Infinite Foreshadowing

I've been going through the massive number of screenshots on my desktop, which means that soon(tm) I'll have a bunch of Hour of Twilight and Dragon Soul dialogue posts up. But in the mean time I found this pic from our Mt Hyjal Past raid the other day.


Indormi says: Do you think the rumors about the Infinite Dragonflight are true? I've sensed it... the familiarity.
Tydormu says: That is a dangerous train of thought. If something was truly amiss, Soridormi would be the first to know.

I vaguely remember the above chat from when I was originally running Mt Hyjal Past in BC, but I didn't spend a lot of time in the pre-raid area. This forshadowing is pretty great. After all, who, while running Black Morass over and over, was able to believe that the Infinite Dragonflight wasn't some sort of twisted Bronze flight? Our theories at the time ranged from some legion turned type of dragon, to it just being a different faction of the Bronze flight but with the black negative coloring for a disguise.

I do distinctly remember doing the quests for Chromie in Dragonblight that sent you to the Bronze Dragonshrine. There you were supposed to investigate the fighting between the Infinte and Bronze Dragonflights and try to discover their leader. Funny how Chromie was confused when the dragon that appeared after the hourglass was defended was Nozdormu. She tried to logic it away by saying that he was fighting the Infinites and wasn't it great that the rest of the flight now had some idea where he was... I think all the time travel Chromie has done has scrambled her brain, because even then, well before the End Time dungeon it was obvious to me that Nozdormu was leading the Infinites.

Cenarion Idiocy

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



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

RIP Gnoxen

There are some people that I know because of WoW and only through WoW. Gnoxen was one of them. I've known him since Vanilla WoW, when he answered my trade spamming and crafted herb bags for Kuanchichi and Viljo. I added him to my friend list then and kept in spotty touch with him after that. I remember being so pleased when he joined Darkfall in Burning Crusade.

We lost touch for a little bit in Wrath when DraNgNon and I left DF for a bit, and he left not long after due to schedule conflicts. But he was always on my friend's list. And when we did our Ulduar drake runs he was along for about half of it, I think.



I logged in last night to find that Gnoxen had passed away.

BRIAN PHILLIP BAKER
August 28, 1980 ~ January 31, 2011
"We lost our dear son, brother, uncle, grandson, and friend."

Brian Phillip Baker of Vancouver, WA, passed away on Jan. 31st.
He was most proud of his work as a mason. Brian loved fishing, was an avid music fan and movie buff, and could make anyone laugh with his wry observations about life and people. Ever the gentle soul, Brian was loved by anyone who met him and was honored to share his light. He adored his dogs, Chip and Eddie, who were his fiercest defenders, though each only weighed five pounds.
A graveside service will be held Sat., Feb. 5, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. at Park Hill Cemetery, 5915 E. Mill Plain Blvd., Vancouver, WA.
Donations may be made in Brian's name to Q Center at www.pdxqcenter.org.
Please share your condolences at www.columbian.com/obits.
Published in The Columbian on February 4, 2011

I'd never known his name, or age, or where he lived. I knew him as Gnoxen the Tauren druid. I had fun playing with him. I didn't know he was depressed.

I'm sorry Gnoxen, you'll be missed.

Another visit to Hyjal Summit

Monday we tried TK but Monday was a US Holiday, Labour Day. So Darkfall had poor attendance and couldn't get Al'ar down before the enrage timer.

To make up for it we went into Zul'Aman after and did a full clear. Kuan got the daggar off the dragonhawk boss, [Wub's Cursed Hexblade]. WOO! That is his new instancing/caster weapon.

Today we had better attendance and we went into Hyjal. Kuan got a trash drop, [Claw of Molten Fury], WOO! That is his new farming/enhance/battleground weapon.

Anyhow setting up for Anetheron takes some time. They have to have everyone placed Just So. Group 2, which usually consists of mages + an ele shaman, always stands on the hill to Jaina's left. As we stood there waiting for the guild leader to finish explaining the fight, everyone eventually noticed us and took a screenshot.



