Black Dragon!

Last night Darkfall tried to kill the the Lich King on 10-man heroic again. There was progress, we got him to 18% and then 12%. However, there was no actual heroic kill.

After that 7 of us went to kill Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum. It's rather ridiculous how that fight has been trivialized. Especially since H LK is still rather hard. Anyway, the big dragon fell over and dropped his loots like the pinyata he is. Since we did it with all three drakes up he also dropped the Reins of the Black Drake.

Guess who won it? Go on, guess!



Yep, that would be Mornara on her spiffy new black drake.

A tribute to persistence

Sometimes it just pays to be stubborn. We really did want the Starcaller title, and tonight we went and got it.



Note how our hands are still glowing form bloodlust? I got disconnected halfway through, and hit bloodlust as soon as my UI was back upon login, just to have the achievement ding. Which is partly why the screenshot is messy too. I thanked everyone for waiting til I was back online and got a good laugh.

That's Mornara standing to Kuan's front right.


After this, for good measure, we picked up Obsidium Sanctum with drakes up, and then down'd Halion. The former was also a guild achieve, but the latter did not. It did clear a quest from our logs though!

Twilight Drake

Monday night, or technically very early tuesday morning, Mornara and Kuanchichi went to OS25. It was a three drake zerg organized by a priest friend of ours. She was on her mage alt, Fellicea. Mornara was main tanking, and amazingly enough we killed the dragon on the first try.



Let me rephrase that. The first time I ever take Mornara into OS25, she main tanks the dragon with 3 drakes up. And not only that, but I then go on to WIN THE ROLL for the Twilight Drake.



I was not expecting that. I rolled of course, and had hope, but honestly it was Mornara's first time on OS25, I thought that it would take serious farming to get it. Not just stroll in the for the first time and then walk out with a drake.

Though I was amused by someone trying to buy it from me after I won. I'd like you to note the order of events in the following screenshot.



Yeah, not about to sell my lovely new drake. The same guy tried to offer 18k for it, but really there isn't any price I'd sell an awesome mount like this for.

Twilight Vanquisher

Last night, before we ran our scheduled Icecrown Citadel raid, one of our guildies asked if anyone was interested in a 25man Obsidian Sanctum 3d Zerg Pug. Since I have been full of resentment that nobody in guild is willing to run that with us, I said I would go, and so did Clara.

They were checking if everyone was in ICC gear, and the 25man has 1 healer and 2 tanks and 22 DPS. It took two tries.

Oddly enough I didn't get a screenshot. But Kuan and Viljo are both wearing the Twilight Vanquisher title now.

Achieve-O-Rama!

Kuanchichi and Viljo went to Old Kingdom with Naleana and Ahngusbeaf and Sunuru. It was the daily heroic so we all wanted some badges. In the usual way of things I like OK. It's got a couple of bosses with fun mechanics. Especially the end boss where you have to kill a copy of all the rest of your group. Unfortunately we ran into bugs on both crazy-cultist-lady and Herald.

Crazy cultist lady had about 10 of her elite minions run up the stairs and start beating us as soon as we pulled her. They aren't supposed to do that. But after a wipe we made sure they didn't do that again, and killed her handily.

Herald Volazj was more of a pain, with a much more difficult to work around bug. When he cast insanity each of us was faced with several copies of our team to defeat. Viljo was prepared to deal with the rest of his team, but not three copies of the rest of his team. So we wiped on him twice. The third time we actually managed to all survive the insanity, and killed Herald in 1:59. Just one second in time to get the speed kill achieve, Volazj's Quick Demise, for everyone in the party. It was epic, but usually I prefer not to have to work around the game's bugs.

After that DraNgNon and I were going to go to bed, but we were tootling around doing a few dailies and crafting stuff and Teltanara got pulled into VOA25. It was a good group, so it all went quite smoothly. Apparently Telt had never done any of VOA25 before. So she got all three kill achieves.

While Telt was in VOA, Rahlenti asked in guild chat if there was a shaman who wanted to be part of a Sarth+3 zerg attempt. Kuanchichi said yes and after several wipes Kuan is now the proud Kuanchichi of the Nightfall, and has the achieves Twilight Duo and Twilight Zone

Non-progression 10man raiding

For all that he's mostly been doing dailies, and not even selling mats or crafted items, Eeyan sure generates a lot of gold.

But, that gets boring. And Eeyan had not actually completed any 10man raids in WotLK. So today I caught some folks in guild chat who were feeling like OS 10, and Eeyan and Teltanara and a handful of guildies ran it and got the completion achievement!

