Firelands: Shannox dialogue

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

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

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!

Mechano-Hog Part 2!

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

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

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?