draNgNon progress 12/31

It's the last progress of 2007! Here is my progress based on last week's list. The progress is odd as there haven't been a lot of tanks on to speak of, so it's more focussed on outdoor-style quests.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on 2H Maces • 2-minute PvP trinket • Honored with Everlook • work on Badges	• nope • no tanks • got it • got this too, yay • Honored indeed • not a one more: Revered with Sporregar
Eeyan
• Kara key • get all Heroic keys • Onyxia key • Arcatraz key • Strat run • 365 blacksmithing • farm primal fires • do Skyguard dailies • clear Thunderlord quests • 335+ all ranged	• got it • got them too • omg still no • need the Mech piece • nope • 362 • no time • Friendly now • 3 left at last count • 330, anyhow
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	• still a couple to go • nope • nope

Here is next week's list. Gear enchants has really depleted my stock of primals, so I need Kuan to focus on that... Regular raids aren't restarting until next week.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Axes
• PvP... at least the daily...
• farm up some primals, whee
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, keys, 0.5 quests
• try a heroic
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 365 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires
• clear Thunderlord quests
• 335+ all ranged

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups
• 280 enchanting

Merry Christmas!

Eeyan and Teltanara now have the heroic key to Caverns of Time. And, the key to Karazhan.

Eeyan got his [Handgrips of Assassination].

Teltanara got the [Epoch-Mender] staff.

draNgNon progress 12/24

Here is my progress based on last week's list. I didn't make much progress, as I spent most of the week's playtime either working or offline.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on Maces • 12+ WSG Marks • Honored with Everlook • work on Badges	no progress on any of this stuff
Eeyan
• 2nd key frag • get all flight points • Onyxia key • Arcatraz key • Strat run • 350 lockpicking • farm primal fires • start Skyguard dailies	• got it • all but the Scryer one in SMV • omg still no • started • nope • got it • no time • did the runups to get to Skettis more: 360 blacksmithing!
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	no progress on any of this stuff

Here is next week's list... my time will be weird, I am more available to play, but also a lot of people I normally play with are unavailable.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Maces
• 2-minute PvP trinket
• Honored with Everlook
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, keys, 0.5 quests
• Kara key
• get all Heroic keys
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 365 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires
• do Skyguard dailies
• clear Thunderlord quests
• 335+ all ranged

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Teltanara is 70!

Woo! 70!! She hit 70 last night while she and Eeyan were killing ogres in Blade's Edge.

After a quick loan from Viljo she was riding a Blue Windrider. I'm a fan of the blue one because it matches most of her gear and the wings are purplish.

Now she's just got to get her 3rd key Fragment and run Black Morass, and then she'll be ready for Kara. Ha!

I am pleased that despite the fact that she was only 69 at the time and the druid bear tank was more or less chain pulling she did a pretty good healing Steam Vaults for the 2nd key fragment.

recipes

While looking for the best way to skill Eeyan up in blacksmithing, I found a new (to me, anyhow) site that listed all the recipes in the game, and the mobs that drop them. I checked and they do it for tailoring too. I think that's awesome as Wowwiki has this sort of thing for Alchemy, but not anything else.

The Blackmithing URL is http://wow.crafterstome.com/recipes/blacksmithing.html. Wowwiki links to it but doesn't dupe the information. Anyhow it will be sort of fun figuring out how to go get all the recipes I can, with Eeyan now.

Warsong Gulch Fix

Following on the heels of my last posting is a way to make Warsong less excruciating. draNgNon initially came up with this idea.

Statement of problem:
Warsong Gulch (WSG) has a tendency to turtle. Turtling being the situation where each team has the other teams flag, and is therefore unable to turn in the flag they have captured. When this happens and the teams are unable to recapture their flag and turn in their captured flag the game can last for hours or until one side gets bored and gives up. Either way, no fun for either team.

Proposed Solution 1:
draNgNon suggested that there be some change so that the game is won when a certain amount of points are accumulated. Points are accumulated when a flag is turned in, three turnins means victory. Points are also accumulated while your flag remains safely in your base.

However, this solution would only solve the turtle case where each team is unable to get to the other team's well defended flag. It would not solve the case where each team already has the other team's flag and is unable to retrieve their own to turn in a flag capture.

Proposed Solution 2:
Change the game so that each team starts with a certain amount of points. Every flag reduces your opponents points, again three captures results in victory. Also add in the idea of reinforcements from the recent AV changes. So now every death on your team costs your team some amount of points. And to help speed things up, keeping your flag uncaptured will also reduce the amount of points your opponent has.

This is will put a finite time limit on the length of a game. So no matter how much turtling a team tries to do there will eventually be enough deaths for one side to lose.

Battlegrounds & AFKers

The Wow mailing list at my work is fairly large and active. There are of course people who post very regularly and there is usually a good discussion of several topics going on. Newbs are helped and high-end bosses are discussed.

However, some of the people on this list annoy me greatly. They have views which differ from my own in very serious and fundamental ways.

For example there are some people who feel that it is ok to afk during a battleground, specifically Alterac Valley. They were discussing the best ways and mods to do this. (NO! I am not mentioning any of them!) Finally I couldn't take it anymore. Someone asked if any of these mods were legal according to Blizzards TOS. I replied, by chewing out everyone who would go afk in a battle ground.

My point is basically that if you want the gear you have to work for it. If you want arena gear you must arena, and the better you are the faster you get good gear. Especially with season 3 upon us, you must have a certain amount of skill to get the rating for the high-end gear. If you want PvE raiding gear you have to invest the time and actualy raid the dungeons. If you want gear that you can only buy with honor points then you need to invest the time in the battle grounds.

However, because the gear that you can get with honor points is actually pretty good, there are a lot of lazy bastards who sit in the cave in AV and get free honor from the work that the rest of us do to win the match. I can't stand these people, especially their sense of entitlement. They feel that because Blizzrd has messed up the incentives for PvP in battlegrounds it is ok for them to just sit there and leech honor for my hard work.

Put plain and simple I despise the people who intentionally afk in the battlegrounds and have a method to avoid being reported afk. In the case where they are running a bot to do this while they are not home they are actually breaking the rules of the game. In the case where they hit the spacebar every so often to avoid the afk debuff they are breaking the spirit of the rules, if not actually the rules themselves.

Watch out for HAX

So, Darkfall is finally ready to try Mag. We were going to do it Sunday. Gruul ran too long, so we decided to postpone til this evening.

Wait, I forgot, 8 or 9 pm? I wanted to make sure I get home from work in time - I've not tried Mag and Kuan is now one of two top DPS ele shamans. I logged in to Darkfall's boards to see a post from one of our better-geared locks...

subject: My account has been cleaned out. 2007/12/18 04:51

Just thought I would post something here. I won't be on until this gets cleared up with Blizzard so please don't send anything to, invite to group, or in general talk to <list of alts> if you see them on.

whee.

draNgNon progress 12/17

Here is my progress based on last week's list. It's a bit deceptive. Kuan got to run Tempest Keep for the first time, even though he didn't see a boss down'd, he did get to see the instance and fight a boss. Eeyan down'd Murmur for the first time, albeit painfully as I have so never done that fight as a melee. Eeyan (regrettably) has 3 heroic keys now, but would probably be a smear on the floor of a heroic instance.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • farm for Major Prot recipes • 349 on 2H Axes or Maces • 12+ WSG Marks • Honored with Ratchet • clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir	• nope • nope • 348 2H Maces • no bg at all • Ratchet and Gadget • cleared
Eeyan
• start on Kara attunement • flying mount • Onyxia key • Shadow Labyrinth key • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing • farm primal fires	• 1st fragment • got it • omg still no • got it • nope • got it • no time
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • Start on Badlands • Uldaman runups	• nope • nope • nope

Here is next week's list... my time will be weird, as the holidays approach, and also a lot of people I normally play with are unavailable.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on Maces
• 12+ WSG Marks
• Honored with Everlook
• work on Badges

Eeyan blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• 2nd key frag
• get all flight points
• Onyxia key
• Arcatraz key
• Strat run (for Tier 0 Shoulders and Pants)
• 350 lockpicking
• farm primal fires
• start Skyguard dailies

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Karma

Teltanara and Eeyan ran Sethekk Halls last night. It was mildly painful, because the group was clearly a bunch of alts. Our druid was only so-so at holding aggro, our warlock did a lot of the pulling, the other (shadow) priest was obsessed with mind control, and quite honestly I'm not yet all that great a healer with Teltanara. I had just gotten Prayer of Mending, and wasn't always sure when I should refresh it. I also am finding myself deeply dissatisfied with my current UI, specifically my heal button layout versus my questing layout. (Any priests wants to give advice on raid frames and action bars that they use? With links? Pretty please?)

