I'm enjoying both the Throne of Thunder and the Darkspear Rebellion. But there is one issue. One huge issue.

I have been playing wow for almost eight years now. Most of that time has been spent as part of the Horde. I've been playing Mornara since Wrath, with her as my main and tanking roughly since the Argent Tournament came out. Before that I mostly played my Troll mage Viljo, but did a bunch of dabbling with my Belf priestess Teltanara from the time that Burning Crusade came out.

I've learned through many years of repetition that there certain sounds that mean I've failed. I strongly associate failure with the sound of any member of the Horde dying. But it is worst with Orcs, Trolls, Undead, and Blood Elf death cries. Since DraNgNon plays Kuan, the male Troll Shaman, as her main I'm really sensitized to look around and try to figure out what messed up whenever I hear a male troll die.

Back to Throne of Thunder and the Darkspear Rebellion. ToT has the first three bosses entirely Troll themed. Technically they are Zandalari Trolls, but I still remember raiding Zul'Gurub when it was a 20man. The Zandalari are supposed to be our friends! It hurts that after all the help I gave them destroying Hakkar they are now working with the Thunder King to kill me.

Meanwhile the Darkspear Rebellion is part rebellion but mostly civil war within the Horde. I'm out in the Northern Barrens cutting down Orcs and Goblins. I absolutely flinch every time an Orc dies by my hand.

Post 5.0.4 Thoughts

Patch 5.0.4 has been here since for a week now. I've had time to spec a character or two, update every addon at least twice, and even run a raid.

Mornara's rotation hasn't really changed all that much. I made the happy discovery that using Blood Boil on a single target will refresh that target's diseases, which goes a long way to address the (new for Blood DKs) 60 sec cd on Outbreak. I honestly can't see why you'd ever not take Roiling Blood as a talent. I'm looking forward to getting Soul Reaper, and even have a space saved for it on my bars.

Viljo's new rotation seems pretty nice so far as well. I like having a little more control over the pyro procs and feeling less at the mercy of RNG. I'm not sure I'll like the changes that Alter Time and the last talent bring, but we'll see when I get to level 90.

The raid was mildly successful. Despite addons crapping out all over the place we managed to kill the first 6 heroic bosses before we ran out of time. This task was made a lot more difficult by a bunch of disconnects, and the fact that about half the raid forgot that when they updated DBM they also needed to grab the Cata pack for it. There were general adjustment to new rotations, but it went well for the most part. Not being able to release until a fight is over is actually rather annoying. I can see it driving me batshit when there is that one jackass who doesn't listen when a wipe is called for.

I was amused at all the new achieves and combining of old achieves. It did not surprise me that logging in Morn and V was enough to get me the 100 mount achieve and 100 pet achieve. Combining mounts and pets for your account seems a bit odd, but not terribly game breaking. However, I am not going to substantially alter the mount macros I have for my characters currently. Their mounts reflect their personalities, and it just wouldn't make sense for them to be riding anything else than what they already are.

The once thing I am intensely disappointed about with the pets is that the Dragon Kite is not a fightable pet. I had all these awesome plans about how my dragon kite was going to kick ass whenever we actually get to do pet battles. Those plans are all kaput now :'-(

I did get a chance to try out the new aoe looting. This will make farming old instances slightly more profitable and less time consuming. Which is nice, since Morn still needs rep from a bunch of the BC factions. It'll help with her rampages through IQD and older dungeons.

Oh, I was also disheartened to see that the requirements for the DS meta-achieve changed. You no longer need Spine or Madness of Deathwing. It was a bit sad to log in and see that achieve pop up. I'd been looking forward to getting it when we actually downed those two bosses. Now it feels like we were just handed a consolation prize, even though I know we worked so hard and completely earned the achievements we did get.

Quests from the Son

After we cleared Dragon Soul in one evening last Tuesday, we had to think of what to do on Thursday. So Clara assembled an alt run of Dragon Soul. She brought Viljo, and I brought Eeyan. Viljo cleaned up btw and now has his 4pc t13 now. I don't have that on any character...