For the record, that's Elut, Sardonique, Kuanchichi, Point, and Viljo.

FWIW we took down the first three bosses in Hyjal, no problem. For boss loot, Kaz dropped stuff that fully went to offspec. We will start working on later bosses after next week.

Black Temple!

So this week both Drangnon and I got to raid. Monday was TK where we killed Al'ar, Void Reaver, and Solarian. This was quite exciting as Both Kuan and Viljo had the quest: Ruse of the Ashtongue. So the phoenix was killed and disguses were worn. I also got some good shots of Kuan fighting Void Reaver. I'll try to post those soon.

Anyway we killed the giant fire chicken, and then went to talk to Akama. Akama was quite happy about this, but still needed more work out of us. Fortunately Tuesday Darkfall was raiding Mount Hyjal. So upon Rage Winterchill's death (and subsequent looting) An Artifact from the Past was completed. We continued on to kill Anetheron, and Viljo got the spiffy shoulders: Hatefury Mantle. Of course Viljo got a new set of shoulders, I just finished putting epic gems in his t5 shoulders...

After Anetheron was dead we all ran to the Horde encampment. I have to say that I liked the waves of trash before Kaz'rogal. It was complete chaos, but so much better to be fighting beside the orcs, trolls, and tauren. Also the gargoyles, while annoying, were quite fun to kite. I think that Viljo will have a better time with the frost wyrms after I spec him back into fire and he has the extra range to reach them. We only had time for one attempt on Kaz'rogal, and we had a one percent wipe. There were a number of people who blew up the raid. Including one, usually stoned, mage who blew up *eleven* other people. Ouch. :(

Movin' on up

Darkfall down'd Al'ar, Anetheron, and Kaz'rogal this week. Clara and I missed the first two and that was my fault, Viljo should've been there while I watched the puppy. Kuan was there for Kaz, which Darkfall tried on a whim before a TK run, and who went down relatively easy for all that the the trash leading up to him was sheer chaos. Clara didn't make it, she didn't trust the puppy would settle enough.

We were a bit taken aback how easy it was.



Maybe it's 3 years of bias showing through but: chaos or no, it's a lot more mentally comfortable for me, defending the Horde camp.

Anyhow, with that Darkfall leaps up into the top 5000 US guilds on wowjutsu. And, while we still have a rambunctious puppy, I'm thinking we will be back to regularly scheduled wow-playing next week. Then I will get to enjoy hearing Clara swear about Viljo's new damage-a-riffic build, and to the other mages swear about it too...

more on Clutter

So I recently posted two screenshots, and they had so much clutter. Here is another source of clutter:

sheep:~ dracon$ cd /Applications/World\ of\ Warcraft/Interface/AddOns/
sheep:AddOns dracon$ ls -F
AuldLangSyne/   DBM_ZulAman/
Blizzard_AuctionUI/  FuBar/
Blizzard_BattlefieldMinimap/ FuBar_AmmoFu/
Blizzard_BindingUI/  FuBar_BagFu/
Blizzard_CombatLog/  FuBar_BongosFu/
Blizzard_CombatText/  FuBar_ClockFu/
Blizzard_CraftUI/  FuBar_DurabilityFu/
Blizzard_GMSurveyUI/  FuBar_ExperienceFu/
Blizzard_GuildBankUI/  FuBar_HonorFu/
Blizzard_InspectUI/  FuBar_LocationFu/
Blizzard_ItemSocketingUI/ FuBar_MicroMenuFu/
Blizzard_MacroUI/  FuBar_MoneyFu/
Blizzard_RaidUI/  FuBar_OutfitterFu/
Blizzard_TalentUI/  FuBar_PerformanceFu/
Blizzard_TradeSkillUI/  FuBar_PetFu/
Blizzard_TrainerUI/  FuBar_PoisonFu/
Bongos2/   FuBar_RecountFu/
Bongos2_ActionBar/  FuBar_RegenFu/
Bongos2_CastBar/  FuBar_SkillsPlusFu/
Bongos2_MapBar/   FuBar_ToFu/
Bongos2_Options/  FuBar_TopScoreFu/
Bongos2_RollBar/  GotWood/
Bongos2_Stats/   GotWood_old/
Bongos2_XP/   Numen/
BuffTimers/   Omen/
CT_Core/   Outfitter/
CensusPlus/   PallyPower/
CharacterProfiler/  Perl_ArcaneBar/
ClassTimer/   Perl_CombatDisplay/
DBM_API/   Perl_Config/
DBM_AQ20/   Perl_Config_Options/
DBM_AQ40/   Perl_Focus/
DBM_Azeroth/   Perl_Party/
DBM_BWL/   Perl_Party_Pet/
DBM_Battlegrounds/  Perl_Party_Target/
DBM_BlackTemple/  Perl_Player/
DBM_GUI/   Perl_Player_Pet/
DBM_Hyjal/   Perl_Target/
DBM_Karazhan/   Perl_Target_Target/
DBM_MC/    Recount/
DBM_NAXX/   SolarianAlarm/
DBM_Outlands/   SpamSentry/
DBM_Serpentshrine/  TheoryCraft2/
DBM_Sunwell/   VoidReaverAlarm/
DBM_TheEye/   oRA2/
DBM_ZG/

Yikes, eh? Since I made my last post on Clutter, though, it occurred to me I should look at the non-Ace addons for updates. And lo and behold, Bongos2 had some bad news: I have written a new action bar addon, called Dominos, and am no longer supporting this one. Please feel free to try it out, along with Trinity Bars, and Bartender 3.

So, I went and looked at the Dominos addon. It seemed OK. Likely to be more sustainable as he makes more use of the Blizz API. I read the forum posts becuase you get a good feel for addons by what people whine about. So I decided to try it. I loaded it on Tylara, becuase she has the least tweaked, and messed with button spacing, etc. I decided I liked it. Bongos2 has a bug, in which it won't let all the TheoryCraft2 info through, and Dominos doesn't have this bug.

I have 8 Horde alts on Hyjal, and 2 computers with different button layouts. Imagine how overjoyed I was to find out that layouts from Bongos2 can't be imported to Dominos. Not. You'd think since the same guy wrote em, he'd thought of that. Anyhow last night, prior to raiding Hyjal Summit, I got the 3 toons in Darkfall straightened out on the laptop and all Hyjal toons on the desktop. That took me about 2.5 hours. While I was at it I slid some buttons and windows around to reduce the clutter (the last few screenshots I've posted shows there is plenty of room for improvement there; I used some of that room). That means 9 folders under Interface/Addons can go away, too. 10 really. I have CT_Core in there, and am really only using it for quest levels. Not worth it, I disabled it.

Overall it doesn't look much different at first glance, but the devil is in the details. It's a lot cleaner, and my raid frames no longer contend with my buff timers.

Meanwhile Hyjal Summit was so fast and furious I missed out rolling on the trash mail caster chest, let alone doing something as mundane as screenshotting the raid UI. Ah, well.

New Boots for Telt

Last night we got the puppy settled enough that I got to go raiding. DraNgNon still watched him, because he feels that the world is his chew toy, including the power cord...

Darkfall was raiding Mt Hyjal last night. I was originally going to bring Viljo, but they were lacking healers again so Telt came along. I do enjoy healing with her, so that wasn't an issue. And she was the only priest with Improved Divine Spirit, so I was needed for buffing.

Rage, the first boss, and his trash wasn't too bad. Telt and a healy pally were assigned to keep the pally tank up for trash and then Telt was on the MT for the boss. She still doesn't have the stupid fricking PvP Trinket so she died in an iceblock. But she got picked for a battle rez and ended the fight alive.