Anyway, we wiped here and there on trash. Teltanara won a blue gem from the first chest. We took out the first boss on our first attempt. We wipe on more trash and I learn a lesson about when NOT to pop with a soulstone. Another chest comes up and there is another gem. I announce in party chat that I'm passing because I already have a gem. The warlock salutes me for, basically, not being a loot whore. I am amused and think that Karma is always a good thing to have.

Finally we are at Ikiss. Ikiss is a bitch. Viljo has never seen the Incanter's Trousers drop, and Ikiss likes to, you know, kill everyone in the party with stupid explosion or missiles. On Viljo I usually get to watch most of the fight while lying dead on the floor. But apparently they nerfed him last patch, because we kill him first try. And with only one death.

We all grab our quest item and the key to Shadow Labyrinth. The loot is a mail belt and the Hallowed Trousers. Ohh! Hallowed Trousers!! I am so excited! But remember there is another priest there. He is excited too. He asks if I mind if he hits need. I say it's up to him, but I'm going to hit need. I end up winning with an 11, because he was nice enough to pass. This is clearly the karma I saved up earlier coming back to help me out.

Eeyan is now Offically Undergeared

But in theory, he can go anywhere he wants, that's outdoors at least.



Well, except Onyxia's Lair. Does that count as outdoors...?


Edit: LAME blogger crops the picture

Tempest Keep

Darkfall (Viljo and Kuanchichi included) went in to Tempest Keep last night. It took us a while to get a full group together, since a bunch of raiders were busy or just missing. But we got it together and headed in.

Whee! New content! Whee trash pulls that need mages! Whee sheeps that break every $%^$#@ seven seconds! Oh wait that last one wasn't whee at all.

Well anyway we got to the room with Al'ar, we bypassed him and went on to the Void Reaver. Void Reaver has a bunch of trash that needs some very coordinated crowd control from both mages and warlocks. That was... interesting. Up to getting to Void Reaver's actual room the trash wasn't too hard, but the trash immediately around VR took us a few wipes to organize ourselves to deal with.

Then we had time for 2 attempts on VR. The first one was basically to let us see what we were up against. I have to say that the stupid arcane orbs confuse the crap out of me. It's really hard to see when they have finished with their explosion. And it's even harder to watch your neighbors for their explosions, even with various mods to help out.

The second attempt was a little more serious. We wiped at 38% of his health. That's not bad, but as several people on our guild boards have pointed out we, as a guild, have got to get better dps. We were missing a bunch of our main raiders, so I'm too not terribly worried. Also as we figure out the orbs there will be less running around like headless chickens or getting killed by your neighbor's orb.

draNgNon progress 12/10

Here is my progress based on last week's list.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SH • [Hauberk of the Furious Elements] • farm for Major Prot recipes • 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces • [Gladiator's Mail Leggings] • clear last new quest in Mudsprocket • Honored with Steemwheedle • clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir	• nope • got it, woot! • no. stupid Astromancers • got it • ran a bunch of AB • done with that • Ferelas mini giants are only 25 rep • nope but: Exalted with Aldor! and: Tier 4 legs!
Eeyan
• flying mount • Onyxia key • Honored with Scryer • Shadow Labyrinth key • help Teltanara Honored with Aldor • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing	• heh, no. • still no • got it • nope • she got it • nope • 348...
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • RFD • Start on Badlands	• nope • cleared it • nope

Here is next week's list... the [Gladiator's Mail Leggings] need WSG marks, although trying to get them is not so urgent now Kuan has T4.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 349 on 2H Axes or Maces
• 12+ WSG Marks
• Honored with Ratchet
• clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir

Eeyan level cap, blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• start on Kara attunement
• flying mount
• Onyxia key
• Shadow Labyrinth key
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 350 blacksmithing
• farm primal fires

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• Start on Badlands
• Uldaman runups

Arcane Protection Goodness

Yesterday evening, after the ZA attempt fell through due to a complete lack of healers, Kuan and Viljo did a round of daily quests. Part of their path is to stop at Oshu'gu and kill all the Vir'aani Arcanists in sight.

We killed all the Arcanists in sight all the way around the central dome. Sadly there was no Arcane protection potion to be found. So Viljo and Kuan picked up their gems for the month. They are revered now so there was "a little extra tossed in for you this month."

Then just before they were going to port back to Shat'rath for the rest of their daily quests DraNgNon says to me "Lets just kill one more. This one will be sure to have your potion recipe." I was dubious, we had been doing this for days now and Viljo had yet to see the recipe except for the time that Kuan had won the roll for it. So inspite of my misgivings, we went and killed one more Arcanist. And there was the recipe!!!

Now Viljo just needs to acquire a few primal mana and discover the cauldron.

the benefit of the mindless...

I've been super busy with non-WoW things this week, so I've really only been able to log in and do mindless activities. But that has resulted in a couple nice things getting done.

First of all Aurochh cleared RFD! Viljo walked both him and Evallen through, and he got a couple upgrades. What was funny was I had only ever been in RFD a couple times before, and then it was a straight run to the end boss. So there were all these quests and bosses I never knew about, and we down'd them all.

Last night, Eeyan just mosey'd on over to Firewing point, and killed Blood Elves until he had enough signets to hit honored with Scryer. Finally! A vendor in Shatt he is honored with!

This morning, I had a look at what he could get. Shoulder inscrip with some +crit - I shouldn't wate it on the crappy shoulders he's wearing. Blacksmithing recipes - he's got at least 9 skillups to go. :-( Ah well! At least that's out of the way.

Anyhow, after getting honored with Scryer, Eeyan refocused on Nagrand questing. *boom* The story suddenly has regained coherence, and I was reluctant to log out...

draNgNon progress 12/3

So, it's clear that the Alliance toons have gotten simply parked with very little in the way of progression. I blame Blizzard for making Alliance just sort of offputting at Honor Hold. I also think the Hordeside I've encountered is just more interesting of a story. Anyhow here is my Hordeside progress on last week's list; I'm not going to list the Alliance toons anymore becuase that's sort of a waste of space.

As far as Horde toons go, I destroyed my lvl 30 UD warrior. It wasn't fun and seeing her just annoyed me. Buh-bye.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SV • [Treads of Booming Thunder] • farm for Major Prot recipes • 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces • battlegrounds • 100g to guild bank • clear last new quest in Mudsprocket • Honored with Steemwheedle • 5 Ethereum Prison Keys for Consortium	• got it, turned in • [Windshear Boots] instead • Shadow • 342 • AV and WSG; doing dailies • done with that • nope • no time • turned in
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • Underbog redux • Clear Terrokar outdoor quests • help Teltanara Honored with Aldor • Strat run • 350 blacksmithing • Start on Garadar quests	• nope • almost 5000 now • nope • got it • a little bit • nope • 346... • these and round 1 of Nesignwary and: Old Hillsbrad more: level 69!
Aurochh
• Clear Stromgarde • RFD • Start on Badlands	• nope • nope • nope

Here is next week's list... Kuan is left in a Blue chest and Pants. After next week, Darkfall is starting on the Eye, so he has a week to upgrade.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SH
• [Hauberk of the Furious Elements]
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces
• [Gladiator's Mail Leggings]
• clear last new quest in Mudsprocket
• Honored with Steemwheedle
• clear the 5man Stasis Chambers of Bash'ir

Eeyan level cap, blacksmithing, Ony key, 0.5 quests
• flying mount
• Onyxia key
• Honored with Scryer
• Shadow Labyrinth key
• help Teltanara Honored with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 350 blacksmithing

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• RFD
• Start on Badlands

Off to the Races

Kuanchichi went into heroic Mana Tombs, but they didn't have room for Viljo, so Viljo wandered around and did some daily quests.