However Eeyan still hadn't figured out how to get to Hiram Creed and kill him, so there were no [Elementium Gem Clusters] for us. I was sad, and feeling a bit inadequate. So I respec'd Eeyan's never-ever-used Multilate spec to Subtlety, and it took me 15 minutes to get to him. Go me! Then Eeyan died on 5 attempts and ran out of food, and I realized he had the wrong glyphs; I had been so excited about the get-to-him part of the quest I hadn't considered the "assassinate him" part. Oops. I was busy, so I logged him out right there for a couple days and sent him glyphs and food.

Last night, I logged him back on to find another rogue rezzing in the opposite corner! I grabbed the food out of the mail, and we both brought Creed down. Success!

Eeyan flew back to Ravenholdt to report his success to Wrathion, Blackwing's son. Wrathion might be uncorrupted, but as a black dragon he still is a class-A Asshole. And angry. But his character design is almost as interesting as Nozdormu's.



Wrathion was pretty pleased with Eeyan for downing Hiram Creed. Eeyan now has the entirely awesome "stage 1" daggars, [Fear] and [Vengeance]. And, a quest for 333 Elementium Gem Clusters. Hopefully there will be a lot more alt runs of Dragon Soul in Darkfall's future.

The daggars look spiffy. I dropped Landslide on both of them. I don't have to feel "a bit inadequate" anymore.



Now I just need to get Eeyan some matching boots and he will look as put together as the rest of my level 85s. Somehow I wasn't that worried about it until he got those daggars.

Once Upon a time: Viljo

 

Once upon a time a male was born to the Darkspear tribe of trolls.  The witch doctor looked at him and named him Viljo.  He was not strong in body or deft of hand.  Viljo had no affinity for the elements or the spirits or the beasts.  Despite these short comings the Darkspear did not cast him out.  He was intelligent enough that the witch doctor sent him to the mages for training. 

Viljo passed his first tests in the Valley of Trials.  He did well at his studies.  Magic came easily to him, and even though he was not strong he avoided dying by outsmarting his enemies and with not a little luck.  Eventually Viljo was sent to the city of Orgrimmar to learn more and serve the Horde.  Viljo learned much from the wise trolls there.

To learn more of magic Viljo was sent to the Forsaken.  He had to leave the hot sun of Durotar and travel by goblin blimp across the ocean to Tirisfal Glades where Undercity is located.  The dark pine forests and clouds of plague made him uncomfortable initially, but after a little while he grew accustomed to it and learned to accept the undead.  He learned much from the undead about magic.  Viljo also learned that the undead were not always to be trusted, neither in the things they asked him to do nor especially the things they wanted him to consume. 

When his apprenticeship with the undead was done Viljo returned to Kalimdor a wiser troll and a stronger mage.  He went on to help the Horde in The Barrens and further parts of Kalimdor before returning to the Eastern Kingdoms. 

Eventually Viljo became a great mage.  He helped to kill various enemies of the Horde, including Rend, the false Warchief, Thaurissan, Emperor of the Dark Iron Dwarves, and Ragnaros, the Firelord. 

When the portal to Draenor opened again Viljo went through with his friend Kuan'chichi.  Kuan'chichi had been a mentor to Viljo in times past, but now, with lands new to both of them, they explored together.  Viljo and Kuan'chichi fought the new fel orcs in Hellfire Peninsula.  They helped to establish the Darkspear in Zangarmarsh.  They aided the Mok'nathal in Blade's Edge.  They found and proved themselves worthy of the Mag'har, the single uncorrupted tribe of Orcs in Outland, and even helped reunite the Warchief, Thrall, with his family. 

Viljo has recently fallen in with a band of horde who call themselves Darkfall.  This new guild is full of other powerful members of the horde.  And Viljo's best friend Kuanchichi joined them at the same time Viljo did.  As a group they are quite formidable and have been working for the Violet Eye, to help rid Karazhan of it's demonic presence.  Viljo isn't very much a fan of the human's of the Violet eye, he did help kill the mages and summoner's around Dalaran as a young troll, but the greater good of ridding Karazhan of evil is more important. 