Right when we finished, Evallen logged on. She was also feeling the lack of 10man raids in her uh, unlife and so despite it being Saturday we managed to put a run together with 6 Darkfallers and 4 pugs. It had some slow moments in there as we swapped out pugs (the dps warrior who only did 1400dps and had no flying mount got kicked after a while), but was pretty straight forward and we even oneshot Kel'thuzad. None of the Darkfallers in the run (including 3 mains) had down'd 10man Kel'thuzad before so I felt pleased it wasn't just a bunch of guildies escorting Eeyan and Telt through. Unfortunatly, Eeyan died the most. :-( I need to start actually playing him a bit more seriously.

He also got his [Heroes' Bonescythe Pauldrons], better late than never I suppose.

I am sure Clara will update this from a different perspective - she's been playing around with addons and these raids were her first use of the new setup -

Progress and Backfill

After almost a week's hiatus becuase of work and other life reasons, Kuanchichi and Viljo burst back onto the scene again Saturday afternoon, just in time to go to a raid of Sartharion with a drake up. This took a couple tries... we left up Tenebron, and if the little whelps aren't picked up, they can daze people running to the gaps in the lava walls.

It seems to me also that they have moved the gaps. I couldn't get Kuan to them to save his life, and thus finally got the achievement: You Are a Noob And Died Early Against Sarth. We both also got the Heroic: Twilight Assist.

That didn't take long so we hit up EoE for some tries against Malygos. That was interesting and fun, for all that we didn't have enough people alive for phase 3 to get him down. I am sure it will happen in the next week. Hopefully Kuan or Viljo will be in that raid.

Afterwards, we hit up Rahlenti and cleared every last Outland Heroic that was still missing for the Outland Dungeon Hero achievement. That had been really bugging me since Kuan has cleared all of them so many times. Finally!

Last but not least, today Kuan finally one-shotted Troll Patrol: The Alchemist's Apprentice. Now, that's an achievement.

25 Man Raiding

Last night Kuan and Viljo logged in, after a horrendous queue. The queue wouldn't have been quite so terrible if I hadn't kept disconnecting about 75% of the way through it. Three times! Augh!

Anyway once Viljo was finally on he got a whisper from our friend Xstal, who is the alt of Jataka, the healer from the first ever heroic we finished. Anyway Xstal wanted to know if we wanted to come to 25man Vault of Archavon. I said sure, and it turned out to be a complete pug. But that was fine, because we still managed to one-shot the boss.

The loot that dropped was quite nice. Including the Valorous Frostfire Leggings! Another mage won the roll for them, but then the loot master messed up and passed them to Viljo anyway. So, much as it pains me, I have these lovely legs in the bank waiting for the GMs to deal with my ticket to move them to that other mage. Ah well it would be more annoying to look at them and know they should have gone to someone else.

Anyway after we did that we moved on to 25man Obsidian Sanctum. That went quite well actually, though neither of us got any loot, we did get nice badges from both instances.

It seems that both of the heroic (25 man) versions were easier than their 10 man counterparts. The bosses have more hp on 25man, and they do more damage, but all the raid buffs really help.

Merry Christmas!

Kuanchichi is now doing his 3+ weeks' probationary period in <Thwarted Destiny>, a small guild that raids Hawaii-time, which means it's good for my schedule.

The guild leader, Kelrain, invited me in and said let's see how you fit. Then I got pulled into Heroic Nexus, then 10-man Obsidian Sanctuary (including Viljo as a pug), then Archavon (including Viljo as a pug). The Obsidian fight was funny. The tank explained the first drake fight... and didn't realize his mike was off. Big wipe. It was pretty easy once that was cleared up. Viljo won loots in both 10-mans: [Circle of Arcane Streams] and [Hateful Gladiator's Silk Raiment].

I note there was another Ele Shaman in these groups. (He got the T7 gloves of Sartharion.) Kuan was about 140-160 dps behind him in the meters. I'm still adjusting to cast sequence and Kuan remains undergeared, so I don't feel too bad.

At the end of it, we have Christmas, and Kuan has 11 [Emblem of Heroism] and some nice achievements, and Viljo has two pieces of lvl 80 epic loot...

...I was dumb and took no screenshots. Anyhow, Merry Christmas.

draNgNon progress 8/20

So, after Kuan ran Crypts last week I ended up too busy in real life to play for any length of time. Thus even though I seem to have made more progress on last week's list than I expected, I was feeling rather frustrated.

