really the best dialogue is from the bosses. Ashbury is the first boss you have to face. And, as you can see, he's a dick.

Black Dragon!

2011-05-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last night Darkfall tried to kill the the Lich King on 10-man heroic again. There was progress, we got him to 18% and then 12%. However, there was no actual heroic kill.

After that 7 of us went to kill Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum. It's rather ridiculous how that fight has been trivialized. Especially since H LK is still rather hard. Anyway, the big dragon fell over and dropped his loots like the pinyata he is. Since we did it with all three drakes up he also dropped the Reins of the Black Drake.

Guess who won it? Go on, guess!

Yep, that would be Mornara on her spiffy new black drake.

It's called Security...

2011-05-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of Bran, or dwarves in general, with one exception. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I really don't like Bran. And I'd definitely say that I hate the Harrison Jones and Bran quest line in Ulduar.

Bran has been mucking about with all sorts of Titan artifacts in Halls of Stone, Ulduar, and, now, Halls of Origination. You'd think that he'd have learned a bit about them. In particular, the Titans weren't really keen on the inmates taking charge of the prison.

Which, considering that almost all of the mortal races now are descendants of some Old-God-corrupted Titan creations or servants, I think is kind of what is happening. We certainly interfered a lot in Ulduar. You know, killing Loken, and then subverting Algalon. Yes, we did manage to kill Yogg-Saron, but I strongly suspect that if we kill too many of the Old Gods bad things will happen. I mean, the Titans had them on the ropes, and decided not to kill them.

All this basically is my long winded way of saying that Bran is being even more of an idiot than usual. The Titans used a different locking system at each of their installations to make it harder for someone to break into them. It's called security...

Ah, Sailors

2011-05-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly working my way through the Eastern Kingdom quests with Mornara. So far I've done some quests in Arathi Highlands, Northern Stranglethorn, and Silverpine. I'm not being organized with these quests, in fact I'm usually doing them when I'm in the area while doing Archaeology and waiting for Arenas or Battlegrounds.

There have been a few humorous gems from these quests.

In particular I'm very amused by a couple of quests in Silverpine. Basically there is an orc fleet landing on the shores of Silverpine to help out the Forsaken against the Worgen. You've got to help these poor sailors through several misadventures.

... I did say sailors.

Holidays I Despise

2011-05-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

There are two holidays that I truly despise in Azeroth. The first is Love is in the Air and the second is Noblegarden. Both of them have achievements that drive me crazy.

Noble garden has Shake your Bunny-Maker. You're supposed to put bunny ears on female characters over level 18 of every race. Aside from the inherent sexism in this achieve, I'm not a fan. Hello!?! Fearsome Former Agent of the Scourge here. NOT your friendly bunny playmate.

Love is in the Air has Fistful of Love. Regrettably, Orc Death Knight is one of the race/class combinations you need to hit with rose petals. I'm not as annoyed about this achieve, but still not a fan. Rose petals and Death Knight are really not the best combo. It least not unless someone gets the ebon rose and shakes black petals on a death knight. And even that is a bit too emo...

So no I don't like Noblegarden or Love is in the Air. I find both of these holidays demeaning, and I find that Noblegarden is downright sexist with the bunny ears. Mornara is a death knight. She is a tank. She is the one who stands in front of the boss and takes the hits. And just in case you forgot: her main powers are diseases and death:

Fucking bunny ears.

Stable Keeper

2011-04-30T00:48:00.000-07:00

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.

I'm Here to Kill Dragons - Update

2011-04-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Rise of the Zandalari

2011-04-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Thrall's Balls

2011-04-26T01:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Goblin Starting Area

2011-04-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

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.

My favorite dwarf

2011-04-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Earthen Ring has opinions on druids too

2011-04-20T23:21:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Cenarion Druids are Dumb

2011-04-18T10:06:00.000-07:00

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?

Whale Shark!

2011-04-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Old Crafty

2011-04-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Icecrown Citadel 10 achieves

2011-04-12T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

2011-04-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

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.