Rahlenti, a bear druid, is also Viljo's good friend.  He recently lent Viljo the last thousand gold that Viljo needed to buy his epic mount.  So VIljo made the long journey to Shadowmoon Valley.  There he talked to the Orcs at Shadow moon Village.  For a great deal of gold one of them taught him how to ride swift windriders and other fast flying mounts.  Then Viljo inspected the available mounts.  He could choose red, purple, green or yellow armored tawny windriders.  Viljo thought long and hard about his choice.  He didn't like the look of the yellow or green armor.  So it was a decision between the red and purple ones.  In a recent run of Karazhan, the Curator, a giant arcane guardian, had dropped a powerful staff when killed.  Viljo was lucky enough to be the one to get it.  This staff was purple with blue accents, and almost exactly matched the purple of the windrider's armor.  So Viljo choose that mount. 

VIljo and his compatriots in Darkfall have been helping to keep Karazhan clear for the Violet Eye.  Unfortunately it appears that the humans of the Violet eye are not very competent and despite the fact that Darkfall cleaned the ghosts, demons, mana anomalies, and other denizens of Kara out they came back as soon as Darkfall went away.  So he has been continuing to kill them on a roughly weekly basis. 

Darkfall was also made aware of the Gronn, and their domination of Outland.  So they have been doing their best to kill them.  Only recently was Viljo and Darkfall able to kill the monster Gruul the Dragonslayer.  Vijlo had already killed many of his sons, but it was time for the most powerful gronn to die. 

In recent days Viljo has been made aware of Kael'thas and his occupation of the Naaru's fortress, Tempest Keep.  Viljo went with the other members of Darkfall to test themselves against some of Kael'thas's minions in Tempest Keep.  Unfortunately at this time the Void Reaver is too strong for them.  And Darkfall was forced to retreat. 



The Lich King has awoken and is attacking Orgrimmar.  His agents have left plagued boxes in it and many other capital cities.  So there is a zombie infestation.  There is also an attack force of abominations, ghouls, and frost wyrms attacking the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar.  Vijlo, and his constant companion and friend Kuanchichi, help to repell these.  And listen as Thrall, Sylvanas, Garrosh, and Saurfang make plans to attack Northrend and the Lich King.  They resolve to aid in any attacks and when Garrosh goes to Borean Tundra in Northrend they take the first available blimp to follow and fight the minions of the Lich King. 

Once in Borean tundra they encounter the Taunka, and the Kalu'ak.  Both of whom they aid.  They also encounter the Kirin Tor and the blue dragonflight.  The Blue dragon flight has vowed to stop all magic use in Azeroth.  And since they both use magic neither of them is enthsued about this plan.  The Kirin Tor plans to stop this as best they can, since they are the main organizational body of mages.  However, the Kirin Tor have very little ethics, and Viljo quickly realized that while they may be mages they are still human.  Viljo refuses to torture a human member of the blue dragonflight that he captures for the Kirin Tor. 

The final thing that Kuan and Viljo did in Borean Tundra was to help the Taunka evacuate from their village.  Between the scourge invasions and the pollution of the new gnome encampment nearby the Taunka felt unable to continue where they were in Borean Tundra.  Viljo and Kuan were escorting a few Taunka to Dragonblight, where there was another Taunka village.  Hopefully that village was in better shape than that in Borean Tundra.  Their escort went well, but upon arriving in Dragonblight they found the other village entirely overrun with Scourge.  They helped the Taunka in Dragonblight attack the Scourge there and free their chief who was being held by the Scourge.  They also attacked the Scourge in Azjol-Nerub, the former Nerubian capital.  After that they, unwilingly, helped the Forsaken apothecaries in Venomspite to make some blight and test it.  Neither Kuan or Viljo trust the Forsaken and especially the Apothecaries, and they wouldn't have helped them except that the commander of Agmar's Hammer sent them. 

Unfortunately, Vijlo and Kuan's instinct regarding the Forsaken was correct.  At the battle of Wrathgate the Forsaken apothecaries betrayed the Horde.  The apothecaries attacked both the horde and alliance.  They did this at the same time that Varimanthas attacked the Undercity.  They betrayal was well planned and Lady Sylvanas barely escaped with her life.  In the aftermath of the battle of Wrathgate, Sylvanas, Thrall, and Vol'jin went to retake Undercity.  Viljo and Kuan helped with this and together they all retook Undercity and killed Varimanthas. 