I wonder if I should stop keeping this list. I had it so that I wouldn't end up logging into Wow and just kicking around a capital city going gee, I wonder what I should do now and then remember something I wanted to get done later. It's not filling that purpose...

Kuanchichi
• 375 fishing • run Heroic Auchidoun-something... • get healy enchant on daggar • battlegrounds • deal with bagspace	• got it! • ran Crypts • enchanted • ran 1 WSG only. but we won • better now also: respec'd
Eeyan
• Onyxia key. • mats for next 0.5 quest • 330 blacksmithing • Hellfire Ramparts run • Teltanara through lower Felwood • Teltanara ST runups in Un'goro and Ashzara	• nope • nope • no progress • nope • done • done
Aurochh
• quests in Kneedles • Shadowprey Village FP	Aurochh is level 35 and has artisan enchanting. The End
Vhaas
• Fallen Hero of the Horde questline • clear Winterspring quests • clear outdoor Chillwind point quests • 300 cooking • neutral with Timbermaw Hold • friendly with Thorium Brotherhood • run BRD again • start on Silithus	• done with Aszhara part • Starfall cleared • just need lumbermill • stuck at 298 • no progress • no progress there either • nope • nope
other
• fix raid frames to get rid of CTRA • restart Ikoli generating Mooncloth	• still needs work • nope

This coming week, it goes without saying, skill up Aurochh enchanting. Other than that, he's parked, and drops off the list.

Kuanchichi Lower City rep, mount money, primals, and practice w/heroics
• run Heroic Auchidoun-something...
• 1 primal might
• battlegrounds

Eeyan Ony key, 0.5 quests, blacksmithing
• Onyxia key.
• mats for next 0.5 quest
• 330 blacksmithing
• Hellfire Ramparts run

Trismestigus epic ground mount
• examine talents for possible respec
• sort through bag/bank space
• quests in Silithus

Vhaas mount money, and Dranei rep for Elekk:
• Fallen Hero of the Horde questline
• clear Everlook quests
• clear outdoor Plaguelands quests
• 300 cooking
• neutral with Timbermaw Hold
• friendly with Thorium Brotherhood
• run BRD again

Black Morass Redux, and Ring of Blood!

Well, mentioning Eli in a comment in the last post invoked something, because I wasn't online more than half an hour, fishing in Nagrand, when he ping'd me, come heal for us in Black Morass. I was doubtful I could pull it off, Kuan is not spec'd deep in the resto tree, but he thought I would be fine.

I agreed, but told them they had to wait 3 mins becuase I was fishing. So they waited, albeit impatiently...



Black Morass was a pain, it always is, but with Rahlenti tanking I did manage to solo heal it up until the last boss. There was one close call in there where Rahlenti was below 1K hp but Nature's Swiftness to the rescue there. However the pain here was more from an impatient mage in our party who I didn't know, who thought he had better insight into how to manage the run, and the Chrono-beacons, than the rest of us. He soaked up a lot of mana from heals which was still ok, but then he had to go and pull the last boss. We couldn't recover from that and Medivh went down.

So, even though the run was not successful and Eli still has no key, I found myself bemused becuase Kuan can heal BM! SOLO heal. hmmm I thought. I have been talking about that healy enchant on daggar for weeks. I really ought to get it. I put that in the back of my mind, and while still in a group with Rahlenti I mentioned the Ring of Blood idea. He liked it, and we picked up a couple others who needed, and tore through the whole sequence. In the end Kuan got 132g or so, and quite a few pots. And then, we did it again, as some alliance shows up and begged for help, so we did. Flush with the notion of increasing our gold, we took Viljo and Kuan into Ogri'la to do a couple dailies.

Then it was midnight and one of my oldest Wow-friends, Siertial, logged in, and I remembered he enchants! He was just kickin' it tonight so he was more than happy to take all those motes of water Kuan had fished up and all the other mats I'd been banking to put the +81 healing power on Kuan's healy daggar, the Ceremonial Kris from downing Varedis.

So now, my little ele/resto hybrid shaman is +980 heals, unbuffed. But don't take my word for it.



Note both images in this post click through to a full screenshot with the UI on, for the curious. But don't laugh too hard as Kuan's healy outfit is a fashion violation even by Wow Outland standards.

Anyhow I think Kuan can now probably heal anything up to (normal mode) Shattered Halls, although it would take some patience on the part of party members in some parts. That's pretty neat and cool for a DPS/caster shaman.

Maybe I'll end up helping Eli tomorrow, if he still hasn't got his key.