He was just about to start bombing the demon cannon balls when a guildie needed one last dps for regular Steam Vaults. Our tank was a level 69 warrior who, fortunately, really knew his stuff. So we cruised through there killing everything in sight: xp for the warrior and rep for the healer.

Just at the end of that the tank and one dps in Kuan's Mana Tombs run dropped out, because, well, they were getting frustrated with the sucking. Fortunately they were the ones causing the sucking so Viljo and a really great tank friend was pulled in and the rest of the instance, including the daily heroic quest, was tromped.

Then they wanted to do the daily quest in regular Steam Vaults. Viljo bowed out because there was a 6th and he had already done it.

Instead he went to Netherwing plateau. I'd been looking at the Skybreaker race quests. Viljo is a pretty good flyer. He only very rarely gets knocked off his wyvern by the monstrous kaliri. The fel cannons have only hit him a couple of times.

So Viljo challenged Murg "Oldie" Muckjaw. Murg took a short and slow path. His pumpkins were relatively easy to dodge once I realized they would knock you off your mount. Trope was just as easy to beat. Viljo was quite happy to dodge whatever noxious substance Trope was producing. (He didn't stop to find out what it was.)

Corlok the Vet was a little harder for Viljo. Mostly it was annoying because Viljo had a hard time not outpacing him while still dodging the *explosive* skulls he was flinging around.

After that Viljo was up against Wing Commander Ichman. Viljo would have been all to happy to run him into the ground. However, it was not to be. Ichman knocked Viljo out of the sky until Viljo died. :( And then it was time for Viljo to go into heroic Botanica. Heroic Botanica went quite well, with a net of 5 badges.

draNgNon progress 11/26

OK, it's a day late, but here is my progress on last week's list.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SV • Heroic Slave Pens • farm for Major Prot recipes • 340+ on 2H Axes and Maces • Revered with Consortium • battlegrounds • 250g to guild bank • clear last new quest in Mudsprocket • Honored with Steemwheedle	• can't get a group • turned it in • lost the roll for Frost • got it • Revered! • did the dailies • 135g so far • nope • no time
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • Underbog • Slave Pens • help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor • Strat run • 345 blacksmithing	• nope • over 4000 now • ran it, need Sporregar quests • ran that, too • she got it • nope • got it more: level 68!
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• quests and farming in Silithus • clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • Friendly with Timbermaw Hold • Friendly with Thorium Brotherhood	no progress on any of this stuff, either
Aurochh
• Clear Gnomeregan • 24 slot enchanting bag	• everything is grey • got it

Here is next week's list... I wonder if I should drop the Alliance toons entirely. Well, hm. Anyhow, the list is getting big. I need to cut it back. The boots are on Kuan's list sort of by guild requirement, they don't want him to be in blues anymore...

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SV
• [Treads of Booming Thunder]
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 345+ on 2H Axes and Maces
• battlegrounds
• 100g to guild bank
• clear last new quest in Mudsprocket
• Honored with Steemwheedle
• 5 Ethereum Prison Keys for Consortium

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• Honored with Scryer
• Underbog redux
• Clear Terrokar outdoor quests
• help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 350 blacksmithing
• Start on Garadar quests

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk
• quests and farming in Silithus
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• Friendly with Timbermaw Hold
• Friendly with Thorium Brotherhood

Aurochh leveling, enchanting skillups
• Clear Stromgarde
• RFD
• Start on Badlands

yum, chocolate cake!

Kuanchichi did the new daily cooking quest for the first time, and inside the quest reward he got [Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake].

Then it was time for a Personal Quest and Kuan and Viljo ran around gathering enough mats to make 5 of them! Kuan gathered the mageroyal as a ghost wolfie. OMG! The ghost wolfie animation has changed, and when he gathers herbs, he digs them out of the ground! So awesome.

Then it was time to bake the cake and Kuan and Viljo were very happy for an hour.

Well, not quite an hour for Kuan, who managed to get pwned in Arathi Basin by a Lightbringer premade before the hour was up. But still.

won with a 3

Kuanchichi helped down Prince last night and I guess nobody else wanted [Ruby Drape of the Mysticant] becuase he got it with a 3.

Now that means I get to farm some, I spose. I see if I can tap Darkfall's guild bank; the +hit on the cloak means I can replace the +hit enchant on his T4 gloves with spellpower.

But it's even more. Prince yielded 3 badges (!) and now he only needs 2 more to get [Earthquake Bracers] which I will also want spellpower on. Or perhaps +allstats? Hm.

Edit 17:14 PST: the mats list
Gloves - Spellpower
• 6 Primal Mana
• 6 Large Prismatic Shards
• 6 Planar Essence
Cloak - Subtlety
• 4 Small Prismatic Shards
• 2 greater Planar Essence
• 8 Primal Shadow
Bracers - Stats
• 6 Arcane Dust
• 6 Lesser Planar Essence
Bracers - Spellpower
• 6 Large Prismatic Shards
• 6 Primal Fire
• 6 Primal Water

Hm, Kuan needs to go fishing, and farm up some Manas. I think I have the rest on a banker, although I might be light on the Shards.

draNgNon progress 11/19

Well, it has been quite a roller-coaster week in the lands of Azeroth and Draenor, for me. Here is my progress thus far, based on goals I put in a couple posts over the last week.

Kuanchichi
• Clear the new quests in Dustwallow Marsh. • Dailies - 10 a day • Pay Rahlenti back asap!!! • 250g to guild bank!!! • 340+ on 2H Axes and Maces. • Get an acceptable 2H Axe • Respec.	• one left, seemed bugged • did it • paid! • the money went to Rahlenti • 330+ • [Windcaller Hatchet of the Champion] • 5 points in Lightning Overload
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • Underbog • help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor • Strat run • 340 blacksmithing	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	• no progress • got it • no progress
Vhaas
• quests and farming in Silithus • clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • Friendly with Timbermaw Hold • Friendly with Thorium Brotherhood	no progress on any of this stuff, either

Here is next week's list. Aurochh reappears! I want him lvl 50 before the next expansion, so it's time to start; I'm shooting for 1 level a week. Meanwhile since Gruul was downed, Kuan has a quest turn in, in Slave Pens... let's pretend we still need attunements.

Kuanchichi Alchemy, weapon skillup, engineer rep, attunements
• Heroic SV
• Heroic Slave Pens
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• 340+ on 2H Axes and Maces
• Revered with Consortium
• battlegrounds
• 250g to guild bank
• clear last new quest in Mudsprocket
• Honored with Steemwheedle

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• Honored with Scryer
• Underbog
• Slave Pens
• help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 345 blacksmithing

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk
• quests and farming in Silithus
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• Friendly with Timbermaw Hold
• Friendly with Thorium Brotherhood

Aurochh leveling, enchanting bag
• Clear Gnomeregan
• 24 slot enchanting bag

Gruul down

Gruul is dead! As of around 11 last night Darkfall killed Gruul.

We had about 5 or 6 pugged in people, but it was mostly guild. Our last attempt both tanks were dead by about 5%. But the dps and healers who were still up kept pounding on him. I swear that was the longest ever 5% of a boss. We ended the fight with only a priest and Kuanchichi still up. (Yay for shamans who can pop and know when to do so!)

Hopefully we can get him down again next week. It was such a slap-dash kill. We are getting better at the trash on the way to him, which meant this time that we were able to get in a couple of extra tries before respawn and we cleared it twice so we had more attempts. Also we one-shotted Maulgar for the second week in a row.

Some macros

I often refer to my 'glad I have that' macro when things go badly in an instance run. Here is that macro. Basically it swaps the DPS caster gear for healy gear, in the slots one can swap in combat. Blizzard needs to shorten names, by the way; I can't even display a tooltip, it's so long.