It seems that Varimanthas had been set as a plant among the Horde all along.  He was trying to open a portal to let his "master" into Azeroth.  It was unclear if that master was Kil'Jaeden or Sargeras.  Either way Kuan and Viljo stopped him. 

However as soon as Varimanthas was defeated.  Varian Wrynn, newly restored King of Stormwind, marched into the throne room of Undercity.  He insulted Thrall and swore to wipe out all the Horde.  Varian foolishly believes that the Horde was responsible for the attack, and is unable to understand that the apothecaries along with Varimanthas betrayed the rest of the Horde.  This understandable started a battle right there, but Jaina froze everyone and ported out the Alliance.  Thrall, who has been working his whole life for peace, almost wept with frustration to see all his work set back. 

Kuanchichi and Viljo continued to journey through Northrend.  They helped establish the Horde and Taunka in Grizzly Hills.  Though they didn't help the humans who were capturing trolls for gladiatorial combat.  The Darkspear may not get along with the Drakkari, but Neither Kuan or Viljo is willing to enslave another troll and send it to almost certain death in the fighting ring. 

So they moved on to Zul'Drak.  There Viljo was horrified to learn that the Drakkari were draining and killing their own animal gods in a futile effort to fight off the Scourge.  They would have been much better to ask their gods for help and fight against the Scourge themselves.  Fortunately the Zandalarians were there to help and direct the effort of freeing the gods that the Drakkari had enslaved. 

Viljo then moved to the Storm Peaks.  He and Kuan thought they were helping to motivate Thorim to reengage with the world, but Loken tricked them.  And Loken had his new and corrupt master, the Old God Yogg-Saron, capture and imprison Thorim.  So Kuan and Viljo worked with the Sons of Hodir to gain their trust.  Finally the Sons of Hodir trusted them enough to send them to the Halls of Lightning to fight Loken.  They went with a couple of friends and Loken was defeated.  They continued to help the residents of the Storm Peaks for a while.  Including more fighting of the Iron Dwarves and other minions of Loken. 

Around this time Viljo and Kuanchichi learned that the dread citadel Naxxramas was becoming more of a danger.  They joined up with a group calling itself Thwarted Destiny.  With Thwarted Destiny they fought the inhabitants of Naxx.  Unfortunately soon Thwarted Destiny grew too much to resemble it's name.  So Kuan and Viljo left it to join Twisted Minds.  Hopefully they do not too much resemble their name.

Viljo and Kuan also journeyed to Ice Crown, the home base of the Lich King.  There they found the Argent Crusade hard pressed by the Scourge.  They fought several battles along side and for the Argent Crusade.  They helped both the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade create new bases in Ice Crown.  They also did many quests for the airship Orgrim's Hammer.  Many of these quests helped to explain the back story of how Arthas became part of the Lich King.  These quests were given/narrated by a particularly creepy ghost of a young human boy.  How this young ghost knew all of Artha's deeds and thoughts was not explained, and is worrysome.  The quest chain ended when the ghost boy told Kuan and Viljo that Arthas was going to destroy his frozen heart.  Viljo and Kuan told the knights of the Ebon Blade and Tirion Fordring and his Argent Crusade.  Tirion Fordring ws determined to infiltrate the planned destruction of Arthas's heart.  I think originally he wanted to stop it, but when he actually saw the frozen heart he realized that Arthas really is the Lich King.  Nothing remains of the good man that he once was.  When confronted by Arthas himself Tirion said as much.  And then he struck Arthas's heart himself.  It was actually quite dramatic.  Unfortunately Arthas and his minion's didn't take kindly to this.  So Kuan and Viljo and the rest of the Argent Crusade infiltraitors were about to get annihilated when the Knights of the Ebon Blade showed up.  They fought to Tirion and then put up a death gate so everyone could escape before Arthas recovered from the destruction of his heart. 

Unfortunately Viljo and Kuan found that Twisted Minds did in fact resemble their name.  And, while Viljo and Kuan were able to go with them to defeat Naxxramas and Kel'Thuzad, Twisted Minds was not organized enough to keep things going.  Just as they were thinking of looking for another guild to join Viljo saw some people in Dalaran advertising their newly formed guild.  Viljo talked with Emberstream, a feral druid, who led Deterrence, this new guild.  After some talking Viljo told Kuan about it.  After a bit of research on both their parts and more meetings with the leadership of Deterrence Viljo and Kuanchichi joined. 