The second boss Anetheron was much less cooperative. We did manage to get him to 21%, but the trash up to him was giving us a bunch of trouble. I was having a hard time keeping the pally tank up, between the massive spikes of damage from all the mobs he was tanking and the fact that I was supposed to be shackling a banshee. The only way it worked for me was to just ignore the banshees, and even then he sometimes went down. :( If I pre-cast heals too aggressively at the start of the fight I was pulling aggro from the mobs.

The excellent part of all of this was that Boots of the Divine Light dropped. Twice even. Telt got the first pair of boots and then a shadow priest took the second pair. They are nice boots, but not quite as nice +healing wise as the badge boots, and both the other holy priests had those. I blew some badges to get epic gems and had them cut and socketed immediately. :D

Screwed

Well Darkfall went to Hyjal Summit again last night sans Kuanchichi. It turned out that 10 minutes before the raid we find out that we are expected to bring resist gear, both Frost and Shadow. Kuan had it all in his bank, but the Frost gear he'd never worn, so had never gotten it enchanted.

Inspection showed that two pieces of it were lower 60's greens. That's no good and I will see about putting them in the AH later. Meanwhile there was a lvl 68 chest and 70 boots. I grabbed those, and Teltanara put +Stats on the chest. The boots though, that was a problem. What's good for the boots? +Stam on resist gear is stupid.

Nonetheless Clara convinced me to get the Fortitude enchant, after all a guild priest with the enchant was standing right there. Teltanara hands me a stack of Arcane Dust and logs out. I poke the priest, send her whispers, ask if she can enchant my boots. She ignores me, then runs off.

5 minutes til raid now.

One of the officers insists I take 4 [Mark of the Illidari] - what, we're going to be in there that long?! - yes, we are a warlock insists - and my bags approach fullness. I make sure I am repaired and have Ankhs, and then follow the priest around more. The priest gets back to me and asks if Kuan is elixir spec'd. Uh, yah... oh can I make her Mageblood + Healing. Yah sure, but can I get my boots enchanted. She says make the elixirs once we get to the instance and runs off, leaving me standing there, with full bags, but not full of raiding supplies, but enchant mats, vials, herbs, a full bank...

...5 minutes AFTER the raid is supposed to start...

...and the lock, bitching me out in tells about lazy people imposing on the kindness of others by not being ready at raid time, la la la. 5 minutes pass, I am stuck, finally I say Fine, and drop group to be replaced with someone more ready.

I put 3 of the 4 Marks back in the guild bank. I'd already grabbed a flask with the 4th.

The priest laughs, says you are not here, and informs me she got the lock who was bitching me out to make her the elixirs. WTF! Is that why he hounded me out of the raid? Who knows. I lost my temper, called him a jackass, and logged out of Warcraft after replacing the mats I'd used up for the Healing elixirs, in order to make up the missed work.

Missed work?! Yes... that is what I get for leaving work early to try to make a raid; I was called on it by my coworkers, I should have clued in that was a warning shot from Fate that my Wow experience that evening was going to be bad. At least I made up some of the missed work. Not enough, unfortunately; I un-signed-up for SSC tonight. Meanwhile, the boots still have never been worn. Tonight, when I do get home, I will see about getting Vitality on them, that is better than Stamina anyhow.

Viljo, on the other hand, got [Cuffs of Devastation] off Rage so the evening wasn't a total loss. But I'm left wondering, still, why Viljo wasn't required to bring resist gear, and I was.

What we did tonight

Tonight, Darkfall brought down the first boss in Hyjal Summit.



It took 4 tries, one of which was derailed by trash loot and people hurriedly trying to figure out DKP. To be fair, there were a lot of disconnections, as people realized their graphics cards weren't up to it.

Hyjal has been where Clara and I wanted to be playing, probably since the very first day of the Burning Crusade expansion of WoW.