/equip [nobutton:2] Stormshield of Renewal; [button:2] Mazthoril Honor Shield
/equip [nobutton:2] Totem of Healing Rains; [button:2] Totem of the Void
/equip [nobutton:2] Gavel of Pure Light; [button:2] Gavel of Unearthed Secrets

Also, Earth Shock is sort of useless, if one is spamming lightning bolts. Possibly 2.3 makes this not as useful, but:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Earth Shock

Lastly, Chain Lightning has a 6 second cooldown. In situation where you just want the highest damage lightning regardless of mana or threat (e.g., PVP, or AOE pulls in an instance):

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6 Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt

The New Daily Quests and Thrallmar Rep

So yesterday Kuan and Viljo were bopping around doing daily quests. Their usual route is bombing at Skettis, demons and aether rays at Orgi'la, and then Netherwing Plateau for pollen, quests in the mine, and the Booterang. Hehe, I am so amused by giving all those peons the boot. Lately this has been added to by stopping in Nagrand to kill agents of the Legion.

So while we were doing this we stopped by Lower City and picked up the Dungeon, Heroic, and battle ground daily quests. About this time Ellusionist, a palladin that joined the guild just last week after the Gruul run, asks if anyone is interested in running anything. By this time both Kuan and Viljo have enough gold that they have paid Rahlenti off, or will be able to do so very soon. So I pop us in the queue for Heroic Bot, because that is where Warp Splinter is and there is an ethereal who will give us 2 badges of justice and 24g each for a cutting from him. Some crazy Darnassian druids want to regrow him.

We pick up Lybarger, a kick ass rogue, and are looking for a tank while all of us do the rest of our daily quests. I get a nibble from someone in quest greens and blues and we as a group decide that 1) we will pass on the wipe fest that would likely result from having him tank. And 2) it's sad that they made it so that you only had to be honored to get the heroic keys. Getting to revered was a pain in the ass, but running all those instances virtually guaranteed that you would get some better gear and thus have a slightly higher chance of surviving in a heroic. Anyway our waiting pays off, Lybarger pulls in a tank from the Fabled.

We proceed to kick ass and take names all the way to the first boss. Unfortunately at that point the tank has to go. He stays for the boss but we're on our own after that. Just about this time Isd, who recently joined Darkfall (Yay!), logs on. We pull him into the group and, in a lovely reversal of the first heroic Kuan and Vijo ever tried, just wiped out the instance. We did skip Thorngrin the Tender after one wipe on him, because that guy is a pain in the ass even on normal, let alone heroic.

I always feel bad killing Warp Splinter. He seems like a confused old man, in the wrong place and not really sure of what is going on. However due to his homicidal tendencies I don't feel too bad. That and the phat lewts make it all ok.

Anyway after that Lybarger has to go and we pick up Arnazz, another rogue from Darkfall. We head into regular Shattered Halls to kill Centurions for the Dungeon daily quest there. But they time we finally make it to them Viljo is 1500+ rep away from exalted. So as a group we swap to heroic Ramparts. We were a little sloppy because it was a relatively new group. But we made it through and both Kuan and Viljo are now exalted with Thrallmar!

Viljo bought the sword right after the run. It glows! A lot. Like eye hurty a lot. As in so much so that it looks like Vijo just has a large glowing white thing in his hand. Then Vijo got the +40 spell damage enchant for the sword from a guildie. And Viljo needed a new off-hand. He had the one from Netherspite, but that has spellhit, not crit. I looked at the badge of justice rewards. There was the Flametongue Seal and the Fetish of the Primal Gods. I'm not entirely sure what spell haste does for a mage, but the fetish looked really cool. And even though I've respecced Vijo to be all about fire, I don't really like having gear that only benefits one school of magic. So Viljo now carries the Fetish of the Primal Gods and the Stormcaller as his main dps gear. The Staff of Infinite Mysteries will be kept around for stamina gear, and cause it looks pretty cool.

And because he's finally got the Thrallmar rep Viljo wears their tabard. :-D

Debt-free

Kuanchichi has finally paid Rahlenti back for the epic mount money. *whew*

When the mail expired out of his mailbox, I just got embarrassed.

Now, he has 5g, and Aurochh has 3g. Will need to fix that in the next 24 hours; Kuan will do some dailies, and Aurochh - Gnomeregan.

Teltanara and Fear Ward

A week-ish ago Teltanara hit level 65, This was just after Eeyan had reached level 67. Sadly she only reached 65 after the group had finished the Ring of Blood quests. So she still has to do them. :( I remain convinced that the only reason we were able to do Ring of Blood was because we got one of the main tanks from The Fabled (who are most of the way through TK:Eye and SSC) to help us. Even so there were a couple of really close calls there.

Anyway she is now 65 and could wear the spiffy Collar of Command that dropped the first time through Auchenai Crypts. Which is good because her +heal is abominable right now and needs all the help it can get.

So last night I logged her in intending to make some more primal mooncloth. My goal is to get all three Primal Mooncloth set pieces ready for her to put on when she reaches 70. She's already got the belt in the bank, but needs Primal Life for the shoulders, and (now that I look at it) Primal Mana and primal mooncloth for the robe.

While I was puttering around assembling motes of water and life I realized that I need to take Telt to the trainer. She has a new spell courtesy of the patch. Fear Ward!! Of course they nerfed the crap out of it before giving it to everyone. It now only lasts for 3 minutes and has a cooldown of 3 minutes, so it can only be case one one person at a time. But I could see this being quite useful, Especially when paired with her usual accomplice, Eeyan, who already has will of the Forsaken to get out of fears.

Respec sooner than I thought

I got around to logging in Kuanchichi last night and ran around Dustwallow beating on level 39 and 40 mobs with 2H axe and mace. It took abotu 10 mins before I noticed the blank buttons, and then that Blizzard had succumbed to the massive shaman outcry and zero'd out the shaman specs.

Here's what I've done so far. I started working out the numbers and mana benefit from Unrelenting Storm and comparing them to what the 2.3 changes yielded... because in a raid situation Kuan's problem is he runs out of mana quite rapidly in long fights.

• 5 points in Unrelenting Storm assuming 400 Intellect yields 40mp5 which is 480 mana per minute.

• The mana spring totem went from 12 mp2 to 20 mp2, which yields 240 mana per minute. So right there I free up 2 points.

• The change to Water Shield worked out to 204 mana per globe, which was renewed every minute, so a minimum of 612 mana per minute.

• And of course, the damage nerf to Lightning Bolt was also a mana nerf, so it uses less mana.

Now, the question is, what is more important. The expensive Totem of Wrath, that grants party members +3% spell hit and crit? or the insta-cast Nature spell every 3 mins? I am inclined to the latter, since I've used it a lot in oshit situations in Heroics and Kara, tank health is dropping and healer is silenced o shit! I am sure the guild casters would rather see the totem. If the totem was a clear win (in terms of group damage output) over using a Searing to cast fireballs, that'd be an easier call. But Searing wins against any mob without fire resist.


Gee, a lot of WoWwiki on this stuff is stubs. I should fill it in

wow 2.3

So, the patch dropped, and many good things came from it. Unfortunately, Kuanchichi didn't get any love from it. Frustrated with the nerf, I have parked him in Mudsprocket, the new goblin quest hub in Dustwallow Marsh.

As a result, his focus and to-do list has changed. For the moment, I need to explore his capabilities as he doesn't have a lot of gold for a lot of respecs. And respec he must, the patch has easily shaved roughly 100 eDPS off his current spec.

Meanwhile I was so focussed on the patch and what it was doing to Kuan, it didn't click that suddenly we have a very... expensive... guild bank. And here, Kuan owes Rahlenti 400 gold still, 30 days later. So, he just needs to farm and do dailies.

Lastly, that new quest hub in Dustwallow? The quests are easy, sort of fun, and 250 rep each with Gadgetzan. Time to work on getting Honored with Steemwheedle.

So, my plan for Kuan for the rest of this week, and really probably next:
• Clear the new quests in Dustwallow Marsh.
• Dailies - 10 a day - outdoor ones, not the heroic/instance ones. I need that 100g/day...
• Pay Rahlenti back asap!!!
• 250g to guild bank!!!
• 340+ on 2H Axes and Maces.
• Get an acceptable 2H Axe (he has a grey one now)
• Respec. Either deeper Elemental or Restoration. GL doesn't want Enhance and I'm inclined to agree, after all, I have Eeyan if I want to melee.