With Deterrence they have defeated Malygos and have ventured into Ulduar.  Many of the bosses in Ulduar have fallen to them, and both Kuan and Viljo have improved their gear considerably.  They have also gained the friendship of other members of the guild. 

Viljo has been spending time in Un'goro and Tanaris lately.  Mov'rek the Ravasaur Trainer has returned to Un'goro and is willing to share his knowledge of the Venomhide Ravasaur with those who want to take the time to learn.  Kuan and Viljo got there as soon as they could take the portal from Dalaran. 

Once in Un'goro Viljo had to get poisoned many times by the blood of the Venomhide Ravasaurs.  Only when mov'rek was sure that Viljo had built up an immunity to their poison would he tell Viljo which egg to take from the nest.  But now Viljo has a Ravasaur hatchling.  Mov'rek says that when the baby has shed 20 baby teeth it will be big enough to ride.  So every day Viljo takes the portal to Tanaris and checks on his hatchling.  Usually he wants food, but twice so far the hatchling has wanted searing roc feathers to add to his elbow and knee bands.  After the first time he wanted feathers he grew! And now he is level 5,  who knows what level he will be tonight when Viljo goes to see what needs to be done to collect a 9th baby tooth.

General Update

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

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

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

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

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?

Whale Shark!

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



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

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



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



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

Simple Pleasures

It is the simple pleasures that keep us going from day to day.

For example, just now I was flying around Mount Hyjal, as Viljo, looking for herbs. However, a some alliance person picked my Cinderbloom. I was rather annoyed, but I saw that he was flagged, and the same level as Viljo. So, of course, I landed, dropped Dragon's Breath, and then proceeded to pew pew and counter spell until he made a very nice dying dwarf sound.

Extra credit bonus points: it was a dwarf shaman that I killed. :D

the Plan

We decided our expansion plan Tuesday evening, but I didn't post it becuase work sort of interfered with execution here.

As Clara already posted, except without precise nouns, Kuanchichi and Mornara went to Vashj'ir, since that's where the shamany folks wanted Kuan to go. Eeyan and Teltanara, who neither yet have Crusader nor the Icecrown questing achieve because we are slackers, have been parked in Icecrown to work on those. And Viljo and Ikoli are parked in Orgrimmar, they will go to Hyjal per the Warlord's command board.

How we are trading off on these we're not yet sure, nor have we tried any PvP since Cataclysm dropped. Kuan and Mornara are already 81 and all 6 are building up rest. We've been basically trying to get Eeyan and Telt some dailies and a handful of non daily Icecrown quests in before bed. However becuase guild rep apparently trumps any other rep quests could give, Eeyan might not get his last Exalted rep from the Valiant dailies. Viljo and Ikoli have been cooling their heels. I imagine it will all pick up after today, when we'll have more time.

Arena

Last Saturday, the 18th, Kuanchichi and VIljo went to the arenas! I kept taking screenshots because every time we won was a new record.




We even beat a warrior pally combo. I was so pleased! Stupid pallies almost always bubble just before we kick their butts. And then they heal up while their partner knocks one of us out. :( But not this time! This time we smacked the pally around.





I hate double rogues. Hate hate hate. :( Violation by daggers is just not my idea of fun. But this time we managed to beat the dreaded two rogue combo!






At this point we realized we'd won 7 in a row. Unfortunately we stopped to think about the shiny achieve for winning 10 in a row. Of course realizing that we were close to an achieve and having broken 700 rating meant that is was now time for us to face a very well geared and coordinated druid/death knight team. Regrettably they smashed us. :(



Ah, well. We still went on to win our last two matches.




So now we're sitting pretty on 716 rating. Kuan has enough rating to get the lovely pvp totem. I think the next rating goal is around 1300 or so. That's when you can start getting the pvp weapons and such. Heh, well we'll work on it...

.......

