Macro it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.