Really, though, as far as I'm concerned the patch sucks. Of course that's only after one evening of play; work sucks harder and I've not played since Tuesday night. Even though Kuan's DPS is down, I am not clear on how his DPM has changed. If Shaman mana efficiency has skyrocketed like some people report, I have points in regen I can repurpose to damage, and then it will be all good.

draNgNon progress 11/12

Wow, we sure haven't updated the blog in a while! This last week there have been some Mana-Tombs runs. Eeyan and Teltanara both have been through there a few times. Last night, Kuan and Viljo ran heroic Mana-Tombs, all the way through, for the first time! Not only that, last night was the first time Clara learned about the /moon emote.

Viljo drops his pants and moons Drognin.
Viljo drops his pants and moons Kuanchichi.
Viljo drops his pants and moons Nexus Terror.
Viljo drops his pants and moons Doondoons.

I laughed until my sides hurt.

Anyhow, boring as it may sound, here is my progress based on last week's list. Unfortunately Shaffar was not polite enough to drop the Major Frost Prot recipe. Perhaps he did not like getting mooned.

Kuanchichi
• Heroic SV • honored with Netherwing • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it • farm for Major Prot recipes • clear grey DM quests	• no progress • got it • no time really... • no progress • Major Arcane Prot • need tribute run
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • Underbog • help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor • Strat run • 340 blacksmithing	• still no. /cry • need 100 signets • er, Mana Tombs? • picked up at least 1000 rep • nope... • got it more: level 67! and: Friendly with Sha'tar, LC
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• quests and farming in Silithus • clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood	• nope • nope • turned in a couple • no progress • almost to Friendly! • no progress

Here is next week's list. Kuan's list is subject to change... looks like 2.3 might drop tonight, in which case Zul'Aman might appear as a priority...

Kuanchichi repay Rahlenti, Alchemy, grey quests, and offspec gear
• Heroic SV
• Revered with Consortium
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• clear grey DM quests

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• Honored with Scryer
• Underbog
• help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 345 blacksmithing

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• quests and farming in Silithus
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• Friendly with Timbermaw Hold
• Friendly with Thorium Brotherhood

Alliance...

We got home from work too late last night to do anything that required full mental engagement with the game. So, we logged in Vhaas and Khyrie, and got them almost all the way to Friendly with Timbermaw Hold; there's a mindless comfort to slaughtering furblogs. We then turned in a quest at LHC and parked them there.

Alchemy Discovery

Last night, while making mana potions just before the Curator in Karazhan, Viljo discovered the Flask of Mighty Restoration. Hopefully there are some healer types in the guild who want it.

Blizz wants Kuan enhance

[Malchazeen]




...becuase not just the rogue, but also the resto shaman already HAD ONE...

draNgNon progress 11/5

So, a day late and a dollar short, here is my progress based on last week's list. The Alliance toons, they continue to languish, but Clara and I have perhaps figured out a plan. We'll see.

Kuanchichi
• clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest • acquire an epic healy mace and enchant it • friendly with Netherwing • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it • Cauldron of Nature Prot • farm for Major Prot recipes • clear grey DM quests	• half of Strength • [Gavel of Pure Light] • got it • no time really... • no progress • got it • farmed but no luck • need tribute run
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • Honored with Scryer • start on Terrokar • help Teltanara Honored with Aldor • Strat run	• still no. /cry • need 120 signets • well into it • too ambitious, for a BE • nope... more: level 66!
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again... • and maybe some other instance.	meh, no progress on any of this stuff

Here is next week's list. Kuan's list is subject to change... I am still thinking I will respec some of his talent points into enhance when PTR closes, to skill up 2h Mace and Axe in prep for the expertise changes in 2.3. I copied him onto PTR but the expertise changes are not there.

Kuanchichi repay Rahlenti, Alchemy, grey quests, and offspec gear
• Heroic SV
• honored with Netherwing
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• clear grey DM quests

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• Honored with Scryer
• Underbog
• help Teltanara Friendly with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)
• 340 blacksmithing

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• quests and farming in Silithus
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG!
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood

High King Maulgar

Yesterday evening Darkfall ran Gruul's Lair. Sadly we are still lacking people for a full guild-only run of Gruul. So it took about an hour to get the last 8-ish healers and dps we needed. However once we got people we downed Maulgar and his council on our 4th try.

There were a couple of wipes on bad pulls to start with. We definitely have enough dps for the fight, but the tricky part of this fight isn't dps like Gruul, it's the initial pull and aggro generation. Then after our 3rd wipe an annoying dumbass warlock decided that it would be faster for him to spirit rez than to hearth and get summoned back. He had already been annoying earlier but it was excruciating watching my flask and mana oil tick down.

So our 4th attempt went off well. Viljo didn't run out of mana and managed not to die. (Last time he got punted into Maulgar just as a whirlwind was starting up. Death was instantaneous.) And Maulgar dropped some nice loots. Viljo got his Pauldrons of the Aldor. Sadly Kuan didn't win the roll for his t4 shoulder token.

Tricky Treats

Viljo ate too many Tricky Treats and vomited on a night elf.

Heroic Shadow Lab!

Viljo has subbed into a Heroic SL run once a couple weeks ago, but other than that today was the first time Kuan and Viljo ran one of the 'harder' i.e. level 70 instances on heroic. it was a challenge but all in all it was pretty fun!

We had no Darkfall tanks available but right as we were going to give up Bandwee signed on. I saw him pop to Nagrand and guessed he was collecting Consortium awards. So I asked if he'd tank and he was all for that, since he too had never run the instance before.

I miss playing with Bandwee, it was pretty fun. Blackheart, we oneshotted, but the later two bosses took a learning curve, as they have different behaviour. Bandwee also needs the quest Trial of the Naaru: Strength so hopefully we will have a party together tomorrow at 2pm to run Heroic Steamvaults.

name change

The second toon I ever rolled was a Tauren huntress, named Siobhantha.

"sho-vahn-tha"

She's 45 now; I only ever use her to play with friends leveling up. Kuan and Eeyan are just far more fun.

sigh. Nobody could get it, and while some people abbreviated it the easier-to-remember "bhantha," a lot of people just called her "siob" which just doesn't flow.

Tonight I coughed up the $10 to change her name in the DB to Bhantha.

But, that is not important nor why I am posting. I just wanted to mention that the final confirmation page on name change has as a graphic, a Human warrior named Leeroy, changing his name to Elroy, and saying: "I'll finally be able to play in peace."

enhance

I wonder how viable this build would be...

draNgNon progress 10/29

So, here is my progress based on my post a couple weeks ago. I didn't bother last week since I'd spent 4 days offline on vacation.

It sure felt like a lot of progress on Hordeside. Perhaps I should switch to updating every other week...! Kuanchichi got his epic flyer, thanks to Rahlenti... The Alliance toons, they continue to languish. :-/ I will clear at least one of those bullets this week, really!

Kuanchichi
• [Mazthoril Honor Shield] • clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest • Netherblooms, Dreaming Glory, Felweed • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it	• got it • no progress • no longer an issue • no time really... • no progress but: T4 gloves! and: started on Gruul's finally: exalted with Sha'tar and CE
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • BRD • Blood Furnace run • finish Spinebreaker quests • 335 blacksmithing	• still no. /cry • downed Theldren • got it • cleared all of Hellfire for level • got it. need Adamantite now more: level 65! on that note: reguilded with Darkfall
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again... • and maybe some other instance.	meh, no progress on any of this stuff

So. I will stick with weekly for now. Here is next week's list. Kuan's list might change. I am thinking I will respec some of his talent points into enhance when PTR closes, to skill up 2h Mace and Axe in prep for the expertise changes in 2.3. I haven't seen how they intend to convert weapon skill to expertise yet with the change.