Also that warrior and pally from our 2nd match are on Hyjal. When we were all done with our matches I still saw them standing around the arena master. I might have thrown a few snowballs at them... Bwahaha! Stupid alliance. :D

Troll Recruits

Part of the effort to retake the Echo Isles involves drumming up support. Literally. You've got to take Vol'jin's drum and go convince some trolls to join the war effort. When you've got a bunch you all ride back to Sen'jin Village. It's pretty cool to see trolls on the old style mounts.

Retaking the Echo Isles!

The Echo Isles section in southeastern Durotar has been phased to allow players to participate in Vol'jin's effort to retake them from Zalazane! Of course Kuanchichi and Viljo were there for it. I'm pretty sure both Clara and I felt this was the most exciting thing to happen in game since the Venomhide Ravasaur.

It's set up like a mini Wrathgate, but with better voice acting, and since it's not available to Alliance, it's a Feat of Strength. I won't say more becuase of the spoilers, but honestly I don't think any event related to WotLK has nearly as good voice acting as the interactions between Vol'jin and the other trolls; not even Wrathgate. And this event has a lot of voice acting. If we're getting a representative sample of the upcoming Cataclysm, I am quite excited.

Here, Zalazane is telling Vol'jin to go blow, basically.



The cadence and actual pronunciation of the trolls, btw, don't match the emphasis and spelling in the text at all. It's a spot of cognitive dissonance.

Mochi Mochi

Kuan and Viljo have set up Saturday night Arena matches. They do their ten 2v2 matches and so far have been hoping not to loose too much. We had a pleasant surprise last weekend when we got the World Wide Winner achieve for finally winning an arena match in each of the five different arenas.


Tonight we were actually doing amazingly well. We won our first match out the door. Just obliterated them with neither of us dying. And that streak kept up pretty well throughout our matches.



Unfortunately after breaking 500 rating we got bumped into the next bracket up. This, unsurprisingly, was a slightly harder bracket, so our wins were tempered by the dual-rogue team violating us with daggers.

We did still manage to end up with a 70% win ratio for the evening. I am convinced that this was Kuan's tiger luck spilling over.

Main Change?

I have been playing WoW for almost 5 years. For most of that time my main has been Viljo the troll mage. I like Viljo. He occupies a place in my head that won't ever be replaced. He is my glass cannon. Capable of doing great damage, but regrettably he falls over dead when sneezed at by any sort of instance or raid trash. Don't even mention what happens when a boss looks crossly at him.

I rolled Viljo during Vanilla WoW, well before there was any such thing as dual specs. Respeccing was something you had to visit the trainer to do and was quite expensive at a time when there were no daily quests. Part of the reason I chose a mage was that they really only had one viable spec at a time. There would be no crap about going back to respec to healing or dps like some people had to deal with.

Now two expansions later the choice to go with a class that only has one role feels very limiting. Yes I enjoy pewpewing, but I also would enjoy doing something else too now and then.

So I'm considering switching my main to Mornara for Cataclysm. I've really been having fun tanking with Mornara. It's a very very different game when you wear plate and get hit by bosses intentionally. And even if I'm not tanking with her it's still very different to be melee dps than ranged caster dps.

War Wolf

Several months ago Viljo saved up enough honor to buy himself another PvP mount. I was torn, but finally decided on the Black War Wolf:

ICC10

Last night Kuan and Viljo went with Darkfall into ICC10. It was actually a very imbalanced group. We had 1 mage, 1 hunter, 1 druid, 2 DKs, 2 priests, and 3 shaman. Fortunately we actually had a good spec distribution: within that group the only overlap was a shaman who swapped from enhance to resto as we got to the harder bosses and needed 3 healers. I think the only buff we were really missing was Kings.

We pretty much trounced ICC10. We had a bit of a slow start as we were waiting for a healer to log, and when they didn't we had to find another one. Once we started we once shot the first 7 bosses. Yes, that includes Putricide. Our first wipe of the night was on Blood princes. Only having one melee meant that kuan and I had to adjust ourselves to take some shots from the empowered flame sphere. Previous to that Taldaram had an annoying tendency to cast it at our orb tank... Anyway once we realized that we killed him next attempt.

