Weekend (13 Feb) - Naithipe Surfaces

Weekend (13 Feb) - Naithipe Surfaces

In the brightness of a clear Friday morning, the elusive Naithipe slipped into the riotous Valentine's week crowd in Orgrimmar. The fanciful displays and the decked out in hearts players held no interest. Naithipe hunted a hunter.

The hunter, Slash, had arrived in Orgrimmar the night before, staying at the Inn and enjoying the revelry of the big city. The young orc sampled the perfumes and candies, eyeing the lovely women and flexing his farm bred muscles. He partied long into the night.

The morning soon dawned for Slash, too, as it had for Naithipe. Despite his night, Slash was alert and just a bit nervous now, as the two met outside the Valley of Honor. Although Slash loomed over the slightly built Naithipe like a wide slab of rock, Slash still felt apprehensive. Would this go as planned? Much depended on it.

"Do you have the artifact?" Naithipe asked Slash in a soft voice edged in steel. He did. "Have you been to see Neeru Fireblade?" Naithipe pressed.

"I have," Slash replied. "Let us get this done." Slash put up a brave front, but Naithipe made him uneasy, even more so considering his very life depended on this dark clad figure holding a bloody red Hatebringer. JB had said everything would be all right. In the end it was. Slash had to admit that Hatebringer was one fine weapon, wielded by an equally talented Naithipe.

Even so, Slash had a lot more fun with Mery later that day. Mery and her square toothed gorilla Sassy were a lot better company, and with Sassy leading the way the trio made as much progress as Slash had gotten with the ominous Naithipe. Slash did not mention that to Naithipe, though, simply saying "Thanks for the help!" when they parted ways.

Slash still had one more task to complete, and in it's own way was scarier even than Naithipe. A leap into the dark beyond, so to speak. Again, JB promised that all would be well and that friends would be waiting for him.

Friday Night - Who's On First?

The "PvP Team" of Ando, Lao, and EZ has continued to prosper and expand to the point that this Friday night we had such a plethora of choices it was tough deciding who would get the game time. JB's guild now has twenty members at level 10 or higher. With EZ taking a break and staying in the 20s bracket for now (with several other 20 somethings), Mery will join Ando and Lao in the 30s bracket for the time being. At the high end of the spectrum are the 70s/80s team of Philly, Sis, and DER/Sin.

On Friday, though, we opted to go with the toddlers in the teens bracket. King of the toddlers is Death, a level 19 warlock that is starting to make a name for himself. Joining him, and following in his footsteps, is the level 10 warlock Deth. Now, even though Death may be higher level than Deth, Deth wants everyone to know that she has been around longer than Death and therefore any confusion about the name is Death's fault, not Deth's. Follow that if you can. Rounding out the toddler team is another level 10, Jless, a jawless undead rogue who loves to expound and pontificate on some pretty erudite subjects, like "Mhos Hgbde Wowdh." Oh, I did mention the missing lower jaw, right?

When folks started logging in around 10pm, Philly was in game out on the Isle wrapping up another set of dailies, finishing 28% of the way to level 73. Before she could retire and let the young ones play, she made a stopover in Orgrimmar. Philly greeted Slash at the Inn. He'd just left Mery at the Cleft of Shadow, where they had had some additional business to attend to before he met with Philly.

Slash was getting a little overwhelmed at the size of the new family he had been adopted into, but was certainly enjoying all this female attention. Slash turned over to Philly what Naithipe had cryptically called "the artifact."

"Thank you, Slash," Philly responded warmly. "You have done us a great service. Know that you are now one of us, and can use this gift and the others whenever you need to. Welcome to the family." Philly smiled (not something you really want to see an undead do, even one with a jaw). Slash tried not to wince, and thanked her in return.

Once Philly got word that Deth would be representing the team for the Friday pvp, she sent Deth not just one, but three "artifacts" - the two heirloom pieces Philly already possessed (shoulders and trinket) plus the new addition brought to them by Slash, the chest [Tattered Dreadmist Robe].

Getting the chest heirloom required collecting forty triumph emblems, emblems that Wild refused to part with since he desperately needed them to improve his own gear. The only other way to get at that chest piece was through the Argent Tournament, a process that would have literally taken months of effort to accomplish. The effort appeared dead - until JB made a suggestion.

JB, outfitted in mostly ilevel 200 gear, and much of that pvp gear that was not ideally suited for pve dungeons, offered to try the random dungeon heroics and collect the triumph emblems needed to purchase the chest heirloom. JB was a raw rookie at dungeon runs where she actually had to perform her elemental shaman DPS role with a regular group and against level 80 heroic bosses. She worried that she might even be laughed out runs by groups unhappy with her gear level or experience.

But Wild encouraged JB, and gave her the time to do it if she was that willing to give up the equivalent of an ilevel 232 piece of gear to help out the rest of the family.

Over a period of three days, JB was able to get into 2-3 heroics each day, and over that time accumulated 45 triumph emblems and even a few frost emblems to go with them. Those runs were not without their highs and lows. For the most part JB finished dead last in DPS, ranging from a low in the mid-1600s to a high that just broke over 2k DPS. Wild would not let her get discouraged, though, noting that when Wild first started his own heroics as a moonkin, his numbers did not start out much better than hers. The good news was that not a single group complained about her DPS or about her play. Well, there was this one group.

JB had a hard time keeping track of what dungeon they were in, but during one battle leading up to a boss the group kept getting Feared over and over. Finally, an exasperated but still calm group leader asked JB in party chat, "Come on Jezz, give us a break, and drop a tremor totem to clear these fears. Pls?" Oops, JB had totally not thought about that. There were also a couple of other times (with other groups) when she had to be reminded when to use her bloodlust spell (it has a ten minute cooldown so it is saved for the right situation).

On the positive side she learned a lot and gained some invaluable practice in real dungeon situations. She stepped in as healer on occasions when the main healer died, keeping the tank up and saving the fight. On the final heroic that got her past the 40 emblem mark, JB finished 2nd in DPS, Yes, it was because the rest of the DPS was even worse than JBs, and they were a mage and a DK who should have easily out DPSed JB. The tank led in DPS. That's not a good thing, but he was a good (and patient) tank, and despite a few deaths we never wiped and we cleared the place.

So, you must be wondering, where does Slash fit into all this? This gets a little technical. Slash was born into Wild's account, in order that JB would be able to mail the heirloom to Slash in that same account. With the help of Naithipe and Mery, Slash was quickly raised to level 10, the minimum level required to transfer between accounts. Slash made a leap of faith, leaving Wild's account for the "other" account (bringing the heirloom with him), which I guess is Philly's as she is the highest level. Or Happy's, who is the account's oldest member.

Once Philly reaches level 80 these account transfers will no longer be needed. Philly actually has a great responsibility not only in regard to heirloom items, but in many other ways such as faction rep, Cold weather flying, and other goodies that lower level toons would get the benefit of - providing Philly has done them first.

Umm, somewhere along the way didn't I mention that there was some pvp action Friday night? You bet.

Deth, Death, and Jless got in some great battles, winning both WSG matches they were in. Jless called it an evening, but the double Ds stuck around for two more matches, splitting them for a final 3-1 record on the night. Deth had a blast, even though it took a bit to figure out what a warlock was supposed to do. Death's advice - Drop DoTs (damage over time) on every alliance you get in range of, and never stop running. As a level 10 and wearing squishie armor, stopping for even a second will get you killed. Good advice, but I'd have to add that Deth didn't need to be standing still to get killed. Deth died a lot, but all those DoTs he cast contributed to 190 honor kills over the course of those four matches. Not bad for coming off the bench to help out.