Kuanchichi repay Rahlenti, Alchemy, grey quests, and offspec gear
• clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest
• acquire an epic healy mace and enchant it
• friendly with Netherwing
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it
• Cauldron of Nature Prot
• farm for Major Prot recipes
• clear grey DM quests


Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• Honored with Scryer
• start on Terrokar
• help Teltanara Honored with Aldor
• Strat run (he needs Tier 0 shoulders and Pants)

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG!
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood
• run BRD again...
• and maybe some other instance.

Darkfall encore

This afternoon Viljo and Kuanchichi logged in to Hyjal. There was a little bit of chatter and it turned out that about 2/3 of the people online were alts of raiders or members. There was a bit of banter about who was who and how it was "alt day".

Now I've been considering the wisdom of pulling Eeyan and Teltanara into Darkfall for a bit now. One the one hand, what if something catastrophically bad happens and we need to flee Darkfall? But on the other hand, don't we eventually want to get them into Kara and such?

So I decided that it was time for me to bite the bullet. I whispered the GL's alt asking if we could bring our alts in. Despite my worries, he said sure. So in guild chat I said I'd be back in a bit, and hopped to Telt. There I gquit Ancestor Cult, bye bye pretty tabard :'(, and then got invited to Darkfall on Teltanara. Eeyan followed suit shortly after.

I am sorry to be out of Ancestor Cult, but I'm excited at the thought of leveling Telt and getting her into bigger and better instances.

Personal Quest: Major Protection

So... the Cauldron for Arcane Protection comes in somewhat handy when fighting Curator in Karazhan.

Kuan doesn't have this recipe, so earlier this week I finally decided to look up what can be done about it. Whoa, I learned about the Major * Protection Potions, which are not world drops but farmed off of specific mobs.

Then I lost the page in Wowwiki again. Last night I decided to find it again. That list is not well categorized! Or rather, not well linked-to within the wiki. Anyhow, to ease that pain, I reproduce it here as a Kuanchichi wish-list.

• [Recipe: Major Arcane Protection Potion]: dropped by Vir'aani Arcanists in Nagrand
• [Recipe: Major Fire Protection Potion]: dropped by Sunseeker Astromages in Normal-mode Mechanar
• [Recipe: Major Frost Protection Potion]: dropped by Nexus-Prince Shaffar (either Normal or Heroic), the last boss in Mana-Tombs
• [Recipe: Major Holy Protection Potion]: dropped by Abyssal Flamebringers in Blade's Edge Mountains
• [Recipe: Major Shadow Protection Potion]: dropped by Shadow Council Warlocks in Shadowmoon Valley

Since we almost always play together, the practical side of me insists if Kuan and Viljo farm it, and Viljo gets the recipe, then we should move on to farm another one. The completionist side of me is freaking out at the notion however.

Last night, Kuan hit the Vir'aani Arcanists, the Sunseeker Astromages, and the Abyssal Flamebringers. No alchemy recipe, although a nice blue BOE JC recipe dropped. But a good thing resulted: possibly becuase there was now something else to farm, or possibly becuase Jataka brought her pally alt, [Totem of the Void] finally dropped and I hit Need O So Fast.

"Raiders", and Eeyan's good deed

Darkfall has cleared Kara again already this week. When I went in, I was emphatic, Kuan will get his T4 gloves damnit!

And, Curator dropped them! I am grabbing the caster gear, so now Wrath of Air is +121 damage and healing, woo! Not that it matters as the Raid Leaders think Kuan should be in melee group. Kuan put spellhit on the gloves instead of spell powar, and is now +68 spellhit. I think that will make a significant difference, and can make up the spell power either on bracers, the badged shield, or the totem from Mech, as soon as Kuan gets one of these things.

We downed Prince with no hunters, and only one mage in the group: Viljo. And Prince dropped the Mage/Lock/Hunter hat, and our lone lock (the GL, Soulshade) already had it. So now both Kuan and Viljo have T4 hat and gloves. Moreover, guild leadership likes us, so we have been promoted to the Raider rank in the guild.

So, there it was, 11pm on Wednesday, and all the Kara runs were done. Darkfall is now starting up a 3rd run with alts and whoever's mains got left out (boo, Eeyan remains 64...)

...which left Kuan and Viljo at loose ends, a little late to start pugging heroics, Kuan with an hour+ on his flask that I didn't want to use up while Viljo ran around like a goofball trying to get the perfect meta gem for the new hat. I ended up talking to an alt of Jataka's, a 55 mage, and then it dawned on me, she probably wanted BRD.

I was right, and in rather short order, Eeyan, Teltanara, Cerantra, Xiaofang (Jataka's alt), and Kuepid were running BRD. Good grief, even when we have that much damage and healing BRD still takes forever! We were in there until 3am, but Eeyan cleared his next 0.5 quest, and helped everyone clear a bunch of theirs! Even with the quest turnin that was only 2.5% of level for him though, so that was his good deed of the week.

Meanwhile, Kuan and Viljo are officially Raiders. That's new for Kuan! ...we raid Gruul, Sunday evening.

Gruul attempts

DraNgNon and I got back from vacation yesterday. We unpacked etc. Then it was time for the logging in to the WoW. (Yay!)

First up was Teltanara and Eeyan. Telt is now 62 and has finished more quests in EPL and the Pools of Aggonar area of Hellfire Peninsula. Eeyan mined more. :) She still isn't caught up to where his quests are. :(

Then we swapped to Kuanchichi and Viljo. We were just gonna log in and do some dailies and maybe get a group for heroic something or other. Mostly make sure we had all our mats for the Kara raid tomorrow. But as soon as I logged in the raid leader whispered me:

RL: "Can you and Kuan come to Gruul's?"
Viljo: "uh, we just got back from vacation..."
RL: "Cool I'll give you a min or two before summons"

Now that isn't exactly what was said, it's my interpretive text of it. (Imagine the text version of interpretive dance.) And as such conveys my feeling of what happened rather than the actual words.

Anyway apparently Darkfall had cleared High King Maulgar over the weekend, for the second week in a row. We aren't quite large enough to do it by ourself and we've been missing people (like Kuan and Viljo :-) ). So we're working with High Lords of the Horde. They are a bit... less organized... than us. Anyway the group was trying Gruul yesterday. Sadly we only managed to get him down to 23% on our best shot, but one of the other mages said they could only get him to 60% the week before that. So I'm thinking that the next time the group tries it we should do it. Especially if there are enough gear upgrades between now and then.

Anyway by the time we had finished being slaughtered by gruul Viljo was down 12g for repairs and Kuan was down 28g. Mail is that much more expensive and popping gives you 2 deaths for every wipe. :(

Gruul is an interesting fight. I think once we get it, it'll be all due to good placement for shatters. My group was doing pretty good by the end of our attempts. Most of the time I only died after both tanks were dead. However I think the healers were getting a lot of shatter damage, and that was probably what was killing us.

Awesomeness!

After an initial delay of an hour, while we tried to find healers for our Kara run, we finally got off the ground. We proceeded to rip Kara a new one and kill every boss on the first time. The only exceptions to this were Prince, which we didn't try because we had a pugged healer and wanted to keep any T4 tokens in the guild, and Aran, which we wiped on the first time.

Our main tank and raid leader was over-joyed because the King's Defender finally dropped for him. Kuan got the Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran from Moroes and Ring of Unrelenting Storms from Random trash. Viljo got the Jewel of Infinite Possibilites from Netherspite. And since we one-shotted Nightbane and we'd both bothered to get the quest leading up to that done and had a Blackened Urn we got that quest done and dinged exalted. So they both got the Violet Signet of the Archmage too!

All of this is just awesome, but it gets even better when we get out of the raid and check out mail. Rahlenti is the awesome, is the wonderful, is the generous, is the excellent! Because he sent each of us enough gold to get our epic flying mounts!! Viljo and Kuan were each short about 1000g and Rahlenti sent us 990G each. So now Viljo is sitting pretty on a Swift Purple Windrider and Kuanchichi has a Swift Red Windrider. And oh my god is flying at epic speed the bestest thing ever!

draNgNon progress 10/15

So, here is my progress based on last week's post. Perhaps I got a lot done! Kuan has his T4 hat, and Eeyan is questing in Outland.