We even one-shot BQL. That part I'm extra-special proud about that. Especially since Viljo was the first one to be bitten. I wasn't expecting or even trying to get bit first. But I did manage to bite the right people when I was supposed to. It's easier on 10 man because there are fewer people to bite, and more time before your next bite, but really it just is a matter of paying attention.

Valithria was also a speedy one-shot, and then we were on to Sindragosa. Her gauntlet wiped us once because at least 3 of us had never seen it before. We only had time for one try on Sindragosa, but we got her down to 28%. We had a couple of deaths mostly due to people never having seen the fight before, but I think we'll kill her the next time.

Then it's on to the Lich King.

You're welcome?

Right after the ICC10 raid last night Kuan and V did a speedy heroic.

It's always a bit odd to go into heroics. Regardless of who I bring, at this point all my characters are over geared for them. And since Mornara is my newest 80 and is actually still pretty undergeared relative to the Triumph badge median, that's actually saying a lot about easy the standard Heroic is. So Heroics are not as much about the content as a contest with the other players. Unless it's the new ICC5s or TOC5 none of my toons are going to wipe due to not having good enough gear for the content, they will wipe due to someone being an idiot. Either with a bad pull, or fear getting a 2nd group, or dps being aggro-stealing jerks.

Razaruckus from Shu'halo was the pally tank we got last night. His health and gear was a bit low, but still way more than enough to do H Nexus. We smashed through Nexus quite fast. The only one who died was the rogue, who was clearly someone's alt who had forgotten that if a boss does whirlwind it'll hurt.

Anyway after blowing through the instance I whispered Razaruckus saying "ty for tanking". He responded "ty for not pulling aggro". I'm at a bit of a loss how to take his thanks, because I *did* pull aggro a few times.

I meant my thanks sincerely. The bosses died, and, aside from the rogue being dumb, the rest of us didn't. I did pull aggro once or twice, but honestly with V in almost full ICC25 gear that's not surprising. No matter who the tank is at this point I have to be careful with aggro, especially in aoe situations. For the vast majority of the run I kept myself in check and Razaruckus did a good job holding aggro.

So Razaruckus, wherever you are on the internet, you did a good job tanking. I appreciated it.

Sparkle Pony

The Sparkle Pony, aka Celestial Steed, has been added to the Blizzard Store. This means that for $25 you too can own this mount on all present and future characters. It'll even scale with your riding skill.

I am kind of disappointed. When I first saw the data-mined images of it I was thinking it would be some super extra rare drop from Hardmode 25man LK. Or perhaps that there was going to be some extra reward for getting Starcaller or the Astral Walker.



Additionally I'm disappointed because that mount is ridiculous looking. And not ridiculous look-at-my-awesome-gladiator-mount type of ridiculous. No, no, though there were plenty of people running around Dal and everywhere else on them. This is more the like-OMG-squee!-I-am-shiney type of ridiculous. I swear there was a sparkle infestation in Dal.



The only people I can really see riding the sparkle pony are pallies. And particularly male BE pallies. Everyone esle seems a) not flamingly gay, and b) not 5 years old. Ok, perhaps I could also see human male pallies riding them.



Just look at that! Who of my characters would ride one of those?

Viljo has his raptors and war bear. HE doesn't need no stinking sparkle pony! And he already gets teased about his robes. No way is he going to ride something so potentially emasculating.

Teltanara has the flying carpets that she painstakingly sewed herself. And she has the red hawkstrider that she earned at the tournament. Maybe if she were shadow specced, she would ride one, but only ever in shadow form.

And let me tell you Mornara isn't going to be riding the sparkle pony! Not only does she have her skeletal mounts, but she would also never be caught riding something so terribly frivolous. Hello? Terrifying former agent of the scourge? This does not involve sparkles.

Mechano-hog

Viljo riding sidecar in his buddy Cemaros's hog. Cemaros used to be known as Leif. And is still usually called Leify-poo.

Random BG

With patch 3.3.3 the random Battlegrounds were introduced. They are almost exactly the same as random heroics. You and up to 4 of your buddies queue for a random. You get the first battleground that pops up that you all fit into. This replaces the daily bg, just as the random heroic replaced the daily heroic.


It also has a tendency to get some nice achieves. At least Horde-side on Hyjal.