The Alliance toons, they languish. :-/

Kuanchichi
• [Mazthoril Honor Shield] • clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest • Heroic SH • Netherblooms, Dreaming Glory, Felweed • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it	• up to 19 badges • no progress • got it • it is a constant need • enough AB to get Inscribed Ornate Topaz • no progress more: T4 hat!
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • turn in next 0.5 quest • Hellfire Ramparts run • BRD, LBRS, or DM E run	• still no. /cry • got it • ran 4 times! • nope more: level 64! and: honored with Thrallmar lastly: BS 333
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again... • and maybe some other instance.	meh, no progress on any of this stuff

And on that note, here is next week's list. It's a short week, as I am out of town for the weekend.

Kuanchichi mount money, primals, and badges, o my!
• [Mazthoril Honor Shield]
• clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest
• Netherblooms, Dreaming Glory, Felweed
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• BRD
• Blood Furnace run
• finish Spinebreaker quests
• 335 blacksmithing

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG!
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood
• run BRD again...
• and maybe some other instance.

Kara cleared in two runs

And the first part of it had two raiders PUG'd in.

Kuan's first piece of T4...

...wasn't his gloves, becuase he lost the roll. It was his hat! We downed Prince on the second try. Kara was cleared, before 1am on the Wednesday night.

What is sad that pretty much until he has another piece of T4, the hat is a nerf from the Big Bad Wolf's Head he got on the previous run. Also, all the loot that dropped from bosses was either rogue-y, healy, or enchance-shammy gear. Blizz is trying to tell me something, perhaps.

Since Kara was cleared so early, a bunch of guildies who needed the books for the Nightbane precursor quest popped into heroic Sethekk, then SH. The Heroic SH was a matter of debate, as the party was a tank, a priest, Viljo, and two ele shamans. "Not enough CC, No Way, etc etc." The tank swapped from his Tauren warrior to his Bear (sometimes I wonder about warrior tanks, they roll a druid for variety and then spec Bear) for multi-mob-aggro-holding-joy, and we mowed through heroic SH and took down the first boss with only one death.

I've always been of the opinion that two reasonably coordinated shammies in a 5man were nigh unstoppable. I am thinking that held true here too. With 8 complementary totems boosting the entire party, all that damage plus emergency heals, plus cast-interrupts, really the weak CC wasn't an issue.

Macros

Last night during our Kara run one of the priests asked about a macro to "not have to retarget to reshackle". Unfortunately in the middle of the raid is not a great time to explain the inner workings of a macro, and focus, and have someone write and edit their own. I did, however, promise that I would brain dump my macros to the forum. Well here is what I dumped to the Darkfall forum, just cleaned up, organized a bit better, and explained more.

---

The page that I pulled most of these from is here:
Mage Macros
Also the official WoW page has a Macro Guide.

• Sheep (or shackle or sleep or fear or banish)
  /clearfocus [modifier:shift]
  /clearfocus [target=focus,dead]
  /clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]
  /focus [target=focus,noexists]
  /cast [target=focus] Polymorph
  
  This sets focus automatically and on recast it casts on the focus target no matter who you have targeted. If you want to change targets in the middle of the combat you can shift-click it and it will change your focus target to the current one. It also clears your focus if your current focus is dead.
  
  This macro can be cast before combat so that you can sheep and then immediately start dps. You just must make sure that you are out of range, sitting, or moving so that the cast doesn't go off and initiate combat ahead of time.
  
  However I've found shift clicking to be really difficult to remember to do in combat, especially since button press plus shift doesn't do the right thing, so i have a second macro, that I click.
  
  /clearfocus
  /focus [target=focus]
  /cast Polymorph
  
  This sets the my focus to whatever I have targeted right that instant, and sheeps them. It's good for adds or emergency retargeting of the sheep.
  
  
• Cast Interrupt
  I've found the below macro to be the best Ever. No need to try to move or jump before counterspelling now, just hit one button and their casting stops. :)
  
  /stopcasting
  /cast Counterspell
  
  Counterspell can be replaces with whatever your character's cast interrupt is, e.g. Earthshock or Silence.
  
  
• Conjure Food or Water
  In this macro, right-clicks summon water, and left-clicks use it. The same logic can be used for food or mana gems, just substitute the names as appropriate.
  
  #showtooltip Conjure Water
  #show Conjured Crystal Water
  /cast [button:2] Conjure Water
  /use [button:1] Conjured Crystal Water
  
  
• Explode
  This will cast your Rank 1 Arcane Explosion while you are not in combat and your highest rank Arcane Explosion while you are in combat. This is useful when looking for stealth enemies to conserve mana. It is nice when protecting points of interest in PvP.
  
  /cast [nocombat] Arcane Explosion(Rank 1); Arcane Explosion
  
  
• Frost Nova/Cone of Cold
  This will cast Frost Nova with your first press, then Cone of Cold on your second. This macro will then reset itself after 24 seconds.
  
  /castsequence reset=24 Frost Nova, Cone of Cold
  
  I don't personally use this macro, but I see how it could be useful.
  
  
• Slowfall/Dismount
  This makes you slowfall but it dismounts you first. If you lack the manual dexterity to dismount and then slowfall when you accidentally drop down a cliff, this macro will help you lots. Also, this thing shows the number of light feathers you have left on the macro icon.
  Note: you will need to press this button twice to dismount and slowfall! Failure to do so in combination with un'goro or flying mounts can have bad consequences.
  
  #show Light Feather
  /dismount
  /cast Slow Fall
  
  
• Teleportation
  Left-click teleports you, right-click summons a portal. The macro
  shows the amount of teleport stones you have left. Select a custom icon
  for this one. All the city icons are in the default list. Of course, you must
  adjust the city name to suit your needs.
  
  #show Rune of Portals
  /cast [button:2] Portal: Shattrath; Teleport: Shattrath
  
  I don't use this one because it would be far too easy to left-click and teleport myself when I meant to make a portal.
  
  

draNgNon progress 10/8

So, here is my progress based on last week's post. Thanks to Viljo, Jataka, and Fanxia, Kuan is exalted with Lower City!!! I've been so obsessed on that. No doubt, that positively affected his ability to help down the bigger bosses in Kara last night.

I will probably focus on Eeyan a little more, now. But I will mostly relax.

Kuanchichi
• run Heroic Auchidoun-something... • clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest • advance on "Medivh's Journal" questline • farm Netherblooms for Flask of Blinding Light • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it • shards for a healy weapon enchant	• [Gavel of Unearthed Secrets] • no progress • need Heroic SH • got 'em. • nope • Duke of Cynders!!! • sidelined for Gavel more: cleared Karazhan!
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • turn in next 0.5 quest • Hellfire Ramparts run • BRD, LBRS, or DM E run • and Scholo key from Araj for Teltanara	• still no. /cry • nope • nope • nope • got it more: 605g to Teltanara for epic ground mount...
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again... • and maybe some other instance.	meh, no progress on any of this stuff

And on that note, here is next week's list. I will probably take a day off WoW for that other video game, Quicken. I will clear that 0.5 quest for certain.

Kuanchichi mount money, primals, and badges, o my!
• [Mazthoril Honor Shield]
• clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest
• Heroic SH
• Netherblooms, Dreaming Glory, Felweed
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• turn in next 0.5 quest
• Hellfire Ramparts run
• BRD, LBRS, or DM E run

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG!
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood
• run BRD again...
• and maybe some other instance.

Loot System

I am convinced that the way loot drops from bosses in WoW is not random. There has to be some sort of complex formula than takes into account the group makeup and gear of each member and then selects from the boss's loot table the least useful piece of gear.

Example A:
Viljo ran Shadow Labyrinth many times to get Lower City rep, but not once did he see the Greatsword of horrid dreams. Not until he already had the Staff of Infinite Mysteries anyway. Then Viljo sees the Greatsword of Horrid Dreams from Murmur as well as Mana Wrath from Pathaleon in Mechanar.

Example B:
Again in Shadow Labyrinth, the Hallowed Robes drop, but the healer for our group is a resto shaman. So a hunter ends up taking the robes for "around town wear".

Example C:
Sethekk last night, the Incanter's trousers drop. But last week Viljo got the mana etched pantaloons.

So my conclusion from all of this is that Blizzard wants there to be a steady supply of shards on the market and that they want you to work for your gear. I have more exapmles of this sort of thing happening. Does anyone else?

[Gavel of Unearthed Secrets]

Forlorn Ridge Battleground

Dracon and I were talking a while ago and we have an idea for a new battleground:

In Azshara, at the Forlorn Ridge, there is the setup for another battleground. Given there is already tension in Azshara between the Night Elves and the Blood Elves, a battle between then would make sense. Because Azshara used to be a high elf city and there are currently quests to retrieve various artifacts from the area it would also make sense that the battle could be over those artifacts.

Specifically there should be some sort of battlefield with Alliance and Horde at the bottom two corners of a rectangle. Artifacts can spawn at any location, but are more likely to spawn farther away from the two bases. These artifacts are similar to silithyst in that you cannot mount while carrying one and it is quite obvious that a character is carrying one. (Optional if you get a buff for carrying.)

When a certain amount of these artifacts has been collected by a side, that side wins. Thus the primary method of winning is to go out and bring artifacts back to the base. However the artifacts don't disappear as soon as they are in a base; you can raid the enemy base and steal their artifacts.

So various strategies would appear about some people going to get new artifacts, some people going to raid the enemy base, and some people defending their own base. Also you could drop the artifacts anywhere, not just your own base. So another viable strategy would be to drop artifacts just outside your base and later mass turnin, to avoid getting raided.

Lore justification for a battleground like this would be pretty simple. Both the Night Elves and the Blood Elves are searching for relics of their past, before the Well of Eternity exploded. The Blood Elves want to use the magical artifacts both against the Night Elves and to feed their magic addiction. The Night Elves want to keep the magic artifacts out of the Blood Elves hands and study them to avoid repeating the mistakes that were made before.

I think that 15 characters per side would be an optimal size. It would allow for easy division of labor: group 1, defend; group 2, raid the enemy; group 3, gather artifacts. 15 people is also enough to deal with the occasional slacker while still meeting multiple objectives.

I also think that 20 to 30 artifacts for winning would be a good amount. The number of artifacts has to be greater than the number of players on a side so that a zerg of artifact gatherers wouldn't immediately win. But more than double the number of players on a side will make for too long a game in the eyes of the players.


This is just my initial writeup of this idea. If any of our Gentle Readers have suggestions please comment. I shall edit this some and then post it to the WoW suggestion forum.

Darkfall + Karazhan = Win!

Darkfall has started up a second Karashan run at 4pm. This is great! Now there is less competition for the 10pm spots, and the people who fill them are less likely to fall asleep during the raid.

So last night both Kuanchichi and Viljo went into Kara. There was a little worry at the beginning as Tuesday nights it's sometimes hard for us to find a healer. But Kuan saw that our friend Siertial was on. Siertial is an excellent holy priest, and tons of fun to run with. Anyway Siertial was pulled into the run and off we went.

Attument, Moroes, and Maiden of Virtue were all one shot kills. Our Opera event was the Big Bad Wolf, who kept eating our healers. We got him to about 7% on our first try, and after a pep talk about *running* we killed him the second time around. Sadly Viljo still bit the dust second time around. :(

After that we went on to beat the crap out of the Curator and Aran: both of them went down on our first attempt. So, buffs still intact, we pushed through to Nethersprite. However, due to an unfortunate incident with the green beam, Nethersprite only went down on our second try. Because someone got nether exhausion before they were supposed to and couldn't go back into the green beam Nethersprite healed up to full. :(

After that it was very late, but we had been doing such a good job, we figured we might as well try Prince. First try, with 4 healers, we got prince to 1%. But once the tank died, the rest of us couldn't get those last 15K of health before he killed us all. :( The second attempt I screwed up, and Viljo had more threat than the tank: instant enfeeble-wipe. Third attempt we got him to 6% and again wiped. If we'd just had some better luck with infernal placement we'd have had him down no problem. And of course if it hadn't been after 4am at this point we could have tried again and probably gotten him.

Anyway the evening was definitely a net gain. In roughly 6 hours Darkfall cleared the first 8 bosses of Karazhan. Viljo and Kuanchichi were both there and got nice drops. Kuan got the Big Bad Wolf's Head and Viljo got the Staff of Infinite Mysteries (/swoon). They both hit revered with The Violet Eye and got their ring upgrades. And since Aran was killed they got Medivh's Journal, which will get turned in tonight. Also tonight Viljo will get the +40 spell damage enchant on that lovely staff, and, with that, can stop focusing on getting the Stormcaller from Thrallmar, so more focus can be put on Auchindoun and Lower City rep for Kuanchichi.

The final excellent thing of the evening was that Siertial joined Darkfall! Yay! This makes two good priests that Kuan and Viljo have pulled into Darkfall.

draNgNon progress 10/1

So, here is my progress based on last week's post. Kuan is exalted with Frostwolf!!! I know, not such a big deal the way AV is anymore, but it's the first faction he's ever hit exalted with!

I wonder if he should buy the wolf. I may just gotta.

Kuanchichi
• run Heroic Auchidoun-something... • clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest • advance on "Medivh's Journal" questline • mats for riding crop • battlegrounds • clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it • turn in the wingman quest in AV • mats for another healy weapon enchant	• regular SL, got our healer the key • nope • need Shade of Aran • riding crop achieved! • did I say exalted with Frostwolf! • nope • turned in • working on shards
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • turn in next 0.5 quest • Hellfire Ramparts run • bodyguard for Teltanara. it's so hard, soloing a holy priest • ...including a BRD, LBRS, or DM E run	• this week. • nope • nope • ran around EPL, earning xp... • ...and ran the easy part of BRD. more: broke 700g on his own...!
Trismestigus
• quests in Silithus • Honor Hold for profession training • herbing for dollars, er, gold	meh, no progress on any of this stuff
Vhaas
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • Honor Hold for leatherworking training • clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG! • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again...!	• no progress • got it, 305 • has a bunch of turnins • stuck at 298 • 2800/3000 • no progress • nope

And on that note, here is next week's list. Kuan gets to farm, as a useful Flask seems to have appeared on his recipe list, and he's missing one of the mats. O wait, did the patch add that? Why, yes it did.

Kuanchichi Lower City rep, mount money, primals, and practice w/heroics
• run Heroic Auchidoun-something...
• clear one "Trial of the Naaru" quest
• advance on "Medivh's Journal" questline
• farm Netherblooms for Flask of Blinding Light
• battlegrounds
• clear Dukes in Silithus, damn it
• shards for a healy weapon enchant

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing, questing with Teltanara
• Onyxia key.
• turn in next 0.5 quest
• Hellfire Ramparts run
• BRD, LBRS, or DM E run
• and Scholo key from Araj for Teltanara

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• quests in Silithus
• Honor Hold for profession training
• herbing for dollars, er, gold

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• clear Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear outdoor Eastern Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold, OMG!
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood
• run BRD again...
• and maybe some other instance.

bored --> BRD

Thursday night right before bedtime, Viljo and Kuan were doing dailies, when the power-leveling now-55 warlock in Darkfall announced he was bored. Bored! Bored? How can you be bored, playing WoW? Tired of soloing, he said. Bored. BRD!

I said BRD! Why, we can run you through BRD. I will bring out Eeyan. So just like that, we had a group for BRD, with Eeyan, Teltanara, the warlock, Dotdeath, and a guildie's pally alt, Addiea. We did the easy part, which meant probably 4 or 5 wipes since there was only 4 of us.

BRD is so fun. I like it a lot, although nobody else does and thus the plethora of quests for it that Horde requires just sit there, rotting, in the quest log. Eeyan still has the Emperor! Teltanara has so many quests I cannot even say; she was missing some, too, and will have to go back again... And again, since she was missing parts of chains.

We lost track of time and played until after 4am. Yikes...! Eeyan managed to gain 1.8% of level even though it was the easy part and the vast majority of mobs were grey. Teltanara cleared a bunch of quests, and leveled to 58; Addiea got a bunch of gear drops; and Dotdeath, who had drunk more caffiene than was healthy, was happily un-bored. in BRD!